Alien Terrain

by Iris Astres

  “Do you have plans today?”

  She did, actually. She’d planned to hit the Reset button on her life. Which meant she’d read and journal. Contemplate the future, do yoga tapes. They were the kind of plans only a teenager would ever say out loud.

  His chair moved, and her skin pulled into gooseflesh. He set his plate beside hers. “Aren’t you curious?” he said into her ear. “I can show you many things. Not just how it feels to have a large cock push into your pussy. I can show you any fantasy you’d care to name. You have, with all due modesty, an accomplished lover entirely at your disposal. Someone who’s been practicing the art of sex as long as you’ve been drawing breath. I can tie your body so you have no choice but to stay open and unmoving while I fuck you. I can tease you. Tempt you. But if you’d rather, I’ll submit to you and let you use me selfishly. Any fantasy you have, Jane, I’ll help you explore. What you won’t hear is no. What you won’t feel is pain. The rest is all quite possible.”

  “Well,” said Jane. Her lips were numb, her nipples stiff. “I am a little curious about that giant cock.”

  The shaft in question rose to full attention. She saw it outlined in the heavy cotton, curving upward, inches from her stomach.

  “My giant cock is yours to have.” He pulled back the elastic waistband. “Take it.”

  Take. The offer triggered something wild in her. A crazy hunger she had no idea existed. She’d pushed herself to give a hundred times, but take—that would be something new. Jane closed her hand around his rod. Lifted it into the morning light and stared. It was so beautiful. A thick length with a purplish hue. It made her mouth wet and her pussy too. Raj bent and kissed her lightly on the lips.

  “Do you want to fuck?”

  “Do you?”

  His eyes flickered with some surprise. “You can’t doubt that.”

  “Okay.” Jane nodded into all the lust his dark expression lavished on her. “I’m curious. But I don’t really know what things I like.”

  “Then come,” he said, “and we’ll find out together.”

  Chapter Seven

  This time she let him strip her naked. The lowered shades kept the bedroom shadowy and private, and Jane let go of all her inhibitions while he removed her pants, her shirt, her bra, and her panties.

  The benefits of nudity were instantly apparent. His skin against her breasts set her on fire. She slid one arm over his shoulder, explored the muscles in his back. Her heart was fluttering so fast she’d swear the air she breathed was laced with some synthetic stimulation.

  They lay down together, touching, stroking. He rose onto one elbow. The moist tip of his cock trailed along her thigh, and Jane twisted toward him, ready to be truly fucked, to feel a cock thrust deep into her wet and swollen pussy.

  She spread her legs. Raj got between them. He dipped his head and started nibbling and licking like he’d done the night before. She moaned at the sensation of his tongue and teeth on both her tits. It was mind-numbing how he took his time, making one and then the other nipple hard and wet.

  When his body lowered, Jane went tense and tried to find her voice. He kissed down to her stomach. She jerked her hips up, hoping that would tilt him in the opposite direction. He paused only a second before moving lower still.

  “No.” Jane sat up, scooting backward on the bed, her palm raised in the halt position. “Not that.” She swung her leg around him, pulled herself toward the door. He caught her by the foot, and that surprised her so much that she paused and stared at him. His warm palm cupped her heel. He wasn’t angry. Not annoyed. He was just touching her to keep her there.

  It worked.

  Jane drew a breath and tried to make out his expression. His head was bowed, but what she saw of him looked startled and a little sick.

  “It’s not your fault.” She wriggled her toes on his hand. “I’m a bad lay.”

  His head rose and he frowned severely, like she’d told a tasteless joke. “What happened? Did your husband hurt you?”

  “Oh God.” It was all over. Still, she absolutely did not want to talk to him about her husband. She didn’t want to be talking at all, but most especially not about Rick. Still, she had to tell him something. Resigned, Jane leaned against the headboard and grabbed a pillow, which she used to cover up her nakedness as best she could. She looked at Raj’s hand still clasped around her foot. What in the world had made her think she was suddenly going to be good at sex? One orgasm? She really had to stop being a fool. No more men. Finish this. Get dressed. Move on.

