by Amanda Milo
“I’ll only lick you,” Avox promises.
Dimly, I’m aware that we surely have a voyeur other than our keeper—a human one, which for some reason feels more intrusive—but I choose to focus on my mates. I draw my dress over my head and place it folded on the roof of my locked sleeping den before returning to Avox.
I present myself to him for feasting as he ordered.
When I’m bent over, muffling my cries with my hands, my breasts swaying, Tranq’s groan floats to my ears. He’s watching me with Avox, and he’s working his shaft with a punishing grip. “I miss you so bad, Theresa. It’s been too long, baby.”
“Agreed,” Avox purrs into my pussy, making me shiver. His tongue spears inside me, mimicking the act he wants so desperately. Then he begins lapping me, long hungry strokes until he gets enough control to focus on my clit.
When he’s wrung an orgasm and a half from me, I move to Tranq, planning to finish him off—but he reaches out and catches me, yanking me forward for an inflaming kiss before dropping down to press his face to the fence, burying his nose in my curls.
He growls and the sharp scent of his cum tells me I won’t be working on him next. He’s so excited to taste me, he came on his own.
My fingers catch in his hair, and I gasp as his hands cup and knead my upper thighs and cheeks.
I’m unaware that Keeper has entered my cage until his hand closes over my nape.
It isn’t a rough or punishing hold—not that it ever is, but I’m still taken by surprise. Keeper doesn’t interfere when we’re enjoying sexual intimacy.
Tranq’s fingers tighten, gripping my butt. It’s oddly stimulating, especially when Keeper begins to draw me away and Tranq—Tranq—shows me he’s reluctant to let me go by uttering a low, “Please don’t take her…”
Keeper makes a conciliatory whistle, but keeps a firm hold on my neck, guiding me.
Avox is even less happy to see me drawn away. He snarls when I’m led out of my pen, because he knows that I’m headed for the Ornamental’s cage. To Kory, I remind myself, determined to give him a proper name.
The march across the dew-covered grass is quiet beside Keeper. I get the sense that his attention is wholly focused on what’s ahead.
Kory watches us approach. His penis is dripping because he’s so excited. Well, his body is excited anyway. From the stark shadows cast by his cheekbones, I doubt he’s thrilled to have me presented to him for servicing.
As Keeper ushers me inside Kory’s cage, I brace for a cutting remark.
Instead, the door clangs softly shut behind me, and suddenly Kory’s hands are on my waist and he’s jerking me against him.
His calloused hand brushes down until he reaches my leg. Expertly, he slips a gently-seeking touch to the inside of my thigh, sliding up, searching out my slickness. When he encounters the excitement gathered between my legs, he looses a growl into my hair, right beside my ear. His arms tighten around me, holding me in a surprisingly strong… hug, I’d call it, if it were anyone else.
His touch inside of me is confident, and maybe knowing that I haven’t been allowed to couple with either of my mates since his arrival, he stretches me with his fingers, stroking his fingers along my front wall until I’m gasping and clutching onto his shoulders.
He catches me by the jaw and raises my face for a claiming kiss.
I don’t close my eyes.
He does, sound rumbling from his throat as he tilts his head and nips at my mouth until I give him the access he wants. He dances his tongue over mine, but I don’t play.
When he pulls back, he licks down my throat, and presses his mouth over my collarbone, sucking a welt on my skin, marking me.
That done, he’s not as gentle as Tranq, but he doesn’t hurt me as he guides me down to the soft moss floor of his cage.
I feel like I’m moving underwater as I twist my head around, checking for Keeper.
He’s on the other side of the bars, not quite far enough back to be blocked by the panel blind. He’s got a stare on Kory that is surely catching everything, every action being dissected and catalogued. Although he’s dedicating a severe amount of concentration to the male beginning to cover me, when Keeper feels my eyes on him, he drops his gaze to mine, his expression turning softer, offering me reassurance.
Reassurance that keeps me quiet as Kory’s knee knocks mine apart.
