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It was strange to be an amnesiac. Over the months I'd been awake aboard the Hail Mary I'd remembered bits and pieces of my former life on Earth, but sometimes it still felt like there was some grasping hollow void inside me that my conscious mind couldn't touch. There were vast tracts of memory I only had blurry recollections of—my childhood, my parents, my ex-girlfriends. Had I always been like this, I sometimes wondered, or was the person I became after the amnesia, after the Hail Mary, after Rocky, someone entirely new?
Because one of the things I'd been feeling felt startlingly and completely, overwhelmingly new. It'd be an absolutely normal day, with me in the lab while Rocky sat nearby, using the Earth laptop he'd adjusted to voice controls and weaving xenonite at the same time as we talked, and suddenly I'd feel this enormous rush of fondness at his endless questions and clever, clicking claws. And it would always come with this ache to touch him. To press my hands to his carapace, no matter how much it burned. To kiss his xenonite shell wet enough to leave a mark, in a way that could be technically platonic if he asked. To hug him until he complained about my loud, wet organs, his claws settling on my back as he hugged back. To sleep and dream of him holding me down, those same claws pulling roughly at my cock while telling me how pretty and leaky and stupid I was.
And that had become my day-to-day life, constant and unavoidable. I had to wonder: what did it mean? Was I a pervert with an exophilia kink? The fact that I knew the term at all gave me the foggy memory of arguing about the nuances of xenophilia on Star Trek forums, so maybe I was, for all that I didn't remember having any fantasies this sharp and visceral before. And the vague impressions I had of my past relationships had been nothing to write home about; I didn't explicitly remember any of the sex I'd had before, but I had the feeling it'd been not very memorable regardless.
But here on the Hail Mary, I'd been waking up with more boners than I'd ever had before in my patchy memory, feeling a desire entirely foreign to me. Everything I knew about my libido had been completely upturned. And I couldn't even rub one out without my alien roommate who could see through walls knowing exactly what I was doing.
(The thought just made me harder. There was something very wrong with me.)
"Grace is awake now," Rocky's chiming Eridian greeted me when I opened my eyes. I'd ditched the translator about a month into our trip to Erid; I knew I had to learn the language myself without relying on its crutch. It turned out he'd been simplifying his speech for my translator, but recently he'd started gradually incorporating more complexity into his speech for my imperfect human brain to slowly pick up on. "Nightmare, question?"
"Nah," I said, and seeing Rocky when I opened my eyes shot me straight back to the fantasy of my most recent dream: me sticking my dick into the flexible panel of Rocky's xenonite ball as Rocky watched; he stood still and muttered "disgust disgust disgust" as I curled over it, panting, smearing my tongue and saliva over the clear xenonite. But even as he called me names I knew he wanted it too; he could knock me right over but he just let me leak all over him, and I could see the clench of his legs and the silver of the mercury dripping down his underside. Just remembering it made my dick throb and I looked up at Rocky, sitting over me in his clear xenonite tunnel, and…
I ached to jerk off. I desperately needed to touch myself.
What few human qualms I could muster told me I couldn't, that this was wrong. Rocky could hear me, Rocky would know. But I couldn't help but rationalize it to myself: if Rocky could see me getting off anywhere on this tiny ship, did it really make a difference if I did it right in front of him?
My hand slid down my stomach to my waistband, my skin tingling with anticipation at the touch. We'd shared more than this, I reasoned. I'd convinced Rocky to let me watch him eat once and maybe that was where this had started, seeing his ventral seam and his soft, fleshy insides, or maybe it'd been Rocky returning my curiosity, insisting on watching while I expelled waste ("human digestion gross gross gross"). Rocky was my best friend, knew me better than I knew myself and had seen all of me by now—a hazard of living in such close quarters with someone who could hear through walls and clothes—so wouldn't this be just the same, a weird human biological quirk he might be interested in, if only just in the spirit of scientific inquiry?
"Grace not getting up yet, question?"
