Sci-Fi & Fantasy Erotica: Volume 3 (Sci-Fi & Fantasy Erotica Series)

by Charlie Buxton

  "Alright," Ifurita conceded, getting to her feet. "I'll return tomorrow evening."

  * * *

  Although she was her usual reclusive self during the day, Yuba planned for the best, and was surprised and delighted to find Ifurita was true to her word.

  Sitting at opposite ends of the table (which was actually his desk, cleaned of debris and moved out into the 'living room'), he'd set plates for them both, though he had no way of knowing if Ifurita would partake. It took all of his meager resources and humble cooking skills to put this miniature fest together. Even if she couldn't appreciate it, it wouldn't have felt right not to make an effort.

  "I'm particularly proud of the tea," Yuba was saying, "it took me a long while to find a plant with the right sort of leaves. I think it's a rather unique flavour. You should try some."

  Ifurita looked dubiously at the ceramic cup before her. "Tea?"

  "Yes, exactly," Yuba nodded. "I, um, I suppose I should ask if you can even drink for a start. Would it harm you to ingest liquid?"

  "No, not at all."

  "Then, please, have some."

  Ifurita picked up the gently steaming cup, and while Yuba watched intently, she downed it all in a single gulp.

  "Most people prefer to take sips," Yuba laughed, "but I guess if it was that good, who am I to complain? How was it?"

  "It was warm," she replied, replacing the cup on the table.

  "You sure know how to put a guy in his place," Yuba grinned, feeling inexplicably giddy. "Can I ask, what happens after you've drunk it?"

  "I'll simply expel it later."

  "Really? How," he asked, full of curiosity, realizing a moment too late what a potentially rude question that was.

  Leaning forward, Ifurita opened her mouth. Suddenly the hot tan coloured fluid poured out back into the cup in a thick stream. Sitting up, she matter of factly patted her lips dry with a napkin.

  "That's.... something," Yuba said, both amazed and horrified. "You know, I remember seeing a street performer do almost exactly the same thing. He'd swallow various objects, then regurgitate them later, just like you did."

  "Just like me," she replied, puzzled. "You mean, he was also a Demon, or a Doll?"

  "Wha... No, no, he was human being. It's a sort of skill, you see. You'll find that a lot of people can overcome the physical limitations of the body. It's only a matter of applying your will. I imagine the same is true for machines."

  "I see."

  Ifurita appeared to consider this for a while.

  "I kinda feel a little duplicitous about this evening," Yuba admitted.

  "Why is that?"

  "Well, I did tell you that communal eating is a social habit," he explained, "but, it's also true that when a man asks a woman to dinner, it has a different connotation. It's what we would probably call a date."

  "Date," Ifurita repeated, plainly confused, "a particular moment in time."

  "Ah, no." Yuba smiled. "More like, an occasion when a young man and woman will get together to know each other better, to form a deeper relationship with each other. It's a romantic gesture."

  "But, that's..." Ifurita shook her head. "I don't understand you at all."

  Nevertheless, this awkward beginning led to more time spent together. No longer skulking on the fringes, Ifurita came into the shrine much more often, and had even begun to take a passive interest in his studies. At the same time, he learned a bit more about her, and the era she came from. Her database (as she called it) was very limited on this point, but she was able to educate him somewhat on her construction, and the others of her kind.

  First were the Dolls or Marionettes; machines given human form and an intelligence to match. Their development was soon put to military purposes, and the result were Demons. Ifurita had no insight in into the political realm of this ancient world, or what led to that fateful war, but in those dark times finally came the DemonGods, of which she was the last kind; a machine of potentially unlimited power, and the ability to adopt and adapt any attack used against her.

  In turn, he tried to tell her as much about his world as he could, and of his travels in El-Hazard. He wasn't usually the talkative type, but with Ifurita it felt that much easier, almost as if he were a storyteller and she an attentive child, eager to learn. Well, perhaps 'eager' would be the wrong word; her demeanor never changed all that much, but she always listened and would sometimes ask questions.

  It was a few weeks after their first dinner together that things changed yet again.

  * * *

  It was shortly after sunset that Yuba wandered out to the front of the shrine, and the wide stone stairway that led up to the entrance. Ifurita was here already, standing at the top of those steps, staring up at the sky. Something must have caught her attention. Coming up beside her, Yuba couldn't understand what it was until he saw the brief streak of white light high over the horizon.

  "Oh, a shooting star," he remarked, then saw another one appear quickly after that. "Must be a meteor shower. Once the twilight passes, we're really going to be in for a show. Have you seen anything like this before?"

  Ifurita shook her head.

  "It's an amazing sight," Yuba said, "especially when you're out in the desert. That's the one thing that really struck me when I first came to El-Hazard. Back home, it's usually so overcast, and with the smog and electric lights, it's hard to see very many stars at all. But here, the sky is so clear, and the stars -I couldn't believe how many there were. If I ever do leave this world, that's one of the things I'll miss the most; the night sky."

