Close Encounters 05: of the 8th Kind

I close my eyes and let him pamper me.

As if this particular touch, not ardent like the one before but caring and gentle, switches my nerves back into normal mode, all my aches start flaring up wherever he touches me.

There is a bump on my forehead the size of your regular oreo (ow) and a corresponding one at the back of my cranium, nestled in my hair (oww). My left cheek feels swollen and tender and crusted. (Oww.) My shoulders and arms hurt like that one time I moved into a sixth-floor apartment and the elevator was broken so we had to carry the mattress and the solid wood bedroom closet (pivot!) up the stairs. (Ugh.) Also, my entire chest and torso is aching and I wonder if it's possible for the chest wall muscles and the diaphragm to get sore. How the hell that would even happen?

There's a different type of soreness in my abdomen, a much preferred one. Bane's spike is inside me, not as lively as the ones before but entirely impossible to ignore on account of its girth and length. I can feel my nether muscles gripping and releasing it, trying to accommodate and arrange themselves with the big intruder. The feeling makes me shiver a little and I hiss when Bane's ministrations lead him into that area.

As Bane reaches the soles of my feet with his moist cloth, gently and thoroughly cleaning up even between my toes, his gaze meets mine, and holds it for a long moment.

Despite all my physical discomfort, I can't help but feel good. I am sated beyond satiation and one of the people I love the most in the entire universe is right by my side, caring for me. What more could I ever want? I smile at him and almost, almost give in to the overwhelming need to tell him I love his alien ass and to vow that I'll make him (and Rune, too) understand what that word means.

He opens his mouth and says, "We have to talk."

... well, damn. Welcome back to the real world, Valerie Greene.

***

Just to clarify: I'm not running this time.

I'm powerwalking.

The difference is quite easily explained: When you're running, it's because you're scared and you want to be somewhere else, so you won't be scared any more.

When you're powerwalking, it's because you're fucking pissed, and you need to be somewhere else because the likelihood that you'll physically explode out of sheer anger is too high.

So I'm powerwalking, pummeling the ground with my feet. Oh, and yelling. Swearing. A lot.

"We have to talk", he said.

He talked. I listened. And then the swearing commenced.

So, apparently, the female who was in the process of murdering Bane in Tulun D'tel was an A'Draht. As in, the female counterpart to Dryth. Bane had spotted her -- caught her scent, really -- at the food market where some asshole was selling her. And then he freed her. It wasn't exactly a smooth operation. There were some, uh, casualties.

Which... okay. If I saw a fellow human in a cage about to be sold to and eaten by some random moneyed alien with weird appetites, I'd probably want to free them, too. Even if it were entirely unwise to draw that kind of attention to me on a planet that's basically Slug Central.

Thing is, I'd probably make sure that the human I'm freeing won't drive me half-mad with mating pheromones and then battle me three quarters to death once they're free.

You see, the problem was that Bane's spike hadn't re-grown at that point so he couldn't answer the A'Draht's challenge and sate her. Thus, a long, pointless fight between the two ensued, and the female had a clearer head, the power of her 'mating rage', and her poison darts on her side. That's how she ended up almost killing Bane... which, as you know, is where Rune and I came in.

Speaking of me and poison darts -- Drahta poison apparently paralyses essential muscles, so when I touched those darts and poisoned myself, my respiratory muscles and my dang heart decided to take a spontaneous double vacation.

Lucky for me, Rune was nearby and had just successfully subdued the female so he could tend to me. Which he did by using his Princess Leia powers to remotely force my muscles back to work.

For six days. Six whole days.

Imagine being given CPR for six continuous days by someone who doesn't know what CPR actually is and only has the vague sense that something in your general chest area should be pumping blood and something else should be pumping air. I know next to nothing about Dryth inner anatomy; in the same way, human anatomy is a rocket science to Dryth. (Or worse, since they, you know, understand rockets.) In short, it's no wonder my ribs are a little bruised and that my brain was a little mushy even before Bane gave me orgasms.

It is a wonder that I'm alive and relatively functional. A miracle, really.

Rune somehow got all of us out of the city, across the moss desert, and back to the ship, all the while animating my vital organs with his brain powers.

