Contort me against your body and mind - Chapter 18 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Effie

Effie had managed to catch a second and third reprimand off the nurses on the ward for Ellie’s disappearances. She swore to them that she wasn’t the cause. She knew they didn’t believe her. It was just as frustrating for her that Ellie kept slipping out of her bed. She needed to heal, and that would not happen unless she got rest. The human doctors said so. Also, it meant that Effie had to spend more time working on the ward than sitting beside the Marine major and enjoying her company. That part she couldn’t complain as vocally about.

She wasn’t lazy; she was scared. She repeated her reasoning to herself whenever she felt guilty for spending so much time at Ellie’s side. It was the one place she wasn’t afraid. The only people onboard that were aware of a possible murderer in their midst were Commander Slate, Doctor Bonnie, Effie herself, and Ellie. She couldn’t set up camp under the commander’s desk or spectate Bonnie’s never-ending appointments. Regardless of injury, Ellie had a strength that you could feel when near her. It allowed Effie to relax. Something she had been struggling with in the long, singular human nights.

Today, Ellie was present and accounted for when Effie arrived for visiting hours. She beamed and skipped between the rows of beds, making it only halfway down the room before she was called back by an Ailu’t nurse to help with a patient. Ellie gave her an unbothered shrug from her cot and Effie turned back. Best to help at least a little before she began sitting on her behind.

She was assigned to a human male, already bedded on the ward, to draw blood for a test. She had been working more with humans than Ailu’t so far on board The Sentinel. She didn’t mind; experience was what she was there for. And she liked being relied upon to help with every procedure she got signed off on by the human nursing team.

A problem arose, however, whenever he spoke. It seemed the man could understand her English, but she could barely pick out a single word he said and make sense of it. She glanced warily at the other staff on the ward. The humans didn’t notice and the Ailu’t gave her a helpless look. She understood now why she had been corralled into this assignment. No one had a clue what the man was saying.

Still, she did her best to explain every step of the process before, during and after taking the blood sample. The man did not appear distressed or concerned, which was an enormous relief. Once the sample was labelled and handed over, the man said something to her with a nod and grin. Effie smiled back awkwardly and backed away to find refuge in Ellie’s corner of the room.

Ellie was fighting a twisted smile. Laughing at her.

Effie pouted in her seat until Ellie admitted to having been watching the entire ordeal. Her cheeks burned hot at the knowledge.

“I need to study more,” she mumbled.

“It’s not your English skill, Effie. It’s his accent,” Ellie explained quietly. There was still laughter in her eyes. “He’s a brummy.”

Effie sneakily looked up the word in the translation dictionary on her mobile communicator, but the meaning seemed to be wrong. It was advising that the translated word was one for the way a foreigner speaks your language. But from what she had understood from Ellie, English was the man’s home language. Earth had so many languages, perhaps they grouped some of them under the same community name and the accents were subdivisions. Either way, she now knew what ‘brummy’ English sounded like. Even if she couldn’t understand it.

Effie was Northern, and no one from her region spoke the Northern language differently from anyone else. There were varying voices and volumes, but the words were not spoken any other way than they were supposed to be. The Ailu’t had been asked not to speak any of their home languages while on their missions for the Alliance experiment, but Effie had heard Commander Slate slip a curse word when leaving Dr Bonnie’s office once. She didn’t speak much of any other languages, not even a neighbouring language, but Effie knew what a foul-mouthed Westerner sounded like.

“Do all humans have accent?” she asked, propping herself up in the seat beside Ellie’s cot. Her sulking needed to be put aside for the pursuit of knowledge.

“I guess,” Ellie answered with a mild head tilt. “I’ve never really thought about it. I think we consider people that sound like us as not having an accent, and everyone else as having one.”

Effie sat on those words for a few moments, not really understanding.

“Which accent do you have?” she asked.

“A boring one.”

“You speak boring English?”

Ellie grinned at her. “I was joking, Effie.” She laughed quietly and Effie’s face heated again. “I mean I don’t have an interesting accent like a scouser, or Bonnie and her posh perfect pronunciation. I’m from an area called the three counties.”

“You speak three counties English?”

“Sure.”

“What do I speak? Is it the same?” They sounded the same to Effie.

“No. You have an American accent.”

“Is that bad?”

“Awful,” Ellie replied with another laugh, louder this time.

Effie pouted again. She didn’t like feeling ignorant.

“I’m joking again, Effie.”

“I don’t mind you joking, but I don’t understand the joke.”

She twisted onto her side with a soft groan and a tight wince. Once she had repositioned herself, she was facing Effie directly. It held the heat in her face to have her in such close proximity, staring straight at her with her colourful eyes.

