>You're at the bus stop. >Thankfully alone. >It's pouring rain, and you can't wait for your late-ass bus to get here so you can go the fuck home. >You basically hate everything about this place: You're shorter than everybody else, there are maybe fifty other humans in this entire shithole city, all the furniture is uncomfortable because almost every motherfucker here has a tail, and ordering off the kid's menu is just fucking demeaning. Not to mention that most of the furry motherfuckers feel sorry for you because you're relatively small and weak even though you're 5'11" and aren't a fat lazy sack of shit. >You're also super thankful that a fur-covered motherfucker isn't here with you because they all stink like shit. >Especially when it's raining. >Which it is. >Five minutes after when the bus is supposed to be there, you get nervous. You're still all alone, but at any second, some reeking, soaking wet furry could dash up out of nowhere to make you life even more miserable. You keep glancing down at your watch. >Five, ten, fifteen minutes late. You're just waiting for some annoying asshole to drop out of the sky. >When the bus finally pulls up (twenty minutes late, of course) it looks almost empty and no motherfucking furries have shown up, you make the mistake of thinking that things might not be so awful. >The doors creak open and you clamber awkwardly up the steps that are sized for people on average three feet taller than you and show the tegu driver your passcard. >She glances at your card, and sticks her thick, pink forked tongue out in your general direction before waving a chubby hand toward the bus interior. >"This weather, huh?" >Her voice is raspy and you grunt noncommittally as you mount the last step and hurry inside. >At least she doesn't smell like wet fur. >But, hey, you made it onto the bus, all alone, and start making your way toward the back where the smaller seats are as you wait for the pneumatic hiss of the closing door. >The pneumatic hiss that you should be hearing any second now. >"Wait! Wait! Wait!" >Fuck. It sounds like a whole shitload of people are yelling at the same time. >Goddamit. >You sigh and plop down onto a slick plastic seat, then turn to see what kinds of stinky motherfuckers are about to ruin your already shitty bus ride. >It's Just one motherfucker, though. A reddish brown wasp, about the same size as you, hops onto the bus in a bright yellow raincoat. Whenever she talks, her voice sounds like about six people talking at the same time, and comes from under the raincoat instead of from her face. Her weird, helmet-looking face. >So of course she traipses down the aisle and sits down like, one seat away from you. Her top two arms unbutton her raincoat and she puts the bags of groceries she was carrying in her bottom two arms down in the seat next to her. She leans back and lets out either one or six long, exhausted sighs, depending on how you're counting. >Honestly, you haven't really seen many bug-people around, and you can't help glancing at her out of the corner of your eye when you think she's not looking. >She's wearing bluejeans and a black t-shirt with no socks or shoes, and her legs look a lot like a digitigrade furry's leg, except they end in a weird toe thing that's rough on the bottom and has two little claws on the front. Her hands, similarly, consist of a rough central pad with claws instead of fingers, although there's three of them on her hands and one is placed like a thumb. Some of the segments on her arms and legs are also faded yellow instead of rusty red-brown. >Seeing as how most of the insects you've seen have been tiny, you never looked at any of them up close before. It makes her look a lot more alien than the dog or horse furries you've seen. You notice that instead of being hard like armor, there's some flexibility in most of her carapace. Some parts seem almost totally rigid, and other ones seem softer than your skin, like the front of her neck, and the back of her knee (or whatever part of her leg that is.) >Because this bus is made for furries, there's a slot in the back of the seat for tails, so you can't really see her abdomen without being really obvious about it. >You also notice that her glossy black wings come out of slots in the back of her raincoat and disappear behind the seat. >"You know I can see you, right?" her weird six-voice says, making you jump. >It's so weird to hear her talk without seeing her li-big, serrated mandibles move. Her head is still facing forward too, fat antennae bobbing with the movement of the bus. >You don't say anything, because you don't really have anything to say, and just rivet your eyes to your shoes. >"Hey, that's not fair," she says, making you jump in your seat again. "I've been checking you out too. You just can't tell. I haven't really seen a human close-up." You glance over again and she's still facing forward and pretty much immobile. It's like a prank show or something with a hidden speaker under a mannequin. But, hey, if she's staring at you, you might as well stare back, so you twist in your seat so you're facing her full-on. >You look closely at her heart-shaped head. Her big, black eyes bracket either side of it, wrapping from the top to about midway down her face. You notice that her antennae also start around the middle of her head instead of the top, and you can see her shiny mandibles and a bunch of little complex mouthparts under her jaws. >The chitin on her throat looks like skin and is almost translucent. You can see little movements, but they don't match up with her speaking or breathing. You can hear her breathing, but her chest is completely still. So weird. >"I wasn't checking you out," you say somewhat indignantly, just to have something to say. You don't like feeling like somebody's got one over on you, and she's just sitting there like a robot. It's just weird. >"I'm Lacey," she says, turning to actually face you. She holds out one of her upper hands and you shake it. Her hand has softer chitin underneath, although it's got a rough texture that probably helps her hold stuff. Up to the first joint of her finger is the same as her palm, but the rest of it is a slightly curved, smooth, hard claw. Her arms are pretty thin, but you can tell how strong she must be from the handshake. >You introduce yourself. ------------------------------------------------------- >You and the wasp girl you just met and sitting at the back of the shitty bus while it pours rain outside. >You just shook hands and she told you her name is Lacy, so now it's time to sit awkwardly while you sort of stare at each other. >Even though you can't really see where she's looking because of her big, pupilless black eyes. >Really, though, she's not bad looking at all for a bug. She's about as tall as you are, and her cutoff bluejeans hug her full hips and thighs. The black t-shirt she's wearing has two holes cut in the armpits for her slender lower arms, and there's only a very faint swell in the chest. Do bugs have tits? You don't really know. >She's unbuttoned her bright yellow raincoat and taken off the sleeves so it's more or less a dry place to sit and lean back against. Her thick, reddish brown abdomen pulses faintly behind the seat, and you can hear her steady breaths coming from it. Her long black translucent wings are behind the seat along either side of it and shimmer faintly either with water or iridescence. It's really hard to say which. >"You know, it really is super unfair," she says. "Mammals are so easy to read." You haven't quite gotten used to her weird voice that comes from the same six holes she breathes out of, so everything sounds like a chorus speaking all at the same time. "I can see basically everything around me at the same time, and I just have to pay attention to where your eyes point and what kind of weird shape your face turns into to basically read your mind." She sounds somewhat smug as you stare into her completely immobile face. Well, her antennae bounce and bob with the motion of the bus, and the weird little mouthparts move around under her mandibles, but that doesn't really mean anything to you. >"Really?" you say, sitting back and crossing your arms, "Then what am I thinking about right now?" >She unfolds an upper arm from behind the empty seat next to her and taps a long claw against one of her mandibles. >"You're thinking that you've never met anybody as intriguing as your best friend Lacey, and you just can't help noticing how elegant she is." She raises up one finger. "So much so, in fact," she continues with her weird chorus-voice, "that you feel like she's probably way out of your league and you want to give her your number but you're worried she'll say 'no,'" >Your face had become more and more neutral as she talked until it had finally settled into an amused smirk. >"Really?" you