Thirst

by Addison Cain

  “Did you just use foul language in my presence, pet?”

  Worked up, sweating, smeared in fluids, she shrieked. “My name is Evangeline, mother of that thing that was just pulled out of me. Mothers on my world are celebrated and adored!”

  “Mother?” The concept appeared to throw him.

  And it was there, the translation working however their tech did to make that name solid in the alien’s understanding. “You would be mother to one of mine? Such a thing would kill you. Though you honor me in so deep an offering.”

  The translation between them was clearly flawed. “Mothers on my world are protected by their husbands or wives. Should a larva put them in a position where their life is in danger, the child is removed.” Not a lie. Caesarean sections happened consistently for such a reason. But not a full truth either. “Mothers are given soft places to rest, bathed, and fed. Treated as equals by their counterparts.”

  The alien slowly going from red to purple, it was the first time Evangeline heard the true hideousness of an alien laugh—if you could call a series of hissing grunts laughter “Pet, you are no equal. None is equal to a Necrimata.”

  Why was this thing just as bad and men from her town, her campus, and her job? Why did it send her skin into an angry flush? “Your Class One pet wants to eat! She wants to be clean! SHE WANTS TO SLEEP ON SOFT THINGS!”

  “Deceptive, pretty human.” Stretching of those tentacles, all six reached for her at once, pulling her close to warm icy skin back to pink. “This concept of soft things… there is nothing soft here.”

  Voice heavy with everything, Evangeline mumbled, “I cannot sleep on your body.”

  “You’ll learn, fierce thing.”

  “I need food, and I need to pee.”

  It smirked, fangs poking from a lipped mouth. “And both life necessities are at your fingertips, should you ask your master kindly.”

  Feather gray eyes in a pale freckled face looked up. Her wild, red hair was a mess, her body the canvas for alien things and stimulated by many roving tentacles. Self-preservation made it easy to beg. “Please. Please give me someplace soft to sleep.”

  “Luxuries you require? This was not in the manual.”

  Again with the manual! “May I read your manual? As an expert in humans, I might make a few notes.”

  There wasn’t any indication he’d heard her before her eyes began to shutter, roll back, jaw hanging lose. The manual was being downloaded into her brain.

  Foaming at the mouth by the time it was done, Evangeline hung limp in his slithering hold.

  As if adding a note of his own, he stated, “Your brain is not evolved to the point of handling a simple information transfer.”

  Not that it would matter at this point, but she was utterly screwed. The manual was committed to her memory as if it had always been there. Much like his language. And it was wildly incorrect.

  A cough, one that misted blood from where she’d bitten her tongue marked his face. “I won’t survive you. Humans cannot live without water after three days; we need it several times a day just to function normally. This manual says water weekly by human time. That is not a way I’d choose to die. Fuck me to death instead. At least then when the end comes, it won’t be after days of suffering.”

  And with that, she passed out.

  Chapter Four

  A pallet of soft furs. Waking snuggled on her side, over and under Evangeline’s skin was cushioned. Her fluttering fingertips, resting against her cheek, were stained blue from alien cum. But she was warm, and more importantly, she was alone. Even sporting a view.

  The entire wall was open to space. Either a projection or a window or an anything that advanced alien tech might have to offer so fine a vantage.

  Stars in the extreme distance; closer stars zinging by. In a room that, in that moment, held space and the glories of the night sky she’d loved all her life.

  And it was then Evangeline felt warm tears. From eyes they fell, to dampen the furs, though she didn’t warble or wail.

  She just leaked out stuck feeling, passed it from one space to another, and grew lighter as it drained.

  Emotion returned.

  Bedazzlement by the stars. Acute anxiety when she dared consider how she’d gone from feeding goats, to endless nothing… to this.

  This was real.

  She was never going home.

  Her apartment she’d worked so hard to pay for, her unfinished knitting, her massive, never-ending pile of debt, her parents and the hungry goats.

  Her cheap suits and smart blouses. Her love of Cheetos.

