by Brian King
“Oh, sorry, I lost myself a little,” she replied as she smiled broadly. “Stretching my body in the morning makes me feel amazing. Do you like to feel amazing in the morning, Victor?”
“Uhhh, yeah,” I gulped as my eyes roamed across her breasts, stomach, hips, and thighs. She was drop dead gorgeous.
“And good morning to you. This fireside bed feels so good and is so warm, I hate leaving it. Did you sleep well?” Galmine batted her silver eyelashes at me.
“Yeah,” I lied. It made sense that a woman with stone skin would enjoy bedding on rock, but I sure as hell didn’t. Though I went out like a light, my sleep was about as comfortable as rolling around on broken glass all night. I had sore muscles and joint aches in places that never bothered me in my life. Still, watching her stretch did wonders for my mood. It was pretty much impossible not to smile at anything she did.
“I’m really looking forward to today,” Galmine said with cheer. “We have so many exciting things to do.” The stone woman seemed to go from a dead sleep right to her normal bubbly mode. Even though it was our first night together, I was confident she didn’t have a bad side of the bed.
Once she was satisfied Galmine was awake, Sheela went over to Trel’s curtain and reached behind it. At first, I thought she was going to yank out Trel by one of her hoop earrings, but, instead, she pulled out a giant leaf that was folded to look like a green plastic bag. Sheela set it next to the fire ring and spread it out, revealing a big pile of round berries and yellowish fruits sort of like little wrinkly pears. Galmine had mentioned the fruit and berries were stored in Trel’s area.
Jinx appeared as if he was ready to eat breakfast with us, but Sheela brushed him away with a little smile. He chirped a few times in what had to be a complaint about his horrible treatment.
“Eat as much as you need, Victor,” Sheela offered as she pointed at the berries. “I will try to eat them as well. This will give us energy until we can catch some more nutritious food.”
“Great, thanks for the berries. I’ll snack on them while you show us the cordage, but then we have to be going. We have a ton of stuff to do.” I didn't want to sound frantic, but we really did have a shitload of tasks ahead of us today, tomorrow, and for the next thirtyish days. If we wanted to live past the angry orange-bird invasion, we needed to get a move on.
“I will get the leaves we need,” Sheela replied as she stepped over to the woodpile where she kept them.
I sat down next to Galmine and laughed inwardly at the contrast between us. Her gray skin seemed to glow in the morning like it was fresh and new. My outward appearance was a case study in uniform infractions.
The silver-haired woman cozied up next to me while we both leaned over the mixture of berries and fruits, and I remembered the words she whispered to me last night. She wanted to “make love with me, not just have sex.” That sentence was a one-song playlist on endless repeat deep inside my man brain. I shuddered as her arm rubbed against mine, but she made no further advances.
“Which of these are good?” I asked Galmine partially to be polite, and partially so that I could distract myself with small talk. Her perfume was stronger than I remembered and strangely calming.
“The dark blue ones are fabulous,” she said as she popped one of the acorn-sized blue berries in her mouth.
“Yeah. They’re damned good,” I agreed after biting into one. The berries looked like blueberries but tasted more like strawberries.
While I crammed in more berries, Sheela brought over a bunch of leaves that looked like long, skinny, palm fronds. Then she sat down in front of us.
“So,” Sheela began, “we make cordage by stripping long leaves down to raw strips of tough, stringy material. Then we wrap two of those strands in a spiral, so they become very durable. On my world, we use a tough grass that grows taller than I can reach. Here, I have not found such grass, but these smaller plants are very strong. They should work perfectly.”
Sheela gave one of the leaves to me and another to Galmine. They were about three feet long and three inches wide when laid flat. They reminded me of yucca plant leaves, only not as pointy.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Rip and twist?” I thought it would be a lot more complicated.
“It is very simple,” Sheela countered.
