Do her for me.

Brain slug hosts prefer sex when brain slug hosts equal or outnumber human partners, and in rooms with clearly accessible exits and with mirrored surfaces. The latter enables both the brain slug's eyespots and the host's eyes to keep track of their partner, a double visual confirmation that they find reassuring during an activity that leaves them uniquely ****. Blindfolds and other forms of sensory deprivation are generally anathema to brain slug hosts; their trust in their partner must be total to engage in this form of play.
—Slug Sutra, chapter 7

Mel ran the swifter over every surface. He worked slowly, methodically. Washed his hands after. Put the swifter away. Maxine and Tomie were gone. Jordan was behind the counter. Blair handed him the beer fridge card, which Mel stuck back in his pocket as he walked to Ha-Yoon's office.

She was still in her chair. Without glancing up at him, Ha-Yoon said:

"I sincerely hope you risked your job for more than a blowjob."

Mel glanced up. There was a camera in the hallway outside the office. There were several cameras all around the Cosmic Fill-Up. Of course, Ha-Yoon would have caught them all piling into the bathroom. All she had to do was ask, "Where are Mel and Jordan?" then follow the recordings.

"Yes," he said. "You remember that feral brain slug host from the other week?"

Without being too explicit, he gave the bare details. Maxine's obvious distress, Jordan indicated that she needed immediate care. Mel providing assistance.

Ha-Yoon looked up from her monitor.

"So the 'brain slug nutritional supplement' from the other day?" she asked.

"I filled a condom for her to eat," Mel felt his face burning in a way completely different from the moment of intimacy with Jordan in the bathroom. "Because I was the one who got the Greater Pacific Northwest Collective to adopt her, I'm sort of responsible for helping with her nutritional needs."

The seated woman stared into Mel's face for a long moment. He returned her stare. Wondering if this was all a prequel to getting fired. What he would do if she did fire him. Probably go straight to the library and start to apply to more jobs.

Her nose scrunched up as she snrrkked hard.

"Only you," she said, shoulders shaking now. "Okay, so we'll call that emergency medical treatment. Try not to make a habit of it. But more importantly, what were you and Jordan doing in there after Maxine and Tomie left?"

Mel's blush spread across his cheeks and up his ears.

"I, um. I mean, we were. Filling another condom," he rubbed his now-sweaty palms on his jeans. Mel's voice dropped to a whisper. "It was our first time."

Ha-Yoon's howl of laughter made all three brain slug hosts jump, eyes spinning around and bodies crouched in sudden panic.

"So, she didn't fire us," Mel said. "But said we should not do that sort of thing where the cameras can catch us acting weird, because if corporate saw that footage, then she'd have to fire us, and it would probably trigger an audit that would cause them to fire her for not firing us in the first place."

Jordan's fingers were laced with his. She wasn't shaking anymore. Mel took that as a good sign.

The evening was cozily domestic. Rachel was in class and wouldn't be by until later. Jordan stripped and held hands with Jenny, probably to fill her in on the events of the day and vice versa. Mel took off his work shirt—which still smelled like Jordan, and definitely needed a wash sooner than later—and set about cutting hot dogs for ramen.

Tonight, they watched a documentary about the Exodus. Mel had been vaguely aware of the general outline. The fleet that had suddenly appeared outside the orbit of Pluto, far enough that the Sun's gravity well wouldn't splatter ships traveling faster-than-light. The two years it took for the fleet to approach Earth, the whole period of communication and learning as the small blue world prepared to receive its refugees.

Mel hadn't known what caused the refugee fleet. The Exodus itself was a small part of the implosion of galactic civilization; some massive, ancient, ongoing conflict between two shifting alliances of worlds. The actual immediate cause had been the catastrophic destruction of one of the nodes in the galactic transportation network. All of the oxygen-dependent species had managed a single jump to the nearest world capable of hosting the bulk of the species.

Which made sense, Mel figured. It explained why all of the extraterrestrials he'd seen and knew about could survive on Earth. They'd come from similar worlds where life had adapted in the Goldilocks zone with liquid water and high oxygen content; lived in similar habitats, traveled on ships designed for those conditions. The documentarian, a soft-voiced woman named Dr. Ida Nguyen-Chandūka, said that Earth had become a kind of interstellar Casablanca, a reference that Mel didn't get and made a mental note to look up at the library later.

The door opened as they were washing up and brushing their teeth. Rachel stalked in, black leggings beneath a plaid skirt, and some sort of long-sleeved button-up hemp blouse that seemed to have lost all color. Mel immediately clocked that something was off. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she walked over and hugged Jordan without preamble.

Slowly, hesitantly, Jordan hugged her back. Mel came in and put his hand on Rachel's shoulder, and then Jenny came, and the four of them were pulled together in a single hug, the sisters at the center.

