Fluttering Black Gills

Changelings are not standard brain slug hosts. They think and process information differently. There are many stories of individual hosts that, separated from the hive mind, evolve their own identity. Every hive and collective in existence emerged from such individuals. Yet changelings are sterile. By design, they cannot form their own hive. So if they drift far enough from their original hive, their original purpose—who can say what they want, or what they will do to get it?
—Anastasia Massimi, Slugnomicon: A Guide To Brain Slug Spirituality (unpublished draft)

Mel couldn't move. His arms and legs wouldn't respond to him. The room was darker than normal; the bioluminescence of Jordan and Jenny's brain slugs was nonexistent. He was aware they were awake. Heard their breathing. Felt the warm touch of their breasts against his chest. Yet they did not move.

Nothing in that apartment should be moving.

Yet there was the dark shadow at the foot of the bed.

It didn't seem to move, yet there was a sense of movement, as the sheet over the three people in the bed was slowly pulled towards the foot. As Mel's eyes adjusted to the darkness, the shadows frustratingly failed to resolve, yet there was an outline of a domed cap or head. Something that might have been the lower half of a woman's face. Mel could almost see the little pointed chin, level with his toes.

Then his toes disappeared.

A small black carpet seemed to cover them, and now, as Mel lay here, helpless, he saw the tide creep up his legs. Strands that were blacker than the darkness slid forward unhurriedly, down his feet. Mel could still feel his feet, and felt the tiny, hair-like strands move over them. It reminded him of one night in the orphanage, when he used to wake up, still trapped with sleep paralysis, to find a spider crawling across his face. He had barely been able to breathe, unable to move as the arachnid moved freely, the delicate legs moving over his skin. Mel had lain awake until it was gone, and then awoke, able to move again, as the room stirred to the morning bell.

For a moment, Mel wondered if that was what was happening now. An old memory, combined with MacElroy's lecture and recent experiences, coming together in a nightmare. Yet that would mean that Mel knew he was dreaming. Something he had never experienced before.

The darkness engulfed his knees and began to resolve, threads twining about themselves into tiny ropes that wove themselves into complex knots that took on the outline of fingers and hands, then arms. The half-face with the broad cap was closer now, and Mel could see that it was like one of those traditional Japanese straw hats with the wide brim that shaded the eyes. The hands clutched his knees and pulled, an upper body emerging into view.

There was the general shape of thin shoulders, of a narrow, deep chest; the small rounded suggestion of breasts. Yet it was a nebulous thing, never still, constantly moving, and Mel had the terrible certainty that there were gaps inside of there, like a mannikin woven from wicker, woman-shaped but most certainly lacking the details of flesh and blood.

The hands touched his fundoshi.

Mel didn't see the hands work to undo the twisted cloth. The underwear simply came undone, peeled off so that his pale hardness hovered in the air above his stomach. For a moment, Mel tried to mentally undo the erection. As if he could will the stubborn flesh into softness. Deny this dream or nightmare its erotic potential.

The dark woman moved forward. Mel couldn't feel the being's legs, though he heard the soft creak of the bedsprings as the new mass moved onto the bed, felt the slight shift of Jenny and Jordan leaning into him as the extra mass atop of him caused the springs to depress and his paralyzed body sank deeper into the mattress. There was a suggestion of hips, but Mel couldn't see what engulfed him, couldn't see anything below his navel. It was as though a piece of the night had been cut out, and a thousand tiny hairs wrapped themselves around him, strangling his balls and pressing into the tiny slit of his urethra.

A slow, steady pressure began. Crushing him so tightly that Mel felt his pulse fight against the constriction. The figure loomed over him, and Mel finally saw what was below that strange broad-brimmed cap. There were full, sensual lips that opened to reveal a toothless void of a mouth, from which emerged a long, dark black tongue that began to glow, like the pale bioluminescence of a brain slug. In that pale glow, just enough to add texture to the darkness, Mel saw there was no upper face. Just a wall of blank flesh that rose straight to the cap, whose underside was fluttering black gills.

