by Larissa Ladd
“I love you, too,” Andrea said, not entirely sure of the words that were leaving her mouth. She leaned against him, utterly spent, content for the moment that there was the possibility that he would continue to be there, would continue to make her feel so incredibly good. The endless list of complications, of what ifs and questions and the bizarre absurdity of it all, were no longer important to her. All that mattered was that she felt better than she ever had in her entire life, and that this man, this alien, was in love with her, wanted to be with her, and wanted to be her mate.
PART FOUR
THE LEAVES RUSTLED, AND ANDREA breathed in the damp, earthy smell as she and Jan walked. Her skin tingled slightly with anticipation of an insect or something landing on her. “You’re sure you know what you’re looking for?” she asked for the third time since they had entered the woods.
“Yes, I am sure,” Jan snickered. “I would not put you in danger, Drea. Why are you afraid of the woods?”
Andrea glanced around dubiously. “Poisonous snakes, poisonous bugs, poison ivy, poison sumac…”
“Ah, yes. There are poison things in our forests as well.”
“You have forests?” Andrea wondered what Jan’s planet actually looked and felt like.
“We do.” Jan reached down and tugged a vine free of the ground and the tree it was wound around, breaking the fragile stem when he estimated he had enough of the vegetable material. “Many, many years ago, long before my time, it was decided the natural beauty of the planet should be preserved as much as possible.” Jan stuffed the vine into a bag he had brought from Andrea’s place.
The trek into the woods had come about after a long discussion about how they would tackle a variety of issues. Jan had made it clear to Andrea that he was interested in staying with her—permanently. Andrea smiled to herself as she remembered just how clear he had made it. She didn’t feel that he was trying to force her exactly; if she had refused him outright, Andrea had no doubts that Jan would feel honor-bound to leave her life forever. But he loved her, and his argument—that it would be much easier to stay with someone you were bound to forever by choice rather than by force—was one she couldn’t counter.
In order to make that happen, they had to assimilate Jan into human society, and they had to shake off his fellow aliens. “They are anxious to go home with their subjects,” Jan told her earlier in the morning. “My colleagues want very much to begin their experiments. To discover more about human sexuality and perhaps develop a human hybrid that could be of use to us.” He shook his head. “A few casualties are to be expected. Me going missing, dying, will not be too much of a cause for alarm, as long as I—how do you say it— play it properly?”
“So what is your plan?”
“I am thinking that there is an unfortunate incident,” Jan flashed his teeth in a grin. Andrea noticed that they were subtly different from human teeth; they were the same omnivorous kind, but there seemed somehow to be more of them. “I send several messages saying I am moving around, that I am in danger of discovery. I message that I have found a subject. Then…” He made a sound of a shotgun blast. “My subject’s husband finds me taking her and kills us both. No time to rescue me.”
Andrea laughed, “It’s like a setup from a TV show.”
“But it will work,” Jan insisted. “First we must do a few things.”
As they continued to wander in the woods, collecting the various plants that Jan required for the recipe to make him look human, Andrea heard a high-pitched chirp. It sounded like some kind of out-of-place bird. Jan reached into one of the many pockets on his coverall and withdrew the communication device she had seen him using the morning after their first kink-filled tryst. He muttered some syllables that were so foreign to her that if she hadn’t seen him make the sounds, Andrea would have questioned whether they were a language at all.
Jan listened, and Andrea heard a muted return of the sounds, something like Chinese mixed with German, with Russian for seasoning—harsh, slightly lisping, with throaty vowels and strange consonants. I don’t want to even imagine what the written system is like, she thought idly. Jan spoke again and then paused to listen once more. He was keeping his voice quiet, in spite of the fact they were alone in the woods. Andrea looked around them. The animals, whatever might have been in the area, went silent at the sound of speech. There was a final interchange between Jan and his colleague, and then Jan shut off the device and slipped it back into his pocket. “I have begun the scheme,” Jan said, giving Andrea a playful smile.
“Just what did you tell them?”
