CHAPTER 10
My cybernetic feet set wide on the floor, elbows planted on the hard surfaces of my composite metal thighs, I stare over my clasped hands and wait for Becky. I feel a great urge to show her how deep my feelings of affection for her have become.
However, when she emerges from the siphon room, she walks right to the bedroom door—and uses it to exit.
She never even looks back at me.
In fact… it seems to me as if she deliberately avoids my gaze.
Frowning, I move my legs into position to take my weight until I can rise from our bed and follow her.
I find her in the kitchen, facing the stove, studiously at work beginning what smells like breakfast. A seafood breakfast. Probably more frozen fish, thawed and pan-heated—but not cooked—following my preference. Which she asked after one day some days ago.
It was kind of her to ask.
(And fortuitous that Joel had an appreciation for fish and thus filets were stocked in the freezer and cans of fish are in the pantry.)
For many species, the caretaking of a mate is integral to their pair bonding success. Becky has been showing me from my first night here that she is a good mate to me. As I take in the sight of her, her swells and curves that I know so intimately now, her tousled mane of hair—that I tousled—I’m struck with powerful feelings of hunger.
And not simply for the skillfully created food smells beginning to waft toward me even more strongly .
I’m attracted to Becky. Visually, olfactorily, aurally, sexually—in every and all ways one should desire their mate.
My seafood cakes spit up grease as they heat and a thick cloud of fish liver juice wafts up, permeating the air, calling to my hunger for food. Becky covers her mouth and turns away from the stove, battling with her gorge reflex.
I'm struck anew at my awe and respect of her. The scent of my breakfast offends her pregnant sensibilities and yet she is determined to prepare meals for me anyway. Her grit is so admirable that I’m made silent with astonishment. Rendered speechless. Feeling yet another swell of tender closeness paired with intense liking, I move up behind her. I have in mind to kiss the back of her neck like I’ve seen males do to the females they’ve chosen to perform servicing duties for.
But the moment I step toward her, Becky freezes.
Later I will ascertain that she was expecting me to force the issue of more sex.
I would never want my mate to feel forced. In this moment, sex isn’t even my intention. I simply want to show Becky affection. And I want… I want to receive it.
Stymied but not yet discouraged, I attempt to pet her and squeeze her like I’ve seen in sexual vids—yet distressingly she displays the same shut-down reaction.
Haltingly, I move for the sink, thinking I will attempt to do the dishes to show her caretaking.
She shoos me away and out of the kitchen.
Thwarted from showing my mate both physical affection and household husbandry duties, I consider the caretaking options available to me.
Hunting, I decide. I know how to hunt. Granted, I haven’t hunted on land before, but I believe the skills I have will prove effective in capturing a nourishing meal for my mate .
One she can enjoy. I know Becky doesn’t care for my seafood preference. Perhaps she will be pleased with a land animal from this place.
A short time later, I set out with Paco loyally trailing me, a makeshift packing saddle affixed to his back. It’s meant for horses and doesn’t fit him well; however, he makes no complaints about the way I’ve rigged it to him and he seems excited to have a reason to walk behind me (and attempt to pull my gun from its holster while he does).
Before midday, I return to our homestead, Paco sure-footedly plodding along with me, laden with the felled carcass of an Oryx.
The Oryx is an arid-dwelling animal introduced to Traxia from Earth. A rather conspicuous-looking creature, I can’t fathom what its native environment must have looked like if it at all blended with its surroundings. Its forelegs have striking bands of black on bright white. Its body is the soft gray color of a bird known as a “dove” that might blend well with some sort of sandscape—except that loud black stripes streak up its belly, throat, chest, shoulders, back, rear legs, and face.
Essentially, if ever this creature could hide in its previous home, it now stands out here.
It was brought to Traxia specifically to be a game species, with the hope that it would be capable of surviving similar harsh conditions and provide massive amounts of wild meat.
It's done remarkably well on this planet. Its size and considerable horns (a pair of straight, incredibly long horns) deters most of the local predators, and it thrives on the various desert plants that manage to push up from the ever-sandy soil.
When Paco and I reach the barn, Becky emerges from the house, holding her hands to her lower back as if it is causing her discomfort.
As I lead Paco into a stall, Becky draws near to me, and I lean down, positioning my face close to hers in the hope that she might see my nearness as an invitation to mate our mouths in affectionate greeting.
Instead, she looks up at me sharply .
