Raven’s smile faded.
Kane ejected the emptied gland and returned his harvester to his pack. He slung it over his shoulder, freeing his hands to fasten himself back up. “We need to get going before I get hot.”
This was Raven’s cue to search the body, but she didn’t do it immediately. She did bend at last, coming away with the groundcar’s keys and more of the green paper the humans used for money, but then she paused again. Her expression was fetchingly cautious.
Kane laughed, slinging the dead human out of the groundcar’s turning arc. “What is it, Raven? Are you afraid you hurt my feelings?”
“Did I?” she asked, surprising him with her every appearance of sincerity.
“No.” He went to her, searching her face curiously for the meaning behind this strange line of questioning. “Were you trying to?”
“It’s an insult here.”
“What is?”
“To say a guy’s gay when he isn’t.”
Kane left aside the incomprehensibility of that premise to pursue the greater point as he saw it. “Is that what you said?”
“No.” She thought about it, visibly searching her memories. “No,” she said again, with more confidence. “But—”
His hand slipped out beneath her skirt and cupped her sex, mindful of her piercings. “But what?” he murmured.
She sucked in breath and looked at him shakily. “That hurts.”
“Mm hm.” He eased his finger past her steel-ringed folds and inside her. “Go on.”
She didn’t. She stared straight ahead, her muscles locked, as he worked his hand carefully at and in her. It wasn’t long before he’d drawn moisture from her unwilling body, and her face betrayed it with an unhappy wince. “I wish you wouldn’t,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “I’m sure you do,” he agreed. “But not all of you. Some part of you wants me to do this. Mm,
feel
how it wants me to do this!” He showed her his teeth and she flinched and looked away. “Now, I ask you. Is this the work of a man who fucks men?”
She shook her head, her jaw tight.
Kane stroked at her, tickling at that tender place of pleasure. He watched, smiling thinly, as she fought not to feel…fought and failed. She mewled once, her face twisting, and came, writhing slow on his hand. He kept her high, prolonging her climax and her misery, and finally took his hand away and let her slump against the side of the car.
He wiped himself clean on her skirt and gave her hip a pat. “Does that settle your mind, Raven?”
She nodded, her eyes shut tight.
“Good. I don’t usually bother to enlighten the humans around me on the subject of my sexual preferences. You’re lucky I like you so much.” He cast an eye upwards, measuring the hours left in the day. “Enough talk, Raven. Let’s get moving.”
D
aria came up slowly out of sleep, which was not her customary way of wakening. Usually, she had the covers thrown back and was halfway to the shower less than a minute after her eyes snapped open, but not today. Today, it was a slow, rolling catlike stretch that brought her almost writhing through her tangled sheets, feeling sleepy and sexy and very relaxed. She could remember nothing of her dreams, but there was a warm glow throughout her entire body. She ran her hands lazily down her breasts, over her belly and between her thighs. Her panties were sopping. It must have been a
good
dream.
She rolled over and fumbled with the little clock by her bed until she had turned it toward her. 9:47. Christ. Her alien was probably starving.
Assuming he was still here.
She closed her eyes, all her good feelings gone in the blink of an eye…or the slap of a hand. She sat up, feeling sick and sad and angry with herself, and then kicked off her sheets and stared at the wall. On the other side (well, with a closet and a bathroom in the way), was the den where Tagen might still be sleeping. Maybe with her handprint still on his face. She couldn’t believe she’d hit him. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t hit her back.
Daria got up, slid into a t-shirt and got an armload of clean clothes for after her shower. There was a damp towel hanging on the rod here, but not too damp. He’d been up in the night. She put it in the hamper and fetched out a clean one for herself, and after a moment’s thought, another clean one for him. Having another person in the house changed so many little things in so many unexpected places.
Clean, dried, hair and teeth brushed, dressed. Still no sound from the den. He might already be downstairs.
She did not see Tagen in his customary place at the table. She did see four glasses beside the sink, as well as two empty ice cube trays and an empty carton of orange juice, one she hadn’t even had the chance to taste. She cleaned this up, looking awkwardly at the ceiling, listening for him. She heard nothing.
