Chapter 11
JOLAR
I recycled the French toast and bacon from this morning and remade it fresh.
While I cooked, Neal excitedly showed Mitchell our home, starting with Neal’s own room, of course.
Once the food was ready, we sat down in the living room and watched Lilo and Stitch.
Neal’s friend Larry came to the door shortly after that, asking if Neal could go play at the park with him and I agreed.
It was time for me and my new mate to talk.
There were things he needed to know about having a Mylos mate.
I watched Neal go out the door with Larry, accompanied by Shanelle, Larry’s mother. “I’ll have him back in time for his dinner,” she called over her shoulder. “Or maybe he should eat at ours and stay the night,” she added with a wink.
I licked my lips nervously. I doubted we’d be indulging in the type of activities she was imagining tonight, but having longer to talk was an excellent proposition. “That would be great. I can pack him an overnight bag and have it ready for you to pick up when you get back from the park.”
“Don’t bother. He can borrow some of Larry’s stuff. You can send it back later.”
I thanked her and shut the door, turning around to find Mitchell had disappeared.
I checked the kitchen and bedrooms but he wasn’t there.
The bathroom door swooshed open and I felt foolish for having thought he might have wandered away and somehow gotten lost. Our quarters were comfortable in size but not overly large, due to my rank not being the highest, not to mention space was always at a premium on a ship.
“Wow, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. An AI that runs the whole ship and does the whole Alexa and Siri thing, plus another one that just does our bathroom! It’s like Star Trek on steroids.”
I smiled, vaguely understanding that he must be likening Xeranos and Lou to simpler AI home assistants they had developed on Earth. I still had no clue what a ‘Star Trek’ was, as the name implied a walk in space, but that didn’t seem to correlate to the things he was talking about.
“So, we’re kidless for a couple of hours now, huh?” His eyes darted about nervously.
“Until morning,” I informed him. “He was invited to sleep over.”
My heart swelled at Mitchell’s next words. “He took Stitch, right? The way he held onto him, I imagine he probably sleeps with him, huh?”
I dipped my head in acknowledgment. “He takes Stitch everywhere, even to school.”
“Oh, so he has a cubby to keep him in, huh? I think some preschools back where we live do that, too.”
“No, he’s allowed to have Stitch on his lap or on his desk or hanging in a pouch from his chair. We do not see the need to remove that which gives a child or adult a feeling of security as long as it is not something dangerous.”
Mitchell looked surprised. “So, he could be like fourteen and still have Stitch with him and no one would give a damn?”
I shrugged. “Not really. Many might wonder privately what about our world frightened him so that he felt the need for it still, but only so they could try to make our community a better place for him and everyone else.”
“Damn,” he whispered. “You guys really are something else.”
I padded into the kitchen, my bare feet making soft slapping sounds against the cool, cushioned flooring. “I am having some tea,” I called over my shoulder to him. “Would you like some?”
He followed me in. “I’m guessing you mean like some kind of hot tea, huh?”
I nodded. “I once picked up some tea from the Commissary that came from a region on your planet called Japan. It’s a variety they call hoji-cha and I find it quite relaxing. Would you care to try some?”
“Um, sure,” he replied, taking a seat at the small kitchen table. I added water to the kettle and placed it upon the cooker to heat.
“I feel like there’s this big elephant in the room,” he said.
I looked around. “No, no animals, just us,” I replied, perplexed.
He gave a small snort. “No, I mean, there’s this topic of conversation we need to discuss and it’s just sort of hanging between us, neither of us knowing how to broach it.”
Ah, so that’s what he meant.
“Yes, I was just trying to figure out how to broach the subject,” I said, feeling immensely relieved.
“I’m not sure how much you know about us Mylos or what it means when you take a Mylos mate.
” I reached into the cabinet to take down the box of tea bags, taking out two before replacing it.
I took two mugs from where they sat lined up on the counter, ready to use, and placed a bag in each of them, glad that I was facing away from him so I might compose myself.
