Seleroan
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Episode 22 - A Strategy from the Edge
🕑 Added 2024-05-29 20:57:05 +0000 UTC
This one took an age to write, so I'm sorry for that. But in fairness to myself, I have been struggling with book publishing BS. Hopefully, that all gets resolved soon, and I can return to our normally scheduled releases!
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< several seconds of profound, horrified silence followed by an almost reluctant scrape of a chair, then hurried footsteps >
You…
< hic >
You animal! I can’t be-believe you’d—ha ha ha! Can you believe this guy?! W-with a skak-beast?
< hic>
…?
No, no… b’yes… Where… where’d you even put it af’erward?
…
You—!
< pained wheezing >
You left it? Whad’did she say?!
< delicate throat clearing >
What… what? Can’t y’see I’m havin’ a converzation with ma bu-bud—Hey! Guys… guys, thissis one’a my lov—
< hic >
—lovely and… and bootiful cam’ra operators, the enshanting, Miss…
< incoherent mumbling >
Guys, tell ‘er…
< hic >
…tell ‘er wha’cha jus’ tol’ me, uh… ‘bout the…
< dissolves into more wheezing >
…
Dead?!
< several seconds of silence >
< uproarious laughter >
*
“What if it’s something important? Or dangerous?!”
Naomi only responded by groaning into Mike’s shoulder.
“Come on, Naomi!” he persisted, gently pushing her away. “Get down. Let me go!”
She tightened her grip around him. “No!”
“Naomi, you’re being unreasonable.”
She growled and pointed behind her toward the hated interloper. Could it not see they were busy?! “No, that thing is being unreasonable. We’re having sex now.”
“We can have sex la—”
“Sex now.”
“Naomi—”
“Sex. Now!”
“Damn it!” Mike sighed with exasperation.
He was still hard, though. And inside her. That was the important thing.
She quickly resumed her fierce grinding around that beautiful spear between her legs, sending sparks flying through every corner of her being. But she could not keep it up for more than a few seconds at a time. Each glorious thrust short-circuited her lower body so severely she was afraid he might take advantage of her weakness to escape. There was no way she could allow that to happen. She had worked too long and too hard for this moment not to try for at least one… maybe even two more orgasms.
The first had come the very instant he had entered her, and so strong she had come close to blacking out. He had even apologized for it! Ha!
That was so Mike…
She started kissing at his neck, hoping he might take the hint, set aside the constant slew of distractions the world kept flinging at them, and actually put in some effort toward achieving those climaxes she so desperately needed. But it seemed he had given up trying to convince her. Instead, he took a step toward whatever this most recent bullshit turned out to be.
Which sent a rather pleasant shockwave up through her body, and she gasped.
Oh… oh, this was nice. She had never imagined what it might be like for a guy to be capable of just casually walking around while inside her. That was the kind of thing you heard rumors about during girl’s night but never thought could be real. Yet now that she had experienced it, she was eager to explore the sensation.
“Keep g-going!” she managed, shaking with pleasure after only his second step. “M-More of that! Hmmah… Jumping jacks! Haha! Can you do jumping jacks?!”
She was so giddy with pleasure she felt practically drunk! She wanted to laugh. To sing!
He did not respond to her provocations, though. He seemed too focused on staggering his way forward… which she was perfectly happy to let him do. It was driving her wild!
Incoherent murmurs of delight mixed with random giggles almost shamefully spilled from her throat with his every step. She felt like a slut! A whore!
And she loved it. She loved the way he was making her feel, and he wasn’t even trying!
In a frenzy, she began rocking her hips once more, praying that she might somehow shake him loose from his delusions of control over the farce that had become their life, but the twinned ecstasies of his forward stride combined with her own grinding sabotaged her muscle control so badly, she was forced to bite into the hard muscle at his shoulder just to hang on.
“Ow! Ow!” Mike started swatting her backside—probably trying to get her to let go—but the only things she could think about were the interesting and unexplored vibrations the strikes were sending coursing through her center. Just a little more… just a little more! “Jesus, what are you—that hurts! Uncle, uncle!”
Skipping and twirling in pain, he took several stumbling steps in quick succession. Each of them reverberated through her like mortar shells, stealing her breath with every unintentional pounding thrust, and finally launched her into a second, blissful orgasm.
