Dredge

by Lula Monk

  It was interesting to see how Glims fell in love, the thoughts they had about such a practice. Well, it wasn’t really love. It was more like a fusion, which she actually – to her complete surprise – found to be somehow more meaningful. Sure, in wedding ceremonies back on Earth, the officiator would drone on and on about human love and joining two souls as one flesh. But the Glims meant it. They didn’t have a marriage ceremony, but there was an exchanging of light between the two lovers, and their essence was the Glim equivalent of the human soul. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Samantha.

  The fourth book was another history of Brillar, supplementary material to the first. She skimmed through it, tossing on the bed.

  The fifth book she had no interest in reading whatsoever. The front cover read “The Care and Keeping of Glim Offspring: How to Nurture a Glimling.”

  Nice try, Dredge. Nice try.

  Samantha threw herself back on the pillows, her thoughts both spinning and mind-numbingly dull. She glanced at her watch. Dredge had been gone for hours, but where he slipped off to, she couldn’t possibly imagine. He frequently voiced his hatred for crowds and other creatures in general and lamented every time their food stash dwindled to the point that he had to venture out to the food court to replenish it.

  Strange that he would choose to wonder out on his own, and for so long.

  Another thing had been odd about the Glim recently. In the last day or so, when they lay together in bed at night – his glow had been not been as bright.

  At first, Samantha thought she was imagining things, or – horror of all horrors – that she was getting used to his shine. Another surprise for Samantha, that she could get used to his presence so quickly. But that wasn’t it.

  When she’d woken up this morning, it was distinctly obvious that his luminescence was not as bright. It was by no means dull, but it wasn’t bright either.

  And now he was spending huge chunks of time away from their room.

  She stopped chewing on her lip, stunned.

  Was she . . . worried about him? No freaking way. She couldn’t be.

  Could she?

  No, she decided. She wasn’t worried about him in the slightest. He hadn’t raped her, but he sure as hell had bought her like she was some product. He owned her. He was not a good person.

  Hell, he wasn’t even a person. He was a Glim.

  Samantha put her hand on top of the stack of books. Maybe she was being too cruel. Dredge had been through a lot, had seen a lot. And what had happened to his people . . . it made her heart hurt. She shifted the pile, and her face turned sour at seeing the Glim equivalent of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. She hurled the book across the room.

  Sympathy or not, she wouldn’t be saving the Glim species. Wasn’t her problem.

  What was her problem was getting out of this damn room and figuring out a way to bring down Galactic Continuity.

  She’d been thinking about it for days while thumbing through the Glim history book so Dredge would think she was focused on reading.

  Thinking about the last trip she’d made into the core of the Hub made her body begin to shake. That poor woman from the auction block, the one she’d gone to college with but whose name she couldn’t remember, was probably lying in a room much like this one. Maybe even in this same hall. Samantha hadn’t seen what type of alien had purchased the woman, but she doubted it was as nice as Dredge.

  Then there were all the women still standing on the stage and the women who had come in with her, the ones on the transport ship. It had been four days. No telling how many shipments of fresh human females had come in since then.

  She did some math in her head.

  There were about thirty women in her group, well 29 after what happened to Debra. There seemed to be about that many standing on the auction stage when she and Dredge had passed through the second day she was at the Hub. That was the day right after Dredge bought her. Thirty humans per shipment, two days in a row.

  If those numbers were consistent, there could be as many as one hundred and twenty new human females here now.

  “Where are them keeping them all?” she wondered aloud. The sound of her voice echoing in the empty room made her cringe.

  One hundred and twenty women, plus the thirty she and Dredge had seen, plus the twenty-nine from her own group. That was almost two hundred Earth women in less than a week.

  Samantha had not asked Dredge how long Galactic Continuity had been in business, but she imagined it was for a while. The Hub seemed huge, what little she’d seen of it. And there had to be a shit ton of rooms, with over two hundred breeder rooms like this one. Many more breeder rooms, if the shipments were consistent.

