Chapter 1: Those Eyes

At last, the space elevator made it all the way safely down to the planet's surface, and its passengers poured out. Finally, after years of ansible calls and letters, years of having to wait months for packages traveling via hyperspace courier, and years desperately yearning to be together, at long last the two lovers were together under the same sun. Ecstatic, they ran to embrace each other, the younger – finally emancipated from her wretched life among the barbarous capitalists of Greshnok 4, leaped into the older woman's embrace as though they were long-lost mother and 12 year old daughter, rather than lovers whose relationship was despised by the evil hegemony of the girl's home planet.

After several minutes of tearful union under the light of Paxum's sun, they pulled apart, and the girl joyously said, "Rianna? Hey Rianna ... Paxum to Rianna!"

I blinked, confused. That was not what the text of my book said. I looked up and saw one of the other librarians I worked with was talking to me, which had been the source of the erroneous dialogue.

"Oh, there you are," the older woman, Dalix, said, seeing my eyes slide into focus on her face, and understanding dawn on my mind. "Rianna, we have a patron looking for 'Dargon's Extended History of 21st Century Earth, ' and I'm busy processing and cataloging new materials right now."

I looked over where she gestured with her hands full of books, and felt a swooping sensation in my gut at the vision before me. For the patron in question was (at least in my opinion, anyway) a truly gorgeous 8 or 9 year old little girl with almond-shaped eyes, black hair with pink-dyed streaks through it, and the most amazing violet eyes I'd ever seen. I don't mean the blue-that-seems-violet of Homo Sapiens Terrae, the original sub-species of Homo Sapiens, but instead the mauve or thistle color found in Homo Sapiens Pacis and Homo Sapiens Luminae, the sub-species endemic to Paxum and Lucem, respectively.

The girl in front of me also wore a diaphanous, glittery silver one-piece dress that would have been gaudy on some people, but complimented her. The dress bared her arms and legs, and her underclothing could be seen beneath it, but her face and those gorgeous eyes were what drew my attention. I normally can't tolerate eye contact, but I couldn't keep my eyes off of hers.

Aren, the coworker processing the new materials, chuckled at the doubtlessly dumbstruck look on my face as she worked at her console, and my chestnut-brown skin turned a redder shade of brown in my cheeks. I felt silly; I hadn't had this powerful an attraction to a child since I met my last girlfriend 5 years ago. No, correction: even that reaction hadn't been this strong.

Though I wanted nothing more than to sink into the crust of the planet, I looked away from the little girl and her knowing grin, and got up.

"' Dargon's Extended History of 21st Century Earth, ' you said? Follow me, please."

Despite not looking at her, I could sense the girl following me as I went to the right shelf. Suddenly it occurred to me to wonder if she identified as a girl or some other gender identity, since you can't assume based just on your perception of another's gender presentation. Somewhat hesitantly, I turned my eyes toward the girl to see if she had the customary gender-identifying badge on, which she did. "Hi," it said in text that bounced slowly from side to side, "my name is Iris; please use she/her/hers today."

So female-identifying, at least for today, which didn't surprise me; kids on Paxum are encouraged to play with gender. Most eventually settle to one or another, though some remain gender non-binary. It told me nothing of her genitalia, of course, but while it would be nice to know, it'd only really be relevant if we were going to have sex. Otherwise, it would only be relevant to my imagination later tonight. I wasn't too bothered about it, though; I actually prefer the mystery.

"So," Iris said, apparently trying to make conversation, "whatcha readin? It looked like lots of fun."

"Oh, um, 'Quantum Entanglement of the Heart' by Lindsay Roman."

"Ah," was all she said, but I sensed something more; she was bursting to blab spoilers, but resisting that urge.

I raised an eyebrow. "You've read it?" I asked, a little incredulous. It's not that romance novels are kept away from children on Paxum, just that it seemed above what I would have guessed her reading level was. Then I realized what book she'd asked for, and I was even more impressed. With a reading level that high, I became even more interested in her. There's a lot more to a relationship than someone's looks, after all, and intelligence was an important one for me.

"Oh yes I've read it! I've read it seven times!"

"Wow. This is only my third time around," I answered, running my hand through my braids.

"Ooh, what's your favorite part?"

"Aside from the space elevator scene?"

"Obviously," she drawled, rolling her eyes at me.

