Slug-Fucker

Social species like humans that form relationships with other species like dogs, cats, and horses are particularly **** to brain slug infiltration tactics. They will treat human hosts as if they are still human. They are not.
—Brain Slug Infestation: Cause and Avoidance, Chapter 2

In Mel's dream, the giant slug lay on his chest with the weight of a cat. It was warm. Slimy. Slow. Left a cool, sticky trail down his sternum as it moved toward his neck. He opened his eyes and saw the all-too-human face on the end of it, small black antenna extended above the forehead. It was Jordan's face. The blue eyes seemed to see him for the first time. Her lips brushed his. Something warm and slimy slid past his teeth...

The sound of the shower broke Mel from his dream. He blinked rapidly, then dropped to the floor to begin his stretches. The funny thing was, he never remembered having such vivid dreams in the orphanage. Was it just that he was in a new place, a new situation? The weird reality of living with an alien that was also a woman?

How much of this is just me not being able to jerk off? Mel wondered, painfully aware of his own erection as he flipped over to do his pushups. The tip of his dick hit the floor.

When Jordan was dressed and ready for work, Mel was right behind her. His new uniform still had the fold-lines, but it fit. They left the apartment together.

They weren't alone. Another pair were emerging from across the hall. The woman was Asian, the tips of her hair dyed purple, a scattering of acne scars across her cheeks. A brain slug, pale green, was visible on her neck, and she wore a blue-shirt Cosmic Fill-Up uniform just like Jordan's. The other had no slug. Short, heavyset, in a chef's whites, with olive-complexioned skin that spoke of some Latin heritage.

"Oh, hey," he said, and thrust a hand forward. "'nother slug-fucker!"

Mel stiffened. He took the hand and gave it a bit of a squeeze.

"Mel," he said. "And we're just roommates. I just moved in the other day."

"Sure," the other guy leered. "Antonio. This is Spicy Slug."

The Asian woman didn't meet Mel's eye. She and Jordan faced each other in a way so that the slugs on their necks could see each other. Or at least, Mel assumed they could see each other. He hadn't examined the slugs closely enough to see if they had eyes. But their antennae were twitching.

Mel let the handshake drop.

"We're just getting to work. Cosmic Fill-Up," he said.

"I'm working at Assante's, downtown," Antonio said. "You have a nice day."

"You too," Mel said. But he didn't mean it.

Jordan and the woman called Spicy Slug walked side-by-side on the sidewalk. They held hands. Mel, who kept a pace behind, still memorizing the route to the fill-up station, wasn't sure what to make of that. Spicy's brain slug had shifted position slightly, the better to waggle its antennae at Jordan's brain slug. It had to be communication, but of a sort that Mel couldn't eavesdrop on.

Not that he wanted to. Antonio's idle comment of "slug fucker" rankled him. Did that mean he was having sex with his roommate? Did she consent to that? Could she? Was it even her who was consenting, or was it the brain slug? Did the hive mind care?

More questions that Mel didn't have the answer for. Maybe the book had them, but the tone of the book had bothered him. It treated the brain slugs like an invasive species; intelligent, adaptable predators that found the weaknesses in a civilization and preyed upon them. Mel had grown up in an environment where family was a foreign concept and sexual **** by bigger, older teens was a real possibility that everyone acknowledged and guarded against, and even he struggled to find the paranoia to completely believe that.

When they hit the Cosmic Fill-Up, Jordan and Spicy unclasped hands and went to separate stations. Mel reported to Ha-Yoon for training. Which largely meant he spent the morning learning the intricacies of pushing the swiffer around the floor, punctuated by watching corporate training videos and taking little multiple-guess online quizzes at the end, which certified to corporate that he was being certified in various safety criteria so they didn't get sued.

Customers came and went. When the customers weren't there, Jordan and Spicy sometimes held hands.

"They're not lesbians," Ha-Yoon said, as if reading his thoughts. "Human skin, when it's sweaty, is a decent conductor for these low-level electrical signals that brain slugs use to communicate. When they're holding hands, they're having a conversation. Or maybe the brain slugs are communing as part of some bigger consciousness or something. The important part is, it's not sexual or romantic. Trust me, weirded me the fuck out the first time I saw three of them holding hands in the break room during lunch."

Mel had to grin at that. Ha-Yoon's smile didn't reach her eyes, which were suddenly hard.

"You sweet on her already?" she said.

Mel's grin faltered. "She's my roommate. I just met her the other day. She hasn't...we haven't...how do people actually do that? I mean, she's not...she's like a zombie most of the time. Hasn't said a word to me. Shown zero interest."

She stared at him hard. As if trying to decide if he was serious.

"Lot of folks don't have a problem with it. One of the reasons we've got so many brain slugs working here is because there was a major problem; on the ships, sex work was legal. On Earth, it's complicated. The brain slugs were whoring their hosts out, using the money to take care of the rest of the nest. Some organized crime types tried to take advantage of that, the cops got involved...it got real messy. Some folks said the brain slugs were taking people over and forcing them into sex work, pulling out the whole sex slavery trope. Some hosts ended up in prison, didn't last long," Ha-Yoon sighed and eyed the counter where Jordan and Spicy were holding hands. "So there was an agreement reached, between the government and the hives. No more whoring. To make up for the lost income, the government helps with job placement, rent-controlled apartments...anything to keep them off the streets, selling themselves. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Some rogue operators out there, smaller hives that split off on their own, that kind of thing. Still a lot of slug-fuckers out there. Hell, we've got a magazine, SFM—Slug Fucker Monthly!"

Ha-Yoon saw Mel wince at that, and grinned.

"Sometimes we get some **** assholes that try to hit them up, but you can't exactly flirt with a brain slug, and these ones won't put out for money. Anyway, keep your dick in your pants and you'll be fine. Remember, even if they look human, they're not," she said, unconsciously echoing the warning from the book Mel had read last night.

"Yeah, okay," Mel said.

He spent the afternoon pushing the swifter around some more. It was almost relaxing, and when he was done, the floor was spotless.