Do you like oral sex?

Seacouver, located in the Pacific Northwest, became a locus for ETs who wished to integrate into human culture, due to a combination of accommodating climate, proximity to two brain slug reservations, and political culture. Greater infrastructure investments have been made to accommodate ETs in Seacouver than any other city of comparable size in North America, leading to a level of integration comparable to New York City, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. Stores stock foodstuffs suitable for alien digestive systems; convenience stores include restrooms compatible with alien biologies; public assistance programs help ET finds housing and work, and local universities accept alien students and adjuncts. This has led to an unusually high density and diversity of ET species. Yet it wasn't always this way.
—Anaïs Nineveh, The Exodus: A History, Chapter 4

Mel couldn't move.

The wasp with Jordan's face hovered over him, the shiny black segmented body rested on his chest, wings spread, the blonde hair hanging down almost touching Mel's own face. Her stinger stabbed into his navel, a long, black shaft of coldness in his guts that transfixed him in place. Her placid face seemed to study his, the whites of her eyes luminous. Vainly, he tried to shift his arms and legs, but the paralysis was nearly complete. It felt like they were encased in lead.

The stinger withdrew slowly; a little black, viscous substance clotted the wound. Mel watched as the wasp repositioned itself, walking over him, so that he could see the stinger, which appeared to be nearly a foot long, pass perilously close to his eyes. Then she turned, and hands or claws lifted Mel's head up so he could look down the length of his naked body.

A crimson tower rose from Mel's crotch. Painfully, amazingly stiff. It was the sudden, embarrassing diamond hardness that had afflicted him occasionally in high school, the awkward erection that made him sometimes think he would need to tape it against his thigh. Woman, naked save for an eyeless cloth mask, the mouth a perfect O, crawled towards him, a pink tongue flicking out of its hole like a lizard.

Small, soft breasts with stiff, pink nipples. A hairless crotch, smooth as if waxed. Familiar. Breathing in and out through her mouth. She spread his thighs, Mel unable to resist, and leaned over him. A line of drool oozed from the mouth-hole of the mask, drizzling across his purple glans in a way that reminded Mel disturbingly of how flies pre-digested their food. Tension rose in him, heart hammering wildly as the face descended. His shaft disappeared in that hole as if made for it.

Then he felt, though he could not see, the mandibles inside. Small, sharp points that masticated gently. Not enough to tear at the flesh. When the masked figure had taken him down to the base, Mel felt the spike of something hard and sharp push into his urethra . . .

Mel woke with a start, eyes jolting open to see Rachel's face on his crotch. He could barely make out her features in the dark, but she was coughing, and the convulsion was causing her to bite down a little too hard. Jenny and Jordan, in that eerie coordination they sometimes displayed, rolled off the bed in opposite directions. They grabbed Rachel's shoulders and gently pulled her off Mel's morning wood.

Rachel coughed, sputtered, blinked, and tried to talk.

"What . . . the fuck . . . ack," she made a sound like bringing up a hairball, and Mel saw Jenny swiftly press her mouth against the blonde's. Mel stared at his own rapidly-dwindling erection, felt the familiar burn in his urethra. It didn't take a genius to figure out what Rachel was coughing up and why Jenny was trying to catch it. Waste want not. Finally, the coughing ceased, and Rachel gently pushed Jenny off of her.

"I was . . . I was sleeping in my own bed . . ." Rachel looked up around her and blinked. "How did I . . . did you take me over here?"

"You were walking in your sleep," Anastasia broke in. Their neighbor was dressed in only soft black pajama bottoms and a bra, standing in the doorway. "I heard you get up, and then the front door opened. Had to stop to put clothes on, and by then you'd crossed the hall and were making your way to Mel."

Rachel stood up. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt—a hockey jersey, really; the distinctive lightning bolt of the Seacouver Immortals—and a pair of plain white boxers that looked suspiciously like the kind Mel used to wear, when he wore underwear.

"Sleepwalking. Jesus. Haven't done that in years," Rachel said, shaking her head and pinching the sleep from her eyes.

Mel sat up and found his voice. "Are you okay, Rache? Need anything?"

"I've had breakfast, thanks," she said sourly. Then shook her head again. "Get dressed. Let's walk, okay? I need space."

"Yeah, sure," Mel agreed.

