Zoe was still trembling against me, her arms clutched tight around my neck. I rubbed her back soothingly and murmured to her that everything was going to be fine, that I had her and wouldn’t let her go.
But you’ll have to let her go, won’t you? whispered a nasty little voice in my head. Once you get to Giedi Prime you’ll trade her to Tazaxx and never see her again, unless he extends an invitation to his private zoo.
I thought of that, of only seeing her from behind a clear force field, of never being able to hold her or touch her again and my heart felt like someone was twisting it.
It’s the toxin, I told myself trying to push the feeling away. I haven’t even had her for two solar days yet. Trading her to Tazaxx should be no problem.
So why couldn’t I make myself believe it?
Looking down, I saw that the slime had melted off both of us. I was completely clean since I hadn’t gone in under my head. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Zoe. Her long red hair—so vivid when I held her despite the inhibitor she still wore—was matted with the stuff, and it still clung to her face and her long lashes and eyebrows too. She was going to have to go under—there was no other way to get rid of the slime completely.
“Zoe,” I said, as gently as I could.
She opened her eyes a crack and peeked at me.
“Yes?” Her voice sounded tiny and uncertain—very different from her usual confident banter—but at least she’d stopped trembling in my arms.
“We have to go under,” I told her. “Just for a moment. Just to get your face and hair clean.”
“I…I know,” she whispered, looking up at me with those big, impossibly blue eyes. Even coated in the thick slime of the tank, I thought I had never seen a lovelier female. Her freckles stood out against the skin of her face—probably because she was pale with fear.
“Can you trust me?” I asked her. “I’ll go under with you, I promise. Will that help?”
“Maybe. If…if I can see you.”
“We’ll be face to face the entire time. Look.” I shifted her around so that her legs were wrapped around my waist and we were facing each other directly.
“Okay.” She clung to me tightly, her arms wrapped around my neck as she pressed as close to me as she could. Her lush, naked curves were distracting but her fear was too obvious for me to become aroused. I’ve known males who got off on the fear and pain of females but I have never been one of them.
“All right,” I murmured. “On the count of three take a deep breath and we’ll go under. We’ll stay under for a count of three and then come back up. Understand?”
She nodded, her eyes big with fear. It hurt me to see how terrified she still was but I couldn’t help it—this had to be done.
“One,” I told her. “Two…three.” Taking a deep breath, I ducked us both beneath the purple liquid of the cleansing pool.
Zoe’s long hair floated free, the liquid in the pool going to work at once on the slime left by the tank. I hoped it would do its job quickly. She was trembling against me so violently now that it vibrated my entire body. I had the sense that this was bringing back some old trauma for her and that she was barely holding on to her self control.
I made a count of three and then lifted us both, breaking the surface.
Zoe gasped in a breath, her eyes huge in her pale face. Then she squeezed them shut and a deep, hitching sob came from her throat. She clamped her lips shut as though to keep another from following it. Clearly this experience was absolutely terrifying to her—and just as clearly she was determined not to give in to the fear and cry.
“Zoe?” I looked at her with concern.
“Is it done?” she whispered in a small, choked voice. “Please tell me it’s done, Sarden.”
I felt her thick hair with my free hand. Unfortunately, there was still slime caught in its curly locks.
“I’m afraid not,” I said regretfully. “Your face is clear but your hair…”
“It…it always takes forever to rinse the shampoo and conditioner out,” she said and tried to laugh. “So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Do…do we have to go under again?”
I was about to say yes but I had a sudden thought.
“Not if you don’t want to,” I told her. “Not if you trust me enough to support you.”
“You’re supporting me now,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but I mean support you while you float on your back,” I said. “I’ll hold you up and you can lean back and let your hair drift in the water. That way at least your face doesn’t have to go under. What do you think?”
“I think…I guess that would be okay.” She nodded. “Only I don’t know how to float.”
“You don’t really have to—I’ll hold you up,” I promised. “Just relax and trust me. Can you do that?” I very much wanted her to say yes, to know that she trusted me, though I didn’t know why. When she nodded her head, I felt as though something clenched tight inside me had loosened a little. “Good,” I told her. “On the count of three, then?”
“Yes, okay.” She took a deep breath. “Just…just put me where I need to be.”
“I will,” I promised her, stroking her cheek. Gods, she was lovely.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Thank me later—when we’ve gotten all this off of you,” I told her. “One…two…three.”
Zoe
It was both awkward and terrifying, floating on my back in the purple liquid. I’d had boyfriends before who promised to teach me how to swim and I knew this was how you were supposed to start—just floating with someone you trusted holding you up.
I hadn’t trusted a single guy enough to let him do that for me. Not until Sarden. And I didn’t know why I was trusting him now. I barely knew him, so why was I okay with believing he would hold me up and not let me go?
I couldn’t answer that question, even to myself. I tried to think up some snarky explanation but my mind was too tangled in knots with the past and the future merging together to make one big nasty mess of my emotions.
When the snarky part of me goes into hiding, I know I’m in trouble.
