Next to me, Fran shuddered. “Now that’s love. Putting yourself on the line for your poor mom.”
Thankfully oblivious to the disgust her food choices engendered, Mom pushed her plate towards me. “Sure! The ronka first, Shalia. Pilchok is more like a dessert, though they say it’s meat.”
The ronka was in bite-sized chunks, a deep brown with bluish veins – or something that gave the impression of veins – running through it. It smelled amazing, but I eyed it with some distaste. Some things you don’t want to eat just because they don’t look right. Ronka had that appearance.
Smell won out. I speared a piece with my fork. Before I could think much more about it, I shoved it into my mouth and started chewing. My face was all scrunched up as I waited to taste something along the lines of sewage.
Good heavens. Kalquorians may not be able to cook chicken, but they can cook the hell out of ronka, whatever it is.
Imagine the most perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked filet mignon you’ve ever eaten. Now imagine meat even richer tasting and practically melting in your mouth. Ronka is twice as delicious as that. Seriously.
The Pageant Trio watched me breathlessly, as if expecting me to burst into flames at any moment. They were on the edges of their seats, waiting for my face to rot before their eyes as the ronka spread its evil pestilence through my body.
Stupid cows.
I still wasn’t willing to get into it with anyone over food, however. For all I knew, I’d end up on a colony with them as my next-door neighbors. Heaven help me. I swallowed my delicious bit of paradise and said, “It’s okay. At least they didn’t cook it into sawdust.”
Tanned shoulders slumped. I was given stares of supreme motherly disappointment, as if I’d shown them a report card that wasn’t all A’s. Screw them. I was looking forward to the pilchok after that.
The chunk I took from Mom’s plate certainly seemed like meat, similar to pork dipped in gold. Its texture was more dessert-ish. It flaked, like pastry. It was sweet. Dip it in chocolate sauce, and I would eat it until I blew up.
I have to chalk up my bad chicken to inexperience from the Kalquorian cooks. The ronka and pilchok were five-star all the way.
I felt great relief when Mom finished eating her meal and was escorted to the rec area by the ever patient Weln. I couldn’t bear another bite of that chicken though. I made pleasant conversation with the other women for as long as seemed respectable before I begged off, citing my recent illness and continuing weakness. I went back to my room. On the way there, I managed to snag an orderly and begged him for a nice ronka and pilchok meal of my own. He had it to me in less than ten minutes. It was heavenly.
I’m having it for dinner too, here in the privacy of my room, with no judgmental Earthers to glare at me as if I’d drowned the baby Moses. I’ve decided communing with my own kind over a meal is vastly overrated.
September 9
Oh my God. I have officially lost my mind. I don’t even want to write this down. If anyone ever knew, I’d be hanging from a tree. Or worse. Much, much worse. I cannot fathom why I would do such a thing.
Okay. Deep breath. Here I go, from the beginning.
I got the clearance to try a short solo walk. It looked nice outside, so I ventured out. For a wonder, the humidity wasn’t instant sauna. It was still a tad hot, but there was a nice breeze. It felt good to be in the sun for a change.
Behind the medical building is a narrow concrete path. This trail winds down to the Memorial Garden, a place where fallen officers who had attended the Academy are remembered. There are plaques on a series of tall marble walls that enclose benches and flowerbeds in a huge semi-circle. It’s very nice and peaceful, though the lack of recent landscaping has left only a few pretty posies dotting the spaces between weeds here and there. The greenery is doing okay. There is a big oak tree between two of the walls, casting plenty of shade over a few of the benches.
I’d overestimated my strength and underestimated the distance between Medical and the garden. I’d walked slightly over halfway to my goal when I began to flag. I should have turned around at that point, but I am so stupidly stubborn. I’ve been bugging Nayun to let me out of Medical for the last couple of days, and I was determined to show him I was ready to be released.
It was, of course, a mistake. I’d made it three-quarters to the garden when I got lightheaded. The sun was suddenly too bright and too hot on my head. The world started a gentle, slow rocking that made my legs wobble. I knew I was about to land on my ass.
Then, like a dark beautiful angel in his skintight formsuit, I saw Dusa trotting across the expanse of pine tree studded lawn. He smiled and waved at me, veering to head in my direction.
I smiled and waved back, my ego insisting I pretend I had my shit together. Unfortunately, I was physically incompatible with the task. The earth tilted hard at that point, and I started to fall. The concrete walkway came at me in a big hurry to bash and bruise. There wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
I heard something similar to a rush of wind, and I was caught before I could finish my crash. Big muscled arms clutched me, saving me from who knows what injuries. I peered up and there was Dusa, his face inches from mine, wide purple eyes shocked.
“How did you get here so fast?” I said for lack of anything intelligent to utter.
“I ran. Are you okay?” He was crouched down where he’d caught me, holding me in his arms like a baby.
I felt my face flush. Can you say embarrassing? “I guess I overexerted myself a bit. Thanks for catching me.”
“Let me help you return to your room.”
I cringed to think of the humiliation of Dusa carting my weak ass into the building as if I was some wilting damsel in distress. Nayun would ground me for at least another week. I said, “I wanted to go to the garden. If you’ll help me, I can sit on a bench and pull myself together.”
