Five days into the voyage, with the foundations for the cabin finished and the roof going up today, and Lou was beginning to feel a mite guilty about the fact that he had never told his wife what being transgender actually meant. It was one of the things about being married to an alien -- especially an alien so...well, alien from the human norms. Beatrice had absorbed a huge amount of information about the human race, and was learning more every day as the lighthugger slowly accelerated out of the Alpha Centauri system. She had studied the history of the War of the Roses, learned about Shakespeare, read the poetry of Qu Yuan and Cervantes and Shelley, and even begun to watch the earliest cinematic works that abutted the edge of what Neopolitans usually studied -- the early works of Cocteau and Lang.
But she still didn't know what a spatula was or what it was for.
This much was apparent by the way that her spider body's eight eyes were all locked on the metal tool as Lou flipped some steaks on the grill that he had managed to, through painstaking following of ancient instructions, put together using the nanofabricator as little as possible. The other Beatrice bodies were off reading or exploring the inner workings of the lighthugger, leaving only her spider-body with Lou. He wondered if he hadn't had the time to get used to oddness of being in love with girl that was part moth, he might have had more trouble with a girl who had six arms and eight eyes and fangs.
Then again...
If that girl was Beatrice, it was entirely possible that he'd have adjusted just as quickly?
"What is that?" she cooed.
"This is a spatula. It's a tool for the manipulation of meat while cooking. And eggs and bread. And...lots of things." Lou nodded, then used his palms to roll the spatula between his hands.
"Why not use a fork?" she asked.
"Well, there are some situations where a spatula is more effective and easier," Lou said, nodding. "There's also tongs and whisks and graters and peelers..."
Beatrice giggled.
"What?" Lou asked.
"I just...humans...make so many bits and bobs to put in their hands!" she said, her red eyes sparkling with delight. Her outermost eyes closed -- what he was beginning to recognize being the same way that a human's eyes might crinkle with a smile. "Most species would stop at rocks. I stopped at rocks. I never need anything more than a rock, and once I figured out that I could make bioforms that had bladey hands or scooper hands or pokey hands..." She grinned. "All scientific names, I'm sure you know." She paused. "The last would be proboscis, I know the word, I'm just being silly!"
Lou chuckled.
"Anyway, I never needed to use rocks ever again. But now you have flippy rocks, cutty rocks, wire frame rocks that...that...what do whisks even DO!?" She scrambled on her belly to lay closer to where his tools were laid out, then snatched a whisk up. She held it before her eyes. "Humans!"
Lou snorted. "It's for mixing things. And breaking down the protein barriers in eggs."
"Ah, a weapon..." Beatrice said, her voice solemn. "When will mankind learn, protein barriers need not be broken. You could simply leave the eggs in peace!"
"You are being silly," Lou said, sticking a thermometer in the deer steaks.
"You do know that I can digest them raw, right?" she asked. "And I think you can too."
"Yes, but the cooking makes them taste better. And they're healthier. And more efficient."
"Hurmph!" Bea scoffed. "It sounds as if it is merely an excuse for gastrointestinal laziness."
Lou saw that the steaks would take a few more minutes to cook. He could begin to plan for setting up the roof of the half finished cottage. He could ask Beatrice about what she was reading about today. He could even ask her about how the life support systems on the lighthugger were handling her additions -- her growing sub-hive of organisms that made this lighthugger a small colony of herself in the interstellar void. He could even bring up the whole issue of children and how to manage the logistical problem that Beatrice had cheerfully dropped into his lap with her prediction that any synthesis of human and hive mind would require him to...ah...handle his husbandly duty hundreds of times.
Thousands, actually, if there was a failure in...ah...
Transmission.
But none of that involved talking to Beatrice about what she had asked him about then promptly...not quite
forgotten
about. Beatrice didn't forget things. She just sometimes let them slip into the back of her awareness, then brought them back into the focus of her attention again when she was ready to handle them. Which, honestly, considering the vast stretches of time that she had been alive and needed to juggle multitudinous tasks and subjects, made a lot of sense. She had needed to think of a lot of things even when she had thought she had been the only species in the entire galaxy, the entire universe even.
So, there was no...
cowardice
in not talking about his transness.
But it was also such a nonissue. Beatrice would respond by blinking at him, proclaiming it yet another fascinating facet of humanity, then go on back to whatever else she was doing. And yet...Lou's tongue stilled as he looked down at the steaks. He looked back at Beatrice, and breathed in, then out again. He felt like a rank hypocrite -- and then felt a flare of raw, fierce anger in his breast at that thought.
Right, it feels like literally anything I do is nothing next to my parents, so, why should I even care?
And yet, he needed to tell her.
"Lou, you seem disturbed. Are you okay?" Beatrice asked.
"What?" Lou chuckled. "Oh dear, am I becoming so transparent?"
"Your opacity and cunning are both unchanged and I'm certain that if a dastardly scoundrel was around and spying upon you, he or she would be utterly taken in by your external grace and think you are as stoic and focused as any other Neapolitan star prince. And yet, said dastardly scoundrel would not be your wife. Unless I was planning something sneaky." She grinned, showing off her fangs. "Which I am not! Oh! But now, you must wonder: Is Beatrice planning something lewd and mortifying? Is that why she claims innocence." She chuckled. "I have caught you in a linguistic trap, unsure of my motives or meanings..."
"...have you been reading Machiavelli? You do know that was a satire, right?"
"Drat..." Beatrice sighed. Then she looked back up at him. "Also, you have evaded my question! Maybe it is you who is the dastardly scoundrel!"
Lou flushed, looking back at the steaks. He picked them up with some tongs then laid them onto a ceramic plate to cool. He pursed his lips, slightly, then put his hands on his hips and forced himself to examine his feelings and came to the slightly embarrassing conclusion that the real thing that was making him loathe to talk about being trans to Beatrice was...dirt simple. It was so simple, so direct, and so base.
