Human trauma, p.27
Human Trauma, page 27
part #1 of Human Trauma Series
Lysa breathily moaned as Martinez’s hands found purchase on her muscular butt and tugged, pressing her groin tighter to his thigh—the feeling of Lysa’s rock-hard goal pressed against her hip. Martinez’s throbbing cock was only a few infuriatingly thin layers of fabric away from her.
“Fuck,” Martinez gasped as the kiss broke, glistening saliva trailing between their tongues.
“Is that a request?” Lysa purred as she nuzzled her head into his neck. Her tongue teased him, filled with lascivious desire as it traced against his carotid. She shuddered while taking in a deep whiff of his titillating pine scent.
“You have no idea how much I wish it were,” Martinez replied, sliding his hand up to her mid-back, Lysa shuddering as his grip pulled her burning flesh.
“Oh, I believe I have a strong idea,” Lysa whispered, her hand sliding down his stomach and gripping his hard manhood through his pants.
“Yeah, you definitely have the idea,” Martinez gasped, his body nearly scumbling to her.
Lysa leaned back, and her four ruby red eyes stared into his bark brown jewels, her eyes flickering to a near black red under her lust. In the dim light of the house, Lysa’s ghostly complexion made her look like an ethereal being that tugged at every part of Martinez’s soul. He wanted nothing more than to keep going with her plans, but he knew he could not.
“Shall we adjourn to my bed?” Lysa whispered breathily in his ear.
Martinez’s mind and heart raced. The confliction of Lysa’s soft bust pressing into his chest, her warm breath, sweet citrus smell, and his need to slow her down fought each other like beasts in his soul.
Martinez leaned in and rested his forehead on Lysa’s, her inferno-like heat pulling him in; their gazes burned into one another, each knowing exactly what the other wanted out of the rest of the night, but his soul knew tonight could not be the night.
“I can’t,” Martinez growled.
Lysa’s lashes immediately fluttered as her ruby sight softened from the dark black-red and returned somewhat to her usual bright luster, her disappointment readily evident in the slight pout that befell her lips.
“Why not?” Lysa questioned, teasing him further by rubbing her palm firmly on his aching manhood.
“I have a test in the morning. Can I take a rain check for the night?” Martinez pleaded awkwardly, trying his best to keep his composure.
Lysa released her hold on his member and traced her fingers along his collar, sending shockwaves down his spine.
“Are you certain you don’t wish to stay regardless?” Lysa cooed, pleading with him to reconsider.
“Fuck, Lysa. I just can’t,” Martinez grimaced, “how about I make it up to you?”
Lysa drove her hips tight against him. “Oh, and how will you dream of doing that?” She moaned as her yearning body ground against his, the wetness of her groin bleeding through his pants.
Martinez’s brain did backflips, deciding how to react to the supple influence of her moist womanhood on his thigh. Eventually, his brain pulled out the rationale he hoped would work.
“Tomorrow,” Martinez stated simply, too flustered to get more words out for a moment.
Lysa raised a brow questioningly despite not slowing her rubbing against his thigh.
“Tomorrow, after the test. The rest of the shop and I are going out to celebrate, why don’t you come along. Then afterward, we can go spend some time at my place. Sound good?” Martinez questioned, pleading a bit himself.
“I suppose if I have to wait, I shall do so,” Lysa pouted.
“I promise. Tomorrow, we can watch a movie and— resume then,” Martinez assured her.
Lysa sighed and gently pushed back from Martinez, putting a bit of breathing room between them. “I sincerely hope you are not misleading me,” Lysa replied while straightening her damp stained shorts.
“I swear if I did not have the test, I would stay,” Martinez replied.
After fixing her shorts, Lysa snaked around and opened the door to let Martinez leave. She grabbed his hand before Martinez left the room and leaned in for another kiss. The two shared one more tender moment, neither wishing for their day to end as it was.
“What is your favorite color?” Lysa questioned after they slowly broke their kiss.
