Message Received

Just as a brain slug's eyespots complement the host's vision, the brain slug's chemoreceptors complement the host's sense of smell and taste. Most brain slugs emphasize connections to these sensory organs and their processing structures in the brain, which can make them very sensitive to strong smells and tastes. Most brain slug species have allergies to certain aromatic compounds common in garlic, onion, and plant and animal oils; their hosts do not typically share these allergies, and can contact, consume, and process such foodstuffs safely, but the instinctive avoidance remains. Scents that attract them, conversely, they like to keep close. It isn't unusual for brain slug hosts to wear clothing that their sex partners have worn, to keep their scent nearby.
—How To Talk To Brain Slugs, Chapter 2: Smell

Jordan was on top of him. Mel could feel the weight and heat of her buttocks pressing into his chest. She was wearing his boxers, her nipples tented the thin white fabric of the wifebeater. The whites of those blue eyes glowed softly, the expression blank as ever except—something wet and warm splashed on his cheek. The tears flowed down, glittering like jewels, as he struggled to breathe with the weight against his chest.

Her boxers twitched. Something moved there, between her legs. Something black and sleek, semi-translucent as it pushed out through the front opening. The brain slug huge as it extended itself over his mouth. This close, he could see the small hole on the underside of the head that served the brain slug as a mouth, lined with teeth almost too small to see. A tiny lamprey mouth that could latch, hold, chew, suck—

The milk drops spewed from the hole, hot and unerring as it flowed into his mouth.

Jordan's mouth opened in a wordless gasp. Her face transformed into a mask of pleasure that never reached her eyes. Those cold, flat, blue eyes, like something ancient and alien staring into Mel's own. As if trying to tell him something. A message he could almost grasp as the thick white milk splashed against his lips, his chin, burned a hot line down his throat as he instinctively swallowed—

Mel awoke with a jolt, heart hammering. Two warm, naked bodies curled against him on either side, not on the bed, which was too small to hold all three of them, but on the floor. He had gone to bed wearing pants. He was no longer wearing pants. Jordan and Soong's heads were on either shoulder, their breathing slow and steady, arms wrapped over his chest so that they held each other despite the fact that he was between them.

Rachel nudged his foot again. His bad foot. A spike of pain made his leg recoil, and in the dark, she seemed to realize her mistake.

"Damn. Sorry. I forgot," Rachel said. She looked at his face. Then she looked at something that definitely wasn't his face, that lay sprawled against his stomach wet, half-limp, and aching in a familiar way.

"What happened?" he whispered.

"They came in about an hour ago," she whispered back. There was something in her voice, like wonder or horror, Mel wasn't sure which. Like a witness recounting a crime, or a revelation. "You were on the floor. Dead to the world. Then they—you didn't even wake up. But you were already hard, and they just opened their mouths and started licking. Like they wanted to taste you. It was so weird, watching their heads move in the dark, lips locked around your—I mean, I've seen porn, but this was so different. So silent. No moans, no posturing for the camera. Jordan was so focused. I've never seen her like that so far. At the end, when they seemed to kiss each other, your head in between their lips—they were holding hands the whole time. Then they just curled up next to you."

She stopped, shook her head. Not in disgust. Sort of amazement, maybe.

"Wish I'd been awake for that," Mel whispered, his heart still hammering as he gently tried to extract himself from his roommates. "You watched?"

"I mean, the show was free," Rachel said, smile somewhat crooked. Then she seemed to realize what she said. "Is that bad? Are you upset?"

Jordan and Soong shifted toward each other, breast to breast, cheeks on Mel's pillow, which had followed him to the floor. They looked innocent. Mel found his pants bunched around his ankles. Conscious of Rachel's eyes on him, he pulled them back up and buttoned them. It was good make-work for his body as his mind tried to process the question.

"No," he whispered, at last, and honestly. "I mean, you see how it is. I'm not trying to—I'm not deliberately trying to expose myself when you're around. I should probably talk to them when they're awake, about how to keep things private when we have guests—the whole situation is new, you know? But no, I don't mind. You're—I trust you."

Rachel's face did something complicated. She stood in the doorway, inadvertently blocking his exit. A question stopped him, despite certain biological necessities making themselves known.

"Why were you sleeping on the floor?" Rachel asked.

Mel blinked. Bits and pieces of last night came back. He'd started on the bed. Rolled around a lot. Hit the floor. Hadn't wanted to get up yet. Just stayed there.

"Dream," he said. "Or maybe a nightmare. I'm not sure. Been having some really vivid dreams since I moved here. New place, I guess."

Rachel raised one eyebrow. "Did you have dreams before that made you so hard you were about to burst?"

Mel couldn't tell whether he should smile or cringe at that, and based on the expression on Rachel's face, he tried to do both at once and failed. It wasn't a question he'd really thought about, but his dreams had been pretty intense lately. More than when he'd been in the orphanage.

"No," he said finally. "I mean, morning wood happens, but—it's been different since I moved in. Excuse me, really need to pee."

She didn't move. Not immediately. Rachel looked Mel in the eyes, and again he was struck by the focus, so different from her sister's.

"I've never done that before," Rachel said, voice still a whisper. "Watched people be intimate like that. And you know what the weird part about it is?"

"How normal it gets," Mel said, automatically. "I felt the same way about the nudity. It was so weird at first, so off-putting. I felt guilty looking at them. Still do, sometimes. Like I'm doing something wrong. Even when I know that it isn't that different, that it's just a few millimeters of cloth, that everyone's naked beneath their clothes. Nothing bad happened. The world kept going. Nobody cared about them being naked except me. It was all in my head."

"You understand," she said, and her shoulders seemed to slump in relief. "I felt horrible just watching, not doing anything. Except they weren't hurting you, and you said you were okay with it, and there was such hunger, such—such need, but they were being careful, not rough, and—"

"I get it," Mel said. "It is what it is. Just, this is my life with brain slugs. Our life, I guess I should say."

"Are you ashamed?" she asked.

Mel considered. "I don't think so. I mean, I don't want to announce it to the world. I don't want to be an asshole who tries to **** them to do anything they don't want to do. But I'm—I like being needed. For something. And while I wish I'd been awake to enjoy it, I don't mind being...available. When someone I care for needs me."

Rachel nodded and stepped back half a step to let him slide by her, out of the doorway to his bedroom, headed toward the bathroom and the toilet. She gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder as he passed.

"I'm still not going to suck your dick. But thanks for not being weird about me watching," she said.

He grinned at her, pure reflex.

"Anytime."

It wasn't until later that Mel wondered how she would interpret that word.

Bathroom time became a shave, shower, and brushing his teeth. The bandage had come off his foot, but the redness was much reduced, fading into a yellow bruise that was ugly and sore but not, thankfully, oozing or leaking anything. Mel changed in his room. The naked women on the floor were still asleep. The hosts, anyway. As he sat on the bed to put on his socks, Mel saw the small dark heads of the brain slugs move, tracking his movement. None of the books had said anything about whether or not the brain slugs slept, even though their hosts clearly did.

By the time Mel emerged, Rachel was in the bathroom. She had left him a note on the counter, written on the back of the blank envelope that Mel had delivered from Tomie last night. One word.

CONDOMS!!!

"Message received," Mel said, as he headed out into the waning daylight.

The thought hit him, as he felt the cool evening air on his skin, about something Mel had not told Rachel about brain slugs. The eye spots. Because if she was watching them, then they were most certainly watching her. They knew she had stood there, watching, and done nothing. Mel wondered if that hadn't been the point of it all.