The Ctenophorian

'So, covering yourself tells your males that you're not interested in sex.'

'Not exactly,' she said.

'What do you mean, not exactly.' Sometimes women wear clothes that entices and attracts men.'

'Now, I'm really confused,' he telepathed.

Nadine laughed. 'Like I said, it's very complex. You'll just have to take my word for it that there's nothing simple about our humans relate to each other. Suffice it to say that the less a woman wears the greater is the likelihood that she will find a man who will take a sexual interest in her.'

'You're naked now,' Grape pointed out. 'Does that mean you want a male of your species to mate with you?'

'No, it doesn't mean that at all,' she replied patiently. 'I am naked because there are no men around. Sometimes, I enjoy nudity for its own sake, but that doesn't mean I want male attention.'

Grape was still confused but decided that the question of whether or not to wear clothes, and how much, was not really relevant to his research. He wasn't on Earth to learn societal norms. He was a biologist and an astronomer. Culture was not within his sphere of expertise on his home planet. So, how could he possibly unravel the culture principles subtleties of an alien species that seemed to have contradictory attitudes about mating? He decided to close this line of inquiry. Besides, it wouldn't help him find the tRNA strand he needed to save his own species.

'Our species wears no clothes,' Grape elucidated, 'except to protect ourselves when we have to spend a longer time than usual in an unsafe environment, such as on land.'

'We have that too,' said Nadine. 'We call it personal protective equipment. As in your case, it is meant to protect against external harm. So,' she said getting back to Grape's research, 'what do you want to do?'

I want to explore your orifices, or at least the ones that are big enough to allow my appendages to penetrate.'

That stopped Nadine in her tracks.

7 In the Name of Science

Her fears rose up again. 'Explain,' she said simply.

'You seem to have several points of ingress and egress,' he commented. 'No penetration, the first step involves a superficial scan of all your holes to determine their function and whether or not further exploration is viable. May I?'

'This is really getting weird,' Nadine thought to herself, 'but I'm about to let a huge powerful alien creature, poke around my holes.'

'Okay,' she beamed to the alien scientist.

'Of course, I know about your mouth already because my tentacle has to be in your mouth for us to communicate. He touched her nostrils and then put his tentacles back in her mouth.

'Those are nostrils,' Nadine projected, 'and they...'

'...are used to draw air into your body,' he finished. 'Your mouth also can be used for breathing but it is not absolutely necessary as long as your nostrils are open. Is that correct?'

'Yes,' Nadine confirmed, 'the mouth has a dual role impacting as means of both consumption and respiration.'

'I learned that from the sea lion,' Grape informed her. 'Once you get past the throat there are two passages, one that leads to digestive system and the other which leads to an organ which I have also seen in the seal.'

'The air passage leads to the lungs which extracts oxygen from the air and then transmits it through the blood of our circulatory system to feed all the living cells of our bodies.'

'We have only some small land creatures with that adaptation on our planet,' he noted for Nadine's benefit.

He touched her ears with another tentacle. 'Earlier, I noticed these flaps around the holes on the side of your head. They each have a very thin flesh inside them stretching across it. I noticed something similar on the seal.'

'The flaps are outer ears. They help focus sound so that it is transmitted to the internal ear. The eardrum vibrates when sound bounces off it. The nerves attached to it send messages to the brain which then interprets the meaning of the sound. Our world is full of sounds in the air and in the water but only humans are capable of transmitting complex thoughts through speech.'

'Does that have something to do with the vibrations I detected coming from your throat?'

'Yes, the larynx makes sounds that can be heard by others with ears. The sounds express those thoughts we wish to share with others.'

Then she felt him probing her groin. It startled for a moment even though she been forewarned and had agreed to let him touch her.

'You have three holes here,' he observed.

'Yes, two of them are for voiding waste. From top to bottom, liquid waste comes out of the topmost hole between the fleshy flaps. The flaps are called labia and the orifice is called the urethra. Solid waste exits from bottommost hole. It's called an anus. Its girth can expand a little to accommodate the size of the waste during egress.'

'So, what you consume eventually comes out of these two holes?'

The question was obviously rhetorical. So, Nadine didn't bother to answer it.

