Sidney
I barely slept at all that night. I could still feel whatever resulted from Vithohn sex oozing inside of me.
It turned my stomach. I was surprised how well our bodies fit together, all things considering. It was like we were meant to tame them somehow.
Vithohn slept like a rock. He didn't even move when I got up from the bed and moved into the spacious chair. I ventured out of his room with ease, sneaking through the base and wandering around the corridors.
I could feel the halls suddenly ablaze with a hauntingly familiar hum. I’d felt it only once before when I was a little girl. Aliens. They ransacked my father’s research facility and left us with nothing. He begged for my life, and they must have been having an off day because the same species who were renowned for their violence agreed to his request.
They stole our food, destroyed my father’s research, left him crippled, and then dropped us into a field.
I’d done my best all these years not to hold it against their entire race, but I was certain my kindness would not be extended twice.
Yet, I’d just had sex with one of them. Fight or flight turned screw and be saved.
Unlike Sunnydale trailer park, the space station didn’t have much security, aside from cameras, which I was sure the Vithohn probably didn’t know how to use anyhow.
I made my way to the edge of the building, feeling the cold air on my skin once more. I thought for sure I’d walk out to a giant snowball, but it seemed winter still wasn’t ready to come and the mass of snowflakes melted somewhere in the night.
My heavily armored boots crunched against the crispy grass outside the unit, and I briefly considered running back to the trailer park and giving up on my mission.
But I didn’t come this far for nothing.
Off in the distance, I saw a little creature globbing its way toward me. It was smooth-skinned and rounded, like grey glop with eyes. Its eyes were little slits with large black pupils in them.
It blanched as it approached me, stopping just shy of my feet. I laughed at its haste and knelt down to touch it.
“Hello there, little fella,” I said, my voice soaring high on the little note the way people did when they spoke to their dogs.
The creature bounced up to meet my hand and purred against my fingers, its whole body rippling with delight. It was about the size of a small cat. I had no doubt that it was likely a Vithohn property: something brought in from their planet.
With a cold breath, I stood from its company and began walking back toward the station, only to see it rolling up behind me.
“No, no!” I shouted, drawing out my vowels. “You can’t come with me little buddy, sorry.”
But still, it followed me like some petulant child would follow their older sibling. It sugared its way under my feet and seemed to dance along with my footsteps, permeating the air with utter happiness.
I relented and knelt down to regard it, petting it with the back of two fingers and watching it go solid so that it could really feel my touch.
A laugh escaped my lips, and I opened up my backpack to the creature, tilting it down.
“I’m gonna call you Ed,” I said. “You okay with that, Ed?”
The blob, Ed, blinked rapidly and bounded into the backpack, nestling into the soft corner and settling there happily.
I had a brief walk around the station before finding my way back to the corridors, suddenly feeling unsafe being by myself.
Well, plus Ed.
I walked back into the dormitories, hesitating before coming back into Tessoul's room.
"I can't believe you came."
I knew the voice instantly; it was Karen.
She looked at me pointedly: scolding. Like I shouldn't have come for her. Then all at once, a curious fascination crossed her expression.
"Who are you with?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
I blinked, surprised by our cold reunion. We had been close back at the trailer park. Karen Pfeifer led our militia, and of everyone in our little camp, she’d chosen me as the one to confide in about her hormone theory.
Now she was acting like I was someone at a coffee shop: some regular that she couldn’t place and had no time for.
“Tessoul,” I said, and she looked especially shocked.
“Really,” she breathed incredulously. “And?”
“And you were right,” I said with my usual overly-casual tone. “He calmed down, Karen. You were right; I’m serious.”
“Wow,” she said.
“You’re at this too, I gather?” I said, and she nodded. She didn’t seem to want to give up any more than that, but I already knew from Tessoul that she was sleeping with their commander, who they referred to as their ‘Voth.’
“Well,” she said raising her brows and giving me a schoolgirl smile. “Get back in there. But Sid,” she raised her finger, worry overtaking her face and creasing her forehead the way a mother’s might. “Be careful when you meet the herd.”
I blinked. “Bad?”
“Either they’ll want you, or they’ll want to kill you,” she explained and then pointed to Tessoul’s door. “Make sure he’s ready to come to your defense.”
I winked at her playfully, hoping to put her at ease.
“I’m not worried,” I said.
She stared at me with a disheveled look and then nodded toward my destination, spinning on her heel and finishing off with, “Good luck.”
Tessoul and I stayed cooped up in his room for several more days, talking about ourselves and him bringing me hot food. I insisted that we should go see everyone else, meet the Vithohn or let me see Tiffany or Karen, but the chiseled creature wasn’t done with me.
