Dug this one out of my archives to post simply for the giggles and to prove that I still live. It's the result of a long drunken conversation with a gay friend a couple years ago...sssh, she doesn't know that the conversation inspired me to write this, LoL. A note to anyone who's thinking that I'm one of those judging and condemning types: I'm not. And to anyone who's offended by the concept: don't read.

Consider it a Christmas gift for my readers, a bit of silliness and sexiness to entertain you. I promise I will return to my other stories and this is just a one-shot that has nothing to do with either of them. Happy Holidays!

And, as always, be warned that this story is intended for a mature audience and contains zero violence but inappropriate language and themes...

"Darling," Lizzie gushed warmly, recognizing her cousin's voice when she answered her phone and he greeted her. "What's up?"

"Ugh," he huffed, and she smirked. Always drama. Such was a queen's life. "You have no idea," he sighed dramatically, diving right into the reason for his call.

"Really? Do tell." She carried her wine glass to an armchair and curled up, prepared to settle in and listen to the entertaining chaos that typified Jerry's life and leaving the remnants of her dinner-for-one behind.

"Well. First day of the month I get dragged out of bed, literally dragged, mind you, to go to the front desk to deal with an irate guest." Jerry had recently remodeled and opened a nice little resort that had been his life's dream. A main lodge surrounded by small, cozy cabins in the woods, well out of the way of prying eyes. It catered to the alternative-lifestyle crowd, since Jerry was not only gay but a queen's queen and immersed in the scene. There was nearby skiing, lots of artsy-fartsy artisan shopping, locals who tolerated pretty much anything, plenty of land for hiking and biking, a pool, a private hot tub for every cabin, and entertainment. Of course entertainment. A new act every Friday and Saturday night.

Lizzie sipped her wine. The first of the month was almost a month ago. This was gonna be a long one.

"He's demanding a refund, telling me that the cabin is already occupied. Of course I assure him that it's not, that I have never double-booked a cabin, but he's insistent. Says that all weekend someone had been in and out, even in the middle of the night. Claimed that he and his boy toy were frightened and felt violated," Jerry continued, with some acid in his tone. Lizzie smirked. As a gay man, Jerry felt he had the right to pass judgment and insult all on other gays, often using disparaging terms and calling them names. Not usually to their faces. Not unless he was really pissed and wanted them to know it.

"But he waited all weekend to decide the cabin was occupied, then brought this up in the middle of the last night?" she pointed out.

"Exactly, right?" Jerry huffed. "So for the sake of keeping the peace, I give them their damn refund and bid them adieu. Even went and checked to see if there was someone else squatting."

"Was there?"

"Of course not, darling."

"Okay..."

"Cabin's cleaned up, empty for the week, booked for Friday through Sunday. Had this fabulous drag queen act on schedule, and three of the queens insisted on sharing it even though I told them there was only room for two people in each cabin. And you know how much crap a drag queen carries around. Three of them? In one cabin? Pfff," he said, making a dismissive sound. "They each should have booked their own cabins. Cheap bitches."

"No room for a mystery guest," Lizzie pointed out, with humor.

"Oh darling, this is where the story gets good," he said, delicious weight in his tone. "Friday night, show went off without a hitch. Fabulous. As annoying as they were, these queens were a hit. I was having an aperitif at the bar after everyone had decamped to their cabins for the night, just to unwind, when I hear the most hideous sound." He hesitated for dramatic effect while Lizzie, knowing better than to interrupt, sipped. "Screaming. Absolute, ear-splitting screaming. Spilled Frangelica down the front of my blouse and went charging outside to try and find out where it was coming from. Frank was with me." The bartender, long-suffering Frank, He of Infinite Patience. "While we were standing on the front porch we were treated to the sight of three drag queens in various stages of undress and dishabille running pell-mell down the path toward the main lodge. In the dark. Do you have any idea how much noise just one of those stampeding bitches can make? And here there were three of them," Jerry said, sounding annoyed. "Wigs flying, shoes coming off, one of them only wearing tits up top for Christ's sake-"

Here Lizzie couldn't help it; she pictured the scene in her mind and started giggling.

"Darling, you have no idea," Jerry huffed. "Frank and I gather them up like hens and shoo them into the lodge before the whole place comes out to see what's going on. Hysteria. Sheer hysteria. Took forever before I finally could get it out of them."

"So what was it?" Lizzie asked, sensing her cue to break in.

"Well. Apparently there was a yautja in their cabin," he said, and Lizzie's wine glass froze on the way to her lips as her eyes fixed on a steady stare across the room. "Uh huh, I hear you darling. You heard me right. A yautja," Jerry said firmly and flatly. "Of course I tell them there's no yautja. Frank tells them there's no yautja. I mean, what in god's name would a yautja be doing in a gay resort, barging into a small cabin loaded with not one, not two, but three drag queens?"

"Mmm," Lizzie grunted, a noncommittal sound into her wineglass as she took a big gulp. She had a bad feeling she could answer that question.

"They simply refused to go back to the cabin, so I sent Frank to take a look. He comes back and reports that the place is trashed – what else would you expect from that crowd? - and there's no yautja. Says he even took a flashlight and walked all around to make sure."

Oh, that confirms it, Lizzie thought privately. Because a yautja simply cannot avoid the beam of what was no doubt a pocket light wielded by a grumpy sixty year old bartender doing a cursory walk-around to cease his boss's hysterical screaming.

"So," Jerry said on an explosive sigh, "they demand that Frank collect their things and bring it all to the lodge, and they pack up a car and leave, without performing Saturday night as originally agreed. Leaving me high and dry with no entertainment."

"Mmm," she said again. She needed more wine already; her glass was empty. Aware that she'd gone from sipping to gulping, she got up from her chair and went to the bottle, restraining herself enough to pour it into the glass instead of raising the neck to her lips. Jerry was working up to it and she knew it. He had to have figured it out, and that's why he was calling her with this story.

"Not only did they do that, two days ago I get a certified letter from one of them that her Louboutins were damaged in the course of running for her life from a killer yautja that I failed to protect her from, and that Frank ruined her tits when he wasn't careful packing them up. Either that or the afore-mentioned yautja, and here I quote: mauled them, endquote. So now to add insult to injury, she wants money from me, the cow."

Thing was, Jerry had invited her to come up and sing the last weekend of the prior month. The weekend before the guest of his first story, who'd claimed the cabin was occupied and that someone was in and out. Lizzie would be willing to bet she could guess which cabin was yautja-haunted: the one she'd stayed in the weekend before. She'd brought Jillian, her old college roommate, her girlfriend-with-fringe-benefits. They got together from time to time and relived the good old days, with a little something extra. Hell, it was a gay resort. When in Rome, right?

"Last weekend was the final straw. Rented the cabin out to a very sweet couple-"

"Male or female?" she cut in.

"Male, darling," Jerry drawled, and she sensed that he was closing in for the kill. She could hear the smile in his voice at her question.

Neither she nor Jillian were gay, exactly. More like bi-curious or something. Wasn't like she ran around picking up women, or had same sex relationships, and neither did Jillian. But they'd shared a connection in college that carried through to this day, and got together every so often. Well, they saw each other all the time, but got together only occasionally.

