Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 46803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
But she’s attractive. And smart. And brave. And bold. And you like her, even though you barely know her.
A part of my mind that rarely gets to have a say speaks up from one of the deepest recesses. I’ve put away this part of me even deeper than my desire. This is my romantic side, my softer side, my capacity for love. I don’t listen to him anymore. Not after seeing how my family was destroyed by love, my father betrayed and killed by the the mother of his children. I don’t trust this softer part of myself. It is weak and it will get us all killed if I listen to it.
“Stay in the room,” I tell her. “Stay in this room. There is a bed in here you can sleep in, and I will bring you food if you need it. The ship is not yours. And touch nothing…” Looking around, I realize I cannot leave her in here. There is far too much for her to get into.
“Actually, never mind. I am going to put you in one of the human containment rooms. It will be more suitable.”
“Sounds like a cell.”
“It is smaller, but also has a bed.”
“Is that what you think people want? Beds?”
“I think not having a bed is very uncomfortable for a human, but if you’d like to continue to be ungrateful for what you are given, I can remove it.”
I see her eyes widen a fraction as she digests my words. They are designed to remind her that she is here at my pleasure, and that everything she has comes from me. They are supposed to put her in her place. They absolutely fail to do that.
“Such a fucking asshole,” she curses under her breath.
She’s rude and she’s self-possessed. She’s not going to be grateful to me for small mercies because it doesn’t occur to her that she needs to be grateful. She thinks the universe owes her something, and therefore, I owe her something.
The temptation to spank her again, this time for no reason other than she is a spoiled little brat, rises in me. She could do with a series of painful lessons. Perhaps they would teach her some humility and appreciation.
Then again, if being shot didn’t bring her down a peg or two, as the humans say, perhaps nothing will. Or… perhaps being shot did bring her down a peg or two, and she was even more insufferable beforehand. She is an unknown quantity, one I intend to become entirely knowledgeable about.
“Come with me,” I say. “We will find a suitable room for you.”
“It better have more than just a bed, or I’m going to fucking riot,” she replies.
“Oh? What other accoutrements does the lady require?”
She glances up at me, and even from her relatively diminutive height, I see that she has the spark of a little dominance in her. She does not like being spoken down to. She likes to be taken seriously. I suppose I can understand that.
“I need some form of entertainment so I don’t go completely fucking mental,” she replies brashly. “And I need to be able to exercise. And ideally, I need to be able to, uhm, escape.”
I laugh inadvertently at that last addition.
“Where would you escape to, even if you could? We are on a ship light years from your home.”
“It’s not the where that matters. It’s the principle of not being under some dude’s thumb,” she says. “It’s about freedom.”
4 PAST PRESENT
Stella
This alien is a psycho. He laughs at the idea of freedom, as if there’s no way in the universe I’d ever be allowed that. It doesn’t even occur to him that maybe I deserve it. Maybe it’s my fucking birthright. He’s not the first male I’ve encountered who thinks of me as property, something to possess and inevitably trade. It’s just so fucking disappointing to discover that even massive, advanced aliens who look like an orc and an elf fucked a dragon are just as misogynistic as fleshy human men.
I want to teach him a lesson. I want to teach them all lessons about captivity and freedom and what it means to be a fucking person even if, yeah, you happen to have a vagina.
I need to get off this ship and back to Earth, I guess. Earth was also full of psychos, though. It’s possible that if everybody you meet is a psycho, then you might be the actual psycho, but I refuse to think about that too deeply. My ass is sore inside the snug confines of my new clothing, and the collar around my neck feels like a heavy thing weighing me down, containing and grounding me. I keep putting my fingers up to touch it, sometimes to curl around the edge and tug, sometimes to run my fingers over the ridges and valleys of it. These wires are primed to deliver pain, but only if I disobey him.