by Rena Marks
We’ve been given three long skirts each and a pair of leggings for cooler days. One of the longer skirts can be used to make two short skirts. As I study the material in the longer skirts, I realize if I cut them at an angle, I can have a tube top also. We get to work, and I produce a rough draft.
Vesha shows us the sap from a tree that seals the edges of the cut, and then she shows us how to do a fancy stitch along the edging. We can also paint the skirts, adding our own decoration. I hope they don’t lose the stitching and paint when we wash them.
Because the blue barbarians aren’t as squeamish about nakedness as we are, Vesha stands and removes her entire dress to put on the miniskirt.
“Whoa,” Tessa says, when the dress comes up and over her head.
Vesha has black bushels of hair under her arms.
“Girl, you gotta shave that shit,” Jezebel says.
Vesha looks confused, but I’m not going to be the one to translate. Apparently, neither Lucie nor Valencia is willing either. So Jezebel lifts her own arm and shows Vesha the small amount of stubble there.
Vesha still looks confused, so Jezebel takes a sharp bone knife and runs it along her stubble, then takes a bit of fur and wipes it off.
I sigh. “It works better with soap, and if you soften the hair first by a soak in the hot springs.”
“Why do you do this?” Vesha asks, her eyes wide. She signals for another blue woman to come over. The other doesn’t even look surprised that Vesha’s sitting there with her blue boobs hanging loose. Vesha raises the woman’s arms and we see her hairy pits also.
“Eww.” Cammie flinches at the sight. Now the other woman looks confused, so Jezebel lifts her arms again. Now it’s the new woman’s turn to look confused, and Vesha explains how we use the bone blade to cut the hair, but it’s best to soften it and make the skin slick with the soapcake. The other woman giggles and tells Vesha she’s going to get a piece of fur, a bowl of warm water, and a soapcake.
“What’s going on?” Jezebel asks.
“We’re having a pit-shaving party,” Lucie says dryly.
When the woman returns, we show her how to shave. She seems delighted with the feel of her new, clean underarms and can’t stop touching them. Naturally, Vesha decides to try, and off they go to spread the naked pit look to anyone else who’ll try it.
“I hope we’re not breaking any alien rules about sacred hair,” Valencia says.
“I can’t believe we didn’t notice all that hair under their arms. I can’t imagine how their carpets look. Of course, I’m one to talk. I haven’t had the guts to take a blade below yet.”
“I’m not gonna,” Tessa says, and her eyes are huge. “There are no plastic surgeons here for slip-ups.”
“I don’t think they have pubes,” I say. “The men are smooth. It stands to reason the women are, too.”
“That is so unfair,” Jezebel says.
“Neeki?” Vesha asks. I look up to see another woman in tow. “This is Maynak. She would like to shorten a skirt also.”
I grin, because Vesha is wearing her rough draft version, and is a walking advertisement. Maynak sits down and we show her how to shorten it at an asymmetrical angle, so that there’s enough length for two skirts. She’s delighted at saving material, and wears hers right away. More advertisement. We’re going to need to nix this.
“Thank you for the idea, Neeki,” she says.
“Great,” I say with a smile. “Payment is the next woman who wants one, you get to teach her how to do it.”
Maynak laughs, and someone else approaches. We groan and Vesha snickers, because it’s exactly as we suspect. Another woman wants to learn how to make a short skirt.
Lachlana comes from her hut to sit with us. “There is a rustle of activity here today,” she says.
I yawn. “It’s exhausting.”
Her sharp eye roves over me and I don’t want her to worry. I try to distract her. “When do your seasons change?”
“One comes soon. The arrival is signaled by the wet moon.”
“What is that? A wet moon?”
“An entire cycle of time, from one full moon to the next, in which water falls from the sky.”
“It rains for an entire month?”
She nods. “When the next season approaches, it rains again.”
“What’s going on?” Monica asks.