The weight settled on Mel's hips. The figure towering above him did not rise or fall, yet he felt things move inside of it, stroking and tugging at him. Mel's prick, the only part of him that could move, jerked pathetically inside of the dark woman. Her hands were tucked down near his crotch, but in the darkness it looked disturbingly like a giant black mushroom astride his body, a terrible parody of his own erection mingled with the female form.

Mel strained, trying to hold off, fighting the strange simulation. There was no heat that radiated from this figure; the grip on his erection was more like a cool, oily hand than a warm, wet mouth or slit. The capped head tilted, as if it sensed his resistance, the effort to avoid giving this thing what it so clearly wanted.

The female features shifted.

It was subtle, and yet distinct. The slender form filled out and lengthened, the jawline and lips shifting until it appeared the silhouette of Rachel was seated on him. Mel couldn't repress a shudder that went through his body, and redoubled his effort to move his hand, a foot, anything, but it was like moving through concrete, the muscles absolutely refusing his call.

The form shifted again. A little shorter, slender, the breasts smaller. Jenny. Then the hips widened, the impression of thick, muscular thighs, breasts almost mosquito-bite afterthoughts as the figure shrank, jaw widening. Béibhinn. Mel couldn't look away, fascinated by the process. He couldn't see the details, but his eyes focused on the outline, saw the shift, the bulge and compression, as if a cloth doll was being unwoven and re-woven.

The tension down at the root of him was building. The constriction was moving now, pumping, drawing him up and up until his buttocks left the bed, hips instinctively twitching, and each tiny movement seemed to increase the pressure in his balls that fed the pressure at the base of his turgid prick. Mel's lungs were burning now, unable to take in a proper breath, sweat beading on his body. The thing atop him gave nothing in terms of heat, but his body recognized what was going on, and his heart pounded faster and faster.

The abdomen of the dark lady bulged out obscenely, and Mel's eyes widened as he recognized the outline of Amelia as she had been on the floor of the bathroom, her slit spreading as the baby prepared to make its journey out into the world. The gaping channel and the swollen figure like a fertility fetish made flesh had burned itself into his memory, and Mel's whole body shook as his self-control began to slip.

There was a sudden, quick succession of forms. Bigger breasts, a broader suggestion of a nose. Mel's balls tightened as he recognized that outline. Then thinner, the suggestion of old scars. Tomie. A flat chest, the face a mask with a round hole of a mouth. Cara. Skinny, ribs visible, limbs scrawny. Maxine, as he had first seen her. Then as his control reached its absolute limit, the tugging on his prick faster and harder, the dark lady's form assumed a painfully familiar outline. Taller, healthy curves, the lips half-open as if caught in mid-moan, an expression of want, need, ecstasy—

"Rache!" Mel's voice burst out as he erupted.

Everyone awoke at once.

Mel, dripping with sweat, saw the naked Rachel on top of him at the same time as her blue eyes shot open. Jenny and Jordan scrambled, grabbing out of the bed, blinking rapidly. A moment later in the doorway, a naked Béibhinn appeared, her wooden baton in hand.

Rachel pulled herself off of Mel and stared down at where something thick and white dripped out of her.

"Oh fuck," she whispered, panic creeping into her voice. "Oh fuck oh fuck you came in me!"

"I—how did—" Mel stared at his prick, which had fallen out of Rachel's slit. Thick white globs dripped onto it. He wasn't wearing a condom. His underwear was unfolded beneath him. Mel looked around the room, but there was no sign of the dark woman. "I don't understand."

Jordan and Jenny, however, understood completely. The two brain slug hosts grabbed at Mel and Rachel, pulling them apart. Jordan slid into place between Rache's legs, her mouth engulfing her sister's cunny, sucking loudly. Jenny, meanwhile, had her mouth on Mel's softening prick, slurping up the spilt splooge.