I tried closing my eyes but I kept seeing Angela’s face—Angie, little Angie that I was supposed to be responsible for. That I was supposed to watch. Guilt and sorrow flowed through me until I couldn’t bear it and had to open my eyes to look up at Sarden who was holding me firmly and patiently, just waiting for the cleansing liquid to do its job.
I tried to help it along some by lifting my arms very, very carefully over my head to scrub at my hair. But then I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was naked and my boobs were floating very obviously, my nipples like two little pink boats bobbing on the surface of the purple liquid. More like two red boats actually—those damn starfish suckers on the end of the tentacles had really done a number on me!
“Oops.” I lowered my arms hastily to cover myself, feeling both shy and more vulnerable than I could ever remember feeling before. Yes, even more vulnerable than the night before when the damn hoverbed had been touching me while he watched.
Sarden frowned but never let go of me—his large, warm hands were spread carefully under my back and the top of my butt, holding me up.
“Are you still so shy with me?” he murmured. “You have nothing to be ashamed of—your curves are lovely.”
“Thank you but that doesn’t mean I want to go parading around naked as a jay bird,” I said tartly.
“What?” He frowned. “Is that some kind of Earth creature?”
“Yes, a bird—you know, they fly through the air?”
“We have such creatures on Vorn 6 and also Eloim,” he said, nodding. “The Ancient Ones sowed the seeds of life everywhere. But the birds on my home worlds usually have feathers. On Vorn 6, some have scales as well.”
I tried to picture a scaly bird and shuttered. Ugh.
“They have feathers on Earth, too,” I said.
?
??Then how can a bird be ‘naked’?” Sarden asked reasonably. “I don’t understand.”
“Honestly, I don’t either,” I told him. “It’s just a saying. Look—do you think we’re almost done here?”
He felt my hair carefully, making sure to keep me well supported with one large hand under my back.
“I think so.” He nodded. “I take it you’re ready to get out?”
“More than ready,” I said fervently. “Seriously, so, so, so ready.”
“All right.” He gathered me close to his broad chest and prepared to exit the vertical bathtub. The fabric of his sleeveless shirt was soaked and clinging to him transparently in an extremely yummy way but it was hard to appreciate when I wanted so badly to get out of the water.
But then he just stopped. Instead of taking me out of the PPC, he just looked at me.
“What? What is it? Why are we stopping?” I asked nervously. “Please, Sarden, I really want to get out of here!”
“I can tell you do. But I’d like to understand why.”
“Why what?” I asked, feeling exasperated.
“Why you’re afraid of going in over your head.” He was still looking at me intently. “What happened to you, Zoe, that made you so fearful of water or swimming?”
“Angela…my little sister,” I said stiffly. “She…there was an accident. She was only five. I…” I shook my head. “I don’t….I can’t talk about it.”
“You did tell me you had a sister—I remember.” Sarden looked at me thoughtfully.
“Had being the operative word,” I said, my throat tight.
He raised an eyebrow. “She died?”
I looked away, unable to meet his gaze.
“Look, can we please just get out? I am so past ready to leave this damn purple bathtub thing it’s not even funny.”
“Right.” He nodded and, to my infinite relief, let the subject drop. I’d had enough trips down Memory Lane today, first in the awful tentacle tank and then in the weird vertical bathtub. I just wanted to let the memory of my sister and what had happened to her fade away—at least for now.
We stepped out and I started shivering again—the liquid in the Personal Pool of Cleansing, as Al had called it, was as warm as bathwater. The outside air felt incredibly chilly in contrast.
“Here.” Sarden carried me over to the mister and stood me on my feet in front of him. I wobbled a minute but then I was fine—my heart was beating normally again. Well, as normally as it could when I was naked and so close to the huge, muscular alien.
Sarden changed the controls so that blasts of hot air started coming out to dry us. It felt wonderful against my chilled skin but not so good against my tender nipples, which still felt like they’d been half sucked off by the awful tentacles in the tank. You know how it is when you burn your hand and then you try to cook something over a hot stove? The heat hitting your burn is almost more than you can stand. That’s how it was with my nipples…and between my thighs too. Those tentacles had been awful.
“Ouch!” I winced involuntarily and took a step back from the hot air.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sarden sounded concerned. I turned to him.
“Nothing, it’s—hey, you’re naked!”
“Of course I am.” He kicked the heap of sodden clothes he’d shed to one side. “I have to dry off too.” Rivulets of the purple cleansing liquid ran down the hard planes of his abdomen and beaded on his broad, bare shoulders. Between his long, muscular legs his shaft was every bit as big and impressive as I remembered. It was also more than half hard.
“All right, well…fine.” I started edging away from him.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “Don’t be foolish, Zoe. Just because I’m naked doesn’t mean I’ll suddenly try to molest you.”
“Right” I said, still moving away. “You’re not just naked. You’re also, uh, excited.” I nodded at his half-hard shaft.
“I can’t help being aroused when I see your naked body,” he said, as if it was a totally reasonable thing. “Especially when I was just holding you against me. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it. Come back and dry off—I don’t want you getting sick.”
