Page 27

27

Olivia

I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t want to be touched and haven’t ever found pleasure in it and he seems to lack any of the parts too…

Wait a minute… whoever said Kroaicho was a he? "You know, now that I think about it, I never asked if you were a male or a female."

Kroaicho gives me a funny look, "I am me. Stop asking such redundant questions, Olivia"

I blink. "I meant to ask if you were masculine or feminine."

The insipid stare remains.

"He or she? I mean, I hate to break things into a binary that doesn’t really exist, but at least it’s a place to start, maybe?”

"Olivia …"

"What? You zhasie have no gender identities?" I ask, feeling out of my depth again.

"All zhasie are born equal, Olivia; your funny language makes no sense."

My funny language makes no…? Oh, you little…

I close my eyes and pinch my nose. “I thought you had met more sapient species than I have. Surely you have noticed there is variety?”

After a slow grind of tusks, Kroaicho responds. “I have noticed, but it does not apply to the zhasie.”

“You don’t have gender,” I state.

“No, and that word does not translate,” he… she... they… respond.

“What’s the pronoun, then?”

“That also does not translate. Should we speak in my language instead?”

“No,” I respond, then try again. “When you are angry with me because I just ran off down a tunnel, how would you finish this sentence? ‘I can’t believe—word missing here—ran off again. I am going to kill—word missing.’”

“Zha,” Kroaicho answers instantly and I smack my forehead when I remember him—zha—saying that before. It was lost in the craziness of everything being new.

“Alright. Zha. So how do zhasie actually mate, then? What parts touch… you know… what parts?”

“My species does not touch to mate and we only do it twice,” comes the chittering reply.

I blink, unsure how that even works. “Twice? Not just for pleasure?” I blurt out before I can think better of it.

It’s not like I found much of that the few times I tried. It's hard to feel good when you just want to hit someone.

From the colors lighting up on zha’s skin, the confusion is shared. “It feels good, I am told. But for just that? It would be insanity. You would lose your whole hoard!”

“You would? But… it isn’t worth the risk?” I hold up a hand. “Nevermind, we are getting off track.”

I push aside the comment about treasure. And I thought I had a one-track number-reciting mind…

That gives me pause. I haven’t been using numbers all that much lately, have I? Huh. I wonder what…

I shake my head, not letting myself side-tracked.

“What risk?” I ask. “A zhannel?”

“No, that is why you take the risk,” zha explains. “A mating leaves you prone to being tricked and losing part of your hoard.”

“I don’t want your hoard, Kroaicho,” I groan. “How many different ways do I have to say it?”

“I believe you,” zha responds. “It is strange, of course, but also very… appealing somehow.”

“It’s simple psychology,” I explain. “Nothing mysterious.”

“How so?” zha asks.

I snort. “You have discovered what it feels like to not be on guard and you like it. It’s what I feel with you, too, actually. I have a hard time recognizing emotion when I look at people. I can hear it in voices and it’s not like I completely lack emotion or anything...” I stop myself there, realizing I’m getting defensive and zha wouldn’t even know why. “What I’m trying to say is you light up with your emotions and I can tell the difference. It’s… soothing.”

“I am glad our communication can be clear,” zha replies, orange lighting up with the green and blue. “It is odd that it would be any other way. But many things are odd. Are you saying that humans mate just for pleasure?”

“Yes, for pleasure and with no hoard lost. Well… I guess for people paying… never mind.” I shake my head, recentering my thoughts and resisting my usual urge to over-explain how things work. It would take us years to get past the misunderstanding about paying for sex. “I don’t see how it can possibly work without touching. Do you just toss something at the other? Is your uh, thing, detachable?”

“Detachable thing? Is what detachable?” zha asks, blue taking over the green now.

I huff out a breath and fall back on anatomy. “A penis.”

My eyebrows shoot up when I realize there isn’t a translation, so I try some synonyms. And more. Every millimeter of zha is lit up in blue and I know I’m adding confusion when my face starts burning.

Nothing translated.

I try again. “Well it is an appendage that the male person pushes inside of inside the female person.”

“What’s a male?” Kroaicho asks, voice exasperated. “Put what in where? No, do not tell me. That is too terrible to contemplate and I do not want to know. What a violent species you come from...”

I clear my throat. “I can’t argue with that, I guess. But how are we going to…you know? Deal with all the green we are signaling?”

