Wednesday, January 27, 2021 Early Morning, Sasha’s Car
It was early in the morning, the cool air rushing into a horse’s face through an open window. The car was quiet, sans the background noise from the stereo and the engine roaring as he shifted gears, the instrument cluster’s rev gauge matching the roar all the while, going from full-throttle in a low gear to a higher gear, speeding along the backroads at 60 to 70 miles per hour with his bat wings closed tight.
“Sasha, what the hell are you doing?” a girl said groggily through the background noise, almost as if she expected to be told what she already knew.
“I’ve been rebuilding this thing for a while now, and I’m not about to test it during the day when other people are driving on the roads, Eve,” Sasha said, pushing his glasses back to his face and adjusting his black fedora.
“That’s an old Plymouth, and you have six figures in the bank, maybe seven. Why aren’t you doing anything with it?” Evelyn said, “You’re one of the smartest people in the world. I’d think you’d know when to go to a dealership and buy something new.”
“Why don’t you move out of your parent’s house?” Sasha retorted, “Also, I might need you to go to Walmart and pick up some vodka, assuming you don’t reek of sex.”
“I’m hanging up now,” Evelyn said after a few moments, ending the call and going back to her one-night-stand.
As soon as his Air Supply album started playing again, he turned the volume down so he could hear the roar of the engine.
“A little rough, but nothing to really worry about,” Sasha said, “Though it definitely wouldn’t hurt to make sure the timing on the engine was right again.”
Normally, Sasha would be doing everything he could to avoid talking on the phone at 2:00 in the morning, but he knew that if Evelyn wanted to get in contact with him, then she damn-sure would.
«I love 80s Plymouth cars,» he said in Russian, «Don’t give me shit about the K engines.»
The time on the stereo flashed 2:03 as Sasha shifted the car to the lowest gear he could possibly hold sixty miles per hour at, taking a sharp curve at speed while the engine practically begged for mercy.
“Let’s see how you hold up at this end of the power band,” he said, keeping his hoof welded to the accelerator.
Meanwhile in the exosphere, a cuboid object was rocketing towards the ground, carrying a female alien within. As terrified as she was for stealing an interstellar capsule, it was still the logical thing to do. Her civilization never wanted her, therefore a single interstellar capsule was a very small price to pay if they never had to see her again and she never had to see them again.
Still, she was taking a huge gamble on going to a potentially-deadly planet.
“Please, let this be the break I need,” she said in her native language, scratching one foot with her other, “I just want to be able to live what’s left of my life with some kind of dignity.”
As the ground grew ever closer to her out of the window, the planet seemed mostly lifeless, but she nonetheless saw signs of civilization existing.
“If they have recently died, maybe their corpses could provide sustenance until I figure something else out. Just don’t die, bitch. I’m not ready to see the death dragon yet.”
Despite not believing particularly strongly in any deity, she said a small prayer to whatever might be up there as she braced for impact.
Sasha, meanwhile, rolled up the window most of the way, keeping his hoof on the gas to continue stress-testing the engine when he saw something shooting from the sky and quickly crashing into the ground several feet from the road.
In a panic, Sasha stood on the brake, leaving tire tracks on the pavement as the engine stalled and the car skidded to a stop.
«What the hell!?» he said in Russian.
Stepping on the parking brake and getting out, he took a moment to make sure what he was seeing wasn’t the result of any form of mild hypoxia before walking over to the metal thing as something emerged from it, looking at him for barely a moment before getting back in and shutting whatever hatch it stood out of.
«Hello?» Sasha said in Russian as he made it to the metal box.
After several moments, the alien stood back up and looked at Sasha for a minute before speaking.
“Who are you?” she said in an alien language.
She was a few inches shorter than Sasha, was naked and full-figured with featureless breasts, and she appeared to be an aquatic creature with a human head. She had a cerulean tongue and eyes; medium-length pale-pink hair tied into a messy ponytail that looked like it was kept at length by cutting it with a large shard of glass or another blunt blade; deep jungle green horns that curled around themselves and ended in a point; webbing on both her hands and feet; toes that ended in claws and fingers that seemed to come to a rounded point; and a short stub of a tail.