"No," I said, "I've told you about lie-ins before. Sometimes when we wake up, us humans just want to take a moment to, ah—" I reached under my waistband and grasped my dick. It jerked in my hold and I gave it a few tugs. "Relax." My grip was too dry; I brought my hand back up to my mouth and spit in it. Rocky made a disgusted noise but stayed right where he was, folding his legs under him as I shoved my pants down past my hips, exposing my erection to the air as I got my hand back on my dick.
"This is relaxation, question? Thought human ♫♪♩ for waste and reproduction, question?"
I could hear now that the word he used for 'penis' didn't include the chord for 'orifice' he used for all my other holes, and I couldn't help but wonder if his word was related to what he was packing instead. I started jerking off slowly, warming myself up as my gaze slid to the underseam of his carapace, sealed and barely visible from this angle. I knew Eridians were cosexual and laid eggs, but we hadn't discussed the explicit details—was he more of a cloaca or ovipositor guy? If I put my mouth to his hole, lapping at the dripping mercury, would I be thrusting my tongue inside, tasting him as he tasted me, coaxing out his eggs in a staggeringly alien French kiss? Or would I get to feel his ovipositor unfurl into my mouth, the hot, fleshy length filling with blood, stroking my cheeks and reaching down my throat as it swelled?
"It can be… relaxing," I said, managing to collect my thoughts. "It's, ah, masturbation. To relieve our sex drive." Had I ever used the word 'sex' before? "Self-stimulation for pleasure, to mimic mating."
Rocky made a thoughtful filler noise, the sort that sounded more human than not. "But Grace say mating is private, statement."
"Yeah," I said, my breath coming short as my hand quickened on my dick. "It's usually private. But, uh, it can be social, during puberty"—there was something in my head about teenage boys watching porn together, I thought—"and…" I had more examples, didn't I? I'd seen someone masturbate before.
Right, my college roommate! I remembered now; more than once I'd been right there, reading or studying, when he got down to it, not even trying to muffle his moans. I hadn't really understood the urge then, but now? With Rocky watching, noticing, curiously studying me like a bacteria under a microscope, a rutting animal in a zoo?
"And when living in close quarters," I ended finally. My breaths were heavy, now, the sparks of arousal building up as kept my hand moving. "And we're in pretty close quarters here, bud. Not to mention—"
"Rocky can hear Grace anyway," Rocky said shrewdly. "Rocky can hear everything Grace does. Human body always leaky and gross."
A surprise bolt of lust shot through me and my hips jerked. And he was right; when I looked down I saw my dick was leaking, and I swiped at the drops with my thumb to ease the glide as I slowed down a little, trying to hold back my impending orgasm. Trying to put on a bit more of a show. But I didn't think I'd jerked off in years, not even including the time I'd spent comatose. I probably wouldn't last much longer.
"But you—like me," I panted, my eyes fixed on him. One of his legs under his carapace was twitching slightly. "Don't you?"
Rocky made an Eridian sound much like a human hm. "Suppose leaky Grace has grown on Rocky. Like fungus."
"Hey," I protested, "you said—you said you liked it when I hugged you."
"…Yes," Rocky said. His voice was slow, his attention fixed on me like I was the most important person in his world. "Have gotten used to Grace being leaking, wet, open. So much fluid, so many orifices. Big enough to fit Rocky's whole hand inside."
It wasn't exactly dirty talk, or at least it was nothing I expected from dirty talk, but it made my heart skip a beat, my pulse pounding hard as my hand tightened on my dick. Had Rocky thought about it, putting his hands in me, filling up my holes? Would he want to put his hand in my mouth, covered in an unbending xenonite sleeve, watching me gag and choke and leak saliva until it was dribbling down my chin? Would he want me to finger myself, stretching myself so open he could push his whole arm straight inside? "Rocky," I gasped, and he started making a low rumbling sound I felt more than heard.
"Grace enjoying self, question?" Rocky asked. "Grace enjoying showing Rocky, question?"
"Yeah," I breathed, "yeah, of course."
