Awakened by the Giant Read online

  “I don’t know about ‘better.’” Madeline sniffed and swiped at her eyes again, this time with a forearm. “Maybe more like all cried out. I just feel…empty inside. Empty and embarrassed.” She struggled in his arms and Calden let her sit up. “I don’t understand how I could let myself…go like that. I mean, I don’t even know you.” Her cheeks flushed a dull red—clearly she was talking about the orgasm she had experienced while he was washing the nutrient slime out of her.

  “You were simply reacting to physical stimuli,” Calden pointed out. “Your nerves are extremely sensitive—you couldn’t help yourself.”

  “I should have helped myself—or at least stopped myself from crying like a baby all over you.” She shook her head, still plainly embarrassed by her loss of emotional control. “I’m sorry—I don’t know why I lost it like that.”

  “You had a physical release which led to an emotional release, I believe,” Calden speculated. “Waking in the nutrient bath and learning of the demise of the rest of your crew members and your mate was a traumatic experience. I am sorry I did such a poor job of breaking the news to you.”

  She frowned and lifted her chin.

  “I want to look around your station or wherever this is. I want to see for myself that no one else is here—that you’re telling the truth and you don’t have the rest of them hidden away in slime tanks somewhere.”

  Calden thought about it and shrugged.

  “I see no reason why you should not have a tour of the station,” he remarked. “In the past, I have brought other specimens out of the lab and FATHER and the Mentats have never objected.”

  Madeline sighed. “Could you please stop calling me a specimen? I’m a person, you know. Even though I’m smaller than you it doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts and feelings.”

  “Forgive me,” Calden said. “It is…difficult to know how to treat you. In addition to being sentient and a totally different species, you are also female—I have had almost no experience with your kind.”

  “What? With females?” Hey eyebrows raised in surprise.

  “My people had no females left to mate with—which is why most of them chose to go looking for brides while I elected to come to the Mentat station. Of course I had a mother…” He sighed. “But she died when I was very young. I have only a few scattered memories of her.”

  “Well, just treat me like a friend,” she suggested. “Or at least another intelligent being. Just because I have girly parts doesn’t make me some kind of mystery or riddle to be solved or mean I’m mentally incompetent. I can think for myself—a vagina and a brain aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”

  “Of course not.” For some reason, her words made his eyes flicker down to the vagina in question. Madeline had a soft mound of curls about the same dark color as the hair on her head there. Calden thought of how she had trembled against him, her full breasts pushed against his face as she called out in the throes of pleasure. Strangely, he felt his shaft hardening at the memory. Quickly, he looked away from her naked body.

  “Could you give me something to dry off with and then get me some clothes?” Madeline asked.

  “Oh, yes—yes of course.” Calden got up from his seat on the hard tiles of the shower-stall floor and went to seek some of the moisture-wicking towels he used after washing the nutrient slime off his specimens. Usually he put the smaller, more delicate ones into a cleansing bath but Madeline, while tiny, wasn’t quite small enough to fit into the deep, shallow bowl he had used for the branthas and other animals their size, which was why he had used the shower instead.

  But she’s not an animal, he reminded himself as he handed her one of the dark blue towels and then used one on himself as well—he had basically been sitting in a puddle while he held her and soothed her as she cried. She’s a sentient being—and a female—she will require particular care to keep her healthy and well.

  Until the self-termination unit implanted at the back of her neck goes off, that is, whispered a little voice in the back of his head.

  Calden pushed the thought away. He had implanted a unit of the longest possible length in Madeline, wanting to have as much time as he could get with her before her heart and lungs froze and she became non-viable. But now, watching her as she clutched the towel awkwardlyto her soft, curvy body and remembering how she had felt in his arms, he didn’t want to think about her impending termination. He just wanted to look at her and talk with her—she was fascinating and, he had to admit reluctantly to himself—most attractive. In an alien, completely non-sexual way, of course.

  “You can use the towel on your hair as well,” he told Madeline, who was clutching the dark blue fabric to her breasts, holding it up with her forearms since her hands were still limp. “It will wick away the moisture immediately.”

  “No, I can’t.” She indicated her dangling hands. “I can’t do anything with hands like these. Are you sure you’ll be able to cure them?”

  “I’m certain,” Calden reassured her. “Here—I will dry your hair.” He started to take the towel from her but she took a step back.

  “Look, I know you’ve already seen, uh, all my goodies and you say you’re not interested in me like that, but I’d still rather keep covered. I’m not exactly skinny enough to be running around in my birthday suit, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I do not know what you mean,” Calden said, mystified. “What is a birthday suit? And why should you be ashamed of your curves? They are most attractive—or I imagine they would be most attractive to a male of your own species,” he added quickly.

  Madeline frowned. “Thanks, I guess. And ‘birthday suit’ is just a euphemism for naked or nude. Because you’re nude when you’re born—so your naked body is your birthday suit. Get it?”

  Calden nodded. “Now I see—that does make sense.” And it was especially apropos considering that she had just been born again in a way, having been grown as a clone in the nutrient tanks. But he didn’t mention that. Madeline had already had enough emotional trauma for one day. Learning that her body was not the one she had been born with—though it was almost identical in every way—might be too much for her mind to handle right now.

  “Here.” He got another towel and beckoned for her. “I will tend to your hair. And then we’ll have to see what we can do about getting you some clothing.” He frowned. “I should have anticipated this problem but I’ve never—”

  “Had a specimen that needed to wear clothes before?” She raised an eyebrow at him as she came closer so he could towel off her hair.

  “Well…” Calden cleared his throat uncomfortably. He would have to find a new way to think of and refer to her. But it was going to be difficult to keep emotional distance from her if he couldn’t think of her in clinical, scientific terms. Difficult to keep the barrier he needed between them in order to keep his observations clear-eyed and his analysis logical.

  I think you already broke that particular barrier when you held her in your arms and comforted her while she cried, whispered a little voice in his head. I think you’re in trouble here, Calden. Maybe the best thing to do would be to ask FATHER to implement her self-termination unit now.

  But even the thought of that—of watching Madeline sink cold and lifeless to the ground as her heart and lungs seized up—made his own heart fist tight in his chest. No, he wouldn’t do any such thing. He was being foolish. He had much to learn from the little female—he would just have to be careful and delicate in the way he went about learning it. Having a sentient specimen—no person—to learn from was going to present a whole new bunch of challenges he had never encountered before.

  That’s all right—I like challenges, Calden told himself. I can handle this—I can handle anything in order to learn about this new culture and species. All knowledge is valuable and sometimes attaining it is painful or difficult. I can…

  His thoughts cut off abruptly when he pulled the moisture-wicking towel away from her head and saw the color of her hair. While it h