Triangle

by Sara L Daigle

  She could sense the silent tears over the phone, but what Kari said was, “No, I don’t want to bother you this morning. Can you come by after work?”

  “Sure,” she said, then remembered the family dinner. “Shit. I have a family dinner. Let me see what I can arrange and call you back, all right?”

  “It’s all right.” Tamara could barely understand her through the tears. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll call you back.” Tamara hung up the phone.

  “She all right?” Alarin asked from the kitchen.

  Tamara shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s crying. It’s got something to do with Damiar, I think. When I talked to her yesterday afternoon, she was all excited about the possibility that he was interested in her.”

  “Damiar? Rory says he’s got a lover on Azelle.”

  “Ah, so he probably turned her down.” Kari’s upset suddenly made sense. “No wonder she’s upset.”

  “Actually,” Alarin replied dryly, “he probably didn’t.”

  “Huh?”

  “Humans are a rush,” Alarin explained, his voice oddly toneless, as he rinsed off the plates and placed them carefully in the dishwasher. “They don’t have shields and can’t block the responses to us and our sex.” His expression grew guarded, and he continued, “Especially not when we’re … helping to intensify the reactions. I’ve done it to you a few times; you know what I’m talking about.”

  She blushed. The couple of times he’d actually touched the erotic center in her brain with his psi, it had been so intense she thought she’d die. She hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it to be able to reciprocate, but she was working on it. It wasn’t something that was easily taught, especially because she went out of her head when he tried to show her. It wasn’t something Greg could really show her either, since she didn’t have that type of relationship with him. “Yeah, I do.”

  Alarin shook his head. “I personally haven’t had sex with any pure humans, so I don’t know for sure if they react the same way as you do to me, but Justy used to talk quite a bit about the rush he got from them.” He glanced at her. “So did Merran.” He cleared his throat over the moment of discomfort Merran’s name caused between them. “Anyway, Damiar probably did some level of sexual interaction with her, as a curiosity thing, then told her he had a lover.”

  “Cheating on his girlfriend? Would he do that?”

  “It, uh, depends on the context.”

  “Context? What context? Any sexual contact is cheating, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Not necessarily?” Tamara’s voice went up. The conversation suddenly wasn’t about Kari and her culture shock, but about Alarin and Tamara, and Alarin’s Azellian attitudes. “What constitutes not necessarily!?”

  Alarin turned to her. “Now’s not a really good time to get into this. Don’t you have to go to work?”

  Would she ever understand Azellians? Tamara trembled from the force of emotions suddenly churning in her. Jealousy, possessiveness, and anger, fueled by fear, made her want nothing more than to confront Alarin and demand an explanation. “Fine. As long as you promise to tell me what you would consider acceptable sexual contact with someone else.”

  “Me? Why none,” he replied, as though he suddenly understood something. “With a human or an Azellian, male or female. I’ve been on Earth long enough to know that our definitions of sexual contact can be very different from yours, but Justy’s trial gave me some insight into exactly how touchy humans can be about it. So I’ve pretty much avoided the whole thing completely.” He shrugged again. “We didn’t get much training about human cultural attitudes before we got here, but I’m sure Justy’s trial has changed things. I’d better talk to everyone and make sure they all understand how important it is.”

  Tamara took a deep breath and made an effort to calm her raging emotions. Alarin’s calm, matter-of-fact attitude about it helped, but she still could feel the culture shock race through her. He seemed to be respecting her feelings, but the differences implicit in what he’d said, in the very definitions of the words, made her unwilling to blindly accept that he was being trustworthy, as she defined it. She pushed the concern down—there wasn’t much she could do about it now—and got herself ready. As soon as she was dressed, she placed a video call to the embassy number.

  “Azellian Embassy Denver, how may I help you?”

  “May I talk to Janille?” Tamara asked. “It’s Tamara Carrington.”

  “Just a moment, Ms. Carrington, I’ll connect you,” the receptionist, a fresh-faced young woman she didn’t recognize, said.

