Slave (23 page)

I didn’t look up to see his face, but his penis responded almost instantly, swelling up to the point that I was forced to either back off or let it slide down my throat. I decided that backing off was the more prudent course of action since I had a feeling I might never be able to swallow normally again if I didn’t. A sidelong glance at the other guy was enough to prove that his woman was doing a pretty good job of distracting him, too, and I couldn’t believe just how quickly it worked to shut him up—both of them, actually, although Cat had never gotten to the point of being mouthy, anyway; he just sort of glowered at the other man and kept fingering his sword hilt. But still, all in all, it was downright amazing! The funny thing was, that after smiling in a rather apologetic fashion, the girl winked at me. Not wanting to seem stupid, I winked back at her, which seemed to have been the correct response.

I didn’t ask anyone to verify this, of course, but after that, I decided that the women here must be just like
women everywhere, and that they probably got together for lunch once a week to talk about all the stupid things their men had been up to. The more I thought about the incident, however, the more convinced I became that the man in question had gotten mad at Cat because the girl was looking at his dick and it didn’t have anything to do with whether or not he truly thought that Cat was a liar. I really had to get Cat off this planet and into a pair of pants that didn’t have a hole in them! That cock of his made all the others seem plain in comparison, and I certainly didn’t want to see him end up getting killed because of it.

In the end, Cat sold them some Candalian tooth jelly and they finally wandered off.

“Fuckin’ scumbag,” I muttered as he and his chick walked away. “You know, I just don’t get it, Cat. Why do so many men have to act like that?”

To my surprise, Cat didn’t seem the least bit angry anymore, and actually seemed to be mildly amused.

“Like scumbags, you mean?” Cat asked, “Or would slimeball be more accurate?”

I thought about this briefly before replying. “Same thing, essentially,” I said. “Although I suppose a scumbag would be a slimeball in a sack.”

“And which of them is worse?”

“You know, I never thought much about it, although scumbag might be a slightly neater version of a slimeball. Shit, maybe there
is
a difference, after all.”

“So a slimeball is worse, then?”

“Yes, I believe it is,” I agreed.

Cat nodded solemnly. “Then he would be a slimeball, I think.”
Which gave me a serious case of the giggles. “Oh, Cat!” I exclaimed. “I do love you. You aren’t a slimeball—or a scumbag!—and you’re so much fun!”

“And totally hot and sexy?” he prompted.

“Where the devil did you hear that?” I demanded.

“Did I ever say that about you? I can’t remember.”

“No, it was two young girls who were here getting new shoes.”

“Those kids said that about you?”

“I do not believe they realized that I could hear them,”

he said. “But I did.”

“Oh, God, Cat! You’ve even got the teeny-boppers hot after your ass! No doubt about it, we have
got
to get you off this planet!”

“But I like it here,” Cat objected, his voice dropping to become more of a purr.

“And why is that?”

“Well, I have only to pretend to be angry, and then you will—”

“Dammit, Cat!” I snapped at him. “He was

impugning your honor! Called you a liar and everything!

Do you mean to tell me you weren’t really mad?”

“No,” he replied. “And I am not certain that the other man was either.”

I gazed thoughtfully after the couple who had just left us. They had drifted over to the far side of the square by then, but the girl still had her hand on the man’s dick, and was stroking it quite effectively—so much so that he ejaculated a moment or two later.

“Son of a
bitch
!” I said slowly and with a great deal of feeling. “You know something, Cat? Maybe these
guys aren’t quite so stupid after all…”

Cat just shrugged and smiled an innocent little Kittycat smile. He might have been pretending, but at least he’d been honest about it—which still made him better than just about any other man I’d ever known.

“…but I still think you’re smarter,” I added.

Cat’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly, and he tilted his head curiously. “Why do you say that?”

“There’s a fine line between being teased and being manipulated, but it makes a big difference in the way another person feels about the one doing the teasing or the manipulating. You don’t cross the line the way these guys seem to do. I do what I do with you because I want to, not because I have been forced into it or simply given no other alternative. The difference in the way I feel is that I love the way you tease, as opposed to resenting the way another might manipulate. Does that make any sense?”

