"Not to change the subject, or anything," I said, "but how long did it take you guys to get used to the heat? These fainting spells could get old in a hurry."
"Not long," Tychar replied. His lips brushed my ear as he added in a voice that promised a myriad of sensual delights, "And in the meantime, I will take very good care of you."
"You just need to take it easy for a few days," Trag advised. "Spend a little time on your back."
"Very funny," I said. "You know, your brother is an absolute riot," I said to Tychar. "And to think, you've had to put up with him for twenty years! How did you stand it?"
Tychar rolled his eyes. "I have no idea."
"Well, if you guys don't mind, I believe I will spend some time on my back, but" I went on as Trag started to snicker, "if either of you have any ideas about climbing on top of me, I wish you'd save them until I'm feeling more up to it. Just being in the same room with the two of you is bad enough."
"Hey, man, I think she likes us," Trag said, nudging Tychar.
"My, but you're a cocky little bastard," I remarked. "Especially for a man who's been essentially impotent for so long."
"But I'm not anymore," he pointed out, wrapping his hand around his dick and giving it a hard squeeze. "I might not ever get to use it, but at least I've got one, and the way I see it, we both have an equal chance."
"Really? And why is that? Tychar is the one assigned to look after me, not you."
"But that doesn't mean I can't find lots of reasons to visit," Trag argued. "I can be as charming as he is, you know."
Somehow I doubted that. Tychar had made a very good first impression on me, and Trag was running a distant second at that point.
"You're probably a lot of fun," I said reflectively, "but I still think I like Tychar better. He's absolutely charming." Of course, I could have added adorably sexy and impossibly handsome to that, but I didn't want to rub it in.
"It's the blue eyes, isn't it?" Trag exclaimed. "Always with the eyes! I tell you, if I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times! 'Oh, his eyes are so blue!' Makes me want to throw up every time Scalia says it!"
"She has never said that!" Tychar protested. "At least, not that I've heard."
"Of course you wouldn't!" Trag snarled. "She doesn't say things like that to your face; she tells me!"
"Do you really think she likes him better?" I asked Trag.
"I'm sure she does," Trag said irritably. "Everyone always has liked him best! I can't figure it out. All the other women around here seem to like him better, too—they're always flirting with him and telling him how wonderful he is. What's so wrong with green eyes, anyway?"
"Did I say it had anything to do with his eyes?"
"Well, no, but—"
"He smiled at me, Trag," I said gently. "You stood there looking like you wanted to scratch my eyes out."
"Well, okay, you're right about that much," Trag admitted. "It's just that I thought Scalia wanted to show us off to one of her friends, that's all."
"Don't like being an oddity?" I ventured.
"Something like that," he replied.
We arrived at my room, and Tychar laid me down on the bed while Trag went off to get some more water. I drank as much as I could hold without getting sick and then tried to rest, but it's hard to relax when you've got two tigers prowling around your room.
Tychar sat beside me with his arm draped lovingly around my shoulders while he fed me fruit from a crystal bowl. His apparent intent was to get some food into me, but he was driving me wild by barely touching my lips with each bit he offered me—just being that close to him was enough to inspire some of the most erotic thoughts I'd ever had.
When I couldn't hold anymore, he moved to the foot of the bed to massage my feet. Having a man give me a foot massage has always been a particular fantasy of mine, but just how he knew it I didn't know and didn't care, because it felt wonderful.
As I lay drifting in a haze of sensuous delight, Trag busied himself with checking out the contents of my wardrobe, which he considered to be quite inappropriate for the local climate.
"You need to wear less," he advised. "These long, flowing dresses of yours trap the heat too much."
"Maybe," I admitted, "but that's what I wear most of the time at home. I didn't bring much else."
"Well, we'll have to figure something out," he insisted. "The trouble is, there aren't many people around here who are any good at making clothes."
"Don't you have something else to do at this hour?" Tychar asked innocently.
"Want to get rid of me?" said Trag.
"Yes, I believe I do," Tychar agreed.
"Hey, I'm smiling, Kyra!" Trag insisted, showing his teeth. "Don't I look... you know... enticing?"
"You look more like you're about to bite me," was my honest reply. "When he smiled at me I—" Then I remembered that I hadn't intended to mention what happened when Tychar smiled at me, but I didn't need to, because Trag supplied his own reason.
"Yeah, you turned to mush or something," he said ruefully. "I know, I saw it, too."
"Trag," I said gently.
"What?" he all but barked at me.
"I'm sorry." And I meant it, too. He wasn't as charming as Tychar, perhaps, but he had his good points. I might not have fallen for him on sight, but I did like him.
Trag stopped short at the foot of the bed. "Yeah, well, so am I," he grumbled. "Story of my life. I guess Scalia knew what she was doing after all—but if you ever change your mind..."
"I'll know who to ask for," I said promptly.
