Star

by Erin Lee

  I slowly pulled a damp, dingy hand towel off my hip. I’d learned the hard way that if you do it too fast, it’ll tear the apron right off, causing meager purple coin tips from the breakfast crew to spill all over the shabby restaurant floor. Like it or not, the crumbs grabby men with balding heads and hairy digits throw at me were pretty much all I had. I could feel Luna’s eyes on me as I reached over a sticky table and went, first, for the cosmic ketchup spot. I’d never understood parents who let their children eat like homeless Martians. If I ever have a kid, which I wouldn’t because I could never handle it, I’d like to think I’d at least have some measure of control. But who am I to judge? Luna and her husband, Big Anus, who owns the place, had made it more than clear that I’m merely a part-time waitress, and they don’t really need me here. Neither does their fucked up son. No, they are doing me the favor, they said, the last time I had a problem with gawking earthlings.

  I was “lucky,” they said. I heard it at least a dozen times a shift. Today, it had already been nineteen times with a little “we don’t have to keep you here” sprinkled in for extra flavor like alien chips on a space sundae. Today, my ‘blessings’ included a light breakfast crowd craving comet cakes that weren’t on the specials list because we ran out of maple syrup. Imports from other galaxies take years sometimes and Luna has never been great at planning ahead. Fine. I put down the dish towel. I forced a smile. I walked, slowly this time, to the table with the two nasty dimwits who promised to give me a hard time.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m Neptune. I’ll be your waitress today. I’m the part-time girl with no attention to detail. Are you ready to order?” It was the second time I’d introduced myself, but knowing how stupid humans are, I figured it was in order.

  The smelliest, fattest one looked at me and smiled. I told myself not to cringe when he told me his gassy name and introduced his Rat’s Nest Head friend.

  “Two pieces of pie each, please, sweetheart,”

  “Alright then. And to drink?”

  “I’d drink you.”

  Rat Head laughed. “Me too.”

  I’ll kill you. Get off my fucking planet, assholes! “Okay then, I’ll let you get back to your menus. Pies coming right up. All the drinks are listed. And I hope you choke. Just let me know.”

  They snickered like common juveniles. “Dude, she said pie. Maybe she’s our answer. Save us the trip to Area 315a, ya know? Hell of a lot prettier too. Ain’t ya, sweetheart? What time does your shift end? Feel like giving us a little tour around your planet?”

  Green-faced with rage, I pivoted and headed to the kitchen.

  I was just about to tell Luna where to stuff it when Little Anus popped into the back room where we kept the extra utensils. I cringed before laughing out loud at his rumpled hair, a souvenir from last night’s binge at the titty bar where he probably ran a pull with the douches in booth one. I’ve always wondered how Luna justified it when he showed up like this—reeking of Moon Blitz and vomit. Her problem. Not mine. Neither of them. Not anymore. Bigger shits to fry. An escape plan. If I can ever go through with it.

  Little Anus, my shit boyfriend-when-he-felt-like-it who was also known as Little Asshole and appropriately, waited ‘til his bossy mother’s back was turned and winked at me. I rolled my eyes. I was tired of being Little Anus’ dirty secret and punching bag too. Technically, I hated him but didn’t quite know what it would take for me to finally get the courage to leave. Rocket convertor, possibly? It is at least step one. Little Anus was just another pig and Luna only encouraged it. I need to get out of here, quit this job and just start over, but how? I understood it now, how Momma felt with all the deadbeat Martians she dated. It made sense to me why she ran off with the first guy willing to publically claim her in spite of her extra ears and elongated alien nose of telltale Volusia ancestry. I supposed it was the risk you ran in dating married men from crater-carved, non-axis planets. But that was my mother. You only get one of them. I wasn’t complaining. Technically, I missed her and my sisters something horrible.

  Luna rushed over to her needy, pathetic bully of a son. She dropped the knife she’d been using to chop meteor lettuce in the suction sink, smiled, and asked him how he was feeling. Before he even got a chance to answer, she began making his favorite late-day snack—a fried Nova Mantris egg sandwich. Fucking gross.

