Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“You are most welcome, my Lady,” he said gently. “I do hope you enjoy your room during your stay with us and that the new clothing fits properly. If there is anything else you need or if anything doesn’t fit properly, please don’t hesitate to call for me. We have not yet removed the tracking tags, so anything you do not like can easily be exchanged.”
“Thank you, I’ll let you know,” I said, nodding.
He bowed his head again and then shut the door behind him, leaving me to explore my new room.
Don’t get too excited, I told myself sternly as I walked to the big, luxurious bed and started going through the new clothing. It’s not like you’re staying—you’re only here for a day and a night.
But I couldn’t tamp down my excitement any longer when I saw the new clothes. All this time I had been wearing layers made of pantha wool—which comes from a sheep-like creature that the Naggians raise.
These animals are about twice as big as Earth sheep and they can live in low-light conditions and eat the moss that grows on cavern walls. So they’re ideal for keeping inside either a cave underground or an ice-cavern. Their wool is a dull gray and it’s thick and scratchy and bulky but it keeps you warm—moderately warm, anyway.
But the wool isn’t nearly as good at holding in heat as fur is and that was what I was seeing on the bed—layers and layers of fur clothing.
Yes, I know back on Earth a lot of people feel like fur is murder. But here on O’nagga Nine, the creatures the fur came from would happily murder you if they got a chance. I had a new body suit to wear under everything else that was made of the superfine undercoat of a farnex—a creature that was something like a cross between a panther and a bear. It had paws as big as my face tipped with needle sharp claws that could rip a grown man’s head off his shoulders in one blow. I knew because I had seen a stuffed one in the O’nagga Nine Natural History Museum on one of my rare Mental Health days when I took a day off work.
Those days—the times I went to the dump to scavenge new furniture for my hole or the times I went to public exhibits and museums and concerts that didn’t cost anything—were only possible when my pimp, R’xs, was on a Tsk bender. I never knew when that would be—usually once a month he just wouldn’t show up out in the Central Hub. That was when I knew it was safe to go and it was also how I got to see the animal whose fur I was going to be wearing next to my skin from now on.
I slipped into the fur bodysuit, noting that I felt warmer already. The tracking tag on the right ankle was a little irritating but I decided I should leave it on for now. It would be better to try on all the clothes first before asking Daw’snx to remove the tags. These were the Naggian version of anti-theft devices—they allowed a store to know if their merchandise had been stolen and exactly where to go to get it back so they could prosecute the thief.
There were other layers to go over the bodysuit—all of them different kinds of fur and all of them smooth and sleek and not the least bit bulky or scratchy. There were even new socks and vandu hide boots to go with it. And best of all, there was a big, warm fur overcoat that wasn’t dyed bright green.
I stared at the coat, my heart pounding. Was the Baron trying to send me a message by giving me a new coat that wasn’t dyed the signature color of the Blood Whores? Was he maybe asking me to stay with him, to quit my job as a Blood Whore and move into his penthouse?
Don’t be an idiot, I told myself sternly. You just met him—he doesn’t know you well enough to ask you to move in and you don’t know him well enough to accept even if he did. Don’t let this Cinderella fantasy go to your head, Natalie. You’re not Julia Roberts and he’s not Richard Gere and you are not in the middle of a sci-fi re-enactment of Pretty Woman here!
But I couldn’t help taking pleasure in sweeping the new fur coat—which was a plush deep gray fur that seemed to surround my body like sexy smoke—around my shoulders. I strutted back and forth in front of the fireplace and looked at myself in the full-length viewer that was placed in one corner of the room. I looked like a model in the new coat, I thought—seriously, I could be walking the runway in Milan!