  The unfinished puzzle on her coffee table.

  The smell of grass. The nightly song of katydids.

  Car exhaust. Car payments. Endless car repairs. Gasoline and riding the tank of her ancient Hyundai to empty.

  Tuna fish sandwiches and warm, sun-ripened tomatoes.

  Men who never called back. The abortion she’d had when a condom broke and her high school sweetheart dumped her.

  Endless regrets. Endless goals.

  Endless space out that window.

  Stars.

  Burning before her. Their light blocked by whatever mechanism served as a window, but she could feel it warming her all the same.

  Heat loosened cold limbs, left her groaning in pleasure as she stretched on the softest fur human flesh might know. And just as soon as that sense of comfort came, doubt rode hard on its coattails.

  Doubt rocked through her like a bolt of lightning. All at once, all too much… because she was human, and startled, and in a spacecraft. She been repeatedly seeded by a giant of a being that almost looked human but was so far from one, there was really no comparison. Which made her laugh.

  The caught throat noise of a fracturing thing.

  An Evangeline with a brain not evolved enough for a simple information transfer. Making her keeper all the more God-like and terrifying.

  To him, she must be little more than a monkey who could sign and pet a kitten.

  That must be how the horny alien viewed her. Despite her state education and her efforts. Despite her love of stars and goats and family.

  Forget about a life of straight As. Forget the Master’s Program in New Orleans she knew she had a real shot at. Forget helping people in pain deal with their issues and find peace once she’d become a therapist.

  Forget and pin all her future on that view, those stars, the fact that life finds a way to survive even the most crazy of scenarios.

  God, how her breasts ached.

  “There is a species of wisp-like beings, beautiful beyond compare by the opinion of many. They flitter and move like wind. They laugh as they evade. No Necrimata has ever seeded one. Impossible to pin, evasive, deceptive, and also dangerous should they chose to lure you in with their delicious scent.” Fingers she’d been utterly unaware of moved across her belly, a massive palm cupping slender flesh and pulling her tighter to the reason she was warm in the first place.

  He was here with her. In the furs, its tentacles so still she had failed completely to notice she was caught in their net.

  “You, tasty human, resemble such a being. Though you have been caught”—those appendages wrapping her flexed—“and pinned. The wisps too are classified as social creatures. Corner one away from its partner and they waste away in a matter of phases. They are like clouds; no flange can find an anchor in them. They weep. Yet still, it is a Necrimata warrior’s challenge to attempt the seeding.”

  How awful for the wisps.

  “But I have caught one, and she pleases me—though in the future she may try and fail to lure me to my death.”

  Sniffing, deeply embarrassed by the flush working its way from chest to cheeks. Reminded once again how superior this being was to have gone unnoticed for so long, Evangeline said, “We have a mythological creature on Earth much the same. A siren.”

  “Siren? A fitting name for a demanding pet.”

  “My name is Evangeline…”

  “And you
wish to retain it? Nothing else from your former existence will keep. You are not even speaking your born language, though you have yet to notice the change.”

  “Evangeline,” she said with greater conviction, stiff in his hold despite the softness of the furs on her skin and the pleasing way every inch of his appendages stroked her.

  “Evangeline, my siren. Mother to my spawn.” Those words were given with what might be considered reverence, should a hissing two-tonged alien warrior be capable of such a thing.

  And her silent tears dried.

  “Glabrx.” Tasting his name, rolling it on her single tongue. Awkward, staring at those stars shifting past, at a nearby ball of burning red fire, she tried. “Great Warrior and father to our spawn.”

  “My spawn…” Sharp teeth, gentle yet daring, took her neck in his great maw. Thoughtful, reverent, were his words despite his catch. “You are mother for moments only, the larvae you cannot keep. Yet, I have decided you are worth keeping. Worth wasting Hertlu furs which would fetch me a fine price. You have your soft bed, siren Evangeline. And now that you have claimed the title of mother and called me father, I wonder? Would you waste away if parted from me, social creature? It must be so.”