say. >"Really," she answers, nodding her head and making her antennae bob up and down frantically. >You can't help it. You bust out laughing, slapping your thigh and doubling over. You wipe a tear from the corner of your eye and glance up into the mostly-empty bus to see the few anthros scattered around looking in your direction. >Lacey, of course, looks exactly the same as she did a second ago, her expressionless face a placid mask. >"Oh my god, you're hilarious," you say. Is she sitting a little more stiffly than before? She couldn't possibly have been serious, could she? >No fucking way. >You chuckle again and look at her closely. >She flinches slightly. >No fucking way. >Holy shit. >Well, you don't actually want her to feel like shit. You actually think she seems like an alright person and you know how shitty it feels to ask somebody out and have them turn you down, although nobody's literally laughed in your face before. >That's ok. You know what to do. >"So, would she?" You ask. >She flinches again. >"Huh?" >"Would she turn me down if I tried to give her my number?" >"Oh, uh, haha, I mean, probably not. She might look like a total class-act, but she's pretty down to earth, to be honest." Her voice is definitely more subdued than a few seconds ago. You can't fucking believe she wasn't joking. She's a million times more socially awkward than you are, and you're no Casanova. >Actually, she's reddish brown and yellow. Almost like spaghetti. >Exactly like spaghetti >She is pure spaghetti. >You take a receipt out of your pocket and write your number on the back, folding it up and slapping it into one of her unoccupied hands. The cold hard chitin of her fingers closes around the soft flesh of your hand for a moment before you gently withdraw it. >You look at the groceries she has in bags on either side of her. It's a shitton of food. At least six double- and triple-bagged grocery bags bulging with all kinds of ingredients, canned goods, whatever. >You'd just been thinking she must not get out much, but ... >"So, you're either having a party or you're really hungry," you say, looking pointedly at all the food. >"Oh, haha, no, actually," she says, seeming to have regained a little bit of her previous bravado, "That's for my mom and my sisters." >You raise your eyebrows, intrigued. "Big family?" >"Not yet. My mom, Ophelia, and her sister, my aunt, Oleander, and my three sisters Casey, Tracey, and Stacey, but mom just laid like, two more eggs, so, you know." >You absolutely do not know, actually. You were an only child and your parents lived pretty far away. Like, off-planet far away, but you still email and stuff every few weeks. You'd been living alone for the past eight years, in this city for five of them. You'd never even looked for roommates because you definitely didn't want to live with some giant, condescending anthro that clogged the shower every morning or whatever. Peed on the carpet. You're pretty sure they do that. >And 'dating' hasn't really been on your mind. It looks like most of your fellow humans, that live in this city anyway, aren't interested in preserving the human race and a future for human children. You'd actually dated a few anthros before, but yeah. It seems like they were much more interested with you as a novelty than as a person. Plus they stunk and clogged up the shower constantly. ------------------------------------------------------------ >"That sounds like a lot to me," you say. "I've lived alone for like, forever." You did conspicuously notice that a dad wasn't mentioned, but figure it's probably not something you just randomly asked somebody about. >Lacey slaps her two upper arms on the sides of her face, and clasps the hands of her two lower arms together against her chest. >"I could never live alone!" she says. "I can't even imagine how I could take care of everything? And what if I needed to do two things at once?! I'd panic! I don't know how mom did it for so long with just her and my aunt, before my sisters were born." >"What do you mean?" you ask. "Sure, there's rent and stuff, but it's really not like ... " You shrug. >"I don't even know! Mom takes care of everything at home, and me and my sisters go out and do the outside things, like work outside jobs and get groceries and stuff. So, you know, without mom, none of us would have the first idea of how to make sure all the things got done! You have to budget, and take care of eggs, and pay all the bills, and make sure everybody else is doing their stuff, and, you know, all the mom stuff!" >This is so completely alien to you. You've always been pretty much entirely self-sufficient and can't really imagine not just handling your own shit. >Her expressionless face doesn't move, but she kind of jumps in her seat a little. "Oh, crap, this is my stop coming up!" >The ticker is all the way at the front of the bus and her head isn't even close to pointing in that direction. She really can see everything, holy shit. >She pauses, rubbing all four of her hands together. >"So, uh, I know this is kinda weird, but we've been hanging out for the last, like, hour or so on the bus. Do you wanna eat supper with us?" >The carapace on her hands flex slightly from the force of her grip. Holy shit that's adorable. She is one hundred per cent pure fucking spaghetti. >And, honestly, you don't have work tomorrow and you were just going to jerk off and shitpost anyway, and honestly, you pretty much haven't really connected with anybody here. You have some off-world friends, but you haven't really gone anywhere and just hung out in probably years. It's kinda pathetic when you put it that way. >Oh dear lord, while you've been thinking her grip has only gotten tighter on her own hands, You're afraid something is going to break if she keeps it up. >"Sure, no problem!" you say, and the six sighs coming from her abdomen inform you that she'd been holding her breath. Right on time too, because the bus lurches to a stop and the doors hiss open. Jesus Christ it's still pouring rain out there. >Lacey grabs up her shitton of groceries in her lower arms and puts her upper ones back through the sleeves of her raincoat, buttoning it as she hops up. She reaches behind her, you'd think blindly if she was anything else, and grabs your hand as you stagger upright, pulling the hood of your raincoat up before you get drenched as she hauls you outside. -------------------------------------------------------------------- >You both dash out the door under the bus stop awning to get your bearings. >Well, Lacey drags you under the awning and there's very little you can do about it, to be fair, but she lets go of your hand as the bus doors close and it rumbles off into the storm. Did she think you were going to back out and literally run away? >The rain is hammering on the clear acrylic awning and you can barely hear anything. You're glad you're wearing waterproof boots and that your raincoat goes down to your ankles, otherwise you'd be drenched. >There's at least a half inch of water covering the ground and swirling constantly into the storm drains, which doesn't help you hear whatever it was that Lacey just said to you. >"What?" You yell, cupping your ear and leaning over next to her mouth. >Wait, right, that doesn't help at all. Not even a little. >Whatever she repeats is just as unintelligible. >She points toward her big, oval-shaped abdomen that isn't covered by her raincoat, so you crouch down next to it and put your ear close. >This is weird. You're basically listening to her butt. >Which is kinda less weird than talking to her face, in a way. The carapace that makes up her abdomen is in large, flat discrete plates that overlap one another, with the edge closest to her body under the plate behind it. The plates are reddish brown with bright yellow along the trailing edge of each and separate plates make up the top and bottom, and then overlap along the sides. At the juncture of each set of top and bottom plates there's an opening. The plates themselves kinda flare up and sort of cover it, so it's less like some visible mouth and more just a space that you can tell is there. These are obviously where she speaks and breathes from, and you can hear her panting? Is panting the right word? while her entire abdomen expands and contracts in a short, sharp rhythm as she breathes. >"We're only about a hundred feet away!" She says much more audibly than before. >You can't help but at least glance at the terminus of her abdomen. The plates get a lot more frequent but don't have the space for breathing between each segment, until the entire abdomen curves downward to a point. You can't really look underneath without being super obvious about it. Is that where her ... pussy is? Do bugs have a pussy? Is she like, walking around with her junk hanging out 24/7? >"Come on, what are