Earth Husbands are Odd (Earth Fathers) Read online

  Drawing Max close, Rick blew bubbles against Max’s stomach. “Clarify. I make you spill genetic materials prior temporally.” He pressed Max’s prostate again, and Max writhed as tentacles held him tightly. However, he was a man on a mission, and he had to focus. He reached for the thick tentacle again, but another tentacle wrapped around his wrist and pulled his arm down to his side. Max was planning his counterattack when Rick pressed in, forcing Max’s hole to stretch.

  Max gasped. “Are you?” He swallowed the rest of his words. His hole strained as a second tentacle pushed in next to the first one. That meant a tight coil undulated against Max’s prostate as he forced a tentacle farther into Max’s body . Max arched his back and moaned as he struggled to accommodate both tentacles.

  “No longer mutually exclusive options. Rick problem solve winning for partner twitching.” Rick tightened his hold on Max’s thighs before his tentacle surged forward.

  Max screamed in pleasure. It was like a too-hot shower, like the burn of stretching sore muscles, like the tightness at the end of a marathon. It was good—so intense that it edged toward pain, and yet left Max wanting more. “You fucking cheater,” Max gasped the words.

  “I fucking,” Rick agreed with deep and full belches. Tentacles undulated against Max’s stomach, against the backs of his legs where he was ticklish, against his trapped arm. Then Rick’s reproductive tentacle touched his nipple before curling like a cinnamon bun on Max’s chest.

  “Oh, you—” Max screamed and writhed as the suction started. Rick sucking so hard that Max’s nipple felt as if it was being pierced, something Max had been stupid enough to try at eighteen. Then he gentled the pressure to feather kisses over the abused nub. Rick alternated the two until Max thought he couldn’t take more. He writhed. Only then did Rick gentle his motions to soft strokes.

  “Yes, I.” Rick proclaimed.

  Even though the reproductive tentacle was within reach, Max couldn’t gather his thoughts long enough to make a grab at it. His cock was too hard for him to think about anything other than coming. Damn aliens with their damn tentacles.

  One of the tentacles in his ass pressed farther in, a hard point of lust and need. But at the same time, Rick’s other tentacles supported Max’s body, teasing with tickle-touches. The contrast left Max feeling like one giant, overly exposed nerve.

  Rick curled his tentacles around Max’s fingers and wrist, and Max tightened his hand. That made Rick shiver, and Max tightened his legs around Rick’s walking tentacle. That sent a larger shiver through him, and all his tentacles shimmied, including the two up Max’s ass.

  Max lurched forward as much as he could while still wrapped in a tangle of Rick’s limbs. The movement loosened Rick’s hold over Max’s hand, and Max grabbed a tentacle the way he would a rope when trying to climb it. He circled the tentacle until it was wrapped around his forearm and then he grasped it tightly. The move never failed to turn Rick into a mass of quivering octopus, and it didn’t fail this time. Rick pressed his mouth against Max’s shoulder and blew air. Sometimes that sound meant amusement, but when they were tangling tentacles, it had a whole different meaning.

  Lust distracted Rick, and normally Max would’ve used the momentary distraction to grab that reproductive tentacle to drive Rick crazy until he was a pile of goo. However, his ass was stuffed so full that every move increased the pressure on his prostate. Rick recovered before Max could mount a counterattack or even figure out how to think straight while he was impaled.

  Rick’s fingers teased the inside of Max’s thighs before moving in toward his balls.

  “You’re killing me.” Max let his head fall back, and a tentacle wrapped around his neck before the red tip teased Max’s lips. At the same time, a tender touch explored his cock and a tentacle curled around it. Max tried to thrust, but Rick held him suspended in tentacles, with the weight of both of them supported only by his walking tentacle. Max’s boyfriend was one muscled geek.

  “Never kill Max. Never, never, never.” Rick whispered the words against Max’s skin. Each belch made air dance over Max’s skin.

