by Calista Skye
A whiff of the woman's soft, sweet scent momentarily fills my nostrils and I almost swoon, while my crotch again swells hard. 'Heidi', she said. Could that be her name?
At least one thing I know for sure, and that's what made me take her. One thing that shines through this new chaos like the sun through a thin cloud, one thing that I knew from the moment I laid eyes on her: she's mine.
5
- Heidi -
He will sometimes groan or roar or something, as if he's deep in some inner conversation with himself.
Mist! Is he a psycho?
I turn around to look at him over the rims of my glasses. He seems calm enough right now, but I guess it can be hard to tell for sure.
Well, I'm not going to cure him. At some point we have to get down to the ground, and then I'll try to escape. Not that I think I'll succeed, but at least he'll know I really don't want this.
The rex stops, and I can see that we've reached a little clearing. A wide river halts our progress. It runs pretty wild and looks like it's overflowing. It might be too deep for the dino to wade across.
I turn my head so he can hear me. “Looks like the end of the road, cave dude. Might as well go back.”
We sit there for a while until he loosens the rope around me. Then he swings one leg over the back of the rex and climbs down the side of it, like the driver of a huge truck.
He stands on the muddy river bank and looks up at me expectantly.
I look right back. I'm twenty feet up. The fall could break my neck. “You expecting me to climb down here?”
He holds his hands up like you would to catch a toddler jumping down from a chair. And with arms like his, it actually looks like he could catch me pretty effectively.
I take the end of the control pole. I don't know what he did with it, exactly, but it's worth a try. I jiggle it back and forth, but the rex doesn't budge.
Well, it was worth a try. I'm not too disappointed. On one hand, being left up here is like a kidnapper leaving you alone in a car with the engine running. On the other hand, I don't relish the idea of being alone with this wild dinosaur.
The caveman is still looking up at me, mystified. But there's no way I'm climbing down the side of it. I can't see any footholds at all. “Yeah, I'll just stay up here, dude. You got me into this, you get me out.”
I'm not feeling as sure as I sound. Not least because I'm starting to have the same problem as in the cave last night: I really have to go.
The caveman climbs easily back up and looks at me for a short moment.
Then he lifts me up over his shoulder and climbs fast down again.
Then I'm standing in the mud, a little dizzy from the quick descent.
I smooth down my primitive dinosaur skin dress. “Yeah, that works, I guess. Excuse me.”
Before he can tie me up again I go behind a bush, hoping he has the sense to not disturb.
I needn't have worried. He turns his attention to the rex and places a big hand on its huge muzzle, right above its immense gape with thousands of razor sharp teeth. I can hear him speaking to it like I've seen people talk to horses, while he pats the lethal creature's snout with both his hands.
The whole thing makes me calm down a little. He's a very big man, but the dinosaur is much bigger and could eat him in two bites. Still he seems to treat it with affection. I mean, he can't be all psycho.
I finish up as well as I can and make sure to keep a respectful distance to the rex. It ignores me.
The caveman punches its snout twice, making it look like a friendly gesture. Then he turns his back unconcernedly, like it's only a cute little bunny. The dino sways back and forth for a little while and turns its giant head this way and that, then slowly walks back into the jungle.
I let out a breath that I hadn't known I'd been holding. Dinos make me very nervous. And alien T. Rexes are right at the top of my nervous-making list, along with dactyls.
But the most dangerous being is still right in front of me.
He towers over me and again he's just taking me in without a word.
But I'm not in the mood to be stared at. “Yeah, no. This doesn't work for me. So. I'll try again. This is the last time. Got it? Heidi.” I point at myself again.
To my surprise, he points at himself and says, very clearly in a deep voice, “Dar'ax.”
I point at him. “Dar'ax.”
He points at me. “Ay-de.”
“Hhhi-dee,” I say slowly.
“Hi-de.”
I nod. “You know, that's good enough.”
