by R. Lee Smith
He removed his hand from her belly and regarded her. “Is that all?”
She looked back at him helplessly. “I am yours.”
“Mine.” His teeth glinted in the firelight. He touched his brow to hers, smiling against her cheek, where she could feel it.
Pleased with her. Proud of her.
“Surely I was led to you,” he murmured, stroking his hand once down her hair. His short, blunt claws tugged at the snarls that always seemed to be there, no matter how many times she combed it out. “Surely you were meant for me. My Olivia.”
She tried to smile for him. He didn’t see it. She reached up and rubbed at his shoulder instead, and he thrummed softly against her skin. “Are you happy with me?” she asked. It seemed like a far more important question.
“Yes,” he said at once, and nuzzled at her again. “I didn’t think I would be. I had never been so close to a human before that night…that first night.”
He’d never once mentioned that night. Neither had she, she realized. To her surprise, he went on.
“I tried to think of it as a hunt for as long as I could. When we came with the tharo…it was no hunt.”
“Tharo?” she echoed.
He pantomimed pouring something, then rolled away from her. “We put the tharo into the boxes, the humming boxes. It went from there into the air you breathed. So that you would sleep.”
The revelation did not exactly rock her. Olivia could well remember that feeling of syrupy calm as she’d stood out in the rain that night. She’d always known she’d been drugged; she’d never given any thought to how. But yes, okay, it was still July, and High Hill Apartments didn’t come with central air conditioning, and even though the rain that night had brought a welcome dip in the sweltering heat, it had still been oppressively muggy. She could remember coming home from work, mere hours from waking up in the night to a monster, carelessly aware of all the air conditioners sitting in the windows and humming away. Staring up at the cave ceiling, she saw it again, at night this time, as these shadowy creatures crept along the balconies and walkways, pouring glowing liquid into the window units out of wine jugs and pop bottles, and then retreating to the parking lot below to watch the lights go out. Just waiting.
“I did not choose you to be mine when I took you from your room,” he said, looking down at her again. “I chose you because you saw me when we stood together outside. You saw me,” he insisted, and stroked her hair again. “And you were mine. Yes, you make me happy, as much as holding you here in this evil way ever can.”
It was the first time he’d admitted, even obliquely, any wrongdoing in her captivity. It was a real night for firsts.
“I know you wonder why you are here.” He slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked her slowly. “I know when I do this, you think you know the answer. When we couple, I see it shining in your eyes with your tears.”
She reached up and caught his wrist, stilling both the motion and the words at once. “I know you didn’t want to take me,” she said.
He took his hand away. “I am not a bad person.”
“I know.”
He brushed that off like an insect. “You don’t know, but you accept it because I say it is so. I choose to believe that means something.”
Maybe it did. Like the gold buckle on her belt. Maybe everything meant something, if you looked at it close enough.
“But I did want to take you, my Olivia. I won’t lie beside you now and tell you otherwise. Even when I first looked at you and saw you sleeping…” He trailed off and studied her in the dimming light of the coals, then surprised her with a low laugh. “When I first saw you, honestly, I thought you were ugly. You were small, so impossibly frail, and white, like a worm, and slimy, like a frog. You had no fur, except for this,” he added running his fingers through the strands of brown hair that fanned out on the bedding. “Which is pretty but not very practical. But you were so calm, so unafraid.”
So stoned, she thought, but saw no point in saying it.
“Your eyes were the eyes of one with a soul. When you looked at me with those eyes, I knew you would be my mate.” He leaned forward to nuzzle at her, losing none of his rare, wry humor. “Because you looked at me. And saw, I am certain, an ugly beast.”
The comment came with a tone of expectation, which Olivia could not immediately respond to. A part of her was still reeling, wondering if all this mess could have been avoided if only she hadn’t looked him in the eyes as they stood in the parking lot that night. That if she’d only cried, or covered her face, or made her own hysterical and futile run for freedom, maybe his nerve would have failed. She might have woken up back in her bed the next morning, thinking the whole thing was a dream, and just…just forgotten about it.
He was still waiting, watching her, beginning to frown.
“No,” she said finally. “I’d never seen anything like you before. I thought you must be a monster, but even then, you weren’t an ugly monster.”
“No?” He sounded surprised. “And am I…am I less a monster now that I am familiar to you?” He hesitated, then asked, “Am I attractive to you?”
“I think so,” she said at last. “A little. I know that I look forward to seeing you.”
“Do you?” He bent over her, pleased, nuzzling at the hollow of her throat. “I have come to find you very attractive. I have seen others of your kind, and I think you are the best of them. I have seen the females of my kind, and still I want you. When I think your name, I think of water, and how you flow over my hands at night. Olivia, my river,” he whispered, and began to hum.
He moved his hand between her thighs, rubbing her slowly and with exquisite effort, but not (she was sure) with the intention of giving her pleasure. The reaction of her body when his broad thumb occasionally found her clitoris encouraged him to continue his slow massage, but she could see the narrow slits of his nostrils flaring and knew he did it only to saturate his senses with the scent of her musk as her body betrayed her with passion. He rarely touched her during sex except for this, and once he was hard, he positioned himself atop her and drove himself deep inside her. She accepted him with a ragged groan that held more pain than pleasure, and he answered it with a thrumm of intense arousal.
