“Oh,fuck, I want to eat a pig again… I know that’s so wrong, but… they taste so good.”
“Keep going.”
“What?”
“Tell me. Everything you want.”
Her emerald eyes shine up at me. “And you’ll get it all for me?”
“I’ll get it all for you. I’ll take it as my personal challenge.”
She hesitates. “What if you can’t? What if I ask for something insane?”
I tousle her hair. “Then I’ll fuck you silly until you can’t remember what it was.”
She blinks, and a coy smile lights up her face. “I… okay, yeah. Youaregood at deals.”
I tilt my head. “I have a certain reputation to uphold.”
“Well, in that case… I want popcorn. With butter. You can make butter out of hucow milk, right?”
“Mhm.”
“Ooh, and a cat! A pet cat.”
“Earth-cat or cat as a general category of fluffy, semi-domesticated animal?”
“Surprise me. And—” She stops short, hesitates.
“Go ahead.”
“No, I—it’s too much.”
“Oh, so you want me to pry it out of you?”
She shivers against me. “No… Well, tempting. It’s just… my personal item allowance. I had… a little plush dragon. Some other things. I know it’s impossible, but I figure they’re buried in some ISCC archive or… at some museum somewhere…”
“Describe them for me later. I’ll find them.” I walk across the side wall of my home’s central pillar, then step into one of the many radiating tunnels.
“You really don’t—I was just teasing?—”
I lean down and grab her chin, tilting her gaze to mine. “I’m not. You’ll describe them to me. And then I’ll find them. Wherever they are. There’s not a corner of this galaxy where I haven’t laid my threads.”
Her eyes water. “Really?”
“Really. I promise.”
“And you Arachnoids take promises really seriously…”
“We do.”
She tucks her forehead against my neck. “Thank you.”
We’re almost to my collection room.
I laugh, and she leans into the rumbling of my chest.
“What?” she asks.
