Chapter Text
Dr. Eva Stratt reviewed the footage again. Or rather, she sat blankly in front of her bulky standard-issue mission computer and flicked her mouse over the dozens of files contained in a folder labeled only rocky_and_grace.zip. She chewed on her lip absently as her mouse hovered over the third-to-last video in the folder. She had already reviewed it four times, emailed it to hundreds of experts, and printed out screenshots from every frame to be sent to archives globally. The longer Eva thought about the video, the less sense it made.
“This is highly irregular,” she had explained to every person she had shown it to. A nervous forewarning cloaked in the blandness of her unwaveringly dull affectation. “Do not be alarmed with what you see.” Every person she had shown it to ended up being very much alarmed indeed. Oh well. It was not as if she hadn’t tried to prepare them. While stiff-lipped military personnel seemed disturbed by the content, it was not long before Eva found herself with a very different problem. The experts were interested. And they had questions.
And so, Eva sat in front of the files for what she hoped would be the last time. She was uploading them off of the premium-security mission computer to a secure hard-drive that could be distributed to sociologists, anthropologists, biologists, psychologists, neurologists, and every other -ologist that the Project Hail Mary post-mission strategists deemed worthy of the knowledge. And, God, if it wasn’t a burden of knowledge. Eva had been through a lot. She liked to believe she remained unaffected. But there are some things the human mind is incapable of shielding itself from without a little psychic damage. Perhaps this was just one of those things.
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: re: KINSEY FORUM; PHM XENOPHILIA MEGATHREAD
DATE: 11/04/50
Dear Dr. Stratt,
I am writing in response to a correspondence that you authorized on the Kinsey Institute’s open forum for the Anthro-Eridian sexuality videos contained within the PHM probes. My colleagues at IU Bloomington, Humboldt University of Berlin, & University of Toronto have all reported that you have been most useful in clarifying certain knowledge gaps of the newly-formed global congress on Anthro-Eridian sexuality (annual conference and acronym forthcoming).
However, I do believe you have supplied us with all of the clarification that you are at liberty to provide, given that you are separated from Dr. Grace and his Eridian companion by just as much distance as the rest of us. It is this distance that I wish to remedy. Should PHM reestablish contact with Dr. Grace, I have a standardized issue of questions that I would ask you present to him and his companion.
- Question for ‘Rocky’: You have stated within the video logs that you wish to settle on Erid. Do you anticipate that Dr. Grace will be accepted as your companion within Eridian society? If you have already integrated Dr. Grace into Eridian society, what were the obstacles in the manner of your relationship, and how do you maintain a healthy bond under such extraordinary circumstances?
- Question for Dr. Grace: In the biological diagrams you provided of the Eridian form, it appears that your companion is a hermaphrodite.
- How does this shape your own concept of your human sexual identity?
- How do you refer to the nature of your bond?
- Do you experience intimate desire for your companion as if it was a human being, or is this a new category of sensation altogether?
- Question for both: We understand from the provided footage that you are physically intimate, but the provided biological diagrams indicate that you are not entirely physiologically compatible, and the atmospheric differences between your evolutionary needs present an obvious obstacle.
- How do you safely conduct intercourse?
- Are there Eridian innovations to conducting intercourse in a safe manner?
- Are there human innovations to conducting intercourse in a safe manner?
- Are there Eridian and human innovations to conducting intercourse in a safe manner?
- To what extent do you perform intercourse? To what extent is it satisfying?
- Is your relationship mutual, or experienced mutually?
- Question for ‘Rocky’: Explain all manner of Eridian sexuality, gender, pleasure, fetish, exhibition, pornography, stimulative tools/adaptations, mythology, ritual, and stigma to the best of your abilities.
- Additionally, do you experience sexual desire?
- If so, is the desire you experience for Eridians the same for Dr. Grace, or a new category of sensation? If neither, do you experience any desire for Dr. Grace whatsoever?
- Do Eridians have a concept of sexual activity for pleasure, or sexual activity beyond biological needs for reproduction?
- Additionally, can/does Dr. Grace participate in any form of Eridian reproduction/mating ritual?
- Additionally, Dr. Grace mentioned that you have a mate on Erid, by the name of Adrian.
- Do you take Dr. Grace as your mate, or does he fulfill another non-platonic role for you? If neither, what function do you perceive Dr. Grace as serving your sociology?
- What are the typical relationship structures for Eridians? Are they typically polyamorous
- Additionally, is Dr. Grace required to take Adrian as a mate if he has you as a mate, or can these relationships function separately?
End line of questioning.
