AFTER BOB DROPPED ME OFF, I went to Jay’s place to grab my stuff that I’d left the night before. I ended up listening to him for hours as Jay raved on and on about Shalee, Vair’s gorgeous and brilliant Krinar medical associate.
Jay was utterly smitten with her, even though he continued to profess that it wasn’t serious, that they were only planning on having some fun together.
“You know … it’s just that she’s bi and I’m bi, and we’re both into science and medicine and all—”
“You’re into science? Since when? And medicine? Jay, having a lot of prescriptions in your bathroom cabinet doesn’t count.”
“Whoa!” He laughed and made an angry cat noise, throwing the claw gesture my way. “Someone didn’t get bitten hard enough at the club last night.”
Jay offered to let me crash at his place again, but I declined. Not because I feared Vair’s disapproval, but because I needed to be alone for a while.
After calling my parents back and listening to my mom lecture me on the dangers of hot yoga for over forty minutes, I climbed into bed early.
And then I stared at the ceiling, wide-awake for most of the night.
I got through Monday in a constant state of exhausted panic, expecting Vair to show up any minute and demand that I get into his limo and go back to his club. I imagined Tauce’s angry yellow eyes following me around every corner, heard his nasty voice in my head, sneering that I was Vair’s “property.”
I couldn’t eat. I didn’t sleep well the next night. And I couldn’t write.
When Tuesday came and I’d failed to finish my article about the Ks’ forced vegan diet, I turned in the article I’d written months ago on the conjoined puppy twins—ten weeks after my editor, Gable, had wanted it and after every other news source in the city had already covered it.
I was probably going to be fired next.
Meanwhile, Jay surprised everyone at the Herald by turning in a well-written opinion piece on the similarities between Krinar and humans, highlighting universal traits of emotional intelligence that both species shared. He even worked in anecdotal evidence of Krinar “butthurt” behavior, changing names and descriptions of key Krinar, of course, in order to “protect the innocent”—and his ass. Jay’s K article was probably the only thing that saved my ass for the week with our boss.
By Wednesday I’d started panicking that Vair wouldn’t show up demanding that I get into his limo. By Thursday the fear had crept in that I’d never see him again.
But then he texted me that evening. He sent a video. Of us. With a message to watch it and to think of him … because he was thinking of me.
I didn’t text back.
But I watched the video. And I ended up fingering myself on my living room couch. Knowing that Vair was watching. And likely videotaping it.
I’d reached the pinnacle of dysfunction.
By Friday my stomach was in knots as I anxiously awaited Vair’s next move—quietly hoping that he would call or text, and, ideally, blackmail me into going back to his club that weekend.
I made a mental note to call my therapist and see if she would still see me on a sliding scale.
At a little after three in the afternoon on Friday, Jay poked his head in my office and told me to grab my purse and meet him by the rear stairwell in ten. Thirteen minutes later, we were meeting with Jay’s college friend and CIA agent in a little rundown coffee shop located on the fringe of the financial district.
“Great to see you, man. Amy, this is Stephen, my friend from college I told you about. Stephen, this is Amy.”
We shook hands, grabbed coffees, and found seats at a quiet corner table. Jay’s CIA friend, Stephen, was a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed all-American type who looked like he should be in NYC hitting casting calls rather than working for the CIA National Clandestine Service. But then he started talking, and I totally got it.
“As I’m sure you know, Ms. Myers, two years ago, after the Great Panic, our world governments entered into the Coexistence Treaty with the Krinar, allowing them to establish settlements across the globe. We’ve since done our best to cooperate with the Krinar Council in order to coexist with these Ks. For the most part, they chose warm climates and isolated, sparsely populated areas to construct their main K Centers.” Stephen paused his slow, monotone delivery to take a sip of his black coffee, and I slipped Jay my most discreet side-eye.
“They built settlements in Costa Rica, Thailand, and the Philippines. But there are also some K Centers here in the U.S. There’s one in New Mexico, Arizona—”
“Stephen, man,” Jay interrupted. “This is intel that we can get on Wikipedia or a general Google search. Can you tell us why Amy’s on a government list?”
Thank God.
“Right. I was just getting to that. As you well know, while many humans despise the Ks and remain fearful and resentful of their sovereignty, there are those who view them as gods, and worship them as such.” His speech and posture mimicked that of an unhip fifty-year-old. It was hard to believe he was our age. “Xeno-clubs, or x-clubs, sprang up almost immediately outside of these K Centers as places for Ks and K-worshipping humans to … interact.”
He made air quotes at “interact,” prompting unwelcome flashbacks to the four-hour conversation in which my mother used nothing but euphemisms to explain the act of sex to me.
Stephen paused, turning his attention fully to me. “Ms. Myers, I understand that you are familiar with these x-clubs. Is that correct?”
“Stephen, you know she is. She’s the Amy Myers who wrote the Herald article on the x-club located here in New York City. Can you please speed it up? We have to get back to the office sometime tonight.”
“Of course. Of course. In the past two years, there have been more and more troubling cases of Krinar and humans overindulging in these x-club … interactions.”
He made air quotes again at “interactions,” and I nearly got up and left. I settled for furtively checking my phone for new text messages from Vair.
Damnit. Still nothing. I blew on my coffee and took a sip.
“At first there was concern over the addiction aspect and the potential long-range effects of these K interactions. But then there were fatalities.”
The coffee I’d just swallowed turned sour in my stomach. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Fatalities?” Jay shot me a nervous look. “You mean … from K bites? Humans have died? At x-clubs?”
