Switched: Brides of the Kindred 17 (27 page)

Ramlow’s frown
deepened.

“
Come on, Francesca, let’s not play games. I think we both
know why I’m here,” he murmured, cupping Kerov’s cheek in his damp,
clammy palm.

“
Hold on—this is getting out of hand,”
Frankie said in his head.
“He seems to be assuming
an awful lot.”

“
What should…should I do?” Kerov asked. His stomach was still
rolling, the three full glasses of alcohol sloshing in a way that
made him feel ill and weak—both feelings he wasn’t used to and
didn’t like a bit.

He had been talking
to Frankie, but of course Ramlow thought the words were directed at
him.

“
Just let nature take its course,” he murmured. Pulling Kerov
closer, he started sliding the hand that wasn’t cupping his cheek
up the short black skirt of the dress Frankie had insisted on
wearing.

“
Stop him—stop him!”
Frankie sounded panicked now.
“Don’t let us get date raped here!
Come on, Kerov—get with it!”

Kerov opened his
mouth to reply—or maybe to tell the other male in no uncertain
terms to back off. But just then, Ramlow leaned in for a kiss.

Pressing close, he
stabbed his wet, slick tongue, which tasted of stale alcohol and
the spicy Thai food they had been eating, down Kerov’s throat. The
sickly-sweet odor of his personal scent enveloped them in a musty
cloud and suddenly Kerov felt his stomach heave.

Before he could even
think of pulling away, everything came up in a sudden, loose
rush—the alcohol, the Thai food, and much of the lunch he’d forced
down as well, including the slimy, green avocado chunks. Unable to
help himself, Kerov let it all fly…and it went directly into
Ramlow’s open mouth.

“
Arrgh!” Ramlow jerked back, gagging and pawing frantically at
his mouth and tongue. “Oh my God, what’s
wrong
with you? You puked in my fucking
mouth!”

“
Forgive me,” Kerov said—or started to say. Actually, he
didn’t get past “Forgive” before another heaving wave of nausea
took him and his gut clenched again.

This time the jet of
vomit went directly into Ramlow’s lap, covering the expensive,
tailored trousers he was wearing.

“
Ahh!” The other male jumped up, puke running down his pants
legs. “What the
hell?
I came
here for a romantic evening and
this
is what I get?”

“
You got…” Kerov swiped at his mouth. With some of the alcohol
out of his system, he was feeling more coherent, albeit still
miserably sick. “Got what you deserved,” he rasped. “You were
trying…trying to take advantage.”

“
I
was only taking what you offered me.” Still dripping vomit, Ramlow
looked both disgusted and offended. “We had a deal—you wanted the
TA job—I wanted you. I thought you understood that,
Francesca.”

“
That asshole! Hijo de puta!”
Frankie spat inside Kerov’s head, so angry she
was nearly incoherent.
“How dare he act like I would trade my ass for his miserable
job? What kind of girl does he think I am?”

“
The kind that’s going to be sick again,” Kerov muttered,
feeling his stomach roll once more.

“
Not again!” Ramlow jumped back but a generous splatter of
vomit still got on his expensive looking footwear. “This is
disgusting—I’m leaving
now.”

“
Fine. Go.” Kerov gestured at him. His stomach was finally
beginning to feel lighter—as though it had ejected everything it
could and was blissfully empty—but he was glad to have an excuse to
get rid of the other male. “Go now before I’m sick
again.”

His words rushed
Ramlow out the door. Kerov heard the rapid sound of footsteps and
then the banging sound of the front door of the domicile being
slammed open and shut. Mercifully, he and Frankie were finally
alone.

Chapter Twelve

“
Well, I guess I can kiss that TA job goodbye,”
Frankie remarked, as the
door slammed behind Professor Ramlow.

“
Sorry,” Kerov muttered, his voice sounding hoarse—her own
voice, Frankie realized. Actually, he sounded like she did after a
bad case of strep throat.

“
It wasn’t your fault,”
she told him soothingly. Poor guy—he’d just been
horribly sick and here she was worried about a stupid job. Not that
she was ever going to get it in the first place—clearly Todd Ramlow
had just used it as a lure, thinking he could get her to sleep with
him.
That cabeza
de pinga!

“
It
was
my fault. I lost you two
jobs today.” Kerov straightened up, wiping his mouth on the back of
his forearm.

No, Frankie reminded herself, he was wiping
her
mouth on the back of
her
arm.
Dios,
she didn’t like this! Didn’t like not being in charge
of her own body! Although at least she hadn’t felt the nausea when
he puked—she wondered why not.

“
Don’t worry about it,”
Frankie told him.
“Look, why don’t you just go wash out your mouth—my
mouth—it tastes terrible!”
That part of the puke storm she
was
unfortunately party to.

“
Tastes almost as bad as when it went down,” Kerov muttered.
Before shuffling towards the bathroom, he rolled up the fuzzy rug
by the side of her bed and put it in the dirty clothes hamper along
with her stained coverlet. “Gods, the food on your planet is
terrible
,” he
remarked when he was finally done. At least putting away the
vomit-stained linens had taken care of the sour smell in the
room.

“
I
wasn’t too excited about the food you had at your place
either,”
Frankie
reminded him as he finally made his way to the bathroom.
“And besides,
anything
you puke up is going to
taste awful. I wish you would have listened to me about the
alcohol—I just can’t understand why it didn’t affect me even though
it affected you.”

“
Something to do with the Switch, I think. The one who jumps or
switches into the host bears the brunt of any foreign substances he
or she ingests. I think it’s supposed to stop any abuse from
happening to the host body.” Kerov rinsed his mouth thoroughly in
the sink and then took a long drink. “Ah…that’s better. I’m
beginning to feel more like myself.” He raised up and looked in the
mirror. “Although I certainly don’t
look
like myself,” he said wryly.