  “Rick didn’t hurt me,” she began. “The worst he did was creep me out. That’s not a very nice thing for a wife to say about her husband, by the way, but there you go. Our sex life wasn’t any good. And please don’t ask me if I tried to talk to him—I did. The problem was Rick wasn’t into talking about sex, and when he did, he disagreed with me about the state of his performance. He thought he knew exactly what to do in bed. My failure to appreciate his expertise, therefore, was something wrong with me. So I should change. Not him. Of course.” Jane stopped. She was doing voices, faces, gestures, but it wasn’t helping. This just wasn’t a good story. “So anyway,” she said on a sigh, “I decided the right thing to do was live with it. Honor my commitments. If that meant choosing marriage over sex, so be it. He didn’t hurt me ever. And it wasn’t all that bad.”

  “Except for oral sex.”

  “Yeah.” Jane nodded tightly. “Oral sex was awful. Razor burn and crazy, slurping ick. After which I got a lecture about how much ninety-two percent of women would just love it if their husband did the same for them. We fought about it every time. The thought of it still makes me ill.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Jane hugged the pillow tighter and stared at the door. “Lots of people don’t have sex at all. It’s really not that big a deal.”

  “I disagree.” He was recovering. Taking it pretty well. That sick and startled look had left, and now he just looked serious as hell. “Sex is the physical equivalent of thought,” Raj said. “If you deprive a person of their thoughts, they go insane. No sex and they lose sight of their true nature. It is a big deal not to be made love to in the way that you deserve. As for your being bad at it, that’s utter nonsense. You were made for pleasure.”

  “Clearly not.” Jane moved to get up. His palm tightened around her heel. Amazing such a simple gesture could have such a strong effect.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “I’m not a sexy person.” She shrugged, arms outstretched so the pillow fell and she revealed herself. He looked completely unconvinced.

  “You’re very sexy.” This time he tugged at her foot until she looked at him. “In the temple where I lived for thirty years, I bowed before your statue every day.”

  “My statue?” That was not at all what she’d expected him to say.

  “It might have been your statue. It looked exactly like you. There are twelve statues all lovers bow to in the morning ritual, three of which represent different manifestations of the feminine.” He settled himself at the foot of the bed and evidently trusted her enough to let go of her foot. “The first one is called Koyma, the star. She represents all women who are drawn to the sky, excited by ideas and by their own accomplishments. Koyma women are most often tall and straight with almost boyish frames. Sexually they tend toward games of control.

  “Next to Koyma is Ulitha, symbolized by intersecting curves. The women she embodies are drawn to introspection and connection. Their form is classically feminine. Hourglass, I think you say. In bed they’re warm but passive, with a sleepy sensuality.

  “And then there’s Jalima, the open hand.” His face took on a look of great significance, staring into Jane like he was just about to pray. “The open hand is giving. Her heart is generous, her body full and soft and curved. In bed she loves all manner of excess.

  “We honor all three manifests, of course. For most of us, however, there’s a singular devotion. Mine has always been to Jalima, the
open hand.” He took her palm and kissed her just above the wrist.

  Jane yanked her hand away. “Enough,” she said. “Let go of me.” He grabbed her foot. Jane grit her teeth and growled. “Let go.”

  “Why?” He held her tighter, and she grabbed his wrist and pried his fingers off her.

  “Because you’re full of shit and I would like to be alone.”

  “Alone?” He frowned. “You’re going nowhere. We’re having a fight.”

  “I’m not fighting. I just want to be alone.”

  “Not true.” His face was set and he looked bigger than he had seconds before. “You’re angry at what I just said. But I don’t understand. I need you to explain what part of that gave you offense. Shutting me out now is unacceptable. I don’t know where you learned to turn your back on people in your anger, but you’d best unlearn it quick.”

  “You want to know what’s bothering me?” Jane snatched up the pillow and pressed it back against her, both eyes wide with warning.

  He nodded calmly into all the violence and threat.