“Are you okay?” Sasha asked, playing charades with his words as he spoke, “Can I help you?”
“Does your mucus burn?”
“Are… you… lost?” Sasha asked.
At that moment, they both heard a car approaching, so Sasha acted fast.
«Shit, someone’s coming! Get down!» he said in Russian, pulling her behind a large bush.
“What are you doing?” the alien asked in her language, worried for her own safety.
“Hello?” a girl said in Irish, “Sasha? Are you out here?”
Peeking through the bush, Sasha could see that she was a short girl getting out of a bright blue station wagon. She had shoulder-length chestnut hair, and olive eyes. She was wearing a pale-blue button-up shirt, dark pants, white sneakers, and stood at five-feet four-inches.
«Thank fuck, it’s just Sarah,» Sasha whispered in Russian.
Sarah looked around for a moment before getting her phone and texting Sasha.
Sarah Foxx: Sasha, are u out here?
Sasha’s phone buzzed when the text made it to his phone, so he replied, hoping to keep the Irish girl from coming and finding the alien.
Sasha: I’m out here. I finished the engine rebuild on my ‘92 Sundance, so I figured that I would stress-test it to make sure it was running properly. While I was coming out of Alpines’ City, I heard about a potential meteor shower, so I figured that I would look at it and give the car a break before I took it back home for the night. Some jackass’s math was off because there was only one, but the air out here is cool enough that I think I’ll stay out here a little longer. If my car is still running, would you mind killing the engine?
Sarah immediately texted back, not hearing the engine purring.
Sarah Foxx: It’s already off. Just don’t get sick
Sasha, in reality, had one arm around the alien girl to keep her out of sight with him, unaware that she was freeing one of her arms until she pried his arm off of her, worrying him about what would likely follow before she looked at him blankly, grabbed his shoulders, and forced him onto the ground.
“I won’t harm you,” she said quietly in her language.
Sasha let out a breath as the station wagon started again and the alien licked her hand and held it to his forehead, taking her out of reality for a few moments and paralyzing Sasha’s limbs.
«When she comes out, I’m gonna tear her to fucking shreds,» he said in Russian.
The alien, meanwhile, was in a reality within Sasha’s brain. Gone was the planet she crashed onto and its extraordinarily dark sky, it having been replaced with the tightly-packed neural networks that made the Terran’s brain, everything labeled multiple times in different languages, though she couldn’t read any of them. Eventually, with enough looking, she found the language center of his brain and went to it, seeing the Terran again, though this time with pads and wires attached to his head.
After a moment of hesitation, she pointed at her open mouth, then his head a few times, so he sat her down and attached some more pads with wires to her and she began quickly presenting him with the knowledge of her language, standing back up when the process was completed.
“I assume you’re here to learn a language?” it said, now in her language.
“I would like to learn the common language of this area of your planet. Am I correct to assume that your planet has many tongues?”
“That is, unfortunately, correct,” the Terran said, rolling his eyes before presenting her with his information on a language commonly used in the area, “This is called ‘American English’.”
As soon as the “transfer” was done, the Terran took off the pads and the alien left again, returning to reality.
“What the hell is wrong with you!?” Sasha yelled when the alien came back to reality and he was no longer paralyzed.
“I have… a foot fungus.”
“And I have a rash,” Sasha said, “Is there a point to this?”
“I needed to learn your language. Do you call yourself ‘Sasha’?”
“Yeah,” Sasha said, “Why?”
“I have been learning about you for several seasons,” she said.
“Okay,” Sasha said, shaking his head slightly, “This is one of those few times where I have to ask what the hell is happening here.”
The alien cocked her head and looked at Sasha blankly before opening his mouth and sticking her tongue in and licking the inside of his mouth, much to both of their confusion and dismay before she took hers out and spat on the ground away from them.
“Eukh,” she said, “That was disgusting.”
“Why in the literal fuck did you do that!?” Sasha asked.
“I thought it was the ritual that Terrans do when they like each other.”
“I don’t know you!”
“I apologize,” the alien said, getting up and walking a few feet away from Sasha as he sat up and she looked back at her capsule, “I ran the statistics and probabilities of finding a new home with you, and I knew they were very low… even lower that I would be wanted and happy here. My people humiliated and ruined me and I try to think that my kind existed somewhere in the universe. The incubus that told of you gave me hope in near-impossible numbers. I see that he was wrong, the numbers were correct, and I had a false sense of security.”