He reaches out with one hand again, aiming for my cheek. But I pull away before he can touch me. I'm going to have a strict no-physical-touch policy until I know a lot more about this guy and what he's planning.
Then I switch to cavemanese and point back the way we came. “When warrior take Heidi back to where found?”
He looks at me for a few seconds. “Eat.”
He takes his sack on his shoulder and walks up along the river. I can see that it snakes in among the trees in that direction, and the ground up there looks drier than this mud.
The moon has set and the horizon looks brighter now. It's very early morning, and it looks like it won't rain that much today. I can see stars still, so there can't be that many clouds up there.
He's walking away, and his back is turned. It's like he's daring me to run away.
Fine, I accept the challenge.
I turn around and walk as fast as I can towards the jungle, right where we came out of it.
I look over my shoulder. Dar'ax has stopped and is now looking at me with a puzzled frown on his face. Then he drops his sack and walks fast towards me.
I start to run. I'm barefoot and the mud is slippery, but I'm able to get up a semi-decent speed. I can hear fast, heavy steps behind me, splashing through the puddles and getting closer fast. I try to speed up, and I've just passed the first tree when Dar'ax grabs me under my arms and lifts me while my legs are still running, making me feel like an errant toddler.
Involuntarily falling into my role, I glare up at him when he puts me down. “Take hands off, dishonorable warrior!”
But he glares at me, too. And with those eyes, he can get up a pretty good glare. I suddenly wonder if trying to escape might not have been the best idea.
He places one big hand on each of my shoulders. “The jungle is very dangerous,” he says calmly. “Heidi will not survive long alone.”
He looks past me and then turns me around.
“Fuck!” I want to back off, but Dar'ax is holding me firmly in place as my skin crawls. Because just a couple of trees further into the jungle, there's a monster that I hadn't seen, but which I would have run straight into if he hadn't stopped me. It looks like a cross between a giant fish and a triceratops, and its immense mouth is open so wide the thing looks like it's just a huge gape. It's teeth are square and not triangular, and somehow that makes it look more alien and terrible. It stands there on three solid legs, one at the back and one at each side.
It snakes one tentacle eye around and over its mouth, as if to check where its snack went. That is, where I went.
I struggle to get loose from Dar'ax's grip so I can put more distance between me and this new terror.
But he holds me in place. “That is a manbane,” he says into my ear. “It will eat small women like Heidi, who run into the woods with no sword and nobody to protect them.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it,” I agree quickly and look away from the monster. “We walk now. Walk not close to manbane. Walk further from.”
He holds me there for three more heartbeats, then releases me and turns his back, going back to where he dropped his sack. I scurry after him, eager to get the hell away from that thing in the woods. Right now, Dar'ax is absolutely the lesser of two evils. Except I can't be sure if he's evil or not.
I follow his broad back and can't help but notice the way his butt flexes with each step. The morning is getting brighter, and I can see that he has muscles t
hat are totally sensational. Even over the mud, he walks with a poise and a confidence that makes me want to have him close to me, so he can keep me safe from the horrors here in this jurassic jungle. It strikes me that it's weird to think something like that about a kidnapper, but I have to call them like I see them. And he does make me feel safe.
He picks up his sack and we walk along the river to the dryer patch of grass closer to the jungle. He starts gathering firewood.
I sit down gingerly at the edge of the patch. That attempt at escape may have failed, and he may have saved my life in the process, but I want him to remember that I'm here against my will. That was the main point of my escape, too.
It looks like it'll be a nice day, for a change. The sun rises fast, and there are no clouds in the sky. In the direction we came from I can't see any mountains, so Bune must be further away than I thought. We have traveled far in the night. That rex walked fast.
I keep Dar'ax in the corner of my eye as my heart rate stabilizes after meeting that manbane. Damn it, he makes me feel much safer than I really should. I'm not even that afraid of what he's planning to do with me. Because he doesn't give me the creepy vibe that I think a bad kidnapper would. He doesn't leer at me or try to charm me. More than anything else he seems confused and even annoyed.
