The Ctenophorian

This was the first time that Nadine had seen him out of the water. Now she could clearly see his features without the distorting effects of water. She imagined that he had a reverse problem now that he was on land.

He had two large eyes that burned with intelligencer. His enormous mouth which was wide enough to swallow her, was rimmed with what appeared to be chitinous lips. Out of curiosity she touched them. Grape let her. It was only fair given what he intended to do.

Then, she looked at his body. She could see the organs inside his body more clearly now. Not unexpectedly, his internal organs appeared to be quite different than hers although she assumed that at least some of them functioned in an analogous way to hers. He had mentioned that he had a stomach.

Again, something in the back of mind was nagging her. She couldn't help but anthropomorphize this alien visitor. Then it clicked. If he was a human male and crawled on his belly across a coral-strewn beach like he just did, he would have done severe damage to his genitals.

Nadine had kept her thought to herself. So, Grape thought she was thinking about his mouth. He gave her a mental shrug and said, 'So, I got one big orifice, and you have four teeny-tiny orifices. His cilia waved in that fashion that told her that he was laughing.

She put that private thought aside. 'Well, get on with your examination,' she told him. She started laughing. 'I wonder what my girlfriends would think if I told them I let an alien do orally, anally and vaginally.'

She laughed so hard that Grape had to pull his tentacle out of her mouth. He didn't want this human female bite off one his very sensitive fingers with those hard stone-like white objects in her mouth.

When she calmed down, he stuck his tentacle into her mouth again. 'Why did you laugh.'

'Sorry,' she apologized. 'It's about human interaction. As in your case, there are things we do that you could not possibly fathom because what I was thinking would be totally alien to you as a being with only one hole.' She felt the urge to laugh again but this time she got herself under control.

'That's probably true,' he replied, 'Given that we are separated by the vastness of space, the alienness of physiologies and our cultures and even our modes of communication, I am unbelievably lucky that I found you at all.'

'So,' she beamed into his mind, 'where are you going to start?'

'Firstly, I would like your permission to control your autonomic nervous system muscles so that I can repress your gag reflex,' he replied. 'For the record,' he added, 'my tentacles and their fingers have some plasticity to them. I can make them a little thinner so that I can go down your throat without interfering with your breathing or triggering a gag reflex.

Grape demonstrated his unusual skill. His ability to adjust the shape and girth of his tentacle intrigued Nadine. The tentacle itself was mostly smooth but was not as translucent as his body. She could see his internal organs more clearly in the sunlight.

'Humans have no such ability,' Nadine told him, 'because our flesh is attached to a solid calcium-based internal structure that enables us to function as land creatures.'

Nadine opened her mouth.

'I would like permission to access you autonomic nervous system so that I suppress your gag reflex just in case. I also would like your permission to suppress thoughts that might cause you to laugh. I don't want you to bite off my fingers.'

Nadine let him take control.

'Your planet doesn't have a Ctenophorian hospital, you know,' added.

He was testing his ability to control thoughts that cause laughing and the test was a success. Nadine didn't laugh although she knew that, under normal circumstances, she would have.' Yes, he had control and she could also tell that his control was tenuous and would be easy to break. She didn't want to, for his sake.

Grape's tentacle slithered down her throat until it reached her stomach. 'That's as far as I can go,' he observed.

Nadine's stomach felt full. She barely felt his fingers exploring her stomach.

'You don't mind if take some samples from your stomach, do you?'

Without thinking, she shook her head but caught herself and stopped. "Sorry. That means, no, I don't mind.'

'A human signal?'

'Yes.'

Grape withdrew his tentacle. He released his control of her laughing and gagging reflex. She could see him put a sample in a small jar. Another tentacle had a second empty jar. She had not seen the jars before and had no idea where he kept them. Then he put the tip of his tentacle back into her mouth so that he could communicate directly with her again.

'May I continue? he asked in his usual business-like and polite way. 'I would like to examine the other end of your digestive system. Do I have to worry about a gag reflex?' he asked.'

Nadine smiled even though her mouth was full with tentacle. She giggled.

'What is that motion?' he asked. 'You seem to do it often.'

