go then, let her hands trail oh-so-reluctantly down my chest, let them fall back into her own lap. Silence. Then, “Sorry. You... want me to stop?”
I stuttered, trying to formulate... something. “Oh, Violet. I, um...” Useless. Too confused.
She leaned in again, hands on my thighs, let them slide up to my hips. Then one hand crept around to the inside of my thigh, palpating the place between my legs, maybe trying to gauge whether I was interested or not, I don’t know. I sat there, paralyzed, and let her do what she wanted. Sat still, hardly breathing, while she unbuttoned my shirt, while she ran her hands over my chest. Plenty of hair there, I remember thinking, but nothing compared to...
Sat still while she pulled my shirt off my shoulders, while she leaned in close, nuzzling the side of my neck, while I felt her long, dense, silky fur on my naked skin. Stood up, no more of my own accord than a robot on a preprogrammed subroutine, stood still while she unbuckled my belt, opened my trousers and slid them down.
She seemed to purr, finding definite evidence that I was interested after all.
Whispered, “Say something, Murph. Say something.”
All I could do was shiver a little. Shiver at the cool breeze on my skin, I guess, reach out tentative hands, run my fingers through the long hair running down her spine. She seemed to like that, stood up, put her arms around me. Pressed me close, and I could feel the woman of her through the fur, feel warm, doughy breasts against my chest, feel erect human nipples pressing through the fur.
Just a minute, I remember thinking. Just a minute and she’ll change. Change like an allomorph. The fur will be gone and she’ll be...
She took one of my hands in hers and made me touch her, pressed it to her breast so I could feel her underlying humanness, slid it down her side until it rested on her hip. Bone structure in there. Familiar bone structure. Tried to kiss me again, not much more successfully than the first time, merely getting my face wet.
We lay together on a smooth hillside of stone, stone warm as blood, and I did with Violet what you always do with a woman. Turned out she wasn’t so different after all. Maybe I wanted to ask her, between one time and the next, if she’d ever been with a human male before, but I couldn’t.
Maybe it would’ve broken the spell, made us human male and optimod female again, and that would’ve been too bad. What we’d become, for just a little while, is the thing you always go looking for, lovers.
o0o
An idyll lasts a day, two days, three, then the real world comes and sweeps it all away, as if it’s never been. Or an idyll lasts for a brief moment in time, but it’s a moment that takes forever to pass. Whichever one it was that I had with Violet, the day came when we mounted our ships and flew on down Proxima’s gravity well to the Glow-Ice Worlds, Proxima growing to a fantastic disk in the sky, an impossible thing, ruddy pale, densely flecked with starspots, like bits of metal shining within a fire, mineral-rich debris ring glittering in our sensor screens, otherwise invisible.
A real star, I remember thinking, looking out through the one little porthole my engineering space possessed, looking ever so much like pictures of manhome’s Sun, original giver of life.
Another conversation, far in the background, “I envy you having been there, seeing the real thing.”
Dûmnahn’s reply: “It’s not so different, really. Bigger, brighter, hotter, but then you see it from so much farther away.”
I suddenly realized Dûmnahn might actually have memories source-coded on the surface of Earth itself. That’d be... a wonderful thing. I wanted to ask, I really did, when I talked to him alone, when the two of us seemed like no more than... men together: How much of you began as a man? Just an idea, in the mind of a man?
I wish I had, but it seemed so rude.
And what if all he remembers of Earth is the inside of some construction
I stuttered, trying to formulate... something. “Oh, Violet. I, um...” Useless. Too confused.
She leaned in again, hands on my thighs, let them slide up to my hips. Then one hand crept around to the inside of my thigh, palpating the place between my legs, maybe trying to gauge whether I was interested or not, I don’t know. I sat there, paralyzed, and let her do what she wanted. Sat still, hardly breathing, while she unbuttoned my shirt, while she ran her hands over my chest. Plenty of hair there, I remember thinking, but nothing compared to...
Sat still while she pulled my shirt off my shoulders, while she leaned in close, nuzzling the side of my neck, while I felt her long, dense, silky fur on my naked skin. Stood up, no more of my own accord than a robot on a preprogrammed subroutine, stood still while she unbuckled my belt, opened my trousers and slid them down.
She seemed to purr, finding definite evidence that I was interested after all.
Whispered, “Say something, Murph. Say something.”
All I could do was shiver a little. Shiver at the cool breeze on my skin, I guess, reach out tentative hands, run my fingers through the long hair running down her spine. She seemed to like that, stood up, put her arms around me. Pressed me close, and I could feel the woman of her through the fur, feel warm, doughy breasts against my chest, feel erect human nipples pressing through the fur.
Just a minute, I remember thinking. Just a minute and she’ll change. Change like an allomorph. The fur will be gone and she’ll be...
She took one of my hands in hers and made me touch her, pressed it to her breast so I could feel her underlying humanness, slid it down her side until it rested on her hip. Bone structure in there. Familiar bone structure. Tried to kiss me again, not much more successfully than the first time, merely getting my face wet.
We lay together on a smooth hillside of stone, stone warm as blood, and I did with Violet what you always do with a woman. Turned out she wasn’t so different after all. Maybe I wanted to ask her, between one time and the next, if she’d ever been with a human male before, but I couldn’t.
Maybe it would’ve broken the spell, made us human male and optimod female again, and that would’ve been too bad. What we’d become, for just a little while, is the thing you always go looking for, lovers.
o0o
An idyll lasts a day, two days, three, then the real world comes and sweeps it all away, as if it’s never been. Or an idyll lasts for a brief moment in time, but it’s a moment that takes forever to pass. Whichever one it was that I had with Violet, the day came when we mounted our ships and flew on down Proxima’s gravity well to the Glow-Ice Worlds, Proxima growing to a fantastic disk in the sky, an impossible thing, ruddy pale, densely flecked with starspots, like bits of metal shining within a fire, mineral-rich debris ring glittering in our sensor screens, otherwise invisible.
A real star, I remember thinking, looking out through the one little porthole my engineering space possessed, looking ever so much like pictures of manhome’s Sun, original giver of life.
Another conversation, far in the background, “I envy you having been there, seeing the real thing.”
Dûmnahn’s reply: “It’s not so different, really. Bigger, brighter, hotter, but then you see it from so much farther away.”
I suddenly realized Dûmnahn might actually have memories source-coded on the surface of Earth itself. That’d be... a wonderful thing. I wanted to ask, I really did, when I talked to him alone, when the two of us seemed like no more than... men together: How much of you began as a man? Just an idea, in the mind of a man?
I wish I had, but it seemed so rude.
And what if all he remembers of Earth is the inside of some construction
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