This was a routine she knew, and her responses came to her easily. She arched her neck; he turned his mouth at once and bit at her three times in slow motion, dragging his sharp teeth over her skin without tearing her. She drew her left leg up slightly; he reached back to catch her thigh, tilting her hips to fit himself deeper. His free hand groped for the edge of the pit, bracing himself against the solid rock there so that he could thrust harder. His wings snapped out behind him as his movements became more urgent, suspended above her like a torn umbrella, rustling heavily in the wake he made.
With the exception of the attack, he always took a long time to reach climax, as if penetrating her was as painful and arduous as the act of enfolding him. She had tried many times to bring him quickly to orgasm so the rock-hard bludgeon of his cock could be removed, but he never responded when she moved her hands over his body, except to give her a distracted nuzzle or a half-hearted pat on the hip. It took as long as it took, often as much as an hour to cum on his own, but tonight, as occasionally happened, his size and the friction of his movements coaxed a pleasureless and almost incidental orgasm from her. As always, when she convulsed around him, his movements took on a fevered urgency. He thrust faster, groaning, into her shuddering grip, and came seconds later. His weight settled. His breath, hot and loud against her ear, slowed. A minute or two to recover himself, a final nudge of his snout against her neck to complete the episode, and then he slipped out and lay down beside her.
And now came the part she’d actually grown to like, when he moved up close and encased her in his arms, spreading his wing out over them. Funny. She’d never really been a cuddler, before.
“I will take you before the others tomorrow,” he said again, drowsily now. Sleep always came so qui
ckly to him, especially after sex. “You will speak to them, and when they hear how clever you are, they will snap their teeth at me in envy. They will see you are my mate.”
She lay there, amused, her loins aching with misuse, thinking of which riddles were likeliest to go over well at whatever assembly he thought to parade her before, then asked, “Will you tell me why you captured us?”
“Soon you will know everything,” he mumbled.
“Even your name?”
His reply fuzzed into a snore, and he pressed his face into the nape of her neck and slept. Olivia rested her hand over his arm and shut her eyes, drowsing to the happy thought of humans, real humans.
2
She dreamed that he brought her out of the caverns and into the living room of her apartment. Her parents were there, and most of the people from the office, and other people she didn’t really know: the bag boy from the corner market, the water delivery guy from work, the UPS lady, the landscapers who used to cut the grass at High Hill Apartments. The children from her third-grade class photo was here, dressed in graduation caps and gowns. Her old Girl Scout troupe. Her great-uncle Max, who she’d never even met. So many people.
Olivia dreamed she ran to meet her parents, and they all hugged each other and cooed like pigeons. She turned to thank her captor and he melted like smoke and became Bobby Gibson, who had strung her along for the better part of a year letting her think there could maybe be marriage in their future, before she broke it off and threw him out. Funny, she was happy to see even him.
“Mom, Dad,” she said proudly, “This is my mate. He took me away and now I’m his.”
They cooed over him, patting his arms and welcoming him while Olivia wandered away to see all the other people. There were people in every corner, hiding under lampshades, sitting on the TV, tucked down between the sofa cushions. Her apartment was alive with people!
Olivia threw her hands in the air and laughed and laughed. The faces of strangers peered at her from under chairs, between books in the bookcase, from the tape slot in the VCR, from every crack and crevasse. Human eyes blinked in the plush heads of teddy bears. Human features winked and grinned from the shiny surface of her porcelain dishes. Tiny humans floated in her glass of water, splashing and waving.
Olivia dashed through her apartment, crushing happy humans underfoot. Cockroaches with human heads called to her gleefully; painted humans in the wallpaper followed her in two dimensions; humans crushed up against the windows, pouring themselves in thick, snotty streams through the vent of the air conditioner. Bobby and her parents cooed and patted each other, oblivious. The sound of all their human voices was melting into a single humming sound, the deep mating thrumm that her ears could hardly hear. All the little third-graders were turning into bats, their black caps and gowns turning into wings. They flapped and hummed, but they still had human heads.
Human hands clutched at her from the carpet, pulling her down, petting her and touching her. Their hairless flesh was cold and slimy. She struggled. The Girl Scouts came after, drooling and humming, to feast. Human figures groped and writhed on the walls. Blood and drool in human mouths and the flapping of their wings.
Olivia screamed and screamed and—
Was shaken awake.
She slapped and struggled and clutched at the hands that held her, mindless with terror.
“Olivia!” he boomed, still shaking her.
She opened her eyes and saw him, her monster, his dark eyes huge with panic. For a moment, she lay boneless in his grip, panting and trying to separate dream from reality.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice, and burst into tears. She jumped into his arms, pressing herself into his body, all claws and fur and slabs of muscle, malformed shape and alien heat. She held him as though she were trying to crawl inside his skin, her blunt fingernails digging moons in his thick hide.
He patted her awkwardly, plainly baffled.
“Bad dream,” she whimpered. “Bad dream.”
