Triptych (16 page)

“These are called brownies. Have you had chocolate before?”

Kalp has, and says as much, but the first tender bite makes him wonder if he had been lied to originally. The “candy bar” that he had eaten several months ago was nothing at all like this.
This
is fantastic. Kalp’s pleasure pleases Gwen, and she grins.

“I figured you’d like them,” she says. “I thought, if you have endorphins, you’d have to love the rush that chocolate gives.”

Kalp is too busy licking the last morsels of the treat from his lips, trying not to look like he is sizing up the rest of the shallow dish.

“Have another,” Gwen says, “but don’t eat too many too soon. The sugar will make you sick.”

Kalp takes another, says, carefully, “Cheers,” and stuffs it with rather less grace than usual into his mouth, licking around his teeth to make sure he has chased down every last delicious molecule.

Gwen’s eyes go shiny and bright and Kalp is not sure if she is more pleased about his reaction to the brownies, or that he has managed to utilize his jargon lesson from yesterday so effectively.

Basil sweeps back into the office with a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, and a bottle of water. He sets all three down on the draft table, seemingly unconcerned about the ring of moisture the condensation from the water bottle causes on the thin paper, and dives in for a handful of brownies of his own.

“Chocolate!” he crows, cramming two into his mouth at once, chewing lustily.

“Hey you,” Gwen says with a smile, pulling the container away from his grabbing hands too late. “These are for Kalp. You ate your half last night.”

“I only had batter,” Basil protests. His speech is still slower, but Kalp is slowly becoming accustomed to the pattern of his cadence and today Basil’s words are easier to decipher, even if they are muffled by the detritus of food between his cheeks.

“Exactly,” Gwen says.

Basil opens his eyes very wide and makes his lower lip protrude, and Kalp stops. He watches Gwen’s reaction to this strange new expression.

“Don’t beg,” Gwen scolds, but she is still smiling.

Ah, so this arrangement of the features is “pleading.” Kalp memorizes this dutifully and wonders if he can make his own mouth into that shape. He doubts his lower lip is plump enough, but perhaps he will try later when he is before the mirrors in the lavatory. If this is the expression he must make to earn more brownies, he is certainly willing to practice.

Gwen sighs — another term from yesterday — and holds out the box for Basil. Kalp does not begrudge the human man more of the brownies; they truly are excellent and Kalp believes that in the spirit of good will and mutual cooperation, he can sacrifice a few to Basil’s good humour.

But then Gwen does something Kalp did not expect. Right before Basil’s fingers close on a brownie, she tugs the dish out from under his fingers. She smiles at him, but the expression is different, wider and yet more narrow, and with a jolting stab of revelation, Kalp realizes he has seen this face before, too.

This is “sly.” This is the “invitation” face the woman in the pornography was making at the man.

Like the man in the book, Basil obligingly takes a step into her personal space and presses his mouth against Gwen’s. There is chocolate at the corner of his lips and Gwen’s wet pink tongue darts out to lick it away.

Kalp stands abruptly.

If they are in the opening phases of sexual intercourse, Kalp feels that for decency’s sake, he must leave them to it privately. He is no prude, but Kalp feels intercourse should only be witnessed by those in the Unit involved. He also fears his own physical reaction to the deed. His own genitalia, once engorged, would be very visible. He fears either that they will be disgusted by the physical manifestation of his arousal, or angered that he was aroused at all.

And after reading that pornography, Kalp does not doubt that he will become aroused.

He turns to walk towards the door, but Basil calls out to him, “Oi, mate, where you headed?”

Kalp stops, because it would be inconsiderate of him to depart without explanation, especially after so direct a request. “I will make myself absent for a time,” Kalp says. “So you may…finish.”

“Finish what?” Gwen asks, and the puzzlement in her voice forces Kalp to look over his shoulder at the two, just so he can gauge her reaction.

They are no longer entwined. Gwen is at her desk and Basil at his, the brownies temptingly unguarded in the middle of the draft table.

“Were you not just initiating intercourse?” Kalp asks, for clarification.

