It all starts with a glance.
With a flash of glowing eyes hiding underneath a thick blanket of long, dark lashes. Hearts quicken. Sweat pools in places that it shouldn't. Something dangerous shoots through the body.
A thought. An idea that has no business being stuck inside my brain.
I am prey. I am helpless. I am hunted.
He sits before me, a colossal of a man. His long limbs fold neatly into the plush fabric of the armchair. He doesn't belong there, I keep thinking to myself. As out of place as the Crown Jewels at a bargain basement auction. And that's exactly what he is, in some strange way – a priceless, exotic gem. A sparkling sapphire with lips and hair and teeth and muscles. Broad, strong muscles. Hypnotic waves of blues, purples, and reds breathe beneath the soft silvery undertones of his skin. He's a supernova birthed by the stars, and yet, he sits here before me now on Earth as if God Himself came to walk among us misshapen mortals.
But God says nothing. He simply watches the dust motes floating on every breath we take. He watches me watching him.
"I am flattered, Xal, but I have to decline," the words don't want to come out of my throat. They hang between my vocal cords, twisting them up with the emotions that they give voice to.
Still, God doesn't say a word.
Time passes.
My fingers tremble, my heart thrumming beneath bone.
Silence settles between us like a snake coiling deep into itself. But the quiet has a heaviness to it. So full of soundless screams and thoughts that have no breath to push them through the air. It thickens into a slurry, into something solid that cracks like the nanofibers of his space suit when he breathes. I hear his muscles coiling and bunching beneath the fabric, struggling to keep all that power they have inside them under control. Because that is what an Akarsean is. Power. Energy. Zillions of atoms running headlong into each other until the impact of their collision creates this sapphire-hued god mushed up between the cushions of an over-sized armchair in a quaint, country chic living room.
"Is...is there anything else I...can do...for you?" I offer with a weak voice. The awkwardness is just too much for me to handle right now, never been one for the intricate twirls and graceful spins that come with navigating social interactions. Yet, here I am, with a being...no...a god from another planet, trying to master what I was never able to achieve with my fellow humans.
But Xal? Oh, he makes it look so effortless. So refined. There's no hiding the signs of nobility – and perhaps even divinity – in his alien bones, no matter how hard he seems to try.
"Apple," he says, his voice as rippling as the patterns of light in his translucent skin. Its effect on me is instant. My cheeks flush hot. That's what he calls me, you know. His Apple. His temptation. Ever since I told him the story of Genesis and the Garden of Eden.
"Don't make this harder than it already is," I mean to sound threatening and serious, but the feelings twisting inside betray me. Anger comes out as lust and longing breathed on a whimper.
The brilliant blue and pink lights in his eyes swirl in stark contrast to the dull, yellow glow from the room's lamps. "I apologize, nayahi."
Don't do that! Don't call me nayahi. That's even worse than calling me his Apple. Don't call me 'love'. A flash of anger rises inside me. How could he be so heartless? So careless with the memories of that night we had under the moonlight, under the tears, when he held me so close to his heart. When I felt his tears writhing beneath my skin? Does he enjoy torturing me with the memories of his lips?
"It was just a kiss!" I snap.
A laugh squeezes its way through his throat, as smooth as liquid silk in my ears. "It is never just anything," he says.
I fold my arms across my chest. "What we're doing isn't right!"
"What am I doing other than being honest?" He looks at me in that way I hate so much, and I feel like both punching and kissing him at the same time.
"Don't you dare!" I growl in frustration. "I am–"
"Married," he finishes my sentence before I do. "Yes. I get that. You humans love clinging to your titles so."
"And you Akarseans don't?" I spit back.
A deep sadness washes over his regal features, but he smiles through it. Now there's the Xal I know, with his infamous poker face and his unshakable perfection. Never a strand out of place or a seam misaligned. Perfection at its finest, he is.
Cold. Logical. Emotionless.
