When I'm with you, I only think of you

Pope Donus II issued the papal bull In Imago Dei in 2045, announcing that it was Catholic policy that extraterrestrials had souls and were capable of salvation. The exact metaphysics of this were difficult to translate to some species that lacked the concept of supernatural beings, an afterlife, or souls; the Etherling Collective of Italy initially responded by filing an injunction, assuming the Catholic Church was trying to make a legal claim about their intellectual property rights. The matter was eventually resolved in the Universal Catholic Covenant of 2051, where the Catholic Church officially affirmed it had no claim to any part of the invisible property of the peoples of the Exodus.
—Anaïs Nineveh, The Exodus: A History, Chapter 6

It was a ten-hour shift when Tomie, Bobbie, and Maxine finally arrived. Mel was surprised to see the skinny Black brain slug host dressed in a red shirt and looking a little less starved. Her skin was brighter too, more brown than grey, and her head had been shaved. Her placid face matched that of her fellow members of the Greater Pacific Northwest Collective. Jenny and Jordan spent a few moments holding hands with the newcomers. No doubt getting caught up on events.

Mel gave them space, standing next to Ha-Yoon, who sighed with relief and sipped her coffee.

"When did Maxine get hired?" Mel asked.

"MacNamara?" the manager said. "Started her on the night shift Saturday. Nice thing about brain slugs: training is pretty straightforward. Once you have one trained, the other can pass along the basics pretty quickly. They don't have the muscle memory, but they know where the supply closet is and how to work the register."

Mel considered that. "How does that work for sign language?"

"Same," Ha-Yoon said with a yawn. He wasn't sure how long she had been up. Before he'd arrived, at least. "They get the vocabulary and grammar pretty quickly, I think. Like downloading an app, but they're pretty stiff and mechanical in using it. I don't know what the mechanism is, exactly, but it's like the difference between listening to 100 hours of videos on a subject versus actually working 100 hours."

"So when are you going home?" Mel asked.

"When Janine gets here. You haven't met her. She's the night manager," Ha-Yoon said.

The brain slugs parted. Mel nodded at his boss and went off to join his girlfriends. They had to go home, eat dinner, brush their teeth and—

Oh, right, Mel blinked as he remembered. I'm having sex with Rachel tonight.

A weird flutter happened in Mel's abdomen, and a sudden need to pee. He recognized the sign from final exams in high school. Mel wasn't sure why he should feel this way; it wasn't like he and Rachel had never had sex before. Yet this felt different. It wasn't spontaneous. He was expected to perform. So, too, he had called it a date. Did that mean she would expect more from him? Make it special, somehow?

"Rache doesn't have night classes," Mel said. "She'll probably be here for dinner. Is it okay if we swing by the co-op and grab a chicken or two?"

They ended up buying three rotisserie chickens because they were on sale, and Mel dipped down the discount aisle and found a box of chocolates leftover from Valentine's Day. Jenny added bottles of multivitamins and zinc supplements, and Jordan grabbed a six-pack of Quench. Mel grinned nervously as he swept his hand over the payment slate, the funds debiting out of his account. This was, probably, overkill. Discount chocolate and sale chickens weren't exactly romantic.

There were probably a million manuals and online guides for dating, zero of which Mel had read. His idea of what constituted a prelude to sex was shaped almost entirely by television and movies, and he knew from the stories of some of the older teens that wasn't exactly representative of the lived experience of most. Too, Mel knew he wasn't exactly trying to seduce Rache. He just . . . wanted to do something nice for her. For all of them.

As it happened, Mel had barely gotten the plates and towels out—they had no paper napkins—and Jenny and Jordan had gotten naked when the cans clanked, and Rache came in, looking exhausted, ready to fall down. Immediately, Mel stepped over to her, face all naked concern, and Rache threw her arms wide.

"Hug," she said.

They hugged.. She angled her neck up so she could rest her chin on his head.

"Modern Canadian Literature," she moaned. "It's all Alice Munro and Marian Engel. I have to read a novel about a woman who has sex with a bear. Not like a gay hairy guy, but fur-and-claws-type bear."

Mel frowned. "I . . . can the bear consent?"

