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All suited up, with not a hint of the tiniest gap or tear, Ruben set out to visit his friend.
He boarded the monorail at the station across the embassy, the enclosed compound serving as the nexus of humanity’s diplomatic mission to the planet of Hylaxion; and also the place where Ruben was mewed up in most of the time. He had left shortly after punching out. Time spent outside the compound was regulated and his wary bosses gave out rather tight schedules, so he had to be thrifty. Fortunately, his destination was only a couple of stops away.
He stood, holding a handrail near the sliding door of the coach. He could’ve taken a seat, as there were plenty of free spots scattered around, but he chose not to. He held a gut feeling that most of his fellow passenger might feel uncomfortable sitting next to him. Some were already watching him with their vertical slit-shaped pupils, not by staring with their snouts straight at him but rather glancing obliquely now and then. There was however a young couple a few seats away whose eyes were riveted on him, babbling in their sibilant voices as they leaned close to each other.
The reptilian iossene didn’t hold any qualms against him or his colleagues, and relations between Hylaxion and Earth were cordial, but it was still uncommon for someone to venture out of the embassy, and their curiosity flared whenever they saw one mingling with them. Maybe they were bemused by his suit: the bulbous plastic dome, transparent all around, that enveloped his head; the baggy white sheet wrapping him from neck to calf; the bulky belt, carrying bags and electronic devices; his feet shod in black boots. Or perhaps his hair, as black as his boots, caught their interest, for they had nothing crowning their long smooth heads. That blackness was nevertheless one of the few traits he had in common with them. Their squamous skins were largely painted in a single color, whether it be red, yellow, green, blue, or anything in-between, but they were all daubed in common with stripes and blotches of black.
His friend—as he called Kyana within the compound, when teased by his colleagues—was no different. He was thinking about the deep blue hue flowing between the black patches on her skin; how sharply it clashed with the plain decor of the embassy’s offices where they had first met, sitting opposite a glass pane; how the scales sparkled under the twin suns as they walked together down avenues shaded by crimson trees.
He had only ever seen it behind a glass pane, or through the clear plastic of his helmet. And his gloves prevented him from learning what the scales felt like on his fingertips.
Until today, or so he hoped. Kneading one of the bags fastened to his belt, he felt for the presence of a solid cylindrical piece, as if he feared it would disappear if he didn’t.
The coach came to a halt and the doors slid open. It was his stop, and he got off.
Glimmering in shades ranging from sanguine to gold, plants adorned the walls of the station like tapestries, settling their roots in every little nook. They wound like snakes around the handrails beside him as he took the steps down to the street and onto the walkway, where they sprung out unhindered even between the flagstones. Only the road itself shone free of them, the wheels of passing cars and busses whirring steadily over the flat surface.
Walls of foliage flanked his path as he tramped on, a riot of tall shrubs shadowed by great trees, sprouting red leaves and concealing the dwellings behind them. Towers that did pierce through overhead had stems running like veins along the window frames. Above the urban jungle the sky had shifted to a soft cyan and the few clouds shimmered pale purple. The two suns, tiny specks blazing a brilliant blue, hung low in the expanse, and they continued their cosmic dance behind the trees as Ruben went through a gap in the lush wall.
The unpaved trail he followed was canopied by leaves, shaping a tunnel that was scarcely wide enough to fit two people abreast. Flowery offshoots brushed his suit whenever he made room for the occasional passerby, who often looked back at him with an expression of surprise.
Somewhere in this overgrown warren lay her home. The PDA on his belt could help him navigate the labyrinth, but he had visited her often enough that he knew the route from memory, and he kept the device quiet.
Taking several bends in the trail, and traversing through an archway formed by two intertwining yellow trunks, he arrived at a sleek house settled in the middle of a glade that—like everything—was adorned with leaves and flowers.
As he approached, the front door swayed open automatically.
“Come on in!” a familiar voice called from inside, and he entered.
