Distant Desires

by Cambria Hebert

  So I didn’t go. I called and told them I was sick. I wasn’t sure I was, but since I was staying in bed, it didn’t feel like such a stretch.

  On the third night, I was dozing in bed when a loud pounding at my door made me jerk awake. With a groan, I pulled myself up and went to the door, jerking it open.

  Matt stood on the other side of the threshold, wearing a black polo shirt and a pair of jeans. “Are you really sick?” he demanded.

  That zapped some of the sluggishness from my body. “What?” I asked, straightening my posture.

  “You haven’t been to work since I kissed you,” he said, pushing past me and letting himself into my place. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been here before so he knew his way around.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with that.” I protested, shutting the door behind us even as part of me wondered if maybe it did. I was beginning to think maybe there was something seriously wrong with me. Like the man in the ship did something to me and I was just now feeling the effects. Why else would I be so exhausted, so thirsty, so confused about my feelings for Matt (and for the man whose face I’d never seen) all the time?

  He stared at me for long seconds and then sighed. “You don’t look so good, Soph.” Two great strides brought him before me. He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead as if feeling for a temperature.

  “You feel warm,” he murmured. “Have you been running a fever?”

  Surprised, I touched my forehead. It felt normal to me. “I don’t think so.”

  “You been to the doctor?”

  “No.”

  “You need to go.”

  I nodded. I didn’t feel like arguing with him. Besides, he was probably right. But what was I supposed to say at the clinic? Yes, I need to be seen because I was abducted by an alien in a spaceship, and I’ve never seen his face.

  Hello, padded walls and straightjacket!

  “Come here,” Matt said, pulling me against his chest and wrapping his arms around me. My head fit perfectly against his shoulder. I shut my eyes. This was what I’d been missing before. The reason I felt so dirty when I was with… Well, I didn’t know what to call him because he never told me his name.

  If Matt and I were to be intimate, I would be able to feel him. I would be able to connect to him, the same way I was connecting to him right now.

  A low curse slipped from his lips. I pulled back and looked up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m supposed to be at work.”

  I glanced at the clock. It was after five. I hadn’t realized it was so late. “What are you doing here, then?”

  “When I showed up and they told me you called off again, I couldn’t stand it. I had to know if you were avoiding me.”

  “I’m not avoiding you, Matt.”

  He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. I liked it. “I wish I could stay.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just going to go back to sleep.”

  “Can I call you later?” he asked, releasing me and moving to the door.

  “Sure.”

  He made a sound in the back of his throat and then appeared before me. Grabbing my chin, he swooped down and pressed a solid kiss on my lips.

  “You’re going to get sick,” I said when he pulled away.

  “You’re worth the risk,” he said and winked.

  When he was gone, I sank down into the couch with a sigh. Part of me was still in shock that Matt was interested in me. I wondered if he was serious or if this was some sort of phase. What if he was only interested because he thought I was interested in someone else? The whole the grass is always greener on the other side.

  He did say he wanted me to know I had options.

  But I didn’t. I hadn’t seen the man in the robe for over a month. Besides, he’d never been an option to begin with. I’d been a plaything. An experiment.

  A little pang of hurt pierced my chest and a hollow feeling filled my chest. Unshed tears blurred my vision. I lay down and curled up on my side, tucking my hand beneath my chin.

  I’d feel better after I got some sleep. The several hours I managed earlier this afternoon just hadn’t been enough. Sleep overcame me and I awoke several hours later with a foggy head and sluggish limbs, the inside of my mouth felt bone dry, and I tried to swallow to dampen my throat, but there was no moisture to be swallowed. My tongue poked out to run along my lower lip, which felt brittle and cracked.

  Why was I so thirsty? I pushed up off the cushions to glance at the clock, wondering how long I’d been asleep. Surely a long time for my body to get so arid. But it hadn’t been a long time. It was just after eight in the evening.

  If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I was drunk the way I staggered into the kitchen for some water. It seemed like a giant effort just to lift my foot off the ground to take a simple step. “What the hell is wrong with me?” I wondered out loud.

  Just as I reached the kitchen doorway, I stumbled, the effort of walking becoming too much for my weary body. I fell to the ground like a ragdoll. My body made a thudding sound against the linoleum. My cheek lay against the smooth, cool surface of the floor, and my eyes sought out the tiny window above the sink.

  Stars twinkled in a cloudless sky. It made me smile. And it made that awful hollow sensation fill my chest again.

  I closed my eyes against the feeling.

  Even with my lids closed, the light in here suddenly seemed terribly bright. Odd, I thought. I didn’t turn on any lights. It was so bright I lifted my hand to shield against it, but my exhausted arm didn’t obey.

  I blinked, trying to figure out why the kitchen was so bright. Neon light filtered in through the tiny window and illuminated the darkened apartment. Several things happened at once. The light went out, the hollow feeling inside me dissipated, and someone lifted me off the ground to cradle me against their chest.

  Rolling my head to the side and blinking upward, I caught the familiar sight of a silver robe. Something inside me leapt and I felt my lips curl into a smile.

