Page 18

Garnet

H on-Kal Station was so cool!

Trove, who was helping Tanin escort them around as they shopped, assured them that Hon-Kal was neither a bad nor a particularly good station. It was serviceable, and it was great at what it did – operating as a trade post – but it wasn’t particularly fancy or wealthy.

But it was an alien bazaar! It wasn’t out under the sun, shielded by tarps and drapes, but it was a bunch of aliens of various origins all packed together in tight lanes hawking wares that were beyond her imagination.

The Humility connected to the station through a docking tube that let out immediately into the busy lanes. The stalls and shops were all pressed so close together, she couldn’t even see where the other docked ships were letting out, though she knew there were others. But all she could see was just them, a long lane of shops, and a crowd of the most diverse group of people she could possibly imagine.

It was fantastic. She was trying to look everywhere at once, a wide smile stretched across her face as her eyes moved from a stall selling perfumes, to the next stall selling machine parts, to the next stall selling beads, to the next one selling food. On and on it went, no obvious sense of rhyme or reason to the placement of anything.

It was probably a nightmare trying to find anything specific here. But she didn’t really care. She just wanted to go explore. Doubtlessly, she’d run into what she needed eventually, along with a bunch of other things she wouldn’t need but would definitely want. She had a budget already, given to her by Tanin based on the sale price of the jewels Trove was carrying in a bag across his chest. They were going to the person they were selling them to first-

-and then, shopping!

A warm hand slipped into hers and she turned, already smiling when she caught sight of Tanin’s impassive face.

“Stay close,” he ordered, pulling her back to his side. “It would be too easy to lose you here.”

Garnet chuckled, lacing her fingers with his. “Sorry. I got excited.”

Goldie, who remained firmly at Trove’s side, smiled back at her.

“Don’t worry about it, little lady,” Trove grinned at her before pointing up. “Sorbet and Tebros came with us. They’re keeping watch from above. If one of you wanders away, they’ll be able to keep up and intercept before you get too far.”

Garnet followed his finger, but she didn’t see anything. In fact, she didn’t remember even seeing the twins when they were leaving the Humility. How long had they been following them?

“It’s their job,” Tanin said, answering her unspoken question and catching her attention. “They’re good at blending in and not being seen. They will follow me or Rok whenever we’re picking up or delivering things. If we’re in trouble, they’ll be able to interfere before anyone knows they’re there.”

“You? In trouble?” She repeated, grinning.

“It could happen.”

“Has it ever?”

“We’re getting off topic. Come on. My contact has a stall this way.”

Garnet grinned, following after as he pulled on her hand. The two of them led the way, Goldie trailing behind, Trove bringing up the rear. A neat little pod meant to make sure that neither Garnet nor Goldie were left behind.

And since Tanin kept hold of Garnet’s hand, she was free to let her attention wander as it liked. She couldn’t look at everything fast enough. The people, the stalls, the wares. Somewhere, music was playing. An abundance of smells were assaulting her from all sides. Every sense was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stimulation. It was winding her up, getting her more excited. She wanted to just run and look at it all.

But Tanin’s grip on her was secure and unmoving. If she became distracted, he’d pull on her gently and she’d come right back to his side. She gave him a brief smile of thanks for keeping her from getting separated, before going right back to being distracted again.

His patience in dealing with her was astounding. He didn’t once complain, no matter how many times he re-directed her.

She had no idea where they were going, and after a few turns, she also had no idea where they’d come from. Tanin seemed to know this place well, however, because his footsteps were unerring as he took them deeper and deeper into the station. At various points, she realized that there were stalls on massive stairs that were leading up or down to different levels. There was more to this place.

“Hon-Kal is an old station,” Tanin explained when he caught her staring, open mouthed, at one such low step that led up. “It’s quite large and has had generations to grow into this.”

“Is it anything like Rik-Vane?” She asked, the name of his home station coming easily. She really wanted to have that connection to him. This might not have been the station he grew up in, but if it was similar, then she could imagine him here.

“Hon-Kal isn’t anything like Rik-Vane,” Tanin said simply, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he pointed ahead. “That’s the stall that will be buying the gems we brought.”

Garnet, willingly distracted, focused forward. It wasn’t hard to spot the stall in question. It was built on a corner, right beside a set of wide stairs that led down. The kind of steps that would require three strides to cross, more than big enough for a small stall. But the stall Tanin indicated to wasn’t small at all. It was also heavily protected. All the shining, glimmering wares were behind locked glass that was being wiped down by a female with a half-shaved head, green skin, and a stern glare.

