Page 7 of No Strings Attached

Vi watched the man-ottersleave through the door…man-otters? Ottermen? They were taller than she was, with short, dark-brown fur sleekly covering all the exposed body parts she could see. They looked exactly like a river otter that had evolved into a biped, legs stretched, and torso shortened but not so much that they didn’t still have some of that long-torso aspect to them.

She figured she had been in this cage for about 18 hours. Several hours of dark after she had first been carried from the cargo bay and dumped in, followed by 10-12 hours of light. It had been freezing cold during the dark hours, made worse by the fresh blood of the Grey she had killed covering large parts of her body, but in the light hours it was just damn cold.

They had fed her shortly after dark turned to light, using that ridiculous paper bag and stick method the taller otterman had just demonstrated. By that time, she had come back out of her mental fugue state and started to consider her surroundings, soshe had taken the bag and eaten all of its contents, gagging it down with some difficulty. She had no idea what she would need to contend with next and getting the first solid food into her system for a month seemed like a good first step.

But getting to that stage of basic functionality had taken some work. At first, she had just laid on the floor and seemingly exited the material plane for a while. When she came back to basic awareness, she had spent some time relishing being free from the statis pod, tubes, and restraints. She could still feel where every one of them had made contact with her body, and she had had no other thoughts than relief and the tiniest bit of satisfaction for the damage she had done. Tiny, because it hadn’t made any difference in the end. She still ended up in a cage. Freezing her ass off on the stone floor.

On that thought, she had stood up, crossed her arms over her bare breasts, and closed her eyes. Though she could hear the sounds of other captives trying to talk to her, she couldn’t understand them, and they were easy to ignore.

She hadn’t exactly gone through the five stages of grief during her time in the pod, more like cycled between denial and anger with a little bit of bargaining and acceptance thrown in here or there for flavor. Even still, it was time to try to put those aside, get to acceptance, and figure out her next move. Even if that meant forcibly screwing the lid down on her interior pressure cooker. She was going to have to observe, see everything, and look for an opportunity.

But she had stood in her cage for all the remaining hours of the light period repeating the mantrawatch and learn, Vi, watch and learnwhile seeing nothing.

Now, she glanced around at her fellow captives along the opposite wall, most of whom were staring back at her with everything from curiosity to lust.

Giant snake. No, GIANT snake, swaying slightly side-to-side. A ringed pattern of iridescent blue and green scale bands.

Conan, with his whole body white mohawk, massively muscular physique, and enormous cock hanging out, which she immediately nicknamed, The Destroyer. He saw her looking at it and put his hand back on it, a wicked grin on his face. Vi shivered in horror.

An adorable black lab that could either talk or mimic, like a parrot, and was currently panting happily.

Utterly gorgeous eunuch, with that ethereal beauty of some young boys and lovely white hair, cut short. Porcelain skin and bright blue eyes. He was also well-equipped, if you overlooked his missing testicles.

Cage with an unidentifiable form huddled in the back.

Next to her, The Bumble. It was her immediate association when she first saw him, remembering watchingRudolph the Red Nosed Reindeerevery Christmas. He looked like the fucking abominable snowman having a really, really bad day and stripped of all his goofy cartoonish-ness. She looked harder at his facial features and realized they were ever-so-slightly feline under all that shaggy white fur, and she had seen retracted claws when he had taken the bag of food from her hand. But she had not felt those claws when he grasped her hand, and that seemed like a good basis to build something from.

She didn’t know how long she would be in this cage, but she didn’t want to spend every minute of that time afraid of what was in the cage next to her. Luckily, she was in the last cage of the row and didn’t have to try to make two friends.

Vi looked at him as he continued to sit, holding the bag of food she had given him, almost reverentially, and forced a smile.“We’re going to exchange names, so that I can talk to you.” She knelt down to his level.

Conan banged on his cage and waved The Destroyer at her while saying something in his weirdly growly, liquid-sounding language. She turned away, back to the The Bumble who was now looking at her and ignored both ConanandThe Destroyer.

“I’m Vi,” and she tapped her chest and said, “Vi,” several times, tapping each time. The shortened form of her name seemed like a better bet. Sounds of her name being butchered by various creatures around the room followed. Vi gave the room in general a smile and nodded.

“How about you try?” she said, looking into the eyes of The Bumble. He remained silent.

“OK, then maybe you can tell me your name?” Vi pointed her finger at his chest. He looked down at himself, then back up at her. The moment stretched.

“Mister Beastly,” she said, nodding, the name coming without any conscious thought from her. She continued to squat down so she could face him, holding on to the bars, “I’m going to call you Mister Beastly, and you can call me Vi.” She followed that with some pointing, alternating between her—“Vi”—and him—“Mister Beastly.”

Before she could start to take in the other captives of her own row, past Mister Beastly, the lights went out suddenly. She uttered a short, shrill shriek. Standing in her cage in utter darkness, she heard a few snickers from the surrounding cages, a few mutters in alien languages, then silence.

After a few moments, Vi noticed the temperature dropping in the room. It had already been pretty goddamned cold in there, cold enough that her nipples ached and made her stand with her arms crossed over them. Were they going to keep her naked the whole time in these temperatures? She wouldn’t make it. There was no way she could lie down on the cold rock floor, it wouldsap what little body heat she had. As it was, her feet were blocks of ice.

Right. Can’t gag down much of the food. Can’t keep warm. Can’t lay down to sleep. She laughed as she realized there was a good chance she’d simply die in this cage before whatever they had in store for her happened. She laughed again when she realized that the thought gave her a slight sensation of relief. Hell, they might as well just off her now, and save everyone the trouble, especially her.

She laughed again quietly and said, “Just shoot me.” Her mind immediately made the musical connection, and she closed her eyes to start the concert thinking,Abbey Road it is. She wasn’t even aware of the fact that she had begun to quietly sing “Come Together.”

By the time she got to “Octopus’s Garden,” she was shivering and stuttering the words, which pulled her out of the mental musical auditorium that she had constructed in the stasis pod. As her conscious mind reengaged with her external senses, she heard a noise to her left like, “I” or “aye.”

It came again, “Aye.”

It was Mister Beastly. Saying her name. She realized that he had no fat bottom lip or flat teeth to use to make the “vee” sound. But he had understood her earlier pantomimes and was now calling to her.

“Mister Beastly?”

A grunt.

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