<Blood Types>
~~~
“How the heck can you still be cold?” I asked as I pulled my jacket off and offered it to her.
She shivered, “I’m anemic, and you’re insane it has to be like 4 degrees out here!”
I stretched my arms out and sighed as the cool fall breeze swept through the park.
“I’m fine.”
She rolled her eyes and her ears twitched, that was another one of her odd ticks. I thought it was kind of cute, bundled up like she was all of the time in the winter and with twitching ears she was almost like a cat. I would even find her sitting next to the window lounging in the sunlight or huddled up to the radiator contentedly reading a book seeking out the heat of those locations.
In the summer she was almost the exact opposite, rarely wearing anything close to an appropriate amount of clothes. I’d had to bump up how much time I spent at the gym so I wouldn’t look like an idiot next to her when we went to the beach or pool which she insisted we visit as often as possible so she could cool down.
Putting my arm around her she leaned into me as we continued to walk through the park.
“I like it here,” she said.
I looked around the park, it was in the middle of the city and the sounds were dampened, the lights dimmed. Their was a fair amount of trash but live in the city long enough and your eyes just glide over that.
“I like it here too.”
She chuckled and leaned up closer to me, “what’s so funny?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
~~~
<Everything Tastes Like Chicken>
~~~
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She looked down at the bowl and then back at me.
“New beauty treatment,” she said as she pulled her hands out of the bowl of chicken soup a piece of the chicken in her fingers which she quickly put in her mouth.
I smiled and sat down next to her, “It’s difficult to improve on perfection.”
She rolled her eyes and her ears violently twitched, “and that lines cheesy.”
“Did it work?” I asked as I leaned in towards her.
She smiled, “maybe.”
~~~
<Cooking>
~~~
“Fuck!” she swore.
“You alright?” I asked getting up from my seat at the table, it was her turn to make dinner. Something I dreaded, her palate was on the odd side.
Women to my understanding had to try to keep a figure, and therefore did not eat and cook meals that were primarily meat based, especially when the portions included at least two steaks.
The carnivorous proclivity would not have been so bad if it weren’t for her preference of spices, hot sauces and cinnamon were spices on steak in my opinion. Still she was always happy to make it and I didn’t have a heart to tell her that she could not cook.
“I just cut myself I’m fine!” she said.
I stepped into the kitchen to see her cradling her hand, the knife on the cutting board next to a small spattering of green hot sauce, which was odd I had thought we were out of the cursed stuff.
“You sure?” I asked taking a step forward to help her.
She nodded, “I’m fine go sit down.”
“I can go and get the first aid kit,”
“I’m fine!” she said cutting me off.
“Alright.”
I backed out of the kitchen, dreading what she might have been doing to the steak with a green hot sauce.
~~~
<Bed Time>
~~~
Leaning back down into the bed I admired the way that the moonlight was effecting her skin, rather than radiating from it the light appeared to fall into her skin. I could still see her though, and that was enough.
Leaning down next to her I saw something odd, the small horn like spike on the back of her neck was oozing something green again, it turned to mist before toughing the bed though like always.
I sighed and rolled back over onto my side.
She really needed to tell me where the heck she was from. I was thinking the Large Magellanic Cloud, Alpha Centuri, or maybe even the Andromeda Galaxy.
As I drifted off back to sleep I wondered if she was going to eat me, I smiled slightly. At this point I was whipped enough that I didn’t think I would care.
~~~
<Take Me To Your Leader>
~~~
She was working at her computer again, she had been doing that a lot lately. I figured it had something to do with the small antenna array she had surreptitiously installed in the attic, breaking the renters agreement for the small townhouse. Looking at the thing I hadn’t been able to find any manufacturing labels or etchings. I wasn’t an electrician or computer technician but I was also sure that the hookups for the thing weren’t standard by any means.
“You going to come to bed?” I asked.
She glanced up, her skin oddly absorbing the light of the computer screen in the dark room, “In a minute I have to figure this out.”
“Contacting the home world?” I asked meaning it partially as a joke.
Her ears twitched and she let out a small stuttering laugh, “something like that.”
I nodded, “Alright, but you do know you can trust me, you’ve got me fairly well twisted around your fingers.”
“What?” she asked he face faltering.
“The pheromones, whatever they did I noticed the difference, it was getting hard to be away from you hard to think of anything but you,” I said.
She blinked but didn’t say anything, her ears were now constantly moving now through her hair.
“I figured you had to actually like me though, you’re not stupid enough to date a biochemist just for kicks. I did figure it out after all,” I said.
“You’re cold blooded, your blood is some type of Hemocyanin variant coloring it green. Your skin almost absorbs light, some ancient evolutionary holdover for camouflage. You’re also almost exclusively a carnivore, and your taste palette is rather different than mine if your cooking is anything to go by.”
I paused and held up a small vial.
“The last thing was the pheromone. I’m assuming it’s a natural product of your body, it calms and entices the male of your species. I’m guessing they are normally more energetic or violent so the females suppress that instinct once they’ve mated, it’s secreted from that spike in the back of your neck. In human males or at least my own case it made me almost addicted to you. So I synthesized a suppressant, I’ve been using that on myself.” I said.
She looked dumbfounded for a moment, “You knew?” standing up she took a hesitant step towards me, “How long have you known?” she asked.
“About six months.”