"How did this happen?" Mel said. "The door—I didn't even hear the alarm—"

"I tied myself to the bedpost," Rache said. "I swear I did, I—"

"You did," Béibhinn said, the ghola stepping closer and pointing toward Rachel's ankle.

The young woman had been using a strap from her gym bag to tie herself to the bed. It had a Velcro catch at one end that could be secured around her ankle, solid enough to keep her from wandering off, loose enough not to impede circulation. The other end was a simple plastic D-ring. Except someone had cut the strap in two, as with a pair of very sharp scissors.

Béibhinn's head turned towards the door. She frowned.

"Same thing happened to your low-tech door alarm," she said. The ghola's jaw set, eyes running over the entire apartment in a glance, as if looking for any sign of intrusion, anything out of place. "Someone didn't just want this to happen; they made this happen."

Rache stared down at Jordan, whose tongue had gone from scraping to exploring, cheeks no longer hollowing out to suck out Mel's cum. Jenny, too, had gone from sperm-recovery to slow suction on the tip of Mel's prick, a little color to her cheeks. Mel groaned a little, his heart hammering too fast, panic mingling with the sudden realization that for the brain slug hosts, this wasn't over.

Jordan and Rachel shifted on the bed so that Mel and Rache were beside each other, their girlfriends' mouths working on pussy and cock at the same time. Béibhinn stared hungrily for a moment, then turned and left them. Mel could hear her voice from her bedroom, obviously making a call.

"I'm sorry," Mel whispered to Rachel as he felt his swollen shaft reach its full hardness again. "I didn't mean to."

"I don't think it's your fault," Rache said. "You've always been good about protection. But the timing of this is . . . my next period should be here in three weeks, a little less."

Should be. Mel frowned. There was no guarantee, of course. Jordan had sucked a lot of his sperm out of her sister, and some of it had dripped out, but . . . it only took one. His head pounded, as it sometimes did when he didn't get enough sleep or water. They would need to go to a pharmacy, see how much a morning-after pill cost. If he could afford it, if Rache would take it . . .

"I had a dream last night," he said, as Rachel moaned beside him. She had her eyes closed, biting her lips, Jordan's hands pulling her sister's labia wide so that her tongue could scoop deep inside of Rache's pussy. Yet her hand found Mel's, palm to palm, fingers threaded. Her blue eyes opened, and she stared at him, nodding at Mel to continue.

"I mean, I think it was a dream. It seemed so real. I was lying awake, between Jordan and Jenny, and I couldn't move . . ."

He recounted the dream. Little details came back to him. It had been so vivid. As he spoke, Béibhinn stood at the doorway, a phone to her ear. Those strange rusted-jade eyes watched him as he told the story that ended with Rachel on top of him, ropes of virile jizz erupting deep inside her unprotected pussy as she slammed down onto him.

"Damn it," Mel swore in sudden frustration. "How the fuck did this happen? Why?"

"That's what I want to talk to the two of you about," a new voice broke in.

Mel and Rachel stared at the doorway. Behind Béibhinn, Anastasia came into view, looking tired, her long coat thrown over black pajamas with white stars and moons emblazoned on them. She had an armful of Rachel's clothes, including a pair of shoes, in her arms.

"When you four are done here, of course," she said, a wry smile on her face.

As if on cue, Mel felt a familiar ache at the root of him. He stared into Jenny's eyes, the pupils dilated, the placid features a little red. She had only gotten a taste earlier, of course. Now she wanted more. Mel nodded and let his hips buck a little as Jenny held the tip of him in her mouth, not trying to hold back at all as he slowly humped her face, Rachel's soft moaning growing in intensity and her fingers tightening as she neared her own climax.

It wasn't simultaneous, yet as Mel grunted with relief and, for the second time that morning, that explosive relief washed over him, he swore he could almost hear a soft skittering from underneath the bed.