Normally, Sasha wouldn’t give the furry crack of a rat’s ass for other's problems, but something turned on inside him, prompting him to actually listen to the alien.
“What if we started over and went a little slower,” Sasha said, walking over to her, “You’ve practically dictated what it’s like for me to deal with the other assholes around here.”
“You will have me?” she said, looking at him.
“Well, whatever happens, it had to have taken an amazing mind to work out those numbers and find me from another star system. At the very least, great minds have to stick together, you know?”
The alien smiled and wrapped her arms around Sasha before he did the same moments later.
“You know, for someone who hasn’t had a good life, you’ve got a nice body,” Sasha said, feeling his arms and hands sink into her slightly, “Your figure looks amazing.”
“My figure was permanently destroyed by the creation of immense amounts of fat deposits that rendered me completely immobile for months.”
“Well, I think it made you look sexy.”
“I came to your planet, hoping that you would be my mate for life.”
“It’s starting out good. Don’t think I’m weird, but mind if I cop a feel?”
The alien’s face turned a bright shade of blue as a flurry of emotions overcame her.
“Would you like to get to know me on a date later?”
“How does ‘After I let you cop a feel in return’ sound?” Sasha said, feeling of the alien’s soft body.
“You are clothed,” she said.
“Well, people who say they’re experts on the subject say to never take off your clothes on the first date, and if one person says otherwise, then to cut your losses and dump them,” Sasha said, taking the alien’s arms out from around him and undress as her face fell into confusion, “But those people are veritable dumbasses.”
“What are you saying?” the alien asked as Sasha felt the cool, night air on his body.
“I’m ready for you to cop a feel,” he said, “The only thing I’m still wearing are my horseshoes.”
“You have a muscular frame,” the alien said as she and Sasha started groping each other’s bodies.
“Don’t ever lose that padding you’ve got,” Sasha said.
“I estimate that I had roughly 1,250 pounds of it before,” the alien said, trying to turn the experience into seduction, “Would you like that on me?”
Sasha promptly took a step back, “Aw, hell naw!” he said, “A little is classy, but it stops being cute when you get to half a fucking ton!”
“I do not understand.”
“Sexiness is in the eye of the beholder,” Sasha said, “Some people like the idea of that so much that they fetishize it to an… irrational extent. I think you look cute with a little meat on your bones, but not to those extremes. I mean, you wear it nicely where some people don’t. Besides, I’m sure other girls are gonna come to you and ask what your secret is when they see you.”
“Do you still wish to date?”
“I don’t even know your name yet,” Sasha said.
“I wish to leave my past on what I believe in your tongue would be Egna.”
“Your home planet is called ‘Egna’?”
“Yes.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Alright, then who are you gonna be moving forward?” Sasha asked, putting his clothes on.
“I used the pseudonym Aygylaana Odunovna Chabykina for my work.”
“Alright,” Sasha said, “Aygylaana, I know a diner that’s open all night and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“I am ready when you are,” Aygylaana said.
“I have something in the trunk of my car,” Sasha said as they made it to the blue car and propped opened the trunk, revealing a few boxes and a tool set.
“What do you have in here?”
“A friend’s junk,” Sasha said, pulling out a gray t-shirt, a piece of fabric the size of the towel, and a small container of safety pins, “Put this on and I’ll turn this into a blouse.”
“I did not think that you would be as resourceful as you are,” Aygylaana said, putting on the shirt.
“I know it doesn’t fit right,” Sasha said, getting her dressed enough to avoid getting kicked out of a restaurant before closing the hatch, “But if you’re careful, then you should be okay.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, it’s not normal to go around butt-fuck-naked around here,” Sasha explained as he started the old car back up while Aygylaana struggled to get in.
“Am I wrong to assume the door handle will open the door?”
“It sticks sometimes,” Sasha said, “Just show it who’s boss. I’ll put some WD-40 on it tomorrow.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a lubricant,” Sasha said, “Some people use it as a go-to for any kind of mess.”
