Page 16 of Alien Desire
“No, come.” I show him the dormitory with the cots. It is clear which one is mine. There is a collection of novels stacked at the end of the bed, empty food packaging, and worn clothes littering the floor by my bed.
“Emma’s bed. This is where I sleep.”
“Sleep?” he asks.
“Yes, I’m tired. I’m going to sleep but you don’t have to—”
I halt mid sentence as Tor pulls off his top and climbs into my bed.
“What are you doing?” I gasp.
“Sleep.” He lifts his arm like he’d done when laid out on the floor, signalling for me to curl up beside him. The bed is built for a human, and his calves and feet dangle off the bed, of which his wide torso takes up most of the space. “Emma come.”
“No,” I say, frowning, an expression that he examines. “That’s my bed. Emma’s bed. You can have any of the others.” I sweep my arm in the direction of the other cots. “Tor bed.”
“No.” His tone is stern. “Emma come.”
I step away. “That was just to warm you up,” I lie, knowing it was about companionship and the need for another being’s touch. “You need to sleep in your own bed.”
He purrs at me and my feet move towards him before I know what I’m doing. What the hell? “Stop that.” I grit my teeth. “This is my bed.”
A glimmer of hurt flickers across his face and it makes my stomach sink. I’m almost tempted to relent, but we can’t sleep together like two cats curled up on a bed. I’m a space cadet. It’s ridiculous.
Slowly, he curls up and off the bed and I crawl under the covers. Usually I sleep in just my underthings, the temperature regulation seeming to veer into overdrive in the night time as if to compensate with the plummeting temperatures outside. But tonight I hide under the covers, deciding it best I stay dressed.
He strides across the room, his tail whipping in what must be annoyance and selects a bed. I expect him to climb inside, but instead he lifts it easily and deposits it next to mine.
I roll my eyes. “Seriously?!”
I stare daggers at him but he meets it with a blank expression, and in the end I huff loudly and turn my back towards him.
He disappears after that, back to the computer I assume, so I tell Shelia to turn off the lights and stare at the wall.
Tomorrow, I’ll find him a job to do. I’ve learned in my time on training expeditions and on cramped space voyages that males like him need something to occupy their time. They need something they think is important to inflate their ego and exercise their body.
I’ll find him something that needs repairing tomorrow, and I’ll check the computer. See what he’s been doing to it. I also need to check for messages. Surely by now, after six months stranded, my message will have reached human eyes.
I imagine the message hurtling through space, through webs of communications links, lighting up satellites and connections. I see it speed through the blackness of space, passing the stars I see every night, moving further and further away, travelling faster, skipping between galaxies and finally, finally finding its destination.
The stars glow on my closed eyelids with the strange pattern I know by heart. I think of the way Tor examined them, and once again I wonder where he came from and what brought him here. I have the strangest, fleeting understanding that it was me. It’s such a ridiculous idea that I almost laugh out loud in my bunk.
There is no such thing as fate. Or destiny. Or luck. Bad things happen. Good things happen. It is the chaotic nature of our universe. There is no rhyme or reason to any of it. It is chance that I survived the crash, when the others did not. Chance Tor’s ship crashed here too.
Although, it’s hard to keep believing that and to not take these things personally when they keep happening to you. The loss of my parents and my brother felt deliberate and personal, the beginning of a train of events that have led me to be ruminating in the dark, sharing my temporary home with an alien.
Eventually, I fall asleep. It must be much later I’m woken by him creeping into his bed. He rolls up against me and his strong arm drapes over my waist as he tugs me against his cool body. I could twist away. I could give him a verbal bashing. But I don’t move, observing the way his skin heats against mine, noting how that excitement in my stomach returns. And I stay where I am.
Chapter eight - Tor
The Omega likes to be held. And I find I like to hold her, whether it is the interlinking of our hands, or my body curled around hers. She reminds me of the pet anfyx I once had as a child. Fly, it was called. It liked to follow me about and perch on my lap. I found it mildly irritating, although I could not resist the small thing’s big eyes and obliged him more often than not.
I do not find holding the Omega irritating. In fact, I find it quite the opposite. The sensations it ignites across my skin and deep within my body are new, different and wondrous.
Gryton females do not like to be held. They do not like to be touched. Or as far as I know they don’t. There are plenty of Beta females on our planet, some female Alphas too, but I can only mate with an Omega. And as mating provides the only necessity for touch, despite that of a mother nursing her child, I have never tried or wanted to touch another Gryton, male or female, Alpha, Beta or Omega.
Besides, mating requires the briefest of touch. This need of the Omega’s is not brief, but it is strange, and yes, enjoyable. To be touched, to touch, are sensations I want to repeat over and over. I have had so few touches, such fleeting connections. But each individual one with Emma has brought my body to life.
My hand still tingles with the feeling of Emma’s holding mine. I want to touch more of her soft skin. The place where her waist dips inward, the delicate bone that sweeps across her shoulders, the soft parts of her strange looking feet, her smooth pink lips. I imagine what each of these must feel like to touch. I imagine the sensations it will spark in my body.