After Friday night's show they'd retired to the cabin's hot tub with martinis, giggling and drinking, necking a little bit and telling remember-when stories. Somehow the subject of yautja came up, and Jillian mentioned she'd seen one finally. They were around and everybody knew it, but they kept a low enough profile that you could forget about them. They did a little hunting, came for some resources, and tended to avoid areas of dense population. There were all kinds of rumors, of course, that they weren't hunting animals but people. That they ate people, that they took girls and did dastardly things to them.

So, one thing led to another and she and Jillian were naked and drunk in the hot tub, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the night, giggling and calling for a yautja to come join them and do dastardly things to them. Making all kinds of dirty sexual promises that involved rocking his world, knocking his socks off, expanding his horizons, yada yada. Eventually they got tired of that and started seriously making out.

"Lovely couple," Jerry was saying. "Quiet. Polite. So when they come back to the lodge after Friday night's entertainment, very calmly informing me that a yautja appeared on the deck while they were in the hot tub...you know...I kind of paid attention at that point."

Lizzie exhaled loudly into the phone, her nerves fraying and her ability to be stoic ruined by too much red wine.

"So I ask myself, is it possible? Maybe a yautja claimed that cabin and set up homebase there or something. It is the one that's furthest out and most private, after all. And then I think back and check the logs to see when it started, and who was the last guest to stay there who didn't complain about a yautja. And you know what I found out?"

Lizzie gulped more wine. "Do tell."

Jerry laughed quietly. "Oh no, darling, this is where you come in. You do tell me. Why oh why, dear cousin, is there a yautja haunting Cabin Fourteen of my sweet little resort?"

"Um...yeah. We thought he split," she blurted stupidly. It was the truth, though. He'd hung around with them almost all weekend. Even waited for her and Jillian to come back from Saturday night's performance, all recharged, ready and raring to go. Sunday morning, checkout time, boom. No yautja.

"We thought he split, she says," Jerry said patronizingly, mimicking her tone. "So you're saying there was a yautja when you were there." More a flat statement of fact than a question. Lizzie couldn't help it; she giggled.

"Oh yeah."

"I don't remember you issuing a complaint."

"God, no," she said almost wistfully. "Matter of fact, he inspired me to get on Yelp when I got home and give your resort a five-star rating and a rave review."

"Hmm. I'm waiting..."

"We might have been drunk," she said carefully, gathering herself.

"You ordered four bottles of Grey Goose from the bar in two nights," Jerry said flatly. She giggled again.

"He can put it away pretty good."

"You fed four bottles of expensive French vodka to a yautja? Are you crazy?" he demanded.

"We helped," she said defensively, then giggled yet again. Jerry sighed, a dramatic gush of air into the phone.

"So you're saying that this yautja keeps coming back, looking for more Grey Goose."

"Well...maybe..." she hedged.

"Out with it, sister," he said, hardening his tone.

"We were already drunk. We might have been joking around, hollering into the woods for a yautja to come over," she admitted carefully.

"What is this? Are you an attorney? Are you trying to tell me this is all alleged?" Jerry demanded. "What, exactly, were you and Jillian doing with this alleged yautja? Besides plying him with vodka, I mean."

"Jer. Darling. If I ever thought in a million years..." Lizzie started protesting, then shut up and drank to fortify herself. "So, yeah, okay. We were goofing, drinking, yelling out into the damn woods for a yautja to join us. Got tired of that, moved on. Next thing we know...well damn, there's a yautja. Crouching on the porch next to the hot tub like he'd been there all along. Watching, y'know?"

"Go on."

"So Jillian starts giggling and telling me she's really hammered cuz she's seeing things, then...you know...I start giggling and I'm thinking the same thing. And we're like on this roll, y'know? So we got the bottle, the first bottle, and offer him a drink and tell him to hop in the tub with us."

"Oh. My. God. You did not," he breathed.

"Your hot tubs are too small for yautja, did you know that? They might sue for discrimination."

"They're for two people, darling," he protested.

"Really tight fit when you're talking two people and a yautja," she recalled. "Kinda hard not to, y'know, rub up against each other. Hey, did you know they're really not scaly?"

"Wait," Jerry said quickly, almost breathlessly, "first let me find a chair. Ah, better," he sighed. "Let me breathe, let me breathe...wait..." Another heavy sigh following dramatically deep breaths. "So, to recap. Not only did you call a yautja to come join you for Grey Goose and some hot tub time with your girlfriend, but you...you what?"

Lizzie giggled.

"Dear god in heaven," Jerry said distantly. "This is why Cabin Fourteen is being haunted."

"It is an alternative-lifestyle resort," she pointed out helpfully.

"All weekend?" he brayed, ignoring her comment for now.

"Well. Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night at least. Turns out that yautja have the most amazing endurance."

"Saturday night? You sang for three hours," Jerry recalled. "You were at the lodge until midnight. You had a nightcap with me."

"Mmm-hmm. Then when we got back to the cabin we had a guest waiting for us."

"And that didn't scare the crap out of you?" Jerry asked, amazed.

"Well, for a minute, maybe. We didn't think he'd hang around when we left."

"So you ran back for a fourth and final bottle and had yourselves a little party, hmm?"

"God, yeah. Was the best weekend of my life," Lizzie admitted.

"And now he's terrorizing drag queens looking for you and Jillian. You have to do something, darling. Fix this," Jerry insisted.

"How'm I supposed to do that?" she asked, surprised.

"Call Jillian. Get your asses back here, pronto. First bottle's on me, but you have to get rid of him. Now."

"Jer. It's been three weeks. I'm telling you, Sunday we woke up and he was gone. Packed up our shit and left. Figured he musta been on a bender like we were and it was back to work." She paused and drank. "He can't be looking for us," she said thoughtfully, starting to feel a sense of dread.

"Au contraire, my dear. Apparently you and your girlfriend made quite an impression on him."

Why would he be looking for us? she wondered. It was just a crazy drunken thing, wasn't it?

"What did you tell him?"

"We didn't do much talking."

"Fix this, Lizzie."

"There's nothing to fix," she insisted.

"It beggars my imagination," he said, his tone lofty, "to try and understand just how in hell you could get yourself into something like this. Did we not learn, starting in grade school, to leave the yautja alone?" he demanded. "Oh no, not Lizzie. No, she goes and gets loaded on cosmos and martinis and starts screaming for a yautja. And what does she do when one actually appears? Does she apologize and beg forgiveness? Does she run away screaming? Not our Lizzie. No, she takes the complete opposite tact and propositions it, then spends a weekend riding it like it's a stallion while pouring vodka down its throat to keep it going. Honest to god, Lizzie. Honest to god. It'll be amazing if they don't declare war on us for this."

"Oh stop. Obviously I didn't break him, if he's back looking for more. And I seem to recall plenty of active participation on his part. It's not like we kidnapped him and raped him at gunpoint."

"Probably its mother, wanting to give you a piece of her mind. Or, god forbid, its big brother. And we all know how you'll handle him."

Realizing that Jerry was being, in his usual unintentional way, funny as hell, Lizzie started giggling again. "Bring it on," she muttered into her glass.

"So you'll be here around midnight? That seems to be about the time he comes a-knocking, as it were."

"And what, pray tell, do you propose I do with him?" she demanded. "Maybe if you start booking girls into that cabin instead of men, the complaints will stop."

There was a lengthy silence that told her Jerry was actually considering it. "Problem is, they'd mostly be gay girls," he finally said.

"So. Advertise to the bi crowd. 'Romantic weekend with a yautja. Bring your girlfriends or he might just accidentally kill you by overuse.' Something like that."

