My Beloved Monster 3

The Company's headquarters covered a little over a square mile, and was surrounded on three sides by several more miles of farmland. It was irrigated by the Yemen, and powered by a field of solar generators that lay in front of the three main buildings like a shining black gate.

During the early stages of planning, the Company, which had been founded by several students from the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton in Northeastern America, decided that the best place for us to sustain life would be in Southern Saudi Arabia. With racial warfare virtually forgotten, it would be the best place for fresh water, sunlight, free game, and access to the ocean.

We had three main buildings; the first was the biggest, and faced North; this was our library, laboratory, storage facility and infirmary. It housed our vast collections of books, data and samples, and was where the Company's top scientists (myself included) met to compare theories, organize information, and study new things. It was the Company's main focus, and therefore had received the most funding; you could tell.

The second largest sat in the middle, and was known as the community building. We just called it the Hall. It contained a cafeteria, a kitchen, more storage, a nursery, an elementary school, a meeting hall, and several offices where our founders spent their time pretending to be busy. This was where we took all of our meals, had all of our meetings, and met weekly for briefings from the department heads on new projects and the statuses of old projects. At the end of each meeting, each member of the Company (even the farmers) were welcome to suggest new ideas.

Recently, it had been requested that I recruit Alexie to help me teach an Avian Language and Culture class over at the elementary hall once a week. While I thought this was a great idea, I really didn't have time for it; I'd have to see what Alexie's schedule was like, and suggest that she teach a different (and less busy) adult her language before they could take over a class. I couldn't stand kids, anyway.

I'd gone to Drexel straight out of high school, a year early, and was considered a bit of a prodigy in the scientific world. While I'd never done anything new or innovative save my own theories on the evolution of the world, I learned everything at an accelerated pace, and somehow managed to find it all infatuatingly interesting. During a conference in New York, the head of the company, Arkady Ivanovich, had studied me and tracked me down; he said my passion for information was what they'd really need to keep the Company going when the world went dark.

I'd never actually planned on the worlds ending, or on actually joining the Company if it did; however, I'd signed up anyway and given them my information, just in case. I was really just interested in making connections at that point, even if they were psychotic ones.

When the first of the wars broke out, the Company contacted me that they were beginning construction, and wanted to know if I'd like to help with the blueprints. Having done some studies in engineering and knowing a thing or two about alternative energy sources, I was qualified for the job. My real reason for taking it on, however, was because I had just been evicted from my dorm, and needed a place to stay to wait out world war three. My situation here was really just one ironic coincidence.

The third, and smallest building at the headquarters, was the Housing. It really resembled a dorm building; it was one long row of single-story cabins, and held approximately thirty. Each cabin held a bathroom and enough space for a bed and a desk, as well as a few personal belongings. For me, it was a bookshelf, a laptop, piles of software, and a desk covered in old notebooks. It wasn't much, but it was home.

Kasimir and I spent the first week of our impromptu relationship trying to learn to understand each other. He would stay up later than me at nights, watching English videos on my desktop and looking over the notebook I'd compiled for him containing basic words, phrases, and their meanings; he spent his time teaching me his thirteen-letter language.

Because Kasimir's language contained only thirteen 'sounds', and had never been written, I learned his first. He said I spoke it awkwardly and with the wrong inflections (each word was dependent on tone, which I often got wrong), but we could for the first time understand each other. Our first real conversation was awkward, but answered most of my more pressing questions.

"Why did you take me back into the bush that day?" I asked him one night, as we strolled through the desert, hand-in-hand. Kasimir held up our clasped hands, motioning to them with his free arm.

"Human mates do this. I thought you wanted... to be my mate." If he were capable of blushing, I'm sure Kasimir would have then.

"It's not that I didn't," I laughed, unable to wipe the grin from my face. "It's just.. when humans meet strangers, we shake hands, but we aren't agreeing to be... 'mates'."

The idea of sleeping with everyone I'd ever shaken hands with sent me into another fit of giggles. Kasimir stayed silent, possibly embarrassed or soaking this information in.

"Will you stay?" I finally asked, pulling him close. He laughed at this as though it were the dumbest question he'd ever heard.

