by Dixon, Ruby
I’m mostly silent, listening as they chatter around me. Iris’s fingers are gentle as she deftly and expertly braids my hair, and Fran seems to hold up more eyeshadow to my eyes than she actually puts on me while Cat picks through clothes and chats. It’s clear they all know each other well and that they’re comfortable in their place on the ship. It’s nice to see that they act like any other normal human girls instead of downtrodden slaves, but at the same time, I feel weirdly left out. I know more about navigation systems and the best route to save fuel than what color of eyeshadow would go well with my eyes.
“So, I need to bring this up,” Cat says, holding a light blue shimmery floral tunic out to me. “Do you, uh, know about mesakkah anatomy?”
“You mean the spur?” I close my eyes while Fran dabs something on my lids. “Yeah. I’ve seen my brothers naked. When I was little I used to unlock the lavatory door and jump in and scare Adiron all the time.”
“That’s one less shock for you, then,” Fran says, amused.
“You should also know that they really like their tails touched, and the underside of the spur is sensitive,” Cat chimes in.
“And they don’t know what a clit is because female mesakkah don’t have them,” Iris says. “So if he doesn’t give you the right touches, make sure you point that out to him.”
This is rapidly getting awkward. “You guys really think Sentorr wants to have sex with me?”
“I think if he doesn’t, he’ll die of blue balls,” Cat says. “I saw the way he was looking at you.”
“Tell me more about him,” I say eagerly, clutching the tunic to my chest. “I know him through our conversations, but you guys know him in a different way.”
“What do you want to know?” Fran asks.
I sigh happily. “Everything.”
* * *
For the next two hours, the girls fill my head with tales about Sentorr. They share stories of visits to dangerous worlds for odd jobs, cantina brawls, and even stories of back when Sentorr served in the military before turning to a life of piracy at Kivian’s side. It’s clear that the crew gets along like a family—that despite the occasional spat, they have each other’s backs.
Fran worries he’s too serious.
Cat thinks he works too much.
Iris thinks he’s lonely.
I think they’re all right, and it makes me want to grab him and kiss him until he smiles. I want to hold him close at night and smother him with love. I want to be there for him when he’s feeling lonely and sad. I want to talk star charts with him and discuss the fastest way around a nebula.
I want everything.
Once my hair is braided into a tight tail that starts above one ear and moves across my head like a half crown, Iris gives me a pat, indicating she’s done. I change into the clothes Cat gives me and Fran finishes my makeup with one last dusting of brushes, and then they leave. I’m to meet Sentorr in fifteen minutes in the mess hall, and everyone’s going to give us privacy so we can have our “date.” I think they might be more excited than I am.
After they go, it’s quiet, and I fiddle nervously with the hem of my tunic.
I feel…odd. Not like myself. The tunic and pants are completely different than my normal jumpsuits. I usually dress just to cover my limbs and for convenience. I’ve never worn anything…pretty. This is girly and feminine, with a light shimmer to the blue fabric and artful cutouts on the long sleeves. The flower pattern seems to shift colors as I move, and the fabric flows and drapes and clings, especially to my breasts. I feel exposed. On a whim, I get up and sneak out of my “room” and down the hall to the lavatory. In there, I get a look at myself in the mirror.
I’m…beautiful. I touch my face, because Fran’s managed to make me go from blah human to startlingly pretty. My eyes are big and bold, my mouth is rosy and plump, and my cheeks and brows look perfectly defined. I can’t stop staring at my features, both shocked and pleased. Sentorr’s sure to love how I look now.
The moment the thought crosses my mind, I feel uneasy. Suddenly I don’t like my reflection. The girl in the mirror is pretty and feminine, but she’s not Zoey va Sithai. I shouldn’t change who I am to impress Sentorr. He has to like me for me, humanity and all.