  “Then move,” Max begged. He had lost this round, and he was willing to embrace his inner loser if Rick would move his tentacles. At one point, Rick had been so unsure of himself. He had probably feared how a warrior would react to Rick showing off his strength, so their playful competition... Max felt the bonds of trust developing between them.

  And Max would win later. He would reduce Rick to quivering limbs and then jerk off all over his red-tipped tentacles. But right now, he couldn’t focus on Rick—not when his ass was stuffed so full that he couldn’t get his brain to work.

  Rick tightened his hold of Max’s cock while pushing farther up Max’s ass at the same time.

  Pleasure slammed Max like Hulk Hogan taking out an opponent. He writhed as Rick slipped a tentacle into his mouth. The salty musk that was uniquely Rick filled his senses, and Max sucked on it.

  Rick quivered, and the resulting vibration in his ass and around his cock gave Max the final push he needed. He came with a scream. Rick must have enjoyed himself too because his limbs were nearly as warm as the hot body pressed against Max’s chest. That only happened with good sex.

  Rick shimmied.

  “Max skilled in maximizing pleasure,” Rick said with a rumble. “Maximized skilled in maximizing pleasure. Maximized maximizing skilled in maximizing maximized pleasure.”

  Max laughed. That was the nicest compliment he’d had since someone called his intestines asymmetrical. “And you make me happy for stagnant water. I would stagnate in this water every day for the rest of my life and be maximum happy.”

  Rick slowly pulled his tentacles out of Max’s body. “Stagnant waters sometimes are beautiful,” Rick agreed.

  Max’s bare feet touched the floor. Max drew Rick closer. Rick’s tentacles danced over Max’s skin, and Max held on tighter. This was perfect. He wished he didn’t have to deal with the rest of the universe. He had his one alien and that was all he wanted or needed. Well, except of course for the children, but Max tried very hard not to think about the children when his brains had recently leaked out of his cock.

  Chapter Three

  Max threaded his way through the crowd, wondering why aliens hadn’t yet invented mass transit. Sure, he had issues with the New York subway system, and falling asleep on a train that was bound for Tremont had not been a fond memory. However, someone could make a killing with a tentacle-friendly bus route.

  He looked at the towers that rose in the distance. He wondered if the city was as crowded as the docks. Maybe he’d find out later. Right now he had a mission.

  A large bell-shaped alien crashed into Max and cut between him and Rick. Max cursed the asshole’s backside and reached for Rick. Rick hesitated, but Max kept his hand out, waiting for Rick to get over whatever insecurities made him want to avoid touching in public. Rick might fear giving Max some sort of ugly cooties, but Max didn’t listen to bullies in high school and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now. If he could survive being gay in the damn Midwest, he could survive holding tentacles with his non-symmetrical partner.

  “Others reinforced in belief Max from moron people,” Rick warned him in a whisper even as he slipped a tentacle into Max’s hand.

  “I don’t care.” Max squeezed Rick and turned to wade into the crowd again. This time Rick pressed close, his tentacles brushing Max’s back.

  A more honest answer would have been that Max cared a lot, but he was too stubborn to ever let someone else intimidate him into changing. No one liked being the butt of the joke, the outcast, the loser who was afraid of going into the boys’ locker room after school. However, when Max had come out of the closet after Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had ended, he’d sworn to himself that he would never go back in again. And he wouldn’t. If the universe didn’t like his relationship with Rick, well he was all out of fucks. Being the victim of alien abduction did that to a man.

  Rick gave him a gentle push
to the right and Max spotted the map. They had a distorted point of view that meant straight roads appeared to curve inward toward the middle and none of the data was communicated in text that could be translated. It used a series of hard-to-memorize symbols.

  He couldn’t find the symbol for Trader. “Query. Where is the trader we discussed?” Max asked.

  “Query. Clarify. Time or content of discussion.”

  Max glanced around at the passing crowd and then leaned closer to whisper, “Clarify. The trader who couldn’t get permission to trade on the Hidden World.”

