15

- Sophia -

Nothing about this surprises me. Of course I wake up safe in Jax'zan's lap after that dino tried to bite me in half.

I'm conscious for a little while before I let him know it. Lying here in his lap is very relaxing and comforting, and I feel that I need this right now. I'm naked, but that doesn't bother me. That feels right, too.

I'm thirsty and open my eyes very visibly. His red, glowing gaze has taken on a worried look that almost makes me laugh.

“Hi,” I say, and he smiles. Then he reaches for his canteen and puts it to my lips. Because of course he knows exactly what I need. That doesn't surprise me, either.

The juice is delicious, even if it's pretty warm. I drink a good amount of it.

“Thank you,” I sigh and lie back on his lap again. I wish my translator was on, but I can't reach my jeans. But I can reach my dirty old shirt. I pull it over my crotch so at least some of me is covered.

We're in a small tent, and while it's still day outside, it's pretty dark in here. I can see the gun right beside me. Jax'zan's sword is close to him, and I feel the safety right here. I lie there and feel that my cuts have been treated and that my position is very comfortable. The tent is warm and I ache all over.

I close my eyes again. I haven't gotten the rest I need lately.

- - -

When I wake up again, it's dark. I feel much better, especially because I can smell something being grilled. I crawl to the opening of the tent and carefully peer outside. It's dusk, and the sky glows where the sun has just set. Jax'zan has lit a fire outside, and he's busy cooking what looks a lot like skewers with both vegetables and meat on them.

Immediately my mouth fills with water. I pull on my pants and I put my shirt on loosely. Now he has seen absolutely all of me, and it didn't seem to put him off. I'm still sore, but it feels like the first aid he gave me was very effective.

I walk out to him and he smiles. And yeah, that grin could stop my heart. With all its fangs and whiteness it's both terrifying and beautiful, like a charging tiger. And the animalistic part of that is a pretty effective turn-on for me.

I switch on the translator. “Good evening,” I yawn. “Thanks for saving me.”

“Zopia in danger,” he says, and my knees almost give when I hear that deep bass again. “Jax'zan find. Hear many-” He claps his hands five times like gunshots.

I nod. “I did shoot that thing. Right in the mouth, I'm afraid. Did it survive?”

He turns the skewers on the fire. “Rekh on top of Zopia. Rekh very dead. Zopia almost dead.”

I go up on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, Jax'zan. I can probably never repay what you have done for me.”

He just looks at me quizzically. “Repay? Jax'zan not vendor of trinkets.”

“No, I mean-” I stop, then smile and shrug. “It's not important.”

I look around to make sure it's safe, then sit down by the fire.

He notices. “Zopia important. And safe,” he says through the translator. “Jax'zan placed herbs on fire. Will keep away Bigs and Smalls. And Tinys.”

The smoke does smell really good. “Tinys are insects, right? And Bigs are the dinosaurs and Smalls is everything in between.”

He shrugs. “Zopia no longer at Bune. Walk alone in forest. Many Bigs here.”

“Yeah,” I begin, not really in the mood to talk business right now. “It turns out we're not doing so well after all. I mean, we're doing fine. So far. But we were wondering if you might help us.”

He examines the skewers and hands me one. I can't wait for it to cool down, so I gingerly bite off a piece of meat. It's tender and reminds me of pork. It seems to have been seasoned, too.

I take another bite. “This is delicious. Thanks.” I feel a sting of guilty conscience. The girls in the tuna can must have eaten the daily ration of fruit hours ago, and now they're in the tuna can trying to keep their spirits up with stories and attempts at singing that tend to break down into helpless giggling. I'm sure they're talking about me, and I don't mind it. They expect me to return with help. I think they'll say nice things. Mostly.

“I'll do my best,” I mumble, as if to send them a message.

I think I've been pronouncing Jax'zan's name wrong. I've only heard him say it a couple of times, but it sounds a little sharper and harder in his mouth, with a softer, sensuous core, somehow. Much like the man himself.

“Jax'zan,” I say, trying to imitate him.

He looks at me, then juts his chin out like he's nodding. “Jax'zan warrior from the Rexvi tribe,” he says slowly and looks into the fire. “Many battles and hunts. Often come to holy cave with water from Bune. Pray to Ancestors for blessings of wars and hunts. Discover Zopia in water.”

He takes another bite of the grilled meat on his skewer.

I assume that his lack of grammar is a feature of the translator. So it probably makes me sound like that in his language, too. I hope he doesn't mind it.

I clear my voice. “Yeah. I'm from another planet.” I point up, where the stars are coming out. “We were abducted by aliens. Small, gray ones that put us in that thing you saw. The tuna can. I'm a linguist. Well, studying to be one. I suppose that's on hold now.”

The translator does its job, but I don't know how much he understands. Does he even know what a planet is?

He nods slowly in his alien way. I put my head back and look up. According to Delyah, the constellations are pretty similar to the ones you can see from Earth, so this can't be that far away from the Earth, astronomically speaking. But we're still talking light-years, further than the human mind can comprehend or process at all. It's possible that one of the stars I can see right now is the Sun. There's also a good chance that I'll never know.

“The Rexvi Tribe, huh?” I say to take my mind off the fact that I'll probably never come home again. “Is it a big tribe?”

“Two hundred warriors,” Jax'zan says.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be impressed or not. “Two hundred warriors, and how many others?”

“Two hundred warriors,” he repeats. “Modest village. But respected.”

“Okay.” I had hoped he would come from a large city. The more civilization, the better I'd like it and the more the girls and I could contribute. But if his home is pretty much a stone age village, then I'm not sure if it will be a match made in heaven. Of course it's possible that it is a big city and warriors are just rare there. But it would be pretty weird to say that the city you come from has two hundred lawyers  or sixty plumbers, as if that would somehow say it all.

