by Amanda Milo
Concurrently, she is hungry, but this is what she wanted; to return to him. A flower can’t be taken from the shade and abruptly thrust into full sunlight nor vice-versa—it is gradual process wherein a delicate hand reaps the sweetest bounty. Yet, I consider his injured leg and doubt that, even if he possesses nectar to feed her, that he will be able to take root inside of her. They must be aware of this also, as she is taking utmost care as she moves to sit next to him. She can’t wait long, but it is only natural that her husbandman get a private moment with her, to ascertain her treatment and feelings in this matter if nothing else.
I try to call her name, but my mouth is too dry, as if the apprehension caused the stomates on my tongue to release all the moisture. After a pause that goes on too long to be comfortable for either of us—any of us since everyone’s eyes are on us now—I manage, “Are you… desperate?”
“No,” she answers quickly.
We both wince. That was too quick to be quite believable. I can, of course, also hear the Sproutling clamoring, and she must remember this because her cheeks react with a rapid pigment shift and her hand moves towards her stomach before she drops it with a nervous clap against her leg.
Unsure what to say, I overgroom the flower budding on my wrist, and a petal tears.
I pull my fingers back sharply, too disturbed to heal it.
I rival her in the need for a reprieve, I realize.
They are on Chor’s bed, so Mace moves to assist a still-weakened Petrichor, saying only, “Let’s get him to my room. I’ll ready-up one of the others for my own tonight.”
They step out, heading down the tunnel, but I hesitate. When I chance a look at Preta’s face, she is watching me go, holding one side of her bottom lip in her teeth—and as I struggle to meet her eyes, I see her lip slowly curve up.
My ears slap against the side of my head and I nearly flee the room.
Destination reached, I crowd in behind my tribesmen, and as Chor feebly situates himself on Mace’s bed, Mace directs his words to me even though they are for both of us. “He’s coming around, I think. Continue to be patient with him. It seems this is new to them both; having more than one husbandman is not done in their tribe.”
My eyes widen, thinking of her condition when she arrived. “It’s a wonder their females have survived to carry on the next generation.”
Mace nods, agreeable in this. “She looks as if she requires another feeding already. The Sproutling certainly says so,” he says with a tilt of his lips. Then he adds, “I have a vejo-kaolin left.”
My eyes travel to a cage in the corner, and I spy it watching us, its fluffy face appearing inquisitive and harmless. “You’re offering to forfeit a full coat?”
Mace shrugs. “It would make a nice gift.”
I regard him a moment. What it would make is a goodwill impression, and it is Mace’s gift to give—he should be the one to cultivate this tie. “Are you certain?”
In response, Mace retrieves it, adding only, “Chor. Take it. He must be hungry by now. This is good.” Then he grins. “Ask him if he requires help relieving himself yet.”
I relish the last about as much as Ryan will, I’m sure. Cage clutched in my hands, this is how I find myself approaching him, as I wonder if this was such a good idea after all.
“What is that?” my new tribesman asks.
“It is a gift,” I begin, but my voice falters when I flick a glance at Preta only to find that she is watching me. Although I have no trouble conversing with Ryan, I find I’m still unable to meet her eyes, but at least with a male presence, I’m comfortable enough I can speak mostly intelligently. “It is from Maceous.” I feel he should know this, to know the importance of Mace’s gesture. I want him to recognize the fact that we are attempting to make this situation an amiable one. “Have you had one before? They take a little getting used to, but they’re very good.”
“Can’t say I have,” is as much as Ryan allows.
Preta however, coos prettily over it, sounding delighted. “Can I pet it?”
“Uh, of course.” I shake it from the cage, which is the same funnel-topped contraption it was captured in, and the moment its tiny toes hit my palm, it tries to bounce for my face. Anticipating this, I drop the cage and clap my hand over its head, and let it sink its teeth into my thumbs to give it something that will keep it still while she strokes the long fur along its back.
