Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.
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((Many thanks to M.M. for her help with this series. Publishing this has been a long time coming and I couldn't have done it without you. As always, all characters in this story are over 18.))
It was six at night on a Friday and the Midnight Grind was busy as ever, filled with the usual assortment of early evening club kids and pre-weekend office workers running in and out, sitting around in large armchairs and at little tables, chatting with each other. Between the wildly colorful art, the walls which looked like Pollock himself had a go at them, and the warm lighting from sticker-covered lamps, it was a bright, thriving place.
Alysha Ward sat at one of the little glass-topped metal tables, sugar packets emptied around her and fingers moving as she delicately flicked the granules across the glass into a pattern. When she'd begun her endeavor an hour earlier, she'd bought another coffee and assured the barista that she would indeed clean up the mess. Now that heap of sugar crystals was forming into a carefully made picture of the girl who was creating it.
Three empty cups sat lined up across the table from her, as well as a sandwich plate and the crumbs of a cookie. The first coffee she drank cold after the guy she was supposed to be on a date with didn't show up an hour and a half past the time he was supposed to be there. The second she'd ordered to entertain herself, and the third to assure the barista she wasn't going to be an issue when she'd started her sugar packet endeavor. Now as alone as ever, she made temporary art to pass the time, occasionally chatting with staff or Liam, the shop's owner.
Three coffees didn't sit well on the system and after the hours she'd spent there, she was starting to feel a little off, a bit bloated. Getting up carefully as not to disturb the nearly finished sugar portrait, she stepped up a hallway and toward the bathroom. Knocking once, Alysha found it was empty and entered, locking the door behind her.
The Grind's bathroom was an interesting place. While the main shop's music and coffee bar got loud, the bathroom's overhead fan drowned out every sound once the door closed. Nothing to disturb the peace of its single occupant, and no sounds from that occupant to bother anyone outside. Every wall was covered in plain white paint, and on top of that paint was drawing after drawing, lines of poetry, splatters of color and marker lines all over the place. It was a strangely creative space, and the ownership did nothing to discourage that creativity. She pulled out a sharpie from the back of her jeans, adding a little black to the eye of a piece someone before her had started, then regarded herself in the mirror. A tired girl stared back, one whose wavy blonde hair terminated just at her shoulders and whose eyebrows were seemingly permanently raised in a sarcastic or bewildered expression. Swiping a hand back through her hair, she took a deep breath and shuffled over to pull down her pants and situate herself on the toilet bowl.
It happened all at once, then. Seconds after she'd taken a seat, something behind the toilet erupted, extending out greenish-grey cord-like tendrils which immediately grabbed for her wrists and ankles, with a larger one coming from behind to stab at her mouth. In the split second that it took to realize something was wrong and open her mouth to scream or to contort her body and jump away, the appendages were already tightening, pulling her down. Twin tendrils yanked her wrists backwards, the pair closer to the floor raising her feet up so she couldn't gain any leverage. Alysha thrashed, blind terror spiking through her like a shot of lightning, and as her mouth opened to let out a scream, the final tendril inserted itself straight into the opening to muffle the noise.
Inside, her heart raced, thumping away in a panicked frenzy while she pulled hard at her invisible captor and tried desperately to scream through the thick gag. Biting the thing seemingly did nothing to deter its invasion. If it could feel anything from how her teeth ground down into its surface, this alien thing gave no signs that she was hurting it. Indeed, the fleshy tentacle felt completely smooth and even gnashing at it didn't seem to injure the perfect exterior. Looking down cross-eyed, she could see that it was a bright green, like the spring grass after a first warm rain, and seemed almost glossy.
Having secured the woman down into a position where she couldn't effectively get loose, the hidden creature began to work at its true task. Unseen by Alysha, another pair of tendrils snaked up out of the toilet bowl to stop between her legs. The smaller of the two slipped across her thigh and-
"Owh!" she exclaimed into the living gag. Something sharp had just pricked her thigh, like a needle! Wincing, her legs tensed further, anticipating yet another prick. For several seconds, the alien thing was quite still as it processed the human female's genetic information, checking for what it needed from her. Unbeknownst to its captive, somewhere in the galaxy, a figurative green light had just been lit. This one, this female, was the quality material they were seeking.