I’m on my back, with him positioned between my thighs. He hooks my knees over his shoulders, raising my rear end right off the ground, presenting me at the optimal angle for his entry.
All at once he’s forcing his way inside me. Thanks to Avox and Tranq’s loving play of me, my body welcomes his unfamiliar one. His penis should be an intrusion, but I’ve been so starved for sex, and I’ve been so well primed tonight, that I’m gasping at the relief my insides feel, my muscles fluttering around the hard length of his cock.
He draws out and grits his teeth, his eyes squeezing shut before his return thrust scrubs my shoulders and back into the moss, almost knocking the breath out of me.
He pulls out without warning, making my mouth fall open, my head dropping back—then he slams himself into me again, and my teeth clatter together.
I don’t know if he feels big because he’s thicker or slightly longer or if I’m only reacting to the shock of being entered by this male who I don’t really know, who doesn’t even like me—but this sexual encounter is different than any other one I’ve had.
I try to make a connection with Kory by meeting his eyes. His are slitted, his gaze moving from my breasts to my face, his teeth gritted, and as he pumps into me again, I suck in a breath and try to adjust to the shock of him.
His hands squeeze me where he’s gripping my hips and he hisses, “So fucking tight.”
And suddenly, all I can hear are his contemptuous words. ‘By now, how much dick have you taken? You think he’s hoping the sight of some trees will make me want to stick my dick in your loose cunt?’
“Fuck, Theresa, you feel incredible,” Kory groans with a deeper, slower roll of his hips into mine.
But I shove at his shoulders to separate his already sweat-slick skin from my body. “Get off me.”
Panting, he sits up on his knees so that his chest raises off of mine and he’s not quite as hulked over me.
“No, I mean get out of me. Let me go,” I order.
His grimace of entry-ecstasy contorts to a look of stunned surprise. “You… want to stop?”
“Yes! I want you out of my loose cunt and I want you to let me go!”
Guilt flashes in his eyes and his mouth closes. His fingers flex where he grips me as I shove his chest, but he barely budges back. “Theresa, I’m sorr—”
“Get off me!”
Keeper is suddenly inside the cage with us, catching Ornamental by his collar.
“Wait!” Kory says tightly, his neck arching back because of the force Keeper is using to peel us apart, but his hands don’t release my hips. “Just—fucking wait, Theresa. I shouldn’t have said that before, I was just trying to—”
“Hurt me, I know,” I say furiously, squirming out from under him, from off of him as Keeper helps me out by hauling Kory backward. When the throbbing penis inside of me finally pops out, I scramble for the door and I don’t stop once I’m out. On swift feet, I beat a path for my own cage.
Keeper’s voice halts me. “Fee-bee.”
Breathing heavily, I stop. But I don’t turn.
“Theresa! I’m sorry,” Kory calls urgently to my back. “Look at me.”
I don’t. And when Keeper takes my elbow, he doesn’t make me look at him either, but instead of guiding me to my cage where I would like to hide for the rest of the night, he swiftly turns me to the path that will take us to the exam room.
I move with him, but I can see that Avox and Tranq look worried and murderous, and I can’t explain why I’m upset in any succinct way I can think of, so I call a woefully unconvincing, “I’m fine.”
They don’t look li
ke they believe it. They turn glares in Kory’s direction. Avox’s muscles are swelling.
I think about stopping Keeper and trying to explain that there’s nothing wrong physically, but I don’t.
He guides me to the medical room, where almost all our procedures are performed. I’m well acquainted with the space. I accept Keeper’s help to get on the exam table, and I let him thoroughly search me for internal tears or a rash or whatever possible issues he’s ruling out one by one as he gently examines me from the inside out with his small scopes and forceps and swabs.
I also take the generous plethora of sticky and sweet multigrain bars that he plys me with before he rolls back his chair, staring between my legs with disquiet.
I clap my knees together, which brings his startled gaze flying to my shins then around to my face.
