CHAPTER 6
“Adam is attracted to me,” Harry said.
Samantha stopped wiping the counter and lifted her head. “And?”
Harry frowned, not understanding why she wasn’t surprised. “That’s it. Adam is attracted to me.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Is that supposed to be news to me? Why do you think I’ve been calling him your boyfriend? He looks at you like you’re his personal sun.”
Harry’s frown deepened. She was wrong. Adam didn’t look at him that way. He felt like Adam barely looked at him lately.
Harry shook his head. “As I understand it, it’s just physical attraction. He’s gay and he considers me physically attractive.” Not that he understood the concept of physical attraction all that well. At times like this, Harry felt more acutely than ever that he didn’t belong to this world.
Samantha rolled her eyes. “Sure, and I’m the Queen. What’s the problem, Hazza? The guy’s insanely attractive and hot, well off, nice, not without sense of humor, and he adores you. I’m practically green with envy.” She smirked. “I bet he’s great in bed. He looks like he’s great in bed.”
Rubbing behind his neck, Harry chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Adam is my friend, not a...” He blushed at the thought of physical intimacy outside a marriage bond. Humans’ casual attitude toward sex still baffled him a little. When he had found out that humans could have sex as early as twelve, he had been absolutely flabbergasted. Back home most people didn’t have sex before their bonding ceremony at the age of twenty-five. Sex outside of a bond was such a taboo back home that he felt embarrassed even thinking about it. It wasn’t that Calluvians were prudish about sex. It was just…until the bonding ceremony, Calluvians weren’t supposed to be interested in sex. There were rumors that sometimes, when the childhood bond was weak, it was possible to feel sexual attraction to someone other than one’s bondmate, but Harry wasn’t sure how truthful those rumors were. His own childhood bond had always been perfectly strong and he’d never felt even a flicker of sexual attraction toward anyone. It had never bothered him. He’d had no reason to feel bothered about something he was incapable of feeling—yet.
But now he was curious. He wanted to understand Adam. For the first time ever, Harry wondered if he was missing something because of the bond.
It had been over four thousand years since Calluvians had started practicing childhood bonds. The practice had been put in place for a reason.
It all had started when a minor member of the First Grand Clan kidnapped the queen of the Third Grand Clan and forced an archaic, unbreakable bond on her. Although there had been precedents of forced bonds in the past, no one had ever tried to force an unbreakable bond on the ruler of a grand clan. The uproar had been enormous. That type of bond had become obsolete for a reason—it was impossible to dissolve—so a mind rapist effectively became a royal consort despite best mind adepts’ efforts to break the bond. Eventually, the queen had to step down in favor of her brother. To make matters worse, the First Grand Clan refused to be held responsible for its member’s harmful actions against the Third Royal House, even though it was legally obligated to do so. As a result, the political scandal turned into a military conflict, eventually involving all of the grand clans in the greatest planet-wide war in the Calluvian history that nearly wiped out the entire population when the biological weapons used in the war affected the population’s health and reproductive ability.
The Great War ended years later when everyone realized how close to extinction they had come. It took decades to recover from that devastating war and its consequences.
To prevent something like that from happening again, the Council of the Grand Clans had come up with the way to bond children’s telepathic cores from early age. A childhood bond worked differently from any other telepathic bond, digging itself deep into the child’s psyche and making it impossible for someone to force a marriage bond. Any other time such a proposal would have likely led to a debate on consent issues, since children couldn’t give their consent, but after years of bloodshed and decades of rebuilding, no one wanted something like that to happen again and pretty much everyone had just been relieved by the solution. Well, not everyone. Some people had refused to follow the law and left their grand clans, but it wasn’t appropriate to acknowledge their existence in polite company. Renegades, they were called in whispers. Renegades didn’t acknowledge any grand clan’s authority. They were effectively wanted outlaws, but no one knew where they lived. Some said that they lived somewhere high up in the Great Mountains, but Harry didn’t think it was true. Wouldn’t modern technology find them if that were the case?
Anyway, renegades were the only people on Calluvia who didn’t have childhood bonds. Harry had always thought that renegades were wrong. The fact that there hadn’t been any conflicts like that again proved that the Bonding Law was right. It had been scientifically proven that bonding children’s telepathic cores made their telepathy more stable and their tempers milder. Sociologists insisted that childhood bonds had basically saved their society from self-destruction—something that happened to too many advanced civilizations.