He probed both holes with his prehensile finger and commented, 'the urethra is too small for me to enter. Your anus is a different story now that you have informed me that it can adapt to some variations in sizes.'

'Thank you,' she replied sardonically. 'But didn't you already discover all this when you examined the seal?' she asked. 'Like us, they are mammals and, although the forms may be quite different, our basic anatomies share the same basic body plan.'

'Yes,' he conceded, 'but your mammals, including the sea lion, are not sentient as you and I would define it. Humans are different. I want to know what you have in your genetic make-up that makes you unique among earth's animals. Maybe your uniqueness as a sentient being has something genetically in common with what makes us unique on our planet.'

Nadine thought about what he said. 'Do you think that the tRNA molecule you are looking for is associated with intelligence?'

That statement caused Grape to pause. A thought crystallized in his mind. 'I haven't actually thought about the issue in quite such precise terms,' he confessed, "but you are putting into words a thought that has been nagging the back of mind since I came here!'

'Well, don't get too excited,' Nadine cautioned. 'It's nothing more than speculation at this point.'

'I don't care,' Grape replied. 'At this point, I'll grasp at any new idea that might help save my people. It gives me something I can focus on.'

Grape returned to the matter in hand. 'And the whole in the middle?' he asked. 'The sea lion I examined had only two holes which function like your urethra and anus. This animal ejected liquid waste through a column made of muscle. It did not have a third hole.'

'What I and other females have is an opening to the vagina. Males have no vagina and that's why they are short one hole when compared to a female. That seal was probably a male,' she informed him. 'In male mammals, the penis has a dual function, disposing of liquid waste and inserting sperm in a female in the hope of impregnating her and having her reproduce their offspring.'

'Interesting,' he mused. The male has one orifice for both production and the disposal of liquid waste, but in the female, these two functions are physically separated.'

'Copulation that could lead to pregnancy takes place when the male inserts his muscle,' she continued, 'It's called a penis. He uses it to penetrate her vagina. When he orgasms, he leaves behind a load of sperm that may or may not succeed in fertilizing an ovum. A woman is usually fertile roughly once in a lunar month for about one day.'

Grape gave a mental shrug. 'Actually, that's not much different from how we reproduce,' he told her. Our females ovulate on a regular basis athough we have no moon.

He stroked his prehensile finger up and down her labia. He could feel a small piece of flesh just above her labia stiffened with his delicate touch. He sensed a reaction from Nadine. When he stroked it again, she sighed and a shiver of pleasure ran through her body.

She chided herself. 'What a pervert I am to enjoy what this alien beast is doing to me.'

'Why do you react this way?' he asked.

Nadine took a moment to catch her breath.

'You are touching my vulva and its associated parts. They are rich in nerve endings which are easily stimulated when the right pressure is applied. Proper attention to the vulva causes the female to become aroused and become more receptive to the male's desire to mate with her.'

'Some moisture is oozing out of the orifice,' he remarked as he poked his tentacle-finger between her labia.

It had been a while since she had had real sex. In her opinion, masturbation was a poor substitute for a good hard ramming. Nadine groaned. 'It's another sign of sexual arousal. It can be caused by stimulating the nerves throughout various parts of the vulva.'

He rubbed her clitoris. 'And what is this small tiny flesh knob?' he asked. 'It hardened when I touched it. There's more moisture too.'

'It's the clitoris. It is the most sensitive part of the vulva. So, it plays an important role in human female sexuality. Stimulation induces the formation of moisture in the vagina. It lubricates the vaginal orifice so that a male can enter the vaginal passage more easily. The sexual act reaches its culmination when it leads to an orgasm.' She then described what an orgasm was for the male and female.

'Sounds like sex is a bit more complicated for females,' he observed. 'The vaginal orifice appears be quite pliable. Is there a reason for that?' Grape asked.

'Biologically speaking, it has to be,' Nadine replied. 'Our young come through the vaginal opening when they are born.' She then projected an image of childbirth to Grape.

By this time, the two scientific friends had reached the spot on the beach where Grape could begin his research on his human companion.

