Page 18 of Culture and Curiosities
We’d have to take one for the team.
Something about his huff sounded like a laugh that time. “We are what I think your people would call pioneers, so research must be done.”
Trying not to laugh, I nodded and rocked against him. “It’s just what we have to do.”
“For a variety of reasons.” Daddy’s hands slowly inched lower down my back. “Your movements indicate you would like a more intimate touch, my mate. Is that correct?”
Oh yes.
Slow for Daddy Manny, though.
“Yes, Daddy.” If he hadn’t touched that many people there was a lot of things he probably hadn’t done. “The only place I don’t like being touched is the bottom of my feet. They’re tickly in a bad way. I don’t know why because I walk a lot without it being a problem.”
Daddy kissed my head. “Then I will not be tickly to your feet.”
Pausing, he went thinky quiet. “I will not tickle your feet?”
“Yes, that’s right, but the first one was fine too. I understood it.” Daddy Manny was the type to be precise, though. “See? We need to hurry up the bonding so that you have all the words you need.”
And so he’d know when I was being cute and when I was using the right words.
That was important too.
“I am glad I was able to be understood.” He paused again before feeling very frustrated. “The spell was supposed to help us obtain language in the most natural way. It did not go as expected.”
And he really didn’t like that.
Was Daddy Manny a mage?
His body certainly felt magical against mine.
“Not everyone around here has the same language knowledge.” Was that the polite way of saying some people didn’t speak good English? “One of the diner men said there are even small pockets where they’ve got something close to their own version of English.”
People were fun.
“If you learned English from someone really isolated or just old and basically living in the past, that would’ve made it difficult.” And camping couldn’t help either. “We’ll work on the language thing and show you more TV and entertainment media so that you get more familiar with that too.”
Had Daddy Manny even seen cartoons?
We had to fix that.
“You can come back to my hotel room and we’ll hang out.” Hmm. “We’ll sit down and snuggle and talk. That’s basically what hang out means in this context.”
Words had too many meanings.
Oh.
“What about your coworker? Your work partner.” They didn’t seem to be friends but that sounded weird. “Does he want a hotel room too?”
Why did the men think he was grumpy?
Why did the diner men seem to think he was little?
Piecing the different conversations together, that’s what everyone seemed to be saying, but even I knew it wasn’t the time to ask about that.
I should meet him first before I was nosy.
“He does not seem to enjoy the locals.” Daddy Manny’s tone was so neutral I couldn’t decide if that was simply just true, an understatement, or him making fun of the diner men. “He spends most of his time gathering knowledge on a reading device and watching the portal.”