Dusa hesitated. I could tell he thought I should be back in bed, so I gave him a smile and batted my eyes. Femme fatale, that’s me. “Please? I’ve been cooped up forever.”
Dusa relented. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but all right. If you fade again, I’m taking you straight in.”
There was a little more discussion about whether I could walk myself to the garden (the lightheadedness had passed and I felt a lot better) or if he should carry me (humiliating!). We settled on me walking, with him holding on to support me. Call me the Queen of Compromise.
Leaning on my ever-faithful rescuer, I made it to the garden safe and sound. We sat down on a marble bench under the oak tree’s shade. Dusa kept his arm around me, as if I was going to pitch off my seat in a faint. For a moment I found it amusing. I thought we might look like sweethearts to a casual passerby, all romantic and gooey in a cliché movie setting (if you don’t count being surrounded by the names of the dead).
All at once I became aware of his arm tight around my waist, his hand cupping my upper hip. I felt all too well his strong, muscled body pressed to mine, side by side. I noted how he smelled: raw and masculine with the hint of a sweetish-sharp spice. I stared up into that handsome face gazing down at me, hovering so close to mine, and my heart began to hammer wildly in my chest. A funny warmth curled in my stomach, something I hadn’t felt since high school when I let Zach Smith kiss me behind the gym.
I don’t care anything for sex, but the sudden vision I had of Dusa laying on top of me, kissing and touching me all over, brought a stab of want to my lower parts. Wetness seeped from my girl parts.
Extremely shocked and somewhat terrified at my reaction to him, I jerked my gaze away to study the few purple and white flowers in the bed before us. “You don’t have to work right now?”
With our bodies touching the as they were, I felt his voice as much as I heard it. It rumbled low and dangerous, the sound of thunder closing in. “I’m working only single shifts for the next couple of days. I was on my way to visit you when I saw you on the path.”
Sure he was coming to visit me. His lie settled so
me of that weird reaction I was having to him. I was able to breathe again. “That’s very nice, Dusa. I’m glad you came along when you did.”
He leaned down, tilting his head to take a better gander at my face. “You look wonderful, Shalia. Healthier. I think you’ve even put on a little weight.”
“Nayun finally let me eat something besides broth and nutrient mush yesterday. I tried some ronka and pilchok. It’s very good.”
He grinned at me. “Brave girl. Most Earthers won’t taste our food. They insist on eating their own, though the cooks struggle with such unfamiliar ingredients.”
“No kidding. Somebody should tell them when chicken hits 165 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s done.”
Dusa chuckled. “I’ll be sure to pass that along.”
We were silent for a few moments. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, not when he still had his arm around me and I could feel every breath he took. Trying to fill the quiet I asked, “Have you rescued any more of us?”
He nodded. “Three women and five children since you came in. The last I heard, they were all doing well.”
“That’s nice. Have you had the chance to visit them since you brought them in?”
He stared at me, and I felt captured by his gaze. I couldn’t glance away for the life of me. “I’ve only visited you.”
I sat there, staring in the same manner as someone who’s been hypnotized. I mean, what do you say to that? I choked out, “How did I get so lucky?”
I have no idea why I said such a thing. I’m not even sure what I meant by it. There was no doubt in how Dusa took my statement.
“I like you, Shalia. I admire your spirit. Your strength. You fought for yourself and your mother until you no longer could.” He laughed. “I think you might have fought forever if you hadn’t become so ill.”
I swallowed. The way he looked at me...well, it knocked the air out of my lungs. I’ve been leered at sexually before. Men who had the power to force me into their beds took full advantage of it. But nobody had ever stared at me the as Dusa did. It wasn’t bald, ugly lust in his eyes. There was also fascination and deep consideration. It was as if he didn’t want me so he could demonstrate his power or take his selfish pleasure. I got a sense of something akin to reverence. It’s impossible to describe since I’m not sure of what exactly it was.
I know one thing for sure though. Whatever that emotion was that he was communicating made me lose my mind. When he lifted my chin, I didn’t resist. When his face closed in to kiss me, I didn’t shy away.
His lips moved against mine, soft and gentle, like the brush of a bird’s feather. I forgot how to think. All I could do was feel. My mouth opened a little, seeking more. Dusa’s tongue crept in, tasting me a bit at a time.
I melted inside. I went weak all over again, as if I would fall. He must have sense it, because Dusa held me tight against him, deepening the kiss. His tongue swept inside my mouth, raspy as the finest sandpaper. It stroked mine, and the heat of his kiss swept through my skull, traveled down my spine, and burst into flame down below. I wasn’t just melting. My insides boiled. I have never felt anything like it, and if I’d had any sense of what I was doing before, it was absolutely gone in that instant.
