Chapter 13
"What do you think that was about?" I asked Lorelei. "He said your name, and then BOOM. Freak out."
"Let's just focus on language," she said, clearly avoiding answering the question. She knew more than she was letting on. "Everything will become a lot easier when we can communicate."
"Way to jinx yourself there," I snorted.
"Bet we'll find out that you stealing his crotch braid means you're going steady.
I don't know if you noticed, but when we were surrounded by the Asgardian looky-loos, some of the guys didn't have crotch braids and were with their baby mommas, who were wearing them in their hair. You're totally engaged."
She had told me about a moment when she had been held in a cage in the zoo, and she had stolen the braid he wore on a belt in front of his crotch.
I glanced over at Zale.
He didn’t have a braid.
By my reasoning, that meant he was taken.
Maybe he kept it somewhere else. If he did, maybe I should take it, especially if the action had gotten such a big reaction from Arnina’s Boy Toy.
I pushed aside that impulse. It came from the part of my brain that delighted in starting trouble, and as gleeful as it was to give in, stealing something from the hot alien murder machine who I couldn’t even talk to wasn’t the smartest idea.
Whatever he wanted from me, he was the kind of male who would find a way to let me know.
His eyes locked on to mine and my breath caught in my chest, that ever present smolder igniting between my legs as I felt the heat between us.
It sent small shivers of electricity running through my body.
The shimmering waves radiating between us were something I hadn’t felt in a long time, and I knew exactly what they meant.
Fuck, I wanted him.
I wanted to get with an alien.
That thought, despite my joking with Arnina, was too intense for me to handle. My body’s reaction, the fact that I was reacting in this way to a man when I had felt practically numb down there for years, was more than I knew how to deal with.
Especially since he was making me feel this way just by looking at me.
I looked away from him.
"Oh my god, stop," Arnina laughed.
There were five adolescents hanging out with us now, trying to teach us. They all had names that I'm certain I butchered. Just as I was certain I was mangling everything else. They had different physical and facial reactions to my attempts than they did to Arnina's.
Cabro picked up a cup and sang a string of words. Then he picked up what looked like a broken tablet and sang the same string, but with slightly different tones.
"I think the action implies the object," Arnina said after repeating his impossible-sounding trills. "Because the word for cup isn’t missing, but the melody is slightly different."
"I'm going to teach this one human." I grabbed Srencia's arm, a honey and cream-colored alien that came with me as I pulled her slightly apart from the rest.
"I'm completely tone-deaf, so let's tackle this from two different directions."
Once I had her separated in a section of the office that was completely clear of furniture or other obstacles, I took a step away from her and put out my hands.
"Okay, Srencia." I tried to sing her name, but her ears flicked back when I did it. I was pretty sure that was not a good thing, which caused me to hesitate. I should stop trying to sing. It was just going to make them dislike me.
I tried to brush aside that self-sabotaging thought, but it clung to the edges of my mind.
What if Zale had been all gung ho when he saw my body, but then was turned off the second he heard my voice? That didn't matter, I tried to remind myself. My life didn't revolve around whether or not a guy liked me.
Even if he was the first man I ever met who actually did something to protect me.
Srencia trilled something at me, pulling my attention back to her.
"Right." I avoided singing her name again. "I know you can't understand me, but we're going to work in a language I really understand, and you're going to help me out here. What does this mean?"
I did the crazy jazz hands thing I saw Zale do on the screen the first time I saw him.
Srencia took a step, her ears going back flatter.
"Is it a threat?" I asked. I then bared my teeth at her and repeated the gesture. Her ears went back, fully flat, and her lips lifted to show her own teeth. They were a lot scarier than mine, with canines the thick, prominent fangs of a hundred percent carnivore.
I stopped what I was doing.
"Okay, so a threat display?" I mused. "I know you can't answer that… maybe I can find…"
I repeated the hands and teeth, and then I made a fist and pulled it back as if I were going to punch her.
Zale stepped in between us and wrapped his hand around me.
"Oh good, this will be helpful, as I was totally stressing her out," I said, pulling my hand back from his with a quick shake to get him to release me.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled on him.
