I Married a Heptapod

Lying there in the jacuzzi, afterwards, naked, held in Ziggy's tentacles, my body glowing like it hadn't since those after-school meetings with Security-General Zhao, and this was far better than it'd ever been with old Zowie, I just glowed and rippled and purred, and one of Ziggy's tentacles stroked it's way over me so delicately that I had to know.

"Why don't we go get something to eat," I said at last. "I'm really hungry." I nestled in the cradle of his tentacles, eyes almost closed, and I could happily have gone to sleep there. "Can you eat the same food as us, Ziggy?"

"Mostly," he said. "We are omnivores, there are some Terran foods we cannot digest, and some that are poisonous. But fish is always good. Sashimi is wonderful."

"There's a really good Sushi shop in the food court," I said. "We can get some sashimi there." Now I looked at him, and he actually didn't have a mouth. "How do you eat, though?"

"We have a mouth within the ring of our tentacles," he said. "It is not like you humans, more of a beak, very sharp, not at all like your lips, Stardust." One of his tentacles caressed my lips again, gently, and I giggled.

"Ziggy!"

His colors rippled laughter, and he flexed his tentacles. "I am supposed to be playing with the band tonight, down in Bowies," Ziggy said, that tentacle tip, brushing my lips, and then we were kissing, his tentacle in my mouth. At least, I was pretty sure we were kissing. It felt like kissing to me.

"We can date next weekend though, can't we, Ziggy?"

"Yes, Stardust. We have leave on weekends. Most of us stay on base. For most heptapod Space Marines, human habitats are not interesting, but I am interested in learning more about humans."

His tentacle stroked my cheek. "Learning more about Stardust."

My hand stroked the side of his body, and I smiled, rubbing my body against him, enjoying his tentacles sliding over me. "I want to learn more about you, Ziggy. I'll get dressed, then let's go eat, and then we'll go down to Bowies."

"Hey, Ziggy!" Weird called across the club, as Ziggy and I wandered in, hand in tentacle. "Starting up, grab your guitars,cat."

"I'm going to sit here and listen until you're done, Ziggy," I said, because I could tell he wasn't sure. "And then you're going to walk my home." I smiled, and gave his tentacle a squeeze. "Okay?"

"Okay, Stardust," Ziggy said, and I knew the happy patterns now, as they played across his skin, and he flowed up onto the little stage, picking up his guitars, and just the way he did that, picked them up, I knew he loved music the way I did, and there was that warmth inside, because, well, Ziggy and me.

"Here we go, cats," Gilly said, his voice low. "Tonight, we're going to start out with something just a little different, and it's another old twenty first century hit from a hundred years ago. An oldie but a goodie, and let's see who recognizes it..."

Kilgore Troiut, Weird, and Ziggy all cut right in, real smooth, and Gilly reached out one hand towards me. "And for this one, Stardust's gonna join us again, cats..."

"But..." I said, but by then I was up on the stage, because Ziggy's tentacles flickered out, caught me gently, and lifted me, put me there.

"Sing, Stardust," he said, and I looked at Gilly, and Gilly grinned, and he started singing, soft and gentle...

I close my eyes, and the flashback starts

I'm standing there

On a balcony in summer air

I looked at him, and he smiled, and Ziggy played guitar, and now I looked back at Ziggy, and I sang, and I knew the words, I knew the song, I knew the music in my heart...

See you make your way through the crowd

And say, "Hello"

Little did I know

That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles

And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"

And I was crying on the staircase

Begging you, "Please don't go, " and I said

And then Gilly and I, we were both singing, and I was singing for Ziggy, and he was playing for me...

I'll be waiting, all there's left to do is run

You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess

It's a love story baby just say "Yes"

And it was, I knew it was. A love story, except I didn't know how it would end, or if it would end, or what the next chapter was, or anything, if it even was a love story, because the story had only just started...

"Did you enjoy our date, Ziggy?" I asked, late that evening, and by then we'd left Bowies, and Ziggy had played all evening, and then we'd left and walked slowly up the ramps, hand in tentacle, and the more I learnt about Ziggy, the more I liked him, and outside my parents hatch, he took me in his tentacles and held me close, and I clung to him, breathing in that lovely sea-salt and ozone smell, held in the cool coiled muscles of his embrace, and one of his tentacle tips brushed my lips, and we kissed.

