“I know. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m so sor…”
Tania
My apology is cut off in his kiss. I feel his passion washing over me, the taste of his mouth making me hungry for him all over again.
We are celebrating a victory unlike any victory I have ever experienced or hoped to experience. My life on Earth was a struggle in many ways. It is not easy to fight for and hold onto meaning down there. The opportunities for bravery and change are few and far between. Or perhaps I was just too cowardly to take them when they arose.
“I love you,” he growls into my mouth, his powerful scaled body arching and grinding against mine. “I will always love you. You are mine, and we will never, ever be parted again.”
Epilogue
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
I am very pregnant. I am also having my exit interview via video with Mezzarogers, who has taken his human head off as if it’s a costume. Which it is. Beneath the human face, he’s basically a big lizard. Kind of a cute one though, one of the ones with the wide mouths and the friendly eyes.
He’s a reptilian. I’m not surprised. I should have seen it earlier. There was always something slightly flickery about the way he used his tongue when he spoke.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Sorry for trying to poison you to death,” he hisses and flickers. “It wasn’t personal.”
“Don’t worry about it. Water under the bridge.”
It’s not water under the bridge though. I am furious at this creature who masqueraded as my boss and then tried to kill me. If it weren’t for the fact that my bladder is being used like a drum by the infant inside me, I would be planning a heinous and terrible revenge. Impending motherhood has softened me and reformed my priorities.
“We will miss you around the office,” he says. “Though you have destroyed the intergalactic tax trade for a while at least. With DICK destroyed, we’re going to be facing a dearth of business until the more regional markets open up.”
“Tax isn’t going anywhere, Mezzarogers. Tax never changes.”
“True,” he smiles, his inner eyelids slicking down over his eyeballs. “Be happy, Tania. You’ve earned it.”
I intend to be very happy. I am absolutely beaming as we disconnect from Earth and Mezzarogers for the last time. I no longer answer to him. I only answer to my king, and the father of my yet to be born infant.
“Are you hungry?”
“A little, yes.”
I am always hungry at the moment. Gestation is hard work.
Tyrant takes me by the hand and leads me to the kitchen which exists because I like the formality of taking food out of the fridge. He can manifest it there if he wants, but I like to prepare it as if it’s real.
“I do have one question,” I ask as I make myself a PB and J sammich. “How come the Swarm doesn’t attack Earth?”
“It does. It’s just a lot smaller once it gets there. Earth has a sort of un-magnifying effect on certain entities. On your planet, the Swarmlings are less than a fraction of an inch in length. You kill them with fly spray regularly.”
“Huh. That doesn’t really make sense.”
“The universe has its own rules,” Tyrant says. “I don’t question them. And nor should you. If we all thought about our odds of existence and survival, we’d have to come to the conclusion we can’t possibly exist or survive.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Exactly,” Tyrant winks.
I find myself laughing with him as we skate through the stars, reproducing, rebuilding, creating love anew. This is my life now, and this is…
The End