“Each time the season changes, it’s signaled by a whole month of rain,” I translate.
“This is why we plant now,” Lachlana says. “It will not be long before the wet moon arrives and will nourish the saplings.”
“What season is next?”
“That of snow.”
“Next comes winter, and it’s coming soon,” I tell the girls. “How many seasons are there?” I ask Lachlana.
“Four. The hot period we are in now. Next is the snow. After that is a mild season of wind which blows away the snow. Then comes the mild, most beautiful season of flowers. It is most glorious. But alas, everything dries up when we reach this one again.”
“Your seasons are almost like ours. Except winter…our snow…arrives before spring. The season of flowers.” I turn to the girls. “They have four seasons, too. But it sounds like fall comes after winter instead of before.”
“What do they do to prepare? Besides plant?”
“They freeze meat,” I murmur, and then I ask Lachlana.
Her eyes crinkle on the sides. “It is a season of well-being. We are cooped inside for many hours and sometimes for days. We dance and honor the mother planet. We enjoy our mates and with the addition of hu-maans, we may have young in the spring.”
My tone is dry as I translate. “Apparently they fuck all winter long for spring babies.”
“That’s gonna be a hardship for you,” Jillian grins and elbows Jezebel.
Lucie and Cammie come in. “Look at what we made. Pancakes. Kinda.”
She places a clay plate in front of me and they’re somewhat lumpy. I take a bite. They taste like pancakes, though the texture is definitely not fluffy. But there’s a syrup that’s warm and melted and poured over the stack. I pass a bite to Lachlana, who nods with approval.
“They get their syrup right out of a tree here in the village,” Cammie says. “The flour they keep in the kitchen and grind it themselves. Eggs are from some ugly bird that hunters raid the nests for.”
“How about the milk?” I ask. Because the pancakes don’t taste like they’re missing milk.
“That’s pretty cool. We watched Drakar when you were sleeping and he made those mashed potatoes. There’s a plant like a dandelion, and the stem is thick. But you pull the flower head off, and inside is a cloudy, milky liquid.”
“I think it’s a cactus,” Lucie says.
We have the need to correlate the strange plants and animals with those that we know.
Lucie asks Lachlana a question. “Is this how life normally is within the village? The hunters head out every day and the women stay doing the village chores?”
“Only this time of year as we prepare for the next season. The wet moon approaches quickly and we must divert the flow from coming through the roof of the caves. What little does come in, we must gather in containers and divert to the hot springs.” She turns to me. “This is why matings are not done during the hottest season. Matings are done during the wet moon. When the cold season approaches, there is time to focus on one’s mate and the desires the new mating brings.”
“Desires?” Lucie grins. “You mean the honeymoon phase?”
I can feel my cheeks warm and Lachlana looks confused.
“All the times Drakar and Niki storm off to their cave.”
Lachlana’s face clears. “Yes. There is an urgent need to sate the pleasure. My son and Niki’s situation was unique in that they were forced to mate against the season.”
One of the blue women is signaling for Lucie’s attention from the doorway. “Oh, I forgot I asked Tijar to let me know when she goes gathering for tonight’s wild
vegetables. I’ll be right back, she just needs to explain to me what to bring.”
Lucie wanders off and I take this opportunity to question Lachlana.
“So that must be why Drakar said he gave permission for Rayhaan to mate Lucie. It’s a timed thing, so now Rayhaan doesn’t need to wait?”
Lachlana nods. “We are trying to understand the customs of hu-maans also. You do not mate by time frames, but Drakar assures me you feel the mating desire just as strongly. We may have to come up with other solutions now that you have joined our lives and mating will occur more frequently.”
“Maybe instead of the men going off to hunt alone, they can take the women. There’s no reason why we can’t remain in the cave, the way we did when we traveled.”
“That is a good idea. Of course, for now there is much for hu-maans to learn and it is the perfect time to teach you how to survive. This is a busy time of year, the preparations for next season.”
