by Pixie Unger
“Nope,” I interrupted. “As you were. We’re just leaving.”
Mac walked us out to the school yard and just before we got to the doors, he blurted out, “Mine has these,” and fingered his neck piercings.
I blinked. Erika said, “Huh.” Mac held the door open for us.
----
I made it through most of a sun salutation before I blurted, “Now I’m wondering what the rest of them are packing, damn it!”
“I know, right?” Erika agreed. “I don’t necessarily object to looking at dick. I would check out all of them to get to eat real food again.”
“I didn’t sleep in the garage last night,” I confessed. Erika fell out of triangle pose. “Not like that! They fixed up a room for me. I think it was Iago’s idea, but I haven’t seen him since before I got my own room.”
“You better damn well say thank you!”
I nodded, tears coming to my eyes. Erika hurried over and hugged me.
“It’s just a lot.”
“I know,” she replied, rubbing my back.
“I have a queen bed, I wish you could come and stay with me.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’m pretty sure that costs more than just naming someone.”
“I don’t know,” I sniffled. “They haven’t asked me to do anything yet.”
“Yeah, they have. You just don’t notice because you aren’t like that. You named them, you explained a butt ton of stuff to them. You taught us how to use the showers after they suggested it. You are a good person, Mina. What did you do pre-contact?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I was a maintenance worker.”
“Huh. I have a hard time seeing it, to be honest. Where?”
“Siobhan Hall. I got a job there in high school, but it paid really well and I didn’t need to get a student loan to keep it, so I just stayed on.”
“Wait! That creepy cult building?”
“Erika! It isn’t a creepy cult building! We hosted wedding banquets there!”
“Big stone building on Central? Metal roof? Mechanical metal shutters? Freaky high wall around the grounds?”
“Ugh!” I scrubbed my hands over my head. “How is it that we have been invaded by aliens and I still have to talk about how all of that stuff was put up to prevent vandalism? Which we wouldn’t have had to worry about as much if people stopped calling it the creepy cult building!”
“Jeez! Sorry, I touched a nerve.”
“It was a good place to work and I was happy there. I miss my job and my friends and I was never so rude as to ask about your life pre-contact.”
That made her look uncomfortable. “I was a receptionist at a car dealership. I didn’t like my job and my coworkers were a bunch of misogynistic pigs. And if any of the female staff had been comfortable with losing their jobs, we would have reported them years pre-contact.”
I nodded, “I get it. I was lucky to never have to deal with that, aside from the occasional drunken guest. I had a reasonably good life.”
“I heard that place locked up tight as soon as the orcs arrived.”
“Someone, some human, hopped the wall shortly after the news of their landing broke and torched the orchard. We closed up tight to try to prevent any additional damage. I honestly thought it was a hoax and we would be up and running in no time,” I admitted.
Erika nodded sympathetically.
I felt the need to change the subject. “So, note to self, do not use the phrase ‘awesome sauce’ ever again.”
Erika burst out laughing. After a moment, I joined in.
“Seriously though,” she wheezed, “if you ever want to do penis parade, can I watch? I’m so curious about what Mac is packing now!”
I laughed and got up to try to get back into triangle pose.
-----
Erika and I were pulled out of the lunch line. We sat with Nameless and the three of mine that were still around.
“Where is Iago?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him around in a while.”
They all looked at me.
“Hunting,” Tybalt said slowly.
I tensed. “Hunting what?”
Suddenly no one wanted to look at me.
“Bad people,” Mac finally answered.
“Bad humans or bad orcs?” Erika asked softly.
The silence went on too long.
“I need you to answer that,” I finally insisted. “I don’t know where my family is and I need to know if Iago is out there running them down.”
“Bad orcs and bad humans killing everyone. Iago going to make them stop,” Tybalt whispered.
“How does he know if they are bad humans?”
Mr. Helpful, who had been gritting his teeth, finally said, “If hurting women and children, then bad humans.”
I relaxed a little. I had managed to avoid a few human traffickers while I was living rough. It wouldn’t bother me if they were … stopped. They were still watching me to see what I would do.
Shit.
What should I do?
“I bet I don’t get to know the details of that, huh?”
Slow head shakes.
I blew out my breath. “That’s going to bother me, not knowing if he’s killing people.”
The room went quiet for a moment. I knew that the surrounding tables listened in on our conversations, but it was still unnerving when they responded to what I said. Time to change the subject. “Can I show Erika my room this afternoon?”
“Oh yes please!” she agreed.
There was a shared look followed by a hurried discussion that I couldn’t follow.
“After dark,” Tybalt suggested.
“I don’t want her walking around the camp in the dark,” I mumbled. “We can try some other time.”
Erika and I spent the rest of the meal talking about how people were really starting to use the showers and wondering how much extra laundry we were making. We laughed about how it might turn out the port-a-potties also had a laundry function.
The orcs at our table didn’t say anything else for the rest of the meal and the rest of the room was unusually quiet. I don’t think Erika noticed, but I did.
