#alien lemon

The bipper on your belt chirped twice, then fell silent.

You wiped grease from your fingers onto your coveralls before fishing it out, squinting at the display. *Report to Hangar 7 immediately. Priority repair—high-ranking military client. Authorized by station command.*

High-ranking military. That meant paperwork. That meant someone watching over your shoulder while you worked. That meant, probably, a lot of noise about deadlines and protocols and security clearances you'd have to fake your way through.

You shoved the bipper back onto your belt and grabbed your tool belt from the hook by the door.

The corridors of Level 6 had the same smell they always did, a mix of recycled air and industrial lubricant and the faint sourness of too many bodies passing through too small a space. The lighting panels flickered in stretches, casting the walkway into alternating pools of brightness and shadow. One of them had been dead for a month now, and nobody had bothered to replace it.

Hangar 7 was at the far end of the sector, past the cargo holds and the crew quarters and the little noodle shop that one of your crewmate had tried to convince you was edible. The doors loomed ahead, massive sliding panels of reinforced steel that groaned when they opened. The sound echoed through the space beyond.

You stepped inside and stopped.

The ship sat in the center of the hangar, taking up most of the available floor space. It wasn't like anything you'd worked on before. The hull was a kind of mottled grey-green, and it looked... Organic. Like something that had grown rather than been built, covered in ridges and what appeared to be actual tissue layered over whatever frame held it together. Scorch marks ran along one side, deep gouges that had cut through the outer membrane and into whatever lay beneath. The damage was extensive, more than you'd expect from a ship that had managed to land under its own power.

A figure stepped out from behind the vessel.

He was tall, easily a head above you, with skin the color of new leaves just after rain. Emerald green, smooth and matte. His eyes were a deeper shade of yellow, set in a face that was human enough to be familiar but different enough to make you look twice. He wore combat gear—dark grey and various shades of green armour plating over a flexible undersuit, the kind of thing that meant business.

“You are the mechanic,” he said. His voice came out accented, the standard shaped by a throat that didn't naturally form those sounds. “I was told you would come.”

“That's me.” You gestured at the ship, already walking toward it, letting your eyes trace the damage. “What happened to this thing?”

He followed you without answering immediately. When he spoke, it was careful and measured. “We encountered resistance near the border. The weapons they used were not standard. I barely made it here.”

We. That implied there had been others. You didn't ask what had happened to them.

Up close, the vessel was even stranger. The hull surface had a tacky quality, like dried resin. You ran your hand over a section near the main damage, feeling the slight warmth coming off it. The alloy—if you could call it that—was layered, almost like scales, each one overlapping the next.

The crack was bad. About a meter long, running from the nose cone down toward the underside, with smaller fractures radiating outward like spiderwebs. The edges were charred and curled, showing a honeycomb structure beneath.

“I need to see how deep this goes,” you said, more to yourself than to him.

You knelt down, feeling the deck plates cold against your knees, and pulled out your handheld scanner. The device hummed as you ran it along the length of the crack, watching the readings appear on your little screen.

The damage went through three layers of what the scanner identified as *living membrane*, then into a structural lattice that seemed to be part organic, part something else entirely. The readings didn't match anything in your database.

That was going to be a problem.

You set the scanner aside and reached for your plasma welder, checking the charge level. Full. Good. The heat would have to be precise—too hot and you'd damage the living tissue; too cold and the seal wouldn't hold against vacuum. You adjusted the settings, dialing down to a range that felt right based on the scanner data.

“I will watch,” the alien said. He stood a few meters back, arms crossed, his dark-yellow eyes fixed on you.

The first seam took longer than it should have. The material was tricky, responding to the heat in ways that weren't in any manual. You had to adjust the welder's output twice, finding the sweet spot where the edges began to fuse without burning the membrane. The smell was strange, not like burnt metal but something closer to cooking meat, mixed with a chemical tang you couldn't identify.

He said nothing the whole time. Just stood there, watching.

You kept your focus on the seam, letting the work take over, trying to ignore his stare.

The crack began to close, the edges pulling together as the heat softened them, the membrane knitting itself into a seal that would hold. It wasn't pretty, but it would work.

When you finished the first pass, you sat back on your heels and wiped sweat from your forehead. The hangar was warm, and the plasma torch had only made it worse.

The alien hadn't moved. Not a milimeter. Those damn soldiers.

You set down the plasma welder and flexed your fingers, working the stiffness out of them. The seam had sealed reasonably well, though you'd need at least two more passes to make it spaceworthy. Maybe three, depending on how the membrane settled.

You glanced up. The alien was looking at you, and seeing you moving, he tilted his face in a puppy-like expression... Almost cute.

But the eye contact didn't lasted, and he turned over left for the closest hangar exit.

Not a word exanged, not a single thanks before he leaved. You roll your eyes, turning back to the ship, which was now pulseing faintly, that organic quality making you uneasy in a way you couldn't quite name. You turned back to the crack, running your fingers along the fused edge. Still warm. The material had taken the weld better than expected, the living cells integrating with the sealant you'd applied.

Ten minutes passed. Maybe more. You were so focused on inspecting the seam that you didn't hear him return.

“For you.”

His voice came from behind you, and you turned to find him holding a tray. It was simple metal, the kind mess halls used, but on it sat a small stack of nutrient bars and a single packet of synth-juice. The bars were an unfamiliar colour, a pale tan that reminded you of dried paste.

He held the tray out toward you, his arm extended but not quite offering it into your space. Like he wasn't sure if you'd take it.

You hesitated. The rules about accepting food from station personnel were strict enough. From an unknown alien soldier in a classified warship? Probably not covered by any regulation you'd read.

But he was cute with this tray of food. Handsome, even.

And your stomach growled anyway.

You reached out and took one of the bars, turning it over in your hand. It had no branding, no wrapper, just a dense block of whatever they used for field rations.

"Thank you. That's... Very nice."

You bit into it. The texture was gritty, the taste vaguely sweet with an undertone of something herbal. Not terrible. Edible.

He remained standing where he was, the tray still in his hands, watching you with those dark eyes. He didn't say anything. Didn't move to leave.

You took another bite, then set the bar down beside your tools and picked up the welder again. The work needed to continue, and he could stand there as long as he wanted. You'd had worse audiences. With this emerald skin, those yellow eyes, those abs showing under the tight tissue- Shit.

The second seam went smoother. You'd found the rhythm now, the way the membrane responded to heat, the exact pressure needed to coax the edges together without burning them. The welder hummed in your hand, and the smell of cooked tissue filled the air again.

He still watched. Silent. Still.

You tried to ignore the weight of his gaze and focused on the crack. Twenty minutes passed. The seam was nearly done when you heard his footsteps receding.

This time you didn't look up.

He returned faster than before, maybe five minutes, and you heard the clink of metal as he set something down on the deck beside you. You glanced over. A second tray. This one held different colored bars—darker, almost reddish—and a packet that was warm to the touch, steam rising from its sealed edge. Soup.

You set down the welder and turned to face him properly. He was already walking back toward a crate near the hangar wall, settling onto it like he planned to stay.

The laugh escaped before you could stop it. Soft, surprised, more air than sound.

He looked up at the noise, tilting his head slightly.

This cute move of his, again.

You shook your head and reached for the soup packet, peeling open the seal. The smell hit you immediately—some kind of broth, rich and savoury, with chunks of what might have been vegetables floating in it. You brought it to your lips and took a careful sip. Hot. Salty. Good.

“You don't have to keep feeding me,” you said, though you took another sip.

He didn't respond. Just watched.

You finished half the soup and set the packet aside, picking the welder back up. The third seam would be the deepest, where the crack reached into the structural lattice. You needed steady hands for that.

Fifteen minutes passed. Your shoulders ached from the crouched position, and your eyes burned from staring at the bright line of the weld. You paused to blink, to stretch your neck, to breathe.

When you looked toward him, he was already walking over.

A third tray materialized beside you, this one smaller. On it sat three cubes of something that shimmered faintly, each one about the size of your thumb, coated in a thin crystalline sheen. Dessert cubes. You had no idea what they were made of, but they caught the hangar's dim light and scattered it into tiny rainbows.

You laughed again, louder this time. “You're going to make me fat.”

He didn't smile—his face didn't seem built for it—but something shifted in his posture. A relaxation, maybe. Or curiosity.

“I have never met a human before,” he said. The words came out slowly, like he was still learning how to shape them. “I wanted to learn what you prefer.”

You looked at the three trays, the half-eaten bar, the cooling soup, the shimmering dessert cubes. Then back at him, at his scarred green face and his careful distance and the way he'd said *learn what you prefer* like it was a mission objective.

“You're doing a good job,” you said, and picked up the welder again.

You held up a hand, palm out, before he could walk away again.

“I'm full. Really. I can't eat another thing.”

Kharlas stopped mid-turn, his head tilting at an angle that seemed almost birdlike. The motion drew your attention to the column of his throat, the way the green skin shifted as he swallowed, the subtle ridges running along his jawline.

“I apologize if I overstepped,” he said, and there was something careful in his voice. “I wanted to make sure you had adequate sustenance. You worked for over an hour without stopping.”

You set the welder down fully and stood, wincing as your knees protested the movement. The hangar's recycled air felt cool against your face after the heat of the torch. You rolled your shoulders, working out the stiffness.

“You said I'm the first human you've met.”

He nodded, once. “I have studied your species. Read your literature, watched your broadcasts and holostreams. But this is the first time I have spoken to one directly. The first time I have been able to observe how you live, what you value.”

“So the food was research.”

“Partly.” He paused. “I also wanted to stay.”

The words hung in the air between you, and you found yourself holding your breath for a moment longer than necessary. There was something disarming about the way he said it. No flirtation, no subtext. Just a statement of fact, delivered with the same precision he'd used to describe the damage to his ship.

You smiled, surprising yourself. “Well, your research worked. But next time, let me buy you real food. There's a diner on Level 4, nothing fancy, but the cook knows what she's doing. Better than nutrient bars and soup packets.”

He considered this, his head tilting again, slower this time. “You would share a meal with me?”

“I just spent an hour welding your ship back together. I figure I've earned the right to see you eat something that isn't military rations.” You wiped your hands on your coveralls. “Nineteen hundred hours. Meet me at the junction outside Hangar 7. I'll take you there.”

“I will be there.”

You grabbed your tool belt and headed for the door, feeling his gaze on your back the whole way. The groan of the hangar doors closing behind you felt like a release, like surfacing from deep water.

The diner was called Jun's, and it occupied a corner of Level 4 that most people walked past without noticing. The sign flickered, the booths were patched with tape, and the menu hadn't been updated in six years. But Jun herself worked the grill, and she made a noodle dish that had gotten you through more bad shifts than you could count.

You arrived a few minutes early, taking a booth near the back where the lighting was dim enough to be private. The other patrons—a cargo hauler nursing a drink, two techs arguing over a datapad—paid you no attention.

He arrived at exactly 19:00 hours. You watched him walk through the door, his frame ducking slightly under the low frame, his eyes scanning the room with the same methodical attention he'd given your welding. When he spotted you, he crossed the floor in long, quiet strides.

He slid into the booth across from you, his movements careful, like he was still learning how human furniture worked. The lights above caught the scar on his face, throwing it into sharp relief.

“You came,” you said.

“I said I would.” he said as he took place, facing you.

A pause. Then he leaned forward slightly, his yellow eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made you suddenly aware of how close the booth brought you together.

“I heard a joke once,” he said, “in one of your broadcasts. A human lays a metal egg, and from it hatches a ship. I did not understand it, but the audience laughed.”

Laughter you had to hold back with effort. “We don't lay eggs.”

“No?”

“No. Humans are mammals. We give live birth.” You said with a sceptic look.

He processed this, his brow furrowing slightly. “Then what is the significance of the metal egg?”

“It's just... a metaphor. A ship comes out of a shell, like a bird from an egg. It's not literal.”

“I see.” He didn't sound convinced. “Your species has many metaphors I find difficult to parse.”

The conversation drifted from there. He ordered what you ordered—the noodle dish, extra spice—and you found yourself explaining more about human biology as the questions kept coming. He wanted to know about reproduction, gestation, the mechanics of how your species kept itself alive across generations. His questions were direct, clinical, fired off with a curiosity that had no filter.

“Your species uses internal fertilization,” he said, gesturing with his chopsticks in a way that made you certain he'd learned to use them from a video tutorial. “The male deposits genetic material inside the female's body, where it merges with the egg. Correct?”

“That's... yes. That's basically right.”

“Our species does it differently.” He set down his chopsticks. “We release genetic material into water. Or, in space, into a gel medium. The embryo develops externally, attached to a nutrient sac, until it reaches a certain size.”

He demonstrated with his hands, shaping the air into something round and invisible. His fingers moved with surprising grace, describing curves and volumes that made the process sound almost artistic.

“The sac is transparent,” he continued, “so you can watch the offspring grow. The color changes as it matures. Have you ever seen a human embryo develop?”

“I mean, I've... seen diagrams.”

“Diagrams.” He seemed to taste the word. “Do they show the fingers forming? The eyes? The heartbeat?”

“Some do.”

“We record the entire process. Many families keep the recordings as heirlooms.” He leaned in. “Your species keeps photographs of the birth itself?”

The conversation spun out from there, gaining momentum as you found yourself describing human anatomy in terms you'd never used aloud. The way organs developed, the purpose of the placenta, the evolutionary quirks that made your species what it was. He countered with descriptions of his own biology—the dual circulatory system, the way his skin changed color in response to emotional states, the fact that his species could survive brief exposure to vacuum.

You didn't realize how much time had passed until you noticed Jun wiping down the counter and realized you were the only customers left.

You laughed, pushing your empty bowl aside. “I think we broke my appetite twice over.”

He looked down at his own empty bowl, then back at you. Something shifted in his posture, that same relaxation you'd noticed in the hangar.

“I have not spoken this much in months,” he said.

“Neither have I.”

The booth felt smaller now, the space between you charged with something more comfortable. You reached across and placed a few credits on the table, enough to cover both meals plus a generous tip.

“Come on,” you said, sliding out of the booth. “I'll walk you back.”

He rose to follow you, and you led him out of the diner into the empty corridor. The lights were dimmer this late, the station settling into its night cycle. Your footsteps echoed against the metal deck plates.

"So... About the human gestation... What does it feels like to feel a life grow **inside** you ?"

"Ummm, I actually never had any baby. I'm single you know."

"Sorry." He said looking at you, his hand raising to touch your shoulder.

His large hand was suprisingly warm.

"What's thit sorry for exactly ? It's cool to be single, you're free !"

"In our culture, if your childless and not a politician or a warrior, you're a loser. Not that I agree but-"

"What about you ? You have a family ?" You cut him with curiosity.

"No. Actually i never tought about it. Never wanted a female that wanted this life either. I'm always busy with work... And it's usually not really what we could define as easy missions."

As he was speaking, and as you were listening, you realised you weren't walking toward Hangar 7.

You walked toward the residential sector, toward your quarters, and when you glanced back, he was still following, his dark eyes fixed on you with that same patient intensity.

The door to your quarters slid open, and you stepped inside, holding it for him.

He followed without hesitation, and the door closed behind you.

Hope you enjoyed! Part 2 is coming very soon.

Then one night, two weeks later the ship was attacked, it woke you up out of a sound sleep and within moments Jaxon was at your door and picked you up out of bed and carried you to an escape pod. Holding you securely in all four of his arms as his wings flew him faster than he could run and once inside the pod, it ejected with both of you in it and it tried to go into outer space but you were shot down and Jaxon excreted a silky, stringy substance from his abdomen and made a makeshift spiderweb in the middle of the pod and quickly built a cocoon around you as the pod hurtled back into the earth’s atmosphere and into a really bad tropical storm. The whole time, Jaxon doing his best to assure you and reassure you that you were going to be ok and once he was done he crawled inside of it with you and wrapped himself around you protectively as you wrapped yourself around him in turn and hugged him tightly and cried into his chest and prayed to any god that would listen to help you and Jaxon live through this. Your ship was struck by lightning and were inside an airpocket of thunder when it clapped around the ship and you felt it in your chest and bones when it did and it partially crushed the ship from the air pressure of the thunder. And when you crashed into the ocean the ship completely broke apart but the cocoon stayed in tact and protected you and cushioned all of those blows but the cocoon soon took on water and it took Jaxon cutting the cocoon with his mandibles to get you both out so you wouldn’t drown and to get you to the surface. A wave soon made you both rise and you saw a little island a little ways away but you knew that when the wave would crash, that you both could get crushed under the pressure and would drown and your body and brain kicked into survival mode.

“Jaxon! Listen to me, will your wings work under water?!” You yelled over the roar of the storm as you both struggled to keep your heads above water.

“They should.” Jaxon answered.

“OK, I’ll breathe into you, you breathe into me, go under the surface of the water and fly through the water to the island, otherwise these waves will kill us. Can you do that?” You asked and he nodded as you took a deep breath and attached your mouth to his and breathed out into his mouth as he breathed in your breath before he breathed out into you so that you could breathe in and together you both dove deeper than the crashing waves could reach as his wings flew through the water towards the island at an incredible speed as you clung to him for dear life as he held you tight and within a matter of minutes you were both on the beach and you drug him inland and you put the trunk of a palm tree between you as you both hugged the palm tree and each other until the storm passed.