you doing?" she yells loudly directly into your ear. You stand up, but keep looking at her abdomen. Because of the curvature, even standing directly behind her you can't really see anything lewd. >"Stop staring at my ass!" She says, laughing. The fuck? She can see directly behind her? Seeing as how you can see a little sliver of her eyes where they wrap around the top of her head, you guess you shouldn't be actually surprised about that. She reaches back and grabs your soft, fleshy hand in her strangely-textured, cool, clawed hand, and then starts hustling down the sidewalk, almost jogging. >she's not full-out running or anything, and she slows down a little when she feel tension on your arm if you start lagging behind. Other than the shining streetlights, you can barely see anything, and they're partially obscured by the sheets of driving rain pouring down around you. You're pretty lucky, on reflection, because your apartment is about a quarter mile from the closest bus station, plus another half hour to get there at least. >She suddenly stops and you run directly into her. Your hip bumps the side of her abdomen, and you're surprised by how much it gives, and also by the hot breath that blows against your leg. You're equally surprised by how her back doesn't give even a little, and your impact doesn't even rock her on her feet. >You can also hear marginally better now that you're under an overhang on the stoop of a single-story brick house. You note the moths fluttering around the globe light set in the alcove and wonder how wasp-people feel about regular-sized bugs. >"We're here!" she says, reaching in her raincoat pocket and pulling out a set of keys. You're reminded of the shitton of groceries she's holding in her bottom arms and remember fumbling with bags of shit while you try to unlock your door in the rain. >You are instantly extremely jealous. >You see the key turn as she uses her other free hand to turn the knob, and then she opens the door and pulls you inside. >There's a little white tiled foyer just inside the door with a little end table on each side covered with cups full of pens, loose change, various keys and other random items. You see some boots and slippers. They look like the ones made for hooved animals, pretty much, lined up under the tables too. Lacey closes and locks the door behind her and drops her own keys on one of the tables while she sets the bags of groceries on the floor. Her butt is facing into the interior of the house, which you can't really see, and you hear her, yes, still slightly freaky chorus-voice yell "MOMMMMMM! IT'S LACEY! I BROUGHT A FRIEND WITH ME!" >A shitload of other voices say variations of "OK," and that they're in various different places, and she hangs her raincoat on a row of pegs on the wall next to the end tables, from which several raincoats and jackets and hats and things are also hanging. She crouches slightly, grabbing her bags again, and you can see a short hallway with an open archway directly in front of you, another opening on the right, and a closed door on the left. There's definitely bright light coming from straight ahead, and you see more white tile and you think a counter or something. >You barely noticed as she took your raincoat off. You sort of automatically shifted your shoulders to let her strip it completely, although her antennae bump against your head and shoulders in the process. She hangs it up and starts jogging toward what you suspect is the kitchen, not turning to look at you as she says "That's the den on the right and the bathroom's down the hall on the left first door on the right! Go sit down and I'll be there in a second!" >You take off your shoes because you're not a filthy animal, and hear what is clearly a slightly deeper, more husky voice say "Motherfucking- Lacey! You're tracking water all over the house! Go wipe your feet!" as you duck into the side room where you expect a den to be. --------------------------------------------------------------------- >The living room is fairly cozy, a random assortment of loveseats, couches and recliners crammed into a loose semicircle. The room has dark wainscoting and wooden floors, bookshelves on the one bit of exposed wall next to the archway, and an entertainment center against the opposite wall. A scuffed wooden coffee table takes up the middle of the room and has various knicknacks, books, and dust collectors scattered across its surface. There's a big archway in the middle of the wall to your left, and you see more bright tile and a big dining room table with a bunch of chairs scattered haphazardly around it through there. The lights in the den are from a pair of standing lamps in opposite corners of the room, and they're much dimmer and warmer than the bright light spilling out of the dining room. >The room is also occupied. There's another wasp like Lacey, although her red is a richer shade and she's probably a good foot taller at least, lounging in an old gray recliner. It's a recliner for anthros, so there's a padded hole in the back, and it's reclined all the way, so her big bug butt hangs down underneath her, slowly pulsing as she breathes. She's wearing gray sweatpants with a pink stripe up the side and an unzipped blue hoodie over a man's v-neck undershirt. Her figure fills it out more substantially than Lacy's does her t-shirt. >This big wasp has a book in one upper hand, the pages of which she's turning with a lower hand. Her other lower hand is grabbing popcorn from a bowl to her right to shove into her open mandibles, where the weird little mouthparts disappear each kernel. Her final lower arm has a tv remote, and she seems to be idly flipping through channels. Her head, of course, isn't directly pointed at any of these things, and you stand there awkwardly for a moment not entirely sure what to do. >"I'm, uh, Lacey's, um, friend?" you say, giving her your name. Great. Lacey's spaghetti must be rubbing off on you. "You must be Lacey's ... aunt?" You're pretty sure you remember her saying her aunt lived with her. No way this was her mom. >"Oleander," she says in a slightly raspy, husky voice. All four of her hands smoothly rearrange what she's holding so the bowl of popcorn ends up on the end table closer to you, and she pats the back of the loveseat closest to it. Her antennae bob and wiggle in your general direction. "Want some popcorn?" >All kinds of clattering and chatter are filtering out through the dining room archway, although you can't really make out anything specific. ------------------------------------------------------------ >You shuffle slightly awkwardly around the coffee table and sit in the dead center of the loveseat, keeping your arms and legs to yourself. >"I'm good," you say. The loveseat isn't dirty, but it's definitely not new. The gray fabric is almost worn through on the middle of either armrest and the edges of the pillows. >Lacey's Aunt Oleander doesn't actually stop slapping the back of the loveseat with increasing force and insistence until you scooch over to the pillow closest to her, though. >One of her hands shakes the bowl, a big, scratched up plastic bowl, in your general direction until you take a few kernels and eat them. >Unsalted. Who the hell actually likes unsalted popcorn? >It's not like you can just pocket them or something either. You're remembering to be aware of the fact that apparently wasps can see, like, three hundred and forty degrees or something. >Oleander lets the TV sit on a news channel. There's a tuner, speakers and a big TV in the entertainment center, but none of it is the newest stuff, and there's scuff marks and scratches on pretty much everything. There's a massive salamander anthro on the TV, giant flat head with tiny little eyes, and there's a fire station or something behind him with a few emergency vehicles. It has to be from earlier because it's not night time and pouring rain. >"See? This whole place is going to shit," she says, probably to you but it's hard to be sure. >As you don't have anything in particular to say, she keeps going, "Saw this earlier. Some dude got stabbed like, fifty times and crawled out of an alley or whatever. I bet it was some party kids from offworld getting shithammered and three in the morning or something. The more people come here on vacation, the more of this kind of shit you see." >Honestly, you didn't have any idea what she was talking about. As far as you knew, the city had always had a huge population of offworlders who came here to work. Like you, for instance, so you just kind of nod noncommittally. Why the fuck would anybody come here to vacation? You decide to keep these opinions firmly to yourself. >"Hey! Girls!" Oleander yells, "Bring me a fruit punch!" >Bobbing an antenna at you, she says "You want anything?" and as you start to say you can get whatever yourself, her