Fuck fuck FUCK!
I barrelled down corridor A1 towards the main quarantine lab with red lights flashing and alarms screaming all around me. When I stopped just outside the door the first thing I saw was the missing pane of glass in the wall. There was no sign of Alfie. The bastard had escaped.
I clenched my teeth. No! This fucking just had to happen today, didn’t it.
There being only space and supplies for one crew at a time on the station, the home-going lot normally left as their replacements were arriving. Normally. Except that this time the new lot wouldn’t be here until tomorrow because it was Christmas Day today and schedules were disrupted. So I was alone on a space station with a large, black, extraterrestrial creature that looked disturbingly like that monster from that old film ‘Alien’.
I suppose I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t. Research on meteorites was why we were here, and when the spore had been discovered on one six months ago the lab guys had nurtured it and examined it in minute detail. At the prodigious rate it fed, if it had consumed the same kind of food as we did it would have eaten us out of house and home, but luckily what it needed was water and pure radiation. Any kind of radiation – light would do nicely, especially UV – and that was easy to provide. Alfie had been a glutton for it, and the powerful ultra-violet lights that had been installed in the lab had enabled him to grow at jaw-dropping speed. The last time I’d seen Alfie he’d been about eight feet high. His official name was ‘Alpha’ as he was the first extraterrestrial the human race had come across, but we called him Alfie.
Not only was he big, he was clearly intelligent. First steps had been made to establish a sign language with him, but it wasn’t working well. So far he hadn’t exuded acid that ate through the floor, or made attempts to eat any of the crew – though lately he’d become increasingly restless and had made a couple of attempts to get to us – and it was clear that he hadn’t been happy confined in the quarantine lab. It also appeared that he was a lot stronger than we’d thought, as the glass in that lab is damn near unbreakable.
In that old film the crew have a handy device that shows the monster’s heat signature so they know it’s hiding in the ducts or whatever, but needless to say we didn’t have such a thing. The creature was with me somewhere on the station but I had no idea where.
What to do, what to do? My speciality is electronics – I’m responsible for keeping the radios and assorted detectors in shape – so I only have basic training in anything else. I suppose the most sensible thing would have been to lock myself in a room somewhere and wait for the new crew to arrive, but I’d have to crap at some point (I could already feel the need building up right now) so unless I holed up in the loo things could get unpleasant. No, I’d go and find him and somehow try to get him back into the lab, though I’d also have to reinforce the windows. Whatever – cross that bridge when we come to it.
Confidence is a strange thing: you can start out full of it, but then find that it evaporates alarmingly quickly. I was used to seeing Alfie - I’d been on the station since he’d been a tiny spore, seen him grow into a blob, then a beetle-like thing, and then rounder and bigger and more formed – and I had no reason to suspect that he was actually dangerous, but equally I had no grounds to assume that he wasn’t. He was eight feet tall, had retractable claws, shiny black skin that lately had been covered all over with what looked like thick gooey stuff, a substantial, muscular tail, and he was an alien creature. I made my way slowly back down corridor A1 to the toilet, and relieved myself while I considered what to do.
Feeling slightly better I continued on to the junction and turned right towards the main control room, pushing myself along in the zero-g and breathing as quietly as I could so that I wouldn’t miss the slightest sound. Apart from the normal background hum of the air system there was silence.
Like most stations this one had started out quite small, and had been built up bit by bit over the years until now it had four wings on two levels, the lower of which, Level B, was mainly docking areas for supply and crew ships, the reactors, and for storage. Level A housed all the labs, the communication centre, attitude controls, recreation and living areas. It was a bit labyrinthine, with corridors that had been added piecemeal at various times as more of the place had been constructed.
When I reached the main control room the only illumination was coming from the computer screens so I turned on the lights, half-expecting to see a large clawed figure looking at me, but it was empty. Just then I heard a sound – a clink – which seemed to have come from somewhere near the rec room.
My pulse rate increased abruptly. I took a fire extinguisher from the wall and held it in front of me like a weapon as I retraced my path to the corridor junction and turned towards the recreation room. The rec room revolves slowly to provide a kind of artificial gravity – it’s not that much but it keeps people on the floor while they’re using it. It’s the only bit of the station that has that luxury.
I entered the large room, stabilised myself as I started to revolve, and then the lights in the rec room went out. Argh! What the fuck? I searched around in panic for a light switch but I couldn’t find one. I could see that the lights in other parts of the station were still on.
It took a while for my eyes to adjust, but when they had I could make out the switch: it was on the wall at the far end of the room. Oh shit. If I wanted to go on this way I was going to have to cross this room in the dark before I could put the lights back on – that’s if they came on at all.
The rec room is full of stuff. Large exercise machines, tables and chairs, full-height lockers, you name it. There could, I realised, be an alien creature lurking behind any one of them. The sound I’d heard had definitely come from this direction, and so the chances were, I thought, that Alfie was indeed in here somewhere. Did I want to risk it?
