Aphid

Some extraterrestrial accounts maintain that on their home planet, some preferred host species evolved in tandem with brain slugs and willingly sought out possession upon adulthood. Other extraterrestrial records maintain that this is brain slug propaganda, used to lull potential hosts into a false sense of security, and that brain slugs are ambush predators who bond without the consent of the host. Almost nothing from extraterrestrial sources can be verified or corroborated.
—National Geographic Field Guide to Extraterrestrial Species of North America, Chapter 2

Condoms. Why does she need condoms?

The very thought made Mel's hands clammy, and sent his imagination down several strange and terrible corridors. As he followed Jordan and Soong home, the two brain slug hosts holding hands, Mel imagined that maybe the condoms were for Soong. If she and Antonio were sexually active, that would make sense. Of course, Soong could have bought them herself, but who knew how the brain slug thought? He had no idea if the two hosts even had separate accounts. For all he knew, the brain slug could have a single account for all of its hosts.

Mel smiled to himself and shook his head as they took the stairs up to the fifth floor. Back in the orphanage, he would never have imagined thinking about how many checking accounts a hive mind might have.

When they came to their apartments, Mel saw in surprise that Soong entered their apartment, following Jordan. Mel came in after the two, closed the door—

—and immediately, as though at some pre-arranged signal, the two women took off their clothes. Mel stared for a moment at the pale back of Soong, at her long black hair that was tucked over her left shoulder, just as Jordan did, so that it didn't fall over the brain slug on her neck. Then he looked at the ceiling.

This is my life now, Mel thought to himself. I'm stuck in an apartment with two naked young women, and I can't do anything. If I jerk off, Jordan will probably just lick it up.

He wasn't sure if that was a bad thing. Wasn't sure if it was wrong.

Mel dropped his eyes when the two brain slug hosts settled on the couch, the new issue of Slug Fuckers Monthly between them. It was like last time. They were reading the magazine together. Holding hands. Eyes moving together. Not for the first time, he wondered at that. Why would they both read it at the same time? He had always thought of them as a hive mind, as individual neurons in a giant brain—well, no, that wasn't quite right. Mel still thought of Jordan as Jordan and Soong as Soong. He couldn't help it. He could wrap his mind around them being part of a macro-organism intellectually, but not emotionally.

He **** himself to look away from them. Changed out of his own work uniform. Tried not to think about the hardness between his legs. Tried to ignore the two naked women in his apartment by retreating to his bedroom to read more of the National Geographic Field Guide to Extraterrestrial Species of North America.

At some point, Soong got dressed and left. Mel heard the door close. He got up and found Jordan in the kitchen, getting a tub of yogurt out of the fridge. She was still naked, and Mel still instinctively averted his eyes, but he felt a certain tension ease as he prepared his nightly cup of ramen. Somehow, it was easier with just Jordan naked. Maybe because he had already been around her naked.

Not that it made him any softer.

Jordan and Soong had left the magazine open on the middle seat of the couch, where it lay between them. Mel glanced down and saw that it was a two-page spread on the cover article "Sex Secrets of the Cum-Craving Slug Sluts!," which prominently featured a blank-faced woman with a brain slug on her neck with her tongue out, emptying the contents of a used condom onto it. The camera had caught the thick white stream perfectly. Mel stared and thought of the condoms that Jordan had bought.

Was this a sign? A suggestion? A hint? Mel thought as Jordan grabbed the remote and began to scan through programs. He caught himself looking at the magazine too long; his ramen was already starting to cool when, at last, a documentary began. Mel missed the title, but it seemed mostly to be about the relations ants had with other creatures. At least ten minutes of the program was devoted to farmer ants and their aphid herds, especially how the ants would protect the aphids and harvest the honeydew they secreted.

Mel glanced at Jordan. Her expression was the same as ever. Even the brain slug on her neck was a soft, translucent green, colors not shifting at all.

Cartons in the trash. The ritual brushing of the teeth. Mel thought about jerking off for a long moment. He checked the door to the bathroom. It was unlocked. His jaw worked, morality warring with the insistent demand inside of him. There had been times at the orphanage when he'd felt ready to explode, but this felt different. The arousal was there, but not the need. He could hold off for a day or two. Let his head clear.

When he opened the door to the bathroom, Jordan was standing there. Only a couple inches from him. Not for the first time, he noticed how tall she was. almost half a head taller than him. At 5'8", Mel had always thought of himself as average, maybe a little under. Yet he was staring at her clavicle. Clearly aware of the breasts that were just in front of him.

