Starfish

Nineteen

Nina rushed home and took the fastest shower she thought she'd ever had. Meem's worms had entered their breeding season and smelled stronger than usual, and the smell had lingered in her clothes enough to notice. Barely dry she slipped into fresh clothes and ransacked her apartment for a beach blanket, her hair wrapped in a towel and her shirt sticking to her still-wet back. She looked up at the clock and realized she still had half an hour before she was supposed to head downstairs. Calm down! It's just a picnic, not even really a date at this point. It's just dinner. With an alien. Who happens to be my boss. Who also happens to be completely jacked as far as I can tell. Nina thought about what she'd felt under that tunic. His forearm where she'd gripped it to pull herself up felt like a piece of driftwood, a solid mass of muscle as big as her calf. Though a few feet hadn't been very far to climb, Nina had held on pretty tightly in case she slipped and embarrassed herself. In doing so she'd squeezed her thighs around his and now that she thought back on it, the Dreen's legs were ironwood. The stomach she'd briefly clamped herself to had been washboard-flat, his waist and hips lean. Like climbing a rock wall wearing a shirt. She could only imagine what else he was hiding under his clothes. Her mouth watered, and not just at the prospect of dinner.

When finally the time rolled by and Nina's hair had dried enough to handle being windblown by warm salt air directly off the sea, she pulled a beach bag over her shoulder and hurried down. As she drew closer to the outer doors she felt a stab of anxiety – What if it doesn't go well? She swallowed hard and pushed through the door, met with mellow sunshine that was just beginning to slant at an angle. Trotting down the steps she looked around for a dark shape, waiting for him to unfold from a shadow or slip out from behind one of the ten-foot-tall clumps of decorative native tallgrass growing in intervals along the building's perimeter. It wasn't until she reached the middle of the steps that she did see him finally, just the top half of him coming up over the little footbridge that spanned a narrow but quite deep little stream that led from some inland lake or pond to the ocean. As usual, the dark Dreen wore dark clothes, except rather than a tunic with wrist-length sleeves he'd apparently decided to go more daring and just cover his elbows. Such a weird guy, he'll let me climb all over him but won't let anyone see what he's got going on.

As he drew up, Nina stood as tall as she could on her toes and waved. He happened to look up then (doubtful, but possible) and raised his free hand – his other gripped the carrying strap of what looked like graduated stacking cans, the kind Nina had seen used for extended fieldwork trips in undergrad. The cans looked fairly large and Nina wondered if he'd remembered she couldn't eat as much as a Dreen – though if he prepared everything like he did baked eel, she'd certainly try. "Hey! You're right on time," she said, bouncing on the steps as he drew up to the bottom of the stairs. She stepped down just enough to draw eye-level with him, grinning while he took in the sight of her: hair half-bound, a realistic flower pinned above her right ear, a loose tunic she'd tied at her side to expose a few inches of her bronze belly, and denim trousers that rode low on her hips and just barely covered half of her thighs. I doubt he's ever seen shorts. His large blue eyes widened briefly, traveling up her legs and dancing away for a moment before returning to her face. Oh yeah, you like it. She held her bottom lip between her teeth, smiling before asking "How did your meetings go?"

Ardus blinked, but recovered quickly. "As well as can be expected. Reda has been throwing her weight around behind the scenes, and the board is not pleased but since she is the Dean of the university they are essentially caught in her current without a rudder. My proposed budget should clear in the accounting department by the end of this week."

"Must be nice to have the Dean on your side." Nina padded down the stone slab steps barefoot. "I wish I'd had a friend in high places when I applied for my doctorate program." Standing at the bottom of the steps now, she looked up at the Dreen. "Where's this spot of yours?"