The floor beneath them ignited like a plasma lamp even as her every muscle seized tightly to his body, and her claws dug into his back just as her teeth were sinking into his shoulder. She knew she had to be hurting him, but there was nothing she could do to stop herself. She was in survival mode, her only thoughts dedicated to hanging on until her rapture let her go.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Mike started slapping her backside in earnest, driving swat after stinging swat like a spike through her already overwrought nerves, until she was forced to gasp for breath. What was he trying to do? Make her pass out?!
“No… no,” she tried to protest, but she was so undone with emotion her voice was cracking. “Ssdop! Too much. It’z too goonnah…”
“Too good?!” he repeated, clearly pissed. “The hell? I think you just ripped a chunk out of my shoulder!”
“Sorry… sorry…” she murmured breathlessly, but she was far too ecstatic to feel anything like genuine remorse. Besides, he was only bleeding a little. And he had armor under there! What was the big deal? Still, she felt a tad guilty for being the only one to have gotten off, so she tried kissing it better. “I’m sorry, Mike,” she said again between tender pecks and delicate licks over her own tooth marks. His blood tasted spectacular—which made her wonder what the rest of him might taste like. “It just feels… so good inside me. You feel so good. This is the best sex I’ve ever had.”
That brought him up short. “Really?” He sounded doubtful.
“Yes!” She quickly transferred her kisses to his lips. There could be no room for doubt. She needed for him to believe her this time. “Every second you’re inside me… hnn… I can’t… I can’t think. Come? Please come for me?”
“I—” he tried between her kisses. “I alr-already did.”
She stopped in surprise. “You did? When?”
“Like… the second you jumped on me. You didn’t notice?”
“No?” And she should have—she had always been able to tell with guys before. She kissed him again, trying to gather some semblance of coherent thought. “I may have blacked out a little when you first pushed inside.”
“You were that into it?”
She pulled away. “Geez, Mike. Did you think I was biting you because I wanted to? I’ve been holding on for dear life over here.”
“Oh.” His lip twitched in consideration, and he bobbed his head to one side. “Neat.”
She scowled. Neat? That was all he could say? Neat?
“What are you saying, Mike? You weren’t into it?”
If he was, he was lying. She could feel how hard he was even now. And after coming, he had said? That was new. She had never had a lover who could stay erect between orgasms. Today was turning out to be full of interesting revelations.
Maybe there was some hope for that third climax, after all.
“Well… I mean…” He glanced between her and the giant cylinder that had recently tumbled into the room for a moment before heaving a frustrated sigh. “I want to be into it, Naomi. I really… really do. It’s my first time, you’re absolutely gorgeous, not a fan of the biting—”
She sucked in a surprised breath. “Is it really your first time?”
His eyelids fluttered as his train of thought rerouted away from whatever else he had been about to say in order to address her question. “Obviously.”
“Not that obvious,” she cooed, resuming her gentle pecks along his already healing neck… and the gentle rocking of her hips. Her nerves were still too overwrought to withstand more, so even something as delicate as this was sending sticks of dynamite cascading through her body. “You’re incredible. I could get addicted to this.”
He licked his lips. “Uh…”
She smiled. It seemed her Mike was weak to compliments. That was good to know. And now that she had his head in the right place, she might actually be able to convince him to put some effort into this.
“I’m not too heavy, am I?” she asked, transferring her kisses to the sensitive skin along the ridge of his ear. But she already knew the answer. She was just setting him up so she could gush over how big and strong he was.
“You’re not light…”
She faltered. Damn it… every time. What did she have to do? Club the guy over the head and drag him back to her cave?
Forcing a smile, she changed tacks, “Then why don’t you lay me down?”
With a better angle, she was sure she could make him forget all about that stupid tank or… whatever it was. It kind of looked like a tipped over water heater to her. But that wasn’t important right now!
She wanted to worship his body, to feel every inch of his rod slamming into her, over and over… though perhaps after a quick blowjob. Her lady bits were still feeling a tad sensitive.
She wiggled her hips suggestively.
“Will you let me?” he asked, stealing a glance at the cylinder.
Her smile vanished. “No.”
“Then we keep going,” he said, grunting as he put actions to words and resumed their forward march.
The sudden jostling hit her like a physical blow, and her already jellied legs turned almost to water. “Ah, God! Wait! I’m… I’m not ready yet!”
“So let go.”
Let go? Ha! She was flopping around like a dead octopus over here. All he had to do was pull his hands away from her backside, and she would collapse to the ground in a quivering heap.