So far so good.

Except that Rune and a recuperated Bane then decided to take the female onto the ship in order to somehow take her back to her home planet.

For shipping and security purposes, they then proceeded to put her in a box.

I imagine it was a bit like trying to put your highly vet-phobic cat into a cat carrier after telling it that you're Going To The Vet.

Except that you replace that carrier with something more like a coffin. And you replace your cat with something more intelligent, more humanoid and rational than a cat -- i.e. something that categorically doesn't belong locked into a fucking box.

"And how did that go for you?" I asked Bane innocently and he proceeded to glare at me.

"You," he merely said and then his glare level-upped when I couldn't help the smirk.

"Oh, me?" Seemed like I had something of a moral backbone of steel, even while mostly unconscious and running on instinct like a Girl Power!Sleepwalker. I was kinda proud of myself, really.

I mean, yeah, the chick had almost killed Bane (and me), but it wasn't exactly her fault she'd been angry and scared, right? She'd obviously been kidnapped from her planet, probably put in several different boxes to be shipped to distant planets and then sold for fucking and/or eating purposes, and she would naturally have assumed that Bane was going to be the literal death of her.

Our biographies are so similar that she is practically my soul mate. My alien sister from another alien mister. We're one soiled polyester suit away from being twinsies.

Bane had given a growl and poked the tender bump on my forehead which, I was sure, was probably a black-and-blue horn and which I assumed I had received during my prison break moment. I flinched back at the pain. He growled again, then reached out again and instead touched first my shorn hair, then my cheek which now sported an X-shaped scab that would probably turn into a scar. When I slapped his hand away, he caught my wrist and turned my hand palm-up. I hadn't noticed before, but the skin there was peeling like I'd received second degree burns recently.

"You put yourself in danger, Va-l'ree."

I had snatched my wrist out of his grip and felt a stirring of anger at the phrasing and the implied meaning. "Oh, and you didn't?"

He pulled his upper lip up and exposed one canine in what was probably a Dryth show of intense displeasure but looked to me a lot like a disparaging sneer. "You are human."

That's what he said.

What I heard was 'You're a weak little guppy. Guppies stay put in their aquarium and shut their fishy little mouths when the sharks swim away into the deep, dark ocean.'

Speaking of miracles, it was a miracle that my eyebrows didn't fly off and break clean through the roof at that point.

"You don't say! I had almost forgotten!" I (gingerly but theatrically) slapped my own forehead like the little dummy I was, making a show. "Remind me again what that means, oh Wise One!"

Remember how aliens in general don't get sarcasm?

"You do not have strength," Bane somberly reminded me. "You shall not leave this ship."

Rationally, I knew (and know) the former, and I understood (and understand) that the latter was probably the most sensible thing to do. More than that, I didn't want to leave the dang ship at all -- I wanted to stay in here. Ideally forever. With them. Both of them. Screw the rest of the universe. I've never been a sightseeing-outdoors-socialize-with-strangers kind of person anyway, and I've seen enough of space to last me a lifetime already. Gimme orgasms and the occasional cuddle and a bit of food and I'm a happy, indoorsy camper.

Still, it's not fun to have your face rubbed in your weakness, with an extra helping of chauvinistic bullshit on top.

So I did the reasonable thing.

I escalated.

"ExCUSE me, but I can't help but notice that you're the one who almost got his ass killed first! In fact, may I remind you that I was the one who saved aforementioned ass in the nick of time! Seems to me like you do not have the strength, either!" I hollered, poking at the two brand new scars adorning his face. Just half an inch higher and he might have lost his damn eye. "If anyone should be under house arrest, it would be you! So, you shall not leave this ship!" I widened my eyes in challenge and crossed my arms over my chest. "How d'you like them apples, huh?"

He visibly struggled with the meaning of that last sentence for a second, then dismissed it -- and God, that irked me in that moment. It irked me so much.

Not as much as his next words, though.

"The filters needed to be replaced."

My mouth fell open. "Needed? Past tense?" My heart started up an anxious flutter. "Meaning that you went out into Slug City, by yourself, again while I was out? While Rune was too busy keeping me alive to have your back out there?"

