by Ruby Dixon
I grin at her, relaxing back in the furs. "Hurry back."
"Oh, I will." She gets to her feet and puts her leggings on, then shoves her feet in her shoes. She tosses me one last smile before heading for the door, and I watch her go. Her movements are slow and…is she limping? No, I decide, she is just walking funny. I think about the laces I broke on her leggings. Perhaps that is affecting her movements.
I lie back in the furs, yawning, and stroke my cock absently. It is sticky with her juices—and mine—but I do not mind. I like the scent of us intermingled, and I am hard again, waiting for her to return, imagining her pulling her tunic off once more and flashing those strange, rounded teats at me. Maybe this time, I will put my mouth on those. I wonder if she would like that? I glance at the door to my hut. She is taking a while, but this is something females do, I think. I have heard others complain about it.
So I yawn again and stretch, waiting for my mate to return.
My mate. I taste the words on my tongue and like them. The others will be so very envious.
I wake up at dawn with a start, rubbing my eyes. My hut is cold with morning air, and a hint of mating scents lingers in my furs and on my skin. I reach over for my mate, abashed that I have slept through the night, but my furs are empty.
No B'shit.
Confused, I sit up, frowning at my empty hut. Did she not return? Did she twist an ankle and return to her sleep furs instead of mine? Worried, I pull on a loincloth and shove my feet into my boots, then race out of my home. The entire platform shudders as I run, threatening to fall apart. I do not stop to check it, though—I am too worried about my mate. Frantic, I race to the fire where everyone gathers.
B’shit sits amongst the women. She has her head bent with V'ronca and they share whispers. Relieved—and irritated—I stride toward my mate. "B'shit!" I call out.
Her delicate nostrils flare and she turns to glare at me. "It's Bridget."
"That is what I said," I point out. V'ronca slips away and I take her place at my mate's side. "You should have woken me."
B'shit flushes, looking around at the others. "I didn't sleep in your furs," she hisses. "Can we not do this right now?"
"You were supposed to come back! Did you not? Did I sleep through everything?" Is she mad that I slept while she had needs? "I will pay more attention to you tonight, this I promise."
Someone snickers.
B'shit jumps to her feet, giving me a horrified look. "A'tam, please. Not right now."
I do not understand her reticence. "Why not right now?" I stand up, reaching out to brush her hair back from her shoulders, but she ducks under my arm and storms away. "Wait," I call. "I do not understand."
She turns and glares at me, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Our hookup was supposed to be a secret," she hiss-whispers at me.
I turn and glance back at the group by the fire. Everyone is staring at us. This is why B'shit is mad, but I am also confused. "Why would we keep our mating secret?"
"Because it's personal!"
"But we are now mates, just like V'ronca and her A'tar—"
She crosses her arms over her teats. "No, we're not."
A sinking feeling fills my gut. I look at her stormy expression and there is no hint of the smiling, soft B'shit that was in my furs last night. I do not understand. "What do you mean, we are not mates?"
"It was just sex," B'shit says. "It was you and me hooking up just to see what it's like. And I don't want to do it again. I'm certainly not your mate." She gestures at the fire, her eyes filling with tears. "And now you've gone and frigging told everyone."
"I still do not understand. Why would I not tell the others? I am pleased that we are mates—"
She presses her hands to her brow. "Oh my god. We're not mates! It was just sex!"
"But…" I pause, at a loss for words. "I liked it. And I like you."
Her angry expression fades, and her face fills with such sadness. "I'm sorry, A'tam. It just wouldn't work out for us. Please just accept that and leave me alone."
And she turns and walks away. I want to follow her, but V'za moves to my side and touches my arm, shaking his head. The meaning is clear. B'shit does not wish to talk, and she will get what she wants. I watch her leave, my chest aching with deep sorrow. How did I lose my mate so quickly?
Why does she think what we had is not important?
