<Cultured>
June 2 2021
Nakja was curled up against me, and I was curled up against Jon. For some reason despite not having anything but a dinner date on the schedule Jon had been nothing but nervous and apprehensive all day.
He’d gotten up early, mowed the lawn, and pruned all of the plants outside. After that he’d come inside and begun cleaning everything he could get his hands on. All of that completed before lunch, where for once he had messed up his cooking and burned the food.
His nervousness rubbing off on me I had tried to entice him into the bedroom for some stress relief he had refused saying his stomach hurt. Now we were curled up on the couch aimlessly watching TV.
“You alright?” I asked.
He put his hand down on my head and for a moment I luxuriated in the touch.
“I’m fine, like I said I just have an upset stomach is all.”
“Do you want to cancel the dinner reservations?” I asked.
He blanched, “No! I’ll be fine!”
A little surprised by the intensity of his response I nodded, “OK.”
For several minutes neither of us said anything, absently I rubbed at Nakja as she continued to purr.
“I’m going to go get ready for the dinner!” said Jon as he jumped up to his feet, startled Nakja bolted from her position against me and hissing at Jon bolted from the room.
I glanced at the clock, “We’ve got five hours until our reservations.”
Jon nodded, “I still need to shower, shave, get dressed, all that stuff!” he said smiling, looking nervous.
“Alright,” I said a little put off by his enthusiasm, he hadn’t been like this since our second date when he thought I was going to pull him away from dinner table again for a rather intimate tryst in a hotel room.
I had done that, but not before we had actually finished the meal.
Lounging back in the couch and petting Nakja as who had quickly returned at now that Jon had left I considered what might have him so nervous, and my heart quickened.
Was he breaking up with me? Was he tired of dealing with me?
I couldn’t really blame him if he was, I’d asked him to deal with quite a lost after all. I was an alien on his planet, and at any moment the government here could find us, the aliens who attacked my home world could track me down, or even attack his own planet!
Or maybe he was sick of me not reacting like a human female might, I was aware things were a little different but I had always though he found them endearing.
Trying to rid myself of the rather bad thoughts going through my head I pulled Nakja up to me and squeezed her. The cat let out a rather disgruntled growl but otherwise didn’t react as I tried to calm myself down.
Sitting across from Jon I looked out from the balcony I took another bite of the food.
“This is so good!” I said.
“It is!” said Jon.
Instead of relaxing at the dinner Jon only seemed to be more stressed.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“I am, why do you ask?”
I pointed at his plate, “This is the most expensive place we’ve ever gone to on a date and you’ve hardly touched your food. You’ve been nervous all day, somethings going on.”
Jon slowly nodded, “Sorry, it’s just I’ve got something I want to ask you.”
“What?”
Jon got up from his seat, and collapsed onto one knee.
I moved to help him back up but the look on his face wasn’t something I had ever seen on his features before.
“Rogue, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said confused about what he was doing.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
He moved and reached for something underneath the table.
I gasped, the pieces of metal he was holding aloft were undoubtedly mating pledges.
“I’m kind of combining both traditions here, Rogue will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
I stared at him for a moment too stunned to move. Earlier today I had feared that maybe he was getting tired of me, or that maybe he was getting tired of dealing with an alien as a romantic partner.
Now he was kneeling in front of me a mating pledge extended towards me. With trembling hands I reached out and took the metal band he was holding out. Carefully I examined it, the entire thing was featureless and devoid of any marking as it should be.
For every year a couple was mated another mark was scored into it, representing how much of an impact they had on one another. The more damaged the metal the more closely bonded the pair.
“Rogue?” asked Jon.
“Yes!”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, not that they were wrong.
Jon smiled and getting up from his knees quickly adopted the traditional pose for my planet, the analogue to the one he had been in moments before for his world.
Carefully I took the metal band he offered and mirrored him, my hand over his right arm just past the elbow the metal band held in my hand against his skin. The other band he now held was over my right arm.
“Then I claim you as my own,” he said in my own language.
“Just as I claim you,” the two of us pressed down on one another’s arms, the metal band bent slightly and slid on.
For several moments all I could do was stand their dazed by the turn of events, and happier then I had been in my entire life. Jon pulled me towards him, and planted a passionate kiss on my lips.