“There are a few things I should tell you about myself if we are to live with each other,” Aygylaana said, “I do not feel emotion and form connections like most species do, I do not believe in any deity so much as I believe in numbers and facts, I have lived in what you may call a warehouse for most of my life, I have been subject to multiple and unusual forms of torture and used for the sexual gratification of other males, I have often hated myself, I was drugged for a period, and I am incapable of producing offspring because of the aforementioned torture. I hope that this does not interfere with what may happen tonight.”
“You know,” Sasha said, “The more we get to know each other, the more like each other we get. I can’t have kids either, I don’t feel emotion, I really don’t believe in religion of basically any kind, and I’ve had people come onto me sexually. Honestly, I don’t know if it was just for kicks or if they were serious.”
“May I ask where we are going after dinner?”
“My place,” Sasha said, “I want you to live with me.”
Aygylaana began having mixed feelings again, “You will not do those things to me, will you?”
“I’m not turning you into a living drug bag, I’m not gonna make you into a one-ton waterbed alien for weird guys, I’m not gonna do experiments on you, I’m not doing any of that shit.”
“I was serious when I told you about my foot fungus.”
“That’s alright,” Sasha said, “On my left hoof, I have a tattoo of a hoof.”
“You’re funny,” Aygylaana said.
Eventually, they made it to a 24-Hour diner in Alpines’ City.
“Can you get out?” Sasha said, killing the engine and opening his door.
“I believe so,” Aygylaana said, getting out as well.
“So, what kind of food did you have on Egna?” Sasha asked as they went inside and sat down at a table, “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m curious about you. The only frame of reference I have is an idiot from Cygnus that thinks she can speak Chinese after she says ‘Ching chong chang-chang’.”
“Oh, it is mostly from the waters, at least what I preferred to eat. You might call the creatures fish, but my favorite thing of all as far as sustenance from Egna is of concern, I would always keep swamp water near me when I was researching,” she looked at her body, “I could’ve had a little less, but it was good and nobody cared until now.”
“Well, my softie with a brain isn’t going anywhere,” Sasha said as Aygylaana laughed into her hand.
After a few moments, a middle-aged beaver came over to their table, alerted to the new patrons by the sound of Sasha’s horseshoes clacking against the floor with every step.
“Welcome to Jacky’s,” she said, “My name is Elise and I’ll be your waitress this evening. What can I get you two to drink?”
Aygylaana quickly scrambled for a menu when Sasha answered.
“Two Dr Peppers with no ice when the food comes and two beers right now.”
“Alright,” Elise said, writing down the drinks and heading back to the kitchen.
“What was that about?”
“Well, you have no frame of reference for the food and drinks we have on Earth, so I figured that I’d get you something I know I like and we could go from there.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Aygylaana said as Elise sat two bottles of beer down on the table.
“Cheers,” Sasha said, opening one.
“Can you?” Aygylaana said, handing hers to him.
“It’s just a screw-off top,” Sasha said.
“Of course,” Aygylaana said, getting the bottle open and letting the liquid go into her mouth before realizing how putrid it tasted.
“You okay?” Sasha asked as Aygylaana sprayed the liquid out of her mouth.
“Dragons!” she said in her language, “Why does it taste so terrible like that?”
Sasha drank some more of his beer while she looked at him with watery eyes and blue cheeks.
“Why does it taste so badly?” she asked.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Sasha explained, “What all research did you do?”
“I was mostly interested in publishing findings based around new uses for the neural networks in our brains and its capability to interface with technology.”
“I’ve kind of hit a brick wall with that,” Sasha said, “Like I said before, the only other alien that anyone on Earth really knows of is the Cygnian idiot. Her name’s Melanie, you’ll know her when you see her. She’s such an idiot, though, that I can’t verify anything that she says reliably.”
“That must be sad,” Aygylaana said, “So, if my understanding is correct, we are the only two aliens on Terra?”
“From space, yeah, pretty much.”
“Could I see your tattoo?” Aygylaana said, moving her chair next to Sasha’s so he could prop up his leg.
“What about your foot fungus?” Sasha asked, showing her his hoof tattoo.
Aygylaana propped her right foot up on the table, revealing a large, orange, and slightly peeling and fuzzy discoloration on the sole of her foot, “It only mildly its-hes!” she said, smiling with her mouth slightly open.
