Jill

by Jay Hughes

Madness.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Was she impressed?

  "Maybe, just once. They don't look comfortable."

  "Comfort," I said, was never part of a woman's fashion vocabulary. Take the bra, for instance."

  "I know. I hate them." She fingered the silver-gray dress, admiring the buttons and the cut of the bustline. "I can't wear one with this."

  That was the best news I'd heard all day, and it was only a little before seven in the morning. "So, you like it?"

  "I must try it on."

  Thursday was stacking up as eventful. Watching Jill undress is like watching a great master paint a work of art. She unzips her front, peels back her uniform and gets naked.

  She does it with such dignity.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, admiring my lusty green lover, hoping she'd put on the dress in a day or so. She'd look sexy in a sack. The two-hundred dollar dress, less the incredible twenty percent discount, well...

  Then she put the thing on.

  She looked human, except green.

  She looked beautiful because she's green.

  The dress fit. It showed enough cleavage to coax some drool from me ... after that, we teamed up to take the dress off.

  Then I had my way with her.

  "Again!"

  "Damn, Jill ... I only have so much semen in me."

  "Use something!"

  That presented a dilemma of its own. I don't have a handy supply of dildos around the house and pop bottles aren't my style.

  We settled on the banana, which didn't do her much good but it gave me an erotic hour. Sliding it in, pulling it out ... then, the damned thing broke off.

  Moo-pa for everybody.

  After that, we scrounged up some celery and a cucumber. Hey, this is research.

  Our walk through the garden lasted until about eleven o'clock when the phone rang. The phone rings often at my place and I can often split the calls into three categories: somebody selling me something; somebody trying to get Jill to sell something for somebody else; or, a piss-vial tech setting up an appointment for Jill to see somebody who has something to sell.

  A fourth category, not rare but still not common, is from somebody at or near the top of the piss-vial pecking order.

  Clifton Carmein, a bureaucrat of some distinction, claimed it was a matter of consequence. He's the guy who heads up the new Presidential Committee on Intergalactic Affairs. Rather than explore all the duties and challenges this committee faces, suffice it to say that it includes Jill.

  I'm Jill's spokesman.

  "She can't come to the phone, Cliff," I said. "She's making a veggie salad."

  "That stuff's expensive this time of year."

  "It's safer than plastic," I said.

  "Leave her a message," he said, "Her seat has been approved."

  "That's not news," I said. "I have a stack of letters here on the table that would croak a cow. What seat?"

  "United Nations."

  "Great. Does she have a flag?"

  "I dunno. Does she?"

  "Let's just hang out her panties. Cliff, go piss up a rope. Every time you federal fuckers come around, life gets complicated."

  "Jay, it's the United Nations, not the Feds."

  "Cliff, she isn't even a country. Not a president, anything. Did she know about this?"

  "We discussed it last fall."

  I laughed into the phone. "Who's gonna be the ambassador?"

  "May I speak with Jill? Maybe she can appoint somebody."

  "No, we're getting ready to peel a cucumber."

  "Why don't you peel the cucumber and let her talk on the phone?"

  I laughed again. "I'll see if Betty wants the job. She's out in space part of the time."

  ***

  Jill had made it clear she would deal with the government, the piss-vial techs and the world media on her terms. She found it embarrassing to pick up the copy of World News Report a month or so after she'd been discovered. On the cover, Jill and I, nose to nose, with the caption:

  WE ARE NOT ALONE

  All that came before the usual rant and banter about the entire matter being a carefully contrived hoax and that if Jill were indeed an alien, she'd have pointed ears.

  As if being green doesn't count.

  I woke her up around two and promised to insert tongue A into slot B if she'd find time to talk to me about ... things.

  She rumbled around, half in a daze and I was having trouble getting a fix on her.

  "Winter," she said.

  "What's this about the United Nations?"

  "I'll see if Segoy wants the job."

  "Segoy?"

  "She's coming in on the next ship." Jill went to the bathroom, stayed in there as long as most women do and came out in a huff.