They agreed that she should lie down on the slope of the beach so that her head was completely clear of the water, her waist at the water's edge and her feet in the shallow water.

'So, what's next?' she asked, signaling to Grape that he could continue.

He showed her all four tentacles. Two of them appeared to holding vials.

'I need to understand how your internal anatomy works,' he said, 'at least those parts I can reach. I would like to explore the three larger orifices.'

'Three?' she repeated.

'Yes, your mouth, your anus and your vagina,' he answered, 'but two to start.'

'Two?' she asked almost sarcastically.'

'Yes, I want to explore your food absorption and waste disposal system as a unit, or at least those portions of your system that I can reach. My intention is to send one tentacle down your throat and the other up your anus,' He stopped for a moment. He sensed Nadine's reluctance, even fear of having an alien from outer space go where no human man had gone before. 'I promise not to harm you,' he said attempting to reassure her. 'You said so yourself. Mammals on your planet share the same basic body plan. So, I'm not examining in total blindness.'

'You're not exactly totally experienced either,' she thought to herself.

'But why my digestive system and bowels first?' she asked Grape.

'Your digestive systems are extremely rich in microbial life. Taking samples is a relatively simple task and maybe I'll find something useful there first. In that case, I won't have to go any further, except maybe out of curiosity.

Nadine wondered if he was playing her.

'How did you manage to take samples from the sea lion,'' Nadine had to know.

'I controlled its mind in the same way I was able to make the shark think that attacking you would lead to its death.'

'So, what would stop you from doing this to me?' she asked.

That comment seemed to rankle Grape. 'It's unethical,' he said indignantly. 'I am a sentient being. I will not force my will on another sentient being. Sea lions and sharks are lower life forms. They may be conscious but they are not sentient in the way that we are. They make mostly instinctive choices and only narrowly rational ones. I had no choice but to control their minds if I wanted to learn anything about them. I did no harm to them,' he added.

'You mean, you examined that shark too?' she asked letting her curiosity take off the more immediate topic.'

'Indeed, a few days ago. It had not occurred to me that a sea creature might prey on a land creature like yourself. Such an occurrence is unthinkable on my world as our land life forms are too small to harms us." Returning to the original subject, he said reassuringly, "I know what to do to ensure that no physical harm comes to you during my examination.'

Oddly, she found herself willing to believe him. 'How do I know you're not controlling my thoughts in some way now?' she asked suspiciously.

'No, absolutely not!' he denied, not without your explicit voluntary cooperation.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning that I don't have the power to make you do what you don't want to do. I can only cause your body to act at my direction if you allow me to control it. Ultimately, you will always have free will. You can close your mind to my thoughts at any time. By extension, you can also stop any action that might come from my thoughts. As a matter of fact, you'll know when I'm doing something with your body on your behalf.'

'How do I know if you're just tricking me into thinking what you want me to think?'

'I can't and I wouldn't. It boils down to whether or not you trust me,' he answered.

Nadine ad already learned to how to tell when he was in her mind and when he wasn't. He had never shown any hint of having aggressive intentions toward her. On the contrary, she sensed that, like herself, he burned to learn about new life forms, but was also focussed on his task.'

'So, it's almost like a mind meld.'

'Mind meld?' he asked.

'Never mind,' she said, 'I'm making a cultural reference relating to how some of us entertain ourselves.' Then privately she thought, 'What would Spock do?'

8 Exploring Human Anatomy

'Okay.' She couldn't believe she was actually submitting herself to his propsed examination. 'Go ahead.'

'Thank you, thank you,' Grape said excitedly. 'I promise to be very careful, and won't make the same mistakes,' he added. He seemed to be busily taking notes again. 'Interesting, very interesting,' he said distractedly.

'What mistakes?' Nadine demanded to know. 'And what's interesting?' Nadine asked.

'I learned about the gag reflex,' he assured her. 'I know how to avoid provoking it,' answering the first inquiry. Then he addressed her second question. 'Ctenophorian males have only one hole,' he informed her. 'Females have two. The second one at the rear of the female is reproductive in nature. It will be interesting to find out if yours functions in much the same way.'

He waved his tentacles at his now huge wide-open mouth. 'Ctenophorian males and females do have this in common. We have a very large mouth.'

