CONTAGION

by Amanda Milo

  I want to ask her why, but the furious man’s head snaps up and his eyes laser into mine. “What’d you say to me?”

  I wasn’t speaking to him, but rather than point this out to someone who’s obviously behaving in a belligerent fashion, I wave my hand to indicate the man on the floor. “Soaking skulls in urine for a series of darkcycles will remove leftover flesh from the bone, and therefore begins the preservation process.”

  The entire bar goes still. If I’m not mistaken, it’s disquiet and unease that I see reflected on a myriad of alien faces.

  I look around defensively. “That’s not the method I use.” Aurora takes my arm, and I turn to look down at her. “I don’t!” I whisper, knowing she will at least believe me. “It’s so unsanitary. There are countless other solutions to remove flesh—”

  She kisses me.

  As always after one of her kisses, I’m lulled into following her wherever she goes. She winds her way around stunned-looking bar patrons who shuffle back, leading me and leaving them to stare at our backs as we make our way to wherever Aurora intends to go.

  Her goal, apparently, is a green-topped table with loudly clicking balls.

  Men are using long point-ended sticks to poke the balls together with a violent collision—and this is the source of the cracking noise we’ve been treated to since we arrived.

  “Got room for extra players?” Aurora asks the patrons.

  The men all stop watching their balls, and stare agog at the lovely vision that is Aurora.

  Then they look at me—and very suddenly as one, they begin to look elsewhere in any and literally every direction other than directly at Aurora.

  Good. I cross my arms over my sternum.

  An action that only seems to draw their gazes. And seemingly in reaction, the men’s eyes flit back at Aurora before quickly darting away again, and they murmur uncomfortable, “S-sure, Sugar,” and various other words of agreement, signaling that they will let Aurora join in their odd game.

  CHAPTER 18

  At first, I’m caught up in observing the interaction of the men with Aurora—and my body’s threat responses in the face of their attention of her. I quell my urge to growl a moment too late when one man moves behind her to assist her with improving the hold she has on the ball-poking stick.

  “Sorry, man,” he says to me. “It’s hard not to keep your hands off a girl when she begs you to give her… pointers,” he finishes with a grin I don’t care for at all.

  “Why don’t you watch your balls, and keep your hands off my wife?” I ask politely.

  Silence falls for three whole beats before the men rounding the table turn on their companion and begin to laugh uproariously.

  Aurora crosses to me, pulling me down to give me a peck of a kiss before spinning around and smiling brightly at the men. “He’s so protective,” she says with a shrug more alluring than any mere shrug has a right to be. It’s all in the rolling of her shoulders and her pretty mouth and her dancing eyes. Nobody watching all this loveliness would ever dream of denying her when she takes my hand and prances to the table, ordering, “Let’s play!”

  It’s not long before I get caught up in the physics of the game. Though these men seem rough and for all that they appear dimmer than the low lights hanging above the table, they must possess quite the analytical set of minds, because they can manipulate their balls into completing complex maneuvers that no rational thinking individual would consider possible.

  And evidently no one here considers that Aurora has a grasp of ball and poke-stick maneuvers to out-play every man here, because they’re floored when she stabs her stick downward, and forces the striker ball to hop over five of its colorful brethren before bashing an unlucky foe into a dropped ball-keeping table pocket.

  The men explode with noise.

  “You’re a trick shot!” one of them shouts, half-accusatory, and half in awe.

  Aurora performs her patented shoulder-roll-shrug move again, making all the male eyes train on her body. “Nah,” she claims.

  The men continue to make a racket, and she smiles coyly. “Lucky shot.”

  “Bull. Shiiit,” enunciates one man.

  She smiles brightly at them. “That’s nothing. You should see this guy,” she jerks a thumb behind me. “I’ll bet you he’s never played before, and I’ll bet you that we can outplay all of you.”

  “You’re on, girl!” one male shouts.

  Another follows his example, then the rest of them, chiming in with pledges that sound like wagers.

  I look at the men in consternation. “You’re going to promise your stipend deposits that against us,” I point between Aurora and me, “you will emerge a winner because there’s a chance you’ll win more stipend funds?”

