“No, I’m excited to be here with you. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to meet a member of another intelligent species.” She wrapped her arms around herself, not sure whether her skin prickled only with the chill of the room or also from the excitement she’d confessed.
“Does this atmosphere feel cold to you?”
“A little.”
“Then I shall raise the temperature slightly.” He glowed pink for a second. The air instantly warmed to a comfortable level.
“That’s perfect.” She stood up to scan the nearest shelves. “I can’t believe what a fantastic collection you have. But then I guess being stuck here all the time you need plenty of entertainment. I can hardly imagine having to spend your whole life this way, even with the media and the internet to keep you occupied.”
“I don’t depend solely on these resources. As I mentioned, I travel on the astral plane to other dimensions. I have access to inexhaustible wonders.” His tone turned wistful. “I do sometimes regret being unable to explore this world in body, though. Blake visits me often and I have email friends like you but that is not the same as interacting in person.”
“Well, I’m here now and I’ll visit as often as I can.” She cast a shy glance at him, wondering whether she was jumping ahead too fast. “If you want me to.”
“Of course I do. Having you here is a pleasure I never dared hope for. I want to make it a pleasant experience for you too. What would you like to do now? View a film, perhaps?”
The allusion to “pleasant experience” reminded her of the piquant sensations she’d felt when he touched her. Her nipples instantly peaked as she imagined feeling that touch again. If he could perceive her pulse and body heat, could he guess what she was thinking about? Glad of the excuse to look away from him, she returned to her exploration of the DVDs. “Oh, you have the complete set of Spider Princess. Hey, what’s this?” She slid a case off the shelf. “Season Five? The company folded after they released Season Four. They never finished the story arc. Is this a fan production?” Turning the box over to examine the front, she said, “They must have put an amazing amount of work into it. The art looks real.”
“It is real. I transported it across the interdimensional threshold from a parallel space-time continuum where the series was completed.”
“No way!”
“Indeed. I have dozens of books and films like this, created in other worlds but not this one. Would you like to watch Season Five of Spider Princess?”
“Absolutely.”
Wilbur activated a DVD player with the remote and she inserted the first disk. “Would you like refreshments? Blake would not mind if you get food and drink from the kitchen.”
“I’m not hungry after all that reception food but a drink sounds good. Oh—can you drink?” She didn’t want to indulge in a treat that would leave him out.
“I can, though I don’t need to.”
Exiting through the iridescent curtain of mist, she walked down to the second floor and detoured to a bathroom, where she cooled her flushed cheeks with a splash of water. She then made her way to the kitchen and searched the refrigerator. She passed over two bottles of champagne, which Blake and Lauren were probably saving for their honeymoon, and found a couple of bottles of chilled Riesling. She opened one and rummaged in the cabinets for wineglasses. Dangling the glasses by their stems in one hand and carrying the open bottle in the other, she climbed the stairs to the attic. Bracing herself, she stepped through the veil, shuddered at the chill and leaned on the nearest wall until the vertigo faded. “There, I didn’t spill a drop.”
After setting the bottle and glasses on the edge of the computer table next to Wilbur, she toed off her shoes and tugged an oversize cushion into place beside him. “Is it okay if I sit here? So we can both reach the wine?” Damn, she was blushing again.
“That would give me great pleasure.” He pushed the “start” button for the program and she settled onto the cushion.
As the opening theme song ran, she poured wine for both of them. One of his tendrils coiled around the stem of the glass she handed to him. She wondered how he would drink with no visible mouth. She blinked in fresh surprise when a proboscis like a butterfly’s extended from a spot under the current cluster of eye stalks. The tube unfurled, dipped into the glass and sipped.
“I can’t wait to find out if the princess and Lord Hawke ever get together.” She perched upright on the cushion and tasted her wine. Crisp and semisweet. After emptying the first glass and pouring another, she relaxed and caught herself leaning against Wilbur’s front or what served as his front for the moment. When she noticed, she hastily sat straight up again.
