“Thank you very much please for everything you have done for me today. I have happiness instead of fear because you decided to help me. This was very noble and kind. I would be fuck out of luck without you.”
“I think you mean ‘shit out of luck,’” Jude said with a wry smile.
“But fuck out of luck rhymes. That is more aesthetically pleasing to the ears, yes?”
“Maybe, but I don’t make the rules for English, I just speak it.”
“Hm,” Al hummed. He continued to be unimpressed with the language. “Jude, may I say a question to you?”
“Of course.”
“What did Ezra mean when he said for us to ‘have fun and be safe’?”
Jude’s face lit up like a solar flare.
“Ignore him. He was just being a dick,” he said in a rush, waving a dismissive hand. This only served to pique Al’s interest further.
“His words seemed kind. Were they not?” That was entirely possible. The hardest part of languages for Al was picking up on the meaning behind different inflections. He thought about how Ezra had pitched his voice up higher—that must have meant something that went over Al’s head.
“They weren’t like,mean, per se. He was just teasing us.”
“Teasing us for what purpose?” Al was thoroughly confused at this point. Jude inhaled deeply, and then let it all out in one big gust of an exhale.
“There are certain, uh, let’s sayimplications,” he said slowly, “that coming home late at night with a stranger have in human culture.” When Al simply nodded for him to continue, Jude grimaced. “Right. Well, those implications are that—what he was suggesting was—oh fuck it. He was implying that I was taking you to my bedroom to have sex with you.”
“Oh!” Al said, understanding at last. “It is a human mating ritual.”
Jude hesitated, then replied, “Sure, let’s call it that. That’s a totally normal thing to say.”
“Do humans mate frequently? On my planet, mating is for reproduction but also for making pleasure, though many species are different. To give an example to you, the—oh, what would be the English words? Let us call them the Aquatic Beasts. They reside in our ocean, and they will mate for casual pleasure, but when our two moons pass each other in the sky once per year, the Aquatic Beasts go into heat. This is when they have the mating festival. For seventeen planet rotations they celebrate their heat and mate as many times as possible in order to ensure fertilization of all who are capable of being with child.”
“You have a species on your planet that has a seventeen-day orgy party once every year?”
“If I am correctly understanding the meaning of the word ‘orgy,’ then yes. They do.”
“That’s…” Jude swallowed thickly and shifted his hips. “I definitely have no strong feelings about that at all.”
“You did not answer my question about humans.”
“Well, you kind of threw me off by talking about mermaid orgies.” Jude rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, yeah, humans ‘mate’ a lot, I guess. They do it for reproduction, sure, but I would bet money that if you did the math,waymore sex happens for pleasure.”
“Doyoumate for pleasure?” Al asked earnestly. He was starting to get that strange fluttering feeling in his gut again.
“Jesus.” Jude’s voice was muffled due to the fact that quite suddenly, his hands were covering his face. After a pause, he removed his hands and gave Al a resigned look. “Yeah, sure, I do sometimes. It’s a good stress reliever.”
Al nodded slowly, thinking this over.
“Would you like to mate with me?” he asked.
Jude’s eyes widened and he sputtered several nonsense syllables before managing to say, “I’m sorry,what?”
“It is not a necessity,” Al said quickly, worried he might have crossed a cultural boundary. “It is just that you said that it makes humans not have as much stress, and your mannerisms suggest that you are very stressed. It is a worry to me that your stress is my fault, which I do not have happiness about. I would like to give you relaxation.”
“Aklsfsl,” Jude said, or at least that’s what it sounded like.
“I do not recognize that word, I apologize.”
Jude took several long breaths, then placed his hands palms-down on his thighs and looked at Al with a face that Al wasn’t entirely convinced was as calm as it appeared. “I appreciate the offer,” he said in a tone that sounded like he was having to work very hard to keep himself controlled, “but I wouldn’t want you to do anything sexual out of obligation. Besides,” he added with a nervous chuckle, “I would besucha human stereotype. People always joke that once we discover alien life, we’ll be lining up to fuck them. Ha ha, that’s… that’s such a funny joke…” He trailed off and glanced around the room everywhere but at Al.