I felt strangely awkward talking about my biology, which I knew was ridiculous as I was a grown male and had been for over eight years the way humans measured time.
The kettle whistled, and I turned off the heat, pouring the water over the bags to allow the tea to steep.
My hand flew to my neck, rubbing a sudden spot that began to itch.
I dropped my hand, and then washed my hands again before finishing the tea preparation.
Picking up the mugs, I mustered my courage and turned to carry them over to the table.
Mitchell took his mug from me and laughed. “That bad, huh?”
I shook my head the way I’d learned meant ‘no’ to humans. “Not bad, just,” I blew out a breath. “I feel strangely ill at ease, like a youth back in class.”
Mitchell’s eyes rounded. “Ohhhh, sex ed! Oh my God! That was the most awkward class ever.”
I laughed deprecatingly with him. It seemed some things did not change no matter what species you were. Learning about sex and how our bodies matured from youths into adults was awkward no matter who the adolescent was, it seemed.
“Okay, tell you what,” he said, blowing on his tea to help cool it down enough to drink.
“I’ll tell you what I know, and you can fill in the gaps.
” I nodded, and he continued. “Okay, so you guys started having a dwindling female population, and this was after you had already made first contact with some other space faring races. You found out that you had more success having children, especially female ones, if you mated outside your species, thanks to increasing your gene pool. Your government then began seeking trades specifically for looking for your matches as you only mate and produce offspring if your partner is your perfect match in all ways. The trades were for the exchange of knowledge and rare goods and stuff, whatever the world bargained for in exchange for females taking this mate-matching test.” He took a sip of his tea.
“And along the way it also became about spreading your culture so it would never become lost, so adopting children outside of your species also became a way to expand the Mylos population, which works really well, because some of you are gay.”
He’d pretty much summed up the history of the Bride Fleet, albeit in a very basic manner.
“Yes, but do you understand how it works biologically?” I asked.
He arched a fiery eyebrow at me. “Insert tab A into slot B to consummate the mating, and if male and female, offspring is likely to occur with repetition.”
I laughed at his explanation. “No, I meant the mating display, not the mechanics of having sex.”
“The what now?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling. “You mean like the thing where rams butt heads and peacocks strut?”
I scratched at my neck, certain my having laid eyes on him and touched his flesh and inhaling his scent had already triggered the beginning of mine. I pointed at the irritated area. “Does this look different to you?”
He leaned forward. “What, we’re already on the checking-each-other-for-weird-rashes stage?
” he joked. “Well, it looks…holy shit. Your skin is blue there and it looks a bit scaly. Like a dragon or a fish or something.” He leaned back, his eyes wide.
“Is this what you meant? You guys turn into a reptile or something?”
I blinked.
“Oh shit, I should have realized. You guys have pupils that are more vertical, but not really noticeable until sorta right now,” he babbled.
“It’s the display. Our scales come out to show you the colors of our battle form and how beautiful our armor is.”
He let out a long breath. “So, you just get scaly all over and don’t start breathing fire or getting huge teeth you start using to gnaw on the furniture or anything.”
I laughed. He was funny, funnier than Neal even, though with Mitch as his Papa, I was sure Neal would quickly catch up.
“No, nothing like that. Our talons might make an appearance, but that’s about it.”
“So it is literally your species’ way of showing what a handsome mate you are with awesome armored scales you can defend us and our offspring with.”
I nodded and watched his shoulders relax.
“Cool. Just know that I’m not laying any eggs for you or anything weird like that. We’ve got Neal, and if you want more, they’ll have to come pretty much the same way he did.”
I could more than live with that. “There’s just one more thing,” I said, hoping this wouldn’t make him think I was trying to press an advantage.
“We have a short window to mate, or the mating display triggers what’s known as mating fever, where we go a bit feral as we’re in our battle form and very, ah… ”
“Horny,” he finished for me.