“You vowed you’d take Kay home,” I repeat Rune's words, confirming with Kay via a glance at her, hoping that she’d react if this turned out to be inaccurate somehow - all just one big, hilarious misunderstanding. But she just looks at each of us in turn, warily, from her own half-crouched position.
“Let me guess. This vow is super-important? Like, immensely? Quintessential Dryth-ness and honor and stuff?”
Bane nods a curt ‘yes’ and bares a fang, clearly not amused by my cavalierness. Cavalierliness. Cavalierity. Whatever.
Well, he can cope right about now. I turn to Kay.
“And I guess you, Kay, feel like you need to let him fulfill that vow?”
Kay nods as well, more readily. She knows Rune saved her bacon, and that she owes him.
“When I asked you to join us… You wanted to, really, didn’t you? But Rune had given you his word that you’d go home, and that’s why you felt you needed to let him bring you here. Yes?”
Kay nods twice, once for each question.
I look to Bane again. “You think she should’ve honored me instead of allowing Rune to honor his vow, huh? That’s what made you so angry?”
Bane does and says nothing in that affirmative way of his. Rune’s bird gives a long-suffering sort of sigh, which is plenty in terms of commentary.
I sigh as well. Because the alternative is to scream.
God damn this entire alien race and its shite ideas of honor and propriety. You’d think that a crown prince who basically said “fuck it all” to his rightful throne, an army general who took said runaway crown prince for a joyride to a space brothel to pick up a fuck-toy, and a wild woman that was apparently abandoned by everyone and, if not for my pigheadedness, would have been put in a box and shipped off to a planet where her male counterparts can't even be arsed to be interested in what she eats... You'd think that three individuals like that would be a little bit more flexible in their principles! But nooo!
Breathe, Val. Deep breaths.
"Rune," I address my Royal Highness first since I'm pretty sure of his answer. "Do you object to Kay being on our ship, or with me, or with us, in any way, shape, or form?"
Bane grudgingly relays for me again. Bane glances at Kay and shakes his head. The crow shakes its head in tandem and blinks a curious eye at Kay's form, particularly her tits (which look fucking fabulous in this light, all gleaming with moisture from the air and the nipples pebbled up and...). I almost tisk and suppress a grim smile. Males. Universal horndogs.
With a deep inhale for patience, I turn to Bane next. My General.
“Apart from her hesitation, do you have any other objections to her being with us?” I demand to know of him.
He still does and says nothing, but this time it’s clearly negatory. (Don’t ask me, it’s magic.)
As I watch him, his gaze also slides towards Kay, and a faint echo of possessive longing washes over me. Oh, he wants her on our ship and in his grasp, all right. Just like he wants Rune, and me, in his grasp, under his control and care. He's like an ultimate intergalactic Daddy Dom (a little more Dom than Daddy, to be fair) who needs to free enslaved and caged females and endangered heirs to the throne and put them on his spaceship because that's what makes him content and happy.
He’s just too bent on sticking to his friggin’ principles, the stubborn, uncommunicative, self-sacrificing, self-denying boob.
With a mighty huff, I grab Kay by the arm and pull her one step off the ramp. It's like stepping off a slightly elevated curb. She’s too surprised to react or resist me and basically tumbles after me. Our bare feet sink into the squishy-and-also-prickly growth that covers the plateau, causing yellowish puffs of what are probably spores to waft around our calves.
“Oh, look, Kay! You’re home,” I tell her, doing a ta-daah with my hands and gesturing at the ground around us.
As though she just discovered them there below her knees, she considers her own feet intently, blinking.
I look at Rune, gesturing at Kay. “She’s arrived. You brought her home. Mission accomplished. Vow fulfilled. Yes?”
Grumbling his words so much that my translator doesn’t pick them up, Bane translates the message. Rune also gives Kay’s feet a long look, examines how her freaky toes dig into the moss for a beat or two, and then nods with an exhalation.
“Wonderful,” I snap, impatient and absolutely over this whole drama, and turn to Bane next as I take the most obnoxiously ostentatious steppy-step back onto the ramp. “Bane, do you see this? We’re here. She’s not. She left. Done.”
