by Jay Hughes
Unless you count Daniel Ortega.
I looked out the window. More cars with Virginia plates. Fellas, you look like Secret Service agents and even Herb Fawthorp knows it.
At nine, Jill showed up in a jet-black uniform, her hair up and her nails polished. The badge on her chest, just above that big right boob, showed an engraved starburst and an inscription. I couldn't read it.
"It says u'nay-le. It means 'representative.'"
"I wish it said 'you lie now.'" I wanted to have sex with her on the kitchen floor. Or on Main Street, right in front of the hundreds of news media who had come to town for the president's appearance.
At a little past nine, a horde of Virginia residents knocked on the front door and took us downtown to the Civic Center where we could hear the national anthem and Hail to the Cheese.
Betty came scooting out the front door and waved to us as we pulled out of the driveway. Spry old gal, quick for her age.
Secret Service guys get the name for one reason: They never talk. They just nod and look around.
They all wear sunglasses.
***
Hanging around with the president is like watching a bullfight from the eighty-fifth row. If you can understand the language, you have to spot the bull.
Or the bullshit.
"Talk to me," Anderson Davis said. "He needs questions."
Davis hadn't had much time to do his homework and I attributed that, in part, to his own government. Train people to gather information, file it, keep it secret and ... when you ask for it, nobody knows anything.
"She's warm, friendly and has a taste for contemporary music," I said. "When was Paul Anka a star?"
"Never heard of him. Can she give the president anything he can use?"
I scratched my head. "She likes Klinger."
Davis grunted. "Your dog?"
"My dog."
"That's not much."
"Hell, he's just gonna shake her hand and grin, welcome her to Earth and ... what else can he do?"
Somewhere in the push, the crunch and the flashing lights, I got shoved off into a corner and Jill got to meet the leader of the free world. An hour or so later, the place was empty. Jill was gone, Davis was gone and ... I was downtown.
I called a cab, stopped off at Soapy's and decided to get blasted.
***
I got home around seven, and I still hadn't seen Jill. I flipped on the television, tried to catch it on the news and ... fell asleep.
I awoke in the dark, staring up at a pretty green face and a broad smile. Her coal-black eyes burned into me like fire. "I figured you went on to Indianapolis with him."
"He put his hand on my leg."
"He's a president. He can do that."
"What's politics?"
"It's where two or more life forms gather, buy a keg of beer, tack up some signs and have a party. You here for the night or just stopping by on your way back to the ship?"
"Klinger needs a walk."
I grunted and turned over on the lumpy couch, looked down to see if he'd left any wet spots and held out my hand. "Stay tonight. I need you."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
She stood and ran her hands through her hair. She still looked good in her dress uniform. She blended into the darkness like a shadow from heaven. "I ... I'll stay. I'm not sure ... where's the dog?"
"Something wrong?"
She stared off into the darkness. "I ... no, nothing is wrong. It just seems ... Jay, what does it mean?"
"What, that I love you?"
"Yes."
I sat up and rubbed my forehead. Too many beers, too much presidential bullshit ... lumpy couch, gorgeous woman ... pissing dog ... Tuesday night ... heat ... hungry... "It means ... I love you."
I don't think she understood.
I'm not sure I did, either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I do now, though.
I sat in the corner of a little room that served either as a kitchen or a greenhouse. My two companions scurried about like little green men, busy at this, busy at that. It was as though their objective in life was to remain busy, no matter what the consequences. They never seemed to tire.
One might imagine the excitement of being aboard a space ship. No such luck. Every so often, the thing thunks and whirs, and I presume that's when it's adjusting its orbit.
Frick and Frack never seemed to clue me in on that.
They also didn't let me wander around.
So, I sat there ... not sure if Klinger was pissing or if Jill was breathing.
"Hi, there."
I looked around, then over at Frick ... or was that Frack?
He pointed to a little speaker in the ceiling.
"Hello, Jilly girl."
"Come and see me!"
On her damned death bed and still ordering me around. I got up and waited for Frack ... or Frick ... to direct me out of the room, down a hallway and into Jill's quarters.
Klinger wagged his tail. He'd been there two, maybe three, hours and still hadn't pissed on anything.
Like I could tell in the dark.
"Is it possible to turn on a light?" I grumbled.
Frick flicked on a one-watt bulb. This ship came forty-six light years across space, powered by a pair of D-cell batteries.
"I need to paint their names on their backs," I said.
Jill laughed and turned. Then she sat up. Klinger hopped off onto the floor and started sniffing. Bad omen there.
"You have no idea what I feel like," she said.
"I've had a cold, Jilly. It sucks."
"Does it make you hungry and thirsty at the same time?"
"No, just sick."
She swung her legs around and stretched them out in front of me. She wiggled her toe against my knee and flicked an index finger at me. "Sit."
I sat.
She put her hand on my wrist. "You do realize this is the second time since I've known you that I won't be seeded. I can't take a chance, with this illness."
I just sat there, staring into the glow of the little light in the corner, keeping one eye on Klinger and another on Jill's foot. Somehow, this was all my fault, wasn't it?
