My Room Mate Is A Brain Slug C0-C9

CHAPTER 121

Changeling circulatory fluid is based on haemerythrin, like certain marine worms and brachiopods on Earth. Deoxygenated blood is clear, while oxygenated blood is violet-pink. Theoretically, this could be used to test whether an individual is a changeling or not.

--Anastasia Massimi, Slugnomicon: A Guide To Brain Slug Spirituality (unpublished draft)

"I mean, it's probably a good idea," Rache said. "And you don't have to wear it during the day. Only at night."

"I'm not upset; I was just surprised," Mel admitted. "So how was your day?"

The tall blonde was sitting in Mel's lap on the couch, in nothing more than panties and her Hello Cthulhu t-shirt. Classes over, homework done. Anastasia was in her moon-and-stars pajamas while Jordan and Jenny read through the latest chapter of the Slugnomicon. Béibhinn hung around, pacing with a kind of restless energy that bespoke boredom, frustration, or both.

"Cramps. I guess that means the pill worked," Rache said, not hiding the hint of sadness in her voice. Her hand rested against his chest, over Mel's heart, her fingers tracing the lines of muscle. Not much in the way of definition, but regular exercise meant there was muscle there. "From the sound of things, you had a rougher day."

Mel made a face. "I guess I just wasn't expecting it to hit me like that. Most of the time I... just roll with things. Adapt, you know? But the fact that she was..."

"If not mom, then why mom-shaped?" 'stasia suggested.

Mel's brow furrowed. Obviously there was a reference there he wasn't getting.

"Something like that, I guess. They had a child psychologist at the orphanage, but I never went to see him. They saved that for the kids that cried too much, or got into fights, or... did things," he said.

"And you were just one of the good ones," Rache guessed. "Quiet. Kept to yourself. Never made a fuss."

Mel felt the heat rise to his face. "Something like that."

Béibhinn seemed to come to a decision. She smacked her right fist into her left palm.

"We need a schedule!" she declared.

All eyes in the room turned to her.

"Uh... is this about chores?" Mel said. "I know I feel like I don't do enough around the apartment, so I'm..."

"It's about cunnilingus," the ghola said. "You've only eaten me out once since we've been sex friends!"

"And you've never eaten me out at all," 'stasia offered.

"And Rache is having cervical cramps because you wasted perfectly good sperm in her," Béibhinn continued, undaunted. "What this polycule needs is equality."

Mel frowned. He felt like this was one of those moments when Molly or Rachel would want him to stand up for himself. However, he had to admit that Béibhinn had a point.

"I haven't been trying to neglect anyone," he said, his voice apologetic. "But I think I have been, inadvertently. If a schedule helps, I'm not opposed to it. Just keeping in mind everybody's work schedule, and... um... sometimes I like the spontaneity."

'stasia stood up and stretched from where she had been sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"While I'm only a sex-friend and thus don't get voting rights," she said, and gave the ghola a smile. "I think this relationship should encompass more than Mel's schlong or his mouth, magic as either might be. After all, if you need someone to eat your pussy, B, I'm available."

That made Rachel and the ghola both blink.

"I mean, when you think about it," Rache said. "When we agreed to be on the friends-with-benefits list, we agreed to safe sex and mutual communication, not exclusivity. There's no reason I can't eat your pussy, as long as you're consenting and everyone takes precautions. Am I right?"

Jordan and Jenny, looking up from the Slugnomicon, gave a graceful four-shoulder shrug. Rache's jaw opened, closed, opened again, and then she turned to Béibhinn. "I mean, I have no control over anyone's sexuality. So it's really up to you two."

Béibhinn made a face. 'stasia's hips swayed a bit as she walked around the couch, approaching the ghola. Mel saw Béibhinn's muscles clench instinctively, and then the ghola forced them to relax. With an indifferent air, the green-haired woman said.

"Well. If you want a taste of this, I'm not opposed," she said. "So how did you want to--"

'stasia let her hands settle on Béibhinn's hips. The ghola was wearing a black sports bra and yellow-and-white boy shorts that barely contained her sizable buttocks and showed off her thick thighs to advantage. Mel could tell she wasn't even wearing a thong underneath; her vulva was clearly visible pressed against the yellow fabric.

"Why don't we give everyone a show?" 'stasia said, the dark-haired woman's gaze challenging. "After all, why should we hide things? Almost everyone has seen us all naked, haven't we?"

In point of fact, Mel hadn't seen 'stasia naked, and he wasn't sure Jordan or Jenny had either. He was aware, however, that Rache's nipples were hard, tenting the front of her t-shirt. In its cage, his exhausted prick swelled, hit hard metal, and relaxed a little. His thumb slid along Rache's thigh.

"If you want," he said quietly. "I can eat you out as you watch."

Because of the ghola slug on her back, Béibhinn preferred a position where she wasn't on her back. They settled with dragging the ghola's sleeping bag out on the floor in front of the couch, the ghola shedding her booty shorts and 'stasia easing out of her pajama top, displaying her soft breasts with the big, pink areola for the first time. Mel was surprised to see that they weren't quite symmetrical, the left boob noticeably a bit heavier, with a small mole or growth deep inside the cleavage. Her dark hair lay sprawled out beneath her as Béibhinn lowered her ass down, trying to line up her slit with the neighbor's mouth.

Mel couldn't see much of the action. He was on his knees at the far end of the couch, Rache's panties hanging off her left ankle as the leg stuck straight out over his shoulder. His tongue traced her outer lips, and her hand rustled through his hair like she was petting a dog, but her eyes were on 'stasia and the ghola. As Mel's mouth closed over her and sucked softly, she began to narrate.

"I can see 'stasia's chin and the bottom of her lip--the dental dam is clear, but it's extra large, I can see her tongue dig in deep--"

Taking that as a cue, Mel let his own tongue slide into his girlfriend's hot cleft, curling his tongue up, not sure he could reach her g-spot but willing to try. He felt her hips flex, pressing her pussy against his face.

"Bib is playing with her tits. Bigger than mine. Big soft handfuls. She's playing with her nipples. Tugging. I can see 'stasia's toes curl... I bet she wants more..."

The strange narration seemed to stir all of them. Mel's tongue swirled around and around Rache's clit. Only this morning, another mouth had been here. Sucking his sperm out of her deepest, most secret places. He wondered if a little bit was still in there. Whether it had survived. The idea didn't disgust him. If anything, his shaft strained against its cage. Trapped like this, Mel could be honest with himself that the idea of inseminating Rache excited him. Though it wasn't a kink he planned to act on, not until both of them were ready.

A darker shadow crossed his mind, then. The image of Lucie, naked, on her back as his father slid into her. Did her husband watch? Did he take part? Mel hadn't been prepared to ask those questions, and wasn't sure if he wanted the answers. It was hard enough to think that Lucie had given birth to him, but the thought that she had hugged him, kissed him, ran her toe up his leg...

Rache's gasp broke his brooding, her fingers digging into his scalp.

"Fuck! Harder, shit! Right there! Right fucking there!"

In his absentmindedness, Mel's tongue had sped up. Rougher and harder than normal, frustration driving his tongue to lick her clit relentlessly. Suddenly breathless, Rache broke into a pant as Mel struggled to maintain his unaccustomed pace at just that position. To his left, he heard the ghola make little noises of excitement. Rache gulped and continued her narration.

"Bi-Bib's grinding that big ass against 'stasia's face. I can see the muscles of her back working. That big white worm is glowing. She's fucking mauling those tits, and 'stasia's kicking her legs, humping the air like a bitch in heat. I bet that cunny is so wet right now... ah... ah... aHaHahahaha..."

It wasn't a scream or a laugh, but something in between. Mel could feel her diaphragm flex and the hot pussy against his mouth spasmed, hot liquid spraying against his mouth, over his chin. Mel was glad now that they'd put down a towel.

As Rache slowly relaxed, her fingers eased, and she smoothed down the hair on Mel's head.

"They're still going," she said, as Mel kissed the sensitive post-climax clitty. "She's close... Bib is so close... but she needs more... come on, babe. Tell us what the big bad worm needs..."

"Mel!" Béibhinn gasped.

He pulled his face up out of Rache's crotch, chin dripping. The big, muscular thighs were shaking. The nipples on the small breasts were stiff and standing out. The odd pallor was flushed, giving an almost purple color to her face, which made the yellowed sclera and rusted-jade eyes stand out even more beneath the green pixie cut.

"Lick my ass!" she said. "Please?"

Jordan already had another dental dam ready. Jenny had dribbled lube down the crack of Béibhinn's ass, where it had dripped onto 'stasia's forehead. As Mel crawled over to where he was needed, tongue feeling swollen and numb, the cage a heavy, awkward burden between his legs, his head swam.

"I've never licked an ass before," he confessed, staring down into 'stasia's eyes for some reason. Carefully trying not to pull at her hair as he lowered himself down to pull those thick, muscular cheeks apart.

Mel had to be careful, as his tongue explored the plastic sheet over the ghola's pucker, that his forehead didn't hit the base of her spine, where the ghola-worm was exposed and glowing white. It was different from a pussy. The anatomy was unfamiliar; Mel wasn't sure where to press, or how hard. He let his tongue play around the rim, trying to map out the little ridges of the sphincter, and Béibhinn's voice came, tight and excited.

"Harder!"

So Mel pressed harder. His heart hammered in his chest, and he realized he must be dribbling, and hoped it wasn't getting in 'stasia's hair. The buttocks were slick and warm, the glutes flexing as Mel pushed against the plastic barrier, feeling the pucker move and push back against him. He pushed harder, pressing his nose right into the crack of her, catching a whiff of that strange, sickly smell that tended to cling to Béibhinn, stronger than he'd ever felt it.

The ghola lost control. Jordan and Jenny must have grabbed her arms, but her hips rose and fell automatically, muscles threatening to tear themselves apart, slamming down into 'stasia's face.

The orgasm didn't last long. Yet as 'stasia tapped his knee, Mel realized things were over.

Mel and the ghola disengaged. He was not surprised to see that Rache had pulled down 'stasia's pajamas and panties and rolled out a dental dam between her roommate's legs. Mel was surprised to see the dark peach fuzz that covered the soft, puffy vulva.

"That was... new," 'stasia said with a laugh. She glanced at Mel's caged cock, as if debating whether or not she wanted more. Then Rache's mouth must have felt her clit, because the dark-haired woman's buttocks lifted up off the sleeping bag.

Jordan and Jenny helped Béibhinn stand up. Mel stretched his jaw and enjoyed the sight of 'stasia writhing on the ground, her eyes focused all on Rachel now, with an expression he couldn't decipher.

He needed a Quench. Brush his teeth. Shower. Sleep. What he actually did was dispose of used dental dams, throw the wet towel in the basket of dirty laundry, and spray disinfectant on anything that might have been dripped on. Always keeping an eye on the action. It didn't take long for 'stasia to give a high-pitched little squeal between her teeth. Mel couldn't tell if she actually came or just reached a point where she was happy to stop, but she tapped Rache on the head and kissed, not her lips, but her neck.

"Schedule," Mel said. "Sounds like a good idea."

Jordan and Jenny, emerging from the ghola's bedroom, gave a thumb's up. Rachel and Anastasia, almost in sync, followed a moment later.

CHAPTER 122

Most extraterrestrial species understand the concept of a symbiotic social group, bound together by ties of loyalty and friendship rather than genetic relationship or compatible software. The exact terminology and cultural weight vary, but the fundamentals are simple: cooperation, peace, sharing of resources. In a multi-species environment where there is no central authority, such relationships assume supreme importance. Most are not formal, but every successful multi-species coalition is based, ultimately, on such relationships.

--Anastasia Massimi, Slugnomicon: A Guide To Brain Slug Spirituality (unpublished draft)

Sleep did not want to come. Jordan and Jenny flanked Mel, the women breathing deeply, slowly. Mel wasn't sure how they did that. They seemed to just close their eyes and go out like a light, even if the brain slugs on their necks remained active in the darkness. Mel stared up at the darkness for a while.

He worried what he would dream about tonight. Whether Rache would come in the morning. How he would face Molly and Lucie tomorrow. The dull ache of the revelation had settled into his chest now. Sex had pushed it out of his consciousness, but the sex was over, and it was just Mel and the darkness.

Changelings. Etherlings. Brain slugs, brain bats, gholas... all these strange alien creatures are part of my life now, Mel thought to himself. But do I know any of them any better than I know women? Jordan and Rache, Jennie and Amelia, Molly and Lucie... do I really understand how they think better than any of the others?

Consciousness did not click off. It merely faded, imperceptibly, into a deeper blackness. Mel felt his eyes close. His chest rose and fell, slowly, Jordan's cheek on his shoulder, her breast pressed against his arm. He imagined he could feel her breath on his neck.

Skitter, skitter.

Something was breathing on his neck. Something moved across the floor, the roach-swift skitter of many legs moving. Mel's body tensed; he tried to open his eyes, to move, but his body wouldn't obey him. Trapped in the dark, paralyzed, only his ears alert to the soft sounds of movement around the room as something moved. He heard the rustle of his dirty clothes bag, the soft slide of the chest of drawers in the outer room.

Searching for something. But what?

Skitter, skitter.

The source of the noise drew closer. Perspiration beaded Mel's face. Something touched, feather-light, against his scrotum, and the sack compressed and squeezed up against the steel ring. Within its cage, Mel tried instinctively to shrink from that touch--and then he felt it again, different this time, probing.

The key, Mel realized. He imagined the tip of a finger unweaving itself into fine threads and investigating the body of the lock. It wants the key!

A familiar weight pressed down on his hips. Smothering warmth. Trying to engulf him. It only pressed the steel cage harder into his swelling flesh, the bit of warming metal the only barrier between Mel and whatever or whoever was trying to get him inside of them. Mel tensed in mingled excitement and frustration...

... and awoke to a moan, eyes opening as Rachel ground her pussy against his captive cock.

Jordan, Jenny, and Béibhinn were in the living room. Anastasia poked her head in as the naked Rache collapse on top of Mel, her sweaty breasts flattening against his chest, panting over his shoulder. 'stasia, in her pajamas and a grey button-up sweater, smiled and sipped her coffee.

"You were safe in your cage, so we thought it might be best to let her finish," his neighbor said. She had no makeup on, and he could see the hint of bags under her eyes. He wondered how late she stayed up, and how often Rachel woke her in her nocturnal wanderings.

There were clothes and coffee available to Rache. She was running late, and kissed Mel, Jordan, and Jenny good morning and goodbye before running off for class. 'stasia simply gave a wave, and then blew Béibhinn a kiss, which made the ghola frown.

"I was not prepared for this assignment," the ghola said, as the four began their exercises. Stretches, push-ups, reverse push-ups. Upper body workout.

"What do you mean?" Mel asked.

"When she ate my pussy last night," Béibhinn said. "I told you I preferred girls. That wasn't a lie. It was something I think I picked up from my host. But I've rarely... had sex with human women. This one knows how to eat a pussy. Not like you. But definitely experienced."

Mel blinked. "Well, we don't really know much about her background. You could ask?"

The ghola stared at him sharply.

"I mean, if you want to have a continued relationship with her," he said. "You don't have to if you don't want to. I'm sure she'll understand."

The rusted jade eyes bored into him for a moment, then looked away.

"Perhaps I will," she said. Béibhinn did not clarify whether she would ask about Anastasia's sex history or seek to continue a relationship with her. Mel had a feeling that ambiguity was deliberate, and did not seek to pry.

Shower. Shave. Mel grabbed a cold hot dog for breakfast, and the three of them were out the door into a spring where dawn was visible in pink streamers of cloud across the sky far above. People hurried about with cups of coffee and tea, and Mel felt the pulse of traffic shift. He hadn't been aware of it earlier, but after driving with Molly he was now more conscious of cars that were on autopilot, maintaining computerized distances from other cars, the whole line of traffic moving together when enough cars were in sync, with the human drivers the chaotic elements in the dance.

There were two bluebirds in the nest above the door. Mel saw the other one only briefly, a head poking out of the nest, the original bird with its deeper blue plumage returning with a worm in its small dark beak.

Ha-Yoon had her eyes closed at her desk. She held the sobriety chip in both hands. Mel glanced at the trash can. Three Twinkie wrappers and an empty can of diet soda.

"You okay?" he asked.

Her eyes shot open. Bloodshot around the golden stars.

"Yeah. Just, ah, hit me this morning. The craving. Couldn't get it out of my head. So I started reciting the Litany of Fear." She gave a weak, embarrassed smile, as if she had shared too much. Mel, who had heard her describe in anatomical detail how Ha-Yoon had once calmed her sister down after the former had tried to drunkenly shave her pubic hair with an electric clipper and nipped the clitoris, felt a pang of sympathy.

"I must not fear," he said, trying to recall the lines from Dune. He'd read the first book a couple of years ago, not for any class, but because someone had left a ratty paperback in the break room and never claimed it. "Fear is the mind-killer."

"Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration," Ha-Yoon repeated, her smile relaxing a degree. "You know, the French refer to orgasms as 'la petite mort"--'the little death'?"

"I did not know that," Mel said.

She was calmer after that. Though Mel kept the access card for the beer fridge, and opened it whenever someone wanted to browse. The morning was slightly busier than normal. Several regulars, but more people with purple armbands or headbands, most of whom stared at the mural out back for a moment before coming inside to use the restroom or buy a snack. Jordan and Jenny were behind the counter, and if anyone recognized their likeness from the mural, Mel didn't hear them say anything.

It was after lunch, not long before their shift was due to end, when Lucie stepped inside. She stared around and found Mel pulling a bag of trash out of the bin, preparing to haul it out back.

Her dress was casual today. Long pleated gray slacks and a matching jacket, a black turtleneck sweater that hugged her frame, and black trainers. Her hair was pulled back tightly, which made the dark sunspots on her cheek seem to stand out more. She gave Mel a smile as she walked towards him. Not coquettish or hungry, but also not entirely genuine. Like a calculated mask of near-regret was the best way Mel could describe it to himself.

