Michael Eastman was on his way home from his last lecture one Friday in late spring. The end of his first year at Free Systems University on the world of Mayana IV was fast approaching and his mind was somewhat preoccupied with upcoming exams. His car was stuck in the driveway while he waited for a new set of fuel cell filters, so he was walking. Not that he was too bothered by it, it was a nice day for a walk and he only lived a few blocks from campus anyway. It was late afternoon and he could already see two of the planet's five moons beginning to rise, but there was still plenty of light in the sky and the air was warm. As he made his way towards town, he heard the rumbling scream of a turbine with the legal minimum amount of sound muffling approaching behind him.
It was a tall, angular vehicle with massive suspension and even more massive tires. Not a truck though, more like a very large sedan on the suspension of a military all-terrain scout car. It had clearly been custom built, with bits and pieces from many different brands and types of off-road vehicles welded and bolted on. Michael had heard this type of car referred to as a "plainsrunner"; they were popular with local kids who raced them at unreasonably high speeds across the rough, rocky plains that dominated this particular continent. One of the passengers leaned out through a glass-less window and waved to him. He was an alien: a male Sha'dee. Michael recognized him from one of his general classes. Writing? Or was it Intro to AI?
"Hey, you're Mike Eastman yeah?" The alien boy yelled as the vehicle slowed to match Michael's walking pace.
"Yeah. What's up?" Michael replied.
"There's gonna be a big party at the Half-Way House tonight. You should come! Townie cops are at some sort of training retreat so there's only gonna be one patrol unit in town this whole weekend, it's gonna be a rager."
"I'll think about it, thanks for telling me." Michael nodded appreciatively.
"Bring your own beer!" The alien yelled over the sound of the engine spinning up as the plainsrunner peeled off down the road.
As Michael finished walking home and approached the back steps to his apartment, he made up his mind that he would go to the party. Wasn't like he had anything better to do, and who knows, maybe he'd finally meet someone of the female persuasion out here. He dropped off his backpack in the apartment, then started walking to the liquor store. He figured that by the time he got beer, got back to the apartment, ate dinner, showered and changed he would be able to leave for the Half-Way House and get there just in time to be fashionably late.
* *
The Half-Way House, so-called because it was exactly halfway between the university campus and town, was a large ramshackle mansion that had once belonged to a very early colonist of some substance, but was now rented by a group of students who used it as a sort of combination concert venue, party house, apartment and bodyshop. A cluster of plainsrunners, lifted trucks and ratty old sports cars were parked in a dirt lot next to the house which had probably been a garden once. On the other side, broken tables and the remnants of beer pong games gone bad coated the lawn. A large prefab garage building had been erected behind the house, and engineering students were often seen scurrying in and out of it with arms full of auto parts and welding gear.
It was all lit up tonight, with color-shifting LEDs filling each window with an effervescent sea of light as the sun had just begun to set properly. Groups of students stood outside, smoking cigarettes and bongs. One group was clustered around a half-assembled plainsrunner which was revving its turbines. Clearly the muffler was included in the half which had yet to be assembled, and the students hollered and cheered as the duel turbine screamed and fired gouts of flame from its unfinished exhaust system.
Michael climbed the rough, barely maintained trail up the side of the hill towards the slowly crumbling structure. He had been here once or twice before with friends, but it had never really been his scene. Not for any particular reason, he just hadn't found himself here all that often. He was a xenobiology major, and the crowd that partied here were mostly engineering majors. As he was entering the house, he happened to glance up and catch sight of a familiar face through the window. It was a female Sha'dee, one of his classmates in an ecology class he was taking to meet a degree requirement. He tried to remember her name, he was pretty sure it started with an "R". She was short, like all Sha'dee, but very humanoid in shape. Aside from her bright red skin tone, pointed ears, four-fingered hands, prehensile tail and alien facial features, she was very Human in silhouette. Her eyes, very large by Human standards and featuring strange, almost rectangular pupils, had bright violet irises. Her hair was short, bright orange and either naturally curly or not very well groomed, he couldn't quite tell. He recognized her because she was unusually attractive for a Sha'dee female (at least according to his personal taste) and he'd been sneaking some guilty glances at her figure during class when the lecture was particularly boring.