"Needy needy needy. Grace wants so much. Rocky's attention, Rocky's touch."
"God—" I couldn't stop looking at him; his whole body was vibrating slightly, like a tuning rod ringing with his own hum. I wished he could be pressed against me while he did it, could vibrate so hard and so close I could feel the reverberations in my blood. "I want to touch you, Rocky, I want to taste you—"
"So wet." Rocky sounded less disgusted than usual. "So leaky. Would leak fluid all over Rocky if you could."
"Rocky," I said again, and Rocky's rumbling hum grew louder, more insistent.
"Go on," he said. "Rocky knows Grace wants to."
My orgasm came on me like an electric shock; I came hard enough to splatter the xenonite enclosure over my bed, and as it started to drip down I caught my breath as I milked the last spurts out. Then I looked up. Rocky's hum had gone silent.
"Uh," I said.
"Dirty dirty dirty," Rocky said, after a long moment. "Grace should clean."
"Yeah, of course, buddy," I said, and then wanted to slap myself. What was I even doing, calling him 'buddy' after all of that? But it was better than things being awkward. "I'll, um." I glanced around myself. God, I'd have so much laundry to do; my sheets and my clothes had been victim to my indulgence. I sat up, settling my pants on my hips and ignoring the dampness. My shirt was already a lost cause, so I pulled it over my head and managed to wipe the streaks of come off the xenonite before a glob of it dripped on my face. Rocky was right; it really was gross. But…
But Rocky had stayed. Rocky had talked to me while I touched myself. Rocky had maybe even encouraged me. He could hear my every action from the other side of the ship, and this close, he could hear the rush of my blood in my veins; he would have known what his words were doing. I couldn't escape the idea that he did, that he had done it on purpose.
Maybe it really was dirty talk. Maybe Rocky had wondered, too, what it would be like to…
I swallowed. Rocky was still sitting there, watching me.
"Grace relaxed now, question?" he said, and I managed a weak laugh.
"…Sure. I'm relaxed. It was good. Great. If you want to watch again—" My mouth said it before my brain could catch up; as soon as it did I stopped, my face flaming hot. I was suddenly, terribly conscious of my bare chest open to the air and the soiled shirt I was holding; I crossed my arms across my chest, trying not to feel self-conscious. "I mean… I guess it was pretty gross for you."
Rocky's carapace tilted slightly toward me. "Grace will do this often, question?"
"Uh. Maybe?" I pressed my lips together. "It's like… maintenance. Sexual maintenance. I don't, um, do it that often, but I think it's been less stressful now, so I feel like doing it more, though if you don't—"
"Grace can," Rocky said, interrupting me. "Is not too gross. Grace leaking, is normal. Rocky making Grace leak…" He paused. "Is fun."
My next breath shuddered through me. "Oh. So would you—do you want to—"
"Do what?" Rocky said, and now his notes were lilting, like he was amused.
"…Watch me again," I said finally, gathering my composure. "Because I… I liked it too."
"Yes, is obvious." Rocky let me stew in my anxiety for just a beat longer. "Yes. Grace touch ♫♪♩. Rocky watch."
"Great!" I blurted, with way too much enthusiasm. "It's a date. I mean—" I couldn't even muster coherence in the face of my embarrassment; instead I rolled off the bed and dropped my come-stained shirt before I grabbed some clean clothes. "You know what? I'll just go clean up."
Rocky was gone by the time I'd finished washing myself, glaring at my reflection in the mirror as I silently chided myself for coming on way too hard. Maybe Rocky's interest in me was just curiosity, or an indulgence toward the leaky space blob who had saved his life; I shouldn't read too much into it. I didn't even know if Eridians had sex for pleasure, let alone if he felt any attraction to me. We were so different. He was the most important person in my life.
I sighed and went back to my bed, stripping the sheets off and bundling them together. As I lifted my head a faint glimmer caught my eye in the light: right where Rocky had been sitting on the clear xenonite was a silvery smudge, like something wet had been hastily cleaned up.