Marriage Certificate

It was well past midnight by the time Gerald had finished unloading the last of the trucks. His aching muscles strained as he pulled the final couch down the ramp, only to find that it suddenly became too heavy to move. He wondered if his strength had given out, when he looked up and saw Zurra standing above him in her adult form, wearing a pink academy uniform.

"Zuri, this is private property, you shouldn't be here."

She thumbed at the sign posted by the front entrance. "Says there the Cha'Rolette Ssykes Mission is open to all. Even says it in English too, nice touch that."

"Well," Gerald groaned, pulling on the couch again. "We don't open till next week, so you can come back then."

"No-can-do, I'm here on official Academy business." She plunged her hand through her uniform and into the cheek of her buttocks and yanked hard. Gerald started at her, bug-eyed, as she pulled free a handful of record keeping tablets. It was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen.

"Boy, you just literally pulled those out of your backside just now, didn't you?"

"Where else am I supposed to keep them?"

"In a bag!"

She shook the tablets to remove any residue and handed them to him.

"These do look official," he said, inspecting the holographic seals. "But this is the middle of the night."

"Paperwork waits for no man," she said, placing her hands up dramatically.

"That isn't a saying," he corrected as he scrolled through the first document.

"She shrugged. "You say, potato, and I say tomato."

"You have no idea how true that is," he grumbled.

Gerald glanced at the badge on her uniform. "Wait, they made you an office worker?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"They put you in charge of something? You couldn't even take care of a hamster."

Zurra jumped back and placed her hands over her mouth. "Oh, how dare you bring up Mister Blair!"

"The late Mr. Blair," he corrected.

"Oh, you just can't forgive me for that, can you? I was just a child, how could I have known that hamsters couldn't survive in space without a suit?"

"How could you have known? It should be completely obvious. Don't you have any common sense?"

She crunched up her face. "Cents? Like money?"

"No, not that kind of cents, the other kind of sense."

"You just said the same word twice."

"Look, I know they sound the same, but they are written differently."

She waved her hand. "English is dumb. Hamsters are dumb. You are dumb. Just sign the things already."

While Zurra turned herself into a giant hand and pushed the couch inside, Gerald squinted over the alien language.

"Standard is so hard. There's like fifteen different ways just to say the word 'is.' Bill Clinton would have had a heart attack learning this stuff. What's this say here?"

She rolled back over and glanced at it. "Oh it's the health insurance policy."

"Oh, okay." He placed his thumb into the corner and the tablet beeped happily.

He shuffled to the next one.

"That one is the P.E. waiver."

"All right." He put his thumb into the corner and the tablet beeped happily.

"That last one is the field trip permission form."

"Okay." He put his...

"...wait a minute."

Gerald examined the first paragraph more closely. "I know these symbols...'Formal union of Zurra Immestria and Gerald Dyson?'" he read. "This... this is a marriage certificate!"

She looked away. "No it isn't."

"Yes, it is. You went to a judge and had this made up?"

"Aw, just sign it you big baby."

"No."

She petulantly took the tablets back. "Darn, almost had you that time."

"I can't believe you would try to trick me into this."

"Trick? I'm not trying to take anything that wasn't already promised to me."

"What promise?"

She feigned being hurt. "Pray tell you must not have forgotten, we were but tiny moppets when we asseverated our quintessences to one other."

"Stop trying to talk fancy. You don't do it right. And I don't remember anything like that. I do, however, remember you getting trapped in the dryer."

"Oh, you would bring that up. It was a simple mistake anyone could have made. Your dryer looked like my litter bucket from back home."

Gerald cracked a smile. "I remember... you came out of the spin cycle, your hair all poofed out like an Afro."

Zurra smiled as well. "That was after I fixed myself. You should have seen me when your mom first pulled me out. My whole body was stirred up, like a blob of whipped cream."

They both giggled. Then they both chuckled. Then they both started laughing.

"Oh, so many crazy things happened to us," she said nostalgically.

"Yes, they did," he said sincerely. "It was a rough way to grow up, for both of us."

"Do you remember when that concrete wall fell on top of me?"

"Oh my gosh, yes! I was so scared. I thought you were crushed."

She laughed. "I was. Thing splatted me flat like a bug. Good thing I don't have any bones to break, eh?"

