The chain clanked as Lesh strained to reach the dish, but it turned out to be just a little too far. All that growling from him had scared me from placing it any closer.
He glanced up at me.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault your master dumped you here.”
He sat back on his haunches once again, and I shoved the dish a little closer with my foot. There was no way I’d come any closer to this beast than that, especially while he was watching me with his sharp, translucent teeth bared in warning.
Only once I’d stepped back to my sleeping pallet did Lesh lower his left head to take a sniff at the water. The other two kept watching me, unblinking.
“Are you picky or just mistrusting?” I threw him a glare of my own. “Well suit yourself, I’m going to bed.” I climbed under the blankets.
The slurping sound of Lesh drinking reached me as I closed my eyes.
“If you need to go to the bathroom,” I mumbled through the warm, heavy haze of the approaching sleep, “hold it until your master is back. There’s no way I’m going to clean up after you.”
Chapter 6
I WOKE UP TO A VOMIT-inducing stench.
“For the love of all that’s holy, Lesh!” I groaned, burying my face in the blankets. “What the fuck did you do?”
What had Wyck been feeding him?
The cookie couldn’t have caused that smell, could it?
“No, no, no,” I moaned into the blankets. “No way. I’m not cleaning that. Wyeeeeck!” I yelled in desperation. It was unlikely that the broody errock would hear me or rush to my rescue.
I had no idea what time it was. The lights outside the glass moved in the same chaotic pattern as they did when I went to bed. I still felt tired, needing more sleep. But not in this stench.
Cursing and groaning, I rolled out of the sleeping pallet and climbed to my feet.
Lesh’s chain clanked, but he remained lying by the door. All of his heads were wide awake, six glimmering eyes watching me intently.
On the glass floor between me and the hound from hell, a huge steaming pile lay.
“I can’t believe this.” I speared my fingers through my hair then shook my hands out. “I told you to wait for your master, didn’t I? What am I supposed to do with this?”
There was so much of it, too.
Lesh tilted all of his heads to the same side. They moved simultaneously like a synchronized swimming team.
“Don’t you stare at me like that,” I snapped at him. “Like you’re proud of what you’ve done.”
I paced the floor in front of the offensive pile, pressing both hands to my nose and mouth and trying not to gag. It smelled like something huge had died in here, then had been baking in the sun for months while its decomposing corpse had been used as a place to go to the bathroom by every space creature imaginable.
“Wyck is insane!” He must be crazy. Only a man with an intense, unhealthy attachment to the animal would keep it around and clean after it regularly.
I had no idea how long the stinky Cerberus was supposed to stay with me. However, there was a good chance I wouldn’t survive this stench long enough for Wyck to starve me.
“I hate him! I don’t have anything to clean up this shit with.” I stomped my foot. “Nothing!”
No automatic cleaning machines like we had on the ship. No soap, no rags, no hot water.
I stomped over to the rack that held the shimmering evening wear. The clothes were less useful to me than the bedding. If I had to rip something for rags, it had to be one of the dresses.
It hurt to ruin the gorgeous outfits, but they were out of place here, and I needed to do something about the gallon of alien poop on the floor.
Using my hands and teeth, I managed to rip off two long, voluminous sleeves of a velvet dress, then to tear one of them in half. I tied one long strip over my nose and mouth, using it as a face mask.
“Gaaawd, this is so, so gross.” I crouched by the pile of Lesh’s waste as he kept staring at me, not moving a muscle. Despite his lying position, he appeared tense, like he was ready to pounce on me if I made a wrong movement. I knew his chain was long enough for him to reach me. After all, it’d been long enough for him to take a dump in this very location.
At this point, however, the risk of a vicious animal attack seemed irrelevant when faced with the dire need to breathe some fresh air.
Holding my breath, I quickly scooped the mess with the pieces of fabric then tossed it into the toilet. I had to do several trips, scooping and tossing, before most of it was gone. Then, I filled the empty soap dish with the water from the bathroom faucet and scrubbed the floor the best I could.
I rinsed out and dumped the dirty pieces of fabric into the waste basket in the bathroom, then washed my hands thoroughly and shut the door.
The place still smelled awful, but at least the sharp edge of the stench was now gone.
“I’m going to kill your master with my bare hands,” I vowed to Lesh afterwards. “Even if it’ll be the last thing I ever do.”
“DID YOU HAVE A GOOD night?” Wyck’s voice woke me up. There was an uncharacteristically warm note in his tone.
I lifted my head off the pallet and opened my eyes. Wyck wasn’t talking to me, which explained the affection in his voice.
Lesh’s front paws planted onto Wyck’s chest, the heads of the scaly monster fought over the patting that Wyck was generously shelling out to them. Having not enough hands to pat all three at the same time, Wyck did his best to give an equal amount of attention to the flat heads of his pet.
“How did it go, my friend?” he cooed, scratching the side of the right head’s neck. The animal literally smiled in response, baring his teeth, his three tongues dangling out. His heads leaned toward Wyck’s hand, the snake-like tail wound around one of Wyck’s short boots. “Did she give you any trouble?”
I huffed, dropping my head back to the sleeping pallet.
“I gave him trouble?” I asked curtly, my voice hoarse from the lack of sleep. “He took a huge dump in here! What on earth do you feed him, it reeked like decomposing flesh.”
“It still does.” He wrinkled his nose.
Whatever air filtration system they had in this room had done its job, in my opinion. I couldn’t smell anything anymore. I’d heard that errocks’ sense of smell was superior to that of humans, though. Also, I might’ve gotten used to the smell and no longer noticed it even if it lingered.
Whatever the case, the disgusted expression on Wyck’s face irritated me. It wasn’t my fault the air in the room was not entirely to his satisfaction.
“You know what...” I got up and stomped to the bathroom.
A nauseating wave of stench assaulted my nostrils the moment I opened the door. The soiled rags in the waste basket had done a great job at overpowering any efforts of the air filtration system.
Pressing my nose into my shoulder, I grabbed the basket then went back to Wyck.
“Here” I shoved it into his chest as he stumbled back, astonishment mixed with deep repulsion on his face. “Get rid of this, will you? Make yourself useful instead of just complaining.”
He stared at the offensive basket, his full, shapely lips curved in disgust.