  "Care to dance? I got Anka."

  She shook her head. "I think I'll take Klinger for a walk."

  The United Nations? Sorry I mentioned it. Oh, by the way ... Segoy is coming in on the next ship. La-de-da.

  I guess when you're a plant, you need sunlight. We weren't getting much of it lately. Snowy, gray days ... too cold for her to be outdoors. Klinger had settled in for the duration of January. Even his rubber rat went unattended. In a way, I believed he could sense Jill's problem, whatever that was.

  Maybe it had something to do with the mating ritual that was due in February. Vicki had told me not to ask.

  Jill was going through changes, and there was nobody on Earth who could help her. I tried to think back to summer, when I first learned about it. It didn't seem a problem at the time.

  Of course, things were different...

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ...in July.

  And it was clear on Day Two of the Inquisition that I would see less of Jill than I had imagined.

  In summary, the CIA boys shut the door in my face.

  Classified shit, they claimed.

  Hey, fellas ... I have the maps to Standard Eight. Care to ... no, I guess not.

  Jill showed up at the house a little after eight that evening. Curb service from the U.S. government. She was dog tired.

  So was Klinger, but he's a dog.

  Too hot for me indoors, just right for her ... we took a walk.

  Along the way, she munched on a new spruce the Lavender lesbians had planted. The Lavenders, who lived next to Maud, noticed. Jill didn't get away with a lot in the neighborhood. Nobody said much, opting for the usual nod of the head and look-away approach.

  Jill doesn't bite, unless you're a tree.

  Klinger bites, if you're a woman.

  In truth, I was growing jealous of Klinger, who had grown fond of Jill ... and of the white shirts downtown who were about to steal my honey from me and turn her into a poster girl for interworld relations.

  I hadn't yet braced myself for the onslaught of national media, university requests and, choker of all chokers, the ubiquitous NAACP, which seemed to think Jill needed some special consideration. Well, she is colored.

  Klinger scared up a rabbit and endeavored to catch it. "Whatever you do, Klinger ... don't throw me in the briar patch," I laughed.

  Jill's amusement unraveled part of the mystery. "We have nothing like that. No animals at all."

  "Strange planet."

  "They all died. It happened centuries ago ... nobody knows why."

  "How about the other planets?"

  "Jay, it's not like we just go visiting the neighbors."

  "You made it here."

  "There's a difference."

  "I suppose." I kicked a rock. "Can I ask ... don't smack me ... but ... our sexual relationship ... I mean ... how?"

  She giggled. "We seem to have figured it out."

  "Is it how you do it back home?"

  "Not quite. The details would bore you, and there's nothing exciting in my sex life. Except you, that is."

  "So, how did you learn ... I mean, about erections and all the ... stuff ... we do?"

  "From the movies. I watched sex movies."
>
  "You have a Blockbuster?"

  She shook her head at that one. "We picked up satellite signals. That's how we beamed in all your television and radio signals. You sent them out and we received them. Cartoons, that ridiculous series with the pointed-ears man ... and the sex movies. I watched and learned."

  "Your parents let you?"

  "Parents? As they say here ... get real. I also researched your planet. Part of it is the reproductive aspect." She stopped and bent down to pet Klinger. "Dogs, cats, birds ... all forms of life ... and people. And it looked like a lot of fun, so when I got the chance, I ... found you."

  "You didn't come looking for me."

  "No, but you're male and I'm a female. I just hoped it would work. And, it did. Wow! Let's go do it again." One interprets what one will, but with Jill, that did not come as a request. She grabbed my shirt and tugged at it. "Now!"

  I don't think Laddie Lavender and her lesbian licker Lucy were keen on it, but I dropped Jill under the spruce tree, right next to the flower garden. I let Jill nibble on a few sweet sprouts before I undid her front and nibbled on her sweet sprouts. Then, we fucked ... right out there in the evening twilight, under the spruce tree ... Jill on top of me, bouncing up and down as though she were getting it for the first time.

