Chapter 7: 2100 October 10th, Sunday

Not much interesting in the morning or afternoon today. I skipped breakfast and just ‘borrowed’ another container of gams from Nyrle. I saw her only briefly. She’s really working in there. I didn’t just barge in though, I texted her and asked if it was ok for me to stop by.

Anyways, the party started around when the sun started to set. I walked over there with the rest of the gang that was going. So, that was me, Wojis, Kuola, and Maggie. Veldel didn’t usually come to parties sadly. In fact, I only remember her at, like, one or two.

We were all in our usual clothes, light crop-tops that matched our skin tones well. I had shorts on today actually but Wojis and Kuola had some pretty short skirts on.

Oh I guess I didn't write much about Kuola yet. Well she’s pretty nice, keeps her hair retracted short--till she uses it really--and she typically has her skin light green with some light-blue hair.

Maggie had a slightly oversized hoodie on over her white shirt. There was some pink cat design on it. Was kind of cute. She had on jeans. The hood was up but I could still see her medium length black hair poking through it. With the hoodie unzipped I could tell she was a bit chilly still given how her arms were crossed. Maybe she was nervous too.

I never got that. It’s so weird that humans need to actually dress for the weather. Like, you let the weather tell you what to wear? That seems so weak! Even gams can run around naked in winter, yet humans and pretty much every other creature on this planet is so sensitive to the outside.

Anyways I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, even without Nyrle you’ll have fun. Maybe... you’ll even have more fun!”, I said.

She gave a chuckle, tinges of nervousness in the timbre. Still, she managed to look at me for a moment with her brown eyes.

“Uh, thanks Zlee.”, she said.

It wasn’t a long walk to Soaph’s place. We weren’t the first to arrive it had seemed, but things seemed to be just beginning. We knocked on the door and a student answered it. It was that toned woman from earlier, Daisy. Only she seemed to be acting on her own free will. Still, there was a slight smile to her face indicative of a light, persistent ‘buzz’ and there were a few purple hairs plugged into her neck and trailing towards the couch. Generic party music wafted out from some speakers on the far wall. The volume was reasonable.

I heard Soaph’s voice.

“Hey you’re here. Come in and have some fun.”

Then I heard a bang against the floor. Some guy with a drink tripped on one of those hair-plugs like it was a trip wire. He spilled the drink on the floor and made a pronounced “oof”.

Soaph and most everyone else had a good laugh.

“Sorry sorry.”, I heard Soaph say. “Next time I’ll get the door myself, or just give you more slack Daisy. In fact, let me unplug you so I can mingle easier.”

Daisy shrugged as the hairs slipped free from her neck, and recoiled back into Soaph’s head (mostly at least). We slipped off our sandals, Maggie ditched her sneakers and we stepped inside.

Soaph walked over and gave each of us a hug. Her hair was a far more reasonable length now all around, down past her shoulders. Still the longest of us by far. Not that it mattered when a thought could change it.

The house actually looked much the same as before layout, only the small table in the kitchen had been moved to. Of course the spacious slate counter in that room was covered in bowls of snacks and the like. Huge bowls of popcorn, chips, mixed nuts and stuff. Like, each one the size of two buckets in volume. Small scoops were nearby them as well as little bowls in case you wanted to fill something up and walk around with it.

That’s pretty common for parties where we show up. In one sitting, a Zenith can eat what would feed a group of 5 or so humans. Has to do with our metabolism and stuff, and the speed of our digestion. Our bodies are very efficient, but take a lot of energy. Mixed-nuts are a favorite cause they are very calorically dense and the fiber helps us feel a bit fuller.

At some parties they even segregate the snacks. Stuff meant for us will be covered in an assortment of spicy seasonings. That’s cause for us spicy food is just spice-y, whereas for humans I’m told it burns their tongue or something. Seems weird they’d eat it at all then but I’ve had some humans explain it.

Anyways the idea is to stop us from eating stuff set out for humans, but if we really wanted to we’d do anyways. Also, since Soaph was running the show today, she obviously didn’t do that. No point, and she’s not a fan of the spicy-smell lingering in the air from how much humans usually season things.

Now writing about food, one of the best most nutritious for us is gams of course. I mean, when you eat a smaller Zenith that’s probably nourished you kind of get all those essential nutrients they themselves got from digesting them, maybe. Anyways naturally there were plenty of gams to go around.

The tank was even fuller than when I visited yesterday. Since it was party time, Soaph also brought out the scoops to hang off the side. Some humans were gathered around the tank. Two girls were daring one another to eat one ‘no you first, no you first’ they said. While that was going on, Daisy, that toned tan human, just walked up right next to them, took a small scoop worth into her hand, then just swigged the morsels back with a gulp.

I remember thinking how I was beginning to like that Daisy gal.