  “That stuff you said about my statue is just bullshit. The open fucking hand. The giver. The hypervigilant respondent to need. How dare you fucking say that’s who I am?” She’d had the same description handed to her way too many times and could not be more fed up with that stale persona. People always said it with a big smile, like it was just the greatest thing to be. But it was utter shit. And the bitch of it was, it wasn’t even her. It had never been her. She wasn’t some selfless giver. She wasn’t even very nice. She was only lost and trying to be halfway decent. Lost, trying, and failing. God, she was still failing miserably. Trying to leave Rick as painlessly as possible and humiliating him in front of all his friends instead. Trying to save an alien and then just getting naked with him and not getting laid. “I’m not an open hand,” she said. “With all due respect to your archetypes. Except, do you know what?” She made a gesture that said wipe that last sentence away. “Fuck your archetypes. I don’t give a damn about your bullshit dream of selfless feminine generosity. That isn’t me. That might be what you see, but that’s not who I am.”

  He looked intrigued. “Who are you, then?”

  “Fuck off.”

  This time he had his hand around her ankle like a shackle. Jane kicked him hard. His fingers tightened. “Tell me and I’ll go.”

  “I’m a despot,” Jane said. She wanted it to shock him. She wanted it to be the truth. “In my heart, I’m just a filthy lord, swilling wine and snapping my fingers for the dancing girls.”

  That gave him pause. His brow inched slightly higher. “Do you have many dancing girls?”

  “Zero dancing girls,” said Jane, the shabby pretense crumbling around her. “If I really had a castle, I’d free the dancing girls, the stable boys, the maids, and just do all the cleaning by myself.”

  After she was angry, she was always sad. So here it was. Cycle complete. “I know that I’m a drudge. An open hand if you prefer. But don’t assume I’m all brave and noble about it. Doing good isn’t my cherished calling, Raj. It’s just a way to get through life without being a prick. It’s the best I can do. Not some manifestation of the motherfucking feminine. Believe me, if there were any way, I’d drop it all and just have fun.”

  “Would you?” That seemed to interest him. “What’s fun? Tell me what fun’s like in your mind.”

  Jane cast her thoughts into the possibilities. She imagined a crowd of happiness and laughter that included her. It was such a blurry image, she could barely see it.

  “Fun’s a long way off,” she said. Then she turned around and looked at him, remembering her pancakes and their conversation. “You’re fun. When you’re not trying to define me or go down on me without permission.”

  He winced at that and leaned slightly away. She didn’t know a dark man’s skin could pale. He even looked a little clammy, worse than he’d looked strung up in Rick’s garage.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Let’s just forget it.”

  He cupped her heel again. She wished she found it irritating, but it felt extremely nice. Odd but comforting, and comforting was good.

  “You asked me if I was afraid of anything. In the shower, do you remember?”

  She signaled that she did.

  “This is what I’ve always been afraid of. Failure as a lover.”

  “Does it happen often?” No, she guessed.

  “It’s never happened once in thirty years.”

  “Oh great,” said Jane. “Should I be flattered?”

  “You should.” He sounded serious. “If I were you, I’d feel exalted. You made a temple lover lose his focus, Jane. That’s quite a feat. The one mistake of my career is yours.” He made it sound like treasure.

  “You’re just not on your game because you’re sick. Because you were just kidnapped, beaten, starved.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “But I’ve been hungry, injured, and in pain before. I’ve never made a fraction of the error I made now.”

  “What error?” He was working hard to make it sound like she’d completely blown his mind. She wasn’t ready to believe it. “Most girls like a tongue between their legs. You played the odds and lost. That’s all.”

  “Thirty years of training didn’t teach me to play odds, my love. A temple lover doesn’t make assumptions. We observe. If necessary we inquire. The point of our existence is to get things right.”

  “So what the hell happened?”

  The teasing question pained him; she could see it. It was a lame attempt at banter, and Jane wished she could take it back. In fact she’d been trying to blow him off now for a while. “Unacceptable,” he’d said. “You’d best unlearn it quick.”