  But then I remembered I shouldn’t smile at him. He was the reason I was like this. He’d done something to me and now I was terribly sick.

  “What did you do to me?” I asked, my voice sounding weak to my ears.

  He didn’t say anything, but shifted my weight in his arms, pulling me just a little bit closer. He’d never held me like this before. I’d never felt the hardness of his body before. I hadn’t realized how strong he seemed. He acted as if I weighed nothing at all.

  Even in my weakened and sickly state, I knew I might not get an opportunity like this ever again. I didn’t know why he was here, but something inside me whispered he probably wasn’t supposed to be.

  My fingers spider-climbed up the front of his robe, slowly, as if I were moving unintentionally. He didn’t act like he noticed so I kept moving, creeping upward toward that damned hood that shielded his face.

  He stood utterly still, almost as if he wasn’t even breathing, as my fingers curled around the edge of the hood. The fabric was silky and cool against my fingers as I bunched it in my grip. I hesitated one second before going forward, ready to pull it back and reveal his face.

  He jerked away, turning his head and pulling the material from my fingertips just out of reach, denying me the sight I so desperately wanted to see.

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” I whispered. He hadn’t kept that promise and he knew it. It seemed the very least he could do was let me look at him.

  Slowly, he turned his head toward me once more, tipping his chin down so he still was completely in the shadows of his clothing. Without hesitation, I grasped the fabric again and tugged it back, anxious.

  The entire hood didn’t slide away as I hoped, but I kept peeling it back anyway. My breath caught when the sight of the smoothest, palest skin I’d ever seen caught my eye. It was absolutely flawless. It appeared as if he didn’t have any pores at all. I kept tugging, desperate now to see more.

  My fingers dipped farther beneath the fa
bric and came into contact with his cheekbone, brushing against it and making me gasp out loud. Both of us stilled. He felt like the smoothest stone that sat for days in the summer sun. The heat that radiated from him and into me was unlike anything I’d felt before.

  There were just no words to describe it. I could say it was like getting a hot stone massage, but from the inside out. I could say I imagined this was the feeling cats got when they lay in the rays of the sun in front of a window.

  But I wouldn’t say that.

  Because this felt better.

  One touch (especially an accidental one) just wasn’t enough.

  Forgetting completely about actually seeing him, I delved forward again, letting the pads of my fingers stroke over him once more.

  I actually purred. Like a vibrating sound rumbled in my chest and broke free of my throat. It seemed to bounce around the room like an echo, an echo I hoped never faded away.

  He made a startled sound and jerked away again. But not before I could catch the edge of the silver hood and reveal a glimpse of his face.

  His eye.

  I froze, feeling like the wind had been robbed from my lungs. Unable to stop him, quickly he jerked the hood back up and cheated me of the view.

  I hadn’t expected it.

  Not at all.

  I honestly thought he’d be hideous. He’d be grotesque and frightening. I thought there was a reason he kept himself hidden.

  He wasn’t at all frightening.

  He was achingly beautiful.

  His eye was almond shaped, almost like the curious wide eye of a cat. It was rimmed in onyx lashes that were impossibly long and thick. They were so dark it almost looked like he wore eyeliner because it defined the shape and color so well it couldn’t possibly be natural.

  And the color…

  They were purple. A deep violet hue that likely only existed outside the realm of this planet, a shade that reminded me of the purest twilight, the color just between dusk and darkness before the stars outshined it and made it appear black. I could search forever and never find a color that could compare. It had depth and lightness to it, like a gem that reflected the light of a thousand bulbs. And in the very center were silver specks—like his eyes were their very own universe and contained their own twinkling stars.

  I was lost.

  I was falling.

  If only a single glimpse at just one eye did this to me, then what kind of power would his full gaze ignite?

  “You’re coming with me,” he said, penetrating the total devastation he’d caused within me.

  I didn’t argue. I’d beg to go.

  I no longer felt completely exhausted. I no longer felt foggy, confused, and dry. It was like I’d been crawling through the desert and blissfully found a fountain of the purest drinking water.

  I was revitalized. Rejuvenated. Recharged like a once-drained battery.

  But beyond that there was something else.

  I now felt tethered to him. Claimed. Possessed.

  I was his.

  the truth

  I

  had to see his face.

  It pounded through my bloodstream with the insistence of a heartbeat. Now that I’d seen a glimpse of the beauty he kept concealed, wondering would never be enough. I had to see.

  He brought me into his hovercraft. One minute we were in my kitchen and the next we were in the sterile environment of his ship. He stood in the center of the bare space, not making a move to put me down.

  I wasn’t a small person, standing at five-feet-seven and roughly one hundred and fifty pounds. My curves were well-defined from all the walking on campus and waitressing I did on an almost daily basis. But even at this height and this weight, he held me up like it was no effort at all. He wasn’t much taller than me, but he made me feel small.

  Beneath the robe he wore, I could feel how hard his body was. Almost like he was carved out of marble. There was nothing at all soft about him, and I would bet obscene amounts of money (if I had it) that he likely had no body fat at all.

