Only Human

I had a dream about Samael while I was asleep. It wasn’t like the last dream where I was tied to wooden posts, but instead I was lying on a soft leather-like hide cot, a thick fur draped over me to keep me warm on the cold desert night. Beneath me, Samael breathed evenly, his warm skin tingling my body. I was naked, and happy. I could hear the girls purring under the bed (did scorpions purr?), but something was still off. There was a low growling in the background of the dream, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. I couldn’t move at all, I realized, and the more I tried to sit up, the heavier I seemed to get until I woke up, face pressed against a rough, dark surface.

I blinked blearily at the dark shape, and tried to move away from it to see, but it held me firm. I lifted my head as best I could, and gasped.

“Sam!”

“Shh.” Samael loosened his grip on me, and crouched.

I could barely see his gaze in the dark, and he was staring intently at something behind me. I turned my head until I saw a red and brown shape pacing past the bars of the prison cell.

Samael growled as the rock spider guard passed. The guard ignored him, and walked out of sight.

“You growled.” I said none-too-intelligently.

A soft, rumbling chuckle made my whole body vibrate pleasantly. Samael sat back gently, still holding me in his arms.

“Sam.”

“You shouldn’t have come here.” Samael rumbled, his gaze fixated away from me.

“I didn’t!” I exclaimed.

“SHH!” Samael hissed. “Be still, He’na, or the guard may come back.”

I felt a small, warm, fluttery feeling in my stomach when Samael called me he’na. “You…called me He’na.” I said.

Samael shifted, but said nothing other than a sharp sigh.

“You were really mad at me today.” I said conversationally, but regretted the words when I felt him tense. “For good reason…I guess…” I could see myself digging a hole in my mind, and decided to just shut up and let Samael be. He had made himself clear on the subject of our would-be relationship.

Samael continued to say nothing.

I frowned. “Are you listening to me?” I turned my head to look up at him. He was awake, eyes staring away from me, fixated on the wall or something. “Oh, I see, you’re still mad, and you don’t want to talk to me.” I squirmed, and tried to push away from him, but he tightened his arms holding me. “Let me go!” I snapped.

“SHH!” Samael hissed at me again then in a harsh, whispered voice said. “Be silent, He’na.”

“Stop calling me that.” I hissed back, pushing against him with my foot, which I was surprised to see was bare, and then became aware of a rough prickling along my skin, kind of like being held naked against someone else who’s naked, and blushed furiously. “Why am I naked?!” I shrieked.

The guard stepped back into view, looked at me, and gave a toothy creeper grin as he held up my panties on one of his four hands. “Looking for this, perhaps?” He took a deep inhale of them that made me want to puke, and licked his lips. “Your scent is intoxicating.”

Samael growled something with a bark at the end that I’m betting wasn’t please, sir, give Kate back her clothes, or anything even remotely close or kind.

The rock spider simply laughed, and walked away, twirling my panties around one finger.

I kicked Samael hard in the stomach, which I don’t think hurt him, but surprised him enough that his grip loosened, and I skittered to the wall farthest from him, and curled up in a tight sitting position, keeping my legs tight together, and my arms around my chest to hide the important bits.

“You just stay over there!” I pointed at Samael, a dark shadow amongst the shadows of the cell with little-to-no light in it. “I thought I had an epiphany earlier that you would never hurt me, but that still doesn’t change the fact that I was seriously abused, and I do not want to be naked in an enclosed space with you right now!” My accusatory finger pointed at him as I fought the urge to cry. “And you said you don’t want me near you or your children!”

Samael sighed, his dark shape lowering into a slumped position. “I apologize.”

I pulled my arm back, and tucked it against my chest. “You…for what?” I asked slowly, watching Samael move around to the corner across from me, by the bars of the cage.

In the dim light from a torch adjacent to our cell, I saw streaks through the blood and dirt smeared on his face, and prayed the blood was his own.

