Hey, Good-Looking!
by William Quincy Belle
“God, she’s sexy!”
Karl furrowed his brow. “I still don’t see it.”
Jax gestured. “Look at that body! She’s hot!”
A short distance away on another park bench in a tree-lined walkway, an alien woman sat, reading a tablet, unaware she was being scrutinized. Karl stared at her bulbous body, covered in purplish skin, with luminescent pink splotches. Her head, if you could call it a head, was more of a protrusion with three eyes spaced to look in all directions, with the main one, on the front of the head, on a retractable stalk, allowing it to zoom out and stare at the tablet.
The woman, or the female of the species, held out three extensible appendages, each ending in three tentacles, one supporting the tablet underneath, one swiping across the display as she read a book, and one resting across three legs. A puckered orifice below the main eye opened, then closed, and spittle dribbled down the front of what Karl assumed was her almost naked body.
Karl screwed up his mouth and shook his head. “Nope! Don’t see it!”
“Oh, God, Karl, you’re blind! You couldn’t recognize a good-looking woman if she came up and thrust herself upon you.”
The Glieseans had arrived a year ago on Earth, humanity’s first contact with an alien race and, at the time, Karl chuckled at how the planet had gone crazy. Half of the people were fascinated by the idea of life elsewhere in the galaxy, while half were apprehensive, if not outright scared. The more radical posted amusing conspiracy theories on social media that these space monsters were going to enslave humans and eat them.
The newly formed Gliese-Earth Diplomatic Council had the mandate to bridge the gap between the two races and cement an agreement of mutual cooperation. Out of the blue, they asked Karl, one of Earth’s eminent anthropologists, to delve into the issue and recommend how best to proceed in bringing Earth and Gliese together, adding this was of the utmost importance and a top priority. Karl thought this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and agreed right away.
He eyed the female. The main eye on the stalk glanced up and surveyed the area. For a moment, it stopped and stared right at him. He half-smiled and gave an awkward wave. The eye blinked, then went back to reading the tablet.
A series of clicking noises came from his left, and he turned to see his alien partner talking in his native tongue while holding a small box in a tentacled hand, pressing several buttons. He uttered more clicks until a synthesized voice came on. “Damn this stupid contraption! There’s got to be a short somewhere.” Jax held the box up. “I had this serviced last week,” the voice said, “and they said they fixed it. But, every once in a while, it cuts out, and I don’t know why. I have to turn it off, then turn it back on. Geesh! What a pain!”
“We’re all at the mercy of technology,” Karl said. His words were followed a translation, a series of clicks coming out of the box.
Jax clicked, and the synthesized voice said, “I hear ya!”
As Karl watched, the membrane around the hole, which served as a mouth, contracted and expanded, resulting in clicks followed by the human-like speech of the universal translator. Jax affixed the device to the right of his so-called head.
Karl clicked his tongue several times.
Jax froze, and his closest eye turned to stare.
Karl licked his lips, then clenched his jaw. He took a deep breath and put his tongue up against the roof of his mouth, half-sucking and pulling it away. The resulting noise sounded like a tongue clicking disapproval.
“What are you doing?” Jax’s synthesized voice asked.
Karl clicked several more times, then said, “I’m trying to talk in your native language.”
Jax half-turned, half-rolled toward Karl. “Really? I thought you were having some sort of medical emergency and should dial for help.” Two eyes turned toward Karl. “Your pronunciation is appalling. But in your defense, I’m not sure humans have the innate ability to reproduce the sounds of our language. Your mouth is all wrong.”
Karl clicked again.
“Ah, geez, Karl, stop it. Whatever you think you’re doing is coming out all screwed up. It’s like you’re talking nonsensical baby talk or something.” The synthesized voice laughed while Jax himself emitted a series of clicks resembling high-pitched grunts.
Karl let out an exasperated sigh. “I found a recording and have been trying to mimic your sounds.”
Jax used his middle appendage to pat Karl’s knee with its tentacled hand. “I appreciate the effort, Karl. While anything is possible, I assume, why don’t we focus on what we know we can do?” Jax’s appendage touched the box. “And let’s be thankful for technology, otherwise, we wouldn’t be talking at all. Don’t forget, there’s no way I could reproduce the sounds of human speech.”
The two of them sat in silence, watching the alien woman fiddle with her tablet.
“I thought you and I should chat alone so I could answer any questions you may have before introducing you to my partner, Snarz,” Jax said.
“Questions? Where do I start?” Karl replied.
The woman’s main eye on the retractable stalk glanced at them. The tentacled end of an extensible appendage throbbed, contracting, and expanding.
“Oh, my God!” Jax said. “She’s flirting with me.” He slapped Karl’s upper arm. “Did you see that?
Karl squinted. “See what?”
“Her...” Jax’s one eye pivoted to look at Karl. “You don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“Her ovipositor.”
Karl had an expression of incomprehension. “Her ovi..?”
“Ovipositor. Her main appendage is also her sex organ.”
“Oh, boy. Are you going to tell me more than I want to know? I’m now going to put my fingers in my ears and repeat la, la, la, la, la!”