"I bet there'd be a market for that," Jerry said thoughtfully. "You don't suppose he'd like men, do you?"

"Definitely not this one, that's for sure. This one is clearly about the ladies."

"Too bad. Men are so much more freaky than women. Present company excluded, of course," he said, meaning Lizzie. "They'd jump at the opportunity to fuck a yautja."

"Begging your pardon, even if you find a yautja who's into men, it'd be my guess that he would be the one doing all the fucking. Trust me on this." Despite her giggling at Jerry's comical summarization of her weekend with Jillian and a yautja, at no point were either of them riding him. Quite the opposite, in point of fact.

"Hm. Still a possibility," Jerry mused. "How big are we talking? Doable, I suppose?"

"If you happen to be capable of childbirth."

"Maybe not then." He sighed then said, "I'm serious, Lizzie. Fix this. I can't have a horny yautja terrorizing my guests, swinging around bottles of Grey Goose and infant-sized genitalia and trying to get into their hot tubs with them."

"I don't know what you think I can do. It's kind of hard to have a conversation with him."

"He must speak english. You said you were calling him."

"I suppose. What I meant to say is that it's hard to have a rational conversation when you're bent over the arm of a couch screaming while he bangs your brains out."

Jerry tisked. "Really, darling. Crude."

"Don't be jealous," she countered.

"Bitch."

"Cow."

"Midnight. I'll leave a bottle in the kitchenette and give you til Sunday since it will apparently take you twenty four hours to settle him down enough to be capable of listening to reason."

"What if he won't?"

"Darling," he cooed. "Use both hands. Wear him down."

"Oh, who's being crude now?" she snapped. "Besides. Did that already. Kinda have to."

Jerry actually laughed. "And they say I'm the crazy one in this family," he said warmly.

Lizzie froze. "I swear, Jer, if you dare bring this up at Thanksgiving-"

He laughed harder. "Can you imagine dear Aunt Theresa aspirating her mashed potatoes at the news of her most adored niece getting her boots banged off by a yautja, one of Satan's minions? Oh, this would finally get the focus off me, I'll tell you that!"

The word dysfunctional didn't begin to describe their family. There weren't enough closets in the world to contain all their skeletons and dirty laundry, nor enough rugs to sweep all their secrets beneath. Aunt Theresa was just the tip of the iceberg, mentioned only because as the self-decreed family saint she delighted in digging out the dirt on others and exasperating every argument or disagreement with scathing judgment and pious histrionics, up to and including throwing herself on the floor and having fits as she babbled in what she called 'tongues'. Jerry had ceased regularly attending family holidays years ago, but Lizzie invariably found herself talked and guilted into going, even after swearing off ever attending again...which usually occurred in a very loud and strident voice sometime around the middle of dinner. That was usually the time of full-scale madness when the chosen victim of the day was under full-fledged attack by the rest, over the carcass of a mostly-eaten turkey.

"I'm not going," Lizzie said quickly.

"Darling, you have to go," Jerry implored, suddenly serious. "However will I hear the latest?" It was their tradition to spend the night either together or on the phone after she attended family get-togethers, reliving the horror and getting drunk in order to get through it. "Who knows? Maybe the old bitch will have converted back to Buddhism and won't be so judgmental about your choice in sex partners. Circle of life and all that."

"Now you're quoting the Lion King?" Lizzie snorted, and sipped her wine. Aunt Theresa had an infamous blip in her memorable past, of abandoning Christianity for the 'more enlightened' religion of Buddhism. It had only succeeded in making her annoying in different ways.

"Well, it is a jungle out there," Jerry intoned, playing along. "And you are fucking the king of the beasts, are you not?"

"I am not! I'm sitting at home alone, watching Australia and eating a chicken pot pie."

"Ah. Crying yet?"

"Not yet. They just brought the cattle into Darwin."

"How many times did you rewind the part with Mr. Boss and the bucket?"

"Four. No, five." She sucked her teeth and thought about rewinding it again now that Jerry'd brought it up. Hugh Jackman naked to the waist, soaping himself up then lifting a bucket of water and pouring it over his head from three angles was a scene to be cherished, not rushed through. In her opinion, it should have been shot from more angles, run in slo-mo and repeated at least every ten minutes. It was dusty in the Outback and a man needed to keep clean, after all.

"Hm. Sounds like you're ripe for a weekend at Cousin Jerry's retreat and a little yautja action. Just do me a favor and give him your home address and phone number this time. Maybe he can text you to meet elsewhere for a booty call and he'll stop hanging around Cabin Fourteen like a sex-and-vodka-crazed lunatic."

Lizzie giggled, starting to relax. "I really don't know what I can do about this, Jer," she admitted, deflating.

"Then you'll have to move in there and keep him out of trouble, darling. I can't have this. Do you have any idea how much a pair of tits and Louboutins costs? It will ruin me if I have to keep paying for damages!" There was a moment of silence, then Jerry said, "That, or you'll just have to rent it yourself every weekend, since apparently your yautja has other business Monday through Friday. Maybe he's got a full-time job. I'll give you a discount rate."

"I-"

"No, think about it," Jerry said quickly, warming up. "You can bring some of your freaky-deaky girlfriends along, charge them a fee. Pimp him out, like. Darling, we can make money off of this."

"I don't have freaky-deaky girlfriends," Lizzie muttered.

"Jillian."

"Okay, one. But she's-"

"Monique." Lizzie shut up and sighed. "Laura? Oh please, darling. Trish? Katie?"

"Trish is your fag hag!"

"She was your friend first. How do you think I met her?"

"True. Damnit," Lizzie had to admit, exhaling through her nose. Trish was more Jerry's friend than hers now, and she played the part of Jerry's beard to throw certain clueless others off the scent who suspected Jerry might be gay. As if there might be any question.

"And we both know that girl is fah-reaky," Jerry said archly. "I'd bet all my Ferragamos that she'd be up for it."

"You bought them off eBay," Lizzie pointed out.

"Well I'm not made of money," he protested. "But damn straight I'll be going to Neiman or Saks to buy them by the dozen once we get this thing settled. We'll start out small-"

"Jer," Lizzie barked, cutting him off. "Forget it. You're going off the rails big-time now. I'm not pimping out a yautja! And besides all that, had I not been completely mellowed by the perfect combination of sex and vodka I would have run off screaming at first sight of him. Do you have any idea how big they are?"

"Infant-sized, you said."

Lizzie let out a breath that puttered her lips in exasperation. "Not their cocks, you idiot. And you were the one who said infant-sized, not me."

"Oh, I'm the idiot now, am I?" Jerry huffed, his tone going higher. It had the effect of sending an unpleasant frisson up Lizzie's spine, like he had the uncanny ability to produce a tone that could cut right through her. When it came to histrionics, Jerry was never one to be outdone.

"He kept bumping his head into your tacky antique chandelier," she said, plowing onward with the point she was attempting to make about the sheer size of the yautja.

"Oh, you mean you actually allowed the poor thing to stand upright once or twice?" Jerry shot back. "Gave it a breather?"

Lizzie's mouth fell open at her cousin's continued venom but she held herself from firing back; it had probably gotten him even angrier at the news that a yautja was slamming his massive forehead against his precious art-deco chandelier. Remembering it now, and the yautja's growls of annoyance, she let out a breath and giggled again. "And remember when I told you how the blender broke? I lied." She'd said they'd accidentally dropped it. Fact was, the yautja had sent the whole thing off the counter with a sweep of his massive arm before plopping her up there to get her more to his height.

