Chapter 4
XAVRAN
If he didn’t know Stefan, his male nanny from Earth, he would’ve thought humans were unbearable. He might’ve even sent these two back. But since he got along well with Stefan, he figured there was hope for the females too.
Somehow, in the process of stuffing them both into the aircraft, he’d lost track of who was who. They were wearing slightly different clothes, but he rarely paid attention to fashion. And now he couldn’t remember. Was the chatty one in the back his new wife? Or the clumsy one sitting next to him?
Not that it mattered much. He hoped for an amicable, working relationship with both women, but nothing more than that with either.
They were both now quiet. Even the chatty one sat quietly behind him, probably sulking that he’d left their cargo behind.
How much stuff did a human female need to survive? He hoped they weren’t considerably less resilient than their male counterparts. The last thing he needed was to hire a bunch of caretakers for his new wife and nanny.
He slid a glance at the one sitting next to him. Taking her shoe off, she inspected it. She appeared to be frowning, judging by her creased forehead and pursed lips. The giant black eyeglasses concealed the rest of her face.
“An extremely impractical choice of footwear,” he voiced an observation.
She fingered a tiny scratch on the absurdly high heel of the shoe. “I’m afraid I have to agree with you on that one.”
Their conversation caught the attention of the woman in the back.
“Did you ruin my Louboutins?” she hissed, leaning forward.
“It’s just a small scratch,” the clumsy one replied apologetically, rubbing at the scratch as if hoping to erase it from the shiny leather. “I’m sure it can be fixed.”
“Yeah? And do you see a shoe repair place anywhere here?” The chatty one attacked her sister.
He felt sorry for the clumsy one, who kept fingering the scratch.
“We have skillful cobblers in Diria. They’ll fix it in no time,” he offered. “Or better yet, they’ll make you a pair of better shoes,” he couldn’t help adding.
Impractical footwear wasn’t an exclusively human habit. Some Aldraian women in Arqa, the capital city of Aldrai, wore weirdly shaped shoes too. Not that he approved of that silliness, either.
“Better shoes?” the chatty one scoffed, sounding defensive. “Better than Louboutin?”
“What’s Louboutin?” The highly sophisticated translating system that flawlessly conveyed the meaning of foreign metaphors, idioms, and even slang, failed to translate that word. Which only confirmed what he already knew—the chatty one spoke a lot of nonsense.
“Mara, come on,” the clumsy one reprimanded her sister, and the one in the back settled down with a huff.
If the chatty one was Mara, his new wife, then the one next to him must be the nanny.
She turned to him. “It’s not important. Louboutin is just another word for these shoes.”
Just what he thought—gibberish.
He steered the aircraft out of the city and laid a course home, back to Diria.
Both women silently stared out the glass cockpit. This part of Aldrai was beautiful. He loved seeing it too. The rolling green hills and bountiful flowers that bloomed year round were the results of efforts from generations of his ancestors.
Like his forefathers, he took pride in his work, terraforming the inhospitable desert to the south. He did his part in transforming the desert into luscious green landscapes like the one below.
“What a gorgeous planet,” the nanny marveled.
“I never get tired of looking at it myself,” he admitted.
“I heard you don’t build houses?” Mara enquired.
“Not in the sense that people on other planets do. But we do put a lot of work into our living spaces.”
They fell silent again. After a while, both women appeared to be dozing off to the soft, monotonous whirring of the engines.
He threw a furtive glance at the nanny slumping in the seat next to him. Leaning against the glass, she appeared to be asleep. Light-colored wisps of hair made their way out from under the cloth on her head. He couldn’t help a glance at her stomach. It looked odd without the extra two pairs of breasts that the Aldraian women had.
She’d probably find him odd too. Probably ugly as well. There was a reason Aldraian-human marriages had been predominantly those of human men with Aldraian females. Generally, other races didn’t find Aldraian males visually appealing, thinking them too large, too crudely shaped, and overall too awkward.
He wondered if specifying that he didn’t want sex in his marriage helped him secure the match as fast as it did.
Either way, he was looking forward to finally having some female help. With his two girls heading into their teens in a couple of years, it’d be good to have a mother figure to guide them through the transition to womanhood. He often felt over his head on his own, especially as far as female matters were concerned.
Diria came into view. The sheltered town hall in the center was surrounded by open garden homes as far as the eye could see. His home was on the very edge of the town, the closest one to the lake.
He brought the aircraft lower, then landed it in front of the gate. The landing was as soft as it could be, but the slight jolt from the aircraft’s contact with the ground woke the females up.
“Are we there?” The nanny tried to rub her eyes, clearly forgetting she had the glasses on. She knocked them off, and they landed in his lap.
“Sorry...” She grabbed for them, groping his cock through the fabric of his pants in the process. “Oh!” She dropped the glasses back on his crotch, her cheeks flushed crimson.
The sensation of her fingers groping him jolted through his body with a charge of heat. His heart pumped faster for a beat or two. He forced the excitement down just in time before his cock rose and pushed her glasses up.
“Here.” He picked up the glasses and handed them to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she exhaled, meeting his eyes. Hers were clear blue, like the sky.
“Lovely,”he couldn’t help thinking.
“What’s your name?” he heard himself ask.
They had been introduced, but all the names were scrambled in his brain at the moment. Besides, he wanted to hear her voice again. This one didn’t speak nearly as much as the other woman.
She cleared her throat. “It’s Susanna.”
“Susanna,” he repeated.
He liked how her name slid off his tongue. It brought the sensation of having a piece of sweet dessert in his mouth.
She bent over to put her shoe back on.
“Leave it.” He pushed the buttons to open both side panels. “Take the other one off too. We walk barefoot in our homes.”