“It’s so, so soft! It's like touching strands of powdered sugar! Oooh, Ryan, pet it.”
Ryan’s gaze is affixed to where the vejo-kaolin has ahold of me. “Nope. I’m good.”
My heart sinks, hearing the dismissal in his voice.
From the corner of my eye, I see a strange change come over Preta. Her skin gets flushed, and her form stiffens, and I do not know what Ryan experiences, but I feel compelled to… to capitulate.
I blink, dazed.
Ryan stares at her a moment before he drops his gaze, eyes on his poultice as he exhales through his nostrils. “That was cool of Mace to share, but I’m getting that this isn’t supposed to be a pet, is it?”
“No,” I say at the same time Preta blurts, “What?”
She yanks her hand back when the vejo-kaolin releases me and whirls to bite her. I pinch the loose skin at its shoulders and place it back in the cage before examining the damage to my digits. Not too severe. It helps to know that in preparing for the treatment of Ryan’s injury, we are well stocked in herbs so I’ll be able to tend to it easily enough. I hand the cage to Ryan, who takes it with a wry smile. “It is food,” I explain. “You pluck the fur like this,” and I take hold of the hair that sticks through the bars, “and see how it tugs off easily? It doesn’t hurt it; they need short summer coats or they overheat so capturing them is a kindness, though they don’t always agree, as you can see.”
“You eat their hair,” is all Ryan says.
I hand him the piece I pulled off. “It is a delicacy. Nutrient rich, but they are very hard to catch.” I brace myself. “Mace asked me to check if you needed assistance relieving yourself yet?”
Ryan’s expression goes dark. “Fucker.” At another of Preta’s looks—this one alarmed—he adds, “Him, not you. And it’s fine, babe. The big motherfucker is just having fun with the crippled man.”
When this doesn’t calm her concern, he groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “You know what a nervous boner is?”
She nods uncertainly.
“Okay, know what happens when a guy needs to piss but gets a boner?"
Not directly watching her, I still see how her face colors.
"Yeah. He laughed his ass off. He's lucky my stream shut down, or he'd have been wearing it and I'd have been the one laughing. Fucker," he says again.
Unsure how to proceed from here, I carefully start, “...Well, I see he left you a bowl if you… need to,” I finish, feeling desperately uncomfortable.
Ryan switches the subject. “Anything we can do about the lighting in here? You guys got candles or can you see in the dark?”
I try to answer him in the order he asked the questions. “You can turn on the lights if you like. We do have candles, and yes, we can see in the dark.”
“Turn the lights on?” he asks without comprehension.
I point to the lever behind him.
Both he and Preta turn to examine it. Then he grabs the end and pulls it down.
The lights come on.
“You have electricity?!” Ryan shouts. “In a fucking hole in the ground!”
I look from one stunned face to the other and clarify, “Earth power?”
Ryan’s face transforms from shock to confusion. “...Sure.”
Preta moves to her hands and knees on the bed to crawl towards me, and the sight has my skin heating, and my ears wanting to lift with interest, all while my gaze suddenly feels weighted, pulling my scope of vision down to a spot at my feet.
She is not deterred by my inability to be at ease with her, thankfully. “Is there running water?”<
br />
“Running…?” I ask my toes.
“I need a bath.” I hear a smile in her voice, and oddly, it doesn’t settle my insides in the least.
“We can take you to the tarn tomorrow,” I assure the floor.
“Tarn?”
At this, I do look up, but having her entire attention on me is too much to bear and I quickly find myself staring at my feet again. “A mountain pool. The water is warm.”
“I’m in!” she declares.
“Are you hungry?” I squeeze my lids over my eyes, mortified at how awkwardly I managed to navigate the conversation to that question.
After the longest pause in Sonhadra’s history in which I die a series of painful, humiliating deaths, she agrees. “I am.”
