I once saw an Ursula hook up with a mime, a tuberous begonia, and a bottle of expired milk. There’s no unseeing that.
In the end, there is no atom in this galaxy but that someone hasn’t tried to fuck it.
Except me.
Who needs a drink?
Generally, this holds up to experimentation; otherwise, it would be a Semikillable Fact, included only in older editions. Sex may not look the same in terms of number, kind, duration, pronouns, content, or survivability from species to species, it may not be advisable under even the most hastily drawn up occupational health and safety guidelines, but it’s pretty much always happening everywhere. The variety of genders across disparate species makes the human fixation on rigidly defined sexual orientations seem as adorably, bafflingly old-fashioned as a butter churn in a travel agency. The definitions of sex across worlds vary so much that the Elakh word for “to make love,” which can be loosely translated as “emblackenate,” also means to swim, to dance, to fish, to grow up big and strong, to hide a body for a friend, to be surprised that they’re still making the candy one loved as a child, to really and truly self-actualize, to maintain an antiquated belief in fairies, to jump, to sing, to dig, to secure financing, to stalemate, to lay tile, and to vigorously debate the social issues of the day.
On some planets, sex isn’t even remotely connected to reproduction. The Smaragdi, for example, have six-and-a-half genders. Nessuno Uuf used the pronouns “she” and “her” only because it seemed, in the cultural documents from Earth, that people utilizing those pronouns got to wear flashier clothes and considerably more tribal paints. The Smaragdi create children via battle royale combat, in which the spilled blood of the losing parents contributes only the most basic recessive, baseline genes to the resulting offspring. They are renowned and sought-after lovers, due to their stamina, open-mindedness, and levitational abilities, although not having to worry about getting one knocked up is probably a contributing factor. For other species, a light cough will land you in midnight feedings and a sensible family car before you can say, Sorry, I’ve got a bit of a cold. In the presence of a pollinating Klavar, it’s best to cover your mouth. There are, naturally, a few asexual species, and they do seem to get a lot more done in a day, but even they give it a try once in a while, just to see what all the fuss is about, before shrugging and going back to grounding their self-esteem in concrete accomplishments and finding fulfillment in skills and hobbies like the twisted kinksters they are.
Sex is universal, it’s just not evenly distributed.
In the face of a blistering universe of infinite possibility, mind-smearing variety, hopping nightlife, and a galactic pornography industry as venerable and august as any bank, the innate sexual conservatism of any given species usually lasts about 3.4 seconds.
Which is how Decibel Jones came to find himself in the executive suite of the South Wharf Hilton on Litost, propped up by the pillows endemic to hotels everywhere, even seven thousand light-years from the nearest hospitality degree program, differing only in the precise manner of their inadequacy, snuggled between the Smaragdin Nessuno Uuf and a beam of exhausted moonlight.
Decibel knew the basics of Goguenar Gorecannon’s Fourteenth Special, though he couldn’t have put a name to it or expressed it as concisely as a lonely-heart Yurtmak in the midst of a chemically volatile forest. He knew it by instinct and the hard-earned, precariously rigged experience of an adulthood spent being reasonably attractive, a couple of years spent massively famous, and a life spent fascinated by everyone he ever met, if occasionally only for a few minutes at the outside.
Jones couldn’t entirely be certain that what had transpired over the previous couple of hours fell under the dictionary definition of sex. It was more like a very complete entry in Rogerer’s. The moonlight, who was called Gobo, had been straightforward enough. The Azdrian postpunk filament-harmonic front man had slipped into the elevator with Decibel and Nessuno as the party was shutting down. When he’d asked, rather cheekily, given that tonight might well be Decibel’s last chance for a good time, whether the two of them would be interested in collectivizing, Dess thought he could imagine how sex with a swaggeringly masculine moonbeam might go, and it did, more or less. Gobo shone all over everywhere and promptly passed out without returning the favor.
Nessuno was more complicated. She’d disappeared into the bathroom the moment Gobo was snoring, which, in a shaft of moonlight, manifested as a slow, steady flicker that, before long, faded away to nothing at all. The Azdr, being mostly p
hotons, have a distinct advantage when it comes to escaping potentially awkward situations and are famous for simply going off like an embarrassed light switch.
The room was actually Nessuno’s personal suite, though the replicated human hotel room, down to the minbar and flat-screen television accompanied by a remote control with enough buttons to manage the settings on the known universe, could hardly have been less designed for her comfort. A small landfill of suitcases, musical accoutrements, and equipment covered the floor, none of which Decibel could have figured out how to use if you held a mic to his head. It really was a stonking huge remote. It didn’t really fit in with the sleek late-model TV. That thing was the love child of a 1980s home entertainment system and a space shuttle command console. The buttons glowed softly violet.
With trembling fingers, her eyes wide with desire, Nessuno Uuf emerged from the en suite holding the instrument of her love between them.
It was a hairbrush.
“And what do you expect to do with that?” Decibel asked nervously.
“The . . . usual?” Nessuno said. Her pale eyes glistened with lust and confusion. “You know . . . sex. Copulation. The old in-out. That’s what we’re both after, isn’t it?”
Decibel Jones shrugged. “Oh, sure, love. I can take a little paddling if that’s what you’re into.”
“No! Not paddling, for crying out—what . . . what good would that do? This is . . . how we do it on Pallulle. Look, I know you showed that Esca a good time. I didn’t think you’d be such a prude.”
“Don’t be upset, Nessie my darling. I’m here to learn. Why don’t you walk me through it? Just give me a little preview. What do you like? How do the Smaragdi get down?”
Nessuno Uuf closed her enormous eyes in a transport of delight. “We brush each other’s hair, and then, if you’re really kinky, we open up and show each other our feelings,” she whispered. Her breathing was getting heavy. “But that’s only if you’re into the hard-core triple-X stuff. Why, how do humans do it?”
Jones blinked. There were rules to a one-night stand. Protocols. Diplomatic procedures. And the most important one was not to shame the other guy for the way his rudder leaned. He always tried to be open and giving and create a good memory for everyone involved. Good memories rarely included being laughed out of the room. “Um,” he said, pulling the modernist bronze-and-gray-striped sheet over his naked and suddenly unaroused body. “Same. Maybe a hug too, if there’s time, but mostly . . . same.”
But Dess had to admit, her hair was amazing. It was like brushing a snowbank. With every stroke, the Smaragdin quivered and shook and made soft little moans like strumming a bass underwater. Whenever he hit a tangle, she gasped and dug her nails into his knee. He hoped he was making a decent hash of it. After a while, he tried telling her she was beautiful.
“Ooh,” the ten-foot-tall horn-rimmed creature sighed out. “I didn’t know you were into humiliation! Yes, yes, do it harder.”
Decibel froze. But he tried. He always tried. “Er. All right. Yes. Well. You’re a dirty little brush-slut, aren’t you?”
“What? No. I said humiliate me. Like before! Insult me. Go on. Say something really degrading. Tell me . . . tell me I’m a good person.”
“Right. You’re . . . you’re a beautiful, accomplished individual worthy of respect, aren’t you?”
Nessuno shuddered violently from head to toe. She wasn’t half as selfish as Gobo. The Smaragdin leaped up and gave Decibel’s hair a good seeing-to, and though it didn’t have quite the same effect on him, it was comforting, and relaxing, and after an hour or so, just when he really started to think he could get into this in a more direct way, she stopped.
“Do you want to?” she whispered, hardly daring to hope. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”