His tail slowly unloops from his waist as he gives me the pissiest of looks. But there’s nothing he can do. I am technically correct, and we all know that that’s the best kind of correct. I can almost see the ‘insubordinate’ wafting through the air between us, like one of those sky banners pulled by a tiny plane. I choose to ignore it, for now, knowing it’ll come to bite me in the… well.
“Goooood,” I sing (a little patronizingly) (okay, a lot patronizingly), then make a show of clapping my eyes on the A’Draht for the first time. “Kay! Girl! How positively splendiferous to meet you again, here, so coincidentally and all.” I wink exaggeratedly at her because it’s not often that an opportunity for a good, exaggerated wink presents itself.
Then I reach down and take both of her hands in both of mine.
“Listen, love, would you like to come fly around space with us?”
There’s a cold gust of wind and some of the fine mist is blown over the plateau. My skin prickles and I’m suddenly aware that we’re standing around in the open, absolutely nekkid.
I’m suddenly very ready to go home. To leave. My neck prickles with tension. The bird in my mind is suddenly so still, he's almost... absent.
Focus, Val.
“None of us really know where we’re going, exactly,” I tell Kay (or rather Kay's hands in mine because I kinda can't bring myself to look her in the eyes... just in case she... decides to... stay) with an embarrassed sort of shrug, “so it might not be the smartest thing for you to follow any one of us, let alone all three.”
It's sad but true. She has to know, though.
“We’re staying out of the way of any other Dryth, that’s for sure, and I hope we’ll never see a single Krgotu again, but other than that, the universe is our oyster. I’m sure there are loads of great places worth seeing. And, you know… if all turns out to be rubbish, we could always come back here. Or go to a place that’s like this.” I shrug again helplessly. “You know. Settle together somewhere, Bane, Rune, you, and me. If you like.”
The moment I hear the words as they come out of my mouth, pure yearning surges inside me for that future. An island. Or a beach? Maybe a cabin in the woods. Something like that. The four of us, our own little place, living off the land, and nobody else for a good, long while. Waking up together. Exploring together. Falling asleep together. I bite my lip to distract myself from the pang in my heart caused by this brand-new, fresh longing with the help of a little physical pain. Focus, focus.
I dare to look up at her face. She observes our joined hands for a beat. Then me. Then Rune. Then Bane.
“Don’t worry about them. Or about me. This is about what you want. We’ll make the rest work, I promise.” I repeat it, squeezing her cold fingers. “I promise.”
There’s a long pause, and then her mouth stretches into her shark grin. Her feelers reach out to me again – much more slowly, so that I only flinch a little bit and the bird that roosts in my temporal lobe merely gives a little warning qwok – and my thoughts suddenly have even more company.
Bae, Roo, Val, Kay. Follow. Settle. The fuck yes.
I can’t help the squeaky, hysterical chuckle – Bae and Roo, the most ferocious warriors in the galaxy, hahaha! – and fiercely hug Kay to my chest. Relief is such a potent drug.
The fuck yes, indeed. The fuck yes.
***
The celebration is relatively short-lived.
Rune suddenly gives a low warning noise as he looks to the horizon, towards that black splotch of a settlement by the ocean. Seconds later, our ship’s various flaps (that’s the technical term) start moving by themselves as though the vessel is tucking itself in – or getting ready for take-off.
Or for defense. Against something. I don’t really want to know against what, exactly, but I think it has to do with that weird settlement in the distance which… seems to… teem. With something. Like it’s alive. Like it's all alive.
Before I can look closer or ask any questions, Bae – pardon me, Bane has grabbed me and is carrying me potato-sack-style into the ship at a very quick pace. I’m almost sad that I don’t have time to properly enjoy the déjà-vu – how many damsels-in-eustress have been carried off and into a spaceship by a Dryth in the history of ever, do you think? How many of them have the pleasure not once but twice, by two different Dryth? I feel very privileged either way. Behind us, Rune is wearing Kay as a backpack, both looking over their shoulders and at the sky, alert, laser-focused, searching.
The two males race through the ship at a breakneck pace, all the way to the bridge. Kay and I are, again, tucked against the handholds and bade to hold on and brace. This time, Kay’s tail immediately goes around my chest diagonally, almost like a seatbelt, and I feel a rush of gratitude and affection for her.
