---Thaïs’s perspective---
“Skunzie?” I call out through her door.
“I’m not here, Thaïs!” she responds, miserably.
“Oh… really(?)” I chuckle “Then I suppose there’s no one to tell me not to come in, is there(?)”
I wave open the door and step into her room.
“Where are you, Skunzie?” I smirk, looking around.
No answer returns, her apparently having worked out the paradox of vocalising that she isn’t here(!)
I shrug.
With as large as she is, there aren’t many places she could be hiding…
I head to the bed sized and shaped box that sits in the middle of the room.
I step over the side and begin wading through the waist height sleeping papers.
I plunge in my hands and, sure enough, they quickly meet her hard, cool, chitin plates.
I dig away the wadded up papers and quickly uncover a six limbed humanoid figure, curled into a ball and wrapped, protectively, in her own taillike hindbody.
The wheel-like disc she’s formed into right now would be the perfect shape for picking up and rolling out of the box… for someone much stronger than me!
She’s almost ×3 as heavy as me and I am not a strong or muscular individual!
Even in this low gravity, I know that manhandling her like that is a lost cause.
I settle for lowering myself into the sea of wadded paper and sitting with my back leaning against her.
“Why did you rush away, Skunzie?” I ask, gently.
No answer comes back.
“We were having a good time… then you just left… Everyone was disappoin...”
“No they weren’t!” she interrupts, her translated tone that of a miserable sulk “I’m sure they were relieved I left… The bodysnatcher in the stolen body of a monstrous [centipede] is gone… the room full of the most fearsome beings in the galaxy can rest easy now(!)”
I cock an eyebrow (not that she can see that, being curled up and me facing away from her) and ask “Did anyone… say anything to that effect?”
“They didn’t need to!” pouts the woman coiled into a wheel “I can see how uncomfortable they are with me! I see how they tense up whenever I’m nearby! I see how they start whenever my presence takes them by surprise! I saw how Taylor and Tuun ran away rather than talk to me!”
“OK, I am more than 99.9% certain that the reason those two ran off had nothing to do with you!” I reassure her with absolute confidence “Tuun got a text, I heard that… Victor wanted to stay and it was only after she showed him the text that he agreed to leave! It seems far more like a personal emergency than a ploy to avoid being near you!”
“So… no Human ever feels uncomfortable in my presence then(?)” she asks, dryly.
I sigh “You know that’s not true, Skunzie… but you also have to know that that is not a reflection on you!… If anything, it’s a reflection on us! Us and our planet! A planet where the drive to survive needs to be so strong that even the smallest creatures that crawl through the undergrowth frighten us because they may have a bite that could hospitalise a Human! You must know that any Human who can’t separate you, the individual, from their reflexive fear responses is one that you don’t need in your life!”
She groans with cynical bitterness “You know… I was a child when the War finished… but, even then, I knew how the galaxy looked at my kind… Roughworlders… Carnivores… Parasites… I knew that most people thought we were monsters… For the longest time, I saw you Terran's as kindred spirits! Thought of as monsters for things about yourselves that you. can’t. change!… You didn’t choose to be born of the single most hellish planet so far known to have borne sapience… You didn’t choose to be stronger than just about any other species… You didn’t choose to have the minds of survivors… and I didn’t choose to be what I am… The Peace came and I heard how Terrans loved to make friends with anyone and everyone!… I heard how you didn’t seem to care what people looked like, you would make them your friends, regardless!… I fantasised that, when I finally met you, I would be welcomed with open arms!… I pictured being a trusted, valued member of a Terran friend group… I even let myself dream of having a Terran lover(!)… Then I came to Citadel UotBS… met you… and it was all the same shit I’d seen from every other nonVk’unhz I’d ever met!… Revulsion, disgust, fear… Oh, different reasons, sure; my host body just so happens to resemble a Terran [centipede]’s and, so, happens to trigger your innate chilopodophobia… one of your most deep-seated evolutionary fears… My forcipules look deadly and it doesn’t matter that I would never bite or that, if I did, it would be relatively harmless to your toxin resistant bodies! You don’t begrudge me my parasitism quite so much as most but are incredibly creeped out by the similarity between me and your pop culture’s bodysnatchers!… It just feels like I’m not allow to win! That, no matter what I do or how much I want to be seen as anything other than an ugly monster, I never will be!”