When they choke and turn red and trill, this time Kalp knows it is laughter and is not alarmed. He is mildly annoyed that they are once more laughing at his mistake, but he is more eager for them to cease laughing so that he may discover what they find amusing.

“It was just a kiss,” Gwen says. “It could lead to…to intercourse. But, uh…not in this office.”

“Anymore,” Basil adds under his breath and Gwen’s face flushes pink, again like the woman from the pornography.

Is she shamed or aroused?
Kalp wonders.

Still, this is a revelation that Kalp must muse over in solitude. “I require the lavatory,” he says, and it is the first outright lie he has told a human since Earth-fall. Were he feeling less conflicted about other things, he may have felt guilty for the deception. As it is, he is merely anxious to depart the office.

Basil waves him permission and Kalp goes.

Kalp retreats into one of the small metal cubicles and puts the lid down on the commode and curls himself into a ball and thinks.

Basil and Gwen are, if not a Unit, at least committed sexual partners.

Kalp knew that they were comfortable with each other, with each other’s proximity and bodies, but he had not suspected that they currently engaged in intercourse. Or rather, he
had
suspected, but suspicion and confirmation are two very different things, and Kalp cannot help but feel mildly surprised. He tugs his ears nervously — the images behind his eyes grow more vivid. The woman and man in the pornography suddenly wear the faces of his teammates and it is too intriguing to be professional.

A sudden, lurching thought occurs to Kalp.

They touch him the very same way.

No one has initiated something so intimate as a kiss yet, but perhaps that is due merely to shyness. Basil and Gwen each touch Kalp with the same casual affection that they touch each other. They had displayed their sexual initiations before him today, and unless Kalp missed the meaning of their exchange regarding the brownies, then they had been discussing intercourse that had been performed the evening prior. Intercourse that had involved Kalp’s brownies. In front of Kalp. And Basil keeps referring to Kalp as “mate.”

Most importantly, Kalp is a widower.

Here are two humans, already well on their way to being Aglunated, and him alone, who had volunteered to do whatever it takes to gain the human’s trust. What if he had misunderstood the question about volunteering? It was entirely possible — when the Specialists had come to them, Kalp’s grasp of English had been shaky at best.

Kalp could have agreed to anything without being sure of the particulars of the arrangement. It is not an unknown occurrence, even on his own world. Mistakes in comprehension are sometimes made.

What if what Kalp thought was a working relationship is actually a symbolic marriage? Has Kalp been purposefully placed into an Aglunate composed of humans and himself, as a political gesture?

For a brief moment, Kalp rages.

How dare! Kalp still aches for his lost Aglunates, he is not ready to retake others, especially so soon and especially a pair of leaking humans! He will not be used as a political tool, his own emotions rendered invalid. It is not fair and it is supremely undemocratic. Yet Gwen and Basil are kind, and Kalp really is willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that his people stay welcome on Earth. There is nowhere else they can go. The bonded pair of humans the Institute selected for Kalp could be worse.

It may not be so big a hardship, Kalp hopes tentatively, to be bonded to two people who are so thoughtful. Already he is very fond of them. Their generosity and kindness has impressed him, made them endearing. It makes him want to do something kind for them; like making brownies, or sharing a status-seat. He wishes there was something he could give, but he left his home with so little and everything he owns now is meagre and was donated. The thought touches the place inside where he still aches for Maru and Trus, but this time it does not hurt as much. Perhaps, he muses, spreading his palm flat, his fingers wide against his chest, the step towards intimacy and domesticity would not be as shockingly difficult as he fears.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this is exactly the thing he needs to help make the pain of abandonment fade.

For many long moments, Kalp remains in the commode’s cubicle, fingers tugging at his ears, thinking. He conjures up Maru’s and Trus’ faces and scents — they had been trying for a child, he and Maru and Trus. Any offspring generated from two would have been considered the product and pride of three. A Unit of four is the idyll on his world.

Kalp had been looking forward to offspring.

He had wanted very much to be a father. He had been anticipating lazy sunny afternoons with a picture book; evenings in the kitchen, the small one reaching up to thieve a sweet before the evening’s repast has finished cooking; teaching the child everything that Maru and Trus could not, the things that he knew only from his own parents. All the things his mothers and father taught him.