Our departure is even more miserable than the arrival was, and that’s saying something given that my soul is so much brighter, so much lighter than it was before. Kay is here. We’re all here. Together.
Just as the most immediate drag of the G-force lets up, alarms start blaring - louder and more insistent ones than the ones we heard during entry - and our vessel vibrates and jerks, the engine roars loud enough for the soundwaves to curdle the food in my stomach. This is followed by endless-seeming minutes that make me think of that video of a speedboat crash where the seven passengers are tossed around like mannequins.
I think we’re being hit by something. And I think we’re firing back.
Eyes screwed closed, I picture the island. Our future island. Palm trees with a hammock between them. I’ve never lain in a hammock in my life, so I’ll probably fall out of it. Oh well. It’ll provide some shade and I’ll just lay below it, my head on Kay’s thigh, Rune’s head in my lap, and my hand in his non-hair, while Bane watches us all, his tail looped around my ankle.
The floor tilts one way and then the other. I swallow a sudden rush of seasickness.
I picture the beach. A little cove, with little caves in the rocks that provide shelter when the high wind rolls in from the ocean. We’d make a fire inside, huddle up and cook alien crustaceans and freaky sea grass over the flames, and I’d tell the three of them all about Anthony Bourdain.
The screens brighten to a terrible glare; it sears my eyes even through my closed eyelids. I turn my head into the crook of my elbow.
A jungle forest. There would be tree houses. All three of my paramours would look so delicious with the dew on their skin, some smears of soil across their chests and flanks, and Tarzan-style loincloths and fern bikini-tops… which I would love to remove. And anyway, those Tarzan movies always made it look like those jungle vines would present some interesting shibari/sex swing opportunities…
Apparently, I’ve been out of survival mode for long enough that my brain is falling in love with the future again. Endless space. Endless possibilities. And such perfect company.
If we all survive this damn stint on Dryth Central, that is.
A boom rolls through the ship. Everything jolts violently. Alarms go off louder than before.
Island paradise. Secret cove. Treetop hotel.
Shady hammock. Smoky lobster. Sexy liana.
If I only wish for them hard enough, they will come true.
For the second time within an hour or so, my Dryth up and leave the bridge. I watch them walk past for a moment, confused by how they seem to be the only stabilized things within the restlessly shifting and shaking environment. Their grace is otherworldly.
Then my brain catches up with me. I yell out their names, demand to know again where they’re going, begging them with my eyes not to leave because who’s flying this damn ship if they leave and what do they think they can possibly do against enemy fire like that anyway? And then I’m saying something so inane as “I’m coming with you!” and doing something so stupid as to let go of my safety rail in the middle of an air combat situation.
Both Bane and Rune pointedly glance over at Kay. Promptly, her tail reels me back in to the point of pain, just as another thump jostles the ship hard and makes me stumble to my knees. She then adds her arms to the sling of her tail and physically wrestles me to the floor until we’re half-lying, half-seated, undoubtedly looking like a scene from a Graeco-Roman match with her as the big spoon, and I’m not going anywhere, least of all with Bane and Rune.
“Oh my god, oh my god.” Panic rises when they vanish from my sight, both of their eyes on us until they’re out the door. “Please, be careful!” I yell after them, and then, “If you die, I’ll-- I'll kick your, your fuckin' asses!” ... in the afterlife, which is where we might all meet again, my brain finishes for me, and then I grit my teeth and focus on breathing.
So here we lie, Kay strapped to me with all of her limbs like we’re about to go skydiving together, me entirely incapacitated by her strength and weight, while the world around us is all full of fury and noise.
“We can’t die right now, you know? None of us.” I lean my head all the way back and against her shoulder. Her feelers start combing through my hair and slither into my ear canal. I don’t even mind. “I’ve just started making plans for the future and it involves all four of us.”
Future. Val. Forro fuss. Her thoughts are a mere whisper – which I appreciate because my head is still throbbing a bit from that retrovision.gif of Rune she uploaded into my brain without a warning – and yet they’re still somehow louder than anything around me.
