Page 59 of No Strings Attached

Vi said, “It’s the best idea we’ve come up with, yet. We’ll run with it unless someone comes up with something better. Thank you, Mister Beastly…and Bobby.”

Mister Beastly grunted and walked away down the catwalk.

Vi took Bobby’s other hand, started massaging it, and murmured, “I can’t wait until that guy can talk to us.”

After Acken left, Vi led Bobby into their bedroom, stripped off his coverall, and had him lay face down on the bed so she could rub his muscles. He’d been working so hard, with such fantastic results, she just wanted to do something to make him feel good. And one of her best options for making him feel good had been taken away, temporarily.

She rubbed his body down until his purr turned into soft snoring, then tucked herself against him and went to sleep.

Twenty-Five: I Hate Being in Space

They were underway thenext day, Vi, Bobby, Acken, Trak, Caussus, Steve, Friend, Mister Beastly, and a crew of five Trallians. Friend had managed to get Kompi to accept a Trallian keeper, although Vi had kind of wished they could have brought him along. She wanted him to be seen on Ogobian Broadcasting, so that maybe he would be recognized and sought.

Now on day two, Bahbi was keeping himself busy making clothing in the cargo hold, Acken or Trak was directing the crew, Caussus was seeing to everyone’s comfort and feeding, working alongside the cook he brought, Bralved, and his constant companion, Friend. They had brought Mister Beastly’s translation system on board so that he could be occupied on theway there and back. Steve had found an open space in the cargo hold to lay out his heat mat and pretty much stayed back there. Vi wandered the ship or napped. It felt…irritating.

She was trying to stay away from Bobby, both to allow him to stay focused on his work and to not serve as a temptation. But she was bored already, and they had three more days of travel. She wandered into Qlu’s quarters and discovered it was one of the rare times that it wasn’t occupied by at least a couple of sleeping bodies. So, she started to open the wall compartments and snoop. Losing herself in the perusal of Qlu’s weird stash of things, she hadn’t heard anyone enter the room until a body pressed up against her backside, arms wrapped around her lower abdomen, and a voice whispered, “You’ve been avoiding me.”

She turned in Bobby’s arms, looked up at him, and simply said, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you have so much work to do, and I don’t want to distract you.”

“Is that all?”

“No…” She looked down.

He bent his head down to catch her eyes with his amber ones and said, “Tell me.”

She felt a little embarrassed, but decided to be honest, “It’s too hard for me to watch you and not touch you.” She looked back down and pressed her face against his coverall, growling, “I want to rip your fucking clothes off.” She looked up, blushing, into his wide grin.

He said, “OK, I’ll accept that answer. As long as I haven’t done something that made you unhappy, made you want to stop being with me.”

Vi laughed, “It’s the opposite. Everything you do makes it harder for me to stay away from you. I can’t wait for this tripto be over and for us to be back in our warm pool below the bedroom.” She thought for a moment, then asked, “Are you really going to be OK with my Queen act, with Caussus?”

Bobby’s face grew serious, and he said, “I’m working very hard to be. I think it will get easier over time, but I don’t know for sure that I’ll ever by 100% successful.”

Vi nodded, both in acknowledgment of his effort and in understanding. She didn’t think she’d fare better than he was if their roles were reversed. But she didn’t like to feel possessiveness or be on the receiving end of it, so she was grateful that Bobby didn’t have a big, stereotypical male streak of it causing them a lot of friction now.

In fact, she thought that might be part of Bobby’s biggest appeal to her, his lack of any stereotypical human male traits like possessiveness, exaggerated masculinity, aggressiveness. His maleness and her femaleness only came into play when they were naked and entwined, otherwise they were just…Vi and Bobby. Vi wondered if some of the human male traits she didn’t care for had something to do with having a free-swinging cock; there sure weren’t any dick measuring contests on Trallia.

He tightened his grip on her and pulled her up into a soft kiss before breaking it and looking into her eyes. “Come to the back with me while I work. Your presence can’t distract me more than my mind has already been distracted by constantly wondering where you are and what you’re doing. And you look pretty damn bored to me.”

She snorted laughter, pulled away, and took his hand, saying, “Yep, I really fucking am.”

Bobby had devised full-length, hooded cloaks for their meeting with the space station manager, which was planned to be just her, Caussus, Acken, and Mister Beastly. He had chosen an iridescent, light blue fabric and then trimmed it in silver, scrolling, metalwork all along the edge of the hoods, down the front, and along the hem. The cloaks were stunningly beautiful—two normal sized ones and two giant ones. Bobby had her put hers on and then showed her the secret feature. A sliver mesh face plate attached to the opening of the hood, sort of like a fencing mask, that they would all be able to see out of but no one would be able to see into. No one would know who they were, or even what species they were. He had even made fabric booties for each of them to wear so that no one would see their feet and guess their species.

He pulled the face plate off her cloak and returned the giant grin she was giving him, then showed her the slits in the sides that they could place their arms through.

“This is fucking perfect, Bobby!” she said, twirling. “And gorgeous, but I’m beginning to not be surprised by the fact that everything you make is stunningly beautiful. It’s just that this is exactly how we need to present ourselves first. We don’t want the whole space station checking us out before we appear at the reception and melt their eyeballs.” She regarded him, totally taken aback by how much consideration he had put into what would be needed. “I hadn’t even thought about that, yet, but you automatically knew and created exactly the right type of clothing for us. You recognized the problem and solved it before any of us even gave it a thought!”

Bobby looked down, seemed to fight off a denial, then looked back up at her. “Keep twirling like that and sing me a song, Vi. A long one. I hate being in space.”

She nodded in agreement and smiled back, “A long one, huh?” She thought about it, mentally rejecting “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”or “21stCentury Schizoid Man,” settling on “American Pie.” As the song picked up, she grabbed up the metal box of daggers and shook it like a tambourine, dancing and twirling her cloak around and around at the choruses. Every time she looked at Bobby, he had a wide grin on his face.

When the song changed to its slower tempo at the end, she put down the box and grabbed him. She pulled him to her, placing one of his hands around her waist and holding the other one out. She put her free hand on his shoulder, whispered, “Follow my lead,” and started swaying along with the lyrics as she finished singing the song. She didn’t try to move their feet, that could be the next lesson, and she tried not to laugh as Bobby exaggeratedly swung his hips from side to side in mimicry of her, tail whipping.

When she stopped, he looked at her amazed, “What was that?”

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