Butler, Octavia - Fledgling

“I don’t know this person,” I said. “It’s as though I’ve never seen her before.” Then I had another thought. “My scars are gone.”

“What?” he asked. “What scars?”

“I was all scarred. A few nights ago ... three nights before this one, I was scarred. I remember thinking that I must have been burned—all over. And I couldn’t see for a while when I first woke up, so maybe my eyes were scarred, too.” I sighed. “That’s why I hurt so much and why I was so hungry and so tired. All I’ve done is eat and sleep. My body had so much healing to do.”

“Scars don’t vanish just because wounds heal,” he said. “Especially not burn scars.” He pushed up the sleeve of his right arm to display a shiny, creased patch of skin bigger than my hand. “I got this when I was ten, fooling around our barbecue pit. Caught my sleeve on fire.”

I took his arm and looked at the scar, touched it. I didn’t like it. It felt the way my own skin had when I examined my scars. I had the feeling I should be able to make his scars go away too, but I didn’t know how. I turned his hand to look at the bite mark I’d made, and he gasped. The wound seemed to me to be healing as it should, but he snatched his arm from me and examined the hand.

“It’s already healing!” he said.

“It should be healing,” I said. “Are you hungry?”

“Now that you mention it, I am. I had a big meal at a café not far from the job site, but I’m hungry again.” “You should eat.”

“Yeah, but I’m not into raw meat.”

“Eat what’s right for you. Eat what your body wants.”

“But you ate raw meat to heal?” he asked.

His words triggered something in me—a memory. It felt real, true. I spoke it aloud: “All I need is fresh human blood when I’m healthy and everything’s normal. I need fresh meat for healing injuries and illnesses, for sustaining growth spurts, and for carrying a child.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “You know that? You remember it?” “I think so. It sounds right. It feels right.”

“So, then,” he said, “what are you?”

I looked up at him, saw that I had scared him, and took one of his huge hands between mine. “I don’t know what I am. I don’t know why I remembered just now about flesh and blood. But you helped me do it. You asked me questions and you made me look into the mirror. Maybe now, with you to help me, I’ll remember more and more.”

“If you’re right about what you’ve remembered so far, you’re not human,” he said. “What if I’m not?” I asked. “What would that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He reached down and tugged at my jeans. “Take these off,” he said.

I undid the shirt that I had twisted and tied around me to keep the jeans up, then I took them off.

He first seemed frozen with surprise that I had done as he said. Then, slowly, he walked around me, looking. “Well, you’re a girl, all right,” he whispered. At last, he took me by the hand and led me back to the main room of the cabin.

He led me to the chest of drawers next to the bed. There, in the top drawer, he found a white T-shirt. “Put this on,” he said, handing it to me.

I put it on. It fell past my knees, and I looked up at him. “You tired?” he asked. “You want to go to sleep?

“Not sleepy,” I said. “Can I wash?” I hadn’t minded being dirty until the clean shirt made me think about just how dirty I was.

“Sure,” he said. “Go take a shower. Then come keep me company while I eat.”

I went into the bathroom, recognized the shower head over the bathtub, and figured out how to turn the shower on. Then I took off the T-shirt and stepped in. It was a hot, controlled rain, wonderful for getting clean and feeling better. I stayed under the shower longer than necessary just because it felt so good. Then, finally, I dried myself on the big blue towel that was there and that smelled of Wright.

I put the T-shirt back on and went out to Wright who was sitting at his table, eating things that I recognized first by scent then by sight. He was eating scrambled eggs and chunks of ham together between thick slices of bread.

“Can you eat any of this?” Wright asked as he enjoyed the food and drank from a brown bottle of beer. I smiled. “No, but I think I must have known people who ate things like that because I recognize them.

Right now, I’ll get some water. That’s all I want.”

“Until you want to chew on me again, eh?”

I got up to get the water and touched his shoulder as I passed him. It was good to see him eat, to know that he was well. It made me feel relieved. I hadn’t hurt him. That was more important to me than I’d realized.

I sat down with a glass of water and sipped it.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked after a long silence. “Why’d you let me undress you like that?” “You wanted to,” I said.

“You would let anyone who wanted to, do that?”

I frowned, then shook my head. “I bit you—twice.” “So?”

“Taking my clothes off with you is all right.” “Is it?”

I frowned, remembering how badly I had wanted to cover myself when I was naked in the woods. I must have been used to wearing clothes in my life before the cave. I had wanted to be dressed as soon as I knew I was naked. Yet when Wright had taken my shirts, I hadn’t minded. And I hadn’t minded taking off the jeans when he asked me to. It had felt like what I should do.

“I don’t think I’m as young as you believe,” I said. “I mean, I may be, but I don’t think so.” “You don’t have any body hair at all,” he told me.

“Should I?” I asked.

“Most people over eleven or twelve do.”

I thought about that. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know enough about myself to say what my age might be or even whether I’m human. But I’m old enough to have sex with you if you want to.”

He choked on his sandwich and spent time coughing and taking swallows of beer.

“I think you’re supposed to,” I continued, then frowned. “No, that’s not right. I mean, I think you’re supposed to be free to, if you want to.”

“Because I let you bite me?” “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“A reward for my suffering.”

I leaned back, looking at him. “Does it hurt?” “You know damn well it doesn’t.”

He drank a couple of swallows more, then stood up, took my hand, and led me to his bed. I sat on the bed, and he started to pull the T-shirt over my head.

“No,” I said, and he stopped and stood looking at me, waiting. “Let me see you.” I pulled at his shirt and unbuttoned one of the buttons. “You’ve seen me.”

He nodded, finished unbuttoning his shirt, and pulled his undershirt over his head.

His broad chest was covered with a mat of brown hair so thick that it was almost like fur, and I stroked it and felt him shiver.

He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and underwear. There was a great deal more fur on him everywhere, and he was already erect and eager.

I had seen a man this way before. I could not remember who he had been, could not recall a specific face or body. But all this was familiar and good to me, and I felt my own eagerness and growing excitement. I pulled the T-shirt over my head and let him push me back onto the bed, let him touch me while I petted and played with his fur and explored his body until, gasping, he caught my hands and held them. He covered me with his huge, furry blanket of a body. He was so tall that he took care to hold himself up on his elbows so that my face was not crushed into his chest.

He was very careful at first, afraid of hurting me, still afraid that I might be too young for this, too small. Then, when it was clear that I was not being hurt at all, when I had wrapped my arms and legs around him, he forgot his fears, forgot everything.