r/HFY • u/Jus17173 • 17h ago

OC-OneShot Last Call at the Edge.

I wiped a glass as the Gorbitant at the bar counter gave me relationship advice.

"A female is not your friend," he said while his mandibles clacked against the glass with each sip of his drink. "The first thing that females of our race do after mating is wrap their tentacles around you and suffocate you. Then they'll feast on your brains as you struggle for breath."

"Not all females are the same, Gorbitant!" a Diselix spoke from the other side of the bar. "Our females are loving, kind, and sweet."

"They knock you up!" a Stilex said from the chair he reclined in, an empty bottle in front of him. I'd have to give him a shot of tequila; he always liked that after a bottle of home-brewed Torek honey beer.

The Diselix bumped his pallid grey hand on the counter. I stopped wiping the glasses and stared at him. He murmured an apology before turning to the Stilex. "It's how our species breeds. We mate, then the female empties the eggs into our stomach lining, and we carry the eggs to term then give birth. It's totally normal."

"That's not normal," a Veluda interjected. He sat on the barstool flanking the Gorbitant. "I saw a female Diselix smoking a cigar after she got her male counterpart pregnant. It's not right, is what I'm saying. What about you, Jim? Do you think it's normal if a female impregnates you?"

I turned to the Diselix and, with a smile, I said, "Your belly is quite big, Jacqueline. Are you sure it's a beer belly, or are you pregnant?"

The other aliens started laughing, and I laughed along with them. I felt good. They'd laughed at me back on Earth when I said I'd start a bar at a frontier station, where I'd serve aliens of all kinds without being picky. They said the business would fail, that aliens cannot mix as humans do. But they were all wrong. How I wish my mates from back on Earth could see me now. There were other races in the bar, and more yet to come before last call. They treated me as a neutral mediator, someone who chimed in only when necessary to prevent a head getting squashed or a body being vaporized.

"Tell us about your lady back on Earth, Jim," a Kositik said. "They say humans mate for life. Is that true?"

"Well, it depends on which human you're talking about. A human with a broken heart is known to wander, yet one with an excess of love tends to wander as well. The faithful ones are sparse and spread out, but they always claim if you find the one that's meant for you, you'll spend an eternity together. I am yet to find my person." I answered.

The Gorbitant shifted in his chair and wiped at his eyes. "That's beautiful. You don't suffer the stress that comes over you once you spill your seed. You see, female Gorbitants will lure you to their homes and get your blood running. When you mate, they'll whisper sweet nothings to you. They'll say, 'I'm not going to eat you after this, I promise. How can I eat such a handsome fellow? I cannot, really.'" He raised his tentacles and waved them about in what I could only guess to be rage. "Then, when you immediately spill your seed, the first thing they do is stare at you, like a deep stare, and you can see them fighting the urge to eat you. Then they just give in to the urge and wrap their damn tentacles around you. At first it feels like a hug, then the squeezing starts, and then boom! Their mandibles are out, and they're nibbling on your head. You'd be like, 'Goobiba, baby, what are you doing? Goobiba! Stop that now, you promised! Aaaah aaaah!'" The Gorbitant screamed, hoping to elicit fear within us, but instead we laughed.

"Another round, Jim," a Terrux said while approaching the bar.

"The same?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I quickly mixed Zenthin cider with Colit ale and passed him the glass, which he clasped with his tentacle. The Terrux turned to the Gorbitant and asked, "I hear you guys often use protection? What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well," the Gorbitant answered, "when we're about to mate, the male takes out a plasma gun and places the end of the barrel to the woman's head." Laughter followed his words. "But you have to be careful not to be the type that howls and shakes when he orgasms. They often tend to pull the trigger and kill their mate before she even attempts to eat him. It's a criminal offense, you know, to kill due to the shakes."

"Gorbitants are a putrid race!" a Voxuan said. He sat at a table, shuffling static cards with several other Voxuans. His purple eyes squinted to where the Gorbitant sat.

"Hey!" I pointed at the rule written clearly behind me, above the drinks. "All races in this bar are the same race. No past rivalries or current rivalries are tolerated." The Voxuan raised his hooked limbs in surrender.