"Melville," she said. "Do you have a moment to talk? I--owe you an apology. About last night. I said some things that--"

He stared down at the bag of trash in his hands.

"Just a minute, please," he said, and nodded toward the food tables. "Take a seat? I'll be back soon."

Mel took his time putting the trash away. He took stock of himself before he went back out there. Ran a hand through his hair, in lieu of a comb. Took a deep breath. There was a small knot in his stomach.

"I must not fear," he told himself.

Lucie had bought herself a coffee and was sipping it at one of the tables. Mel offered a cautious smile as he sat down opposite her.

"Last night," she began, her hands on the cup in front of her. He noticed her long nails, not painted, but clearly clean and well-maintained. Mel hadn't seen Jordan or Jenny with so much as a nail file, but Lucie was clearly a fan of manicures. "I--came on too strong. I was off-balance, not expecting to feel--I didn't think about how this all must be like for you. Too engrossed in myself, in what I was feeling. I'm sorry."

She meant it. Or at least, Mel thought she did.

"It's okay," he said. "I know this is a bit of a weird situation. I wasn't--I didn't know. About the surrogacy. It wasn't on my birth certificate, any of the official documents."

Her head inclined. Not a nod, exactly. Lucie's dark eyes met his.

"That's not all I'm talking about," she said. "I--James, your father and I--we had an agreement. That if I wanted another child, he would provide the sperm. You see, I always intended to give Molly a little brother. A full sibling. Seamus understood. We had an agreement. It was something that didn't happen before your parents passed, and when I saw you--"

She let out a small sigh. Her shoulders slumped.

"--I treated you like I would have James. That was wrong of me. You're not him; we don't have that history, that--understanding."

"Oh," Mel thought, and suddenly the game of footsie under the table took on new context

"Yes," Lucie said, with a sad smile. "Oh. In truth, Seamus and I discussed this situation before I flew out here. It's why he stayed home; it wasn't just to feed the cats, it was because--well, I'm not getting any younger, but there's still time. And you are as close to James as I'm going to get, and--Seamus didn't want to be a roadblock."

Mel felt that knot in his stomach again. He stared at Lucie as the impact of her words hit him.

"I know. I'm terrible," she said. "You're less than half my age. I didn't even consider your feelings in the matter. How it might seem to you, this old woman--"

"You're not old," Mel said, automatically. His hands tightened into fists under the table. "This is just--sudden. My situation is complicated. I'm in a relationship. We're exclusive. And--you know I spent fifteen years in that orphanage? A decade and a half where no one fostered me, no one adopted me, nobody even looked for me?"

His voice dropped lower, almost to a whisper, and he cringed at the slightly petulant tone that crept in.

"Why didn't you look for me?"

Lucie didn't look away from Mel. She was staring at him, calculating what to say next. When she opened her mouth, she let out a soft rattle of breath, but her shoulders were tense, the lines around her eyes a bit deeper. Her expression, then, was exactly the same as Molly's when Molly was being very serious.

"James broke it off," she said. "He loved Sinead. She wanted them to be exclusive. The idea of her husband having what she called a separate family--she accepted Molly, because Molly was already born. She was Aunt Sinead to Molly. But she made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that I wasn't part of their family. That was the last time we spoke."

She sucked in her lips and closed her eyes tight, as if reliving that moment.

"That was my failure," Lucie said when she opened her eyes again. "I thought it was over. I didn't think of how you might feel. I never imagined you wouldn't be adopted. Never thought about how you and Molly would grow up, not even knowing about each other. You weren't there. James was dead. Sinead--no, that's an excuse. I'm sorry, Melville. I failed you. And then, when I realized you were alive again, my first thought was to try and pick back up where I'd left off with your father, with no Sinead to tell me no."

Mel felt that knot in his stomach like a physical thing now. The size of his fist, twisting in his gut.

"I just needed to tell you that. I'm not sure I could have if Molly was here," Lucie said. "I don't know if she would understand. She's never had that kind of relationship, those kinds of feelings. Never had to make the choices that Seamus and I and your parents made. Maybe I wanted to preserve that innocence a little longer."

"Molly's a grown woman," Mel frowned. "You can't treat her like a kid. She's smart, she has her life together--you should trust her more. She knows more than you think."

Lucie's face softened a little, a genuine smile.

"Look at you, sticking up for your big sister. I'm glad to hear that," she said. "Things are more complicated than just one man and one woman sometimes."

"Sometimes," Mel said and nodded his head.

He felt like she was waiting for him to say more, and even though he wasn't sure how to express his feelings, he tried. "I'm not--I don't blame you. It hurts. The missed opportunity hurts. I know it wasn't a conscious rejection, but it feels like it. I know you want something from me, but I don't know if I can provide it. I'm not my father. It isn't because you aren't--"

"That might be a separate conversation," she said, gently. "I know, this is a lot to take in. You're only 18, and a woman old enough to be your mother walks into your life and says she wanted to seduce you into giving her a baby. Even without any other relationship, that would be a lot to take in."

"Right," Mel said. Suddenly aware he hadn't told her "no" in any firm way yet, and thinking that perhaps that was a mistake.

"Oh, you're already here!"

Lucie and Mel turned to see Molly wander in. Leather jacket, ankle-length red dress. She smiled at the both of them, and Lucie stood up to hug and kiss her daughter hello, so Mel stood up too. Molly crushed him to her and planted a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"Come on! The museum is only open until seven!" she said.

Mel had to sign out. Jordan and Jenny gave him a thumb's up from the counter.

"See you at home," he said, and followed Molly out the door toward the waiting Protoss.

CHAPTER 123

What is Xenotechnology? The unique application of scientific knowledge by the various non-human species. While physical laws may be universal, the understanding and application of those laws to meet the needs and express the cultures of extraterrestrial species has resulted in different technological paths from those of humans on Earth. This exhibit displays numerous examples of the different technologies of the Exodus. Remember, it isn't that xenotechnology is superior or inferior to human technology, just a different expression of knowledge to meet the unique needs of other species and environments.

--Seacouver Museum of Science and Technology Pamphlet, April 2055

Mel rode with Molly in the Protoss. He wasn't sure whether to bring up his conversation with her mother. The content might upset her. On the other hand, he'd promised to be honest with her. As they pulled into the parking lot, Mel decided that if Molly asked, he'd tell her, but he wouldn't just volunteer the information. Same as anything else in his private life.

The Seacouver Museum of Science and Technology, Mel thought, was designed by the same person who had put the Cosmic Fill-Up together, only with a bigger budget and access to lots of glass and concrete. Great grey shells rose high in the air in great rain-streaked curves, the inner ones made of reinforced glass panes in a concrete spiderweb. There were no right angles, and Mel had been told, though he had never seen it, that from above it looked like a great eye open and staring accusingly at the sky. Something that would have been a matte painting in an old sci-fi movie, rendered into cold reality.

Mel had been here exactly once, on a school field trip, when the main feature exhibit had been about paleontology. They had given each of them a pair of smart glasses and let them go off on self-guided tours. While most of the kids had headed straight for the dinosaurs, playing with the augmented reality settings to clothe the bare bone exhibits with muscles, scales, and feathers, he had spent most of two hours wandering through a smaller hall dedicated to recent discoveries regarding the Cambrian Explosion, the sudden eruption of complex life on Earth over five hundred million years ago.

He remembered the trilobites, especially. Mel had stared at the display of various trilobite reconstructions over time, and felt a kind of sadness that he hadn't experienced before. The sense of knowing that he would never be able to see a live trilobite, that there were things he would never be able to experience ever in his life. Millions of years separated him from the little crustacean-like critters, and they would never, ever overlap.

It wasn't until later, on the bus ride home, that Mel realized that was how he felt about his parents.

Lucie paid their entry. A genuine smile on Mel's face as he slid on the smart glasses, fixing an earpiece in his left ear. Over the cold displays, augmented reality signs and features popped up. Self-guided tours, video clips, additional information available at a glance. Molly grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the main hall, with its new display: XENOTECHNOLOGY.

Mel was expecting--he didn't know what. Glowing crystals. Antigravity. Living biosuits. Metals forged in the heart of dying stars.

The first display was a selection of kitchen utensils designed for beings with non-human hands. A video showed a brain bat manipulating what looked like a spherical wok in zero gravity, using multiple arms to adjust the temperature and shift the frying foodstuffs around, using little ports in the bowl to access the contents without them flying off and clogging a filter. Lucie hovered nearby Mel and Molly, who hadn't let go of Mel's hand, as they moved from display to display.

What Mel learned, over the next hour and a half, was that his definition of technology was too narrow. For many species, biomechanics and sensory input determined different ways of doing things. For every slab of semiconductors grown organically using specialized bacterial cultures, or crystals spun in zero-gravity, there was a multi-species toilet that had to handle liquid and solid waste of different acidity, or a different way of making a book to suit creatures that had different manipulators.

Some things were relatively common; pretty much everybody that had discovered written language had some sort of scrolls and books, using whatever materials were available. Very few technological advancements were unique to a particular species or culture, but not every species adopted everything their neighbors did. Etherlings apparently needed special three-lobed earpieces, and didn't like a lot of music from binaural species because it gave them a headache. K'lur'k understood the basic concept of scissors, but preferred handheld cutters that involved small bladed wheels out of cultural familiarity.

Molly seemed particularly enthused by the liquid circuitry of the Alabi, and the ancient shared communications protocols that represented the complex underlayer of the extraterrestrial version of the internet.

"It's like, they all developed their own standards--voltage, frequency, programming languages," Molly said. "But at some point, someone managed to work out a common protocol, and it was adopted so widely that other species adopted it when they came in contact with galactic civilization. We're going to have to adapt to it too, at least in some form."

Her eyes were wide, and Mel got the distinct impression that she was getting more out of this than he was. Lucie smiled to see Molly enjoying herself, but said little, walking among the displays, keeping what Mel assumed was a respectful distance from him.

The last display was the big one. All three of them stared up at the massive sight of a hyperdrive hanging from the ceiling. The device was the size of an adult blue whale, and it was everything Mel had expected to see here. Enigmatic. Smooth lines, yet definitely artificial. Utterly, incomprehensibly alien.

"The key to faster-than-light travel," Molly said breathlessly, her dark eyes wide behind her glasses. "Although from what I understand of the physics involved, they're really just changing the local laws of physics so that the speed of light is higher, which means from their local reference they're going really fast but not increasing mass or experiencing the same relativistic time dilation. Outside of a gravity well, they can cover a light-year in about six to eight months. Can you imagine that? Alpha Centauri is only 4.24 light-years away!"

Her eyes looked past the drive and straight out into distant stars that humans might, someday, visit.

"I need to use the ladies' room," Lucie said with a smile. "Be back in a minute."

Mel stood there, suddenly aware of how sweaty his palm was in Molly's hand. She looked away from the drive and watched her mother disappear, then looked at Mel.

"What's with you and ma mère!?" she said softly. "You've been acting weird all afternoon!"

His shoulders crept up, head sinking down on his neck. Even though he was taller than Molly, the force of her stare made her seem bigger than him. Mel wiped his free hand on his jeans, suddenly and painfully aware that he couldn't lie to her.

"Your mom came to see me before you arrived at the Cosmic Fill-Up," he said. "She wanted to apologize for yesterday. About, um. She hadn't been completely forthcoming about her relationship with my parents. Apparently she wanted to have another kid. A sibling for you to grow up with. Someone with the same genes. My dad had agreed, but my mom was... she wasn't as cool with it."

Molly frowned.

"There's something you're not telling me," she said.

His pulse spiked. Mel felt a raw trepidation unlike last night's group sex. He wondered if that was because he was confident he could perform sexually, but this could ruin his actual relationship with his sister.

"She isn't getting younger," he said, "and, um, she thought I might... help."

Molly's frown deepened. Her brow furrowed. It was a perfect mask of incomprehension.

"Help how? How would you get... ma mère... enceinte..." Molly said, and Mel saw his sister's brow unfurrow, her eyes go wide, as she put the pieces together. "Oh, sugar. What did you tell her?"

"I, uh, told her I was in a relationship," Mel said. "But I didn't get a chance to tell her no. Yet. You arrived just as we were, I mean, she hasn't directly asked yet, but it's..."

Molly sucked in her lips, and her eyes behind the smart glasses looked suddenly watery, as if she was going to cry. Mel shivered. He really did not want his sister to cry.

At that moment, Lucie emerged from the bathroom, rubbing hand sanitizer into her brown skin.

"Let's hit the gift shop," she said with a smile. "My treat."

Molly didn't let Mel go as the trio moved to the gift shop. There were small mechanical and electronic toys of the edutainment variety. Some of the more expensive items were held in glass cases, genuine examples of K'lur'k cutters, Alabi writing tablets which used crystal memory paper, small Murker puzzles made from meteoric iron and which looked like they needed three hands to solve.

Mel found his gaze drawn to a rack of books. The lowest shelves were kids' books, but the middle and upper shelves had more grown-up books on the history of science and technology. He picked one off the shelf with the title Xenobiomechanics, and found it was an illustrated work on how the anatomy of various extraterrestrial species influenced their clothing and tool use.

His sister noticed. "You want that? You should get it."

Mel glanced at the price and frowned. It cost as much as Rachel's morning-after pill.

"I really shouldn't," he said. Yet Molly wouldn't let him put it back on the shelf. She hauled Mel and the book up to the counter, where Lucie waited. The older woman smiled, and the clerk behind the counter--a Great Horned brain slug host, Mel noticed, probably a member of the Collective--scanned the book, and Lucie placed her hand over the charge plate, fingers not really touching. The book was bagged, and Mel accepted it with a shy "thank you."

They deposited the smart glasses back at the front desk, and Mel stepped out into the dying of the day, glad for the breeze that had picked up.

"Where are we going for dinner?" Lucie asked.

"I should probably get home," Mel said. "My, ah, roommates will be worried about me. And we need to do laundry tonight."

"Oh yes, excellent," Lucie said with a smile. "I've been wanting to see where you live."

Mel felt that knot again in his stomach. This was not something he had planned on.

"Sure," Molly said, then she tugged her brother back toward the Protoss. "Follow me."

Fuck my life, Mel thought, not for the first or last time.

CHAPTER 124

Think about how you hold a hammer. A fork. A pen or stylus. Humans have four fingers and an opposable thumb, and two forward-facing eyes. How would you feel if you only had two fingers? Or if your fingers had a sense of taste? If your eyes were on the sides of your head, sacrificing depth perception for a broader field of vision? Biomechanics informs not just what a hammer looks like, but how it's used. They shape cultures and peoples. Extraterrestrials aren't better or worse than humans, but they are differently abled, and understanding how they move and function is key to accommodating their needs.

--Mallory Giger, Xenobiomechanics, Introduction

"It's okay to impregnate ma mère," Molly said, once the doors were closed and they were buckled up. Mel felt a sudden urge to open his door again and escape the car and the conversation. The knot in his gut tightened.

"I'm just saying," Molly continued, before Mel could get a word in edgewise. "If you want to. Your body, your choice, right? I mean, you're not--she's not your biological mother. I mean, you're both adults, you're sexually active, and if you're both consenting--"

She sucked in her lips and chewed on them for a second. Mel tried to find the words. When she spoke next, her voice was nearly a whisper.

"I mean, I wouldn't say no to another little brother."

Mel found his voice at last.

"I don't plan to have sex with your mother," he said. It felt like the kind of sentence that would never need to be said in real life.

"Why not!?" Molly said, eyes firmly on the road, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. "Isn't she pretty?"

"Uh... yes?" Mel said. "But it's not about that. I have girlfriends--"

"So get permission! You've gotten permission to have sex with other women before!" Molly said.

"I've never gotten permission to impregnate anyone yet!" Mel said. "I've been trying very hard not to get anyone pregnant. I had to buy Rachel a morning-after pill yesterday because I accidentally came in her--"

Molly slammed on the brakes. Mel tensed, expecting a sudden crunch, the blare of a horn. But no, Molly was letting another car cut into their lane. Behind them, Lucie followed in her rental car, utterly unaware of the conversation happening between her daughter and her daughter's half-brother.

"How do you accidentally ejaculate into a young woman!?" Molly said.

"Rachel's been sleepwalking. To my apartment. And having sex with me," Mel said. "Honestly, it's been a major concern the last few days. We've been working on solutions. I'm actually wearing a chastity cage right now."

He wondered if that was too much information. Mel glanced at his sister and was once again struck by how he couldn't tell when she was blushing, but he could tell her palms were sweaty as she gripped the wheel.

"Well, if you can have unprotected sex with one of your girlfriends, I don't see why you can't give ma mère un bébé," Molly said, as the Protoss lurched into motion again.

They drove for a block as Mel tried to figure out how to answer that one. Then he looked at Molly again. The tremble of her lower lip. The tenseness of her face, her shoulders. This was important to her, he realized.

"Why do you want me to get your mother pregnant?" Mel asked, and his voice was quiet, curious, not snarky or judgmental.

"It... would mean so much to her," Molly said. "To all of us. It would make her happy..."

Mel frowned. The tone wasn't convincing. Molly was groping blindly for the words. Not willing to say what she really meant.

"The reason I don't want to get any of my girlfriends pregnant is that I'm not in a position where I could properly take care of and raise a kid," Mel said. "I spent my entire life in an orphanage. I've seen people who had kids for all the right and wrong reasons, and when they couldn't take care of them, they ended up there. It wasn't abusive, but it wasn't loving, either. If I ever have kids, I want them to have a stable home, a family. And if I can't do that... I'd rather not have kids at all. I don't want my failures to be somebody else's shitty childhood."

His voice was tired as he said it. Mel had to put those feelings into words too many times lately. Less than three months since leaving the orphanage, and he somehow had three girlfriends, a bevy of sex friends, a half-sister and a surrogate not-quite-a-mother. Two sex videos online, one pregnancy scare, and a partridge in a pear tree, Mel sang to himself.

