Tamed By The Alien Barbarian by Celeste King
Jaxil
“Hey, would you cut that out?” Xxuric said from a few steps away on the dance floor.
“You’re one to talk,” I told him as I broke from the pawing and kissing Candi and I had just been engaged in. “Besides,” I added, “this is our wedding.”
“I told you the genetic mate thing was powerful,” Xxuric laughed as he danced Heather away from us.
“He wasn’t kidding,” Candi told me as she pressed herself against me. It was everything I could do not to tear the beautiful, flowing white wedding gown from her and take her right there on the dance floor in front of all out guests. “Do you think we’ll feel this in love forever?”
“Yes,” I said, without hesitation and with complete sincerity.
“Promise?” she asked, biting her lower lip.
“You can rely on it.”
“From me, too,” she said. Satisfied, she pressed her cheek against my chest as we continued to dance through the swirling lights and the orchestra’s music.
“Of course,” I said, now, whispering to her, “if you break you’re promise, I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”
She looked up at me. Her eyes danced and I knew she was thinking of the same sort of spanking I was.
“Promise?” she asked.
“Guarantee it,” I said.
She pressed herself closer to me. When the song ended and she went off to find more champagne, I had to shift the crotch of my tuxedo shirt to avoid a replay of our first interaction.
I clapped for the band then headed back toward our sweetheart’s table. As I went, I couldn’t help but laugh. Laughing for no reason was something I’d developed of late. I’d spoken to someone about it, and been told that it was a symptom of a disease I had called ‘happiness.’
Sipping the bourbon one of the caterers had set at my table for me, I looked around at the party. It was hard to believe that I, Jaxil, bachelor extraordinaire, Sanax millionaire playboy, had chosen to settle down and get married. With a human lady, no less.
Yet things could not have been going better. The mining operation on Mars was more successful than we could have ever imagined. Using a technique that Candi had thought of and my research team had developed, we’d sped up production while also minimizing the environmental impact of what we were doing. We were even consulting now with the terrafarmers on ways to improve Mars’ ecology while we dug up her resources.
The business was doing so well, it was nearly self-sufficient, now. The woman who had run Terra Firma’s mining operation, Chioma, was now running the day-to-day operations of our whole business. Candi’s assistant, Mandy, had left the company to start a non-profit that supported human and Sanax women looking for a new start. She’d shown up at the wedding with her own bride, which was surprising. Turned out they’d eloped to Mars on a whim and were very happy. This was their first trip back to Earth.
With the day-to-day of the companies now out of our hands, Candi and I found that we had time for each other. The finishing touches on our dream house, located in a remote crater on Mars, would be done by the time our shuttle touched down after our honeymoon.
Delicate arms wrapped around my chest from behind. I felt Candi’s body press against my back.
“My husband?” she asked.
“Yes?” I said, still scanning the party.
“Do you think there are other planets just waiting to be mined?”
I turned halfway and took her under my arm.
“Let’s see,” I said. “Saturn and Jupiter are out. Too gassy.”
“Like your parents,” Candi said under her breath, looking toward the corner table where my folks – her new in-laws – sat.
“Careful,” I warned her playfully, “or I’ll gore your father the next time he tries to touch my horns.”
“So, no to Saturn and Jupiter,” Candi said, getting us back on topic.
“However, I fully believe the moon Titan to be a treasure trove.”
“Mm,” Candi said, sipping her champagne. “And did we invite the ministers in charge of deep-space lunar mining to our wedding?”
“My goodness, I think we did,” I said with a knowing grin.
“Would that be him dancing with one of my bridesmaids?” Candi asked, nodding her chin to the dance floor.
“I suppose that must be him. He seems like he’s having a very good time.”
“Too bad he doesn’t know she only sleeps with chicks.”
“Too bad he doesn’t know we’re only buttering him up…”
“I can’t believe we’re pulling deals at our own wedding,” Candi told me, leaning into me.
“It was your idea.”
“And what does it say about you that you agreed to it?”
“That I love you totally and utterly?”
She looked up at me. We kissed again. The bond between us clicked in once more and I felt like I wouldn’t be able to get enough of her.
“Get a room, you two,” said Heather as she and Xxuric sidled up to us once again.
“This is our room,” I joked, gesturing to the grand hall we’d paid for.
“C’mere a moment,” Xxuric said, putting a hand on my neck and pulling me away from my bride. He practically dragged me to a far corner of the hall.
“Hey, hey, what is this?” I asked. Xxuric finally released me. He stood there and stared at me, as if sizing me up. “What’s going on, man?” I asked him. “You’ve got me a little spooked.”
“How do you feel?” Xxuric asked, his voice betraying no emotion that might give me a clue as to what this was all about.
“How do I feel? It’s my wedding. I love Candi. I feel great.” Although I was also starting to feel kind of annoyed with him.
Then, Xxuric seemed to choke up.
“I’m so happy for you, man,” he said. And suddenly he was crying and laughing simultaneously as he pulled me into a great big hug.
“Hey… hey, thanks, man,” I said, slapping him on the back. He pulled from the embrace but still held me at arm’s length.
“I’m also so grateful to have someone else in my life who knows what the genetic mate thing feels like!” he said eagerly. “You have no idea how hard it is. I mean, I feel like I’m a mad person, half the time, with the intensity of the passion I feel for Heather.”
“You sure you’re not?”
“But now you feel it, too, right?” Xxuric went on. “You feel it with Candi.”
I considered making a joke. Playing it all off. The old Jaxil would have done just that. He was too cool to be bothered by emotions and all that shit. The old Jaxil was buried, though. Buried deep, somewhere no drill could ever find to dig up.
“I do feel it,” I told Xxuric with earnest. “And now I understand the pull you have toward Heather.”
“We’re both gonna be so fucking happy,” my best friend said with a smile.
Wrapping our arms around one another’s shoulders, we returned to our wives. They gave us questioning glances, but we remained silent on what we had spoken of. Even genetic mates get to have tiny secrets they keep to themselves.
Too soon, the party wound down. We said goodbye to our friends and family. Then I escorted Candi out of the hall. A shuttle was waiting to take us to a hotel before we left for the first leg of our honeymoon. As the chauffeur-pilot stood holding the door open, however, I paused.
“My dear,” I said to Candi, “have you ever made love in the sky?”
Her mouth dropped open. Before she could respond, I’d snatched her up and gone airborne.
She would never forgive me for stripping her of her wedding gown somewhere over a city, where it drifted down onto Polit only knows what or whom.
On the other hand, she never forgot our wedding night, either.
