by Davina Lee
Arabel, in the meantime, was busy slowly and covertly dragging her finger over the leaf where the tree flower-salt mixture lay, and bringing it up to smear along the tight, moist slit of Lina’s scent glands. Lina began to quiver as the tree flower kicked in hard—harder than she had ever felt.
Lina heard a snort of disgust from the direction of the diploid couple as they turned and walked on. She let out a snort of her own in an attempt to contain her laughter.
“Wow. Slow down with that stuff, Arabel.” Lina faltered, and caught herself with a hand stretched out against the tunnel wall. Her head was spinning.
“That’s all of it, baby.”
“Ungh.” Lina tensed her jaw.
“Here.” Arabel picked up the child’s teething toy and popped it in Lina’s mouth. It was still attached to the beaded string around Arabel’s neck, and it required them to walk arm in arm, pressed close, as they continued down the tunnel. Along the way, Lina bent sideways a couple times, nuzzling Arabel’s neck and sniffing at her scent gland.
“Remember to drink lots of water,” Arabel said, and pulled Lina in closer to transfer the beaded necklace holding the teether to her.
* * * *
The music of the party was felt before it was heard. Deep bass notes and a driving rhythm reverberated through the corridors as Lina and Arabel approached. They were in an older part of the colony that had been abandoned after a rebel bombing some time ago. It looked to be opening onto a massive storage area, still quite structurally sound, but with a large hole blown in its roof. The crowd became thicker as the two women walked forward.
A massive diploid woman was spinning in circles, her wrists adorned with various, neon-colored, glowing bracelets and her long, unruly hair trailing out behind her. Occasionally she would knock into someone, sending them stumbling, but neither party seemed too upset about the encounter.
The spinning woman wore even less than Arabel, with her costume seeming to consist mostly of well-placed pieces of colorful tape. There were purple X’s over her nipples and alternating colors of the spectrum wrapped high on each thigh, combined with a minuscule piece of pink cloth that served to hide her sex from view, but not much else.
Slung low on her hips was a belt from which hung many long strings of multicolored, glowing beads—beads that were sent flying outward in a semi-rigid line by the force of her constant twirling. The rest of her skin was covered in bio-luminescent ink, ancient designs of orange and yellow. The result as she twirled was a brief segment of animated light display, repeating in a loop.
It wasn’t long before the woman’s carefree twirling, and Lina and Arabel’s fascination with it, resulted in the spinning woman careening directly into Lina, and then Arabel.
“Many apologies, my Queen,” she said, while slowing the momentum of her twirl, but never really stopping. “If I may…”
And in an apparent peace offering, the woman pulled a glowing bracelet from her wrist and placed it carefully atop Lina’s head, all while twirling around her twice. And then in a similar, single twirl, another bracelet was laid atop Arabel’s head. The diploid woman paused long enough to bow deeply, and promptly got back to the business of full-speed twirling, eventually disappearing into the crowd.
“That was crazy,” Arabel giggled.
“Very.”
The two women looked at each other for a moment, and then in unison said, “tree flower,” and let loose a peal of laughter that was quickly lost in the crescendo of the music.
As they moved forward into the swell, Lina and Arabel resorted to taps and gestures to communicate, since trying to talk over the music this far in proved useless. Lina pointed up at the gaping, jagged hole in the roof, where bright points of stars could be seen twinkling in the inky distance. Arabel smiled and wrapped herself around Lina’s left arm, nuzzling now and then against Lina with her scent gland.
Arabel pointed out what looked like one of several large, wooden storage crates that had been abandoned in the facility. Lina nodded and looked up. There were several diploids engaged in some kind of group dance on top of the crate. They all wore about as much clothing as the twirling woman. But rather than spinning, they were happily engaged in rubbing together and slowly dragging their tongues over each other’s scent glands while bouncing to the beat.
The smell of the women’s lust was heavy in the air, and Lina found herself involuntarily licking her lips. Lina turned to Arabel, gestured to herself, running her hands up and down her body and her makeshift dinner napkin top, then shrugging as if to say, “too much?”