Passing through the entryway, his boots were promptly clomping on the parquet flooring of the living room. Kyana sat on a sofa on the other end of the room, before a glass wall overlooking a small yard bound by red hedges, wearing a plain cream sleeveless top along with a matching skirt that reached down to her knees. She was pouring a cup of tea down her maw as he came in.
Her amber eyes flitted over to him. She gulped down the last of her tea and set the cup down on the low table before her. Then she stood up from the sofa and strode up to him, clawed feet clacking and tail swaying like a pendulum.
“Hey there, astronaut,” Kyana greeted him with good cheer.
“Hey there, blueberry,” Ruben breathed out deeply.
She grabbed his hand. The glove muted the touch of her claws.
“You sound a little weary,” Kyana said as she tugged him to the sofa. “How was work?”
“Could be worse. Remember that fuss over the particle accelerator parts from six months ago? It’s come back up. Turns out they were lacking some paperwork, and they dropped the whole load on me today. I couldn’t go through it all, so I’ll have to start early tomorrow.”
“They’re still about it? Hope it’s not too much,” Kyana said, plopping herself down on the sofa. She tapped the spot beside her. “Come here.”
“And I also had another talk with them today about my reassignment,” Ruben said, sitting down where she had pointed to. He became aware again of how slack his suit felt as the sheet rucked up. “I even brought up our relationship this time. They—”
“How much did you tell them?” Kyana interrupted.
“Just that we’re close, nothing more. I have to bring out whatever I’ve got to the table that might coax them if I don’t want to get shipped off. Don’t worry about the details, alright?”
“Alright,” Kyana said, laying back and crossing one leg over the other. “I’ve been getting a little uneasy with how they’re peeking at us lately. How did it work out?”
“Well, they said they’ll look into it.” He clasped his hands together. “That’s all.” He raised his arms up to rub his face, stopping midway once he realized he couldn’t, and opted to sigh instead. “I don’t know what’s going through their heads, and it’s making me fret.”
“Hey, don’t work yourself up about it,” she cooed to him. “It’s still not definite, is it? Maybe they’ll understand. We can worry about that later, there’s no point in fretting about it here.” She took his hand into hers. “Take a breath. We can enjoy what we have right now, okay? I want to tell you something hilarious that happened to Sefa this morning at the office, I’m sure it’ll brighten your mood.”
“Hold on,” Ruben said, abruptly letting go of her hand and jumping up from the sofa. He turned towards her. “They didn’t give me as much time today to stay outside. There’s… There’s something I want to show you.”
Her eyes fell on the hand of his that was squeezing one of the belt’s bags. She cocked her head to one side.
“Oh, you’ve got a present for me?” she inquired, her snout forming a smile that half revealed her fangs.
“Yes I do, it’s for me—I mean, sort of,” he stumbled over his words.
He opened the bag and withdrew a gray tube with no markings. It had a cap on one side and a button on the other. Along its length ran a strip, now fully green, indicating the volume of the tube’s content.
“That’s not your emergency antidote is it?” Kyana asked with a hint of worry to her voice. “It looks almost like it. Ruben, you don’t have something stupid on your mind, do you?”
“Do you remember what I told you about the drug they’re working on? The one that should let us walk without a suit around here?”
“Sort of, but you told me they’re still a long way off from making it work safely.”
“Well, Martin—a friend of mine in the medical wing, I believe I’ve told you about him before—he’s part of the team developing the drug. I’ve learned from him that they’ve already created something in the lab that works. The only problem they’re left tackling with is its duration; the samples they have last for just some minutes, and the higher ups won’t approve anything until they can produce a drug that works longer than a day. He predicts that it’ll take at least a year for them to get to that point, let alone hand it out to us for use outside the compound. This morning they were about to throw another batch away, however”—he held the tube up—”I managed to scrounge one off from him.”