extremely strong hand presses against your chest, keeping you pinned to the sofa. The effortlessness with which she does this is starting to make you worried. >"Nah, that's what they're for," Oleander says before shouting again, "Bring Lacey's friend a fruit punch too!" she hollers. >Now that you think about it, you start to get more and more worried. It's pouring rain outside, nobody even knows you're here, and there are six strangers in your house that could probably tear you to pieces with almost no effort on their part. Lacey had said something about her mom laying eggs, and you remember some terrifying shit you read on the internet about how wasps lay eggs in other animals, and the grubs eat them alive from the inside while special chemicals turn their hosts into zombies. Or how other wasps paralyze their with venom and then stuff them into a tiny hole with their eggs, and when the grubs hatch they eat the paralyzed animals alive. >You think those are different wasps though. You remember that those kind are solitary, and the social kind don't do that. They just capture prey and bring it to feed to their grubs. >Which is not making you feel any more comfortable right now. >You'd mostly been around mammals and anthros, and they mostly worked the same biologically as you did, but bugs were weird. They usually kept to themselves and didn't really go out of their way to hang out with other anthros, from what you'd seen at least. You didn't know if the arthropods worked like the animals they remind you of from earth or not. Honestly, it'd never come up before, and it wasn't like you were hanging out or fucking any anthros on the regular. Of course, murdering you and feeding you to their children would one hundred percent be a crime, but who would ever know? How would they even find out? >Why the fuck would you let a random stranger bring you to an unknown location in the middle of a storm? You feel sweat start to collect on your brow. Even though Oleander has moved her hand away, you can still feel the memory of that pressure pressing down on your chest. >Just as you're about to panic, a wasp that looks a lot more like Lacey scampers into the room with two big cups of red fruit punch. She's a little shorter than you and wearing a blue t-shirt that just says "EGG" on it, and black exercise shorts. >"I'm Casey!" she says cheerfully as she presses the glasses into your and Oleander's hands and tousles your hair before she disappears just as quickly back into the kitchen. ---------------------------------------------------------- >"You know," Oleander says, in a tone that's making you increasingly uncomfortable, "We have really good senses of smell." You have no idea what she's getting at, but you know for sure that you don't like it. >"We can't change the shape of our faces like you mammals do," she continues in a seductive? tone? It's low and husky anyway. Her antennae wobble dangerously close to your sweaty face. "But we can smell each others' emotions ... " She lets it hang as your fear and anxiety mount. >Fortunately, another face slips around the corner. This one looks a lot like Lacey too, but she's definitely a little taller and less excitable? Spaghettiful? >"Lacey!" Her out-of-view butt yells. "Aunt Oleander is being a weirdo! You better hurry before-" You don't find out what you'd better hurry before, and an extremely disheveled Lacey with her shirt all askew staggers into the living room, her choral voice shouting "Mom! not now!" as she plops on the loveseat next to you. You're so confused that you forget about being terrified, and then, a wasp that's taller and redder than Oleander rounds the corner with two of her daughters in headlocks. >She's got proportionally wider hips than Oleander that fill out her tight jeans, and a long white fitted t-shirt under the apron she's wearing. The mostly-white and very stained apron has big scalloped edges with pink piping, and has "FILL IT KILL IT GRILL IT" Embroidered on the front. Whatever the fuck that means. She's at least a head taller that the daughters she's wrestling into view, and her big abdomen sways as she moves, absolutely massive compared to her daughters'. One of restrained girls is Casey and the other one you hadn't seen yet. She was around the same height as Lacey, and she was wearing a blue pleated skirt with some bike shorts underneath and a gray spaghetti strap top that doesn't cover her midriff. >The big, deep red wasp lets go of her daughters while shoving them back the way they came, bringing up a long, elegant bug foot to push more than kick them out of view. Before you can even say "What in the entire fuck?" she bounds across the cramped living room, totally clearing the table and crashing into Oleander's recliner, tipping it backwards. >"Stop! Stop!" Oleander squeals as the other wasp laughs, carefully plucking the glass of juice out of her hand as the bowl of popcorn tips, spraying its contents across the room. She deposits the glass into Lacy's hands as she uses all four of her arms to grab her sister's shoulders. Her thick thighs tense as she lifts her sister up over her head, and then bends backwards at the waist, suplexing Oleander onto the floor while her playful laughter fills the room. She keeps giggling, her voice rich and buoyant as she stands up and drags her resisting sister into the dining room. The recliner tips back onto its feet with a clunk, scattering even more popcorn. She releases her sister and gives her a shove on the ass with her foot like she did her daughters, saying "Go set the table. Get outta here! G'won, git!" while she does. >You sit in stunned silence as she dusts all four hands off on her apron. >"I'm Ophelia!" She says. Even though her face is just as impassive and expressionless as all of the other wasp faces, you can't help but imagine a big warm smile. "Dinner'll be ready in a minute." --------------------------------------------------------------------- >Lacey and the taller, older-looking sister, who was wearing sweatpants and a long shirt that went down to her knees, had both been cleaning up the popcorn without you even noticing Lacy wasn't sitting next to you anymore, and Ophelia helps you up, holding your shoulders in her upper hands while one lower hand is placed lightly on the small of your back to kinda scoot you forward. >Your mom and dad love you, but your mom didn't really, you know, mother you exactly, after you were a teenager anyway. Both your mom and dad respected your autonomy and pretty much treated you like an adult. >So you weren't sure exactly how to feel when Ophelia shuffled you through the dining room, where, you notice, Oleander is petulantly putting utensils and glasses on the table, and into the busy kitchen where the other two daughters were taking things out and putting them on trivets and putting serving spoons into various pots and dishes. >While you're hustled, you introduce yourself again and talk about how you'd just randomly met Lacey on the bus and she'd invited you to dinner, and she "mhmm"d and "tsk"d appropriately. She continued to bustle you on to the sink and turn your hands over, holding them in her smaller hands, while her larger hands turn on the water in the sink and starts squirting soap into your hands. You honestly don't think your mom ever literally washed your hands for you. Your mom also didn't have somewhat cold, chitin-covered three-fingered talons for hands either. In two different sizes. >"So," you say, "This is really, uh." >"I don't really know anything about your culture. Or biology." >"That's OK," she says, tousling your hair with one of her smaller hands while she continues to scoot you forward, put a plate in your hands, and start ladling a variety of things onto your plate. >"Don't be nervous. You can ask me pretty much anything you want." She squeezes your shoulder slightly with a free hand. You still can't really decide if the gesture is comforting or if the claws really make it a little sinister. >"So, uh, I guess I'm curious about Lacey's dad?" you say. You were weirded out by a lot of things, but that was the most conspicuous absence. >Ophelia laughs, a rich, choral sound. "Oh, he's been dead for," she seems to contemplate, "probably ten or twenty years before Lacey was born. I know it doesn't work this way for mammals, although honestly I don't really know anything about humans, but a mom wasp only needs to have sex once, and then from then on, she can choose when she wants to lay an egg, and if she wants it to be a boy or a girl, and if she wants a little daughter to live with her and help her, or a bigger daughter that's going to go out on her own and start her own family." She pats your shoulder. >"I hope I'm not making you uncomfortable," she says. >In the meantime, you have been shuffled back into the dining room. You notice that