by Alyx X
He glanced down. “You may begin,” he said. “Show my friend what I expect.”
A small, stubby cock barely protruded from the rolls of gelatinous flesh at his waist, but as the woman in front of him ran her palm across it and teased it with her fingers, it grew thicker and longer, and I choked against the nausea closing my throat. Watching my father’s oldest client fuck a room full of alien women was not something I had ever thought I’d do. Yet here I was. Desperate times...
“Yes, that’s right.” He grunted and pushed forward as the woman in front of him opened her mouth. “Open nice and wide,” he coached her.
Her lips closed around him, and he groaned in pleasure. “Now, pay close attention,” he said, seemingly for my benefit, before he broke off into a series of harsh pants. “She’s very talented with her tongue,” he gurgled.
I couldn’t watch anymore. My stomach flipped again, and I heaved as I watched him thrusting, his eyes closed, his lips spread wide in almost a parody of pleasure.
I hit the button to skip to the end of the vid, and was rewarded with another close-up of Satyan, his face a more vibrant shade than usual and shining with sweat. He punctuated his next words with additional trembling and moans—enough for me to guess the action I could no longer see continued beneath the level of the camera. “And, Lyx, if you fail, I’ll make good on my promise. I’ll ruin you and take your tail as a prize.” He glanced up briefly. “A Tryonian tail would adorn the wall in this room very nicely. Such a well-known symbol of fertility. It wouldn’t fail to inspire my females, I’m sure.”
The vid abruptly cut off, and I shuddered. It had almost seemed like he might prefer my tail to the female.
That wasn’t a viable option at all. I really had no other choice but to train the female in the cargo hold. The female whose name I hadn’t even learned because it was easier that way. It kept her as an object.
I glanced at the beer in my hand. It was nearly finished, and I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to do what I had to do. I knew now that it wasn’t enough to simply take the human to Satyan, not anymore. He’d told me what he wanted, even provided me with a step-by-step guide. I couldn’t claim ignorance, and the price for failing him was steep.
I released my tail from my pants almost like I was checking it was still there, and I automatically pulled the end around to my nose, inhaling deeply as I searched for her scent. Then I tasted my skin again, and a rush of heat coursed through me. I had to finish this. I could finish this. I chose to ignore my excitement. Fucking this human was for training. For my survival.
Once and done. I chuckled. I’d said that before and still failed, but maybe that last time I didn’t have alcohol on my side. I looked at my beer again. Drunk was the only way forward.
I reached farther back into my drawer, way the hell in the shadows, and clutched the familiar shape of a bottleneck I only dragged out when my sole objective was to get well and truly wasted. This was such an occasion, and I smiled as I thought of the liquid courage the drink was going to give me.
It felt like only two sips later, but there were sips and there were glugs, and there was also just plain chugging. However the alcohol got into me, it did the job. I could handle anything now. Plugging a black hole, rerouting a comet, fucking a human. I could probably even watch the entirety of Satyan’s vid. But my stomach rolled at just the thought, so maybe that was still too far.
I stood and waited for the room to stop spinning before I focused on the door. I took the long way there, weaving my path left and right as I took in the scenery of the bridge, including a close-up of the metal wall for no apparent reason. My inebriated mind had strange ideas about what was important right now. I was pleased to note everything on my ship seemed to be fine.
I staggered to the hold. Returning here had something to do with my prisoner, but I couldn’t grab hold of the thought as it hid in my fuzzy mind. It didn’t matter. Everything was in soft focus, and my purpose would return when I saw her.
The hold tilted as I stumbled in, and the door slammed against the wall as I thrust it open.
She stirred; her movements sluggish as I watched two of her from behind my half-closed eyelids.
“Back so soon?” Her voice was slow and syrupy. “Maybe you want another bite?” She clacked her little teeth together and laughed.
“Yeesh.” Shit, talking wasn’t usually so difficult. And, wait what? A bite? “Uh, nope. Yeah. No bite. Mouth and throat… but no teeth.”