Jan’s lips twitched as he turned to continue through the woods in search of more ingredients for the recipe he had been given. “That I have found a woman. She lives with a family, so I must take precautions. I am staking out—this is the right word? I am watching her to find a moment when she may be vulnerable. I must keep silence, but will check in again when all is clear.” Andrea shook her head, smiling at the ruse.
They continued on their quest, with Jan asking Andrea what the English words were for the plants he was gathering. Some of them she knew; acorns were easy to identify, as was a type of fern that she remembered was edible. Even more of them, though, she had no idea of the names, no idea if they were even poisonous to her. She hoped Jan knew what he was doing, that he wasn’t just gathering plants willy-nilly and that he wouldn’t die from his concoction. The idea of having to take an alien to the hospital to get his stomach pumped was unappealing, to say the least.
When they returned home, Andrea had another concern as Jan began to brew the plants he had gathered on her stove, chopping and tearing, crushing and mixing things into a pot of water. The smell wasn’t terrible—it was green, faintly bitter-edged, with a weird citrusy undercurrent from some of the berries he had collected—but it was bound to attract some notice from her neighbors. What if some idiot thinks I’m turning the house into some kind of meth lab? But she had to let Jan proceed. The kitchen became steamy, and Andrea’s head swam from the different vapors that filled the air along with the scent. She was drenched in sweat and wondered why Jan didn’t seem to be bothered by it.
“You should take off your clothes,” he said, glancing at her with amusement in his honey-gold eyes.
“We are not having sex while you work on some potion,” Andrea countered firmly. “You might, I don’t know, miss the timing or something.” Jan left the stove, coming over to lift her to her feet, his hands wandering slowly all over her body through the fabric of her clothes.
“You are my mate,” he murmured lowly, brushing his lips against hers. “If you are to be my sub, then I will expect you to be naked as much as possible.” He cupped her breast, giving her a squeeze. “I love your body, little Drea. So soft and yielding…” He teased her nipple through her clothes, and Andrea let out a slightly whimpering moan of reaction. “Besides,” Jan said, his voice taking on an amused tone, “if you are naked you will not mind the heat so much.” Andrea chuckled as Jan stepped back, turning his attention back to the brewing potion.
She hesitated for a moment before beginning to strip her clothes off, glancing furtively at Jan. He was right, without the layers she had worn to avoid insects and poisonous plants in the woods, she was much more comfortable in the steamy kitchen. Jan turned at one point to look at her and smiled contentedly, raising one dark eyebrow as he took her in. “I think we make a rule,” he said, stirring the concoction with a wooden spoon.
“What rule?” she asked, sitting back in nothing more than her bra and panties, debating whether to grab one of her lighter robes from her bedroom.
“Whenever we are home together, you must be naked, or as close to naked as possible.” Jan turned off the heat on the stove and turned to face her fully. “That will be my first rule for you as your Master. I must have access to your beautiful body as much as possible.” Andrea’s lips twitched with a mixture of amusement, desire, and confusion.
She had definitely gotten the impression that Jan
’s libido, like his stature and his endowment, was super-human. It would make sense that he would want her to be available to him as much as possible, though she thought they would need to have a discussion about her need to recuperate occasionally. She still felt the dull ache in her hips, the tenderness between her legs from their days together, particularly the most recent session.
“What if I don’t want to be naked all the time?” Andrea asked playfully. Jan closed the distance between them, looking down at her with an expression of mixed sternness and amusement.
“I will have to train you. And punish your defiance.” Jan brushed his lips against her forehead, his hands moving over her body. “When you fully agree to become my sub,” he told her, his voice dropping down low, “You will be giving your body to me. I will expect my mate to fulfill my needs, just as much as I care for yours.” Andrea’s body hummed with tingling, rising desire. In spite of her instinctive defiance, instinctive tetchiness at the idea of “belonging” to someone, of someone owning, even partially, her body, she couldn’t help but admit that something about Jan’s casual possessiveness was appealing. When he spoke to her like that, his voice low, his hands teasing her into quick arousal, she was more than willing to agree to his terms.
