CONTAGION

by Amanda Milo

  When she steps back, her eyes have nearly returned to normal, but she’s still not her confident self. She takes my hand. “Let’s go.”

  Instead of making our way down the main street past the many colorful-painted storefronts on either side of the road, Aurora guides us around the buildings. At the back of one of the establishments, she locates a primitive spigot and hose.

  She motions for me to begin washing. I motion back to her. “I insist you go first.”

  Aurora looks momentarily impressed. “That’s gentlemanly of you.”

  “It is rather chivalrous, isn’t it? I was thinking that I’d observe if visible wellsource impurities attacked you as you bathed—and if that’s the case, I’ll avoid washing here. But rest assured: in the event that there are impurities, I’ll be sure to alert you to the danger.”

  She stares at me for a beat before she shakes her head, a reluctant smile crossing her face. “Wow. Thanks.”

  I nod.

  She points a finger at my snout. “If you see anything? No shrieking.”

  I cross my arms over my sternum. “I make no pledges.”

  She turns the water on—and immediately turns the hose on herself.

  I reach out to prevent her from standing in its spray. “Wait to see what floats out of the end.”

  Aurora disagrees. “Waiting means we let all the hot water go to waste,” she warns me. She looks me up and down. “Have you not used a hose before?”

  “Not in the wild,” I tell her. “There is a hose attachment for the sink in the laboratory where I’m employed though. I use it quite often for—”

  Aurora rolls her eyes at me and bows her head under the spray. After no more than a few moments though, the skin of her neck and exposed shoulders changes from its rosy color to a pale, almost blue shade.

  She’s struggling to hold the hose and use her other hand to rinse out her long hair. I don’t want to touch the hose, but I’ve already made contact with Aurora plenty; I reach out with the intention of combing through her hair with her in the interests of efficiency.

  I hiss in shock. “This water is freezing!”

  “Yep.” Aurora ignores this discomfort and turns the hose on the rest of herself, doing her best to wash the worst of our travels off. She even goes so far as to scour her skin with sand and then rinse the sand free.

  I point to the ground. “I can’t believe you employed dirt to get clean. And it… worked.”

  She shrugs and offers me the hose. “I was already dirty. What’s a little more, right?”

  I accept the hose and I test her sand idea. The method works surprisingly well for my plating too.

  When I finish and she turns the lever to the hose off, I see that she’s shivering. Not enough for her teeth to clack yet, but I know well that this discomfort is in store for her next if she can’t get warm. “Come here,” I tell her, opening my arms and holding my tail up. “Let’s see if we can manage the sharing of my body heat while we stand up.”

  Lips quirking, she moves into my embrace.

  I flinch back.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Your sodden clothing is like ice. No wonder you’re chilled.”

  Aurora looks in either direction, but no one is behind the building other than us. She grabs the hem of her dress. “Watch to make sure no one comes around the corners.”

  “I can do that—but why?”

  Aurora drags her dress right over her head.

  So much oddly-appealing flesh.

  I whirl around, glaring at either side of the building corners, daring anyone to lurk or peek.

  The sound of water dripping on the ground lets me know that Aurora is wringing all the moisture she can manage to extract out of her dress. The sounds pause when I ask conversationally, “Do you know, the first time I ever saw a human remove articles of clothing, I believed they were skinning themselves?”

  “Do your people not wear clothes?”

  I tilt my head. “I wear medical booties and gloves. I’m also proud to claim that I invented a tail sheath.” I bring my tail around myself, inspecting it. “As soon as you relax, the end tends to drag unnoticed on the floor. Terribly unhygienic.”

  Aurora approaches me from the side; she’s also eyeing me from the side. She’s redressed but with the cloth still wet as it is, her garment has become nearly transparent. “Like… you wear the booties and gloves for work, or… all the time?” By the end of the question, her narrowed eyes and dropped octave tells me she’s already judging me.

  “All the time,” I confess with a huff. “I’ll admit that it’s considered over-precautionary on my planet.”

