"Thanks," I say, giving a nod, "but I can handle Mavyx." Even if he is a twinkle-brained caveman. He doesn't like me either, so why he's so insistent on staying close is beyond me. I bet he's the one stationed outside our girl's hut right now. I'd go and check, just to confirm my suspicions, but he'd likely see me looking and honestly, I just want to pretend he doesn't even exist right now.
"The rest of the Trixikka seemed pretty upset the gathering got cut short," Bea says, offering a small smile as she sits down beside me on the ground of our hut. I roll my eyes and reposition myself behind her, picking up a bone comb to help detangle her hair. Some bird-guy had gifted it to her as an offering, the top adorned with flecks of that pretty opal-like stone they have here. The thing is beautiful to look at, but it just makes me mad. All these aliens want from us is to couple up and probably start hatching little bird-babies with them. The thought makes something within me recoil and I start parting Bea's soft, dirty-blonde hair, ready to get to braiding for a distraction. Luckily, she doesn't want anything elaborate. Mom always fixed my own hair into braids for me when I was a kid - she was amazing at it. Did a lot of the neighbor kid's hair as well as some of the adult's hair in our apartment block too. As an adult myself, I've gotten my hair relaxed, keeping it sleek, straight, and simple - just the way my boyfriend preferred it. Here though...
I frown to myself. Unless someone stumbles across a jungle-salon out here on planet-twinkles, I guess I'm going to have to grow out my hair. There's a voice in my head chiding me, reminding me that my hair is the least of my worries right now. That voice sounds suspiciously like when mom used to remind me never to spend hours in front of a mirror making myself beautiful for a man. That I should spend time on things that are good for my soul. And even after her warnings, I'd made that mistake with Josh.
"Ow!" Bea blanches, flinching away. It's then that I realize I'd been taking out my frustrations on a knot in her hair a little too vigorously.
"Sorry," I murmur. "Sorry."
There's a lull in conversation for a little while, the only noise that fills the small hut being the quiet, silky, almost-there-rasp of the bone comb gliding through Bea's now detangled hair and the chirp of jungle bugs from the surrounding forest. It's just me, Bea, and Chastity in here for the evening. Serena is probably off somewhere having nasty, sweaty alien sex with her huge Trixikka man. Someone shifts their feet outside, reminding me that we're constantly under surveillance. "You know why they were all upset the party broke up early, don't you?" I ask. Both ladies remain silent. "Because that whole gathering thing is an excuse to match-make us off to the twinkliest man. They can try and say it's so us 'females' can have some girl-time together, but you know as well as I do, the main objective here is to brush shoulders with us long enough and catch a case of the special-sparkles to bag themselves a little woman." I pull a small section of Bea's hair a little too taut, eliciting a hiss and I feel the need to apologize all over again.
Chastity shrugs, popping another chunk of meat into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before she says anything. "What can you do, ya know? When in Rome and all that." When I raise my brows at her, she adds, "would you rather still be shipped off with that giant grasshopper pimp? Turning tricks for space johns with seven eyes and tentacles and shit?"
I wrinkle my nose. Of course not. The less I think aboutthatnear miss, the better. Doesn't mean I have to be happy with our lot now, though. We are stranded on a jungle planet, probably billions of miles away from Earth and everything we know.And proper maternity care,a small voice whispers in my mind before I shoo it away. I will cross that bridge if I have to, butLord, do I hope I don't have to.
"The Trixikka seem nice," Bea offers, her voice a little thin. Even without seeing her face, I can tell she's probably got that far-off look in her eye. Chastity and I exchange a glance. Bea is the most timid of us girls and we can all tell she's a little skittish around most of the guys. Well, except for Zyntarr. For some baffling reason, she doesn't seem to mind the ugliest, gruffest, chewed-up-looking-one-eyed man this tribe has to offer. But still, her'the Trixikka seem nice'sounds an awful lot like she's trying to convince herself rather than us.
"They are," I affirm. No sense in feeding her worries, I suppose.
Someoneoutside our hut snorts.
