The Asgardian was back. She didn’t so much as glance Minn-Erva’s way, just strolled up to Ernst and demanded an enormous bottle of a foul-looking green liquor Minn-Erva hadn’t known they even sold. The Asgardian—fucking 142—put her lips to the mouth of the bottle, tipped her head back, and took a long pull of the stuff right there at the bar. Then she wandered over to a booth and set the bottle on the table with an audible thunk. She belched loudly.
If any of the other jetsam that had washed up into this sewer of a bar had been paying attention, they’d have thought 142 hadn’t noticed Minn-Erva at all. Minn-Erva knew better, though. 142’s legs were sprawled open for Minn-Erva’s benefit, an invitation for her and her alone, and the belch had been for her, too, because 142 liked flaunting how thoroughly she’d embraced life on a trash planet.
Minn-Erva ignored the fuck out of her. She wiped up the bar. It’d probably been pink originally, with little silvery flecks embedded in it that were still just barely visible, but these days it was more of a battered gray. She fixed the tap that had stuck, which was not that different from unsticking a jammed laser rifle. It was funny, the elite military skills that transferred.
Inevitably, Ernst came over to her and said, “Look, can you get your woman out of here? She’s scaring off the other customers.”
Of course she was. That green bottle was more than half gone, and 142 was starting to look bored. Much longer and she’d be itching for a fight, and everyone knew it. The Grandmaster’s pet scrapper had a reputation.
“She’s not my woman,” Minn-Erva said.
Ernst shrugged, and the orange fin on his head wobbled. He gave her what he no doubt meant to be a wolfish grin. Would’ve worked better if his kind had any teeth.
“I’m on shift,” Minn-Erva tried.
“Take the night off,” he said, like he was being generous.
Minn-Erva rolled her eyes and then, in a moment of weakness, she let her gaze wander to the corner 142 had staked out for herself. Of course that was the moment 142 finally deigned to look at her. Her eyebrow rose, and there was a gleam in her eye that went straight to Minn-Erva’s cunt. From the curve of 142’s lips, she knew it, too.
“Fine,” Minn-Erva said.
142 had long since turned her attention elsewhere by the time Minn-Erva arrived at her table. Or that was how she wanted it to look, anyway. Without glancing up, she said, “You got anything fried on the menu?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Minn-Erva said. “I’m off the clock.”
“Oh yeah?” 142 said, finally looking at her again. She managed to look surprised, innocent of any bullshit whatsoever that might have brought this about.
“Yeah. All I have left to do is take out the trash.”
From behind her, Minn-Erva heard a quiet gasp of shock. 142 grinned, showing off improbably white teeth. “You’re taking me out?”
Minn-Erva rolled her eyes. The rumors about Asgard that had reached Star Force hadn’t prepared her for how fucking cheesy Asgardians were. Or maybe it was just this one. “That’s right.”
142 cocked her head, thoughtful and ever so casual. “Yeah, all right. Service here is shit anyway.”
Minn-Erva rented the apartment above the bar at a discounted rate in return for scaring off the occasional intruder after hours. Halfway up the stairs, 142 set her bottle down on a step. She took Minn-Erva by the hips, maneuvered her firmly against the wall, and kissed her. Minn-Erva put up with it for a few moments, and then 142 tried to slip her tongue between Minn-Erva’s lips, and Minn-Erva got a taste of what 142 had been drinking.
Minn-Erva shoved her off. Or at least, she got 142 to stop kissing her, which was about the best Minn-Erva could hope for given their strength differential. Some rumors about the Asgardians were true, it turned out. “That stuff is foul,” Minn-Erva said.
142 only grinned. “That’s because you haven’t had enough of it yet.”
“Pass,” Minn-Erva said, squirming out of her arms and continuing up the stairs. When she reached the door she looked back down to where 142 still stood, watching her with a gaze much too sharp for how much she’d already drunk from that bottle. “Well?” Minn-Erva said. “Are you coming?”
142, damn her, didn’t even make a joke about coming. She just picked her bottle up, climbed the stairs, and waited for Minn-Erva to open the door. Minn-Erva was already sorry for letting Ernst talk her into leaving early—for letting that smirk on 142’s lips get to her and make her want.
