Chapter 13 #2
They stumbled out of the computer chair. “You are so brave.”
“Get out of here,” he said as he sat down and grabbed the mouse. “You don’t need to see this.”
“I will not leave you to face this horror alone.”
“Just go! Save yourself,” Bryce pleaded, but Zef shook their head resolutely.
“I will not leave you!”
Keeping their lower hands pressed tightly to their ears, they peeked through the fingers of their upper hands as Bryce clicked away the videos, one after another.
“Do you not have pop-up protection on this thing?” he asked, and Zef blinked blankly at him. He sighed. “Never mind. That probably means you don’t have virus protection either?”
At Zef’s silence, he nodded. “Well, you’re definitely gonna have viruses now. Might as well chuck the whole thing. How did you even find all this porn?”
“I was simply trying to read an article,” Zef said, face sweltering with humiliation.
“About what? Furry porn?”
He gestured to the screen where the Araknis milkmaid and the cow were back.
“Come on, you have to say the line. You promised,” the Araknis said, sounding eerily familiar.
The co-star in the cow suit chittered in annoyance, then muttered out a husky but resigned, “Ugh, fine… moo.”
Bryce cringed away from the monitor. “Oh my God, is that Gem and Rusty?”
And horror like Zef had never known flooded through them. “No! I cannot see them have sex. I will not survive it.”
“That’s right, Mr. Cow, come make my ass your bitch,” Gem the milkmaid said.
With a battle cry, Zef shoved Bryce out of their way, grabbed the desktop monitor with all four hands, and threw it onto the floor with all their might.
It landed with a resounding crash, plastic flying, glass crunching.
Their ears rang as the traumatizing porn sounds finally stopped, and the room filled with nothing but Bryce’s and their heavy breathing.
They both stared down at the destroyed, smoking monitor before Bryce raised a shaky hand and swiped it down his face. From the corner of their eye, they met the human’s wide-eyed gaze. Then Bryce nodded. Just once.
“You did the right thing.”
“I was not fast enough,” Zef lamented as the human shook his head.
“Don’t do that to yourself. You did everything you could.”
“But the damage has already been done. I—we—saw things that cannot be unseen.”
Stepping nearly toe-to-toe barbs with Zef, Bryce jutted his chin fiercely. “But we’re still here, and we’re still standing.”
“Yes,” they whispered, straightening their spine. “We are survivors.”
Later, after they had cleaned up the demolished desktop, they sat at the table, pushing their helping of pot pie around their plate.
Bryce wasn’t eating much either, picking at his food half-heartedly.
They had spoken very little in the past hour, and Zef had half a mind to take their second shower of the day, in hopes that the physical act of washing themself would somehow erase the haunting memories.
In an attempt to distract them both from the horrors they had witnessed in their bedroom, Zef cleared their throat daintily and said, “There is a festival at the Mantodea Colony in a few weeks. A yearly tradition. It is not open to the general public, of course, but we are allowed to bring personal guests. I was wondering if you would like to accompany me.”
“To the Mantodea Colony? Uh, hell yeah, I would,” Bryce said, and Zef cracked a smile. “I’ve wanted to see where you grew up ever since I got here. As long as it’s okay for me to be there.”
“I would not have invited you if it was not allowed,” they said blandly, and he chuckled.
“Right. Then, yes, I would love to come with you. Oh, and I can meet your progenitor, right?”
“Yes, I will introduce you.”
“Cool.” He took a bite of his pot pie. “By the way, I have it on good authority that parents love me.”
“Oh?” they teased. “Is that ‘good authority’ your own parents?”
“Well, yes,” he said, before pointing the prongs of his fork at Zef. “But not just them. My ex-girlfriend’s parents loved me.”
That genuinely piqued their interest. “Do you have many of those?”
“Ex-girlfriends?” Bryce clarified, and Zef nodded. “Um, two. I dated a girl in high school. We were together junior and senior year. Then I had a girlfriend for part of college, and I dated a guy after that who was doing the same vet school as me. We were together for nearly two years.”
“But it was not sustainable?”
Leaning back in his seat, Bryce contemplated a moment. “I mean, high school relationships hardly ever last, and Jocelyn and I dated sophomore year of college. We were kids, you know?”
