I sat up in bed to watch her. She moved to open the gla.s.s doors that led out to the balcony. The cool and dry night breezes smelled fragrantly green. The scent of the sweet jungle canopy rose up to meet us as we drifted silently through the sky.
There was a faint glow in the air around us, the reflection of the running lights of the airship; it was a golden presence in the night. We floated in the s.p.a.ce between the dark jungle and the luminous clouds. From the distant horizon, a full moon slanted its amber rays through the window, enveloping everything in a silken aura.
"I wish we could sail away forever," she said. "Just keep on going out beyond the edge of the world and into the endless sky. Forever-" She gazed out into the night, looking into her most private visions. At last, she turned to me again. She shook her hair back out of her eyes, a quick feminine motion of her head; she brushed her hair back with her hand. Her wrist was so delicate, her manners so graceful, she was inhumanly beautiful.
"Y"know something?" she said abruptly.
"What?"
"You"re cute." Her smile twinkled.
I didn"t know what to say in response to that. There was a catch in back of my throat. So I just swallowed and gulped instead, and let the waves of embarra.s.sment and happiness sweep over me. She came toward me like a delicious vision, like the G.o.ddess of wet dreams. Her eyes were shining. The look on her face was an exquisite mixture of innocence, happiness, and clean, wholesome, good, old-fashioned l.u.s.t. I knew exactly what she reminded me "You"re the blue fairy, aren"t you?" I whispered.
"I am, if you want me to be," she replied huskily.
"I cannot tell a lie," I said slowly. "It is not my nose that"s growing."
General Elizabeth Tirelli, the most beautiful woman I had ever known or loved or worshiped, pulled back the light summer blankets, revealing my nakedness and the full measure of my attraction to her.
"Mm," she said admiringly. "That is definitely a ten."
"Well, no. Actually," I admitted, "it"s only a seven. But it moves like a ten."
She laughed as she climbed into bed next to me. "Why don"t you let me be the judge of that?"
"Oh? I"m being rated?" I turned on my side, up on one elbow, so I could watch her.
She stretched out luxuriously, smoothing her nightgown around her in slow graceful movements. "Graded," she corrected. "This is your final."
"I see," I said. "It better not be final. This is only the beginning." I crawled down to her feet and lifted up her nightgown and appraised the view. From any angle, she was irresistible. "What have we here?" The gown was roomy enough for two. I began crawling playfully up into it. One thing led to another and- "Mmm, do that some more. I guarantee you"ll get a pa.s.sing mark."
"Uh-uh. I have no intention of pa.s.sing anything. And I"m not going to leave any marks. At least not where they"ll show-"
"Mmmm, " she repeated. "I expect your complete attention to every detail... all the way up."
"I"m already up. h.e.l.lo there." I popped my head out through the wide neck of the nightgown and kissed her on the nose and on the lips and on the chin. "It is roomy in here, isn"t it?"
"I specifically chose it because it had room for a friend-"
"I"m friendly," I volunteered.
She moved around a bit to adjust the aim of my volunteer. "That"s a lot more than friendliness," she acknowledged. "That"s enthusiasm."
"I have a lot to be enthusiastic about-"
"Mm, you have a lot to be enthusiastic with-"
We fitted ourselves together and got comfortable in each other"s arms, and she smoothed the nightgown around us both, and then neither of us said anything coherent for a while. The bed rocked enthusiastically, and there was a lot of rapturous giggling and just pure silly wonder going on inside that nightie.
Later... while we drifted through the land of afterward, the nightgown still around us both like a sensuous amniotic veil, I began stroking her hair, brushing it away from her eyes and neck, so I could trace the line of her neck, the delicacy of her throat, all the way down to the curve-of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. We lay in each other"s arms in a loose embrace, both of us amazingly relaxed at the same time. We took turns sighing in grat.i.tude and bliss. Her cheeks were wet with joy.
She touched my nose with her forefinger. "Did you remember to say hi to G.o.d?"
she asked softly and impishly.
