Caputpedes

...I followed his instructions and the machine whirred into life. Fingers crossed, Emily. Fingers crossed.

Glowing geometric shapes appeared in flickering, overlapping layers, covering each face of the machine. The cuboid pulsed as if it possessed a circulatory system. The whirring, the flashing polygons and the vibrations all increased exponentially. I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. Then nothing. Opening first one eye, then the other, the machine was quiet and still. The same dull metallic color it had been for weeks. Save for one thing. At one end, characters shone in red: E:29.

E:29? WTF?

Had it worked? I didn't think I was a newly minted space octopus, or whatever I was meant to be. I pinched my arm. I didn't feel like a space octopus either. Standing and looking in my mirror, I saw the same slight, blonde, freckled girl as always, staring back at me. Shit!

Don't worry Emily, you have a user guide, remember? You probably just being blonde as per normal and got something wrong. Let's ask "David".

"David! Explain code E:29."

My absent, alien lover's voice filled the room. Fuck, I missed him already. I held my abdomen, imagining our future offspring to be listening to its Daddy. Not that it had ears yet, or a brain, or even a notochord, for that matter. How far along was I even? My muddled brain couldn't begin to compute the answer. I told myself it was OK to be befuddled. Getting impregnated by a cephalopod was quite a lot for any girl to deal with. I realized that I hadn't been listening to the answer to my question.

"David! Repeat please."

This time I paid attention. It was an error code, some part or other was malfunctioning. But there was a way to get the machine to effectively put out a call for a technician. I asked more and found out that some of David's people had chosen to live free from, what seemed to be, the many restrictive rules and customs his species had adopted. Some of these beings apparently made a living by helping out with things like broken technology. I followed the instructions provided and -- after a briefer set of flashing colored shapes had come and gone -- the E:29 was joined by the text T:26 in green just below. Asking "David" again, I learnt that this meant "technician called", with an ETA of around two to three Earth days.

I was worried about what might be happening to David in the custody of the Banishment Enforcement Agency, but my only way of potentially helping was now on hold. I couldn't do anything but wait and hope that his justice system worked as slowly as most other ones do. The hiatus at least gave me time to do something else that had been on my mind. I actually felt really guilty. I'd tried to perform the consciousness extraction with no thought for anything bar saving my boyfriend. But what if it had gone wrong? I'd just sentenced the crew of the ship to permanent suspended animation. If I was going to try this again, I knew what I needed to do. I had to wake up one of the crew. That meant also explaining some pretty unbelievable stuff to them. There was only one choice really. It had to be Rating Park Na-ri... again!

As I have explained before, the defrosting process takes about a day and a half. So I was waiting for two arrivals and had too much time on my hands to think about missing boyfriends, pregnancy and life in general. I didn't reach many conclusions, except that I was feeling even hornier than normal. Something I ascribed to both an absent friend and raging hormones. I'd gone back to using the Stimulator in my room, but it just wasn't the same, even with restraints. I knew it was entirely inappropriate in the circumstances, disloyal even, but I really needed to get laid. And organically laid.

The time eventually passed, despite my bizarre mixture of extreme worry and pent-up sexual frustration. I experienced a strong sense of déjà vu as the canopy opened to reveal the girl I had fucked only a matter of days ago. She was understandably groggy and even more understandably pissed. Her first words after I had jabbed her arm and helped her to stand were around whether her software fix had somehow unraveled. I went for partial honesty.

"No, Na-ri. Actually there never was a software glitch. Don't look at me like that! Listen, I really need a friend. I really need you, Na-ri. Go and have a shower and then we can talk, OK?"

"OK, Em. But WTF? This had better be good. Can you come with me? I'm not sure how good for the system being frozen and unfrozen repeatedly is. I feel awful."

She bent double and retched. Luckily, you fast for a day before entering cryo-stasis, so it could have been worse. Still I rather wished that I had David's instant clean-up power.

"Don't worry, hun. I'll sort it out later. Let's get you to your room."

When we arrived, Na-ri was still feeling weak and asked me to stay. I offered to help her shower. I told myself this was innocent friendship, but it was hard to deny the raw hunger that I was beginning to feel.

