Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“Yet another reason Mother Hownow took me here,” he said dryly. “It was one of the few places she could treat me like her son in public.”
“It’s nice.” Imani looked around the large dining area with kids running back and forth while their mothers sat and talked with friends and bodyslaves. The chairs and tables were made of some kind of green wicker and there were potted plants everywhere, which gave the whole place kind of a casual jungle feel.
J’are nodded stiffly.
“I haven’t been here since she died.”
Imani put a hand on his.
“You must miss her a lot,” she murmured.
He nodded stoically, but she thought his eyes were suspiciously bright.
“Sometimes I hated her for taking me from my home world and bringing me here, but mostly I loved her. She was a good mother—a little strange for Yonnie Six—but wonderful all the same.”
“She really must have loved you a lot to want to adopt you from so far away,” Imani said.
“Oh, she did her research before she got me,” J’are said seriously. “She honestly thought I would be well-suited for life on Yonnie Six because the females of my people Claim the males.”
“So she equated that to a Mistress owning a bodyslave?” Imani asked.
He nodded. “As I said, she always hoped some kind Mistress would fall in love with me and Claim me. She even had a special room built in her home for that exact purpose. It simulated the environment of my home world exactly. You can even watch and see the three moons converge in the sky to simulate the Night of Claiming and the Night of Bonding.”
“Wow, she really thought of everything!” Imani exclaimed.
“Everything but the fact that no Mistress actually wanted to Claim me and let me Claim her in return,” J’are said ruefully. “Since bonding with a Nightwalker means being immediately impregnated with his child, which has a 95% chance of being male…” He shook his head. “No self-respecting Mistress was willing to take a chance on that—not even to inherit all of Mother Hownow’s money and property.”
“Because having a male child here is a big no-no, right?” Imani asked.
“It’s a sign that you’ve been penetrated by a male,” J’are said grimly. “Which is pretty much the worst crime you can commit here on Yonnie Six. It’s also social suicide if anyone finds out.”
Imani thought of the Mistress with the pink hair who’d been caught with her bodyslave on top of her when the tray bomb had exploded back at the Luxx. Clearly penetration between bodyslaves and Mistresses did happen—it just wasn’t admitted to in polite society.
“Pardon me, Mistress—what will you be having today?”
She looked up to see a male server standing behind her shoulder with a pad in one hand and a stylus in the other. He was wearing a long black apron which covered him from neck to heels and an expectant expression on his face.
“Oh, uh…”
Belatedly she fumbled with the paper menu—another sign this place was more casual than the Luxx—and looked down at the listed dishes. Just like the night before, a daunting list of foreign-sounding words met her eyes—none of which meant anything to Imani.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m not from here so I don’t really know what any of this is. Maybe I should just get some fruit.”
“You can do better than that,” J’are objected. “Unless you really just want fruit?” he added, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, I mean, I’d like to try something else but everything I ordered from room service last night was just awful.” Imani shivered when she remembered the decapitated, roasted pigacorn head and the screaming, bleeding cheese.
“Let me try ordering for you,” J’are suggested. “I bet we can find something you enjoy. And we can get some fruit for a backup, just in case you don’t like what I pick.”
“Okay.” Imani smiled and passed the menu to him. “Go for it.”
“All right. We’ll have the terkle cutlet, a bundum salad and some w’resh bread to share. Oh, and a bowl of fresh fruit,” J’are told the server. “With sparkling fresha to drink.”
“Very good.” The server noted everything down. “Everything will be up in a minute.”
“Thanks.” J’are nodded at him as he sauntered off. “This is one of the few places in the city where free males can work,” he told Imani. “I think it was another reason Mother Hownow liked to bring me here—she wanted to show me that not all males are bodyslaves.”
“I can’t wait to see what you ordered us,” Imani told him. “I don’t know how much you remember about last night, but it seemed like every single thing I’d ordered from the room service menu was terrible.”
“If you ordered from the Luxx’s menu, you were probably being served premium fare—that’s much fancier than everyday food,” J’are told her. “I have a vague memory of you getting upset—what did you order?”