"I don't think he does, either," said Tychar.
Following his downward glance, I saw why. Trag's cock was every bit as hard as Tychar's had been all day.
"I haven't had a hard-on in twenty years!" Trag declared.
"Almost forgotten what it feels like. None of the women around here smell good to us at all, but Tychar was right, because you smell absolutely fabulous."
Tychar grinned knowingly. "I told you so."
"Sorry, Trag," I said meekly. "Didn't mean to get you all hot and bothered."
"Oh, I'm not complaining," he assured me, "it's just that I have an idea it's not gonna do me a damn bit of good to have one unless Scalia shows up real quick."
"The Queen?" I exclaimed, aghast at the notion that Scalia would consort with her slaves. It seemed rather medieval of her—though perhaps no more medieval than having slaves to begin with.
"She wants to have sex with anything that has a cock," Trag said roundly. "But we couldn't do it with her. Pissed her off a bit, I think. Been fucked by lots of the others, though."
"So it
is
a harem!" I exclaimed. "I thought so!"
"Harem?" Tychar said curiously. "I don't believe I've ever heard that word before."
"It's an old Earth custom in desert countries," I explained. "The Sultan, or king, would have a whole bevy of females to choose from. They were kept locked up in a seraglio, which, by all accounts, was very similar to your quarters. Same idea, it's just that Scalia's put a slightly different spin on it."
"She still likes us, even if we can't fuck her," Trag said. "It makes her hot just looking at us, and that stiff one Tychar got last night wowed her but good."
"She did seem rather pleased by it," Tychar remarked, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. "As was I," he added.
Of course, it was nothing when compared to the effect the mere sight of him smiling at me had had on me—and I think I would have noticed if he'd ejaculated, because it was bound to have been a rather spectacular explosion after twenty years—but I didn't see any need to tell him that. Not yet, anyway. He already seemed to be taking enough "liberties" as it was, since I hadn't asked him to kiss me again, though perhaps I only needed to ask him once. Not that I would ever complain; he could kiss me all he liked, just as long as I didn't pass out again.
"Not to change the subject, or anything," I said, "but how long
did
it take you guys to get used to the heat?
These fainting spells could get old in a hurry."
"Not long," Tychar replied. His lips brushed my ear as he added in a voice that promised a myriad of sensual delights, "And in the meantime, I will take
very good
care of you."
"You just need to take it easy for a few days," Trag advised. "Spend a little time on your back."
"Very funny," I said. "You know, your brother is an absolute riot," I said to Tychar. "And to think, you've had to put up with him for twenty years! How did you stand it?"
Tychar rolled his eyes. "I have
no
idea."
"Well, if you guys don't mind, I believe I will spend some time on my back,
but"
I went on as Trag started to snicker, "if either of you have any ideas about climbing on top of me, I wish you'd save them until I'm feeling more up to it. Just being in the same room with the two of you is bad enough."
"Hey, man, I think she likes us," Trag said, nudging Tychar.
"My, but you're a cocky little bastard," I remarked.
"Especially for a man who's been essentially impotent for so long."
"But I'm not anymore," he pointed out, wrapping his hand around his dick and giving it a hard squeeze. "I might not ever get to use it, but at least I've got one, and the way I see it, we both have an equal chance."
"Really? And why is that? Tychar is the one assigned to look after me, not you."
"But that doesn't mean I can't find lots of reasons to visit," Trag argued. "I can be as charming as he is, you know."
Somehow I doubted that. Tychar had made a very good first impression on me, and Trag was running a distant second at that point.
"You're probably a lot of fun," I said reflectively, "but I still think I like Tychar better. He's absolutely charming." Of course, I could have added adorably sexy and impossibly handsome to that, but I didn't want to rub it in.
"It's the blue eyes, isn't it?" Trag exclaimed. "Always with the eyes! I tell you, if I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times! 'Oh, his eyes are so blue!'
Makes me want to throw up every time Scalia says it!"
"She has
never
said that!" Tychar protested. "At least, not that I've heard."
"Of course you wouldn't!" Trag snarled. "She doesn't say things like that to your face; she tells me!"