“I would say it’s red. Why?” Martinez questioned, unsure as to where the sudden question was going.
“Flawless,” Lysa said, “I shall see you tomorrow. I have to prepare for our rendezvous.”
SECTION TWENTY-ONE
FIRST TEST
Early in the morning, Martinez arrived at Draun’s college. The air was crisp and refreshing, with morning dew glistening in the first kisses of the morning sun. Martinez had never been to the college and was disappointed in its appearance, not because it was run down or anything along those lines. Compared to the rest of the lively city, the facility was incredibly drab and cookie-cutter—a pristine example of something constructed with pure, unfaltering utilitarianism in mind.
Each building was made of gray concrete blocks with few windows, likely allowing little to no natural light into the classroom. If Martinez had to describe Draun’s College’s personality, it would have landed solidly between wet socks and running out of toilet paper.
Each step along its grid-like structure pressed a heavy sense of institutionalized loneliness into him. Each building he passed was exactly the same: without the signage just off the entrances, he doubted he would have ever found his way to the test building.
After several wrong turns in his attempt to locate the correct location amidst the constantly repeating construction, a familiar figure came into view. Shiksie was sitting on the stairs leading up to the building and was basking in the morning light. Martinez had never been so elated to see the light bluish-gray of Shiskie’s fur.
Typically, her subdued coloring was nothing to note. But the college was anything but typical. When surrounded by the overbearing grays of the walkways, barren gravel, and buildings, the slight color her fur provided was as vibrant as the stars in the sky.
Martinez quickened his pace slightly to join her, wanting to maximize the time they would have to get in some last-minute practice before his first official test in a few hours. When he was a few meters away from Shiksie, her satellite-like ears twitched and moved toward him. She perked up as soon as the subdued pine scent of Martinez wafted over to her on the gentle breeze.
“Good morning,” Shikie said as she stood up and straightened her khaki button-up.
Martinez stopped a few feet away from the tall feline and smiled gently. He had been spending more time with Shiksie outside of work over the last few weeks and had taken notice of one thing about her he never would have guessed based on her at-work facade—the way she tended to dress.
Shiksie wore clothes very similar to his usual attire, simple items that favored comfort over most other traits. He could almost call her style tomboyish if not for the other accessories she wore that pulled her ensemble together.
Shiksie had a loose-fitting khaki button-up with undone top buttons, leaving her peaking bust and a small silver necklace in clear view. She had rolled the sleeves up to the midpoint of her forearms, exposing the sparse amounts of bare skin on her otherwise lightly furred arms.
For reasons beyond Martinez, she almost always wore shorts, and right now was no different. Tight-fitting black shorts hugged her muscular hips and ended just above her digitigrade knee, and her blue-gray fur poured out of the bottom.
To complete her garb today, Shiksie had opted to wear a brown visor, likely so she did not crush her ears by wearing a full baseball-type hat. Perched just atop the visor’s brim was a pair of mirrored sunglasses that glinted in the morning sun.
While Shiksie’s style was not what Martinez found to be traditionally attractive, he could not deny that the usually reserved feline knew how to style and dress herself to be eye-catching to the right person.
“Good morning. How long have you been here?” Martinez replied.
“Not too long,” Shiksie shrugged before she snatched up her bag on the ground.
“I got here a few minutes ago to make sure the classroom next to your testing room was open,” Shiskie said while she approached the door and waved her paw for Martinez to follow. “Luckily for us, it was, so we won’t have to study on the steps.”
Martinez quickly followed Shiksie through the double doors and down the hallway. The outside of the buildings might have looked like the cheapest bidder had built them, and the inside was no different. At least there was carpet on the ground, even if it was still just another endless ocean of more gray.
Martinez wondered if whatever alien designed the buildings could even see in color as everything was some shade of gray or the occasional white. It was such an overbearing presence it was depressing. The only variation inside the halls was the evenly spaced doors on each side. Each was a solid steel plate painted a dark and uninviting crimson, and they were all clearly built with aliens the size of The Director in mind.