Minn-Erva wanted a lot of things, and none of them were on this shithole planet, much less in the shithole apartment she was currently standing in.
“You’re not drunk enough,” 142 observed.
Minn-Erva snorted. “That’s your solution to everything.”
142 took no visible offense. “My solution to this, anyway. You’re wound even tighter than usual. That why you haven’t been around?” Minn-Erva answer that with a glare, because where she’d been was none of 142’s fucking business. 142 shrugged. She popped the stopper on the bottle and held it to Minn-Erva’s lips. “No fun shagging you like this, so drink up.”
“Fuck you,” Minn-Erva said, which was a mistake, because it gave 142 the chance to trickle liquor into her open mouth. Minn-Erva coughed on it, first because some went down the wrong way, then because of the bitterness. Some of it got down her throat, though. She could feel it searing a trail all the way down into her stomach.
When she’d gotten over the coughing, she found 142 watching her, unimpressed. “This time try not talking,” she said. Again she lifted the bottle. Her other hand gripped Minn-Erva’s hip, firm and unyielding and just a little too tight. Her eyebrows were lifted in challenge, her gaze still sharp—daring Minn-Erva to refuse, like that’d prove her right somehow.
Minn-Erva held her gaze and took a swallow. It was all she could do not to gag, but she was motivated by the twitch of 142’s lips as she just barely managed not to smile. After a couple more swallows, Minn-Erva could start to feel the liquor working, warming her insides and numbing her palate all at once. After the next gulp, she said, “That’s enough. I haven’t got your tolerance, remember?”
“It’s not even that strong,” 142 said, laughing. “Why do you think no one else drinks it?”
“Why do you drink it, then?”
“I like the flavor,” she said innocently. “Don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Minn-Erva said.
“Mmm,” 142 said, warm and suggestive. She took a long pull from the bottle. Now, up close and walled away from any prying eyes, Minn-Erva let herself watch the muscles of 142’s throat as she swallowed. “Now you,” 142 said. Once again she put the bottle to Minn-Erva’s lips.
To hell with it. Not like Minn-Erva had any other plans or anywhere else in the universe to be. Ernst wouldn’t expect her downstairs again until tomorrow, and she still had 142’s fingers digging into her hip, 142’s eyes burning holes in her: both making promises her body really hoped 142 was going to make good on. So why the hell not.
Minn-Erva opened her mouth and started swallowing, and this time she didn’t stop. The bitterness must have finished burning her tastebuds away, because she could hardly taste it anymore. All she could feel was the liquor pouring down her throat and into her belly. 142 said something and started to pull the bottle away, but Minn-Erva gripped it with both hands.
Finally she came up for air. She looked up to find 142 looking back, eyebrows high. “Acquired that taste pretty fast,” 142 said.
Minn-Erva wiped across her mouth with the back of her hand. 142 had been telling the truth about the liquor not being all that strong. If it’d been like what she normally drank, Minn-Erva would have been flat on the floor by then. She was starting to feel it, though: a hazy looseness. An uncoiling somewhere metaphorical but also in her chest. “Am I drunk enough now?” she asked.
“Hmm,” 142 said, speculative. She pulled Minn-Erva in for a kiss. Minn-Erva opened her lips without any protest this time; after all, now they both had the same foul flavor in their mouth, the same unrelenting bitterness. No point in trying to keep it out. And now, as the alcohol washed Minn-Erva’s own private disappointments away like so much sand, she found she wanted 142, needed her—or she needed something, anyway, and 142 was what she had.
Minn-Erva kissed her hungrily, mouth to open mouth. 142 was still holding the bottle, but Minn-Erva’s hands were free, and she used the advantage to start unclasping 142’s breastplate. The booze was starting to hit Minn-Erva harder, flowing through her bloodstream and over-lubricating her joints, so every move she made went a little bit farther than she’d meant.
Still, she got 142’s top layer off and lifted it over her head. She kissed her again. 142 hummed into her mouth, a self-satisfied sound that seemed to buzz all the way down into Minn-Erva’s gut. Her lips tingled against 142’s mouth. She pressed up against 142 and palmed her deliciously muscled ass.