Zha takes a deep breath and grinds zha’s tusks together. “The way of my species. The only correct way.”

I let out a snort. “You are gonna have to be a lot more specific than that or no way.”

“All you have to do is breathe it in.”

“Breath what in?” I say, voice rising in exasperation.

“We should not do this,” zha says, skin lighting pink. “It is only for a zhannel.”

“There is no way we are going to have a zhannel,” I say, grinding my teeth now like zha grinds tusks.

“Of course we are not. They are only for ourselves.”

My brow furrows, trying to make sense of that, repeating it back and then realizing the emphasis was put on we .

I don’t even want to try to unpack what that means. It doesn’t matter. “My mother… my zhann paid someone to make sure I never got pregnant,” I explain, throat tight. “Ever.”

“How is that possible?” I say, shocked.

I shrug. “A lot of money and a surgeon willing to do something illegal and immoral. It’s more common than people think.”

“You agreed to that?” zha asks, confused.

“No. I was a child, a zhannel, still.”

“That is terrible,” zha says, skin lit up pink.

After a hard swallow, I respond. “It was, but I don’t want to talk about it.

“I will not speak of it… except to say that while you may not be able to have yours, I still want to have mine.”

“Yours? Are you telling me that you have the zhannel? I thought you were male,” I hiss, annoyed with myself. “Arg, sorry. You just said you weren’t, but you are enormous and look so… nevermind. I still don’t get the reproduction differences, clearly. Not a male, right.”

“I said I do not know this word. Or the other. There are none of either. There are not two types of zhasie. Just one.”

I remember the singular pronoun, feeling stupid and judgmental somehow. “Right. Zha.”

“Yes. Zha.”

“Still. How would I get you pregnant? I can’t.”

“True. You don’t have the expellant.”

I pinch my nose, my head suddenly feeling too full. Nothing is stable here. Not even biology.

“This conversation is not only completely the opposite of sexy, it’s also giving me a headache. Just forget I brought it up.”

“No, I want to try,” zha says, skin flushing with a green glow again.

“But try what?”

“Will you not just trust me? Like I did with the treasure sticks?”

I cringe, thinking of how much excitement came from me lying about sticks to get a fire. “Well… That might not be the best example.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget I said anything.” I say hastily. “Yes, I trust you. Let’s try the… Breathing thing? Whatever they did to me, if I don’t have sex I feel like I might die.”

“I do not know what sex is, but I will use my expellant and see if that helps.”

Zha raises a clawed hand toward me then sweeps it to the side, and I see myself flash red in fear, then green, then purple when I think of others who have touched me.

“I do not understand your signals.”

I gulp. “I am still learning. I don’t react well to being touched, but I liked it when you squeezed me. I know you said that you don’t touch to mate, but will you hold me?

My heart pounds, more afraid that I won’t like it than afraid I will, but I ask anyway. “Real tight. Like I showed you before?”

“It is strange, but I will.”

Then zha is stepping forward and I’m shaking. I’m a kaleidoscope of colors as thick arms wrap around me.

When the rage starts to build up, I remind myself that I gave permission. Then zha is squeezing me and I’m no longer angry.

Then a panicked thought occurs to me. “Wait. You can only use your expellant twice?”

“No. Many times. It is a defense at other moments. But only for a zhannel twice.”

“So are you putting this in the defense category?” I ask, intrigued despite myself.

“You are thinking too much,” zha chides as zha takes a long breath.

My eyes dart to zha’s four nostrils, from where a mist is now wafting.

I try to wriggle away, alarmed. “Of course I am, I—”

No more words come out because suddenly my mouth is filled with a cloying scent. Slightly caustic, but also sweet. Like persimmon, with cinnamon, and some sort of alien musk.

I haven’t decided if I like it before it hits my lungs and instead of the cough I expect, I’m taking a deeper and deeper breath. Like I can’t stop myself.

My exhale is a moan as my entire body convulses, stomach muscles rippling and my thighs clenching as the place between my legs throbs. One more deep breath in and my back is arching, an explosion of pleasure racing up my spine.

Kroaicho makes a startled sound and releases zha’s grip and I feel the wrong sort of nerves firing up at the lighter touch.

“No,” I gasp out, anger tinging my tone. “Harder.”