Anyways I saw a student, looked about a junior, maybe senior with slick black hair and sunglasses indoors. I got a very ‘Mitch’ vibe from the attire alone, and was pleased that my guess was correct, since Soaph pointed him out shortly after.

We stopped briefly at the gams enclosure to each get a scoopful into our hands (well, except Maggie). Then we made our way to the part of the kitchen were drinks were set up. You had your standard jugs of cleaner with small drink glasses. Then, a bit away, there were bottles of soda and such.

I heard that alcohol used to be popular at college parties long ago. One can still buy the stuff obviously, but there’s no point for a party with Zenith at it. I know for a fact (well technically I don’t) that Soaph plugged all the human guests and gave them a slight buzz on entry--unless they didn’t want or ask for one I guess, like Maggie, ha. So yeah, alcohol is pretty inefficient for humans when we are around.

Alas we can’t hair-plug ourselves like we can the humans, but that’s why we drink cleaner. I dropped my handful of gams into a full class of the stuff than chugged. One drink gave me a light sort of giddiness, but I still kept my senses so-to-speak. I usually stopped at one and did then too.

We all mingled for a little bit. I could see Kuola found some nice-looking human ladies to talk to. Soaph, Wojis, and I chatted about a few banal things, courses and stuff, as more people fanned in. They were all humans except for one other Zenith I didn’t recognize. I was told her name was Yayhith though. Overall it was a medium scale crowd for the room. Not too many that people couldn’t move around with ease, yet not so few that it was a bummer.

Soaph seemed to think the party was full enough. She looked to the music speakers and telekinetically tapped the off button (a party trick she always liked).

“Alright everyone!”, she shouted. “I think it’s time for some games. You all like games right?”

The crowd gave a little cheer.

“Well we’re not doing just any. It’s time for some gam games.”

She turned to Wojis, Kuola, Maggie and I.

“C’mon gals help me get Spotster set up.”

Soaph went to a small closet nearby, whereas the rest of us Zenith in the gang went towards the gam enclosure. Maggie stood around, her soda cup half-full, hood of the hoodie down from off her head, looking as confused as a deer in my sprint path.

I walked back to her with a bowl full of gams.

Chuckling, I said:

“What’s up you never played Spotster before?”, then popped a handful of the squirming little gams in my gob.

She looked on with a bit of fear towards the motion of my throat as I swallowed. I reminded myself that I needed to get her to try gams today, without Nyrle to block it.

“Oh no it’s just-”, she said, but I interrupted her.

“Relax I’m just kidding. You never played any gam games have you?”

“Yeah, I don’t go to many parties.”

I smiled and leaned in, setting a hand on her shoulder. She was shorter than average, but for a human! So, I had over 6 inches of height on her. Some of her hair brushed by her face, and I think she was worried I was gonna hair-plug her then and there.

“Well it’s super fun. It’s just games with gams in them.”

“Ah ok, I mean, I don’t know that seems kind of cruel-”

Soaph interrupted her this time, saying that she got the box.

Oh yeah, gotta explain the obvious blah blah. Spotster is a popular party game. You lay out a lightly-colored mat with a some colored spots on it in rows. Then, there’s a spinner which tells you if you need to put your right hand on blue, or your left foot on purple or what have you.

It’s pretty fun for all ages, dumb college students included. It’s super popular at parties now cause it’s not a boring board game or anything, but it’s also pretty fair competition between Zenith and humans. Like, we have great flexibility, but it’s not like we can bend our elbows the other way or anything (though we’d probably heal that way better than any human).

Darts? Our aim is too good, and if we’re off on strength that means the dart is going through the wall. Ping-pong? A human professional would be lucky to last even one volley against any Zenith off the street. Kart racing video games? Well, maybe... but our hand-eye coordination is beyond most humans, so that’s up to who gets the better item box (the blue frog power-up is totally unfair if you ask me.)

Spotster though? Spotster humans have a chance. Our balance is phenomenal compared to clumsy humans, but the spinner is such an important component. Some poses are harder to do than others.

Anyways Soaph’s copy can have up to four players playing at a time. She decided to start with a team match, one Zenith and one human each to be fair. So it was Soaph and Daisy versus Maggie and I. I guess without Nyrle around, since I was her bestie, I was paired with her ‘pet-human’ by default. I would’ve rather had daisy at the time. Can you blame me, tall athletic human versus meek geek one.

But this was a gam game, so we had to add gams to the mix before we could start. Those of us who fetched the gams sprinkled them over the colored spots on the mat: about 100 at least per spot. Gams came in a variety of sizes and all but there was a small little circle of them, gathered up, in the center of each colored spot.

Of course, we had to get them to stay there in a party with plenty of Zenith and human women to addle their poor horny minds. That was easy though. I took the liberty of dispersing a bit of pheromones and truespeaking “stay and stand still” to them all once they were plopped down on the spots.

Thankfully, unlike humans, the gams are very sensitive to our pheromones. So only a little bit needed to be used and the humans all kept their senses. I often fine tune my pheromones for the species of the target anyways.

