And then he had thrust in—right there, just like that. Both of us dressed, my cheek to the mattress. Hell, I still had my shoes on.

  And I… I had liked it.

  It wasn’t until my first orgasm that he’d altered position, undressing us both and laying me back to take me face to face like a lover.

  That was the first time I’d seen his perfect, unclothed body… and the part of him he’d put inside me.

  Absently, as he’d slipped it back in, I’d wondered if they always started fucking an Earth woman from behind… so we might know how good that thing could feel and not scream when it waved our way.

  And it had felt good. Better than good.

  No one in my past had ever gotten me so worked up. Maybe it was the fact Phi’s genitals could change shape. Maybe it was the ring of short, waving, tentacle-like protrusions around it that stimulated clitoris, labia… anus.

  Maybe it was that he knew how to fuck.

  Earth men were terribly lazy in bed.

  He’d thrust in, and noises I’d never before made squeaked out unbidden. Those little fingers around his cock, they teased and stroked, as if he could control each one of them no matter the pace. Two of those tentacles had rolled my clit between their slippery, grasping tips.

  Legs trembling uncontrollably, I’d come… gasping.

  Phi had slowed his pace to accommodate exactly what would extend the pleasure to my squirmy insides. All the while he’d held my eyes. His expression was hard to read: evaluating, measuring, deliberate.

  It, like the pre-sex inspection, should have been unnerving.

  The instant it dawned on me that this was strange, that I wanted it to end, he’d started pumping his hips again.

  Lowering his head, he’d put his mouth on my dark skin and offered what must have been a kiss to my shoulder.

  A kiss.

  Aliens didn’t kiss. All the tabloids made that clear

  I thought before he began to pound his hips that what we were doing could be classified as fucking. I was wrong. It grew savage, wild, his feelers grabbing and rough. Inside my body, his cock spread out, undulating up and down its length like a strained soundwave.

  Stretching, pleasing, manipulating each nerve.

  This was the sensation the most expensive sex toys tried and failed to create. Every last nerve of my pussy was affected. Too much sensation had driven me to beg him to slow down.

  My raw-voiced request led to the opposite effect. He’d pounded even harder, rearing back, taking me by the hair to hold my eyes again.

  Saturated, endless—the entirety of his eyeballs black in a face that, if human, could have been famous on the silver screen.

  These creatures were pretty. They also didn’t seem to understand the concept of, “Please, stop.”

  I wasn’t begging out of fear or unwillingness. They were the cries of an overworked nervous system and the fear that the building orgasm might actually cause permanent harm.

  He’d only offered four words in return. “You can bear it.”

  Stuffed full of writhing alien sex organ, pinched and prodded by a series of tentacle things, I’d caught my legs behind the knee and braced against the onslaught. I’d obeyed.

  And he had practically threatened me in his hissed response. “Good choice.”

  Good choice? It was the only choice. Spread or be crushed by powerful hips and things that did not go inside nice human girls.

  I was so fucking wet.

  Rolling snaps of twitching muscle were the only warning that a wild orgasm was about to take hold. My womb clenched, vaginal tunnel wrecked by a foreign invader, and I began to wail.

  The noises he inspired in me were anything but pretty. Primal, base, inhuman…

  Phi dragged me through it until I was a drooling mess. And just like that, he’d stopped. Utterly.

  It took long minutes to even consider that he might not have come at all. Maybe his kind didn’t do that.

  So why proposition me?

  No slippery evidence but my own abundant juices waited. He had no testicles, so maybe there was no sperm.

  And because I’d lived a life where men came first, I asked, “Did you…?”

  He’d settled my panting, sloppy self against his body, tucking my arm around his middle and said, “That was for your pleasure.”

  Okay…

  And that’s what had driven me to reach for the stale pack of smokes and the sanctuary of false solitude at the edge of my bed.

