Terrarium

Brain slugs have a concept, translated into English variously as familiar or sexpet, though there are deeper connotations. In various environments, brain slugs have discovered sapient organisms whom they value for production and companionship more than they desire a new host to increase their numbers. Such relationships are rare, in part because brain slugs struggle to interact socially with an individual they've decided is more valuable not to assimilate into the hive mind. Transactional relationships are straightforward and simple; friendship is difficult and alien to them.
—Anastasia Massimi, Slugnomicon: A Guide To Brain Slug Spirituality (unpublished draft)

Through the plastic wall, Mel could see Jenny's gigantic face. He pressed himself against the side, his dark green body squishing. Thirsty, but not for the water in the little pool in his terrarium. The brain slug on the back of Jenny's neck raised its dark head and extended its sensory tentacles. Then Mel was aware of the shadow that fell over him. Turned his body to see the naked, hairy legs. Stared up at the priapic monolith that stood above the edge of the cube.

"Hey buddy," he heard his own voice, a gigantic whisper, wash down upon him. "Ready for breakfast?"

Mel stared upwards as the gigantic hands shuffled up and down the shaft. Wet drops rolled down like white rain—and he leaned back, mouth open, to try and catch them.

Discomfort woke Mel from his sleep. Jordan had squeezed into the bed next to him sometime during the night, the big spoon to his little spoon, one arm and thigh wrapped protectively around him. His morning wood fought against the steel bars of his cage, the flesh trying and failing to achieve proper tumescence. Worse, nature was calling. Carefully, Mel slipped out from the bed and tiptoed to the bathroom.

The first attempt to relieve himself with the cage on turned into a messy disaster. Mel ended up wiping down the toilet and the floor, then taking a shower because there seemed to be no better way to clean himself up. He hadn't yet dressed when Rachel came over, a basket of dirty laundry under one arm, a cup of coffee in one hand. She wore a pair of grey slacks and a brown cardigan with eight-bit frog designs in black knit into it, her blonde hair up in what Mel immediately thought of as a librarian's bun.

Her eyes immediately went to the cage.

"What the fuck is that?" she asked.

Mel glanced at the sleeping Jenny on the couch, then the sleeping Jordan on his bed, and nodded toward the kitchen. They convened in whispers by the fridge. Where Mel explained. Rachel's expression went from incredulous to concerned to what might have been exasperated.

"Mel—did you not think at all before letting a girl put a cage on your dick?" she said, soft so as not to wake up the roommates, but struggling with emotion.

"In hindsight, I should have asked more questions," he admitted.

"You think!?" she said, her accent thickening. "Jaysis wept. Would you let just any random woman do anything to you?"

"No," Mel said. "Just, you, Jenny, or Jordan."

That made **** blink.

"You'd put on a chastity cage if I asked you?" she said.

"Sure," Mel said. "Why wouldn't I? I trust you."

She bit her lip and searched his eyes, as if looking for some hint of deception. Mel just returned her gaze levelly, not sure what else he was supposed to say. Then she sighed and smiled . . . then set her coffee cup down to reach forward and cradle his sack in her hand.

"Melville Arkwright, you are too good to be true," she said. "And some day that's going to get you in trouble."

"Good trouble or bad trouble?" he said with a grin. She grinned back. One of the things they could share, just the two of them.

Rachel had more to say once Jordan was awake, and everyone was dressed and ready to do laundry.

"Look, I get that you need him to save up," she said to her sister. "But a chastity cage? Where did you even get that?"

Jordan held out her hand for Rachel's smartphone and typed out a response. Rachel read the text and then handed it to Mel.

Hive mind worried. Too much interest in Mel. K'lur'k video went viral. Jenny bought it at the Lovecraft Adult Bookstore on the corner of 6th Street and 9th Ave.

"Nice?" he said, automatically, then read the text again. "Viral?"

Jordan took the phone back.

Two-Clicks shared it with their clutch-siblings, who spilled it onto social media. Over sixty million views.

Rachel didn't laugh. She leaned against Mel, one arm around his back, hand on his shoulder, and squeezed.

"Face it. Your dick is famous," she said. "Fortunately, they didn't get any shots of your face. Your identity is safe."

Mel sighed. Nothing about high school had prepared him for this. Other kids had smartphones, were on social media, talked in memes, and watched short videos and things. Mel had access to a monitored connection at the library for thirty minutes at a time. Porn sites were still largely theoretical to this experience . . . and having three girlfriends meant he didn't really miss it at all.

"Well, that's a relief," he settled on, which made both Rachel and Jordan stare at him strangely. "Not being identifiable, I mean."

They practiced alphabet signs while the clothes finished washing and drying, then folded everything. Ramen for lunch, with a zinc supplement, with Mel taking stock of food: it wasn't that he was getting tired of noodles and hot dogs, but he was thinking about adding a little variety to his diet. Other kinds of soup, maybe. He only had a pot right now, but maybe if he got a frying pan, he could cook some actual meat.

Rachel's shift at the library started at noon, and Mel walked with her. When they left the building, he asked: "Do you want to hold hands?"

She stared at him in surprise.

"Jordan and I have been holding hands," he said. "On the way to work."

It wasn't the first time they'd held hands. He remembered how Rachel had clutched onto him before. Yet it felt different this time, as her fingers slid into his, just like Jordan's did. Was it because he had asked? Taken the initiative? Mel wasn't sure. Rachel kept her head down for much of the walk, maybe lost in her own thoughts.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as they rounded the corner and the library came in sight.