"It wouldn't be like that," Molly said as they pulled onto the street of his apartment building. "My childhood wasn't like that. My parents loved me..."

She went silent, realizing what she'd said.

There was a parking garage a block away from the apartment. Molly turned the Protoss down into it; Lucie's rental car followed obediently.

Mel sighed.

"I'll ask. I can't promise more than that," he said. "You get that this is a lot for me, right?"

"I know," she said.

"Why do you really want your mom to get pregnant?" Mel asked, as she slid into a parking space.

Molly didn't answer. She chewed her lower lip, hunched over the steering wheel. When she looked at him, her expression was like nothing Mel had seen on his sister's face before--no, that wasn't quite true. That first time she had addressed him as "mon frère." Excitement.

"It would be so hot," she whispered.

The knot in Mel's gut tightened another notch.

They took the elevator. Not because Mel didn't need the exercise, but because Lucie and Molly were guests and it felt like the thing you did. During the walk to the apartment building, Molly's hand in his, Mel tried to think of everything that could go wrong when Lucie met his roommates. It helped to distract him from the memory of how intense Molly had been in that one moment.

Mel paused in front of the door. He disengaged from Molly and gave an embarrassed smile to Lucie.

"So, I've got three roommates. They're all women. Jordan and Jenny are brain slug hosts and communicate through sign language, and Béibhinn is a ghola. Um. All three of them are fairly clothing-optional. I'm just going to poke my head in and make sure they're clothed," he said.

Lucie's eyes went a little wide, lips pursed, but she nodded. Mel turned to the access plate just as Anastasia and Rachel came up at the end of the hallway, having taken the stairs.

"Hey, babe!" Rache said as she approached them. "Molly."

"Rachel," Molly nodded at the taller woman.

"Ah, right. These are Rachel Carmichael and Anastasia Massimi, my next-door neighbors," Mel said. "Rache, 'stasia, this is Lucie Maguire, Molly's mother. Uh, actually I don't know if you've met... 'stasia, this is my half-sister Molly."

Rachel stuck out her hand: "Girlfriend number three."

Lucie shook the hand. She frowned slightly. "Number three?"

"Jordan and Jenny are one and two," Rache said. "Has Mel not told you?"

"Not yet, no," Lucie said. She turned to 'stasia, who extended her own hand. "And you?"

"Fuck buddy. I'm still on the outskirts of their whole polycule," the dark-haired woman said with a smile.

Well, that band-aid is half-off, Mel thought to himself, as he opened the door. The bag with the Xenobiomechanics book felt heavy in his left hand.

Béibhinn, bless all of her alien hearts and her human one, was wearing some sort of martial arts pants and a t-shirt that declared DYSLEXIA: EVERY GOLE'S A HOAL. He hadn't seen that one before, but at least it covered all of her bits. Jordan and Jenny were, he was surprised to see, dressed in casual exercise clothes, sheets and dirty clothes bundled together for a trip to the laundry.

Mel led the small procession inside, Molly and Anastasia bringing up the rear.

"Hey, everyone," Mel said, and then remembered to sign, at least as much as he could. He needed the practice. "Lucie, these are my roommates: Béibhinn O'Malley, and my girlfriends Jordan Carmichael and Jenny Soong. Everyone, this is Lucie Maguire, Molly's mom."

"Hello," Lucie said. She didn't sign, but she smiled and stepped forward to shake everyone's hand in turn. Jordan and Jenny regarded her with their blank, placid expressions, the brain slugs peeking out from behind their necks with sensory tentacles extended, probably to smell her better.

The older woman's eyes encompassed the entire apartment in one sweeping glance. The almost military organization of Béibhinn's room, the little security features, the queen-sized bed in what was clearly Mel, Jordan, and Jenny's room, the reclaimed chest of drawers with its small pile of books on top held up by the bricks. She took in the lack of decorations, the sparse furniture, the embedded utilities. Everything that spoke of being young and poor and not having accumulated much yet. However, when her eyes came back to Jordan and Jenny, it was clear her priorities led elsewhere.

"And from what Rachel tells me, you're all together? Romantically, I mean."

Jordan and Jenny nodded, once, together.

"They can't speak, verbally," Mel said apologetically. "But yeah, it started off... informal. Human sperm is a nutritional supplement for brain slugs. That developed into a relationship. When Jenny came to stay with us, she was hurt and needed to be fed..."

"I'm Jordan's sister," Rache broke in. "Jenny was originally living next door as his neighbor, but her roommate attacked her. Mel rescued her."

"The roommate who attacked her was actually my brother," 'stasia added, "But I'd been in touch with Jenny before that. I'm doing research on brain slug spirituality, and when the apartment became available I moved in. I wasn't part of the formal agreement, but lately the polycule voted that they could have protected sex with certain trusted members outside their little group..."

"It was mostly because there are some other brain slugs that occasionally ask to be fed," Mel said, his face suddenly hot. He turned and set the book on the chest of drawers. "I wasn't looking outside the group, you understand, and I never do anything with anyone without consulting Jordan, Jenny, and Rache first. Communication is critical."

"I agree," Lucie said, who was absorbing all this information while maintaining either a perfect poker face or a cool nonchalance Mel couldn't fathom. "Well, as you all may or may not know, I'm Molly's mother. She is Melville's half-sister; his father and I had a relationship to conceive a child because my husband is sterile."

"She also served as Mel's mother's surrogate," Molly chimed in.

Jordan, Jenny, and Béibhinn's eyes snapped to the younger woman, who had her arms crossed over her chest.

"Yes," Lucie agreed. "I was curious how you decide who gets to be a--I believe Anastasia called herself a 'fuck buddy,' but I suppose I'd prefer the term 'sex friend' or 'aromantic partner.'"

"Ma mère!" Molly said. "Ta langue!"

"I strive for technical accuracy," Lucie said, with a kindly smile toward her offspring.

"We talked it out," Rachel said, and she stepped around Lucie to slip her hand into Mel's. His fingers interlaced with hers automatically. "Based on the women that Mel had already been with, and who would probably need ongoing access. Mostly other brain slug hosts who would need more of what he has to give them."

"Like me!" Béibhinn said, waving a hand. "No romantic feelings here, I just like the taste."

Lucie nodded. She turned to 'stasia. "And you, dear? How did you end up on the list?"

"I asked," Anastasia said, her dark eyes meeting Lucie's. "As much for an occasional bit of sex with Rachel as with Mel. But I'd been seeing so much, and felt left out of the fun. The group voted, and now I have... access. Protected sex, of course. Everyone is keeping it exclusive at the moment. Nobody wants to catch a disease; nobody wants to get pregnant."

"Ma mère wants to get pregnant!" Molly blurted. This time, all eyes went to her. Lucie turned back towards Mel, whose ears had started to burn.

"I told her in the car. Wasn't going to volunteer it, but she asked. I promised I wouldn't lie to her," Mel explained. He felt all the eyes in the room swivel back to him. "Lucie said that she and my dad had an agreement that he'd father another child with her, but he died before it happened. Earlier today, she said she's--not getting any younger. Didn't outright ask me, so I haven't given her an answer yet. But I guess that's where this line of questioning is going?"

With this many bodies in the room, the apartment felt cramped and warm. Mel felt the sweat trickle down his ribs.

Lucie nodded, mouth drawn into a tight line. She drew herself up to her full height, which was still shorter than Rachel, Jordan, and Jenny, and looked each of the three women in the eye in turn.

"Yes. I wasn't going to get straight into it--I had no idea about Mel's domestic situation, and had no desire to disrupt any of his existing relationships--but since we are here and discussing it, I had hoped that we might discuss the possibility of conceiving a child," Lucie said.

Silence reigned for a moment. Eyes flickered back and forth. Mel swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He had seen on television families gathered around a big roast turkey at holidays, and he felt a pang of sympathy with the bird who was about to be split so many different ways. There were a thousand ways this could go wrong, a thousand objections and hurt feelings. Mel had just been trying to reassure Jordan and Jenny he cared for them, and now this--

"Like, right now?" Béibhinn said.

Rachel broke into laughter first. She clutched onto Mel's arm and buried her face into his shoulder. Anastasia was second, snorting and wheezing a little. Mel felt the laughter bubble up from deep inside, and soon he was shaking and holding on to Rachel. Even Molly gave a nervous, high-pitched titter. Only Jordan and Jenny remained apparently unmoved, though their brain slugs shifted through two different shades of green, from clear emerald to an almost opaque lima bean color.

"Well, I suppose I could buy you all dinner first," Lucie said, pulling out her smartphone. "Does everyone like pizza?"

Brain slugs, it turned out, don't like pepperoni or sausage. Most of them could digest it if they had to, but the herbs and spices triggered chemical sensors as dangerous plants. Béibhinn and 'stasia liked sardines. Molly and Lucie liked pineapple, which totaled out to four large pizzas, with Mel, Rachel, and the brain slugs enjoying extra cheese with nothing else on it.

Seating was wherever anyone could find it. Mel and Rachel gave up the couch and the chair to Molly and Lucie; Béibhinn had a collapsible field stool, and 'stasia was content to sit on the arm of the couch next to Jenny. Between bites, more bits of personal history came out. Jordan getting Mel the job at the Cosmic Fill-Up. 'stasia emailing Jenny about her porn career as part of her dissertation. Béibhinn's official job being a contractor attached to the local military base, mostly working from home to answer certain questions about extraterrestrials, only occasionally going in to sort out personnel issues.

Lucie described her own job as a technical writer, often handling translation of English-language manuals and other materials into Canadian French. Molly volunteered her studies in Xenotechnology and described the museum exhibit. Rachel talked about how she had lost Jordan, and then found her, and Mel, and how they had all come together.

By the time the pizza was mostly gone and everyone had used the bathroom, it was getting late. The laundry still needed to be done. Yet Jordan and Jenny signaled to Rachel and Mel to join them in the bedroom, Jordan's hands moving through the signs.

"She says we need to talk," Mel said apologetically as he closed the door. "Um. Please excuse us."

They were alone, and for a moment, Mel felt himself relax. He was prepared to apologize--none of this situation was strictly his fault, but if it would keep his girlfriends from feeling hurt at someone else trying to insert themselves into his sex life, Mel would happily eat whatever crow--or pussy--was required to assure them he was happy with them.

"Do you want to sex with Lucie?" Rachel asked, bluntly, short-circuiting what Mel was going to say. Jordan and Jenny stared at Mel expectantly. They had Rache's smartphone in their hands and were typing together while holding hands. "I mean, you must have some resentment towards her for not adopting you. This might be a way for you to work things out."

Mel's shoulders sagged. He had to put his own emotions into words. He hated that.

"The whole thing with Lucie has me confused," he said. "She's not my mom. She is very explicitly, technically, not my mom. So legally there's nothing there, no relationship. But she gave birth to me, and that feels weird. She wants me to get her pregnant, and that makes me feel weirder. I'm not looking to expand our circle. I've got all the women I want to have sex with here in this room, and our friends-with-benefits list is... intimidating."

He sighed and crossed his arms, then realized he was crossing his arms and uncrossed them.

"Molly said she wants me to do it, which is like the extra cheese on top of weirdness. But you know I'm not looking to have kids yet; I can't... I can't be a parent right now. Maybe later, after Rache graduates and maybe we're in a better place financially..." he reached for Rache's hand, and she held hers out and accepted it. She smiled.

"It's not the same with her, though," Rache said. "She's married, financially stable, and from the sound of it, her husband is okay with it. Everyone would be consenting; you'd just be the... sperm donor. Did Molly say why she wanted you to do it?"

Mel's eyes looked older at the moment.

"She said it would be hot," he said, and for a moment he thought of Lucie, her stomach ballooned out, breasts resting on top, and the chastity cage holding him in suddenly felt smaller. Jordan glanced away from the phone, nostrils flared, and Mel felt the flush creep down his neck as he realized she smelled his sudden hard-on.

Rache smiled, and her thumb rubbed the back of his hand.

"Well, it would be," she said with a smile. "And, you know. Practice might not be a bad thing. But it is a big step. What do you think, Jordie, Jenny?"

The brain slug hosts turned the phone around so their boyfriend and girlfriend could read the screen:

We respect Mel's right to inseminate his not-mother, and we can extend the sex friends list for this purpose, if you both agree. Given the circumstances, it should be unanimous. Also, there will be conditions due to the unusual nature of this request and concerns for the sexual safety of the group.

Rache nodded along. Then she looked up and, remembering her sign language for a moment, made the sign for "Why?"

Mel passed the phone back so they could type out an answer.

"How are you feeling?" Rache asked. "You've got that look on your face like a slightly stunned chihuahua."

He gave a shaky smile. "Is it weird that I'm surprised everyone is being so cool and adult about this? I mean, here we are, in a relationship, talking through a really strange situation together, and nobody's throwing a fit, or crying, or accusing people of cheating or... I guess I expected something more dysfunctional."

"Babe. This isn't like television. Nobody's cheating on anybody. This is a very strange situation, but you didn't try to hide it, and it isn't your fault," she smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'm personally okay with letting you have sex with other women, because I know you aren't just going to stick your dick in anything that walks. You're basically in a cold sweat right now, afraid we're going to say yes and feel peer pressured to dick down not-your-mom. Probably going to have nightmares tonight about the terrible consequences of a baby crazy MILF wanting your bun in her oven."

Mel couldn't not smile at that. She was being facetious, and they both knew it. He could feel how sweaty her palm was against his. Yet at the same time, he thought there was something else going on.

"You think this is hot too, don't you?" he accused.

Rache scrunched up her nose and lips, her eyes scrunching down into slits. Yet she didn't say no. Jordan handed the phone back.

We think this will be good practice for Mel. Ejaculating unexpectedly in Rache has made you uncomfortable with sex. That is unacceptable. While we understand and respect your desire not to impregnate any of us yet, you need to be comfortable with the concept that sex and reproduction are closely interlinked, and that is not a bad thing.

In addition, we want to see it.

Weirdly, Mel felt a little better reading that. If he was insane, it was a shared insanity. Jordan and Jenny had their motives, and Rache and Molly had their kinks, and Mel...

What the fuck do I want? He thought to himself. My girlfriends have basically given me tacit permission. I could still say no, but at this point I almost feel like I'd be disappointing them.

He looked at each of them in turn. The brain slug hosts weren't giving any hint of emotion, and Rache was playing it cool, but her grip was crushing his hand.

"Okay," he said. "If you're okay with it. But if anybody is uncomfortable and wants to say no, it stops. I don't want to risk losing what we have."

Jordan and Jenny nodded. From a pants pocket, Jenny took out a small metal key and pressed it into the palm of Mel's free hand. He nodded, and the knot in his stomach became butterflies. Not less tension, but a different kind of stress. Less apprehension and more anticipation.

The four of them exited into the living room.

Mel's saw Amelia's face on the television. Her hands squeezing her brown breasts around a familiar-looking glans. Milk squirting over the length of him as she moved her chest up and down, staring into the camera with those big brown eyes. There was no sound, which was a bit of a blessing, but the whole group turned to look at Mel and his girlfriends as they filed out into the living room.

"I thought Lucie should see what she's getting into," Anastasia said. "And Molly hadn't seen it yet... we watched the first one, too. She was very impressed."

"Ah," Mel said. "Well, we talked about the situation, and... Lucie, if you want to get pregnant... I'm willing to... be your sperm donor."

The older woman's smile was wide and genuine. Molly held both hands up to her mouth, eyes wide. Yet before anyone could say anything, Jordan snapped her fingers three times, drawing all eyes to her, and spelled out a word in sign language. Mel and Rachel turned to face her fully to read the letters.

"Conditions," Mel translated, and the knot, which had slowly faded away over pizza and conversation as the threat of imminent relationship collapse had seemed to grow distant, then transmuted into twitchy excitement at the thought of potential insemination, returned with a vengeance.

"Yes?" Lucie said, and the room seemed to hold its breath.

CHAPTER 125

If a human wishes to lift a rock, they might simply bend over, pick it up with their hand, and straighten up. This simple act, expending chemical energy to create kinetic energy, is an expression of human biomechanics. We do not need technology to achieve this, but we might use tools to do so faster, lift bigger rocks further, spend less energy when lifting them, or to translate our rock-lifting ability into some other way to transfer energy, like starting a fire or generating an electrical charge. Some extraterrestrial species may struggle at what appears to be a simple task to a human, but that is because they have evolved to do work differently. A brain slug in its native state cannot lift a rock. A brain slug that takes a human host becomes capable of the entire range of human biomechanics. To a brain slug, a human host is a tool.

--Mallory Giger, Xenobiomechanics, Introduction

Jordan and Jenny tapped on Rachel's smartphone. Mel felt the key dig into the palm of his hand. The crowded apartment seemed to hold its breath. Finally, Jordan handed the phone to Rache, who read it, nodded, then handed it to Mel, who read it.

"Do you want me to read this out loud--" he asked, looking from Rache to Lucie and back again.

"You might as well," Lucie said, her face carefully controlled as she stood up and smoothed her gray slacks.

"No direct unprotected sexual contact without a clean STD test," he read from the phone.

Lucie frowned. "How is this supposed to work, then?"

"It's the same rule we have for all of our sex friends," Rache said. "Ask 'stasia or Béibhinn."

"I had to stop by the clinic on campus to get tested," Anastasia confirmed. "Won't know for at least a week."

"I understand that, but I'm--I'm ovulating right now," Lucie said. "It's one of the reasons I flew out here when I did. I was hoping we could go back to my hotel room and--"

"Um, that comes to the second rule: all sex has to happen in the apartment," Mel read. He glanced at Rachel, Jordan, and Jenny, but they didn't offer any clarification on this.