Rachel sniffled.

"Sorry. Mom called today. I haven't told her about Jordie—or us. She was just fucking awful. Asked me if I'd become a dyke, why I didn't have a boyfriend yet. Doesn't give a damn about how I'm doing in school, or my job, or—" Rachel said. She sighed and sagged. "Fuck, I was such a terrible sister sometimes. I used to let her just go on and on about you and your relationships forever because at least it kept her from talking about me."

Jordan hugged her tighter and kissed Rachel's cheek. Not on the lips. Nothing sexual about it. Rachel smiled at that. Then she turned to look at Jenny.

"Listen, can I watch Jordie's video again? Or maybe make a copy?"

The hug broke up. Jenny fetched her thumb drive. Rachel produced an adapter from her pocket and plugged it into her smartphone. The transfer took less than a minute, and then Rachel was on the couch, watching her sister speak to her from the small screen. Mel sat beside her. He wasn't sure how to bring the subject up, but as one of his girlfriends, he figured he needed to let her in on current events.

"Hey, ****, I have to tell you something," Mel said. She looked up from the phone. "Jordie and I had sex. In the bathroom at work."

She looked like a baby seal staring at a club. All wide, wet eyes. Face blank, open, trusting.

"I need details," Rachel said. "Like, clinical levels of detail."

So for the second time today, Mel explained. In greater detail, and with less blushing. He caught himself trying to describe actually being inside Jordan, of feeling her body against his, the constant need to fight his own instincts, the inevitable moment when it was too much, when it just felt too good, and how she had tasted afterward, the relief when the shiver had stopped, the sort of aching emptiness of utter satisfaction.

As he spoke, he looked Rachel in the eyes. He saw her pupils grow slowly dilated, her lips grow tight, the slow flush beneath the freckles on her cheek that spread across the bridge of her nose. Realized, too, how close they were sitting together on the couch, and how their naked girlfriend and sister were watching them from arm's length away, like cats stalking a slow-crawling spider.

Mel paused, suddenly self-conscious.

"Fuck," Rachel said. "I wish I had been there to see that. Probably would have jilled myself blind."

Mel looked away, embarrassed at her reaction. It felt weird. She hadn't really said anything more explicit than what he had described. Yet he still wasn't used to hearing that kind of talk.

Her hand closed around his wrist. So warm it shocked him.

"Hey," Rachel said. "Question for you."

Mel looked back.

"Would you . . . do it again? So I could watch?" she asked. "Because I've had a shitty day and I really need to get off, and . . . damn, this sounds weird . . . I think it would be really hot to watch my boyfriend fuck my sister."

He glanced at Jordan.

She had disappeared into her room.

"I'm not sure Jordan's up for it," Mel said. Then he looked down at his pants. "I'm not sure I'm up for it. Maybe I could just eat you out for a while?"

"Please?" Rachel pushed out her lips in a pout. "Do her for me?"

Jordan chose that moment to re-emerge. She had a condom in her hand. Jenny was already leaning down and unbuckling Mel's pants.

"Well, okay," he said, unable to keep a grin off his face. "Since you ask so nicely. So how are we doing this?"

The middle seat on the couch was opposite the bathroom door. Jordan was tall enough to lean on her knees over the back of the couch and stare into the mirror over the sink. Jenny put a towel down underneath the other brain slug host. Rachel, having discarded her skirt and leggings, moved her chair so that she could watch Mel push into her sister from behind.

Mel felt oddly nervous in a way as he slid the condom on. He knew that he should be used to being naked in front of these women now, and they'd all had sexual contact with each other. Yet somehow, this felt like more of a performance than the first time with Jordan. He didn't just have to satisfy her, but an audience.

A part of him, at least, was ready to go already. Mel smiled down at the erection as he slipped the condom, the thin, transparent membrane snug down almost the whole of his length. He looked at where Jordan was waiting for him. Jordan wasn't looking back over her shoulder, but in the mirror. The brain slug, all ten centimeters or so of it, was transparent and emerald green, clear as glass, so that he could see the little bubbles of its organs, the fine threads of its nervous and digestive system connecting with the host's veins, and through that Jordan's vertebrae and muscles. A window into a world.

He knew the slug was aware of him, watching with his eyespots. Mel approached slowly, cautiously. His right hand traced up Jordan's left inner thigh. Until now, he'd never really had a chance to explore her body by touch. His hand found her vulva and cupped it. Warm. Soft. But it lacked that radiant heat from their first encounter, and there was no moisture in his palm.

So he dropped down on one knee and brought his face closer.

"Yessss . . ." Rachel hissed behind him. "What a gentleman. Get her nice and wet."

