Oddly Okay With It

In hindsight, giving extraterrestrial parasites condemned criminals as their first introduction to humanity was not the best idea. The individuals involved were often charged with ****, sexual ****, acts of heinous ****, and pathological deceit. It exposed the hive mind to the worst of human nature and experience. Xenobiologists did not understand until later how fundamentally this influenced the hive mind. They taught it how to conceal its intent, to circumvent laws and rules, to commit overwhelming ****, and to hide the evidence afterwards. To manipulate people for its own ends—and what the brain slugs desired, initially, was to expand to more hosts.
—Slug Sutra, Chapter 2

Claimed. Mel thought, and he wasn't able to keep a smile off of his face. He knew he might face trouble at work with Tomie and the other Great Horned Brain Slug hosts. That might, in turn, lead to more trouble at home. He had no idea what he would do if Tomie cornered him in the bathroom again or if the other brain slug hosts would respect the hickey on his neck and leave him alone. He didn't care that he was the fire hydrant that two rival dogs were pissing on to mark their territory.

Because, and he was honest enough with himself to admit it, it was nice to be wanted. No one at the orphanage had wanted him. None of the couples coming for adoption had wanted him. Nobody in high school had wanted him as a boyfriend, or really a friend. He had grown up knowing he was living on a clock ticking down until the orphanage would kick him out. Had sweated through extra classes just so he could graduate before his birthday.

Now, here he was, a hickey on his neck, no underwear, a foot that still hurt, and a shoe that leaked when it rained. Yet it felt good to belong to somebody. To have someone claim him as theirs.

It was as close as Mel had ever come to having a family.

Bobbie and Blair were behind the register. The moment he entered, they turned to stare. Not so much at him as the hickey on his neck, very visible since his brown hair wasn't long enough to cover it. Mel tried to keep his face neutral as he walked over to the check-in. Ha-Yoon was looking tired and irritable in her cramped little office.

"Do you use sign language?" Mel asked. "To talk with the brain slug hosts?"

Ha-Yoon looked up, blinked. The little implants in her eyes glittered gold, but the eyes around them were bloodshot.

"American Sign Language, yes," she said. "Required for management. Although they don't talk much. Only when they need to ask a question. Why?"

"I'd like to learn how to do it," Mel said. "Sign language. Talk to Jordan and Soong and the rest of them."

Ha-Yoon stared without meeting his eyes. From this angle, her sitting down and leaning into the little hallway, she could see the hickey too.

"Uh-huh. Is that what you've been doing, Romeo? Talking?" she said, amusement creeping into her exhausted voice. "First oral sex, now sign language? You want to pick up a copy of Slug Fuckers Monthly to get some tips?"

"N-no. That was—" Mel considered how to put this without admitting too much. He didn't want to get Tomie in trouble. "The social worker came by today to check on Soong. Who is apparently healing up okay. She said it was a kind of territorial claim. Tell other brain slugs 'hands off,' or something."

"Or something," Ha-Yoon said. "Like a reserved parking spot."

She shook her head, then delved into a desk drawer and came up with a tattered flyer.

"Seacouver Community College. ASL Society has meetings Thursday nights. You'll need to take a bus. They can tell you when and where classes are starting, and how much."

Mel took the flyer and read it.

"Thanks," he said, and carefully folded it into a pocket.

The shift was long, but uneventful. Amelia stopped in for her milk. Her shirt and maternity pants didn't quite meet, leaving a two-inch band of swollen stomach with her navel popped out. She smiled at Mel at the counter.

"Human guy!" she said.

"Mel," he corrected, but didn't push it. She saw his eyes flit over her stomach.

"Induced labor on Friday," she said, with a conscientious rub. "If we make it to Friday."

Tomie came in for her shift. She didn't meet Mel's eyes. Not even when everybody sat down to eat their midnight meal, the brain slug hosts sitting together, leaving Mel on his lonesome with something that claimed to be a crabmeat burrito but mostly tasted of food dye, some sort of textured tofu product, and regret.

Part of the regret was the loneliness of sitting at his own table again. Mel wondered, as he slowly chewed, if this was the cost of being claimed. Being excluded from certain groups. Treated as if he were radioactive.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking it, Mel told himself as he ran the swifter over the men's room. It's not like we were bosom buddies before. Just . . . polite coworkers.

The night shift ran its course. Time to think. Everyone kept their distance. At last, before dawn, it was time to clock out. The shifts changed, and Mel found Tomie following him out the door.

Then she fell into step behind him on the sidewalk. Followed him across crosswalks. Block after block, as night turned to morning. Placid expression, never drawing closer than arm's length. Mel turned a few times and saw her still here. Not sure what to say to her, though his mind ran through the possibilities. Not sure how Jordan would respond if Tomie followed him home.

What was this? Mel wondered and wished again that he knew how to talk to brain slug hosts properly. The acuteness of his own ignorance weighed on him.

Until at last they came to the apartment building. He paused with one hand on the door handle and turned to look at her.

"You know I'm living with Jordan and Soong, right?" he said.

Tomie nodded, once.

"Do they know you're coming?" he asked.

A brief shake of the head.

"I don't know how they're going to respond," he said. "They got . . . territorial. Earlier. Marked me."

What Tomie did next surprised him. She raised her left hand in a thumb's up.

He blinked. Okay, so she knew. She knew, and she had come anyway. Mel assumed that meant she knew what she was doing.

"Okay," he said, and held the door open for her.