“Missed that, did you?” 142 asked.
“It’s all right,” Minn-Erva said, fooling nobody. She didn’t mind that so much either, anymore. She cupped the meat of 142’s cheek in her hand, gave it a satisfying squeeze, and followed the curve of it down to where it met 142’s thigh. Minn-Erva’s skin caught on the the plastic surface of 142’s pants. “Why are you still wearing these?” Minn-Erva muttered.
“Thought you’d never ask,” 142 said. Minn-Erva wasn’t sure that made sense, but she was willing enough to help 142 unstrap her thigh sheath and tug her boots off, which was a two-person process. Minn-Erva had never figured out how 142 got them off when she was alone. Maybe she didn’t; maybe she slept in them.
And then, before Minn-Erva really had time to notice what was happening, 142 was tugging Minn-Erva’s clothes off, her pants, her shoes. 142’s hands were steadier than Minn-Erva’s, and she helped with all the fine details: buckles, clasps. In between she snuck more kisses and a grope now and then, palming Minn-Erva’s breasts each in turn.
She bumped her knuckles up against Minn-Erva’s labia, too gently to feel like anything but a tease. “So where you been, then?” 142 asked.
“What?” Minn-Erva asked. She gripped 142 by the wrist and pressed the heel of 142’s hand against herself. There, that was something—not enough, but something.
“You’ve been gone, what, two weeks? The fish guy wouldn’t say where you were.”
“None of your fucking business,” Minn-Erva said, though without much heat. The heat was all in her groin.
“Hmm,” 142 said. She shook off Minn-Erva’s grip and stepped back, inspecting Minn-Erva with a critical eye. Half an hour ago Minn-Erva could have brushed it off, but she was mostly naked now and on the far side of tipsy, and it was infuriating to have 142 look at her like she knew a single fucking thing about her that couldn’t be learned from—well, fucking.
“You want a fuck or an interrogation?” Minn-Erva demanded. “I’m only sticking around for one of those.”
“Still not drunk enough,” 142 declared. She swept the bottle up from the floor and held it to Minn-Erva’s lips. There wasn’t much left in the bottle, and she had to tip it high. Minn-Erva let her. She closed her eyes and swallowed down the last of the liquor—still that brilliant glowing yellow-green—because refusal would have felt like losing. No way was she letting 142 win now, never mind that she’d long since lost track of what game they were playing. Never mind that there’d been more in the bottle than she’d thought by looking at it, and the liquor on top of the water she’d been drinking all shift was starting to make her feel a little stretched, a little overfull.
When Minn-Erva had finished, 142 set the bottle down, smiling benevolently. Minn-Erva should have been alarmed by that expression, but even when she was sober her sense of self-preservation was weak around 142, and she was not sober now. The fury that had driven her through the day—had driven her back to Ernst’s two days prior, when she’d been so sure she’d seen the last of him and his bar for good—had guttered and died.
That fury was all she’d had left. “Fuck you,” she said miserably.
“Shhh.” 142 pulled Minn-Erva in for a kiss: a bizarrely gentle one by their standards, her mouth moving slow and deliberate against Minn-Erva’s while she brushed her thumb sweetly along Minn-Erva’s jaw. She dropped her hand lower, stroking along Minn-Erva’s belly and slipping between her legs, thumbing over her panties along the line of her labia. The touch tickled more than anything, and Minn-Erva squirmed against it.
“Quit with the teasing,” Minn-Erva said. “Touch me or fuck off.”
“Hmm,” 142 said, leaning back and giving Minn-Erva that critical eye again. Casually, without so much as a shift in expression, she said, “I’m gonna fuck you with my tongue until you can’t remember your own name. Acceptable?”
Minn-Erva blinked at her. It took her liquor-slow thoughts longer to catch up than her body did. “Yeah, all right,” she said, even as arousal throbbed gently through her cunt.
142 hooked her thumbs in the waistband of Minn-Erva’s panties and pulled them down. Minn-Erva stepped out of them. By the time she’d managed that feat of coordination, 142 was already sprawling on her back on Minn-Erva’s tiled floor. Minn-Erva stared down at her, uncomprehending.
