Close Liaisons (13 page)

Keeping the conversation neutral was surprisingly easy. Korum was a good listener, and he seemed genuinely interested in her life, as simple and boring as it must have seemed to him. Since he knew everything about her anyway and she wasn’t trying to get him to like her, Mia found herself opening up to him in a way that she’d never had with her dates before. She told him about the first boy she’d ever kissed – an eight-year-old she’d had a crush on when she was six – and how jealous she’d felt of her perfect older sister when she was a young child. She spoke of her parents’ high expectations and of her own desire to positively influence young lives by serving as a guidance counselor.

She also learned that he normally lived in Costa Rica. Supposedly, the climate there best mimicked the area of Krina where he was from. “Our Center in Guanacaste is the closest thing we have to a capital here on Earth. We call it Lenkarda,” he explained. She remembered then that Costa Rica was where John had said his sister was being held. She wondered if Korum had ever seen her there. It was feasible – he’d said there were only about five thousand Ks living in each of their Centers.

As the dinner went on, she found herself straying more and more from the safe topics. Unable to contain her curiosity, she asked him about life on Krina and what the planet was like, in general.

“Krina is a beautiful place,” Korum told her. “It’s like a very lush green Earth. We have many more species of plants and animals, given our longer evolutionary history. We’ve also succeeded in preserving the majority of our biodiversity there, avoiding the mass extinctions that took place here in recent centuries.” For which humans were responsible – that part he didn’t have to say out loud.

“The majority, with the exception of your human-like primates, right?” Mia asked caustically, slightly chafing at his holier-than-thou attitude.

“With the exception of them, yes,” Korum agreed. “And a few other species that were particularly ill-equipped to survive.”

Mia sighed and decided to move on to something less controversial. “So what are your cities like? Since you’re so long-lived, your planet must be very densely populated by now.”

He shook his head. “It’s actually not. We’re not as fertile as your species, and few couples these days are interested in having more than one or two children. As a result, our birth rate in modern times has been very low, barely above replenishment levels, and our population hasn’t grown significantly in millions of years.” Pausing to take a sip of his drink, he continued, “Our cities are actually very different from yours. We don’t enjoy living right on top of each other. We tend to be very territorial, so we like to have a lot of space to call our own. Our cities are more like your suburbs, where the Krinar live spread out on the edges and commute into the denser center, which is only for commercial activities. And everywhere you go, the air is clean and unpolluted. We like to have trees and plants all around us, so even the densest areas of our cities are nearly as green as your parks.”

Mia listened with fascination. This explained the flora all over his penthouse. “It sounds really nice,” she said. Then an obvious question occurred to her. “Why would you leave all that and come to Earth, with all of our pollution and overpopulation? It must be really unpleasant for you to be in New York, for instance.”

He smiled and reached for her hand, stroking her palm. “Well, I’ve recently discovered some definite perks to this city.”

“No, but seriously, why come to Earth?” she persisted. “I can’t believe you’d give up your home planet just to come here and drink our blood.” Which he still hadn’t done with her for some reason, she realized.

He sighed and looked at her, apparently coming to some decision. “Well, Mia, it’s like this. As beautiful as our planet is, it’s not immortal. Our sun, which is a much older star than yours, will begin to die in another hundred million years. If we’re still on Krina at that time, our entire race will perish. So we have no choice but to seek out some other alternatives.”

“In a hundred million years?” That seemed like a very long time to Mia. “But that’s so far away. Why come here now? Why not enjoy your beautiful planet for, say, another ninety million years?”

“Because, my darling, if we had left Earth to humans for another ninety million years, there might not have been a habitable planet for us to come to.” He leaned forward, his expression cooling. “Your kind has turned out to be incredibly destructive, with your technology evolving much faster than your morals and common sense. When your Industrial Revolution began, we knew that we would have to intervene at some point because you were using up your planet’s resources at an unprecedented pace. So we began preparations to come here because we saw the writing on the wall.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “And we were right. Each generation has been more and more greedy, each successive advance in your technology doing more and more damage to your environment. As short-lived as you are, you think in decades – not even hundreds of years – and that leads you not to care about the future. You’re like a child who takes a toy apart for the fun and pleasure of it, not caring that tomorrow he won’t have that toy to play with anymore.”