"Anything to get in my panties, right, Em? But I'll be OK. Maybe if you wait in my room, I can call if I feel faint."

I appreciated her attempt at humor, but still felt terrible for putting her through this. Maybe I should have picked someone else, but I had no clue who. It's not as if convincing Na-ri would be easy, but I felt I at least had a chance. And, I had to acknowledge, I had other reasons for wanting her around.

"OK. I'll be just here. Shout if you need me."

The door to the shower-room closed and I sat down, considering how best to start my explanation. I'd made little progress when, fifteen minutes later, Na-ri reentered the room. She appeared to have rallied somewhat as she was entirely naked. Her gorgeous, pale skin glistening slightly. Her full hips swaying as she walked towards her wardrobe. Her mid-sized breasts moving in sympathy with her steps. As she retrieved a robe, I was treated to a view of her perfect, pear-shaped ass. Wrapping the garment round her, perhaps a little loosely, she turned, a wicked grin on her face.

"What's the matter, Em. It's nothing you haven't seen before, right? I understand you probably got lonely, but then maybe you should have said something before you froze me. That would have been better, wouldn't it?"

Oh shit! This was going to be harder than I thought. Particularly as I could begin to feel the physical effects her naked body was having on me. Concentrate, Emily. You have more important things to worry about. My mind began to wander to whether David and I had discussed exclusivity, before I realized, with a start, that I had not replied to Na-ri's question.

"Sorry. I was a bit thrown by your entrance. Yes, I have missed you. But it's more complicated than that. Actually more complicated is the fucking understatement of the fucking century."

I could see Na-ri looked confused and perhaps a little bent out of shape. I decided I couldn't do anything about that. I suppressed the desire to rip her robe off and kiss her. Instead I plunged on.

"Let me try to explain. I just don't know how. OK, so when I woke you before, Patterson was here, right?"

Na-ri nodded.

"Only he wasn't. Not really."

"But I saw him, we spoke, it was definitely him."

"No, Na-ri, it wasn't. It was a perfect facsimile of him, down to the molecular level, but it wasn't him. If you had gone and checked, you would have seen that Patterson was still in his cryo-chamber. Only you wouldn't of course, as David had also sorted that out."

"David?"

"Yes, David. David is... well he's... well perhaps it's more like..."

I petered out weakly. Na-ri had a look which suggested she might be recommending a psych evaluation by the ship's computer.

"OK, I jumped into the middle. Let me try again. You know that everything is made up of fundamental constituents. Matter is made of atoms; atoms are made of electrons and nucleons. Nucleons are made of three quarks."

I could see the science lesson wasn't landing well either. It wasn't helping much that I couldn't shift the idea of burying my head between her legs. OK, let's try a direct approach.

"Fuck it, Na-ri! I'm pregnant and the father is a shapeshifting, telepathic alien, who likes taking the form of an octopus. He's been arrested by his people for illegally fucking other lifeforms, me in particular. I love him and I'm worried sick and want him back."

"OK, Em. I'm sure it's been a tough shift. It's hard being out here in space alone. The most rational of people can develop odd ideas. Maybe we should get you to have a nice long cryo-rest and leave things to me for a while. Does that sound good?"

Her voice was low and calm and reasonable. The sort of voice you use when trying not to antagonize a lunatic. A thought suddenly hit me.

"I know I sound entirely mad, but I can prove it. See David -- that's his name -- is a kinky alien. He is so, so kinky, in many different ways. One time he... Sorry, I'm getting carried away, that's not really relevant. Now where was I? Oh yes. Well, in particular, he wanted us to make a video. Let me show you."

Na-ri looked doubtful, but decided to humor the madwoman.

"Alexa! Play David's private video."

This was nothing like the grainy 2D vintage videos that I used to amuse myself, it was a billion pixels and rendered in full holographic 3D. The moving pictures hung in mid-air between us, looking like scale models of their subjects. I'd grown up with the technology, but still sometimes felt a compulsion to touch the images, so high was their fidelity.

