Beyond the Next Star

by Melody Johnson

  She lifted her forearms up to protect her face and braced herself for the impact of his knuckles. The knuckles were always the worst, but if they struck her shoulder or back, they wouldn’t break skin. She would bruise like ripe fruit and be tender for days, but that was better than a bloody nose. She curled in tighter.

  The room was silent. Torek’s knuckles didn’t strike. Her tensed muscles began to shake, and eventually, her lungs heaved. She’d been holding her breath.

  She blew out slowly, terrified somehow of breaking the silence. She breathed in, just as slowly. Just as silent.

  Still no knuckles.

  She shifted her head an inch, just enough so that one eye could see over the shield of her arms.

  Torek was staring at her, his hand no longer raised. He was calm, actually, and Delaney realized upon reflection that he had never not been calm. He’d been about to strike her, of that she was certain, but not in anger.

  Being the unwavering focus of his regard was unnerving, but Delaney’s nerves had been tempered by the knuckles of many men. She slowly uncurled herself, sat upright on the floor, and waited.

  The scar that bisected his right brow, eyelid, and upper cheek was thick, pink, and raised. It might have been more prominent on a human face because his fur helped to blend its edges, but the icy blue of his iris, in contrast to his other eye and all that brown fur, was spellbinding—the flame that drew a moth to its unwitting death. Delaney was frightened, but considering the pure terror she’d experienced in other facets of her life, not all of them on Lorien, she wasn’t as frightened as she should have been. A sharp look, no matter how penetrating—and Torek’s look was soul-deep—was nothing compared to the physical act of actual, unwanted penetration.

  She met his gaze, both the doe brown and icy blue equally, and tried not to shiver.

  Torek narrowed those eyes and leaned forward slightly. He was back to stroking his long chin hair. A moment later, he broke eye contact. He retreated and waved his hand over the digital edition of her care manual on his bedside table. The device lit up, he pressed his thumb pad to the screen, and the projection of her manual sprang into the air before him. He swiped his hand through the projection, flipping to the back of the book, and ran the pointy claw on the tip of his forefinger down a column in the index.

  His finger paused midair.

  Delaney tried to read the word he was pointing at, but the projection was reversed for her. Before she could wrestle through the symbols backward, he’d already swiped to a different page. She swallowed her frustration before he noticed, not that he was paying attention to her anymore. His eyes shifted left to right, left to right as he read.

  His eyes stilled. The slash of his mouth flattened. He glanced aside to her, then back to the page projection and aside once more to settle on Delaney. He let loose a short puff of air through his muzzle, less grunt than sigh, and swiped a hand straight through the page. The page stopped projecting but remained displayed on screen.

  Torek knelt down and retrieved the leash from where he’d stashed it next to her bedding. “Come on, then, if—”

  Delaney stood at the word come and walked to him.

  He stared at her, and his already thin lips compressed into a wrinkled line.

  As he fastened the leash to the loop on her collar, Delaney peered askance at the glowing manual.

  Halfway down, she read:

  Due to their highly sensitive constitutions, corporal punishment is typically ineffective. Obedience can be easily attained and maintained through positive reinforcement, including but not limited to praise, petting, and treats.

  Her stomach churned with the soup of his positive reinforcement. She should have insisted on always ineffective.

  Nine

  In Delaney’s extensive experience of terror, such a high-octane emotion isn’t sustainable over prolonged periods. The mind and body become accustomed to the feeling, so that the circumstances that once seemed terrifying are simply the new normal. Even living as an animal companion to King Sasquatch on an alien ice planet. Especially to King Sasquatch. Delaney was alone in Torek’s bed, a circumstance that should have reduced her to a quivering, panicking mess, but after four weeks of being his animal companion, of sharing not only his bed but his days as well, she could wake up not just calm, but downright bored.

  Torek was the most monotonous person she’d ever lived with, even considering the nightmares and panic attacks. Granted, that wasn’t saying much; the colorful characters she’d previously had the misfortune to live with had set a high bar for drama. But even his books were boring. Delaney shook her head at the title she’d stolen from his nightstand while he was still away doing whatever it was he did every morning: Mineral Properties and Soil Something: Let Your Crops Do the Work.

