Alien Education

by Gini Koch

  “I’ll do my best. You two enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  “You want me to calibrate the gate for you?” Jeff asked.

  Chuckie shook his head. “We’ll leave through the gate in the Secret Service office.”

  “Wow, the one that’s not in a bathroom? Look at you, all fancy.”

  Chuckie laughed. “That’s us.”

  Jeff got up and escorted them to our door. Once they were gone he looked over his shoulder at us. “You two want more sodas while you discuss this romantic turn of events?”

  “That seems totes like profiling to me,” Lizzie said.

  “Not that you’re wrong,” I added.

  Jeff laughed. “Be right back. Don’t start the gossip without me.”

  CHAPTER 39

  JEFF CAME BACK with Cherry Cokes for all three of us and we did indeed discuss the Chuckie and Nathalie matchup for a while. We all agreed that they were both good enough for the other, felt that the match had good potential, and speculated about how long they’d been dating.

  Well, Lizzie and I speculated, and Jeff confirmed or denied. “Why didn’t you tell me he was finally dating again?” I asked, once we’d finished with that game.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Frankly, he hasn’t wanted to get his hopes up either, and neither has she. They’ve both been very tentative, and it’s been a very slow start. Thank Elaine for this, by the way.”

  “Because she had Nathalie move into the Cairo? In which case, we should thank Pierre, too, because he’s who put Chuckie there.”

  Jeff chuckled. “Nope. Elaine played matchmaker. The three of them eat together a lot since they work together and live in the same building and on the same floor. Elaine started a dinner round robin, then once she was sure they were clicking, she ‘felt ill’ or ‘was exhausted’ when dinner was at either Chuck’s place or Nathalie’s. It gave them a safe way to test the waters. They haven’t been dating all that long, really.”

  “He likes her. A lot.”

  Jeff nodded. “He does. She likes him a lot, too. So, if all goes well, two people who deserve to be happy again will be.”

  Lizzie sighed a happy sigh. “I just love it when this stuff happens. The uncles weren’t big on the romance side of things, and my dad refuses to date.”

  “Why?” Hey, I was curious.

  She shook her head. “He says it’s because he’s too different and that having me as his daughter gives him all the family he needs. But I don’t believe it.” Her voice dropped. “I think he has a lost love or something and he’s still pining.”

  “Interesting take.” Frankly, had a feeling Siler was telling Lizzie the truth. He aged so slowly that it could make a long-term relationship difficult. And the Assassination Lifestyle didn’t lend itself to romantic entanglements. “But that just means you get all his attention.”

  She smiled. “It does, so I don’t mind.” Despite two Cokes and far too much sugar during the afternoon, she yawned. Widely.

  Jeff grunted. “Time for bed, young lady.”

  “Awww, do I have to?” But she didn’t sound like she wanted us to give in.

  “Yes,” Jeff said firmly. “As everyone’s said, tomorrow’s a big day.”

  We escorted Lizzie to her room—in part because Wasim was here, in part because neither one of us put it past her to go after Team Tough Guys to help out or observe, and in part because while she might complain about our being overprotective, actually Lizzie liked it a lot.

  Hugged her and gave her kisses on her forehead, handed her off to Nadine, who was already ready for bed and confirmed that Jamie and Charlie were fast asleep, and Jeff and I headed back to our room.

  “At last we’re alone,” Jeff said as we closed the door.

  Leaned against him. “Today has been so . . . long.”

  He hugged me. “It has. You were up so early, how’re you holding up?”

  “Honestly? I’m ready for bed.”

  “I have no complaint about that whatsoever,” Jeff purred.

  Perked right up. “Yeah. It’s been a long day.”

  Jeff grinned. “Let’s make it longer.” And with that, he bent and kissed me.

  As per usual, Jeff’s mouth and tongue owned mine and, also as per usual, in short order I was grinding against him.

  Jeff had me up in his arms in a moment and I wrapped my legs around him and we did one of the things we did best—got our clothes off while ravaging each other.