“It’s not just that I’m embarrassed to be naked with you,” I said, although I totally was. At least, partly. “It also hurts. The hot air, I mean.”
“It hurts? What are you talking about?”
“It’s too hot—it’s burning me.” I wasn’t about to say where but Sarden’s eyes flicked to my nipples, which I was trying unsuccessfully to hide with one arm, and narrowed at once.
“The sensu-pods—what did they do to you?” he demanded.
“The what?” I asked.
“The tentacles in the tank. They’re meant to test nerve conduction and sensitivity—the same way the Commercian’s table does,” he explained. “But those had been dormant for over ten cycles—they’re starving and extremely aggressive.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, my teeth chattering. “Not to mention extremely rapey.”
His face darkened and he took a step toward me. “What did they do to you? Did they hurt you? Did they—”
“There was no, uh, penetration,” I said quickly, seeing where he was going with this. “Just a lot of really, really aggressive suction. It hurt. A lot.”
“I need to see if you’re injured—I need to examine you,” he announced.
“What? No!” I took another step back.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Zoe.” His deep voice was soft and coaxing. “I just need to make sure you’re all right. You could have a life threatening injury and not even know it.”
“I’m not injured, just sore,” I protested. “It’s not like being dunked in that damn tentacle tank is going to kill me.”
“It almost did kill you,” he pointed out. “Look, at the very least we need to be sure you got the slime that housed the sensu-pods off you completely. We need to be certain there isn’t some left somewhere.”
He looked pointedly between my legs and I could feel my cheeks getting hot.
“I’m fine. I’m sure I got it all off,” I protested.
“Then it won’t hurt to let me check,” he countered.
“I’ll check,” I said quickly.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are humans so flexible, then? You’re able to see that area with no problems?”
“Um…yes…” I didn’t sound very certain, even to myself.
“It will only take a minute. Come.” Sarden started for the bedroom but I hung back. “What is it?” he demanded, looking over his shoulder and seeing that I was still in the bathroom. “Is it that I’m still nude? Look.”
He made the closet appear in his wall again—(how did he do that?)—and quickly got dressed, pulling on another pair of the tight, black trousers and a black sleeveless shirt. Then he turned to face me and held out his arms.
“See?”
“Great. So you’re dressed,” I said flatly. “That doesn’t exactly qualify you as a gynecologist.”
“A what?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Look, Zoe, what if I swear to you that I have only your wellbeing in mind? I promise not to hurt you or touch you in a sexual way—I just want to make sure you’re all right.” He made his voice softer. “You trusted me to take you in the cleansing pool. Please trust me again.”
I don’t know why I went to him but somehow I did. I was mostly dry by now, just from standing around in the air arguing. Well, except for my hair which still hung wet and dripping down my back. Sarden handed me another one of his long sleeved shirts to wear—between the two of us, we were really going through his wardrobe at a quick rate, I wondered who did the laundry around here—and gave me a clean, dry cloth to blot my hair.
While I did that, he cleared the blankets that had covered the bed and still had slime on them, throwing them down the laundry chute in the wall. At least, I assumed it was a laundry chute.
“
Does that lead to the laundry room or something?” I asked, nodding at it. “Or wherever you keep the washer and dryer?”
“The what and the what?” He threw a frowning glance over his shoulder.
“That chute—where you threw the slimy blankets and where you put your dirty clothes earlier today? Are there machines for cleaning clothes at the bottom of it?”
“No, the chute itself cleans them. It’s a clothing cycler,” he explained. “It connects to my storage unit.” He pointed at the closet. “The dirty items are washed and dried and hung or folded back where they belong within the space of about one standard solar hour.”
“What?” I stared at the chute, suddenly green with envy. “You have a system that washes, dries, folds, and puts clothes away? Forget your hydrogen scoop engine, we’d kill for something like that on Earth!” Especially those of us who had to deal with slobby boyfriends or husbands. Scott had been awful about leaving his dirty clothes all over the place and I was constantly picking up after him. It was either that or live in a pigsty.
“Really?” Sarden was fiddling with the controls on the bed. “It’s actually very simple tech. Here—I’m ready.”
He stepped back and I saw that he had converted the floating silver beanbag bed into a kind of semi-reclined chair.
“Umm…” I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Come sit here so I can look at you.” He patted the silver material. “Come on, Zoe—it won’t take long. I just want to be sure you’re all right.”
“Well…” Reluctantly, I went and sat in the chair. Sarden had lowered it somehow but once I was settled into it, he raised it again so that it was hovering in mid-air once more.
“Now, let’s see.” He pulled the sides of the shirt apart first (it was another black one which really did look good with my pale skin) and examined my nipples. “Hmm…” He frowned as he looked but didn’t touch. “These do look painful. And extremely red.”
“They, uh, they are.” I wished my voice wouldn’t come out sounding so breathless but he was so close I could feel his warm breath against my tender flesh. It made a rash of goosebumps break out all over my body.