Page 18 of No Strings Attached

Bahbi knocked over the stack of rags reaching for one, then cracked his head on the basin when he went to pick them up, his hands shaking. Vi just watched him. He ran the water to wet the rag, wrung it out, then made to hand it to Vi, ignoring his ringing skull. He thought better of the wet rag at the last moment and pressed it against his body to warm up the cold water. Then he handed it to Vi, who was still just staring at him.

She eventually took the rag and began to clean herself off, starting with her face, which had only a few spots of Ulu blood on it and those she missed entirely. She moved down to her neck and chest and Bahbi’s mouth went dry as he watched her clean the splatters of blood off her breasts. She handed him back the rag, and he thought for a moment that she wanted him to wash her. His eyes widened and he reached the rag toward her, stepping a little closer.

She shook her head and said, “No, I don’t needyouto wash me, I need you to get the rag wet again.”

He felt strangely disappointed, but covered it by saying, “Uh, you missed some spots on your face.”

She regarded him for a moment, then stepped closer and leaned her head forward.

He swallowed hard, “You…you want me to…?”

“Since I can’t see where, yes.”

Bahbi reached his trembling hand out with the rag and very gently ran it over one of the spots of blood, before his eyes met her steady gaze.

She said in a low voice, “I’m not going to hurt you, Bahbi. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

He held her gaze and said, “I’m not afraid.” Then he moved his eyes to the next spot of blood on her face and focused his attention there, cleaning and continuing, “It’s just that I’ve never been this close to a female before.” He thought about it for a moment and said, “Except for when you were on the floor and knocked me onto my back.”

Vi laughed a little, “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize,” he said, while carefully daubing at the last spot of blood, “so far, this has been the most interesting and exciting day of my life.”

They stood in silence while Bahbi re-wet and re-warmed the rag, then Vi washed her belly, thighs, shins, and feet with the rag, before washing her forearms and hands off directly in the stream of icy water. He re-wet and re-warmed the rag again before asking, “Would you like me to wash your backside?” He was trembling a little less now.

Vi gave him a small smile, then suppressed it and said, in a cool voice, “Sure.” She turned her back to him, then reached her arm behind her head and pulled her shiny black hair forward, around her neck.

Bahbi had an up-close view of the delicate curve of her neck into her shoulders, the slight curve of her waist into her narrow hips, and the beautiful, rounded curves of her ass. She was made entirely of curving lines. It stopped his breath. He stood as closeas he dared to her and began to run the rag over her back in long, slow strokes, caring nothing for whether there was blood covering those locations or not. Moving down to her ass, he became lightheaded, and it only got worse when he squatted to wash the backsides of her legs and could easily smell the scent of her sex. Bahbi was very nearly having an out-of-body experience and tried desperately to focus on the moment and complete the task, but his head swam. If he had ever been drunk before, he might have likened it to that feeling.

He stood up and turned slightly away, gripping the edge of the basin hard.

“Are you OK?” she asked, with serious concern.

“Fine,” he said, a little breathless and embarrassed.

Then she did something incredible. She reached out and touched him where he had slammed his head into the basin, gently running her hand over the fur there. “I think you hit your head pretty hard, there’s a knot here. You may have a concussion. Do you feel dizzy?”

“Yes,” he breathed, knowing full well that it was her that was making him dizzy, not the little bump on his head. She was sonakedand just inches from him.

“Does this hurt?” she asked, sliding her hand across the fur over the knot.

“No,” he whispered. It did, but the wonder of it all, that this fierce and amazing female was stroking his head, made the pain irrelevant. Bahbi’s whole body thrummed from the feel of her touch. He was going to grab her and start nuzzling and licking her if she didn’t stop soon, that’s how possessed and utterly out-of-control he felt. His own people didn’t even lick or nuzzle each other; he had no idea where these feelings and urges were coming from.

He grabbed his coverall that she had set on one of the maintenance units and handed it out to her. “You better put this on and get warm again.”

She took it from him and stepped into it, using the garment’s magnetic fasteners to close the front up. Then they both turned back toward the silent cages to find almost every pair of eyes on them, wide with shock.

Vi cleared her throat and raised her voice, while her back straightened in defiance, “So…what’s the fucking problem, guys?”

A little while after Trak had to leave, so that he wasn’t missed in the bunkroom, Bahbi sat cross-legged and tail straight out in front of Vi’s cage. She stretched her legs straight out in his coverall and leaned into the cage bars, on the other side of which Mister Beastly sat and pressed his back into her for warmth.

She was saying, “I’m going to need you to help me learn what I need to know for this situation.”

“But I don’t really know anything useful about this place. I’ve only been here two days.”

“Then about the galaxy and the people in it.”

Bahbi snorted, “I only know what I’ve seen on Ogobian Broadcasting.”

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