Fun with Lying

Is the microphone on? Mike check, mike check…

"Yes, Lilo. The microphone's on. So go ahead with the piece."

"Never been in front of the camera before."

"You're supertelegenic. Really, I mean you are SOOOO cute!"

Aw, Pleakley, I've gone bright red.

"I know, I can see it through the makeup. Anyhow, we're on in five…four…three…two…"

I don't ever lie. Unless I think lying is really, really necessary. So…the story I'm going to tell you is really pretty embarrassing, ladies and gentlemen, but…I feel it necessary to tell it all the same.

It all started three years ago. The Patrons had come to our world and everything had changed. The way people thought about the world beyond and what laid after death sparked real debate…but even more so was the widespread immigration of the beings known as "furries" or "anthros" to our little world.

Ever since sizable chunks of animals here on Earth began to develop and display genuine sentience, people began to question what it meant to be a human. What it meant to be a person. But I'd been thinking about that for years, ever since my best friend ever, experiment 626, Stitch, came into my life. The day he fell out of the sky would lead to a life enriched by love I wish everyone could experience. He's been an angel to me and my dearest ohana, and I have considered him my equal for years.

When he had children of his own, the Hawaiian education system began to make allocations for those of "Experimental American" descent. After all, Stitch's creator wasn't the only one who'd made alien beings, they were growing in number and needed consideration. So many universities and colleges opened up their doors for a new flux of furry immigrants.

One of the biggest of all was "The Affinity". And boy oh boy, did it get a lot of flack when it started.

The Affinity was not merely a college, but a large community of non-humans. The suburbs were dominated by aliens and magical creatures alike. People watching from San Francisco 50 miles away would often swear they saw giant foxes walking around at night. And then there were always those odd reports of people that liked to swallow other people whole…

And of course, their interspecies dating policy. The president took a lot of flack for not addressing it when he spoke in California. You know who I think might have not have criticized The Affinity's quirky interspecies dating policy? Captain Kirk.

But when Stitch's son Sanders Pelekai, or Sandy, was still looking for colleges, that was when our extremely kinky and rather kooky neighbor 627, Legion, had a brilliant idea when we were all out at the beach. "Take the kid down to the Affinity, have a little fun at their expense? He IS a prospective student. You can ask all kinda snarky questions!"

Brilliant. Absolutely BRILLIANT! Fact was, their policy on interspecies dating was based around parental permission. I'd already worked out how Stitch could start off his line of questions at one of their information sessions in the main hall. "Uh, Stitch understands son needs parental permission. I naga mind, but Angel? Naga bootifa in her eyes. How would that work out?"

Or wait. Even better! "Hypothetical!" I could call out. "Cyborg of the Teen Titans. Could he date anybody? Could he even go out by himself since he's half robot and thus only half human?" The answer, for those wondering, was interestingly "no", unless he was leaving campus to go home, or off on a volunteer mission.

Excited about how fun this could all be, I IMMEDIATELY called up The Affinity to ask about info sessions and tours. I got in contact with a very friendly young woman named Samantha the 101st. I mention this because it's gonna be what's known as a "leitmotif" or "running theme".

Of COURSE they'd love to have Sandy down there! "We'd love to get to know him. What's he into? Oh, public history, that's pretty neat! Great! We'll send you some times and dates for sessions right away."

Now when Sandy got back from the high school, Stitch, Angel and I met with him in the kitchen and told him about the little comedy adventure we were going to have. Sandy…and this was to the kid's credit…was absolutely horrified.

"No!" He exclaimed angrily.

"Whaddya mean "naga"?" Angel asked, looking slightly confused. We couldn't understand. Didn't he recognize how funny an idea this was?

"Leave these people alone!" Sandy insisted. "What they'd ever do to you?!"

"They're sex-crazed people eating maniacs-" I began to say.

"Lilo!" Sandy said, slowly lowering the sunglasses from off his eyes to glare intently in my face. "They just have a different belief system. Leave them alone."

Well, that was that. Or so we thought. See, the problem with the Affinity is they're reeeaaally evangelical about getting people to support them. They won't stop emailing you stuff. My inbox was getting loaded down with so much spam, I was beginning to get trichinosis.

And then there were the calls.

"Hi! This is Slushy. I'm calling from the Affinity. Is Sandy there?"

"Oh, he's not here right now."

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

"Um…I dunno, I'm sorry."