'A physical form of expressing amusement,' she beamed back. 'It is possible that you might induce a spasm as the purpose of the rectum is to hole solid waste until it is evacuated. It would do me no harm, but you might find some human solid waste on your tentacle. But if you take your time, though, that shouldn't be any problem.'

He probed her anal orifice with a finger but her automatic reaction was to tighten her anal ring to keep out the intruder.

'Sorry,' she apologized. 'Although this part of the body functions automatically, humans do have some limited ability to control the evacuation's timing, at least for a little while, so that we can reach a disposal unit.'

Nadine flashed a picture of a toilet in his mind. He had no idea how it worked until she pictured waste in the toilet and the use of a small handle to cause the water in the tank to flush it away. Grape was mystified by the mechanical principles of this odd human device but he had a more important things to do.

'So,' he thought to her, 'penetration of this orifice would not interfere with your most vital functions.'

'That is correct, Nadine answered, 'although, of course, defecation is a necessary function and must be done at some point.'

Nadine willed herself to relax her anus so that he could enter more easily. 'I give you permission to control the contractions of my rectum,' she informed him.

She felt him take control. Her anus relaxed. She was glad that she had emptied her bowels shortly after waking up. She was certain that she would have defecated on his tentacle is she had not already taken care of business.

As Grape didn't have to worry about harming her, he was less hesitant about entering her. She smiled as she rather liked the sensation of his tentacle sliding through anal ring. Several of his fingers probed her rectum.

'Am I hurting you?' he asked.

'No, not at all,' she gasped, not believing that she was getting a sensual thrill out of the tentacle's motion through her anal opening and even more so when his fingers explored her rectum.

'She shivered as he continued to probe her. Grape mistook the meaning of the shiver. 'Are you amused by my scientific investigation,' he telepathed.

'No,' she replied, 'but you're stimulating a set of nerves that is causing me to react in this way.'

Grape made his tentacle thinner and then began to enter her bowels.

'May I take control of your bowels?' he asked.

'You may,' and then she felt his presence in a different part of her brain. Nadine knew he was in her bowels because she felt the kind of fullness that she usually associated with those very rare occasions when she skipped a day before evacuating her bowels.

A few minutes passed.

'May I take a sample?' Grape asked.

Nadine laughed and blushed. 'Sure, knock yourself out.'

'Pardon me? Why would I want to do that?'

'It's an expression. It means, yes, go ahead. Extract some samples.'

Then, slowly and carefully, he began to withdraw his tentacle. When he finally withdrew, she felt him release control.

Grape spoke in her mind. 'I noticed that, at the end of the large tube, you have a much thinner tube going even deeper into your body.'

'Those are my small intestines,' Nadine informed him. 'Along with the stomach and the duodenum, they are responsible for the processing of food and the absorption of nutrients. Like oxygen, nutrients are transported to all parts of the body through the circulatory system.'

'I stopped there,' Grape explained. 'I couldn't go any farther, and wouldn't have if I could, because the small intestines are too narrow for me to probe. I didn't want to harm you.'

'Thank you,' Nadine quite sincerely.

'Wait a minute!' she told herself. 'He reached my small intestines?' She saw that there was about a meter and a half between the base of his tentacle and where it entered her anus. 'That means he got about half his tentacle up my back passage!' She made a quick calculation. 'But the combined length of my large bowels and rectum is roughly 170 centimeters, about 5.5 feet. It means he's almost doubled that part of his tentacle that is inside me! What an astonishing creature!'

Nadine wished she could reveal Grape's existence to the world and then noted that he had not asked to keep his presence on Earth a secret. 'He doesn't have to,' she reminded herself. 'For one, we're totally isolated. There's no one around within hundreds of miles of here. Also, if I talk about him once I return to civilization, they would probably lock me up as that poor, up-and-coming scientist who went bonkers because she couldn't find a new species that would make her famous. No one would ever believe her.

'That's it for now,' Grape informed. 'I have some testing do. May I continue my research the day after tomorrow?' he asked.

'Sure,' she said.