There’s a moment of silence before I state “I don’t think you’re an ugly monster, Skunzie.”
Miserably she dismisses “Sure, you’re nice to me because we work together, Thaïs… but I’m sure you don’t like how I look!”
“Wrong on both counts…” I correct, firmly “…I’m nice to you because I like you, Skunzie… I think you’re nice, charming, funny, kind and intelligent… and, personally… I think you look beautiful…”
---Sknz’h’s perspective---
My body coils tighter, involuntarily trying to protect itself against the lie.
“No, you don’t… You don’t mean that!” I sulk.
“Yes… I do.” they say, unwavering.
“What, so you’re just… immune to the phobia that evolution hammered into the rest of your kind?!”
They shrug “I’ve always been entirely fascinated by the innumerable answers to the question ‘how does one survive’ that there are… Logically, I know that there are certain animals that it isn’t sensible to handle and that being envenomed by would be painful if not deadly… but they don’t scare me or revolt me and never have… You aren’t an animal!… You’re a person, and a lovely one, at that!… I know what real fear is and you don’t scare me…”
In spite of myself, my curiosity gets the better of me “What… what’s ‘real’ fear?”
They chuckle “Liver spots…”
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me… Lentigo senilis… Liver spots.”
Very confused, I ask “Why would…?”
Thaïs cuts me off “Because I know what it is to have them all over my face, arms, hands, legs and chest!… I know what it’s like to have skin the thickness of tissue paper, to have bones as brittle as meringue!… I know what it’s like to be able to see my skull through my face, to see my hair grey and thin, to feel my body and mind whither because my telomeres have burned down to the wick and my body has decided that everythingI do is going to be painful until the end!… I’ve felt the Reaper’s hand on my shoulder… no other fear could ever compare to that!”
I extend three limbs against the floor, popping my head and first three body segments out of the centre of my coil.
My tail no longer braced, the Terran's dense little body falls back slightly from their lean before they catch themselves.
They’re buried in an avalanche of paper as I uncurl my hindbody to arrange it behind me.
They dig themself out and turn to face me.
Down on all six, I bring my head to around [30cm] from theirs.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“If death is what scares you… then aren’t you scared of the fact that I could kill you?” I flex my forcipules to demonstrate, champing the venomous claws together “I’d be no match for most of the Terrans aboard; large, strong, fit, powerful, skilled in combat, but you?”
I gesture to their small, skinny, weak frame.
They shake their head and smile “Me, you could kill easily, of course… If you wanted to… but do you?”
“Of course not but…!”
“But nothing!” they smile “Someone as small and slight as me can’t afford to spend their life living in fear of everyone who could kill me if they wanted to! I’d never get anything done(!)… Besides, I have to correct you, it wasn’t death I was scared of, it was age… It was the powerlessness of feeling that there is absolutely nothing I could do to avert my decline towards death… It was having to pass up the opportunity to work on the team cracking Terran regen (the very thing that stood to rescue me) because, despite being one of the best qualified people in the galaxy for it, I just didn’t trust my own mind anymore!… To me, you are Youth, Beauty and Life themselves!”
They reach out with a pentadactyl hand and place it on top of my cephalic shield, between my antennae.
I freeze…
Then I lean forward…
I open my forcipules and both my inner sets of mandibles… and bring my mouth to theirs.
Immediately, they fall against me, sliding their arms around my shoulders and wrapping them around me as they passionately return the kiss!
My tail whips forward, coiling around both of us several times, binding us together and digging my maxillipedal claws into them.
My innards are electrified by the thrill of realising that… they didn’t flinch!
Clearly, the talk of finding me beautiful wasn’t just talk!
They didn’t hesitate for a moment before committing to the embrace!
They pull me over and our combined weight lands on a section of my tail.
I scarcely notice the pain!
Their graceful, dexterous hand moves to the back of my neck… right over the neat little surgical scar in my host’s chitin from me being implanted into her when we were both babies…
I realise that… this is the closest they have ever and likely will ever come to my actual body…
As much as my host and I are so intrinsically unified that my removal would mean her death, as much as she obeys my every directive immediately and without question, as much as I feel her pain, hunger, pleasure and desire as truly as if there were no separation between us, as much as it feels as if she is me, I am her and we are one… the real ‘me’ is just a passenger in her body… and Thaïs’s hand is caressing within a mere antenna’s breadth of me right now!