Jerry audibly sucked wind through his teeth. "And the scratches on the coffee table?"

"Claw marks," she confirmed, almost vindictively.

"Looked like a tiger tore at it."

"Your cleaning staff is a little overzealous with the furniture polish. Jillian was sliding the hell all over the place. He was having a little trouble pinning her down and keeping her still. Figured it out quick enough, though."

"At the expense of my authentic Shaker coffee table? Have you ever," Jerry demanded stridently, "heard of a bed?"

"Have you ever," she countered, "been confronted by a horny yautja? I couldn't have made it to the bedroom if I'd tried." They'd spent most of the weekend in a cozy nest the yautja had created in the small step-down area in front of the fireplace. Obviously he had checked out the bedroom at some point, because he'd dragged every sheet and blanket out of it and into the living room to create it, though Lizzie didn't recall seeing him doing it. Basically, if her eyes were open he took that fact as invitation and come-on, and was on her before she could even gather her wits.

She recalled, after her first bout of unconsciousness, waking up in the comfortable nest pressed against the yautja's steaming side, a low but hot fire casting its warmth over her. Jillian was on his other side, her breathing deep and measured. Lizzie carefully extricated herself and climbed out of the makeshift bed, gaining her feet on the step up onto the hardwood floor, intent on reaching the bathroom on the far side of the cabin. As she stood and started her first step, a massive, hot hand closed around her ankle and shin and she nearly fell flat on her face as it drew her backward. She tugged but he wouldn't let her go, his grip loose but encircling her ankle so she couldn't pull her foot free. Instead of being alarming she actually found it funny enough to giggle, which didn't help matters regarding her full bladder. 'I gotta pee,' she'd whined plaintively through her giggling, tugging pointedly but not putting up a fight.

He'd rumbled, the sound slow and warm, his fierce gaze minimized and made mild by half-closed lids. He finally did relent, releasing her and letting her go, practically just in the nick of time, too. And when she exited the bathroom he was waiting for her with feigned gruffness and playful rebuke, clearly communicated despite the language barrier as he rolled her to the blankets and covered her with easy strength that she had no chance of resisting, nipping lightly at her shoulders and growling steadily as he positioned her, surrounding her with his heat and scent and the contact of his coarse hide. Provided she remained docile he was gentle, but if she had the temerity to object and try to fight her way free he was quick to assert himself.

Was she afraid of him? ...not necessarily, she decided. He'd given her no reason to be afraid of him, but despite this teasing conversation with her cousin, a yautja was just something only someone very stupid would have no fear of. He was horrifically powerful but kept his strength so carefully restrained that he'd actually been gentle. Sometimes teasingly, ticklishly gentle. Any aggression was directed at Jerry's property and not at her or Jillian, resulting in a couple of shredded sheets and two punctured throw pillows. Plus the blender and the coffee table, of course. He'd been close to ripping the chandelier out of the ceiling but luckily Jillian had talked him out of it, distracting him enough that he took his annoyance out on her and the coffee table at the same time. Lizzie hadn't been kidding when she'd told Jerry it had been the most amazing weekend of her life. It stunned her to suddenly realize that the yautja had also apparently enjoyed himself, enough that he was looking for a repeat. She wondered what the hell was going through his head now, after all his confrontations with gay males in the course of looking for a rematch with her and Jillian.

"What about my hot tub? It was filthy," Jerry was asking.

"Oh. He kinda took a bath in it," she answered woodenly, now remembering the moment she and Jillian had paused in their make-out session to suddenly notice they had company. Sure, they'd been calling for a yautja to come join them in the hot tub, but when one was suddenly, actually perched there, staring at them, the joke was instantly over. He was easily the size of two people put together..two large people. Decked out in a haphazard patchwork of metal plating, with a Jason-like goalie mask covering his face. All dark against the surrounding night, not even moving; for a second there, Lizzie had thought someone was playing a joke on them and had set a cardboard cutout next to the tub. Until she heard the quiet, rapid ticking and his head moved just slightly. Clearly, he was staring back at them, and without another sound he slid a forearm off his bent leg and reached down to dip his clawed fingers in the hot water, as if to test its temperature.

'Do you see what I'm seeing?' Jillian had asked almost tonelessly, then she giggled and pressed herself closer.

He swirled his hand then withdrew his fingers, flicked them, and folded his arm back onto his thigh. Lizzie snorted through her nose, her disgusting pig sound that passed for laughter whenever she was good and drunk. 'Sa big dude,' she'd slurred stupidly. Jillian's head turned slowly and her best friend looked at her with an incredulous expression, then dissolved into a fit of hiccuping giggles.

'Damn, now I gotta go pee,' Jillian announced once it was done, then heaved herself out of the small hot tub, rose unsteadily to her feet, and padded inside. Dripping wet and stark naked, not to mention leaving Lizzie alone outside with the...thing.

Her first, momentous words: 'Um...hi.'

There was a second of awkward silence, then a burst of sound from the thing, a chittering backed by growl, some grunting and a few clicks. It was startling, multi-tonal and unearthly. It cocked its head, not nearly as endearingly as the T-Rex in that Jurassic Park movie, when it had momentarily contemplated the guy on the toilet before snapping him up. Some distant part of Lizzie was screaming, but in her drunken state her confusion and uncertainty and shock were all mixed up in her horniness and curiosity. So, in response, she giggled.

Apparently that passed for acceptance in the yautja's mind because he silently rose to his full height on the small cabin's small deck, raised his hands to his neck, and did something that popped and hissed before lifting the alien hockey mask from his face.

The yautja image was pervasive in human society, mostly drawn in caricature, in the form of jokes and political cartoons. Twenty years ago the word was out that the government had captured an ET, and the first pictures released to the public had been deliberately horrifying. The thing's face captured in a full rage- and hatred-filled roar, those terrifying mandibles spread wide to expose the pink wetness of its inner mouth, surrounded by fang-like teeth. Spines everywhere. Dark, mottled skin and rich, black tentacle hair. Five-year-old Lizzie had been terrorized by the pictures in the media; they'd given her nightmares.

Fast forward twenty years and the image was now part of every-day culture. Aliens were out there, everywhere, apparently. They were what went bump in the night, what was blamed for every mysterious disappearance and unexplained death. It was accepted that 'they' were among us, haunting us, watching us. Parents no longer had to keep their kids in line with ominous threats of 'Santa Claus is watching'; now it was yautja.

She'd held her breath as the mask came off, then cringed and went rigid as his mandibles spread wide, waiting for the roar. But he made no sound, except for the clinking of the metal decorations in what passed for his hair as he huffed and shook his head briskly as the mandibles relaxed back into their resting position on either side of his ferocious face. Lizzie had stared from the far side of the hot tub, too frozen to be capable of scrambling out and making a break for it. The yautja clicked the goalie mask to the side of his belt, over his hip, then his terrifyingly huge and clawed hands went to his shoulder. Another soft click and the armor plate covering his bicep shifted. His hands moved to his wide chest next and she heard another click, then he slid the entire chest and arm plating off his upper body, complete with belt-like straps, lowered it gently, and let it thump to the wooden deck.