Mia sat there, feeling like the said child getting castigated by the teacher. The tips of her ears burned with anger and shame. Maybe what he was saying was the truth, but he had no right to sit in judgment of her entire species, particularly in light of what she knew about his kind. Humans may be primitive and short-sighted compared to the Krinar, but at least they had the wisdom – and morals – to stop enslaving intelligent beings.

“So you came to our planet to take it over for your own use?” she asked resentfully. “All under the guise of saving it from our environmentally unfriendly ways?”

“No, Mia,” he said patiently, as though explaining the obvious to a small child. “We came to share your planet. If we had wanted to take it over, believe me, we would have. We’ve been more than generous with your species. Other than banning a few of your particularly stupid practices, we’ve generally left you alone, to live as you wish. That’s far better than the way you have treated your own kind.”

Seeing the stubborn look on her face, he added, “When the Europeans came to the Americas, did they let the natives live in peace? Did they respect their traditions and ways of life enough to let them continue, or did they try to impose their own religion, values, and mores on them? Did they treat them as fellow human beings or as savage animals?”

Mia shook her head in denial. “That was a long time ago. We’ve changed, and we’ve learned our lessons. We would never do something like that again.”

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But you still have no problem exterminating other species through negligence and willful ignorance. As recently as a few years ago, you treated the animals you raised for food as though they were not living creatures. And don’t even get me started on the Holocaust and the other atrocities you’ve perpetuated against other humans during the last century. You’re not as enlightened as you’d like to think you are.”

He was right, and Mia hated him for it. As much as she would have liked to throw their own use of human slaves in his face, she was not supposed to know about that. So she asked instead, “If we’re so awful, then why do you even want me? I certainly wouldn’t want to be with someone of whom I had such a low opinion.”

Korum sighed with exasperation. “Mia, I never said you’re awful. Especially not you, specifically. Your species is still immature and in need of guidance, that’s all.”

“Plus, I’m just your fuck toy, right?” Mia said bitterly, not sure why she was even bothering to go there. “I guess it doesn’t matter what you think of humans as a whole in that case.”

He just stared at her impassively. “If that’s how you want to think about it, fine. I certainly enjoy fucking you quite a bit.” His eyes turned a deeper shade of gold, and he leaned toward her. “And you love getting fucked. So why don’t you stop trying to slap labels on everything and just enjoy the way things are?”

Sitting back, he motioned to the waiter for the check. Mia’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, even as her body involuntarily responded to his words with swift arousal.

He paid the bill, and they left, heading back to his penthouse.

As soon as they got into the limo, Korum pulled her onto his lap and thoroughly kissed her until all she could think about was getting to the bedroom. His hands found their way under the skirt of her dress, pressing rhythmically between her legs until she was moaning softly and squirming in his arms. Before she could reach her peak, they had arrived at their destination.

He carried her swiftly through the lobby of his building, and Mia hid her face against his chest, pretending not to see the shocked stares from the concierge and the few residents passing by. As soon as they were alone in the elevator, he kissed her again, his tongue leisurely exploring her mouth until she was nearly ready to come again. Without pausing to take off their clothes, he brought her inside the bedroom and threw her onto the bed.

At their entrance, the background music and soft lighting came on, creating a romantic ambiance. Mia hardly noticed, her arousal nearly at fever pitch. She watched hungrily as he stripped off his own clothes with inhuman speed, revealing the powerfully muscled body underneath. It was no wonder she was so addicted to him, she thought with some coolly rational part of her mind. He was probably the most gorgeous male she would ever be with in her life.

He came over her then and pulled off the dress, barely taking the time to unzip it. She was left lying there in her black pantyhose and high-heeled pumps, with her upper body completely exposed to his starving gaze. “You look so hot,” he told her, his voice rough with lust. The thick, swollen cock pointing in her direction corroborated his words. Bending toward her breasts, he closed his mouth over her left nipple and sucked hard, making her arch off the bed with the intensity of the sensation. Doing the same thing to her other nipple, he simultaneously pressed at the throbbing place between her thighs, and Mia screamed as she came, her entire body shuddering from the force of her orgasm.

Before she could recover, he started kissing her again with an oddly intent look on his face. Starting at her lips, his warm mouth moved down her face and neck, lingering over the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder and making her shiver with pleasure.