  Because we were in the White House and didn’t want to ruin things that were priceless or merely just old, I didn’t kick my shoes off with abandon and Jeff didn’t toss our clothes all over the place. We managed a nice trail of stuff all the way to the bed. I was proud of us, with the tiny part of my mind not consumed with Jeff’s mouth, hands, and what was my favorite body part of his, which was a very tiny part of my mind indeed. In direct contrast to that body part of Jeff’s, which was in no way tiny.

  We were naked and in bed and the day was totally looking up. In the past, prior to Jamie’s arrival, we’d have taken hours on foreplay. Sometimes we were still able to, but two children and a teenaged ward, and Jeff being in the highest office in the land, plus my Galactic Representative Responsibilities, meant that foreplay was limited so we wouldn’t get caught midway through because some lunatic was trying to blow us up or one of our children had a bad dream.

  So, Jeff merely spent a few minutes nipping, licking, and otherwise arousing my neck, which was my main erogenous zone. Once I was practically screaming due to arousal, he moved down to my breasts.

  He’d taken me over the edge this way our first night together, and he had a record he was quite proud of to maintain. So my breasts always got the special time they deserved and enjoyed. He sucked, nipped, and stroked, while I gasped.

  “What did you bake for me?” he purred into the spot on my chest between my breasts.

  “Oh . . . oh God . . . Jeff . . . ahhh . . .” I was rarely able to be coherent when he had me going, and almost never felt it was worth the effort to try.

  He sucked my right nipple. “What was that?”

  “Gahhhh . . .”

  Now for my left nipple. “Come again?”

  “Oh . . . yes . . . please.” The last word said in a wail that turned into a yowl of happiness as he stroked my nipples with his thumb and little finger, slid his tongue back up to my neck and his other hand around to the small of my back and I went over the edge.

  “Mmm, that’s what I like,” he purred against my neck. Then he reared up and I saw that he had my favorite look of his in the world on his face—his Jungle Cat About To Eat Me Look. “Ready for more, baby?” he asked in a half-purr, half-growl that made my hips buck.

  “Always.” Hey, I was clear that there were times to make sure I spoke up.

  He grinned a very wicked grin, then pounced on my neck again, ravaging the spot that turned me into a puddle. Then he worked his way down to my breasts, shared some love with them, then trailed his tongue down to my navel.

  He traced my navel for a bit, while I whimpered and thrust my hips at him. He enjoyed making me work for it and wait for it, and if he didn’t deliver so spectacularly I’d have been miffed. But Jeff was always worth the wait.

  Sure enough, he finally took his talented tongue down between my legs and the real wailing began. As he stroked me inside and out, conversation—beyond wailing his name and yowling in cat-in-heat-speak—was out of the question. Coherent thought was pretty much out of the picture, too, as Jeff treated me to a variety of ways that his tongue, lips, and teeth could arouse me. There were quite a lot of ways, and he proved his dedication by always trying to find more of them.

  Finally, as he gently rubbed me between his teeth, I flipped over the edge. Grabbed his head, wrapped my legs around him, and thrust like a crazy person while I screamed his name.r />
  Fantastic orgasm finally done, let my legs drop and he nipped the inside of my thighs, causing my hips to buck yet again, then his tongue stroked my body all the way up to my neck. As he kissed me he slid inside me, and the real fun began.

  Wrapped my legs around his back and used my heels to shove his butt, aka his Perfect Thrusters, toward me. Jeff ended our kiss then started to do what I wanted—ratchet it up to eleven on the sexy scale.

  We thrust wildly against each other until I was sailing away again without being able to even pause between seeing the edge of climax and tumbling over it.

  My legs dropped, and Jeff straightened up and flipped them up to his shoulders. “Mmm, you want more, baby?”

  “Oh . . . God . . . yes . . .”

  He chuckled. “Good. Because I’m not done with you.”

