8. THALIA

Well, Ahane smelled better.

And by better, he now smelled amazing. Not that anyone would ever think of cranberries and soap as a combo, but on Prince Red, there, holy hell, did he smell amazing.

Here I’d been sitting in our little cell wrestling with all my confusing am-I-traumatized-or-a-tween-again feelings and thought I’d gotten it sorted and here he was, fucking barely dressed and smelling like that.

He wore the galaxy’s largest towel wrapped unfairly low around his hips, revealing a torso that was gorgeous ruby wafers overlaid over a set of abs that would have made a washboard weep, and the wafers angled in such a way to guide my eyes straight down the groove of his thighs to the generous outline of what the towel covered but didn’t disguise. He had his clothes neatly folded over one forearm, his boots in one hand, and the other hand carried a small mesh bag containing several objects.

He was so... thick. He wasn’t slender or slim, not that there appeared to be an ounce of pudge on him anywhere, he was just... thick.

The way his scales moved was fascinating and gorgeous and I really wanted to touch him, even though I’d touched him plenty already.

Was his dick scaled? His balls? His asscrack? His asshole? Because everything else seemed to be covered in scales, except his lips. Even his fingertips were covered in very, very tiny scales.

I tilted my head back so I could look up at him. And remove my eyes from their grasping at whatever was under his towel.

I also stank. Ahane had nope all over his shoulders and neck and the set of his jaw, but that wasn’t going to work for me. “My turn.”

If that bag contained the supplies for a sponge bath, Prince Red there had another thing coming. I had had enough sponge baths from Him (and whatever Breeder Grey he had been attempting to train in restraint because the Breeders had no sense of restraint and only one ambition in life: to get their proto-dicks wet) to last a lifetime.

I wanted a fucking proper wash, and I was going to fucking get one if it was the last thing I did, and I was fully willing to die for it.

“There has been a complication.” He tried to move past me into the tiny room. I blocked his way. “Let me in, Thalia.”

“Sure. Just pass me a towel and bar of soap so I can go wash too.” We might have to share “allocations” but that meant sharing, and if a 25XA didn’t know what “sharing” meant, I was about to go kindergarten on his ass.

“Thalia—”

Fuck, he said my name and my spine quivered. “Ahane.”

His scales flickered. “The showers are communal.”

“Say what?”

“Everyone washes together. There is also a line for access, and no reservation system.”

“So it’s just a big room with a bunch of shower heads and everyone soaps up together?” I’d been in Earth gyms with that set up, and I knew that’s what he meant, but I needed him to confirm the nightmare.

A nod.

Ahane didn’t need to tell me that even if nobody recognized me for Human, they’d recognize the wounds on my neck, legs, and arms. And if they were really sharp, the pattern of scars over my lower abdomen.

He extended his hand with the small bag.

“I am not doing a sponge bath.” I caught myself before I smacked the bag away.

“There is no sponge in this bag,” he said.

“Sponge, rag, towel, loofah, or whatever it is might be in there, I’m not doing it.” I ran my hands over my neck and then over my hair, back down my neck. My skin prickled so hard and painfully it was like it tried to crawl off my bones.

“It may be best, given your burn.” He pointed to the extensive blistering that had taken over the top of my right forearm from the plumbing job we’d had to do back on the ship.

“All the more reason to soap it up and give it a wash. Especially while the painkillers are doing their thing.” That foam he’d smeared on me was some magical stuff.

The dainties bag bumped into his towel-wrapped thigh. “Are you going to let me in?”

“When you tell me how I’m going to wash.” If he wanted to push me around, he was going to have to literally push me around. Make it dirty. Grimy. Ugly. “I’m not wiping myself off like a kitchen counter.”

“You are not a kitchen counter, and?—”

“No!” Stupid tears stabbed the inner corners of my eyes. I rubbed my face with my hands before he saw.

The colors swirled across his chest, soft shades of red and gold and tinges of purple.

I clenched my hands into stupid fists at my stupid thighs and looked at the floor like it owed me money. “I want to wash.”

