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Chapter Nine

S tar

We dozed for a while last night after we made love, then grazed on the mystery food sitting under shiny domes near the door. After that, we laid in bed and drank blanquard out of our loving cup. Mom had taught me about toasts, which Ar’Tok had never heard of. He loved the idea and gave me endless toasts between endless kisses.

He told me his favorite spot on my body to kiss, although he made certain to warn me I couldn’t hold him to it—he might find a place he loved more. This he said while waggling both eyebrows and giving the V of my legs a searing look. But thus far, he tells me the sensitive spot behind my ear is his favorite.

Out of the dozens of toasts we made, my favorite was, ‘To my personal North Star, who will forever be a beacon to follow’.

When I roll out of bed, I’m immediately reminded of all the books I’ve read where a character gets a hangover. I’d never drunk liquor before, so this is another ‘first’ to add to the long list of firsts I’ve experienced in the last week.

Many of them are amazing— ‘stellar’ as it were. This hangover, on the other hand, goes on the bottom of the list.

“Ouch,” I moan as I tiptoe to the bathroom. My head pounds harder with every step I take.

Ladies , I comm them all, certainly there has to be an antidote for the swirling, drumming pain in my head. That blanquard will be the death of me. What makes the throbbing stop?

Water, says Anya.

How could anything as simple as water fix this level of agony?

Breakfast , says Brianna.

Ugh. She wants me to put food in my mouth? Is she crazy?

Axxios and Braxxus suggest you get some grunno brand analgesic , Brianna adds.

Chocolate , says Aerie. I heard antioxidants help. If not dark chocolate, try fruit, especially berries.

Chocolate might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. I eye the huge chocolate cake on the food cart. It’s still covered with flowers so perfect they could be real.

Tea, says Dahlia . I’ll order some up to your room. Tea, chocolate, berries, and grunno powder.

I ease onto the bed, not wanting the pounding to escalate, nor do I want to wake the handsome male drooling on the pillow. Why do I think everything he does is adorable?

His eyes flash open, he takes one look at me, then groans.

“Did you get mad at me in the middle of the night?” he murmurs through parched lips. “Did you beat my head with a chair leg?” His cirr cringe from his palms as he presses them to his head, as if they, too, can’t bear to be touched.

“On Earth, it’s called a hangover. It means you drank too much last night.”

“Gods! I think I need a doctor.”

“My head is pounding, too. I comm’d the other females, they recommended some home remedies. Someone should be knocking on the door any minute to administer the antidote. In the meantime, they said chocolate would help.”

We both eye the food cart longingly, but it’s five, maybe six feet away. Here it is, the moment of truth. After all those lovely toasts he made to me last night, does my male have what it takes to actually heave himself out of bed and make his way to get the cake?

Yes! He rolls, and lands on his feet, moaning as he goes. His cirr are stroking his head, trying to provide comfort as he steps gingerly to the cake. He snags it and two forks, pivots, and sets it in the middle of the bed.

Sweet! Room service chooses this moment to knock, so he only has to walk a few more steps to grab the delivery. A moment later, we’re toasting each other with grunno powder fizzing in glasses of water.

Ten minutes later, the pounding is down to a dull roar and I think I’m up for a little chocolate.

Those flowers weren’t real after all. They were just luscious piles of deliciousness in the form of the most gorgeous blooms from all over the galaxy.

I may have met my first member of the opposite sex other than my father only one week ago, but I realize I’m a dirty, dirty girl.

I flick the covers off Ar’Tok to see that although his head may be pounding in pain, his cock is up for anything. Swiping my fingers into the thickest part of the decoration, I paint the creamy frosting up and down his beckoning cock.

I crawl between his legs, make sure I have his full and complete attention, and suck the remainder of the rainbow of sweet color off my fingers. Naughty, wicked me takes her time sucking every digit clean, my head bobbing, my tongue swirling, until he groans.

“Oh, Ar’Tok,” I say with false concern. “Does your head hurt that bad? Should I let you go back to sleep?” I give him a flirty pout and wait for his response as I keep sucking my fingers even louder now.

“I’m less concerned about my throbbing head than I am about my cock. I wouldn’t want to get the sheets dirty.”

“You’re right. We wouldn’t want to be bad guests, would we?”

