A Storm in the Making

Chapter 12--Alone With Julius

Chapter Twelve

Alone With Julius

   I felt more than heard a sigh of relief from Julius once the closing of the door echoed from the darkness over our heads.

   I couldn’t help looking up to find him looking down at me with an enigmatic smile on his chiseled lips for a moment before he grew serious again.

With his eyes traveling no further down my body than my chin, he removed his arms from around me, lifting the robe from my shoulders along the way.  I felt the cool air on my skin, and crossed my hands over my body in the way of all women caught naked by prying eyes.

“Clothing is costly, and hard to come by here on Dardara,” he said as he  shrugged the robe off his own shoulders.  Oh no!  He is not going to take his clothes off, too. I think I’ll outright faint if he does.  “In some places on this planet it is considered optional and a luxury.”

 “There are some families on the mainland who are too poor to own any clothing what so ever.  Nudity is not the social faux pas here that it is on your planet.”  With a smirk, he handed the robe to me.  Unbelievable.  Now he’s spouting French and going all chivalrous on me.

Julius just raised one eyebrow at me, but it was enough to cause me to feel ashamed of my sarcastic thought.

Seeing my face flush—again, seemed to satisfy him, if his sudden smirk was any indication.  He turned and padded over to the edge of the pool.  His muscular back, tapering down to the top of the drawstring pants it seemed everyone wore, was doing all sorts of funny things to my heart.  It did a flip-flop when the mere act of Julius sitting down caused muscles to flex in his back where I didn’t even know men could grow muscles.   He dangled his legs over the side of the pool. 

   I slipped the robe on and hugged it to me without bothering to tie the belt.  The robe swallowed me, of course, but it smelled so much like Julius that I breathed in deeply of its special scent.

   I walked over and stood behind him unable to stop myself from taking a closer look at those muscles.  In the water, the tiny nik-niks swarmed around his pants-covered legs and feet.  He was bent forward, head down, and seemed to be calmly studying them.

   “It’s funny how you can be around something all your life without really seeing it.  Take these tiny fish, for instance,” he said in that low, husky voice of his.  “They’ve just always been here….the same way the water and grass and sun is here….just a tiny part of my daily cleansing ritual.  It would never have dawned on me that someone seeing them for the first time might not think them to be so…uh….. could be afraid of them.  I’m sure my sister didn’t either.”

   “I’m sure she didn’t.  There was no harm intended.  And I probably wouldn’t have been afraid…..if someone would have explained them to me first.”

I had to stop a minute to take a deep breath.  To clear my mind.  This was all so unlike me.  Part of me was ashamed that I’d shown fear.  Me of all people.  I’d stood up to so much in my life, yet here I was completely undone by a fish less than an inch long.