Chapter 5 #2
“Well, it’s good. I ain’t picky, though. I’ll eat just about anything,” Bryce said as he shoved the last bite into his mouth.
“I am not gifted that way,” Zef said with an almost deprecating tilt to their mouth. “I find most things repulsive, not in taste but in consistency. I am… a picky eater, as you humans say.”
Bryce chuckled. “That don’t surprise me.”
“Oh?” Zef’s wings buzzed softly.
“You seem to be particular about a lot of things,” he said carefully, not wanting to offend.
Those milky eyes dropped to their twined top hands. “Ah, yes, I suppose I am. I do try to be accommodating—”
“It ain’t a bad thing,” Bryce reassured, and Zef nostril slits flared. “And I’m gonna do my best to be accommodating right back.”
“You are very kind,” Zef said softly, and Bryce shrugged, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“Just the decent thing to do. We gotta learn to live together, right?”
“Indeed.” They fidgeted for several seconds before they asked, “It does not bother you?”
Not wanting to lie, Bryce considered his words carefully. “I mean, I’m sure we’re gonna clash at some point. We’re different species with different cultural norms. I might offend you without meaning to, and you might do or say something that gets under my skin. But that’s life, you know?”
“Yes,” Zef agreed.
“But I don’t mind if you like to do things a certain way. I may mess it up sometimes, but I’ll still try,” he said, and Zef smiled, small but genuine.
“I shall try as well. To be flexible.”
Their wings buzzed again at the word flexible, but it was a different hum this time. A lower, more agitated sound. It made Bryce grin.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said confidently, and Zef nodded.
Fluidly, they rose to their feet and gestured at the cupboards. “I shall show you my mug system now.”
Bryce swallowed thickly. “Mug system?”
Before the shops closed for the night, Zef walked with Bryce to the bodega a few blocks away.
They dragged a wheelie shopping bag behind them, and Bryce brought his backpack.
They chatted intermittently, but it was mostly a quiet walk.
Not that he minded. The silence wasn’t awkward, at least, and Zef didn’t seem perturbed by it.
They’d let their hair down from the messy bun, and the wispy strands danced around their face in the light breeze, catching on their tall, pointed ears.
They had several piercings, but none of the jewelry matched.
They were all simple hoops, but made of different colored metals, which struck Bryce as strange.
Given Zef’s personality, he would have assumed such disordered jewelry would have bothered them. He mulled it over for almost a full minute before he decided to ask. They had said that they wanted him to be open and honest about what he was thinking, right?
“Hey, how come your earrings don’t match?” he asked as they stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street.
Their top left hand flitted up to touch their ear momentarily before they lowered it back to their side. “They are not meant to match,” they said simply.
Bryce waited for them to elaborate, but when they didn’t, he prompted. “How come?”
“Their purpose is not decorative. They are symbolic; they hold meaning in my culture.” They pointed to the gold hoop lowest in their cartilage.
“These were the first, and I received them upon my hatching, though I was too young to remember it. When my progenitor dies, I will remove them, and the scar will remain as visible proof of my loss. These”—they touched the next highest piercing, an amber hoop, then one higher, a silver ring—“I received when I molted for the first time. And these, when I reached sexual maturity and endured my first fertility cycle.”
Near the tip of their ear hung two closely clustered rings, a white and black. “These colors indicate that I do not wish to procreate, nor do I wish to copulate in a sexual manner. It is helpful in avoiding uncomfortable interactions or inappropriate propositions.”
Right, Oliver had mentioned that Zef was asexual, and he’d read during his research on Mantodean culture that most—if not all—Mantodeas fell on the ace spectrum. Which, in and of itself, was interesting. Sex-avoidant on a biological level as opposed to a sexual identity.
“If I were to change my mind and want to procreate, I would take the white ring out and replace it with a blue one,” Zef said as they crossed the parking lot, Bryce keeping stride. “Though I do not foresee that ever happening. I find the idea of procreation rather unpleasant.”
“Don’t like kids?”
“It is not the offspring that is off-putting, but the procreation process,” Zef said as they approached the entrance to the bodega. “It is lengthy and painful, and the idea of my body being used to incubate what is, essentially, a parasite is repulsive to me.”
