Blue Light of Home (9 page)

“Okay,” she said.

He bared his teeth and stared at his monitor for a minute or two. One of them further back in the line finished cycling and beeped at him; he glanced that way, muttered under his breath, then looked back at her and said, “When I was still quite young, the Emperor went on an inspection of the greater Houses. He stayed three nights in Korokth enjoying my father’s hospitality, and returned to the Red Palace with my mother. I went with her.”

“Oh.”

“I wasn’t unhappy. I was raised with the Emperor’s own sons and given considerable advantages. But the circumstance of my displacement was never far from my mind. My mother never complained,” he added, seeing her expression. “But who would dare to complain when the Emperor makes such an offer? And calls it an honor for her…and for my father.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Do not presume to know my mind,” he interrupted, not without a faint smile. “And put away those stricken eyes. This is a foolish story. It embarrasses me to tell it, but it doesn’t anger me. Not anymore.” He passed a few seconds tapping keys and then laughed shortly. “I was young, for all the excuse that is. When I reached the age of ascension, the Emperor offered me a term of service in the royal legion, as he would for any of his bloodline. I refused and returned to my father’s House.
He
sent me right back to the Emperor to accept the honor I had been offered. And I was accepted graciously, but I stood my training under the most sadistic legion-master in the service…the Emperor’s way of slapping my snout, I suppose.

“But I served with distinction—two terms—and took more honors than either of the Emperor’s own sons of age. When I returned to accept my third Imperial medal, the Emperor offered a prize…anything I wished.” He laughed again, rubbing at his snout. “The polite thing, the proper thing, would have been to ask for the Emperor’s cup after the meal, or permission to watch him at rigors, or something of that sort.”

He paused again, not even pretending to read text or type this time, and Skye braced herself.

“I asked to strike the light outside my chamber. I was a man, after all, unquestionably proved, and his invitation to me extended over several days. I wanted the use of a woman. He agreed and, as I knew he would, told me that I need not take the first to answer. If I had an eye for any particular female within the walls of the Red Palace, I had but to name her.” Vala glanced upwards and shook his head almost imperceptibly. “I named one of his daughters.”

“Oh wow.”

“I told you it was a foolish story. And there were a hundred men at the table to hear him offer and hear me ask, so of course he gave her. And I used her one night…and then I turned her out and replaced her with a servant of the household, a woman who scrubbed tiles. Then I went home. A six-year commission to the frontlines of Barakit was waiting when I got there.” He grimaced and looked away into the far corners of the room. “My father was furious with me. My mother still isn’t speaking to me. I embarrassed the Emperor, and worse…I embarrassed a good woman wholly innocent of the whole mess. When I fulfilled my commission, I put in for this assignment. And received it. Hopefully, it will count as some measure of my sincere regret. And you.”

“Me?” she blurted, startled.

He looked at her, permitting himself a mild furrow of curiosity as he said, “Did you really scrub floors for pay on your world?”

“Yes,” she said, eyebrows climbing. “And windows and toilets and walls, and pretty much anything else that needed scrubbing. Disappointed?”

“No. But I am confused. There are those who would seem to be suited for that work and those who are not. In the time that I have known you, I would have thought you the latter.”

“Hey, it’s honest work.” She wanted to let it drop there, but after he’d bared his old scars, it didn’t seem fair. So she went ahead and said it all. “I was orphaned pretty young, just before
my
age of ascension, I guess you’d say. I already had a job working part-time turning rooms at a hotel, and I used that to get permission to stay on my own instead of going into state care, which…well, was probably a mistake. I ended up dropping out and losing everything anyway.” The memory still had some power over her, but she didn’t give it more than a short sigh and a rueful shrug now. “I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be.”

“No one took care of you?”

“Where I’m from, you’re supposed to be able to take care of yourself. And I didn’t do so bad. I guess I’m good at what I do—that’s really more about being discreet and honest than clean—and I ended up in a pretty decent place, a few extra dollars at the end of every month. Then I got the job at the Space Administration, and I’ve been there six years and I’m doing okay. It’s not glamorous,” she admitted, smiling a little. “They may all be astronomical geniuses and super-athletes, but they still hit the rim seven times out of ten. Whatever. It may not be what I wanted to do all my life, but seriously, who you are matters a lot more than what you do. I try to be a good person…whether I’m a janitor or, you know, a prostitute.”