The morning was misty, and Mel instantly regretted he'd left the hoodie up in the apartment. Rachel threaded her arm in his, a pillar of warmth in the cold and darkness of the pre-dawn. She said nothing until they were almost at the park.

"I don't even like sucking cock," she said. "No offense."

"None taken," Mel said. "You've sleepwalked before?"

"When I was a kid. Mom used to wake up and find me standing in the kitchen with all the lights off, roaches crawling over my feet. Once, I made it to the sidewalk outside before a passing car honked at me and woke me up. After that, Jordan would pull her mattress off onto the floor and sleep next to my bed, so if I left the bed, she'd know." Rachel sucked in air. "But I haven't done it in forever, and I never . . . I mean, Jesus. I don't even like the taste of cum."

Mel wasn't sure how to respond to that. He had, like probably all guys, considered taste-testing himself. Telling himself it was no different than picking your nose, and plenty of people did that. But he had never yet brought himself to actually do it.

When they hit the path, she paused suddenly and stared at him.

"Do you like oral sex?" she asked. "Doing it, I mean. I assume you like getting sucked off, but there's nothing orgasmic about eating pussy, is there? Something that would drive you to get up in the wee hours of the morning and fall face-first into the nearest pussy?"

The language, the directness, as much as anything, told Mel that Rachel was still really rattled. She wasn't shy, exactly, but the swearing and explicit talk were things she seemed to save for private moments.

"I like to make you feel good," Mel said simply. "When I can tell I'm doing a good job, that you or Jordan or Jenny are excited. The faster breathing, the way the heat rises, the little noises you make, the way your thighs quiver and then clench, or when you're running your hands through my hair and suddenly tighten up, and the nails dig in—I like to think you're not faking it, that I'm helping you achieve relief. That's arousing, deeply, and satisfying. But no, not orgasmic. I know it isn't for you."

"No," Rachel said. She gave his arm a tug, and they stepped onto the dirt path between the old graves, in the shadows of trees darker than night. "I haven't done it a lot. You're the fifth. No, wait, the sixth. Dammit, does blowing six dudes make me a slut?"

Mel shook his head. "Rache, I don't care if you've sucked off a hundred guys. You're not a slut."

Rache didn't chuckle, but he thought he could feel her smile.

"The other times," she went on, "it was just . . . I thought we were supposed to do it. I'd seen Jordan do it with her boyfriends. Later on, she told me she did that because they usually didn't get her wet enough, and it hurt when they put it in, or they had a hard time getting an erection. She didn't like it either. It was just expected. Generations of porn have everyone thinking blowjobs are mandatory and anal sex is on the menu with zero preparation."

Mel didn't have anything to say to that.

"But last night, as I was falling asleep, I couldn't get the thought out of my head of what your cum might taste like. Not that I think a diet of ramen and rice bowls has made it some delicious magic elixir or anything, but Jenny and Jordan seem to like it, and that masked host was voracious. The last thing I remember was wondering if Jordan and Jenny would let me have a taste next time," Rachel sighed. "Then the dream started."

He glanced at the bandage, still on the back of Rachel's neck, mostly hidden by her blonde hair. It was dark, but that meant he could tell it wasn't glowing. Mel wasn't sure why he was looking for that, except in his own half-remembered dreams, it had been.

"In the dream, someone put these square cotton pads over my eyes. This tube in my mouth, so I couldn't close my lips or speak. Then they were wrapping me up, like a mummy. I couldn't see anything, though I could hear, dimly. I felt . . . like when you step into a party, and you feel the closeness of everyone around you. That sort of sense of warm air, the smell of other people, the susurrus of noise from all those bodies. I started to get excited, because I recognized things from the integration ceremony. I was dreaming that I was the masked host, and I was going to suck your cock. The weirdest thing is, I knew it was a dream. Lucid dreaming, they call it, though I've never done that before."

She clung to him tighter as they got to the darkest part of the path, and they stepped carefully.

"I was so excited, because when it pushed into my mouth, I knew it was you. Let my tongue play all over the glans. That sort of slight undertone of overripe cheese or ammonia, the saltiness, the heat, the rubbery texture, the crest of the helmet with the little bumps, that soft underside that leads up to the slit, and it was like . . . like I was actually sucking you off, in my dream, and there was no hesitancy to it, no awkwardness, no expectation. Like it was my toy and I could do whatever I wanted. And I wanted to taste it. Feel that thick load coat my tongue, and bitter or not, at least I'd know for certain what Jordan and Jenny tasted every time they swallowed your spunk."