"Yeah-on the way back."
"Me too. I thanked her. For letting me have this time with you. For giving me this gift. I never thought I"d ever be this happy again."
"I never thought I"d be this happy-ever." I closed my eyes and buried my face in her neck, her hair, reveling in the delicious smell of her.
Abruptly, she grabbed me and rolled me over on my back. She started crawling down out of the nightgown.
"What"re you doing?"
"I gotta pee. Save my place?" Before I could answer, she said, "Never mind, I"ll mark my place. Where do you want this hickey? Never mind, I"ll put it hermpf."
"That"s not a hickey..."
She paused just long enough to say, "I don"t care," then resumed her attentions. I squirmed in ecstasy. Abruptly, she stopped. "There-now you have something to remember me by." She crawled out the bottom of the nightgown with an evil grin on her face.
"Huh? What"d you say? I think I must have pa.s.sed out from lack of blood to my brain."
She laughed as she padded into the bathroom. In the soft moonlight, she looked like a wraith. She had the longest legs. She was tall and athletic; taller than me and almost as hard-bodied. She was s.e.xy that way.
I liked the feeling of being in bed with someone who wasn"t afraid or ashamed to f.u.c.k back. I liked her aggressiveness and her enthusiasm and the private double entendres she shared only with me. Being in bed with Lizard was the one place where I could let go and let someone else be in control and not be in danger by doing so. The realization of how much I loved her swept over me in a series of waves. Lizard Tirelli was the only human being on earth I truly trusted. Maybe that was why we had so much fun together.
Sometimes it wasn"t s.e.x, it was a wrestling match instead. She liked being strong, and I liked her that way-enveloping and powerful, submerging me in her physical superiority. And sometimes it was the other way around-sometimes I was the superman surfer riding a great pink wave of female ocean, bucking and sliding on the roller coaster of incredible s.e.x, forceful and strong and driving forward through liquid ecstasy like a roaring dragon, until the world burst around us both. And sometimes, it was just... gentle. Silent and wordless... just a quiet s.p.a.ce between our eyes, with nothing spoken because there was nothing that needed to be voiced.
When I looked into her eyes, the world disappeared. The man/woman thing disappeared. s.e.x disappeared. And all the stupid roles that we had to play. All that existed anywhere, everywhere, was both halves of ourself.
When Lizard came back to bed, she didn"t bother climbing back into the nightgown with me. Instead, she just slipped under the covers, slid over next to me, wrapped her long lean limbs around my body, and began purring.
"Do you want your nightie back?"
"No. I"m comfortable this way. Are you?"
I felt too good to move. I didn"t want to disengage. "I"m fine," I said.
She stroked me gently for a while; her hand strayed up and down along my hip, my back, my side. "You feel good."
"So do you."
"Your skin feels like silk," she giggled.
"I thought I was supposed to say that," I protested.
"Whoever is being the boy gets to say it."
"Oh, is that it?" I answered. That made me think of something. "Hey, I have a question for you-" My tone was serious enough to stop the southward drift of her fingers. I intertwined my fingers with hers and brought her hand up to my face and kissed her fingertips.
"What?" she asked.
"What"s the difference between kinky and sensuous?"
"That"s easy," she replied. "A feather is sensuous. The whole chicken is kinky."
"Yes, but how do you know when you"ve crossed the line?"
She considered the question for a moment. She glanced away from me as if looking to a cue card. Apparently, it was blank.
She came back to me and said, "I don"t know. I don"t think you even know there"s a dividing line until after you"ve crossed it." And then she added, "I don"t care. I like being kinky with you."
"Are we being kinky?" I asked.
"I think so, yes," she said. "I think we"ve emptied the whole henhouse. Is that all right with you?"
The answer was obvious between us. But I voiced it anyway. "I can"t imagine ever saying no to you. Whatever you want, sweetheart, before you ask, the answer is yes. I like being kinky with you too."
