His rejection stung, and I pondered what I could’ve possibly done to make him push me away like he did on our last morning together.
“Our brains don’t work the same,”he’d said.
Maybe a month or two ago, I would’ve agreed that I had nothing in common with a bog orc from the distant Wetlands. I grew up believing that bog orcs were uncivilized brutes who did little other than fighting and reproducing. The nobles at King Belin’s court talked about bog orcs as far inferior to humans and closer to animals in their intelligence. Like apemen or “wild things” that Grat called them.
Like me.
The thought lanced through my mind, nearly making me drop my tool in the water as I stood waist deep in the creek, fitting the rope with buckets to the spokes of the wheel.
Grat genuinely believed I was one of the apemen, the species with the intelligence level of a toddler. He said he’d be taking advantage of me if we had sex. To him, making love to me must feel something like…fucking a monkey?
Bile rose to my throat as my stomach hollowed with the realization. No wonder he was ashamed of his erection in my presence. He let me sleep in his bed, like I used to let my cats sleep in mine. But Grat didn’t want to see me as a woman.
It was my fault. I never corrected him when he assumed I was an apewoman. He didn’t know the truth, because I never told him. I even tried to play the part of a “wild thing” by speaking little and replying in short sentences at first. I had only myself to blame for all his assumptions.
I still couldn’t tell him the truth, but I could prove to him that I was no less intelligent than him.
Spurred by this new motivation, I tied the rope around the end of each spoke, tugging at it a little too aggressively as anger simmered inside me.
He thought I was just an ape?
He was kind to me like he would be to a pet?
“We’ll see what you’ll have to say about my brain now, dear Grat,” I argued under my breath with the orc who wasn’t there. “Maybe I’ll build that turbine too, and the whistle, and a steam engine to rotate mini propellers inside the tub for a whole body water massage. I’ll show you what thiswild thingcan do.”
I yanked at the rope, turning the wheel. The first bucket plunged into the water with a splash, spooking a small school of fish. They scurried away in every direction, like silver shooting stars in the clear water.
A long, dark shape slinked through the current, chasing the fish. Gasping, I didn’t even pause to see what the shape was. If there was one thing the Wetlands had taught me, it was that many scary things lived here and it was best to run first and ask questions later.
Spurred by alarm, I screamed, dropped the bucket, and rushed out of the water.
With a splash behind me, something slammed against my back, shoving me into the wet dirt and tall grass. I fell forward, with my face down. I tried to gather my legs under me to get up, but the weight of the predator on top of me pushed me back into the ground.
I twisted around and froze, now facing a set of sharp red teeth bared at me.
Water dripped from the monster’s short black fur. Its pointy ears lay flat against its narrow head. Its yellow eyes stared down at me, and its huge front paws pressed on my chest.
A menacing growl reverberated through its large slick body. Saliva dripped from its teeth a hairbreadth away from my face.
Horror gripped me, freezing my insides. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t breathe with the monster standing on my chest. I waited in terror for those teeth to sink into my neck, but the monster didn’t move, just stared and growled at me.
I slowly moved my hand to my pocket and found the soggy sandwich that was supposed to be my lunch.
“Have it!” I tossed it as far away from me as I could.
The monster leaped after it.
I scrambled to my feet and ran to the cabin. I didn’t look back until I was inside, then I slammed the door closed and bolted it shut.
Leaning with my shoulder against the locked door, I pressed my ear to the wood. I expected to hear growls on the other side of the door. Some disappointed howling maybe? From the monster whose prey had gotten away? But all seemed quiet.
A moment later, I ventured a careful peek out of the window.
The monster had found my sandwich and gobbled it up in a few bites. Then it sniffed the area around the place where the sandwich had been, as if hoping to find more.
The creature looked a little less terrifying than many of the monsters I’d encountered in the swamps of the Wetlands so far. It looked like a large dog, with a slim torso and long legs covered in short black fur. As it turned sideways, two rows of swollen tits hanging under its concave belly came into my view.
The dog was a female, I realized, and a nursing mother too. She had pups. She’d been hunting in the creek when I spookedthe fish with my bucket. No wonder she got angry with me, I’d scared her lunch away.