"I don't know. I haven't read it yet," Rache sighed. She sniffed. "Is that rotisserie chicken?"

Mel smiled into her shoulder. "Yeah. We got chicken."

Jordan gave Mel a zinc tablet and a can of Quench, and watched until he washed down the one with the other. During dinner, they watched a documentary on oyster farming. Watched divers bring up the irregular, strange-looking natural oysters from the bottom of the bay, and then showed the much more uniform oysters on their strings and in their little racks. It was narrated by a woman with a broad Newfoundland accent, a choice that made Mel nostalgic for an ocean he'd never visited.

Mel finished first, and rose to fetch the chocolates from the fridge. Rache turned around when she heard the crinkle of the wrapper.

"No way," she said, blue eyes wide as saucers. "You bought chocolate?"

It was a fairly standard confection sampler. Mel let the ladies have their pick. His mind was already on the end of the night. Not sure how exactly Rache wanted to do this. It was difficult to sit there next to her, watching bivalves grow from tiny seeds to full-fledged shellfish, while she was sitting right next to him. Somehow, knowing it was a sure thing was less than reassuring. It just made him anxious.

At least one part of him was ready, however. Mel's cheeks burned as he felt his shaft swell, and there was that throb inside, pent up from last night's session without release. He rubbed sweaty palms on his pants, convinced he would at least be able to get it up when necessary.

"So . . . I don't know if Mel told you," Rachel said. "But I want to have sex with Mel tonight. I think maybe if I get it out of my system before bed, I won't sleepwalk. At least, that's the theory. So, um. Do you mind if we do it just the two of us? In my room? He'll still sleep over here, I just . . . want a little one-on-one time."

She laid a hand on his knee, and Mel felt an aching need inside of him. Just so casual, so familiar. He gave a shy grin at Jordan and Jenny, hoping this wasn't going to be an issue.

Jordan produced a three-pack of condoms and passed them to Jenny, who reached beyond Mel to pass them to Rache. The blonde at the far end of the couch raised her eyebrows.

"Right. Thanks," she smiled at Mel and rubbed his knee. "So, I have to go do some homework. Maybe take a shower, freshen up. Why don't you get ready and then come over at about 10:30?"

Mel nodded. Homework. Right. She had college classes. Grades were important.

"Sure," he said. There was the usual clean-up. Teeth were brushed. Plates and hands were washed. Rachel kissed them all goodnight, saving Mel for last. A long, lingering kiss on the lips, with just a little tongue. Like a promise of things to come.

It was as soon as she had left that Jordan and Jenny brought out the safety razor and the clippers. He sat on the edge of the tub as Jenny gave his shaggy locks a quick haircut, pulling the longer hair on top up and shaving the back and the sides down to the skin. Between his legs, Jordan grabbed his erection and angled it toward his stomach so that she could scrape the pink safety razor over his scrotum.

Jordan was thorough. Mel felt himself pucker as, after she rinsed the razor, she went back, delicately running the blade over his taint and pulling his cheeks apart to make sure there were no intruding hairs there, either. It was a level of personal grooming that Mel had never really imagined—and he wondered if this was a level he should aspire to maintain. He bit his lip as, freshly shaved up and down, the two naked women dragged him into the shower for a proper scrub-down.

He thought about the slightly fishy smell that he associated with the brain slug hosts, and he wondered what he smelled like to them. Mel was aware that the older teen girls in the orphanage had complained about how boys began to smell. He had never thought about himself as reeking, but as Jenny rubbed a handful of suds down the crack of his ass and fondled his sack, he made a mental note to take better care to clean up before sex.

It was the least he could do.

The hard-on didn't die down during the towel-off, and the two naked women watched as Mel carefully tied a fresh fundoshi, and put on his cleanest pair of jeans and shirt. It felt ridiculous to ask how he looked—even with a shower and a haircut, Mel looked pretty much the same—but he smiled at his roommates anyway.

"Thanks," he said. "I hope this works for her, but even if it doesn't—thanks. I'm sorry if I haven't been—I mean, please tell me if I smell, or if I need to shave down there."