Grabbing the meat of his thighs, my thumbs mere inches from his balls, I ease down toward his straining cock so slowly I wonder if it will kill him. By the sheer intensity of his moan, you’d think this was a torture chamber, not a bedroom.

An hour later, our headaches are a thing of the past, the sheets are so smeared with frosting we strip the bed and roll them in a ball as discreetly as two debauched individuals can do, and we can’t wipe the satisfied smiles off our faces.

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay in our room all day?” Ar’Tok asks for the tenth time. “I’ve never been in a hotel before, but I think all we’d have to do is call the front desk, and they’ll bring us new sheets. I think Ergonn is paying them enough that they’ll even make our bed for us.”

“Crap. I forgot. We need to be at the warehouse at 1900 to meet Ergonn and check on the bots. We’re supposed to meet our gladiatorial guard in the grand foyer at 1815.”

“Remind me again what will happen if you don’t do this? Can’t we just wait until day seven?”

“If we’re not there on time, Mr. Hardass Cartel guy will think I’ve tricked him and am stealing his money. He’ll worry that the wrath of the entire Federation will be brought to bear on him. He will not only blame me, but he will blame every male and female on both of our ships. And he will punish them. And by punish, I mean kill.

“So we will be in the front hall at 1815, arrive at the warehouse at 1900, and I will do a thorough demonstration to assure him that this project is going well. We don’t want him to go postal.”

“What’s on our agenda?”

“Mount Kimanji.”

Ar’Tok

“What’s on Mount Kimanji? A zoo? A placid lake we can swim in? Native dancers?” I know I should have looked through all the brochures, but I’ve been preoccupied by my pretty companion.

“A mountain,” she answers sweetly.

“Yes, but what attractions?”

“The mountain.” Her brow furrows as if I’m dense.

“Mountains are beautiful from afar,” I tell her.

“We’re going to climb it.”

As a male who lived most of his life in a ten-by-ten cell, I spent many hours every day exercising. I invented a thousand ways to force my body to get stronger. That and reading were my only pastimes. I have no aversion to exertion, but climbing a mountain? And Star isn’t in great shape, living full time in space makes peoples’ muscles soft no matter how much they exercise.

“Let me make sure I’ve got this right. We’re on planet Paragon. Most people refer to it as the Pleasure Planet because it offers a multitude of enjoyments, and you want to huff and puff up a mountain?”

“It was on my bucket list.” She shrugs. “I already told all the females we’d be going today.”

I nod at her. “It was the shrug, Star. You got me with that adorable shrug. Climbing mountains it is. Only after you tell me what a bucket list is.”

“A list of things you want to do before you die.”

“Ah. I have a bucket list a mille long.” Although I must admit, many of them have been ticked off the list in the last few days. And her licking cake frosting off my cock? That wasn’t on the list—but it should have been.

An hoara later, after a quick stop at the hotel store to buy sturdy clothing, we’re hovering to our destination. It’s cool today. Although I lived in a cell that had windows to the open air three-hundred-seventy-six days a year no matter what the weather, Star insists we both buy yellow rain slickers. I have no complaints; it makes her look even prettier.

The closer we get to the mountain, the larger and more ominous it looks.

“It says,” Star states as she scrolls through her computer pad, “the mountain range was formed eons ago by a planetary cataclysm. Much of the rock you’ll see is igneous rock from volcanic activity. It hasn’t erupted for thousands of years. It reports,” she pauses while she reads, “you might find fissures, lava tubes, and other evidence of ancient volcanoes.

“For ten credits we get an all-day pass on the grinton. It sounds like a narrow hover-train that goes on a continuous loop up and down. If we get tired, we can just jump on it for a while and enjoy the scenery without the effort.”

“What time does it stop running?”

“1500, which is perfect because we should be off the mountain by then to ensure we get back to the Multi-Pleasure in time for showers and maybe some . . . bedroom activities before we meet the guys at 1815.” She actually winked at me when she said the words ‘bedroom activities’. I think I found a female as interested in sexual explorations as I am. What are the odds of that?

The mountain is beautiful and imposing. It’s rocky and filled with scattered trees and flowers. Some are the same green-and-blue-leafed trees that formed the canopy where we zip-lined. Some have vivid yellow bark and foliage. White, blue, purple, and pink flowers dot the ground, even peeking out from between the sharp black rocks.

