Seeing Green

Adam laughed as he exited the theater, holding the door open for Fetch. His classmate, a short goblin and fellow freshman at Murray State, was clutching fistfuls of her dark black hair.

"That was so stupid! Nothing made any sense! Why was Lisa so evil? Why was the kid so weird? Why did Johnny talk like that?"

"I still can't believe-" Adam choked through his laughing fit, "-that you've never seen The Room. It's a classic! Best of the worst!"

The pair started walking back to his car. Adam took slower steps to stay beside his friend. He eyed her as best he could without being too obvious as they moved. She was dressed like she was most days they had class; a crop top and jeans that were near threadbare on one of her thighs. When he'd picked her up earlier that evening he had joked that unless she'd found them in someone else's laundry bag, she'd paid too much for them. She'd snorted, then informed him that it was a style, and that the proper term for them was "distressed."

Not that he minded her wardrobe. It looked good on her. But then again, everything did. Her emerald green skin made it somehow easy to just look at her. Perhaps a little too easy. She glanced up at him, and hurriedly he looked away, trying not to blush. He felt a few tense moments pass, but when she didn't say anything, there came a sigh of relief. 'Maybe she didn't notice.'

He thought again of the question he'd been thinking of asking, but it still wasn't ready. 'I think I love you.' was obviously too forward. 'Hey, do you want to date me?' was too casual. Iterations upon iterations clogged up his brain, bringing with them an anxiety that made him sweat. Perhaps-

They reached his car and he climbed into the driver's seat. Then he leaned over and popped the passenger door open, waiting for Fetch to circle around. "Want some help getting in?"

When she reached the open door, she rolled her eyes. "Why are human car seats so fucking high? It's not like-" she took his hand, and he pulled her up. Despite her short stature, Adam was tugged against his seatbelt. He found himself pleasantly surprised by her sturdiness. "-you freaks need the extra height!" With some audible exertion, she clambered up into the seat, and settled into it with a triumphant thump.

She sighed, then looked over at him.

"Couldn't have gotten the little step thing, huh?"

His cheeks lit up red, and he put his hands up defensively. "I didn't- I just-"

She snorted. "I'm fucking with you, dude. Loosen up a little! We're just hanging out." He nodded. "Now," she declared loudly, pulling her hair into a ponytail and slapping her belly like a drum, "mama's hungry! Where do you wanna go for food?"

He'd thought of this answer ahead of time. "That little diner place on the edge of campus is really good! I think it's called Martha's, or something. Have you been there?" Fetch shook her head, and he smiled. "You've been missing out. Their apple pie is so good!"

By now, the key was in the ignition, and he was pulling out of the theater's parking lot. Fetch reached up and pressed a button on the dashboard, bringing the car's old radio crackling to life. The sounds of electric guitars and drums warbled forth from the speakers, and almost instantly, Fetch's face lit up. "Yo! You listen to-"

Whatever words followed were drowned out when a voice in the song cried out "Thunder!" Fetch gave the volume knob an excited turn, and the song flooded the interior of the car, smothering any hope he had of making out anything of what she'd said. He nodded sheepishly, but she was no longer looking at him. Instead she was banging her head in time with the song, sending her ponytail bouncing around erratically as she seemed to be trying to jump out of her seatbelt without standing up. Her mouth was moving along to the music, but it was so loud that it was impossible to tell where the singer's voice, the crowd's cheers, and Fetch's voice were separate.

Adam made sure the road ahead was clear before allowing his gaze to wander. The goblin's thrashing did more than just slightly rock the car. She had the proportions characteristic of most goblins; wide hips that gave her a pleasantly pear-shaped body, and thighs that looked like they were used to straining against whatever they were put in. Each bob of her head sent a ripple through her body, and his eyes naturally followed it down past her shoulders, through her chest. Her crop top wasn't as stretched as her pants, but it was white, and taught enough that he had been able to see her black bra beneath it all day. It felt like a good sign. Maybe she knew about his crush?