Suddenly, there was a brief slicing pain, and Mia realized that he must have bitten her. She gasped in shock, but before she could feel anything more than a twinge of fear, hot ecstasy seemed to rush through her veins. Every muscle in her body simultaneously tightened and immediately turned to mush, and her skin felt like it had been set on fire from within. Her last rational thought was that it had to be the chemical in his saliva, and then she could no longer think at all, her entire being tuned only to the pull of his mouth at her neck and the feel of his body entering her own with one powerful thrust.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of sensations and images. She was vaguely aware that she climaxed repeatedly, her senses heightened to a nearly unbearable degree. All the colors seemed brighter, and she felt like she was floating in a warm sea, with the currents caressing her skin and lapping at her insides, making them clench and release in ecstasy. He was relentless in his passion, his cock driving into her in a savage, unending rhythm until she was nothing more than pure sensation, her essence reduced down to its very basics, her very personhood burned away in the all-consuming rapture.

Hours may have passed, or days. Mia didn’t know and didn’t care. At some point, her voice gave out from her constant screams, and she couldn’t come anymore, her body wrung dry from the ceaseless orgasms. He came hard too, shuddering over her several times throughout the night, and then penetrating her again a few moments later. Finally exhausted, Mia literally passed out, falling into a deep and dreamless sleep that ended the most unbelievable sexual experience of her life.

Over the next couple of weeks, Mia settled into a routine – if sleeping with an extraterrestrial while trying to spy on him could be called anything that mundane.

He insisted on seeing her every evening, for dinner and beyond. She spent every night at his penthouse, no longer sleeping in her own apartment. During the day, he allowed her to attend class, go home to study, or spend time Skyping with her family. Her social life – never particularly active – now revolved around her relationship with him, and Jessie was horrified by that.

“I’m telling you, Mia,” she earnestly tried to convince her, “I know you said it’s only temporary, but I’m really worried about you. All you do is go to him – it’s like you don’t have a life anymore. It’s not healthy, the way he just completely took over all your free time. I barely see you anymore – and we share an apartment. Can’t you just spend one night away from him, just to hang out with the girls or go to a house party? You’re in college, for Christ’s sake!”

Mia shrugged, not wanting to get into an argument with Jessie. Let her think that she was simply obsessed with her first lover. It was better than explaining the reality of her precarious situation.

John contacted her on Thursday, wondering if she had any useful information. Mia had nothing. Leeta and Rezav had come by Korum’s place a few times, but they had gone into that room and Mia had been too scared to try spying on them again. Walking in Central Park, Korum and Mia had once been approached by a group of three Ks that she’d never seen before. Their attitude toward Korum had been somewhat deferential, giving Mia a glimpse of the power he supposedly wielded over the Krinar on this planet. However, they’d spoken in their own language, and Mia had no clue what they said. She was surprised to see them, however; she hadn’t known that Manhattan was such a popular place for the Ks to hang out.

On Fridays and Saturdays, he took her out to see Broadway shows and new movie releases. Mia greatly enjoyed herself. For some reason, despite living in New York City, she rarely got a chance to go to the shows – and it was fun pretending to be a tourist for a night. He also took her out to expensive restaurants or made gourmet meals at home on the days that they stayed in. For an outsider looking in, her life was the stuff of every girl’s fantasy – complete with a handsome, wealthy lover who drove her around in a limo and generally treated her like a princess.

Her wardrobe had undergone a complete change as well. The personal shoppers from Saks had gone all out, replacing every piece of Mia’s clothing with something nicer, more flattering, and infinitely more expensive. Stylish new coats and fluffy parkas kept her warm and cozy in the unpredictable spring weather. All of her underwear was now mostly silk and lace, with a few cotton pieces mixed in for everyday comfort and exercise. Her bulky old sweaters and baggy sweatpants were exchanged for comfortable, but formfitting yoga pants and soft fleecy tops. Even her jeans were deemed to be too old and poorly fitting, and designer brands now proudly resided on her shelves. And, of course, the beautiful dresses that now hung in her closet were in a category of their own. Her shoes had not escaped either, with brand-new high-end boots, sneakers, flats, and heels taking place of her old Uggs and worn-out All Stars from high school.

Mia’s strident objections at Korum’s extravagant expenditures on her behalf were completely ignored.