I sincerely hope that these questions shall suffice. They were labored over quite diligently by my colleagues within the Kinsey forum. Please do not hesitate to let me know if there are any limitations to transmitting these messages, or if I should draft additional and/or modified messages. I understand that Earth-Eridian contact may consist of immensely fragile diplomacy that the international sexology community may destabilize with our curiosities.
Best,
Dr. Danica Lynch
—
Dr. Danica Lynch
University of Michigan, College of Literature Science & the Arts
Professor, Women’s & Gender Studies
~ ~ ~
₍^. .^₎⟆ just have fun and live a little!
Eva decided that the Kinsey forum questions would be hard-coded onto the probe. She was extremely preoccupied with the rehabilitation of the Sun, overseeing international research projects on agriculture, conflict resolution, and geoengineering; not to mention sifting through the rest of the rich scientific Eridian knowledge that Grace had sent back. She had an inbox several thousand emails long from CERN, Brookhaven, and Fermilab alone inquiring about the apparent properties of solid Xenonite, and all clamoring to get their turn with the small return samples. She was living with a perpetual headache, to say the least.
Despite this, Eva found herself strangely (and somewhat disturbingly) intrigued by Grace’s sordid foray into alien sexuality. She had never known him to be desire-driven in the past. In fact, he had openly derided scientists on the Hail Mary team who fornicated with each other. Eva cringed at her own inner monologue. So clinical. She was very forthright, she knew that much about herself. But seriously? Fornicated? She shuddered and cracked her stiff neck. She had been staring at her computer screen for too many hours. Her desk jostled with the rough lull of the ice breaker against the frozen waters below. Eva wondered, not for the first time, if Grace and Rocky had been desperate enough to engineer a solution to their intimacy.
The video was not as salacious or revealing as most had sensationalized it to be. Eva knew that it was shocking, yes, simply for the subject matter it brushed upon. However, it was genuinely more gentle than pornographic. It was also, she suspected, a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to put it crudely. She did not regret forcing Grace onto the Hail Mary. How could anyone regret saving not only the entirety of humanity and humanity’s future, but now the only other known sentient civilization in the Universe? Still, Eva understood that Grace, being the personality he was, might harbor some harsh feelings towards her. Perhaps his idea of payback was weaponizing the joy that his unwitting sacrifice had rewarded him with against the woman who put him there. If only he knew what he had unleashed.
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, & Reproduction
Forum; PHM XENOPHILIA MEGATHREAD
ginghamtubesocks | 12:43 PM
>> re: the PHM video. I watched it, oh yes, I watched it. Not only did I watch it, but I showed it to my entire seminar. The responses played entirely into their moral conditioning. They had become so accustomed to defending perversion, to bashing puritanical thought. Then– BOOM! All of a sudden…moral panic! (Yes, this is Lisa Ziediņš, and yes, this is the same seminar that thought Pink Flamingos was a walk-in-the-park. Chew on that one).
rideordie2007 | 12:45 PM
>> jesussss, that is roughhhh. they just don’t understand the gift they’ve been given
oliverolivine | 12:45 PM
>> No kidding! But okay, has anyone done an analysis yet? Because one of my students actually was receptive…exceptionally so…and she provided me with some pretty great insights. i.e. at 4:28, we see Grace adjust the camera angle to focus exclusively on Rocky. It stays that way for another 2 mins and 33 seconds, before returning to a wide shot of both. Reasoning? Thoughts??
ginghamtubesocks | 12:46 PM
>> We could ponder the exact thought processes all day. I’m more concerned with the moralizing being done in response to the footage.
oliverolivine | 12:46 PM
>> I know that, Lisa. I’m just WONDERING. Wondering. If you think that Grace had the intention of creating pornography of Rocky exclusively as a means to enjoy later by himself. Do you perhaps think that meant he didn’t know they would be intimate again? Or did he simply want it to exist? Just for the additional pleasure?
tangerinedreams | 12:47 PM
>> If it was meant to be personal, why would he include it on the probe?
amandafeinberg | 12:47 PM
>> Proof
tangerinedreams | 12:47 PM
>> re: Proof Would you elaborate this?
amandafeinberg | 12:48 PM
>> That they existed. That they were something. Their relationship is, without a doubt, the only of its kind in this entire reality. If they didn’t let us know it existed, who would ever be there to witness them? God?
olivierolivine | 12:49 PM
>> The Eridians, if they’re lucky.
amandafeinberg | 12:49 PM
>> Exactly. But who knows if they will be so lucky. Imagine experiencing the most minoritized relationship known to either of your species, with only each other as a tether in the abyss of outer space.
