By Jacksomm Trifker

---

Alecks Gurnick had developed a curious habit in the month he'd been living in Mediyina, the political and cultural capital of Khordanistan.

 

He'd begun waking up several minutes before the Clocks of Alarming sang their usual morning Call to Consciousness. Every morning in Medyina, around dawnish, the voices of the muwaqtinas exploded from the Clocks of Alarming - the tall and ornately adorned brick-and-stone towers that punctured the flat Medyina skyline. Calls also echoed mid-morningish with the Call to Working and at around midday with the Call to Lunching and at some point in the afternoon with the Call to Go Home and then in approximately the early evening with the Call to Suppers and around midnight with the Call to Go to Sleep Now Please.

 

It wasn't an entirely accurate system of timekeeping – the clocks would often be ahead or behind schedule by an hour or two, with the call from one Clock of Alarming usually reminding the others to get their muwaqtinas in gear. But this system of timekeeping was good enough for Khordanis, who'd been using it for a thousand years and saw no reason to change things now.

 

Lately, Alecks had begun waking up just before the Call to Consciousness. He'd wake up in the darkness of his apartment and marvel at the amazing sound coming to him through the open window.

 

Silence.

 

Medyina, Alecks had discovered in his first day or two, was a loud city. The air reverberated with the noise of banging construction work and rolling cartwheels and shouting merchants and singing street performers and bleating animals and sweeping brooms and the din of a half-million conversations taking place between the city's one million residents.

But every morning, for a few minutes, the city was silent. The carts and construction and conversations died down over the course of the night and faded away to quiet stillness. No wind blew, no paper rustled. Even the birds and rats and the nocturnal hunters seemed to pause and honor this fleeting moment of silence.

 

Then, with the small click of a tinny megaphone being powered to life, it all ended.

 

"Soooooooooooooobaaah ra-jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed [morning the-good]" boomed the voice of the amazon muwaqtin from a tower just a block from Alecks' apartment in a beautiful, resonant, and quite disturbingly baritone melody. "Soooooooooooooobb ra-jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed [morning the-good]," it repeated. "Ralaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan rawaaaaaaaaaaqt lareeeeeeeeestashaaaaaaaaaaar [now is the time for consciousness]," the voice added, "Rataaaaaaqs rayaaaaam ghaaaaaym gaziiiya waharaaaaaraaaa fi muwaaaaatadliiii tmaaaaanaaaaateeeeeeen [today will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid-eighties]." And then it repeated.

 

The sound rattled the walls and floor of the apartment, echoing off nearby buildings, and mingling with the tenor and alto and soprano calls emanating from all the other Clocks of Alarming in the city. The cumulative effect was both cacophonous and hypnotic, and Alecks felt a deep and profound sense of comfort knowing that this was the way Khordanis had kept time, every day, six times a day, since the dawn of their civilization. Approximately.

 

Finally, the calls died down and the city began coming to life. Birds began chirping and pots began banging and carts began rolling and shoes began shuffling on worn cobblestone streets. With that, Alecks crawled out of bed and began his day.

 

Just under an hour later, he was on his way to his job as Edouedish Instructor at Bettailum University, in the heart of Medyina's Old City. He walked slowly through the sparkling-clean streets in his neighborhood of Dargareeb, the modern section of Medyina built just outside the walls of the Old City to accomodate the city's growing tourist and ex-pat population. Human-scale hotels and bars and apartments mixed with Amazon and Dwarf-sized hotels and bars and restaurants, and Khordani culture mixed effortlessly with those of its neighbors on the continent of Essurio. With each breath he savored the relative calm and order of Dargareeb, and with each step braced himself for the chaos he'd soon be stepping into.

 

It wasn't that he feared the Old City, per se. It was a beautiful, vibrant place, full of life, color, and history, that enraptured all the senses with overwhelming beauty. From the moment he stepped through the massive gates in the fifty-foot-high stone walls that circled the Old City, mouthwatering smells of spices and roasting vegetables wafted from restaurant windows, and the sounds of houd music and singing tea vendors and singsong Khordani conversation filled his ears. Meanwhile, the haphazardly-angled streets were and assault on the eyes, with their bright red buildings and adorned with intricately-carved plaster and woodwork, and their gleaming windows filled with polished tidbits and trinkets, and the non-stop pedestrian traffic of meticulously gorgeous Amazons in brightly-colored wraps and sparkling jewelry.

 

The one thing he didn't see much of in the Old City was other human beings.

 

Specifically, human beings who weren't forming a bulge in the belly of one of the meticulously gorgeous Amazons. Those he saw quite often on the streets of the Old City. This was nothing out of the ordinary - humans, and particularly male humans, are one of the favorite foods of the 12-foot-tall Amazon species. A human walking the streets of the Old City unaccompanied and undigested was a rare sight indeed, and one that drew stares and double-takes and some rather intimidating hungry looks from the Amazons he passed by.

 

Although Amazons generally left tourists and ex-pats alone, Alecks still had to be cautious. A step too close to the wrong doorway, a wrong turn in the labyrinth of identical-looking streets, or an accidental moment of eye contact with the wrong Amazon could very quickly turn Alecks into breakfast.

 

Not that that would be such a terrible thing, of course. Amazons, like all creatures on Aekallia, digest their prey by leeching fat and nutrients through specialized pores in the prey's skin. Unlike the rather barbaric systems found on other planets, Aekallian predators leave their prey intact, alive, and unharmed throughout the hours of digestion, albeit awfully bored, extremely uncomfortable, and very late for something. And Alecks hated to be late for work.

 

With this in mind, Alecks passed through the gates of the Old City and began meandering his way through the beautiful and perilous streets. Around fifteen minutes later, he arrived at the just as beautiful and only marginally-less perilous campus of Bettailum University, and walked across the granite-tiled courtyard to the Qisam ra-Lugat - the Department of Languages.

