The Flare

Hot Dogs & Potato Salad

Salona squared her shoulders. All she needed to do was lure Jake into a frenzy, like a riki in heat, then she could kill him. Justifiably. She might even be able to convince herself it wasn’t wrong.

On Naron no such concept as seduction existed. Intimacy was a matter of timing, requiring specific intervals like mealtimes, all determined by a woman’s biological needs. The wife’s biological clock ruled her mates’ worlds. It was one of the reasons having three husbands became a necessity.

Salona thought back on her brief meeting with Leinad before she left Naron; thank the gods she was allowed access to her brother before leaving. He was the only one she knew with knowledge about humans. As a youngling, when she was learning about her duty as a woman, Leinad would tell her stories about the mating rituals of different species. Humans were always the strangest, using mechanical devices and moving images to incite intimacy.

Leinad could only provide limited information. The one useful bit was a female’s odd use of clothing. They would carefully cover and reveal body parts like legs and mammary glands. Salona looked down at what she was wearing. The lycoprine suit was snug everywhere, leaving little to the imagination. If anything could cover and simultaneously expose her body this should do it. Except…Salona lowered the front enclosure, so a small swell of her breasts showed. This would have to do.

Leinad also said human males had a fascination with hair, especially blonde hair. Well, there was nothing she could do about the color, but she could let it down. Salona removed the binding to her hair and let it flow around her shoulders. It fell around her face and chest, the black color blending with her suit.

She would have to watch Jake very closely to make sure her ruse was working. If he showed any indication of arousal, she would have to alter her approach. Dilated eyes, flared nose, agitation. Those were the signs she was looking for. She just had to keep her eyes open.

Salona tucked her small particle beam weapon in her jacket, reassuring herself it was concealed. If she had to kill a human to get home, to bring back the life she had with her father, she would. Killing a whole planet of humans seemed reasonable right now.

Home.

There she could find an eligible male and begin her duties as a woman. Now she knew she could flare, she just had to find someone to dampen it. Didn’t she? Well, the sooner she did this, the sooner she could return and find out.    

Salona entered the space station’s dining area. It was relatively small, but the station was not designed for large groups of people. The Denaarans had over fifty such stations throughout the galaxy. They served as way stations for traveling diplomats though their original purpose had been to support trade between planets. Designed for function and short stays they were more functional than glamorous, capable of holding no more than fifteen at one time.

Their mission parameters were to clean the station and maximize the space allowable for two delegations and their security teams. The dining hall was just one of the features she and Jake were supposed to fix, turning it into a space for the negotiations.

Inside Jake was sitting at a table, surrounded by several dishes filled with clumpy masses. His hair was shaggy and unkempt despite the shower he took earlier. Fantasies of running her fingers through the slightly curled locks raced through her mind.

Concentrate, she willed herself. This was not about arousing me. It’s about him.

“Is this human food?” Salona looked at the odd shaped mounds, willing her body to focus and stop running amok. Luckily, Dex distracted Jake as she attempted to get the tingling under control. He ran over to Jake, climbed up his shoulders and began chattering excitedly.

“Yeah,” Jake scratched Dex’s ears. “I thought some comfort food might smooth things over. Maybe help us rebuild some of those bridges that got blown up in the shower.” Jake smiled, pleased with his gesture.

Salona was having trouble understanding the nuances of his language. “You wish to build a structure over a large crevice?” She noticed his nostrils flared as his eyes moved down to her chest when she said the word ‘crevice.’ Was this a sign of arousal?

But then he began to laugh, clutching his midsection in apparent pain. She went from feeling hopeful to insulted. Why was he laughing? She had understood his words perfectly.

“What about a crevice is so humorous on Earth? Are they all covered with these rough edges you insist on smoothing out?”

“No! No. It’s a colloquialism. I didn’t realize it could be taken literally. What I mean is…what I was hoping…was to give you a better first impression of me than coming straight from the shower. I had planned on greeting you with clothes on.”

Salona’s body shivered remembering his bare body, shiny with droplets of water. She had to shake her head to get the image to go away.

Lucky for her, Dex chose that moment act up. He charged the table, jumped up and stole a cylindrical shaped piece of food, then scampered away, hiding behind another table on the other side of the room.

“Dex!” Salona snapped her fingers, trying to get the little creature to come back. Dex poked his head out, took a bite, and quickly disappeared again.

Jake laughed. “Is he going to be OK eating that hotdog?”

“He should be. Rikis are known for their ability to eat anything,” she laughed, thinking back to the many times she’d walked in on Dex eating something strange. Her bedding, her books and even her clothing.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” This time when he smiled two small divots appeared one on either side of his mouth. Salona’s body screamed with a desire to lick them. Luckily, his voice stopped her from acting on that impulse.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Salona finally turned her attention to the clumps and masses on the table in front of her. “So, this is human food? Is it always so pungent?”

“Yeah, some foods more than others. I hope you don’t mind I only prepared Earth food. I always find it easier to break the ice over good food.”

“Why would you break solidified water over your food?” Between crevices and ice, Salona’s weak grasp on Jake’s language was beginning to upset her. She learned the basics on her journey to the station. She had an uncanny ability to memorize sounds. But most of the phrases he used were outside her understanding. He used simple words that when put together made no sense.

“Break the ice…you know, get past the awkwardness so we can get to know each other?”

“We do not do this by breaking solid objects.” Salona bit her tongue, trying to swallow her frustration. “But thank you, I will accept your human food…despite the smell.”

Jake smiled and shook his head. “It’s not a traditional meal in a cultural sense, but I always enjoyed it when I was a kid.”