  One male shrugs—and it is just a shrug, nothing at all attractive like Aurora manages. “Yeah.”

  I shrug my shoulder plates too. “It’s your credits. And even if we lose, I still get to retire with my wife.”

  The men laugh and Aurora playfully leans into me, winking, “That’s right—you lose the game and your wife,” she half-nictates at me, one eyelid sweeping down and holding for a moment longer than normal, “will still make sure you win.”

  Distracted, it takes me a few of my own nictations to respond. “What do I get if we’re the victors?” I ask her seriously, and the men chuckle and begin to shuffle to their places, chalking their sticks.

  Aurora’s smile seems like it’s just for me when she grins. “If I lose the game, maybe you’ll be sweet and make me feel like a winner anyway.”

  I give this thought. I wonder what would make Aurora feel victorious after a lost match. Sometimes, on daycycles when work projects would prove fruitless or the outcomes were difficult, I would bake a sweetğurk kuchen, and savor the texture and taste until I felt better satisfied with life. “I wonder if the owner will allow me to use the kitchen here, and if the ingredients are anything familiar that I can put to use.”

  Aurora’s glance is a little startled perhaps, but her smile is soft and open. “Uh, we can always ask, sure.”

  All thoughts of kitchen sanitation preparations grind to a halt when Aurora bends forward suddenly, her chest touching the edge of the table, her posterior pressed right to my front.

  She’s just ignited mating urges in me like the intense high-energy burst of a solar flare.

  If I grab Aurora by the hips right now and lift her until we lined up…

  My claws spread and prepare to clasp her, to lock her in place for mounting—but NO. Not here. But soon, upstairs, in our room, pleasedearCreatorsoon and just like this.

  As if she can read my thoughts, Aurora glances at me over her shoulder, and smirks at me from under her lashes. “Your turn,” she purrs.

  My turn. YES! THIS SOUNDS EXCEPTIONAL.

  I don’t reach for my stick. Boldly, my hands cup the sides of Aurora’s posterior.

  The way she’s twisted to watch me, I see her gaze shift from flirtatious to pure hunger. She returns my interest and she’s not pulling away from my hands where I grasp her.

  A throat clears—a male’s throat, and I bare my teeth, snarling. I come to my senses, remembering, seeing that we’re surrounded by males. MALISONS AND DAMNATION THAT AURORA AND I AREN’T ALONE.

  Aurora straightens, but doesn't pull herself away from where I have part of her cupped in my hands. She pats me reassuringly and apologetically on my sternum.

  It mollifies me. Enough that I swallow, my face returning to its natural impassivity, and I turn my attention instead to the game.

  The dynamics of the game quickly fascinate me. Physics would have been a much more enjoyable subject in school if instructors had used this as our textbook. Equilibrium, momentum, force, friction—I’m caught up in the swirl of excitement as Aurora plays with me and onlookers call out pointers. Then we sit back to watch the opposing team play and the high score from the two games goes to us.

  So does the second.

  “Told you we’d be
winners tonight,” Aurora purrs up at me, and I hear her even over the raucous calls of the men who are calling for more matches.

  Aurora declines though, pulling me aside to explain that a smart player knows ‘when to run.’

  This sounds like a worrisome rule.

  “Hey, can you show us again how you got the billiard ball to do that thing?” a man calls to us after we collect our earnings but before we can run.

  “Angle your cue stick from horizontal to vertical,” I remind him, because we repeated the trick again and again until I perfected it after I got it to work by chance the first time. “Strike on the inside, so that your target spins against the grain of the felt. And last but not least, remember: a cue stick with a greater surface area at the tip is better for making the shot that will win you money.”

  “Hear that, boys?” Aurora snickers. “Change positions to hit her sweet spot, and as always, bigger is better for the money shot!”

  The entire bar joins in with the laughter, roaring, and they provide increasingly ribald comments, if my translator is managing the ins and outs of human and various other alien dialects around the bar.

  I take up Aurora’s hand and it’s my turn to lead her. We wind through the crowds, my goal to get us to our room with all swiftness. I’m in a strange, edgy mood, one that feels hungry and celebratory. We reach the staircase and Aurora leaps upon me, surprising me so much that we crash against the wall just beside the foot of the stairs.