Frankie found it
almost unbearably odd to see her lips move and hear words coming
out that she hadn’t thought of to say.

“
Look away,”
she begged.
“It’s weird to see myself in the mirror but hear your thoughts
coming out of my mouth.”

“
Fine.” Kerov stepped away from the mirror and then looked
down at himself and winced. “Uh…I’m afraid your little dress of
black may be ruined, Frankie,” he told her.

Frankie grimaced as
she saw the splatter of vomit on the front of her favorite
dress.

“
And here I thought it all went on Todd. Never mind—I can get
it dry cleaned. In the meantime, why don’t we take a
shower?”

“
My thoughts exactly.” Kerov turned to stare at the toilet and
then at the ceiling above it. “But where is your water
nozzle?”

“
If you’re looking for some horrible water-boarding plastic
baggie forget it,”
Frankie told him.
“We have
normal
showers here.”

She instructed Kerov
how to pull back the shower curtain and twist the knobs to get the
water temperature just right. Then, when steam was rising from the
shower, she nodded mentally with satisfaction.

“
There you go—just step right in.”

“
Like this?” Kerov looked down—he was still
dressed.

“
No, of course not. You have to get naked,”
Frankie told him. Then she remembered
that it was
her
body she
was telling him to get naked and felt a blush creep into her
cheeks—or Kerov’s cheeks now, she guessed.
“Uh, I mean, you have to get
undressed.”

“
With pleasure,” Kerov murmured. “But I didn’t know how you’d
feel about it.”

“
Normally I would probably be upset about it,”
Frankie admitted.
“But, well… given the
circumstances I don’t think we have any choice. Just…try not to
stare, okay?”

“
I
will do my best,” Kerov promised gravely. He pulled off her little
black dress and the panties she had on under it but seemed to have
difficulty with the bra. Frankie remembered he’d had a hard time
putting it on too. In fact, in the end she had told him just to
fasten it and then slip it over his head, even though she hated
doing that—it wore out the elastic. In the end, he had to take it
off the same way.

Finally he…no she…no
they
Frankie finally decided, were naked and standing in the
shower.

“
All right—now what? Where are the scrubbing appendages?” He
looked at the shower head as though he expected the long purple
tentacles to shoot out of it and start scrubbing.

“
We don’t have those here,”
Frankie told him.
“You have to use a scrubbie puff.”

“
A
what?” Kerov looked around the small bathtub and shower, clearly
mystified.

“
It’s a big puffy thing you put liquid soap on. It makes lots
of foam and bubbles and exfoliates while you scrub,”
Frankie instructed
him.
“Mine is just
over there, or, no…oh, crap.”
For she suddenly remembered that she’d thrown away
her last puff, which had been getting ragged, with the intention of
buying a new one. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten around to it
yet.

“
Is this the liquid soap?” He picked up a bottle of Frankie’s
favorite Warm Vanilla Sugar shower gel from Bath and Body
Works.

“
Yes, that’s it.”
Frankie sighed.

“
But I don’t see the puff thing you were talking
about.”

“
That’s because I threw it away and forgot to buy a new one. I
guess…”
Mentally,
she bit her lip.
“I guess you’ll have to just use your hands—my hands, I
mean.”

Kerov raised his
eyebrows in surprise—Frankie could feel it.

“
And you don’t mind that? Don’t mind me…touching your
body?”

“
Well, I mean, technically it’s
my
hands doing the touching. And it’s not like I’ve never, uh,
washed myself before,”
Frankie said. She was aware that she was rationalizing a bit
but they had to get clean
somehow
. And besides, she felt like she knew Kerov—he was an
honorable guy. She could trust him not to take advantage. Then she
had a new thought.
“Um, do
you
mind,
though? I mean, is it not done on your planet?”

“
If by ‘it’ you mean touching a female all over her naked
body, it certainly isn’t. But I do not mind a bit,” Kerov assured
her.

Mentally, Frankie took a deep breath.
“All right then—squeeze some of the body
wash into your hands and go for it,”
she instructed.

“
As you wish,” Kerov murmured. He squeezed out a generous
dollop of the Warm Vanilla Sugar gel and lathered it between his
palms before he started rubbing them up and down his upper
arms.

No
wait—he’s rubbing
my
hands
over
my
arms,
Frankie reminded herself.
Dios,
this was confusing! She could see why
Kerov had felt so disoriented when she had taken over his body
while he was still in it.

But all thoughts of
which pronoun was correct and whose body parts were touching whose
were soon wiped from her mind as Kerov continued to wash her in a
slow, steady, deliberate way that made her feel breathless, even
though she wasn’t technically the one breathing with her lungs.

He started with her
arms—a safe area—but soon he moved down to her belly and then her
thighs and calves. Frankie was okay with all this—she had a fairly
toned tummy from doing so much planking in yoga. But when Kerov
came back up and began rubbing body wash over her too-generous hips
she felt herself stiffen uncomfortably inside. Then, even worse, he
moved around to caress her way-too-large ass.

“
Hey, what are you doing?”
she protested as he rubbed slow circles around her
full buttocks.
“Why are you grabbing my ass?”

“
I’m not grabbing it—just washing it,” Kerov protested. “But
I’m sorry if I offended you. Do you find this too…” He cleared his
throat. “Too sexual?”

“
No, too
large,”
Frankie said.
“I mean…”
She
paused, feeling self-conscious.
“I just have kind of a, uh, big butt and I’m
sensitive about it. Especially since I know you don’t like that. So
you don’t have to, uh, wash me there if you don’t want
to.”