  I turned away. It occurred to me for the millionth time that I didn’t have to be here. I could just ask them about the convertor, beg for an advance, tell them I wasn’t feeling well, and light speed dodge on out. It wouldn’t be the first time a waitress ditched a shift over rude mortals from Earth. Last month, slutty Stardust did it three times. Even evil Luna wouldn’t fault me for not wanting to be ogled by tourists looking for one thing only; a thing that had nothing to do with food and more to do with a place to land their thumb-sized mushroom dicks. All I need is that convertor fixed and I can finally get out. I need an escape. Another galaxy. Something. Nice place or not, anything’s better than infinity with the Anus twins and rotting away in this place with Jizz.

  My Pear 4939228 version Vphone, which I’m not allowed to have at work, vibrated in my back pocket just as I was about to bring the pies to earthling tourists Pig One and Pig Two. I didn’t need to check it to know it was the advocate again. Quickly, I turned off the personal service device option. Not now! Luna will have a shit fit. My Venus Rights Advocate had been the only one who seemed to call me anymore besides ever-nagging Jizz, a three-headed dishwasher promising me the world if I’d only give him a chance. Soon, I’d have to answer her if I wanted any hope of getting rid of an ex who couldn’t keep his hands off me any better than Little Anus on a binge. I was done with men and didn’t want to deal with it – or frankly, any of them. I wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. In this orbit, it happened all the time. I needed to file a report if I hoped to help the other females on my planet afraid to leave their ships. I didn’t want to be responsible for that no matter what, even if they were strangers and even if it wasn’t the Goddesses’ will. I made a note to myself to deal with her later. I didn’t want to but knew I had to. I wished people would just leave me alone. Still, I couldn’t avoid the saying that kept running circles round my brain like the sun and moon. You know it. I’m sure you do—the one about two stars and one comet. Maybe the harassment stalker suit could solve both my problems in one shot. It’s not like I had much to lose. I was lost: Lost in space without a compass and a weak plan at best. Something had to change. I could not go on this way.

  I RETURNED TO BOOTH one with four pies, a fake smile, and a plan to get through another meal with drooling horny humans. I had the advantage. Our IQs are said to be three times that of humans. What I knew was that telling them off wouldn’t work. To get through this meal, I’d need a different strategy. I decided to go with serving them a heaping dish of false hope.

  Pushing the triplet girls to the sky and leaning further than necessary over the table, I made sure Stinky Breath got the perfect view of my cleavages. As his gaze stuck like superglue to my boobs, it took everything in me not to pop him in the nose or dump the slices right over his head into his solar windblown hair. Don’t do it. Not worth it. Don’t be a quitter like Stardust. You can do this. I glanced down at my personal service watch and realize it was only half past a Martian’s ass, quarter to his balls, and sighed. Rim Job Remus cleared his throat, asking his star-struck friend how the view was.

  Ignoring him, I leaned back, reaching to the floating serving tray and grabbing his slices. I smiled, wondering how he’d like the taste of my spit or the phlegm I’d just coughed up in the kitchen. The perk of serving earthlings is that they have no clue what we’re really feeding them. Run out of ketchup? No problem. There was always the blood of an alien from Galaxy Seven. People here didn’t play with those kind of aliens and killed them immediately on landing. Need mayo? Well, let’s just say Jizz gets his name for a reason. Like a common stripper looking for an extra tip, I held Rim Job’s tray in front of
me and leaned on in.

  “You’re next, sweetheart,” I said, hating myself for the unspoken pinky promise my tone sent.

  Oddly, he didn’t look at my tits. Instead, he stared at the pies and thanked me like a normal being. Stunned, I leaned even further forward as fatty adjusted himself in the booth across from us. I put the plate on the table just in time.

  Boom.