 

Alecks rather enjoyed his job. He loved teaching, and particularly teaching Edouedish. His only real qualifications for the job had been his native speaking ability and willingness to travel to Khordanistan. He didn't even need to speak Khordani, since the course he taught was Intermediate Immersion Edouedish. He'd picked up some useful phrases in the last month, though in retrospect the Khordani terms for "let me go," "put me down," and "spit me out" had been rather ineffective during the few times that he'd taken wrong turns and made eye contact with the wrong Amazons in the Old City.

 

The students truly made it worthwhile. He'd never taught a more engaged and interested group of students. Of course, before he'd answered an ad in the Vasco Sun-Tymes, taken the three-hour training course in a converted warehouse in the Shirtwaist District, and loaded a suitcase full of his dirty laundry onto a stagecoach for the 40-hour trip to Medyina, he'd never actually taught any students. But that was beside the point. These students, he could sense, were special. The way these two dozen fresh-faced, bright-eyed Amazons seemed to hang on his every word, enthusiastically participate in his activities, and would often stay to practice their Edouedish with him long after the Call to Lunching signaled the end of class, well, that had to be something special, he thought.

 

He just wished the job payed a bit better. He hadn't quite anticipated how expensive a city Medyina would be.

Alecks made his way up the polished marble stairs - no simple task considering that the steps were designed for a species twice his size - to the Adjunct Professors wing on the second floor of the Languages Department. This was where all of the visiting human professors had their offices. His colleagues - all young men of about his age from Comeyria, Mangiana, Chirfahn, Proglotni, and several Dooroonian countries - all seemed quite nice, but then his conversations with them had been quite limited by their lack of a mutual language to communicate with. About all they had in common was a smile, a coffee-mug salute, and a shrug that seemed to universally translate in all languages as "much work, little money."

 

Pushing open the ornately-carved door to the Adjunct Professors wing, he saw Carlos, one of the Comeyran professors, filling his coffee mug from the gold-plated pot on the carved marble table in the reception area of the wing. Alecks smiled at Carlos and said "hello,"

 

"Hola," said Carlos, with a tip of his coffee mug, followed by a shrug that meant "much work, little money."

Alecks shrugged back, tacking on a laugh and a wave, and continued on down the marble hallway towards his office. His footsteps echoed off the high, vaulted ceiling as he walked, passing by the towering doors to the offices of all his fellow professors. The offices were all built for Amazon professors and had only recently begun to be retrofitted for their current human occupants. Finally, he reached the door to his office, pulled the brass key out of his pocket, and reached up to insert it into the lock situated just above his head. His was one of the offices that had not been retrofitted just yet.

 

"Sbbah ra-jeed, [morning the-good] Mister Gurrnick," came a pleasant voice from behind Alecks, the R trilled melodically.

 

He turned around and looked up to face Baseema, his boss and the director of the Adjunct Professors program. "Sbbah ra-jeed, [morning the-good]" he responded with a smile.

 

Baseema was, like all Amazons, stunningly beautiful. With long dark hair, brown eyes, olive skin, and an irresistable smile, she cut a rather intimidating figure at well over twelve feet tall. She spoke seven languages that Alecks knew of, had an infinitely charming personality, and had built the Adjunct Professors program from the ground up.

 

On this day, she was looking particularly radiant, dressed in a bright red wrap and adorned copiously with gold jewelry. Her partially exposed midriff was also sporting a rather prominent belly bulge, and Alecks couldn't help wondering if it was someone he knew.

 

"I see maintenance has not lowered your doorknob yet?" she said, looking disappointed. She spoke Edouedish in a pleasant, lilting tone, rolling the r's and softening the consonants just a touch.

 

"No, not yet," he said, standing on his tip-toes to turn the key.

 

"Here, let me help you with that," she said, gracefully turning the knob and opening the door. "I am terribly sorry about this. I will contact them again, you must have a proper door."

 

"Thank you," said Alecks, walking through the doorway into the small office. Inside, light streamed in to the tiny room from a tall window, and was most likely disappointed with what it fell on: a bare desk, a worn wooden swivel chair, and a wall of bookshelves that was remarkably devoid of books. The overall effect was rather less than professorial.

 

"Ach, so drab," said Baseema with a coy smile, "so sterile and Edouedish."

 

"Yes, I know," said Alecks, walking behind the desk and dropping off his belongings. "I haven't had a chance to decorate much."

 

"Ah, well," she said. "In good time. In good time. Mister Gurnick?"

 

"Yes?"

 

"We have not received your reply to the invitation we sent," she said, "Will you be attending the faculty Ayd event next week?"

 

"Oh, yes, of course" he said. "Sorry, I forgot. It's next Wednesday, right?"

 

"Yes, after the Call to Supper. What will you bring for the pot-luck please?"

 

"I hadn't thought about that," he said. "I'm not much of a cook, I'm afraid."

 

"Ah, it is not a problem, just bring yourself." she said, winking at the double entendre, then quickly turning to leave. "Good day, Mister Gurnick!"

 

Alecks sighed as she left. He barely had enough money to pay his rent and feed himself, let alone decorate his office or cook for twenty Amazons. Not on his teaching salary, at least. He looked down at the rolled-up black tunic stashed in a bag under his desk. The one with the words "Property of Yasmin - Do Not Eat" written on it in flowery but persuasive Khordani script. He sighed again, musing that there had to be better ways to make money in this town.

---

The Call to Lunching sounded just as Alecks was really starting to get into his lesson on prepositions. Too bad - the class seemed to be getting into it, too. They always seemed to pay closer and closer attention towards the end of the lesson. He tried to convince himself that it was due to the quality of his lectures and exercises, but Alecks knew deep down that they were probably just getting hungry.

 

It was a bit intimidating at first, lecturing to a class of twenty-two young amazons, all clad in midriff-baring traditional Khordani dress that occasionally revealed a large and squirming tummy. Although Khordani customs dictated that Alecks was indeed the teacher and thus needed to be treated with reverence and respect, other Khordani customs dictated that he was indeed human and thus needed to be served with a side of rice and grilled tomatoes. This conflict was never far from Alecks' mind as he stood at the front of the room and tried to ignore the occasional giggles.

 

"Alright, that's all for today" shouted Alecks over the sudden shuffling din of twenty-two amazons getting up and gathering their belongings while resuming their conversations from before class. "Please look over chapter five tonight, and we'll continue with prepositions tomorrow morning."

