24. THALIA

Ahane swiftly got his little shower bag and headed off with our one towel, while I had to take deep breaths and wait for my body to settle down and my brain to stop spinning. I’d never run headfirst into holiday lights and then jumped into the bathtub, but now I’d never need to.

I plunked myself down on the small bed, pulled my mop of hair over my shoulder, and picked at it with the comb. The snarls and semi-mats were well established, but the comb worked really well.

“You’re fucked up, Thalia,” I told myself while I worked. “Keep your feelings on their leash.”

I couldn’t trust my feelings. Couldn’t trust that knot of feelings wasn’t some toxic maladaptive I’m so starved everything tastes good situation.

Good thing Ahane had no comparison for Human flirting, because I was just plain bad at it. The rules of flirty conversation had always been lost on me. I’d never been able to read a guy’s interest, because most guys seemed interested on some level (sex), but not interested. Or they could become interested, if I was able to say the Flirty Magic Spell correctly and summon their interest like some weird relationship demonic summoning ritual that I clearly had been absent that day in middle school.

I’d also sworn off men completely until I figured out why I kept ending up with assholes. Sometimes they cheated, usually it was that gutless pseudo-infidelity of them following models on social media and posting creepy emoji-laced comments in the I’M NOT CHEATING, BABE equivalent of the I’M NOT TOUCHING YOU game. Usually I ended it before they did, so if I recognized how it ended, why the fuck was I so bad at recognizing a dead end before it even started?

By the time I got back to Earth, my trauma was going to be so high who knew what my new type would be. Maybe my trauma odometer would have rolled over due to sheer trauma mileage and I’d be able to spot (and appropriately communicate with) a Good Catch.

But Ahane had said that the cosmos brought mates together. I had no reason to not believe him. In fact, it made sense that if the Gestalt had learned how to science the bullshit out of finding your partner, that that same mechanism would also cause you to meet. The Gestalt was huge. There had to be some sort of pull that made you tumble down the spacetime hill so you’d actually find each other before you were dead.

I picked at a particularly nasty snarl.

The cosmos was going to do what the cosmos was going to do, and there was zero need for me to figure it out. Cosmos already had that in hand. If Ahane and I were mates, the cosmos would trip us up the same as a hungry cat. If we weren’t mates, my feelings would eventually de-snarl themselves and sort themselves into orderly mental containers.

Cosmos take the wheel.

Hehad dangled answers and sometimes I’d given in to temptation and sometimes I’d listened to my own advice and accepted no answer I ever got would make me feel better about anything, and I probably wouldn’t understand anyway because I wasn’t a gray-skinned alien from a race that was a walking surgeon’s general warning about nasty side effects and unintended consequences.

I was half-done picking out my hair when Ahane returned. He hung up the shower bag and his clothing, his towel clutched illegally low over his hips. Like super low. Like the base of his cock was barely covered.

Ahane dropped to one knee on the edge of the bed. He ducked low to examine my picking at my hair with the comb. I stopped moving and raised my eyes to his.

“I am studying how it works,” he said.

“What are you after, Prince Red?”

“I told you, I am not a prince.”

“And you’re not plain either.”

“I am [no translation available].”

I scowled at the High Dialect word that felt ugly and dismissive. “Whoever told you that needs to fuck right off.”

He watched me work a bit more of my hair free with the comb. “I am not certain if what I am about to say is appropriate Human etiquette. I believe it will not be.”

“I’m not exactly known for being polite company.” I set the comb down.

“I have also never asked or suggested this to anyone else.”

“Story of my life.” I gestured to the walls.

“You should know I am also not very experienced.”

“With what?”

He gestured. “Sex. Encounters.”

“Define not experienced.” I found that hard to believe.

His scales flushed with something that seemed to be mild embarrassment. “I’ve only had a few partners, so I apologize if I’m not very refined or don’t know what to do or how to approach this. And only one partner has ever accepted my honey.”

Honey? Did he mean… his cum? Accepted it? His scales told me he didn’t want to get too deep into the mortification he was currently experiencing confessing he did not, in fact, have all the galaxy’s available pussy waiting for his return to the beacon side of things. “Okay. I mean… how inexperienced are we talking here?”

“Three encounters, not including you,” he stated.

“How the hell is a guy like you not getting all the—you know what, don’t answer that. I already know what’s going to come out of your mouth.”

