Page 12 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
“It’s afternoon where I am on Azthronos.” Boshil smiled with well-practiced encouragement. “But you didn’t call me because you’re fine.”
Haltingly, Lishelle recounted the alien flowers, the overgrowth, thegardeners’ comments about radiation. She stumbled more when she got to the juicy part. “And I…uh, kissed a guy. A Thorkon guy. We didn’t have sex,” she hastened to add. Fingering didn’t count, did it? “But I felt a little…weird.”
“Then that was a bad kiss,” Boshil said somberly.
Despite her inner freak-out, Lishelle laughed. “No, it was fine.” More than fine; more than a simple kiss too…
“Likeyou said you were fine before?” The doctor gave her a reproving look. “I’ve explained that you are inoculated again intraspecies infections and accidental pregnancy, but broken hearts are something else entirely.”
Shrugging off the memory of the kiss—and more—Lishelle scoffed. “Myheartis for sure fine.”
“Well, I’m querying your personal dat-pad scanner now and it isn’t finding anything amiss.If the growth rate you noticed on the plants was affecting you, we’d see something by now.”
Blossoming lady bits? Lishelle shook her head. “I really do feel fine after talking to you.”
“That’s good. But why don’t you swing through the station clinic tomorrow morning and they’ll run a deeper scan to send to me. And I’ll make a note for the garden staff to send me a sample of the flowers too.Since I’m curious.”
They chatted awhile longer—Boshil had an interest in exotic Earther foods besides coffee—and then disconnected. Lishelle settled down for sleep, feeling better with the doctor’s clean bill of health. Not to mention the lingering satisfaction of her orgasm.
When she fell asleep, she didn’t dream.
The next morning, she chose a mid-thigh day robe in the geometric Thorkon styling.With pants. Her Thorkon gowns were rich and lovely, but maybe she needed pants today.
After breakfasting in her suite, with her heart pounding only a little, she deliberately walked to the nexus where she’d…had her encounter last night.
Nothing. The gardeners must’ve been through already since the topiary were neatly back in their geometric cuts. No wild profusion of vines and flowers. Shepeeked up at the skylight, but the black hole wasn’t visible at this degree of the station’s spin.
An inkling of her earlier disquiet returned.Hadshe dreamed the whole thing?
She put her hand on her stomach, over the alien butterflies churning there. A little lower, and she’d have her hand over the pollen-powdered handprint…
Ithadn’tbeen a dream. She might’ve been abducted by aliens, butshe wasn’t crazy. Stalking over to the bench where she’d sprawled, she stared down. Nothing, of course; it wasn’t like she was a robot that could see lingering body heat.
So. Much. Body heat…
About to spin away, she caught a glimpse of bright color from the corner of her eye.
Half buried in the mulch of one planter, a single yellow petal shone at her, the crimson veins at its center shockinglyvivid.
Relief and a strange thrill poured through her. Tynan was real, and on this station somewhere. Shewasn’tgoing crazy.
Other than the part where she let an alien holy man caress her until she screamed.
With renewed confidence, she strode off to the med clinic. Doctor Boshil thought she was fine, so she was gonna go with that. The technician who greeted her and helped her into the full-bodyscanner was kind and thorough and sent the results to Boshil while Lishelle watched.
“It’s night at her clinic,” the tech said. “Do you want me to wake her?”
“No. It’s all good. I can wait.”
The tech patted her shoulder. “The scanner shows no signs of excess radiation exposure or histamine response to the flower sample the gardeners dropped off earlier. Come back anytime if you feel off.”
Lishelle nodded and marched away, the low heels of her boots clomping with renewed sureness. From now on, pants and boots, yeah.
When she arrived at the bridal suite, Rayna and Trixie were already there, playing with the mishkeet. Lishelle watched for a moment, feeling a bit squeamish again, this time because of all those hairy orange legs and red eyeballs. But when the young creature gamboledup to her with a stuffed toy larf in its mouth, purring hard, she had to smile.
“Throw it,” Trixie urged. “We’re practicing hunting.”
Since she was all for killing larfs, Lishelle gently tugged the toy away from the mishkeet and gave a toss. The mishkeet darted after, six legs scrambling with more enthusiasm than grace. It pounced, growling, and shook the toy ferociously.