Slug signs

"Slug signs" are a subset of American Sign Language signs that have developed to meet the specific communications needs associated with brain slug hosts. On the following pages are signs for "Hive Mind," "World Soul," "Feral brain slug," "slug fucker," "protect your neck," and the ever-popular "I do not consent to being assimilated."
—How To Talk To Brain Slugs, Chapter 7: Practical Exercises

Jordan straddled Mel. Her buttocks came down heavily in his lap, and the hairless vulva pressed against his shrinking prick. Mel looked up at the naked woman, at the familiar placid expression, and wondered what was going on. He couldn't get hard. Physically incapable. The well was dry.

"I need to get ready for work," Mel said, because it was all that he could think to say. Jordan placed her hands on his shoulders and began to shift back and forth. Something hot and wet spread on him, and Mel looked down to where she was rubbing herself along his softening shaft, and saw she was lubricating vigorously, leaking like she'd had an accident all over him, except there was no smell, no sense of dirtiness. She bent her head down, and Mel thought Jordan might kiss him, but instead her tongue found his ear. A warm, soft, squirming muscle that momentarily blocked out hearing, and made his heartbeat quicken a little.

His head swam. Then . . . it wasn't words. Or an idea. It was like a waking dream. A succession of images or memories. A wall marked with a series of small lines, showing the heights of a pair of sisters at various ages. A woman burning out the face of an ex-boyfriend on a photograph with a lighter. A dog lifting its leg to mark a fire hydrant.

That last one brought a shock of recognition. It was one of his own memories, long tucked away. A street dog, lost and lonely, who had lived near the orphanage because all the kids would throw it scraps. The fire hydrant had been right outside. It had marked it every day for months, maybe a year. Then one day, animal control picked it up.

Almost as suddenly as the success of images came, they ceased. Mel blinked rapidly and would have shaken his head to clear it, but Jordan was still there, on top of him. Jordan rubbed her cheek against his, and when she pulled back to stare into his eyes . . . there wasn't a smile. Not even the ghost of an expression. Yet the whites of her eyes glowed brighter than Mel had ever seen, which made the iris and dilated pupils look like two holes punched in night by comparison.

Another physical sensation broke through his dumbfounded confusion. Repeated ejaculation made his urethra burn and ache, especially the sensitive tip of the little slit. Now something was pressed against those sore, puffy little lips. Something wet and soft moved up and down over them. Mel frowned, unable to process what exactly was going on behind Jordan.

"What's happening?" Mel managed. "I can't see."

She lifted herself off. Mel saw Rachel there, lips pressed against the very tip of him, slick with her own sister's juices, the head actually half in her mouth, and he could feel the tip of her tongue running over his slit. Soong knelt beside her, kissing the back of Rachel's neck, the whites of Soong's eyes as bright as Jordan's. Rachel's blue eyes were oddly distant, looking inward at something—then realization came to her. Rachel pulled back, a single cloudy drop on her lower lip. Without thought, she sucked it in. Mel winced as an involuntary twitch shook his comatose trouser snake.

"I . . . oh God, I'm so sorry, I . . ." Rachel said.

Mel shook his head. It didn't help. Just made it feel like his brain rattled around in his skull.

"I've got work. I need a shower," he said.

Within forty minutes, Mel had managed to brush his teeth, use the restroom, shower, towel off, and get dressed. Every movement felt languid, as if in a dream. Most of his body didn't hurt, exactly; it was just sleep deprivation coupled with unexpected physical exertion that made him move as if trapped under a weighted blanket, which had him stand blinking in the face of a spray of hot water as if he was about to nod off then and there. Which saw him out the door, in clean clothes and a hoodie, body on autopilot as he pointed his feet towards the Cosmic Fill-Up.

To his surprise, Rachel was dressed and walked with him, holding an aluminum coffee mug with a lid, which she sipped carefully. She was in blue jeans, a T-shirt that showed a cartoon cat in a cozy library reading a book, and a brown knit button-up sweater. The dark bags under her eyes and mussed hair made it clear she was as exhausted as Mel was.

"I'm sorry I sucked your dick a little," Rachel said, once they hit the street. "Um. That didn't come out right."

"Nothing came out, I was spent," Mel said, and this time it was his turn to look embarrassed as she snickered. His head felt like his brain was wrapped in wool, but the cool air helped. "Heat of the moment, I guess."

"No," Rachel said firmly. her mouth in a tight line. "It wasn't that. It was something else. I think . . . I think Jordan and Soong were working towards that. I feel like they planned it."

Mel frowned. "What, an all-night feeder session? They never leave the apartment, they don't have a phone, no way to contact Blair—"

"Suckathon. Blowbang," Rachel said. "No, I don't—it's not hard to put this into words. It's like when I'm around them, I get these ideas. Impressions. You know about that dream I had, and I know you've had dreams too. What happened when Soong touched my neck was like a waking dream. It was like I was so tired that my brain got out of the way and I could just—it was almost so clear. I was staring at your dick there, right below Jordie's ass, and it was like I picture myself leaning forward and taking it in my mouth, and then I just—I did that."

