Page 64 of Xel: Broken Bond

“Earlier today, you said that Bribie would see his master again in the next world,” I said. “The Eumadians don’t believe anything much about the afterlife, but I’m aware that many other species do. So I was wondering… Do you think thatIwill see my master again, after I die?”

My master lifted his head off my chest, and I could feel his gaze on me in the darkness. I dared to look in his direction, and I could see his frown in the moonlight. “Do you want to see him again?” he asked finally.

“No,” I said firmly. “He was not a nice man. I don’t want to see him again. But heownedme, so…”

My master shook his head. “I told Bribie he’d see his owner because I assumed that’s who he’d want to see. As far as I’m aware, he was very well looked after until his owner died. But if you don’t want to see your old master again, I don’t see why you should have to. I don’t have any particular beliefs about the afterlife, but I don’t see that it makes any sense for any given deity to go out of their way to make us miserable.”

“Hm.” It was as good an answer as I was going to get, and I decided to accept my master’s view of the cosmic order of things. Life could indeed be full of challenges, but I didn’t see any benefit in any deity deliberately making things harder than they needed to be.

But several minutes later, as I was beginning to drift into sleep, my master spoke again. “Is there anyone you would want to see, after you die? I’d want to see my sister, and my parents, and a whole bunch of animals. But what about you?”

It seemed ridiculous, how rapidly I was becoming attached to my master. I’d only been here for a week. He’d only had sex with me once, and there were so many things that would be changing in the near future with the new colony. In a year’s time, our lives would likely look very different from the way they did now.

But nonetheless, I pressed my face against his hair and tightened my arm around his shoulder. “I think it would be wonderful to see you,” I said softly.

My master rubbed his cheek against my chest and stroked my ankle clumsily with his toes. “I think that sounds like a fantasticidea. But not for a long while yet. We’ve got a lot of living to do before we get there.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

XEL

We buried Bribie next to the rose bushes, in a ceremony that included Bo, Leesha, Kal and Fin, the two other casuals, plus Vonnie, and oddly enough, Borl made a tentative request to be allowed to attend. He stood stiffly at the back of the group without speaking, and I couldn’t quite figure out his motivation for wanting to be there. But since he was quiet and respectful, no one was going to complain about it.

Under the Ranzors’ diligent oversight, the renovations on the barn moved ahead in leaps and bounds. The ‘official story’, handed down by the Alliance Parliament, just in case anyone asked, was that we were turning it into student accommodation – which provided a sensible explanation for the multiple ‘bedrooms’ we were setting up, and for the communal bathroom with multiple stalls. And somehow, the Parliament had managed to find some tradespeople who were willing to do the job in a hurry in return for a bonus for completing it on time.

One of the Alliance’s best doctors – a short Wasop woman named Sonala – came to give Rohinavon and her son a thorough health check. To our relief, both of them were declared to be ingood health, and once she’d cleared Vonnie to begin her next pregnancy, Sonala called me into the temporary office building that had been erected near the barn. “Vonnie tells me that you’ve volunteered to be the father of her next child,” she said, with a reassuring smile. She handed me a small plastic container and gestured to the adjoining room, which had a lockable door. “Would you mind doing the honours? It’s not a terribly glamourous suite, but I’m afraid it’s the best I’ve got.”

I was immediately grateful that my master had already given me permission to masturbate. For all that this was for purely pragmatic purposes, it would still have been breaking a cardinal rule of dimari training. I locked myself in the small office, not expecting to find much to inspire me. But the instant I took my cock out of my pants, I found it incredibly easy to imagine my master’s hand on me, the way it had been just last night. He’d crawled into bed beside me and tugged my boxer shorts down, then proceeded to stroke me in a slow rhythm, teasing me with a sly grin on his lips, bringing me to the brink over and over until he finally whispered his permission for me to come.