Lucie put her hands on her hips. "And what if Mel feels differently? Is there anything to stop him from--"

"Hold on," Mel broke in, and handed the phone back to Rachel. "Mrs. Maguire--"

"Lucie," the older woman insisted, and Mel flinched. It had been force of habit.

"Lucie. Look at me, please."

Everyone in the room looked at him. He was keenly aware of being the center of attention.

"You have made it very clear since I've met you that you were just my surrogate. That you had no responsibility towards me. We have no relationship," he said each of the words carefully. "You want something from me. I'm willing to provide that, against my better judgment, because it will make my sister Molly happy and because my girlfriends are surprisingly cool with it. But you can't set the terms. I don't owe you anything, and I care much more about the health and wellbeing of my girlfriends than I do your biological ticking clock."

He let that set in. Lucie's mouth was a thin line, but she didn't interrupt.

"This whole situation is unusual. It's a first for us all. We'll have to get creative. I'm still willing to provide you with the sperm you want, and I'm sure we can find a compromise that satisfies everyone--but I do need you to appreciate that, because if you can't respect the women I'm with, then this impregnation isn't happening," Mel said, with as much confidence and determination as he could muster.

Lucie said nothing for a moment. Her eyes seemed very bright, just then, and before he knew it hot tears were running down her face, and the tight line of her lips curled into the most natural and unassuming smile that Mel had ever seen on the older woman's features. Molly stepped forward and grabbed her mother's arm; the older woman put her hand over her daughter's and smiled at her.

"It's alright. It's just the exact sort of thing James would say, and just the way he would say it. He was always so considerate--but it wasn't love, and I think we both knew that, in the end. Once he was with Sinead, he was with her," Lucie said with a sigh, and wiped away her tears. "And no one else. I need to call my husband to make sure he's fine with this. Is everyone else staying to watch?"

"Ma mère!" Molly said.

In the semi-privacy of the bathroom, Lucie made the phone call. Anastasia offered to make tea for anyone who wanted it, maybe put on a movie, and Béibhinn took her up on it, which left Jordan, Jenny, Rache, and Molly together.

Mel turned to his sister.

"I think you might want to go with 'stasia," he said.

"Why?" Molly said.

"Because I'm going to inseminate your mother," he said, which sounded weirdly clinical and terribly blunt. Molly sucked in her lower lip and set her jaw.

"So? I can be... moral support!" she insisted.

"I don't know if your mother needs someone to cheer her on," Rachel chimed in. "This is going to be stressful enough with the three of us here. It might be more comfortable for her without an audience."

"We'll see what she says," Molly said, crossing her arms under her chest, which had the odd effect of lifting them up and making them more prominent. Mel did his best not to stare.

"Fine," Mel said, and shared a glance with Rachel, whose worried gaze said it was probably not fine but that was unwilling to argue the point.

Mel excused himself to the bedroom to pull down his pants and unlock the cage. There was a general relief that came from letting his dick breathe, so to speak, and he stared down at the organ contemplatively. Aware of all the strangeness that seemed to center on his sexual ability.

He wasn't sure why he'd been concerned about Molly seeing him in action. She had already seen both of his videos, after all. Even if she was technically his half-sister, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel, emotionally, about her seeing him having sex. It was odd, but not depressing or angry, just... vaguely embarrassing, maybe? Mel smiled to himself, hoping he wasn't screwing up his relationship with her already.

Raised voices in the main room caught Mel's attention.

"... young lady!" Lucie said.

"I'm staying!" Molly said, and stomped her foot to emphasize the point.

Lucie sighed and looked at Mel. "She takes after me this way, I'm afraid. Stubborn."

"Oui," Molly said smugly. "Je suis vraiment têtue."

"You could make her leave," Lucie said to Mel.

Molly shifted her gaze to her half-brother. Those dark eyes were big and wide, the lower lip stuck out in an unconscious pout. Mel chewed his thoughts, and Rachel and the brain slug hosts looked at him, clearly delegating the decision. She was his half-sister after all.

"I could, but I won't," he said. "Molly is an adult and can make her own choices. I promised I wouldn't lie or hide anything from her. I realize having her here seems weird, but I'm not willing to kick her out."

Lucie stared at her daughter. "This isn't the kind of sex education I ever imagined giving you," the older woman said. Mel noticed she'd long since dried her tears. "But perhaps one day, you'll meet a young man you love and make me un petit-enfant, so you should at least see one way of how to do it."

Molly said nothing to that, but her eyes glanced briefly to Mel, then down towards the floor.

"So," Mel said. "How are we doing this?"

Rache looked at Lucie. "That depends. Are you okay with being touched?"

Lucie gave a very Gallic shrug, as if the words had washed off her like water on a duck's back. "If that's what it takes."

"Okay," Rache said. "So we have four condoms left. Mel can't have sex with Lucie directly without a condom, but he can have sex with each of us, and we can pour the condoms into Lucie. Meanwhile, Lucie can masturbate, and we can help her out so that she has an orgasm or four, which should increase the chances of conception."

Molly glanced at Mel. "You're going to have sex with all four of them?"

"Sounds like it," Mel said. "Um. Refractory period being what it is, it will take me longer to ejaculate after each round. We might be here for an hour or two. Maybe more. What about oral sex?"

"Oh, we can get you hard," Rache said confidently.

"I mean, am I eating Lucie out at any point?" Mel asked. "Do we have any dental dams left?"

Jordan held up two.

"Right," Mel said. He took a deep breath. This wasn't exactly a spontaneous show of love and lust. More of the necessary logistics of trying to satisfy four women with different expectations and requirements. So... Lucie. Would you like to do this on the couch or the bed? Start out with cunnilingus, or what? You're our guest, after all."

"I think we should start with getting naked," Lucie said. "Molly, darling, unless you want to see rather more of your mother than you ever hoped..."

"I'm fine," Molly said, planting herself in the chair. Then her face grew grave. "Are you going to tell mon père?"

Lucie sighed as she unbuttoned her blouse. "Papa has said that he has no desire to know what I'm doing or who I'm doing it with during this weekend. I suspect we will have a lot of making up to do with him when I get back. He is very kind and understanding, but I fear I still hurt him."

Jordan and Jenny took off their t-shirts, their small breasts bare, nipples stiff. Mel took that as a cue to begin undressing. Molly sat on her chair, spine stiff, hands on her knees as five people carefully disrobed in front of her, folding their clothes and putting them in neat little piles on the chest of drawers or the kitchen counter.

She stared openly at Rachel and Jordan with their blonde hair. The brain slug on Jenny's back stared back at her as the slim Asian woman bent down to pull her panties and step out of them. Sucked in her lips and bit them as Mel pulled down his pants, staring at his Japanese underwear. Her mother stared too, when Mel unwound the fundoshi and finally stood there naked in front of them.

Lucie took a deep breath.

"Well," she said at last. "You're not exactly like your father."

Mel wasn't sure how to take that. So instead, he ran his eyes over Lucie.

Undressed, Lucie's curves stood out more clearly. The breasts were bigger and hung lower than Rachel's; the nipples were dark and thick. The hips were more pronounced, the thighs thicker, the stomach a little soft. A dark triangle of hair hid her labia. Lucie held her hands on her hips, and Mel couldn't tell if she was blushing, but he could see that the nipples were getting stiff.

"So," he said. "Where do you want me first?"

Jordan stepped forward. She had a condom in her hand. Nor was she afraid to use it.

Mel wasn't quite hard as she slid it onto his prick. Her mouth found his clavicle, kissing hard. Jordan left a trail of kisses down his chest, pausing to run her tongue around his nipple before moving down to where he had begun to swell. Lucie sat on the edge of the couch and watched as Rachel and Jenny laid down towels on the cushions. Rache whispered something in Lucie's ear, and the older woman nodded, her hand finding its way between her legs, rubbing her slit.

There was a weird expectancy in the air, as Jordan's tongue reached the almost-fully-erect prick. Blood rushed into it as she slowly took it in deep, as deep as she could, and then she pulled back, lips pulling back as the blonde brain slug host sucked hard, until only the tip was in her mouth, and her blue eyes found Mel's and she held him there for a moment, her tongue playing around the swollen, rubbery head in its thin sheath.

A moan caught his attention. Mel turned to see Jenny in his spot on the couch, slouched down, legs open. Rache was on her knees, face buried in the shaven snatch, fingering herself, rubbing at her clit as she licked. When Jordan released Mel with a wet smack of her lips, Rache raised her head and smiled at him.

"She's ready for you," the blonde said.

Jordan held Mel's hip as Rachel moved out of the way. Jenny's face was flushed, her expression placid. Dimly, Mel was aware that he had an audience, mother and daughter watching as he leaned over her and kissed Jenny's nipples. Rache reached between his legs from behind, her thumb on the base of his scrotum as he guided himself in between those shaven lips, the smooth labia parting as he pushed in.

Later, Mel wondered if there was a calculated cruelty to that plan. It shouldn't have been possible for the three women to have planned things out in detail without everyone else hearing, but he had noticed odd moments of synchronicity since Rachel had taken the blue pearl. Lucie, seated on the edge of the couch, her dark fingers rubbing through those dark curly hairs to excite herself as she watched her sperm donor make love to his girlfriends, one after another, wanting to feel that and knowing she wouldn't... maybe there was method in their madness.

What Mel knew was that the sisters weren't idle as he humped and pumped. Rache's fingers rubbed at Jenny's clit. Jordan's mouth sucked at a nipple. For twenty intense minutes, Jenny was on the receiving end of attention from all three of them, as Mel's thrusts grew deeper and faster, and the dark-haired brain slug host's thighs rose, the heels closing tight against his buttocks, bucking against him as he went faster and faster, the utter need building and building at the base of him until, with a sudden unstoppable runaway sprint that made even the brain slug host gasp, her dark eyes going wide, the whites glowing softly, he exploded deep inside, white rope after rope filling the sperm receptacle.

Mel pulled out. The dangling balloon hung at the end of his prick. He sucked in air, then bent forward and buried his face hungrily in Jenny's snatch. Her fingers curled through the hair of his head to grip his skull as he finished her off. He could feel her toes curl against his shoulder, the tightness of her thighs that went suddenly slack.

When he came up for air, Mel saw Rache hand the filled condom to Lucie.

The older woman lay with her hips raised on the arm of the couch. Long, nimble fingers dug through the dark thatch and spread her labia. Mel caught a glimpse of salmon-pink as she guided the condom to the entrance and carefully inverted it, squeezing every drop deep inside. Molly, Mel saw, was staring. Lips open, the tip of her tongue visible. Knuckles white on her knees, looking as if she wanted the courage to say something, but couldn't find it.

Jenny handed Mel a can of Quench. As he cracked it open, Jenny stood on shaky legs. Jordan sat down on the damp towel. As Rache settled between her sister's legs, Jenny knelt before Mel. She gave the base of his shaft a little kiss before she slid the second condom on. Mel chugged the revitalizing drink as Jenny went to work. She took her time, not trying to engulf him, but holding his head in her mouth and slowly stroking the shaft with her fingers, her free hand gently tugging and squeezing his testicles, especially the sensitive underside that ran up to his taint.

It took time. Eight minutes, maybe, for Mel to be truly hard, and even then he knew it would take longer to erupt. Yet when he was standing tall again, Jordan was ready.

She had her labia spread, slick with her sister's spit and her own juices. The whites of her eyes seemed to glow. Mel knelt down and gently tapped her labia with his shaft. Smiled at her as he rubbed his tip against her stiff clit, which already stood protuberant outside of its hood. He set his thumb on that sensitive little bean as he slowly slid his tip in. Just the tip. Getting her used to the size and heat of it as the pad of his thumb rubbed in slow circles. They stared in each other's eyes, just breathing as he felt her muscles squeeze him.

He slid deeper inside slowly. Never stopping with his tongue. With Lucie laying on the other side of the couch, letting the cum soak deep inside, there wasn't room for both of Mel's other girlfriends. Yet Rachel hung out next to Jordan on the couch, licking and sucking at her nipples, letting her tongue play with her sister's as Mel moved deeper. Jenny crawled toward Lucie, and Mel saw she lowered her mouth toward a dark nipple.

For a moment, Mel thought Lucie might say something. He paused, all the way inside of Jordan, and looked over at their older guest.

"If you don't want to interact with the ladies, you don't have to," he said. "Just say the word. Nobody touches you unless you want to."

"No," Lucie shook her head. "It's fine. Just... unexpected. I haven't been with a woman in a long time."

Mel glanced at Molly. She looked ready to explode, beads of perspiration on her face. He was sure she had a thousand questions. The expression on her face reminded Mel of a time they had taken them out to a three-hour movie at the theater, and by the time it was done his bladder had been ready to explode.

"If you need to go take care of anything," Rache said quietly. "The bathroom will give you some privacy."

Molly shook her head. Knees together now, feet hooked around the legs of the chair. Missing nothing.

Rache's left hand lay on her sister's stomach.

"Fuck her good, Mel," she whispered, voice breathy. "Hard and deep. Fuck her like you're going to put a baby in her."

Mel's face burned at that. He slid out until only the tip remained inside, then pushed it back in. Not too deep, despite what Rache said. He didn't want to hurt Jordan. The blue eyes of the brain slug host found his, and though she didn't smile, a little color grew on those cheeks, the dark pupils grew wide, and her right hand reached out and found his left, the fingers twining, palms pressed together as he picked up the pace.

A slight moan from Mel's left caught his attention, but he ignored it as his hips bucked a little faster. His thumb never wavered in its gyrations, always pressing on Jordan's clit. Her knees drew up and pressed against his sides, so only his hips moved, thrusting forward, balls slapping against her ass with each stroke, and for a moment. Mel thought about what this would feel like without a condom, if he was taking her unprotected, of his seed splashing against her cervix and the eager sphincter opening to suck it all in where her egg lay waiting. His body tensed and shook as he thought of her there with her belly bloated and breasts sagging to either side, the pink nipples darker, thicker, beaded with milk. A mother's body, ripe and fertile and...

Jordan's mouth opened in a soundless O of ecstasy that drove Mel wild, pounding at her faster and deeper for a moment as his aching balls clenched and a line of fire drew up his shaft to erupt in a moment when Mel's vision seemed to fail, and his whole body acted on autopilot, a torrent of white liquid ballooning the condom as his thrusts grew short and fast, pumping madly.

When he pulled out, Jordan sat up, and their lips met, tongues tasting each other. Sweat dripped down Mel's ribs now, chest heaving as they shared one hot breath between them. Then Jordan let him go and fell back. Jenny pinched off the condom and carried it over Lucie's body, letting the latex slide between her breasts and over her belly before she brought it to the upraised hips.

"So much..." Lucie said, and her voice was tighter now. Mel saw that both of her nipples were wet and hard, and what might have been the impression of teeth around them. The older woman spread her lips with her fingers, and this time Jenny poured it in, working with the same meticulous care she might have done to make sure a hungry brain slug got its share.

Mel took a quick bathroom break. When he came back out, he found things had changed up a little.

Jenny was running a safety razor between Lucie's legs. The dark forest was swiftly vanishing, leaving behind dark skin and the soft swell of the mons. Rachel and Jordan were on the other end of the couch, the brain slug host rubbing her fingers over her sister's slit, their lips locks in a kiss.

"Is it... always like this?" Molly asked. Her gaze went back to Mel's crotch. He was still somewhat swollen, though nowhere near getting fully erect again, at least for a few minutes.

"We don't have group sex every night, if that's what you're asking," Mel said.

"No, I mean," Molly gestured to Rache and Jordan. "Were they always... bisexuelle?"

Mel thought about it.

"I don't know if brain slug sexuality is very cut and dried that way," he said. "Rachel wasn't very interested in the girl-girl stuff at the beginning, but Jordan and Jenny were open to a physical relationship with her, and I admit I'm kind of glad. I think I would be hard-pressed to keep them all happy if it was down to just me. You've seen some of my limits, and I still have two condoms to fill. Speaking of which..." he slid the third onto his half-swollen shaft.

Jenny had finished shaving Lucie's crotch. The dark inner lips were slightly protuberant, showing a thin slice of pink, sticky with white. Over this, Jenny carefully placed the dental dam, the clear plastic covering Lucie from perineum to clitoris. The Asian brain slug host pressed her tongue against the slightly swollen sensitive nub, and Lucie gave out a soft moan.

Mel watched and stroked. He knew that Lucie's chances of conception were greater if the sperm actually made it into her womb. An orgasm would cause her cervix to draw those two loads down into her. The thought was arousing, but after two ejaculations in quick succession, Mel knew he wasn't going to be standing tall immediately. So he enjoyed the show.

So did Molly. She sat with her ass on the edge of the chair, eyes going from the three scenes of sexual activity. Mel had the impression her panties were pressing hard against the edge of the chair, and she kept wiping her hands on her thighs. Careful not to let her fingers go anywhere close to her own crotch, yet at the same time, he was certain the sights, sounds, and smells were affecting her. Perspiration beaded her upper lip, and little rivulets ran down her face and soaked her collar and armpits.

Rache smiled at Molly, her expression sympathetic.

"When you're in a group," the blonde said. "Group stuff is part of the point. I mean, we all love Mel, don't get me wrong, and there's nothing like having that hard, hot meat up inside of me, but the variety... I never get bored, you know? And I don't think anybody here does. Just so much more fun than playing by myself."

Molly sucked in her lips at that. Mel, for his part, grew tired of just watching and slid onto his knees, one hand still stroking his length as he planted a kiss on Rachel's knee. Then another on his thigh. He could smell her excitement now, a sharp, tangy scent that meant her juices were flowing. Two of Jordan's fingers were churning her sister up, sliding in and out, and Rache was panting even before Mel's face drew close. Jordan's fingers left a slimy trail on Rache's stomach as Mel's mouth settled on the protuberant clit, sucking softly.

Before Mel even put it in, Rache's hips bucked, and she gave a moan, a hot spurt of liquid splashing across Mel's face to drip down his chin and onto his chest.

