I looked down at Sarden and lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Goddess,” he said in a low voice, really laying it on thick now. “I worship you—you know that.”
He pulled me closer, pressing his face right between my breasts as though he didn’t want even a millimeter of distance between us.
My stomach did a little flip at the feeling of his long, muscular arms wrapped around me so securely. I couldn’t help myself—even though it was an act, I still liked it. Taking pity on him, I decided to play along.
“Sarden,” I murmured, running my hands through his thick, black hair, just as the female Majoran had been doing with her mate back at the perfume seller. “Sarden, my darling, you know I adore you.”
Since they were right there, I started playing with his horns too. I’d always kind of wanted to touch them, almost from the moment I found out he wasn’t really the Devil dragging me down to Hell. They were fascinating, growing out from the sides of his temples in thick, short, sharp curves. They weren’t nearly as long as a bull’s horns, though that was what they mostly reminded me of. I ran my hands up and down them, swirling my fingers around their bases and sliding up to the sharp tips curiously.
Sarden trembled against me as I touched him and his grip around my waist tightened as he pressed his face fiercely between my breasts. “Goddess…Zoe, you shouldn’t,” he groaned in a deep, hoarse voice. Wow, he really was laying it on thick.
“Shouldn’t what, my darling? Shouldn’t forgive you?” I asked sweetly, laying it on a bit myself. Hey, I took drama in high school—I know how it’s done.
“Uh, goddess? Goddess?”
It took me a minute to realize that the big biker-looking Majoran was talking to me. He and his Oompa-Loompa were watching Sarden and me with wide eyes.
“Yes?” I asked, still caressing Sarden’s horns as I spoke to them.
“Normally I encourage all kinds of worship between a male and his goddess,” the boss said. “But…your male is a Vorn, isn’t he?”
“He’s part Vorn, why? Is that a problem?” I demanded, all ready to do battle if this guy started bringing racial bias into it. From what little he’d told me, Sarden had had enough of that to last him a lifetime.
The Majoran mechanic frowned.
“It wouldn’t be if you weren’t, ahem, playing with his horns,” he said, frowning.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “He’s just, uh, worshipping me like he’s supposed to—that’s all.”
“Yes, but some kinds of worship are best left in the bedroom,” he growled. “I can’t have the two of you pleasuring each other right here in my shop—how would it look if another customer comes in?”
“Pleasuring each other? What are you talking about?” I demanded. “I’m just, you know, stroking his horns.”
“And look how they’ve grown!” All, the Oompa-Loompa, squeaked.
“Grown?” I looked down and frowned. Sure enough, Sarden’s horns did seem longer now. But how was that possible?
“A Vorn’s horns are erogenous zones,” the boss said bluntly. “Some say they’re best used to guide him when he’s…ahem…worshipping his goddess with his tongue.”
“What?” I took a quick step back.
Sarden released me—reluctantly, I thought—and looked up.
“Goddess,” he growled softly and I could see that lazy, half-lidded look of lust in his glowing golden eyes again.
“You could have told me,” I whispered fiercely.
“Why would I do that when you were playing your part so well?” he murmured back.
“You…I…” I couldn’t believe I’d been giving him the equivalent of a hand-job right out in public. And he’d been getting off on it!
This gave a whole new meaning to the word “horny.”
“Well, erotic interludes aside, it appears that you worship your female with proper respect,” the mechanic said, this time addressing Sarden. “So what can I do for you this fine evening?”
Sarden got to his feet smoothly—really, he was surprisingly quick and graceful for such a big guy.
“I was sent by Count Doloroso,” he said, abruptly all business.
“Count who?” The mechanic frowned. “Sorry, I don’t know that name.”
“Well he apparently knows you,” Sarden said, sounding exasperated. “He said you were a reputable mechanic and would give me a fair price on getting one of the panels for my Hydrogen Scoop replaced.”
The Majoran puffed out his chest with pride.