"Well, I especially love the part where the agender Neveskite uses the whistleblower's information to blackmail the CEO of Greshnok 4 into emancipating Arliata from her abusive family. I love it when the bad guys lose."

"Yeah! And then when the CEO goes back on his word and tries to shoot the Neveskite in the back, but the Neveskite escapes with the emancipation papers and releases the leaked info to the Mesh anyway, which helps the Rebellion crush the government and start installing Matter Assemblers for the people to be free of the tyrannical capitalists!" She'd said all that without breathing, so I wasn't surprised when she took a hurried breath before she finished, "I love that!"

"I hear the sequel, 'Quantum Superposition, ' is due out next December."

Iris shoved her fists in her mouth to muffle a squeal of delight. "Really? You're sure?"

"Really really. I follow Lindsay Roman's three-vlog, xe posted about it last night."

"YES! Awesome!" she jumped up and down with excitement, and I chuckled; her excitement was adorable.

I finally noticed we had stopped walking a minute or so ago, and looked around to get my bearings. "Oh. We're here. Dargon's book should be right..." I scanned the shelf with my fingers as a guide, " ... here." I pulled it out and handed it to her, so she could look at it. "Paper or ebook?"

She blew an exasperated yet amused raspberry at me. "Would I be here if I wanted the ebook?"

"Well," I explained, "some people come here to browse, preferring browsing paper books to three-vee browsing, and then get the ebooks, so it's a standard question around here."

"Silly people," she said, flipping through the thick tome.

I grinned. "Well, anything else you want?"

Iris nodded without taking her eyes off a page in the thick history book. "Yes, actually. I love Lindsay Roman's stuff, but I'm kinda in the mood for something slower, more romantic, without all the action and conflict."

"Asexual romance, or sexual?"

She looked up, her expression thoughtful. "Ace for a change. That stuff usually relies heavier on actual romance, it's not all 'fiery passion' this and 'he tore her clothes off' that. Sex can be fun, but I prefer romance." I was liking this girl more and more every time she spoke, and it was making me grin like a loon.

"I take it, by your love of Lindsay Roman, that normal for-kids romances aren't your style?"

"Ugh," she made a disgusted face. "Gawd no, I don't read below a high school level except once in a triple blue moon, and even high school reading level is 'slumming it' for me." Oh my god, I thought, she's gonna make me cream my panties if she goes on like this.

"Well," I said, trying to maintain my composure as I led her off to the 'asexual paedoromantic romance novel' section of the library, "in that case, let's see ... oh, one more question: hetero, homo, bi/pan, trans/genderqueer, and/or poly?"

She stroked her chin adorably as she thought about it for a few moments. "Anything but hetero." I chuckled approvingly. "Oh, and I prefer girls or feminine non-binaries. I guess that makes me more of a lesbian."

"Okay then, so based on our shared love of the Lindsay Roman books, and those preferences, might I suggest 'Babes In The Woods'?"

I handed it to her, and she read the blurb, which ended in a 'meh' face. "I don't fancy other kids much. I like, uh..." she turned red and looked at her shoes (which were a lovely glittery silver like her dress), "I like older women."

I blushed, too, though of course it was harder to tell on me. "Oh. Er ... okay..." I looked around a little more, at first to look somewhere else, then for a book. I finally found one I thought she might like and handed it to her, saying, "This one is called 'Under An Alien Moon.' It's about two people, a child and her adult lover, who are both immigrants to Paxum from other planets. It's a beautiful story; a bit sad in places, but when I read it, I didn't want it to end, it was so good. Good thing it's over 1000 pages long."

Iris hefted the enormous tome, which was a couple times thicker than Dargon's history book (mainly because the pages of Dargon's book were more than twice as large, and was only volume 1 of 100), her eyes wide, and said, "Holy MOLY! It's enormous!" I thought for a moment that I'd greatly misjudged her reading level, but she finished, "I'm gonna need the ebook version of this one for sure! It's way too thick to read comfortably in paper format."

Looking back, if I had to pick the single moment when I truly began to fall in love with Iris, that would be when it happened. My eyes watered slightly, and I clutched a random book from the shelf to my chest as I sighed quietly with dawning lovesickness.