In fact, he seemed absolutely fascinated.
“What’s that?” he asked with surprise as Ed rolled out of my open knapsack and I offered him a cheerful gun.
“That’s Ed,” I said and was getting ready to tell him how I’d found him and how much I enjoyed playing with him, since he only seemed to come out at night, but Tessoul seemed to dismiss him.
“Pet?” he asked and twiddled his fingers near the ground, hoping Ed might roll over to him. Instead, the creature globbed down on the ground and went to sleep.
I shrugged. “Sort of,” I said and turned to regard him. “So,” I said slowly, watching his face in an attempt to read him. “When am I going to get to meet everyone?”
I looked over at him, waiting for an answer, but his eyes were fixated on my body. I looked him up and down as well and felt a flutter in my stomach.
“Focus,” I laughed.
“I can’t,” he said with a voice that was thick with lust.
We were in a strange space; our bodies were aching for one another. Yet, I was still a prisoner here, and he was still unwilling to let me go.
Tessoul reached for me, tracing his hand down my backside and pulling me onto his lap.
I stood off his lap and snapped, "Being with me isn't a given. Got it?"
He watched me, looking sexual and rugged and I scraped my teeth against my lower lip. I didn't want to have these feelings about a Vithohn. All I wanted was to make him sane, and as far as I was concerned, I'd done that.
"What," he scoffed, "I have to fight you for it first, sweetheart? You're only game when we're in a brawl?"
"I was trying to save my life," I teased back, hating that I was even entertaining flirting with Tessoul.
"So did you...” he asked and then trailed off, raising his eyebrows curiously while waving his hands around. He almost looked bashful: awkward.
Then I realized what he was trying to ask and I threw my hands into the air, frowning wildly and rolling my eye as my face exploded into a hot red silk.
"What? No!" I protested, offended. "I was more concerned about saving my own skin, thanks."
"Then let me prove myself," he said, his tone bordering somewhere between tender and flirtatious.
I turned around fully and looked him over. He was chiseled and looked human except for the spire and the gradient of green that glowed on patches of his skin. There was something erotic about the way he moved. Must be the tentacle, I laughed privately. Still, I found myself drawn to his body and this strange little deal we'd made: this connection.
He stood behind me, and I arched my back so I was on all fours in front of
Against my better judgment, I walked up to him and pushed him down on the bed, straddling his body. He slipped my shirt off me, tossing it to the floor, and saw that I had a heavy armored vest covering my breasts.
"Anticipating a battle?” he teased.
I nodded. "Always."
He unzipped the heavy armor and revealed my perky breasts, taking a nipple into his mouth and bumping up so that his hard-on was wedged perfectly in between my legs. We kissed like this for what felt like forever, his hands moving across my breasts and more specifically, in the valley that sat between them.
When I finally moved, I was sitting on my legs, perched up at him on the bed fully naked now and he stood at the edge of the mattress. He continued tossing my clothes onto the floor and playfully looped my belt around the back of my neck and used it to pull me close to him. He kissed me and then tossed the belt down as well.
Flipping me over, he arranged me on the bed so that I was on all fours in front of him. I arched my back while he stood behind me and offered my backside a satisfying slap before he leaned over and kissed my back.
He thrust into me, and I chimed out a moan, but I wasn't sure what to do next. Reach down and touch myself? I felt an odd loyalty to Baxley that made the thought of deriving pleasure from the man inside me seem wrong somehow.
Giving into my baser urges, I reached down with my hand and moved with Tessoul's body, letting out a breathy moan that made him go faster.
I could feel myself getting close; a mountain of tension and lust edging me there. Finally, the pleasure doubled over, and I elicited a hiss of moans and my body seized.
A bubble of guilt roared up from this, even though Baxley and I weren't in any sort of relationship; he'd made no promises to me. But this felt wrong, somehow, like a betrayal.
Tessoul followed quickly after me, and we both collapsed onto the soaking mattress, sweaty and out of breath.
“I grow fonder of you with every passing second,” he said with exhaustion, looking over at me with sweet eyes. “Why is that?”
I laughed. “Because you’ve been inside of me.”
“I feel so…” He paused, testing the word out. “Disgusted.”
I extended both arms above my head and looked over at him with a bemused smile; my breasts were shifting as I breathed through my chest.
“I think you mean dirty?” I offered. “You know… naughty? Bad? Sexy?”
