Chasing Cthulhu (Urf Oomons #2)

After Mandy’s little lesson, I know how to track down Lu now and I find him in the swimming pod. There is only one way out of it and that is the hole in the floor. The alien guys dive in there and it’s a twisty turning tunnel to the big, spherical pod that they swim around in. Ken explained to me that it needs to be a pod and can’t be a human-style pool because if something were to happen with the gravity on this ship, we need all that water to stay where it’s at. If it was a pool, the water could just float up and away, messing up other parts of the ship.

So it’s just a room with a hole in the floor and I’m waiting here for Lu to come out. Waiting and waiting. The longer I wait, the more determined I am.

I sit against the wall and rest my head on my knees. I keep my knees together and sit as demurely as I can because I don’t want his first sight when he comes out to be right up my skirt. I’ve found I like Mandy’s style of wrapping a length of cloth around my hips and tying it off for a sarong type of skirt. These and a few T-shirts Mandy gave me from her department store stash make for a very comfortable wardrobe.

This waiting in total silence is giving me lots of time to think.

If Lu is avoiding me, why am I here trying to force something? What do I even want to talk with him about?

I’d like to gain an understanding of what has scared him off. Why he works so hard to avoid me?

But the real question is, why do I care?

I don’t really know why. I know what Mandy thinks though. She has been playing matchmaker this whole time.

But honestly, I’m not going to date an alien. I’m a human woman and I only date humans. End of. He has tentacles, for goodness sake.

My mind briefly flashes to some of the stranger hentai I’ve seen. Listen, I’m not a perv, but I have been on the internet, so I know about weird porn. It’s awkward and disturbing, not hot at all.

But other people must like it otherwise there wouldn’t be as much interest in it. Mandy obviously doesn’t object to weird alien anatomy.

And who am I kidding with a ‘humans only’ dating policy? I’ve decided not to go back to Earth, ever. I’m going to make a life for myself out here in space. Socializing with aliens is part of that. There aren’t a lot of humans to choose from out here. If I couldn’t make a relationship work with humans back on Earth, why hold on to the notion out here. Am I really going to give up on relationships and sex? Forever?

That’s something to think about, but it’s not reason enough to fall into Mandy’s match-making trap.

Lost in thought, staring at the floor, I almost miss the small splashing sound of Lu getting out of the pool. When I jerk my head up, I catch a glimpse of him. But then he quickly camouflages. I can still make out his shape, but it’s hard. If I didn’t already know he was there—

‘You’re being ridiculous,’ I tell him.

His color quickly washes out to a dark gray as he says, ‘I am being considerate.’

‘How? Where I come from, it’s rude to ignore people.’

‘I never ignore you.’

Flashing through my thoughts are the videos of him following me. He’s right, ignore is the wrong word. Why does the reminder of him stalking me make me feel—warm?

‘This pleases you?’

I wave off that question as I stand and ask my own, ‘Okay, you don’t really ignore me, but you are avoiding me. How’s that considerate?’

‘My form,’ he gestures at his lower body with all of those tentacles, ‘is offensive to you. And so is my touch. I keep myself away from you and out of sight to spare you.’

‘That’s not true at all! Why would you think that?’

‘I could smell your alarm. When we were abducted, every time we touched for any reason, you were startled and offended.’

I shake my head. ‘That’s just not true.’

‘Your pheromones do not lie. I could smell your stress responses, the scent saturated the whole enclosure.’

‘I was being held captive! And you were grabbing at me!’

I’m getting worked up. I try to calm down just a smidge then ask, ‘What about last night? How did I smell when you carried me to my room?

‘Inebriated.’ He grins when he answers.

The whole time we’ve been talking, the color of his skin has been lightening from dark, storm cloud gray to a light shimmery color. Just now, when I mentioned him carrying me, his upper chest warmed to a subtle pink. Pink means happy, doesn’t it? I think Mandy told me it does.

‘So let’s see if I’m understanding you.’ I step over a couple tentacles and stand nearer to him looking up into his weird yellow eyes. ‘You want to be near me, but you don’t like my smell when you’ve touched me in the past and now you’re avoiding me.’

‘No, you—’

‘How do I smell now?’

