Creature (CENTURIES series: Book #7)

9

Time suddenly seemed to fly by in a hurry. Charlie passed through my phases so quickly, I could hardly keep up. Before I knew it, he had been here a full month, and in just one month, he had passed through five phases;

Phase one, introductions. The part where I welcomed him into the world.

Phase two, human behavior. That one was ever-growing, but seemed to be one he was adopting surprisingly well.

Phase three, society's rules. All the small but complicated things society taught you was socially acceptable and what was not.

Phase four, feelings. The reason why this one was phase four and not phase two or something, was simply because feelings were so complicated. Just look at the other night where I had to walk him through good and bad, finally settling him on how he had to make his own opinion on what was good and bad to him. However, Charlie sailed right through it with sterling efficiency, quickly understanding and comprehending when I made certain faces, knowing what emotion I was displaying. How he would excel with them in actual life and not just in practice was yet to be seen, though.

And finally, phase five – the one he was currently in – was physical contact.

Charlie still had a hard time letting me get too close to him or even touch him. A pat on the shoulder or a squeeze of the hand was as far as I'd gotten. We still hadn't approached the matter of a hug yet, much less other physical activities such as dancing, playing sports, or simply just bumping into people on the street. It was important that he learned that humans were social beings and, amongst other things, relied very much on the touch of others. I tried explaining to him the neurological effects it had on us and it seemed to be the better approach when it all came down to it. He didn't understand the need to touch another person yet, so going with science was a good way of making him understand.

Of course a lot of his inability to understand physical touch was perhaps because I had kept the subject of 'love' and the making of it as far away from him as I could. He was still just a child on a mental level, even though he was rapidly approaching his 'teen' years, the way he kept learning and understanding. So far, I'd denied him direct access to the internet, knowing how littered with porn it was and other strictly adult content. He'd been allowed to listen to music, but if the subject of 'coitus' ever came up, I had smartly steered him away from it and talked to him about something else.

The thing was; Charlie's hunger for knowledge was growing every day, and just like growing and learning, he was maturing rapidly by the second. In the beginning I had purposely fed him information slowly, mainly to let him get comfortable with it all and not to get overwhelmed, but also because I feared this would happen; he'd want to know more and more, and suddenly, he wouldn't be the innocent Creature I knew him to be. Everything in moderation as they said, and I feared that it if taught him about sex, he would surely begin asking a whole lot of questions I just wouldn't know how to cope with.

– Especially because my mind was growing a teensy little crush on him.

It was ridiculous and utterly unprofessional, I knew that. I was so ashamed of myself, but truthfully, Charlie was well-behaved, kind, thoughtful, clever, and most importantly, not constantly thinking about sex. That of course brought a sweet, endearing aura around the manchild I was monitoring. He could be sitting on the living room floor with a bowl of skittles, watching Spongebob in his slacks and nothing else, and still look like a gorgeous grown man on a Sunday afternoon, revisiting his youth.

Yes, Charlie didn't know it, but he was what any female dreamed about having in a man; Smart, sweet, with just a side of gentleness. And then of course there was the fact that he was ridiculously hot.