Come morning, you found yourself laying on the ground on your back with Jaxon curled around you protectively and you worried that he was dead because his body was stiff and stuck in that position.

“Jaxon!” You yelled as you slapped him and hit him before he woke up and his body moved.

“Oh thank god! I thought I lost you.” You exclaimed as you hugged him even tighter.

“No, I’m still here.” Jaxon reassured you and pet your face in relief, happy that you had made it through too as his attennae tapped on your head too. 

“What happened?” You asked him. “Who attacked us?” You asked him.

“Our own military did, they got a hold of a different queen. They assassinated the queen and her escorts and took over.” Jaxon revealed and you gasped in horrified shock.

“No! Oh my god! Does that happen often?” You asked.

“More often than we like to admit.” Jaxon revealed.

“Is that another reason why you didn’t want to be your sister’s consort? Because assassinations happen so often?” You asked softly as you pet his head soothingly.

“Yes. Usually they will simply go after just the queen and her consorts, this time they were going after everyone.” Jaxon revealed softly as he leaned into your touch.

“So what should we do? Is there anything we can do?” You asked.

“I don’t know.” Jaxon answered.

“Should you try to reclaim the throne?” You wondered.

“No, absolutely not, normally I would simply take my new orders from the new queen. It’s very odd that they were trying to kill everyone.” Jaxon shook his head no.

“Ok, well, for now, let’s just...try to survive on this island before we can hopefully get rescued by humans at least.” You suggested as you both got up before you noticed his wing was torn.

“Oh no! Are you in pain?” You asked him as you tried to touch the wing but he stopped you.

“Yes, please don’t touch it.” Jaxon warned you as he carefully unfolded it and tried to put it back into place himself before folding his wings up to keep the torn one safe from getting torn further before you both explored the little island, one side of it had a mangrove, with baby sharks swimming around in it along with other fish. And as far as food went, you found evidence of coconut crabs and other kinds of crabs as well, little fiddler crabs. You found coconuts, bananas, mangoes and wild limes and all kinds of other tropical fruits that you were both happy and relieved to eat before you worked on building a shelter. But you noticed the more you sweat, the more distracted and more scatterbrained Jaxon became.

“Jaxon? Are you ok? Do I stink that bad?” You tried to joke as you put the palm fronds and banana leaves on the roof of your little shelter.

“No.” Jaxon shook his head and tried to get back to task of starting a fire.

“No you’re not ok? Does your wing hurt worse now?” You asked.

“No, I’m ok, no you don’t stink bad.” Jaxon clarified as he tried to make a fire and was failing miserably.

“...Oh, ok.” You nodded in understanding as you finished with the roof and continued to gather as much food as you could and created a stock pile. You weren’t a good climber so your solution to the coconut trees was to try to shake them or bump them with your hip to get the coconuts down which kind of worked. But to your delight, you did find some banana trees that had ripe bananas on them so you got the stalk down with help of some of the wreckage which you used as improvised knives, making spears and things out of the shredded metal, granted, very carefully. Jaxon buzzed angrily after a while and you came over to see him clearly frustrated that he couldn’t start a fire.

“Hey, it’s ok.” You tried to reassure him as you came over to him and sat down next to him.

“No it’s not ok!” Jaxon barked at you. “Here you are, the soft, delicate one and you’re fine! You’re not hurt, I am, Jika are supposed to be tougher than humans and you get us away from the hive and break a wing and we’re useless! Here we are, crashed, stranded and marooned and you’re just rolling with it like it’s just another day at the office for you, like you’ve done this a thousand times before.” Jaxon ranted and Jika couldn’t cry but if they could, you were pretty sure he would be right now.

“Hey, Jaxon, listen to me.” You insisted and decided to break with respecting personal space and crawled into his lap and held his face so that he would look at you. “You, just had the worst day of your life, your family was murdered and overthrown from the throne, your own people rebelled against you and tried to kill you, you were so brave in making sure I was ok at least, you tried to get both of us to safety instead of only taking care of yourself. It’s you who rescued us. You are injured right now and everyone feels useless when they’re injured, humans get a paper cut on our fingers and we feel like we’re dying and we can’t go on. Humans are weird. Sometimes the super simple things kill us or at the very least injure us and maim us and sometimes nothing can kill us. Right now, if you had a scanner you would see that a metric fuck ton of adrenaline is pumping through my system and I am in survival mode. When things get better and I’m not in survival mode, I’ll get a chance to mentally process what just happened to us and I’ll be helpless and weak and you’ll be the one to carry me through that. But for right this second- you are injured and alone in an alien world. The only reason we’re doing half as ok as we are is because I’m a specialist when it comes to food, I’ve studied it for years and I specialize in rare and tropical foods, I know what to eat and what not to eat and how to make even the worst garbage edible. I know to Jika, women are rare and it takes dozens and dozens of males to take care of and look after one female and you probably feel like a failure because you’re not doing that right this second. But I’m telling you that this female in your lap right now, is going to take care of you. Because you are my friend and I care for you, a lot ok? That’s what humans do, both take care of the other, it’s not a solely one sided exchange. You are not a failure. You are doing so great, I’m so proud of you for doing what you have. Let me return the favor and take care of you now.” You reassured him as you suddenly noticed all four of his arms were circled tightly around you, holding you close and pressing you up against his chest as your thumbs stroked what you considered to be his cheeks. Careful not to touch his sensitive compound eyes.  

“Ok,” Jaxon nodded as he realized he was clinging to you and tried to force himself not to do that but his body was warring against him.

“How about you stay here, take a break and just rest. And if you see a crab, in particular a coconut crab, kill it for me so I can cook it, because I love crab, I think it’s delicious but I have no idea if Jika can eat crab or not so it’ll be a new experiment. I’ll try to gather all that I can.” You offered before you kissed his mandables sweetly. “We’ll get through this and we’ll be ok, you’ll see.” You tried to encourage him as you got up and got out of his embrace and continued to search for what you could. The Jika had consumed the vast majority of garbage and plastics in the ocean, plastics being super versatile for their own technology and infrastructure and when the ships had been in the oceans, they had scooped up tons and tons of it and built new star ships out of it because they had a component to not only break it down into usable components but also rebuild with it. In fact there were still a few Jika ships in the oceans collecting plastic. Thankfully, what washed up ashore on this island was usable, you found some glass jugs and bottles and a small fishing net, fishing line and lures and some shoes, some flip flops that were a little big on you but would work for now and even a pair of goggles and so much rope, you were in great luck. You came back and Jaxon had succeeded in making a fire and seemed in much higher spirits now.

“See? You got it! You made a fire!” You cooed proudly as you put down all your stuff that you had collected as you helped him grow the fire and keep it burning.

“Now, should we go crab hunting or fishing?” You put to him.

“Which will be easier on you?” Jaxon asked.

“They’ll both be about the same. Coconut crabs can be scary but so can sharks.” You shrugged.

“Crabs then,” Jaxon decided and you helped him to his feet as you grabbed your spears and went looking for their holes and when you found one, you poked and prodded it until it came crawling out, it was by far the largest crab besides a king crab that you had ever seen before and you didn’t know if you your little spears could kill it or not before Jaxon buzzed angrily again and very quickly picked you up into his arms to sting the crab, his stinger easily piercing it’s shell and killing it without having to pump too much venom into the crab. You found yourself giggling, even injured he didn’t hesitate to ‘protect you’ from his perceived danger.

“Good job,” you praised as he seemed to notice as an afterthought he was holding you again as he awkwardly put you down but didn’t let you touch the crab at all, in fact he picked it up and held it away from you both.

“So you eat bugs?” Jaxon asked you warily as he eyed the now dead crab suspiciously. 

“Uh, well, I guess crab looks like a...bug...doesn’t it.” You concluded with an apologetic look to him. “But I promise to never eat you.” You laughed nervously as Jaxon didn’t say anything to that and you just sighed in defeat as you walked with him along the beach before you found the cocoon he had spun for you wash ashore.

“Our cocoon!” You cheered when you saw it and tried to pick it up and haul it ashore, now that you could actually appreciate it, it was super soft and shiny, like silk and even wet it was still soft and squishy and fluffy. “Now if we can dry this out, we will have a bed.” You smiled brightly at Jaxon who seemed quite pleased with that and helped you drag it back to your base as you took the dead crab and put it onto the fire to cook so you could help him hang the cocoon in a tree so it could dry out.

“Please do not take offense but I do not trust your shelter, do you mind if I attach this to the tree so you could sleep in this? I believe I can make a waterproof layer to the outside so it will not accumulate or retain moisture, until we are rescued.” Jaxon offered.

“Are you sure? I can’t imagine how costly this was to you to make to begin with.” You posed.

“It will be worth it to me, please.” Jaxon returned.

“Ok, I trust you, do whatever you want to it.” You put to him and sat down by the fire and watched as the stinger in his abdomen was replaced with some sort of sprayer and as he sprayed it, all the water in it immediately came crashing out of it, splashing all over the sand under it as it once again regained it’s super fluffy, cloud like shape before he used his strength to make a palm tree which was already growing sideways turn just a little more bowed and attached the cocoon to the underside of the tree a few feet off the ground so that at least a foot of space separated the bottom of the cocoon and the ground, his abdomen replacing it’s sprayer with his silk spinning gland to do this as he orientated the cocoon so that you could easily slide in and out of it and sleep comfortably in it.

“You could make it big enough for the both of us you know.” You pointed out as you noticed he was narrowing the opening so that only yourself could crawl inside and closed up the bottom of it so you wouldn’t slide out of it either. He paused and made sure he could still fit inside before he seemed quite happy with his work and retreated to sit down next to you once again.

“Thank you.” You thanked him as you used a stick to move the crab around in the fire to make sure it cooked thoroughly before you pushed it out of the fire to let it cool so you could eat it as you went ahead and cut up some coconuts to drink the coconut water, offering one to Jaxon so he could drink some too, not wanting him to get dehydrated as he quickly drank his before you gave him yours before opening up a third and handing that to him too, on his seventh coconut, did he finally quench his thirst.

“I apologize for depleting our supplies.” Jaxon apologized.

“Nah, don’t worry about it, it’s not that small of an island, there’s more coconuts, it’ll be ok, you just made me the best shelter ever with your own silk, that’s quite the toll on you. Of course you’d be thirsty.” You waived off with an adoring smile as you went and got more.

When you came back, the crab had cooled off sufficiently and Jaxon watched as you used a rock to crack the legs open before taking the meat out and ate it before you offered him some. He cautiously took it and tried it and you waited to see if he would be allergic to it or not and soon he devoured the crab leg you gave him, shell and all before he took off another and ate that too as you continued to eat the meat out of your leg before offering him the shell which he gratefully took and ate that too before he started eating the body and found the sack that coconut crabs had that contained oil and outright drank it and slurped it up, licking his arms and fingers clean as you ate your fill of the actual meat and just grinned as you watched him wolf it down.

“Good?” You asked as he nodded yes as he continued to eat the shell of the head, having slurped up the cooked crab mustard gleefully and couldn’t help but buzz happily. 

“Very much so. I can’t believe we’ve been here this whole time and never ate them because we thought they were too much like ourselves.” Jaxon realized.

“Well, humans are similar in that we really don’t like to eat monkeys, chimpanzees or the like because we feel the same way about them, at least in the western world.” You offered with a shrug as you offered him the last shell which he took and quickly ate that.

“Would you mind?” Jaxon asked as he gestured to your hands which you nodded no before he carefully took your hands and licked them clean which made you giggle and squeal because you could tell he was trying so hard to be careful but you were so ticklish as you felt your cheeks burn as you made sure your hand stayed splayed so he could get at every inch.

“Thank you my queen.” Jaxon thanked you once he was finished.

“What?” You asked before he went ridged as he realized he said that out loud. “Oh Jaxon, you don’t have to think of me as your queen, I...” You began.

“But I want to.” Jaxon blurted which had your argument die on your tongue. “Please, I need, I need...you...to be my queen.” Jaxon whispered.

“You need me to boss you around?” You tilted your head curiously as you were trying to understand his request.

“No, well, yes, well, it’s complicated, most who get separated from the hive die because most drones don’t have the wherewithal to take care of themselves, to even eat or drink on their own so they don’t die without a queen telling them to do so through the hive mind. Our instincts when separated from the hive are always to return to the hive, without that, most just think death will be eminent and literally lay down and wait for death as they descend into madness without the hive mind. I’m different because technically I don’t need the hive mind and my brain is more advanced than a drone. But...I need...a purpose and usually my purpose needs to revolve around a queen and without that I’m...”

“Lost?” You supplied.

“Yes.” Jaxon nodded.

“Ok, well when we can get back to civilization, we can sort everything out, if you need me to be your queen for now, then that’s what I’ll do, you’re gonna have to help me, I’ve only ever ruled myself before so I’ll need feedback, I want to be a good queen.” You grinned as you hugged his arms again and looked up at him, smiling softly at him. 

“You’ll be the best.” Jaxon encouraged you as he grinned back as you just sat there and watched the sunset, towards the end of it, he helped you up into your cocoon.

“Aren’t you coming in?” You asked him as he perched himself on top of the trunk so that he could look down into the cocoon though.

“No, I need to guard my queen.” Jaxon shook his head no.

“Oh, ok, well don’t go too far.” You teased as you laid down and got comfortable, using the inside folds of the cocoon to wrap up like a blanket since it was getting chilly outside.

“Are you sure you wont’ get too cold?” You asked as you laid your head at the opening so you could look up at him as you briefly flirted with the idea of dragging him into the cocoon with you despite his protest as your first ‘official’ order as his new queen but didn’t want to ‘abuse your authority’.

“I’m sure, good night Isthantari.” Jaxon bid you.

“Isthantari?” You repeated.

“It means ‘one I am devoted to’, it’s what we call our queens rather than their names, would you prefer if I used your name?” Jaxon posed.

“No, Isthantari is wonderful, I love it.” You grinned up at him from the entrance to your cocoon.

“Is there a title you would prefer I use with you or just your name?” You asked as Jaxon thought that over.

“No, Jaxon is fine.” Jaxon insisted.

“Ok, good night Jaxon.” You bid him.

The next day, any semblance of deodorant on your body officially died and you noticed Jaxon was becoming even more scatter brained whenever you were too close to him, like his brain wasn’t working at all and he would stand really close to you and fight with himself on whether or not to hold you before he would come to his senses and try to stay away from you for a little while before his body would be drawn to you again.

“Jaxon, can you please tell me what’s going on?” You asked as he had a look about him that scared you as he was currently hugging a tree and trying to face away from you and to you- he looked like one of those ants that had a parasite in it’s brain, making it act crazy which terrified you.

“No,” Jaxon answered as he tried climbing the tree to get some coconuts but was failing so you walked away from him and you noticed the further away you were, the better he did. So you shaved some coconut and tried to bathe in the ocean with it, putting the coconut butter/oil in your armpits and all over your body to help cover up your body odor to see if that helped, which it did. But Jaxon seemed downcast and disappointed that you did that.

“Jaxon, you need to tell me why my body odor is hurting you.” You insisted over lunch, this time eating a fish as Jaxon ate another coconut crab.

“It’s not hurting me.” Jaxon insisted.

“Yes it is! It’s like your brain and body break every time I’m around you and you can’t function, would it be better if I stayed on the other side of the island?” You asked.

“No! Do not do that!” Jaxon exclaimed as your scent was beginning to take affect on him again.

“Why? Even right now it’s doing something to you, could you please just tell me so I know what to do?” You pleaded.

“You smell like a queen!” Jaxon finally snapped. “Your body odor, it smells better than any queen ever has and it’s telling my instincts to mate with you. That’s why all the drones on the ship tried to swarm you, because you appear as an unattended queen to them and it’s why I encouraged you to wear perfume because it helped diffuse it but all it did was entrap me harder. I didn’t just save you because you were my friend- I was literally following instincts to save you as my queen, that cocoon, that’s what all the males make for their queen, she’s surrounded by a safe cocoon at all times and is guarded at all times and when she’s not eating, she’s mating and that’s why I’ve been pushing you to eat constantly so I don’t overpower you to mate with you- constantly. I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t hurt you. You’re my Isthantari and I won’t just be devoted to you while we’re here on this island I’ll be devoted to you for life and it’s something I want to do and it’s something I need to do. I knew the moment I met you and smelled you that you were my queen, I just had no idea how strongly you would affect the hive, I thought it would just affect me, that’s why I walked so fast that first day, I wanted you to sweat to smell more of you but when I saw your affect on the others I knew I had made a mistake and so that’s why I encouraged you to wear more perfume. That’s also why I didn’t let you socialize or meet with any of the military because they would have realized that and taken advantage of you and put you on a treadmill to do nothing but sweat so they could harvest it and use it to take over the hive sooner and I know you would feel horrible and guilty over that since you put such a high value on family. When you had the royal jelly it just locked in your scent and that’s never happened with anyone before. My sister’s scent was so weak, I knew she would be overthrown by a stronger scented queen sooner than later, that’s why I never let you meet her because if she had met you, she would have realized you were stronger scented than her and would have killed you or at least tried her best to do so before her own consorts left her or killed her to make you their queen over the hive instead of her and none of it is your fault, you have to believe me, nothing is your fault.” Jaxon revealed and you gasped in shock as Jaxon just held his head in his hands as you sat there, stunned and just let this revelation wash over you for a few long moments before everything clicked in place and you realized something about yourself.  

