With All My Hearts

I’m an illegal alien.

And no, not the “from another country” kind of alien, but the “from another planet” kind of alien. From another star. The offspring of three parents and one of them you would call a rock.

Don’t look at me like that. My rock parent was the best, really. Never asked me to clean my room or eat my vegetables. Most of the time he just sat there, and on the rare occasions that he did communicate, man was that some profound stuff.

Like, and I am translating loosely here, “Time is…”

I know, I know, you don’t believe in sentient rocks that can contribute genetic material to biological beings such as myself. Silly humans. You understand nothing.

Sorry… that was rude. My species values the truth above all else and yours worries a lot about how other people feel about what is said to them.

I get it. Words matter. They are imperfect conduits of imperfect thoughts. If you’re into math, words are the stuck-in-time derivative of the ever-changing equation of your thoughts. Even at their best, they are troublesome and misleading.

You all should try telepathy, direct thought to thought transfer.

No. I take that back. I tried that once with a fetching being from the Andromeda Galaxy and I had to go be like my rock parent for three days just to recover. Man, that being just overloaded my circuits in all the best and worst ways possible.

But I am getting sidetracked. I do that a lot. Where was I… Okay. Words do matter. And the fact that you all on your blue marble of a planet worry a lot about words and don’t just tell the truth is about empathy. Trying to feel what the other being is feeling.

Well, sometimes it’s about lying and dissembling and evading the truth with great vigor and intention for your own personal gain. But, for now, let’s just assume it comes down to the lovely “putting your many toes in the shoes of another being” sentiment.

Which brings me to my quandary. I’ve fallen for another being. One of you. A human female. And she thinks I’m a human male.

Yup. Alien skinsuit technology is that good these days. She hasn’t rubbed up against my rockier parts yet thanks to my high-quality, fully functional, biosynthetic skinsuit.

It’s the top of the line, the best human skinsuit available. I won’t out anyone, because that wouldn’t be kind—see, look at me being empathic—but you would be shocked at how many skinsuit-wearing aliens are out there. Here, I’ll give you a hint. They are all beautiful, spend plenty of time in front of cameras, and they don’t seem to age at the same rate as the rest of you.

Because who goes skinsuit shopping and says, “Hey, I’d like one with well below-average appearance and accelerated aging factors, please.”

But back to the human woman that thinks I’m a human man.

I’m sunk. I mean, really sunk. Worse than the being from Andromeda that literally blew my mind. Worse than the sentient swamp gas I found on a planet in the Pleiades. And so much worse than my first love on my home planet when was I was still in my larva stage.

Don’t freak, you all. I’m not a bug. I use the term “larva” here because it best describes the extreme transformation my kind goes through at maturation. But I gotta tell you, there was this being in Alpha Centauri that you all would consider an insect, but boy howdy, what they could do with their antennae.

But I’m on a tangent again, aren’t I? I think it’s a side effect of my time here on your lovely planet. I’m what you would call an anthropologist and I haven’t had a nice anonymous way to express myself. So, thanks for reading. I’ll try to focus now.

Her name is April, and she’s tall and athletic with sheets of shining chestnut-colored hair and beautiful hazel eyes. Her smile lights up my world and her laughter is like a drug to me.

We met in a bar. I was working, studying the mating rituals of recently matured humans in London. My plan was to hit all the major cities on your lovely planet and compare and contrast.

Mating rituals vary widely across the galaxies, especially with two-gender species. It’s one thing that gives us a fascinating snapshot of a species. There’s this one, out on the edge of the Milky Way that— Wait. I said I’d focus.

Okay. I was standing at the bar, sipping a vodka and soda with a twist. Simple, I know, but I have a simple pallet. The alcohol has a very mild effect on me—I metabolize it very quickly.

“You’re different,” she said to me as she bounced up to the bar.

She wore black tights and a white T-shirt with bright watercolor splashes decorating it cut short to show off her flat midriff.

“I am?” I asked with a small smile, leaning forward just a bit. This was early on in my time on Earth, and I was still mastering basic body language, and conversation for that matter.

There was loud music thumping and a crowd on the dance floor, colored lights pulsing along with the primitive rhythm. I could smell the shared sweat of the crowd layered with the various forms of alcohol. Even so I could smell her sweet floral perfume. I’ve got a superior olfactory organ hidden under this lumpy human nose.

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “You sit here watching. You’re not out dancing. You’re not out buying anyone drinks. But you seem perfectly comfortable doing it.”

I was aware that she conformed to current human standards of beauty. Her lean fitness. Her symmetrical face. Her long, straight, silky brown hair. Her flat, well-toned abdomen. Her big hazel eyes. She had used makeup to accentuate her best facial features and her simple clothing put her athletic build on fine display.

But I’ve seen hundreds of species and many demonstrations of beauty and my own race’s standards are far different than humans, but there was something there.

