Dear Mr. Nicholas,

Thank you for submitting your article Hindwing Size and Evolutionary Age in Lepidoptera Imagines. We have given the piece very careful consideration, but have regretfully decided that there is not a place for it in our journal at this time. We wish you the best of luck in submitting elsewhere, and remind you that we are open to reviewing additional work from you in the future.

“Happy fucking birthday to me,” Warren said, crumpling the letter and hurling it in the general direction of the trash can by his desk. He’d received the letter with the mail early that afternoon, but had waited until everyone else had gone before opening it, expecting just what he’d gotten. He didn’t feel like sharing with his colleagues the fact that he’d received yet another rejection on the article, let alone on his birthday.

Warren Nicholas was a twenty-nine year old lepidopterist, a specialist in insects like butterflies and moths. Twenty-nine and counting. If he didn’t make his mark by the time he was thirty, he knew it was unlikely that he ever would. Science could appear, from the outside, to be a field dominated by old men, but what few people understood was that in order to become one of those old men, a scientist had to gain his notoriety while he was young.

“Screw it,” he said, still talking to the empty room. He’d been planning to work late, despite it being his birthday, but now he was too disappointed. Strange, he figured, considering he hadn’t thought he’d been that appointed in the first place. He’d taken off the brown cotton zookeeper’s shirt he wore for work during the day, leaving just the Too Much Joy t-shirt he’d been wearing underneath. He grabbed the discarded shirt and crammed it into his messenger bag along with the balled-up letter retrieved from the floor by the wastebasket. He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed out, locking the back door of the insect house behind him.

The park was dark and quiet, having closed hours before. A few of the nocturnal animals would let out a howl or a cry every now and then, but for the most part all was still. There was an orange full moon hanging low overhead, its eerie glow turning the half-lit, empty zoo, so very familiar an environment in the daylight, into an alien landscape. Warren looked up at the moon, wondering how old the astronauts were when they first set foot on it. Just as he was about to turn and head for his car, something moved on the insect house roof.

He stood still and blinked, sure it was just a bird. Sure he’d imagined the size of whatever it was. There was a protuberance that he didn’t think was always there, but in the dark, who knew? It wasn’t as if he’d memorized every rooftop in the zoo. The thing up there could have been anything.

It moved again. Whatever it was, there was no longer any question whether or not it was alive. And it was not a bird. It was enormous, though he’d not made out enough of the shape of it to know what sort of dimensions he should be thinking in: Height? Length?

Wingspan. The shape rose up then flew; the shape of a moth would have been unmistakable to anyone, let alone a professional, if still unpublished, lepidopterist. The thing had to be at least four feet across and almost as long. It moved like a regular moth, however, flying upward and then descending again, vanishing behind the rooftop. The largest moths on record had wingspans of about ten to twelve inches; this was entirely unprecedented. He’d either discovered a new species, or a miracle of an anomaly.

He ran around the building towards the front garden shared by the reptile and insect houses, where the moth had appeared to be heading. When the weight of his bag started to hinder him, he yanked it from his shoulder and tossed it aside without slowing his pace. He fumbled with the latch on the garden gate, then stormed through it. He looked around the shadowy plot, knowing there was no way for something that big to remain unseen for long. He’d made a lot of noise opening the gate, but now he realized that he should be being careful not to spook the moth. He inched forward, peering under bushes and behind small trees. After a moment, he caught a movement in his peripheral vision, and turned towards it. Only now did it occur to him that he had no means of capturing this creature, not even a camera to prove he’d ever seen it. Yet again, he was going to be defeated by his own miserable luck.

He took another cautious step forwards. Another rustle told him that the thing was behind two low bushes. He knew if he tried to pull them apart to look, it would fly away and be lost. Instead he stood, unsure what he should do next. He could go back inside to try to find something to catch it with, but then he was risking losing even another look, should it fly away before he returned. Or, he could wait it out here, guaranteeing another glimpse, but pretty much also guaranteeing that he’d have no proof afterwards. He cursed himself, not for the first time, for his inability to make an important decision.

He stood, frozen by his ambivalence and self-reproach, for another few minutes. At last there was another rustle in the bushes. He stood erect, waiting for his discovery to show itself. When it did, his response wasn’t anything he would have expected.

“Who are you?” he asked.