“Can Jika and humans even mate? Like are we...compatible?” You asked.

“Yes, Dr. Kimble and my brother mate all the time, he had the same reaction to her that I have to you and she was open to it but I know that with the wide range of human body types that it may not be possible for some human women to take on a Jika male’s sex organs.” Jaxon explained as you thought it over.

“Is this why you didn’t come into the cocoon with me last night?” You posed.

“Yes, because if I did, I would have mated with you then, that’s what males do, we get in the cocoon with the queen and mate in the cocoon.” Jaxon nodded.

“Oh,” you nodded in understanding before you realized that...you were open to it too.

“Well I’m not closed off to the idea.” You hinted as you as you scooted closer to him.

“Don’t tease me, please,” Jaxon pleaded desperately.

“I’m not teasing, I’m serious, will you go back to “normal” after you try mating with me?” You asked.

“Yes,” Jaxon nodded yes as he looked at you and felt yourself grow feverish under his gaze.

“Ok, show me.” You invited before he grabbed you and put you into his lap as a slit, that you thought was his waist attaching to his abdomen opened up and a large, bright purple, bulbous, clearly phallic penis emerged, it was coated in a slick, almost slime like substance and it smelled slightly musty yet still fruity sweet, the head looked like an extra large duck egg with big bumps on the top of the shaft and ridges on the underside with a large ball all the way at the base, slightly smaller than the size of your fist, it was very impressive and then what you assumed were his testicles, three of them, each of them the size a kiwi came and rested in the sand between his legs, you had no clue how he had managed to fit that into his waist or perhaps they were stored in the abdomen too. But they were out and on display and all of it still seemed to be throbbing and you felt yourself grow quite wet in anticipation because this was your first sexual encounter with an alien but you were fairly certain you could take him.

“Wow,” you found yourself grinning as you pulled up your nightgown and pulled off your underwear before you pushed him back slightly to make room for you to straddle his waist as you lined up yourself up and slowly came down onto him as you noticed his arms were around you once again and the lower arm’s hands were on your hips while your own arms rested on his shoulders as you slowly eased down onto it. His own slickness giving your own womanhood a tingly sensation, not painful at all but definitely enjoyable before he attached his mouth to yours and kissed you. Something his brother had encouraged him to do because humans loved kissing. Jika kissed too, but not nearly to the extent humans did and it was his brother’s favorite thing to do with Dr. Kimble. Jika had lips and a human like mouth underneath their mandibles so that once those were moved out of the way, you could kiss him back with relative ease and he tasted like...buttered toast to you for some reason, you quite liked it though and when you started to move, the tingly sensation amplified and heightened your own arousal and easily transformed this into the best sex of your life. The bulbous head rubbed against your G-spot and you threw your head back to cry out in ecstasy as Jaxon kissed and nipped at your ears, jaw, neck and chest before you realized your chest was...sopping wet and you looked down to see a soft squishy duct in his collarbone at the base of his neck stick out and was oozing what looked like pureed mango.

“Jaxon, what’s this?” You asked as you paused and pointed it out.

“That’s...my royal jelly, we excrete it during mating so that the queen can eat while mating, the sweeter the jelly, the longer she eats, meaning the longer we mate.” Jaxon explained as you stopped humping him to mentally take in that information.  

“Oh my god, you mean that royal jelly I had before...” “Was mine, I was hoping you’d like it.” Jaxon admitted.

“You milked your own royal jelly, to...” you began.

“To impress you and woo you.” Jaxon confessed.

“So I can eat this now?” You asked as you gestured to it.

“Please do,” Jaxon invited before you licked it up from his chest after he licked your own clean and when you put your mouth over the gland and sucked, Jaxon moaned loudly and buzzed in delight and began moving you to keep riding him and you noticed, now it was more intensely sweet and downright addictive as you drank it down. Moaning and keening in bliss as you surrendered completely to him.

“Jaxon, I’m gonna cum,” you tried to tell him between gulping down mouthfuls of his nectar.

“Cum, please cum,” Jaxon pleaded desperately as he drove up into you, trying to get the biggest bulb at the base inside you and you couldn’t help but realize that you were about to be knotted, in a werewolf kind of way as you spread your legs as wide as you could and canted your hips a little and with one final push down the knot popped inside you and that sensation sent you over the edge and into climax as you inwardly constricted around it as your legs shook and you clung to him and keened and whimpered before your mouth was suddenly pumped full of jelly and you had to swallow several times to get it all down as some of it escape from the corners of your mouth as you felt your lower belly grow and distend as your womb expanded too, not nearly as painfully as it should have been, his cum giving a slightly cooling, tingling sensation, like mineral ice but delightfully subdued- as he pumped you full of cum, it felt really good actually as the royal jelly finally stopped coming as you pulled away and gasped for breath and panted as your head rested on his shoulder as he pet and massaged your body and nuzzled your face with his own as his antennae tapped the back of your head and your shoulder attentively.

“You did so good, I love you so much, I’m so proud of you, thank you so much my Isthantari.” Jaxon cooed to you as you both basked in the afterglow, the tingly sensation now amplifying your own orgasm and afterglow so that you still felt like you were still on cloud nine and weren’t gonna come back down for a long time.  

“I love you too,” you cooed back as you pet him in turn as you felt yourself oh so slowly come down from your high and happily just let yourself rest in his embrace. This was epically good.

“That has to be the best sex I’ve ever had.” You admitted as he buzzed happily and you felt his feelers tap your head and back like crazy for a few seconds.

“Really? So you’ll want to do it again?” Jaxon asked excitedly.

“Well not right this second but later, yeah,” You confirmed as you raised your head to smile brightly at him as you felt his penis start to shrink and recede and once it plopped out, a literal cascade of cum fell out of you.

“Holy shit, that’s a lot.” You blurted when you looked down between you to see it’s ultraviolet holographic shimmering liquid that felt like a soft jelly and in fact you could have sworn you had a holographic jelly highlighter/ body glitter that looked exactly like this as you reached down to touch it before you swiped it onto your arm and noticed it behaved exactly like holographic highlighter while also providing you with a cooling relief from the sunburn you’d been trying and failing not to accumulate.

“Oh my god, it’s like my makeup.” You giggled.

“Actually when I saw you wearing your makeup I thought it looked like it and it turned me on like you wouldn’t believe. Which is why I was able to pump so much jelly out for you so fast while you were smelling the flowers in the botany area. You have to understand, that the moment I saw you, you were perfect, you smelled divine and you looked like the embodiment of sex and it was all the self control I had not to do this immediately. Also why I was so awkward because you were trying to be professional and I was warring with myself to either put as much distance between us and drawing impossibly close to you and obviously you see which side won out.” Jaxon murmured bashfully.

“Aw, you could have told me.” you fawned before you kissed him sweetly. “So it’s not disgusting if I kinda want to wear it? It’s actually cooling and giving me relief from the sunburn.” You posed.

“By all means, just don’t expect me to not want to have more sex with you, much more often.” Jaxon playfully warned as you giggled and quickly scooped it up and put it all over you, it did relieve your sunburn immediately and you stripped naked to put it all over your skin and even Jaxon helped put it all over your back and your butt, touching and caressing that part of your body very lovingly.

“Do you love my butt?” You teased him.

“Yes! I do, it’s so amazing and perfectly plump, perfectly befitting for a queen and so soft. Jika females are also very soft, their exoskeleton is very thin and delicate, which is why they must be protected at all times. And even your thighs are perfect.” Jaxon praised before he kissed them and your ass, making you giggle and squirm, you had always been self conscious for your big ass and thighs, but having a prince tell you that it’s perfect and divine sure did help you feel better about yourself before he moved around and caressed your belly too.

“This is one of my favorite parts though, I’ve been wanting to touch this since I first met you too.” Jaxon admitted as he nuzzled your belly gently before kissing it and especially your stretch marks lovingly.

“Really?” You asked as you pet his head.

“Remember, the bigger the queen, the more young she can have and the fatter she is, the better the males have done in caring for her, it’s a sign of success and prestige if a queen is huge.” Jaxon revealed in awe.

“Oh, well to humans, fat is seen as a bad thing, it’s taken as a sign of bad eating habits and laziness and how not in shape you are.” You told him with a frown.

“Humans are stupid sometimes, you are perfect, by any standard, I know entire races who would look at your body and see perfection and you would be hailed as a goddess to them.” Jaxon informed you.

“I’ll take your word for it.” You nodded. “I could go for a nap though, but we need a way to catch fresh water because I will need water eventually, I can’t drink sea water because it has salt in it and sea water will make me sick if I drink it.” You told him as you felt yourself grow so sleepy.  

“Oh, ok, how about you rest then and I’ll work on the water thing.” Jaxon insisted as he stood and picked you up again and carried you back to your cocoon.

“Do you just like to carry me or something?” You asked curiously.

“Usually females are too big to walk on their own and have to be carried, and you’re so light and easy to carry, I could carry you with only arm if I needed to and yes, I love carrying you- very much so.” Jaxon explained as he helped you into the cocoon.

“Well ok then.” You nodded as you crawled inside and turned around and got comfortable as your eyelids grew heavier and heavier before you fell asleep because while the cocoon was perfectly warm at night, it was also very cool during the day and a welcome sanctuary to you. And once you were asleep, Jaxon literally bounced with happiness and let his wings unfold to reveal now perfectly repaired wings. The compounds in the crab’s exoskeleton was exactly what he needed to repair his own wings and it was even enough to strengthen his own exoskeleton and that oil from the crab was enough to fully lubricate his system, he could make you dozens of cocoons and a whole wardrobe of clothing with his own silk if you wanted it. He made sure you were asleep before he flew and retrieved all sorts of things from the ocean and from all over the island and even found a neighboring island and quickly collected all he could from there, killing a dozen more coconut crabs and hauling them back to your island. He had never been so happy in his life, his queen loved him. Jika queens usually only tolerated their consorts and viewed them as slaves, viewed everyone as slaves because they were. But you, no, you appreciated him and praised him and comforted him and cared for him and understood him and loved him and that was more than any Jika could ever hope for, ever dream of having other than their own satisfaction that they were serving the queen and the hive. He wanted to stay on this island for the rest of his life with you, screw the rest of the world. Once he could figure out the water situation you would be perfectly fine and happy. When he came back and saw you were sleeping still, he even went fishing and managed to kill a red snapper for you, feeling exceedingly proud of himself with that, being able to provide for his Isthantari so well.  

You awoke to him throwing the coconut crabs onto the fire as he tried to take the scales off the fish, since you had talked him through scaling and gutting a fish already.

“Wow, look at you, now who’s acting like it’s another day at the office?” You gently teased him as you got out of your cocoon and got redressed in your pajamas and came over to him and helped him make you dinner as the sun was setting.

“So there will be another storm coming, I think I can spin some more silk to soak up the rain water, you can drink rain water- yes?” Jaxon asked.

“Yup, rainwater will be perfect, how did you know there will be another storm coming?” You asked in amazement before he pointed to his antennae.

“I can detect pressure in the atmosphere and wind direction, it’ll rain for most of the day tomorrow. The nutrients and components in all these crabs will give me what I need to make it through tomorrow without needing to eat and also provide you will all the jelly you could drink without taxing my system.” Jaxon informed you proudly.

“That’s great! Will it help with your wing?” You asked.

“….yes, but it will take time before I can fly again.” Jaxon lied but you believed him.

“Yes! That’s good though! I’m so happy they’ll help.” You grinned as you nudged him with your elbow.

“Yes,” Jaxon confirmed.

“Well then I’ll leave the crabs for you then, because you need them, I’ll just eat fish from here on out. I want you to heal sooner than later.” You urged him.

“I can still share them.” Jaxon countered.

“Well I won’t say no to some of their meat but the shells are of no use to me at all so you can eat all of those.” You beamed happily before you pulled him over to kiss his cheek affectionately as he in turn kissed the crown of your head back before the fish was completely roasted and he offered it to you and watched you squeeze some lime over before it cooled off a little and you got to eat it happily as Jaxon ate the crabs and offered you bites of the meat in the legs occasionally until you were both beyond satisfied and then you watched as Jaxon was able to eat not just the meat but the bones of the fish too, quite liking that and told you that the calcium and the cartilage would help him heal too. You watched him make a wide net between a several palm trees as he then layered on some fluffy stuff and sprayed only the bottom of it in all in a film in all but one part to act as a spout to catch the rain water so that it would retain the water on the top and not let any escape from the bottom.

“So how many gallons of water will this catch?” You asked as you came up to it and still marveled at it’s softness as you spread your hands over it and stroked it. It looked like the most amazing hamock ever. 

“I don’t know, hopefully enough.” Jaxon shrugged before you both crawled into the cocoon, Jaxon once again curling around you as you curled around him in turn before you had sex again to wear yourselves out for sleep, his nectar providing the best dessert ever.

In the middle of the night is when the storm came, the crack of thunder waking you both up as his antennae once again tapped you all over your face and head to make sure you were ok.   

“I’m ok, it’s just a storm, we’ll be ok.” You reassured him softly as you got settled back into sleep, the sound of the rain hitting the coating on the cocoon lulling you into a deep and restful sleep. When you woke up again, Jaxon was already awake, watching the storm out of the little hole as one set of arms, his lower set was still wrapped around your waist while his upper hands combed through your hair with his fingers, the action soothing him and the feel of your own hair pleasing his senses greatly. The queen also had fur like hair around her collar and liked to keep it impeccably groomed, but it was courser hair than yours.

“Hey you,” you greeted sleepily as he moved his head down and you watched his own irises move across his compound eyes to look at you, you realized they were like the eyes of a praying mantis like that.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Jaxon grinned happily.

“I am,” you nodded before you kissed him. “Hungry too.” You murmured into the kiss.

“Ok, I can...” Jaxon went to untangle himself from you before you locked your legs around his waist and grinded your center at that seam again.

“Both kinds of hungry.” You giggled as your tongue darted out to lick at that duct again to entice it out.

“Oh-ooh,” Jaxon giggled in turn as the duct and his penis and gonads emerged again, the head spearing your center easily as you wriggled down to seat yourself on it as a little of his own nectar dribbled out of the duct before you licked it up and sucked to get more, sticking your tongue into the opening to get it bigger and Jaxon groaned and bucked up into you and made you moan in turn as all of his hands stroked your body, from your breasts to your back to your hips, waist and ass as if he couldn’t get enough of you as he pinned you beneath him to really drive into you and before you knew it he had knotted you and then he buzzed and it his entire penis felt like one giant vibrator and it was the best thing ever and you were cascading down into your own release as you drank down his nectar greedily as you felt your belly distend again from getting pumped full, the discomfort you felt yesterday had lessened immensely last night and any discomfort now completely gone and your body welcomed it this time, the sensations only making your own climax more intense and longer lasting.  

“Does that feel really good to you when I play with this with my tongue?” You asked as you gently touched the duct which made him shiver as you both rested and recovered.

“Yes, very much so, um, I believe the human equivalent is ‘erogenous zone’.” Jaxon tried to explain.

“Ah, that does explain it. Is that the only erogenous zone you have? Is there anything else I can do to help you feel good or feel better?” You asked curiously.

“Honestly this is the most physical contact with anyone I’ve ever had before. As a non consort to a queen, I could never hope to copulate, ever, with anything or anyone. It wasn’t until my brother realized that he could mate with Dr. Kimble that I had a hope of this happening for myself.” Jaxon explained.

“Oh, so do others just..masturbate? To please themselves sexually?” You asked.

“No.” Jaxon shook his head no.

“Do Jika get sexually frustrated then?” You asked.

“Honestly I never noticed anything until you came along.” Jaxon admitted.

“And if I didn’t smell the way I do and send your body and instincts into overdrive, you never would have considered it?” You put to him.

“Probably not no, my other brother Kin, he has no attraction to his female scientist, Dr. Wads- whatsoever.”

“Well Dr. Wads is in her 60’s and well passed menopause and a fridgid bitch whereas Dr. Kimble is in her early forties and probably approaching it, Dr. Wads is not sexually viable anymore and her body probably doesn’t give off the pheromones that mine does.” You explained as he looked at you in surprise.

“I didn’t realize that human women had such limits.” Jaxon countered before you had a very lengthy discussion about human reproduction as you learned more about Jika reproduction as well. But you soon began to fear that once you yourself went through menopause that Jaxon would no longer be interested in you and wouldn’t love you anymore and would likely move on to someone younger if you were still together by then. Many human men did that, had done that since the dawn of time. Maybe your own wishful thinking and hopeless romantic tendencies were making this out to be more than it was. But Dr. Kimble should be approaching menopause, so you supposed you would have to watch her and her relationship with her Jika closely.    

When the storm passed you finally emerged to eat and restart your fire, Jaxon eating a few more coconut crabs all by himself as you used the glass bottles you collected earlier and filled them with water from the water canopy and were delighted when it worked perfectly. The next few days were a delightful blur of just eating, drinking, sex and sleep with a super big dose of you and Jaxon drawing even closer and getting to know each other much more intimately. Part of you almost didn’t want to be rescued from this paradise.

“Thank you.” You thanked him, you always loved compliments to your art.

“And your tattoos are stunning.” He added as he gestured to your arms and shoulders as you self consciously touched them.

“Thank you.” You thanked him again. “Your coloring is stunning too.” You blurted before you wanted to face palm yourself.

“Thank you.” He thanked you as he stood a little straighter as his chest seemed to puff out a little as his wings fluttered a little.