I swallow a mouthful of fruit juice to clear my sticky treat out of my mouth. “If you’re going to do the absent stare, you have to look at a wall or something,” I tell him, waving to the walls with their colorful murals. The walls used to be bare, but he found that Molly, Quinn, and Ava get nicely distracted by bright colors and paintings of the animals on this planet. And Keeper does everything in his power to make our lives as pleasant as he can.
On that thought, I sigh. “Kory didn’t hurt me physically,” I try to explain.
Keeper’s eyes narrow on my lips. “Repeat that.”
“Kory,” I repeat for him. “I named him Kory.”
For some reason, my words lighten something on Keeper’s face. One of the deep worry lines between his brows eases. He pats my crossed ankles, then offers me a hand to help me sit up.
With a thoughtful air, he returns me to my cage for the night. He looks over when Kory calls out to me, his voice rough—but I don’t. I don’t look at anyone.
Tranq knows me well enough to know I’m not ready to tell him what happened yet, and Avox knows too but he’s still growling under his breath, promising me that if he gets the chance, the Ornamental is a dead man as he paces and snorts like an angry animal.
Keeper escorts me right to my sleeping box. But when I unlock the door, his elegant hand is suddenly blocking me from going inside.
When I look up at him, and see the concern on his face, I can’t stop the tear that falls from the corner of my eye.
Keeper’s arms close around me and he holds me, just holds me, and I relax into his embrace, absorbing his almost paternal comfort.
I grit my teeth, thinking that Kory is surely seeing this and he’s probably judging me for this open display of affection too. After all, more than ever, I’m proving that I am this alien’s glorified pet.
But Keeper is a good keeper. It matters to him that I’m feeling unhappy—it matters very much to him—and if Keeper doesn’t love me, then it’s something very close to it. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I feel something a lot like love for Keeper too.
CHAPTER 10
Keeper takes Kory for the next evening walk alone.
Or, he starts to.
Kory drags him over to my cage. I’m absolutely certain that Keeper is strong enough to subdue the Ornamental male—Keeper walks Avox, so this male who weighs a good fifty pounds less has to be easier to control. Thus, I surmise that Keeper is allowing this interaction, but as they near my fence, anyone can see Keeper is doing it reluctantly.
Avox grips his cage bars and warns, “Turn around, and walk away.”
Kory snaps, “Fuck off!”
Tranq’s voice is firm. “No cursing in front of the girls, please.”
His ‘please’ has teeth. For Tranq, that’s like an ear-splitting shout.
Even Keeper’s eyes are a little wider than before. He tugs at Kory’s lead—attached to a collar at his neck, not a stud chain, which explains how he was able to manage angling Keeper in this direction at all.
Kory glances down at the girls and quickly licks his lips, his eyes flying back up to mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You did hurt her!” Avox growls, taking this as confirmation that I was injured, even though I told him I wasn’t. He starts to swear creatively as well as foully, aiming threats of genital dismemberment at Kory.
Tranq grunts to Avox. “No cursing.” He wraps his big hand around the weave of his bars and points to Kory with a shocking amount of irritation. “You need to leave. You’re upsetting everyone.”
Kory’s face darkens and he spreads his hands to indicate the distance between me and him. He opens his mouth—
But Tranq is the one to cut him off again. “If you care about her at all, you won’t push it. You’re just making us mad, you’re scaring the girls, and Theresa doesn’t want to see you right now. You should go.”
Kory turns to me, but I pretend not to see him as I call the girls further away from the fence, trying to keep their attention off the tension that’s filled the air.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Kory hangs his head, his shoulders lowering from the level of his ears to a dejected slump.
This time, when Keeper tugs on the lead, he follows.
***
When Keeper and Kory return from their walk, and Kory goes back into his pen, our door is opened, allowing the girls out.
I choose to stay inside by Avox and Tranq. Keeper watches me watch the girls as they race around the garden until he takes them for a walk on a path well away from the direction of Kory’s pen.
CHAPTER 11
Unfamiliar Whistlers arrive in our garden. They’re assembling a new, smaller gazebo cage right atop where our privacy hedge sat.