  “Corina,” Merran’s voice startled her, and she had to keep herself from blushing, immediately grateful that Alarin was in the other room.

  “Merran. I, uh, I was trying to reach Janille. What are you doing answering your own phones?”

  “Janille’s on another call and my intern hasn’t come into work yet. Speaking of, when are you coming in?”

  “I … uh … was hoping you didn’t need me this morning. That I could switch to tomorrow from eleven to three. I’ve got some things that have come up here. Family stuff,” she added, intending to use her aunt and uncle as an excuse, but feeling oddly like she was babbling. Merran was making her nervous in a way she hadn’t felt since she first met him. She hadn’t seen him at work since their breakup—she suspected he’d been avoiding her. Since she was happy to avoid him, too, she’d been grateful for the reprieve. “Uh, my aunt and uncle are here. In town.”

  Merran was silent for a moment, probably reading more than she wanted him to. “Tomorrow’s fine. It will still all be here.” He hesitated, then said, “Of course, tomorrow’s Janille’s day off.”

  Which meant it would be just him and her. That was almost enough to make her change her mind, but remembering Kari’s tears on the phone, she shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow then,” he said and hung up.

  Tamara stared at the phone, trying to get control over the strange emotions beginning to bubble up. She wasn’t precisely upset by the unexpected contact, but it was definitely uncomfortable. She sighed, then used the video application on her phone to call Kari, wanting to see her friend rather than just hear her voice.

  Kari answered almost immediately. “Tam?”

  “Hey Kare,” Tamara said quickly, seeing that her face was swollen and red. “Where are you? I switched work until tomorrow and can spend the morning with you.”

  “I’m in my room,” Kari replied. “I can’t go anywhere looking like this.”

  “I’ll be there in five,” Tamara answered and hung up. She left the bedroom and entered the kitchen, where Alarin was still in the midst of washing off counters and the table. “I got the day off from work and am going over to talk to Kari,” she told him. “What will you be up to while I’m at Kari’s?”

  Alarin shrugged. “I think I need to find the others and talk to them right away, before this becomes a problem. I’m going to hop in the shower and then pay them a visit.”

  “Do you want to meet back here at three to go over to my dad’s?”

  “Sure. Contact me mentally if anything changes.”

  “Ditto.” She stepped close to give him a quick kiss. He kissed her back, and Tamara headed for Kari’s.

  Kari opened the door, eyes bloodshot and swollen. A pile of unused tissues were stacked on the bed, pushed up into a pyramid.

  “Okay, tell me what happened,” Tamara walked over to the rumpled bed, settling down on it and pointing to the other side. She rested her back against the wall as she patted the bed for Kari to sit down.

  Kari took a moment to pull herself together, then plopped down on the other side of the tissue pyramid. “I don’t know why I’m so upset, really. I’m actually really pissed more than anything. I’ve been on this crying jag, though, for hours now.”

  “Start at the beginning. You said you were going over to meet Damiar at the arts co-op.”

  Kari too
k a deep breath and settled herself against her pillows. “I did that and things went really well. I mean really well. We really clicked. First we went to dinner, then we talked for hours, and I mean hours. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew, he was in my head making me feel …” She shuddered. “It’s indescribable, Tam. I can’t even begin to explain it. It was like he was touching something inside of me that just made me … explode.” She flushed slightly. “I mean, I wasn’t actually going to have sex with him on the first date. This wasn’t exactly sex, though. We didn’t touch once. He could do that without touching me? How?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It was so intense. I just … I just can’t explain it.” She blushed harder and glanced at Tamara. “He got off too. Even though I didn’t touch him either. It was like …”

  “He rode the orgasm with you,” Tamara said flatly, trying hard not to be embarrassed about the subject matter. It wasn’t that she didn’t know about it; it was something that Alarin liked to do to her, and he most certainly enjoyed it enough to climax with her. “It’s something they can do. Give you pleasure and ride the result with you.”

