Release

  “Tiegal…I’m not sure I can…”

  She heard the plea in his tone, but she wasn’t ready to detach herself from him, not just yet, not when she was so close. There was a way she could slow him down, just for a little longer. Her fingers pressed harder into the base of his spine. His body flinched at first but then went rigid. She counted five seconds, her mouth still buried in him, and then she finally released the intense rush that he had built inside of her, letting herself ride the wave of emotion it conjured.

  When she could bear it no longer, she opened her eyes to see the intense glow of colour that surrounded them both, encapsulating them into one spectacular bubble.

  Their eyes locked into each other’s, both pupils enlarged and open with pure amazement, allowing every possible particle of light to enter into them.

  And then, just when she knew it was time for him to experience the feeling of pure liberation too, she moved her fingers around to the front of his chest, pushed him down onto his back and rolled herself off him. He immediately responded by turning on his side, his body jolting in relief as she held him in her arms. She waited for as long as she could bear it before she finally said the words that she had been desperate to say all her life, at the right time, and to the right person, “I love you.”

  Still turned away from her, curled now into a ball on his side, completely exhausted by the effort of restraint and escape, she didn’t need to hear his response out loud. The smell of pure contentment that emanated from him, and the sight of his colours ever so faint around him were all she needed as confirmation that, he too, knew that he had finally come home.

  .

  23. Revelations

  Waking up with Tiegal on a morning after a full moon was always an interesting experience. Johannes had noticed how she always seemed more restless after one of these nights. He had tried broaching the subject with her before, but she always said the extra light from the moon made her sleep talking more intense. This morning was no exception. But then, full moon aside, last night had provided more than just a night-time light spectacle; it had marked a new awakening in them both, and in their abilities to reveal their light when they connected together.

  “Nam num...num…nam…” Tiegal’s body jerked in fits. A layer of sweat glistened across her furrowed brow as she narrated her early morning sleep journey, her eyes still clenched shut. He watched her, noticing how her expression suggested she was frustrated by something, as though she was trying to get past an obstruction.

  “Shhh…bubble. Wake up, my love. Come on now.” He rocked her shoulders from side to side as gently as he dared, not wishing to startle her into consciousness too quickly. He had made this mistake before. She mumbled a few more incoherent words, but she did not seem eager to join him in a wakeful state just yet.

  “Okay, get some more sleep then. I can stay a little while longer,” he hushed, using a clean rag to wipe her forehead. Her body relaxed in his arms in response to his comforting words and he listened to her breathing settle again.

  It amazed him that she perspired like this when she was feeling so troubled by something as unreal as a dream. When they had indulged in their lovemaking together, her entire body had burned dry against him, glowing from a controlled heat inside her, rather than glistening with surface moisture. But then, he was not sure his body had reacted to what they had done in a typical manner either. It certainly wasn’t how he had imagined his first time. It was beyond and above his expectations; it was transformative!

  “I’m a bit green and blue then,” he mused into her hair which was splayed out onto the pillow. He sensed she was awakening. He heard her giggle; it was his cue.

  “Tickle fight!” he warned, before reaching under the sheets to find one of her most sensitive areas, the sides of her waist, that he knew would send her into a crazy fit of laughter.

  “This will wake you up,” he teased. “Tell me you want me to stop!”

  “Never!” she declared, twisting her body away from his searching fingers with admirable dexterity.

  “You won’t get away from me that easily.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he dived under the sheets, grabbed her hips to pin her down and clamped his mouth on her stomach so he could blow his air into her skin. To his shock, instead of more wriggling and laughter, her body stiffened in his hands and turned icy cold to his touch. Without hesitating, he let her go and then quickly pulled his head out from under the sheets so that he could see her concerned face.

  “Are you okay? Sorry if I hurt you. It’s just a little game I play with my nephew, Henri, it always makes him laugh. I thought that you’d erm…” he stumbled across his words, suddenly self-conscious of how to talk to her. They had fallen asleep in each other’s arms almost immediately after they had finally made their physical connection. There had been no need for words, only happy murmurings and kisses, full of content and completeness.

  Now, though, her eyes seemed a darker green and they suggested a faint flicker of pulsating light behind them. It seemed to send a warning to him.

  “Tiegal, are you okay? Say something,” he tried again. Her face relaxed and the richer emerald colour glowed from her irises, as though returning from a dark trance.

  “I’m good. Sorry, I don’t know what happened then.” she looked as confused as he felt.

  “You were fine, apart from your sleep talking, but other than that I thought we were just having fun, like we always do. I thought it would break the ice too, after such a hot experience,” he said, instantly regretting his choice of words.

  The last thing he wanted to do was push her too far, but she put her arms out to rest on his shoulders before he had chance to worry any further.

  “There is no need to break any ice or whatever that expression means. I guess you mean, make things chilled?”

  He shrugged, not knowing which of their chosen expressions were more appropriate for this first exchange between them after what they had just done together!

