Hungry for You

How thirst changed to hunger, was all about scrapings, Dania thought, as her foot slipped off the rock and only her hands held her to the cliff face ten feet up on a hike just three bare months after graduation. Dryness caked her throat and she really wanted to be above, sipping from her water bottle. But the image flashed into her mind had distracted her.

Rigger. In trouble. His sharp-featured face flashed into her mind distracting her from her planned footing.

What to do? When she reached the top where the sun shone hot onto pools of green dappled with autumn fading brilliance with the rushing water below surrounding rock, she cleaned her knee up. And though she guzzled long and deep, the after taste of blood on her lips reminded her of the need to find Rigger, a hunger that grew within her day by day. Mountain cold air made her shiver and cross her arms, remembering.

The calls from Rigger had come first in the night as dreams and continued for years.

Fighter pilot, Dania thought, wow, could I fall in love with a fighter pilot?

In the dreams, Rigger's nose was covered with leather, tubes running behind him, dome locking him safe. All she could really see was the eyes, dark, wide and hungry. And the need to learn about space.

She searched the astronomy books, paper rattling as she turned page after page and always Rigger's face came clearest when the butterfly nebula came into view. The sensation of having another home shook her through the core. This is the way to the future, she thought. This is the way to the stars.

Followed soon upon by the scrapings of pen.

Dania found she had a thirst for quantum physics, her calculations swift, unthinking as if given to her from outside. Now with her senior year started, the winds of desire blew through her like a storm. She listened eagerly for the sound of Rigger's call, hungered to touch him in reality and had to accept the excitement of a meteor crash where her team went exploring for the remains deep in the swamplands.

The days grew darker earlier. The crickets scraped at their legs with eerie hisses. The palmetto leaves browned and clattered before the afternoon winds.

Dania couldn't find Rigger. He was here.

In botany, she scraped off cells of her skin and peered through a microscope to find evidence of her humanity. She studied the passages of animal as they evolved into man. And Rigger? Who and what was he? Human? Or alien? The questions shook her nearly as bad as having another home.

And then one day she woke in the dark with the full moon overhead and knew with certainty. Rigger was dead. But not really. And she knew exactly where he was. The map in her mind was clear and coherent.

She dressed and pulled on boots. Then she gathered supplies, food, compass, water and felt silly because she probably wouldn't need them. "Hurry," her mind said, and she sped toward the park, dragged the canoe off the top of her car and slid it toward the inky water.

The trip took her miles from her home, then on an exhausting hike and she hardly knew whether she was dreaming or was awake. She spoke with Rigger throughout. But she also found herself resting in his arms, watching colorful moths spin around each other across sands, and even eating Chinese food and Halloween candy. She offered up her lips for a sweet sensual kiss. And while he kissed her until she couldn't breath, he passed her bits of candy and rice. The sensations of hard and sweet with soft and salty made her cling and hunger all the more for his touch. They stayed that way until dawn.

Dania woke hungry and thirsty in the faint yellow light of morning, curled up against a rocky outcrop at the edge of a purple-hued marsh. Her first thoughts were for food and drink but then she remembered Rigger and felt butterflies in her belly, like hope or awe and half scared. She crawled to her feet, then found the skeleton framed in by iron partially extruding from the dirt. Spider webbing connected the eyeball sockets with the ridge running between the eyes. The oddly narrowed jaw line said alien as did the six fingered hand bones reaching above the head.

Sadly, Dania turned away. She'd report the find to the authorities, what a hullabaloo this would bring. Then she felt a stab inside her belly.

A shiver crawled up her spine. What if ...? Turning once more to the skeleton she saw the bad news. Hard nodules rested in the webbing. Not spiders. More like ... caterpillars cocooned. And some had begun to crawl out. Dania shuddered.

Then Rigger confirmed the news. Her hunger was not her own.

"Don't worry, we'll see the stars once we have wings, we'll take to the stars."

Slowly, very slowly, Dania sunk to the ground and curled up beside Rigger. If she told the authorities, it would all be for naught.