I know that each additional moment I spend among this harem is an additional opportunity to get caught out – but, right now, this life of opulence and luxury seems so much better than the hard, constant grind of a hustler – barely scratching a living on this dusty, barren world.
Sarah starts to hum a tune. I feel like I need to keep her talking. I repeat my question.
"You don't get jealous?"
She shrugs as she runs her hands through my tangled hair. She takes a brush from the drawer next to me and starts smoothing out my shoulder-length curls.
"No. I don't,” Sarah eventually decides. “I knew what I was getting into, so what right do I have?”
I have to admire that pragmatism.
Sarah brushes my hair, and continues talking. Somebody once told me the most intimate conversations are often held like this – when there isn’t the pressure of eye contact. It makes it almost more like a confession than a conversation.
“I come from a Sector 2 merchant family. We were reasonably successful – but my father always wanted more; you know how it is.”
I think of Darr – how he’s never satisfied with the reward of each heist. He’s constantly planning the next one, even before we’ve cashed in the credits from the first.
“I know how it is,” I nod.
Sarah nods her head, happy to hear that.
“My father tried to marry me off to a businessman,” she continues, “all to bring our families together. I couldn’t stand the man – he was much older, and fat – and he smelt.”
I shudder at the thought – remembering all the men who’d made passes at me, and the ugly old bastards who’d offered Darr coin to take my prized virginity. He’d probably been offered far more than a whore could have ever made, but he’d protected me…
…no doubt thinking of the value I could be to him as a virgin further down the line.
“I saw an Aurelian for the first time when I’d just turned nineteen,” Sarah confesses. “Well, from then on I was hooked. I couldn't stop thinking about them. I'd hear the rumors of their passion – the mating frenzy – and I'd...” She blushes. “Well, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, dreaming of them…”
I swallow uncomfortably – and then wince.
Sarah pulls a tangle out of my hair, ignoring my gasp of pain. I wish that was the only thing that made me wince. In truth, I’ve had the same dreams as her. Back when I was eighteen – when I saw those three Aurelians searching for the man who’d wronged them in the marketplace – it sent tingles through my body. They just seemed... better than us. Taller. Stronger. More handsome and deservedly proud. It was that pride that gives them a haughty, arrogant nature…
…but is it arrogance if it’s true?
I think of these three Aurelians – perhaps the same three that I’d seen when I was eighteen. It was too far away to see clearly, but they’d worn identical togas and had carried themselves with that same swaggering confidence.
Of the three, Cyrus seems the most human – with a mischievous streak and a spark to his eyes.
Gallus and Varian have the cold attitude typical of the Aurelian race… But it’s a disdain that draws me in like a moth to flame, making me feel an urge to prove my worth to them.
Sarah is oblivious to my thoughts.
"My father was pissed when I refused to marry his business partner. He kicked me out of the house – told me to see how I liked having to make my own way in the world. I think he expected me to come crawling back a few days later…” She suddenly laughs, sharply and bitterly. “The joke was on him when I left to join an Aurelian harem.”
I see the reflection of Sarah’s face, and detect a moment of true pain on it. She tried to be all smiles – the happy, bubbly blonde – but the actions of her parents had wounded her deeply.
Those sorts of wounds rarely healed, and never without leaving a scar.
Then, she snorts, and forces that smile back on her pretty face.
“Gallus, Varian and Cyrus brought me in, and let me tell you – it was the best decision I ever made. If I’d married that man...” I watch in the mirror as Sarah shudders. “…every time we’d have fucked, I’d have been imagining it was Aurelians; and it would never have been enough. I felt bad for a little while about it – but it wouldn't have been fair to either of us.”
Then, she sighs – continuing to brush my hair.
“So, do I get jealous? No. I knew what I was getting into."
She says that with a determination I’ve heard in my own voice – when I’ve been trying to convince myself more than the person I was speaking to.
My mind drifts to a moment earlier in her story. I want to ask her how it was.
It.
I want to ask her how she felt, the first time that she mated with the Aurelians. I want to know if the rumors are true. Instead, though, I suddenly wonder something else…
"Why aren't there any older women? I think oldest you introduced me to looked about thirty. Don't Aurelians live for thousands of years?"
“Ugh,” Sarah rolls her eyes. “That’s the one thing that really annoys me about them. They think they know better than us what we need.”
My hair is starting to smooth out. Sarah takes a vial of oil and works it into my hair with her nimble fingers. Instantly, I feel different. It’s magical, that oil – and it feels like it’s giving life to my hair.
I once saw a man dying of thirst on the city streets. He’d been caught in a sandstorm on one of the moisture farms, and had barely dragged