More eye-catching than that, however, was the bouncing of her cleavage. Adam suddenly worried that he might have made his averting of his eyes more obvious than his staring through the night. Regardless, his gaze continued to roam; through her midriff, where dark green freckles were spattered over her emerald skin, betraying how often she left it bare. It was clear that she enjoyed showing herself off. Or, perhaps, disliked being covered. Either gave Adam a flutter in his heart. The ripples continued, pulling his eyes along with it past her waistband and towards her thighs. Every tantalizing jiggle seemed to shake the whole car. God, what he wouldn't give to feel that pressing down on-

A drawn out breath hissed from between his teeth.

He turned his attention back to the road, trying to clear his head. 'Don't be weird,' he thought to himself, 'if she's interested, she'll say something. Please God let her say something.'

She continued to belt out lyrics, and Adam joined in on the chorus as he tried to remember the name of the band. Suddenly he wished he'd paid more attention when his parents had played these CDs on roadtrips. Fetch didn't seem to mind too much, however, if her hair whipping around and hitting his arm was anything to judge by.

The drive to Martha's was short. That was one of the nice things about the small college town, nothing was ever more than a five minutes drive from anything else. He pulled into the gravel parking lot and sat back, waiting for the song to end as Fetch sang, now playing a set of imaginary drums, even miming finger movements that he assumed were stick twirls. When the song had finished and she pounded out the last beat in time with the radio, he reached to turn it off and looked back at her, his eyebrows raised.

"It looked like you were really going nuts on those drums! Do you actually play?"

She nodded, catching the breath she'd lost following along before replying. "Yeah-" Adam noticed a spreading blot of darker green beneath the lines of freckles on her face. Was she blushing? "-I played a lot of percussion in high school and middle school bands; y'know, pep and marching and concert and stuff. Plus there might have been a teen angst fueled garage band. Maybe. If there was, I was definitely the drummer."

Adam laughed. "Nice. It looked cool! Now I've got to hear you play sometime. I never did band. Sometimes I wish I did, a bunch of my friends did, but I think the piano lessons I was forced into sort of put me off that whole thing." He shrugged, then nodded towards the restaurant. "Anyways, food?"

"Food!" She replied, straining to get a good look over the dashboard. "It looks good! Let's go!"

With that she unbuckled and opened the car door, sliding down the side of her seat and jumping from the floor to the ground. Adam followed, and the pair entered the glass doors that led into the quaint little diner.

An older woman,with a name tag that read not just "Martha" but "The Martha," smiled up at them. "Howdy! Table for two?" Adam nodded, and she gestured. "Right this way, then!"

The place was mostly empty, only one or two two other tables occupied. One was by a group that looked to be students, though Adam didn't recognize any, and the other by an older couple; neither paid them much mind as they were shown to a booth in front of a window at the back of the restaurant. They sat down, and Adam noticed something odd. Fetch's face was still blushing, not as distinctly as it had been in the car, really it was difficult to notice at all, but the extra color was still there.

The woman placed menus in front of each of them, beaming, then asked "Anything to drink, darlings? We've got Coke products, Pepsi, y'all know the drill."

Fetch spoke first. "A coke, please."

Martha made a note on her notepad, then looked at Adam. "And you, hun?"

"The same."

"Alright, you two take your time lookin' at the menu, no rush!"

She walked away, and Adam turned his attention back to Fetch. She had a keyring at the end of a lanyard in her hands, idly fiddling with it while simply staring at him, a slightly vacant grin on her face. She still had more color in her face than she'd started the night with. Adam raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you feeling alright? You look sort of. . . I don't know, hot?"

Her grin widened, and she said, "You're not too bad yourself."

Adam stammered, trying to find a response. "Uh, I-"

Her grin cracked into a giggle, and she tried to speak through it as best she could. "I'm sorry- I'm sorry, you just- the setup was perfect!" She took a moment to breathe, getting the rest of her giggles out of her system, before she looked back up at him, pleased with herself. "Pretty smooth though, right?"

He had to admit, it was smooth. "Yeah, that was pretty good. Sort of weak as far as pickup lines go, though. I would expect something way better from someone as smooth as you. Give me your best-" he stopped and smiled as a better idea occurred to him, "-no, worst pickup line. The bad ones are always funnier."

She leaned back against the booth, stretching her arms above her head. Adam suddenly found himself glancing around at the others in the diner to avoid staring. "Worst pickup line, huh?" She groaned as her stretching reached its furthest extension, and she leaned forward. Despite his best efforts, he glanced, and found that Fetch was showing off more than intended. Her breasts squished up over the top of her bra as she tilted. A final grunt preceded her arms falling back to the table, and she said, "Alright, give me a second to think about it."