I chewed some more berries while studying the leaf. It had definite stripes along the length. It was almost as if the leaf was made of dozens of hidden segments lined up next to each other. I made a clumsy effort to pull at the outermost one but it took me awhile because I didn’t have sharp fingernails like Sheela.
The blonde woman made short work of her demo leaf, popped some berries into her mouth, and then focused on Galmine and my progress. Her grimace made me think that she didn't really like the berries. In fact, her mechanical chewing reminded me of how I must have looked when Mom forced me to eat peas at dinnertime when I was a kid.
Sheela caught me watching her and smiled. Her teeth were blue, and I let out a light chuckle.
“You have blue teeth,” I said as I opened up my mouth to show her mine.
“Oh!” Sheela gasped as she shut her mouth. I was surprised she was so bashful, but Trel interrupted before I could make another comment.
“The male’s eating habits are as appalling as his unsatisfactory uniform appearance,” Trel said while standing next to her half-opened curtain. “But I guess now that we’ve made him a part of our group he can reveal who he really is: a slob. His supposed expertise leaves much to be desired.”
I was stunned at her blunt words, but I held my tongue rather than snap back at her. She had some issue I needed to figure out, but in the meantime, I definitely remembered this part of the animal control department training videos on how to deal with difficult residents. Sometimes it’s best just to let them be mad for a while.
I picked up a second leaf and got busy tearing off the strips. Sheela also began her next one. Galmine was still working on her first but was nearly done.
When I didn’t reply to Trel, she groaned with annoyance and stepped out of her alcove. She’d kicked off her fancy sandals, and my eyes went right to her two bare human feet as she walked to the water pot. The responsible part of my brain advised me to look away from her antics, but my eyes had a mind of their own.
“I must quench my desire,” Trel declared while giving me a sideways glance. “For water,” she added as an afterthought.
My man brain went into record mode as she casually bent over to grab the water jug. Her thin dress hadn’t gotten soaked with the sweat of the day, so the material hung loosely from her curves, rather than sticking to them. Even so, the garment strained under the weight of her breasts. I fully expected her to say “oopsie,” and spill the water over her front just to further taunt me.
“You do realize you have yet to close your blue mouth, male?” Trel said with smug satisfaction after she had taken a drink. “So rude. You’re easy to read and even easier to manipulate.”
Damn, she was right.
I closed my stupid mouth when the spell of her beauty was short-circuited by the power of her insult. I thought about a million curses to throw back at her, but I also knew I didn’t have time for it right now. We were at the early build parts of our plan, and if there was anything I knew from real-time strategy games, it was that the first few minutes of a match were the most important. I could waste time telling Trel off, or I could finish making rope and accomplish something useful, then go get clay, food, and firewood. One activity was going to help us survive for the next month. The other wouldn’t.
Trel took her drink and set the pot back down without drama. I didn’t watch her though. Instead, I picked around in the fruit and tried one of the pears. It was bitter, which was so fitting.
“Will you be joining us?” Sheela asked of Trel.
“What do you think?” Trel replied. “I’ll be in my quarters, listening for the sounds of rescue ships.” She sauntered to her nook with her flowing dress hanging from her
hips. Her legs were folded into their “wings” configuration, which counteracted some of my attraction to that perfect ass. I didn’t find the spider legs completely repulsive this time, so I guess I was starting to get used to them.
Sheela sighed as the spider-woman pulled the curtain shut once more, but brightened again when she saw me finish tearing apart my second leaf frond.
“Excellent job, you two. Galmine, you have a gift for this. Your cuts are perfect.” Sheela held up one of Galmine’s pieces. It was a thin, yellowish strand about the width of a shoestring.
“My fingers are not as flexible as yours,” Galmine said with a pleasant laugh. “But I can do this all day long. It’s kind of fun.”
It wasn’t anything close to my idea of fun. I could do it all day long if I had to, but by dinnertime, my fingers would probably be covered in blisters. I pulled off a few more strands and laid them next to each other so I could get a much better look at the makeup of the plant. The green “meat” of the leaf is what seemed to hold the strands together. If I had a sturdy comb, I could have brushed the cords right out of the leaf.