----
My room might have had a door, but it didn’t have a lock and I had no idea if it had surveillance cameras. That afternoon I had a nap in my old tent and was prepared to either eat rations or get pulled out of line again.
It turned out to be rations.
Erika went off to visit with other people. I walked the fence line again, counting the guards, again. After a couple of laps, I settled in under the tree towards the back of the school yard. It was peaceful to just lay on the ground and watch the stars. Pre-contact, I had never seen so many; they had always been washed away by the light pollution.
I wasn’t really tired. Instead of trying to sleep, I found my mind drifting back to the idea that Mac had piercings in his dick. The ones on his neck, swirled in a line into his collar. I wondered where else he had them.
I wondered what they would feel like if he …
I wondered why the hell I was thinking about that. And why was my brain suddenly volunteering the Harkness Rule? This was not the sort of thing I did.
Christ.
What I needed to do was go back to camp, find some halfway decent-looking guy and …
And pray that I didn’t end up like Miriam, to be honest.
I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until I became aware of an orc leaning over me. I shrieked and scrambled away before I realized it was Romeo. He went very still and just waited for me to stop panicking.
“Hi,” I finally gasped out.
He nodded. After watching me for a moment, he tilted his head in the direction of the school.
“Can we just sit for a moment first?”
Romeo looked hugely surprised then nodded and sat down where he stood, a respectful distance away from me.
“You can understand English, you just can’t speak it, right?”
Nod.
I frowned fo
r a moment. “Is that why you telegraph your facial expressions so much?”
Confusion.
“Yeah. Like that. You might not understand what I meant, but you just showed me over-the-top bafflement. You can’t possibly be that puzzled, so it makes more sense for you to be exaggerating to make sure I understand.”
He was suddenly full of smiles.
I sighed. “Okay. I think I can work with that. Can I ask you some questions, and trust you not to tell the others?”
Nod.
“I know you could be lying—”
Shock!
I rolled my eyes. “—but I’m trusting you anyway, because I need information and you're here. And not overly complicated.”
Hesitant nod.
“When I was told you had bought me, I thought it was a sex thing.” I stopped to watch his face suddenly be very worried. “But no one has even touched me, let alone … anything else.” I chewed my lip for a moment, then just decided to go for it. “I saw Mac and Tybalt together, and if they’re boyfriends, then I must be here for something else.”
His expression went flat.
“Except that Tybalt wanted me to sleep in his room, and Mac told me details about his dick this morning, so now I don’t know what to think. So my question is … why am I here? Which I know isn’t a yes/no question, but did you buy me for sex?”
He didn’t nod or shake his head, but just kept watching me with no expression on his face.
“Oh. Umm. I guess, in a roundabout way that answers my question.” I tensed at the thought.
His eyes got wide and he shook his head. “Mina,” he rumbled so low that it was nearly infrasonic.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into going back into the school and giving me a twenty minute head start?”
He shook his head, no, before rumbling something else.
“I can’t understand you.”
He stood up, stepped back and fished in his pocket for something. What he pulled out looked a bit like a condom, but he rumbled, then it vibrated and a badly synthesized voice said, “Safe, uninjured, unscathed, unharmed. In present and future tense.”
“Okay, wow, that’s horrible, I can understand why you didn’t want to use that. Are you trying to say you aren’t going to hurt me?”
Nod.
“So did you buy me for sex?”
He growled softly in frustration, and the thing said, “attract, cultivate, entice, solicit - in future tense.”
“Future tense? Like in the future … sex?”
“Aspire, contemplate, foresee, wish. In future tense.”
“That thing is stuck on thesaurus mode, isn’t it?”
He frowned then tapped it. It rumbled back at him and he nodded frantically.
“Hmmm.”
“Protect, cherish, shelter, defend. In present tense.”
I stared at him. “Not the worst current goals.” I thought some more. “The thing is there is a huge difference between aspiring to future sex and foreseeing it. Foreseeing future sex makes it sound inevitable —”
He started frantically shaking his head, no.
“—and if it is inevitable, that kind of means that I won’t have any say in it when it happens.”
He looked absolutely horrified and stumbled backwards still shaking his head no. “Iago!”
“Iago is out hunting people, so I’m not sure if he is the best person to ask. And Tybalt and Mac have already made asking them complicated. That left me with you, but this is a complicated question, and you can’t talk to me.”
He looked incredibly worried. He stuffed the translator back in his pocket, pointed at the school and gave me a pleading look.
“Is future tense sex planned for tonight?”
He gave me an emphatic no.
“Okay. I am trusting you, Romeo J. Smith. I’ve given you three names now, so you owe me.”
He was so solemn when he nodded his agreement that I smiled a little. He returned my smile with a slightly more nervous one. Then he led me through the camp and stopped outside Erika’s tent. He pointed at the tent, beckoned, then pointed at the school.
“I get to bring Erika with me?”
Nod.
“Is she going to be safe?”
Nod.
Erika stuck her head out of her door. “Was that a yes?” she asked.
We both nodded.
