Chapter Eight
The edges of our curtained tent began to move.
“What the fuck?” Night exclaimed.
There was no question now, as footsteps padded across the shining tile floor outside our abode, that we were alone.
Night, showing himself to be the cocky prince he was, sat up and punched a fist against the sheet nearest him, causing it to fall away at the top of our flimsy structure. He scrambled up through the hole, standing, and now I could see him only from the waist down, and from behind. I could not stop staring at the curves of muscles along his back leading to his ass. So pretty. So distracting even as I heard him say, “Fuck, What is this? Dad? Fuck!”
The king had arrived inside the most sacred chamber. My breath caught. This was serious! But then I clamped down on the sudden laughter that tried to escape my throat. I gripped myself tightly about the waist.
What did I have to be afraid of?
I had nothing to lose in my standing. I had already quit the Academy in my mind. I had everything I wanted. Night. Love. There were no laws in Android City that could take that away.
“You,” bellowed King Dusk, “my youngest and most annoying son, have defied me for the last time! I will throw you in the Crackling Dungeons if I have to!”
“For what?” demanded Night. “I committed no crime.”
“I’ll turn you over to the anguish-master for defying the king!”
“For being a traitor? I’m your son. I’m defiant. Just like you. You should be flattered the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And if you really want to know what’s going on here, since you could not see it through the walls of our fort, I’m no longer a virgin.”
“You—you completed the ritual?”
“No.”
“Then how?” the king roared.
That was my cue to stand. I did so awkwardly, more of the tent falling away as I hurried, naked and still damp with love, to reveal myself to the king.
“Father,” said Night, “you remember Star?”
King Dusk turned his red-eyed cyborg gaze upon me. “Star? Always out and about the palace, never parted from you until he went away?”
I nodded. “It’s me, your Highness.” My eyes traveled over his blue carapaces, his silver-edged, black cape that hid the gears and tubes and breathing apparatus that kept his body alive. The only human things about him were his voice, his obviously genuine caring for his son, and his still flesh-and-blood face. He still had his rosy lips, though the white teeth that flashed as he spoke were all fake.
“Star and I became reunited tonight,” Night explained. “What happened here was not any ritual. We’re lovers now.”
“But the ritual,” the king said. “It needed to be seen by the populace.” Then he paused. “Lovers, you say?”
Night and I both nodded.
Dusk clapped his steel hands together making loud pings. “So Star will quit the Academy and there will be a wedding?”
“Uh, well,” Night hesitated.
I stepped forward. “Yes. I already told Night I would quit. There will be a wedding. If your son will have me.”
“Are you proposing to me?” Night asked with a grin. “All naked and standing in a fallen fort of sheets in front of my father?”
I let out a short laugh. “Yes.”
Night threw his arms around me. “I accept!”
I embraced him in return, our slick bodies sliding together. Heat immediately rose.
King Dusk said, “Oh my. Oh my.” His eyes flickered black to red to black to red.
After that, the king allowed us to dress. I had nothing left but tatters of my silks, so Night gave me his shirt, which fell to my knees, and he wore only his blue denim slacks as we both prepared to leave.
As King Dusk led the way, we could see that people lined the corridors and halls, applauding. Even the androids of the palace had stopped their work, and seemed to be smiling as their aqua-lit eyes stared at our emergence from the Sacred Chamber of Exalted Pleasure.
Night clasped my hand in his. Then held it up high over our heads.
“To Star, my husband to be, the other half of my soul. Welcome him as our newest member into the royal family.”
“Hip-hip hooray,” shouted the crowd.
At twelve I had answered my calling and become the best I could be. But now my true calling had arrived to usurp my complacent heart and render my spirit into even great realms of ecstasy than I had ever known.
Tonight had been my very own Rite of Ecstasy.
*
Note from the Author
If you have heard of #cockygate, “Cocky Virgin Prince” is my answer to that event. If you haven’t, all you need to know is that sometimes an author may push other authors away and bully them for using certain words in titles that they think they own. This is my push back, with a story that takes already used tropes from my own worlds and uses them to make a love story that is unique in its own way, and has a right to exist. Many stories are alike, but no two stories are the same.
That is where this novella came from, inspired by #cockygate and a tribute to the idea that we must all be free to explore inspiration and see where it takes us even if someone else tries to tell us we can’t.
Wendy Rathbone
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