How I Met Your Monster #42

Tothi

Profile:

Tothi, ?

Worm of Yekub

Likes: New experiences, change, dancing

Dislike: Surprises, alcohol

Bio:

I’m kind of new to this whole thing, but I’m really excited to meet new people and stuff! There are so many different bodies in this world and I really want to experience them the right way, you know? Let’s have a mutual good time, ok? Consent is very important to me.

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Dear readers, I was going to be honest, nothing really could have prepared me for the interview with Tothi. Looking up into the night sky, I’d always wondered what was up there, but Grays were one thing. Could anything have prepared us for the Worms of Yekub?

Another example of visitors from afar, I’m sure my dear readers remember how much of a scandal they caused compared to other visitors from beyond.

Everyone could remember the Kissing Mania of Lincoln Street or the Mass Fight of NYC Square, where people just suddenly stood up and started chaos! And how the Worms came down and basically said, ‘Woops, that was us?’

Being treated as a body rental tourist hotspot for a race of isolationist aliens didn’t endear a lot of people to the Worms when a small group of exiles came looking for a new home.

They were called the Perspectivists, a small group of Worms that disagreed with the larger whole of their species and had brought technology that, well, protected us. No more intergalactic body snatching on Earth!

So, sitting down with Tothi at the local club was an exercise in restraining my curiosity and caution.

“Hey, uh, Silas, right?” She sat down, a few minutes after I’d found a table, “Sorry if I kept you waiting.”

I waved it away at the time, “No, no, it’s fine. I try to arrive early to these things, it, uh, just doesn't always work.”

Tothi smiled and I was struck by how human it looked for an alien. With unnatural smooth purple skin that was layered with darker purple chitin at the joints of her arms and legs, Tothi was vaguely humanoid, albeit androgynous, with long tube-like purple hair with yellow spots scattered across it.

Her eyes were large and bulbous, like the eyes of a fly, and she barely turned her head to take in the room to find me as she entered. Around her neck, a bright crystalline cube hung on an indescribably alien metal-link chain that almost hummed in some strange frequency.

With the intense music of the club becoming background noise, I motioned to my recorder, “I hope you don’t mind…?”

“No, no, I’m fine with being recorded.” She smiled, “So, uh, how do we start?”

“A few questions and then some dancing, if that’s ok with you? First, why don’t you tell me about yourself.” I pushed the recorder closer to her, between our drinks that I’d ordered.

One of her tubes came down to sip the iced water I’d gotten her, “Well, I was pretty young when my parents came to Earth, so I’ve spent more time here than on Yekub.”

I nodded, “And what’s Yekub like?”

“Hah,” She looked a little exasperated, “From what my parents have said? Pretty boring. Houses made of glass, a weird cultish religion, it all sounds really heavy and restrictive when I hear about it.”

“So you don’t remember much yourself?” I said.

Tothi closed her eyes, “My parents could tell you more, but, yeah, I don’t remember much. Just the, uh, the vacations we’d take.”

She seemed tense and I could get why. The Earth-bound Worms got a lot of vitriol for the actions of their race, even though they’d helped put a stop to it.

“It’s ok, really,” I said, “This is all about understanding and communication. And maybe a bit more?”

Tothi’s hair wiggled a little bit, but she nodded, “Well, my family only took a few with me, but we’d find a family near a beach or the mountains and enjoy their lives for a while. Usually, I’d be a kid, but they’d sometimes drop me into someone older.”

“And what happens to someone while you're, uh, in their body?”

“Well,” Tothi took a big tube-gulp of her water, “They’re technically in mine? On Yekub, the technology we use is a mutual swapping of consciousness. They’re just kept unconscious so they don’t…cause problems.”

At this point, she looked guilty talking about the traditions and practices of her homeworld. I didn’t blame her, but she really didn’t need to feel so personally responsible.

I reached over and lightly touched her hand, “Hey, it’s ok.”

“It’s really not. It’s a whole planet of hypocrites looking for their next high and…human bodies are just so…different from ours. You have such wild hormones and these passions for life that feel so much more alive than ours.” Her tubes were really acting up.

I scratched the back of my head, “Wow, that is…what about other monsters?”