He looked away distantly. "So that's how you survived. It makes sense now."

"What does?"

Gerald's face became a little flushed with self-consciousness. "Okay, well keep in mind I was just a kid. When I saw it come down I thought I had lost my best friend, so I... chanted a spell to make you better."

"You chanted a spell?" she laughed.

"Don't laugh. I was a kid, I panicked. So I wiggled my fingers and made up some words like I saw in the movies."

Zurra chuckled again and looked down bashfully. When she looked up again, she looked at him with her beautiful pink eyes. "You saved me," she said thankfully.

"Well, it was your biology that saved you."

"I don't mean from that. I mean from everything else. When my world was destroyed in the war, I lost everything. My family, my people, my home. I had nothing. I ended up stranded on a strange planet with people who thought I was a freak. I was so sad I thought I would die. You gave me a home. You saved me."

The way she was looking at him, with absolute devotion in her eyes, made his heart beat like a drum. There was something so pure, so beautiful in what she felt. Simple gratitude. His chest felt tight just to look at her. He had always seen her as just a childhood friend. Just some kid he played with. But for the first time, he felt like she could come to mean more to him than that.

Her expression became irresistibly steamy. She slowly reached over to touch his face. The memory of their last kiss lingered on his lips. So many times since then he had caught himself dwelling on the marvelous sensation. Her lips tasted different than a human's. They had kind of a faint tanginess to them, like the zest of an exotic orange. He could feel his skin tingling, begging for more.

"Zurra, I..."

"Gotcha." She wrapped her arm around his wrist and yanked it down to press his thumb against the waiting marriage certificate. She was frighteningly strong.

"No Zuri," he said, balling his fist and tucking his thumb inside. "I'm still not signing it."

"Why not?" She whined as she released him. "I've known you forever. I know everything about you. I know you like to save the green M&Ms for last, because that commercial said they would let you hit a home run in baseball. I know you say a little secret chant to turn on your imaginary force field at night to keep the monsters away. I know..."

She slowed down and got a little quieter. "...I know you are kind because you are secretly hoping that someone one day will reciprocate. Well, I'm here trying to reciprocate! Who else has ever liked you besides me? Huh? Those other girls, how much do they even know about you? Nothing. They don't even know you. They're just interested in you because you have tons of money... wait, no. Well, they just like you because they know one day you are going to become a successful... wait, no."

She put her hands on her hips and thought deeply. "Huh... why do they like you?"

"I don't think they do like me," Gerald explained. "And even if they did, romance is a trap, and I don't care to fall in it."

Gerald stepped closer. "You're right. Zuri, you have known me for a long time, but you seem to have missed the most important thing about me."

She looked concerned. "I have? What's that?"

"That I will not be forced. Not by you, not by anyone. Not even by my own treacherous body."

She was speechless.

Gerald handed the tablets back to her. "Thank you for helping me with the couch. Believe it or not, you are the only one who did. You are crazy as a bag of weasels, but you are also the only real friend I have ever had."

Zurra clenched her fists. "Ohhh, you big dummy! Don't you know that when you say cool things like that, it just makes me want you more?"

"That was not my intention."

She made her finger four times as big and pointed it at him. "Well, I have no intention of being stuck in the friend zone. You hear me, Dyson? As Murznu as my witness, I will make you mine!"

Gerald clucked his tongue. "Okay, well, I'm gonna be going now."

"Where are you going?"

"I have to find a place to sleep for the night. Somewhere you won't find me. Perhaps a nice overpass."

"Ha!" Zurra cackled. "Wherever you go, I will follow you. You forget, I can be anything."

She changed her shaped into a pink sharp-beaked hawk. "I can be a Venanian Drazon, and follow you from the air."

She changed her shape into a pink long-nosed mole. "I can be a Zumbisian Filite and track your scent like a bloodhound."

She reformed into her child form in overalls. "Face it, Dyson, you've already lost. No matter how fast you run, I can follow. The only way you are sleeping tonight is curled up in a bed with me!"

Gerald was unimpressed. He bent down and picked up his chicken from where she had been sleeping, then reached up and tapped his translator. "Trahzi, now," he said, then disappeared in a flash of fire.

Zurra looked around. "GOSH DANGIT!"