"We aren't like you," He smirked, stopping in the moonlight to wrap his arms around me. "When we pick mates, we stay with them. Forever, no matter what. Not like humans..." The thought of divorce seemed to both infuriate and confuse Kasimir, and I found this endearing to no end.

And that was that. From then on, I was stuck with him, and vice versa. Kasimir moved what few things he had into my bunk, and devoted all of his conscious time to learning my language perfectly. He honestly believed that we could find peace and communication in the world, too, although I think that his primary motivation had always been the sex.

Kasimir slept for long hours during the day, and we spent the afternoons together, focusing on his reading and writing and generally doing what mates were supposed to do. The Company didn't even know that he'd been staying with me, until one day, when Alexie prompted some action from me.

It was early morning, and Kasimir had been with me for two weeks. Alexie, who would often disappear for weeks on end, showed up as I took a morning stroll about the property.

"So... Who's the Demon?" She asked with a smirk, floating down from the sky behind me. I could have sworn she'd come from nowhere at all.

"Oh, I, uh, wow. Well, thanks for spying on me, Alexie; don't even worry about asking permission," I recovered with a wink, before shrugging. "His name's Kasimir.. We met a few weeks ago, at a Demon camp. We've been, uh... Exchanging languages."

That was one way to put it.

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about the solidity of our relationship before then. Kasimir and I weren't just having a fling, and we certainly weren't just sharing information. No, he was mine for life, and I was his... This should have scared me more than it did. But somehow the idea of my red skinned monster mauling any man that tried to flirt with me, well, made me happy. Everything that Kasimir did made me happy.

As the reality of my situation came crashing down on me, I let a broad smile cross my face as Alexie stared, perplexed. "I guess we've been doing more than that. He's kind of... moved in with me. But I think it will be good, for interracial relations, don't you?"

The young Avian raised a thin, translucent eyebrow, shrugging curiously.
"I don't know. Could be dangerous, if you ask me. We still don't know anything about the Demons, or how his people might feel about this. Have you brought him to a meeting yet?"

I shook my head. I'd brought Alexie to a meeting a few weeks after meeting her, prompting a new section in the library called "Interracial Relations." It only took up one corner, but Alexie and I met pretty regularly to create new language text books for each of our own races and discuss our differences in culture.

"Not yet, but his people didn't seem to mind... yet. They don't really seem as.. controlling, as mine." She bobbed her head silently, her footsteps matching mine as she contemplated this.

"Well, maybe they are more like me than we thought. But if that is the case, you'd better hope he hasn't Bonded to you yet. If that's the case, you're never getting rid of him."

I flushed hot pink. "I think he has," I sighed, scratching the back of my head. "He's calling me his 'Mate.'" Alexie put a delicate hand over her big blue eyes, shaking her head.

"Oh, Serg... How did you get yourself into this?"

I told her the story, and she seemed amazed that I could do something so perfectly spontaneous; she was right, it wasn't like me. But Kasimir seemed to have a way of bringing out the stranger in me.

Alexie suggested that we all attend a meeting, and said she'd meet me at the Hall that Sunday with Kasimir, to introduce him to the leaders. I knew that he wouldn't want to wake up that early (or in his case, stay up that late) but Alexie was right; we had to get my boss's permission to have a foreign species hanging around, and with luck we could add Kasimir's knowledge of his own people to the Interracial Relations database. A member of each species was also a good idea to have on hand, so I doubted that the board of directors would have anything against his staying. I just didn't want Kasimir to freak out.

Kasimir agreed, reluctantly, to meet my people, on one condition.
"If they don't like me," He growled self-consciously, "And I have to leave, I'm taking you with me. And you will live with me. You're my mate."

The possessiveness in his voice excited me, as did the prospect of getting out of here. I knew that I couldn't really leave, but the thought of just picking up and running away - and with Kasimir, no less - was an attractive one. Even though I knew that the Directors would gladly allow him to stay (although possibly in his own room), I agreed wholeheartedly.

"Of course," I smiled, pulling back the sheets to let him in. "And you're mine."