I couldn't see the point in fighting and screaming.
We all knew we were going to die, they told us; we've all been stung by the Slyth and injected with their venom, so our pain is intense and orgasmic, and the Slyth came for us in the dorms so they could just lay us down on our bunks in this half gravity, making us comfortable, to just let this happen instead of being herded to the cold lab so the humans could attach their electrodes and observe like before.
Cazzie is screaming as her Slyth devours her - I think she might have fought her stinger and didn't get enough venom. I can hear her slapping at his bony head and beating her heels against his shell as his tentacles slurp inside her belly and his jaws gnaw and crunch her pubic bone. Other girls are quieter as they submit - moaning and grunting and straining. I don't want to watch Cazzie because I'm trying to stay calm while my own Slyth toys with me. I just want to lay here and feel the incredible pleasure that his venom and claw is giving me.
I burp and taste the thick liquid that they have been making us drink for the past two days. My belly is bloated with it and I can feel it sloshing inside me as my Slyth works his claw inside my belly. It isn't too bad though, it tastes like garlic and onions and some other musky taste that has the flavour of a sweaty, aroused girl's crotch. I keep imagining that the mystery flavour is Slyth cum, and imagining that is arousing. I know it sounds gross, but these are my final moments, so why not just give in and enjoy what I can? Over the past two days we all started smelling like the liquid - when we sweat, when we pee - so it's better to find a way to like it, right?
My Slyth is penetrating me with the heavy serrated end of one of his claws, sliding it up between the cheeks of my trembling bum, pressing it deep into my belly, sort of moving it in and out. I know he's already hurt me inside because I can feel the warm sticky wetness of blood between the cheeks of my bum. And I know that it will be my turn soon and I'll feel his mouth shredding and devouring my body and his jaws crushing my bones as he feeds. The Slyth like their meat fresh and they especially love it if their meat is still alive while they eat it. That's what we're for - to give the Slyth our meat so they don't go to war with us again.
I was little when the Slyth fleet was detected out around Jupiter. I remember watching the interviews on the telescreens with all the scientists. Some were excited because at last there was proof of life elsewhere in the universe and we were finally getting the chance to meet them. Others were alarmed, because they said there were too many Slyth ships for an exploration mission. Those ones believed it was an invasion force and that the Slyth meant us harm.
We should have listened to those ones.
The Mars stations were the first to report the attacks. There were sketchy reports of Slyth landing parties and abductions in the first hours of the attack before communication was cut off, but the people on the telescreen said that the Slyth didn't seem bent on our destruction, but on invasion and capture of females.
The research stations on the moon were next. The last panicked transmission said that the Slyth were taking the young women and girls and either ignoring the men or killing them if they got in the way. In their last transmission, the men said they planned a counter-attack. Then the moon went silent. Six hours later the first Slyth ships were landing on earth and the Slyth came out of the big space ships and began rounding girls up. Some fought and died. Some - like me - hid and survived. But there was lots of humans so the war lasted a long time.
The war went on for three years before the human leaders proposed a truce with the Slyth. My parents were both dead by then and I was in an orphanage hidden in the mountains when they announced that the United Nations leaders had made a proposal that would meet the needs of the Slyth without further war. They said the Slyth were doubtful, but were willing to negotiate for the supply of resources they needed. None of us knew for sure what resources they were talking about, and I didn't find out until I got here. I should have figured it out on the way up considering our ship was transporting dozens of women and girls.
I was sick when they brought me to the moon base. I had an infection and had to take medicine for a week so I didn't go to the dorms with the girls I came up with. I could hear them two days later in the lab from my hospital bed though - some shrieks followed by a lot of moans, then grunting and more shrieks. And a lot of wet sounds.
When I got better they told me I'd have to wait until the next ship arrived with more women and girls so I could join them.
I overheard some of the conversations the men in charge were having when they thought I wasn't listening, and what I heard scared me, but I pieced it all together. I found out that the resources the Slyth wanted was us girls and the older women. They needed the women to breed and wanted us girls for food.
I was going to be food.
I learned that the Slyth were humane when they bred or fed on other creatures. The way they bred was to put two small breeder larvae inside a woman's body to mate. The breeders secreted sex hormones while they mated and filled the host with eggs, so the women felt nothing but sexual pleasure. After a woman birthed the eggs, they were bred again and again.