My master, I had learned quickly, didn’t have anything like the sex drive that I had, and so, after that first night together, that sort of thing had become a regular occurrence – him using his hand or his mouth to bring me to climax, while I writhed beneath his touch and revelled in the attention I was receiving. And for all that he wasn’t gaining physical release from it, he seemed to enjoy watching me so very much that I didn’t even feel guilty about being the one to receive the pleasure, rather than give it. It had been two weeks since our first night together, and I’d been inside my master two more times since then. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d thoroughly enjoyed both occasions.

Imagining the look on his face when he climaxed, the eager way he stared up at me when he had my cock in his mouth, hadme climaxing into the cup in just a few short minutes. I took a moment to catch my breath and make sure I was presentable again, then I returned the cup to the doctor.

A week after that, Colonel Riglis – or Torv, as he insisted we call him – contacted us again, to let us know that they were in the process of screening staff to be the nannies for the first batch of Vangravian babies. “We’d like to hire staff from a range of different species,” he told us, while Vonnie, Borl, my master and I were all gathered in the cottage’s kitchen for the briefing. “One of the main aims of this project is to prove that Vangravian males can integrated fully into a functional society. Alliance culture is a conglomeration of a number of different species, each with their own subtly different values and expectations. So we’d like at least one person from each of the Alliance species to be working in the colony. In addition to that, we’ll have you, Vonnie, as a Vangravian mentor, the Ranzors, of course, as security, plus Yona and his mate and child, who I’m hoping can be persuaded to teach the youngsters a little about Anicrian culture. A broad education is only going to do them good, in the long run.”

“Will Yona be living here?” my master asked. “Once he’s delivered the babies we need, that is. Can we find a suitable job for him? Assuming he wants one.”

Torv smiled. “I get the impression he’s deliberately trying to not be too optimistic about all this. He’s had a hard run at life so far. So let’s get his mate and child settled and safe, and then once he has some hard proof that we’ve got his back, he might start to reconsider the nomadic lifestyle.

“But while we’re here, I did want to ask if either of you happen to know anyone in particular who might be interested in the nanny positions. We have a few different avenues to pursue, but personal recommendations are always preferable over mere paper qualifications.”

“I’m sure Leesha would know a couple of people,” my master suggested. “I’ll ask her next time she’s on shift.”

“I’d certainly appreciate it,” Torv said. “I’d particularly be interested in any Sedgeged applicants. They tend to be drawn to intellectual pursuits far more than practical skills, but they’d be invaluable for helping with the children’s educations.”

“Maybe try asking at some of the universities?” my master suggested. “If you frame it as a teaching job, rather than mere child rearing, you’re likely to get more interest. Even if the kids aren’t going to be old enough to learn much for a good few years.”

“Not a bad idea,” Torv said, making some notes in his comm as he went.

A brief silence fell, and I considered making the suggestion that was bouncing around in my head. A lot of people I knew would have thought I was crazy for even considering it. But on the other hand, I was very good at reading people, and I knew I sometimes saw things in people that others didn’t.

“I might have a suggestion,” I said hesitantly. “My old supervisor at the hotel,” I said, turning to my master. No one else in the room would have much of a clue what I was talking about. “Kathy. Kathleen Norris. Aiden met her when he came to collect me, if you need a second opinion,” I said to Torv. “I think she would be excellent at that sort of job. She’s very organised, and good at directing other people. She can come across as a bit stern to begin with, but that’s largely because the manager of the hotel wasn’t particularly nice to her. But if you get to know her a bit, it becomes very obvious that she really enjoys looking after other people. If she learns that this is a place where she’s not going to be punished for bringing out her softer side, I think she’d do a wonderful job caring for the babies.”

If anyone wanted to argue with me, I could just pull out the example of Yona. He was a smuggler, and he was about tobecome a thief, in the interests of assisting our project, but Torv was already considering giving him a permanent place to live here. Should Kathy be any different?

“An interesting idea,” Torv said. “But if she’s a supervisor in a hotel, would she necessarily want to leave? That’s not a bad career to be in.”

“The manager of the hotel is not a pleasant man,” I explained. “It would be her decision, of course, but I think it’s worth asking her.”