"W-wait!" Rache said. "Let me get in position."

She turned over, sliding down until her knees were on the floor, ass pointed toward Mel, whose aching stiffness stood out in front of him. Rache reached between her legs and spread her lips in lewd invitation.

"Come on!" she said. "Fuck me like you're going to breed me!"

Lucie looked at Mel sharply, and he gave a sheepish grin as he positioned himself behind Rachel.

"She has a kink," Mel said. "Don't worry, you're the one getting the semen."

Lucie frowned at that. Then reached towards Jenny's head.

"Careful!" he warned. "Don't touch the brain slug. They're very sensitive."

The hand withdrew. Lucie occupied herself with tugging at her nipples. Which gave Mel the idea of reaching down beneath Rache to cup and caress her breasts. He kissed her spine, just below the incision where the blue pearl had been implanted. A soft blue glow was visible beneath the skin there, but only if you knew to look for it.

"C'mon, babe," Rache said, pushing her buttocks back to meet his gentle thrusts. "Hard and fast. Pump it in me. I've already cum..."

"Once," he said, his fingers toying with her stiff nipples. "Which is a good start."

Mel wasn't aware where Jordan had gone until he felt the tongue that lapped at his scrotum. As her humped, with the single-minded determination of a man with one job to do, the blonde brain-slug host let her tongue and mouth clean him with the thoroughness of a cat. Her tongue ran all over his suck, the base of his shaft where the condom didn't quite reach, and up over her perineum. It even inched delicately near his anus, and Mel felt a strange apprehension and excitement at the thought of that. They had never done that before.

Nor did they do it now. Mel felt an absurd disappointment as Jordan grabbed her sister's thighs and pressed her hips against Mel's butt, thrusting as he thrust, adding her mass and strength to his, forcing his prick into her sister faster and harder. Beneath them both, Rachel's fingers found her clit, and she jilled for all she was worth. Unlike the two brain slug hosts, she was vocal in her appreciation. Moans that grew higher and higher in pitch and volume, her wordless exultation evident as Mel jackhammered into her pussy from behind... and when he grunted and burst inside of her, Jordan kept moving, kept forcing him to pump forward, even as his shaft began to shrink and he was pushing rope, until Rache shuddered and buried her face in the couch cushion to scream through her second climax.

He pulled out, and Jenny pulled the dental dam off. This time it was Jordan that squeezed the sperm into Lucie's slit, and Mel saw that the fresh-shaven flesh was wet and dribbling, liquid running down from the soft moans down the crack of the older woman's ass. Her full, sagging breasts rose and fell as she gulped in air, and Mel guessed if she hadn't already climaxed, she was close.

"Got another one in you?" Lucie asked Mel, her voice a resonant, breathy whisper.

"I said I would," Mel said. "One more condom."

"Are you really ready?" Lucie said, one hand circling her clit, which was darker than the other women's, he noticed. "To come back to where you came from?"

Mel felt a sudden twinge of irritation. He stared at the pussy. Not sure how he should feel. Knowing he had been born from there, yet that he had not been conceived there. That his parents, his real parents, were dead. Lucie was no more than a rented room where he'd spent the first forty weeks of his life. Intellectually, he knew that. Emotionally, he felt... not quite anger and not quite regret. It was a pussy. Not much different from the three others he had just had sex with. Yet it felt different, as he reached for the last condom.

Molly had it.

"Can I... put it on?" she asked.

Mel looked a question at Lucie. The older woman, her legs drawn up on the couch so that her ass hung off the edge, the white speckle of jizz just visible in her pink slit, gave another Gallic shrug. As if to say that every duck had to learn how to swim.

"If you want," Mel said. "Just be careful. We only have the one left."

He stood there, hands behind his back, as his sister fumbled with the wrapper. She found the trick of it and held the round, thin, clear membrane in her hands. As she brought it up to press against Mel's glans, which was red and angry-looking, a white drop hanging from the puffy urethra, Jordan and Jenny knelt down on either side of her and touched her forearms. Molly froze like a roach before the shoe comes down. Yet she seemed to relax as the two gently guided her to push the condom over the tip and down the half-shrunken length.

Jordan used one finger to prop the half-flaccid cock up, so that Molly could make sure the rim was secure against the base. Then they both gently pulled her back and toward the chair.

Mel stared down at Lucie's vagina. A pussy already full of his own cum. She could already be pregnant, though Mel doubted it. Conception could take hours, even days after insemination. Even if this session worked, they wouldn't know for weeks. When Lucie would be back in Quebec, with her husband.

"It's okay, you know," Lucie said, as she reached down and spread her labia wide with both hands. Mel stared down as she worked her internal muscles, churning up the sperm. "If you need to work some feelings out. Mommy understands."

Mel wasn't hard yet. He was getting there. His girlfriends stared at him, wondering what he would do. His heart pounded in his chest, the pulse sounding in his ears. Thumb and forefinger stroked life into the soft shaft. It hadn't been long enough for him to get hard yet. Mel took his eyes away from Lucie's creamy cunt and stared into her dark eyes. The heat on his face reflected all the emotions he couldn't name. His balls ached; his prick hurt as it grew harder and harder as he stared at her sweaty breasts, the full, mature body. Tried to imagine what it would look like when pregnant again.

"You're not my mother," Mel said as he placed the base of his thumb against Lucie's clit. He stared into her eyes as his thumb began to circle, and it took all of his self-control to keep it gentle, not rough or jerky. Mel wanted Lucie to climax; he didn't want to hurt her. Pain wouldn't help her get pregnant. Her pain wouldn't make his pain any less. "You could have been, but you didn't want to be. You wanted a sperm donor. So that's what you're going to get. I never got the chance to show you I could be a good son. Now I'm going to show you I can fuck. Because that's all you ever wanted from me."

The last line came out colder than Mel wanted, and the mood in the room soured. Lucie's face changed from growing excitement to hurt.

"That's not fair. I'm not... you're not just a sperm donor," she said. Her voice quavered. "Do you even know what it's like to see someone that looks just like your dead lover, come back from the grave after fifteen years? Can you not appreciate how hard that is to me, to see my own daughter next to someone who is the spitting image of her father? The way she looks at you..."

Lucie's eyes went to Molly's, and they were bright with tears.

"You look at him the way I looked at James," Lucie said. "Is it so wrong to want to feel that again, if only for a weekend, a night, a moment? To know what it is to be filled with life again, to give myself entirely to someone else and hope... maybe... this time it will work?"

She bit her lip and turned her face away. Mel wanted to kiss the tears from her eyes. He felt an ache in his heart that was not motherly love, but may have been something more primal, the empathy of one animal for another that was in pain. There were no answers Mel could give to Lucie, no balm to soothe old wounds he had opened just by existing.

So he pushed his cock into his cum-filled cunny.

Lucie gasped... and Molly was there, kneeling at the edge of the couch, holding her mother's right hand in both of hers.

"Maman, je te pardonne. Je te pardonne tout. Je suis désolée. Je n'ai jamais voulu te faire de mal. Je pensais que tu m'avais enlevé mon frère. Je n'avais jamais imaginé ce que tu devais ressentir," Molly said, holding her mother's hand against her burning cheek.

It would have been a touching moment if Mel wasn't driven like a man possessed, pumping his rod in and out of that sopping cunny with the single-mindedness of a piledriver, his thumb a frantic exclamation point grinding her clit as he thrust. He could feel inside of him the empty, itching spot where three loads had boiled up. His body ached, unfamiliar muscles pushed to unfamiliar limits, and he sucked in air as he kept up a punishing pace.

Her full breasts wobbled and jiggled with each slam of his hips into her ass. His balls slapped audibly with each stroke, and her left hand groped feebly for something to hold onto as she threatened to fall off the couch cushions, the force and frantic energy of his hard, fast fucking unlike anything he had shown with his girlfriends.

Need drove Mel. Some urgent need to give Lucie what she wanted, what he wanted, what they both wanted and desired. A white froth built up around his plunging prick as her muscles coiled around him, striving to take the hard pounding. Slick as she was from the masturbation and cunnilingus, the older woman had not in any way been prepared to take an 18-year-old venting fifteen years of frustration on her poor pussy in a single sustained sexual episode.

Then Jordan and Jenny were there, holding Lucie's legs. Rachel climbed onto the couch and grabbed Lucie's hand and held her shoulder. The older woman was pinned in place, unable to escape Mel's pile-driver pump that seemed to slam as deep into her as he could with every desperate thrust, that aching need growing and growing behind the root of him, balls striving to generate enough for one final impregnating pulse.

Lucie and Mel's eyes met, and her face cracked into a grin of such pure carnal pleasure that Mel's pace almost faltered. It was as if she was reliving some moment of more than twenty years ago, when her husband waited in the living room as his wife and her lover slammed the headboards of the bed into the wall, locked in a moment that he could never experience, to give her something that he could not give her.

Mel didn't blame Mr. Maguire for how he had felt after. He somehow doubted they would be friends after this night either.

The older woman screamed first. Her pussy tightened impossibly, and her nails dug into Molly and Rache's hands as a slow electric burst emanated from her clenched cunny and made its way throughout her body. For a moment, Lucie seemed like she didn't breathe; her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and then her mouth opened, and she vented a guttural exhalation from the very core of her being.

Mel kept pounding. His strength was flagging, the pace was telling, and his raging hardon was nearing its limits after ejaculating so many times in short succession. Before he was ready, he felt the tickle, the leak, then the agonizing slow travel of the fresh seed up the ragged channel. When it burst out to fill the sperm reservoir at the tip of the condom, it was less a thick rope than a kind of endless burning dribble, Mel's hips moving on their own, internal muscles straining to get out every single drop.

Lucie's pussy was a mess when Mel pulled out. A creamy white froth, splattered over the edges, dribbling down onto the towels. Mel remembered they still hadn't done laundry yet, and he was glad of it. They would need to wash damn near everything in the apartment before he could have a clean towel for a shower.

He pulled off the condom himself. It wasn't as full or thick as the first three, but it was the freshest. Jenny and Jordan reached over and pulled the older woman's labia wide, so that Mel could empty it out inside of her. Mel stared for a long moment at the cream-filled mess where he himself had come from, eighteen years and almost three months ago.

"Dental dam," he said, knowing they had one left. Jordan let go of Lucie's leg to fetch it. The older woman panted, staring at him without comprehension.

"What? You don't have to--" she began.

Mel carefully stretched the thin sheet over the messy muff.

"I know," he said softly. "But I want to."

He couldn't taste her through the oral barrier. Yet he could smell their mingled fluids. Feel the heat that radiated through the thin latex. Mel pressed his lips hard against her clit and sucked until he heard Lucie's sharp intake of breath. Someone's hand, perhaps Rachel's, combed through his hair.

"He's always been like this, you know," Rache said, voice tired. "Considerate. Empathetic. I think it's because he knows what it's like to be unsatisfied. He doesn't like to leave any of us wanting."

Mel pressed his tongue against the barrier, which seemed to outline the labia. He could almost feel the warm, wet mess that was his own splooge in the opening to her vaginal canal. Yet he focused most of his attention on her clitoris, sucking, licking, circling with tongue and lips, not afraid to press his face close against her crotch.

Lucie's breath grew faster. More than a pant. There was a soft whine in the back of her throat. Hips shifting, trying to rub herself against his face.

"One day," Rache said. "When we're both ready, he's going to breed me. I want it. I really want it. Want to feel him empty himself into me with that terrible intensity. Want to feel his need, his desire, to have all of me, and leave a part of himself behind. That's part of the reason I was okay with this. Because right now, this is as close as I can get to feeling that. By proxy."

A little cry. Old thighs turning inwards to clamp against Mel's face. He raised his eyes to see Rache's finger playing with Lucie's navel.

"If we're honest," Rache said. "I think we're all a little jealous."

CHAPTER 126

Limbs are relatively common among most tool-using species, and manipulators at the end of those limbs vary in size, number, dexterity, and applicable grip strength. From a practical perspective, this means that a wide variety of alien technology shares broadly similar mechanics for control interfaces: handles, buttons, and levers are common. Humans may find an Etherling hammer, designed for a three-fingered grip, short and awkward in the hand, but they can probably use it effectively. Similarly, any human (and many other terrestrial species) can press buttons. This has caused a wide variety of accidents.

--Mallory Giger, Xenobiomechanics, Chapter 1

After everyone had dressed, Lucie was gone, and Mel had kissed Rachel goodnight; he found himself stuffing dirty laundry into three washing machines down in the laundry. Jordan was with him, seated on an orange chair. He settled down next to her and closed his eyes, exhausted in body but also deep down inside, a kind of mental and emotional exhaustion that was different from what he normally felt after sex. Not satisfied, not pleasantly spent, just sort of empty.

Her hand found his, and he gave it a little squeeze.

"Did I do the right thing?" Mel asked. He stared into the little windows, where water was pouring down onto the clothes, to wipe them clean of the scents and stains of sex and sweat. "Should I have just said no?"

Jordan didn't answer. She just held his hand.

Mel opened his eyes and looked at her. She was watching the machines as they began to spin. In profile, he could see the little dip in her nose--it had been broken once, though Mel didn't know how--and the soft roundness of her chin. It occurred to him then, staring at that placid face, that because they didn't smile, brain slug faces might age differently. Fewer lines around the mouth.

"I didn't want to hurt you," Mel said into the silence. "I didn't want to hurt anybody. Never wanted to be put in that position. Just wanted to make everybody happy. In the end, I don't know if I made anybody happy."

Now Jordan turned her face towards him. No longer flush with arousal, her face was pale, except for the scatter of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The brain slug on her neck, a translucent emerald now, shifted its small dark head towards him. Her thumb played over his fingers for a moment, then pulled away. She twisted in the chair to face him.

Jordan pointed at herself. One finger, right between her breasts, almost tapping her sternum.

Then she crossed her arms over her chest.

Finally, she pointed at Mel, and her finger poked him in the chest, as if for emphasis.

Mel knew those signs. He had learned them recently. Some of the most important signs of all. They spelled out a simple phrase.

"I love you, too," Mel said, as he repeated the signs to her.

Jordan didn't smile. But she took his hand in hers and went back to watching the laundry. Mel wasn't sure what else he needed to say to her. What else could she say to him? He knew she could understand what he said, but his vocabulary in ASL was still so limited; he wasn't sure what she could say back that he would be able to understand. There was still that vast gap between them, of things unsaid and unsayable.

Yet she said she loved him. Maybe she thought that was enough.

Mel hoped she was correct.

They worked together to move the wet laundry into the dryers. More credits spent. More spinning. In the quiet, Mel's brain would not stop running over things. Piecing together patterns that might not exist. Trying to define a picture from the noise of his life. A dangerous mood that led to weird, paranoid thoughts.

Did they want me to impregnate her? Mel wondered, thinking of the brain slugs. Just to make sure I could? I mean, I know my sperm count and motility are high, and they said they want a hybrid. Is this an experiment? To see if I can get someone pregnant?

It wasn't a thought Mel liked. He wanted, needed, to trust his girlfriends. The thought that this was all part of a long game, and he was just supposed to be some stud horse for their breeding program...

The thought was short-circuited by Jordan climbing into his lap. Being taller than Mel, this was awkward. He had to shuffle forward until his butt was on the edge of the chair, so her legs could wrap behind him. Her long arms wrapped around his, and her cheek rubbed against his forehead. One of the women working at the orphanage occasionally brought an old cat, which would crawl into her lap like that. A vampire for warmth, demanding physical touch and proximity.

Mel wrapped his hands around Jordan's lower back, just above the waistband of her athletic pants. A distant twinge of complaint from his crotch, which he ignored. There was nothing sensual about this. Just... warmth. They sat there as the dryer did its thing, and Mel breathed in her smell, that slightly fishy odor that he had grown so used to that he didn't even notice it anymore, except when they were close like this. Her mouth moved down to his ear and nipped it, holding the cartilage between her lips, applying just a little pressure.

There was a time when being this close to her would have scared Mel.

The ding of the dryer interrupted their reverie. They folded shirts and socks, pants and panties, sheets and towels. Mel wasn't sure how to roll a fundoshi, and decided to simply roll them up into tubes. He could look up the proper procedure later.

Then up, five flights, his thighs aching, eyes resting comfortably on Jordan's butt. He wondered how she felt. They'd never talked about what it felt like after sex. Mel knew she and Jenny liked to take a shower soon after. Brush their teeth. Come to think of it, Béibhinn had been quick about it after their encounter. Brain slugs were fastidious because of their sensitive chemical sensors. Probably Jordan would be dying for a wash once they got back.

Jenny was curled up naked on the couch. Béibhinn's door was closed. Mel handed Jordan the towels.

"Go ahead and shower," he whispered, trying not to wake Jenny. "I'll put the laundry away."

No smile. Jordan's hand brushed Jenny's shoulder, and the other sat up, as if she hadn't been asleep at all. Mel spent a few minutes putting the clothes in the drawers--and noticed, to his chagrin, that the box with that alien device was now in the uppermost drawer. He stuffed his underwear around it. The water was still running when that was done, so Mel made the bed.

They had been very keen on making the bed at the orphanage. It was one of the things they expected them to do. There had been older teens, Mel's age, who swore when they got out that they would never make their bed again. That they'd rather sleep on the floor. Mel wasn't sure if any of them followed through on that.

At the end of the day, he thought, as he stuffed pillows into pillowcases, I like sleeping on clean sheets.

Jordan and Jenny emerged, clean and fresh and very tired. Mel let them pass straight into the bedroom as he took his turn in the shower. He was just getting a good lather going when the door opened again, and Béibhinn sat on the toilet. His cheeks burned as he heard a tell-tale tinkle.

"So, you actually did it?" the ghola asked. Mel had to stick his head out from behind the shower curtain to hear her. The burn spread to his ears as he realized that Béibhinn was naked and taking a leak. Automatically, he shifted his gaze to the ceiling. "Inseminated the old lady?"