Before we get to the trailhead, we’re accosted by natives selling food in little paper bags.

“My secret family recipe,” a wizened old woman sings, her ocher skin covered in wrinkled folds. “Passed down for generations, this trail mix will give you energy at the high altitudes.”

“Only one credit,” a young girl twenty steps away calls. “My momma wakes up early to make this mix every morning. It has secret berries used by the elders to help you breathe in the thin air.”

“We should have bought snacks at the hotel,” Star says, “but let’s get some here.”

“Adventurous,” I tell her. “Who knows if we’re buying packaged dirt and shredded paper?”

“Ah, a skeptic. See? I learn more about you every day.” She buys from both the old woman and the young girl, slips the food into the small backpack she brought that carries bottled water, and we strike off up the path.

There’s such a throng of people starting up the path that we almost get separated during the first quarter mille . At that point, the dirt path stops and hits a ninety-degree wall of rock that has to be climbed with hands and feet. About eighty percent of the tourists grumble and turn back. Several of them complain that the entry fee wasn’t worth it.

“Star, we have plenty of money. It’s not like we can’t afford to take the loss. Want to turn back?” I ask. Star is huffing and puffing when we’re no more than thirty fiertos off the ground.

“No.”

There was a grid of metal rebar exposed at the top of my cell back on Simca. I shiver in disgust as I try to calculate how many hours I spent hanging from those bars in the last twenty-five years. How many millions of pull-ups did I perform? How many times in a single day did I move hand-over-hand from one side of my cell to the other?

I never caught a glimpse of my reflection until I boarded the Fool’s Errand . Now that I have, I see why none of the males suspected I wasn’t a gladiator. I have the physique of one from my labors in my cell.

Star has little upper body strength. This is going to be hard for her.

I climb behind her and to her right, my head even with her waist. Watching her every move, I stay ready to catch her if she falls.

I glimpse her face when she looks down to secure a foothold. Her jaw is set, her mouth turned down in pain as she takes every laborious step.

“I don’t think I can make my way to the top, Star. This is more than I bargained for,” I tell her. “How about when we get to the first grinton stop you take pity on me and let me ride it to the top?”

“I didn’t take you for a quitter,” she scolds. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think I hear relief in her voice.

A few minimas later, she almost slips, finding a foothold just in time after causing a cascade of loose rock to rain down on the people below us. I’ve tried to let her do this herself, but her pride is going to get her hurt. Climbing even with her, I convince her to slide onto my back, then carry her to the flat grinton stop about two-hundred fiertos above us.

She weighs nothing, and having her on my back means I can go faster than before because I’m not busy ensuring her safety. I do, however, have to listen to her endless complaints that she was doing fine without my help.

“I didn’t know you were so bossy, Ar’Tok. I’m only letting you carry me because it will help you quit worrying about me.”

When we arrive at the flat rest stop, I find us a wooden bench and settle us both onto it. The vista we see from up here was worth the climb. I nestle my arm around her, and we both silently take in the view.

“Wow,” she says.

“Pictures could never do this justice,” I breathe.

We have a two-hundred-degree view, and are surrounded on all sides by a fertile river valley down below. The greens, blues, and yellows of the foliage are even richer near the winding waterway.

“Smell it?” I ask.

“Fresh? The fresh air? Yeah. I never knew what I was missing breathing recycled air from the oxygenator my entire life.”

“One month ago, Star, just one month ago I never could have dreamed I’d see any of this.”

“Me neither.”

Her little hand reaches out for mine and squeezes it hard. “Don’t think for a minute I don’t know that you have no need to ride the grinton . That was sweet the way you did that, though, so I didn’t feel like a failure.”

I squeeze her hand back.

We hear the grinton pulling in. “Want to take this one to the top, or wait for the next?” I ask.

“To the top!” she announces as we rise, still holding hands. I love the pattern our blue and yellow nails make when they’re entwined.

The grinton is at least a century old, it’s been repainted many times, and doesn’t go nearly as fast as the hover that brought us here.

“It’s charming, don’t you think?” Star asks.

We’re busy looking out the window to our right, the view becoming more spectacular with every fierto we rise.

“What’s wrong with that male, Mama?” asks a little voice to my left.

“Shh.”

“Why is he striped like that? Was he bad? Did he get a whippin’?”

I pivot my head farther right, wanting to avoid catching a glimpse of mother or son.