"Then you woke up," Mel guessed. They were coming around to the exit of the path.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "And, no offense, but your jizz is not delicious. Like a spoonful of jellied soy sauce."

Mel had to smile at that.

"None taken. I had a dream last night, too," he said, and told her the rest of it.

"What a pair we are," she said. "With our fucked-up dreams? Do you think the blue pearl has anything to do with it?"

Mel shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. It's like an internet router or cell phone repeater, right? And I've read sometimes humans can pick up on brain slug communications, in their sleep. Maybe you're just more plugged into that now. We might have really been interacting on some level."

Their steps headed back toward the apartment. Mel thought Rachel seemed more relaxed now. He hated to burst that mood. However, he wanted to catch her up on other things.

"I need to tell you something about the masked host. I found out last night; they recorded a testament, and we watched it . . ."

They parted in the hallway with a quick kiss and a promise to see each other tonight at ASL class. Jenny and Jordan were waiting to do exercises. Showered and dressed, the trio headed out together, Jenny still wearing Mel's hoodie.

I just need to get through the day, Mel reminded himself. Then I can meet my sister.

The day, thankfully, was quiet. Blair was there, a little stubble on her head that showed she was due for a shave. Mel thought about Other Mel, with their broken limbs. Who would have done that? Why? He'd never known brain slug hosts to be violent, but with the eerie coordination they were capable of, he knew he'd never want to get into a fight with them. Even if you "won," it would be an Antonio situation—outnumbered, on the run.

And then when they catch you, Mel wondered. Then what happens to you?

A question Mel wasn't sure he wanted an answer to, as he re-stocked the shelves with chips, cupcakes, aspirin, and all the hundred other items that had been depleted since the last time he had been in the store. There was a sort of peace in the monotony of such work; no one bothered him, broke in on his thoughts.

Well, almost no one.

"That Amelia," Ha-Yoon said after lunch. "How many times has she offered to suck your dick?"

Mel immediately winced and glanced at Jordan, who was behind the counter with Blair, checking out customers. Jenny was in the back, breaking down cardboard boxes.

"A few times. Just a joke. She knows I'm in a relationship," Mel said.

"Hmm-hmm," Ha-Yoon hummed. "She likes you, you know. I can tell."

The redshirt gave out a little sigh. His boss's boredom was a dangerous thing, and she was determined to make it his problem.

"You have a lot in common?" Ha-Yoon pressed.

"We're both orphans, both been through the system," Mel said, then wondered why he was telling her this, except that she was his boss and there was no good reason not to, really. He was vaguely aware he should still be upset with her for submitting his DNA for analysis without his permission, but the events and revelations of the last couple of days had kept him too preoccupied to develop any real spite over it. "That's it."

"You helped her give birth," Ha-Yoon pointed out. "She named her kid after you. She likes likes you."

"So?" Mel said.

"So, she's lonely. Horny. She was asking me about you the other day. What are you like when she's not around, whether you're respectful of women or a secret douchebag. That kind of thing," she said.

Mel had a sudden, terrible feeling. There was something about how Ha-Yoon was trying not to smile, but her eyes gave her away. Like a shaken-up bottle of cola that was about to explode.

"And what did you tell her?" he asked.

"I showed her the video," Ha-Yoon said, unable to keep an evil grin off her face.

Mel's face fell. "Why?"

Ha-Yoon chuckled. "You should thank me! She thought you looked really impressive. Most guys look smaller on camera, but you're pretty skinny-fit, so it looks bigger."

He stared at her, not sure why he was suddenly and terribly embarrassed. He knew the video was out on the internet. At least sixty million people had seen his junk. It shouldn't be weird that Amelia was one of them. Yet somehow, it did.

The phone rang in Ha-Yoon's office. Mel sighed and went back to restocking. His eyes kept going back to the little digital clocks that ticked down in the lower right-hand corner of the screens set throughout the store, just so nobody could escape the onslaught of silent commercials and news that was the 24/7 right of Cosmic Fill-Up customers. Counting down the minutes until he could check out.

Then, the walk home. The bus. ASL class.

Molly.

Just the thought of a half-sister was like trying to put together a puzzle and finding a piece under his chair. Not sure whether it even went to the picture Mel was trying to figure out or not. Unsure if he even wanted to try to make it fit.

But I need to know, he admitted to himself.