by Dan Glover
He mounted her without touching her breasts. Though he was very small she felt a momentary sting as he entered her. He grunted a couple of times and suddenly she felt him spurting inside of her. He rolled off and went right to sleep.
She climbed from bed going to the bathroom to wash. She felt used. She wondered if she accidentally got herself pregnant by not making him wear a condom. It all happened so fast she didn’t think.
Looking back, that first time was the template for their sexual relationship over the next fifteen years. Hector was a premature ejaculator and worse he didn’t care. Foreplay was a foreign word to him and his breath stank so badly from the cheap cigars he smoked that she nearly gagged when he tried to kiss her.
Still, she told herself it was better than being alone.
Now, sitting across the table from Hector, she wondered. Karen remembered that look in Lily's eyes... that feral, wanting look... and she considered what it might be like to make love to such a creature. She suspected that encounter would last much longer than the ten seconds with Hector.
"I'm going to my room, Hector. I'm tired and we'll be leaving early in the morning."
"I thought we might... you know... celebrate our engagement."
"Hector, we are not engaged. I told you I want to think about it."
"But I thought..."
"Goodnight, Hector."
Karen walked alone back to the motel where they were staying. When she heard a knock at the door she knew who it was. She didn’t answer. Rather, she took off her clothes to step into the shower, still thinking of Lily and how her body rippled and shined. She had seen her naked many times. Unlike Karen, Lily was not at all self conscious about her body.
Karen had never touched Lily's skin without exam gloves on. She counted that as a great disappointment in her life, one that she hopefully still had a chance to remedy. As a hungry finger crept between her legs Karen saw Lily in her mind's eye. They were together and savoring each others' bodies taking all the time they needed, all the time necessary.
Chapter 28—Loving
Lily was caught up in the dream.
She had fallen in love many times during her life. Since her kind rarely conceived it mattered not whether her lovers were male or female. It was only after mingling with human beings that she realized the stigma they place upon same sex lovers.
With Natalia none of that mattered. When they were together the rest of the world ceased to exist. The first moment she saw Natalia looking at her as she woke on the train in old France Lily knew they would be lovers. The music told her so.
She saw that the girl was sick, near death, and that nothing her human compatriots could do would save her. It was written in her eyes, in the gaunt bones just beneath the surface of her face and the emaciated body, her shrunken breasts, and even the air Natalia exhaled. Everything told of her impending demise.
Lily was a healer among her own people. They regarded Lily with something akin to awe. She offered herself up willingly to any who asked but as the eons passed it became apparent hers was a losing battle. One by one her beloved people disappeared into either the deep depths of Lake Baikal or the black lands surrounding her shores never again to appear.
She remembered surfacing for the first time and breathing the frigid air flowing past her naked body thick with an icy mist and redolent of frozen fir trees and not altogether entirely different than the waters of the Lake which sustained her.
It took her eons of experimentation to learn to make sounds in this new world; beneath the surface she communicated with others of her kind by sending quivering pulses of energy from her body in a quite natural way. In the world above that didn’t work, however. The air was too thin to sustain such vibrations.
Gradually the Lake changed—imperceptibly at first—and then more quickly as strange beings came down from the trees and began to shit and to piss into the water fouling it with their diseased carcasses and the entrails they cut from other animals. These creatures seemed to care for nothing: they bashed one another's heads against rocks to eat the brains oozing from fractured skulls; the males used the females as slaves.
They lived extremely brief lives and the number of children they produced was astounding! Lily's people lived forever unless accidents overcame them yet they seldom reproduced. A child was so rare that the whole band celebrated such a birth. The strange creatures from the trees seemed to ignore their own offspring. The humans were barbaric at best and terrifying at their worst.
Natalia was different than other humans, somehow. Maybe it was because she knew her life was over by the time Lily met her. Natalia loved Lily with an abandon that reminded her of the lost love of her life while she still danced the dark depths of Lake Baikal. Bilbla was his name... not a name spoken but rather one felt.
Clouds of tiny iridescent eels swirled a loving blue light through the blackness encasing Lily as she floated weightless intertwined with her lover. There was no reckoning of how long they were together. Time for Lily was a primitive index of change; while she floated with Bilbla there was no change.
There was no need to separate. Even as they made love they feasted on tiny abundant plant life that floated in the Lake; they drifted with currents that took them from side to side and up and down, the layers of water sometimes warm, sometimes cold.
A discord pulled the lovers apart... Lily didn’t know if it descended upon them or perhaps if it came from below. Direction had no meaning in those depths. The eels scattered with fluttering fins no longer blue but black with fear. Something unknown approached the lovers who became aware too late; when it hit them Lily saw a gigantic set of jaws close around her lover.
Bilbla was yanked away by a monster fish which dove to the bottom of the Lake and though Lily held onto him with all her strength as the depth became greater she was forced to let go. Her kind couldn't manage such tremendous pressure. The waters flowing through her gills tasted odd. For a moment she was not sure what she tasted but then she realized it was her lover's blood clouding the water.
