Tracht did milk Alex the next morning, which was a relief but also a disappointment. Alex decided he liked orgasms when Tracht gave them to him, but getting his balls drained was better than the weird feeling of everything building up with no outlet.
After their morning business, Tracht sent a bunch of files to Alex’s tablet and told him to read them. They were random things about space travel, like the names of all the local ports and what the different sizes of ships were called. What the different parts of the ship were called, even. Starboard and aft and helm and stuff like that.
“I’ll test you on that at some point, so you’d better memorize it well,” Tracht told him.
If that wasn’t weird enough, Nadia mailed Alex.
Hey Alex!
I asked Mistress to ask Captain Tracht if it was all right for me to contact you, and he said yes so here I am! I just wanted to tell you that I had a great time at the movie. It was nice talking to another bondservant. My old friends just didn’t get it.
I’m kind of jealous you get to travel with Captain Tracht and Mistress, but I guess I’ve got Master here with me. He’s threatening to keep me locked up again though! Boo! (I know all of them are reading this. So nosy! :P )
Anyway. Send me a message before you’re outside of comm-space so I know what you’re up to. Feel free to share as many (many, many, many) details as you want.
❤
Nadia
Alex asked Tracht about the message and was told to respond or not, however he felt like. His first instinct had been to ignore her, and he did just that for two days after he received the message. But when he noticed Parsons staring at him on the ship, Alex decided that actually, he did want to talk to somebody who wasn’t pretending to be so much better than the rest of the world.
He told Nadia he was doing okay, and he waffled a bit but decided to tell her about the massage and rimming and orgasm denial. He left out the cage though, because Alex still hadn’t figured out what had happened.
Predictably, Nadia was extremely enthused by the scenario. “It’s great that you’re so close to Captain Tracht!”
Alex couldn’t figure that line out either, so he ignored it and just focused on the rest of her mail.
Between helping Tracht out, studying the random ship things (every wrong answer meant getting hit with the cane, and if he got too many wrong he wasn’t allowed to have dinner), and messaging back and forth with Nadia, Alex was so distracted that he forgot about Parsons.
He let his guard down, and went to the gym alone, where Parsons ambushed him by lurking just outside.
“Hey, Alex. Can we talk?”
It must have been almost two weeks since their confrontation. Alex was tired and sweaty and really not feeling up to more of Parsons’ judgment, so he growled, “No,” and tried to push past him.
Parsons stretched out his arm to block the way. “I want to apologize. I was out of line.”
That stopped Alex. “Wait. You’re sorry?”
“Yeah. Um, can we move some place more private? I think my cabin is empty right now.”
Parsons actually looked miserable. Alex considered turning him down anyway, but he’d been getting better at the friends thing, chatting with Nadia, and it’d be nice to be able to do that even once they’d left comm space.
“Okay. Sure.”
Hah, Parsons hadn’t expected Alex to agree, if the shocked look on his face was any indication. But he recovered quickly and led Alex down to his shared cabin, mumbling some awkward small talk along the way.
The crew cabins were tiny. Alex knew Tracht’s cabin was large, but he hadn’t realized just how large in comparison. The passenger cabins Nick and Alex had shared on their many trips between stations had had more space than this.
A small space at the entrance held a dresser bolted to the wall, with a shoe rack on the opposite end. Beyond that, there was a heavy bunk bed on each side, the frames heavy enough that the bed space was like an inset in the wall.
Four people total shared the room. Each bunk had a curtain, but there wasn’t really any privacy. No attached washroom either. Alex was glad he was staying with Tracht and not down here.
Parsons sat down on the bottom bunk of one of the beds and motioned for Alex to join him. In Alex’s experience, two people in one bed usually led to one specific thing, but he was pretty sure Parsons hadn’t brought Alex down here for sex.
Along the walls, and on the ceiling above the bunk, were a bunch of pictures. Mostly Meilin at various ages, but also of a pretty woman with long, dark hair and a bright smile.
If that was Parsons’ wife, Alex could see why he’d been attracted to her. Alex would not have turned her down. Her tits were a bit on the small side, but then so were Nadia’s and that hadn’t been a problem.
“Your wife was hot,” Alex said, and he saw Parsons flinch.
