“Sorry, Chef.” Dumping a handful of broken plates in the trash, I demurred. “Right away, Chef.”

  Rushing out of the kitchen, hands sticky with ruined food, hair a mess, and expression one of worry, I knew at that moment that I was going to get fired.

  The missed shifts, the fraternizing with guests, the broken plates… it added up.

  Maybe if I slept with Chef like the other girls did, he’d let me stay.

  I sure needed the money.

  But, ugh. I knew he’d demand bareback… and I just could not bring myself to do it. The men wanted children, you see. Lots and lots of babies they’d never help raise. Males didn’t live long. The population needed to grow. Blah, blah, blah.

  My brother was one of the rare birds—a wonderful person, a great dad, and a good husband. He’d never used the fact his lifespan would be reduced to father children with other women outside the bonds of his marriage.

  The media called it repopulation withdrawal. Men were encouraged to be prolific, women were encouraged to shoulder the burden of single motherhood without complaint.

  And then there was me—the waitress with condoms in her basket at the grocery checkout.

  I could not tell you how many dirty looks I have received over the years. Considering that chlamydia and gonorrhea were once again thriving in our society, I’d take my chances with the occasional disapproving look.

  You don’t even want to get me started about syphilis or HIV.

  No joke, I’ve had several would-be lovers flat out refuse to fuck me if I insisted they wear one. Those types of exchanges usually ended with the gentleman in question lecturing me on the necessity of our species’ propagation. After all, I might be blessed with a boy and uplifted from my crap social standing of childless unwed waitress.

  Fuck those guys—and not in the biblical sense.

  I was nineteen the first time a boy tried to bully me. Young and stupid, I’d buckled, leading to one of the worst sexual experiences of my life. Nine years later, I no longer let pushy assholes stay in my apartment once they refused to wear a rubber.

  As you could probably tell, my sex life was not flourishing.

  Childless, almost thirty, with no prospects, I’d settled, even made myself content with my lot in life.

  Personally though, I couldn’t imagine human men were such jerks three generations ago. Then again, maybe they had always been godawful. I didn’t know, and it’s distasteful to ask too many questions about the times before. On the upside, it had opened up vast opportunities for women in predominantly male driven career fields. Or I suppose it had—before the new species arrived with their superior technology and eagerness to saturate the workforce.

  I was not even sure if I should call them male. I think they are all male… or maybe asexual. I didn’t know. They certainly took on male dress and mannerisms. I didn’t know if they all had the same thing under their clothes.

  Maybe they chose to present as male because it would offer them an edge. For example, there was a rumor that a particularly popular alien sought to run for congress. Men had a better chance of getting elected. I didn’t know why that terrified me, but it did. I’ll admit I might have even been envious of his success.

  After all, I’d gotten the short end of the stick. This was it for me.

  My father died at thirty-six, leaving my mother with two children to support. My big bro enjoyed an education; I “enjoyed” working at a diner after school to help put him through college.

  He was never a dick about it, and if I felt a little bitter, it’s not his fault our mother sought to raise him up. That’s just the way things were now.

  Had I the chance, I think I would have liked to be a teacher. I liked kids, even if I’d been less than enthused about having one with some random guy just because the gene pool must swell.

  My sister-in-law was a really lucky woman. Or maybe not. After all, she was the one who was going to lose her spouse.

  I was going to lose my brother.

  Two kids would need financial support, and I’d already been sending them half my earnings every month for years.

  Fuck. I’d have to find a new job right away.

  “You should leave.” Yup, marinara had ruined Rosalee’s shirt. There would be no getting that stain out.

  If I left now, I’d lose the tips. I needed that money. “I haven’t closed out my tables yet.”

  There wasn’t any compassion waiting in the large brown eyes of the waitress I’d pissed off. “Chef wants you out. You’re causing a scene standing here staring into space. Just go.”

  My pocket vibrated, and I jumped, squeaking, “Table twelve is almost done. I can drop the check now.”

  Rosalee spat, “How am I not making myself clear? You’re fired. Leave.”

  The buzz of one phone vibrating directly next to another annoyed me enough that I grew a backbone and turned on my coworker. “I’ll leave when table twelve has paid.”

  5

  Feeling pretty sorry for myself, I walked out of the diner with a pocket stuffed with less than fifty bucks.

  And a stupid new phone.

  I knew Phi’s alien buddies had seen and heard what had happened. I was sure they observed me in those final fifteen minutes before I was practically shoved out the door, and I could not help but be angry with the pair of them.

  Somehow, this felt like their fault.

  No, that was just me shifting blame. It was easier to be mad at strangers than take responsibility for my own clumsiness and poor choices.

  There were other restaurants. I’d find another job. Everything would go back exactly the way it always was. I told myself this on the long walk home. The mantra didn’t help ease my shitty mood.

  Ignoring the constant vibration in my pocket, on the other hand, did make me feel a little better.

  I could have silenced it. I could have turned the phone off.

  I didn’t.

  Maybe it made me feel less lonely on that walk of shame. Phi had come to my apartment, had had sex with me, completely for me. He’d gained nothing. Some part of me, the part that was tired of doing everything for everyone else, had liked it more than I should have.

