Not So Different, yet as Different as Can Possibly Be

9-First Contact.

   "Oh no." K'kacho added, openly laughing at the story she was telling him. He loved listening to her stories.

   She continued with this story, telling him how John found out someone had stolen Jake's old family photo, and how John was scared that he had done it while he was drunk and didn't remember doing it. Only for him to find out, two years later, that his friend Alex had been the culprit all along.

   She finally allowed herself to laugh, and K'kacho watched her face move as she did so. She was beautiful. Her skin was so pretty and smooth looking, unlike the gorgeous feathered skin of the !ka. Her hair was jet black, and her eyes, oh her eyes. They were hard to see through the video screen, but her deep beautiful brown irises would make him lose himself in them if he was not careful.

   But the screen did not just go one way. She watched him laugh at her story, his feathered face slightly harder for her to read. His body was covered in white fluffy feathers, contrasting with his black beak and bright topaz eyes. Of course, he was not feathered all over. On his arms past his elbows, and on his legs past his knees, his skin was smooth and scaly, much like the lower legs of earth birds. His clawed feet and taloned hands completed the avian look that his whole species shared, though feather colour was highly variable amongst his kind.

   They talked some more, until Linda noticed something. "What's that back there?"

   K'kacho looked behind him. "A bookcase?" he asked in his mother-tongue.

   "No, what's that on the bookcase," she clarified, "that bright pink thing."

   He looked at the bookcase and saw, in abject horror, that he had left it out. He had used it this morning, and, in his half drunk state, had set it on the bookcase after thoroughly cleaning it. And so there it sat, as bold as brass, right in front of his books.

   "Well, that, um. . ." He didn't know how to answer her. He could just make something up, right? Humans didn't have those on their planet, did they? And what would she think of him if she found out he used one, if she found out how often he thought of her when he used it, of how hard he came when he did.

   "Wait," she laughed a little, "is that a butt-plug?"

   K'kacho's feathers stood on end. She did know what it was. "I, um, sometimes I, well-"

   Linda knew where this was going. She had loved him for a long time, and she had lusted after him as well. She couldn't touch him, she knew, but maybe, maybe she could watch him touch himself. She would have to lead him down the garden path, but perhaps it could be done.

   "Can, can I see?" She asked.

   K'kacho stopped talking, and just stared at her in disbelief. Was she asking him to. . . No, no, she just wanted him to show her it up close, that was all.

   He got up and walked to his bookcase. After grabbing the plug he walked right back and sat at the desk, holding it up to the camera for inspection. He silently prayed that he had cleaned it as thoroughly as he had tried to.

   "That's not what I meant," she told him. She then sighed before continuing. "K'kacho, I," she hesitated. Was she really about to do this? She took a deep breath. "How often do you use that?"

   His silence told her he used it more often than he wanted to admit. "A, about once every two days or so. Never more than once a day."