Arabel turned her palms upward and tilted her head to the side while Lina frowned. Arabel held up a finger.
Lina watched as she reached down to pull the rolled-up leaf from her waistband, the one that she had used to smuggle in the tree flower petals. With a quick swipe of her finger, she flicked Lina’s top off of her left side.
Before Lina could complain, Arabel tore the leaf in half, extended her tongue seductively before coating the leaf with a long slow lick of saliva. She smiled and plastered the leaf over Lina’s left nipple. She stood looking thoughtfully at her handiwork for a moment before pronouncing it good with a quick thumbs-up.
The other half of the leaf ended up plastered over Lina’s right nipple, while the top of her costume was hastily repurposed as a belt hanging loosely over Lina’s hips.
With Arabel’s application of the pieces of leaf, Lina’s nipples quickly began to crinkle and tingle, and her heart felt as if it were beating double-time. She sucked a quick breath around the child’s teething toy still clutched in her teeth and reached to latch onto Arabel’s hand. Her current theory about this was that there was much more of the tree flower-salt mixture sill on the leaf than she had suspected.
Arabel’s mouth was moving, but the only sound was the driving beat of the music. Lina sunk her teeth into the teething toy and laced her fingers in with Arabel’s. Together, the women moved toward the source of the music.
Wading through a sea of diploid bodies—all scantily clad and glistening with perspiration, and each adorned with creative bio-luminescent artwork that danced before Lina’s eyes—Lina felt lost in the crush. She pulled Arabel over to the base of a crate to escape for a moment and catch her breath.
Lina felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped. It was not Arabel. Arabel was currently reaching for a bright orange bio-globe that was being tossed through the air, leaving a trailing orange arc in its wake. A taller diploid stepped out of the way to let Arabel smack the globe back into the air again and Arabel’s mouth hung open with delight.
Lina felt the hand again, tapping this time. She gazed up into the face of the largest diploid woman she had ever seen. Or quite possibly it was a trick of perspective, or the tree flower, since the woman was standing atop the crate and Lina was down below, considerably intoxicated.
The woman knelt and extended her hand to Lina, bio-luminescent designs covering her arm in an eerie, but inviting glow. Lina reached for her. The designs appeared to dance over the rippling muscles of the woman’s arm as Lina was hoisted.
Arabel had become aware of what was going on by then, and reached for Lina as she was being lifted into the air and deposited on top of the crate. Lina looked down. Arabel managed to secure the grip of another hand. It belonged to a diploid woman, equally covered in glowing designs, the dancing companion of the woman who was now busy helping Lina maintain her balance.
Lina and Arabel looked into each other’s eyes, on top of the crate, safely tucked away now in the center of an undulating circle made up of five towering diploid women. Lina could feel the heat and smell the mating scent of the circle surrounding her. She let her eyes wander over the full, gyrating hips and heavy, jiggling breasts. She looked down at her own slim little body and sighed.
Arabel, in the meantime, was quickly losing herself in the dance. Her arms raised above her head and swaying with the driving beat, she rubbed against Lina, and then against one of the diploid women, and then back to Lina. Dancing,
spinning almost like the woman with the beads and bracelets, flowing with the music.
Lina paused for a moment to take in the sight of her Arabel—the lithe woman’s bio-luminescent designs glowing and filling the shadows cast by the circle of diploid women towering above, the pulsing lights from bio-globes being tossed skyward highlighting her hair, and the twinkling pinpoints of stars overhead. Lina shuddered, flushing with an overwhelming feeling of joy and rightness about everything around her.
Arabel was backing into her, rubbing her barely covered buttocks up and down Lina’s thigh as she continued moving with the rhythm. Lina could feel the moisture of Arabel’s sex leaving a trail. She ran her hands over any and all parts of Arabel that she could reach—from just above her knees, up her thighs with fingers snagging on the caution tape, to over her tummy and breasts, to finally reach Arabel’s own fingertips.