Now he will never know the child he had so envisioned. Not one of his own, not unless he enters into another Aglunate of his own people, and there are so few of them, they are so scattered…But here, he has been offered a place — symbolic, surely, but it appears as if Gwen and Basil are willing to take a step beyond the symbolic, to make it a true Aglunate, if he is willing to participate. The resultant offspring will not be his own, but Kalp thinks he would not mind helping to raise theirs. He will care for it, he knows, as if it were his own, pink and fragile or not. He could be that child’s father, too, and teach it everything that Maru and Trus would have, everything his own mothers and father taught him, could have the lazy afternoons with the picture books, even if they would be in English, could have the sneaked sweeties.

Yes, Kalp decides. He will do this.

For his people. For their future on Earth. For Gwen and Basil, and for, perhaps, the child he may be father to. For his own happiness.

He can try.

Choice made, Kalp emerges from the cubicle, washes his hands to ensure no cross contamination of bacteria, and returns to the office. It is quiet when he enters, Gwen and Basil each sheepishly bent over paperwork at their desks. Basil has retrieved a second chair from somewhere. Both of their cheeks flare red briefly, fetching and signalling shame all at once.

Kalp, taking the cue of silence, walks over to the drafting table and sits, and works over his own translations quietly until the mid-afternoon repast.

***

The only item in this whole marriage that confuses Kalp is the domicile arrangements. If he and his teammates are meant to be an Aglunate, then why does Kalp not reside with them in their own home? Do Units not live under the same roof, here? But he has seen on television that they do, at least in the unrealistic perfection of the fantasy world that Kalp knows television represents. 

Perhaps Gwen and Basil merely do not feel that it is necessary. But Kalp surprises himself by realizing that he wishes it was. He is equally surprised to realize that he may not even mind living with the secreting humans. As the Aglunation
is
purely symbolic, he need not even keep a room with them; indeed, many households on his world kept a spare nest in case one of the three was feeling unwell or just a specific two were attempting to conceive. Kalp would be happy to sleep elsewhere if only it meant…

Meant not going back to the Sleeping Place.

Kalp feels ungrateful. He is given a room in which to sleep, clothing to wear, food to eat, a place to clean himself, all for free. But he does not like it.

Every afternoon, at the completion of the work day, Kalp has returned to the Sleeping Place and neither Gwen nor Basil has made a move to redirect Kalp to their own shared home. Perhaps, he thinks, they are attempting to create an offspring and do not wish Kalp to be in their home at that time. Kalp is not sure about his own reaction to this — he is relieved in part, because according to the pornography, human intercourse is very rough and involves an extreme amount of bodily fluid. Kalp has just gotten used to their oily scent-marking. He is not sure he could handle full fornication.

But he is also somewhat disappointed, for as messy as it seems, the humans do appear to be having fun, and Kalp would like to try it. He misses intercourse. Self-pleasure is fine, but it is rare when he is alone enough to engage in it, and it is not as satisfying.

Perhaps they are merely allowing him time to become accustomed to their arrangement before they commit to it fully, and Kalp finds he likes this line of reasoning best of all. He is not a stupid man. He is aware that he is probably deceiving himself, but he cannot find it in himself to argue. It is a more likely possibility that Basil and Gwen would prefer to keep their Aglunation in the symbolic, at least where intimacies with Kalp are concerned. He cannot say he blames them. He must be as strange to them as they are to him.

Comfort is comfort, and he will take what comfort he can, all alone on an alien planet.

At night, he imagines what it may be like, between Gwen and Basil, pressing his mouth awkwardly against theirs when they are touching so intimately, feeling that burst of warm affection between three that he scarce hopes to experience again. When he drops into his unconscious phase, even Derx’s droning cannot divest him of his quiet, hopeful joy.

***

Before lunch on the third day, Kalp notices the slice of white, puffed scar tissue on Gwen’s forehead. It is slightly startling — his own people develop scars, of course; anything with skin does — but unless the scars are very serious, their colouring and fur often disguise the disfiguring marks. Therefore, presenting or showing scars to another is rare and strange and intimate.