He had been a bit filthy, she recalled now, remembering her wine and sipping at it as she stared distantly across her apartment. It had been obvious once he'd exposed his chest...dear god his chest, she thought, and sucked in a quiet breath. Where the straps and armor had been had left clear outlines and his mottled hide was lighter where it had been covered. Next off were the huge gauntlets that covered his forearms, lowered with care and added to the growing pile of alien hardware. Fingerless gloves, too, stripped off and dropped one after the other. Lizzie had silently watched him flex and stretch as if it felt good to divest himself of it and expose his skin, then he moved on to the belt.

She recalled that she'd started to relax from her initial fear, mesmerized by his slow, graceful movements and emboldened by the silent strip show. The belt was unlatched from the front of that rippling washboard of an abdomen, swung aside, and draped over the pile. Then the yautja bent at the waist and went to work on the plates that covered his humongous thighs. More straps to be undone with practiced ease despite the presence of inch-long claws, more armor set aside, more fascinating flesh exposed. Back into a crouch, full weight shifting to one side then the other as the bracers around his calves were unlatched with metallic clicks, removed and added to the pile. Then the sandals, unclasped and untied. He rose to his full height and kicked them off gently in the direction of his other belongings, standing there in a ragged-looking scrap of cloth wound around his waist and covering his privates that looked like it was struggling to maintain his decency.

'Hey, I brought you-what the hell happened here?' Jillian had gasped from behind her, cutting off whatever she'd been saying when she'd stepped back outside.

'You totally missed it,' Lizzie had breathed, still staring. The yautja's gleaming golden eyes had switched from her to her best friend, but he was still silent.

'Godamnit. Why didn't you call me?' Jillian whined.

Because I've been rendered speechless, Lizzie had thought but didn't say, her eyes free to peruse now that she wasn't being observed. The grime covering the yautja was evident, now that he was just this side of naked. Despite his drab coloration and the darkness of the night, she could clearly see the outline of each and every strap, every carefully shaped and form-fitting piece of armor.

'At least it looks like I didn't miss the best part," Jillian said, then eased herself back into the hot tub. 'Good lord you move fast.'

Lizzie finally looked at her, aware that Jillian was addressing her and not the yautja. 'You think I had something to do with this?' she'd demanded.

'Well. Yeah,' Jillian shrugged. 'Here. Brought ya a lil something to take the edge off,' she said as, after settling in the hot water, she twisted and retrieved two martini glasses filled with a pale pink. Cosmopolitans. 'And for our guest...' she added, and hoisted the half-empty bottle of Grey Goose by the neck. 'Here kitty, kitty, kitty,' she called cheerfully, sloshing the vodka inside the bottle. No doubt about it; she was even more drunk than Lizzie was.

Horrified to realize that it was up to her to be the sane and rational one here, Lizzie hissed at her through her teeth. 'Don't...antagonize it,' she'd said, stumbling on the word before finally getting it out.

'That,' Jillian said matter-of-factly as she pointed at the staring yautja with the bottle, 'is clearly a he, not an it. When's he gonna take that thingie off, anyways?' she'd asked, loudly, motioning toward his one remaining piece of cover.

'He took a shitload of thingies off,' Lizzie pointed out.

'Yeah, but I missed it.' Jillian sipped her cosmo, reminding Lizzie that she also had one in her hand. While she sipped, Jillian raised up the bottle of vodka again and shook it enticingly at the yautja. 'C'mon!' she hollered. 'Take it all off! Whoo!' Lizzie almost sprayed her mouthful of liquor across the surface of the hot tub as her best friend raised her hands, martini glass in one, bottle in the other, and started swaying back and forth like she was in the audience of a male review show. A solo yautja male review show, yelling 'Woot! Woot!' at the thing while it stood there and stared at her.

"It took a bath in my hot tub?" Jerry chimed in, interrupting her vivid memory. "And you didn't try and stop it?"

Lizzie snorted softly and sipped her wine. "Would you listen to yourself? How'm I gonna stop a yautja from doing anything?" she pointed out. "Just be thankful he didn't decide the hot tub was a toilet. I know I am."

Jerry grunted. "Thank god," he muttered. "I'll have you know that I personally was the one to clean the hot tub. Rinse, scrub and drain, over and over. Took me hours to get all the gunk out; what did he do? Roll in a compost heap before climbing into my tub?"

Lizzie giggled. She'd been all set to deny being responsible for what Jerry had referred to as 'gunk', since she knew for a fact that there had been no sex in the hot tub. Apparently he was speaking of the bits of leaves, pine needles and sticks and stems, to which she could attest had come off the third member of that weekend's threesome. That, and a sheen of oil that had coated the surface of the water and prompted Jillian to refer to him as a 'dirty boy'.

Jilly was definitely the one to egg him on all weekend, though Lizzie felt that she personally was the one to bear most of the brunt of it. Jillian had noticed that too, pouting that she was made to feel like a third wheel. Truth was, Lizzie was probably bestowed the greatest amount of his attention because she gave him a hell of a lot less shit than Jillian did. Jerry was right; Jillian was a fah-reak. And a pervert.

Cheered on and lured by the bottle, the yautja was suddenly moving again, tugging his ragged loincloth off and adding it to the pile of discarded paraphernalia on the deck, then stepping forward into the hot tub. Lizzie had inwardly cringed, hoping it could support him and staring at what was between his fat thighs while Jillian whooped with delight. One step onto the seat, next step down onto the floor of the tub, a low, masculine rumble as he continued to ease himself into the hot water. There was nothing to indicate arousal, and an honestly disappointingly petite bit of flesh adorned what was an awesome and impressive male. Something wasn't quite right and familiar, though, but disappeared beneath the surface of the water before Lizzie could get a satisfactory fix on it.

Turned out he was a grower, not a shower, and plenty big enough where it counted when it came time to prove it. Jilly released her grip on the bottle's neck as he reached up from beneath the water to take it from her, pausing to huff inquisitively before inserting the mouth between his teeth and chugging.

The tub was small and shallow, making it impossible for the three of them to not come into contact with each other. The water, displaced by his massive body, sloshed over its lip and onto the planks, spilling beneath the deck. Lizzie squirmed, momentarily alarmed by the rough contact of some part of the yautja's hard hide as he made no effort to keep himself to himself.

'Now this,' Jillian slurred cheerfully, 'is a fuckin party!' Then she reached out and slapped their guest's exposed knee above the surface of the water.

He'd grunted and lowered the considerably depleted bottle, pinning her with a stare that made Lizzie suck in a breath. Then he shifted and did something beneath the water that made Jillian shriek in reaction and bang up against Lizzie before she dissolved into gales of laughter. 'Naughty,' she'd cooed, and he shifted all four tusks around his mouth before lifting his chin and sending her a buttery-smooth rumble that was completely lacking in aggression, threat, or anything Lizzie would have expected.

Yup, without Jillian Lizzie didn't doubt that things wouldn't have gone quite the way they'd gone. Her fearless flirtation would have been more appropriate if it hadn't been directed toward a yautja but a guy they'd picked up in a bar, which had happened once...twice. Even so, it had been just as effective against him as any other male; he'd read it and responded in kind, not only calling her bluff but teasing her right back. And despite Lizzie's reticence he'd made sure to bestow his attentions on her as well.

"So what else? Should I have the couches and area rugs steam-cleaned after this weekend?" her cousin was asking.

"He's not...messy, Jer," Lizzie sighed. He wasn't anything like what she'd thought a yautja would be like...but then again, he was. Dangerous and deadly and short-tempered and aggressive, but all set aside and put on hold for that weekend, in the interest of forging a temporary non-confrontational alliance with her and Jillian. He would spark up from time to time but subside almost instantly, like with his hatred of Jerry's chandelier.

