Page 12 of My Big Alien Bodyguard

“Lyric Walker,” I say. “You are my mate. We have bonded intensely and sexually. The fluid we have shared, the flesh we have joined, that is more important than anything else. No matter what happens from here on out, know you belong to me fundamentally, as I belong to you.”

She blushes and a certain emotional wetness glimmers in her eyes. “But I’m… we… that’s a lot of commitment after one time.”

“Are you afraid of commitment?”

“Absolutely not. I mean, how can I be afraid of something I’ve never experienced before? No human man has ever wanted to be one with me, or you know, be mine. Whatever.”

She’s embarrassed by that confession, I think.

“They did not know what they had when they had you, but I do.”

Lyric

Held aloft by my big alien mate, I try not to start sobbing from relief at being wanted. You don’t become a starlet because you feel good about yourself. You become a starlet because you have a void inside you that no normal human interaction can fill, a need to be approved of and adored that aches and grows and demands fresh attention constantly. Performers are sick puppies as a general rule, and I am sick as hell.

Zayne pulls me close, holding me tight.

“Don’t worry,” he rumbles in my ear. “We will make this work.”

He’s so big, so strong, and so reassuring. I melt against him, wrap my arms as far around his shoulders as they will go, and close my eyes. I am going to be okay. Zayne is going to keep me safe from everything. Maybe including myself.

4

Lyric

“LYRIC! LYRIC! LYRIC!”

The crowd is screaming my name, the bass is pumping so hard I can feel it throbbing through my soul. Out in front of me, tens of thousands of people are surging to my beats and singing along with my lyrics.

When I perform, I am free. I dance, I twirl, I thrust my hips and I make the occasional obscene gesture followed by a one-legged knee lift and peace sign over my eye. I’m cute. I’m nasty. I’m sexy. I’m innocent. I’m a fucking superstar, and there is not a person in this alien arena that isn’t locked onto my frequency.

This is the third show of the tour, and every show is going better than the one before it. I have established the perfect pre-show routine in which I fuck my bodyguard, go out and rock the crowd, and then pass out on the transport ship, waking up in time for the next show. We’re getting into a groove and it feels amazing. I’ve been doing one show every twenty-four hours or so. I thought I’d find that schedule grueling, but it’s actuallyinvigorating. Hard work is not only fulfilling my contract, it’s making me feel more alive than ever.

I have been singing for three hours straight by the time I come off the stage, covered in sweat and swigging great gulps of isotonic liquid from a bottle. After shows like these, water is the most delicious fluid I have ever encountered. I’m amped up, but I’m also exhausted. I’m in almost an altered state, not quite with general reality anymore. These shows take everything out of me, and whatever’s left is more animal than animal, more crazy than crazy.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! I hear bass emanating behind us, and the crowd seems to get really loud all of a sudden. Do they want an encore? I start to turn around, planning on heading back to the stage. I could do with another dose of the adoration of thousands, why not?

But Zayne, as usual, has other ideas. He picks me up and starts running back toward the dock. Our transport ship is nestled not far away from the stage in order to make logistics easier. I let out a little shriek of excitement as he carries me off like the big, brutish hulk he is. I don’t know what the hurry is, but I’m certainly in no position to change direction.

Our ship is a star cruiser, a luxury bus with swift movement that allows us to leap between major planetary systems in less than an Earth day. I know it is fast, and I know it’s super well appointed. Think of a first class steampunk hotel room stocked with everything a performer could possibly need.

When we get back to the ship my team is waiting for me. Hair, makeup, vocal coaching, interpreters, a good dozen people who are here for the sole purpose of enabling this tour to go well.They all look a little stunned. I guess they’re absolutely blown away by my performance.

“That was awesome!” I shout, unintentionally loud.

“Let’s get her to sleep,” Zayne says. He’s talking to the medic who helps me sleep after every single concert. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep on my own, but they like to give me a little something that makes it easy.

Zayne

We’re traveling in the equivalent of a crumpled up foil ball when it comes to defense capacity, but a good retreat makes defensive and offensive capabilities irrelevant. I want to put as much cold space between us and that last performance as mechanically possible.

Lyric has no idea what just happened back in that arena, but I saw everything, the way explosions began to emanate from the very back of the audience and then roll forward through it. Something unspeakably awful and catastrophically violent unfolded there, and I cannot begin to explain why.

My human charge didn’t seem to register the explosions at all. She’s lolling about in my arms in the weak-limbed way she tends to when she’s almost completely out of energy. Her eyes have the bright, glazed appearance she gets when she’s on the point of collapse. We need to calm her down and get her to sleep, because the tour won’t stop just because she was brutally attacked. On previous starlet tours we’ve performed in war zones, taking entire space marine platoons with us to guarantee our safety. Today we need nothing but speed.

The tour captain sets the ship into motion the minute we’re aboard, the entire vessel slipping out of common space and entering a quantum slipstream in which we’re moving so fast we are technically not moving at all. Space wraps around us to convenience our goals.

The rest of us follow the procedures of Lyric’s cooldown routine without interruption. It’s important to not let her get stressed out. Nothing is her problem. We are here to take care of her, worry about what needs to be worried about, and allow her to just do her job.

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