Without a word, she lifted her right hand and held something up level with his chin.

It was a condom.

Mel froze. This couldn't be happening.

She remained there. Patient. Mel had never been fishing, but he had seen it on television. People waited for minutes or hours for a nibble. For the prey to take the bait. Mel's jaw worked. He recognized that he had been avoiding this confrontation. Now, here it was.

"What do you want?" he said, his voice coming out with more emotion than he wished.

Jordan stepped back. Eyes still on him. Just stepped backward, almost mechanically, until her butt hit the back of the couch. She still looked at him as her knees bent, and Mel **** his eyes on her face, not on the shaven crotch, on the labia that would spread slightly as her thighs parted. Her hand came up with the magazine, still open to that spread. The woman drinking the contents of a condom.

"You want me to fill the condom?" Mel said, just to make absolutely sure he had this right.

The thumb on her left hand came up.

Mel's hands were suddenly clammy. His cock felt impossibly hard. A naked woman was asking him to cum for her. Not inviting sex, just—maybe it was some kind of biological necessity? Some nutritional deficiency. It might be something she or the brain slug needed for its health. Mel ran through the excuses and explanations, but he'd already decided.

"Okay," he said, and stepped forward to take the condom from her hand. Mel looked back at the bathroom. "Just, um. Give me a minute."

He stepped back into the bathroom. Closed the door.

Jordan opened it before he could lock it.

Mel blinked.

"What? I'm going to...I need privacy," Mel said. Which wasn't strictly true, though Mel had never masturbated in front of someone before. The thought of it was both disturbing and arousing. Not an invasion of privacy, exactly, but a kind of intimacy. Mel's back tensed.

Jordan didn't move from the doorway. She just watched, the magazine dropped down by her side. On her neck, the brain slug's head bobbed, sensory tentacles extended to what Mel thought was their full length.

"You...want to watch?" Mel asked, armpits suddenly clammy.

Jordan's left hand rose in a thumb's up.

Mel pressed his ass against the sink. With careful deliberation, he opened the condom. It was the first time he'd done it, though he remembered one awkward sex ed class which had involved the school nurse and a banana. His heart hammered in his chest, breath suddenly hot as he unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down his boxers. Jordan's placid face dipped as she stared down at his erection.

Nothing happened. It was like when Jordan had taken off her clothes that first time. Mel had been so agitated, but she had acted completely normal. Everything had been completely normal. Just a few millimeters of cloth no longer in the way. With nervous fingers, Mel slid the condom down over the shaft. It was thin, tight. A novel, odd sensation as it gripped him. Almost as odd as the excitement that came from those blue eyes fixed on his junk.

For a moment, Mel closed his hands. Took himself in hand. When he opened them again, he didn't stare at Jordan's face. He looked at her body. The soft swell of the breasts, the puffy pink nipples, which were definitely inverted, he could see it now, the way they dipped down. The hint of her ribs and hip bones on her spare, thin body. She didn't have much in the way of curves, but there was something so real about her, so present—it wasn't like jerking off to one of the slug girls in that magazine, or an ancient Greek statue of a nude. Mel felt the pressure build inside of him, muscles squeezing, thighs tightening as his hips twitched.

He was jerking off to her.

Mel's eyes dipped down between her legs. That little bare slit. He knew, intellectually, there was a clit there, but he couldn't see it. Not from this angle. Just knew it existed. Fantasies played through his mind. If he had met her before. Had she been a virgin? Would she have even looked at him? Mel wasn't even sure how he would respond if she smiled, or spoke, or reached out to touch him—

It happened too soon. The white-hot spike of pleasure as it boiled up from deep inside and exploded outward. The reservoir at the tip of the condom ballooned as he continued to stroke, to buck his hips. Little sounds hissed out of his lips, and his vision swam for a moment. Until, at last, he was done.

The prick hung, half-erect; the swollen reservoir hung beneath it. Mel took a deep breath before he pulled it off. Held the thing out before him. Two tablespoons, maybe. He wasn't sure how to measure such things. Jordan stepped forward and took it from him.

Then she turned and went back to her own room. He heard her door click. Mel blinked and stared down at his spent, rapidly softening prick. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be used. Or maybe herded.

Is that what I am to her? Mel thought, remembering the program they watched. An aphid to be milked? Yet if she hadn't been—if she had just been a normal woman, who asked to watch me to jack off in front of her, would I have done any different? Mel wondered.

It was a thought that haunted him well into the night. Then another thought occurred to him. One that had him off of the bed and checking the couch.

Where Jordan had left her new issue of Slug Fucker Monthly.