>>>> Wouldn’t it be comforting to have some semi-eternal afterlife of your love? If only just to be entombed as pixels on a space probe, uploaded to Earth computers, lightyears away?
>>>>>> It must be some comfort.
Grace shielded his face from the artificial sunrise outside of his window. His entire body ached. The artificial gravity within the biodome was effective, but there were still pressure differences on Erid that the Eridian engineers had found so far irreconcilable. He turned over in his covers gently, half-expecting his arm to fall on an empty bed. To his small surprise, his wrist instead knocked the cool exterior of Rocky’s pressurized Xenonite suit.
“Oh,” he said gently. “Hey, Rock. G’morning.”
“Grace forgot Rocky was here last night. Question?”
“Yeah,” Grace mumbled bashfully. “You don’t stay over much, y’know?” Rocky rolled over and tucked himself into the curl of Grace’s side.
“Rocky’s suit is bad for long time, Grace knows this. Need to go back to Erid and breath good atmosphere, be free from suit. Very sad very sad.” Grace hummed and began to gently stroke the top of Rocky’s carapace with his knuckles.
“I know,” he said. “I just wish…”
“Grace feel Rocky for real soon. Rocky been working diligently on important project, lots of math and engineering. The best science because this is urgent dilemma that needs urgent fix. Rocky fix for Grace.” Rocky chirped an assuring chord and began to rub small circles against Grace’s knee with his pincers.
“So you’ve been telling me,” Grace said. He leaned into the gentle touches that Rocky was offering him. They had done this so many times, and yet even contact through the thin Xenonite suit barrier, the subtle domesticity of cuddling in bed with soft beams of sunlight dancing across the walls, was enough to make Grace quiver. He pressed his lips softly to the top of Rocky’s carapace as a tribute. “I missed you.”
“Every day here at Grace house. This is very confusing,” Rocky responded, and rolled up against Grace’ thigh. “Rocky be here permanent, Grace wants. Question?” Rocky’s quiet vibrations as he sung into Grace’s skin did something to him. His mouth grew dry.
“W-well, yeah,” he explained. “I think about you all the time, Rock. Whenever you’re not here. Dreaming about what you’re up to, who you’re talking to, even if you’re thinking about me, too.” He scratched the back of his wrist awkwardly. “...Hoping that you are.”
“Grace is dreaming about Rocky. Grace is asleep without Rocky to watch. Question?” Rocky sounded genuinely worried when he asked this. Grace shook his head.
“No, no,” he said. “It’s a human expression. It just means I was thinking about you a lot. That you’re taking up a lot of my brain power.”
“Very bad. Grace need brain power for great science and solutions. No good when stupid, even when all stupid is thinking about how great Rocky is.” Grace laughed and pushed Rocky playfully, even though he wasn’t even a modicum strong enough to budge him at all.
“I just want us to be really real, that’s all,” he said. “But I’d feel guilty if you moved in with me permanently. I gave up my home to be with you, and I think that’s the best decision I ever made.” His voice grew softer and he traced a finger down Rocky’s peripheral. “I don’t want you to give up on Erid for me. Ever. That’s not what I did any of this for. You deserve to be with your people, to live in your home.” He swallowed dryly. “I’m lucky just to have you at all.”
“Stupid Grace,” Rocky chastised, but his song had grown faint, gentle.
“I know,” Grace laughed weakly, cradling Rocky with one hand. “I’m really stupid.”
“No. Rocky did not mean. Not real. Only a tease,” Rocky assured him. “Grace is very perfect. Most perfect human Rocky has ever met.”
“Hah-hah. Very funny.”
“Rocky means it is the truth. Grace is most perfect human. Statement.”
“Oh,” Grace breathed. “I see.” He suddenly became aware of how tangled up he and Rocky had become. He attempted to sit back and adjust himself, but his legs bumped into the wall. He was pinned between a rock and a hard place. Literally. Rocky resumed the circles on Grace’s thigh, but this time with more force. More pressure. Grace’s breathing quickly became shallow, catching in his throat. He pressed his lips together tightly, suppressing a groan as a white heat began to build between his legs.
“Rocky knows. Many times we have done this, so no need to hide.”
“Y-yeah, Rock,” Grace forced himself to say. “I’m down with the program. G-got the memo and all that…” Rocky’s pincers wandered across Grace’s thighs and to his lower stomach. Grace felt his muscles straining at the contact. He shivered as Rocky lifted the edge of his shirt to feel his bare skin. The sensation was so familiar, so inviting, and yet they seemed to reinvent the wheel every time in a way that turned his brain to soup and made him insane.