For the creatures the Slyth ate, they stung them in their livers with the same kind of hormones that made pain feel good. Sexual, the adults said - "orgasmic".
I haven't had sex yet, but I've been masturbating since I was ten so I knew what an orgasm was. After I found that out, I masturbated at night when they thought I was sleeping and imagined what it would be like to be eaten while I orgasmed and decided that if I was going to die, that was a pretty good way.
Until I saw the breeders.
When I was feeling better, I started following one of the nurses in the hospital around a lot. His name was Jon and I was going to ask him why all the nurses and doctors and soldiers were men, but I figured it out on my own - they didn't let women nurses and doctors come to the moon base because the Slyth would want them.
One day Jon let me come with him to visit the breeder ward. They had ten women in there, all of them in those examination chairs you see in doctors' offices - the ones that have those saddles for your legs. It really smelled in there because all of the women were sweating badly and oozing from their … well, their crotches. Their bodies smelled bad, like they hadn't had a bath for a long time even though they'd only been there a week. Their hair was all matted with sweat and stuck to their faces, and their eyes were dull like they were drunk.
The skin on their swollen bellies was all stretched and laced with pink lines and bruises and big blue veins, and all their bellies were moving like crazy. It was the Slyth breeders inside them mating and filling them with eggs. I watched one woman who looked like she was in pain, but she wasn't. Jon told me she was in ecstasy and having orgasms every few seconds, so I should be happy for her. All the women were like that, moaning and gasping as the creatures inside them went wild and every now and then their bellies would convulse and get hard as they had orgasms.
I held the hand of the woman I was near and she smiled at me, then closed her eyes and moaned. She was sweaty and smelled like crotch and vomit and when she had her next orgasm she peed a little.
When Jon came to get me, I didn't want to leave the woman because I thought she was going to die and I didn't want her to die all alone.
"She's not going to die, honey." Jon said, putting his hand on my shoulder and hugging me to his side, "Breeders don't die. Not right away anyway."
"They can do this over and over?" I asked.
"Yes. After the eggs come out, they get to rest a few days, then they can do it again." Jon said.
"Can I be a breeder?" I asked, looking up at him.
"No, honey." Jon said and he sounded very sad, "You're too young - your bowels aren't big enough."
As we walked back to the other ward, I asked him if I was chosen because I was an orphan. He said that wasn't the reason. He said I was chosen because I had perfect DNA - it was pure with no markers for mutations. That was important, because once the Slyth had chosen the girls they liked best, they were going to take our DNA and clone thousands of girls for food and they'd never have to invade other planets again.
"They're going to choose us because we taste good?" I asked. Jon hesitated and looked upset, so I squeezed his hand and told him it was okay to tell me.
"Yes, honey." he said softly, "If you taste good they'll take your DNA and make thousands of you."
Then he knelt down on the floor so he was looking right in my eyes and took hold of my shoulders.
"I was there for the first two sets." he said softly, so no one could hear, "You'll have your own Slyth and he'll hold you and sting you. Their stinger is in a crease on their belly, so he'll hold you to him really tight while he does it. Don't fight it - you want him to sting you deep for as long as he wants. It will make everything else that happens feel good."
"Okay." I promised.
"We're working on a way to synthesize the special venom they have so we can just give the girls injections, but it won't be ready in time for you." he said, and when I asked he told me my turn would be in three more days - the next ship was landing that night. I would be in a group that was going to be a meal for a group of Slyth.
The new girls arrived and I joined them in the dorm. They gave us all yellow pajamas to wear and put movies on for us, but we weren't allowed to eat anything but the thick liquid that tasted of garlic and onions, and we could drink water if we were thirsty. I figured out what the liquid was for - to make us taste better. It was a Slyth marinade. During the first day, the liquid gave us all diarrhea and some of us didn't make it to the toilets in time and had to have showers and get clean pajamas. By halfway through the second day we had all stopped pooping and our pee reeked of the liquid. I guess we were ready.
The other girls knew we were all going to die, but they didn't know exactly how it would happen, and I didn't tell them because it would only upset them. So I kept most of it secret, but I did spread the word that when the Slyth came to sting us to let them do it because it would feel good. A few thought I was crazy, but I tried.
