She grinned and blotted the moisture off her face. “It comes in handy every now and then. Com Katrina and let’s go have some fun.”
I sighed. But hey, a gal lives only once. Like Candy said, how much trouble could the desperately needed wombs for Kalquor get into?
Ah, famous last words.
Katrina had no problem babysitting Anrel for longer than we’d planned. “It will keep me busy since I can’t chase cocks on the station,” she sighed.
“Of all times to take yourself off the market,” I teased. “You would lose your mind over those shorts they wear to train in.”
“Fun to look at, but I’ve got what I want. I don’t want anyone’s business other than my own clan’s these days.”
“Are you sure?” Candy prodded. “I’d swear I’m hearing ‘poor me’ in your tone.”
Katrina shook her head with a placid smile. “I’m just bored. With my clan on duty all day, I have nothing to do. Anrel will be a wonderful distraction.”
With the baby in good hands, Candy and I set off to see if we could find the object of my friend’s desire. Stepping onto the station’s main concourse, I was immediately treated to a squad running by. I wondered how much of my quarters Oses and I could cover if the urge hit me again.
“Let’s get some chow and hopefully dessert,” Candy said after having a good look around the area. Her would-be lover was apparently nowhere in sight.
I followed her towards the hall where food was served. We weren’t the only two Earther gals to decide to munch with the troops. Quite a few of my shipmates dotted the tables with their presences, happily attended by crowds of men.
Candy and I were instantly hailed as we made our way to the food dispensers. This was the place to be popular.
“Come sit with us, Mataras!”
“We’re good company here.”
“I’d kill to hear a woman’s voice. Come talk to me!”
I offered noncommittal smiles until I was able to turn my back to the invitations by concentrating on the food dispensers. Meanwhile, Candy ignored all the calls, her gaze sweeping over the diners.
I grabbed a tray and pursed my lips at the offerings. My ability to speak Kalquorian was much better than reading the alien words. Nevertheless, I had learned some basics, like the names for various Kalquorian foods. Soft-cooked swala eggs were a safe bet, as were roasted ronka strips. I didn’t know what ‘teb’ was, but I decided to give it a try. I mused over the lightly browned round slices of what had to be a vegetable and gave it a nibble. It turned out to be pretty good ... the flavor was kind of a cross between roasted sweet potato and squash. I added a few more slices, squirted a bit of wedi sauce on them, and checked on Candy.
She’d put stuff on her tray with little note of what she’d gotten to eat. She was still looking over the large dining room, more interested in finding her alien Romeo than breakfast. I shook my head.
“Hey goofus, you put grul on your plate. You’ll cause pandemonium when you start screaming because you’ve burnt your mouth all to hell.”
Her eyes widened, but not because she realized what she’d almost done to herself. “There he is, Shalia! There he is!”
I turned to look in the direction she stared, but she gave me a shove. “Don’t stare! He’ll see you.”
“Candy, I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be looking at. Jeez, you’re acting like a thirteen-year-old with her first crush. This isn’t middle school.”
She turned her back and dumped a pile of bywes on her tray. Sweet prophets, she was completely out of her head over this Nobek apparently. No one with tastebuds likes bywes.
“Okay, we’ll sit near him and I’ll see if I can catch his eye,” she whispered to me.
“For heaven’s sake, Candy, let’s just sit with him. All these guys are welcoming us with open arms.”
“He’s different. Come on.”
I shook my head and followed my friend. I couldn’t get over her juvenile reaction to whoever this guy was.
She picked a table and I started to sit across from her. She hissed impatiently at me. “No, sit next to me. You can’t see him over there.”
“Fine.” I just wanted to eat at that point. My stomach was growling and Candy’s lovesick act got on my nerves.
I sat where I was told and dug in. Candy stirred her food in nervous circles and peeked through the blond curls that fell over her eyes. “Oh my gosh, I shouldn’t have sat here. He’s right in front of me.”
I swallowed a mouthful of creamy egg and looked at the next table to finally get a look at what Candy was all agog about.
Well, hello Handsome. Yes, he was rather spectacular. While I didn’t think I’d have gone all starry-eyed with instant love, I could see why Candy had.
Mr. Hot Nobek Trainer’s black hair was parted on the side so that it swept fetchingly over one shoulder. He had nice symmetrical brows with natural arches women tweeze themselves senseless to get. His eyes were slightly hooded without being too heavy – bedroom eyes, some might have deemed them. His lips were nicely shaped and just the right size ... full without being girlish. His chin was strong and his jaw was square. The only features on his face that weren’t absolute perfection were his nose and a dark, thin scar on his cheek. The nose had apparently been broken a time or two, it’s otherwise nice structure slightly bent with a bump close to the bridge. Neither flaw detracted from his looks ... they took him from boring movie star perfection to melt-the-panties hero. The day’s growth of beard made him even more virile.
