Stealing Her Heart

by Evangeline Anderson

  Priima Belle, for all its veneer of class and academic sophistication, was apparently one fucked-up world, Vicky thought grimly. She was going to have to watch her manners from now on—though how she could have avoided showing some reaction to a giant spider appearing on her plate, she didn’t know.

  Scooting back up to the table, she fixed her attention on Professor Lornah, hoping the other people in the lecture hall/dinner theater would lose interest in her and do the same.

  Nothing to see here, folks—freak-out is officially over. Let’s all go back to the lecture.

  After a moment, Professor Lornah did.

  “Well,” she said and cleared her throat. “Ahem. Now that we’re all ready, let’s continue.

  “In the fookuup territory they bake a charming confection filled with the cream of the papa-zook which has been aged for a thousand days. The pastry shells it is inserted into are likewise aged a thousand days. And that is why these next cakes are called ‘thousand day buns.’ Please enjoy the richly fermented flavor of the cream and the lovely flooga glass platters each bun is plated upon.”

  A limp pastry about the size and shape of a hamburger bun fizzed into existence on Vicky’s plate. It was thickly furred with gray and green mold and filled with a large portion of greasy, grayish-black ooze. Vicky thought the “cream” looked like Cool Whip which had been left to molder in its little plastic tub in the back of the refrigerator for months and months until it had taken on a life of its own.

  Oh my God! Her gorge rose and she thought for the second time that night that she might throw up. What was wrong with Professor Lornah? Was she trying to make her audience sick?

  And yet, all around her, the other Professors were picking up the grayish-greenish-moldy buns filled with slimy black ooze and biting into them with apparent enjoyment. Their students—the young guys who all looked to be in their early twenties—were eating the buns as well, most of them with stoic expressions on their faces. This might not be something they liked, but it was clearly something they had to put up with to keep the positions they were in with their professors.

  “I’m so glad to see you’re enjoying this little treat,” Professor Lornah remarked, giving the audience a smug little smile. “It requires a truly discerning palate to appreciate the rich rot of the thousand day buns, but it’s clear that you’re an extremely astute audience.”

  This remark felt rather pointed to Vicky, Looking up, she saw the other woman was glaring directly down at her. Clearly after the way Vicky had reacted to the cake-bearing spider, she was watching to make sure she ate the next item on her lecturing menu—which happened to be the moldy, rotten bun.

  Oh God, I’m going to have to eat it or risk offending her, Vicky thought in panic. Okay, it’s okay, she told herself. You can do this. It’s like blue cheese—like gorgonzola. Some foods taste better when they’re aged and…and rotten.

  She couldn’t quite make herself believe this, but she realized she had no choice about tasting the “delicacy” on the plate in front of her. If she didn’t at least try a bite, Professor Lornah was going to hate her and refuse to introduce her to the professor who had access to the other half of the T’lix-Kruthe.

  Trying to keep her face blank, she picked up the rotten, oozing bun from her plate and brought it towards her face. The smell that hit her nose was like spoiled milk mixed with five-week-old garbage rotting in the sun. It was awful.

  I can’t, Vicky thought to herself, feeling her stomach do a slow forward roll. Oh God, I just can’t.

  But she had to or the deal for the T’lix-Kruthe was off—she was sure of that.

  They’re counting on me back at the Mother Ship. I have to do this!

  Careful not to let her disgust show on her face, she continued to bring the roll up to her lips. She opened her mouth and a dribble of the rotten black ooze that was the “fermented cream” landed on her tongue.

  It tasted every bit as bad as it smelled.

  I’m going to puke, Vicky thought, even as she felt her teeth slide into the mossy growth of mold that covered the surface of the bun. I’m going to puke all over the table, I won’t be able to help it…

  And then, mercifully, the horrible rotten bun melted away in her hand. It left no trace behind—not even a black smudge on Vicky’s fingers—though she swore she could still taste the rancid flavor of its cream on her tongue.