Samael’s gaze watched the ground as he spoke. “I wish I could take back what I said to you this morning, He’na.” He glanced at me briefly, but his eyes twitched away as if the sight of me was too much for him. “I don’t use that term lightly, Kate.” He hesitated.

Before I could reply, he continued in the same sullen tone, which seemed to drain the velvety richness of his voice away.

“My daughter was right in that I should have expressed to you how I feel much sooner, but the loss of my mate Tzi’po’a two Springs past has made me,” he paused. “How can I put this delicately?” He murmured to the bars of the cell.

“A prick?” I offered.

Samael started, and looked at me, and after a few seconds, he laughed. “Yes, precisely! I’m a prick, to say the least. I simply expected you would know how I feel – I treated you like a Pandinus female in that you would sense my pheromones, know my language, and accept me simply because I am O’o.”

I rolled my eyes. “You mean I should just jump all over you because you’re a man, and I’m a woman, is that what I’m understanding?” I put as much boredom and insult behind my words as I could, evidently being successful as Sam replied.

“I assumed so, yes, and for that, I apologize.” Samael watched me now with his dark cherry colored gaze.

I rolled my eyes, and turned away from him again. I’d done this song and dance before, with Sai, my first boyfriend. I’m a human, but no one really seems to understand that I don’t sense pheromones, or pee myself when a male walks by just so he’ll get a whiff of me, and fall all over himself. I was about to explain to Sam (and probably bore him) with my semi-sob story about boyfriends past when one of the rock spiders slammed a long, wooden stave into the earthen bars of the cell. The bars lifted outward like my mom’s old garage door, and he clicked something.

Sam moved closer to me, and growled at the spider. The spider looked anything but scared, or intimidated, he actually started laughing, stuck two fingers in his mouth, whistled, and I was momentarily distracted because I always wished I could do that, and then one of the guards picked me up, and threw me over his shoulder.

“NO! Put me down! Saaam!” I reached out, and saw the remaining spider guard shove one of his legs into Samael’s side, causing the Pandinus O’o to crumple to the ground. I screamed in agony, fearing they had just killed Samael, and covered my face with my hands.

I didn’t watch as the guard carried me through the catacombs. I heard whispers, and felt something touch my leg, but still I didn't look up, or take my hands away from my face. The guard dropped me down onto something firm, but not hard, but I clutched my face now, although it was starting to get hard to breathe.

Something warm, and moist touched my hand, and I gasped, scrambling to get away from it.

The guard sat there, a sponge in his hand with a red spot on it. I looked at him, all his arms raised as he watched me.

I flicked my gaze to my hand where he had been dabbing and saw it was sluggishly oozing blood from a wound I hadn’t realized was there.

I clutched my hand, but his placid, stone-faced expression didn’t change.

“Don’t touch me!” I snapped.

Surprisingly, his arms slowly settled, he set the sponge down in a bowl of what appeared to be thick, yellow water, and pushed the bowl toward me then backed up.

My hand started to sting, and I inched toward the bowl. I sniffed. Didn’t smell like urine, though the ammonia would probably be good for the scratch.

“Honey aloe, I believe you would call it.” Said the guard, with a clipped accent.

I started. “You…speak English?”

He arched his brow at me as if to say why wouldn’t I?

I moved back toward the bowl, and tried to reach out with my uninjured hand without getting too close to the bowl.

He sighed. “Really?”

I glowered at him. “Yes, really.” I pinched the sponge, and backed up away from him again, pressing the sponge to my hand over the cut. “I kind of have this thing about, y’know,” I said sarcastically. “Strangers.”

He didn’t respond, just turned his head away, glanced at what looked like a doorway draped in a pelt of some kind then sat back on his haunches with one middle pair of arms resting over his knees.