  “Then why did you go all rigid like that?”

  His question was not meant to be an accusation. He willed her to understand this from his thoughts, hoping he could avoid explaining himself further, and possibly wind up confusing things even more. To his relief, her expression showed him she was tuning into his mind. The way she stared straight at him sometimes, without blinking, was always a clear sign.

  “It was not an intentional reaction. I didn’t mean to upset you in anyway, never, I mean, I love it when you touch me, in all the ways you do. It’s just where you were touching me that bothered me,” she explained, breaking up the spaces between her words with care.

  The way she lowered her eyes, and then pulled the sheet further up towards her neck, made him wonder if she was embarrassed by something.

  “Did you really just say where I touched you?”

  He watched her, as she nodded at him, her head still bowed, as though she felt great shame. He laughed, in spite of himself. Not just a little chuckle either, a deep, hearty laugh, that he knew he should hold back but just escaped from him in an instinctual response.

  “You do know how absurd that sounds Tiegal? After all the ways we touched each other last night! That was just a belly tickle.”

  Her eyes flickered up to meet his incredulous gaze, frightened and wild with fear.

  “It is my star Johannes.”

  Her rigid, defiant pose was back again.

  “Your star? I don’t understand. Is that what you call your stomach?”

  He reached his hand out to her, but she folded hers against her chest.

  “The part where you were attached to your mother, before you were born. You call it, whatever you call it, but mine is called my star. It has eight points. I don’t like it to be touched, that’s all.”

  He tried to let out his breath, he was starting to feel dizzy from the lack of oxygen, but he couldn’t seem to let allow himself to exhale again.

  “Breathe!” she finally ordered him.

 
; Tiegal you’re scaring me! I hope you can hear this, but I really don’t understand what is going on or what you are saying right now. Did I hurt you last night or make you feel something about your other world again? Why are you only telling me NOW where you don’t like me to touch you?

  He knew she could hear what he was conveying to her in his mind and he let himself breathe out a sigh of relief when she finally nodded her understanding. She uncrossed her arms from her chest and placed her hands in his.

  “Sorry, my love. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I had some strange dreams again last night. They seemed to be telling me that I had to tell you some things about me that I really didn’t want to, and then you woke me up and went straight for the area I had been trying to avoid you touching,” she explained, rushing her words out in a tremble, her body shaking as she stifled a yawn.

  “Okay, so I didn’t hurt you physically then? Either before when we, y’know, or just now?”

  “No, no, not at all Johannes. What we did together was beautiful, in every way possible. It was truly magic.”

  Her answer brought him some warmth, but her hands still felt cold in his. It was an unusual temperature for her and didn’t match the warmth of the morning sunrise that had already filled the room. He rubbed them together and reached down to blow his breath into the space between where she had cupped them together in the position of a prayer.

  “I feel cold because I’m scared about what I have to tell you.”

  Her admission made him feel sick with trepidation, to the point that his body actually trembled. He couldn’t imagine where this could be leading. Their coming together had finally happened, he had controlled himself at the end, as he had promised he would, and she hadn’t disappeared. Why would she think that anything else could shock him about her?

  “Because you don’t know how I was made,” she explained further.

  It was obvious she had heard his frustration.

  “You said you are like a diamond, made of carbon and star stuff, just as we humans are. I liked how you explained how we are all made of star explosions, and how you understand the science of the universe, in a way we have not come to understand yet,” he interjected.

  “But you didn’t ask how I was made. How it was possible for me to be born, if I don’t have a mother or father. You never asked me how a Tandroan could become a physical being, one that looks so similar to a human.”

  He could detect her words were heavy with sadness, not quite fear, but still, he knew he had failed her in some way.

  “I did think about asking you,” he admitted, still rubbing her ice-cold fingers together.

  “I know you did. I heard it bursting to come out of you many times. And I know why you stopped yourself, because you thought the moment had passed. When you saw my eyes had changed and that I could bleed like a human woman, you told yourself it didn’t matter anymore. Am I right?” she asked him, her fingers entwining into his, willing for reassurance.

  He nodded in agreement.

  “So why does it matter then?” he finally asked her, vaguely aware of the sounds of a wagon being dragged by an ox at the other side of the trees. Annarita had mentioned something about a delivery this morning. She would be waiting for him to return, no doubt angry once again that he refused to tell her where he had spent the night away from the house. He couldn’t let himself think about that now.

  “It matters because I am not human, and I am not Tandroan either anymore. I am somehow both now. And you are the only one who knows that I exist, as I am now, in this form that I am in. So, I need you to understand me, as I was, as I am, and therefore what I may even become. Does that make sense?”

  It pained him to hear the agony in her questioning. It surprised him that she could even question that he would contemplate leaving her at any of these stages, despite what it meant she was or would become.

  “Tiegal, I do want to know you, in every form or place you are in, or have been. But can I ask you a question too?”

  She nodded her head in a frantic motion, so he cleared his throat, desperately trying to ignore the moaning sound of the distressed ox near the farmhouse.