Kyana stared. “Wait, you nabbed some experimental drug?” She leapt to her feet. “And you want to test it on yourself right now? Here? With me?”
“Yes, Kyana, that’s why—”
She glared at him. “Ruben, you’re out of your mind. You know well enough what would happen to you if this goes wrong. I can’t let you risk this.”
“Calm down, and please listen to me. They’ve done human trials, they’ve even tested it with iossene present, and the results all came back positive. They’ve figured out the base for it, but it’s still very inefficient now, which is why it doesn’t last long. I don’t know all the details, but you can count on Martin’s word that it’s safe. He said it might have some side effects but nothing serious, nothing like how that antidote would put me in a coma, yet still as effective at keeping me breathing. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”
Kyana sighed, shaking her head morosely. “Ruben, I’m sorry. I know you hate that suit, how it angers you—I understand how much you want to tear it off, but I still think it’s too dangerous.” She closed in on him and took his free hand in hers, drawing circles on the surface of the glove with her clawed thumb. “You know I don’t care if you’re wearing this all the time when you’re around me, right? It doesn’t change anything between us.”
“I know that Kyana, but that’s not what I’m worried about. That reassignment—as long as it’s still a possibility it’ll continue gnawing at me, and I’m only becoming more and more afraid with every day it doesn’t get called off for good. I’m worried that if I have to leave you, all you’ll remember of me is”—he glanced at himself—”this damn suit. If I can’t convince them, and they’re sending me away, I want us to have at least one memory without a suit in the way. Please, Kyana.”
Kyana looked down at the glove, quietly studying it as if she hadn’t noticed it before. She sighed again.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. She let go of his hand and paced around, eventually sauntering through a doorway to an adjacent room from which the clacking of her feet continued to sound. Ruben waited for her, twisting the orange tube in his hand as he watched the red leaves fluttering outside.
After a minute that felt stretched to an eternity she returned.
“I admit, I also really want to do this,” Kyana said, “ever since we became close I’ve wanted to… become even closer. But I’m afraid of hurting you, and I could never forgive myself if I did. Just promise to me, are you sure we can do this safely?”
“Yes,” Ruben said. “I promise. I’ve come fully prepared for this. Martin lectured me on what to do, and as long as we stick to what he said I’ll be fine.”
“Does he know about our… relationship?”
“Maybe? I’ve seen him scurry off with some ladies outside the embassy before, he’s not the kind of person who will make a hassle about it.”
She closed her eyes and exhaled, then opened them again, looking him all over. “So how do you plan to do this?”
“There’s a little port right here”—he pointed at a small circular bump on the right side of his belt—”where you can push the antidote injector through, remember? This is the same kind of injector, but loaded with the drug. I’ll jam it in, and then I can take off my helmet and open up my suit down to my belt. I’ll have a timer set, and once it goes off there will be plenty of time for me to suit myself back up before it’s completely worn off.”
“And once you’ve got your suit off, are we just going to watch each other or… can we also touch?”
“Yes—as long as you don’t mind that, of course. At most I could feel some tingles. My belt has monitors for my vitals, they’ll sound the alarm if it’s too much for me to handle, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Alright,” Kyana said. “I want to give it a go. Just be careful, I don’t want to regret this.”
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry.” Ruben said, giving her a reassuring smile. “First I have to get these out.” He opened the larger bag that hung on the left side of his belt and pulled out a bundle of yellow fabric. “Wet tissues. They’re for wiping—”
“Put that over there, will you?” Kyana cut him off, covering the tip of her snout while scowling at the tissues. “They stink like rotting fruit!”
“Okay, okay.” Ruben backed off from her and dropped the bundle on the top of a cabinet. “I’ll put them here. They’re for when I need to suit back up. They carry the same liquid that’s sprayed on me whenever I head back inside the compound, to get rid of the stuff.”
“Glad I don’t have to be showered with it,” she said, chuckling nervously.