there are two big, grayish-tan octagonal boxes? Handing from the ceiling. Each one has a white ... something about the size of a football at the very bottoms of them. >"Those are my eggs," she says. "That's Maisy and Tracey," she points to each one of them. You thought she already had a daughter named Tracey, but don't say anything and she sits you down in a chair and fluffs a napkin into your lap. >She pets you again, rubbing the top of your head, before she sits down next to you, and Lacey sits on the other side. >"This is Lacey's new friend, everybody," Ophelia says. "And this is everybody. Lacey, Casey, Stacey (who is the one with the skirt and the exposed midriff), and Tracey (who is the tall one with the long shirt) and my worthless sister who I love very dearly, Oleander." >"Oh, fuck off," Oleander says, but she laughs. >Too stunned to do much, you look at your plate. There's a little biscuit and several big ladlefuls of various casserole-type dishes. Something that's full of veggies, and something that you think is lasagna. You notice that most of the same stuff is on everybody else's plate, although they have some kind of pinkish-grey disk of meat that they pick up and slice through with their mandibles. >Other than the fact that everything tastes sweet, sweeter than you'd have preferred for the most part, it's pretty decent food all around. The vegetable thing has preserves and jams in it, and there's definitely meat in the lasagna. >"Eat as much as you want," Ophelia says, but Lacey shooshes her. >"Mom, leave him alone. Humans only eat like, two thousand calories a day or something," Lacey says. You feel her squeeze your thigh with one hand, and say in a low, apologetic voice, "I'm really sorry. I should have warned you ... " >"Whaaat!" Stacey? says as she drinks some juice. "That's like nothing! Seriously!" You realize that they don't stop eating to talk, which makes sense because they don't talk with their mouths, and you also can't help but watch them eat. The little mouthparts under their mandibles take every make sure not a single scrap of food falls onto the table, but the weirdest thing is their tongues. >You don't really think about bugs having tongues, but they definitely do. Pretty dang long, thin tongues with triangular tips that they flick in and out rapidly to help them drink, seeing as how they don't have lips, exactly. >"Sorry I'm not saying much," you say to Lacey as you hear the constant chatter of various conversations around you, "I, uh, don't get out much." >You hear Ophelia laugh when you say that. "He's freakin' adorable, Lacey!" she says, lightly gripping your shoulder. >At least one of Ophelia's hands is usually touching you somewhere. Squeezing your shoulder, wiping the corner of your mouth with a napkin, petting your head, but you really don't think she's coming onto you or anything. She's just one of those people. Normally, you're not much for physical contact with strangers, and you really haven't met much stranger people than these, but there's something kinda comforting about a giant bug patting you on the back with her talons. >Lacey keeps one claw on your thigh throughout the meal, and you're not sure exactly what she means by that. You assume she's one of the 'little daughters that stay and help you out' that Ophelia was talking about, but you weren't sure exactly what that means. >"Don't worry about it!" Lacey says, regarding your relative shyness, "You're the first friend I've ever had over, and, uh, I'm outside doing stuff a lot, so I know how, um, different? We are?" Her claw lightly squeezes your thigh again, and you can't stop thinking about the fact that while she's saying all this, she's not facing you and also eating food at the exact same time. >You do make a little smalltalk, asking her what she does and finding out she's a courier, while you explain your job in one of the massive office buildings downtown to her. You think she's probably interested in what you're saying. Even though she isn't facing you and her face is expressionless, she squeezes your thigh and boops your forehead with one of her antennae every now and then. >Before you know it, you're done eating. Very full after some really sweet cakes drenched in honey were provided for desert, and the plates were cleared and food put away without anybody having to say anything. >Ophelia's daughters just kinda do stuff without being told, working together harmoniously. Other than Oleander, who grouses and needs some prodding to help. >You stand up and start to sort of make your way towards the door while various wasps bustle around you. You thank Lacey for having you over, and her mom for hosting and feeding you, and start to walk toward the door until you feel a talon grasp the back of your shirt. >"Where do you think you're headed?" Ophelia says. >"I figured I'd, you know, head out?" you say. >Oleander, who'se ensconced herself in the recliner again, laughs. "Good luck! It's gonna be storming all night long. No way she's letting you leave." >Your heart catches in your throat. Were they going to murder you after all? Fear claws its way along your spine. >Ophelia seems vaguely insulted, and you hear her massive abdomen "harumph" behind you. >Somewhat apologetically, she says "Well, she's not wrong though. We've got a car. I can have somebody drive you home in the morning. There's absolutely no reason at all for you to be out in that horrible weather." >You make a valiant attempt, "Oh, I mean, I couldn't possibly impose like that!" but Oleander's laugh from the other room lets you know it's totally futile. >"I figured this was gonna happen," Lacey says, again, apologetically, as she holds your hand and starts leading you through the door you hadn't been through before. It opens into a carpeted hallway with a few other doors scattered down either side. She points to one and says "Bathroom," and then opens a different one and leads you inside. ------------------------------------ >"Sorry it's messy," she says as she flips on a light. It's a cozy bedroom with dark wood veneer paneling on the walls. There's a single twin bed in a scratched metal frame with faded pink sheets and a thick wool comforter with a picture of a wolf on it in the middle. >You can see a half-open closet with random clothes semi-neatly piled on various shelves, and there's a desk against the other wall with a little bookshelf, a lamp, and a bunch of random chargers plugged into a power strip, and a bunch of toy? maybe model space ships scattered across the surface. >There's also some band posters on the wall, along with a poster of a human wizard holding a crystal skull full of lightning. >You're pretty sure you're not gonna be eaten at this point, and you start to relax, although you aren't really sure how relaxed you should be. >The thick carpet is lavender? Maybe pink? >Even though she doesn't really have facial expressions, Lacey's body language is very readable. Her limbs are stiff, and her movements uncertain and awkward. You can tell she's clearly super nervous. At any second, her spaghetti is bound to come pouring out. >"I, uh, you know? Um?" She twists one of her toe-claws back and forth on the carpet, "W-we, usually, uh, s-share beds, but I know that for most people that's uh, kinda, you know? um." She mumbles something unintelligible and twists the bottom of her shirt with one claw. ---------------------------------------------- >"Hey, it's fine," you say. You gently pull her hand off the hem of her shirt. Well, you put her hand in yours, and she lets you remove it from the hem of her shirt, because she's significantly stronger than you are. You keep her three talons closed and hold her fist, rubbing the back of her hand. >You can feel that her long, slightly curved claws are hard. They feel almost like metal and are completely inflexible against the palm of your hand, but the carapace on the back of her hand divots when you apply some pressure to it with your free hand. It's smooth, like a semi-rigid plastic, although you can feel that it gets softer and more like almost velvety skin closer to her wrist. >"I'm gonna go use the bathroom right quick," you say. "You can put some blankets or whatever on the floor for me if it's a big deal." >You have to piss pretty bad anyway, and you figure that'll give her time to de-spaghetti. >When you step out, the door into the den/kitchen/dining room is still open, and you can hear chatter and what sounds like the TV on or some music or something. >The door at the end of the hall is also open, and you can see the dark outline of a ginormous bed. You've lived alone so long that you just grab the bathroom doorknob and turn. Nobody's in there, though, and you flick on the lights. >The bathroom is kinda smallish, with linoleum on the floor, a shower/tub obviously designed for a bigger anthro (you