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Liam closed his eyes and allowed Ondry to guide him back to their quarters. His head pounded, and even though the Grandmother had assured him that the headache would pass, he worried a little. When he’d joined the military, they had gone on and on about the danger of oxygen loss. They did drills for loss of atmosphere while on the ship. They had training in oxygen preservation during mechanical failure. This had touched a little too close to old fears that Liam didn’t realize he still carried.
Ondry pulled him to the side, and Liam cracked his eyes open enough to see a younger Rownt hurrying past them. With a groan, Liam let his eyes fall shut again. Ondry would keep him from walking into any walls.
“You smell of distress,” Ondry said with a touch of a glurble in his voice.
“You need to stop sniffing me.”
Ondry paused, and for a second, Liam hoped the conversation was over, but then Ondry said, “When I ask about your health, you always tell me you are well.”
He had a point. But in Liam’s defense, he usually did think he was fine. And then he would be going along and find that life wasn’t fine. It wasn’t as if he was lying to Ondry. Rather than argue a point he couldn’t win, Liam said, “If you asked now, I would tell you that my head hurts. I would like to avoid doing this again.”
Ondry didn’t answer. They walked down the empty corridors. Other than the one youngster, Liam hadn’t heard any footsteps other than their own. Rownt were crazy enough that they might all be avoiding the passage leading to their quarters. The Rownt never surprised Liam anymore, at least not when it came to how obsessive they got around palteia and children.
When Liam heard a door mechanism, he opened his eyes to see their quarters. “Oh thank God,” he whispered. He headed inside and silently blessed Ondry when he only turned on one small glow light.
“Do you wish to avoid the Imshee?” Ondry asked.
Liam headed for the back room. He wanted to curl up in the nest. However, Ondry caught his hand and pulled him toward the seating area. Apparently, they were going to discuss the Imshee now. “You’re asking if I want to stop seeking a longer life, aren’t you?” Liam asked.
Ondry sat and pulled Liam down next to him. “I could try to trade for the technology that would allow the Grandmothers to perform any alterations.”
Liam let his eyes fall closed. “Your use of that form of ‘try’ implies that you are likely to fail.” He opened his eyes again and turned to look at Ondry.
Ondry sat silent, his nose narrowed in disgust, probably with himself. He hated it when he felt like he had failed in some way. Some days Liam worried about how much he expected from himself. And Liam was not helping to ease that burden right now. “I trust the Grandmothers to keep the Imshee from harming me again,” Liam said. “The situation I would avoid is breathing air with too little oxygen.”
Ondry’s nose muscles relaxed a little. “We agree on that.”
Liam nodded. Hopefully the deep discussions were over. He needed to crawl into bed and close his eyes until his head stopped trying to fall off his shoulders. “Why aren’t we going to the nest?” he asked.
“Do you wish to sleep?”
“No, but I want to lie down,” Liam said.
Ondry stood, but he kept his hand on Liam’s shoulder to keep him from standing. “Then you can lie down on the seating.”
Liam blinked as he tried to process that. Rownt had strong divisions between spaces meant for sitting and spaces meant for sleeping. Liam suspected the tail had something to do with that. He imagined getting a tail caught against a flat surface like a stiff seating cushion would hurt. “Rownt don’t lie down on seating.”
“You are human, and I saw many flat beds in Earth literature,” Ondry countered.
“Yes, but I’m comfortable in the nest.” At this point, Liam wasn’t sure he could sleep without a curved surface and a mountain of pillows. He certainly couldn’t sleep in his narrow military bunks.
“You need the ilsil, and the nest could make that difficult,” Ondry said.
Liam studied Ondry for some signal that he was being humorous. When Ondry waited in silence, Liam said, “Humans have live birth. We don’t have a spot with exposed nerves.”
“Yes, you do.” Ondry leaned over.
Liam frowned in confusion until Ondry pressed his lips against Liam’s. The kiss was slow and soft, and Ondry ran his thumb over Liam’s cheek. When Liam hummed, Ondry ran his fingers through Liam’s hair. The headache faded as Liam found his whole world narrowing down to his lips, the cool touch of Ondry’s fingers on his face, the point where their knees pressed together. Eventually, Ondry pulled back, and Liam moaned, half pleasure as the sensation of touch lingered and half sorrow that the kiss had ended.
“We can do that in the nest.” Liam wouldn’t have minded a whole afternoon of kissing.
“Kissing is mutual ilsil. I wish to gift you with touch that is for you alone,” Ondry said.
“You can’t perform the ilsil on me,” Liam said, but he suspected he would lose the battle because Ondry was already pulling Liam’s shirt off.
“Allow me to attempt it.”
Liam sighed. He didn’t have the energy to fake bliss, but for Ondry he would try. So when Ondry reached for the waist of his pants, Liam arched his back and allowed Ondry to pull them free. It left Liam in the plain white wrap that Rownt used as underwear.
“Come, lie down,” Ondry urged him.
When Liam tried to do that, Ondry pulled at him, maneuvering him until Liam was lying on his stomach. Ondry crouched next to the sofa, but Liam was too tired to ask for explanations that probably wouldn’t make any sense. Closing his eyes, Liam tried to relax. He wished the flat couch with its thin cushion was a nice curved nest with soft pillows stuffed with down and moss, but even this was bliss compared to the hard table in the Grandmothers’ recovery room. Ondry rested his large hand against the small of Liam’s back, and Liam pressed up into the warmth.
