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"So you don't feel sexual pleasure at all?"
I'd answered this question already, of course, but I'd gotten used to my human companion enjoying multiple repetitions of previous conversations (and not enjoying when I pointed that out). Grace's meat-brain memory was the main cause, but it liked repetition as a form of conversationally leading into topics, too. "No," I said, resting back on two of my hands as I focused on cracking my ventral seam open. "Not at all."
"Humans evolved to gain pleasure from sex to encourage reproduction," Grace said. "But Eridians—I know you lay eggs. Do you feel any type of pleasure from that?"
"Being laden with developed eggs in our egg cycle causes us discomfort," I explained. "So the relief from that discomfort can be called 'pleasure'. It doesn't have the same effect as your human 'orgasm', though."
I'd made up an Eridian version of that word about an hour ago, when Grace had given me a pleasingly complete demonstration of the human reproductive system it possessed. Grace's Eridian was improving; it had listened to the word with its head tilted, then said, "Mating-culmination-pleasure, right?"
Grace had been right. And then it had asked me to show it what I had, too.
That was what this was. A demonstration.
For science, of course.
It was unusual for an Eridian to break their ventral seam when not close to being hungry or gravid. It was possible—otherwise we'd all have trouble scheduling eating and egg-laying in private locations—but it required a bit more focus. I could feel it when I had, my underside slowly opening and the blood from the tear dripping down my limbs.
Grace pressed its face up to the xenonite ball, its 'glasses' (face-jewelry that improved its 'sight', because it had been born with a disability in its primary sense) smushed against the xenonite and its nose. "Does it hurt?" it asked. "To open it?"
"A little," I admitted. Grace's full attention had distracted me from the pinch of pain. "Not that much."
"Since you have to open and heal every time, maybe that's why you don't have much sensation there," Grace posited. "But you're more sensitive inside, right?"
"Yes," I said, and tilted my carapace up to match the direction of Grace's eyes. The muscles around Grace's eyes tightened as it readjusted its glasses; its heart was beating fast.
"So do you… stretch at all?"
I brought one of my hands up to touch the edge of my ventral seam, extending a claw to pull it wider. "It can expand a bit," I said. "But we can't stretch like humans do."
"Yeah, seems like humans are uniquely wet and flexible," Grace joked. "You make some lubrication inside, though, right?"
"Yes," I said, "multiple fluids. Our digestion and waste expulsion are lubricated, and our eggs, too."
"And are they in different places you can feel inside?" Grace asked. "You must know when you're putting something into your stomach…"
"Yes, the stomach is the furthest inside." I would put my arm inside to show Grace, but it couldn't echolocate through me like that since its light-sense perceived me as solid; after a moment of thought I moved closer to him, pressing my open ventral seam against the xenonite exchange panel. Grace had pulled its face back a little.
"Uh, you mean—"
"Yes," I said, "since you can't see, you can touch."
Grace's heart skipped a beat and it swallowed, then shifted forward. Its fingers were much more complex than my own, more dexterous and far longer, full of tiny bones; Grace pressed its fingers through the panel and, for the first time, I experienced someone other than myself touching me on the inside. My vents opened, shunting the sudden heat from my blood.
"My stomach is the furthest in," I said, struggling not to pitch up my voice at the unfamiliar sensation of Grace's cold hand reaching inside me. I'd increased the softness and flexibility of the xenonite exchange panel over the last few months as a proof-of-concept trial-run, and the heat insulation was slightly worse, but Grace's touch was perfectly bearable and Grace's skin wasn't burning. It was a good test—it stretched well and didn't hurt as Grace fully inserted three of its fingers into me. "No, a little further."
"Ah, let me—" Grace pulled them out, flexed its hand and started again, the width of its wrist testing the stretch of the edges of my open seam. But this time Grace reached it; I could feel the soft flesh of my stomach sphincter twitch under its careful touch.
"Yes," I said, unable to stop the way my voice warbled. "That's the entrance to the stomach. We also eject waste from the same place."
"Multi-purpose, very efficient," Grace said. Its voice was trembling slightly, too. I could hear the way its bloodflow had shifted downward, and knew precisely what was happening in its body: arousal.
It was impossible to ignore. My auricles weren't good at hearing inside me but Grace was pressed up against the xenonite ball and I could hear the way its blood shuttled through its arteries and veins, hear the hand it pressed inside me, and I was suddenly very aware of the swell of its reproductive organ under its clothes. "My egg sac is closer to the entrance," I said, trying to focus. "On the lower side."
