Jeremy Bayer, Dragon Layer Pt. 08

"That's not what my xenopsychologist said," Derrin said, then tapped at his armrest as he took his seat once more. "Dr. Phinx, come up here."

A short time later, an ambulatory octopus suspended by a garter belt that looked as if it produced a kind of hovering field entered the bridge. He was wearing a kind of white lab coat with extra arms -- and as he gasped in shock and delight, Captain Derrin gestured to him: "This is Doctor-"

"Dr. Phinix Phinx!" The octopus said, taking one of Jeremy's hands in his tentacles. "I've always wanted to meet a human!"

"T-Thanks," Jeremy said, wishing quite badly that his dragon girlfriends were here. He risked a glance over his shoulder and...realized he could see his girlfriends. All five of them were pawing at the force field screens that covered the ship, their bodies creating crackling interference patterns. They were all roughly in their kitten size. He didn't want to see what it'd look like once they were done playing nice. He gulped, then looked back at Dr. Phinx. "Why do you think we don't care about your children?"

"Oh, you let a lot of them die," Dr. Phinx said, cheerfully. "The rate of starvation and deprivation that you allow your society to face makes it fairly clear that you're a D class species -- large lots of children, relatively narrow social safety networks, expectations of attrition. Within bounds, though your brood batches are relatively small, most D class species have egg batches in the-"

"That's not intentional!" Jeremy exploded.

"I beg your..." Dr. Phinx started.

"That's not freaking intentional!" Jeremy said, again. "We don't MEAN to let kids die of, like, starvation and stuff! That's capitalism!"

"Yeah," Morgan said, nodding. "Rich bastards run our society and they let people starve to keep their bottom line up."

Dr. Phinx blinked.

Then he pulled out a small rectangle of plastic, reading it.

"Oh dear," he said.

"Doctor..." Derrin growled, sitting up in his chair.

"I, uh...I seem to have made a slight mistake," Dr. Phinx said, biting his lip. "I think they might be an A class species with an F class economic system. Like the Thellins and Korintar in their dark ages."

"Or my own species," Derrin said, thoughtfully. Then his eyes widened. "Oh! Oh shit!" He stood up again. "All ships! Return to low Earth orbit. Prepare an insertion team to smooth this over -- we want to make sure no one knows about this. We'll get the kids back and evacuate the system immediately."

Jeremy breathed out a slow sigh of relief, turning to face Morgan.

"Anthropologists," she said.

"Prep the memory wipe," Commander Derrin said to Dr. Phinx, who nodded and backed off.

Jeremy blinked in confusion -- but before he could ask any questions, Morgan said, hurriedly: "Give Ashen a raise, she's the one who figured this o-"

Jeremy and Morgan blinked as they sat on the sofa, watching the ending credits of...it looked like they had been watching Terminator 2 again. Jeremy's brow furrowed a bit and he squirmed in his seat, then leaned against Morgan as she leaned against him.

"Did we fall asleep in the movie?" Jeremy murmured.

"Yeah," Morgan said. Then she grinned. "...wanna fuck?"

"Yeah," Jeremy purred.

THE END

Jeremy blinked as Penny hit 'submit' on the webforum.

"...wait, you're just ending there?" He asked, looking at her as the internet processor started to work, grinding quietly as it sent the final chapter of Jason Bucker, Dragon Fucker out. "You're going to skip the bit where the aliens made peaceful contact a year later and gave us replicators? Or the whole bit with Atlantis? Or when I and Cindi finally fucked for the first time? Or the time you got me trainbanged by the entire Egyptian pantheon?"

Penny rolled her head back, looking up at him, then shrugged. "Eh, I'm bored."

"You're bored?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah," Penny said, giggling slightly as she kicked away from the computer, her chair wheels squeaking and squealing as she rolled away -- bumping against the side of the bed, where Cinder and Skye were snuggling together, Cinder's nose in a book. Penny leaned her head over to lay it on Cinder's lap, and Cinder started to pet her.

"You can't just get bored writing a-"

"A smutty story I post on the internet for fun?" Penny asked. "Sure I can!" She giggled, then closed her eyes as Cinder continued to pet her gently.

Jeremy shook his head slowly. "I'm glad you're the one who's going to have to read the comments, that's all I gotta say."

"Pfft, like I read comments," Penny said as Jeremy stepped out of the room with a sigh and a shake of his head. He walked past his mother's bedroom, where Mom was tapping away at her laptop. She caught his eye and winked at him, promising more lewdness in his future. Jeremy shook his head a bit, laughing quietly.

He...

He had a very interesting home life, didn't he.

Jeremy came down to the kitchen, and found Rayne there, pouring herself some milk after getting herself some milk and cookies. "Hey there," he said, then blinked as he realized something -- something that only a life of nearly nonstop increasingly insane sex could obscure until this moment. "Wait, I just realized something!"

"Hmm?" Rayne turned to face him, her blue scaled forehead furrowing.

"We never, uh...you know," Jeremy said, inexplicably flustered considering this was him. "Fucked?"

Rayne blinked.

"Oh, right, I'm ace," she said, nodding, then walked past him.

Jeremy nodded to himself.

Then.

"Wait, WHAT!?"

THE END FOR REAL