Maybe it’s the spices in the food, but I feel sweaty. Need to bathe after this.
Quiet falls. She eats. I eat. The room is still. I’m silent, but I can’t stop thinking about her. “What did you say your name was again?”
The human pauses in her eating. “It’s Nicola. Leandra didn’t like the way it sounded on her tongue, so she made me change it to something that sounded more mesakkah. We picked Shiarii.” She shrugs. “Seemed as good a name as any, and reminded me a bit of Scheherazade.”
“Who?”
She shakes her head. “Just an old human legend about a woman who had to tell stories and entertain to save her life.”
The food grows tasteless in my mouth. A woman who had to tell stories and entertain to save her life. The parallel to her own fate doesn’t escape me. I don’t want to hear more. I’m learning too much about her already, and it’s making the knot of frustrated anger and guilt in my stomach grow. I shouldn’t feel guilty over not keeping her, I remind myself.
I’m the injured party here.
I finish cleaning up around the barn and fixing some of my tools after dinner. I’m not avoiding her, I tell myself. I’m just giving her space. And I sure don’t feel guilty.
I figure if I keep telling myself that, it’ll eventually ring true.
When I go inside, the house is cleaned up, the floors shiny and swept. I’m not a slob, but I don’t care much about doing chores. Even so, I can appreciate when the place is sparkling clean. I know she’s trying to prove herself, and I feel another twinge of guilt. There are fresh baked goods on the kitchen counter and it smells nice inside, like she’s baking other things. I think about what she said earlier, about cooking when she feels stressed.
There must be a lot of stress. I guess I can’t blame her for that.
I hear the hum of the clothing steamer in the background, and the sound of running water. My place is small, but I don’t see her in the living area or the kitchen. What else is she cleaning, I wonder? Curious, I head toward the bedroom. I’m not sure how I’ll feel if I find her knee-deep in my underclothing, scrubbing it.
Instead, I turn the corner and find her…naked. She has her back to me, standing in the small nook that serves as bathing facilities for my private bedroom. I can see her in the mirror, and the pale color of her skin is blinding against the gray of my walls. It’s clear that she hasn’t heard me enter over the sound of the running water. I should say something. Clear my throat.
Something.
But it’s impossible not to look. Not to stare at that expanse of naked, gleaming skin. Her teats are exposed, and as I watch, she drags a wet cloth over her skin, over the pink tips and rounded swells. My cock stiffens painfully in my trou, and I immediately turn away, heading out of the bedroom, out of the living area, and out the front door. I sit down on my front step and put my head in my hands, trying to calm my racing heart.
Instead, all I can see is all that naked, wet skin. When I close my eyes, I see the dreamy expression on her face as she presses the cloth to her breasts. I see the tendrils of golden hair brushing against her shoulders, and the gentle curving flare of her hips. I think of the rounded swell of her buttocks, and how pale and plump they were, and how seemingly lewd the cleft of her ass was without a tail to cover it.
My cock feels like stone in my trou. Kef. It’s been far too long since I’ve looked at a woman, even longer since I touched one.
I don’t think you’re ugly.
No, I remind myself. No matter how much you might be fascinated with her, it’s because she’s the only female you’ve been around for longer than a moment in the last several years. It’s not because you find her attractive or likable. It’s not because of her smile or the jiggle of her bottom when she walks.
She’s not strong enough to be a partner in this life. And that’s what I need—a tall, strapping partner that can help me with the fields. That’s all I want.
It takes me a while to compose myself. Every time I stand up, convinced that I’m fine, my cock stiffens and I imagine her naked and washing herself. I end up walking circles around the house for an hour, thinking about which of my meat-stock I’ll breed to the bull this season and which I’ll hold back for next season. Thinking about bovines and meat is enough to kill whatever eagerness my cock has left in it, and I’m able to go inside with a loud, deliberate slam of the front door.