“Why the hell is everything gray?” Martinez asked, voice laden with disapproval. He hoped Shiksie might have some kind of answer for the horrendously dreary environment.
“Ha, I wish I knew,” Shiksie laughed, “the school has been this way since long before I went here.”
“I would go nuts if I had to attend this school,” Martinez groaned, shuddering at the idea of being subjected to this daily. That sounded like a worse fate than being condemned to lurk within a Naval ship’s labyrinthian decks, bulkheads, and passageways.
Shiksie turned and opened one of the doors, and she stood abreast of it to let Martinez inside. “You know, technically, you are attending this school. Just the Director is pulling strings in the background, so you aren’t forced to attend classes,” Shiksie said as Martinez passed her.
“Don’t remind me,” Martinez huffed as he lowered himself into a chair. Martinez had seen enough of the reality of his life going forward for the following standard cycle. With how his operational tempo was going, he knew the next cycle’s stress levels would put Verilon to shame.
The room was just as bad as the rest of the school. It had one singular row of tables, each with four chairs behind them. There was also a small podium in front of them and a large display screen built into the wall behind it, making the room well-made for one instructor to present to a large group of hopefully willing students.
Shiksie sauntered over to the table, her tail dragging along Martinez’s back as she squeezed past him to the nearest vacant spot. She lowered herself onto the chair and haphazardly dumped all the contents of her bag in front of Martinez.
“I will keep reminding you because of how stupid that deal was,” Shiksie teased as she tidied up the items while looking for the quizzes she wanted Martinez to review.
While Shiksie was searching for the quizzes, Martinez pulled out his datapad and started to review the questions she had given him for work. Martinez chuckled when he realized what he was doing. Throughout his entire life, he had always hated studying and taking tests. Yet, as if through some kind of Farun’se magic, Shiksie had managed to get him to practice for college and work back to back every day without fail.
While Martinez lazily reviewed the information on how the blood synthesizer crafts synthetic blood based on given samples, a message notification appeared at the top of the screen.
Lysa: Best of luck with your examination. I cannot wait to see you later.
Martinez smiled and swiped the notification away. He appreciated the gesture from Lysa, especially after he had stomped on her plans the previous night. Martinez ran his hand through his hair, sighed, and tried to imagine how wonderful staying the night with Lysa would have been. If how ferocious Lysa had been when they arrived at her house was the pace she wanted to set throughout the evening. Martinez had no doubt the two of them would be sore and blissfully cuddled up in her bed right about now.
Martinez knew he would have to try to make it up to Lysa with a wonderful time tonight. Because Lysa had the day off, he planned to swing by the specialty shop and grab a bottle of something for them to enjoy while they cuddled up for a movie. Matinez had yet to decide what they should watch but was leaning towards one of the fantasy tales from the pirated piles of DVDs. He would have a few hours between his test and dinner with the shop and Lysa to iron out those details.
After a few minutes of Shiksie preparing all the supplies she needed for Martinez’s last-minute exam preparations, they tore into the work. Over the next hour, Shiksie ran Martinez through hundreds of flashcards and other forms of verbal quizzing. As the questions went on, she constantly shuffled the type of questions, ensuring constant variety and challenge.
Martinez continued to shoot back correct answer after correct answer; Shikie’s tail started to sway behind her happily. She could not believe the speed at which Martinez had managed to grasp the sheer volume of information he had over the last two weeks. If Martinez could maintain this kind of studying and learning tempo, Shiksie could see him graduating at the top of his class. However, the physical attendees of the college would likely be distraught if he came out of nowhere to be the valedictorian.
On top of the remarkable ability to retain information for school, Martinez had been doing better at work. At this point, Martinez had a solid grasp on most of the duties of a nursing technician, so much so she had been able to send him into rooms unattended for basic tasks and evaluation. He had progressed far faster than anyone Shiksie had ever known. Even Ivorn needed almost half a standard cycle of close monitoring before he could do what Martinez was already capable of.