This kept happening again and again. And sometimes Sandy actually answered the phone a few times, forcing him to lie, which began to get him really, really mad. The last straw came when a Sophomore from the Affinity called up to ask what he thought was a simple question.

"So what do you think of the "Earthen Equal Rights Act" that's going through Congress? It's important everyone turns out for this."

"Oh, I don't vote." Sandy answered reflexively, not yet old enough to just yet.

Sandy would tell me he was positive that the person on the other end of the line had almost burst out crying at this, because he heard a harsh, sudden intaking of a breath, and a sort of choked-up splutter before Sandy quickly recovered. "…in Kokaua Town. I go to Oahu, they've got the closest polling stations."

"Oh." Said the very nice young Experimental Japanese person that my best friend's son was lying like a dog to.

Well, that did it. Sandy insisted that we stop this. "I don't like lying to people!" He exclaimed, Stitch finally calling up the Affinity and saying that Sandy had decided to go to a different college. They were disappointed, but they understood. And were extremely nice about it.

But a good idea never dies. I now take you to just last week. I had found somebody without Sandy's integrity. I had plenty of young volunteers here at our show, but we needed somebody who could pass as the son of me and Stitch, the two of us eager to give the idea another go. Sandy was out.

But MY son, Grey Nicholas Pelekai, was in. Young enough, had an Experimental body and also a human form with my skin color. He could easily pass for "one of them". And hey, he also had a large fetish for big meals. If need be, he could swallow one of us for a little additional demonstration of how perfectly he belonged in the Affinity.

But we needed a cover story. Luckily, I had it. My son wanted to go to the Affinity, but we were unsure. I would be a friend of the family…which was technically true…who had my eye on the divorced Stitch…which was, again, true, Stitch had just divorced Angel some months ago and I could pretend I had divorced my husband as well. We had ended up finding each other, and Grey had, in his doubt and uncertainty about the future, heard about the wonderful Affinity.

It was perfect. Neither of us would have to know anything about the place. Only Grey would. And frankly, having the son of Lilo Pelekai at their college would be a feather in the Affinity's cap.

As you can see, we were putting WAAAAAAY too much thought into our backstory. And not much into the fact that our show had been on air for several years and was gaining national attention. "Aloha, America" had even won an Emmy award. We were doing all this on the hope that these people lived in a secluded bubble that didn't pay much attention to the outside world and wouldn't thus suspect something was up.

"Aloha, Ms. Pelekai!"

"Good to see you!"

"Big fan of yours, Stitch!"

"Ooh, lookit the grey one, he is hairy! Like ANIMAL!"

Bit too much attention right through the large white gates of the Affinity as we headed towards the Administration building, a circular structure shaped quite a bit like a giant globe. In fact, if you looked closely you could see there were shapes made on said globe which showed off the continents, and tiny little dots, evidently to represent the many, many non-human communities springing up.

At the large, steely grey desk was, in contrast to the smooth but soulless interior, an extremely friendly, well-scrubbed, wide-eyed young kitsune who had nicely tied his tails together so they weren't floating around awkwardly in the air. Very considerate. He escorted us to the admissions office, where we met a well-scrubbed, extremely friendly goo girl, who smelled oddly of pine air freshner and limeade. Little bubbles floated around inside her as she put down her Kool-aid and cheerily shook our hands, the three of us amazed that nothing of her got left on our hands. It felt like we were shaking the hands of somebody made of jello.

She was really, VERY nice to us, and actually showed us an official administration video, which showed off two little pixies who introduced themselves as "Your guardians". Liiiittle creepy. Evidently "constant monitoring" is kind of an issue in the Affinity. Chat rooms, instant messaging, email accounts, all of that's heavily filtered. In addition, the filters were updated every day to keep an eye on potentially dangerous students.

"When we've got students who are my size…" The kitsune said as he stepped outside, his body pulsing slightly as he SKYROCKETED up to a 50-foot size. "You need to accept real responsibility. There's a lot of power that comes with just being so big. We need to understand that every move we make can be dangerous to someone, we need to be cautious."

"How come you don't stay large all the time?" I asked him, looking confused.

"When I'm like this, everybody has to take notice of me. But sometimes you don't want that. Sometimes you just want to fly under the radar and…y'know. Just be treated like everyone else." He went on. "I understand how easily I could squish new visitors like you, but really, I'm just like everybody else! I'm just…bigger."