  In this position it was hard for me to move much, but that wasn’t an issue. As he thrust into me, Jeff’s hand snaked around my thigh and he started playing with me, stroking me between two of his fingers, pleasuring me inside and out.

  Didn’t take long for my eyes to start to roll back into my head as another orgasm hit, this one so intense that I couldn’t do anything other than gasp.

  Jeff let my legs fall halfway, hooked his arms under my thighs, and ratcheted me back up to the edge, with slow, steady strokes that became faster and faster. Finally, we were back to wild and as he roared his release, it triggered me again and our bodies shook in time together.

  Finally, our bodies slowed, and he let my legs down, slid out of me, lay down, and pulled me on top of him. Snuggled my face into his neck. “That was fantastic.”

  He kissed my head. “Glad you thought so. It’s always fantastic with you for me, baby.”

  “You say the nicest things. And do the nicest things, too.”

  He chuckled. “You up for more or just want to sleep so you’re rested for tomorrow?”

  My turn to rear up and look at him. “You have to ask? I think nothing will get me prepared for tomorrow better than spending more time doing this with you.”

  Jeff smiled. “You really are the perfect woman.” Then he pulled me to him and kissed me for a long time.

  CHAPTER 40

  SUPER SEXY TIMES DONE, after we did it four more times, I was finally happy, fulfilled, and relaxed enough to fall asleep, my head on Jeff’s chest, his arms wrapped around me.

  My last thought before drifting off with my face snuggled into the hair on his chest was that it would be awesome if whoever did me a solid and shared some intel with me in my dreams.

  Sometimes, you should be careful what you ask for.

  I started dreaming immediately. Vivid dreams in living color. But they were chaotic and didn’t make sense. Thought I saw Michael Gower and his Poof Fuzzball. Then I saw Gladys Gower. Then a weird hazy thing that might have been Naomi or could have been Sandy the Superconsciousness I’d gotten to know and even sort of like during Operation Defection Election. Mephistopheles, the giant red faun fugly of my nightmares, was around, too. And more.

  Things I didn’t recognize, things I did, people who looked familiar, people who didn’t, places I didn’t recall, places I did—my dream was crowded, like an overstuffed cornucopia of the galaxy spilling out people, places, and things to share with me. Sharing what was the big question.

  Every person or being or thing with a mouth was talking at me. Not to me, since I couldn’t make out anything coherent, but definitely at me.

  Managed to share in my dream that I hadn’t wanted to talk to everyone who’d ever died, anywhere, ever. This helped a little bit. In a weird way.

  Most of those with mouths moved to the sides and settled in like a chorus. And, as they all sang the chorus of “Listen Like Thieves” by INXS in a sort of operatic style, I realized they were a Greek chorus. Wondered if Chef had put something in my food.

  However, at least this meant that most of the talking at me stopped. As long as I could ignore the chorus, I was good.

  As the chorus did their best to ensure that I couldn’t ignore them and shifted to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, the full song, no less, albeit softly, someone I didn’t know stepped forward. “You’ve asked for guidance,” he said. He was balding, average looking, and I figured around fifty. I’d never met him before, though there was a tiny inkling of memory that said I might have seen him somewhere before, in passing.

  “If possible, yes.”

  There was a crowd of people and creatures behind him. Definitely spotted Michael, Gladys, Fuzzball, and Wayne Ward, who was Walter and William’s middle brother. He’d been one of the empaths murdered horribly during Operation Confusion by Gaultier and his set of megalomaniacal geniuses. Started to have an idea of what I was talking to. Also started to get worried.

  The Spokesman nodded. “We’re here to help, but there are rules.”

  “Yeah, I know. Straight-out answers are forbidden, actual advice is forbidden, actual warnings are forbidden, crazy clues that make no sense but will seem sensible and even prophetic the moment the thing you’re warning me about happens but not a moment before are totally A-okay.”

  “Pretty much, yes.”

  “You’re human?”

  “I was.”

  Looked around, particularly at the chorus. Mephistopheles was in the chorus. He waved cheerfully to me as they hit the high falsetto notes in the song.

