Close Encounters 05: of the 8th Kind

This is one of those questions I have now learned not to ask him because he would never answer me. Asking a Dryth to dissecting his motivations when they are more complex than just instinct-based is like asking someone to dig a hole in quicksand. Each grain of sand represents a facet and aspect of a reason. The reasons, multiplying through hindsight, keep coming in and coming in, much faster than you can dig, and in the end, you're sinking, no wiser than before.

Still silent, Rune grabs the bucket of water that's right behind him and puts it down next to me. Then he gets on his knees, dips the cloth in the water, and starts to wipe down my skin.

I sigh blissfully. This is the second time I'm being pampered within only a couple of hours and gosh darn, this is the life. All I'm lacking is a cocktail with a little paper umbrella in it. (Actually, everything's already perfect without it.)

Smiling, I lean back on my elbows and close my eyes. I don't think my aliens really understand why I feel the need to clean up all the time -- seeing how they're actively searching out and enjoying the dirtier, sweatier scents of me I'm guessing they'd actually rather not have me shower or wash, ever. But they have noticed that I have this urge and they cater to it readily because it makes me happy, and happy Val wants to get dirty again soon.

Or maybe they just like touching me. Either is good.

As per usual and just like his fellow alien, Rune is much more thorough and diligent than I'd ever be. Freaking perfectionists. Every plane, nook and cranny is cleansed at least twice, fastidiously. I actually doze off a bit when Rune tends to my torso and wake up when he rinses my groin area.

"Water's getting cold," I mumble, complaining a little.

He is relentless. I sigh and cover my eyes against the vision of Rune kneeling between my legs and wiping me up and down, up and down, until my pubes are dark and slicked straight onto the skin of my mons. My clit stings and twitches a little with every pass and my labia and sphincter feel tender. I bite my lip and make some vague noise. Bane. What a scoundrel and ruffian.

When Rune is finished, he carefully folds the cloth over the rim of the bucket, regards me for a second and then suddenly proceeds to slowly crawl over me.

Mind you, I'm not complaining, but I'm absolutely beat. Then again, the loincloth tells me that he has lost his spike during out last orgy -- I don't even remember that, it was just a whirl of crazy sensations at the end there; I don't even remember whether or not I came eventually, let alone him or Bane -- so maybe this is just a little cuddling?

Despite the fact that I'm not exactly used to post-coital Drythian cuddles, I don't think I'd ever say 'No' to cuddling and possibly some light necking. I open my arms wide.

So we cuddle and neck lightly, without any hurry, and it's like a balm over my beautifully chafed soul (and less beautifully chafed body. It's already getting better by the second, but man, I'm sore.).

I somehow end up sitting in his lap, my still-raw ass couched against his thighs and my core against his loincloth, my legs on either side of his strong body while my torso is cradled against his broader one. Chest to chest, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. My favorite.

When I caress his left ear with my fingers -- which is easier now that there are no earrings in the way -- I encounter a rough patch just behind it that I've never felt before. A new scab? I break the kiss and lightly tilt his chin with my finger so I can have a look.

There's a new cut towards the back of his cranium, maybe three inches long. For some reason, Rune's wounds always remind me of geodes for their scraggly edges and how they form an actual fissure in the shiny, dark tissue of his skin, like some insectoid animal took an actual bite out of him.

"What's this?" I ask him, then swallow a gasp down. "Did I scratch you or something?" Which is a ridiculous question. I physically wouldn't be able to do that. My nails are puny and Dryth skin is tough. More likely, the Drahta got him during their bout in the city.

Rune grabs the wrist of my hand -- the one that has encountered that new wound -- and drapes my arm around his neck like a garland instead, peppering it with kisses down to my shoulder. Then he brings his own hands to my face, sliding both along my cheeks. His roughened palms are so gentle it sends a pang of almost-sadness through me. I'm not sure where it comes from.

Cupping my face, he leans in and kisses my lips once, twice. When he pulls back, looking into his eyes is like looking into a hearth fire.

"Drahta have a gill," he says.

I blink, still all dazed by the kisses and the touches and the glow of his eyes, and barely manage not to ask "Who's Gil?" before my brain snaps into gear. A gill, like on a fish, for breathing, Val. Duh.

Drahta. Gill. Uh. Okay. What does it have to do with his new head wound? Or with anything? I furrow my brow.

"Right here," Rune goes on, sliding the tip of his index finger to where the side of my neck meets my lower jaw and painting a long, ticklish trail along my skin, all the way down to my clavicle. "It can be opened. Peeled back."

"Why are you telling me this?" I catch his fingers in my palm before they can travel farther south and distract me.

"Perhaps the translator unit can be slid into the tissue there, right at the top," he says, weaving my fingers between his. "It should be close enough to the root and stem of the brain. There would be no need for a new incision, in the interim at least."

He reaches into a fold of his loincloth and pulls out a silver-green, roughly octagonal translator chip, about the size of my thumbnail. It glints dully on his palm.

Wound on his head. Chip in his hand. Helpful instructions.

Click. Click. Click - Ka-Ching.

My eyes go wide, and my mouth falls open on his name.

Finally getting approval has never been so bitterly sweet.

"Oh, Rune. No! That's... I didn't want you to..." I trail off, suddenly brimful with a terrible sadness because when I'm searching his eyes, I can see in them that he cannot understand my words anymore. He's observing my mouth, almost like he's trying to read my lips, but he's clearly lost. "I never meant for you to..."

I also see that he knows. He knows I never once meant for him to do this in my stead. It never even occurred to me that Rune also had a language chip implanted and that giving that to the A'Draht was an option. Judging by the truly massive wound on his skull, it also sat a lot deeper than mine does, so I probably would have vetoed it categorically anyway.

Rune puts the chip into my hand. It weighs almost nothing and glints like a butterfly wing. "You will be careful, Teacher," he beseeches me, but imperiously, somehow making it sound like a threat.

I can hear the worry and the care. I can feel it in my head.

Gods, this alien. Both of these aliens, really. They slay me.

I hold the chip gingerly but securely, put my free hand on Rune's cheek and look him in the eye.

"I," I intone clearly and articulately, gesturing to myself, to my own torso, with the fist in which the chip is nestled.

"Love," I continue, trusting that he remembers that word from our earlier conversation, foregoing the gesture towards my heart that's thudding heavily, profoundly in my chest.

"You," I finish, poking him in the chest with my knuckle, then kiss him.

When that kiss ends and I pull back, he ponders for a moment, pupils dilating and constricting in his sunset-colored eyes.

Then he answers, in his slightly accented English, "kiss" and leans in to me again until his nose bumps mine and then his breath slides over my lips, and then his tongue licks into me.

I smile against his mouth.

***TBC soon***