With a little sigh, I grab a towel from the stacks in the storage compartments, peel the sanitary wrapper off of it, and then begin to wipe my face clean of Fran’s artistry. When the makeup’s gone, I loosen my hair from Iris’s artful braid, and then shake my brown, messy locks out and pull them into a low ponytail. I can’t do much about the tunic, but I knot and tuck the long, flowing sides until they’re less drapey, and then I look at myself in the mirror again.
My plain face stares back at me, my hair uninspired. Tucking in the tunic itself ruins the flowing lines and almost makes it look like one of my jumpers.
If Sentorr can’t love this girl, I don’t want him anyhow.
8
SENTORR
I adjust the cuffs on my sleeves, over and over again, as I wait for Zoey to arrive.
The mess hall has been cleared out and cleaned up. Pale white fabric has been draped over the main table, with two chairs set there. Cat told me I needed fresh-cut flowers for the table, but they’re nowhere to be found, so Fran let me borrow a rare vizhii plant she keeps in the private quarters she shares with Kivian. Two places have been set, with two glasses of delicate ooli fermented brew and two bowls of noodles. It’s perfect.
I toy with the cuffs of my best uniform again. It’s one of my old military jackets, a bit outdated since I left Homeworld’s forces over ten years ago, but it’s the most dressy thing I own and Zoey deserves the honor of a date who cares about his appearance. I want to pace the room, but I don’t dare, lest she show up in the next moment and see how nervous I am. I want her to be impressed by me. I’m not as sociable or attractive as Kivian, or as muscular as Tarekh. I’m not as good a fighter as Alyvos, but I still want Zoey to look at me with those hopeful, shining eyes like she did in med-bay.
I can’t wait to see her, and eye the drinks bubbling in their crystalline glasses on the table. I’m nervous and could use a steeling drink myself, but I wait. She’ll be here soon, I know, and chide myself for my impatience.
The door chimes and I straighten, going military stiff, hands clasped behind my back as Zoey enters the room. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, but she still takes my breath away. She’s wearing some feminine get-up that I’ve seen one of the other humans in before, which makes sense as her own clothing is currently being repaired and cleaned. Her hair is pulled back from her face, and all I can see are her fresh-scrubbed, pale cheeks, her green eyes, and her smooth brow that’s devoid of horns. She stands perfectly still and looks at me. “Hi.”
I gesture at the table. “Please be welcome to our human date, Zoey.”
Her mouth twitches and she gives me a wry look. “You know back on Earth they just call it a date.”
“Of course,” I manage, my tone stiff and tight. I want to tell her that she is lovely, that it’s taking everything I am not to reach out and caress her soft skin and learn her body with touches, but this is important. I move forward and pull her chair out, as Fran instructed me to do. This is part of the human ceremony of “date,” I have been told.
Zoey fiddles with one of the strange knots on her tunic for a moment before surging forward and sitting down. “Thanks.”
I push her chair in gently and then retreat to my side of the table, sitting across from her. It’s utterly silent in the room, and it feels…unnatural. Zoey and I have always been able to talk to each other easily, so I don’t understand why she doesn’t speak. I consider a million topics to bring up and then discard each one as stupid or unimportant…or inappropriate. As she gazes down at the food and drink set in front of her, I decide that’s a safe topic. “Cat drank all of the human beers we had on board, so I’m afraid we only have ooli brew.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’m not a fan of beer or ooli brew. Got any night tea
?”
Night tea is a mesakkah drink, one preferred by males that work long nights. It has a dose of adenosine receptors that’s strong enough to knock a young mesakkah male on his ass, and I’m a bit surprised—and oddly pleased—that she likes such a plain drink. “I do.” I get up and take the glasses of brew away, setting them on the mess hall counter before turning to the processor to brew two cups of night tea. “Are your quarters sufficient?”
“They’re fine.”
“I can trade with you if you like. You deserve better than storage.”