“Please, I am content to have you sit that way if you are.”
“Well—okay.” She reclined into the hollow he formed for her. It cradled her head and upper back like a silken hammock.
When the fourth episode ended the disk with a tender and sensual encounter between the Spider Princess and Lord Hawke, she sighed and drained the last swallow from her wineglass. “That’s so romantic, two shapeshifters declaring their love just when the troll army starts attacking their citadel.” Not only romantic but disturbingly erotic. Her breasts and the tender places between her legs tingled. Realizing she was still nestled against Wilbur, she sat up. “Of course, you’re a guy so maybe you don’t go for the romantic stuff.”
“Is a guy not supposed to like viewing such scenes? I do. I always enjoy stories about interspecies intimacy.”
She couldn’t miss the hint of yearning in his voice. “Oh—you’ve never had a girlfriend, of course.”
“Except for Lauren, you are the first woman outside my family I have met in person.”
“You said you can travel to other dimensional planes. Haven’t you run into any females like yourself?”
“Half of my genes come from Homo sapiens. I have never met a creature exactly like myself. The entities I encounter regard me as inferior because of my hybrid DNA.”
She patted him. “Racial prejudice across universes? That’s just wrong.” No wonder he enjoyed watching romantic and erotic films. Brought up in this world by a human family, naturally he had imprinted on human females as objects of desire.
He picked up the wine bottle, still half full. “Metabolizing alcohol produces interesting sensations. Do you wish more?”
“I shouldn’t keep drinking. I have to drive home.”
“You need not. You might stay here until morning. This house has many bedrooms.”
A jolt of excitement zinged through her at the suggestion. Come on, he said bedrooms, not this room. That can’t mean what it would from an ordinary man.
Or could it? His next remark cast doubt on that assumption. “I can’t help envying my brother’s happiness. I have never had the opportunity to try, but I believe I could give pleasure to a woman.” He filled both of their glasses.
She sipped hers to delay having to answer. From the fleeting touches of his extensions, she knew he could give pleasure, a thought that made her shiver with anticipation. Yet could she accept lovemaking from someone totally nonhuman in body, never mind the human genes he carried? “Is that an invitation?”
“If the idea doesn’t repel you, it could be.”
“It doesn’t repel me.” She skimmed her hand over his silken surface. “It just feels so strange. Two creatures—people—who are as different as we are.”
“My sire is far less like any life on this planet and he mated with my mother.” He brushed the back of her neck, making tiny sparks race down her spine.
Her skin prickled with excitement that overrode the strangeness more and more every second. “Speaking of that, what about the mating thing? I’m not ready to get pregnant.” She didn’t risk hurting him by adding “especially not with a baby that doesn’t look human.”
“That should not be possible. I don’t produce sperm. I don’t think I could without a special ritual. It required elaborate magical preparation for our sire to impr
egnate our mother.”
“No problem, then. Having…pleasure with you sounds like a thrilling experiment. I’d regret it if we didn’t at least try.” She took off her glasses and tucked them into her purse. “So where do we start?” Although not completely inexperienced, she didn’t have a model for this encounter, to say the least.
Dozens of miniature lightning bolts flashed just under the surface of his skin. “You seemed to react positively when I did this.” A tendril wafted over the curves just above the deep neckline of her dress.
The sensation zinged straight to her nipples, which perked up. “Yes, definitely positive.”
“Your capillaries are dilating and warming your skin the way they did last time I touched you here.” The tentacle tip slipped into her cleavage.
Between that touch and his mention of her blushing, she flushed even warmer. “What can I do for you?”
“Stroke me as you did a minute ago. The heat of your hands feels pleasant.”
Turning sideways, she ran both palms over the nearest surface. The membrane undulated and colors like those she’d seen in photos of the aurora borealis coruscated in the layer underneath. He reshaped his body to form a deeper, wider cradle where she could recline in comfort. “Very pleasant. This is a new experience. Even Blake seldom touches me.”