Ruben grabbed his PDA and turned to her. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready when you are,” Kyana responded.
He punched some buttons with his finger and fastened the PDA back to his belt. Then he removed the cap of the injector with a pop, revealing a needle. Lowering it into position, he cast a glance at Kyana. There was a trace of worry on her face, but her tail was swaying slowly, and she gave him a curt nod.
He pierced the injector through the port and into his hip, almost yelling a curse at the stabbing pain he had underestimated, and let the device hang from his side.
“It needs to stay in there the whole time while we’re at it, so please don’t pull it out,” Ruben said with an awkward grin.
As his body absorbed the drug, he lifted his hands to his neck and fidgeted with locks of his round plastic helmet.
“You look so silly with that bubble on your head anyway,” Kyana suddenly said, and tittered.
Ruben chuckled in response. “I should show you sometime what these suits looked like in the past.”
After some tries he managed to unbuckle the helmet, exposing his face to the air—which felt rather sultry, but not sweltering—and placed it next to the bundle of tissues on the cabinet. Before he began opening his suit, he saw Kyana eyeing him intently, and her tail’s swaying had sped up. It dawned upon him that this was the first time they were seeing each other without a barrier between them, and he froze in place for a couple of seconds watching her, as if he was seeing her blue skin for the first time.
But time was his most valuable commodity right now. Removing the helmet had revealed the slider for his suit’s zipper. He pulled it down and wrenched his arms out from the sleeves, letting the upper part of his suit hang loose over his belt. He was still wearing a gray jumpsuit underneath, but his hands were now exposed as well.
This wasn’t enough for him. With resolve, he opened his jumpsuit and let its upper part hang down too.
“W-wait Ruben!” Kyana yelped, her eyes wide. “That’s not necessary too is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Ruben said calmly. “But this might be the only shot we’ll have, so I’m going all the way out.”
He walked away from the cabinet and up to her until they stood an arm’s-length away from each other. Kyana’s eyes were pinned to his bare chest.
“Okay, just try not to touch the inner side of my suit or clothes. The tissues can deal with it, but better safe than sorry.”
They gawked each other in silence, unsure of what to do next. Whatever scenarios he had devised on the way here had now vanished like vapor. He saw her twiddling her fingers. That gave him a cue.
“We can start with a handshake,” Ruben said.
“Wha—yeah, let’s do that.”
Kyana held out her right hand first. He brought his own forward with the intention to grasp it, but his arm stiffened midway through the act. His whole body tensed up out of reflex. Having suddenly lost the courage which drove him to pull down his jumpsuit, he now stared, befuddled, at the clawed hand before him. Though he could still breathe, he felt as if his throat was tightening, his chest scrunching up; as if his body wanted to show him what would follow after accepting that invitation, and he would soon be writhing on the floor.
He shook his head in an effort to slough these thoughts off from his mind. He was still convinced of the drug’s effectiveness in protecting him, but there was only one way to prove it: by accepting the scaly hand offered to him. Perhaps he could quickly brush it with his fingertips, like one would do to check whether something is hot to the touch, but he knew it didn’t work that way. He had to be resolute.
“Ruben, if you don’t want to—”
He cut her off but by clasping her hand with his, earning him a startled gasp from her. The skin of her palm felt soft, cool, and a little slick. The scales on the dorsal side, where his fingertips reached, were rougher and more rigid. She did not yet grip his hand in return, and almost seemed prepared to jerk hers away, but then it tightened, her dull claws digging softly in his skin. An itching sting grew on his hand, as if he was holding a bundle of nettles. It was both slightly uncomfortable and soothing.
No word passed between them as they cautiously observed their joined hands. Nor came any alarm from his belt. Only the sound of their breathing filled the room—chiefly Ruben’s, who was breathing through his mouth.
“You’re alright?” Kyana broke the silence. “You’re not—I’m not hurting you?”
“I feel great Kyana. This is… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s incredible.”
