Loving Michael Pt. 03

"No worries. Everyone needs a good cry every now and then." I assured him. "Get some rest. I have to take my lunch break, anyway." He returned to all fours and walked over to his bed. I informed Terry of my lunch break and zipped up my coat before heading towards the break room.

Five women lounged outside the break room door, all clearly waiting for me by the way they immediately rushed to ask me a zillion questions.

"What'd they say?" Katie asked.

"What happened?" Julie asked.

"Give the girl a chance to get her lunch, y'all. Damn." Kamani dragged the two girls away by the hoods of their jackets. She rolled her eyes and moved them out of my way. "Girl, go heat up your nasty Lean Cuisine shit and then give us the tea. I only have twenty minutes left on my break." She said, checking her sparkly pink iPhone for the time. The case matched her hair barrettes, and even the pearls of her earrings, necklace, and rings matched the Pop Socket on the back. How did she always come in here looking so well put together? I'd once worn my flannel pajamas under my actual uniform, a la Hey Arnold, to keep warm, and she looked like she could be ready for a photo op to sell Flat Tummy Tea on Instagram at any second.

"It's a Lean Pocket, today, actually." I muttered, pulling a frozen chunk of processed food from the freezer. It seriously needed to be defrosted. I had to take a moment to consider a similarly shaped block of ice before I was certain I'd actually grabbed my food and not part of the arctic tundra developing on top of the freezer burned meat patties someone had left in there forever ago. As the microwave hummed and did it's magic, I turned to face the women anxiously awaiting my news.

"So?" Nicole asked, leaning forward intently.

"I really don't know where to begin." I told them.

All of them, except Julie, spoke at once. Kamani demanded I just start at the beginning. Katie was asking me something about Nate and his pervy patrol through my sector every night. The other woman, who I'd only seen a handful of times, Soraya, tried to listen to them all but seemed confused.

Julie raised her hand and waited. Everyone paused. With her blonde curls and big, blue eyes, her buck teeth and petite frame, she looked like a mouse perched before a pride of alley cats. "Samuel said I should tell you...to tell Michael...the mission isn't over until the colony raises it's flag?" She said, sounding just as confused as the other women looked.

"What?" I asked.

Julie turned bright red. "Uh."

"You're talking to your subjects?" Katie asked softly, glancing between the two of us.

Everyone was silent. The tension was palpable. Engaging with them meant we'd broken protocol and interfered with very important research. There were rumors, though it wasn't confirmed, that Dr. Edwards, the same man who had tried to dissect Michael without clearance from the board, had been found dead in his quarters before he could be reassigned to a new facility. It seemed that, once they knew you had access to the most sensitive information available here, you became a huge threat to national security. People like that didn't get to go home, crack open a beer, and pull up social media. Would they send someone after me, next? Katie? All of us? Had the two of us just compromised the safety of every woman in this break room?

The microwave beeped and I practically shit a brick. After I recovered from jumping so high I nearly tore my fucking ACL, I yanked the microwave door open and pulled out my hard brick of a white chicken pizza burrito...thing.

"I talk to mine all the time." Kamani admitted, sipping her Red Bull. "He's real good at pretending to care about Bad Girls Club, and that's all I've ever wanted in a man." She shrugged. "Plus that dick should be classified as a lethal weapon." She chortled behind her fist and gave us a tight smile.

"Does he also have two of them?" I asked softly. Five pairs of eyes stared holes into my face.

"Oh, my god." Katie buried her face in her hands.

"It seems we've all broken the rules." Soraya observed. She was gorgeous, with the obsidian black hair and luminous brown skin Indian women are so envied for. Her dark eyes were outlined with perfect cat-eye liner, and she wore a lovely scarf with a bright pink, orange, and yellow geometric pattern as a headscarf. Her small golden hoops complimented it perfectly. How was Nate NOT terrorizing her?

Jesus, not the time, Charlie.