Sasha could see an upper row of teeth, but no real lower teeth to speak of, prompting another question, “Does your species not have a lower set of teeth or did someone punch them out to be a dick?”
“We do not have prominent lower teeth,” she said, scratching the fungus on her foot as Elise came back, “I need a cold compress.”
“Have you decided on what you’d like to eat?” the beaver asked.
“Two BLTs with hashbrowns,” Sasha said, showing the waitress Aygylaana’s foot, “Also, could I get some ice for my girlfriend’s foot fungus?”
Elise looked at them in disbelief as some kind of puss dripped from Aygylaana’s foot before recoiling in disgust as the alien started scratching it, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” she said, walking back to the kitchen as she wrote down the order, disgusted by what she just saw.
“Do you remember any of your work?” Sasha asked.
“I have an eidetic memory, so I remember all of my work.”
“I have Hyperthymesia,” Sasha said, “I can remember every detail of my life since I was a month old.”
“Dear Dragons, I have that too!” Aygylaana said, “I never knew what it was called!”
“When did your memory develop?” Sasha asked.
“By your Terran calendar, seven weeks!” Aygylaana said as a baggie filled with ice fell down onto the table.
“Get that disgusting thing off of the table!” Elise yelled, heading back to the kitchen as Aygylaana started icing the fungus.
“I am not worried about it,” Aygylaana said, “As long as I keep it clean, it does not itch. Still, I am not exactly sure what caused it, though I have had it since I was a child. I went to sleep one moonrise and when I woke up, I had a fungus.”
“Interesting,” Sasha said as Aygylaana finally put her nasty foot down and moved her chair back to the other side of the table.
“What about your tattoo?”
“It was the day I got my car. I didn’t wanna go to school that day, of course I was only auditing classes from seventh grade, so I went to the tattoo parlor on Muzzle Road. I went in, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to get or where, so I decided to get a hoof tattooed onto my hoof. I couldn’t walk properly for a few weeks after that because it had to heal, so I wore my horseshoes for practically the whole time so the bottom of my hoof wouldn’t make contact with anything. When I did anything that needed my left hoof, I would just use the front tip of my hoof because that’s the closed side of a horseshoe. After the thing finally healed, I was able to walk like normal again.”
“Well, you definitely know how to enjoy yourself!” Aygylaana said, smiling as Elise brought out their food.
“Oh God,” Elise said, seeing the puss on the table before she sat the food down, “You two, move to a different table,” she said, setting the food on the next table over, “I have to clean this one now.”
“When I was licking the inside of your mouth, it tasted like foyfsepf,” Aygylaana said as they moved to the other table, “Oddly enough, I also felt a sensation in my sex organs briefly.”
“Would you wanna try kissing again?” Sasha asked, “I’ll show you how we actually do it.”
“It seems like the logical thing to do,” Aygylaana said, moving next to Sasha, “I am ready for you to teach me.”
“Alright,” Sasha said, pulling her close and locking lips with her as she pulled him close as well.
After a minute, they let each other go.
“I am feeling it again, along with excess moisture,” Aygylaana said, looking at her lap.
“So this is what an erection feels like,” Sasha said, “Interesting.”
“Do you also feel like you need to act on this sensation?”
“Maybe after we have whatever meal it is and get back to my place.”
At that, the two both ate their supper in silence before Sasha took the ticket to the register and paid.
“Ready?” he said, coming back to the table.
“Absolutely,” Aygylaana replied, following him out to the car, undressing the whole way.
“So, seems like you went through a lot back on Egna,” Sasha said, trying to deduce how Aygylaana’s behavior and trauma were linked together several minutes into the ride, “How are you so calm now?”
“The way I process reality involves a mastery of First Principals Thinking, and I don’t know of anyone who -”
“First Principals Thinking is the process of taking everything down to the simplest and most fundamental truths,” Sasha said, “I’m not your typical dumbass with an IQ not much higher than where this thing originally pegged out at when my people were still using Teletype and dial-up modems for the internet thirty years ago,” he said before honking the horn for several moments at the car in front of his, “I’m smart. I’m taking the universe for a ride.”