She brought in the paper, fed the cat, sat and read the news front page to last (even the sports section). When she was done, she found she could not remember anything she had just read. She worked on the daily crossword for a bit, in pen, to punish herself, and eventually inked herself into a corner of dismal failure. Scraping the entire paper into a pile, Daria rose and set about making breakfast. A good breakfast.
Over the sounds of sausage sputtering, her ears at last detected a creaking of quiet feet in the room that Tagen had claimed, but he did not appear. Daria loaded two plates with sausage, eggs, and French toast, tossed some syrup and oranges into a bag along with a carton of milk, and carried the whole mess upstairs.
She hovered outside his door, listening to him listen to her, and finally cleared her throat and ventured, “Knock knock.”
“Good morning.”
Was it her imagination or did he hesitate before answering her?
“Can I come in? I brought food.” She chewed her lip as he met that with silence. “Are you still mad at me?”
“Some.”
Honesty could be a harsh thing. Daria felt her heart sinking and her eyes sting. She started to lean over and set his plate on the floor, but heard his footsteps a short instant before his door opened.
Daria straightened, but he still towered over her, one hand gripping the door and the other flat on the wall. He seemed to fill her field of vision, to overflow it, all broad, smooth chest and rippling musculature, narrowing down into the waist of his dark pants. His black hair was limp and damp, and plastered to his body in web-thin strands. His feet were bare, the claws digging at the carpet as if he struggled for balance. He was glowing with a thin sheen of sweat already; she could smell it in the air, a smell of heady, mineral musk.
He looked awful.
“I made you breakfast,” she said, and showed him.
“Thank you,” he said gravely, and held out one hand.
She passed his plate over, clutched her own with both hands and looked up into his golden eyes. “Can I come in?”
Again, there was a hesitation, scarcely noticeable but there, but finally he moved back and gave her room to enter.
The fold-out sofa was a heap of sheets and rumpled bedding, strangely incongruous in the otherwise immaculate room. His clothing was neatly folded in three distinct stacks atop three boxes along the wall—one for Dan’s old shirts, one for his old pants, and one for Tagen’s own uniform. He had cleaned off the desk for his own use, his machinery meticulously and efficiently arranged. He had found a trio of postcards she didn’t remember ever receiving—Oregon scenery in all its glory, one ocean, one forest, and one waterfall—and had pinned them to the wall in a perfectly-aligned row above the desk. All the random junk and little knick-knacks that had lined her wall and covered every surface was gone, presumably into one of the many plastic storage tubs stacked at the far side of the room.
Daria was amazed and a little unsettled to realize that this room no longer felt like it belonged in her house. There was nothing of her personality left in here, and in its place, there were bits and pieces of another life.
Tagen moved some of his devices to one side of the desk and held out a chair for her. When she took it, he backed up a pace and sat on the edge of the bed. He balanced his breakfast on his knees and looked at her.
She set out the syrup and milk and the small stack of oranges, avoiding his eyes. “I forgot glasses, but we can both drink from the carton, I guess. You don’t have anything catching, do you?”
She meant it as a joke.
He said, “No. I monitor my condition very closely off-world.”
“I don’t have cooties, either,” she offered.
“No. I scanned you when first we met and inoculated you against such things as your kind succumbs to.”
“You what?” she gasped, and if she hadn’t just put her plate on the top of a box, she’d have dropped it.
He looked up sharply. “This offends you?”
“Well…no. It was a smart thing to do.” But somewhere deep down, it did offend her. It offended her very damn much to think of him injecting alien microbes or whatever into her blood while she was insensible.
‘Be reasonable,’ she told herself sternly. ‘Remember what happened to the Indians when Spain showed up? Can you imagine what would happen if you caught the Jotan version of the flu? Polio? Ebola, for Christ’s sake?’
“A very smart thing to do,” she said again, and meant it this time. After a second, she asked, “Did I have anything?”
