Chapter 15 #2
There was a part of me that was disappointed.
I never felt like I wanted a big wedding, but I always thought that when I met my person, I would love his family as much as I loved him.
I didn't have anyone left. My parents had me when they were in their mid-fourties and when my dad was taken out by illness, my mom followed after him, her heart too broken to sustain her body.
I thought that when I found a love like theirs, I would have a whole new family waiting to hold me.
The lack of a good proposal, the lack of the rings, the courthouse wedding, none of it mattered. The fact that he was likely hiding me from his family mattered. At the very least, we could have had a small ceremony in a park with his uncle.
But I also knew Eun, and I knew that he wouldn't be doing things this way unless he had a good reason. He was a thoughtful, caring person.
I trusted him.
That feeling of trust hit just as hard as the feeling of love. The two were not the same, but both were required for me to be willing to move forward with this.
Eun had set the paperwork on a podium that was next to the door. Hanging from the podium was a pen on a chain, and what looked like an ink pad for stamps.
“Eun,” I said.
He met my eyes, and his expression was troubled, yet also eager. His hand was at the back of his neck, and I could see the outline of his hard length in his trousers.
“Eun,” I repeated, pointing at the bed. “What is this?”
I knew exactly what this was for, but I wanted him to say it.
“It is for papers,” he said, tapping the papers next to him. I walked closer to him and saw that there were two lines for signatures and boxes. He picked up the stamp pad and mimicked putting his thumb against it and then on the box outlined on the paperwork.
I was pretty sure it was a marriage contract, but he hadn't actually said it. My assumptions were based on dramas. I needed to know for
A contract to be signed in a room that looked like a love motel.
A contract that had something to do with a vibrating bed.
The shows that depicted marriage between two aliens of the same species showed them going to the office and entering the room, but they didn't show what happened inside.
It did show them afterward, rumpled and satisfied.
“Eun,” I said. “What is this?”
This time, I tapped on the paperwork.
“Papers for…” he said, a few words I didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Police,” he said. “The police need the papers, or they will take you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath at those words. He was marrying me because of the police? What did he mean?
“You are a.... without the papers,” he said, saying an unfamiliar word in the middle. He reached over and put his hand on the podium with the unsigned documents. “These papers will make you not a.... You need these papers to stay.”
I absorbed that for a moment, putting the pieces together. Did he have to marry me so I could stay?
I was an illegal alien.
Was that the only reason he was marrying me? That thought felt sad, weighed down compared to the eagerness I had felt just a short while before. I didn't want him to marry me because he felt like he had to.
I wanted him to marry me because he loved me, because he was mine, and I was his.
"Won't the police help me go home?" I asked.
"No," Eun shook his head. "Police are predators."
He lifted one finger and pushed back his lip, exposing the sharp point of his teeth.
"The police are a danger without papers," he said. "Because you're prey."
I stared at him, my heart racing for more than one reason.
I didn't doubt him. I had seen that woman strung up in the warehouse when I first arrived, being cut up like a slab of meat.
I had seen the gruesome scenes on television, the warnings about aliens being labeled as prey getting involved with the ones labeled as predators.
I put my finger to my lips and mimicked his gesture, exposing my small canine teeth. "I'm a predator, though."
Eun gave me a small smile and a laugh, the kind he made when I said something funny, like I was making a joke.
I touched Eun’s hand, pulling it away from the page. I rotated my hand so that our palms pressed together, and I interlaced my fingers with his.
“This is to make us a couple?” I asked him.
Eun nodded.
“Yes, couple,” he replied. “Paperwork will make us a couple. If we are married, you are not a....”
There was that unfamiliar word again. I put my own word in its place for the moment. I was an alien on this planet, and I didn't have the right papers. I was an undocumented alien.
My heart fell a little.
“Why the bed?” I asked.
I knew what the bed was for, but he had pulled away from me so many times that I wanted him to say it.
“It's for fucking,” he said, a low growl to his voice as he looked at me with a gaze that told me he hadn't gotten enough of me. "Proof that we can mate."
I was sore between my legs, utterly satiated, yet at the same time, there was a twinge in me, a need to have him inside me again and again.
I wasn't excited about the idea that marriage was restricted to those who could mate with each other, but none of this was the way I wanted it.
I wasn't going to say no to it, though. Just because he wanted to marry me to protect me instead of because he loved me wasn't enough for me to turn away from what would keep me safe.
But there was one more concern I needed answered.
“I want to go home,” I told him. “This marriage contract, can I still go home?”
I wanted to make sure it wouldn't turn me into property, so I couldn't leave the planet because I was married to him.
“Yes,” he said. “We will find your home. I will send you home.”
Send, that word hit me hard as the distance grew between us. He would send me home.
He wasn't planning on coming with me.
"Take off your clothes," I told him.