  A deep breath followed by a long, drawn-out sigh. “I’ll waste away now if you forget to feed me.”

  “Faster yet should you lack water.” He nudged her head with his, as if to show affection. “Other resources I paid a great deal for through the communication network of this quadrant confirm your claim was true. Eat, drink, and then I shall bathe you.”

  Burying her face in soft, white fur, tension eased enough for another full, rib-expanding breath. “Human women love warm baths.”

  ***

  An alien toilet was far different than a human one. Though the utter embarrassment of being shown how to use it, the various functions, the purpose… was.

  Baths, even on a space craft, were literal.

  Glabrx might have had a toilet, a literal hose that basically suctioned one’s privates to keep waste product down, but he had a full, sunken—almost too hot to tolerate —bath.

  A thing earned by a ranked Necrimata soldier, he’d told her. And with that decree, he’d puffed out his chest and made the tentacles at his back… display. All the colors, all very intimidating. Yet oddly appealing in their rainbow.

  Easy enough to be impressed with a full belly of exotic things she was wise enough not to question the origin of. Easy enough when her thirst had been slaked. Easy enough when she’d been able to relieve herself.

  Then he took her hand, so small in his extra jointed and very alien grip, and led her into the liquid.

  This was not an Earth bath.

  The gelatinous substance within was nothing like water. Hardly rippled, required a very bizarre cutting through of squish and pressure.

  Yet… once Evangeline settled against the rim and seeped into the mass… it was bliss. Comforting all the bits that ached. Working on her.

  So much so that she lay her head back, let her swollen breasts leak, and saturated in a moment so comforting she may as well have been on a beautiful beach in Mexico under a bright, yellow sun. “Were there ever females of your kind?”

  “Gender is not a variable in my kind.”

  Laughing, carefree with a cool cup of water to sip and a bath laced with heaven, Evangeline gave a single laugh. “But sex is all you want.”

  The gelatin swished, parted, and made way for the captain of the ship. “A true seeding frenzy is passed in a day, perhaps two—large, violent, intelligent game filled and left trapped so the larva might feed. That is what I sought at the flesh dealer’s when my frenzy came several phases before I reached my favored hunting grounds. Yet my flange still reaches for you. My frenzy will not abate, only grows, wisp-thing. Mayhap I’ll kill you after all. Mayhap knowing my spawn have been removed unbalances my species’ natural impulse. You were meant to give your life for Necrimata young, not be enjoyed.”

  It seemed the creature tried to kiss her, acting out the endearment as if having studied the mechanics but never having employed it. It seemed to move like a slithering thing and cover ever part with every wriggling appendage.

  It seemed to appreciate.

  With easy strength, he parted her thighs, hitched them over broad hips despite the squish of the water. “It’s the wisp in you.”

  “Your manual”—The very manual that came so much more clearly to her mind after sleep refreshed her—“states that I am a protected species. You must account for me to several governing bodies. You are not even allowed to sell me unless under very specific circumstances.

  Every tentacle clutched, suckered, and left little circular marks where they roamed. “A Great Warrior of my stature grasps the need to serve their species greater good. After careful consideration, I intend to keep you, fill you, ride the frenzy until I no longer breathe. I will give the Necrimata much to remember me for as this siren pulls me under the waves. I will spawn a legion of young. Conquered planets shall be named for the sacrifice I pour between your legs.” He tested a word, as if disliking the concept. “For the babies you season.”

  A ginger brow arched. Soaked and sated and suspecting some sort of sedative was in her water, Evangeline said. “And just how long will it take you to die of endless seeding frenzy?”

  “If projections are correct, a hundred human years. Maybe two. During all of which I’ll be unable to continue my duties or maintain my station as a ranked warrior.” Flange began to poke about, seeking its place to rest. “Much I will give up to keep you, siren. Status, the glory of a different hunt, yet I will breed with you until I die. This I do for the greater good.”