CHAPTER 20
PRETA
I’m not the only one who can be practical—Ryan’s dealing. He calmly fills me in on some things Chor and Ammos hadn’t covered before Petrichor’s fall happened.
Mates.
Alien mates.
Ryan’s lips aren’t hard against mine, but the kiss is fierce, and he’s reluctant to let me go.
I can sympathize.
My stomach is not so good when I find myself following Ammos’ stilted directions to his room. What’s that old military term? BOHICA? ‘Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.’ I take a deep breath, and enter it. Ammos is at the foot of the bed, staring at it like a man who has deep thoughts and many worries.
The sound of the door closing behind me makes him jump.
I have to force myself to blink. He’s even more nervous than I am.
It has an oddly calming effect—on me, definitely not on him.
He suddenly can’t stand still, and shies around to the other side of the bed, tucking in leaves here and there. When he sees he’s got nothing left to neaten, he scans the rest of the room, ears pinning flat, and it’s obvious he’s desperately hoping something else will pop up. I duck a little and finally succeed at catching his eyes—only to watch him freeze. He twitches like he’d love nothing more than to break away, and look down.
This alien is painfully shy.
“Hey,” I say softly, trying not to spook him. Or smile. I really want to smile but I really really don’t want to make him even more self-conscious than he already is. He is clearly not at a place where he can joke with me right now; this poor guy’s nerves are way too high for anything that resembles teasing, I’m sure of it.
I want to ask why Mace didn’t take on the part of ‘feeding’ me but to tell the truth, Mace sort of intimidates me—I don’t know him—so… so I guess I can understand a little of what Ammos must be feeling right now.
I cut him a break and call a cease-fire to our eye contact as I cross the room and set my knee on the bed, more than half expecting him to run.
I think he more than half wants to.
I lie back, and instead of watching him, I try to keep my eyes on the ceiling, at the roots that hold everything together, that keep the dirt from crushing us alive. Slowly, walking resolutely, he makes his way to the end again and reluctantly climbs on, stopping before he gets to my toes.
I chance a glance at him and he drops his eyes, then flinches like he knew he shouldn't have. “S-sorry,” he stumbles before he mutters under his breath, “She’s going to starve to death at this pace.”
I really, really want to smile. Not at his discomfort, but because I so sympathize with him over it. I sit up, and—not looking directly at him—ask; “Do you want to do this?”
His shoulders hunch and he drops a little lower, in a self-flagellationary move, “Yes! I do, I badly do, I just… I’m not—”
He can’t even finish his sentence, and his skin is getting browner in his cheeks and his ears and his moss-line.
I move to roll over, and as I do, I catch his look of concerned confusion, and plain regret, because he thinks he’s blown this.
I’m now facing away from him, and it helps. This way, the pressure isn’t on either of us. This is still going to be weird… I reach under myself, past my primitive little relative of the miniskirt, and begin stroking next to my clit.
“What—are… you…?”
His tone is so wonderstruck that I have to press my face into the leaves to prevent him from seeing what my lips are doing. When my throat stops jumping and I’m positive I won’t laugh, I go for matter-of-fact when I answer, “I’m trying something less…”—intimate—“intense.”
He utters a hoarse, “I don’t think it’s working.”
I can’t help it—the snort bursts out of me, and I flatten my front to the bed, shaking. I’m about to apologize when his large hand lightly grazes the outside of my thigh.
I nearly flinch out of surprise, but I catch the shift of my body in time to turn it into a hip sway.
Hesitantly, his hand repeats the stroke, but with more contact this time, less afraid he’ll be rejected, or die, or whatever he’s built up in his mind as the terrifying thing that will happen.
“You… want to… like this?” he sounds unsure in the extreme.
“Does this feel more comfortable? Not having to look me directly in the face?”
For a long moment I think maybe he’s too shy/timid/reserved/choked/bashful to even answer, but he manages a deeply relieved-sounding, “Yes. Thank you.”