“Ah. Thanks, I guess. Xiaoyu was amazing. Pretty firm at times, but she had such a wonderful sense of humor, and we could just… talk for hours and hours, about everything and nothing at all.” Parsons traced a finger down one of the photos of Xiaoyu. “I think the worst part about losing her was knowing I’d never have those conversations anymore. Being alone to raise Meilin, not being able to share my hopes and fears for our daughter, or…”
Parsons looked over at Alex, and he must have seen how uncomfortable Alex was. “Right. Anyway, I just… wanted to apologize formally. About how I treated you.”
“How you treated me?” Sure, Parsons had been a dick, but he hadn’t really done anything.
“I shouldn’t have made assumptions about… about you and what you wanted. I tried to railroad you into a course of action because I didn’t consider your autonomy. That doesn’t make me much better than the Captain.”
From Alex’s point of view, Parsons and Tracht were nothing alike, but he wasn’t gonna tell Parsons that. If he wanted to feel guilty, Alex wouldn’t stop him. “Why’d you do it then?”
Parsons leaned back against the wall. “A character flaw. One that Xiaoyu, and now Kai, berated me about.”
“Huh?” The air in the small bunk area was getting a bit warm. Alex shuffled a bit farther away from Parsons, almost bumping his head against the top bunk when he sat up too far.
“If there was one thing Xiaoyu didn’t like, it was my hero complex. I dunno. I like helping people. And that’s fine, except sometimes I don’t stop and think about whether my help is needed. Xiaoyu told me to stop trying to rescue her from every little conceived slight. And then when Meilin was born, man, my protective instincts were in overdrive. I drove Xiaoyu crazy. She told me I had to let Meilin make her own mistakes sometimes.” Parsons shrugged. “I guess I forgot a bit without Xiaoyu around to remind me. I was talking to Kai and he pointed out that I’d done the same thing as always.”
Something was wrong with Alex’s chest. It was feeling weirdly tight, like something was blocking the blood flow. Alex clenched his hands and tried to figure out what to say. His voice ended up coming out a bit mangled when he said, “I don’t—I don’t need you to protect me. I can take care of myself.”
Parsons nodded. “Yeah. Intellectually, I know that. But we’re friends, and I can’t help but want to look out for my friends.”
What did people normally do in these situations? Alex knew that kissing was out—Parsons wouldn’t like it, Tracht wouldn’t like it, and Alex didn’t think he’d actually like it all that much either. He tried to remember what he and Nick did, and even there Alex was drawing a blank. He couldn’t recall ever having had a conversation like this with Nick.
“I guess… uh.” Alex stuttered and decided he didn’t want to be in the room anymore. He carefully stood up and stepped backwards towards the door. “Thanks. I think. I’m leaving.”
“Hey, Alex. I’ll try not to do it again, okay? Let’s just go back to hanging out like we did before.”
Alex nodded, not looking at Parsons, and then got out of there.
===
It was actually good that Parsons had apologized. Alex got to sit in the lounge and watch movies with everybody, and Parsons got Alex to join in on a few pool games, too. A couple of the other crew members gave Alex weird looks, but Alex just reminded himself that if they did anything, Tracht would rip them a new one and boot them off the ship as soon as he could. That thought made him almost wish they would try something, but everybody who’d been around to witness Carpenter’s humiliation was too smart for it, and the newbies had been warned in advance.
Alex and Parsons ended up watching a movie a few days later, one that Alex had seen before. “Nick and I watched this movie like ten times,” he said. “Kinda makes me miss him. Except if I ever see him again I’m gonna mess him up real bad.”
Parsons tensed. “That’s the brother you don’t like? The criminal one?”
“The only one I have,” Alex said. “We laughed so hard about this dude’s death face.” He pointed at the screen, where the slutty guy was getting chased by the serial killer.
“So… how did your brother get started in crime?” Parsons scratched his chin. “Were your parents like that too?”
Slightly annoyed since he really wanted to watch the movie, Alex turned his full attention to Parsons. “I dunno? Never knew my dad. Mom mostly had boyfriends who paid for stuff. If she was stealing or conning, she never shared her winnings with us.” Alex shrugged. “After we… after we left, Nick figured out that people will give you anything if you just ask the right way.”
Parsons flinched lightly, and the guy on the screen got severed in half by the killer. Alex laughed at the dumbfounded look on his face.
“Yeah, that’s the face. Man, you’d think they’d learn.”
“I think most people don’t expect to get… to get mugged or conned or murdered,” Parsons muttered.
If he didn’t like the movie, why were they even watching it? Alex would have been fine playing pool instead, and it wasn’t like he’d been the one to choose it either—that had been the other two crew members in the room, chatting quietly amongst themselves a bit farther away.
