Telidur’s quarters weren’t any bigger than mine, I guess the one rank distinction didn’t make a difference for that.  Only the captain and first officer got a bigger place.  Although, I wasn’t looking forward to my evening tomorrow with Rilok, I’d rather get a root canal.

I smiled, with the nanites on the job, I didn’t have to worry about that type of thing at all either.

Point was, I was on the way toward the dining area, we were going to eat there instead, if I was lucky Rilok would want to do the same thing.  I wasn’t afraid of him exactly, mostly because I could probably kick his ass, but I didn’t want to be in his private space anyway.  Nothing good could come of that.

I pushed thoughts of the ass wipe out of my head, and smiled as I walked in the mess hall, dining area, whatever they called it on a space ship.  I brought up the map in my head from the download, it was labeled as a galley, or at least that’s the word Anna used when translating to English for me.

Telidur was waiting on me, and he had a number of dishes on the table.  I smiled a little wider at his grin, and sat down across from him.

“Hi Telidur.”

He smiled, “Lori, I chose a small sampling of many of my favorite meals.  I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to introduce you to them.”

I nodded, “On Earth we call them sampler platters.  Sure, it all smells good, if diverse.”

He chuckled, “So are you enjoying the new job?”

I said, “Mostly.  It still seems a bit of a dream.  Taken from my world, made a slave, and then rescued and hired, all in a few days.”

Telidur shook his head, “You weren’t rescued, you rescued us.  I can also guess what the mostly is about, and Rilok will come around.  He’s usually not… like that.  He’s just protective of the captain.”

I shrugged, “But why does he think I’m a danger?”

Telidur laughed, “Think of it from our point of view.  A slave technician just happens to come along, when none should have been let in our jail from the Stolavii regulations.  She just happens to be a deadly fighter, and pulled our bacon out of the pan, and knew enough about the systems to sabotage them.  It stretches the bounds of coincidence.”

“Then why do you trust me?”

Telidur shrugged, “I’m a good judge of character, and those circumstances are just unlikely, not impossible.”

I frowned, “Why though, I mean why would they sacrifice their ship and all those soldiers for a setup?  That doesn’t make sense to me at all.”

Telidur smiled, “The Scythe is somewhat of a well-known ship, even among our enemies.  The captain is also an important man.  Many would do anything to serve aboard her, it would be a coup, and worth the sacrifice to put a spy aboard her.  But never mind, I don’t want to talk about that.”

I was curious why the captain was so important, but knew better than to ask while with another man.

“What did you want to talk about?”

He winked, “Us, not others.  Let’s start with those gorgeously wide and expressive brown eyes.”

I blushed, and scooped something that looked like spaghetti onto my plate.  Damn, now Telidur was giving me butterflies, and thank god that he couldn’t see my nipples tighten under his gaze through the ship suit.  It would be so easy to let him take me, or to take him for that matter, but I needed time to come to terms with this society’s mores and ways before we hopped into the sack.

I said teasingly, “I’m kind of partial to blue.”

He snickered, “I admit, I haven’t been around many humans, and you are rather impressive, as well as exotically attractive.”

I blushed harder, and took a bite of the food to give myself time to think.  I was used to compliments, and even pickup lines, but not the intense desire and true interest he and Vik showed.  He wasn’t looking at me as if I was a piece of ass to either tap or own, he was looking at me with a desire to know all of me.  Call it… intuition. 

I decided it was better to be blunt, even if it made me blush down to my toes.  The Isyth seemed blunt and straightforward about sex, it was just a part of life here.

“On Earth we do things differently, as a rule we stick to one partner, even while dating.  That doesn’t mean I intend to do that though.  I very much want to get to know you, on all levels including the physical, but, I need time to process and internalize all this.”

He winked, “I understand, I can’t imagine the culture shock you must be going through.  I can give you time to come to terms with all of this.  There is no pressure here, just friendship and honesty.  I won’t lie and say I’m not disappointed, but we can certainly pause that aspect of our friendship.”