No I didn’t. It was too scary. I’d go back to the ops room and stay there where there was light and wait for him to come to me. I turned.
Alfie was standing two feet behind me. For an eight-foot alien he was exceedingly light on his feet. It’s a good thing I’d used the loo earlier or it could have been embarrassing for both of us; as it was I produced a sound that was remarkably close to ‘Eek!” and let go of the fire extinguisher which fell to the floor.
The creature stood there, his armoured head rising and falling rhythmically as he breathed, looking at me with shiny jet-black eyes. I could smell his breath – it reminded me of musk. His huge powerful body was barring my escape that way, and the distant corridor light made different sides of him glisten with what looked like mucus as the rec room revolved. His claws were out, I noticed. In spite of being almost incapacitated with terror I managed to say, “Hello Alfie.”
Slowly he raised his arms, or front legs – the jury was out on what to call them – until the tips of the shiny black claws rested against the sides of my chest. For a while nothing happened, and then he applied a gentle pressure. There was nothing I could do, so I backed slowly into the room as he pushed me. The claws never left my chest.
I was in danger of hyperventilating now, and so I forced myself to take slow, shallow breaths. I’d never been this close to Alfie before and I stared at him in fascinated terror. His head looked a bit like a shiny black motorcycle crash helmet; rather than a nose, there was a kind of mesh that looked as if it were made out of black metal. Alfie appeared to have no ears, but there was a mouth, and for a horrible moment I imagined it opening and a second jaw with teeth coming out. But it didn’t. His eyes were actually much larger than I’d thought – they were jet-black, and what I’d previously taken to be skin surrounding them was in fact the outsides of the eyes themselves. There were no eyelashes that I could see. His neck was long and mobile, below which was a chest of Herculean proportions. His waist was slim, though, and his legs were muscular. I could see the tip of the thick tail on the floor behind him. Every part of him was very black, very shiny and glistened with slipperiness.
My heels came up against the edge of a floor pad and I fell down on my back in the low gravity. I lay there looking up at him, whimpering.
He tilted his head to one side, then lowered it for a moment. He was examining me. His left front leg reached out and the middle claw extended even further than it had been. This was it. I knew it – I was going to die horribly.
But instead of disembowelling me, he used the razor-sharp claw to slice the front of my jumpsuit from neck to crotch – and so carefully that the claw never once touched my skin. He put his arm back down and waited.
I lay there panting, looking up at this creature above me. Why had he done that? Neither of us did anything for a long moment, and then he reached out to my jumpsuit with the claw again and ripped it from the knee down. The front leg made a kind of impatient jerk as if he wanted me to do something.
He wanted me to take the suit off. I shrugged out of the top part, removed my shoes and pulled the suit off completely. All I had on now was a vest and underpants.
The impatient jerk came again. What? Did he want me to strip? I looked at him. “Do you want me to take these off as well?”
In reply the claw sliced my vest off. Before he could get it anywhere near my tackle I hastily removed my underpants. I was naked.
The centre claw retracted halfway to how it had been earlier, and he used the back of it to examine my body. Every square inch of me was inspected slowly and thoroughly – he seemed particularly interested in my nipples, which he moved from side to side and squeezed gently. The claw travelled slowly down my abs, hovering over my belly button, and continued south.
I’d been trembling since the beginning, but when that claw reached my cock I started to hyperventilate again. But he just examined it carefully, then went on to my balls. He did the same to them.
The other front leg reached forward as well and he rolled me over. A similar close inspection of my back, arse and legs followed. After he’d reached my feet I thought it was over, but his claws returned to my arse. They parted my buttocks, and he made the first sound I’d heard from him – I could swear it was a sigh.
He rolled me over again onto my back, and then with great care he lowered himself down until he was ‘kneeling’ astride me. This was possibly more disconcerting than anything had been so far, because his knees were jointed the wrong way, like birds’ legs, and his clawed feet ended up in my armpits. His body continued to come down on top of me. I felt his weight, and for the first time the gooey substance that had covered him for the last week or so. His hide felt like leather; it was cool and smooth, and slid against my skin in a surprisingly sensual way. His huge black head came down slowly and I felt it move silkily against my face as he nuzzled my neck.
I was lying on the floor while an alien monster was making love to me. This is not how I’d imagined spending my Christmas Day. Unless, I suddenly thought, this was all a prelude to eating me, sucking my blood like Dracula, or dismembering me. I shut off thoughts like that.
I could feel lips sucking on my neck. They were gentle, and unless he was about to change technique and hidden teeth suddenly came out, it didn’t feel like I was about to become one of the undead.
The lips stopped, the head lifted, and bugger me – he kissed me. He tilted his head, lowered it, and kissed me on my mouth. And it was not unpleasant. For such a huge, muscular, powerful creature he could be amazingly gentle. A tongue (I did not want to imagine what it looked like) explored my mouth. Even it was covered with the slippery goo, but again, it wasn’t horrible. Not horrible at all, in fact.
