THE MEMORY OF HIS HANDS gripping and positioning my hips encroached upon my train of thought as my fingertips clacked noisily against the keyboard. The words on the screen in front of me began to blur, my mind losing focus on the article I was writing yet again as I recalled the way he’d rocked his impossible girth slowly inside of me from behind, how his tongue had licked between my shoulder blades and his teeth had teased my earlobe, his fingers circling maddeningly—teasing my drenched clit until I’d—
Fuck.
It’d been happening all day. One minute I would be on my virtual soapbox espousing the benefits of eating bone broth and bacon, citing Paleo diet research and case studies, and the next I’d have worked myself into a near frenzy—my skin flushed, my thighs rhythmically clenching beneath my desk where I sat in my office swivel chair as I remembered the inconceivably rapturous sensation of having his huge meat stuffed inside me—stretching my inner walls and pressing all the way to my cervix.
God, it had been like nothing I’d ever felt before.
Or would again.
Because—I’d fucked an alien.
It was a hard fact that played on loop inside my head throughout the day.
Every day.
All day.
In the morning as I ate my breakfast, while I sat in meetings at work, when I rode the subway, as I was washing my hair in the shower—particularly while in the shower. Even in sleep I would dream about him.
It had been nine weeks. Nine weeks, two days, and thirteen hours since I’d ventured into a hidden nightclub in the meatpacking district of New York City rumored to be an exclusive alien sex club.
The gravity of what I’d done that night confounded me daily still.
But it was the magnitude of the situation I had since trapped myself in that was becoming more suffocating by the hour.
I couldn’t forget about it for a moment even if I’d wanted to, and the knowledge that my present predicament was entirely my fault didn’t help.
Because the truth was I could have walked away. Twice. Once before I’d slept with the gorgeous alien club owner … and afterward.
I could’ve locked that absolutely mind—and body—blowing experience away, never letting a soul other than my coworker and partner-in-alien-sex-clubbing best friend, Jay, know about anything that had happened.
But instead, I did what any struggling twenty-four-year-old who’d racked up a mountain of student loan debt earning a degree from an elitist university in the Northeast thinking it would buy enough pedigree to land a dream job straight out of college would do: I’d penned an alien sex tell-all article for the New York Herald.
Only … I didn’t exactly tell all. I did what good journalists are supposed to do. I removed myself personally from all events revealed in my alien sexposé and reported that it was based off of the firsthand accounts of other undisclosed humans I’d interviewed who had participated in x-club activities with the Krinar aliens.
And I’d gotten away with it. So far. Which was what confused and concerned me most, feeding my paranoia and driving my fear of imminent alien retaliation to new heights with each passing day.
My computer pinged, and a small email alert popped up in the lower right-hand corner of my left screen. Noting the sender, I clicked the “x” button at the corner of the pop-up to dismiss it. I had a deadline to meet and couldn’t afford to be distracted humoring ridiculous emails from my mother tonight—anymore than I already was distracted.
Another ping sounded, followed by another pop-up alert. I sighed and waited it out as eight more pings and pop-ups appeared. She was on a roll for a Friday night. By the eleventh pop-up I went to my browser and logged out of my personal Outlook account.
My mother had been a “sky is falling” Chicken Little type long before the Krinar alien species had actually fallen from the sky two years ago to take control of Earth. Her initial “told you so” victory dance amid the early invasion panic was quickly followed by daily email forwards from random online “news” sources predicting all of the horrible ways humans were bound to be mistreated and ultimately killed at the hands of the Krinar aliens—or Ks, as we called them.
My mother’s propensity for readily embracing irrational and absurd media sources might have played a small role in influencing my desire to seek and report the facts above all else in my career as a journalist.
Unfortunately, facts were often slanted by other factors. And truth came in shades beyond black and white.
As “accurate” as my alien sexposé had been, it hadn’t exactly been impartial.
Because my acclaimed article not only omitted any and all culpability on my part as a willing participant in the best sexual experience of my life, it also painted the Ks in a rather negative light, showcasing them as sexual predators and highlighting the “drugged,” Ecstasy-like sensation and aphrodisiac effect that their blood-drawing had on humans.
In quieter moments, I could admit that perhaps I had been driven in part by my own ego’s need to rationalize my embarrassing response to Vair’s sexual advances that night.
Throughout my college years, I’d always been so careful, so cautious about the few men I’d dated. I’d always become friends with all of my boyfriends first, getting to know them well before things had become sexual. I’d never even come close to having a one-night stand.
And then, nine weeks ago, the very first time I’d let loose and allowed passion to dictate my actions, I’d gone and had a one-night stand with a deadly, vampiric extraterrestrial who’d sucked my blood and fucked me until I’d literally collapsed unconscious from sexual exhaustion.
My phone buzzed to life where it lay atop my desk, startling me. My mother’s number lit up the screen.
Eh, what the hell … not like I was getting work done anyway. Talking to my mother would be the fastest, surest way to get my errant mind off sex.
I hit the speaker button. “Hey, Ma.”
“Did you read my email?”
“You mean the dozen emails you sent me ten seconds ago?”
“Yeah.” She said this with zero hesitation or apology.
I bit the smile forming on my bottom lip and shook my head at the ceiling. “Nope. Still at work. Got an article deadline.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, followed by a clattering noise and then muffled shouting for my dad to come quickly.
“Oh, no! You’re not still working there?” She sounded out of breath now. “I thought you decided last week you were going to quit the Herald and go into hiding?”
