Bwat’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Who is she?”
“I’m not telling you. But if you guess, then you still must keep it a secret.”
“Okay, but I’m not promising any results.” The other orc hesitated a few seconds. “So why did she stop coming to your furs?”
I looked around, double checking to ensure no one else was nearby. “We would always go to each other’s hovels, or go back to one of our beds after we encountered the other in a restaurant or bar. Every time we saw each other, we had sex, sometimes until morning.”
The other orc’s eyebrows shot up. “That sounds promising, but from what I have read on the internet, most human females want more than sexual relations eventually.”
Orc males ended up wanting more than sex eventually too—at least I did.
“I wanted to have more of her than just her body, so I asked her to dinner and we began to spend time together out of the furs. I thought we both wanted the same thing, and she seemed happy to be with me both in and out of bed. We spent most of our time together for almost two weeks.”
Bwat nodded. “That is a lot of sex. Did she leave because your hand-axe failed to harden sufficiently?”
“No!” I lowered my voice after a number of the other orcs looked our way. “My hand-axe always hardens sufficiently. And it remains hard until the female has been satisfied several times. Sometimes it remains hard even after I have released my seed.”
Bwat eyed me. “I have read that may be a concerning sign of a health problem. If your hand-axe remains hard for more than four hours, you should immediately see a physician.”
It wasn’t hard forthatlong, although I wasn’t sure I should admit to that. “I do not need to see a physician,” I snarled at the other orc.
Bwat scooted away from me. “Then why does she no longer want to be with you?”
I looked around then leaned toward the other orc so the others wouldn’t hear. “She left me a note with her phone number on it the night before we took the bus for our away games, but I never called her. Or texted her. Or had any contact with her at all.”
“That was two weeks,” Bwat said. “Didn’t you miss her?”
“Yes, I missed her. I stroked my hand-axe while thinking about her every night we were gone. I longed for the time we would be together again.”
“Then why didn’t you call or text her?” he asked.
“Because I did not find her note before I left.”
Bwat winced. “That is not a good situation.”
“Iknowit’s not a good situation,” I snapped. “It wasn’t completely my fault. She put the note in my kitchen and should have known I never go in that room. And how was I supposed to know she expected me to call her? We had been naked and non-naked with each other for weeks and never did she ask me to contact her by phone. We always went to each other’s dens if we wanted to see the other one, and made arrangements to meet the next day. This phone thing was a new and unexpected request. I didn’t see her note. How was I supposed to know she wanted me to call her when I didn’t see her note and this wasn’t something we had ever done?”
“Well…” Bwat scooted further back as I glared at him. “Okay. It doesn’t sound like your fault at all. Just a misunderstanding—one that should be easily rectified.”
“There was nothing to say to her anyway. I would not have wanted to bore her with descriptions of the terrible hotel rooms we stayed at or the cities we saw almost nothing of the scant time we were there. I certainly wouldn’t have told her about the games we lost and how the human players thought we were insignificant nobodies to laugh at.” I was on a bit of a rant here, releasing all my frustration towards Bwat.
“I agree. None of that sounds like good conversational material,” Bwat interrupted. “Perhaps you could have discussed your feelings? Composed a poem to her beauty? Told her how you ached every moment that you were away and were counting the days until you could hold her in your arms again?”
I shuddered. “Those are horrible ideas. What sort of weak peasant would thinkthatwas a proper way to court a female? And none of these are appropriate things to discuss over the phone. Although maybe I could have talked to her as I stroked my hand-axe, letting her know that each night I spilled my seed envisioning her legs wrapped around my hips.”
“I guess some males might think that is romantic.” Bwat’s tone made it clear he was not one of those males.
“But I didn’t find the note with her number, and I didn’t call her. And when I returned, she expressed her displeasure and told me she would never come to my furs again.” That horrible lump was back in my chest again, and I fought the urge to flee, to run to the shrew’s apartment and throw myself in front of her door until she at least let me explain.
But I couldn’t see my fierce shrew finding that sort of begging, weak behavior to be appealing.
Bwat eyed me warily. “Did you explain the mistake? Jordan was very understanding with Ozar about the differences in our cultures.”
“I did tell her that I hadn’t seen her note before I left, and she seemed as if she might reconsider, but when she found out I didn’t know her name, she became even more angry and has refused to speak to me, even though I went back to my hovel and found the note with her number so I could text her.”
“You didn’t know her name? How many times was she in your furs, and you didn’t know her name?” Bwat stared at me in horror. “That’s very bad.”
“Iknowthat’s very bad. I have discovered her name. I have left her two text messages. And a leg of lamb. And I called her, but did not leave a voice message.”