"Yeah," Mel said. "I did. Indirectly. Condoms."

"Right," Béibhinn said, nodding. She was staring at the curtain, at about the level where Mel's crotch should be. "Did they use the device? The bio-selector?"

Mel frowned. He hadn't even considered they might do that.

"No. Never took it out of the box," he said.

"Good," she said, elbows on her knees. Her skin looked thinner than before. Stretched taut in places, slightly baggy and wrinkled in others. "That might have been a problem. I'm a little concerned, honestly."

Mel's jaw worked. "About what?"

"This whole breeding urge," Béibhinn said. "It isn't normal. I mean, it's normal enough for brain slugs. Once they're in a host body, you've got a critter with a brain the size of a pea plugged into a much bigger brain, and the slug is piggybacking most of the host's instincts and autonomous routines. Reproductive urges can be very strong. It's not unusual for brain slugs to investigate mating behaviors. The hives plan on that, work around it, to control it, channel it into desired outcomes. But... the others. Rachel, that older woman..."

"Lucie," Mel supplied.

"Right. From what I gather in Earth culture, that's not normal," the ghola said. She twisted her head. There were audible cracks from her vertebrae, and she gave a lopsided smile. "I never really get used to that. I need to talk with MacElroy about your... breeding session."

"Why?" Mel said, not sure what she was getting at. Sure, what happened tonight wasn't normal as far as he understood it, but he couldn't see how that was any of the brain bat's concern. She had nothing to do with brain slugs or anything else.

Those rusted-jade eyes rose and met his.

"The Changeling," she said. "If it exists. It could potentially influence people indirectly. Rhizomat bodies are basically bio-chemical factories, but they don't understand the communication protocols of most species, but brain slugs primarily communicate through chemical markers, scents, and pheromones. A regular brain slug plugged into a human can't produce anything that would affect you more than, say, a wet pussy in the face might get any human male hard. A brain slug plugged into a Rhizomat has access to a much better chemistry set. It could be capable of amplifying responses. Triggering instincts. It might be why Rachel keeps coming across the hall to try and mate with you in the wee hours. That's one theory, anyway."

The hot water began to run out. Mel quickly rinsed the suds off and shivered under the cold for a few seconds before turning it off. Béibhinn stood, wiped, and flushed, then thrust the curtain aside and had a long look at the wet, naked roommate before handing him his towel.

"Not trying to dent your ego, you understand," the ghola said, offering him a crooked smile. "But it's possible that there was a lot more going on tonight than just one MILF with a biological clock tick-tick-ticking. Something for you to think about."

Mel did think about it as he toweled off. That aching emptiness inside his chest, the knot in his guts returned. He had assumed Lucie had been acting of her own free will, but if she was under the influence... but then, how could she be? She'd been coming on to him at the restaurant, hadn't she? Told him about her desire to get pregnant at the Cosmic Fill Up. When and where could the Changeling have gotten to her?

There were no answers to Mel's questions. So, before he crawled into bed between his girlfriends, he carefully slid the cold steel cage over himself and locked it, then wrapped the fundoshi about his hips.

Maybe he would be able to think more clearly in the morning.

CHAPTER 127

Regardless of species of origin, high-end tools have increasingly precise manufacturing standards and tend to feature things like torque sensors and computer-assisted guidance. Everyday tools are much simpler. Most species understand a sharpened piece of metal represents a danger to the integrity of their outer integument or carapace, or that it can damage vulnerable external sensory organs. (A notable exception is Electrovores, who view blades as very convenient arcing surfaces for discharge.)

--Mallory Giger, Xenobiomechanics, Chapter 1

His pale hand rested on the swollen, dark dome of her distended abdomen. The simple gold band on his ring finger glinted against the almost black stretch marks, ragged against the baby bump. Her pale, cold, dark hand slid over his.

The bedroom was strange, unfamiliar. Pictures of a smiling, bearded man, a dark-skinned woman, a small baby on the wall. The four-poster bed looked like an antique, all carved hardwood, yellow linen sheets that matched the drapes on the window, the pale gold of the walls.

"Talk to Sinead," Lucie said. The voice was younger, and as he raised his eyes, over where the yellow skirt of the dress was hiked up over the bare belly, the soft swell of her breasts, it was as though he stared into Molly's face. Smoother, brighter, fresher, the dark eyes wet. "You know Seamus is fine with it. Molly loves you. We could raise them together--be a family--"

"I'll always care for you and Molly," he said. The voice deeper than Mel's own, the accent a little unfamiliar. "But we talked about this."

"Why?" Lucie said, pressing closer, until the bare bump pressed against his own shirt. "Why can't I be enough for you? You know I'd give you anything--my pussy, my mouth, my ass--"

His thumb traced one of the stretch marks. Something pressed against his. A knee, a foot, a hand.

"I'll always appreciate what we had," he said quietly. "What you're doing for us. But as much as I care for you, I love Sinead. And you love Seamus."

"Seamus can't give me what I need," Lucie said, and pressed her hands against his shirt. She pushed him backwards on the bed. Before he could stop her, she lifted the dress up and over her head. The swollen breasts rested on the gravid belly; so full they looked like they hurt, the dark nipples stiff. She climbed on top of him, straddled him.

There was something wrong with her eyes. Where they should have been were dark recesses. The crinkly hair shook out, and a red-purple cap unfolded from her skull to shade the upper half of her face. Too late, he tried to struggle, to throw her off, but the thin brown limbs pinned his arms down, and small, dark tentacles slid out between her legs and began to unzip his pants.

"Give me your babies," she said, but the voice wasn't just Lucie's. It was like half a dozen voices at once, and Mel could pick out Molly and Rachel's, and Jenny and Jordan's voice from their testimonies, and Amelia...

"Uh uh uh uh..."

Mel's eyes popped open. Rachel, eyes closed, mouth open, tongue hanging out, was straddling him, rubbing herself furiously against his cage. Jordan and Jenny gripped his arms on either side, and as Mel looked from left to right, Jordan held up one finger to her lips. He blinked and stared up at his girlfriend as she angled herself to grind her clit against the metal. Hands on his stomach, hips and ass moving on autopilot, nipples stiff as she mindlessly rubbed herself against him.

He could smell coffee. A glance over Rachel's shoulder showed that 'stasia was there, waiting patiently. Rache's primal grunts grew faster, higher-pitched, reaching toward a familiar crescendo. Then her whole body stiffened, and her thighs clamped tight on his hips, shuddering uncontrollably as she threw back her head and let out a noise that Mel normally associated with a squirrel that had misjudged the distance to the next tree branch and was emptying its lungs on the terminal plunge.

As she sat there panting atop him, her eyes fluttered open. The grip of the brain slug hosts eased. Rache blinked, sat up, and looked down at herself. Even in the darkness, he could tell she was blushing and embarrassed.

"Not again," she moaned, her voice both sleepy and satisfied.

"At least it's safe this time," Mel said, his aching meat straining tight in its cage toward the warm, wet, eager orifice only a few millimeters away. "Morning, by the way."

"Good morning," she whispered and leaned over to kiss him on the lips--then turned her head to kiss Jordan and Jenny too, before climbing off.

'stasia had clothes, coffee, and the look of an extremely patient voyeur.

"I thought it might be best to just let you finish," their neighbor-cum-sex-friend said. "Since you don't need to get to the library until later today. I need to get to the coffee shop, however. Kiss?"

Rachel accepted the coffee and leaned across the bed, lips puckered. 'stasia took the opportunity to grab her roommate's breasts with both hands and squeeze softly. That made Rache gasp; the dark-haired young woman planted a five-fold kiss on Rachel's forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin. Everywhere except the lips.

"Tonight," she said. "I want to hear everything about what happened yesterday."

"Okay," Rache agreed. She stared back at Mel, her eyes dropped to his cage, and she gave a soft sigh. When they came back up, she asked the question: "Walk?"

They dressed. On their way out, Mel noticed that Béibhinn's door was open, the room empty. He glanced at where her boots should have been, next to the bed, but they weren't there. She had already left.

On the sidewalk outside the apartment, a tree was beginning to bloom. Rache and Mel walked silently, hand in hand, enjoying the slight breeze. It was overcast, and smelled of the rain that might come at any time, but he thought if they were lucky they might make it to the park and back again.

As Mel walked, he took stock of himself. Parts of him were still sore from last night. Group sex, even at his age, took a toll that he was feeling in little bits of soreness and stiffness in his hips and lower back. A part of him wondered if he shouldn't limber up first, maybe do some cool-down stretches next time. Then he smiled to himself. It wasn't a problem a lot of men his age were likely to have...

"Hey," he said. "Are you feeling okay? After last night?"

Rache smiled at him.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," she said, as they entered the path into the park.

"A little sore, but I think I just need to stretch more before and after--" he said.

"I'm not talking about that," Rache said. "I mean, mentally, emotionally. How do you feel having.... maybe impregnated the woman who was pregnant with you?"

Mel chewed that one over.

"A little empty, I guess. I don't love her, I don't hate her. I barely know her. Every other time I've had sex, it's been with someone I've had a relationship with, or I was sucked off by an alien in a bathroom. When I have sex with you or Jordan or Jenny, I feel--I don't know how to describe it. Like..." he chewed the thought, searching for words. "I don't feel magically complete and bonded at a spiritual level or anything, but there's a satisfaction. Like when everything is done at the Cosmic Fill-Up, and nothing needs to be cleaned or restocked, and even if you know somebody is going to make a mess of it, for a moment there's just the sense that things are okay. That I've done a good job."

Rache snorted. "Romantic."

Mel rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry. I've never had girlfriends before. I feel like there are things I should know how to do for you, but all I know about relationships is what I've seen on television, and that's always more big romantic gestures. Expensive date nights. Gifts. The only thing I can really afford on a regular basis is licking your pussy."

She chuckled at that. "Don't knock it. There are a lot of guys who don't even do that, so I'm told. You do a lot of things for us, though, beyond sex."

"Like what?" Mel asked.

"You didn't kick up a fuss when I showed up on your doorstep, or when Jenny suddenly needed to move in. When Amelia needed help with her baby, you were there to help. You may not have money, Mel Arkwright, but you're generous with whatever you do have. Which, in the case of Lucie, was your sperm," she said. Then her voice dropped. "That whole thing was totally hot, by the way. The only thing we need to work on is your dirty talk. You're almost as quiet as Jenny and Jordan during sex."

"Sorry," Mel said, almost by reflex.

"Don't be sorry, be better," Rache said. "Remember that little presentation we gave the class? I still want to practice that with our clothes off. When it's my turn in the schedule."

"Schedule," Mel said, as they entered the darkest part of the woods. "Right. We still need to set that up. The whole thing with Lucie sort of threw me off. There's that Etherling thing next week... and I should check on Cara and Amelia... but you three come first."

"Yes, we do," Rache said, and it took Mel a moment to get the joke.

They returned home for showers and stretches. Jordan and Jenny joined Mel for the exercises, and he focused on butterfly stretches to help relax the pelvic muscles, rather than push-ups and sit-ups.

"Rache reminded me, we still need to set up a schedule, if you ladies want to come up with something," Mel said. "I need to go to the library and return that book, check my email. Maybe we can go to the co-op later, get some groceries?"

Jenny and Jordan gave Mel a thumb's up. Then stepped forward to kiss him goodbye. Jenny brought her lips to his, the tip of her tongue slipping through his lips, so that Mel opened his mouth to respond. Jordan circled around and kissed the back of his neck, and her felt her teeth as she sucked hard. Marking territory again after last night's sharing.

Rachel was waiting for Mel in the corridor; today she wore a light grey jacket he hadn't seen before, over a black button-up blouse, with black slacks and sneakers. With her blonde hair up in a bun, she looked very much like a librarian to Mel. All she needed was a pair of glasses. He said as much.

"If my eyes ever get bad enough, I hope my insurance just springs for cybereyes," Rache admitted. "Our grandmother had detached retinas and then got cataracts, and was almost blind by the time she died. That was before they had really standardized the implants, and the battery technology wasn't really there, but nowadays it's almost an outpatient procedure."

Mel chewed that over. He couldn't really picture what cybernetic vision would be like. It didn't seem possible that it would be the same as normal human vision, yet the closest he could think of would be like when wearing the augmented reality glasses--a kind of staring out at the world as if watching television. His thumb rubbed over her knuckle.

"Well, I hope it doesn't come to that," he said. "I like your eyes. They suit you."

Rache smiled at that.

They walked up the steps to the library together. Rache passed through the security check point first--and then Mel set off the metal detector. Again.

Cage. Right, Mel thought, embarrassed, as Lacey, the little blue-haired woman with the neural jacks, smiled and waved at him. He smiled back as the alarmed beeping stopped and he slid The Exodus: A History into the return slot, then turned to the public computers.

He had to wait ten minutes for one to be free. Then he sat down, logged in using his library card ID, and on into his webmail. There was the usual clutter of advertisements for pornography, sexual enhancement stimulants, and political ads--it occurred to Mel that he was now legally old enough to vote, and should probably register to do so--along with pay statements. Nothing new from Molly or anyone else.

Mel was about to stand up when Detective MacElroy sat down at the computer right next to his.

"Stay a moment," she said quietly. She was in full coat-and-turban getup today, with the dark wraparound shades that concealed her eyes, and a pair of latex gloves on her hands. "Look busy."

Mel stayed, not sure what he was supposed to be doing, so he opened up the library's search engine and idly typed in "alien sexual techniques." To his surprise, there were three hits. He noted down the call numbers to check out.

As he looked busy, Mel felt a sudden weight in his right hoodie pocket, the one closest to MacElroy. He hadn't seen her arm move, but he knew something had changed.

"Hold it so that the nozzle is pressed between the first two fingers of your hand; your thumb will settle on the button on top," the brain bat said. "In your apartment, I need you to take several readings. At least one in each room; more would be better. Discreetly, but you'll need to do it with the device exposed to the air, not in your pocket. Act normal and put it back in your pocket when you're done. I'll pick it up Tuesday when you're at work. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Mel said. Then, fighting the urge to just search for it, asked, "What's it do?"

"It checks the density and composition of trace biological samples in the air. Dead epidermis cells, mainly," MacElroy said. "Given that it's just you and your roommates, the primary components should be human, brain slug, and ghola. Possibly a few of mine, and maybe traces of other extraterrestrials you've come into contact with lately."

Mel processed that. "You want to know if the Changeling has been in my apartment lately?"

The blue turbaned head dipped, as if studying her keyboard as she typed.

"I want to know," she said. "If it's still there."

Then she logged out, stood up, and left.

Mel looked back at his screen, memorized the call numbers again, and followed suit.

Reproductive Habits of Extraterrestrials was a dry academic anthology that was designed for PhD students in medicine and xenobiology, at least as near as Mel could judge. It had several full-color photos, but he already knew what a K'lur'k pseudovaginal opening looked like up close, and he soon decided there was nothing useful in it.

Sexual Secrets of Slugfuckers was the exact opposite in tone: a jocular parody that was borderline pornographic and deliberately crude. Mel wasn't surprised to find that it was edited and published by the makers of Slug Fucker Monthly. He flipped through it, pausing at some of the more well-designed graphics of the "Brain Slug Kama Sutra," but frowned when he read about things like wiping sweet fruit juices on his dick or other erogenous zones to encourage brain slug host partners to lick there. Raunchy suggestions included tying a brain slug host down and blowing a load over her breasts, to see her frantically try to slurp up the semen, with the idea that the masturbator was supposed to obtain sexual satisfaction out of watching the helpless host writhe.

Mel put the book back on the shelf. The third call number was located in a very different part of the library, the self-help section. It was a thin, self-published pamphlet that the library had rebound in an institutional green hardback. Your Brain Slug Lover and You (Tokyo Hive, 2053) was only perhaps forty pages long, with a few computer-assisted drawings. The title page said this was the "First English edition," and gave the translator as Anaïs Nineveh. Mel read the first paragraph of the introduction:

Every brain slug host is unique, and every human must learn to love them uniquely. This is our shared experience in Tokyo: as each brain slug connects to the host in its own way, so does each combined entity have its own erogenous points and desires. This work will help guide you and your lover into discovering those points, and achieving a deeper level of sexual satisfaction and emotional connection.

Lacey didn't even blink when he checked it out.

"Two weeks, dearie," she said with a smile. "Happy reading!"

The day was warm enough that the skimply-clad brain slug cultists didn't seem in danger of hypothermia as Mel politely declined their offer of more fliers.

Jordan and Jenny were dressed and ready for the co-op. They didn't smile to see him. They never smiled. Yet he noticed he had their attention the moment he walked in the apartment, and Jordan clung to his arm and Jenny held his hand as they walked. Mel even remembered to bring his non-disposable bags this time.

The trio scrutinized the fresh veggies, the for-sale aisle, the flavors of ramen on bulk discount. Mel didn't wince as the money was debited from his account for his share of the groceries, though he was glad the small pay increase meant that he wasn't broke. As long as he didn't have to buy Rache many more morning-after pills.

For an evening, things were cozily domestic. Mel boiled his chicken ramen with fresh spinach leaves. Tofu sandwiches were made. On the fridge door, Mel noticed a list had been written in pen on the back of a receipt:

Mon: Jordan

Tues: Jenny

Wed: Rachel

Thurs: Cara / Maxine

Fri: Béibhinn / Anastasia

Sat: Mel's choice

Sun: Mel's choice

Other: Make appointment

"Okay," he said, and for what seemed like the first time in forever, though it had only been a few days, they settled down on the couch together to watch a documentary. Jenny had the controls and found one on a kind of African giant land snail that infested a small island off the coast of Florida. The town had been hit hard by the epidemic, and the snails had basically taken over. There were lots of long, lingering shots of snails 6-to-8 inches long crawling through abandoned houses, over the rusty shells of cars. The final, almost horrific sequence showed what had happened to the public library on the island, where salty, humid air and ravenous snails had turned the stacks of books into mouldering piles, some of which glistened with eggs.

