Unable to face his sitik’s alien appearance, Moki looked away, out over the slate-colored ocean at the grey clouds, heavy with rain that blocked the setting sun. He felt like one of those clouds, grey with grief. Off in the distance, he saw a black speck rounding the point. It was a boat, coming to take Eerin away. Even though he knew he would see his sitik again, there was a finality to the boat’s approach. Nothing would be the same after she left.
Someone touched him on the shoulder. It was Eerin. She held a stick in one hand.
“I love you, Moki” she drew in skin speech on the damp sand.
Moki nodded. “I love you too,” he replied. “My sitik.”
Eerin brushed his shoulder, and they stood together on the beach, looking out at the grey ocean and sky, waiting for the boat that would take his sitik away.
At last the boat pulled up onto the beach. Eerin put her gear in the boat, and embraced Ukatonen and Anitonen. Then she turned to Moki and stroked his face. That wordless gesture conveyed everything there was to say. Then she climbed into the boat. Moki watched as it headed out to sea, the waves from its wake washing away the words she had written in the sand.
Chapter 31
After four days of tests, the doctors released Juna from the infirmary. She headed for the communal osento to scrub away the smell of the hospital. It was dinner time, and the baths were deserted. She was grateful for the solitude; she’d had too much clinical poking and prodding lately. A peaceful, quiet bath would soothe her tired spirit and her aching hands and feet.
She took off her clothes, placing them in one of the pink plastic baskets on the shelf, and regarded herself in the mirror. She looked like a gymnast, her body bulging with lean, ropy muscles. She turned, posing and flexing her muscles, laughing with delight at how good she looked. Her hair was still only a thin fuzz on her scalp, and her high, arching eyebrows were barely discernible lines. The lack of eyebrows made her look much younger than her true age. She reached for a towel and washcloth and noticed once again that the faded blue tribal tattoos were gone from her wrists and arms. She frowned. Her mother had taken her to have them done just before everything went wrong. Those tattoos were her last memory of good times spent with her mother. She would have to have them retattooed when she returned to Earth.
She scrubbed herself at one of the low spigots set along one wall, then rinsed off and stepped into the big stone-floored bath with a sigh of pure pleasure. It was wonderful being human again.
She settled deeper into the steaming hot water. Before her transformation, she had avoided the baths. No matter how thoroughly she scrubbed before entering the tub, her skin would still have been alien. She hadn’t wanted to pollute the communal waters with her strangeness.
She let her hands float up to the surface. The water was so hot it made her new fingernails ache, but it eased the bone-deep pain in her hands and feet. She could feel occasional sharp twinges as muscle realigned itself along the shrinking bones of her hands and feet. Her hands had already shrunk by a half a centimeter.
Half a centimeter in four days. It amazed the doctors. They were furious with her for undergoing her retransformation in the middle of the jungle instead of under observation in a safe, clinical environment. Juna didn’t regret her choice. It had given her a chance to say goodbye to her life among the Tendu in a quiet, dignified manner. The doctors would have plenty of chances to observe the Tendu at work: she had already ensured that.
She took a deep breath and slid underwater to lie fetally curled on the rough black stone floor of the bath, letting the hot water embrace her. She turned her awareness inside, trying to feel her life rhythms, as she had before her transformation. If she concentrated, she could sense them, but it was as if they were behind a veil. She surfaced and stretched out, letting the blissfully hot water buoy her up.
Footsteps thudded dully on the floor of the bathhouse. Juna opened her eyes and sat up.
“Hi there. Want someone to scrub your back?”
“Bruce!”
“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” Juna said.
“Then I’ll scrub down and join you.”
Juna smiled. “I’d like that.”
He seated himself on a small wooden stool in front of a spigot and began soaping off. Juna climbed out of the bath, picked up a washcloth, and began scrubbing his back, admiring the smooth curve of his well-muscled shoulders. Bruce left off scrubbing and arched his back under her hands like a pleased cat.
“That feels wonderful,” he said. “Don’t stop.”
She moved lower, scrubbing with one hand, and kneading his muscles with the other, all the way down his back. She hesitated as she reached his buttocks. Bruce turned and began scrubbing her arms and shoulders. She lifted her chin and he moved to her upper chest, the rough washcloth sliding slowly over her skin. She straightened slightly, closing her eyes. Bruce let his hands slide lower, soaping her breasts.
Juna felt a rush of heat spread up her loins; her nipples were turning hard. She opened her eyes and stopped his hands. “What if someone comes in?”
“We won’t be disturbed,” he told her, with a mischievous grin. “The baths are ‘closed for maintenance.’ I put the sign up myself. Do you want me to go on?”
She leaned forward and kissed him. His hands, slippery with soap, slid over her back, and up her sides. He cupped her breasts in his large, strong hands, pinching her nipples with his fingers. His tongue slid into her mouth. She met it with her own, reaching down to circle his hard cock with her fingers. He reached up and turned on the shower. They stood under the warm water, still kissing as they rinsed the soap off their bodies.
Bruce slid his hand between her legs, stroking her with firm, gentle fingers. Juna gasped and rested her forehead against his shoulder, turning her hips outward, giving his hand better access. She clung to him as she came repeatedly.
“Please,” she said at last. “I’ve got to lie down.”
Bruce spread four bath towels on a dry section of floor, folding the last one to cushion their heads. They lay down. Bruce began kissing his way down her neck to her breasts, sucking her nipples, his hand working in her crotch as she arched again and again in orgasm.
At last she pushed him away. “My turn,” she whispered as she moved down to his crotch, smelling his clean, warm, male smell as she took his penis in her mouth.
After several minutes, he moved away. Juna lay back on the towels, pulled him on top of her, and guided him in, moaning as she felt him slide into her, giving herself up to the ecstasy of sex. It had been so long, so very long. She had forgotten just how good it could be.
Afterwards, they lay together in the hot water of the bath. She stretched and smiled, remembering the feel of his hands on her breasts, wishing that they could have linked so she could share how good it felt.
“What are you thinking?” he whispered.
Juna laughed. “I was just thinking how good it is to have nipples again.”
“I wouldn’t have minded you without them,” he said.
“But it bothered me,” she replied.
“I could have gotten used to it, Juna. I was willing to try.”
She turned to face him. “I spent nearly five years inside an alien skin, Bruce. I didn’t want anyone to have to get used to me. I wanted to be myself again.”
Juna looked away across the dark, rippling expanse of the bath. “It was all right before the Survey came back. I was a Tendu among Tendu. I had forgotten how strange I looked. But when the humans returned, I saw myself through their eyes"—she closed her eyes, remembering—"and I knew that I was different. I had changed in ways that made me no longer fully human. I needed to change back. I needed to be fully human again.” She rested her head against his chest and smiled. “It feels good to be back in my own skin again.”