  Even with the weird alien dick.

  I was almost tempted to answer just to see if I could run away with that sensation again.

  I was more tempted to chuck the phone into the street and watch it get pulverized by passing cars.

  Instead, I just kept walking.

  On my left, smack dab in the middle of my city, was a park where I had played soccer as a kid. There were old trees, a lake, a little segment of wildlife and rugged beauty in the concrete jungle I’d been raised within. People didn’t go there anymore.

  Now, the park, like so many other places around the globe, was filled with a shining black spacecraft larger than the grandest skyscraper in the glittering financial district.

  It annoyed me. And was another thing we just didn’t talk about.

  Looking at the monolith, at what I knew had been crushed beneath it, I frowned. There had been a swing set not fifty paces from where I stood that I had played on when I was little. I had loved that park.

  A nasty glare was all I could offer. And being as it was, I didn’t even know if my glare was in the proper direction.

  The smoothness of the black ship made it difficult to tell where doors or windows might be located. The glassy surface looked icy, even with the early autumn sun shining so bright I had to squint.

  I leaned against the wrought-iron fence and wondered if anyone was inside. Could they see me staring and know how much I disliked that black thing?

  Did they sense how I felt?

  That ship no one talked about and no one came to see should not have been there. My swing set and beautiful trees should have been there. Aggressive geese and a green lake should have been there!

  “Emily.” There was almost a question in the way he’d spoken my name. Concern.

  How long Phi had been standing behind me, I couldn’t say. But I could tell you that deep down I knew he’d be there, invading my sulk over this once great place.

  I didn’t turn around to acknowledge him, but I did speak. “My brother is dying. He won’t survive the year.”

  I had no idea why I’d said such a thing to Phi, nor did I fully grasp why my voice pointed the blame at him.

  Three long fingers reached forward to tousle the mass of my curls, to play with them. I shied, pulling back, my eyes caught in the shutter of his inky pupils. Click, click, click, click went that silent, unsettling camera.

  He still touched me, following my retreat. “The environmental impact your species has had on this planet is catastrophic. The consequences are extreme.”

  And my species was dying. How many generations could we possibly have left? Maybe that’s why they had come here—to wait for us to die off while trying to subvert the pollution before we ruined the earth for them to sweep out from under our rotting feet.

  Fumbling in my apron pocket for Phi’s phone, I blurted, “I used to play here when I was little. Your ship… it smashed—”

  I was cut off when Phi unexpectedly stepped forward and pressed his mouth to mine.

  Like the first time he’d done such a thing outside my restaurant, I felt overwhelmed and drunk in seconds. Wrought-iron bars digging into my shoulder blades, I found my body trapped by the fence, the silvery-green male, and a whole heap of feelings I should not have.

  And I was really sad for some reason I could not place my finger on.

  Trying to mutter things into his mouth was pointless, all it led to was a series of smothered squeaks left to die.

  Phi exuded enthusiasm beyond the masterful tongue that was just a little too coarse to feel normal. It was in the way he embraced me, the way he pressed me back as he unhooked the gate beside us.

  Drawing me into the park, pulling me straight to that shining black vessel, he had me against it before I even realized what he’d done.

  That flawless surface wasn’t cold as I’d suspected, but warm from the sun and immensely soothing on muscles aching and tense from a shitty day at work.

  Drawing my hand to the bulge between his legs so I might feel it take shape, Phi seemed to promise the very thickness and expanding length were mine, that he’d tailored it to my body and wants.

  Graceful fingers undid the buttons of my uniform, parting the white shirt even though we were out in the open. My bra wasn’t pretty or expensive. It had no lace or satin. It didn’t matter. The cups were tugged down until my nipples popped free, left blatantly exposed. The bent cups shoved my breasts upward so he could pull the tips into his mouth, and I might have moaned in the open air like a whore turning tricks in an alley.

  How he knew to knead and pinch, to suck and lick, I couldn’t say. His kind didn’t have nipples, just like they didn’t have belly buttons, but every time he toyed with mine, it sent a shot right between my legs. Head thrown back, my weight supported by the angle of the ship, I clung to the thing that distracted me from all my concerns. When he broke the button on my slacks and yanked them down, I let him free one leg completely and hitch me higher to wrap my limbs around him without the burden of cloth between us. His fly was down, my legs were spread, and with one sure thrust… that instrument with its frenzied ring of writhing tentacles was fully inside me.

  Anyone on 11th Avenue could see, not that I had the mental capacity to register the aliens who’d paused in their journey to observe from the street corner, or wonder about the various occupants’ views from houses far nicer than my own. Panting as if I’d run a marathon, I ground against each maddening lunge, breathing his name, begging.

  Overwhelming need to be so full of him—nothing else mattered—obliterated everything else in my head. In that moment, I’d forgotten my rotten morning, my anxieties, my brother, the crushed swing set under the ship… my name.

  I would have kneeled at his feet.

  I would have taken that pulsating cock in my mouth and let it wriggle down my throat for the world to watch.