What appeared was a small, blonde girl standing nude in front of a large, levitating octopus. I heard Na-ri's intake of breath. The octopus's tentacles gripped the girl's limbs and pulled them into an X. A fifth coiled round her neck and her head tilted back, face flushing pale red. She was lifted off the ground in an erotic crucifixion. She was me of course. For the first time, I noticed how David held me higher than him, almost as if he was venerating my tiny, bound frame. His three other tentacles extended and moved forwards, finding my mouth, vagina and anus, penetrating each, swelling to optimally fill each bodily cavity. This was the coleoid equivalent of the missionary position and David loved the classics.

"Alexa! Stop."

I looked at Na-ri. She gawped at the frozen facsimiles of me and my octopus lover.

"It's computer-generated, it must be. He's levitating for fuck's sake."

"I know, hun. Imagine what I felt when he first appeared."

"It's real, he's real? You're saying it's real, right?"

Her prose was hardly Shakespearian, but I understood why. I was actually impressed she was doing more than just gibbering.

"He's real, Na-ri. I know he's unlike any other alien species we have encountered. But he's real. I'll try to explain better than before, OK?"

"OK, but can I watch the rest of the video first?"

I guess this was positive, maybe David and I had a future as content creators; assuming we had any future at all. I told the computer to resume. Na-ri sat on the edge of her bunk and I joined her, maintaining some distance.

It wasn't a long video, but Na-ri seemed to enjoy it. She wasn't at all shy about putting her hand under her robe and between her legs as it progressed. David had reduced her inhibitions, a dick move and I had told him as much, but he said it was only temporary. There seemed to have been some lasting effect on my beautiful crewmate. Maybe this was how she had always wanted to be and David had just given her a nudge in the right direction. Anyway, I found it as hot as fuck and slipped my own hand into my overalls and down inside my panties. I was looking at Na-ri openly masturbate next to me, while she watched me being fucked by an alien's tentacles. This was not how I had seen the day going, but I guessed that it wasn't a bad development.

My pussy was damp already. It had been virtually all of the time recently, but Na-ri's little catwalk, to say nothing of her current actions, had made things worse, or better, I suppose. Looking at David's image, I felt a pang. What was happening to him now? But almost as soon as the thought occurred, my mind became filled with other things. Watching what David was doing to me in the video stirred different feelings, ones that quickly took over. I moved close to Na-ri, our thighs touching, both rubbing our pussies. She briefly glanced away from the video and, being taller than me, bent to kiss my lips once, then returned to watching, seemingly enraptured.

I put an arm around her shoulder and leaned against her bicep. She squeezed my thigh and then pulled her robe open slightly to fondle one breast. I could feel her body begin to twitch and heave. I whispered into her ear.

"Do you like that? Do you like how he fucks me? Would you like to be fucked like that, angel?"

I know. I'm a bad girl and a worse girlfriend. I didn't ask to be a ball of roiling hormones. My libido was already pretty high, now it was stratospheric. Na-ri didn't seem too concerned, she nodded silently, her eyes fixed on the video, her hands rubbing and pinching, her breath becoming panting. I felt my own pleasure begin to ratchet up. Virtual David was making virtual me cum and I was doing my best to catch up with both them and Na-ri.

She began to yelp (see I just knew all Asian girls did that, porn would never lie to me) and moan. She turned again towards me and our lips and then tongues met. She shuddered and heaved as I kissed her deeply. Thoughtful girl that she was, as Na-ri calmed down, she offered her dripping fingers to me. I inhaled deeply and then took them in my mouth. The taste and smell of her pussy, combined with my avid finger work soon had me also climaxing. Fair is fair and I held out my fingers to her in turn. Black eyes stared into blue-gray-green as we sucked on each other's digits. Na-ri really was a great fuck, even for shared masturbation. Surely shared masturbation wasn't cheating, was it?

But Na-ri wanted more. She stood in front of me and dropped her robe. She bent forward, her breasts swinging ever so slightly and undid my work overalls. I stood too, stepping out of them, then pulling down my soaked panties as well. Then lay back down, T-shirt still on, but legs spread. She folded my uniform and used it to kneel on, parting my labia and treating me to her tongue lapping juices fresh from my vagina. I pulled my shirt up and tweaked a nipple, that felt really nice. I licked my other hand and started to rub my clit as Na-ri began to tongue-fuck me. I had cum only moments ago, but she was very good at this. I closed my eyes and let her do what she would with me. Something that felt so wonderful could not possibly be wrong, could it? It's not like David and I were married or anything. I put these thoughts out of my head. To be honest there wasn't really room for them as my basal ganglia became flooded with Na-ri-induced dopamine. I knew I wanted to cum again, that was enough for now.

