Bebe (7 page)

She had curled onto her side in the water, knees drawn up to her chest and one hand covering her eyes. Her lips had pulled back from her teeth in a quivering grimace that looked more miserable than aggressive. She wasn’t making any growling noises, anyway. In fact, the only sound he could hear out of her were gentle lapping sounds as a slight jerking of her shoulders made the bathwater shift around her and an even softer breathy whining noise. Then she sniffled, hiccupping raggedly on her next indrawn breath, and Tral realized she was crying.

Well, but that was a good sign, wasn’t it? If she had liquid enough in her for tears, then she probably wasn’t too terribly dehydrated, and if she was crying then that also meant he no longer needed to worry about hypothermic shock.

She keened another breathy exhale, her shoulders jerking out a series of spasms, and Tral stepped uncomfortably out of the doorway. After six years in this cabin completely alone, he’d be the first to admit his social skills might be a tad on the rusty side. But unsure how or even if he ought to try comforting her, he retreated back into the main room to give her privacy. He could still hear her crying. Not that she was being any louder about it, but he suspected his ears were fine-tuning themselves towards those water-lapping, licking noises and the whisper-soft gasps as she either inhaled or exhaled and then sniffed.

“Tea.” He oriented himself towards the kitchen sink and went to fill a heavy iron pot with water. Should he make enough for two? Did humans even drink tea? Or, perhaps more importantly, did he have two mugs clean enough to offer her a cup? He looked at his sink, overflowing with at least two weeks’ worth of dirty dishes. He typically didn’t bother washing up until the shelves were barren of anything clean, and so far he still had one unused spoon in the drawer. Admittedly, he had been saving that spoon for at least three days just so he could avoid the impending chore.

And true to form, he avoided it now. Adding two bags of
bucca
leaves to the kettle, he hung it on a hook over the fire to steep and then went to sit at his computer. He was six weeks late with his daily logs, and frankly, he’d much rather pretend to be catching up on those than wash dishes.

Pulling up the oldest unsent logs, he spent several long minutes re-reading what he’d already written, trying to remember which day that was and drawing a total blank. Still, it sounded good, so he attached a few supporting and completely random pictures (two of which co-starred his thumb) from his camera file and then submitted them. Now and then, he glanced up at the bathroom to listen for any further sounds. Nope, still sniffling.

He got caught up on another week’s worth of logs before, glancing at the open bathroom door—everything was really quiet in there now—he pulled up the Stray Log. The corner of his mouth tugging into a grimace, he typed in the date, the approximate time and location in which he’d found her, and then after frowning at the screen for several long minutes, wrote under ‘notes’ simply: one female, alive.

His gaze fell to the previous post. As wounded as today’s little stray was, at least there was only one of her. The last time, three had been dumped in the snow outside the Preserve. This was a big place; it was wild and overgrown. That time, he hadn’t found them until the spring thaw. That his own people could be so heartlessly capable of doing such a thing, never failed to astound him. It wasn’t just one person, either. In the six years that he’d been here, there had been fifteen abandoned pets.

Fifteen. And so far, this little female was the only one he’d yet found alive.

A corner of his mouth twisted. In her current condition, that diagnosis might yet be proved premature. Turning his head, he looked back over his shoulder at the bathroom door and wondered who he should be the more ashamed of: the unknown owner who had dumped her out here, or himself, quietly hoping she’d die in the night, just so he wouldn’t have to fill out the paperwork.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alone too long

On the pretense of trying to work, Tral sat at his computer, listening to the overwhelming silence. Now and then he looked at the bathroom door, but he couldn’t see his little stray female from here. He couldn’t see her, and he couldn’t hear her. Not so much as a sniffle, or a gentle splash of moving water, or even the softest, breathiest keening cry to suggest she might still be sobbing in that strangely quiet, broken way. If he hadn’t known better, he’d almost have thought he was completely alone here in the station house.

Maybe she was dead. She’d certainly be stuck with enough
vouka
spines.

Shutting off his computer, after a moment, Tral got up to check on her.