  She felt like she was going to puke.

  She was just one woman. How was she ever going to figure out a way to save them all?

  Samantha stood from the bed and walked to the clear wall, staring out at the starfield like she had done many times in the last four days.

  She could do this. She had to do this. Her people needed to be free, and it was her responsibility to save them.

  A small pang of guilt tugged at her heart. That is exactly how Dredge felt about the Glims, wasn’t it?

  She tried to banish the feelings of sorrow such a connection made in her mind, but they persisted.

  And then it hit her. A plan.

  She almost discarded it before the seed was firmly lodged in her mind. It would be cruel, she told herself. To get Dredge’s hopes up like that . . . it wouldn’t be right.

  But good plans are hard things to uproot.

  In those few moments of indecision, while half of Samantha’s brain was worrying about betraying Dredge, the other half shoved the seed of this new idea deep, deep into her mind where it grew quickly. Though the thought of misleading Dredge brought her pain, the seed of her plan had begun to grow, and its taproot ran deep.

  She had a way to free herself, to free them all.

  And Dredge was going to help her do it.

  Chapter 12

  Dredge

  “I’m ready to mate,” said the Earth woman Samantha.

  Dredge froze, his body only halfway through the portal to their room.

  Samantha was standing at the transparent wall, gazing out at the stars. “I said I’m ready,” she repeated, not turning around to face him.

  Dredge fully entered the room, mindful to press his palm to the wall and lock them in. His heart pounded in his chest. “What changed your mind?”

  Samantha stiffened. A long span of time passed with neither of them saying anything. Finally, she gestured to the bed. “Reading.”

  A smile began to form on Dredge’s face, but he stopped it. His plan had worked. Exposing the Earth woman to his world, letting her explore for herself the history of his people, had made her sympathetic to their plight. He knew it would. Samantha was a good lifeform, kind. He knew she would acquiesce. And good timing, too, for the healer in the medical bay had given him some distressing news. But now was not the time to think of such things.

  He unfastened the top button of his jumpsuit. “Would you prefer the bed or standing?”

  When she stayed at the window and said nothing, Dredge stopped working at his buttons, his brow furrowed. He walked across the room and picked up the guidebook, thumbing to the appropriate chapter.

  “There are over 125 standard positions we can try,” he said looking up from the book, his eyes hopeful.

  Still saying nothing, Samantha walked to the bed and slid beneath the covers. After some tense, awkward movements, she extracted her dress and tossed it onto the floor.

  “Just come here,” she said.

  Dredge frowned. He was pleased that she had finally agreed to mate but this . . . this wasn’t what he wanted. He knew better than to hope for enthusiasm; after all, she had made it very clear that she did not want to be at the Hub, and mentioning his ownership over her was guaranteed to throw her into a fit of rage.

  He resigned himself to the
forthcoming lackluster experience. He’d never mated before, and he did not have high hopes for enjoying what was about to occur.

  He moved the books from the bed and slid under the blanket as well. They both lay on their backs studying the ceiling. Dredge felt tense, awkward. He had read about human mating at great length, but now that the time had come to transition from theory to practice, he felt woefully unprepared.

  “You can start now,” Samantha said.

  Dredge rolled onto his side to look at her. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just . . . do it. Come inside me, and then it’s done.”

  “You mean ejaculate?”

  Samantha sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes.”

  Dredge flopped back onto the bed, lifting the covers to look at his penis. It was flaccid.

  “I do not think my body is prepared,” he said regretfully.

  “Well, do what you need to do to make it, you know . . .”

  “This feels very disconnected, Samantha. I do not like it.”

  “Neither do I. But I agreed to do this, didn’t I? To help you fulfill your duty?”

  “Is that all this will be for you?” Dredge asked quietly. “The fulfillment of duty?”

  “What else would it be?”

