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  The Present

  SHAH

  I paced around the bridge of my starliner, the Good Time, trying not to think about where we were going.

  Useless.

  Seven years hadn’t changed a damned thing.

  All I could think about was the feeling of Euridyne's skin against my lips.

  And soon, I’d see him again. We were heading straight for his home sphere, Shurwinn, the stars of Andromeda passing us. Every minute, closer and closer.

  I kept looking at his pics on his brother’s stream site. My crush didn’t have a stream presence at all, but his brother Dwin did, and Euri was a delicious snack.

  He was cute when we were fifteen—totally kissable. Now he was totally fuckable. Three inches taller than my five feet eight, with dark brown eyes and that two-day scruff on his face that made me want to lick him all over. Would he like that?

  Maybe you should try writing a chapter, my twin said, hoping to distract me from my rambling thoughts about Euri.

  Yeah, right! Like I could write anything at the mo’, I scoffed back.

  My writing career was how Ronnie and I could afford our lives as story chasers galavanting all over Andromeda, hopping from sphere to sphere.

  Some people called my books “erotica,” but I preferred to think of them as “genre-bending fiction.”

  You see, I wrote supernaturals and comedy all in one, and made it dead sexy. My female lead, Rilla Sandewin, was the biggest reason people got hooked on my stories. Only, the readers didn’t know her name was one of my favorite jokes.

  Ronnie laughed in my mind. Yeah, someday you gotta tell our fans the truth.

  Oh, dear god, what would they say? I giggled back, and the joke made me forget my angst about Euridyne.

  I called my main character “Rilla,” which was short for “Drilled.” Her last name? “Sandewen.” Code for “Sandwich.”

  Because Rilla wanted her sandwich drilled—like a lot.

  I know convention has us use words like “taco,” but I threw convention out the moment I was born. Plus, it made for a lifetime of sandwich jokes, so Ronnie and I never stopped laughing.

  Like the mayonnaise, Ronnie said, cracking up, and I lost it. Again.

  I could feel my brother coming towards the bridge, mental presence full of mischief. What was he up to?

  He walked in, carrying four familiar books.

  You should pack these, he said, handing me my Rilla and Rawl Books 1-4.

  What?! Are you crazy? Euri can’t find out I’m Psy Ling! I did not want anyone to know my pen name. Especially not Euridyne.

  Ronnie rolled his eyes. He’d probably think it’s funny, Shah.

  Well, actually, everyone thought my books were funny, so that was probably true. But I was keeping my secret identity way, way on the down low.

  No one could know that Psy Ling was a virgin traveling the Cosmos with her twin brother. I mean, what would people do if they found out the most popular erotica writer in Andromeda had never been fucked?

  Our friends should know how funny you are, Shah, Ronnie said, holding Book 1 out to me.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  We don’t have friends, I spat.

  He showed me the memory of us in Euri’s media room, legs up the wall, and I couldn’t deny that thought filled me with warmth. Carefree. Playing VR with someone who didn’t mind that my twin and I were weird.

  Euri would like the mayo story, Ronnie pushed.

  The mayo joke was why we were ridiculously wealthy. It started with my first web serial about Rilla, Drop of Desire. Ronnie painted the cover, and our readers couldn’t get enough.

  Ronnie’s cover was an androgenous hand, palm up, fingers pointing down. With a single, pearly bead looking like it would drip into thin air.

  It was so captivating because it beautifully depicted the climax of the story.

  The drop wasn’t just Pearl Intimate Moisturizer, the best personal lubricant in the galaxy. It also alluded to a single drop of magic that Rilla heard about in “The Legend of Forest Largo.”

  When Rilla and her gay best friend, Rawl, got wind of a cursed tree man hidden away on the sphere AcerRubrin, they went chasing Forest Largo. Because Rilla was always looking for a good time with supes.

  Only, Forest Largo had a terrible curse: he couldn’t get hard until he’d made a woman come four times. And then once he was hard, he couldn’t release until she was on her seventh climax.

  But a single drop of his pre-cum was magic.

  Oh, it wasn’t just magic, Ronnie said. When Rilla finally got to bang Forest, you know, seven orgasms later… She found out what his spunk could do!

  I cracked up, remembering how hard we’d laughed when I first wrote the story.

  When Forest finally came, Rilla got transported into a vision, and he saw it in her mind. He figured out how to end his curse, and Rilla woke up two days later, fulfilled beyond her wildest dreams.

  Hallucinogenic jizz! You know you wanna read the story now! Ronnie cackled.