How is this just “sex” to her? Angry, I turn and stomp back toward my hut. I will let B'shit have her way this day, I decide. She can pout all she wants about me telling everyone, but tomorrow, I will tell her to get over her tantrum. I will not give up. We will be mates.
She just needs to be reminded how good I am for her.
7
ONE MONTH LATER
BRIDGET
Nothing feels better than slapping clay and imagining it's A'tam's face.
I take my pile of wet dirt-slash-clay that I've been tweaking for the last while and give it a good smack, then jiggle it. It's not quite workable as I want it to be, and so it's been a process to get it down to what I need. I'm going off of what I remember from those high school classes. Unfortunately, it's not a lot.
I know clay hangs in the water and dirt moves to the bottom, so I've been letting my clay substance sit for a few minutes, and then I carefully scoop the water out and get rid of the dirt. Once I have a decent amount of clay “water,” I spend days sifting things through a porous skin. The water is eventually absorbed into the skin and the clay matter is left behind. I add it into a bowl and when I've picked out all the seashell and bits, I slowly add a bit of water again and make it into a workable clay mass.
And I slap it. A lot.
Honestly? It just feels really good to pound on something and let out my frustrations. My furtive attempts at pottery-making have been going dreadfully, but I'm not surprised. Everything else seems to be a damned mess, so why not this, too? I'm determined not to give up, though. I fight back a yawn as I give the clay another smack. After all, I have nothing but time on this planet, and no one else knows what I'm doing. If it takes me three years to figure out how to make clay pottery, then it takes three years. I'm trying my best not to be impatient. Rome wasn't built in a day, I remind myself. I'm not going to make the perfect pot overnight.
But just once…I wish things would go my way. Just freaking once.
There’s a noise outside, and I lift my head, glancing toward the entrance. Even though it’s night and most everyone is sleeping, I still hear things from time to time. There’s the nocturnal animals of course—the beach crabs and scorpion-looking things get into anything left out—and the occasional birdy critter that wanders through.
I smack my clay again, because it's too wet, and do my best not to growl in frustration.
"Are you imagining my face?" calls an all-too familiar voice, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
"Oh my god, you scared the shit out of me," I hiss, clutching a dirty hand to my chest. My heart's hammering a mile a minute.
A moment later, A'tam ducks into my tiny, private cave. He's smiling, amused at my fright. Jerk. He knows he's a quiet, stealthy hunter—all of the islanders are, but Shadow Cat is on another level. He blends in with the shadows, and as I watch, his skin color ripples from a deep, dark shade into his normal pale blue. The camouflage is a dirty trick. He totally snuck up on me.
I scowl at him and go back to smacking my too-wet clay on the large, flat stone I'm using as a table. "What are you doing here?"
"I could not sleep and went for a walk. I picked up your scent near these caves and was worried, so I came to see if I was imagining things." He glances around my little workspace, a confused expression on his handsome face. "Why are you playing with dirt in the middle of the night?"
"It's not dirt. It's clay." I add a sprinkle of dried clay dust to my too-wet lump and start to work it again. "I want to try to make some pottery."
I brace myself for a litany of questions from A'tam. Why am I doing this in the middle of
the night? What's pottery? Why do I want to do it? Why am I alone and hiding my work? Humans have so many different experiences from the islanders that even the smallest of tasks can bring up a thousand questions.
But A'tam only grunts and drops to a crouch beside me, watching me work. "My mother made pottery."
I turn to him, eyes wide. "She did? Do you know how?" A few of the sa-khui have old pots, Brooke and Liz have mentioned, and they use them for storage back at the Croatoan village. It's a skill that's been lost, though, and no one knows how to make them anymore, and no one bothers. Bone can be easily carved and there's always a supply of it, so I don't think anyone feels there's a need for actual pottery.
But…I want to try to make it. I want to prove to the others (and to myself) that I'm not completely useless. As time passes and we're on the beach for longer, we've settled into little cliques. People find what they're good at and focus in on those things. Everyone's finding their niche…except me.
