Page 3 of My New and Improved Alien Lovers

“This is… wonderful,” another voice says, slightly amused. “This attribute, is highly prized down there, yes?”

“I’mhighly prized down here. The men? Not so much. What’s shakin’ up there?”

“I'm sorry, did you intend to submit a mating request?”

“Who's talking? I like your voice. It's all rrrough.”

“I'm Owiin, my lady. You're beautiful.”

“See? Already better than the date I was just on.”

A growl sounds through the tiny speaker, making my skin flush.

“Oh look, flashing colors! Let's see. Do I agree to have a translation chip implanted upon my arrival in my new spaceship home? That would be pretty difficult to talk to you otherwise, wouldn’t it? Yes.

“Does the thought of large penises and a high sex drive make me uncomfortable? Ha! Hell to the no. Am I interested in expedited contact?” I look up at the screen squinting, even though I've already established I can't see them. “Am I interested in expedited contact?”

“Um, my lady?”

“Margaret, at your service,” I say with a classy bow. We're not going to talk about the fact that I also hit my forehead on the machine as I do so.

“Margaret, beautiful. If I may, our ship is very near your planet right now. Not to rush you, but this is the last night we're allowed to be this close. Another ship will be taking our place tomorrow. If you wish to meet us, expedited contact is kind of our only choice. Otherwise, we'd have to wait six more months to come back.”

“I don't want anybody else, sign me up!” I click some more buttons because they're green and shiny, the screen blurring a bit as I work.

“Margaret? You're not going to regret this. We'll be wonderful mates to you. We'll take great care of you; we'll make you happy.”

“Happy, yes. Why is the machine beeping at me? Oh, it wants my hand. Why does it want my hand?” A little door opens up with a glass screen and a laser moving up and down. Even in my non-sober state I can figure out the diagram on the screen is telling me to put my palm on the glass. I high-five the machine, and it bites me. “Motherfucker! What the hell? Why is my hand stuck?”

“Margaret? Are you alright?”

“Fine, fine.” A giant yawn escapes me, which I'm sure must be super attractive. “It's been so lovely chatting to you dears. Mustconfess I need to get to bed though. Have a lovely night.” I turn around with every intention of stumbling out of the park, but the machine begins angrily beeping at me. I spare one last glace to find a giant red flashing button on the touch screen, but my eyes are too sleepy to read all the tiny words on it. In an effort to make the annoying noise stop, I press the button.

Confetti sprays out of the top of the machine, and then the Bridal March starts playing, which is weird.

The men I was talking to are calling my name, but they're not louder than the call of my bed. With fluffy pillows taking over my thoughts, I blow them a kiss and begin to muddle my way home, ditching my heels halfway there, because fuck them.

Adeema

“Do you think we need to address the fact she likely had no idea what she just did?” I look to my triad, trying to determine how much trouble we would get into for allowing a human to go through all of this when it's pretty clear she can't give consent.

Owiin is definitely contemplating it, but Kass just looks excited. Reserved, but excited.

“You know the rules,” Kass tells us. “We can't influence them to accept, which we didn't, other than letting her know what our timeline was. We can't initiate contact, which we have no way of doing anyway. She contacted us, she filled everything out. There's nothing in our contract with earth that states inebriation cancels out a contract.”

“That's true,” Owiin points out. “It's not like this is the first time somebody has signed up in such a state. And that’s just assuming anyway, based on her behavior, that she was consuming alcohol. Who knows, maybe she's just very... eccentric.”

I let out a very undignified snort, because we all know that there's eccentricity, and then there's drunk as a space satellite.

“Did we just find ourselves a mate?” Kass asks quietly, as if saying it too loud might prevent it from coming to fruition.

“We did. Oh my maker, we’re getting mated!” Kass and Owiin move closer to me, and we take our triad formation. Arms around each other's back, foreheads all touching. It's finally happening. After all these years of searching, we'll finally get to have a mate.

“We need to prepare the ship for travel. We need to go pick her up before our earth time slot is up.”

I look at my wristband to see we have a minimal amount of time before our pass expires that allows us to stay near earth waiting for a mate, and it's going to take at least thirty Earth minutes to arrive at her home from where we currently are. This close to earth, we can't move too fast or else it will disrupt too much on the planet.

“I'll get everything locked up. Adeema, you drive.”

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