After they washed up, Jordan tapped the sign. It was Sunday. She was asking who Mel wanted to have sex with.

Mel closed his eyes and thought about that for a long moment.

"I'm still a little out of it after yesterday," he said, offering an apologetic smile. He held up the new library book. "And I'd like to read for a little while before bed."

Jordan and Jenny gave him a thumb's up. Nor did they immediately get on the couch and spread their legs, ready for a tongue bath. Mel took that to mean that either they respected his choice, or they weren't in the mood either. As they brushed their teeth, Mel found himself studying their slugs, side by side. Nearly identical, though not completely. Jenny's still had the scar, a little raised ridge of tissue from the budding. Both were a pure, nearly translucent emerald green tonight.

It wasn't until Mel had stripped down and climbed between them, and heard the patter of the rain begin to finally fall outside, that he realized that he hadn't seen Béibhinn all day, and that she still wasn't back yet.

CHAPTER 128

Human beings are not machines. They are not standardized. DNA is a template, but the final adult form is determined by millions of other factors. Diet, environment, exercise, accidents. Each person is unique. The anatomy is similar, but never identical. When a brain slug integrates with a human, it follows its instincts, or the guidance of the hive mind. Yet in each case, it is dealing with a unique problem. How can the resulting brain slug host be other than unique? Some find unexpected numbness, having inadvertently severed key nerve receptors. Others find novel erogenous zones. A navel as sensitive as a clitoris, or a particularly astute sense of taste that leads to stronger association with oral sex. You and your brain slug lover must begin on a journey to discover what arouses them.

--Anaïs Nineveh (trans.), Your Brain Slug Lover and You

Dark fingers played with Mel's chest hair. They were in the yellow room, now. He didn't recognize the skyline outside the window. Her face was older now, lined, bits of grey like wire in her unbound hair. On the wall, photos of the three of them at different ages. Lucie, her husband, and Molly. Lucie's head rested against Mel's shoulder. Beneath the sheet, he could feel the hard, taut swell of her stomach.

"You could stay," she whispered. "You don't have to go back. We could be a family together, here. You, me, Molly, and the baby."

"This isn't my home," Mel said. "Jordan, Jenny, Rache--"

"Those sluts don't know what to do with you," the older woman said. Her hand pressed against his chest, his heart thumping against her palm. "They play little games when they should love you, cherish you--"

Her fingernails unraveled. They fanned out across Mel's chest like the taproots of a plant.

"--just think how much I could give you. Keep this belly fat and swollen with your babies."

She rose, then, to straddle him. The sheet fell off, and Mel saw her breasts, the dark stretch marks on the sagging skin, the protuberant belly that settled on his own flat stomach. Things shifted and moved inside of her. Too many. Something warm gripped him, but something else slid out along his rigid length and wrapped around his balls.

"Come on. Give it to me. You know you want it. I'll make you happier than they ever could," the thing that was not Lucie said, and suddenly Mel couldn't see her face above the lips.

"No!" Mel shouted, but even in his own ears his voice was weak, vacillating--

A choked, interrogative noise woke Mel. He blinked and stared up from the bed. Rachel was standing at the foot of it, blinking herself, looking confused. Sleepwalking again, probably. Here to take Mel in his sleep again.

Except Jordan had beaten her to it.

The brain slug host's whole body rose and fell, as if doing push-ups on the bed. Mel saw the whites of her eyes shine in the dark as her lips stretched, sucking hard towards the tip, then engulfing him as she lowered her upper body back down. Mel shook his head to clear the last cobwebs of night from it, and realized what happened.

It was Monday. Jordan's day. She was getting her share of him in early.

Languidly, Jenny rose from the bed and walked over to Rachel. The blonde could barely tear her eyes off of her sister and her boyfriend, but the tall, thin Asian woman laid a hand on Rachel's stomach and slid it down toward Rache's cleft. Jenny's lips found Rache's neck, and for a moment Mel saw the human woman's knees wobble as her girlfriend completed a two-pronged attack.

Mel stiffened, a sudden heat flushing through his cheeks at the sight of his two girlfriends lost in their own moment. The list hadn't said anything about what the three of them could do to each other, and Mel didn't mind that one bit. His hips twitched, buttocks squeezing, not wanting to hurt Jordan by pushing himself too deep, but thrilled at the sensation of the hot, wet suction. The familiar pressure built at the root, and Mel told himself to hang on, to hold out, to give her a really big load, even though he saw her pale arms start to shudder with the effort of the push-ups and her nostrils blew out hot blasts ever time she bottomed.

"Gonna blow!" he whispered in warning, and Jordan pulled up until she held just the tip of him in her mouth, her tongue toying around the sensitive head.

Rache gave a little gasp almost at the same time Mel did. Jenny had her arm up and was licking Rachel's armpit as her fingers rubbed the other woman's little pleasure button. Mel gave little grunts as he throbbed and jumped in Jordan's mouth, sticky wet ropes filling it, coating her tongue, the eyes burning a little brighter.

She licked him clean, and Mel sighed as she shrank back and he sat up.

No walk this morning. Rachel had an early class. Béibhinn emerged, already dressed in a hoodie, sweatpants, and boots.

"When did you get in?" Mel asked. "We missed you yesterday."

"Business," the ghola said, eyeing his drooping dick. "Be in and out at odd hours all week. Don't worry. I'll be here Friday."

"Okay," Mel said and waved.

Three of them, Jordan, Jenny, and Mel, did their stretches and exercises. No push-ups; Mel didn't want Jordan to overdo it. He showed them how to do head rolls, so their necks wouldn't get stuff, and they did so carefully, slowly. Mel wondered if the brain slugs didn't like that.

"Is that okay?" he said and signed. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Okay," Jordan and Jenny signed back.

When the two stepped into the shower, Mel remembered MacElroy's device. He retrieved it from the hoodie pocket and held it the way the ergonomics suggested, the little tube sticking out between his first two fingers, thumb resting on the big button. He gave it an experimental click. No light, just the softest of sounds.

In five minutes, he had moved around the apartment and clicked it several times in each room, even Béibhinn's. When the shower turned off, Mel grabbed a clean fundoshi and wrapped the device in it, carrying it with him into the bathroom. Before he took his own shower, he used the device three more times.

When he emerged, the device tucked into his underwear, Mel dressed carefully. Neither Jordan nor Jenny watched as he slipped the device back into his hoodie pocket. Just as Mel was considering what to do for the day, there was a knock at the door.

He opened it to find Molly there, in a sleeveless brown sweater beneath her black jacket, over a skirt. Mel thought she looked tired; at least her eyes looked puffy, as though from lack of sleep or too much crying.

"Hey," she said. "Mom's going to the airport to drop off her rental car, and we were going to have breakfast there before she goes. Do you want to come with?"

Something about the way she said it made Mel feel like it was Molly who wanted him to come. Maybe she wanted to talk in the car on the way there or back. Process everything that had happened. Mel understood that. Rache had been great for giving him someone to talk to about his own feelings.

"Sure," he said, and turned to his still-naked girlfriends. "You two be all right while I'm gone?"

Jordan tapped the list, and Mel grinned.

"I know. Don't worry, I won't do anything except with you today. Promise," he said.

The two brain slug hosts kissed him goodbye, and Mel stepped out into the hallway with Molly. His half-sister headed towards the elevator.

"Doesn't it get distracting?" she asked. "The way they don't wear clothes?"

"You get used to it," Mel said. Then, thinking about what he said. "I mean, I got used to it. They're usually not putting on little shows for me or anything, and when someone isn't trying to act sexy around you, it's just... skin. Like I won't say thinking of them naked isn't arousing, and sometimes they hit some angle or position where they just look..."

He bit his lips. Molly looked at him curiously, and her mouth curled into a smile.

"Go on," she said.

"... well yeah, sometimes it is very arousing," he said. "And if they're in the mood, sometimes they take that as an invitation to do things. But I don't think they find being naked inherently sexy. I think the brain slugs understand the whole clothing thing conceptually but have to get used to it in practice."

"I don't know if I'd ever get used to it," Molly said.

"You were doing fairly well the other night," Mel pointed out.

"That was a special circumstance," Molly said.

"Yes," Mel agreed. "But you were a trooper. I don't think a lot of other people would have managed to sit still and watch all that."

Molly sucked in her lips, like she wanted to say something. She didn't speak until they'd gotten to the parking garage and into the Protoss. Mel was quickly getting used to "My life for Aiur!" whenever she unlocked the car.

"I wasn't prepared for that," she whispered. "At all. That's part of the reason I wanted you to come with me. I don't know how to talk to ma mère. How to look her in the eye after seeing her vagin rempli de ta semence."

The last words came out almost as a whisper. Mel's French, two semesters in high school, didn't cover that specific vocabulary. Molly's eyes stayed on the road as she pulled out, yet Mel felt that he had to say something.

"She's still your mother, Molly," he said. "I think you really helped her. She was uncomfortable with the whole group sex arrangement, the loss of control. I could tell. I've... felt the same way, sometimes. I know I go with the flow on a lot of things, but I can still feel embarrassed, or lack confidence. Not sure I'll measure up to what's expected of me."

Molly snorted.

"You were... impressive," she said. "Didn't look unconfident to me."

"Trust me, I was concerned I wouldn't measure up," he said. "Especially after that first comment, about how I wasn't exactly like my father. Wasn't sure how to take that."

"On the screen," Molly said, as she shifted lanes. "You look bigger than average. I don't know if it's the angle, or because you're so thin. Not that I've seen a lot, but up close... actually, you're the first man I've seen undressed in real life."

Mel rubbed his neck, obscurely embarrassed.

"So, you don't have anything to really measure me up against. That's okay. I'm told it's not the size, but how you use it," he said. "Not that... well. I try to make sure my partners have a good time."

"I saw it," Molly said, sitting forward in her seat. Speeding up as they hit the highway, just for an exit or two, until they hit the turn-off for the airport. "Each of them. I thought maybe you would do it together, but that never really happened."

"Rarely if ever does," Mel said.

"But all of them, they had that moment when everything just... stopped. Like they dropped the mask, the self-control. Exposed as a raw nerve ending. I saw ma mère, and for a moment she was just a woman getting... oh, sugar, I can't say it!" Molly said, and she hit the steering wheel.

The airport was a confusing series of nested loops. Molly engaged the autopilot and announced, "Short-term parking, departures." She let go of the steering wheel, which moved on its own as the car synced with the other vehicles. Within six minutes, the car parked itself in a spot.

"She was a woman getting fucked," Mel finished for her as they exited the car.

"Oui," Molly said. "It's one thing to know your parents had sex, and another thing to see them as sexual beings, you know?"

"I really don't," Mel said, not wanting to think about his recent dreams. "But I get it, philosophically. That's who your mom always was. You just didn't know it. I think... I think I felt something like that, the first time after I had sex. I was the same person; I didn't feel different for having done the deed. Yet other people saw me differently, treated me differently. Relationships shifted. Sex is weird like that. I don't know why."

Molly nodded. "I wonder if it'll be that way when I... well, I'll find out. One day."

He followed her toward the departure gates. Mel had never been inside an airport before, at least not that he could remember, and he was surprised to find it airy and open, milling with people on foot and the occasional small, low-speed motorized transport. There were restaurants, gift shops, what looked like small bodegas, even a bookstore.

Lucie, dressed in a loose, ankle-length brown dress and followed by an automatic carry-on suitcase, found them and waved them towards a breakfast bar called Promiscuous Ovum. It seemed to Mel that Molly was stiff as Lucie kissed her daughter's cheeks. The table and chairs were chromed steel, and the menus were laminated paper. It wasn't a big menu. He asked for three eggs, scrambled, and a glass of apple juice; Molly and Lucie went in for omelets, coffee, and a mimosa for Lucie.

Once they were alone again, Lucie gave Mel a smile. Yet there was no footsie at this meal.

"I wanted to thank you again," the older woman said. "I know that was an experience for all of us. I haven't done anything like that before. I was... surprised at how strongly I felt in that moment. I wanted to tell you--I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't be who you wanted me to be. I feel like I've failed you both."

Her smile was sad, and Mel saw Lucie holding Molly's hand.

"I could have looked for you. Could have adopted you. Raised the two of you together. We could have been, maybe not a traditional family, but a family," she said with a sigh, her shoulders stooped. "But I can't undo the past. Nor can I see what would have happened if I had done that. All we can do in this life is keep moving. The past is past. It's the future we have to look forward to." She laid her left hand on her abdomen. "It will be weeks before we know if I 'took,' and even then a pregnancy at my age isn't guaranteed to result in a live birth. Yet I want to keep you in the loop. I don't want to lose track of you again."

Her hand slid down into a pocket of her skirt, and when it rose, there was a slim black phone in her grasp. She slid it across the table and set it before Mel.

The label was a stylized R.

"Retrotech Basic," she said. "Calls and text, no internet, but there's no limit on minutes. Paid for an entire year. I've already programmed Molly and my numbers into it. You should keep it on you, at least for emergencies. And... I'd like to call, on occasion. To see how you're doing."

Mel took up the phone. It was extraordinarily basic, though as far as he was concerned, that wasn't a bad thing. He had seen kids wired to their phones to exclusion of the world, and had never really felt the desire to be like them. Still, this was a substantial gift.

"Thank you," Mel said, as he slipped it into a jeans pocket. "I appreciate that. Really."

The food arrived, and they ate in silence for a while. Then Mel asked how Molly's classes were going, which prompted Lucie into some maternal probing about Molly's social life--still no boyfriends or girlfriends, though Mel could have told her that. Eventually the meal was done, they emerged from the restaurant, and it was time to say goodbyes.

Molly and Lucie hugged. There was no hesitation, no stiffness in it. Mel's heart ached as he saw the two of them together. To be hugged like that, even once, had to feel different. He wasn't sure why that should be, yet a part of him thought it must. When they separated, Lucie faced Mel and, a little nervous, held out her hand.

Mel looked at it. Then with a sheepish grin, he held his arms out from his sides a little, face burning. Lucie chuckled gratefully as she gathered him into her arms, and he could feel her smile on his burning cheek.

"If it doesn't take," she whispered, too softly for Molly to hear. "Maybe next time, non?"

Mel had nothing to say to that, and they waved goodbye as she headed into the security line.

Back in the Protoss, Molly sat for a moment behind the wheel. Then she turned to Mel.

"Who did you lose your virginity to?" she asked. "Was it a friend?"

"Jordan," he said, remembering the time in the bathroom of the Cosmic Fill Up. It had seemed crazy at the time, and in hindsight seemed crazier. There had been nothing romantic about it, nothing planned. Just a spontaneous moment of shared passion and need.

"You care for her, don't you?" Molly pressed.

"Yes," Mel said. "A lot. I don't know when I started caring for her. Not long after I moved in. Yet I care for her very deeply."

"I have often thought about ma virginité, lately," Molly said. "It is frustrating, being always on the sidelines. Watching other people have their fun, their little dramas, their love affairs, partaking in nothing. Watching ma mère that night, I resolved that I would like to be rid of it. Yet not to some random person. I want it to matter. To be with someone I care about. Someone I trust."

She looked at him with those dark eyes and bit her lip. Mel's voice caught in his throat.

"Melvillé," his half-sister said, giving that odd accent to the last syllable. "You do not have to answer now. I know you must discuss it with your girlfriends. I just want you to know that I... I want you to be the one to do it. I want you to take ma virginité. Faites de moi une femme."

CHAPTER 129

The end of any tech tree appears like an inevitability; individuals struggle to conceive how different technologies could have flourished. Yet there are species and cultures who pursued "dead end" technologies further: vacuum tubes and analog computers of startling complexity; fluidic circuits; three-dimensional abaci for solving gravimetric equations; laser revolvers that use one-shot canisters of ignitable gases to produce the primary light-pulse. The strengths and efficacy of individual technologies vary, and the most widely-adopted technology is often a function of economic interests rather than the limitations of manufacturing or knowledge, but the lesson every species learns is the same: don't underestimate what you don't understand.

--Mallory Giger, Xenobiomechanics, Chapter 1

"You're my sister," Mel said, as if the word was a shield of sanity against the arrows of madness.

"You did not even know I existed until a few weeks ago," Molly pointed out. "If you had met me before we knew, would you have reservations? Am I that unattractive?"

"You're beautiful," Mel blurted, the reassurance automatic. "It's just--isn't it--wrong?"

"According to whom?" Molly said, as she pulled out of the parking garage. "You are not religious. I am not ma mère, begging for un bébé. Your girlfriends Rachel and Jordan are siblings, yet they have sex, n'est-ce pas?"

"I mean... yes, they are," Mel said. Unsure if he wanted to discuss the philosophical ramifications of incest when one of the parties was legally deceased and possessed by an alien entity. "But don't you think there's... I mean... someone better?"

They were back on the highway now. Mel grabbed the handle of the car door as the small car zipped around a large, automatic cargo truck. He did not like driving this fast, in crowded conditions, while having an argument with the driver.

"Who is better? Some drunken hook-up? A horny jerk who wears me down until I surrender just to get them to shut up, only to be left hurt, bloody, and unsatisfied after a few pitiful thrusts!?" She slammed a fist against the wheel, which made several artificial crystals set in the dash blaze red. With a growl, she zipped in front of the truck and off an exit, decelerating rapidly toward the surface streets.

"I know you know how to please a woman," Molly said softly. "I have seen it. You can be gentle. Conscientious. You do not let your partners go away unsatisfied. I want that."

Mel tried to form an argument. Nothing in his life had really prepared him for this. Most of them revolved around issues that didn't apply in his peculiar situation. As much as he had grown attached to Molly in a short time, he still felt that gap, that lack of shared experiences. Kids who grew up together normally didn't have sex. He had seen that in the orphanage, the long-timers who had been together since third grade usually didn't start dating once they became teenagers. Mel wasn't sure if he could articulate why.