Grace pulled its hand out slowly, its chilled fingers brushing against my inner walls. Searching. We both noticed when Grace found it; I made a strange, reflexive sound and it raised its head slightly.
"You okay, buddy?"
"Yes," I said impatiently. "It's there. You can touch it."
Grace did. Its fingers were soft, as soft as the flesh inside me, flesh over tiny bones and tendons giving them strength and function. It pressed two fingers up against the sphincter that separated my egg sac from my cloaca, and then gently touched around the edges, coaxing the muscle to loosen.
A short sound expelled from me: "Oh."
"This is okay?" Grace said. Its voice had dropped a register and rumbled in a way I hadn't heard before. My muscles twitched.
"Yes," I said. "Go on."
Obediently, one of Grace's fingers carefully worked their way inside me, past my loosening sphincter to my egg sac. Eridian egg development was quite slow, particularly compared to humans, but I was approaching my laying period and my eggs were close to their full size. Grace was exquisitely gentle, its finger lightly brushing over the porous, unhardened shells of the eggs nestled inside me.
"Oh, you're full," Grace said. I knew it could feel the way my sphincter was trying to contract and expand around its finger. Grace opened its mouth, its tongue moving to lubricate its entrance. "Your egg-laying period is soon?"
"In about ten days," I said. My sphincter clenched again as Grace drew its finger back into my channel, then started stroking my walls.
"Your sense of taste is here, right?" Grace asked. "Or is it further in?"
"Closer to the seam. We can retract it so we choose what to taste."
Grace's hand pulled back, past its second set of bones; the muscles of my hole shuddered and I felt strangely empty at the loss. But Grace kept some fingers still inside me, lightly touching; I expanded my tasting organ and Grace moved its fingers to rest against it, the feeling unmistakably strange.
"It's not that unlike my tongue," Grace said consideringly. "You taste for the same reason, right? It's a warning to let you know if the food isn't consumable?"
"Yes," I agreed, "quite similar. Though mine is less… wet."
Grace's tongue moved in its mouth, pressing against its teeth. "I wonder how your taste receptors work. Is there any lubrication? Our mouth-fluids help dissolve our food for our taste receptors to chemically react to. Can you taste the xenonite like this?"
"There is some lubrication," I allowed. "So the process is probably similar. And yes. I can taste it. It has some edible components but it is not consumable; the taste is slightly acrid and salty."
"Huh," Grace said, leaning towards me, its mouth open slightly, and then—
The sensation was sudden and indescribable. I shrieked and leapt back to the other side of the ball, which started rolling backwards; it bumped against the panels of the xenonite tunnel that had been a meter away and my hands scrabbled against the xenonite as I tried to rebalance myself. "Disgust disgust disgust! Grace!"
Grace's mouth was closed tight, its chest heaving; with outrage, I realized it was trying not to laugh.
"You shit-eater! You put your tongue in my—in my orifice!"
"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Grace said, raising its hands, still smiling, "I didn't think it'd be such a big deal—I just wanted to see if we tasted the same."
My whole body shuddered. "Pervert pervert pervert! Talking about tasting me—"
"The xenonite!" Grace corrected quickly. "Tasting the xenonite. You were just talking about tasting the xenonite—"
"For science, not for your fucking perversion—"
"Not in a perverted way!" Grace insisted.
"Your reproductive organ is swollen! It's definitely in a perverted way!"
Grace dropped its head, looking down at itself, then back at me. "Okay, just because I'm… I'm aroused, doesn't mean it wasn't for science! My tongue is very sensitive, you know, and it's my main taste organ."
A high-pitched noise escaped me. "Stop talking about your tongue!"
My perfect memory was a curse right now. I couldn't excise the sensation from my mind; the soft, cool wetness of that fleshy, flexible muscle, the tiny, sensitive bumps of its taste receptors I could feel through the xenonite. The sheer weight of the knowledge that Grace wanted to taste me. The sheer astonishing obscenity of it.
My vents were fluttering; I was still trembling. Grace took a careful step forward, its smile dropping. "Hey, Rock, I really am sorry," it said, more sincerely. "I didn't… really think before I did it." Grace placed a hand on the ball; it was right below the flexible panel that was still wet with its mouth-fluid. That had been inside me when it, when it—
"Rocky, hey, you're…" Grace said, a moment later. "Are you—will you be okay?"
I would never be able to forget it. Grace's tongue in my hole. The strange, alien, wet fleshy softness of it. It should have been disgusting. It was disgusting.
