But there’s something going on inside me I never anticipated. The heat in my ass has settled and sunk into my skin and flesh. It has traveled through me and found a home between my legs. I can feel my clit pulsing, a warmth and a wetness making themselves inconveniently known. I’m already blushing, embarrassed and confused both by his actions and my reactions. What the hell am I doing? What the hell is happening to me?
“Look at me.”
I keep my eyes downcast. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want him to see what I think he’s going to see in my eyes. I liked being spanked. It hurt like hell and I don’t want it to happen again—at least I think I don’t, but I liked it. I liked how small it made me feel. I liked how connected to him I suddenly was every time his palm met my ass. I’d heard of pain being pleasure. I didn’t know it could also be about joining together. I feel like he took a part of me with him, or maybe made a new part of me to which only he holds the key.
“Ava…” His tone drops with warning.
I look up at him, meeting his alien gaze for all of a split second then wrench my eyes away as another hot flash spears through the core of me. Holy fucking shit. The things he is doing to me now are even more intense and powerful than the things he was doing before, and he’s not even touching me. He’s holding me in place with sheer force of personality.
“You can look at me,” he says gently.
“No. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“There’s too much of you,” I say. That doesn’t really explain what I’m feeling, but it’s the most I can form right now.
“Too much of me?”
“Too big. Too green. Too mean.” It sounds glib and sassy, but it’s right too.
“I have not begun to be mean to you,” he says with what I think might be a smile, but I can’t bring myself to look. It would be even worse if he found this somehow amusing. I don’t want to be laughed at in this vulnerable state of pain and need.
He takes my chin in his hand and directs my face toward his eyes. I don’t want to see that knowing purple gaze sinking into me. But I have to. I see him looking at me. I feel him looking into me. And I feel myself getting tighter between my thighs and in my lower belly, all those muscles reacting just to his look.
“You spank well,” he says. “Not every female does.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you lift your hips and you present yourself even when you’re sore and wanting it to stop. That’s a reaction that can’t be taught. It has to be inside the girl already. You were made for this. I don’t think your escape from Earth was an accident. I think it might have been a calling.”
He releases my chin, and this time I don’t feel the need to look away. His approval is washing over me, making me feel all warm and cozy on the inside.
“You really think I’m good at this?”
“Yes. I think you’re a natural born pet.”
“Pet?”
“Aliens of most species don’t see humans as equals. The highest status most humans can expect to attain is pet; it means they can expect to be treasured and cared for. It is far preferable to foodstuff.”
“There are aliens that eat humans?”
“There are aliens who do almost everything imaginable to humans,” he says. “Don’t worry. I won’t put you in their way. I want you to be sold over and over again. If you end up in someone’s stomach, that’s going to be difficult.”
I stare at him, horrified.
I’m a commodity. I’m a tool. I’m something he’s using to make profit. There was a moment there when he held me and spanked me and looked deep into my eyes that this felt personal. But it’s not. He’s toying with me. Training me. Making me more useful.
I’m going to escape him as soon as I can. I am sure that there will be an opportunity. He’s going to get cocky. He’s going to make a mistake. The second he does, I am gone.
“I’m tired,” I say. “Is there somewhere I can sleep?”
“You can sleep in my bed.”
“There’s not anywhere else?”
“This is a single berth shuttle,” he explains. “I travel alone, and light.”
“You mean you stole this.”
“I traded it, fair and square. The retired couple who used to own it have been fully remunerated, so there’s no fear of reprisals. Now go to bed.”
The bed is orange, orange sheets, orange and white comforter with little white fluffy bits dotted over it. A lot of people would call this decor garish and ugly. A lot of people would be right. I like it, though. It is vintage in the very best of ways. It is a kind of aggressive, hyper-cozy setting. When I crawl in between the sheets, I feel my entire body relax reflexively. The sheets themselves smell like lavender and another scent I don’t know the name of but seems to exist in my ancestral databank. I get cozy under the covers, pulling them all the way up to my chin. Last time I slept in a bed it was my bunk. It was not as comfortable as this.