by H. E. Trent
“A certain Jekhan baker?”
“Yes, a certain Jekhan baker. There’s an old woman in Zone Seven near the river. I check on her as often as I can because she doesn’t have anyone. When I was coming out of her place, guess who was waiting outside Spilled Milk for me?”
Jerry barked and pawed at the left edge of the wall-mounted fireplace.
I can’t believe it.
She wouldn’t have thought to look before. There were hinges on the right side.
She tucked her fingers into a groove beneath the metal facing and pulled.
The compartment opened.
Behind the compact metal firebox and its vent was another hiding cavity. It extended beyond the square in the wall just enough for a grown man or two to lie on their backs.
Trigrian, against the wall, sighed and sat up.
“Courtney? You there?”
“Sorry. Dog distracted me. He’s acting weird.”
“He probably thinks you’re weird for not understanding him. So, are you going to come?”
Murk took her hand and squeezed. There seemed to be a plea in his eyes, and fuck, she wished he could speak.
“I…um, how about a rain check?” Court asked. “Tomorrow, maybe? I’m feeling a bit worn down. I had a lot of blood drawn today.”
“Yikes. Understandable. Well, drink lots of water and eat leafy green stuff, I guess. Call me if you change your mind.”
“I will.”
Court disconnected, and though she squeezed Murk’s hand tenderly, she glowered at Trigrian. “What did you think you were doing?”
“Doing my best to take care of him.”
“Yeah? Because when I left here this morning, I offered you a bed and full run of my house. What were you going to do, hang out here in this hole in the wall until you could scout somewhere else and then just leave?”
“Why do you care? You should wish by now to wipe your hands clean of us.”
“Now you’re just being insulting. He’s dying. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. I get that you don’t trust me. I really understand that, and being cautious is just smart. But if I were going to turn you in, I wouldn’t offer to get you warm and feed you. I’m not a woman who makes big decisions rashly.”
“So, you’ll wait for us to turn on you.” His bright eyes narrowed.
“No. I was going to wait until I had more information about what it means for you to be chipped. And what your drug Marscadrel does.”
She helped Murk sit up and pulled him, slowly, through the opening.
He leaned heavily on her. He managed to stand, but he shook. His legs had to be weak from muscle atrophy, and his body malnourished.
She held him around the waist and braced her feet, pressing her face to his chest as if her head were the third point in a tripod. “Gonna get you upstairs, handsome.”
His breath came out in a sharp stab. A silent scoff.
“Don’t be bashful.”
Trigrian slipped out of the hiding space and put Murk’s arm over his shoulders. “I’ll carry him.”
“Let me help. You may have gotten him down here, but if I were to look, I’m sure I’d find you earned some bruises doing it.”
With some awkward maneuvering, they managed to get the tall man upstairs without too many bumps.
They passed the laundry, and into the guest bedroom. At the side of the bed, they stopped, but Trigrian didn’t attempt to lay the other man down.
“Changed your mind?”
“I…” He hitched Murk up a bit so he leaned more heavily on him. “I hate to ask, but it’s for him. Will you help me get him into the bath? He can’t stand up long enough to shower.”
“Oh. Sit him down. I’ll clean the tub. There’s construction dust in the bottom.”
He nodded, and on the count of three, they lowered him to the bed’s edge.
She quickly cleaned out the tub, and let it fill while she hunted down toiletries and clean towels. She left those on the counter in the bathroom and indicated the room. “I’m going to go walk Jerry and see what I can whip up for dinner.”
“I…” Trigrian closed his mouth on the words.
“Tell me. Ask me. The worst I can say is no.”
He worried she’d say no. She knew that. He didn’t trust her, but needed her for the moment.
Being needed was a funny thing. It wasn’t quite the same thing as being wanted, but it came close, if not in her heart, then her brain. She lived life back in Boston without people asking things from her. They didn’t want what she had to give as though her name would sully her offerings. She wanted to give and to have someone receive what she gave.
“I can’t get him in by myself,” Trigrian said dejectedly. “Not without hurting him.”
“Okay. Well, that’s an easy yes.”
They got him into the bathroom, and Trigrian looked at her expectantly.
“What?”
“I need you to help me undress him.”
“I think that might be going a bit above and beyond, guy.”
“Please.”
She sighed. “All right. Sit him on the commode.”
She took off Murk’s shoes, his socks—trailing her fingers experimentally along a long scar atop his foot, and he wriggled his toes.
She looked up to find him grinning.
“You okay with me being here?”
He shrugged one shoulder and pressed his hands to her cheeks, looking down at her quizzically.
“He doesn’t mind,” Trigrian said. “I’m certain half the Jekhan population has seen him nude at some point.”
Murk picked up her jaw when it fell.
“Years ago,” Trigrian amended. “He’s shameless. Most artists are, in my experience.”
She squeezed Murk’s wrists. “You’re an artist?”
He nodded, and then shrugged again.
“He painted. Couldn’t be a career for him, though. His family wouldn’t have allowed such indulgence.”
“Where is your family now?”
Murk grimaced, and the good humor leached out of his features.
