Chapter 1
He stared out the port, trying not to pick at the costume’s lace ruff as he watched the gas giant beneath the station lazily turn.
The music pulsed through speakers throughout his father’s private space station and the noise of men in the corridors drifted in even here. He sweated under the mask, even though the station was cooler than normal to accommodate the party.
Party. He snorted. Dad’s excuse for a costumed anonymous orgy was more like it. His parents got along so well they had to live in different star systems, instead of the separate planetsfavored by most Great Houses.
He sighed. Marriages of politics, money and convenience defined the Great Houses. His own wife had sent word just last month that their second son had arrived and she would not be bothering with his bed again, lest their families expect more children. Four children in five years had exhausted her patience for babies and for him as well.
He supposed he couldn’t blame Lyssan. Bedding a partner whose mind was on another was never much fun. He’d tried, he really had. But the memory of his pirate lover, Captain Salzoran, haunted him, even five years later, and colored their every interaction. He turned the transmitter in his purse. It had never been off his body since Salzoran gave it to him when they parted.
But, tonight it glowed a pale green. He’d activated it when he got Lyssan’s message. He didn’t really expect Salzoran to come swooping down and carry him off to live a life as a pampered sex pet aboard a pirate ship.
Even in his moments of wild imagining, Sharnil scarcely dared hope that Salzoran was unchanged; still enormous, laughing, eating and loving with equal appetite. He wondered if he simply had five years to paint a gloss on the man, making affection and desire into something more than they were. He sighed, knowing it was probably the case.
But it would be nice to see him again. Maybe he could just have a short vacation, forget he was the heir of the House of Shelm, future controller of most of the galaxy’s banking industry.
Most of all, he needed to get laid, to be pressed to the bunk and plundered. He gave a wry smile. Lyssan had never faulted his technique.
Sharnil sighed and tried to ignore the throb of the music that pulsed through the whole pleasure-wheel and vibrated the undergarments of his own costume. History of Legendary Terrawas one of his hobbies and he had chosen an elaborate costume from the fifth century pre-spaceflight. Queen Elizabeth had ruled a small island nation and defeated other, much larger nations in battle. How she had done it in a corset and farthingale, he would never understand.
The music pulsed and male voices lifted in the corridor outside the little room. He ignored them and kept watching the stars, and the reflection of his blank gold mask against them.
Ridiculous to dream like this, he thought, but if he couldn’t dream on this night, this one night of fantasy, when could he?