“They're exotic, but a lot more similar than you’d expect. Like, I, uh, I know a Bigfoot and a Frankenstein and they feel really similar.”

I blinked, “So it’s true then, you can still…do the thing?”

She played with the crystalline cube around her neck, “Yeah, this is the machine we use, but it’s a smaller, portable version. I don’t use it often, or uh, without consent though. It’s just…the only thing we kept from home.”

“Wow,” I was a bit stunned at this point, but I’d come in with a certain determination, “If you want…”

I let the words hang, recognition entering her eyes.

“Uh, really?” Tothi gripped the table, “It’s a little wild, you know? Moving in my body, uh, I could show you how though.”

“That, yeah, I think that’ll help me understand you a bit more,” I smiled with more confidence I felt, but I trusted Tothi. And how many times did you get this kind of opportunity?

“Wow, yeah,” Tothi’s hair was jiggling with excitement, “Ok, just…hold still, ok? It’ll take me a bit to…get used to your body and then I can come over to help you with mine.”

I gulped, strangely more aware of how it felt to move my own body at that point the closer I got to exchanging it for another, “Alright, holding still.”

And that, my dear readers, is when it all got a little strange.

There was a flash, not in the air, but in the center of my eyes. My body clenched, relaxed, and then clenched again with a new sensation about it. Seamlessly, I felt everything change.

I held still, but that didn’t stop me from feeling different from the tip of my toes to the jiggle of my tubes. My tubes, my hair. My tube-like hair.

I breathed in and out, feeling air rush through the tiny little holes of my nostrils, but also through the pores around my chitinous elbows and knees. There was a pressure inside me, pushing the air throughout my body and sending a chill of…something rushing through me.

It was incredible as it was terrifying.

“Silas?” A voice, my voice, sounding strangely lighter than I remember it sounding coming from my own throat. “Are you there?”

I opened my eyes, no, rather, I found myself aware enough to actually see the world around me and it was entirely around me. An almost 360-degree vision that threatened to consume me, but I tried to focus on my face across from me.

I gulped, my neck and body flexing with the motion in ways that I’d never experienced before, “Uh, yeah.”

That was Tothi’s voice, my borrowed voice. I was talking with her voice like I usually did, sounding strange to my own ears.

Tothi came over and gently rested her hand on my shoulder. Or was it his hand? I was going to stick with her hand. And her hand felt very nice, in a way my own had never felt to myself.

She gently touched my very, very fragile skin, treating it like a piece of fine china that she was inspecting, “Alright, alright, just calm down. Get used to the sensations, ok? You, uh, have a really nice body by the way.”

Tothi moved my body differently than I did, but I was sure I’d do the same in just a moment. I slowly found myself standing up, wobbling a little bit, “I, uh, I think I can stand. It’s just a bit…”

“The weight’s different, I know,” She smiled, gently helping me keep my balance. “Let’s walk around for a bit and then we can try some light dancing. And remember, no alcohol.”

“No alcohol.” I didn’t even want to consider what getting drunk would feel like in another body. Were my tastes different now? I considered the glass of ice water Tothi had been drinking from.

She nudged me closer, “Try it.”

As one of my tube-like appendages came over and stuck itself into the water, I was surprised by how…lukewarm it felt? It must have been very cold, but I didn’t feel it very intensely.

And then I enjoyed the nice refreshing taste of cold water rushing through my tubes, down through my body. And yet, I could feel it, the Worms’ numbed sensations keeping me from feeling just how enjoyable the cold water could be.

Tothi picked up the drink, taking a sip herself, and I saw my body blush, “Oh…Oh, yeah…that’s the stuff…”

I’d underestimated just how good different bodies felt for the Worms, hadn’t I? Well, dear readers, take this as a learning experience.

After a few more minutes getting situated, Tothi took me by the hand and led me to a corner of the club where few lingered and slowly, very personally, taught me how to sway her body to the groove.

In fact, we taught each other a lot about each other’s bodies that night.

So, remember dear readers, the Worms of Yekub here on Earth are a different breed than those of their homeworld. They care about us, and want to make the enjoyment of their lives a mutual thing.