His tail had shifted to a fiery plume, purple at the core, spreading outwards to sunset gold at the flickering tips. Finally, he beckoned for me to follow him.

I followed into the kitchen. It was not a large kitchen, but it was shaped like an L, with the main cooking area right by the service window overlooking the diner portion, but the L was a prep and storage area, with some big-looking equipment that could have been for cooking or for mixing large amounts of industrial chemicals and concrete.

Maybe to the Gestalt, there wasn’t a difference.

Ahane gestured to a very large basin that looked like an upside-down bell in a round cradle. A couple of different long-neck nozzles jutted out of the wall over it, and there was a drain under the cradle. I gripped the lip of the bell and hauled myself up onto my tip-toes to get a look inside. Empty and unremarkable. Hell, it was even clean.

Ahane was tall enough to easily look into the bell. He gestured to it.

I dropped back to my heels. Looked at the bell. Back at him. “Use your words.”

“I believe this is a suitable alternative.”

“Bathe in the soup pot.”

“Yes.”

“In the soup pot. That you will be cooking in.”

“Yes.”

The Grey abduction experience had been about what I’d expected. Super advanced, smooth, lots of obnoxious silence, creepy telepathic communication, everything painfully clean, tidy, symmetrical, maddeningly silent and the alien abduction color scheme of white and chrome. Awkward attempts at convincing me life wasn’t so bad and my every need could be met. Painful medical procedures, high creep factor, the works. Alien Abduction Bingo.

This was the exact opposite.

He looked at the pot, then at the faucets over my head. “The Site Master has made it clear that there is only resource allocation for one sentient. But this is water for the kitchen. I will tell him it was for cleaning. That is true.”

So this Site Master was a cheap asshole who wrung every penny from anything that might contain pennies. I rubbed my probe wounds again. “So where did you get the towel and stuff?”

Now his scales rushed with dark, annoyed red. The wash of color started at his belly and spread outwards. “The Site Master keeps basic necessities in stock. For a price.”

“You didn’t have to take an advance against—” The color of his scales told me to shut up, he didn’t like it either. I pointed at the massive towel instead. “Just the one?”

He looked down at himself. “Yes. I will start the water.”

“Maybe you should go get dressed first?”

“Filling, emptying, and washing the pot will be wet work. My hide and scales will dry faster than my clothes.”

“Um...” Right. So the Greys hadn’t been big on clothes and had regarded Human preference for clothing as an antiquated concept. Not that the Greys had had anything to cover. They had had less shape than a toy doll. Big Red there had something to cover, but maybe this side of the galaxy was a giant nudist beach and clothes were a quaint and antiquated custom when not needed for survival.

He set the bag of supplies down on one of the stock shelves. The faucets on the wall were even over his head, so he used his tail to bat two of them into position, then gave them another swat. They sputtered and gasped. The entire kitchen area groaned and rattled and moaned before brown water spurted out of the faucets into the soup pot.

[EXTREME VULGARITY]

I turned my back while Ahane muttered to himself about having to purge all the pipes and make sure everything still worked. Something squeaked and metal mewled like a kitten, and then there was a gushing and a glug glug. I peeked over my shoulder. Water emptied into the drain under the bell from a valve at the bottom.

There was a flash of towel as he pulled it off his hips and set it somewhere out of the splash zone. His bare feet moved over the floor and then re-appeared, moving in my periphery. He kicked a small, rickety metal stool into place and stepped onto it.

He had six toes, all tipped with thick, short, sharp claws just like his fingers. And very nice ankles. The thick, corded muscle of his lower calves twisted into a lovely ankle shape adorned with many scales of different sizes. Thick wafers ran down the very back of his ankle to shield the tendons there, then spiraled inward like the petals of a flower to the point of the ankle bone, which was capped in a dome-shaped scale cap. His feet made a soft clicking sound, and the bottoms were covered in tiny scales like his hands.

I risked turning my head a bit more to see what he was doing. His back was to me as he used some large handled object to scrub out the pot while water—now not brown—gushed through it into the drain below.

