Page 43 of Under His Heel

Parsons turned up just as Alex was leaving the gym that afternoon and dragged him into the lounge to sit on their usual couches.

“Hey. Sorry I got you in trouble again.” Parsons sounded kind of upset about.

“Thanks?” Alex responded, mostly confused about why Parsons was even bringing it up. He didn’t know what to say after that, so he fell back on Tracht’s suggestion. “I heard you have a kid?”

Somehow, that actually worked. Parsons smiled and pulled his tablet out of his gym bag. “Yeah! Her name is Meilin. Here’s a photo.”

Meilin, as far as Alex could tell, was just like any other brat. Her skin was a shade lighter than Parsons’ and she had almond shaped eyes, but her dark hair curled similarly to his so she was probably his real kid and not adopted.

“She’s… cute?”

Alex was already out of things to say. Thankfully Parsons seemed to like blathering, because he grinned. “Yep! And really precocious too. She’s seven now. Getting full marks in most of her classes. You know, she’s enrolled at the best school on Cadmus.”

No, Alex didn’t know. He’d stopped going to school at fourteen, and neither he nor Nick had found any benefit to torturing themselves with more studying. He shrugged uncomfortably. “So what’s that mean?”

“It means she’s got a shot at a university on Pylos. Well, in ten years’ time. And if she stays at this school.” Parsons’ smile dropped a bit. “Her mother was so excited that we got Meilin into that school.”

“University on Pylos? How much is that gonna cost you?” Alex had heard that all the rich people sent their kids to schools on Pylos, the main inhabited planet in this solar system, the same planet that Atalanta orbited.

Parsons hunched his shoulders a bit. “Yeah. They charge off-worlders a lot more than locals. We were going to move there before Meilin graduated school, but now...”

A couple of other people trickled into the lounge. The place was never really empty, but Alex didn’t interact with anybody except Parsons. Sometimes people stared at him in the gym or in the halls. They stared more when Tracht was with him and Alex was wearing some skimpy outfit for Tracht’s enjoyment.

He saw one of the lesbians from earlier walking in with a much larger guy. She flipped Alex off as she walked by, although she didn’t stop talking to her friend. Parsons noticed and frowned at her.

“That was uncalled for,” Parsons called out.

The chick shrugged. “Whatever. Stop sniffing around the Captain’s fucktoy and play pool with us, Parsons.” She held up a pool stick, though she didn’t look like she actually cared if Parsons joined her little group. The guy she was with chortled at her words.

Alex’s hands clenched into fists. He’d thought the chick was hot before, in a military kind of way, but he was starting to change his mind.

“Ignore her.” Parsons patted Alex’s bicep. “The stress of the ship gets to all of us sometimes. Carpenter’s probably just got cabin fever.”

Yeah. If Alex acted on any of his impulses, he was pretty sure Tracht would take it out on his hide. He turned his attention back to Parson’s tablet, where a bunch of pictures of Parsons’ daughter scrolled by.

“Why’s your kid got a weird name like that?” Alex asked, just to distract himself.

“Weird name?”

“It’s not a normal one. I’ve never heard it before.” When Parsons continued with his dumb stare, Alex added, “Y’know, a normal name. Like Maria or Silvia or Christina.”

After a few beats, Parsons said, “My wife’s family is from China.”

Alex started feeling that first trickle of humiliation, but he shrugged to cover it up. “Never heard of it.”

Carpenter burst out laughing. “Oh my god, no wonder he ended up as a sex slave.” She dropped her pool stick on the floor and approached them. “You seriously don’t know about China? Did you skip all your lessons to learn how to suck cock?”

Alex bristled and hopped to his feat. “Listen, lady—”

“Hey! Let’s all calm down!” Parsons got in between the two of them. “We really don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Sure we do,” Carpenter said. “This sex slave thinks he’s got the right to perv on other people.”

She must have overheard some of what Alex had said to Tracht. Well, screw her. Everybody else perved on Alex, so why the hell shouldn’t he perv on others too?

“You really want to do this?” Alex smirked at her. “I’m twice your size. But I’ve got no problem beating a chick.” Beat that high-and-mighty attitude right out of her. So what if he didn’t know about ‘China’ or schooling or whatever.

She tried to get him by surprise, launching her fist at him without any other warning, but Alex was ready for it. He stepped back in time and watched her stumble as her fist connected with nothing. Parsons yelped and grabbed her wrist, and got her other hand in his stomach in retaliation.

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