Her tone belied otherwise.
"Lennie, listen," said Angelo, ignoring her objection. "You don't have to say anything, but I want you to know, you're not alone. Everyone feels the way you do, Aquilan or otherwise."
There was no answer.
"Lennie, everyone is afraid of the sacrifice they have to make for a partner. They're afraid of the time they'll have to give up, of the hours they could be dedicating to their career or to their passion. Then, along comes children, and there is a huge sacrifice. Maybe not as big as what Aquilans give up, but it is still a sacrifice. But Leneria, what you have to ask yourself is whether those sacrifices are worth it. Is it worth it to know that even if you're giving up some things, you are gaining others."
Still, there was silence.
"Lennie, if you come along with me - I probably won't ever make admiral. I'll make captain, and I'll probably even work my way up to a full star cruiser - but I'll never go beyond that. If you're with me, I won't put in the time it would take to climb all the way up the fleet ladder. But the thing is, I won't care. I'll have you. Having you, that's enough for me. Do you understand?"
Still, there was no answer from beyond the door.
"Think about it, Leneria," he whispered. "You'll sacrifice. You won't die, but you'll give some things up. I hope it is worth it to you, because I love you, my Leneria. I love you Lennie. Goodbye."
Two days later, there was still no sign of Leneria. She had remained holed up in the medical suite - or if she had come out, Angelo hadn't seen her.
***
The day came for his departure. The fleet ship was approaching the Alshain.
What he hadn't known was there was a farewell ceremony aboard ship before the next liaison came aboard. Angelo chose to don his uniform anyway, and he stood out like a sore thumb among the hundreds of nude, beautiful bodies which greeted him in the recreation lounge.
"Farewell, Commander," said Lietseleh, who was first in the farewell procession. To his surprise, she bestowed a full, mouth-on-mouth kiss upon him but it was not sexual in nature. The next woman did the same. The males hugged him fiercely, and he found himself overwhelmed by the friendship and love he was being shown.
At last, he neared the end of the farewell procession. He found himself face to face with Marcus, who greeted him with a somber expression.
"Commander, you have done great things here," said the strapping young man. "You have finally set us down the path of being human."
"I don't know about that," said Angelo. "I think you were starting to learn before I arrived."
"Perhaps," admitted Marcus. "Angelo, you told me once that a kiss is a question, correct?"
"It certainly is."
"I see now what you mean," said Marcus. "Commander Telegin, if you wouldn't mind. Please send a message to Neirna. Tell her I would very much like to ask her a question, but I can only ask it in person. I have cleared it with our people. She will be allowed to return if she so desires."
"I'll send it on a tight beam as soon as I can," said Angelo. He gripped Marcus' shoulder tightly in friendship.
A'nish was next. She kissed Angelo deeply and long, patting his cheek fondly in farewell.
"A'nish, could you promise me something?" asked Angelo.
"If it is possible, of course, Commander."
"The next liaisons; tell them everything. I understand why you guard your secrets so closely - but they need to know. I suspect if anyone could tell them, you would find a way."
"I will do my best, Commander," she said.
And then came the last; lovely, crimson Menaea, her naked body standing as one final temptation to Angelo. Though his body tried to tell him otherwise, his mind knew better. His heart belonged to another...another who he might never see again.
All the same, she took him by the hand to a small enclave, where no one else could see them. Menaea sat him down on a padded couch and then climbed up to straddle him, taking his face in her hands.
"Oh Commander," she sighed. "I think it is lucky you are wearing these horrible garments which separate our skin. Even though you and Leneria share such amazing love, I am sorely tempted for one final farewell. Angelo, such good times I had with this marvelous body of yours."
She pulled him to her then, and kissed him deeply and affectionately. It was an odd kiss which only one who had spent time among the Aquilans could understand. Here was a stunningly beautiful, naked woman straddling him, kissing him passionately - their tongues dancing about, her breasts pushing into him, her hands running desperately through his hair. It was a question, indeed - but it was also a farewell - the only sort of farewell she could properly give.
"Why are you crying?" asked Angelo when she finished her kiss.
He had looked up and seen tears upon her cheeks.
"I just think... I think it wasn't fair," she murmured. "We were so good together, Commander. I cannot understand why it was not me who was the first of our human kind to be struck by love. You are human. Can you explain why?"
"Oh Menaea," said Angelo. "If I could explain that, I'd be a very, very wealthy man. No one has been able to answer that question since time began. But listen, beautiful girl, you will find love and gods help the man who you end up with. He'll be lucky to survive the honeymoon."
"Goodbye, Commander," said Menaea with one final kiss. "May your travels be safe, and may love find you sooner than you expect."
As protocol dictated, the Alshain was now empty. All Aquilans were sequestered away, far from the entrance where - like sirens - they might beckon to any crew that might be assisting with the boarding party.