“Wait.” She looked directly at me, even though two of her still danced in my vision, merging and separating like some sort of beautiful mirage. Then she sniffed, drawing in the stale hold air. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Uh, nope.” I shook my head and wobbled a little. “It takes a long time to get something this big drunk.” I jabbed at my chest.
“Huh.” She shrugged. “I’ve seen bigger.”
“I doubt that.” I tried to lean against the wall in fake confidence, but the motion set me off balance and I wobbled. “Oooop.”
She laughed again, the sound arousing despite the fact I was the source of her amusement.
“I’ve come to show you how to behave.” I stood tall and folded my arms as my tail flicked around my legs. “Take your clothes off. Now.”
“Your eyesight okay? Your memory?” I’m already ass-naked over here,” she clarified.
I laughed, the sound booming off the walls. “I knew that, okay? I knew. I was just making sure you knew. Yeah. Looks like you knew. Did you know?” She quirked her head at me, still amused at my strange behavior.
Okay, so for this to work she had to be higher. Her mouth was too far down her body. I walked closer and tried to work out how to make her mouth high again. My tail wrapped around her leg as if it knew what to do when I didn’t, pulling her up. I took a closer look at her and… Oh, nipples. Four of them. That was new. Well, definitely one of them needed tweaking. I leaned closer and reached for the lush brown flesh but somehow, I missed and swiped the air.
“Steady.” She chuckled at me again, but I didn’t care.
I smoothed my hand across the front of my pants, and my cock stirred. My tail slacked from around her and pulsed, too. I pushed my pants down and took my cock into my hand. “Open up.”
“Really?” She shook her head. “I mean, really? You had to drink yourself to this point? Well, fuck. Some girls have all the luck, I guess.” Her chains creaked as she swung on them. “Let me get this straight. There’s a list for situations like this, some questions I need to ask.” She paused. “Are you ready?”
I nodded, my dick still in my hand.
“Number one. Do you prefer men?”
“Hell no.” I about shook my head off. I mean, good for some, but not for me.
“Number two, then. Have you never been with a girl?”
I didn’t speak. I’d already answered that earlier, I thought.
She tutted. “Number three, then. Am I just that repugnant and gross to you? So disgusting that you needed to get mind-rippingly drunk just to force yourself to fuck me? I know you need to ‘train me’ for whatever reason, I just didn’t think you needed to check out mentally for the entire process.”
“No…no…” Fuck, I needed to can the honesty. My special brew was doing the talking. “I find you beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” I should have knocked myself out before I started talking again.
She paused. “You think I’m beautiful?”
This time, I was smart and kept my mouth shut while I just nodded like a dumb shit, instead. My cock didn’t know what to do—hard or soft, stop or go—so I just held it, the weight comforting in my hand.
“And this is what you do to all the things you find beautiful? Lock them up, transport them?” She sounded genuinely curious, but my mind yelled at me to stay quiet. My mouth couldn’t be trusted to say the right words.
“Some of them.” It just slipped out as I remembered all the things we’d scavenged over the years. Usually I’d
begged to keep something beautiful, a treasure I’d found, from every job, but the answer had always been no. We made our money selling those treasures. They didn’t belong to me. I couldn’t keep them. Just like I couldn’t keep this human, no matter how badly I wanted to.
“It’s like you took a truth serum,” she murmured. “Remind me never to drink any alcohol you have stashed away on here.” The chains rattled as she pulled forward. “What’s your name?”
“Lyx.” That was an easy one and hardly a secret.
“Okay. I’m Piper. I’d say, ‘pleased to meet you,’ but under the circumstances I think you’re more pleased than I am.”
Piper. Piper, Piper, Piper. What a nice sound it made.
“Where are you from?” This woman was relentless.
I fucking answered the question anyway. It was so easy to get caught up in my memories of my planet. “Tryon. It was beautiful. Really beautiful. Dead now. Deader than your planet, if you believe it, and my people are scattered.” I shook my head then pressed my lips together. That was the last free question she got.
