Someone To Need Me

Brain slugs do not love. They do not understand love. They understand extraction, pleasure, and reciprocity.
Many struggle with the concept of cuddling, at least at first.
—Slug Sutra, Chapter 1

Mel's foot ached. Step after step. He had been awake too long, and his second wind had flagged. The grey dawning world lightened around him, the city awakening, people filling up sidewalks and streets on their way to work and school. He thought back to the last mind-numbing hours as he lurched, like a bandaged mummy in one of those old black-and-white horror movies.

MacElroy asked a few more basic questions. About Antonio, their interactions. When she stood to leave, she handed him her card, with a telephone number and email address. He watched as she wound the turban around her head; now that he knew where to look for it, he could see the impression of the tentacles under the skin behind her ears and the sides of her neck, which had looked like prominent veins from a distance. She had left him with a final warning:

"Physical injury prompts immediate response, but I am more concerned about emotional injury. Brain slugs navigate the social bonds and networks of their hosts with practice, but human emotions are new to them. They aren't used to them, don't understand them. You might hurt them in your ignorance; they might hurt you in theirs," she said, then paused. "They're going to need you in the days to come. Just be careful."

The night shift went on. Mel had a lot to think about, and a lot of time to think about it. Replaying every interaction with Jordan and Soong. The furtive glance that had given way to open stares as their apartment had become clothing optional. The moments of solo masturbation had become, strangely, a kind of group activity. The night he had awoken spent, not sure whether Jordan had really done what it had felt like or if it had just been a dream of what he wanted. Just the memory of that made him stir, half-hard. No underwear; the rough inner side of the jeans rubbed against his member with every step, a constant reminder of what he had lost—and, maybe, what was waiting for him.

Sleep tried to claim him, and he availed himself of more caffeinated drinks from the fountains. Before she'd left for the night, Ha-Yoon had left him with a bottle of aspirin and that first aid kit she'd talked about. Wednesday shifted into Thursday. Then, at last, Ha-Yoon returned. The sky was still dark when she told him to go home and get some sleep. Mel stumbled, stiff-legged, into the dawning city. Towards home.

He swung by the co-op, wishing he had remembered his grocery bag. More hot dogs. More onions. Almost as an afterthought, he picked up a dozen eggs and the tofu that Jordan seemed to like. He wasn't sure if she needed it, but if Soong was still there, which seemed likely, she would need to eat. At the check-out, he bought another bag. Head fuzzy, he thought maybe he would remember this one.

The door to 501 was locked, the door still shut even after he swiped his keycard. Mel remembered he had told Jordan to lock it. He knocked, shoulders sagging, barely able to keep his eyes open. There was a chunk of bolts, and the door opened.

Light spilled into the darkened apartment. Jordan was there. He saw her bare breasts, the shaven crotch. Her eyes looked more tired than before, and oddly wet. Mel had never seen a brain slug host cry, but it almost looked like they were about to leak. The light in the whites of her eyes seemed a bit brighter. Mel **** a smile as he stepped inside and put the bag on the kitchen counter.

"Hey. I got food—"

Her hand went to the waistband of his pants. Four fingers slipped right in, brushing his prick. She gave a tug, and Mel's hips jerked forward. He saw that the door to her bedroom was open, and she tugged him towards it by the pants.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming—" he said.

The smell hit him first. It was something he had hardly noticed before, that slightly fishy, slightly fermented odor that hung around their apartment and Jordan's towel and laundry. It was thicker here, in the dark, and he soon saw why.

Soong lay on the bed. Naked, limbs loose and splayed out. Blood had trickled down from the wound that Antonio had inflicted, along her spine, to pool at the small of her back. In the dim light, Mel could hardly see, but the line of black liquid was partially phosphorescent. It looked like a ghost of a river cut through some strange country. Her brain slug wasn't moving, just a dark blob on her neck. Soong was alive, breathing. Her mouth opened and closed, like a fish gasping for air, and she shook as with a chill.

Immediately, Jordan pulled Mel's pants down. His cock, half-erect, popped free and brushed her cheek. Soong's head shifted slightly, eyes on him. Her eyes seemed to focus on his member. Jordan swiftly looked from the stricken woman to Mel and back again, face still placid but eyes seeming to try to communicate something.

"You—you want me to—in her mouth?" Mel asked. Head too fuzzy from lack of sleep.

Jordan gave a thumb's up. Then her hand was on his shaft. Mel's tired eyes went wide with shock at the warm fingers that closed on him. She tugged, gently. Soong couldn't seem to lift her head. Mel let Jordan guide him toward the bed. It was awkward, bending down until his knees balanced on the bedrail. Just the right height so that Jordan could guide the head into Soong's mouth.