He didn’t return her smile. “I’ve learned enough about human culture to know that it is difficult for you to be here.”

“It’s not as bad as it was,” she assured him. “It can even be nice sometimes.”

His expression remained grave. “I’m not accustomed to being thought of as a burden one must endure.”

“I’m sure it’s good for me. Builds character or something.” She got up and took the necessary two steps to meet him, smiling broadly. “Oh lighten up, Vala,” she said, climbing into his lap. “You’re really not so bad once someone gets to know you.”

He jerked back as far as he could while limited to the confines of his chair, hands up like a man being mugged. Once again, he was gaping at her. “What are you doing?”

Skye looked down at herself as she straddled him, her arms around his neck and hips chastely elevated…for now. “Um, I’m getting frisky?”

“You don’t do that,” he said, sounding comically stern. “I do that. You…You go sit until I call you.”

It was her turn to gape, but it didn’t last long and it ended with a lot of unpolitic hooting and laughter.

“Skye—”

“Oh, I can see you mean it, I just don’t care. First-contact isn’t official yet. Earth’s customs are still in play.” She bent to nuzzle at the softer scales under his jaw, giggling at the way he ticced back harder and harder into his chair. He was relatively okay with her running her hands over his chest, but she had only to pluck once at the topmost buckle of his harness and he let out a manly shout and snatched up both her wrists. In response, she began to move her hips very lightly against his. The expression on his face as he looked down was enough to start her laughing all over again.

“I’ll call you,” he said, not quite as assertively as he’d said it before.

“Mm-hmm.” She pulled her wrists out of his grip and finished unbuckling his harness, nibbling at each untraveled inch of pectoral muscle as she exposed it.

“This isn’t done.”

“Who are you saving face for?” Her hands moved on to his armored pants, which were somewhat more complicated to unfasten, especially in this position. When she wriggled back to get a better look, he slipped an arm around her, holding her steady even as he tried to crane his neck out of nibbling range. She tsked at him. “It’s just you and me, remember? Tell the truth, you really don’t mind.”

“I mind,” he said tightly, arching his hips as she slid her hand inside to cup the solid bulge of his concealed member. His eyes were open, narrow, extremely watchful as she drew back to grin at him. “And you are acting very strange. I didn’t think you’d want to see me face to face this way.”

“No?” Skye nibbled at his throat some more. “Occasionally, we humans like to look at the people we have sex with. We’re kinky that way.”

“I thought it might disturb you. To be reminded of…what I am. You need to move.”

“I am moving,” she said. She was.

He hissed at her. “I mean up. We can’t do this in a chair.”

“Sure we can.” And to prove it, she skinned out of her t-shirt first and her sweat pants second without ever leaving the sanctity of his lap. She took advantage of his dumbfounded hesitation to get some more nibbling done, and it wasn’t long before his hands were easing around her hips to hold her in place. She chuckled against his scaly skin. “I think you like it when I’m on top, you deviant you.”

SMACK!

Skye yelped, instinctively hopping higher onto her knees and clutching at his shoulders before her brain had even registered the source of the slap now tingling over her bare bottom cheek. She blinked at Vala in astonishment. “What was
that
for?”

“I want you to enjoy this,” he replied, pulling her back down and into another deliberate SMACK! Immediately, his hand covered what it had struck, rubbing at the light sting he’d wakened in her as he teased his strange mouth along her throat. That felt so nice, she was almost willing to overlook the rest of it, but then he did it again: laying in a steady procession of swats to completely cover her bottom, each one crisp enough to catch at her breath and send her hips bucking forward, none of them enough to hurt more than a few seconds before filling in with the most amazing blush of warmth, and all of them followed by those slow, sensual caresses. It was hard to remember how to protest the indignity of it when she was melting against his chest like this.

She tried anyway, stammering, “I don’t like it,” even as that wonderful heat burrowed in and began to coil in a whole new place. “Stop it, Vala, please.”