  Moving further out from the shrine's overhanging roof, Yuba took a seat on one of the wide flat steps.

  "Come, join me," he offered, patting the space beside him. The lack of hesitation with which she did so made him think she'd mistaken his invitation for a command. Well, be that as it may, he couldn't deny it was nice having her next to him like this.

  For a while, neither said anything more, simply watching the darkening sky.

  "You know, there's a superstition about making a wish on a falling star," he said, glancing over at her. "I dare say, they'll be so many tonight, there's a good chance of at least one of those wishes coming true. If you could wish for anything, Ifurita, what would it be?"

  Ifurita frowned to herself in thought.

  "I'm not certain. Does it serve a purpose to wish for something that cannot come true?"

  "Wow, you sure do ask the tough questions," Yuba sighed, leaning back to look at the slowly appearing stars. "I suppose you could say that all those wishes, hopes and dreams are how we define our lives, even when they can't always come true. Our pursuit of those things can often provide rewards we hadn't originally expected. For instance, ever since I'd arrived here in El-Hazard, it's been my purpose to try and find a way home. That may not be possible, but it was that quest that led me to this place, and to meet you. If I'd given up, or not allowed myself to have that dream, then none of this would have ever happened. So, I think wishes are very valuable indeed."

  "Then, that is your wish," Ifurita said, her tone solemn, "to return home."

  "Well, you might be surprised. Very often the best wishes are the ones we have for others. If I were to have a wish granted, I think it would be for you."

  "For me?" Ifurita shifted to face him, "what could you wish for me?"

  "Hmm, another good question." Yuba paused before continuing, unsure how much to confess at this moment. "I've thought about this a lot. If it's not too embarrassing to say, I actually think about you every night as I lay in my bed to sleep."

  "I... see." Ifurita looked back up at the sky, Yuba mentally berating himself for his slip of the tongue.

  "I only meant, I've been trying to work out exactly who and what you are," he explained. "Until I awakened you, I'd never imagined it was possible for a machine to move and talk on it's own, to be intelligent and express itself. I've synchronized with you, saw into your memory and internal structure. There's no denying what you are -but, I didn't
know how to reconcile it. I thought how much better it would be if you were human. Then I realized how arrogant that was. Why should it be better being human? Being dependent on the PowerKey Staff is no different than my need for food and water. Having a body of synthetics and metal is not a terrible thing compared to flesh and blood, and you can do things no human could. Being a DemonGod is part of who you are -if you didn't have that, then you wouldn't really be Ifurita."

  "Then, you don't wish that I were human," Ifurita's voice suggesting a certain mild surprise.

  "Nope," Yuba nodded. "If I had one wish for you, than it would be for you to have free will."

  "That... may not be possible."

  "I disagree," Yuba said, laying a hand over Ifurita's. "I believe you can. You were built with potentially unlimited power -but, I don't think that power is limited to what you can do in combat. I think you have the potential to be anything you want."

  For Ifurita's silence he thought for a panicked moment he'd said too much, or made a histrionic fool of himself. But from her demeanor he could tell she was simply thinking in that quiet way of hers, and she let him hold her hand without a trace of complaint. He had done it without thought, but it suddenly occurred to him that this was the first time he'd really touched her in anything other than a brief or fleeting manner.

  Glancing down to where his hand lay on top of hers over her knee, he noticed how she was wearing her usual long black gloves. Although they looked like highly polished leather, they felt slick and much softer, obviously composed of some synthetic material. He couldn't ever remember her not wearing them. Presumably she only had the one set of clothing, but it was yet another little detail he was curious about.

  "Ifurita, you don't mind if I ask an odd question, do you," he said carefully. "It's just, about your gloves. They do come off, don't they? I only ask because I noticed before that your headband isn't really a headband."

  "Yes, they do come off," she explained, "it's necessary, as part of my regular self maintenance, to cleanse both myself and my clothes on a regular basis.""Really?"

  Yuba had an image of her stripping down, carefully laying out her clothes on the grass before stepping naked into the clear cool spring water. He found it remarkable that in all this time he'd never once accidentally caught her like that. She must have timed it when he was busy elsewhere. The thought brought a smile to his lips -a machine with modesty!

  Unhooking the gold bracelet clip, Ifurita began to pull off her left glove. By the way she handed it to him, she must have believed that was what interested him, but in truth it was what lay beneath that really caught Yuba's attention.

  "My gosh," he breathed, lifting up her arm. Contrasted against the chalk-like complexion of her skin, were a series of thin black lines located on all her major joints -her elbow, wrist, knuckles and palm. They resembled seams, composed of some material that was more elastic than the rest of her artificial skin. He was fascinated. Except for those seams, and the absence of fingernails, she both looked and felt very human.

