The Alien Negotiator

She threw a harsh whistle his way. "Not everyone on Frk'Tarlvr is poor, Mark." Yeap, ignoring his request about the name, just to piss him off. Saw that coming, after insulting her planet. "Those with money get to enjoy many of the splendors of the planet, at the higher levels."

"And the fuck are the poor supposed to do about their circumstance?"

"Capitalism, as you humans call it, is a predatory system, Mark. Given time, it favors the strong."

"Corporations aren't people. Corporations might grow strong, but whether actual people get fucked or funded by this economic system is all luck! Luck! And we're talking about the people, not the companies!" He leaned in toward her, and sneered up at her stupid bone face. This was worth emphasizing. "Corporations are not people. Your entire view on life treats them like people, as if the people inside them are them. That's not how it works, at all, and the rich making money on their corporations don't deserve to own a million fold what the poor do."

"It was never a question of deserve. Life is horrible for everyone except those at the top. We pracalavala accept this. What was the human expression? Life's not fair, get used to it?"

"Fuck that. The moment I get your ass back to your corp alive, and I get paid for this idiotic D.R.E., I'm gone! Gonna live on my own ship, shipping people and things, cozy and slow and—"

"D.R.E.? Ah, yes, the danger rating for your contract. You will be well paid, you have no reason to—"

"The only reason any fucking grunt working for Vargenth would agree to this suicide mission is the pay. Cause, like me, the pay means they can either get off this fucking shithole, or they can put a huge dent in their debt that they—surprise!—earned on this planet with its fucking predatory economy. Fuck this planet, fuck you, fuck me, I want out. Every fucking bit of that cash is going to getting me a ship, so I can leave!"

She didn't respond, head slowly turning downward, and eyes glowing soft purple, whatever that meant. Good. Some fucking quiet.

The two of them came to the end of a massive pipe on the metal, dirty wall, and Mark reached out to press against a discolored seem. A quiet beep, and then, the wall opened. With a groan, he brought up his sidearm, and scanned the room before stepping in.

A tiny, empty room.

"You cannot be serious," she said.

"You bet I am."

"There is nothing here!"

"Sorry princess, but it's the best you're getting for now."

It really was a hole, but secret hideaways generally were. It wasn't like in the stories, a beautiful cave behind a waterfall or luxurious getaway air-complex on Platform Z39AA. No, all he had to work with was a small room that was literally smaller than his apartment. Seven feet long, by six feet wide, but at least it was taller, high enough for Vala to stand up straight, and whistle a groan.

He gestured to the auto-toilet in the corner of the room; shitty arrangement, losing the small amount of space to a toilet, but at least it was walled off so they could have some privacy.

"It took me five years to get this set up. No one knows about it except for some good friends, the ones I trusted to set up the plumbing." He gestured to the hanging shower head on the other side of the room, and the drain on the floor. "You're not the first person I've had to take care of for a little while, while things cool down." Hell, the room was covered in the same tiling as his apartment. It wouldn't get mold or catch stains for decades. Ugly as all fuck, but function over fashion.

"Great, wonderful! We can defecate in each other's company! Lovely." She stood up straight, and tilted her head to look at the ceiling that nearly touched her antennae. "At least it's tall enough."

"We got water, we got a place we can shit in privacy; auto-toilet will keep the smell in, walls will keep the sound in, so calm the fuck down your highness. And look at this." He leaned down, and picked up some blankets off the floor. Water resistant, perfect for hiding out in a hole like this. "So, you could start, by fucking showing some gratitude that we have a place—"

"We? Why are you saying we? I will remain here, where it is supposedly safe, and you can go elsewhere!"

"Fuck you! I have no other place I can go! Merka probably has my ID, and will be waiting at my place, anyway!"

"So—"

"So sit the fuck down, and get cozy, cause we're not going anywhere until those four weeks are up like you said. We're past curfew, so I'll do some recon tomorrow and see what's up." The white light above was steady, and the tiling was taupe. He was damn fucking proud of this little hole, clean and secure. Fuck her.

"Fine!" The princess threw her hands up, and sat in the corner once she gathered up the blankets. She set them down, spread them out, folded them up, and arranged them in the perfect way for her precious little heiny.