Either he was naked or wearing those ridiculous-but-wonderful workout shorts, because it was all nude torso from the mid abdomen up. Everything below was hidden by table. More beautiful symmetry flowed from shoulders to chest to what I could see of his stomach. That body should have been counted among the deadly sins. The few scars I could see needed someone to run her tongue over them. Good night, what a specimen.
As I watched, he tossed a wayward lock of hair from his face with a careless jerk of his head that seemed almost choreographed to make him even more appealing. Sheesh. Someone put this guy in a museum behind velvet ropes. He was priceless.
I shook my head, trying to clear my head of the worship it wanted to give. Yep, he was an outstanding piece o’ man all right. Eye candy for days. The five women surrounding him and chattering like magpies in attempts to own his attention would have agreed.
I glanced at Candy to see her still watching him from behind her concealing curtain of hair. Her blue eyes were wide and wondering. The poor girl was head-over-heels infatuated with the Kalquorian icon.
“Too perfect,” I whispered. “I bet he leaves toenail clippings all over the floor.”
“I can live with that,” she responded. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
He was, but I had more than my share of delicious men to enjoy now and contemplate enjoying in the future. Men with substance. I was betting someone like this guy had rocks in his head. “Sure. Absolutely gorgeous. You two would make a stunning pair.”
“You think so?” Candy sighed. “I wonder what his name is.”
“Ask him.”
She stopped peeking at Mr. Wonderful to give me a startled look. “In front of the others? He’s already got all those women paying him attention. He probably wouldn’t even look at me.” Her expression went glum, as if she’d actually been rejected by the Nobek.
Sweet prophets. It really was like middle school. My intelligent, self-assured friend had lost her marbles over a guy who probably wasn’t worth twenty Candys.
Torn between laughter and dismay, I concentrated on finishing my breakfast. Lovesick, Candy didn’t touch a bite. Considering what was on her plate, that was for the best.
I cleared both our trays when I finished and went back to the table where she suffered in silence, still watching Mr. Wonderful and his adoring fan club. As I reached Candy, the object of her affections rose from his seat. Yep, shorty shorts. Impressive crotch bulge for days.
He smiled at the cho
rus of disappointed voices as the women realized he was getting ready to leave. He offered them a slight bow.
He spoke to his adoring public. Darn if the gorgeous bastard didn’t have a perfectly deep and resonating voice to go along with the rest of the package. “Mataras, thank you so much for honoring me with your company during my meal. It has been a pleasure.”
Then he looked straight at Candy. She’d forgotten to secretly worship him from the cover of her hair, staring right at him as he faced her. His stunning smile widened.
“The name is Nobek Stidmun. I’d not only look at you if you spoke to me; I’d look at you all day if given the chance.”
With that he bowed to Candy, picked up his tray, and left. I would have watched that finely chiseled ass walk away if I hadn’t been so interested in Candy’s reaction.
Her mouth hung open in comic surprise. She blinked slowly as if in a trance. Then she shook her head a little, blinked harder, and woke up.
“Well, there you go,” I said. “The mighty Nobek has spoken. You should wait around for lunch and sit with him—”
“Fuck that,” Candy said, jumping up as if she’d been hit by an electrical shock. She grabbed my hand and headed for the door Stidmun was walking out of. “Come on, Shalia! Stop dragging your feet!”
“For heaven’s sake,” I groaned as I trotted to keep up with her. “You are acting like a nutcase.”
She could have cared less that I found her actions ridiculous. Candy was on a mission to talk to Nobek Stidmun. Or maybe it should have been Nobek ‘Stud Man’. Ha.
We hurried after the quick-moving trainer across the promenade.
Stidmun veered off into a corridor. A few seconds later, we veered too. There was no sign of Candy’s quarry, just a closed-off door several yards down the hall. It had a sign on it in big, bold Kalquorian letters that read ‘Proper Credentials of Rank or Training Status Required’. In other words, authorized personnel only.
“If he went through those doors, you’re out of luck,” I told Candy as we headed down the corridor and looked in the training rooms we passed. Two had the sweatiest Nobeks I’d ever seen doing exercises while older Nobeks screamed at them. It reminded me of training with Resan. There was no sign of Stud Man.
Candy shot me a grin that promised trouble. “No I’m not. I can’t read Kalquorian and neither can you. We’re just two innocent Mataras taking a little tour. No harm.”
I was reminded that we would probably not get in trouble. Being a mom had woken some sense of responsibility in me however. I couldn’t help but point out, “Betra went over the signs that tell us where we can and cannot go. Red signs mean ‘no’. That is a red sign.”
We passed the last open doors before reaching the end of the line. The rooms within were empty. Candy turned to me with a rogue’s smile. “This is where I went yesterday to spy on Nobek Stidmun. I didn’t get caught then. If you’ll stop being such an old granny, we won’t get caught this time either.”