  Rick rotated a few degrees and aligned his largest eye with Max’s face without answering. Seconds passed, and Max waited. Unless he missed his guess, Rick was questioning Max’s intelligence. Either that or he was getting cold tentacles. Finally Rick said, “Reminder. Those with no license on Hidden World are those who will not trade with those of Hidden World. The others maintain interconnected anger at the Hidden People.”

  “They can be interconnected in their anger all they want,” Max muttered. As far as he was concerned, a universe that boycotted a species for being secretive deserved to get their tentacles handed to them on a platter, and Max was the guy to do it. He grew up watching Mission Impossible and the A-Team. He had a plethora of cheesy revenge plots to draw on. “This guy is a trader, and that means he wants to make a profit.”

  Rick slid his tentacle forward so the tip escaped Max’s grip and curled around his wrist. “Agreed. Compensation is significant motivation for those motivated by compensation.”

  Either Rick was trying to be pithy or the translation matrix needed help distinguishing different versions of that word. “I plan to take advantage of his desire for compensation,” Max said. And if this guy wanted Rick’s fancy new navigation software, he would have to assist them in a little Nathan Ford-esque plotting. Max might not live up to the standards set by the mastermind of Leverage, but he was willing to try.

  “Query. Which what advantage of compensation?”

  That had been clear as mud. “Do you trust me?” Max asked. He didn’t have the detailed language needed to explain how his plan would come together, and he definitely didn’t want to try in the open.

  Several of Rick's tentacles snapped up into tight curls. “Clarification. Any action that is set leads to your belief in my mistrust is unintended.” He reached for Max with several tentacles as though seeking to reassure him.

  Max smiled and ran his fingers along the underside of a tentacle. The tentacle in question shivered. “Clarify. Sometimes humans in a relationship will ask that question, not to seek information, but to remind a partner that trust is valued.”

  Rick's tentacles uncurled again. “My memory exceeds humans who must forget. I trust Max.”

  “It’s not that humans forget.” Max struggled for the right words. “Sometimes we hurry to speak or act and our brain doesn’t pull up all relevant information.”

  Rick made a sound like blowing bubbles. “Humans are odd,” he announced.

  “I couldn't agree with you more. One of these days you're going to meet some other humans, then you're going to discover exactly how odd we are.”

  Rick made a quarter turn so the tentacle wrapped around Max’s wrist was pulled tight. Maybe he was questioning the likelihood of humans finding space, but Max put a little more faith in his species. Sure, they were a disorganized mess of suicide cults and rioting now, and they would be a disorganized mess of crime and drama once they arrived, but he suspected that in the middle they would pull their shit together.

  That was what happened when people were pushed. They adapted, they survived. In SERE training, instructors had told Max that humans could survive the impossible, and had on a semi-regular basis. They’d proved that with a gruesome, full-color proof. In this case, Max figured the visit from alien ships was a serious gut shot, but the human race was going to fight back eventually.

  They would get up to space if only so they could properly scream at the law enforcement officers for chasing the Nish through their gravity well. And then they would sue someone. Max worried that the universe would do the same thing to him that it had done to Rick and judge him by his people. He just had to make sure that his reputation was settled first. Max walked in the direction Rick had suggested when he’d touched the map, and Rick followed.

  He hadn’t been thinking about reputations when he’d been on that law enforcement patrol ship. Back then he had taken every opportunity to embarrass himself. He was fairly sure they had tranquilized him a couple of times because his general level of panic had gotten too high, but in Max's defense, his survival and escape classes had never covered alien invasion. He assumed that was an oversight the military was addressing now.

  “Query. Will Trader have access to language translation of the Hidden People?” Max asked. He’d worked his ass off to get that computer system to recognize English and if he had to start over with a different language, he might stab someone.

  “Concern. Sharing of linguistic database could lead to illicit copying. He is known for removing without adequate compensation.”

  “A greedy businessman? Who would've thunk?” Apparently there were some constants in the universe.

  Rick hurried to walk at Max’s side instead of following. “Query. Clarify ‘thunk’. Thunk is sound to fall.”