"Yeah, just processing," she said. "Is it weird to say I'm spending a lot of time this morning thinking about your dick?"

Mel grinned. "Is it wrong to say I've been thinking I need to eat you out tonight?"

Sometimes, just sometimes, Mel thought he said the right thing. ****'s cheeks went crimson. Their hands broke apart as they went up the stairs, and Mel opened the door for her. She had work to do, and her thoughts were no doubt taken up with what he had just said.

Mel set the metal alarm off when he entered the library proper.

The little blue-haired woman from weeks back smiled at him as he scanned the book to check it out and waved him over.

"Are you Rachel's new boyfriend?" she said, her eyes inquisitive. For the first time, he noticed the bulge of cerebral implants behind her ears, set below the skin, but with small plug-covers. Neural jacks. He had heard of those, though rarely seen them.

"Yes," he said, and extended a hand. "I'm Mel."

"Lacey," she took his hand. It was a firmer grip than he thought she might possess. "Do you have metal on you, Mel? In your pockets, perhaps?"

"Ah, yes," he said. "But not in my pockets. It's, um. Attached."

"Oh, a piercing or implant?" she said, her gaze running up and down his body. The attention made Mel feel the weight of the cage all the more.

"Something like that, yes," he said. "I, um, can't take it off right now."

"Oh, that's all right, dear," she said, and the alarm ceased at some wireless command. "Our instruments can just be a little sensitive at times. Don't worry, no need for a pat down this time."

Mel smiled, although he wasn't laughing. It was one thing for his roommates and girlfriends to know he was wearing a chastity cage; he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to know it.

Something else I should have thought of before it was locked, Mel thought to himself. He sincerely hoped he could avoid having to explain it to Ha-Yoon. Although knowing her, he would probably get a ten-thousand-word explanation on the history and uses of chastity cages.

During the shift, Mel spent time browsing the books for sale in the little Friends of the Library shop. He checked his email, which was entirely spam—the only people who cared if he lived or died, he talked to every day, so no surprises there—and debated whether or not to search for the video. Courage failed, or prudence prevailed; Mel wasn't sure which, but he ended up scanning the xenobiology stacks for new reading. He had almost finished Slug Sutra, and couldn't manage more than a page or two of 'stasia's Slugnomicon per night.

He settled, after some consideration on Xenosexual Relations and My Date With A Brain Slug, on The Exodus: A History. It was a fairly recent book, and the documentary had whetted his appetite to know more. With hours left to kill, he spent some time on an overstuffed chair, reading.

The book did not start with the actual conflict that caused the Exodus, but the first human awareness of it. The flurry of information from deep space probes that suddenly resolved into radio traffic. Human excitement and apprehension at the new visitors at the edge of the solar system. Two thousand, three hundred, and sixty-eight vessels as part of the initial refugee group. He was surprised to read that additional ships had continued to show up, in ones and twos, in the decade since. Stragglers and more refugees, mostly. With their growing orbital infrastructure, Earth was becoming a node in the galactic trade and travel network, albeit currently a very limited one. Most ships that arrived couldn't refuel and make a return journey. That would change, eventually; various governments were working on stores of Helium-3 and tritium on Earth's moon to facilitate intergalactic trade, but it was a generations-long process.

Mel sat there as the afternoon gave way to evening, thinking about how he might not live to see Earth join the intergalactic community proper; a human being might never travel to another star within his lifetime. Yet the stars were coming here. It was a cold, harsh universe, and for all its beauty, there were beings like humans who needed heat, light, liquid water, and oxygen to breathe. This rich biosphere was someplace they could exist without breathing recycled air, drinking recycled water.

Rachel's hand found his shoulder when she was done with her shift, and they headed out. Mel set off the metal detector again, but Lacey waved and turned it off.

"What did you tell her?" Rachel said as they reached the street, hands seeking each other out.

"Um. She asked if I had an implant or piercing. I said something like that. That I couldn't take it off here," Mel said. "Why?"

"Lacey is convinced," Rachel said pleasantly. "That you got a series of genital piercings to impress me, and got to talking about her own experiences with a girlfriend and a terrible accident that led to her latest hip replacement."

"Oh," Mel said. "Um, sorry?"

"You never know about people until they open up to you a little," Rachel said, swinging their joined hands together.

Jordan and Jenny greeted them with kisses. The brain slug in its terrarium was moving around in a way Mel thought was active and, hopefully, healthy. There was a spoon and a jar of baby food on the chair next to it.

During dinner, Jordan replayed Oral Sex for Beginners. Mel got the hint. The three ladies sat on the edge of their seats, Jenny between Jordan and Rachel so that the sisters wouldn't touch directly. Mel got on his knees.

If this were a movie, Mel thought to himself as he pushed his face between Rachel's thighs, he felt the slight bristle of hairs, the smell of her as his tongue slowly lapped at her vulva. I'd say something quippy like "there's work to be done." But this isn't work.

Rachel didn't hold back any of the soft little sounds. Eyes closed, one hand on Mel's head to guide him up, down, deeper, or shallower. Jenny reached over and rubbed Rachel's clit, even as Jordan reached over to rub Jenny. The four of them together moving toward a common purpose.

In his cage, Mel's shaft strained against the steel bars. The discomfort was minor so far. Certainly no worse than he had experienced before he came to the apartment, when he went entire days without having a chance to jerk off, before any woman had ever touched him. Yet the brain slug in its terrarium seemed to smell it and pushed itself against the clear plastic.

They would both have to wait.