“I should probably introduce myself, I’m Jarek Kizu.” He introduced himself as he held a hand out to you before you felt a force seem to pull you up to your feet as you put your things aside and shook his hand, his larger hands dwarfing yours but the exoskeleton on his hands was smooth like glass and surprisingly warm.

“I’m Kiara.” You answered as he seemed particularly pleased to learn that.

“Beautiful name, it suits you.” Jarek praised as your cheeks blushed scarlet as you were pretty sure your knees were going to be knocking together any moment.

“Do you mind if I join you?” He asked as he gestured to the bench.

“Oh, please do,” you invited as you gratefully sat down and scooted over to allow him to sit down, which he did, his abdomen tucking under himself so he could sit on it before you two had a lovely discussion about your art and your tattoos and you got to know each other as you two seemed to click instantly and before you knew it, he invited you out to have dinner with him as the afternoon turned into evening.

“Absolutely, where?” You asked as you looked around to see if there were any vegetarian restaurants nearby that you wouldn’t hate to go to, because you thought you knew that Jika were vegetarian.

“Actually there is a lovely seafood place nearby.” Jarek said as he gestured in a particular direction as you snapped your head back to him in surprise.

“Really? I thought Jika were vegetarian?” You asked, your voice becoming a little smaller as your confidence in that idea began to wane.

“Usually we are, but we love seafood, in particular shell fish. But I understand that some humans are allergic to it, are you allergic to seafood or shellfish?” He asked as he realized he should have asked that before suggesting it.

“No, I love it actually.” You smiled excitedly.

“Then let’s go.” He invited as he stood up and held his hand out to you.

“Um, my car is that way,” you pointed to your car.

“It would be faster if we flew, if you would permit me to carry you.” Jarek suggested as you eyes went wide in excitement before you seemed to remember that you were pretty thicc and the idea of anyone carrying you without hurting themselves had always been a factor before.  

“Uh, I don’t know, I’m pretty heavy.” You grimaced.

“I sincerely doubt you’re heavier than what I can carry.” He reassured you.

“Well how much can you carry?” You asked him curiously.

“In human terms, about 40 thousand pounds, roughly two hundred times my own body weight, you look appear to be a very tiny fraction of that.” He answered proudly as he seemed to take in your body appreciatively, if not a touch salaciously and your jaw dropped.

“Yeah, you know what? I’ll totally let you carry me, I’d love to go flying.” You smiled brightly as you put your things in your bag.

“How would you like to be carried?” He asked. “I can either carry you with your back to my chest so that it will look like you’re the one flying of your own power or I can carry you, I believe the term is bridal style.” He offered.

“Like I’m flying please,” you giggled with glee as you changed your purse to go across your chest so that nothing would fall out of it as he came up behind you and wrapped all four of his arms around you securely.

“I’ll take off whenever you’re ready Kiara.” He practically purred in your ear which sent a shiver down your spine and you felt your panties go wet in your jeans.

“I’m ready.” You insisted before he lifted you off the ground and you couldn’t help but squeal in delight as you were suddenly flying above the tops of the trees as you looked around and took in the scenery, trying to get your brain to record this so you would have flying dreams in the future. This was the best feeling ever. You felt so free. True to his word he set you down right outside the restaurant and then opened the door for you and got a table for the two of you.

You watched as he ordered half the menu so to speak, and absolutely insisted you order whatever your heart desired and that money was of little consequence to him so you ordered what you wanted and really went all out on yourself. To your delight, he got a bottle of delicious wine which you two shared the bottle and when the food came, while he did like the flesh, you realized it was the shells of the seafood he was really after, so he traded a lot of the meat to his crab legs for your shells, or let you enjoy the oysters and mussels while he ate the shells and same went for the shrimp too which worked out well and both of you stuffed yourselves and didn’t have any left overs despite ordering what you did. When you were done, he paid for dinner and walked you back out only now it was a bit chillier than it was earlier as the sun began to set as shivered.

“Are you cold?” He asked you as he noticed the shiver.

“Yeah, I should have brought a jacket.” You stroked your arms.

“Well here, hang on,” he offered as he pulled you off the side of the building away from the crowds before he lifted your arms and then himself off the ground and the stinger in his abdomen disappeared and was replaced with a silk spinning gland and he literally spun a long hooded coat for you right there on the spot. It was warm and super soft and your smile got almost impossibly big because of how amazing this was as he buzzed around you, making sure it fit you perfectly and when he was done he landed and appraised his work.

“There? Is this suitable for you Kiara?” He asked hopefully.

“Yes! It’s perfect! I love it, this is amazing.” You beamed as you took the edges of it and wrapped it around you, practically melting into it’s warm softness. You would never want to take it off now.

“Good, then let me take you back to your car then.” He offered before he picked you up, bridal style this time. You didn’t feel any of the nip in the air even at altitude, simply to your face which was the only skin visible, the sleeves were long enough to cover your arms and hands completely, and the way it wrapped around you like a blanket meant that even your shoes were covered as you cuddled into his chest. You were not expecting Prince Charming to drop out of the sky but he had. And you didn’t really think of yourself as attracted to aliens but you were, to him at least.

He dropped you off at your car and you exchanged phone numbers and made plans for another date and then he kissed you. He meant to kiss you chastely, at least you were pretty sure he did, but god damn, that kiss seemed to only ignite something in you both before you knew it, he had you picked up and pinned to the side of your car and the kiss was deep and electric and what felt like an eternity yet all too soon, he slowed down to a stop, just enough to leave you breathless.

“Wow,” you both breathed as you both suddenly grinned wide.

“Jinx.” You giggled.

“You’ve met my brother?” Jarek tilts his head as his smile vanishes into a frown.

“What? You have a brother named Jinx?” You asked in confusion.

“Oh, are you talking about the curse ‘jinx’?” Jarek asked as he accessed the hive mind to get the information on the human term ‘jinx’.

“It’s not a real curse, it’s more of a silly game,” you corrected as he slowly and carefully put you back down and you feel a little panicked like you ruined the mood.

“Oh,” Jarek nodded in understanding.

“And you’re the first Jika I’ve met that had a name, other than a number.” You explained.

“Oh, ok.” Jarek nodded in understanding again as he seemed...actually very relieved to hear that as that seemed confusing to you before he departed from you pleasantly and made plans to see you again in a day or two.

However it wasn’t even 10 hours before he was with you again and for a week you nearly spent all day every day with him until today, you invited him to your place, showing him your tiny art studio as he looked at all your art in awed wonder. And practically bought you out. Thank god you had that card reader on your phone as he happily slid his card and tipped you a thousand dollars per piece of art. Which was substantially more than your art was priced for. He literally set you up for a year and now you could afford to go to the art supply store and buy whatever you wanted.

“Wow, you’re incredible! Really, really talented.” He praised as he looked it over excitedly while also holding your cat Tabatha who seemed very pleased to have three hands scratching her and petting her while one arm held her comfortably as you beamed happily as you walked around, the coat he made for you, wrapped around you like a robe, actually it was so soft you had slept in it naked and wore it constantly all week and it had been a dream, you had never slept so peacefully before, even silk sheets were nothing compared to this robe.

“If you like that garment so well, I can make you more.” Jarek offered as he noticed your affinity for it.

“Really?” You asked excitedly.

“Yes, as a non consort, I don’t have to reserve my silk for the queen, I can use it for whatever I wish. If it will make you happy and pleases you, I will happily make you whatever you wish.” Jarek offered.

“Non consort?” You repeated in confusion.

“Are you not aware of the Jika hierarchy?” He asked as you shook your head ‘no’.

“You should take a seat then,” he suggested as the two of you sat on the futon in your studio. “You see, I’m what the English equivalent is a prince. I was born in the royal batch, with the former queen, I was bred to be a potential consort to her, to mate with her as she wished, take care of her, surround her in a giant nest made from my silk and all the other silk from all the other consorts, my sole purpose of existence is to serve her. Take care of her physical person, feed her, clean her, surround her in comfort and take care of her and make sure that every need, want and desire she would ever have would be fulfilled. But a queen only needs so many consorts and the batch, as a precaution, is usually given a few dozen consorts so she is spoiled for choice to choose who she wants, in fact the first several years of our lives are spent growing up with her and learning her and what she wants and then another few are spent making her the most spectacular gifts in winning her favor. If she chooses us, we become completely devoted to her and she becomes our Isthantari and she uses her scent, the pheromones in her scent specifically to control us and our mind atrophies into that of a drone but we win the right that our genetics get passed on through mating.” He explained as your eyes went wide and your jaw dropped in surprise.

“So because you weren’t a consort, your brain stays developed but you don’t get to breed?” You asked, trying to make sense of that before he smiled with just a hint of mischief.

“Well, actually, I still can breed, I just don’t need to be as devoted to her as her consorts would be, instead I serve her by serving the hive, my job is easy and the mental work load is very light and boredom is my biggest enemy, what my batch mates, or brothers as you would call them, are finding is that we can actually have very fulfilling lives outside the hive and a few of my brothers have found mates, their very own Isthantaris, that are actually human and their Isthantaris are just as devoted to my brothers as they are to them, which is a relationship dynamic that is extremely appealing. You see just because a queen could choose me as a consort, does not mean she’s attached to me emotionally, she would use me to serve her, that is all that she would view me as. Never an equal, always a slave. But as a royal batch, I am no slave to the queen or the hive mind for that matter. In fact I am very relieved she didn’t choose me.” He explained.

“What does Isthantari mean?” You felt compelled to ask.

“It roughly translates to ‘one I am devoted to for life’, but isth, has two meanings, when in the whole word it means devoted, by itself it means sex or to mate with and the word encompasses both meanings.” Jarek explained.

“So is that what you’re looking for? An Isthantari to be just as devoted to you as you are to her?” You asked.

“Yes.” Jarek confirmed. “And you actually fit it remarkably well,” he smiled proudly.

“What?” You giggled as you felt your cheeks heat up as your heat fluttered in your chest.

“Yes, your scent, it’s extremely good, you smell like a queen, even your name is that of a queen, all queens, their names always start with the ‘k’ sound and when translated into English, always start with K and Kiara is very sought after name for a queen, there have been many great Queen Kiaras. But back to your scent, which is more important than your name, is what attracted me initially, I could smell your scent on the breeze a mile away and I purposefully tried to find you the moment I caught it and I was so happy to learn that you were single and that it is your wonderful, creative personality that has kept my attention and I’m finding myself enraptured by you. Your art is spectacular, your personality is everything I could ever hope for and what you may not know is the queen is supposed to be very, very large, like so large, she’s immobile and can’t move on her own and has to be carried if she has to be moved or stays put. Her exoskeleton is supposed to be paper thin, it feels like the membrane of those Tide pods, that kind of thin, your own epidermis is much thicker by comparison. In fact if she were to try to get tattoos, it would kill her because it would breach her exoskeleton and her innards would ooze out and she would die. In fact if I were to try to get a tattoo, the same could happen to me, the fact that humans have their skeletons on the inside and centers of their tissues is a wonder and the fact that you can have such amazing things as tattoos is...I’m very jealous, you could say. So it is also because you are a bigger female, is also extremely attractive and I’m finding my instincts to serve you as my Isthantari to be quite strong, stronger than they ever were for the former queen or even the current one. But I do not wish to scare...” he tried to tell you before you practically climbed into his lap and kissed him for all you were worth and smiled into the kiss when all four of his arms wrapped around you as he kissed you back passionately.

“You need to tell me to stop.” Jarek pleaded desperately as you realized he seemed to be in pain.

“Why?” You asked breathlessly.

“Because if you keep kissing me like that, I’m going to want to mate with you and I think you should probably get to know me better before you make that kind of...” He tried to point out before you were kissing him again and grinding yourself on his lap as you opened the robe like coat and pressed your body up against him.

“Tell me about mating.” You asked once you broke for air.

“Well, I know for a fact we’re physically compatible and the other Isthantari’s enjoy it very much.” He said as he stroked your body as you felt yourself melting at his touch.

“Can I see?” You asked hopefully before he scoot you back a little and finally let his genitalia become exposed, sighing in relief once they were out as they continued to engorge.

“Wow!” You said as you looked down in awed amazement at it. It was...beautiful actually before you slipped down to kneel on the floor so you could get a better view, his cock was the real work of art here.

“But, again you need to know something.” He tried to tell you as you reached out and started stroking his cock as you could tell he was barely hanging onto sanity.

“Hm?” You hummed smugly as you fingered the slit at the head and watched as his whole body shudder.

“If you were to become my Isthantari, it could be dangerous, the current queen, she is very strong but she is vicious, because you smell better than she does, she could take that as you being a rival, you could...oh...” He tried to warn you before you reached forward and licked the head and grinned when you tasted a fruity yet minty flavor coming from his pre-cum. Like some kind of gum, like a slightly minty twist to juicy fruit. It was actually very delicious, way tastier than any other cock you’d sucked.

“She could try to h-hurt you but I would protec-ct, you,” he vowed as you started sucking on it as your eyes flicked up to see a duct suddenly appear at the center of his collar bone and what looked like a mango puree came dribbling out.

“What’s that?” You asked as you pointed to it.

“My royal jelly, consorts produce royal jelly to feed the queen while mating, it’s unique among individuals, if she likes the flavor, she’ll usually mate longer and more often to us.” He explained before you stripped out of your clothes and crawled into his lap and slowly and carefully seated yourself onto his cock and moaned in delight when he stretched you perfectly before you leaned forward and licked it and you giggled.

“Does it please you?” He asked hopefully.

“Yes, very much so, it tastes like a cherry milkshake, it’s really, really good.” You told him before you closed your mouth around the duct and sucked and moaned again when more came into your mouth as Jarek grabbed your hips and started moving you with one set of hands while the other stroked and massaged your body which felt just as heavenly as his dick grinding deliciously in your pussy did. It was when he picked you up to kneel into the futon to let you rest your back against the back of it so he could drive into you harder that you nearly lost all control of yourself, fuck. He was good, he was a virgin and he was good. Like your toes were curling, your orgasm was quickly approaching you trying your best to suck down that downright addictive royal jelly in between wanton moans as you clung to him and he clung to you and you felt like delightful electricity was coursing through your body, giving you a delightful love drunk buzz. It was fantastic. And the more aroused you felt, the more you loosened up and the deeper he was able to drive into you comfortably and the tingly sensation his genitals gave yours only enhanced your own sensations and brought you higher in ecstasy than you had ever felt before, even being fully inspired and able to hyper-focus on your art didn’t feel this good. You were on the brink of being overwhelmed and were flirting hard with over-stimulation but you felt like you would die if you stopped having sex with him right now.

You felt the knot like base trying to stretch your entrance and you longed to have it pop inside, you wanted that knot more than your lungs craved air and more than your tongue craved royal jelly as you tried to spread your legs as wide as you could and open yourself up to it and just as he grabbed you by the waist and thighs and pushed you down forcefully, it popped inside and in place and it sent you over the edge and you were suddenly plunged into bliss as he emptied his seed into you as his royal jelly overflowed your mouth, the precious liquid escaping the corners of your mouth as your cheeks bulged full as you fought to breathe and gulp it down just as fast as it was flowing into your mouth. It took over a minute to gulp it all down before you pulled away to lick up the excess and pant to catch your breath and your teasing licks to his duct caused him to shudder and giggle while moaning at the same time as he pet your hair and his antennae tapped around your head gently.

“How do you feel my Isthantari?” He cooed to you as all four of his hands stroked you lovingly.

“Amazing, like, I’ve never felt this good before,” you giggled as you stretched out, still feeling the ethereal delight flooding your system and it was downright amazing before you looked down and gulped at your distended lower belly, like you were pregnant, but you didn’t feel any pain or discomfort. After a few long moments, his genitalia seemed to recede as the knot popped out and you felt like a gallon of his cum came pouring out of you. You should be in all kinds of pain right now but instead, there was a twinge of relief of not being so stuffed with disappointment that he wasn’t in you anymore. But his cum was actually very beautiful, he set you down on the futon next to it as you ran your fingers through it, giggling again at the texture of it and marveling at it’s holographic nature before you wondered what it would look like on a canvas as you suddenly scooped it up and spread it onto a canvas, noticing how the colors could change depending on how thick or thin it was against the white canvas before you put it on black paper to see what it would do and gasped when the most amazing colors seemed to glow off the paper before he informed you of the other benefits and applications that the other Isthantari’s had found from Jika cum and you giddily applied it to yourself and then he disappeared for a few moments while you continued to play with it.

“Jarek? You ok?” You asked as you left your studio to go into the rest of the apartment to find him applying a thick layer of his silk to your bed.

“Aww, are you making me a nest?” You cooed when you saw it.

“Yes, I hope that’s ok.” He admitted as he was making the built in blanket part of it.

“Of course it’s ok, I love it, it’s so soft.” You beamed happily as you came over and wiped your hands off on a rag so you wouldn’t get cum on it as you touched it reverently.

“Thank you so much for doing this.” Sable thanked you as Jaxon and his brother Jabari carried in cases of the Jika fruits into your pastry shop.

“You’re welcome, I’m excited, so what do I need to do to them?” You posed curiously as you looked the fruits over curiously.  

