All I Wanted Was To Become A Scientist But Now I've Got An Alien Boyfriend (Bubble Babes #2)

by Petra Palerno

To all my fellow horny weirdos, this one is for you.

and not for the first time in my life, I wish I was good at comforting people.

Some people are just good at peopling. I am not.

Just because it’s your special interest doesn't mean anyone else cares, I remind myself. There’s no worse feeling than being excited to share something you think is cool and be met with bored or annoyed faces.

I feel this <3

First, sex work is real work.

Preach

I am a stone-cold fox, and I fucking hate it.

My male peers didn’t respect me because of the stupid vessel that contained my mind. I was bad at connecting…I was bad at the human experience as a whole.

I doubt he thought I would see it, but that’s another one of my talents. I notice things other people don’t. The “not neurotypical” portion didn't upset me—I already knew that about myself—but the “needs accommodations” portion just chapped my ass.

I had been accommodating the way the rest of the world thought and interacted my entire fucking life. Would it kill anyone to accommodate me?

PREACH

He’s leaning against a wall on the opposite side of Earth 2’s common room, with the data pad you would assume is surgically attached to his hand. There’s more than one circle of chairs, ten or so group therapy sessions are going on. He looks like he’s actively trying not to pay attention, but he’s bad at it. He keeps looking in all the directions that aren’t me, for no reason other than to not look at me.

After he rescued me from the crash, he offered me a place to stay. “No strings attached,” he had said. So far, that was mostly true. The only string I noticed was the fact that he never seemed to want to leave me alone.

Seth isn’t my boyfriend, and I hold no claim on him in that way…but why do my hackles rise when I think about someone else moving in on him?

He isn’t unattractive…he is tall and leanly muscled like an Olympic swimmer. His closely cropped white hair is set in a very deliberate no-nonsense style. Even his gray skin has grown on me. The slight striations in color and pattern are easy to get lost in.

And his eyes…his eyes are blue like the rest of the fi’len I’d met, but his are just a bit more teal than most. As I appreciate those irises, I realize we are staring at each ot...

Camille narrows her eyes a bit at me. “If he’s just your roommate, why did he smell your hair when you walked in?” She arches her eyebrows and smiles like she knows something I don’t.

The cropped jacket of his gray suit rides up just enough to display the vee of his hips as he types something on his data pad with his thumb. My face twists in a scowl at the thought of any woman in this room touching my alien.

My alien? Fuck, that wasn’t what I meant. Seth, big old Gray Seth. I’m just territorial because he’s my one real friend here. That’s it, nothing pervy…friendship.

I’ve attempted to, well, touch myself, several times since I’ve moved in. Without fail, he’s knocking on the door of the bathroom the second I slip my fingers between my legs.

He can probably smell it

If I wait until I think he’s asleep, he’ll inevitably pop up around some corner to ask me why I’m still awake. It’s been frustrating, to say the least.

The medic’s goofy but handsome face lights up when he sees all the women in our therapy sessions. He’s been charged with helping the humans adjust, teaching them about life on Sontafrul 6 and, most importantly, Fi’len sex education.

I’ve always had a soft spot for teachers. Despite my terrible ability at connecting to other people, I want to try my best to reach out to Hi’rey…maybe he needs another friend as badly as I do.

I cut her off. "That’s a gross way to talk about someone who’s trying to help you.”

“Let me talk to Opal and see if there’s a spot for you to use your amazing brain in ways you might find more fulfilling. How does that sound?” “I’d like that.” Actually, I’d love that. I’d love to be useful here.

I’m doubtful they’ll find a science-based job for me here…I always liked to think that math and science were universal, but I don’t even know if my practices and knowledge would translate to this alien world. I’d try if they let me, though.

“Maybe you should get better about asking for what you want then.” He flashes me a smirk.

He used to apologize for touching me after he found out I didn’t like it—which made me feel worse. Now he just breaks contact and moves on.

Just as much as he’s learned that I don’t like to be touched, I’ve learned that sometimes it’s not worth arguing with him.

He pretends it’s me he’s worried about, but the amount of spray sanitizer that big gray alien puts on his four-fingered hands throughout the day leads me to believe he’s the real germaphobe here.

Poor guy

“Do I stink?” I turn back to see his cheeks flushed bright blue. “Um, no.” “Then why do you keep smelling me?”

“You’re an attractive enough guy. You really don’t have to stay in and babysit me all day. Maybe you could line up a hot date?” Jessy says, waggling her eyebrows as if her words aren’t kicking me in the stomach.

I remind myself that she’s not ready for a relationship, that I stupidly promised no strings attached.

But this? This must be some new torture devised for me by the goddess herself. For those awful words to fall out of her pretty little mouth, to assume that I could think of anyone else? Utter and total f’teeing nonsense.

Her eyes go wide. “Wait, like a chemical reaction, or do you physically change? This is so interesting!”

Isn’t a little mystery around the bond kind of sexy?” I arch my brow at her. “No, science is sexy, Seth,” she huffs at me, not amused.

I whip my eyes from her chest and try my best to hide the blue flush spreading across my cheeks. I bet every part of her tastes like cinnamon.

Which is a delicacy to them

“Sorry, your eyes reminded me of the chapel stone for a moment…the green is a very specific color. It's thought to be one of the most beautiful colors in the universe,” I lie, only about looking at her eyes, not about their beauty.

She raises an eyebrow, obviously not understanding that I am hitting on her. I used to assume this was some fun hard-to-get game she wished to play, a human courting ritual perhaps. It didn’t take me lo...

Oh, goddess, her laugh is beautiful.

There was a time, when Jessy first started staying with me, that it would cause me to go into a full-blown panic attack. My apartment was so much easier to keep sterile before my mate arrived—Jessy inspires such a perplexing gambit of emotions for me.

I feel for him. I've felt this way before and it's so hard to deal with.

“First, yes, I will pick up my mess. Make sure you tell me if it’s bothering you. I’m not great at picking up on context clues, as I keep reminding you.

I set my jaw. Yes, it would be f’teeing awful. Every second I’m away from her, the mate bond screams. What a fun little evolutionary quirk the fi’len have developed, to make me manic the second my mate is out of my sight.

She can complain about me hovering all she wants—she doesn’t know the pain I feel when I have to leave.

“What?” “Masturbate, Gra’eth! I haven’t had any alone time to masturbate. Nothing personal, but could you find something to do for a few hours today? Let a girl work one out?” Her grimace deepens.

Taken aback, I turn my head left and right, looking for anything to focus on besides Jessy. My mate just asked me to leave my apartment so she can pleasure herself alone.

“I, uh, yeah,” is the cool and collected phrase my piece-of-shit brain ...

“I appreciate how we can be upfront roomie”—I hate that word—“I can do the same sometime too, if you need to let off some steam.”

What could I have even said to her request? I can’t even tell the poor girl she’s my mate, so I most assuredly can’t tell her I’ve been jerking my cock every night on the couch. That just her scent filling my apartment is enough to keep me hard almost constantly.

That Gra’eth, the no-nonsense cut-throat attorney, had to bite a f’teeing throw pillow to stop from moaning like a schoolboy. I’ve imagined filling her in every way possible. No, it’s not the f’teeing time or place for those conversations.

I can only imagine what smells I have to deal with when I get home tonight. The smell of her dripping cunt on my shee...

Somehow, I’m in charge of finding appropriate work for every woman in the dormitories. Did I volunteer to impress Jessy? I can’t remember, but either way, it’s taken up much more time than I expected.