“No. Not the way you mean it. But it would not matter if you had. Humans are very easily cleansed of most ailments. As for danger to myself, there are very few diseases which can cross between our kinds, and all are borne by the blood or…other such fluids.”
For some reason, his expression darkened as he said this last, and he glared at his eggs for a long, tense moment before stabbing at and eating one.
Silence again. She tried to think of a way to fill it.
“The room looks nice.”
“It is very comfortable. Thank you.”
There was a clock in here somewhere. She could hear it ticking.
“Tagen,” she said timidly. “Are you all right? Listen, if I said something…Okay, there’s not really a whole lot of ‘if’ in that. I know I said things and I’m sorry…I’m really sorry I hit you. I never should have hit you.”
“I provoked you and I knew it.” He ate another egg without looking at her.
“Yeah, well, of the two of us, I think I’m still holding the title of Head Provoker and we both know it. Listen…I’m coping with this the best way I can, and I know I’m being a bitch, but I can’t help it. I’m sorry.”
“It is going to be hot today,” he muttered, and his scowl deepened.
Daria pushed a neat square of battered bread through a lake of maple syrup.
“You have said nothing I cannot endure,” Tagen stated at last.
“I don’t want you to
endure
me,” she blurted, and felt herself blush when he looked strangely at her. “I want to be your friend.”
Tagen frowned, his eyes narrow with silent suspicion, and she had a feeling he was having trouble with his translation. She couldn’t blame him. She knew she’d been anything but friendly.
“I know you didn’t even want a partner,” Daria admitted. “And if you’d had a choice, you wouldn’t have picked me anyway.”
He did not interrupt with hurried objections. He was still and silent.
Daria sat staring at her French toast, blinking her eyes dry. She was afraid to speak and betray herself with tears, afraid to remain silent and leave him with just that said. She picked at a miniscule chunk of sausage, forced it down her dry throat, and set her plate aside.
“But I’m what you’ve got,” she said, staring at her knees. “And I’d rather be your friend than just your human host. I’m not very nice and I’m not much to look at, but…having you here has made me realize that…that I’m lonely, Tagen. I haven’t had a friend in a long time…and…” She risked an upward glance.
Tagen had turned away from her, his jaw clenched and eyes glowering, unblinking, at the back cushions of his fold-out bed.
Daria dropped her eyes back to her lap and concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even. She heard him sigh and saw his huge, three-fingered hand drop over her knee and squeeze lightly. She looked up into his falcon’s eyes; they were distant, troubled.
“I doubt,” he said gravely, “that you would have chosen me to be here with you, but I think that you are good for me. I am becoming…accustomed to you.” His jaw clenched several times as he stared at her. “I do not know the bad thing that happened to you,” he said, and his grip on her tightened slightly when she tried to pull back, startled. “But it is plain that it did happen. And yes, you are coping with this the best way that you can, and in the best way I could expect. I understand what it must mean to you, that you offer yourself to be my friend.”
He stopped there, his hand still heavy on her knee, and looked darkly at the window, all blue sky and bright sunlight. “But it is hot. I am not at my best, and you must endure that. If you cannot, tell me now.”
She tried to laugh for him a little, taken dramatically aback by the seriousness in his voice. “You sound so…grim about it. I only want to be friends, I’m not going to bed with you.”
Tagen’s eyes almost closed in an expression that was very nearly a wince, and his claws pricked slightly at her thigh in a quick, involuntary-seeming squeeze. One side of his mouth turned up in a tired smile, and he patted her once and then drew back and addressed himself to the remains of his breakfast.
That was too abrupt. She’d insulted him. He was doing his best with the language, why did she have to jump all over him every time he got lost in translation? She wanted to apologize, but you could only do that so many times in one sitting. She picked up her plate instead, and pretended to have regained her appetite.
“So…now that we’re friends…” Daria applied more syrup to her last bite of egg. “What’s the plan for today?”
He growled quietly. “There must be a way to track unnatural death over a great distance, or to separate out the count of death in which the cause is known. Perhaps, if this is done, I will see some pattern.”