“Affirmative,” I say under my breath.
“We will be listening for impregnation.”
White fury blinds me and without thinking it over any further, I pluck the small bud from my ear, let it fall to the floor, and stomp on it with the hard sole of my boot.
And then I drop the paper back down so that I might watch the scene in front of me. The brightly colored female drags my Juliet to a table that is further away from me. I swallow a frustrated growl as the target female joins them.
They are deep in conversation and I cannot pick up anything that they say. While Draci excel in the arenas of taste, smell, and sight, we are not as good as mammals at hearing.
But I watch Juliet laugh. I watch her intelligent eyes and the way her body shifts this way and that.
Human anatomy is not so different from the Draci. What would it be like to peel off her coverings? To touch and taste what is underneath?
This is now the second time I have considered the intimate aspects of this mission, but unlike earlier on the street, it does not disgust me now. Not when I imagine Juliet is the female beneath me. In fact I am bewilderingly…excited by the thought.
I blink in surprise.
Few Draci females will bother to give their bodies to someone like me, of low standing or caste. I could never bear the humiliation of it so during the long years I worked maintenance crew on the ship while many slept in stasis, I happily took suppressants.
In preparation for this mission, though, I weaned myself off them. Still, I have only touched myself once or twice since, and I was always left feeling more unsatisfied than when I began. Always I visualized Draci females but now I wonder what it would feel like to touch Juliet’s much softer human skin? What would her teats feel like? And the space between her legs? Is it a hard palate like Draci females or is it also soft, like so much of the human body?
My pants cloth begin to tighten uncomfortably as my male organs start to descend. I sit back hard in my chair. No. It would be embarrassing for such to occur here.
By the time I have myself under control again, I realize that both the target female and her friend have abandon the table, leaving only Juliet behind.
Juliet frowns down at a device—her phone, yes, I remember what the small rectangle devices are now, the same device that the earlier females were pointing in my direction. They are used for communication.
Juliet does not realize how close her elbow is to her cup. I see what will happen before it does and am halfway across the shop by the time she actually knocks it off the table. I may look human but my reflexes are still Draci.
Juliet is surprised and grateful. When she looks me in the eye and smiles at me, I know how it felt when the universe began—a rapid expansion of time, space, and matter explodes in my chest and I am hurtled from nothingness into being.
She introduces herself to me.
Clumsily, I give her my name back.
She repeats it and hearing my name on her lips makes the roar start back up inside me. I taste the air again and am hit doubly hard by my second scenting of her.
Mine. MINE. MINE.
But all too soon, she is leaving.
“Bye,” she says with a wave and a slight sadness in her voice. She believes this is the last time we will see one another.
She is so, so wrong.
* * *
I wait for several moments after she leaves the coffee shop to follow her. It is easy to stay out of her sight. Draci reflexes are four times faster than that of humans, if not more. She only pauses to look behind her twice, and both times I am easily able to duck out of sight.
The streets and sidewalks are even more crowded than earlier. Why is she walking out here in the open with none to shield her? All females on Draki have at least one champion, most more than one. Even after the babies stopped being born, we still treated our females with the utmost regard. Their safety is always a primary concern.
But Juliet walks among this vicious race without even another female companion. I am glad that at least now I am here to keep her safe.
My single comfort is that she does not walk far. Soon she is stopping in a small shop and emerging only a small while later with a single flower.
I tilt my head in confusion and then look around. I suppose in this world of concrete and steel, they must purchase even their flowers instead of growing them in their gardens?