  Cuddled, the sensation foreign, all I could do was look around, wondering what he must think of this dump. My apartment was poor, cramped, and only had one small window half blocked by an AC unit. Dingy walls I had tried to spruce up with fuchsia curtains to match my bedspread did not alleviate the gloom. My apartment, like my life, was not the kind that attracted handsome men. Or, I should say, handsome men who didn’t want to leave right after sex.

  Having Phi there was unnerving, and I was not sure what to do with him now that we were done. Feed him? Offer coffee? Ask him to leave?

  The more I thought about it, the stranger I felt.

  Have you ever had that sensation that there was something incredibly terrifying right behind you?

  Phi’s arms seemed less reassuring, and the more he stroked my body, the more sinister the action appeared. The back and forth of those long fingers, they mirrored my shifting perception of the alien. In that moment, when he was so close, all I wanted to do was weep… no matter how beautiful I found him.

  Those ships… so many ships the sky went black.

  I’d gone stiff as a board, breathing shallow. I needed him to leave and did my best to persuade such a thing. “Your kind doesn’t sleep.”

  He rocked me a little as if he’d seen the action on television and wanted to try it. “And?”

  “I’m getting tired—”

  I was released, Phi moving his mass with grace Earth men did not possess. Once standing, he had to stoop fractionally, as my ceilings were low. Bowed, he seemed less threatening. Or was it that he was naked and bore no shame in the display?

  And a display it was.

  He let me have my unnecessary look. Between his legs, he was not like any human man I’d seen. There was no hair, no scrotum, but there was something akin to a flexed muscle. When it had been inside me, it had adapted, you see, changed its shape, length, and width. That silver green organ had even wriggled and throbbed. Now it hung limp, a shapeless bulge encircled by shortened nubs. His little tentacles had receded, laid flat like unopened flower petals.

  And there I was staring at it to the point it was indecent. Rude even.

  Feeling the twinge between my legs at remembering what that thing could do, I almost whimpered. I almost begged for more. I could almost feel it inside me again, and whatever terror had been burdening me moments before, flew away on the wings of want.

  Swallowing, I forced myself to look up and meet his eyes before I lost the last vestiges of fear.

  He spoke. He smiled. “You are very beautiful.”

  Was I? I looked down at my ruddy hands, at my rug-burned knees, and felt there was no comparison between us.

  I had not been born to be beautiful, but to work.

  One long finger tracing the pattern of freckles atop my right breast, Phi said, “This I like most. You have stars on you, your own constellations.”

  Watching him trace out a pattern, I found myself mesmerized.

  It was hard to know what he thought, because like I said, I was never sure if he was using human mannerisms in a practiced way to earn a specific response. Therefore, I had to ask, “Did you enjoy…” What was the right word? “…me?”

  I could not believe that pathetic question had come out of my dumb mouth. Immediately embarrassed, my attention went to the scratched wood floor.

  He brushed the stiffening tip of my breast. “Very much, Emily. I would eagerly bring you to orgasm again. At this moment, if you desire.”

  You to orgasm. It was the second time he’d mentioned it was my pleasure and none of his. There had not been fireworks for Phi. Sure, he’d seemed focused and involved—as if he found the act pleasurable. But he’d never come… I wasn’t even sure if his species ejaculated.

  That would be an awkward Google search later.

  Out of the blue, it struck me that not once in the last hours I’d lay moaning under this creature had I considered contraception. It was as if the definition of that word had been completely forgotten. In all my adult years, I had never once had sex without a condom. Such an achievement had been something I prided myself on. There were condoms in the drawer by the bed… right fucking there… and I had not thought of them.

  Long-fingered hands cupped my shoulders, and Phi pushed me gently back to the mattress. “You claimed you were tired. As it is well past the hour you normally rest, I insist you do so now.”

  Those hands, warm as summer sun, felt good. Eyes growing heavy, I turned into my pillow, imagining the lake. I could feel my skin warm in the sun as I lay on the pier. I could hear the water lapping and smell trees.