“I don’t want to take you out of your bed, Sentorr. It’s cool.” She goes silent and I turn to look at her. Zoey’s watching me, thoughtful.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
I take the cups of night tea and return to the table, and we both quietly begin to eat. Each time I stab my noodles, twining them on my utensil, I feel a bit more dismay. Where is our easy conversation? Where is the teasing Zoey I have lusted after for so long? Why is she so silent? I can feel my tail twitching with nervousness. I stir my noodles, my appetite gone, and look over at my dinner companion. The plant blocks much of her face, so I do my best to lean without being obvious, and catch a glimpse of her pink mouth pursed around a noodle as she eats.
My cock instantly hardens, and I look down again before I lose control. Kef me, that was a mistake. Did she truly think I wouldn’t be attracted to her because she was human? I can’t stop thinking about the softness of her lips and how they would feel against my own mouth…or lower.
“So.”
I look up.
Zoey absently stirs her noodles, not looking up at me. “This is really awkward.”
I nod slowly. “I admit I’m better on a comm channel than in person.”
She grins, glancing up and her gaze meeting mine. “You’re not the only one. I think I’ve been around my brothers for too long. I’m half-waiting for you to reach over and noogie my head, because Adiron always does that when I’m trying to eat.”
“Noogie,” I echo, and then remember his rough knuckle-drag over her hair. “Kef, no, I wouldn’t do that. It looks like it hurts.”
“That’s the idea,” she says with a little shake of her head. “He says it’s too easy because I don’t have horns.” She goes silent and pokes at her noodles again. “I’m sorry I don’t have horns. Or a tail.”
“Horns are overrated,” I find myself saying.
Her cheeks turn charmingly pink even as she smiles, and I’m fascinated. “Now you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“I am,” I admit. “I don’t think anyone’s ever rated horns for them to be over- or under-rated.”
Now she laughs and gives her head a little shake. “Tails, then.”
“Tails are definitely important,” I find myself teasing. “I suppose I will just have to overlook the loss and try not to let the shame of your tailless-ness overwhelm me.”
Zoey blinks at me, and then snorts, grabbing a noodle and pitching it at me. “You and your tail can go kef yourself.”
I laugh, pitching a noodle back at her. “I would, but you’d want to watch.”
“Hell yeah I would.” She slides my noodle into her bowl and then wiggles her eyebrows at me before giving it a vicious stab. “Pick up some pointers for my next conquest.”
“Bah, there will be no next conquest.” I can’t tell if we’re flirting or arguing. All I know is that it’s fun and it feels more like Zoey than our awkward silence.
She grins, taking a drink of her tea. “You’re overlooking my vast human charms. How many do you know can navigate a pirate vessel, fire a blaster, read and write four languages, and put up with mesakkah shit twenty-four seven?”
“Three,” I say immediately, and she howls with laughter, pounding a hand on the table. I chuckle, too, utterly pleased at her amusement. I love making her laugh, love the carefree half-bark of it, as if she doesn’t care who hears.
Zoey wags a finger at me, smiling, and then takes another gulp of her tea before giving me a speculative glance. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
My body tenses, and there’s a hot throb in my cock again. I’m ready to confess exactly how I feel. How I want her naked and under me, exploring the differences in our bodies for hours before claiming her as my mate. “Go on.”
“How did you get to 3N so fast? Did you burn all your fuel trying to catch up to me? I had a good day’s lead on you.”
Ah. I bite back any disappointment I feel. “Not all the fuel. Just three quarters of it.”
One of her mobile brows goes up, a look I find charming and odd at once. “Bullshit. How?”
“I picked an alternate route.” I pick up my tea and give her an arch smile. “Can you guess it?”
Her eyes gleam with my challenge and she leans in.
9
SENTORR
Talking to someone for hours has never been so pleasurable. Talking to Zoey over the comm has always been enjoyable, of course, but in person, I can see her eyes light up with enthusiasm. I can see the mischievous gleam in her eyes when she talks about outrunning a szzt freighter after robbing it. I can watch the movements of her hands as she tells a story about the time Adiron smuggled a dozen six-limbed wallats in their hold without telling Mathiras. I see the challenge in her face when she talks about her favorite routes and the best ways to save fuel, and the way she leans forward as she discusses recent changes in star charts, her breasts brushing against the table-top.
