by Stella Cassy
“Come on,” he said over the fence. “Let’s go.”
In a much less athletic manner I scrabbled through the hole. After following a short path through some trees, we were at the far end of the Mulligans’ lawn, and this time what I saw did not defy my expectations.
“They are cooking meat. There must have been a successful hunt,” said Rethryn approvingly.
“Yeah. Their chef had a successful hunt in the supermarket.”
I was wearing a white dress that I had fashioned out of a shirt. I had cut off the arms and trimmed the bottom so that it hung down to mid-thigh. With the addition of a belt made from the leather of some alien species, which I had also drastically cut down, I looked almost presentable, in a bare-footed tree-pixie kind of way.
“Hang back behind me, so you don’t scare anyone,” I said. “Try and stay in the shadows until I call you.”
He rumbled agreement.
The party area was brightly lit, so it wasn’t until I was close that anyone could see me approaching from the dark end of the yard. I took a moment to look at the crowd, to find someone I recognized. I needed to find out what happened to my parents and their party.
I found John Mulligan, the owner of the house and a similar age to my father, standing next to the grill where a chef was grilling up some burgers and ‘dogs.
Despite being in his late fifties, he could pass for ten years younger thanks to the hard work of his personal trainer and chef. He had short, brown hair, a close-cropped beard and broad shoulders earned from daily workouts in his home gym
Walking around the perimeter of the lighted area, I was able to emerge from the shadows near the grill.
“Mr. Mulligan!” I said, with a beaming smile. I actually was pleased to see him. Even if he wasn’t my parents like I’d hoped, just speaking to a non-enslaved human was a thrill.
He squinted at me, his eyes running up and down as he tried to place me.
“Is that… Talia?”
I smiled and nodded. “That’s right!”
“Goodness,” he said, looking me over again in apparent surprise. “They say travel changes you…”
“Travel?”
“Your parents said you’d disappeared to travel the world. Just upped sticks and went! Where did you go?”
Huh. Is that what they said? Is that what they believed?
“Where did I go? Well, I feel like I crossed the universe.”
Mulligan nodded at that, as if completely understanding.
“I like your new style. It’s very… authentic.”
“Mmmhmm,” I said noncommittally. I didn’t like my new style at all. Once I got my credit cards back, Fifth Avenue was going to throw a parade in my honor after the shopping I intended to do. “I just got back, literally, moments ago. Do you know where my parents are?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it again, shocked by my question.
“You… you don’t know? Didn’t you contact them at all?”
I shook my head. “I was on a retreat of sorts. No phones. No email.”
“How long was your retreat? Never mind that. A year ago your father sold up. They moved to San Francisco for some new venture he was starting. Since they didn’t have to worry about you anymore, your father could really focus on his work.”
Had they just given up on me? My own parents?
“They sold the house? My summer house?”
“Oh, yes. To some rich oil sheikh. They never use it though, it’s just an investment I think.” Although we couldn’t see it in the dark, Mulligan glanced in the direction of the house anyway. “It’s sad, seeing it empty.”
My parents had sold my home! Well one of them, anyway. It was an outrage! And they moved across the country without me, like I’d never even existed.
“Do you have an address for them? In California?”
Mulligan frowned and pulled out his phone. I stared at it longingly, wishing I had my own iPhone back. The last time I’d seen mine it was sitting next to the hot tub, moments before the Pax arrived to ruin my life. I wondered what had happened to it — had it been saved? Or thrown away? It would certainly be an outdated model now anyway. I’d need a new one. Put that on the shopping list.
A moment later Mulligan, upon finding out I was currently phoneless, had scribbled the new address down on a white paper napkin.
“Burger?” He said when he’d finished, holding out a paper plate. The burger looked thick and juicy, with melted cheese, a good dollop of ketchup, and there was a small American flag in the center, held up by a cocktail stick pierced through the middle.
“Thanks,” I said as I took it from his hands.
Strangely, after hearing about my parents’ abandonment of our home — and thus me — my appetite had disappeared. I’d been dreaming of a burger like this for years. But now that I had it, I didn’t want it.
“Katie’s around somewhere if you want to catch up, and I’m sure you know lots of others. Make yourself at home. There’ll be room in one of the pool houses if you want to stay the night before you can get a flight.”
“Thanks, Mr. Mulligan. I appreciate it. I think I’ll just go for a little walk.”
Turning my back on him, I headed back off into the shadows and the darkened lawn beyond. The sound of the party on the terraces and patios around the house sounded almost alien to me now as I walked away from it all.
Coming back home hadn’t just been anti-climactic.
It had instead made me sad.
“Are you going to eat that?” said Rethryn, pointing at my plate.
I shook my head at him. I didn’t want to eat it, or anything like it. Not until I knew I could enjoy it again.
He picked up the burger, pulled out the cocktail stick and threw it away, then chomped half of it. After a few chews, he swallowed.
“This is good. Is this the standard human sustenance?”