"Well, yeah—and just be sure you don't ask for Refdeck," he advised. "He's a slimy little bastard— even if he can fuck Scalia." He said that as though he wished he'd been able to do it himself, and—who knows?—perhaps he did. "She likes him pretty well."
"Refdeck? Slimy? You mean the little toad guy?" I asked, aghast.
Trag nodded, though I, for one, couldn't see him with Scalia. I mean, if she rolled over on Refdeck, she'd probably kill him. I lay there trying to imagine the position they'd have to get in to do it with any degree of safety and couldn't come up with one. Then I decided it was one of those details that I really didn't want to know anyway. Tychar massaging my feet was much more pleasant to contemplate, but then I remembered that he was a slave, too, and the fact that no man had ever done anything like that for me before who wasn 't a slave made me want to cry again—which was a bad idea, since I was already hot and dehydrated.
Still, I reminded myself that looking after me was a job that at least one other of Scalia's slaves seemed to want rather badly. But it was all so strange and confusing—my brain probably wasn't working very well, aside from the fact that a lot had happened— especially when you consider that I'd only been on Darconia for less than a day and had yet to give even one piano lesson.
I groaned, rolling over in bed. "This is all just too weird! I shoulda stayed home," I lamented. "What was I thinking?"
I felt Tychar's hands grow still on my feet. "Are you saying you don't like it here?"
From his tone, I could only assume he was taking it personally. He might as well have asked if I didn't like him. "That's not what I meant," I said. "It's just that I'm not an adventuress by any stretch of the imagination, and it's a miracle I've made it this far without turning tail for home. I mean, I've never even been out of the country, let alone the world! And now that I'm here, one minute I'm feeling pretty good, and the next I'm passing out on the floor. And, let's face it; you guys are just too much for a little ol' piano teacher from Upper Sandusky."
"Maybe," Trag said as he looked down at me rather wistfully. "But if you'd just say the word, we could make you so glad you came."
"I'm sure you would, but—"
Tychar let go of my foot and crawled toward me on his hands and knees like a tiger stalking his prey. "I, for one, am already glad you came," he purred. "And I promise you, Kyra, you will never want to leave Darconia."
The look in his eyes w
as enough to assure me that he was telling the absolute truth. I might have been too much of a chicken to do anything about it at the time, but I believed him, too.
Chapter 7
When Zealon came back for her lesson, I was asleep with Tychar curled up at the foot of the bed, purring contentedly. This time, I drank as much water as I could hold and then got up, but my skin was still gritty with salt. That was the trouble here; I was hot as hell and was undoubtedly sweating as a result, but it evaporated so quickly that I didn't even realize it was happening. I figured if I just kept drinking no matter what, I'd be okay, but I was probably losing more than just water...
Still, the Zetithians had survived this climate for a long time, and they seemed to be fairly human, at least from a metabolic standpoint. I was to learn that the Darconians became rather sluggish with cooler temperatures, and were, therefore, much more active in the heat of the day, but I knew that to survive, I was going to have to develop the siesta habit. Tychar, for one, seemed to think that a nap in the middle of the day was an excellent notion, and since he had only me to look after, he didn't need to do anything but sleep whenever I did. Zealon thought it was rather odd, though.
"You're sleeping now?" she exclaimed but kept her voice down so as not to wake Tychar. At least she was that considerate of him, even if he was a slave. "Are you really that tired?"
"You don't know the half of it," I replied. "It's going to take me a long time to adjust to this heat. It's not so bad morning and evening, but the middle of the day? Forget it! Give me a nice, climate-controlled building every time."
She looked at me curiously, as though unable to decide if I was being serious or not.
"My internal clock needs resetting, too." "What do you mean?"
"Back home we call it jet lag, and even though jets are a thing of the past, the basic principles still apply. When you travel from one time zone to another, it takes a while to get used to it. I guess you could call it space lag in this case, though."
Zealon nodded, but I had an idea she was just humoring me. Perhaps lizards weren't affected by such things, though it was doubtful that she'd ever traveled much.
"He looks pretty when he's asleep, doesn't he?" she remarked with a gesture toward the foot of the bed. "I've never seen him sleeping."
"Never seen him eat anything either, have you?" I said with a touch of sarcasm. Then it occurred to me that I should watch my mouth more carefully—after all, she was a princess—but she'd have to learn to watch what she said to a groggy human, too.
"No," she conceded. "Does he look pretty when he eats?"
"Not really," I said. "Well, no more so than anyone else does."
She appeared to think about this for a moment. "You don't approve of my mother having slaves, do you?"
"No," I replied. "It's wrong on a multitude of levels. If your mother wishes to bring Darconia into the mainstream of galactic society, she needs to rethink that."
"But their safety..."
"There are other ways of protecting people besides keeping them locked up as slaves," I pointed out.
"But are you going to refuse to have Tycharian as your servant? I know I wouldn't."