  I glanced up at him, my cheek brushing against the silky robe, trying my hardest to look beneath the hood. He’d turned away his face so it was nearly impossible. I reached up to touch him again, to slip my fingers inside the fabric, and it jolted him into movement.

  He carried me across the ship, toward the back section where I’d not been before. There was an oval-shaped white couch made of the same buttery soft leather as the chair I usually lay in and a chrome coffee table in front of it.

  I was placed on the couch and he swiftly moved away. My eyes followed him as he went to the wall of cabinets and opened one, producing a tall, clear bottle, which he offered me.

  “What is that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Water,” he replied. “Are you thirsty?”

  “God, yes.” I took the bottle from him and let the cool water flow down my parched throat and coat my insides with moisture. When half the bottle was drained, I remembered my manners and pulled it away to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Thank you.”

  “Drink the rest,” he told me.

  I did because it felt so wonderful to finally feel that my thirst was quenched. I glanced at the empty bottle and tilted my head. “Are you sure this is water?”

  “I’m quite certain,” he replied, and I swear I caught a hint of humor in his tone.

  “Well, I’ve been dying of thirst for days, and this is the first bottle of water that actually made me feel less thirsty.”

  “It’s from my planet.”

  Panic clawed its way up the back of my throat. “I just drank alien water?”

  “Alien water?” he asked.

  “Oh my God, am I going to die now?” I burst out, leaping to my feet.

  He moved swiftly, gracefully. Both hands clasped around my shoulders, his very long fingers engulfing my frame. “You will not die,” he commanded. If my body were capable of obeying such a command, I had no doubt I would live forever.

  I shivered.

  “I do not understand why your people must call us aliens,” he said, gently pushing me back onto the couch. “Such an idiotic term.”

  A laugh bubbled up my throat. “So what is the more politically correct term for you, then?”

  From beneath the hood, I saw his head tilt as if he were contemplating my words. My fingers itched to pull away that fabric, to reveal everything I wanted to see.

  “Well, on my planet, I’m a human just like you. We call ourselves Sapiens. As in homo sapien. A being who breathes and eats and lives.”

  I guess it made sense. He really didn’t look like an alien. I always pictured aliens as being short and green with oversized black eyes. He talked and moved just like I did. Who was I to say there weren’t other types of humans beyond Earth?

  “What’s your planet called?”

  “Sapia.” The way the word rolled off his tongue spoke volumes of the love he felt for his home.

  “I don’t understand why you’re here. Why I’m here.”

  “You’ve been ill lately,” he said, completely ignoring my question.

  “Not really,” I argued. “Just tired mostly.”

  “And thirsty,” he added.

  I nodded and the fear I was feeling at home rose up inside me. I glanced at him, not wanting to think he did something awful to me, but the truth was he could have. “What did you do to me?” I whispered. I was so afraid of the answer.

  “How do you feel right now?” he asked, once again ignoring my direct question.

  “I actually feel better.” You make me feel better. I didn’t say those words out loud, though. They made me uncomfortable just drifting through my head, let alone speaking them.

  He turned and walked across the ship to another of the cabinets. From inside, he withdrew something that fit in the palm of his hand and came back toward me, bypassing the chrome table. The hem of his robe brushed over my bare feet, caressing the tops with its lightweight, cool fabric.

  He lowered
himself onto the tabletop. It was the first time I’d ever seen him sit. His knees stretched the fabric of the robe, causing me to realize how very long his legs were. In his lap, he rested the object, some sort of white-looking box.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “I need to do something.”

  I pressed a little deeper into the couch. “What?”

  “Let me see your hand,” he said, reaching between us.

  I hesitated.

  “I will not hurt you,” he vowed.

  I believed him.

  My fingers slid into his palm easily, and even though I couldn’t see for sure, I knew he was looking at where our bodies joined. This little current of energy raced through him and into me, making my fingers jerk and his grip tighten. My eyes fluttered closed for long seconds because touching him was incredible. He made me feel alive; he amplified everything I felt from the way my lungs expanded with breath to the direction in which blood flowed through my veins.

  Slowly, he tugged my hand closer to him, turning it so the palm lay face up, the back of my hand cradled in his. Using his pointer finger and thumb, he dragged his touch down each of my fingers, straightening them out and causing little tingles of awareness to race over my skin. I couldn’t help but remember the other times he’d touched me and how awesome it had been.

  When he was finished, he took my middle finger and held it firmly, lifting the white box and pressing a button on the side. A small needle popped out of the top and a little screen lit up.

  Before I could protest, he poked the pad of my finger with the needle, the sharp sting barely registering in my brain. Blood welled to the surface, threatening to drip onto the pristine floor. Before that could happen, he used what looked like a slip of absorbent paper (also attached to the white box) and soaked it up.

  The paper and needle were drawn back inside and the screen blinked like it was doing something.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’re waiting,” he said, placing the box beside him on the table and completely ignoring it. “You’re bleeding,” he said, drawing my attention back to my finger.

  “Well, you’re the one who caused it.” I pointed out.