Above her, moonlight filtered down from a sky full of stars, dominated by the sparkle that was the Vorhavoks' Wheel, still in orbit and manned by a skeleton crew, operating as a coordinating facility for their people on Earth. Its light cast a pale cloak onto her blood-red strapless evening gown, and a cool, welcome night breeze caressed her face. Not as welcome as the touch of a man, but.

But what? Listen to her! She had only lost her virginity this spring at college, to Lee Rosen, who then demonstrated how classy he was by bragging about it on the University Intranet, and here she was sounding like a woman of vast experience! Admittedly she had done it more out of curiosity about sex than for any great passion for the odious boy, but still, after that unpleasantness, she was glad to accept Daddy's invitation to this inauguration. She'd become his pet Vorhavok expert in the five years since their arrival, having learned the language and customs (and having developed a "photogenically agreeable" figure, as her father had tactfully pointed out once). Daddy's little pet.

To be fair though, the Vorhavok were a fascinating race, as much a mixture of the sublime and the savage as humans, though the ones she had met to date had been nothing less than totally polite and reserved-

"Chorbn!"

She turned, half-expecting from the Yiddish and the accent to see some invited minor dignitary forgetting the rules of protocol. Instead, she saw a young Vorhavok step out onto the balcony and over to the edge, its clawed hands gripping the rail, neck flaring dark-red with emotion. It wore the plain black uniform of the Support Corps, Vorhavok civilians who worked for the Colonial government for a time on Earth, to pay for their passage here.

The way its tail slashed about behind it made Ilsa glad it wasn't in the kitchens right now. "Such language."

It turned to her, the bone ridges on the skull marking its gender as male, the skin beneath its muzzle flaring red with embarrassment. He approached her cautiously, always glancing behind him, wrinkling his snout at his tiny round nasal inhibitor. "I- I need your help. I know I'll regret asking, but I still need it."

She was intrigued and admitted she liked being of genuine help to someone, and not just a novelty for Daddy's publicity machine. "I'm listening."

He glanced behind him again, then reached into the folds of his tunic, producing from it an object she had never expected to see make an appearance at a diplomatic function. "What the hell is this?"

Ilsa coughed, felt her skin radiate like a furnace as she reached out to get him to put away the long, thick, black plastic cylinder. "It's a. it's a vibrator. A sex toy for humans. Human females."

She could almost see the synaptic connections being made in his head, and his eyes widened with outrage. "Bastard."

"Thanks."

"Sorry I meant my supervisor Eldrik, a putz who should have been eaten when he was still in his shell. He gave it to me, said one of the humans must have lost it, and to go find the owner." He shook his head. "The looks I've received."

Ilsa tried not to laugh. Really. When she calmed down, she offered, "Sorry, I shouldn't, it was a mean trick. I hope his tail shrivels in the sun."

He grunted in appreciation at her use of the traditional insult, his throat losing some of its colour. "Thank you for being honest about the nature of the. toy. It wasn't something that was covered in Orientation." He reached into his tunic again. "Would you like to keep it?"

"Uh, no thanks." At his continued peeved expression, she added, "Hey, quit acting like a schlimazel."

He tilted his head at her. "You know Yiddish, too?"

She grinned, remembering reading how many Vorhavok had picked up the more obscure human languages as well as the major ones. "A little. Every real New Yorker does."

He titled his head, pleased. "You're from New York? My language tutor was from there. How does the old human expression go? 'You've come a long way, baby'."

"Look who's talking." Smiling, she held out her hand. "I'm Ilsa Bergman."

He raised his tail, slipped it into her grip. "Rikk Bo'ghart."

*

Today:

"No, Rikk, it wasn't intentional. I-"

She stopped as Yvette brought a tall thin glass of brown liquid, and a puffy silver foil bag to Rikk's office. He hissed happily if distractedly at her, and his tail slipped around to gently slap the tall blonde woman on the rear as she departed, his hands opening the bag and extracting a sugar-coated cricket. "You'll excuse me, I haven't had time for a proper meal." He held up the packet. "Care for some?"

She blanched, not because she was squeamish about his diet - insects had always been a cheaper and fat-free alternative to beef, pork and chicken, but it wasn't until the arrival of the Vorhavok that they had become popular globally but because of his deliberate attempt to provoke a reaction from her by his familiarity with one of his female staff. "No thanks, I had bugs for lunch. When did you start treating your staff like that, Rikk?"