He almost argued about one of those blankets being for him, but whatever, he didn't need it to sleep. Groaning, rotating a shoulder, he started undoing his armor. Clunk. Clunk. Heavy pieces of metal, each he set into the other corner of the room, away from the corner Vala was in. Then shirt, boots, pants, he discarded them all, and took some time to look at the small nicks and cuts on his body.

Praca stared at him, her eyes glowing through the bone visor. The tint changed as well, to... pink?

"What are you doing?"

"We've been walking through a recycling sewer for a week. The fuck do you think I'm doing? I'm taking a fucking shower."

"... but—"

"I reek, and you don't smell very good yourself, princess. Smell like metal cleaner."

"That is! ... normal for pracalavala who haven't bathed in so long."

"Exactly." He threw off his underwear and socks — they didn't smell much better, but the water-resistant clothing would prevent any nasty smells — and got under the shower head. Above it, he reached up to turn on the hot water, and from a nozzle beside the shower head, he squirted a load of the cleaner onto his scalp. Everything streamlined, just like his apartment. "Sorry we don't have any fancy perfumes or vintage soaps for the pretty lady. All we got here at Mark's Hole is basic cleaner."

He sighed up into the hot water, and let it and the cleaner wash his woes away. Nothing quite like hot water to sooth aching muscles. The cleaner stung on the wounds, but, like everything nowadays, it was multipurpose along with being streamlined, so it would help disinfect the wounds. Course, after a week, the wounds were mostly healed anyway; some nasty gashes were problematic though, and they stirred some hard groans out of him as he washed them, the cleaner building more and more foam as he rubbed himself down.

"You are... you are... um..."

"What?" He raised a brow, and looked at the princess. The glow of her eyes was getting bright red now, closer to pink, and she had her knees pulled up to her chest, wrapped in her arms, as she stared at him. At least, until she realized he was looking at her, and she made a strange, squeaky kinda flute sound, before looking away.

"You are... muscular."

"Is that a compliment? Holy shit I think I've been complimented by the princess. Be still my beating heart." He rolled his eyes, but as he resumed washing himself, he took glances her way through the corner of his eye. Five seconds later, she was looking at him again, though she was trying to hide the fact. "Never seen a naked human before?"

"... only for biology studies. And, um, you are... much... larger, than the humans we were allowed to inspect."

Yeah, bodybuilding as part of a career will do that to you. He laughed as he washed down his body. He didn't care she was watching, too damn tired to care. If he had to guess, the bright reddish pink color of her eyes meant she was feeling embarrassed, and shy. And hell, the embarrassed princess was actually not insulting him for once, so maybe being embarrassed made her less of a pain in the ass.

The water didn't get very far, as the drain was directly underneath him, and the floor slanted so the water would fall into it. And there was a vent above, cycling the air to keep it somewhat dry; and to keep them from asphyxiating due to the sealed door. So, Vala didn't have to move the blankets or anything to keep them dry. And, hell, if watching him shower got her to shut up and stop complaining for five minutes, then he'd do it every damn day.

"You... really do not care... that I see you naked?"

"Course not. This a praca thing? You guys don't like getting naked around each other?"

"... it is... private, yes." Perhaps overcoming her embarrassment, though her eyes were still glowing a softer red than usual, she gestured toward the middle of him. "Humans... shave that area?"

He looked down, and shrugged. And then, grinned. Vala was uncomfortable. Vala didn't like the fact he was naked. Perfect. He reached down, and nudged his cock downward to show how his pubic hair was trimmed to almost nothing.

"Humans here on Fuck'Tarl generally prefer trimmed or shaved, so yeah."

The princess visibly drew her head back at the sight of him touching his junk. Heh. New way to get back at her. Maybe if he made her embarrassed enough, she'd not say anything for the next three weeks.

"... why? Pracalavala are smooth, and humans have hair. Why... shave it?"

"Fashionable. But also, smooth skin is hot. Hell, lot of humans out there who think you praca are sexy as hell, considering the smooth skin." He resumed showering, and spent maybe a little more time than he needed under the water, but it was just too damn hilarious, how touching himself stirred more strange behavior from Vala.

Or, at least, that was the plan. But after a while, Vala wasn't even trying to hide the fact she was staring, and as he washed his cock a few times more than necessary, her hidden, glowing eyes locked onto his hand. If he didn't know any better, he'd think she was intrigued.

The moment he felt a small pulse of blood begin to flow into his shaft, he let it go, and quickly finished wiping the cleaner off of him. Ok, yeah, heading into some weird territory here. She's a client. She's paying you. Stop fucking around.

