Chapter 37
The Emperor had gone from hot to cold in about two seconds flat.
I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned another guy’s name.
It was always a crapshoot how a man would respond to knowing I had a guy friend.
Some would get even more intense or possessive, turned on by the fact that they had competition, and others would drop me immediately.
I had been around enough men and dated enough to know mentioning another guy had to be felt out first.
I shouldn’t have done it with this guy.
There was a spaceship on the line.
I sat down in my chair and pulled the straps around me.
They were the exact same as in the flying car, lending support to the idea that maybe this was more like a big ass royal bus than a space shuttle of some kind.
The Emperor ignored me, and so did the rest of the people in this front cabin.
It looked like there were two pilots and an additional fellow who hovered near the Emperor, like a kitchen fly near a steak.
It’s not like I needed attention.
It was a sharp contrast from when I was first in a flying vehicle where Zale attempted to help me into my seat. Even though I didn’t let him, he still tried. He cared about me. Nobody here seemed to give a shit if I managed to get myself strapped in or not.
I understood what this was.
To men like this, I was a piece of property.
He bought me with a spaceship.
The thought didn’t make me feel comfortable.
It wasn’t exactly how I wanted to live my life.
But at the same time, there was a practical aspect to life.
Arnina always saw the world through rose-colored glasses, thinking that Prince Charming was going to sweep her off her feet.
I really hoped that worked out for her; that guy she was with now seemed pretty good, minus the sudden violent murder. At least he was an actual Prince.
But I’d seen plenty of guys who would kiss their wives and then head straight to me to try to shove dollar bills in my G-string. Just because you want a man to be Prince Charming doesn’t mean he won’t go and get thrown out of a strip club for trying to jam something into a stripper.
I knew I had a mercenary side to me.
If the Emperor followed through on what he promised, though, I'd make sure he got his money's worth. My boobs twinged again, and a wave of worry washed over me.
It wasn’t just the spaceship that sold me.
The flying bus took off, and I could see everything through the curved dome of the window.
We lifted up in the air smoothly, and the city spread out below us like a picnic blanket made out of fairy lights. My breath caught in my mouth at the sight of it, and I was unable to do anything but gasp in awe. It was the same as when we were standing in Murder Kitty's penthouse suite.
The ability of beings to come together and create such magnificent structures never ceased to amaze me.
On earth, every time I drove through a massive freeway intersection, the bridges were layered over each other, twisting in and out like vines.
I always took a minute to marvel at the sheer audacity of architectural creation.
The shuttle rose higher and higher, and the view turned from the diminishing cityscape to the curved edge of a moon. The city covered the entire surface. As we continued to rise I could see the swirling shape of the planet the moon circled.
Then the shuttle turned, and I saw stars.
It was definitely a space shuttle.
We were in space now.
“Fuck yeah, “ I said out loud. “I’m an astronaut.“
One of the Emperor's ears flipped back briefly as I spoke, but he didn’t turn to look at me, and I didn’t bother to type it into the translator.
If he wanted to know about the bubbling joy, the small, shiny silver lining of being taken away from my small little life on Earth and being transported who knows how many light years away from it, he could ask me.
He could ask nicely.
Being a sugar daddy didn’t mean he’d get to know my heart.
He’d have to earn it by being warm and not going all cold on me just because I wanted to say goodbye to somebody who meant more to me than I wanted to admit.
I squashed that troublesome feeling, pushing it down again.
Love had nothing to do with survival.
Love wasn’t gonna get me a spaceship.
A small speck gleamed, the distant stars growing larger and larger as we approached it. Speak of the devil. I could see the sleek metallic shape get bigger until it was all that we could see.
There was the spaceship. It was huge.
At least it was bigger than this little shuttle bus we were on. I found my hands clenched together. If this was the spaceship he was talking about, I wouldn’t be able to take it without an experienced crew.
It wasn’t something I’d be able to learn to fly by myself if it was that huge. Would I?
If he was giving me that spaceship, I would need to be able to fund an entire crew to take it anywhere.
This arrangement might be harder to leave than I thought.
Then, again, for a woman in my situation, being the well-pampered courtesan of an Emperor was definitely not the worst I could do.
A panel on the side of the behemoth opened up, and we slid into its cavern.
The shuttle landed, and the Emperor arose from his seat.
I struggled for a moment to get my seatbelt off of me, and he looked over at me, hesitating briefly, before he turned away and strode towards the door.
I managed to get up out of the seat and quickly followed after him.
We walked down a ramp into a large docking bay. Half a dozen staff, all wearing bright red work outfits, stood in a line; their postures were stiff and identical. As we walked past them, the Emperor glanced at a smaller male who hovered by his side with a clipboard-style tablet in his arms.
“Take her to my quarters,“ he said without looking at me.
All right, then I guess that’s how this was gonna go.
The attendant turned to me, his tabby cream ears flicking back slightly before settling forward as his movements became stiff. The Emperor walked off, and the lines of bodyguards followed him.
“Follow me,“ the attendant said before turning sharply and straightening off.
Oh, hell no.
I stood where I was, crossed my arms, and waited.