“Shh, Shamdah,” his mother scolds.

“Mister,” the boy persists, “were you bad?”

I know the little male means no harm. Perhaps this is how younglings behave, how would I know, I’ve never been around any.

Star leans around me and pierces him with her gaze. She’s never been around children, either. I worry she'll scold him, although it’s not his fault.

“Those are good questions,” she says, her voice sweet and calm. “He looks different, doesn’t he?”

I swivel my head enough to catch his nod out of the corner of my eye. He’s a handsome humanoid male, with pale lavender skin.

“Is your planet at peace?” she asks, gazing down at the boy and then up at the mom.

“Yes.”

“Peace is a wonderful thing. It makes us feel safe. Do you feel safe with your momma and poppa?” she asks, her voice soft.

“Yes.” He nods.

Star smiles at him. “I’m so glad you have peace in your home and peace on your planet. We all deserve that, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Some people aren’t so lucky. What’s your name?”

He looks up at his mother who gives him permission with a nod.

“Shamdah.”

“Shamdah, what a pretty name. Some people aren’t so lucky. Some people aren’t safe at home or on their planets. Through no fault of their own they get hurt. Terrible, isn’t it?”

“Terrible,” he repeats. It comes out sounding like ‘tewwible’.

“So tonight when you say your prayers, be especially thankful that you have peace. Will you do that?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And if you feel like it, say prayers for people who don’t have it.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Just as I’m thinking what a calm, sweet, loving gift Star is, I feel a little tug at my shirt.

“Mister?”

“Yes?”

“Can I pray for you?”

My chest squeezes. I have never felt this particular emotion before. It is sad and sweet and powerful. I have no name for it.

“Yes, Shamdah, that would be one of the nicest things that’s ever happened to me. But you know what?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m safe now and I’m finding peace.” My eyes dart to Star for a split modicum , then return to Shamdah. “Maybe you could pray for all the people who still need your prayers.”

“Yes, Sir,” he says with a shy smile. His attention is caught by some mountain animals climbing the jagged rocks to his left, and I turn to Star on my right.

“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I whisper in her ear, then realize that’s barely a compliment. She’s the only good thing that’s ever happened to me. “You’re a wonderful human.”

She nestles against me, both of us looking out the window as the grinton crawls up the mountain. Her muscles are relaxed and there’s a lazy smile on her face.

Inside my skin though, I feel like a depth charge just exploded, like everything just tumbled into rubble at my feet. And the rubble, just as quickly, is rearranging itself into a new configuration.

My cirr pet Star’s head and neck—their favorite pastime—as cataclysmic changes take place inside me. The male I was for twenty-five years just died, as surely as if I was shot through the heart. I’m resurrected as a new male.

I had been so sad for so long I didn’t know it. And my anger? I hadn’t realized, but it permeated every cell in my body. What was it Star said the other night? Fish don’t know they swim in water? I hadn’t realized I was a walking bag of skin surrounding a writhing ball of bitterness and hatred in the pit of my stomach.

I picture that moment a few minimas ago when Star’s foothold gave way and the rocks and pebbles cascaded down the mountain. I imagine all the negativity that I’ve carried for so long falling away like that, down the mountain. Down and down and out of sight. Inconsequential. Never to be given another thought.

The Gods who abandoned me for the last twenty-five years found me, and to make up for forsaking me, they gifted me with Star, my own personal North Star.

“Forgive me if it’s the wrong time and the wrong place,” I tell her as I brush my lips to her temple. “I love you, Star. Maybe it’s too soon and too impulsive and—”

She turns in my arms and interrupts my rambling with a hard, meaningful kiss. “Not the wrong time or the wrong place. Not too soon or too impulsive, Ar’Tok. I love you, too.”

We’re on the grinton , crammed in with dozens of people. Half of them probably heard and saw my ridiculous admission. But Star and I just look at each other, beaming like happy children. My cirr are overjoyed and can’t be contained from caressing her cheeks in joy.

“When we get home from Ergonn’s tonight, I will fully express my affection for you,” Star says with a wink.

“And I you.”

The grinton slams to a stop, and we file out.

When we’re on solid ground, I know it’s Shamdah tugging on my shirt. “My people have a saying. Amshallah . It means peace be with you.”

“ Amshallah to you, Shamdah.”