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He took a bite and Abbey heard his deep hum of approval.
“Mmm, you’re right—that’s very good. No wonder this is such a popular Earth food.”
They finished the pizza off together and then Solon asked if she wanted to try a Monstrum dish. Abbey agreed and he rehydrated a meal cube that turned out to be a delicious cold salad with lots of small, crunchy alien vegetables in a slightly sweet vinegary dressing. They ate it with spoons like it was breakfast cereal but when Abbey remarked on it, she then had to explain the concept of cereal to the big Kindred.
“So…you bake and sweeten grains and store them in a rectangular box. Then when you want to eat them, you pour them into a bowl and fill it with the extrusions of a bovine animal?” He sounded doubtful.
Abbey burst out laughing.
“Not extrusions—milk! You know—the same milk the cow uses to feed its calf—its baby.”
“But why would you steal the milk from the youngling?” Solon wanted to know. “What does the calf drink if you take the sustenance from its mother and use it for your cereal?”
“They’re not really stealing it from the baby calf—they breed the cows to keep giving milk all the time, even when they don’t have babies,” she tried to explain.
“Ah, all right.” The golden blur that was his head made a motion and she assumed he was nodding. “But I still wonder how the humans first decided they should drink what a baby cow drinks.”
“Who knows?” Abbey shrugged. “But we use milk to make cheese and butter and ice cream—all kinds of dairy products. And they’re all delicious—we’ll have to get some so you can try them. Especially ice cream—that’s a sweet, creamy dessert that’s sinfully fattening,” she added.
“It sounds intriguing. I’m willing to try it,” he rumbled. “Maybe we can go out to the Earth food store tomorrow and get some.”
Abbey bit her lip. She hadn’t promised to do more than spend the rest of today and the night with him. And she certainly hadn’t committed to the whole Claiming Period. But so far she liked the big Monstrum—he was taking her blindness in stride in a way no one else she’d ever met had done.
Most of the time when people found out she was blind, they started treating her differently. Some of them seemed to think she was also mentally impaired and others started being extremely careful around her, like she was made of fine china and might break. Solon had done neither of those things. He didn’t seem to see her blindness as a disability—it was just something different about her and he didn’t seem to mind making accommodations when she asked for them.
“Maybe,” she said at last. “Let’s wait and see how the rest of our trial period goes.”
“Of course. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to make you feel pressured,” Solon said.
“You didn’t,” Abbey assured him. “I just want to take things slowly—that’s all.”
“We’ll go at whatever pace you want,” he promised. “I’m willing to wait for however long it takes, lelka—you’re worth waiting for.”
Abbey felt her cheeks getting hot with a blush. He wasn’t touching her, but she could feel his eyes on her and the intensity of his stare was, well, intense.
“What…what does ‘lelka’ mean?” she asked, trying to cover her confusion. “You’ve called me that several times.”
“Oh, it’s a word from my native language. It means ‘little one’ or ‘cherished one.’ I hope that doesn’t offend you,” he rumbled. “You’re just so tiny and delicate—the name seemed to fit you.”
Abbey laughed.
“Tiny and delicate? Well, that’s the first time I’ve been called that.” Even before she’d lost her vision, she’d known that she wasn’t the ideal size and shape for a woman. She had always been too curvy and lately she’d gained some weight, which she was currently trying to lose.
“You are tiny—at least you seem tiny to me,” Solon protested. “But if you’d rather I didn’t call you lelka?—”
“No, it’s all right.” Abbey smiled at him. “I, uh, kind of like it. It’s nice.”
“I’m glad you approve.” He sounded relieved. “Well, let me clean up and then would you like to do something for entertainment?”
“What did you have in mind?” Abbey asked him.
“Hmm…well, I was going to suggest that we watch a vid together, I have quite a collection—both Earth and Monstrum entertainment vids—but I’m not sure how you feel about ‘watching’ something when you can’t see the details.”
“I don’t mind, if you’ll describe what’s happening in the scene to me,” Abbey told him.
“Certainly, I can do that,” Solon agreed. “So what would you like to watch?”
“Well, let’s see—what have you got?”