“Very funny, Karl. Now, listen! The Gliese-Earth Diplomatic Council thought two anthropologists working in tandem would go a long way to dispelling the fears of our respective races. There are still far too many who don’t see the benefits of cooperation.”
“We humans sometimes have a tendency to be apprehensive of anybody unlike us.”
“Tendency? In my studies of your race, I discovered you have strong relations with pets: dogs, cats, goldfish, budgies, heck, even snakes and spiders, animals who are nothing like you.” Jax gestured with a tentacled hand. “But with your own species, you can be outright contemptuous of one another. You hate differently colored skin. You make fun of different body types. And you scorn those on a different economic level. I find it amazing you haven’t killed each other off!”
“You paint an unflattering portrait of humanity,” Karl said.
“I’m sure any of us can be closed-minded. However, I’m hoping you’ll see us as more than purplish beach balls, as people keep saying on social media.”
Karl shook his head in disdain. “I’m sorry about that. Some humans can be quite xenophobic.”
“We’ve got our own idiots on social media, insulting you: hairless meat sacks, stinky water bags, other slurs about your intelligence, or lack thereof.”
“Stinky?”
“Our olfactory system seems to be more developed than yours. I’m not saying our sense of smell is as good as your dog’s, but we can detect your odor.”
“My odor? I showered.” Karl lifted an arm and tilted his head to his armpit.
“I’m sure everything gives off some sort of scent. Don’t take it personally. Heck, I assume I’ve got an air about me.”
Karl leaned closer and sniffed. He furrowed his brow and sniffed again. He sat upright and shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Good for me, I guess. But let’s get back to our subject. You’re the one who wanted to learn more about my species. Learn about the aliens, you said. So, here’s your chance.”
Karl glanced at Jax, but then looked back at the alien woman.
“Like humans, we have two sexes. I’m male. That woman is female. But we have one major distinction: I, the male, have the womb.”
“Pardon?” Karl looked perplexed.
“The female uses her ovipositor to deposit her egg in my womb, where I fertilize it. I then gestate it for seven months before giving birth to a child.”
Karl scrunched up his face.
“I know this differs from you humans, but I’ve been studying some of your biology texts and, while this is rare here on Earth, you have examples of this sort of arrangement: insects, some fish.”
“Ah, yes.”
“The seahorse is a good example; the male carries the young, not the female.”
Karl nodded. “The idea of an ovipositor seems, well, unusual.”
“Does it? What about your penis? It’s an organ that penetrates the female to transfer semen. An ovipositor is an organ that penetrates the male to transfer an egg. Is one way any more correct than the other? At the end of it all, you have offspring. That’s what’s important.”
Karl nodded. “You make a good point. I guess being born and raised one way, it never occurs to us to consider another way.”
“Our culture has always put women first. I suppose, from an evolutionary point of view, the woman as the producer of eggs was considered the most important. Men were plentiful; sperm was plentiful; but eggs, less so. This extends into our modern world, where the woman is the head of a group. Hmm, I guess you might say household. Our mating is... you use the word polyandry: one female, several males.”
“Pardon?”
“Our females have multiple partners. They produce a new egg about every month, so they often want to mate. Having multiple partners means she has a better chance of producing offspring.”
“Is sex for you just about procreation?”
Jax’s one eye turned to Karl. “What do you mean?”
“With humans, sex is not only about creating babies; it’s also about pleasure and the bonding that occurs when sharing that pleasure.”
“I can see that. What you describe also applies to our species.”
“But you mentioned polyandry. I’d say most humans are monogamous. I’m not saying we don’t have polyandry, or any type of configuration, one man with multiple women, one woman with multiple men, but I’d say the majority are monogamous.”
Three young men walking down the sidewalk stopped in front of the female alien, all staring at her. One of them pointed and said something indecipherable at Jax’s and Karl’s distance. They all laughed.
Jax and Karl stiffened to attention.
“Why did they ever let these beach balls on our planet?” one brash man said in a mocking voice full of disdain.
One man reached out and poked the alien. All of her appendages retracted, including her eye stalk and all three of her eyes spun around in alarm.
Jax slid off the bench, pulled in his arms and legs, and rolled toward the men. Karl stood, reached into a pocket, and pulled out an emergency call device. He pressed the button.
Jax rolled into the man so hard, he staggered back a couple of steps.
“Hey!” The man glared at Jax. “Why, you stupid—”
One of Jax’s appendages sprang out and hit the man right in the groin. The man doubled over and groaned.
The other two men jerked in surprise. “What the hell?”
Undercover agents ran in from all directions. Two agents grabbed each of the three men and threw them to the ground. Within seconds, the agents handcuffed all three men.
“You have the right to remain silent.”
The agents hauled them up, and with one holding each arm, marched them away.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
Karl came forward, and the last agent turned to him. “Are you all right, Professor Mead?”
“All good, Agent Cooper. Thanks for your help.”
“Any time, professor.”
The agent walked off, following the others.
Karl turned to Jax and the female. “Are you okay?”
