My Enemy's Son (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 2) (9 page)

We stood there staring at him.  Then he
turned to me and took off his dark glasses.  His silver eyes sparkled in the
sunlight.

“Senya?” I asked.

He nodded slightly and opened the door to
the Porsche.

“Don't do anything I wouldn't do and do
everything I would do a lot.”  Caroline kissed my cheek.

“Ok,” I whispered and as if mesmerized, I
walked over and got in the Porsche.

Immediately my cell buzzed as we took off
into the hot Rozarian sky.  There was a text that read,
Leave extended to
all personnel until 1200 Wednesday.
  Today was Saturday.

“Good,” he said though I hadn’t said a
word.  “We shall have plenty of time.”

“For what?” I asked.

“To get reacquainted.” 

He took my hand.  We were flying toward
the coast, to a long stretch of white sandy beach and pink water bordered by
forest.  Immediately surrounding that area was nothing but red dust and clay. 
I turned around in my seat and looked back at the city.  It too was rising out
of the red dust.

“Why is it nice right here but dry and
dusty everywhere else?” I asked as he pointed the Porsche down toward a grassy
meadow.  He parked the speeder and opened the doors.

“This area has been reclaimed,” he
explained, tossing his shoes in the boot.  I took off mine as well and tossed
them in too.

It was hot here but not as hot as in the
city because a breeze blew in off the ocean.  I wished I had brought a bathing
suit.  I wished I had brought a pair of shorts.  All I had was this uniform and
my overnight kit which Caroline had packed.  Of course, it wasn’t like I knew I
was coming here.  Actually, the last thing I remembered before this morning,
was a fire in the engine room and the console dropping on my head.

“Can you see a house here?”

“What?”  I looked around and wondered if I
was missing something besides a bathing suit.  There was no house here.  It
would be a great place to put a house especially because the lawn would slope
down right from here to the beach.

“That is what I thought too,” he said.

“I didn't say anything.”

“You do not need to.”  He shrugged.

“Huh?”  I looked up at his face, at his
dark sunglasses which hid his eyes.  “Are you really Senya?”

He smiled a little.  “I was.  Now I am
called Ron.”  He said this with a bit of laugh as if the name was funny to
him.  “Come.”  He pulled me down toward the beach.  I stepped into the water. 
It was bathtub warm and the sand was like sugar between my toes.  Damn, I wish
I had a bathing suit with me!

“Go on,” he said. “You will like to swim
here.”

Sure, I should take off all my clothes for
him.  I stood in the water getting my trouser legs wet.  Of course, he had seen
me naked before.  How many nights had we actually spent together?  A lot.  Sort
of.  Then again, I didn’t look like I was fourteen anymore.  He hadn’t seen
this version of me.

“Go on,” he said again, staring at me
through those dark sunglasses.

“I'm not sure,” I started to say.  “What
if someone comes along?”

“No one will come.  This is a private
beach.”

“Who does it belong to?”

“You did not read the sign back there?” he
smirked.  “And I thought I was the blind one.”

“What sign?”

“The sign that said 'No trespassing. 
Property of SdK Corporation.'”

“What's that?”

“Go swim,” he replied and retreated back
to the grass.  He sat down, slipped off his t-shirt and lit a cigarette.

“You're not coming in?”

“I do not like swimming.”  He lay back as
if he was going to take a nap.

I quickly undressed to my underwear and
dove into the water.  It was wonderful.  It was warmer than Hawaii and less
salty than the Caribbean.  It was even better than a beach on Cascadia III that
Caroline, Jerry and I had gone to during a shore leave last year.  It was the
most beautiful pink water imaginable.  I paddled around and dove for shells.  I
floated on my back and felt the Rozarian sun burn the water droplets from my
skin.  I felt better than I had in a very long time.  This water was the cure
for months of deep space.  I glanced back at Senya who was still staring at the
sky with a cigarette on his lip.

After paddling around, I stood in the
water and called to him.  “Senya?”

He propped himself up on his elbows and
looked at me.

“How do you know me?”

“That is complicated.”

“Why did you come to stay with me when we
were kids?”

“That is also complicated.”  He breathed a
puff of grey smoke into the air.

I swam around a bit more and then got out
of the water, grabbing my clothes and holding them in front of me.

“Your modesty is safe,” he remarked, drawing
on his cigarette.  “I cannot see you clothed or not.  Come sit here with me.”

“What do you mean you can't see me?”  I
stood in front of him trying to see his eyes through those dark glasses.

“I can recognize your image in a
mathematical way with my magic sunglasses but I cannot see you as you see me.”

“And without your magic sunglasses?”

“I can see you through your thoughts,
through your sounds and scents, through the way the air moves about you.”

“Senya, are you blind?”

“Ay yah.”

“But you just did brain surgery on me
yesterday!”

“That I can do,” he nodded.  “Just don't
ask me if I like your hair color.” 

He handed me his glasses and I put them on
for a moment.  I couldn’t see a thing.  In fact, they completely blacked out
everything.

“Whoa.  You drove that Porsche.”

“Autopilot.”

“You never told me this before.”  I handed
him back the glasses which he set aside.

“It never came up.”  He shrugged and his
silver eyes sparkled.  I stared into them as best as I could.

"You're right.  Your eyes are really
strange.  I don't know how you could possibly see out of them.  I can't believe
I never realized that before."

"I am good at fooling everyone,"
he said and turned his face as if he was watching me as I sat down next to him.

"You are good," I agreed.