"Did you not want to?" Mel asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

"No, I did. I mean, I was curious. Is it weird to say I've seen three women suck you off and I wondered what it was like myself?" Rachel said, and exhaustion and their shared intimate experience, even if they had never touched each other until the very end, was evident in how completely she had dropped all polite pretense and filter.

"It's not weird," Mel said. Then, feeling that one confession deserved an equal and opposite admission. "I've been thinking about you. Just fantasies. I didn't want to be a creep. But you were there, watching, and touching yourself, and I—well. You've been in my dreams."

Rachel sipped her coffee. Her cheeks were still flushed, although that seemed more like embarrassment than arousal.

"The Dreams in the Slug Apartment," she said. Mel recognized the reference.

"Very Lovecraft," he agreed. "Maybe we're both psychically sensitive, though the staid townsfolk would just call us queer."

That surprised her. Rachel's eyes opened wide, and for a moment, she got that grin like she was going to punch Mel in the shoulder again. Then the flicker of joy faded.

"It's just like—are they doing that to us? Or is it just that you're a perpetually 18-year-old guy and I've got this stupid voyeurism kink and somehow we ended up in a situation where my sister and her girlfriend want to be perpetually naked and suck off their roommate all the time?" She grimaced. "I just don't know where my feelings about you end and where being around those brain slugs begins."

Mel considered this. They stopped at a crosswalk when the light changed, and he looked up at the darkening sky. For a moment, the clouds parted, and he caught sight of a thin, waxing crescent of white moon.

"I've been reading," Mel said. "That brain slug hosts communicate through senses most humans can't actively process. Bioelectricity, pheromones, infrasound. It isn't magic. It isn't telepathy or E.S.P. It's science. Biology. I don't think they can influence us, exactly, any more than I could make you wet by talking dirty. But maybe when we're so exhausted, it's easier somehow. Maybe that was what they were doing at the end. Trying to talk to us in a language we don't know yet."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly dizzy. The light changed. Rachel reached out and grabbed his arm, pulled him into the crosswalk.

"If that was the point," Rachel said. "If the whole thing with the other brain slug was an opportunity, and they took it. Why would they want me to suck your dick?"

"I don't know," Mel admitted, as they came within sight of the bright lights and clean pumps and recharging stations of the Cosmic Fill-Up. "What I saw—it was like after Maxine was done, Jordan wanted to mark me. Mark the part of me the other brain slug had touched. Make sure everyone knew who I belonged to."

"And are you okay with that?" Rachel asked.

"I would have preferred if they'd asked, but yeah, I think I am," he said. "Are you?"

Rachel had no answer for that. Not yet.

"Space lesbians," Ha-Yoon said.

Mel blinked. She had made him take a break after she found him running the swifter over the same spot three times in the last twenty minutes. So he sat opposite her in one of the small tables in the dining area, holding a cup of something warm that she called mate, and which had to be drunk through a straw. It was herbal, and made him want to pee, but the flow of the conversation distracted him.

"Like, lesbians in space, or lesbians from space?" he asked.

"My sister, Young-mi," Ha-Yoon explained. "Is an astrotechnician working the satellites and small habitats in Earth orbit. She says guys have a hard time getting erect in zero gravity, so the ones really having sex in space are the women. Situational homosexuality, like in a prison or submarine. Every female astronaut is a space lesbian, but when they come down to Earth, they go back to fucking dudes or whatever. She says she's just been drowning in space pussy."

Mel considered this. The Exodus had both boosted Earth's interest in space and provided real-world examples of spacefaring technology to copy and learn from. The last decade had seen a frenzy of launches and building, now that the cost of escaping the gravity well had been significantly lowered. Mel was aware of all that in the same way he was aware of oil rigs out on the ocean, or rich people building islands in shallow seas, with the kind of vague amazement that real people were involved who went out there doing things that seemed impossibly far away.

It also occurred to him that he still knew almost nothing about lesbians beyond what porn told him, which might mean he knew less than nothing.

"I do not know if that is true," he said. "But I have no expertise on this topic and will defer to your sister's experience."

He sucked on his mate. Mel's exhausted brain went off on a thread of speculation that verged on fantasy. Brain slugs in the massive spaceships before the Exodus arrived on Earth. Mel had no idea how brain slugs interacted with non-human hosts. Did they turn them trans too? Did aliens have as hard a time with sex in the long, gravity-less centuries between stars? Maybe they did. Supported their numbers through artificial insemination. The brain slugs could have been space lesbians for centuries before arriving in a friendly gravity well and discovering things worked differently down here on the big blue marble.

Mel knew it was a fantasy. Alien anatomies probably didn't work like human anatomy. Although some of them, like the brain slugs, were close enough to be compatible. He grinned to himself as Ha-Yoon kept talking about the long-distance videocall with her sister up the gravity well. Ha-Yoon noted the smile and shifted her gaze to look at Rachel.

