Hard Luck Hermit

“Okay, you’re doing this on purpose.”

Corey had even checked to make sure Tooley was still sleeping before hopping into the cleanser this time, but here she was, naked and cramming herself into a thin plastic tube with Corey yet again.

“What, getting clean? Yes, that is on purpose,” Tooley said, as she turned up the vibration setting and shook out her tangled hair. “Shockingly, I like to not stink.”

“I mean getting in here with me,” Corey said. “You’ve got an entire da- swap to get clean, why do you go out of your way to hop in with me?”

“Because I like watching you squirm, mostly,” Tooley said. She turned to face Corey and leaned on the wall of the cleanser. “Seriously, have you seen yourself? You get all bug-eyed and you try so hard not to stare at me I can feel your neck muscles straining.”

It took Corey a few seconds to respond, as it was hard to come up with a dignified rebuttal to those accusations. When he got out of the cleanser his neck actually did hurt from trying so hard not to stare, but he wasn’t about to let Tooley know that. She seized on his silence to continue her teasing.

“Seriously, you come from the planet of prudes or something?”

“I’m not a prude, I’m just...trying to be polite?”

“I don’t care, Corvash,” Tooley said. “I meant what I said the first time this happened. We’re on a ship, there’s tight spaces and tight timeframes sometimes, we’re going to see each other naked. It’s no big deal.”

“Okay, cool, I get that, will try to get used to the idea,” Corey said. “Can you please stop doing it on purpose, though? I actually do like some privacy.”

“Since you asked nicely,” Tooley said. Also, since he had built up enough guts to call her on her behavior, Corey probably wouldn’t be fun to tease that much longer anyway. “I’m staying in right now though. Still got to do my hair.”

Thanks to his extensive firsthand experience with Tooley’s cleanser routine, Corey at least knew that wasn’t a lie. She liked to fluff up her hair, shaking every strand loose, to be extra sure the cleanser’s vibrations got everything. Since Tooley’s hair was a polite body part to stare at, Corey had observed it very thoroughly, and knew the extra care was warranted. The strands were very thin but densely packed, like the fur of a chinchilla. A peculiarity of her species, more than likely.

“So, we’ve established my culture isn’t that prudish -mostly, at least,” Corey said. “What about yours? Do a lot of cleanser-sharing back home too?”

Tooley briefly contemplated whether this violated her ban on questions about her homeworld, but decided to allow it. If only because she could use this opportunity to tease Corey more.

“My people are actually super prudish overall,” Tooley said. “I’m a renegade, though. Brace yourself, Corvash, I’m about to say something that would give my mom and dad a heart attack: sometimes I have sex with people for fun. Not just with my lawfully wedded husband for the sole purpose of producing offspring.”

“Okay, cool.”

Having not gotten the expected reaction, Tooley continued, and escalated.

“I’ve done most everything you can think of,” Tooley said, before listing several things Corey actually hadn’t thought of. There were a lot of alien species with a lot of appendages that could be used for a lot of creative purposes, apparently. “Oddly enough, not any mouth stuff, though. Can’t do that.”

“Bad gag reflex?”

“No, I- actually, get your pants on, it’ll be more fun to show you,” Tooley said. She slammed the cleanser button to shut it off and started to get dressed. Corey was curious now, so he followed suit, trailing Tooley’s steps into the kitchen area. The small space was surprisingly clean, owing to the fact that almost no one ever actually cooked. Farsus or Doprel would occasionally throw together an actual meal, but for the most part the crew subsisted on a quick-serve travel ration that resembled a dumpling filled with a savory red sludge. Corey tried to just enjoy the flavor and not think about what the sludge was made of. Tooley pushed aside several containers of said sludge-dumplings as she started digging around in various storage containers.

“Let’s see, thingy, thingy, thingy, thingy...Doprel, where do you keep your veggies?”

“Bottom left drawer.”

“Tooley Keeber Obeltas, are you finally interested in learning how to cook?” Farsus shouted. “I will gladly give lessons.”

“Fat chance, Farsy, I’m just giving Corvash a demonstration.”

She dug around in the bottom left drawer and found what she was looking for. It vaguely resembled a carrot, but had a deep brown coloring with an oddly bark-like texture. She extended the strange root in Corey’s direction.

“Try to take a bite out of this,” she demanded.

“Is this going to be super spicy, or make me shit myself, or something?”

“No, it’s actually kind of bland, honestly,” Tooley said. “I’m going a different direction with this, trust me.”

In spite of his better judgment, Corey took a bite of the root. Or tried to, anyway. The strange vegetable was incredibly dense, and even trying to nibble the narrowest end of it strained Corey’s jaw. After a few seconds of fruitless gnawing, he managed to tear a small chunk off the end. True to Tooley’s word, the veggie was inoffensive tasting, though slightly bitter.

“Okay, now what?”

In response, Tooley opened her mouth wide, baring rows of surprisingly sharp fangs, and placed the thickest part of the root between her molars. She took a single forceful bite, and sheared the root in half like it was paper. Corey actually heard her teeth click after effortlessly slicing through the rock-hard tuber. She chewed the remainder of the root (with equal ease) as she continued her explanation.

“My species are technically obligate carnivores,” Tooley explained, through mouthfuls of root. “And we got the jaws to go with it. I think we’ve got the fourth or fifth most powerful bite force of any known Retrograde species. We can pretty much bite through anything that’s not hard enough to break our teeth.”

“Okay, and that ties back to you being unable to do mouth-”

The dawning look of realization and horror on Corey’s face delighted Tooley to no end.

“Oh. Oh no. Oh god.”

“Yep, on the off chance I get a little startled, I might try to close my mouth, and-”

Tooley put what was left of the root in her mouth and bit down hard, severing it in one clean bite. Corey tried his best not to cross his legs as a reflex. After delighting in his strained response for a moment, Tooley handed over the small severed end of the root and walked away with a smile on her face. Sometimes it took a lot of effort to make people squirm, but to her, it was always worth it.