The four of us stood over the mat, our bare toes at the edges save for the white-socked Maggie. She looked pretty apprehensive. I mean, it was kind of obvious what the gams were there for now.

I wanted to win though, so I talked to her.

“Maggie don’t tell me you are chickening out are you?”

“No, It’s just that, I mean if I play this I’m gonna have to kill some of them.”

“Yeah so? You know Nyrle eats thousands of these guys a day right.”

“Yeah but, that’s eating them. At least it serves a purpose.”

“The purpose now is having fun. Trust me none of these gams were gonna get what they wanted out of life. It’s good that they are put to use at all.”

“But they are living beings.”

“Yeah but they are lesser. I mean, look at them. You can’t tell me it’s not kind of cool to be looking down at them right?”

“I mean, I guess, this just seems cruel-”

“I won’t lie and say they won’t feel the fear of death at some point, maybe. However, trust me when I tell you that there’s a part of them that’s gonna be delighted to get touched by you, even if it’ss as your hand or foot crushes the life out of them.”

“I don’t know...”

“Think of what Nyrle will think when she heard you played gam games, and won! She’ll be pretty proud I bet.”

Maggie gave a meek little smile.

“I mean, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit! No come on, let’s kick Soaph’s butt.”

I gave her a reassuring pat on the back. I thought we were doomed though at the time. Soaph is ok at the game, but Daisy seemed pretty athletic, and all I had was Maggie in comparison.

“Alright well if you two are so eager...”, began Soaph. “Then your team can go first. Lets have the humans go first too in fact. Maggie, give it a spin.”

She slid the spinner over on the floor. Everyone else at the party was gathered around the space made in the living room, watching with a drink or snacks in hand. Their chatting had paused while they waited for the first spin.

Maggie leaned down and spun. I could tell she was still a bit nervous.

“Right foot, Purple. My favorite color.”, said Soaph. “Any spot will work.”

I saw Maggie eye the row of purple spots. Each one was filled with a bunch of gams. She went for the middle spot--wise choice if you ask me--and hovered her right foot above it. But, she was hesitating.

I could only imagine what was going through her mind. There’s no way she hadn’t squished some gams before on accident, probably without even knowing a bunch. This was different though, on purpose! I mean...

Yeah I guess I can’t imagine it that well, I don’t get the big deal really. Silly kind-hearts.

I can imagine it was probably interesting for the gams below. You’re looking up at a big white sock, just hanging in the air as the woman it belongs to is wavering over to crush you as part of a game. All the while you don’t want to move as my honey-sweet words still linger in your mind.

Gotta stand still, even as that socked foot, wavering, draws closer and closer. Even as the white fabric of it touches down on you. You feel the warmth radiating from it. Maybe the loose white fibers run against your cheek, tickling you.

It presses a bit more. You are still doing your best to stay standing, which means you lift up your tiny arms to try and push against it, but there’s no use. You’re pushed onto your knees as the shy sophomore lowers her foot down a tad more, tentatively. She feels the first bit of resistance once your knees are fully bent, and pauses for a few seconds. The pressure is intense.

You hear my voice.

“C’mon Maggie, you’re just making it worse for them holding your foot like that. Step and get it over with.”

You hear another voice, Soaph’s.

“This game doesn’t have a time limit for turns, but maybe we need one.”

The crowd laughs. The woman with her foot above you, well, you can’t see past her socked foot. But, she’s feeling a different sort of pressure. She steps down. It’s still a bit slow, painfully slow. You hear your bones crack. Then, it’s a flash of pain into dark, so fast you can hardly process it.

Yeah I guess the gams would feel something like that maybe.

Anyways Maggie finished that step of hers. She was slow and hesitant at first but kind of stomped down pretty fast towards the end, eyes shut with a wincing expression. I guess she wanted to kind of get it over with. She slowly opened her eyes as she looked down at her sock, seeing a bit of the blood of gams staining the side.

The crowd kind of gleaned the obvious hesitance, and cheered to encourage her.

“Ewwww that felt kind of gross.”, she said.

“Yeah but gross can be fun sometimes. Their blood dries and flakes off fast. But, if you’re worried about laundry can just take your sock off on the next move.”, I said.

“No, that sounds like it’d be grosser.”, she said.

“Alright!”, said Soaph. “Daisy give it a spin.”

The spinner spun to Daisy’s touch.

“Oh wow, left hand on blue: my favorite color.”

“I thought purple was your favorite?”, said Wojis.

“I can have two favorites!”

Daisy placed her hand on a blue spot. She didn’t hesitate to squash the gams below her palm.

Then, it was my turn. I gave it a spin.

“Left foot on purple!”, said Soaph.

I just stomped my foot right down next to Maggie’s, smirking at her. I then wiggled my toes, finishing off a partially crushed gam.