Jake served up a tray of the cylindrical meats Dex was clearly fond of as well as a mixture of lumps and colorful bits. To top it all off he squirted red fluid on her cylinder.

“Hot dogs and potato salad.” He took a huge bite and smiled; his mouth full of food.

“This is child’s food on earth?” Salona’s voice let him know her disapproval of his preference. She leaned down, sniffing the food, the pungent smell jerking her back.

“Too intense for you? Doesn’t food smell on Naron?”

“Naronians eat tasteless and odorless compressed nutrient based plant matter. There is some variety consisting of different textures.” Jake’s face told her how appealing he thought that sounded.

“I suppose if I could get used to RME’s, then anything’s possible.” At her confusion Jake explained, “RME’s, ready-made to eat packs of food the military doles out to their men. This isn’t a five-star meal, but children and adult men tend to flock toward it. Go ahead, try it.” Jake smiled, challenging her. “Unless you’re scared?”

Salona glared at him as she grabbed one of those cylindrical things and put it to her mouth. The smell was pungent, almost overwhelming her. Just as she was about to bite down, she looked over at Jake, her heart skipped a beat. His jaw was dropped, his eyes were wide, and he was intent on Salona’s face as she slid the meat into her mouth.

His response mirrored her own. This was the sign she was looking for! She stalled her hand, pushing the meat in her mouth with more drama, slowly taking a bite.

Slow, she told herself, running her tongue over the edge of the meat. Make him crazy. Make him senseless with his desires.

Jake’s eyes widened further, his tongue running over his bottom lip.

Just a little more, she thought. And then he will break.

But then the taste of the hot dog hit her tongue, and Salona’s senses went into overdrive. She could feel the taste of it all over her body. She chewed the meat slowly, her eyes closed in extasy. The euphoria of human food was a whole new experience.

Driving Jake to madness suddenly seemed less important, consuming more of the amazing food her new priority. Salona took another hasty bite of her hotdog, lifting the potato salad to her mouth as she had seen Jake do. She couldn’t get enough. She wanted more and more.

“Whoa there, little lady,” Jake laughed. “Slow down, you don’t want to give yourself a stomachache!”

“I’ve never…this is amazing!”   

“So I assume you liked it?” Jake asked a half hour later, rubbing his belly full of potato salad. Salona sat across from him; her face still streaked with small bits of potato salad. Never had he never seen a woman eat so voraciously. He was more accustomed to seeing women fiddle with their salad for a few minutes instead of taking actual bites. He always wondered what it was with them and food. Only his mother seemed capable of eating a real meal.

He was relieved the food managed to distract Salona from whatever was making her nervous. She was watching him as if any minute he’d jump up and start doing the Merengue. It was beginning to weird him out. He felt like someone’s science experiment.

When she walked into the mess hall, he almost had a heart attack. Her hair swayed around her shoulders, the zipper to her suit dangerously low. She looked like a woman trying to seduce him. But when he looked at her face, he saw nervous scrutiny, as if she were testing him.

“It was amazing. We consider taste a frivolous sensation in general. Algae is our primary food source. And it tastes better compressed and dry than its natural flavor. Yech.” Salona’s face scrunched together like she swallowed a lemon.

“Man, that sucks,” Jake stared at her mouth, mesmerized by the cadence of her speech. Of course, the word ‘suck’ brought other images to his mind. Images of her putting that hotdog in her mouth came to him. Jake shook his head trying to clear his mind. He remembered that look on her face, like she was waiting for him to do something. Damn if he was going to play into whatever game she had in mind.

“We do not suck our food.” Salona was confused again. He had to stop himself from laughing lest he insult her.

Jake contemplated saying something else just to see the bemusement on her face. It was adorable. It had been a long time since he felt this way around a woman. He wanted to make her laugh and see her natural responses to life. Being around her was like experiencing life again for the first time—fresh and new.

“Why do you continually find my attempts to understand your language humorous? If you speak using the true meaning of your words, there would be no misunderstanding! It is as if you want to make a joke of me!”

“I'm not laughing at you." Jake said soberly, this was an entirely new type of interaction for him. No double entendres. No sly maneuverings. She was frank and honest with him, a quality rarely found on Earth. "I never realized how silly our language is."

"It is a silly language! Why have multiple meanings for words? It is as if you try to hide behind them—say one thing but mean another." Salona huffed.

"It's true. We do." Jake found no reason to deny what was a reality on Earth. No one wanted to be honest and expose themselves to vulnerability. Not even with his mother was he fully honest about his feelings and intentions. He tried to image what would happen if he were radically honest about everything. He would be fired immediately. Every woman he knew would slap him across the mouth. And his mother would disown him.

Salona was getting more and more worked up now. Intuitively Jake knew she was angry about something other than his use of English. "It would be helpful for your interactions if you said words you meant, and not use other words to cover your meanings."

 Jake thought on that for a minute. She was right. Everyone on Earth was afraid of saying what they really meant. But what about her? She was hiding something, and he knew it. From the way she looked like s*x on a stick but watched him like he was a science project, to her inability to keep any emotion off her face. She was keeping a secret.

The thought of her keeping secrets pissed him off. He wanted her to trust him. He did not want their interactions to be political maneuverings. He was an exploratory astronaut, not some damn government rep.

"Ok, if you're so high and mighty, telling everything like it is. Why are you so jumpy around me? Tell me in those mysterious honest words you Naronians are so proud of. Why’ve you been acting like you’re waiting for me to spin in a circle and grow a second head?”