Domination Games Read online

  She pauses for a second, then punctuates her statement with a handful of popcorn thrown at the happy couple on TV, and a frustrated shout.

  “Noelle…” I say, and trail off, because this is how these conversations go. She knows what she wants, and she doesn’t really need my input for this part of it. She just needs me to listen.

  “It’s okay,” she says, right on cue. “We haven’t even been together for a year, and I always knew he wasn’t the one. I mean, remember that mustache he had when I met him? Ugh, what was I thinking, Ari?”

  I start giggling despite myself, and after a beat she joins in, and we trade shitty Robbie stories until she’s crying with laughter now. Maybe she’ll break up with him, maybe she won’t. She’s right, she probably won’t end up with him at the end of her story. But I’m in no position to judge her for taking the long way around.

  “What about you?” Noelle asks a little later, when we’re cuddled up in her bed, eyelids heavy with liquor and emotion.

  “Me?” I repeat, blinking into the darkness.

  “Yeah, what about your K?” she says, her shape warm and familiar beside mine. “It must be going well. You spend practically all your time with him.”

  I roll the possible responses around in my mind before speaking, trying to decide which half-truth to lean into. But lying here in the dark together, wrapped up in the pure, untouchable kind of intimacy that only longtime friends can share, I feel compelled to tell the truth. I’m not sure what I’m going to say until it’s spilling out of me, the reality of my situation unspooling in real time.

  “I’m in deep, Noelle. Real fucking deep. Maybe this is a huge mistake, and maybe I’ll regret it. Hell, I’ll probably regret it. But right now, it doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever known before, good or bad. This is life changing, one-in-a-million, otherworldly, and I’m not going to run away from it just because it’s a little scary.”

  “I thought it was just sex,” Noelle says very quietly, as if afraid she’ll spook me.

  “Yeah, it is,” I say after too long a pause. Then again, not sure which one of us I’m trying to convince. “It is.”

  When I get to my apartment building a few nights later, there’s a distinct aroma wafting down the hallway. I assume a neighbor is making dinner, but when I arrive at my front door, I realize the smell is unmistakably emitting from my apartment. Confused and slightly alarmed, I unlock my door and enter. What I see makes sense, bizarre though it may be: Verit, looking handsome as always with his sleeves rolled up and the stained denim apron that usually hangs in my pantry tied around his waist, standing over my stove, stirring a big pot. I easily forgive the troublesome yet unsurprising fact that he’s apparently broken into my apartment, because holy shit, this scene is sexy.

  “This is a surprise,” I say, setting my bag down in the foyer and shrugging off my jacket.

  “I thought we’d agreed to dinner tonight,” Verit says.

  “Yeah, but I thought that meant a restaurant, later, maybe after I showered and changed.”

  I gesture at the yoga pants and oversized tee I’m wearing, and Verit just smiles.

  “I think you look delightful, as usual,” he says. I roll my eyes, biting back a secret smile.

  “I’m gonna go change anyway,” I say.

  I rapidly throw on jeans and a comfy but flattering sweater, and shake my hair out of its messy ponytail. When I reemerge, bare feet patting quietly on the hardwood, Verit is ladling the contents of the pot into bowls.

  “Do you need help with anything?” I ask, feeling awkward in my own home. I’ve gotten good at our game, but tonight Verit is playing a wild card I didn’t even know was in the deck.

  “I’ve got it,” he says, gesturing for me to go sit in the dining room.

  The table there is set more formally than it has been since I moved here, with a small candle lit and everything. He gently sets a bowl in front of me, and the whole thing feels so unsettlingly… Romantic? Domestic?

  I push the thought aside and focus on my meal. It looks kind of like a stew, with chunky vegetables bobbing in a thick, pale red sauce.

  “Thanks for cooking,” I call out as Verit heads back to the kitchen for something. I play with my spoon nervously, waiting for him to return. “Do you cook often? Your kitchen looked pretty… unused.”

  “When I have reason to,” he says, reemerging with a bottle of red wine and pouring us both glasses. “With our technology it’s not necessary, but since arriving here I’ve found the process of manually putting together a meal very satisfying.”

  He sits, and I take a bite of my stew. “Oh my god, Verit, this is incredible.”

  It’s creamy, with rich flavor. I recognize squash, sweet potato, and carrot in the mix. I can’t identify one ingredient, though. The small orbs look like red peas, but have the meaty texture of a bean.

  Verit has been watching me, and grins when I look up at him with a perplexed expression.

  “I see you’ve found my secret ingredient,” he says. “Those are a type of berry from Krina.”

  My eyes widen. I’ve never had real K food before. Although the K have been living among us for a while, in my experience it’s uncommon for them to share their culture like this. I take another bite, savoring the unfamiliar sweet, slightly spicy taste of the berries with new appreciation.

  “Wow, Verit, thank you,” I say after a moment. “I’m not really sure what to say.”

  He shrugs it off, and asks about my day. I make half-assed small talk, my mind still buzzing with alarm. I know I should be grateful for this thoughtful evening, but my guard is up. Is this a date? It feels a lot like a date, not our usual kind that is essentially just foreplay, but a serious one. My insides feel restless within my skin. A casual fling with a K is one thing. This feels almost too real.