Maybe he should say hello to her if he happened to run into her, Michael thought as he entered the house and made for the communal booze table to drop off his beer. In the meantime, he was going to circle around and see if he saw anyone he knew a little better. Maybe one of the friends who'd brought him here before was out tonight.
***
Rana was in heat. This was entirely her own fault, of course. She could (and perhaps should) have taken the little yellow pills that suppressed the effects of her fertility cycle, but she had never liked them. They had side effects like insomnia and lethargy, and there was a very small chance that they could make you infertile long term. The other major reason was that as uncomfortable as it was most of the time, being in heat made sex unbelievably amazing. The downside of course was that whenever she wasn't actually engaged in the act of mating, she was going crazy thinking about it. Her whole body was unusually warm and sensitive, her breathing was heavier and her crimson skin flushed much more easily. On top of it all, her breasts were swollen and even more sensitive than the rest of her. Rana needed a mate badly, she hadn't had one in a couple days and her fingers and tail just weren't enough to satisfy the intense hormonal cravings anymore.
Fortunately, college parties were a great place to find willing males. Especially Human males. Rana liked Human males, they were big and strong and they had a very high core temperature compared to Sha'dee, which made them great for post-coital cuddling. Plus, they often didn't know what they were getting into when hooking up with a Sha'dee girl in heat. Males of her own species knew perfectly well how aggressive and insatiable a female like Rana could be at this time of the month, and would make excuses or avoid her if they didn't want to be left too sore to walk the next morning. Humans usually weren't aware and wouldn't know from the scent of her pheromones even if they had been warned. Best of all, she had it on good authority that Human males found her thicker, chestier build more attractive than the slender frame that was considered more conventionally attractive among her kind.
She had her eye on a particular Human boy that evening. He was in one of her classes and she knew his name (Mickey or Mike or something), but they'd never talked to eachother. She had noticed him checking her out a couple of times, and had been meaning to get to know him better in case he was down to play with her, but the opportunity just hadn't come up until now. He was here tonight though, and she had made sure to find herself hanging out within eyeshot of him a couple times already over the course of the last several hours. She was wearing tight shorts and thigh-high stockings that really accentuated her thighs and butt, combined with a light, loose fitting v-neck sweater that showed just enough cleavage to entice while hinting at her bust size without revealing too much. The sweater was just short enough to expose a thin stripe of soft red tummy between its hem and her belt. All things she'd been wearing on previous occasions when she'd noticed him staring at her. Thank gods she was cute, Rana thought as she got another drink and circled back around to where she had last seen the Human boy.
***
Michael was getting ready to leave the party. He'd been enjoying himself well enough, but none of his close friends had come out and he'd already chatted with all the casual acquaintances he'd seen here tonight. One more beer, he thought, and he'd call it quits. It was at that point that something caught the corner of his eye. It was that Sha'dee girl again. Michael had noticed her a few times that night, and it was hard not to notice her considering how well she filled out that sweater and those stockings. He was pretty sure he'd seen her in class too. Michael didn't really consider himself a xenophile, but there was no denying that Sha'dee girls could be cute as hell. Especially this one, with her unusually large chest in that sweater that was just the right ratio of clingy to baggy.
The alien girl glanced at him coyly, then turned back to whoever she was talking to. As she turned her back to him, she leaned forward slightly and lifted her tail in what he couldn't help but interpret as a suggestive pose. The tail-hole in her shorts underneath her belt was extra large, a popular trend among younger Sha'dee females because it showed off a lot of the wearer's shapely red ass when the tail was lifted. Michael wondered, for the dozenth or so time, if the diminutive size of a female Sha'dee translated to significantly tighter orifaces compared to a Human female.