And despite his breathtaking ability to put away vodka, if it affected him at all she sure as hell couldn't tell. By Saturday morning Jillian was desperately attempting to get him drunk enough to pass out so they could have a break. Didn't work; if anything, it only furthered his endurance. He and the pile of armor he'd left on the deck had disappeared sometime in the early afternoon while she and Jillian had napped, granting them a reprieve that had allowed them to shower and recover enough to be able to perform at Jerry's little cabaret Saturday night. When they returned to the cabin after midnight, however, he was lounging in front of the fire, greeting their return with a low drawn-out rumble that settled into a sustained purr as he lazily rolled toward them and stretched full length like a tiger on his makeshift bed. They'd just been discussing him on their way back to the cabin, wondering at his abrupt disappearance and giggling over the events of the last twelve hours. Seeing him in the flickering warm glow cast by the flames, his lamplit eyes heavy lidded but his gaze heated as he regarded them and thrummed invitingly, Jillian cursed, turned and bolted. She was back in two minutes with a fresh bottle of vodka from the lodge, locking the door behind her, out of breath with the speed of her errand.

The yautja, upon spotting the bottle, had added a louder growl over the purr and reached out toward her, beckoning with his clawed fingers. When she approached him with it held out, he momentarily ignored it to catch her instead, drawing her down onto the blankets with him, his purr strengthening as she giggled girlishly. There had been the sound of tearing cloth as he divested her of her clothing over her muted protests, covering her, nuzzling and nipping at her, a slow-motion mauling backed by what seemed like genuine affection.

Lizzie had stood rooted to the floor like an invisible bystander, seeing her friend disappear beneath the bulk of the yautja, listening as he tore through her clothes with his claws, watching and hearing her half-hearted attempts to back him down and slap him off through her constant flirtatious laughing. He seemed to take her in easy stride, neither bothered nor put off by her playful resistance, bent and determined to get her down to bare skin while purring reassuringly and seducing her with his own playful aggression.

Then suddenly he lifted his head and regarded Lizzie, settling his predatory eyes on her a moment before offering her a grunt. She'd blinked out of her role as observer and shifted on her feet, seeing Jilly's hand come up to stroke across the twin plateaus of the yautja's massive battle-scarred chest muscles above her. He'd blinked and rumbled, lowering his head momentarily to nuzzle at her hair before returning his attention to Lizzie. As she stared back she watched his intensity increase, until it occurred to her that if she forced him to have to get up and come get her instead of going to him, she might be in trouble. Jillian was grinning with excitement already, trapped beneath him but clearly not uncomfortable, distracted again by the stunning visual of his chest in front of her eyes and unable to hold herself back from touching him. He allowed it without protest, his incredible eyes glowing in the dark and steadily narrowing on Lizzie, broadcasting warning as she momentarily refused to accede to his dominance and obey his wordless command for her to join them.

She turned away and fixed herself a drink. The cabin was maybe six hundred square feet, probably a little less, so it wasn't like she had far to go to get to the kitchen or was leaving his sight. Lizzie was the type that needed to ease into a situation, unlike Jillian who would plunge right in up to her neck without hesitation. She figured to let Jilly have the first full-contact round while she settled herself into the mindset for what she was sure would be another marathon session, having a drink first to help get herself into the mood. As she finished fixing her drink then raised it to her lips to taste it, there was a low masculine rumble from directly behind and above her.

She'd stiffened, then turned to encounter a faceful of yautja pectorals. The sight alone was enough to stun her into backwashing her cosmopolitan as she pressed herself back against the counter behind her, then colored as she recalled what he'd done to her on that counter. He closed in, tall, wide, hot, adorned with fangs and tusks and spikes, chittering softly and growling behind the strange sound, glaring down at her from above the shelf of his massive chest, his ropy, tapering hairs draping over his broad shoulders. Except for the fire the cabin was in complete darkness, creating the memorable image of golden predator's eyes glowing from a massively muscled humanoid shape. It should have been terrifying but Lizzie knew this yautja and he knew her. What they were to each other was male and female, one hard and dominant and aggressive, one soft and submissive and gentle. They countered each other, light to dark, meeting somewhere in the middle that was not fully understood but was accepted and honored by both.

'Hi,' she'd said, softly.

No more 'um', not after what she'd already experienced in his company. 'Um' was reserved for uncertainty and maybe a little fear, neither of which she had regarding him any longer. And to prove it, she lifted her free hand, the one not holding the martini glass, and lightly touched her fingers to his hard chest. She searched, climbing the seam between his pectorals, sliding back down, slipping off the raised shelf and following its bulging curve, then tracing the ripples of his abdominal muscles beneath one-by-one as she worked her way lower. His purr came up, quiet at first, building steadily and with confidence until the sound filled her ears. She felt thunder beneath her fingertips, smiling slowly as she recalled the sensation of what that purr felt like against her body, the way it thrummed through her from head to toe. It suddenly made her feel strangely welcome in her own rented cabin, welcome to join him and feel comfortable in his presence. A rare privilege not bestowed on many humans, she suspected, but gifted to her. Wherever he was, that was his territory, and he did not willingly allow many entrance, much less inviting welcome.

For her, though, his momentary aggravation at her stand-offishness had faded at her gentle touch in response to his attempt to assert his dominance. And just like that, she was ready and willing to join the party.

"You don't...do you have the hots for this yautja, darling?" Jerry asked, sounding shocked.

She smirked. "Let's just say I have no complaints." Her voice, she realized, was almost purring like the yautja.

Jerry huffed and said, "Wow. I think this is a first ever, you know."

"Huh?"

"Lizzie...you have complaints about every guy you've ever been with," Jerry pointed out. She opened her mouth to object, then snapped it shut, horrified as she realized he had a point. "The blond Adonis from the beach? Mr. Perfect from the mall? And what about Boris Bigcock?"

"They were human," she shrugged through the phone. "They had...limitations, let's say. Turns out I'm into having my horizons expanded. Big time."

"Hoooly crap," Jerry drawled out slowly.

"Oh what? Don't gimme that," Lizzie scoffed.

"Now I am jealous," her cousin said. "You're sure he doesn't do men? I need to experience sex that's mind-blowing enough to not leave me bitching the next day. Or three weeks later, for that matter."

"Hm," Lizzie said noncommittally, smiling a small, private smile.

In the step-down area in front of the fireplace that comprised the nest, Jillian had grinned knowingly as she'd watched the confrontation in the kitchen. Two seconds of aggressive adamance and possible threat, instantly cooled by Lizzie's willing touch as with one word and a touch she communicated to their guest that she wasn't rejecting or defying him. Clearly, something about her set him off and attracted his attention, compelling him to respond to the slightest hint of disinterest from her.

Her touch might have reassured him enough to cool his temper but it pricked his arousal and drove him to respond. He pushed her hand aside, the one holding the martini glass, guiding her to set it on the counter. She let him, moving slowly in tandem, feeling something female and primal coiling excitedly low in her belly as his massive clawed hands came to a light rest on her hips. They tightened, then with a deceptively gentle hoist he lifted her onto the counter beside her glass. He was purring steadily, his gleaming eyes wide open now as he pressed himself closer, leaving a willing female in his bed in the interest of securing the compliance of a second.