“Are you under the impression that this is something more than pocket change for me?” he asked her arrogantly, arching one black eyebrow at her protests. “I like to see you dressed well, and I want you to wear these.”

And that was the end of that topic.

The sex between them was explosive – literally and figuratively out-of-this-world. Korum was a very mercurial lover. One day, he could be playful and tender, spending hours massaging Mia with scented oils until she purred with pleasure; other times, he was merciless, driving into her with unrelenting force until she screamed in ecstasy. On days when he took her blood – not every day, because it could be addictive for them both, he’d explained – she thought she could easily lose her mind from the intensity of the experience. Although Mia had never tried the hard-core drugs herself, she knew about the effects of various substances on the brain through her Psychology of Addiction class, and she imagined that the sex-blood combo with Korum was probably like doing heroin at the same time as ecstasy.

She often felt bitter about that, knowing that she could never feel the same way with a regular human man. Even if she were able to return to her normal life some day, she knew that she would never be the same, that he was too deeply imprinted on her mind and body. With each day that passed, she grew to crave his touch more, every cell in her body aching for him when he was not around. All he had to do was smile or look at her with those amber eyes and she was ready, her body softening and melting in preparation for his.

The calm, rational Mia Stalis of the past twenty-plus years was replaced with an insecure, emotional wreck. When she was with Korum, feeling his touch and basking in his presence, Mia felt like she was floating on air. As soon as she stepped away, however, she was filled with self-loathing and gut-wrenching fear – fear of being caught spying, of being unable to carry out her mission before he tired of her, and, most of all, of losing him. It was inevitable, she knew. Even if he hadn’t been the enemy, even if his kind had not been enslaving her own, there was no future for them. They were different species, and, if that hadn’t been enough of an obstacle, her life span was like that of a fruit fly compared to his. In another few years – a dozen years at most – she would begin the inevitable aging process, and his attraction to her would fade, assuming that it lasted that long in the first place.

In her darkest moments, a small insidious voice inside her head wondered if it would truly be that awful – being his charl in Costa Rica. Would he treat her any differently from the way he did today? If not, then what did it matter what label was placed on their relationship as long as she could continue to be with him? And then she would be disgusted with herself, sickened that she could even contemplate the idea.

Despite her best attempts to remain upbeat for them, her family had begun to notice that something was amiss. Her mom ascribed it to stress from the proximity of finals, but her dad was more observant. “Did you meet someone, honey?” he asked one day out of the blue, startling Mia. She had vehemently denied it, of course, but she could see that he still had some doubts. Out of her entire family, her father was the only one who could read the subtleties of Mia’s moods, and she was sure that her artificially bright smile did little to conceal the turmoil within from his sharp gaze.

The only time she felt like her old self was when she would bury herself in the library, absorbed in her studies. The end of the semester was approaching quickly, and Mia’s workload tripled, with papers and finals looming in the near future. Under normal circumstances, Mia would have been tense and snappy from the stress. These days, however, studying brought a welcome relief from the drama of the rest of her life, and she gladly pored over textbooks and practiced linear regression every chance she got.

The first days of May brought unseasonably warm weather to New York, and the entire city came alive, with residents quickly donning their new summer clothes and tourists arriving in droves.

As much as Mia would’ve liked to join the other students lounging on the lawn with their books, she needed four walls around her in order to concentrate. Korum was becoming increasingly reluctant to have her go to the library, given her tendency to forget about the time while there, so she tried to study more in his penthouse. He set up a desk and a comfortable lounge chair for her in a small sunny room next to his own office – the place where he had met with Leeta and Rezav – and she began spending hours there instead.

She was also starting to think about the summer. After finals, Mia was supposed to fly home to Florida to see her parents. She had been fortunate to get an internship at a camp for troubled kids in Orlando, where she would be one of the counselors. Since Orlando was only about ninety minutes away from Ormond Beach, she could easily visit her parents on the weekends or whenever she had days off. Although dealing with troubled children would not be the easiest gig, the experience was considered valuable for someone in her field and would greatly aid her on grad school applications.

She had no idea how Korum would react to her essentially leaving for the next couple of months. It was possible that in another couple of weeks he would be tired of her, and then the issue would never arise. Thus far, he had not prevented her from carrying on with her schoolwork, and she hoped they might be able to come up with a workable solution for the summer as well – if their relationship lasted that far. For now, she decided to keep quiet and not rock the boat.