Grape returned to his space pod while Nadine returned to her encampment. Being Grape's test subject had tired her out more than she had expected or known. After eating, she decided to sleep.

10 The Function of Sex

Nadine did not wake up until the following morning. She was hungry. So, she took her speargun to hunt for fish. She didn't see Grape but, then again, he had said he would see the day after. When she finally caught one, she returned to shore, cooked and ate it. She followed up her meal with fruits and coconuts. Now that she knew Grape and knew she would see him tomorrow, she decided to take the day off. There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on her original research now. She was hosting a giant tentacled alien comb jelly from outer space.

She recalled the sensation of his alien tentacle sliding deep into her rear passage and knew what he would explore next. The thought of what she had done and would do soon do aroused her. Although there was no one to watch, not even Grape, she decided to slip behind the fruit trees and masturbate herself to a climax.

On the following day, Grape showed up as promised.

'Well?' Nadine questioned.

Grape knew that she was asking about the test he had been conducting.

'Marvelous from a knowledge-gathering standpoint but useless to my original mission,' he summarized, 'but as I told you before, I had to satisfy my curiosity and, even if my mission fails, I'll at least have something to report to my colleagues on Ctenophoria.

'You still want to examine my vagina?' she asked, knowing that he still did.

'Of course,' he said. 'I have come to the conclusion that the key is in our shared intelligence. If I cannot find the tRNA I need to save my people from you, I will have to declare the original mission a failure even if it was otherwise a massive success. Whatever happens, I will return to my planet very soon.'

Nadine was devastated at the news that he intended to return home. She didn't blame him, of course. She understood how it felt to be isolated for such a long time. Her isolation was a matter of a couple of weeks but his isolation had lasted three years not including the time it took to reach Earth and the time it would also take to return to his home planet.

But she enjoyed his company and their shared interest in exploration and discovery. It helped to pass the time.

'You want me to lie down in the same place?' she asked.

Grape was pleased. Their relationship had become a friendship. They understood each other despite how alien they were to each other. Explicit permission was no longer needed.

'It might be easier for me to gain access,' Grape suggested if you got on your hands and knees.'

Nadine giggled. 'Doggy style,' she projected sending an image of one dog mounting another and then a similar image of a male human mounting a female human.

'Interesting,' he thought to her, 'is that how it's done?' Although he knew male mammals inserted their penises into the vagina of the female mammals, he had been uncertain about the mechanics of mammalian coitus. This form of mating was extremely rare on his home world.

'Yes, it is common for mammals to copulate in this manner.'' she confirmed. 'But pregnancy can only occur when the female is ovulating. In human females, that happens once a month when an ovum moves through the fallopian tube towards the uterus. If sperm is present, pregnancy can result. As matter of fact, I'm about due to ovulate.'

As she explained the process to him, she could feel that nagging thought in the back of her mind again. Nadine was just about to grab that thought when Grape started to use his six very flexible fingers to play with her the various parts of her vulva. He was also excited by the knowledge that this human was about to release an egg.

As Grape was turning her on, Nadine attempt to focus on the nagging but she gave up.

'Oh,' so nice,' she thought privately. He had already learned that sexually arousing a human female caused her vagina to release moisture and that this moisture acted as a lubricant which, in turn, allowed for easier penetration.

After a few minutes, Grape started to focus on her clitoris. She looked under and between her legs to see that two of his tentacle-fingers was paying special attention to little sensitive nub, two fingers, were stroking her labia and the remaining two fingers were gently probing her vaginal opening.

She began to tremble with excitement. Her breathing was turning into gasps. As much as she had enjoyed a man's fingers on her vulva as part of their foreplay, none of them could what this six-fingered, boneless creature was doing to her. Her pussy was flooding.

Grape was both pleased and relieved that her vaginal orifice was proving easier to prepare for penetration than either her anus or even her mouth. The former had very little lubricant but at least it had no teeth. The latter was rich in moisture but it was armed with stony white objects that could have easily injure him. He also had to ask Nadine's permission to control her autonomic reflexes to examine both those orifices.

