The Alien Warrior King's Accountant - Loki Renard Page 0,36

wearing plaid pajama pants beneath my business shirt. On Tyrant’s ship, I would think of what I wanted to wear and then that would be what I was wearing. That’s not how it is here. I just sort of clothed myself in a vague way this morning. I don’t even really remember getting up.

“Go home,” he says. “There’s no need for you to be in today. You’ve earned yourself a nice raise. You may be able to move to a better area of town.”

I want to move to a better part of the universe, but I don’t think that’s an option.

He’s right to be looking at me in concern. I’m dressed like a person who doesn’t quite understand the concept of clothing anymore. All the rules of our little society seem small and petty and nonsensical.

But I want to stay.

“I have to get back to normal sometime,” I tell him. “And working makes me feel normal. So, if you don’t mind, perhaps there’s something I can do?”

“Sure. There are some reviews on your desk. You can start with them.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

And just like that, I am back in my office, back behind my desk, back pretending I care about figures and sums.

It does work, though. The more I work, the more I start to feel normality sort of wrapping itself around me. It is sort of warm and cozy, but also kind of gross, like a cardigan a cat has peed in.

In the back of my mind, I’m wondering what Tyrant is doing right now. Is he missing me? Is he thinking about me? I’m thinking about him. All the times we were together, how being with a normal guy after him is going to be so anticlimactic.

Wait…

A thought strikes me. A thought that probably should have struck me long before this.

What if…

I run down to the drugstore and then back to the office with a little brown bag of possibility.

I slept with Tyrant, so maybe… just maybe… something stuck. Maybe I have something left to remind me of him forever. Maybe I’m not alone in the universe anymore.

I pee on the little plastic piece of hope and then I wait. Time ticks by and there’s a chance with every passing second that something magical has taken place. A miracle, maybe?

The alarm on my phone rings, and I check the test.

Two lines. That’s what I want. Is that two lines?

I find myself squinting at the stick, almost willing the second line into existence. But it’s not there. I can’t even get an evaporation line that I can pretend is a second line.

“Fucking hell,” I curse. “Fucking god fucking hell fuckety fuck fucking fuck.”

That’s still somehow not enough swearing. I could swear for the rest of my life and still not curse enough to give full expression to the situation I’ve found myself in.

I have nothing to hold onto from my experience with Tyrant. Obviously, an alien baby would be a unique kind of disaster, but I guess I’d hoped against hope that something remained. Nothing does. It’s like I never met Tyrant at all. It’s like I was never part of his life, or in his bed. It’s like I didn’t matter to him at all.

I flush the test, which you're not supposed to do, but I guess I’m an asshole now, and head back to my desk. I sit there and I stare at nothing, just feeling a general sense of hollowness.

“You’re still here?”

“Yes.”

“It’s seven o’clock, Tania. It’s long past quitting time.”

“Oh! I must have gotten carried away with these reviews.”

I hope I sound professional. I hope I don’t sound like a loony who just spent the last five minutes hoping she was knocked up with an alien baby. That’s good. Mr. Rogers doesn’t actually understand. I can tell by the way he is looking at me. He looks concerned.

“Go home and get some rest.”

“Sure. Sounds good. Uh….”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering, it’s just occurred to me that I may need to follow up a few things on the Tyrant case. Could I have his contact details?”

Mr. Rogers purses his lips, and I know my chill ruse doesn’t sound chill at all.

“I’m afraid our clients have absolute privacy, as you can imagine, the possibility of alien intelligence using our accounting services becoming public is completely untenable.”

“Uh huh. Sure. That makes complete sense. Of course.”

“You will not have contact with the client again,” Mr. Rogers clarifies. Those words crush me, even as he keeps speaking. “I know sometimes it is easy to