Page 7 of My New and Improved Alien Lovers

“You were going to tell me why it would be difficult to explain to me, about our compatibility?”

Adeema nods, his eyes still closed. “Our race is very... adaptive. It is imperative for the survival of our species that we make lasting bonds, because it is a dying race. We have evolved ways of altering our identities subconsciously, to become something of ideal partners. We’re given the basic courtesy classes of course, on how to treat our partners, but the way we work is that we get to know you, and as we do, our personalities will start to fully develop based on input from you. We become the best versions of ourselves while becoming ideal partners for you, so anybody we would match with could potentially be the perfect match for us.”

I frown. “That sounds disheartening. And it makes me feel very not special. You literally could have picked up any other woman out there, and you'd be just as happy with them as you are with me? I mean, I'm getting ahead of myself, there're a lot of assumptions happening up here,” I say as I tap my head, “but there's no magic there. No romance.”

“You misunderstand it,” Owiin says as he comes to sit on the bed as well. Mr. touch-is-important-to-us doesn't give me any space. Instead, he pins me to the bed and hovers over me. “You are the only woman on earth that could make us happy, because you chose us.”

“By that logic, if somebody else would have been there instead of me, they would have made you the happiest people in the galaxy.”

He narrows his eyes at me then shakes his head. “No.”

“No? That's all you have to say? I could have been paired with anybody else and lived a fulfilled life with them, too.”

“No,” he says again.

I throw my hands up, exasperated. “Whatever. What's next? I know there are no return to earth options, but I actually sort of feel like I might be where I'm supposed to be.”

“There, you see? It is working already.”

I look up an Owiin in confusion. “What? How do you figure?”

“A key part of our culture,” Adeema tries to explain, sneakily getting very close, “is our belief in the universe. On Earth, many people worship a god of some sort in the heavens, correct? Our culture, we believe in the power of the universe. We believe we are given exactly what we need and accept that sometimes it takes time to understand why. For example, you.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“Everything was set into motion when you went on your date,” he says as he makes a raspy sound from the back of his throat, making me think of disgust or some such similar emotion. “Choosing to go on that date, getting matched with somebody so ill-suited to you, being where you were—"

“Did I tell you the server at the restaurant brought up the idea of considering the communication boxes? He has a cousin that happily mated through the program, and he knew I've been struggling in the dating department because apparently, I'm bad at choosing new restaurants to have failed dates at.”

“Even better,” Owiin says, his eyes lighting up a bit. “Maybe you don't see the pattern here, but we do. Clearly. You were always going to be ours. Maybe we could have picked up any woman, yes. But we didn't. We picked upyou, which means you were the only one that could make us happy.” He looks so happy by the circular logic that I can't even fault him. It's all very clear to him and maybe for once in my life, I just need to trust in that.

What would it be like, if for once in my life, I just accepted where I was, and went with it? What if I bought into the idea that some greater power put me on this ship, got me here in the way that they did, and united me with these men because they're my best chance at happiness?

“You are thinking about it,” Adeema confirms. “This is good. When you open yourself to the universe, their energy can soak into you better. It is rare that these matches do not end up in a good mating,” he goes on to explain. “Because of our species, and because we believe the universe puts the exact person we need in our life, most stories are happy ones.”

“Am I right in assuming there is a trial period of sorts with mates, like there is when you form a triad?”

Kass steps closer, standing at the edge of where we all are, looking a little shy. “There is,” he tells me in his soft, lyrical voice. “There will be signs fairly quickly we are biologically compatible.”

“It's already started,” Owiin comments. “You like our scents. This is a big signal that we are good mates for you, because if we smelled unappealing to you, we would not be well compatible. You know what else? Your body, it will begin to prepare itself for us if you spend time with us.”

I look up at Owiin, wondering what he's getting at, and the thought hits me. My eyes trace the line of down his body, linger on his hips, stopping at the sizable bulge that fills his pants. Does that mean what I think it does?

It twitches. For fuck’s sake, how big is that thing?

Clearing his throat, Kass gets us back on track. “In the trial period, you will have to take some classes and undergo training before we'd be able to consummate anything, lest we risk tearing you. We are told that human women are small, but pliable.”

“If that isn't the most flattering description I've ever heard, then I’m a zebra.”

“I do not understand this phrase,” Owiin tells me. “But the classes are part of the trial period.”

I'm trying to read between the lines here, but I don't have a whole lot to go off of. “Just to be clear, we're talking about sex, yes? You're saying I must train my body before I can fit you? That seems like it might be unnecessary. I've been with some big men before, and all it took was a good amount of foreplay.”

The three of them make scary noises of irritation, making me realize that they're much less human than I'm assuming they are. “Okay, don't talk about other guys around you, got it.”

“If you are ours, you are only ours. Mating is very different than marriage. It is very... consuming. Simply having you here, knowing you agreed to be ours, even if that's not true necessarily, it's changing our behavior. Makes us possessive of you, territorial maybe, to think of you touching somebody else.” The look in Adeema’s eyes does more to get this through to me than anything, because he looks wild and ready to fight someone for me.

Normally I find possessiveness to be a bit cringey, but this is actually working for me quite well. “I can respect that boundary. How does the trial period work?”

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