  Aurora gazes at me with wide eyes. “Simmi? It’d be considered ‘over-precautionary’ on any planet.”

  “I don’t have to defend myself,” I say loftily. I even raise my snout in the air for effect.

  Aurora snickers.

  Over the sound, her stomach emits an impressive growl. This, I do not like. But I’m so happy to see her humor return, I don’t mind being the target of her gentle teasing. I drop my gaze to her belly. “You need to eat.”

  “I need a new dress,” she counters.

  “Eat first, then purchase the garment.”

  Aurora’s expression turns morose. “Before we make another attempt to grab food, I need to appear a little more appealing, or we may not get any food.”

  Outraged, I shout, “That’s ridiculous!”

  Aurora reaches up and claps her hand over my mouth. “Some people are really, really small-minded. They judge you for what you wear and who you’re with. Some places are like this, Simmi, and there’s nothing we’re going to be able to do to change that.” She tugs me down so we’re eye level. “For now, we need to play by their rules, all right?”

  I’m not pleased, but I am somewhat mollified when she grabs me by either side of my face, and presses her lips more firmly to mine than she ever has before.

  CHAPTER 14

  Aurora approaches a cheerful yellow-painted clapboard building with much foreboding.

  Mindful of our reception at the eatery stand, I’m inclined to feel more apprehension than even my usual healthy amount of social anxiety.

  To distract myself, I whisper, “What does the sign for this establishment read?”

  “Mercantile,” Aurora whispers back, and with a fortifying breath, she opens the shop’s door.

  A loud clamor immediately kicks up—and in reaction, I hook Aurora around her waist and drag her behind me.

  Aurora pats me on my back right next to one of my dorsal tubes. “That’s a doorbell, Simmi. Thank you for watching out for me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She steps around me, shooting me a thin but amused smile, before she moves through the door. I follow on her heels, having to duck to clear the entry. I extrapolate that they don’t have many Genneӝt-sized patrons visiting their shop. Aurora pans her gaze cautiously, gazing around as if there are threats hidden behind every overburdened rack of garments. And it’s a possibility; I could easily fit myself among the clothes and not be noticed. It would be a simple thing for a human male or an alien male of a similar size to me to manage the same feat.

  Aurora takes almost no time in selecting what she wants. She nearly grabs the first item off of a rack before she approaches a large counter where she pats her hand on a small dome. An offensively loud peal of sound rings from it.

  “My galaxies, why did you do that?” I ask in consternation. “That’s a terrible noise.”

  “We’re supposed to do it. It gets the shopkeeper’s attention.”

  “No doubt; they’d have to be dead not to hear this,” I grouse.

  Aurora reaches back and pats my abdomen. “Shush, Simmi.”

  I’d been about to say more, but something about her hand’s placement does indeed shush me effectively.

  Aurora makes the dome ring again.

  “Please stop,” I complain, shuffling back and covering my ear depressions. “Let’s sear
ch on our own for the shopkeeper. Silently. Perhaps they’ve gotten lost among all these wares.” I gesture at the largest rack of colorful garments to emphasize my point, but my eyes snag on a soft coral-colored something.

  I move to it, lifting it and finding that it’s a dress of similar size to Aurora. Shells from the saline shores of my planet are this color, and although I wouldn’t have classified it as a favorite hue of mine, I did always find the insides of the glossy, water-smoothed calcium coverings aesthetically pleasing. As lovely as Aurora is in her torn blue dress, what would she look like in this?

  Radiant.

  My cardiac muscle thumps oddly just picturing her in it.

  Unbidden, I also picture her without it—the glimpse of her bathing earlier apparently burned into my brain, because I don’t believe there’s a detail of her form that I’m forgetting.

  A man's voice breaks into my roused, exhilarated imaginings. “...try across the street, lady. You’re on the wrong side of town if you’re looking for someone who’ll serve an alien-fucking slut.” He’s delivered this advice in an ugly snarl.

  My outrage is swift and instantaneous.

