Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
She stares blankly up at me and then nods once. "Cool. Thanks. Go shower. It’s all yours.”
“Excellent.” At least I have managed to patch the situation to a certain degree. I need Maeve’s friendship. Not just because she controls everything here—food, shelter—but because I will go insane without someone on my side.
CHAPTER
FIFTY
MAEVE
We could have sex.
Pfffffft. As if I want to have sex with him.
I roll my eyes for the dozenth time that day and fold laundry. Zhur is in the barn, tinkering with the tending bots because he said they were on antiquated firmware, whatever that means. I think he just wants an excuse to get away from the house. That suits me just fine, because things have been awkward between us all afternoon.
We could have sex, indeed. Yeah right.
Yet if I'm so horrified at the concept...why do I keep thinking about it? I run my hands over the rough blanket angrily, smoothing out ripples in the fabric that seem to crop up despite my best efforts. Maybe this one should go on the bed.
The stupid, stupid bed that I'm sharing with Zhur but we are absolutely not having sex in.
I clench my jaw, annoyed at myself. Grabbing the blanket, I head to the bedroom and then eye my bed. It's pulled out of place, from when I parked it against the door last night. Currently it's off to one side, and I haul the light frame back to the center of the room, then strip the old blankets off. Everything I look at is reminding me that I haven't had sex in years, and probably won't again for years to come. It's not as if Risda III is crawling with human men. Oh, there's a few, but they're just as messed up as the rest of us—or aren't particularly interested in women. Which is fine. It's not as if romance has been on my mind.
And I'm married now.
To a politician in hiding.
Who wants to have casual sex with a friend.
A friend with benefits.
I toss the old blankets aside and put the new ones on the bed, where they lay mostly smooth and look decent enough. I run my hand over the fabric and then glance up at my bedroom door.
Yep, everything in the house seems to be about sex lately, even the doors. Damn. It's like the universe is reminding me how long it's been since I've gotten off.
I haven't even masturbated more than a few times in the last several years, because that particular small pleasure has been ruined for me since my captivity in the glass cage. The few times I did it just to feel something I was left with such disgust and shame that I haven't done it much here on Risda III, either.
That's a lot of pent-up frustration and it's not going to get any better any time soon. Even if Zhur left tomorrow, I'd have to act the part of the wife that got left behind. I couldn't have any romantic entanglements for a while, not that they're exactly dropping into my lap anyhow. Like it or not, I've tied myself to Zhur in my efforts to help him.
And because I apparently hate myself, I let my brain imagine what it'd be like if we slept together. As friends, of course. There'd be no strings attached, no feelings to be coddled. I could tell him we're absolutely not fucking again if it's terrible. That if he doesn't give my clit a good working over, he doesn't get his balls jiggled. I don't have to worry about sparing his feelings. We could just fuck hard and then not think about it. It'd be filling a need, like eating dinner. Instead of breaking bread, we'd just be servicing each other. A quick diddle at night and then roll over and sleep.
Just like the drugs, there's no one on this end of the universe to judge me.
Oh, there's a few people in town that would probably turn their noses up at the thought, but the more traumatized ones don't talk to me anyhow. They don't trust friendliness. And everyone else already thinks we're in love and married.
Hm.
I don't know if I'm ready to fuck a stranger, though. That's what Zhur is, after all. We're still barely friends, still getting to know one another. If we fuck and it gets weird, we're sort of stuck together. That's an alarming thought.
It's probably better not to have sex at all than to have bad sex and be forced to stare at one another across the dinner table.
Then again, things are already awkward because of the noli and the way he attacked my doors. I sit on the edge of the bed, squeezing my eyes shut and thinking about last night. About how he'd caged me between his arms and rubbed his massive erection against my backside. How it had felt...really good.