by Ruby Dixon
He shakes his head and drags his finger across the dirt, indicating a long stretch. “Water.” He gestures at the horizon again. “Water.” Then he touches his tongue as if tasting it and makes a face.
It’s not…drinkable water? Realization dawns. “Are we going to the ocean?” I mime a crashing wave and it rolling forward. I probably look like an idiot making whooshing noises, but he nods eagerly.
Oh, holy crap. I’d love to see the ocean. I’m excited. I clap my hands. “I’m excited.”
He grins back at me, looking relieved for the first time since we’ve seen the other hunter. He wants to make me happy. Poor guy. He’s trying really hard, and even though I don’t understand everything he’s doing, it’s clear that I’m his foremost concern.
So I gesture at the fire. “Go get more fuel?”
• • •
We make the cave cozy for the evening. I take a nap while Rukh hunts, and when he returns, I’ve got the fire roaring again, a store of more chips nearby in case the weather takes a dip in the night, and he’s brought home a kill. I’m going to have to eat it raw, but I’m too tired to be picky.
My body’s humming and aroused, reminding me that we still haven’t given in to the whole ‘resonance’ thing. I’m doing my best to ignore it, even though it feels a little like drinking a sugary soda before bedtime. I can relax, but I can’t quite relax. Something’s always setting me off-key just a little, and I’m twitchy and ill-at-ease.
To occupy myself, I decide to make Rukh into a project.
I eye his tangled, dry hair. It’s flatter than the nest it was before, but it’s long and in his face. There were tiny, cleaned-white rib bones at the back of the cave from an old kill, and I’ve been playing with them all afternoon. I eventually bind them together with a bit of sinew Rukh had in his carry-all, and use another bone crosswise to make a handle for my rinky-dink comb. It fits in my hand just right, and I use it to comb through my own tangled hair and am pleased with the results. Once we’ve eaten, I smile sweetly at Rukh and pat the ground next to me. “Come here, baby.”
I find myself calling him baby more and more. Even though we aren’t officially ‘mated’, it feels like we’re in the ‘going steady’ stage. I’m almost ready to take it to the next level. Almost.
My entire body twitches at the thought, reminding me that it’s more ready than my mind is.
Rukh drops to the ground next to me, curious. I glance between his legs (I mean, the man is always naked. Of course the eye is drawn there) and he’s got a stiff one working. That, of course, sets my cootie off, which sets his cootie off, which means it’s going to be one dry-humping-filled night. I’m too tired to think about sex, though, so my body will have to wait.
“I’m going to comb your hair,” I tell Rukh. I drag the comb through my own tangle-free hair and show him what I mean, and then I gesture at his hair.
He gives me a wary look, then reaches for the comb.
“I’ll do it,” I tell him. Truth is, I want to do it. I like the thought of brushing his hair into a silky waterfall. I want to be the one responsible for taking care of him, weird as it sounds. So I fold my cloak into a lap pillow of sorts and indicate he should set his head down there.
His eyes gleam with interest, and he goes eagerly. Instead of lying on his back, though, he moves onto his stomach and pushes my legs apart, seeking out my pussy with his fingers.
I squeal in protest, clamping my thighs together. “Time out! Time out!” My cootie is zinging, and I can hear our joined resonance reverberating between us like a swarm of locusts. “Hair brushing tonight, okay?”
Rukh sits up, scowling, as if I’ve deprived him of some great pleasure.
“You can go down on me tomorrow or something, when I’m less tired.” Great, now I’m passing up oral sex in exchange for brushing a man’s hair? I must be tired. Or insane. Something.
Eventually I get him to put his head down and he gets comfortable in my lap, gazing up at me. The horns are a bit of an issue to work around, but I manage. His hair’s so tangled that I take small portions at a time and comb through them, starting from the ends and working backward. It’s one big tangle closer to his scalp, and I’m as delicate as possible, but it takes a lot of time. Rukh doesn’t seem to mind, though. He lounges in my lap and though his eyes are mere slits, I still get the impression he’s watching me move as I carefully undo knot after endless knot.