His stripes are brighter and more vivid than ever in the strong morning sun. He looks sensational. His face has the same alien proportions as every other caveman I've seen, which means Ar'ox and Jax'zan, but there's more symmetry to them and he's honestly very attractive in all his primitive alien-ness. He has a beard, too, very dense and dark, with a golden glow. It's short and well shaped, and it makes him look primitive.
Well, he can be as hot as he wants. There's no way I'm going to even get close to falling for my own kidnapper.
He noisily dumps the firewood on the grass and quickly builds a pyramid of the dry twigs.
Then he takes out two rocks and strikes them against each other to try to make a spark that will light the fire.
Meanwhile, I do something I've done many times since I came to this planet. I gather dry grass from around where I'm sitting, form it into a ball and use my glasses to focus sunlight. The grass catches fire in three seconds. I quickly put the smouldering little ball of tinder in under the hollow pyramid he's made, then blow on it to make the fire catch.
Flames are shooting up, and I have the satisfaction of seeing Dar'ax freeze and just stare for a moment before he calmly puts his primitive fire stones back in his sack.
I give him a little smirk. “The woman not as helpless as Dar'ax think?”
He rummages through his bag and takes out packs wrapped in green leaves. He unfolds them on the ground, and now it's my turn to be impressed. That's a pretty good selection of food, including cold cuts that look pretty delicious, something that looks like fruit jam, a dried brick of something that reminds me of the stew we use to make back at the cave, many thin leaves that look like lettuce and even slices of some kind of loaf. It can't be bread, because it looks too dense, and as far as we know, nobody on Xren do any farming. Anyway, it's the finest selection of food I've ever seen on this planet, and my mouth is watering at the sight of it. It's been hours since I last ate something.
Dar'ax takes a new leaf and carefully places food on it, then puts it on the grass in front of me.
It looks pretty delicious.
I guess I have a choice to make. Should I accept food from a kidnapper? Would that mean I accept my situation as some kind of captive? Would it somehow put me in his debt? Or would he think it did? Would it lend legitimacy to this entire-
Oh, fuck it. I'm hungry.
I reach out and try the 'bread', which turns out to have a consistency more like a root vegetable. It's not a million miles away from tasting like a particularly spicy kind of yam, and before I know it, I've eaten the whole slice Dar'ax gave me. So I try the other foods on my leaf. The fruit jam tastes like tart orange, the cold cuts are cold cuts from some animal that I'd rather not know about because I think it's probably a dinosaur, the dried brick tastes most of all like pesto and the lettuce tastes like nothing much, just like on Earth. And a minute later, everything is gone.
Dar'ax takes a hollowed-out rock and pours some water into it from a leather canteen, then drops a pinch of a dark powder into it and hangs it over the fire from a branch he sticks into the ground.
The food was good for me, and I already feel better. In my sudden optimism I entertain some hope that what he's brewing there is tea or coffee or hot chocolate, although I know that it can't be. We've never found anything like those things, except that we sometimes steep not-too-bitter leaves in water and pretend it's tea.
The morning sun warms my skin and there's a pleasant breeze in the air. The fire crackles and smells nice, and the caveman is calmly chewing the food and still watching out for dangers, always scanning the horizon and the sky.
He hasn't looked at me since he stopped me from running straight into the gape of that manbane, and he gives the impression that he's not sure about what to do about me. But he's given me the best food I've had in months, he's kind to his rex and I'm actually none the worse for wear. In fact, I'm better fed right now than any of the girls. I mean, that salen fruit Alice picks for us is good, absolutely. But too much of a good thing is still too much.
“You know,” I say aloud in English, because the way things are, there's no way I'll accommodate him and speak his language, “this could have been nice if you hadn't just abducted me. Couldn't you have just stepped down from your dino and given me some flowers? Or waited until daylight and introduced yourself like a normal person? Sung me a nice serenade or written me a poem? Asked me out on a romantic date under the stars? Because your chances would have been pretty good. But see, now everything is awkward.”