“We eat lots of things. That’s a burger. They’re pretty popular.”
Rethryn popped the rest of it into his mouth and in short order had swallowed it all.
“Now what? Did you gain some intelligence?”
“Yeah. My family moved.”
Rethryn put a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“You do not seem pleased.”
“I’m not pleased. This was my home. And they left it. Sold it.”
“I am sure their new one is better equipped and in a more favorable location,” Rethryn said in what seemed to be an attempt at kindness.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You know the location of their new dwelling?”
“Yes. I’ve got an address. I can show it to Thrantok when we’re back onboard.”
When we got back to the ship, strangely I felt more at home than I had standing on the lawn, staring at my old house.
Why did things have to change?
With a heavy heart I realized it wasn’t just Earth, and my family, that had changed though.
I had changed too.
19
Rethryn
Rethryn
The slave girl was not herself. Before we returned to her planet, she had a spark about her, a vitality. It was the most annoying thing about her. And the most attractive.
But that little flame inside her that give her the wit, rebelliousness and confidence to mock her superiors and masters seemed to have been snuffed out. Word that her family had left her to pursue a new life on the other side of the continent she called home had hurt her.
Her miserable mood had a strange effect on me. I found that her negativity was bringing me down. Her sadness was causing me to lose my own focus. Despite the seriousness of my own situation, and how imperative it was to obtain the resources we had been assigned, I was distracted.
There was only one thing to do.
I needed to bring her mood up.
“Come,” I barked at her in the standard gruff manner I used with my crew and inferiors.
Without comment or complaint, she plodded along behind me, s
houlders slumped, as we headed away from the bridge toward my cabin. Thrantok had been left with the address of her family’s new residence and instructions to get us there in the early morning. Talia claimed it would be too late at night to arrive now, though I suspected that was only part of the reason. She wanted more time to think before she saw her family again.
My terse manner with her was a trick. When we arrived at my cabin, I turned to her and smiled.
“Let’s make some entertainment.”
She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood. I just want everything to go back to how it was. Back to two years ago. Back before I was kidnapped.”
I gripped her shoulders. “No. We have a saying, Only a fool tries to fight yesterday’s battles today. It means that you shouldn’t dwell on the past.”
She looked up at me with big, round eyes. They looked moister than normal.
“But two years ago—”
“No! You are not a fool. I know you are not. So stop dwelling. We must look to the next battle, not concern ourselves with what happened before. Time and the Drakon move forward. Only idiots try to go backward.”
“Well I’m not a Drakon, and sometimes we humans like to dwell on the past.”
I squeezed her shoulders again. “Enough talk of it. Tomorrow you will meet your family again and begin a new chapter. And now…”
She gave a tired, half-shrug, giving up on arguing, even if she wasn’t completely convinced by the truth I had given her.
Utilizing the ship’s computer system, I ordered some popular music from Thirren to play. In a moment, the heavy thumping drumbeats of a popular tune from my Academy days began to play.
Talia cocked her head at me curiously.
“What is that?”
Already my plan of distracting her seemed to be bearing some small fruit.
“This is music. Does your world have it?”
She lifted a hand into the air, and then smacked it against her forehead. I gave her a concerned look.
“Of course we have music. I think all the intelligent races do, don’t they? But I’m not sure this,” she looked up to the speaker as she said it, “qualifies as music.”
I shook my head at her. “You sound like my mother. She said the same thing when I was a youth.”
“Hey!” said Talia, stepping toward me and poking a finger hard into my chest. “Don’t compare me to some old dragon!”
This was more like the little slave I knew. It seemed that being back on the ship, and in my presence, was bringing back her vitality.
“Let’s dance.”
She was giving me another curious look as I stepped behind her and grabbed her by the elbows. I pressed our bodies tight together, then began to gyrate in the manner the tune prescribed.
Talia turned her head around awkwardly to look at me.
“This is… dancing?”
I let go of one elbow for a moment to turn her head back to the correct position, facing forward.
“Yes. I shall teach you.”
Talia began to giggle. I squeezed her arms tighter and began to move us in a slow circle with the large steps required of this jig. Unfortunately my large steps were almost comically long when her little human legs tried to match them. She laughed even further as she was held up only by my grip on her arms after trying to take a step too big.
“No laughing! Dance is about harnessing and sharing energy.”
“No, dancing is supposed to be fun.”
This was another topic she clearly needed further education in. It would take me years to get her to fully understand everything she should know. But of course I didn’t have years, not unless…
“The fun comes from accomplishing the dance in the correct manner. If your timing is precise enough, it can be almost spiritual. Now, imagine yourself flying over a hot volcanic vent in a rising gyre.”
“Umm, okay. I’ll do that. We used to fly around volcanic events all the time back on Earth.”
She said the strangest things sometimes. She couldn’t even fly.