Lily knew terror for the first time. Shooting upwards away from the danger she broke through the ice. Heretofore her world was the Lake. In winter ice sealed them in and in the summer fearful stories of what lurked up here kept Lily from seeking it out.
After losing her lover to a denizen of the deep, however, she lost the horror of the surface and instead learned to embrace it. Though she waited for Bilbla to reemerge from the depths he never did. The lure of the Lake was heavy yet the newness of this outer world pulled her into its lush embrace.
She sensed venturing into this world was the only way she would endure. She stepped timidly upon the land feeling icy mud squish over her webbed toes as cold shivered her bones. As the water on her skin dried the bright orb in the sky warmed her.
She began wandering the hills surrounding the Lake, spying on the strangers who looked like her kind and yet were somehow different. These strangers covered their flesh with a kind of material that came from the skins of the animals which they kept in fences and which they butchered and ate at times. The smell of seared flesh sickened Lily and yet it made her stomach rumble reminding her of the hunger she felt.
Lily ventured closer to those people, listening to the sounds that issued from their mouths. They seemed to converse with one another in a manner similar to how Lily's people communicated and yet the sharing was done by way of vibrations through the air rather than the water. Leaving her auditory flaps opened, Lily heard the world for the first time in the images that became her way of communicating.
Lily experimented, discovering she could mimic those sounds. Hiding close to their settlements in unused shacks she listened to their words and formed them with her own mouth. At first, it was difficult for her to make those strange noises but she kept on practicing.
Hunger drove her to steal food much different than any she had eaten before. She discovered apple pies left to cool on window ledges carrying them off with her to the woods where she raven
ously devoured them.
Feeling alone and uncomfortably naked she took clothes left hanging outside the shelters of these people and tried them on until she found some that fit her frame. The cloth felt rough against her sensitive skin but she was warmer and felt better able to fit in amongst the villagers.
Shyly and now dressed she walked past the houses late at night gazing into the holes cut in walls at the fires burning inside and the darkened people gathering around the dancing flames which were quite foreign to a water creature like her.
"Hey! What are you doing there?"
She heard a sound but she was unaware what meaning the words conveyed. The voice was full of anger and surprise. Turning she saw a tall man staring at her in both wonderment and fear.
"I I I I..."
She practiced speaking so often but now that it was called for her mouth could form nary a word.
"Oh, you're a woman! I thought you were a man peeping into windows."
This man continued to stare at her, his eyes going to her hands and then to her naked feet enormously large with webbed toes for all to see.
"You better come with me before anyone else sees you."
She followed the man into a dwelling that sat alone at the edge of the village. He lighted a fire by producing something bright from a metal box and placing dry grass and twigs upon it before causing a shower of sparks over the tinder. She watched and giggled at the results.
"You've never seen a fire before, have you?"
She shook her head no rather than to risk speaking again.
"Where are you from?"
She pointed out at the dark waters of Lake Baikal.
"Let me see your hands."
Frightened, she hid her hands in the folds of the dress she wore.
"Don't worry. I won't hurt you. I just want to see."
His name was Mikhail. He hunted wild animals that abounded in the forests surrounding Lake Baikal and taking their skins he tanned them to trade for viands and other necessities that a hunter's life couldn’t provide.
"What is your name?"
"Ila..."
She couldn’t pronounce it properly but the man didn’t seem to notice.
"Lily? Is that your name?"
It wasn’t but it was close enough. Besides, what difference did it make what her name was? She could be Lily. In time she even grew to love the name.
On moonlit nights they often walked together along the shores and sometimes she would remove her clothing and dive back beneath the surface of the clear and sparkling water as Mikhail watched entranced. They danced together swaying to the beatings of their hearts and to the sounds of the forest that surrounded them.
"Marry me, Lily."
She had no idea what the word meant but the look in his eyes told her to marry was something to be treasured. She nodded her head yes.
She opened her eyes now that the dream had ended.
Chapter 29—The Hunt
Despite or perhaps because of Karen's objections Hector decided they were flying to Lake Baikal. He felt certain that the creature and her unknown companion had long since reached their destination. It exasperated him that his assistant took such liberties as maintaining a discourse with the CDC back home without consulting him, as if he would not find out about her consultations.
"The pressure of the plane taking off and landing will cause havoc with your head, Hector."
She spoke as if she really had a concern for his health. For just a moment he believed it.
"I'm catching that bitch with or without your help, Karen. The quicker we reach Lake Baikal the sooner we can start our search."
He was aware that he risked injury and in fact the doctor had recommended he not travel by plane for at least six months. Her admonition only served to further piss him off.
"What makes you think she'll still be there, Hector?"
That stopped him. Of course she was right. What reason did he have to believe that bitch of a creature was still at Lake Baikal. He was only going on the word of Karen in the first place.