Jordan and Jenny stepped forward as one, the brain slugs peering over their necks as they kissed his cheeks.

Then it was time to wait. They made him sit in the middle seat of the couch, one of them on each side of him, their breasts pressed against his arms. Hands rubbing him through his pants. Not letting Mel go limp, not for a moment, but also not taking it further.

"Should I reciprocate?" he said, not sure what the etiquette was, even after everything they had done.

Jordan shook her head. Never letting up on rubbing him through his jeans for a moment, she sign-spelled with one hand: L-A-T-E-R.

Mel swallowed and nodded. Message received.

It did nothing to ease his excitement or the gnawing pre-test jitters that gripped his gut. He almost went to the bathroom to pee ten times in the next hour, stopped only because neither Jordan nor Jenny would let him get up.

It's not like I've never had sex with Rache before, Mel asked himself. Why does this time feel different?

The answer came to him: because this time, there were no brain slugs involved. No hive mind putting her into a profound state of horniness, no echoes of pleasure transmitted through the pearl, no all-hands-on-deck to assist. Mel had to satisfy Rache using only what he had and knew . . . and he feared disappointing her more than he looked forward to getting off.

At 10:29, Mel stepped out the door and across the hall. He was about to knock when the door opened.

Rachel was there, in a too-small t-shirt that showed her belly button and clung to her breasts, and a pair of loose boyshorts. She looked comfortable, but hooked a pair of fingers behind Mel's point and dragged him inside.

"Anastasia is sleeping," Rache whispered. "We have to be quiet."

Mel had no idea how that was going to work, but he nodded and took off his shoes at the door, tugged along into Rache's room—which had been, a couple of months ago, Jordan's room. Now the room held an ancient iron-framed bed, the single mattress covered with a duvet printed with the face of some blue-haired anime girl. Metal frames around the walls ran up to the ceiling, forming cubical holes, some of which contained plastic boxes of clothes, others of which had stiff plastic floors to hold books, movies, stuffed animals, and framed photographs of Rachel and Jordan at different ages.

The three-pack of condoms was on her pillow.

"So," Rache whispered as she sat on the bed. "I'm a little nervous. I don't know why. It's not like we haven't done this before."

Mel reached out and laid his hands on her shoulders. He bent his knees until their faces were level.

"It's the first time we've done this all by ourselves," he whispered back. Mel leaned in, and she closed her eyes and opened her mouth before their lips met. For a moment, they just lived in that kiss. Mel's hands, not sure where else to go, found her thighs. He rubbed them gently, his thumbs stroking the inner thighs, not sure where to go from here, heart thumping faster and faster.

He leaned forward. Rachel fell back until her shoulders were pressed into the bed, and her hands were pulling at his shirt. The kiss broke naturally as she pulled the shirt over his head—and then Mel fell thirstily on the little pool of sweat in the hollow of her collarbone. Her eyes were half-lidded as she pulled her own shirt up. Mel felt something catch in his throat in that moment as the underboobs were exposed, nipples still hidden—and she let out a little squeal as he delved down to run his tongue underneath her half-exposed tits.

His crotch was pressed against the edge of the bed, aching for the moment. Yet Mel didn't reach for his belt. Not yet. He let his mouth explore Rachel's breasts in a way he'd never really had time for. Taking as much of a boob inside as he could and pulling back slowly, until only the hard, swollen, sensitive teat was trapped between his lips, letting his tongue tease the nipple. Her blue eyes danced, letting him have his fun—but her fingers reached for her shorts, to try and drag them down around her butt.

Which left the problem that her thighs were spread apart. She couldn't get them off like that.

So Mel released the last nipple and let her spit-smeared breasts flop naturally on her chest. He grabbed her thighs and lifted them up. Rache got the idea, as her legs rose and rose, came together until her whole body weight rested on her shoulders and her legs were together in the air. She pulled the panties down around her thighs.

Which left her little crease right there at face level for Mel.

She gave another tiny squeal as his mouth found her clit. His tongue slid inside the tight little slit, all the tighter because her legs were together. Rachel was wet—but she could be wetter.

"You don't have to," she whispered.