“The guy shoulda paid more attention and not been dumb enough to fall for the obvious trap,” Alex countered.
Parsons sat up straighter and looked at Alex. “Really? You don’t have moral or ethical objections to any of it?”
“What the heck are you talking about? It’s just a dumb movie.”
That made Parsons laugh kind of drily. “Right. Yeah. A dumb movie.”
Weird. Alex shook off his discomfort and turned his attention back to the movie.
… But why would Alex have ‘moral or ethical objections’ over a movie?
Thankfully Parsons dropped whatever was bugging him and laughed at all the right parts after that. Well, he looked pretty disgusted when the serial killer got gored, but Alex couldn’t blame him. The effects were pretty gruesome.
When the movie ended and the other two crew members left, Parsons lost some of his tension.
“The stars are different,” Parsons said suddenly. “When I have lookout duty, normally I can recognize where we’re going.”
That must have been the different route Tracht’s brother-in-law had mentioned. Alex shrugged. “They all look like little blurred lines to me.”
“No, look,” Parsons led Alex to the observation feed in the corner of the lounge. After a few taps, the small screen turned on. “Here, this purple cloud? We don’t usually see it from this angle. It’s off by a couple of degrees, and…”
He must have noticed that Alex had no clue what he was talking about.
“Never mind.” Parsons sighed and went back to the couch.
“So what’s the problem?” Alex asked. “I mean, so what if the stars are different? Don’t things move all the time in space?”
“Yeah, but not like… that cloud isn’t part of this solar system. Or this galaxy. If we take the current time of year and our normal travel trajectory into account, that’s not the view we should be getting.” Parsons rubbed his nose. “It just means we’re not going the same way we usually do.”
Again, Alex shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“No. I just thought it was interesting.” Parsons looked over at the clock on the wall. “Oh, it’s time for my shift. I’ll see you later.” He grabbed his stuff and jogged out of the room.
Weird.
===
Tracht was being... mostly himself. He really, really wanted Alex to learn stuff. To the point that one evening they sat down to watch a documentary about the early history of settlements on Pylos.
“This is kind of boring,” Alex complained, ten minutes in. He was flopped across the couch with his head in Tracht’s lap, and he wasn’t surprised when Tracht dug his nails into Alex’s shoulder.
“You’ll find that I absolutely do not care what you think of it,” Tracht responded. “If I’m going to take you out in public, I refuse to have you sound like a moron.”
“You’re going to take me out in public? Like, to your meetings?” Alex craned his neck to look at Tracht.
That weird look of annoyance from the other day was back on Tracht’s face, but this time Tracht sighed and started petting Alex. “If you can manage not to embarrass me, yes. So shut up and watch the movie.”
The movie really was boring though. Alex tried really, really hard to get himself to care, but knowing the names of the first cities or what Earth countries had claimed the planet or how the different parts of Pylos got delineated into their own separate countries just didn’t interest him.
He started wondering if he could distract Tracht with sex. Except Alex didn’t actually want sex where he ended up in pain, and he didn’t think just a blowjob would be enough to distract Tracht. He ended up fidgeting, his body full of energy with no outlet.
Two minutes later, Tracht grabbed a handful of Alex’s hair. “I know what you’re trying to do,” Tracht said. “It won’t work. We’re watching the movie.”
“But it’s boring.” Alex wiggled again, and he thought he caught a hint of a smile on Tracht’s face. Hah, Tracht would probably rather be doing something else, too. Maybe a few lashes would be okay, if the pay-off was not sitting through this crap.
Unless Tracht decided the punishment wouldn’t be lashes, but something more humiliating. Or—
Tracht’s tablet gave a shrill noise, startling both of them.
“One more day. One more day, and I would have been safe,” Tracht muttered. He paused the movie and fiddled with his tablet to pull the video app up on the main screen. The camera was angled so that Tracht would be visible to the other person, but Alex was completely out of the picture.
“Hello, Anna.”
Alex snorted at how unenthusiastic Tracht sounded.
“Johannes! I’m so glad I caught you before you left comm space.”
Anna was just as dressed up as she had been the last time. Alex suspected she just always looked like that, wearing her money with pride.
“Whatever this is can’t wait? I was in the middle of something.”
Anna didn’t look the least bit chastised. “It can’t wait four months! I’ll have forgotten all about it by then.”
“And that would have been so tragic.”
“It really would have. Vasilis told me you’d be arriving just in time for Johan’s birthday. So I’m planning a party, and you’re going to be there.”