“Never!” she shouted anyway. In a last ditch effort, she summoned every ounce of strength she had left and tightened her groin hard around his cock.
That ripped a groan out of him, and he made a face that almost made her want to hop down and give him that blowjob after all, just as a reward. But this was war! She would never give quarter to the enemy.
Instead, she moaned along with him, kissing at his jawline and flicking her tongue along the edges of his ear. “I love your O-face, Mike. It turns me on so much!”
With a growl, he made a sudden surge toward the hated cylinder, and her back slammed against one side of it, stealing her breath in a rush. But not from the impact—the damned thing was cold! Whatever it was, it had slid out of the pillar and deposited itself into the room like a frozen burrito from the world’s largest vending machine.
“See, Mike?” she exclaimed, doing her best to arch her back away from the shockingly frigid surface even as she used her newfound purchase to leverage herself against him. Now, if she could just keep her teeth from chattering. “It’s just a s-stupid p-p-piece of metal… or glass or whatever. There’s n-n-nothing to w-worry about.”
“Yeah? Then why is it black?” he grunted, his face giving away the effort required not to succumb to the torturous rapture of their coupling. “I’m surprised it’s not giving you frostbi—argh… you’re so tight!”
No shit, she was tight! You could probably freeze a tray of ice cubes on this thing. She felt like she was going into cold shock every time she brushed against it, so it was no wonder her vaginal muscles were going haywire. Hell, her nipples were so erect, she could probably put someone’s eye out!
She gasped with sudden inspiration.
“Suck my tits, Mike? Please?”
Apparently, those were the magic words. Somehow, someway, whatever semblance of logic and self-control he was attempting to wrestle into his pathetic man-skull was completely swept away by that one simple phrase.
His inner monkey had just been asked to suck tits! How could it refuse such a polite invitation? Then, of course, his inner monkey was apprised of the ongoing situation with the rapacious female writhing over his engorged flesh, and it made the abrupt decision to assume emergency command.
Or so she assumed. Whatever was going on in her lover’s head, the moment he latched onto her breast was the moment her world shattered. The delicate brush of his teeth upon her aching flesh hit her like a sledgehammer, and the orgasm that followed drew such blasphemy from her lips that, for a moment, she was half-afraid the lighting blasting away from their feet and up the pillar was some kind of heavenly retribution.
But even if it had been, she would not have cared. It was worth it. It had all been worth it. Mike was into it now.
And as he bore her to the ground, a loopy grin settled over her face. She would never tire of getting the better of her man.
*
< hic >
‘s that him? That little shmear on… on the bottom there? Poor fellow. I can still r’member the li’l guy chasing around Jessica—
…
—Samantha w-without a care ‘n the… That’s what I said! Sam—
< hic >
—man… mantha. You think I’d jus’ forghe—whoops-e-daisy!
< crashing sounds, followed by wheezing laughter >
Gentlemen! I may… be a tickle-bit tipsy!
< inane giggling >
…?
Huh? Oh, I dunno. Some kind of human mating ritual, I’d imagine. Those tow… tow?!
< more giggling >
Did you… did you hear that? I just said… to-toh—ha! Uhb, uh… Help me up, would you?
< grunting sounds, clunking of furniture >
Ah… thank you. Those two, I mean, have been at one another almost since we dropped them off. Probably some strady… s-strategy the VENUS uses for planet’ry conquest. Y-You know how those military types think.
I’m sure they’ll be popping carnivorous monster babies out all over the place before you can blink.
…!
H-Hey! Where’re you guys going?
…
You can’t go down there now! You’re in n-no condition to make an atmospheric—
< hic >
Hey, wait!
…
…
…
< grinding of metal >
[One of the port cameras catches the bottom half of a bulbous ship passing overhead.]
Well, there they go, the poor bastards. They can’t say I didn’t warn them.
…?
Drunk? Me? Perish the thought. You think I’d let myself get steamed around a couple of psychopaths like that?
As for those two… heh! They’re so hammered, they didn’t even blink when they saw the archaeological sight down there. Even setting aside the potential advancement to the field of proto-spacefaring xeno-civilizations, there’s a fortune to be made in… in…
Say, what is that moving through the floor? On the screen there. Some sort of… electrical discharge?