Soaph got left hand on green, so it was hands versus feet kind of, just for a turn. The next one had Maggie’s right hand on orange. Not too hard a move but she hesitated a bit again. Still, a few more words of encouragement, some closed eyes, and she got her palm down over the gams on that spot. I saw her shiver as she felt them squish beneath her bare palm. Soaph and I couldn’t help but laugh.

The game continued on, and on. Maggie was pretty darn good at it actually. I remember towards the end, just about all of us were crisscrossed. My leg went over the bend of Soaph’s arm. Daisy’s foot was right by mine. Maggie had gotten some bad luck. She looked like one of those spiders or something with her limbs splayed out. Still, she was holding the pose like a champ.

The first one to fall was actually Daisy. She was trying to lift her leg one spot out. She managed to get her left foot down on the spot, flattening the gams there, but in the process her heel slipped and she fell.

Then I had to go and... embarrassingly knocked myself out right after. I had to move a hand all the way from purple to green. The spot was used before so there weren’t even any gams to squish there either, just to rub it in as I failed to put my palm there before falling.

Things got really interesting. It was Soaph vs Maggie. On the one hand, I didn’t like the idea of Zenith losing to humans at a silly game. On the other hand, fuck, Maggie was on my team and we were gonna win!

She was seen as the underdog. The crowd was even chanting. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.” I saw a small smirk break her stoic, focused countenance.

There was another spin each, super tense moves. Soaph got herself in a real unstable position, but Maggie had to move her left foot from a corner spot towards a color in the middle for her turn. The crowd let out sounds of disappointment when the spinner settled. This kind of move was hard.

But you know what happened? Soon as someone read out the reading, Maggie took a deep breath. There was silence.

In one quick smooth motion, Maggie brought her left leg up, twisted her body, and smashed the heel of that left foot right on the right spot. The gams below just exploded against the heel of her blood stained sock.

Everyone erupted into cheers. The fact that she did it, and still hold the pose, was pretty darn cool.

Soaph was a good sport, laughing to herself and muttering “wow”. Her next turn she got a pretty hard move and just fell over halfway trying to get it. I could see a smile on Maggie’s face.

“I can’t believe it, we won!”

I stepped over to Maggie and helped her up. For once I felt proud about that dumb human.

“Way to go! I had no idea you were so good at Spotster.”

“Well, I actually did gymnastics for a bit actually...”

“Well you were great, we won. Nyrle will be so psyched.”

Maggie smiled a bit more.

“Alright loser cleans the mat right?”, I said, turning to Soaph.

She chuckled and took it up with Daisy.

“Yeah yeah.”

The two rinsed it off really quick in the sink. One good thing about Gams is that their blood didn’t really stain too much. It was super easy to clean. I just wiped my feet on the floor and they were near spotless again. The way it dried was as flakes, but not the kind that stuck to stuff that bad or anything. So any blood on my heel or the ball that was missed would just fall off as flakes without my noticing.

There wasn’t enough Zenith at the part do do mixed teams like that for all the games, but Kuola and Wojis competed next with two humans I didn’t know well from the crowd too. I didn’t watch the next game all that close, instead I walked with Maggie over towards the gam enclosure near the kitchen.

She was lifting her foot and wiping the sock free of some dried gam blood when I gave her shoulder a nudge.

“Stay here I’ll be right back.”

And I was, with a bowl of mixed nuts for me and some popcorn for her, which she refused.

I shrugged.

“Fine, but I gotta insist you finally try gams.”

I reached in with a scoop and tilted a batch into my bowl of nuts. Normally I like gams raw, but I was feeling pretty hungry at the time so they got to be seasoning. I tried not to chew them, but I had to chew the almonds and peanuts so some got caught in my teeth and mashed up.

“You mean to eat? I don’t know about that.”

“C’mon, you just killed a bunch to win us that game and it was awesome. If you eat gams Nyrle’s gonna flip... in a good way of course.”

Probably, I figured. I remember I felt annoyingly hungry at that time. So, I just devoured the rest of the little bowl while she talked.

“Yeah but eating them seems even more messed up. Little people popping in my mouth feels gross.”

“Well, don’t think of them as people then to start. Also, you don’t need to chew most just swallow them, yeah, cause the blood flavor isn’t the best part or anything.”

She looked a tad horrified. I chuckled.

“Trust me it’s super easy. I mean yeah we have an easier time of it, but you’ve seen humans swallow them down right here today. Here I’ll show you how easy it can be.”

I took a scoop and dipped it into the gam enclosure. The gams were running away from it, having figured it meant death. I was a bit lazy to spread pheromones, but that didn't matter when I could so easily catch up to them with the scoop. They were just that small.

Rather than pour these on anything--I didn’t have anything to pour them over actually--I just lifted the scoop above my mouth and dumped about half of its contents into my open mouth.

I turned to Maggie and opened my mouth, no doubt showing the little guys writhing on my tongue and in my spit. She made a somewhat grossed out expression, but I squinted, and gave her a light nudge when she tried to close her eyes.