“And the man?” Zef pressed.
“Jacob lived in Utah. I would have tried long-distance, but he didn’t want that. He wasn’t coming to Montana, and I wasn’t going to Utah.” He shrugged. “Kinda made the choice for us.”
“Irrevocable circumstances.”
“I guess.”
Zef took a bite of soft gidym root and chewed slowly. “Did you love them?”
Bryce’s fork skittered over his plate with an unpleasant squeak. “Uh, I’d like to think so. I mean, Leanne and I were high school sweethearts, so that was puppy love, you know?”
“Puppy love?” Zef asked.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he smiled sheepishly. “You know, young, teenage love. Never lasts, even though it feels so real at the time.”
“Ah, yes, I understand. We have a saying in our language as well for such things. Just out of the shell.” They sent him a playful grin. “‘Did you hear Leanne and Bryce were in love?’ ‘Oh, come now, they are just out of the shell’.”
With a throaty laugh, Bryce settled more comfortably in his chair. “Yeah, that’s puppy love. We had that, I suppose. And Jocelyn… Yeah, I loved her. She was funny and a little wild. Made me feel adventurous. I liked that about her.”
“But?” Zef prompted, and the skin around his eyes tightened.
“She, uh, broke things off when I told her I was bisexual. She said it made her feel ‘weird’.”
An angry thrum vibrated through their chest. “I am so sorry.”
“Yeah, that one hurt. Probably my first real heartbreak.” He chuckled, even as he subconsciously rubbed at his chest. “But I survived. Tried hook-up culture after that. Wasn’t for me. Then I met Jacob, and I was smitten.
“That break-up hurt too, but it was a more mutual thing, so I wasn’t quite as devastated. We loved each other, even at the end. Just wasn’t enough to get past the… irrevocable circumstances.”
“And he was a good partner?” they asked after the silence stretched too long.
Bryce nodded. “Yeah, he was. No one’s perfect, of course. He wore socks to bed. Drove me crazy.”
“What a terrible character flaw,” Zef teased, and he laughed again.
“I know, right? Nah, he was a good boyfriend, and I know I loved him.” Another long silence descended as Bryce studied Zef intensely. “What about you? You ever been in love?”
That was an easy answer. They shook their head. “No, not like that.”
“You want to? Fall in love?”
That was a less easy answer, so they wiggled their shoulders noncommittally. “Perhaps. Love seems a wondrous thing, and I do hope for more permanent companionship one day. But I am not lacking without it.”
“Nothing about you is lacking,” Bryce said, and the way the gray in his eyes rolled like thunderclouds had those tingles on the back of Zef’s neck returning with a vengeance.
“I know,” they said, pressing their lower hands to their flip-flopping stomach under the table.
To escape the new and frightening feelings, they infused their tone with levity as they said, “Though, I will be honest, I do not ever want to call anyone Mr. Cow or request that they make my ass their bitch.”
Startled by the unexpected shift in tone and conversation, Bryce barked a noise of surprise followed by loud guffaws. Zef joined him, laughing into a top hand. They laughed until Bryce was wiping tears from his eyes, and Zef’s lungs protested.
“Good Lord, we can’t ever tell them we know,” he said as he used his napkin to dry the corners of his eyes.
“We must take it to the grave,” they agreed readily.
“I’d shake on that,” he said with a sigh, and before Zef could overthink it, they extended their hand across the table, letting it hover in the middle.
Bryce froze, stare jumping between their hand and their face, and his lips moved wordlessly for several seconds before he managed to croak out, “Have I earned it this time?”
It took them a second to understand what he meant, but then they recalled their conversation on the day he had moved in. Antennas wriggling in amusement, they dipped their chin. “Yes.”
Slowly, as if he was giving Zef time to reconsider, Bryce reached out and loosely clasped their hand, palms barely grazing. His callouses were rough, his skin dry, and his fingers were thick and strong. Their hand looked fragile and delicate, swallowed by his, but he was so warm.
“To never speaking of it again,” he whispered as he directed their clasped hands up, then down, then back again.
And Zef laughed, the sound weak and full of delightful nerves. “To never speaking of it again.”