  Kari looked at her. “Without touching you?”

  Tamara nodded. “It has to do with the brain. From what I understand, touching that part of our minds directly bypasses the physical, and it is quite a bit more intense, because there’s no lag time, or other nerves involved. Something like that. It’s very complicated. Greg could probably explain it better than I can. It’s a psi thing.”

  Kari shivered. “Is it something Alarin has done to you?”

  Tamara blushed. “Sure,” she said, looking down at her fingers as they rubbed against the edge of the bed. She deliberately stopped her hand’s restless movements.

  “Can you do it?”

  Tamara squirmed a bit. “I don’t have the hang of it yet. It’s a bit arcane. I can’t visualize the spot in the cortex well enough to reach it, partially because Alarin can’t show me without sending me into spasms … and Greg can’t either because as soon as he’d try, the result would be the same as if Alarin tried it, and Greg and I don’t have that type of relationship.” She rubbed her heated cheeks and firmly changed the subject. “All right, you and Damiar clicked, he rode your orgasm, then what?”

  Kari blew her nose. “Then he told me he has a girlfriend on Azelle.” She leaned over to drop a soggy tissue in her trashcan. “He … he said he isn’t interested in anything long-term with a human.”

  Tamara moved across the bed to hug Kari. “Oh, Kari.” She held her friend tightly, not knowing what to say.

  Kari hugged her back, then threw her arms in the air. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, he has a girlfriend. So what? She’s on Azelle, he’s here. Why do I even care?” She grabbed a tissue from the stack on her bed and blew her nose. “But I do care. We had such an awesome time together. I want a relationship … but then to find out he has a girlfriend and isn’t interested in a relationship with a human? If he wasn’t interested, why did he do that to me? Why get me all …” she made a hand gesture that Tamara wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret, but she supposed it meant the erotic mental stimulation Damiar had done, “… to just end it. Bam! Over? I want … I just … I don’t know.” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I really need someone to tell me I wasn’t a complete asshole and idiot last night.”

  Tamara shook her head. “That I can say for sure. You were making assumptions, and from what you told me, you weren’t at all off base … from our perspective. I mean, he’d spent the afternoon and evening with you, had an intimate moment with you, then rejected you.”

  “Thank you.” Tamara could hear the heat in her voice. “What do you mean ‘from our perspective’?”

  A firm brush across Tamara’s shields made her jump. She hastily unshielded and touched a familiar mind. Alarin stood outside with Damiar and Rory. Alarin entered her head as she thinned her shields, slipping to her intimate level. How is she?

  Upset, Tamara sent back. Angry. Confused. She’s trying to get me to explain something I’m not sure I understand myself.

  Let me read it, Alarin instructed. I can maybe get to the bottom of this and see if we have damage control to do.

  No, I’ll take care of it. Tamara knew Kari really would not like Alarin getting involved, and Alarin could get carried away with being bossy and taking control. He’d probably force Damiar to apologize and blow it up into something it didn’t need to be. As a matter of fact, his presence outside might be a prelude to just that. And that, Tamara was certain, was the wrong approach. It’s just a misunderstanding. I’m handling it. Kari’s going to want to avoid Damiar for a while.

  Why? Alarin sent back. He should really apologize.

  Does he know what he did wrong? Tamara sent to Alarin’s personal level, then she reached out and touched the surface levels of Damiar’s mind. He acknowledged her greeting, but she couldn’t read anything from him other than polite acknowledgment.

  He knows it’s dangerous to do what he did last night … that he needs to be very careful. Alarin’s response was curt. He sounded just a little miffed.

  Then let me handle it. Trust me, Alarin. I know Kari better than you do, and I know what she’s going to be okay with. Let her get some time and perspective. Then, if Damiar wants to apologize, he can. If you force Damiar into it, I think you’ll do more damage on both their parts. Tamara begged. Please, Alari. Let me deal with it? She could feel his resolution waiver under the force of her plea as much as from any true understanding of what she meant. Something about her calling him Alari really affected him. Touching his private level as she was, he couldn’t hide the rush of pleasure it gave him. She filed away the knowledge and withdrew, vaguely aware that Kari was trying to get her attention.