Talking ship has never been so keffing sexy.
Our night tea grows cold and the noodles go uneaten as I tell her about the time I spent in Homeworld’s military service. Of how after two years of military action, I’d been stationed on a remote terraforming planet with only a handful of other people and how I’d spent much of my time, alone and shuttling supplies between the different stations on the planet’s surface and the bigger colony on the moon. It’s where I’d learned to pilot and also grew accustomed to solitude. It’s also where I met Kivian, who was stationed there for only about two months before the entire garrison was pulled.
Zoey tells me all about how her brothers rescued her, and some of their more dangerous smuggling runs, including one where a senator had to be removed from a blockaded planet. They’d nearly lost their lives on that one, and hearing the story makes me admire the bravery of the Little Sister’s crew…and makes me want to deck her brothers for putting her in danger like that.
Eventually, she looks down at her empty mug and gives me a sheepish look. “I hope the others aren’t expecting to get in here soon. We’re hogging the mess hall.”
I glance at the time. “I’m supposed to show you a vid after dinner,” I admit. “A human movie, as part of the date.”
“In your room?” she asks, brightening.
“No, the rec room.”
“Ah.” She thinks for a moment and then admits, “I’d rather go see the bridge.”
“You would?” I’d rather go to the bridge, too, but I will endure some silly romantic human movie if it brings her enjoyment. I’ll be happy just to sit next to her and watch her face.
“Yes! I want to see where you work.” Zoey gets up from the table and moves to my side, grabbing my hand in hers and tugging me to my feet. “Come on. Give me the tour.”
I’m entranced by that small, easy touch, the feel of her small fingers against mine. My body stirs in response and I force myself to think of unpleasant things even as I get to my feet. “How is your leg?”
“Hurts like a keffing bitch, but I can walk. It’ll be good for me.” She tugs on my hand again. “Don’t try to get out of this.”
I chuckle. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
We leave the mess hall behind and I make a mental note to return afterwards and clean up. Right now, I’m not leaving Zoey’s presence. I’m drawn to her like a planet to its star, trapped in the celestial pull of her radiance. She walks close at my side, looking at the ship with in
terest, as if mentally lining up what I’ve told her. I’m proud of the Fool, too, though I know she’s an aging model and it’ll be time to upgrade her at some point. She’s served our crew well thus far, and I hope she has a few more runs in her yet.
As we get on the bridge, Zoey steps forward, her eyes lighting up. I let her head toward my station, content to watch her. The Fool has a small bridge, as she’s a four-crew ship unlike the Little Sister. The Sister has a larger bridge for all that she has the same number crew, and a section for passengers. She burns a lot more fuel, though, and I like that the Fool can be efficient and speedy when she needs to be, whereas the Sister is more about brute force.
Zoey heads directly for my chair, her hands going to the headrest. She caresses it, and then slides into my seat, her eyes shining as she gazes on my station set-up. “This is exactly how I thought it would be.”
“Is it?” Has she been imagining where I spend my time, then? I always picture her on the bridge as well, but I admit my thoughts are never entirely…wholesome. There’s been many a night I’ve imagined her straddling me in my chair, or her ass pressed to the control panel as I rub my hand between her legs. Of course, in several of my visions, she’d been mesakkah, but now that I’ve truly seen her face, I find that it’s all too easy to replace the old image with the new, better, true image of Zoey. Of soft brown hair and peachy skin and a delicate human build. I’m getting hard just thinking about it, but then again, I feel as if I’m always hard whenever I hear her voice.
I move toward my station, careful to conceal the bulge of my cock against one of the control panels. “What do you think?”
“I love it,” she says softly, her gaze on the window out into space. “But then again, I love a ship and the stars. I love the openness of space and the potential it has. I love that there are endless opportunities for freedom if you only know how to take it.” She looks over at me, smiling. “I think some of that is a leftover hang-up from when I was held captive as a child, but I love being a navigator. I love knowing that I can plot a course to anywhere and escape. That no one holds me back but me.”