Mel let her legs part, just a little, so that he could see her face, flushed crimson. He gave a smile.

"But I want to," he whispered back.

His tongue found her clit. There were no more words for a little while. Just the sound of her breath, getting a little faster as he licked and sucked, holding her legs up, her body quivering as it held the unfamiliar position. He felt, too, his aching hardness pressed into her spine as he lapped at her pussy, that familiar tanginess that was so alike and yet slightly unlike her sister's. Rache had to clamp a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound when her whole body shook, and her ankles crossed behind his head.

Only when he lowered her gently back down, breasts heaving, did he reach for the condom.

She raised her head, eyes slightly crossed as he unbuckled and pulled off his pants. Bit her lip as he undid the Japanese underwear. A part of him wondered if she was thinking of those Japanese cartoons she had watched, the young bodies with their man-bits hidden away. When the fundoshi peeled off, she stared at him as if for the first time.

"Fuck. I never really get used to that," she whispered, voice hoarse as he slowly peeled the condom over his swollen shaft. "Like I know that's all been in me before, but when I see it like that, it just seems impossible."

Mel leaned over and kissed her shoulder, and then her other one. The shadow of him hung over her face as his lips found her chin, and then her nose. His hips moved on their own, poking and prodding, but at last she had to reach down and guide him to her entrance—and then she looked him right in the eye.

"I want you to do something for me," she whispered. "Something I've always wanted to do, and this might be crazy, but I want you to push it all in at once, no stopping, no gentleness, just—ram it all into me."

He frowned. "That could hurt."

She felt his nails on his back. Her whole body quivered.

"It's okay if it hurts a little," she said. "First times always hurt a little. Sometimes it helps us remember."

Mel wasn't sure about that, but he nodded. Just the entrance of her was hotter than he remembered. He could feel it trying to suck him further in. All the pent-up desire was a throbbing presence at the root of his shaft. So he took a single deep breath—

She didn't stifle the cry as he slammed into her. Eight points of fire pierced his back as her nails dug into his shoulder blades. He shuddered, mind momentarily blank as the whole of her gripped the length of him in a vice tighter and hotter than anything he had experienced. Mel had always gone slow, but that one stroke had brought him to the edge. Rachel had tears in her eyes, her hips were up, ankles crossed behind his lower back, and she was biting her lower back.

Mel remained in place. Felt her convulse around him before finally, after what seemed an eternal minute, her body relaxed a little.

"Okay, you were right," she whispered. "Go slow. Easy."

He kissed her lips then. Softly. Delicately. Drew himself back as slowly and gently as he could, until just the condom-clad tip was inside of her. Then he eased himself back in. Pressing firmly. Not stopping with a shallow stroke, but going on until his balls nestled against her ass, and Rache quivered a little.

How long could any man keep up that pace? Yet Mel maintained it, slow but steady, until the whole bed creaked softly with their rhythm. Until Rache was drumming her heels on his butt to get him to go faster. Until Mel rose up and his thumb found her clit, rubbing the sensitive nub in tight little circles as he stroked long and slow and deep inside of her.

It wasn't what he wanted to do. Instinct made Mel want to hump hard and fast and deep, to burst long and quickly inside of her and never pull out. He fought that instinct with everything he had. Fought it because he saw the wide dark circles in those blue eyes, the flush that had spread down to her breasts, heard the creak of the bed and felt the wet slap whenever he slammed balls-deep and knew, or hoped he knew, that he was doing a good job.

Mel wasn't sure that Rache had reached her climax when he finally felt himself explode. She held him close as he pushed deep and his whole body seemed to contract, his heart hammering in a chest that could no longer breathe, lost in a moment beyond conscious thought. When at last it passed, he dragged the filled condom out of her slit—the pussy seemed swollen, the secretions thicker—and his tongue fell on it like a drowning man. This time, Rache grabbed the pillow and forced it over her face to muffle the scream as his tongue assaulted the sensitive cunny, doing his best to push her over the edge.

It didn't take long.

"Fuck me," she whispered, panting, her legs on his shoulders as Mel pulled off the condom and carefully tied it. Jordan and Jenny would want that, no doubt.

