Page 16 of Horns & Heart
I tore my gaze away from him and looked around instead.Like the room Lissir had dragged me to downstairs, this one had carpets on the floor, except these were more varied in both color and texture.One was excessively furry and had pink unicorns on it.Most were of the thicker, softer variety, the kind that swallowed up your toes if you walked on them barefoot, and the varied colors made it look as if the floor were a colorful quilt.
There were two mattresses here, one on top of the other, and the top one was hidden under bedding—several blankets and comforters, and fluffy, plump pillows.Curtains hung in front of the windows, softening the evening light.
All in all, this was a comfortable room, nice and cozy, and the desire to throw myself on the mattresses and then not move for the foreseeable future was almost overwhelming.
“Do you like it, Rory?”Inkiri put my backpack down, then he pulled it open and glanced at me.
“It’s nice?”It sounded a lot like a question, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.Would he ravish me now to really tie the knot on this monster marriage?Would he be gentle when he did?Was ravishing ever done gently?
I was aware that I had no business whatsoever, finding any of this appealing, but not one of the people—the human people—I’d encountered after the monsters had come had ever fed me.Or carried my backpack for me.Stolen it, yes.More than once.Carried it, not so much.
I looked at Inkiri’s broad shoulders and the lines of his horns, the way they curled back and caught the light, all those ridges I wanted to touch so I’d know what they felt like.Would it be fun to feel him touch my bare skin in turn?I hadn’t been touched much, even pre-apocalypse.Maybe letting a monster touch me wouldn’t be so bad?
Before I could form an opinion on the matter, I realized my blood had decided to flow south.Huh.
Inkiri stood.
“Do you want me to put these on you?”Inkiri held up a pair of the cat socks he’d gotten me.
That just frigging did it.Tears stung my eyes, and my throat constricted.
Inkiri tilted his head to one side, then the other and stepped close.Touching close.Kissing close.He clicked at me.
“You don’t want these?”he asked.“You want something else?Sadir,tell me what you want, hmm?”
I wiped at my own face.“No, it’s… No one has ever gotten me the socks I wanted.Or, you know, something as nice.Never before.I mean, maybebeforebefore, you know?People bought me socks—it’s not like I was never given socks, but that’s really not the point.The last people I met, they wanted me to work in the fields for them all day and spend half the night praying, you know?It was one of those end-of-days cults that have been popping up, which I guess is sort of fair, given, you know.Everything.But they stole my stuff and chased me when I ran off, and you got me the socks I wanted.”I sniffled.“You guys aren’t a cult.”
Inkiri went still.He looked almost frozen, but I saw his nose twitch.He grabbed me around the middle, and—ever so gently—put me on the mattress pile, just sat me down.It was his mattress pile, I had to assume.
“We’re not a cult.We are family.You are not working in the fields, and I can get Vergis to retaliate if anyone should steal from you.”Inkiri was still clicking at me.
“Th-that’s good.”My throat felt raw, but this was nice.I was starting to feel safe.
Inkiri undid my shoelaces almost reverently before carefully sliding my shoes off, first the right, then the left.My feet had to be smelly.I’d been walking since sunrise, and I’d slept in my shoes.I’d started doing that in places I didn’t feel entirely safe in, and it had been a couple of days since I’d last felt safe.Inkiri gave no sign that he minded, and after he peeled my socks off—once more with extreme care, as if he thought feet broke easily—he examined my toes, soles, insteps, and ankles with careful touches.
“Like in the pictures,” he said.I froze, then pulled my foot from his hands when he ran a finger along my instep.He looked crestfallen.“Did I hurt you?Your skin there is very soft.”
“No, ticklish.Did you just say you looked at photos of feet?Is this a fetish of yours?I’m not touching your cock with my feet.”My brain chose to alert me to the fact that talking about cocks might mean cocks could be involved sooner rather than later only after the words were out of my mouth.I turned cabbage red.
Inkiri clicked and tilted his head from side to side.“What is ticklish?”
“Uhm, when you touch a person in certain places on their body, it tickles?It’s like… It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s…kind of funny?”
He didn’t have a noticeable accent when he spoke English like the others did—apart from the sexy British one—and the idea that he didn’t understand everything was something I had to get used to.Then again, this whole situation was one I had to get used to.
Inkiri nodded.“I’ve heard the word, but I was never really sure what it meant.Does it hurt you?Getting tickled.”
“No.It usually makes you laugh.”
He clicked.“Laughter is good.And by cock you mean penis.Or dick, prick, dong.”
At least he had vocabulary options for that.“Yeah.”
He nodded again.“Why would I want you to touch it with your feet?Is that what fetish is?Or is that a ritual for pleasure you enjoy?”
By the way he kept touching my feet, he was either less innocent than I had assumed or more.It wasn’t quite a foot massage; it was far too gentle for that.But since he was so gentle, his touch felt intimate.It was the weirdest thing.
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat.“No, a fetish is different.You know what, why don’t you ask Vergis to explain it to you?I simply don’t want to touch your cock with my feet.”