  I’m no longer in front of the stand of clothes holding the dress that was made to adorn Aurora’s body; I’m landing on the man’s counter, breathing down at him furiously on Aurora’s behalf. The somewhat new-found texture on the bottoms of my feet kept me from sliding when I landed up here, which is luck itself considering that the man, at the suddenness of my spring, collapses to the floor. Had I landed on him, I’d have been touching him—thank all that’s above that I’m spared this repugnance.

  I glance at Aurora to see her cheeks are wet—and unlike so many other times, this is not due to her happy laughter. Her face looks burned, a worrisome scarlet coating her skin from her hair roots to the topmost edge of her dress. Her normally courageous eyes are glossing over with a sickly hot shine.

  I seethe.

  Protective instincts I didn’t know I even possess burst to the forefront, rattling hard behind my sternum.

  Most all of Aurora’s expressions render me calm, or sometimes a peculiarly good-feeling sort of nervous—happy, even—but her expression in this moment is making me furious. I glare down at the cause. From this vantage, I’m looking down on the man even more than I would have before, in both senses of the word. My tail waves in agitation. I bare my teeth. I will pay this inbred backwater wretch, this odious male, the worst insult I can think of.

  I spit on him.

  This works better than I could have imagined. His reaction is even stronger than mine was when Aurora spit up her apple-flavored-drowning-water in my mouth. He squeals (I, for the record, scream or shriek; I do not squeal) and he clutches his face.

  The sound irritates my senses. I wince and turn to Aurora, who’s looking shocked but—I’m glad to note—not frightened.

  While my back is to him, the panicking shopkeeper leaps up and attempts to run. Still squealing, wiping frantically at his eyes, the man trips and crashes through his shop’s largest window.

  All activity on the street halts.

  Even a large long-legged animal pulling a wagon stops walking and drops its jaw. Two triangular ears flick forward while it gapes.

  Everyone is staring at us. When Aurora looks to me too, I leap down from the counter, and I feel like I stand taller as I stalk on my anger-stiff legs, approaching the window. With slow deliberation, I step through, sliding my long-limbed frame past the jagged glass shards hanging like cave stalactites. My carapace comes through without a cut or puncture, unlike the unfortunate man at my feet.

  “My eyes! My EYES!” squeals the man.

  Noticing the tears streaking down either side of his face, I wave my tail at him. “Please refrain from weeping. We don’t know what pathogens your ducts might have, but I can assure you that we want no part of any bacteria or fungi living in the balls of your eyes.”

  Unfortunately, this does not encourage him to calm himself. Or to go quiet. Some beings are so inconsiderate. I edge away from him and raise my voice to address the street full of onlookers. “This shopkeeper refuses to sell us his goods. A food vendor sent us away with coarse words and no meal. Is this the common reception we can expect from this settlement?”

  Up and down the dusty thoroughfare, cries of “No, sir!” ring out.

  I feel oddly exultant at their capitulation. “Very good. Glad to learn this.”

  Aurora arrives at my side—having gone through the door rather than follow me through the dangerous, shattered panes of the window. I hold out my hand for her.

  In front of everyone, she steps around the still-screaming man, and she clasps it, staring out at the townspeople coolly.

  A glittering light plays at the corner of my eye, and I glance down at myself to find markings scrolling over my chitin. They’re glowing, naturally powered by a biochemical reaction within me. It’s a reversion to an earlier ancestral display, one my people have become too civilized to activate. There was a time when our males fought for the female they wanted—the victor would develop bright markings, warning all others to be wary of approaching, because nearby would be his female.

  I’m wearing mate marks.

  To put it plainly, they signify that Aurora is mine. I’ve as good as staked my claim that I’ll protect her. And there’s no supposing about it: I’ve successfully proven just this.

  My sternum swells and I glare at the people gazing and gawking at her. “Will one of you kindly direct us to an alternative outfitter for my female companion’s clothing?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Aurora is a vision in a clean dress.

  We’d been directed to the other side of this town, where locals were reported to be more welcoming. There, we purchased garments for Aurora and there was no unpleasant fuss. One of the dresses is as lovely a shell-pink as the former shop’s frock, and this is what she’s wearing now.