  He’d joked about putting that on the cover, but instead, he came up with the Drop of Desire title and painted a masterpiece.

  Exactly! I'M the reason Psy Ling is famous, my brother’s mental scent was cocky.

  YOU?! It was MY lube recipe! I laughed at him.

  I realized I couldn’t send Rilla into a seven-climax situation with Forest without quality lube. So, while Ronnie was painting the cover, I got busy writing additional scenes of hilarity.

  Rilla made a homemade batch of mayo for her sandwich. . . if you know what I mean. If not, recall the taco conversation from before. She definitely did not want hot sauce for the Forest Largo tryst.

  I experimented, making sample after sample of homemade lube. Yes, vibrators were involved. Finally, I had the perfect recipe. And a ton of funny scenes of Rilla self-experimenting to go along with it.

  It turned out those capers were exactly what the populace of Andromeda wanted because my web serial went viral.

  Hey, I’m pretty sure it was me telling you to SELL the lube, not give the recipe away on stream that made us superstars, my brother interrupted.

  Ronnie was right, as usual. Our parent found a company on their homeworld, Trauton 4, to produce and sell my product, and they made a whole line of lube—travel sizes and everything. And that’s what made us our fortune.

  The big-ticket product was Pearl Intimate Moisturizer.

  Exquisite packaging.

  Luxury scents. Plumeria, myrrh, lemon.

  And priced ten times higher than regular lube! Ronnie laughed gleefully.

  Yeah, we sold lube to stupid people.

  I bet Euri has a tube in his nightstand, Ronnie prodded.

  My eyes bulged. He did not just go there. Stars, thinking about that would not calm me down. The nav panel behind me beeped. Three hours until we docked.

  Shit.

  Ronnnie started up again, keeping my mind on something funny and familiar.

  My fave tagline was what I did for Book 2, he said, holding up the vampire story.

  Hey! That book was all me, not you!

  It was my cover! He mentally jabbed me with an elbow.

  Okay, you’re right, that cover's fucking awesome, I told him.

  Only because of the hilarious story you wrote about almost-human vampires that had to grow fangs so they could drink human blood to fuel their sex drives.

  Who wants immortal blood suckers? I laughed. Plus, you’ve gotta get something out of it if you’re gonna be a blood donor.

  Limp vamps don’t suck, he laughed. My best cover idea.

  I cracked up, tension melting away. That’s what my brother did for me.

  And you keep writing escapades, so we keep traveling the Cosmos in our starliner, looking for stories. Just like Rilla and Rawl, Ronnie said.

  And it was true. My twin and I lived on the Good Time, having adventures and hiding the fact that we were telepathic virgins from everyone we knew.

  Maybe that can change when we see Euri tomorrow, Ronnie said, and I slammed my telepathy shield closed on my brother.

  I loved him, but he could be too much sometimes. . .

  No, that wasn’t fair. There was nothing unkind or dark in Ronnie. He was love incarnate. And he was just as single as me.

  He never let me close enough to see if he had romantic fantasies. I kinda thought he was gay, but Ronnie wouldn’t tell me. Every time I asked, he just rolled his eyes.

  So, I never let him see a secret I held dear: that I wanted to find a true love for my brother. I just wasn’t sure there was anyone in the Known Cosmos who deserved him.

  I paced around the bridge again, nerves ablaze, eyes glancing at the books in Ronnie’s hands.

  He was crazy. No way was I gonna tell Euri I was Psy Ling. My secrets belonged on my starliner, not in someone else’s mind.

  I shook my head at my brother with finality. He shrugged and left. But the books were still there on the nav panel, silent judges.

  I sat on the sofa, head in my hands. Ronnie had distracted me for a while, but too much rushed through my mind. Being in love with a man who lived a galaxy away. My books. Psy Ling. Telepathy.

  Secrets.

  I closed my eyes, and Euri’s hand appeared in my mind, unbidden. How soft his skin was. What it felt like for my lips to touch him.

  I pinched my mouth. Don’t go there, Shah. You can’t do this. Not now, maybe not ever. Don't get involved with a telepath. Life on the Good Time with Ronnie was enough. It had to be.

  I picked up my datapad, heading for my cabin. Opening my latest story, I tried to focus. Ronnie was right, I should try getting a chapter written while we hurtled across the galaxy.

  A message pinged on my pad.

  Ronnie: Docking at Shurwinn Transfer Station in one hour.

  Shah: ??

  That was it. Soon, I’d see Euri again.

  What would he do when he found out what Ronnie and I did to him seven years ago?

  And did he think about the feeling of my lips on the back of his hand as much as I did?