No longer curled up in the bottom of the tub, he found his little stray female sitting in the middle of the tub, surrounded by a hip-high sea of muddy-looking and very tepid water. Hugging her slender legs to her chest, she twisted back her head to look at him.

She had the bluest eyes that he’d ever seen in his life. Not for the first time, he was struck at how remarkably people-like the human animal was. If one looked beyond her strangely colored eyes and that golden mane of very soft hair, Tral could almost understand why some men took humans for recreational purposes. Looking at her was like looking at a real woman, only in miniature—a real woman with small, peaked breasts and a trim waist that rounded gently into the hourglass-swells of feminine hips and buttocks.

Six years of solitary confinement in the wilds of the Preserve caught up to him with a stab of such unexpected lust, that Tral could only shake his head at himself. Over an animal, too. “You’ve been out here too long.”

She blinked at him, then sadly turned her face away. Her thin shoulders sagged dejectedly as she hugged her knees tighter and bowed to press her forehead against them.

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, he made an effort to locate a clean—or mostly clean—towel. Letting it unfold between his hands, he gestured for her to stand. “Come here.”

Turning her face to the wall, she pressed her cheek to her knees now and didn’t move.

“Come on.” Whistling, he snapped his fingers twice and gestured for her to stand. He held the towel open wider.

Heaving a small sigh, she unfolded herself. Gripping the edge of the tub with both hands, in obvious pain, she rose onto her tender feet and shuffled in limping half-steps until she had turned toward him. She made no attempt to take the towel from his hands. She simply stood there, waiting, with leaves and sticks tangled in the long curls of her hair and smudges of dirt on her cheek, chin, knees, and even under her breasts. He’d been so concerned with pulling the
vouka
thistles out of her that bathing her had never occurred to him.

Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to her, either. She stood before him, a small, unhappy animal, casting glances from him to the towel and back again, and waited for him to decide what to do.

Dropping the towel on the sink behind him, Tral rolled up his shirt sleeves. Not really sure how she might take being touched (he was a stranger, after all), he moved slowly, reaching in past her to let the dirty water out of the bottom of the tub, turn the clean water on and pull the showerhead down off the wall. Adjusting the temperature to a comfortable warmth, he lay a steadying hand upon her shoulder and then began to clean her up.

She ducked when the first pulsing spray struck the top of her head, saturating her hair and sending a few dead leaves flowing from tangled hair. They cascaded down her back, following the curve of her spine and buttocks before washing down her legs into the bottom of the tub. Otherwise, she didn’t move. Not when he passed the showerhead over her bruised and scratched shoulders, letting the force of the spray wash her clean. Not even when he wet down a bath cloth and, shutting off the water, began to wash her physically. With every pass of the cloth, the dirt was wiped away and cuts, bruises and scrapes revealed.

“You’ve had a bad couple of days,” he said with a tsk, dabbing gently at the cut he found just under her chin.

She stared into his eyes, silent and still.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” Tilting her face towards the light, he brushed a corner of the cloth up over the curve of her cheek, gently washing her face. “That’s okay. There’s some who’d cheerfully say I talk enough for at least two people.”

Tral soaped up her hair next, and found two more
vouka
spines hidden behind her ear. After that, he felt carefully all over her scalp, taking his time while he worked the forest debris out of that mess of yellow tangles. Finally, when he was certain there was nothing on top of her head but golden hair, he rinsed the soap away.

He’d just taken care of the only two safe places on the whole of her small body that he felt comfortable touching. Tral picked up the soap and bath cloth again. He cleared his throat, trying to cover his awkwardness with a smile. “If you were a real woman, you’d probably be ready to slap me silly in a minute.”

Rubbing a fresh cleaning lather into the cloth, he began to scrub the rest of her. He tackled her shoulders first, and then her arms, soaping between each of her five fingers and cleaning the dirt out from under her fingernails. His hand barely trembled at all when he rinsed and re-lathered, before laying the cloth flat against her chest.

