Page 68 of Seven Oars
Rosamma’s eyes remained dry.
It was strange to have a whole chunk of time taken from her. The worst kind of time, yet she felt cheated. She should have been present, fully conscious, to share the horror fairly. Not that she wanted to, but she was one of them. A woman.
Ironically, not enough of a one to the pirates, precisely because of the very natural monthly female occurrence. And how twisted was that?
As if reading her mind, Gro added,“Thank your lucky stars the Striker knocked you out when he did. They lost all reason out there.”
Rosamma didn’t feel particularly lucky.
Her gaze landed on an empty pad.
“Gro, where’s Daphne?” she asked, looking around.
The sharp movement caused one side of her head to throb. When she touched the tender spot, her fingers found a knot where the Striker’s fist had connected with her skull. For whatever reason, he hadn’t wanted to kill her, or she’d be dead, her skull smashed.
She felt almost regretful.
Gro also looked around.“I’m not sure. Eze told her to hide when they brought in that drug. She scampered out of the Habitat.” Gro put her head into her hands.“I know we have to go find her before someone else does. I just can’t… not now.”
Alyesha finished her snack and folded the wrapper neatly.“Well, the worst is over.”
Anske stopped the prayer mid-sentence.“Come again?”
“I said, the worst is over.”
“Do you think it was a one-time thing, what happened with Sassa?” Anske asked, her voice full of hope.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what?”
“Now we know that for all their big size and alien bodies, the Rix are no better or worse than our men. They like to fuck. Great! We can work with that.”
Anske’s face pinched in concentration.“Alyesha, I’m not sure I get your drift. What are we going to work with?”
“Male nature, dummy. We’d be fools not to exploit it. And we are going to use it to our advantage, so we can escape.” Alyesha’s face actually brightened; her cheeks regained some color.
Anske looked up at Alyesha with utter seriousness.“I don’t know if I can survive alien sex, but I’m with you.” Then she turned toward the corner where Sassa was hiding from the world under her blanket.“But I can only speak for myself.”
Fawn had by now stopped hiccuping.“Sassa’s too neurotic. She should’ve taken a hit like Thilza said. It helps a lot.”
Alyesha curled her lip at Fawn.“How you smoked that rank shit and didn’t rupture a lung is beyond me.”
“It does smell kind of vile, doesn’t it?” Fawn admitted good-naturedly.“But when you take it in…” She whistled.“Velvet. And Thilza’s nice.”
Anske made gagging noises.“You can have him. All of them.”
Fawn giggled.“He told me their dicks really are internal. They pop out, already hard, at just the right moment. Jack in the frigging box! Asked me if I wanted to see. You knew, right? Rosamma?”
“You can shut up any time now,” Gro mumbled.
“She’s still tripped out,” Alyesha dismissed Fawn, and the subject of alien penises was closed.
Rosamma crawled next to Eze, feeling helpless and despondent. She tried to pass her energy into Eze, rationalizing that if Rix were receptive, then Sakkas could be too, but it didn’t work. Her precious energy trickled out from her fingers and washed over Eze like water over boulders. It was the same with humans. Their compositions didn’t incorporate energy flows the way other aliens did.
With Eze out of commission, she helped the women restart the water filter so they could bathe. It was a welcome distraction, and she was glad she knew how. Gods, she hoped Eze would survive and recover.
The women washed some of their clothes as well, careful to take off only as much as was tolerable. They tidied up the Cargo Hold as a form of distraction from what had happened, but mostly from what was yet to come. The anticipation was wearing them down.