Until she looked up and spotted Tanin. Then, she smiled warmly, with familiarity.

And Garnet’s chest twisted with an ugly, wretched sort of feeling.

“Tanin!” The female called out, tossing the rag over her shoulder. “You’re certainly a welcome sight. How’ve you been?”

“Cora.” He greeted her as they all came to a halt at her stall, under the canopy she had hanging up over what was quite obviously her territory. “I’ve been well. And you?”

“Can’t complain.” She grinned before her eyes turned. “Trove. Handsome, as always. You’re still following Tanin around, I see.”

“It’s only ‘cause he keeps feeding me,” Trove chuckled.

“I’ll remember to set out treats for you tonight. And who are these charming morsels?” She finally turned her gaze to Garnet and Goldie, eyes darting between them curiously. “Humans? Tanin, I didn’t know your tastes went to such things. Aren’t they too delicate for you? Last I recall, you were a bit rough for someone like them.”

“Trove. The bag,” Tanin said instead of answering.

Garnet tried to pull her hand back. Not really liking this conversation. Or this female. She didn’t recognize her species, but Cora knew Tanin and Trove. Close enough that she could greet them by name. She could joke with them.

But Garnet didn’t get the chance to escape. Tanin’s grip tightened, keeping her hand in his. Though his expression didn’t change, and all his apparent attention was on the three gemstones that Trove set on the glass counter, she had no doubt that he knew what she just tried to do. And he wasn’t going to let her get away.

Garnet tried not to smile as she relaxed in his grip. How he managed to calm the roaring jealousy just that easily was beyond her, but she wasn’t mad about it either. She might question him later, but she couldn’t really be angry that he’d fucked other females before.

And she still wasn’t sure she was going to fuck him anyway.

He had dick barbs.

She’d asked Goldie about it, because of course she did. Her sister wasn’t oblivious to her amorous interest in the captain. She might not be saying anything about it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t notice. And who else could she ask about dick barbs?

Goldie told her that some animals on Earth had them as well. Felines coming to mind most immediately. They were meant to scratch the females internally to stimulate ovulation. It was how cats mated, she explained. Though, that didn’t seem to be the reason Tanin had his. Not judging by what he had inferred.

So, less a scratch to make her ovulate, and more a deterrent to keep her from escaping his cock before he could fill her with his cum.

Either way, it was a matter of reproduction. He told her they wouldn’t injure her, but that didn’t make her any less uneasy. She imagined she wouldn’t be soothed until she had a chance to look at his dick and saw the barbs in questions herself.

Or felt them digging in, keeping her in place, locking her on his cock.

She shivered, because she actually liked the idea. Not the idea of scratching her pussy up, of course, but just the idea of being trapped on him. Forced to cuddle. To feel him holding her. Garnet was a cuddler after sex, but not everyone was. And if her partner expressly wasn’t, it really ruined the high for her. If Tanin couldn’t pull away, he was an obligate cuddler, right?

How long did it take the barbs to go down? How big were they exactly? Were they actually sharp, or just pokey, or kind of softly barbed like the backwards facing ones on his tongue?

She didn’t know. She had no way of finding out. She and Goldie didn’t have combots – though Tanin did promise to buy them a pair today. But even once she got one, she didn’t want her first search on the alien internet to be ‘s’skree dick’. She also couldn’t ask Alred for obvious reasons. The only one who could really satisfy her curiosity – and other things – was Tanin himself.

But she didn’t want to be a cock tease. What if she came face to face with it and she was too freaked out to continue? Worse, what if she wasn’t freaked out and they had sex, but he ended up actually hurting her with the things?

What if having sex ruined everything? It was already too late for her and Goldie to change their minds. They’d willingly given up their Earth citizenship and right to return just by accepting Tanin as their sponsor and this as their lives.

But despite all that, she still felt right letting him hold her hand as the green lady, Cora, looked over the three gems she’d agreed to buy. Inspecting them with a singular glass loupe-like thing she’d placed over her eye like a futuristic monocle.

Tanin was haggling with her, the two of them tossing numbers back and forth that meant little to Garnet since she didn’t have a frame of reference for how many credz was a lot. But the number was impressively large regardless.

When they finally came to agreement, they used their combots for Cora to send credz to Tanin directly – crediting it as payment for a delivery job. Which Garnet found funny.