  Relief flooded her but she needed to get that taste out of her mouth.

  “Hey,” she whispered to Lorn as Professor Lornah began talking again. “Can’t we get anything to drink around here? I’m really, uh, thirsty.”

  Thirsty? More like desperate to rinse the awful taste out of your mouth, whispered a little voice in her head and Vicky couldn’t deny it.

  “Of c-course.” Lorn nodded. Reaching forward, he patted the middle of the table where a small hatch suddenly opened. A squat, square decanter made of some kind of pinkish crystal rose with a selection of thimble-sized goblets around it.

  “What is that?” Chain asked, frowning as Vicky gratefully poured herself a tiny glass of the thick, syrupy liquid from the decanter. It was about the color and consistency of honey but it had a warm cinnamon flavor which washed away the taste of rancid cream nicely, she found.

  “It’s Kork—it’s m-meant to be an after dinner liqueur,” Lorn whispered back. “Be careful, P-professor—it’s qu-quite strong,” he warned her.

  “Doesn’t taste that strong to me,” Vicky protested, pouring another glass and then another. It was the first decent thing she’d put in her mouth since the honey-cake at the very beginning of this dreadful dinner lecture and she was thoroughly enjoying it.

  “Victoria, perhaps you’d better be careful with that,” Chain murmured to her, frowning. “Don’t forget, you have to give a presentation next. You don’t want to be too inebriated to speak.”

  Crap—he’s right, Vicky thought, pausing with the fourth tiny glass of cinnamon-tasting liqueur halfway to her lips. It’s going to be my turn to lecture next and I don’t even know what I’m going to say!

  “And that concludes my lecture for tonight.” Professor Lornah’s voice cut through her sudden consternation. “But please don’t leave yet—we have one more guest lecturer here tonight who has come all the way from the Kindred Mother Ship.”

  Looking up, Vicky saw that Lornah was motioning to her as she spoke.

  Crap—it was her turn to talk and she had no clue what was going to come out of her mouth.

  I’m screwed, she thought as she rose shakily from her chair and started towards the stage. Oh God, I’m so completely screwed.

  Eighteen

  Chain watched with concern as his curvy little Elite made her way towards the stairs that led to the stage. Was Victoria all right? She had reacted badly to both the large arachnid and several of the dishes served during the lecture—most notably the thousand-year bun.

  Not that he blamed her. He had seldom met a female who had a love for insects or arachnids and almost no one—male or female—would have enjoyed most of the “prandial delights” served to them during the lecture. The last one, especially, had tasted positively rancid.

  But it was clear that the people here on Priima Belle had such jaded palates they wanted to taste only “sophisticated” dishes. Chain wondered with concern if anything Victoria could dream up would please them. Was any of the cuisine of Earth as exotic as spider-carried cakes or rotten, oozing buns?

  He just didn’t know but he supposed he—and everyone else in the lecture hall—was about to find out.

  Nineteen

  Vicky felt dizzy as she climbed the steps to the stage.

  Holy God, I’m drunk, she thought somewhat fuzzily as she nearly missed a step. Crap, never tried to teach drunk before. This is going to be one for the record books.

  She still had no idea what she was going to say as she made her way behind the blue curtain to where Professor Lornah was waiting for her.

  “Well—there you are,” the othe
r woman sniffed in apparent distaste. “I thought you’d never get up here. Everyone is waiting, you know. And I’m sure everyone is eager to see what you’re going to serve up after your, shall we say, rather unique reaction to my own lecture.”

  “Sorry about that,” Vicky said, hoping her words didn’t sound slurred. “I’m not good with spiders—even ones that just want to feed me cake. Especially ones that want to feed me cake,” she added with a shudder.

  “Well!” If possible, Professor Lornah looked even more offended. “I guess the people of your world just aren’t sophisticated enough to deal with an arachnid-delivered delicacy.”