But it was disgusting in the same way Grace was disgusting, this creature of soft flesh and wet insides and open, leaking orifices. A disgustingness I had gotten used to, a disgustingness I had grown to love. When we had briefly parted it was all I could think of, how empty and silent my ship was without its constant bodily noise, the squishy churning of its digestive system, the constant beat of its heart, the endless movements of its lungs and chest and muscles and fluids always letting me know it was alive.
It was disgusting. It was beautiful.
Worse: I wanted it.
And Grace would give it to me. Arousal came easily to Grace in my presence, its blood rushing down to its groin; I had noticed for a while and had finally decided I was curious enough to ask. So now I knew what it sounded like when Grace touched itself, mimicking the act of human mating with its hand as it kept its eyes on me and me alone. Now I knew what Grace sounded like in the throes of sexual pleasure, its inhibitions loosened as it gasped, leaking liquid from its skin as its reproductive organ ejaculated fluid out.
Grace would listen to me, if I asked. Grace would put its tongue in me again. Grace would do anything I told it to. I held so much power over this brilliant, alien creature who wanted me in a way I couldn't even conceptualize, this being who was the closest friend I had ever had, who was my sudden chime of hope, who I had saved and who had saved me and Erid back, expecting it to be at the cost of its own life.
And I wanted Grace. I wanted to hear it lose control again. I wanted to hear it leak from its eyes again. I wanted to know just how far I could take it before its coherency fell entirely apart.
Grace was worried, watching me, its arousal dampening with its concern. "Rocky?"
I could dismiss it. If I called Grace disgusting again, playing it up, Grace would forget this lapse of mine and laugh. Maybe Grace's eyes would still linger on me; maybe it would think of me when it touched itself, trying to be quiet, knowing I could hear it from anywhere on the ship regardless. We could spend the next twenty-six years like that, all the way to Erid, and everything would be fine.
But I didn't want to.
"Grace is disgusting," I said, still, dropping back down to the base of the ball. "So leaky and fleshy and wet, so eager to stick your parts into my orifice—"
Grace relaxed, its mouth back to smiling. "That's human sexuality for you, bud."
"Humans are disgusting," I decided. Then I took a step forward, the xenonite ball hitting Grace's knees. "You are aroused from touching me."
"Uh." Grace's head shifted as it looked at me. Its blood had rushed back to its face—and its groin. "…Question?"
"Statement," I corrected. "Is normal for humans, question? Is normal for Grace, question?"
"…I mean, I don't have a lot to compare it to, Rock. You're the first alien I've… touched."
I stepped forward again, the rolling ball making Grace step back. Then I kept going, herding it backward. "So Grace really is a pervert."
"I guess I can't deny it." Grace stumbled as it let itself be moved by me, its tongue darting out from its mouth to moisten it. "Rocky, what…?"
"Grace is disgusting," I said. "Grace should do it again."
I'd directed Grace well; it tripped on its blanket and fell to the bed close to its feet, staring at me with its mouth open. "What—Rocky."
"Grace," I repeated back, and Grace blinked hard and sat up, spreading its legs as I rolled between its knees.
"You—I didn't imagine that? That you… you want me to touch you?"
"Yes yes yes," I said impatiently. "Grace's hearing is broken, question?"
Grace swallowed. "No, it's just—it freaked you out? And you just told me you don't… have the capacity for sexual pleasure."
"No, I don't," I said, "it's strange. Alien. Disgusting." It made my blood heat and vents flutter to even think about. "But I want it. I want to hear you enjoy it."
Grace rubbed a hand over its face, displacing its glasses. "Oh, geez," it said quietly, "Never thought I'd be on this side of this talk. Um." It dropped its hand and looked at me. "You know I'm happy to get off without touching you. If you just want to watch."
I tipped forward so that the ball bumped Grace's thighs. "Grace is being stupid. I want it. You want it. Why so much talk, question?"
"Yeah, you know what, you're right." Grace huffed a laugh, then pressed its hand to one of the hard panels of my ball; I leant into it and Grace sighed and leant in, too. With its head pressed to the xenonite, I could hear every intricacy of the multitude of processes under its skin; the crackle of its lungs as it breathed, the susurrus of its cold, thin blood moved by the thump of its single, powerful heart. Fluid leaked into its mouth and a moment later it turned its head, pressing the soft skin of its orifice to the xenonite. It was gross. It was enthralling.