I bring my upper hands to their face and pull from the kiss.
Both of us are panting heavily.
“Wow…*hhh-hhh*… Sknz’h!…*hhh-hhh*… I had no…*hhh-hhh*… idea you…*hhh-hhh*… felt this…*hhh-hhh*… way!”
“How could I…*huff-huff*… not!?…*huff-huff*… You’re so…*huff-huff*… clever and…*huff-huff*… interesting and…*huff-huff*… cool and…*huff-huff*… kind to me all…*huff-huff*… the time!…*huff-huff*… How…*huff-huff*… do you…*huff-huff*… feel this…*huff-huff*…way?!”
They shrug their slender shoulders and smirk “…*hhh-hhh*…Same reasons(!)”
“But I…(!)”
I don’t get to finish my objection as, before I can, they’ve constricted my neck to bring our mouths together in another kiss.
They finally pull back, the seraphic features of their fleshy face bent into a contented grin.
“Before we take this…*huff-huff*… any further, chérie…*huff-huff*… might I propose…*huff-huff*… a change of venue?”
---Thaïs’s perspective---
Skunzie’s forebody looks sublime as she stamps down the hallway of the Deck 2 Dorm toward my room.
She stands a head taller than me, even hunched over like she is!
When she straightens up, she’s half a metre taller than me!
Her four long, sharp, raptorial toe claws clack against the floor as she takes each stride. They have no joints along their length but do have a harsh angular bend in the middle.
The sections between the middle joints of her legs flex down, elastically, before springing back up with each time her foot strikes the ground.
She holds her four tridactyl hands in front of her scarlet chestplate, nervously.
The flawless chitin plates of her exoskeleton have a wonderful gloss to them, in the light!
The dominant colour on her body is xenomorph black, but it’s highlighted fantastically by the bright scarlet pigmentation on her head, hands, forearms and numerous other locations around her body as well as the lesser, secondary highlights in light beige.
Ignoring the +5m of hindbody trailing behind her (not that I want to!) she bears a striking resemblance to the design of General Grievous in that gritty, mature rated reboot of Star Wars from the Mid 22nd Century!
Those movies were such pizza cutters! (All edge, no point!)
‘Then again…’ I think as I study the incomparable woman who looks as if she were designed by an angsty teenager ‘…I am an absolute salope for emo girls!’
I absolutely adore the juxtaposition between her fearsome appearance and her sweet personality!
The hrszk are one of half a dozen host species maintained on Vk.
They were the planet’s apex predators before the last of their wild population succumbed to Vk’unhz assimilation!
Every feature of her host body is either one of an apex predator or one that her species have spent hundreds of thousands of years engineering for!
Those undexterous fingers are the result of the hrszk having had little need for fine manipulation and the Vk’unhz needing to make the best of the foremost perambulators.
The glossy black, red and beige is for camouflage in their natural environment.
The sex drive that’s currently engaged is that of her host as well…
Her species are asexual reproducers…
There is a brief moment of discomfort regarding the nonsentience of the body I’m about to make love to…
Then I remind myself that it isn’t nonsentient!
It’s hers… Her body… She is sentient!
It would be far more grotesque to make love to her in the body of an independently sentient being!
I step into my room and gesture her inside after me.
It takes several seconds for the entire train of hindbody, scuttling along on its maxillipeds behind her, to make it in.
The door shuts and I engage the lock and privacy field.
Her antennae swish through the air on her head, nervously, with her sensory legs doing the same on the terminal segment of her hindbody.
I smirk as I walk past her to my bed, reaching up to run a hand along her forcipules.
“You’ll have to forgive me(!)” I quip, gesturing her body, sans vestments, up and down “I’ll need a moment to undress!” as I reach for the hem of my top.
“That’s alright but…?” she speaks, reticently.
I stop “But?”
“Could… Would… Would it be alright if I undressed you?”
I chuckle and gesture a ‘go on’.
---Sknz’h’s perspective---
Unsurely, I step to Thaïs.
