Chapter 41: Chloe & Tor

CHLOE

Chloe sat at the little table, her head bowed over her meal. She had no appetite, merely prodding her soup with her spoon.

Tor was quiet. He wasn’t forcing her to eat. He’d stopped trying to engage her in conversation.

He was doing his best to remain patient, she could tell, but she could sense his frustration.

Ever since the meeting with the other women, Chloe felt worse, not better. What had been their intention, putting her on the back foot like that?

Even now she could feel the blush in her cheeks. It was so personal.

She imagined everyone talking about her—the bonded couples together in their bedrooms. Maybe even laughing together.

“I thought we might do something different today,” Tor suddenly said.

Chloe jerked her face up, then lowered it again. She felt more heat flush up her neck. ~I bet it’ll be before the week is out.~

Chloe’s throat was dry as she swallowed. “Oh?”

“The Wrilings damaged the ship and it requires repairs. They’ve asked me to take on the task. I thought—you might want to come?”

“Me?”

“Why not?”

“Won’t I get in the way?”

“Maybe. So?”

Chloe was staring at his mouth, rather than his eyes. It was too hard to meet his eyes, but she suddenly realized that his lips were so much worse. She quickly looked away. She felt the flush in her neck deepening.

“What do you say?” he said. “Get you out of this room for a while. Do something different. I think we ~both~ could do with something different, don’t you think?”

Chloe remembered the night when she’d played with his phone. She nodded.

“Good!” He stood. “Why don’t we go now?”

“N-now?”

“You got something else to do?”

Chloe opened and shut her mouth. He strode toward the door. Chloe leapt from her seat and followed.

Minutes later, they were in a very large room she’d never seen before, preparing to suit up in strange clothes made of some kind of slippery, sleek fabric that felt like the skin of a frog.

“You will have to strip down,” he told her.

“W-what?”

“It must be skin to fabric for the suit to work properly.”

Chloe frowned. “You mean I have to be naked?”

He pursed his lips as he tried not to laugh. “Don’t worry. You can turn around and do most of it yourself. I won’t look.”

“Why do we have to wear these anyway? I thought we were just fixing something.”

Tor didn’t answer. As he pulled off his shirt, Chloe looked around the room, wondering where the damage might be. Whatever room it was, it was mostly empty. Large machines were stowed away in cubicles on both sides. The ceiling was high. The place was so big it was probably the size of several football fields. How massive was this ship?

“What is this place anyway?” she asked, her voice echoing.

“A holding bay. It was where we fought the Wrilings.”

Chloe looked at him, then abruptly jerked her eyes away. She’d looked right at the wrong time—he’d already stepped into his suit and was situating his male bits. Her neck turned hot. Her mouth suddenly dry, Chloe cleared her throat and turned her back on him.

Quickly, she took off her shirt. She no longer wore a bra or underwear. She could feel her face flaming as she dropped her pants and stumbled into the legs of her suit, pulling them up as quickly as possible. Though it had seemed overlarge in her hands, the suit clung to her shape like a second skin. It was surprisingly comfortable.

“Here. Let me help you to close up,” he said.

Chloe jumped, unaware he was so close. Standing behind her, he closed the gap in the back of her suit, his fingers brushing against her skin. Chloe fixed her hair, then turned around. Her neck turned hotter. The suit clung to his shape too—too much. She could see all the muscles in his arms and legs. It really accentuated the broadness of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, the thickness of his neck. Chloe kept her eyes raised to his face, the bulge down below far too obvious.

Then she wondered how she must look. It was easy to tell; though he tried to keep his yellow eyes upon her face, they kept darting all over her. Chloe wondered how her suit didn’t simply burn up from the heat in her skin.

“Come on,” he said, and held out his hand.

Chloe took the object and they walked over to a bench where two helmets sat. She tilted her head, puzzled. More lessons? “What’s going on? I thought we were fixing something.”