  "Don't moan too loud," I whispered.

  "Mooooo-panna-eeeeeeeeeya," she cooed.

  The girl can be quite soothing when she wants to be.

  Fucking her in the grass with the sweet spruce aroma encircling her seemed to produce a Jill I hadn't had before. Calmer, sweeter, gentler ... it was the first time she had worked at giving me the pleasure.

  "I want to feel you," she whispered. "Go deeper, inside me ... feel me ... you're so hard ... moo-pa, baby ... moo-pa."

  Then I decided never to let her go.

  Easier said than done.

  I crawled to my feet, went back home, found Klinger sitting at the door and made a mental note to set up a bed in the back yard, just in case.

  Jill went north, either happy with what she'd done to me or happy with what I had done with her.

  I went indoors. The answering machine was blinking.

  "Mister Hughes," the message said, "this is Anderson Davis. I'm a representative of the president. I would like to speak with you at your convenience. Blah blah blah.

  Get your own pussy, Mister Prez-uh-dunt.

  I made a mental note to stop off at Wal-Mart for a can of pine-scented room spray.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Not quite zero.

  Jill and Klinger stayed out longer than I had expected, given the wind that had come in. Bonding, I supposed. Maybe another rabbit. Klinger has his ways.

  Me? I just snooze after a good nut-busting romp in the rack with Jill, who had begun to wear perfume. I didn't mind the fragrance, but I missed her natural aroma.

  She slammed the door, let Klinger head for his water dish and threw her parka onto the couch. "Put on the Paul Anka!"

  I blew her a kiss. "You're indoors now, so warm up."

  "I want to dance."

  "Not until you act civil!"

  "What did I do wrong?"

  "Try asking for a dance."

  "Men are supposed to ask." She stood there, arms crossed, gazing down at me with that tender smile only a woman who has jet-black lips can give.

  Hey, who can resist?

  "Need some help?"

  "Shrink wrap is mankind's mortal enemy."

  She snatched the package from me and looked it over. Then she put it to her teeth. "Rip it off this."

  "No! It's plastic."

  "Oops." She handed it back to me.

  "I want ol' Paul to make you happy, not make you sick."

  "Wait here."

  I waited. She left the room. Klinger followed her. The little bugger was gonna get his own sniff. "Get your paws off my woman, you little sausage!"

  When Jill emerged, she was wearing that dress and she had her hair up ... does the word "edible" come to mind? Sexy, incredible. Tall and green and edible.

  Then, we danced.

  "Did Paul Anka have hits back on S8?"

  "His music was part of our course-work. It was so easy to understand. Music is a good way to learn a language, you know."

  I smiled and kissed her on the nose, then on the lips. Then I sucked her tongue of her head and played grab-ass for the first time since high school.

  "No, just dance."

  "This is a switch."

  "You wouldn't understand."

  Men never do.

  ***

  When Friday came, Jill was gone. No note. I understood.

  We never discussed the United Nations or Segoy or any of the other things I had wanted to discuss.

  No questions, no answers.

  What was there to understand?

  She had come a lifetime across the empty space of nowhere, from somewhere, to here ... to me.

  What had she said about fortune and a sound plan?

  Hey, I just call it damned good luck.

  ***

  I called Vicki. "She likes it."

  "Which one?"

  "The one that shows her cleavage."

  "Figures. I got shoes."

  "Play some Paul Anka at the party."

  "Check."

  "Everything worked out."

  There was no point in my telling Vicki anything. Whatever she needed to know about Jill, she got from Jill.

  I just fill out the forms. That all started in July, the day Anderson Davis called from the White House.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  You always like to get a phone call that lets you hear a pin drop. Presidential connections are perfect.

  Unless the guy was lying. Anderson Davis, the pest, was calling me back. "Would you like to speak with him?"

  "I have issues, sure."

  Long pause. "Jay ... I can call you Jay ... this is the president."

  "Sure, you can call me Jay, sir. I suppose you want to speak with Cheeliol. I can make arrangements."

