I Thought I Was Over It

I flinched away from his touch. I didn’t mean to, I just couldn’t help it.

“Again?” he asked. “Last night? Did you get any sleep after?”

I nodded to the first two and sighed at the last. “Sorry, Balan. Maybe I’m not ready for this.”

“No need to apologize. I understand that it isn’t easy and saying ‘Get over it’ helps no one.” He set down a mug of coffee near me, careful to maintain some distance.

He gave me a few moments before he asked, “Not ready for which this? Us…or…? I mean, if you need space I can move back in with my family—”

“No!” I was emphatic on this point, because it was the one thing I was certain of. “I need you around.”

“I’m here,” he said. “I’ve heard that talking about it can help. Whenever you want to, I’ll listen.”

“Thanks.” I checked the display on the control for the kitchenette. “If I don’t get moving now, I’ll be late.”

“I won’t say good luck, you don’t need it. You deserve the promotion. You’ve got this.” There was a certain mirthful certainty on his face; I was getting better at reading him.

The office was larger and more plush than I’d expected. It looked more like a nineteenth century drawing room than an office. All the high-tech bits had been tastefully hidden.

A small desk contained a keyboard on a pull-out drawer, which activated the holo display above it. The bookshelf contained a few real books along with files disguised as books that were locked to the shelf with my fingerprints or DNA or something I didn’t quite understand.

I sat at the desk and logged in, wishing I’d either gotten more sleep or drank more coffee. I considered calling Balan and asking him to bring me a pot of strong coffee but decided against it. There had to be coffee around here somewhere.

The holo display shut itself off when a knock came at the door; security measure, I guess. “It’s open, come in.” No sooner had I said it than my guts tied in knots at what was probably a huge breach of protocol.

The young woman that entered didn’t seem too put off by it. “Good morning, Ambassador McAllen. Melina of Aritoz, and I’ll be your aide here at the embassy.”

I stood and walked around the desk to properly greet her. “Pleased to meet you, Melina, and please, just call me Catherine…or Kate.” I held out a hand to shake hers.

Her hand was like Balan’s, a tough, leathery palm and fine scales on the back and the three long fingers. Her oval eyes were larger than his, their solid black unreadable. The ridges over her eyes and the corners of her mouth showed delight.

“Thank you, Catherine. I’m really excited for this opportunity, and I won’t let you down.” Concern crossed her face. “Did I do the handshake thing right? I’ve been practicing so I wouldn’t—”

“It was perfect.” I put my arms up, palms together, and she did the same. We touched forearms and leaned our foreheads together for a second.

I stood back and said, “I hope I did that right.”

Her eye ridges rose and her mouth opened in joy. “Perfect.” She gave a slight bow. “Is there anything I can do for you, Ambassa—Catherine?”

“Coffee. Where would I find it?”

“I can either bring you some, show you where the cafe is or bring in what we need to make you a pot here.” Her shoulders dropped and her eye ridges lowered in concern. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought of that. I’ll make sure there’s a pot ready tomorrow morning.”

“No, no, that’s fine.” I sighed. “If I had a pot here every morning, I’d drink all of it and get nothing done while my head ran in circles all day. Why don’t we head to the cafe and have breakfast; my treat.”

The cafeteria was spacious, with the sort of bare aesthetic I expected of an embassy. I was surprised, however, at the way sound didn’t echo.

We had the option of filling trays from a buffet-style line or ordering a meal at the checkout. I opted for the second and ordered a doner kebab and chips, which I was surprised to see on the menu. Melina ordered something local that looked like scotch eggs until she cut into them, and I saw that the insides were made of some root vegetable.

We traded tastes of our dishes. Hers was tasty, with a hint of radish under multiple layers of umami and smoke. She didn’t seem too keen on the kebab but enjoyed the chips enough to help me finish them.

As we walked back to my office, I looked at her and the other Rellans. They had small scales that covered them from head to toe, a short, thick tail, four-digit hands and feet, large, black eyes with no visible pupil or sclera, ridges above their eyes, and the mixed teeth of omnivores.

In the daylight, I could look at them and understand that — looks aside — they would be classed as a mammal on Earth, not a reptile. Not only did they give live birth, have mammaries — both females and males — but they were warm-blooded with a normal temperature of 38.5 Celsius, well into fever range for a human.

Still, I’d heard more than one crude comment from men talking about “hot lizard-girls.” It wasn’t like women didn’t say things every bit as crude, but we at least have the decency to only say them in private…not in a crowded terminal.

“What are you thinking about, Catherine?”

Melina brought me out of my reverie, standing in front of my office. I didn’t know how long we’d been standing there. I opened the door and waved her in, closing the door behind myself.