…
Huh… and you say they ate some of it? Curious. At this rate, our ill-timed guests will be lucky not to get themselves eaten, eh what? Ha! Ha ha!
Uh… assuming they survive the landing, that is. Either way, keep the cameras rolling. It’ll make for some excellent b-roll for that poacher angle we’ve been workshopping.
…?
No, no, of course I wasn’t trying to get them killed. If everything had gone to plan, those xeno-traffickers would be happily sleeping it off, while we gently lured our test subjects to a less-contentious location. But then poor, sweet Oscar tragically intervened…
In any case, I was simply engaging in the standard contract-negotiation routine… er, just something you pick up as a producer when you have to pry film grants out of investors. It’s a simple process, really: you exchange pleasantries, ply them with a bit of liquor, gush over their latest hostile takeover, and before you know it, suitcases full of credits are changing hands, leaving you to quietly excuse yourself before they have a chance to think better of—
…?!
Naturally. You didn’t think the old gaffer would forget about that, now did you?
< thump! >
Gather ‘round, everyone. Payday is here!
< excited murmurs >
Yes, alright. There’s no need to shove; plenty for everyone. Now, why doesn’t someone fill me in on how exactly Oscar got himself smushed?
We’ll need to have our stories straight for the insurance adjusters…
*
Naomi resisted the urge to giggle as she gazed up at her lover’s stunned expression. He seemed well satisfied. She was too, of course—more than satisfied. But lying naked atop his chest while he basked in the glow of her prowess was making her feel something grander than mere satisfaction. She felt… accomplished. Completed.
And more than a little sexy.
She dragged a claw over his muscles idly, drawing a delightful shiver from his still-heaving chest. “You should listen to me more often, Mike,” she murmured. “You’d enjoy life more.”
The ridiculous cylinder was still there, after all, patiently waiting for them to get around to it like the inanimate object it clearly was. It remained black with cold, though, as if it had just been plucked from a vat of liquid nitrogen.
He nodded faintly. “Did I do okay?”
Her lips formed around the automatic insult almost before she could stop herself. He had said this was his first time, and Mike was a sensitive guy. She didn’t want to completely shatter his ego with a flippant remark.
Instead, she delivered a gentle poke to his sternum. “Mike, I need you to understand the kind of temptation questions like are for me—unless you wanted scathing sarcasm?”
He rubbed at the spot while a thoughtful frown formed on his face. “You can’t just be honest?”
“My body was being honest every second you were pounding me,” she returned instantly. “And if that wasn’t enough, I’m pretty sure the lightning gave me away. Hence the sarcasm?”
He pursed his lips, considering. “So, I did good.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oooh, you were so wonderful,” she delivered in a monotone. “I think I came every single time you touched me. You manly man, you. My life will never be the same after that epic—”
Abruptly, one of his blunted claws stabbed her right between the ribs, and she squealed with delight. Giggling, she grabbed him by the hair to drag herself up his body and join their lips in a fiery kiss.
“Yes, you did good, you stupid man,” she growled after she finally came up for air. “Once you started paying attention to me, anyway. The next time I tell you to fuck me, I expect you to drop whatever the hell you’re doing and get to it!”
The corners of his eyes tightened as he no doubt prepared to offer up his excuses. “Naomi—”
“Don’t you ‘Naomi’ me,” she interrupted with a sneer. “I know what you’re going to say: you were just being practical, this place is dangerous, blah blah blah.”
“It is dangerous! We’re activating technologies we don’t understand every time we—”
“Blah blah blah!” she reiterated pointedly. With a roll of her eyes, she slid off from his chest and sat up. “Why do you have to be such a killjoy? You think I don’t know what kind of situation we’re in? Everything is dangerous. Everything is trying to kill us all the time. Dinosaurs, aliens, the fucking water… and now this?” She swung an arm randomly to one side, indicating the room at large. “I don’t even know what kind of place ‘this’ is.”
She reached down to place a hand over his knee, where she began stroking him tenderly, taking reassurance from his presence. “Is it so wrong for me to want to… connect with somebody?” she murmured. “That I might prefer that to driving myself crazy worrying about a bunch of stuff I have no control over?”
Mike was silent for a time, likely trying to come up with an ‘appropriate’ response, and she grimaced with frustration. She knew he liked her and had definitely enjoyed the sex… but perhaps she had rushed things. Maybe she should have put more effort into making him comfortable before jumping his bones. Maybe then she would not have put herself into such a vulnerable position.