He rivaled Sam’s height with the two hairy legs hanging over his shoulders; particularly the parts with the fang-like claws on the end. Two more hairy legs as thick as tree trunks hung lax toward the floor. He had four arms with muscle tone, and four fingers (including the thumb) on each of four hands – what was called “Anthropic Arms” by the species classification encyclopedia I had to read for one of my classes back on Versa. He didn’t have a shell on his head like beetles, and the pandinus. The small hairs on his head were reddish brown, and stuck out all directions.

“What are you?” I asked, unable to curb my curiosity. I made it my life’s work to know species, and genetics, but I didn’t recall ever seeing this one’s species in any textbook, but if I had to rally a guess, I would say ‘giant reddish brown spider’.

He (I assumed it was a he from his voice, and his bone structure), leveled a confused tilt to his four amber-red eyes at me, and said slowly. “Enkidu.”

I blinked. “Enkidu. Is that the name of your people?”

He squinted again. “I do not know your question.”

“Oh.” I shifted, still holding the sponge in place. “what’s your name?”

he frowned. “I just told you.”

Progress. “Enkidu.” I said.

He nodded.

I sat back. “Right then.”

A deep voice came from the door, and Enkidu pounced- literally- on me faster than I could blink. I had flashbacks of being raped, and screamed at him to get off me. Despite my panic, I could hear him have a rapid conversation with someone, and laughed a few times even. Then what seemed to me like an eternity, he sat up, and I kicked him hard in the stomach.

He moved off the bed, and crouched on the floor away from me.

“What the hell did you do that for?!” I shouted, throwing the sponge at him. It splatted against his wide, hard cheek, and stuck there for a second before it slid down to his chin, the honey in the ointment clinging to him in a shining trail down the left side of his face.

“I’m supposed to be raping you.” His tone was matter-of-fact.

I became very aware of my lax jaw, open-mouthed, and confused as I stared at him.

Enkidu shifted then narrowed his eyes again. “what?”

“You…what?” I gasped.

“Gilgamesh declared you mine, and with that I am supposed to have claimed you.” Enkidu looked bored as he explained.

I started. That was kind of what I assumed he was going to do in the first place. “What, humans turn you off or something?”

“No.” Enkidu shrugged. “You’re a very attractive female, but I have no desire to rut with you.”

I bristled at the way he referred to me so nonchalantly.

“But I can’t fool Gilgamesh forever.”

My blood suddenly ran cold. “Wait, was that him just now? Gilgamesh, I mean.”

“Yes.” Enkidu arched his brow at me. “He came to make sure I was doing my job.”

I slumped. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

Enkidu nodded slowly.

“So why not rape me? Your people hate Samael, don’t they?”

Enkidu made a vague gesture with one hand. “Gilgamesh has a personal vendetta, yes, but as you are not involved with the O’o, I do not see the point in involving you.”

I felt a shudder go up my spine. Not involved? Because we hadn’t slept together, I suppose. I frowned. “I guess I should be grateful that I’m not worth raping.”

Enkidu’s shoulders twitched in a vague shrug-like gesture.

I scratched my chest idly, and remembered I was sitting naked on Enkidu’s bed, though the thought left quickly as there wasn’t much I could do about my nude state. Instead I planted both arms firmly on the bed in front of me to hide my cleavage, and leaned forward. “I don’t suppose I could ask a favor of you then?”

Enkidu looked interested if the way his eyes grew just slightly wider was any indication.

“Warn me next time you’re going to jump me, and pretend you’re raping me for show, okay?”

“It matters not.” Enkidu sat up, leaning away from me with a skeptical look in his eyes.

I frowned. “It matters.”

Enkidu sighed. “Stay here, and if anyone come in, do not speak to or look at them.”

I started. “Why? Where are you going?”

Enkidu paused as he pushed aside the pelt covering the doorway. “To find your O’o.”

I started. “My-?” I asked the now empty room. “My…O’o….my Sam.” I whispered as I lay down, feeling vulnerable and cold. I slipped my feet under the pelt draped across the bed, and willed myself not to cry. I wondered at Peyo, and Shera, and if anyone was worried about me, or even noticed I was gone.