Monsters

Kirg - Age 18: Ishka's Birthday

It was just after midnight when his alarm quietly buzzed.

Kirg woke up groggily but soon remembered why he'd set the quiet alarm.

Ishka's seventeenth birthday.

In their culture, beginning today she was a woman.

Kirg slid out of bed slowly, quietly, turning off the alarm once he was free of the bed. He had a lot of work to do before Ishka woke up in a few hours.

Feeling slightly giddy, Kirg pulled out his sketchbook and pencil, quickly setting to work on the final two pages he needed to draw.

He'd begun the story the day after they started dating, and it catalogued the most important times they'd shared so far and would end with him asking her to marry him.

He gulped, his pencil hesitating. What if she wasn't ready for that? What if she said no? What if Mom got so angry he killed him?

He and Ishka had managed to keep their relationship a secret to everyone except their friends. It had been two years, two wonderful years of shared secrets and cuddles, of crying in each others' arms and laughing together in the sunshine. He could not imagine life without her in it, and if she told him she didn't want to marry him--

Well, that was her choice. He'd find a way to honor it. But he had hope. She'd said she loved him, and he felt it when she said it. Her feelings, on the rare occasions their skin touched, were deep and powerful, mirrored only in strength by his own.

Releasing a deep breath along with his anxiety, Kirg focused on finishing the story.

Should he write in her reply? Or should he make the last panel a question mark?

It was just before dawn when he put the finishing touches on it with his ink pens.

There.

He flipped through the pages, watching as his drawings grew more intricate and his feelings for her deepened with the passage of their story.

He glanced at the clock.

6 am.

Gulping, Kirg put away his things, pulled the covers back, and slid back into bed.

He watched her, unaware of the passage of time as his gaze roamed over her sleeping form, loving the feelings of desire and protectiveness she elicited from him.

How could any woman be so...so everything?

Sure she was grumpy sometimes, she was bossy most of the time, and she cried easily and turned slightly violent when she was PMSing, but... she also held him when he cried, smiled at his stupid jokes, laughed with him, challenged him to be a better person, and cared about him and accepted him in a way nobody else ever would. She had her faults, but even with them, she was as close to perfection as possible. She was...Ishka.

And hopefully she'd agree to be his Mate.

But first...how to wake her up?

They had cuddled a lot over the last two years, had held hands and laid on each other's shoulders. They had caressed each other's backs, legs, arms, faces. They had watched each other as they masturbated.

But never once in two years had they touched each other sexually. Not even a kiss.

At first both had been afraid, disgusted really, of the thought of being physical with each other. The only example they'd had of a sexual relationship was what had happened to Kirg and the others in the research lab. Kirg's hesitation was more than understandable, and though Ishka had never physically experienced the abuse, what she had bore witness to had been damaging to her as well.