“Well they’ve already been frozen and thawed so they’ll be sweet for you so you don’t need to do much else. I’m really excited to see what you’ll be able to do with them.” Sable beamed happily as she arranged one of everything onto a long counter with a set of tools to open the fruits so that you could try them yourself, grinning when you ‘oohed’ at the different flavors as your brain kicked into overdrive as you quickly wrote out what your inspiration was telling you to do with them.

“Well give me a few days at least to play with these and see what I can do, but right off the top of my head, macaroons and cupcakes, with this as a filling or to flavor buttercream frosting.” You suggested.

“I was thinking the same thing. Well, if you can’t get a hold of me you can tell Jabari because he’s been put in charge of getting the produce to earth chefs and he’s also in charge of pricing. I can already tell you, this one will probably be pretty expensive because a giant tree only grows one seed pod, granted that pod has over a thousand seeds but you only get one pod a season. So I’m still working on trying to see if I can cross breed it to either get bigger pods or more pods per tree. But the fruit around the seed is literally the blue raspberry flavor a lot of candy has and the seed to me is a cross between a macadamia and a cashew.” Sable explained as you bit into the fruit and felt your knees go weak and ate the rest of the fruit before biting into the seed in the middle.

“I see what you mean by the macadamia nut but I’m getting hints of Brazil nut too.” You pointed out as Sable tried it again.

“Yeah, you’re right, Brazil nut. The nuts I think would be good dipped in chocolate or perhaps into a baklava or something.” Sable mused as you nodded in agreement to that and wrote that down too.

You and Sable had been friends for a long time, you had become a pastry chef and owned your own bakery but because Sable was a friend of yours and her inter-galactic and inter-species connections meant that you were usually her go-to person to see if alien foods would be palatable or be made palatable for humans and as a bonus, you were also who a lot of aliens like to come to for sweets that were for them a taste of home. And when aliens got married, you were their go to for wedding cakes in flavors that were literally other worldly, you had alien staff that helped you with flavors and styles that were even a hit with the humans.

And then you noticed it. Sable’s relationship with Jaxon and the absolutely doting way he was around her and the smitten way she acted around him.

“So…? What’s up with that?” You whispered to Sable with a mischievous glint in your eye.

“Oh, Jaxon and I are together, it’s just uh, supposed to be under the radar, you see, the Jika are controlled by a queen and “technically” speaking, she’s the only one who’s supposed to breed in the colony and will kill rivals. And...yeah, so she’s not. And let me just say, damn.” Sable giggled as her whole face blushed beet red.

“Oh?” You giggled yourself. A forbidden romance? Be still your beating heart!

“Ok so the Jika are really sensitive to smells, in particular pheromones, that’s how the queen controls the hive, just like our bees do, so anyway, so Jaxon took one whiff of me and thought I was a queen and  he quickly kind of totally fell in love with me and dear god the sex is out of this world, but don’t worry, he can’t knock me up, it’s fine, but he calls me his ‘Isthantari’ which means ‘one I am devoted to for life’ and so while we have to be careful and as long as I don’t pose a threat of any kind to the actual queen and as long as I don’t attract any others, we’re fine. I just have to wear a fuck ton of deodorant and perfume. Actually Jaxon’s brothers, because Jaye started a relationship with another doctor a couple of years ago, most think that because they’re not the queen’s consorts that they’ll never find love but when Jaye and Jaxon realized that they could, their brothers are realizing they can have a life and romance outside the hive. So if you’re interested, I can try to set you up. You just, literally have to be very careful. And if they’re attracted to your scent, great, if not, don’t take it personal, more fish in the sea and all that, and one may think you’re the living end and another won’t, so it’s an individual thing too.” Sable tried to explain and warn you as Jaxon and Jabari finished getting the last of the fruits inside and you got a good look at him. He was handsome and that purple sheen to his black was quite beautiful.

“How big of a dick are we talking here?” You whispered before Sable gestured and described it and your eyes went wide but the biggest excited smile plastered on your face before she described the sex too and the royal jelly and you were beyond intrigued.

“Hell yeah sign me the fuck up,” you agreed before a plan bloomed in your head.

“Jabari right?” You repeated his name when he came back to stand next to Jaxon who was standing next to Sable, waiting further instructions as you held your hand out to shake one of his before he stepped forward and shook your hand.

“Hi, I’m Lenore, so Sable said to keep in touch with you when I have something for you guys to try, so I’ll need your phone number and email address.” You insisted before he puled a cell phone out of his, what you could only describe was an alien fanny pack because he wasn’t really wearing any other clothes and gave you his phone number and email address.

And then like a woman possessed, you spent the next three days experimenting before you created a plethora of cup cakes, macaroons and all kinds of desserts before you texted Jabari that you had things for him to try. Sable and Jaxon were delivering goods to another chef so that only Jabari could come which was perfect. You had worked up a sweat working on all this and part of you was hoping that Jabari would like your scent the way Jaxon had liked Sable’s.

“Hey, you made it, come on in,” you invited him warmly as you took him back into the kitchen where you had everything displayed on the long counter for him as your other employees manned the front counter.

You watched Jabari very carefully for his reactions, remembering that Sable had told you to watch his antennae movement as well and noticed that on most of it, his antennae were wiggling like crazy as you wrote that down. But to your chagrin, he didn’t seem to give you much of any other reactions other than simply moving down the table and continuing to eat one of each item methodically.

And you did your best to stay close to him but the closer you tried to get, the father away he tried to stay. Ok, so this one didn’t like you. Maybe he was one of the brothers that didn’t think the risk was worth it.

“Can I take this with me?” Jabari requested as he gestured to everything on the table.

“Sure. For Sable to try?” You guessed as you got a to go box and started putting the treats in it for him.

“...yes.” Jabari slowly affirms and not only takes the box but went to the front and ordered one of everything you make at the store and he leaves with a few cases of your goods.

The next day you texted Sable to see how she liked your sweets.

‘I didn’t get any.’ Sable informed you. ‘Although with Jika, when they find something they like, they inhale it, they must have been really good that he ate it all.’ She tried to assure you.

‘Well it would have been nice for him to SAY so. He wouldn’t give me so much as a hum or any thing. Not even a ‘this was good’.’ You complained.

‘Jika are really AWKWARD at first. I had no idea Jaxon liked me until three days after I met him in person. Jaxon fought with himself to keep away from me because his instincts were telling him to mate with me already and he was trying to be professional. So if he came off as stand off-ish it’s because they are usually pretty stoic. Once you get passed that, then their personality will come through.’ Sable explained. ‘Do you have what you need to make more? Because now I really want to try some.’ Sable urged.

‘Yeah, I should, give me by the end of the day today.’ You answered and right at ten minutes to close, Sable, Jaxon and Jabari returned, Jabari’s antennae were a bit droopy though and were your eyes deceiving you or was his abdomen bigger than it was yesterday?

“I’d like to apologize for making you make these again, I had a lapse in self control and ate it all.” Jabari apologized meekly.

“I’ll only forgive you if tell me your honest appraisals of everything.” You returned with a wicked curve to your grin and he perked up quite a bit at that before he just went on and on in amazing detail about every tiny little thing as Sable and Jaxon tried and really enjoyed each item as you were just suddenly overwhelmed, it was like getting the most glowing review from a food critic but in person and when he grabbed your hand to lead you out into the front to the display case as he then gave you a review of each thing, you realized, he did, eat every. Single. Thing. And you fell in love with the way he described your food because he made it sound like you had made each thing just for him and he appreciated and was deeply moved by it all and in awe of it all. You should have recorded this to write it down to actually put it into your menus. When he was done, you were almost ready to cry.

“Thank you.” You thanked him and flung your arms around him to hug him as he awkwardly hugged you back and you felt his antennae tap the back of your head gently just as the employees were closing the store.

“You’re welcome. You’re very talented.” Jabari praised as he seemed to give into the embrace and hugged you so tight it was a little hard to breathe and you noticed he’s petting your hair. You quite like it.

“Would you like to go get a drink with me?” You asked boldly as you pulled away from the embrace.

“Uh, you have drinks here?” Jabari tiled his head slightly in confusion as he gestured to your coffee bar and your fountain drink dispenser.

“No, alcoholic drinks.” Sable corrected as she came out from the back and handed you a sheet of paper with her and Jaxon’s reviews written on it and on the other side was suggestions of pairings which you folded and put into your pocket.

“Uh, can Jika…?” Jabari put to Jaxon who nodded ‘yes’ before he said something in the Jika language and it sounded encouraging.

“Sure,” Jabari confirmed and you could tell he was nervous.

“Come on.” You urged as you grabbed your things and took his hand and led him down the street to a local bar and pub that you liked to go to after a long day and you got dinner and a drink and smiled when he got the fruitiest drink they had and ate the slice of pineapple and orange that came with it.

“So how come you couldn’t tell me all that yesterday?” You posed after you placed your order.

“I needed time to compose myself and get my thoughts in order.” Jabari answered as he played with the rind of his orange nervously.

“Do I make you nervous?” You asked as you tilted your head to the side.

“No,” Jabari answered probably a little too quickly and a little too loudly.

“Really? Because your body language says otherwise.” You argued before he stopped fiddling with the rind and sat on his hands.

“It’s ok to be nervous, I don’t think any less of you if you are. But I do appreciate honesty. Just tell me and don’t leave me guessing.” You advised before a fight broke out at the bar and in a split second and faster than you could blink, you were wrapped up in his arms and he literally flew you both out of there and towards the Jika ship. You struggled until you realized how high you were and literally stopped struggling to cling to him so tightly you wrapped yourself around him even though his hold on you was pretty hard already.

“Jabari! What the fuck are you doing?!” You screamed as you looked down over the city and noticed it was...actually really pretty as that suddenly seemed to kick some sense into him and out of the instinct that had taken over him.

“Huh?” Jabari seemed to ask as he came to his senses and quickly changed direction to fly you back to the pub before he landed gently on the ground and put you down.

“Don’t move.” You ordered before you went back into the restaurant, got your food to go and came back out, paying the waitress and leaving a hefty tip, because the poor thing thought you ran out on the bill.

You came back out and practically hopped back into his arms.

“Ok, now you can go wherever you were taking me before.” You told him before he seemed to look at you a little more appreciatively and took off, his wings easily flying you through the air as his hold on you was secure as you held onto the food before he seemed to fly into a blue beam of light and in a flash, you were on the Jika ship and he was flying you through the ship as you watched on in wonder before he came to his quarters before he put you back down.

“That was really fun, just warn me the next time you want to go flying.” You gently teased as you looked around and saw what looked like a table and chair and had to hop up to sit on it and got your food out.

“So this is your place? It’s nice.” You appraised.

“Thank you.” Jabari nodded as he opened his food container and pulled up a chair and sat down and began to eat.

“So are you just naturally flighty?” You asked.

“No, Jika are fierce warriors.” Jabari countered.

“And yet half a second after the first punch was thrown you had both of us out of there and half way here already.” You argued firmly because you knew he was being protective, he just didn’t want to admit it.

“An instinct to keep you from danger kicked in and took over.” Jabari tried to explain delicately and a little dismissively but you were undeterred.

“Really? Aww, why?” You demanded with a bright smile.

“What Sable told you about Jika in my position?” Jabari returned.

“That you weren’t chosen for a royal consort and so you simply have a job to serve the hive but that you and your brothers are learning you can have a life outside the hive.” You repeated with a smug grin.

“Uh huh.” Jabari nodded.

“And that you’re affected by pheromones and that that’s the reason her and Jaxon are together because she smelled like a queen to him. So, do my pheromones do the same to you?” You asked plainly.

“Yes, and it will get both of us killed.” Jabari confessed.

“So it’s dangerous, some people really like that, the whole forbidden romance thing, that’s what sells books and movies and love songs.” You shrugged.

“It could be the downfall of the Jika as a whole, because if it’s seen as something any and all Jika can do, soon all the worker Jika could go back into incubation and have the ability to ignore the hive mind and our society and ways of doing things could cease to...” Jabari tried to argue before you grabbed his face, used your thumbs to move his mandibles out of the way to kiss him and smiled into the kiss when he kissed back and nearly climbed over the table to pull you up out of your seat to hold you as he picked you up and kissed you deeper.

“Oh fuck,” Jabari breathed as his hands pet your body which made you feel feverish because holy shit, did he taste good and this was great.

“So don’t tell the hive mind.” You managed to say between heated kisses as his bed appeared out of the floor.

“I need, I need you to tell me to stop.” Jabari pleaded desperately in a last ditch effort to save you from his imagined fate.

“Why?” You asked as you pulled away to look at him as you cocked your head to the side.

“Because if lay you down, I’m gonna mate with you and I won’t be able to stop myself at that point, right now, if you don’t want this, you have to stop me right now.” Jabari pleaded.

“Yeah I don’t want you to stop though because the forbidden romance is totally my thing and if I smell like your queen by all means, make me your queen but without actually getting us killed.” You breathed.  

“Fuck, well ok then.” Jabari caved and pinned you to the bed and in lighting fast speed, he stripped you out of your clothes, which having four hands came in handy and then his cock emerged and you gasped in surprise.

“Wow, that’s huge,” you purred before you wrapped your legs around his waist and tried to align yourself onto him and when the tip touched your slit, the slightly cooling yet tingling sensation began to spread into your womanhood before you noticed a duct appear on his chest and start oozing a yellow liquid.

“What’s that?” You asked as you pointed to it.

“Royal jelly, we make it during mating,” Jabari answered as he got into position and his breath shuddered when you licked it up and to you, it tasted like a mango, passion fruit, papaya, lychee and super ripe pineapple smoothie. It was so good. You easily licked it up and had to strain your neck a little to reach the duct and closed your mouth over it and sucked it before your tongue swirled around it just as he entered you and his hips stuttered as his breath fluttered as he temporarily forgot how to function because it felt so good and you couldn’t help but moan when he filled you, no stuffed you full and you whimpered as your hips rocked into him, trying to take him as deep as you could and when he really started to move as one hand held him above you so he wouldn’t crush you but the other three arms were wrapped your chest, your waist and your rear.

“Am I hurting you at all?” Jabari asked worriedly.

“No, but if you stop now I’ll hurt you.” You insisted before you played with the duct with your tongue which practically made him come apart again as he picked up the pace as you greedily sucked down that royal jelly.

“You’re so small and you’re so soft, yet you’re fiercer and bolder than any warrior I’ve ever met.” Jabari tried to praise you as you snorted a laugh.

“Oh no, are you choking?” Jabari asked as he pulled away before you pulled him back.

“Nope, laughing. Everyone says I’m tiny yet fierce.” You grinned before you attached your mouth over the duct again and sucked hard and that only made him hump you harder which was exactly what you needed to reach orgasm and just as you were barely coming down that knot at the base was now at your entrance and was drenched in your essence and with one last good thrust it popped inside and you cried out as your lower belly really bulged but instead of pain, you only felt a slight discomfort but otherwise it was nothing but pleasure as you were pumped full as your mouth was suddenly pumped full of royal jelly too and you tried to gulp it all down.

“Fuck,” it was your turn to cuss once you finished drinking it all down but you were still basking in after glow and you felt like you had melted and had slowly started to solidify in his arms again. “Wow, that was...wow.” You tried to have a coherent thought.

“Uh huh,” Jabari nodded in agreement as he very carefully laid down on his side with you still in his arms as he tried pulling a soft blanket over both of you to make sure you didn’t get cold without your clothes on.

“So why were you so weird the other day?” You asked him.

“I was trying not to mate with you and tried to stay professional, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by not giving you the feedback you needed at the time.” Jabari explained as he ran his fingers through your hair marveling at it.

“Hey, it’s understandable,” you chuckled before you felt his cock shrink and the knot popped out and you expelled, what to you- felt like a gallon of his cum all over the bed and when you reached down between you to touch it, you marveled at it’s holographic nature and then out of curiosity you licked your finger clean and giggled.

“My cum tastes funny?” Jabari asked in confusion.

“Your cum literally tastes minty, like sweet mint gum.” You cackled as you licked your other fingers clean.

“What?” Jabari asked as he watched you curiously.

“Your cum, it tastes like mint gum, something humans actually like and think tastes really good.” You explained.

“Oh,” Jabari blinked.

Once you both recovered, you got redressed and he literally flew you home. “So am I your Isthantari now?” you asked as he put you down on your front step with surprising precision and care.

“If you want to be.” Jabari returned.

“Hell yeah,” you beamed before you pulled him down to kiss him again.

“Goodnight Jabari, I had a lot of fun tonight, by the way, you owe me for dinner.” You teased as you playfully pat his chest.

“Oh, that’s right, uh, yeah, I’ll...take you out for another alcoholic beverage, soon. Tomorrow?” He asked.

“Please, I’ll pay whatever it costs to repair it.” The Jika offered and you smiled appreciatively at him for his generosity.

“It’ll be ok, it’s not that bad, I think you got it just in the nick of time.” You reassured him before you started treating the poor thing for fleas and trying to assess if it was old enough for it’s shots yet and figured it was close enough and began preparing it for that as well before you gave it a little bath to wash all the fleas and dirt off.

“There you are.” You cooed to the little calico kitten as you dried it off.

“Are you surrendering it? Or would you like to adopt it?” You posed to him once you were finished.

“Jika never surrender,” The Jika informed you proudly. “I’ll happily adopt it, um, what..do I need to do though?” He answered.

“Well, for starters, you should probably name her.” You grinned.

“Oh...it’s a female, uh, Kabira.” He decided.