"Can we date next weekend, Stardust?" his vocoder said, and those color patterns rippled hope and fear, and I almost cried, because I knew he was scared I would refuse.

"Of course we're going to date next weekend, Ziggy," I said, and now it was my lips that sought his tentacle tip. "But you're going to kiss me for a lot longer now, Ziggy, before you go."

I did, and I smiled, and my lips slipped down over his tentacle tip, and he really was rather sensitive, and my eyes looked into his as I sucked hard, and those colors that said "pleasure and excitement" rippled across his skin, and then faded as my lips slipped off him.

I smiled again, and now I licked that tentacle tip. "And you're not leaving until you ejaculate again, Ziggy."

He didn't, and it did taste delicious, and I knew he was excited by the way his tentacles coiled and vined and slid over and around me, and then he vibrated as he finished, and his tentacle tip throbbed, and I thought I recognized the color patterns.

"Mom, Dad," I said, real shyly, a couple of weeks later, because bringing a guy back to meet my parents was, like, a total first for me. I'd always wanted to hide them from my parents before, or, just, they were never anyone I was actually seriously interested in, so why bother. "This is my friend, Ziggy Yai!lith. He's, like, a Tentacle Leader in the Heptapod Space Marines." I glanced at my Dad. "That's like, a First Lieutenant, Dad," I added.

"I know Heptapod military ranks, Stardust," my Dad said, rather drily.

"Pleased to meet you, Stardust-Egg-Father Wong, Stardust-Egg-Mother Wong," Ziggy said, extending one tentacle to take Dad's hand and shake it, the way I'd been teaching him.

Except he took Mom's hand with another tentacle and shook that at the same time, and there was a third one holding my hand, and he was holding, like, flowers in a fourth, and it was a bit disorientating with so many tentacles floating around, but I managed to snare the flowers, and I guess Dad was used to meeting aliens, because he did deal with Americans and Europeans, and even Japanese, all the time, so he didn't even blink.

" Welcome to our tunnel, Tentacle Leader Yai!lith," Dad said, and he even managed that click himself, rather than letting the vocoder figure it out and deal with it, and after that things went kind of well.

"How did you two meet?" my Mom asked, after we'd figured out the seating, and that actually went well, because Ziggy did know how to sit in human seats too, which he'd told me he thought was really exciting once he'd figured it out, so things were just swimming along.

"Stardust and I met in Music Club," Ziggy said.

I'd told him not to say it was Bowies, coz Bowies did have, like, a bad rep, and, uh, twelfth level. Ganymede. I liked it, but then, a lot of those guys who gave it a bad rep were guys I knew, and I'd dated a few of them, and they all knew me and they knew who my Dad was, and that I had a get out of jail free card which I did use to help out every now and then, so I was, like, a bit blasé about going there and I was always, like, totally welcome, even if I did make sure I never went there by myself, but now, when I went, it was always with Ziggy. "I am learning to play human guitar. Stardust sings with me at Club."

"Really?" my Dad said, and now he was interested, because he played the guitar too. It was his way of relaxing, just playing on his guitar. Although he wasn't that good at it, but to him that didn't matter, and he didn't play the guitar at somewhere likes Bowies. Not like Ziggy did, coz Ziggy, he played with the band there every chance he got, jamming with Weird and Gilly, and now he played lead guitar when he was there, and those guys, they were cool cats, and Ziggy was the hepcat.

"I didn't know you sang, Stardust," my Mom said.

I looked at her, and I was, like, Mom! Where have you been all my life? But I didn't say that.

I'd been taking music at school since I was four. Including singing lessons. I played the piano, the clarinet and the guitar and I sang. My grades? I was top in every music class, and I had been since I was, like, four, and we're not going to talk about art classes. I always got embarrassed by those straight one hundred percent's every time. I might be, like, analytically challenged, but there were some things I was really good at. Mom never noticed stuff like that though. All she noticed was that I wasn't good at math, or science, or the stuff she thought was important.

"Why don't you show my Dad, Ziggy," I said. "Can he use a couple of your guitars, Dad? He's really good, he won't damage them." Because my Dad, he collected guitars, not really expensive ones, but he had a couple of real collectors' items that we'd had shipped up as essential items with us, and they were up on the wall.