Tor picked up one of the helmets, holding it in front of his chest. Chloe saw that it was nothing like the language helmets they had used before. The visor was a full shield and the helmet itself curved fully around the head. It looked tight, as if it would be hard to put on and hard to take off.

“We ~are~ fixing something,” Tor said. “Unless you want to go outside without being able to breathe.”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “G-go outside?”

“What did you think we were going to do?”

“Well…” She looked around.

“Are you frightened?”

Chloe snapped her eyes back to Tor. He was grinning slyly at her.

“No.” She took the helmet from him. It was surprisingly light. He helped her put it on, then donned his own. Chloe’s heart was already pounding as she stared at the doors ahead.

She jumped when Tor’s voice suddenly spoke loud and clear in her helmet.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Chloe nodded. “What…how are we supposed to do this?”

He explained as he wrapped one end of what looked like some kind of plastic belt around her waist, then the other end around his waist. They would be tethered together, and Tor would be tethered to the ship itself at all times.

Chloe’s heart rate slowed a little. “So we can’t just float away?”

He grinned through his helmet. “Not a chance.” He picked up what looked like a large fanny pack from the floor. “This will be yours. You’re going to be my assistant.”

“Me? But I don’t know what to do!”

“Yes, I considered that.”

“But this is a space walk! This is what astronauts do! I’m not an astronaut!”

“As-tro-naught?”

Waving it aside, Chloe backed away. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” he said firmly.

Chloe shook her head, the helmet moving with her. “I can’t… I don’t… I’ll muck everything up.” ~And you’ll hate me for it.~

“All you have to do is hand me what I ask you,” he said. There was an edge of disappointment to his voice. “I thought you were braver than this.”

“I ~am~ brave!”

“Well then.” He held up the bag. “I’ll help you belt this on.”

Speechless, so nervous her body felt sluggish and cold, Chloe wrapped the fanny pack around her waist.

“It’s heavy,” she said with a gasp, staggering.

“Don’t worry. It won’t weigh a thing shortly.”

Chloe’s heart was hammering so hard she could hear it in her ears. He finished clipping on the tether to himself. Wire and chains were dangling around his waist.

The plastic belt connecting them both looked scarily thin and weak. He checked the clip around her waist, making sure it was tight. Chloe didn’t notice his touch or how close he was, too nervous. Her teeth were chattering.

It felt like those few terrifying, thrilling moments before plummeting down the drop of a rollercoaster. She could feel her meal churning inside her. What if she threw up? In her helmet?!

“All right. It all looks good. Come over here and we’ll put our shoes on.”

“Is it really going to be just us two?” Chloe said breathlessly as he helped her put them on. They looked huge, but once her feet were inside, they suctioned onto her ankles, fitting perfectly.

“What if something happens?”

Tor tapped his helmet. “I have continuous contact with the mother ship. They will have a visual on us at all times. Don’t worry! I do this all the time. It’s a simple procedure.”

“Maybe to you,” she grumbled.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Chloe’s thighs were stiff with terror; her knees buckled from the weight of the fanny pack as he took her hand and guided her over toward the huge doors. They were large enough it looked like a commercial jet could fit through them.

It was all so overwhelming. To think that only minutes before, Chloe thought it was going to be an ordinary day—as ordinary as it could be on an alien spaceship. Just another day where all she had to contend with was Tor and their bed and the little room.

Compared with what she was about to do now, it all felt so small and inconsequential. So ~easy~. What ~had~ she been so afraid of?

She yelped and grabbed Tor’s forearm as the doors began to open. She felt dizzy. The bumbag seemed to weigh her down into the floor. Her heart pounded madly.

Yet, there was nowhere else Chloe would rather be than with Tor, swept away on a little adventure.

~Little~. This wasn’t little. At least not for anyone on Earth.

~I’m going out into space. I’m going out into space. With an alien! To fix a ship! This can’t be real.~

They walked up to another set of doors as the doors behind them shut tight. This was it. In only a few minutes, she was going to be outside.

Tor attached one of his chains to a large hook in the wall.

“Are you ready?” Tor asked, speaking into her helmet.