  “No,” Vicky said bluntly, “They’re not. The people of my world mostly grab a shoe and start swinging when a spider as big as a cat runs at their face.”

  “Even when the spider—arachnid—is only delivering a morsel of cake?” Professor Lornah demanded.

  “Sorry.” Vicky shrugged. “I’m afraid we smash first and ask questions later when it comes to bugs the size of small pets.”

  “On Priima Belle, ‘bugs’ as you call them, often are pets,” Professor Lornah exclaimed. “Why, I have a dear little Klik beetle as long as my arm at home named Poncy. She’s so affectionate—sits right on my shoulder and nibbles my ear with her mandibles whenever she wants a treat.”

  Vicky tried to imagine having a large bug for a pet and failed. The part about letting the bug sit on your shoulder and nibble your ear was the worst, she decided. But it certainly explained why the people in the audience hadn’t flinched or freaked out when the cake-bearing spiders had crawled on them. Probably they felt about their bugs the way people back home on Earth felt about their cats and dogs. It might also explain why the Insect University was so much larger and grander than the rest of the buildings she’d seen on this odd alien campus so far.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Professor Lornah again. “Where I come from, we consider bugs pests—not pets. We don’t keep them around for company—we exterminate them.”

  “Pests? Exterminate them? How awful!” the other woman exclaimed. “How can you do such a thing to such sweet, loving creatures?”

  She was looking at Vicky the same way Vicky might look at someone who declared they hit stray dogs or cats with their car on purpose. Clearly this was a sore point.

  And I went and put my foot right in it, Vicky thought sourly. Shouldn’t have drunk so much of that stuff at the table. I would have known better if I wasn’t so tipsy!

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, not sure how to smooth things over. “Bugs are…different on my world. They’re not, uh, cute.”

  Not that she thought the bugs she’d seen on Priima Belle were in any way cute or attractive either, but it was clear that was how the residents here thought of them.

  “Never mind—we don’t have time to debate the obvious deficiency of your species’ moral fiber,” Professor Lornah snapped. “The audience will be getting restless. Here—put on the thought-to-matter transference helm so you can lecture properly.”

  As she spoke, she pulled the tall, metal crown-looking thing off her own head and jammed it down on Vicky’s.

  “Ouch!” Vicky put up her hands to steady and adjust the crown—which rose a clear three feet above her head. But the edges already appeared to have melded to her skin. “Hey—it won’t come off,” she objected, feeling frightened when she couldn’t get the tall crown to so much as budge.

  “Of course it won’t—not until you give your lecture and give it something to transmit into matter,” Professor Lornah snapped. “Now be quiet—the curtain is rising and I must introduce you.”

  As she spoke, the royal blue curtain rose once more, revealing the expectant faces of the audience which filled the entire huge lecture hall.

  “And now,” Professor Lornah said in a loud voice which carried all the way to the back of the auditorium. “Without further ado, please welcome Professor Victoria from the Kindred Mothership.”

  There was a polite round of applause as Professor Lornah left her alone at center stage and everyone sat forward expectantly. The silence was overwhelming—deafening. And it was a listening silence—a waiting silence, Vicky thought hazily. They were waiting for her to speak.

  But there was a problem—though all eyes were trained on her, she didn’t have the slightest idea what to say.

  Twenty

  It turned out to be a good thing for Vicky that she was tipsy-verging-on-drunk. The stage fright that she might have felt, being in front of an audience of stuffy alien academics on a strange world, seemed to have been melted away by the alcohol. So instead of freezing, she stepped forward, opened her mouth and heard herself say,

  “Hola! Como estas?”

  And just like that, she was launching into a beginning Spanish lesson.

  But not just any Spanish lesson—this was the lesson she did with all her Spanish One classes that had to do with food and restaurant words. It was always a fun class because she had her students bring their favorite Spanish-inspired dishes.