That she noticed me, yes, that was certainly interesting. Her ease at conversing with someone different was lovely. But it was something else. I couldn’t put one of my digits on it, but I felt something.

“I’m older than I look,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t understand what one is supposed to do here.”

She looked at me carefully, her eyes roaming up and down me. My skinsuit came with a symmetrical face with a cleft chin, short black hair, blue eyes, and a fairly muscular build. I was dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt, and dark blue blazer.

“Well,” she said with a smile that sent a pleasant tingle down my spine, “if you are interested in getting to know someone better, you buy them a drink and you tell them your name.”

“Why would I buy them a drink?” I asked.

“So you both have something to do while you get to know each other,” she said, a quizzical smile playing on her lips.

I nodded, thinking it over. I was here to observe, to learn, and there are rules to my business that I should be careful about, but there was something about her.

“My name is Tef,” I said. “Can I buy you a drink, and can you do me the favor of sharing your name with me?”

“Jeff?” she asked. It was noisy and I’m sure she didn’t have some of the audio enhancement capabilities of my skinsuit.

“Tef,” I said. “T. E. F.”

She looked at me again and I could almost see the calculations going on.

“Sure, Tef,” she said holding her hand out. “My name is April and I’d love to have a drink with you.”

We drank and got to know each other. We danced… or rather she tried to teach me how to dance. I am very bad at dancing in the human style. It is all about improvisation and personal expression in time with a thumping beat. I think I might be okay at it without my skinsuit, but not with it.

We drank some more and talked some more and dancing got a little easier.

She was an American—something I had totally missed since I’m not good at identifying accents yet—and worked as a reporter and traveled the world. She was very intelligent and knew so much about what was going on.

I told her the truth, that I was an anthropologist and studied cultural variation of pair bonding and how that played out in society as a whole.

With each drink, with the deepening conversation, my fascination with her became deeper and deeper.

She became quite drunk and invited me back to her hotel.

And no, this is not one of those kinds of stories. I walked her home through the foggy London night and saw her safely to the door of her hotel room. I don’t remember any details of the hotel at all. Why will become obvious in a moment.

“Comin’ in…?” she asked with a slur. It was very late, and the long hallway was empty. I knew what she was asking, and while I had doubts about performing intimate acts in my skinsuit, that is not what stopped me.

“I think I should let you rest,” I said. “It has been my distinct pleasure to get to know you, April.”

She looked at me quizzically, her hazel eyes roaming up and down my form. “You are different, Tef. Aren’t you?”

Before I could answer, she surged forth, put her hand to the back of my neck, drew my face down to hers, and kissed me.

Her lips were sharp with alcohol and sweet. It was my first kiss in my human skinsuit and it was… surprising.

I know of many forms of physical intimacy that aren’t for procreation such as rubbing proboscises or antennae, clasping digits, tickling the backside of joints, but this was something else.

This was…

Words fail me here, especially with the limited scope of this language, but I will try.

I felt her warmth close to me and it seemed like I could feel her deeper essence too, like she was pouring herself into me through her lips and I could smell and taste the true April.

I knew I would be content to spend days just talking with her and learning about this world through her sharp eyes. That I would be happy to kiss her until I passed out from hunger. That the being from the Andromeda Galaxy with their telepathic abilities had not a thing on April.

When we parted, I could not tell you how long the kiss was, but it wasn’t long enough. “You are different, aren’t you?” she asked again before stepping back into her room, smiling, and closing the door.

I nodded dumbly and stood there staring at the door trying to get my hearts to stop beating so fast. I wandered back to my hotel in a haze and was lucky I actually made it there.

---

I knew April’s name and I knew the news organization she worked for, so I followed her.

Cairo, Paris, Istanbul, Madrid.

And yes, I gather that unwanted attention is greatly frowned upon on this planet and on many others, but my attention wasn’t unwanted.

In Cairo, I found the hotel she was at and left her a courteous message with my cell phone number and went about my studies. We met for drinks and shared another beautiful kiss.

In Paris, we had dinner in view of the Eiffel Tower and held hands while walking along the Seine.

In Istanbul we toured the Blue Mosque with its six towering minarets and exquisitely rounded architecture talking of things profound and superficial.

In Madrid, in front of one the gurgling fountains of Puerta del Sol, surrounded by the old stone buildings and throngs of tourists, I told her that I loved her.

Yes, yes, I know. You humans like to be coy about such things, you want to be sure feelings are reciprocated before they are expressed. But as I told you, my species values truth.

The square was busy, the sun was hot above us. She had on a blue sundress and dark sunglasses so I could not see her lovely eyes.

Her forehead furrowed as she stared at me. “What did you say?” she asked.

I understood her doubt. We had not been fully intimate physically yet as is common with your society before such things are said.