Jan broke away abruptly. “The recipe should be ready to drink,” he told her. Andrea watched with a mixture of frustrated desire and a little bit of fear as Jan walked to the stove and ladled a cupful. She couldn’t imagine it was possibly cool enough not to scald his mouth. But then what the hell do I know about alien anatomy? Andrea blushed as she remembered all in a flash what she did, in fact, know— about Jan’s anatomy, at least.
Jan blew across the surface of his cup and glanced at Andrea. “Do not look so nervous,” he said, smiling slightly. “It will not harm me.” Andrea pressed her lips together, taking a deep breath. Jan quickly drank down the potion he had created. He made a displeased face at the flavor and set the cup down. Andrea realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to exhale. Jan did not double over; he did not go into convulsions.
At first, Andrea thought that maybe it wouldn’t work at all, but then, gradually, she saw Jan’s purplish skin begin to shift and change in color. Her eyes widened—he looked pale, but definitely not purple anymore, in a matter of moments. His eyes darkened slightly but didn’t lose the honey-gold color entirely. Subtle changes—he still looked unusual, and he would be noticeable wherever he went, but he looked indisputably human. Andrea was almost disappointed. She had become so accustomed to Jan’s unearthly appearance, to see it retreating was strange, disquieting. “You’re sure this won’t poison you?”
“It will not poison me. How do you like human me?” He smiled.
Andrea shook her head, “I like the regular you better.” A thought occurred to her. “You’re not… you haven’t…?” She blushed deep red. Jan raised an eyebrow slowly, grinning. He opened the fastenings on his coverall and stripped out of it, standing before her. The skin on his body was the same slightly pale pinkish-tan of his face. When he pulled down his strange underwear, Andrea saw—what she had been unable to quite ask—that his endowment was just as huge as it had always been.
“We should have a test run,” Jan suggested. “I need clothing, and I have an idea for where we should go. You are in desperate need of supplies.”
Andrea’s mind reeled as Jan tugged her towards the entrance of a garishly-marked, neon-spangled store called The Velvet Dungeon. “Where the hell did you come up with this?” she asked him, shaking her head.
“I have done much investigating,” Jan said, grinning with amusement. “I have done a—you say search? On the human Internet.”
“When did you do that?”
Jan made a soft sound, almost a chuckle. “Last night.” He propelled her towards the door. Mannequins posed and contorted in the window, decked out in kink-infused lingerie, juxtaposed in positions of dominance and submission, as if there had been any doubt from the exterior décor and the name of the establishment what was within. Jan gripped her hand firmly. The woman manning the desk looked up, and Andrea thought that perhaps she had it on the tip of her tongue to ask for their IDs to verify their age. She felt a moment’s doubt; Jan certainly did not have any kind of ID. But the sight of such a huge man, obviously of age, apparently changed the clerk’s mind.
“Just how much money are you planning to spend here?” Andrea looked around as Jan led her deeper into the shop, peering at signs with interest. She saw items that she recognized, vibrators, dildos, a few things she thought she had seen in the occasional porn video, and some that were entirely foreign. Tubes, bottles, even large jugs of lubricant were scattered around in displays, and Andrea thought she had never seen so much leather, vinyl and metal in one place in her life. Her gaze trailed everywhere as Jan led her around. Andrea checked at a display of items that looked oddly like horse tack; she did not want to even thing about what the carrot-shaped plastic implement was for.
It had been a relief to Andrea to discover that somehow or another, Jan had managed to get his hands on American currency; she didn’t ask too many questions as to how. “When we are assimilating me,” he said, “I will get a bank account.”
“You know,” Andrea had said, shaking her head in wonder, “it kind of amazes me the stuff you managed to pick up about our culture and the stuff you’re totally clueless about.”