I threw my arms around him closer.
I had thought I would never be happy again, my world was gone and I was losing hope of ever seeing my people again. I was billions of miles from home, and I was quite possibly the last of my kind, and I was in love with an alien. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For the first time as Jon and I continued to kiss I considered turning off the small antenna array in the attic.
<The Couch>
Oct 7 2023
I pushed Nakja off of the couch and ignoring her indignant hiss and swipe at my face with her claws I lay down on it.
For several minutes I fumed, and stared up at the ceiling. I had no idea why she was being so stubborn about this. Rogue was one of the smartest people I knew, and yet she was upset over this!
Growling I turned over and punched at the couch trying to soften it. The thing was comfortable enough to sit on, and the two of us had fallen asleep on it plenty of times, but for some reason the fucking thing felt like it had rocks in it!
Now staring at the back side of the couch I tried to calm myself down.
It was stupid, whatever it had been we were arguing over. My fault or hers, now out here on the couch it just seemed so stupid.
It took me a long time to fall asleep on the couch.
Standing on front of the coffee pot I stared at it as the coffee dripped down into the reservoir. I had barely gotten any sleep, and the sleep I had gotten felt as if it had only been five minutes long. Which was strange considering Rogue and I had slept together on the couch plenty of times and had only a few knotted backs to work out.
Rogue trudged into the kitchen and I turned to her. She looked as miserable as I felt, her ears were drooping down and her eyes were laced slightly green, her version of bloodshot.
Wordlessly I poured her a cup of coffee and held it out to her. She took the beverage and slowly went to sit at the table. Pouring myself a cup I went and sat down across from her, for several minutes the two of us couldn’t meet one another’s eyes. For once the horrible instant coffee and old chipped mugs were the most interesting thing in the room.
Finally I looked up at her, “I’m sorry.”
She glanced up from her coffee, “Me too.”
Both of us took several more sips of the acrid brew.
“What were we arguing about?” asked Rogue.
“Something we thought was important, I can’t remember what it was,” I said.
“Me neither.”
We were both silent for several more minutes.
“You don’t look like you got much sleep,” said Rogue.
“The couch was lumpy. You don’t look like you got much sleep either.”
Rogue shook her head, “No, the bed was cold.”
“There are extra blankets in the closet.”
She nodded, “That’s not what I meant.”
“Same when I said the couch was lumpy.”
Rogue put her mug down.
“I’m still tired. We’re both calling in sick today, I need to get some sleep.”
I put down my half empty mug as well.
“Alright.”
Rogue and I curled back up in the bed even as the sun began to rise, while the rest of the world set about waking up and getting ready for the day we relaxed with one another finally able to get some sleep in one another’s arms.
I smiled and pulled her closer, everything was right in the world.
<Lincoln Logs>
July 6 2029
“Did you see the news?” asked Rogue.
Rolling up my computer tablet I shook my head, “no what happened?”
“CERN blew up!”
“Woah, what the heck happened?”
“They’ve not said much yet. From what has been released and dumbed down by the media it looks like they were experimenting with stranglets and something reacted unexpectedly with normal matter.”
I pursed my lips and flicked my hand at the main display on the wall. It flashed onto a news stream and settled.
The shots were rather gruesome, already drones were flying around the circle that had been the acceleration tunnels, which were now thin valleys in the ground. The small towns inside the accelerator appeared mostly intact but the tunnels and entire infrastructure of the largest machine ever created was in tatters. From what the drone footage showed it looked almost as if the entire accelerator tunnel had simply flashed up and exploded in a burst of plasma and energy.
“Over a hundred people dead!?” I said.
Rogue nodded, “And more than a two hundred injuries. Whatever reaction took place it was plainly much more powerful than anything we’ve ever worked with before!”
I didn’t comment on Rogue’s wording, she was beginning to think of herself as part of humanity. Not that she was forgetting her heritage but by this point she had spent a significant amount of her life on Earth. Standing up and going over to my desk I pulled out Rogue’s ancient tablet and turned it on.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“You pulled data from the shuttle right? Neither of us can translate that stuff, but we can see the pictures well enough. I’ve been looking through the alien data.”
I paused finding the right page.