“Americans tend to be the butt of European jokes,” Ellie explained. “It’s a very old tradition. But having the accent doesn’t make you American, and most people who speak English as a second language learn American English.”

“Are there real Americans on-board?”

“Loads of them,” Ellie answered as though sharing a dark secret. Effie shuffled a little closer, as far as her plastic seat would allow. “We’re overrun.”

“Why?” Effie whispered.

“Because NASA is a lot older and better funded than UKSC. Your chances of making it out of Earth’s atmosphere are a lot better if you can get into the American space programme.”

“That is what you did? You became American?”

“No, I’m still English.” Ellie’s smile was humour-filled again. Effie returned it nervously. Everything about Ellie and her closeness was bringing on a light layer of nervous tension over her body. “I just got sent over as part of a programme in preparation for the Alliance experiments.”

Effie nodded her half-understanding.

“Our English doesn’t sound the same, then?”

“No, but it’s just an accent.”

“How do I make it better? How do I speak like you?”

“Grow up far enough South that you can get to London in half an hour by train, but far enough North that you have to drive past fields of cows to get to the station.”

Effie stared at her blankly. She understood most of those words, but they culminated in no meaning when strung together in that order. Ellie watched her for a few seconds, then winked. Effie jolted. Apparently, that was Ellie’s intention, her grin pulled wider.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you talk, Effie,” she said gently. “Your English is perfect. I know English people that don’t speak as well as you.” The compliment filled Effie with energy that she couldn’t displace. As though she needed to run away to shake off the sensation. She gripped the lip of her seat instead. “And you speak another language! That’s one more than most of us.”

“It’s one less than most of the Ailu’t here,” she admitted shamefully. “You are supposed to leave school with two languages: home and neighbour. I tried both neighbouring languages but couldn’t learn either of them properly.” She had only conquered English through pure determination. Every night she continued to study English just as thoroughly as her medicine schooling books.

“Well, now English is your neighbour language,” said Ellie. “Neighbouring species, right?”

“I guess.” She had been using Ellie’s favourite expression more and more often. She hoped she didn’t notice.

“And you’re a medical student; that’s pretty fucking impressive!”

Effie slid down in her seat, the awkward energy multiplying inside of her. “Please stop,” she gasped. “I am embarrassed.”

“Why?” Ellie pinched her brows, but her grin remained in place.

Effie folded her arms over her face, she couldn’t bear to hear such things while the woman she loved stared straight at her.

“You should be proud. You’re really smart and capable, Effie.”

“You would not like it if I did this to you,” she grumbled from behind her hands.

“Try me.”

Effie jumped up, invigorated by the challenge.

“You are very brave and noble and strong!” she announced with a finger jabbing towards Ellie’s face.

Ellie’s expression remained cool. “Thank you.”

“Strong in your body and in your soul,” Effie continued. “You carry the burdens of others without any complaint.” She allowed her voice to grow in volume. “I respect you a lot!”

“Keep it coming.” Teasing her. Always finding something funny.

Effie dug her fists into her hips and leant forward until her face was inches from Ellie’s.

“You have very beautiful eyes!” she shouted.

Finally, Ellie seemed to fluster. Her mouth popped open just a little and she rocked back. But Effie had more to say.

“I want to put my hands in your hair!”

“Okay, yep, you’ve made your point Eff-”

“It is so yellow and shiny-”

Her mouth was halted by pink lips. For a moment, her body froze. Then her brain caught up. She squeezed her eyes shut and slumped forward over the cot, leaning into the kiss. Long fingers created a V shape at the meeting of her throat and chin and pulled her even closer. Effie allowed herself to be lead. It was soft, but hungry, and it filled her with more excitement than any touch from any person in her young life so far. Sparks ran down her spine, bringing blood flow with them, straight to her groin. The only barrier keeping her cock down for the moment was the cot guard she was pressed against. She felt Ellie’s tongue swipe across her bottom lip and whined softly. With a gasp, the seal was broken.

Ellie had pulled away.

Effie remained slung over her ward bed, flushed and flustered. With a flurry of blinks, her wits came back to her, and she righted herself quickly.

“I think… I was supposed to meet with Dr Bonnie… she needs my help… something,” she babbled. Ellie didn’t respond, and Effie couldn’t look her in the face. She already felt as though she were on the verge of combustion, anything more and she would disappear in an explosion of blue powder.

As she left the ward, hurriedly, she noticed a pair of human nurses exchange something in low-hung hands. It seemed a strange way to hand out medication, but she knew it as not her place to question.