My ribs creak in protest when zha complies and the pleasure rushes back in. Every breath of the mist sends pleasure racing along all of my neurons, but not in the unpleasant way I associate with things that stress me. There is no answering risk of a shut down.

For once, it’s my body on fire and not my mind.

I understand now. This is what other people have experienced, but something touch could never bring me before.

“Again,” I slur out, mind spinning in the best way possible.

My whole body is glowing green and throbbing soon after. A bright pink eye is watching me intently when I come back to myself. Ripples of pleasure loosening my muscles in all the right ways.

I hadn’t realized just how wound up I was. Now I feel wonderfully loose, which is further helped by just how tight of a hold I’m in.

My mind drifts for a moment, but then I call my attention back sharply. Kroaicho seems just as calm and unaffected as usual and it makes me feel self-conscious.

My skin shifts to pink, with a little bit of purple mixed in, fully directed at myself. “I can’t give you that? No place I could touch?”

“No. Well, there is… No.”

“There is, isn’t there? Where?” I push.

“It matters not.”

“It does,” I hiss out, suddenly realizing that I was so desperate to end the nonstop arousal that I agreed to something one-sided. Zha said it would be and I should have listened. I hate feeling like I owe something I don’t know how to repay.

It’s like almost every social interaction where I know they’re disappointed that I don’t know what they want. Except way, way worse.

At least the couple times I let a guy stick it in they got off on it. I mean, they made me feel like shite about being stiff, but it didn’t stop them from cumming. Better than the girl who said I couldn’t find a clit if it bit me.

I push the memories aside before I get lost in castigating myself.

“I want to reciprocate.”

“That word has no meaning.”

Dumb alien non-dragon things. Everything is to be taken, I guess. And hoarded. Though I have to admit that hugging me doesn’t fit that stereotype.

I let out a huff. “I want to give you treasure. Uh… expellant treasure. In return”

I cringe at the thought of mist coming out of my nose while a rumble of laughter vibrates against me.

“You are the treasure,” zha says with skin lighting green and orange. “Annoying, but very shiny.”

My own skin lights up orange. It’s the oddest compliment I’ve ever received, but I can tell by zha’s tone that zha means it.

“Wait,” I say, something suddenly occurring to me. “How is it that you know about a bunch of different aliens, that you had items in your hoard from galaxies away… and you don’t know that there are multiple genders in other species?”

“I wasn’t interested in them beyond the stories that came with the item or if they were the kind to steal,” Kroaicho responds.

“So you have no actual way to know if any of those stories are true or if they were just lying to you to get a sale?” I ask, dumbfounded.

Zha clicks dismissively. “They took items of no value in exchange. Ugly things. Why would they lie?”

I pinch my nose again, imagining all kinds of precious resources being handed over for plastic beads. I’m positive it’s happened and I think back to the stories zha told me before and throw all the information I thought I gleaned from them out of my mind. Useless.

I open my mouth to share that, but I just can’t get the words out. Kroaicho is annoyingly sure about all zhasie beliefs, and a large part of me wants to poke holes in them until logic prevails… but I don’t. Would I want my whole world upturned and every beautiful thing I thought I could rely on tossed out?

No way.

If zha truly does go with me—and I can’t let myself think of any other option now—zha will slowly realize. As many times as I wanted to poke those smug eyes out since Kroaicho snatched me, I just can’t bring myself to be the agent of that change. I’d rather be the support zha needs to weather it.

That feels right. Good, even. I’ve never served in that role for anyone, I realize. I’ve just been shuffled from one place to another once my “behavioral issues” became too much. It’s always felt like, no matter how much I observed, no matter how much I read, everyone always knew more about how to be human than I did.

Who would have thought it would take meeting an alien—someone even more socially clueless than I am—to finally feel comfortable in my own… suddenly glowing… skin.

The good feelings flee and my usual anxiety surges. What if zha just can’t handle being around all of us? What if zha ultimately chooses a cave. Alone. With a hoard. I’d probably never find another being as easy to read… or so completely oblivious to how fucking weird I am.

Well, I suppose everyone but a zhasie is weird to Kroaicho, but it ends up being the same.

The good feeling is back and I grab hold of it tight, the glow of my skin shifting back to orange.

“Is this uncomfortable for you, Kroaicho? Keeping up that pressure?”

“No.”

“Can we sleep like this again?” I ask. “That was nice.”

“I would enjoy that,” zha says and I settle in with a long sigh.