  “Did you dream something about your future just now? Something that you fear will affect whether we can be together? I heard you mention Namnum again. The elephant you talked to me about.”

  The hint of a smile on her anxious, pale face, indicated that he had turned his attention in the right direction.

  “Yes!” She squeezed his hands. “Namnum sometimes communicates to me through dreams. She told me that I have to tell you everything because you need to be prepared for how it could change, when I become two.”

  “When you what?” he stammered.

  “I mean, sorry, I forget that I don’t say things in the right way sometimes. I mean when I become Tiegal, the Human Tandroan girl… who carries your child inside of me.”

  Johannes gasped. His mind raced as it struggled to adjust to this bombshell of a revelation that she had just dropped on him.

  “Tiegal, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  He shouted his question, his voice high-pitched with adrenaline.

  Tiegal nodded at him, her face passive and confident as she pulled back the sheets from where it had covered both their naked frames. She then climbed on top of him, so that her legs straddled his hips and her chest lay on top of his. He responded to her in an instant.

  “Hmmm…how much time do you have left to stay here with me?” she mumbled into his ear.

  Johannes groaned. “Not long at all. And now you’re distracting me away from what you just announced! A baby! Really? When?” he demanded in a voice that broke between each question. The pressure of her weight and the sensation of her wetness between his hips was already driving him crazy.

  “I don’t know for sure, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea anyway, not since I have to hideaway like this. And yet, in all my dreams I am with you and we have a little girl,” she answered. Her breath was hot and tickled the hairs on his chest.

  Johannes could feel his heart beating. The urgent, excited beats distracting him from all the sounds both inside and outside the cabin. His mind raced as it scrambled to conjure up images of a future baby.

  And it was these thoughts – along with the burning desire to make another connection with Tiegal – that so consumed him, and to such an extent, that he failed to detect the obvious danger approaching: the sound of two sets of footsteps approaching their door.

  “What the…JOHANNES!”

  Johannes flinched at the sound of his sister’s shocked cry.

  “Annarita! Get out!” he bellowed back, quickly rolling over so that Tiegal was underneath him. He would rather bare his naked body to his sister than expose Tiegals’ naked form to her.

  “Go back! There’s nothing to see here,” Annarita screeched. She looked like she was trying to push someone backwards from behind her.

  “Hey! What’s going on? I heard you shout his name? Let me in.”

  Johannes froze at the sound of the other voice behind his sister.

  “Who’s there?” Tiegal whispered. He could feel her shaking underneath him. He reached his hand down the bed to pull the sheet back over them both, even though he knew it was too late. It was impossible to protect Tiegal from the truth. Elna was already in the room.

  The screams of his former girlfriend filled the tiny space. Johannes squeezed his eyes shut and then whispered into Tiegals’ ear, “I’m so sorry. I’ve got to go.”

  As Johannes ran after Elna, he yanked on the cord tie of this trousers so he could tighten them around his waist. The wrenching sounds of her sobbing ahead of him were impossible to ignore. And yet, as much as her sounds of anguish pulled him towards her, they also repelled him. He willed himself to put more effort into his run, but his legs felt heavy, unwilling.

  Annarita’s voice bellowed behind him, urging him to catch her up. He pushed his legs further, albeit reluctantly. What he really wanted to do was
turn back. Tiegal was the one he was most concerned for.

  How will she understand me running after Elna like this? She has never experienced relationships. And here I am, leaving her naked, and alone, after she has just given her body to me!

  This thought stopped him in his tracks.

  She might leave! The last time she saw me with Elna she disappeared.

  He stamped his foot in frustration, glancing around in a panic. He had no idea what to do.

  “Johannes, go after her!” Annarita exclaimed. She was gasping for breath as she ran up to him. Her face was red and sweaty. Her expression was furious.

  “Annarita! Please, calm down! It’s not what it looks like. And you shouldn’t run like that. Your body is still fragile after Henri,” he reprimanded, now bending his head down to his knees to counteract the dizziness. Looking his sister straight in the eye was too painful. He knew she was disappointed with him.

  “It is exactly what it looks like brother. You were engaging in activity with some other girl in a hideaway cabin and your ex-girlfriend walked in on you. So now go catch her up and talk to her.”

  Annarita pulled on his shoulders to encourage him to stand back up and face her.

  Johannes shook his head.

  “But which her? Why do you assume that it is Elna that I should go to in this moment? She left me remember,” he argued.

  “Look at me! You have to face this. And you know Elna left because you pushed her away,” Annarita demanded.

  Slowly, Johannes raised his body, wiping away tears as he did.

  “Sister, Elna left because she wanted to. And the strange girl you just saw me with means the world to me. She is everything I have ever dreamed of. And I love her,” he cried.

  Without stopping to wait for Annarita’s response he broke into a run, this time faster and more determined. He knew where he needed to be – with the girl who needed him the most. The one who was still in the cabin