She hated feeling vulnerable: emotionally, physically… whatever the case may be. It made her uncomfortable and twitchy, like she might lash out at a moment’s notice. And as her mind began to race, looking for ways in which she might repair the damage her haste might have caused their relationship, she inevitably landed on the very words she had taken from his mouth.
This place was dangerous. A single moment of inattention could easily be their last. But what was she supposed to do about it? How could she possibly make him comfortable enough to relax into her arms in a situation like this?
They had so little information to go on. There was no army of like-minded individuals out there to theorize with. There were no anonymous whistleblowers to help draw back the curtains on their captors. She had no idea of their motives or why one of them might have opened fire. That alien could have as easily been driving them into the predicament they now found themselves in as trying to kill them. It was just her and Mike, trapped in a deep, dark pit under the ocean, their only companion… a giant, frozen enchilada.
Perhaps that was why she had been enjoying these transformations so much—or a part of it, anyway; the pleasure from each was hard to ignore. But setting that aside, every ounce of strength her implant granted her was another blanket of security around an incredibly vulnerable pair of shoulders.
If it weren’t for the cost of that security…
She was a monster! They had made sure of that.
Oh, she had done what she could to keep the two of them looking more or less ‘human,’ but she was trapped in a vicious, inescapable cycle. In order to survive, she had to eat. When she ate, she mutated. With every mutation, she felt more secure.
But…
Every layer of security drove her that much farther away from humanity. From her own people.
What would her parents think if they ever saw her again? Would they recognize her? Would they even know she was human?
Or worse… what if she could not recognize them? With the way her instincts worked… with the way they forced her to do things…
What might happen if…
“What if I eat my own parents, Mike?” she whispered.
“The fuck?” He sat up quickly to enfold her within his embrace, and she sighed into his massive arms. Being tucked into his granite-like form made her realize just how much she had been trembling. “You wanting to connect with me isn’t wrong. I enjoyed the sex! It was great. You’re great. Everything is great. I loved it. You’re the most beautiful girl in the world, and I’ll never hesitate about it again. Okay?” he spewed out in one continuous, babbling exhale. “Jesus. What the—where did that even come from? You’re not going to eat your fucking parents!”
A helpless sort of chuckle escaped her despite herself. He was cute. “I’m sorry. There was a logical train of thought in there, I promise,” she assured him.
He sighed with relief. “Christ! You know, you read about aftercare being important, but I never knew there was a risk of you falling apart on me if you didn’t get your cuddles.”
She poked his wrist with a claw. “Cuddles, sir, are an important part of the experience, and I’ll thank you not to knock them. You made me all emotional when you didn’t.”
“Well, I’m cuddling you now.” He kissed the back of her head firmly. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Geez… and here I thought Catholics were bad about worrying.”
She let her head fall forward and snorted into his arm hair. “Yeah? What were you worrying about?”
“Oh, lots of stuff,” he began. “Mostly the same as you, I guess. But I was going more in the direction of the unprotected sex we just had. I mean, what happens when you get pregnant?”
She winced. “Eesh… you are a terrible cuddler.”
“Sorry. But you did ask.”
She chuckled ruefully. “Well… you don’t have to worry about that for a while. I’ve been on birth control since I was sixteen, so we should be good for at least another couple of months.”
“And after?” he asked quietly.
“After?” she scoffed. “Look at this guy, talking about after. We don’t even know whether we’ll be alive two days from now, never mind two months. Hell, we don’t even know how we’re going to escape this room, and you want to talk to me about after?”
He grunted. “Humor me.”
“Humor you?” she repeated, incredulous. “Mike, with all the changes we’ve gone through, I may not even have a uterus anymore. For all we know, by the time I’m fertile again, I’ll have developed a fucking cloaca and started laying eggs for breakfast. But fine. Fine! You want me to humor you? I’ll humor you.”
She took a breath. “Assuming everything down there still works the way it’s supposed to, there’s no way a fetus could survive the trauma of me transforming around it multiple times a day, so the likelihood of a miscarriage is through the roof even before you consider the amount of bullshit we have to go through just to stay alive on a day-to-day basis. And don’t ask me how a baby is supposed to grow inside me when I’ve got armored bands over my stomach.