“Yep. Future with the four of us.” Something rattles our ship hard. I grab onto Kay’s wrists with both of my hands for maximum support. “From the moment the nasties grabbed me and my Volvo off of Earth, I haven’t thought about tomorrow. Not for a second. Couldn’t afford to. I was all about taking it one minute at a time. But now, I suddenly really, really… really want something to happen. A certain thing. I can see it in my head when I close my eyes, and I just… I so badly want there to be a day when I can see it with my eyes open, too.”
Close-eyes, Kay repeats and lifts her hand to my face, puts it over my eyes. Her palm is not soft but calloused, her skin is cool and papery-rough, and she uses a little too much pressure, like she doesn’t know her own strength – or she doesn’t quite appreciate just how much of a Fabergé egg I am in comparison to her. Still, I relish the touch. It's grounding. I concentrate on it so that the noise and commotion and danger around us can slide out of focus just for a moment.
Hl’nthyrl-t future, her voice susurrates from my hypothalamus, Morr. Morr future.
'Morr'? And I could swear I’ve heard that h-word before… “You mean more?” I slide my fingers up and down her forearm. It's so smooth. A little slick, like snakeskin. “You want to hear more about the future?”
She nuzzles under my ear. I take that as a ‘yes’.
Sighing in pleasure and wistfulness, I tell her all about those visions, those wishes. How we would live, simple and together and in peace. How it’s all very different from when I was young and hoped to live with Jimmy White (he of the great hair and the priesthood following my attempt at aggressive seduction) in a Barbie™ dream house, or a VW bus, or a lavish penthouse apartment in Paris, France (you could see the Eiffel tower from every single window!), or a cubism-inspired tech billionaire’s mansion built into the side of a mountain. Wherever we lived, the homes I imagined were always chock-full of stuff, well-staffed so that I’d never have to worry about vacuuming or dusting or groceries, and I’d upload pics of us to my MySpace page to make everyone super envious.
So much for all of that. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if I tried about where exactly the four of us live, or how many things we possess, or about other people in general. I’ve greatly reduced my requirements… for the better, I think. Quality over quantity, substance over style, thank you.
“Have you ever… … hnn…” – her teeth are gently but firmly pressing into the tender skin of my neck and it’s delicious and distracting – “... ever thought… about your future?”
When no answer is forthcoming and she continues to nibble on my neck, I gently grab the hand that’s still covering my eyes and pull it down – laying a kiss on the palm as I go – and crane my neck so I can look at her face with one eye at least. “Kay, what do you wish for?”
Kay, future, she says as she leans in to run her lips up the side of my cheek. Yes future yes good.
I try to interpret that, and whichever way I do, it breaks my heart a little. 'Just plain future is fine, thanks.' My standards are low now, but damn – she deserves more, and she deserves to demand more, from the universe than bare survival.
“That's it?” I ask. “But what if you... like... What if you could wish for anything? Anything at all?”
She thinks for a second. Kay future, Val, Bae, Roo. Yes. Morr good yes.
There. That’s better. I smile, and she flashes her teeth at me, and in the next moment, her mouth is on mine. And her hand is on my breast. And the other hand is cupping me between my thighs. And her ankles hook around my shins to pull my legs apart until I’m wide, wide open. I groan and she swallows the noise avidly.
Val special, Kay tells me, followed by a string of words in her language that can’t be translated, but I like to imagine that it’s observations. That she’s telling me how hot and wet and soft my cunt is, how supple my tit and how stiff my nipple, and what she wants to do with my cunt and my nipple and my mouth and god, I cannot wait. The fact that she’s stronger than me and has me in her figure-four body lock that I can’t hope to escape unless she allows me to makes it even hotter.
“I want to bite and lick and kiss you all over,” I tell her, panting, helpless, tingling. “I’m going to ask the boys to hold you down for me so you hold still, and then I’ll lick every little inch of you.” A bolt of heat flashes through me, too strong to just be my own arousal. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Kiss you aww-lowver. Yes Val, she replies and makes a sound with her mouth that’s half adorable, half alarming, like I imagined a small pterodactyl may have sounded. It makes me smile because I’m a lunatic.
