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“Court me?” She huffs a laugh and gestures at her surroundings. “You dropped dead things on my doorstep, you jizzed on my house. Do you not realize that sort of thing is utterly fucking terrifying to a human?”
“Fucking?”
“Keffing,” she shouts. “Fucking is keffing.”
“Is it keffing or is it terrifying?” Her language is very confusing.
She puts her palms over her eyes, as if trying to compose herself, and takes a deep breath. “No one is keffing anything.”
I shift in my seed-filled pants uncomfortably. I have to admit she is right. My cock feels like a big bruise after the night I’ve had. “You…did not know I was courting you?”
“No!”
“Ah.” I try to see it from her perspective. A stranger…using her door for sexual purposes. And leaving corpses on the step. “Oh.” Huh. Perhaps it does seem alarming from a human perspective. “I did not realize I was frightening you.”
She lets out a wobbly little laugh. “Terrified me, actually.” She leans against the counter, and her lip quivers, and she looks as if she might cry. “I was so scared someone was trying to kill me that I hired Bethiah to kidnap me a nice husband. And I got you instead.” She gestures in my direction. “And now I’m screwed.”
“Screwed…?”
“Fucked. Keffed. Whatever.”
I hesitate for a moment before I ask, “You are not referring to copulation when you say that, are you?”
“No.” Laughter bubbles from her lips and then she collapses in place on the floor, the tears I was so worried about streaming from her eyes. “And now I have no savings, no husband, and I poisoned my neighbor. I’m doomed.”
I watch, awkwardly, as she buries her face in her hands and sobs. This is not what I wanted. I wanted Kim to fling her puny human arms around me in delight. I wanted her to scratch my chin and stroke my tail and tell me how excited she was to have such a big, strong mate to protect her. Just as I have quietly protected her in the past from things she does not even know about.
But she feels as if everything is ruined, and her sobs tear at me. I need to fix this.
Somehow.
I clear my throat. “We…we can still move forward. With the mating.”
She shakes her head, weeping. “Bethiah was supposed to find me someone that was nice and wouldn’t want sex. Someone that would wait.”
On this planet? Kim is very innocent, indeed. I watch her, my heart hurting, and then I make a very stupid offer. “I will mate to you with no sex.”
Kim lifts her head, her eyes shining with tears. “You…will?”
I nod slowly, even though every strand of my fur is screaming that I make no such deal. I cannot bear the sight of her misery. “We can just be friends.” And if I choke a little on the last word, it does not show. “Friends,” I repeat again, louder.
Convincing myself.
“You’re sure?” When I nod, the suspicious look returns to her face. “How can I trust you?”
I spread my hands. “You have to trust someone at some point.”
Her gaze falls to the floor, to the remnants of the broken chair and the snapped cuffs. She thinks for a moment, and then nods. “If you don’t mind a platonic marriage, then let’s do it. Today?”
“Today.” If this is the only way I can have her, this will have to do. Perhaps in time she will grow to care for me.
“Now?” She picks herself up off the floor.
“Not now.” My tail twitches. “I need to change my trou.”
13
KIM
The morning passes in a whirlwind of activity. We clean up and dress, and I watch the praxiian as he moves through my house. I’m still wary of him, but he’s right. I have to trust someone at some point. Cleaning up the splintered chair and shattered cuffs shows me how easily he could have overpowered me if he wanted to. Instead, he sat and let me “torture” him all night.
If that doesn’t show good intentions, I don’t know what does.
The praxiian changes into a pair of spare pants I have set aside for my “kidnapped” spouse. It’s obvious I wasn’t expecting someone his size—they’re too small and hug his crotch indecently, but he doesn’t complain. Once we’re both ready, we get into my air-sled and head to port.
I let him drive the sled, and he gets in and immediately hums under his breath, flipping switches. “When was the last time you had this serviced?”
“I have to have it serviced? No one told me.” Heck, I don’t even know what half the buttons do. I just know enough to get to my farm and back. But sure enough, the thing jerks into high gear and speeds toward town faster than I ever thought the thing could go, and I feel…cheated. Just a little. Even by the well-meaning aliens who gave us equipment to run our farms and help us out, we’ve still been treated like second-class citizens. How hard would it have been to give me lessons on how to use an air-sled? Instead, I’m having to learn from a praxiian.
