Check out Part 1 (or any of my other mostly fictional blog series) before you start reading! -m
We went into the house and I made Avel lay on the kitchen counter so Fuzz and I could be on the same level. I grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and found one of the tentacles under the green fur. I placed it between the blades.
"OK, brace yourself," I said, and squeezed.
Nothing happened. Well, something happened, of course. There was a ton of screaming from both Avel and the thing. But the scissors didn't do their job. In fact, they snapped in half.
"Crap," I said.
Avel was moaning. "That hurt!"
"Sorry. Want me to try again?" I reached for the tentacle again, even as Avel yelled at me to stop. The green creature made unhappy sounds and dug its barbed tubies deeper into the side of Avel's waist.
"Stop!" Avel bellowed.
I let go and the fuzzy thing settled back down. "What's your problem?" I growled, annoyed with his tone. "I'm trying to help."
"Well, you're hurting more than your helping." He sighed heavily and pulled himself to a sitting position. He was really pale and covered in a shiny sheen of sweat. Avel sat still for a minute, silently inspecting his parasite.
It was dark green and covered in fur that was thick and coarse. There weren't any eyes, or even an "up" or "down" end. I had no idea where the noises were coming from. The tentacles were about the width of my pinky and edged with sharp barbs, like thorns on a rose. Around the mouth of each tubular tentacle was a ring of those barbs, which was how the thing had attached itself to Avel.
"Can I ask you what happened, exactly?" I asked warily. I glanced outside, where the rain was beginning to let up.
Avel didn't look up at me as he continued to carefully prod at the green thing. "There was some sort of box in the middle of the yard. I went to check it out and this thing jumped out and attacked me."
I grunted and walked away, tossing the broken shears in the trash on my way.
"Where are you going?" Avel asked, sounding dismayed.
"I'm gonna check out the box thing," I said. I slid open the door and looked around. There was a black metal box sitting in a small crater in the middle of the formerly pristine lawn. I whistled and went over, inspecting it with my foot. The metal was hot and the whole thing was steaming. I looked up, half expecting to see something else in the sky. Stray raindrops tickled my cheeks. There was nothing but gray clouds in the sky.
Back inside, Avel was on his feet and waiting for me.
"I think it's an alien," I declared as I shut the door.
Avel rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm not being ridiculous. I seriously think it is." He still appeared skeptical. "Well, what do you think it is?"
We both looked at the thing. It looked like Avel had glued a green, headless stuffed animal to his shirt.
"Mutant leech?" Avel ventured. I almost laughed, but he shuddered and I held it in.
"Alien. Leeches don't have tentacles."
"Fine. Here," he said. He handed me a small bag.
"Your shaver?" I pulled out Avel's electric shaver and flipped it on, then turned it off again. It took me a second to catch up. "No. That's just nasty," I said. "You seriously want me to shave it?"
Avel shrugged, then grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled. The tentacles had burned through enough of it that the shirt – which had been one of my favorites, by the way – came right off.
Even with a fuzzy green alien sticking its barbed tentacles into his skin, I couldn't help but grin at my bare-chested boyfriend. Lord, was he attractive. Is attractive. Anyways.
"Why are we doing this?" I asked.
Avel talked to me over his shoulder as he went over to the couch, which he had covered with an old sheet. "I need to see what it looks like," he said matter-of-factly.
"Oh." Of course. All I could see was fur. Without the fur, we'd be able to see what the thing really was. I tossed the shaver bag onto a chair and tried to grin. "So, are we thinking 'buzz cut' or something a little longer?"
Avel snorted, which was probably as close to a laugh as I was going to get. "Just use the head that's on there." He beckoned for me to follow as he lay on his side, full-length on the couch, but I was frozen.
All I could think was that something was going to go wrong, the shaver was going to slip, the alien was going to suck out all his blood, then go after me...I think they were very typical worries for when an alien leeches onto your boyfriend.
"Meli?"
"Yeah?" I shook my head, clearing it of the mental image of a half-shaved green monster tearing me and Avel to pieces. It wasn't very pretty.
"You gonna do it?"
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry." I turned on the shaver and lowered it to the green fur. I was shaking, my heart was pounding like crazy, and I was holding my breath. Oh, yes. This was going to go well.
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