Lost in Amber

by Esther Rabbit

  Instinct was not supposed to dictate over logic but, then again, that might just be another one of her superpowers. He’d never wanted someone so…violently. There was a little inner fight with every button he released from the buttonholes of her loose shirt starting from the last in line.

  No room for words, yet she wondered why he seemed to be contemplating every button after she had sent his shirt and waistcoat flying in what she calculated as half a second. He sent her freckles ablaze as his lips made a run for her neck, melting into her flesh, making her moan. Staring into her eyes made him feel guilty—guilty of being fully aware that she was now exposed under his touch except for her pink bikini briefs. Her hands were everywhere. He skipped a beat, straddling her in a swift move while cuffing her arms with a hand above the head, taking her again into the warmth of his mouth.

  He whispered in a delirious state, heart thumping hard, “You’re using all your weapons and I am very, very attracted to you, Zoey.” Jasper was losing grip and she knew it—it was hard resisting her grin, even harder not diving into her lips again. “I surrender.” He set her hands free, resting on his elbows on top of her, keeping his mouth only millimeters away. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t about your ex anymore.” A devilish grin escaped his mouth.

  What? “About James?” Dammit! She couldn’t believe her ears. “This is what is eating at you? You said what happened between us was a mistake!” This was not a conversation you should have with a half-naked person on top of you.

  “According to the Alliance, it is!”

  “Holy crap, you told them about the kiss?” Air, I need air!

  He spoke before she entirely freaked out. “I didn’t. But it doesn’t feel like a mistake to me. It never did. I…I think I might have some conflicting feelings.”

  “And I think this position puts me at a disadvantage for this conversation.”

  “No,” he said abruptly.

  “What do you mean no?!” This was too much for any topless woman to handle. For the first time, she felt exposed.

  “I want to apologize. Humans do try to overcome breakups by seeking comfort in someone new to help the healing process, so what you said makes sense…I just don’t understand why you reacted to me, you told me you felt it…the beaming between your collarbones.”

  “I did.” She rested her fingers at the hollow of her neck.

  “Zoey, I felt you, I…wanted all of you. I still do, but not like that.”

  Speechless. If the word had a face under the definition, it would certainly be hers. It took a moment to regain herself. “It’s never been about James, or rebounds for that matter. I thought reading my charts might give you clarity—it’s what this darn thing does, right?” She lifted her wrist, flashing the kalenium.

  “I never tapped into your emotions. Partly because I was trying to give you privacy, partly because I didn’t want to be disappointed.” He half smiled, not really able to read her.

  “Do it.” She knew well enough that he needed reassurance and suspected showing this kind of vulnerability had to be less than dignifying for Jasper.

  He rolled to her side, tapping into his watch.

  A Christmas-morning look took over his face and it was hard to stop staring—but she had to button up to half-decency for the occasion, the graphs and charts and symbols she couldn’t understand. She saw him smirk.

  “What does it say?”

  He was all teeth. “Everything!” It was hard not finding infatuation in the symmetry of her lips as she leaned to reach his.

  γ

  Lilou hopped onto her bed, eager to watch yet another episode of Friends. She rocked at deciphering humans, thanks to Google and Netflix. When she wasn’t training she was educating herself on human interaction, social acceptance, and diseases of the twenty-first century. Simultaneously watching all popular series from the ’90s up to date was the secret behind mastering communication and dealing with her new recruits. A good soldier had to find the right means, and she was no less than smug at her findings. Humans were ambivalent. They changed far more with age than optans, their bodies degenerating faster and most of the time their lives terminated eroded by disease—yet none thought about death.

  They had the power not to be consumed by the thought. Entertainment was watching shows about other humans, stimulating their curiosity, anger, admiration. Only a small percentage of humans actually lived for the real happenings of their world, most of them fully submerged in a fantasy realm of their own creation.

  Initially frustrating for Lilou, she was now hooked on TV shows—not on the plot, but on the way humans chose to select their angles and make decisions which would determine a certain outcome—mostly positive—which heavily contradicted the same actions in real life, all while eating popcorn.