"Do you really think she likes him better?" I asked Trag.
"I'm
sure
she does," Trag said irritably. "Everyone always
has
liked him best! I can't figure it out. All the other women around here seem to like him better, too—they're always flirting with him and telling him how wonderful he is. What's so wrong with green eyes, anyway?"
"Did I say it had anything to do with his eyes?"
"Well, no, but—"
"He smiled at me, Trag," I said gently. "You stood there looking like you wanted to scratch my eyes out."
"Well, okay, you're right about that much," Trag admitted. "It's just that I thought Scalia wanted to show us off to one of her friends, that's all."
"Don't like being an oddity?" I ventured.
"Something like that," he replied.
We arrived at my room, and Tychar laid me down on the bed while Trag went off to get some more water. I drank as much as I could hold without getting sick and then tried to rest, but it's hard to relax when you've got two tigers prowling around your room.
Tychar sat beside me with his arm draped lovingly around my shoulders while he fed me fruit from a crystal bowl. His apparent intent was to get some food into me, but he was driving me wild by barely touching my lips with each bit he offered me—just being that close to him was enough to inspire some of the most erotic thoughts I'd ever had.
When I couldn't hold anymore, he moved to the foot of the bed to massage my feet. Having a man give me a foot massage has always been a particular fantasy of mine, but just how he knew it I didn't know and didn't care, because it felt
wonderful.
As I lay drifting in a haze of sensuous delight, Trag busied himself with checking out the contents of my wardrobe, which he considered to be quite inappropriate for the local climate.
"You need to wear less," he advised. "These long, flowing dresses of yours trap the heat too much."
"Maybe," I admitted, "but that's what I wear most of the time at home. I didn't bring much else."
"Well, we'll have to figure something out," he insisted. "The trouble is, there aren't many people around here who are any good at making clothes."
"Don't you have something else to do at this hour?"
Tychar asked innocently.
"Want to get rid of me?" said Trag.
"Yes, I believe I do," Tychar agreed.
"Hey, I'm smiling, Kyra!" Trag insisted, showing his teeth. "Don't I look... you know... enticing?"
"You look more like you're about to bite me," was my honest reply. "When he smiled at me I—" Then I remembered that I hadn't intended to mention what happened when Tychar smiled at me, but I didn't need to, because Trag supplied his own reason.
"Yeah, you turned to mush or something," he said ruefully. "I know, I saw it, too."
"Trag," I said gently.
"What?" he all but barked at me.
"I'm sorry." And I meant it, too. He wasn't as charming as Tychar, perhaps, but he had his good points. I might not have fallen for him on sight, but I
did like
him.
Trag stopped short at the foot of the bed. "Yeah, well, so am I," he grumbled. "Story of my life. I guess Scalia knew what she was doing after all—but if you ever change your mind..."
"I'll know who to ask for," I said promptly.
"Well, yeah—and just be sure you don't ask for Refdeck," he advised. "He's a slimy little bastard— even if he
can
fuck Scalia." He said that as though he wished he'd been able to do it himself, and—who knows?—perhaps he did. "She likes him pretty well."
"Refdeck? Slimy? You mean the little toad guy?" I asked, aghast.
Trag nodded, though I, for one, couldn't see him with Scalia. I mean, if she rolled over on Refdeck, she'd probably kill him. I lay there trying to imagine the position they'd have to get in to do it with any degree of safety and couldn't come up with one. Then I decided it was one of those details that I really didn't want to know anyway. Tychar massaging my feet was much more pleasant to contemplate, but then I remembered that he was a slave, too, and the fact that no man had ever done anything like that for me before who
wasn 't
a slave made me want to cry again—which was a bad idea, since I was already hot and dehydrated.
Still, I reminded myself that looking after me was a job that at least one other of Scalia's slaves seemed to want rather badly. But it was all so strange and confusing—my brain probably wasn't working very well, aside from the fact that a lot had happened— especially when you consider that I'd only been on Darconia for less than a day and had yet to give even one piano lesson.