"Most of them, anyway," I expand, my voice a touch louder. "Some of them are justsparkly assholes!" I throw the insult with finality, my fingers stilling mid-way through one of Bea's braids as if doing anything else while hurling the words outside would make them lose their impact. Both girls look to the doorway and the dark of the evening outside. That 'someone'outside shifts on his feet but doesn't make a move to respond. Either it's not Mavyx on watch tonight, or he's not in the mood to confront my insult.
Fine.
After a moment, Chastity turns back to me and Bea. "Sparkly asshole, huh?" she says, brow raised. "Reminds me of a prop I had to wear for a job once."
I can't help the inelegant snort-laugh that leaves my body as Chastity grins in return. "What?" Bea asks, which, bless her, only makes me laugh harder. There's low murmuring outside before one of the Trixikka guys is allowed entry into our space to offer us some more food. "What is it? I don't get it?" Bea continues.
"I was talking about a buttplug, honey. One with pretty rhinestones on the end."
Bea stills. "Oh." Again, I don't need to see her face to know she's likely turned as pink as Malibu Barbie's Dream House.
"What is'butt...plug'?" the Trixikka asks. He came with a platter of fruits and a tankard of fermented drink, but here he stands, an adorably confused look on his face. He's called Aloryk I think - a friendly guy, who wears genuine smiles and pretty little skin-stars that are constantly twinkling across the bridge of his nose and on his cheeks like glittering freckles. Oddly enough, this makes him seem much younger than the others, though, on closer inspection, I don't think that's true.
"Do you really wanna know, big guy?" Chastity laughs. "I don't want to scandalize the whole tribe if this gets out."
Aloryk smirks before bending to lay down his tray and then taking it upon himself to take a seat on the floor with us, his huge wings tucking into his back and his long tail laid over his criss-crossed legs. "Now, come, Chaz-Titi," he says, amusement in his voice. "Just this day, you were fond of shocking everyone with your talk of this'dill-doo’object - this…cockwithout a male. Why so shy now? My brothers and I are eager to learn as much as we can about our new females."
I bet you are, buddy. It's on the tip of my tongue to remind him that this is a girl's only hut and that maybe it's not okay just to invite himself into our conversation, but then I catch sight of Mavyx. He's standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his huge chest and he's staring daggers at the back of Aloryk's head. He opens his mouth but before he can bellow out a command for the Trixikka interloper to leave, I just can't help myself...
"He's invited to stay," I say swiftly, sucking the wind out of the Second Spear's sails pretty damn quickly. "Aloryk can stay and talk to us."
Mav's tail twitches and briefly I wonder what he'd do if I leaned across and patted Aloryk on the knee. Bust a blood vessel most likely. I'm only half-tempted to try it, but the look in Mav's eye makes me think the damage he'd do to any part of poor Aloryk that I touched would outweigh any kind of kick I'd get out of riling the big guy up.
Mavyx grunts, eyes still locked on his warrior male.
"Second Spear," Aloryk says with deference, bowing his head and making to get up, clearly picking up the pissy vibes Mavyx is laying down. It's like he's a huge thundercloud that could strike with lightning at any moment.
"No, you can stay," I insist, only just about managing to not sound likeI'mthe one giving orders now.
Aloryk looks torn but Chastity is amused by the whole thing and decides to play along. "Yeah,Rickycan stay with us," she says, clinging to his arm.
"And why is Aloryk invited to join this female gathering?" Mav asks through almost-clenched teeth. Jesus, the guy looks like he's going to burst a blood-vessel. "What is the purpose?"
"We want him to stay so we can ask him questions about you guys and he can do the same for us," I lie. It's a good one though and I run with it. "If we're going to be living together now as one big happy tribe, us humans need to understand you Trixikka better and vice versa. We can't do that if we're kept apart most of the time. We need to mingle more but we'll start with just Aloryk, so it's less overwhelming."
Mav gives me a long look. "If?" he asks and I'm totally lost. I quirk a brow and he accepts the invitation to explain his question. "You said 'ifwe're all going to be living together'." He rubs absently at his lit-up chest as he continues to talk, those thick fingers of his gently kneading directly over his heart-twinkles. "Where else would you females go? You have no other choice."
