Page 67 of Moist!
chapter one
TRASH TV IS UNIVERSAL
Aliens are actually real. That was absolutely, pants-shittingly terrifying at first, that is until us Earthlings discovered they had reality television.
They call it Satellite Stories. A bougie name meant to evoke cosmic poetry, or whatever.
But call it what you want, I know trash TV when I see it.
Years of binge-watching The Jersey Shore and Love Island have made me something of an expert.
And once we all realized these so-called alien overlords were less “resistance is futile” and more “popcorn-fueled voyeurs,” things… settled.
Sort of.
What didn’t settle was me. I became obsessed. Like, rerouting-my-entire-weekend obsessed.
Every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. sharp, I’d sprint home, praying the janky little dongle jammed into the back of my thrift-store flatscreen could still pick up the transmission from whatever galaxy they were bouncing this stuff off of.
I could not—would not—miss an episode of Star-Crossed Match .
Part dating show, part cultural exchange, all delightful feet-kicking misunderstandings and chaos.
Each episode pairs two beings from different species and throws them into a shared habitat to see what happens.
Romance isn’t guaranteed. Sometimes the pair decides to pursue business over love.
One duo tried to farm dosnu fruit—whatever the hell that is—for seven episodes straight.
They failed miserably. Apparently, the fruit is a major allergen to most species in the galaxy.
I still watched every second, Star-Crossed had all my attention.
It wasn’t just the novelty of it all. It was the feeling.
Like I was stepping off-world through my dusty screen and forgetting Earth existed for a little while.
And sure, I’m not saying I only watched for the possibility of weird interspecies hookups.
But let’s be real—most fans live for the “Will they? Can they? Should they?” moments.
Especially the “can they?” part. Because, biologically? It gets… creative.
Tentacles. Wings. More than one phallus. Zero shame. Space doesn’t care about Earth’s puritan hang-ups. Nothing is censored. And I? I am a certified space pervert.
Human men didn’t stand a chance after that.
But even in all that glorious galactic smut, one species never showed up. Not once. Which is probably why my heart nearly exploded when, at the end of the latest episode, a message flashed across the screen in shimmering pink and green:
“Looking for human contestants. Apply at our website.”
And that is how I ended up here.
Standing in front of a biosphere built for two, heart in my throat, sweat in places I didn’t know could sweat.
No common sense to speak of. Just me, about to walk into a dome and—hopefully—smash an alien stranger.
Like the cash prize for a successful pairing doesn’t hurt either, but I won’t pretend that my motives are any less than horned-up ones.
I probably need therapy.
Instead, I cross my fingers and hope they are hot. Priorities.
My reflection is all I can see in the glass door.
My dark hair, normally up in a topknot, is blown out and styled into luminous waves that frame my round face.
The jumpsuit I wear is tight in all the right places, leaving me only a bit self-conscious of my curves.
Although I’m sure I look great and TV ready, the switch from spectator to participant is giving me whiplash.
Scratching at the spot on my head where they implanted the translator chip, I'm annoyed real-time subtitles aren’t a viable technology option.
But my hand drops and my breath catches as the disembodied voice of the show’s production counts down— three, two, one —and the floating orb-cams whir to life like a swarm of judgmental bees.
Their blinking red lights strobe just as the frosted glass doors slide open with a wet, slurpy sound that makes me instinctively clench. Great. Sexy and vaguely medical.
Please let a kind soul clear my search history if I die on this show.
The show always tailors the environment to the “least adaptable” alien. Apparently, I scream flexibility—because the second that door opens, I’m hit with a wall of heat and mist like I’ve been slapped with a sauna.
The moisture clings to my skin, sliding down my thighs like even my sweat is trying to evacuate. My jumpsuit—short sleeves, short shorts, zero shame—suddenly makes sense in this moist hellscape.
The fog is so thick I blink several times before a silhouette emerges. Slowly. Dramatically. As if the producers are in post with a fog machine, screaming Give the people what they want .
And then—bam. Abs.
Abs like someone photoshopped a Greek statue mid-Pilates class. Glossy, glittery, and absurdly high-definition. I am eye level with a situation that looks less “humanoid” and more “limited edition action figure.”
I crane my neck, halfway expecting some kind of celestial choir. No dice. Just one incredibly tall, incredibly shirtless alien—and me, trying to pretend I have ever once played it cool in my entire life.
He doesn’t just look different.
He looks like trouble.
The hot kind.