I took her hand and held it gently. “I said I love you. With all my hearts.”

“Hearts?” she asked.

And now I had a problem. I could not, I would not lie to her, but the slip was unintentional. I have two hearts. And both had metaphorically filled with my love for this human woman.

“Forgive me. I said that wrong,” I said, slipping into partial truths, but not lying. “The right way to say it is, I love you with all my heart.”

She bit her lip and sniffed.

“If you do not love me,” I said, “you may say so. I will not be offended. I value our relationship too much to let such a thing come between us.”

She sniffed again and the babble of the tourists swirling around us seemed so loud. The old stone buildings looked imposing. My hearts beat hard, and my skinsuit was sweating a lot.

She let go of my hand and stepped back, my hearts racing faster. I wished so much that I could see her eyes. While I had told her the truth that I would not be offended, I would be very sad if the feeling was not returned.

I began to understand why the saying of these words is often such a dance between you humans.

Her mouth moved but she did not speak. She sniffed again and I saw a tear run down her cheek.

I opened my mouth to speak but before I could, she was in my arms kissing me and crying. That kiss I will remember for all my life. The hot sun above, the murmur of the crowd around us and the fountain, her body pressed to my skinsuit, her lips against mine making it more than clear that she loved me too.

And then it all disappeared, and it was just her, just us, in the crowded square in Spain. She pulled away just long enough to say, “I love you too.” She pulled me close and pressed her head against my chest. She giggled and added, “With all my hearts, I love you too.”

---

In the morning, I woke up in another hotel room and wasn’t sure where I was or what city I was in. What day was it? What had I been doing?

I patted myself and felt my skinsuit. Well, that’s a good start. That moment when I wake up is often like that. I worry that I’m not “dressed” properly. I hear you humans often dream of being naked in front of a crowd. We aliens here on your planet dream of being seen without our skinsuits.

Sunlight was streaming in the window and I could hear the bustle of a city outside. I felt tired but in a good way. I felt happy.

I looked around. It was a nice enough hotel, mostly white with red accents, wood furniture, but it definitely wasn’t my hotel room. I heard the humming of a female voice and the sound of water running.

April! I was in her hotel room.

She loved me. I loved her. And while making love in a skinsuit wasn’t the best of experiences, it had been wonderful. Beautiful. Amazing.

But she didn’t know who—or really what—I actually was. And that was no way to be in love.

The humming turned into singing. I couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded happy. I suddenly felt like a large, overweight herbivore was sitting on my chest and my hearts beat hard. My skinsuit was cloying, and I felt claustrophobic. I wanted to rip it off. I wanted to rush into the shower and show her the real me.

But no. No. I couldn’t do that. That wouldn’t be fair.

I pulled myself up in the bed and tried to breathe deeply and calm my pounding hearts.

Would this be like with the sentient swamp gas in the Pleiades? Where we were just physically incompatible despite having such a passionate mental connection.

No. We clearly had a physical connection too. And despite the skinsuit, I was a bipedal humanoid, albeit one with green skin and chitinous plates covering my chest, arms, and legs.

And there was another problem. Being lightyears from home I have great autonomy in my work. I must be honest, I must be productive, but how and what I pursue is largely up to me.

Except for one thing. I cannot reveal my identity to a human. It is important that humanity as a whole believes that they are the only intelligent species in the universe. Well… there is still hearty debate about that. Some believe that it would be good for your species—after all, you are the ones that thought that the heavens once revolved around your lovely little planet. But most fear it would fracture your collective psyche and make things worse. Much worse.

We are here to study you, not to change you.

And that was my issue with April. She was a reporter. It would be her instinct to write about a revelation like this. And if she did… it would be the end of my career and my time on Earth.

I could not truly be myself if she didn’t know what I was, and I couldn’t tell her either.

I felt the cheeks of my skinsuit face flush red in reaction to my emotions. I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have let this thing go further than that first night with April.

It should have just been a delightful evening at a bar in London, part of my studies of your race. But no, I was fascinated and pursued her.

But why?

Emotions are hard to reverse engineer, even for us. It wasn’t how she looked—human norms of beauty are only one of many I have studied and quite different than my own race’s. It wasn’t her obvious intelligence… well, at least not just that. She had a fine mind and that was definitely something that is very attractive.

I thought back to when we met, when I first felt something. She was so open and curious. She noticed me and that I was acting differently. And as I got to know her, when I learned that she was a reporter, a seeker of truth, well, that did it.

She could spend her days looking for the truth in this world and seeing the darkness of it and yet be so curious about a stranger. That is attractive to an alien like me.

And then I knew I had a real problem. I loved April because she valued the truth, strived to see the world the way it really was, and yet remained open to its beauty.

I couldn’t keep who I am from her.

And yet I couldn’t tell her either.

What was I to do?