Out of This World

by Maggie Morton

  “This is the first one I’ve ever seen. We didn’t have very many artists in my village when I was young, and we had even fewer after the war.” For once, Anandra didn’t seem like she was going to fall apart after the word “war” came up. Was that because of what had happened the previous day, when she’d held Anandra while she cried? Was Anandra opening up now and softening around the edges? Iris had noticed the way she seemed to keep her at an arm’s length, at least when they weren’t having sex, and she admitted to herself now that she’d been doing the same thing. It wasn’t that Anandra couldn’t be trusted—she’d more than proved that by now! It was that Jane had taken away Iris’s ability to trust. Good riddance, she thought for the very first time. Her therapist had been right, after all, telling her all those times that Jane had been an unskillful decision in terms of choosing people to date, and her therapist had also been right about it being time to move on.

  If only her next sexual partner hadn’t been someone in a magical, far-away universe that Iris didn’t belong in. If only her next partner hadn’t been Anandra. But when Anandra took her hand and held it tight as Tira and another otter led them to their bedroom for the night, she decided that Anandra wasn’t that bad a choice. No, she wasn’t a bad choice at all.

  And it was definitely a good choice for Iris to let Anandra order her to bring them a dildo (a large one, she insisted) once they were stripped of their clothes, the room lit with a few lamps and Anandra’s glowing stars. Iris took in their flickering light, almost feeling warmed by each one of them as Anandra pressed them against her.

  Iris called the dildo into her hand, and she closed her fist around it when it arrived, pale purple and almost as big around as her wrist. However, it might have just been that its size and its heft had intimidated her. Because she knew it was going to be used on her, on her cunt at the very least, and so although her cunt grew wet in anticipation, she also felt it tighten and tense a bit, too, almost like it didn’t know if it was really ready to be entered by something possessing such a startling circumference.

  “Are you sure it’ll fit?” she joked, but her voice shook a little as the words came out, betraying her nervousness.

  “I’m positive. Don’t worry. I’ll make more than certain that it won’t hurt. It wouldn’t be very fun for me to stuff you full of dildo if it did, now would it?”

  “That’s good to hear. No, that’s great to hear! I’m ready,” she added, climbing onto the bed and spreading her thighs, knees bent, pussy exposed and ready to be penetrated by the dildo.

  She wasn’t sure she was big on bigger dildos, having had little experience with anything larger around than a few fingers before she’d come to this world, but something about the size of the dildo that Anandra was now rubbing against her cunt’s opening excited her more than she’d expected it could. How would it feel, to be spread open that wide? She couldn’t wait to find out.

  But Anandra had decided to tease her, apparently, only pushing the dildo in mere centimeters and then right back out. She put it in only the same amount the second time, and almost less the third.

  “More, please, more—I can take it.” Iris moaned. It might have been quite the tease, but it was a very arousing tease…very arousing, indeed.

  “You can?” Anandra stared down at her, clearly willing to shove more of it inside Iris, but only if Iris was capable of convincing her of her ability to handle its girth.

  “Yes, I can. Please…please!”

  Anandra moved the dildo back inside Iris at her insistence, this time pushing it in at least a few inches, spreading her wide and causing her cunt to feel almost overpowered with the intensity of it. It wasn’t too much, not yet, at least, although it came close when Anandra began to fuck her with the dildo, at a leisurely pace, like she had all the time in the world to make sure she fucked Iris just right, just…exactly…right.

  And just right it was, because soon enough, Iris felt herself becoming wild, almost feral, from the slowly growing ripples of sensation spreading from her cunt to her thighs, and then even farther. Was Anandra going to let her come first again, she hoped?

  No, she wasn’t, because only moments before Iris was positive she would have come from just a little pressure on her clit, Anandra removed the dildo and shoved it into Iris’s mouth instead.