Shiksie did wonder where the Human’s ability to grasp knowledge came from: was it some altruism, guilt, determination, stubbornness? Whatever the ability stemmed from, it certainly was helping Martinez. Shiksie was just worried the little Human might burn himself out if he kept this pace up.
“Alright, I think you are as ready as you can be,” Shiksie purred while tapping her pen on the last flash card in the deck.
“So, how did I do then?” Martinez asked, leaning back on the chair.
“While I did not keep an exact count, I have no doubt you will get a high score,” Shikie replied pleasantly, as her bright emerald-like eyes softened and she flickered her ears.
Martinez smiled along with her and swallowed nervousness into his gut, not wanting to show Shiksie how incredibly worried he was about the test. Martinez was all too painfully aware of how much was riding on the results. If he bombed the test, he would likely be back on a Human naval ship within a matter of days and be forced to leave everything he had done to start an actual life here on Renoural behind.
Martinez would likely never see Shiksie, Lysa, Ivorn, Ezol, or any of the dozens of warm and welcoming aliens he had encountered since he arrived. He probably would never even get to say goodbye to any of them and would vanish overnight like a ghost flickering from existence with the morning sun.
Before Martinez could ask Shiksie to go over a few more flashcards one more time, his watch alarm started to chime loudly. The loud chiming caused them to nearly jump out of their skin.
Martinez sighed and silenced the alarm on his watch. He had no time left and had explicitly set the alarm only to allow him a few minutes to make it to the test room. Because they were right next door to it, and he was the only person taking the test today, Martinez had no excuse for being late.
“Well, I guess it is time for me to go,” Martinez said as he looked back at Shiksie.
“Don’t look so down. You will do great,” Shiksie reassured him as she gently rested her hand on his. Martinez did not retract his hand out of fear, having become comfortable enough with Shiksie to know that even if she did claw him, she most likely did not intend to.
“One can only hope at this point,” Martinez replied flatly.
He pulled his hand from underneath hers and headed to the testing room. As he reached the door, he paused and looked back at Shiksie, putting on a small front for her.
“I will see you after the test?” Martinez questioned.
“Of course, I’m not going anywhere. The Director did make it clear we are in this together,” Shiksie said. Her tail swayed faster as she started to put the study supplies away.
“Yeah, I guess you are right,” Martinez chuckled.
“Exactly, now you’ll be late if you stay here. Get going,” Shiksie purred while waving her hand to shoo him out the door.
The next room over, where Martinez was supposed to take his test, looked nearly identical to where he and Shiksie had just been studying. One could say it was the same other than the intimidating presence of the Director.
The Director was seated at the desk at the front of the room. His massive, imposing bulk made the desk look puny compared to him. Even with his body slumping forward, his head was nearly in contact with the ceiling.
Upon his entrance, the Director’s head snapped to Martinez, his four yellow-green eyes carved into the Human’s soul. Martinez swallowed his spit and pressed forward despite the voice in the back of his head screaming how getting any closer would spell certain death.
“I thought you were going to be late,” The Director growled, turning to face Martinez. “That would be a bad start to this deal of ours.”
Martinez could not agree more with the Director in that regard. The two of them had struck a deal, and Martinez running away at the last minute would not help him. If he did so, it would likely do the opposite and have him back in the Human Navy faster than he could comprehend.
“I would not dream of it. I was already here the last hour or so. Shiksie and I were just doing some last-minute practice,” Martinez replied while gesturing at the wall towards the room Shiksie was waiting in.
“That’s the right attitude. Now, I need you to get started. That bitch ambassador will be here shortly, and I want to try to get her to shove off by having you too busy to talk,” the Director responded. A potent venom poured off his normally gravelly words when he mentioned the ambassador; the Director’s patience for the woman had clearly already been worn thin.