  I stay pinned, resting submissively where she has me in place. I give her a mildly questioning look.

  “Sorry,” she giggles. “I thought you were going to catch me.”

  “Oh,” I say, smiling in response to her infectiously playful demeanor—the only type of infection I’ve ever welcomed—“I would love to catch you, now that you’ve communicated your desire to be caught. Ready to try again?”

  She leaps up towards me, and this time, I wrap my arms around her, and catch her out of the air, carrying her up the stairs to a deafening amount of bar patron cheering.

  And all darkcycle in our bed—

  Then against the wall.

  And even on the floor (I’m mildly concerned about germs, but my fear is controlled and Aurora’s body is so invigorating and the tension from the danger of it seems to heighten my pleasure)—we both win.

  CHAPTER 19

  The next daycycle, when mostly all the establishment patrons are asleep or partaking in a foul-tasting brew they call cough-fee—

  Something Aurora, to my horror, was not afraid to reach for when it was offered. I mean, who would become excited about a beverage that essentially translates as illness-charge? Aurora and everyone else present but me, apparently.

  At any rate, at the dawning of the daycycle, my beauty leads me to a pool table, and begins to play with me. The entire time she does so, she teaches me fascinating tricks with the stick and balls, but the entire time she does this, she also teases my stick and—

  “Simmi?”

  I straighten in shock.

  “SIMMI!”

  A body collides with me, nearly knocking me to the floor. Because I’d been gripping Aurora’s hips as she danced her posterior against my front, I snarl and use one hand to protectively press her body to the pool table edge. My other hand darts past her to anchor myself to the heavy piece of furniture. Keeping myself between Aurora and our attacker. Who… knows my name. Slowly, the red aggression-haze clouding my vision dissipates as I rapidly nictate.

  I make out the features, the ecstatic features, of my friend. “Erreck?” I say in shock.

  A small body launches at my side and adheres itself to me, wrapping its arms around me with familiarity. “Simmi! How are you here?!”

  I glance down, and see Skynan, or Nancy, Erreck’s mate. “I was captured and taken from home.”

  Erreck, who, I realize, was the one to first call my name before he tackled me, nudges my shoulder. “That was actually our plan for you.”

  Nancy is frowning up at me, suddenly very concerned. “Someone took you? Did they… hurt you?” She pulls back to look at me as if she can see evidence of my torture.

  Waving her worry away, I ask incredulously, “Why are you two here?”

  “We’re tourists,” Erreck shares proudly. “There’s a rare plant somewhere in the forests of this place.”

  My tail twitches hard, remembering too well the wilds Aurora and I barely endured.

  “And we thought that before we went looking for it,” Nancy jumps in, “we’d visit The Thirsty Tapir. It’s famous for its hospitality and bar.”

  “How serendipitous,” I exclaim, hardly able to believe it. But as my friends bombard me, I can feel Aurora. I sense her confusion—and her retreat.

  I reach out and snatch her, drawing her into my arms. This jostles both Erreck and Skynan further away from me. I place a knuckle under Aurora’s chin, tipping her head back enough that I can take her mouth. To the intense relief of my cardiac muscle—which had pounded two shaking beats of worry the moment before Aurora had attempted to quietly withdraw—she relaxes in my arms, softening against my lips.

  When we pull away, I fit her firmly to my front, and wrap my arms around her upper half, binding my tail around our legs for good measure. “This is Aurora, the female I cherish,” I tell my good friends. Aurora nearly wobbles, so I clutch her tighter and run my nose along the top of her head, through her pleasantly soap-scented hairs. “She is my wife—which is the alien high title for a mate,” I explain. To Aurora, I say, “The Genneӝt is Erreck, and the human is Skynan, or Nancy, his mate.”

  Aurora relaxes even further, and she holds out her hand first to Erreck. I watch curiously as Erreck brightens and accepts her hand, pumping it up into the air then down.

  Aurora’s other hand pats my thigh, which distracts me from glaring at my friend holding her hand, and that’s when I realize my lips are curled up—and not in a smile.