Ondry ran his hand up Liam’s spine to his neck. Instead of tracing small circles where the neck met the shoulder, the way Liam did when performing the ilsil on him, Ondry pressed his fingers into the hard muscles at the back of Liam’s neck. Inch by inch, he worked his way down the spine to Liam’s waist with a strong, steady stroke before he began kneading the muscles along Liam’s sides.
Shivers went up Liam’s spine as his muscles yielded to Ondry’s massage. There was no way that Ondry had spontaneously discovered human massage, so he had been doing some research on the side. Sneaky Rownt. “You’ve been reading,” Liam said as Ondry’s wandering hands moved down his body again.
“The Grandmother requested help choosing instructional materials that would help her support her palteia’s needs.” Ondry placed a kiss on Liam’s shoulder and then he shifted down and massaged Liam’s ass.
If Liam felt even a little bit better, he would take that as an invitation for tail sex. However, as good as the massage felt, his head still throbbed, and the massage was more relaxing than sexual.
“I’m going to avoid thinking about the Grandmother massaging Zach.”
“Why?” Ondry firmly stroked the back of Liam’s legs.
Liam didn’t have an answer for that. In his head, Ondry was the only sexy Rownt, and thinking about other Rownt being intimate, even if it wasn’t sexual intimacy, just felt wrong. It was like when he was a kid and he realized that his mother was an actual woman who had sex. It had horrified him.
Ondry continued. “Since your reaction to non-procreative sex was unpredictable in the beginning, I chose to explore other forms of intimacy she might use. This form seemed pleasant.” Ondry picked up Liam’s right foot and ran the palm of his hand over the bottom before kneading it. His strong fingers sent tingles up Liam’s legs and back.
“Massage.” Liam mumbled between happy groans. He knew that Rownt lips would never be able to master that combination of syllables.
“Touch-bonding,” Ondry suggested as a substitute. Liam had to admit that was a fairly accurate description. “Like Rownt, humans have a biological reaction to physical stimuli.” Ondry pressed his thumbs into the arch of Liam’s right foot before switching to his left one.
“It’s not the same,” Liam said. It was hard to focus with his muscles slowly turning to mush. Even his headache had started to fade. Ondry’s hands paused for several seconds before returning to work. “With Rownt, any touch on the ilsil will cause relaxation, correct?”
“Yes. That is why no Rownt would allow an adult near such a vulnerable spot.”
Liam rolled to one side and looked at Ondry. “It’s not the same with humans. If we don’t trust the person doing the touching, the touch will cause us to grow more tense.”
Ondry shifted so he knelt closer to Liam’s head. “I thought humans would hire professionals with whom they had no relationship, particularly when they had physical needs such as those with injuries or those who performed athletic feats.”
Liam figured that was probably true, even if he had never been one of the people who could afford a massage, and in the part of town where he’d been raised, those offering massages often only touched one body part. However, that answer didn’t address Ondry’s real confusion. “Those people trust the professional massage therapist by reputation. They have usually researched the person’s credentials.”
“So one’s reputation would be vital in such a profession.”
“Yes.” Liam rested his hand on Ondry’s arm. “If there is no trust, the massage doesn’t work. It can even cause great pain.”
Ondry’s eyes widened. “You smell of less pain.”
“I trust you. The touch-bonding relaxes me.”
The skin around Ondry’s eyes tightened. “Like the ilsil.”
“Very similar, although I had not made the connection before now.”
Ondry sat back on his heels, watching Liam. Liam was sprawled on his arm and he squirmed around to pull it out from under him. After several minutes, Ondry said, “The choice of whether to trade with the Imshee is yours. I have no opinion on the matter.”
Liam smiled. “You’re lying. You hate that humans have such short life spans.”
In response, Ondry’s nose tightened slightly. Immediately, he flared it. He was trying so hard to hide his visceral disgust, and Liam loved him for that. Ondry said, “I will never comment on your life span, no matter how many years you have.” The seriousness of his tone made it clear this was a vow Ondry was offering.
Liam closed his fingers around Ondry’s wrist. “This was a mistake. I do not fear the Imshee, although I question their common sense. I say we should continue to trade and use this to wring more profit out of them.”
Ondry darkened with pleasure and relief.
“Now, I am so relaxed that I’m ready to fall out of my skin, so maybe we can go to the nest and sleep,” Liam suggested. In the end, nothing else would truly cure his headache. Ondry scooped him up, and Liam squawked, and grabbed for his shoulders. “Warn a guy!” he said as Ondry carried him into the bedroom.
“Any time you are injured, expect that I will carry you,” Ondry said. “Unless you tell me I cannot or unless you need more oxygen and I am in danger of holding you too tightly and restricting your respiratory system.”
Liam sighed. Just when he was getting his guilt issues under control, Ondry had to grow his own crop. At least they would never be burdened with too much perfection. Ondry lowered Liam into the nest and grabbed a light cover before crawling into the nest with him.
After wiggling around, Liam found the perfect position, and Ondry curled around him. As he was falling asleep, Liam felt Ondry’s tail wrap around his left leg. Maybe life wasn’t perfect, but Liam liked the thought that at the end of a bad day, he could come home to Ondry.