Part of it is my own fault, of course. For a while, I snuck off with A'tam as much as I could for furtive make-out sessions. Then after our disastrous night together blew up in my face, I withdrew from the group and did stuff on my own. I didn't want to hang out around anyone—especially anyone that seemed utterly happy with being here. I felt like there was something wrong with me. To make matters worse, A'tam refuses to take no for an answer about our relationship, and we squabble about it. A lot.
Daily, really.
I've gotten a bit of a reputation around camp as a result. The islanders all think I'm a terrible tease and the girls think I'm drama. It's not undeserved, because I haven't known how to process things. It still makes me sad, though. I'm making mistake after mistake here in this new world, and my biggest one decides to sit directly across from me, peering at me through the low light of my tallow candles.
And of course his mother knew how to make pottery. Everywhere I go, everything I do, seems to keep leading back to A'tam. But he only shakes his head at me. "I do not know how to make it myself, no."
I don't know if that's good or bad. It'd be nice to be able to ask someone questions, but I suppose it's just as well. "Then why are you here?" I ask him again, working the clay into a ball.
"I told you. I was worried about you. Why are you here at night? Alone?" He gestures at the clay I'm working. "Would it not be easier to do this outside, in the daytime?"
"It would. But I don't want anyone knowing what I'm up to. If I can't figure out how to make this work, I don't want it to be another 'thing' Bridget is bad at." I glare at him. "So you can go now."
The look he shoots me is speculative and just a smidge too knowing. "You do not want them to see your failure?"
"Exactly." It's why I've hidden away at a too-tiny cave on the far end of the beach. If no one knows what I'm working on, there's no pressure to get it right. I can take my time to figure things out without feeling like I'm letting down everyone.
A'tam just smirks. "See? I know you better than you think."
I don't say anything. Truth be told, A'tam knows me better than anyone. In the days leading up to our disastrous sex, we'd make out, sure, but we'd also flirt and just spend hours talking. He knows me better than anyone else because he took the time to get to know me. It's just a shame that our physical incompatibility will stop us from having a real relationship. Not that A'tam has gotten the hint on that. He still bugs me constantly, as if persistence will make me change my mind.
It won't. You couldn't pay me enough to endure another round of sex with the man. It was easily the worst experience of my life…and I've been kidnapped by aliens.
Some people are just not meant to be together and I am clearly not equipped to handle enormous alien dicks. I take another pinch of grit and sprinkle it over my clay, glancing up at him through my lashes. "Thanks for checking on me, but I promise I'm fine."
A'tam doesn't get up to leave, though. Instead, he just watches me thoughtfully. "This is the first time we have talked without you yelling at me."
I arch an eyebrow at him as I massage the dry clay into my wet, muddy lump. "If I recall correctly, I'm not the only one that yells in our arguments."
He makes a sound of acknowledgment. "Truth."
He's quiet for a long, long time, and I finally get my clay to a consistency that satisfies me. I roll it between my hands, making it into a ball. I'm determined not to look over at A'tam as he squats between my bowls of water and dirt, the fire pit I've dug out, the tallow candles I have propped on ledges. The cave isn't any bigger than a closet, and A'tam squeezing in makes me painfully aware of how bad things went wrong between us.
Once upon a time, A'tam's smile was all I needed for my day to become brighter. I looked forward to waking up just so I could spend time around him that day. Each furtive caress was a promise, and his laughter warmed the darkest parts of my soul. Being around A'tam made everything on this icy beach not so terrible.
And then he showed up with Goliath in his pants and dicked my dreams away. I wasn't a virgin that night, but I can definitely say A'tam was far too big, far too enthusiastic, and I was far too tight. I walked funny for days afterward. Never again. Ever.
"If I am confessing truths," A'tam begins, and I stiffen with anticipation of his words. "I have known for many days that you come out here at night. I decided this night that I am tired of hiding and wanted to talk to you."