I flicked my tongue back, mouth open still, and sent them all down my gullet before her eyes.

I can tell that eeked her out a tiny bit, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of teasing I think.

“There.”, I said. “That easy, of course you shouldn’t swallow that much at once. Just try a few.”

I tilted some more from the scoop into my hand. They were trying, meekly, to get away. I debated using pheromones to get them to calm down, but I figured Maggie should experience the true way of eating them, when they aren’t disincentivized from wiggling.

I pinched up a few, probably about... 10 or so small ones. Really easy. Anyone could swallow that. I moved my fingers towards Maggie’s mouth. She shook her head slowly.

“C’mon. Just try it. Like I said, Nyrle will get a kick out of the story. It’ll give you two something more to talk about.”

She seemed less hesitant, but her lips were still clamped shut.

“C’moooon, if you try it I’ll leave you alone about it... for the rest of the day at least.”

She sighed.

“Alright. So, you just swallow them... alive? That sounds pretty painful for them.”, she said.

“Yeah well digestion is quick--oh wait, I guess you humans are slower with that stuff. Well, like I said, part of them will be happy to be inside a woman, one way or another.”

She actually laughed a tad at the dumb joke.

“Find ok, but you gotta drop this nonsense for the rest of the party.”, said Maggie.

“Yeah sure if you want.”, I said.

“Also you gotta tell Nyrle I wasn’t too skittish about it.”

I laughed. Normally I’d get a little ticked off when a human told me to do something (unless it’s a professor obviously, though sometimes even then...)

But, Maggie was one of the gang and for once I was having fun with her.

“I don’t know about that. I don’t like lying to Nyrle. Bending the truth though maybe... actually why don’t you just make it the truth. Eat them the bravest you possibly can. So stop talking and open wide.

Maggie’s brown eyes studied my fingers. I gave them a small wiggle, the Gams between my thumb and fore finger writhing and screaming their tiny little screams.

She took a nervous swallow, then opened wide. Head angled slightly up, her tongue outstretched.

“Aaaaaa”

I realized this really was her first time eating gams. Again I don’t see it as too big of a deal, even from a human’s perspective. But, I think it would be a fun creative writing exercise to try and think about how she felt. So, I guess I’ll try that out here...

You’re standing in front of an enclosure of gams. Thousands upon thousands of the little guy run around in there, staring up at you, wondering what to think. Being a human, you often wonder what to think too looking down at them. How can something about as intelligent as you, education aside, be so small and weak? It seems strange in a cosmic sort of way sometimes.

Your (totally cool, hot, smart and awesome) friend Zlee encourages you to finally try eating them. It takes some convincing, and you know her reasons aren’t the right ones (or rather you think, incorrectly, that they aren’t the right ones cause you are silly and human and stuff). Still, she’s telling the truth with a lot of her points. It seems odd not to try it just once. Your socks and hands were stained with the blood of hundreds of the gams just a short while ago, so what’s the harm in eating less than a dozen?

You swallow, prepare yourself, then open your mouth slowly. You suddenly feel very self-conscious about your breath. You ate before the party, a rye-bread veggie sandwich with a side of potato chips. Normally you don't think about that stuff, but a part of you feels bad for the tiny little ‘people’ you are gonna have to deal with your breath all around them. Not to mention what your stomach will smell like to them.

You start to second-guess yourself, opening slower, but you keep going. To you, this is a brave thing to do. Adventurous. You stick out your tongue and, like you were at the dentist, let out an

“Aaaaaaa”

It’s not even two seconds before Zlee just chucks the gams into your mouth. Your eyes widen in shock. You weren’t expecting it to be so sudden like that. Zlee is laughing though, and you feel a tad foolish for thinking she’d help you by taking things slow.

You thought about what that must be like for the Gams. Your yawning mouth wafting the air all over them. You’re just some short, meek little sophomore. A human. You can’t lift up cars or anything like the Zenith’s can, but to these gams you’re giant. Hundreds of feet tall in comparison. Your steps can end hundreds of them and you’re about to eat them like some big giant movie monster. You think on the emotions they must be feeling.

(Wait I guess I should focus on her perspective for this. I’ll leave this line here as a note)

You feel them plop on your tongue, rolling around over the little bumps there. There’s so much going on at once. Their flavor hits you, tasting like not too much of anything. Just flesh really, like you licked your arm or something. A bit more savory perhaps.

They are in a panic. It feels like little bugs on your tongue. You feel a few stand up and move around. You feel some of those slip again, in your spit no doubt. Others move forward in your mouth towards your teeth. You imagine they are trying to get out. They are obviously smart enough to want to escape, but not so dumb as to bring themselves over your teeth and hop out. Maybe their survival instinct is helping with that too. Falls don’t really hurt gams that much, but you figure they could still be scary.

