Page 23 of Space Daddy and a Boy Called Twink

“What you describe as a scream is how I naturally speak.”

“Right. And then you kept calling me Twink.”

“Is that not your name here?”

He rolled his head back, laughing, which was refreshing, much better than the terror he was gripped with when he’d first woken up in theKaylog.

“My name’s Charlie. Twink just means like a small, lean queer guy.”

“Oh…” It was frustrating to realize how much I’d misinterpreted, but mostly, I was disappointed because I enjoyed saying the name. But it also generated another question: “Is my name not Daddy?”

“Daddy’s…I don’t know, sometimes just like a hot older guy. But there’s also this thing, like someone’s the Daddy, who takes charge and is in control and protective…very dominant. And then you have Daddy’s boy, who is the submissive one who likes being taken care of and being treated well by Daddy, if that makes sense.”

This sent a rush up my spine. “Oh, I like that.” I was probably looking at him too intensely, but his pupils flared.

“Yeah, I do too…” He seemed surprised he’d said that, maybe because of the circumstances. “Speaking of which, I’m guessing a lot of the times I thought you were joking, you were really misunderstanding things?”

“That’s correct. I’m a Furker.”

“’Scuse me?”

“Ah, my species, we’re used to creating placeholder names for words that you may not have an equivalent for in your language. In this case, you definitely won’t have a name for my species. I would say it in my native tongue…”

His eyes widened. “If it’s gonna be worse than that first thing you did, then no, thank you.”

“It would be much worse. And judging by your physical reaction to it, I wonder if the highest note might hurt you, so it isn’t something I’d attempt.”

“Appreciated.” He was quiet. It must’ve been a lot, absorbing the information I’d shared with him, so I gave him a moment.

“So,” he eventually said, “when you grabbed me outside…those appendages…were those tentacles?”

“Yes.” I sensed his stress at my acknowledgment. “Does something about my natural form upset you?”

“It’s strange, that’s for sure.”

A queasy sensation rose up in my chest. I didn’t like the thought that he might not find me attractive.

“I don’t have to use them around you. I was only restraining you earlier because I feared you might get away and warn Chelsea, which now I understand was not the case.”

“Where do they come out of?”

“They run vertically along the spine, on either side of it, on this back.”

“Thisback?”

“Furkers shapeshift to mimic the environment we’re in.”

His eyebrows jumped up in a way that sent a flurry of sensation to my face.

“Sure, why not? And how many tentacles do you have?”

“Eight.”

“Like an octopus?”

“I’m not familiar with what you’re talking about, so based on the context, I’d have to assume thisoctopusis something that also has eight limbs.”

“That’s right. It’s an animal in the ocean. A mollusk…an invertebrate. In any case, an octopus seems to be able to do a lot of the things you can.”