The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (34 page)

She stood shaking in his room and he closed the door to the wet room.

“El, why didn’t you put the nightgown on?” She still wore the party dress. She looked at her blue dress. “Pretty,” she said.

“Yeah, but it wrinkles and you can’t really sleep in it. I won’t look.” He held up the flannel nightgown. “Here, put this on.” He helped her undo the laces of her dress.

She dropped her dress on the floor and climbed into bed naked, patting the place next to her. “Sleep, Jeremy.” She kept patting and smiling at him.

“Oh, good. I’ll definitely be able to sleep now. Ellie, put the gown on, OK? See, I’m wearing pajamas. You put this...”

She finally understood what he wanted. She had to put the ugly dress on before he’d lie down.

“Great, Ellie. OK? You sleep, and I’ll be right here if you miss your mom.”

“OK.”

After ten minutes of trying to sleep, Jeremy jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway. Great. When she had dropped her dress, he had seen every perfect inch of her again: creamy sides, sleek bottom, long legs, and all the rest. How would he ever sleep?

She was asleep when he returned, lying on her back and snoring loudly. He wouldn’t have believed she could make such a sound. The flying princess with the foghorn snore. He got into bed, happy to have dodged one problem.

He wore his pajamas. It was extremely nerdy to sleep in pajamas, but he couldn’t risk her seeing him. He’d been careful to dry every drop of water off his person when he took his shower. He even wore a shower cap so his hair wasn’t wet. He didn’t want to hurt Ellie.

He lay by her, thinking about how she had danced. What his uncle Henry had revealed. The destruction of the planet. Ellie’s cartwheels across the floor. Logistics for the next day. The way Ellie’s breasts looked when she had dropped her dress.

They were small, and perfect. She was perfect. How do you approach someone perfect?

He drifted into a golden realm. It was beautiful, but it felt better
than that. It felt wonderful. He could see people floating around them, people like Ellie, tall and slim with big eyes. Big beautiful eyes. They were gliding about the room, looking at everything.

He began to feel wonderful, really wonderful. His head rolled back and his chest expanded. “Oh...” he said, and opened his eyes.

“Hi!” Ellie was sitting astride him, grinning like crazy. “Fun!” she said. She was rocking back and forth, his dick inside her.

“Ellie! What are you doing? We were just going to be—” What she was doing became so much fun that he was forced to stop talking.

“Ahh,” he said, hips moving and his body following them. He put his arms around her. “Oh, Ellie, I love you. Oh, God, I love you.”

Minutes later, she lay on her back next to him, smiling.

He looked at her, wracked with recriminations. He’d been too fast. He’d read that many young boys came too fast, and that it could become a problem if they didn’t get it under control. He hoped he didn’t already have a problem. He also knew that, while Ellie might look happy, she had not reached the trembling, screaming, jellylike stage that indicated she was really happy.

“My job,” she said, smiling broadly. “I do my job.”

“That was your job? To do that with me?” He was irate. “You came down from outer space to find me and jump me while I was sleeping?”

“Jump you? No, sex you.”

“What are you talking about? Your people sent you here to sneak up on me and do that?”

“You no do it, so I have to.” She smiled that maddeningly beautiful, happy smile. “Is my job, Jeremy. No be mad Eliana. Is job.”

“Why? Are your people so hard up for sex that they had to come down here and jump me in my sleep?”

“Yes, Jeremy.” She looked like she was explaining something to a child. “Need to. No babies.”

“What!” Then he remembered what her people looked like. He’d seen them in his sleep for ages. They were tall, and beautiful. People
floating in a golden haze. Adults, by their size. No children. And not one of them had genitals.

“No can make babies, Jeremy. Only me.”

“You’re the only woman your world who can...?”

“Yes.”

He sat up and looked at her. “I can’t believe this. How old are you?”

“I baby.” She thought carefully. “Maybe two hundred years Earth.”

“You’re two hundred years old? How long do your people live?”

“No die. Get dark and more dark, and then they...” She struggled to express herself. “Go into planet. Planet is alive.”

“The planet itself is alive? That’s what you said earlier. Does it move?”

“Yes. It move and make lights. It think and say messages.”

“Oh, good. How long does it take for one of your people to merge with the planet?”

She shrugged. “Time is different my world. Your time, maybe six thousand years.”

“Your people live six thousand years?”

She nodded. “In your years, live six thousand. Or more.”

“That’s our recorded history. But they can’t make babies. Boy, that’s not an ability you want to evolve out of.” His mind blazed. This was really exciting. As fascinating as a computer lab. Very interesting. And insulting. “So you bopped down here to score with me?”

“Jeremy mad Eliana?”

“You came down here to fuck me. That was the job that you were upset about not doing? And now what? Do you take my sperm home and make millions of babies? What about me? What about how I feel?”

Ellie looked at him. “You ask me, Jeremy. You call me.”

“When did I ask for you to come down and do that while I was sleeping?”

Her shoulders hunched and she shrank. But then she sat up in bed, those beautiful perfect breasts and lovely shoulders and sweet
self. She opened her mouth, and, in the uncanny way she had demonstrated before, his voice came out: “Hello. Anyone out there? This is Jeremy Edgarton. I’m on the Planet Earth, which is going to blow up in six months, according to my calculations. I really hope that someone hears this, because we need help. There are some really nice people down here who are going to die. Like Henry, who guards the gate. And Lena—”

“You got my broadcasts! You heard me!” For months, he’d been pulling out all the stops, broadcasting off every satellite he could find. He’d talked and talked every night, begging for someone to save him and his friends. And the good people on Earth.