So he said the only thing that he could say.

"I just... I don't want it to be weird," Mel said, shoulders sagging as he slumped in the seat. Eyes out the window, watching Seacouver go by. "Between us. Right now, we're friends, we're learning about each other, enjoying each other's company. If we have sex, that might change."

His left hand formed a fist, the nails biting into his palm.

"You've seen how I live. It's not normal. I may never be normal. All of my adult relationships and friendships seem to involve my dick in some way, except you," Mel said. "You're different. And you're a beautiful woman. You don't need me. Not that way. I just, I don't want... Even if you or my girlfriends don't care about it, there's what other people think. Your friends, your family. If they find out, they'll judge you. You're going to school, you've got a future, a career; I don't want to screw that up for you. Can you imagine what would happen if social media found out you'd fucked your own brother? How would that look on a résumé?"

It had started out as just an excuse, and by the time Molly had turned into the parking garage, it had become a heartfelt plea. Now Mel's voice dropped again, that empty feeling in his chest like he'd been hollowed out.

"Even if you feel like this now, you might feel different in the future. And you might resent me for giving in. I don't think I could take that. I finally found my sister, and I don't want to lose you," he said, then added. "I don't want to ruin your life."

They pulled into a parking spot. The Protoss powered down. They sat in silence, and Mel had a sick feeling that just by talking about it, they'd already crossed some threshold, done something that couldn't be undone.

"Ma mère, mon père, they lied to me for my entire life," she said. "Maybe they meant well. Maybe they felt no obligation. Yet I knew there was something missing. When I received that notice of a match, it was like a missing piece of myself had been found. I thought maybe it would complete me. Fill the hole in myself. Then I met you."

Molly reached over and laid her hand on Mel's clenched fist.

"I have always been the good girl. My teenage rebellion was trying out hair straighteners. No tattoos, no sex, no alcohol. My guilty shame are the bro-con hentai I don't tell ma mère about. Yet when I watched her with you... I realized I wanted that," she said, and sniffed. "I want to do what I want with my life. I want to live my life. And I am scared to do that. Yet I see you living your life, and it may not be perfect, but you are trying and... and you've found love... and I want a part of that. I want to be a part of that, if only for un moment."

She sniffed again, and Mel saw the tears in her eyes, threatening to fall.

"I need your help, mon frère," she said, and this time something trickled down her cheek. "I don't want to do this on my own. Please. You're the only one I trust with this. You did it for ma mère. Can't you do it to me?"

Crying was cheating. Mel's internal resistance crumbled. She was upset, the emotion plain on her face, and Mel felt a hole open up inside him, not sure how to comfort her. It reminded him of the time Rache had cried on the couch, when Jenny had been caught in her night terror. Even with all the arguments he mustered, Mel couldn't ignore her pain.

"I'll ask," he said. "I can't promise anything beyond that. It's not that I don't care for you, but I have to square things with the others. You get that, right? And if they say no, that's a no. I care for you, but I'm not going to betray them. I promised I wouldn't lie to you, and I won't now."

Molly sniffed again. She wiped her tears with the back of her hands. She was smiling now. Excited. Disturbingly so.

"We'll ask them," Molly said. "Right now!"

Mel dragged his feet a little on the way back to the apartment. Molly kept up with him. Not grabbing his hand or arm, but she hadn't stopped smiling, either. That ache in Mel's chest was still there. He couldn't stop his brain from running through all the reasons this was a bad idea. In his pockets, Mel gripped the device MacElroy had given him and his new phone.

Rachel had class today. It occurred to him that he didn't even have her phone number. Now that he had a phone, he should put her number in there. Maybe Amelia and Béibhinn, too. Ha-Yoon, probably. Just so she could get ahold of him if he wasn't home and there was an extra shift available. Anyone else? The brain slug hosts couldn't talk, but they could text... did MacElroy need his number?

The door to 402 opened and they filed in. Jordan and Jenny weren't wearing clothes; Béibhinn had her door closed.

"Hey," he said. "We're back."

The brain slug hosts cocked their heads to the side at the same time. They must have caught something in his voice. Molly gently closed the door. She coughed and stepped forward.

"I am... a virgin. I do not wish to be. After watching Melvillé with my mother, I... I decided that I would like him to break my hymen," Molly said, her voice quavering a little. "He has reservations, but after discussing it, he agreed we should ask you. Mon frère values his relationship with you. He will not do it without permission. I, too, respect your relationship. So... please? Will you let him penetrate me?"

Mel winced. There had to be a more delicate way to say it.

Jordan and Jenny's hands came together. They stood motionless, though the slugs on their necks raised and lowered their heads in a strange rhythm. The colors shifted until they both came to a simple, clear green. Not for the first time, Mel wondered if that represented internal debate or just synchronization. When they touched like that, Jordan and Jenny often seemed to cease to be individuals, but a single, gestalt entity.

After a long moment, they stepped forward together. Molly glanced at Mel, who just stepped out of their way and watched the naked women as they went from the living room to the kitchen. At the fridge, Mel's girlfriends pointed at the schedule.

Saturday. Sunday. Mel's choice days.

He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"That's the schedule. So I don't miss anyone," Mel said. "On the weekends, it's my choice. So I think that's a tentative yes. But I still need to ask Rachel when she gets home tonight."

Jordan and Jenny turned and gave a thumb's up.

In answer, Molly wrapped her arms around him and crushed him with the strongest hug she'd ever given him.

"Thank you," she whispered, her head resting against his chest. "Call or text me when you arrive at a decision. Whatever it is."

Mel sighed. There was still a lot more to talk about. If Rachel approved it, they had to figure out when and where it would happen, if his girlfriends would be present. He needed to buy condoms. Yet he heard the happiness in her voice. Mel hugged her back.

"Sure," he said. "What are little brothers for?"

CHAPTER 130

The physical brain slug on the back of the host's neck is its most vulnerable spot. Some members of the Tokyo Hive go so far as to implant a retractable armored shell to protect it, although this restricts the slug's senses and is uncomfortable. Direct contact with the slug is not recommended. No matter what you read about "licking the slug," you will not get high. There are no psychoactive compounds in the slug's outer integument or the thin layer of protective mucus.

--Anaïs Nineveh (trans.), Your Brain Slug Lover and You

"You want to have sex with your sister?"

Rache's voice hit a frequency that made Mel's head dip and shoulders rise. He stared down at the water in the pot as if he could will it to boil faster. The ramen noodles were ready, the spinach, onion, and sausage chopped and ready.

"It would mean a lot to her," Mel said, not sure what else to say.

The blonde had swept in after class with a boxed chicken salad sandwich and iced tea, just in time for dinner. Which also involved a conversation that they needed to have. Jordan and Jenny listened silently, chewing on stalks of raw celery with loud crunches.

"I know," Rache said, stabbing at a cherry tomato. "After class, she told me all about it."

Mel watched little bubbles form on the bottom of the pot. Almost.

"And what do you think?" he asked.

"I think you need to answer my question," Rache said. "Do you want to have sex with your sister? Because if you want to punch her v-card out of some misplaced sense of sibling obligation, you should not."

Mel looked up from the water. "Misplaced... what?"

Rache leaned against the counter, chewed, swallowed, and put her fork down.

"There is nothing mystical about a hymen. As much as our culture puts pussy on a pedestal, I can tell you from personal experience that losing my virginity was not some life-changing psychological event or key sexual experience that defined my entire life. It's a membrane that doesn't grow back. Jordan accidentally gave her virginity to a hairbrush handle, and Mom never let her forget that she was 'damaged goods,'" she explained. "Molly doesn't just want a dick. She wants to know that you care about her."

"Of course I care about her!" Mel said. "She's my sister. That's what made it weird. I wouldn't be thinking about this if I didn't care."

"No, you wouldn't have fucked Lucie if you didn't care," Rache pointed out. "Mel, babe, you do a lot of things because people ask you to. If I ask you to drop to your knees and eat me out, you will. If an alien crab-stick-insect wants to suck you off and Jordan is okay with it, you will. When a single mom really needs your dick for a friendly tit-fucking video, you're hard and ready. I love that about you. But this isn't some casual sex. This is someone you want to have an ongoing relationship with. She's sexually inexperienced, insecure, and watched you maybe impregnate her mom. Molly needs more from you than a good hard dicking. She wants intimacy. You need to decide if that's what you want."

Mel glanced back at the water. It was roiling now, the surface rising on invisible convection currents as the hot water rose from the bottom of the pan. He chewed over Rache's words as he transferred noodles, meat, and veggies into the pot, and set the timer.

"How did you do it?" he asked. "With Jordan? How did you decide it was time to have sex with your own sister?"

Jordan and Jenny's eyes and faces shifted to Rache, as if watching a particularly intense tennis match.

Rachel sighed. The tall blonde stabbed at a chunk of chicken, then stabbed again to catch a spinach leaf underneath it.

"We were both intimate with you," she said, voice softer now. "And she'd made those... advances. It was clear there was openness there, if not outright interest. That freaked me out at first. It wasn't what I thought Jordie would do. We'd never even joked about that when we were younger. I never saw her in that way. Except now, she's like... a different person. Or the same person, but grown to be a stranger. It felt so weird when she kissed me that first time."

Her loaded fork rested on the edge of the box.

"And the thing is? The world didn't end. A lightning bolt didn't burn down from Heaven to smite me for my sin. People on the street didn't shun me. I didn't even feel any fucking different. I learned that you can kiss your sister on the lips, with a bit of tongue, and the rest of the universe doesn't even care," Rache said. "And that was freeing. So I let myself go further. And when I finally found that I could see her as a sexual being--as someone sexy--I realized I wanted to be with her, the same way I wanted to be with you and Jenny. I could give you all the arguments I told myself, about how it was fine since we were women, that Jordan was different now, that it was part of sharing you with her, but those are just excuses. I wanted her, then I was. The world didn't end."

She brought the fork up to her mouth.

Mel stirred the ramen.

"I know, intellectually, that incest was forbidden for a reason," he said. "I've seen kids that were abused. The damage that causes. I know, intellectually, there's the potential for recessive genes, the whole inbreeding thing. Yet we're both adults, nobody's abusing anyone, and even if we do it I'll be wearing a condom. So it's just sex. So why am I getting so hung up about it?"

"Because it's not just sex," Rache said. "It's sex with her. With Molly. You've caught feelings, Mel Arkwright. That's okay. It happens. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, or a bad brother. You're not trying to cheat on us. You're trying to be honest with everyone. Which is why I want you to be honest with yourself. Do you actually want to fuck her?"

The timer beeped. Mel turned off the stovetop, moved the pot to a cold element.

He thought about the expressiveness of those dark eyes. How Molly had held her mother's hand during that final insemination. The big, soft chest that pressed into him with every hug. The way she looked so pensive, as if holding in what she wanted to say until she was about to explode.

"I think I do," Mel admitted, and that admission made his chest feel strange, like that time in the bathroom when Jordan had guided him inside of her for the first time.

They finished dinner on the couch, watching a documentary about the Golden Mean in nature. There was something weirdly comforting about seeing bright yellow mathematical spirals overlaid on snail shells, flowering plants, and horns. It was narrated by a woman with a French accent, dry and somehow hitting that balance between art historian curating a gallery and an excited mathematician describing the perfect curves of the universe that show that beauty is encoded in everything.

It reminded Mel of the one part of his math classes he had enjoyed, the graphing applications. Playing with equations, watching the curves and shapes of new variables and permutations find expression in visual form. Something about the whole experience spoke to him, the way mathematics modeled reality, but also how maybe mathematics was real and everything else was just an expression of some complex set of equations no one, not even the extraterrestrials with all their spacefaring science, could completely grasp.

"Can I lick your pussy?" Mel said and signed, after they'd washed up and brushed their teeth. Jordan had taken an unusually long time in the bathroom, but when she had emerged the four of them sat cross-legged, facing each other, for ASL practice. Rachel's movements were smoother than Mel's, and he struggled sometimes to follow the sign-conversation. His vocabulary was still highly limited, but they were working on the sex lesson.

Jordan held up three fingers in a W and made a circle.

"Wednesday," Mel translated aloud, remembering the list. "I know. It's still your day."

Jordan nodded.

"You know, we made a list for you," Rache said. "But what about the rest of us? If I want to have sex with Jenny or eat out Anastasia, do I need a schedule?"

"No," Mel said. "I mean, I've got a refractory period to deal with, and the brain slugs need my sperm, so it makes sense to, um, ration me fairly. But I don't see why that should limit you."

He tried to sign some of that, but they had not covered "refractory period," and he gave up. Jenny reached over and patted his knee. Rache's face lit up with a smile. Her right hand came up, thumb and forefinger meeting, three fingers raised. Perfect.

Jordan tapped Mel's knee. She had a different kind of sign for him. A condom. He got the message and leaned back as she unbuckled his belt. Across from him, Jenny kissed Rache, her hand slipping down the blonde woman's pants. Language lesson was over, apparently.

Before his pants were even off, Jordan was on him. Pressing the condom over his hardening shaft. Guiding him to her opening. She wasn't ready yet, however. Mel felt the resistance. He tugged her hips and looked into her eyes.

"Let me eat you out a little," he said. "I don't want it to hurt."

Jordan relented. It was better when she was wetter, and they both knew it.

There was a cozy domesticity to their coupling. Mel stroked himself with one hand as Jordan squatted over his face, letting his tongue flick rapidly over her clit, hands on her knees as she balanced on the balls of her feet, body slowly warming up in anticipation. Jenny and Rachel became less interested in the show as their own session became more involved, Rachel's shirt and pants coming off, the two women's tongues finding each other, their hands rubbing at each other's clefts with slowly growing heat and eagerness.

Mel would have liked to have watched that, if only to see how they did it. He hadn't fingered the women in his life nearly as much as he should have. Hadn't done a lot of things to show how much he appreciated them. While he had little experience in relationships, Mel had a feeling the average girlfriend would not have talked him through admitting he wanted to have sex with his half-sister. Or having sex with her mother. And the neighbor. And...

Do they want me to have sex because it makes them happy, or because they want me to be happy? Mel wondered to himself. Then he thought about his answer to Rache. He didn't want to dictate how she had sex with the people they were involved with. I don't want to control her. I just want Rache to be happy, and that makes me happy. Maybe... that's enough.

Jordan was ready now. She straightened up, pulling her pussy away from Mel's face and walking backwards on her knees, to guide his stiffness inside of her. That placid face did not become a mask of ecstasy as her tight folds gripped him--it never did. It was so easy to think that nothing was happening there, behind those eyes.

Yet Mel knew better. Jordan's nipples were stiff as small eraser tips. She moved up and down, slowly. Trying to find just the right spot where he rubbed her just right. His right hand rested with fingers spread, thumb rubbing her stiff little clit with small circles and gentle pressure, as his left gripped her hip. Mel could see her lips part, the hot breath coming a little faster as her excitement grew and grew, and behind her Mel could hear Rachel's soft pants and moans, which broke into unexpected words.

"Fuck her good, Mel!"

That made Mel grin up at Jordan. In this position, she was doing most of the work, able to control the speed, depth, and angle of penetration. Mostly, all he had to do was stay hard and not cum too soon. Yet Jordan seemed content, sometimes rising and falling, then pushing it in deep, the whole of her engulfing him, so that she could grind her clit hard against him. Mel watched her nostrils flare, the color rise in her cheeks, all the unconscious signs of excitement.

Then she brought both hands in front of her and began to sign. Mel frowned, unable to quite grasp what she was trying to tell him, and the brain slug host, never breaking her rising-and-falling stride, had to spell it out, one letter at a time.

T-I-C-K-L-E-M-Y-A-S-S

Mel felt his cheeks burn at the unexpected direction. He nodded, left hand uncertain as it slipped around her hip. Working blind, it crept over the soft swell of her buttocks. Jordan's eyes were fixed on him with a strange intensity as his fingers crept down that cleft. His chest suddenly tightened as his fingers traced down... down... until smooth skin gave way to an impossibly soft, squishy bit of flesh.

Jordan froze, and Mel stopped, afraid he'd done something wrong. Yet the blonde brain slug host wasn't grimacing or making any motion to get off. Instead, her right hand traced his arm to the wrist, and then over the hand to the finger. She stared into his eyes as she guided him to rub. Not pushing his finger inside, but just making little circles against the tight pucker. After Mel found his rhythm, his thumb began rubbing her clit again. It was a strange kind of balancing, rubbing Jordan's ass and pussy at the same time, but it was evidently working for her. She began to rotate her hips, his dick deep inside of her, lip twitching whenever his swollen tip touched some particular point... and Mel felt the ache at the root of himself, the building pressure, the need to erupt.

The shiver began in her hips. The pussy clenched impossibly tight. Her limbs stiffened, her chest puffed out, and Jordan's mouth opened, not making a sound, just a silent exclamation that never reached the rest of her face. Then, as suddenly as it happened, she seemed to melt. All the tenseness fled from her, and she leaned down and lay against him. Her breasts against his clavicles as her lower body moved, not up and down but fore and aft, his right hand unable to keep pressure on her clit, but still rubbing, rubbing, rubbing... and when he burst inside of her, a few strokes later, white bursts of seed filling the sperm reservoir of the condom, she was still moving, slowly and already satisfied.

"Can I have that?" Béibhinn asked, poking her head out of the door. Her face looked puffy, voice thick as with sleep. Jordan gave a languid thumb's up. Mel gently lifted her off of him, and Béibhinn pulled the condom off herself. "Thanks. Really need this today."

Rachel and Jenny were still rubbing each other enthusiastically, lost in their little world. Mel's arm stretched out to grab his new phone. He paused as he composed the message he was about to text her. Thinking back to everything that Rachel had said. He made a decision and, working one-handed, tapped out the message:

Rache says okay. But before we do anything, I want to take you out on a date.

Text sent.