Those entirely too feminine breasts would barely fill the palms of his hands, he discovered as he passed the cloth over and around them. The nipples peaked under each soapy caress. His mouth watered, and the temptation to simply lean over and try a little taste of her was perversely strong. He kept himself in stern check, his washing hand moving down to rub the cloth impersonally—as impersonally as he could manage it—over the soft trim length of her belly, her hips, her legs. His eyes were drawn to the shadowy valley between her thighs and that slight trim patch of blonde hair, no bigger than the tip of his thumb. He rinsed and re-soaped the cloth, staring at her there for a long time before trying to offer her the cloth.

“Do you want to—” he gestured between her legs, but she made no move to take over the task of bathing herself.

No longer watering, his mouth was now bone dry.

“Okay.” He nudged her thighs apart, looking anywhere but at her as he slipped his hand between them. Those piecing blue unwavering eyes of hers never left him as he stroked back and forth. He felt a sharp prick at the tip of his fingers and, setting the cloth aside, he let his fingers replace it. His fingers slipped soapily all along and around the folds of her womanly sex, feeling for spines and finding two of them. “Ouch. Don’t move.”

He had to sanitize his needle and picked up his tweezers again, and then get all the way down on his knees, peeling her open with one hand and bringing his face in so close that it was an education to discover he had that many twisted, perverted tendencies lurking deep inside himself. Up until that moment, he’d thought he was a pretty respectable male. Up until that moment, he’d also had no idea a female human had a clitoris. It wasn’t even located in the right place. It was outside her body, right where it would be the most awkward to stimulate during sex.

“Hunh,” he said and, once he’d removed the slivers, he touched it. Strictly for scientific, zoological purposes, of course.

The little female stiffened, latching onto his shoulders, her face contorting with pain when she came arching up onto her tiptoes.

“I’m sorry.” He took his hand away at once. “I’m sorry. Your poor, tender feet.”

She eased back off his shoulders and he motioned her to turn around. She shuffled to face the wall, putting her back to him and bracing her hands against the tiles. He kept his hands out from between her tense thighs this time, and washed down her back instead.

Using the showerhead, he rinsed her twice before he could pass that cloth from her shoulders to her ankles without the lather turning dingy. Then he let his hands wander over her, feeling along every inch of her limbs for any more
vouka
stickers. Tral turned his face away, as if that might make it any less personal while he fondled her buttocks, his fingers slipping easily between them, following the crack down to the slit of her sex.

“No more thistles,” he finally declared, and took his hands completely off her. She was now the cleanest human he’d ever seen in his life, pale here and there, but with the ugliest bruises covering her buttocks and in two nasty lines between her shoulders and across the small of her back. He had no idea what she’d been hit with, but it must have been a terrible beating. He ran his fingertips over the worst of the marks, ignoring it when she flinched from his touch. “I think I can fix some of this.”

He shut the water off and reached for the towel again. Draping it over her head, he wrapped her in the folds, briefly waged a mental debate on where he could grip her that might hurt less than any other place and then just lifted her out. She whimpered when he set her on her feet.

“Yeah, I know it hurts,” he said sympathetically, and she slowly straightened her wobbly legs.

As gently as possible, he patted her dry, taking special care with her back, buttocks and legs.

“It’s hard to imagine a little thing like you doing anything to warrant something like this.” Turning her around, he lowered himself to one knee to caress the surface of her mottled buttocks. When he nudged her shoulders, she tried to limp away from him.

“No, no.” He caught her arm and pulled her back into place facing the tub. “Bend over.”

She tried to turn and face him.

“No,” he said again, striving for patience. He took hold of her arm and her far shoulder and gradually applied pressure until she bent, whimpering once again as she lay her hands upon the lip of the tub.

“Stay,” he told her, releasing her one hand at a time until he was sure she wasn’t going to straight immediately upright again. Kneeling behind her, he dug through his medical kit. He found a small vial of
ulali
oil tucked underneath a roll of bandages in the very bottom. As he dug it out, he winced slightly and looked at her again. “You’re going to have to trust me. This won’t feel good going on, but it will heal those bruises faster than if we let time take its course.”