In any case they don’t even get the chance to try. The sensations are so novel and strange to you that your tongue bounces up and down, lips sealing to near close. Every gam in your mouth tumbles and turns. You feel some roll over the side of your tongue and plop below it. One lets out a yelp as your tongue smashes them down without you really thinking about it.

Trying to help them calm down, you steady your tongue. They are still in a fuss. You feel the couple pinned beneath your tongue squirming. One starts pounding at the side of your tongue, perhaps to get his friend out from under there? It feels weird. Almost like a tickle. So weak...

As you steady your inner cheek muscles and tongue, you can actually start to taste them better. You still think they taste not like much in particular. It’s kind of like a chewy candy with all the flavor sucked out of it. Yeah it doesn’t taste like much, but there’s an odd appeal to just suckling on something, getting every bit of flavor you can.

Curiosity gets to you and you bounce a few near the inside of your left cheek. Your tongue nudges them there, holding them in place and rubbing against them as you focus. You can taste more of that savory flavor. It’s almost like almonds or something in the subtle richness. It’s odd to you, but not repulsive.

You hear Zlee’s voice.

“Look at you, are you enjoying this? Doing great so far, but you’re gonna have to swallow them you know.”

‘Them’, it occurs to you again there are little beings in your mouth. Sentient little guys with wants and fears, the latter of which now dominated by you. They are stuck in your mouth. They are breathing your breath. Its near totally dark. Your tongue is like some great big whale to them. You idly move it, thinking on the matter and wondering what it looks like to them. How strange this all is.

You feel one of the gams start punching at your tongue harder. He must not be pleased. You feel bad for him, but it’s also kind of annoying. You nudge your tongue opposite his way then bump him with it, sending him into the inner-part of your right cheek. Pressing gently he’s still fighting. You press harder and hear a small crack and a yelp.

Your eyes widen, you almost open your mouth and spit them all out out of a mixture of guilt and revulsion. But, Zlee is looking right at you, squinting with her red-irised eyes. There’s a subtle expression of disapproval. You know she guessed what you might do. You’re in so deep to this already, so you might as well finish it up.

Besides, it’s strange to admit it, but that crack, that bit of power, part of it felt almost good. How easy it was.

You seal your lips. It’s total darkness in your mouth. Saliva is pooling, you can feel your body make it. It’s not on purpose, there’s just something in your mouth that your body thinks is food, so there’s saliva going on. It’s natural. I mean, you’re gonna eat them all right, so they are food in at least one sense.

It’s time. You tilt your tongue and get ready to swallow. You’ve never eaten bugs or anything before, let alone tiny, fearful little humanoids. Gams. You try and swallow but your body stops you. A gag reflex or something. It’s like trying to swallow pills without water. You can faintly hear the muffled screams inside your mouth intensify.

You try again and fail. Zlee notices.

“Don’t worry, you can do it. Just swallow them with more saliva if you want.”, she says.

You try that, deliberately trying to eke out more saliva now. You manage as much, and move your tongue around to lather the little guys in it. You feel like a monster doing that, but persist.

You tilt your tongue again. They are wiggling still but the saliva must be sticking to them cause they are worse at it. It makes your job easier though. You gulp and you can feel gams go down, just two to start.

It’s strange. You can feel them enter your throat. They are moving so fast. Your throat must be crushing them tight. You remember everything you learned in biology classes about the esophagus. You remember how squeezes food down. How its slimy and gross.

You don’t want to think about this too much with the gams in your mouth. You want this over with. You eke out more saliva and curl your tongue, bunching the gams together. With one mighty gulp you swallow them all down. It’s rough, like swallowing a big vitamin pill with only the spit in your mouth to lubricate it, but the pill is squirming and screaming the whole time.

The next gulp has the rest of the gams stuck in your throat a moment. You’re not chocking but it feels weird. You cough and hear them yell loudly. You wonder how that felt against their bodies. They just be clinging to your throat or something, barely. You feel one slip so it must not be the best hold, but still it’s tickly and they feel stuck.

Zlee notices you struggling and helps. Maybe she just didn’t want you to spit them out still. She turns around and takes a cup of soda off the counter.

“Relax, drink some of this.”

You part your lips enough to sip the drink she tilts to your mouth. You swallow. The bubbly fluid cools your mouth, tingles it, as you gulp it down. You feel them lose their hold on your throat and slip down. You imagine how the shock of the chill, fizzy liquid might’ve hit them.

You feel them a little longer down your throat. You let out a sigh, mouth open as you breath in and out. Zlee is smiling at you.

You can’t feel them enter your stomach, but you know they did. They are in your gut. They fell atop the partially digested remnants of what you ate earlier. You can only imagine how gross it is in there: how gross it feels with slimy food sticking to them. How gross it might smell, all acidic with the hints of melted rye bread and potato chips adding to the odor.

