We need to talk

They secrete lubricant easily, but the labia and clitoris are ultra-sensitive. Find the opening of the vaginal canal and trace it in slow circles. Listen for their breathing, feel the motion of their hips. Get into a rhythm. If you're comfortable with it, let them use their hands on your head to guide you.
—How To Talk To Brain Slugs, Chapter 7: Practical Exercises

Rachel lay on her stomach. Face in Soong's lap. The blonde hair was drawn away to expose the back of Rachel's neck, the little hills of her vertebrae like a mountain chain. Mel straddled her back, the length of him hovered over her spine. Jordan's smooth, warm hands gripped him like before. One near the base, the other near the head. She stroked him like that, and Mel could feel it build inside of him. The pressure. The need.

"Do it," Rachel's muffled voice came from between Soong's thighs. "I want it."

Something was wrong. The pressure was too much. Mel quivered, even as Jordan pressed her breasts against his, her lips on his neck. It was like the ejaculation was drawn out too long. Something moved along the length of him, but it was too big. He looked down and saw the bulge as something traveled up his urethra. Until the tip swelled up, ready to split, to burst . . .

A dark head popped out, its little sensory tentacles extended. His whole length quivered with agonizing hardness as the brain slug oozed forward. To land with a wet, white splatter on the base of Rachel's neck.

There was a sizzle as the skin began to dissolve. Then a moan, strangely muffled, a sound of such profound satisfaction and completion that Mel was nearly brought to tears. Through the transparent body of the brain slug, he could see it send out its tentacles into its new host.

Mel awoke in the darkness to find Jordan tugging off his pants. The brain slug host was dressed, he could see that much, in her wifebeater and t-shirt. She had the laundry basket and put his pants in it. To the side, he saw Soong, also dressed, gather up his bag of dirty clothes.

It was laundry day.

Rachel crowded next to him on the twin bed. She was, he was happy to see, fully clothed. Her head on his shoulder. An arm against his chest. Mel blinked at the darkness, heard the front door open and close. He closed his eyes again.

The slugs surrounded her. They didn't slither. Their soft, slimy bodies squirmed. Rachel felt them crawl over her. Hundreds. Thousands. Over her breasts. Between her legs. She could feel them slide, small and soft, inside of her, as if exploring some wet, warm cave. They poked their little heads inside her ears. One moved slowly, deliberately, up the side of her face like a mountaineer conquering Kilimanjaro. To perch on her forehead like the serpent in some ancient pharaoh's crown.

There was a ripple of movement. Like a tide. As well as the slugs pulsed and pushed. She slid on a layer of slime in a direction she could not see. Powerless to move lest she crush one of them. Afloat on a dark, living river of alien parasites.

Until her fingers brushed something else. Something human. A hand. A little bigger. A little stronger. It didn't flinch at that brief contact. Instead, it reached for her. For a moment, the hand closed around her wrist, and Rachel felt a new wave of fear at how tightly it grasped her. Like a drowning man to a bit of flotsam. Then, the grip relaxed. The hand stayed on hers, but the fingers found their way to her palm.

Not possessive. An invitation. Slugs crawled across the bridge of their arms as they joined hands.

Rachel opened her eyes as the apartment door opened. Beside her, Mel snored softly. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest. The soft hairs across his pecs mingled with the pale down on her arm, which lay across him. Her right ear was pressed into his left shoulder, and his left arm was beneath her, pinned beneath.

She was wearing clothes. Mel wasn't.

She remembered him collapsing onto the bed with his pants on. She had curled up on the couch. At some point, she had gotten up to pee. The apartment was so still and quiet, she could hear her own heart hammer in her chest as she saw him there, on his back. Rachel remembered seeing Jordan and Soong snuggled up against him the other day.

Thought became action. Rachel had wanted to be there, just for a moment. Just to feel what Jordan had felt, just to know for herself what it was like. To imagine . . . if she and Mel had met some other time and place, what might have been.

His body was warm. Mel hadn't woken up, as she lay down next to him. Carefully, she had laid her arm across his bare chest. Settled her head down, and . . .

That might have been minutes ago, or hours. Yet Rachel was absolutely certain that Mel had been wearing pants when she lay down. He wasn't now.

His cock stood erect and hovered above his body. She stared at it, the one-eyed monster her mother had warned both her daughters about. Beth Carmichael hadn't told them sex was a sin, oh no. It was currency. The thing that women used to get what they wanted. It had been so in her mother's own life, with all the men that had moved through the Carmichael house. Sex as reward, as incentive; refusal of sex as punishment.