“Everything is a learning experience for us. Did Drakar tell you the first night the hunters set us up in the bathing pool? We entered with our clothes. Earth is very different.”
Lachlana widened her eyes. “What? Tell me more. Why would you enter a bathing pool fully dressed?”
“On Earth, a bathing pool isn’t to bathe in. It’s more of a social event with friends. And we are more conscious of nudity. We thought we were in the pool to relax and visit, and were stunned when the hunters came in and began dropping loincloths.”
Reverend mother is holding her sides as she laughs. Everyone in the room is looking our way, even Lucie and Tijar wander our way. Lucie begins to translate for the Blaedonians, and pretty soon they’re all laughing.
“Oh, Niki,” Lachlana says, wiping the corners of her eyes. “I must hear more about these strange customs of Earth.”
“We don’t have sex out in the open. In fact, you could get arrested on Earth.”
“Arrested?”
“We have…um, like your guards who stand at the gates. They would wear a uniform on our planet and keep guard over other things. They watch to make sure humans stick to our rules and if you don’t, they arrest you. They lock you away as punishment.”
“It sounds like a harsh planet.”
“I guess in some ways it is. We’ve become a lazy planet also. We don’t prepare our own food. We shop in a store.”
“What does that mean?”
“We exchange money. So Jezebel goes to work coloring and styling other people’s hair.” Jezebel looks up at her name. She’s busy braiding a teenage girl’s thick mane. “The person would pay her with money. Then for dinner, Jezebel would stop at the store and buy her dinner to bring home to her family.”
“So this store prepares your meal?”
“Basically.” The simplified version, anyway.
“But you have even less time with your family members.”
I nod. “It doesn’t seem like a good system, but it was all we knew. The primary goal isn’t to strive for happiness. It’s to see who can make the most money. So a store would sell things to other people to make money. Jezebel could sell her haircolors in a store.” I point to Tijar. “Tijar could gather vegetables and sell them to the tribe for money, then turn around and buy Jezebel’s haircolors in her store.”
“So confusing,” Lachlana says. “Why would Tijar simply trade her vegetables to Jezebel for her haircolor? Urth makes things so complicated.”
“I guess it is.”
Lucie translates for the humans.
“It’s confusing and complicated for us here, too. We have no idea what it is we’re eating. Whether it’s meat or vegetable. Hell, we almost ate the toothbrushes the hunters showed us, from the Ikticor tree. Everything we know back home is pre-packaged and sold at a store. Add to the confusion that most of the girls can’t understand your language. Valencia couldn’t even understand ours. That was the reason why I transferred the languages to her. We couldn’t translate for her like we do for the others.”
Lachlana nods. “Why do your people speak so many languages? We have Blaedonian. That is all.”
“The population of Earth is massive. I don’t know how the planet size corresponds to Blaedonia. But we are overrun with people and they live across the entire planet. Eventually, they developed their own languages. Valencia is an example. She spoke Spanish when she was visiting our side of the planet and didn’t know English. Lucie knows English and French, and French was a little bit similar to Spanish so Valencia tried communicating with her. But it was not very successful.”
“You can travel across the planet? It must be a larger planet to feed everyone. I can’t imagine how long it takes to travel,” she murmurs.
“Not long. We have huge planes that take you across the skies and over the oceans. We also don’t have to go inside at nightfall, because there are no predators. Unfortunately, all these conveniences have a downfall. We’ve developed to not have much in the way of population control.”
Lachlana looks shocked. “Your planet seems to go against the natural order of things.”
I nod. “Yes, it does. We face other problems because of our technology.”
“You have a new home now. You can learn new things, and teach us new things. We will learn together.” Her hand reaches out to cover mine.
“Why is it you dry up your dead bodies with the poisonous tree?”
“To keep contagious disease away. The last thing we need is for the predators to eat a dead body, carry the disease and recycle it by fertilizing the soil with their waste.”