She knew something she wasn’t telling him. Taking the train would cost them precious time that they did not have. If she hadn’t spent a month in Moscow recuperating from her supposed injuries they would have caught the Lake bitch by now and been back in England.
Was that it? Was Karen in collusion with it? Had all this been choreographed in advance? He hadn’t wanted to believe it but more and more her behavior pointed to a plot to help the creature escape.
"Look, Hector... let's take the train. It's only four days. We can use the time to regain our strength. I'm still not a hundred percent and from the looks of it neither are you."
Even though he didn’t want to admit it, she was right. He was having debilitating headaches... his vision was blurry and he was weak on his left side. The doctor told him it was symptomatic of the concussion he received at the train depot.
"Have you booked the tickets, Karen?"
"No need. The tickets we have from before will still be honored. We can leave this afternoon. So is it the train, Hector?"
They were having a late breakfast at the hotel cafeteria. The food tasted bland. He had formed a distinct dislike for anything Russian during the last month here in Moscow. Even the vodka was piss-water weak.
"Yes, you're right Karen. We can use the time together. Have you thought anymore about my proposal?"
He knew she'd been avoiding the subject. He wondered if she suspected the true motive behind his offer of marriage. He was certain that six months ago she would have accepted it gratefully but ever since that bitch of a sea monster escaped something changed.
He wondered if Karen was harboring a crush on the bitch from the Lake. It made sense. She could have traveled two weeks ago—the physician released her—but instead she insisted on staying in her hotel room to rest and to recuperate fully, as she put it. Each night Hector attempted to seduce her and each night she rebuffed his advances, even last night after he proposed to her.
"Keep the ring for me."
"What did you say, Hector?"
He didn’t realize he has spoken out loud.
"I said I'll keep the ring for you until you make your decision. Have you considered my proposal at all during the night?"
"I asked you to please give me some time, Hector. I'll let you know when I decide and I'd appreciate it if you don't badger me."
"I'm sorry, Karen. I didn’t realize asking the person I love to marry me is badgering her."
He tried to sound hurt but the tone of the words came out all wrong. He reminded himself of a spoiled little brat whining to his mother about not getting invited to the birthday party of the most popular kid in class.
Karen made that noise she made by clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth the way she always did when she was exasperated with the results of an experiment gone wrong or a misdiagnosis of a disease. He understood it was a dismissal of him and he knew better than to press his luck or she just might turn him down outright.
"We better get to the depot, Hector. Our train leaves in an hour."
Hector considered for a fleeting moment calling in another colleague from the CDC... a new recruit, perhaps... someone who might be more immune to the pull of the bitch they were hunting. He felt it himself. He wouldn't admit it to Karen but back at the compound it was all he could do to keep from giving himself over to the feeling. He knew the creature would attempt to use him as a means of escape yet he wondered if the encounter would be worth it.
"I'll pay for lunch, Karen, and meet you back at the hotel."
Watching Karen walk away he realized he needed her. No one else knew what she knew... for the last seven years she spent every waking moment studying the creature. Karen could be a royal pain in the ass but she knew her stuff. She might even keep him from getting killed should they have the luck to meet up again with their quarry.
The waitress was saying something to him in Russian which he did not understand. He flipped a handful
of rubles at her. She smiled as she walked away counting her take. If nothing else, at least Karen spoke this infernal language. How in the hell could anyone form words like that, much less understand them?
Outside the rain had started again: just great. Nothing like riding the train with wet clothes... Hector unfurled his umbrella but the rain was blowing sideways and it did little to keep him dry. A couple of Russian punks walking past going the opposite direction bumped into him even though he attempted to step around them. He reached into his pocket for the comfort of his pistol but then realized it was gone.
He considered the loss of his weapon as nearly a great a tragedy as being waylaid. Buying another weapon in Russia had proved incredibly challenging. Back in the States a man could buy a gun anywhere. He made a mental note to have Karen order one shipped from that infernal assistant Marilyn back at headquarters. The stupid bitch might be of use for something after all.
Chapter 30—The Wash
Maon was born in early spring.
It was one of those days when summer was living in the sun while winter hid in the shade. Karen and Marilyn assisted Lily in her birth though they mostly watched. Maon's birth was as easy for Lily as his father Nate's had been for Natalia.
"You have a perfect little boy, Lady Lily!"
Karen was as excited as Lily and Nate at the birth of their baby but she noticed Marilyn seemed unduly quiet while bathing him. Natalia must have sensed something wrong too as she moved closer to her about the same time Lily spoke up.
"Please allow me to hold him."
Lily looked amazing for having just birthed a child. Though Lily was in bed Karen was quite sure she would stand up and walk across the room if she wasn’t brought the baby immediately.
"This is our magic time together. Thank you, Karen and Marilyn. I'll take over now. Please allow us some private time?"
Natalia went to Marilyn taking baby Maon from her arms to bring to him to Lily. Karen heard the baby gurgle to see his mother as if he knew her already. Having been dismissed she followed Marilyn out of the room softly closing the door behind her.