I straighten up to bring my upper arms well above their shoulder level.
They smile up at me and close their eyes, extending their arms to the side.
I bend to bring my upper arms down their back and my lowers to their front, grasping their top in four places.
Slowly, I draw my arms upward, bringing the garment over their golden furred head.
How slim and slight they are is triply obvious with the pale skin of their slender chest exposed!
I lean down to kiss them again… a kiss they enthusiastically return!
I feel the soft skin of their back squash against the chitin sheeves of my arms.
I slide my lower hands under their lowers to cup their bottom (just about the only plumpness on their whole body(!))
Squeezing it is amazing!
The way it fills my hands! The way it deforms and springs back into place! The way it jiggles when they laugh…
Impulsively, I fling them away from me!
“Oh!” they exclaim in surprise as they land on the bed.
They quickly recover their composure and smirk up at me, raising their legs to offer me their stylish, [high heeled], blue [boots].
I grasp the [heels] with my lower hands and begin unbuttoning them with my uppers.
My hands are… much less nimble than theirs but I manage eventually.
Both pieces of footwear come away at once.
They don’t lower their legs and simply continue to smirk up at me.
My midgut swoops as I reach to their waistband and begin pulling their lowers off.
The fair skin of their elegant legs is exposed.
The only clothing they have left is a very insubstantial set of [lingerie] undergarments.
My upper right hand trembles as I reach for it.
I pull it down, exposing their genitals.
“So that’s what you have!… I’ve always wondered… ever since I saw you smile at that Emrita lab tech that it wasn’t any of his affair!”
They chuckle back at me and answer “What I actually said to him was ‘Unless we’re going to bed together, it’s none of your affair…’ You and I…” they gesture to the soft surface they’re reclining on “…are going to bed together!… So it is your business!”
“May… may I use my mouth?” I request, looking at the organ and trying (and failing) not to sound overeager.
They grin “Please do!”
---Thaïs’s perspective---
Her hindbody explores mine, her terminal legs currently brushing over my face while her antennae tickle my ribs.
She has one powerful hand on each of my wrists and ankles, pinning me to the mattress.
Her forcipules are opened as wide as they will go and there’s just barely enough room for my pelvis to fit between them, the sharp, venomous points mere centimetres from each hip!
I definitely almost impulsively told her to sting me with them!
I’d be fine I know but… best not to spring the freaky shit on her… We can discuss it another time when we’ve both got clearer heads.
Her soft mouth feels amazing on my sex and the stimulation added by her four mandibles heightens the experience considerably!
My breaths come short and sharp as my pleasure builds.
My body tenses hard enough to, momentarily, draw in her powerful arms as I suffer my little death.
She pulls her mouth away from my privates and releases my ankles.
She doesn’t release my wrists.
On the contrary, she grips them tighter as she steps over me to bring one clawed foot to the side of each of my hips.
In the place between her two main legs, I can see the soft red flesh of her exposed genitals, the plates that normally cover them having moved aside in her arousal.
She sits on my hips, causing delectable discomfort in my poor overstimulated sex as she crushes hers against it.
She grips my ribs with her strong hands and brings her formidably well armed face to mine.
“My turn next… OK?”
My stomach knots with the frisson.
Even though I know it wasn’t, it doesn’t take too much imagination to imagine what she just said as a threat!
I bite my lip, my eyes wide as I nod.
---Sknz’h’s perspective---
Lying on my right side and resting my head on my right upper arm, my face curled against the back of Thaïs’s head, the elbow of my left upper arm resting against their left shoulder, my left lower arm wrapped around their stomach, the joints of my left leg bent and resting on top of their hip, the back of my tail passing over the top of their thighs and underneath their shins, I squeeze their back against my belly.
“Was… was it good for you?” I ask, nervously.
They respond with a single mirthful puff (which I’m briefly terrified by, mistaking it for contempt) before answering “Chérie… I have lived a century and a quarter and, I can safely say, in all that time… I’ve never had better! It was absolutely sublime!… You enjoyed it too, no?”
Enthusiastically, I agree “You were my best ever as well!”
They giggle and reach up to place a hand against my forcipule “I’m glad, chérie…*yawn*… How would you like to take breakfast with me?… I’m thinking pancakes?”