Not this cracked and imperfect creature sitting before me, hair disheveled and eyes blood shot, rattled by the confessions his tongue laid bare before me as a sacrifice on the altar of...
Love?
What does he know of such things? His feet only know how to follow the sanctioned dance steps on the chart. His tongue only wags with the right words because it is practiced, as is everything he does. Everything he thinks. Breathes. Lives.
Practice makes perfect, and perfection makes the Akarsean sitting before me right now. So who the hell does he think he is, coming into my house, calling me his nayahi, his Apple? Telling me that he loves me? Whispering to me the things that he knows my heart feels for him? How dare he!
"Get out!" I growl.
He remains where he is, of course. Unshakably rooted to his stubbornness as always, while I stomp around to make my anger unmistakable.
"GET OUT!" I throw a cushion at his face, and perfection becomes a little more disheveled.
He protests because he can't believe that his charms haven't won him favor as they always do. It takes the shaking of fists and screaming at the top of my lungs to get him to move an inch. And when he finally moves, it's so slow and so fucking frustrating to watch. He's always so stoic, even in the face of chaos and anger, while I'm here, just about losing my shit all over the place!
"GET OUT!"
It's only the lights in his skin that tell me there are emotions bubbling beneath his veneer of tranquility. It hums with all shades of red now that he's angry. The glow of his double hearts beat brightly beneath his suit as the atoms within him collide and heat rolls off him in waves. He is an inferno churning, bubbling, but only on the inside. That poker face of his...flawless.
"Fuck you, Xal!"
The light in his eyes dim ever so slightly, and for a minute there, I see a shadow. Doubt. I see his imperfection unintentionally bleed out of him. I smell it as sweet musk perfuming his skin. Such things are toxic to the brain, and dangerous to the heart.
Suddenly that thing inside me, that poison, becomes something more. A longing ignited into a fire no one could ever hope to control. I tremble as I fight against it. I want to win. Honestly, I do. But I know that my heart is just as stubborn as Xal. It wants the impossible.
It wants...
I can't tell you the exact moment when my lips overpower his. I can't say when or how my hands find their way beneath his space-suit. All I know is that they do. That I tear at the alien fabric until it surrenders. That my tongue dances across his, that fingernails claw at flesh until God Himself falls to his knees before me, his head between my legs, his tongue at my command. And in that moment, perfection moves like an animal unleashed, and the inferno inside spills out into the unsuspecting world. It drives itself deep inside me, strangles every nerve with a jolt of electricity. Skin slapping against skin. The taste of sweat salting my tongue. Curses screamed. Tears shed as cries for more chaos. The air glows like stardust, radiant blue and purple, filled with incessant clicks and hovering whistles.
I feel... my mind letting go and my bones curling beneath my skin. And when the pleasure comes, it doesn't come quietly. It is twitchy and restless. It throws its head back and howls like a thing of the wild until...reality
...slowly slips...
...back into my body.
Gravity and time take control once more, and we fall unto the floor, our breaths lingering in the steam blanketing our bodies. The swirl of lights under Xal's skin return to their normal luminosity and speed now that the fire inside him is quenched. The air, so pregnant with the scent of sweat and sex, cools. The realization of what we've done slowly sinks in the cold aftermath.
We stare at each other, slack-jawed. Wide-eyed.
"Did we just..."
"Yes," he says. There it is again - perfection slipping back into place. He rises to his feet, regal. Divine. Unperturbed, as always. Oh, what a magnificent sight he is! I lean back against the armchair and take it all in. Every stitch of muscle. Every flash of light. Every bat of his eyelashes.
He watches me watching him again, and he doesn't rush to redress. He is calm and controlled, as always, basking in my quiet attentions like an animal warming itself in the sun.
"Is this what you came here for?" I ask.
"I came to make a decision."
"And that is..."
"I wanted to know if it worked."
"If what worked?"
He comes back to me, bends to brush his fingers through my hair. His lips are soft against mine when he kisses me.