Why did I say what I just said?  There was no doubt that my body, and my mind, wanted to fully explore him in the Isyth friendship style, what was holding me back was fear of societal judgement on a world that was a hundred and fifty light years away from here.  Words like slut entered my mind, at the idea of sleeping with two men at once, not to mention my random thoughts and desires toward Jillintara.

Still, I didn’t really believe it would make me a slut, I was just human, with natural inclinations.  Inclinations that the Isyth shared with Earth, but without all the bad baggage.

“Thanks ,Telidur.”

Telidur waved that off, “Let’s eat.  Tell me, why do you call Jillintara, Jill?”

“We do that on Earth sometimes, it’s a sign of friendship, to us a shortened form of a person’s name.”

He nodded, “So, would you call me Tel, or Teli?”

I giggled, “The first one I think.  The second one is a slang term for television.”

He sighed, “Poor Vik, he’s already got a one syllable name.”

I laughed, “I could always call him V, or shorten his title instead and call him Cap.”

He chuckled.

“So how did you wind up getting taken.  I know the Stolavii usually focus on the undesirables, to keep the panic down.”

It was sad that it worked so well, no one cared about the homeless, or at least, not enough people.

“I was giving away free jackets to the homeless.  I was in a bad area of town, and bad timing took it from there.  There was a bright light, and I was knocked out by a sonic weapon of some kind.  Next thing I knew, Anna was in my head and waking me up in a metal box with a cot.  So how did you get on this illustrious and infamous ship?”

He replied, “I was a bodyguard for Vik’s family.  When he chose to join the military, instead of simply letting his parents buy him a merchant vessel to get him started, I volunteered to join with him.  Rilok too.  We’ve served together ever since, and are now more friends than anything else.”

“He could have just been a merchant?”

Telidur shrugged, “He wanted to serve a bigger purpose, not just line his pockets with more money.”

Now I was really curious, but changed the subject to keep it more about Telidur.

“What do you do in your spare time, hobbies?”

Telidur winked, “Besides planning your seduction?”  He laughed, “Let me think.  Crap, I’m a total workaholic.  I keep apprised of weapons development.  There’s a new palm weapon coming out soon, that will do both plasma as well as less deadly functions, both an electrical and a directed sonic attack.  I’m planning to upgrade soon.  I do watch and read entertainment from the public data net, but you wouldn’t recognize any of it.”

I nodded, “You should send me some suggestions.”

He said, “I will, what did you do?”

I shrugged, “A lot of reading and television between jobs, I also helped the homeless and worked at shelters on occasion.  I also liked to lay out by the ocean, on the beach.”

Never mind what I read, trashy romance novels were my guilty pleasure.  I did read sci-fi too though, which was actually where most of my ideas earlier came from, not that I’d ever admit it.  Most of the ideas were crap though, in real life there was a budget.  Maybe if energy ever really became easily accessible without high monetary cost that would change.  When ships can travel around and not worry about a budget, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

He frowned, “Humans lay out in the sun as a hobby?”

I laughed, “Not a hobby, more a relaxing time.  Sun, wind, relaxation, swimming in the water.”

He nodded dubiously.

I giggled.  We talked for another two hours that night, and I had a really good time getting to know Telidur.  He hardly took anything seriously, outside of the ship and keeping the captain safe that is.  He also kept his flirting to a minimum, but there was no doubt in my mind he wanted me as badly as I wanted him.

So, why was it I went to bed alone that night? 

Right, I’m an idiot that listened to her societal programming.  I needed to embrace my new life and that included the culture.  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever go back to Earth, there was nothing back there for me except possibly revenge, and I wasn’t a petty person.  But… making credits, earning enough to learn the three sciences, fabrication and design, and the AI and security stuff, so I could understand and maybe even improve and contribute to the technology, and kicking some Stolavii ass, all sounded like worthy goals to me.

Right, and lots of good sex, can’t forget that part, if I could get past the human taboo of it.  No one here cared about it, in fact they found the concept weird and absurd, so if I did give in who would know?  I would of course, which is why I needed to get over it.