Which, d'uh, Val. Not only was he still a freaking apex predator who could freaking go out into whichever city he wanted, whenever he wanted, without asking me or anyone. I also could feel the gentle vibrations of the ship underneath my body, meaning that we had continued our journey. The conclusion that the filters had been replaced (and fuel had probably been bought and everything) was obvious, my dear Watson.

Bane didn't reply because of course he didn't. High and mighty Dryth Generals don't need to explain themselves to anyone, least of all to weak, little guppies.

So I called him an ass in several ways. It was entirely irrational, but I was just so fucking scared for him -- the last memory I'd had was him on the floor in a pool of blood not looking at me and clammy and twitching like a dying, half-gutted fish.

But fear has never sat well with me, and I don't think I've ever seriously been this scared in my entire life -- not even when my car flew away with me, or when I met my first space slug -- so I cranked my gear shift and switched to boiling rage. I traditionally found that much easier to handle.

"Listen up, buttercup," I bitched at him, actually pointing a finger at his face and channeling my inner Karen speaking to the underpaid part-time clerk who should've called the manager five minutes ago. "You may be fucking me, and you may have technically abducted me, but I'm still neither your property, nor your pet, nor some sort of princess child you get to keep things from! You also don't get to put me in a tower and lock the door and tell me to stay put. You don't get to tell me what to do, especially not with my body. And you sure as fuck don't go out to get yourself killed while I'm dying, you... you fucking prick! What if I had woken up and you were dead, huh? And it would've been my fucking fault! What the fuck would I have done then?!"

That's when I took off, without giving him a chance to not answer me. Wobbling like a newborn calf, because my legs were still rubbery (either from being in a coma for a week or from being fucked seven ways from Monday and left with the biggest spike ever in my hoo-hah), but take off I did before he could see me really start bawling.

So here I am, on my way to my usual brood-spot on this ship, walking like I've spent my entire life on horseback, mumbling expletives under my breath, repeating the recent conversation in my head, and trying desperately to normalize my breathing.

You know how your breath stutters in your chest when you in- and exhale while trying not to cry? I loathe that.

I loathe the fact that I'm a girly, weepy mess -- have been for some time, really, looking back at the recent past. What's worse is that I know I really have no right to be angry at all, that I feel underappreciated and ignored by the two people who appreciate and pay attention to me more than any other living beings ever have in my life, and that me being angry at my human weakness is like being angry at the universe for being big and cold and mostly void.

You're becoming one of those women, Val. Self-centered dum-dums who throw tantrums and screech and cry for no good reason.

MTV will invite you as a 'My Super Sweet 16' birthday girl soon.

I grimace at that unpleasant epiphany, then draw deep, deep breaths as I push open the door to the ground floor storage room with the empty shelf space and the little porthole. The shelf is a little fuller than before -- yet more evidence for Bane's successful shopping trip, grrr -- and I gripe and grumble as I push random stuff out of the way and slide in.

Silence and darkness fall around me for a while so I can almost hear my nerves settling as I shimmy my shoulders to get the porthole into my line of sight. Right now, it shows only solid blackness, but we might pass by some star system or nebula soon enough.

"Until then, we'll just lie here... and count our breaths... and untwist the panties we haven't been wearing in weeks now," I tell myself and my inner bitch. I feel her reluctant agreement. "In... and out... Good job, crew."

For a little while, I force myself with gritted teeth to think of something entirely different, something that doesn't have anything to do with me. I hum commercial jingles and recite the one poem they made you learn in elementary school which you can't forget except by lobotomy. I try to recall phone numbers, and Green Eggs and Ham, and the lyrics for the opening song of Full House.

Just as I hit the 'When you're lost out there and you're all alone'-line, there's a bright flash of light through the porthole that illuminates me and everything around me for a split second -- we must've turned and maybe zipped past a sun. In that flash of light, I see a shape or a color or something out of the corner of my eye, not more than three hands' width next to me, and my brain temporarily files it under 'stuff Bane bought in Tulun D'tel' while it's still busy figuring out the next line of that darn song.