His ass was perfect. Especially when he was standing slightly on his toes and everything from small of the back to the base of his heels was flexed.

His ass also was covered in scales, all arranged in an outward pattern from his crack, which appeared to have scales all the way down. His tail emerged from where Humans had a tail bone. His thighs were so thick that I didn’t get a rear view of his balls, but everything appeared to be covered in scales arranged in anatomically functional and gorgeous patterns that swirled and radiated and adorned him like he’d been made that way.

Maybe he had been? Did 25XA grow those scales like that, or were they like bonsai or topiary and trained their scales to grow a certain way?

I was so enthralled with watching him I didn’t turn away fast enough and got an eyeball of what was between his legs.

Oh SHIT.

His flaccid cock swung and moved with his motions, the ruby shaft traced with a network of veins against fine skin that looked like a combination of scales and hide. There were bumps and ridges and yes, a small little spike situation just above the slightly flared head. A beautiful swirl of tiny scales framed the base and extended downward to his size-proportionate balls. Did he have two or three in there? The sack seemed to swirl with a strange pattern as the scales shifted shades from red to gold to red again.

I turned my head as he stepped back off the stool and returned the broom/brush to wherever he’d found it. Then he bolted the valve shut again and water began to fill the pot.

He had the towel back around his hips, although it somehow was even lower and more cavalier (could a towel even be cavalier? Because that space-towel was) than before. He dipped the tip of his tail into the rising water, swirled it, gave the facets a few more swaps.

“There.” He sounded satisfied that the bath had been prepared, and completely unaware I’d been gawking at his dazzling genitalia.

I almost made a lame joke about no bubbles? but that could have ended badly. Or weirdly.

He sourced a slightly taller stool and gestured for me to get on it. Not that it was tall enough. I needed a full on ladder. But first...

“Turn around,” I said. “Like all the way.”

“I can’t catch you if you fall. This is precarious,” he said with a hint of stubbornness.

“It is precarious. I am bathing in a giant soup pot! You know this is how assorted Human fairytales start or end, right?”

“Fairy tails?” He articulated the words with great difficulty. He cocked his head to the side. “I understand what a tail is, and the translator knows what a fairy is, but how does the anatomy of fanciful creatures have anything to do with soup pots?”

I sighed. “It’s tale, not tail. A tale is a story. They’re stories you tell children to scare them into behaving or not making stupid choices or giving them unrealistic expectations of relationships. But usually just to scare them.”

“You intentionally frighten your children?”

“There are a lot of things to be scared of on Earth.”

“Human children are in danger of being put into soup pots? Do you eat your children?”

“No. But the stories are about trusting strangers when you shouldn’t and playing places you shouldn’t.”

“Why not just tell your children that?”

I laughed. “Humans have a pretty complicated relationship with logic and reason.”

“I’ve noticed. Get into the bath.”

“Then turn around.”

He muttered something that was probably obscene and obediently turned his back to me.

I pulled off my filthy clothes, looked for somewhere to put them, and gave up—the floor was cleaner than these clothes. I approached the step stool thing. “Don’t look.”

“I am not looking.”

“Your tail doesn’t have eyes, right?”

“My only visual organs are in my head.”

Was he giving me shit? His tone of voice and that purple tinge along his spine made me narrow my eyes. He was giving me shit. I stepped onto the stool and got a hold of the lip of the bell with both hands.

Waytoo tall for me to pull myself into it.

Ahane’s clawed hand gripped the side of the bell and he slid it towards me, shuffling backwards until his hand found mine.

A charge went through my fingers. I managed to hold still.

“This would be easier if you would let me turn around,” Ahane said.

I grumbled, “Just heft me up. I’m short, okay?”

His fingers felt along my forearm. I stood up on my tip toes and bounced a few times, and he got the idea, and when I hefted myself up, he had hooked my hip and helped lift like a gymnast’s spotter. I managed to swing my legs over the bell and intended to sit on the lip and?—

I slipped and plunged into the water.

AIIIII!

IT WAS FUCKING FREEZING!

I flailed, squirmed, flipped, righted myself and shot up out of the water with a scream.