Ava, Quinn, and Molly are thrilled to see new keepers, and they perform all the tricks they know, hoping for attention.
(Keeper doesn’t take them out to play for these Whistlers—which makes me feel relieved. I’m sure they’re perfectly nice, but I don’t know them, and I don’t want them handling my children. I know Avox feels the same with the way he has to be reminded by Keeper to cut the growling. Tranq, as always, is perfectly content with the proceedings, not showing anxiety about the presence of new people—but Keeper let him out when the Whistlers got here, and he’s kept himself between the front of our cage and the workers, acting as a living wall of placid but imposing-looking discouragement against the newcomers if they had any ideas about approaching the fence.)
When the new gazebo’s sturdy frame bars are installed, the Whistlers leave. Keeper moves Kory into this closer, smaller enclosure, making all of us frown in confusion.
He’s so close now that we can’t pretend not to see him whenever we’re out of our sleeping boxes, and the same for him.
We’ll be staring at each other all the time.
Tranq wraps his arm around my shoulders through the fence and pats me on the butt. That’s when I realize that I’m the one growling.
Avox laughs at the shock on my face.
Right in front of Keeper, Kory tests the confines of his new cage by climbing to the roof of it, using the bars as handholds, his body dangling, threatened by gravity.
The girls shriek in delight at seeing him perform this feat.
Kory is so startled that he drops down to the ground.
Ava and Molly scream and screech as he falls—then all three burst into cheers and start clapping when they realize he’s unhurt.
“Again! Again!” Molly garbles excitedly.
Quinn and Ava squeal the same requests, albeit less easy to understand—because they make their pleas in whistles.
Keeper gasps, hands clapping to his exposed mouth feelers, delighted.
Almost as if it’s against his will, Kory’s lips twitch. At the girls, or at Keeper’s delight, I’m not sure, but Keeper breaks out the treats and asks the girls to whistle words again, and they do, asking Kory to climb to the sky again.
Kory shakes his head slightly, but he begins to climb again.
The babies clap and shout his name like a chant. Molly is saying Kory, but Quinn and Ava are whistling Keeper’s name for him, ‘Schwe
eet.’
At one point, Kory has to pause and catch his breath because he’s snickering hard enough to have trouble holding on.
Even I’m smiling now.
He reaches the top and finds he can shake the smaller double roof of the octagon, but he can’t raise it high enough to escape.
He climbs back down, dropping to his feet and raising his arms above his head to the raucous cheers of the girls.
He’s grinning.
It changes the look of his whole face.
He bows to his amazed crowd of Ava, Quinn, and Molly who promptly go out of their minds.
Kory looks right at me, the smile melting off his face, an intent look replacing it.
I brace, expecting him to want to talk, right here and right now…
But he looks down at my girls, then he looks at Tranq, still loose and standing at my side by the fence, his thick arms crossed, looking relaxed but with an unnatural tension clearly stringing his frame.
Then Kory looks at Avox, and finally Keeper.
Keeper is watching Kory and me avidly.
Instead of grimacing or scowling, Kory licks his teeth and nods to himself. Then he waves to the girls and checks out his new sleeping den.
***
Every day, Kory uses his cage bars to do pull-ups. The girls try to do the same, and Avox grudgingly begins doing cage pull-ups too—to show them how, for one, and also because…
...because of the way I had gaped at Kory’s muscles flexing as he worked his body.
Now I get to watch them both.
And the girls are exercising in a new way, so they’re thrilled.
It was also one of these sessions where our three girls were busy being taught by Avox, while Kory worked out, and Tranq cupped his hand over my mouth and drew me against the fence next to his body so that he could finger me under my dress until I came, muffled by his hand.
No one saw, and this is such a welcome intimacy with Tranq that I’m back beside him today, and he’s rumbling to me about nothing as the guys begin working out and the girls are busy watching, and they’re none the wiser as Tranq’s hand steals under my dress.