Page 8 of Alien Desire
Eyes to see light. Ears to hear sound. Mouth to take sustenance.
With a trembling hand, I reach out with my fingertips and touch the creature’s cheek. It is icy cold but although it appears rough, silky smooth. Once again I jerk away as my touch causes its eyelids to flutter as if it is dreaming.
I’m wasting time on fear here. I need to pull myself together and help this creature like I would a human.
Kneeling up a little straighter, I unbind the peculiar fastenings of the space suit, now understanding why I do not recognise the strange material or markings, peeling it open like an orange to reveal the body dressed in a skin-tight suit of what could almost be lycra but isn’t.
The creature has a torso like mine, two arms with hands, two legs with feet. We are the same, yet different. The skin is more hide than flesh with that same colourless hue and the hands are large with long fingers, four knuckles instead of my three. The feet are webbed and there is a tail curled around the left leg, thick at its base and slim at its flailed point.
The creature has broad shoulders and narrow hips — the shape of a human male — and through the tight material I can see he is strong and muscular. And tall, almost seven foot I estimate. No wonder I struggled to drag him to my vehicle.
Below what appears to be the creature’s ribs, the material of his suit is ripped and congealed with a deep purple substance. Blood? It is seeping from the wound.
Quickly, I open the medical bag and rifle through it for scissors, cutting away the upper half of the skin suit that feels almost like silk in my fingers, and revealing a torso of corded white muscle. Carefully I remove bits of material mingled in hardened blood and clean the wound as best I can with antiseptic wipes. The creature moans weakly as I do but his eyes don’t open.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, realising I’ve not spoken to him yet. He murmurs something deep and guttural back.
Language. He has language!
I suppose this is not surprising either. A being sophisticated enough to build a spaceship would have to have language. But I am amazed I can sense it. Hear it with my ears. He talks. His species talks like humans do.
However, the sound is like nothing I’ve heard before, melodic, more like the song of a bird than the speech of a human. To me the language is nonsense. Utterly different from my own. But then again, the words he’s uttering may be nonsense to him too. I don’t think he is conscious. In fact, he’s barely alive, his breath feeble.
I patch up the wound as best I can, not knowing what else I can do. There’s no way I could maneuver him into the medical scanner and even if I could, would it be able to deduce what is wrong with this non-human creature?
So I press my hand lightly to his chest, feeling for what might be a heart beat. Something thuds beneath the soft material, the hide skin. Not the puh-dum puh-dum of a human heart. A slower beat, a different pattern. A dadada dadada dadada.
His flesh is so very cold, like the ice outside, and with nothing else I can do for him, I fetch blankets and draw them over his body, right to his chin. I pause, examining his peaceful face, the intricate carvings of skin.
It is such a long time since I’ve seen another being so closely resembling me. I have been alone for so long. So, so long. And finally a stranger has fallen from the sky — like a gift from the gods.
I can’t leave him here. I will stay with him. But soon my eyelids grow heavy and I lie down beside him, watching the feeble rise and fall of his chest.
I’ve missed companionship. I’ve missed friendship and affection too. My body and my soul long for it now. And something primal compels me to crawl under the covers and curl up against his hard body, nestling into the crook of his arm.
It is worryingly comforting. Familiar and safe.
“Don’t die,” I whisper, his strange heartbeat thudding against my ear. “Don’t die.”
Chapter four - Emma
Imust doze off because I start awake suddenly, the body I’m lying against now warm, the chest rising and falling with more force.
For the first time, I notice the smell of him. Beneath soot and smoke, it is a strongly masculine scent, deep and dark, and I think of the black of space.
Carefully, I draw away from him and once again my eyes present images I cannot compute. The flesh against which I laid is no longer that pale white. It swims and pulsates with a myriad of colours that shimmer and sparkle and burst, dispersing across his abdomen and fading away.
I reach out a finger to trace over the colours but my movement has disturbed him and his eyelids begin to open. I scuttle back.
His eyes are the colour of amber, liquid gold melting into black pupils. The colour in his irises dance like the colours on his skin, swirling as he blinks and focuses on his surroundings. I can see the confusion, as he tries to understand where he is. He groans, his hand discovering his wound, making his eyes swivel more quickly in their sockets as the memory of what’s happened returns to him.
His gaze skims over the ceiling and the walls, floats over the space around him and lands on me. He jolts violently. Then blinks. Then stares at me, his mouth falling open.
I don’t know what to say. Words fail me utterly. Everything seems so mundane, so ordinary. We are two species from different galaxies, the first to meet. My words should be momentous, symbolic. Worthy of recording in history books.
But all I manage is a squeak. “Hello?”
He opens his mouth as if to reply but then his face scrunches up as he winces and shudders. And that smell of his, intense before, fades away. His eyes drift shut and he disappears into unconsciousness.
