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)
As much as I was beginning to care for him, I just couldn’t do it. Besides, I didn’t want to be some kept woman in his fancy penthouse. Wasn’t that what Julia Roberts said to Richard Gere in Pretty Woman? Or something to that effect, anyway.
I wanted to finish my thesis and defend my dissertation and earn tenure and teach somewhere—that had always been my dream. I couldn’t give it up to become Vik’tor’s Blood Bride and just hang around the house all day. Because there was nothing else for a woman on O’nagga Nine to do—you could either be a dutiful wife or some variation of sex worker—either a Blood Bride or a Blood Whore. Oh, there were a few famous actresses, but I was never going to break into that industry, even if I wanted to. I didn’t exactly match the Naggian standards of beauty.
No, I was better off going home. Or so I told myself as I tried to get comfortable on my side of the huge, round, pink bed. The mattress was comfortable but it was also so vast I felt like I was sleeping in the middle of a big empty field. Of course, Vik’tor was right beside me and I suppose I could have tried to cuddle with him, but he seemed to be sound asleep and I didn’t want to wake him up. Neither one of us had gotten much sleep the past couple of nights.
I tried to get some sleep—I ought to be sleepy, I told myself. I’d been through so much in the past few days I ought to be exhausted. And my body was, but my mind…well, my mind just wouldn’t turn off. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had never felt anything sexually until Vik’tor came along and what if I never felt anything again after we parted? I also couldn’t stop wishing we could stay together somehow, even though I knew it was impossible.
Finally, just as I started to get a little bit sleepy, I realized I had to pee, which is just about the most aggravating thing in the world. Because you know if you get up to pee, you’ll lose that fragile sleepiness after you go, and lay in bed awake for hours. But the longer you lay there, the more you have to go and you know that the need to pee is ultimately going to keep you awake anyway.
At last, with an exasperated sigh, I slid out of the big pink bed. I was trying to be quiet, so as not to wake Vik’tor, but he was snoring softly and didn’t even stir, so that was good.
I felt my way through the unfamiliar room in the dark, looking for the door that led to the bathroom. I nearly tripped and fell into the empty bathing pool in one corner of the room but finally I found my way to the small door and pushed it open.
Lights blazed on immediately from some source near the high ceiling. Feeling halfway blinded, I shut the door behind me quickly. Well, so much for relieving myself and getting back to sleep. My eyeballs felt like they had been stabbed with spears of brilliance—I was definitely wide awake now.
Surprisingly, the Tangellan version of a toilet didn’t look that different from the facilities on Earth except it was pale purple and about twice as large as a regular toilet back home. Luckily, there was a matching stepstool I used to climb up and perch on it.
After doing my business, I got down again—the toilet flushed automatically—and washed my hands in the pale blue water that flowed from a golden faucet in the sink. The sink was pretty tall too, but again I used the stepstool to get up to it.
As I washed my hands, I looked at myself in the shiny, gold-framed mirror hanging just above the sink.
“You look like Hell, girl,” I muttered to myself and it was true. There were bags under my eyes and unhappy lines around my mouth. What was wrong with me, anyway?
I knew the answer to that—I didn’t want to leave Vik’tor. Yes, I wanted my home and my family and my PhD, but leaving him felt like leaving the only chance I would ever have at true love. I know that sounds dramatic, but considering that my body had never responded sexually to any man but him, it didn’t feel untrue.
But what could I do about it? I couldn’t just…
Suddenly, high, tinny music started coming from somewhere. Frowning, I leaned forward. What was going on? It almost reminded me of when I was searching Riley’s apartment, six months ago when I had gotten sucked through her bathroom mirror by the Commercians. But that couldn’t be it, could it? The Commercians didn’t operate on Tangella Alpha-Prime—they only snatched girls from Earth—right?