by Karmon Kuhn
“So what do you think? He’s not exactly one of the greats of classic literature, but I definitely like his books,” Penny said.
“His writing style is intriguing. I especially like the vivid characters,” I answered.
“Do you want to keep on reading for a bit? I can start packing up and just listen.”
“Yes!”
I flipped through the pages, reciting the words about these strange situations: riding a bicycle, throwing rocks through a window, Sewing! It all sounded so terrifically foreign and unique.
Then, there was the sex. I’d learned the basics of reproductive anatomy and the physiology of sexual intercourse among my people, humans, and a number of animal and plant species at the tsez̈ø. We’d even discussed reproduction in my early education before that, but the sex described in this book was not like what I’d learned.
As I read a scene depicting intercourse between two lovers, something inside me stirred. That same flitting feeling in my stomach after skin-to-skin touch with Penny.
She sat down next to me as I read and placed her hand on my leg. I continued to read as heat spread from her palm and fingertips. It was difficult to concentrate on the words.
After I finished the passage, Penny closed the book in my hands and looked into my face. “Have you ever had sex before?”
“No,” I answered simply.
“No, like, not at all, or just no, not with a human?”
“No, I’ve never had sex. It’s common to commune sexually with a human during the land trials to ensure a proper bond, but I haven’t. And, I haven’t gone through fertility testing to see if I am viable for reproduction, so I haven’t had sex with one of my own either,” I answered.
She looked up at me through her eyelashes. “Were you planning on having sex with me?”
“Well . . . yes. It was part of my mission to observe you to ensure that you were in fact female and to deeply solidify the bond.” I answered matter-of-factly, and as I did, her hand crept slowly up my leg.
“What’s this bonding stuff about?” she asked, her hand still stroking my upper thigh.
“We transfer bacteria to humans that spike serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine. So, when I touch you,” I demonstrated and slid my fingers along her bare arm, “you should start to feel soothed but also excited.”
“Does the bonding work both ways?” She adjusted on the bed and scooted closer to me.
“From my experience,” She slid her hand higher up my leg, and my voice cracked as I finished. “Yes. The bonding has been mutual.”
“How would you know what to do, if we’d . . . you know?” I finally understood the line of questioning.
“We learned about it at the tsez̈ø.” I turned and pressed her lightly onto the cushion of the bed and then placed my knees on each side of her hips.
“Have you had sex before?” I asked her.
She leaned up on her elbows and placed her lips just next to mine. “Mhm.”
“Wha’s it like?” I asked her.
“Why don’t I show you?” She pushed me over beside her and took my place.
Just like in the park, she placed her lips softly on mine. There was a thumping in my chest and my temperature rose. She slid her fingers from my face to my neck to my collar bone and hesitated. My eyes begged her to keep going.
Then she laid beside me and kissed me again, harder, fusing our lips together. The pads of her fingers pressed into my thigh just below my pubic bone. This was not the clinical act that I’d learned in school. There was something animal about it. And something human. It was a desire unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Her fingers spread over the button of my jeans, and their tips just slightly fluttered over the edge and onto my bare midriff. I sat up on my elbows and kissed her, hard.
I craved the feeling of her skin on me, my body called out for it in a way that I didn’t understand. I reached my hands out and pulled at the edge of her shirt, sliding it up, and she alternated one arm and then the next out of the holes where they’d protruded. She followed suit helping me remove mine.
For a moment, we just looked at each other, our bare shoulders and waists in full view. She wore a delicate triangle of fabric over each breast with thin straps and a lacey, white overlay. My bralette was the tone of my skin, plain in comparison, but I didn’t mind. They would be out of sight soon.
Penny trailed the fingers of her right hand from my temple to my cheek and onto my neck. Her thumb caressed my collar bone, and then she pressed her palm and fingers lightly against my breast before moving down to my stomach and waist. I ached and wriggled, willing for her to keep touching me.
We were suspended in time, feeling each other, and when it was finished, when we’d had each other, it was fully night outside. We could barely see each other’s naked bodies in the blackness of the room. Even so, I was in awe of her: her tenderness, her calm, her caring, her vitality. The quality of life in her touch was intoxicating, and I would not be the same from that moment forward.
Chapter 15
A
fter some time of lying on the bed with her head placed lightly on my chest and my arms around her shoulders, a boom from downstairs jolted us away from our escape. Penny jumped up and pulled on her clothing.
“Stay here!” she whispered at me in a tense tone.
“You can’t go alone, Penny!”
“If it’s a bad guy, why would they knock on the door? It’s probably just family or the people who live in the cabin over there. They don’t know that I’m . . . well they wouldn’t understand why you’re here. They wouldn’t understand any of the reasons you’re here. Just stay up here and be quiet.”
“Be careful, Penny,” I whispered and kissed her hard before she left the room. I unplugged the lamp from beside the bed and pulled the weapon close to me. Then, I planted my ear to the door. At first, the only sound was the muffled padding of her feet.
