Chapter 39
I laughed hysterically as I bounced off the walls.
My feet hit the side of the wall, and I gently launched off, adding a little twist to my hips so that I spiraled as I flew.
I'd already learned not to press off too hard.
There was nothing to slow down my velocity but the walls and the very minor drag of the ship's internal atmosphere. I giggled as I spun, trying to make sure my laughter didn't throw off my trajectory down the zero gravity corridor.
I had been laughing so hard my sides hurt, and I was a little worried I was gonna piss myself, which would be an absolute disaster in zero-G as far as I could recall from those videos I had watched back in my Earth days of the space station astronauts playing with liquids in space.
Yup, no liquids in this corridor other than the couple of tears I had shed while cackling to myself.
This was absolutely hilarious.
I had spent enough time hanging from rings and spinning rapidly in circles around poles that the disorientation of zero gravity did little more than make me slightly queasy for a few minutes.
After my inner ear adjusted to the utter lack of up and down, the tunnel became nothing more than a practice in absolute delight.
I never would've gotten this experience back on Earth.
I was anything if not real to myself. I knew that I was the type of person who would never get to go up into space.
I didn't have money. I didn't have a skill set that was desirable for NASA.
I didn't know how to fly planes, fix rockets, or grow a massive hydroponics system that was large enough to support several people sustainably under extremely harsh and stressful conditions.
If this hadn't happened to me, if I hadn't been taken and brought on this crazy adventure - I would never have gotten to go to space or experience zero gravity.
I giggled and pushed off the wall again.
This made everything worth it.
In zero gravity, my heart healed.
The resentment I had felt, the suffering and the fear and the terror of the last couple of weeks melted away under the power of play.
The sheer fun that was found in a new mode of movement was enough to take the bleeding edges of my psyche and staunch the wound, giving it the air to breathe and heal just a little bit.
In exploring the new form of movement, my mind had to fully focus on what my body was attempting to do. There was no room for pain. There was only room for the present moment, for staying in the now and holding space only for what I was about to do.
The silence in the movement was bliss.
I pushed off the next wall, attempting to do a somersault in mid air. I landed awkwardly, my hip bumping against one of the platforms, causing me to spin wildly out of control. I reached out, my stomach lurching as I tried to find a purchase to stop my rotations.
Strong arms wrapped around me.
A familiar, masculine smell enveloped me for a moment: oak and jasmine.
The joy in my heart overflowed until I realized the arms that wrapped around me were covered with a pearlescent, translucent fur with blond roots instead of the shimmering black metallic sheen that I had grown so used to.
Why did he smell the same, and yet so different?
A sharp cut of loss stabbed through me, piercing my happy glow with a momentary agony.
The Emperor gripped onto one of the platforms, holding me steady.
"Are you unharmed?" he asked, his voice soft and concerned.
I grabbed the translator from where it was draped over my shoulder like a messenger bag and spun it around my front.
I hesitated before I typed a response. Earthbound Lorelei would've snapped at him immediately, letting him know how badly he messed up by having his underling treat me like I was a package to be dropped off at the doormat.
But the normal pent up anger didn't come.
Instead, all I felt was a sense of loss I didn't want to feel, a feeling that swamped out even the fiery burn of my quick anger.
"I'm ready to learn how to fly my ship," I replied, not answering his question or addressing his underling’s rudeness. "You may take me to the bridge now."
He looked at me quizzically.
"There are no rivers on the spaceship," he replied.
For goodness sake, trying to get things across in a foreign language, even with a translator, was a little ridiculous. There were so many nuances that weren't the same.
"What do you call the part of the ship where you send out instructions and operate the ship and all that good stuff?" I asked. I needed to get the terminology right. Not all my colloquialisms were translating, which made me wonder what else got lost between our understandings.
What other things had been misunderstood?
Maybe a colloquialism class wasn’t a bad idea.
"There is the operation center," he replied, "where the crew has their workstations, and I have space to oversee in person if I wish. There is also my private command chamber."
"Well, let's go to the command chamber then," I smiled at him, keeping my lips over my teeth. My simple request to say goodbye to Zale had caused him to go emotionally cold. I wasn't going to give him any more second thoughts about giving me the spaceship.
On that thought, I twisted in his arms, letting go of the translator as I slid my own hands up and behind his neck.
We drifted slightly to the side with my movement.
I dug my fingers in the thick fur on the back of his neck, working my fingernails through it as I scratched gently upwards towards the back of his ears; he leaned his head back into the pressure of his eyes, half fluttering for a moment.
For a moment, he was lost in my gentle touch.
Then his eyes snapped open.
He gripped the platform tighter with his hand, twisting his wrists so that our bodies angled down towards the wall.
His feet connected first, and he bent his knees, pushing off to send us upwards, or downwards, or sideways.
I didn't know how to identify our orientation other than that we were headed toward another one of the corridor archways.
As we reached it, he grabbed one of the handlebars on the edge of it and swung us into gravity, landing lightly on his feet as he carefully sent me down.
Then he let go of me.
He stepped away, pulling firmly away from my touch in a way that felt like a reproach, and my hands fell to my sides, the cool vacuum of the space between us filling me with a chill.