I didn't need the additional stimulus from my fingers anymore and instead pushed her head against my vulva as I sighed, then moaned, then screamed, embracing her fevered glossal penetrations. She knelt up to kiss me, mouth wet with my juices. I laid her down and pushed three fingers into her sopping pussy with ease, pulling back her hood and licking her prominent clit rapidly. Both of us seemed to have a capability to follow one orgasm closely with another. I fingered her hard and fast, now sucking on her clit. It was her turn to cycle through an increasing range of primeval noises, ending in a deep and booming roar as her second climax rolled hotly through her body. Finally, both spent, we clung to each other, kissing, stroking, embracing, sharing body heat. When our hearts had returned to something like normal, Na-ri was the first to speak.

"So did you say something about being pregnant?"

I sighed, not entirely at peace with this reminder of other things.

"I am. And I think I'm happy about it. I really should start at the beginning."

So I told her the story from when the cloud first engulfed the ship, not leaving out any details. If I repeated the text here, the paragraphs would spiral recursively in on themselves, forming a black hole. This probably wouldn't help me that much to save David, so let's take this as read.

I was in two minds about explaining David's role in Na-ri and I first hooking up. I opted for honesty and she took it surprisingly well.

"I agree he was an asshole to do that, but to be honest, I've spent years worrying about doing what I want to do. I guess he helped me."

"It's so fucking annoying when he gets it right, despite getting it all wrong, isn't it?"

We agreed on this point.

When I covered my reconciliation with David and, shortly after this, his detention by the BEA, I became rather emotional. I still hadn't figured out what just happened with Na-ri, but I knew that I loved David. Na-ri hugged me close and let me weep for a while for lost cephalopod love.

I finished my tale and Na-ri asked to see the machine. It was the same as before, save the green characters now read T:08. Enquiring of David's agent running on the ship's computer, that meant our technician would arrive sometime the next day. Na-ri and I curled up together in my bunk. I was glad to have her, both as a friend and a lover. She'd freaked out less than I had in similar circumstances, then I supposed she was yet to meet a shape-shifting alien in the -- as it were -- flesh. That would change soon. Na-ri was already asleep, I kissed her head and closed my eyes.

A klaxon sounded penetratingly and I woke rather slowly.

"Alexa! It's an amorphous cloud about to swallow the ship, right?"

"Yes Emily"

"Alexa! Snooze for ten minutes."

Na-ri started stirring as well, I guess we should probably get up.

Ten minutes later, the two of us stood in our work clothes on the bridge. A cloud formed, swirled, coalesced, and a shape appeared in it. A shape with tentacles, but these were real tentacles. I was glad David wasn't there, no point in him getting envious about appendage length.

It was a squid. A giant squid with tentacles over six meters long. Another fucking cephalopod? Why me?

Realizing that our visitor was probably telepathic as well, I decided to change my approach.

"Hello, sir. I'm grateful that you answered my call. Sorry if I was a little rude initially, you rather took me by surprise. You see, my boyfr..."

"I know, darling, you're hot for coleoids. How sweet and it's Madam not Sir, if you want to stand on formalities."

Her English was much more certain than David's, I guess she had been around other lifeforms more. But her voice was reminiscent of his, deeply mellifluous, if in a more traditionally female register.

"Sorry, er... Madam. I just assumed..."

My voice trailed off.

"I know what you assumed, it happens all the time, but it stings a little more coming from a female."

"I'm sorry."

Na-ri chimed in.

"Me too."

Rather than being fazed, was that excitement in her voice? She should learn to be more circumspect around telepaths. So should I, was my belated thought, I should have worn my shower cap.

"I'm Emily, this is Na-ri. We are pleased to meet you. Is there a name you would prefer us to use, Madam?"