Page 33 of Monster Married
Fellisse leaned in, and I glanced at his impressive horns before I looked back into his striking blue eyes. “I wonder why Rory always gets odd when talking about pillow play and being naked.” He turned to Inkiri. “He was behaving very oddly back on Earth when Noki and I joined him in the bath too. It’s very strange.”
Inkiri nodded. “Rory feels embarrassed when my barb makes him scream.”
I gasped. “What the—you don’t have to—guys, seriously. You can’t just talk about me like I’m not here, and we don’t need to talk about… Don’t talk about the barb, okay? Or getting naked.”
Fellisse’s dark green eyebrows shot up, and he looked at Inkiri, then back at me. “Very odd. Rory, it’s a very polite thing here to not address a person directly. It’s a compliment for someone to say, like I did about Hove, that he’s insatiable. It reflects well on him, and when your mate tells me how his barb makes you scream, it reflects well on both of you, on your senfesmen. You don’t do that on Earth at all?”
“It’s polite?”
“Yes,” Inkiri said. “I thought you were so very short with everyone most of the time because you had been lonely.”
I facepalmed. “Guys. Are you telling me I’ve been rude all this time while you’ve been trying to be polite with the talking like I wasn’t there and about the other stuff?”
“Yes, sweet thing,” Inkiri said while Fellisse nodded.
“So I’m the rude human who’s too steeped in the prudish ideals of not talking about my body or showing anyone my body. Basically, I’m not the one who married a weirdo, you are?”
Inkiri clicked at me while Fellisse tried his best to control his laughter.
“Look how sweet he is,” Inkiri said to Fellisse. “He thinks I’d mind having a weirdo.”
Fellisse finally let out a barking laugh. “This one always thinks he’s funny, Rory,” the big bagu said to me. “He forgets I’m the funny one.”
That made Inkiri shove Fellisse playfully, which in turn made me smile. At them as well as my own inability to pick up on stuff, but that was probably fine. Maybe my social awkwardness in bagu culture was okay if I was my bagu prince’s trophy mate. A trophy mate was probably not supposed to be smart or socially skilled. I’d just have to look pretty, like the second tree from the left—something right up my alley.
I really was hoping trophy mates were a thing. If not, I would definitely make it my thing. I’d so get into being the bestest trophy mate that ever trophied, specifically because if those existed, I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be doing any kind of magic at all.
“Well, I will go sleep.” Fellisse’s laughter had ebbed, and my resolve had hardened. “Oh, Hove contracted Vergis to do some magic work on the wall on behalf of the magistrate, by the way.”
Inkiri clicked. “Ah. I was wondering why he wasn’t around. Thank you for letting us know, and see you later.” He gave my neck a quick lick before Fellisse walked past us, presumably so Fellisse would see Inkiri slide my scarf aside to do it.
Yeah…that seemed like the kind of thing you did with a trophy mate.
“I really like the scarf thing,” I told Inkiri when we stepped off the bridge on the other side. I was going to get into scarves, hard. I looked up at Inkiri and batted my eyes at him. “Would you maybe get me another, Ink?” I was seriously overacting and descending into damsel territory, but this was an opportunity I couldn’t let pass me by.
“Of course, Sadir.” Inkiri let go of my wrist to cup my neck. “You’re not angry? I swear, I had no idea you didn’t like us avoiding directly addressing you. To be honest, I never gave it a second thought.”
I sighed and leaned into him. “To be honest, I didn’t not like it. I just thought you were all a bunch of big, manly, macho monsters.”
“Well, no. That’s not very accurate at all.”
“I’m getting that. Slowly. Intercultural marriages for the win though, right?”
“I’d rather we call it a mating since marriage sounds quite arbitrary to me, but yes. Human-bagu matings for the win, sweet thing.”
I was distracted when I noticed two bagua to my left staring at me more intently than anyone here had before. The two were just pedestrians like us, both wearing light brown clothes and with the same broad shoulders, checking out wares at a stall, and they looked away when I caught them staring. So much for humans not raising any eyebrows.
Inkiri clicked. “Rory? You want to walk around? Or are there too many people?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I wasn’t prepared last night, and it was really crowded, but this is fine. Oh! You said that sadir stuff was food, right? Do they have that here?”
“Ah. No, they don’t. It’s for the high festivals—Year’s End and Year’s Half, and depending on the region, the Moons’ Gathering at the end of the second harvest season.” He grinned at me. “But I’m sure we can find something with billet bean for you to try. And examine the color of it.”
“Yeah, Fellisse is right. You’re not as funny as you think you are.”
That made my weirdo mate break into laughter. I could get used to hearing that sound every day for the rest of my life.
Chapter 11