The hatch slid open, and Angelo was greeted by a new face.
"Commander Telegin," said the young woman with a snappy salute. "I am Corporal Nistri. Permission to come aboard?"
"Granted," said Angelo, and he surprised her with a salute followed by a quick hug.
She was of Arcturan descent, which tended to give a blue-green tint to the skin. The hue could either be disturbing or evocative and with her it was the latter. Was his heart not so crushed by the obvious loss of Leneria, he might have chosen the same approach as Neirna. As it was, he could only admire her.
He led her to the Liaison Cabin and sat her down on the bunk.
"My predecessor chose to keep me in the dark," he said. "Her initiation to this ship was certainly pleasant, but it wasn't all that helpful. I'm going to tell you as much as I feel I'm allowed."
He proceeded to reveal as much as he could to her; the nudity, the openness, the reluctance toward emotions, and of course - the sex."
"One hundred and thirty-seven?" asked Nistri.
She could scarcely contain her disbelief.
"Yep," said Angelo, matter-of-factly. "But that's not even the record. Commander Stendson, the woman before Neirna, she ran the gamut. Every man on board."
"A woman?" gasped Nistri. "Truly?"
"Oh come on," said Angelo. "These are modern times. How many men have you slept with in your life - honestly?"
"Forty, I suppose," said the blushing officer.
"There you go. Now guess what, you've just entered Candy Land; every best specimen of a man from every shape and ancestry. Plus, they juice the air here. If I could give you any advice, just dive in and enjoy it as much as you can until... until..."
He broke off, brushing back tears.
"What is it, Telegin?" asked Nistri.
He then told her what he had been sure he wouldn't tell anyone. He told her of Leneria and their unspoken love. He felt he needed to omit the facts about the beautiful Aquilan mating he had witnessed - that was something which needed to come from one of their own kind. However, he did confess to Nistri about his love for Leneria, and how he had felt they were almost there.
"Why didn't she come with you?" asked Nistri.
"She... she wasn't ready to get naked," said Angelo sadly, "not truly naked."
"I don't understand," said Nistri.
"You will," he said. "Go find a beautiful chocolate-skin
ned woman named A'nish, she'll explain. But, speaking of naked, it's time for you to lose the threads. Here, I'll help."
The fleet dress uniform was not an easy get up, especially for women due to some archaic lacing someone had worked into the official doublet. Nistri might have objected, but the matter-of-fact manner with which Angelo handled the situation set her at ease.
Once she was out of her clothes, Angelo shook his head in wonder. She was hiding much more beneath the uniform than one would have expected.
"Damn," he said. "Maybe I should have given you the Neirna treatment. That's some body, Commander."
"There's still time," said Nistri in a sultry tone. "I wonder if this pheromonized air is already having an effect. That, and all of your talk, it got me going a bit."
"No," said Angelo with a wry smile. "As pleasant as it would be, I think I'll save that honor for the Aquilan boys. Lucky dogs."
Angelo gave her a quick hug and then departed toward the waiting transport.
All along his walk, he kept listening for sounds - hoping to hear the sound of footsteps or the bell notes of the beautiful voice he had come to love so dearly.
There was nothing.
He boarded the transport and did a quick debrief. Upon exiting that session, he was surprised to be handed his new insignia. Just like that, he was a captain. Oddly, it didn't feel nearly as rewarding as he had once thought it would be.
He excused himself and was shown to his quarters - a rather spacious two-room suite, fitting to his new rank. Once inside, he threw himself onto his bunk - too distraught to even muster tears. He was simply numb.
"Do you like my dress?" asked a voice.
He shot up in surprise. Leneria had been waiting in the anteroom. He hadn't noticed her at all, having been wallowing in sorrow.
She now stood in a stunning green dress which complimented her in every way possible.
"Lennie," he said. "You came."
"I came," she whispered. "Commander Angelo Telegin, I came. I left the only home I have ever known - for you."
"Lennie, I..."
"Let me finish," she said. "Angelo, I am terrified. I know that this is a logical step in my human progression - but there is still that huge part of me that is certain my life is over, that I will dissolve the moment we kiss. I have shed every barrier for you. I love you, Angelo. I stand before you, naked. Though I am in human clothes, the Aquilan in me is bare and exposed. I am terribly fearful. Will you have me, Angelo? Shall we stay together, and see where life leads us?"
"Will I..."
He rushed to her and scooped her up in his arms, twirling her around and then letting her slide down his body, her mouth descending to his.
If a kiss is a question, they both received the answer that gratified their hearts.
The End
The Dragon
Gregory Hopkins had a missing dragon to deal with. He'd taken a different approach to the problem than he normally did, cutting through the park on his way home from school. Still, there was no doubt about it. He knew the first time he saw those beautiful green lawns. All that empty space was missing something and that something was possibly an army of elves or, more likely, a dragon.
