Chapter 15 #2
She grasped one of his hands and set it on the side of her neck. He could feel the soft slits of her gills, the faint feathery lines that occasionally flared depending on her mood. They were surprisingly flat, just a thin membrane that fluttered under his touch.
“These are a vestige of youth. We do not breathe through these,” she said, chuckling softly. “Some call us fish, but we are more like … hmm, what is the little creature that ribbits?”
He traced his finger along one gill as it fanned out. There were powerful muscles beneath her skin, but the delicate, gossamer-thin webbing of her gills was impossibly soft.
“Oh, uh … frog?” he responded, a bit delayed.
“Ah, yes,” she murmured, and he could feel her pulse under his fingers when she spoke. “We are more like the frog. The gills, they are only for juveniles in the spawning pools. But then we grow, learn to breathe the air, and they close. They are ticklish, but they are like your—”
He felt her hand rest on his sternum, a single claw tracing a line down to his stomach. He could swear he saw her lick her lips, and he felt every muscle she made contact with tense as she dragged her touch lower.
“What do you call this?” she asked, her thumb resting just below his navel.
Just … lower. Go lower. Please, just a little further, keep touching.
“Ah, navel. Or, uh, belly button,” he replied, his eyes moving to her own form. He hadn’t realized she didn’t have a navel of her own. There was just a shallow divot that flowed from her clavicle down her chest, all the way south towards certain bliss.
“Wait, so,” he felt his stupid curiosity leave his mouth before his cock could shut him up. “How do you breathe underwater then if your gills are closed?”
She drew his hand from her neck and guided his hand down. First, to the smooth plane of her chest, sliding over the thin straps of her bikini. Then, further down until he felt the flesh of her stomach, slippery and silken in the water under his palm.
He could almost taste her own fluttering heartbeat under her skin. Or, his brain was finally short-circuiting, and his senses were blurring together. He was losing himself in the sensation of finally feeling her beneath his fingers. He wanted to know every inch. Explore more of her.
What does her skin taste like? What does her cunt taste like? What sort of noises does she make when she comes?
“We can absorb oxygen through our skin. It is why we look so … shiny?” she said, pulling him out of his reverie. She chuckled a little, and he nearly cursed at the delicious feeling of her muscles flexing with her laughter.
“Fascinating,” he breathed, dragging his fingers around to meet her hips. His eyes were locked on the valley between her thighs, barely obscured by the water and that god damn bikini.
I cannot fuck this up.
The very edge of his thumb slid along her hip, along the hem of the fabric, and he felt a quiet groan escape his lips as she arched into the touch. As soon as he registered the movement, she had grabbed his hand with a wicked grin.
“Now, now, eager boy. What about you?” she asked, pulling away and sinking her body back below the water. His hands were still tensed, the feel of her skin still throbbing in his nerve endings.
I fucked this up.
“Wh-What about me?” he stammered.
“This!” she exclaimed with an excited trill. She reached forward and twirled a claw in a lock of his hair. “I have always wondered. You cannot feel this at all, yes?”
He let out a nervous laugh. “Not really. Our scalp is sensitive, but hair has no nerve endings. But if you pull on it or play with it, it can feel— Well, what we feel depends on the context.”
She nodded and slid her fingertips, claws and all, in a slow path from his temple down to the back of his neck. The light tingle that followed the arc of her touch turned his skull into an echoing chamber, with every semblance of thought seared away in an instant.
“So, in this context, how does that feel?” she murmured.
“Really, real-real good. I take it your, uh. Those?” he asked, gesturing towards her scaled tendrils that mimicked hair. “You can feel those?”
She nodded and reclined back against the edge of the pool, tilting her head to the side to display them. “I believe the word in English is ‘stalk’ or ‘tendril’. It is a sensory organ. It is how I do my—” She chuckled. “My space cartel princess magic.”
“May I?” he asked as he reached forward towards one that fell to her shoulder.
With a smile, she offered him one, and he cautiously traced a path down the scaled surface. There was a strange crackle of energy, like static, that ran over his own skin at the touch. He swore he heard her own breath catch in her throat as he touched her.