Those claws climbed her flanks, and Lizzie made a sound of rebuke that stilled him. 'No ya don't. I like this shirt,' she informed him, sensing that he was about to do to her clothes what he'd already done to Jillian's. She eased backward until she contacted the cabinets, then closed her fingers around the bottom hem of her shirt and pulled it upward over her head. She set it aside, draping it half over the toaster as she found herself captured by his eyes. Purring, he released her hip to reach up and touch his forefinger to the place just beneath the hollow in her throat, then slid it downward to hook his huge claw beneath the cloth of the bra between her breasts and tug lightly. Point made and taken. She'd held her breath without being consciously aware of it, feeling the heated contact of his sizable digit as it traveled down her sternum, tracing a slow path over her exposed skin. He left his finger, claw not touching her skin, just below her bra, and she shifted forward enough to reach behind with one hand and unclasp, letting the bra's straps tickle down her arms as it fell slack. She tugged it off and tossed it behind him, seeing it hit the back of one of the dining room chairs and dangle a moment before dropping to the hardwood floor.

His purr resounded, filling her ears and no doubt the small cabin, his finger continuing its deliberate slide to follow beneath the curve of her breast, caressing her with the back of his huge knuckle. Lizzie couldn't help but let her lips curve in a smile at the ticklish sensation, at the awareness that he was copycatting what she'd done to him. Tracing her ribs one by one, from one side to the other, circling her belly button softly before slipping beneath the waistband of her satin pants to repeat the same tug he'd used against her bra.

She'd wondered fleetingly what would happen if she refused to comply, supposing that he'd apply the business ends of those claws to the satin to get what he wanted and punish her pants in the process. A sort of demonstration of what he could do to her skin if he chose to.

'Impatient, are we?' she'd purred quietly. He'd answered with a low rumble that enriched the throb of his purr as it momentarily joined its vibration to the one already steadily throbbing. Lizzie was fairly certain that the yautja had no idea of anything she and Jillian said, but he was swift to pick up on meaning and intent. Provided they use a flirtatious tone and comply, she suspected they could curse him out through their smiles and he wouldn't know the difference, still taking their words for invitation and agreement. Went both ways, though, since he could be uttering vicious threats and they would be clueless.

"So you'll do it, right? Come here this weekend and convince your boy toy to move on?" Jerry was pleading. "Else tell him to come to the main lodge and let me take care of him..."

"He's probably had his fill of running and shrieking men. You guys are pussies," Lizzie teased.

"Better to have one than be one in this particular case, hm?" he drawled back.

"That's about the long and short of it," she agreed, and heard his put-upon sigh.

"You wound me, my darling," he mourned.

"Nah. But he might."

"Call your girlfriend. Come spend the weekend at cousin Jerry's. The next cabin over hasn't been booked for the weekend so you two can stand naked on the roof screaming for your yautja for all I care. Just...try and explain to him that he needs to stop popping in on my guests and savaging their tits and shoes."

"You know the yautja word for tits, Jer?" Lizzie asked. "Cuz I sure as hell don't. I suppose Louboutins are Louboutins in any language, though I doubt he shops at Nordstroms."

"No designer labels on his stuff, I take it?"

"Didn't need any. Had other more attractive traits."

Jerry sniffed dismissively. "Everyone needs designer labels," he disagreed. "You should bring your Jimmy Choos this weekend."

"Camping? I don't think so."

"My resort is not camping, darling," Jerry disagreed, offended. "And besides, you'll be spending your weekend indoors with your legs in the air anyway, right? That's what Jimmy Choos are for, not for actually walking in."

Lizzie barked out a shocked laugh. "Alright," she finally gave in, already warmed up from mere memory, "I'll be there, okay? Just don't forget your promise about the first bottle being free."

Jerry huffed. "Who knew yautja were so expensive? No wonder the government is the only one who can afford to keep them." Lizzie snorted, mentally picturing that first iconic image of the face of an alien, blazing with the rage he -or maybe she- had obviously been feeling. Apparently Jerry was picturing it too, because he said, "Too bad they hadn't thought to acquire the services of horndog Lizzie and her freaky little sidekick Jillian. Human/yautja relations would have gone differently then, I guarantee it. That first picture would have been of quite a different expression," he mused. "Eyes rolled back into the head from a vodka overdose, little bit of drool, slack expression..." She giggled. "Of course, they would have had to raise our taxes just to afford all the fake tits and Louboutins for him to enjoy savaging while he wasn't getting laid."

It occurred to Lizzie, in spite of her cousin's teasing, that he was probably the only person on earth who could be so casual about this...situation. She supposed that since she wasn't traumatized by her experience he was choosing to take it in stride, going so far as to think that she had some ability to 'fix' it. Regardless of whatever he thought, she didn't have a relationship with this yautja, at least not one that included any ability to communicate with him beyond the most primitive level. Action and reaction, supply and demand, that was about it.

Jerry was doing something on his end of the connection, and the sound of rattling dishes came through the phone to her. "I'm making my quiche," he informed her, like they'd been discussing the weather. "I'll make enough to leave some for you. Think your boyfriend likes quiche?" he inquired.

Lizzie's mouth opened and shut, opened and shut. "How the hell would I know?" she blurted. She'd never actually seen the yautja eat anything, though he'd spent a considerable amount of time applying his teeth to her and Jillian's skin. Not enough to pierce, but leaving behind souvenir scrapes on both her shoulders and hips that had only recently finished healing. And now her cousin wanted to cook for it...him.

"You can't tell anyone about this, Jer," she said quietly. "You haven't, have you?"

He scoffed. "I just made the connection about the fact that there really was a yautja, and who the last couple was in Cabin Fourteen that had no complaints about him, then picked up the phone and called you, darling."

"You can't breathe a word to anyone. You know that, right?"

"What? Me not tell anyone the juiciest thing since the discovery of aliens?" he protested.

"Jerry. Seriously. I don't need the men in black barging into my apartment."

There was a breathless moment of silence before he uttered, "Oh. Damnit." He was quiet for a bit before saying, "They would too, wouldn't they? Instead of giving you an award and naming a day in your honor."

Lizzie smirked and snorted softly. "What for?"

"What for?" he echoed. "For figuring out how to tame one!"

She giggled. "We'll see," she said, not so sure herself. Taming, no. Being in the presence of something that could kill her with ease and having the good fortune to not end up dead maybe, but she wasn't under the assumption that she'd tamed him. She'd risen to the occasion and survived the encounter by throwing all common sense to the side and going with it, but he was a force to be reckoned with and not something she'd had much, if any, control over.

"Well. I'll cook him up a nice quiche, leave him a bottle of Grey Goose, toss him my cousin and say 'Pretty pretty please leave my guests alone'. Maybe I'll leave a map with your apartment marked out on it. Should I use green highlighter, you think?" He giggled at his own joke.

"Oh, I'd love to sit and watch you try to explain things to him," Lizzie warned. Jerry snorted.

"Gotta run, darling, and you gotta pack for your rendezvous," he said breezily.

"Thought so," she muttered. "And all I gotta pack is something to wear for the drive home. Probably the only thing I'll be wearing this weekend is a few hundred pounds of horny yautja."

"Lucky girl," Jerry growled. "Ta, darling!"