“Dead? Like how?”
Sadness filled me. “Gone. Uninhabitable. We’re all nomads now. Not even connected.” Dammit. My mouth just needed to shut the hell up.
Just as I was about to say something else, anything else, to get her off her track of questions, her quiet voice filled my ears and drew my attention.
“So, you’re all alone?”
The question sent a wave of sadness through me, and what the hell? It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. Who could she even tell? “Yeah. I am now. Didn’t used to be.” I glanced at the wall behind her and my words came out as a mumble. “They thought they were helping but they made it all so much worse.”
“Okay. Last one, then. An easy one.”
I nodded. I didn’t plan to answer anyway. This was all too fucked up now.
“Why are you doing this?”
It wasn’t accusatory or angry. It was curious, and it shot a dart of pain through my chest. “Because I need to eat.”
She waited, knowing my drunken honesty wasn’t done.
“You’re my last hope. Without you, I’ll starve. I’ll lose this ship. I’ll have nothing.” I rubbed my face. I couldn’t stay here, in this room with this woman who had a name and too many questions. “Shit. I need to go.”
The chains rattled as she strained as far as she could, and she rested her free hand on my arm. Maybe she’d got loose again, maybe I’d never put it back in the restraints. My foggy mind wouldn’t let me remember, and maybe it wasn’t important.
“You don’t have to go,” she murmured.
11
Piper
I could only see my hand on his arm. Everything else in the room faded. Even after being held in this dirty room for who knows how many days, I was still cleaner than in all the years I’d lived in on Earth. That had been a dust bowl with no escape, but now my brown skin gleamed, the color rich against his green.
Something about the contrast excited me, but I pushed it down. I’d stopped him, but what the hell for? He’d been leaving, and I should have let him.
Except I couldn’t. Instinct had forced me to touch him, to connect. It was strange that my normal instincts, those of survival and fighting, were overshadowed in this moment. He was all alone, and he sounded so sad. I wanted to hear more. I needed to. Though, I didn’t understand that without me he’d starve. On a ship this big? Something was missing.
Some of it was self-preservation. The more I knew about this alien and his agenda, the better escape plan I could formulate. The rest of it, the questions I didn’t need to ask, and the physical connection I didn’t need to make… I didn’t want to examine those things too closely. I shook my head. For all I’d preached to my father about adapting for the future, my willingness to change and adapt was shocking even to me.
“What do you mean, I’m your last hope?” That certainly didn’t seem possible, given the life I lived at home and the fact Lyx was a green-skinned alien, complete with tail. Our two fates should never have crossed.
He looked at me, his eyes a little bleak, and he didn’t speak. The honesty he’d been showing me in his drunken state seemed to have left him, and now he just watched me.
Now wasn’t the time to consider his change in mood, especially considering he didn’t seem to be fully alert. If I could just convince him to undo my restraints, I could escape, and in his current state he wouldn’t be able to stop me from taking control of this ship and turning it around. Maybe he’d even settle in for a long nap and leave me to my own plans and devices. Maybe I wouldn’t have to kill him.
So, that was a plan, at least. I knew what I needed to do to move forward.
Except… I glanced at him. Something was pulling me toward him in a way I couldn’t explain, and it was more than just the urge and necessity to set up my escape. It was a draw I couldn’t ignore, and hopefully it wasn’t just because of the thing with his tail before. Although, the thought of that sent a shiver of anticipation through me.
He still hadn’t answered, but he swayed a little as he watched me, clearly drunk. It was the first question he hadn’t answered, and that only intensified my desire to know more. But I didn’t ask again. That would overplay my hand and show him how badly I wanted to know.
Instead, I changed the subject away from him. “I understand roamers. The big cats I hunt for food roam for miles across the desert. Hell, my people are nomadic. We roam with the seasons. But it’s hard not to have…” I paused as I searched for the right words. “It’s hard not to have a place to call home.”
He didn’t even blink.