“All this crazy over a pretty face,” I said, shaking my head. “With all the men we have access to on the ship ... with all the men waiting for you on Kalquor ... why this one?”
Candy looked perplexed. “I don’t know. I looked at him yesterday and it was like something in my chest exploded. I really thought if I saw him again, I’d see something that would make me say, ‘Oh I built him up to be much more than I thought. He’s not so amazing after all.’ But I can’t say that, Shalia. Seeing him hit me just as hard a few minutes ago as it did the first time.”
She was the most ridiculous I’d ever seen anyone, but I could tell Candy wasn’t doing this for a lark. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, it had happened to my friend. She was completely gone over Nobek Stud Man.
I sighed. “What the hell. We are among Kalquorians. It’s not like they’ll put us in a prison camp or anything if we get caught.”
Candy muffled a happy squeal behind the hand she clapped to her mouth. Then she said, “Get down low. This is the cool vid-simulation room I told you about. If it’s set up like it was yesterday, there will be bushes and trees hiding us from sight when we go in.”
“Won’t they see the door open?”
“No, the simulation shows nothing of the real room as far as I can tell. Hands and knees, Shalia.”
I crouched down next to her, casting a look over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching us go where we shouldn’t. The coast was clear as we crept towards the door.
It opened silently, allowing us entrance. My mouth dropped open.
Candy was right. It was easily the best, most realistic vid-sim I’d ever encountered. The corridor’s flat gray floor ended right at the doorway, giving way to a forest with straight, slim trees and pink foliage that hugged the ground. We crawled in and I turned to see that indeed there was no sign of the doorway we’d come through. Or had the silent door closed already?
“Pay attention to our location,” Candy whispered. “We don’t want to get lost in here.”
I listened to the alien calls of animals I couldn’t name as I noted my surroundings. Candy pulled a blue ribbon out of her pocket and placed it so it looped on the pink leaf-strewn ground behind us. “This will tell us where the door is,” she said. “Move in the direction that the top of the loop points and you’ll walk right out.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You were planning to come back in here all along, weren’t you?”
She shrugged, but she had that up-to-no-good grin on her face again. “I knew it was a distinct possibility.”
I decided dear, adorable Candy might need to have her neck wrung later. Oh that’s right; I owe her that still.
I reached my hand out to the first bush in front of me, its bluish branches heavily festooned with rosy pink leaves. I felt a pulse of sensation against my fingers. I pushed harder. Definite resistance.
“Cool, huh?” Candy whispered. “You can’t pass through the objects even though they’re vid. The only way it could be better is if they felt like the real thing.”
“Impressive,” I agreed. “You can’t just walk through the objects you see. You have to go around or over them.”
All at once howls like wild, rabid animals filled the air. I felt every hair on my head stand at attention. I had the sudden need to get the hell out of that faux forest.
“What the fuck?” I asked, starting to back in the direction of the door’s last known location.
“The trainees. They must have started the exercise,” Candy whispered. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get a look at Stidmun.”
I wanted more to find a lavatory, especially when more of those terrifying howls floated our way. “Those were men? They sure as hell didn’t sound like it!”
“I love an animalistic Nobek,” Candy breathed. Her expression was wilder than I’d ever seen. The woman needs a keeper, that’s for damned sure.
“I don’t know about this, Candy,” I started to say, but she was already crawling through the brush, heading deeper into the woods.
I stayed put, torn about what I should do. Logic said that we wouldn’t find real trouble, not when we were the wombs of Kalquor’s future, ha-ha. But my every instinct was on high alert after hearing those howls, telling me to get out right now before the beasts who made such noises found me. A primitive part of me knew the difference between predator and prey and which side of the equation I fell on. But if my guts were right, how could I leave Candy alone out there?
My friend’s head popped up on the other side of a pink bush. I marveled that she’d managed to wander some distance already. When Candy’s got a purpose, she plunges headfirst into it. She gestured frantically for me to join her.
Well, the wild Nobeks hadn’t done their howling in the last couple of minutes. Maybe I was being silly. I mean, I’d gone warrior woman all over those Tragooms not so long ago and they were out to kill. Kalquorians were our protectors. I had nothing to fear from them.
Wishing I felt the spirit of adventure more than the
idea Candy and I were being idiots, I hurried to my friend, hunched in an effort to make myself as small and invisible as possible. I crowded close to her as if to hide. I love Candy to the end and would do anything for her, but some selfish bit of me saw her as a human shield. We had a tree to our back and bushes in front and to one side of us. It would have been a cozy spot if my heart hadn’t been trying to fly up my throat and out of my mouth.
“Peek just over on the other side of those bushes,” she whispered, her eyes glowing with excitement. “You’re going to love this.”
I slowly raised my head, peering in the direction she indicated. I looked out on a clearing that was an almost perfect circle of fluorescent green grass. And in the middle of that glade glowing under two suns...
Shalia's Diary #8 Page 3