Chapter 6
Chapter six
Wid’s palms and knees had started to chafe and his sweaty hair clung to his face and the back of his neck.
Because the Travians wore theirs long, Kell wouldn’t even entertain the idea the pets should be able to cut theirs.
The long strands annoyed him, although he had to admit he liked the way it looked.
But these were signs he’d been crawling around the ship’s conduits too long.
He should really head back to the boys’ quarters and give someone else a chance.
He pushed on, however, driven by increasing curiosity.
He was sure this was the highest level of the ship and that meant he might find the bridge at any moment.
It was the last of the space to explore, the guys having successfully crawled all around everywhere else.
It had taken months, or at least what he perceived as being months.
It was hard to mark time, but he counted days based on the cycle of being with the other boys during the day and being with Kell at night.
Just the thought of the alien captain made him shiver, and not in a bad way—or, at least not in a wholly bad way.
What happened with him during the nighttime was not by his choice, but he had long since stopped fighting it.
It wasn’t merely a tactical decision, either—not any more.
Sure he’d formed the plan of seducing the alien into giving him more freedom and it had worked, given how much time they were allotted now to exercise.
Somewhere along the line, however, the pretending had become real.
Perhaps it had been that night when Kell had spoken with his family.
Although Wid didn’t want to empathize with his captor, he couldn’t help it.
He now saw the guy as some kind of prisoner himself.
The nights weren’t only about fucking, either.
Talking had become part of their routine as well.
More often than not as they lay in each other’s arms, sleepy from sex but not yet asleep, they shared information about themselves, their people, their culture.
Nothing too heavy, neither of them gave away military tactics or state secrets.
It was all far more personal than that, which made the whole thing harder to accept somehow.
Wid was at war with himself. By day he worked tirelessly to find a way to escape and at night, he found comfort and refuge and yes, affection lying with the enemy.
He found it hard to think of Kell still as the enemy, even though the alien held him captive.
When he lay in Kell’s embrace, Kell’s hands often roamed around Wid’s body, as if he were mapping out Wid like the boys mapped out the ship.
The touch soothed him when it wasn’t arousing him.
There didn’t seem to be an end to Kell’s curiosity, and his use of his senses reminded Wid of the way dogs behaved.
Kell seemed to enjoy not just touching Wid, but sniffing and tasting him as well.
“Why do you have hair in so many places?” Kell had asked one night, tugging gently at Wid’s pubic hair. Amusement laced his tone.
“I don’t know, something about how we evolved from a lower, hairier species.” Wid tried not to squirm under the playful assault.
Kell’s hand slid down one of Wid’s thighs. “Part of your skin was darker when you first arrived and now it’s lighter.”
Wid rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Don’t Travians get tanned?
” He sighed. “I suppose not. It’s the melatonin in our skin reacting to sunlight.
I used to spend a lot of time outdoors. I’m not anymore so my skin tone is returning to its original pale shade.
It takes a lot of generations to change skin tone permanently. ”
“Hmm.” Kell had picked up some of Wid’s mannerisms and expressions, which in itself was a kind of subtle victory. “That’s why one of the pets is so much darker than the others.”
For some reason, Kell’s intelligence always caught Wid by surprise. It shouldn’t have really, given how advanced a species they were, but maybe he had wanted to relegate the Travians to the level of barbarians.
“Yes, Jordan’s ancestors spent their whole lives out in the sun. The darker pigment protected them from getting too much—or something like that. I’m sure my mother could explain it better.”
Thinking about his mother sent a spasm of homesickness coursing through his body.
Somehow Kell detected the change in his mood.
That was another thing Wid both liked and hated about the alien.
He was empathetic. Kell lapped up the side of Wid’s neck in what Wid now understood to be the Travian version of kissing.
He should have found it revolting. Instead, he leaned into the affectionate gesture.