I touched him as the kiss went on and on. My right arm was trapped against him, but the free one more than made up for being on its own. It was as if my sense of touch had been starving, and I was determined to devour Dusa through feeling him. I traced his strong jawline. My hand swept down his corded throat. I felt the width of his shoulder and gasped at the hard iron of his bicep. His chest was the width of a football field, and I explored that for what felt like ages. His abdomen was granite. There was nothing soft about Dusa. He was all rock and steel and strength. It should have made me afraid. At my healthiest, I would have no defense against such a man. Instead, I felt sheltered. Safe.
More than that, I’d become desperately aroused. While I touched Dusa, he touched me back. His tongue twined around mine, sometimes drawing it into his mouth, sometimes pushing against it so he could invade my mouth with passion. He held me tight with one arm in an uncompromising grip. His free hand stroked my hair. He cupped my cheek to tilt my head just so, allowing him to deepen our kiss. His fingers stroked down my throat, traced over my collarbone, and trailed down my arm. Then they returned to the hollow of my throat. Slowly, slowly, that whispering touch drifted down to my breastbone.
A hundred moths took flight in my belly. Would he go further? Would he dare?
He did. His hand covered my breast, heating it. I arched with a cry, as if I could fill his hand even more with it. I had lost all control.
His thumb found my nipple and stroked over it, bringing it to stiff attention. The sensation was pure fire, adding to the conflagration already burning an inferno in my belly. I was a volcano, lava roiling within and straining to blast out.
Who knows how far I would have let Dusa take me? If not for the sound of laughter breaking into our senses, I might have let him do whatever he wanted. I’d become no more than an animal in heat, ready to rut as any thoughtless beast might. Since this morning, I have decided that we are little more than primitive creatures, obeying nothing more than the instincts we are born with. Why else would I have responded so eagerly to the sexual urgings of a man I hardly know?
It was the sound of others in the distance that woke us from our would-be mating frenzy. We simultaneously broke the kiss, gasping in shock. I realized how we were outside and anyone might have stumbled upon our wild display. A vision of the Pageant Trio with their disapproving faces appeared before my mind’s eye. I thought of the two women I’d seen hanged outside the Academy.
I have lost my mind.
The moment broken and our senses restored, Dusa helped me back to Medical. He wanted to stay, to talk with me, but I couldn’t take his presence for a second more. Begging exhaustion, I sent him away. Now I’m dealing with the fallout of what happened.
I carried on carnally with a man where anybody might see me. Not just a man, but an alien man. A Kalquorian, Earth’s avowed enemy. I can’t believe I let such a thing happen.
More disturbing, I can’t get over how good it felt. I ache for more. I’m not saying ‘ache’ as a metaphor. I want to kiss that man again so bad it hurts. The thought of what might have happened if we hadn’t come to our senses in time scares me, but it excites me too.
Have they been putting something in my food? Something that will make me want to join one of their clans so they can breed? Something that puts my hormones into overdrive so that the slightest clandestine touch makes me eager to be mounted by their men?
I can’t see Dr. Nayun doing such a thing. He treats me as if I’m his daughter, and I have no carnal urges where he is concerned, nor any of the orderlies roaming around Medical. So what is it about Dusa? I’ve never wanted sex before. It’s always been something to live through, to endure, to survive. Still, my body is clamoring for more than a kiss. I want to feel Dusa’s naked body on mine. I’m dying to feel his mouth and hands all over me. I even want to feel him inside of me, rutting hard and fast, giving me that funny, ticklish, hot feeling again.
I have gone crazy. There is no other explanation.
September 10
Ah crap, who am I kidding? I have a huge crush on a Kalquorian. Not that I’m going to be shouting it from the rooftops, you understand. I enjoy being alive.
But Dusa is such a sweetheart. When I sent him off yesterday, he checked on my mom. She was in a funk because she was about to run out of yarn for knitting. She sat in the rec room crying because, as she put it, “Shalia’s ears will be cold if I don’t make her a hat for this winter.”
Please note, I have never worn a hat. Of any kind. Ever. Even while living in Washington, D.C.
And to boot, she wanted one particular kind of yarn, a specific brand none of the nearby pillaged stores have left lying on their shelves in this podunk area. Not that looters were snagging balls of yarn in their frenzy to entertain abandoned cat
s. No, I have to assume that particular brand never made it to this town.
So what did Dusa do yesterday? He spent his off hours shuttling from town to town, combing arts and crafts stores for frickin’ yarn, of all things. He finally found the very brand three hours away in Augusta. He grabbed every last skein in every single color he could find, too.
After his visit this evening (sitting with me and Mom in my hospital room, eating a dinner of—you guessed it, ronka, mashed potatoes, and pilchok), Mom has close to a hundred skeins of yarn, enough to put all of Earth’s survivors and the empire of Kalquor in knitted caps for years. She's like a kid in a candy store, going through bag after bag of yarn, exclaiming and smiling and planning afghans and shawls and christening gowns. I don’t know if I should hug Dusa or throttle him.
That he would go to such lengths to make an ill elderly woman happy goes a long way with me though. I mean, I was already half-crazy over him after our little tryst in the garden. Now I’m acting a pre-teen panting over a movie star. It’s stupid, but there it is. I have a bad case of infatuation with a guy not even the same species as me. Some would call that sick. Maybe it is, but I can’t seem to talk myself out of it.
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