Her eyes beamed with joy, gazing at him with pupils like dark pillars. Ruben brought up his other hand to cover the top of hers, caging it in.
“You’re so warm,” Kyana said, and she also added her other hand to the clump. “And so… smooth.”
After some moments of enjoying the double handshake, they released their hold. Ruben then slowly slid a hand over both of her forearms, where the skin was uniformly rough around, feeling each bump of her scales under his fingers. She mirrored the movement on his own, delicately kneading his skin with her claws as she did so.
And still his belt remained silent.
She glanced at his hands, which were now traveling past her elbow and up to her shoulders, then shifted her eyes to his chest. Suddenly, she sprang back.
“Something wrong?” Ruben asked.
“Let me take this off first,” she said. “It’ll be easier this way.”
She wriggled herself out of her top, threw it towards the sofa, and took a step back to him.
Ruben gaped at her. She wore nothing under it, and her chest was bared before him, featureless at the top but curving inwards at the waist and broadening again at the hips. Her dark blue scales glistered, as if she was carved from a chunk of azurite. Black patches were sprawled all over her lithe body; blotches of differing shapes and sizes, but none larger than a hand, marking her from the crest of her long head all the way down across her tail with no respect to symmetry.
“Kyana,” Ruben faltered. “May I?”
“You wanted this, didn’t you? Or did you not plan this far ahead?” She giggled. “Go ahead, wherever you’d like.”
Without hesitation he took hold of her shoulders, the roughest spots of her skin yet. He caressed them, then glided his hands downwards, his palms flat against her equally flat chest. The scales here were surprisingly softer; he gently applied pressure and she wheezed, venting a sort of raspy sough, which he could best interpret as a moan. Her tail was swinging so wildly that the tip would thud the floor. His hands continued further down past her waist, over her widening hips and to the rim of her skirt, then brought his hands back up to her shoulders.
He realized her arms were hanging slack beside her torso.
“You can do the same if you’d like,” Ruben said.
“Are you sure? It’s still safe, right?”
“Back to being a worrywart? You were so bold just now. Don’t hold back, blueberry.”
She drew her hands towards him, and gingerly raked his chest up and down with her dull claws, as if she was still dwelling on how far she was willing to go. But after a couple of passes she pressed her palms against his chest. The touch stung more than he had foreseen, passing a tingle that spread to his left arm. He failed to stifle a shiver at the sudden pang, and his instinct almost goaded him to jump back, but as long as his belt wasn’t blaring he stood firm.
Kyana however noticed his unease, and she was about to withdraw her hands, but Ruben let go of her shoulders and grasped them, pulling them back to his chest.
“I’m fine,” Ruben said.
And indeed he felt the sting ebb away, replaced by the welcoming softness of her squamous palms.
“Your hands are just… a little colder than I expected,” Ruben said. “We have an old saying about that: cold hands, warm hearts.”
“But you’re warm all over, your heart must be burning like one of the suns then.”
He laughed. “I’m not sure if it works that way, but thank you.”
She sank her hands down to the sides of his waist while his hands were still draped on her shoulders. They beheld each other, no barrier keeping them apart, delighting in the sensual bond they had been longing for. Were it for Ruben, he would’ve let this moment last forever; in a way, he already believed it did, for the tube jutting from his side was far from his thoughts.
“How about we go on a date?” Ruben asked. “We could go to that restaurant—I forgot its name—the one on the hill, not far from here, and have dinner together. Then we could go down for swim in the lake.”
Kyana stared at him silently, until understanding flashed across her face, her maw curling into a smile.
“Oh, you mean The Green Fish?” she inquired. “Their dishes are a little too salty for my taste. If you want seafood, we could go to Old Hisser’s instead. It’s one of my favorites, and not far from here, in one of the tree houses. Their squid melts in your maw!”
“Sounds good to me. But can we still go swimming after that?”