"It's not your fault," she said.
"You almost died."
"You brought me back."
I looked at Jill, who seemed tame for a change. Lucky for me the rhinovirus is a fucker of a germ. "Back? All it proves is you're too vulnerable among us. A cold is no big deal. It makes us wish we were dead but it hardly ever happens. Other stuff is a lot worse."
"I'll adapt, build up some immunities." She sat back and pushed her arms out in front of her. "It does make you stiff, doesn't it?"
"You make me stiff when you're healthy."
She gave me a blank look. Then she put her head on my shoulder. "I love you."
I kissed her on the top of the head. "You understand what it means now?"
She nodded. "Klinger showed me. I felt so many sensations coming through him in the past few hours. I think that's what drove me. I can't die and miss out on this."
"Why don't you get those sensations from me?"
"You have conditional love. Klinger doesn't."
"What's conditional about my love?" I started to stand up, but she pulled me back.
"You're human. You have considerations ... fear, pain, jealousy ... a dog doesn't feel that. Klinger feels no death or sorrow. You asked why he doesn't like women. He learned it from you."
"I like women."
"Of course you do ... with conditions. Klinger knows that."
Not sure how she'd come to all these conclusions, I tried not to understand it. I knew we were past her immediate health problem. "So what's next for us?"
"I come with you and we live happily ever after."
I squeezed her hand and tapped the ring. "That's why I gave you this."
"I know. I didn't understand it at the time. You have such a strange way of expressing your affection." She gazed at the ring, th
en back at me. "I have to change a little, too. It will be difficult."
"Does that mean I get less moo-pa, or more moo-pa ... or about the same amount of moo-pa as before?"
"As much as you want."
Yes ... Jill had changed. I was gonna like this woman.
I got up and found Klinger sniffing around in the hallway. "I gotta get him back to the house before it's too late," I said.
She whisked me away. "Come again when you can stay longer."
"This is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."
She smiled and blew me a kiss, apparently out of clichés.
Frick and Frack dropped me off at the nearest sycamore tree and Klinger was more than grateful. Somehow, Jill had even changed him.
We'll need a new couch soon.
I had said that back in August, but it didn't seem to matter much at the time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I was seeing less and less of Jill.
Two days after she met the president, she disappeared. I knew why. She was in heat.
"I'm unbearable when this happens," she said.
That made life unbearable for me, not knowing what any of it meant. Seeding season. She didn't explain and I had no resources for asking.
Jill had made it clear that her life would be split into two parts ... the one she shared with the piss-vial technicians and the one she shared with me.
"I want to be as human as possible around you," she had said. "If you begin to learn about our differences, it will only make it more difficult to share what we have in common."
In a phrase, I didn't want to know everything. She's a woman whose mouth waters when she sees a pine forest. She's a woman who thinks I enjoy spending four hours licking her vagina. She's a woman who makes me sit right next to my air conditioner, one she won't let me use. That's enough moo-pa for one lifetime.
I went about the business of managing her affairs as well as I could, wondering if the next four days would lead to the inevitable end to our relationship. If she bore offspring, or whatever she called it, my guess was she couldn't carry out her motherly duties under these conditions.
Klinger seemed listless in her absence, but peace had come to the neighborhood. Her evening walks with the dog had brought tourists to our part of town. And I did notice a shortage of Virginia license plates. The guys in the sunglasses had all gone back to the Pentagon to grope their own women.
I was a day or so into my solitude when the phone rang.
"Hi, Tammy."
"I understand Jill is in heat."
"Wart-face tell you that?"
"No, I was looking through her files."
I laughed. "That would be drawer S, under sex."
"You got it. Can I have that tape back now?"
"No fuckin' way. It's valuable."
"Jay ... please! It's for reference."
"I can make a copy of it."
"I want the original."
"Tam, what you want is a re-run. You ain't gettin' it, girl. Are your hands on the desk?"
She giggled. "You couldn't do that to me again in a million years."
Long pause on my end. "You won't believe this, but I was just thinking of buying Jill some new lingerie. Some purple panties ... little bitty ones that just barely cover her snatch."
"I own some."
"Really? Wearin' them?"
"Yep. They're blue, though ... not purple."
"Jill likes 'em too, except when I get my hand in there and scoot them off to the side, just enough to get my finger..."
"Jay!"
"She says they feel real sexy when they slide around against her. That happen to you, Tam?"
"I try not to think about it." Her breathing was a little heavier now, but it was a hot day on piss-vial row.
"My hunch is, Tammy girl, that if you moved your hand right now, down into your lap, you'd be able to adjust those little panties."
"I won't."
"Do it, just for me," I whispered into the phone.
"Are you trying to phone-sex me?"
"You horny, Tammy?"
"Yeah, sort of ... my husband is in Minneapolis again."
"Movin' your hand yet, girl?"
"Y-es."
"Wanna go all the way, babe? I thought so ... just slide that hand down there, right inside your slacks ... wearin' slacks or a skirt?"
"Skirt."