"I'm so sorry, Sarah," he breathes into my mouth.
I pull back for a second. I'm the one who cheated on my partner. What does he have to be sorry for?
"What do you–"
That's when it hits – the pain slicing through my chest, the blood coughed up on my lips by screams. Panic lashes me like a whip. It tells my muscles to fight for life, to snatch this knife out of my body before too much of my life leaks out of me. I claw at it and slice my fingers up in the process too, while Xal simply holds my hands and pulls them up to his lips.
Perfection...is...so...cruel.
"Xal?!" I gasp, as life pours out of my body and colors the floor with too much of my blood. The knife is in too deep; it nicked bone and sliced arteries on its path through my heart. And with every drop of my blood spilled, with every stitch of pain that rattles my bones, the air grows crisp and my senses sharpen to a single point of focus. Slowly, I start to see this world, this shield of perfection, for what it really is – a mask. A space made for make-believe and Xal is its creator.
I see an armchair that's pretending to be an armchair, furniture dressed up in costumes of normalcy. Charts and holograms and schematics lay out the details of my body, of me as a person. As a human. As a thing.
The room fades slowly, transforming into something else. Something other. Something made for medical examination rooms and lab rats. Computers and gadgets and gears that could never have come from a human's mind litter every corner. Lights flash. Machines beep-beep-beep.
My life...slips...
"Shhh now, Apple. It will be over soon." He rises and turns away from me. I want to grab hold of him and ask him why. But my fingers are weak. Instead, they fall to the side as limp as my arms are. The only thing that has strength still in my body are my eyes.
"Xal."
He goes to stand beside a flashing console. A computerized voice comes to life in his presence. It speaks words that I know to be Akarsean, the language that Xal once taught me in those quiet moments between us long ago. I wonder for a minute if any of those precious moments were ever real in spirit or in form. Or were they all just streams of binary code pulsed through my brain cells.
"Experiment log LH.SUS.453-208. Subject Beta-36 shows signs of abnormalities–"
"Wh-wh-why?"
"–No significant improvement in cerebral function was observed. Motor responses slowed by fifty-three percent which indicates an impairment in the synaptic network. Theorized–"
"Wh-what is this? What are you..."
"–causes of failure rests in the synaptic misfiring or possible anomalies in the sodium-potassium pump mechanisms on cerebral cells. Subject Beta-36..." he watches me watching him, "... is to be terminated according to Protocol 9."
Is this what I am? An experiment? A creature for an alien's lab?
No! It...can't be! I am...
Hunted. Helpless. Prey.
I want to scream, but my body is too tired, too weak.
"Why?" I cry out to him for mercy, for even a slither of this love he declared to me not too long ago. Don't throw me out with the bio-medical trash. Please. I beg you. Let me live!
Perfection moves his fingers across the console, and spits commands at it. He can't hear what my heart is crying out. Instead, he focuses on punching in numbers and squawking at holograms and twisting images of my body this way and that, so that he can understand the puzzle that I am.
"Xal..."
He turns to look at me once again, perhaps to bear witness to my dying moments. Visual confirmation that Protocol 9 was executed. It's the least he can do. Show some respect, God damn it! Cast your eyes to the life being sacrificed in the name of your science.
"I'm sorry," he says. Words practiced.
"You are my favorite apple," he says. Words felt.
A veil of radiant light closes in around me, and for a moment, the pain of dying is too far for my brain to grasp. I stare at the poker face of God on the other side.
So stoic. So peaceful.
Machines frantically whir to life, eager to follow the program commands typed into their matrices. I want to scream at them, but I can't bring myself to waste my last breath on such a pointless task. My path is set now. Fate has given me my last card.
Death at the hands of my Sapphire God. "Xal..." my tears carry his name for the last time.
He smiles. Of course, he would. Perfection always smiles.
The veil of light becomes bright and blinding.
And I become nothing.