When She Dances
I never expected to spend my days as a dancing girl…but it beats the alternative. In the window of a filthy space station cantina, I gyrate my hips and hope for better days.
When I’m bought by the most intimidating alien on Three Nebulas Station, those better days are on their way. Zakoar of the Broken Back is a cyborg who deals in black market prosthetics. He’s terrifying to look at, with a metal jaw and a fearsome demeanor. He intimidates everyone in the galaxy…except me.
Zakoar doesn’t want my name. In fact, he doesn’t want anything from me…except a little bed sport. In exchange for my willingness, he’ll take me to a human-friendly planet where I can live unafraid.
Love isn’t part of the bargain, but every moment that I spend with him, I learn more about the male beneath the metal…
…and I’m suddenly dreaming of a very different happy ever after for myself…
1
TESSA
Sometimes, when I'm dancing, I fantasize about a different life.
I don't dream of Earth or returning home—that's too unrealistic, even for me. So I fantasize about different things. I dream that some hero is going to storm into the cantina, demand to buy me from Abuar, unhook the chain at my ankle, and then carry me away from here. Heck, in my fantasies, we even leave Three Nebulas Station. We leave the crowded, humid halls, the dark rooms and slightly run-down apartments. We leave behind the taste of recycled air and the constant whirr of engines and we go someplace new. Someplace with sunshine and light, and the air is fresh and clean.
These are the things I dream about. It's those dreams that carry me through another day of the same irritating music that drones on and on, songs that I grew tired of dancing to months ago. It's the dreams that keep me going when yet another alien customer shows up at the edge of my stage and tries to grab me. I kick away one of the tentacles and point at the sign that's been installed at the edge of the stage. I can't read it, but it's written in several alien dialects and tells customers not to touch me, that I bruise easily and anyone that bruises me will be fined.
That part is certainly true. I do bruise easily. Always have. It's genetics. And because my skin is so pale from being inside the cantina, those bruises show up livid against my skin. It's why I dance in the window of the cantina instead of working in the back rooms like the rest of the slave girls. A naked, gyrating human brings them in the door, and by the time they have a few drinks in them, they no longer care that I'm the only human here and they can't buy a few hours with me.
So…dancing's not so bad. The chain on my leg is for my own protection—so no one can carry me off while Abuar is distracted. That's happened before—hence the chain. I'm too valuable to lose, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Probably good, because no one that steals me ever has pure thoughts in mind. Bad because it means I'm stuck here forever, dancing in this shithole of a station, aliens of a dozen different worlds leering at my naked, shaking ass.
At least I get a window. I press my palms to the glass and swing my hips, and as I stare out the window at the crowds, I see a familiar face.
The robot guy. The cyborg.
He's watching me again.
A shiver runs through my body and I swing my hips with a little more enthusiasm. He always seems to come out of his shop at least once a day and watches me for a few minutes. He never comes into the cantina. Never talks to me. Just stares from afar. It happens every day, just like I'm in this window every day. And because he's a regular occurrence, he features in my fantasies.
Sure, he's scary looking. He's inhuman, and the metal parts woven all through his body don't help that particular aspect. But he's big and strong and he never shows up at the cantina to drink and paw at me, so sometimes I fantasize about him. I dream that he's going to be so taken with lust for me that he shows up and demands to buy me. That he's gentle and kind despite the brooding, terrifying exterior and he bridal-carries me out of the cantina and into a new life.
It helps to have a healthy imagination, I tell myself. It's the only way I stay sane in this garbage dump that is my existence. So I press my nipples to the glass, letting them bead up against it as I sway, my eyes on the man with the silver jaw in the distance.
Come and save me, I tell him. Come and take me away from all this.
He never does, though. And after a few minutes, he disappears back into his shop and my fantasy fades. With a sigh, I turn back toward the cantina, run my hands down my body, and give a little smile to the gathered customers at the edge of the stage.
Just another day.
My feet hurt by the time the cantina closes for the night. They always do. It's twelve hours of standing on the stage with only a break long enough to eat and drink something, to take a quick pee, and then I'm back in the window, listening to shitty alien music and dreaming about getting away from this place. No shoes, of course, since that'd ruin the whole “naked dancing girl” look, and so I grimace when the bartender arrives with the key to unlock my cuff.
"Long day?" Chaila asks, giving me a weary look. She's an ooli, a froglike, squat race that isn't exactly prized for their beauty. I'm surprised she's one of Abuar's slaves, but she mixes a mean drink and she's utterly loyal, so I guess that answers it.
I shrug as she unlocks me and holds a hand out so I can hop down off the stage. "They're all long."
"Well, this one's about to get longer," Chaila says in a no-nonsense voice.
Immediately, I freeze. She holds a blanket out to me, knowing that I get cold when I stop dancing and the sweat dries on my skin. I don't take it. Instead, I have a bad feeling. "Am I…going back to the rooms?" If so, it's my worst nightmare. I hated the time I spent back there, giving customers a different kind of “service.” Hated how dirty I felt afterward, how they groped me and touched me in places that weren't theirs to touch. That's why I never complain about dancing—because it beats whoring. I'd much rather shake my ass in a window all day long. I'm the lucky one. I know I won't always be so lucky. I know that the day I get too old-looking or my tits drop that I'm fucked. No one wants an elderly dancing girl, and I'm creeping up on thirty. I lie and tell everyone that I'm twenty-six, but Abuar will figure it out when he does the math in his head. Right now, as long as I look good, I'm alive, and I'm in the window.
But Chaila shakes her head. "It's not that. Abuar wants to have a meeting with the staff." Her mouth flattens. "Tonight."
"Oh." I take the blanket from her after all and drape it around my shoulders. "A meeting right now?" Really? But we're all so tired…not that it matters to Abuar. We're here to serve him, and he might call us “staff,” but we know the truth of the matter. We're all slaves.
Chaila just walks toward the far end of the cantina, her short legs moving quickly around a puddle of spilled drink on the floor. "He's in a rotten keffing mood, too. More arguments with the syndicate." She makes a sound of disapproval in her throat. "He's going to get us all murdered."