I finish the grilled meat on the skewer with unladylike greed, and Jax'zan hands me another one. “Thanks. Will you take me to your village?”

He juts his chin out again. “Jax'zan take Zopia to village. Zopia Mother of Xren.”

I'm pretty sure I didn't catch all that. “What's Xren?”

He sweeps his hand all around. “All is Xren. Home. Life. Terrain.”

“Uh-huh. This area is called Xren?”

He frowns. “All is Xren.”

“The world? This planet?”

He juts his chin and smiles. “Planet. Xren.”

“Okay. This planet is called Xren. And it has a mother?”

He looks at me with an enigmatic look on his alien face. “Now Xren has mother.”

Yeah, I have no idea what he means, but I'm sure it'll become clear to me in time.

I notice that I can't see any stars, so it must be getting cloudy fast.

I drink some of the juice and Jax'zan hands me another, smaller pouch of the same type.

I sniff it. “Oh my, you have tequila?” Because that's what it smells like. Some kind of booze, certainly.

“Zopia not drink much,” Jax'zan warns. “Make very crazy. A little makes us happy and relaxed.”

I sip a little and immediately start coughing. “Yeah, that's- that's pretty strong.”

It's a rougher fluid than the tequila I've had before, so probably a higher alcohol content. Not that I mind too much right now.

We sit there in silence for a little while. And it's not an uncomfortable silence. Jax'zan's calm demeanor grounds me and makes me feel the first little glimmer of a tiny optimism. This might work out after all. He has taken perfectly good care of me, and apart from that first alien way of saying hello he's been a perfect gentleman. 

When I think of him eating me out so well, sparks shoot through my pussy and I have to acknowledge that I'm pretty horny where I'm sitting. Something about this whole experience is pretty erotic. He's a strong and muscular warrior, the fire lights up his face in flickering orange and I can see that he has a pretty big bulge in front. It's like I'm a woman on prehistoric Earth, sitting at a campfire with my mate. It's a nice thought. And I guess the not-tequila I drank has removed my last reservations against anything intimate happening. I feel safe again, and that's because of him. So now I can let other emotions than just fear and hopelessness seep through and even take over for a while. It's a primitive thing to feel. But this is a primitive planet.

And just as I think that thought, a raindrop hits my hand.

Jax'zan wraps some of the food he's grilled in leaves like before and then point to the little tent. “Rain. Tent will keep dry.”

I crawl back under the primitive fabric and lie down. It's a pretty small tent, but there'll just about be room for Jax'zan too. He places all his stuff just inside the opening and then crawls in, fastening a little screen of fabric that will deflect the rain without needing to close the flap.

The light rain drums on the fabric and I'm intensely aware of the large warrior now lying right beside me. His scent is male and fresh and I can feel how his large body heats up the air in this tight space.

I want to cling to him, but the not-tequila wasn't so strong that I can do that right away.

Instead I touch the stripes on his chest. “Were you born with these?”

He frowns and answers. “Not born. Come with maturity,” the translator chirps, but now I'm able to ignore the weird way it talks and just enjoy his voice. “Boys don't have. Only men.”

I trace the stripes with my finger. His skin is smooth, and the stripes have a little more texture. “Some kind of camouflage?”

He shrugs. “Show that warrior is accomplished. Show wisdom. Protect.”

I let my finger follow the stripes down to where they dive into his kilt. His stomach is flat and hard and my breath catches in my throat at the thought of what I might find if I let the finger continue down. I think I can see his bulge twitching. Maybe he's thinking the same thing.

“I don't have any stripes,” I say and unbutton my shirt, surprising myself. At the back of my mind I'm thinking that this is being scandalously forward, but on the other hand there's no one here who can see it. Only Jax'zan. And he's seen all of me already.

Oh, who the hell do I think I'm kidding? I really want him now.

He looks at me, but hesitates. I take his big hand and place it on my shoulder. “See? No stripes. No one from my planet has them. Only certain animals. What you would call 'Smalls'.”

He strokes my arm with the knuckle on one finger. “Smooth,” he says. “Pretty.”

It's a simple thing to say, and from anyone else I would probably dismiss it, but he's so serious that I know he means it. It makes me blush a little. “Thank you. You're very handsome, too.”

And he is. Not in the classical human man way, but in a characterful way that his obvious alien-ness only amplifies and makes that much sexier. I can feel another tingle down below and I want to speed this up. It's been a good while since I've had sex. And it's been even longer since I've had good sex.

I let my finger wander a half inch under the edge of his kilt. “You know, you've seen me naked, but I've not seen you. I think that's a little unfair.”

I give him a coy little smile.

He juts his chin out. “Unfair. Zopia should also observe Jax'zan unclothed.” He's very serious.

I let my hand wander to where the fly would be on pants, and I find what has to be a tied-up drawstring. I look him in the face to check if it's okay, and then I pull one end. The knot opens easily.

My mouth is dry and the tingles are coming pretty intensely now.

Jax'zan slides the bra straps off my shoulders and then I quickly open the backstrap. It falls off me and I toss it away.

Then I concentrate on him again and let my hand slide down his flat stomach and into his kilt. And then I gasp as I encounter something hard and warm. Yeah, he's very ready.

I slide my hand down along the shaft. Oh yes, that's an alien manhood, no doubt about it. It has ridges and grooves and little bulges that could absolutely stimulate me pretty darn well. And it's thick, of course. More tingles sparkle through my pussy as I realize just how good this thing could feel inside me.