“You gonna sit on my face or just stand there?” 142 asked.
“Fine,” Minn-Erva said. She stumbled gracelessly to the floor, nearly kneeing 142 in the gut, which would have served the woman right. She crawled to one side of 142’s head and then, still high up on her knees, she straddled 142’s face. Her attention caught on 142’s mouth down there between her legs, gapped open a little with her pink tongue just visible inside.
“Well?” 142 said. There was just a hint of acid in the word, for flavor. That shook Minn-Erva from her daze. She took a sharp breath, tightened up her core, and descended carefully onto 142’s face.
142 gripped Minn-Erva’s ass and shoved her a couple of inches forward, making grumbling noises all the while. Minn-Erva flushed with humiliation that prickled down her back. She had sat on a person’s face before, once or twice, but it’d been a long time ago—another life, on a real planet—and she hadn’t just had half a click of dubiously-sourced liquor poured down her throat.
At least, she probably hadn’t. Since she’d crashed on Sakaar, a lot of those old memories had grown hazy, even before the liquor.
And then all conscious thought vanished entirely, gone in a flash like a fleeing school of fish, because 142 had just licked up into Minn-Erva’s cunt. Minn-Erva shifted at the sensation, and 142’s grip on her hips tightened. It felt like a deliberate reminder: Minn-Erva was the one on top, but that meant nothing, because she didn’t go anywhere 142 didn’t specifically want her to go. Just then, a little drunk and more weary than she’d even realized, Minn-Erva admitted to herself that she liked that about 142.
Half an hour later, Minn-Erva was revising her view. 142 was taking her own sweet time, teasing with her tongue like she had with her fingers. She’d suck on Minn-Erva’s clit, and then she’d wander down one side of her labia and up the other, leisurely, like she was taking a stroll. Fruitless arousal throbbed through Minn-Erva’s cunt. She was aching for some kind of friction or something to grind against, but every time she tried to move against 142’s mouth, 142 lifted her right off of her face.
“Now, now,” 142 said, when Minn-Erva tried yet again.
“Fuck you,” Minn-Erva said. In back of the arousal was an increasing pressure in her gut. A shift’s worth of hyrdration and a third of a giant liquor bottle were working their way through her, making the question of coming ever more urgent.
“You’d like that,” 142 agreed. She licked Minn-Erva from her lips. Minn-Erva was aroused enough now that 142’s face paint was starting to smear. 152 craned her neck so she could lick a teasing strip up the side of Minn-Erva’s inner thigh. Then, “I’m not getting you off if you’re up there,” as if 142 weren’t the one who’d moved Minn-Erva in the first place.
“I can get myself off,” Minn-Erva said. And then she could piss. She shifted her weight again and changed her mind. Pissing first.
“But you’d rather I did it,” 142 said.
Minn-Erva of Star Force would have climbed off, orgasm be damned. Minn-Erva of Star Force had had conviction; she’d called the shots. Minn-Erva of Sakaar hesitated. 142’s tongue in her cunt was the best thing that had happened to her in weeks. Longer, maybe, if she let herself think about it.
“Come on, then, no more teasing. I give you my word.”
“Fine,” Minn-Erva said. She dropped down on 142’s face again, squeezing 142’s skull between her knees: get on with it. That pressure in her bladder was building, like a dammed lake swelling with too much rain.
At first 142 did: sucking on Minn-Erva, even nipping at her with her teeth, which Minn-Erva should have been pissed about, but even the bright, brief sparks of pain were better than the infuriating gentleness of 142’s tongue. 142 had eaten Minn-Erva out before; Minn-Erva knew she knew how to get a woman off with her mouth. Minn-Erva pulled at 142’s top knot and wished she wore her hair loose, so Minn-Erva could tangle her fingers in it and get 142 to get the fuck on with it. And every time she rose to give 142 air, 142 took one gulp and then dragged Minn-Erva back in place.
And then, abruptly, that need to piss overcame even Minn-Erva’s frustrated arousal. “Fuck,” she said, trying to shove away, to crawl off 142 and scramble towards her bathroom. 142 grabbed at her hips and held her there. Minn-Erva slapped at her hand, yelling, “I have to piss, you moron!”
