Slug cultist

Miracle spice is an extraterrestrial food additive cleared for human consumption. It has the effect of inverting the way humans interpret capsaicinoids, the main component in the spiciness of peppers. The effect has been described as like sucking on an ice cube dipped in pure menthol, but still sweating.
—1,001 Ways to Cook Ramen

"Pssst."

Cold bathroom tile beneath bare feet. The broken mirror. The dripping sink. The final stall.

"Pssst."

A cold suction from the hole. Mel could see more clearly now, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Something liquid had stained the brick that ran down from that hole to where the wall met the floor. He could see the ancient tracks it had worn in the patina of the rough surface. On the wall, generations of orphans had left a crude Kama Sutra of sexual acts and positions. Barely visible in the gloom, disturbing in the primitiveness of the figures.

"Pssst."

The hole was larger now. Big enough that an adult hand could slide through it. Something emerged from that hole and tugged at Mel's underwear, the swollen tip pushing free into the chill air. His heart hammered as the suction increased, two cold fingers grasping him behind the glans, pulling him in. Automatically, Mel raised his palms and pressed them against the wall, striving to pull himself away. Yet that terrible suction increased, like a hole in a spaceship, trying to pull him out into infinite space.

His arms trembled with strain, breath coming in cold little puffs. Fighting a losing battle. A battle a part of him yearned to lose . . .

The tinkle of metal on metal. Mel blinked awake, morning wood painfully stiff. Jordan and Jenny were already sitting up and staring as Rache staggered into view, hands feeling at the doorway in the darkness. The brain slug hosts were up and moving before the sleepwalker reached the foot of the bed. There was a moment of resistance as they grabbed her arms, but then Jordan kissed her sister, and Jenny's free hand stole down to cup Rachel's mons. The sleepwalker's eyes blinked, widened, and then she took a step back, the brain slug hosts not pursuing.

"Mornin'," Mel said, adjusting his underwear. The fundoshi had, surprisingly, not come loose in the night.

"Morning," Rachel said. She looked around and found her shirt and panties by the couch. "Walk?"

"Sure," Mel said, rolling out of bed. He saw Jenny and Jordan crawl back into bed, and on a whim leaned down and kissed Jordan on the lips, then stretched over the bed to kiss Jenny too. The two naked women held hands as they lay on their sides, a Mel-or-Rachel-shaped hole in between them on the bed.

Mel dressed and met Rachel in the hallway, in her brown cardigan and what looked like pajama pants with black cats and moons and witch hats. Out in the cool morning air, his hand held out and she took it, grateful for the human contact. Their steps pointed toward Freeman's Park.

"So," she said. "Why are you wearing a fundoshi?"

Mel smiled. "Jordan and Jenny gave me two packs of it yesterday, while you were at work. Took a little getting used to. You know what it is?"

Rache gave a shagrinned grin. "Jordan and I watched a lot of Japanese animation and read a lot of manga growing up. We, ah, always thought fundoshi were sexy. Let us look at boy butts, you know?"

"Oh," Mel said, and felt himself stir a bit. Maybe that was why. Obviously, Jordan and Jenny had bought it before Mel asked for it. Perhaps they were waiting for the right opportunity? "So, we had a couple of visitors yesterday."

Mel caught her up on Molly, MacElroy, and the ghola. Rache listened, hand clasped with his, all the way to the start of the path. She paused for a moment before they went in.

"Molly and I had a conversation about you the other day," she admitted. "After class. She wanted to know—well, everything. How we met. What you were like. I wasn't sure how to answer her about some of it, but I told her about that night we met, on the couch. How you helped that woman give birth."

"Amelia," Mel said.

"Right. Her. It's a bit awkward." She took a deep breath, and they started on the path. "I didn't tell her about the blue pearl or anything like that. Not really sure how to break it to her that 'Oh, yeah, your bro blasted the tonsils of a masked woman and then I rode him like I was breaking in a bronco all the way home.'"

Mel grinned at that. "You can be honest with her, but you don't have to tell her anything you aren't comfortable with. How are your dreams?"