The warm, dry lips closed over him. For the first time in his life, Mel felt that heat, that shift in atmosphere. All of his consciousness seemed to center on the tip of his prick now. Soong's tongue licked at him, at the slit, muscles in her throat moving. Mel felt his breath come in excited gasps as he swelled in her mouth, bigger and bigger.

He didn't have to move. Jordan's hand was on his shaft. She was taller than he was, and as she leaned over him, Mel could feel her breast brush his shoulder. Her ring and forefinger formed a ring, and she squeezed and tugged, squeezed and tugged. Mel held himself still, not wanting to hurt Soong, her sucked at the sensitive prick as it swelled in her mouth, until he could feel her teeth on the back of his rubbery glans. There was no sound except Mel's panting, the shuffle of Jordan's fingers along the few inches between Soong's lips and his body.

Mel's hips twitched. The reality of the situation was heady. Like a wet dream made flesh. The suction on his prick grew harder, Soong's cheeks hollowing out, drool oozing out onto his shaft. They were all three trembling now with **** sensations that none of them could name. He wasn't trying to hold it in. Wasn't trying to hold back. Yet the minutes ticked by and the sensation at the base of his prick grew and grew, the tugging and sucking became more frantic, the strange glowing eyes seemed almost to beg.

A wordless grunt from deep in his diaphragm erupted just as Mel did. His hips pushed forward unexpectedly as the anticipation and excitement finally boiled over. A sudden head that ripped through the length of him, buttocks squeezing. When it exploded into Soong's mouth, her sucking increasing frantic. Mel's hips bucked uncontrollably, but never left her lips. Jordan stroked him furiously, fingers digging into the shaft, to milk out every drop.

Soong swallowed. He could see it, even in the dim light, her throat moving, and he thought about all the dreams and fantasies he'd had, and how none of them had really prepared him for the real thing.

Her tongue tickled his aching urethra, but Mel felt himself start to soften. Jordan finally stopped stroking, and he took that as permission to withdraw. The swollen, sensitive head popped free from Soong's lips, and the look in her eyes was . . . not gratitude, exactly. Satisfaction, perhaps. Mel had seen that look in the eyes of kids who came in from bad foster care, when they had their first hot meal in days and were showered and clean in clean clothes and allowed to sleep by themselves on a real mattress. Like for a moment, the world wasn't trying to hurt them.

Soong's eyes closed. Her breathing steadied, deepened.

Mel rose from his aching knees. Jordan stood aside as he pulled up his pants.

Groceries away. Bathroom. Then pants off, collapse into bed wearing only his shirt. To stare up at the dark ceiling.

Sleep did not come immediately. Mel's brain refused to shut down. He listened to the noises of the dark. To his own heart thump in his chest. If he weren't so exhausted, Mel thought he might be giddy. He'd just had his first blowjob. Of course, it didn't help that Soong had looked like she had been dying, but . . . the memory of it was warmer than all the warnings MacElroy had shared last night.

How and when that slipped into true sleep, Mel wasn't sure. His eyes felt heavy in his skull, and for a while, he felt as though he sank down through the mattress into some welcoming deep softness. He must have passed into a dreamless sleep.

Because an hour later, he woke up to find Jordan lifting Soong into his bed. The injured host grabbed his thighs, and her mouth clamped onto his soft shaft. Their eyes were four glowing spots in the dark, and Mel's head pounded, aching as that hot, wet suction settled over him again. His body responded to the stimulation, and Mel shook his head as Jordan knelt by the bedside.

Blood flooded erectile tissues. Mel clenched and let a soft moan pass his lips as he grew erect. The moment he was half-hard, Jordan's hand was there. Soong's lips resumed their place, his glans against the back of her front teeth. Tongue licking like a stray cat at a tuna can. His bone-deep exhaustion couldn't prevent his meat from rising to the stimulation. Jordan stroked steadily, and Soong sucked like a woman dying of thirst.

The thought crossed Mel's mind, briefly, that he could say no. Pull his dick out of her mouth. Tell them to stop. Except it did feel good. And what if they didn't stop? Where would he go? There was nowhere in the apartment he could run, not even the bathroom door would lock. And . . .

Mel's sleep-deprived brain looked at the two brain slug hosts working over his dick in perfect unison. This didn't feel like a thank you for Antonio. Mel knew that the hive mind could have handled Antonio on its own, without him. What it did feel like was . . . need. They needed something from him.

Maybe that's what I need, Mel thought, as he closed his eyes. Someone to need me.