Ahane clutched the sides of the bell, scales washed to the same shade as a red shitbox car that had spent twenty years in Florida sunlight. “Thalia! Thalia?—”

“FUCK! THIS IS FUCKING COLD LIKE SATAN’S UNHOLY BUTTHOLE!” I splashed and hugged myself and flailed to the other side of the bell, but that side wasn’t warm either. I swirled towards him, clutching myself across my breasts while tucking my knees up.

“Cold?” Having ascertained I was not dying, he had spun back around.

“Yes, cold! What the hell!”

Back still to me, he dipped his tail into the water. “It is sufficiently warm.”

“Warm!? This is fucking freezing!” My teeth chattered. “Is this even water? Because I’m pretty sure this is colder than ice!”

“How hot do you want it to be?” he asked in obvious disbelief.

“Oh, I don’t know, about a hundred times whatever this is!” This was a fucking soup pot, and unless all aliens ate was vichyssoise, there had to be a way to heat it and you know... cook. or at least keep it on warm. Engage crockpot mode or something.

[EXTREME VULGARITY]

He dug around the kitchen until he found a burner ring, but scaled up to alien crockpot size. He kicked it under the bell and turned it on. “Keep your feet off the bottom.”

I shoved my feet up onto the other side of the bell so my toes wouldn’t get scorched. “Metal gets hot. Who knew?”

“You did say Humans had a complex relationship with logic and reason.”

I splashed him with water.

My teeth chattered, and I shivered so hard my boobs bounced and the water made little waves. Thank goodness he had his eyes averted.

Ahane dipped his tail into the water once more.

“I’ll let you know when it gets too hot,” I said. Until then, bring on the boiling point, because I wanted to be made into damned soup.

Whatever the metal of this bell was, or the heat output of that burner, the water started to get warm quick. The metal of the bell got hot as well, but the top part where I was didn’t heat up to more than a mildly uncomfortable burning. Not enough to scorch your thighs like hot leather seats in sunlight in summer.

“This is too hot,” Ahane declared just as I was starting to stop shivering.

“No way, keep it coming!”

“I am not making soup!” he snapped. “Do you want me to make you into damned stew?”

“Poach me like a chicken!”

“... I have already stolen you, and I have no idea what a chicken is or how to steal one.”

The translator only knew “poach” as to take something illegally (or at least, without permission). I twisted over in the little bell, the warmth finally penetrating my bones and muscles. A shiver so intense it almost made me sob with happiness went through me. A bath. A fucking bath. “Poaching also means to cook meat in hot, but not boiling water. You bring it up to temperature, cover it, then let it sit.”

Ahane’s tail lashed in a jangle-bangle equivalent of throwing up his hands. Instead, he growled, “Is it hot enough now?”

I smirked. “Almost.”

The view of his muscled back flexing and shifting with his aggravated breathing, and the swirling pattern fanning from his spine across his shoulder scales was so worth it. He was gorgeous to look at. And reminded me so much of mountain sunsets on Earth, with the clouds and water reflecting the colors of the Sun.

How often did someone get to taunt a dragon-alien and not end up with a probe shoved into some part of their body?

The water was too hot now. “Okay, this is good.”

He turned off the heat and dipped his tail into the water, then yanked it back out. [EXTREME VULGARITY] “Are you boiling off your flesh?”

“You big red baby. This water isn’t boiling. Psh.” It was a bit too hot, but I’d made my point and I’d live with the consequences. I sank up to my chin in steamy bliss and sighed contently instead. He wasn’t going to ruin this.

The heat dissolved my numbness, and I drew in a shuddering breath while choking on a sob.

“Thalia?” His entire spine tensed like an iron rod shoved between two sides of flank steak.

“I’m fine,” I said hoarsely. “Just... feels good.”

Felt amazing. Felt Human again. Felt like home.

“Here.” Ahane’s voice intruded on the shadows.

I opened my eyes, expecting to see him looking at me, but he still had his back turned, and instead the bag rested on the hook of his tail.

“Oh.” Soap. Yes. Soap was good.