But how could he explain it to Samantha? Especially since Harry didn’t fully understand how the bond worked. There was very little information on the bond in the public database. Why did the bond prevent people from feeling attraction? Why were some bonded people capable of feeling some sexual attraction while others couldn’t feel a thing until the bonding ceremony? What happened during the bonding ceremony? How did a childhood bond become a marriage bond? Harry had asked his brother once, but Ksar had said that Harry didn’t really want to know. When Harry had asked his mother, she had just given him an odd look and changed the subject. It was so weird. Why were they so tight-lipped about it? What were they hiding? Why?
“I’m engaged, remember?” Harry said, for lack of anything better to say.
“Please,” Samantha said with a scoff. “In all the time you’ve worked here, she’s never called you, Harry. What kind of relationship is that?”
Harry winced. He hated that he couldn’t defend Leylen’shni’gul. But revealing that he wasn’t human and effectively making an unauthorized Contact with Terrans would be a violation of one of the most important intergalactic laws. Even if Harry didn’t get arrested for that, he had no doubt the scandal would be used as a weapon by his mother’s political enemies. If his mother didn’t kill him for putting her in such a weak position, Harry’s brother would.
“It’s not Leyla’s fault that she’s unable to keep in touch,” Harry said. It was true. Lately he could barely feel the bond between them. Their telepathic connection had disappeared immediately upon his arrival on Earth, but he had still been able to feel their bond at the back of his mind, like a constant reassuring presence. However, as the time passed, the bond had gradually weakened, and Harry was afraid it would fade completely soon, just like his links to his family had upon his arrival. Granted, he had never heard of a childhood bond fading completely. It was pretty common for weaker telepathic connections to fade if the physical distance was too big to maintain them, but the childhood bond was too strong for that. As far as Harry knew, it never happened. And yet, his mind was so very quiet lately, for the first time in his life. Coupled with the distance between him and Adam, this was the most depressed Harry had ever felt.
Harry sighed at the thought of Adam.
“I don’t buy it,” Samantha said.
It took Harry a moment to remember what they were talking about. Right. His bondmate’s “neglect” of him.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Harry said with a shake of his head. Why couldn’t Samantha concentrate on the real issue? “Adam is attracted to me. What should I do?”
She gave him a look. “What do you mean? If you don’t want him, just tell him so, and move out of his place.”
“No,” Harry said, his brows drawing together. He didn’t want to move out. He loved living with Adam, and he wanted to live with him for as long as he could—while he still could. His parents might recall him any day now.
His stomach knotted at the thought. He missed his family terribly, but the thought of leaving Adam made him feel ill and panicky.
Noticing the odd expression on Samantha’s face, Harry said, “What?”
“Harry,” she said slowly. “You do understand that it must be... uncomfortable for him, right? Unreciprocated attraction is no joke. It must be hard for him to live with you.”
“I…” Harry swallowed. “I do. That’s why I’m asking advice. I don’t want to hurt him.”
Samantha sighed. “I don’t know what to say. That’s a tough situation. Are you sure you aren’t attracted to him at all? When I see you with him, his attraction to you doesn’t really look unrequited.”
Harry chuckled. “Don’t be silly!”
“Silly?” she said, her voice full of exasperation. “Haz, you show the classic signs of attraction: you angle your body toward him, you smile looking him in the eye, you are constantly all over him, you find the lamest excuses to touch him. Just a few days ago, I saw you nuzzling his neck and you looked like you were getting off on it! Frankly, the fact that you are not attracted to him is more surprising to me. Are you sure you aren’t?”
“I’m—I’m,” Harry stammered, his mind racing. “I think so?”
She stared at him. “How can you not know?”
Harry wondered what she would say if he told her he was an alien with a completely different biological makeup. At this point it would probably be more believable than his obliviousness and inexperience.
“I’m something you would probably call demisexual,” he said carefully. “I’m closer to asexual. I don’t really get attraction. I have to be... emotionally connected to the person to feel any sexual attraction.” He needed to be telepathically bonded, which he obviously wasn’t—not to Adam, at least.
Samantha had a pinched expression on her face. “Harry,” she said slowly. “Are you saying you don’t feel emotionally connected to Adam? Because that’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
Harry looked at her, feeling completely lost.
“Can you describe what attraction fees like?” he said haltingly, licking his lips. “It’s probably a stupid question, but humor me?”
