Chapter 18
The Calm Before the Rupture
Lily
“Every swaying step of Silomarila is tracked by watchful eyes, yet lately the Muse of the Mokra Matriarchy has been vanishing with suspicious frequency for short stretches of time, and no one seems to know where she goes.
Is she preparing for a new role? Has she turned to philanthropy?
Has her heart been stolen, or has she fallen victim to blackmail?
One thing is certain: you will hear about it here first the moment the truth comes to light.
Secrets, Gossip, Lies column, IMPERIUM Daily News Portal
Lily lost her bet that Silomarila would throw Vegrun out by the end of the trip.
She had spoken with the Mokra woman a few times about this and that, and by the time they reached their destination she had genuinely grown fond of her.
Among her own species, Silomarila was considered breathtakingly beautiful, and she was universally famous for her modeling career.
Beyond that, Lily discovered she had a sharp sense of humor, and they shared far more interests than expected.
Khar stood beside Lily at Vitro’s dock, radiating smug satisfaction as they waved goodbye to the departing ground luxury transport. The moment it vanished from sight, he pulled out his console, switched Vitro to remote sentry mode, grabbed Lily by the waist, and tossed her over his shoulder.
“Come on, loser.”
She punched his back. “Put me down!”
“Never. You live on my shoulder now.”
“The wager was one favor!”
“Yes. And I’m doing you a favor by letting you live on my shoulder. See? You already owe me two.”
Lily sighed and went limp, arms dangling behind him as she bounced with the rhythm of his stride. She briefly considered biting his ass, but it was too far away. Damn giant space demon-bull alien.
Khar turned her toward Helios’s entry sensor and she triggered the door. Contrary to his earlier promise, he set her down on the threshold and looked at her hopefully.
“Can I come in?”
She gestured inside, and Khar promptly scooped her up again and jogged in.
“Want to shower together?”
“What? No!”
“That’s fine. Next time then. But we do need a shower. Both of us. Vegrun and his tentacles on our shoulders are not an experience I want to repeat.”
Lily shuddered. “They were so wet. But hey — at least he was happy.”
Khar was already peeling off the jacket of his black uniform, where the slick residue of a tentacle still marked the fabric.
“I’m happy about the seven-chrono-cycles leave. What’s your plan, Lily?”
“Nothing special. A couple of overdue services on Helios. I want to spend a bit of the bonus. Sleep a lot. Eat a lot. Things like that.”
“Sounds good. I’m joining you for all of it.”
Lily slipped out of her own jacket and grimaced at the damp streak on it.
“You know what, Khar? Let’s shower together.”
“If you insist.”
* * *
The next few chrono-cycles were the best of Lily’s life, extraordinary in their very ordinariness.
Ordinary, because they did nothing remarkable. They simply lived alongside each other. They had a lot of sex, and when they were not having sex, they ate, slept, rested, and talked.
Extraordinary, because even running out to pick up calorie spheres with Khar felt like an adventure. In his presence, Lily felt vivid, wanted, alive.
The sex was otherworldly.
With her previous partners, things always seemed to end just as she was truly warming up.
Sometimes she managed one or two orgasms. Sometimes not even that.
She had never reached that boneless, jelly-like state where pleasure rolled through her again and again until she forgot how to hold herself together.
With Khar, everything changed.
The Divani was relentless. He could have gone day and night without pause, yet he always kept her needs in mind. Well, almost. He usually waited until Lily was reduced to breathless pleading, begging him to stop. Then he continued just a little longer.
Lily explained the concept of a safeword to him.
He loved it.
“How clever humans are to invent something like this,” he said. “That way I can listen to you beg in that sweet voice of yours, and I only stop when you throw ‘solar collector’ at my head.”
“It’s not going to be solar collector.”
“Why not?”
“It has to be something I would never say by accident.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. With you, there is a real risk you would bring up your ship during sex. I have accepted this.”
“Hey! I was joking!”
The safeword did not end up being solar collector.
And Khar made enthusiastic use of it.
* * *
Of course, there were moments when Lily ran headlong into the fact that Khar did not always think the way she did. Most of the time they fit together so seamlessly it was easy to forget they came from different species. But every now and then, he surprised her.
