Page 82 of Alien Peacock

I gingerly touch a green cube with one finger. It’s soft and smooth, as if made from some kind of marshmallowy material. “Is this art, or are they just cushions?”

Arelion scratches his chin. “I think it can be both. It keeps changing, but it’s always the same figures just changing places. I have rested on top of it a few times, I must admit.”

“Itisinviting,” I agree and sit on a yellow cube. “Is that why we left the party? So we can rest?”

“Call it what you want,” my husband says and picks up a flat triangle, putting it in a new place as if he’s rearranging the heap. “This is something I’ve wanted for a while.”

I spot the bulge in his pants, today black rather than silver. In response, a hot surge goes through my pelvis.

“Does it have to do with art?” I ask.

He rearranges more shapes. “Sometimes it does. This time it definitely will.”

I loosen my battle suit in strategic places. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yes, you love art,” he says, picking up more examples of geometry. “You’re an expert. What can you tell me about this piece?”

“Oh, this is from the early pre-colonial ultra-expulsionist period,” I make up. “You can tell from the way that it is.”

Arelion nods, very seriously. “Ah. Yes, I thought so. It has an early look to it.”

I roll around on the soft heap and point. “The circles symbolize eternity. The cubes symbolize… well, the opposite, of course. The triangles symbolize the shape of the galaxy.”

“I thought the galaxy was a spiral,” Arelion objects, pushing a hexagon into an open space on the heap.

“Yes, but the trianglesymbolizesit.” I sniff. “It’s very obvious. Also, I didn’t saywhichgalaxy.”

“That’s true. You didn’t. I was there, I heard you not say it.”

“Exactly,” I say, enjoying the sight of Arelion’s massive muscles when he works to rearrange the shapes into something that’s starting to resemble a platform. “Now, the balls are complicated. They don’t actually symbolize anything.”

“That’s very disappointing,” he says and holds up a soft ball three feet across. “Such laziness. Come on, ball! Symbolize something!”

“That doesn’t help,” I tell him as I kick off my boots. “If they symbolized something, they’d… explode!” I grab a big, soft ball with both arms and toss it at Arelion.

He yanks it out of the air and throws it straight up. “Yes, but that’s not what an explosion is. An explosion is more like… this!”He catches the ball and throws it straight at me. It’s soft, but so heavy that it knocks me backwards.

A part of me is astounded that I behave like this. When was the last time I was this playful and even made silly jokes with complete abandon? My life on Earth was so gray and serious, and it made me dour. It seems like only Arelion can crack me open like this. He does it just by being himself. And that means that I can bemyself, too.

“Oh, so it’s war you want,” I grumble and fling a flat rectangle at him.

He comes over, grabs my ankles, and pulls me close to him. “No, I want peace. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“You’re a fighterpilot,” I accuse. “That’s just as bad.”

He shifts his grip and pulls the pants of my suit off me in one long move. “You’re a pilot fighter, which is just… strange.”

I reach over and snap off the fastenings of his black pants. “No, you’re strange.”

“No,you’restrange.” He helps me get my thick, semi-armored jacket off, leaving me in only underwear.

I pull his pants down and am rewarded with his big, wonderful alien cock breaking out with such ferocity the tip hits me on the chin. “Seriously, thatisstrange,” I insist.

Arelion kicks his pants off his feet and looks down his body with obvious satisfaction. “I can actually see your point.”

He grabs me and tosses me onto the heap he’s made of the geometric figures. It’s like a bed now, tall and soft and nearly flat on top, except for the tops of some big cones that stick up.

I grab one cone, hold it by the thin end, and hammer it on Arelion’s head while he climbs up beside me. “Take that, alien!”

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