Page 29 of Smart@ss Cyborg

Staring at the back of her head, I’m thrown.“What?”

Hiccupping, refusing to look at me when I lean around her to peer at her face, Becky shares, “Look, it seems like you’re upset with me, and I don’t know why. A couple has to work this sort of situation out a lot, and sometimes it's not a big deal—but sometimes it is. And the possibility that you could be so mad that it’s a big deal is scary. Because you’re essential to my wellbeing. Toourwellbeing,” she adds in a way that makes me think she means our tadpole. “It’s imperative that I keep you happy, or… you could leave.”

“I’m not upset with you.”

“You admitted that you had a problem with me,” she retorts like an accusation.

“There is a problem where you’re concerned,” I say, staring at her narrowly. “You’re doing that backward,” I point out, watching her fight the leather tongue she’s attempting to release.

She throws up her hands and barks out a sob, making Paco shy sideways.

Frowning at them both in concern, I gently herd her well away from him and take over, working the Oryx free and moving it to the butchering table, where I cover it with even more scoops of preserving salt than I did after I dressed it in the field, before turning back to Paco to remove his rigging and gear. “What has gotten into you?” I ask her as I work to free him.

“What’s the ‘problem where I’m concerned?’” she asks, using my words to refer to the answer I gave her as she paces slightly and acts strangely. She’s rubbing her back again.

Sighing, I leave Paco to retrieve a hay bale. I walk it to Becky and drop it at her feet. “Sit,” I tell her.

Wiping her eyes, she allows me to place my arm around her shoulders and hold one of her hands and ease her carefully down onto it. Her vertebrae crack in several places. “Thank you,” she says quietly.

I nod and move back to Paco, who is stretching his lead rope, forcing himself to the end of it, his semi-prehensile upper lip extended out in the vain hope that he might reach the hay bale I brought for Becky.

“That bale is for my mate’s comfort, not your stomach,” I tell him. “Yet.” I’ll feed him once he’s brushed.

Off to the side of me, Becky shudders in a sort of an involuntary spasm. She attempts to draw a breath through it—but there is some struggle with her diaphragm and respiratory organs that turns her inhalation to a strange hiccoughing suction instead.

If she were a Yonderin like me, I’d think she was experiencing the physical confusion of attempting to breathe through her nose and not her gills.

Furthering this impression, she furtively wipes at her nose and face with her dress.

Calming the more I study her, I scan her brain, and I’m more confused than ever when I find that her skull’s contents are showing faint traces in the places where humans exhibit shame and embarrassment. And confoundingly—fear.

Completely at a loss, I ask, “How do I show you love in a way you will see and appreciate?”

Paco turns his head toward me, his ears going forward.

“Not you,” I tell him. I look at Becky.

Her brain is experiencing a startle cloud. She stares at me for a beat, her expression uncomprehending. She squawks,“What?”

Frowning, I pick up a curry comb. Briskly, I begin pulling it through Paco’s pack saddle-matted fur. “I am a jackass to your mare.”

Becky’s brain pulses in the confusion sectors.“What…?”she says again, but more slowly. Leadingly.

Paco begins chewing on his lead rope. I stop brushing him and begin struggling to free his rope from between his clamped teeth. The frustration that leaks into my voice is purely from this battle Paco is forcing me to endure. “You are a mare!” I tell Becky, yanking on the rope. “Drop it, you idiot!” I growl at Paco. To Becky, I go on. “And I am a jackass. And we are speaking two entirely different languages,” I explain, throwing her a harassed look.

“What are you talking about?” Becky asks.

“I give up, you ignorant little beast. Choke on it,” I tell Paco, then I wave to her. Between myself and her person. “This is an excellent example. Do you recall when Paco tried parading himself before the mares on the day of my arrival?” I begin brushing him again. The lead rope’s thick fibers squeak between Paco’s teeth as he grinds on it, but I ignore him, my arm arcing over him, combing the fur of his back now. “The mares were baffled at best, completely oblivious to his efforts to woo them. And you told me that although it was obvious to you that Paco was sweet on the females, donkey jacks court so differently from stallions that his intentions were not being communicated to our mares. This was because the two animals are speaking two totally different languages.”

“Okay…” Becky says in a way that I believe means she is encouraging me to elucidate even more—her brows are scrunched as she peers at me in confusion.

Shaking a mat of hair off the comb, I nod. “Like Paco rolling in an ungainly fashion before the mares when he clearly meant to be enticing, I assumed it would be evident to you that I am courting you.” I lower my gaze and shuffle sideways to better brush his rump. “But every effort I’ve made so far has been unsuccessful. You’ve dismissed them so thoroughly that I’m baffled.”

“You’ve been making efforts to courtme?” Becky asks.

She sounds so openly confused that it would wound me if I hadn’t already deduced that my attempts to please my mate have been utterly lost in translation.

“We’re already married!” she points out, her tone one of utter bewilderment.

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