‘What?’

‘I’m near you.’ I gesture toward my feet where two tentacles are winding around my ankles. ‘You’re touching me. How do I feel about it? Can you tell?’

‘You—’ He shakes his head as though in a daze. ‘You smell annoyed. And pleased.’ He lowers himself, adjusting his height by spreading his tentacles across the floor and winding them around each other. Leaning over me, he takes an audible sniff of my hair. The tentacles winding up my calves tighten. ‘You smell excited.’

My cheeks warm and I shrug then say, ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘If you enjoy my touch, why did you slap me and rebuke me when I touched you before?’

I’m distracted by how his tentacles are winding up my legs. The undersides are textured and have two rows of cups that kind of stick then unstick as they move. It feels like I’m being stroked and licked and squeezed all at the same time and it’s overwhelming my senses.

You know how earlier I thought I would never be into an alien at all? I was mistaken. Maybe I’m some sort of perv, but it’s occurred to me that the little cups that are moving against my inner thigh right now could move higher and be put to better use—

‘Gloria.’

‘Huh?’ I’ve lost the thread of our conversation. The way he’s looming over me—

Lifting my arms to run my hands over his shoulders, I then twine them around his neck to pull him closer. I’m reveling in this. It’s been a long time since I last felt this way, warm and needy and just plain turned on. It’s crazy that it’s this alien with his tentacles doing it.

I tilt my head back, inviting a kiss, but I immediately feel dumb because this is an alien. He probably doesn’t know anything about kissing. Why am I even—

And then he purrs, I swear. He purrs like a giant house cat and makes this trilling sound that my translator lets me know is pleasure, just pure happiness. He rubs his cheek against mine and tucks his nose behind my ear where he draws a deep breath, clearly luxuriating in my scent.

He’s just—he’s so obvious!

Maybe I should be leery of him. He said he’s obsessed with me, and he’s been stalking me. But he’s so unabashedly happy that I’m near him, allowing him to touch me.

Mandy was right. These aliens don’t know how to play any games and he’s not holding anything back. He’s eagerly showing all of his feelings. From the pink glow of his skin to the rumbling purr, to that happy trilling sound, he’s just—enraptured. And the reason he was staying away from me is because he thought I dislike him? That’s just so—

There’s something about such a big scary monster of an alien being so unsure and so sweet—it flips a switch in me. I forget everything except how this feels right now. And if he doesn’t know how to kiss, I’m about to teach him.

Using the hold I have around his shoulders, I pull him down and he is putty in my hands offering no resistance at all. There’s something thrilling about that. When I press my mouth to his though, he stills. Obviously shocked. For just a moment, I’m self-conscious, but then he purrs so strongly it vibrates my whole body where I’m plastered against him.

‘For the love of—’

I spring apart from Lu, tripping over his tentacles. I almost fall, but he wraps one tentacle around my waist and steadies me.

It’s Ken who’s barged in on us and he’s complaining, ‘What is it about humans and public mating displays? There are so many private rooms on this ship! Why—’

‘Quiet.’ Lu maneuvers me behind him and faces off against Ken. ‘You will not speak to her that way.’

‘What way?’ Ken asks, ‘And I am not speaking to just her.’

‘You have no right to censure us.’

Ken rolls his eyes in a very human gesture he probably learned from Mandy. ‘Fine. Go ahead and mate in the swimming pod access room. Why would I mind?’

He scrunches all of his tentacles up at once in a Homeworlder gesture that I can’t interpret and then, as Lu snarls at him, he leaps across the room and into the water. He swims out of sight before I could blink.

Huh. I didn’t know they could jump at all, much less so far. The tentacles don’t even have bones. How do they manage?

‘Apologies,’ Lu says.

‘No worries.’ I wave him off and shrug away from his grasp. He lets me go. ‘I’m going to go find Mandy. We’re visiting a space station tonight.’

‘Risant Two.’ Lu supplies the name of the station.

‘Yeah, exactly. So I’ll, uh, see ya later,’ I say, then spin around and leave the room.

‘See you later,’ I hear him say as I speed-walk away.

What the hell? I can’t believe I was just caught making out with an alien.