It wasn’t a moth, giant or otherwise. This wasn’t the thing that had flown from the roof; that creature must have gone in a different direction after all. Warren had spent this entire time stalking a woman. Looking at her, though, it was difficult to regret the error. She was naked and beautiful, crouching in the bushes of the reptile house garden. It was at least as strange as the moth had been, and a good bit more intimidating; at least he knew how to talk to moths.

“My name is Taran,” she said, standing upright. He couldn’t quite place her accent; it sounded Latin American, but he couldn’t narrow it down to any particular nationality or region. Her appearance was the same, clearly Latina, but of indeterminate origin. Her long black hair fell to her waist in a dark cascade. Her caramel skin glowed in the moonlight, and her eyes sparkled. He couldn’t tell what color they were, but not the brown he would have expected given the rest of her coloring. They looked like a deep violet, but he assumed that was just a trick of the dim light.

“I’m Warren,” he said. “What are you doing here? Are you OK?” He knew they were lame questions, but didn’t know what else to ask.

“Yes, I’m all right,” she said, her voice deep and musical. She stepped forward out of the bushes, unabashed.

“Do you have—” he stopped himself from asking if she had clothes somewhere she’d like to put on. “Do you—?” Offering her a ride would have been even worse. At last he settled on: “The zoo’s closed. Can I help you in any way?”

“You can come here,” she suggested, smiling.

Maybe happy birthday to me after all crossed his mind, but he thought better of that idea almost immediately. He was sure this chick was crazy. He needed to leave her alone, and he needed to get her the hell out of his zoo before some other late worker came along and caught her with him. But she was so gorgeous, and after all, it was his birthday...

He stepped forward.

“That’s right,” she encouraged, opening her arms to him.

“Who are you?” he asked her again, a final effort to make sense of what was happening.

“Taran,” she said, repeating her strange name. “Just Taran. That’s all you need to know.”

That was good enough for Warren just then, and he completed his approach. She reached out and drew him to her. “We shouldn’t—” he heard himself saying, ridiculously.

“Shh,” she hushed him, putting a soft finger across his lips. He was grateful for it. He’d made every effort to be a gentleman; he could now rationalize most of whatever might happen next. She kissed him then, and he let her, feeling her warm mouth melting into his as her hands caressed his back through his t-shirt. He was very aware of her bare breasts pressing against the shirt from the other side, could feel her hard nipples through the fabric.

“This isn’t fair,” she said, pulling back from him and taking a hold of his belt buckle. “I’m the only one not wearing anything. We should correct that.” And she did, unfastening his belt, then his pants, then pulling them down. He was still wearing his boots, however, so he found himself standing there with his pants around his ankles, the white logo for the Green Eggs and Crack album practically glowing in the moonlight against the background of the black shirt. It might have been worse had it been his Harry Potter shirt, but only just.

He kicked off the boots and stepped out of his pants, well aware that this was the stupidest thing he could do, but unable to stop himself. Crazy or not, this was a hot Latina handing herself to him like a fancy pastry on a china plate. He’d never forgive himself if he passed up this opportunity. “Not done yet,” she teased, looking down at his green boxer shorts. Thank God they’re not the Spongebob ones, he thought. They came off, too, followed by the shirt. “That’s better,” she said, taking another step back to look at him.

He felt self-conscious and inferior under her scrutiny, but she seemed to appreciate what she saw, because after a short moment’s looking she lunged forward and locked onto his mouth once again. They kissed for several minutes, her hands exploring his body. After a while he relaxed enough to return the fondling. They groped and kissed, working their way down onto the cool dry grass beneath their bare feet. He lay down on top of her, but she flipped them both over, landing astride him. “Are you ready?” she asked him with a raised brow and a smirk. Judging by where she was looking, it was obvious her question was rhetorical.

She took him in her hand and guided him inside of her, then let go and started to work against his flesh, taking complete charge of her own pleasure. As she looked into his eyes from this new proximity, he discovered that it hadn’t been an illusion after all; her eyes really were violet. She leaned back, her heavy sighs building into moans. As she began to move her hips faster, she started mumbling, then calling out, in a language Warren didn’t recognize. Like her accent and her face, it sounded like Spanish, but with a much more exotic music to it, more ancient and tribal than either Spanish or Portuguese. He decided he could ask her about it later, however, and returned his attention to the movements of her hot wetness enfolding him, squeezing and releasing over and over in a way he’d never imagined possible.