  Dirt. He was reading a book on dirt.

  And now, so was she.

  But if anything was more mind-numbing than a book on dirt, it was the sameness of their days. Torek’s schedule ran like clockwork. Literally, he set his schedule to a timer on his wrist, and for the past four weeks, that schedule never deviated.

  He woke two hours before dawn, used the bathroom for ten minutes, left for one hour and twenty minutes, and returned a stinky, sweaty mess. He bathed, and as the first sun crested the horizon, they ate breakfast in his private dining nook overlooking the city. Which, admittedly, was the perfect place to eat breakfast. The view was breathtaking.

  Torek ate a thick, soupy gruel every morning—possibly their version of cream of wheat, assuming Lorien’s climate could sustain agriculture like grain—and Delaney enjoyed a rotation of three breakfast meals precisely as outlined in her owner’s manual: one egg (yark, in Lori) and a piece of toast (faenil, whether it was toasted or not) or a bowl of cereal (gigok) with chilled milk (paellek, pronounced with that hard, growly k at the end that Delaney couldn’t mimic with her human vocal cords to save her life) or a thicker slice of faenil with what in all honesty she couldn’t even pretend was jelly (por-atter) smeared on it.

  Yarks weren’t native to Lorien. They weren’t laid by chickens either, but Keil had insisted that they originated from a bird—not say, an elephant—despite their massive size. And the gigok wasn’t really cold cereal any more than the faenil was actually bread—definitely produced from some form of meal or corn, though. As much as Delaney tried to pretend that what she was eating was familiar, she was afraid that she’d forgotten what real food tasted like long before ever arriving on Lorien.

  She still daydreamed about coffee and cigarettes and Mr. Todd’s baked pasta, the only good he’d ever contributed to humanity, even if she couldn’t remember its exact taste. She’d loved those things even when she’d hated her life, so they must have been fantastic. Torek treated her better than Mr. Todd, but if only she could go back, she’d take the pasta and run.

  Following her manual-approved breakfast, Torek took Delaney on what she’d dubbed his rounds—where he checked in on, spoke to, nodded his approval at, and guided everyone. His on-duty military staff in the circular computer room was the first group honored with his presence. He greeted them, evaluated their needs, listened to their questions, and steered them toward the answers. He stopped to chat with the off-duty military personnel as he passed them as well, never mind that he was supposed to be off duty too, or so she’d assumed from his sessions with Shemara Kore’Onik.

  Then on to his kitchen and cleaning staff for an hour, reviewing the week’s menu and their supplies, listing any corrective actions, and giving terse but genuine words of appreciation. After their first two visits, Delaney learned to gird her loins at those meetings: one of the assistant chefs took pride in sneaking her food, which would have been welcome if she then didn’t have a mouthful of treats when the head chef decided to vigorously rub her belly in a manner that couldn’t technically be deemed petting. More a seismic encounter. He’d decidedly not read the “How to Best Pet” chapter of her manual.

  Next, a meeting with department leads. Since Tor
ek had already spoken to their staff, he often knew their department better than they did, which would have been embarrassing except that he seemed to know everything.

  They ate lunch in his nook, and then Torek dedicated time to her training. Their sessions never lasted as long as that first day—she stopped taking commands long before her gag reflex kicked in—but he was diligent. He was effusive in his praise when she performed well and equally frustrated and baffled when she stopped taking his commands, but he never moved to strike her again. He couldn’t seem to reconcile why she regressed toward the end of every session, but it wasn’t as if she could enlighten him. So she performed like a well-trained golden retriever until she’d had enough, and then she ignored him. She must have been making some semblance of progress in his estimation, however, because on the third week of rounds, he trusted her enough to forego leashing her. She came, sat, and stayed on command, and, according to Torek and everyone in his castle, she was brilliant.

