Invaders from the Outer Rim (3 page)

“Where are we?” Jennifer asked in wonder.

Kurt pulled her farther into the tunnel. “An intradimensional switching station.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Never mind.” Kurt smiled slyly, and then he opened a door.
 

Together, they crossed a threshold of glowing color and stepped out onto a stage at the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark. Tens of thousands of fans were screaming wildly. The two other members of Nirvana were already onstage and launched into a raucous version of “Come as You Are.”

A roadie handed Kurt his guitar, and he strutted to the microphone. Jennifer put her hand to her mouth, trying to take in the whole scene. She felt ready to burst. Kurt walked up to her and whispered calmly in her ear, “They’re cheering for you.”

“They are?”

“They want you to take off all your clothes. So do I.”
 

The wetness between Jennifer’s legs intensified because she was so turned on by the erotic nature of Kurt Cobain’s request. Exhibitionism was one of Jennifer’s secret desires, a sexual fantasy she was too embarrassed to tell anyone about, especially in a small town. But she was in Europe now, not Santa Maria, California.
 

Slowly, Jennifer began to remove her clothes, and then she got into her groove, mimicking the best stripper moves she remembered from movies like
Showgirls
. With each garment she took off, the crowd cheered her on. Soon, Jennifer was standing onstage completely naked before a sea of screaming Nirvana fans. It was pure spiritual transcendence. For the first time in Jennifer’s life, she wasn’t ashamed of her body. She was proud of her curvaceous physique, and the rowdy Danes applauded her for it. Confidence felt sexy.

Then Kurt dropped his pants. His nine penises hung flaccid from his pelvis, but as the music gained intensity and he wailed out the lyrics, those penises grew into long snaking probes. Halfway into the song, he plugged the mushroom-shaped head of one penis into his guitar’s output jack. Another one of his snaking penises slithered across the stage and up Jennifer’s leg, into her dripping love hole. Kurt Cobain was fucking her: live from Denmark.
 

She felt every note of the music pulsating through the muscular walls of her vaginal canal. When Kurt strummed the strings on his guitar, the vibrations reverberated through his many penises and up into Jennifer’s genitalia, which acted like a pickup amp. She loudly moaned in sync with the music. The crowd went mad. The pleasure was so intense that when “Come as You Are” reached a rousing climax, Jennifer passed out from ecstasy and every member of the audience raised worshipful hands skyward as they heard her vagina roar.

She awoke back in her bedroom, drenched in sweat and sprawled naked on her bed. Ava was giggling in the crib beside her, playfully reaching for the mobile circling overhead. Jennifer sat up. She studied her wrists, searching for the type of weird marks Lisa and Nancy displayed at book club the previous night.

Jennifer’s skin was unblemished. She sighed sadly, then fear jolted through her. Was she cracking up? Was she so lonely and desperate for love she projected Lisa’s sexual fantasies into her own life? Jennifer slunk into the bathroom and started washing her face, lathering oatmeal scrub into her pores. When she looked into the mirror and rinsed the suds off, she expected to see defeat in her eyes and the fat body she hated. But what she saw instead caused her to gasp. There were beautiful red marks on her chest. Scarlet geometric designs branded her breasts where they had been inscribed by alien penises. It was hard to believe, but Kurt Cobain’s lovely cocks had tattooed his signature over her heart.

5

Row crops were the agricultural lifeblood of the Santa Maria Valley. Seasonally, a large percentage of all greens consumed in the western states grew within a hundred miles of Santa Maria. Broccoli, cauliflower, and celery were superstars that turned dirt, water, and sun into money that filled farmers’s pockets.

Hence, nothing was more alarming in the valley than a threat to any vegetable crop. Farmers jumped into action at word of nematodes, cabbage maggots, darkling beetles, or the insidious diamondback moth. These larger predators could be poisoned. But far worse were the tiny bacterial foes like downy mildew, ringspot, and the pure evil of Verticillium wilt. The unified farmers of the valley met any of these enemies to agriculture with deadly intent. For collective problems, they’d call the state office in Sacramento, but those snooty folks were officious and slow to take action. If a problem looked like a sneaking bastard was involved, they called Sheriff Olsen.