Lina laced her fingers in with Arabel’s as Arabel continued her sliding motion, adding to the wetness on Lina’s thigh. Lina pulled Arabel’s right hand down, with fingers still laced together, and deposited Arabel’s fingers in her mouth. The couple writhed together for a while, with Arabel sucking and swirling her tongue around Lina’s fingers as the writhing diploid bodies danced around her.
Lina pulled Arabel’s hand free and guided it lower down between her own thighs. Arabel rested her head back on Lina’s shoulder and with Lina’s hand guiding, entered her lover’s sex. Lina let loose a spray of pheromones and pressed hard against Arabel’s hand.
Two of the towering diploid women above were engaged in a passionate exploration of each other’s mouths—their tongues flicking over and around the other’s lips, while their hands encircled each other’s waists. A third diploid woman leaned in, and soon the trio was trading kisses and caresses while rubbing against each other.
Lina was overcome by a long, involuntary shudder. The scent of lust was beginning to overwhelm the small space Lina and Arabel occupied in the center of the circle, and together with the tree flower and Arabel’s attentions, she was quickly losing her battle to not have an orgasm in a public space.
Lina lost that battle. She felt Arabel lose hers a moment later as her thigh was doused with a sticky coating of Arabel’s lust. Lina struggled to stay upright.
One of the other diploids, still dancing, but not currently engaged in any passionate embrace, looked at Lina and motioned upward. In a haze, Lina nodded, and was gripped firmly by the hips and lifted to rest, against the diploid’s chest. There she was enveloped the softness of the large woman’s breasts, and breathing more freely.
Lina could see everything from her new vantage point—the sea of bodies, writhing to the music, the stars, the bio-globes being tossed merrily from one group to another, and most of all, the other groups like hers. There were clusters of diploids and haploids together, dancing in unison to the driving beat. She even saw the woman who had given them two of her glowing bracelets to wear as crowns. She was still twirling without a care.
Soon Arabel was hoisted up to join Lina, and used the opportunity to immediately lean forward to run her tongue over Lina’s scent gland. Their diploid hosts were engaged in a similar activity, and Lina and Arabel were pressed together with them. Arabel sunk her tongue into Lina’s mouth. She smelled heavily of mating pheromones—the entire group reeked of it.
Arabel opened her mouth to say something that Lina tried, but failed to hear over the music. Lina just nodded and smiled, and let the warm tree flower-enhanced post-orgasmic sensations of love wash over her. Never in her life had she felt so much love. It wasn’t just the tree flower, or the pheromones, she decided. It was genuine compassion. For the rest of the night, Lina basked in that love, and the closeness of Arabel and their new friends, as they danced until the wee hours.
“Thank you,” Lina mouthed as the diploid woman who held her lowered her back to the top of the crate again and then helped her climb back down. Arabel soon followed. The diploid women all bowed deeply before waving a cheerful goodbye.
The crowd was thinning, and the tree flower had all but worn off, at a time that Lina guessed was almost sun-up. Lina felt the fatigue beginning to set in. Arabel felt it too, Lina could see it in her eyes, and the way that her normally proud shoulders were hunched forward just a bit.
“Home?” Lina said. She was not heard over the music that was still pounding, but Arabel understood and reached to take Lina’s hand. Together they wandered out of the converted storage area into the tunnels that would take them to the main commerce area of the colony. Lina’s ears were ringing.
“I’m glad I don’t have to work tomorrow.” Lina paused to think. “Today. Whatever.”
“Huh?” said Arabel.
“I said…Oh, never mind.”
As they traveled farther on, and up into the more well-traveled areas of the colony, they were far enough away from the music, and able to speak and be heard. But by that time, Lina was content just holding Arabel’s hand as they walked along.
“Hello, Lina, dear,” came an older woman’s voice from behind.
Lina detected a faint scent of love on the air, transmitted along with the greeting. She whirled around, and almost lost her balance, if not for Arabel’s grip on her hand to keep her grounded. “Mentor?” Lina said, regarding the older, slightly hunched, diploid woman.
“Are you just getting home, Lina?” Lina’s mentor asked.
“Um, no…Actually, we’re just having our morning constitutional. Mentor, this is Arabel. Arabel, my childhood mentor.”