“You will see your family again. This I promise to you.” He slid his hand up to rest on Wid’s abdomen. “Your mother would be happy to see how you fare, I think. You are bigger than you were when you first came onboard.”
Wid leaned his head away. “Seriously? Did you just make a crack about my weight?”
“Crack?” Sometimes Wid forgot there was a limit to Kell’s understanding of English.
“A joke. Are you teasing me?” When Kell continued to stare back at him, Wid realized that having a sense of humor might not be a Travian trait at all. “Are you saying I’ve become fat?” he clarified.
Kell shook his head, one of the gestures he’d co-opted from Wid. “No,” he replied, splaying his hand across Wid’s six-pack. “You are well-muscled, more than you were before. I like that.”
“Oh.”
Kell’s eyes shone with admiration and Wid couldn’t help preening a bit under the scrutiny.
He had bulked up. They all had. With food being such a precious resource, everyone on Seven ran to lean muscle.
The ever-presence of food on the ship had given the boys unheard of calories and roaming around the ship plus the exercise allotted to them by Kell had turned all of it into muscle.
For the first time in his life, Wid really liked the way he looked.
Before, he’d thought of himself as being kind of scrawny.
The fact that Kell liked it too pleased him more than it should.
This bodily exploration wasn’t only one-sided, either.
Kell allowed Wid to do the same. It had taken a while for Wid’s curiosity to build enough and his anger to recede enough before he began to touch the alien body of his own volition.
Everything about the Travian was rougher in a hypermasculine way that drew Wid in despite his resolve to resist. The paleness of the alien skin made Wid appear dark in comparison.
The lack of hair intrigued Wid as much as the presence of it on his own body amazed Kell.
Kell was so patient with him, too, never stopping Wid’s curious fingers, except the one time when they strayed too close to Kell’s hole.
Apparently only Wid would be taking it up the ass in this guy’s bed.
Wid had been only mildly disappointed by the limitation.
The pleasure Wid experienced being claimed by Kell was as real as it was unexpected.
Whether he was being fucked—roughly or gently—or giving Kell head, Wid’s body never failed to respond.
And Kell never failed to make sure Wid got something out of it too.
He seemed to want Wid to enjoy himself, and that concern alone made the captain something other than the evil he’d always perceived the Travians as being.
He understood now, too, why Kell fucked him every night.
The scent of the captain’s cum marked Wid as his.
Travians’ senses generally appeared sharper than humans.
When other crewmembers came in contact with Wid, even in passing, they knew he belonged to the captain.
Such a primitive idea, to be possessed by another and for everyone to know it from smell alone.
He should have been repulsed by the notion, and yet he wasn’t.
Not really. Not totally. Part of him reveled in the knowledge.
He hated himself for the weakness, and he pointed out to Kell, quite correctly that the same thing, more or less, could be achieved simply by jerking off onto Wid’s body.
“What would be the fun in that?” Kell had asked as he breached Wid’s hole.
Wid opened up to accept the alien cock and convulsed in pleasure. What would be the fun in that indeed?
He still wanted his freedom, of course. All the boys did, even though they had all settled into their situation with varying degrees of acceptance.
Joel continued to antagonize his captor, although it sometimes appeared to Wid as being something of a game to both of them.
Stuart, on the other hand, seemed genuinely happy with his alien.
It might have been simply continued relief that he’d been taken from the sadistic bastard who’d tortured him those first couple of days. Wid wasn’t so sure, though.
Regardless, each boy did his part to find a way to escape.
Everyone had memorized the layout of the ship.
They’d found the shuttle bay and Wid and Joel hoped they could fly one of the smaller crafts housed there, although they’d yet to figure out a way to descend into one of the other rooms and still be able to get back into the conduits again.
Until they worked out that problem, they had no way of knowing how closely the operating mechanisms in the shuttles mirrored their own.
The other remaining issue was where in the hell the cruiser patrolled and how realistic was it to get home in a smaller ship.
That was what made the bridge so important.
The answers would be there, if they could find it.