“Ok, well, she’ll need food, a litter box, a scratching post probably, a collar, some toys. How much do you work? Because she’ll need to be handled a lot to make sure she’ll be tame.” You answered as you pet the kitten affectionately.  

“Oh.” He answered as he considered that.

“Come on, we have what you need up front.” You invited as you walked with him to the front and set him up with what he needed as he gathered a pet carrier and put what he needed in it before your receptionist had him fill out some paperwork where you learned his name was Jabril.

“Thank you so much Dr. Miranda Gonzales.” He thanked you earnestly.

“No problem.” You smiled as you watched him take a business card and consider it carefully.

He slid a card and paid for everything before he started cooing to Kabira in the Jika native language as he left your veterinarian office. Kabira nestled to his chest in two of his four arms.

“Well he was nice.” Julie sighed wistfully, thinking Jabril was a dream boat already.

“Yeah he was, I’ve never seen a Jika like him before, have you? His black had that purple sheen to it, it was really pretty.” You noted.

“Yeah, usually it’s green.” She agreed before she looked at the paperwork.

“Oh my god,” Julie giggled.

“What?” You asked.

“He’s a prince, look, he put it on the paper work, Prince Jabril Kizu, it’s even on his receipt, he’s royalty, probably why he didn’t sound so robotic like most of them do.” Julie shrugged.

“Also why he could afford to get that little kitten the best of everything.” You found yourself grinning.

“If he’s single, I call dibs.” Julie giggled.

“And what would Mike think of that?” You put to her, reminding her of her husband.

“Oh he’ll understand.” Julie cackled and waived off as you rolled your eyes.

“Although if he’s single, I could push you towards him.” Julie smiled mischievously.

“Yeah, no, I doubt that would ever happen in a million years.” You snorted a laugh.

Your life returned to normal for a whole two days until Jabril came back in, Kabira nestled inside what you could only call a cocoon on a sling made of the same material across his chest and looking absolutely happy and content and already much better.

“Is everything ok?” You asked as he came in.

“I came back because I was worried her cuts were not healing properly.” Jabari explained as he carefully pulled the kitten out of it’s cocoon to show you as you looked her over.

“Her cuts are doing great actually.” You reassured him.

“Oh, I was thinking she would heal faster. Jika only need a matter of hours to heal.” Jabari explained.

“Well here on earth, things don’t heal that fast, injuries can take days, weeks, months or even years to heal and sometimes there are things that can’t be healed, but give her just a couple more days and she’ll be as good as new.” You assured him. “I like your sling, is that a Jika thing?” You asked as you gestured to it as he took the kitten back and pet her and moved his mandibles out of the way so he could kiss her head and nuzzle her before she went back into the cocoon and got comfy again.

“Yes, I made it for her,” Jabari beamed proudly.

“Out of what?” You asked.

“Oh my silk, we spin silk like your earth silk worms do, usually we reserve it to spin a protective cocoon around the queen but since I’m not one of her consorts, I’m not expected to do that, I’m free to spin whatever I wish out of my silk and what better purpose that for making this for my Kabira?” He smiled fondly as he pet Kibira’s head and scratched under her tiny chin grinning when she purred in delight and kneaded the inside of the cocoon.

“Wow, can I touch it?” You asked as you reached out towards it before he closed the distance between you and you got to pet it. It was insanely soft. Like softer than silk or satin or anything else and you reached inside and noticed how the inside was retaining heat so that Kabira was cozy and comfy.

“It’s amazing, I wish I could have these for all the kittens that come in.” You mused aloud. “That wasn’t a request by the way, it was just wishful thinking, aloud.” You quickly added with a nervous laugh.  

“It would be my honor to make some for you.” Jabari added.

“Really?” You asked in amazement.

“How many will you need?” He asked.

“At least a dozen.” Julie answered from behind you.

“Consider it done.” Jabril nodded. “I will need a little bit of time to make them, maybe by tomorrow.” He added.

“Oh, take all the time you need. You can make them that fast?” You asked in shock.

“Yes. I made this for her in only a few minutes.” Jabril explained.

“Can I pay you for them though? I’ve never heard of Jika silk, I imagine it can’t be cheap or easy for you to make, or is there special foods you need to eat to make it?” You asked.

“No, it’ll be my gift to you. To show my appreciation for taking such good care of Kabira when she needed your assistance.” He insisted.

“Well, thank you so, so much, I really appreciate it, even if you can only make a few or even one, I’ll be happy.” You thanked him earnestly.

“Well you could go out to dinner with me,” he invited smoothly and you nearly choked on your spit.

“Yes! She’s free to go to dinner with you tonight.” Julie agreed for you as you turned around and gave her a meaningful glare as she smiled bright enough to shame the sun and gave you an encouraging look back. But Jabril was looking at you for the answer.

“Uh..sure?” You agreed. Holy shit was this really happening right now?!

“You can pick her up at 6.” Julie offered again.

“Yeah, sure, six is fine.” You found yourself agreeing to that.

“I’ll see you at six then.” Jabril nodded in agreement before he left again.

When he left you turned on your toes to face your secretary who was smiling so cheese-ily big and clapping softly but quickly in excitement.

“That wasn’t cool, I don’t need help with my personal life.” You growled at her.

“Yes you do! It’s been ten years! And almost three since your last date!” Julie argued.

“Julie! Look at me! I’m a middle aged, fat, widowed and scarred to fucking hell! He’s a fucking prince for crying out loud!” You argued as you gestured to the left side of your face and body, scarred because of a horrific car accident that took your husband. The scarring you sustained had made you withdrawn and self conscious and the last date which was in fact three years ago had been on a blind date your sister had set you up on and it had been a disaster. So you resigned yourself to being married to your work and loving animals because they never judged you based on appearance.

“And yet, he asked you out. I don’t think any of that matters to him. You heard him say that Jika never surrender, the Jika are warriors, some of the best in the universe. I’m sure he’s seen some shit by now and I’m sure he understands that scars happen.” Julie reassured you and you huffed when you realized she had a point.

“So, go home at lunch, put on some makeup and bring some nice clothes to change into after work.” Julie advised as she gestured to your scrubs.

“Fine,” you groaned as your stomach knotted as you stomped back to your office before more clients came in with their animals and before you knew it, you worked right through lunch because a dog’s broken limb required emergency surgery and so you didn’t get a chance to get cleaned up at all. Your hair was a frizzy mess, you’re pretty sure your deodorant died trying to pick up an obese bulldog and put him on the exam table and you’re sure you threw your back out too. Your arm got scratched by a cat you had to neuter and your face nearly got scratched too and you sadly had to put down a puppy who’s six year old owner fed it a freaking bag of chocolate M&M’s and both the mother and the son were a mess and if you had been wearing makeup, you would have cried it off that afternoon and you were performing an ultrasound on a french bull dog when Jabril came back to pick you up for your date.

“Shit,” you breathed before you printed off the pictures and wrapped up that appointment.

“Hi, sorry to keep you waiting, had a very long day.” You tried to explain as you tried to clean yourself up just a tiny bit before Julie shoved some mascara and her emergency eye shadow mini palate that she kept in her purse into your hands and you just shoved them right back at her. There was no point. It wasn’t going to help that much. This was just going to be a dinner, that’s it. You would never see him again except to hopefully spay Kabira.

“It’s no trouble, I made you those cocoons for the other kittens.” Jabril offered as he handed you a box with over a dozen little cocoons and even another dozen actual cat beds made out of his silk and you wanted to cry.

“Thank you, thank you so so so much.” You thanked him as your eyes watered and you couldn’t stop smiling, this was the most precious gift to you.

“Also I made you this,” Jabril said as he pulled a shall out from behind him, it was obviously combed and woven and you nearly dropped the box.

“Oh my god!” You exclaimed as you carefully put the box down to take the shall from him as you stared at it in awed wonder and hugged it before you wrapped it around you, it was a little big but oh, instantly warm. It was so heavenly.

“Thank you, thank you so much, I love it, it’s perfect.” You thanked him earnestly. Fuck. You were in trouble.

“Well if you’re ready, we can go now if you wish? Or are you still needed here?” He asked.

“Nope! She’s good! Have fun!” Julie practically shoved you both out of there before you took Jabril’s offered arm and walked with him to your car.

“So where did you want to go to dinner at?” You asked.

“I looked online and there are good reviews at Bonefish Grill.” He suggested as you took in a deep breath as you felt a little bit of panic bloom in your chest.

“Uh, I’m not really dressed...up...for a place like that.” You grimaced a little.

“Oh, I didn’t realize..that. Well we can go wherever you would feel most comfortable at.” Jabril offered.

“Actually there’s a taco truck spot just up the road that I like to go to.” You offered before you locked your car and just decided to walk down the road to it. You were lucky, it was in walking distance as you wrapped your new shall around your shoulders a little tighter as he walked you down the street to the place that had three taco trucks in a parking lot with a group of tables in the middle of them.

“If you want fish, they have fish tacos though and even a ceviche that’s really good.” You offered.

“Ok,” Jabril nodded in agreement as he walked you to the spot and waited patiently as you ordered what you wanted in Spanish before he surprised you by ordering in Spanish too, his Spanish was flawless and the guys behind the counter were just as surprised as you were and asked him how he spoke such good Spanish before Jabril explained that Jika spoke every human language put into the directory and that Spanish, in particular, high Spanish, spoken in Spain was put into the directory first however the Latin dialects were being added and that once it was uploaded into the directory and fed into the hive mind, it filtered down to every Jika through the hive mind. Which blew you away and put a proud smile on your face none the less. You got your food and sat down at one of the picnic tables and watched as Jabril practically inhaled his food.

“Would you mind if I asked you a personal question? I don’t want to be rude or make you uncomfortable though.” Jabril asked as he came back with his second round of food as you had begun a nice, friendly conversation, switching from English to Spanish back and forth at will with Jabril being able to keep up with you remarkably well.  

“Is it about my scars?” You guessed since you caught him staring all through dinner.

“Yes.” Jabril confirmed.

“About ten years ago, I was in a really bad car accident. These are the scars left behind from it.” You explained simply.

“My sincerest apologies.” Jabril apologized softly.

“It’s ok, it’s not your fault, but it does make me self conscious when people stare at them.” You muttered as he nodded and looked away from them and focused on your eyes instead.

“Is that why you told me that some things you never heal from?” Jabril asked softly.

“Yup.” You nodded as you suddenly felt compelled to tell him about it and so you did, all the gory details and Jabril listened very intently and then you got to the worst part of the story. “I...I uh...I wasn’t alone in the accident. I was with my husband at the time, he died in the accident.” You revealed, normally you wouldn’t like to just tell anyone that but you felt like he should know that.

“I’m sorry.” Jabril offered, in a low whisper as his antennae drooped.

“It’s ok, it happened a very long time ago, but because of my age, and because of the scars, I don’t get asked out very often, actually it’s been years since I was asked out on a date.” You confessed.

“But you’re still very desirable, you’re intelligent, compassionate, professional and perfectly competent.” Jabril praised as you paused and blinked in surprise.

“Uh, I think Jika and humans have very different definitions of ‘desirable’.” You gently argued.

“I know we do. My brother’s Isthantari, she’s a very large woman, larger than you, she didn’t think that of herself either but to Jika, females are always supposed to be large, soft and delicate, their exoskeleton is very thin, usually thinner than your own epidermis, and very fragile and needs to be protected, cared for and attended to constantly. She should be so large in fact that she’s immobile. So the term you used- ‘fat’ that is actually a very desirable trait. But the compassion and intelligence is what intrigued me about you and compelled me to ask you out on this ‘date’. And as for the scars, for a female Jika, they are treated the same way battle scars are treated and are harrowed by the hive. Because Jika females are in fact so delicate, for her to survive an attack is a sign of great strength. Same can be said about you. You survived something that killed another. That deserves praise, honor and respect and only serve to make you more desirable.” Jabril explained and you were dumbfounded. A prince, no, Jabril, thought you were desirable. Just the way you were. You wanted to cry. Again.

“Wow, thank you.” Was all you could say in response.

“So, I must confess something.” Jabril began as your eyebrows pinched in concentration.

“Technically speaking, I should not be dating, to Jika, the queen and caring for her and doing what she commands should be an all consuming task, but alas it is not. I have a job within the hive, to serve the hive and the queen, but it is an easy, simple job which leaves me a lot of free time and free mental and emotional availability. However, if we were to pursue this relationship, we would have to be discrete, since the queen should not tolerate ‘rivals’ not that you pose any real threat to her and not that you really are a rival to her in several senses, because one, you’re not a Jika that can take over the hive, produce Jika offspring and control the hive mind. And she has not taken offense to my brothers becoming committed to their Isthantaris which has given rise to a freedom that myself and the rest of my brothers had not previously entertained, in that we can have relationships outside of the hive, in particular to individuals who are not Jika. I know it may seem unorthodox to you but it has stirred in us a hope of things greater than we could have previously imagined. So, that being said, would you like to go on another date with me?” Jabril asked.

“Yes, I would love that.” You confirmed immediately before the conversation flowed much easier at that and you didn’t mind the occasional flick of his pupils to the side of your face and neck that had the scars. Because he obviously didn’t look at them with pity. He looked at them with admiration which was a completely new concept to you and you found the idea of it all exciting and fun and your heart and soul were completely willing to go ahead and dive in.

After you were done eating, you made plans for a second date and then as a surprise, he picked you up and flew you back to your car and set you down with the utmost care and gentleness. And the flying thing was the funnest thing ever.

“Hey Jabril?” You called after him after you paused in getting into your car as Jabril moved to fly away again but stopped and landed and came up to you again.

“Yes?” He asked hopefully.

“What’s an Isthantari?” You asked curiously.

“It’s a Jika term, it means ‘one I am devoted to for life’.” He answered with a grin.

“Aww, that’s so sweet! Well thank you so much for...everything, for the cocoons and for my shall, it’s my new favorite.” You beamed happily.

“You’re welcome. Good night, drive safe, oh, um, would you mind if I followed you home? I worry you’ll get into another car accident.” He proposed.

“I think I would crash being distracted by you if you did.” You winced.

“Oh, I do not wish for that to happen, I will refrain from such a thing, but please, drive with extreme care.” Jabril urged you.

“Ok, I will, I usually do.” You answered before you got into your car and drove home and true to Jabril’s word, he didn’t follow you. Instead you lost track of him shortly after he flew into the darkening skies.

‘So?! How was it? Text me when you get home!’ Julie texted you while you drove home and you rolled your eyes and got home and texted her back because you never texted and drove at the same time.

‘It was good, he asked what everyone asks. But we do have another date for Friday.’ You replied as you came into your house to find your three legged dog Buster, and your one eyed cat Sauron missing you, both of them happy to see you again as you pet them and refilled their food dishes and even made sure your cockatiel with the broken beak had it’s special food.

‘Oooh! You ARE going to dress up for that right?’ She pleaded.

‘Yes, I gotta take care of my peeps, ttyl.’ You texted her before you made your rounds in your apartment and got everything ready for the next day as you tried to shake the troubles of the day off which was easier than usual because of your impromptu date.

But when you laid in bed, you couldn’t help but smile softly to yourself about the date. Jabril was...perfectly charming, and thoughtful, and kind and showed more empathy and consideration that most did. You had learned to see beauty in everything long ago and you had to admit, you were finding a lot to appreciate about him. He was practically the perfect gentleman, but he could do so much better, he could have anyone he wanted. And if the Jika truly did find beauty in larger women, you knew there were so many who were even larger than you were, surely he would probably like them more than you and before you knew it, the smile vanished and morphed into a frown.

Friday came all too fast and you found yourself both thrilled and terrified. Surely this wouldn’t go past a second date. You actually could barely sleep Thursday night, you had gotten up early and had indeed tried to put makeup on, although you weren’t sure if this was really worth it, the best concealer in the world wouldn’t cover all this scarring. You felt so defeated. But Jabril had seen you without makeup at least, so he knew the extensiveness of it on your face. He had texted you and you had agreed to go out to eat with him somewhere really nice this time. You brought in a nice outfit to change into and even extra makeup to do touch ups after work.

You didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse that it was a slow day. Blessing that at least your hair and makeup stayed nice. A curse because you became painfully aware of the time, six hours, five hours, four, three, two, one… oh god. You were so nervous you could barely eat lunch and by dinner time you were both nervous but starving.

You had barely gotten ready by the time Jabril showed up and he seemed very pleased to see you again before he handed you another shawl made out of his silk this time, it was like giant sweater that went down to your knees from your shoulders, practically a coat. It was even dyed a gorgeous shimmering magenta that faded into a magnificent purple. It was the most beautiful garment you had ever seen before. You felt like a queen wearing it and it wasn’t nearly as heavy as you thought it would be, it was just as light as the shall was and was big enough to wrap around you so that each side could overlap each other by over a foot of fabric. You wore such a bright ecstatic smile that your cheeks almost hurt from smiling and all uneasiness, stress and nervousness you felt earlier completely melted away.

“Thank you, so, so, so much, this is magnificent! I love it.” You beamed happily as you hugged yourself in the garment. It even went with your dress and these colors really complimented your rich skin tone. You happily hopped up into his arms as he then flew you to the restaurant and set you down gently on the ground outside before opening the door for you like the gentleman he was and to your delight, he had made a reservation and you were shown to your table immediately as you took the side of the booth that had your left side towards the wall. Still feeling a bit self conscious.