Undeterred at having to prove myself worthy of her attentions, I move my mouth to her ear, some instinct insisting that I should speak into the lovely shell of it, where the vibrations from my mouth sounds will hopefully affect her physically. “I'm gratified,” I tell her, my voice a smooth rasp, “to have my mate come greet me and the kill I've made for her.”
Pulling back, Becky grimaces. “That thing is huge. I’m glad you’re gratified. My back is not happy that it’s going to take forever to butcher.”
I experience a crashing feeling inside my chest. “I thought you’d be pleased. This kill is going to make you a fine meal. Many fine meals.”
Brow pinched in pain, Becky squeezes her eyes shut. “Yeah, but all the bending and hunching to chop it up into many, many future meals…”
My jaw works as I consider and discard several statements I feel compelled to say. Finally I settle on, “Do not trouble yourself. Please return inside. I will butcher it.”
Becky shakes her head. “No, I can do it.” She steps forward.
My arm blocks her from forward momentum. “Becky,” I say.
Perhaps my tone is sharp. Her head whips up. Her already knitted brows crash together.
I drop my arm. I turn away from her, facing the kill I made hoping to please her. Although it’s clear that I’ve failed, at the very least I can still provide for her. “Go back inside, mate. I will perform this task without your help.”
“Is there a problem?” Becky asks from behind me.
“Yes,” I say. Paco shifts, looking strangely uneasy. He hasn’t been bothered by the Oryx he’s carrying. As he rolls his eyes at Becky and me, I wonder if he senses some tension.
“Do you want to share what the problem is?” Becky asks. Her voice has a strange quality to it. Stretched thin, maybe even shaking.
I send her a frown over my shoulder.
She looks up at me and bursts into tears.
Narrowing my eyes, I turn to face her. “Other than your back, are you in pain?” I attempt to scan her brain, but I’m too distracted and thoroughly confused to properly make sense of her activity.
She pushes past me until she’s standing at Paco’s side, where she begins unstrapping her Oryx. “You’re hurting my feelings,” she says.
Staring at the back of her head, I’m thrown. “What?”
Hiccupping, refusing to look at me when I lean around her to peer at her face, Becky shares, “Look, it seems like you’re upset with me, and I don’t know why. A couple has to work this sort of situation out a lot, and sometimes it's not a big deal—but sometimes it is. And the possibility that you could be so mad that it’s a big deal is scary. Because you’re essential to my wellbeing. To our wellbeing,” she adds in a way that makes me think she means our tadpole. “It’s imperative that I keep you happy, or… you could leave.”
“I’m not upset with you.”
“You admitted that you had a problem with me,” she retorts like an accusation.
“There is a problem where you’re concerned,” I say, staring at her narrowly. “You’re doing that backward,” I point out, watching her fight the leather tongue she’s attempting to release.
She throws up her hands and barks out a sob, making Paco shy sideways.
Frowning at them both in concern, I gently herd her well away from him and take over, working the Oryx free and moving it to the butchering table, where I cover it with even more scoops of preserving salt than I did after I dressed it in the field, before turning back to Paco to remove his rigging and gear. “What has gotten into you?” I ask her as I work to free him.
“What’s the ‘problem where I’m concerned?’” she asks, using my words to refer to the answer I gave her as she paces slightly and acts strangely. She’s rubbing her back again .
Sighing, I leave Paco to retrieve a hay bale. I walk it to Becky and drop it at her feet. “Sit,” I tell her.
Wiping her eyes, she allows me to place my arm around her shoulders and hold one of her hands and ease her carefully down onto it. Her vertebrae crack in several places. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
I nod and move back to Paco, who is stretching his lead rope, forcing himself to the end of it, his semi-prehensile upper lip extended out in the vain hope that he might reach the hay bale I brought for Becky.
“That bale is for my mate’s comfort, not your stomach,” I tell him. “Yet.” I’ll feed him once he’s brushed.
Off to the side of me, Becky shudders in a sort of an involuntary spasm. She attempts to draw a breath through it—but there is some struggle with her diaphragm and respiratory organs that turns her inhalation to a strange hiccoughing suction instead.
If she were a Yonderin like me, I’d think she was experiencing the physical confusion of attempting to breathe through her nose and not her gills.
Furthering this impression, she furtively wipes at her nose and face with her dress.
Calming the more I study her, I scan her brain, and I’m more confused than ever when I find that her skull’s contents are showing faint traces in the places where humans exhibit shame and embarrassment. And confoundingly—fear.
