Ever since puberty began and you started to journey to womanhood, you've known it on at least some level. You had no idea why, and it's not like you didn't ask anybody about it. Your parents couldn't come up with an answer and neither could any of your therapists. It wasn't something you got from any of the other women in your family. You're sure of that. After all, you did ask every female relative you could if they had a 'phase' like yours. That aside, you were never judged for it. However, the effort didn't teach you anything else you didn't already know. 

All you knew was that for whatever reason, alien men lit your fire in a way that human males never could. You were an exophile. You could have friendships with human men, that was no issue. But whenever you pictured yourself in a romantic relationship, you always imagined your partner to be that of a different species. It was the same with your more risqué fantasies. You imagined yourself taking part in a gang-bang with Bal'khothian warriors celebrating a victory. You happily assisted a Fenbrinal professor demonstrate how to properly stimulate a human woman's eroginous zones.   Mammalian, reptilian, even amphibian, it didn't matter so long as they were men. You were at least certain you were straight. Alien women didn't seem to do anything.

You couldn't entirely escape the judgement of others, though. High school was a bit rough. 'Tessa Westlake, the UFO chaser' some of them called you. Some of the guys asked if your ego was so big that you thought were too good for human dick. It would've hurt a lot worse if you didn't pick up on the fact that some of the guys who picked on your for it seemed so offended by it, like the very fact you weren't turned on by human men was a slight on their pride. They sounded so 'butthurt' as your grandmother once said. Your teachers didn't comment on it much.

Whatever the reason, you accepted your preferences as being a fact of life. Alien men excited you.

You still held some aliens in contempt despite your preferences however, and you still had them when you truly began to understand yourself. You began to confront them one early spring morning while you were getting ready to enjoy a day off and your door chime sounded.

There were two humanoid figures standing in your doorway, green and orange skinned without any hair, large eyes and wearing what appeared to be burgundy robes with silver lettering on the left side of the torso, though you couldn't make out what it said. They were about stomach-height and had to look up at you to make eye contact.

They reminded you of when you were a little girl and saw a movie made three centuries ago by the name of 'Mars Attacks' although your visitors didn't have the bulging craniums those aliens did.

This was the first time you'd ever seen Itrexians up close. You've known about them for quite some time, though. While quite a few species opposed humanity's expansion into the stars either openly or behind closed doors, the Itrexians simply watched with benign curiosity before making first contact. They were more focused on commerce than war, from what you've heard of them. There weren't any record of skirmishes or territorial disputes with them.

However, there were two things about them that rubbed you the wrong way despite your...tastes. The first was that they had a reputation of being pretty pushy when trying to get you to buy something and had a pretty business oriented mindset. Their culture was an early adopter of the principles humanity would label as capitalism. Their drive for profit made many see them as untrustworthy and a few other species seemed to share that perception.

The second was that they were, supposedly, unsettlingly curious about females from other species. There were more than a few stories online posted by women who stormed off or even smacked one who'd made a pretty salacious request of the 'pretty Terran girl.' That being said, you hadn't heard anything about them physically assaulting anyone. You've heard people joke that if you wanted to get an Itrexian to give you a discount, you just gave them a few porn files and they'd forget about ever wanting to price gouge you.

These two factors made the news that they were going to set up a branch of one of their trading companies in New Dallas cause quite a stir. The site where the fifteen story mushroom shaped building they now worked at was picked four times and the city council had some pretty heated sessions when they invited the public to give their thoughts.

"Greetings," says the one on the left in a reedy voice. "We come from Xellogra Interstellar Trading. We hope we are not disturbing you."

"Not really." you reply flatly. 

"We are here to offer you free product as proof of goodwill." the one on the right says with what you're assuming is a smile. "We know our presence in New Dallas is...unsettling to many. We hope this will help things." He-or she you couldn't tell which-got a what looked like a small silver globe from a case and held it out.

"It is a relaxation assistance device." said the one on the left. "It soothes with light and sound."

You stared at the device for a moment. It was about the size of your palm and had a triangle on the top.

"Simply press here to activate." the one one the left told you. You were still wondering what the catch was. You wouldn't entirely put it past them to have something like a camera or other recording device inside. You decided to give it one try and then toss it out. No need to rile those two up. 

"Alright." you said calmly. You took the device and closed the door, glancing over your shoulder to see the two Itrexians walking away and talking to each other in low voices. You still felt something was fishy about it but resolved to still see if the thing was actually what they said it was. It occurred to you to take it to the police if you felt there was more to it than what you were seeing. You put your finger on the triangle and all of a sudden you felt like you were in the middle of a supernova. You were surrounded by bright lights and this calming buzz in the back of your mind that made all you worries just...fizzle out. You could faintly hear yourself giggle and by the time you snapped back to awareness, ten minutes had passed.

Shaking your head, you went back up to your bedroom and put the device on your nightstand. It seemed to catch the light of the morning sun just perfectly as well as the glistening sea not to far from your home. You decided that when you got back from your shopping trip, you'd give it another whirl.

The Itrexians were right, it did quite a bit to help you relax. Getting that thing for free was quite the stroke of luck.