We settle onto his strange-looking sofa, my…

13

Naomi

We settle onto his strange-looking sofa, my head resting against his chest. It feels weird to be so intimate with a man I’ve just met, but I keep reminding myself that he’s my space mate and that I can’t go anywhere but here.

His hands are running down my back, tracing little massage trails up and down my spinal muscles. He kneads my sore muscles with his strong hands, his fingers working me into a state of peaceful sedation.

“When I was a boy, I had a beautiful Mother,” Marv says. “She was one of the last to die from the Strange Illness that killed all the females. I remember watching my Father rub her back like this, when her body ached.”

I let myself relax and try to take in the sensations. The soft lub-dub of his heartbeat, which sounded surprisingly similar to a human heart. The soft fuzz on his chest feels warm against my face.

“What was she like?” I ask.

“She was kind. Strong. She used to take my sister and I-”

His voice suddenly stops. Almost like he had forgotten something incredibly painful. I glance up at him, seeing the frozen look in his eyes. I know that look. It’s the one that drove me to get stupid drunk last night.

I reach up and touch his face, just as his memory washes through me.

“Marv, hurry up!” Mother called. She was carrying a large basket of sea veggies, and my little sister ran at her feet.

My sister. Julee.

“Carry me, Marv,” Julee begged.

I reached down and picked her up, her little lavender face tired from the long walk.

“I don’t feel so good,” she whispered.

“Mother, I don’t like this,” I said loudly. Julee felt like dead weight in my arms. “We need to hurry.”

Suddenly, my slow feet broke into a sprint. Mother dropped the basket of sea veggies, and we ran as fast as we could, Julee faint in my arms.

When we got to the infirmary, it was too late. Julee was already gone.

“How?” I whispered.

“There’s a sickness,” Mother confided in me. “The females are dying, and we don’t know why.”

“I can’t lose her,” I cried. “And I can’t lose you.”

I blink all of a sudden and sit up. Marv is crying, but I don’t think he realizes that he has tears streaming down his cheeks.

“You had a sister?” I whisper.

“Julee,” he answers, but I already know. Our eyes meet. “You saw that?”

I nod. “I did.”

“She was so little. Almost five. We were gathering food for her party.”

“Her party?”

“My people are simple. We used to have parties when the little ones were big enough to go to school. Julee was finally old enough, but our planet was on quarantine.”

I wipe away his tears automatically with my hand. “Quarantine?” I ask, to keep him talking. The look on his face is so far away. So, lost.

“There was something, but we didn’t know. Was it in the water? The air? The food? We never figured it out.”

“And that something took the females?”

He nods.

“What makes you so certain that it’s safe to bring me? To bring other humans?”

To this, he peers directly into my eyes. “Queen Abigail, in V’aalara. Apparently, she’s been there for many years, and nothing has happened. She recently had twins.”

“Twins?” I ask. Half human, half alien. I mean, I totally understand that they’re bringing females here to repopulate. Or to just have sex with. Or whatever.

But twins?

“Julee was beautiful,” I murmur, not ready to digest the fact that I could have multiple babies at once.

Were they like mammals that had litters? Would he impregnate me with multiple babies?

I try to keep a straight face, but he must see the panic in my eyes. “What is it?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

He peers at me with such a sense of sadness that I almost give in and tell him my rambling thoughts. But.

I don’t want him to cry again. I also don’t want to admit to myself that I am feeling something for him. Compassion? I don’t know. But his little sister was beautiful.

Lavender skin. Long red hair. Little purplish freckles on her face. Bright green eyes.

Would our babies look like that?

Did I want to have his babies?

“I know what we could do,” I finally mumble. I shift my body on top of his and let the robe fall to the ground. His enormous erection finds me immediately, and I sink down onto him with a quiet gasp.

His cock is ready and his hips buck underneath me.

I touch my hand to his chest as I sit upright on him. ‘Take me, my Love,’ he whispers into my mind.

And this time, I don’t get upset. We might not have forgetting juice, but we can have some amazing forgetting sex.

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