We continued to step around in a circle, our warm bodies touching each other as I tried to impress upon her the correct rhythm and pace. If I wasn’t mistaken, though, she seemed to be adding some extra moves. She seemed to be deliberately pushing her firm buttocks back against me in a rubbing motion. It wasn’t exactly part of the dance, but some might call it an improvement.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” she said, slipping out from my grip. She turned around and reached up with one arm to place it on my shoulder, then put another on my waist.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s do a human dance. The beat of your music’s pretty tame, so we’ll do a slow dance. Follow me.”
It was unusual, facing my dance partner, and the moves were gentler and less rigid than I was used to. I mirrored her arm positions, and soon we were gently swaying together, her warm body pressed up against mine.
It wasn’t dancing, but it wasn’t bad.
“We’ll have to find some Earth music one day,” Talia said.
One day. Why did she say one day? Was she thinking about a future that was surely just imaginary?
“That may be an interesting experience,” I said charitably. I doubted Earth had anything to offer in terms of music, but sometimes these humans could surprise, as I had recently learned.
She smacked me on the arm. “Earth music is awesome. I’ll teach you. You just wait and see.”
As we moved around the room slowly, Talia rested her cheek on my chest. We found ourselves pressing our bodies closer and closer together. I put my head in her hair and inhaled. Warm and soft, this human girl was like nothing I had ever dreamed of when I was young, but now she was exactly what I wanted. But how much time did we have left together?
“All this dancing is making me worn out,” Talia said, lifting her cheek from my chest and looking up at me with a twinkle in her eye.
“Let’s… take a rest, for a moment.” We didn’t break apart, instead slowly swaying our way to my bed. When we reached it, I lifted her with my hands under her knees and neck.
I placed her onto the center of the bed, and then lay down beside her.
“Completely exhausted, are you?” I said to her. Before she could respond I kissed her on the mouth. She responded immediately, our lips pressing together, our mouths opening, and soon our tongues slipping and writhing together. One of each of our arms wrapped around the other, and I pulled her close against me on the bed.
“I guess I’ve still got a bit of energy. But not for dancing.”
I decided it would be a good time to let her know a little about our culture which she may not have known.
“Sometimes,” I said to her softly, “we Drakon use dancing as a prelude to lovemaking.”
She giggled, and I frowned at her. She rarely seemed to be grateful for my valuable teachings.
“Oh gee, that’s incredible, I never would have thought of that.”
Pleased at this response, I kissed her again, rolling her on top of me and holding her tight against me. Teaching her was fun, and I decided I was going to try and impart as much of my wisdom upon her as I could in however much time we had left together.
Soon her hand was down below, wrapped around my shaft and squeezing it. She broke off our kiss again.
“Are all Drakon as… big as you?”
“You’ll never know,” I growled.
Reaching down with one hand, I undid the belt she had cinched around her waist, then pulled her ship-made dress off of her.
Our lips met again, in a hundred short, tiny kisses, while she rubbed herself up against me, not yet taking me inside, but teasing us both with her hot wetness.
“Are all Earth girls as delicious as you?” I said, between kisses, as I gently pushed up against her, almost but not quite entering.
“Nuh-uh,” she whispered. “I’m one of a kind.”
Grasping her firm young buttocks I pulled her body in and down against mine, impa
ling her with a gasp.
“Together, we are truly unique,” I said in her ear as I began to slowly tease in and out of her, each stroke going slightly further than the last.
“I think…” she said, between shuddering breaths, “we’re probably… the hottest… couple in the… universe.”
There was truth to her statement. I had always regarded myself as more handsome than my contemporaries, and she was a glorious, golden, little goddess of a slave.
“I think you’re right.”
With the music still playing in the background, our bodies matched the beat, sliding against each other over and over at a slow but ever-increasing pace.
“Faster, faster…” she whispered in my ear, beginning to grind her body more urgently against mine.
Of course I was pleased to comply. Holding her body so tight I was worried I would hurt her, I heard only moans and squeals of pleasure.
“Fuck…” she moaned, as her breath turned to a rapid panting. I could feel the muscles of her stomach and thighs and ass all working to grip and pull at me, wanting me as deep inside her as she could get it.
“I’m… I’m…”
She didn’t finish what she was about to say with her mouth, but with her body. Her body squeezed me tight, urging me to fill her with my hot release as she juddered and shivered with a million muscular contractions.
It was all the encouragement my own body needed. With a final few thrusts I found my own body answering what hers was calling for, releasing inside her with a deep guttural growl from my inner dragon.
“Oh fuck!” yelled my little blonde slave as I filled her. She dug her hands and fingers tight into my back, raking it, as I felt her contracting around me again in her second orgasm in as many microns.
I held her tight against me, even after I finished, staying inside her as we panted in each other’s ears. Even as our breathing slowed, we did not part. I wanted her close to me, touching as near to every part of me as she could. We lay there, our gasps of exertion turning back to breaths and sighs as we ran our talon-tips over and over each other’s skin.
Bodies still pressed slightly together, we drifted off to sleep.