Without weighing the risks of such an endeavour as finding a missing dragon upon a park lawn during the English summer; he sat down beneath a large oak tree, plucked his sketch pad out of his bag and got to work. Drawing what was already there was easy enough. The trees in the distance, the flower bed in the foreground and the small caretaker's house to the far left soon materialised upon his blank sheet of paper. Only then was the true challenge upon him.
The first order of business in finding a dragon in an empty field is to understand how such a creature might fall to rest there. The outline took shape as a long serpentine curve, basking in the late afternoon sunlight. Next were the details: the horns, the scales, the shadows beneath the relaxed folded wings. Finally the creature needed to be placed in the field and so came the tufts of grass around where its weight rested in the earth, then the scorch marks on the earth beneath its nostrils.
He sat there for a while, a young man with messy black hair that fell to his shoulders and deep blue eyes steeled with concentration. His face was a mix of a little Italian, a little Greek and a lot of English. A baggy sweater and equally baggy pants covered his frame as he sat beneath a tree looking at his disappointingly dragonless field.
It took him over half an hour to find and place the dragon there, then came the shading of its frame and finally the finished product. Unfortunately, Gregory didn't even so much as get to set his pencil down before the muddy football hit him squarely on the side of the face and smashed down into his sketch. Given the temperature the ball shouldn't have been muddy at all but summer had just begun and so had the storms that sometimes came along with it.
The impact left his right ear ringing and his right eye momentarily blinded by dirt. It took Gregory a full minute to adjust himself and realise the dragon in the field was ruined and that someone was stood beside him with a muddy football beneath his arm.
Freddie Lounds. What a complete and utter shitheel. Gregory glanced past him to where a group of his cronies stood in the football field across the way looking on with grim smirks on their faces. He'd heard them start up their game but in his concentration to capture his reptilian quarry he hadn't bothered to see who they were. If he had he might have just picked up his things and left the dragon to be forever lost.
"What' you doing?" Freddie asked.
"Windsurfing." Gregory replied calmly as he moved to slip his sketch book back into his bag.
Clearly Freddie didn't quite know what to do with this information. It certainly didn'tlook like Gregory had been windsurfing but then again Freddie wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the box and Gregory had spoken with a great deal of conviction. It took him a full fifteen seconds before he realised he was being mocked and his face tightened into a frown.
"Think you're a smart little shit don't you?" The football was smacked loudly against the ground as Freddie put his arms out in the classic 'let's kick the shit out of each other' pose he'd been fond of since primary school.
Gregory sighed inwardly. He'd had to put up with this idiot all through primary school during which time getting punched and shoved around the playground had been a part of his every day life. In high school Freddie still looked out for him despite being in different classes to each other. Any time he felt like shoving someone over or dumping the contents of their bag on the floor Gregory usually had landed square in the lunatic's crosshairs.
Of course much of this had stopped abruptly shortly after Gregory started taking some classes outside of school hours. The first time Freddie found a fist landing square in his face had been the last time he'd overtly tried to beat up Gregory. Still, he'd been a constant pain ever since. Then finally Freddie had left school and Gregory stayed on. School had gotten a lot better since then but they still lived in the same town and that town only had one park.
All in all, Freddie didn't bother Gregory that much anymore. What did bother him was currently walking towards them from the football field.
Janette Riley was a gorgeous redhead with long toned legs, curvy round breasts and quite possibly the cutest ass in the known universe. She'd been dating Freddie since they were sixteen. They were now both eighteen with Freddie soon looking at being nineteen and Gregory having just had his eighteenth birthday two weeks before. Seeing a girl like Janette with a guy like him was just plain depressing. Freddie wasn't even what a reasonable person would call attractive. Shaven head, pinched looking slightly inbred look, pug nose and a constant expression akin to someone smelling a particularly nasty pile of shit was pretty much all he had to offer the world.
Gregory had been single all through high school, partly due to his reputation as a bit of a loner and partly because he had other things to worry about. Seeing a girl like Janette with a guy like Freddie wasn't exactly the greatest advertisement for the guys w
ho stay in school getting all the good stuff once they're in the real world. If it wasn't for the fact that Janette was what civilized society referred to as a 'total bitch' then it would have been downright soul destroying to see them together.
"Come back to the game." She reached out to Freddie's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. This wasn't the first time she'd had to try and dissolve a potential night in jail for her boyfriend.
"Shithead's been smart." The thug curled his lip and took a step towards Gregory.
Slowly, the boy who had been looking for dragons shifted his weight and placed his left foot further behind him. If this was going to happen then it was going to happen very fast, very hard and it was going to result in a very large headache for Freddie.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Erotica: Volume 2 (Sci-Fi & Fantasy Erotica Series) Page 22