  Dredge tried not to feel morose at the tone of her voice. He licked his palm and set to work stroking himself. The organ had never been used for anything other than voiding, and at the slightest touch of his hand, it began to stiffen.

  When his body was ready, he turned back to Samantha. “I am prepared.”

  “Good. Let’s get this over with.”

  Another twinge in his heart. “You never told me your preference.”

  With a frustrated sigh, she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down on top of her. “Like this.”

  His body was much longer than hers, and it took some adjusting to get their sex organs aligned. When things were finally all in their proper place, he reached down to guide himself to her entrance. His fingers slid into her cleft and . . . he paused. There was no wetness there.

  “Are you not aroused, Samantha?”

  “No. I can literally think of nothing less arousing than this exact moment.”

  “This won’t do,” said Dredge pulling away from her. He remembered preparing his own body and the way he had used the moisture from his mouth to make striking himself a more productive exercise. “May I help you become prepared?”

  Samantha turned her head and stared out at the starfield. “Just hurry up.”

  Dredge slid down, his mouth hovering above her pubic mound.

  “I will.”

  Chapter 13

  Samantha

  In the long list of things Samantha never thought she would do, getting eaten out by an alien would have been pretty close to the top this time last week. As her present life stood, that is exactly what was occurring.

  She’d told Dredge that she was not aroused, and it had been true. But what she hadn’t told him — what she had been afraid to even tell herself — was that the prospect of finally having sex with Dredge wasn’t as disgusting as she pretended it was.

  After all, Dredge had said it himself: his body was the most perfect specimen of the male form she had ever seen. He had a rock-solid build, wash board abs, thighs that could choke a bear, and his cock… well his cock still terrified her, honestly. It was porn-star-prosthetic big. Great American Challenge big. Well, not that big, but big enough that she anticipated having to stop him from going all the way in.

  When he’d offered to prepare her body for sex, a.k.a. make her wet, she had envisioned some weird alien goo that he would squirt on her lips at best or him just spitting in her vaginal opening at worst (a super gross thing that she had actually had a man do to her once).

  What she’d not expected was for Dredge to bury his face in her vagina and go to town.

  For a first timer, he was a pro.

  His lips teased her clitoris, gently sucking, his tongue darting out to swirl around it, to draw it more and more into his mouth.

  Her breathing came hard.

  She was determined not to enjoy this. She was betraying him, after all. This wasn’t real. This was a means to an end.

  His tongue traveled lightly down to the entrance, teasing the rim. Her body shivered.

  This was good. She couldn’t deny it.

  She closed her eyes and pretended to be somewhere else, like back on Earth in her own room, maybe with the bag boy cutie from the local grocery store, both arms covered in tattoo sleeves, his eyebrow pierced. But try as she might, she could not get around the reality that it wasn’t some human whose head was between her legs.

  Dredge engulfed her with his mouth, swirling his tongue in all the right places. Her hands clenched the sheet beside her hips. She knew she was wet; she could feel it trickling down her crease, seeping into the sheets. She willed her hands to stay still. They wanted to explore Dredge’s body the way his mouth was exploring hers.

  No, she wanted to explore his body. Her hands were an extension of herself, tools to do her bidding. And as they creeped over her stomach to rest on either side of Dredge’s head, pulling him closer to her, she wanted to succumb to her body’s yearning for this creature before her.

  “Dredge,” she gasped as his tongue rolled over her sweet spot once more, setting her body on fire. Her sex throbbed with longing.

  “Yes?” the alien asked, removing his mouth from her nub. They gazed into one another’s eyes, as if truly seeing the other for the first time.

  Samantha felt her heart seize as the Glim’s gaze bore into hers. Oh yes, she wanted him. And not for his chiseled abs or beefy arms or over-generous cock. No, she realized with shock. She wanted Dredge.

  “Kiss me,” she commanded, her heart beating out a staccato rhythm.

