by Amanda Milo
I have to blink.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
“IS THAT MY THONG?”
Around his upper arm, he’s using my thong like it’s an arm band.
I make a choking, disbelieving cough. “I wondered why my panties kept disappearing! I chalked it up as some sort of alien thing and… I guess it is,” I finish, throwing my arm out to indicate all that is wrong with this picture.
He manages to look both remorseful and shamefaced but...
“Zadeon, why do you have my panties tied on your arm? And where are the rest of them?”
“They smell like you, and they snap, so I burn them.”
If you ask an alien a simple question, you’re going to get a simple answer.
I nod, looking to the floor. “Yes. Yes, that makes sense. Thank you.”
OHMYALIEN.
◆◆◆
My forefingers dig into my temples and my eyes are screwed shut as I recount this latest ‘I’m rooming with an Alien and This is What he Does’ story.
We’ve had cause to share a couple of these.
“So then he says, ‘I burn them’, and when I ask why, he tells me he has to - because otherwise, the other males will steal them!”
Angie’s nose wrinkles. “Eww, no.”
Zadeon pipes in - because yes, he’s sitting beside me while I partake in girl talk - “Yes.”
“Without question,” Dohrein confirms.
I can’t tell if Gracie is being ostentatious or if she’s serious when she explodes with “You pervs!”
I splay my palms. “So yours don’t do that?”
“Nooo,” Angie says. “Mine does it to me.”
I’m still back at the part where aliens turn dirty human laundry into personal fashion accessories and wondering if my friends don’t have to worry about losing their underwear because they don’t wear any. I’m not going to ask; they’ll tell me and I don’t want to know. “Yours does what to you?”
I nearly knock over my hydration packet when Arokh is suddenly mauling Angie.
“Whoa!” I yelp and Zadeon steadies me with a hand on my arm. He looks alarmed because I look alarmed - he’s not even giving his brother a second glance. And actually… Angie seems cool with her alien using her as a face scratching post too. He’s acting like he’s got an itch that he can’t use his own hands for.
Oookaaaay.
Angie catches my look. “You don’t let Zadeon do this?”
Do WHAT? "Uh, no. I mean - he's never asked me to..." What in the… What even is this? When he starts to huff at the top of her hair, and then lick - I sit up so fast I feel a muscle twinge in my back. It looks a lot like...
A weak chuckle escapes me. “You know what that looks like? There’s this pillow thing.”
I feel Zadeon’s tail brush against my ankles, once, twice - fast - which normally means he’s feeling a little agitated.
"He doesn't need to do this to you? Really? And what pillow thing?” The curiosity is plain in her voice.
“Well he… he does that-” I widen my eyes, watching Arokh… drag his ears over Angie, “to my body pillows, that he insists on giving me… and…”
“Wait,” Angie cups a hand over Arokh’s nose - stalling him from this bizarre demonstration. “You make him rub himself on pillows?”
Gracie smirks. “Are we still talking scent marking?”
“Callie, the Rakhii have to do this. It’s… part of their nature. It’s a basic… really? You make him do it on a pillow?” She’s grimacing and acting uncomfortable. Like what I’m doing is socially reprehensible.
I’m trying really hard not to be offended but… “Um, you see; where I’m from-”
Angie laughs. “Don’t give me that. Yeah, I know, it’s weird for us, right? But this is what they’d do to their mates, and their mates would do it back so… remember. YOU are the alien here. Not Zadeon.”
I guess… I guess yes of course I knew that but…
“It hurts Arokh if he can’t do it to me. More than drives him crazy - it makes him sick.” Her voice sounds as worried as her eyes look.
Shit.
Seriously?
Now everyone is looking at me.
I throw up my hands. “I didn’t know!”
I can’t believe I’m starting to feel embarrassed. “He’s been using his spray.”
“That’s why he goes through so much,” Dohrein muses. “All this time I assumed he was ultra aggressive.”
“He is,” Arokh says.