“No,” he dismissed quickly, rolling onto his side and tracing a finger along the dip in my side. “I’m not sure what I mean. Oh geez, have I become one of them? I have. Next thing you know we’ll be dancing and I’ll be declaring… ugh… feelings for you.”
“Oh no!” I mocked. “Not feelings!”
“Hey, cut me some slack,” he said with an annoyed laugh. “I’m new to this, alright?”
I laughed and purred up next to him, letting him play with my hair and dot my freckles like I was something new and sparkly to fawn over.
“Alright, lover boy,” I teased.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said and touched my cheek. “Your skin. You make me feel, something.”
I scraped my tongue along my teeth, scratching and paining it to prevent me from saying what I was about to say.
“There’s a chemical, or like, a hormone or something in you,” I started, begrudgingly. “Something in your DNA. The way it was told to me was like, you’re so angry and fueled by your violent tendencies because you haven’t been ‘grounded’ yet. Haven’t been made whole.”
Tessoul gave me a look I couldn’t read, though it was clear the information disturbed him.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“I don't know. You're telling me I've been... half a person.”
“Well, haven’t you?” I rolled onto my back, our arms looped on the mid-sized mattress. “I mean, isn’t that what it feels like?”
He was stubborn. “I guess so.” He shrugged, and there was a long silence between us as some new determination formed in him. “Then… this needs to spread, don’t you think?”
“I do. I want us to use the land together. But that’s going to take a lot.”
“Oh!” Tessoul sat up, leaving me startled and bouncing on the mattress as he jolted out of bed. He snapped and spun on his heel, his spire swaying determinedly from side to side behind him. “Jareth!” he exclaimed and slapped his own forehead.
“Jareth?” I repeated.
“Jareth told me that if I started to feel, that if I,” he snapped his fingers again. “I don’t know. Something about a feeling! I need to bring you to him.”
I licked my bottom lip and sat up nervously, watching as he got dressed and flung my old clothes at me.
“Alright,” I wavered.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
I offered a small shrug and only responded, “I guess I’m just nervous at the thought of meeting a Vithohn that hasn’t been, you know, tamed.”
“Tamed,” he repeated, tasting the word and not liking a moment of it.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “You know what I mean.”
“Don’t worry,” he instructed. “He isn’t a Vithohn.”
I cocked a brow and seductively offered, “Intriguing.”
We got dressed and wandered down the corridors until we entered the science wing. Walking through the sliding glass doors, I came upon counters and counters of buttons, screens, and holograph projections of weapons.
Tessoul looked like he was greeting someone, but looking around the room, I couldn’t imagine who else was in there with us. Then I blinked in surprise as I looked down and saw a new species: blue and curious.
The man, Jareth, looked up at me with big, unassuming red eyes and suddenly looked delighted. He waddled toward me with his arms splayed and in a jovial tone said, “Ah! So, you’re the meat bag Tessoul has been spending his time with!”
A laugh burst from my closed lips, and I looked over at Tessoul curiously. “Um?” I chuckled. “Excuse me?”
“Hey!” Tessoul frowned protectively. “Watch your mouth!”
“I am only repeating what you referred to them as, Tessoul,” the creature said indignantly. “As I recall you said, ‘Those meat bags are turning us sour,’ and I said, ‘What, sir?’ and you said, ‘Meat bags. Bags. Of. M—"
“Jareth!” Tessoul interrupted quickly, his face flushing a furious red. He all but gritted his teeth as he warned, “We’re uh, we’re not referring to them as that anymore.”
“Sidney,” I offered with a laugh.
“Ah,” Jareth took my hand. “Sidney. I am Jareth.”
“So, tell me,” Jareth began as he wandered back over to a holo-screen in the center of a large table at the far end of the room. “How is it that you’re not in captivity, Sidney?”
“I guess I just got on Tessoul’s good side,” I teased, offering flirtatious eyes to the Vithohn.
“A difficult thing to do,” Jareth said and then gave a full body shiver. “How do you combat this unbearable cold?”
“Sweaters,” I shrugged. “Indoor heating.”
“I told you!” Tessoul said with a laugh.
“And what do you do here, Jareth?” I asked.
The blue creature stopped mid-march and turned to look at me. He blinked twice, and with a wide, thin smile he said, “I am a–”
“–Strategist!” Tessoul interrupted.
I wasn’t sure if the sudden outburst was a cover-up or simply impatience for his slow little friend’s speech. I began to perceive it was the former when Jareth looked up and offered Tessoul an odd expression.
“Sort of,” Jareth said. “Yes.”
“And you’re not Vithohn?” I asked, acting like their exchange wasn’t completely suspicious.