  “Is the song a clue?”

  “Everything’s a clue,” the Spokesman said.

  Groaned. “There are times I wonder why I ask for help.”

  “We wonder, too.”

  “Oh, not the old wheeze that I’ll always manage to prevail. That sounds great but reality says that there’s a whole lot of times I’ve only just managed to prevail by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.”

  “Nursery rhymes and fairy tales are helpful,” the Spokesman said, essentially unhelpfully.

  “Is that a clue about the Christopher-Bot the Second? Because if so, not getting it.”

  “Why not? You think right.”

  So it was a clue. And right now, what I thought was that I was definitely talking to ACE. Only not so much to ACE, but to all those who’d died who he’d chosen to bring into his collective consciousness.

  “Is Terry here?” Christopher’s late mother had implanted part of her consciousness into Jeff when he’d been a little boy. In turn, he’d implanted it into me. And she’d helped me, as much as she could. But ACE had taken that trace of Terry away.

  “She is not able to assist in this matter.”

  “Why not?”

  The Spokesperson shrugged. “She has no information that can help you right now.”

  Based on the chorus lined up, that would make her the only one. Searched the crowd. Definitely didn’t see Terry. Saw a lot of others I knew, but not her. Meaning ACE was keeping her away from me for whatever reason. Possibly Terry not being around was a clue. Possibly it was just the price the Superconsciousness Police were extracting for this particular visitation. But, one way or another, I had to work with who was actually here, so to speak.

  Considered this. The Gowers, Wayne, and Fuzzball made sense, and I’d already known they were in ACE’s Collective Consciousness Menagerie. Mephistopheles made sense, in that weird, fugly way my life liked to roll. Presumed some of these were dead astronauts. In fact, if I was a betting girl, and I was, the Spokesman was probably one of these, most likely the highest-ranking person and so the one doing the talking. And that made sense.

  All the people that didn’t look like any people I’d met—and by now, I’d met people who were giant Cthulhu monsters and human-sized slugs and tiny cockroach-rat things and everything you could think of in between—did not make sense.

  “Um, why are there so many of you? And by that I mean so many I wouldn’t recognize?”

  The Spokesperson seemed thrown by this ques
tion. Go me. “Ah, we’ve traveled quite a lot.”

  ACE had definitely gone walkabout, or into Superconsciousness Custody, or both, or something I couldn’t comprehend, and he’d been gone from Earth for months. Only a few of us knew that, but I was one of those few.

  “So, you’ve gone all over the galaxy now?”

  “Not to all of it,” the Spokesman said. “But much of it.”

  Looked around again. “Why did you join all these people in?”

  “They were good people who died too soon.”

  Looked right at Mephistopheles. “Pull the other one and all that jazz.”

  Mephistopheles grinned at me. Always kind of nice in a horrible way. My dreams were awesome like that. He also gave me a thumbs-up, which considering his digits were like clawed fingers, also fit the nice in a horrible way theme so near and dear to my dreaming heart.

  “Some are joined in because they can help you, you specifically, and to lose their knowledge would be a dangerous thing.”

  Thought on that, and thought hard. There were a lot of people here, more than I could count and, realistically, more than I could see. Terry was actively absent and I’d asked for her and been turned down. But that was because what she knew wasn’t what I needed to know. Ergo, it was time to roll the dice again and see if I got a seven or snake eyes.

  “Is Antony Marling here and, if he is, can I please speak with him?”

  Expected to wake up. But I didn’t. Or if I did, I was awake surrounded by people now singing “Sorry Sorry” by Rooney. They now had musical accompaniment. It was impressive in that Gonna Need Therapy When I Wake Up way.

  The chorus of this song was “sorry sorry for making your life a living hell.” And, as a trim, unexceptional-looking man somewhere in his sixties walked up, realized that everyone probably had their own theme song. Well, at least the Tunes Of My Nightmare would be a good compilation album.