In the late afternoon, the humans turned up the heat and humidity in our dorm then came around and asked for our pajamas. We all stripped bare and handed in our pajamas and laid down on our bunks. It was so hot and humid that we were all drowsy and sweating, but it had to be that way for the Slyth because that's how they liked it.
Then some men came in and one of them told us that the Slyth would be visiting us and that they would pick each of us up and hug us. He said not to be afraid of what they were going to do because it would make us feel very good. Then he thanked us for our service to mankind, and said we would not be forgotten. I silently called bullshit on that - I already knew that we would be forgotten, except for those chosen and even those would only be known by their DNA.
Then he dimmed the lights and left the room.
After a few minutes lying in the dark, the Slyth arrived with a human escort. I didn't realize how huge the Slyth were. They had to duck coming in through the doorways and I could feel the floor vibrating when the walked. They lined up in the middle of the room, then the humans got us up and lined us up against the wall facing them. I'm not going to lie - I was scared.
Slyth are tall and thick and bright red. Their eyes are jet black and they have tentacles on their face that cover their mouths. They have a shell like a lobster, but they have arms and legs like humans. They also have extra arms that look like crab legs and have claws at the end. And they smell. It's a similar smell to that hint of a flavour in the thick liquid we'd been drinking.
The Slyth stood and talked to each other by making wet little clicking sounds and grunts as they looked at the row of us small naked girls. Then they walked toward us, shaking the floor with their weight as they came for us - one girl to each Slyth. I was trying to count off the line of girls and Slyth to figure out which one would get me, but it became obvious when one stared at me intently with his black eyes as he came. He walked right up and towered over me, staring down at my upturned face. I swallowed past a lump in my throat.
"Hello." I said and tried my best to smile. "I promise I won't fight you."
He made a chattering clicking sound that I imagined was laughter.
As we stood there, some of the other Slyth quickly picked their girls up with their large hands and hugged them tight to their abdomens with their claws. I figured out the relationship between the claws and the stingers - the Slyth stinger was right in the middle between the two claws that clutched their prey tight to their hard bellies so they could sting them. It was where their penis should be.
My Slyth turned to watch so I followed his lead. Some Slyth did it fast and rough, while others were slower and more gentle. Some girls shrieked and fought it, others just whined as they were stung. A few vomited and most peed. But no matter how they took the stinger, after it was done all the girls went limp in their Slyth's claws, and some moaned and some whimpered as they were carried back to a bunk to be laid out for the next part. I felt better when I saw that the girls were all passive after they were stung.
I saw that one Slyth took a girl to my bunk, but I guessed it didn't matter anymore where we died.
All down the line girls were being lifted and stung then carried to the bunks. I looked back up at my Slyth and saw that he was gazing down at me again. He said something in wet clicks and grunts and I like to think he was asking me if I was ready. I lifted my arms and reached up for him as his large red hands encircled my bum and lifted me, his two long claws reaching around my lower back and hugging my body to his. He was gentle as he pulled me against his hard shell and I arched my back and pressed my lower belly tight against him - I knew not to fight it. I braced myself by gripping the boney ridges in his chest and looked up into his black eyes as I felt his shell scraping against my lower belly as it opened. Then I felt the sharp bite of his stinger as it emerged and began to penetrate me.
His stinger was as sharp and thin as a needle and slid effortlessly into my belly just below my belly button and traveled upward through my abdomen. I'm not going to lie; it hurt. I whimpered as it slid high into me - so invasive - feeling so deadly and final. I felt my bum clench involuntarily and my toes curled. My thighs began to tremble as I lifted my feet behind me, arching my back even more to keep my lower belly tight to his as his stinger slid effortlessly through my bowels and penetrated my liver. I felt sick to my stomach - the penetration was bad - my abdomen felt feverish and wounded. Then I felt his body give a little shudder and liquid squirted deep inside me, the stinger vibrating from the force of it. He was filling me with a long, strong stream of venom. I felt my liver swelling as he pumped his venom into me and it began to ache. How much was he injecting into me? I felt my liver bloating larger and larger, pushing against my stomach. They didn't say it would feel this bad - a sick bloated feeling inside my body.
"It hurts." I hissed through clenched teeth, my gorge rising in my throat. And just as I thought I could take no more without throwing up, I felt it …
A feeling like I've never experienced before flooded my body like a wet explosion. It spread from my tummy downward and upward at the same time right through my core. It was like an orgasm, but stronger - this was total immersion, as though the venom was flooding my entire body, filling me up from gullet to crotch.