“Well, now, we are the finest mech shop in all of Gallana, that much is true,” he said. “What kind of ship do you have? And what kind of panel do you want as a replacement? I’ve got corrugated sythosium, lacquered geodesium or just plain sonium.”
“Geodesium?” Sarden frowned. “I’ve never heard of panels made of geodesium.”
“Oh, sure! It’s new tech—the best! In fact, if you have the credit, you can get them all replaced.”
“I don’t know about that—I’m in a hurry at the moment,” Sarden said.
“Well, if it’s just a matter of replacement—you can do all six panels in just a little longer than it takes to do one. And if it’s speed you’re after, well, lacquered geodesium panels’ll make your Scoop up to fifty percent more efficient and your ship fifty percent faster.”
“Is that right?” Sarden looked interested. “Do you have the stats to back that up?”
“Sure do—in the back. All,” he said to his assistant. “Go in the back and pull up the geo stats in full holo. Then pull out a pair of the geo panels for our customer to admire.”
“At once, boss-of-All!” the Oompa-Loompa squeaked and scurried to obey.
“He’s a good lad as Goolies go.” The mechanic smiled at Sarden. “Now about these panels—you’ve got to see them to believe them. Come on.” He made a motion, inviting Sarden around the counter to the back of the shop, which was located behind a large swinging door.
“All right.” Sarden started to go…then turned back to me. “But what about my…my goddess?”
“Well, she’s welcome to come too, of course,” the mechanic said, nodding. “Although it’s a mite dirty back there.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll be fine here. I’ll just have a seat and wait.”
There was a lone stool, shaped kind of like a dirty gray mushroom, located (or possibly growing, I couldn’t be sure) in the corner of the shop. I walked over and plopped down on it, glad to take a load off. Those damn stripper heels really hurt after a while.
“Well, if you’re absolutely sure…” He was still hesitating, a little frown on his face.
“I’ll be fine, honestly.” As much as I was interested in alien culture and technology, I had no interest in going in the back of a dirty alien mechanic’s shop to look at engine equipment any more than I would have back on Earth. I made a ‘go on’ gesture at Sarden and he finally nodded.
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Take your time,” I remarked. “I’ll just be sitting here twiddling my thumbs.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he said. “But I’ll try to be fast—we don’t have much time left in the light cycle.”
“Sure. Fine.” I shrugged. I didn’t particularly like the idea of being out in the bad part of Gallana at night—or during their dark cycle or whatever they called it when they turned off the lights—but I was pretty sure I’d be safe if I was with Sarden.
“All right.” He turned and went through the swinging door with the mechanic, leaving me to sit on the gray mushroom and wait.
I hadn’t been sitting for five minutes, thinking how bored I was—seriously, couldn’t they at least have a magazine to look at? I mean, not that I’d understand what it said but at least I could look at the pictures—when the front door of the shop opened and the last person I’d expected to see walked in.
“Why hello, Zoe,” Count Doloroso said, smiling charmingly. ??
?How surprising to see you here.”
Chapter Fifteen
Zoe
“Why should it be surprising?” I asked, frowning at Doloroso. “You’re the one who sent us here.”
“Ah, yes. I did, didn’t I?” he mused, giving me that oily smile of his.
“Yes, you did,” I said pointedly. The way he was looking at me gave me the creeps. Especially since I was wearing the damn see-through dress. He looked like he was undressing me with his eyes only he didn’t have to—everything was already on display. “So…why are you here?” I asked, trying unobtrusively to cover as much of my goodies as I could with my arms.
“Just a little matter I needed to discuss with the mech tech,” he murmured. “But I suppose he’s busy with your master?”
“Sarden is not my master,” I said stiffly. “He’s just a guy who…” I was about to say ‘a guy who owns me’ or ‘a guy who bought me’ but that made it sound like he was my master, after all. “He’s just a guy I’m traveling with,” I ended at last, lamely.
“Is that right? Well, perhaps I should come back later. The dark cycle is coming soon, after all.” Count Doloroso opened the door and stepped halfway out. But before he got all the way back out to the alley, he reached into his long, black cloak—which was twitching oddly—and pulled out a yellow bag with a drawstring. Carefully, he opened the drawstring and extracted something from the bag.