This went on for a while, and I became aware that something was occurring between his legs. Something long and increasingly hard was pressing against my stomach. Oh fuck, this creature was getting an erection.
By the feel of it the thing was enormous. I foresaw a different way that I was going to die: impaled on an alien’s 12-inch penis.
The tongue retracted and he sat back up. I tried to stop him rolling me over again but there was nothing I could do. Soon I was face-down again and the cock was touching the crack of my buttocks. I felt his weight as he lay on top of me once more, but his hips were still raised. The end of the cock seemed to be searching for my arsehole.
It found it. I felt the tip enter me and scrunched up my eyes as I waited for the plunge that would spear me.
But no. It did go in, but slowly and carefully. It went in a long way. A very long way. Much further, in fact, than I would have thought possible without causing screams. I felt it continuing to enter me, but it was not painful – not in the slightest. He stopped, thank heavens, way before it was in all the way.
I had never been fucked before in my life. I’m straight, as much as I’m anything, and sex has never been one of my obsessions. Oh, I’ve been with girls a few times (a very few times, now I think about it), but it’s always seemed a bit over-rated to me. I’m much happier tinkering with some circuitry.
He started to fuck me. Long, slow strokes, his cock sliding in and out in that gooey stuff that seemed to have been designed for the purpose. This was, I realised, fucking wonderful – if you’ll pardon the pun.
I was getting hard. In fact I was getting very hard indeed. With each thrust it slid against the floor pad under me. Mmm… I was loving this.
His head came down again and he nuzzled my neck some more. I could feel his lips sucking, his tongue stroking my skin. His breath was all over me and the smell of musk filled my senses. I reached behind me and ran my hands over the bits of him I could reach, my fingers gliding over his leather-like hide through the film of goo. I did not want this to end.
It didn’t. Well, not for a very, very long time. I don’t know how long we were at it, but it must have been several hours. He stopped – or at least slowed to almost a stop – from time to time, and ran his claws lightly over my back, my shoulders, my head, before getting back to fucking me properly. I didn’t get sore, I didn’t get tired of it. It was wonderful.
When he came, it was strange: no final, powerful thrusts, he just stopped moving altogether, and then his spunk, or whatever it was, gushed out of his cock and into me. And I mean gushed. It ran out of my arse and went everywhere. By the time he’d finished it was covering the floor pad and a large area of the surrounding floor.
I hadn’t cum, and strangely I didn’t think it was especially important that I did.
He pulled out, stood up and looked at me for a moment, then he picked up my ripped jumpsuit from the floor with his claw and handed it to me. I took it from him and then, on an impulse, I dropped it again, stood up myself, being careful not to slip on the goo, and put my arms around him. I closed my eyes and hugged him.
For a moment he just stood there as if confused by this strange behaviour, and then he raised his front legs and he squeezed me back.
Alfie made his own way back to the lab straight after our encounter in the rec room. I haven’t repaired the window glass and I left the door open but he showed no sign of wanting to escape any more.
And he changed. Quickly. He stopped breathing altogether and a pair of odd extra organs of some kind appeared where his ears would be. It took less than an hour. I was very worried when I’d noticed he wasn’t breathing any more, but he seemed fine otherwise, and spent all his time basking in the UV lights.
It was an hour before the new crew were due to arrive. I was in the ops room talking to the approaching ship’s computer. Just as I finished, an alarm went off on level B. I switched screens and stared as I saw Alfie in one of the airlocks. He was cycling it. I dropped everything and pushed myself to the lift as fast as I could. By the time I’d got down there the airlock was empty. I searched around and called but there was no sign of him.
I needed to get back to the ops room for the crew’s arrival. As I entered it I blinked: Alfie was outside the main window looking in. He raised his front legs, making a wide circle, and then pushed them together slightly, gently, as if he were hugging me. He stared at me for a moment, then he turned and pushed himself off into empty space.
As I watched, he changed direction – God knows how – accelerated away and disappeared into the blackness.
On the station, every room apart from the crew’s bedrooms are covered by 24/7 CCTV and so, to my terminal embarrassment, our entire sex session had been recorded. Thank heavens it’s all been classified, although I’ve spent weeks being interrogated by assorted bigwigs and had to fend off comments about my love bites from the crew.
I often wonder what’s become of Alfie. He was clearly happy in the vacuum of space, but interstellar travel has got to be beyond even his strange abilities. Which means he’s somewhere in the solar system. On another planet? On an asteroid? But doing what? I have no idea.
And why did he want sex? Was it even sex to him? He started as a spore, and that doesn’t involve sexual reproduction. Perhaps it was just pleasure for him.
Or perhaps it was intended as pleasure for me.
Whatever it was, it was the best Christmas present I’ve ever had.
Thank you Alfie.