I tossed my head to try to keep my hair out of my eyes. It was never particularly well styled, but it felt even more unruly right now. I longed to pull it over my shoulder and braid it out of the way. I’d be ready then—for a hunt, a take-over, whatever happened.
“I’ve been arguing the point with my father a long time,” I continued. “We found a water source, and it’s fortified so I said we should stay put. We should capitalize on the good things, but Father is traditional, and his Elders believe in the old ways.” I sighed. “I didn’t tell him, but he’s not all wrong. It’s harder now because the cats still roam. I have to venture farther for my hunts if we’re to eat. We went lengths at a time between meals while we learned how to store the meat I brought home, and while I refined the new way to hunt. But it’s like I tell them—we have to be able to change and adapt.” I shrugged. “We won’t survive otherwise. Now, we have even started to grow things on that dying planet, in the dead earth. So even there, new life is possible, and it sustains us.” I fell silent. It was the most I’d said to him in one go, yet he still didn’t react.
I shifted. Maybe aliens slept on their feet with their eyes open, or maybe he was in such a stupor he couldn’t hear me at all. The movement made my chains rattle, and he suddenly blinked then shook his head. Finally, he spoke.
“We roamed. We never seemed to stop. There was never enough time or enough money. We had to keep moving.” His voice was quiet, thoughtful. “We roamed and the ship became full. The rooms, they were all full. Of people, of scrap. There was exploration and chatter and love. And then it was empty. I was all alone, and it was just me left on this ship. It was hard to see this place transformed from a lively gathering to simply a box. A means of transportation rather than a home.”
I nodded. I’d known people to leave out of fear. “My best friend, her family, they left and headed to the Glass City when our food ran short. I don’t know if they made it in, but I do know I could help my people find the things they needed—I did help them. We were turning things around for us. I have faith in myself. Glass City dwellers not so much.”
My heart squeezed. I still missed them, and I still thought their decision was dumb. Leaving a situation, all of us, because they were afraid. I almost didn’t understand it. I’d tried to reassure them. I’d pointed out we were essentially family, and families needed t
o stick together, but in the end, I couldn’t make them stay. “I still feel like I failed them,” I murmured. “I couldn’t make them stay and it wasn’t long after they left that things started turning around for us.” I chuckled. “Well, meals were more regular, anyway.” I shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe the glass City was it for them. Maybe they got accepted into The Terran Program and they’re off-world now, seeking their fortunes.” I rattled my chains. “Like me.”
His lips twitched.
“Their choice helped me realize that I won’t ever let fear force me from somewhere. I’ll always do whatever I can. Whether that’s strategy or hunting. I’ll use my skills.”
“We used to hunt.” He smiled at a memory. “On Tryon, we had warriors and we had hunters, and they taught me so many lessons about the forests and vegetation. Tracking, trapping, conservation. They just knew so much about how the planet worked and…all the animals. They knew all the animals. And the trees. I hated learning so much some days, but they told me anyway. They just knew it all and…and they were the first to know when something was wrong with the planet.”
I nodded as his rambling began to make sense. I got what he was trying to say, and it was probably good for him to finally have someone to talk to and unload his memories on. It was strange, switching from fighting with him only a short while ago, to now having this heart to heart. Without wanting it, a hint of affection for him crept into me, and it just made my pull toward him stronger.
“I wasn’t a hunter.” He threw his arms out. “Not really. Although my family switched to hunting scrap after we left Tryon. Dad was pretty successful.”
“You hunted me.” I didn’t mean it as an accusation, but his eyes filled with remorse. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he said “I am so sorry. I should have found another way. It’s just…food was so scarce, and I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve never met a human. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have treated you like livestock.” The words rushed out in a tumble, and I’m sure my face was wide in shock. Where was this coming from? Did he really mean what he was saying? Had he become so desperate that he had done something he never would have considered before? I didn’t trust him, but I could at least understand how hunger and survival drive people to do crazy things. Barbaric things.