When I masturbate, my orgasms are tight tingly little things that make my body clench and quiver. But this sensation was hot and fast and overwhelming. I felt all my muscles get warm, my eyelids drooped, my mouth started to water. Between the cheeks of my bum I felt my anus loosen and gape and pee gushed from me to splatter on the floor. I felt my belly muscles lose their tone and my inner organs slumped inside me, his claws still holding me tight to his shell, his stinger still impaling me there. My hands slipped from his arms and hung limp at my sides, my head lolled backward like I was drunk and I felt weightless. It felt like the ecstasy of death and I gave myself to it.
I've never felt anything that good in my life and I decided in that instant that everything was going to be alright - he was going to eat me, devour me, and I was going to feel his teeth and tentacles pulling my body apart and I was going to die at some point while it happened. I was at peace with being eaten, with dying. I was at peace with all of it. I even hoped that I would taste good and be chosen for cloning so thousands of me could experience this in years to come.
I surrendered.
I felt his stinger slide out of my belly and I felt a pang of regret - I didn't want it to stop. Then he cradled my limp body in his large hands as his claws let me go and carried me tenderly to lay me down on one of the bunks. My body felt so light and I could feel his heavy presence looming over me. I felt like I was in a dream, a sensual dream that I never wanted to wake up from.
I opened my eyes and looked up at my Slyth - the room was turning and tilting around me and I felt deliciously nauseous - he was idly stroking my body with his claws as he watched the others. I realized then that he enjoyed watching the other girls worked by the other Slyth. I turned to look at what was holding his gaze.
The girl in the next bunk was named Misha and she was from Russia. Her Slyth was already starting in on her - one of his claws was up her bum and deep in her belly. Misha was very brave and I could tell by the way she squirmed and twisted on the bunk as he penetrated her that the venom was strong in her too. She kept making soft grunting sounds as her Slyth worked his claw deep inside her abdomen. Even when he started to thrust his claw inside her violently, Misha didn't fight him.
Our eyes met and her eyelids were drooping as she gazed at me while he flipped her onto her back and began lowering his mouth toward her crotch.
"Da… da…" she kept saying over and over as he opened his maw wide and his tentacles slithered over her bloated belly. 'Da' is Russian for 'yes', so Misha wanted to feel his teeth, to feel her flesh chewed and eaten. When he bit into her, she strained and arched her back, pushing her crotch upward. While he fed, she stroked his boney head like a lover, moaning as he sucked the meat of her sex up into his mouth.
I turned and looked up into my own Slyth's face. His head turned slowly and he gazed down at me as he slid his claw between my thighs and found the crease of my bum. I lifted and spread my legs for him, opening my thighs and reaching down with trembling hands to part the round cheeks of my bum. The tip of his claw found the dimple of my anus and pressed firmly but slowly inward. I moaned as it entered me, opening me, delving deeper than I've ever explored with my own fingers. It kept sliding into me, reaching under my belly button, stretching me until I felt the tender tissue of my anus rip - and that felt wonderful. Then I felt my sphincter muscle tearing and that felt even better. I wanted more. I wanted it deeper. I wanted to be impaled on his claw.
He didn't disappoint me.
As he pressed ever deeper into my belly, I heard Cazzie start screaming and fighting. Why fight? Why scream? Just surrender to this sweet inevitability.
Cazzie's screams are growing weaker, and she has the hiccups, making wet, spastic gurgling sounds. Then I hear the wet muffled crunch of her Slyth crushing bone and I hear her vomit. He's eating her pelvis, sucking her inner organs into his maw.
I should be horrified, but I can't find that emotion. All I have is a deep love for my Slyth and an all-consuming lust for what is happening to me. I have heard older girls talking about sex - about fucking. That is what my sweet Slyth is doing to me; fucking me with his claw. In and out, the serrations vibrating in my crotch as he shreds my insides.
"… oh god… don't stop… don't…" I hear a girl pleading, then the wet splat of something heavy hitting the floor as she gags, " urlph… don't stop…"
I hear other girls panting, gasping, straining and grunting as they reach higher in a crescendo as they peak in endless orgasm. And the sounds of feeding; the sounds of flesh being ripped and chewed, organs and blood being slurped, and moist bones being cracked and pulverized by strong jaws.