“But, okay. Let’s say it does somehow survive nine-months of this hell. What traits will it inherit? Do you know? ‘Cause I sure as hell don’t. Men make sperm all the time, so you would assume yours would have some combination of your current genetic makeup. But women’s eggs don’t work that way. Our eggs are formed before we’re even born, so everything I’m carrying down there should presumably still be human. We’re assuming a hell of a lot just by pretending you’re even still capable of fertilizing me.
“But I’m humoring you, so let’s set that enormous pile of not-fucking-likely to one side, too. We’re dealing with a goddamn genetic blender of possibilities here! We could as easily wind up with a normal human child as a… a whatever-we-end-up-as a year from now. And if I do somehow manage to pop out something that resembles a kid—it could as easily be some goblin… demon baby—who can say whether it will remain what I give birth to or keep on evolving with us?
“And all of that’s assuming the aliens would even let me carry it to term! I mean, have you ever seen the X-files? We could be dealing with an alien-hybrid situation here. One night, we go to sleep and poof! No more baby. It’s off to develop in a tank somewhere on the mothership.”
Naomi was panting slightly by the time her diatribe drew to a close. But Mike did not immediately reply; his nose was still resting on her shoulder, where he sat contemplating her words. Or maybe he was just giving her a minute to cool off.
Either way, she appreciated the opportunity to regather her wits. She had had a surprising amount to say—more so even than she had thought she might. Most of it had been a stream of rambling nonsense, coming more from her fears over the unknown than a place of reason or logic, but that did not make them less valid. Less real.
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, then let it out in a rush. Whatever these aliens were trying to do, they could not have designed a more perfect scenario for driving a couple of people into the nuthouse. All of these unresolved questions were wearing her nerves to the bone. Were they watching them now? Having a laugh at their expense? Or had they just dropped them off and gone about their business, never to be seen or heard from again?
Why did she and Mike have to talk about this stuff, anyway? No matter the question, every answer ended up the same: they did not know. She was beginning to doubt they would ever know.
They should just have sex again—start over from the beginning, forget all this nonsense, and enjoy a quiet few minutes of peace in each other’s arms. That would be nice.
A gentle sigh spilled out over her shoulder, signaling the close of Mike’s contemplations. After getting herself all worked up with his ridiculous hypothetical, she found his breath warm and oddly comforting. “So, you’re saying… since we’re clueless, and there’s nothing we could do to change that… why worry?”
“I’m pretty sure I said exactly that,” she replied. But at least he was finally getting it.
“Kind of like how there’s no way of knowing what’ll happen when—or if—we get back to Earth?”
She narrowed her eyes and swatted him. “Oh, you think you’re being all clever now, do you?”
“I know I’m being clever,” he said with a cheeky grin.
She suppressed a smile of her own. If he kept on like this, there might just be a chance of her falling for this guy. “Fine. We’ll just assume everything is hunky-dory, then, shall we? No danger of us eating anyone we love and no danger of me getting pregnant.”
Mike hesitated. “That… may not be wise, Naomi. I mean, I said not to worry, but we can at least ab-abstain from… from having…”
He did not finish his sentence, but he did not have to. ‘Abstain’ was enough. At its utterance, an abrupt chill had run up her spine, leaving her filled with such horror and revulsion she could scarcely breathe. The idea of never again coupling with Mike made her physically sick, worse even than all of her earlier contemplations combined. That told her everything she needed to know.
“That’s not happening.”
“Naomi—”
“Mike!” she interrupted, then quickly bucked away, fighting until she had his shoulders pinned to the ground. “Say it again!” she barked down at him with a glare. “Say you’re capable of never touching me again. Say it! Let me see your face while you lie to me.”
A faint tremor passed over his lips, but he did not say the words. He merely averted his eyes.
She let out a breath she had not known she was holding. “Mike, I’m over here terrified that I might be forced to eat my own parents, and you want to pretend we can just stop ourselves from having sex?! How delusional are you? We can barely control ourselves now and don’t pretend otherwise! Oh, you talk a good game, wringing your hands with your, ‘but Naomi,’ this and, ‘but Naomi,’ that—like you can just logic your way out of it. It’s not like I forced you to have sex with me. You and I both know you could have stopped me if you really wanted to.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but when he spoke, it was with a nod of resignation. “I guess you’re right. Honestly, I’m still reeling that you would even want me, so this being a one-time thing wasn’t so far-fetched. But now that you put me to task, the idea that you might not want to again… hurts. It hurts more than anything.”