Completely at a loss, I ask, “How do I show you love in a way you will see and appreciate?”
Paco turns his head toward me, his ears going forward.
“Not you,” I tell him. I look at Becky.
Her brain is experiencing a startle cloud. She stares at me for a beat, her expression uncomprehending. She squawks, “What?”
Frowning, I pick up a curry comb. Briskly, I begin pulling it through Paco’s pack saddle-matted fur. “I am a jackass to your mare. ”
Becky’s brain pulses in the confusion sectors. “What…?” she says again, but more slowly. Leadingly.
Paco begins chewing on his lead rope. I stop brushing him and begin struggling to free his rope from between his clamped teeth. The frustration that leaks into my voice is purely from this battle Paco is forcing me to endure. “You are a mare!” I tell Becky, yanking on the rope. “Drop it, you idiot!” I growl at Paco. To Becky, I go on. “And I am a jackass. And we are speaking two entirely different languages,” I explain, throwing her a harassed look.
“What are you talking about?” Becky asks.
“I give up, you ignorant little beast. Choke on it,” I tell Paco, then I wave to her. Between myself and her person. “This is an excellent example. Do you recall when Paco tried parading himself before the mares on the day of my arrival?” I begin brushing him again. The lead rope’s thick fibers squeak between Paco’s teeth as he grinds on it, but I ignore him, my arm arcing over him, combing the fur of his back now. “The mares were baffled at best, completely oblivious to his efforts to woo them. And you told me that although it was obvious to you that Paco was sweet on the females, donkey jacks court so differently from stallions that his intentions were not being communicated to our mares. This was because the two animals are speaking two totally different languages.”
“Okay…” Becky says in a way that I believe means she is encouraging me to elucidate even more—her brows are scrunched as she peers at me in confusion.
Shaking a mat of hair off the comb, I nod. “Like Paco rolling in an ungainly fashion before the mares when he clearly meant to be enticing, I assumed it would be evident to you that I am courting you.” I lower my gaze and shuffle sideways to better brush his rump. “But every effort I’ve made so far has been unsuccessful. You’ve dismissed them so thoroughly that I’m baffled.”
“You’ve been making efforts to court me?” Becky asks.
She sounds so openly confused that it would wound me if I hadn’t already deduced that my attempts to please my mate have been utterly lost in translation.
“We’re already married!” she points out, her tone one of utter bewilderment.
I flounder for words for a moment. “Do mates not court one another? Isn’t that the point of taking a mate?” I look at her. “To take on the responsibility of courting them for the rest of their days?”
She blinks. “Some couples… date. Like date nights…”
I latch onto this offering. “How do I date you? I have brought you the finest kill that I could take down in order to demonstrate how highly I value you. I know that you do not enjoy the scent of my preferred sea meats and because I wish to provide well for you, I thought bringing you this land-bound Oryx for your meat,” I gesture to it, “would prove how I prize your happiness and comfort.” I feel the corners of my mouth tug downward with my internal dismay. “But searching your mind’s mechanics, there is no indication that you connect my caretaking with courting affection, let alone love.”
“Love?” Becky croaks.
Nodding, I move to Paco’s other side.
Becky watches me, alternating between wringing her hands and holding her stomach, her brain in turmoil.
I sigh. “This morning I was so moved by your gesture to make me yet another seafood meal that I wanted to kiss you. But you didn’t enjoy my attempts to affectionately caress you, so I gathered that you would not welcome my kiss.”
Becky goes still.
“I thought perhaps I could do the dishes for you. The smell of my meal was very strong on them so I knew it would be unpleasant for you to wash them, and you have washed all of our dishes thus far. I wanted to take up the task and contribute to our dwelling rightness with this daily chore, but you guarded the sink contents and sent me from the kitchen with aggression.”
I’ve reached Paco’s neck, and I finish out my currying task in confident, careful strokes. Hanging up the brush, I frown at the wall hooks as I tell my mate, “You alone hold the power to evoke my interest—sexually and affectionately.” I look over at her. “Caretaking also. I don’t patrol this farm simply because it’s my territory. I do it to ensure that the borders that house you are safe. So that you will never again be harmed by a wandering aggressor. Is this the only way you will accept courting affection from me? You only want me as your territory guardian?”