I want that too. I want it so bad.
As my Slyth bends his claw inside me, stretching my belly upward and making it bulge, I arch my back and push it up toward his face, willing him to start. He makes that clattering wet laughter sounds and slowly slides his claw out of me and I feel hollow and so needy.
"Please… oh god, please…" I whine. I can still hear other girls crying out, gagging and gurgling, grunting and straining as their Slyth are devouring them. I glance to my right and see that Misha's Slyth's has grasped her by both wrists and lifted her up onto her knees, his face buried in her opened belly, slurping and eating her internal organs. Her face is pale as she hangs in his grip, her eyes closed, gurgling as he feeds. Misha starts to vomit blood - she's almost done and I haven't even started.
"… please…" I gasp at my Slyth, my need making me tremble. His mouth lowers onto my abdomen, his drool making it slick and wet. His tentacles are undulating - dancing over the skin of my belly and beneath them I feel his mouth open, more drool slathered over my body.
A Slyth's lower jaw can be articulated at the chin; made wide or narrow. Right now my Slyth's lower jaw is long and tapered almost to a point with rows of small sharp teeth that angle backward - teeth made to bite and rip flesh. It is this I feel pressing against my sex and I feel myself forced open to let it in. His tapered lower jaw slides into me, stretching what so far has only known my fingers and then only one at a time. Wider and wider and wider. The pressure from my tightness is throbbing and I feel my pelvic bone aching deep inside me. My hip joints feel like they will soon dislocate. How much more can my sex stretch?
A Slyth's upper jaw is wider than the lower one and is almost all long curved teeth and it is this I feel descending onto my belly. His fangs digging in and penetrating into my flesh. A Slyth's deadly kiss.
He's starting! My Slyth is going to eat me now and it sends a wild electric rush of excitement through my core; my sex throbs deep, the skin of my bum, crotch, and belly go all shiver-bumps, and my nipples tingle and pucker. And along with all of that is a cold grip of fear that seizes the core of my belly … Watching and listening to the other girls being eaten and dying is no longer an abstract thing. This is it! Oh-my-god, this is it! I feel so small and so vulnerable as his large hands grip my hips and pin me to the bunk.
"… oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god…" my voice is weak and shrill, betraying my wild sexual excitement and cold fear as I grasp his boney skull and thrust my pelvis upward, grinding my crotch against his jaws.
And when his jaws close on me I lose my mind.
The pain is exquisite and pure. His long curved upper teeth rake deep into my soft belly, compressing and puncturing it in a hundred different places at once. At the same time the teeth in his lower jaw press up hard against my g-spot, putting crazy pressure on my public bone and triggering my first powerful shuddering orgasm. I lift my knees high on either side of his skull, my toes curling - oh-god-it's-happening! I feel his lower jaw pulling upward inside my pelvis - immense pressure, trying to bend the unbendable. My belly clenches tight - feeling each of his fangs inside me, my sex contracts, tightening on his lower jaw, my body trying to prevent what is about to happen. The pain is intense and electric. Having a Slyth bite into my soft belly feels exactly how you would imagine it, but the venom adds an ecstatic sexual bliss to it - an orgasm of pain.
"UNGH!" I grunt loud and curl forward as I feel the dull wet 'crack' of my pubic bone breaking under the pressure and suddenly my hips don't work right anymore; my thighs flop open on either side of his mouth like the legs of a rag doll. As his jaw continues to close on me, I feel my sex being crushed and shredded, I feel the pop as my bladder bursts in his mouth like a hot, wet balloon, I can feel and hear the sick crackling sounds as my pubic bone is shattered and splintered in his mouth. Then his jaws close and he is pulling on my flesh, ripping it from my belly while keeping me pinned to the bunk - his hands gripping so tight I know they are bruising me to the bone. I feel the best part of me torn away as he lifts his head and swallows my flesh like a wolf chokes down raw meat, leaving me shaking and convulsing like a mad thing, my orgasms raging inside me in brutal cramping waves.