 

He climbed a rickety wooden stepladder and began erasing the one-story chalkboard at the front of the room, of which his pathetic scribblings covered only the bottom few feet. He made a mental note to ask Baseema about getting a new stepladder. He hated to impose, but this one was simply dangerous, and he had almost fallen off it several times in the past month. This city - indeed this entire country - was simply not designed for people (well, humanlike beings) his size, which made seemingly simple tasks like erasing a chalkboard or opening a door quite frustrating, and more than a bit embarrassing.

 

"Mister Gurnick?," asked a soft, sweet voice behind him, interrupting his thoughts.

 

Alecks turned around gingerly, trying not to tip the rickety ladder, and looked up at the face of one of his students. Even while standing on a stepladder he could barely reach her shoulders. "Yes, Lamia," he said, smiling as professorially as he could.

 

"I think I need a practice," she said with a smile as the last of her classmates filed out of the room.

 

"Okay. What would you like to practice," he asked, emphasizing the word "to."

 

"I am not with understanding today - the prepositions. I do not understand how to use. Maybe you can help?"

 

"I'll try," he said, attempting to turn around further on the rickety stepladder. "Why don't you try to say a few sentences, and I'll show you the correct preposition, okay?"

 

"Okay," nodded Lamia sweetly, "thank you." She thought for a moment, then smiled and began reciting her example. "I like you to lunch to me today," she said, with the faintest hint of a blush.

 

"Alright," said Alecks after a pause, "let's look at that." He began writing the sentence on the blackboard. "The correct way to say that would be, 'I would like you to have lunch with me today.'"

 

She mouthed the words as she read them, nodding in comprehension. "Yes ," she started, "but if I talking to human--."

"It's the same - you'd say it the same way to a human friend."

 

"I see," she said, cocking her head a bit to the side. "But what if human friend is the lunch? Is said the same?"

 

"Ah," said Alecks, getting the creeping suspicion that he might be the human in Lamia's scenario. "In that case, you'd say , 'I would like you to be lunch for me today,' or 'I would like to have you for lunch today.'"

 

"Yes," she smiled, "thank you, 'I would like you to be lunch for me today."

 

"That's right," said Alecks with an emphatic nod. Very good. He found his attention drawn to her lips, painted a dark red and rather soft-looking. "Of course, the polite thing to do is to ask."

 

"Ask?"

 

"Yes," he said. "In Edouedia you should ask a human if he'd like to be your lunch."

 

"How I do that?"

 

"Well, you'd say 'would you like to be my lunch today,' or 'would you like me to have you for lunch today,' or 'would you mind if I had you for lunch today?"

 

"'Mind if?' What mean is 'mind if?'"

 

"It's - conditional future, we'll get to that later in the semester."

 

"Would you like to have for my lunch today," she said, gingerly piecing the words together.

 

"Almost - try again," said Alecks.

 

"Would you like to be for my lunch today," she said, more confidently this time, smiling invitingly. Alecks was by now almost positive that this wasn't a practice session anymore.

 

"One more time - take out the word 'for.'"

 

"Would you like to be my lunch today?" she said, her bright white teeth beaming through very comfortable looking lips, and her breath washing over him, smelling faintly of honey and rosewater. It was a tempting offer. He could just slide right in there, curl up in her tight little stomach, and forget his problems for a while. He could-

 

No, he thought. He shook it off. This was her pheromones working on him, he realized.

 

"Very good," he said, turning to erase the sentences from the board. "That's correct. Well done, Lamia."

 

"So -" she said as he finished erasing the board. "You will- you like to,"

 

"Almost," he said, climbing down the stepladder and putting a few books and papers into his briefcase. "Try one more time, please."

 

"So would you like me to have you for-,"

 

"Excellent, very good," he interrupted, closing the briefcase. "Well, Lamia, I'll see you tomorrow!"

 

"Oh," she said, a palpable look of disappointment curling her lips, "so you don't like to-"

 

"I'm sorry, I'd love to stay and talk more but I have an appointment to get to," he said, gathering up his jacket and heading for the door. "Don't forget to review Chapter five for tomorrow," he added as he left, utterly refusing to turn around and risk seeing the look of rejection on her face.

 

It had to be done, he thought as he walked back to his office. It was probably against the rules anyway. He was sure he'd seen something about teacher-student relations in the handbook he'd skimmed on the trip here.

 

He did have someplace to be. He had a second job to get to, with paying customers. He really couldn't afford to freelance.

---

Alecks stood in the metal cage with about a twenty other human men, all clothed in black "Property of Yasmin" tunics and cheap palm frond sandals and sweating in the strong mid-afternoon sun as it beat down on the meat department of the Southside open-air market. Yasmin's human cage was one of perhaps a dozen in the immediate vicinity, all housing men in dark-colored tunics bearing the same look of boredom, humiliation, and dread that Alecks and his colleagues carried. As he watched the ongoing parade of Amazons strolling by the cages and inspecting, taunting, tasting, haggling over, and occasionally purchasing one of the men for dinner, Alecks was somewhat heartened by the thought that this was not, in fact, the worst job he'd ever had.

 

There had been his very short stint as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. That had lasted about a month. And then there was the job answering technical support calls for one of the big mediaphone companies. That was simply awful, and only marginally worse than the job cleaning cages at the Fort Rogay Dragon Zoo. And the job installing body-modification devices at the Ogre Park Mall. Plus there were the retail filler jobs he'd taken in between all of those - they'd been pretty bad as well.

 

In fact, Alecks' entire career since dropping out of college had been, well, chaotic.

 

Which is why he'd jumped at the opportunity for a one-year teaching gig in Khordanistan. Finally, something stable and long-term and fulfilling that allowed him to use his brain. He was finally contributing something to society - something more useful than a musty encyclopedia or a shit-free dragon cage. He was a teacher. This pride was what kept him going even through the abject humiliation of this second job as lunch. (or dinner, if he worked a double shift.) He could salvage at least a little dignity, while he was being cooked or swallowed or shat out or cheated out of his commissions by Yasmin, in the fact that the next day he'd have a class to teach.