“I’m not even sure,” I said. I sat at the desk. There was no work for me to do until after the formal introductions the following day. It was meant to be a day for me to settle into my office. I looked at Melina standing in the center of the room, as though waiting for something.

I moved to the sofa and offered her a place to sit. “You look like you have something on your mind,” I said.

“This may be…indelicate,” she said.

“I’ll keep it just between us girls.”

“Terran males keep approaching me, trying to interest me in…mating.”

I laughed. “If that’s their only goal, keep turning them down. If they only see you as an object of fetish, there’s no sense in bothering with them.”

We spent some time talking about the signs that a human was interested in more than her body, and I shared some rather scathing turndowns for those who weren’t.

Melina looked at me then, and then said, “Aren’t you living with a Rellan?”

“I am.”

“How…how did you know it wasn’t just a…fetish thing?” As soon as she’d asked her eye ridges squeezed together in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s a fair question. I wasn’t interested in him at all when we first met. Over time, though….” I took a deep breath. “I keep having a nightmare, but I can’t talk to Balan about it, because I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“What is it?” She laid a hand on mine, the scales on the side of her thumb making brief contact with my wrist.

The scenes flashed through my mind again, and I forced myself not to jerk away. Balan stood before me, thousands of other Rellans behind him. He seemed far away, but he was close, and small.

All intelligence left his face as he dropped into a four-legged position and turned into a lizard along with all the other Rellans. They swarmed me, covering me. That was the point I usually woke up in a panic.

I’d explained it to Melina as I relived it, and she held onto my hand the whole time. When I finished and opened my eyes, her nictitating membrane was half-closed. I’d learned that was a response similar to tears for a human.

“I’m sorry, dear,” I said, “I didn’t mean to upset you. But you understand why I can’t tell Balan, right?”

She put a warm arm around my shoulders. “I think you should. If he cares about you as much as you obviously care about him, he’ll understand. But I have a question: Lizards are reptiles, so why lizards?”

“Display on,” I said. “Show a picture of an iguana.” The three-dimensional image hovered over my desk, and I shuddered. I went through the steps I’d worked on with my therapist to slow my breathing and take control of my panic response.

Melina said, “Display off,” but it didn’t respond. She moved herself between me and the display. “I can tell this bothers you. You should turn it off.”

“Display off. I’m much better than I was. It’s a phobia…an irrational fear of lizards. Snakes are fine…but put legs on them and they’re just…wrong. I went through a year of exposure therapy to prepare me for working in the Rellan embassy on Earth — Terra. And then another year working there, and getting close with Balan, before being assigned to Rell. I thought I was over it.” I sighed. “I didn’t start having nightmares until I moved here. Balan’s a huge relief, but it’s rough right now.”

“I don’t know if it would help, but the Terran-run exotic pet stores in the city carry waklas,” she tried to hide her disgust and failed. “Maybe having a small, furry animal close to hand….”

“I see you react the same way to them as Balan. Like lots of humans do toward reptiles.” I chuckled. “It doesn’t seem to carry over for Rellans — waklas to Terrans, that is, like it does for us as far as reptiles to Rellans.”

“Because you’re more like us than xots and greks and aniles and all the other waklas. They’re furry all over, have constantly growing teeth, and lay eggs that they abandon to their fate. And they’ll eat anything they can fit in their mouth or take a bite out of. My sister assures me that her captive-bred grek is gentle, but still hasn’t convinced me to hold it.”

“I won’t force a fuzzy animal on Balan, I care about him too much. Just like he turned down an offer for a pet monitor lizard while we were on Earth, although, he did react to it the way I tend to react to puppies and kittens.” I thought about it for a moment. “It probably wasn’t obtained legally anyway.”

We sat in silence for a while, her warm arm still around my shoulders. I looked over at her, noticing the feel of the scales of her arm against my neck as I turned my head. “Thanks, Melina. I think I will talk to Balan about it tonight.”

“That’s probably better than bringing home a wakla,” she said.

I laughed. “But they’re so cute…kind of like fluffy mice with bunny tails.”

She shuddered and pulled away. “Don’t be mean.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “I won’t, Melina. I’ll never bring it up again unless you want to.”

“Thanks.”

“What do you say to taking the rest of the day off, and meeting here in the morning for breakfast before the formal introductions are made?”

“Sounds good,” she said. She crossed to the door and stopped. “If you don’t mind, I have one more question, though.”

“Sure.”

“What is exposure therapy?”

I smiled. “I promised not to talk about them, but if you want some exposure therapy, talk to your sister about her pet. Spend time around it…get used to being near it, then come talk to me about the next steps.”

“You mean you…?”

“Yeah. I held an iguana…for over an hour the last time while it slept on me, using me as a heat source.” I shrugged. “Like I said, I thought I was over it.”