You can imagine them tumbling over with every movement you make. You hear your stomach gurgle and think that if your stomach churned with that, that you probably covered them all in chyme-y gunk. All of that without you being able to stop it. All of that without you even thinking about it really. You’re body is gonna kill them in such a painful, dark, torrid way and you aren’t even doing it on purpose. It just happens. Cause they are there in your stomach. Cause they are food.

‘Is this power’?, you wonder.

You shake your head. It feels weird. Not too great, but not as bad as you thought either. Just weird. You don’t know what to think, but you turn to Zlee who’s smiling and you meekly smile back.

...

Yeah I can imagine that’s what Maggie thought, maybe. I mean, who knows right? I wonder if I messed up the tenses there. Fun writing exercise.

In any case, regardless of what she was thinking or feeling, she did eat the gams... and did almost choke on them or something. I didn’t want to give her the soda but I felt kind of bad, and I’d feel worse if Soaph got mad at me for indirectly making Maggie spit on the floor if it came to it.

I encouraged Maggie after the fact. It wasn’t fake on my part, I was genuinely happy she did it.

“Way to go Maggie!”, I said.

By then the Spotster match with Kuola and Wojis had finished. The two came over with Wojis saying she won. Knowing the both of them, I bet it had less to do with Wojis’s skill at the game than it did with Kuola getting distracted with her limbs bumping into her human female teammate.

They were on the way to get another glass of cleaner. I told them real quick that Maggie just ate some gams and they gave a “nice!” and a thumbs up.

“So, how was it?”, I asked Maggie. The other two listened in.

“It was kind of weird. I don’t know how you eat so much of them.”

“Well you are human after all, I heard with humans it gets easier the more you do it, you know.”

Wojis and Kuola nodded in agreement before walking off to get those drinks. I saw some spilled gams end up under Kuola’s bare green feet with the cute, blue nail-polish. She didn’t skip a beat and just kept walking.

I tilted the rest of the scoop into my hand. Maggie tensed up her shoulders.

“Yeah well I’m not sure I want to do that again.”

I laughed, then tilted the squirming contents of my palm to my mouth and gulped the gams down with just a couple swallows.

“Fine, whatever. Like I said I won’t bug you about gams for the rest of the day buuuuut, between winning Spotster and finally eating a few I think you deserve a reward.”, I said.

I then wiggled my hair, reaching it towards Maggie’s exposed neck. She gasped.

“I don’t know.”, she said. “I don’t really hair-plug that often.”

“But you’ve done it before?”

“With Nyrle, yeah, but very rarely like I said-”

“You’ll be fine then.”

I slipped my hairs into her neck and her body shivered. I wanted to reward her pretty well, so I focused on making her feel quite good. A bunch of dopamine and other happy chemicals were percolating in her brain no doubt if the buzzed and happy expression she had was anything to go by. She started giggling.

It was kind of cute actually, but it also made me realize I overdid things a bit.

“Whoops.”, I said, slipping out my hair from her body. She stumbled against the counter. I saw her socked foot below press down on the last bit of straggler gams from my messy scoop handling earlier.

I shrugged.

“Oh well, c’mon Maggie you can relax in the guest room.”

I took her hand and she followed, giggling and loopy. I brought her in, lifted her up, and set her on the bed with ease.

I went back into the main area of the house, let Soaph know the guest room was occupied, then got back to the party.

I noticed Kuola in a corner with two human women about her age. Her blue hair was extended to a medium length now, with many strands running into the necks of her new ‘friends’. I caught the view just in time for Kuola to start making out with them.

Kuola likes other Zenith and female humans, a lot. She has no interest in human men. She also is against using pheromones to woo humans, says she views it as violating. Yet, she has no issues hair-plugging into other gals and pumping them full of oxytocin and other feel-good sensations while she talks with them and makes out.

I think that’s a bit hypocritical myself. Not that I mind. I mean, you do you Kuola, I have no idea who those two women are after all so she could have flooded their brains to porridge with chemicals for all I care.

In any case it wasn’t long before one of the women undid Kuola’s top and started fondling her naked, bare green breasts. This is a rather common thing at parties with Zeniths in general.

We Zenith are a bit more open-minded to public displays of intense ‘affection’. Humans are much more prudish about that sort of stuff. I mean, we’re not necessarily gonna fuck in the open, but that’s more for sanitary concerns. I personally don’t see issues with making out with my friends. They’re beautiful, I’m beautiful. We both have urges and desires. Might as well indulge and enjoy one another.

In particular I cannot think of another Zenith who doesn’t enjoy the company of other Zenith or human women. I think it’s just built into us. We have licentious wants that should be filled, and who better to know our bodies than those with similar? Yeah gams exist but it takes an army of them to try and satisfy, and even then there’s some things they can’t do, like intertwine hair for instance. I guess human women can’t do that either, but they look enough like us that it tricks the more primitive parts of our brain into digging them too, I suppose. Plus, hair-plugging is its own sort of fun twist to sex.