Without the heat source, the pot had cooled off enough I could put my feet on the lower parts of the bell and sort through the bag. In it were two very large bars of soap. One had clearly been used, one had not.

He’d bought me my own bar of soap. Prince status: confirmed.

The soap had little rough bits throughout it to assist with the scrubbing (probably more applicable to 25XA hides than Human skin), and was strong enough it stung my skin, but I scrubbed off the top few layers of my skin, and lathered up my palms and washed my burn blister (which was still numb-ish), and then got up my courage to wash out the probe wounds.

They hurt. But gaping holes under your skin hurt by definition.

I scrubbed the soap into my chest and breasts and then between my legs and ass cheeks. The water was getting cold. I was going to be clean. Super clean. Clean with a whole new layer of skin clean.

I scratched my first initial into my bar of soap, put it in the bag Ahane still held, and said, “All done.”

Ahane snorted, but went to put the bag in a safe spot. He then removed the towel and tossed that onto a hook.

Goal one: get my own towel.

I grabbed the lip of the bell, lifted myself out like I was in the pool, and swung my leg up and over the lip. A gush of water came with me. My probe wounds raked the bell, and I yelped. Ahane’s hand shot out (his head still turned) and I ducked so I didn’t eat a claw to the face, but ended up off balance and fell. Ahane spun, caught me awkwardly, his foot slipped, and we both ended up on the kitchen floor. Me on top, astride his chest, and him flat on his back. Pain shot up my knees from the impact, but it sounded like glass shattering when he hit the ground.

“Ahane!” I leaned over him. “Ahane, are you hurt?”

“I am fine,” he said stiffly, taking stock of the situation.

“Are you sure? Oh my gosh, what the hell did you do?”

“Making sure you did not hit the ground head first.” There was something in his voice that reminded me of dawn clouds. “It would have been easier had I been able to see you.”

“So you hit the ground head first?” My voice cracked for some stupid reason.

“I did not hit the ground head first.” His sunset gaze traveled low, then yanked back to my face.

My boobs hung right in his face.

How was I constantly shoving my body parts in his damn face. And my pussy was right on his rock-hard abdomen. I hadn’t realized it at first because anything that flat and that hard was a fucking floor tile.

The size difference was absurd. My inner thighs wept at being stretched across him, and I wasn’t even astride his hips. I was somewhere around his ribs. And behind me... was his cock...

da dum...da dum... dum dum dum...

“Your scales aren’t sharp,” I heard myself say, and I felt myself shift forward slightly to brush my thighs along his scales to confirm my theory. His scales weren’t sharp at all. They were warm, and like gemstones, but the edges weren’t sharp.

“They can be.”

I lifted one of my hands and placed it on his chest and ran my hand down the fan-like design of scales there. The colors shimmered as my hand moved, shifting from reds to oranges to exquisite golds. His scales felt equal parts reptilian and gemstone. Under the intricate layers seemed to be a textured, deep red hide. He did not seem to have nipples anywhere on his broad pecs.

He slowly wrapped one hand around both of my wrists and lifted my palms off his chest.

Holy shit, what had I been doing? I wouldn’t pet a strange dog, much less a strange alien. I slithered off him as fast as I could, proceeded to slip in the water, slide against the floor and flail some more. My fingers hooked the edge of the towel and I yanked, managing to toss it over my head so it encased me like a blanket.

I turned my back to preserve whatever modesty he might have cared about and carefully got to my feet by steadying myself against the wall I had bumped into.

He threw the valve on the bottom of the bell and the water gushed into the drain. I busied myself toweling out my hair. The air stung my raw, poached skin, and strange, grinding misery welled up from somewhere in my soul.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I?—”

How did I explain that everything inside me wanted to touch him? That it had been so long since I’d touched or seen anything that wasn’t Grey? I wasn’t a creeper or weirdo. I was just fucked up. Really fucked up.

He glanced at me, then got a long stick that had a squeegee-looking end and began to push the stray water into the drain.

Keep going. Don’t have feelings.

I’d fall apart when I got back to Earth.