“Again and again, you seek to command me,” he mused, pulling her right against him before applying his next three blows, so she felt each one crushed between his hand and his hard body. “Perhaps I should punish you.”

“C-Come on, don’t! Please!”

The spanking went on. “You’re a terrible liar, Skye. And remember who you are lying to. How could I fail to know when you take your greatest pleasure from me?” But he did stop, the scales of one palm rasping lightly over her embers as his other hand moved between her thighs. His fingers stroked up inside her just once, releasing heat like a snap of lightning as she clung to his neck. He laughed softly, triumphantly, and kept moving them. “Who are you saving face for?”

“I,” Skye gasped, riding his hand in helpless fits, “am ready to serve you now. Or would you…would you rather I go sit…and wait for you to call me?”

“Oh hush and help me out of this damned thing.”

They fumbled together with his pants and with that ridiculous Dark Ages metal-plated underwear, and then he was gripping at her nicely-toasted ass, rhythmically kneading and ever-so-lightly scratching as she took him in. The chair creaked quietly as she rocked. Vala arched back, teeth bared and eyes squeezed shut, breathing deep and slow, making it last.

“Do you think you could get used to this?” she whispered finally, smiling.

“No,” he said at once, and panted out a short laugh. “This really is deviant, you have no idea. Right on the bridge. And you…You’ve never done this before. Moved like this, I mean.”

“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”

“It’s different. Very different.” He gave her a swat and rubbed it in. “I like what you’re doing. I just don’t like where you’re doing it.”

“In that case, I guess I’ll stop.”

He gave her another swat, sharper than before. “I’ll tell you when to stop, woman. You’re here to serve m—”

Something chirped. Not just here at the computers, but all down the halls, through every speaker. Vala’s eyes snapped open. He looked fast at the monitors beside him, where every screen now showed the same line of alien letters and what looked for all the world like a load-screen timer, which was clipping along at a pretty good rate.

“Oh
shit
!” Vala gasped, which was the first time Skye had ever heard him swear in English. Then he jumped up, dumping her unceremoniously on the floor and started yanking his harness back on. “Get dressed!” he hissed, and just as immediately cut that off with, “There’s no time! Hide! Hide!”

“Hide wh—”

He shoved her under the protruding console of his computer bank, kicked her clothes in after her, sat down with his pants still open and his harness all cattywumpus (in his haste, he’d bucked the top fasten to the third row, the second to the fifth, and the fourth he’d left hanging entirely open), and no sooner had he scooted up to the console than out of every speaker came a loud click, followed by some indecipherable speech in a stranger’s voice.

Skye plucked the t-shirt off her head and rolled awkwardly onto her hands and knees, thumping her head not once but twice on the bulky metal panels protecting his software in the process. She could hear the faint hum of the uploads in progress at the other terminals from here; she could feel the steady thump of the recyclers under her hands. She knelt there, listening to the two of them talk, trying to look anywhere but at Vala’s rampant erection, marveling that he could sound so calm and professional when he had been making (by his own admission) kinky love to her just seconds ago.

She kinda felt bad for him, really. After he’d been so considerate of her, making sure she got hers exactly the way she needed it…to be called rudely away into a meeting. And not even a real meeting, a video meeting.

The conversation above her went on and on.

Gosh, he was going to be so mad at her…

Smiling, biting her lip with the effort of keeping so quiet, Skye crawled a little closer and tickled at Vala’s thigh. His voice rolled on indifferently, but he gave her a tap with his foot—a stern yet silent reprimand.

She chose to ignore it and got even closer, pulling at his legs to coax them apart. He snapped his thighs together like a virgin at Mass and started to shove his chair back for good measure, but braked just as hard, perhaps remembering the rather hastily reassembled condition of his lower attire. The alien discussion took on a faintly inquiring tone. Skye could easily imagine the gist of it: “—blah blah blah…I say, Vala, feeling twitchy tonight?” “No, sir,” says the half-naked man with a wholly-naked woman hiding under his console. “Then settle down and pay attention.” “Yes, sir.”