  It’s his night, but after dinner I fake a headache. It’s the oldest trick in the book, but I’m hoping maybe the Krinar haven’t heard about this particular cliche yet. Either way, he offers to fetch his K healing technology, but I tell him it’s okay, he can go, and he begrudgingly does so, only after cleaning my kitchen thoroughly and all but tucking me into bed.

  After he leaves, I lie awake and wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. A gorgeous man—with the sickest dick game I’ve ever experienced—made me an incredible meal, just because. Why is this causing me so much distress? He’s beautiful, with incandescent eyes, the softest hair, and a body that makes me swoon. He’s intelligent beyond my understanding, funny in a weird way, and always listens so intently to even my dumbest rambling. And, my god, does he know how to work my body.

  I’ve never really had commitment issues, not with human men. But the idea of a serious relationship with a K makes my stomach twist, even after all these weeks sharing my bed with Verit. I’m still so scared of the consequences, of what my friends would think, what my family would think, of what I would think of myself.

  But one loud worry rises above all the rest, perhaps the biggest of them all: I think I’m starting to fall for him.

  The next time Verit comes over, I’m prepared. It’s my night, and we’re not wasting any time with homemade dinners, expensive wine, or conversation. He only has to rap on the door once and I’m dragging him into my apartment by the lapel, shoving him against the wall, and kissing him for all I’m worth. He only seems surprised for a second, before lifting me to his hips so that I’m slightly above him, the way he knows I like.

  “Take me to bed,” I whisper in his ear, nibbling on the lobe gently, and he eagerly obliges.

  I have my K go down on me until I come once, twice… until I lose count. Until the blinding pleasure he provides drives any thought of the provider, any thought at all out of my mind. His tongue, his lips, his hands… the feeling of his skin against mine sets me alight, his touch burns me, leaving indelible marks that could never be er
ased or rewritten, not by anyone, not ever.

  “Fuck me,” I beg, softly, then louder, because I can’t stand having him so near, I can’t stand not having him closer. I need him as badly as I hate this desperate desire he creates, I crave his touch as intensely as I fear it. “Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me!”

  When he’s inside me, I can almost pretend I don’t see the walls crumbling down around us. When he’s making me scream, I can’t hear the alarm bells.

  After, lying drained and drowsy in my bed, I watch my K dress. He steps into his overpriced jeans and pulls them up in little hops, a goofy quirk that feels so human. He pulls his henley over his head, the slow stretch showcasing rippling abs. My heart beats faster even as he ties his shoes, with quick, precise tugs. I want to memorize this routine. I want to memorize all his routines, no matter how small or insignificant, drink them in until they become mine, and mine become his.

  He looks back at me before he leaves, and I pretend to be asleep. Through slitted lids I watch him hover in the doorway for a long minute before turning away, flipping off the light as he goes. A click of my front door, and then he’s gone, and I feel myself deflate. I’m half drunk on exhaustion, too far gone to think straight, but without him around, I only feel halfway myself anymore.

  Verit told me that his bite could be addictive, but he never warned me about the way I’d come to crave him.

  I keep up the charade for longer than I thought I was capable of. I make excuses to avoid any interaction with Verit outside of the bedroom, no matter how tempting. I overthink our every moment together, until I’m sick living in my own head. I know what my truth is, I’ve known it for a long time. But these feelings come with heavy consequences, so I go back over and over again to the only thing that can silence them, if only for a moment.

  Tonight he knocks on my door right on schedule, a familiar sound that elicits a Pavlovian beating in my heart and tightening in my sex.

  “I like the hairdo,” Verit says as he closes the door behind himself, gesturing with a nod to the two messy buns I’ve got over my ears.

  “Thanks, I used to call them my Princess Leia buns,” I say, squishing them down a bit to more closely resemble their namesake.

  “Princess Leia?” Verit repeats, looking confused for possibly the first time ever.

  “Yeah, like from Star Wars?” I say, but he still looks lost. “The insanely popular movie franchise? You’ve never watched them?”

  “I can’t say I’ve ever felt particularly intrigued by your human entertainment,” he says with a shrug, folding his coat over the back of a kitchen chair and moving to unbutton his shirt, as usually I would have already torn his clothes off myself by now.

  “Nope, we’re fixing this,” I say, swatting his hands away from his buttons. I run to the living room while Verit follows, his perturbed expression now bemused.

  “Fix what?” he asks, as I click on the television and pull up A New Hope. “Ah, I see.”

  He sits down on the couch and after pressing play, I join him. Verit and I have experimented with a lot of positions over the weeks, but this one is unfamiliar. Verit lounges on one end of the couch, arms spread along the back comfortably, while I perch stiffly on the other end, the space between us miles longer by the second. Our bodies fit together so naturally when we’re naked, why is this so different?

  “Is this really what you humans imagined spaceships to be?” Verit says with a loud scoff as the first ship drifts onto the screen, wildly shooting poorly animated lasers.

  “To be fair, this is a super old movie,” I say, suddenly intensely defensive of us humans. “We had no idea very real aliens would arrive sooner rather than later.”