"I will find you a suitable instructor on operating the spacecraft after you no longer need that device," he said, gesturing at the translator. "Focus on that first. All your needs will be taken care of, but you must take care of your own education before you can take full control of this vessel."
He shifted his weight as if he was torn between walking away or standing there.
"Will you show me my room?" I asked, desperate to find something to hold onto. All of the warmth that he had showered on me when we met was gone. It was being replaced by a sense of dread.
He had love bombed me.
That's what this was.
That was why this felt so bad.
This Emperor was the kind of guy who showered love until he got what he wanted, which in this case was a roll in the hay and me coming with him, and now that he had that, he didn't need to keep the mask up anymore. He didn't need to show me false affection anymore.
This was who he really was.
I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
Like a lot of the rash decisions I'd made in my life, I took a deep breath and tried to let go of it. It was done. There was no point in regret. The only thing I could do was move forward and do what I could with what I had to work with in the situation where I found myself.
"I will," he said, then turned and strolled down the hallway, leaving me to follow in his wake.
We arrived back at the same large doors as before, and he pointed to a small circle in the center of the doors.
"Keep your eyes open and place your right eye in front of that circle," he instructed.
I stepped closer and immediately discovered a problem.
The circle was at his head height, not mine.
I needed a step stool.
I looked back at him, and he tilted his head to the side, his eyes darting from me, to the circle, and back again.
His ears flatted briefly as he realized the issue. I would have to jump really, really high to do that. There was no holding my eye steady at that height.
He stepped in close to me, his chest brushing against me as he leaned over me to present his eye to the scanner.
That familiar heat flared in me at his touch.
The door slid open in front of me.
The room was what I had come to expect from these rich-ass bitches.
It was smaller than what I would expect if we weren't on a space limited vessel carrying us through an empty vacuum, but it was likely the largest room on the ship.
There was a bed that was the same style as I've seen so far, and all the rooms I’d stayed in after being rescued from the crate were large enough for three to four of these avatar-esk giants.
There was another set of large double doors off to the right and then an archway that led into what looked like a modest washroom.
I wasn't expecting a walk-in jacuzzi tub pool on a spaceship, but you never know what kind of technology aliens are going to be slapping around.
There was likely just a shower in there if they had any sense.
Given that there were no rivers on the ship for bridges to cross, they had to have some water restrictions.
Plus, if the gravity turned off, a bathtub would be a terrible idea.
"I'm betting your bodyguards and soldiers all sleep in little coffin shaped cubicles," I muttered to myself in my own language as I tried not to think of a certain King's personal bodyguard.
Then a thought struck me.
I needed to win my place as the favorite courtesan because, again, being real with myself, this guy probably had plenty of other hos that he probably didn't promise spaceships to. There was no way a guy like this would stick to his promise to be monogamous. Oh he’d likely pretend for a while, but I needed to make sure I was set up for the moment I lost his interest. Anyway, if I could win my place as the favorite courtesan, maybe I would be able to hire a bodyguard of my own.
Maybe I could hire Zale for my own.
The hope that accompanied that thought soured instantly in my stomach.
If the Emperor went all ice queen at me the moment I mentioned that I wanted to say goodbye to another man, then there was no way he would put up with me cuckolding him with the man who I really wanted, even if I was willing to break my word.
I needed to just let him go.
I was here now.
I made my decision.
I had to cut him out of my heart.
He deserved to be with someone who wouldn't choose a spaceship over him. I deserved to be with someone who wouldn't hand me off to another man without a word of warning.
My heart's yearning wasn't fair to me.
I snapped back to the present moment when I realized the Emperor was trying to leave.
"Wait!" I didn't have time to grab the translator, so I reached for his hand. He stopped in his tracks as my palm slid into his, my fingers wrapping around the back of his hand.
I tugged him gently into the room with me, and he let me.
The doors slid closed.
It was time to fix this coldness between us.
There was one easy fix I knew to solve the bad mood of a man who wanted me.
I fell to my knees, looking up at him and letting my tongue run over my lips.
I let go of his hand, dropping both of my hands to his thighs as I arch my back, sticking my butt out as much as possible as I knelt. I ran my hands up his thighs, reaching for the top of his trousers.
I was going to need to get him to sit down.
He was too tall for me to do this properly on my knees if he was standing.
I didn't get the opportunity to get that far.
He reached down, grabbed my wrists, and pulled my hands away from his thighs. He lifted me back up to my feet by my wrists, leaving no room for argument.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
He let go of my hands, and I grabbed the translator.
"I was going to make you feel really good," I said. "You know, with my mouth."
"Are you doing this because you are worried I will not honor my word?" He seemed almost angry, his tail twitching. But then he stiffened and held still, his body giving me nothing that I could read or understand.
He was stone.
Why yes, yes, indeed, that was exactly why I dropped to my knees.
I needed to give him another taste of what I had to offer; his hot and cold attitude was freaking me out, and this was the fastest way I knew to gain power over a man. I didn't want him to put me aside. I needed him to know that I was worth it by giving him a taste of my many talents.
It was a skill I was damn good at.
"No," I lied. "I just really wanted to touch you."
"I can't stand to have you touch me," he said as he took a step towards me, looming over me, his eyes raking up and down my body. "I can't stand to even look at you."
What a jerk.