  "Well, yes ... but I want to congratulate you first on being ... the first."

  "She claimed as much," I said.

  "Can you make arrangements for me meet her?"

  "Your place or hers? Oops, bad joke, sir."

  He laughed. Word had gotten around.

  Here I stood, talking to a guy who sounded like the president, trying to think of a way of convincing Jill that the guy was important. Hell, she knew that, didn't she?

  "What kind of gal ... er, woman ... is she?"

  "Sweet, tender, articulate, likes to ... um ... discuss world affairs. You'll like her, sir. I suppose they have to run a lot of tests first, to see if it's safe and all."

  "Our people in Coffee Canyon assure me she's not toxic and has a good head on her shoulders."

  Of course he'd notice that. "Nice shoulders, too, sir."

  Creek, not Canyon.

  "After a few days, when she gets de-briefed and ... gee, documented ... let's see how we can work this. I have a busy schedule, you know." The president was lying. He plays golf all the time. I know because I see him on TV in a golf cart, answering questions.

  He also spoke with a mild southern accent, a dead giveaway that he wanted to grope my honey. "Well, sir ... I suppose I can make time for you to see her. I'd like to catch her at home once, though. Your folks seem to have her tied up."

  "We did want to make sure she was legitimate."

  "Yeah, I heard the hoax rumors, too. Trust me, sir ... she's for real."

  "Good. We can make the announcement. I'll fly out there on ... say ... Tuesday. I have a fund-raiser in Indianapolis that night. Maybe Jill would like to take part in that."

  "She hasn't discussed politics, sir ... but I'm sure you have her vote. Mine, too."

  "We'll get her registered," he chuckled. "Just let Anderson know what else you need."

  I got out a pen. Let's see ... no more taxes ... world peace ... and oh, my back screen door needs fixing. I need to regist
er to vote.

  And that was that.

  I finished with Davis, convinced the president would come to town to see Jill and not me. I did get confirmation that the storm door was broken.

  Mister prez, ol' buddy ... put your hands on her and she'll rip your throat out. Unless she's a groupie. Folks come in from other planets all the time to bed down with rock stars, political leaders, guys who live in ordinary houses. Dachshunds are chick magnets.

  If I seem a bit blasé about the chat with the president, it's because I am sleeping with the only space alien known to mankind. I'm hard to please these days.

  ***

  I called work that afternoon and quit.

  "You can't quit."

  "Can so. The president said I could."

  "I hear she's a fake."

  "They're real, Barney."

  "Not her tits, her."

  "Fuck you, Barney. Now you know why I quit."

  I grabbed the morning paper and, to my astonishment, page one was covered with Jill stories; page two, page four, page eight and the back page. These guys need better presses. She looked like a frog.

  I was learning more from the Coffee Creek Voice about Jill than I was from Jill.

  Yes, they had "warp" drive, a Star-Trek word that meant nothing to her. Translated, she called it "hyper-flux" and allowed the ship to pass through various time threads without paying tolls.

  No, their planet hadn't been wiped out by a nuclear holocaust and, no, apes didn't roam around on horseback.

  Yes, you can see yourself in a mirror on S8 and, no, you can't see your future while you're looking at your past.

  They have tree farms.

  We have McDonald's.

  No snow.

  Telecommunications? Of a sort. Not explained. Telepathy? Only on television. Television? Something like that, only without the remote control device.

  Children? That's what makes adults. Adults? That's what makes children. Dogs? Just Klinger. "Hey, Kling ... you're famous!"

  Afr, afr. Klinger can't spell.

  I read through the newspaper articles two or three times, finding my name mentioned twice. Lucky for me I'm a local guy and this is a local newspaper. Some green chick comes in from out of town and the locals get sqwooshed down to two sentences.

  I kicked up the air conditioner and bellied up to the kitchen counter, wondering if it was all right to eat the boiled ham. Sometimes, sleeping with a vegetarian can cause internal changes.