  Before he can respond, the infamous droid duo appears on screen, and Verit bursts out laughing. Again, my first instinct is to take the reaction personally, but as my K continues to nearly guffaw with pleasure, I can’t help but join in. We finish the movie that way, with Verit commenting on every factual error regarding space and aliens, and me pointing out the shitty visual effects, and the both of us laughing until my belly hurts.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how dumb that would probably seem to you,” I say as the credits roll.

  “No, I loved it,” Verit says, quite genuinely. “I found it rather amusing, and I can see why something of the sort would be so compelling to humans, before our arrival. Aren’t there more of these?”

  “You want to watch another?” I ask, a little taken aback. “‘Cause there’s like, a million more.”

  “I very much want to,” he says, so I let the next one play, then the next.

  As we watch, Verit’s laughter slows, as he becomes wholly enthralled by the story. At a similar pace, our bodies naturally lean and curl toward each other, until I’m tucked against his side and he’s absently stroking my hair while transfixed by the cheesy action on the screen.

  I could get used to this, I think, before drifting off.

  When I wake up the next morning, my K is still holding me.

  I’m shivering on the walk home from brunch. After last night, I feel as if the energy around us has shifted ever so slightly, but then again, I’m probably just too much in my head.

  “I hate this damn cold,” I say when we get back to my apartment, untangling myself from a seemingly useless scarf. “This winter has been eternal.”

  Verit looks at me, then looks thoughtful for a moment.

  “So let’s go to Costa Rica,” he says, leaning against the counter, and I freeze with my arms awkwardly over my head.

  Because the other shoe, the one I’ve been waiting on for months now? It just dropped.

  I know what’s in Costa Rica. It’s one of the most infamous K compounds. It’s the one that the much-whispered-about charl are always being whisked off to.

  “Verit, I can’t,” I say, setting my scarf aside and squaring my shoulders, nerves shot. “I have a life here, family, friends… I can’t just disappear. You can’t just take me.”

  Verit furrows his brow.

  “Take you? What are you talking about? I thought a warm weekend getaway would be a tempting treat, was I mistaken?”

  “Weekend getaway?” I repeat, my spiraling heart coming to a screeching halt. “I thought you meant— Shit, I did it again. I assumed—“

  “That I’m the big bad K, here to steal you away against your will?” he asks, with a light smirk. “Ari, you should know by now, I’d never make you do anything you don’t want to do. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

  He chuckles at that, but I still feel like the worst.

  “V, I’m sorry—”

  But he cuts me off by literally sweeping me off my feet, gently placing me on the kitchen counter and meeting my mouth in a kiss that is both gentle and ravishing.

  “Well?” he says when we come up for air. “Want to sneak off to sunny Costa Rica for a couple days?”

  After work that Friday, I meet Verit at his apartment with a bag packed to the brim with all my favorite summer clothes. Even Noelle was blatantly jealous of my little vacation. When we head to the roof of his building, I’m expecting a helicopter—which already would’ve been pretty damn cool. Instead, what I see is a tiny beige pod. Despite its utter lack of entrances, Verit heads directly towards the object, and a door-like opening appears as if by magic.

  I gasp despite myself. “Holy shit.”

  “Are you going to be this easily impressed all weekend?” Verit asks, holding out a hand to help me hesitantly step in.

  “Probably,” I say.

  Verit laughs and directs me to sit on a floating plank. I tentatively lower myself onto it, expecting it to disappear beneath me at any given moment, but instead the material seems to meet me halfway, subtly molding itself around my body the way Verit’s bed did. From the inside, the pod is completely transparent, which is absolutely horrifying as it gently
lifts and suddenly rockets ahead at an impossible speed. A small shriek escapes my lips in shock, but dies off as I realize the ride actually feels as smooth as a slow drive. Below us, the city looks like a time lapse photograph, tangled streaks of light dancing in the twilight.

  “How long will the flight take?” I ask, turning to Verit when the blur becomes dizzying.

  “We’re nearly there,” he says. “Here, I’ll slow down a bit so you can see.”

  If I thought Verit’s pod was impressive, Lenkarda is breathtaking. The green blur focuses into a stunningly lush landscape. As we slow and begin to descend, I spot what look like giant, pale mushroom caps scattered throughout this specific area of the jungle. Definitely not human structures. The largest, a pure white dome, seems to mark the center of the compound, and smaller green and brown buildings clearly delineate what must be the perimeter. My heart pounds with the sheer alienness of it all. It’s one thing to see the otherworldly creatures walking the streets of our cities. It’s another to take one of their alien spaceships to their alien compound, surrounded by their alien technology, impossibly far from the comforting familiarity of my human life.

  The pod lands as gently as it took off, and we exit into a small clearing. I look around, but in the rapidly dimming twilight, all I see is thick jungle. When I turn back to Verit, the ship has already disappeared.

  “Did it take off again?” I ask, miles past confused.

  “No, I simply unmade it, as we won’t be needing it for a couple days,” Verit explains, as if this would make any fucking sense to me. He catches the expression on my face and tries again. “Ariana, have you ever heard of nanotechnology? I’m not an expert, but I could explain the basics.”