But He's an Alien

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“All right, so his ears are big, his feet are gigantic, and he’s seven feet tall. Are any of those valid reasons not to love him?” I asked them, giving them a pause from trying to talk me out of getting married, which they'd been doing for the last hour.

“But he’s an alien, Sarah. Did you miss that part?” Meg asked.

I shook my head and checked the smiles of each of the four friends I’d known since grade school. “Of course, I know he’s an alien. Duh! But just because he was born on Mars, doesn’t mean I can’t love him.”

“Right!” they all yelled sarcastically, their eyes rolling and their fingers making circles in the air. Their voices were so loud, the rest of the diners turned around to glare at us.

“Sh!” I said. “You want everyone to hear?”

“Give me one good reason,” said Meg, who used to be my best friend. (I wasn’t sure about it anymore since she was the one leading the campaign to talk me out of marrying Pthuan.)

“Well, for one thing,” I said, sipping at my sparkling water and trying not to sneeze as the bubbles went up my nose.

“Achoo!”

They all broke out laughing. “Exactly,” said Meg. “That’s what I do every time I see the guy.”

“That’s not fair. Pthuan is really nice.”

“Yeah, if you like moving to an ugly, dirty, dusty red planet and worrying about whether you’ve got enough oxygen in your living quarters!”

“That problem has been fixed,” I told Sharon, stirring my ice cubes round and round. “The whole planet is evenly terra-formed now. You don’t even need oxygen tanks.”

Suddenly the women's eyes left mine and stared at someone approaching. That's how I knew Pthuan had arrived. He had that way of stealing everyone’s attention and stopping every conversation.

“Pthuan,” I cried out, as he draped his long arms down my sides. I jumped up and planted a big, wet kiss on his handsome lips.

Taking advantage of the moment, he swept me backward, bending me almost in half, and then he attempted to lift me, to bring me up closer to his lips. Unfortunately the heavier gravity of Earth restrained him. He gave up and just squatted down lower.

“Urrr,” he growled. “Things will be different when I get you to Mars.”

For Meg that was like the scent of a bone to a hungry dog. “What do you mean -- different? Are you going to do something different once you get to Mars?”

Pthuan slid into my chair and pulled me into his lap. Then he laughed nervously. “Have they been filling your ears with Martian gossip, Sarah?”

All of us looked at each other. My friends' eyes were just as puzzled as mine. “What gossip? What do you mean, Pthuan?”

He looked down at me, and I saw that he was sorry he’d mentioned it. “We’ll talk about it later, Sarah,” he said, whispering into my ear.

“No, talk about it here, with her friends all around,” Janey ordered. I looked up to see four worried faces.

“Let me up, Pthuan. I want to sit in my own chair,” I said. I couldn’t help it that my voice sounded frosty. I didn’t like the evasion I’d heard in his. “Tell me now,” I demanded.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he repeated with even more firmness.

I guess I should have let it drop, but my friends had been working me over for an hour. Their suspicions about how different Martian settlers were from Earthlings had begun to chip away at my assurance.

“When are you going to tell her? After the wedding?” Meg asked, with blunt distrust in her voice.

“Tell me what?” I guess I was a little loud. The waiter came over and warned us to be quiet. But I’d had enough of the scene anyway. I stood up, ready to go.

“Sarah, don’t leave your friends like this. It’s your last time with them,” Pthuan reminded me.

I knew he was right, but he had gripped my wrist to stop me. I jerked away from him. “I don’t know if that's true. Maybe it’s not the last time,” I said, and I ran out of the restaurant.

That night there was a sudden coldness between us that hadn’t been there before. Neither of us felt like talking. We were suddenly back to being strangers, too different in culture to bridge this new chasm.

We slept with our backs to each other -- what part of the night we slept, but I don’t think either of us truthfully did much sleeping. Mainly we just lay there, staring up into the dark.

But in the morning, it was all different. I woke up, and I was lying in Pthuan’s arms. “Good morning,” he said, kissing me. Just like that, the tiff was all over, and I was kissing him back.

It was only after we'd runited our fires, that I remembered about the secrets. I had to know. I had to understand why Pthuan had been so reticent.

The moment I asked him about it, that same look came back into his eyes. He fidgeted and looked down instead of meeting my eyes.

“I love you,” he said. “That’s all you need to know. The gossip isn’t important.”

I jerked upward and sat ramrod straight, glaring at him. “If you expect me to marry you with secrets between us, forget it.”

“But they're not true, Sarah, not on Mars, anyway,” he said hoarsely.

“What! What’s not true? Trust me enough to tell me.”

Pthuan sighed, and then dropped his face into his hands. After a moment of silence, he looked up and let out such an exhale of sadness, I almost withdrew my demand. But then, before I could say anything, he began to speak.

“I want you to marry me, Sarah. I need a wife from Earth because the gene pool demands it, but I don’t want just anyone. I want you, Sarah, because in this time we’ve been together, I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with you. You do know that, don’t you?”

His eyes were like amber with small chips of brown and glints of gold. I was falling into them and falling madly in love with him all over again, just from hearing his words, and from feeling the warmth of his hand pressed against my thigh. Because of the latter, I was barely able to speak, but I knew I must. I had to know...

“You must trust me, then, Pthuan. What is this between us? It can't be love if there’s no trust.”

He let out a hiss like a teakettle. I knew he was upset. I wished we had more time, so I didn't have to press him, but the ship that we were taking back to Mars was leaving in the morning. I needed to know before I boarded it. I had to find out what was responsible for this rift.

“Sarah,” he said, groaning and pulling me back into his arms. “When the first Martian settlers started coming back for wives, the men's bodies were still acclimated to Earth. But as time passed, it got harder and harder for the Martians to prove themselves as able bed partners. Your gravity is too heavy for us. Some Martian men are not able to please an Earth women at all. So before we Martian men travel to Earth for mates, we are first tested and then conditioned."

I was curious about that, but I kept my mouth shut. I could sense there was more. "Go on, Pthuan. What else?"

He lifted up my hand and gave it a brief kiss. "That's most of it, Sarah. But on Earth the gossip still flies about the failures. There’s one story that our organ falls off when a Martian stays here too long. Of course, that's not true. Another story says that when we head back, there's a total collapse. That's not true either. I don't know if there's any other tales."

He looked down at me and searched my eyes. "You've never heard any of this?"

I shook my head, trying not to laugh. I knew for men, these stories must be very threatening, but for me they were laughable. All Pthuan's worries had been about whether I'd believe such things?

"I thought that’s what you and your friends were talking about," he added.

"No! We've never heard any of that. I wouldn't have believed it if I had!"

I was trying not to picture any of it, afraid I’d be rolling on the floor in laughter any minute. For a moment I blocked my thoughts and concentrated on what I was going to fix for breakfast. That worked. I didn't laugh. Instead, I bent over and kissed Pthuan good and hard.

“I have no fears at all about that, my love,” I told him. “But if this is how you perform in high gravity, I can’t wait to try it on Mars.”

Pthuan grinned at me and winked. Then together we went in to make the last breakfast we’d be eating on the planet Earth.

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