"So," Grace said, "should I take my clothes off?"
"Yes," I decided. Its skin was an entire organ and its excretions were multiple in function; I thought of its oils and moisture, smearing an audible mark on my xenonite ball after it touched me, and—"Yes, take off now. Then touch me."
"Bossy," Grace said, but it was smiling as it pulled back slightly, taking off its top and bottom clothing and tossing it messily aside. Its reproductive organ was erect, a strange soft organ of flesh engorged with blood. It bobbed as Grace stepped back, then dropped to its knees, laying a hand on the ball. "Um. So how do you—"
"Closer," I said, and rolled into Grace a panel further; it positioned the flexible panel right by its head as I exposed my ventral seam to the xenonite. "Press against the ball so I can hear. Use your hand first."
Grace did as I said, eagerly swallowing, its heart beating fast as it rested its body against my ball. Its reproductive organ squished against the xenonite and I knew it was looking at me, at the passage inside my open orifice. I had shown it to Grace before but the circumstances had changed, and that carried over to the strangeness of feeling its fingers pushing inside me.
"You're so soft," Grace said. "Inside." It's fingers were stroking my walls, and it found my egg sac's sphincter with ease. Its light, even strokes made my nerves shiver. "What does it feel like to you? When I touch you here?"
"Strange," I said. "Like someone touching your own sphincters."
Grace laughed. "Our external ones are pretty well supplied by our nerves, so most of them are used for sexual purposes too."
"Humans are dirty dirty dirty," I said, and Grace's skin prickled against the xenonite it was leaning on as it smiled.
"Yeah, we really are," it admitted. "Oh, you're—Rocky, you're wet."
Grace was right, I could feel it; the repeated stimulation of my sphincter had coaxed the gland beside it to start to lubricate, to ease the passage of my eggs—or now, Grace's fingers. Grace spread the lubrication down my passage and raised its fingers, examining with its eyes the residue it left on the xenonite; I'd leaked on it, not even close to the laying part of my egg cycle. It was dirty; it was disgusting.
It was my body's reaction to Grace. It was what Grace had coaxed out of me.
"Do you like it, question?"
"Yes," Grace breathed, its breath moist with the fluid pooling in its mouth, pressing its body against the ball. "Yes, I—Rocky, please, can I taste you?"
"Yes," I said, and Grace shivered and dipped its head, pressing its mouth to the xenonite covering my hole.
It was just as bizarre and alien and perverse as it had been the first time. Even though I had agreed, even though I had expected it, the mere sensation of something so meaty and wet and alive inside me made my muscles lock up as a strange noise whistled from my vocal chords. My vents opened, trying to shunt away the heat from my blood as Grace licked inside me, its tongue stroking the walls of my passage, and I could feel the tiny bumps of its receptors on its tongue, the alien dexterousness of its fleshy muscle, the liquid leaking from its glands.
Grace's mouth was wet, so wet, and kept producing more fluids as it dripped into me and pooled in the xenonite, as it slicked its face pressed up against my hole as it tried to reach further inside. Grace was tasting me, Grace was eating me; it was twisted and depraved and I couldn't help the sound I made when Grace's tongue teased at my egg-hole.
"Grace!"
Grace hummed, a noise that reverberated through me, and did it again, pressing the muscle open and making my lubrication slicken the touch. With its tongue there, its mouth open, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about feeding Grace my unfertilized eggs, Grace taking them into its orifice and swallowing them one by one.
I was starting to hum, a deep low-pitched sound I had never made before. I tried to focus on something, anything that wasn't the alien depravity of Grace leaking into my hole; its swift-beating heart, its skin exuding oil and water and salt, its reproductive organ leaving trails of slick liquid against my ball as it moved its hips in short jerking motions. One of its hands was wrapped around it, simulating a human touch, and I suddenly, fiercely, didn't want it to.
"Did I say you could touch yourself," I said, my voice an octave lower than usual, and Grace's breath caught as its hand froze.
"Rocky—"
"Stop," I said sharply. "Put your hands on the ball or I won't let you touch me."
Grace obeyed in an instant. Its hands were slick with its fluids; it pressed its nose to the edge of the xenonite panel. "Please, Rocky—"
"Good," I said. "Tell me what you want, Grace."
"I—" Grace's breath caught in its throat. "I want to taste you, I want to taste you so bad, Rocky. God, I know it's impossible but—you can feel it through the xenonite, can't you?"
