Chapter 4
Knox
She strips off her sweater and starts going through all the stuff in my kitchen to find coffee.
The whole thing makes me really fucking uncomfortable.
An Earth woman in my cabin?
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she still had her sweater on, but now all she’s wearing is a thin light-blue t-shirt that’s a little see-through from the damp snow. Also, she must be cold because her nipples are poking through.
She brushes past me to get to the coffee machine, and it’s too fucking much. She’s so bouncy, so floral-scented, so feminine, so here.
I haven’t had a panic attack in years, but this feels like it’s about to set me right off.
“I’ll make the coffee. Just get out of my kitchen,” I huff.
Her face flushes pink. She raises her arms, takes a step back and disappears into the lounge room.
Ah, fuck. That was probably not very nice.
But I don’t know how to do this! Clara is the only Earth woman I’ve ever spoken to. In six years on this planet, her grocery deliveries are the closest I’ve come to being with a woman.
I mean, I’ve been with women. Virrindarian women. I spent as much time as anyone in the sex pods on board our starship, but there were no niceties between sex pod partners. No making coffee for each other.
There was no coffee.
Just small rations of recycled water.
Shit, not that I’m thinking about doing it with Clara in a sex pod!
Okay, now I’m thinking about doing it with Clara in a sex pod!
The sex pods were these tiny little rooms where we’d just do it standing up. Us Virrindarians have super strength, and so even with a bit of gravity being pumped into the pods, lifting a woman and fucking her up against the wall took very little effort.
If she would allow it, it would take very little effort for me to fuck Clara up against a wall right now.
Fuck!
I make a pot of coffee, and when it’s ready, I pour two cups. It feels strange and confusing. Two cups instead of one.
I walk into the lounge where Clara is sitting on my couch watching TV, and seeing her here, relaxing on my couch, makes me have all kinds of Earth feelings.
I put her cup on the coffee table in front of her.
“Thanks,” she says with a forced smile.
“Sure,” I say, turning and tending to the fire. I throw a few more logs on to get it warmer in here so her nipples stop showing through that damn shirt!
The theme music for the X-Files plays, and I look up, rolling my eyes at the TV screen. “Anything but this. I can’t fucking stand the grays.”
“Oh, yeah, those guys are assholes.”
Okay, so we finally agree on something.
“How can you watch this?” I ask as the creepy intro continues.
I can’t exactly tell her the truth about the gray aliens.
Can’t tell her about all the sketchy shit they really got up to.
Can’t tell her how many of our starships they hit and how many of theirs we blew to pieces.
Can’t tell her that I nearly have a panic attack whenever I think about those gray bastards.
Virrindarians are not naturally aggressive. We’re protectors. But sometimes being a protector of what’s good means ridding the universe of what’s bad.
Doesn’t make it any easier to know you’ve been part of a war, responsible for killing and destroying other beings.
She bites her lip when David fucking Duchovny appears on screen talking some shit about how much he wants to believe in aliens.
I shake my head. I have no claim on her. She can drool over David Duchovny all she wants. “Whatever. Watch what you want.”
“I will.” She juts out her chin at me and somehow sticks out her tits at the same time.
Fuck, those nipples!
I let out a grunt of… what? Disapproval? Displeasure?
I stomp into my bedroom and rummage through my closet to find something for her to wear and realize it’s the complete opposite.
All I have for her tits is approval. All I feel when I think about them is my own fucking pleasure, and hers too.
How good I could make her feel by rubbing those nipples between my fingers and thumbs, how it would feel to suck one into my mouth.
I throw an old zip-up hoodie in her direction and then disappear back into the kitchen.
The first sauce is ruined. Overcooked. But now that I have fresh tomatoes and a fresh bulb of garlic, I can make the sauce I’ve been dreaming about.
I try to get Clara’s nipples out of my mind and focus on chopping tomatoes, but it’s fucking difficult.