  The place jumped and I lost my balance, landing face first in Rim Job’s lap only inches away from his personal urination device, filled with a tannish-yellow liquid. Fucking epic. Way to stick to the plan. Goddess dammit! With both hands on either side of his waist, I quickly pushed myself back up into the standing position, my cheeks turning lime green. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  Rim Job smiled at me. “It’s okay.”

  Turning to hide in the kitchen with Jizz, I flinched when it happened: He touched me. With a tender, slimy earthling hand, Rim Job Remus grabbed my arm. The gentleness of it told me he wasn’t trying to be fresh. While he and Onion Breath had clearly come to the eatery for more than galaxy pie, that was off the proverbial table for Rim Job anyway for now. I hate to admit it, but it sort of felt nice. It had been awhile since a man had touched me in a way that didn’t involve roughness or the casual bathroom quickie at the eatery where seduction began with “Don’t tell Mom.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his oval human eyes bearing into my face.

  I waited for them to drop. I expected him to move from there to my tits, where earthling man eyes always seemed to land. Instead, they stayed up. It was something out of this world, I tell ya. Even the Goddess would have been amazed if she’d been watching that day. She wasn’t. Not until later.

  “I’m fine,” I said, anxious to remove myself from the situation. It didn’t matter how nice he was being to me. I knew earthlings had different agendas. Hell, there was a time in 2080 when they were trying to kill us. The nuclear struggle between us and them had been going on for years until they finally surrendered fully aware their planet lacked the artificial intelligence ours had.

  “You bumped your head on the table,” he said, kindly removing his hand from my arm.

  I reached to my forehead, running my fingers across its deep grooves and pushing my intelligence chip back in.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “The meal’s on me. Don’t worry about it. Can I get you anything else?”

  Just when I thought the conversation might be going well, the fat one ruined it when he piped in with “A handy would be nice.”

  Mother fucker! Really? Has he lost his fucking mind? I just hit my head on the table and this asshole wants a hand job? Is this even happening? How are humans so – evil? Rude! That’s it! I’m now a lesbian. D.O.N.E. Done.

  Rim Job didn’t find the joke any funnier than I did.

  “Dude. No. She’s hurt,” he said.

  “I’m fine!” With that, I spun around and marched right back to the kitchen.

  I walked past Jizz and directly up to Luna, who was sitting by the long titanium counter we use for dessert prep.

  “I quit!”

  “What? You can’t quit. Stardust called in again.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Why would you quit? You’re the head waitress here! You’re lucky to have that job, you know. If it wasn’t for Little Anus, you’d still be taking the empty shifts that don’t get the tips, you know.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “What happened?” Luna’s face slid into a slight frown. For a second, I would have thought that she actually cared about me. But I wasn’t Little Anus so that was impossible. The only beings Luna had ever cared about besides herself were the Anus’s.

  “Those nasty earthlings. They won’t stop staring at my tits. I just face planted into a piss device. I didn’t come here for golden shower time. I’m sick of this! I’m not that kinky.” Your shitty son? He is! Make him serve the earthlings.

  Jizz, who had been listening as usual, let out a laugh, and then, “Want me to kill them?”

  Luna and I spun around at the same time.

  “Yes.”

  “No!”

  He stared at us with six tiny triangular shaped eyes, running his hands over his bald middle head and tilting his left head to the side.

  “Which is it?”

  “Yes. They need to die,” I said. I didn’t mean it. I realize you can’t go around killing human beings simply because they are assholes. It doesn’t mean I didn’t like the idea of watching Jizz bang their heads together into infinity comas. That, I did. And Jizz was crazy enough...

  “Fine. They die.”

  “Jizz! Don’t you do it,” Luna said.

  “Well, it’s bullshit. I’m sick of watching it. She has a right to do her job without being messed with.”

  Luna sighed. “Yes. She does. But the humans are harmless. And hell, they tip. Why can’t you just flirt with them, take their money, and not think more of it?”

  “Here’s an idea. You go deal with it!”