  Mind-blowing.

  And they were fine not knowing the status of their health at all times, not knowing their career paths from an early age, not knowing beforehand the type of traits that would ensure romantic compatibility in the long run. Life was but a chain of surprises and self-discovery till they most likely died an awful, painful death—but they still procreated. They loved the surprise factor and gifted surprise in return.

  She became a soldier at the age of nineteen, and she was one of the few who excelled in combat as well as in strategy. How could you not find motivation in the challenge of ensuring the life of a planet? In getting to experience firsthand how other species lived, developed, and approached life? It was fascinating, and working on missions in five different galaxies had made her an asset to the Alliance. It’s why she was chosen to help both Jasper and Alex adjust, and she did just that, hoping to wash some of the shame Etienne hung on her name. She was the one who had chosen him as a perfect fit for planet Earth even though his skillset was far from perfect. Integrating was a crucial part of figuring out who you were fighting for, creating a parallel in developments and traits—she helped optans with their transitions and Etienne was the only stain in her otherwise spotless career.

  Take Alex, for example—his precision and angle assessment were second to none, yet he struggled with the idea of changing his diet to something non-lab-grown. Eating meat that came from an actual animal, vegetables that had been exposed to all sorts of insects made his stomach turn. Humans didn’t bother thinking beyond the dish they ordered at a restaurant or the fruit they snatched at the local market. Unlike herself, Alex was what humans so gracefully called a hermit—working behind the desk on his planet was not lone enough and he made it known from day one. He relished his private time at work as in his assigned room—wherever that was. But she got him to talk. She of all beings avoided his whole system shutting down at the thought of welcoming rescued Rufus into their office in Geneva—and what an ego boost that had been for Lilou.

  She loved planet Earth, she loved how every country was so culturally rich and different, the coffee, the food, and most definitely the unique and peculiar things humans did for each other. It was hard not to perceive her as a very integrated optan given the fact that she fell asleep in front of her TV every night surrounded by chocolate wrappers and popcorn brazenly sprinkled all over her duvet.

  γ

  Morning came early for Sam.

  5 a.m. was in fact the best time for squats and crunches, and this particular human was not about to give up in the slightest, whatever today brought on. She smiled to herself, acknowledging the fact that when this was all done and over with, her memory of it all would be too.

  It took a Viking’s effort to pull the rug from under her bed to use as an exercise mat, but she nailed it. The secret to her determination was not taking anything too seriously. Like the aliens. Alright, everyone secretly knew they existed—but learning from them and studying them was something not many could brag about, even if it meant working alongside one particular optan she found less than appealing.

  She smiled to herself, thinking of her dad and how he’d make a man out of Alex, forcing him to skin a few hares and have a few
ground-picked apples from his backyard. She missed Vince dearly. What was he living on now that she couldn’t sneak him gourmet meals from The D.C.?

  Who could forget the twist in his mustache when she introduced him to molecular gastronomy. For a man whose favorite food came from the depths of the forest, transparent ravioli had turned his face into a horror poem.

  She wiped the dripping sweat off her forehead and pulled her workout shorts lower on her legs. A future in which Vince could still find comfort was a future worth fighting for, a future where she’d be back to bickering with Chef Miguel over wasting white truffles and twenty-four karat gold leaf on pizza.

  Since over here she couldn’t boss anyone around, she had no alternative but push herself forward, hoping that sometime soon she’d get back to her father’s loving arms and Miguel’s sharp tongue.

  Her efforts came to a halt as her watch lit up for the very first time.

  “Um…yes?”

  “It’s Mia, I thought you might be awake. I need your advice on something. Care for a swim?”

  “Amen, sister! Where are you?” Sam reached for a towel to wipe her face.

  “Swimming pool, but I wasn’t sure you remembered how to get here. Should I come pick you up?”

  “I’ll be there in five!”