 

A shadow fell upon the cage, startling Alecks out of his train of thought. A large amazon in a green wrap towered over the cage, sniffed the air hungrily, and exchanged some polite greetings with . She had brownish hair, a pleasant face, and a plump tummy that lightly brushed against the top corner of the cage as she leaned over it, inspecting each man carefully.

 

Showtime, thought Alecks, feeling very much as if he were auditioning for a theatrical performance. It took a bit of acting skill, as one of his Edouedish-speaking coworkers had advised, to look feisty yet obedient, strong but vulnerable, eager to be their meal but not desperate. All qualities amazons seemed to like in a man, apparently.

 

"Aiye lahm bahbik, [which meat do you like]" asked Yasmin.

 

"Marrafsh, marrafsh [I don't know, I don't know]" mused the amazon as she continued inspecing. Her gaze met Alecks'. He smiled up at her. She smiled faintly back at him.

 

Score, thought Alecks.

 

The amazon then turned her attention to Adolpho, the Mangianan standing just behind Alecks, and her face lit up in a wide smile. "Had ra-lahm, [that one]" she said. "Numken shufi? [can I see it?]"

 

"Aywa, d'qiqtan [yes, give me two moments]," said Yasmin, walking to the cage and opening the heavy steel door on top. She slid her hands under Adolpho's armpits, lifted him out of the cage, and sat him on the large wooden table next to the cage. Alecks couldn't understand the rapid-fire Khordani conversation that ensued, but he got the basic gist. Yasmin was pointing out some particularly tasty bits of Adolpho's body, occasionally lifting up his tunic and letting the amazon have a lick. And she was probably recommending some sauces or spice blends that'd be good with his skin type and that she'd be happy to throw in for just a few more Doneys. Alecks had been on that table plenty of times in the last month, and he knew the routine by now."

 

"Tyeb, tyeb, [okay, okay]," said the customer. "Bkam li koula sha? [how much for everything?]"

 

"Li enti, dilu kilfa rakhassa, [for you, I'll give you a special price,]" said Yasmin, "Mi'atanwa khamsi, koula sha. [two hundred fifty, everything.]"

 

"Mi'atan?" said the amazon. "Ghali, ghali. Adilu mi'awa khamsi foqat. [too expensive - I'll give you 150 Doneys]

 

"Psh, psh, psh" said Yasmin dismissively. "Had lahm mezyaan gidda. Jaddir kthar min mi'atan [this is quality meat. Worth more than two hundred]."

 

"Mi'awa khamsta sebri [one seventy-five]," said the customer. "Had ra-aalia (that's the highest)."

 

"Mi'atanwateltin, [two thirty]," said Yasmin, firmly.

 

"Assif, [sorry]" said the customer dismissively. She turned to go, but was stopped by a small hand grabbing her arm.

 

"M'fudli, [please]" whispered Adolpho in very broken Khordani, "Ikulni afak, aw hye seff aaqabani [eat me, please, or she will punish me]."

 

The amazon looked at Adolpho with a pitied look, then back to Yasmin, then back to Adolpho. "Mi'atan, [two hundred]" she said, then dug a few coins out of a velvety change purse and dropped them on the counter with a stern look.

"Jaid, jaid (fine, fine)" said Yasmin, happily accepting the coins. "Tshokra, tshokra, (thank you, thank you)." She dropped the spice and sauce bottles into a paper bag and handed it to the amazon, who had just slung Adolpho over her shoulder. As the customer turned away in a huff, Yasmin shot a quick wink at Adolpho, who smiled, winked, and resumed draping himself over the amazon's shoulder. Yasmin then opened a small ledger notebook and made a notation next to Adolpho's name.

 

Ah yes. The "she will punish me" trick, thought Alecks as he watched his colleague being carried off to be devoured. It was good for an extra thirty or forty Doneys - about four or five Arnis at the current exchange rate - if used effectively. And with all the fees and taxes and other deductions Yasmin used to whittle down their commissions, an extra few Doneys in sale price was well worth the effort.

 

It was rather unfair, really – Yasmin kept, on average, about two-thirds of the sale price, even though Alecks and his colleagues were doing all the work. Not that it was a whole lot of actual "work," per se, thought Alecks. Spending six or seven hours curled up in a cushiony sac wasn't exactly hard labor, but it was quite tedious. And there should be some kind of compensation for-

 

"Teacher?," said a quiet, sweet voice that interrupted Alecks' train of thought and stopped him cold. He slowly turned to the source of the voice. It was Nashida, one of his students.

 

It was bound to happen sometime, thought Alecks. In a city of one million amazons, it was inevitable that you'd run into someone you knew sometime. He had just hoped it wouldn't be here. He even tried to pick a market far away from the campus, just to avoid awkward moments like this one.

 

"Nashida," he said, trying to appear nonchalant. "How are you? What, uh, what are you doing here?"

 

"I have to buy... qzbr," Nashida said, holding up a bag of fragrant yellow spice. "Teacher, what you are doing here," she asked, a look of aghast curiosity on her face.

 

"I, um," he stammered. "It's a, well... I work here in the afternoons."

 

"But you are teacher," she said. "You have job."

 

"I know, but this is a second job. It's a... a financial necessity."

 

"You do not belong in a cage," she said, a sad look in her eyes. "I will help you."

 

"Oh, really, Nashida, that's- no, you don't have to..."

 

"I will help you," she said, more forcefully. She then got up and began a heated discussion in Khordani with Yasmin.

 

Alecks sighed, red with humiliation. He wondered if there was another market he could find work at. Somewhere much farther away. Another continent, perhaps.

 

The lid of the cage opened and Yasmin quickly pulled Alecks out and stood him up on the table. Nashida grasped him by the shoulders, then embraced him with massive arms "Okay," she said as she let go. "No more cage. You come with me now." She then pulled him off the table and set him on the ground. "Come," she said, beckoning him to walk with her. "I take care of you." Her hand rested on his shoulder as they walked quickly through the smoking grills and spice-filled stalls of the market.

 

Alecks wasn't sure what to say. "Nashida," he stammered. "You didn't have to do that."