“I noticed one thing you don’t have is a playground for the children,” Lucie says. “You could set it under a tree and have swings. Perhaps a small pool for them to cool off and swim.”
“Swim?”
“You know…move in the water.”
Lachlana looks blank.
“Don’t you swim? Move from one point in the water to another? Like a fish?”
“We cannot breathe underwater.”
“No, you hold your breath and breathe when you rise to the surface.”
“I have never heard of swim. My own father drowned in the ocean. A wave came and carried him away during a fishing trip.”
“That’s something we can teach you. Then if you lose your footing in the water, you can swim back to shore. The children can start to learn it. We’ll dig a pool.”
“In winter it can double as an ice rink,” Lucie says.
“We’ll have to figure out how cold it gets, of course. We can’t have anyone falling through.”
Lucie translates for the others.
“I’ll work on it,” Cammie says. “I can’t believe they’ve never swam.”
“Let’s us show you how a swing works,” Jillian says. She and Valencia take the reverent mother by the arms, which looks kind of funny since Drakar’s mom is at least six and a half feet tall.
“Cover for me,” I whisper to Lucie. “I’m exhausted and want a nap, but I know Drakar will worry.”
She nods. “I’ll come get you if anyone is looking.”
I head to my cave and collapse.
Chapter Eleven
The horn breaks me from my slumber, signaling the arrival of the hunters. I wonder how long I’ve slept. I splash water on my face and hurry outside to greet Drakar.
I toss on my new, short skirt and the bandeau top I made earlier and hurry out.
From across the yard, I see him scouting the humans. When he sees me, his eyes gleam, and he takes in my bare legs. I’m barefoot, not having bothered with the moccasins. It’s cooler here in the village, with the shade from the trees and caves.
My barbarian is absolutely beautiful. A thin strip of light brown leather ties around his forehead. The black dye stains his face around his eyes, and makes the sapphire blue of his eyes pop. His face stares into mine and the sexual tension is almost palpable in the warm, summer air.
I walk toward him slowly, ever aware of the sway of my hips in the tiny leather skirt.
“Niki?” His tongue snakes out to wet his lips. He stares at the cleavage that peeks out from the new tube top.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” I ask.
He yanks me against him. He looks down to peer into my face and deliberately allows his gaze to look into my top. His erection prods against me, the size of my arm.
“Miss me?” I whisper.
“Always, my mate,” he growls. His dark blue eyes glitter and he lowers his head to kiss me. His tongue invades my mouth and it’s instant lust. “I can’t believe your legs are bare. So sexy.”
Right there, out in the open, he lifts me up and cups my ass so my legs are wrapped around his waist. “Drakar,” I whisper. “Everyone is watching.”
“They sure are.”
That’s such a turn-on. I glue my mouth to his and moan when his tongue comes out to lick mine.
I’m not really worried about it, though, because damn it, the alien is sexy as hell. He smells masculine and there’s a thin sheen of sweat that shimmers on his bare chest. I continue kissing him.
I hear a few whistles and one of the girls mutters, “Get a room.”
We do just that.
He carts me through the caves to our own residence and sweeps aside the leather on the door. He swings it shut and latches it by catching the sewn-on twine to attach to a knob on the opposite wall. Then he brings me to our nest of furs. He lowers me gently, and he’s trembling. “I need you,” he says. “I’m not sure how I lived so long without you.”
My fingers scramble with the waist of his loincloth. One strap bares him from the leather, and his erection frees. He pulls off his moccasins, and when he looks up, I let my legs drop open to expose my sex.
He stares, astonished. “You’re not wearing undergarments under that short skirt? What if a breeze would have blown?”
I grin. “How can I wear undergarments when I was heading out to meet my man?”
I don’t even have time to take off the skirt before his head delves between my legs. I sink back against the pillow, moaning. His tongue licks my entire slit, and the heat from his mouth is incredible.