Wilbur had spent his life that isolated? On impulse, she spread her arms as wide as possible to give the part of him she could reach an awkward hug. His body quivered, setting off sympathetic vibrations in hers.
“May I caress you more intimately now? Perhaps your breasts?”
She nodded, swallowing in a spasm of fresh nervousness.
“Maybe you should remove your clothing. That is how it’s normally done, isn’t it?”
“Right.” Reaching over her shoulder, she fumbled with her zipper. “Could you help with this?”
He unzipped it, a tendril chasing a shiver down her back at the same time. She shrugged off the top of the dress and let it pool at her waist. Before second thoughts could paralyze her, she unhooked and cast aside her strapless bra, unwilling to go further right this second.
A pair of tentacles slithered downward from her shoulders to loop around her breasts. Miniature electric charges danced over her skin. They made her nipples ache with eagerness for direct contact.
“I sense places where heat collects and your flesh is engorged with blood.” A tentacle tip brushed one nipple. “Here, for instance. Is that where I should stimulate you?”
“Yes, please. Both of them.”
His tentacles skimmed both nipples at once. At the same time, he produced other extensions that wandered over her waist and thighs. She couldn’t help squirming as the multiple sensations competed for her attention. Tiny explosions seemed to erupt at random points all over her body. Scanning him while she stroked his curved surface, she noticed prismatic lights flashing in the wake of her fingers.
Additional tendrils coiled around her breasts while the tentacle tips flicked her nipples. The tingling there made her arch her back to invite more. A lighter touch tickled the nape of her neck and wove a path down her spine. Some of the extensions almost burned while others sent chills through her.
“You taste like salt and sweetness,” he said. A slender thread encircled her throat with a wisp of a caress. “Your heartbeat is faster. I feel it here.” At the same time, he kept fondling her nipples and exploring the rest of her body.
Great multitasking skills. Her head spun with the whirlpool of stimulation. Heat pooled between her legs. She involuntarily spread them, wishing the tentacles gliding up and down her thighs would settle between them. A moan escaped her.
“What do you require now?”
“I need my pussy rubbed.” Her skin flushed with heat. She wasn’t used to saying that outright.
“Pussy?”
“Here.” She cupped her mound.
“Shall I touch your clitoris?” A tentacle brushed it, evoking a trickle of wetness.
“Oh, yes!”
The tentacle insinuated under the elastic of her panties. “Is this satisfactory?”
“Totally. Don’t stop.”
He obliged, strumming the swollen bud. Other extensions continued to spiral around her breasts, slide over her body and coil around her thighs. She closed her eyes, afterimages of the rainbow lights flashing behind her lids while her nerves quivered with excitement.
“Your pulse is accelerating still more and your temperature continues to increase. And you are wet. Does that signify pleasure?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Wait—my clothes.” She stripped off her dress and underwear. “Now keep doing that.”
He did. Her clit thrummed with rising tension. With her arms flung wide behind her, she dug her splayed fingers into his surface. Her hips flexed. His tentacles tightened around her and she writhed against the restraint, which only intensified her need.
“Guide me.” His voice reverberated through her bones.
Every muscle quivering, she whispered, “There, faster.”
Her clit vibrated with the speed of his caresses until she couldn’t bear it anymore. She shattered. Painless electric shocks zapped her. Splinters of flame scintillated behind her closed eyelids.
The bass notes of his voice penetrated her delirium. “More?”
Panting, she forced out, “Not sure I can.”
“Let us try.” Tentacles glided over her sensitized clit and the moist folds lower down.
She gasped when the tips grazed her slit. “Come inside,” she murmured.
Still fondling her clit, he inserted a tendril into her sheath. A fresh surge of heat flooded her. Pleasure rippled through her pussy. “Yes, like that. Move in and out.”
