Penetrated by the Alien

by Celia Styles

  Copyright@2015 by Celia Styles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

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  Penetrated by the Alien

  By Celia Styles

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ephren's Problem

  “Well, then. What about her?”

  They sat in the bar looking at the females of different races stretched along the long bar. It was a veritable font of possibilities with women with various skin and hair colors, and some with interesting appendages. There were a few non-bipedal races in the galaxy, but most where bipedal like Ephren and Marcon. The similarities made trysting between species relatively easy, and the differences made the same very interesting. But on this night, Ephren pointed to one of his own race, appreciating her blonde hair and nut-brown skin that was like his own and her wide ass. He licked his lips, thinking over the many things he’d like to do to her.

  The question hung in the smokey air until Marcon shook his head.

  “No.”

  Ephren looked over the room and saw with surprise a Soenu female, one of his partner’s race, staring at them. Like Marcon, she had a slightly bluish cast to her skin, which gave the Soenu their famous look of cold marble. Unlike dark-haired Marcon, her hair was white, highlighting her gem-blue eyes. Soenu didn’t leave their planet often, which made Marcon a rarity in the trader’s guild, but this woman being here was a miracle of grace. Maybe this female would move his recalcitrant partner.

  “What about her?” Ephren nodded toward the Soenu woman. “We rarely see one of your people. This might be fun.”

  “Definitely not,” growled Marcon. “There will be more, trust me.”

  Ephren glared at his business partner. The music pounded through the walls giving Ephren a headache. He didn’t want to stay here any long than necessary.

  “What is your problem? We’ve been to three ports and you haven’t agreed to so much send a drink to a female, let alone bed her.”

  Marcon took a sip of his ale, a concoction derived from crushing and fermenting a local nut. Ephren liked the taste of it and thought if they could buy a few dozen cases, they could make a nice profit from it.

  “You told me we were here on business,” said Marcon pointedly.

  “We are,” smiled Ephren. “The business of pleasure.”

  “I’m not interested,” said Marcon.

  “We are not looking to marry her. For the gods' sake, Marcon, it’s been two months.”

  “And for two months, I haven’t been interested.”

  Ephren snorted. “Maybe you should see a medico.”

  “Maybe you should shut your mouth. Besides, there’s nothing to say you can’t do a single.”

  “No.”

  “Now who is being difficult?” said Marcon. “You are the one who is complaining.”

  “Don’t you want to have some fun?” Ephren didn’t understand his business partner’s recent reticence to enjoy port pleasures.

  “No. Go take care of whatever you need to on your own. Don’t involve me in your shallow attachments. I don’t like this planet anyway. There is no good real estate.”

  Ephren stared at his ale. Real estate. Marcon’s been going on about real estate for months and Ephren didn’t understand why. He lived with the man for five years and in many ways, his business partner was as much as a mystery as the day he met him.

  What the hell did he understand about the Soenu, anyway? The only thing he knew, and that was from experience, was that Marcon’s people trysted in triads. Ephren was surprised at first when Marcon, a year into their association, suggested they find entertainment together. Ephren was ecumenical in his tastes, so it sounded like fun. Before long, Ephren found he didn’t just enjoy, he preferred threesomes with Marcon. But lately, the man he lived and worked with turned sullen and solitary, refusing to offer up any answers to Ephren’s questions.

  “You are a fucking scandal, Marcon.”

  Marcon waved him away dismissively. “I’m going back to the ship.” Without another word, he rose from his seat and left the bar, leaving Ephren alone.

  Ephren looked around the bar at the various races that either sat at the bar or the tables. His glance hit the Soenu looking straight at him.

  He ordered two more ales and walked to the Soenu’s table.

  “Have you tried this ale?” he asked.

  “What is it?” the woman sniffed.

  “Nec nut.”

  “No.”

  He set the brew in front of her. “May I sit?”

  “If you must."

  Ephren gave her his brightest smile and sat down. “I’m Ephren.”

  “Yes,” she said disinterestedly.

  “I noticed you watching us.”

  “How can I help but to notice? Are you paired with him?”

  “Paired? Marcon and I work together.”

  “Uh huh. And on Elberon the sky is pink.”

  Ephren wasn’t familiar with that turn of phrase, but by the derisive way in which she spoke illustrated that she didn’t believe him.

  "Perhaps I do not understand how you view pairing. Can you explain it to me?”

  “I am not here to enlighten your ignorance. But it is not secret males pair for different reasons.” Again, she spoke dismissively.

  Ephren sat back in his chair, taken aback by the rude delivery of her statement. “And why are you here?”

  She tilted her head. “You truly do not know?”

  Ephren shook his head.

  “Ah, well,” she said taking a sip of the beer. “So he’s being difficult?”