“K addicts have died,” Stephen stressed. “Xenophiles.”
I couldn’t help but notice he said it in a way that made it seem as if he felt they deserved it.
“How?” Jay asked, his face paling as he absently palmed the side of his throat. “From blood loss?”
“We aren’t certain.”
“From withdrawal?” I had to ask it. My cheeks reddened as Stephen shot me a scandalized look.
“We don’t know.” To his credit, his monotone didn’t falter. “The Krinar Council gave our government very little information. But they assured us that the Krinar researcher they were sending here would investigate the matter thoroughly and implement strict controls for all x-clubs going forward. Our government agreed to provide whatever support was needed for the K researcher and his team to establish an underground x-club here in the city, and to prevent human interference with the organic selection process necessary for their study. The idea being that New York City’s dense, diverse population provided access to a broader human gene pool for Vair to analyze than the rural, remote areas around the K Centers where these fatalities occurred.”
“Vair?” In my shock, I think I whispered it. At the same time, Jay had nearly shouted it.
“Yes, that’s the name of the head Krinar researcher the Council sent.” Stephen turned to me. “I believe you know him, Ms. Myers.” His tone and expression didn’t alter, but I knew I saw judgment in those blue eyes. “From what we understand, he’s a behavioral scientist. Isn’t that correct?”
My lungs felt compressed. I shook my head and struggled to breathe as I stuttered, “I—I don’t know … anything … about him. Behavioral—?”
“We aren’t certain of his exact title or position within Krinar society,” Stephen explained, “but we’ve been led to believe that he is more or less the Krinar version of an esteemed psychologist or behaviorist.”
“Wait a minute,” Jay interjected. “You’re telling us that Vair’s a sex therapist on Krina?”
“No. I’m telling you he’s the head researcher that the Krinar Council sent to collect empirical data on the short- and long-term effects of blood and saliva sharing between Ks and humans.”
“Empirical data?” Jay intoned with disbelief. “From a sex club?”
Stephen paused to take an annoyingly long sip of coffee before answering. “Yes. Testing the side effects of Krinar saliva on humans. Recording withdrawal symptoms, measuring how quickly humans become addicted. Also measuring how quickly Ks become addicted, researching potential cures—that sort of thing.”
Oh, my God. I was a guinea pig?
An alien sex-lab rat?
Pieces began to fall together in my mind, forming a most disturbing puzzle. I recalled Vair’s offhand remark on Sunday about too few Ks being inclined to study human behaviorism, and the way that he’d referred to his human clubgoers as subjects and patients.
“What’s the government list that Amy is on?”
“It’s called the charl list,” Stephen answered.
“Charl?” Jay’s eyes lit up. “Amy, remember when Zyrnase and Tauce—?”
“What does it mean?” I cut in.
“Charls are a class of human under Krinar protection. Our government no longer has any jurisdiction over them. Actually, neither does the Krinar Council, it would seem, without the express permission of the Krinar whom the charl belongs to.”
“Belongs to?” Jay balked. “Excuse me?”
“Our division intended to squash Amy’s article, fearing that it would interfere with Vair’s testing—give the whole x-club research program away. It’s unusual enough having an x-club here in the city so far from a K Center. According to my sources, the Council was in agreement and didn’t appreciate her article drawing attention to Vair’s testing facility either. But Vair stepped in and claimed Amy as his charl, forbidding both the Council and our government from doing anything to obstruct the circulation of her x-club exposé.”
Vair had let my article run? He had opposed the U.S. government and the Krinar Council in this? More importantly, he’d claimed me as belonging to him and gotten my name on some government “off-limits” list?
“How many humans are on this charl list?” Jay asked.
“I’m not at liberty to divulge those statistics.”
“How can a K just claim a human being?” Jay objected. “And how the hell can our government go along with that?”
I loved Jay for asking it, but I feared the answer was obvious: Ks were above our human laws. Our government had to go along with whatever they wanted.
“We don’t have a choice,” Stephen confirmed. “As I’ve said, we do our best to cooperate with the Krinar Council in order to coexist with the Ks.” Stephen’s eyes swept the largely empty coffee shop before adding, “A division of Homeland Security here in the city got into a heap of trouble shortly after K-Day for interfering with one of their charls.”
He’d glanced disapprovingly at me at “one of their charls.”
Jay took notice. “She’s not one of their charls, Stephen. She’s a human being, a U.S. citizen, and a damn fine journalist. What can you do to help her?”
Stephen shook his head. “I’ve just told you, I can’t.”
“What about the FBI? Or hell, I don’t know, the United Nations? Anyone? Come on, there has to be some covert anti-K organization out there that will help us, right? A charl safe house somewhere?”
“No. There’s nothing. And it wouldn’t help anyway. The Ks have ways of tracking their charl. There’s nowhere anyone would be able to hide her.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me! You called me back and asked to meet with Amy just to tell her she’s fucked? That she’s registered as K property and there’s nothing our government or any world organization can do about it?”
“No, I requested to meet with Amy because I wanted to ask her to stop writing x-club articles.” Stephen’s eyes shifted to me. “Regardless of Vair’s decision to indulge you as his charl, your article has interfered. Whether you meant it to or not, your exposé popularized Vair’s x-club, bringing it to the attention of innocent, naïve humans who otherwise wouldn’t have known about it or gone looking for it. If you care about your country and your own race, you’ll cease drawing attention to the Ecstasy-like high attained from blood and saliva sharing between Ks and humans. You won’t risk glamorizing what we know to be a dangerous and potentially fatal addiction to these aliens.”