  Erreck’s grinning, and it makes him look a touch evil. “So you know how it feels now. Possessiveness.”

  I snap my teeth as an answer, and both Aurora and Skynan snicker.

  Skynan takes Aurora’s hand next and they too perform the raise-and-drop maneuver. Thankfully, I don’t feel the need to break Skynan’s hand for touching Aurora, and I hypothesize that perhaps this reaction only happens with rival males.

  This leads me to wonder if Aurora is having the reverse reaction in response to my nearness to Skynan. Just in case this is so, I edge back from both of my friends—not enough to cause offense or hurt, but enough that it’s clear we are two separate pairs.

  “It’s so good to meet you,” Skynan gushes to Aurora, looking her over with unabashed curiosity—and excitement. “We’ve been so worried about Simmi since we escaped the Genneӝt planet.” Her eyes flick up to mine. “Thanks again for that, by the way.”

  I lift a shoulder. “You’d have done the same.”

  “And you have a wife, a mate!” Erreck adds, clearly thrilled for me. To Aurora, he pretends to speak out of the side of his mouth. “You must be one patient female.”

  Aurora cocks her head, which makes it gently bump into my chin. “Hardly. But after Simmi blew our captors to smithereens and rescued me, I was pretty smitten.”

  Erreck looks shocked, but Skynan just nods approvingly and says, “Man, he is good about saving the day. He’s going to get a reputation if he keeps it up.”

  Erreck makes a considering face at this, which turns into one of easy agreement—and this shocks me.

  I squeeze Aurora tighter, feeling as if I’m standing taller because of her and what she’s said.

  She turns around so that she can properly hug me back.

  But she twists enough to peer hopefully at my friends. “So… how do you guys feel about giving us a ride to my house?”

  CHAPTER 20

  THREE AND A HALF HUMAN-MONTHS LATER…

  Aurora’s home is the haven I never knew I wanted. The one I don’t want to imagine living without.
>
  Just like the woman of the manor herself.

  But her home—our home, now—is a special place. It’s a wonderfully controlled environment. Everything smells so fresh and clean, and sometimes spicy, and sweet, and occasionally like a variety of herbs. The heavenly aroma of the daycycle depends entirely on what batch of soap Aurora is making.

  That’s right. Aurora makes soaps.

  CLEAN, SWEET-SMELLING, DISINFECTING, *CLEAN* SOAPS!

  Is this not the most perfect female for me in all of Creation?

  In my former life, I worked with children. It might surprise some to learn that I like children, since I’m intolerant of so very much. But I do; they’re so free of judgement, and brave, and resilient. They make my shortlist for life’s enjoyments.

  Making soap is now also on my very short list of enjoyments.

  Most days, I measure ingredients beside Aurora, mine always with precision, hers by ‘eyeball’—

  Which drives me to distraction—the batches will not be made identically if the recipe isn’t followed identically—but my grousing always makes Aurora laugh, and she tells me that each batch will be unique, a declaration she declares in a way that conveys she feels it’s better than being perfect.

  ...Which only confirms that this female is perfect for me.

  Whenever my pathological anxieties and fears rear up and I become distressed about the possibility of being contaminated by various vermin, germs, bacteria and pathogens—Aurora doesn’t let me get lost in my affliction. She can always tease me out of my episodes.

  Usually with kisses.

  Lately, she’s been getting this smile, this knowing, affectionate smile. It’s so beguiling, sometimes, I stop just to suck in a breath of wonder that this woman is mine.

  And that’s when she takes off her clothes.

  Usually just one item. But just one is all it takes before I’m less concerned with dust mites on the bed coverings than I am about driving myself into her until she’s screaming that she loves me.

  I love it when she tells me that.

  (Usually, especially if my phobia-fear-of-the-moment is mites, we declare our love standing, with her braced against the freshly-scrubbed wall, and me behind her, wearing non-slip medical booties on my feet. I can verify that the wall is clean because Aurora made me dust-mite-killing soap to use on every surface I deemed necessary. She’s due to make her fourth batch of it this week. I’ve been scrubbing it on everything.)