 

"You are my teacher," she said as they left the market square and began walking through the Old City towards the campus. "I don't like to see you in cage. Is not place for you."

 

When they reached the campus, Alecks thanked Nashida profusely for setting him free, then turned towards the Department of Languages building. Nashida quickly stopped him.

 

"Where you are going?" she said.

 

"Just stopping by the office before I go home. I have some spare clothes there," he said, pointing to his tunic. "I can't go around Dargareeb in this, not at this hour."

 

"But you are to come with me," she said with a smile. "My live is this way."

 

"Oh, I don't think I can do that," he said with a shrug. "There's probably a rule about teachers socializing in student dorms."

 

"I buy you at the market," she said, giggling. "Tonight you are dinner, not teacher."

 

She did have a point, Alecks had to admit.

---

Nashida's dorm room was surprisingly similar to the dorm rooms Alecks remembered from his college days, which were only a handful of years behind him. The cheap posters on the walls, the discreet piles of laundry, the rarely-used desk, the stubbornly unmade bed, and the faint smells of alcohol, incense, and contraband lingering in the air. It was a place both foreign and familiar.

 

To say he was nervous would be an understatement. He was quite petrified, in fact. This was wrong. It was all wrong. He was in the dorm room of one of his students. Sitting on on a damp towel on her bed. Completely naked after having been given a very thorough cleaning in Nashida's sink. There had to be something against this in the rule books.

 

Nashida, on the other hand, seemed almost giddily content. She puttered around the small room, straightening up here and there, clearing off the papers and books and junk from the small table next to the two back-to-back desks that divided the room into Nashida's half and her roommate's half. Her roommate, Nashida informed Alecks as she set the table, would be out for most the evening, and they had the room to themselves.

 

This didn't help with Alecks' nerves. Not even a bit.

 

"You like stomp?" said Nashida, pushing a cartridge into the boxy wooden music player on the desk. A dizzying flurry of drum beats poured out from the player's tinny speakers. "This Hosham Razmi," she said, pointing to a poster of an extremely hirsuite dwarf hanging on the wall over her bed. "He is my favorite," she said, swiveling the desk chair around to face Alecks and sitting down.

 

"Nice," said Alecks, only half-listening. "I like the drums especially." He fidgeted nervously.

 

Nashida processed this for a moment. "It's all drums," she giggled. "Teacher," she then said, "I think you are afraid."

"A little, yes," he said.

 

She smiled sweetly. "Don't be afraid," she said, getting up and standing in front of him, the smooth mocha skin of her belly a foot from his face. "You will be safe inside the belly. I take care of you."

 

Alecks stared for a second. It did look rather cozy. "It- it's not that," he stammered. "I'm just - I don't know if I should be doing this."

 

"What you mean?" she said, crouching down until they were almost eye-level with each other.

"I'm a teacher, you're a student."

 

"Is alright," she smiled. "You are people, I eat people. Is no problem."

 

"Look, can we just -," Alecks started. He tried again. "Can you promise one thing? You know 'promise?'"

 

"Promise?," she said quizzically, then turned to look the word up in her Edouedish-Khordani dictionary. "Promise, ah - waada. Yes?"

 

"Please promise me that you won't tell anyone about this."

 

"About this?," said Nashida as she lifted Alecks up off the bed and sat him down on a large metal platter on the table, next to an assortment of colorfully-labeled sauce bottles and spice shakers.

 

"Yes, about, um," said Alecks, distracted a bit by the ticklish sensation of Nashida sprinkling some fragrant spices on his head and shoulders. "About my second job," he finished.

 

Nashida smiled as she lifted Alecks' right hand to her face and gave it a gentle lick. "Oh, yes," she said, then parted her soft lips and slowly closed them around his hand. A gentle suction then pulled him into her mouth up to his elbow.

 

Alecks tried one more time to clarify. "So... this is a secret, okay?"

 

"Yes, I know meaning 'secret.'," said Nashida, chewing gently on his hand and forearm. "This is a secret." She pulled his hand out of her mouth with a wet smacking noise. "Now no more talk," she said in a mock scolding tone as she began pouring a thick, pungent red sauce over his head and shoulders. "You are food now, okay?"

 

Alecks smiled nervously and nodded yes. He felt his heart began to pound with nervous anticipation. As many times as he'd been in this position in the past month - sitting on a plate looking up into the face that was about to devour him - he'd completely failed to get used to it. It was like a story he'd been told and retold every night since he began working as professional human meat - a story that always began and ended the same way. The only variable that changed was what happened in between - exactly how he got from plate to stomach.

 

It could take a few seconds, a few minutes, or a few hours. It could be soft and gentle or violent and painful. He could be raw or cooked. He could be sweetened or spiced. He could be pampered and caressed or pounded into submission. It was really quite out of his hands. From the moment money exchanged hands until he was pooped out the customer's backside, he was all hers. This wasn't Vasco, where consumables had unions and political clout and predatory abuse laws to protect them. This was Khordanistan. He had no rights, no protection - he was nothing more than a commodity.

 

Nashida's face slowly descended on him and she began assaulting his face and chest with wet, sloppy licks. Her lips and teeth began nibbling at his arms and torso. Finally, she engulfed his head in her dark, humid mouth and began to suck the sauce out of his hair. He could feel a few drops of her saliva dripping down his back as she continued to suck. Then he felt her hands press on his thighs and she yanked her mouth off his head with a pop. Gasping for fresh air and shaking the dripping saliva off himself, he looked up into Nashida's face, which glared down hungrily at him.

 

"You are delicious, Mr. Gurnick," she said in a breathy voice.

 

"Um, thank you," said Alecks awkwardly.

 

Nashida smacked her lips at him. "I eat you a long time I think," she said, picking up a different bottle and pouring a yellow sauce on his face in preparation for round two. As her tongue again assaulted his face with big fat licks and her lips slipped over his head and sealed themselves tightly around his neck, he began to wonder if she was planning to try every one of the dozen or so spices and sauces on him.