  I dreamed of swimming with my brother like we did when we were kids. I dreamed of innocence and simple pleasures. And then I dreamed of Phi.

  3

  “Emily!”

  That was chef yelling, awful fish-lipped bastard that he was.

  In case you weren’t sure, I didn’t like him. It was hard to respect a man who was usually so drunk he had no fucking clue if he was coming or going. But did the masses laud him for his culinary greatness? Dare I say greatness with a healthy dose of eye rolling… Yes, yes the masses did. His food was good; it had put his restaurant on the map in a city teaming with competition, and I made more tips for it.

  Didn’t change the fact he was a pig.

  A stupid, self-absorbed, egomaniacal pig.

  It also didn’t hurt that he was a man. If you had a dick in my world, everything you did was treated like gold. Speaking of the chef’s dick, he’d once told me I should fuck him simply because his cock was hard, and we’d shared a cab home on a cold night. He’d been drunk then too.

  He was also married with six kids and consistently smelled of the fryer.

  Men might have been in short supply, but gross.

  Pushing through the swinging kitchen door, I pretended that my coworkers were not still looking at me as if I’d grown a third eye.

  Let’s not pretend I didn’t know why.

  Everyone had been unhappy with me that day. Part of that was my fault. I’d called in sick too many shifts in a row, forcing others to cover for me. Part of it was because, even though no one said a goddamn thing, the staff had seen me leave with Phi almost a week ago.

  It had set me apart, simply because it was such an odd thing to do. Alien and human mixed, but didn’t, if you get my drift.

  It was one thing to have them live with us. It was another thing to let them fondle your breasts on the sidewalk right outside the massive restaurant window.

  Not that anyone mentioned the taboo… ever.

  You wouldn’t find it on the news. There were no alien sex tips in Cosmo.

  My Google search on alien ejaculation had led to nothing.

  So, I did my job quietly and tried to forget; I took a plate of pasta and a burger to table five.

  The two aliens ensconced by the window were not seated in my section, which meant I didn’t need to talk to them beyond asking if they needed ketchup when I set down their food. Thank the Lord, considering that their kind had made me uneasy since I’d woken up sore between my legs and immediately chickened out of going to work.

  Deep down, I felt as if I’d done something very wrong.

  I never should have let Phi touch me.

  No human male had been allowed such free rein.

  And now my livelihood was like a thread over a candle flame; I could feel it in every side eye that stole my direction. Hell, I could even smell it in the air.

  Something major had changed.

  Looking at the pair at the table, I could not help but wish aliens had never come here.

  And then I blinked.

  Thinking of it, I assume I wasn’t supposed to refer to them as aliens anymore. You see, Phi’s kind had matriculated into the system… they were full citizens with the right to vote, to pay taxes… to eat at hipster restaurants.

  They even had the right to thank me when I set their food before them.

  Turns out, the new kids on the block practiced better manners than their human counterparts. Both smiling, the strangers were gracious.

  I turned to go.

  “Miss?”

  “Yes.” I swung around to see if their server had forgotten silverware, or if they needed salt, or maybe their waters were empty. “What can I do for you?”

  “Phi would like you to have this.”

  Oh no.

  Don’t talk to them. Step backward slowly.

  Except my feet took me forward, just as they had done the first time I had seen Phi’s lovely stripes.

  I still could not tell you what had possessed me to be so brazen. I’d hardly known Phi when I’d invited him back to my apartment; I still hardly knew him… except I now knew what he looked like naked.

  And let’s make this clear: I was not the impulsive type. I just did my job, chatted with guests, went home with my tips, hung out with friends. Something had been different that day. The shift in formality from waitress and customer to acquaintances… had gone too smoothly in a span of ten minutes.

  I’d talked to him. Really talked.

  But looking back on it, we’d only talked about me. I could not tell you a thing about Phi beyond the silly fact that a creature named Phi liked to eat pie—blueberry, especially.