He felt himself about to come, and knew that she wasn’t ready yet. He tried to hold back, to put off the inevitable moment for as long as he could, but she looked down at him and smiled. “Go ahead,” she said, the return to English somewhat jarring.

“Are you done?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, still working against him. “Go on, let go.”

So he did, exploding in a hot gush that felt like it would leave him hollow. He could hear her voice still, sounding distant through the static noise of the orgasm in his head.

When he’d finished, she climbed off him. He felt like an inadequate jackass, having just had the most intense sex of his life and leaving her without a climax. “Sorry,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “You gave me exactly what I came here for.”

He looked at her. What did she mean by that? Only now did he think again of how he’d found her, again wondered what she was doing naked and alone in the bushes.

“What exactly did you come here for?” he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“A child,” she answered, offering this revelation with such a casual air she might have been responding to whether she’d like to grab a beer later.

“A—”

“That’s right, a child,” she repeated, standing up. “And I can already feel her taking root inside of me, beginning to grow.”

That was impossible, he knew. Conception was never a sure thing, and wouldn’t likely have happened yet even if it were going to. And there was no way she’d be able to tell if it had. “You can’t know—”

“Ah,” she said. “But I can. I’m not like your human women, who have to worry and wonder. I can decide when to have a child, and make it happen. And I can feel her right away when I do. All she needs now is nourishment; something to make her strong and healthy.”

Something in the way she looked at him as she said this chilled him. And what did she mean by your human women? His first impression had been right, no matter how hard he’d tried to ignore it for the sake of his libido—she was insane. He’d been worried about the future of his career, and now he’d just copulated with a madwoman right there in the zoo. A madwoman who was convinced that she was now having his child. Maybe she’d already been pregnant, and known it, and had done all of this in order to trap him into a responsibility that wasn’t rightly his. And he’d been fool enough to fall for it, all for a spontaneous piece of ass on his birthday.

Before he could think of what to say to her next, however, she began to change. Her skin rippled and bubbled, losing its integrity. Her torso started to bloat and her legs grew shorter and thinner. Her arms shrunk as well, and an additional pair of them emerged from dimples that had appeared on either side of the now round, oval trunk of her body. Brown fur, slightly lighter in color than her skin, sprouted all over her transforming body, and then, as he was beginning to expect what would happen next, beginning to dread, huge furry wings burst from her back. They stretched out to their full expanse and he realized that his previous estimate had been conservative—the wings spanned a full six feet, if not more. By the time he looked back away from the great hairy wings, her face had mutated as well. There was no longer any trace of human about her; she was nothing save for a tremendous, unclassified moth.

The moth flitted up onto the wall of the building beside them, sitting there for a moment, pumping its wings, sending blood through them. The whole of its body was covered in the light brown fur, with a pattern of lighter and darker hairs around the edges of the wings. At the center of each hindwing was a large eyespot, the same shade of violet as her eyes had been. He had indeed discovered a new species it seemed, but who was ever going to believe him?

He sat up and felt around on the ground for his shirt, but the moth was off the wall and upon him before he located it. All she needs now is nourishment. He understood now what that comment had meant, but it was too late. Of course, it had already been too late when she’d said it, had in fact been too late as soon as he’d come around the building trying to find the moth he’d seen fly from the roof. He was father to this monster’s unborn child, and now he would also be that child’s first meal.

Taran held the squirming human down. It seemed she’d chosen well; this one had a lot of fight in him, which would mean a strong baby. She extended her proboscis while he screamed beneath her. Unlike common moths, the proboscises of the Daxen’kirpa were sharp at the tip, able to pierce flesh, which is what she did with hers now. She inserted it into the aortic cavity and began to drink. His blood was rich and electric, alive with the adrenaline and endorphins released by his fear. After a short while his struggling slowed, and soon after that he stopped moving all together. She continued to drink until there was no more blood to be had, then pulled out and flipped the body over. She re-inserted the long, narrow tube into the base of his skull, working it up into the cavity where she drank the salty cerebral fluid. When all her child’s father had to offer had been taken, she retracted her proboscis and stepped back. She flew back up to the roof of the insect house, full and sleepy, where she would rest for a few hours before flying home just before dawn.