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He attempted to envision that exact scenario, his hooves planted wide, supporting his frame as his hips snapped and his balls swung. It was not the kitsune’s five fluffy tails spread out around his cock, though, in his head. It was the round ass of the milking technician that he gripped, Violet, her small hands pressed against the glass, her tits bared for any passersby to see. It was her sweet pussy his balls slapped against, filled with his cock, her belly descending with the shape of him as he pumped into her against the window. He could almost hear the way she would moan when he erupted, pulling out of her to paint the window in gobs of dripping white, a mark of what they’d done for all to see.
He shifted miserably in his chair. Well, that train of thought had the opposite effect.You should be thinking about anything other than going home and crying into some ice cream.
He would be aloof, detached. As cold as a block of ice. He would not betray a single shred of vulnerability, wouldn’t let her see how crushed he was. When his number was called, he pushed his hooves resolutely.The final walk to the slaughterhouse. All things ended, and he would be fine. His posture was ramrod straight as he marched down the hall to his assigned milking room, and he only hoped that the way his heart seemed to jerk erratically in his throat would not betray itself.
“Long time no see!”
Her voice was high and chipper as she greeted him once he came through the door; that same falsely cheerful customer service voice and his resolve to remain stoic nearly buckled right then and there.It’s fine. You need to hear this; need the confirmation that a client is all you are. It’s not like you can get any worse.He was wrong. Patently, idiotically wrong.
“If it’s not disrespectful to ask, what does the ring in the nose signify?”
He felt as if she had a list of his personality traits and checkered history on her clipboard, with all of his faults highlighted. In reality, Rourke thought miserably, all that would require would be a mirror. After all, he was reminded every time he looked in one, the ring through his nose never letting him forget. A failed marriage. A bad partner. Too bossy and controlling, not interesting enough, too boring, and set in his ways.
There were as many different views on marriage as there were species to hold them. Humans and goblins traded spouses with the ease of changing one’s clothes. For trolls and elves, there was a bit more social stigma attached, but the bonds were still easily broken. For orcs, a relationship could be anything those entering into it wanted to call it, but vows spoken before a clan fire were sacrosanct. For centaurs and cervitaurs, a marriage was simply two individuals choosing one another. To be accepted as one of the herd, however, required approval.
It seemed to him that minotaurean marriage culture was rather similar to that of the orcs.One more thing Lurielle could joke over.A couple could live as husband and wife, or husband and husband, or wife and wife for any combination and gender pairing they chose. But to put a ring through one’s nose was a mark of giving ownership to another, a symbol to the entire community that you belonged to your spouse and they to you, an unbroken circle piercing the body, like the unbroken circle of your relationship.
Every time he looked in the mirror, he was reminded of that broken circle, fasted hands unbound, vows discarded. There was no shame in being married without a ring, but to have cinched oneself and then be divorced . . . It was a different kind of shame. He unbuckled his belt with stiff fingers, wondering what that fuck he’d been thinking bynotcanceling this appointment.
“Historically, it’s a symbol of ownership, being bound to another. The modern usage is almost always to signify being bound to another in marriage.” There was no sense in holding anything back, not now. Not when this was the last time he would be seeing her. “I’ve been divorced for about two years now. I just haven’t had the damned thing taken out.”
The one plus to living in a mixed species town was the ability to avoid other minotaurs if it suited him. Having the ring removed would most definitely be one of those instances. There was a tattoo parlor near the University owned by a troll, he was certain.You should’ve gone there and had the damn thing clipped a year ago.
“At first, I wasn’t ready,” he went on, stepping out of his pants. It wasn’t a lie. Even though he and Veleena had been strangers by the end, taking that final step in admitting his failure as a partner had been too great for him to contemplate. Now, it was just one more chore on his never-ending list of un-prioritized things to do. “Now I’m afraid it’s going to hurt.”
His neck felt hot, his palms clammy. He didn’t want to be thinking about his failed marriage and the ring through his nose, and he resented her for pushing him into that corner.The audacity!Throwing his leg over the milking bench, Rourke felt his composure slip a fraction.
“How was your lunch date?” He was unable to keep the rancor from his tone, but by then, he wasn’t quite sure that he cared.
When she thanked him for the coffee in that same high, affected voice, his fists balled.
“Sounds like you have some fun weekend plans coming up?” There was something else in her voice, a bitter edge that crowded out the cheerful customer-facing professionalism, and his brow furrowed as he tried to place it.She doesn’t get to turn this back on you.
“Xenna is my neighbor; she lives in the same development,” he explained tersely. “She and her husband love throwing big block parties. Now she wants us to RSVP, which is asking a bit too much.”
“Who’s Lurielle?”
The question felt like an accusation flung in his face, a cold drink splashing down his shirt. She’d barely let him take a breath after his explanation about Xenna and her parties, Lurielle’s name falling from her mouth before he could blink.
“Lurielle is my neighbor.” He didn’t know why he was still answering. He didn’t owe her any information, didn’t owe her anything at all, but there was something in her tone, a sharp barb coated in hurt, that kept his traitorous tongue wagging. “She’s an elf, an elf with a huge orc boyfriend. We used to go to all these block parties together because we were the only singles at the time, but not anymore.”
Silence was all that greeted him for a long, yawning moment.
“Oh.” Her voice was small, the word hushed and spoken mostly to herself, but more important than that was the fact that it washervoice, her actual voice, the pretense of her cheerful service industry voice dropped.
Not that it matters. We’re way past that point. It doesn’t change anything. It’s time to call this project failure and cut your losses, attempt to recoup next quarter.
“My friend Geillis, that’s who I had coffee with today.”
Rourke froze. Her words came out in a rush, each syllable tripping over the last, in a hurry to explain her coffee date to him.I don’t need to hear. I don’t need to know. Don’t make me picture it.
“I met her last month at the coffee shop, and we’ve been friends since.”
He was unable to speak. Unable to form a cohesive thought, unable to pull himself together to respond.She was meeting a girlfriend. She was meeting a friend on her lunch break, maybe not a romantic partner at all. You let a silly misunderstanding prevent you from making any headway outside of this place. But he hadn’t imagined the hurry she had been in to get away from him, to put distance between them, hadn’t imagined that false voice. What was going through her head?Why is she telling you this all now?
“That’swho you were meeting?”
She went on to explain that the friend was a vampire, one who worked at La Vie Rouge, a high-end vampire restaurant in Cambric Creek’s business district.