He tossed another bug into his mouth, made a smacking sound. "Just getting into character. Haven't you heard? I'm one of the godless monsters from space out to deflower helpless human females. But don't worry, you're safe. Even monsters have standards." He downed another cricket. "Why did you come back?"

Ilsa steeled herself. "I need to find someone. I mean, I need you to find someone for me."

"Oh." A deliberate show of insouciance on his part. "What's wrong, Daddy not jumping through hoops any more for you, maideleh?"

She flinched, as much from mention of her father as from his use of the old term of endearment for her. "I- I have money, and if it's not enough I give you my word I can get more-"

"Your money's no good here. Like your 'word'."

Ilsa's hands shook, and she fought to control them as she rose and walked around the desk to face him again. "Rikk, please, I need to find this man-"

He leaned forward. "Let me finish." His eyes moved up and down her. "Your money and word is no good here. However, I will accept payment through. service." His tail rose up from behind him, the tip stroking her face. "Working here, at my place."

Ilsa's shaking grew into an uncontrollable spasm, as his tail, which had once stroked her in friendship, then in passion, now touched her to unnerve her.

*

Flashback:

"Get off, Godzilla!"

"Gai tren zich." He hissed and leapt up from their perch on the living room floor, knocking over his bowl of freeze-dried beetles and her bowl of popcorn as he wrestled her across the carpeted floor, holding back his superior strength.

Ilsa fought to control her giggling as she play-fought him back, tickling under his arms and making him hiss again uncontrollably, and the old movie on their new ion screen played on, momentarily ignored.

Finally he pinned her down, hovering over her face until she screwed up her face in mock-disgust. "Back off, bug breath. What brought this about?"

He made a theatrical florid wave with his tail. "I'm fed up with this! I had to strike back against your people's blatantly racist attitudes towards reptiles!"

"Excuse me?"

He nodded towards the bright screen. "Look at them! The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, V, Jurassic Park 6, Warlords of Mars every one of your movies portray reptiles as the villains!"

"Every one of them, huh? Oh yeah, I remember that classic scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett O'Hara gets her head bit off by a T-Rex." She lifted her head from the floor. "Now get off before I breathe my filthy monkey germs all over you, you shlang."

He released her, and she twisted in place into a lotus position and reached for her beer, glad that their shenanigans had for once not resulted in a mess being made. Much.

They had stayed in touch during the rest of her stay in Libya, at then over the Giganet when she had returned to college. After graduation, and after Rikk had completed his service with the Colonial Corps, they had decided to take a break, and rented a flat for the summer in Morocco, a Vorhavok-patroned state with plenty of facilities for both species.

It was the most idyllic period in Ilsa's life, and Rikk proved to be the first true friend she had ever possessed, the similarities of their inner natures outweighing the differences in their outer ones. His gentle, playful personality, coupled with a fierce intelligence, came to fore often as he continued to learn more about humanity day by day with Ilsa's help.

Ilsa, for her part, felt an exuberance, a jois de vivre that overrode the cynicism she was meant to possess in her twenties, and as she introduced Rikk to such seemingly mundane pleasures as walking along a beach, watching classic movies or eating double chocolate ice cream (albeit with some frozen nightcrawlers added to his bowl), it was as if she was experiencing them herself for the first time).

Her father hadn't approved. Relations between the Vorhavok and America and her allies had deteriorated since she'd first met Rikk. Many diseases had become a thing of the past, as had famine, and there had been many technological advances. Too many, in some eyes, upsetting financial checks and balances. A few poor nations had even cleared their debts, and with their Vorhavok-designed fusion plants had removed their dependency on oil, and alliances were shifting.

The Vorhavok themselves were accused of fomenting divisions among nations in order to more easily subjugate the planet as a whole when reinforcements supposedly would arrive. There had been terrorist incidents (which may or may not have received covert government backing), hatred openly espoused, minor military episodes between nations.

Ilsa forced such unpleasantness from her mind and sat up, rubbing her hands along her bare, sweaty thighs. She was clad in a plain white vest and knickers, and Rikk in a simple kilt. Neither was really shy about their states of dress, or lack thereof- it wasn't as if they were lovers. "This is boring. What else is on?"