After what seems like hours, I have a long, shining section of his hair untangled. It’s soft, a rich black, and rather beautiful to look at. I’m filled with hair envy – my own wispy reddish-orange hair is nothing like this. “You’re going to be quite the handsome devil when you’re done, aren’t you?”
Rukh gives me a sated smile. He takes my hand in his, and instead of squeezing it like he normally does, he pulls it to his mouth and nips the fleshy mound under my thumb. It sends skitters of desire racing through me.
“Flirt,” I tease him breathlessly.
Tomorrow, this man is going to learn how to kiss…among other things. I think of the blow job I gave him yesterday. Maybe I’m moving way too fast for my own personal Tarzan. The man might not even know what resonance is, and I’m dropping to my knees at the drop of a hat and fishing for his dick. “Jesus, Harlow. Way to show some self-control.”
“Har-loh, Rukh,” he says in a sexy way. Yeah, I can guess what he’s thinking. He nips at my palm again.
I slide my hand out of his grip. “I’m going to finish detangling you first, you shameless hussy of a man.”
• • •
Except I don’t. I fall asleep somewhere halfway through my long, involved task, and only have vague memories of Rukh pulling the comb from my hand and bundling furs around me.
When I wake up in the morning, though, I’m greeted by a surprise. There’s fresh meat spitted over a new fire, and the man tending to both is utterly flipping gorgeous.
I stare in shock at Rukh, who looks like a changed man. While I slept, he finished his own hair with the comb. No longer wild and bushy around his head, it falls in a smooth waterfall down his back, making the twin crests of his horns that much more outrageous as they arch from his brow. He looks very much like one of Vektal’s tribe, and I’m struck by another sense of deja-vu. But Rukh doesn’t really look like anyone I remember. He’s still got a wild air to him as he squats near the fire, completely naked.
I lick my lips at the sight. Not a bad thing for a girl to wake up to. I stretch in the covers, feeling rather good. Rather…excited about what the future holds.
Because if it’s me and this man in the future? Just the two of us alone against the world?
I’m…kind of down with that. Really, really down with that.
RUKH
Traveling with Har-loh at my side is very different than traveling on my own. I’m slower, of course. I can’t go off and hunt whenever I want. I have to be mindful of the landscape and things that will attack, or places that are dangerous for her fragile ankles.
But…I enjoy it. Every moment awake is a joy. Every night, I pull her against me and let her cuddle her soft body against my bigger one. Every day is full of excitement, and there is someone to share it with.
I cannot imagine going back to my old life without her. Not now. She is everything to me. Little by little, I find myself adjusting to please her. If she shows a preference in meat, I seek it out. I down my kills carefully, knowing she will want to salvage furs, or the bladders for cooking. I carry my bag at all times and make sure that we have enough fuel for a nightly fire.
I always, always make sure she is warm and safe.
After a full day of walking, we eat dinner near our fire and she drags the thing she calls a ‘comb’ through my hair. She likes to brush it and makes soft humming noises in her throat as she touches me. Me? I just crave her presence. Her small face is the last thing I see before I go to sleep, and the first thing I search for when I awaken.
Sometimes it still feels like a dream that she
is here with me, and I clutch her to me harder, afraid to wake up. Afraid that I’ll rouse and be utterly alone once more.
The world changes as we travel. It grows flatter, the snow less deep. I begin to smell the salt of the big water in the air, though I do not know if Har-loh notices these things yet. The trees change, spiky and taller, and the herds of dvisti that are so thick in the mountains thin down to a few stragglers. It is warmer here, and even Har-loh seems to shiver less. I like that.
I push hard but we don’t make it to my cave that night. Har-loh’s steps slow and she sags in exhaustion when we pause for a rest, and so I decide to camp for the evening. We can make it there in the morning. We crawl into the furs and I immediately reach for her folds, expecting to find her wet and willing.
Instead, she pushes my hand away. “No. Donfeelgud.”
I frown. Is she tired? Her face looks drawn, but normally she welcomes my touches no matter how exhausted she is. Instead, she moves away from me, just enough that our skin isn’t touching, and curls up in her furs, trying to sleep.