"Sure," Dad said, and he stood and kind of looked at them and he handed Ziggy an old Gibson. "A couple?" he said, looking at me, puzzled.

"Yeah," I said. "Ziggy plays bass and lead at the same time."

"This I have to see," my Dad said, and he handed Ziggy an old Fender bass, and Ziggy took that real carefully, with two more tentacles.

First the bass, and Ziggy kind of tuned that, and then his other two tentacles started on Dad's Gibson, and he tuned that, with the bass running background, real low key, and then he just started riffing, and Ziggy, even when he was riffing he was better than good, he was magic, and then he started playing, and my heart just pittered and pattered, because it was our song he was playing, that song from that night we first met in Bowies, and I didn't even think, I just curled up next to him on the couch with one of his tentacles around me, while four more played, and I sang...

Back row of the drive-in show in the flickering light

Popcorn and cokes beneath the stars

Became champagne and caviar

Making love on a long hot summer's night...

And I smiled at Ziggy, and his eyes looked at me, and the colors said he was so happy.

Holding hands 'neath the paddle fans

In Rick's candle lit cafe

Hiding in the shadows from the spies

Moroccan moonlight in your eyes

Making magic at the movies in your old Chevrolet...

And I did. I realized just like that, in that moment, that I really did love Ziggy, and the way he played, the music, the notes flowing from those guitars, I just knew Ziggy loved me too, however it was that heptapods loved, coz his music said that, and we looked into each other eyes, and I just melted, coz I knew. A girl knows, and I knew. Ziggy was the one..., and Ziggy's tentacles on those guitars and the colors patterns washing across his skin, they said I was the one for him right back at me...

But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh

Please come back to me in Casablanca

I love you more and more each day as time goes by...

And I did. I realized just like that, in that moment, that I really did love Ziggy, and the way he played, the music, the notes flowing from those guitars, I just knew Ziggy loved me too, however it was that heptapods loved, coz his music said that, and we looked into each other eyes, and I just melted, coz I knew. A girl knows, and I knew. Ziggy was the one..., and Ziggy's tentacles on those guitars and the colors patterns washing across his skin, they said I was the one for him right back at me...

You know I've never really been there so I don't know

I guess our love story will never be seen

On the big wide silver screen

But it hurt just as bad when I had to watch you go

Oh a kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca

But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh

Please come back to me in Casablanca...

Ziggy, he was an elite Space Marine, a heptapod Spider-Killer, like we had our Space Dragons, I knew that, and he'd probably left a trail of broken heptapod hearts across half the spiral arm, or, at least, our bit of it, and I knew what he was here for. He was here to train with our elite guys, the Space Dragon guys, because he was one of their elite, he was a Spider-Killer.

I shouldn't have known that, but I did, and I was going to have to watch him go off and do what Space Marines did, which was to fight the Spiders on some suicide mission, and it was gonna hurt so bad when he went, and I'd never know if he was coming back or not, and my heart was totally in that song, and I could see those color patterns rippling across his skin as he played, and I sort of half-recognized them, and I knew he did. He loved me too.

Oh a kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca

But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh

Please come back to me in Casablanca

I love you more and more each day as time goes by

I love you more and more each day, as time goes by...

"That was wonderful, Stardust, Ziggy," my Mom said, as my voice faded away, and those last notes faded from Ziggy's guitars, and I still had no idea how he could play bass and lead at the same time, and do it so perfectly, but his guitar playing was as perfect as the rest of him.

Me, I just gazed into those big round black saucer-sized eyes and sighed, humming the tune, and remembering that first, well, you couldn't exactly call it a kiss, but it'd happened on the way home from Bowie's that night, which was just so romantic, and I sighed, and those colors rippled across Ziggy's skin, and I knew those were the happy colors, although I hadn't quite figured out the exact pattern yet. There were too many nuances to that, but I'd get there, I knew that too, because I understood Ziggy more and more with every day.

"Ziggy seems like a really nice... alien..." my Mom said, a lot later, and a little doubtfully, after he'd flowed out the door, and it was kind of cool that he'd worked on his walking, so he could kind of stretch out those tentacles and walk on five of them, and wave two around like they were actual arms or something, and when he did that, he was, like, taller than me. A lot taller, if he wanted to be, coz he could adjust his height.