  His large body shifted, rising to engulf hers. She felt small, fragile, and yet the look in his eyes let her know that he would not break her.

  His shaft rested against her folds, and she could feel it pulse against her skin. Her channel clenched in response, her wetness dripping onto the bed.

  “May I kiss you?” he asked, his voice husky against her ear. His breath felt cool on her feverish skin, and she shivered.

  “Yes.”

  Dredge craned his neck, his mouth resting on hers tenderly, as if he were worshiping her body with the presence of his lips. As if he were praying. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  As if emboldened, Dredge’s tongue pressed against the seam of her lips. She opened to him, tasting the sweetness of his tongue. His mouth felt slightly gritty, the strange powder from his skin abrasive against the tender flesh of her mouth. She reveled in the almost-pain, with every kiss making her mouth feel as if it would spark from the friction.

  She loved the confident way his tongue plundered her mouth the same way it had explored her sex. Both of his hands lifted to cradle her head, to take full control of the kiss.

  Samantha broke away gasping for air, but he pulled her back, grinding his cock against her. She opened her legs wider, her knees rising to either side of his rock-hard torso. Dredge’s hand traced the naked flesh of her inner thigh as he took his erection into his hand. He guided the tip to her entrance. Her body ached with longing.

  “Are you ready?” He drug the tip up between her folds, coating it in her juices.

  Samantha moaned, hips arching and retreating of their own accord, thrusting against Dredge’s waiting cock. Her fingers dug hungrily into the flesh at his back. She needed his body inside of hers, needed to feel the Glim fill her to the brim.

  “I need to hear you say it,” he said softly. “Say that you want me.”

  He pressed against her hole, teasing her with his tip. He leaned down to kiss her eyelids, her neck, the hollow at the base of her throat. “Say it, Earth woman.”

  “I want you,” she moaned, hips gyrating now, begging to be controlled, waiting for the Glim’s blue-silver hands to grab them as he rode her.


  “My name,” he said kissing her lips once more. His tongue sparred with hers, diving deep into her mouth and then retreating to lick her lips.

  “Dredge,” she whispered against his mouth.

  And he slid his cock inside her.

  Chapter 14

  Dredge

  As Dredge eased his sex organ into Samantha’s vaginal opening, he felt a strange sensation. Well, the entire experience was rife with new sensations, but the one that struck him as the oddest was the fire that seemed to burn in pit of his belly. It felt like an ache, like extreme hunger or thirst or even illness.

  He wondered if this is what it felt like, to long for another creature. Because lying here with Samantha, hearing the Earth woman moaning against his ear, her hands trailing up and down his back, he thought he knew what longing might feel like.

  Before this moment, he had wanted Samantha. Gods knew he had. But he had always thought the sensation was brought on by the extreme distress he felt at needing to procreate with the woman. Especially now that the healers had told him . . .

  Samantha moaned again, her breathing coming more rapidly.

  Dredge pushed all other thoughts from his mind save those of Samantha. He wanted to be fully here in this moment.

  He thought back to the guidebook and what he had read there. He slowed his thrusting and was pleased when the Earth woman begged for him not to stop. He planted a kiss on her forehead and shifted his body until he was sitting on his knees. He grabbed her hips and lifted her onto his sex organ. She gasped when he entered her again, this time lifting her body until she sat in his lap. She coiled her supple arms around him, grabbing him as though her body were in torment and she needed something stable upon which to cling.

  “Are you alright?” Dredge asked, slowing.

  Samantha said nothing in response. Her body spoke for her, bouncing against his, begging for the movement to continue. He responded by cupping both hands on her buttocks, lifting and dropping her against his erection. She seemed pleased by the motion, and he smiled, lowering his head to her breasts. He licked her nipple and was pleased when she rewarded him with another deep moan. He thought such a thing was odd – her breasts should be reserved for his offspring – but the guidebook had said some female humans enjoyed such a thing, and he very much wanted to Samantha to enjoy their mating.