19
MEGAN
W e spend a lazy few hours soaking in the pool, chatting with Farli and Josie and Nora, and talking
about nothing in particular. Others come and go, and my fingers prune up and all the heat makes
me sleepy, so we retreat back to our cave for an afternoon nap, of all things.
I don’t think I’ve napped in the afternoon since I was a child, but Cashol lies down in the furs and indicates I should join him, and I jump right in next to him. His wet hair sticks to everything, and so does mine, and he tickles my sides…and then goes down on me again, giving me a hard, fast orgasm that makes me utterly breathless and saps the last of my strength.
So I nap, content and happy.
When I wake up, Cashol rubs a hand up and down my back. “You slept well.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I freely admit that sleeping next to him helps my too-active mind ease a little. Just having that human contact—or alien-human contact—makes me relax. I roll onto my back and stretch. “I should probably quit lazing about, though.”
“No,” he says, and sits up. “Now it is time.”
“Time for what?” He’s got a playful look on his face that makes me squint.
“Time for you to enjoy Cashol’s rubbing cave.”
I chuckle. “Rubbing cave, huh?”
He takes one of my feet in his hands. “I know you are fond of touching feet.”
Touching feet. That’s one way of putting it. More like I’m obsessed with touching his feet, not mine, but I’ll take a foot rub. “So there’s a special rubbing cave just set up for me, huh?”
“If there are caves where they hand you food, there is surely a rubbing cave.” He works his fingers over my feet, kneading, and I have to admit, it does feel pretty good. I sigh happily and relax as he massages my toes and works his way down to my heel. “I had a good day today,” he tells me.
“I did, too.” Today is one of the happiest days I’ve had since I arrived here.
“I think we should have more days like today.” When I open my eyes to look at him, he continues. “I will finish my trap lines early and then you and I will spend the day together.”
“Doing what?”
Cashol shrugs. “We will go for walks. I will teach you how to do things. Do you fish?”
“No.”
“Then we will learn that. And we can gather tea. And the roots you humans are so fond of.”
“Is anyone going to get mad?”
“Why would they get mad? We will be providing for ourselves. No one will need to provide for us.” He continues to rub my feet. “And I bring in enough with my traps that I can also provide extra meat for the tribe.
But you are my first priority.”
He’s sweet. I have to admit that the idea of spending all this time with him makes me happy. “What if you get tired of being around me?”
He lets out a derisive snort. “I do not think that is possible.”
Oh, it’s possible. He can just ask all my ex-boyfriends back on Earth. But I suppose there’s only one way to find out if we’re going to get this right, and that’s to spend time together. Lots of it. And learning how to fish and collecting roots is a good idea. I can work on my leather projects in the morning and help cook with either the morning meal or at lunch, and then head off with Cashol in the afternoon to do our own thing.
Getting away from the cave on the regular might be a good idea. Every moment that I spend here, I feel like I need to be focused on a task so they can see just how good of a worker I can be. “If you’re sure it won’t be a problem.”
“I am sure.” He rubs my foot harder. “And I think you need new boots.”
“I do? Why?”
“Because your toes are always cold.” He shakes his head.
I pull my foot free from his grip and poke him with one “cold” toe. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is an ice planet.”
“I do not know if you have noticed,” he counters, “but your toes are cold when you press them against me at night.”
My laughter dies in my throat. “I’m sorry. I’ll sleep alone.”
“No, you will not.” He moves forward and lies down in the furs next to me, then tugs me into his arms. “I have not been very smart with all of this.” Cashol slides his hands over my skin, pulling me against him until I’m practically plastered against his front. “I have decided that you are sleeping in the furs with me every night from now on.”
“But what if I make certain parts of you ache?”
“Ah, but it is the best ache,” he jokes. “And I do not regret it at all.”