I point a finger at Arokh. “Shut it.” Then I turn my attention back to Angie. I wave at Zadeon’s arm - the one that still has my dirty thong tied to it. “He seems to be coping just fine!”
Angie looks skeptical. “Yeah, that seems totally fine. Using his mate’s cast-off clothes, and rummaging for used bedding.”
Okay. Now that is definitely censure in her tone.
And they’re looking at Zadeon.
And then his brother - his own brother - his little brother - sends Zadeon the saddest, most pitying look.
I hate pity.
That is it.
And is it possible to have a stranger discussion than this one right here? I don’t want to find out, and I feel like it’s high time to go anyway. I stand abruptly. “Z: I want to return to our room now.”
He’s already up; he was moving as soon as I started to.
And it only drives it home even more: Zadeon is the kindest, most thoughtful, most attentive, careful male I've ever known.
And I've been letting him down.
“Wait!” Angie cries. “Before you go - if you’re not letting him scent mark you, then you’re not… um…”
I can’t help it. Words fly from my mouth. “There’s more?”
Gracie leans back and props her bare feet on Dohrein’s lap. He doesn’t miss a beat - he just starts massaging them for her. “Nothing crazy, Callie. Just sex.”
My cheeks flame. “W-what?”
Now Zadeon is angry. “My mate is not ready. You will not pressure her-”
Is an alien seriously sticking up for me right now, telling my ‘friends’ not to pressure me into having sex with him? He’s practically growling in Gracie’s face.
Officially. Weirdest. Conversation. Ever.
Gracie rolls her eyes. “Chill, Cerberus. She’s gotta hear about the birds and the aliens sometime.”
“Birds?” Zadeon asks in confusion.
I grab the back of my chair and rock it - more like strangle it - so that it wobbles back and forth on two legs. “We’re friends.”
Angie looks unimpressed. “Girl, please. Nobody can be that obtuse.” She waves up and down to indicate all that is Zadeon. “Any woman with a pulse - that sleeps next to this man - is going to be thinking more than ‘just friends’ type thoughts.”
Arokh gives her a look.
“It can’t be like that between us,” I hear myself say in a small voice.
“It already is like that between you. You’ve just got a hangup.”
A hangup.
I drop the chair with a thunk. “We can’t be intimate, okay?”
She winces. “Because you were… are you scared?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Zadeon go still - but I know him well enough to know it’s his ‘protective-mode’ stillness, like he’s listening hard and watching like a hawk in order to determine who he has to kill in order to fix whatever is wrong for me.
“I’m not scared of him.” I brush my bangs out of my face. “I just… I can never be with him that way.”
Her eyes narrow. “Is it just him you can’t be with? Like you don’t want him like that, or…?”
I sigh and turn a pleading glance on Zadeon. This would be so much easier if he wasn’t here.
He’s not having it.
“I will stay.” His eyes are cool. His tone is clear: this is nonnegotiable. “You will speak and I will learn what is in your hearts. Heart,” he automatically corrects himself.
&nb
sp; He still thinks humans are strange with just our puny single heart.
“Oh wow.”
I don’t even turn to look at Angie. “What?”
“He’s not supposed to do that.”
“Do what?”
Z flicks his eyes to her, and his look turns into a solid glare.
“He’s not supposed to give YOU orders,” she mock-whispers behind her hand, half teasing.
And I see it again - Zadeon’s jaw ticks.
He couldn’t hear her whisper, and he couldn’t read her lips.
Thus he misses entire chunks of interaction.
It’s not even happening to me and I’m frustrated. How does he handle it?
Gracie stretches. “So what’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him!”
“Well obviously something’s wrong with him. Is it because he’s not careful enough?” She appraises me. “Or… are you the problem?”
I can’t say anything. Words are forming and dying right on my lips.
Gracie is suddenly hesitant - something I’ve never seen her do, or be. Gracie doesn’t do hesitant. It’s not her nature. “Dohrein could... mark you.”
“WHAT?”