Hands smoothing anxiously over her belly, Becky is watching me with an intense expression on her face. A strange one. “I’m…” Her mouth works. Her eyes are very blue. “No. William… I’m—I’m sorry I didn’t… Thank you. For showing me you care about me.”
Her words soothe me. Yet they also cause a sharp sensation to dig into my emotions. Emotions that I don’t begin to know how to detangle and identify. Dropping my gaze, I move to Paco’s lead rope and untie it from the stall bars. I begin to walk away with the intention of drawing him out of the stall so that I can turn him loose in the paddock, but the moment the barest tension begins to turn the rope taut, it pulls from between his lips and falls to the ground.
Turning, I look down to confirm what I know about the lead rope’s fate.
It’s been chewed clear through.
Short brushy-ended tail wagging, shaggy ears rotating to focus on my position, Paco spits out the scant remaining amount of rope that had been stuffed in his mouth. Covered in spittle, it swings from the clip that’s still affixed to his halter’s ring under his chin.
I watch it for a moment. Then I raise my eyes to his.
His are twinkling .
“HEEEEEEEEEEE!” he explodes, deafening me—and Becky too, judging by the way her hands fly up to cover her ears as Paco’s bray reverberates around the stall walls. “HEEE! HEEE! HEEE! REEEEE!”
Knowing that if I raise my hand now, Paco is likely to flinch, expecting to be struck—I opt to do something else. I step toward him.
Paco skitters back, startled.
But I catch him, closing my arms around his neck, and pat him with my hand.
He pulls back frantically for a moment, panicked.
His movements slow when he realizes that besides the hugging pressure and the pat I’ve given him, I’m not hurting him. His large head crests over my elbow, testing—allowing him to discover that my hugging grip isn’t tight.
He stops struggling entirely, body falling still. His ears—which had fallen flat—partially rise, telegraphing his confusion.
Meeting his eye, I inform him, “You're a pain in the ass, Paco. And you try my patience mightily.”
He heaves a breath out of his nose, steaming my skin.
“But,” I go on, “I’m fond of you anyway. Somehow very much.” Scrubbing a hand along his neck, I continue to hug him to express affection.
Usually, scratching and patting behavior is a form of reward for a donkey.
Paco’s tail begins swishing.
He may not truly comprehend that I’m affectionately hugging his neck. A predator would exhibit much the same behavior when attempting to choke donkey prey to death, after all. But Paco is still receiving the message that he is doing well by holding still while I perform what is no doubt slightly worrisome, odd behavior by his reckoning .
Giving him a last pat, I lower my arms and step back. Then I move to Becky and offer her my hands, thinking that I will help her stand.
Looking contemplative, her head tilted back so that she can scan my face (I feel a dismayed twinge for my mate that she’s limited to scanning my expressions alone, not my brain activity), Becky places her hands in mine. Accepting my gesture of help. When I pull her to her feet, I’m slow to release her hands. I think deeply on her reactions to my courting efforts as we make our way back to the house.
“Are you leaving Paco loose?” Becky asks.
I shrug. “As if stalling him or turning him out in the paddock does any good. He’s loose more than he’s contained.” I place my arm around her shoulders. A companionable gesture meant to convey my gentle feelings of fondness for her, if she will accept it. Accept me.
To my relief, Becky doesn’t stiffen or startle or move out from under my arm. She doesn’t reject my touch as she looks up at me and asks, “What about what’s left of the lead rope?”
Then she stuns me by reaching up and hesitantly catching the hand that I’ve draped over her shoulder, and clasping it so that we’re one-hand holding as she further queries, her voice unnaturally thick, “You’re just going to let it dangle from his face?”
Paco’s nose bumps the back of my thigh, then the seat of my pants as his lip drags over my pocket, hoping to steal treats. Or weapons. His is the sort of character that would rejoice in either discovery.
“He’s—fine,” I assure Becky, my brain misfiring at her voluntary touch. “The rope isn’t long enough to cause him harm, and if he lets me remove his halter when we reach the porch, then he'll be free of the whole thing just as soon as we get there.”
“Oh.” Becky’s hand flexes inside of mine, but she continues to keep us knitted all the way to the door of the shanty.
Paco ascends the steps with us as if he intends to come inside too .
In fact, he passes us, only to stop before the threshold, appearing almost patient by the way he restrains himself from opening—and slamming—the damned screen door.