  γ

  Zoey spent the last twenty minutes staring at sound-asleep, puffy-eyed Jasper, whose lips were slightly curled up, carving a small dimple on his left cheek. Quirky as he was, she embraced what he made her feel, the tingle every time they touched, the way he looked at her when no one else was looking, the way he sneaked in her bedroom after dinner and demanded a proper date on her floor. He brought what looked like a tablecloth, two glasses of wine filled to the brim with hot tea, and all the fruit his hands could grab. Seeing him getting everything ready was not for the faint of heart—it took a lot of lip biting to prevent Zoey from bursting out into uncontrollable laughter.

  The effort he took in getting to know her was endearing—the unexpected questions, his outlandish smile as he tried to figure out the logic behind why she loved apples and hated bananas, and almost irrational fear as he asked about her intolerances and allergies. Senseless attraction aside, they spent an entire night on the floor exchanging life stories like two foreign students in a language neither spoke well enough to understand the nuances, yet caught the very essence of it all.

  “What are you thinking about?” He caught her red-handed in her daydream slumber.

  “I was torn between wanting to brush my teeth and not wanting to wake you up.” She flashed a knowing smile. Damn that perfect naked torso nearly poking at her eyes as he stretched. There wasn’t a single strand of body hair on him and for the first time, she actually felt a little jealous. Naturally perfect—no waxing, no laser, no razor, no headache.

  “Um…go! I’ll come back after I brush my teeth,” he announced and vanished in a split second, giving her time to hop off the bed and into the bathroom. The mirror reflected a dumbstruck face and hair fit for a cavewoman.

  Nice.

  It was hard not feeling fifteen—the rosy cheeks, the sneaking around, the torturing feeling that she was doing something forbidden. Emma would probably tell her to come to her senses and play it smart, Sam would probably ask one too many dirty questions, but this…this selfishly felt just right and she’d not dwell on it a second longer.

  “You know, I seem to have a habit catching you with a toothbrush in your mouth.” He popped back up behind her as she took a mouthful of mouthwash.

  “I have to shower.” She turned around to see him step forward to engulf her from behind, propping his arms on the vanity with his mouth so close to her ear she could feel him smiling.

  His beam nearly lit up the bathroom. “Let’s!”

  “Jasper, this is a tub, not a shower, and…”

  He cut her short. “We’ve seen each other topless already, what’s the big deal?” He stripped down to his briefs already and launched himself to fiddle with the faucets, holding a finger under the running water until he mastered the right temperature.

  She stood there, puzzled, wondering whether he was being serious about it until she saw water droplets invading the bathroom in a gravity-defying dance.

  Telekinesis—of course she had googled it in the privacy of her bathroom the night Jasper made her stationery defy the laws of physics. What Google had absolutely no insight on was how mind-boggling it looked in practice, the water coming to life weightlessly under her eyes, invading, gushing out of the tub like the work of magic.

  She caught his eye seeing him making his way through to meet her lips, her mouth opening to him instinctively as if holding the memory of his lips. Breathing ceased for a fraction in their impetuous collision. There was perfect harmony in the way the droplets surrounded them, sending ripples down Zoey’s skin as he scooped her up without releasing her lips until they were both standing up in the tub.

  They just stared at each other for that split second.

  If ever there was a moment in time she never wanted to remove herself from, this was it—spiraling water spheres cocooning them like a crystal curtain in their slow-motion sway, dribbling from his shoulders down to his chest. It was like seeing Michelangelo’s David in the flesh, every speck of light falling to perfection on his sculpted torso as he pulled her into another kiss, sinking his lips in harder, faster.

  This might have been a fight she didn’t want to win, surrendering to the way his lips twisted every time he tried to hold a chuckle—as if she could feel his heart—as if she could hear a cello accompanying the wizardry of his fingers playing their trickiest, soaking their bodies until there was no fragment of fabric unstained—and just this once, she let him win and claim his prize with both hands. He kneeled in the tub, eyes glued on hers, and kissed his way up from above her knee, pressing silent lips on slippery skin, wrapping his fingers around her thighs and sliding them up, lifting her drenched nightshirt only to brush his lips against her hip bone.

