A Familiar Face

The second wave of brain slug hosts, before the government restricted the practice and while the legal status of the hosts was still being litigated, were selected based on several criteria. They were predominantly involved in the periphery of the Pacific Northwest BDSM community. Individuals who evinced sexual excitement at the idea of an ultimate act of subjugation, or at least curiosity at the prospect of being an "alien sex ****." The criminal core of the existing brain slug hive experience weeded out the dilettantes or those with strong worldly connections and focused on the most **** to manipulation, the likeliest marks.

What was not expected was that the new hosts would bring with them their own experiences, which would profoundly alter the character of the Seacouver hive.
—Slug Sutra, Chapter 2

The back of his neck itched. Something was growing there, beneath the skin. Mel could feel it squirm and pulse. He was at the Cosmic Fill-Up, but things were wrong. The light, too bright, the smells—chemical and food—too sharp, too intense. Jordan was there, naked. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, which split in two, down the middle. Something small and dark, like a bead, was **** out onto the palm of her hand.

Mel looked down and realized he was naked too. Amelia came in, her brown body completely bare, the huge, gravid abdomen standing out in front of her, the small nipples impossibly dark. She looked at him with dark eyes and smiled.

"When is it due?" Amelia asked.

"What?" Mel said, as Jordan knelt before him. He was hard, impossibly, instantly erect. She was trying to **** the black bead down his urethra with her fingers but it was too big, it wouldn't fit.

"Your baby," Amelia said. "On your neck."

Mel reached back and touched his neck. The skin burst, and he felt the raw, warm, squirming mass of the newborn brain slug, its tentacles stretching into his brain.

Jordan was changing the bandage on his foot when Mel awoke, his head jerking up, hand to the hickey on the back of his neck automatically. Soong was between his legs, her eyes slightly luminescent in the dark, her head just a shadow that bobbed up and down. It was different from her usual practice. He could feel her tongue on the base of his shaft, like how Tomie had done it. Mel felt his heart hammer in his chest, and in those half-awake moments, it almost seemed as if it pounded in time to her movements.

The sheets felt damp beneath him, a faint clamminess that spoke of nighttime sweats. Mel hadn't been awoken in the night, but he wondered how long Soong had been sucking him off before consciousness had returned. It could have been seconds or hours, and Mel wondered at that. Would it be heaven or hell, to be trapped asleep, spasming in ejaculation without ever waking up, the sensation invading an endless dream?

The tightening, the release, came swiftly, easily. Abs flexing and buttocks clenching as he jumped inside of her. When he was done, and Soong's tongue had scraped his glans thoroughly, Jordan helped her from the room. Through the thin wall, Mel heard the bath start. No doubt Jordan was helping Soong with that too.

Mel eased himself off the bed and worked through his normal exercises. He could feel the stale sweat on his body, and imagined it was in his sheets as well.

After his shower and breakfast, Mel had a go at scrubbing down the bathroom. Daily cleaning of the men's room at the Cosmic Fill-Up made him conscious of the state of his own toilet and environs, and Mel found himself scrubbing things just because he wanted them clean for himself and his roommates.

Then he gathered laundry together, including his bedding and towels. Jordan apparently got the same idea. She had Soong lie on the couch as she stripped the sheets off, and they left her there to do the basic chore that was laundry. The familiar smell of the soap, the comfortable rumble of the machine. Jordan sat in the orange plastic chair, staring ahead, and Mel once again hated his ignorance. This would be a good time to have an actual conversation.

"Ha-Yoon told me there's a place where I might be able to take classes, learn sign language," Mel said to her. She looked up to meet his eyes, expression as blank as ever. "I want to learn. I'd like . . . I'd like to be able to talk to you and Soong. Really talk. Be able to understand what you say."

For all the times that Jordan had seen Mel without his pants, he never felt more naked than that moment.

She didn't give him a thumb's up. The gesture she made, really two gestures, were ones Mel hadn't seen before. Right hand in a fist touched the open palm of her left hand, two fingers extended. But they seemed deliberate. Like they meant something. Mel smiled, and felt the tension ease.

Maybe he was insane, to think about dating a brain slug hive, but being able to communicate with your roommate just made sense. He remembered one of the kids in the orphanage, Juan, who had only spoken Spanish. Nobody else did. He had been more alone, more alienated, from that simple lack of language than anything else.

The afternoon was quiet. Domestic. Reading. A documentary on Earth's five prehistoric extinction events. Ramen and veggies. Mel was relieved to see Soong eating actual food, nibbling on a block of tofu with little rabbit-bites. Her brain slug was shifting color again, green to black, as she sat on the middle cushion of the couch, between Mel and Jordan. He took that as a good sign.

A knock at the door surprised Mel. He stood up, glad he was still wearing his pants, and crossed to the door. His roommates, still naked, looked at him. He opened the door a crack . . . and stared into a familiar face.

Not as tall. But the same straw-colored hair, the same soft blue eyes. A little older, and dressed in a brown cardigan and knee-length skirt over leggings, a purse over one arm.

"Hello," she said in a rush, with a distinctly Ottawa Valley accent. "My name is Rachel Carmichael. I'm looking for my sister Jordan."