Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Beth
This was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.
I'd done my due friend diligence before finally getting to retire to my room.
I'd poked around, finding the room controls and adjusting the pigments in the room to match my mood.
I also discovered that the coffee table had access to an alien video streaming service.
Before I got lost in that, I wanted to figure out how to access the ship's computer.
After a few attempts of asking to speak to it, an on-screen prompt directed me to make my request in the hallway.
It was strange, but now I understood.
We were inside a person.
Marek wasn't a computer. He wasn't a ship.
He was a giant leviathan, carrying us inside of him like little pets.
It was so cool! I couldn't believe they didn't tell us any of that!
I had so many questions! How did that even work?
Were we uncomfortable? Did he like having us here?
How did his species develop? How did he create the atmosphere and pressure to keep us all alive?
Question after question ran through my mind, but I didn't let them out.
Instead of nervous anxiety, I felt rampant excitement.
I wasn't in a mechanical ship that could break down.
I was being held.
"Yes, I want to see them!" I said, completely unable to contain my excitement. I cleared my throat, trying to calm my tone down. "I mean, if that is alright with you."
"It's perfectly fine by me," he said. "But in the context of my culture, it's a bit like taking off my shirt."
"So you just offered to flash me?" I grinned.
I loved that I said that. I never would have said something like that, normal guy.
This wasn't a normal guy, though. This was a giant space creature that was carrying me around and taking the time to chat with me, and who had already gently corrected me when I misunderstood something.
He'd already come across as kind and careful.
In working with me to work out the details of the tool, he had shown that he was thoughtful and focused, that he was creative, engaged, and interested in supporting me in my artistic journey.
He was a good person, and my interest in him had grown with his kindness and with the fact that I didn't have to see him face-to-face.
I could imagine him to be whatever I wanted.
"I had to look up the context of that word," he said finally, his tone still warm. "More like flashing my ankle? If you want to see more than that, you're going to have to get to know me better."
"Promises, promises," I said, my excitement bubbling over into downright flirtiness.
A warm laugh echoed through the room, and a shiver of delight ran through my skin.
Then the wall behind me moved. I swiveled in my seat in time to see the fake window slide to the side, revealing a solid wall of glowing white cords of various sizes.
They layered on top of each other like woven fibers, but they were missing the rhythm and sense of traditional weaving.
Some were as small as my pinky, others were as thick as my wrist. They rippled, almost like a liquid, and then settled as the screen fully slid out of sight.
I reached out and touched them, stroking my fingers over the surface like I would any new fabric.
They were soft and slippery, like a model, a synthetic fabric made from beech trees.
They felt warm, comfortable, almost like skin.
I felt along the edge where two of the strands connected, and where I touched, they parted slightly.
I angled my fingers into the gap, and it gave way.
I sank my whole hand in, feeling the softness as I sank into it.
The fabric was so responsive, and when I flexed my hand, it responded with a firm pressure, almost as if it was touching me back.
Because it was touching me back.
It wasn't fabric; this was an alien.
I froze, not wanting to yank my hand back suddenly in case that would hurt him. Sudden movements weren't a good idea in a situation like this. Not that I'd been in any situation like this ever.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I should have asked if you were comfortable with me touching you like this."
"I am very comfortable," he said, the words coming out in a rush, like he was afraid I would stop. His next words reinforced the idea, coming out with an edge of roughness to them. "You can touch me as much as you like."
I moved my fingers, wiggling them where they were encased in the white strands, and the neurofilaments responded, shifting as my fingers shifted, caressing my palm. It felt good. Really good.
Too good.
Heat blossomed in between my legs as my body flushed, the excitement of the new transmuting through the act of touch into something far more heated than I'd been expecting. The way he was massaging my palm, twirling around my fingers... It was like he was enjoying touching me, caressing my skin.
I bit my lip and stilled my hand.
There was no way.
This heat was in my head.
I was like an ant compared to him, a flea on his back. There was absolutely no way he was touching me like this because he was interested in me in that way. It didn't make any sense.
He was just being friendly.
I was the weird one for getting turned on by this.
"I have a confession I need to make," Marek said.
"A confession?" I asked, letting out a small laugh as I tried to cover my sudden nervousness. "Already? We just met. Don't tell me that we just got to third base? I thought we were only holding hands. We haven't even had dinner together yet!"
The laugh I made afterwards was just as painfully awkward, and I instantly hated everything about myself.
What if I was making him uncomfortable with my flirting?
I didn't mean to make this weird. Why was I flirting with him in the first place?
I could have just pulled my hand back and returned to polite conversation, and no one would be the wiser.
Now he was going to know that humans were freaks and would meet a giant leviathan of an alien and immediately think about banging it.
If Godzilla were real, there would be somebody out there somewhere thinking about whether or not she could ride that d.
There was a long, long pause.
Oh no, he was probably looking up what I meant by third base.
I held perfectly still. If I pulled my hand out, would that make it more awkward or less?
He could move an entire wall; he could easily shove my hand out of his neurofilaments if he wanted to.
Heck, he could probably yank me right into them and then.
.. oh... the mental image of that possibility flooded me, sending another wave of completely inappropriate heat rushing through me as I thought about being completely surrounded by all those massaging, caressing, filaments, utterly at his mercy.
I was going to need some serious self-care time after this. I clearly hadn't been taking care of my own needs often enough if my mind couldn't handle the idea of first contact without wanting to make it full frontal first contact.
I cleared my throat.
He still hadn't said anything.
"What I need to confess is that I invaded your privacy," he said.
"I went to pull publicly available data on you, but it looks like your previous government was inept at data security, and both managed to collect every bit of your information in one place and then left it utterly exposed to the slightest reach.
They seemed to care more about spying on their citizens than protecting them.
I should have stopped when I realized, but instead I went through all the pictures of your creative art.
It was an unacceptable invasion of your privacy, and I apologize. "
There was a soft stroke on the back of my hand, like a thumb running over the skin.
"You online stalked me?" I asked, needing more information to process what he was saying.
It was an informational whiplash. One second, I was thinking about doing inappropriate things with a giant alien spaceship, the next, he was confessing that he looked up all the details he could find about me. "When did you do that? Right now?"
"No, when you got off the shuttle," he replied.
That was hours ago.
"Did you do that to everyone?" I asked.
"No, just you," he said.
That sent a thrill through me.
Out of all the humans, he became interested in me. If he were human, I would think he had a crush on me, that he was infatuated with me.
But he wasn't human; he was an alien, so I couldn't assume that.
"Why?" I asked.
"Your outfit was magnificent," he said. "First, I tried to find the material online, but when I couldn't find it to buy it, I expanded my query and discovered that you made it.
I also discovered that there is far more information about you than one would normally have publicly available online.
One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had spent an.
.. inappropriate amount of time looking through pictures of you and your creation.
It took me a bit to realize that the information was all there because your previous government didn't prioritize data safety.
That is where I owe you an apology. I should have realized sooner and stopped looking.
It is wrong to trespass on a life laid bare for the world to see, yet I can't deny the wonder of your creative talent pulled me deeper. "
He liked my art?
He obviously had good taste.