  “Clarify. Thunk is conjugation of think when speaker makes fun of himself.”

  Rick didn't say anything, but he had that expression again, the one that said that he questioned Max’s sanity. Max was a bad, bad boyfriend because he found that entirely too entertaining. He cleared his throat. “I'm going to say some things to the trader that you might not understand. I am asking you to believe that I can outsmart our enemies.”

  “Correction. Trader is not enemies. Trader is seeker of compensation, not danger to eliminate.”

  Max tugged on Rick to pull him closer for a second. A lavender alien with big lips flinched away as if they were a pile of dog poop, and several of Rick’s tentacles curled. That called for some serious distraction. Pulling out the big guns, Max ran his fingers up the largest central tentacle to the point where it met Rick’s body. With a shiver, Rick let his tentacles drop again. “I’m not sure if I should be complimented that you think I’m capable of taking on the universe in armed battle or insulted that you’re afraid I might.”

  A large alien came barreling past them on the walkway, nearly pushing them into the side of a building. Max not-so-accidentally stepped on a trailing tentacle. The creature gave a high-pitched yelp, but Max kept walking.

  “Max bad,” Rick said with a soft burble.

  Max didn’t bother answering. “Is that the trader’s symbol?” Max pointed at the writing beside a door. The shops on the main level were the largest ones, with elevated walkways leading to smaller shops on the upper levels. So if this guy had a street-level shop, he was big-time. Max felt a little fizzle of worry that he might be biting off more than he could chew.

  Rick didn’t notice Max’s unease because he simply said, “It is.”

  Max blew out a breath. Putting aside his worry, he stepped up to the door. He waited for the side of the door to retract, but nothing happened. He glanced at Rick. His tentacles weren’t curled as much as tucked close to the central leg.

  “Query. How do I get door to open?”

  “Answer. Request entry without one of the Hidden People.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t work for me,” Max said. “Query. Can we show him a small part of the programming, something that makes him want it?”

  “Answer. Yes. Clarify. He will not trade with the Hidden People.”

  “I hate that you act like that’s normal.”

  Rick just studied him for a good minute before he pulled a small computer display out of his hat and tapped on it. He let go of Max’s wrist and glided forward before pressing his computer to the door. Max moved closer to the door. Come on guy. Get curious. Or greedy. Max could work with either one.

&nbs
p; The computer next to the door beeped and hummed and chittered, but the door remained stubbornly closed. Max had almost decided to give up on this lead and look for someone else to act as their point man, but then the doors slid open a fraction of an inch.

  Rick made a farting noise.

  Hopefully that wasn’t a sign. Because if this plan didn’t work out, Max didn’t have the screenwriters the A-Team folks did. He didn’t get to reshoot the scene if these aliens decided to take offense at his attempt to reorder the universe, and Max had avoided researching alien penal codes and prison systems.

  Chapter Four

  Max studied the face peering up at him. It was a beige alien, one from a species he recognized from the law enforcement ship. It had dark lavender lips with wide, purpley stripes on the face. It made a high-pitched sing-song cry and the translator said, “Demand information.” Max assumed that meant “what?” Rick pulled back, but Max tightened his grip on Rick’s tentacle.

  “I want to trade.”

  The alien at the door peered up at Max and stretched his long neck to stare at Rick. “Not trading.”

  Max turned and took Rick’s computer out of his tentacle. If this trader didn’t want the program, he wouldn’t have opened the door. So he wanted to be talked into this. Max needed the right words. “This program is worth money. Compensation. Profit.” Max wasn’t sure if the words were getting across because the trader stared blankly. But he hadn’t slammed the door yet. Rick slipped a tentacle under the waistband of Max’s pants, but Max didn’t dare break eye contact with the trader—not even to tell Rick to stop molesting him.

  The trader stood straighter, stretching out to his full five-feet-high. After he looked around the street behind Max, his gaze settled on Rick. “Behind,” he said in a screeching voice, and then he retreated into his shop and the door closed with a sharp snap.

  Max blew out a breath and turned to Rick. “That went well.”