Jan stopped abruptly, and Andrea looked in the direction he was facing. “Yes,” he murmured softly, adding something in his own language. “This is very necessary.” It was a display of various methods of binding: cuffs—leather and metal both, some of them with gleaming hardware for other attachments, ropes of different weight and style, bars for immobilization, bondage tape, almost any conceivable method to render a person helpless. Andrea felt a frisson of apprehension as Jan grabbed one item after another. Two pairs of leather cuffs, a spreader bar, a coil of soft rope. Without letting go of her hand, Jan abruptly nodded to himself and turned away, pulling her in his wake.
Andrea watched with a mixture of fear and rising desire as Jan stopped at one display after another, selecting cruel-looking clamps, two different kinds of flogger, and a couple of vibrating devices. He stopped at a display of butt plugs and Andrea tugged at his hand. “Hey, we talked about this,” she said lowly, not wanting to alert the clerks wandering the huge store.
“You are my sub,” Jan told her simply, his voice low but agreeable. “You will try this for me. I will not hurt you.”
“I am not…” Andrea blushed. “I don’t like this.” Her blush intensified. During their morning training session, Jan had teased her, carefully stroking and then gently pressing his fingers against her pucker as he played a vibrator against her pleasure-center until she was mewling, moaning, whimpering with need.
“You liked it before,” Jan said, reminding her even more forcefully. “You may use your safe word if you decide you do not like it, but as your Master I insist that you will try it.” Andrea swallowed.
“Okay,” she said, knowing when it was impossible to argue with the man she had agreed—tentatively—to take as her mate. “I will try it. But you remember the rules.”
“I remember very well.” He added two different plugs—one larger than the other, neither of them quite as big as his own equipment—into the basket he had taken. “You must have very much lubricant.” He grabbed one of the larger bottles, reading the label and turning it to her gaze. Oh god, she thought, her eyes flicking back and forth to read the words. Tingling/warming stimulation. That’s just what I need.
At the checkout, the woman who had greeted them stared in unabashed amazement at the size of the sale as Jan deposited one item after another on the counter. Andrea hummed all over; she could almost imagine the variety of uses to which her alien lover would put the assortment of hardware, and she wasn’t sure what her feelings on some of the items were, but others made her inner muscles tighten reflexively, sending a jolt through her that made her quickly wet wi
th desire. “Stocking up, I take it,” the cashier said, barely glancing at them with amusement on her face.
“Yes. I’ve just moved here, wasn’t able to bring my collection with me,” Jan said. Andrea almost laughed out loud—it was frightening how readily he had gone into that banter. How quick he was to respond with exactly the right excuse to allay any suspicion. If he hadn’t changed his mind about research subjects…
As they left the store, Jan took her hand, giving it a careful squeeze. “You will like these,” he said. He slipped a hand into the bag and withdrew something she hadn’t noticed he had purchased. It was a thin, graceful-looking leather collar, with swirling, Celtic-looking metal hearts studding it, a ring protruding from the center. “This will look good on you.”
“As long as you don’t expect me to start acting like a dog, or a cat or… a horse,” Andrea said dubiously.
“No,” Jan agreed with a smile. “Just like my obedient Little One.”
They arrived at Andrea’s home with not a moment to spare. The effects of the potion had begun to abate, and even as they pulled into the driveway, Jan’s skin was starting to develop a purplish tinge, marking him as an alien once more. With daylight still lingering in the late afternoon sky, they hurried into the house, Andrea’s gaze switching around the quiet suburban block to see if any of her neighbors were watching.
The moment they were inside Jan turned to her. “You are wet,” he murmured lowly, looking amused even as he began to take on his more alien features once more. “I know that you are. It is time for more training.”
He picked up one of the bags and led her towards the bedroom by her hand, his grip strong enough to prevent her pulling away, but not so strong as to hurt, and Andrea felt her heart pounding. What did he have in store for her? She blushed, wondering just how he knew the extent of her arousal, and she squirmed against the damp slickness between her thighs. Jan stopped and turned to face her. “You will strip, Little One, before you come in.” The impulse to tell Jan that it was her house—that she would strip or not strip based on her own inclination and not his—flitted through Andrea’s mind, disappearing as quickly as it arose.