"I just did," Mel panted and kissed her calf.

She raised her head and licked her lip.

"No, seriously," she said. "Can you fuck me again? I think I need one more to really get some good sleep."

Mel grinned. He looked down at his flagging shaft.

"I might need a minute," he said.

Rachel sat up then. She winced, as if her abs hurt, which maybe they did after that litle workout. She licked her lips.

"On the bus," she said. "You stayed hard for hours."

"They'd slipped me a boner pill," Mel said. "It was supposed to help—"

She had lifted her legs off his shoulders and rolled until her knees hung off the bed, then hit the floor.

"From behind," she said. "Come on. You can do that right. For me?"

There was something like a whine in her voice. A desperation. Mel reached for the second condom, all thought of the scratches on his back forgotten as he struggled to get it on the dying erection.

She was presenting herself to him in a way he could see everything—the droplet that hung off her slit, her little dark butthole, the thin pink line between her cheeks—and there was a vulnerability to that, to the way she bushed and hid her face, that made him want to cuddle her rather than plow her.

"I'll try," he said.

The first few strokes were like pushing a rope into a hole. Mel reached around to play with her clit as he humped and rubbed. His lips planted kisses down her spine. It took more than a minute for the flailing shaft to get hard enough again to insert. There was nothing of skill and everything of desperation in the way she moved, pushing back from the bed, squeezing at him with all she had, and Mel trying to shift his hips, to will blood and life back into himself.

There was no whispering now. No attempt at quiet for either of them. Mel grunted as his hips slapped into Rachel's buttocks, aroused at the sight of the little waves the impact made. She gripped the sheets with both hands and moaned as the steady strokes and the constant pressure of his fingers on her clit drove her already-heightened body beyond its limits again.

Nor did Mel stop at the low, guttural moan that came from the pit of Rache's diaphragm. He kept on, sack slapping against her as he found himself locked in that primal rhythm he had fought so hard against during their first coupling. A terrible need inside of him finding expression in a terrific gallop, his free hand gripping her hip as he sawed away with frightful rapidity, slamming himself in and out—until Rache gave a scream that they could have heard across the hall.

That was when the door to the room opened, and Anastasia stood there, in a black negligee, the dagger from her altar in her hand, raised to strike—and Mel grunted in surprise, face screwed up as another burning load filled the condom deep inside of his girlfriend.

'stasia dropped the dagger to her side.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she said.

"Sorry," Mel said. "We were trying to be quiet."

Rache gave a weak wave, unable to give a proper apology.

The dark-haired woman shook her head.

"You don't need to apologize, but leave a sock on your door or something," 'stasia said. "Did you cum, at least?"

Rachel's smile was terrible and half-triumphant as she held up a hand—and curled in a thumb.

Mel, feeling himself flagging again, did his best to discreetly slip the condom out of Rache and tie it off. Anastasia tilted her head at the movement, eyes wide. Mel felt slightly chagrined, even though he knew this was far from the first time she had seen him.

"We were hoping it would help her sleep," Mel explained.

'stasia nodded. Her eyes were locked on the wet, drooping, angry-looking prick. "Well. I certainly won't be sleeping until I relieve some stress of my own. See you in the morning."

Mel dressed, then. Rachel didn't bother dressing. Just stretched out languorously on top of her sheets, a smile on her tired face. When Mel knelt to kiss her goodnight, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her for a long time, as if afraid to let him get away. Before she let him go, she asked him a question, her voice so soft he strained to hear it, her eyes searching his.

"Mel . . . when you cum in me. Are you thinking of me or Jordie?"

"You," he answered. "When I'm with her, I think of her; and when I'm with you, I only think of you."

She drew his mouth down toward hers so fiercely Mel was afraid they'd need the last condom. Yet at last she let him go, and sighed and stretched, and looked up into his eyes with an expression that was purely mischievous.

"Maybe you can think of us both."

When he did stagger out the door, he heard the moans from Anastasia's room—and felt the heat flush to his face as he realized how thin the walls were, and how she must have heard everything if she was awake, even when they were trying to be quiet.

What Mel was not prepared for was what awaited him in his own apartment.