“So what I am about to suggest is exceptionally presumptuous.”

“I’m ready.” He was too fucking big and mean to be cute, but he was so adorable. Quickly approaching squee levels.

“I would like to become… there is no translation into your language. There is a word in Utilitarian for it. It is when two 25XA agree to an ongoing encounter.”

An encounter. “You mean sex.”

He nodded, his scales an adorable shade of determined bashful rose.

I asked, “What’s an ongoing encounter?”

“The agreement that it is available.”

Available. The translator whispered context that the word he meant was available, but in a previously-agreed-upon-way. “So… instead of it happening and we never assume it happens again, we assume it will happen again?”

A nod. His voice remained calm, but his scales were that adorable bashful shade. “That there will be future encounters.”

Weren’t we just the cutest little dorks in the galaxy.

How could I go back to Earth and live with nope, I didn’t take the space sex when the alien space commando offered to be fuck buddies? Ahane was a bit of a novice, and he didn’t deserve the creepy baggage that may be in my head. I hadn’t been the best fuck before the Greys got me, and I had no idea what kind of fuck I’d be now.

My limited enthusiasm for oral had kind of been a deal-breaker. I had wanted to like oral, I really had, but relaxing enough to enjoy it had been impossible, especially after a few comments about maybe you should bleach your asshole and oh, you’ve got curtains. Combine that with my gag reflex and the invariably furry popsicles (while expecting me to be shaven bare… and be bleached, apparently…) had destroyed whatever pitiful enjoyment their limited skillsets might have given me.

“You’re reluctant. I presume it’s because you don’t trust me.”

“It’s hard to find partners you feel safe with.”

The tiny scales at the corner of his eyes flexed in a hmm expression while his tail coiled into a thoughtful corkscrew tip. “I think I understand. You’re Human, of course, and you are a very small Human.”

I scowled. “I know. I’m short. But we’re all short compared to you.”

“I am not especially tall for my species.”

Holy cosmos fuck. I tilted my head back all the way to take him in. “So… what happens if I say not now?”

“Do you mean you wish to think on it and revisit the matter later?”

“No, I mean, if one of us doesn’t want to have sex at a particular time. Can we say not right now?”

His scales turned a fuck, that’s gross, why are you even asking shade. “Of course. It doesn’t mean either of us is entitled to the other whenever we want. Is that how it is with Humans?”

“A lot of Humans sure think so.”

He didn’t even dignify that with a response.

I pondered.

“I should also tell you that these aren’t common arrangements. They’re very strongly frowned upon. There is a stigma.”

I cocked my head to the side. So I was supposed to be a bed-hopping flea when in the Gestalt? That seemed like a hell of a lot of work. Although maybe they didn’t have dating services, but horny singles in your area want to fuck RIGHT NOW services where you spoke to actual, living, breathing horny singles in your area.

Could I just browse what sort of genitals I wanted to party with and show up at some capsule fuck hotel and then go about my day? Instead of enjoys snowboarding and sushi it was switch/prefers sub, taint-licking, and swallowing multiple loads?

This side of the galaxy might offer the level of sophistication I had been expecting, after all.

Better make the most of it.

Ahane told me, “It is either an insult that you cannot get partners so you mutually service the other, or the sex is too good and any eventual mate or pairbond will exist in its shadow. Low-trinket mates do not guarantee ideal sexual compatibility. Just love. These sorts of arrangements are seen as irresponsible, low-value behavior.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not really concerned about my social standing considering I’m Human and don’t have any. Unless you’re saying you’re proposing this because I’m available.”

His scales rushed mortified sunset tinged with green. “No! No! Not at all! I—I enjoyed our previous encounters and?—”

“Relax, Prince Red, I’m just teasing.” I’d have to be gentle with him. Would have to break in the mostly-a-blushing-virgin handsome space commando gently.

Except…

“Are you sure, though?” I asked hesitantly. “I’m Human. I’m kinda grimy. What if I get picked up by the Gestalt and they find out? What if your mate comes looking for you and finds out?”

“I’m sure,” he said with such a soft shade of velvet on his scales, my insides melted. “And I will likely be dead if the Gestalt finds us. But if I am not, I am still sure.”

I touched the scales on his upper arm. They felt soft. They weren’t soft, but they felt soft and velvety and the squishy feeling intensified. “Then I’d love to make some memories with you, Prince Red.”