  Ephren tried to cobble together context from her words. Sometimes the universal translators intergalactic travelers wore did a poor job of converting meaning between languages. But she spoke as if Ephren would understand her and Ephren supposed that after living in close quarters with Marcon, he should.

  “Excuse me, do you know Marcon?”

  She shook her graceful head. “No. A couple like him. Where is his prytl?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m in the dark here.”

  “What you would call his second.”

  When Ephren raised his eyebrows, she exhaled.

  “His mating partner,” she said derisively. “The male that completes the triad.” She spoke as if she were talking to a small child.

  “I’ve never known him to have one, not in the five years I’ve worked with him.”

  Her eyes widened. “And you never—” She stopped as Ephren’s cheeks colored. He wasn’t shy about what he did, but the way the woman questioned him made it seem like he’d done something wrong.

  “And what are you? Your race?”

  “Klujarst. We are common enough throughout the galaxy. We are a space-faring people.” Ephren felt silly offering such a basic and well-known fact to this female. But she seemed like Marcon did when they first met, uniformed about how the wider galaxy worked.

  Her nose wrinkled in disgust and her expression changed to outrage.

  “How dare he?” She got to her feet.

  “Now, wait a minute. I don’t see why you are in a huff.”

  “Of course, you wouldn’t. How could you understand? This is an abomination! A common alien for a prytl! Five years awa
y from the home world! Is he a criminal? He must be some sort of criminal.”

  Ephren stood, raised his hands and backed away. “Listen, lady. I don’t know what your dysfunction is, but aside from being a bit moody lately, Marcon had been a good business partner.”

  “Moody!” she spit. “He’s going to be more than moody if he doesn’t get home and take care of business. Bad enough he draws me here with his scent, but then he sends you to negotiate!”

  All eyes turned to the Soenu woman and Ephren.

  “Lady, he didn’t send me to negotiate shit. I’ll be on my way.”

  “You do that! You and your worthless prytl!” She spit these last words at him as if she were the one that was insulted. Ephren left of the bar, hoping she wasn’t crazy enough to follow. He moved quickly through the darkened streets and the gaudily lit bars of this portion of the ramshackle town that served the spaceport. He flashed his badge at the sleepy guard at the port guard shack and hurried down the metal docks where their trading ship was nestled on anti-grav moorings between the larger commercial freighters.

  He swore when the hatch to the ship didn’t open upon the command of his remote control. Swearing some more, he pulled out his comblock and called up the ship’s communication system.

  “Marcon, damn you! Open that gods damn hatch!”

  “Thought you were going to find company.”

  “Open the fucking hatch. I’m in no mood for games.”

  The hatch opened and Ephren flew into the ship.

  “Where are you?” Ephren demanded stomping through the main deck. “Where are you, motherfucker?”

  Macon walked toward him from the direction of the pilot’s cabin.

  “What the fuck is your problem now?” said Macon.

  “You are going to explain to me why a Soenu woman called me your prytl, and why she was so pissed off about it.”

  Macon sighed heavily and lowered his head. Then he looked Ephren in the eye. “I’m sorry, Eph, to drag you into all of this. I’ve plotted a course for my home world. Take me there. When you drop me off, the ship and our business is yours.”

  “What! After five years, you are dumping what we built? The runs we created? The customers we groomed?”

  “Some things are inevitable. I’ve run as far and long as I could. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my cabin.”

  Ephren caught Marcon’s arm as he walked past. “Aren’t you going to explain a gods damn thing to me?”

  Marcon shrugged. “Nothing to explain. I have to go home. It’s over, Eph. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.”

  His partner disappeared into his cabin further along the hallway while Ephren stared after him. Just like that? Take me home? The business is yours? Ephren felt his world suddenly ripped in half. Truth was, Marcon was their navigator, a very talented one. Oh, Ephren could find a navigator from the trader’s guild. However, few had the brilliance with differential equations and time-space algorithms that shaved weeks off a run, or to create a new one. In Ephren’s mind, Marcon wasn’t a preferred partner but an essential one.

  “What the fuck!” he swore.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shelley's Trouble

  Shelley pinched the bridge of her nose as she took a deep breath. Around her surged the activity of the bar. The new DJ had the music too loud, giving her a raging headache.

  “Bartender!” yelled a customer. “Refill?”

  She sighed and looked at what he was drinking and remembered he was downing drafts. But she didn’t like the glazed look in his eye and knew she had to cut him off.

  Shelley moved to his position on the bar. “How about a nice iced coffee.”

  He waggled his empty beer glass in her face. “Beer.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry. You’ve had your limit.”

  “Limit!” the man roared. “Fuck you. I know the owner. If you don’t fill my glass, little missy, I’ll have your job.”

  Shelley glared up at the large man. He was about her age, early thirties. At any other time, she might have found him attractive. But drunk and acting like an asshole does not make a man attractive at any time.

  “I know the owner too,” she said. “And it's my job to make sure that none of the customers are too tanked before they leave here.”