That gave me an idea. I held my half-torn leaf with both hands about six inches from each other and then ran it along one of the edges of a rock in the fire ring. The rough surface immediately stripped away the green crap and left me with a wear spot in the middle of my leaf. Only the stronger strands were left holding the two halves together.
I quickly yanked the exposed strands, starting in the middle. I was done with my leaf in about half the time it took Sheela to do hers. Galmine was much slower doing it Sheela’s way because she didn’t seem to have quite the same dexterity.
“Hey, check this out,” I said with excitement. “If I rub the leaf just right, I can expose the strands better than using my fingers. This might help Galmine go faster.”
I illustrated the method by repeating my experiment. It really did make things quicker.
“I’d love to try it,” Galmine said as she scooted toward the fire ring.
A few minutes later she was ripping leaves on the rock and setting the strips in a pile next to her. With the new technique, she was able to go about as fast as Sheela and me. It was a definite improvement.
“This is great, Victor,” she said to me with mischievous eyes. “Thank you. My fingers can be soooo clumsy.” She paused and looked up at me and bit her lip. “With some things.” I remembered her sexy whispers, but I forced my mind back to the tasks at hand, and tried to ignore the sexual tension between us.
We really had to get moving.
“Let me show you how to twist a few.” Sheela picked up one of the strands and began to roll it between her fingers. “Then you will be able to work on these while Victor and I are gone.” Sheela probably sensed my impatience because my knee bounced with nervous energy throughout her whole presentation.
“The strength of the rope comes from twisting these flat strands so they become rounded,” Sheela said. “First, by starting in the middle we can rotate the strand so tight that it creates a natural loop, like this.” She rolled it in such a way a loop appeared at the halfway point. It reminded me of a lone shoelace, if you tied a knot in the middle and then lined up the two halves of the lace so they were side by side.
“From here, just twist the two dangling ends together like a braid. It is simple to add in additional strands when you near the end of any length.” Sheela spun the two ends together and added in new pieces with remarkable speed as the twist neared the ends. In five minutes, she’d spun a couple feet of cord. She then looked to us to do it on our own.
I rolled my strand as she had done. It took a few tries to get the loop right, but once I did, the twisting went fast. The concept seemed simple enough, but I added a couple additional sections as practice. When I was done with the first foot-long cord, I watched Galmine’s methodical movements. I wanted to claw my face at how slow she went, but I couldn’t immediately see a way to improve her technique, and Sheela seemed satisfied Galmine had the method down.
“Hey Sheela, if we join our two pieces together, it will be long enough for us to use for carrying fish back.” I picked from my pile of strands and began to twist new ones onto my foot-long sample of cord.
Sheela and I worked a few more minutes to lengthen our sample ropes. When it looked like we had enough, Sheela tied mine with hers, so it was about four feet long. During that same time, Galmine was only able to finish her first six inches.
“This should be plenty, would you agree?” Sheela asked me.
“For a few fish? Sure,” I replied as I took the cord from her and stuffed it in my large front pocket.
“Thanks for helping ladies,” I said as I jumped to my feet. “Are we good to go? I want to get to the lake as soon as possible.” I was so happy to have one of our team members doing something useful like making cords, but it was going to be awhile before she finished her one-foot demo piece. That left Sheela and me standing around. As Beatrice always said, “You got time to lean, you got time to clean.” I wasn’t anxious to clean, but her words did have some wisdom for getting shit done.
“Yes, thank you, Sheela. Go, you two. I can do this. Don’t forget clay when you’re out. If you can keep it wet that will save me from using all of our water to mix it.” Galmine pointed to our half-gallon supply of water.
We’d need more water if we were going to be making pottery, so it made sense to drink the rest of our supply and then refill it while we were at the lake. But we couldn’t carry water, clay, fish, and firewood at the same time. Something would have to be pushed back. Since the first three were all found at the lake, the firewood had to get the metaphorical axe. We’d find that later in the day.
