“What a wonderful suggestion!You have earned yourself the prize for today’s games.Two days worth of rations for you!”
He ducked into a hasty bow.“Th-thank you, most glorious Kwin.”
“Prepare a party,” she snapped at the others.“Return in two days with a percer for my turoch or die in the attempt.”
Sytos rushed to follow her orders and I watched as nearly half of them gathered supplies.It looked like at least fifteen sytos staying at the strip club, but that was better odds than thirty to one.
If Tovis and I had a hope of escaping, we had two days to pull it off.
“Glorious Kwin?”I squeaked out, the formal greeting tasting like bile in my mouth.
She looked over at me curiously.It was the first time I’d spoken to her willingly and I was already cursing my boldness.
“Yes, pet?”she purred.
I darted a panicked look over at Tovis, who was standing stiff and nearly vibrating with tension, like he was prepared to launch himself across the parking lot if I needed him.
“The turoch hasn’t eaten in over four days,” I murmured.“Surely he’ll give you a better show if he isn’t weak from hunger?”
She laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair.My face burned with angry embarrassment the longer she cackled and by the time she calmed down, I was biting my tongue to hold back a rant that would get me killed.
“Oh, pet,” she sighed.“You’re so stupidly transparent and clearly you know nothing of turochs.I could starve that creature for another four days and he’d barely be affected.”
She gave my leash a sharp tug and my knees banged into the side of her chair, as I fought the urge to give the stupid pink leather a yank of my own.
“You want me to feed your mate because you hate to see him hungry.I admit I never paid humans much attention, but you must be nearly as primitive as his kind to have such astrongaffection for him.”
She said ‘strong’ so mockingly it was clear she thought caring about anyone was the most absurd concept.
“Admit it, you don’t care about my entertainment,” she cooed, her shimmery pink tentacles lifting to caress my cheeks.My skin crawled at the sensation and I briefly imagined biting one of the creepy appendages off.The way she was touching my face felt wrong, her smirk a little too satisfied and lascivious.I had a feeling the tentacles had some sexual connotation, and she was doing the syto version of groping me.
I nearly gagged at the thought.
“I want to feed him,” I gritted out, holding my head as far away from her as I could with my leash gripped in her hands.“And give him water.”
“And what will you give me?”she asked, pulling the leash until I was balanced precariously on the arm of her chair, my toes barely touching the hot asphalt.“What could you offer me to grant you such a pointless request?He won’t live long, you aren’t saving his life.If anything, you merely prolong his future suffering by feeding him.”
“I want to feed him,” I repeated stubbornly, scrambling to think of anything I could do to persuade her.“I-I can give you massages.Rub your feet.”
Somehow a task I’d performed thousands of times, willingly and without thought, transformed into a sickening humiliation the moment I offered it.Rub this creature’s feet?Massage the sick alien dictator who treated me like a pet and enjoyed torturing and killing her own soldiers?
The thought turned my stomach, but I didn’t have anything else to barter with, and I was good at it.
A flash of surprise crossed her face and she actually let the tension off my leash.I sagged back, relieved to have the pressure off my neck.
“Are you offering me sexual favors?”she asked.Not in a pervy way, shockingly.She almost sounded confused.
“No!”I rubbed the back of my neck and took a hasty step back.“I worked in a spa, we gave foot massages and cosmetic treatments.Foot rubs feel good and relieve tension, they’re not sexual.”
Her tentacles retreated and she stroked her own face as she stared at me.The clear confusion on her face was throwing me off balance.The Kwin was clearly used to being pampered and catered to at all times.Had she really not had some poor slave give her massages?
“Your kind truly do this?Touch for reasons outside breeding and sex?”She said it like it was the strangest idea she’d ever heard of.
I shrugged.“I was paid for it every day.”
“I am intrigued,” she admitted.“Very well, I will allow you to feed your mate, this one time,” she warned imperiously.“If I enjoy this...massage, perhaps you can make this same trade again.”
I ducked into a quick curtsey.“Thank you, glorious Kwin.”