I gasped when I saw what it was—a little purple and green nib-nib! Doloroso had it by the tail, pinched delicately between thumb and forefinger, and it chattered desperately in its high-pitched, squeaky voice.
“Oh my God,” I said, fascinated. “A nib-nib—you’ve got one!”
“More than one, actually. Would you care for one? They’re a bit crunchy but quite delicious.”
“What? What did you say?” I asked faintly. Please let him not be saying what I thought he was saying. Suddenly Sarden’s earlier words began to make an awful kind of sense.
“Some find their flavor bitter,” Doloroso went on, dangling the tiny monkey, no longer than my pinky finger—above his mouth. “But I quite like it.”
“Their…flavor?” I still couldn’t believe it.
“Yes, their flavor. They’re a kind of snack food, you know. A specialty of Gallana.”
“Oh no—you can’t be serious. You can’t be.” I was filled with a sick kind of horror.
“Of course I am. What did you think they were? A kind of pet?” He laughed and popped the screaming, chattering nib-nib into his mouth.
“Stop!” Modesty forgotten, I hopped to my feet and ran as fast as I could in my stripper heels, trying to reach him before he could bite down. “Spit him out! Spit him out!” I demanded, pounding on his chest. He was almost as tall as Sarden but the heels made him easier to reach. I slapped and punched and pushed as hard as I could. “Don’t you dare hurt him—spit him out!” I yelled.
More from surprise than from the effects of my punching, I think, Doloroso opened his mouth and spat the little nib-nib into the palm of his hand. The poor little guy was shivering and all nasty and damp from the awful man’s mouth but he didn’t seem to be harmed.
“What in the name of The Assimilation is wrong with you?” the Count asked, looking at me as though I’d grown a third eye. “I offer you a snack and you attack me.”
“He’s not just a snack. Give him to me! In fact, I want all of them—how many do you have in the bag?”
“Only two more. They’re quite expensive you know. And you’re acting unbecomingly greedy, young lady, if I may take the liberty of saying so.”
As he spoke, he moved backward and I found myself following. To my surprise, I found that my momentum when I had pushed and pummeled him to make him spit out the nib-nib, had carried us out the door and into the dark alley beyond. The ground under my ridiculous shoes was uneven and rutted and I nearly stumbled as I went after him.
Go back, Zoe—this isn’t safe! a stern voice spoke up in my head. But I couldn’t leave the nib-nibs to be eaten! Count Doloroso had the one he’d spit out clutched in his large fist with only its little head poking out. It was chattering and looking at me with such fear in its large, liquid eyes it twisted my heart. I couldn’t bear to think of it going back in his mouth to be ground up to mush. What a horrible fate—to be eaten alive by this creepy man!
Well, it wasn’t going to happen on my watch.
“Please,” I said, taking another step towards him. “Please, just give them to me. I…I’ll have Sarden pay you for them. He promised he’d get me some. He won’t mind. He’ll pay you double…triple even!”
“Aha, but what if I’d rather be paid in information than credit?” he asked, taking another step backward.
“What information?” I took another step forward—we were far down the alley at this point and I could barely see the pinkish light at the mouth of it anymore. I wondered where it ended.
Count Doloroso’s eyes gleamed.
“Information about your home world, of course. I checked, you know. Salex Prime is a rocky wasteland much too close to its sun to bear any life at all.”
“Where?” I asked, my eyes still on the tiny nib-nib in his hand which was crying pitifully.
“Your home planet—according to Sarden, anyway.” He smiled triumphantly. “I knew you weren’t from there. What I want to know is where are you from? You are, as I said before, a very unique specimen, my dear.”
“That’s because…because I come from another galaxy,” I said, thinking fast. I wanted to save the nib-nibs but I most certainly did not want to send a creepy bastard like Doloroso back to Earth to pick out his own “specimen” from the Alien Mate Index.
