The Subtle Taste of Midnight

Apple (shortened for April 2019 Contest Challenge)

It starts with a flash of glowing eyes hiding underneath thick, dark lashes.

Hearts quicken.

Sweat pools in places that it shouldn't.

Something dangerous poisons both mind and body.

The supernova sits before me, his limbs fold neatly into the armchair's plush fabric. Hypnotic waves of blues, purples, and reds breathe beneath the soft silvery undertones of his skin as if God Himself came to walk among us misshapen mortals. Yet God says nothing. He simply watches me watching him.

The world turns. Dust motes float on every breath we take.

"I am flattered, Xal, but..." the words don't want to leave my throat. They hang between my vocal cords, all twisted up with the emotions they give voice to.

Still, God doesn't say a word.

Time passes.

My heart thrums in my ears.

Silence settles between us, a snake coiling deep into itself, the quiet thickening into a slurry of emotions that crack beneath the nanofibers of his space-suit. Strained muscles bunch and hiss, stuggling to keep all that power they have inside them under control. Because that's what an Akarsean is. Zillions of atoms running headlong into each other until the impact of their collision creates this alien god mushed up between over-sized armchair cushions in a country chic living room.

"Apple." His voice ripples like the patterns of light in his translucent skin. Its effect on me is instant. My cheeks flush hot. That's what he calls me. His temptation in paradise.

"Don't make this harder than it already is," I mean to sound threatening, but anger comes out as longing on a whimpering breath. It's so easy the way he ties me up in knots inside.

Stately fingers card through thick black hair. The brilliant blue and pink lights in his eyes swirl in stark contrast to the dull, yellow glow from the room's lamps. "I apologize, nayahi."

Ugh! It's even worse than calling me his Apple. Don't call me 'my beloved'.

How could he be so careless with the memories of that night we spent beneath the moonlight? I still feel his tears writhing beneath my skin, the memories of him on lips.

"It was just a kiss!" I snap.

A laugh squeezes its way through his throat. "It is never just anything."

"What we're doing isn't right!"

"What am I doing other than being honest?"

"Don't you dare!" I growl. "I am–"

"Married. Yes. I get that. You humans love clinging to your titles so."

"And you Akarseans don't?"

Sadness washes over his regal features, his emotions written clearly in the disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes. But he smiles through it, desperate to hang on to his infamous poker face, and seeing it only irritates me even more.

"Get out!"

He remains unshakably rooted to his stubbornness as always. It's only the lights in his skin that tell me there are emotions bubbling beneath his veneer of tranquility. It hums with all shades of red, heat rolling his skin in waves as the atoms within collide, the glow of his double hearts shining beneath his suit. He's an inferno churning, but only on the inside. That poker face of his...always flawless.

"GET OUT!"

The light in his eyes dim ever so slightly. A shadow of doubt as his hidden imperfections unintentionally bleed out of him as sweet musk perfuming his skin.

Suddenly that poison inside me becomes longing ignited. My lips overpower his, my hands find their way beneath his space-suit, the alien fabric surrendering to trembling fingers. God Himself falls to his knees before me, an animal unleashed. His head between my legs, his tongue at my command. Jolts of electricity strangling every heartbeat, my bones curl beneath my skin as flesh slaps against flesh. The air glows like stardust, radiant blue and purple, filled with incessant clicks and hovering whistles. And when the pleasure comes, it doesn't come quietly. It throws its head back and howls like a thing of the wild until reality...

                                                                                                                ...slowly slips...

                                                ...back into us.

Time takes control once more as we fall, breaths lingering in the steam blanketing our bodies. The air, so pregnant with the scent of sweat and sex, grows cold with the realization of our transgressions.

"Did we..."

"Yes," he says, perfection slipping back into place. His fingers card through my hair, lips are soft against mine. His kisses sour with the taste of regret. It catches me off-guard.

I pull back for a second, shocked cold by the sudden mood swing.

That's when it hits – pain slicing through my chest. Panic lashes at my muscles as I claw at the knife sunken to the hilt in my ribcage, my life coagulating in the blood dripping from my fingers. The air grows crisp, my senses sharpen to a single point of focus. The truth slips quietly into view, and slowly, I start to see his shield of perfection for what it really is – a mask. Reality pretending. Furniture dressed up in costumes of normalcy. Holograms laying out the details of me as a thing for experimentation, gadgets born from an alien's mind littering every corner.

My life...slips...

Xal lifts my bloody fingers to his lips before rising to turn away. A computerized voice comes to life with words that I know to be Akarsean, the language that he once taught me in those quiet moments between us long ago. I wonder if any of those precious moments were ever real in spirit or in form. Or were they all just streams of binary code pulsed through my brain.

"Experiment log LH.SUS.453-208. Subject Beta-36 shows signs of abnormalities–"

"Wh-wh-why?"

"–No significant improvement in cerebral function was observed. Theorized–"

"Wh-what is this?"

"–causes of failure rests in the synaptic misfiring or possible anomalies in the sodium-potassium pump mechanisms on cerebral cells. Subject Beta-36..." he watches me watching him, "... is to be terminated according to Protocol 9."

Is this what I am? A creature for an alien's lab?

Perfection moves across the console to squawk at holograms, and twist images of my body so that he can understand the puzzle that I am. Machines frantically whir to life, eager to follow the program commands typed into their matrices. I want to scream at them, but I can't bring myself to waste my last breath on such a pointless task. As Death bubbles up to my lips, he turns to look at me once again, perhaps to bear witness to my dying moments.

"I'm sorry," he says. Words practiced.

"You were my favorite," he says. Words felt.

A veil of radiant light slowly begins to devour me. I stare at the poker face of God on the other side, my tears carrying his name for the last time.

He smiles. Of course, he would.

Perfection always smiles.