  “Taste yourself, sweetheart, taste your sweet, wet goodness.” And while the dildo was in Iris’s mouth, then, finally then! her clit was given attention, Anandra’s fingers rubbing it good and hard, until Iris started to—

  But no, it was not to be, apparently, because just as she began reaching the height of pleasure, Anandra stopped, removed the dildo, and mounted her face. “You may come,” Anandra told her, “if you get me off at the same time. Go ahead. Go ahead and use your hand, Iris. I want you to.”

  So Iris did, rubbing away at her clitoris as she ate out Anandra, licking and rubbing at equally fast speeds, only slowing down her fingers and not her tongue when she worried that she was going to come before Anandra was able to. She got close again, so close, and then she could tell, by the sounds Anandra was making and by the way that her body was tightening, that she was almost there as well. So Iris let her tongue take over, let it send words of passion deep into Anandra as it did what it needed to do to get her off, let it speak the language of sex, of arousal, and she tried to speak this language as if it were her native tongue.

  “Fuck, fuck!” Anandra cried out, and then she came, and Iris finally got off too, the intensity from Anandra’s orgasm almost making her ignore, or forget about, her own. But that would have been impossible, because it was damn good as orgasms went, and Iris moaned and cried out against her partner’s cunt, her sounds vibrating against Anandra’s pussy in what she hoped was a very pleasurable way.

  It seemed as if it had been, because Anandra did a mock bow when she climbed off Iris’s face. “My sweet, you have done well. Very well. One might almost say extremely well, if they were to be so bold.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you got your money’s worth.”

  “But I did not pay you! I gladly would, though, if your services weren’t free.”

  “It’s just a saying in my country,” Iris told her, relaxing against the sheets. Anandra caressed her side, then leaned down and kissed her for a few seconds. “Are you implying that you want to fuck again?” Iris asked her when she began to pull away. “Because I’m afraid I just don’t have it in me. Give me an hour, though…”

  Which is exactly what Anandra did. They talked about Iris’s world while they waited for her to get her strength back, and Iris opened up, telling her about her ex and how Anandra had been really good for her self-esteem, even telling her how she’d helped Iris move on. Anandra looked shy, perhaps, when Iris told her this, only saying that she was glad to help her, and she hoped she could help her some more before it was time for her to leave.

  Because, of course, Iris wasn’t staying here.

  After they’d each had one more glorious orgasm apiece, Iris lay down and waited for Anandra to sleep so she could write this night’s letter. Would her grandmother visit her again tonight? It seemed likely, because they were staying in what had been her home at one point. Her home, and, it sounded like, Iris’s mother’s home, too. Was her mother still alive, like Sallie? And her father? Iris would have to ask her about that if she saw her tonight.

  Once she heard Anandra’s now-familiar snores, which she’d taken to thinking of as cute, she got out her notebook and pen and wrote the next letter.

  Dear Jane,

  I couldn’t be happier that I took this trip, nor could I be happier that I’m in Anandra’s world, and not my own. It’s been an educational experience, full of new things and new experiences galore. I feel like I’ve grown even more over the last day, and there’s one thing I know now, one thing I now know completely: I’m finally getting over you for good. I can finally see the mistake I made in dating you, and in staying with you for so long, and in pining over you for the year we�
�ve been broken up. Anandra has been the reason for that, and so I will be eternally grateful for this gift she’s given me.

  She’s really an amazing person, much more than you ever were. Kind, smart, resourceful, and mind-blowing in bed. I really have grown to care for her. I almost feel as if I more than care for her. I almost feel like I’m falling in…

  And there Iris stopped writing mid-sentence. It couldn’t be true, could it? No, she wouldn’t let it be true. Because even if she was falling for Anandra, she wouldn’t be moving here or anything. She belonged on Earth, at her college and in her town. She belonged in Jane’s world. Maybe not in her life, but that was her home, not this place. Not this world. She started to put her notebook back into her bag, and then she heard a voice from out in the hall.

  “Come here, sweetie. I want to give you the grand tour.”

  It was Sallie’s voice! A more welcome distraction from her emotional conundrum couldn’t have been possible. Iris tiptoed to the door and slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her as quietly as she could.