  I was drowning, and he was clean air, his organ shifting to scratch at my every last nerve until I was twitching and making noise no dignified woman would ever moan even in the most twisted private moments. I felt him throbbing in time with my heart, wondered if he’d curve his cock the way he had the last time we’d fucked, until that sweet spot was tickled, and I felt like my clit might explode.

  He did, and I screamed.

  The swell between my legs, the way he pulled at my pussy lips and undulated until I might burst, would be my death. Phi rode it out. He dragged me through it and filled all the places inside where I’d always felt empty.

  I felt alive.

  And then it was over.

  The aftershocks of my orgasm were almost painful, and I knew my face was scrunched up, that my mouth gaped open, and that I had gushed an obscene amount of fluid to dampen the alien’s open trousers.

  He was so still, watching me fixedly, those pupils changing though his eyes never moved.

  Pinned against the ship, my legs around his middle, I felt his grip on my hip tighten as he mashed his pelvis forward as if to punctuate what we had just done.

  And then I felt more…

  There was a change in that organ. A manic fluttering as if what had been smooth had sprung—I didn’t know how to explain it—feelers?

  Squirmy, I tried to find the strength to tell him I was finished with that ride.

  “Be still.” His voice, it was heavy with command and thick with his pleasure.

  It was too much. Too much feeling and fullness building up inside me, to the point I could even see movement ever so slightly behind the flat of my stomach. Those searching things invaded, and I began to cramp when they all seemed to find what they were looking for and dove in.

  He had not done this the time before, and I found I wanted it to stop. His second hand flew to cover my mouth when I started to protest. He fused us, his face one of ecstasy when the tiniest of slithering things breached my cervix and entered my womb.

  The feeling was like the poke of a Pap smear swab, uncomfortable and sharp.

  Moments later, I jumped when I heard a loud pop. It was him, and whatever had caused the sound had given him a fantastic release. He groaned in a way that made me feel utterly filthy. But that was the end to it. Those horrible things retracted, my painful cramping ended, and his deathlike grip on my body grew gentle. Sweet.

  Phi’s lips went to my neck, the man pressing kisses to the flesh. “As my body continues to adapt to yours, the discomfort will recede. Soon, you will enjoy it.”

  What the fuck had he just done to me? My hands went to cover my swollen breasts, my eyes darting between our bodies to confirm that it was a smear of blood I saw on his cock. I wasn’t sure if it was mine… or his. Did they bleed red?

  I began to shove.

  The way he took my jaw and made me meet his eyes, I felt like he was speaking to me. Saying I did not do this the first time we fucked because I needed you to know how much pleasure I might offer. It won’t always hurt. All is well. This is what I am. This is what you are.

  Then he kissed me, and it was soft and promising, the brush of his mouth careful.

  The ship no longer felt warm on my back. The sun had gone, the two of us having humped like stray dogs for God only knew how long. The second I shivered, he warmed his hands up and down my arms. He called me pretty.

  And I, I felt as if I’d been tricked.

  6

  Holding hands with a creature that had only three extremely long fingers wasn’t as awkward as you might imagine. Trying to keep busted pants from falling down during said walk was. My apron hid the damage to my trousers, but either I’d lost weight or the darn things were torn worse than I thought—with every step, they had to be hiked up.

  It was far more distracting than the feel of warm alien skin against my palm.

  “Have you eaten today?”

  “Yeah,” I lied, trying to hook my thumb under my belt loop to pin my damn trousers in place. “I ate at work.”

  He paused our parade, my walk of shame. “Why not tell me the truth?”

  Because now that I was unemployed, I didn’t have any money for food. Missing a meal or two wouldn’t kill me.

  And it was none of Phi’s business.

  More important, my thoughts on the matter were not spoken aloud, because I was glaring at him, my feet refusing to budge another step. “Reading my mind?”

  A soft smile came to his mouth. “When you lie, you squint.”

  “Can you read minds?” It was rude, the way I accused in that one question. But at that moment it seemed a very valid question.

  He did not react to my suspicions, my subtle hostility, or my attempt to unlace our fingers. He held on and spoke plainly. “I can read your every expression, the cadence of your heart, the way you smell, your tone.”

  I had a very unsettling feeling there was so much more to it. The heart he’d just mentioned began to race, my breath grew shallow, and I muttered, “That does not make me feel very safe.”

  “It should. Just think of how well I’ll be able to take care of you.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I have seen your living conditions. They are subpar, cramped, and dirty. I will do a better job providing what you need.”

  It was almost funny how simply he spoke of managing my life… as if he had a right to do it. “I’m not a pet, Phi. You can’t just take me off the street and keep me.”

  He turned his black shutter eyes full upon me and said, “But you want to come to my home, don’t you? You want to know more about me?”

  The markings on his face were darker than I remembered, distracting. Even his jaw seemed more masculine, more human. Had he always had full lips?

  Suddenly cloudy, my attention was totally lost on where we were or what we’d been talking about. “What?”

  He smiled at me, stroked his fingers across my cheek. “You claimed you were hungry. I was asking where you’d like to eat.”