Through the Rift 5 (Patreon)

Both @Pickles and @Matt Labanc mentioned that they hoped I'd write more Through the Rift this month, so I did. In fact, the next part was long enough that I felt compelled to break it into two parts. Look for part 6 tomorrow.

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In the morning, I woke still cuddled with the other three. The cot was snug enough that none of us could have tossed and turned. It was … nice.

Simba opened his eyes soon after, then greeted me with some wordless touches, stroking his thumb across my brow.

I had never slept with a lion before, so I nervously joked, “Uh, thank you for not eating me last night.” He, of course, didn’t understand a word I said. I probably shouldn’t have even tried to tease because then he insisted that Noa and Ayla help translate.

The four of us extracted ourselves from the pile, and I spent some time signing my joke to the mice who then translated for him. Even after the mice translated my words, none of them seemed to understand why I had said it, and then I had to explain the joke—which, of course, sucked all the fun out of it.

“On my world,” I signed, “lions eat humans.”

I winced, worried that I’d offend Simba, that I’d called his people primitive or barbaric. Fortunately, he seemed to find this hilarious, and for the rest of the morning, whenever he looked my way, he peeled back his lips so I could see each of his pearly whites. Although a bit unnerving at first, I eventually got over my instinctual need to flee.

Simba seemed a little irritated when he could no longer get a rise out of me, and so had to bring the teasing back up a notch to compensate. Now, when he came close, he intentionally positioned his exposed teeth just in front of my eyes and then clicked his jaws together a couple times, trying to make me shy away.

Then, he’d bellow his wheezing growl of a laugh. I put my hand to his face and playfully shoved him away. That would only make him laugh harder.

Noa—who I’d come to think of as the sweet one of the bunch—stood on my chest and signed me a question. “On your world,” she asked, “are there mice too?”

“Yes, we have mice.”

“Do humans eat mice? Do lions?”

I smiled. “No, humans don’t eat mice. I don’t think lions eat mice either,” I explained. “On my world, mice are very small—much smaller than you and Ayla. I don’t think our lions would bother chasing them.” That seemed to soothe her worries.

For obvious reasons, I didn’t expand on the less-than-harmonious relationship between humans and Earth mice. I’m certain she would have been traumatized if I told her about exterminators and mouse traps!

Simba stoked a fire in the stove and set up a breakfast porridge that looked more like chili. The mice asked him for a bowl of soapy water, then they set about cleaning my wounds. Simba watched for a while before rolling his eyes at just how long it was taking for the two small mice to wash me. Then, he sat down at my bedside and took over the task, allowing the mice to focus on medical concerns like inspecting the smaller wounds for signs of infection.

Simba washed my face and neck. He cut me out of the ruined spacesuit and washed my chest, back, and arms. Soon, he was washing my privates and the entire sponge bath grew silent and awkward. It might not have been so bad, but all three of the aliens seemed fascinated by my junk. Sure, they tried not to openly stare, but they didn’t try nearly hard enough for my tastes. It was obvious they were staring—obvious not only to me, but to each other. They shared an awful lot of sideways glances, communicating…

Communicating what? Honestly? I wish I knew. Yes, I’m a guy, I have external genitalia. So? Was my junk all so different from how guys were hung on this planet? Sure, I had to be bigger than whatever was hanging between the legs of the boy-mice purely by the virtue of my body size, but why was Simba so intrigued? Was all his poofy pube fur hiding something so vastly different from what I had that he found my junk mesmerizing?

I felt more than a little self-conscious about the whole experience. Did they think my size was weird? My shape? I’m not circumcised. Did they find that gross? I once dated a gal who’d never seen an uncircumcised wiener before climbing into bed with me. She was so unnerved by the sight of a foreskin that we didn’t even end up doing anything. She just dressed and went home. We never called each other again.

Though that was probably for the best, honestly. I’d yet to find the right gal for me, but I knew that if a woman’s sensibilities were so delicate that a turtleneck on my dick bothered her, then I didn’t need her in my life.

Eventually, the three finished tending to my dirt, cuts, and scrapes. Simba tossed my filthy spacesuit out the front door and they allowed me to cover up with the blanket. Then, we shared a breakfast in silence. I ate a small bowl of porridge, the mice focused on beans they plucked from theirs, and Simba finished not only his portion but everything that the three of us left behind.

When we’d finished our breakfast and Simba finished cleaning up his tiny kitchen, Noa and Ayla pulled a mouse-sized game hidden back in the corner of one of the medical bot’s drawers. I couldn’t help but laugh. People are the same all over, regardless of their shape and size.

Simba and the mice sat on the ground as they set up the game, then they tried to teach me how to play. To say that I was hazy on the rules was putting it mildly. The dice-based game had elements of both backgammon and craps to it, and I’m certain that there was an element of gambling involved, but precisely how the rules worked remained a mystery to me. So, instead of actually participating, I watched the three play while they explained the rules and strategy as they went along.

In the end, Ayla won with a move that clearly surprised the other two. I didn’t get it, but I congratulated her just the same. I got the sense that she gloated over the victory, but without understanding her words, I could totally have been misconstruing that.

The med-bot stood suddenly and walked out the cabin’s front door without any attempt to explain. Then, it returned a few minutes later with a plastic shopping bag held in one of its claws. Inside the bag, we found prepared lunches arrayed in a variety of paper boxes. Noa and Ayla seemed pleased to find mixed vegetable dishes that didn’t have any meat in them. Simba ate the slab of meat in his—but he clearly wasn’t impressed with the preparation.

The lunch they’d prepared for me was actually quite nice. I had two small boxes—one of mixed fruits and one of mixed vegetables—and a larger box that contained an open-faced sandwich of some sort. I’m not certain what had gone into the thick brown paste on top of my bread. It had a consistency not unlike chunky peanut butter and a flavor that reminded me of the “meatloaf surprise” that the base would serve on Thursdays. The meal wasn’t about to earn the cook on the telepresence screen a Michelin star, certainly, but I much preferred it over both the porridge and the rare meat that Simba had prepared for me earlier.

I told both of the mice that I really liked the lunch, and they passed along my thanks to the lion on the display. He nodded, seemingly content that he’d managed to provide the alien something that I could eat, and the screen went dark once more.

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18z366S-AvOARrcxQpA-CjxUxpUQCWCFdMTFk-6bmlw8/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?