Okay, so maybe Icthians also like having their hair played with. Their scale-hair, stalk-things. Whatever they’re called. So long as it makes her gasp like that, who cares what it’s called? Stamen? Fuck it. Stroke her stamen.
“My turn now,” she said with a delighted grin.
“Huh?” he asked, shifting his focus back to her words. He kept getting wildly distracted, and he needed to get it together.
“We are learning about each other. It was your turn, and now it is mine again. You have told me twice that you have a long story about your—” She gestured towards her throat, and he felt his heart sink. “Your injury. I am a curious creature, and very fond of stories.”
Despite being waist-deep in warm water, he was frozen.
“It isn’t a fun story, Fi.”
She pulled him gently to sit beside her. Shoulder to shoulder on the little underwater ledge, watching the pool before them bubble and churn. Just like the night on the loading dock, looking out over the green-tinted Hepler Station.
“For Icthians, when we are hurt, it heals. It heals, and there is rarely anything left behind to show for it. So we cannot see the history written on our skin, like your kind.”
She pulled his hand out of the water and traced the silver lines in his flesh. The cheap-but-effective titanium augments that kept his bone density and joint flexibility at a functional level. Functional, but painful.
“So,” she continued. “I see a mark of your past. But you do not share it. And I wish to know. To know more of you.”
Talking about it wasn’t the issue. It’s not like he had tamped down the memory entirely. It was just an old trauma from a different time in his life. When he was a different person, one he found unrecognizable now.
She’s told you some of her secrets. Fair is fair. And if you ever want to be more than just a drooling pervert following her around, you should probably let her get to know you.
“Okay,” he exhaled, closing his eyes and plotting out the gentlest route through the story. “First, how familiar are you with debt bonds and insurance claims?”
Fia let out a shocked chuckle, leaning her head back to rest on the edge of the pool. “I cannot say I am familiar at all. This is a financial injury?”
He squinted as he mulled the assessment over. “Kinda?” Another laugh of his own followed. “God, it sounds so fucking stupid. For context, this was almost a decade ago. I was very young, very dumb, and very … mopey.”
Her brow-ridge raised. “Mopey?”
“Eh, things hadn’t been going well for me. My family, we didn’t come from a lot to begin with. I tried to go off the beaten path and follow some harebrained dream of being an artist. All I did was end up racking up debt,” he paused, making a sweeping gesture with his hands to stress the point.
“Like, a lot of debt. Got debt bonds to pay for my school, to pay for my rent, to pay for my meds. Because in my head, I had two possible outcomes. I could make it work, get successful enough to pay everything back. Or, I wouldn’t, and I’d just … hit the eject button.”
He felt her shifting next to him, but he couldn’t look over to see. It was easier to stare at the bubbles, watching them rise and swirl.
Just cut to the chase.
“So, I had a bad streak. Hit a breaking point. Checked out a bunch of life insurance policies because I thought maybe it’d give my family a little something for their trouble. And … I hit the eject button.”
Her hand was on his shoulder. It wasn’t heated and sensual like before, but it was still a welcome comfort. An encouragement to continue.
“Suffice it to say, I failed at what I set out to do. Got kicked out of where I was staying, dropped out of the art program. My folks tried to help me get back on my feet, but it set me back, set them back. It messed everything up. I was barely paying off those debt bonds, not to mention this fucking thing—”
He felt his voice crack, and he shook his head. “This aug, getting all this repair work done? And maintaining it, staying up on the meds to avoid rejection? It’s so damn expensive. And my body is constantly fighting it. It just never ends.”
He leaned his head back on the ledge, staring at the ceiling as the world grew blurrier. The haze of tears stung, and it made the lights above diffuse in his vision.
“I tried to leave my family better off on my way out, and I just made everything worse.”
What a great impression you’re making. Every woman loves a failure. You fucking idiot, why did you say anything?
Her arms were around him. Pulling him against her. It was a wordless comfort as she held him against her chest. The soft march of her heart drowned out the world, drowned out the sounds of his own remembered pain.
She was still clinging to him when the hostess knocked at the door to let them know their time was up.