I can feel tension knotting between my shoulder blades. Here it comes. A'tam's going to demand that we be mates. "What do you want?"
He sighs heavily. "I am tired of you being angry at me, and me angry at you. I do not want to live like this."
I swallow hard, feeling stupid tears threaten. I focus my frustrations on the clay in my hands, molding it into a ball, then digging my thumbs into the center as if I've got a plan for it instead of just mindlessly working it over and over again. "A'tam, I can't. I can't be with you like that." Once upon a time, I would have loved it, but that was before we had terrible sex and then he acted like he owned me. I might like a lot of stuff about A'tam, but we're not compatible in the slightest, and it makes me sad. "I can't be your mate. I won't be."
"Then I would like to go back as we were," he says in a low voice. "As friends."
Have we ever been just friends? Or has there always been more simmering between us? I don't know, and it makes me sad. I want to go back to that, too, but something tells me that A'tam won't be satisfied with just being my buddy. That neither of us is very good at boundaries. "I don't know," I say softly. "Let me think about it."
I expect him to push back. I expect him to blow over my concerns like he always does, to act like I'm being the ridiculous, unreasonable one. But he only nods and relaxes, sitting on the floor across from me, as if he's settling in for a long night. In a way, I'm grateful for the company. Sometimes sitting alone in a cave in the middle of the night is a little creepy. "So tell me about your mother and her pottery," I say to him. "What did she make?"
A'tam smiles broadly, and the look on his face is both fond and wistful. My heart skips a beat, because he's utterly gorgeous. "She made all kinds of things, my mother. Most of them were functional, but she would also make us little fishes and kaari out of clay. I played with them all the time as a child. Looking back, I think she made them so I would not interrupt her so much, but I loved them."
I imagine a tiny A'tam playing with toys while his mother works, and the image is adorable. "What happened to them?"
"I lost them when our cave collapsed."
I feel like an idiot. Their cave collapsed when the island had its first big “shake” and the volcano exploded, killing most of his tribe ten years ago. Of course he lost the toys. "I'm sorry."
"Do not be sorry. I do not tell you so you can take pity on me. I tell you because it is a memory that makes me happy." He reaches over and takes a small bit of clay off my work surface, squeezing it between his fingers. "I like seeing you work clay. It is another thing that makes me happy. If I can do anything
to help, let me know."
I watch him, wary, but he seems genuine. "I could use more water," I say, gesturing at the nearly empty bone bowl nearby. "If you don't mind."
A'tam jumps to his feet. "You know you can ask anything of me."
"Because we're friends?" I straighten and give him a direct look. "I don't want to be more than that. I'm not being coy, A'tam. I'm not trying to play games. I sincerely do not want to be your mate…but I can be your friend."
We stare at each other for a long moment across the small cave, and I wonder if he's going to protest. If he's going to make another chest-beating declaration of some kind and then we're back to square one. But A'tam nods slowly and gives me a serious look. "If all I can have is your friendship, B'shit, then I will take it."
"Bridget," I correct as he heads out the cave, but I'm not as irked as I normally am.
8
A'TAM
It is both easy and difficult to be B'shit's friend.
Being around her again and being friends after so many hands of days of fighting feels as if I am gripping my favorite spear, or I have put on a well-worn boot. It is comfortable and fits like it was made for me. So it is with B'shit. I much prefer her sly comments and her laughter to her anger, and I head out to her clay-making cave every night to spend hours with her by candlelight, talking about nothing at all and everything. We talk about how much water to add to the clay. We talk about my life back on the island, or hers back on her world. We talk about favorite foods, and we gossip about tribes-mates and who has resonated to who.
All of the human females are strangely attractive, but there is something in B'shit that has always called to me. It is that quick sparkle in her eyes, her clever, sharp tongue. It is that she never rests when the others do. She must be doing something to improve, something to show her worth. I admire her fierce drive, and it is one of the things that made me want to be her mate.