10 Penny
Back in my cell, I was still shaking. Even after a few hours of rest. My body still ached from the thorough pounding Thilar had given me and I wanted to hate it so much. I should have. We’d been forced to do what we did and yet I managed to find pleasure in it. Or… something akin to pleasure.
I sat on my cot, knees up to my chest and my fingers tangled in my hair.
I shouldn’t have liked it. I chanted that to myself over and over again, wondering if I had some hidden fetish.
Maybe I liked to be watched? No, that part made me wince.
Maybe I liked the chase. The violence. The threat of danger or the way he grabbed my neck.
Ok, sure, plenty of women fantasized about taking it rough.
But that wasn’t it, either.
Did I like aliens? No, because all the others made me uneasy.
Looking up at the glass wall of my cell, I could see the hall outside and a couple of cells down, the blue tint of Thilar’s chamber bled into the passage. He was so close.
It was him. He chased me. He fought for me—killed for me. He fucked me into a daze. Thilar himself made me come and I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than having some undiscovered fetish.
The insides of my thighs were sticky from our joining.
I got up and rinsed my hands in the strange sink at the back corner of my enclosure, trying to clean myself as thoroughly as I could without a proper shower.
God, I would have loved a real shower. Warm water.
Soap. The feeling of being clean. I missed it.
And, like the twisted overlords of that godforsaken station heard my thoughts, guards started walking down the passage, shouting things I couldn’t understand with their shock sticks buzzing by their sides.
We were like cattle. The cell doors started opening and the prisoners that had survived the last round of games started to filter out into the hall.
I quickly straightened my tattered dress over my thighs as they came to my door.
The glass barrier slid open and they waved me out.
The valerian woman was walking by just as I stepped into the hall. She wasn’t particularly friendly, but she was the only one who knew a lick of my language. I stepped up behind her, forming a single-file line like the others.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
Her nose wrinkled like the sound of my voice annoyed her. Maybe she was disappointed I survived the game. For such a pretty species, she had a nasty countenance.
“Bath time,” she said.
I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.
The women and men weren’t split up. Apparently, that was just a feature of the games. I grew nervous when one of the gek males stepped up behind me, dwarfing me. It was the white one with the scarred eye, only he was so covered in blood that I could hardly see the pale hues of his skin anymore.
Behind him was a spike-headed alien and finally, behind him, was Thilar, tall, broad and still smeared with violence and filth.
As we walked, I stole a glance over my shoulder.
When he caught me looking, I was relieved he didn’t look away.
His gaze met mine, and there was something in it he couldn’t say aloud.
An apology, perhaps, but more than that, it was reassurance.
I wanted to wrap my arms around myself, to hold myself together, but that would have made me look weak. Pathetic. The last thing I wanted was to appear vulnerable in a place like this, and I was already afraid I’d made a terrible first impression.
So, I kept my hands at my sides and held my head high, my jaw clenched tight. My ankle was killing me, but I forced myself to walk normally despite the pain.
We walked for some time, emerging from the underground holding area onto a long, metal walkway.
Below, I could see a large room of electrical towers, panels, and contraptions I didn’t recognize.
The tech looked completely unfamiliar. Not that I could get to it to find out what it all did.
The walkway was boxed in with something like chain-link and like everything in that hellhole, it was probably electrified.
When we finally came to a large doorway, I could feel the air getting humid and hot.
We all entered a chamber full of three pools.
Guards bordered the room with their sticks, and no one even gave them a second glance.
The different aliens began to undress, careless that there were others around to see their naked bodies, and dispersed to the different baths.
One pool was steaming hot. Another looked cold with slats of ice floating on the surface.
The middle pool was foggy and murky like a forest pond.
Instinct told me to go to the steaming pool, but the valerian took a sharp turn, bumping my shoulder. At first, I thought she was trying to start something, but when I looked up, she was shaking her head.
“You will want the running water,” she said, pointing at a wall where streams of water were pouring out of various spouts. “The steaming pool will burn your tender skin.”
I was inclined to believe her when the red-hued valerian male made his way to it like he and fire went together.
Then I headed toward the wall. The valerian walked ahead of me, stripping off pieces of clothing as she did until she was naked.
She had a perfect figure. Her skin, at the moment, was pale violet, which darkened at the tips of her crown.
I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it meant something.
I pulled my dress off and immediately wanted to put it back on.
I wasn’t particularly shy about my body, but the games were perverted and vicious.
Being without that little layer of fabric made me feel ten times more vulnerable, but by the looks of things, that bathhouse was some kind of neutral zone. No one gave anyone a second glance.
Except Thilar.
He was undressing by the cold water, his gaze firmly on me. I tried not to linger, especially when he started to undo his pants. When I turned back around, the valerian woman was watching with narrowed eyes.
I found a spout and dipped my head under it. It was lukewarm at best, but it felt amazing. I could feel the grime and sweat slicking off my body when I stepped fully under the water and started working my fingers through my hair.
Looking down, I could see brown water sliding off my skin, carrying all the dust and blood away.