He did, setting the pace to stimulate her clit and sheath in synchronized rhythm. The speed and friction quickened in time with the pumping of her hips. Ecstasy swept the breath from her lungs and drowned all thought. This time her clit vibrated frantically while her channel contracted around him. Again miniature lightning bolts leaped along her nerves. Soaring, she let out a wordless scream. Now her inner eye saw more than random sparks. A cascade of colors swirled in her head.
When her tremors finally stopped, she relaxed into his embrace, turned to recline on her side and ran her palms over him. “What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t seem fair for me to have a climax and not you.”
“But I did.” His flesh undulated. “I tasted your heat and moisture, shared your orgasm and released energy with you.”
“Oh.” She mused on the sensations that had churned underneath her own release. “I think I felt your energy, like lightning. But that’s not all. At the last minute I saw something strange, like a hallucination of the inside of a kaleidoscope.”
“In the instant of orgasm, our minds merged. You caught a glimpse of the realm beyond the threshold between dimensions.”
“The astral plane? Or someplace even further out?” As a science-fiction fan, she didn’t want to settle for a mere glimpse. “Is there any way you can take me there with you, just for a short visit?”
“Perhaps. If we form a mental link, maybe you could travel with me in thought.”
She drew a deep breath. “Is it safe?”
“It would be psychic travel only and I would not let anything harm you.”
“Then let’s try it.”
Chapter Three
“I would enjoy showing you my native realm. If you aren’t too exhausted.”
“Hey, I’m up for it.” Drained or not, she didn’t want to wait and possibly lose her nerve.
“Very well.” Embracing her with multiple pseudopods, he threaded a web of filaments through her hair to spread over her scalp.
She didn’t have time to brace herself before her consciousness melted into his. The room spun. Her sight expanded to a three-hundred-sixty-degree sphere. A glowing web connected every point in her visual field with every other.
Then her vis
ion blinked out and the floor dropped from under her. A scream ripped from her throat but made no sound. She tried to suck in a breath but didn’t have any lungs. She wanted to cling to Wilbur but couldn’t feel her arms or legs.
Where’s my body?
Light returned. It flooded her with colors she had no name for. She was inside a vast prism. No, a cyclone made of a billion stars. Its beauty dazzled her but she couldn’t pause to appreciate it because a maelstrom was sweeping her toward the abyss at the boundary of the universe. Any second now she would plunge into a black hole and lose herself forever.
Help! Take me back! Let me go!
Blackness shrouded her again. She hit the floor with a thud. Her stomach lurched. Opening her eyes, she found herself back in Wilbur’s chamber.
His voice echoed from what sounded like the other end of a tunnel. “Forgive me, I miscalculated.”
It’s too much. Human life doesn’t belong there.
Her head reeled. Suddenly his interlaced tentacles felt more like a cage than a shelter. She squirmed out of his embrace and wobbled to her feet. “Sorry. I have to get away for a minute. I need to think, catch my breath.” She staggered to the exit, snatching up her clothes, shoes and purse on the way. As she stumbled through the veil, she hardly noticed the chill and the lurch of transition this time. She shut her ears to Wilbur’s keening wail in the background. The minute she slammed the door of the soundproof chamber, the noise cut off.
On the second floor she ducked into the main bathroom to wash up and scramble into her clothes. From there she hurried down to the front door. She hadn’t lied about needing fresh air.
Outside, she inhaled the salty breeze with gratitude. The moon shed a glistening track on the ocean. Underneath the crashing of waves, traffic noises drifted from the distant highway. This is real. After dropping her shoes on the porch, she picked her way barefoot through the sand to the water’s edge. So much for the thrill of exploring alien realms. I didn’t know I was such a coward. Wilbur’s cry of anguish echoed in her mind even though she couldn’t hear it anymore. Now that she had breathing space to reflect, guilt for hurting him gnawed at her. I didn’t mean it that way. I just needed some normalcy. I’m only human. Rationalizations couldn’t blot out the fact that she’d offered the personal contact he yearned for and then effectively betrayed him.
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