Phantom Hole Booth: Vol 3 Cherry

CHAPTER 1

Agan’s laughter is at odds with the harmonic buzz from the station lights, but everyone else laughs with him. Everyone except Kita. My best friend grimaces as she wraps a tentacle around my arm and rests her head on my shoulder.

But she doesn’t think any of her brother’s jokes are funny. She doesn’t really like anything he does.

I’m sure I’d feel similarly if I had a brother who got along with everyone.

Agan does. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s sexy… not that I would ever tell Kita I feel that way about him.

He’s just… everything a young alien ought to be.

“Ugh.” Kita groans and pinches me with one of her suckers. “Stop looking at him like that, Annika. He’s not as great as everyone thinks.”

I do stop looking at him, because Kita’s probably right. Even if I don’t want her to be.

She’s the one of us who would know, right?

“You left a mark.” I turn my arm and we both look down at where the pinch left a small crescent moon shape on my skin.

“Sorry. I forget how fragile you are.” She pets my skin and I think she scowls.

I’ve known her for two years and I still can’t read all her facial expressions.

“We weren’t all made for the vacuum of space.”

She chuckles. “A pity. I’ll never be able to take you home with me.”

I lean close and stage whisper, “Get me a space suit.”

Someone to my left snorts, and I look at the alien man sitting nearby. He’s all hollow chest and fishbowl eyes. But he looks at me with what is definitely a scowl. His lips take up half his face and never hide anything.

I don’t ask him what made him scowl this time. He’s never liked me.

An echoing click makes me flinch and I look up at the waiter as they lower a tray laden with to-go cups on the table.

The languages written across them form patterns that make me smile… even if mine just says “Annika cappu”.

Kita passes me my small cappuccino from the tray and the rest of the group starts to break up. Most of us have work to get to. Stopping at this little cafe before is a habit we’ve all fallen into.

“Goodbyes” are thrown in multiple languages, and I kiss Kita on the top of her perfectly smooth check.

“I’ll see you after work. Don’t play too hard.”

Her laughter is sharp and thin, like the beads inside a maraca. “I always play too hard. Don’t work yourself to death! I was promised a commentary night and I expect to get it.”

“And you will!”

I walk away from her, chuckling to myself and thinking about all the things I’m going to have to explain in tonight’s screening of whatever Earth movie she’s picked out.

“Heading my way?” Agan slides beside me, moving silently on his pink and yellow tentacles and meeting my pace.

“I guess that depends on where you’re going.”

He smiles at me and then winks, not answering the question in my response.

I don’t really ever know what’s going on with Agan, but he’s pretty and sweet, and I’ve heard rumors.

“Still working at the duty free?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, smiling through the lie. “They moved me into one of the stocking positions in the back, so it’s nice and quiet and I don’t have to deal with anyone anymore.”

I quit after my first shift at Phantoms. And for the last two weeks, I’ve been lying to everyone I know about what I do for a living.

Even Kita. Kind of. I just haven’t correcte her assumptions.

“Well, have fun!” Agan turns down a branching corridor and I pause, watching him go for a moment.

The station lights turn his semi-translucent skin a dozen colors and for a moment, I wonder what it would be like to go with him.

He’s probably headed home, or to a bar to watch the yerocha match… What would it be like to go with him?

Annika and Agan sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N—

Nope!

I would never do that to Kita. Ever

I’m just horny.

That’s a good thing. I need to get to work.

I walk right past the Duty Free and into a door labeled “Employees Only.”

It leads into the back of a bar I’ve only set foot in once—for my interview—but there’s a secret entrance to Phantoms here. There are probably dozens throughout the station.

I slip through it with a nod to the alien woman cleaning cups at the dishwashing station.

Down two flights of metal stairs, and across a catwalk that takes me through enormous mechanical contraptions I don’t have a clue the function of, and then to a grumpy-looking security guard at a door that looks like a vault.

He punches in the code on the pad beside the door and lets me through, into the cool dark delight of Phantom’s.

The back halls of the alien sex club are quiet, clean, and easy to navigate. And when I “clock in”, the music overhead shifts to my favorite song and a door opens to a private locker room.

I toss my coffee cup in the recycler as the automated system spits out a fresh package with a perfectly sized booth uniform.

I wiggle out of my clothes and take a second to look at myself in the mirror.

The clients won’t see me today, but damn… I look good.

Smoothing my hands over my breasts, my hips, and up across my belly, I can’t help but smile.

Whoever I pick today is one lucky alien.

Agan could be one lucky alien.

“No.” I meet my eyes in the mirror as I sweep my cherry red hair up into a loose bun on top of my head. “Behave.”

Slipping my uniform on—still scolding myself—the terry cloth shorts barely contain my ass and the cute crop top barely covers the bottom of my breasts.

Perfect.

“I’m ready,” I say, and the door to the waiting room opens, there are only a few women sitting in the plush, living room-like space.

One of them waves at me and I try desperately to remember her name, but I’m saved by a woman whose stage name I do remember.

“Oh, Cherry! Good!” Olive hurries over to me, hooking her arm in mine and pulling me through to the opposite wall. “I’m glad you made it.”

“Am I late?” I thought I was early.

“No, not at all! But we had two ladies need to drop out for… reasons, so you got bumped up a little in the schedule.” She taps some symbols on the wall and looks back at me with a smile and a breath that moves her whole body.

“It’s my first time playing house mom and I just want to make sure everything runs smoothly for everyone. ”

“Of course.”

“Anything you’re hoping for today?” she asks.

I almost tell her no, because I shouldn’t.

I really shouldn’t, but… “Tentacles?”

“Hmmm.” Her smile is brilliant as she pulls up the client list, keeping it angled away from me. “You are in luck! There are four tentacled aliens who’ve signed up for today’s booth. And no one’s taken them yet.”

Cherries burst onto the wall, like I’ve just won a prize.

It definitely feels like it every time I get in the booth.

Olive smiles brightly at me as the door forms. “Looks like you’ll get your pick of them. Have fun!”