I groaned, rolling over in bed. "This is all just too weird! I shoulda stayed home," I lamented. "What was I thinking?"
I felt Tychar's hands grow still on my feet. "Are you saying you don't like it here?"
From his tone, I could only assume he was taking it personally. He might as well have asked if I didn't like
him.
"That's not what I meant," I said. "It's just that I'm not an adventuress by any stretch of the imagination, and it's a miracle I've made it this far without turning tail for home. I mean, I've never even been out of the
country,
let alone the world! And now that I'm here, one minute I'm feeling pretty good, and the next I'm passing out on the floor. And, let's face it; you guys are just too much for a little ol' piano teacher from Upper Sandusky."
"Maybe," Trag said as he looked down at me rather wistfully. "But if you'd just say the word, we could make you
so
glad you came."
"I'm sure you would, but—"
Tychar let go of my foot and crawled toward me on his hands and knees like a tiger stalking his prey. "I, for one, am already glad you came," he purred. "And I promise you, Kyra, you will
never
want to leave Darconia."
The look in his eyes was enough to assure me that he was telling the absolute truth. I might have been too much of a chicken to do anything about it at the time, but I believed him, too.
WHEN ZEALON CAME BACK FOR HER LESSON, I WAS ASLEEP
with Tychar curled up at the foot of the bed, purring contentedly. This time, I drank as much water as I could hold and
then
got up, but my skin was still gritty with salt. That was the trouble here; I was hot as hell and was undoubtedly sweating as a result, but it evaporated so quickly that I didn't even realize it was happening. I figured if I just kept drinking no matter what, I'd be okay, but I was probably losing more than just water...
Still, the Zetithians had survived this climate for a long time, and they seemed to be fairly human, at least from a metabolic standpoint. I was to learn that the Darconians became rather sluggish with cooler temperatures, and were, therefore, much more active in the heat of the day, but I knew that to survive, I was going to have to develop the siesta habit. Tychar, for one, seemed to think that a nap in the middle of the day was an excellent notion, and since he had only me to look after, he didn't need to do anything but sleep whenever I did.
Zealon thought it was rather odd, though.
"You're sleeping
now?"
she exclaimed but kept her voice down so as not to wake Tychar. At least she was that considerate of him, even if he was a slave. "Are you really that tired?"
"You don't know the half of it," I replied. "It's going to take me a long time to adjust to this heat. It's not so bad morning and evening, but the middle of the day?
Forget it! Give me a nice, climate-controlled building every time."
She looked at me curiously, as though unable to decide if I was being serious or not.
"My internal clock needs resetting, too."
"What do you mean?"
"Back home we call it jet lag, and even though jets are a thing of the past, the basic principles still apply.
When you travel from one time zone to another, it takes a while to get used to it. I guess you could call it space lag in this case, though."
Zealon nodded, but I had an idea she was just humor-ing me. Perhaps lizards weren't affected by such things, though it was doubtful that she'd ever traveled much.
"He looks pretty when he's asleep, doesn't he?" she remarked with a gesture toward the foot of the bed. "I've never seen him sleeping."
"Never seen him eat anything either, have you?" I said with a touch of sarcasm. Then it occurred to me that I should watch my mouth more carefully—after all, she was a princess—but she'd have to learn to watch what she said to a groggy human, too.
"No," she conceded. "Does he look pretty when he eats?"
"Not really," I said. "Well, no more so than anyone else does."
She appeared to think about this for a moment. "You don't approve of my mother having slaves, do you?"
"No," I replied. "It's wrong on a multitude of levels.
If your mother wishes to bring Darconia into the main-stream of galactic society, she needs to rethink that."
"But their safety..."
"There are other ways of protecting people besides keeping them locked up as slaves," I pointed out.
"But are you going to refuse to have Tycharian as your servant? I know I wouldn't."
"No," I replied. "I'm not going to refuse, though I probably should—and just on principle alone. But your mother was right; I do need someone to help me out.
He had to carry me back here after taking me on a tour of the palace. Funny thing is, I've never considered myself to be a weakling, but this heat is sapping the life out of me."