Since Bryce had never needed to, he had to admit he’d never thought that deeply about having kids and what that entailed. Hearing Zef talk about it—as the person who would have to carry and birth the kids—made him wince.
“Yeah, when you say it like that, I don’t blame you for not wanting kids,” he said, taking the grocery basket Zef handed him.
“I understand why some wish it, but I lack that biological urge, thankfully,” they said simply.
Feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the topic, Bryce redirected the conversation back to their piercings, pointing at their naked earlobes. “How come your lobes aren’t pierced? Does that mean something special too?”
Zef hesitated, antennas twitching, but they did answer, sounding—for the first time—uncomfortable. “Yes, it means that I am… unmatched. Unpartnered, I mean.”
“Single Mantodeas don’t pierce their earlobes?” he clarified, and they nodded.
“Mantodeas, generally, mate for life. So when one enters into a committed partnership, they pierce their lobes with the earrings their partner chooses. The amount of earrings signifies how many life partners one has. As I have no life partner, I leave them unpierced.”
As they entered the produce section of the store, he mulled that over. “So kind of like how a lot of humans wear wedding rings when they get married?”
“I suppose that is an accurate equivalent.”
Bryce was momentarily distracted from their conversation by the foreign fruits and vegetables, and they spent the next twenty minutes discussing the produce.
Wanting to try everything, he loaded his basket with every item that Zef deemed safe for human consumption.
It wasn’t until they perused the dairy section that he returned to the subject of Mantodea partnerships.
“You said the amount of piercings in the lobe communicates how many people they’re married to. Does that mean that polyamory is common in your culture?” he asked as Zef placed a small container of plant-based dairy—the demon equivalent of oat milk—into their basket.
“Common? Perhaps. Acceptable and normalized?
Very. Mantodeas are, at our core, community driven.
Many who witness the Colony in action have commented that we all act as if we are partnered with everyone.
That is, of course, false and a little ignorant, forgive my candor.
But as one who lives outside the Colony, I can understand why those unfamiliar with our culture could misinterpret.
“While partners who choose to have young do raise them, the community also comes together, taking up the mantle of hatchling-rearing. It takes a village, as you humans say, and Mantodeas take this sentiment to heart. We are all in this life together, and we care for one another as if we are blood. Or partnered.” Zef’s mouth twitched, and one eyebrow rose half an inch.
“So to an outsider, it may appear a bit incestuous or codependent.”
“But that obviously means having more than one partner to help tackle the responsibilities of life wouldn’t be seen as strange. Since you’re all invested in each other anyway,” Bryce said, and they nodded.
“Exactly. The most piercings I have seen a single Mantodea wear in their lobe is five, signifying five life partners. A bit extreme, if I am being honest.” They said the last part quieter, their eyebrow raising another half-inch.
Playful, Bryce realized, filing that knowledge away.
“Five partners? They’d definitely have their hands full.”
“Good thing we have many hands,” they quipped, and he laughed.
Zef’s antennas wriggled, wings buzzing in what Bryce thought was pride at their joke.
They walked a little taller, an almost smug tilt to their chin, and he chuckled again.
He hadn’t expected sass. Well, he hadn’t exactly expected anything specific, given that he didn’t know Zef all that well, but the sass was still a surprise.
At their first meeting, Zef had been inquisitive and curious, but still reserved.
Not uptight, per se, but Bryce wouldn’t have described them as overly friendly either, especially compared to some of their friends.
Like Gem, who had practically propositioned him within the first minute of being introduced.
He’d been anxious about the living dynamic, afraid of weeks of awkwardness as they settled into being roommates.
But if today was anything to go by, he had a feeling they were going to get along just fine.
They would never run out of topics to discuss, and Zef didn’t seem annoyed by Bryce’s own curiosity.
For the most part, they seemed to like it.
He hoped they were still up for showing him those teeth diagrams later.
By the time they left the store, Bryce’s bag was bursting at the seams, and he’d even had to put some of his items into Zef’s wheelie bag.
For dinner, Zef made a simple, cold soup, creamy and smooth.
It was a light purple color from the root vegetable they’d blended, but it tasted reminiscent of a sweet carrot.
They ate together at the small table in the breakfast nook as Zef flipped through their teeth diagrams, and Bryce couldn’t help but smile.
Yeah, this roommate-thing was going to work out just fine.