  Following their training session, he’d bundle Delaney in too many and yet not nearly enough blankets, stuff her like a sausage into a waterproof jumpsuit, and off they’d go outside to round on the common folk for the remainder of the afternoon.

  How old was Yolanai now? Two kair certainly did go by in a blink. Jornek still hasn’t fixed the piping on your plasma heater? Please pass along my condolences to Coralai. Yes, Reshna is a very good girl, aren’t you, little one? Say hello to Koreel.

  Koreel was another animal companion, a furry rodent the size of a toaster with the intellect and loyalty of a Labrador. She promptly gave Delaney her back and swatted her long, beautiful tail across Delaney’s face. Delaney swatted back, dodging the tail, and everyone laughed, proclaiming what good friends they were. This was followed by head pats and more treats, sans the seismic belly rub.

  For hours.

  His people talked much more than he did. Encouraged by his terse but interested prompts and avid attention, they gushed—in explicit, fascinating detail—every personal problem in their lives. And it was no wonder; by the following week, their problems had either been resolved or would be addressed in a formal hearing Torek referred to as a bandwey. Her definition was based solely on the context of their conversations, so a bandwey could be an execution, for all she knew. But considering the townsfolk’s excitement upon hearing that they’d been given one, she rather doubted it.

  They ate dinner in his nook, watched programs on his teleprojector for an hour before going to bed, and woke two hours later to him growling and thrashing the bedcovers to ribbons. Even his nightmares occurred on schedule! He’d stare at the ceiling, rub her head, her neck, her back, and cuddle until morning. By the second week, she didn’t even bother starting on her cot, and sometimes after the cuddling, he’d fall back to sleep too. But not usually.

  And they’d repeat that clockwork schedule for eight days.

  On the ninth day, instead of doing rounds, Torek took Delaney back to visit their respective doctors—the vet for her and the surgeon and psychologist for him. His appointments seemed nearly as terrible for him as her appointment was for her. Oddly, hers was more tolerable knowing that he was suffering too, and twice as much with his two appointments to her one. Lorienok culture was obsessed with well visits; the same people shared their waiting room week after week. Keil had warned her that newly harvested animal companions and their health were vigilantly monitored for at least two kair, but being told something and actually living it were entirely different concepts. Two kair on Lorien were the equivalent of two and a half years on Earth. A hundred and some more appointments loomed in her future.

  Delaney let the boring dirt book fall over her face and groaned.

  On appointment days, instead of traveling back to the Onik estate for lunch in his nook, they ate at Grattao between his doctor appointments. Despite there being dozens of other restaurants in Onik, Torek chose Grattao every time. And despite there being a wide variety of food on Grattao’s menu, Torek ordered rainol e lokks, essentially rice and red beans with sausage, but without technically the rice or the beans. It had that look, if not the flavor. And it didn’t actually have the sausage either, but that cylindrical meat did have a kick to it.

  Rainol e lokks was the same meal he ate at home the other eight days of the week. And, just like at home, he split everything unevenly and gave Delaney a third of his plate, which was still too much. Considering the unfathomable amount of calories that Torek consumed, it was no wonder he seemed unable to believe the portion sizes outlined in her care manual. She’d already gained five pounds, which Torek seemed to take great pride in.

  And then, following their especially eventful day nine, their schedule circled back to day one.

  Oh, she missed talking. She missed understanding language so fluently, it didn’t need to be translated. She missed driving and doing things on her own without following in someone’s shadow. She missed cooking, even if she didn’t miss the cleanup, and choosing her own food at restaurants. Choosing to have an evening out instead of staying in: seeing a movie, visiting the beach, shopping. Making her own schedule. Not having a schedule!

  The uniformity of their days made reading the book seem less risky than it really was. Had she not been distracted, appeasing her boredom, she wouldn’t have lost track of time. She would have visited the bathroom, realized that she had her period, and at least attempted to hide it. Lorok didn’t have periods. Their uteri conveniently absorbed their egg and excess lining, keeping everything nice and tidy and concealed on the inside, just like their male counterparts. But instead of taking preventative measures, Delaney was still lounging on his bed, reading, when Torek entered the room.

