Lips came to my ear, a soft squeeze around my waist reassuring. “I think they’re beautiful.”

  10

  I’ll take the blame. I started it.

  No dreams of the lake had come to warm me, no mental mishmash of alien voodoo—and for some reason, waking that way, knowing Phi had not tried his tricks, was a comfort I couldn’t describe.

  I knew he could have done it; it would have made his objective easier. But, he’d respected my feelings, both spoken and unspoken on the subject. Which made me feel… nice.

  Nice enough that I wasn’t burdened by constant suspicion. Nice enough that when I woke up and he was still there beside me, I didn’t immediately freak out.

  Instead, I studied him, the alien man that never slept. I even let my fingers explore.

  It didn’t start off sexual. Phi didn’t try to touch me back; he let every decision be mine.

  Meeting his eyes felt too intimate, so instead, I studied the planes of his face, the stripes, the lips and jaw I now understood had changed to appear more human. I even touched them. They were warm, like mine. Appealing.

  His adaptation was targeted, after all, to charm me.

  Skull smooth, ears smaller and shaped slightly differently than a human, I explored these parts too. Sensitive lobes led to the man closing his eyes and drawing in a breath when I traced them. Knowing I’d inadvertently given him pleasure… excited me.

  Abandoning ears for neck, I followed the line of his throat until his shirt stopped further exploration.

  What would happen if I popped the first button, and then the next, and the next? What would happen if I did these things and still told him no?

  Would he listen? Would he pressure me for sex like most human men would?

  He answered my thoughts. “I am honored you wish to familiarize yourself with my body.”

  Darting my attention up to meet his eyes, I sucked my full lower lip, unsure what to say. “No mind tricks.”

  I swear, he smirked. “I can lie still. You may do what you wish.”

  Sitting up on a hip, I did exactly that. I undid his shirt, spread the fabric, and stared down at a powerful chest: smooth, striped, and lean. Right down the middle was the line I liked best, the one that bisected his face, his neck, his body, as if perfectly segmenting him in two. Tracing it, I followed the bumps of musculature, on a body with no belly button, wondering if these were a sign of whatever species had mothered him.

  How had he been born? What planet had his forbearer found a ‘life partner’ on?

  Maybe he’d been hatched?

  The only things I knew about Phi were that he loved to eat pie, had a penchant for swimming, and that he’d built me a house by a lake. He had also shown himself to be a giving lover.

  And had tentacles around his wang…

  “Where are you from?”

  “A world with lots of water. My mother, for lack of a better word, was amphibious.”

  So yes, he’d been hatched. And also, yes, he was poking around in my thoughts.

  “I will respect your desire that I not implant any suggestions, but it’s impossible for me to not have a general idea of what you are thinking.”

  And it was aggravating. “Why go to the trouble of speaking then?”

  “Because you cannot know me any other way. I want you to know me. I want you to know I’m an architect, that I enjoy your earth, that I can’t see color like you can.”

  Arching a brow, I teased, “You can’t see color?”

  “Only grayscale. When you think of me as silvery-green, I do not know what that means.”

  At least there was some way I had the upper hand. Smug, I leered and went right back to exploring.

  His hand came up, catching a stray curl to tuck behind my ear. “It amuses you?”

  It did. There was a whole mess of colorblind aliens walking over my planet who’d never understand a great deal of human opinion on art, fashion, flowers…

  That made those things mine.

  Stopping at his waistband, I found I did have a question I wanted a direct answer to. “How much more is your body going to change?”

  “It depends on what is needed to make us fully compatible.” Phi offered me the subtle reminder that I too was changing, augmenting his answer when I grew nervous. “The majority of adaptation will take place on my end.”

  Which begged the greater question…

  My smirk vanished, and I sat back, pulling my hand from his body. “What does it mean to be assimilated? If one of you are going to do it to me, I have a right to know.”

  A new expression crossed Phi’s face, the expression of possessiveness. “I won’t let another of my kind assimilate you. I will be the one to take you as life partner.”

  It didn’t seem I had much say in it. “You said you’d removed other challengers?”

  Sitting up, so much taller than I, he looked down at me and grew a bit fierce. “Removed. Yes.”

  Creepy. I was pretty sure removed meant murdered… and a flicker of imagination and the following mental imagery showed a differing version of Phi lurking behind me, sometimes splattered in slivery green fluid. A constant shadow always waiting… and then a more comforting idea took its place… he’d kept me safe.

  I walked home from work nightly, sometimes I’d heard things. More than once I had been touched.

  But was that a lake memory or a real memory, and with so much comfort close by, why should I care?

  “We have developed a proclivity for human pleasure. There are not many species that reproduce in such an exquisite fashion.” He shifted again, moving forward so I had no choice but to move back. In three seconds, he had me pressed against my pillows, hovering with a hungry grin on his face. “As such, fifteen already have attempted to have a taste of you. More will try, unless…”

  I knew what he was getting at. “…I let you do what you want to me.”

