Lois
This man is certifiably insane.
He looked me dead in the eye, not a single glance in the direction of a contract that very much involves him – and just signed it.
I could have put anything in there.
But he signed it anyway.
No hesitation.
And with really intense eye contact.
… It was kind of hot, not gonna lie.
“Well,” I start, my tongue suddenly feeling thick and heavy in my mouth.
“I really need to concentrate on winning over Senator Glex while we’re at the Capital.
And… certain things are becoming a bit of a distraction, so I thought this would be the simplest way to just…
get it out of our systems, and-” I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out an annoyed little huff, “I really wish you would have just read the thing so I wouldn’t have to say this out loud, but-”
I shift in my seat, balling up the linen napkin on my lap, only to smooth it out again.
“But…” Az urges, gesturing in a circular forward motion with his big hand for me to keep going.
This is so stupid.
I should just be able to say this, considering what it is I’m asking of him.
“Have you ever heard of a ‘friends with benefits’ type of situation? Or a ‘situationship’?”
His brows crease for a moment, and he shakes his head.
Of course he hasn’t. Why would they even have that kind of scenario here? They don’t even touch each other outside of a breeding contract.
“Ok,” I say, taking a breath. “So… what I’ve written here-” I gesture to the projection of the now very signed contract, “-Is kind of like a breeding contract, but without the actual breeding part.”
Az narrows his eyes at me. “So… you omitted the best part?”
I roll my eyes. “No. Not the activity, anyway. Just the goal.” Twisting in my seat, I try to face him more fully. “Look, I don’t want a baby, but what I do want is-”
“My massive Xaviann dong?” Az supplies, a shit-eating grin lighting up his face. He reaches across me to pluck a piece of pink fruit from a platter and pops it in his mouth. “Don’t worry, Lois, that’s been yours for quite a while now.”
I wet my lips and choose to ignore the little tummy flip that definitely did not just happen.
“Alright… but if you’d just read the contract, you’d know I don’t want all of that proposal stuff like before.
Our situation isn’t going to end like Niska and Kiahn’s, Az.
We’re not going to go flying off, all loved up into the sunset on the back of your drak.
It’s strictly… pleasure. Nothing else. No feelings or other complications. ”
I watch as his brows slowly lower over his eyes, the smug, teasing grin replaced by a look of earnest understanding.
“If we’re going to do this, we’ll still just be friends, Az. Do you understand that? I want to keep you as a friend.”
He thumbs his lip pensively before his teeth sink into the tip of the digit. A shadow of a smile appears. “But friends that fuck, right?”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes me. “Yeah,” I say, shaking my head as I reach for my fruit juice. “Friends that fuck. If you’ll agree to that.”
Az’s whole face brightens. “I think I could possibly be persuaded.” He shifts closer, and I become all too aware that his big arm is using the armrest on my chair, as his frame just naturally demands to be part of my space. “If you ask me nicely.”
His voice is low and deep. It’s almost like I can feel it vibrate in my chest when he speaks like that.
Well… maybe not my chest.
Maybe someplace lower.
I shift in my chair again, turning to face the table in front of me instead of the stupidly hot alien prince. “Too late, you already agreed, remember?” I tell him, picking up a pastry to eat so I can pretend to ignore him and this whole conversation.
* * *
I spend the rest of the day on the rail ship avoiding Az.
Which is admittedly stupid. But hey, sue a girl for getting all shy after she’s put down in writing how she wants a guy to wring out a few orgasms from her tired and frustrated body, okay?
“You really do not need to bother yourself with this, Lady Lois,” Zek frets as he packs my clothes back into the cases they’d been in not so long ago. Honestly, I have no idea why he’d unpacked them on the rail ship, anyway. We’ve not even been traveling for two full days.
“I like to help,” I say, smiling at him as I fold a pastel blue piece of leisurewear.
Zek grimaces as he watches, his expression becoming more and more horrified with each piece of clothing I pick up to pack.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be in the dining carriage?
I heard the chef say he managed to get the nutrition replicators to prepare something very special from your home planet called ‘pickles’,” Zek says, finishing with a dramatic flourish of his hands on the word ‘pickles’ like they were some kind of mystical exotic delicacy.
DJ, floating beside me, makes an electronic chirping noise as if she’s excited to try some pickles, too.
I narrow my eyes at Zek and pick up one of my sleep shirts to fold. “Are you just trying to get rid of me so I’ll stop helping you?”
“Yes.” He swipes the shirt from my hands to fold it much more neatly than I could ever manage.
“And ‘helping’ is a strange description for whatever it is you’ve been doing,” he says, gesturing to the pile of folded clothes in front of me.
They look fine. Not lined-up-perfectly-with-crisp-folds-perfect, but fine.
“Wouldn’t you rather be spending this time with Prince Az? ”
That question catches me off guard.
My cheeks heat.