"Your turn. Don't want the place smelling like Drolox cleaner from your BO." Maybe some insults would reset the weird atmosphere.

"My turn? You cannot be serious."

"I reeked, and you reek too."

"I... I will clean myself tomorrow, when you are gone."

"Fucking coward." Laughing, he grabbed his underwear and shirt, and created a soft-ish place for him to sit. The clothes weren't clean, but the material meant they wouldn't get filthy or absorb liquid; god bless the dude who in invented panmer fabric. He could sit on them while he air dried. "Poor baby princess too afraid to be naked in front of the lowly human."

"... lowly?"

"Ha, what, you going to deny that you look down on me?"

"I... never said such a thing. We were only trading barbs." Her voice was quieter, lacked its usual bite, and her eyes wavered to a pink once more.

"Not that. It was before then. The way you looked down on your non-praca troops, the grunts you hired from Vargenth? I've seen it in plenty of praca. Whatever." He shrugged, tilted his head to the side until it released a satisfying crack, and leaned his head back to set it against the tile behind him. "Bunch of rich, prissy wimps. Can't do any heavy lifting yourself, so you get humans to do it, or geckos." Venom entered his voice. He tried to stop it, to pull it back, but it rolled off his tongue like a speech he'd rehearsed a thousand times. And he had, over the past week, rehearsed a speech a thousand times. "Too pathetic to do anything yourselves, high class garbage, who just hire other people to do things for you. Worthless without your wallets."

He regretted it the moment he said it. But, apologizing wasn't in the cards. So, he sighed, and looked down at his legs instead, one of them out straight in front of him, the other bent at the knee, knee up, so he could hang his forearm along it. Classic pensive pose. Just, let him sit like this, and let what he said fade away.

Lovely plan, but a flying jacket hit him in the face instead. "The fuck?"

"Pracalavala are not all that way, Mark. I apologize if my demeanor made you feel as if I... felt that way. I do not." Off came the fancy gloves, each with its double straps off the wrist. Off came the ridiculously tall boots that reached her thigh, exposing her ridiculously long, smooth, thin legs, and the smooth, light blue skin of her legs and hand-like feet. Three fingers, one toe, long and slender.

And, looking straight at him, she unhooked the neck strap of her reflective dress with her fingers, and pulled it up over her antennae, before dropping it. It landed on the blankets around her feet, and Mark gulped as he looked the nine-foot naked woman up and down.

She was fucking gorgeous. Such a tiny waist, and tiny torso, thin like her limbs. Her breasts were small as well, but holy shit, he stared at them openly, the pale blue color of them, and the navy tint of her small nipples. Naked, there was nothing to stop him from seeing how she didn't have a hair on her body, and her sex was nothing more than a little slit with tiny, puffy labia.

He knew some basics about praca physiology, just as she knew the basics of human physiology. 93% sexual compatibility, among the highest of the 2,743 races in the Grand Charter. But the last stickwoman he'd worked with didn't look nearly as good as Vala.

She walked over to the shower head, and grabbed it. She was too tall, so it hung toward her neck, and she had to aim it at her body as she turned it on. Her eyes were glowing such a bright pink, it was making her cheeks blush. Her tail slithered around in a weird pattern, a figure eight; and he hadn't the slightest fucking clue what that meant.

"... I'm sorry, I really didn't mean it," he said. "Just... stressed and tired." He tried to sound more formal, but his voice was coming out as a quiet thing, no power to it, strength ripped away by the sight of her tall, tall tall tall, smooth, lean body. Her little waist and torso made her hips look large, even though they were only normal by human standards. Her shoulders were elegant, beautiful, highlighting the small, almost frail looking torso.

She was embarrassed, that was easy to tell. Embarrassed as all hell, from the way she was squirming. But despite that, she guided the water onto her body, and glared at him as she did. Her other hand fetched some of the cleaner as well, and she began to lather her body with it, coating her small torso and long arms with it, before her thin, long-fingered hands guided the bubbles and foam down her long, long legs.

He probably shouldn't have been staring, but she was determined to prove she wasn't what he said she was, and hell, he was barely in control of himself anymore. The tail, one of the bigger differences in their biology, flowed around until it was front of her, and she took special care and time to gently caress it with the cleaner. Her hidden, glowing eyes caught his again, and she narrowed them, squinting, or glaring, as she started to clean between her legs.

