by Meg Ripley
“Actually, this one’s on me; I’ll get you a refill as well. I didn’t catch your names.” She frowned slightly, and there was something about the expression that intrigued Bronn even more than her smile.
“I’m called Bronn,” he said, before gesturing to his colleague. “My friend is Lenth.” Giselle smiled again.
“Well, Bronn and Lenth, I’ll be right back.”
Bronn glanced at his colleague as Giselle walked briskly away. “She is fertile, and she seems interested.” Lenth’s lips tugged upward at the corners in a human-like smile.
“I believe she’s at the phase of reproductive viability—the part of her monthly cycle called ovulation.” Bronn considered it, thinking of the woman’s body language, the way she had looked at both of them, her dark eyes flashing. He nodded.
“How much do we tell her?” he asked his fellow researcher, glancing the way that Giselle had come. The slight sway in her hips as she walked towards the bar suggested to him that Giselle was almost certainly fertile at the moment—not just in the general sense, but imminently so.
“As little as possible,” Lenth suggested. “At least until we can get her to a private location.”
“Should we convince her to consume alcohol while we talk?” Bronn asked; the Khateen metabolism was unaffected by alcohol—they could consume endless quantities without becoming intoxicated. Other researchers had discovered that drinking alcohol with their subjects loosened the subjects’ inhibitions—though there were ethical considerations in consent taken from a woman who was intoxicated.
“Yes,” Lenth said, nodding slowly. “But we should allow her to become sober before any experimentation takes place.”
“Particularly in light of the fact that we will both be experimenting on her,” Bronn agreed. “Yes, that would make sense. We want to be careful not to injure her.” Others of their race had run into problems; even though care had been taken, human women were smaller than Khateen women, particularly their sex organs. More than one researcher had discovered that this could present problems in experiments. Though the Khateen had ample technology for dealing with such injuries, the incidents made the human recruits more reticent, and the empathic response that formed part of the Khateen personality made it difficult to remain objective, knowing that the subject was in pain, even for a short period of time.
“We’ll be very careful; she seems smaller than many of the human women I have encountered—she’s probably smaller everywhere.” Bronn nodded.
“She’ll be sober, and we’ll make sure that she’s fully apprised of the risks and the benefits before we persuade her to participate.” Lenth laughed the Khateen way, startling one of the nearby human patrons.
“We haven’t been able to persuade any human women on our own,” Lenth pointed out. “It will only be more difficult for us to persuade one together.”
“I don’t believe so,” Bronn said to his colleague as Giselle approached their table once more, armed with another mug of beer.
****
Giselle tugged a chair into place at the edge of the table occupied by the two strange men, Bronn and Lenth. “Okay,” she said, smiling at both, “I’m officially off the clock.”
Lenth favored her with a toothy smile, raising his glass to her. “What would you like to know about us?” he asked.
Giselle considered the question. She had been drawn to the two men as soon as the second had sat down; their strange coloring and the sounds of their language had appealed to the researcher in her right away. A student of anthropology, Giselle was in the process of finding a topic for her Ph.D., and the possibility of writing an ethnography on a culture as rare as the one these two men must belong to lit her mind with voracious curiosity.
“If you’ll forgive me,” she said, glancing from Lenth to Bronn, “I noticed that the two of you are…different.” She felt her cheeks warming with a blush. They had to know that they looked different from any of the other patrons at the bar; she had never seen a person with such strange coloring—let alone two. “Where are you from?”
“We’re from a place called Khatanar,” Bronn said. “It’s very remote.”
“How did you find your way here?” Giselle asked.
“We’re researchers,” Lenth told her. “Our people are scientists, interested in genetics.” Giselle frowned. Two men from a remote, isolated culture; one that apparently studied genetics. And yet the place that they had told her they came from was not one that she’d ever heard of—not on the news, and not in any textbook she had read.
“Your whole culture is scientists?” Giselle asked, frowning more deeply.
“Ah—no,” Bronn said. “Those of us who are here are scientists.” Giselle nodded slowly, still trying to understand, but slightly less confused.
“How many of you are here?” she assumed that she meant the country; it would make sense that if they were studying genetics, they would come to a first-world nation—and yet, if they were scientists who were already studying genetics, wouldn’t their own city or country have adequate facilities?
“There are…” Bronn’s lips moved as he hesitated, and Giselle recognized the signs of someone translating. “Twenty of us.”
“Twenty scientists studying genetics here,” Giselle said, nodding slowly. “What do you hope to discover?” she glanced at Lenth.
“Could we buy you a drink?” Lenth asked her. Giselle smiled.
“Well, you could—but they’ll give me a couple of drinks on the house, so it would be a waste of money.”
“The bartender could take the money as a tip,” Bronn pointed out. Giselle smiled again, looking from one man to the other.
“That she could. Okay. I’ll be right back.”
“We’ll come with you,” Lenth suggested. “So we can continue talking.”
