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Except for what looked to be a book of sorts. I gawked at the ancient tech, afraid to touch it in case the pages fell apart. Not that it looked old – it seemed newly printed. But I hadn’t seen a book like this in person… ever. I was pretty sure there was a bookstore on Elora Station, but I hadn’t visited it while there.
It was open on the bed, pages-down and covers-up, as if he’d put it down in a rush but hadn’t wanted to lose his place. I couldn’t read the Zabrian text on the front cover, but there was no mistaking what the image showed. It was an illustration of a smiley human woman wearing a wedding dress.
What the hell…?
I took a quick look out the bedroom’s only window, glanced back through the open doorway to the kitchen, and saw no one. I strained my ears but didn’t hear the accusatory footfall of Silar coming back to find me snooping, either. And really, was this even snooping? This was the only bedroom in the tiny house, which meant it had to be mine now, too. And it wasn’t like he’d hidden the book or anything. Still feeling like I was doing something wrong, I held my breath and picked up the book.
It was open to a page of text I couldn’t read. I kept my thumb in that spot so I wouldn’t lose the page, then flipped through the rest of it. It was mostly dense, alien lettering, but every once in a while, there was a cartoonish image thrown in illustrating some facet of human life or another.
I gasped, then snorted, my cheeks warming when I came across the image of a naked human woman. Like the other images in the book, it wasn’t a photograph, but rather something rendered. The result was slightly silly and vaguely embarrassing, reminding me of awkward sexual health lessons at New Toronto High. Even worse was the next page, which showed a euphoric cartoon human male guiding his erection towards an equally blissed-out cartoon lady with her legs spread open. There were black lines connecting labels to various parts of the human anatomy for both figures, like a medical diagram.
Oh my fucking God. Is this some kind of human sex manual?!
OK, maybe sex manual wasn’t exactly a fair description. Most of the other pages seemed to be about things like clothing and food and Terratribes I and II. But still, the thought of Silar studying the cartoon women on these pages – so happy they practically looked fucking high – made me want to melt into a puddle on the floor and disappear.
But then again, the book hadn’t been opened to this page. Maybe he hadn’t even gotten to this part of the book yet. If he was reading it in order, he’d have a hefty amount of text to sift through before he got to the good stuff near the back.
I thought about tearing the sex-ed page out of the book just to save both of us some awkwardness, but then I thought better of it. If Silar was ever going to get over his weird apprehension around me and actually want to do the deed, it would probably be good if he had some sense of what human sex involved beforehand.
With that in mind, I actually felt a bit miffed about the fact I hadn’t gotten my own Zabrian manual to study. How come my husband got colourful cartoon porn to prepare for the arrival of his human wife when all I’d gotten was my sheaf of silver landing papers and a card with Silar’s name tacked on the back?
Taking my thumb out from the saved spot, I placed the book back down just as it had been before.
Further exploration of the house revealed a cold cellar below-ground which looked to be mostly food storage, accessible via a set of stairs built down into the floor of the kitchen. I was rather put out to see there was no real bathroom, instead just a small outhouse to the side of the main house and a hose out back like there had been at the warden’s building.
Guess that’s my new shower, I thought, pursing my lips as I surveyed the bare-bones toilet-and-washing situation. The water pressure back in my Terratribe I apartment wasn’t anything impressive, but at least it had been inside the house!
I figured the water here probably came from a well system. I wasn’t sure if it was heated, though I did notice what appeared to be some sort of solar tech at the side of the house which presumably powered at least some of the things around here, like Silar’s data tab charger.
I was just considering whether I was brave enough to give the outhouse a try when footsteps made me spin around. Silar had chosen that moment to return, though when his eyes lit on me, he looked like he was about to turn right back around again.
“Is this where you wash?” I asked, my voice oddly high and croaky, unwilling to let him go again. Surely asking about the water situation wouldn’t get me ignored for another twenty minutes the way asking about his parents had.
“Yes,” he grunted. He walked over to the hose, which was looped around a hook on the house’s outer wall. It reminded me of the way his golden tail looped around its belt hook.
His tail unwound, the end slithering over to a metal tap on the wall which, once turned, sent water spewing out the hose. He turned it off once more.
“You wash out here even in the winter?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you get cold?”
“Not really.”
“I’d probably get cold,” I said, not wanting to cause trouble but also not wanting to freeze my fucking ass off out here come winter.
“Oh.” He hesitated, as if that thought had never occurred to him before, then said, “There’s a tub for laundry. You’re small. You’d fit in it.” He jutted his tail towards the house. “You can fill it inside and wash there if needed.”
“Oh, good,” I said, breathing out with relief. I could probably even let it heat up in front of that big oven, too. I’d have to get naked in the kitchen, of course, but was that any worse than prancing around outside without clothes?
“Make sure to always wind it back up here in the shade of the house,” Silar was saying now, drawing my attention back to the hose. “If you leave the hose sitting out in the sun too long, when you turn the water on it will be hot enough to burn.”
“Oh. Thank you.” My thanks were sincere – I wasn’t aware of such a possibility and was glad for the warning. I’d never had a garden or outdoor space on Terratribe I, and it never got very hot and sunny there. “Did that happen to you?”
“Only once,” he said. “Learned my lesson. Only part of me that ever burns these days are my ears.”
“Your ears?” Was that some kind of metaphor about being embarrassed? But that had to be a human thing – burning ears. I hadn’t even seen any ears on this guy! Where was he hiding them?