He looks at me with those yellow eyes, then reaches out for the stone pot over the fire with his bare hands.
I gasp at the sight of it. “Don't! That's hot!”
But he grabs the pot and calmly places it on the ground without wincing. Then he pours some of it into a smaller hollowed-out stone and hands the steaming vessel to me.
Well, I have to check if it's coffee. I know some of the girls back on Bune would kill for a mug of latte. I'm more of a mocha chick myself, but I'll take cappuccino in a pinch.
I accept the cup, blow on it and then take a careful sip. Yeah, this brew is none of those things. It's not even espresso. But it's grassy and spicy and it has a hint of sweetness to it, so I'll happily call it tea.
Dar'ax slurps from his own cup and peers contentedly up at the sky, and for some reason that simple thing puts me more at ease. He slurps his tea, too. He's not that alien.
But he is alien. His stripes have a rougher texture than the rest of his skin, and when he slurps his tea I can see the white flash of his fangs. His hair shines like solid gold in the sun, and I itch to pull a brush or a comb through it and un-straggle it. I notice that he's wound a ream of brown fabric around one upper arm, and I wonder if that's maybe useful for when he rides his rex.
When he sits like this, his kilt-thing rests on his thighs, and there's definitely a good-sized bulge right where I'd expect it. I know that the cavemen here on Xren are very well equipped, because Sophia and Emilia have let slip enough hints to make us other girls pretty envious of the action they're getting. Of course it's not on purpose, but we live in very close quarters and things like that will get out.
And they can't always stifle their moans and exclamations when they give in to their attraction in the cave in the middle of the night, when they hope everyone else is asleep. Of course it makes us curious. What would it be like? With an actual caveman?
We seem safe enough here in this meadow. Little tingles dance around in my girly bits at the thought of seducing this guy right here and now. I glance at his crotch. There's definitely something going on there, too. Something major.
No. He kidnapped me. I'm not going to be one of those stereotypica
l chicks who fall for their abductors. Heck, I don't even know if that's a real thing or if it only happens in movies.
I lean back on the grass and support myself on my arms. “So. Any plans? Or are you just wandering aimlessly around the jungle, abducting defenseless women and feeding them delicacies?”
He may not understand the words, but he has to get the questioning tone of my voice.
And now he looks at me, finally. He looks like he's thinking for a moment. Then he reaches out once more, slowly, trying to stroke my cheek.
I lean away. “No, dude. That's not the way it works. You don't get to do that yet.”
He pulls his hand away and draws breath as if to say something, but then he changes his mind.
Yeah, well. If he won't talk, I won't either. I've given it a good shot.
I take another sip of the tea. It's good, and I want to make it last for a while as I think.
Fine, I'm the first woman he's ever seen, and he's doing the best he can, probably. He pretty much has to figure out how to deal with me, starting from nothing.
I can totally sympathize. I have enough trouble figuring out guys, too. And I've met a good few of them. So I'll cut this guy some slack. But the fact remains: he kidnapped me. Maybe he's never dealt with women before. But he could see that I was a person, and a person is not something you just take, on this planet or anywhere else.
6
- Dar'ax -
In daylight she looks too remarkable for words. It's like sitting on the grass with a mythical being, a supernatural creature radiating with an otherworldly beauty. I'm very conscious of my old furs, my worn sack, my bare and dirty feet, my many scars, the dirty binding on my arm and the plain food I'm giving her. Holy Ancestors, she's sipping the keret brew so slowly, she must think it's the most disgusting thing ever.
What was I thinking when I took her? Me, of all men. Tribeless. Last and only. Dishonored until I fulfill my mission. I have nothing to offer anyone, least of all this ... this wonder.
Still, I sometimes can't resist reaching out to touch her skin, which looks so smooth and soft my mind burns to find out what it feels like. To confirm that she's really here, even. But she won't let me, and I certainly don't blame her. I've been riding the kronk around the jungle for days, and to her, I must reek of it.