by Amalia Rey
“And what about…” she doesn’t finish her thought, just looks away.
I reach over and touch her forehead and her eyes widen nervously.
“You do know. How do you do that?”
“Do what?” I ask nervously. What just happened?
She backs away and starts pacing. “Naomi, what’s happening?”
But she scurries out of the room, to my bathroom. I hear the lock on the door and realize that she needs a few moments.
11
Naomi
My stomach rumbles, but I ignore it and turn on the faucet. It takes a few minutes before I figure out the right water setting, but soon, I’ve managed to make my first space bubble bath.
As I settle into the water, there’s a gentle knock at the door.
“Go away.”
“The food is ready. Shall I serve it to you in the bathroom, or keep it out here?”
I’m hungry. I think about that one music video with the girl eating in the bathtub and grown. Am I becoming that girl?
“Fine,” I mutter, standing up and crossing the room, soap suds and all.
I unlatch the door and walk right back to where I started. I plop right back down into the water, not even daring to make eye contact with this mind reader space alien.
“I’m sorry I upset you,” Marv says, entering carefully. He carries the food to me and holds it out, like a peace offering. “Can you tell me what I did?”
I glare up at him and he honestly looks worried. Worried that his little plan to have a breeding female will sizzle into pieces.
“You spoke to me again. Without using your mouth.”
“What did I say?” he asks nervously.
“You said, ‘When we have babies we’ll stay home.”
“I didn’t speak it, though,” Marv tells me, his eyes widened with confusion. “I thought those words.”
I shrug. “It sounded like your voice to me,” I tell him. “It happened earlier, when we were, well, you know.”
I glance at him. He blushes. ‘I do know, and I want to do that again,’ his creepy little mind tells me when his hand brushes against my skin.
My eyes narrow. “I think it only happens when you touch me.”
He sets down the plate and takes my hand in his. He stares directly into my eyes. “What am I thinking now?”
I wait. Nothing happens. His hand feels strong around mine, and I find myself wanting to pull him into the bathtub with me.
“Nothing,” I say.
He leans forward and kisses my cheek. His lips are soft against my skin. ‘I love you, Naomi,’ I hear his voice say in my mind.
I jump just enough for him to know that I heard him. “Um, I think I’ll have my meal in the bathtub, for one, now.”
He doesn’t say another word, just releases my hand and gives me a plate of interesting looking space food. I have no idea what it is, but I take it just to occupy my hands.
I don’t like this. Not one bit.
And how in the world… um, universe… could he know how he feels about me so quickly? I don’t even know how I feel about this plate of food.
I shove a forkful of something that tastes like buttery potatoes and salty green stuff into my mouth. Chew, Naomi. Don’t think about the hot space dude who just professed his love to you.
But even as I chew, I can’t help but think about him.
Why am I so attracted to him?
12
Marv
I didn’t intend to scare her, but that’s exactly what I did when I mind-melded with her. Or whatever that was.
But why can she hear my thoughts, when I can’t hear hers?
I don’t get it. I start wracking my brain for a memory that could explain what is happening between me and Naomi.
An image floods my brain. My Father, lying on his bed, sulking. I remember hearing him crying about his ‘lost connection’ to my Mother, after all the females passed.
I never knew what he had meant.
Was it a Narulian thing? I hadn’t heard any of the V’aalarans mention it.
Weird.
Maybe I could use some forgetting juice. Instead, I sit in silence in the dining area, eating my first meal as a Mate all by myself, while my female sits alone, scared, and possibly furious with me, in a large bath.
I chuckle. I’d never even thought of filling that tub with water.
“What’s so funny?”
I look up and see Naomi standing in front of me. Her hair is wet and hanging around her shoulders. She’s carrying her plate of half-eaten food. She put the robe back on, but it’s loose on her much smaller frame.
“I was just thinking about how ironic it is that I was all alone here, on our first full day together. But now you’re with me.”
She makes a clacking sound with her teeth but sits down across from me anyway.
“What is this green stuff?” she asks, pointing with a fork.
“That’s a Narulian see veggie. Kilpo.”
“You have a sea?”
I smile. She is curious about my planet. Our planet.
“We have many seas. We are mostly an aqueous planet, like Earth. Except we keep a good balance with nature.”
“Yeah, humans are kinda destructive,” she muses, taking another bite of kilpo and mashed baday. “I do like this. It tastes... different.”
“I can’t wait to show you everything.”
“Do you have pictures?”
She looks hopeful. Eager.
I smile. “If you can hear my words, maybe you can feel my thoughts in other ways.”
“How would that work?”
“Well, we can sit together after you finish eating.”
She nods, then quickly finishes her meal.
13
Naomi
We settle onto his strange-looking sofa, my head resting against his chest. It feels weird to be so intimate with a man I’ve just met, but I keep reminding myself that he’s my space mate and that I can’t go anywhere but here.