Then, there was a creaking sound from the door followed by a voice. But, what were they saying? Neither the stranger’s voice nor Penny’s had any quality of concern, so I relaxed. The foreign voice continued, but it softened as the conversation progressed. Outside the house? Still no indication of a problem.
And then, there was nothing. No movement, no voices, no creaking. Nothing. The silence terrified me. I charged out of the room just in time to see Penny’s shoeless feet drag out of the doorway. I lurched forward as I tripped on the carpet under the sofa again. I caught myself just before my face hit the floor. My hands scraped against the hardwood revealed by the scrunched carpet.
As the car pulled away, I reached the front door and ran after it shouting her name. My feet stung as the coarse road cut into them. And before I could determine who was driving or where the car was going, they were out of sight.
Down on my knees in the road, panic welled up in my chest and my shoulders rose and fell to a quick rhythm until I was dizzy. I hadn’t witnessed Penny being dragged into the car. What if they left her somewhere at the house?
My bloody feet pounded the ground as I raced back. When I reached the house, I circled it, searching in the landscaping, the shed outside, and in each room of the house. I even checked underneath her car and in the trees in the front yard. Without my clothes, I shivered and fell to my knees again.
A pathetic, screeching cry rattled through the air. I barely recognized the sound of my own pain. I didn’t know where Penny was, I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t know how to get out of here. The fear in my chest grew like the sea monsters from childhood stories and squeezed the breath from me.
It felt like ages that I kneeled in front of the house and pleaded with myself, with the earth, with the sea, with anything listening to give me answers, to help me, to spare Penny. I heard the washing ripple of the waves on the beach, and my mind cleared slightly. Part of me could develop a solution. Just not the human part of me.
Despite the pain of my ripped flesh and
the cold on my bare skin, I plodded into the house. I grabbed the map and some of the jerky to put in my satchel. Then, I picked up the book that Penny and I had read. It laid prone on the floor, and I ran my hands over the cover of Needful Things before I placed it in one of the waterproofing bags in my pack.
It was a risk to change so far from the water and the journey to the sea would be difficult if the scent suggested one of my people, but I couldn’t see another option. I washed myself and treated my wounded feet to the best of my ability. Then, I laid on the floor in the entryway as moonlight penetrated the open door.
I willed my body to change, and it erupted in sensations; melting, stretching and sizzling. I gritted my teeth as they grew long and sharp, and I targeted my anger and fear and hopelessness at the pain my body experienced. Even before my tail had finished fusing, I was pulling myself toward the porch. The smell was salty and familiar. It was one of my people. I would have to return to the tsez̈ø to save her.
But first, I would have to survive the sand.
***
My body was weak and clumsy just as it’d been at the beginning of the land trials. I wriggled across the front porch and down to the ground below. My smooth scales couldn’t grip the texture beneath, so I dug my claws into the ground and pulled. I could feel the heat of exertion on my exhausted muscles as I scooted, fell, and repeated across the length of the yard and garden.
As I approached the beach, I observed the sand, remembering the struggle it’d caused me before my first landside modification to human when I was still strong. I rested for a moment and focused. I had to get out of here. To orient myself. To find my way home. My way to Penny.
I closed my eyes and pushed my mind and body to connect with the granules beneath it. So, I began the trip across the beach. I’d barely ventured out when a stray laugh stopped my heart. A deep voice, most likely a male. And then a higher pitched snicker and a snort, probably a female, answered him. They smelled human from where I hobbled, and I wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not. Could they do something worse to me than my own people could?
Pained and panicked, I pressed my tail into the sand as hard as I could, gritting sharp teeth together and fighting the aches and fatigue already building in my whole body. I looked around and spotted a large outcropping of rocks. Luckily it was dark, so my back would blend in well as long as I could reach it before the humans reached me.
I bent low, dragged myself with my arms, and pushed with my useless, paddle-shaped tail. The giggles came closer and I dug my claws in deeper, feeling my fingers sting as particulates disrupted the cuticles and made me bleed. Just in time, I ducked into the grouping of boulders and hid myself.
They trotted just passed me, and I could hear them taking breaks between guffaws to press their mouths together. When I heard splashes, I peeked out from my hiding spot. They were in the water.
After they’d waded out and become entirely absorbed in their own activities, I searched for an escape route. I was still far from the water, so I’d have to be tactful about how I got there from here. To save time, I slid down the back of the rocks and pushed myself off of them toward the wet sand.
The waves washed high up the beach in a thin foam, so I laid flat and pulled each time I caught the edge of the water. I’d just reached the point of submersion when a high-pitched scream filled the air. I dug deep into my core and summoned the strength to swim. It wasn’t enough to drag me out to the depths, but I felt newly energized by the sensation of the ocean over the length of my front.
The screams continued as the freezing cold water swallowed me whole. I sped deep down and paid no attention to the calamity that I’d left behind me. I didn’t stop until my body could no longer handle the exhaustion.
Once I had time to think, the chill pressing through me was frightening. The horrific cold on the shore before I’d gone unconscious in my human body flashed in my memory, and I shivered. I needed shelter and enough oxygen for the night. Rather than continuing to dive, I floated up to the surface and gulped the air just in case I needed it later. I peered above and below the surface swimming to the south, away from the humans who were no longer in sight. I kept bobbing until I spotted a cave formation in the shallows.