“Charmed.” The diploid woman began to scent randomly, first joy, then calm, then a brief release of alarm, followed by more joy and calm.
Lina feared that the random scenting was the first sign of dementia. Lina didn’t see her mentor that often now that she was grown up, but she hated to see the evidence of her senility making itself more prominent. “Mentor, are you alright?”
“Yes, dear. Just out getting my morning exercise. How else can one expect to live to be my age, eh? Certainly not by staying out all night partying. Morning stroll indeed, dressed as you are.”
Lina detected a bit of the alpha pheromone with that last statement. “Perhaps I should come by sometime,” she said. “Just to see how you’re getting on.”
“You think I’m getting old and senile, don’t you?”
Lina dropped her gaze, as her cheeks flushed.
“Actually, I was thinking I haven’t taken the old cloud skimmer out in a while. Perhaps you and your friend would like to go sailing this afternoon.”
Lina’s face twisted into a grimace momentarily, while Arabel smirked, but there was no mistaking the scent of joy and hope filling the air as the old mentor awaited an answer.
“Oh, I’d love to,” Arabel said, “but I’m afraid I’ve already committed myself. I volunteered to serve meals in the old drones’ home. But I know you and Lina will have a wonderful time catching up.”
Lina moved closer to Arabel and casually dug her elbow into her still smirking lover’s side.
“Meet me at the docks at midday, Lina,” the older woman said. “I’m sorry you can’t make it Arabel, darling. I’m sure the drones appreciate you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” Arabel bit her lip and looked away.
Once her mentor was out of sight, Lina grabbed Arabel by the earlobe and dragged her over to the side of the tunnel pathway. “Thanks a lot.”
“What?” begged Arabel.
“You know what,” Lina said. “She’s obviously suffering from the early stages of something. Scenting all the time like that. In public. It’s embarrassing.”
“She’s your mentor, Lina. She raised you.”
“I suppose.” Lina hung her head as Arabel tugged her back onto the main path. “And since when do you volunteer at the old drones’ home?”
Arabel smirked. “I don’t.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
Lina rested her head on Arabel’s shoulder as they walked along. �
�Yeah, I do.”
The ground under Lina’s feet shook violently, and the sound of another rumbling explosion began reverberating through the tunnels of the colony. A pair of diploid soldiers came sprinting toward them and Lina and Arabel pressed themselves up against the tunnel wall just in time to let them pass.
“Let’s go,” Lina urged. “I don’t want to get caught up in whatever is going down here.”
Arabel nodded and the two picked up their pace.
* * * *
Feeling safe once again within the confines of Arabel’s apartment, Lina peeled off her skimpy rave costume and stretched out on Arabel’s couch. She patted the space in front of her. “Come on,” she said.
Arabel was in the kitchen, pawing around on the counter top, pulling pots of herbs and leaves this way and that.
“Baby, we can eat later. I’m tired.”
“I’m not hungry,” hissed Arabel. “Something’s missing, can’t you smell it?”
Lina flared her nostrils for a moment, and then shrugged.
“Somebody’s been here,” Arabel said, still digging around on the kitchen counter. “The tree flower’s gone.”
“Maybe we should stay at my place,” Lina suggested, peeling herself off the couch.
Chapter 3: Cloud Sailing
In the East, there lived an old queen who had long recognized the folly of men and the dangers of the path on which they walked. The old queen, in her wisdom, had bid her people to set aside some of the bounty which was given them by the Great Tree. She directed her most skilled crafts-workers to use it so that swift ships of silver sail could be built that would ride upon the clouds. Inside each ship was to be laid a sleeping young queen, and in her hands was to be placed a seedling from the Great Tree—gifts for her to start life anew in her own land.
—Selected passages from The Book of the Origin by Bella Aurelius Nobilis, Modern Language Translation
* * * *
“I heard you almost got blown up at work the other day,” Lina’s mentor said, as she tugged at the bow of the long, narrow cloud skimmer, coaxing it out of its storage locker and into the sun, to warm on the flat stone beside the pier.