F , . S, ’ , I so happy. I can’t stop smiling from sun-up to sun-down. We fall into a fairly easy pattern of daily work. I wake up early and sit by the fire, helping out with the cooking and working on Cashol’s pouch-belts. They’re a bit more involved than I initially thought, and I end up pulling the woven leather apart at least twice before I’m happy with how it’s progressing. I also make simpler belts for Maylak and Eklan, both of whom admire my handiwork and I’m thrilled to make the gifts for them. In exchange, Maylak gives me a pouch of an herbal tea that helps with nausea—probably for the morning sickness I’m sure to have in the future—and Eklan makes me a few fishing lures out of tufts of meaty-looking fur bits attached to deadly hooks.
Once the twin suns are high in the sky, I start looking for Cashol’s return. He always comes back at around the same time, usually with a fresh kill from his traps. After the kill is handed out or cleaned up for us to eat later, we spend the afternoon together.
Some afternoons, we go fishing, and I admit, I’m better at it than Cashol is. He isn’t a great fisherman because he’s impatient. He’ll sit for a while by the water’s edge, watching the lure dance along beneath the surface, but then he’ll grow restless. He’ll pick leaves by the shore and ask me to identify them. He’ll see hopper tracks in the snow and want to chase them down. He’ll go farther upstream and look for “things to
spear.”
The man just can’t sit still and fish.
Me, I don’t mind it. Fishing means sitting in one spot and teasing the line so the lure bobs and jerks and looks like a small, shrimplike creature that the fish love to eat. Eventually, it turns into a game to see if I can catch something before Cashol gets restless and races away again. In a way, it’s kind of amusing—my sa-khui mate is good at everything he puts his mind to, usually. He’s good at hunting. He’s fast on his feet. He’s likeable. He’s strong. He’s great at kissing. Even better at going down on me.
Yet the man cannot sit still to save his life.
There are tracking lessons. Not because Cashol expects me to go and hunt something down, but so I can recognize which tracks are made from hunters coming and going, which tracks are wildlife, and which tracks are dangerous and should be avoided. One day we see metlak tracks far too close to our usual fishing spot, and so after that, we stay closer to the cave for lessons.
I eventually learn how to make a fire. I’m not fast at it, but given enough time and determination, I can now use the bow and spindle until I can get a spark. The day that I do, I feel a sense of utter elation and accomplishment, and Cashol’s beaming grin tells me how proud he is of me, too.
There are berry picking runs, where we snag the tiny soap-berries from the bushes, or sometimes a sour- tasting, bitter green berry that grows on a piney-looking bush. Those berries are mostly used for the sticky sap they provide that acts as a good sealant. I’m told that the elders used to boil them down and mix them with another type of leaf to make a very pungent drink, but no one in the current generation likes the stuff. I also learn how to identify which plants are decent eating, which plants are poisonous, and which leaves are added to sah-sah to make the fermented drink so tasty.
Most nights end up with us by the fire, talking about nothing in particular. It’s nice to just sit down and talk about the day, and most of the time, it leads to Cashol rubbing my feet…or me rubbing his feet. Of course, every time I rub his feet, I get turned on. There’s just something about those enormous, perfect toes and his big heel and the feel of his strong foot against my fingers and I swear I’m squirming by the time five minutes have passed.
Cashol figures this out quickly and sticks his foot in my lap the moment we get back to the cave one night, and before we’ve even got the fire going, I’m on my back in the furs with his mouth between my thighs, and it’s so good that I have to muffle my cries with the furs as he licks every sopping wet inch of me.
It’s incredible. Every night, without fail, he goes down on me until I come—sometimes more than once— and then he holds me afterward. He never wants more than that, never wants me to reach for his cock and give him pleasure, too, though I know he’s aching. He just wants it to be about me.
He tells me he’ll wait for me to be ready.
And I want to be. He makes me so happy on days like this that I almost forget my worries. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. Maybe I’m waiting for him to break, or for the universe to give me a sign.
Maybe I’m just enjoying what I have right now and not changing a thing, because I worry it won’t last.
