Page 44 of Fathom

She took it silently, tucked it beneath her desk without looking at either of us.

“Thank you,” Eun added, offering a small bow, just a dip of his head, but she didn't respond.

Eun led me back out into the monochrome hallway bathedin a steady bright light. We went to an elevator, and he checked a sticker that was at the top of the paper. It had the number six on top of it, and below that, the number twelve.

He toggled a slider on the wall for the sixth floor.

When the doors opened, the toggle popped back to the side, and he led me down another hallway. We stopped in front of a room with the number twelve on it. He opened the door, and we went in.

The room had a massive bed in the center of it, covered in silhouette cutouts of different species embracing. There was a pair of the eyeballs in the back of the head wrinkly elephants, a set of the antler people, and a pair that looked like the hyenas. There were a bunch of others, but the one thing they had in common was that they were all the same species hugging the same species. There weren’t any inter-alien couples. There weren't any species that looked like Eun.

I looked around the room, seeing that it had an ensuite bathroom. There was a panel next to the bed with several buttons, so I went over and pushed one.

The bed began vibrating.

I pushed it again to turn it off.

I pressed my lips into a line and looked over at Eun, my heart fluttering in my chest as I was absolutely certain now what was going on. I'd seen scenes like this on television, with that same species that had handed over the key. This was a formal, legal thing for this country. This was the type of quick, cheap marriage that couples got if they were trying to avoid their families interfering or stopping the wedding.

There was a part of me that was disappointed. I never felt like I wanted a big wedding, but I always thought that when I met my person, I would love his family as much as I loved him. I didn't have anyone left. My parents had me when they were intheir mid-fourties and when my dad was taken out by illness, my mom followed after him, her heart too broken to sustain her body. I thought that when I found a love like theirs, I would have a whole new family waiting to hold me.

The lack of a good proposal, the lack of the rings, the courthouse wedding, none of it mattered. The fact that he was likely hiding me from his family mattered. At the very least, we could have had a small ceremony in a park with his uncle.

But I also knew Eun, and I knew that he wouldn't be doing things this way unless he had a good reason. He was a thoughtful, caring person.

I trusted him.

That feeling of trust hit just as hard as the feeling of love. The two were not the same, but both were required for me to be willing to move forward with this.

Eun had set the paperwork on a podium that was next to the door. Hanging from the podium was a pen on a chain, and what looked like an ink pad for stamps.

“Eun,” I said.

He met my eyes, and his expression was troubled, yet also eager. His hand was at the back of his neck, and I could see the outline of his hard length in his trousers.

“Eun,” I repeated, pointing at the bed. “What is this?”

I knew exactly what this was for, but I wanted him to say it.

“It is for papers,” he said, tapping the papers next to him. I walked closer to him and saw that there were two lines for signatures and boxes. He picked up the stamp pad and mimicked putting his thumb against it and then on the box outlined on the paperwork.

I was pretty sure it was a marriage contract, but he hadn't actually said it. My assumptions were based on dramas. I needed to know for

A contract to be signed in a room that looked like a love motel. A contract that had something to do with a vibrating bed. The shows that depicted marriage between two aliens of the same species showed them going to the office and entering the room, but they didn't show what happened inside. It did show them afterward, rumpled and satisfied.

“Eun,” I said. “What is this?”

This time, I tapped on the paperwork.

“Papers for…” he said, a few words I didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Police,” he said. “The police need the papers, or they will take you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath at those words. He was marrying me because of the police? What did he mean?

“You are a.... without the papers,” he said, saying an unfamiliar word in the middle. He reached over and put his hand on the podium with the unsigned documents. “These papers will make you not a.... You need these papers to stay.”