“Awesome sa— um, sleepover!” She ducked back into her tent and was out a moment later carrying her shoes. “I can’t wait to see your room!”
----
“I thought you said there were bunk beds in the living room,” Erika said.
I looked up. “There were. Honestly, they were here this morning.” They had been replaced with a couch and three armchairs.
“Okay, that’s creepy.”
I was about to say that disappearing furniture wasn’t really creepy when I realized she was talking about how all the orcs had come over to stare at us.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, “they do that.” Looking around, there did seem to be fewer than there had been the first night I stayed here.
Someone snarled at Romeo.
“Maybe we should go,” I whispered, grabbing her arm.
“What was that?”
“I’m not sure, but I do know that he speaks English, so whatever he said, he’s hiding it from us.”
Mr. Helpful came over and quietly said, “He told Romeo that he does not get two. It is unfair.”
Erika and I looked at each other. “He doesn’t ‘get’ either of us. If us being here is a problem, we can easily go back to the school yard,” she declared.
That drew their attention back to me.
“I’m not entirely sure we’ll be allowed to leave,” I replied. I could see the colour drain from Erika’s face at that. “Mr. Smith,” I said firmly. “You promised she would be safe. If this is going to go wrong, you need to take her back to the school.”
“Who’s Mr. Smith?” Erika asked. Looking around the room, I could see she wasn’t the only one wondering.
“Romeo J. Smith promised we would be safe,” I explained.
Erika blinked, “His last name is Smith?” She looked at him. “Well, he’s no Brangelina, but I guess it works.”
I nodded, we both looked at him and the guy he was arguing with.
They were watching us in confusion.
“I’m feeling really outnumbered,” Erika mumbled.
“I know, right? I mean, nothing has happened yet. But it doesn’t mean nothing is going to happen,” I pointed out.
Mr. Helpful asked, “What makes it better?”
“Well, not having to worry about them getting into a fight would be a good start.” I thought some more. “Is it safe for me to show Erika the room you made for me?”
Romeo took a step towards us, that was also a step away from the orc who didn’t like Erika being here, and gestured down the hallway.
Erika waited until the door to my room was almost closed to say, “Yeah, I can see why you’re so worried all the time. That was a horror movie level of creepy.” She stopped and looked around. “Nice room! Are you getting a dog?”
I smiled. “Apparently not. But that was the first thing I asked, too.” I grinned a little harder when she looked in the drawers.
“Huh. So … do you sleep naked or in the coveralls?”
“In the coveralls. I don’t like being naked around them, but it took a while to get used to sleeping in a bed while fully dressed.”
“Is it that much different from sleeping in a tent?”
How could I begin to explain that? “It is. Mostly it’s psychological, I think, but the way the fabric presses and bunches isn’t really comfortable.”
She looked around. “It’s a bit like a bird cage or one of those hamster habitats. Pretty and interesting and all, but still a cage.”
“Yeah.”
She ran her fingers through her hair. “Right! How do we get you out of here?”
“Damned if I know
. I’m not sure I'll get to run away. I’ve probably been GPS tagged by now.”
“Ew.” She shuddered. “Okay, let’s pretend for a moment that isn’t a thing. Am I the only one who is still wondering about Mac?”
I snorted. “Probably,” I lied.
“How upset would you be if I asked to see?”
I blinked. “Why would I be upset?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Because he’s clearly into you.”
“What? Oh come on! They’re all male, this isn’t a case of he’s into me. It’s the equivalent of a lonely shepherd starting to really like his sheep.”
“Mina. You can’t have a conversation with a sheep. This is clearly different.”
“Erika. You can’t get a sheep pregnant either,” I pointed out.
She opened her mouth to rebut that, then closed it and sagged. “Yeah. I’m not sure I like the pull-and-pray method of birth control. It clearly doesn’t work. Miriam isn’t the only one with a bun in the oven any more.”
My eyes went wide. “You?”
“Fuck no! If I was getting any, you would hear about it.” She looked around the room some more, then tried to turn on one of the lamps.
“They’re just for show, but the light in the bathroom works. I guess they get the idea of not showering in the dark.”
“Yup, hamster cage. Cool looking tunnels that don’t work for burrowing because they don’t understand our behavior.”
“That sounds about right.”
----
I woke up when the sun moved around to shine in my eyes. There hadn’t been a morning wake-up knock. That was new. Erika was still asleep, and I wasn’t in a rush to move either. We had stayed up talking in the dark for what felt like a very long time. This was the best sleep I’d had in weeks, since before the first time Tybalt had disapproved of me skipping a meal.
I was torn between wanting to just stay in bed and wondering what the hell they were up to now.
I just sort of dozed until Erika started moving around a bit, like she was starting to wake up. Her eyes opened and she sat bolt upright, looking around.
“We missed breakfast!”
“Yeah, but I, for one, needed the sleep.”
She nodded and snuggled back down. “Me too, I suppose. I have to say, I have enjoyed our doggy play date and will be happy to go back to doggy daycare, but I don’t envy you whatever the fuck is going on with your owners.”