  "Whoever built you weren't just engineers -they were artists," he said with genuine wonder, tracing those delicate black seams with his fingertips. He looked up to see Ifurita staring at him. In the rapidly fading light, her crystal clear eyes held an unusual glow. "Sorry, I didn't mean to poke and prod at you."

  "No, it's..." Ifurita stuck on her words for a moment. "Every time you touch me, I can feel it. Not in the way I normally perceive physical objects; I can feel it."

  "I wish I could explain," he said, lowering her hand back to her lap. "This ability I have. I can only assume it's because it was the technology of the ancients that sent me here, because I'm not really of this world, that normal logic doesn't apply. I like to think it's a gift God has given me to help me find my way home -though it's possible he's given it to me for an entirely different reason."

  Darkness had now fully taken hold, and just as Yuba had promised, the meteor shower did prove to be quite a show. There was at least one falling star every few minutes, many coming in pairs or even more at once. The temperature had begun to drop as well, and Yuba unconsciously pressed closer to Ifurita, his hand now draped lightly on her opposite shoulder.

  In this protracted intimate silence, he let his hand drift over to touch and stroke her disordered hair. Gently combing it through his fingers, he couldn't tell at all whether it was synthetic or not. It was very soft to the touch and almost completely untangled, despite being so wild and long. It would probably be embarrassing for Yuba to admit that his contact with the opposite sex had been rather limited. In fact, it's had been so long that even this fairly innocent contact had his heart racing with pent up emotion. Gently rubbing the flat of her back, he could tell that her body was slightly warm through her thin clothes.

  Although he didn't intend to, his hand brushed against her open keyhole. As soon as his fingers touched the bare metal, she flinched. He caught his breath in a sympathetic response, but didn't draw his hand away. Instead, he let it rest on her hip before returning deliberately to that opening. He let his thumb slip inside, then replaced it with his index finger, stroking it against the smooth metal of the interior sides. There was a strange sense of vibration, as if it were strongly charged with static electricity. He refrained from mentally slipping inside her matrix, keeping his contact as physical as possible. Even so, he could tell the effect he was having on Ifurita. No longer watching the sky, her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She slouched over, her weight pressing against his shoulder.

  Continuing to stroke the outer rim of her keyhole in a circular motion, he was strongly reminded of an experience as a teen back in Creteria. It was at a rather depressing sordid little party, one of the few he'd ever been invited to, and found himself at an ungodly hour down in the basement after having had too much to drink. Next to him was a girl he'd had a hopeless crush on for some time, though he could never tell what she thought of him. In a spontaneous moment of lust and curiosity, she'd let him put a hand up her skirt, and he'd touched and explored a woman's genitals for the first time. He remembered how he languidly stroked and rubbed over her stiff little clitoris, and how she'd leant against him, her breathing becoming increasingly ragged as her arousal grew. He couldn't see what he was doing in that darkness, it was all by touch, just like now. He'd never forget how she shivered when she finally came.

  "Do you remember her name," Ifurita asked.

  "Well, that's..."

  Yuba froze. In that panicked moment, he realized what he'd done, the memory he'd inadvertently shared.

  "My God, I'm sorry," he cried, staggering to his feet. "I'm so sorry."

  "Why are you apologizing," Ifurita asked, looking up at him.

  Yuba gestured helplessly, trying to put his thoughts in coherent order.

  "I just... I just went too far," he finally said, handing her back her glove. "I'm very sorry. Goodnight, Ifurita."

  He hurriedly escaped back into the shrine, seeking the relative seclusion of her room.

  * * *

  Flopping back on the bed, he mentally cursed himself for both his mental slip, and for running away like that. Everything had been going so well up to then. But, the closer he got to her, the harder it was to disguise his true feelings... most especially to himself.

  It was true when he told her he thought about her every night -but that was only a fraction of the entire truth. In the back of his mind he tried to remind himself that it was only inexperience and loneliness at work -that his feelings weren't genuine. And, however inexperienced he was, she had none at all. How could she be expected to understand?

  Stripping off his clothes, he slipped under the bed covers. If only she wasn't so beautiful, it all would have been easier to dismiss. Instead, he relived those moments of the evening; feeling Ifurita's arm, stroking her white hair, caressing her keyhole. And he relived that time in the basement, slowly pleasuring his would-be girlfriend; only now, Ifurita was there too, crouched beside him, watching them from the darkn
ess.

  * * *

  The next morning, Yuba awoke in his usual slow and gradual manner. At first, he didn't take anything to be amiss, not until he turned over on his side.

  "Ifurita," he gasped, sitting up in alarm.

  Standing motionless in the middle of the room, Ifurita looked at him, staff held to one side.

  "How long have you been here," he asked, gathering his bed sheets around him, "is something wrong?"

  "No... nothing is wrong," Ifurita said, her voice suggesting otherwise.

  Yuba stifled a yawn, rubbing some of the sleep from his eyes.

  "I guess this must be about last night," he said, "I feel really bad about that. At the least I should have stayed and tried to explain, since I knew you wouldn't understand."