A hawk circled overhead and then dove into
the bay, emerging a moment later with a fish.  The wind blew, the trees in the
forest ruffled and the pink water rippled and then crashed ashore as if a boat
far out to sea had sent its wake toward us.  I closed my eyes and consider that
this spot on the red dusty planet of Rozari was about as close to heaven as I
had ever been.

"I am pleased you think this,"
he said though I had never voiced a thought. 

Opening my eyes, I looked him over.  This
was Senya.  Senya, alive and real flesh and blood, lay stretched out on the
lawn next to me.  Caroline was right.  He was totally smoking hot and I felt my
face heat as I thought this, knowing he could probably read it in my mind.  He
was too beautiful to be sitting here with plain old me.  If it wasn’t for
whatever odd twist of time and space had popped him into my bedroom all those
years ago, I was sure I would never have been noticed by him.  He was perfect,
absolutely perfect.  I studied the whole length of him until I got to his feet.

“Ew,” I said.  “You have really ugly
toes.”

He blew out smoke like a dragon.

“I didn't know you smoked either.”

“Have you any more complaints?”

"It's not a complaint.  I just didn't
know you did that.  It's not healthy you know."

He smirked.  "Cigarettes are the
least of my worries.

“What are you worries?”

He didn’t respond.

“Why were you shot so many times?”  I
gazed at the faint scars on chest.  I remembered when these were swollen and
rainbow colored.

“I was a very bad kid,” he replied and
tossed his cigarette into the air where it disappeared.  “Anything else?”

“I thought that was a tattoo.”  I pointed
at his arm.  “But it doesn't look like it in real life.”

“Touch it,” he said and so I did. 

I had to almost straddle him to reach it, which
was maybe why he wanted me to touch it.  The skin was darkened and grooved and
there were ridges in the design.  It was more like a branding.  His skin was
cool where I touched it and sent an electrical current or something like that
through my body. 

He touched my face while I leaned over
him.

“Did it hurt?” I said.  “I mean, when this
was done?”  I was running my finger through the groves while he was very
lightly tracing my face.

“Hell yes,” he replied, touching my lips
with his finger.

“Why did you do it?” I asked, as his
finger drew a line down my chest.  I think I forgot how to breathe and my heart
stopped beating as paralysis started to sink in.  In a moment, I would fall
over dead.

“It wasn't my choice,” he said, unhooking
and removing my wet bra.  He took my breasts in his hands, stroking the nipples
with his thumbs.  My heart kick-started into action and I nearly stroked out. 
I stared at his hands on my skin and considered how fortunate I was that he was
a brain surgeon.

He bent his head toward my nipple.

“Wait!” I screeched and pulled away.

“Wait?  For what?”  He let go of me and I
quickly covered my chest.

“Uh…Uh…let me see your teeth.”

“My teeth?  Why?  I’m not going to bite
you.  Unless you want me to?”

“Please.”

He sighed and lay back in the grass, his
arms crossed on his chest.  I knelt over him and pulled back his lip exposing
his slightly longer than normal, slightly crooked, and sharp incisors.

 “Yep, you are really Senya,” I concluded,
releasing his lip.  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me down on him,
kissing me hard and pulling off my panties at the same time.

"Wait!" I cried again and pushed
off of him.  "I'm not ready for this.  I hardly know you."

Now, he made a groaning noise and released
me again.  "You want to talk more?"  His eyes flashed so bright for a
moment, they nearly blinded me.

"No."  I twisted like a pretzel
to cover myself forgetting that he couldn’t see me anyway.  "It's just
that...well, I mean, it's been a really long time and you kind of weren't
really there and this is all very sudden and...and I'm not sure I'm not just
hallucinating this whole thing!"

He made another groaning noise.

"I did just have brain surgery and a
concussion and all that.  Maybe I'm psychotic.  Maybe I've been psychotic for
years because of all that Vicodin I took when I broke my leg when I was nine.  I
mean, who would believe that a boy from Rozari with silver eyes and strange
powers would come to my bedroom back on Earth and sleep in my bed and...and…"

"Katie," he sighed.

"What?"

"Perhaps we should get dressed and go
back to the city and have some coffee.  Yes?  Is that what you would
like?"

"No.  Why?"

"You are not ready for anything
more.  I will take you back to the spacebase and tomorrow, maybe we will go out
for dinner."  He pulled out his cell.  "I will check my
calendar."

"Oh."

"Why are you disappointed?  You do
not remember me.  You do not understand who I am.  You are not ready to make
love with me so we will go have dates first."

“Oh.”  I looked at his flat stomach and
the thin line of black hair that led downward.  I put my hand there, on his
belly, in the fine hairs.  This was Senya, I told myself.  His skin was warm
here beneath my hand.  I could feel his pulse.  He felt real.

"Senya."  I swallowed hard. 

I wanted him.  I wanted him like I had
never wanted anyone before, and I didn’t want to go to coffee or dinner.  I
wanted to have dinner with him every night and coffee in bed with him every
morning for the rest of my life. 

His eyes were closed, his face tipped to
the sun.  I unbuttoned the top button on his jeans and cautiously slipped my
hand a little lower.  He opened his eyes and that strange silver light shone in
my face.  He took my adventurous hand and kissed it.  Inexplicably, I started
to cry.

"You're real.  You're really
real."

"Don't cry, Milaka."  He kissed
my tears and then laid me back in the grass.

"I've been searching for you
forever."

"I know, Milaka MaKani.  You found
me." He kissed my neck, my shoulders, and each of my breasts.  He kissed
my belly and ran his tongue across my inner thighs.

I gasped.  "Oh! What are you doing?”

"Shall I stop?  Shall we get coffee
instead?"

"Uh...no."

"I thought not," he laughed. 
Caroline was right.  In short order, he did make me sing an aria.