  I took off my apron and threw it three feet across the large commercial kitchen to Luna. Purple coins flew everywhere as my tips for the day spilled across the shiny stainless steel floor. Jizz laughed as Luna’s heart-shaped mouth fell open.

  “What’s going on in here?” Big Anus, who must have just walked in, asked.

  “Neptune’s having a fit. She says she can’t deal with the earthlings. Staring at her tiny tits again. Now she’s saying she’s gonna quit. We don’t have the staff for that. Stardust called in again.”

  “I thought Stardust quit?”

  Luna shrugged. “I hired her back again.”

  Big Anus shook his head. “Where’s Junior? Have him serve for the rest of the shift.” He turned to me, “You take the rest of the afternoon off. I’m sorry this happened to you, but you need to learn to cope or something. I mean, it’s just fat pockets with nipples. Tits aren’t a big deal. Especially yours. Small. Besides, that’s a human thing. Yours don’t even make milk. No point in them.”

  I stood, shaking my head. I couldn’t believe this was happening. In that moment, I decided to give them all what they wanted. I needed to teach them all a lesson. Right there, in the in the middle of the kitchen, I took my shirt and three-way holster off. I stood there, naked from the top half up as Jizz’s six eyes widened. Even he stared at my three perfectly symmetrical B-cup tits. I shook my shoulders making them jiggle.

  “See? Take a look. They aren’t a big thing. They’re useless. They don’t even make milk.” For extra effect, I pinched my middle nipple, screaming, “Got clothes pins? Maybe we could try that. You know, spice it up a little.”

  “Put your shirt on!” Luna commanded. “Lower your voice!”

  I folded my arms over my naked chest. “Nope. I’m here to do a job. I’m no quitter. My name is Neptune, not Stardust.”

  With that, I walked out of the kitchen and into the dining area.

  The pigs in booth one nearly fell out of their seats, causing the eatery to hop and springing my not-that-tiny jugs into a dance of their own. With a big, shit-eating grin on my face, I smiled at them. With my hands, I lifted them up and said, “Who’s thirsty?”

  Rim Job, entirely perplexed based on the contorted expression on his thin human lips, began unbuttoning his shirt. At first, I thought he’d stand up and try to get it on with me. But that’s not what happened. Instead, he wormed his way out of that booth. With diners of all kinds, ages, and planets of origin pointing at me and whispering, he simply stood up and pulled his shirt fully off. I’d never seen a human chest. It was hairy. And it was missing a nipple. Disgusting. I tilted my head, trying not to gawk but feeling sorry for him for having no center tit. It was strange, to say the least. I took two steps back but he moved faster. He caught me by the waist, pulling me into him. Then, the strangest of things happened. With both arms, he lifted his shirt over my shoulders and concealed me. I didn’t try to stop him. One by one, he buttoned the shirt to cover me. I didn’t know what to think
of this. Was he trying to protect me? Could a human actually have compassion? That was something very hard for me to believe.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Because it’s the right thing,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Tongue tied and for reasons I can’t explain, I spit out the words “Sector 315a is three lefts and two rights, through the seventh galaxy and past the six moons of Jeibner.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Got it,” the fat one said.

  I still couldn’t believe what was happening. Even now, it’s hard to get my head around.

  But it transpired. It really did. It was all over the news and in the “Universe Gazette.” Diners there that day even got video on their personal devices. They framed the story as “heart-warming” and something to unite us all. They made me the poster child for female rights and the voice for sexual harassment. That day, at the restaurant, with two fart-smelly humans, I became a legend and Rim Job a hero. I never served another slice of Galaxy Pie again. Instead, I walked out with Rim Job’s shirt, called the advocate, and never looked back. I became Neptune Star, the face of gender equality for all races and species. In fact, I became famous around the entire galaxy and never did remember to warn Rim Job and his sidekick that Sector 315a was only a scam for purple coins. I don’t regret that. If they wanted to chase alien ass after what they’d just seen? Well, who was I to stop them? It was simply a matter of comic justice...