figure at least three of the wasp girls could fit in there,) a normal-sized toilet, and not one of the weird ones to accommodate tails either. All the toilets at work are both too big and oriented sideways, and so this toilet, just like the toilets you've grown up with, gives you a little twinge of nostalgia. >There's also a vanity with a sink. It's covered in linoleum that's peeling up on the edges, and various items are scattered haphazardly across the top. >There's also a mirrored medicine cabinet that's closed, and some rough wooden shelves over the toilet that have a bunch of towels and washrags. >The slightly yellowed translucent shower curtain is pulled all the way to one side, and you do see soaps and bodywash and stuff scattered around the rim of the tub, with loofahs and those wooden bristle-brushes for washing your back. You also see what appear to be dishwashing sponges with the scour on one side, and a bottle of what you think is window cleaner. >As you pee, you look around and notice a few things that strike you as odd. >Pretty much every bathroom you've ever been in has certain characteristics that are entirely absent here: First, there's no hair anywhere. Even the cleanest bathroom you'd been in had at least a few hairs on the counter or on the floor, but there's nothing. There's a little dust and some scuffmarks here and there, so it definitely looks lived-in, and there's a trashcan in between the toilet and the vanity, all hair-free. Not even in the shower drain. It seems almost alien. The hard water spots are there, but that's it. >The second thing is that the mirror is spotless. Like hair, there's usually at least a few toothpaste spatters on every bathroom mirror, but they are absent here. >Shit. >You'd intended on using your finger to brush your teeth and hadn't even considered that there wouldn't be toothpaste. Instead, there's a cup that has what look like metal rasps in it, and a big glass container with some mysterious clear liquid in it. There are several different-colored long-handled plastic brushes in it, but when you sniff it, it doesn't have any noticeable odor whatsoever. Something tells you it's not water, though. >You zip up your pants and are about to leave when the door opens. Right, fuck, living alone, you pretty much never lock it. >Casey? the shorter one with the "EGG" shirt and the exercise shorts, and Sttttacey? you think? the one with the skirt and spaghetti strap top, body on past you and bustle on in, chatting with one another about nothing in particular, which sounds like a gaggle of girls with just the two of them. >Before you can ask anything, Casey grabs the brush out of the weird glass thing and starts scrubbing Stacey's abdomen. The bathroom's not the roomiest in the world, and you're kinda pushed into the corner a bit by Casey's abdomen, which is pressed against your stomach. It compresses, curling under slightly, and appears extremely flexible. It's much more mobile that pretty much any anthro's tail that you've seen, and you notice that aside from the expansion and contraction of her breaths, there's also a steady thrum of what sort of reminds you of a heartbeat. Of course, it's also like at least four people are talking while they're pressed against your skin, and having a big, slightly yielding, pulsing, vibrating thing that slithers against you like and animal is starting to make your jeans get tight before Casey suddenly turns around and Stacey starts doing the same thing to her. >Casey's facing you at least, so nothing's pressed against you. >"Turn around, I'll get your back," she says cheerfully, taking another brush out of the big glass jar. >"Uhm, I have no idea what that is, but it's definitely not something humans do," you say. "I'm looking for something to clean my teeth with?" you smile, showing her your teeth. >"You can probably use our venom?" she says helpfully as her abdomen curls up like a viper, and a two foot long, curved, thin stinger slides out just underneath the end, right below the tapered point. Her abdomen darts down, also like a viper, but as you cringe away, about half the stinger slides into the glass container instead. The stinger itself glints with liquid, and you can see the chiseled end, almost like a hypodermic needle, as Casey's whole abdomen pulses, and clear venom runs out of her stinger and down the side of the glass. >The stinger itself retracts partway in and then slides out again in a steady, almost sensual rhythm, and as the tip clinks against the glass no part of the stinger flexes in the least, as if it were made of steel. >You kinda thought you'd be safe from the stingers if you were in front of the wasps, but it's abundantly clear that she could very easly curve it around the side of her body or between her legs and stab you pretty effortlessly. >"We're making sure we don't have any parasites," Casey says helpfully. >Her stinger withdraws and her abdomen goes back to its original position, and she clasps all four of her hands against her chest, her posture getting more rigid. >"Shit! Sorry!" she says, probably noticing how pale you've gotten. "I, uh," she stammers for a second, "Yeah don't touch our venom. It's not super acidic, but it will absolutely burn your skin. and you should totally not put it in your mouth." >You're glad you finished pissing before they barged in because you absolutely would have pissed yourself just then. >You quickly excuse yourself and hustle back to Lacey's room. ----------------------------------------------------- >You hear voices inside though, and are simply not prepared to deal with another encounter that's close to what you just dealt with. >So you lean against the doorjamb and try to listen in. >"Well, at work they get really upset about it all the time." Those voices sound like Lacey. >"Just ask him." It's not the mom or aunt, so by process of elimination, it's Tracey? >"Tracey, no, you don't understand!" she sounds almost frantic. "Sarah and Jane at work got into a huge fight over the same person sleeping with both of them! Jane was like 'Sarah I can't believe you slept with him' and Sarah was crying and saying 'It just happened! We were drunk!' over and over! This is seriously a huge deal for mammals!" >"Mom was telling him about laying eggs and stuff," the much calmer one says. "He didn't freak out and run away, like, at any point." There's a pause. "I'm just going to ask him when he gets back." >"Tracey! No! Please! Tracey! Don't! please!" she sounds on the verge of a total meltdown, so you knock on the door. You still here some muffled "Tracey don't ok? Tracey!"s. >So you open the door and see, indeed, Tracey and Lacey standing in the middle of the room. They're also both completely naked. >Your cheeks are immediately burning and you have no idea where to look. The three of you just stand there in shocked silence until you notice a few things. The first thing you notice is that although their chest has a feminine shape, you're pretty sure those are maybe muscles or something, and not actually breasts, because there is a conspicuous lack of nipples, which makes sense, if you think about it. The next thing you notice is that although their hips, also, have a very feminine shape. A softly-curved, extremely attractive feminine shape, there's nothing between their legs. It's just smooth chitin. You can tell that their bellies and hips are probably pretty soft, with small creases in their skin on either side of their featureless groins. >Lacey is slimmer, more athletic-looking, where Tracey has a bit of pudge on her belly, which also completely lacks a navel. >Their heavy abdomens pulse behind them, Lacey's much faster than Tracey's, and their antennae bob slightly, faces pointed in seemingly arbitrary directions. >"So, I can totally sleep on the floor if it's a big deal," you say. "I don't wanna get into some whole," you wave your hands vaugely, "thing here." >"Oh, it's not a big deal if you want to sleep with us," Tracey says, and Lacey punches her on the shoulder. "Lacey just thinks," Lacey shoves her harder and says "Shut up!" ------------------------------------------------------- >"Okay, I get it now," you say, still blushing, as you close the door behind you. You aren't a prude or anything, but it's totally awkward to have to have 'the talk' with two girls who have no idea how mammals work. >"So, when most people who aren't like you talk about 'sleeping together,' they're not talking about sleeping in the same bed." >Both of them plop down on the bed obliviously in what would be slutty, open-legged poses if there was anything between their legs to show off. Both of them cock their heads to the side in opposite directions, the choral hiss of the breathing through their fat abdomens rustling the sheets. >"So, uh," You can't help it, you start to pace back and forth in front