I am straining and grunting, the pain and ecstasy swirling through my torn flesh as I feel his mouth descend again. His teeth and tentacles delve deep into my open belly - tentacles exploring amongst my small intestines and his teeth finding and gripping my plump rectum. I feel the insane pressure and the inward stretching as he pulls my anus up inside me. I am crying out, grunting - wordless shrieks tearing at my throat. My hands at turns roughly caress his skull and slap futilely at it as he pulls up on my rectum clutched between the long teeth of his mouth. I again curl up, my head and shoulders lifting from the bunk as I feel my anus ripped loose and I feel the sudden large hole between the round, firm cheeks of my bum - he is ripping my body apart piece by piece. I flop back on the bed as he starts to swallow my long large intestine, and to my intense delight and torment, I discover his throat is barbed and with each swallow the barbs grip the long fat rope of my bowels and pull them ever downward into his stomach.
My eyes cross and lose focus, and when it returns I catch a glimpse of Misha. She lays on her side, her eyes open and staring at me as her Slyth bites down on her rib cage, sending spurts of blood from her mouth and nose. Misha closes her eyes then opens them as he chews, but she doesn't appear to be in pain. Suddenly I feel my Slyth violently bury his face in my open belly and begin to suck up my intestines like my girlfriends and I sucked up noodles as we played at lunch.
My world becomes a storm of orgasm and pain as my intestines are swallowed down, unraveling out of my opened belly, while his tentacles slither and caress my other organs. Even though my bowel is detached from my anus, all the nerve endings are still intact, and I can feel them being sucked and swallowed, scraping across his teeth, the undulations of his barbed throat pulling them downward, and even the burning of his stomach acids as the journey is completed. He is working ever upward, unraveling the long tangled clot of my small intestine getting closer and closer to my stomach. The sensations are strong and are echoing all the way up to my throat, bringing with them a strong nausea. I'm going to throw up, and the build-up to that event is sensual and sweet. I whimper and squirm in his grip, raising my hands to my chest, feeling my stomach begin to tighten and quiver. He seems to sense it, because he sucks harder and loosens his grip on me, allowing me to squirm and writhe as less and less of my intestines remain inside me. It's getting close!
"… glurph…" I gag at a flash of pain as he bites off my intestine, then slurps the severed end back into his mouth. My stomach cramps into a hard ball as his tentacles slither over it and the waves of pain pulse up the shortened length of my bowel.
"… glurglglgl…" he allows me to curl as I feel my sick gurgling up my gullet, my face contorting, my eyes watering. The sensation of vomiting my last meal of the thick liquid they gave us is so sexual and sensual. I feel it burbling up my gullet and start to fill my mouth, but my Slyth grips me tight and sucks harder and my sick is suctioned back out of my mouth and down my gullet and I feel my liquid bloated stomach emptied violently and air is drawn through it.
My constant state of orgasm explodes inside me and I black out.
I am slow coming back to awareness. I feel my orgasm continuing to pulse through me, but I become aware that there is less of me now. I am also aware of a spreading numbness in what is left of my body. I strain and grunt as I distantly feel his teeth pulling one of my kidneys loose, chewing and swallowing. Then his tentacles root through the hollow of my belly for the other.
When this too is ripped loose and consumed, he lifts his head and looks into my eyes. I am calm now. I feel weak and spent. More passive than before, and I realize that because of shock and blood loss, my body has surrendered and I am just waiting to die.
My Slyth seems to know it, because he lifts himself, his large head looming over me, his mouth lowering to my chest. As his tentacles dance over my chest, his mouth finds my left nipple. I feel his teeth grip it and bite it and rip it from me - the sharp sensation of pain breaking through the numbness and giving me a wave of orgasm. Then his teeth find my right nipple to bite and rip and my orgasm peaks sweetly.
"… do it…" I whimper and close my eyes, "… just do it…"
I am grateful when I feel his jaws surround my left ribcage and begin to tighten - harder and harder, squeezing the air out of me. Ribs cracking, teeth puncturing, pulling on my spine. A loud crack and a sharp wave of pleasure/pain and I cough, blood spurting from my mouth. My heart pounds unevenly, fluttering, struggling.
This is it. This is the death of me. I feel regret. I feel at peace. I feel sexual. I don't know what to feel.
Then the sharp pain of my heart bursting that brings that last spike of orgasmic bliss. It is cold and intense and brief. And as a white light flares around me and I become weightless, I feel myself reaching across future centuries, reincarnated through my DNA to be consumed over and over and over and…