I was beginning to really feel guilty as we weaved our way through the crowd that looked like the cast of a new "Doctor Who" episode and made our way to the dining commons to meet with a nice finance major named Crit, a draconic blend of reptile and Irken who had an odd tongue that split off into three extensions. He was currently using it to try and get a rather annoyed rabbit student into his mouth. His jaw opened wide and his tongue slid over the brown-haired rabbit's hands and face, getting a taste of the meal as they slid into the back of his throat. I cringed as he began to swallow the rabbit up to its chest, allowing the other student's legs to kick freely but uselessly on the outside. And I could tell from the glint in his eyes that Grey was understandably confused about this blatant disregard for…y'know…life.

Luckily Crit was happy to explain. "Thanks to the establishment of the Lazarus Field by the Grand Councilman, Junior von Hamsterviel, nobody can actually die on campus." He explained, swishing the rabbit's feet to the back of his mouth, a visible bulge going down his throat as he burped a bit and rubbed his stomach. "SniffyDream will be out of me in about ten minutes." He went on.

Ah, Junior. We'd forgotten how useful he'd been. His father had so many inventions that were being implemented across the universe but this seemed the most helpful. Why wasn't it more widespread? Evidently because it meant something of a sacrifice: it required people to power it. Volunteers on campus would take entire days out of their schedule to sit at the controls and have their tantric energy siphoned to keep it going. Also, it was only useful in small, concentrated areas anyway. Nothing bigger than…well, a college campus.

I was still feeling kinda guilty then about immediately assuming the worst of these people, and so as I began to ask my questions, a lump formed in my throat as I asked about the sort of things he believed. It turned out he happened to be quite a huge believer in Creationism. He felt evolution made no sense at all. No mutation had ever been beneficial.

I looked down at my thumb, which I had been using to shove a very bad pasta salad into my mouth, but said nothing. I also looked over at Stitch, who was picking his nose with his tongue and decided perhaps the phrase "mixed blessing" would apply.

Another nice friend of Crit's came over, a serpentine being named Sue with breasts that seemed to defy gravity. She wasn't much for creationism, but she was annoyed by people who didn't have respect for what they were trying to do there.

"A lot of people don't really understand you is all." I said, the white scaled cobra-headed being looking briefly at a copy of "50 Shades of Grey".

"We're people just like everyone else." Sue insisted as she sighed. "We just have unique turn-ons. I can't help it if I like shoving people into my cooch. It's just the way God made me."

Stitch tried to suppress laughter but Grey could tell he wasn't going to be able to do so, so he acted quickly, grabbing Stitch by the neck and shoving him head-first into his mouth, his tongue forcing itself over Stitch's mouth to shut him up as he began gulping him down. The other two watched with keen interest as I tried not to be squeamish about it, Stitch's feet vanishing into Grey's cavernous maw as my son finished up, rubbing his belly as Stitch settled down nicely, his laughter now suppressed by a wall of flesh. Stitch was gonna be fine, my son could control every aspect of his power and fortitude as "Strength" of the Major Arcana, including the strength of his stomach.

But all I could really think of was what Sue had said.

"Wait. WHAT?" I asked. "Is that even?-"

"It's called unbirthing. It's an issue of trust and love." Sue explained, rising up to show off her more...private regions, and I noticed a considerable bulge to her stomach. "To return to a world of pure warmth and comfort. It is an ultimate sign of absolute partnership to me." She went on, stroking her womb. "Ooh! She kicked!"

Now I was almost about to laugh. But we had to talk to somebody whom would be more of a patsy if we were going to make our little scheme work.

Luckily we found one. A nice, sweet young xenomorph who was in the middle of slurping down a smoothie with his secondary maw, the midday sun gleaming off the bright black of his back as he looked us over, cheerily grinning. Sharoo was a recent graduate of the university who had been retained by the Affinity to speak to newcomers just like us.

Time to try out the snarky questions. "My son's thinking of going into pre-med." I said. "I know that your school teaches both creationism AND evolution. So how exactly does that work out with medical schools?"

"Oh, it isn't an issue. Why we've got a higher percentage of students accepted into Medical school than the national average."

"Oh, that's cool." I said. "What would that percentage be?"

"I don't have that offhand, but I'd be happy to get it for you." Sharoo said as he put the slushy away and shrugged slightly.

Then Grey pounced. On our way to San Fran, we'd picked up the "US News and World Report Guide to the 1500 best Colleges and Universities", and he just happened to keep it in his stomach. Stitch helped him hack it up as he held it in his clawed hands. "Maybe it's in here?"