She didn’t know who King Gissrn was, but she hoped he missed those treasures dearly and cursed the day he hired Tanin for the rest of his life. She couldn’t do anything about him. She’d have to trust Captain Ikvar and the peacekeepers to deal with him. But knowing that they were stealing from him, and he couldn’t do a thing about it, felt pretty good.

She didn’t like the guy, but it was hard to hold resentment against someone she’d never met, never seen, and probably never would see. Tanin and Alred and a few of the other guys had already assured her that they’d never do business with the male again.

“What about the other stones?” Goldie asked when they returned to the crowd, Cora wishing them well as she took her new stones to the small area behind her stall. Storage or a bedroom or what, Garnet couldn’t tell. The curtain fell over the door before she had a chance to actually peek inside. Not that it really mattered.

She kind of didn’t want to see Cora again. She seemed nice, but it was hard to look at someone she suspected had sex with Tanin in the past.

“The others belong to the rest of the crew,” Tanin said. “They can exchange or trade theirs as they desire. And I’m sure they will. For now, let’s get started by getting you two some clothes. We can work down the list of everything else you’ll need from there.”

Space station shopping spree!

Finally! Garnet had been geared up and excited for this since they docked the Humility into one of the entrance tunnels leading into the station.

It was everything she hoped it would be.

Tanin tied one end of his ribbon around her wrist and let her go, holding onto the other end. It allowed her to bounce between stalls arm in arm with Goldie without getting away from him or Trove as they looked and giggled and gasped excitedly over everything.

They found lotions and soap and hair cleaners first. The scents were a ton of fun to pass back and forth and experience. She didn’t recognize any of them, but that was the best part. When she finally found three she liked, she offered them to Tanin to smell. Which he did, approving of all three. But the second one made his eyes darken as he looked at her, and she knew that was the one.

The second thing they found were brushes – hair and tooth and one short one that was explained to be an exfoliator for their skin.

Shortly after that, they found a place that sold weapons. Goldie looked deeply uncomfortable even holding a deactivated shock stick. Garnet, however, was excited as Tanin kept handing her new weapons to see how she held them. Adjusting her grip. Making her try testing a few jabs or smacks with whatever he pressed into her palm.

When they left, she had her own shock stick – in pretty purple! – as well as a laser knife that, while only the length of her biggest finger, was devastating. He promised to show her how to use them effectively later, but she felt big and bad having them on her waist as they kept going through the bazaar.

It was only after the weapons stall did they finally find a clothing stall.

It was a fun combination of pre-made and tailor-fitted clothing. Since this was an intergalactic trading hub, there were many different species that came through here, and all of them came in different shapes and sizes, with varying numbers of limbs, and different ideas of fashion. They couldn’t just have small, medium, large when there were mountains like Rok that had four arms and chests the size of a barge shopping alongside little females like Garnet and Goldie or even other species that had wings or tails or spikes down their backs. Everything had to be, at least slightly, customized.

However, tailoring clothing was also orders of magnitude easier here than it was on Earth.

Garnet and Goldie picked a bolt of fabric, explained what they wanted, and the family of five used these little handheld things to cut and join pieces of fabric into the shape they needed. They also added seals onto the cloth. It functioned like a zipper. When they pressed the button, it caused the two ends of the fabric the seal was pressed into to fuse together, closing it around them. It was done in minutes, a while you wait kind of thing, and the family of craftsmen were efficient.

They spent most of their budget there. They needed everything. Underwear, warm clothes, cool clothes, casual clothes, working clothes. The only thing they didn’t really get was formal wear, but it wasn’t like they’d have much occasion to wear such things anyway. Garnet did find one nice dress. It was simple, with little straps for the shoulders, a thin belt at the waist, and only going halfway down her thighs. But it was the same red as Tanin’s eyes, and she was unreasonably excited watching that one get tailored to her body size.

Thanks to the sale of the gems, they had more than enough credz to get everything they needed and still had plenty leftover. Even when Tanin brought them to a specialty stall and spent quite a bit buying them space suits, they still had more than enough.

The space suits were standard equipment on ships. In case of a hull breach, if you didn’t die immediately, you could wear the suit and it would keep you safe for a time. They didn’t have any on the Humility that would fit Garnet and Goldie. And the suits they did have, like everything else, was cheap and secondhand.

However, the new ones Tanin bought were not only new, but fancy enough that they’d even be comfortable when worn – a luxury, Trove laughed, that the guys’ suits didn’t have. Their life support was more advanced, and they could survive a full tenday in them without issue. The only problem would be needing to use the bathroom or eating – both of which required opening the suit.