Anyways, stating more of the obvious, we’re just very open with affection. More promiscuous and free than the humans. Case in point, after watching Kuola for a few moments I made my way to Soaph as she beckoned me over with a curling finger. We briefly intertwined our hair, sharing tingles of pleasure as our lips locked for a kiss. Wojis tugged me aside after to another corner, and I delighted nibbling at her neck while she reached up my shirt and fondled my left tit.

All of this was in public in the house. Most humans enjoyed the sights, even if they didn’t actively participate. Maybe some felt weird but this was Soaph’s party and she made it clear that at her place if people didn’t enjoy this sort of behavior they could always just leave.

Though I was rather occupied, I still tried to look around the room now and then to see what the party was up to. Things were winding down, the sun had set for some time. There were still people around though. Some were passed out from over indulgence of hair-plugging. Kuola had found a spot on the couch with her two new lady friends draped over her and smooching every inch of her naked top.

As Wojis was grinding against me, I noticed a rather odd looking fellow and immediately got a vibe. He just looked rather shifty, looking at the floor as he went into the hallway. It wasn’t Mitch or anyone else I met earlier. They must've come to the party alone I figured.

I broke away from Wojis, telling her to wait as I checked on something.

I went into the hallway and my fears were realized. The creepy looking student was opening the door to the guest room. I figured he must’ve saw me bring loopy Maggie in there.

I followed, walking briskly but as silently as I could. It was good that I was barefoot I suppose. I saw him walk into the room. The only light in there was from a small lamp as I hit the room switch before heading out. I saw Maggie in a ditsy, ‘out-of-it’ state on the bed, just relaxing and enjoying the ocean of happiness flowing in her mind. Obviously she was in no position to be alone with a creepy guy.

I went in and he was looking at her all predatory like.

Now I didn’t know if he just wanted to watch her or do worse, but I could tell he was up to no good. Maybe I was wrong, but it didn’t really matter. He was just a human and that was Maggie, Nyrle’s favorite human and one of the gang. I couldn't risk anything happening to her, especially with Nyrle not around. She’d never let me live it down. Frankly, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I would probably feel bad if something happened to her. I mean, I was getting to actually like her a bit more today you know, even if I wasn’t, and still am not, her number one fan or anything.

Anyways so I easily come up behind the guy, too fast for his dumb human brain to react. My hand is on his mouth and I’m tempted to press down with the barest bit of effort to pop all his front teeth out down his throat to choke on.

But, it’s Soaph’s place I’m in. That would bring out blood she’d have to clean up. Plus, there could be a reputation for her parties as dangerous to humans. That could hurt her side-business, she’d get mad at me, all sorts of stuff. Basically, I couldn’t just kill the guy, even discretely.

So I thought to myself ‘fine, I’ll do worse.’

I slid my hair into his neck, each strand striking like a snake. He squirms as he feels something direly wrong going on in his body and his head. He doesn’t realize it, but I’m modifying him at a synaptic level. I’m frying his serotonin receptors, stopping his mind from being able to sense that important human neurotransmitter for happiness. I modified his body at the cellular level to stop producing it too, just in case. I let him keep his dopamine though, he’d need the motivation later.

I leaned my face next to his and spoke with tiny, yet dense pink clouds leaving my mouth with every word. My pheromones were tuned just to male humans so it wouldn’t effect Maggie in the room.

“Silently, leave this house, go home, and die.”

I moved my hand from my mouth and he briskly walked out. He’ll off himself tonight and that’ll be taken care of. Even on the off-chance he didn’t--maybe he gets hit by a car and rushed to the hospital on the way home, who knows--he will the first chance he gets. I essentially fried his ability to enjoy life.

Maggie watched the whole thing, still all loopy. I shot her a smile and checked the time on my phone. It was getting a bit late and this was probably a good sign that we should wrap things up.

Heading back to the main room I can see other people were getting the same idea. Every human had left, except for Daisy, two people passed out on the floor, and the two women enjoying the feel of Kuola’s breasts.

Soaph agreed it was a fun party but time to call it over. She hair-plugged the passed-out people, they got up. Kuola put her top back on and kissed her new friends goodbye. Daisy and the other humans left. That one Zenith I hadn’t meant left earlier herself.

So, with just the gang about, Wojis and Kuola carried Maggie out of the guestroom. We decided to just let her be loopy on the way back rather than hair-plug her out of the rather intense buzz. She earned the enjoyment I suppose. It was kind of funny watching Wojis and Kuola get Maggie’s sneakers back on though.

Soaph waved goodbye and the rest of us went back to Campus. Wojis and Kuola took care of getting Maggie back to her dorm. I went back to mine and here I am now, writing today’s diary entry.

Was definitely a fun party for sure! An interesting day too. I hoped tomorrow would be even better. I’m finally gonna approach Brock. If Maggie can eat gams then I have no excuse.

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