 

A bit more than an hour later, as she was gnawing a combination of barbecue sauce, hot sauce, and cumin off his thighs and backside, he realized how naïve this initial prediction had been. It hadn't occurred to him how many possible permutations of the dozen or so spices and sauces there were, and Nashida had tried rather a lot of them on various parts of his body. Her mouth attacked every inch of him with a ferocity he'd never seen before in a customer, as if he was satisfying a long built-up hunger. Not that he was complaining - there were far worse ways to spend an evening than being repeatedly licked and nibbled by a beautiful Amazon. It was one of the very few perks of his second job.

 

Eventually she finished gnawing and licking at his rump and put him down in the puddle of sauces on the tray. A sticky reddish-brownish-yellowish film covered him from head to toe, matching the one that coated Nashida's fingers and ringed her mouth. She looked down at him ravenously, her eyes drilling deep into him, drinking him in. Her jaw loosened slowly, almost imperceptibly, preparing for the task of stretching itself around his body. This was it, he could sense, having seen this look countless times over the past month. Time to go down the hatch.

 

He didn't mind this part of the job, either, he had to admit. There was a reason he'd chosen to do his teaching assignment in Khordanistan rather than, say, Comeyria or Proglotnii. Amazons were spirited, sensuous creatures, and getting swallowed by them was actually rather fun, in a perverse and often nauseating way.

 

At least, it was fun when the customer was a random stranger. This was someone he knew. More to the point - this was a student whose respect he needed to command tomorrow morning. This was going to significantly affect the teacher-student dynamic, he thought as Nashida clamped his arms tightly against his sides. Conflicting thoughts swam through his head as Alecks cowered under Nashida's intense gaze.

 

Nashida, on the other hand, seemed to have no sense of ambiguity as to their roles. She stood up, took a deep breath, leaned forward, and gently lifted his head into the wet slippery confines of her mouth. He felt her slimy, raspy tongue slide down the length of his face and felt the soft fleshy flaps of her throat open up in front of him. Were he able to see, the view in front of his eyes would be of a small, rubbery tunnel stretching a few feet in front of him. All he could see, however, was darkness - the pure inky blackness only found inside another being.

 

Her hands shifted from his arms to his waist, and the blood rushed to his head as she lifted his backside towards the ceiling. There was a loud suctiony slurping noise and he felt his head half-pulled, half-pushed into the tight, slippery tube. He struggled to breathe in the tight space, but the only air that was available to him was the noxious cacophony of scents that drifted up from her stomach. Might as well get used to it, he thought. It's what I'm going to be breathing all night.

 

Another series of slow swallows put his head near Nashida's thumping heart, his torso well into her throat, and left only his legs dangling helplessly outside her mouth. As he continued the long, dark slide into Nashida's alimentary canal, his mind began to fill with the possible nightmare scenarios that could resut from this. If word got out about this, he'd be the laughingstock of his class - he could forget having any authority or control of the classroom. Word would probably get to his boss eventually, who'd probably fire him. There has to be some policy about faculty-student relations that forbids this. Shit, he thought, this might even be illegal. He'd heard many stories about Khordani prisons and none of them were very nice.

 

Yes, he thought as his head pushed through her cardiac sphincter into the dark and humid and extremely pungent chamber of Nashida's stomach, there is always the chance that she'll keep this secret. Another swallow pushed his shoulders through the tight, rubbery opening. This was indeed the optimistic option - that she'd stay true to her word and not tell anyone about this and they'd just go on as if nothing happened.

 

However, this optimism was in direct conflict with Alecks' admittedly stereotypical assumption that Amazons were under no circumstances to be trusted. In Edoedia there is a saying - "you should trust an Amazon about as far as you can throw her" - which, given the comparative weight, height, and center-of-gravity ratio between the average human and the average amazon translates to "not an inch."

 

To be fair, Amazons have a quite similar stereotype about humans, and most claim to be able to trust humans a good twenty to twenty-five feet under good weather conditions.

 

Once his chest had pushed through the rubbery ring at the top of Nashida's stomach, his progress into her began to accelerate rapidly. He was pushed face-first into the pool of sauce, mucus, and saliva that had collected on the floor of the organ as his hips and waist slid through, aided by gravity and peristalsis. He felt Nashidaa's lips close around his feet and felt her tongue get its last taste of him (for tonight, anyhow). After a minute or so his feet were pushed into Nashida's stomach as well. The sphincter then closed tightly behind them and sealed Alecks deep inside the young Amazon.

 

Fighting off a claustrophobic panic, he struggled to right himself and curl into a somewhat comfortable fetal squatting position. The slick, ribbed walls of the stomach rippled and relaxed around him as the organ tried to figure out how to accomodate its contents. The world seemed to bob and sway as Nashida walked, and he could hear her muffled voice sounding somewhere above him. Was she talking to him? He couldn't tell. Probably not. Amazons in Khordanistan didn't really do that. They didn't have belly lights or intercoms or mediaphone repeaters or any of the other affectations of Edouedish consumptional correctness the Amazons had picked up back home. In Khordanistan, food was food. It was something you digested, not something you called to see if it needed anything or to ask about its emotional state.

Alecks rather preferred the Khordani way, he had to admit.

 

Of course, all that time not spent talking with his devourer about his feelings left much more time for him to fret about the consequences that would inevitably result from his little trip through Nashida. He didn't even have enough money for the trip back to Edouedia. If he lost the teaching job, he'd be really stuck here. That is, if he didn't get sent to prison for inappropriate relations with a student. The Edouedian embassy wouldn't help - they'd probably just laugh at him.

 

Or maybe not. Maybe it'd spark an international incident. Now THAT would be something to have on his conscience, Edouedian troops marching on Medyina after decades of peace. Fucking wonderful, thought Alecks as the stomach began to inflate slightly with gastric gas. He felt the world suddenly tip over as Nashida lay down, then get much tighter as she rolled onto her belly. He moaned loudly in discomfort, but his cries were futile, lost in the symphony of creaking and sloshing and slurping noises that surrounded him. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying making him squirm. That was another Khordani thing. They liked their meals active, and would do their best to keep them squirmy and uncomfortable, as if being cooped up for hours in a hot and slimy and smelly organ wasn't uncomfortable enough.

