Alice had many pets, but none so adoring and satisfying as the one she most recently acquired. She did not fill her lonely residence with canine, feline, or even avian, though one may suspect as much from a single woman of such a recluse lifestyle. From the dawn of her youth to the mid-morning of her present age, Alice had nurtured a fascination with reptiles.
Her fascination began as a child with simple garden variety lizards, then progressively larger ones; snakes too of course. But her fascination turned to obsession with the pursuit of rarer creatures. Near-extinct species of Madagascan turtles, dwarf geckos, and pygmy chameleons (to name just a few) gave her collection a uniqueness that any reptile sanctuary would aspire to.
The modern age had unlocked a vast and intimidating online marketplace of fantastic creatures. Alice was hesitant to involve herself at first, given the potential legal ramifications of importing unlicenced species. However, the process was in fact not much more complicated than her weekly grocery delivery.
She had no partners to explain her collections to, nor roommates to hide her scaley acquisitions from. Instead, she steadily converted her secluded semi-rural dwelling into her private reptilian zoo.
Late one evening, Alice was curled up on the couch with her favourite Brazilian Rainbow Boa (whom she called "Bo") draped across her shoulders and chest. He rarely moved, but would occasionally tighten his body, giving his master a warm and somewhat unnerving squeeze. Alice had grown comfortable with his behaviour knowing that she had the strength to break free, but he had enough strength to excite her just a little.
It was entirely subconscious, as Bo squeezed gently around her upper body, that Alice slid a free hand below her waistband. She slowly and contentedly rubbed herself through her underwear, whispering soft moans with each constriction, all the while clicking and scrolling through various online black markets. Then rather more consciously, slipped her hand yet deeper between her moist thighs, a single finger sliding— bzzzzzzzt her phone vibrated on the solid wooden coffee table.
Swiftly removing her hand, she checked her notifications to find correspondence from one of her suppliers: "Hey. I've just heard about something unique you might be interested in. It's some artificial lab-grown species. About two feet long, kinda snakelike but something else totally new. My guy wants to know if there's any interest before he tries to secure any. Probably upwards of $20k, but I figure if anyone wanted a look, it'd be you."
Her eyes widened as she read the message through a second, then a third time. He knew her too well. Of course, she was interested. She immediately wrote back but heard nothing for several agonising days.
Finally, as she drove home from her dreary day job, her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled over hastily and read:
"Hey. He's got one, but only one, and there's another buyer too. He really wants someone who will look after it and learn about it, not just some rich guy who'll throw it in a cage. I told him about you and he'll do it for $25,000. Let me know and you'll have it by the weekend."
Her pulse raced. It wasn't about the money at all, but the opportunity to be the first to learn about this new breed — one as alien as aliens themselves. The weekend couldn't come soon enough. She of course wrote back "yes" and set up the transfer.
- - -
Alice received the package late on a Friday afternoon, a foot-long rectangular plastic tub with a perforated lid. It was warm to the touch, no doubt having been in a climate-controlled environment in the back of the unmarked black van that delivered it. After quoting her authentication code, the driver handed over the enigmatic box and drove off, having not uttered a single word. She had prepared a spare enclosure for the creature's arrival, her only presumption was to treat it like a snake, though she was prepared in every way possible to attend to its mysterious needs.
Upon opening the container Alice witnessed the anticlimactic creature in front of her. It did indeed look like a snake, coiled in a simple spiral, and a faint pale blue colouration, but with no distinct patterns or other aesthetic qualities to it. Alice could no even tell initially what its texture was, and so without hesitation or caution reached out to lightly stroke it with a single finger.
The creature's texture was difficult indeed to describe. It was neither smooth nor bumpy, nor was it scaley or slimy, neither perfectly homogenous nor mixed and varied. It did not react to her touch either, nor did it emanate any particular warmth or coolness. At first inspection, it was entirely boring.
She studied its two ends. One appeared headlike, with closed slits which she presumed were eyes given their location. The other end tapered down to a rounded nub, no wider than her thumb. Meeting no resistance, Alice picked up the entire coil to deposit it in the long glass enclosure, and immediately felt its underside; starkly contrasting with its bland upper side.
Unlike a typical snake's belly of smooth parallel ridges, this creature's belly felt cratered. Upon raising it up, Alice observed a pattern more akin to an octopus's tentacle: a tesselated strip of various sized circles. Despite being relatively smooth, its surface felt as if gripping her fingers. The creature's eyes stayed shut, but the coil draped over her hands and slowly began to grip her.
Her heart raced, instantaneously excited by her discovery (though she was surely not the first). She extracted herself from its grip and laid it in the enclosure, bedded on straw. "It" — though she ought to name it — fidgetted upon release, seeming to prefer her smooth skin to the rough straw. Alice made a mental note to experiment with various surfaces, especially with such an odd underside. Stranger still was the faint glistening left on her skin, with barely any noticeable texture, but no less mystifying.
After securing the lid in place, she returned to the box to find a single handwritten note: "Likes soft fruit" was all it said. She luckily had some bananas, and so diced one up and left it for her new pet.
The evening hours stretched on with no movement and eventually, Alice fell asleep on the couch, watching and waiting for something to happen. She stirred shortly after midnight to find the banana all gone and its belly pressed up against the glass. It seems it does prefer smooth surfaces, Alice pondered as she carried herself to bed.
Over the coming days, she experimented with various foods and habitats, finding it did indeed prefer soft, sweet fruits and smooth hard surfaces. It most of all seemed to love being on her skin, which she only ever did for a few minutes at a time, but increasingly more as she became more familiar with it. And the residue that remained always washed off her skin easily, however, she also sensed a light odour to it; sweet almost, perhaps due to its diet of various fruits — especially the sweet and watery ones.
Alice also began a direct correspondence with "G", the anonymous procurer of the specimen, so she could ask questions and share her learnings. He gave little away about how or where he procured the creature, but her best estimation was G worked in a secret lab that was experimenting with hybrid species. Her guess as to the mix of species was primarily snake, with octopus genes and perhaps others, but G confirmed nothing and so the mystery remained.
Careful not to introduce the creature to any of her other pets, but still desiring company in her anti-social existence, Alice gradually allowed her new pet longer and longer excursions from its enclosure (now bedded by smooth river stones and pebbles, sourced from a nearby stream). Within a week it was regularly loitering on her torso, neck and limbs, just as she would allow many of her other pets to do so.
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