Cat nodded. “The difference is love,” he said. “Not domination or control.”

“You got it,” I said, unable to resist smiling at him.

A ghost of a smile played across his lips. “But I am your slave,” he reminded me. “You own me.”

“No I don’t, Cat,” I replied. “I love you. There’s a difference. I set you free and yet you came back to me.

The fact that you did that means more than you will ever know.”

“And you could have left me in the dust of Orpheseus,”

he returned. “But you did not, my lovely Jacinth. You chose to take me with you, and to a man who has been bought and sold many times, that means much.”
“Oh, I couldn’t have just gone off and left you there, Cat!” I protested. “Not the way you were then! You know, even before the auction I considered buying you just so I could let you go.”

“You are fiery and stubborn,” he said with a knowing smile, “but your heart is kind, and I love you, and I will go on loving you always.”

I couldn’t recall whether or not he’d ever said the words before, but it didn’t matter one bit because I certainly heard him that time, and I remember it still— as well as the soft, loving kiss that followed.

Slave 221107.qxd 1/30/08 4:36 PM Page 209

WE LEFT THE VILLAGE THE NEXT MORNING AND TOOK

the rest of the trip in easy stages, stopping for lunch and chatting companionably along the way. I was feeling so much at peace with the world that even the droid’s singing didn’t bother me—much. It was beginning to seem like background music, though I suppose that the distance provided by being on horseback helped considerably. While we were in town, I’d paid attention to the other riders, and noted that men and women who weren’t riding the same horse were never chained together, so I guess they had some sense after all! I hated to think what would have happened to me if Cat had fallen off his horse; I’d have wound up with a broken neck at the very least! I’d also taken note of their clothing, and, as I’d hoped, the ladies were wearing divided skirts when they rode astride. I bought one the first chance I got.

I learned a lot about Cat during that ride. He opened up, telling me about his life before the wars on Zetith—

he had
nine
brothers and sisters!—and some of the things that had happened in the years since. His life as a slave hadn’t always been so bad, but he’d seen some rough servitude—and most of his scars had come after his life as a soldier rather than during that time, except for the scar on his face which he had acquired in, of all things, a training match with one of his comrades.
“What a letdown!” I exclaimed when he told me.

“Couldn’t you have come up with a better story than that?”

“But it is the truth!” he reminded me. “You would not wish for me to lie, would you?”

“Well, no, but if I had a scar like that, I think I’d come up with a more exciting story to explain how I got it, like I was fighting to save the life of some damsel in distress, or defending my family, or, oh, I don’t know, something more…romantic! Not just that the guy I was sparring with was a klutz!”

Cat heaved a rather exasperated sigh. “What is a klutz?”

“Sorry, Cat,” I apologized. “I keep forgetting you don’t understand but about half of what I say. A klutz is someone who is clumsy and awkward and does stupid things like hitting his friend in the face with a sword.”

“Well, you are right, then,” Cat agreed. “He
was
a klutz.” He smiled at the memory. “I have not thought about him for many years. He was a good friend. He was killed in the fight in which I was taken prisoner.”

“Poor Cat!” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “You’ve lost everyone you ever cared about, haven’t you?”

“No, I have not,” he replied. “That will come when I lose you.”

I stared at him, aghast. “You won’t lose me!” I insisted. “I don’t ever want to leave you, Cat!”

“But you may,” he said gravely. “The people of my race are long-lived, and it may be that I will live longer than you, and there may come a time when I will have to watch you die. I do not wish for it to happen, but I know that it may.”
I’ll admit to feeling relieved by this, for having to watch Cat die was something that I would just as soon not have to endure. Of course, the way the Nedwuts tended to view his kind, one of them might end up killing him before I had the chance to grow old with him, and I didn’t like that idea at all! The old man had said that I should take care of him, for he was very precious, and I would. I would kill every Nedwut from here to Xenobia, if that was what it took to keep him safe, for he was precious, very precious indeed.