"No," I replied. "I'm not going to refuse, though I probably should—and just on principle alone. But your mother was right; I do need someone to help me out. He had to carry me back here after taking me on a tour of the palace. Funny thing is, I've never considered myself to be a weakling, but this heat is sapping the life out of me."
"I hope you can become accustomed to it," she said, and her sincerity was evident. "It's... nice having someone here who's been to other planets and isn't one of us. Mother says she enjoys the diversity of having off-worlders here, and I tend to agree. I hope to learn more from you than how to play the piano."
"Well, you're not going to learn even that much if I don't get up and teach you," I said, making the gargantuan effort just to sit up. "Come on, then. Let's see if you can play, shall we?"
We left Tychar where he was, and I fought the urge to throw a sheet over him, but decided he was probably warm enough. And Zealon was right; he did look pretty when he was asleep.
I sat Zealon down on the piano bench, and unlike a concert pianist who wore tails, she actually had one. It looked like something out of a bizarre dream to see her sitting there, running her odd fingers over the keys.
"Now, the first thing to be able to find is middle C," I began. "Right here," I said, striking a key, "to the left of this set of two black keys. Everything else revolves around that point." I showed her how the fingering worked, giving each of her fingers a number designation—fortunately, she had four fingers and a thumb, or we'd have had to redesign a lot of things.
I set her to practicing scales, just like any other student, and noted that while she was dexterous enough, the pads of her fingertips were almost too large to avoid striking more than one key at a time. But she had a decent reach—better than mine, though not as much as Wazak's would have been had he played. He probably could have played a duet with himself!
After standing over her for a while and offering a bit of praise and encouragement, I left her to practice and drifted over to the window, which had a seat beneath it like the one in my bedroom. I sat gazing out over the trees, thinking to myself that beings were much the same the galaxy over, they only looked different.
But what would it be like to be intimate with an alien? I couldn't imagine why Scalia would want to have sex with a toad, and while Refdeck might be able to do it, why would he want to, either? The only male Darconian I'd had much contact with thus far was Wazak, and when I looked at him, desire for sex was absolutely the very last thing on my mind, and I doubted that he felt any desire for me, either. They were too different from humans— unlike the Zetithians, who were quite similar, save for a few superficial differences.
And the tigers certainly were, to use their own description, enticing! And that line about giving me joy unlike any I had ever known—was that a standard line which had been used on females of their species down through the ages, or had Tychar come up with it himself? Trag hadn't said it word for word, but even though he hadn't been raised on Zetith, he'd said something similar, like he knew something I didn't. I couldn't imagine how much different sex could be with them as opposed to another human, but I had an idea that my curiosity might get the better of me at some point—and this was aside from the fact that they were both irresistible. I will admit here that any sexual relations I'd ever had before had usually not come about as the result of my own instigation, nor had the episodes been frequent or particularly pleasant. I had an idea that with Tychar, it would at least be memorable.
Still, the ethics of my current situation were troubling to me. I was so strongly attracted to him, but I wasn't sure just what it would take to forget my reservations and get me to take the plunge.
If I spent enough time on Darconia, I knew that I would become accustomed to the climate, as well as its inhabitants—Tychar and Trag, included. It was only natural that I'd be curious, if not intrigued by them. It was simply the novelty of having sex with someone different—and sex with an alien was just about as different as you could get—which was probably why Scalia did it. It wasn't love and perhaps not even lust. Just curiosity.
I wasn't quite so jaded—at least, not yet—because I was still holding out for love, and while Tychar claimed to be looking for love, Trag only seemed attracted to me because of my scent. Of course, what it all boiled down to was that they were both highly sexual beings who hadn't gotten any in the past twenty years. I couldn't say that for myself, but I had gone my entire life without a grand passion. It could have been that I simply didn't have it in me to ever let myself experience such things, but when I played a Mozart concerto, I got an inkling of the way it was supposed to feel, and I knew that I never had.
Giving Zealon a few more instructions, I left her briefly and then looked in on Tychar, who was now awake and in the process of ma
king my bed—yet another thing no man had ever done for me. A discordant note from the other room provided the likely reason that he wasn't able to sleep, but I also noticed that he was humming the scale and grimacing whenever she missed a note. Obviously, he was no stranger to music, which made me wonder about the music they might have had on his own world. How many songs, how much history, how many souls would be lost with the destruction of an entire planet? Every culture had its own unique music. When I thought of the hundreds of musical pieces that I had ever played, and the multitude of others that I had only heard, I felt an overwhelming sadness for all of those songs of Zetith— love songs, ballads, symphonies, silly little children's ditties, raunchy drinking songs, reverent anthems, even funeral dirges—all that might have been lost, never to be heard again. The loss of the people, themselves, was tragic enough, but their entire culture—all that they had learned, had worked for, had lived and died for—was lost as well, and it saddened me beyond belief.
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