Once, Khar had gone back to his quarters to change while Lily lounged aboard Helios, listening to old music from Earth. When he returned, it never even occurred to her to turn it off.
Khar stepped inside, dropped the large bag he was carrying, and froze.
“Lily. What is this music? Do you have more of it?” He paused, then added with sudden intensity, “I want to fuck you while this is playing.”
She burst out laughing. “It kind of feels like you always want to.”
“That is correct,” he said seriously. “But to this? Especially.”
Lily vaulted over the back of the sofa. “Catch me, then,” she called, and bolted.
The growl he made as he gave chase soaked her instantly. She decided she would not let herself be caught too quickly.
* * *
More shocking still was when Khar emerged from the shower, toweling himself dry after an unexpectedly cold rinse.
“Your first husband disapproves of me,” he announced gravely. “He set my wash to frigid mid-rinse. I will accept this. He arrived before me, and I did not save your life. But there cannot be more husbands.”
“Khar,” Lily said carefully, “what are you talking about?”
“Helios changed the temperature during my wash.”
“That is impossible,” she cut in. “Helios is an intelligent system, not a being with feelings.”
Khar crossed his arms stubbornly. “Pull the last few micro-cycles of bathroom logs.”
She sighed. “Helios, bathroom data from the previous five minutes.”
“Negative,” the ship replied. “Logs destroyed due to an unexpected error.”
Lily frowned. Khar gave her a smug look of vindication and wisely did not say I told you so.
“All right,” she admitted. “That is strange. But what do you mean, my husband? Helios is a machine.”
Khar clutched his chest in exaggerated offense. “If the AI rights advocates heard you, they would already be knocking.”
She snorted. “He is still not my husband. And you’re definitely not my husband.”
Khar, now dry but still wrapped in a towel, dropped onto the sofa beside her. “You love Helios as if he were. But that is fine. If you deny it, I will simply claim First Husband.”
Helios’s ambient lights flickered. Lily decided it must have been her imagination.
What she did not miss was Khar, thinking she could not see, flashing the ship the universal eat me gesture. She could not decide whether to laugh or groan, so she rolled her eyes and steered the conversation somewhere safer.
“Is there any accepted law about this?” she asked.
“No. Each species decides for itself. I was extrapolating from what you told me about human mating customs.”
Lily covered her face. “Khar, I do not know. I have not thought this through.”
She peeked at him through her fingers. He gently pulled her hands away and pressed his face into them.
“I am very fond of you, Lily. Tell me what I must do to be acknowledged. I will do anything.”
A handful of words, and he nearly brought her to tears.
She remembered the first time she had seen him, the low tug in her belly.
She had refused to dwell on it then. It had felt shameful and impossible.
A towering alien who looked like a demon from some ancient myth could not possibly care what a small human wanted to do to him.
She even remembered forcing herself to ask the strange gym receptionist who he was, only to be stonewalled with “data protection.”
Then they had ended up working together.
At first he had been quiet, reserved. But around him, for the first time since leaving Earth, she had felt something like camaraderie. As if he had anchored her soul in the middle of its endless storm.
Khar was confident, certain. Those qualities had begun to grow in her too, step by step, as he dismantled the insecurities that had haunted her. Some had been there long before. Others had been born the moment she was taken from Earth. Khar made no distinction. He dismantled them all.
If it had only been about sex, he would have had her wrapped around his finger anyway.
But without realizing it, he had waged a one-man war on the contradictions the world had drilled into her since birth.
Be sexy, but do not be a slut. And what makes you a slut?
Practically anything. But being undesirable is worse. Just do not be a slut.
Round and round.
Those scripts had shadowed every previous encounter.
With Khar, the only thing that mattered was what made her happy. He took pleasure in her pleasure and amplified it. She loved that.
If sex could feel this right, she did not care what the world thought. Something that felt this true at the core of her being had to be clean and real.
With Khar, she felt safe enough to tell him almost anything. Almost. Some part of her still feared the magic might shatter without warning.
He did not drown her in compliments, but when he spoke, his words carried weight. He strove for honesty and did not seem threatened by disagreement.
If this were a romance back on Earth, she would have been suspicious. How could everything be this perfect?
Ah yes. There it was again. The instinct to ruin something good before it could be taken from her.
So she reached for her strongest argument.