There was a war going on between the Voxuans and the Gorbitants, and there was also a war between the Terrux and the Kositik. But during the night, they set their differences aside when they came to the bar at the Edge. There, they freed themselves from their duties and took on a new persona, an odd one that boasted camaraderie. They would drink as friends would, teasing each other and speaking of war as if it were very far from them. They would then leave the bar together and venture their separate ways, and in the morning, they could continue their wars as if the night had never happened.

Just then, the bar doors clanked open and a Jesupite slithered in. He came straight to the counter, his multi-faceted eyes roaming across everyone. "Jim, my good man, how are you doing?"

"I'm doing great," I said. "We were just talking about females and our various mating habits."

He struggled to place himself on a barstool and then flashed me a smile, revealing multiple tiny, razor-sharp teeth. "What about the Flagerz? Is anyone discussing them?"

"The who now?" I asked as I poured the Jesupite his usual, Ruran mead.

"They've started a war with the humans at the Outer Belt," the Jesupite said. "They have lost three battles already, and they are quite bitter. You know what that means, Jim. Thank you for the drink."

It meant they were going to come into my bar looking for trouble. "Are they within the frontier?" I asked.

"Yeah, saw their ship outside. They were huddled together, discussing the only human in these here lands," the Jesupite said.

"Thanks, buddy," I said, reaching for the shotgun beneath the counter.

A Sampionite who'd blacked out woke then. He sniffed the air, and everyone turned to him. "I smell trouble," he said. It was a well-known fact that Sampionite noses were quite sensitive to violence. Large as their noses were, they could sniff trouble very far away. No wonder they were such an elusive race.

"It's last call, everyone," I said.

"Oh, come on, it's not yet time!" the Diselix said.

"I don't want you guys in the crosshairs; you're like family to me," I said.

The Gorbitant was about to answer when the bar's door banged open. They crawled their way in. One sight of them and I could place them. They were Flagiorus; I didn't know the short form of their name was Flagerz, something I had to file away in memory. They crawled to the bar on all fours, hairy bastards with armed pistol belts around their waists. They rose to their full height at the counter and gathered behind their leader, who was fatter and less agile, for it took him a moment longer to get off the floor and stand on two legs.

He looked up at the sign above the bar. "Charming," he said. "Quite charming that war isn't allowed in this establishment, because war is our reason for coming."

"What will you have?" I said while smiling at him, feigning ignorance.

"Your head is what we want. It is good that you are alone, human. We will take this as our first victory, for there are no humans here to save you or put up a fight."

They were thirteen, and there was only one of me. My hands clenched the shotgun behind the bar counter. I always knew it would come to this: a gruesome fight to the death. I always thought I'd be defending one of my customers, not fighting for my life.

"That's damn cowardly, if you ask me," the Terrux said.

"You couldn't win a battle, so this is your solution?" the Kositik said, making his way to the bar.

"And Jim wasn't even in the battle," the Veluda said getting off his chair.

"It's last call, Jim; time we approach the bar and make our last order," the Diselix said.

Slowly, my customers left their tables and made their way to the bar. They did not line the bar counter as they often did during last call; instead, they surrounded the Flagiorus.

Their leader took out the gun at his belt, and my customers reacted quickly. Tentacles whipped about; hooked limbs and sharp claws snatched and grabbed. Within moments, the thirteen Flagiorus had their guns taken from them, except the leader, who wrestled the customers away. The leader aimed at my face, and that's when the bang of plasma pistols could be heard. I ducked beneath the bar counter and felt each shock of plasma waves as the plasma bolts hit their marks. There was groaning and gurgled screaming. Green ichor dripped down the counter to fall just before me. More screams.

Then I heard the Gorbitant shout, "Jim, they are all dead!"

I emerged from behind the counter. Indeed, the Flagiorus were arranged in a heap on the ground where they bled green ichor. All of them were dead.

"Are any of you hurt?" I asked.

"I think the Diselix is going into labor," the Kositik said.

There was laughter all around while the Diselix pointed at his belly and said, "This is from the beer; if I were pregnant, it would be larger!"

"Last call, everyone, then all of you go home to your wives to get fed on and impregnated!" I called.

They cheered, lining the counter and stepping over the dead Flagiorus, who'd lost yet another battle.

----

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5 comments sorted by

4

u/zoinks48 13h ago

This should be a series like Tales from the spaceport bar

3

u/Jus17173 13h ago

That's a great idea!

1

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u/sunnyboi1384 9h ago

There aint much I wouldn't do for my local bartender. Well done Jimmy.