  Some years everyone brought tacos but other years students got inventive. She’d had them bring arepas from Colombia, menudo from Mexico, curanto from Chile, and once even a huge steaming platter of paella from Spain. It was always a fun and delicious experience for everyone and it really helped the students learn the vocabulary she was trying to teach.

  Of course, all these dishes were delicious, but Vicky was still kind of tipsy and she didn’t know if she was up to describing such complex flavors into existence. So what she chose to talk about was mostly food found at her favorite Tex-Mex restaurant in the world, Pappasito’s.

  She led off with some of the simpler food people associated with the cuisine—she talked about tortilla chips and the many different dips that came with them. As if by magic, baskets of hot, salty chips and little dishes of salsa, queso, and guacamole appeared on everyone’s plate.

  “You choose a chip and dip it into the concoction of your choice,” Vicky told her audience. “Try them all—the salsa is spicy and hot, the guacamole is creamy and cool and the queso is melty and delicious.”

  She watched as the bored-looking Professors and their students looked at each other and then began to try the food she had spoken into existence. Of course, she never would have tried to pass chips and dip off as exotic haute cuisine to a bunch of academics on Earth, but this was an alien world where nobody had ever even had a taco before, she reasoned. So she might just get away with it.

  True, the food she was offering them didn’t have any squirming larvae or an arachnid-delivery system but who didn’t love chips and salsa? Well, she hoped they would love it, anyway.

  As she looked around the lecture hall, she thought her first offering was a modest success. People were nodding thoughtfully and trying all three dips separately and then mixing them together. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and learning something at the same time, which was the main point of teaching, as far as Vicky was concerned. Still, she wanted to liven things up a bit more—get them really engaged.

  Then she had an idea.

  “Of course,” she went on, “What would a basket of salty chips be without a delicious Margarita to wash them down?”

  Naturally this wouldn’t have been possible in her high school Spanish One Class, but here she felt she could serve alcohol with impunity. Especially since it was so easy to do—all she had to do was talk about an item and it magically appeared!

  The thought-to-matter transference crown thing on her head was something else. She wished she could take it home and use it in her classes at Woodrow Wilson High.

  She watched as the Professors—thirsty from their first foray into the endlessly addictive world of really good salty tortilla chips—picked up their wide, salt-rimmed glasses and drank.

  Eyes widened and she heard many remarks drifting up about the “complexity of the mixture” and the “sweet-sour-salty blend” of the drink. Glasses were drained and eyes began to shine—people began to laugh as th
ey looked at her expectantly for the next dish.

  Vicky went on, talking about Tex-Mex and Spanish cuisine from around the world, though she stuck mostly to the menu from Pappasito’s. It was just so good she knew her audience would have to love it—especially after being forced to eat larvae and mold during Professor Lornah’s lecture.

  She talked about chili con queso and pork tamales. She spoke longingly about chicharrones and redfish tacos. She explained the beauty of a perfectly balanced mole and allowed her audience to taste the most perfectly seasoned and balanced ceviche and with every dish, she offered an accompanying drink.

  By the time she made sizzling platters of fajitas and accompanying shots of strong tequila appear on every table, the audience was eating out of the palm of her hand.

  Literally, Vicky thought happily. They’re literally eating up everything I say! And they’re learning Spanish too—how funny is that?

  She finished with decadent slabs of tres leches cake and crispy cinnamon churros for dessert paired with tiny glasses of Osborne Pedro Ximenez Sherry. And, when every last crumb was gone, she bowed—as well as she could with the three-foot thought-to-matter transference crown on her head and said, “Gracias for allowing me to teach you a little Espanol today. I hope you have enjoyed my lecture as much as I enjoyed giving it. Buenas Noches.”

  At her conclusion, the auditorium erupted into applause. The professors and their students stood, clapping and cheering wildly.

  Vicky bowed again, delighted and relieved at her success. It was definitely the best-received class she’d ever taught and though she thought the immense amount of alcohol probably had something to do with her audience’s reaction, she was still pleasantly surprised that she’d pulled the unexpected lecture off so well.