"Profoundly fucking weird," Rache said with a sigh. "I'm not sure why, but ever since I received the pearl, my dreams have just been frankly erotic. Like, I used to have the occasional dream about walking down a corridor, peeking through the locks, and each one had a different scene. But lately, it's been . . . different. More intimate. I'm not watching anymore; I'm doing. You, Jordan, Jenny, sometimes all at once, but I'm always the active participant."

She bit her lip. Mel waited.

"I was sliding through this big forest. Everything smelled of rotting wood, fresh earth, rain. I didn't have legs; the lower half of my body was a slug, the single foot propelling me over root and rock. I was hunting something, then I found you. It was in a nest, and you were stuck to the wall by this hardened slime, with only your dick sticking out. I crawled up on you; I was going to swallow up your prick. I could feel my egg sac pulse, knew I needed to be fertilized—and then Jordan was kissing me, and Jenny was rubbing my pussy."

"Huh," Mel thought about that. In most of his dreams, he realized, he was fairly passive.

"What about you?" she asked. "Any dreams?"

"I've been having the same dream the last couple of nights. It's been pretty weird, too. I'm back in the orphanage. It's not quite . . . erotic. I don't know what to make of it," he admitted.

"Tell me."

So he did. All through the darkest part of the path, then back out onto the sidewalk.

Rachel was quiet for a while.

"I'm glad," she said, as they came back in sight of the apartment building, "that you didn't hurt yourself."

"I wasn't going to," Mel insisted. "I mean, I guess I was pretty low, but I don't . . . I've never seriously considered suicide. Not really."

"But there were stories," Rache said. "At the orphanage."

"Yeah," Mel admitted. "There were stories. Older teens who realized they'd be out on the streets. That there was nowhere to go and no going back."

They were quiet, all the way up five flights of stairs.

"I need to get ready for work," Rache said. "You coming in to the library?"

"Yeah," Mel said. "Meet you in half an hour?"

"An hour. I need to wash my hair," she said, then stepped close to him, to press her breasts against his chest and nuzzle her cheek against his, one arm wrapping around to hug him close. "I want you to know, you're more than just a cum dispenser to me, Mel Arkwright."

He kissed her collarbone, and for a moment he wondered how she felt, how frustrated that dream had made her. Then she sighed, and they parted for an hour.

Stretches. Shower. A kit of kielbasa, which was different from the hot dogs Mel had run out of. Brush teeth, a quick kiss to Jordan and Jenny, and he was out the door in time to wait ten minutes for Rachel, worried she had already started without him.

Seacouver was awake as they walked to the library. Sunday mornings, when many stores were closed but churches were open and doing business, including several that Mel had never heard of. They were about a block from the library when a young woman in a purple bikini stepped in front of them on the sidewalk.

"Have you ever wanted to know the pure love of a brain slug?" she asked.

The woman was skinny, showing far too much bare flesh for a cool Spring morning this far north, and Mel had to force himself to look away from how hard her nipples were tenting the thin purple triangles of her bikini top. Her hair was hidden by a kind of purple whimple. She had shaved off her eyebrows, and there was a heavy bar of purple paint that ran across her cheeks and over her nose, and down from the bottom of her lip over her chin. Mel realized disconcertedly that he felt weirdly more uncomfortable with this woman half-naked in public, even though everything was technically covered, than he was with his own naked roommates.

Before Mel could answer, she thrust a flyer at him. He took it, more out of a sense of obligation and curiosity than anything else, and glanced at it. UNITED CHURCH OF THE SLUG, it read.

"To be one of the hive is a blessing in this life!" the young woman with the flyers said. She smiled at him, and while Mel couldn't see the back of her neck, that more than anything confirmed to him that she wasn't actually possessed by a brain slug. "They are the next stage of human evolution, the next step into becoming something more than what we are!"

She grinned wide, her teeth very white, braces evident.

Rachel gave Mel a tug and pulled her away from the woman, who quickly turned to hand a flyer to someone else.

"That was . . . different," Mel said.

"Slug cultist," Rache said dismissively. "We get them dropping off flyers at the library sometimes. Mostly harmless."

Mel frowned at that. He looked at the flyer in his hand.

They parted at the entrance, and as Lacey waved at him from the front desk, Mel was glad he wasn't wearing anything that would set off the metal detector today. He waved back, and made his way to the computers. His email, he was unsurprised to see, was all spam and a few bank statements that reflected his modest paycheck being deposited, the autodraft for the rent being taken out. There was only one piece of personal mail, from Molly.

