Everything said and done, all safely-removable parts set on the table, he's slightly skinnier and a lot more happy green than ghillie-green.
          “So.” he says. “This is me.”
          “You,” I tell him, “Are amazing.” Even with all the holes and hardware. 
          Iron Man smiles testilly, baring his fangs in a toothy grin for just a moment before hiding them again. “Thank you for your kindness...ah, how would you prefer I address you? Your full name?”
          Oh heavens no. “Whichever of the three you like best.”
          “You are very generous…Lila. I'm delighted to have met you, and to have the chance to spend my days with you.”
          Ugh, it's so sincere I swear I can taste the cheese. But still, kind of him to say. I hope my incessant thought-rambling doesn't get annoying. Might have to send him off on errands just to give the poor guy's head some time to breathe.
          Iron Man laughs. “Yes, it is strange to hear so much, so constant. I appreciate your empathy. Also, please call me Iron Man if it pleases you, but my name is Paneun. I don't know if the Exalt gave it to you.” 
          “Ah, right. He did but I forgot it. And I probably will again.” But he's got a point, Iron Man is a bit casual. “Can I can you Pan? Like, Pan's Labyrinth?”
          “I'm not sure who Pan's Labyrinth is, but yes. I like this nickname, from you.”
          He—Pan—smiles warmly. I have a fleeting thought that he'll be putting on his clothes…er, armor? And he moves toward the table hesitantly. “There is one more ritual, Lila. But I don't expect you will wish to participate.”
          “No, I'm game. Let's do it. I mean, it won't hurt anyone? Or anything?”
          He shakes his head. “Usually the female would also strip, of course, but you have no augmentations, so that's understandable.” he sighs. “The njahada is not to mate with the female, his duties lie elsewhere. Such as daily baths, oiling, cooking, and preening. After stripping, and since they both are removed of clothes, it is customary for the njahada to spoil his female with a relaxing bath and massage. We don't have particularly feminine oils on board, but I...and, yes, of course, it's no offence,”
          Oh, oops he was reading my thoughts. I silence the clown horns and clear my throat to whisper an apology. 
          “There is nothing to be sorry for,” Pan assures me, holding up a hand. “My first duty, beyond all others, is to ensure your comfort. Anything that disquiets you, Lila, I will remove from your path. This is part of the ritual promise, in taking my blood I swear that I will do all for you, even come to harm. You are not of my kind, I don't expect you to act like it at the cost of your morals.”
          With a smile in his eyes, he nods to me before taking a chunk of himself off the table and attaching it to his waist to cover the mound of flesh there. “In the future, if you ever desire it, please allow me to assist you during your bathing. Until then I'll assume you mean to take care of this task on your own. Agreed?”
          Ohhh my heart. He's understanding on top of all his other wonderful traits, too. I feel an embarrassing flush come to my cheeks. “You know something?”
          This would usually be the part where Leo would say ‘What?’ and then I'd tell him. But Pan can hear my thoughts all scrambling to find the best way to succinctly say ‘Context and intention, I could really go for a bath right now, and I think I trust you, probably because you really are so nice, and it's not like there's a threat of you trying to get fresh with me cuz you're not allowed and even if that wasn't a rule, Marine already had his way and it was literally orgasmic, so…’
I cover my face with both hands. Don't think-speak about how good other men's sex was! That is so rude! What is wrong with—
          “It's not rude at all!” Pan assures me, laughing in a gurgle with his throat. “I'm sure being with the Exalt as he pleases himself is very humbling; it would be an honor.”
          “Ohhh, that's right,” I peek out from behind my hands but can't muster the will to say out loud, you don't know that human females experience orgasms.
          I'm tempted to tap on my head, see if my translator short-circuited. 
          Pan clears his throat and straightens, looking away. “That is…fascinating. And…wildly tempting. No wonder he didn't mind assigning me as njahada, knowing this. Damn.”
          I snort at his language. 
          “No need to apologize,” he says knowingly. “You've done no wrong. So, then. A bath?”
          I sigh in a breath, thinking that the last time I've had a proper shower was a week ago, before my hike. Before I was taken by the feds and abducted by aliens. Yeah, I think I'm due. 
          Pan smiles in his way, tucking a pair of hands over his stomach as he bows. “It will be my pleasure.” He steps to the only bare corner of the room, crouching down before one of the black stripes on the floor. His finger traces a small pattern on it, and he quickly steps away as the black sprouts up like crazy magicked roots. Like liquid tar with streaks of silver in ornate, beautiful patterns. It rises and creates a wall, domed, up along the corner of the room and forming a sizeable tub. Shit, you could fit three people in there comfortably. Maybe four or five if they're not aliens. Their limbs are so long and—speaking of limbs!! There's his penis-mound again! Oh God, stop freaking out--jeezums. It’s just the lump of protective skin, no bright shiny blue flesh trying to peek out.