“Good touch here,” Rocky said. “Not all the way now. Grace still need to get up and make breakfast. Grace no good when hungry, even if eating is disgusting.”
“S-so you’ve said,” Grace choked. “But m-maybe you could go a little further? Just a– just a little?” Rocky tilted his carapace judgementally. There was silence. Then he pushed his upper pincers down with force on Grace’s arms, pinning him to the bed. Grace’s hips jerked up at the shock, and an involuntary moan escaped his lips.
“Rocky go further, yes, but Grace say what for this? Beg or plead and be grateful to Rocky for touch. Statement.” Grace nodded. He wanted to move, but all he succeeded in doing was squirming like a bug beneath Rocky’s powerful weight. He felt the pincers push down on him with further force, squeezing the breath from his lungs. “Grace only nod, no speaking. Question? This is not good for Rocky. Cannot make more touch when Grace only nodding.”
“Nrgh– n-no, wait,” Grace forced out. His jeans were growing increasingly uncomfortable. He could feel the crotch tenting with the strain of his pulsing erection. “Please, Rocky. Pl-please, I’ll be good. I–I want it. More.” He groaned loudly, his back arching in an attempt to get any release from his painful cock.
“Say more,” Rocky commanded. Grace found the command so direct, in fact, that it nearly reduced him to a wordless state. Somehow, he found his voice.
“M-more, right, y-yes,” he whimpered, wriggling desperately. “Touch me, touch me, Rocky, please, please, ple–” His pathetic begging was interrupted by Rocky’s pincer darting down from the band of his underwear to the base of his cock. “Oh!” Grace cried. “Come on, I’ll be– I’ll be good for you, just–” He wanted it more than anything now. This was what being in love must feel like. No, he knew it was. He was so hopelessly, terribly in love. He wanted to wake up like this every morning. He wanted to feel this way forever. He wanted to– Rocky wrapped his pincer around the shaft of his cock and began to tug.
“Oh shit!”
“Grace stop moving so much right now. Statement.” Rocky barked. “Grace is Rocky specimen. Enjoyable to study. So difficult to look at when moving around like tiny little cell.”
“I– I’ll be your specimen,” Grace said hoarsely. Holy shit that sounded so hot. He fucking loved when their roleplay went in this direction. Rocky was such a creative, horny, nerd. Exactly his type. He didn’t even have a type on Earth, and somehow Rocky was still it.
“Good,” Rocky said in a lower register. His stroking was speeding up now, tightening around Grace’s cock with expert precision. Rocky never forgot. And he had a lot of memories to draw from. Grace moaned obscenely, and the sound of it sent violent shivers throughout Rocky’s whole carapace. Grace watched in reverent fascination as slick silvery mercury began to drip through a seam in Rocky’s lower orifice. He had seen it dozens of times before, and somehow it was just as entrancing. As if he was experiencing it for the very first time. His breath was hot, condensing on Rocky’s suit. He watched the inside of the suit pool with hot mercury. Fuck.
His hips bucked up jerkily as he began fucking into Rocky’s pincers. Grace didn’t care anymore. He wanted to feel good. He wanted Rocky to feel good. To make Rocky feel good. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted. He cock twitched painfully with threats of an orgasm. He bit his lower lip until it drew blood. Not now. Wait for Rocky, come on! He willed himself to the edge. The pressure hurt like hell, but the humiliation of it all somehow turned him on even more. Knowing that he couldn’t cum until Rocky told him to.
Rocky ground into Grace’s cock, humping him with almost a desperate force. Grace could hardly see. The entire room was a white-out of searing light. His mind flooded itself to the peak of blankness. He heard his shallow breathing. He heard Rocky’s rhythmic grinding and the wetness of his spare pincer fingering the soft folds inside of his orifice.
“Mrggh,” Rocky made a noise that Grace knew meant he was close. So close.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Grace urged him. “Y-you can give it to me, Rock. I c-can take it.” His throat tightened and his whole body went taunt as Rocky suddenly released his grip from his cock. He watched, stricken, as Rocky’s body shook violently, expending itself in the most indecent display of slick mercury and strained harmonics. “Th-that’s it,” Grace cried.
“G-good now,” Rock managed. “Now, Grace now. Don’t be stupid. Now.” His pincer came back down on Grace’s cock, giving it one last unbearable squeeze. Grace came almost instantly. He didn’t even care how absolutely debauched he sounded. He didn’t care. He wanted Rocky to hear him. To find his voice, his cries, his sounds of pleasure beautiful. This was how he wanted Rocky to see him. He wanted to be seen. As long as Rocky could coax a sound from his lips, he would sing. He would promise it.