  He stretched like a lazy beast drinking in the sun, settling even more firmly atop my body. “I could make love to you every hour of every day, over and over until there was nothing left of either of us.”

  Even if I wasn’t looking for physical release in that moment, his words did stir a grand twinge down below. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “It is different with every pairing. In your transition, your dark skin has begun to mimic my dermal patterns, your metabolism has increased, your immune system is fortified, and I expect you will live decades longer than your un-partnered contemporaries.

  Even more spilled from his definitely fuller lips, “Your reproductive system will alter slightly to accommodate our future children, and your skill at evading my suggestions will most likely expand.” Those black eyes looked about ready to eat me. “Nothing can be sure until transition is complete. But I can say, you will be even more perfect than you already are.”

  Cornered, I felt I had very little say in my future. Not that I’d had really any say in my life up until this point. “What about what I want?”

  It seemed as if my question was exactly the one he’d been waiting for me to ask. “Tell me what you want. Give me the opportunity to prove I can make you happy.”

  No one had ever asked me that before.

  Yes, I’d led the conversation this direction, but hearing him ask me directly, I had no idea what to say.

  I had no idea what I wanted. Mentally stumbling in search of an answer, all I could blurt out was, “I need to find a new job.”

  “But what do you want, Emily?”

  Once, a long time ago, I’d wanted to go to college. Saying it out loud seemed wrong though. College was for people who had a future beyond supporting others.

  He might not have been playing his tricks, but he was still in my head. Looking to comfort me, Phi maneuvered so he could cup my cheek as he said, “There is nothing wrong in seeking to expand your knowledge. A mind like yours is wasted as a waitress.”

  It might have been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. It didn’t change facts. “I can’t afford it.”

  “Your brother does not own you anymore.” An unspoken I do was impossible to miss. Just as impossible to miss as his forming sex organ poking me below. “My life partner will go to college if she wishes.”

  It seemed as if the offer was on the table. I’d spread my legs and let him inside my body, and in turn he would offer my dreams on a silver platter. “What about his children?”

  “If you let me kiss you, Emily, I give you my word the monthly check will be sent.” His lips hovering over mine, he whispered, “But he will never be allowed to speak to you again the way he did today. Human males have grown repugnant in their decline.”

  On that, we were agreed.

  The fairytale… the silliness of the situation… I grasped it. Who talked like this? Who actually was tempted to be swept away by a practical stranger—a green Prince Charming?

  I was.

  The idea of spending one more day in my sad apartment made me want to scream. And so I sold my soul to a creature that might have been the devil for all I knew. “Where do you want to kiss me?”

  Phi didn’t hesitate to reach between my legs and grab where I ached. “Here.”

  I let him. I let him do anything he wished, powerless to say no when each nerve was singing, and pleasure eclipsed my endless worries. Coming more times than I could count, I even looked forward to the pop of his impending release and to the pain that would follow.

  And follow it did. Phi was determined in his attempt to complete assimilation. Lying under him, twisted by barbs that dug through organs and flesh, I screamed as I paid the price he exacted.

  When it was over, I was in shock, shaking, cold, and unable to complain when he wrapped me in a blanket and carried me through the streets all the way back to his apartment.

  11

  I don’t recall how many days, how many months it took. The change wasn’t… describable. Tucked back in his city apartment, I was fucked day and night, fed sweet things, given water. In a daze, more of me altered and less of me remained the same. I think a winter might have come and gone, but my hazy recollection would never play fair if I put forth the massive effort required to consider it.

  I suppose that was what a mind did to protect itself from the body’s trauma.

  He came in me, and came in me, and came in me until that pop was synonymous with release. My release from too much pleasure. My release from whatever I had been before.

  Undulating like a massive tongue one moment, wriggling and throbbing and going so far as to rattle, his organ worked me beyond frenzy, his beautiful mouth tracing my glimmering stripes. Tongue licking at them.

  As I grew stronger, he grew rougher. Sexual play by his kind nothing like bland human fucking.

  Sometimes he scared me in the most intense moments. In the moments where I knew he wanted his barbs to dig deeper, to alter more, to make me spun out and breedable.

  I told him I was not ready for children. Panted it into his shoulder when I felt something new come from his cock.

  And as he always did, Phi listened. Slowed his assault, still stroking my clit with those feelers, and swore to me no such decision would be made until we both were in agreement it was time to mate to such a degree.

  A part of me felt it was wrong for softening toward him even more at such a statement.

  “I love you, Emily. Your joy is my joy.”

  Yet something still was steadily pumping inside my body. I didn’t know what it was, for it sealed itself inside my womb, bulging out my belly for days. It must have been absorbed within me, for no gush broke free later to drip down my thighs when my monthly cycle arrived.

  He found menstruation fascinating, eager to provide whatever I required to be comfortable.

