"Burnt"
Part 1/1
by Pandora aka MC ([email protected])

Rating: R
Spoilers: Follows the Prom episode
Archive: Ask first.



This leaden feeling inside, half of me insists it must be triumph, while the other half calls it regret. A lot happened tonight, too many surprises. I've had to come to grips with the fact that 'Tess Harding' is not merely a pseudonym for Avara of Antar, even if the gap's not as wide as the one between Max and Zanthier. I'm talking behaviour here, not looks.

Aliens don't have half the hang-ups humans do about sex. For us, love and sex are not synonyms or mutually inclusive. Love means telling each other our deepest fears and highest hopes, it means wanting to have children together and growing old side by side. If Zan and Ava were apart, as we often were in the final years, it didn't matter if we slept with other people. It certainly didn't matter that neither of us had come to our marriage blushing virgins.

Despite growing up on this planet, Nascedo raised me and I retained our native moral code. Once he had taught me how to mindwipe people, he threw me out with a fake ID and a string of condoms. I didn't want to be inexperienced for Zan, did I? I sure as hell didn't expect him to be.

Unfortunately, Max was raised by humans, thinks the way they do. He and Liz, as far as I can tell, have spent more time looking at each other, longingly, than actually touching. Kyle and Liz have a one night stand, and it's eternal betrayal in Max's eyes. Almost makes you wonder if she's a possession, closer to some pretty painting than a woman in his eyes.

She was strange that week, trying to set me up with Max, sleeping with Kyle -- the actions of a desperate woman trying to move on, and failing at that. She hasn't stopped looking at him that way she used to do, though Max turned into a block of ice for a while.

The whole sorry chain of events worked in my favour, an excellenteducational experience about the human condition and a change to salvage the plan. I'd grown up around humans, too. I could mimic human behaviour and norms, if that's what Max wanted. I had my memories to remind me what was important. Perhaps I could help Max recover his and we'd meet each other halfway.

How na�ve I was. Since when does 'destiny' need a helping hand? I can't believe I never wondered why I needed a strategy to snare Max, if we were something inescapable. Those hard truths I was talking about -- �destiny is bullshit� ranks pretty high.

Why is tonight such a night of revelations? Tonight, Kyle dragged me into a storage closet to blurt out he thought of me as his sister, and suddenly, the shades lifted -- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The short version is that one night, quite a while ago, Kyle and I had sex. Valenti was working late, Kyle was watching television and I walked in front of the screen, topless. Distracted him from the game, all right.

Maybe I was a bit silly after a few sugar and caffeine heavy drinks. There are so few human drugs that don't short-circuit our half-n-halfbiochemistry. Maybe I wanted the challenge of tempting a Buddhist. Or maybe I was just itching to get laid. It'd been a while.

After we got past the eye blinks, the stuttering, and those first few hesitant kisses, it went to the usual, pleasurable conclusion. Not the best sex of either of my lives, not the worst either. I'm willing to cut him some slack. One night with Miss Vestal Virgin and a few meaningful relationships with glossy magazines can't have been that enlightening.

Afterwards, my mental script had had him showering while I used my powers to febreeze the room and myself before Valenti got home. Perhaps I shouldn't have laughed away his cautious enquiries about my relationship with Max. I definitely should have remembered that everything I'd recently learnt about humans applied to Kyle, too.

So, again, conflicting moralities ruin it for me. Pillow talk, gentle kisses - he wanted to wake up still wrapped around me! It didn't remind me of the string of satisfying lovers, whose names Avara's memories would probably never cough up. Kyle reminded me of Zanthier, and I panicked.

I mindwiped him and then planted the suggestion that he didn't find me sexually attractive in the least. I stopped flirting, he'd stare at me with this confused look on his face and life went on.

So naturally, it threw me when he asked me to the Prom.

I'd never had such pessimistic expectations of my powers as that moment he asked me away from the dance floor. Having expected to get hot and heavy, being told he thought of me as a sister was a little disappointing. No, disappointing isn't strong enough, but I've got a lid on all those inconvenient emotions now and the fact that fulfilment that doesn't necessarily come in a Zan-shaped package.

I'm trying, anyhow. Right now, I'm sitting on his bed with his jersey pulled over the top of my prom dress, probably getting it wrinkled, and I'm crying for all the might-have-beens. I'm not in love with Kyle -- I can remember what love feels like -- but it could have been something.

I wish I could go back in time and point out that force of habit and Max's Madonna-Whore complex are bad justifications for something so permanent, or even that I could mind-wipe myself. But you work with what you're given, taking each setback as a lesson, and so on and so forth. I'm definitely acquainting Max with some of my more X-rated memories before our first time. I'm not pretending to be scared or nervous, and I'm on top all the way.

Speaking of Max and first times, he kissed me tonight. Oh, I realised he was hurting over Liz. Finding him morose and date-less, his explanation confirmed that she'd pushed him away this round. I talked to him about Ava and Zan's first kiss, not letting the opportunity pass me by as I'd been drilled. I'm sure Max thought it was heavenly, unused to separating mnemonic echoes from present emotions. Tonight, I wouldn't even blame him if he thought about Liz, it'd be hypocritical.

But tomorrow, and every day after, I'm going to be as possessive as humanly possible. I'm going to spend fifteen minutes every morning perfecting that mournful cow-eyed look Liz is so good at. I'll be delicate and innocent and cold.

After all, I've burnt all my bridges. What have I got to lose?

The End