Mel's face flushed. He wasn't used to women talking during sex. He wondered if he ever would be. Yet as he tilted his head and brought his mouth against Jordan's underlips in a delicate kiss that became a frankly lascivious lick that parted her labia and teased her hole, he could hear the soft sounds of Rachel breathing a little heavier. Then something else.

"Hey, what? I—oh . . ." Rachel said, her voice rising in pitch.

Mel took his face away from Jordan for a moment to glance back. Jenny was on her knees before Rachel's chair, her hands on the blonde woman's pale thighs, and her face hovered above her girlfriend's crotch.

"This is fine!" Rachel said, her cheeks burning as bright as Mel's own face. "Totally cool! Keep going!"

He grinned as he turned back to Jordan. His hand gripped her thighs as he licked up and down. It was more difficult to reach the clitoris from this angle, but Jordan reached back to rub at herself. Mel wasn't sure how long to lick, but after what was probably only a couple of minutes or so, and felt like an eternity, he was so hard that the tip of himself could hit his stomach with the merest flex, and the taste of Jordan shifted, a little fishier, a little runnier.

Mel kept at it until Rachel's voice called from behind him.

"She wants it in her now. Give it to her. Fuck, give it to her, Mel—she needs it—"

So he rose. One leg on the couch, where he normally sat. Guiding his condom-clad cock back into that slick slit. The sensation of warmth and tightness was familiar, but different. His hands settled on her hips, and he explored the fine pink line that rose between her buttocks, the contours of her lower back. Mel could actually see the small divot of Jordan's asshole as he slowly slid forward, waiting for the clench of muscles that would tell him to pause and give her time to adjust.

It never came. The deeper he went, the tighter it got, the greater the pressure on his plunging prick, but this time, Jordan took all in one slow stroke. It was only at the end, the final centimeter, when he saw her shiver and her back muscles tense that Mel froze. For a moment, he relished that sensation, of practically all of himself buried inside of her. His fingers gripped her hips, thumbs stroking and massaging the muscles of her lower back.

Behind her, Rachel gave a muffled moan. Mel looked over Jordan's shoulder at the mirror. Saw his own face, and Jordan's; her face red, expression placid but eyes slightly luminous. Behind them both, Rachel was biting her knuckle.

Mel looked back over his shoulder. Jenny was sucking on her clit now.

"It's okay, ****," he told her with a smile. "I like to hear you."

Rachel brought her hand out of her mouth. He didn't think she could blush any further. She reached for Jenny's head, then thought better of it, and reached up to pull off her shirt, revealing her bra, which soon came off. Jordan's fingers, reaching down from playing with her clit to tap Mel's balls gently, brought him back to the matter at hand.

Long, slow strokes. Mel pulled out until only the head remained inside, and then pushed back inside. Sometimes Jordan would squeeze tight, almost quivering with the intensity of her straining vaginal muscles, and Mel would pause, run his hands up her sides, or stroke her thighs. Then she would relax and, increasingly, begin to push back to meet his slow thrusts. Mel felt ready to explode at any moment as he heard Rachel's moans grow louder behind him, and the back-and-forth of hips caused the pressure inside of him to build and build. Yet he felt that reticence against moving too fast, too hard, striking too deep.

He didn't want to hurt Jordan.

Behind him, he heard Rachel's moans turn into something else. Uncontrolled. Unfiltered. A rising keen like a kettle that needed release. Mel found it harder to hold back. His sweat-slick grip on Jordan's hips grew tighter, the press of his hips and the squeeze of his buttocks more urgent as he struggled to hang on.

In the mirror, and from the eyespots on her neck, Jordan watched Mel's face as he filled the condom. The moment when Mel let go entirely. His hands gripped her as if holding onto a lifeline. Rachel's keening gave way to a strangled gasp as she shuddered against Jenny's tongue and lips.

Mel pulled out with one long, smooth stroke. The loaded balloon, milky white, hesitated for a moment inside her quivering quim-tunnel. He fell panting to one knee and didn't even bother asking permission before diving into the dripping, juicy honeypot, hands once more around her thighs.

He felt, rather than saw, someone pull the condom off him. Felt a pair of lips wrapped around teeth tug at the dangling head and suck out the last, creamy drop. His tongue lapped at Jordan, and she pressed herself against him and shuddered violently in his grip.

Until her fingers reached down and tapped at his chin.

Jenny was on the floor. Rachel straddled her, and the brain slug host let the blonde squeeze out the fresh contents of the condom onto her tongue, to swallow it at a gulp. Jordan sat down heavily on the towel, her legs still shivering in the aftermath. Mel settled into his spot.

"Thank you," Rachel said as she stood and offered both arms to Jenny to help her up. "I needed that."

Jenny stood—and that was when Mel saw that the budding slug, now almost six centimeters long, was moving, its little sensory tentacles extended.