His hands are running down my back, tracing little massage trails up and down my spinal muscles. He kneads my sore muscles with his strong hands, his fingers working me into a state of peaceful sedation.
“When I was a boy, I had a beautiful Mother,” Marv says. “She was one of the last to die from the Strange Illness that killed all the females. I remember watching my Father rub her back like this, when her body ached.”
I let myself relax and try to take in the sensations. The soft lub-dub of his heartbeat, which sounded surprisingly similar to a human heart. The soft fuzz on his chest feels warm against my face.
“What was she like?” I ask.
“She was kind. Strong. She used to take my sister and I-”
His voice suddenly stops. Almost like he had forgotten something incredibly painful. I glance up at him, seeing the frozen look in his eyes. I know that look. It’s the one that drove me to get stupid drunk last night.
I reach up and touch his face, just as his memory washes through me.
“Marv, hurry up!” Mother called. She was carrying a large basket of sea veggies, and my little sister ran at her feet.
My sister. Julee.
“Carry me, Marv,” Julee begged.
I reached down and picked her up, her little lavender face tired from the long walk.
“I don’t feel so good,” she whispered.
“Mother, I don’t like this,” I said loudly. Julee felt like dead weight in my arms. “We need to hurry.”
Suddenly, my slow feet broke into a sprint. Mother dropped the basket of sea veggies, and we ran as fast as we could, Julee faint in my arms.
When we got to the infirmary, it was too late. Julee was already gone.
“How?” I whispered.
“There’s a sickness,” Mother confided in me.
“The females are dying, and we don’t know why.”
“I can’t lose her,” I cried. “And I can’t lose you.”
I blink all of a sudden and sit up. Marv is crying, but I don’t think he realizes that he has tears streaming down his cheeks.
“You had a sister?” I whisper.
“Julee,” he answers, but I already know. Our eyes meet. “You saw that?”
I nod. “I did.”
“She was so little. Almost five. We were gathering food for her party.”
“Her party?”
“My people are simple. We used to have parties when the little ones were big enough to go to school. Julee was finally old enough, but our planet was on quarantine.”
I wipe away his tears automatically with my hand. “Quarantine?” I ask, to keep him talking. The look on his face is so far away. So, lost.
“There was something, but we didn’t know. Was it in the water? The air? The food? We never figured it out.”
“And that something took the females?”
He nods.
“What makes you so certain that it’s safe to bring me? To bring other humans?”
To this, he peers directly into my eyes. “Queen Abigail, in V’aalara. Apparently, she’s been there for many years, and nothing has happened. She recently had twins.”
“Twins?” I ask. Half human, half alien. I mean, I totally understand that they’re bringing females here to repopulate. Or to just have sex with. Or whatever.
But twins?
“Julee was beautiful,” I murmur, not ready to digest the fact that I could have multiple babies at once.
Were they like mammals that had litters? Would he impregnate me with multiple babies?
I try to keep a straight face, but he must see the panic in my eyes. “What is it?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He peers at me with such a sense of sadness that I almost give in and tell him my rambling thoughts. But.
I don’t want him to cry again. I also don’t want to admit to myself that I am feeling something for him. Compassion? I don’t know. But his little sister was beautiful.
Lavender skin. Long red hair. Little purplish freckles on her face. Bright green eyes.
Would our babies look like that?
Did I want to have his babies?
“I know what we could do,” I finally mumble. I shift my body on top of his and let the robe fall to the ground. His enormous erection finds me immediately, and I sink down onto him with a quiet gasp.
His cock is ready and his hips buck underneath me.
I touch my hand to his chest as I sit upright on him. ‘Take me, my Love,’ he whispers into my mind.
And this time, I don’t get upset. We might not have forgetting juice, but we can have some amazing forgetting sex.
14
Marv
I don’t understand my mate. One minute, she’s mad. The next minute, she’s on top of me, begging me for pleasure.
I run my hands over her beautiful breasts, trying to get lost in the moment. The memories that have been flooding back about my childhood are wrecking me, and then Naomi comes out of nowhere with her solution.
I need to lose myself in the moment.
Naomi rides me with ease, her eyes peering directly into mine. She’s curious about something, I can sense it.
She maneuvers herself so that she can continue moving herself up and down the length of my cock while leaning in. Her hair tickles against my chest, sending lightning bolts of heat across my skin.
Her mouth brushes against mine, then she slips her tongue inside. Every sensation pulls me away from the darkness.
Another flash of memory fills my mind, and I shake my head. Naomi sighs.
“Marv,” she groans as she lifts herself back up, her hips colliding against mine with increasing intensity. She closes her eyes and her jaw drops open.
I need to feel those lips on my skin. I reach up and touch her lips with my thumb, which she immediately takes into her mouth and begins to suck. Slow, determined strokes, from the tip to the base. Oh, wow.
She knows how to make me want it all.