 

Alecks sighed and settled in for what was undoubtedly going to be a long night.

---

After uncountable hours of interminable boredom, during which Nashida repeatedly thwarted Alecks' numerous attempts to fall asleep with a thump or a shimmy or a thunderous belch, he felt the digestive process begin to wind down. The smell of the gastric gas changed character just slightly, and the giant pores in skin that had been leaking excess lipids and nutrients began to close up. The gentle pulses and squeezes of the stomach lining became stronger and tighter, wicking the fatty liquid off his still spongey skin, working to extract every last drop of available nourishment from his body.

 

Finally, thought Alecks. He was extremely tired, his limbs ached from the hours of confinement, he was completely parched, and was badly in need of a bath. Although he was indeed anxious to get out of Nashida's gut, he wasn't looking forward to facing the world again, nor the chaotic mess that his career was about to become.

 

Eventually, the squeegee-like squeezes of the stomach morphed into a muscular push, and he felt the gentle bob of Nashida's body as she walked, presumably to the bathroom. His feet were maneuvered into a hot, fleshy tube somewhere at the bottom of the stomach, and soon he was in the tube up to his knees. The change in position felt good, but also painful as muscles he hadn't used in hours suddenly reawoke.

 

After a few minutes, the bobbing stopped and the stomach muscles began contracting above and around his head and shoulders. He was pushed up to his thighs into the tube, and he felt his feet push through a rubbery ring into cold air.

 

The pushing continued for several minutes as his thighs, waist, and torso was slowly extruded from Nashida's body. He poked around with his feet cautiously, searching for the floor of whatever toilet facility he'd be landing in, and began to get a bit concerned when he didn't feel one. Soon the weight of his body and the pushing of the powerful muscles forced Alecks out, and he dropped a foot or two onto slimy, cold cement.

 

Coughing and sputtering, he wiped a layer of grime off of his face and opened his eyes. He was in a dimly-lit concrete trough, about three feet wide and four feet deep, that reeked of urine, feces, and sweat. Looking up, he saw that the main reason it was so dim was that most of the light was being blocked out by the bulbous olive-toned form of Nashida's backside, which was still straddling the trough and proceeded to dump a bit of steaming, horrible muck on top of him. She then wiped herself with some wadded paper, threw the paper into the trough, and stood up. As she began wrapping her clothing around herself, she finally acknowledged Alecks with a small wave and a whispered "see you tomorrow," before turning and quickly leaving the bathroom.

 

Oh well, thought Alecks as he began looking for the way out. He'd been pooped into a few trough bathrooms during his tenure here, and knew the drill well. The floor was slightly inclined for drainage, and he just had to walk uphill until he got to the end. If he were really lucky, there'd be a hose at the end that he could wash himself off with, and his tunic would be somewhere in a pile of clothes near the end. In his experience, he was usually quite unlucky - not only was there no hose for washing, but his tunic had been used by the customer as a wipe.

 

This particular trough was partitioned by dirty plywood walls that he had to duck under as he walked, occasionally having to dodge droppings from Amazon asses overhead. Since many of these droppings were human, Alecks soon found he had a lot of company in the trough - a slow, shit-covered caravan heading for the exit.

 

"Eh," said a voice, accompanied by a tap on the shoulder. He swivelled around quickly. The tap had come from Huarez, one of the Comeyran teachers, who was standing behind Alecks and covered in even more foul-smelling shit. "Mujo trabaho, eh?" said Huarez with a laugh.

 

"Yup," said Alecks, quickly, mortified at having been recognized. He turned back to the exit. Great, thought Alecks. Another witness. This would not help him keep this incident under wraps, especially since he didn't have the Comeyran skills to ask Huarez not to tell anybody.

 

He sighed as he reached the end of the trough and quickly hosed himself down with very cold water. It was enough to get most of the nastiness off of him, but he still smelled very much like a rectum. He didn't mind leaving a bit of the funk on himself - it'd ensure that no Amazons would bother him on the way back to the market. He'd take a real shower later. Still a bit wet, he put on his tunic and set about finding his way out of the horrible dorm bathroom and back to the market.

 

He reached the market about fourty minutes later, after a brisk walk through the chilly night air. Southside Market, serene and orderly during the day, truly came alive at night, and the air crackled with smoke and sparkling lights and shouts and music. The lanes of carts and stalls were a teeming mass of wandering Amazon musicians, jugglers, snake handlers, crocodile handlers, shrieking teenagers, cackling older folks, and even a handful of very frightened-looking human tourists trying to take it all in without getting taken in themselves.

 

On most nights, Alecks would be well into his second shift right about now, if not well on his way into his second customer. But on this night he couldn't handle another one. Arriving back at Yasmin's stall, he saw that her daughter Sajja was working the night shift. Oh good, thought Alecks. Sajja was the nicest of Yasmin's daughters - perhaps he'd get a decent cut of the 150 Doneys Nashida had paid for him.

 

Five minutes and a brief pidgin Khordani conversation later, Alecks walked away angry, frustrated, and only 50 Doneys richer. It would seem, thought Alecks as he hoisted the bag with his street clothes over his shoulder, that the apple didn't fall too far from the tree.

---

Alecks took a deep breath before entering Baseema's office. Somewhere in the distance, the last of the muwaqtinas was finishing the Call to Lunching. In stark contrast to his own, Baseema's office was a veritable menagerie of kitchy knicknacks and colorful craftworks and gaudy golden glittery things. Her bookshelves overflowed with pictures and awards and souvenirs and trinkets and an occasional book, and her desk was almost completely devoid of paperwork. The desk's main feature was a very ornate-looking telephone, which was in near-constant usage.

 

His class today had not gone well. Already fighting off the grogginess and exhaustion brought on by a fitful night of fretting and quite failing to sleep, Alecks had noted that the students were a lot more giggly and talkative than usual.

 

As he struggled his way through his planned lecture on prepositions, he found himself being interrupted more and more frequently by questions about food, cooking and the best way to serve humans. The questions all seemed to have been accompanied by coy glances in Nashida's direction, who bore an infuriating look of smug innocence.