****
Time seemed to stand still as Giselle found herself increasingly absorbed in the information that Lenth and Bronn provided her about their culture. She found herself having a drink—then two, then three—while the two men told her about the research they were interested in, looking into female genetics and sexuality. She knew that she was ovulating; when she’d approached the table, her reaction to the two men had been as much due to some subtlety of their height, build, coloring, and facial features, along with their unusual, brightly colored eyes, as their potential as subjects for her possible ethnography.
Somehow, over the course of the conversation, she’d found herself divulging more about her life than she’d expected to. Bronn and Lenth asked her about her age, about her studies—they were complimentary about her subject matter. “That is a wonderful thing to study!” Bronn told her brightly when she explained the scope of cultural anthropology. “Humans need to discover as much about themselves as possible if they desire to advance.”
There was something—Giselle’s increasingly fuzzy mind couldn’t identify it—about the way that the two men referred to the human race. She caught the fact that Bronn and Lenth occasionally said “you” when talking about people instead of “we,” but dismissed it as the kind of error that people who spoke English as a second language would make. But still something stirred in the back of her mind, something that was unsettling and intriguing all at once.
“Would you like to come home with us?” Bronn said at one point. Giselle startled at the question; looking around, she realized it was much later than she thought. Go home with two guys? Giselle worried at her bottom lip, trying to decide. She couldn’t deny that she was attracted to the two men. But she’d never gone home with two men at the same time; she’d never been interested in a threesome—and yet she found herself wanting to say yes, even though the obvious strength and height of the two men worried her.
“I promise you, we won’t take advantage of you,” Lenth said quietly. “Our culture is strongly—strongly—against taking women unwillingly. But we want to continue to speak with you, and it’s becoming crowded here.” Giselle glanced around the busy bar once more and h
ad to agree.
“If you try and hurt me,” she said, looking at each of the two men. “I’ll kill you both…or try my best to, anyway.”
Bronn smiled. “I would expect no less; have no fear, you won’t have to resort to that.”
Giselle gathered up her purse and stood, unsteady on her feet. “Then lead the way,” she said.
****
“She’s waking up,” Lenth heard Bronn say from the other side of the room. Their subject had come with them willingly to what Bronn told her was his home; in fact, it was laboratory space that Bronn had set up at the beginning of the mission. Bronn had chosen a different tactic from many of their colleagues in his attempts to make potential human subjects comfortable with agreeing to be experimented on: his laboratory was a mock-up of a human dwelling, with the specialized equipment recommended by their research overseers tucked away in what would be considered a human’s bedroom.
When they had arrived at Bronn’s space, Lenth had quietly prepared a concoction that the Khateen knew would assist humans in metabolizing alcohol more quickly, without the lingering harmful effects that humans called a hangover. The substances in the concoction neutralized the alcohol in the stomach, so that there was less for the human liver to process, converting the alcohol into simple glucose and water. Before Giselle had fallen asleep on Bronn’s couch, Lenth had convinced her to drink it—though he had not told her what it was.
It was nearly dawn when their potential subject awakened, blinking blearily. Lenth could sense her confusion and the brief flicker of alarm in her body language as she started to remember what had happened. “I’m fully dressed,” Giselle said quietly.
“We told you,” Bronn said, smiling slightly. “Our culture considers taking advantage of females to be absolutely anathema. We would never harm you.”
“What did you give me?” Giselle asked with a frown.
“It was a substance that neutralizes alcohol. Are you feeling ill?” Giselle shook her head.
“I feel great… it’s just weird to not have a hangover after drinking so much. How much did I drink?” she shook her head, sitting up.
“You had several alcohol drinks,” Bronn said with a grin. Giselle chuckled, stretching and twisting, and Lenth couldn’t help but stare. The sight of their subject sleeping on Bronn’s couch had been tempting—alluring. The movements of her stretching revealed more of her pale skin, a slice of her stomach and the curve of her hip showing.
“So,” Giselle said, glancing from Lenth to Bronn, and Lenth saw that the alarm—muted, just a flicker of the emotion as she had awakened—had come back, slightly stronger. “What’s the plan now?” Bronn glanced at Lenth and Lenth considered. They had not decided just how they were going to proposition this potential subject.
“You are curious about our culture,” Lenth said. “There are some things that we wanted to share with you in private about our culture.”
“Oh—oh, yes, that’s right,” Giselle said, her dark eyes widening. Lenth felt the stirrings of lust in his body once more, the flicker of heat. It was a sensation not unlike the dance between potential mates. She scrubbed at her face. “Do you happen to have coffee? It’s—really, really early.” Bronn chuckled and Lenth shrugged, not knowing the answer to the question.
“I do have coffee,” Bronn said. “But I am uncertain about how to make it. It is not a common drink where we come from.” Giselle chuckled and Lenth smiled at the understatement.
“If you have coffee and a coffee brewer, I can make it myself.” Lenth watched as the woman stood quickly, looking around before she went into the kitchen area. He turned to his colleague.
“We need to explain things to her,” Lenth whispered to Bronn. “We got her here, we need to explain and persuade her to participate.” Lenth watched his colleague closely as Bronn considered the situation.