Mon frère,

Ma mère is flying in on the 2nd; she wants to meet us for dinner. Her treat. Maybe just the three of us? I expect to have the results from the lab that day or the next. I know you said you don't check your email that often, but . . . I wanted you to know.

Sincerely,

Molly Maguire

P.S. I've been looking into your parents.

She had attached several photos of Sinead and James Arkwright. They looked like yearbook photos, nothing informal. Staring into James Arkwright's brown eyes, Mel thought he could trace a touch of resemblance to Molly in the shape of her face, the curve of her forehead.

Molly, Mel thought, and he shifted back toward the library's own portal. As a library card holder, Mel had access to a number of services through the library, including the online digitized newspaper archives, some genealogical databases—things he hadn't been able to afford on his own. So he clicked through to try various search engines; that had been one of his favorite classes in school, learning to use advanced search features.

Unfortunately, "Molly Maguire" was a relatively common name. Even narrowing it down to Montreal, there was too much historical noise; thousands of hits for films, books, songs . . . Mel switched tactics: he looked for her mother. Lucie Larrivée Maguire had to be a less common name. Sure enough, after narrowing for place and time, Mel was dealing with dozens of hits, rather than thousands.

A photograph came up. College yearbook. A young black woman with natural hair, a clear resemblance to Molly, though with a few dark sunspots speckled on her cheeks, and skin a richer, deeper hue. Mel tapped through to various vital records—not many, since she was still living, but he found a record of Molly's birth in 2035, with Lucie and Seamus named as the parents, no real surprise there, even if Mel's dad had been the sperm donor.

He idled away half an hour clicking through links, reading through snippets. The death of Lucie's father in 2050, with the small family in attendance. A listing for Molly's graduation from high school. An award from the Society for Technical Communication for Translator of the Year in 2036—

Mel frowned at that. It was newsprint, black and white, yet the slim figure from the college photo looked distinctly gravid. There was a dark hand resting on her midsection, which definitely looked curved, though the rest of her was thin.

That can't be right, Mel thought. She gave birth in 2035, and Molly doesn't have any siblings. It could be an old photo. Or it could be that Lucie Maguire had been pregnant again, but miscarried, or the baby died?

He chewed his inner lip as he stared at that image for a long minute. Mel hadn't seen any other record of live birth, but he knew these databases were never comprehensive. He chewed for a moment longer, then carefully saved the image and attached it as a response to Molly.

Big Sis,

That should be fine. I get off at 1600. Rachel has late classes on Friday, so it'll just be me.

BTW, was looking you up too and found this. Is this your mom pregnant with you?

Thanks,

Mel

He hesitated for a moment, meditating on whether "Thanks" was the right word. Molly had kept her sendoff neutral. There was always the possibility that this was a big mistake. Best to keep it casual, at least for now.

By that point, people were waiting for the computer. Mel logged off and spent a few hours wandering the stacks. There were books on ASL, xenobiology, even a couple of yellowing Lovecraft volumes, rebound in institutional green hardbacks. Hours ticked by until Rache slid a hand around the back of his neck and asked if he wanted to get lunch.

There was a food truck on the corner, outside the library. They sat on the steps eating fish tacos and drinking bottled water. He asked if they had any miracle spice, but the woman behind the counter shook her head sadly. Fresh out.

"You can head back," Rache said. "I'll see you tonight."

"You sure?" Mel said. "I can stay here, walk you back."

Rache smiled. "I appreciate the thought, Romeo. But I might be late tonight, and you can't stay after closing. Go on."

They kissed farewell. Mel hadn't thought such little gestures would mean much to him. Yet he felt a moment of regret when they parted. He wondered what it would mean, the day he didn't want just one more kiss.

Someone dogged his steps, the last block back to the apartment building. Mel turned and saw a mass of dark hair, a skull t-shirt beneath a jacket and jeans. He smiled at Anastasia.

"Home again?" he said as he slowed down and fell into step beside her.

"Yes. I have an online lecture later tonight," she said. Then she noticed the flyer sticking out of his pocket. "Oh! Met the Church, have you?"