I didn’t want to clean between my legs in front of everyone, but I noticed I wasn’t the only one doing it.
And why wouldn’t they when they’d all spent the afternoon getting fucked in the dirt?
When my hand ventured there, I noticed just how sore and tender I was.
Trying to clean myself in the sink had done very little.
Every stroke of my fingers stung like my skin had been rubbed with sandpaper.
I knew I’d torn, even if just a little. Thilar wasn’t exactly beginner friendly in size.
“Medicine will be in food,” the valerian said.
“What?”
“To prevent infection. Many get hurt that way in games. And for that,” she said, gesturing toward the abrasion on my ankle.
I winced as I continued to wash myself, wondering how many more times I would get hurt “that way.”
“You are his, then?” she continued.
I blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
She jerked her chin in Thilar’s direction as he stepped into the cold pool. The water reached his waist and he began to scrub himself thoroughly.
“One monrian. One human. You give looks like he is yours.”
“He’s not mine.”
“They play, the makers. You bring more credits. They make you fuck a hundred times for more credits.”
A knot formed in my stomach over being forced to do those things, with Thilar or anyone, for the rest of my foreseeable future.
But a large part of me was glad it had been Thilar. The idea of the ape creature or even a gek made me shudder. I had to count my blessings.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Many turns.” She chuffed. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I am not soft.”
I didn’t think she was, but every valerian I’d met was all proper and elegant, like space elves. She was different. So were the two valerian males I’d seen, especially the red one.
I wanted to ask her name, but I wasn’t sure we were there yet.
“What are you called, human?” she asked.
Maybe we were there.
“Penny,” I said.
“I am Sunhai. I like you. Do not worry. They will keep you alive. Unfortunately for the rest of us.”
“Because I bring credits?”
“Exactly,” she smirked.
Once I was done scrubbing my body as best I could, I followed Sunhai’s lead and washed my tunic dress. It made me think that they didn’t give out clothes very often in that place. Putting on a damp dress wasn’t that comfortable, but I was glad it was clean.
The guards started to rush people eventually until all of the prisoners were once again lined up to leave the bathhouse. That time, Sunhai was behind me and behind her, Thilar had taken his place.
Then I heard his deep, somewhat gruff voice. He spoke in his own tongue, his tone hushed. I glanced back to see Sunhai’s head half-turned in his direction. Then she chuckled like what he said was amusing.
“Do you know what he said?” I asked.
“Of course I do. He said you look frail and stupid.”
My brows furrowed, but by the smile on her lips, she was bluffing.
So, valerians knew sarcasm.
And by the way Thilar sighed, he knew she was mistranslating.
Sunhai rolled her eyes. “He asks if you are alright. Says he was given rutia. It is valerian herb. Makes people frenzied. Need to mate.”
“That explains a lot,” I said under my breath.
I looked at Thilar, warmth spreading in my chest, and then nodded once. He nodded back and despite the simplicity of the exchange, I was touched.
I was so confused, too. I faced front again, wishing I could just learn a new language at the snap of my fingers.
“You play game more dangerous than the arena, human,” Sunhai said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Monrians do not take mates. Is forbidden.”
“I’m not trying to be his mate.” Even the word was odd to use.
She snorted like it was a joke. “Perhaps not, but still dangerous.”
I cleared my throat, folding my arms over myself and then putting them back down at my sides and straightening.
“Why don’t monrians take mates?”
“Monrians are too pure. Mates chosen for them depending on… what is it called… your being. Genetics. If you get pregnant, his people not like a half-breed. Here? They might keep it. Raise it to make more credits.”
Both thoughts made me uneasy. Although, there was one thing that watered down the fear of either of those things happening and that was the fact that I couldn’t get pregnant.
Not for lack of wanting.
One of the scars on my torso burned like the wounds were fresh and I twitched, flexing my fingers to center myself. The line started moving and I walked with a stiff gait. I heard Thilar’s quiet voice behind me and again wished I knew what he was saying without needing Sunhai’s translation.
“He wonders why your heart has changed,” Sunhai said.
“My heart?”
“Your beat. Pulse.”
“He can hear it?”
“So, it has changed?”
“No.”
Thilar said something as if to argue with me and I glanced briefly at him, brow raised.
“What are you thinking, human?”
I let out a sharp sigh. “Nothing important. Just that I’m not going to get pregnant. I can’t.”
“I know of humans,” Sunhai argued. “You have children easily. Too many, most say.”
“But I can’t.”
“Are you ill?”
I came to my cell and was ushered in by one of the guards.
“No.”
I spun around to face Thilar and Sunhai as they passed. Thilar’s gaze lingered on me for a moment. Not long enough to raise suspicion, but long enough to let me know he was concerned.
That look was going to keep me going. It was also going to haunt me. I wanted to be strong enough to pick myself up, but I was starting to feel like I wasn’t and every time I told myself I was, I was lying to myself.
As the barrier slid closed, I watched him walk to his cell and disappear inside. Then Sunhai disappeared into the next cell and the routine began again.