I feel…odd. I don’t know the words. All I know is that this feels…not right, and it makes me miserable. I move to the fire and sit there, tending it for hours and watching her as she dozes fitfully. She seems as restless as I am. My chest throbs and hums, so loud that it feels as if it’s shaking my insides like a ground-quake.
Something’s wrong. But what?
I’m nodding off, watching the fire, when Har-loh cries out. It’s a sound of pain and loss, and I immediately bolt to my feet, terrified for her. Was I not watching? Did something bite her? Is she wounded?
But when I pull her against me, her eyes flutter as if lost in a dream, and her chest drums wildly, in the same frantic beat of my own.
“No,” she cries in a weak voice. She’s not looking at me. Instead, she shakes her head, as if arguing with an unseen person. “Yusehdtwasgawn!”
“Har-loh.” I tap her cheek, then brush my fingers over it. What is happening?
HARLOW
It’s back.
I know the tumor’s back, because all the symptoms are there. I sit up and look around the campsite, but everything’s blurred and double. Two fires, two Rukhs, two trees when there should only be one. There’s no color; the world is black and white. That’s another symptom. My head pounds and my entire body pulses.
This is just like before.
It’s not gone. The ship’s computer lied to me. The brain tumor isn’t eradicated by my khui. It’s been lying dormant, waiting for my guard to go down. I raise one of my hands in front of my face. It’s shaking. I’m seizing – another symptom of the tumor pushing on my brain.
“No,” I cry out, squeezing my hand into a fist in an effort to make it stop shaking. “You said it was gone! You said the tumor was destroyed! That it wasn’t there!”
“Harlow,” the computer chides me. “There are rules and you’re not following them. You ask a lot of your khui and you give it nothing in return. What did you expect?”
“What does it want?”
“Harlow.”
“What?”
“Harlow.” The computer’s voice is all around me. It’s in my head, resting on the tumor that’s determined to kill me. “Harlow. Harlow.”
I jerk awake with a gasp, like water has been splashed on my face. My eyes focus in on the face – the single, crisp face – inches from mine. There’s no blurring. No vision doubling. I tap the roof of my mouth with my tongue. No stroke. The shaking I feel? It’s my cootie, reminding me that I’m joined to Rukh. It’s vibrating so hard that my chest feels like there’s a motorboat trapped inside it.
My stomach heaves, and I fling myself out of Rukh’s arms a moment before I throw up.
It was just a nightmare, I tell myself as I cough dinner up into the nearby snow. My brain’s just being overactive. The intense vibration of my cootie scared my sleeping brain into thinking it was a seizure.
I’m just scaring myself.
I rock back on my heels and wipe my sweating brow. Throwing up didn’t make me feel much better. I only feel worse, really. I don’t feel like it was just a bad dream. Maybe it was a warning. I’ve been putting off resonance with Rukh because I don’t want to get pregnant. Is this my subconscious letting me know that I need to take action and do what my khui asks? I don’t know what happens if I keep ignoring things, other than get more miserable. Already my skin is so sensitized that it feels almost…unpleasant to touch Rukh. It’s like it’s too much to bear.
And my poor Tarzan. He doesn’t understand. I look over at him and feel a stab of guilt. What we need is to get good and drunk somewhere so we – so I – can lose my inhibitions.
He moves to my side and strokes my hair off my face. “Har-loh?”
“I’m okay,” I tell him with a faint smile. “Really.”
Rukh reaches into his bag and pulls out a sprig of curled leaves. I picked them from a bush as we walked, recognizing the plant as one that grew near the caves. It makes a good tea and soothes the stomach. Apparently Rukh knows this as well. I take it from him and chew on the leaves, thinking.
Maybe I can find something alcoholic when we get to our destination. Or maybe I should just suck it up and tackle the man. It’s not like there’s anything physically wrong with him. He’s gorgeous, he’s clean, and his hair is no longer a tangled mess around his head. He’s utterly devoted to me and it’s clear that I can do no wrong in his eyes.
