David Larson - The Myth of the Anal Probe

“Did they tell you why?” Tawny asked.

“Sure,” Mike said. “They said that people would always be people. That as long as humans were on the planet there would be war and suffering. They said it was simply human nature.”

Overhead Van seamlessly slipped out of Brown Eyed Girl and rolled in the sweet low chords of It Stoned Me.

“Do you believe that now?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” He said. “Here it seems just like a way of life. Like there could be no other way to live. I guess that with enough time, and enough people dedicated to the cause, things might be able to be different. People are always looking for an angle though. Looking for some way to get over. That has to be absolutely done away with.”

“Can it be?”

“See,” he said leaning forward a little, “that’s the issue. Of course it can be. But generally, people don’t make great changes in their lives without first having some sort of terrific emotional experience. People don’t usually change without being hurt or threatened. And if that’s what forces the change, it really isn’t permanent. The real person still lives on just under the surface. I’m afraid this kind of change will take tremendous personal commitment. I’m just not sure that exists there.”

Overhead a single acoustic guitar strummed through a series of melancholy chords that floated beautifully across the room.

“We were born before the wind. Also younger than the sun…”

Tawny’s eyes bored a warm hole into Mike’s heart.

Mike shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Van drew the two of them together magnetically with every single line of Into the Mystic.

“Would you like to dance?” Mike asked.

“I would love to,” Tawny almost whispered.

Their bodies melted together and swirled around the room in perfect harmony. Mike was so happy that he actually ached. They danced up on the notes of the guitar blending smoothly with the keyboard, and floated in the center of reality, like the soft pastel colors of life that Mike was able to be a part of, in the memorial garden. The décor of Mike’s home changed to an open space lined with gently flowing white linen. Twinkling lights blinked lightly on and off overhead.

And time stood still.

Mike looked deeply into Tawny’s eyes. What he saw there made him confident that she was feeling the same thing he was. He moved his lips closer to hers and his heart exploded as she came towards him, meeting his kiss. Those deep, beautiful lips touching his. Melting into one in the heat of the passion that they were both generating. He kissed her gently wanting to hold on to that initial touch for as long as he could. He was at the center of everything that he had ever lived for. Of every life event, everything that had hurt or helped him. Every late appointment, or long traffic light, or missed alarm clock, that had driven him ceaselessly to that one single moment in time that put him in the right place, at exactly the right time to be picked up by that ship. To deposit him on this amazingly beautiful planet, and to be kissing this woman that was the answer to the deepest of things he needed in his life. No. Not things he needed. Things that he craved. Things that without, he would certainly, simply, cease to exist.

They stopped moving to the music. Mike reached up and caressed Tawny’s face as their lips continued to explore the white-hot emotions they were generating.

Overhead the music slowed.

“To late to stop now,” Van warned as the music faded away.

The sweetly soft voice of K D Lang filled the room with the summation of the post-coital feelings that hung between the intertwined naked bodies lying quietly together.

Hallelujah… Hallelujah…

Mike’s eyes filled with his unending love for the woman for whom he had waited his entire life. Rivulets of warm raw emotion spilled down his cheeks burning his skin. His index finger ran unconscious, and slow, tracing each rise and fall of the skin on Tawny’s perfect back. She whispered a low, satisfied moan and wiggled deeper into the crook of his arm. He knew this fraction of a second in this exquisite moment of time was the only thing he needed to live.

Tawny stroked the skin of his chest and it felt like she was massaging his heart back to life after it had been stuck in stasis for an eternity.

“It took you long enough,” she said quietly.

Of course the masculine human side of him took over immediately and assumed that he had failed to meet her physical expectations, or lingered too long on a specific act or manipulation. Possibly even climax.

“I, ah,” Mike was horrified.

“I thought you weren’t interested in me at all,” she finally put his worst fears to rest.

“It was far from that,” Mike said in relief. “I couldn’t see you interested in me.”

“I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a woman on this planet that would feel like that,” Tawny said. “The thing that makes you the most dangerous is the thing that attracts women the most.”

“Dangerous?” Mike said. “I never thought of myself like that. What part of me seems dangerous?”

“Your passion. There isn’t anything that comes close to it here. It’s animalistic on one hand. Almost brutal when you compare it to the way we live our lives here. On the other it’s exciting and even intoxicating. It’s… well… dangerous.”

He had no idea what to say. He thought that the events of the last hour or so were the most beautiful minutes he could have ever have imagined. He and Tawny had come together as one being and shared each other in ways that he had never even considered with another woman. Now she was saying that he was brutal?

“I’m sorry if I was too rough,” Mike said.

“No,” she said as she placed a hand on the side of his face to turn it towards her. She kissed him softly. “You were far from that. It was amazing. It’s just the duality of the issues we’re trying to fix. Humans on Earth aren’t separated from the basis of animal instinct by much. You’re so close to animals, in fact, that articulation and thumbs are about the only things that separate you.”

Mike looked devastated.

“Don’t look like that Mike,” She said as she gave him the softest of kisses. “You are a wonderful man, and a very giving lover. It’s just… different than what happens here.”

“You’re an amazing woman Tawny,” Mike said. “I’ve thought that from the very first time I met you. Right here and right now is the only place I want to be.”

The last words out of Mike’s mouth gave Tawny pause. Maybe this connection was a bad thing. She had been attracted to him from the beginning as well. Could it be possible that an actual physical relationship between humans on Earth and their ancestral counterparts on Hale could be that destructive? Could it be, that this one act could put an instant and final end to the mission trying to normalize the inhabitants of another world that Haleians were responsible for? The idea that she may be the catalyst for a devastating multi world incident made her shudder just a little. It was so horrible a notion that she buried it far back in the deepest reaches of her subconscious, locked the vault, and melted down the key.

“Do you think you could get away tomorrow?” Tawny asked as she put the negative feeling out of her mind for good.

“Anything you want,” Mike said.

“Great,” she said. “I have one last thing to show you here.

“I can’t wait,” he said as he kissed the top of her head.

This seemed to Tawny to be the most innocent of suggestions. It seemed the perfect idea to push the darkness of her thoughts completely into the basement of her mind. It seemed the perfect vehicle to use, to bring their relationship back to the even keel that it had been on before they had connected in the deepest of ways.