She started unscrewing the cap of a metallic pill holder hooked to her keychain. He'd never noticed it before. "Bad ones are harder to think of. You have to be in the right mind. . ." She opened the holder and tipped it into her palm, only to be rewarded by a few particles of a pink colored dust. ". . .set."

Adam couldn't tell if her blush deepened or drained. It seemed to do both at the same time, but her expression didn't change at all. She simply stared for a second, then looked back up at Adam, her eyes slightly widened.

"Is everything alright?"

Her mouth hung open as she simply continued to stare for a moment, before she closed it and swallowed. "Y-yeah," she said, laughing nervously, "fine! Just out of. . . mints."

"You were going to eat a mint before dinner?"

There was a long pause, before she responded with an uncertain ". . . no?"

"If you're sick, we can do this another time." He shrugged. "Hanging out with you is great, I'm not going to turn down an excuse to do it again soon." As he spoke, the green in her cheeks deepened some more, and her breaths seemed to start coming deeper. "Bro, you look like you have a fever. Here, let me feel your head."

He half-stood from his booth and leaned over the table awkwardly, reaching for her forehead. She pressed herself into the cushions of the booth, as if halfheartedly trying to escape his touch. When his fingers made contact with her forehead, Adam realized that he didn't know how a goblin's body temperature was supposed to compare to a human's. She was warm, though. He moved the hand to a few different spots on her forehead, trying to gauge how far over whatever her normal she was.

"You definitely feel toasty," he said, looking down again at her face. She was breathing much more heavily now, her chest rising and falling as though she'd just finished a jog. Her skin was now flushed with a deeper green, which now wasn't stopping at her face, creeping down her neck. He started to shuffle out of the booth, saying "Alright, you definitely need to go to th-"

Fetch caught his wrist, and shook her head. "I-I'm fine, I promise." She let out a heavy breath, let go of his wrist, and closed her eyes for a moment as she composed herself. "This is just a. . ." she hesitated for a moment ". . .goblin thing. I'm not sick." She motioned for him to sit down again. "It's not a big deal. Just sort of puts me on edge. I can keep a handle on it."

The gears in Adam's mind were grinding painfully as he tried to recall middle school health classes that might have given any hint as to what it was that was happening, but the mind of his pubescent self was a mysterious thing, and often seemed to have stored only the most uselessly eclectic information. He resigned himself to ignorance, and sat back down.

As he did so, Martha returned with the drinks. "Everything alright over here, darlins'? Y'all look a little worried!"

Adam nodded. "Yeah, we're fine," he said, shooting a glance at Fetch. She was staring at him, but her expression was impossible to read.

She set the drinks down in front of them, beaming happily. "Well I'm so glad to hear that! I got your drinks here, and do y'all know what you'd like to eat?"

He opened his mouth, about to say that they weren't ready, when Fetch spoke up unexpectedly from her side of the booth. Her voice was slightly different now, a bit lower, somewhat gravelly. She only spoke one word. "Yeah." Her eyes didn't leave him.

Martha produced a notepad and pen from her bright pink apron, readied them, then looked at Fetch expectantly. "What'll it be?"

Fetch blinked, looking up at the older woman like she'd only just realized she was there. "Uh-" she looked over at Adam, clearing her throat, "You go first."

"I'll have a club sandwich, please."

Martha nodded, scribbling it down, then looked again to Fetch.

"Same for me!" She said, grinning like she'd figured out some kind of riddle. Martha scribbled again on her notepad, then smiled up at the both of them.

"Alrighty, I'll have those out for you lickity-split!" With that, she walked off again towards the kitchen.

Adam looked back over to Fetch. Her arms were up on the table in front of her, and she was staring intently at her interlaced fingers, chewing on her lip. He waited for a moment. She didn't look up.

"You're really sure that you're-"

She looked up, fixing her gaze on a point somewhere about a foot above Adam's head, and sighed. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being weird, it's usually not this bad, I just- you're so-" Her eyes fell back to his face, and were filled with a sudden strange longing. "I've never been this bad before. I can usually keep a better handle on myself, but there's something about you that I just can't get enough of! I d-don't know what it is, it's just. . . there! I can hear it when you laugh, and I can see it when you move and I can smell it when you're close and I can feel it when we. . ."