  This guy grated on her nerves. In truth, the only reason she was here tonight was to help her father, the owner who’d already run the day shift. His night bartender had a sudden family emergency. Shelley never could say 'no' to her father, though she already had two part-time jobs. The first one was as a medical technician for a veterinarian, and the other was as an emergency medical technician for the local fire station. She didn’t need this aggravation.

  “You are the world’s worst bartender!” the man yelled loud enough for many customers to hear, despite the music.

  Shelley looked desperately to the door to where Joe the bouncer was supposed to be stationed. As usual, Joe was taking one of his many frequent “breaks.” She would speak to her father about that, except that when it came to Joe, her father had a blind spot a mile wide.

  Another customer signaled he wanted to place an order, and she moved toward him hoping that ignoring the troublemaker would solve her problem. It did not.

  “Hey, fat bitch!” he yelled.

  Despite other customers telling him to cool it, he continued his verbal harangue. Shelley’s face colored. Yes, she had a few extra pounds, and yes, doctors classified her as obese, but the fact was that her curves were hers despite diet and exercise. She ate less than her friends and hit the gym three times a week, but that did nothing to move the needle. Whatever curse of genetics and metabolism created her ample figure wasn’t going to change in the face of other people's judgements. Angry, she whipped around to the idiot.

  “Hit the road, asshole,” she said.

  “Fuck you!”

  Shelley scrambled around the bar.

  And that’s when the fight started.

  #

  “What were you thinking?” Her father berated her over the phone instead of in person because she was already at one of her part-time jobs as a veterinarian’s technician. Her father’s complaints weighed heavily on her.

  "Sorry, dad.” Sherry never could argue against her father. It wasn’t that she couldn’t stand up for herself. She proved that last night when she wiped the floor with the drunk. Her small stature and ample frame hid her years of martial arts training. But something in her didn’t want the displease the man that was the center of her world for many years.

  “He could file a lawsuit against the bar.”

  “Sorry, dad,” Sherry said again as a migraine started to build.

  “Is that all you have to say? Sorry?”

  “Dad, I have to go.”

  “Don’t you—"

  But Sherry clicked off the call and bent over the cage of a young doberman who looked at her balefully. He was to get his tail docked today. She hated that these procedures were done to a perfectly healthy dog, especially for the sake of fashion. He pressed his face to the cage, looking to lick her fingers.

  “Sorry, dude, you are to get nothing to eat this morning.”

  She went to the next cage and checked on the Himalayan cat who had a lung infection. Sherry breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the animal was doing better in her breathing. Cats didn’t do well when they were sick and were as prone to allergies as humans. If she could, Sherry would report the owner for animal abuse, but smoking in one’s home wasn’t considered abuse legally. She sighed.

  The cat’s food from the day before still lay in the food tray, which wasn’t a good sign. If you can get the cat to eat, it will be fine, but if it doesn’t, that only spells the kitty’s imminent death. Fortunately, Sherry had something in her pocket she purchased yesterday just for this animal. She drew out the small jar of pureed beef baby food and put a bit on her finger for the Himalayan. The gray longhaired cat sniffed then licked at her finger tentatively.

 
; “Good girl. Here, I’ll put some more in your food tray. See? Eat up. Good stuff.” Satisfied that the purebred had a chance, she moved on to her next patient.

  She checked on another cat, this one healthy, but getting spayed in the round of morning surgeries. The feline meowed at her pitifully.

  “Sorry, sweetie. Nothing for you this morning. But it will be over soon, I promise.”

  The front door bell rang and Shelley wondered who it would be. She hurried to the front desk to see a burly uniformed officer.

  “Shelley Wilson?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Come from around that desk, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  “What?”

  “Do as I say, miss. I’m arresting you for assault.”

  “Assault?” Shelley said stunned.

  “Yes, miss. I have the arrest warrant right here.”

  “But I have to be here for work.”

  “Right now, miss, you have to go to jail. Now, turn around before I make you turn around.”

  Shelley gulped and did what the officer said.

  “What is this about?” she said though she had an inkling this had something to do with the asshole from the bar last night.

  “You have the right to remain silent…”

  Shelley barely listened to what the officer said and rode in shock to the police department. They took her fingerprints, a female officer checked her for weapons, inside and out, which was the most humiliating thing that ever happened to Shelley. They then placed her in a cell and made her wait a few hours before they allowed her to call her father. She was shaking when he finally picked up the phone.

  “Dad,” she said. “I’ve been arrested.”

  #

  Shelley spent the night in jail on an uncomfortably hard bunk waiting for her arraignment the next morning. They wouldn’t let her father visit her, so she had no idea what was going on. When they took her in the next morning, still wearing her work scrubs, her father was in the courtroom looking very upset. She didn’t blame him. Shelley messed up good when she took on that customer.