Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
He says it so casually that I'm not sure I've heard him correctly at first. Close the cantina? It's closed right now. We have to clean before we re-open tomorrow at the noon meal.
I'm not the only one that's confused by his statement. A few of us exchange looks and then Chaila speaks up again. "Closed…permanently?"
Abuar's thin lips curl, showing needle-pointed teeth. "The syndicate and I could not come to an agreement on credits owed, so I'm shutting down, yes."
"Are we going to another station, then?" a pretty lithari asks.
"'We are not going anywhere," Abuar says. "Half of you will be staying with the cantina for when it comes under new ownership. Some of you are going to be sold in a slave auction two days from now because I need the credits."
I stare at his desk, piled up with credits of all kinds, and his hands, which are beringed and covered with jewelry. His clothing is expensive, too. The bottles and flasks all over his desk? All pricey. And yet he's too cheap to continue to do business on Three Nebulas Station, so we're either going to be sold or be turned over to new owners? "Who's buying the place?" I speak up, afraid of what I'm going to hear.
"A Ssithri named Nhaoan."
Everyone in the room groans. We're all quite familiar with Nhaoan. Tall, thin with jeweled eyes, the ssithri have six arms, and all of them are gropey. Nhaoan is the worst of the lot, too. He's all over all the girls and is even more of a penny-pincher than Abuar is. Something tells me I won't be dancing in a window when Nhaoan takes over. I'm going to be in the back rooms, on my back, earning the roof over my head in the most miserable way possible. There's a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"As for who's being sold…" Abuar flicks through the data pad and then squints at it. "Here's the list." He rattles off a few names, and I'm not entirely surprised that it's the younger, prettier slaves.
Nor am I surprised to hear my name added in with theirs. The sick feeling in my stomach just grows.
I don't know which is worse—being sold on the auction block or being left here. Either way, my life is about to grow a dozen times more hellish.
2
ZAKOAR
The human female isn't in the window the next day.
In fact, the entire cantina is dark.
Not that I pay much attention to the cantina. I don't drink and I don't buy my companionship. There's not enough credits to make a female smile when she looks at me or to make her pleased with my appearance, so I don't bother. But the female that dances in the window—the one that watches me as much as I watch her—isn't there, and that, I notice.
I go about my work for the rest of the day, trying not to think about why she might not be there, casting me sly looks with her eyes even as she presses her breasts to the glass and gives me sultry looks. I know it's all part of her act. I know to her, I'm just another strange-looking alien beast…but I'm still fascinated by her. Of all the females that pass through the bowels of Three Nebulas, she never looks at me with horror or revulsion. She doesn't look at me in disgust. She doesn't stare too long at the metal covering my face with a look of pity. She just watches me as she dances, and sometimes it feels like she dances just for me when she's in that window.
Foolishness. I know what I look like. I know just how much of my body has been replaced or modified, quite a lot of it of my own doing. It's good business to show off what I can do, even if I terrify small children and half the adults that come through the station. I resigned myself to that long ago.
But a male still has needs. Still has wants. And the human that dances naked at the cantina? She's the one I stroke myself to. She's the one I think about when I take myself in hand in the shower for a quick release. I'll never touch her, but it doesn't mean I can't fuel my fantasies.
Funny enough, it isn't her teats or glorious ass that make me hunger the most. Those are perfection, but I think about her eyes the most. I think about how she alternates between a playful flirtiness as she watches me through the window…and I think about how, sometimes, she just looks so keffing sad. As if the universe has disappointed her time and time again. Probably has, considering she's a slave. Maybe it's the mesakkah in me, but sometimes I'm desperate to take that sadness from her eyes. I want to see a real smile from her. Not flirting, not teasing, not part of her show. Just a genuine, broad smile that reaches her eyes.