He responded to my touch, allowing me to move him a couple of steps to the side.
"Now I'm going to give you guys two options, and you gotta tell me which one it is. "
I held up one finger.
"First option," I said.
Might as well go full charades with this one.
I repeated the two gestures towards Zale, but instead of balling my hand into a fist, I stepped in close, threw my hands around his lower back, and rubbed my cheek against his chest. His hands hovered in the air above me as I felt every muscle tense under my touch.
I stepped back.
I held up two fingers.
"Second option," I said, grinning with a toxic feeling I knew all too well.
I could only hold it in for so long. I loved that feeling.
It was the psychotic joy that swelled in me anytime I said something small that caused another person to blow up into an eruption of emotion.
It was the sugar rush of instigation, of causing trouble, but it sure would give me a delicious dopamine reward.
Even if it had bad consequences.
I repeated the two gestures, then balled my fist, pulled my elbow back, and slammed a punch straight into Zale's gut as hard as I could.
He didn't even flinch.
He just tilted his head to the side and stared down at me.
My hand, however, felt like I'd just punched a brick wall.
Punching someone again with a busted hand was a terrible idea. I bit my lip hard, tears welling in my eyes as I carefully pulled my hand back, cradling it against my chest.
"So, is it one or two," I said, holding up the fingers on my non-throbbing hand as my voice wavered.
"Two!" Srencia chirped out in my language, the word sung with a minor crescendo.
Then she swayed her hip to the left and rolled a shoulder.
"One," she sang out, then wrapped her arms around me and gave me a brief hug, the bottom of her chin brushing against the top of my head as she bent down to hug me. She seemed like she was only six feet, similarly short like the others.
When she stepped back, Zale reached out and lightly touched my hand, drawing it away from my chest. He gently probed it with his fingers, studying my face. I winced.
"Don't worry, I'll bandage it again," I said, speaking even though I knew he couldn't understand me. I couldn’t believe I did that to myself. At the very least I should have clobbered him with the other one. Then again, then I would likely have two busted hands instead of one.
He let go of my hand and abruptly turned and left.
His sudden exit was an unexpected sting.
No, I didn't need to have my emotions attached to this guy.
Plus he was totally allowed to ditch me after I sucker punched him in the gut.
"Okay…" I turned back to Srencia. "Let's do that affectionate one again."
I worked back and forth with Srencia, figuring out body movements as best we could.
I worked on teaching her words in my language, but I stopped trying to sing the equivalent in hers.
It just felt too awkward. I was certain now that my tone-deafness was leading to a butchery of their language, and I didn't want to practice anymore where they could hear me.
I'd have to have Arnina help me in private.
That way I wouldn't embarrass myself further.
We were deep in the middle of working on what a particular tail swish meant when Zale was suddenly next to me, holding my twinging hand in his, causing me to stop mid-movement and turn towards him.
He smeared something on my wrist that tingled.
His fingers caressed my skin, heating it.
I flushed as I stood there, my hand captured in his, my interspecies conversation interrupted by his sudden, dominating presence.
After the initial tingle passed, a warmth radiated into my hand, soothing me down to my metacarpals.
He shifted his grip and wrapped an incredibly soft tape around my hand, carefully securing it so that my hand lost a bit of its mobility, but the injured part of it was supported.
He then smiled at me, his teeth covered.
He rolled a shoulder, twitched his hip, and then lifted my banged-up hand to his cheek, gently rubbing the side of his face against it. Then he stepped back and walked away from us.
I continued to work with Srencia, but I kept an eye on him as he moved around the room.
At one point, he left and came back with a huge display screen that he dragged over to Arnina and her group.
They immediately began using the accompanying stylus to write on it like a giant tablet.
It didn't seem to matter what surface they wrote on.
As long as they held the stylus, writing on the air, the chair, their arms - it didn't matter; things still happened on the screen.
Later, he came back with a large quantity of food, and everyone abandoned their projects and began to eat. The food was the same tasty, noodly fare we had the other night, but with slightly different flavors.