 

Sensing that he wasn't going to get much done today, he had dismissed class early and pulled Nashida aside as she neared the door. "Nashida," he'd said, quietly. "Did you... tell anybody about us? Um, about last night?"

 

"Oh yes," she'd said, beaming. "My friends very happy to me. FOR me," she said, correcting herself proudly.

 

"I thought we agreed to keep last night secret."

 

"Yes – secret. I tell noone about your second job."

 

"No?"

 

"No – that is our secret. I just tell them I buy you at market and that you are great with hrira sauce."

 

"Ah," Alecks had said after a pause, his heart suddenly leaping into his throat. "Great. Thank you, Nashida."

 

"Okay Mr. Gurnick – I see you tomorrow!"

 

"Hope so," Alecks had said, dread and panic flooding his body. It had only gotten worse when he'd returned to his office and seen the note from Baseema reading, "Please see me urgently. Baseema."

 

Baseema was on the phone, talking loudly and impassionedly in beautifully-articulated Khordani, when Alecks knocked on her door frame. She beckoned him to come in and sit down, and he climbed into the Amazon-sized chair facing her desk. When he summited the ornate wooden chair, he could see that she was petting an adorable brown laborador puppy in her lap with one hand while signing a few papers in another, all the while talking on the phone that was hooked under her neck. The puppy appeared quite nervous, frantically glancing around the room and trying desperately to squirm out of Baseema's lap.

 

Finally, Baseema finished her phone conversation and hung up the phone. Almost on cue, her assistant Razi silently walked into the office, took the stack of papers from Baseema's desk, replaced it with another stack, and walked out, flashing Alecks a quick smile as she left. With a sudden, momentary outbreak of quiet, they were alone. Alecks gulped heavily. Time to face the music. He looked sheepishly at Baseema and began to speak. "You wanted to-" he began.

 

"Would you care for a puppy?" she said, smiling warmly. "I can't get this one calmed down." She picked up the whimpering animal and held it to him.

 

This wasn't the opening line he'd been expecting. "Oh, um, well," he began, the scrawny pup's sad, black eyes momentarily making him forget that he was about to get fired. "I'd love to, really, but I don't think they allow pets in my apartment, I'm sorry."

 

"'Pets,'" laughed Baseema. "You Edouedish are too funny." She held the puppy to her face for a minute or so, cooing at it gently in Khordani and nuzzling it with her nose and gently kissing its face and paws. She then opened her mouth and pushed the puppy inside. "Now then, Mr. Gurnick," she said as she gently chewed on the whining animal. "We've had a few reports from some of your students that have given us some cause for concern."

 

Alecks stiffened. "Yes, well, I can explain."

 

"At first we thought you were a vegetarian," she said, sounding out the word as if uncomfortable with both the pronunciation and meaning of the word. "We thought you were against eating of meat, we were prepared to accept this," she added, swallowing the puppy and then shushing at the chorus of muffled yips and barks that suddenly emitted from her belly. Rolling her eyes slightly, she continued. "But then we have heard the latest report."

 

"Yes, about that-" he began.

 

"About that indeed. Can you tell me why one of our students had to travel all the way to Southside Market and pay a ridiculous price to some horrible manmonger just to have some extra practice time with her teacher?"

 

"Extra practice time?" Alecks asked, puzzled. This wasn't quite the lecture he'd expected.

 

"Yes," continued Baseema, sternly. "What is the purpose of this? Was this some special addition to your curriculum?"

 

"No it's – it was," he sighed. "I just needed some extra money," he said, blushing with humiliation. "So I took a job at the market." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked sheepishly into Baseema's intense gaze.

 

Her eyes drilled into him for a moment or two, her face registering a handful of emotions before she exploded with a loud laugh. "HA," she said. "That's it?" Alecks nodded.

 

"Why did you not say something earlier? If you need money, you should tutor your students outside of class?" she asked. "That's what all your colleagues do. My students will pay quite well for a meal that can help with their grammar and pronunciation."

 

"A meal?" asked Alecks.

 

"Yes, of course" said Baseema. "We expect our teachers to help their students improve their hunting skills. It is the main reason we Khordani study foreign languages, you know. You think we care to read the great works of Edouedish Literature?" She rolled her eyes at the apparent oxymoron presented by the last two words.

 

"So...," began Alecks, ignoring for a moment the slam against his country's great literary tradition. "You mean this isn't- I'm not being let go?"

 

"Let go? Certainly not - I'd have a riot on my hands. My students all are quite ravenous for you. Some of the faculty as well."

 

"Ah," said Alecks, not sure whether to feel complemented or insulted. "Well, I guess I'd better tell Yasmin I'm not coming back,"

 

"It has been taken care of. We have already secured your release from her employ," said Baseema, pulling an adorable golden retriever puppy out of the bucket and petting it gently.

 

"I see," said Alecks. "Thank you," he added, almost as an afterthought.

 

"Now if you are free tonight, as I imagine you are, I'd like to schedule a tutoring session." She then gently lifted the puppy to her face and quickly stuffed the animal into her mouth.

 

"With you?," said Alecks, taken aback. "But- your Edouedish is perfect. Better than mine, I think."

 

"Perhaps," she said, gently chewing the struggling pup. "It will be a quick lesson, then, followed by a very good meal. I hear you are great with hrira sauce." She swallowed the puppy with an ominous gulp.

 

"So I've heard."

 

"Good. We have an appointment then. Rezi will give you the address. Why don't you come by after the Call to Suppers? I should have plenty of room for you by then," she said, patting her belly gently.

 

"Alright," said Alecks, getting up gingerly from the chair and climbing down to the floor. "I- I guess I'll see you tonight, then."

 

His head swam with disparate thoughts as he headed back to his office, staring at the paper that Rezi had handed him.

 

He hadn't lost his job, just his understanding of it. Here he had been naively thinking he was building bridges of cultural understanding between the Edouedish and Khordani civilizations after a history of war and conflict. All he'd really been doing was creating more efficient Amazon hunters.

 

Oh, well, he thought. At least he finally found something he was good at.

The End