That’s why Olsen was driving out on Stowell Road. It was late morning, and the sun baked the valley as he drove past a patchwork of green fields filled with vegetables. He knew what to expect when he got to the Wright farm. This was the fourth farm he’d visited that day, and he’d figured out the common complaint. But Arnie Wright was outspoken in the farming community, and Olsen couldn’t ignore him. He had to show up. It was how things worked for public servants.

Wright immediately ran over to the car as Olsen climbed out. The farmer looked sad, angry, and mystified all at once.

“Sheriff, good thing you came.”

“Arnie, I had to. Your wife called the station nine times.”

“You gotta see this. My damn field is wrecked.”

“Don’t need to see it, Arnie. I was at Groff’s farm this morning and down to visit Lester Douglass’s and Pitkin’s as well. I’ve already seen plenty. Ted Brown has a cow that was turned inside out, for Christ's sake.”

Wright looked disappointed.

“But this is my farm. It’s my damn crops, Sheriff,” Wright whined.

A grown man and ready to spill tears. But a farmer’s crops were his everything.

Olsen sighed deeply. “Then you better show me, Arnie.”

“Best view is from up on the windmill,” Wright said.

“Lead the way.” Olsen eyed the forty foot tall windmill.

They trudged to a steel lattice tower topped by spinning blades. Olsen climbed the metal ladder to the upper deck composed of bare struts high in the air. Above their heads the windmill blades turned lazily waiting for a strong breeze to pump water from deep below.
 

Olsen looked at the sprawling green sea around them.

“Ever see anything like that?” Wright asked.

“Just like at Groff’s and Pitkin’s,” Olsen said. “Same as the Douglass place, too.”
 

“But what the devil done it?” Wright moaned.

“No idea.” Olsen shook his head, looking at the fields around him. It was identical to the other farms, but being up on the tower gave him a better view.
 

“Crop circles.” Olsen remembered the term from some goofy TV show but never believed until now. Many of the young plants were crushed flat, while others stood untouched. The result was an intricate geometric pattern. The crop circle was over a mile wide, and contained within it were intersecting circles, triangles and complex lines. Olsen could not imagine any technology that could produce such a pattern by imprinting the earth. Why would anybody do such a thing?

“I phoned my State Farm insurance man,” Wright said.

“What did he say?”

“Call the police and take plenty of pictures.”

“You called me. What else I can do, Arnie?”

Wright held up his iPhone. “My camera doesn’t focus so good, Sheriff. The software upgrade sucks.”

Olsen thought over the problem.

“I can ask the California Highway Patrol pilot to take some aerial shots. The poor guy gets bored in that Cessna overflying the interstate all day,” Olsen said.

“Thanks, Sheriff. I’ll need the insurance money, sure as beans grow farts.”
 

•••

It took three radio calls to the Cessna’s pilot, but Sheriff Olsen finally convinced the CHP pilot he wasn’t joking. Five hours later, Olsen received the requested aerial pictures via his office email. Seen from high above, the crop circles were even more majestic—and uncanny.
 

Olsen did a quick Internet search for pictures of crop circles, and the ones in Santa Maria were bigger and more complicated than anything he found online.

“Santa Maria, the new crop-circle capital of America,” he muttered.

Olsen fished in his desk drawer for his whiskey bottle. It was officially after his shift, and he ought to just hit Rooney’s bar on the way home, but the bizarre aerial photos piqued his inquisitive cop nature. They were so strange they’d make a turnip curious. Olsen took a couple sips from his bottle as he studied the pictures. He hit print and got copies spewing from his laser printer. Olsen had no illusion he was a master detective; he was not the Sherlock Holmes of Santa Maria, but the crop circles seemed to mark something. What could it be? He took the printouts over near a map of Santa Maria on the wall, and pinned up each crop circle in place. He saw a larger pattern: all four circles forming cardinal points. A compass? No, it was a crosshair. He grabbed a yardstick from the closet and with a pencil, connected the points. North to south and east to west. The X was right in the heart of Santa Maria, not far from the town center. Sheriff Olsen squinted to make out the location.

“Grace Baptist Church,” he said, musing. He took another sip of whiskey and wondered what the hell it all meant.

6

Erin Tanaka studied every detail of her wedding dress in the mirror. In just a few days, she’d wear it for real. Her best friend Suzy grinned at Erin in the spacious fitting room at Sassy & Classy Bridal Boutique, the finest bridal shop on the Central Coast.