"Yes, I can feel it, that wet, fleshy muscle of yours, the way your mouth drips. I want you to leak all over your face with how much you want it."
Grace shuddered. "Yes, Rocky, yes, please—I want it. I want you—I want you to tell me how it feels."
"You want me to tell you how disgusting you are, question?" I asked, and Grace jerked its head and buried its face in my hole.
It was so grotesque, so absurd, so slippery and wet. Grace enticed my tasting organ out and I could taste myself on the xenonite, the strange heavy mercury of my blood thinned with whatever fluids my egg-hole lubrication was made of. But Grace wanted to taste it, too, like the worst kind of pervert; and when I told Grace that, all it did was press against the xenonite, closer. Its reproductive organ leaked a trail of viscous fluid on my ball as Grace rutted like an Earth animal against me, and I heard its heart beat faster and faster, its arousal starting to peak.
"You'd let me do anything to you," I said, my voice layered in a way I knew Grace would struggle to fully understand. "I should have noticed. But now I know you, my brilliant stupid fleshy leaky blob Grace, I know what you want and what you would do to get it. To touch me, to taste me, to stick your reproductive organ in my hole—"
"Please," Grace panted into the xenonite, "please, Rocky, please let me stick it in—"
"Maybe next time," I said magnanimously, and Grace's muscles tensed, its reproductive organ jerking as it spurted long streaks of its mixed fluids all over Grace and my ball.
It was wet and and disgusting and beautiful. Just like Grace was.
Grace pressed its face to the xenonite panels, breathing heavily through its mouth and nose. I dropped my limbs back to the floor, feeling my own lubricant drip out of me as I lowered the volume of my hum, letting it trail down to nothing. Grace's grip on the sides of the ball tightened, and I pressed my carapace against its side.
"Grace is feeling good now?" I asked.
"Fuck," Grace muttered, and lifted its head, dropping its arms from my ball. "Um. Yes. I'm—I'm feeling good. I—are you feeling good?"
"I'm feeling wet," I decided. "My Grace really is leaky leaky leaky."
"Hey, none of that got through the xenonite," Grace said. "That's all yours. Though I, um, maybe overdid it with the…"
"Yes," I said, "you did. It felt like you wanted to eat my eggs."
Grace's breath caught. "Oh, gosh. That's—not, I mean, I wouldn't say—"
"Ohhh," I drawled, teasing. "Grace really is a pervert."
Grace pressed its smile into the ball and laughed. "God. I really am. But you, uh, enjoyed it?"
I thought about it. The grossness, the disgustingness, the knowledge that any Eridian would consider this an utter perversity—
When I had first met Grace I had told it my eating was beautiful; perhaps I'd felt like I had to, after I'd exclaimed in so much disgust over its own habits, but it meant that it ate in front of me without shame and I'd found myself doing the same. Any Eridian would consider that to be even worse.
Yes. I liked it. I liked having Grace touch me. I liked having Grace's alien bodily liquids dripping inside me and splattering over me. I liked Grace wanting my ridicule and my praise and my approval, wanting me so badly it couldn't stop itself from begging for it. All of it was Grace, Grace who had found me when I had nothing, Grace who had saved me despite the cost. Grace who was mine. My strange, fleshy, leaky blob alien, who I had branded with my mark, who I would never let go, who I would tie to me in every way I could.
"Yes," I answered. "It was interesting." I tilted my carapace a little coyly. "You can stick it inside me next time if you're good."
"Fuck," Grace said again, exhaling slowly, and then something clearly dawned in its brain as it narrowed its eyes at me. "Okay, I have to know. Rocky, have you been watching porn?"
"Need word," I said, just to be contrary, and Grace pursed its mouth.
"Human sex videos."
"Hm." I pretended to think about it. "Yes, one or two. Is very strange with unclear processes, watching Grace was much better. Thank for the demonstration."
Grace scrubbed a hand over its face, then grimaced a little, looking down at it. "Oh, what the heck. Sure. I—I was happy to. And I… If you want to do this again…"
"Yes," I said, "but Grace has human refractory period. Maybe next time."
"Yeah, buddy. Next time."
"Tomorrow," I decided, and Grace was smiling again, baring its wet teeth as it leaned in to hug me.
My Grace was so needy. I leaned in too.
"At least let me clean your ball for you, though," Grace added, "oh, gosh. Us humans really are disgusting leaky sex perverts, you're right."
"I like it," I informed him, and Grace laughed. "I like you."
"Yeah," Grace said, its voice warm, "I know. I like you too."