She squeezed his wrists again. “Never mind. I’ll help you with your shirt.”
His shirt was simple enough. A basic hemp-like fabric that fastened in the front with clasps that were soft, but strong. She pushed the shirt down his shoulders and paused to examine his bruised skin, and his bones so near the surface.
“Say what you will about Zone Seven, but no one there seems to be quite this thin.”
“Still starving, though,” Trigrian said. He shut off the water and held out his hand for Murk’s shirt.
Court gave him the garment and continued her brazen examination of Murk’s shoulders. Broad. Strong once, probably.
He rolled tired eyes up to her.
“He probably wonders what you’re thinking,” Trigrian said.
Murk nodded.
She slid her fingers behind his right ear and turned his head slightly to see more of a long scar that trailed from his nape down his back. “Just wondering what happened to you.”
Murk pressed his cheek against her hand and rubbed like a marking cat before gently nudging her hand away.
“I’m not sure he would tell you even if he could.”
She let Murk lean on her while Trigrian eased down his pants.
“Was it…Terrans?”
She kept her gaze on the wall as Trigrian maneuvered Murk to the tub and helped him over the side.
Neither gave a response of any sort.
So, she left to give Murk his privacy.
Jerry still needed to be walked and dinner wasn’t going to make itself. She hadn’t yet figured out what the Buinet equivalent of take-out was, and she wasn’t exactly itching to give Tim a call for suggestions.
Thumping from the bathroom made her pause on the stairs.
“Did he slip?”
“Courtney,” Trigrian called blandly.
Not an emergency, obviously. Still, she started back up the stairs.
<
br /> Murk had his hand extended to her when she passed through the doorway.
Trig knelt at the tub side, holding a vial of concentrated shampoo.
“What’s wrong? Want to get out already?”
Forehead furrowed, Murk made a gimme motion.
“What does he want?”
She had nothing to give him.
“Your hand,” Trigrian said.
“I…” She let her objection trail off.
Murk made that motion again, emphatically. A plea, punctuated by a light pounding of his fist on the tub side.
What could she say? That she didn’t want to see him nude because she was all at once attracted to him and pitied him for what he once was? She’d never been so curious about a man before, and it would be just her luck he’d have to be mute and dying.
“Okay.” She sat on the tub edge putting as much of her back to him as she could, and clasped his left hand.
He settled down lower into the water and let Trigrian attend to his lower half.
“The way humans bathe is efficient compared to the way Jekhans prefer,” Trigrian said. His voice was matter-of-fact, not conversational.
As with so much of what he said, she couldn’t tell if the statement was meant to be an accusation. “How so?” she asked anyway.
“Bathing tends to be a recreational event. We love water. We understand water and cherish it. It revitalizes us and connects us all in a way because all water recycles.”
“What are Jekhan tubs like?”
“They take up whole rooms.”
“Like pools?”
He was right next to her thigh, leaning into the tub, but seemed careful to keep a little distance between them.
He didn’t want to touch her.
She didn’t know why she felt so bruised by that.
“No, not like pools. Smaller than that, and with water kept warm and pure by quiet pumps. You sit on the benches inside that are made for your height and soak up to your neck.”
“Sounds relaxing.”
“A typical Jekhan would retire to his bath to meditate following a hard day’s work.”
“Alone?”
“Usually. The cleansing is secondary to the decompression.”
“What do you do to decompress in the absence of a bath?”
Murk squeezed her hand.
She stole a glance down at him and saw the churlish twinkle in his eye as he sat up. He seemed a bit more limber compared to earlier, and maybe the heat of the bath had helped with that.
“I imagine the same sort of things human men do,” Trigrian said. “Just in excess,” he added in a mumble.
Murk canted his head and bobbed his chin at her.
“He’s asking, what about you?” Trigrian said.
“How can you tell?” She looked away from the man in the tub; she was glad to have a distraction, even if the distraction was cold to her.
“Murk and I have known each other for a very long time. Even before he lost the ability to speak, I knew his cues.”
“How’d you meet?” She didn’t really expect him to answer, but the question seemed the natural progression in the conversation. She did care, and she wanted him to know that, so she’d asked anyway.
Murk gave Trigrian’s face a little splash when he didn’t respond.
Trigrian sighed and dragged his sleeve across his face. “Fine. I was orphaned. The transport crawler my parents were taking home to our farm from Buinet malfunctioned. The corridor was windy that day, and the crawler slipped off its rails and crashed into a tunnel side. Or at least, that’s how the story goes.”
“You don’t believe the story?”
He shrugged and gave Court a scathing look. “Hard to know who to believe.”
She thought he was being unfair with her, but she certainly understood being skeptical about stories that had been rehearsed and spoon-fed to desperate people seeking answers. Sometimes, any answer would sate a questioning person. Other times, no answer at all would satisfy them.
“Murk’s family took my siblings and me in,” Trigrian said flatly. “His father was a trader. He sold the produce my parents grew and didn’t cheat us too badly in the process, usually.”
Murk splashed him again, probably the only way he could express his annoyance at the moment.