'Only one?' she thought to herself. What he said raised a lot of questions about consumption, digestion, waste disposal and reproduction. Nadine was about to ask some questions but Grape didn't give her a chance. He continued to fill her mind with his explanation.

'Our bodies absorb almost every we eat,' he informed his fellow scientist. 'What little waste we do produce is regurgitated. So, we have a stomach that is analogous to yours but the entrance and the exit are the same.'

'Well, that answers the question about consumption and waste disposal,' she thought privately.

Nadine started to giggled. 'Oh man, he shits through his mouth!' she thought privately and then remembered that Earth's sea cucumbers breathed through their anuses. Nadine laughed at the thought. In her life time, she had come across a few human assholes who breathed, and had even dated a couple.'

Grape noticed her reaction. "You think that's funny?' he asked.

'Well, you think it's funny that I have so many orifices, don't you?' she shot back. 'Does a female have as big a mouth as you do?' she then asked.

"Proportionately, yes but in absolute terms, no.'

'Meaning?'

'The average male is almost twice the size of the average female. So, a male's mouth is on average twice the size of a female's mouth.'

'Wow,' she beamed back to him, 'in our species the average male is about 15 to 20% larger than the average female. This is actually a relatively small difference in comparison to some animals like the sea lion you examined. It so happens that a male sea lion is almost twice the size of a female. Mammals whose males are twice the size of the female are usually very aggressive toward other males and domineering toward their female harem.'

'I'm not a mammal,' the alien comb jelly pointed out succinctly. 'As for orifices, no medium or large-sized aquatic species on our planet has more than two,' Grape elucidated, 'except for a few land-based species and some of our more primitive life forms. In fact, your planet is teaming in life armored with multiple orifices.

'One or two! How is that even possible!' she exclaimed. "I figured out already that you probably have organs on your body to let you breathe in water, just like some of our sea creatures do, but even our sea creatures have at least three holes, one to take in food, a second to expel waste, and a third to reproduce.'

'But what is really interesting,' he pointed out, 'is that life on our two planets seems to have taken quite different directions evolutionarily speaking, and yet both gave rise to intelligence. The other thing that life on our two planets have in common is that a female has one more orifice than a male.'

Nadine had to agree with the first assessment, and took his word on the second.

Then Nadine began to blushed as it dawned on her that she was having a discussion with an alien about how he would explore her body, not whether he would explore it.

Nadine saw Grapes' cilia wave in and up and down manner. 'Please excuse me. I'm getting excited with the prospect of examining a genuine sentient alien,' he explained. 'To the extent that we were able to find tRNA molecules to help other species on our planet, we found that all of them stemmed from female reproductive cells.'

'So, you only need to look in this orifice?' she asked pointing her finger at her pussy.

He seemed to think for a moment. 'No,' he decided. 'I'll still need a tentacle in your mouth so that we can communicate. There is no absolute need to go down your throat or to examine your solid waste orifice.'

Nadine was relieved. She was already used to having him in her mouth and he had never harmed her.

'One the other hand,' Grape beamed into her mind, 'if I could explore them anyway, it would vastly increase my knowledge of how your body functions and provide better context for additional research. I would be the envy of my colleagues back home by bringing back as much information as possible about a sentient species on another planet. I would greatly enhance my reputation and scientific credentials. I might even become one of the greatest scientists our planet has ever known!'

'Typical ambitious scientist,' Nadine thought privately, recognizing that she was driven by the same kind of ambition. 'But he's not wrong,' Nadine conceded. 'If I were able to introduce Grape to the people of my world, my name would practically become a household word. Millions of mothers would name their daughters after me as one the greatest scientific discoverers of humankind, and a woman at that! She would probably find herself in the top ten of Earth's most famous scientists along with the likes of Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin in the field of biology, and Albert Einstein and Marie Curie on other sciences.

9 The Preliminary Investigation

Nadine lay back and spread her legs. Grape heaved his body onto the shore between them. Because of the gelatinous nature of his body, he felt surprising light when he his body leaned against her legs, and yet he was strong enough to make his way to shore. He was still carrying his recording instrument with him.