Page 69 of Five to Love Him
The hivelings got very close, but they stopped short just of hugging me.
“We hear you, but you misunderstand us. We have been thinking about this. We may have looked at some of the numbers behind your back. We may have looked at the recipes for the soap. We want to try.” They held each other’s hands. “We are very certain we can make it a success while sharing your grandmother’s soap with many. We didn’t get a chance to meet her, but in this way, we can connect with something that had meaning to her. Something other than you.”
I wanted to tell them no. I opened my mouth to say the word, but I had made a promise, and this was the thing they had picked.
Who was I to tell them to find something else? Perhaps, as a hive, they needed this, didn’t need me to apply human thinking to their choices.
They had asked for something, just like I had told them they should.
I nodded. “Okay. But don’t think I know all that much about soapmaking either.”
“Leo.” “Thank you.” “Oh, we love you so much.” “We’ll be saying it a lot, we think, but we’ll try not to say it too much.”
“Why?”
“We don’t want the word to lose power.”
That made me laugh. I wasn’t even really sure why. “That’s all right, hive. I love you too, extra strong. Times five.”
They laughed, at least some of them. It was really difficult to tell how many, because the window seat was very crowded.
thirty-one
In the window seat, Leo was reaching for us too. We cherished the touch though he could not quite share it with all of us, being a singular. We got the impression that he wanted to, that he was trying. His display of care and love made us shiver, made us want to conquer the world and give it to him.
“Are we…are we going to go upstairs and do some experimenting? Oh, what about, you know. Getting clean?”
We pulled back. We’d not been sure that he really had meant this, but he had been right, no longer seemed too tipsy to need us to be sober for him.
“Before we do anything, we have to know what you want. It sounds like you want to try anal sex?”
He nodded and didn’t flinch or look away, so we knew he meant it.
“Yes.”
We had imagined this and so much more. In our fantasies, we’d forced every pleasure on Leo that a hive of five could give, and now, here, he was asking for all of it.
“We do have condoms, but going to the bathroom before is a good idea.” “And there are always wet wipes, so you don’t have to be embarrassed.”
Nor did we want him to know shame, which we knew could burrow in the mind and heart like a small black worm.
“I can do that right now. But you’ll have to let me go.”
We did, standing with two and making sure to kiss him, give him soothing touch. Leo hurried up the stairs ahead of us, eager for the experience. We knew we could make it special for him. Before our time in that room, before we’d met that human, we had enjoyed spending nights with others. Not always just one, though even then, we’d wondered if taking two or three to bed wasn’t pushing things for a hive our size.
None of those things mattered now. We walked up the stairs, hearing Leo brushing his teeth in the bathroom. There, on the sink was a second cup now that held our toothbrushes. We left him in peace while we went to his room, straightening everything and collecting what we thought we might need: the condoms, lube, and wet wipes, things we’d wanted to be ready for this very day.
We started stripping too, and Leo walked in when we were in the middle of that.
“Wow. You are like my very own hot harem, you know that, right?”
We hooked the arms of one around his shoulders while we continued stripping, just that much slower than was necessary.
“Then you are a prince, Leo. Our prince, and you can command us.”
“I’d probably suck at that.”
“Why do you think that?”