Two days before her Statistics exam, with Mia beginning to think and dream in correlations, Korum got called away for some unknown emergency. Sitting in her study room, she heard raised voices speaking in Krinar across the wall. Minutes later, he came into her room and told her tersely that he would be away for the rest of the day.

“If you need to go home to study or you want to hang out with your roommate tonight, feel free,” he added as an afterthought. “I may not be home tonight.”

Surprised, Mia nodded in agreement and watched him depart swiftly, with only a quick peck on her cheek.

Her heart jumped into her throat as she realized that this may be the chance she had been waiting for.

She sat for a few minutes, making sure that he was truly gone. For good measure, she leisurely strolled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her cheeks, trying to convince herself that there was nothing to worry about . . . that she was completely alone in the house. Her hands were shaking a bit, she noticed as she raised them to her face, and her eyes stood out against her unusually pale face.
You can do this, Mia. All you have to do is just take a look around
.

She casually walked toward his office, ready to run into her own study at the first sign of his return. The penthouse was eerily quiet, with only her footsteps breaking the uneasy silence. Her heartbeat thundering in her ears, Mia tiptoed toward the office door.

As before, the doors slid open automatically at her approach. Even though Mia had been expecting it, she still jumped at the quiet “whoosh.” Stepping in, she quickly surveyed her surroundings.

The room was completely empty.

A large polished table stood in the center, dominating the space. There were a few chairs positioned around the table, with the whole setup reminiscent of a corporate conference room. Mia was not sure what she’d hoped to see – perhaps a few papers left lying around or a computer carelessly turned on. But there was nothing.

Of course, she realized, he would not be using anything as primitive as paper or a tablet computer. Whatever the K equivalent of a computer was, she likely wouldn’t even recognize it as such given the state of their technology.

Not for the first time, Mia cursed her own technological ineptitude. Someone who had problems keeping up with all the latest human gadgets was particularly ill-equipped to spy on an alien from a much more advanced civilization.

Walking into the room, she carefully approached the table. It looked like a regular table surface, but Mia remembered the three-dimensional image she’d seen on it that one time. She tried to remember what it was that Korum did to make it disappear. Was it a wave of his hand?

Trying to imitate the gesture, she motioned with her right arm. Nothing. She waved her left arm. Still nothing. Frustrated, she stomped her foot. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t do anything either.

Mia circled around the table, studying every nook and cranny. Getting down on her knees, she crawled underneath and tried to look at the underside in the crazy hope that there might be a recognizable button somewhere there. There wasn’t one, of course. The surface above her was completely innocuous, made of nothing more mysterious than plain wood.

Trying to crawl out, Mia bumped against one of the chairs. Exactly like a corporate office chair, it had wheels and swiveled in the middle. A fleecy sweater Korum occasionally wore around the house was carelessly hanging on the back of it. She crawled around the chair, not wanting to disturb the arrangement in case Korum had a good memory for furniture placement.

Sitting on the cold floor next to the chair, Mia stared despondently around the room. It was hopeless . . . John had been crazy to think that Mia could help somehow. If they were truly relying on her, then they were doomed. She was, quite simply, the worst spy in the world.

Her butt was getting cold from sitting, and the whole thing was utterly pointless anyway.

Trying to get up, Mia inadvertently brushed against the chair and lost her balance for a second. Grabbing onto the chair for support, she accidentally pulled off Korum’s sweater.

Great. She wasn’t just a useless spy – she was also a clumsy one. Lifting the sweater, she brought it closer to her nose and inhaled the familiar scent. Clean and masculine, it made her warm deep inside.
You have it bad, Mia. Stop mooning over the enemy you’re spying on.

She tried to arrange the sweater back in its original position, and her fingers felt something unusual. A small protrusion on the edge of the sleeve that didn’t seem to belong on a soft sweater like that.

Her pulse jumping in excitement, Mia lifted the sleeve to take a closer look.

On the bottom of the sleeve, a tiny chip was embedded in the fabric. It was the size of a small button, and it was sheer luck that Mia’s fingers had landed on it – otherwise, she would not have noticed it in a million years.

A light went on in her head. Korum had been wearing this sweater when he waved his arm and made the image disappear, Mia remembered with chills going down her spine. He had literally had a trick up his sleeve!