"Samuel told me all of the men made contact with their overnight guards. I thought...well, it seemed like a good time to bring it up. I was just waiting for Charlie." Julie admitted sheepishly. "Couldn't risk anyone snitching on us." She added almost apologetically.

"Good idea." Julie said.

"So...why did the scientists want to talk to you, Charlie?" Soraya asked me. "They've never spoken to any of us." She said.

"Yeah, I told Dr. Brennan good morning once, and I had to have a formal meeting with Terry about conduct with superiors in the workplace. Apparently, the scientists don't think we're on the same level and that's how we got removed from sector patrols. Now, Nate has to do all of it." She told us.

"That is so fucked up." Kamani scoffed. "Saves me from walking around this dumb labyrinth, though." She shrugged.

"Uh, well...you see." My face was burning, I was sweating, and all because, in that instant, I realized that just because they were all talking to their subjects...that didn't necessarily mean that they were having phone sex with them! What if I was the only one attracted to my big, scary alien? "H-he, uh...so, what had happened, was...he jizzed everywhere." I admitted. There was no way around it.

Soraya gasped, her mouth making a hilarious 'O' in shock. Katie's eyes widened until I thought they'd pop out. Julie sank down in her chair and pulled her hood over her head. Kamani clapped and threw her head back and absolutely went crazy. "Yes, girl!" She cheered.

Sinking to the floor, I remained squatting down, back against the cabinets, face buried in my hands as I tried to hide my shame. "It just kinda happened!" I insisted.

"That must be what it was!" Julie gasped.

"What?" Soraya asked.

"When I was talking to Samuel the night it happened, he started to get...well, horny. You know how men are. They can't concentrate, they get antsy." Julie explained.

"You mean they reach their full potential of utter stupidity." Soraya nodded.

"Completely useless." Katie agreed.

"Yes, that. He became like that. Then he just...started to get hard. He said something about being in rut?" She was making wild, vague gestures with her hands that made me think Samuel, too, had wanked off like a pubescent boy. Men could get hard just staring at the wall, confirmed.

"Logan did that, too." Julie admitted.

"Miguel as well." Nicole chimed in, her perpetually ruddy pink cheeks turned a color close to her fiery hair.

"Same with Johan." Kamani nodded. "Big, blonde brute just started moaning and, bam! Two giant schlongs poked their heads out of that bushy blonde muff." She snorted. "Like some angry pink mushrooms. Turned all red and veiny." She reminisced, sounding almost in awe of her memory of them.

"Jamal's are...frightening." Soraya whispered. Kamani gasped and we all stifled ourselves before we caused a scene. Explaining this to Nate or Terry would not end well.

"If all of the men went into rut together, and...well, y'know--"

"Jacked off?" Katie suggested.

"Choked the chicken?" Julie supplied.

"Beat their meat?" Nicole offered.

"Spanked the monkey?" Soraya tried.

"Did the five knuckle shuffle?" Kamani teased.

"Yeah, that. So--"

"Gave Squidward the business?" She kept going.

"Jesus, dude. Stop." I begged.

"Played the pink guitar?" Nicole fanned the flames and I gave them a very dramatic sigh.

"Close Encounter of the Sperm Kind?" Katie cackled behind her hands.

"Jack-off-a-saurus-rex!" Julie burst off, tucking her arms close to her chest and making double-fisting gestures with them.

"Please. I can't breathe." I fell onto my butt and sprawled my legs out on the cold linoleum. "Enough. Okay." I took a minute to regain my composure. My cheeks hurt from smiling so wide and I was dizzy from oxygen deprivation. "Guys, we...I think...we should break the men out of here." I told them through ragged breaths. They all looked at me as if I'd just proposed slathering barbecue sauce on our titties and running naked into their cells, ready to be eaten alive. That was when I realized that I'd made the wild assumptions that they'd all become attached to their subject, just like I had...maybe, they had the same opinions as Nate. Maybe, I'd just made a huge mistake.