“Please, order whatever your heart desires, this is my treat and there is no expectation other than the hope to enjoy your conversation during the meal.” Jabril offered to you as you both looked over the menu and when the waitress came he ordered a lovely sweet wine and a few appetizers when you had shrugged in answer to if any looked good to you.

“How did you know I wanted the crab cake?” You asked curiously with a mischievous grin.

“I confess I watched your eye movements and facial expression, but please know that money is of little importance to me, I only wish to provide you with a lovely evening.” Jabril explained.

“Then do you know what I want for dinner then?” You asked in a light teasing tone as you closed your menu to look at him expectantly.

“I believe it is currently a toss up between the Caribbean cobia and the Chilean sea bass.” Jabril answered with a smirk of his own and your jaw dropped. It was like he read your mind.

“That’s not fair.” You playfully complained with a light laugh.

“No it’s not, as a prince and potential consort, I have literally been bred to read a queen’s facial expressions and body language and to anticipate her every need, want and desire and then provide that for her, so you would say it’s ‘hard wired into me’.” Jabril explained as your cheeks burned as you looked away, a bashful smile on your lips all the same.

“I’m sure there are others more deserving of your attentions than me though.” You countered softly.

“Perhaps you are right, but none that I would ever compare to you. And even if I were to try, they would pale in the comparison to you so I will do no such thing.” Jabril reassured you and you were at a loss for words.  “Is there anything I can say to dissuade your feelings of unworthiness? Do you perhaps question my sincerity?” Jabril asked.

“Well, I guess I’m just...getting used to be treated like a queen.” You couldn’t help but shrug again as you took your glass of wine and took another long sip, loving the sweetness of it. Last night, alone with your thoughts you would have doubted he was sincere, but it was like the moment you were in his presence all your doubts and fears vanished and you felt so at ease.

“Are you trying to make me your Isthantari?” You found yourself asking with a gentle, playful twist to your accusation.

“Yes, I have been looking for some time, years in fact. You see what you may not know is a queen Jika, is incapable of emotionally bonding with all of her consorts, she may only bond with a few while all bond to her and so while we give all of ourselves to her, she gives none of herself to us, emotionally speaking that is. And since my brothers have found Isthantaris that give all of themselves just as completely as my brothers give of themselves to them, it is that- that I am looking for. So while you may not see yourself as someone desirable or worthy, know that I do.” Jabril reassured you and you were ready to kiss him and do, well, so much more.

When the waitress came back Jabril ordered you both the sea bass and the cobia and got himself the shrimp and scallops with an added on lobster tail and you watched curiously as he ate the shells of his seafood too, seeming to take more delight in those than the flesh, but you chalked it up to him being an alien, a sexy, perfectly charming and smooth as fuck alien who just up and swept you off your feet.

Dinner was absolutely delightful and you drank just enough wine to relax you and open up but all the giddiness came from Jabril, he told jokes that had you in stitches, laughing so hard you were crying, he was reached out and touched your hands with his lower arms so that his upper arms could continue to gesture and traced your hands delicately and with reverence and he made you feel like it was just the two of you in a bubble and the rest of the world completely melted away and you found you cared less and less about it. You were with Jabril, that’s all that mattered.

After he paid for dinner he few you back to your home, even though it wasn’t the wine that intoxicated you. And when he put you down on your door step, you asked him to come in and he asked if you were sure you really wanted that, being mindful that you had been drinking but you were absolutely positive you wanted him to stay and so he bent to your will and allowed you to lead him into your home and he was even more delighted with your animals, and all your animals were so happy and excited to meet him and they took to him immediately as he was supremely pleased that you took in such creatures and that you saw beauty in value in them and reminded you that you needed to see beauty and value in yourself and when he offered to show you, your clothes seemed to melt off of their own accord and while normally you would want to shy away from such things, with him, it was as if your body was a kintsugi- pottery repaired with gold, only your body was that of a goddess, made even more valuable and precious because of your scars that covered not just the left side of your face and neck, but of your left arm, shoulder and side and he kissed all of it. All that you felt sagged in your age, he caressed and loved on and made you feel electric in the best possible way and you were on the edge of being overwhelmed with such emotions and attentions.  

When his royal jelly appeared out of a duct in his chest and he explained it’s purpose you helped yourself to it and moaned in delight, it was so good. Peaches, blackberries and sour-sop were the key flavors you got out of it, but hints of guava and banana were present too and you greedily sucked it down as his cock speared your hot sopping wet center. He was large and stretched you but while it was a snug fit, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all and the tingling sensation only enhanced your own desire. He started off slow, working his way in until you whined in protest at his pulling out and wrapped your legs tightly around his waist to keep him close. God you wanted that knot. You wanted all of it and grinded your pelvis onto it, urging him to go deeper, to take you harder and he seemed to get the hint and soon you found he had to wrap his upper arms around your shoulders to keep you pinned to the bed while keeping himself up by his elbows and forearms that were under your shoulder blades as one of his lower armed hands was kneading your voluptuous hips and rear while the other hand sweetly tormented your clit and it was all you could do to keep up sucking down that divine royal jelly and with his last final and completely desperate thrusts he finally knotted you and it was that- that finally sent you over the edge and you screamed as your whole body shook from the magnitude of this orgasm, surely the most powerful and magnificent orgasm of your life so far before your cheeks were now bulging almost painfully as a huge load of royal jelly gushed into your mouth and you fought to swallow it all down. It was so good you didn’t want a drop of it to go to waste and when the duct finally didn’t give you any more did you finally giving it one last teasing lick as Jabril shuddered as you let your head rest on the pillows and pant and try to catch your breath before you reached down and felt your lower belly feel like you were pregnant, but it didn’t hurt, you just felt...well completely stuffed as he rolled to lay on his side and still cuddled you close to his chest, your legs still wrapped comfortably around his waist and didn’t feel any pressure on your leg as his antennae tapped around your head attentively and when his cock shrunk and receded, the knot literally popping out of place, did you expel what felt like at least a gallon of his seed, but again, no discomfort came, just..relief with a tiny touch of disappointment that he wasn’t in you anymore.

“How do you feel my Isthantari?” Jabril cooed as he reached up to softly and delicately move the hair out of your face and gently traced your scars.

“Like a queen, like a goddess, like...the best I’ve ever felt.” You answered as you cuddled with his chest closely as he then went to pet and comb your hair with his fingers, loving and adoring it’s silky softness.

“Good, can I ask you something?” He asked softly.

“Anything.” You answered.

“Does your scaring cause you any discomfort at all? Or is it like any of your other epidermis?” He asked as he traced the skin around the scars, mindful not to touch it just in case it did.

“The scars on my face are very sensitive, the scars on my side feel numb actually.” You answered.

“If you were interested, would you be willing to try a Jika medicine to lesson them?” He asked.

“Yes,” you immediately answered.

“Then let me experiment with something just for tonight then, it won’t harm you, I promise- but I just want to see if it will help.” Jabril posed.

“My body is yours,” you giggled and he kissed you softly but with so much promise and you felt absolutely at ease as he reached down with his lower arms and scooped up his cum and began to apply to your skin as you looked down curiously at it, noting it’s holographic nature.

“Your cum cures scars?” You asked as you felt it’s slightly jelly like nature and watched as it shifted colors depending on the light and your skin felt a cooling, tingling sensation wherever he put it.

“Well I don’t know if it will completely, but one of the Isthantari’s, she was marooned an a tropical island with my brother and she claimed it cured her sunburn and she uses it as a beauty enhancer and so far it has done wonders for her complexion and she “collects” it from their mating and uses it exclusively, her skin has thus appeared very radiant since she started using it.” Jabril explained as he gently put it all over your scars all over your body.

“Well hell,” you giggled as you scooped some up and put it all over your face, quite liking it’s cooling and tingling properties and it did soothe the scars on your face better than anything ever had before. When you practically looked like a walking holographic highlighter, you scooped up the excess and put it into a jar before you gathered your bedding up to wash it and while you left to put it into the washer, when you came back with more bedding, you were both delighted and thrilled to find Jabril spinning you a bed with his silk,

“So that’s how you do it.” You gently teased as you put the bedding down and leaned on the door jam and watched him work as he smiled bashfully and ducked his head.

“Yes.” Jabril admitted as he finished making the perfectly soft and ridiculously comfortable bed on top of your mattress and he beckoned you over when he was finished and laid you down into it and you couldn’t help but groan in pleasure as you felt yourself melt into it as he laid down with you and pulled the blanket which was part of the bed itself up over you both fluffing the pillow like softness under your head so that any part he personally wasn’t cradling, was still cradling you nonetheless. That night, in Jabril’s arms was the best sleep you had ever gotten and in the morning when you bathed with him and he oh so carefully washed his cum off, he buzzed excitedly when your scars had visibly lessened. And even to you, the overly sensitive parts weren’t nearly as sensitive, in fact they felt normal while the parts that were numb, had even more feeling to them so that over all it felt more normal and even the parts on your arms and your chest and side, the parts you could see, the darker parts had lightened considerably and the lighter parts had darkened so that your skin overall evened out. You were in shock and amazement at it. It was too good to be true, you started crying tears of happiness again as you kissed Jabril deeply and before you knew it, he had you pinned up against warm shower wall and lost himself in you again, only this time, it was even better because he buzzed while he was in you and it was better than any vibrator ever had been and in mere moments you came and he hadn’t even knotted you yet and you came a second and third time by the time he did knot you, buzzing once he knotted you which was absolutely epic.

The rest of the day was actually spent on board the ship, exploring his rooms and he took you to the botany level and you gasped as you explored all the flora before he introduced you to the fauna from the Jika home world, the Jika equivalents to pets and things as you giggled as you picked them up and pet them, noting the similarities before you got to meet the other Ishtantari’s, Dr. Kimble especially excited and eager to note how your scaring lessoned with the application of Jika cum as Sable cooked the native Jika fruits and vegetables and Lenore let you try all the desserts she had started making with the Jika fruits as the other Isthantaris were really welcoming of you too and you felt like you were with friends, practically family.

“Oh,” You blinked as your heart rate slowed but you still kept a weary eye on him as you recalled the other day when he had told you he was coming for you. You just thought it was your imagination creating an out so you wouldn’t have to work on your thesis paper or do your finals.

“So, just, um, there’s people waiting on us to get back to the colony. So that’s where we’re headed, we’re already at light-speed.” He informed you.

“Woah, woah, woah, wait, what?! I don’t get to go home and at least say ‘goodbye’ to my family and friends or at least pack something? Like some clothes?” You demanded, feeling anger roar in your chest. How dare this...stupidly handsome man just pull you out of your world. Just because he was ready, didn’t mean that you were.  

“Well I can bring you back after we’re done with the ceremony at the colony.” He offered as your heart dropped into your stomach.  

“Don’t I get a say in any of this?” You pleaded as you started to cry and he looked so pained.

“Well, technically you already did.” He winced slightly.

“How? When?” You snapped.

“Well, when you chose me,” he offered a little meekly. He had been warned by others, well, by everyone that taking your mate from among the stars was difficult. That they often fought back and struggled. But once they realized it was for their own good and for the best, they usually came around, he just needed to be patient.

“How did I choose you?” You asked as he suddenly blushed and you realized you knew the answer. You had been fucking in your dreams for a while now. Well, fuck.

“How long will it take to get to wherever we’re going?” You asked trying to come to terms with your new circumstances.

“In your way of measuring time, about a week.” He answered as he seemed to pause and take a moment to mentally calculate that.

“Great and how long does...the ceremony last for?” You asked hesitantly.

“About a week.” He answered.

“Great, so I’m loosing three weeks, great, I’m gonna miss finals, I’m going to flunk out of my classes, everyone’s going to think I’m dead, great, this is great.” You grumbled sarcastically as you just laid down on the floor and rubbed at your eyes tiredly before you rolled onto your side away from him as you chewed on your nails anxiously before you heard him shuffling before he laid down on the floor across from you.

“You’re going to be ok.” He offered softly.

“How? How am I going to be ok?” You asked.

“Because I’ll take care of you. Our synthesizer has enough energy to make our literal weight a hundred times over in food and water, we have enriching entertainment and we have each other.” He offered a small but reassuring smile.

“Do you have a bed?” You asked and he nodded and got up and helped you up to your feet as you gathered your things, although at this point, your books and homework were rather useless. He led you just around the corner where there appeared to be a bedroom, you put your back pack down, put the books that had been in your arms, on a shelf and collapsed in the bed.

“Can I just...have some time to myself to process all this?” You asked and he nodded and left you alone. You rolled over and looked out the window to see the passing star systems rip by the window like streaks of fireflies. You sighed as you got up and went through your backpack. Your phone wasn’t getting a signal, of course it wasn’t. And it was fading fast, working on trying to find a signal before you decided to make a video of yourself.

“Hi, so I don’t know if anyone will ever see this, but Mom, Dad, I have been kidnapped by an alien who looks like an elf who I may or may not have been having dreams with for...like a few months, his name is Luvon and apparently he teleported me via a portal that opened up from the ground underneath me on my way to class and hopefully the other students noticed and didn’t ignore it and at least told the teachers why I’m not in class. So, the good news is, I’m alive, bad news is, we are apparently on our way to his colony? To go through a ceremony? I’m guessing that means we’re getting married? Which if that happens, I’ll be ok because Luvon is cool it’s just...he took me with no warning or a heads up or anything and I didn’t know he was even real until a few minutes ago so let me just show you what I’m working with. Professor Fields, I did do my thesis, see? I just..can’t fucking turn it in right now. And I’m sorry I’ll be missing my finals, and please don’t flunk me? I just got abducted? Surely there’s a clause or something that you can’t flunk me for not showing up if I’m abducted? Luvon said we should be back in like three weeks or so? I guess? I don’t know. Anyway, uh, Mittens I love you, and I will miss you like crazy. And obviously, Mom, Dad, I’ll miss you too and I love you too. But hey if Luvon and I do get married at least you won’t have to worry about me finding a husband? He found me?” You offered with a grimace to the camera before you sent it to your parents and your phone simply did the ‘trying to send message’ icons and you groaned before you slipped your phone in your pocket and laid in bed and curled up in the blankets and cursed yourself for recognizing Luvon’s scent. A scent that you had tried hundreds of times in the waking world trying to figure out where you had smelled that peculiar smell before and now you knew. How were you going to explain to him that who you were in the waking world and who you were in the dream world were two very different people? In the dream world, you had no inhibitions, anything was possible and you could be as free as you wanted because you knew there would be no consequences to any of your actions. In the waking world you were shy and a depressed, anxious mess. Although if you were honest, Luvon’s scent was quite comforting and before you knew it, you were out.

You woke up to the smell of food, and not just any food, like your home comfort food your mother cooked. You stretched in bed and got up and left the room, letting your nose guide you towards the smell of the food. You came to a door and it opened as soon as you came close and Luvon was inside, pulling out a pot looking contraption from some kind of hole like space in the wall and dumping the contents of them onto two thalis. Like actual, traditional, Indian thalis. You recognized the food, you recognized the smells. He had somehow made you your traditional home comfort food and you couldn’t help but come over and sit down and smile appreciatively at him. He even had naan, rotis and all kinds of different Indian breads and rices and samosas and dosas and just...he had everything, everything for a proper, if not extravagant- Indian meal. It even had lamb, goat, fish and chicken.

“I hope you don’t mind, but while you were sleeping I used the mind scanner, just to look at the food memories you had to give the food synthesizer ideas of what to make for you. I hope it is close to what you’re used to. I got to download some of the recipes from your earth’s internet and put those into the food synthesizer as well as I pinpointed your location. Um, hopefully the flavors are right.” He explained and your heart was warmed by his thoughtfulness, he was trying so hard to make you feel comfortable. You usually were so happy to dream of him. And now that he had made good on his promise and rescued you from..college and was literally a dream come true, you felt guilty for being so stand offish.

Once he was done getting the rest of the components of the meal ready, he sat down across from you.

“So, could you show me how to eat this?” He asked hopefully as he gestured to the thalis.

“Sure,” you nodded as you told him the names and how to pronounce each thing he just made and then you demonstrated how to eat it and grinned when he coughed and sputtered as he tried the more spicy components and had to drink something to ease the burning of his mouth. Lunch lasted the rest of the day, or what felt like the rest of the day, slowly but surely you got used to hanging out with him in person and talking with him and getting to know each other better as he explained the ceremony and talked about his home planet and the colony he was part of. After lunch, he gave you a quick tour of the ship. Which, honestly, wasn’t much, since it wasn’t a large ship, it was small, it had the basics but with a few luxuries and was built for only two people. There was a bathroom just off of the bedroom area, there was a teleporter room, which was honestly the size of large closet, there was a small holodeck room, it was only as big as a bedroom but that’s really all you needed and of course the ‘kitchen’ area which consisted of a food synthesizer and a table and all left overs were dumped into a ‘trash’ which the left over food would be broken down back down and reused by the food synthesizer so that nothing went to waste and even a small sink to wash your hands and the dishes, which the sink had a lid that worked the same way a little dishwasher would, all you had to do was put the dishes themselves in the sink and put the lid on and the sink washed the dishes for you. And besides the cock pit, which all of it’s settings were on auto pilot and locked there. Otherwise there is one room which to you simply bespoke of a ‘chill’ room. It was this super soft furniture and you recognized an intergalactic entertainment center when you saw one. Ok, so being with Luvon on a tiny ship for a week with no outside world contact wasn’t going to be so bad. You just..needed time to adjust.