“Well, humans live a lot longer than they used to, but I’ll do what I can to keep myself healthy and out of trouble,” I promised him. “It’s the best I can do.”

This seemed to satisfy him to some extent, but I had a feeling he was still thinking about it. It must be hard to live a long life while those all around you did not. I’d heard many an elderly person complain that all of their friends and loved ones had died, leaving them to go on alone. It would be very sad, indeed, though there would also be the possibility of finding someone new. Perhaps the good would outweigh the bad.

It was late in the afternoon when we came upon a much larger village, situated at the foot of the small mountain where we had been told Ranata lived. Cat and I got a room at the inn and stabled the horses and the droid. Those things were quite easily accomplished— much easier than approaching the house where Ranata was, for I had no idea what the protocol was in this civilization for paying a visit. Could we simply go up and knock on the door, the way you would on Earth, or were we supposed to send a message first? Rude or not, that
was definitely out of the question, because we didn’t want to warn anyone of our impending arrival—I wasn’t about to let Ranata be spirited away from me again, not when I was this close. After all the time and distance that had separated me from my sister, the thought of simply riding up a winding road to the top of a hill to see her seemed like the most difficult part of my journey. My stomach was tied up in knots worrying about how the rest of the story would play out. I knew that one wrong move could blow the whole deal, and I also knew that if I made that move, I would never forgive myself for letting it happen.

Actually, I had yet to forgive myself for letting her be taken in the first place. She had been in my charge, and facing our parents with the news that she had been kidnapped—even over the comlink between Earth and Dexia Four—had been one of the most difficult meetings of my life. I had sworn not to rest until I found her and brought her home, and now, here I was within a mile of her, and I was afraid. Afraid to face her, knowing that I had let her be taken to spend the next six years being bought and sold like nothing better than a goat or a camel. Would she have grown to hate me for what I had let happen to her? While I had been searching for her, these thoughts had never entered my head, but now, at the end of my quest, they tormented me constantly.

At Cat’s suggestion, we hung out in the common room of the inn for a while, and, though it pains me to admit it, I was leaning toward the idea of drowning my fears in the local brew. I think Cat understood something of my feelings, because he ordered me a drink—a strong
one—and insisted that I drink at least part of it. Knowing how much I disliked the loss of control that comes from any form of intoxication, he didn’t push me to drink it all. But I did—an act that further illustrated how close I was to the edge.

I found it odd the way something I normally avoided like the plague could enable me to see the world from a totally different perspective. As I sat there sipping my drink, I asked myself what was the worst that could happen when I met Ranata again. Death is generally considered to be the worst possible outcome of any situation, but in this case, I decided that even if she were to kill me, it would be no more than I deserved.

But this was one of those instances where there truly was a fate worse than death, and Ranata had been living such a life. The fairest trade would be to set her free somehow and then take her place, although doing so wouldn’t change the past, and it certainly wouldn’t earn her forgiveness. I believe what I feared more than death or slavery was that she would blame me for her fate and recoil from me. Of course, if she did that, it would make it hard to rescue her, and I would have wasted the past six years searching the galaxy for her.

No, I decided, she wouldn’t do that. I could at least talk to her. She might be resentful, but, if nothing else, surely she would be able to see me as her ticket back to Earth! She’d be able to tolerate being on a ship with me for that long, wouldn’t she? I certainly hoped so, because if she couldn’t, I’d either have to tell our parents I’d failed, or I’d have to pay for her passage back to Earth on another ship—though such a thing would probably prove
to be impossible. Space travel was common, but nonstop flights across the galaxy from Statzeel to Earth simply didn’t exist.

No, if she went home, I’d have to take her, and, that being said, there was nothing left to fear, because if she refused to go with me, I certainly wouldn’t return to Earth and tell Mom and Dad that! Of course, then I’d be stuck roaming through space for the rest of my life. It wouldn’t be so bad; Cat had promised to stay with me, so I wouldn’t be lonely. All things considered, it wouldn’t be that much different from what I’d already been doing up to that point. I’d simply keep on doing the same damn thing for the rest of my natural life. And it was just my life, so what did it matter, anyway?