We are more than sex. We are more than love.
We connect like two halves of a whole and then the spinning abruptly stops.
Just stops.
We go completely still. Utterly silent as the deep dark of space continues to spin around us. Protecting us from the universe on the other side.
I come, then immediately come again. Twice in the same breath. Twice, the way it has to be. Twice, the way it always is.
But nothing about this is the way it always was.
When I open my eyes I’m alone. Not in the penthouse, but back in the Mighty Minions meadow flying out towards space like the last time I was here.
I enter the black hole, pass through it, and exit—still hurtling towards the blue-brown planet.
When I drop into the dry grasslands near the waterhole, this time I can smell it. All the animals take a drink. So many different species of animals, I have to turn in circles, over and over again, to see them all.
“Where is this place?” I ask.
But Delphi isn’t with me this time. I’m alone. Utterly, and completely alone.
“Where is this place?” I yell.
One of the beasts lying in the shade of scant tree opens his cavernous mouth to yawn. He shakes his head, shaking that magnificent mane of his, then flops over and goes back to sleep, like he can’t be bothered by me.
I don’t know what to do.
Is this real?
Am I trapped here?
Will I ever get back to Delphi?
Just as that thought runs through my head a word comes out of my mouth.
“Earth,” I say. Then I laugh. Because that’s where this is. That’s where I am.
I am flung back up into space. Retracing my journey. I reach out for the blue-brown planet with both arms, wanting to stay there. But I fall backwards into the black hole, and come out the other side and—
“Wake up!” Delphi says. “Everyone’s here now. I guess it’s time to go.”
I open my eyes and see my beautiful princess. She’s dressed and packing clothes up into the suitcases she bought… whenever that was.
Not naked beside me. Like she should be.
“Did you have a good sleep?” she asks, putting in some earrings. They sparkle and dance in the sunlight coming through the open curtains of the window.
“What?” I say, sitting up, so fucking confused. Wasn’t I just… somewhere else?
“You were out, Jimmy.” She laughs, then slips her feet into some boots. “But you needed the rest, so I let you sleep.”
“How long?”
She crinkles her nose a little, then says, “Maybe ten hours. Yeah, at least ten hours. It’s morning now. Everyone’s here so I guess we’re gonna have a little meeting and then we’re free to go.”
“Everyone? Who’s everyone?”
“Your brothers came here, Jimmy. Crux and another one called Valor. Xyla told me that Mighty Boss refused to let us leave until he had a meeting with Crux. So…” She shrugs. “I guess Mighty Boss is on his way. You should take a shower and get dressed. I bought you some clothes.” She smiles at me and points to a rack holding a brand new pair of tactical pants and a long-sleeve white shirt. And next to that, thank the fucking suns, a pair of boots that aren’t knee-high or shiny.
I have no idea what’s happening. But I manage to say, “OK,” and get up out of bed—still wearing my creepy Loathsome pants and knee-high boots—and walk into the bathroom to start the shower.
I pull the boots and pants off, then stand under the water for a few minutes before it comes back to me.
“Earth,” I whisper. I was on Earth.
Or was that a dream?
No. Ten fucking hours I was gone. It felt like seconds.
There’s only one way that happens.
I went somewhere.
This station took me to Earth.
When I’m finally fully awake, clean, and dressed I go out in the main room of the penthouse to find Crux, Valor, and Luck deep in negotiations with Mighty Boss, who sits in some fucking throne-looking chair that was not here when I last passed through this room.
“Fucking finally,” Crux growls. “What the hell happened to you?”
I suck in a deep breath, ready to start the story from the beginning, but I exhale loudly without uttering a single word. Just hold both my hands up in a gesture that says, I have no fucking clue, brother.
Because I don’t.
I have no idea what happened. It all feels like a dream. And if I wasn’t standing here in a Mighty Minions penthouse, surrounded by Xyla, Cha-Cha, Ladybug, Crux, Valor, Luck, Delphi and Mighty Boss himself in the fucking flesh—so to speak—that’s what I’d say.
It was just a dream.
Except it wasn’t.
“All the kids stay here on Mighty Minions,” Mighty Boss says.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Crux growls. “I told you, they belong with us. They’re our kind.”
“You’re really going to take them back to Harem Station?” Mighty Boss asks.