But they weren’t really made for long term use, only emergencies, so it was exactly what Tanin was looking for.

After that purchase, they still had enough for her and Goldie to pick up whatever little things here and there caught their attention. Goldie bought a datastick that included all the information she needed for the medications they had stored in medbay, including how and when to use them. She also got new shoes, ribbons for her hair, a pretty mirror that looked like it was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a necklace with a rough yellow crystal on the end.

Garnet also bought new shoes, as well as machine parts for her cleaning robot, headbands, gloves for cleaning, a kit for doing her nails, and a new pillow that was fat and fluffy and she squeezed happily as they walked through the bazaar.

Both of them got new combots – which would certainly make Ikvar happy on his next check in. They were small and simple, but the little robots fluttered around their heads with the ability to respond to their voice as well as hand movements. Tanin promised to teach them how to use them later, but for now, they were just assigned as the combots new owner. Meaning they would follow them around and obey them over others. If they wanted, they could set them to ignore other people entirely.

For now, Goldie changed hers to light up pink and delighted in how it flitted about like a hummingbird, while Garnet set hers to slowly transition between white and dark red, enjoying all the colors in between while it followed her with a more smooth, flowing motion.

Finally, with all their purchases complete, they headed back to the ship. Tanin and Trove were carrying the bulk of their bags – the stiff paper-like material surprising her by how familiar it was – but Goldie and Garnet, walking side by side, each had a bag in hand as well. Mostly so they could keep pulling out their new things and exclaim over them, showing them off to each other.

And though the two of them were leading the way they weren’t actually the ones leading. Tanin and Trove stayed at their backs to make sure they kept them in sight at all times. Whenever they came to a turn, Tanin would tell them to take it or not. And if they didn’t listen, he’d pull on the ribbon she still had tied on her wrist.

That really should bother her more than it did. It might not be around her neck, but it was still obviously a leash.

But it didn’t bother her, because it didn’t feel like one. She didn’t get the feeling that he was tying her to him, preventing her from getting away, like an overly excited pet or an errant child. This wasn’t him maintaining control over her.

It was more like he was still gently holding her hand. Guiding her along with him. Making suggestions of where she should go. She could choose to listen, to ignore, to pull away if she liked. It wasn’t a leash or collar around her. It was a ribbon, soft and silky, tied in a loose bow. It wouldn’t be hard at all for her to pull it loose and get free.

And that was the real difference. A leash was hard and harsh and immovable. Something that declared he was controlling her, that he owned her to some degree.

This ribbon, bright red and silken, was tied so loosely, she could probably slip her hand out without even pulling on the trailing end if she wanted. It was his weapon, but it was still just a pretty ribbon. In that sense, it almost felt more protective.

Tanin wasn’t the type to declare his ownership over her wants. To demand her submission without her agreement. To need to control her out of some need to just be controlling. He wouldn’t force her to obey him. He gave her his demands in return for hers and let her choose if she would.

But if she did choose to stay with him, he had rules for her to follow. Rules for her safety. For the safety of the ship. And part of belonging to him was receiving his care. His sense of responsibility. He was going to make sure she was safe. And that was the purpose of the ribbon.

And in light of knowing that, she kind of loved it.

She didn’t recognize a single turn or lane until they were suddenly back in front of the airtight doors that opened into the tunnel back to the Humility. She smiled at seeing them, excited to go back to their room and put her new pillow on the bed.

Most of her purchases were small. Half of them were for her job. But she was excited to use everything. To set them up.

As Tanin was entering the code to open the door – a security feature – from above, Sorbet and Tebros suddenly jumped down. Goldie started when they landed beside them, but Garnet smiled, waving brightly.

Just like Tanin said. They’d been there the whole time. Protecting them. Looking out for them from afar.

Moving in unison, Sorbet and Tebros took the bags that Goldie and Garnet were carrying, relieving them of even that small burden. Neither of them reacted, even when they thanked them. But they guarded the entrance as Tanin stepped back, letting Trove go in first. He was smiling, but he had his free hand on his hip, holding his gun. Checking the tunnel to make sure that no one had gotten in, bypassing the security code. Only once he called that it was clear did Tanin let her and Goldie go in. He followed after, Sorbet and Tebros carrying up the rear.

The two of them were sandwiched between everyone. Safely escorted all the way through. And though they had just joined, Garnet already felt like part of the crew.