"Even better ... now just ... hell, you know where it is ... it's the wet thing ... it's probably twitching ... fuckin' go for it, girl!"
"Mmmm, why ... are ... y-you ... d-doin' th-i-i-i-isssssss?"
"Fuckin' get off for me girl! Make that finger do somethin' for a living, baby! I'd come there and lick if it I could."
"J-e-e-e-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-uzzzzzzzz ... damn! You're good!"
"That was quick."
"I've been fooling with it for half an hour."
"Worked up the courage to call?"
"Wow! So, when does Jill get back?"
"She didn't say. Has she discussed any of this seeding process with you?"
"All I know is ... wow ... oh, damn ... I'm still shaking ... my fuckin' panties are wet ... that if they breed her ... ooo ... let me catch my breath ... that she has an eleven-week incubation period. After that ... I have to look at some other files ... please send me back the tape, Jay."
"After that, what?"
"I guess she has a little thingy."
"A thingy?"
"You know ... a baby."
"Eleven weeks ... did she say if it's an option?"
"It is. She doesn't have to mate." Tammy dropped the phone. "Sorry, just getting myself back in order."
"Wet panties, huh?"
"Yeah, I took 'em off."
"Jill does that, too."
"Then what?"
"Then, I get down on my hands and knees, kiss her on the knee ... and sorta work my way up..."
"Stop it!"
"Then she spreads her legs apart and pulls my head in ... just so I can get..."
"All right, you win. Here we go again."
***
Was that cheating? Of course it was. Jill was off someplace, boffing Frick and Frack, making little green babies. All I got was a cheap thrill. I needed to ask Tammy just why her husband was away so often.
I opened the day's mail.
Blah ... blah ... blah ... "11-20 Sept ... the International Symposium of Medical Professionals ... Vienna, Austria ... confirmed..."
Damn, kick me in the head.
Jill wasn't going to give birth to a thingy, after all. She was going to spend a week with the great physicians of Europe in beautiful downtown Vienna.
Jill was going to see the world, and the world was going to see her. I wondered if she was up to the challenge. The piss-vial managers and crabby-assed government scientists were using up a lot of her time and she hadn't yet run short on energy.
There I sat, growing more confused with each passing day. The invitations, if they didn't come by mail, came by phone.
One in particular:
"Mister Hughes, this is Chuck Charles. I run ChuckyLove Productions. I understand you're her manager. Mind if I make you an offer?"
"Offers, I can hear. I'm not her manager."
"Agent, then ... this green goddess, she's incredible ... think she might be interested in a little film work?"
If A plus B equals FONDLE ME, ChuckyLove needed to say no more. Winkwink, nodnod, nudgenudge.
"A half-million dollars for a one-year exclusive contract," he waggled into the phone.
"What makes you think Jill would be interested in a porn film career?"
"She'd be a natural, better than Ashe ... Skye ... Jenna ... bigger than all of 'em."
"My guess is she's better right now than any of them will ever be, but I don't plan to share her."
"Oo-ee, you lucky dog, you! Talk it over with her."
"I can send her in and let her talk to you," I said. "Chuckles, did you ever see a woman bite the butt end o
ff a pool cue, chew it up and swallow it? That's what would happen to your porn studs."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"You sure you feel well enough to come back with me?"
She nodded and grabbed my hand. We stood on the spot that took us ... back to the sycamore tree. Jill reached up and ripped off a twig. "I'm starved."
***
She spent the next two days with the piss-vial experts, who came to one conclusion: Winter is for humans.
"Essentially," she said, "I'm a plant form. I need more sunlight than you do."
I nodded. "So, do we move to Florida?"
"I'd still have to come back to Coffee Creek to access the ship."
Maybe I can bring in some ultraviolet lights and set them up around the house."
"Good idea."
"Why can't the ship just move?"
"We can change the orbit but we can't redirect the beam. There's a wobble in the atmosphere just above this town. We were days trying to find one with this climate. It's a complicated procedure, but in simple truth, there are only so many ways we can get onto the planet. It's like ... little holes we have to punch through the sky."
"So a full-scale invasion is out of the question?" I fingered my pizza and watched Jill spread soy sauce over her pine cone. It needed salt, she said.
"We can send anybody to Earth we want, but they have to access it through the portal. That's how Segoy plans to get here. Her ship will dock with ours and she'll access the portal that way."
"Can't you just send down a shuttle? Who's Segoy?"
"Shuttles are useless. Segoy is my daughter."
I spun the pizza around on the plate. A new wrinkle. "She was born before you left S8?"
"Jay, there is one thing you haven't grasped ... but it should have been obvious ... I've never been there."
"Why should that have been obvious? What the fuck does that mean, anyway?"
"I was born in space. I've lived my entire life on the ship. It's why I never talk about life at home. I never lived there. It took us years to get here and the ship left before I was born. Segoy was born in space."
"How long ago?"
"By your terms, two years ago."
"Segoy is two. How old are you?"
"Thirteen, fourteen ... something like that. Time doesn't matter. Years are not relevant, not in a time thread. I guess the best way to put it is ... in Klinger years.
