4 Slutty but Endearing
Slutty but Endearing
S pie flopped onto the plush leather sofa in her cabin’s sitting room. Projected via the holo across from her was the eternally disapproving face of Emperor Gracelin Expani. Shrewd brown eyes glared from a galaxy far far away.
“Getting high while on a shoot? And dragging your brother into it?” Her Excellency closed her eyes, took a dramatic breath, then opened them again. “You’re not sixteen, Spielin.”
“Am I not? I hadn’t noticed. The past ten years have blissfully flown by.” Spie tossed an empty tumbler into the air, then caught it. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal? Not a big deal? ” Gracelin pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand and held up her CB with the other.
The device displayed a three-dimensional image: Spie holding a smoldering joint between two fingers and stalking toward a navy-haired woman in a grey jumpsuit.
“Does this look like someone you would trust to be your future leader? Does this even look like someone you would trust to keep your goldfish alive for a weekend? This clip is all over the internet right now. I have my people erasing it where they can, but it’s like playing whack-a-mole. ”
Spie spun the tumbler on one palm, then sat up abruptly, brandishing the glass cup at the image of her mother.
“Stop acting like you care if I make a fool of myself. You’re only mad because Nicky was in the shot.
I’m supposed to be portrayed as ‘slutty but endearing,’ right?
A bit of an airhead? My foolish image bolsters Nicky’s competent one?
But that only works if he isn’t caught doing dumb shit alongside me.
Maybe you should be lecturing him right now.
Because, if you hadn’t noticed, your precious baby boy is a grown-ass man. ”
Her mother’s lips closed in a thin line.
“That interaction was neither slutty ”—her contemptuous mouth curled around the word, spitting it out like a bad piece of chicken—“nor endearing. And when have I ever asked you to act in such a way? When have I done anything but plead for you to live up to your potential?”
Honestly, hearing her mother, the nebula-cursed emperor , say ‘slutty’ almost made the entire ordeal worth it.
“You came across as predatory and cruel. An image that only further incentivizes citizens upset with the empire’s elite.”
“With you , you mean.” Spie threw herself onto her back again. The leather cushions creaked . She crossed one knee over the other and squeezed the tumbler in her hand so hard, she worried the glass might crack.
“You’re my daughter. You are the empire.
When people look at you, they need to desire you.
They need to feel as though you’re accessible to them.
You’re a symbol and an important one. This type of publicity kills that image.
It kills their desire, and it hurts the empire.
And anything that hurts the empire hurts all of humanity. ”
Tell me something I haven’t heard, Spie thought.
There came the whoosh ing sound of a door depressurizing. Nicky poked his head into Spie’s cabin. “You decent?” he called.
“Mother’s on,” she answered.
His footsteps were soft as he padded, barefoot, into Spie’s sitting room.
He was in a pair of jogging sweats and a graphic tee, some band called Get Physic-al with a few indecipherable equations under the name.
The ends of his hair, damp from a recent shower, brushed the upper frame of his reading glasses.
“Your Excellency.” Nix inclined his head to the screen.
Spie rolled her eyes.
“I’m late for assembly.” Gracelin tapped her CB. “I’ll speak with the both of you this weekend for the roundtable briefing.” Her image disappeared.
Nix settled on the edge of Spie’s coffee table. He ran a gloved hand through his damp hair. “So,” he said, “how bad was it?”
“On a scale from dropping out of university to being caught trying to impregnate myself?”
Nicky visibly winced. Spie might not have a fancy degree, but she did have an impressive list of things she’d done expressly to piss off their mother.
The worst of which she’d done the year after Arbora was banished.
Spie had been eighteen, angry, and prone to poor decision-making.
She’d stolen a rather primitive vial and catheter from the palace’s hospital wing, then convinced one of Nicky’s schoolmates to jerk off in a cup.
Luckily, her grand plan had been foiled long before a child could be conceived.
“It was fine.” Spie sat up. The couch creaked again as though reluctant to relinquish her. She placed the glass tumbler on the coffee table beside her brother. “She didn’t banish me, so there’s that. How’d you fare?”
The tired circles under his eyes said it all.
Spie had stopped caring about earning her mother’s love when she was five years old.
She’d never even bothered to believe herself worthy of her mother’s pride.
There was freedom in being a disappointment.
Nicky, however, was still caught in their mother’s web like a helpless fly.
“I...” Nicky stopped, took off his glasses, and began fidgeting with the ends.
He’d been born with oddly fluctuating vision; no doctor had ever been able to explain why.
His lenses were specially crafted to adjust on demand.
When people looked at him, they assumed he was physically competent, athletic even.
He certainly looked the part—tall, well-built, strong.
Almost no one but Spie knew how hard he worked to maintain that image.
How much he struggled with little things like hand-eye coordination and depth perception.
How, as a child, he would cry out from random bouts of chronic pain.
He only wore his glasses in private. Mommy dearest didn’t want him looking vulnerable.
“What’d she say to you?” Spie tried to force him to make eye contact with her, but he avoided her gaze. “Aw, shit. I’m sorry, Nicky. It’s my fault. I mean, I’d never admit that to her , but I am sorry.”
Nicky was silent a moment. The star cruiser hummed around them.
“You’re always sorry. I’m not mad, I get it, I do, it’s just—it’s fine.” He met her gaze, finally. His eyes were a deep violet, like cold elderberry, shades darker than Spie’s own. From a distance, they could easily be mistaken for black.