I’m just…really scared at the thought of being a mother. A wilderness mom, no less, with no one around me but Rukh. Yeah, that’s the part that scares me.
As I chew the bitter leaves, Rukh grabs my cloak and tucks it around my shoulders, fussing over me. He leads me back to the spot I’ve claimed as my bed and doesn’t relax until I lie my head down and feign sleep.
I may not want to be a mother, but do I have any other choice?
RUKH
We’re here.
I grab my tired female’s hand and lead her forward, excited. I want her to love the new place I’ve taken her to live. It’s safe here. The bad ones rarely come to the salty waters because they’re so far away, which makes it perfect for us. There are several large caves nearby, and I know the perfect one for my fragile woman.
I touch her cheek and she smiles at me, though her face is still troubled. Whatever happened in her sleep last night has taken some of the spark out of her today. She is quiet, less talkative than usual. Normally I listen to her babble and try to pick out words, but today she is silent, and I find that I miss our game. I miss the cheery sound of her voice.
I want things to go back to how they were, but I don’t know how to ask. It’s endlessly frustrating.
I point at the distant cliffs. There is a valley that cuts through the hills. On one side, there are many caves, shielded from the worst of the winds by the high walls. A short walk away, there is the endless salty waters that roll and ripple all day long. Here, there are many things to eat. Much of the water cannot be drank, but there are streams that taste good and are pure. The caves here are bigger.
The caves here are safe.
I want her to be pleased. So I gesture at the cliffs and then search my small collection of words to find the right one for ‘home’. “Here,” I decide on. I know that one.
Her flat brow wrinkles. “Here? Weerhere?” She puts a hand to her forehead and tries to peer into the distance. “Where?”
She seems excited, so I take her hand in mine and lead her forward. I want her to see the caves, and to be impressed by them. I want to please my…my mate. Memory bursts in my mind. I remember the word ‘mate’ and what it means. It means she belongs to me and I belong to her. Har-loh is my mate. Together we will be a family. And I know – I remember – that the song humming in my chest along with hers? It declares that we are mates.
I turn to her and press her hand to my breastbone. I have ridges in this spot to cover and protect my vulnerable parts, but she is only softness. I press my hand to my ches
t, and then my other hand to hers. “Mate. Yes?”
Har-loh’s eyes widen. “Righteer?” She points at the ground and says again. “Here?”
Now I am confused. “Har-loh Rukh mate. Har-loh mate. Rukh mate Har-loh.”
Recognition dawns in her eyes. “Ohhh.Younodeword ‘mate’?”
“Mate,” I tell her happily. I am singing with joy inside. A mate is a wonderful thing. It means I will never be alone again.
“Mate,” she agrees, her expression shy. “Still rappinmahbrain round datwun.” But her smile is bright. “Show me here.”
I lead her forward. It’s a short walk into the valley, and here the snows are so light that we no longer need the snowshoes. I toss them over my shoulder and carry both mine and hers, so she can be free to explore. I want her to be pleased here. I want her to delight in this new place I’ve taken her. There are so many things to show her – where we will drink, where we will sleep, the game that crawls along the beach, the shells just inside the water full of tasty things to eat, and the icy islands that float past in the salty waters. It is a new world here, very different from the snowy mountains we just left. It has been a while since I have been here, but I want to show her everything. To share my world with her.
And I want to show her my father’s resting spot.
HARLOW
There’s a distant gentle roar that takes me a few minutes to realize is the beach. Rukh’s brought me to the ocean. A sense of wonder takes over. I’ve never lived near the ocean. It’s warmer here, the winds less biting, and the snow isn’t as deep, which makes moving around easier.
Rukh holds my hand tight in his as we walk, and it’s clear that he’s anxious about something. Does he want me to be pleased with this place? Right now, I’m just pleased that we’re no longer traveling. I’m ready to put down roots. I don’t know why Rukh felt the need to leave at the sight of the other hunter, but I’m with him. My cootie vibrates in my chest, agreeing with me. It fills me with a weird ache, as if reminding me what I need to do soon.