  She still requires a full disinfecting session in a mizzling stall as badly as I do, but we also require sustenance before we faint.

  “What do you even like?” Aurora asks in a whisper as she shuffles me to the menu of an eatery stand, and taps it. Plates laden with alien food raise off the shiny surface and whirl in a three-dimensional holographic presentation.

  My clawtip passes through one with a cylindrical-shaped offering. “What is it?” I whisper back.

  “A triple-stack burger. It’ll be meat. Do you eat meat?”

  “I do,” I confirm, and then I turn to the human manning the eatery. “May I have the triple-stack burger?”

  Without so much as a glance in our direction, the man reaches for his writing instrument, which he stores along the side of his head, fitted behind his ear. I’m so distracted by this use of human ears as I look from him to Aurora, examining the way her hair puffs against the backs of her ears and blocks the writing instrument notch, that I almost miss what he says. “Want that rare, medium rare, or well done?” he rattles off in a bored tone.

  Rare? I squint in consternation as my translator fits a word I know to the one he just used. Do I want my food… scarce?

  Nictating, I angle my head so that I can eye Aurora with concern.

  She snickers. “Do you want it tender and bloody and barely cooked, or partially cooked where it’s not done through the middle,” she pauses, a knowing arch to her eyebrows, “or do you want it cooked all the way?”

  I’m aghast. “What goes on in human kitchens? I want my meat killed all the way! Where I’m from, meats should be cooked thoroughly until they reach an industry-accepted minimum internal temperature to prevent the consumption of dangerous bacteria...”

  Laughing, Aurora taps the menu screen, making the little food images collapse and disappear. “I’ll have what you’re having: meat killed all the way.”

  Mindful of Aurora’s reception in two of our previous stops, I step in front of her and take the lead to finish placing our orders. I am prepared to spit in this man’s face in her honor, should the nee
d arise. I lean on the window, hoping my posture warns that I could become aggressive at the slightest provocation—but I’m careful to keep my fingers held aloft, claws not in contact with the surface of anything. There’s no telling when this place last saw a strong disinfectant. “Please braise our meats to within an inch of its ended life—and then braise it more. I want no blood or show of it on the inside, and I want no harbored parasites left alive. And do you offer an appetizer sauce to complement it? Specifically, I have an affection for lurgowen. It’s a pungent-tasting paste made from fermented, cluster-grown lurgowen orbs.”

  Eyes barely flicking over me, the man’s lower jaw moves at a slow piston as he chaws on whatever he has packed into his cheek. (With dismay, I wonder if it is offensive chewing gum, like the captor-human we knew.) “How ‘bout ketchup?”

  Frowning, I glance back at Aurora. “Do you know if ketchup is like lurgowen?”

  She gives me a winsome smile. “Sorry. I’m not familiar with your lurgowen.” She squeezes between me and the counter. I’m startled, but even more surprising, I feel no compulsion to step back. I like having Aurora’s body pressed tightly up against me for no purpose at all. I’m pondering this when she gives the man a smile. I curl over her, peering down at her, because at first, her smile does not at all reach her eyes, and this is very strange. But when she sees that I’m hanging over her, her smile warms, and turns genuine. She speaks to the man without so much as craning around me to see him. “Can you put ketchup on the side for him to try? What about mustard? Relish? The fixings?”

  Rather than answer in words, the human jerks his head and we turn to see a table laden with metal and glass containers—and all manner of flying insects buzzing around them.

  Horrified, I latch onto Aurora’s shoulders. She reaches up and pats my hands and says to the food-maker, “We’ll just stick with the well-done burgers, thanks.”

  ***

  With our need for food met if not satisfied, we trudge to The Thirsty Tapir—the charming outpost that boasts that it offers both lodging and drink. We were told it was a saloon now turned hotel, and that they accept all patrons. Judging by the vast variety of beings milling around the picturesque railed porch and moving through the batwing doors, it evidently is more friendly to individuals who arrive from planets bearing lifeforms other than humans.