Chapter 9 #2
Just as our conversation lapses, I hear the clink of the metal slot in the door opening. I scramble to my feet just as X does, but he touches my shoulder, and I hang back while he approaches it.
The smell hits me first, savory and mouthwatering. Food. I walk over to join X where he crouches over the box. My heart surges as I see a plate of food within—bread and steamed vegetables and an apple—only to fall as I realize what’s missing.
There’s no meat.
I stare at the meal, my hunger forgotten as foreboding sweeps over me. They’re feeding me, but not him.
It makes it all too clear: They are using me for information…and as a test. They are hoping he will give in and eat me.
I swallow back the rush of fear and crouch beside the box. I hesitantly rub X’s shoulder, and he leans into my touch as he turns his head to look at me.
“Can you eat any of this?” I ask.
He sniffs hesitantly, holding the plate up to inspect each item one by one, but shakes his head. “None of this will help my hunger.”
“It could fill your stomach, at least. Would you like to try?”
“You can eat this?” he asks, instead of answering my question.
“Yes, but—”
He pushes the plate toward me. “Then eat.”
I swallow. Saliva thickens in my mouth as the scent of the meal continues to tempt me, but I feel horrible at the thought of eating in front of him while he starves. “But you—”
He picks up the bread and pushes it against my lips. “Eat,” he insists.
I blink, startled for a moment, before letting my lips part.
He feeds me, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that makes me flush.
I rip off a piece of the bread with my teeth, and barely chew before I swallow.
I’m tempted to take the rest from him and eat quickly, but instead he feeds me, bite by bite.
It feels oddly soothing, to be fed like this.
Gradually, the tension in his shoulders eases, too.
Instead of being jealous that I get to eat, he seems gratified by it.
I eat the bread and the vegetables, but hold out a hand to stop him when he picks up the apple.
“I want you to try to eat this,” I say. “Unless you think it will hurt you?”
“Will not hurt,” he says. “But it will not help. And you are still hungry.”
I am. This was hardly a meal, and even though I’m not a carnivore, my body needs protein, too. But that’s beside the point.
“Please, try.” I take the apple from his hand and hold it up to his mouth, as he did for me.
He hesitates for a moment and then opens his lips and takes a bite. His teeth rip through the apple with a shocking amount of force, and I have to bite back a flinch. It’s easy to forget how strong he is when he treats me so gently.
It is a risk to hold my fingers so close to his mouth when I know he must be starving. But I do it anyway. I feed him the apple, bite by bite, slowly rotating it in my hands. Soon, only the core is left.
“People don’t normally eat this part,” I say.
He inspects it, then plucks it from my fingers and throws it into his mouth anyway, swallowing it in one big bite.
I let out a startled laugh. He blinks at me and then grins widely—too wide, in an expression I used to find unnerving, but now it’s grown almost familiar.
“It fills my stomach as well as the rest,” he says. “Let us sleep now.”
I hesitate, thinking again of his hunger, of how I must smell like food. But the look on his face is so hopeful, and I remind myself that being close to him, making myself more valuable as a companion than as a meal, may be the only way to survive this. So after a moment, I nod.
He lifts me up and cradles me against his chest again, and I feel the rumble of his purr as he carries me to the sleep chamber and settles both of us inside.
Like before, he waits for the lights to turn off before he shifts into his natural form. I feel him expand against my back, and a few stray tentacles curl around me. I try to squint through the darkness, but I can’t make anything out.
“What do you look like, in your true form?” I ask.
He hums in thought. “I do not know words for it,” he says. “But I am…big.”
I huff a laugh. “I know that much.”
“I hope one day you will find me pleasing as my true self.”
I smile, knowing he won’t see it in the darkness. I stretch out my legs, letting them brush against him as I grow more comfortable in the close quarters. “Do you find me pleasing?”
“You are different from what I’m used to. Very small and soft. But you are also warm and smell very good, so yes.” A tentacle curls around my leg, just above my knee. “I would find you pleasing in any form, taujak.”
I blush. But then I am soberingly, jarringly reminded that the scientists outside are likely listening in on this conversation.
The thought fills me with embarrassment…
but also anger. Because this should be a private moment.
It’s clear that X is being open and earnest with me right now, regardless of who is listening.
Something touches my shoulder. I jump, startled out of my thoughts, and let out a tiny peep of a sound.
All at once, I’m pinned—X’s tentacles wrapping around me as he holds me face-down against the cot.
It takes all of my willpower to suppress a scream. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and grit my teeth, body rigid in his grip as I anticipate the sharp sting of teeth.
A second passes. Another. Then his tentacles loosen their grip and retract.
“Taujak,” he says, distress in his voice. “I apologize. I apologize. One hundred times I apologize.”
I force myself to breathe, though it feels like the air can’t reach my lungs. “It’s okay,” I whisper, my eyes still shut tightly.
His arms wrap around me and he eases me onto my side again, cuddling up against me, his large body spooning mine.
“I did not mean to frighten you,” he murmurs close against my ear. “Never want to frighten you.”
“I know,” I say, my breathing gradually steadying. “Um. I was just not expecting to be touched. Your tentacles, they feel different from what I am used to.”
“You dislike them?”
“No, no.” I reach for one but then pause, my hand extended. “Is it all right for me to touch them?”
He nods. I carefully close the distance to the nearest one, running my fingertips lightly over it. It’s fleshy but soft. When it moves, I feel muscles shifting beneath the smooth surface.
“What do you use them for?” I ask, fascinated, continuing to stroke the unusual appendage.
X begins to make that low, rumbling sound in his chest again. “Touching. Grabbing, holding. Climbing. Fighting, hunting.”
“Ah.” Their use is quite flexible, then. “You use them like your hands?”
“I do not use my hands for so many things.”
“No? What do you use them for?”
“Mm… We do not use hands for fighting or hunting. They are only for…soft things. Gentle touches.”
“Oh.” I stop stroking the tentacle and reach for one of his hands where it rests on my hip. I gently slide my palm into his much larger one, intertwining our fingers. “Does your kind do this?”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “When we are close.”
We sit like that for a moment. I let my thumb slide gently over his knuckles.
“It has been a long time,” he says, “since I felt this. Thank you.”
“It’s been a long time for me, too,” I say. “It’s good.”
“Good,” he echoes.
After a moment, his tentacles wrap around me in a loose embrace as well. When I don’t react poorly, they cuddle me tighter against his chest. I fall asleep like that, wrapped up in him, that word I still don’t fully understand echoing in my mind: taujak.