“I break things down to their fundamental truths and do not analogize as my primary thinking. I know the bitches from Egna would try to torture me and make my life toysaru-retzohs-voss, or as you would call it, a living hell, but you have been pleasant to me since we started communicating and have shown no malicious intent that I can detect.”
“That’s also to say you have absolutely no frame of reference for me or the Terran people as a whole, as well as the reverse being true in that I have no frame of reference for you or your people. For all I know, you could be here to have sex with me before obliterating the whole solar system.”
“Do you process reality the same way I do?”
“Absolutely,” Sasha said, starting to debunk reality, “All life and existence is meaningless, the universe is a cold and unforgiving place that makes us just to eat us, and even the deities that everyone else believes in only exists within the few neurological pathways that gives us our existence.”
Aygylaana had definitely thought about everything that constituted as existence and reality, but she had never really thought about going further than that.
“I know when I have lost,” Aygylaana said, “But, to live is to risk it all. Elsewise, you are a chunk of matter blowing through reality.”
Sasha became more and more annoyed as Aygylaana’s intellectual prowess was shown, while she was well on her way to accepting that there was someone like her in reality at all, resulting in the car ride becoming tense and quiet until Sasha turned into the driveway of his house, leaving his car outside for the rest of the night and shutting the garage door before going in with Aygylaana, who had accepted the fact of Sasha’s existence fully within the past few minutes.
Never had he been so relieved to see that 70s split-level before.
“What’s your deal?” Sasha asked, walking to a counter that separated the galley-style kitchen and dining room from the living room and tossed his keys in a dish.
“I could only assume the same or a similar one that you would have,” Aygylaana said.
“Someone as smart as me doesn’t exist without a catch,” Sasha said, looking at her, “Especially when you should have some form of PTSD.”
“The claims my people were making about me during… whatever it was they were doing, were honestly so incredibly dumb and illogical that I could not tell if they were trying to have fun at my expense or if they being serious.”
“What are you talking about?” Sasha asked, crossing his arms and walking to Aygylaana, his footsteps clacking throughout the house.
“When I was left outside and unable to move under my own mass, a common taunt was for me to use my brain to move myself telekinetically. On another occasion, when my body was filled with moisture-removing drugs, I was told to ‘use my brain sweat’,” Aygylaana said, “I know of no lifeform, except my former incubus and its related beings, capable of either feat currently. Could we kiss again?”
“Sure,” Sasha said, leaning in for a kiss, not unlike the one they shared at Jacky’s before starting to pull away when he felt aroused once more.
“Keep going,” Aygylaana said, keeping them together and putting her leg up, “I want to see what happens.”
“Follow me,” he said, taking her upstairs to the bedroom and getting on the bed as Aygylaana undressed him and held the bedsheet around her lower chest.
“Now that I have you here,” she said seductively, holding him to the bed and flaunting her mucus-covered body, “I am your new overlord, and every Terran will submit to my wishes or I will end your existence.”
“What do you want, then?” Sasha said, smirking at her as she took off his glasses and sat them on a nightstand.
“I want you to entertain me, you primitive lowlife,” she said, opening the bedsheet as Sasha pulled her on top of his body.
“Then get ready for the time of your life,” Sasha said, braying loudly as she started “being entertained” by him.
Over half-an-hour later, they were both laying under the sheet, frazzled, exhausted, panting, and smiling.
“That was amazing,” Aygylaana said as Sasha pulled her close.
“Is the ‘sexy space overlord’ pleased with my prowess and hairy body?”
“Yes!” she said, looking over her left shoulder at him, “Your new master is pleased, irresistible early specimen.”
“You said you did some research on your foot fungus,” Sasha asked, “What did you find out?”
“It is a fungus that only affects Egnadians with two recessive alleles on their 97th chromosome. Normally, because my people live in the water, it is of no issue and not contagious to many individuals. Those individuals generally spend most of their time in the seas. Eighty percent of Egna is covered with water, though it only has a depth of about twenty kilometers at its deepest, with most waters being much shallower, not going past five kilometers in depth. Our climate is much more humid than what you have here and too hot for my liking.”
“Being amphibious must have some advantages.”
“I felt them as well.”
After their activities, they slowly fell asleep.