I strip the thick, fluffy blankets off the bed and fold them lengthwise, placing them right down the middle of the bed as a barrier. I toss the yellowed, rough pillows atop it, making a small fortress to separate us. Not that it'll matter if he decides he's going to hurt me, but…I know he won't. He could have a dozen times over and hasn't even tried.
If anything, he just wants me to go away and leave him alone.
I smile at that. Irritation is way, way safer for a person like me than anything else.
The shower keeps going, and I grow bored. I wander over to the vid unit, but it's a model I'm unfamiliar with and I can't read the language printed on the buttons, so I don't toy with it. I poke around with the lights in the room instead, dimming them, and tap the switch to open the fold-out closet that emerges from the wall. There's an old, gross tunic in there (ew) but at the bottom of the closet, there's a book. Surprised, I grab it, touching the cover in wonder. It's a very old hardback, the jacket made of a thick paperboard covered with red cloth, the golden embossed lettering faded away to hardly anything at all.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
Something new to read. Utterly delighted, I clutch the book to my chest and bound over to the bed, sitting down on the edge. Someone abandoned this, so it's mine now, right? Even if it belongs to the hotel, I'm going to sneak it out with me. No one here needs a human book. I'm stealing it. Giddy with excitement, I crack open the cover—
Or try to. All the pages are stuck together by some old, dried up fluid. And given that it's in a hotel room…
I squeal in disgust and fling the book away from me.
There's a crash in the bathroom and the door flies open. Jerrok flings himself out of there, clutching a paper-thin towel to his waist as he drips water on the floor. "What? What is it?" His mismatched gaze scans me, then the door. "What happened?"
I shake my hands, as if that can somehow dislodge invisible cooties. "I found a book…but the pages are all stuck together!"
His mouth twitches as I shudder, and he glances down at the book on the floor. "Yeah…you probably don't want to touch that."
"Gross. Just gross." I cross my arms over my chest, hugging myself.
"Someone left it behind for a reason." He pushes his wet hair back off his brow and sighs. "Don't make noises like that again. I thought you were in danger."
"Sorry." I glance over at him and immediately wish I didn't. The towel is soaked through with water, outlining all of his body. There's a thick ripple of something at his hip—probably more scar tissue—but my gaze is drawn instead to the prominent, unable-to-miss outline of his dick against the flimsy cloth. His cock is clearly thick and long, and I see the spur-like growth above his shaft that every mesakkah male has. I also see the outline of what look like multiple piercings.
I avert my gaze, even as I wonder what he looks like without the towel. I haven't seen many mesakkah naked. Maybe in the occasional vid or in a gladiator game, but now I'm curious…and I shouldn't be. I absolutely do not want to be curious about Jerrok's dick.
I absolutely do not want to see those piercings.
Nope.
He grunts some sort of response and turns back to go into the lavatory once more. "I'll get dressed and you can have the shower. There's still plenty of warm water. Station circulators here are better than the ones back on the asteroid."
"Okay." Before he can shut the door, I blurt out, "You can sleep in the bed, you know."
Jerrok turns to look at me, his mechanical eye whirring just a little as he looks at me and then at the bed. My cheeks flush because when he stands to the side, I can really, really see the outline of his cock through the wet towel. It hangs down like the world's largest banana between his thighs.
Studded banana, my brain whispers. And he's not even hard yet.
I'm not interested in sex, though. I'm not. I don't want to be touched by any alien, no matter how curious his genitalia might be. No matter how nice he was to me today. My brain is acting against me, I know. It's making me think Jerrok means safety, and I'm probably trying to attach myself to him through sexual means as a way of securing my safety. That's all.
He frowns over at me, his hand still gripping that useless towel to his waist. "You're giving up the bed? You want to sleep on the floor?"