Space Smut: Bad Decisions

A meteorite shot with a shimmering green tail that illuminated Titan’s drab, cloudy sky.

At least we’re still alive, Yarrow thought with a mix of relief and annoyance. Alive for another miserable and cloudy day on Titan.

Yarrow wondered what that meteorite was and why it had come here. It probably was another damn specimen to analyze at work. Fuck, Yarrow hated zir job; ze needed a new one. Zir job was disgusting and scary, although undeniably important for their colony’s survival on this moon of Saturn.

“We’re here!” Hydrangea shrieked joyfully, interrupting Yarrow’s thought. Hydrangea, zir best friend, was mucho—too fucking much—but that didn’t stop their platonic love. “What are you looking at? Let’s go! Are you ready to make bad decisions?”

“Hydrangea, we’re going to work. What bad decisions are you planning to make there?” Yarrow replied. Ze recalled zir job. “You’re right. Coming to work was today’s first bad decision.”

“Yay, let’s get our tits out and do some shrooms! Figuratively, obviously.”

Yarrow nodded.

As they walked into the office, Yarrow hoped there were no samples to analyze today. But a moment in the lab confirmed Yarrow’s worst fears. Vreeto, zir boss, was talking loudly. Ze was excited. This was horrid news and a clear indication that they had dissections to do today.

“Five more specimens arrived on Titan last night, day 15 of 16, Titan’s 68th orbit around Saturn this Saturnian year,” Vreeto said to start the meeting. “The search crew could only locate analyzable tissues at two of the impact sites. They haven’t located the specimens yet. Today, we’ll analyze the two successfully retrieved samples. From what we can tell, it’s tissue from alien life. We’re not sure where it’s from or what its genetic material is. Today’s analysis might provide clarifying information.”

Yarrow felt sick. Ze wanted to be anywhere but here. Sadly, none of zir coworkers appeared to share zir disgust or concern.

What lunatics? Yarrow thought. Scientists are the fucking worst.

Overwhelmed, Yarrow recognized another sad fact: good sex might be impossible for a few days after this dissection. This didn’t bode well for zir week.

“For the squeamish folks here, today’s main specimen will be challenging to analyze,” Vreeto continued. “Frankly, it looks like a chicken that was decapitated with a blowtorch—but no feathers. I suspect it flew face-down after the chrysalis ruptured. That’s when the atmosphere incinerated its head. Miraculously, a lake softened its landing. What remains is the best-preserved sample we’ve collected. The specimen appears to have a cloaca instead of traditional genitals. However, other features make me think it isn’t Homo cloacans from Enceladus.”

Yarrow hated everything ze heard. Ze preferred the crispy and crunchy samples to fleshy and bloody ones. Ze tuned out additional details about the decapitated creature and its abnormal genitals.

Yarrow’s brain pivoted to things it could handle, like mentally undressing Vreeto. Vreeto was a fine-looking baby-maker. Birth and an extra decade hadn’t ruined zir body. Ze must’ve been a fox at a younger age, but ze remained spicy with gray peppered hair. Zir anxious demeanor charmed Yarrow. Something suggested ze was a closeted pervert. Yarrow found Vreeto’s wavy jet-black mustache tantalizing. Vreeto was the reason Yarrow took the job. If only Vreeto would chill enough to let the kinky weirdo out.

“Today's experiments will produce so much incredible data about the foreign life that's coming to Titan,” Vreeto continued. “Hydrangea, I want to hear about the blood samples once you get them tested. I suspect the quality will be exceptional. Yarrow, let’s discuss your dissection and analysis later today. I hope you can extract blood cells—hopefully some white blood cells. It’ll be interesting to see if it has an immune system. Good luck, everyone.”

“Nothing starts the day better than looking at a corpse,” Hydrangea said giddily to Yarrow. “Are you excited? Today is going to be so cool!”

Yarrow gulped, “It’ll be interesting.” Ze hated Hydrangea’s enthusiasm for biology, physiology, and bodies.

Through the years, Yarrow learned a lot about zir species, Herma entices. Ze, Hydrangea, Vreeto, and nearly everyone on Titan were Herma entices, however, there were a few humans on Titan these days. Sex and genitals were the defining difference between Herma and humans: there was only one sex of Herma, and every Herma had a tentacle dick and a vagina. Since humans had arrived on Titan, Yarrow learned a lot about humans’ different sexualities and anatomy. Cloacas were new to zir. Only Titan's birds had them.

“This will be my first time touching a cloaca. I'm so excited. Do you think anyone will notice if I insert my finger? It probably would like it,” Hydrangea joyfully said.

They walked across the lab towards the specimens in glove boxes. Yarrow forced zirself to look at the fleshy and headless body.

“Where’s the chach? Fucking weird…,” Hydrangea laughed.

Annoyed, Yarrow replied, “Come on, it’s just anatomy. You’ve seen the pictures of Homo cloacans. The cloacas...,” Yarrow replied.

“You mean the vagina-butthole-thing? A click? A cloa?”

“You already have nicknames for them?”

“What?” Hydrangea didn’t understand.

Yarrow looked at the strange, genital-less body. Somehow, the solitary hole seemed stranger than the absent head. The gray color emphasized its alien anatomy. While Homo cloacans had similar origins to Herma entices—both were genetically engineered by people on Earth to colonize Saturn’s moons—this thing appeared distinctly from foreign origins. Without a doubt, this was new and different.