Since he’s not at the point where he’s comfortable enough to touch me, I go back to playing with myself, and I take a thrill in hearing his breathing change—faster, louder, hotter.
Yes. Hotter can be heard.
When I’m self-lubed enough that the movements of my finger cause an audible slishing sound, he’s overcome and groans, his hands cupping my hips before they take a slow slide to the curve of my butt, where he fills each hand with a cheek and squeezes.
I purr in satisfaction.
His hips press against my ass.
This surprises us both—but for my part, I may be startled, but the fact that he couldn’t stop himself from doing it makes me even wetter.
Not wanting to lose progress, I let my hips sway and coax, “Do it again.”
When he’s ready, it’s nothing at all for him to flip up my skirt. I’m not wearing my panties under this so he’s got nothing holding him back.
Except nerves.
Are his hand shaking? He clears his throat. “Do you require prevernal pollen?”
That must be what I was hit with before. “Nope, I’m all good to go.”
Am I curious? Yeah, I’m curious, but I’m pretty sure if I do look at what he’s packing and I can’t control my reaction to what I find, this alien will be done performing and perhaps scarred for life.
So I press my chest down harder against the leaves, and arch my back when I feel the tip of his—
My butt drops by instinct, my pelvis trying to flatten to the bed.
“Preta?” he asks, voice straining. “Is something wrong?” he has a pleasantly deep voice, and to hear the strain in it is weirdly exciting.
There’s something alien about his dick. I peptalk myself—fast. This was to be expected! Pull it together, Preta!
“Preta?” and I feel his weight shift further away from me.
Great. Now I’ve freaked him out. This is so messed up. I’m giving an alien a penis complex and I have to soothe him when it’s me that’s got to take it—and considering that I’ve already had sex with Chor, apparently, I’ve already taken it.
It was good. That much I remember.
I force myself back to my hands and knees. “I’m ready.”
Knees land on the outsides of mine. Tentative hands grab hold of my hips, and I feel a nudge against my pussy, yet it’s also bumping my ass and my inner thigh.
At the same time.
This alien has what feels like multiple cocks.
I wonder if Chor did—does—too.
One of his hands leaves my hip, and he presses himself in, inhaling sharply before gently prodding in order to get deeper. Instead of thrusting like I expect though, I feel him
… moving… inside of me.
I feel many things moving inside of me.
“Ammos?” I yelp—I can’t help it, it’s scaring me even though in my head I’m telling myself shut up, Preta, it’s fine!
“Does it hurt?” he asks quickly, and I hear worry, and before I know it, he’s sliding his hand from where it was gripping a handful of lovehandle, down to my belly and between my legs and—
I buck with an instant orgasm.
“Was that too much?” his hand leaves and he starts to pull back, which pulls his cock back, but... I can’t help but notice that not all of him is retreating from me. It… seems like it has quite a reach.
It’s fine, it’s fine, stop freaking out, it’s fine.
Eyes wide, I assure him, “It was good.” I arch my back and wiggle a little, testing as I feel things fanning out inside of me. “Keep going.”
Something tickles my gspot.
I gasp, “Oh!”
“So wet,” he says raggedly.
We are. The insides of my thighs feel cooler where air hits the wetness gathering there.
He may be the smaller of the three aliens, but he still dwarfs me by comparison, and I’m reminded of this when one of his big hands moves to my shoulder, cupping it and giving him the leverage he needs to go to poundtown.
Except he doesn’t. His other hand plants next to my head, the veins standing in stark relief on his hand and along his forearm, unnnf.
“You’re not taking nectar,” he says hesitantly.
Nectar. I shake my head. “I don’t know how.”
My gspot gets brushed again, making me jolt.
“Is that good?”
I feel them—things—gather and press at that inner marble of nerve-happiness. It feels like fingers. Long, flexible fingers. On his dick.
I’m not really in a position to complain, considering how good it’s feeling.