“You look so serious.” Suzy laughed.

“Everything needs to be perfect. I don’t want anything to go wrong on my big day.”

“Speaking of ‘wrong,’ remember what Nancy and Caroline said at the book club?” Suzy asked, zipping Erin into her plus-sized strapless satin gown with its flattering ruched bodice.
 

“About my wedding?” Erin worried.

“No, about wild sex with strange men.”
 

Erin would have snorted, but the dress was so tight it prevented any deep breathing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Suzy might say next.

“You’re serious? You believe the stories?” Erin said.

“We both know Caroline and Nancy are always bullshitting. I thought they were pulling our leg, you know, as a joke,” Suzy mused.

“An odd joke.” Erin frowned. “Especially if they dragged Lisa in on it.”

“The weird sex thing happened to Jennifer the other day, too,” Suzy offered. “She described her experience to me. It was pretty damn erotic. She called it a ‘sexual encounter of the filthiest kind.’ ”

“Sexy aliens,” Erin muttered. “The idea is hard to swallow.”

“Not that hard. Trust me.” Suzy took Erin by her bare shoulders, and looked directly at her. “Erin, you’re my very best friend. I need to tell you—it also happened to me. Last night.”

“What?” Erin squealed with excitement, almost bursting her beautiful dress. “I want all the juicy details. Don’t leave anything out. Is it a fantasy or is it real?”

“It was both, and more. My visitor was an Italian prince. I mean a real prince, too. He’s the heir to the duchy of Savoy. We went sailing on his yacht in the Mediterranean.”

“How is that possible? You don’t even have a passport.”

“I didn’t need one,” Suzy said. “I was gassing my Honda in downtown Santa Maria, when a handsome man parked beside me in a red Maserati. He looked like a Roman god. Dark eyes, dark hair, dark tan. Totally my Euro type. He offered to check my oil for me.”

“You’re kidding. That sounds so cheesy. Nobody does that anymore.”

“So true. But he pops my hood, checks my oil, cleans my windows, and even checks the air pressure in my tires. Total gentleman. The whole time I’m staring at him. He has a lean body, no flabby love handles at all, and his crisp white linen shirt is unbuttoned so I can see his hairy chest and muscles flexing every time he moves. Then he walks over, takes my hand, and kisses it.”

“No way. That would completely weird me out.”

“It didn’t. I felt so comfortable around him. He smiles and says, ‘I am sorry, my love. I’m being rude. My name is Antonio.’ I’m staring into his dreamy eyes, completely entranced. Then,
boom!
We’re zooming through a tunnel of glowing colors, and we land on his private yacht. Clark and I talked about honeymooning in Italy, but it was impossible. Clark despises foreigners, so we settled for a week sweating in long lines at Disney World. But there I was sailing off the coast of Naples with a real prince. The sea was blue, the air sparkling. It was everything I always wanted.”

Erin whispered urgently. “Did you fuck him?”

“We never got that far.”

“But how far?”

“I was wearing a Victoria’s Secret bikini that somehow fit me perfectly, and Antonio told me I looked delicious. ‘Completely edible’ were his exact words. He untied my bikini bottom and let it drop to the deck. It was an exhilarating feeling of freedom. I was almost completely naked, the cool Mediterranean breeze blowing between my legs, but the winds could not quench a growing heat I felt there. Then Antonio said, ‘Would you like me to taste you?’”

“That’s so romantic,” Erin said. “Gary loves going down on me.”

“Not Clark. He’ll only do it if I beg him and threaten to cut off his blowjobs for a month. So Antonio asking me politely was a complete shock, and the ultimate turn-on. Especially when he explained how much he enjoyed performing cunnilingus on a beautiful woman. He was courteous about it, and I love getting my pussy licked, so of course I said yes. He opened his mouth and unfurled a huge pink tongue. It was the color of a rose petal, with the consistency of warm wet clay. About two feet long and purple toward the back.”

“Purple? Really? Like a Chow dog’s tongue?”

“How’d you know that?”

“I had a Chow mix named Boomer when I was a little girl.”

“Erin, your dog never knew this next trick. Immediately, Antonio’s tongue was up between my legs, penetrating my cunt, then it completely slipped inside me until the tip was massaging my G-spot.”