There was a pocket of air large enough to sustain me. It was rather close to the beach, but there was no guarantee that I’d find something else before completely surrendering to exhaustion. I pulled my pack out of the water onto a ledge of rock and then lifted myself up. With my head cushioned by the pack, my breaths came quickly and then slowed to a normal pace.
Although this was only the first step of many that I’d need to take to reach Penny, I’d survived without succumbing to the sand or being captured by humans. In those first grateful moments of silence, I wished to have Penny near me. The connection, the need to be a part of another, that now familiar element of human nature ruled my resting thoughts. How had these desires been lost to my people? Or was it by design that such touch was an emotionless expression of the need to procreate in my community? Why not connect and marvel at each other?
Why would any stand for the trials if they were implemented to hurt humans? And what justified this ‘work’? What about humans made my people see them as inferior?
Having had Penny, held her, learned from her, protected her, and been protected by her, the idea that I too had once believed humans to be ignorant and selfish caused me pain. My ignorance shamed me.
Why had I never questioned the trials? Why had I supported them unconditionally? As a matter-of-fact, why had I believed any of the teachings at the tsez̈ø without question? As my mind whirled with these questions, my body broke down into a fevered, forced sleep.
Chapter 16
I
n my cave, I awoke with a start as the echo of a vibration bounded against the low ceiling. It was a sweet call. A lovely little, hello from someone I hadn’t met before. At least not below sea level.
As groggy as I was, I nearly rolled off the ledge and into the pool beside me, but thankfully, some nightmarish paranoia tensed each of my muscles. I laid there and listened. Nothing.
I stayed completely still for quite a while longer, and once I was reasonably sure that no one was waiting for me just below the surface, I descended with my pack back into the icy waves. I glanced around the wall of my underwater shelter and saw nothing. I did my best to stay hidden and looked in every direction that I could until my hiding spot prevented me from seeing the full dimension of the sea.
I propelled up to the surface, hyper-aware of the stimuli surrounding me. I was stronger but still tired. Judging by the dark, I hadn’t had a full night of sleep to recharge, and I hadn’t eaten yet. I’d need a bigger area to unpack my satchel and set out food without attracting creatures who might want to eat my rations as well.
I was careful again to breach the surface quietly and only with the top of my head. At first, nothing caught my notice. But after a moment, there was a sharp grunt and some snapping. They were close. Whoever it was. I dove back down a short ways and slackened my body so that I could perceive any communication from one of my own. Still nothing, so I surfaced again.
This time, there was breathless talking.
“Rah! Dammit that hurts!” said one angry whisper. It was a voice that I knew and thought I’d never hear again.
More crackles, pops, a squish, and then there was an answer. “Darius, fellow, I know. I can’t wait to be rid of the land and this body.”
That was another familiar voice. The creature who’d delivered resources to me at the inn, Ali. He continued, “You found nothing?”
“No.” Darius grunted as he snapped something into place.
“We must find something. I will track the coast. Perhaps, we can borrow a domesticated shark to track her.There is plenty of blood at the house for her scent.”
“That would be ideal. If only we could just feed her to the beast and be done with this.” Darius said.
�
�Be serious! We need to bring something back to the center.”
“Yes. Hopefully Yeztlu’s mistake will not prevent us from finding her soon.”
“Tlu!” Ali spat, “That imbecile! I wish I could beat him myself for charging in alone last night. If we could have taken them both in at once, there would be no clean up necessary!”
My mind swam with conflicting thoughts. I didn’t even know what they were doing to the humans in the lab, and no one would believe me even if I had something to tell! Why were they so interested in me? And, who was behind this manhunt?
There was no time. I needed to put as many leagues between me and these awful beasts as I could. I waited for just a moment, and when I heard their padding feet leaving the shore, I dove with all of the force in my body. I needed to be deep to avoid anyone seeing me.
As soon as I was satisfied with my placement, I oriented to the south and began swimming fiercely, gliding as if I was an athlete with the strength of a great white. I would not be stalled by these creatures following their orders.
I pushed my body beyond anything that it had ever attempted and swam longer and faster than I ever had before. The thoughts flooding my brain were as harried and urgent as my strokes. Two questions repeated in the fray. How did this happen? And why to us?
I’d faced death repeatedly over the last few hours and so had she. For me. We were in this together, and somehow, I’d brought it down on our heads.
I passed schools of fish, sand crevices, and even a few sharks who I evaded without explanation, but I didn’t see another of my kind. It was a blessing, but I was also terrified that I might be approaching the wrong direction or missing something. Some clue.
I barely stopped to rest, and I could feel the strain throughout the muscles, tendons, and bones of my entire self. Each time I had to stop and sleep, it was out of complete necessity and never choice.
I continued that way, pushing myself to breaking and then barely resting in a haphazard hiding spot. I’m not sure if it was days or weeks like that, but at the time, I would’ve guessed years.