“It’s clearly not fine.”
Nicky sighed a bit dramatically. “It’s just— I feel like you’re treating this as though it’s a game. It’s not a game, Spie. It’s our lives and the lives of countless others. The whole empire’s future.”
“Congrats, Nicky; you’re really starting to sound like the emperor.”
“I’m not trying to— Ugh, it’s coming out all wrong. Never mind. Anyway, that isn’t what I came to say. Kalvin’s been running damage control all evening. We’ve decided to cast her as X72’s contestant.”
“Her?” Spie sat back and placed her feet atop the coffee table.
“The woman that you—Artemis.”
And she took her feet right back off. “The trash collector? Why in the name of gods and nebulas would we want her on the show? Aren’t there another 10,000 eligible women on the planet?”
“Seven hundred thousand, actually.” Nicky half-grinned at that, a lopsided smile that made him look years younger. “She’s trending on every platform. People want her on the show. Having her will guarantee lower-class viewership, increase engagement—”
“I don’t think engagement will be an issue.”
“—and it’s a way for the empire to unapologetically lean in to the whole debacle. Let the narrative of her being cast overwrite everything else. People like an underdog. Plus, you know Blessing Stone has been angling for a villain.”
Spie stared at her brother. “No, I don’t buy it. Mother wouldn’t agree to that. Why is she really being chosen? Love Galaxy at least tries to maintain a shallow front for being about diplomacy. That girl was as far from diplomatic as one can get.”
He glanced downward. His cheeks reddened incriminatingly. “All right, fine. She’s in because I want her in.”
Well, that was unexpected. Nix had always kept private about his love life, even from Spie.
As far as she was aware, he’d never had a love life.
He’d never publicly dated anyone, and to her knowledge, he’d never privately done so, either.
She’d teased him about it often enough. The only reason she knew his preference was for women was because he’d had a crush on a girl when they were six and because the Love Galaxy casting department had needed the information in order to bring on contestants he might actually like.
“Really?” she asked carefully, easing up on her teasing drawl.
She didn’t want to scare him into recanting this offering.
“I didn’t realize the trash collector had made such an impression on you.
I mean, she was pretty, sure, but if you want pretty, there’s a hundred billion other women out there.
Probably trillion; I don’t actually know. ”
Nicky jammed his glasses onto his face. “A hundred billion other women who want me for the power and position I occupy. But Artemis didn’t even know who we were.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who didn’t already know who I am.
Isn’t that sad? Everyone wants something from me—us.
All the women on the show will be simpering for our favor. ”
“Simpering women are my preferred type.”
“I’m serious, Spie.” And, by the nebula, he really did seem serious. “Is it so awful of me to want to date someone who’s real?”
Spie considered the notion. Real was a word dipped in idealism, for people who could afford to reveal their true selves.
That would never be Spie or Nix. But she couldn’t crush her brother’s hope.
And, if anything, the trash collector wasn’t boring .
“I suppose it could be fun. She did have a certain appeal about her.”
“No”—Nix held out a hand, his mouth dipping into a frown—“ no, Spie. I need you to back off this one. Officially, she’s one of mine. Stay away from her. I got you Arbora; let me have Artemis.”
“Let you have— Nicky, she’s a person, not a thing to possess. We aren’t back-system slave owners.”
“You know exactly what I mean. And you’re the last person in the universe who gets to lecture me about treating women like objects.”
“Oh please, I am gracious to all the women I bring into my bed. Very gracious, if you catch my meaning.”
Nix made a face of disgust.
Spie threw her hands up in mock surrender. “Fine! I’ll stay away from Trash Girl. She’s all yours. I am curious, though. Isn’t that going to piss off Cailin? New Terra will have a conniption if one of us doesn’t marry her. And Mother knows it.”
The tired look on Nicky’s face drained into one of pure exhaustion.
Princess Cailin Frederik of the Galactic Republic of New Terra had been brought up with the sole purpose of being cast on Spie and Nicky’s season of Love Galaxy.
When she was only six years old, her father had struck a backroom, unofficial deal with the emperor.
A deal which amounted to Cailin being promised in marriage to either Nicky or Spie, ideally whichever one of them ended up chosen to become the imperial successor.
For a long time, that was going to be Spie.
Until she’d managed to embarrass the Expani name enough times that her mother elevated Nicky in her place.
Privately, of course. Officially, their mother had made no proclamations as to who her heir would be.
And officially, Cailin was there to date both of them.
Unofficially, however, she was there for Nicky.
Which meant that now, not only did Spie feel guilty for offloading the empire onto her brother’s shoulders, but it was her fault that he was saddled with having to marry Cailin.
And saying Cailin Frederik was a difficult person to like was putting things diplomatically.
“I never said I’d marry Artemis.” Nicky truly looked defeated. “I don’t even know her. I just— I thought it’d be nice to have someone real there before I have to pick Cailin.”
“Gods and nebulas, I’m sorry, Nicky.”
He shrugged. Spie had a sudden urge to wrap him into a hug but knew he’d only push her away. He’d never been one for physical touch.
“All right, I’m on board with this plan.” Spie slapped her hands on her thighs. “Let’s get you that blue-haired girl, yeah? How’d she react when you told her she’s been cast?”
Nix adjusted his glasses. “We, uh, haven’t told her yet.”