Zadeon’s tail hits something behind us. I don’t turn to look.
“I do not recommend this,” Arokh growls. But he’s not looking at his brother when he doles out this advice like I expect - he’s glaring at Dohrein.
“Not to actually fuck you-” she sighs. Then she sees Dohrein’s offended, and somewhat horrified, look and groans. “Don’t be dumb. No, just to - you know... relax you, take the edge off, get the ball rolling. It’s like having a beer or wine on the third date. You look like a third date kind of girl,” she finishes with a shrug.
I’m offended.
Because she’s right.
I was a third date kind of girl.
I don’t realize I said the words out loud until Gracie’s lip curls in a deprecating sneer. “And look where it go you.” But she doesn’t say it in a cruel way. Just matter of fact.
“And what's that supposed to mean?” Zadeon asks acidly.
Gracie’s unruffled by his climbing agitation. “Just what I said. She looks like she was the kind of girl played who by the rules, always did everything safe.”
Gosh, I was. I had been.
Gracie shrugs and reinforces with her earlier statement. “Yet look where it got her. Don’t feel too bad though. I was the exact opposite. I grabbed on to anything and everything with both hands and didn’t look back,” she rips the top off of a gel protein sleeve. “In the end though? We both ended up super fucked.”
I blink.
“It doesn’t matter what we do. If bad shit’s going to happen, it’ll happen. We just gotta keep grabbing good and happy where we can.” She squeezes the last bit out of the protein sleeve like a tube of toothpaste, collecting it on her tongue, then folds it into an airplane and aims it for the trash bin. “Speaking of. When are we going to get good food? Real food? This shit sucks.”
Angie folds her hands under her nose, elbows planting on the table. “Okay. Back to the question. What is wrong, I mean really? I get that he’s kind of big but these guys,” she looks at Arokh. “At least the guy I know is really great, the best and maybe he can give Zadeon pointers if he needs help-”
If Zadeon’s tail could scoff, that’s the sound that should come with it’s motion right now. But it can’t, so I do it for him.
I can’t take it anymore. I just word vomit it out there. “There’s nothing wrong with him! It’s me! It’s the scales! He’s all scales!”
I hear Zadeon’s tail drop heavily to the floor.
Angie blinks. “No he’s not.”
My heart actually hurts. I slap my hand over it, making Zadeon jump. “He is! He’s covered in scales-”
Angie’s eyes show her disappointment in me. “Hon, you gotta-”
The row of spines along Zadeon’s back lift. “You will not use my name.”
She pulls back a little and shakes her head. “Huh?”
“I am Hon.”
I bite my lips until I’m sure I’m not going to laugh. “It’s an endearment. Short for ‘honey’. It can be used for anyone.”
His face is impassive. “No it can’t.”
Alllrighty. Roger that.
“BTW: Called it. I told you she’s got a hangup,” Gracie says around another mouthful of protein gel. I don’t know how she can stomach one let alone several. She points her gel sleeve at me. “Scales? You’re such a dumbass.”
Zadeon’s eyes narrow on her. He flicks his gaze to me, questioning now, before looking back at her. “Did you just insult Callie?”
“No,” I say at the same time Gracie sits up, showing too much interest and says, “Yes!”
Zadeon glowers. “You will not insult her.”
Calmly, Dohrein lifts a hand and covers Gracie’s mouth. “She feels great remorse for the unfortunate word choice she directed at your mate in error.”
Even with his whole hand covering the bottom half of her face, Gracie’s eyebrows, the skin around her eyes, and nose manage to scrinkle up - it’s very clear she disagrees with this statement, and her muffled, “Whatever!” cements it.
Dohrein is the one glowering at her now. “Female, I will always fight for your honor but you kept me up the last two evening rotations. I’ve had four energy packets and my wings are still drooping.” He darts a quick look at Zadeon. “Even so. You should have seen what his littermate did to Crispin and I. I’m not up to do more than ‘train’ with a Rakhii at the moment.”