“Ah, I see.” He nodded, still walking backwards. “And what galaxy would that be? And what planet exactly?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” I lied recklessly. “Just give me the nib-nibs. All of them.”
“Very well. You may have them.” He stopped and I saw that we were at the far end of the alley now, the opposite end from where Sarden and I had entered.
“Here.” I held out my hands eagerly and he dropped the first one—still kind of damp, poor little guy—into my cupped hands. “Hey, little guy.” I leaned down and whispered to him, trying to use my softest and most gentle voice. “It’s okay—I won’t hurt you.”
The nib-nib looked at me doubtfully and chattered softly.
Gently, very gently, I used one finger to stroke the soft greenish-purple fur on his little back. Immediately, his large eyes closed and his tail began to twitch in time with my stroking. A soft, musical humming sound came from his tiny throat—so high it almost sounded like the buzzing of a bee.
“Well, well—it seems he’s quite taken with you,” Doloroso said right in my ear.
“Huh?” I jumped and suddenly realized that he was close—a lot closer than I wanted him to be.
“I’m sure the other two will be as well,” he remarked and dumped them out of the sack and into my hands.
Immediately, all three of the tiny monkey-creatures started chattering and scampering all over me, as though I was a giant jungle gym set up just for them.
“Oh—oh my God!” I gasped as they ran up my arms and into my hair, down my neck, and across my shoulders. Their tiny claws had no trouble holding on and they went all over the place, playing a game of tag all over me that tickled horribly. “Stop—stop you little boogers!” I gasped, not sure whether to laugh or panic.
“Here—I was afraid this might happen. Let me try to get them off you.”
Suddenly Count Doloroso had me by the arm and was dragging me off into another alleyway.
“Hey. Hey, stop!” I yanked my concentration from my three new pets to the creepy man beside me. “Let me go—I need to get back to Sarden!”
“I don’t think so.” He smiled at me in a way that made my blood run cold. “I think we have a lot to talk about, my dear Zoe. But it’s a discussion best held in private
.”
I can be loud when I need to and I felt the need right now.
“Sarden!” I shouted as loudly as I could. “Sarden! HELP!”
“Shut up, you foolish girl!” Doloroso clamped a big, clammy palm over my mouth but I wasn’t having any of that. I bit him as hard as I could and one of the little nib-nibs—I’d like to think it was the one I rescued from being eaten—scampered forward and bit him too.
Doloroso howled in pain and jerked back as my mouth filled with his blood. It didn’t taste like blood though—it had an acrid, oily, bland flavor that made me gag and spit.
I didn’t have long to clear my mouth because Doloroso was already coming after me again. I dodged away from him as he made a grab for me, the nib-nibs chattering in my ears. They were all in my hair now, maybe thinking it was the safest place to be. I wasn’t so sure about that but I couldn’t take time to secure them at the moment because Count creepy was determined to get me.
“Get back!” I shouted as loudly as I could, dodging another one of his boney, grabbing hands. “Get away from me! I don’t want you anywhere near me!”
They say that shouting definite negative statements like that will often scare off an attacker or possibly bring help. But so far, neither one of those things was happening. Where in the Frozen Hells, to borrow one of his own phrases, was Sarden?
“Come here,” Doloroso snarled, his long fingers catching in my hair. “Come here you little bitch!” He gave a tug and I screamed and stumbled towards him, grabbing at my aching scalp.
My hair is long and I was bent over, trying to pull away so I had a clear view of it. If I could have, I would have cut off the hank he had in his fist but obviously, I didn’t have any scissors. As it turned out, though, I wasn’t completely unarmed. I heard one of the nib-nibs chattering , almost as if he was talking to the others. They chattered back and then all three nib-nibs ran forward and bit the hand tangled in my hair.
“Ow! Filthy vermin!” Doloroso howled, at last releasing his grip on my hair.
With one more yank, I got free, leaving several long curly auburn strands in his grip. My scalp ached fiercely—it felt like he’d tried to snatch me bald, as my Granny would have said.