  She froze, her eyes firmly rooted in the page as he stood in the doorway, staring at her.

  Fuck.

  Golden retrievers didn’t know how to read. They didn’t want to read because they weren’t bored to death by the prospect of living the same life nine days a week every week for the rest of their lives.

  What might a golden retriever do with a book?

  She tore out a page and popped it into her mouth.

  Torek lunged forward and squeezed her chin, forcing her mouth open.

  “No, Reshna! Bad girl! Spit that out before you choke!”

  He forced a salty, furry finger between her teeth before she could spit and removed the crumpled page from her mouth himself. She gagged.

  “Oh no. Not here, you don’t.” He flung the fur blankets off her, both the bedding and her makeshift clothing, and gripped her bicep. “You’ve been a—” He stared, his mouth hanging open midsentence.

  Delaney looked down at the focus of his shocked gaze and stared herself. She’d forgotten. After the equal parts relief and terror of leaving that cage four weeks ago, the trauma of that first doctor’s appointment, and then the distraction of her utter boredom—the silent, stupid abyss of her dismal future—she’d forgotten the relevance of the passing days and finally consuming a nutritious diet: her resulting period.

  “It’s all right, little one.” Torek’s tone, clipped and frustrated just a moment before, was now sickly sweet.

  He released her arm and gripped her thighs under the knees, one in each hand, to lift and spread her legs wide.

  She squeaked, an animal reaction as much as a human one, thank God—and struggled. She slapped at his head and hands and kicked his back with her heels, but she may as well have been struggling against a solid-stone statue for all that he moved.

  His eyes scanned each leg from knee to ass, stuttering on the rows of thin, parallel scars high on her inner right thigh. He hesitated even longer on the mess of crisscrossing scars on her left thigh, but eventually, inevitably, his gaze strayed from the scars to focus on the source of her bleeding. He gripped both ankles behind his head with his left hand, kept her knees spread wide with both elbows, and reached to touch her with his right hand.

  She bucked, the words she was desperate to scream—no, stop, please, don’t—trapped behind her clenc
hed teeth. She whined high and loud, struggling with herself as ardently as she struggled against him.

  Torek viurred. “Please, little Reshna. Be still. My claws are sharp.”

  She froze. Sweet Jesus, she hadn’t even thought of his claws.

  His finger dipped inside her.

  She bit her lip. Not again.

  But it wasn’t, not quite. The sick beating of her heart hurt more than the pressure between her thighs. Nothing stabbed or bled. Nothing tore. The pointed tip of his claw grazed as lightly as his finger, just one, probing slowly, carefully, and not deeply.

  He is not Kane Todd. He is not Kane Todd. Not everyone is Kane Todd, she reminded herself with every scraping, frantic breath.

  His finger withdrew. He froze, staring for several moments at the clotted blood matting his fur.

  He released her suddenly, stood, and stumbled from the room.

  She gasped in a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled and inhaled again, over and over until she could breathe without sobbing. Rolling onto quaking knees, she stretched across the bedding toward his bedside table to reach for the thin tablet where the hologram version of her manual was stored. He didn’t understand what was happening, and since she couldn’t tell him herself, her manual would have to speak for her.

  She pressed the code she’d watched him use a dozen times every day to access files.

  “Access denied.”

  Shit. She tossed aside the tablet and jammed her fingers through her knotted hair.

  Footsteps pounded toward the room from the hallway.

  She lunged for the bookshelf, skimming the titles. He hardly ever read from the print edition. Its size wasn’t practical, but maybe—ah ha! She snatched the manual from the shelf and paged through it—past the chapters on temperature tolerance, on the necessity of heating and proper protective coverings, on her diet and warnings about her peanut allergy. There! She splayed it open to chapter six, section four on the human reproductive system, and laid it open on his bedside table. Not subtle, but she didn’t need subtle at the moment. She needed effective.