Her voice trailed off, and suddenly she was clutching his hand. The look in her eyes had intensified. Just as quickly as she'd grabbed it, she released his hand, and swallowed hard. "Sorry! Sorry, I-" her voice became muffled as she buried her face in her hands.

"God dammit. . . I was trying to wait until we got back to not make this weird, I had this whole plan in my head, but I think it's a little late for that now, huh? I love watching shitty movies with you, and hanging out, and texting at two in the morning! I just think you're really great, and I'd really like to date you. If that's not something that you'd be okay with, then I should probably just go."

Adam opened his mouth to respond, but Fetch was quick to interrupt.

"And, before you say anything, I have to tell you something. You haven't been around a lot of goblins, I can tell. I'm not sick, I'm-" she looked away for a moment and took a shaky breath, then looked back. "-I'm in heat. Usually I would take my blockers if it got this bad but-" she held up the pill container "-I'm fucking out! Now I'm just sitting here trying not to lose my mind and it's not. Fucking. Working!"

With the last word she dropped her keys on the table and started fidgeting. He could hear her thighs rubbing together.

Adam blinked, processing what she had told him. She watched his face carefully, still fidgeting beneath the table. Her eyes held hope, and something else, restrained. He hesitated a moment, trying to find the right words, before speaking again.

"You. . . really feel that way about me?"

She nodded.

"Oh!" He chuckled, "Christ, I've been trying to work up the balls to ask you out all night! Well, for a while now, really. I'd love to go out with you! Is there anything I can do to help with-"

"Yes! Thank fucking god!" She cut him off. One of her hands slid under the table, and she started to breathe more heavily. "I think I can. . . tide myself over a little longer. Long enough to get some food, at least."

"Tide yourself over?"

The deep green blush spread now across her skin like wildfire, and her eyes fluttered for a moment before she pulled her focus back to him, and nodded. His eyes flicked to the arm under the table, and he raised an eyebrow. She nodded, grinning. He took a peek beneath the table, and saw Fetch's arm disappearing into her pants.

Adam straightened up, looking frantically around the diner to make sure that nobody was watching. None of the other patrons seemed remotely interested in the pair, and, as he realized this, it occurred to him that their booth was rather out of the way, nestled into a corner where the only person likely to see anything other than the top half of Fetch's head poking up over the booth would be Martha, and she was still at the register near the door.

Panic starting to subside, he let his gaze fall back to the goblin sitting across from him. She was rocking slowly back and forth with a hazy look in her eyes. Her attention seemed to be painstakingly divided, as she switched frequently between looking him in the eyes and letting her gaze roam over the rest of him. Every time she pulled it back to his face, it seemed to take more effort than the last.

After what seemed like minutes, she spoke again. "Can I be a little forward?"

Adam hesitated. "More forward than that? What-" He caught himself as he saw a hint of nervousness edging its way onto Fetch's face, and shifted to a nervous laugh. "I mean, sure!"

"Let me see your dick! Just a quick peek. I promise, I just want to see for a second."

He stalled for a moment. That wasn't what he was expecting. Was she joking? She didn't have that shit eating grin she usually got when she was setting up a joke. Instead, she was staring, somehow intense and cloudy at the same time. Her jaw was set, like it was taking all the effort in the world to hold back. He found himself speechless. Here? Now? Where they might get caught? Yet, in spite of the danger, there was a rush of excitement. He wasn't an exhibitionist. Or, at least, he'd never thought he was. "I don't know if. . . really?"

She nodded enthusiastically.

"Fucking. . . fine. Make it quick, though."

Her smile broadened, and she hissed out a low "Yesss" as she slipped under the table. Adam was surprised at how readily he unbuttoned his pants. Perhaps it was because he couldn't see her staring at him any more. Though, the more he thought about it, the tighter his briefs got.

He looked down, and saw Fetch creeping closer on the floor. She was staring at his zipper with an odd expression he could only describe as hungry. As his fingers fumbled for his zipper, she looked up, nodding encouragingly and whispering "Come on, let me see it! Please!"