As a species, they wear very little clothing, as their skin grows thick for the cold winters. Then, when summers grow hot and humid, they shed, and their opalescent skin becomes a little more translucent, almost like it’s glowing.
It’s a little weird, but it’s also kinda cool. They remind me of snakes a bit, especially because they have no whites in their eyes, which is one of the most interesting things about them.
Right now, this monster is less naked than some, wearing low-slung shorts, his tail wrapped around his leg, his chest shirtless. His nipples are pierced with C-rings, and a curved barbell sits in his belly button.
My eyes catch on it for a moment until I look up and realize he’s smirking at me for staring, and my face reddens.
“You two checking in?” the monster asks, his accent a little less thick than some of the other monsters I’ve spoken to. I’ve heard their language a few times, and it’s…different. It’s lyrical, relying heavily on tones like a song. I’m not sure any human has successfully mastered it.
I have not been brave enough to try.
When I don’t answer right away, his eyes flicker over to Zane before moving back to me. I know his name. Heard it once. Shit, what is it? How rude of me not to remember.
I realize he’s asked me a question, and I clear my throat. “Sorry, yes.”
I hand him my card and watch as he scans it, his long fingers moving deftly toward the machine, then he flicks it back to me.
Zane doesn’t pull his out fast enough, though, too busy staring, which causes the monster to lean forward and give him a sly grin. The badge around his neck hits the counter, and I catch his name on it.
Quilliyn. Right.
“It’s in your front right pocket, human.”
That makes Zane blush, and Quilliyn smiles, showing a hint of fang. They have eye teeth like we do, only theirs are sharp and stick out a little more. The clinic officials swear they’re not dangerous and can’t break skin, but I’m not quite sure I believe them.
Zane mutters something like, “Oh,” under his breath.
“We have a good sense for this kind of thing,” Quilliyn says, a glint in his rainbow eye.
Zane sputters, pulling the card out and slapping it on the desk. “Can you see through clothes?”
“Maybe,” Quilliyn replies and then scans the card before winking at us, a trait they picked up from the humans recently.
Zane is fuming by the time he gets to the weights. “Flirtatious little shit. He should know he’s not getting anywhere near my dick.”
I hand him a set of weights, and he starts pumping them, not even bothering to stretch first.
He’s going to pull a fucking muscle, but saying anything now would be pointless. He’s been worked up all morning, and Quilliyn’s obvious flirting didn’t help.
I turn my head to my right and left, pulling my arms up, taking in the humans and monsters mingling as I stretch. It seems almost normal now.
Now that more of them are making their way through the portal to live, it’s hard to remember what it was like before they arrived.
I’m fine with it, but it’s getting harder to deal with Zane’s prejudices. He nearly lost it when a monster moved into our apartment building. He even tried to start a petition, but it didn’t go anywhere.
Most people are afraid to speak out against them, terrified they’ll take their gifts and leave us even worse off than we were before they arrived. And I’m one of those people.
Of course, Zane doesn’t understand. He’s never experienced loss the way I have, and as much as he feels sorry for me, he’ll never know what it’s like to lose everything to the single sweep of a disease we couldn’t control.
One that almost killed me, too.
But I blame his parents for that. They’re set in their ways and have moral objections to the whole cock-sucking thing. Zane spent the last several years listening to his parents talk about how the monsters are morally corrupt.
And how they’re taking humanity with them.
My aunt and uncle are the same, but they didn’t take the death of my parents as hard as I did. They don’t really understand what’s at stake.
I love Zane, but I hope he comes around soon because they could ask us to do so much more. Our own government used to ask young people to fight and die for pointless wars that never accomplished anything.