“In the lake? Too muddy if you ask me. But we could go to one of the hot springs instead.”
“Even better, I hadn’t thought about that. We could lie together and sip a drink.”
“We could take the monorail to the coast, and walk along the beach together with our feet in the water.”
“Then we could hold a picnic on one of the cliffs, watch the suns go down in the sea, maybe stay a while to gaze at the stars and the nebulae.”
“And we could… make love…”
Ruben’s heart leapt at these final words. He blushed heavily, possessed by her amber eyes which now flared with a blaze of unalloyed desire. Her claws dug in his waist, and she slowly leaned towards him, bringing her snout closer and closer to his face, her maw aimed for his mouth.
A loud peal pierced the stillness of the room. They reeled backwards with a start, though still holding each other. The timer had gone off. The dream was being shattered, collapsing all around them. If he did not break free from the woman in his arms, from the one whom he could perceive only as his lover, she would soon become his most dangerous enemy.
Despite the belt’s wails, Ruben still held on to her for some seconds, soaking up the touch of her skin, the sight of her blue and black scales, savoring as much of her as he could. Then, hesitantly, his hands left her.
Kyana was still holding him by the waist. Suddenly, she lurched forward, bringing her snout beside his head. Her maw opened, her glistening teeth parted, and out the gap darted a tongue, thick and purple, tenderly gliding across his cheek with a single stroke. A warm moistness lingered on his skin, a kiss of not-yet-death.
“I-I’m sorry,” Kyana said, letting go of him and taking a step back.
“It’s fine,” Ruben said. “Everything’s fine.”
Swiftly but reluctantly he returned to the cabinet where the helmet and the bundle of yellow tissues lay. Starting with his hands and arms, he wiped his skin with the tissues, moving on to his chest and the spot on his face, scrubbing himself clean of every stain of love. He shoved his arms through the sleeves of his jumpsuit and zipped up, repeating the procedure for his outer suit. Finally, he donned the bubble on his head and locked it, then detached the injector from his belt. The tube’s green strip had shrunk to a mere speck.
He trudged to Kyana, who had seated herself on the sofa and was watching the yard. The light outside had dimmed and the red leaves had darkened like blood drying up. Heavily he let himself fall beside her. Unsure of where to focus his eyes, he settled for the empty cup that stood solitary on the low table.
Neither spoke.
The barrier had been cruelly set up again, and it now seemed to loom more vividly in Ruben’s mind than ever before. Tears began to well up in his eyes, and he quickly closed them in a desperate effort not to let them trickle down his face, as the helmet made it impossible to wipe them away. But his nose stuffed up, and he sniffled hard, causing Kyana to be torn out of her musing and face him for the first time since he had suited back up.
She slipped her arm under his and drew him close.
He tried not to take note of the suit’s deadening effect on his senses.
“Everything alright?”, she asked. “I’m sorry, I was a bit lost in my thoughts. Are you feeling fine?”
“I’m fine, don’t worry. I’m just—I didn’t expect it to be over so quickly, or for it to end at all. I wish it could’ve gone on.”
“I loved it, Ruben. I loved every second of it. It was wonderful, I mean it, and I shouldn’t have doubted you about it. It’s a happy memory, just like you wanted, right? I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sight of you, nor how warm and smooth your skin feels.” She twisted her free hand and looked at the palm, smiling. “I can still feel that warmness on my fingers.”
“I’m glad to hear that, really. I don’t regret a second of it. And I want to do it again someday, for a much longer time, but as long as I don’t know what the future has in store for me…” He leaned closer to her, his helmet almost hitting her snout. “I’m just afraid this was our only opportunity.”
“Take it easy. As long as nothing’s definite, there’s still room to hope. I promise, when the day comes, we’ll have our picnic on the cliff.”
Ruben chuckled. “You’re one sweet blueberry, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never had one!”
“Then I’ll bring some for you to our picnic.”