But perhaps that will change.
“I want to talk about checking in on Daisy too, if that’s okay?” she asks, sitting up. She goes to stand, and I give her my tail to help.
“Too soon.”
“It’s been two weeks… ish. Not soon at all. We don’t have to stay long, just enough to make sure she’s still recovering, and that Zaku isn’t—”
“The Cobra won’t hurt her.”
“I can’t help but worry.”
I pull Gemma close. “We will discuss it tomorrow. Today, we bathe and empty the crates.”
She sighs and nods while I wrap her up in my limbs. I don’t want to share her with anyone, not Daisy, the other humans, and especially not Zaku or the other nagas. I need all of her attention, all of her affection. I am a greedy male.
My member strains to be released from my tail again. To show her that she should think of me and only me. And it.
Gemma is still gloriously naked, pressed up against me, and I can’t resist. I lift her in my arms, wrap my tailtip around my member, and sink it back inside her. She tenses and squirms, her sex trying to keep me out, but then she sighs, moaning as I work her up and down my length, mating her again. She throws her arms around my neck and rests her cheek on my chest while I use her.
I am the luckiest male.
Ropes of fresh spill jettison inside her.
I use her three more times before we even make it to the creek for her bath. My body demands I swell her with my litter and until she is, I will remain crazed to do so.
And she? Gemma doesn’t wear undergarments anymore. I keep destroying them.
Later that day, we’re in the tunnels, separating empty crates from those that remain full. We’ve been at it for hours, deciding what should be kept, what needs to go, and where to drop what we don’t want. Gemma doesn’t like clutter and neither wants to keep the cast-offs in the tunnels nor outside our bunker.
I agree with her in keeping the entrance to the bunker clear. The way it is right now, it’s hard for anyone who isn’t looking for it to find it. It keeps trespassers away. And any naga male who may want to risk his life.
None have come so far, not even Zhallaix, and I hope it stays that way.
My female’s gone quiet, and I look up from what I’m doing. She’s staring into the darkened corridor that leads to the deeper tunnels.
We only have enough solar lanterns and torches to light up the part we’re working in.
“Gemma,” I rumble in warning.
She startles and turns to me. “I just want to watch them once more. Just a couple of hours?”
“No.”
“Even if I promise?”
When we first returned to the bunker, she convinced me to take her back to the screen room—a room I once spent many months in during my youth—to watch the end of her world again and again. She became obsessed, wanting to go back every day until I pointed it out, and she stopped. But there’s more than what I showed her that first day. The screens have… everything.
Videos of things I didn’t understand at first. Plays and drawings and music. All things archived from the past. When she found out there was more, it was hard to get her to leave.
Music is a treat. The reenactments are enjoyable. They don’t belong in this world, but they’re here anyway, and I hope nothing ever happens to them.
Gemma particularly likes the idea of museums and the artwork within them. I told her some still exist and promised to take her to their ruined buildings.
That made her excited.
“Please?” she begs prettily.
I relent. “A couple of hours.” We’ve gotten a lot done today anyway. What she wanted to get done.
It’s been a change. Before her, I spent my days out in the forests hunting, scouting.
“Thank you!”
I take a lantern off one of the crates and pull her close.
She can’t find the room without me—and I won’t let her enter this space alone. The tunnels curve, break off and go on for miles in every direction. The lights haven’t ever worked, and it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know the way. Some rooms splinter off on the sides as well. Most are empty or lead to the surface. Some are filled with crates like the ones I have, while others hold old human machines and items.
I don’t know why they’re here or what they were originally used for, but it’s a dangerous place if you get lost. I searched them long ago, as have other nagas who have found their way here, and vaguely know my way through them.
If Gemma ever takes a wrong turn…
She can’t see in the dark as well as I can. I shake the thought away.
We make it to the room with the screens, and I flip the switchboard on the desk overseeing them. Gemma tugs a pelt over her shoulders, left from the last time we were here, and I curl my tail under me, settling, pulling her close so she can rest upon it.
“What did you want tonight?” I mumble. “Not the final hours,” I add.
“Can we watch something… fun? With music? I love the music.” She leans back with a sigh of contentment. I wrap my arm across her middle.
I know just the thing. A human male appears, large on the screens, with an umbrella. We fall into a peaceful silence as he sings about the rain.
Such a simple thing to make a song about, such an easy thing.
Two weeks ago, I led Gemma into the dark mountain where a cache of Lurker secrets is hidden. We haven’t talked about it