"We need to do that when we're wearing battle armor, Stardust," his vocoder had said. "We are flexible, no skeletal structure like you humans, but the battle armor is not, and when in combat against the Spiders, battle armor is needed."

"He is, and he's very brave too, Mom," I said. "You only get promoted to be a Tentacle Leader in their Space Marines after you've survived combat with the Spiders, and he's got awards for bravery and leadership, and he was on Zhuolu with our guys, and he's been wounded in action twice, and they're going to promote him to be a Beak Leader soon, which is like a Captain, and he'll have four Tentacles in his Beak."

"What's he doing here on Luna?" Mom asked, and I knew, but it was my Dad that answered.

"There's a regiment of Heptapod Space Marines here training with us for a joint assault," he said. "I can't tell you where, and in any case I don't know, it's a military mission, but it's an experiment in combined operations, because we have a lot to learn about each other, and if it goes well, there'll be more.

Anyhow, he seems a nice young heptapod, Stardust, and socially adept with humans to. I'm glad to see you socializing more appropriately these days. Inter-species friendship is very important, and I'm glad you're making him feel welcome in New Beijing. It's very important that the Heptapods ally with us, rather than the Second American Republic, and everything we can do to make that more certain helps."

I did hear Mom and Dad talking about Ziggy and me to, later that evening, and I wasn't trying to listen. Just, they'd left the door ajar, and I was walking past, and I heard my Mom...

"This heptapod friend of Stardust's, is it safe? You know what she's like, lo-gong, and it's an alien. I worry about her, she's so... she's a little wild sometimes."

"He's a Tentacle Leader, lo-paw and he's a heptapod. Nothing's going to happen, and really, I'm rather relieved she's spending time with him rather than those fascists that she used to find so attractive. That always worried me, but you know, she's always been a little on the artistic and communicative side. That's where her strengths lie, and she's shown real aptitude in getting along with this Ziggy. You can see they like each other. There could be a career here for her, working with aliens."

"I can't see how anyone would want to do that." I could just about hear my Mom shudder.

"Yes, lo-paw." My Dad was laughing. "And most people cannot for the life of them see what you see in systems design, and they have no idea how you even conceive of this stuff."

"Huh?" my Mom said. "How can anyone not. I mean, look at this theory that Doctor Yanagawa published, it's self-evidently flawed..."

My Dad laughed again, and I couldn't help it, I had to laugh too, because that was my Mom....

"Mom," I said, and it was two or three weeks later, and Ziggy and I had gone out on dates every single weekend, and I was Ziggy's girl now, and he was my guy, we both knew that. "You know the Prom's coming up, right?"

Yeah, Harrow International Girls School had a Graduation Prom and this was my final year. Graduating. After this it was University for however long that took, and then drafted into the military, and right now they were drafting for the duration, and no-one knew how long that might be, and I tried not to think about that, even if I'd be an officer, which I would be because, you know, family background and everything, and I sort of accepted now it was my duty and everything, but I still wasn't so keen, because everything in the news said the war against the Spiders was, like, intensifying, and it wasn't just the Second American Republic fighting in space alongside us now.

Seemed like the Heptapods were really coming on board to fight with us big time after the Spiders overran a couple more of their planets and ate everyone, and I'd seen some guys with that funny British flag on their shoulders, and the Japanese were coming through, and there'd been this guy off of a Kiwi Space-Frigate, a little one, and he hadn't smelled of sheep at all, but I'd just talked to him, even though Security-Major Chu had sort of hinted, but I was Ziggy's girl now, although I didn't say that to Security-Major Chu, coz that get out of jail free card was handy.

Like when Ziggy had that fight with those French Paratroopers, although how you could parachute from a Space Assault Transport I didn't know, and they'd shouldered their way into Bowies one night. They'd called Ziggy an octopussy, and tried to buy me drinks, and Ziggy had called them Frogs, and asked where they kept their white flags, and told them to keep them handy coz the Spiders needed napkins, and then they all started fighting, and the guys that knew me and Ziggy, they all piled in, but turned out Ziggy didn't need a lot of help, and we got out of their before the security robots arrived and zapped everyone, which they did a lot more these days, what with all the Space Marines having fun before they shipped out.