He’d spilled his guts: “I don’t know how things got so screwed up. I think we’re a nice species, but we do terrible things. I don’t want to do terrible things. I want us to be kind and good. I think we were made to be that way, but, somehow, we mess up a lot. We sure did this time.”

His voice kept coming out of Ellie’s mouth: “What I’d really like is a beautiful wife. I’d love her and be true to her my whole life. No affairs and shit like that. I’ve seen too much.”

He had broadcast for months, talking about his dreams and hopes. And they’d gotten every bit of it. He’d played his father’s music and his own. He’d played with his dad’s recordings, not as well as tonight, but pretty good. He’d sent pictures of his mom and dad. “And here’s me. Lena says I’ll have a growth spurt in a couple of years and I won’t be such a shrimp.”

“I hear you. So I come,” she said.

He sat up. “You mean you came across the universe because you heard me and wanted me?”

“Yes. I want married and babies. I love you from voice. Don’t be mad about fun.” Those huge eyes and her sweetness. He had no defenses against them, and never would.

“You came into a whole new world, a dangerous world—you braved everything to find me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, wow!” He jumped out of bed and stood staring at her. “I can’t believe it, Ellie! Your people heard me, at night, crying out. El, you heard me?”

“My people love you. You say the truth. We need you, Jeremy. You and me. Please, love me, Jeremy. No be mad.” Tears spilled over and left streaks down her breasts and torso.

“Don’t cry, Ellie.” He wiped her with the sheet and held her close. “Don’t cry, baby. This just takes some getting used to.” He held her tight. And then he got used to it.

“But what if it doesn’t work, Ellie?” Jeremy asked later. “What if we aren’t compatible? Like we don’t make babies? What if they don’t take us tomorrow?”

“No. Take you. You come with us. Live happy.”

“But what about your world? Will we mess it up?”

She shrugged. “Elders say is good, you me make babies. They like you friends, come, too.” She nodded and smiled. “We try? Do job more?”

“Yeah. We could try again.”

J
eremy moved closer, so his body cupped hers. She smelled sweet, like cinnamon and something else he couldn’t place. She was so soft. And exciting. He almost lost it, but a voice said, slow down. Breathe. The voice was handy. Go slow. Be with her.

He ran his fingertips over her face. Her nose, cheeks. Down to her throat. So soft, and that fragrance. She felt amazing. He felt drunk, touching her. He allowed his hand to touch her chest and was gathering courage to touch her breast, when something shot out of her heart.

Light filled the room, golden light with sparkles of silver-white. Something emerged from that spot on her chest, filling the room. Filling him. Diaphanous wings emerged from her heart, wings of light. Ellie was an angel.

She touched his chest over his heart, and he felt something rip open. Light came out of him as it had her. His wasn’t as bright and spectacular as hers, but it filled the room. Their lights merged. He and Ellie were more than intertwined; they were facets of the same
person.

“What is it, Ellie?” he whispered, drunk with whatever surrounded them. Light. Substance. Being. Their souls.

“Eliana and Jeremy married.” She sounded like she knew exactly what was going on. “Light is when married. We already married; everyone know this in my home.”

The light filled the room, and then wrapped them tightly.

The wings furled around them, holding them tight, and then they faded and all he felt was love. “El, I love you. I love you so much.” Everything was easy from then on.

He climbed out of bed and ran to his chest of drawers, fishing around until he found the jewelry box again. Jeremy pulled out the ring his father had given his mother, and the earrings, too.

“Ellie, I love you. I want to marry you. I know we’re already married, but I want to do it our way, too. There’s no one here to marry us, but would you marry me? I’ll be a good husband. I’ll always be faithful to you, and I’ll take good care of you. And I love kids. Please, Ellie? Would you marry me?”

Ellie said, “I marry you. I good wife. Lots babies. Love you.” He put the ring on her finger. Her hands were so tiny that the pinkie ring fit on her middle finger.

“I have earrings, too, but your ears aren’t pierced.”

She took them from him, looked at them, and then stuck the wires through her ears. They passed through easily, leaving no blood. Jeremy’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t bleed!”

“No bleed. You love me. No hurt.”

“Oh.” She really was an alien, he thought. How many surprises does she have?

“We married. Let’s do again.” She smiled.

“What?”

“Make more babies.”

S
he was alive. Val didn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t; cold had rendered her immobile. She pulled in a slightly larger breath, exhaling a cloud of mist. Her ribs hurt. Her face hurt. She breathed slowly, taking large breaths. A little at a time. Everything hurt. Move a little, she thought. Fingers and toes, that’s all.

She felt like an insect, stick arms and legs unable to function until the sun warmed them. She opened her eyes, keeping very still. There was a monster. She lay under a pile of dirt and dead leaves from the forest floor. She saw trees above her, and heard the river at her feet. It made a silvery noise. She hated it.

A whisper of light in the eastern sky told Val that it was dawn. She scanned the sky. The monster wasn’t there. Sitting up cautiously, she could see a disturbance in the clouds farther west. The monster was hunting miles away.

Val pushed herself up to a sitting position, paying no attention to the pain. She felt her face; her river adventure had removed all the bandages.
Her hand moved to her weapon, taking it out of its holster. She unwrapped it carefully, looking for moisture and damage. There was none. She smiled and put it back in its holster. Then she looked around, orienting herself.