I mean, it would be stupid for me to think this guyisn’thuge in that department - he’s huge everywhere.
What if it doesn’t fit?
“Bea?” Zyntarr’s hand is paused mid-way from his plate to his mouth, a small chunk of seasoned meat grasped between his fingers. “If you do not wish to spend this night with me, I will not force you.”
I shake my head of all previous thoughts - thoughts of things not fitting into particular places. Looking away from the mammoth that Ijust knowhe’s got hiding under that loincloth, I eye the food Zyntarr had set down in front of me. He’d filled the plate for me earlier - taking time to select the alien meats, fruits, and veggies that both he and I have come to learn I enjoy.
My cheeks heat. I was letting lustful thoughts take over when all he’s done so far is feed me.
“Bea?” he asks again. This time when I look up to him, he’s chewing slowly while eyeing me. “If you are uncomfortable, we do not need to spend time together this night.”
I take in a lungful through my nose, my shoulders rising as I try to pull myself together. “No, no. I’m fine, just-”
Just getting fixated on the possibility that your… ‘thing’ is gonna wreck me, and that I shouldn’t want that.
Right?
Instead of explaining, I finally sit down in front of him, our plates of seasoned-to-perfection food between us. I can feel the stare of Zyntarr’s one piercing blue eye as I take my first few bites of food, nodding my appraisal of the flavors hitting my tongue. But his stare is almost too much. We’re sitting too close. And we’re alone.
I avert my gaze from his, taking my time to look around his hut as I chew. I’ve never been in here before - I’m not sure I’ve ever been properly alone with Zyntarr before either, not in recent memory anyway. His presence is big, even while he stays still and quiet. But he lets me look around his home - at the stone walls and woven fern roof. There’s an extensive collection of spears propped up against one wall, and a few crude pots and storage boxes lined up beside them. Around us, Zyntarr has placed a few of those glowing opal-like stones that light up when you touch them. They’re beautiful, and make the area feel very intimate, like a romantic date.
I’ve never been on a date before.
“Why do you not like to lead, little Bea?”
The question is a smooth, low rumble from his throat. It wasn’t loud or abrupt, but it jars me out of my musings about romantic dates nonetheless.
“What?”
Zyn sits a little straighter, his tail slowly flicking beside his crossed legs. “You never do anything with the younglings without first asking the other Carers, even when it comes to teaching them about female or human things - an area that you have the most skill and experience to be able to teach. With village tasks, you ask first - youalwaysask first. You never just decide, and do. And with my heart-stars, you wanted to ask the Goddesses before you are willing to just believe what you know what you saw.”
My eyes fall to his chest again. “Zyntarr, I don’t know if I can believe what I think I saw-”
“Why can you not justdecideto believe?”
His question leaves my lungs with no breath.Just decide?My mouth softly opens and closes again like I want to tell him. Idowant to tell him.
Instead, I study my plate of food, moving a seasoned vegetable not too dissimilar to a carrot around before I can muster up the courage to retell the hardest part of my life. “I… uh…”
Zyn’s hand enters the frame of my view, covering my own, stopping me from aimlessly pushing around the food on my plate. “Bea.” It’s only one word. One, small, word. My name. But he says it so softly. He makes it sound so rich, and warm like it somehow contains all the depth of the whole alphabet, and not three insignificant letters.
But he doesn’t say anything else. And his hand doesn’t move from mine.
So I dare to look up into that beautiful uncovered eye of his, and bite my lip as I study the openness I see there.
“I… I had a daughter once. Back on Earth.”
His tail stops flicking on the sandy ground, and it suddenly feels like the world has paused along with him - like I’m centered on a spotlighted stage, petrified that I’m about to deliver the wrong line - go off-script, ruin the whole damn production.
I take a deep breath, and prepare to relive the one thing I thought I’d never tell anyone. “I was young, and stupid, and made a choice to trust someone. That decision ended up with me getting pregnant.” Pausing to swallow, I remember that the whole topic of sexual reproduction is very new to the Trixikka. “You learned about sex, and pregnancies, and babies, right?”
I hadn’t realized that Zyn was even holding a little carved, wooden cup in his other hand until it splintered into piecesunder the force of his grip. “Did a human male force you to have his youngling, my mate? Did he hurt you?”
“What?! No! I-… we were both young, only sixteen, and we just got carried away one time.”
Zyntarr looks so still, it’s like he’s made of stone.
I reach out and place my hand over his this time, gently forcing him to let go of the broken cup. “Zyntarr,” I say softly. “You’ve got huge splinters in your palm now. It’s bleeding. Let me help pick them out-”