Lizzie hung up and set the phone aside, remaining draped in her armchair and contemplatively drinking the remainder of her wine. The memory of that huge scarred chest would be forever imprinted in her mind, since she'd spent so many hours just staring at it. The thought of seeing it again, watching it flex with restrained effort before her eyes while her nose was filled with that unique scent and her ears were filled with that mesmerizing purr, while other parts of her were filled with burning heat and thrusting friction timed to methodical, huffing masculine grunts...she shivered pleasantly. On her back, her head draped over his hard forearm, her shoulders braced against it while he planted the weight of his upper body on his elbow to fix it, and her, in place. Her hands doing a slow, texture-filled trace up and down his heated flanks as her entire body rocked, as she breathed in breathy huffs in time to every slick but tightly-fitted impalement. Every sense and nerve ending bombarded by sensation and input to the point of being overwhelmed, each building on the others as the yautja maintained a steady cadence that wasn't fast and furious but deliberately methodical, rocking his body, thrusting his hips, every muscle invested and working in tandem.

Sometimes he would utter anguished and strained-sounding words that were unintelligible but indicative of pleasure. Sometimes repeating them, over and over in time to his motions until his rough baritone voice hitched and he drew in a breath, then bellowed along with his climax. And after, rumbling, affectionate nuzzling as he regathered himself for the next round, staying put and not uncoupling in order to experience every twitch and clench.

Not to say she hadn't had her fair share of happy endings, too, but she simply was incapable of matching him orgasm for orgasm. She and Jillian were taken in turns until he'd finally subsided for two hours to nap between them. Then Lizzie had awoken to wet heat on her breast: Jillian, draped over the yautja's belly to mouth softly at her. The yautja was awake and purring, one arm folded behind his head, staring intently as he stroked his massive hand over Jillian's back and watched as the sensual tease intensified. Soon they were kissing softly, then ardently, Jillian easing herself closer over the huge body between them until she was lying on both of them. He watched, fascinated, touching them both, his hot hand soft and undemanding as he observed.

Jillian had continued her focused attention, moving down Lizzie's length with practiced familiarity, making her hum with pleasure as she'd laid still and enjoyed it. The fire was crackling and snapping, the yautja's purr ebbing and falling in a rhythmic cadence like a heartbeat, his scent rising and blending with the woodsmoke. Then Jillian was groaning, her focus faltering, and Lizzie opened her eyes to the sight of their male participant covering her best friend on all fours, mandibles spread over her back as he growled and nipped at her. He was silhouetted by the flames and Lizzie could see the gentle bumping of his hips over Jillian, feeling the pressure of her mouth between her legs increase with each thrust. Jilly was panting audibly as the bumping became a smoother gliding, her mouth demanding and moving in time. Eyes open, Lizzie watched, feeling it, hearing it, part of it. Nothing was forced or rushed, everything moving together in a slow, magical rhythm of mutual pleasure, timed together and building in sync.

The yautja, she'd realized, had raised his head from Jillian's back and was staring at her face, and when she noticed he'd increased his demand, causing Jillian to increase hers. Lizzie gasped in reaction and he growled and did it again, deliberately, then sustained it with artful precision, still watching her. When she came it was gently, with a soft, breathless gasp and a shivering exhalation. Jillian followed, bucking in time to his short, authoritative stabs as he dug his ebony claws into the blankets beneath them before releasing a hoarse, choked vocalization and thrusting himself more solidly over her.

Jillian had slumped down over her as they caught their breath, both of them still vibrating with pleasure from the gentleness and passion of the encounter. They'd tried the threesome thing before but it had never quite worked out to everyone's satisfaction. Not like this...never like this.

With a growl the reprieve was over, Jillian giggling giddily as the yautja slid over her, nudging insistently with the sides of his mandibles until she rolled off of Lizzie. She was replaced by him, his golden eyes avid as first he rolled Lizzie to her belly despite her loose-limbed protests, his maleness seeking until he zeroed in on her wetness and thrust himself inside her. No longer so slow and gentle, making her snap her head up and gasp. Somehow he took hold of the lingering pleasure she was still experiencing, found its pace and stroked it to new heights, each more aggressive than the last. As if he'd been challenged by Jilly's ability to bring her to climax and was determined to outdo her. The sound coming out of him was something not clear, between a growl and a purr, thundering in her ears as he took firm hold of her hips and guided her to move with him. She was helpless to refuse, lowering her face to the blankets and biting them as she wadded and clenched her hands and endured. He pressed, his pace increasing, his almost-threatening vocalizations breathy. Lizzie passed the pain and went through it to a place of numbness, then beyond to an aggressive, demanding fire that built her need. She began to tremble and he felt it, lowering his fearsome mouthparts to the back of her head as he relentlessly pumped at her, huffing and grunting into her hair like some savage, wild animal. It rose until she could go no further, her hips snapping convulsively between his hands. He barked and bit down, pinching the skin of her shoulder between his sharp teeth and holding, his fingers closing hard enough on her hip bones to bruise. Trapped, her body only bucked that much harder, making him plunge into her with abandon. Lizzie spat the blankets from her teeth and screamed in the throes of the most intense orgasm of her life, one that had been forced out of her with demanding, insistent pressure and pleasure. She surged in wracking spasms, feeling spitted and roasted, on one hand afraid of the intensity of the sensation and on the other hand wanting it to never stop. The yautja released his bite and brayed over her, his hips slapping against her backside before he planted himself deep and remained there, rocking in time with her.

When he finally stopped she was released from her euphoria and left exhausted, slumping to the nest and panting as spots danced behind her eyelids. 'That,' Jillian had said quietly as they'd both subsided, 'looked and sounded fucking stupendous. You go, girl. He damn well better have another one like that lined up for me.'

He was panting raspily, one hand clenched tightly in Lizzie's hair as if he was thinking that the only logical follow up to sex of that caliber was death. 'Ow,' she'd muttered, muffled by being face-down in the blankets. There was the bestial rumble of her new sex god against her back, and as he released her hair she felt the sensation of his mandibles flexing and swiping against her skin, the tickling of his warm fleshy tendrils of hair over her shoulders. Inside, he was still pulsing in time to her every ebbing spasm, dragging it out as their bodies continued to keep time with each other.

It was hard to remember there had been a time when she'd been afraid of these creatures, had nightmares about them. Not after connecting with one on such a primal level, where differences had been shoved aside and boundaries expanded. She'd held part of herself in reserve, like putting herself on pause for that weekend then clicking back over to reality once she'd unlocked her apartment door and come home. She hadn't forgotten, though. He apparently hadn't forgotten either, and as she'd returned to her regularly scheduled life he'd been actively hanging around and searching for her.

It gave her another little shiver in her chair to think of that and she contemplated it for awhile. Three weeks of diligently returning to the little cabin in the woods, searching for signs of her and Jillian, inviting himself inside, probably hoping to laze in front of the fireplace and wait for them to come in, ready to greet them with that loud thrumming of pleased welcome at their appearance.

Already tingling with excitement like a kid on Christmas Eve, anticipating presents, she knew she was going back there. Maybe he wouldn't show because he'd given up. On the other hand, maybe he would show. Corner her in the small kitchen, hoist her up onto the counter, pin her against the cabinets, catch her behind the knees then bang her hard enough to rattle the toaster oven while she braced herself and stared at his chest.

Again.

If they couldn't convince him that they didn't live there, maybe they would have to strike some kind of deal with Jerry, where they spent their weekends at the cabin. After all, who knew how long this would go on? Lizzie reasoned with herself. Could be one more and done for all she knew. Hell, in that case why waste time bothering to try and explain anything to him?

She grinned and went to go pack a bag and call Jillian.