But her vagina was something quite different. It had no, gag reflex. According to his understanding of what Nadine told him about human female sexuality, her wetness indicated her receptiveness to penetration. The wetter she became, the more receptive she must be, or so Grape thought. Indeed, Nadine seemed to be very co-operative. She was pushing her rear against the writhing appendage as if she wanted more of it inside her. Nadine felt gloriously full.

He felt her convulse beneath him. 'Is that an orgasm?' he asked as unobtrusively as he could.

"Yes," she sighed out loud. 'Oh god, keep going,' she managed to telepath back to him.

Grape was very pleased. He had little trouble slipping the tip of his tentacle and all six fingers into her vagina. It was definitely roomier than either her mouth or her anus. He soon found her G-spot and caused her to orgasm again. He decided that the best way to examine was to keep her in a constant state of sexual bliss while he slowly moved up her vaginal channel until he reached the opening to her cervix. He had a little difficulty getting past that point but when a finger reached the mouth of one of her fallopian tubes, he stopped and asked. 'I have detected an egg. May I take it?'

Breathing heavily in the aftermath of her latest orgasm,' she managed to give him her permission. 'There is no man to make me pregnant,' she projected. 'Eventually, the egg will be ejected from my body unfertilized. 'So, yes, there is no harm in you taking it.'

Grape manipulated his tentacle and prehensile fingers to induce several more orgasms. Nadine had no idea how many she might have had as they seemed non-stop. She also had no idea when he actually took her egg. But she knew that her orgy with the alien ended when his tentacle finally popped out of her.

He moved backwards into the water. 'Please excuse me, I want to examine this egg. Whatever the result, I plan to return home very soon.'

Then the thought that had been nagging Nadine finally crystallized. 'Grape,' she asked, 'if you have only one orifice and your females have two, how do you mate to produce young?'

Grape paused for a long moment. 'You have figuratively and literally opened yourself up to me. Because I've had to avoid humans, I would never have learned much about t hem except for you. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would be able to examine how a human functions, never mind actually obtain a human ovum. So, I owe you an explanation about us, big time.'

'Thank you,' she said simply.

'Do you remembered how I reacted when pictured eating a grape in your mind?'

'Yes, you were horrified.'

'It wasn't the swallowing that horrified me. I was horrified by the thought of being food.'

Nadine caught the distinction but waited for him to continue his explanation.

'Look at my organs,' he urged her.

Nadine did.

'You see that long object towards the end?'

'Yes.'

'That's my penis.'

'Impossible!' she objected. How can you possibly mate? It's inside your body at a point that is farthest sway from your mouth.'

'Do you see the two long tubes going the core of my body?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'In your species,' Grape continued, 'you have two tubes past your throat, one for food and one for breathing air. Correct?'

'Of course,' she said.

'Well, just beyond my throat are also two openings. Like yours, one is for food. It leads to my stomach, which processes and absorbs food, and as I explained before, our species ejects undigested material by regurgitating it.'

'Okay,' she said carefully, wondering where this was going.

'The second one leads to a large and very pliable cavity where my penis is located.' The he tossed out the bombshell. 'We swallow the female whole until her rear orifice is solidly settled on the penis.'

'Aren't you worried you might swallow her down the wrong hole?' she objected.

'If that were to happen,' he reassured her, 'our gag reflex would kick in just as it would if you swallowed down the wrong hole. What a gross thought that we turn our females into food,' Grape declared with distaste.'

'Does this occur only for breeding purposes or do you swallow a female for recreation sex too?'

'That's another similarity between our two species. I noticed you enjoyed our simulated sex...'

'Simulated? It sure seemed real to me!'

'It was real for you but there was nothing sexual about it for me. It was interesting to exploit your sexual proclivities, but I did not get any sexual satisfaction out of it. But to your point, yes, we enjoy recreational sex as well performing reproductive sex. As in your species, the act is the same but the result is different.'

'Won't she be smothered?' she asked. She knew the answer already. She couldn't figure out the mechanics.

'No, we undergo a certain degree voluntary physical fusion so that oxygen and nutrients going through the male's system also supply the female. She does not breather or eat on her own during sexual union but she is entirely conscious of the entire process unless, of course, she sleeps.'