How long has it been since you ate her out?

Brain slugs are evolutionarily adapted to learn through integration; by taking in a native being into the hive mind, they learn much about their biology, culture, and how they think. Yet this very capability is counter-productive when dealing with technologically advanced species, or those with strong cultural cohesion. If they do not wish to be seen as invaders, they need other ways to learn. This, I suspect, is the true purpose of changelings.
—Anastasia Massimi, Slugnomicon: A Guide To Brain Slug Spirituality (unpublished draft)

"I'm still kind of pissed at her," Molly admitted, as she drove Mel back to his apartment building. There had been another awkward good-bye hug and kiss, and then Lucie had gotten into her rental car, Mel and Molly had gotten into the Protoss, and they were off.

"She didn't know," Mel said again. He wondered if he said it enough to make him feel better. Fifteen years in an orphanage. Intellectually, he could see Lucie's point. There was no genetic relation, except that he was half-brother to her daughter. No legal obligation. No legal claim. Nobody could blame the Maguires for not looking for him. He wasn't theirs.

"Even if they did know, there's no guarantee. Not every adoption gets approved. It's not as simple as just driving by and picking one out," he said, which was true. However, he had seen people try to do just that. Just not with him. Their eyes would slide right past Mel.

Fifteen fucking years of being passed over by everyone looking to adopt. From the baby who wasn't cute enough to the kid who wasn't smart or sporty enough to the teen who was already trying to pretend he had no hope yet. Mel stared out the window and felt the loss of fifteen years without a sister.

I would have been good, Mel thought to himself, and he felt the wetness in his eyes and recognized how dangerous that thought was. I would have done chores, I would have obeyed, I would . . .

Molly's hand hit the steering wheel.

"But I could have had a brother!" she said, voice choked with emotion. For a moment, Mel was afraid for her, trying to navigate the car through her tears. Then he saw she was waiting for a spot to open up, another car pulling out not far from the building. "You could have . . ."

"We've got each other now," Mel said, and forced a smile. It was a tight smile, and he remembered that night at the compound when Rache had been offered the pearl. This was the same kind of smile, a different sort of hurt. Bad luck didn't seem to encompass it. He didn't want to follow that thread of thought. What it meant. It wasn't that he was forgotten.

Mel just . . . wasn't wanted.

They hugged again. Molly buried her face into his shoulder. Mel tried to keep his composure, but he could feel himself clutching her too tightly, and a sniffle escaped.

"Are you okay?" she said, her voice softer now.

"Not really, no," Mel said, honestly. "Just a lot tonight, you know? It was good to meet your mom, but I wasn't expecting . . . all that. I never even considered my mother might have used a surrogate. I knew we shared a parent, but I didn't think we shared . . ."

"A womb," Molly said, and her hug felt different somehow. More tender. "Ma mère est tu . . ."

"No," Mel said, and was surprised at the hurt in his voice. "She isn't. That's not just a technicality. We don't . . . have a relationship. Genetically. Socially. She's my half-sister's mom. Not mine. She didn't want . . ."

He caught himself before he said it. Afraid the tears really would start.

Now it was Molly's turn to sniff.

"Maybe we can change that," she whispered.

Mel didn't know what she meant about that. Before she could explain, she kissed his forehead. He smiled and said good night as he got out of the car.

"Tomorrow," she said. "After work. I'll pick you up."

He gave her a thumb's up.

Out on the street. Mel's feet guided him to the apartment building. Night had fallen, and his stomach was full of fried chicken and biscuits, yet Mel's thoughts went back into that dark place.

He couldn't blame Lucie. He couldn't. If their positions had been reversed—but his brain wouldn't accept that. His whole life, Molly had everything he hadn't. Mel couldn't blame her for that either, but the thought of it seemed to grow inside of his skull, pushing every other thought out.

It was crueler to imagine what might have been. At least before, Mel had known there was no one there for him. No parents, no grandparents, no cousins or siblings. Just him, alone in the universe. To learn that he wasn't . . . that there had been someone who could have . . .

The tears started before he got to the hallway. His body wracked with sobs that Mel had forced down so many times in his life and now couldn't stop. Jordan was on her knees before the couch, shaving Jenny. Probably getting everything ready for the special moment he'd promised them.

They were on him in a moment, no attempts to sign, to ask, which was good because Mel wasn't sure he could manage the words right now. Jordan's skin was hot against his as she pulled him against her breasts, his tears running down her cleavage. Jenny was behind him, her hands wrapped tight around his midsection.

Mel couldn't stop. Couldn't pull away. It wasn't physical pain that held him rocking there between two naked women. It was the sum of weeks of stress and strain, revelations of secrets he hadn't known he even had. For a moment, he thought he understood something of what Rache had felt when she had found Jordan. The sister she thought was dead, and who was, in a sense, gone forever. Replaced by someone who looked just like her, had her memories, but was also something else. Someone else.

I found my family, Mel thought. And they didn't want me.

That wasn't right. Mel knew that. It wasn't his rational mind speaking. It was the self-hating part of himself that knew he wasn't worth loving. Yet he couldn't let it go.

Mel wasn't sure when Béibhinn O'Malley had entered the main room, or how long she had seen him crying there. The ghola punched his arm.

"Hey," she said, then cocked her head at Jordan. "Eat her pussy."