          "Blue?" He asks with a tilted head. I have a moment of thinking back to those few minutes with Marine, and he seems to answer his own question. "Ah, I-I see. Not all are the same, actually. My sheath is a vibrant red." 
          I try to distract myself from the fact that Pan just calmly peeked the tip of his--yes, very vibrantly red--actual cock out of the end of his protective flesh. The head is so rounded, not like human penises, and it actually kinda looks way less intimidating...
          Jezums Raegan don't stare at men's cocks what is wrong with you?!
          "It's alright--I didn't mean to alarm you. I apologise if I overstepped your boundaries." 
          "No it's fine, I've just had a strange day today." 
          Nodding sympathetically, he turns to step into the bath, red flesh tucked away again but with a very subtle little drip left behind from when he retracted back inside. I try not to look, I do try, but I look anyway because well, looks like ‘give you a bath’ means ‘take a bath with you’, and we're gonna be naked right next to each other in that hot water.
          He turns back to me with an uncertain expression, one foot in the empty tub.
          “No no it's okay!” I laugh nervously. “Please ignore my crazy thoughts, I really have no control over them.”
          He smiles, as though knowingly, and brushes a silvery swirl on the wall to activate a flat, broad spigot. Water begins to delicately gush over the top, fountaining off the edge and into the tub. His hand disrupts the flow, turning, testing the temperature.
          “So, Pan,” I say, fiddling with the straps of my makeshift jacket-skirt. Cuz he doesn't seem nervous at all. “Do you guys shy away from nudity or is it like, a blasé sort of thing?” 
          He chuckles in my mind, flicking water from his fingertips. “If you could hear my thoughts, you wouldn't need to ask.           Truth be told I'm more nervous than you are. But, I'm a soldier. Putting on a brave face is my job.”
          I blow out a sigh of deep relief. “Well, I appreciate the bravado cuz the more calm you are, the more at ease I'll feel. And also, weren't you a scout, not a soldier?” I ask teasingly, turning to face the table as I force the Under Armour shirt up and off my chest before I think about it too hard. “Or are they the same thing? I don't mean to belittle your station, I just have no idea about the little details.”
          Some time is spent carefully folding the spandex shirt and laying it out on the table beside his…body gadgets. I start working the very tight knot of my jacket sleeves and as I'm pulling them away I realize it's been a minute and he hasn't said anything? 
          I glance back quickly, worried for some reason that something might have happened. I catch him looking away and scratching under his neck. “Sorry,” he says. “You just look so smooth, it's strange.”
          Snickering, I let the jacket fall away and begin folding it. Imagine that—me, being the strange one. 
          “I worry my scales may be rough on your skin.”
          For some reason, I imagine being scrubbed down with one of those exotic coral loofahs. “Nah,” I manage to turn and not bashfully try to hide all three embarrassing parts of my very naked and quite pale body. 
          “You'll let me know, if they are.” Pan says, stepping out of the tub and moving to the wall. I snort because he said it half as a kind ‘please tell me if I hurt you’ and half as a ‘well you're gonna tell me, you don't exactly have a choice.’
          He snickers, pulling open a section of the wall and plucking little vials from within. “You're exactly right. Here, now,” he crosses the room to me and holds out the three bottles. “Which oil scent do you prefer?”
          I take the yellow one and inspect the stopper. “These are Marine's oils?”
          “Marine? You mean the Exalt?”
          The cork comes away with a small pop. “Right, yeah. The big guy. He won't be upset that I'm using his fancy stuff?”
           “No, he would want your comfort as well.”
          Plugging the yellow, I pass it back and then take the off-putting green. Surprisingly it smells better. “I thought my comfort is your job?”
          “It…well yes, it is.” He passes me the last, a blue so light it's nearly clear. “But his job is to provide for us so that you can be comfortable. If you desire more exotic oils, it's his task to work harder to generate the funds to purchase them, so I can apply them to you.”
          So he's the money maker, then. The sugar daddy. Work all day, come home, have his sex, go to bed, and leave me in the morning to be tended by another man. What a bizzare modus operandi. 
          But, I'm glad it's Pan I get to spend the vast majority of my time with. 
          “You…flatter me.” He says softly. 
          Uh God these thoughts! Just when you start getting used to mind reading, you forget all about it. Yeesh.
          “So, the duskwood scent?” he asks, holding the green up for me to see. 
          Alright, the mind reading is kinda helpful sometimes. As I nod, his eyes sparkle and he moves away to replace the others in their shelf. The green one is brought to the floor beside the pile of blankets, then he returns toward the bath with his arm open, urging me to follow. 
          I repeat ‘Oh God oh God oh God’ so fast in my mind that it all mushes into one sound. Pan doesn't so much as chuckle, just waits politely and offers a hand as I hike a leg up into the bathwater. His palms are soft, sort of, and pleathery--a contrast to the coarse looking crocodile scales on his shoulders and chest. 
          “Feels delightful,” I say. About the water, but I mean, his hands are nice too. 