  Laugher, glorious in its hysteria, broke free. “You will give things up? My life was stolen! A life that will not extend as long as two hundred years. Humans die around sixty.”

  Especially humans laboring under debt their whole lives, then laboring under ideals, then laboring for others, then laboring to pay a mortgage, then laboring to feed a family, the laboring to please a mate.

  Only the disengaged, ultra-rich, or extremely rare person lived longer.

  The alien nuzzled her temple, sinking even deeper until they were chest to milk-swollen chest. “I would never have handed over such treasures to a creature that was not modified. You are licensed and guaranteed. Full of nanobots to fix damage, genetically cleansed, fortified against disease. A thousand years at least you’ll live. Chromosomal abnormalities are repaired as they occur. Your set expiration date was aligned to my life expectancy.” The creature tapped his chest where the human heart would beat. “When I expire, you’ll pass into the beyond, siren pet, with me. Tens of thousands of our children conquering the stars.”

  An eternity of being fucked and fed and bathed and laid to rest on soft furs. Sarcasm colored her reply. “How romantic…”

  Thoughtful, the slither of his tentacled grip, the stroke of his massive hands through that gelatin, grew possessive. “Chapter three. The human concept of love.”

  Choking on the word, Evangeline squeaked, “Love?”

  “Yes. This is fitting to such an unbreakable union now that the wisp-beauty is mine. You will love me.”

  So much for the Jell-O bath and opening her hips to the stroking of the triangular tipped flange. “That is not how love works, alien. It requires mutual respect, sacrifice, desire, attraction. You bought me! Nothing you might do would earn my love!”

  From his smirk, those sharp teeth, the quick flick of his tongues over his bottom lip, the beast seemed impressed. “Ah, how clever the flesh dealer in his trade. There is a chase after all.”

  Flange went from seeking and playful, to penetrating and greedy. Leaving Evangeline bowed, fucked in all the right ways. In every terrible wrong way. Crying out to the glowing ceiling of his ship, she struggled not to reciprocate like a trained pet. A mist-being.

  And already she felt a hunger, an addiction, for what would burst down his shaft, stretch her past pain, and fill he
r with a flesh eating baby.

  A fizzle—a warped, bent thought. Touch she was starved for, this thing would give it. Rest she desired with a desperation that consumed rational thought. The ease of financial burden. The offer of two hundred years despite the gap in her front teeth or the dimples in her thighs.

  How it already clung to her, spoke to her.

  How it desired a chase. Back home, the men chased when the wanted to get their dicks wet. They didn’t exactly stick around, and on many levels she knew it was because her attention was on her future. On escaping her small town. On achieving.

  Being pleasured and served by this thing, despite the title of pet, was so far from anything she might have imagined, it almost seemed appealing.

  She was a psychologist’s wet dream.

  “You will love me. The warrior in me knows this. You will adore me in your human way; I will give you every reason to do so. I will die young for you, wisp. I will spend my years fucking you into oblivion. Already you crave. That is nothing to what will exist between us in fifty phases. In five thousand phases, I imagine a palace will be granted on my homeworld just for our couplings. Enough fresh spawn pulled from your loins to blot out the stars.”

  “I do not love you,” all said as ankles magically locked behind the creature’s spine.

  “Do you find me handsome?”

  “Hideous.”

  “Said like a true wisp. How I will be envied!” Not a word said without reverence… as if this flesh devourer, this nonsocial species, understood the concept of desire. “Human mothers expect love. Thus it must be given.”

  The beast pressed her body against the edge of the oval depression.

  “As do human pets.” Evangeline sunk deeper, gelatin teasing at her lips as his flange worked, his hips dug, and her insides went mad. “Otherwise they are taken away from their owners and the owner is imprisoned.” For flair she added, “Ownership is sacred. Curses fall on those who betray so an important a trust.”

  Without parting her lashes, she felt it, his stiffening, the subtle slowing of the flange, and alien evaluation. “Curses?”