“And then you’d help me hold down the boys.” I put butterfly kisses on the soft underside of her chin, the only body part I can reach with my lips right then. “We could enjoy them together.” I open my mouth and suck on her skin. “Make them moan and purr for us.”
Moan purr Val, kiss Val, kiss Roo, kiss Bae yes, forro fuss, Kay agrees just as she makes me moan when her terrifyingly agile fingers slide into my channel and then, lubed up on my arousal and on the gooey leftovers of the last Dryth spike, she slides one finger farther down and circles the tender pucker of my asshole. I yell a ‘guh!’-sound, and her mouth descends on mine again, her tongue taking advantage and delving deep – as if to let me know that my holes only belong to me on a technicality now, that she and Rune and Bane and their kisses, lips, tongues, and fingers are now in charge of them.
I’m fine with that. So, so fine.
The pressure of her fingers between my legs sends my pelvis twitching forwards and back, searching for more pressure or for relief from the pressure or… I don’t even know anymore. Her legs readjust around me and impede my movement. Good goddamn, that’s so hot, being handled like this. I whimper her name.
Something loud and bright invades my consciousness, something I almost-
We’re under attack.
We’re being attacked right now.
We’re trying to get away and Rune and Bane are doing god-knows-what trying to get us off this surrealist hellhole of a planet full of people who wanted to kill Bane and Rune before already-
“Fuck,” I cry out. All at once, Kay’s fingertips are way too deep, her slim fingers somehow too big, her embrace suffocating. “Kay, please… We need to—Let me-“
Bae good special. Roo morr special. Yes? Kay holds on to me without cease. The hand that massaged my tit before slides up to turn my chin and face in her direction, until we’re nose to nose. I can feel her breath on my kiss-swollen, moistened lips and on my cheek. My wet cheek. I’m crying? Special. Special. Yes? she asks again, insistent.
“They’re both very, very special, yes,” I agree, hiccuping against the tears. They're special in so many ways. Strong. Intelligent. Special. Most of all to me but, I believe, also superior to most all other aliens, including those of their own race.
I gasp for a breath that shudders in my chest when I imagine losing them now. I’ve been here before (twice), but the previous times, I wasn’t so tightly interwoven with them yet, and now that our connection made my imagination sprout into a future together… I really don’t think I could take it if-
Thyis’a-ku, she says in my head and slides the backs of her fingers down my cheek in an oddly human gesture, wiping the moisture away. Thyis’a-k’thyis’a-k’thyis’a-ku.
I hesitantly repeat the word out loud – and realize uncomfortably how loudly I have to speak to even hear my own voice over the unholy din – until my translator picks it up.
Shush. Trust. Victory. Faith. Baby. Heart. Peace. My translator overloads my brain. I get the gist, though - have faith, they have it handled, quit your whingeing - and it makes me smile despite myself.
Kay touches her forefinger to the corner of my smiling mouth, then traces my lower lip to the other corner, then back to the beginning along the upper lip. Her own mouth forms her usual dagger smile, and then her other hand - the one still lodged into my orifices - pulls out of me with squelching suction. I shiver.
One of her fingers runs along my right labia, down towards my perineum, and then up and around to my clit along my left labia, smearing my juice onto all of my spongy, puffy skin.
N’vk, she says. I say it out loud. “Mouth.” Figures. I nod very slightly to not dislodge the ticklish fingertip tracing my smile and speak without moving my lips too much. "Yep, those two ends of me do share some... similarities."
Kiss, my brain goes. Kiss mouth kiss mouth.
Kay gives me a little peck on the lips.
And then executes some sort of Cirque de Soleil move on top of me. She slithers over me, rearranging her limbs in ways that don’t seem very likely, or healthy, and so fast that I blink once and entirely lose track of what just happened.
All I know is that her head is now between my legs, her arms are slung around my thighs, her mouth is on my other mouth, her nose and chin all pressing into me, her feelers nudging the sensitive skin on the inside of my thighs, and her tongue is probing, sliding along and around - and then deep, deep into me.
“Oh, fuck, Kay. Fuck.” Immediately, my body is electrified. Her tongue feels long enough to tickle my belly button, and is entirely, entirely ribbed for my pleasure. "Too much!"