“We could propose that we exchange information,” Bronn suggested. “We’ll tell her about our culture if she lets us perform the experiments.” Bronn smiled.
“How much will we tell her, though?” Lenth asked. He glanced in the direction of the kitchen, where Giselle was singing softly as she made coffee. Lenth could smell the sharp scent of the roasted beans.
“As much as she wants, once she agrees to participate,” Bronn suggested.
“And then she’ll go to the press, or the government.”
“With what?” Bronn shrugged. “She can’t tell them that she’s being subjected to alien experiments—have you seen the way that people are treated who make those accusations?”
Lenth laughed, “That’s an excellent point.”
Giselle came back into the living room, looking from Lenth to Bronn. “What have you two been discussing?” They had lapsed into their native language out of necessity.
“We want to make a… proposition to you,” Bronn said, glancing at Lenth. “We understand your interest in our culture. You know that we are scientists.”
“I know that you told me you’re scientists,” Giselle pointed out. “That doesn’t mean that you are.” Lenth laughed.
“What proof would you need?” Lenth asked.
“A lab? Examples of previous research…” Giselle shrugged. “I’ve never heard of the place you told me you come from. It seems…strange to me that people from a remote country I’ve never heard of are doing genetic research.” Lenth glanced at Bronn.
“Well, there’s something we must tell you,” Bronn said. “But first we need your consent to the experiments we’re interested in recruiting you for.”
“Okay, well, what is it?” Giselle asked after a moment. “What’s the study?”
Lenth leaned forward slightly, holding her gaze. “We’re interested in human sexuality. Specifically sexuality in human women.”
Giselle gave him a level look, holding his gaze for a long moment. “You keep saying ‘human,’” she said slowly. “Why the emphasis on humans?”
Bronn looked at him, and Lenth smiled slowly, meeting his colleague’s gaze. “Because,” Lenth said, taking a deep breath and exhaling; the atmosphere of the planet was not as rich in hydrogen as his own planet, but it helped. “We are not humans.”
For a long time, Giselle just stared at him. She looked from Lenth to Bronn, and Lenth read the emotions flickering across her face: disbelief, curiosity, interest, apprehension—each one making a fleeting mark on her features.
“You’re not...human,” she said slowly.
“We are not,” Bronn said.
“You are scientists, looking at human sexuality…” Giselle frowned. “What the hell kind of prank is this?”
“No prank,” Lenth told her. “We’re looking at genetics and sexuality in human women, because our people—called the Khateen—are interested in potentially cross-breeding with your species.”
“But in order to do that,” Bronn said, “we must understand human sexuality and reproduction much more than we do.”
“You…” Giselle stood. “I really need that coffee.” She went into the kitchen and Lenth looked at his colleague.
“You should’ve shown her the lab first to prove that we’re researchers!” Bronn snapped.
“It’s your lab!” Lenth countered.
****
Giselle stood in the kitchen for a long time, absorbing the shock of what the two men had said. She started to laugh, shaking her head as she poured herself a cup of coffee. They’re fucking with me, she thought, rummaging through the cupboards to try and find sugar for her coffee. A couple of foreign guys messing with a girl they didn’t have the guts to take advantage of. The fact that she had awakened on their couch, fully clothed, without a hangover of any kind gave Giselle pause; at least if the two men were messing with her mind, they had not messed with her body. And she had to admit that there was something very strange about their coloring, about their height, about their origin.
She managed to find sugar but no milk; deciding that a black cup of coffee was the least of her worries at the moment, Giselle went i
nto the living room once more, sipping the steaming beverage. “Okay,” she said, sitting down on the couch and looking at the two men each in turn. “If you’re aliens, prove it. Also, you haven’t shown me any proof you’re doing experiments of any kind.”
Bronn laughed—the sound was odd, more like coughing. “If we can prove we’re aliens, why would you doubt our interest in experimentation?”
Giselle opened her mouth to retort—and then realized that if the two men could, in fact, prove that they were aliens, it would be difficult to imagine them being on the same planet as her for any other reason than research of some kind.
“Okay, so prove you’re aliens,” she said, setting her coffee down and crossing her arms over her chest.
Lenth stood, and Giselle felt a frisson of apprehension. He picked up a large cloth and began wiping away at his face and arms. At the same time, Bronn stood and began rubbing at his eyes, doing something to them that Giselle couldn’t quite comprehend. As Lenth scrubbed at his skin, the brown-gray coloring disappeared, revealing purple-gray skin underneath, with no visible body hair—not even the eyebrows she had seen.
Slowly, the human-like facades that the two men had borne dissolved away, revealing what were unmistakably non-human creatures. The two individuals in front of Giselle had brilliant dark blue eyes flecked with slowly whirling specks of gold, gray-purple skin, and lean muscles underneath their skin that looked subtly different from human configurations. She took a deep breath and exhaled, absorbing the new shock. “Okay,” she said slowly, more out of the need to say something than out of certainty of what she was seeing. “Okay. So you’re definitely not regular old humans.”