He took that surprisingly seriously, drawing back to frown at her with a narrow and uneasy eye, but didn’t let go of her. “Can you tell me?” he asked.
She babbled to him, as much as she could remember. He listened and said nothing until she had finished.
“You belonged to another world,” he said then. “A world with a sun, and glass and metal and colored lights, and humans that live in vast hives and build walls all around them. Now you are my Olivia, and there are none of these things here. I have made a new Olivia in my world of night and stone. But you cannot be both.” He said this with great conviction, pulling her off him so that he could meet her eyes. “Your dream is warning you, Olivia. It says, ‘Be in one world.’ You are my mate now.” He searched her face intently, relaxing when she nodded and clutched him again.
“Good, good,” he murmured, laying down again with her trembling body enfolded in his arms. “Come into my dreams, Olivia. It is early to be awake. Come to sleep with me and we will hunt dream-cattle.” He mumbled the last few words and was asleep soon after.
Olivia had quieted the rampant pounding of her heart, but was content to be with him, under his wing, wrapped in his arms. She breathed in his scent and combed his coarse fur and finally, finally, followed him into sleep.
There she dreamed she could fly, and she hunted cows with her nameless captor. There were no more humans, only the open eye and resentful gaze of the woman in the moon.
3
He woke her when he left the pit, and watched in a frowning, distracted manner as she dressed and combed her hair. She tried to smile at him as she put herself in order, wanting him to see that her nightmare was over and done, that she was ready to go out and meet people, but her efforts did not seem to allay his concern.
She didn’t talk to him, afraid that anything she said would come out sounding like either an argument or a plea. She just kept smiling and combing her hair, keeping her eyes fixed to the painted symbols above the bed so that none of her anxiety could betray her. Yes, she was excited, and she wanted to see the other humans and know that they were all safe, or at least, being taken care of the same as she was, but she couldn’t deny a shiver of apprehension at the same time. It was easy to be a captive when it was just her and him; she didn’t know if she could look those other women in the eye—her neighbors, each and every one of them—knowing what they must be going through, knowing that they would know the same about her.
His hand brushed against her unexpectedly. Olivia kept combing, stealing glances now and then, but he was staring at the markings on the wall and not at her.
“Do they mean something?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light.
“Once they did,” he answered, his eyes running restlessly over each intricate and enigmatic line. “But now…I can think of only one who might know what. Now it’s just something we do when a man takes a mate, to welcome her.” He frowned, his horns casting impressive shadows across his grim face. “I was determined that you should be our mates. I suppose, in that light, I should be as determined to bring you out where all the tribe can see you.”
Her heart sinking, Olivia let the comb drop to her lap. “Are you afraid to let the others…your kind…see me?”
“You?” He snapped his wings in what seemed a shrugging, dismissive gesture, still preoccupied with the wall and not looking at her. “No, not you. I should not be afraid to show you to anyone.”
“My kind, then. The other women.”
He didn’t answer right away, but eventually said, “So long as we keep you in our pits, you are like any other goods that we have stolen from humans. The others know that you are here, but they don’t have to think about what you mean. When I bring you out, you will be tribe.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Olivia asked tentatively.
“No,” he said without hesitation and with great conviction. “It is a good thing, a necessary thing. But…the other humans aren’t like you.”
She didn’t have enough words for this convers
ation, and all the words she’d need the most—abducted, slave, prison—she’d never dare to use. Olivia bit at her lip and ventured, “It’s difficult for us.”
“It’s difficult for all of us,” he said curtly. “When you meet with your people, you must make them understand that they are in this world now, and they must learn to be a part of it as you are. They must, because with every night that passes, I can only say less and less to make my people see you differently.”
Olivia could only stare at him.
He growled under his breath, then finally turned around and faced her. That hardness was in him, set like stone just beneath the skin. “I realize that we have done something hateful,” he told her. “But if hate is all there is to see in a human eye, it would be better if no one was able to see it. Speak to your humans. Make them understand. Or this night’s meet will be their last.”
Numbly, she felt herself nodding.
He looked away, that hardness sloughing off as he looked at the symbols above the bed. “Such is my comfort to you,” he said. “These are bad days, Olivia, but I’m doing the best I can.”
And as incredible as it was, with his threat still echoing in her ears, she felt a tiny spark of sympathy go out to him. Faintly appalled by herself, she gave in to it and crept forward to touch his arm. He glanced at her, covered her hand briefly with his own, then stepped back and turned away.
“Finish your preparations,” he said, walking out the door. “I will arrange the meet.”
Alone, Olivia dropped back onto the bench and folded her hands tightly in her lap.
4
Time took on a horrible elasticity with thoughts like those swimming in her mind, but she thought it couldn’t have been more than an hour before he returned. His jaw set with grim determination, he went to the box of candles and brought out the flashlight. He thumbed it on, then off again and held it out to her. Seeing something so banal in the clawed hand of this creature momentarily brought all the dreamlike strangeness rushing back, so that all she could do for several seconds was just stand there and look at him. But she did take it, and when she did, he cupped her chin and touched his brow gently to hers.