She nodded, having expected as much. And despite the seriousness of the conversation, she could not help but feel a private thrill at his words. “Good… good. So you understand how I feel.” She saw the way his eyes lit up at that, so she barreled on before he could get all emotional on her. She was doing plenty enough of that for the both of them. “But even if we did try to…” she swallowed and glanced away, unable to meet his eyes as she forced out the word, “to abstain, what happens the next time we have a meal? Huh? And the one after that? You know what happens to us when we try to resist each other. It’ll only get worse if we fight it.”
It took a moment for him to digest her words, but when he did, he quirked an eyebrow in intrigue. “Worse… or better?”
“What?”
“Think about it,” he said quickly, grabbing her wrists and sitting up—and demonstrating in an instant just how easily he could manhandle her if he really wanted to.
It was… more than a little hot, actually, and for a moment, she wondered what it might be like were he to manhandle her to her back. She would have to put up a token resistance, of course, but then he would find out just how wet she had gotten just from his grabbing her and—
“What if we actively tried to resist each other?” he continued, cutting into her fantasy before she could really get going with it. “For as long as we could. On purpose. How far could we push it?”
“You mean… see how attractive we could make ourselves to each other? What for? I’m already…” She hesitated, running her eyes over his chiseled jaw and well-muscled chest, fully conscious of her body’s reaction to him as he was. “Well, I can barely even…”
He nodded eagerly, understanding. “But what if we can push past ‘barely even’ and into ‘could not even begin to’? What if we can get to a point where even having this discussion would be laughable? A point where worry was impossible… because we were so lost in each other.”
“Aren’t you a romantic?” she deflected with a laugh… but her cheeks were so flushed with heat, she probably could have started a campfire without a match.
Still, now that the suggestion was in the air, the possibility of being so attracted to a man… so in love with a man that literally nothing—no fear, no worry, no doubt—could ever pry her away from him made her heart swell to nearly bursting. Even the possibility of the threat she might pose to humanity could not dose the flame it had ignited within her.
Naturally, the stupid floor-lightning gave away her eagerness, but she pretended not to notice.
“But… but what about monster babies?” she tried anyway. “I know I’ve already listed a thousand reasons why it would be a silly thing to worry about, but if we get to be that…” in love “…attracted to each other, there may not be enough room left for them. What if we get to a point where caring for infants isn’t something we’re even capable of anymore, and we just leave a bunch of feral demons in our wake? We can’t have something like that hanging over our conscience.”
That was crazy talk, of course. Assuming it was possible for them to be so far gone as that, a human infant would die within hours of being abandoned in the wild. But the discussion had already gotten far beyond the realm of the possible and firmly into speculative fiction just by pretending she was capable of giving birth. Within that paradigm, it was not too far-fetched to imagine the little goblin chewing its way out of her womb!
Mike tilted his head to one side in acknowledgment. “By that point, we wouldn’t have a conscience.”
The lightning died, mirroring her horror. Without a conscience, could she really even claim to be in love? “I think I’d rather be dead.”
As if in response to her rising panic, the light at her wrist started to flash in an unfamiliar yet seemingly frantic pattern. And to her surprise, words began appearing in the bottom right-hand corner of her field of view, where it was barely visible. The text appeared slowly, as though each word was being painstakingly typed out.
Initiating new survival strategy…
Tall over Wide
Confirm?
She blinked in confusion. Then scowled—and not only because her UI was finally attempting to communicate with her in proper English after all this time. She was pretty sure she had just been insulted.
“What do you mean, wide? Are you calling me fat?!”
Mike shook his head uncertainly. “What are you talking about? I didn’t—”
“Not you,” she said, cutting him off, and waggled her fingers at her face. “The stupid thing in my head is typing at me. Can you believe the gall of this thing? I am not wide!”
He snorted, understandably dumbfounded by her explanation. “What?”
Confirmed
Please feed to lock in new survival strategy
Searching for sustenance…
Found
Sending ping to Seeker Unit…
“Seeker Unit?” she parroted, struggling to make out the message in her periphery.
But before Mike could ask, he jerked as though startled, then turned to stare at the resident frozen burrito.
“Naomi, why did that thing just beep at me?”
Comments
Nathaniel Bartley Logee
Lol, I wish!
Jack5d5
Well worth the wait, but if you could just transcend human limits and put the rest of the book out tomorrow that'd be great.