of them, and although their heads don't track your movement, you can tell they're both absolutely riveted. "When mammals say they slept with somebody, they mean that they mated," Would they understand 'mates?' "Had sex with them." >"Because I remember your mom saying that she had sex one time forever ago, and she can use that to keep laying eggs." They both actually nod at that. God, it so hard when you can't tell if they're embarrassed or interested or curious or what. You do notice that instead of just letting you walk past, they keep their heads facing you. It's a little unnerving. Oh well, you soldier on. "For most of us, we have to have sex like, right when we want a kid. The sperm just goes away if it doesn't make a kid, and neither one is really sure if a kid gets made when you have sex. So you keep doing it a lot with the person you want to make a kid with, so it's like, a very personal, intimate thing that you pretty much only do with somebody you're in love with, or really like, and ... " Are you losing them? Do they even understand what you're talking about? "Yeah, it's really intimate. And if somebody you think is having sex with only you goes around and has sex with your friend, that's like ... " this is literally something that's never happened to you. You've been out on dates and stuff, but you honestly never had some kind of deep, romantic relationship with anybody. "Yeah, it makes you feel really shitty ... " You just kinda let it die there while you wonder if this is making any sense. they probably have no conception of sex or romance or dating or anything like that. >"Okay," Tracey says, "I think I get it." She taps her mandibles with one talon. >"We just always sleep together for warmth. And it just makes us feel safe. Mom and them are all in the master bedroom, but I sleep in here because I'm a little ... " she instantly seems uncomfortable, and you see Lacey pat her on the back with one hand, and squeeze one of her hands with another. "So, somebody usually sleeps in here with me." >"We take turns," Lacey says helpfully. "We don't all fit on the big bed either, so, you know, but nobody needs to sleep by themselves." >"Well, I'm glad we figured all that out," You say, "And given the choice, I think I'd rather share the bed with you two than sleep on the floor." >They both nod. >Now, you consider, on the one hand, they're both naked. But on the other hand, they don't have any visible genitals. You decide to split the baby and take off your socks, pants, and button-up shirt, and leave on your boxers and undershirt. They've both kept tracking your movement with their heads the whole time, and, maybe it's your imagination, or maybe you're just getting used to them, but it feels like they're looking at you intensely. Humans are pretty rare, after all. They've probably never seen one. Especially one without pants on. >The two girls stand up, Tracey slower than Lacey, and flip the heavy comforter back, and then Lacey scootches over up against the wall. Tracey hits the lights, but there's enough ambient light outside to see, and Lacey hops into bed too, laying on the outside edge, facing in, so that there's a nice spot right in the middle for you. >You can actually see the undersides of their abdomens now, Lacey's still pulsing much faster than Tracey's, and you can see the sort of triangular clamshell that is the last pair of segments. A few inches of stinger are visible there. Nothing overlaps these segments either, so it looks like they could open. You have no idea, but their sexy parts have to be in there somewhere. >You slide in between them, and almost instantly, Lacey flips the blanket down over all three of you, and both girls scootch in until their bodies are pressed against you on either side. You're laying on your back, and both sisters reach across you with their upper arms, their lower arms crisscrossing over your stomach and lightly holding your hip on either side. >"I'm a lot more breakable than you two," you say, but so far they're being very gentle and careful. You can feel somebody's hand squirm up against your side, and somebody else's hand wiggle underneath you and settle against the small of your back, the tips of her claws poking lightly against your skin. >"Can you turn your hand over?" you ask, and she immediately complies with an "oh, sorry!" (it was Tracey.) Both girls nuzzle up against you, the smooth surface of their faces, and, somewhat disconcertingly, their eyes, rub against your cheeks, and you wiggle your arms under their necks and gently rub their backs, right between the wings. >Lacey runs her smaller hand through the light hair on your thigh and along your belly, using the palm of her hand more than the claws, which probably can't feel anything, really. >you also rub both their backs, feeling the completely immobile plates on their upper back, and the more flexible, skinlike carapace further down, not quite able the reach the segment where their abdomen begins. >Their chests and bellies are both pretty soft, and then, first Tracey and then Lacey slide their legs across your body, encasing you in smooth chitin. You do notice that even though their chests don't rise and fall, you can feel a heartbeat in their thoraxes, through the soft flesh there, much cooler than yours. >Their wandering hands slowly stop, but it's not like a person, where the moment of sleep comes along with a relaxing droop of the limbs. They seem to be gripping each other tightly with the claws on their upper arms and feet, immobile, as the steady breathing from their abdomens gradually slow. >You close your eyes and wonder if you're going to get any sleep. ---------------------------------------------------------- >You're so used to sleeping alone that it's weird to be snuggled against. It's unusual to have another living creature sharing the bed; you've never even had a cat or anything. Of course, you've slept in a bed with other people before, but your awareness of their body so close to yours always nagged at your brain meat and made it hard for you to drifting off to sleep. >This is different from the usual scenario, though. Better in a lot of ways. >There's no breath blowing against you. No hair getting in your mouth or nose. They may not be as soft as humans, but their bodies aren't hard and inflexible for the most part, other than their claws and mandibles. >And eyes, which you strongly prefer not to think about. >The rain is no longer a torrential downpour, and you can hear it pitterpattering against the bedroom window. You close your eyes, feeling their heartbeats, just barely able to make out the susserations of their breathing under the blankets. >Your body is also much warmer than either of them, so you aren't sweating where your flesh touches their chitin. Really, it's not like ... >You're warm, you can't move your arms or legs, and various plastic shapes are pressing against almost all of your body. You start to struggle, thrashing around, trying to pick your arms up, wriggling, all with no result whatsoever. Various of the plastic shapes compress to a lesser or greater degree, but they quickly return to their original shape. >You shout, opening your eyes, and remember where you went to sleep. That you're (relatively?) safe, and that you're being firmly cuddled by two wasp girls. >Shockingly, all of your thrashing and shouting didn't wake either one of them up, and you glance down and their impassive faces, both of which are pressed firmly against your torso. >The fact that you can look directly into their eyes, which are pressed against your body, (well, mostly against your undershirt, but still,) is just as disconcerting as you thought it would be. >Seeing as how they're both totally unresponsive, you begin to wriggle more forcefully, rocking to the side and slowly extracting first your right arm, then your left arm. Rocking side-to-side and using your shoulders, you manage to wiggle upward toward the headboard, sliding halfway out of their embrace so both wasps's faces are pressing against your thighs instead of your chest, although this does require you to reach down and hold onto your underwear so you don't just shimmy completely out of it. >No reaction from either wasp. They are entirely dead to the world. >You can see it's still dark out, and there must be a light mist of rain. Light pollution fills the bedroom through the blinds, painting the space in blues and grays. >When they sleep, they must really sleep. >Cautiously, you reach out, pressing your hand against Lacey's head. It's hard and smooth, and your fingers trace the seams in her carapace. You run the backs of your fingernails lightly across her eyes. They feel glassy and smooth, and as you look into them, you can see a faint pattern visible in the translucent blackness. You notice three little domes at the top of her