When I try to close my legs around her head in defense, she nips my labia with her teeth in a warning and finally just yanks me open until I’m spread for her like a frog on the dissecting table, my knees almost all the way down to the floor, then just resumes her ministration.
I yell out some nonsense curse and then just start pleading incoherently.
Her tongue is a weapon, her lips are torture devices, and she knows how to use them frighteningly well. She finds and sucks my clit, then finds and pummels my G-spot, while at least two of her feelers push into my crack and rub and rub and rub.
It's practically in self-defense that I reach for her knee, the one that’s nearest to my head, and pull it until her pelvis is open and hovering right over my face. I also sling my arms around her thighs, reaching my hands all the way and grabbing the small, muscly swells of her butt so I can pull and spread everything even more.
Yes yes yes, my brain seems to say as the pads of my index and middle fingers learn her anatomy. She’s smooth and dark grey here and scorching hot, though not as wet as I am, and her nether lips, which don’t come with frills and folds or hair like a human vagina, feel plumper and firmer than mine while having the same general shape.
As I run a fingertip all the way along her seam, I realize that she does not have a clit, and that her vagina opens and closes almost fully, clenching, unclenching. She has a sphincter muscle here, and a powerful one at that, that nips at my playing fingers exactly like the lips of a mouth might. When she flowers open, I can see that the clench continues deep into her, ring after ring, turning her wet cave into a living fleshlight with massage function.
Oh, to be a male. Just for a day. I groan, picturing Bane or Rune – or both at the same time? – I groan again, louder – stuffing themselves into this tight hole, hammering that sphincter into submission. Soon. Very soon, I vow, and then I crane my neck and kiss and nip and lick and suck every square centimeter of skin I can reach, suck up every drop of moisture off it, and stick my tongue deep into that writhing, swelling, weeping pussy.
She redoubles her efforts in retaliation. I don’t stand a chance.
I climax with a drawn-out shout, which turns into begging when she doesn’t let up at all.
Instead, she uses the fat dollops of arousal that squeeze out of my cunt as lube and starts fucking my asshole with the tip of her tail. I scream and groan and shout her name even though it’s hard to breathe. Her weight on my chest and belly is not inconsiderable, and the orgasm is so strong that my diaphragm has started juddering in my stomach.
I don’t know how long she keeps going. Everything dissolves into an instinctual fight-or-flight struggle against – or for? I forget – even more profound pleasure, giving and taking and giving again. When she finally gets off of me, I am bathed in sweat and my own come, and, across my face and down my neck, in a fine milky dew that I called forth from Kay’s sweet cunt.
Looking up, I see a face above me – spattered with some blood – ow! The déjà-vu gives me a pang of migraine – and I gasp and try to scramble upright. “Rune! Oh my god, you’re--”
He quickly crouches down and pushes against my chest to keep me flat on the ground which has stopped rolling so violently at some point. "Ai'bek," he says quietly. Stay, lie down. For my safety, presumably. Grrr, screw that. There are more important things to do!
I fight uselessly against that pressure as I lift my head to look around for my General. “Bane?”
There he is – my heart shivers with relief – standing right in front of Kay, glowering at her. Something heavy and electric passes between them.
Faintly, I get a bit worried – there’s still a lot of unfriendly, violent potential there.
But then, I also kinda like looking at them together. The height is the only clear-cut difference between them – and really, the contrast is just sexy. Everything else seems to be so… so well-matched, though. The fierceness, the intransigence, the pride, even the reticence. Their coloring. She's the paler shade of his gray, he's a darker shade of hers. They make a fine couple.
Then Bane lifts his right hand and brings it to her face, puts his thumb against her mouth – her body goes statue-still while all her feelers go crazy wriggly on her head at the touch – and swipes the pad of it across her lips. Slowly. Thoroughly.
He then lifts his thumb to his own mouth and sucks off the moisture he’s collected.
Uhm. My moisture. From my pussy.
He savors the taste.
And his eyes meet mine. His tail swishes in a circle.
I suck in a breath. Holy shit.
All is well again in my world.
***TBC***
Two more to go.