Sharoo blanched. He knew, like we knew, that the Affinity wasn't in the book. We searched through the "A's" in vain as Grey said in a rather surprised and confused tone that was JUST spot on "It's…not here."

"Nah. A lot of colleges pay to get into there." Sharoo said as a gleam came to my eye and I secretly adjusted the camera in the flower I had in my long, flowing black hair.

"Ah, so it's kinda an advertisement, right?"

"Yeah." Sharoo said with a sigh.

Well, NOW we felt better knowing that he was lying just as badly as we were. Time to ask about the dating scene.

"We definitely want you to meet girls here. We encourage that." Sharoo said. "Though there are some rules. You can't leave campus with somebody of the opposite sex unless you've got a chaperone with you."

We blinked in surprise. "Whuh?"

"Well, our first concern's safety, naturally."

Kind of odd. Looking for a ray of hope, Grey spoke up. "But on campus…?"

"You two can eat at the snack shop." Sharoo suggested, again in a very friendly manner.

How to approach this, I wondered. "But in terms of…y'know. How far can he go?"

"Terms of what?"

"You know…"

"Holding hands is out. Hugging is out. Kissing is out. Backrubs are out."

"What about…" I winked a bit. "Y'know…"

"Fooling around is out."

"The big one is out?" Grey asked. "In public, right?"

"No, period. You wouldn't believe how many people are concerned about free sex leads right to rape here in the Affinity. We've got to be careful about things."

"Well certainly there are people that still DO that stuff." I said, looking confused.

"Well nobody's perfect. The rules are just guiderails to keep people on the right path."

Oh, screw it, I thought. This guy was absolutely incorruptible. So we had our story. Everybody there was really, really weird. But also really, really nice. We'd done a good day's work, lying to decent people. But we had time to kill, so we headed over to the museum on the campus, home to the largest collection of erotic art in the western hemisphere, collected from countries and planets all across the universe. Some actually had warnings. If we stared too long at it, we'd evidently start chewing on the walls.

Well Angel does that anyway when she's going through that time of the month, so Stitch didn't feel too bad about looking at the statue in the corner for that long. UNFORTUNATELY the warning was right. Ten minutes later I was uselessly tugging him off the wall as he began chomping away and chunks of drywall went flying into my hair.

Then there was the "Living Gallery". This was a very interesting place. It's all about recreating erotic art using real people. Sue herself was engaged in one such example, imitating a piece of erotic Egyptian art. And if I tell you the rest of it, I won't be able to show this story on basic Cable.

But it was there that we met Raw the 19th from the public liaison's office. And the minute he told our tour guide "I'll take 'em from here", we knew something was up. And then he said

"Let me tell you something about this theater. We've got cameras in almost every corner. But we're no "Aloha, America".

The jig was up.

"Mind if I ask what you're doin' here?" Raw asked pointedly, his hard eyes glinting, his tail curling slightly behind him as he folded his arms in front of his chest.

"Well, it's a long story." I began.

"Uh…huh." He muttered. "Look. We've all had enough of being made fun of." He said with a real touch of bitterness. He turned to Grey, who had finally managed to turn his head away from Sue's display. "I hope this isn't awkward for you."

"Oh no. We've been getting this all day." He said apologetically. Which wasn't true, but I thought it was a very nice touch.

"Look if you're legit, I'd be happy to show you anything you want to see. But none of us are going to put our heads on the chopping block again." I really had to admire his directness and his willingness to call us out on what should have been obvious to everyone else…and yet he was still being as nice as he could, even living out the possibility of being "legit".

As we finally said "Aloha" to the Affinity, we realized something about ourselves. We'd come to the Affinity expecting to find sex-crazed lunatics, weird people-eating monsters and violent wackos. And instead we'd found very welcoming, friendly and very nice people. Weird, yes. And definitely sex-crazed. And they did eat people. But they were well-meaning. Mostly.

More importantly, we realized that as excited as we were that our lie had worked…we went away feeling kinda sick and unsettled to our stomach. And the trip to the nearby Hershey's Ice Cream bar didn't help one bit!

In a way I'm glad Raw cut our trip short. The reptile was right. We shouldn't have been putting their head on the chopping block. How can the liars my program targets every day sleep at night?

I don't begrudge their beliefs. Heck, I admire 'em for it!...

Okay, maybe not admire. But it IS their right to have it.

So Raw, Sue, Crit, and especially Sharoo…we're sorry. Very, very sorry.

Also, Stitch stole some shoes from the locker room. Don't worry, though. He only eats the left ones.