"A young woman on the street, in a purple bikini," Mel said. "I don't really understand it. She wasn't a brain slug. What's it all about?"

'stasia made an odd face, strangely wistful and distant, and answered his question with another question. "How much do you know about the earliest brain slug hosts?"

"Just what I've read. Condemned criminals, at first. Then, ah, BDSM enthusiasts?" he said.

"In a sense. There were some rather extreme submissives in the first cohort; they were among the first volunteers. But they were really what you might call 'brain slug groupies.' Some of them found the height of sexual desire in submitting themselves to be taken over, but others were people who thought that becoming a brain slug would solve all their problems, or who had extreme psychological issues and were on the verge of suicide. Which is what the government effectively considered it: legal suicide," 'stasia said.

"The brain slugs expanded their human host population, formed the hives and collectives we know today. Earth governments were leery of the slugs' ability to rapidly expand, so they imposed more legal restrictions—which is why you might remember those demonstrations for brain slug rights. It's been a constant tug-of-war between acceptance and restriction. Which means there are always more brain slugs that want hosts than are legally available, and more people that want to be hosts than are legally acceptable," she gave a grin. "The hives are law-abiding; they're playing the long game. But that means a lot of frustrated humans that think they want to be brain slug hosts."

"So they . . . formed a church?" Mel didn't get it.

"Not one. About a dozen worldwide, maybe more. Most of them are some version of new religious movement or scam; the distinction between the two can be difficult to tell from the outside. There's an Order of the Worm in New England, and the Joabites in Brazil, among others. Some of them have genuine connections with brain slug hives, act as recruiters, filtering out those who need psychological counseling or medical care. Others are independent, run by charismatic individuals, or preying on the desperate."

Mel frowned. He thought of the priests that used to come by the orphanage, and the military and corporate security recruiters. That did make sense.

"Anyway," she said, as they took the stairs to the fifth floor. "You might want to stay away from them."

"Why?" Mel asked.

"Because you have an intimate relationship with several brain slug hosts. You're connected with the Seacouver Hive. There are people in this Church that would damn near kill for that kind of access," 'stasia said. Then, as she approached her door, she added: "I found a stack of those flyers in Antonio's room afterwards."

Which was enough that, when Mel entered 501, to the rattle of his impromptu alarm, he crumpled the flyer and placed it straight into the kitchen trash.

Jenny and Jordan were dressed, to his surprise, in their hoodies and athleisure wear. Jordan rose as soon as he entered and went to the fridge, arranging the magnetic letters to spell a bare message.

402 NEEDS TO BE FED

"Other Mel," he said, taking a deep breath. "Right, okay."

Jordan led the way, Jenny closing the door behind them. They formed a weird little procession down the hall, down the stairs, and all the way to that other door, nearly identical to apartment 502 above. Jordan didn't even knock; she waved her keycard before the door, and it unlocked. That surprised Mel, but then he reflected that she had given Rache access to their apartment.

The room had that fishy smell that Mel associated with prolonged brain slug occupation. It was spare, without even the little signs of life that he associated with their apartment. The other brain slug, her roommate, the one with the cybernetic arm and the Immortals jacket, was not in evidence. Maybe he was working or shopping. Mel didn't know.

She sat in the center of the room, by the couch, naked in her chair. There were casts on her arms and legs, and what Mel took to be a catheter hanging from the chair. Her eyes were fixed on the television, a documentary about volcanoes, the remote control under her right hand.

As they filed in, Mel's throat went tight. She turned to see them.

"No mask," he whispered aloud.

It was almost his own face that looked back at him, though the hair was barely stubble, while his was getting overgrown. The brain slug on her neck turned to look at him, and he remembered when it had lived upstairs in its little terrarium, instead of down here in the darkened room. Jordan and Jenny immediately moved forward and laid their hands on her bare shoulders. Moments later, they emptied the bag that hung at the end of the catheter and began to give her a sponge bath.

Mel stared into those brown eyes, at the spare body. He saw the scars from the breast removal, the hairless cleft below, shaven clean, as Jordan and Jenny wiped her down, adjusting small massage-pads that helped prevent bedsores. The secret agent who had so badly needed gender-affirming surgery that they had become him, only to be joined with a brain slug and—and now the slow biology of the brain slug would undo some of that work, he imagined. He wondered if she had accepted that as the price she had to pay. He hoped so.

