Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Of course, the new coat I’d gotten from Elli had helped allay the cold somewhat. It kept me warm enough that I could drift off in a few minutes instead of a few hours spent with my body clenched tight as a fist on the bed, shivering. I was grateful for its warmth though even with the thick fur, I still felt constantly cold. Being a Florida girl, I just didn’t think I would ever get used to the constant freezing temperatures here on O’nagga Nine.
To finish my morning routine, I rinsed my mouth with a swig of water from my jug and chewed a tiny strip of denti-moss. The moss was bright purple and grew on the walls of most of the tunnels. It had antibacterial properties and a faint, minty flavor. It was also the main form of oral hygiene on O’nagga Nine.
Since the Naggians all had such long, white fangs and never seemed to have to go to the dentist, I figured it was good enough for me too, and so far at least, I hadn’t had any tooth pain or cavities. It was possibly the only good thing about the whole damn planet.
Well, it was time for another day. I pushed up the sleeves of my coat to compare my arms, trying to decide which one was in better shape. But honestly, they both looked awful. All up and down the undersides of my forearms were bite marks and bruises. The bruises were the spots where Naggian customers had gripped my arms while they shoved their fangs into a vein—they showed up as dark purple and blue marks on my light brown skin and were painful to touch.
Still, as much as my arms ached, there was no way I was letting prospective customers have access to either my neck or my inner thigh—which were the two preferred spots for biting with Naggian men. See, blood isn’t just nourishment for them. When they bite a woman, it arouses them sexually and they tend to get kind of rough. I was afraid if I let one of them bite my neck, he’d go crazy and rip my throat out!
And as for biting my inner thigh, well that was a no-go for obvious reasons. I didn’t want some customer getting the wrong idea and deciding that sex was on the menu as well as blood. Besides, in order to allow that kind of access, I’d have to let a customer into my hole—thigh biting was forbidden in public. Naggians even had a polite euphemism for it—“drinking from the lower fount” was what they called it. And there was no way I was letting some strange alien man into the place where I lived and lifting my skirt for him.
Deciding that my right wrist and forearm were marginally better than the left, I pushed open the door to my hole, ready to do another day’s work…only to be greeted with the grinning face of my pimp, R’xs.
FOUR
NATALIE
“All right now, Natalie, what’s this I hear about you not giving the customers what they want?” R’xs demanded, giving me a wide grin which showed his long, yellow fangs. There was zero humor in that grin—it was the most threatening expression I’d ever seen and it scared the pee out of me.
My eyes flickered up and down the tunnel, looking to see if there was any help—but of course there wasn’t. The Naggians don’t really have a police department—they come from a strictly stratified society where everyone stays in his or her place and that went double for the lowest of the low, which happened to be me. Nobody was going to care if R’xs beat me up or cut my face off with a knife—I was just a hsh’frux Blood Whore—lower than the dirt beneath their feet.
I started to close the door on him but R’xs was too quick for me—and much stronger than I was too. He slammed the door of my hole against the wall of the tunnel and beckoned for me to come out.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, R’xs,” I said through numb lips, as I reluctantly exited my hole. “I always give the customers blood when they ask for it. I mean, that’s my whole job—to sell them my blood, right?”
“Wrong, girly.” R’xs’s frightening yellow grin widened even further. “Because I’ve heard from several customers lately who said they wanted to buy and you weren’t selling.”
“I…I mean I don’t know what—” I began, stumbling over my words.
“Don’t pretend ignorance, you little slut.” A second Naggian male stepped out from behind the curve of the tunnel and I recognized my would-be rapist from the night before.
“You!” I exclaimed as he pulled himself up to his full height—which actually wasn’t very tall for a Naggian. He was dressed in another impressive smoking-jacket robe—this one was navy blue with elegant silver embroidery—and he had a superior, disdainful look on his face as he looked down his nose at me.