He'd read about praca physiology as part of standard interplanetary education packets. Very similar to humans, sexually, except for minor differences, hence the 93% compatibility rating. A female praca's vagina was similar to a human's in shape and design, just no lips, and instead of a clitoris, those nerve endings were streamlined into the entrance of the hole. And, supposedly, it was a very, very small hole.

Not. The fucking time. To be thinking. About sex!

He gulped, audibly, and tried to find his breath. "Uh, sorry, I'm staring like a jackass."

"... I was staring... at you... earlier."

"I thought you were just examining the monkey."

"... I was examining you." She looked at him, stared at him, just like before, and her eyes drifted down his body. "... you are aroused."

"I—shit." Yeap. In the middle of all this, full on erection. He grabbed his chest armor, and put it between his thighs, hiding his dick. "Sorry."

"I bathe naked before you to prove a point, and now you cover yourself?"

"Well you—"

"You... should... you should not... cover yourself. That is not fair."

Unless his ears were deceiving him, that sounded very much like a sexual flirtation. A shy, timid, wavering flirt, but a flirt nonetheless. She was flirting with him? The fuck? He could understand how he could be attracted to her, with the fashion runway body and the praca legs as long as streets. But her, him? He was a beat up grunt with a fake eye and a bunch of scars. Not exactly praca normalcy.

And, not fair?

Well, do what the princess says. He put the body armor aside, one leg still out flat, the other with his knee up. Everything on display, cock resting along his lower abs.

"Not fair? I'm feeling pretty exposed here. You can see I'm horny, and that's—"

"You... cannot see?"

"See what?"

She tilted her head to the side, one eye widening. She was confused. But, something clicked in her head, and she tapped her bone visor a couple times before nodding.

"I forgot, your eyes do not see what mine can. I... I will show you. But you must not laugh!"

He put his hands up. "No laughing."

She giggled, and he blinked, dumbfounded. And it was a beautiful sound, like a tweeting bird, and it made him smile. She reached out to the light panel, and turned the light off.

He could still see, except, now everything was bathed in a subtle green. He put his hands out in front of him, and turned them around slightly; yeah he could still see them, but where was the green light coming from? He lowered the hand, and looked at Vala. Oh.

Subtle pulses of green light were coming from her body. Very subtle, gentle, and in time with her natural slower heart rate and breathing. It was almost like the subtle blue veins on a human's body, except hers were a gentle glowing green. But, it was the tiny slit between her thin legs that caused his jaw to drop. Her little hole we leaking a glowing green fluid. She moved the shower head a little until the water was hitting her leg, so it didn't wash away the thick droplets of green that coated the small hole, and occasionally dripped out of her.

He'd never seen a horny praca in the dark. The info packet he'd read fucking ages ago had mentioned a colored fluid indicating arousal, but, fuck him, he'd completely forgotten; and it made no mention of needing it to be dark to see it. Humans and their shitty eyes.

"So... now you can see, that I am... just as susceptible to... to you, as you me. We are both living beings, after all. I... I hope you understand, that I do not look down at you."

She didn't look down at him. At least, not so far that she couldn't be attracted to him. The prim and proper princess, was attracted to him? This god damn pain in his ass, this beautiful, infuriating woman, was attracted to him. He gulped as he stared at the green, vibrant juice dripping down her thighs, and he felt his cock pulse hard against his body, standing off his abs as it swelled.

He got up.

"... Mark?"

He walked up to her, and looked up at her. The bone visor covered her nose and mouth, but the glow of her eyes was powerful in the darkness, and it pushed through the bone so he could clearly see the glowing pink of them. She stepped back, putting her back to the wall in the corner with the shower head, and he stepped in closer again, eyes looking her body up and down. The subtle green pulsing in her soft blue skin started to beat faster.

He got down onto a knee, in front of her, nice and close, trapping her in the corner of the room.

"Mark... w-what are you doing?"

He reached out, and set his hands on her shins. Her long legs were thin enough he could almost encircle them in his grip, and he groaned quietly as he felt the total smoothness and softness of them in his hand. And, his hands drifted higher, caressing each inch of her skin on the way up where they grew thicker. Skinny as a praca's legs were, they still had a human-ish shape, with thighs and an ass, and he groaned, as his fingers squeezed the softness of her thighs on the way up.