Slowly I held the tablet up to Rogue, her eyes widened as she looked at it and then at the television screen. The methods of delivery were different in artistic style, but the malformed particle on the television screen was unmistakably the same thing in the alien data files.
For several more moments all Rogue could do was look back and forth between them.
“Humanities catching up,” said Rogue, a vicious smile on her face.
<The Dream Realized>
April 12 2033
“Rogue.”
She groaned and moved away from me.
Rolling my eyes and adjusting my shoulder strap I poked her harder.
“What!” she said and opened her eyes.
“We’re here.”
Rogue blinked and looked out through the windshield of the car. I joined her in looking out through the windows as the car slowly crawled through the parking lot searching for a parking spot. We had both slept in the car as it drove through night, and despite being very early it was still a zoo.
“You see one?” I asked.
“No, let’s just let the car handle it,” said Rogue.
I nodded in agreement and unstrapped my seatbelt. The car angrily chirped at both of us as we disembarked. I ignored it and making sure to lock it with my phone quickly followed after Rogue. Seemingly disgruntled the car spewed a shower of rocks at me and then continued looking for a parking spot.
“Let’s find somewhere good to see it!” said Rogue.
“Somewhere without mosquitoes, they might not find you appetizing but they will eat me alive here,” I said.
Rogue nodded and following the crowd to the large field. In the distance standing up against the rising sun was the rocket. Perched atop it was a capsule and the final load of supplies that were going up to the Martian transfer vehicle, aptly named the Armstrong.
“You know I still say we should take your ship for a ride, watch this launch from orbit,” I said.
Rogue rolled her eyes at me, “The stealth systems on the thing are damaged. I’m fairly certain the USAF would be very curious about an unknown spacecraft reentering the atmosphere. The status updates say it’s still doing fin in orbit of the moon anyway so no reason to mess with the status quo.”
I smiled and seeing an empty patch of grass I grabbed Rogue’s hand and dragged her over to it, separated slightly from the rest of the crowd I put the blanket down on the ground and the two of us sat down on it trying to avoid the early morning dew.
For several moments we just looked out at the rocket, it was oddly reminiscent of the Apollo launch vehicles I had seen in old footage. A single stack painted white almost in an homage to those earlier forays into space. Much of the structure was even the same, rocket design hadn’t really changed in the past half century. Point blast down, and you go up.
“It’s amazing,” said Rogue looking out at it.
I glanced over at her, and at the metallic bracelet over her arm. Twelve score marks already adorned it matching my own, and in the bright rising sun of Cape Canaveral the two bands of metal were gleaming quite brightly displaying many of the smaller scratches.
Twelve years since that day, and although both of us had aged she was still as beautiful as that first day I met her, perhaps even more so.
“It is.”
I wasn’t exactly referring to the rocket.
“You’re sending people to another planet in your solar system. We never made it that far.”
“You have a ship that can go to FTL.”
Rogue nodded, “Sure but I cheated. Stole it from the aliens. Give humans a few more years and I think you’ll figure it on your own.”
“Hopefully.”
Leaning back into the blanket I closed my eyes and basked in the sun.
The crowd around us began to thicken, and in the distance I heard drones and the media. Everyone was here, and the anticipation was palpable. This was the next step, the future of humanity carried forth on an explosion of chemical energy.
We waited until the sun was almost at its zenith.
“Here we go!” said Rogue.
Both of us stood, and looked out at the rocket.
The crowd counted down, the tension in the air rose. The engines lit at two seconds before liftoff, and it took a moment for the fantastic bone shaking roar to reach us. Tearing away its earthly bonds the rocket slowly rose from its cradle and clawed its way into the sky.
I watched as humanity took the next step into the cosmos, with the proof that what we would find there was something to treasure standing right next to me.
Next Time on Life with an Alien Girlfriend
Looking down at the old laptop for a moment I wondered why it was beeping, or why we even still had the thing, it was from 2019 or something. Opening the shell I looked at the screen, and I felt my heart drop.
SIGNAL ACQUIRED
RENDEZVOUS AT FOLLOWING COORDINATES
It was in Rogue’s language. After all this time she had the signal she had been looking for. Her people were reaching out to her, they were calling her home.