I feel no shame in admitting I did indeed masturbate in my bed that night while thinking about Iris, but astonishing even myself, I never pictured her nude or pictured her visible underclothing even once the whole time. No, the thoughts that went through my head as I touched myself were of her face, her eyes, and replaying the conversation we'd had that afternoon. But I also felt sad, too, because she was gorgeous and intelligent and kind, and I felt certain she would never fall for a hopelessly shy library science nerd like me. But I was perfectly willing to accept being her friend; I just wanted to be around her, to bask in her brilliance and have lovely long, interesting conversations with her.

Every day for the next fortnight, Iris returned to the library, ostensibly to read, but spent most of her time discussing literature, history, science, philosophy, or three-vee shows with me. I'd never had so much in common with a child before, though my last girlfriend was quite intelligent too, and we still kept in touch as friends with the help of the Mesh and three-vee chats. It would be unfair to call either girl more intelligent than the other, especially as there are many different kinds of intelligence, but I will say that Iris and I had a lot more interests in common.

In fact, I was a little suspicious of Iris's intelligence after a few days, and here's why: Paxites and Lucites were genetically engineered for a longer lifespan, living between 170 and 230 years, depending on diet, exercise, and other factors. To partially offset this in terms of projected population growth, the two sub-species were also gengineered to take 10 Terran years to age from Terran age 8 to Terran age 18, and thus we have much longer childhoods than the original Terran sub-species. So I wasn't sure Iris was actually 8, like she said she was.

There was something else slightly odd about her as well, that I couldn't quite place at first. She seemed to have already settled on identifying as female most of the time, and though I do love a good mystery, I can usually work out in time a person's birth sex after a few weeks, barring mutations that caused a person to be intersex. But with Iris, however, the clues didn't add up at all, not even to intersex. Some days I was certain she had a girl cock between her legs, and other days I saw glimpses of clear cis-girl camel toe. She even seemed to be teasing me, confusing me on purpose, though I didn't feel it would be any politer to ask that than it would have been to ask about her genitals. After all, we weren't even dating, much less about to have sex. Not that I cared what the answer was, for thought I am partial to other trans girls like myself, I like cis girls as well. But the mystery of it was driving me crazy, for while I still got more excited at night thinking about her face and our conversations, thoughts of sex with her were starting to enter into it as well. I tried hard not to let my nightly activities influence how I was with Iris, though, since I still thought she was way out of my league.

The month of July was almost over when Iris came in one day, sat down on the checkout desk in front of me, and blurted out, "So I think we should go on a date," right in front of Aren, my coworker, who giggled and went around the corner to pretend to give us privacy while "secretly" eavesdropping on us.

I raised an eyebrow at her forwardness. "Oh you do, do you?" I said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

"Yes I do. I fancy you, I know you fancy me, we get on like duth-duth birds in freefall, and all these romance books make me ache for some real-life romance."

I blushed again. "Well, er ... yes, I feel that way too. Um ... so what did you want to do?" I was nervous, so nervous I was twirling some of my braids in one finger.

"I know just the thing. You mentioned you like pole dancing, and I like that too, and well ... the Lavernia Metropolitan Centre For the Fine and Performing Arts has the Mocksville Children's Dance Troupe next weekend, and my parents have agreed to get us tickets next weekend, if they get to meet you sometime before then first."

"Er ... so our first date is ... meeting your parents?"

"Well, that won't be a real official date of course, just a sort of pre-date. You could just come over sometime, maybe for afternoon tea."

"Didn't I meet one of your moms once?"

"Yeah, Matria. But that was before we met, and she and you barely spoke."

"I would be delighted to, but, er ... I work through Friday."

Aren suddenly showed up again and said, "I see no reason why I couldn't handle things here for an afternoon by myself."

With that taken care of, I thanked Aren for her help, and Iris and I set a date to go to her house to meet the family.

That was Monday, and our date was set for Thursday, my only day off that week, courtesy of Aren. Thursday was our slowest day, and an intern from the local high school would be there that day to help if we had an unusually high volume of patrons that day. We spent the next two days fairly normally, the only difference – aside from our mutual excitement and nerves – being that Iris touched my hands and arms a lot, like she was already anticipating the Thursday pre-date going well.

On Thursday morning, I woke up in a near panic, laying there in bed staring at the ceiling, worried, I hadn't even had a single date with the girl, and already I was in love. I wanted – I needed – the date to go well. Iris could, of course, date me even if it didn't go well, but it would be a lot easier with her parents' knowledge and consent.