“We should all drink the pot empty,” I suggested while pointing to the water container. “We can bring back more water while we get the clay to save time.” Part of it was maximizing efficiency, but I was also so thirsty I could easily down the whole thing myself.
“It will be a little farther to carry it from the lake, but we will already be moving slow with the clay, fish, and firewood,” Sheela said in agreement.
“Let’s save the firewood for later, Sheela,” I said as I shared my thought process. “We have enough stored here in the cave to get us by. I’d rather get the supplies we need at the lake in one shot. Next time we’ll make a handcart.” The wheel was the simplest machine there was. I was sure I could make one at some point.
“I agree,” Sheela replied with a tiny smile.
“All right. Everyone needs to hurry and drink some more water.” I shot looks to each of the three women.
“Pass,” Trel immediately responded.
“I’ll take a little,” Galmine said.
I picked it up and carried it to her, but she only took a small sip before returning to her task. The pot had about an inch of water left, and I brought it over to the beautiful cat-woman.
“Thank you,” Sheela said after she took a small drink.
“That’s all you want?” I asked, amazed she hadn’t taken at least half of what was left.
“I require no more,” she replied.
“Okay, let me finish this, and we can go,” I said. “Down the hatch.” I slammed every last drop of what was left.
I felt pretty good with a little food and water in my stomach, but I was left with a disturbing aftertaste because Trel hadn’t voluntarily taken some. Why did she spend so much time being angry with me? Yes, she drank water a little while ago, but that didn’t feel like the real reason she refused more. Her issues with me were affecting her judgment.
“Can you remind me of Trel’s full name?” I said quietly to Sheela.
“Trel-Idil-Iria, Duchess of family Iria.” She seemed unsurprised that I would ask such a question.
Though it would cost me a few extra minutes, I hoped I’d found the source of her anger. I didn’t think I was the least bit rude to her, but there was one thing I should have done better. If she wanted me to call her by her full name, I’d do it.
The show of respect seemed a minor investment with a potentially huge reward.
I repeated it over and over in my head and noted that it kind of rhymed. When I knew I had her name memorized, I returned just inside the entrance.
“Thanks, Galmine, for helping out. And thank you Trel-Idil-Iria, Duchess of family Iria for watching over her while we’re out.” I happened to see Jinx near the fire. He’d gotten himself a big blue berry and pecked into it like a little jackhammer. “And watch out for Jinx, if you can.”
“Bye-bye,” Galmine replied with a friendly wave. “We will.”
Trel said nothing from behind her screen, which was much better than her normal insults, so I took it as a marginal victory.
Sheela and I walked down the ramp, through the bushes and rocks, until we stood at the edge of the grove of redwoods. She pointed almost straight up to the pterodactyl on its familiar perch, and I glanced up to see the winged dinosaur watching us in return.
“We need a disguise,” I said as a joke. “So we can slip out without her knowing we’re gone.”
“She did not bother me when I got water this morning. Maybe she hunts later in the day?” Sheela suggested.
“Or, maybe she learned her lesson when we threw spears at her,” I said with a bit of satisfaction. Although the fact she was there at all made me think the pterodactyl believed there was a chance at getting into the cave.
“I wish I could snap my fingers and have our turnstile built for the entrance,” I said while looking up one last time. “It would make it so we didn’t have to worry about her.”
“Perhaps when we return?” Sheela replied.
“Yeah, we have to risk her flying down while we’re gone. It would take too long to make the cord and put all those poles together. We’ll stick with food and water this morning, then everything else.” I felt a bit discouraged when I thought about how much there was to do, but I was happy to get a move on.
“Our journey will take us up there,” Sheela said while pointing up the hill. “We will follow the ridgeline above this little valley until we reach the lake where I found you. It will be much safer than walking down the creek. The dinosaurs favor the water, even in the morning.”