Access

Ramen began as a variety of Southern Chinese noodle dishes in the Chinatown of Yokohama, Japan in the 19th century. It was the food of the poor and dispossessed, adapting what they knew to a new place with new ingredients. After World War II, the inexpensive dish gained mainstream popularity in Japan; it was a warm, calorie-rich foodstuff in a nation that had known years of wartime rationing followed by longer years of post-war poverty. In 1958, Momofuku Ando created an instant noodles version, consisting of pre-cooked noodles sold in dried bricks. This is the story of ramen. Now you are a part of it.
—1,001 Ways to Cook Ramen, foreword by ramen scholar Eiji Takamura

Jordan's face floated above his. The pupils of those blue eyes expanded slowly, until they were two circles of obsidian black rimmed with blue, the whites glowing softly. Mel could see his own face in those eyes. Could see himself open his mouth, just as Jordan opened hers. Unable to look away, he saw the dark, semi-translucent body that slid out of her mouth before it touched his tongue.

The hiss of the shower shocked him awake. Immediately, Mel knew something was off.

The door was open. The sheet was off. He was still naked from the waist down, and his balls ached a little. Not with the pressure of being pent-up for two days, but...

His fingers found the head. It was half-swollen. Wet. Mel touched his abdomen, expecting to find a mess. But his stomach was dry, the hairs not the matter, sticky mess he might expect from a nocturnal emission. He checked his shirt, his thighs, thumb ran down over his balls, touched the sheet.

All dry.

Mel slipped off the bed and into push-ups. The physical exertion was better than trying to process what might have happened last night. If anything did happen and it wasn't entirely in his imagination. As he shifted into crunches, he thought of his morning wood lifting up. Jordan's nostrils flaring. Opening the door silently. Slipping into his room on her bare feet, so quiet he didn't even hear it. Lowering her mouth down towards him and then—

His chest felt tight, dick not hard but aching slightly and half-swollen. Unsure how to process the idea. It was technically—he hadn't asked her to do it. Hadn't told her she could do it. Yet at the same time, he didn't feel bad about it.

"Just wish I was awake," he said aloud.

Maybe she had come in just a moment before he was about to burst. Held him in her mouth. So as not to waste it. There was something exciting about that.

He met her in the living room as she emerged from the shower. Fresh. Clean. Dried. A new tampon-string dangling. Mel had put on a pair of pants; unwilling to just walk around the apartment in just a t-shirt. She met his gaze.

"Do you, uh," he started. Not sure how to say it. Then, a moment of cowardice. "What happened to my underwear?"

Jordan blinked. This close, he could see that weird glow in the whites of her eyes. He noticed spots on the black head of the brain slug that glowed with the same light, like little freckles on its semi-translucent skin.

She pointed at his crotch. Then gently shook her head from side-to-side.

Mel's brow furrowed.

"You...don't want me to wear underwear?" he said. It was a guess. Or maybe a hope.

She raised her hand in the familiar thumb's up gesture.

"Okay," Mel said, not sure what else to say.

She stepped past him and dressed for work.

He watched her get ready, an odd flutter in his stomach, bizarrely nervous. Alone in the apartment by himself while she was at work all day. Mel watched Jordan leave, meet Soong in the corridor outside, and head out. As they had done before he'd ever arrived.

She had left the door to her room closed. Mel couldn't bring himself to open it. He lay down on the couch, trying to process what had happened—what he thought had happened—what was going on.

Why wouldn't she want him to wear underwear?

"Because it got in the way," he said aloud. "She wants . . . access. To me. To my dick."

Mel let out a tension in his shoulders he hadn't realized he was holding. That meant stealing his underwear hadn't been some sort of punishment. The hive mind or whatever didn't hold the dinner with Antonio against him. That meant she—they—didn't hate him. That they wanted more.

Sleep came back to him. A few hours, anyway. Then wakefulness. Ramen and hot dogs for lunch. A shower. He found a broom in the closet and gave the whole apartment except Jordan's room a sweep. Wiped down the toilet. Oddly content. Energetic.

He was reading 1,001 Ways to Cook Ramen when Jordan returned. As soon as the door closed, she peeled off her clothes. Soong didn't join her. Mel made his second cup of ramen of the day. She carried tofu to the couch, and the ate in silence as they watched another episode of The Human Animal; it was apparently a series, this one without the nudity of the first. "The Hunting Ape," about humans and food.

When it was over, Mel washed up, and Jordan brushed her teeth. He paused at the door.

"I'll be back . . . well, early. But I should be here when you get up. See you then."

She gave a thumb's up. Stood there, naked and very still, and watched him go.

It was lonelier, walking to the Cosmic Fill-Up alone. The sky was darkening. Cars had their lights on, but Mel felt unseen as he crossed the streets. He could feel the rough fabric of his jeans against his prick as he walked, but he didn't feel exposed. It was a reminder of this morning. Of what Jordan had said she wanted. Something he did for her. Sure, he could go out and buy underwear, but—

As Mel stepped through the door, he saw Blair MacKnight was working the swifter across the floor, the tall, dark-skinned woman bent over, her head freshly shaved. Mel saw the asshole in a black hoodie deliberately standing in her way. As she tried to maneuver the swifter around him, the guy in the hoodie grabbed her breast through her shirt and squeezed.

"HEY!" Mel said, voice so loud it made the asshole jump. Ha-Yoon stepped out of her office. The hoodie-wearing asshole looked from Mel to her. The manager growled. As she thundered forward, the teen bolted. Slammed his shoulder into the door frame in his haste, and his hood fell off, revealing a face like a pizza, a crew cut, brown eyes.

"Are you okay?" Ha-Yoon asked Blair. She nodded, her face placid and unperturbed. Ha-Yoon caught an image of the groper's face on the security camera and put print-outs up by the door. BANNED.

The manager sighed. There were bags under her eyes. She gave Mel a tired smile. He had a feeling that his stock had just gone up a little in her eyes.

The next hour and a half, Ha-Yoon explained the night shift. Then she left. And it was just Blair, Tomie, and Mel, with a list of duties and long, lonely hours of silence and waiting. Cleaning bathrooms and spills. Restocking shelves. Breaking down boxes.

Yet there were no more incidents, no excitement. Blair seemed none the worse for wear from the encounter, though Mel had no idea how to judge that. He'd read that the hive remembers. Would the hive recognize that face? Could hoodie-boy be walking along the street and suddenly find himself face-to-face with another brain slug host? Probably. What would they do to him? Mel wasn't sure. Even if Blair wasn't physically hurt, it was . . . a trespass.

Which made Mel think about what Jordan had maybe done to him this morning. Was that the same thing? Or had he sort of given her permission to do it, by his past actions? Mel scratched the stubble on his chin. Technically, it wasn't completely consensual. Yet—that sort of made it exciting. It wasn't something he could do. Just opening Jordan's room and going in to do things to her as she slept. That was the stuff of sexual fantasies, not reality.

"Maybe fantasy's all I've got for now," Mel admitted to himself aloud.

Blair and Tomie, who were at the counter, turned to look at him as he spoke.

"Just thinking out loud," he said. They nodded and went back to staring straight ahead.

There would be a long walk back tonight. Then . . . what? They were on different schedules now. Like gears interlocking. While he was working, she was sleeping; while he was working, she was sleeping. What happened this morning could be a one-time deal.

Mel sighed. Once again, he wished he'd been awake for it.