  It did not stop him from fucking me. It did not stop me from orgasming even harder than I ever had before.

  And then one day I woke up, saw the rising sun out the window and realized I was no longer in the city. The room was familiar; I had been in it for weeks. Right?

  It smelled of Phi, of me, of a great deal of sex.

  And it was our room in the cabin he had built for me.

  Life continued. I noticed more.

  I noticed that joy had the flavors of strawberries and fine coffee.

  Spoiled rotten, that’s what I was.

  I wasn’t keen on all of it, but what relationship was flawless?

  Phi had become more human, his eyes had even adapted just enough that he could see my world in color. And it had thrilled him. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me that first day, how he had spent ages describing in all the ways my black skin was more glorious than any bloom in his garden. That my soft, springy hair was tactilely glorious, tangling his long fingers in my natural curls to enjoy the texture and play. My hair, he confessed, had been the first thing about me that had caught his eye. The second was my rump.

  Yes, he used the word rump. And I forgave him for it when he took great handfuls of my generous ass and practically purred.

  Being like me in any way had thrilled him. His laughter and smiles more addictive than any drug.

  My stripes brightened to an extreme, true silver on rich brown skin, but no human seemed to notice. Phi’s alien buddies certainly did. Their eyes followed me when I walked around the nearby town as if I were some mythical creature they’d heard stories about but had never seen in person.

  Self-conscious, I kept mostly covered unless at home, where I kept mostly naked.

  And yes, my home had changed. I understood that now. There had not been room in my old apartment to study, no table to spread out worksheets or pile up books. Phi had a desk just for my use in our beautiful home, a pretty lamp, supplies, all beside French doors with an actual view… of water.

  Just like he had a bedroom for me, fresh food in the fridge, and new clothing waiting should I want to wear it.

  University was a year or two away, but my catch-up courses at a nearby community college were going well. Surprisingly, I wasn’t the oldest or the only striped student in the class. There were three other women just like me. Their markings were different and their life partners were strangers, but we each had a similar story.

  We each had the chance at a real future now.

  We each went home to someone who was loving, giving, sweet, and attentive.

  I made friends.

  I also worked part-time as a waitress, because I wanted to. My tables were predominantly seated by males of the alien variety who wished to converse with me as if I might disclose a great secret. Their eyes often lingered on the sometimes obvious bulge in my belly should I have been fucked before my shift. The things that Phi put in me that never came out.

  I grew not to mind, though I never once let one of them touch. On occasion, the more daring of our new invaders would ask. Some even looked unbearably heartbroken.

  I dared not think of why. Perhaps loneliness? Had they not found success in the females they pursued?

  Had they tried and the barbs did more damage than was reparable? Should I worry over such things?

  Phi assured me repeatedly that lowly labor was unnecessary, that interaction with any of his species I did not enjoy was preventable… that he could provide everything I needed.

  But I needed to work, to feel independent. I even enjoyed it more knowing I was working for myself and no one else. It was my money, I spent it anyway I wished… almost always on presents for my brother’s kids who I actually had time to visit now.

  Said brother? Phi never left me alone with him. Not once in all the months since I’d awoken in his house by the lake. I knew why. Phi was making him be gracious. Phi was suggesting the man spend the money provided by us on his children and his children alone.

  Whether the suggestions stuck after we left, I didn’t know. All I knew was that once I got over my pride, I’d never been more grateful to anyone in my life. Phi had kept his word, taken my burden from me and shouldered it himself.

  He wasn’t lacking for money. Somehow these aliens had a better grasp of our economy than we did. They controlled everything.

  Only it didn’t look that way unless you squinted just right.

  I’d stopped looking. If these creatures had come here to make other women as happy as I’d become, then they were welcome with open arms.

  I was happy.

  I felt like I mattered.

  Phi loved me.

  I was growing to love him in a way I never knew I might feel.

  The breeze shifted, bringing the salty tang of the lake to tickle my nose. I heard a splash and my name on the wind. There was someone waving from the water—someone silvery-green and very beautiful, beckoning me to leave my studies and run outside to play.

  I knew exactly what kind of play Phi liked to enjoy in the water, and I bit my lower lip, grinning stupidly as I stood up to join him.

  Thank you for reading STRANGEWAYS. So much more sweet angst is waiting, should you dare to dive into the dystopian romantic standalone, SWALLOW IT DOWN.

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  BORN TO BE BOUND

  Alpha’s Claim, Book One

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  She watched him bolt the door with a rod so thick it dwarfed her ankle, trapping her, cornering the Omega for mating. Unsure if Shepherd had heard, she used her feet to scoot away from the male until her back hit the wall, and tried again. "Food… we can't go out... hunted, forced. They're killing us." Her blown pupils looked up at the intimidating male and pleaded for him to understand. "You are the Alpha in Thólos, you hold control... we have no one else to ask."