I love this female. I will give her anything she wants.
Naomi opens her eyes suddenly and stops rocking above me. My cock is buried inside of her, and she’s staring at me. I feel completely exposed.
“Your turn,” she says, then climbs off me. I watch as she crosses the room and bends over the counter, exposing her dripping pussy. She’s waiting.
I stand and immediately cross the room. My hands capture her perfect ass and I penetrate her in one swift move, my cock ready to take her. She leans forward, screaming in ecstasy.
“Is that how you like it?” I ask.
She demands, “Give it to me hard.”
I thrust myself inside her, the feeling of her tight walls around my cock making me feel like I’m soaring. I push forward, again, again, again.
Each movement makes me feel less lost, closer to my mate. Each time she lets me push myself inside of her, I want to have her forever.
When I achieve sweet release inside of her, she doesn’t say anything. She lets out a soft moan and waits until I’ve completely emptied myself inside her.
At this rate, she’ll be carrying my child by the time we get to Narul.
“I love you,” I tell her again after I’ve unmounted myself from her beautiful body. She is still quiet, but she folds into my embrace and lets me hold her.
Even if we look ridiculous, naked in my cooking area, I feel more content than I’ve ever felt. I need everything Naomi is offering. I need her sweet touch, her delicate pussy, and her beautiful heart.
I feel like I’m the luckiest male alive.
15
Naomi
Packing for our journey to Narul is surprisingly easy. Marv barely has any personal belongings in his space quarters.
When he’s finally ready, he opens the doorway to a long corridor. I stare at the shiny metal walls, then absently touch one with my hand. It feels smoother than I expected, and cold.
I’m trailing just behind him as we move down the corridor. Another alien with golden skin approaches. “Hey, Marv. Is this your mate?”
Marv is grinning like a nerd who got asked to prom by the hot girl. I stifle a giggle. Whoa. I’m the hot girl.
Is he the nerd?
“This is Naomi,” Marv says. His arms are full with his large box of belongings, so he tips his head to introduce me. “Mate, this is my friend from V’aalara. Leov. When did you get back?”
“This morning. We had to intercept a Foog ship and rescue four females.”
“They’re out of control.”
“Precisely. They tried to leave with Goran’s mate, Camila. But Camila and the females overpowered them.”
Marv looks surprised. “Wow.”
“We Earthling females can be quite resourceful,” I tell them both with a shrug. “Just don’t forget that.”
Leov chuckles. “I’m sure of it. My mate made sure to tell me that she’s in control.” He glances at Marv and blushes. “She totally is.”
“Well, you should come visit sometime. I’m taking Naomi to Narul.”
Leov nods. “We’ll do that, once everything settles down. I’d like to check on your tribe and the success of the App, so we should plan on it.”
“Great.”
They say goodbye to each other, and Marv gestures for me to continue walking. We move down the long corridor, then enter a spaceship hangar. There are several dozen sleek black ships spaced evenly around the room.
“Wow,” I say.
“Just wait until you see how fast it flies,” Marv tells me.
I wink at him, then say, “I’ll bet you can fly faster.” I watch as his face changes and he blushes.
&nbs
p; “Alright. Let’s get out of here.”
We cross the room to a black ship, which looks like all the other ships, but somehow Marv knows it’s his. He reaches out a hand momentarily to touch a square on the black paneled surface. The ship recognizes him, and a door opens. He quickly replaces his hand under the box and steps inside, leading me inside.
“Wow,” I tell him again. There’s a series of long panels that appear to be supercomputers. They fire to life and begin doing whatever they’re intended for.
I walk through the small craft to the cockpit.
Mmm. I never really thought about that word before.
“I noticed that the hallway was circular. Is there a room in the center?” I ask.
Marv smiles. “Yeah. I have a bedroom inside, just in case we have to stay overnight on some strange planet. This is an explorer ship. We use them when we’re studying other planets.”
“I guess that’s a new kind of mile high club,” I tease.
“Mile high? It depends which planet is closest to us. Definitely more than just a mile.”
I can’t help myself. I burst out in laughter.
“What did I say?”
“It’s okay. If I had forgetting juice, I’d make you drink some right now.”
Marv gives me a strange look but sets down his box in a special container that immediately latches around it. Now that his hands are free, he wraps himself around me again.
“I can’t wait to take you home with me.”
I nod. Home. At least one of us still has one.
“Where do I sit?” I ask, trying not to think too much about it. He’s lost every female he ever loved. I just lost my home. I guess there’s a difference.
I guess I’m the solution. The App is the answer. But I feel sad, nonetheless.
“Are you ready?” he asks after I’m seated.
I shrug. “Ready or not,” I mutter.
He doesn’t react to my change in mood. Instead, he sits down beside me and fires up the ship. An airlock door opens and within minutes, we’re off, darting through space. Like it’s nothing. Like it’s just another routine commute on the freeway.