Weirdly, Terribly Exposed

Imagine a video game where you control a group of simulated people in a simulated environment, going about their lives. At any moment, you can jump into them and see what they see, feel what they feel. Taste the food they eat. Feel the heat of their desire as they make love. Except for the hive mind, that isn't a simulation. Each host is a node of their consciousness, but one that can attract greater attention when the host is doing something particularly interesting (like sex) or is in danger. Sexual **** attracts a great deal of the hive's attention very quickly.
—Slug Sutra, introduction

How do you ask your roommate why they stole your underwear? Mel wondered to himself.

Motive worried Mel more than the current whereabouts of his boxers. There weren't that many places that the underwear could be: they were either in Jordan's room or Soong had taken them with her. Either way, they were beyond Mel's immediate grasp. Maybe tomorrow, when Jordan went to work, he could search her room. Mel felt less comfortable about violating her personal space than he had about entering the women's restroom at the Cosmic Fill-Up.

But hasn't she already violated my space? He argued with himself. The underwear had been in his drawer with his clothes. It's not like he had put them next to her panties and bras.

The thought stopped him. He hadn't thought about it, but her underwear was . . . accessible. Not that he would ever take them. Or touch them. Or sniff them. Yet now that he thought about them there, he couldn't keep his imagination from running wild. In his panties, Mel felt a familiar stirring.

Not now, he told himself. Then his mind went back to the problem at hand. Maybe it's **** for last night's slug dinner with Antonio. A way for her to tell me, without words, that I screwed up, I overstepped my bounds. I wronged her, and this is my punishment.

Mel was still considering that line of thought as he assembled dinner. Soong returned as Mel was bringing the water to a boil. The last of the onions and a hot dog went into the pot. She brought a loaf of black bread. She took off her clothes as soon as she arrived, folding them neatly and laying them on top of the chest of drawers. Mel watched as Jordan and Soong tore apart a package of celery, making the strangest sandwiches he had ever seen. It was a new behavior, and standing in the kitchen with only pants and shirt, he could feel the hardon that wanted to emerge.

His eyes dropped to Soong's thighs, and he wasn't surprised to see a familiar string dangle there. Both women were on their period.

Down, boy, he ordered himself helplessly. Mel felt the swollen tip press against the back of the button at the top of his zipper, glad his t-shirt hid his situation. He was sure by now that the brain slug hosts could sense it, but they were ignoring it and him. The cold shoulder hurt almost as much as the loss of his undies.

He had known young women at the orphanage who'd synchronized their periods, and it sort of made sense for Jordan and Soong. They spent so much time together—or maybe it was the brain slug that caused it? Mel wasn't sure. Yet it seemed to match the easy unison of the two, who moved together with the coordination befitting of parts of the same massive, distributed organism.

The two naked women settled on the couch. Remote control in hand. Mel settled down on what he now considered "his" end, gingerly trying to give the naked woman next to him her space.

The Human Animal came on.

Mel nearly choked as the familiar opening scene played. The same scene that he had jerked off to that first time, with the naked woman walking forward, her body changing through a time-lapse pregnancy. This time, he could hear the narration, the dry British voice narrating about sex.

It wasn't pornographic. No more graphic than any of the other nature documentaries that Mel and Jordan had watched since they had started living together. Yet the uncanny coincidence, if that's what it was, shocked Mel to the point that he could barely taste his ramen. They ate with bone-crunching bites of crisp celery, slowly and methodically demolishing more vegetables in a meal than Mel had eaten in a week. Yet he was almost sweating, body stiff, every muscle tense as his new jerk-off fodder watched his old jerk-off fodder with apparent interest and appreciation.

Despite the discomfort, Mel found himself getting into the program. It was, basically, just another documentary. Humans were presented as just another kind of animal, part of a family of great ape species with whom they share many traits and behaviors. There wasn't much nudity, none of the dirty, sleazy tone of Slug Fucker Monthly.

Mel had finished his soup and risen to wash up when there came a knock at the door. He glanced at the two naked women on his couch, then stepped over and glanced through the peephole. Distorted in the lens, he could make out Antonio, in a wifebeater and cargo shorts.

"It's Antonio," Mel whispered, loud enough that he hoped the women could hear him but not Antonio himself. Immediately, the two naked brain slug hosts rose and went into Jordan's room. The door closed with a click. Antonio knocked again. Mel opened it.

"Hey," Mel said, trying to get ahead of the conversation. "Sorry, I was just finishing dinner."

Antonio looked at Mel, and then past him, into the open apartment. He scowled.

"Is Spicy here?" he asked.

"Yeah," Mel said. He looked over his shoulder and noticed Soong's clothes, still folded on the chest of drawers, in plain view. "She's in Jordan's room. Not sure what they do in there together . . ."

Mel shut up as Antonio gave him a look. It wasn't a happy look. Antonio's jaw looked like he was chewing something, and a vein pulsed in his temple. Mel hadn't moved from the doorway, and once again, he was aware that the other man had a height and weight advantage on him. If Antonio wanted to barge in, Mel didn't like his odds of trying to stop him.

"Tell her dinner's ready," Antonia said curtly. "Now."

Mel blinked. "Yeah, sure."

He stepped over to the door. Deliberately exposed his back, acting with a nonchalance he didn't feel. Gently, Mel wrapped on Jordan's door, pressed his face close, and said loudly enough for Mel to hear.

"Antonio's here. Wanted to tell Soong that dinner's ready."

The door opened a crack. A slim hand—Jordan's—emerged in a thumb's up. Though Antonio couldn't see it, Mel caught a glimpse of the naked body outlined there. The brain slug on Jordan's shoulder seemed almost entirely black, its sensory tentacles fully extended.

He turned to look at Antonio, who scowled and went back across the hallway. As soon as Mel closed the apartment door, Soong emerged. Naked, not obviously agitated, but she moved directly to the chest of drawers and began to dress. In less than two minutes, she was dressed and out the door.

The Human Animal ended as Mel washed up, his lost boxers momentarily forgotten. That had been a close call—obviously, the brain slug hosts hadn't wanted to be caught naked by Antonio. Why? They seemed comfortable enough around Mel without a stitch on. It was an idea that lodged in Mel's brain, though not one he was sure he could communicate fully to anyone.

Was it possible for a brain slug host to be a cocktease? Was that what this was? Or was it some other, stranger level of social experiment or miscommunication? Mel wasn't sure. Yet as he lay down to sleep, he couldn't ignore the throb in his pants. He hadn't jerked off in days . . . and somehow, he was **** to touch himself. Afraid, perhaps, that Jordan would sense it, but more afraid that she'd sense it and then not come to lick it up. It felt almost like he was trapped in a contest of wills, and he had no idea what the stakes were.

That night, Mel slept in only a t-shirt, and felt weirdly, terribly exposed, even with his door shut.