I was just treated like an animal and kept in a crate in a zoo vet's office. There was no way I was going to tolerate anything less than polite respect, especially if I was doing a freaking Emperor in order to pay for it. If I didn’t establish myself either as a friend or as a dominant energy, I was just going to be treated like another pet.
The attendant got all the way across the room before he realized I wasn’t following him. As he strode back over to me, his tail lashing, I typed into my translator.
“On my planet, you say ‘please’ if you want someone to do something,“ I said.
His ears flattened back.
“It is the Emperor's orders,” he said.
I didn’t respond. I just stared him down.
After a long moment, he took a deep breath and stilled his tail, avoiding my gaze.
“Will you please follow me? I will show you to your quarters,” he said with a softer tone.
“Thank you, that would be lovely,” I replied. “It would be wonderful if you could also provide me with a map of the ship. I also will need some food. Though, I’m sure the Emperor requires your attendance for his own needs. Perhaps you can find me someone who can help me with everything I need?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, the muscles in his body relaxing slightly. “I am very important to the Emperor. I will make sure that you are assigned your own attendant when we reach our destination.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, wishing that the translator could convey the emotional warmth that was so useful in these situations. “What is your name?”
“I am called Braxlarth,” he replied, the name accompanied by a deliberate swish of his tail.
“Braxlarth,” I replied without the translator, grabbing the long edge of my skirt and swishing it in a similar manner. Then, I quickly typed into the translator. “Please forgive my rough pronunciation. It will take me some time to improve with a talented language instructor.”
I didn’t mention that it would take more than just a little time.
My tone deafness was definitely not serving me well in their civilization.
I followed him through the twisting corridors of the ship.
I had expected them to be in long, straight lines, but the ship had just as many oddities as the penthouse suite.
Unfortunately, that included vertical jumping tubes just like those in the suite with small platforms between each one, except this time, the platforms were very small, leaving a huge open center in the middle. I peered into one.
My apprehension vanished the second that my guide jumped into it, and instead of falling or leaping to the next level, he floated in the middle, drifting over to the small platform.
The tubes were missing the artificial gravity.
Thank goodness, because I would never be able to jump that high, and Zale wasn’t here to carry me. No one had given me a ladder like the one that Arnina had.
I gently floated into the center of the tube.
I quickly realized my mistake.
I’d given myself less momentum, and the speed at which I was drifting was minuscule. I had no control while I was floating there in the middle, even though it was extremely fun.
I reached out my hand to my guide, and he pushed off, gently grabbing my hand as he pulled me upwards. At least, I think it was upwards. It’s not like there was an up and down in space.
We went up two floors, and he pulled me out through the next opening. I stumbled as I landed, falling down to one knee. I took in a sharp breath and stood up, wincing as I limped slightly.
That was going to leave a bruise.
I followed my guide along the curved hallway that was lined with windows to the outside. I slowed down as I stared at the stars just out of my reach. One crack in that probably not glass material and I would be sucked out into an eternity, lost forever in the sea of nothingness.
That was metal as shit.
I grinned to myself.
We reached a set of double doors that looked like bank vault level protection on an evil villain's layer. We stopped in front of them, and my guide fidgeted in a way I was pretty sure meant discomfort, but who knows with these freaky, dancy aliens.
“You’ll have to wait here,” he said. “No one has access to open the Emperor's quarters but himself.”
What a rude power move.
He expected me to wait outside the doors of his quarters like a package? First off, I did not sign any dominant-submissive contract saying that I would sit around and wait for him like a good little girl.
Secondly, this was my spaceship.
“Then take me to the bridge,” I commanded furiously, typing into my translator.
My guide blinked at me.
“There are no bridges on a spaceship,” he said. “The water feature in the life room doesn’t include a crossing.”
I sighed.
There goes my dreams of telling them to go to warp speed and make it so. The little nerd in my heart cried a little bit at that thought, but I let it go. What was the name for the bridge? The helm? Would that translate properly?
“Also, the Emperor said to take you to his quarters, so you must wait here,” he said, not waiting for me to figure out what word to use. “You must obey the Emperor.”
“I am an Ambassador for my species,” I said, as I drew myself up to the full length of my diminutive height. I wasn’t the shortest woman in the world, but next to these towering aliens, even one on the smaller side like my guide, I was positively petite.
“Plus, this is my spaceship and he said I’d be the Empress.”
“This is the Emperor's flagship,” he replied with a definite laugh in his tone, and his body wiggled. “He custom-designed and oversaw the full build. He wouldn’t give it to a…” The guy paused for a moment and looked me up and down.
He spent a lot of time staring at my hair, like he was looking for something. “Ambassador.”
I smirked at him.
“I’m just that good of a lay,” I said in my own language, definitely not translating it.
Then I typed into the translator again.
“You win. I’ll wait here.” I smiled at him while exposing my teeth.
He flinched a little.
I knew I wasn’t winning any friends with my behavior, but from my experience, I knew that it was better to have people be a little bit afraid of you than to think that you are a pushover.
Friendship was made of something more than minor social collisions.
“Good,” he said and practically ran off.
I waited until he was out of sight.
It was time to get the lay of my new ship, and I wasn’t going to do that standing around by a door like a doormat.
First things first, it was time to learn how to play in zero-G.