  There was Sallie, grinning at her, and she reached out one of her spectral hands, running it across Iris’s cheek. “My dear, welcome to what was once your home. And mine. And your mother’s.”

  “I lived here?” Iris was surprised, but not overly so, because a part of her had expected to hear that at some point. “How old was I when we left?”

  “I would say not much older than four months. Your mother and Brenne and I moved into your grandfather’s inn then, a number of miles from here, to be more inconspicuous, because that was when the Great War occurred. That was when Tressa tried to take over this land and, thankfully, failed. And shortly after that, you and I and Brenne went to Earth, where Brenne’s strong attachment to this world made her unable to survive past our first year in the United States. I was devastated, of course, but I still had you, and you more than made up for that great loss. Come, I have much I want to show you. Follow me.”

  Sallie took off down the hall and drifted through a door about ten steps down from the room where Anandra was hopefully still fast asleep. Iris followed her past that door, into a room that turned out to be a heck of a lot bigger than Iris had expected, a room that contained the most amazing library Iris had ever seen. The walls formed a half circle, and it had at least five floors, with a set of stairs leading to a balcony for each set of shelves and the many books that filled them. A large number of the books had gold, silver, or copper embossing on their spines, the metallic words glittering in the candlelight from the candelabras placed at even intervals around the room. Iris noticed a quiet, repetitive sound coming from the ground floor and saw an otter. It sat at a table in the room, snoring softly with a slight whistle, its head resting on a thin book.

  “We must be quiet,” her grandmother whispered. “Wouldn’t want to wake Eldrem.”

  “You must know all of their names, I would guess,” Iris whispered back, and Sallie nodded.

  “Each and every one of the otters is different and equally dear to me. I made them, you know, but I wanted them to develop their own personalities, so I left them all mostly blank in that area. And just look at how well they all managed to turn out.” Sallie looked proud, clearly very happy with the delightful mammalian consorts she’d lived with at this mansion.

  “I remember how much Brenne loved to read. Our library was never as large as this one, though.”

  “No, in your current world, we didn’t have the resources she and I had here. We were both very wealthy, I must admit. In gold, in magic, and in family and love. Your mother and father were very much in love with each other, too, and they were ecstatic and then some when you were born, pumpkin. They invited many, many friends to our party after you came into our lives. You were quite the prize! Still are, too. And sweetie, I am so, so sad that we’ve had to be apart all these years. I still don’t know what has brought you back, though, and I don’t know why I’m able to see you so easily, either. I wish I could see you in person. I wish—” Sallie’s head shot to the right, and her eyes went wide in fear. “Oh, shit!”

  Iris would have laughed at her sudden and emphatic swearing, but her grandmother didn’t swear often, instead preferring playful colloquialisms, so she knew instantly that something was up, and it likely was a “something” that wasn’t good.

  “Get your friend,” Sallie ordered her, turning back to Iris. “The statues can hold off our just-arrived intruders, but for how long I have no clue, so hurry, hurry and run. Wake up Eldrem, and he’ll lead you out of here as safely as he’s able. And be quick, before it’s too late!”

  Iris rushed over to the sleeping otter named Eldrem, who already seemed like he was rousing from his deep sleep. “Whu…” He turned his bright, beady eyes toward Iris, reaching up a paw to wipe at one of them. “Is something happening, miss? I have a feeling something is. Something dreadful, most likely. Ah, and I was having such a nice dream. The salmon were spawning.”

  “Something is wrong, and Anandra and I need your help, desperately. My grandmother was just here, or at least her projection was, and she said that trouble of some sort is here and we’ll need your help to be led out of the mansion as safely as possible.” Iris found she was still whispering despite the fact that the otter was now awake, but maybe her decision to speak quietly came from whatever threat awaited them outside the mansion’s walls. Whatever it was, she wanted to get away from it as quickly as her feet could move.

  “Right, miss. I’ll be happy to oblige you. Get your friend and your things, and I’ll lead you to the hidden passage.” He leapt down from his chair, brushed off his paws on his hips, and trotted at a fast pace to the door, which he swung wide open with a turn of its knob and a hard shove.