  “Tam? Tamara, are you in there?” Kari asked, waving a hand in front of Tamara’s face.

  Tamara blinked at Kari. “Sorry, I was just trying to figure out how to answer your question,” she said, her mind racing to catch up. “It concerns issues I’m not sure Alarin and I have worked out yet. I mean, Azellians define sex and sexual contact very differently, and I still don’t have a complete understanding of it. I doubt Damiar even realized he was doing anything we’d call sex.”

  “Huh? Giving me an orgasm isn’t sex? Having one himself? That doesn’t make sense.”

  Tamara shrugged helplessly. “I told you I don’t understand it myself. My personal feeling is that it is sexual contact and it should only be done between partners, but I don’t think Alarin necessarily does.”

  “Alarin doesn’t run around giving other women orgasms. Does he?”

  Tamara flushed again. “No, of course not. He told me that he tries to avoid anything that might trigger my issues in that regard, because he knows very well that we have such different definitions. And all Azellians are super sensitive about triggering anything like what happened to Justy.”

  A very strange expression crossed Kari’s face. “I didn’t understand Joely, but now I kind of do. It’s very weird. I mean, Joely’s never been the most stable person, and she definitely loves to be the center of attention. If Justern did something that confused her, made her think it was something that it wasn’t, I can see how she might have gotten confused and then interpreted it as rape or something. Not that what Damiar did was rape, but it was certainly very embarrassing for me to have him blow hot and cold like that. And since Joely is so unstable anyway …” She shivered and pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging her legs close.

  Tamara shook her head. “I read her memories, Kare. She might have felt violated, and she might have handled it badly, but she very emphatically also used the opportunity to punish Justern for the other men in her life who had done similar things to her. All of us who could sense such things knew she was acting it up for the court case. As for what she originally felt about the whole thing, who knows? By the time the court case rolled around, she’d worked herself into hysteria.” Tamara took a deep breath and press
ed her hands against her cheeks. “It was one of the things that pissed us all off so much. If she’d been more reasonable about it, we could have worked things out and kept it from going that far. As it is, she’s effectively barred Justy from ever coming back to Earth. And with the Council blocking my application to Azelle every time I try, what are the chances I’ll ever get to spend time with him again?” She blinked away hot tears. It had been a rough time. As Merran had suspected, the diehards on the Council, even despite some major changes, still refused to grant Tamara a visa. She was, after all, the daughter of Peter Carrington, and there were Council members who had been a part of the drama of her father falling in love with, and impregnating, an Azellian woman who intended to marry another man. The marriage had gone through anyway, and Tamara had been sent to Earth to live with her father, never knowing her mother, but the hard feelings on the Council remained.

  Kari reached out to touch Tamara’s hand. “It’s all right, Tam. You’ll get there. Eventually. Maybe not as a college student, but if you and Alarin keep going the way you are, you’ll end up there one day. It’s not like they can keep you off Azelle if you become the wife of an Azellian.”

  Tamara shook off her momentary melancholy. “You’re probably right.” She waved a hand. “We’re not talking about me or Justy, though. Are you okay?”

  Kari shrugged and let her legs drop to a cross-legged position. “Yes, I’ll be okay.” She stared down at her legs. “It’s more embarrassment anyway. I mean, I kind of jumped to some conclusions and still feel rather stupid about the whole thing.”

  Tamara reached over and hugged her friend again. “You aren’t stupid, Kare. Not even close.”

  Kari stared down at the bedspread. “You know,” she began. “You said you could read memories. Could you … you know … read them?” She lifted her eyes to Tamara.

  Tamara dropped her arms and quelled a shudder. “Uh, I don’t think so,” she said, pushing back and staring at Kari with wide eyes.

  “Why not?”