Feeling my mouth curve up, I relinquish Becky’s hand and remove his halter. I nearly drop the halter on the porch, thinking it’ll be in easy reach for tomorrow—but I think better of it. No doubt Paco will take up his unprotected tack and inventively get up to all manner of trouble with it, before gleefully flinging it into the middle of a field ten oxyokes from the homestead.
In the end I bring the halter into the house instead. And I shut the door in Paco’s long face and softly shining eyes.
When I turn around, Becky is waiting, watching me.
Her hands are on her stomach, and her brows are slightly furrowed.
Her brain is lit up in puzzling areas.
Bending, I begin to unlace and remove my boots. I open my mouth to speak to her, but then find myself hesitating. When I straighten, boots in hand, Becky meets me, reaching for them.
Like she always does, I realize with a jolt. She wants to be the one to put them in the boot rack.
It could be that she wishes to be the one to keep order in the dwelling. But warmth suffuses me as I internally question if it might be her way—one of many, if my dawning theory holds—that Becky shows me that she does care for me.
When I don’t release my boots to her, she jerks her head up. The moment her startled eyes meet mine, I tell her softly, “I appreciate all the caretaking you do of me. Very, very much. And I am asking you, please—from here on out, I want you to tell me plainly what I can do to please you similarly.”
She blinks at me rapidly. Her brain experiences strange seismic activity. Haltingly, she offers, “You—could… ”
I brighten, my sock-clad cybernetic feet braced, my entire body poised to hear what I can do for her to show that I have intense feelings of affection for her person.
“Rub my aching feet,” she finally finishes.
“I would like to do this,” I affirm. “I would tend them now if you’d be amenable?”
She’s still blinking quite rapidly. Tentatively, she lowers her chin in a nod. Then she shakes herself and tugs my boots out of my grip, waddling to the boot rack to care for my things before she moves for the sink and begins to wash her hands.
She curses softly.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
She sighs. “I have to pee.” She disappears into the siphon room.
“Take your time,” I call after her. “I really should peel the skin off the Oryx and submerge the meat in the salt box,” I say as I stuff my feet back into my boots. “I’ll return swiftly.”
I am very swift, but she very obviously has an idea of how long the skinning and salting process takes because upon my return, she’s bathing and nearly done at that. When she emerges, I’m waiting for her beside our bed. She gives me a curious look before she steps to me and allows me to help ease her onto the bed’s side.
Her brain lights up in the areas for alarm and discomfort and curiosity as I bend my cybernetic knees and kneel before her, beside the bed. Gently I take up one of her feet in my hands.
Electrical signals blast to her somatosensory cortex. This isn’t unexpected, as this is where humans process touch. But her anterior cingulate cortex begins to shimmer, stimulated like I’ve never seen before.
She squirms slightly.
I look up at her. “Is this uncomfortable?”
She shakes her head. “It sort of tickles. ”
“Ah,” I murmur thoughtfully. “Touching your feet is exciting your surface nerves and causing you to experience spasmodic movements. Fascinating.”
“Uh… yeah,” Becky agrees, tugging back on her foot to escape my touch.
“Allow me to apply firmer pressure,” I urge, reluctant to release her yet. “That should encourage your cerebellum to contact your cortex and tell it to suppress its reaction. The tickled sensation should be dulled.”
With this explanation, Becky settles gratifyingly fast and the moment I press my thumb testingly—but firmly—against her metatarsal arch, she moans.
More confidently and just as firmly, I draw my fingers down the top of her foot. My thumbs drag along her inner parts, heel to toes, then I gently stretch each of her toes, working the knots out of the bottoms of her feet. Next I rub her ankles, making her squirm and murmur wordless sounds.
I would worry that she sounds pained, yet her brain is releasing copious amounts of serotonin. The resulting endorphins are easing all of her body’s muscle tension and dulling her pain receptors.
If I didn’t know her feet had been paining her and that her current reaction is merely her expression of relief, the moans she’s emitting would lead me to believe she’s in the throes of intense pleasure.
My body is incredibly interested in the depth of her response. The more she writhes and makes throaty vocalizations, the more I begin to experience tightness and pressure and heat in my groin. “I’m experiencing the urge to mate with you when you make noises and buck like that,” I inform her.
“I’ll fuck your brains out if you’ll keep rubbing my feet,” she pants.
My fingers stutter in their workings.
“Don’t stop!” Becky cries.
“Sorry!” I tell her. “Your offer caused my processes to malfunction. ”
To my utter delight, breathlessly, Becky laughs.
With great enthusiasm, I keep massaging my wife.