  I’d snickered about it when I’d brought him his third slice the first day he’d graced my table. Dry humor had always been my favorite

  He’d smiled, and God help me, I’d blushed.

  As you already know, I’d done more than blush when I found him waiting for me outside that night. I’d been an enthusiastic participant. Having him push inside me felt like the culmination of the perfect date with the perfect guy, not the end of a long shift where I needed a shower and my feet hurt. I was still not sure what I’d said that encouraged him to reach for the buttons of my cardigan or if I’d touched him first.

  Had I?

  I could not remember.

  It didn’t matter. All I felt now was used.

  Embarrassed.

  Stupid.

  Guilty.

  Alien fucktoy was stamped on my forehead.

  The restaurant guest was still waiting, a small box in his extended hand. Blinking out of a daze, I chewed my lip and knew I didn’t want whatever was nestled under that shiny white lid. Standing like a statue, I appeared rude, and my natural inclination to be obedient made me self-conscious of just how ungracious I was behaving.

  No eyes were on me, but it sure as hell felt like everyone was watching.

  The guest remained patient, even under my squinty-eyed scrutiny.

  Unlike Phi’s silvery green, the markings on the guest’s face were purple. They were soft and speckled, almost feminine. And he was dressed in a tailored suit like some sleazy attorney.

  Phi had dressed in jeans and a sweater… he’d looked accessible and normal. The alien sitting before me seemed to have weaseled his way into a position of authority. That sentiment of power was even in his voice when he said, “Take the box, Emily.”

  Next thing I knew, the gift was in my hands. Popping the lid open, I found a cellphone inside. Underneath was a note that read: Yours must be malfunctioning, as you do not answer when I call. Here is a working replacement.

  I stifled a nervous snigger. Like I’d said, dry humor was my favorite kind.

  The modest flip phone in my apron worked just fine, even if it lacked all the bells and whistles of the latest smartphone shining and pretty in that box. I didn’t have texting capabilities, not when that extra $15 a month could go somewhere necessary. Besides, what would I need all that for? All I wanted from my phone was a way to call my brother, to talk to his wife and his children.

  Everything I needed, I had.

  I don’t think Phi really expected me to keep the new phone. It was more of a, ‘why have you avoided your job for days and ignored me?’

  Easy answer. Because I was a coward…

  I also really disliked awkward conversations. Sure, I could fake it at work, because none of what I said to customers was real. It was a spiel, a gig, where I just smiled and took orders—story of my life.

  Why had Phi even wanted to talk to me after sex? Men didn’t do that. Not with girls like me.

  I didn’t know what possessed me to reach into that box and tap the home button, but before I knew it, the phone’s unlock screen flashed to life.

  With my audience of two aliens, I stood slack jawed, unsure if I should burst out laughing or be mortified.

  Right there, right on that pricey phone’s screen was… an alien dick pic.

  4

  Phi’s stupid phone sat in my pocket, flattened against my humble flip phone and making a bulge in my apron. Why on earth I still had the thing, I couldn’t tell you. I’d just sort of panicked when I should have left it in the box and returned it to the pervy alien’s well-dressed chum.

  Instead, I’d backed into the kitchen only to be yelled at by my boss.

  That, I had deserved. I’d run right into one of my coworkers and knocked a tray from her hands. Food had gone everywhere, broken dishes scattered. Marinara sauce was all over Rosalee’s white button-down shirt.

  I’d scrambled to clean it up, but… uh… it was pretty clear I was permanently on her shit-list.

  And Chef was pissed.

  The extinction of our human men—not that anyone would call it that out loud—had made those who were thriving an icky type of self-righteous prick. I found myself unable to like them. Would they have been so self-serving if they were not so important to the gene pool?

  Yes, I had deserved to be reprimanded for my clumsiness, but no one deserved to be screamed at so loud even the dining guests could hear.

  “Fucking idiot!” Slamming a pot against the stove, he’d turned, gathered a bread roll, and thrown it at me. “Get the fuck out!”