The female remained balled up on the bench, her eyes darting around in what Karl interpreted as fear.
Jax clicked several times before adjusting his translator again. “Thanks, Karl.”
“I profusely apologize. We do have some stupid people on this planet.”
The female clicked excitedly.
Karl held up the panic button. “The Gliese-Earth Diplomatic Council has a great deal invested in the success of our relations. They have no intention of letting our more dimwitted derail our talks.”
She extended her appendages and put her tablet into a handbag.
“We’ll get there, Karl,” Jax said. “Everyone will eventually see that it’s better if we work together.”
The female got off the bench to stand, although Karl thought the word “stand” didn’t quite match how she lengthened each of her three legs in turn and floated into an upright position. Despite the sequential movement of the legs, she moved with a certain grace.
She stood before them and made clicking sounds. Karl estimated she was four and a half feet tall. At his six feet, he towered over the Glieseans.
Jax pointed to her bag.
The woman withdrew a translator box and affixed it to a side of her head.
“Karl, I’d like to introduce you to Snarz, my collaborator. She, too, is an anthropologist working with the Council.”
The alien clicked, and a melodious female voice came from her translator. “Nice to meet you, Karl.” She extended an appendage to Karl; its three tentacles folding into a conical shape.
Karl half-smiled, then looked at the tentacles, perplexed.
One of Snarz’s eyes looked at Jax, back to Karl, then to Jax. “Is this not correct? Don’t they — How do you say it? — shake hands?”
Jax chuckled. “You’ve got it right.” Jax swatted Karl’s arm. “Shake her hand.”
Karl extended his arm, unsure of what to grab hold of, as she didn’t have a hand, literally speaking. Snarz’s tentacles wrapped around his fingers and palm. It felt odd, but soft and sensual.
Snarz turned one eye to Jax. He chuckled and said, “Karl’s a good friend. You should treat him as such.”
Snarz’s appendage extended, and Karl felt his index finger being enveloped in something warm and moist.
“Ah, Jax?” Karl’s voice had a note of alarm. “What’s going on?” He looked at his hand and could see his finger was no longer visible. “Jax?”
A peculiar sensation started in his finger, not painful, but pleasant, even pleasurable. He could feel something expanding throughout his body, a sense of peacefulness. Peaceful? If he didn’t know any better, he might even have said there was a sexual element to it.
Karl woke up from his reverie, alarmed, and snatched his hand away. “What the heck was that?”
Jax chuckled.
“I’m sorry,” Snarz said. “Did I displease you?”
Karl turned to Jax, startled and miffed. “Jax, what just happened?”
Jax’s three eyes moved back and forth, alternating between Karl and Snarz. “It is customary for Gliesean females to use their ovipositor to pleasure someone as an introductory gesture.”
“Pleasure? Wait! Didn’t you say the ovipositor was their sex organ?”
“That’s right.”
Karl turned back to look at the purplish blob in front of him. Her three eyes darted about. Karl couldn’t read any facial expression as there wasn’t what anyone would call an actual face, but he was now thinking this woman — if that was the right term to use — was concerned, if not upset.
“My apologies, Snarz,” Karl said. “That surprised me. I didn’t mean any offense.”
Snarz’s three eyes fixated on him for a moment, then looked down.
“It is a sign of friendship,” Jax said. “It can be sexual, but foremost, it’s about friendship. I suppose this would be comparable to your kiss.”
“It took me by surprise. There was a sensation, pleasure I’d say. I was not sure what was going on. Was that supposed to happen?”
“A Gliesean ovipositor can secrete hormones that activate the pleasure centers. Snarz and others have discovered this seems to work on humans as well.”
“Work on?” Karl asked.
“Snarz has had...” Jax’s voice trailed off.
Karl looked at Jax, then looked at Snarz. Turning back to Jax, he said, “You mean...?”
Jax chuckled.
Snarz chuckled and said, “As an anthropologist, I’m interested in studying humans. It turns out humans are also interested in me.”
Karl blinked several times, startled. “I... I don’t know what to say. That’s extraordinary! Bizarre! That’s something I never would have considered.”
Jax stood up and laid a tentacled appendage on Karl’s arm. “Let’s talk more.”
Karl looked down at his two companions.
Jax explained: “The Council feels our two races have many opportunities to explore. Trade is already of great interest, as we both have raw materials and technologies the other could use. Certainly, our space drive intrigues your people, and it made our arrival possible.
“But to make the most of these opportunities, we must bridge the gap between our two races. At the heart of it, we’re not so different. Oh, yes, to the naked eye, we’re different but, when you peel back the layers, I think you’ll find we’re all the same: the hope, dreams, and aspirations of any person wanting to have a good life.”
Jax wrapped a tentacle around Karl’s left hand while Snarz took his right. “Why don’t we explore this together?”
Karl glanced at Jax, then to Snarz, and shrugged. “In the interest of interplanetary relations, one anthropologist to another, let’s set aside our differences and focus on our similarities: just two purplish beach balls and a stinky water bag. Ha!”
The three of them walked off, hand in tentacle.
Copyright © 2025 by William Quincy Belle