“No. You decided I should quit and go into hiding.” I lowered the speaker volume. I was pretty sure I was the only one still working on my side of the office. But just in case.
“You’re not writing another E.T. article, I hope?”
“Yep. That’s sort of my thing now, Ma. I get all the Krinar stories.”
Another sharp inhale followed by a wheezing sound. “Have more victimized xenophiles come forward with their sex-clubbing stories?”
I winced. Xenophile—or xeno for short—was the derogatory term that had been adopted to describe a human who lusted after Ks and sought out sexual relations with them—to the point of willingly offering their blood in exchange for sex with any K who would use them for it. Essentially, a K addict who got off on the high from the blood and sex exchange and kept going back for more despite the inherent danger.
It was this disturbing phenomenon that had spawned the underground alien sex-club scene that I had reported on in my article. Such clubs were known as xeno-clubs, or simply x-clubs.
“No.” I cleared my throat. “This one’s about their forced vegan lifestyle and how it’s not only robbing humans of our free will but potentially damaging our health and the health of future generations, simply for the sake of satisfying their preferences.”
Two years ago, when the Krinar species had invaded and assumed control of Earth, they’d inserted themselves into all aspects of our world—down to the foods readily available for consumption. They had immediately shut down our industrial farming industry and forced meat and dairy producers to grow fruits and vegetables instead. Nowadays, any meat or dairy products to be found were sold at an outrageous premium.
The Ks had claimed to have done this for our own benefit to prevent us from further destroying our already weakened, sickly bodies and our even sicklier planet with our overproduction and overconsumption of meat and dairy.
And this had pretty well set the tone for how we could expect to be viewed by our new overlords—as a lower life form not intelligent enough to make even the most basic daily choices about the foods that we put into our bodies.
“But you’ve been a vegan for eight years.” My dad’s voice sounded confused.
“Oh, hey, Dad. Yeah, that’s true. But that’s not the point. The point is it’s our right to—”
“The point is why should we have to give up pork fat when they’re eating humans at dance clubs!” my mom cut in with exasperation.
Oh, Jesus. “Listen, I gotta get back to work. I’ll call you guys Sunday, all right?”
“Amy.” My dad’s voice was calm, but weighted with concern. “We think you need to stop antagonizing the Ks with these articles. From what little we know of them, they’re a violent, dangerous species … capable of anything. It isn’t wise to risk—”
“You have to stop!” My mother’s frantic pitch was approaching E-flat range. “Your dad and I are worried sick that those E.T.s are going to come kill you and eat your brain any minute now.”
I knew I shouldn’t have picked up her call. “It’s blood they like, Ma. Not brains.”
“They eat brains, too,” she insisted. “I sent you a YouTube interview on it.”
Here we go. “Okay, remember when we discussed YouTube not being the most reliable—”
“The YouTube video of those Saudi resistors being massacred by Ks was confirmed to be legit,” my dad reminded me. “No one thought that footage could possibly be real at first either.”
He had a point, although I wouldn’t concede to it just now. “That was different, Dad.”
The memory of that early video footage of the Ks never failed to induce an internal shudder. During the first few weeks of the Krinar invasion, guerrilla fighters in the Middle East had ambushed a small group of unarmed Ks. The gruesome event that ensued had been captured via iPhone for all the world to see just what kind of genetically advanced—and positively ruthless—species had taken over planet Earth. Because thirty-some Saudis armed with grenades and automatic assault weapons had been no match for six unarmed Ks capable of moving at inhuman speed and strong enough to literally tear their human attackers apart with their bare hands and throw them as far as sixty feet with minimal effort.
“Sources say they’re constructing human labor camps in Costa Rica,” my dad continued.
I sighed and let my eyes roll. “Sources” indeed.
“They’re developing torture and execution facilities for miscreant humans!” my mother interjected.
This was too much. I needed to get back to work.
“Your mother read that they publicly behead criminals on their home planet of Krina.”
“And then they have a feast where they drink their blood and eat their brains and other organs,” she chimed in.
Ugh. My empty stomach churned in revolt. “So … I gotta go now; my boss just emailed me for an update.”
“All right, honey, but your mother and I are very worried. We respect what you’re trying to do for the good of the public, but we think it’d be better if you went into hiding and wrote for one of the underground news sources we subscribe to.”
Of course they did. “Thanks, Dad. But you don’t have to worry about me. Everything’s fine. Believe me, if the Ks had been upset over my x-club story, they would’ve pulled it from circulation immediately when it first released. They never would’ve let it get so much subsequent press and media attention.” At least I hoped so. I had been banking on that theory. “It’s not like the New York Herald is beyond their reach or influence. It’s been pretty well confirmed that Ks monitor and control the world media at this point.”
“You say that now, but what happens when they come after you and cart you off to a K torture camp”—my mom’s voice cracked on an exaggerated, hysterical sob—“and we’re left wondering how many aliens ate our little girl’s brains for supper?”
With a poorly muffled wail of distress, she sobbed out a melodramatic goodbye and audibly stomped off.
That was my mother. If there was one thing she could always be counted on for, it was her penchant for high doomsday drama and her knack for saying the most unhelpful, inappropriate, and terrifying things at inopportune moments.
A long, awkward pause on the line followed. Twenty-seven years of marriage and my dad had never quite learned how to react to my mom’s special brand of crazy. It was an odd thing between the two of them that had grated on me immensely growing up.
Eventually, he said, “I should probably let you go now.”
“’Kay, Dad. Call you on Sunday.”
“Talk to you then. Be careful, Amy.”