Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
And what a mistake it was for us to end up in bed together.
So yeah, I turned her down today. Melody deserves better than an ugly alien with no good family name, no credits to speak of, and a criminal history. She deserves better than someone who’s an outcast amongst his own, whose blood isn’t pure mesakkah but might have a bit of moden in it. She deserves better than a broken-horned laborer.
Which is why I’m going to stay away from her. Five years ago was a mistake. I can’t—won’t—let it happen again.
It made me want things I can never have. Better to want nothing at all.
MELODY
I’m flustered and distracted as I drop my scrap off in the cellar I’ve staked out at the boarding house for my projects. It’s filled with clutter of all kinds, but the clutter has a purpose. With all these scraps, I can make things we had back on Earth, or repair things that an alien might charge a lot more for. I even made a bicycle for one of the women on a remote farm because driving her air-sled made her nervous, and I’ve had requests for two more. I’ve been picking at them, but without the right metal frame, I haven’t gotten very far.
I’m not thinking about the half-built bicycles today, though.
My thoughts are on Brux. The alien I never thought I’d see again.
My hero. My savior. The alien who won me my freedom.
Five years ago, I worked for an old mesakkah—one of the blue aliens with horns. He was the meanest son of a bitch, and spent all his time pinching and hitting me if I didn’t work fast enough. That old alien was a scrapper, too, and he taught me a lot. His hands didn’t work as well as they did when he was younger, so he used me to do the delicate repair work on things. And he starved me and kicked me and treated me like the worst junkyard dog. I’m told that humans are expensive, so I’m not sure why he wanted one if he was just going to beat the crap out of me and abuse me, but maybe he wanted to make sure that whatever slave he got he could beat up on without fear of reprisal.
That was my life, dodging slaps and trying frantically to work fast enough to avoid the next hit. Trying to “behave” so I’d get fed that day. Brux showed up at the scrapper’s junk hole one day. I’m not even sure what he was looking for. But he watched the old guy beat up on me while I tried to work and then turned around and left. Which made my owner hit me even harder.
Neither of us had counted on Brux returning, though. He did. Threw a bag of credits onto the counter and demanded my price. My owner didn’t even haggle. Just named some astronomically high price and Brux shoved the bag of credits across the counter and unlocked my collar.
He led me to a hotel that night and ordered food. I scarfed everything down and showered, and cried I was so happy. The moment I got out of the shower and in Brux’s oversized tunic, I sat next to my new owner and let him know just how happy I was.
I seduced him.
Brux declined my advances, like any decent guy would. But I had a full belly and I was away from that old monster, and at this point, anything would be better. I put my mouth all over him, ignoring his attempts to brush me aside, and sat myself down onto his lap—and his cock.
For all that he’s an enormous alien with tree trunks for arms and legs, his cock was the perfect size. Better than that, he was exceedingly gentle with me and made sure that I wasn’t hurting or scared. He came, I didn’t, but it didn’t matter to me. It was about connection, and gratitude, and just celebrating that my circumstances had changed.
But I think it made Brux feel weird about things. Because in the morning, he took me directly to the doorstep of Lord va’Rin and left me there.
Lord va’Rin took me in, of course. I’m just one of many humans that he’s rescued and we’re starting over here on Risda III. I’ve been here for a while, too. Not farming, because I don’t have the patience for crops and animals. Instead, I scrap and repair things for the humans who don’t like calling an alien to fix their stove, or their comm unit, or whatever. I can figure out most of it just by looking at the guts of the tech, and if it takes a little longer for me to repair something, no one minds.
I’ve tried to move on past Brux, too. I dated one or two men that stopped by this planet. One was a lovely a’ani gentleman named Aithar who made it clear that he was very interested in me. But for me, there’s only one perfect guy in the universe, and he’s got broken horns, an alien face, and the gentlest hands the size of baseball mitts.