He brought you back to the bedroom and showed you where the few changes of clothes he had gotten made for you were, hoping he had gotten your sizing right.

But when you went into the bathroom to change, you noticed something odd, it was like a drawer but it was another synthesizer.

“Luvon? What’s this?” You asked once you changed into your new clothes, which fit you better than anything ever had and you didn’t even need to wear a bra, the shirt itself seemed to have a super comfortable one built right into it. The super soft silky fabric was heaven to your skin and not itchy at all and you could happily wear these clothes for the rest of your life. Easy.

He came partially into the small room to see you opening the drawer in question.

“Oh, that is a personal toiletries synthesizer, so any soaps, or any supplies you would need for your person besides food, you simply type in what you need and it will create it for you. I accessed a few hundred databases to make sure that whatever you would ask for, it would know what you’re asking for and provide it to you.” Luvon explained.

“Really?” You asked before you played around with it and typed in a high end shampoo and conditioner you always wanted to try and within seconds the synthesizer made it for you and you giggled in delight before you punched in makeup, your favorite eyeshadow palate, and again, within seconds it was there in front of you.

“Holy shit,” you giggled as you picked it up and opened it and tested it out on your forearm and were delighted when it came out perfectly before you just went nuts, like you were on a shopping spree and typed as fast as your fingers would let you type and pulled out each item before typing in something else, you created a makeup bag of your dreams, you had facial cleansers and moisturizers and shampoos and conditioners and body washes and bath bombs and soon your little bathroom was full, you even remembered to request pads just in case your period came early and Luvon simply smiled happily, happy to see you so happy.

“So do you think you’re gonna be ok?” He asked once you were done.

“Yeah, I’m going to be just fine I think.” You nodded as you offered him a happy smile before you went to the holodeck and typed up a pristine beach with a tropical drink in hand and walked with him on the beach to get to know him better some more before he served you a typical meal at his home world and colony and showed you how to eat it. It was actually delicious, new flavors yet comforting all the same.  

When it was time for bed, or at least when your body said it was, he brought you back to the room and had you get in bed and you were both relieved yet a little saddened that he didn’t get in bed with you.

“When you’re really ready, let me know, no rush. A lot of couples never sleep together until after the ceremony or even not until after the partner is returned home to see their family again.” He explained with a soft gentle look before he left you.

You decided you needed to make another video, then you needed to turn your phone off before it ran dead.

“Hey Mom, hey Dad, uh, if you’re seeing this, I want you to know that Luvon is...a perfect gentleman and I’m totally ok with marrying him, he fed me your special come cooked foods, he said he scanned my brain just for my food memories and he served me your cooking mama, it was so good. Apparently we have a food synthesizer that made everything and it was amazing. And look I have another synthesizer in the bathroom, look at all this it made for me! Isn’t it great? He said he downloaded some databases, and I think one of them was Sephora and another was Lush and so far I only want to see you guys and introduce him to you. That’s it, that’s all I want for here. Luvon is so sweet and charming and respectful and so I have a feeling, the next few weeks are probably going to fly by. So yeah, don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine and ok. No need to rescue me. I’m good.” You grinned. “Bye, love you! See you soon!” You signed off before you hit send and even the last message was still sending. In fact your phone was having hard time telling you what time it was, like it couldn’t decide if it was 8pm or 1am. To you it felt like closer to 1am. Well, you supposed in space, that didn’t really matter out here. You turned your phone off and went to bed.

You woke up, what felt like 12 hours later, you hadn’t gotten that much restful sleep since, well the summer before college. You were a typical sleep deprived student and you relished it. You sleep was uneventful, in fact you just had regular dreams, Luvon wasn’t in them. You got up and came back to reality. Oh yeah, you were on a space ship. You went to the bathroom and figured out how to work the toilet and then you took a shower, the water was actually really nice and it was soft water and you really took your time getting cleaned up. You dried off on the towels that were just as nice as your usual clothes and got dressed in new clothes and braided your long dark brown hair.

When you came out, Luvon was in the kitchen area, getting you breakfast from the synthesizer and you surprised him and yourself by coming up behind him and hugging him, burying your face into his back, between his shoulder blades.

“Well good morning to you too.” He grinned before he stopped what he was doing to turn in your embrace and just hugged you and held you for as long as you needed it. And you apparently needed a long hug. But it felt so nice to be in his arms, for real this time. All the soothing comfort you felt before was still there, if anything, that feeling was now only amplified because this was real, he was real. This was real. Not a dream any more. Dream come true. Literally. And that thought put a soft, fond smile on your lips.

“Did you sleep ok?” He asked softly as he held you close.

“Yeah, I slept great.” You smiled into his chest before you pulled away to look adoringly at him before he kissed you softly and gently, his hand gently on your cheek with his fingers in your hair and at the back of your jaw and head. Dang it, he still tasted really great too. He pulled away just you were ready to really kiss him back and suggested you eat again and you nodded in agreement.

“Oh by the way, the detector when I scanned you to get your food memories, found that there was a slight imbalance in your brain. According to the databases, you have depression and some anxiety?” He hesitantly informed you.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me.” You nodded in understanding.

“Right so um, if it’s ok with you, could I do a body scan so that the synthesizer can make components in your food to bring your being into balance? Because on my home world and in my culture, being in balance is vital to our health and well being.” He asked hopefully.

“Really? You can do that?” You asked in surprise.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Yeah, sure,” you nodded in agreement before he led you to the transporter room which doubled as the medical bay and had you stand on the transporter pad and when he turned it on, it levitated you slightly and you felt weightless for only a minute before you were slowly put back down and it turned off.

“Done.” He informed you with a proud smile.

“Really? That’s it?” You asked as you stepped off.

“Yup, that’s it, your next meal will have the components you need to bring you closer into balance but it shouldn’t affect the taste of the food at all.” He informed you before you went back to the kitchen area and sat down to breakfast, this time eating a typical breakfast from his home world.

And so for two days, you just hung out, talked, ate, played games and watched movies and slowly but surely, your depression faded and your anxiety simply melted away and you were happy and relaxed and not stressed, it was a welcome break from your usual everyday life. He had downloaded a set of Netflix and Hulu as well as a few movie databases along with what was about to be released in movie theaters in the next month on earth. You don’t know how he managed that but he did and you weren’t going to complain. And slowly but surely you started touching him more, between hugs and cuddling on- well it was a...beanbag kind of couch like thing and eating popcorn, enjoying the new Marvel movie. Like any stay at home date and you were just happy to just be at peace in your own skin and at peace with Luvon, he wasn’t pushing for intimacy, he was letting you pick the pace with your relationship and the progression of it, he respected you and your preferences and your space and privacy which is all you could ask of him and if anything it only endeared himself to you even more and attracted you to him and earned your respect- you were impressed that he too seemed a little different in person than he had been in the dream world too but that wasn’t to say you didn’t like him any less, you actually liked him more and it was like you two were perfect puzzle pieces finally coming together after never being put together before. And the more time you spent with him, the more you could appreciate that you two were meant to be together. You complimented each other. And it wasn’t because you two were exactly the same or even polar opposites, it was simply...like you were a matched set. Like a pair of socks and the two of you seemed to be able to read each other better and could anticipate each other’s needs and wants. Luvon explained that on his home world, whenever an individual was ready for a relationship, they went to the prime council who had a presence on the astral plane and that they used the individual as a homing beacon to find their soul mate in the cosmos. And when they did that, you showed up, clear as day and when the council showed him a vision of you, he was sold and they helped form the connection between his mind and yours and how through the dream world which was how your connection became established and once he introduced himself to you in the dream world and you liked him and he liked you and you had chemistry and hit it off and he was sold and once you chose him and shared yourself intimately with him, he knew it was time to go through the trials. Which consisted of him being sent out into the wilderness to fend for himself for a while. But as soon as he was allowed to return, he got the ship and went straight to you.

When the movie ended, instead of watching another you simply moved the popcorn out of his lap and climbed into his lap yourself. You were ready for more. By now, he had gotten to used to reading you and leaned his face up to yours and met your kiss eagerly. Before now, all your kisses were usually chaste and sweet, but this one, was decidedly smoldering and he made the sexiest, albeit slightly surprised moan when you opened your mouth to him and really kissed him and in an instant, instead of his hands simply settling on your waist, they were stroking up your back and wrapping around you to pull you closer to him and you could feel the heat rolling off of him and you could definitely feel something hardening in his lap which was positioned at your center. And you may or may not have either consciously or subconsciously been grinding yourself onto it and you may or may not have smiled into the kiss when he whimpered and keened at your ministrations and when it got harder- he hiked his hips up to meet yours, it was your turn to whimper and keen as your hands raked and clawed up his back, around his shoulders and down his chest and when you pulled away for air and really got to look in each other’s eyes and you could see he was pleading with you for more with that look and by god, you wanted more too and when you nodded yes at his unspoken question he literally wrapped his arms tightly around you and just stood straight up and carried you to the bedroom with you giggling all the way. He was much stronger than he looked apparently because he carried you as if you weighed nothing. And once you got to the bedroom, you stripped each other out of your clothes with surprising speed. And what felt just like old times, he was surrounding you with himself and filling you full and making loose all rational thought because the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of him, was all you wanted in your life and your consciousness. He interlaced your hands with his own, which considering how small your hands were compared to his slightly bigger ones but his hands were slender so it wasn’t uncomfortable as your legs wrapped around his waist as his mouth alternated between kissing you and all over your jaw, your ears, your neck and your chest, really everywhere his mouth could reach and it was, actually better than your dreams ever had been. But he really had memorized your body and knew just what to do to get you to the sweetest of releases and when he released in you- you welcomed it.

The next few days were a blur, between the eating, intense sex sessions and sleep and any and all combinations of those three activities, you both seemed to lose track of what day it was or how many days you had spent in that blur exactly but you didn’t want it to end. It wasn’t until there was an alert that you were only 10 qui away, which roughly translated to 13 hours away because one qui was about 80 minutes, that you both seemed to remember that there was a world out side of your little love cocoon which was this ship and so he had the synthesizer create a bag for you as well as a whole new wardrobe using your measurements gained from your body scan in the styles popular and in fashion on his home planet and he also gave you your ID for his home planet, it was like an ID and a credit card and cell phone all in one, you had it on a lanyard like necklace around your neck and it hung right over breast plate and when Luvon put his on, you noticed that his matched yours, it was a more masculine version of it, but with you standing side by side, it definitely helped signify that you two were a couple. It was your ticket to everything and you had the synthesizer create ‘gifts’ for your new in laws and his family, makeup for his sisters and mother and perfumes and colognes for his father and brothers and brothers in law which pleased Luvon greatly that you would be so thoughtful. Doing your best to remember their names and he talked you through pronouncing their names correctly too.

When the spaceship docked, he carried your bag along with his as you carried the bag that had all the presents in it as he held your other hand and guided you as you walked through what you would understand was an airport with ships docking every other minute and even more passengers were coming off the ships. You noticed that there were men and women, clearly from here with mates from all over the universe but you still noticed a good majority of them from earth and you seemed to light up when you noticed each other and often quickly asked each other ‘Earth?’ and excitedly answered back ‘Earth!’ and then told them quickly where you were from on earth, not caring if they were from the other side of the world, you were all just so happy to not be alone and not the only earthicans on this planet and quickly tapped your ID’s together so that you could find each other again once you got settled which was nice and once you got out of the terminal, there was a rail system that you simply kept up with Luvon to navigate and that you had to scan your ID card to ride. The rail system then took you to his ancestral home where his family was eagerly waiting to meet you with gifts in hand to bestow upon you and had a feast waiting for you as well.

His family was so nice, and so welcoming and thought you were the most beautiful earth woman they had ever seen and his sisters and sisters in law were keen to befriend you as you sat down to the feast as your bags were given to one of the family’s attendants. The meal was sublime and the company was even better, then after the meal you were shown your own ‘apartment’ which was part of the main house and the main house- might as well have been a mansion. It was huge and luxurious and even had it’s own set of gardens, there was the food garden and the flower garden. Luvon had actually shown you the flower garden in your dreams with him so that part was familiar to you. The family even had a few servants and a chef to cook all their meals and the chef was eager to acquire the information Luvon had gathered about your home world and it’s food and it’s cooking and flavor profiles so that he could incorporate that into the family’s meals as well.

The only thing was- was the days on the planet were longer than they were on earth, it was a larger planet than earth was but the rate of rotation was the same. They had 36 hour days, usually 12-16 of those hours were spent sleeping under three moons, one was silver like earth’s moon, one was a pinkish lavender and one was greenish blue which was quite a sight and the planet itself had rings and the properties of the rings gave those living on the planet longer lives and kept them looking younger longer, you found out that your ‘in-laws’ were actually in their 60’s but they didn’t look a day over 28 or even 30 and you were shocked when Luvon was close to being thirty himself. But he was considered to be young and a juvenile still. Like how humans treated teenagers. And of those 36 hour days- only 5-6 hours of that was spent working or going to school to further education, the rest was meant for relaxing, meditating, socializing, bathing and reading for leisure and of course eating in fact during the ‘work days’ which only took up four of the 8 days a week and that you only worked two days straight at a time with a day of rest between the set of two which left the rest to be enjoyed without work and then on the days you did work, there were hour breaks every 2 hours for peak productivity from each worker.

Your in laws were very impressed to learn that you were in the process of getting higher education and with their help you made contact with Earth and with your professors and your parents who were so relieved to hear from you and your professors were surprisingly lenient when it came to doing your work there and actually letting you be a ‘satellite student’. Your in laws then paid off all of your student loans and any and all debts you had on earth and even gave your parents a dowry. Which, to you seemed a little archaic but your parents were very happy and pleased and when you would come back to visit earth, would throw you a proper wedding which your in-laws happily contributed towards the cost too.

You were given a few days to get used to everything and learn dances for the ceremony and the culture and customs behind them which were interesting and exciting. Your mother in law and your new sisters in law were so happy and excited and thrilled to get the cosmetics and they spent that time experimenting with them, using the databases that Luvon had downloaded, mainly YouTube and makeup tutorials and using their own synthesizers to create their own makeup, all of them extremely keen on highlighters and eyeshadows, especially shimmery ones.

Then the week long ceremony began. Which you thought Indian wedding ceremonies lasted long, no these put those to shame, between the spa treatments every morning then hair and makeup and gorging yourselves at feasts that lasted all day long and getting fitted for and wearing extravagant gowns along with jewels and a crown, each day the crowns and the jewels got bigger, heavier and more extravagant than the last and then the afternoons were set aside for the actual ceremonies that tied not just your physical being to Luvon, but also your spiritual and mental self to him too and not for just this life time but for a 100. ‘It’s a good thing we’re not afraid of commitment’ you had whispered to Luvon who snorted a laugh and had to cover it up with a cough to keep from laughing during the ceremony. And then each day ended with a party to end all parties complete with fireworks and entertainment fit for royalty and again, each day, each party got bigger and more extravagant than the one the day before and you were pretty sure your in-laws must have spent several fortunes on it but every time you mentioned something to Luvon or his family they all assured you and reassured you that it was ok, and to not worry about a thing, that they had prepared themselves for this and had been looking forward to these moments for a very long time and that you and this union was worth all this fuss and that you should feel like a princess because for all intensive purposes, you were and you were one that was adored by everyone. You felt like you ate and drank your weight in food and drinks and you were dancing your feet off and just generally celebrating and you had no idea how your body could contain so much happiness and delight. You felt like you smiled constantly and laughed just as often as you spoke. It was amazing.

After the week long ceremony, you decided to take a three week long “honeymoon” to the paradise like planet nearby that was an all inclusive resort that took up a whole planet where you got a majestic bungalow all to yourself with a bed fit for a deity and a beach all to yourselves too and the food was divine, you were pretty sure you gained weight but your clothes (when you were wearing them mind you) never seemed too tight and Luvon was still just as madly in love with you than he ever was.  

When you got back, it was time to pack and get going back to earth. You went with them back to the airport, where the family rented a very large vessel for the journey. But to your surprise, the journey would only take about two days, since the vessel that Luvon used to pick you up on, was called the “Lizan vessel” it only achieved 1 light-speed on the way back to the home planet, to give couples the max amount of time, at least a week to just bond on their own without any outside influences. Other craft could go up to 11 light-speed, or 11 times the speed of light and this one was one of those, the family’s servants went with them, the cook especially keen on acquiring as many earth ingredients as he could so he could put those into the databases at home so that the synthesizer could replicate and reproduce them better once back home.

Your family eagerly waited for you at the airport and while you had missed them terribly, you were still happy to introduce your new family to them and they in turn were eager and happy to meet your family too. You tried to tell your in laws that earth days were shorter, that wedding ceremonies were not nearly as extravagant as the ones they threw for you but they were very reassuring and open minded.

You went back to your dorm and got what was yours and went home and packed what was yours as well and of course, your in laws were very interested in shopping and eating constantly, sampling foods from all over the world and all over the galaxy.

To your relief, when it came time for your wedding on earth, your in-laws were just as delighted and intrigued by the ceremonies and the celebration as you had been for your wedding back on their home planet, loving the traditional dresses and saris and henna and foods and all the flowers and the jewelry, especially the jewelry and the wedding was a blast. Your in-laws got you as a wedding gift, a communication service that was like Skype but would work across the universe so you could stay in touch with everyone.