  There was nothing to grab onto so she tried to steady herself on her feet, caught in the struggle of feeling self-conscious or surrendering to the warmth of his touch.

  She let him win as she pulled her nightshirt over her head, swallowing hard as she felt warm water pouring on her back and his lips making their way up to her ribs, sliding on her chest and burying ardently in the hollow of her neck.

  There was no doubt he was the beautiful unknown, utterly disarming.

  What she didn’t know was that he was second-guessing his every move, checking her eyes for approval with every step further, questioning his logic every time he rebelled against it.

  She won.

  She won every battle against the rationality that should have kept him grounded, against the training he’d received and oath he’d sworn prior to his departure from Opt. She won it all and kept winning, launching herself shamelessly at his lips, knowing they’d abandon themselves to the complexity of everything she was, completely undisturbed by his kalenium vibrating frantically around his wrist.

  γ

  “You didn’t tell me they made you half mermaid too!” Sam grabbed on to the pool’s handrail, pulling her body out in exhaustion. Goosebumps covered her flesh as she reached for a towel and threw it over herself like a circus tent.

  Mia followed her steps and towel-on-head routine as she took a seat next to Sam on the lounge chair. “They made me into a lot of things I didn’t ask for.” She shrugged, displaying a shy smile. “Water?” She handed her a bottle.

  Sam shook her head, curious to ask questions of her own. “So what was keeping you up?” She watched as Mia’s toes turned to face each other hesitantly.

  “I’m going to get Rufus, Sam! I needed to tell you this personally, wash off some of the guilt…” She turned to look at Sam with stony blue eyes. She was dead serious.

  “You think I’m not good at reading suicide notes?!” A raised an eyebrow followed. “Where’s the girl power now?”

  Mia sighed
, defeated by the wait that kept tangling her thoughts and creasing her forehead in concern. “I’m not good at comfortable anymore, Sam. I didn’t come here to have chicken casserole and more unanswered questions! I’m the best chance at getting Rufus and everyone knows it—they just somehow hope they’ll be there to protect me, and I can’t have that! I can end this!”

  “Or it can end you!”

  She sighed, brushing a hand over her inked forearm. “Tell me something, Sam, if none of this had ever happened, where would you be right now?”

  The question rang in her head like a rude awakening. She wouldn’t sign her autograph with the car key on Carlos’s high-strung Tesla nor scour her house in an ex-boyfriend cleanse. She’d most likely be found on that too-brown, too-worn-out couch her dad made a statement of in his living room, watching him line up the latest bait for finesse fishing and hearing him brag about the versatility of Berkley Juke against the River2Sea Whopper Plopper.

  She bit her lip. “Think ahead, Mia. You have the chance to make things right, you’re not alone anymore! I want to help make the world a safe place for my dad. I’ll die trying if I have to.”

  Mia rose, pushing the towel aside, and turned to face Sam. “I need to show you something.” In a quick move, she pulled her swimsuit down to reveal her naked torso, hearing Sam gasp aloud. It was a sight that couldn’t be ignored. Sam had seen the blunt wounds scarring her legs and neck in patches that looked like they’d never been stitched nor treated properly. What she didn’t know was how far they extended, almost like badges of shame covered by ink clocks in all shapes. The jagged lines ran deep, disfiguring her breasts as they morphed into skin.

  Sam fought against the instinct to cover her mouth.

  “Etienne,” Mia said, pointing to a deep scar on her stomach. “Beck.” She traced her fingers on the numerous reminders. “Beck, Beck, Beck.” Her eyes pierced as the finger stopped at her mutilated breast. “He did this to me right after Rufus escaped. I was raped, Sam. He bit off a part of my breast and spat it out.” Her voice echoed through the silence. It was too much for Sam. She bit her trembling lip as she could no longer hold back the tears.