Rachel's hand moved to the hovering hardon. Curious what it would feel like. After all its hard work, it was still able to get so hard. Maybe it was because Mel was young. Virile. The lab results had said so . . .

Jordan stood at the doorway with a basket of clean, folded laundry. She set it down just inside the door. The whites of her eyes glowed a little in the dark room. She slid forward, padding softly on bare feet.

A shock of deja vu as Jordan's hand closed over Rachel. For a moment, Rachel wanted to pull away, to say something. Yet Mel slept on, unaware.

No. He blinked. Eyes opening like night-blooming flowers. He saw Jordan sitting on the edge of the bed. Felt Rachel beside him. The two sisters holding hands over the nighttime erection.

Slowly, without ****, Jordan guided her sister's hand to Mel's shaft. Rachel felt the pulse of it through her palm. Jordan moved, guiding Rachel's hand. Up and down. Not hard, fast jerks, nothing like in porn. This was almost exquisitely slow. Mel's skin was dry. His breathing began to quicken, chest rising and falling, and Rachel's head rose and fell with it, one cheek still plastered against his skin.

A little faster now. Mel began to twitch. She could feel the muscles in his abs convulse, feel him jump in her hand. Her face felt hot now, excited not just to watch, but to touch.

Mel made a short, choked noise. His hips rose. No arcing spurt that hit his chin; he was still well exhausted. Yet it dribbled, hot and sticky, over Rachel's hand, her thumb. Four or five good pulses of glue-thick, freshly drawn sperm. Soong was at the door now and moved forward with purpose. Jordan gently took her sister's hand away from the shrinking shaft as Soong knelt to slurp the fresh load from his stomach.

Rachel watched as Jordan brought her sticky fingers to her mouth. She remembered when they were children, finger-painting with pudding, and how they used to lick each other's fingers clean. Now, in obscene parody of that childhood game, her sister's lips closed over her thumb, the hot tongue sliding over the skin, scraping away every last drop.

When they were done, the two brain slug hosts left. Mel and Rachel heard the sounds of the chest of drawers opening, clothes being put away. Mel's stomach rumbled. Something else nagged at him, though. A nervous knot in his stomach as his roommates left him alone with Rachel. Unsure if that was implicit permission or expectation.

"Good morning," Mel said, his voice a whisper. Then, sheepish and unsure, he asked, "Did you want me to—I mean, I feel bad, you did that for me, and I haven't done anything for you, and yesterday you said I should . . . I'm not sure of the etiquette here, but I feel like I should reciprocate. If you want me to."

Rachel bit her lip. She rubbed her hand, still slick with her own sister's saliva. Not sure how she felt about what had just happened. Not sure, despite what she had told him, that she was ready for the kind of relationship that would be implied if she asked him to go down on her. Or what she would do if, in doing that, they both wanted to go further.

"Rain check," she said after a long moment. "I need to pee. And coffee. But thanks for the offer. Maybe I'll take you up on that sometime."

By mutual unspoken decision, Rachel got to use the bathroom first. Mel did his exercises. He was still exhausted, and he saw someone had changed the bandage on his foot, which didn't hurt as much. Hours of sleep had left his brain a little clearer, even if the dream still haunted him. The exercises helped; they gave his body something to do while his mind worked through everything that had happened over the last few days.

There was a time, almost a month ago, when Mel had never had any sexual encounters, knew nothing about brain slugs, and his dreams had mostly been about finding out he failed to study for a final exam. Now . . . he smiled, despite himself. His foot hurt. Balls ached. He was pretty sure the brain slugs had adopted him as their personal cum dispenser. And he had woken up next to a woman who was giving serious thought to his offers of cunnilingus.

How could I not smile? Mel wondered as he switched to push-ups. Felt the burn across his upper arms and shoulders. Maybe I should have been more proactive. But she was dressed. I wasn't going to peel her clothes off without permission. I mean, if she was into it . . .

He gnawed at that thought. It was always dangerous territory. There was a flush, the sink ran for a moment as Rachel washed her hands, and then Mel took his turn in the bathroom. Rachel went to make coffee.

He didn't hear the cup drop. Just the banging on the door, which then opened as Rachel tried the knob and found it unlocked. Mel was in mid-stream and barely managed to avoid a terrible mess as Rachel dragged him, still naked, into the kitchen, where a dented aluminum travel mug lay on the floor in a brown puddle of cold coffee.

Rachel pointed.

On the refrigerator, in magnetic alphabet squares, was a message.

**** + MEL

WE NEED

TO TALK