Tracht’s lip curled in disgust. “Absolutely not.”
“It’ll mean the world to Johan,” Anna intoned. Alex thought she sounded kind of like Nick when he was trying to get people to feel sorry for him.
“I’ve told you a million times, I don’t care. I have no inclination to waste my time chit-chatting with people who hold no value to me.”
That was just like Tracht. Alex wondered what it took to hold value for him. Probably had to either be a business contact or a perv.
“Oh, come off it. I know you play a lot more antisocial than you actually are. Case in point: I ran into Dimitri today.”
“No.” Tracht’s fingers, which originally had just settled across Alex’s shoulder, curled until Tracht’s nails started digging into Alex’s skin. Alex held back a yelp, because he did not want to miss this conversation.
Way more interesting than a documentary.
“His business has picked up quite well. I bought one of his artworks. I would have bought one for you, but you insist on not keeping an apartment.”
Tracht made a very loud, frustrated sound. “We’ve been over this. It’s not worth it for me to keep an apartment when I’m never on station for more than two weeks at a time.”
Anna waved her hand dismissively. “If you were in a relationship, there would be an easy solution. He’d live in the apartment while you traveled. For example, Dimitri hinted he’d be open to giving you another chance.”
Wait. Alex’s amusement at Tracht’s discomfort melted away as he thought of this loser Dimitri trying to start something with Tracht. Or—he was an ex? Even worse. Alex tensed and tried to roll off of Tracht’s lap, except Tracht grabbed his shoulder and kept him in place.
“That is absolutely lovely for Dimitri. You’ll note the sarcasm there. But as that relationship ended about as badly as I’d expected, I refuse to put myself through any of that again. I do not like Dimitri, Anna.”
Anna’s expression hardened a bit. “Sarcasm completely unnecessary. And why in the world don’t you like Dimitri? He’s pretty and charming, and his art is brilliant.”
“For one, the relationship from the start was predicated entirely on my bank account. For another, the sex was abysmal.”
Did that mean Tracht hadn’t been a total dickhead to that Dimitri guy, or was the guy too enthusiastic or something? Alex tried to imagine Tracht being gentle during sex, but all that got him was a rush of irritation.
“You always say that! Every single relationship, you’ll claim the sex was terrible! I swear, you’re the pickiest person I’ve known. Is this what they mean with porn addictions? You’ve watched so much of it that you’re holding your partners up to an impossible standard?”
Tracht laughed cruelly. “I’m enjoying myself now. That’s why I got a bondservant, isn’t it?”
“Well, you can’t very well have a relationship with a bondservant. Not exactly somebody you can bring along to social gatherings. Especially not your current one. I looked him up. He’s hideous! And owing money to the Nilsens? Good god, you might as well start inviting all the gutter trash.”
If Tracht hadn’t stuck his fingers into Alex’s mouth at exactly that moment, Alex might have protested. Loudly. He nearly gagged when a few of those fingers brushed against the far back of his tongue.
“And you wonder why I never contact you, Anna. If you’re done with your judgment and intrusion into my personal life, I’ll bid you good night and see you in four months.”
“Yes, you will. In fact, I’ll have the entire family waiting for you at the docks. With signs and balloons. I’ll bring Mother, too. And we’ll go straight to the party from there.”
The way Tracht’s eyes widened was comical and soothed some of Alex’s irritation. “Don’t you dare—”
Anna hung up.
“Bitch,” Tracht spat out.
Hearing profanity from Tracht startled Alex so much that he ended up sucking in air—a mistake with Tracht’s fingers still in his mouth. He started coughing, which apparently reminded Tracht that Alex was still there. He removed his fingers and pushed Alex off his lap and onto the hard floor.
“Ugh,” Alex grunted and tried to find his breath.
“I suppose you’re happy,” Tracht said. “I am decidedly no longer in the mood to watch a movie.”
Was there a right answer to that question? Alex shrugged and scooted a bit further away from Tracht. No movie was a plus, but Tracht in a bad mood wasn’t exactly better.
Tracht sighed loudly and stood up. “I’m going to the gym. Stay here and don’t cause trouble. Or rather: please do. I would love to have a reason to take it out on you.”
“Do you need a reason?” Alex blurt out, like the idiot he was. He started shaking his head immediately. “I’ll be good! Never mind!”
But Tracht laughed cruelly. “You have a point. Come on then. Let’s find out how much you’ve learned from the movie.”
At some point, Alex really, really needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.
At least Tracht looked marginally less pissed off.