Samantha smiled at him. “It’s not a stupid question if you identify as demisexual or asexual.” She looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m not a man, but when I’m attracted to someone, I feel excited around them, want to touch them all the time, I smile around them more, want to please them, want to look good for them, want them to think I’m funny and interesting. Obviously there are physical signs...”
“What physical signs?”
She stared at him. “You really want to know what I feel when I’m turned on?”
Harry fought a blush. This was so incredibly embarrassing. But he needed to know—because everything else she had described sounded very familiar. Confusingly familiar.
Biting his lip, Harry nodded. He wasn’t a baby. He could talk about sex. It wasn’t a big deal for humans and he was supposed to be a human.
“Okay.” Samantha blushed. “My skin tingles when he touches me. I get a warm feeling in my lower stomach. I want his hands on my body. I want to be close to him so there’s no space between us. I want his lips on me, everywhere.” She was red now. “I get wet if I’m really attracted to the guy, but obviously it’s different for men. Men get hard.” She smiled a little. “I didn’t expect to have this talk until I have teenage kids.”
Harry didn’t smile back. While some of the things she had said didn’t apply to him, some things were more than a little familiar. He always wanted to be close to Adam, press his body flush against him. He wanted Adam’s hands on his body all the time. He had never imagined Adam’s mouth on his body, but now that he did, the thought wasn’t…unpleasant. It made his heart beat faster and his skin warm.
But he didn’t entirely understand what getting wet or hard had to do with being attracted to someone. Well, he understood the mechanics of sex, but having never experienced it, it was difficult to imagine.
“I guess you would call my parents... prudish,” Harry said, choosing his words carefully. He knew his obliviousness must seem strange in the era of Google. “They disapprove of sex out of wedlock. They never talked to me about sex and discouraged me from learning about it.”
Samantha’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Harry nodded, feeling a pang of guilt for lying. His parents weren’t really that prudish. Calluvians simply didn’t discuss sex unless it was necessary.
“...Harry?”
Flinching, Harry looked back at Samantha. “Sorry, what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t get something. If you’ve never been attracted to anyone, how can you be engaged to that girl?” She scoffed. “Please don’t tell me it’s an arranged marriage. But after what you said about your parents, that wouldn’t surprise me.”
“It is an arranged marriage,” Harry conceded, though he’d never thought of his childhood bond in those terms. “But I do like my fiancée. She’s nice.”
“Honestly,” Samantha said. “Where are you from again? Fifteenth century? It’s positively medieval.”
Harry chuckled, wondering what she would say if she knew that Harry’s people were actually thousands of years ahead of humans technologically. But it was rather curious that his people’s customs were closer to the customs that humans had practiced several centuries ago.
“So are you attracted to Adam or not?” Samantha said.
Harry averted his gaze. The answer that should have been simple was anything but. He did have some strange feelings toward Adam that he had never felt before. He did feel weirdly drawn to Adam. But was it attraction?
No, he was probably just confused. He got neither “wet” nor “hard” around Adam. That had to mean he wasn’t attracted to him, right?
“No,” Harry replied. “I don’t think I’m attracted to him.” He rubbed his nose with a sigh. “I need to figure out what to do. I don’t like Adam’s solution.”
“Adam’s solution?”
Harry felt the corners of his mouth turn down. “He’s been different the past few days.”
“Different?”
“He’s, like, friendly, but he’s distant.” Harry caught his bottom lip between his teeth and looked down at his hands. He said quietly, “He hasn’t called me ‘babe’ or ‘love’ in two days.”
Silence.
“Let me get this straight, Haz,” Samantha said, her tone very dry. “You want him to call you love and baby, and you’re upset that he doesn’t anymore.”
“Babe,” Harry corrected, frowning. “Not baby.”
She gave him a strange look before giving a laugh. “God, you’re so weird, Harry.” But then, she became serious. “You want my advice? Figure out what you feel for him before it’s too late. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get upset because my best friend doesn’t use endearments on me.”
Harry opened his mouth and closed it.
She was right. It shouldn’t have upset him. No one in his family called him such things and Harry didn’t doubt his family’s love. But it was different with Adam. He loved being Adam’s love and Adam’s babe. He wanted Adam to call him love and babe, which was…probably a weird thing to want from one’s friend.
Harry buried his face in his hands, groaning in a mix of embarrassment and frustration. “I don’t understand anything anymore.”
Samantha just laughed.