“No. I am Socrora, from Avelon,” he said, continuing his slow march back to the screen.
I looked at Tessoul and offered a smile, crossing my arms as I wandered over to Jareth, wanting so badly to pick him up and help him along.
“How did you come to be teamed up with the Vithohn?” I asked.
“My planet was overrun by foreign life,” he said, his voice twittering between factual and panicked. “They propelled from the rocky ground and started taking over the land. They were large with spikes all down the spine, though I never got to research them further. Tessoul rescued me out of a hollow.”
“So you do have a heard?” I mocked and looked at Tessoul. I offered him a ginger smile, imagining him coming to Jareth’s rescue like some sort of sweet protector. The thought made my heart lilt, and I quickly looked away.
Jareth put on a ridiculously long finger and corrected, “He promised that if I made myself useful to his time, I could travel with them.”
“Ah,” I said, cocking both my brows. “The con-artist pops up again.”
“Well,” he mocked. “Nobody gets a free ride.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“It was a true shame,” Jareth lamented, hoisting himself up on the swivel stool before him. “Most all of my people were wiped out. I use the term people loosely, here. As you humans might use 'soul' to describe a living thing. Because obviously, we are Socrora.”
The blue creature began to laugh then, a hard laugh from his gut that echoed. It was the equivalent of a high-pitched child’s laugh, an uncontrollable, ‘Hehehe,’ someone might do when they’re out of breath from laughter.
Tessoul and I exchanged a curious look, and we both began to laugh. Not at the joke, since I couldn’t really identify that there ever was one, but at how hilarious his friend thought it was.
“I'm sorry that happened to you,” I finally said with a smile.
Jareth’s voice died down then, and he wiped his face. “Yes. Well, I'm sure you know exactly what that feels like, miss.”
“But onto happier topics...” Tessoul guided us.
“It's true,” I offered a shrug. “My people were almost wiped out as well. It's been... hard. Very, very difficult to regain any sort of footing but... Tessoul and I have come to an understanding of how we might all be able to work together.”
Then, for the first time, Jareth seemed like he was interested in our conversation.
“Is that right?” he asked slowly.
“I hope so,” Tessoul offered, still from the far end of the room.
Jareth nodded to me and said, “Then you really have found in him a new man. I only wish I could have come to the same alliance with those who took over Avelon.” The man seemed emotional then, grabbing at his throat as though he could massage out any sadness that was welling up, tightening his ability to speak.
“They wiped us out in a single day. My family, our city. All reduced to rubble. I never knew who they were or what they wanted. Where they came from,” he managed to finish.
I gave a sympathetic nod. It was true. I knew exactly what it felt like to have my species preyed upon and reduced to nothing. I could relate to him right down to the fact that Tessoul was the one to save us both from our fates.
Then something suddenly occurred to me.
“On Avelon? AP-7?” I snapped.
With no small level of intrigue, Jareth said slowly, “I don't know.”
My eyes quickly traced the lab, and I grabbed a tablet and pen, scribbling out the location of AP-7 on the galaxy map. “Here, by the Sundren stars. The largest blue planet, here?”
“Yes,” Jareth said slowly, taking the tablet from me. “Yes, that's it!”
I looked back down at the paper and bit my lip. “It was the Gnash. The ones who invaded your planet.”
“How... would you have come to know this?” the blue creature asked.
“I didn't, but Karen did. She was a space researcher. She led us before, well, before we came here. She told us that the Gnash were these spiked creatures.” I began to sketch them out, to the best of my memory.
I knew I must have been hitting the nail on the head when Jareth once again snatched the tablet from me with a horrified expression as a deep emotion welled up in him.
“What do you know of them?” he asked.
“Um. Not much, unfortunately. They are an elemental lifeform. Not sentient.” Jareth stared at me then, and I twirled my hand as I went on. “If they destroyed your people, they didn't know they were doing it. They move on instinct, not emotion.”
“So...” the blue creature set his long fingers across his forehead and looked up at me with water streaming from his eyes. Tessoul finally approached and set a hand on Jareth’s shoulder.
“So, it was not a personal attack?” Jareth finished.
I shook my head and crossed my arms uncomfortably. “I'm sure it ended up being quite personal, but it wasn't meant that way. They were just trying to survive.”
He nodded. “I see. What happened to them?”
“I'm sorry, I don't know.” I shrugged. “Karen might have more of an idea but... I'm really sorry.”
“I'm sorry too, Jareth,” Tessoul offered in his smooth voice. “But... you're welcome family to us here.”