I quicken my step, trying to stay as close to the blue giant as possible. His long legs keep a quick pace and after a while of trying to keep up, I’m starting to fade fast. It’s been a stressful couple of days and I haven’t eaten a thing. My stomach is beyond hunger. It’s like it has just given up and ceased rumbling. Either that or it starved to death and the rest of my body is about to follow it along.
“Where are we going?” I whimper, my legs feeling like they’re full of lead. “Please tell me you’re taking me to a Holiday Inn. I’ll even settle for a Motel Six. Okay, a dirty bus stop. But can we please stop walking?”
He turns and frowns as he looks down at me. “Ratchata hurew?” he says.
“I don’t speak alien,” I answer with a frustrated shake of my head. “I speak English and about ten words of French. Bonjour. Avion. Chaises.”
He doesn’t seem to understand French either. I’m not surprised. French is hard as shit.
He’s still carrying that creature’s huge leg over his shoulder and I’m not sure if he plans on using it as a weapon, eating it for dinner, or planting it in the ground and using it as a flagpole.
“Ratchata hurew?” he asks again, looking down at me with a big blue furrowed brow.
“Boogalooga-moo,” I answer back with a nod. “Goobaloober woober. I told you, I don’t speak fucking alien!”
He just shakes his head and grunts. He turns and walks away, shaking his head and looking even more frustrated than before.
My heart stops when I realize I might have just ripped up my only ticket to survival and I race to catch up. “You misunderstood me,” I say, my voice racing. “You see in my planet Goobaloober woober is the highest compliment there is! It means that you look like a sexy blueberry.”
He points to a cliff that’s not too far away and I gasp. “Are you expecting me to climb that thing?”
“Cheecha pourten,” he says, not turning back.
“Who you calling a cheecha?” I mutter as I follow him.
We finally get there and he points to a cave. “Cheecha pourten.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I said Holiday Inn. I spoke to a nice guy named Greg on the phone. He upgraded me to an executive suite for free.”
“Cheecha pourten,” he repeats walking forward.
“Right,” I mutter. “Well, Cheecha pourten is going to get a bad review on Yelp from me.”
I follow him into the cave and sit down on a rock. We weren’t the first ones here. There’s a circle of rocks with ashes in the middle and some weird looking bones tossed to the side.
“No,” I shout as he heads for the exit. “Don’t go! I promise I won’t leave a bad review!”
He turns and looks at me curiously. “Nurtea,” he says and then disappears.
“Oh,” I mutter, nodding to myself. “Nurtea. Why didn’t you say so?” I just hope that nurtea is something that I can eat.
Now that I’m sitting, my stomach starts growling with a vengeance. I start thinking back to that buttery popcorn that I had in the theater and groan.
There’s a muted thump every few minutes as the meteors hurtling towards the planet smash into it. Thump. Thump. It sounds like the planet’s heartbeat.
Sexy Smurf comes back a few minutes later with a stack of logs in his arms and I take a breath of relief. He’s still a little bit scary but at least I know him. Now the unknown, that’s the really scary stuff. It’s starting to get dark out and I don’t even want to imagine what kind of nightmarish creatures come out at night on this hell hole of a planet. I’m just glad he’s back.
I watch his flexed back muscles ripple as he places the logs into a pile over some dried leaves. He cracks two rocks together a couple of times and the whole thing bursts into flames. He goes back outside and a loud snap rings out that makes me jump up.
He comes back in with a huge chunk of the leg. “Trunela,” he says, motioning to it.
It sounds like a French delicacy and I close my eyes imagining that I’m in Paris at a restaurant that I can’t possibly afford. When I open them he’s holding the leg over the fire, turning it slowly.
“Trunellea,” I repeat, trying to copy the weird sounds that he made. If I’m stuck on this planet I might as well learn the language.
“Trunela,” he corrects.
“Trunela,” I repeat and he nods with a smile on his face. It takes me back and my heart skips a beat. He can smile. He looks sexier with his whole ‘Me-Tarzan, You-Jane’ look but this is nice too. It’s comforting.
I tap my palm to my chest. “Avery,” I say slowly.
He drops the leg and reaches forward, putting a hand on my breast. “Avery,” he repeats, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Uhm, okay,” I say, taking his thick wrist and trying to pull it off. It’s like trying to move a fire hydrant. He gives my boob one more little squeeze and then lets go.
“Turic,” he says, pounding his chest with a fist. He reaches back and grabs my other breast. “Avery.”
“How about we stop grabbing breasts?” I say trying to pry his hand off of my chest. “We did just meet. I usually require at least two drinks before there’s any boob play.”