head that have the same glassy sheen as her eyes, and trace around each of them and down to the softer, almost velvety skin of her neck. >Unable to help yourself, you stroke along the underside of her jaw, where the chitin under her chin feels like loose, stretchy skin, and the little mouthparts are pressed tightly against the underside of her mandibles. >You touch those, too. Tapping them with your fingernail, you can tell that they're extremely hard, and you press your thumb against the tip of one and notice that they're also fairly sharp. Not enough to draw blood from casual contact, but you have no illusions about their ability to cleave through your flesh and probably bones with minimal effort. >You play with the bulbous end of her antenna, running your hand along the little segments down to the soft joint where they connect to her face. There's no response whatsoever. Wasps must be hard sleepers. >You look over at Tracey, and you can see several differences. Tracey's carapace is lighter, almost sun-faded, and you can see that her head, especially her mandibles, but even her shoulders and back, have a liberal scattering of scuffmarks and scrapes. No deep gouges or anything like that, just signs of what you'd call "wear use" if it was on a tool. Maybe her lighter color was because she was about to molt? Wasn't that a thing insects did? >Deciding that it's probably better to try and get a little more sleep, and that it's probably better if they wake up with you where you were when Lacey and Tracey went to sleep, you squirm and twist your body until you've wedged yourself back between the two wasp girls. >You settle back into the embrace of their slightly cool bodies, and manage to shove your arm under Lacey's comatose body, but just sort of leave your other arm crossed over your chest. This is actually pretty nice. You close your eyes and try to let your thoughts bubble up and out of your brain without reflecting on them, until your mind is peaceful ... >A sharp claw lightly taps you on the shoulder. You grunt, pressing your face into the yielding flesh in front of you as you try to block out the light filtering through your eyelids. >One of your legs is wrapped over someone else's very smooth legs, and you're tightly hugging someone's torso, grumbling into their soft chest. >"Psst, hey," another insistent tap on your shoulder. Another grumble from you as you attempt to burrow into the body of the wasp you're aggressively snuggling. Awakeness is forcing its way into your brain little by little, like the light slipping around the curves of Lacey's body and play against your eyelids. >You grumble unintelligibly and begin to notice that the thin fabric of your boxer shorts does very little to protect your boner from the smooth carapace of Lacey's thigh, which you are lightly humping. >The facts reiterate themselves once again. >You definitely have a boner. >You're definitely humping Lacey's thigh >It definitely feels pretty good. >Something very large and warm is placed firmly against the side of your head, and you feel the large warm thing pulsing rhythmically as air caresses the side of your face, and a much louder whisper is heard originating just above your ear. >"Hey. Psst! Wake up!" >"Do they really wiggle around like this while they're asleep?" You hear Lacey's voices coming from somewhere near your legs. >You are fully awake now, and have ceased to hump. How do you play this off? On the one hand, they don't really understand sex stuff. On the other hand, you probably shouldn't tell them that dry humping strangers is normal. >You roll over slowly, which, incidentally, presses your face directly against the thick, pulsing abdomen directly above you, and begin to quickly disentangle yourself from Lacey. >"Oh, uh," you say, taking your turn as spaghetti in chief. >You slide out from underneath Tracey, who is kneeling alongside you with her butt in your face, and stand up, quickly pulling on your pants as you attempt to hide your shame. >"Okay, see, I get it now," Lacey says. Is there a hint of sly fuckery in her voices? "This is why sleeping together is the same as having sex." >You start buttoning up your shirt, facing away from the wasps, and hear Lacey gasp. >"W-were you trying to have sex with my thigh?!" she says indignantly, although you think, or maybe just hope, that there's a hint of playfulness in her voices. >"Uh, n-not exac- uh." you mumble, buttoning the wrong buttonhole, undoing it, and trying again. "It's not ..." >"Remember Lacey!" Tracey says. There's definitely fuckery in her voice, you're sure of it. "Humans only do that with somebody they love, remember?" >"O-or really like!" Lacey says. You have to stop this, but your fingers are not functioning properly. At least the shame and embarrassment has reduced your boner to a mere shadow of its former glory. >You feel one of the two sisters, although you don't know which one, slither up against your back, rubbing your arms with her two lower arms, and stroking your shoulder and hair with her upper arms. Her attempt to comfort you only makes this more awkward as Tracey, you assume, slowly rotates you to face Lacey, who's still sitting on the bed with all four hands clasped to her chest and her legs folded demurely underneath her. >"A-are you in l-" she doesn't finish. This is getting way out of hand. >You shrug out of Tracey's grasp because you can't exactly knock her hands away, and back up several steps, waving your arms in front of you. >"That's just a thing that happens sometimes!" you say somewhat frantically. "When we're asleep, our brain doesn't know what's going on!" >Lacey's hands all drop limply into her lap and she lowers her head. >"S-so, you don't l-like ... " >"No! No! I mean, yes! I mean I think you're cool!" you stammer. That bitch Tracey is just standing there all innocent-like, but you think you hear giggling coming out of her big bug ass. >She prances over to Lacey and helps her to her feet, and they both start getting dressed as you put your gross yesterday socks back on. >"Okay, okay," Tracey says, bustling both you and Lacey out the door after everyone is dressed. You hear the shower running, and only Oleander is missing when you are brought to the dining room. A plate on which sit sweet pancakes with syrup is thrust into your hands, and you're seated at the big dining room table next to Ophelia. A fork and knife are placed into your hands, your fingers gently closed around them by waspy talons, and a glass of fruit juice is placed on the table next to you. >"Did you sleep well?" Ophelia asks you, tousling your hair with a free hand. >You eat the pancakes without really meaning to. There's some kind of fruit in the batter itself, and the syrup is extremely sugary, but it's a damn good breakfast, although you really want a cup of coffee. >"Thanks for letting me stay over," you say. >"Any time you want!" Ophelia says, patting your head. >"I think it's good for my girls to get to know other species, and Lacey has always been interested in humans." You're not sure exactly how she means that last bit, and although the other girls are all chattering among themselves, Lacey is strangely silent. >When you finished up, your plate was removed by one of the daughters, your glass following shortly thereafter when you'd finished your juice. >"Okay champ!" the shorter one, Casey? says, and you see Lacey busy with something on a side table near the kitchen. She tears off a scrap of paper and hand it to Stacey, who hands it to Casey, who leads you over to the doorway and starts putting on a raincoat, getting a set of keys out of the bowl next to the door. She puts the now slightly crumpled paper into your hand after you lace up your boots, and she helps you into your own raincoat as you're hurried out the door. >Casey holds your hand and leads you to an old sedan. There's no rust on it, but it's definitely seen better days, and the paint is badly faded on the roof and hood. It's overcast and drippy, but the sun's out at least and there's only a hit of chill in the air. >Casey opens the door for you and buckles your seat belt once you get in. The big empty space behind your ass has always been slightly uncomfortable in these tail-accommodating cars, and this one smells slightly musty inside. The fabric seats are a little threadbare, and the dashboard and steering wheel are both sun bleached. Your driver seats herself behind said wheel after carefully maneuvering her abdomen through the hole, and the car starts up on the third try. >"She's not a morning person," Casey says by way of explanation. Soon enough, you're pulling out of the little suburb, and Casey says "Ok champ, where do you live?" >You tell her as you unfold the scrap of paper, which, unsurprisingly contains Lacey's number. >This was, without a doubt, the weirdest night of your life.