“Do they just scissor? That would be so lame! If I were one of them, I’d also leave Scissor World at the first opportunity.”

Laughing despite zirself, Yarrow responded, “Hydrangea, stop it.”

“I bet that these critters are clawing out their clicks and hightailing to Promena Kairos. They’re must be starving for real gine-gine and tentacle dick!” Hydrangea smiled and added, “I heard their cloaca is prehensile, like it can grab shit. So fucking mucho... I bet you wish your chach could do that.” Hydrangea made a clomping fish mouth accompanied by a fish-like hand gesture to presumably impersonate a cloaca.

“You continue to amaze me. This thing is a dead,” Yarrow gestured at the corpse. “It might’ve been sent here against its will,” Yarrow shook zir head and tried to collect zirself.

A moment later, Hydrangea started singing:

“It’s my click, it’s my cloa

It’s my vag-butthole”

“Hydrangea…,” Yarrow said. “Can we focus? We have a lot of work to do,” Yarrow said, exasperated.

“Ugh, fine,” Hydrangea added a disapproving and utterly bitchy cat sound. They went to their work stations. Moments later, Hydrangea continued singing:

“Ze’s hung like a horse

But I’m the one who’s braying

I’ve got no recourse

And ze’s the one who’s spraying

Right inside of me

Deep inside of me

I’m braying like a horse

I’m braying like a horse”

Hydrangea’s singing ended with an abrupt squawk. “They don’t have nipples! Wow, that’s odd. Gushness, it isn’t a mammal. Homo cloacans have nipples, right? Is this different?”

Yarrow tried to focus, but ze didn’t want to be here. Ze wanted to be back at zir old job as a gardener, or pursuing zir dreams as a sex toy inventor. Anything was better than this. Regardless, the autopsy needed to be done while the body was fresh.

Yarrow grabbed the biopsy robot, which automatically identified and extracted tissues from a body. After ze extracted the tissue, ze ejected the first sample into a petri dish. Ze biopsied the mass of flesh and aimed to collect the liver, lung, spleen, stomach, heart, and cloacal tissues this way. Eventually, the analysis would identify the tissues, cells, and microscopic anatomy.

If it isn’t a mammal, does it have a uterus? Yarrow wondered. It could have very different sex. Yarrow pictured a prehensile cloaca, shrugged, and proceeded with the autopsy.

“I saw you looking at Vreeto earlier. You looked like a caged sex panda,” Hydrangea said.

“Was I looking at zir weird? There wasn’t anything going on.” Yarrow defended zirself.

“Yeah, duh, I won’t lie. I also dig zir ’stache and would bone zir until ze went dry—that is if ze wasn’t my boss.”

Defense was futile. “I didn’t realize it was obvious,” Yarrow said sheepishly.

“Your face was flushed, and you were ogling zir. Do the lab a favor and bone someone zir already. Make bad decisions! Remember what I told you.”

“I probably shouldn’t,” Yarrow replied sadly.

Yarrow wrapped up zir analysis. It was the time for Hydrangea to start blood work. Ze needed to isolate and characterize the white blood cells. Hydrangea was part of the team that hoped to understand the alien immune system.

“I saw you penetrating this alien with your tools and probably fingers, and I've gotta say, you could do better than this burnt and crusty creature. Why haven’t you fucked Yavi? Ze was hot, by the way.” Hydrangea continued, “You know me. I’m happy to fuck an octopus or nearly any Herma entices who’s DDF—now that they’re here, I’ll fuck a human with either a cock or pussy one of these days—but I’d never fuck a cloaca,” Hydrangea explained. “Cloacas are for ducks.”

Surprising zirself, Yarrow responded, “I’d top one of them.”

“You would, you dirty freak.” Hydrangea laughed.

“I’m really desperate,” Yarrow admitted, laughing. “Okay, it’s ready for you.”

Hydrangea didn’t waste a moment before getting to work, grabbing the blood pump and tubing.

Yarrow looked at this mangled hunk of flesh once more and asked, “Why do you think they’re getting sent here? And be serious, I don’t want to hear anything about scissoring.”

“Why are you asking me? Ask Vreeto, ze’s the philosophical one. It seems like an alien invasion, but I don't know why they're coming here.”

Hydrangea injected one needle into the arm and stabbed a second through the chest and directly into the heart. Ze connected each needle to tubing on the plasma pump, which ze flipped on. The body’s skin faded from gray to charcoal. Once complete, Hydrangea grabbed the needle and vacuumed residual blood from the corpse and the table while ze hummed a song by Dione Starwick, the diva.

I need a new job. This is disgusting. I can’t keep doing this. I’m not a psychopath like Hydrangea, Yarrow thought.

With zir work completed, Yarrow rushed out of the lab. Ze felt unclean and wanted a spa day.

Ze received a message from Qualta, the last person ze fucked:

“Want to hang? It’s been ages,” Qualta said.

Yarrow remembered their last encounter: bad sex, Qualta’s temper, uncomfortable discussions of remaining friends.

“Yeah, come to my place in an hour,” Yarrow replied with a sad desperation.

Yarrow remembered the past hour. How much will work—these aliens—fuck with my sex life? Yarrow wondered. Shit’s going to get really weird.