The blonde with the tired eyes was hanging out by the magazine rack, face buried in a small digest labeled The Urbanite's Almanac. Mel figured she was unwilling to go back to the apartment building alone right now. Next week, she was going to have to go back to work and classes, and Mel knew he'd see less of her, so he wasn't in a hurry to get her to leave. Ha-Yoon, noting their arrival together (again) and obviously sleepless state, made her own conclusions.

"So," she said. "Finally seal the deal? Get your v-card punched?"

Mel's eyes went back to his boss.

"We didn't have sex," he said softly. "It was just a long day. Brain slug stuff. I had to help Jordan and Soong out. Blair was there too."

Ha-Yoon's eyes went wide.

"Oh, wow. They aren't trying to get you to join up, are they?" she asked. "Because I need at least one human. You're the only one I can tease and have a conversation with."

Mel shook his head. The thought had occurred to him. That this might all be some sort of elaborate initiation, drawing Mel and Rachel deeper and deeper into it until they became the latest members of the Seacouver Hive. Except Detective MacElroy had said they didn't want Mel to join the Hive, but wanted him for something else. He still wasn't sure how to date a hive mind, but he hoped helping them out with Maxine was a step in the right direction.

"I don't think so," he said. "It was . . . an obligation. You know that naked brain slug host that came in the other day? Her name's Maxine. Blair and Tomie's Collective adopted her. But because I asked them to take care of her, that created some kind of debt between the Collective and the Hive."

"You're shitting me," Ha-Yoon said. "Brain slug politics. Hot damn."

"Something like that," Mel said. "By the way, Rachel and I have signed up for a beginner ASL class. Thursdays. I'm hoping my schedule would allow that?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," the manager agreed. "You and Jordan are both back on the day schedule starting next week."

Mel processed that. He drank his mate. The bathroom needed sanitizing. The break was over.

Mel clocked out around dawn. Rachel looked ready to collapse, running solely on coffee and some terrible energy drink that Ha-Yoon convinced her all the truckers used and was illegal "up north," but she stood ready to leave. As they exited the Cosmic Fill-Up, Rachel's arm slid around his, hooking him with his elbow so that they were roughly shoulder-to-shoulder.

The surprise must have shown in Mel's face, because she swiftly explained.

"I need this, okay? I'm exhausted and kind of freaking out again," she said.

"Okay," Mel said, and didn't try to pull away.

They walked. Without being asked, Mel started telling her about his dreams. The brain slugs, the faces, the weird transposition of self. The times Mel wasn't sure if he was the brain slug or if he was the prey. The roles of Jordan and Rachel. It was like once he started, Mel didn't know when or where to stop. Each admission was tiptoeing up to another life of exposure, and Mel prepared each time for the response of shock, disgust, dismissal, or breaking off contact.

Rachel didn't. She clung to him, arm in arm. She listened. Thought about what he said. As he finished, she asked a question:

"Have you ever dreamed of us together? You and me and Jordie, I mean. Like a threesome?"

Mel considered.

"Not like a normal menage a trois, no," he said.

Her mouth turned up into a smirk.

"I don't think normal really applies to us," she said.

Mel felt the soft heat on his cheeks, despite the cold morning wind. "Us." As if they were both in this together. Not going to run away.

"No, I guess not," he said.

By the time they were halfway to the apartment building, Mel stepped wrong off a curb, putting too much weight on his bad foot. Something sharp and painful happened, and he started to limp. Rachel noticed and shifted to his other side, so he could lean against her a little as he limped along.

"Are you upset I touched your dick?" she said. "Without permission, I mean."

"No, I said—you don't have to apologize. It's fine. I mean, I trust you, and everybody was cool with it," he said.

"You're cool with it now," Rachel pointed out, "but at the time, I didn't exactly get a chance to consult you."

"Okay. Future reference: while you shouldn't feel any obligation, I'm okay with you touching me like that, if you want to," Mel said. "Like, I'm not going to deliberately wave anything in your face, no expectations. But if the situation comes up and it happens, it's okay."

The words came out easily. Almost too easily. In his own mind, Mel cursed himself for sounding glib when Rachel was trying to do the right and ethical thing. He tried to put more weight on his foot, felt a shock of pain as the pressure built on the ball of his foot, and shifted his walk to put the weight more on the heel. Rachel was quiet for a moment, then asked:

"If our positions had been reversed. If Jordie or Soong had tried to get you to lick my pussy. Would you have done it?" she asked.

Mel considered.

"I mean, I wouldn't want to touch you like that unless I knew you were okay with it," he said, after a moment. "But if you were okay with it, sure. Why wouldn't I?"

"Okay. Well, for future reference, if the situation ever comes up, you can go ahead and eat me out," Rachel said.

There were no more words for a while after that. Both of them had realized what they had said, the permissions exchanged. Neither of them had a word for what this relationship was, not yet.