His tone is both self-deprecating and a touch admiring. Since he turned back to Gracie to say this last part, I grab Zadeon’s hand and repeat Dohrein’s words to him.
Zadeon smiles and I don’t miss the appreciation in his warm, sweet gaze. “My brother is a very good fighter.”
Dohrein ignores this statement and instead, he looks at me, puzzled. I point to my ears. “Zadeon follows conversation better if he’s able to read your lips.”
His lips part in a silent, Ahhhh.
“So he’s got scales. What’s really the problem?” Gracie asks.
“Snakes.” I say it so quietly - but the word has the impact of a bomb. It ricochets and the silence grows beyond uncomfortable directly afterward. Gracie’s sucks in air through her teeth. “Yeah. Water.”
I’m pulled out of my own problem. “I… don’t know what that means.”
Dohrein seems to, because he grabs her hand. But it’s Angie who waves it all away. “But he’s not a snake. Callie, Zadeon’s not them. Try this: from now on, you need to look at him and think dragon. Dragon!”
I give her a look. She’s not fooling anybody with that nonsense.
“No, seriously. He's not snake like at all. I mean look at him! Horns up top, he breathes fire for pete’s sake-”
She has a point.
“-and look at those feet! And hey - he has feet; not snakelike there, for the record - and hands. And dragon spines, and… those... ears. You gotta admit, those are different.”
She’s right about that too.
“Does any of this sound like snake-qualities to you?”
For the record; the snake men did have feet. And hands. And scales. I slap my thighs for emphasis. “Snake scales, yeah! I’m sorry! I just can’t- When I feel them touch me… I feel them touching me. I see them. I feel them and all I can-”
Zadeon’s tail reaches for my face. I surprise us both when I grab onto it just behind the sharp fringe and start to distract myself by worrying it.
Angie stands and comes around the table - not getting into my space, but sharing closeness, I guess. “No. No - they’re gone. He killed them to get to you - all of them. You’re out, you’re safe, that’s done; and he’s not them. He’s not anything like them. He doesn’t even look anything like them - if you want to get past this, you have to start telling yourself that you can’t get hung up on his scales anymore. His scales are DRAGON
scales, okay? You have start seeing him.”
“I do see him!” I insist.
“No,” Angie says, tone vehement - almost angry, so frustrated with me that I’m shocked.
I see her look at Zadeon.
With pity.
Grrrwwwwl.
That’s me, not Zadeon making the noise and all the males go on alert like I’m about to be a threat.
She feels sorry for him.
And… so do I.
It makes something click into place inside my chest even as Angie is continuing, “No you don’t - you haven’t been.”
“I see him,” I assure her, quieter.
“You see parts of him. But think of it this way: what if he was human, and he’d been born with webbing between his fingers. Ever seen that? It really happens sometimes. Or an extra finger, let’s say.”
“Yeah, okay, I get where you’re going here.”
But she keeps on. “At first, you would, what? Try to ignore it, tell yourself it doesn’t bother you at all that they are deformed?”
That’s not what I’m doing! Disgusted, I reply, “I would never think that - not that they were deformed-”
“Just the way some people are born, right? So why are you punishing Zadeon for being born with some similarities to snakes? He’s not a snake. He wasn’t the one, or even born the same kind that hurt you. If he were a giant needle, I’d be terrified of him too, but-”
Seeming to possess knowledge or foresight to just know what Gracie will say, Angie breaks off and lunges for her.
Before her hand can clamp over her mouth, Gracie crows, “That’s not what I’ve heard! I’ve heard your guy does have a giant ‘nee-”
As Dohrein and Arokh work on peeling apart the insane women they claimed as mates, I’m more than mulling on what Angie said.
I have been treating Zadeon unfairly.
I wouldn’t treat anyone like that back home. It’s horrible! I-
“Callie?”
Like always, I sense him poised to touch me.
But not connecting.
Because he’s afraid I’ll reject him.
He knows I have rejected him.
I take a deep breath.
And lean into his hand.