“How far is the place you come from, Trigrian?”
Saying nothing, he sluiced his hand through the water beside Murk’s leg and stared toward the ripples he made until Murk gave him another little splash.
Trigrian growled softly and said, “The trip used to take about a week’s travel by crawler. Private vehicles could make the trip much faster. A few hours if the weather is accommodating. Faster by air than by land, but you can’t carry a lot of cargo that way.”
“I see.”
She didn’t get the impression that the technology the Terrans had adapted for everyday transportation was robust in that way. Most of the vehicles she’d seen thus far had been fairly compact, and didn’t have thrusters that could get them more than a couple of stories off the ground.
“If you have no further questions,” Trigrian said, “I need to wash his hair.” He rolled his gaze up to her and flattened his lips.
The implication was clear: leave now. She didn’t know why washing Murk’s hair would be any more intimate a thing than anything else, but she untwined her fingers from Murk’s—with some effort, as he refused to relinquish his grip on her—stood, and walked away.
Murk pounded his fist against the side again, and frustrated, she turned back and looked.
She shouldn’t have looked.
Oh God. Perhaps that’s why half the population has seen him naked.
His endowment looked human enough. Like any other man’s cock that Court had ever seen, just…larger.
Murk grinned at her as his fingers worked to free his hair. A damnable smirk—a I know you saw it smirk, and of course she saw because that was what he’d wanted.
She thought that was cruel—the taunting disguised as flirting. The look what you’re missing out on teasing.
“Why would you do that?” she asked quietly.
Trigrian stepped in front of her, blocking Murk from her sight. “You’ll do best to ignore him.”
Murk splashed his back, and pounded the side of the tub but Trigrian didn’t move.
“Thank you for your help,” he said coolly. “I’ll ask if I need more.”
She stared into his violet eyes and saw nothing but malice.
She’d never been a masochist.
So, she left.
CHAPTER NINE
Murk gave Trig’s nipple a hard tweak through his shirt as he leaned into him to dry his hair.
“Ow!” He swatted Murk’s hand away and took a step back. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
Murk held out his hand.
Trig rolled his eyes, left the bedroom, and came back moments later with the e-pad.
Murk wrote, “Be nice. You said you’d try. That used to be easy for you.”
Trig shook the pad clear and scoffed. “You’re trying plenty hard for the both of us. I’m amused by how a man who can’t talk can be so fucking charming, and yet you thought I’m the one she’d fall for.”
Murk wrote, “She’s kind to me because I’m kind to her.”
Trig climbed onto the bed and knelt behind him, pulling his hair back. “She’s kind to you because she wants to fuck you. My sense of smell is as good as or better than yours. I noticed how her body responded.”
Murk wrote, “Why is that bad?” and held the pad up for Trig to read.
“You can’t keep her, Murk. You know that. Initiating anything knowing that, in the end, she’s not going to be yours is pointless.”
“Ours, you mean.”
Trig’s long exhalation tickled Murk’s damp shoulders. “You were going to let her see your hair.”
“So?” Murk wrote. He didn’t care anymore. A Jekhan man letting down his hair in front of a woman was
a very intimate thing, but customs were of no use to him if all their people were dead. Customs weren’t going to keep him alive, but Courtney’s presence could keep him hanging on a little while longer. He hadn’t felt so strong since before Trig had found the house for them to hide in.
“You’ve never shown anyone outside your family your hair,” Trig said sullenly.
“Except you.”
“Obviously. But that’s because I’m yours.”
“I seem to recall enticing you with my cock in a similar way all those years ago. Is your memory so poor now?”
Trig, red-cheeked, sucked in some air and let it out in a sputter. “I remember just fine, but that was different. You knew you could have me.”
In Murk’s opinion, that argument didn’t hold water. He could have had a lot of people, but he’d wanted Trig.
Trig combed out all the knots in Murk’s hair, twined the mass into one braid, which he coiled around itself, tucking the end in at the base.
He eased off the bed, and Murk drew him in between his legs, looking up at him with a question in his expression.
Trig raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Murk shook his head and wrote, “You said she was a goddess. Did you change your mind so quickly?”
Trig closed his eyes and swallowed. “I don’t have a good answer for that.”
Murk shook him to make him open his eyes, and then wrote, “What made you change your mind?”
Trig groaned and threw up his hands. “Murki, one of us needs to be sensible. We can’t let ourselves be…ensorcelled by her beauty when we needed to devoting all our energy to staying alive.”
“I feel plenty alive enough right now. How about you?”
“I’m going to take a shower while I can.”
Murk nudged him. Wrote, “Answer.”
“I don’t want her to hurt you.”
“Hurt us, you mean.”
Trig didn’t answer. Murk knew him too well, anyway, so it didn’t matter what Trig said. True or lie, Murk would discern either.
Murk pressed his hand to the back of the other man’s neck and brought him down for a kiss.
Trig didn’t need to worry about Murk getting hurt. Either Courtney would accept them—both of them—or she wouldn’t. Murk wanted to try, though, and not just because he was dying and grasping at straws.