Page 40 of Eat My Moon Dust
“Yeah, except it’s a bacterial culture, which is something no other species eats. Food bays are regulated for safety because we’ve forgotten how to cook from scratch. No raw ingredients that might cause food poisoning. Molecular chem bays–the industrial ones? That’s the only way to print a lot of the stuff humans like to eat.”
“I always did wonder why you were recruited.”
Bajora flipped me off like Bree, grinning as he picked up the plates. “The point is… when Tinsley complains about the food bays? She’s right.”
He popped a pocket into his mouth and slid thesamosasinto his organic waste compressor.
??
At the end of a long day, I usually fell into bed naked from the shower. Joints creaking, so tired I felt weak, it was lights out almost immediately. I never dreamed anymore, and when I did, I couldn’t hold onto it long enough to remember what it was I’d seen or done. It was the steady march of a man that life had thoroughly tenderized, like tough meat under a steel hammer.
But tonight? I knelt in the middle of my bed in my briefs, still dirty from work, and shaking from withdrawal. I was a live wire, staring at the two options life had given me: a vial of hectaconorphine I was two hours late in taking and a slim little package wrapped in a red festive tea towel.
The spats had all been sleeping for an hour or more. I’d walked by their room twice to listen for muted conversation or vid feeds. In a blatant violation of privacy, I’d accessed my secure network and checked in with BEO in silence. Nothing probing, just whether or not the brood had lights on or if their linguitors were broadcasting airwaves. As soon as the colony AI confirmed they were asleep, I’d closed his portal.
I gritted my teeth and unwrapped Tinsley’s gift with quaking fingers.
This time, the hunger wasreal.There was no hectaconorphine in my system to dull my instincts or numb my senses. Whispering my fingers over the bag’s seal, I tasted that same, mind-bending flavor. Salty, a bit like the ocean, and sweet. Whatever it was, the traces were thicker than water, and full of nutrition that clenched my throat in desperation. Mysentirumbled for the first time in years, vibrating along the top of my spine, sending excited sparks all along my nervous system.
I tossed the bag down with a groan of frustration.
If I did this, I wouldn’t need to be on hectaconorphine or use colorized oils. I wouldn’t feel weak and tired and like an asshole all the time. My focus would return, and food wouldn’t taste like ash anymore. Zufi would let me stay. I’d be a person with control over my own life again and actually feel capable of taking care of my children…
But was it any different than what I’d had with Corsa?
This wasn’t real. Tinsley was offering to help me, but she wasn’t offering me a real coil. She’d promised she’d give me more, butfuck,did I want that? Another woman giving me doses of pheromones that I’d need to ration? Anarrangementrather than feeling full?
Everyonewould know.
I let out a shuddering, anxious breath.
My spats would know.
Would it tear them apart? Would they hate me even more? Reha had just started to come out of her shell. It had been less than a week since…
I stopped pacing, fixated on the shiny little bag.
Tinsley wasn’t Corsa.
I knew that all the way through my mane. There wasn’t a single self-serving, malicious bone in that tiny human’s body. In fact, everything she did was out of blinding, aggravating love. She was a glitter-coated bouncy ball in a pottery shop, but her heart was in the right place, mounted on her forehead like a neon sign.
Everything she did was for family.
I snatched the bag before I could change my mind and locked myself in the hallway bathroom. Blinking against the bright white fixtures, I leaned against the door. “BEO, start the shower.” Water fell from the ceiling like a waterfall, echoing around the chrome and tile.
Lifting the bag to the light, I examined the pattern on the underwear inside. It was decorated in white and red striped hooks that I knew were a human food. I’d seen a photo of them wrapped in bows and displayed in Tinsley’s bakery. The absurdity pulled a nervous laugh from my chest. Of course she’d drawn blobby food onto her underwear. Meanwhile I was about to eat her like–
My throat bobbed as I swallowed hard, catching my own stare in the mirror.
I ripped the seal open and bowed my head. Seductive musk slightly tainted by a hint of plas from the bag wafted up to meet my tendrils as they probed the fabric with their tips. The familiar taste of Tinsley’s skin sank into my tongue as my mane took over conscious thought, acting on instinct.
As soon as one of my more sensitive minor tendrils slithered into the meticulous folds of the fabric, my vision shook. A bass growl so powerful my knees nearly gave out reverberated through my skull and spine. My shoulders slammed into the door as I lost my balance, grappling the towel bar above my head with my upper hands for support.
This wasn’t just a pair of underwear Tinsley had worn for a day. This wasn’t anything at all like a vial of diluted pheromones. This was real, heady musk, worked into the fabric, taken directly from the seas of her mantle.
Tinsley came wearing these.
For me.