Rikk rose, shook his tail like Ilsa he'd been imbibing a little tonight and staggered away. "You find something. I'll be right back."

"Okay, you go drain the lizard." She chuckled to herself.

"That wasn't even funny the first time you said it, months ago, yenteh," he pointed out as he disappeared.

Ilsa leaned forward, making contact with the retina scan on the screen to bring up the film library, searching randomly through titles, genres, recently accessed- there was one, with a catalogue number rather than a title, accessed several times in the past fortnight by Rikk, and all late at night.

Curious, she called it up, finding it protected. She knew his passwords, however, and tried them all, wondering what Rikk would watch without her around-

One password worked, abruptly presenting her with a film of an alien coupling. It was a naked male and female on the muddy border of some generic lagoon, wrapped in an unmistakable embrace of limbs and tails, the male above the female, his jaw clamped at her neck, thrusting into her upraised rear as she hissed with extreme satisfaction.

It took only a moment for Ilsa to realise this was no dry documentary on Vorhavok mating habits. She was watching their pornography, which in and of itself was shocking, as she didn't think it even existed, given their natures. While humans and Vorhavok both possessed two genders with very similar organs, and mated in much the same way, the similarities ended soon after that. Humans grew aroused spontaneously, or through stimuli such as erotic images. Vorhavok females only grew aroused when they went into Season several times a year, and the males only when in the presence of an aroused female, through their pheromones.

At such times females were given leaves of absence to reside in communal mating lairs, where visiting males could fight for the right to take females (or to take each other). There was never any notion of sexual fidelity to partners, and both sexes could employ contraceptives at such times - all bones of contention, excuse the phrase, for many religious humans-

Maybe this video was made for human consumption, something more real than the human-written speculative fiction she'd read? The whole scene was suffused with eroticism, not typical porn-movie schlock, but a genuine sexual energy that emanated from the screen and drew Ilsa in, regardless of the non-human nature of the participants. Her breathing grew shallow; she opened her mouth and gulped more air. The room felt warm, butshe felt quite warmer.

"Ilsa, what-"

Rikk stood at the doorway, his tail twitching agitatedly behind him, his throat darkening with emotion. He was acting as embarrassed as any human male whose porn stash had been discovered.

And Ilsa, feeling mischievous as well as intensely curious to keep watching, wasn't about to let him off the hook too quickly. "You've been holding out on me."

"You had no right to access that."

"Spank me." Her eyes returned to the screen. "I don't know why you'd want to keep this to yourself. This is light years better than watching It, the Terror From Beyond Space. Come sit down again, kaddishel."

Rikk breathed out heavily, and then did so, the heat radiating from him, skin glistening.

Onscreen, the actors twisted about, suddenly reminding Ilsa of her own impromptu wrestling matches with Rikk. The female was on top now, but he was still buried within her, still thrusting into her, his thin tapered shaft slick with their collected fluid of arousal, their tails whipping about.

Ilsa felt an answering tingle in her breasts. With one hand she ran her fingers casually, lightly over one of her nipples, and through her vest she could tell it was quite hard. Despite her liberal leanings, she was surprised by her own reaction. Or maybe not. After her first, and only, disastrous night with that nebbish Lee, she had tried a couple of other men, enjoying the experiences more but not enough to make any long-term commitments with them, perhaps because she received so much emotional satisfaction from her relationship with Rikk. There was nothing wrong with her libido, having depleted more than a few batteries with her toy collection. In fact, more than once she had considered going out with Rikk to one of the Vorhavok mating lairs in Casablanca, where humans could meet as well, to find suitable partners for both of them.

But more than once, she had rejected the idea, without acknowledging the reason for it. "Rikk, does this- does this arouse you?"

Her flatmate didn't answer. Then he tilted his head towards her, looking at her from one eye on her side of his head. "You know how we get aroused, Ilsa."

It wasn't a direct answer.

And then a human female joined the couple onscreen.

It was some big-breasted blonde, typical fodder, at least in human porn, naked but for heavy black iron chains attached to wrist manacles, breasts full and without tan lines, pubic hair trimmed to a tight strip around her labia. She stepped into shot, brought along by a third Vorhavok, and as she appeared, the couple untangled themselves, rose and flanked her, licking at the woman's skin with long, thin tongues, their claws gripping her and pulling her down to her knees.