"Something-or-another waiting to carry you hoooome", I mumble-sing to myself, except that my brain now insists on reprising Swing Low Sweet Chariot because that song also features some home-carrying, which is not helpful at all.

Then there's a record scratch of a moment and my blood suddenly chills to ice, my breath freezes in my lungs. Time itself seems to come to a stop.

That color next to me was light gray.

That shape was humanoid.

There was a human-like face, two eyes, one mouth, one nose, except grayish and with feelers.

Oh. No. No no no.

When Bane told me, more than slightly irritated, that I had freed that A'Draht from her box, I assumed that that had happened while we were still parked on KV4022 and that she had fled the ship.

(You know what they say about assuming, Val.)

I'm.

So.

Absolutely fucked.

***

Shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh

I don't know how much time has passed in which I barely dared to breathe. My mind is spinning in panic, like a top. A top on speed.

A haunted top on speed that also screams with the voice of a frightened little girl.

Why in God's name didn't Bane tell me that SHE'S STILL HERE?!

(Maybe because you weren't listening to him and then you got angry and said 'fuck' a lot and then stormed off in a hissy fit?)

Oh SHUT UP WITH YOUR LOGIC!

I picture the scenario, a still-wounded Bane, an exhausted Rune, an angry A'Draht, a big box. Then me, rising from my coma like a zombie on a mission of universal female freedom, making it impossible for the two guys to wrestle the aforementioned A'Draht into the aforementioned box. There must've been some fighting, some confusion. Perhaps my boys had just lost track of her themselves and weren't sure whether she was still on board or not. Perhaps Bane had still been out of commission at that point.

In a spot like this, she sure is bound to become hide-and-seek-champion of the decade. I mean, I hadn't spotted her for a full ten minutes while lying right the hell next to her. I probably wouldn't have seen her there even if I had known that she was out and about.

So, this is what Pi Patel must have felt like when he found that he unexpectedly shared his tiny lifeboat with that freaking tiger, I muse after long minutes of absolute physical stillness and absolute mental breakdown.

(Except, of course, that the tiger was just a dumb metaphor and there's nothing metaphorical about the rabid female lying a GODDAMNED ARM'S LENGTH AWAY FROM ME.)

(Out of all the fucking storage rooms and shelves on this ship, she had to choose this one. Of fucking course.)

I agree and am equally enraged, but this isn't helping.

(Should I stay still?)

(How much longer?)

(And until what happens, exactly?)

(Run! Run! Run!)

(How? She'll kill me the second I move! And where to, anyway?)

(Or talk to her?)

(She probably doesn't speak English.)

(But maybe she has a translator, too?)

(What would I even say to her?)

(Let's start with 'please don't kill me' and go from there.)

(And what if she interprets my noises as threatening?)

My inner bitch doesn't even answer that question. That's how screwed I am.

Involuntarily I spend long minutes mentally yelling for Rune but nobody comes riding in on a white horse (or a horse-equivalent alien creature of any color) to save me. Maybe he's too far away, or not listening in right now, or maybe he's just catching up on sleep after long days of continuous work as my personal heart-lung-machine.

I'm on my own here.

Well, I'm not, technically. That's the problem. I'm sharing a shelf with a murderous stowaway.

Our ship is passing by a whole cluster of stars. In the stray light, out of the corner of my eye (because I don't dare turn my head all the way to look at her -- I'm stupidly convinced that she will recognize me as the one who clotheslined and strangled her with a chain if we make eye contact, and then she'll rip my face off) I can see her arm and shoulder. She's lying on her side, too, her back pressed all the way against the wall, facing me. Her skin is light gray like a cloud, and speckled with darker dots.

(Pores full of venomous or poisonous stuff of some kind.)

(Or they could be... freckles?)

(... no, Val. They couldn't. Grow up.)

After two eternities of feeling my heart lub!lub!lubbing in my throat, of sweating rivers down my armpits, praying fervently to Sigourney (again -- it worked last time, after all. If I survive this one too, I swear I'll build her a shrine) and waiting for my swift but bloody demise at the hands (claws, teeth) of the feral creature next to me, nothing has happened yet.