          He helps me balance as I get my other leg in, another of his hands rests at the center of my back as he helps me to carefully sit. Then his touch trills away in slow-motion. 
          Lordy, I can feel the grime coming off me. Not like I was covered in mud or anything, but just sweat and dust and general grossness. As he steps somewhere behind me, getting another something from the hidden cabinet, I groan inwardly. I'm tainting the bathwater and he's gonna join me and soak up all my grossness? 
          I turn toward him, finding a pair of bowls in his hands that look like sliced-in-half coconut. “You are coming in here, right?”
          He pauses, and I think he totally was headed in but I really can't be certain. His gait shifts a bit and he comes to kneel beside me outside the tub--a subtle, cocky, fanged little smirk across his muzzle. “Was that a flicker of hope, I sensed?”
          Hot mercy.
          I gulp and look away, my knees touching together by some weird instinct. The shadow of him over me, the grumbling growl in his throat, the smirk and fangs, the light amusement and dark humor in his voice. It's like a hot-alien sundae with extra sexy on top. 
          Pan leans back, wiping his muzzle. “I have a long battle ahead,” he mumbles as he stands. But he sets a foot into the bath, leaning to deactivate the water.
          “W-what do you mean by that?”
          He settles in beside me, letting one bowl float on the surface and filling the other with water. He reaches to take my hand from my lap. “Ah, just…” he raises my arm and slowly pours the water over my shoulder, down my arm to my hand, then scoops more. The tub-water only reaches to my navel. Quietly, he explains, “It’s strange, a female who enjoys sexual stimulation. And since I'm privy to your every thought and reaction, I get each burst of attraction as they come. It'll be hard to resist your beauty and charm.”
          Just layin' on the cheese! I mean come on—he said it himself! I'm strange! He's used to women with scales and fangs and cyborg-limbs, for chrissakes. 
          “I don't mean strange in at all a negative way, Lila.” he says softly. “Strange is interesting. It’s new and fascinating and exciting. I wonder what your—” he cuts off abruptly, releasing my arm and clearing his throat. “Other arm?”
          I hold it out to him, and he drips water down my shoulder. Then scoops more water and passes again. When he goes for the third I prompt, “What do you wonder?”
          He snickers teasingly. “Just because you've the misfortune to broadcast your every thought, that doesn't mean I can't have my secrets.”
          “Wha—yes it does!” I take my arm away but that only makes him laugh-growl loudly. “What were you gonna say?”
          Cuz it really sounded dreamy, like, I wonder what your body feels like under mine, or like, I wonder what ways you could make me feel pleasure which no woman has ever done to me before. Or maybe something less dramatic. But totally along those lines. 
          He snorts, filling the bowl again. 
          “Pan!” I whine. “Tell me! Please?”
          He shakes his head and leans forward to run the water over the front of my chest, and I see his eyes watch its trail very carefully. “Your comfort is my priority, but I fear finishing that sentence may make you more uncomfortable than not knowing the answer.”
          “Ohh that's playing dirty.” I frown at him. “Just tell me if it was along those lines?”
          He smirks, and slowly shakes his head as he passes more water over my chest. 
          “Is that a ‘no it wasn't’ or a ‘no I won't tell you’?”
          “I'm not going to tell you which one it was.”
           He's being coy. And bashful. And playful.
          Ohhh it was totally what I thought it was. 
          Pan sets the bowl adrift and reaches for the other. He supports the bottom and scoops out a glob of something from inside, a black gunk that looks like spat-out chewing tobacco. He takes my arm even as I grimace, and begins to apply a little at a time along my skin. It spreads well, a little going a long way, and he reaches all the way up my arm with just a little glob. Then, he goes back and presses his hand against the stuff, moving in little cleansing circles, the grit rubbing me like sandpaper and oh God does it feel fantastic. I hear myself sigh, and I scoot farther into the water to rest my neck along the edge of the tub. 
          After my arm is all tingly from exfoliation, he brings it underwater and runs his hands along my skin, brushing it off. His touch is light and wary, I can tell, but it still sends little shivers to my bones when he trails along the inside of my elbow, the small of my wrists, up into my palm…though, there's no sand-soap there. My fingers trace his, just on their own really. I've always enjoyed holding hands with my partners. 
          For a moment, referring to him as my partner has me in a bit of a panic. Thankfully, he ignores this and releases my arm, all clean. Then I remember we are, technically, ‘partners’. Just there's going to be three of us instead of two, and Pan isn't allowed to indulge in—
          His arm reaches over my chest, dominant hands gripping the edge of the tub and sub-hands bracing against the tops of my shoulders. He raises his body in the water, a leg passing over mine, his body and purposeful gaze pinning me in his shadow. He moves languidly now that he's above me, still headed to the other side but in no semblance of a rush. His calf brushes mine, and I hitch in a breath. He billows a heated breeze over me as he passes, and then removes his arms from either side of me and settles down again. 
          —oookay so he can't indulge but what about me? “What if I want to indulge?”