Inside her knickers, Ilsa's pussy cried out for attention, a pulse of desire that seemed to spread out into a warm wetness that flooded her whole sex. It was all she could do to keep from squirming as she watched the woman drop between the female's legs and part her sex, a hairless groove matted and shiny with fluid, before burying her face into the flesh, lapping lovingly at it. Meanwhile, the male was behind the woman, nuzzling between her upraised, parted cheeks.

Ilsa sat back against the sofa behind her, unfurling her legs and raising her knees, pressing her thighs together as if to keep her hands from venturing down their of their own accord.

On the screen, the male mounted the woman.

"Fucking hell." Ilsa gripped her own flesh tighter, wincing at the anticipated pain of penetration. Vorhavok male organs were said to be larger in length if not in girth to human males', and while she was certain the obvious porn actress in the film could manage it-

"She won't be harmed," Rikk said huskily.

She glanced at him for a moment. "What?"

His eyes were still on the screen, his throat dark, and his body still leaning forward. "Females. knot. deep inside, near their egg sacs. When we mate to produce children, we're. locked together, for many hours. It can get uncomfortable. We learn to not go in so deep when we mate for pleasure."

Ilsa took it in. Then wondered why he had bothered to explain it. Was it just a genuine desire to reassure her about the actress' safety?

Or was he hinting at something closer? More personal?

The cameras had moved in close on the male and the woman. Ordinarily such a scene would be far too clinical, too focused on the gynaecological, for her to find arousing. Now, however, she was unnerved by her level of stimulation; she could even smell her own musk-

A sound from Rikk beside her, who deliberately kept frozen. Except for his nostrils, flaring wildly.

Oh God. She twisted, pulled him back from his lap.

Saw the bulge beneath his kilt, the one he'd been hiding from her.

Quickly she reached up and clasped his muzzle, turned it to face her, saw he was without his inhibitor. Her heart leapt into her throat. "Rikk, you're reacting to me! How the fuck can you do that?"

Rikk pulled from her grasp, turned to the screen long enough to switch it off with his eye, before facing her again, cast in shadow and silence, his voice laced with embarrassment, but still as warm and comforting as a favourite fur throw. "It happens. Humans produce pheromones just like we do, they're chemically similar. It just hasn't been noticed much because we tend to wear inhibitors around your people. But it's not something that we like to advertise. Life on Earth has been difficult enough for us without charges that we'll go wild and rape the first wet pussy we catch scent of."

Ilsa nodded numbly. It made sense. She knew that, as savage as Vorhavok mating appeared to many humans, they never really lost control, but many humans would rather fester in their own ignorance. But then she thought of other times they'd been together, when she'd grown aroused, contrived situations. "Why are you going without your inhibitor now? How often have you done that, and I didn't notice?"

"Ilsa, I wouldn't hurt you."

"Why, Rikk?"

His silhouette seemed to fill the room, and he almost shook, as if to force the confession from his body. "Because I wanted to get aroused, from you. I wanted to touch myself, thinking of you. I love you, maideleh. I want you. My whole life has changed, because of you, grown immeasurably better. You're my soulmate, my friend, my confidante. I. wanted more. Wanted our relationship to grow. I went without the inhibitor to test if we were chemically compatible, and we are. I. was studying the film, to make sure I wouldn't hurt you if we- we-"

"'Test'?" Her voice had gone cold, and the revelations hit her like a blow to the stomach. "Study? What am I, some lab animal? Have you stolen my used panties to jerk off into as well?"

"Ilsa, no, it's not like that." His tail slithered from behind him, reached out to her. "I'm sorry!"

"No!" She slapped it away. "Don't touch me! You're disgusting!" She rose onto weak legs, tugging down her vest in a futile attempt to cover her knickers as she turned and fled from the room, knocking over beer bottles and snack bowls, slamming and locking her bedroom door behind her.

The light outside, dying with the local imam's call to evening prayer, filtered through gauze-like curtains, barely illuminating the bed as she fell upon it, wrapping herself in sheets as if he might now display X-ray vision. She thought of those times she'd moved about the flat naked, coming out of the shower, even using their toilet in front of him. She thought of those times he'd called up human porn for them to watch and joke over. She thought of those times afterwards when she'd masturbated in here, Rikk hearing, smelling her from his own room. It was disgusting! She'd lov- trusted him, and he betrayed that trust! Who did he think he was?