Page 29 of What Makes an Alien a Dad?

Lievoa scanned our purchases, using the store drone, then packed them into bags while the professor and I just stood there, staring at each other.

He’d had a fresh trim of his fur and beard while I was in the fitting room. His horns had been shined, too, with a silver spiral of paint added to each. The visit to the barber must have left him smelling this exceptionally good, I realized.

I drew in some air through my nostrils, filling my lungs with his scent. It had a little bit of citrus in it, a little bit of spice, and a whole lot of alien male...

Something fluttered inside my chest then slowly descended into my belly, spreading through my body with a shiver of pleasure.

“I added an extra pair of pajamas. A present from me,” Lievoa told me with a wink.

The professor yanked his sleeve up to let the drone scan his charge bracelet to pay. Then he turned to me, clearly impatient to get going. I promptly thanked Lievoa for all her help and hurried to the exit with him.

“Thank you,” I said as we exited the store and he flagged a mall drone to carry our bags.

“No need to thank me.” He shook his head. “The clinic is supposed to provide you with clothes. It’s in the contract.”

“True, but hospital gowns are clothes, too. There was no obligation for you to buy all this expensive stuff.” I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder at the drone whirring behind us with the load of shopping bags.

He flexed his jaw. “It was my oversight not to do it earlier. I should’ve bought it all on the day of your arrival to Voran.”

“But you were too eager to get into my uterus first, weren’t you?” I laughed. “You couldn’t wait to start the study. I don’t think you even thought about me as anything but the research subject until recently.”

I said that without accusation. I’d come to Voran to participate in the study. It wasn’t the professor’s fault we hadn’t connected in any other way before. But he seemed flustered by my words.

His eyes dipped to my bare legs under the hem of my mid-thigh-length dress. He jerked his head, flicking his gaze away.

As we passed by yet another storefront, a robot AI greeted him from the doorway, “Good afternoon, Professor Kear Umhra Thormus. Would you like to come in for an unscheduled visit?”

I looked at the name of the store—Dream Spa.

“Is that a massage place? One of those with the sex pods?”

The massage spas were often mentioned in Voranian movies and shows. They provided a wide range of body massages, including sexual stimulation. From what I learned, there was no stigma attached to using them in Voran. On the contrary, it was encouraged as a healthy habit for overall wellbeing, especially for men.

With the Voranian population being so heavily skewed toward males, the pods provided a handy solution for an easy release of physical tension, including that of a sexual nature.

The professor’s cheeks darkened with blush, however, his eyes shifting as he bit out, “Not today,” to the AI screen mounted on a tall stand, then briskly stomped by.

I craned my neck, catching a glimpse of rounded pods deep inside the spa. They looked like a slick version of tanning beds that fully concealed a person inside and reminded me of the massage pods in the hospital. I used those strictly for therapeutic purposes, but now I wondered if those could be configured for sex as well.

If so, the professor could’ve used them, too. It’d probably be cheaper for him to stay at the clinic. But maybe he preferred to use the pods off site, to separate business from pleasure, so to say.

“We’ll see you next weekend then, Professor Thormus,” the AI robot chirped behind us.

The professor nodded in acknowledgement but said nothing. He appeared to fully regain his composure now. Whatever that momentary flash of bashfulness was all about, it had passed.

However, my thoughts remained on the spa. The weekend was in two days. And now, I imagined the professor lying inside the pod. Naked. Soft rubbery sleeves and firm rollers massaging his large body. The AI sending stimulating images directly into his brain.

Back at the clinic, I’d received leg and foot massages. The atmosphere projected into my brain had been soft music, bubbling brooks, and a breeze whispering in a meadow.

The sex function, I imagined, would have very different settings and imagery.

What would the professor be fantasizing about when he came undone? It wasn’t easy to imagine this calm, detached man losing control and panting while covered in sweat. His fur wild and messy, his eyes shut in pleasure, his teeth bared in his chase of the climax...

“Are you hungry?” Professor Thormus asked.

And now I was the one blushing, hiding my eyes from him, as if caught doing something very illicit.

Why on earth would I think about the professor in a sex pod? For all I knew, he might get foot massages there too, just like me... Um. Hoof massages. Was there such a thing?

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