  “I was selfish,” Raj said.

  “You weren’t selfish.”

  “I was,” he said. “Let me explain.” He settled into his explaining pose again, and she was happy because even when he pissed her off, she liked the way he talked. “Backusians, like myself, love sex. All sex. But we all have a secret favorite in the range of acts that we perform. What I like”—he leaned a little forward and a pounding started in her chest again—“what I like is to lick a woman’s pussy until she’s come so many times she can’t stand up. After which I like to fuck that pulsing mound until she comes again. That’s what I was thinking of when I ignored your many signals. I wanted to use my mouth on you. To get my head between your legs and build the kind of orgasm that would echo through your pussy for so long the walls of your cunt would keep beating like a heart around me. You’ve no idea how sweet it is to slide your cock into a woman and just fuck until those trembling walls are tightening as she starts to come again. I wanted to feel that with you. So much so that I went against a life of firm belief and training and chose my preference over yours.”

  He was dead serious.

  “That sounds good,” Jane said. She meant it. Blood was coursing through her body, numbing her with keen anticipation. “You know how to make me like it, right?”

  His face grew thoughtful. “I’m not certain, to be honest.”

  “Why don’t you find out?” Jane lay back on the bed. She waited with her eyes closed and a thread of hope and curiosity unraveling inside her.

  “Do it,” she said. He didn’t move. She dug her toes into his thigh. “Make me come until my heart beats in my cunt. Then make me come again. You said yourself we Jalimas need to be fucked to the extreme. Do what you said.”

  “Yes.” He nodded slowly. “You are Jalima, which is not an insult, by the way. And you do need to be fucked to extremes.”

  The mattress underneath her moved with a sudden loss of weight. Then his hands were wrapped around her legs and he was pulling at her—one quick yank and she was halfway down the bed. Jane raised her head and found him kneeling on the floor. Her thighs were draped over his arms, his mouth six inches from her pussy, so close that his warm breath feathered her mound.

  “Hold my hand.” The fingers of his left hand flexed. Jane clasped
them in her right and lay back, hoping he could make it feel as good as he could make it sound.

  A BURSTING FRUIT. An ocean delicacy. The wine and cream of béchamel. Raj had heard the taste of a moist cunt described in these and other, less poetic ways, but to his mind no words could catch the primal flavor he was tasting now. He loved it. Never more so than at this very moment with Jane’s legs spread for him, her pussy wet and vibrating against his lips.

  He hadn’t lied about this being what he loved the best in life. Her scent had captured him from the beginning. Now he had his senses full. And this was heaven. This was where he’d gladly live his life.

  The soft skin of her thighs brushed against his shoulder. Her palm flexed underneath his fingers. Raj dipped his tongue into the silky contours of Jane’s pussy, listening for her breath. His tongue was melded to the middle of her vulva, the place between the peak above, the opening below. It was a good place to begin and end. A place to soothe, a place to set alight.

  Last night, when he’d stroked her swollen slit, he’d drawn a detailed map of her responses in his mind. This was where he’d heard her say it.

  Higher. Lower. There. Oh yes. Right there.

  Not with her voice but with her breath, the tensing of her thighs. Hips lifting, feet arched and pointed, hands pressed to his skin. He worked the tip of his tongue a little deeper and began to lick. Jane’s body stirred. Her head moved to one side.

  Raj lengthened the stroke of his tongue a fraction. He slid against the groove of flesh along her clitoris and pulled away.

  “Use me,” he said.

  “What?” She looked down at him, dazed. Her pale skin was so soft. The large, dark nipples of her lovely breasts made him clench his jaw. He wanted to draw things out for hours, spend time attending to those glorious breasts and all the places on her body he still hadn’t had occasion to explore. He wanted to arouse her till she shook and wept and lost control.

  For himself. Not her. Another selfish thought, confirming that he’d lost his way. When was the last time he had wanted something for his own sake? Had he ever? Selflessness was the first principle they’d taught him at the temple.