They took the stairs. Mel opened the door first. Tomie stood in the hallway. Soong and Jordan were on the floor, soles of their feet pressed together, leaning forward and pushing against each other. Some kind of partner exercise, at least Mel thought it was. He stepped aside, and Tomie stood there, outside the door. The Great Horned Brain Slug host raised both hands, palms bared.

Jordan rose from the ground. Mel caught a brief glance between her legs. No sign of a tampon-string today. Then he **** himself to look away. Focused on where Jordan and Tomie touched the palms of their hands together, fingers slowly lacing.

Mel couldn't read their facial expressions; they were too impassive. He looked at the brain slugs instead. Jordan's was a deep emerald green, the head and sensory tentacles fully extended. Tomie's was likewise, though he could see now the 'horns,' the small keratinous growths that were prominent to see now, white against the black of the head. The slugs undulated, at first in different rhythms, but slowly syncing. Mel worried someone might come along and see a naked Jordan standing there.

After a moment, Soong tried to rise. Mel was at her side, kneeling down. She took his arm and pulled herself up, clutching him. She took a tentative step toward Jordan, and Mel got the idea, moved with her. Helped to keep her steady and on her feet until her left hand settled on Jordan's left shoulder.

Mel stood there, still holding Soong's right arm. Aware he was present but not party to whatever conversation was taking place. Until, at last, Jordan and Tomie unlaced their fingers, unclasped their palms. All three sets of eyes turned to stare at him.

Jordan and Soong turned and tugged at his shirt and pants, towards the couch. Tomie followed, closed the door after her. As soon as it was shut, she pulled off her work shirt. No bra, though the small breasts beneath didn't look like they needed much in the way of support. The breasts were barely there, but the nipples were huge by comparison, each one nearly as big as Mel's thumb tips. He let his roommates drag him back until his butt hit the corner of the couch.

Then Soong tugged at his pants, pulling them down so that Mel swung free. Tomie, topless now, settled onto her knees before him. Jordan's lips brushed the bruise on his neck.

He got the idea.

"So this is . . . what? Resource sharing?" he asked. "Some kind of truce?"

Jordan gave a thumb's up.

Mel nodded. Tomie leaned forward, her tongue touched his slit. Soft. Tentative. Exploring.

"Is this just for tonight?" Mel asked. Not sure how he felt about being, effectively, pimped out. Oddly okay with it, he decided. As long as they were all okay with it.

Jordan's thumb went down. Tomie wrapped her lips around her teeth, tongue extended. Mel felt it slide across the sensitive under-skin of his head, where those little bumps were he didn't know the name of, and a shiver went up her spine.

"Only here?" he said.

Thumb's up.

"Only with you and Soong?"

Another thumb's up.

"Not at work."

The thumb remained up.

Mel nodded. Tomie had her eyes closed as she pushed forward. Not like Soong, who only held the head in her mouth and let her tongue play over it. Tomie took his entire length into her mouth, until her little nose buried itself in his pubes and her chin pressed into his balls. Soong watched, and Mel saw she was holding Tomie's hand.

Is she learning? Mel wondered. Is that the trade they made? Tomie gets to suck me off, as long as they get to learn how she does it?

He wasn't sure how to feel about that either. Thought again of those ants and aphids. Yet different ant colonies didn't trade aphid-cows with other ant colonies. Mel knew he was trying to interpret too much of what was going on through his limited frame of reference. That he wasn't seeing everything that was going on.

Yet he felt as Tomie started to move. Pulled her face back, lips locked on his shaft, a hard suction right until she met the rubbery, swollen, flared base of the glans. Her tongue along the underside helped facilitate the smooth movement. Back and forth. Different from how he or his roommates stroked it. He fought the urge to close his eyes. Watched the topless tomboy that slurped on his shaft, the naked woman on the floor next to her watching. Felt Jordan's lips on his neck, the bruise aching again as if she was reinforcing the claim from earlier.

Mel knew, intellectually, that he could leave. Sure, he had nowhere to go, but he hadn't actually said no to any of this, hadn't fought against it. Was that just because he wanted to belong somewhere? Was he fooling himself into thinking this was more than it was? Was he just an aphid being milked in a complicated trade deal between alien parasites?

Was that enough for someone who had never known anything else?

The grunt started from his diaphragm. The excitement had built and peaked as Tomie's head moved back and forth with increasing speed and ****, her cheeks hollowed out, the tingle at the base of his prick building and building until Mel couldn't hold it anymore. She pulled back so that only his head was in her mouth, to let the hot, sticky spurts coat her tongue. Mel realized that had something to do with the brain slugs' emphasis on chemoreceptors, senses of taste and smell.

The swallow almost felt perfunctory. None of them had ever spat it out, at least not that Mel had seen. As his length fell out from Tomie's scarred lips, Mel wasn't surprised to see Soong lean down and lick the last little grey drop that gathered on the very tip.

His stomach rumbled. As swiftly as it began, the moment ended. Tomie rose and put her shirt back on. She left, without a sign, without a touch. Carrying whatever she had bargained for back to her hive mind, Mel guessed. Jordan helped Soong to the couch, then set about her dinner. Mel went to pull his pants up, thought better of it, then took off his shoes and stepped out of them entirely.

Ramen with hot dogs and vegetables. A documentary about morel-picking in rural Wisconsin. Mel felt exhaustion creep up on them as the narrator talked about how the pickers carried loose-woven backsets, so that the mushroom spores would fall onto the earth and spread, to become next year's harvest.

Before bed, he took out the flyer for the ASL Society and laid it atop the dresser. He was okay with this right now, but he wanted to know more. Wanted to know if this was just sex or . . . he didn't have a word for it.