  “I’ll be right back!” Iris ran back to the room where she and Anandra had been supposed to sleep that night. Ah, if only she could sleep right now, instead of having to flee from whatever danger happened to be waiting for them outside her grandmother’s former home. She wanted to stay longer, to explore the place…and she wanted her grandmother to come back and tell her more about her parents’ and her grandmother’s true selves.

  Clearly, though, she didn’t have time for any of that. So Iris slammed open the door to the room she’d just been in with Anandra, where her friend was already awake and standing. The room was dark, with only a dim glow from her stars showing Iris where she was. She appeared to have just been looking out the room’s window, and Iris now glanced there, too. Through the glass, she saw the outlines of dark, tall, humanoid shapes fighting other tall and humanoid shapes. Some of them had glowing red eyes, and some of them had glowing white ones. She guessed, based on what she knew of mythology and horror movies, that the red-eyed ones were the threat to her and Anandra. And there were also dark shapes that looked as if they were swords and shields held by the white-eyed shapes. These beings were most likely the statues from the previous day.

  All these thoughts flitted through her head in the few seconds it took Anandra to turn to her and ask in a tense tone, “What’s going on out there? Do you know?”

  “There’s too much to explain it all right now,” she told Anandra, striding over to her bag and scooping it up. “The short version is that my grandmother, who disappeared when I was ten and who raised me until then, seems to be from this world. She’s been visiting me in a kind of spectral form and—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Anandra sounded hurt, and Iris couldn’t blame her. Anandra, too, grabbed her bag, which, thankfully, was already packed. “Never mind. Tell me what you know of what’s going on out there instead.”

  “My grandmother didn’t know, just that we were under attack, and one of the otters, Eldrem, is going to lead us out the back way, so we can get away safely. Is that all right with you?”

  “Do you mean to ask me if I trust you? The answer is yes, I do. Let’s go!”

  They left the bedroom and met Eldrem in the hall, who was wringing his paws and tapping his foot. “We have n
o time to waste, ladies. No time!” He gestured down the hall from them. “Follow me, and follow close, or you may lose me.” With that, he got down on all fours, scampering ahead of them at a very fast pace.

  They followed just behind, as he turned left at the end of the hall and then right, and then went through a large black door and down about twenty steps, into what looked like the food cellar of the mansion. It was full of baskets of fruit, hanging root vegetables, jars and bottles in many different colors, and it smelled moist, like a fresh rain.

  “Go out through there,” he told them, pointing toward a fringed black curtain in the back of the cellar. “It will lead you where you need to go, I promise. We can hold them off here, because those statues never lose a fight. And my, but the warriors seem to be back, or at least re-animated, re-created. I hope there are not as many of them as there were in the Great War.”

  “I also hope so. For their sake.” Anandra’s voice was so full of fiery rage it almost singed Iris’s neck. She clearly hated anything to do with the Great War, and who could blame her? Iris couldn’t, not even slightly.

  “I hope so, too.” Iris reached back and gave Anandra’s arm a squeeze, which got her a tight smile in return. Better than no smile at all, she thought.

  She was to go through the curtain second, Anandra insisting as usual that she go through first. Iris appreciated her chivalry, and although she wished that Anandra believed in her ability to take care of herself, it was true that she didn’t possess her friend’s strength, or her fighting skills, or even her knowledge of this world and its dangers. So Iris didn’t object when she was told to go once Anandra decided it was safe.

  A few seconds after Anandra went partway through the curtain, she pulled her head back through, reaching for Iris. “You’ll want to hold on to me,” she told her, and so Iris did, walking through the curtain and almost falling off the edge of a steep cliffside when she got all the way through.

  “Fucking hell!” Her legs almost buckled, and she took a few shaky steps back. The curtain was no longer there, a tall, jagged rock wall in its place a mere two or three feet behind where they now stood. “Th…thank you,” she said.