The words hit Mel like a hammer between the eyes.

"I get you had some sort of shitty experience, but you can't just wallow in misery," Béibhinn said. "You need to be proactive about it. Do something. How long has it been since you ate her out?"

Mel stared, but the sobs stopped.

"Too long," he said, wiping his eyes. "Way too long."

They were gentle about it, but insistent. Unwrapping him like a present. Until he was on his knees, Jordan spreading the fresh-shaven labia to show him the soft pink insides. This close, he could smell her aroma, the soft hints of salty excitement, and see the sheen of moisture. Wet and ready for him. Mel forced himself to go slow. Running the tip of his tongue up from her urethra to the underside of her little clit. Letting her leg slide over his shoulder and guiding his face where she wanted it to go.

Behind him, Jenny busied herself with sliding a condom onto the steely shaft. The small, hard nipples of her breasts pressed into his back as her forearms worked, slowly stroking him, squeezing his balls. Planting little kisses along his spine. Mel could hardly remember a time when he had been scared of their touch, afraid of what they might do to him.

They didn't moan. But he heard the naked women pant in unison. Their breathing synchronized as they moved, all three bodies a unit. Mel lost himself in the movement, focused on swirling his tongue all around that stiff little nub of sensitive flesh, feeling his body ache as the load built up slowly, his hips moving as Jenny stroked, building up toward a release.

Unprepared for when Jenny suddenly pulled him back.

Then he saw why.

Jordan was red-faced, legs in the air, holding her labia open so that he could see the muscles squeeze and spasm within. The brain slug that peeked around her neck was a vibrant green, brighter than he had ever seen, and with both hands, Jenny guided the condom-clad tip of him into Jordan's hot hole.

Mel gasped, fighting the immediate urge to blow. Slowly, achingly, without stopping, watching Jordan's mouth hiccup in little O's as he bottomed out inside of her, and for a moment Mel thought about Rache and worried he had gone too deep, too fast, that he had hurt her.

Instead, the blonde reached out, grabbed his head, and drew his mouth down to hers. Their mouths met with a heat and need that went beyond words, Mel's hips grinding his length deep inside of her. Jenny's tongue slipped down to the crack of his ass, sucking out the sweat there. Her fingers pressed against his perineum, and Mel groaned into Jordan's mouth.

Not further. Not yet. Yet Mel felt her fingers press against that terrible throbbing point of pressure. Her teeth bit his left buttcheek, a sharp little sting that made him jump, pressing even deeper inside Jordan, and Jordan's nails dug into his shoulders as she sucked at his tongue. They moved like that, the women setting the pace, Mel moving to their rhythm, desperately trying to hold on, to stretch out the sensation, to get Jordan to climax before he did.

The explosion came too soon. He fought it, but it was like fighting the tide. Rising from the base of his prick and burning the whole length of his shaft, Mel quivered as he struggled in the grip of his two girlfriends, giving in to the biological inevitability. When it finally burst, silver stars danced in front of Mel's eyes. He jumped inside of her, hips never stopping, and her length gripped and stroked him as if to milk every drop.

Mel pulled out, and immediately his mouth fell onto that hot, wet muff. Jordan's mouth opened in a rictus that would have scared him if he had seen it, a mask of fulfilled need as her whole body began to shake and shiver, the brain slug flashing through several shades of green.

Distantly, Mel was aware that the used condom was pulled off. Maybe Béibhinn took it. Mel wasn't sure. He knew that eventually his tongue felt numb, and Jordan pushed him off to land on his back on the floor.

Jenny was already putting the second condom on him. Her hand was tight around the base of him, wiggling it back and forth, slapping it against her own wet and ready slit. He felt the familiar ache as they refused to let him go soft, stroking and finally pressing his half-hard erection inside of the Asian brain slug host. Her hands gripped his hips as she balanced on her heels, rising and falling slowly, gripping him with her vaginal muscles, never letting him slip out until blood flooded the tired tissues until he was hard again.

Her ass bounced faster once he was stiff. Jenny's left hand found her clit, and then Béibhinn must have turned out the light, because the room became dark except for the glowing whites of Jordan and Jenny's eyes. It was eerie, in the dark, to feel her move on top of him. To feel her rise and fall, measuring her excitement solely by the speed of her hips, the brush of her buttocks against his thighs.

Jordan must have straddled his chest. He lost sight of Jenny's glowing eyes. She grabbed his arms and guided his hands to her breasts, the warm handfuls slick with sweat, the sensitive little nipples stiff and delicate beneath his exploring fingers. He could feel every little bump and ridge, and her hot slit dribbled on his chest, her excitement evident even now.

This time, Jenny's nails dug into his stomach as her pussy clamped, impossibly tight. Mel felt Jordan's hand explore his face, her thumb forcing itself into his mouth, pinning his tongue down as she rubbed herself against his body, the way she had done that time she and Jenny had marked him after Tomie had cornered him in the bathroom.

A reaffirmation, maybe. That he was theirs, and they were his.

Unseen hands peeled off the second condom. Mel panted, his existential sorrow momentarily gone in the afterglow. He needed to clean up, go to bed—there was work in the morning.

Then he felt the cold weight of the cage on his half-swollen, sated manhood. Mel felt as much as heard the click of the lock.