She paused for a moment, “you’re immune to the pheromone?” she asked.
“I believe so.”
“And you haven’t said anything?” she asked.
I chuckled, “The people who claim they see aliens aren’t exactly taken seriously on Earth.”
She nodded, still looking stunned.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
Leaning forward I took her hand, “I was a little when I figured it all out, thought you might get hungry and eat me or something in the middle of the night.”
She glanced down at my hand and then back at me, “I’m on the run, this planet’s in the middle of nowhere but I’m one of the last of my kind. The enemy is going to keep looking for me,” she said.
I pursed my lips, “well then I’m fairly sure you shouldn’t have to hide in your own home, go ahead and relax,” I said.
“Relax?” she asked.
“I want to see what you really look like,” I said.
She hesitated for a moment and then gripping my hand tighter closed her eyes.
The ears usually so expressive moved away from her head slightly, the teeth in her mouth morphed slightly to fit a more predatory diet, and her skin changed to absorb more of the light around her blurring her edges.
Overall her appearance didn’t change much, the familiar arch of her brow, the haircut, her eyes when she opened them were slightly larger than before and more expressive.
She was nervous now, “Do I look OK?” she asked, her voice now with a slight reverberation in it.
I leaned forward and put a kiss on her lips, “You look beautiful.”
~~~
<Pancakes>
~~~
I put the plate down in front of her.
She yawned and her ears almost went flat like a cat’s behind her head as she stretched, the teeth she had kept so well hidden were now exposed as she moved. I had to suppress the instinct to shy away, as much as I loved her those were the teeth of a predator. Suppressing several million years of evolution was rather difficult, but for her I managed it.
She hadn’t yet woken up all of the way, what with the cold outside and the fact that caffeine had no effect on her species it took her awhile to wake up.
Looking down at the plate she smiled, “Bacon pancakes, eggs, and a side of corned beef. Looks perfect!” she said.
I nodded, “I’m just having some fruit though, all of this meat is seriously messing up my digestive track. I’m an omnivore!” I said as I took a bite of the apple in my hand.
She shuddered, it was funny actually she was acting as if I were biting into a raw bloody steak something she liked to do now that she didn’t have to pretend to like her meat as cooked as it was.
I had learned that her preference was a little singed, but she would eat a raw piece of beef like I did an apple.
“Well I’m sorry, but I’ve had to put up with this stuff for a whole year!” she said pointing at my apple.
“Seriously do you know what kind of nasty stuff gets into plants?” she asked.
I stared at her and took an exaggerated bit of my apple.
She rolled her eyes and flapped her ears annoyed with me.
“It’s a good thing we don’t live in California. You’re like an opposite hipster vegetarian,” I said.
She ignored me instead taking one of the almost raw strips of bacon she tossed it up into the air and snapped it into her mouth as it fell. I had been told this was proper manners where she was from but I was suspicious.
“I’m cooking dinner tonight,” she said.
I winced my stomach already rebelling, and she caught it.
“You learned what I like, now I want to do the same. I’ll make something with those brown balls!” she said.
“Potatoes, and you know what they’re called!” I said.
She chuckled, “yeah, but seriously you’re eating something you dug out of the ground. How is that appealing?” she asked.
“You ate a squirrel out of the backyard yesterday, and you think potatoes are nasty?” I asked
She frowned at me a piece of bacon hanging out of her mouth, “You said I could relax, act natural!” she said.
“I could have used some warning! One second you’re curled up on top of me for my supposed glorious body heat as you call it and then the next you’re across the yard with Harold hanging out of your mouth!” I said.
“You named the squirrel?” she asked bemused.
“It was the one that kept stealing from the bird feeder, I had to give it a name.”
She smiled, “Well now it won’t steal from the bird feeder.”
~~~
<Netflix>
~~~
She let out a small chirp of a laugh as the episode continued to play out. The two of us were curled up on the couch, underneath the same blanket.
I was cheating a little bit having turned down the heat in the house, so she snuggled just a little bit closer to me as we continued to go through our Netflix que.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Does he really have to bang every alien?” she asked pointing at the screen where the old fashioned sci-fi drama continued to play out.
“What’s wrong with banging aliens?” I asked hugging her closer to me.
Her ears twitched, hair which had started to grow on them now that she wasn’t shaving them hitting my face.
“Nothing, but seriously is that all you humans would do when you first meet an alien?”
I shifted slightly to look her in the eyes, “and our first date was different how?” I asked.
Her visage blurred even more at that, her version of blushing increasing her camouflage instinct.
“That was different!” she hissed.
“We were at the restaurant table what, five minutes before you dragged me back to that hotel room you were in? Now that I think about it the pheromones must have been going crazy since I didn’t even consider that you might be stealing my organs.”
“It was ten minutes and I was desperate!” she said her face still blurring.
“Well I guess it’s nice to feel needed.”
She swatted me on the arm underneath the blanket, “I was in heat!” she growled.
I blinked, “You’re cold blooded but you go into heat, that’s an odd combo.”
“Well I’m not technically cold blooded and in heat is the best Earth definition but again not exactly right either. So we’ll just call them approximations alright?” she asked.
I nodded.
The two of us settled back into the couch to watch the show.
I knew it was a bad idea but I couldn’t help myself.
“So when’s the next time you go into heat?” I asked.
“I’m not telling, that should keep you on your toes,” she said.
I smiled.