"Hi," he said, signing and speaking. "I'm Mel."

With that, he'd exhausted his sign language.

"We didn't meet properly," he said. "But I saw your testament later. For what it's worth, I'm sorry I broke your cover. It wasn't anything I intended to do. It turns out that because I was an orphan, they put me in this program as Jordan's roommate. Left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, something like that."

Her brown eyes were like looking in a mirror. It was strange to think of the budding slug that Mel had fed was looking out through those eyes, listening through those ears. That he was talking to both that slug and the secret agent.

"They said I'm here to feed you. I hope it helps. That you can heal soon," Mel said. He looked around the dark room. "Maybe we could take you out for some air? Or keep you company. You shouldn't be down here in the dark all the time."

The Other Mel's tongue slid out of her mouth and licked dry lips. Jordan found a bottle of water with a straw in the fridge and brought it over so that the Other Mel could sip. Yet her brown eyes never left Mel.

They dropped down to his waist. Mel nodded, getting the message.

"Right, sorry," he said, as he unbuckled, slid down his pants, and then his underwear. He strode forward, naked from the waist down, not sure how best to make this work. After a moment, Jordan brought forward a step-stool from the kitchen, and Mel was able to balance himself with one leg on the middle step and one knee on the arm of the couch, which brought his crotch about level with her mouth.

"Sorry," Mel apologized, as he took himself in hand and began to run his thumb over the glans. This wasn't exactly the most arousing scenario he had ever imagined. To his surprise, the seated woman leaned forward, breathing in his scent, her mouth open, tongue striking out to lick. Even though he wasn't fully hard yet, Mel guided himself to her mouth, let her lips close on it.

The technique was different from anything Mel had experienced yet. The Other Mel's tongue continually licked at the sensitive underside of his helmet, all the way up to his slit. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked hard, then relaxed, building a rhythm. To his surprise, Mel felt himself respond to it, shaft swelling, hitting the top of her mouth. Jordan and Jenny came up on either side, holding onto the seated brain slug host's shoulders with one hand, supporting Mel's lower back with the other.

As much as he wanted to remain still, Mel couldn't hold perfectly in place. His hips shifted a little, the sensitive tip of his helmet rubbing against the top of her mouth, his testes swaying. The Other Mel's face was no more expressive than any other brain slug host's, but there was a single-minded intensity to her actions which was at once disconcerting and interesting. Mel felt that familiar sensation build inside of him, slowly but steadily.

Jordan's finger on his perineum caught Mel by surprise. It was just her finger, just a warm point of pressure behind his scrote, yet Mel felt a sudden, inexplicable vulnerability. He took a deep breath and rested his hands on top of his head, trying to focus on the subject at hand, the mouth sucking and slorping at him, that unseen tongue running up the sensitive underside of his shaft as the tip rubbed against the top of her mouth, smearing it with pre-cum.

Mel was not prepared when Jordan shifted her grip. She cradled his balls in her fingers as her thumb pressed hard against the underside. It seemed to stimulate the pressure building inside of him, and suddenly his breathing quickened, the anticipation building faster and faster.

Jenny grabbed his shaft in a two-finger pinch and stroked, fast but hard. Maybe that was what sent Mel over the edge, letting out a gasp of relief as the hot, sticky spasm erupted inside that hot mouth, the cheeks hollowing out as his seed burst against the roof of the Other Mel's mouth and fell down onto her tongue. Mel grunted as he squeezed out rope after rope. Then let out a ragged breath and felt his body sag. Jenny stroked a little more, as if to encourage the last few white drops out, but as Mel softened, the seated brain slug host drew in her lips and let him fall.

Mel grinned and gently disengaged.

He looked at the seated woman. There was a little more color in her cheeks; her brown eyes dilated slightly. The little pink nipples above the mastectomy scars were stiff. Mel looked around the room again. Sad, empty, alone.

Mel knew how that felt.

"Why don't we take her with us upstairs?" Mel suggested. "Just for dinner. Until her roommate gets back. I hate to leave her all alone."

So they did.