I open my mouth to answer, but instead snatch up a sock, then its twin, putting them together to turn the tops over to pair them up.
Looking at me like I’ve just shit in his cereal, Zek practically slaps at my hands before I give up the pair of socks.
He separates them from the pairing I’d created and smoothes them out on the bed, one on top of the other, before carefully rolling them up from the toe.
He then unzips what must be a special Lois sock bag and dutifully places the pair with its brethren, all nestled together neatly like a perfectly placed sock mosaic.
Beside me, DJ plays the theme music to Hitchcock’s Psycho.
I silence her with a look.
Before I get a chance to even attempt to fold anything else, I feel the rail ship start to slow beneath our feet, the constant high-speed hum in the background dropping in tone, too.
“What’s going on?” I ask, going to the window, watching the buildings go by, but not as fast as they had done before. DJ follows behind me as if coming to take a look herself. “Are we there already?”
The rail ship slows even further, the shift in motion making me lurch a little.
Zek remains completely composed. “We are stopping in a few towns so that Prince Az can meet with his drakball fans,” he says, not even looking up from what looks like a complex origami project he’s completing with a silk scarf.
With that, I feel the rail ship come to a complete stop, and outside I hear chanting.
Peering out the window, I see a station.
Xaviann rail stations aren’t like any train station I’ve seen on Earth, though.
They’re open; with fountains, manicured shrubs, pavilions, and the whole vibe of a really clean and quaint ‘town square’ – quaint in vibe, not in size, though.
This is the first one we’ve stopped at, and there’s got to be at least a football field’s worth of space on either side of the ship.
And that space is full – and I mean full – of Xavianns gathered together.
They stand there waving and cheering. Some of them have painted their faces and horns in what I think are Az’s team colors.
Some of them are wearing really cool hats that make it look like they have Lady and Puff sprouting out of their heads.
It’s a little overwhelming.
The crowd erupts into a new level of volume, some of them now practically jumping up and down in excitement. “Prince of the skies! Prince of the skies!” they chant.
Then, I see him – Az stepping off the rail ship, flanked by some security to keep the crowd at bay.
I can only see the back of him from this angle, but I know he’s giving them that effortlessly handsome, boyish smile – the one that could charm the underwear off a nun.
Or make me write out a whole fuck-buddy contract.
Az waves at the crowd, pointing out at some of them as if he knows them and is happy to see them there.
Does he know them?
People are screaming for him.
This is insane.
“W-… why don’t people react to him like that in the Northern Principality?”
I feel Zek come to my side, but I’m still transfixed by the scene on the other side of the window.
“Some people do,” he says, and from the corner of my eye, I can see movement, so I know he’s still folding some damn clothes. “But they see him often in the city back home. They’re used to him, and they respect him as one of their Princes.”
I continue watching out the window. He starts signing things for the crowd with this pen-thing that writes in glowing blue ink; pieces of paper, photographs, shirts, even some horns.
I look at the faces of them all – beyond excited to see him in their town. Their eyes practically glowing with admiration as he approaches with that smile.
I even see some of the female Xavianns give him things that he doesn’t sign and doesn’t give back – he just tucks whatever it is into his pants pocket and gives the women a smile, his horned head ducking slightly as if he’s thanking them.
And it takes a while for my brain to figure out what I’m witnessing – what it is they’re giving him.
Permission tokens.
They’re slipping him their Permission tokens.
… And he’s taking them.
That…
I don’t know how that makes me feel.
It’s not like he’s cheating.
We’re not ‘a thing’.
Not outside our friends-with-benefits contract, anyway.
And… and maybe it’s a good thing, actually. Less chance of him attaching too many feelings onto what we’re going to do if he has other options out there.
I know he deactivated all those Permissions he had before – and there were many – but… well, for all I know, he can just as easily reactivate them. Or maybe completely replace them by doing a few appearances like this, so he can carry on collecting Permissions like sex-Pokémons.
Great.
Great, great, great.
This is a good thing, Lois. A. Good. Thing.
I am maybe… just about… possibly getting over the weird, uncomfortable feeling in my tummy when Az suddenly looks up toward my window.
“Oh, shit,” I curse, ducking down to hide. Is it weird that I was watching him take those Permissions? Or watching him at all? “Get down!” I hiss, reaching up to grab Zek, dragging him down with me.
There’s a beat or two where we’re just staring at each other. With me wondering if Az caught me staring at him through the window, and Zek seemingly confused and alarmed at the whole turn of events that has led to him on all fours on the floor with me.
DJ descends in a dramatically slow fashion from the window to our level. And, for some reason, she’s playing the iconic music from Jaws.
Her recent movie soundtrack kick really isn’t helping my nerves.
Duhh-dun… Duhh-Dun…
What the hell is she trying to tell us is coming our way?
Just as the orchestral strings swell to the part where the Great White usually starts chomping down on some poor, unsuspecting swimmer, the doors to my room sweep open, and in strides Az.