And then it was too late. A trickle escaped, despite Minn-Erva tensing every muscle in her groin to keep it in. Then the trickle grew to a gushing current, to a flood, and Minn-Erva was emptying every last drop of fluid in her body onto 142’s face.
It seemed to take an age, an eternity. When it was over, 142’s grip relaxed at last. Minn-Erva crawled off of her, trembling with fury and emptiness. She lost her balance in the process and fell flat on her ass in a pool of her own piss.
142 sat up. She was soaked from the neck up. Rivulets of urine streamed down her face. Droplets of it hung from her eyelashes and fell to her breasts. To Minn-Erva’s disbelief, 142 licked slow and careful around her mouth, catching all the drops of moisture clinging to her upper lip. “You let it all out, did you?” She grinned, showing all her white, white teeth.
“What the hell was that?” Minn-Erva demanded.
142 shrugged. “Felt good, didn’t it?”
While Minn-Erva gaped at her, 142 crawled up to her—hands slapping wetly on the floor—and pulled Minn-Erva in for a kiss. By the time Minn-Erva realized what 142 had in mind, she already had the taste of her own piss on her tongue.
She pulled back. 142 didn’t stop her. “What is wrong with you?”
“Well, isn’t that a question for the ages. How about this: what’s wrong with you?”
“What?”
“You’re stuck down here in the garbage with the rest of us. And the piss,” she added, wiping at some trickling down her forehead. “The faster you accept that, the better off you’ll be. Otherwise you’re gonna keep pushing too hard, trying shit that any idiot could have told you wouldn’t work. Trying to steal a ship from the Grandmaster, say.”
Minn-Erva tried not to react to that.
She must not have succeeded. 142’s eyebrows rose, unimpressed. “You’re lucky you’re even still alive. He’d have melted you with that new toy of his if he’d had any idea that idiot who crashed it had an accomplice.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Are you going to tell him?”
142 rolled her eyes. “What for?”
She left that hanging in the air for a moment like she really thought Minn-Erva might answer. When Minn-Erva just kept on staring at her, joints locked in terror, 142’s expression softened. “Look, I’m not telling anyone. Promise.”
Minn-Erva choked a laugh. “What good is a promise from you?” she asked, even as her common sense was yelling at her to shut up. “You didn’t even make me come.”
“See, you’re learning,” 142 said. “You can’t trust fucking anyone on this planet, right? And you can’t leave. You’re stuck here, we’re all shit, and soon enough you will be too. Or you’ll be dead. Those are your options.”
“Was this—was this a setup?” Minn-Erva asked, bewildered, pulse still racing in fear. She gestured towards the empty bottle, to the piss pooling on her stained, worn tile floor. “Some kind of fucked-up object lesson?”
“Nah. I just noticed you were wriggling, thought it’d be fun. Now, you want me to get you off?”
“You’re insane,” Minn-Erva said.
“Yeah.” 142 shrugged. “I think you’ll find we all are around here. So, what about it?” Unbelievably, she gave Minn-Erva a cheerful leer, stroking invitingly along the inside of Minn-Erva’s damp thigh. While Minn-Erva was busy gaping at her, 142 crawled between Minn-Erva’s legs, got down on her belly, and pushed her face between Minn-Erva’s legs.
This time she was true to her word. Minn-Erva sat there on her ass, the piss cooling against her skin, and less than five minutes 142 brought her banked arousal back up to a roar, a fire that convulsed through Minn-Erva and left her burned out, desolate. Utterly empty.
When it was over, 142 kissed Minn-Erva again and then dragged her into the shower. Minn-Erva woke up some as the spray hit her face, but she was still dazed and a little drunk when 142 put her to bed and crawled in next to her. “There’s piss all over my floor,” Minn-Erva said.
142 pressed closer. “Get a new flat.”
“I was trying,” Minn-Erva said. She cringed at the words, at the sound of her own self-pity.
142 didn’t mock her for it. She lay there quietly and stroked Minn-Erva’s arm. The reality of Sakaar slowly faded away until all that was left of it was the smell of urine in Minn-Erva’s nose and the faintest bitter aftertaste of the liquor on her tongue.