"Mmmm," she said, a wordless purr of approval. She melted back into my arms.
"Good. Let"s be kinky some more."
Eventually, we wore each other out and fell asleep-and then the morning sun was blue and crisp, turning the room unbearably bright.
Lizard came out of the bathroom, naked and toweling her hair. "Good morning, sleepyhead."
I yawned and looked around for my watch. "What time is it?"
"Don"t worry-Shaun canceled all our meetings until afternoon."
"Why didn"t you wake me?" I asked. I sat up in bed, automatically putting a hand over my chest as if to keep her from seeing me still in my/her nightie. Then I realized what I"d done and dropped my hand embarra.s.sedly.
She laughed. "You looked so pretty sleeping there, I didn"t want to disturb you."
She came over to the bed and kissed me, just a quick brush of the lips. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to me.
"I have an idea," I said. "If you"ll promise not to talk with your mouth full, I"ll show you how far I can stick out my tongue." When she stopped laughing, she grabbed me and kissed me, and this time she did it right. She held on to me as hard as she could and kissed me until the last drop of blood drained out of my brain. She let the towel fall to the floor, forgotten, as she climbed in bed next to me and we wrapped ourselves around each other. For a while, we just let our fingers do the talking.
"Do we have time for this?"
"Shut up and kiss me."
I surrendered to a superior force. Well, a superior idea, anyway. After a much longer while, we stopped to catch our breaths. "I can answer your question now,"
she said.
"What question?"
"Do you remember once you asked me why I loved you?"
"I was very insecure about you. About us."
"Don"t be," she said, rolling over on top of me and pinning me happily beneath her. "Because now I finally know the answer. The real answer. Are you ready? I"m going to tell you the real reason why I love you so much, my sweet little boy in mama"s silk nightie. Partly because I like the way you blush-but mostly because you"re the best playmate I ever had."
I looked up at her, astonished. "Do you mean that?"
"Yes, I mean that," She punctuated it with a kiss. "You"re not afraid, you"re not ashamed. You"re willing to play just as hard as me." She smiled shyly. "Sometimes I get all kinds of silly, kinky ideas-they don"t mean anything, and I want to do them anyway. You"re the only man I"ve ever known who was willing to keep up with me.
You"re fun, Jim, because you don"t worry about looking foolish. So it"s all right for me to be foolish with you. And besides, you look better in my nightie than I do."
"No, I don"t," I protested. "You make it stick out in two nice places. I only make it stick out in one."
"It"s all a matter of taste," she said, and for some reason that struck us both so funny that we started laughing and couldn"t stop. We laughed so hard we nearly choked. The paroxysms of hilarity swept us helplessly away. And every time either one of us started to catch our breath, the laughter of the other one sent us both off again. She lay on top of me, holding on for dear life as wave after wave of hysterical spasms rolled over us both. We chuckled and giggled and guffawed and hiccuped and choked and exhausted ourselves silly.
And when we finally came down again, too spent even to catch our breaths, I grinned foolishly up at her and admitted it. "Wanna know something? I like getting into your nightie-" I meant it in both senses.
"I like you getting into my nightie too."
She let her fingers go exploring then, down and up again, inside, until she found the single part of me that had the smoothest skin. She traced the length of it gently.
Her fingertips were like velvet.
"You keep that up," I moaned, "and I"m coming out of your nightie."
"You keep that up," she said meaningfully, "and I"m coming in after you."
"Do it!" I said. "I dare you!"
So she did, and I did, and we did. Twice.
Later, Lizard ordered breakfast in bed. Shaun delivered it. We had fresh eggs, scrambled in b.u.t.ter! And orange juice! And real coffee! Compliments of the captain.
Shaun was a perfect gentleman. He served the meal with gracious style and didn"t react at all to my attire. Probably he"d already seen a lot more than I could imagine. I was too polite to ask.
He did point out, though, that I had it on backward. He glanced at my neckline and said, "It fits better if you wear it with the label in back. Call me if you need anything else."
Lizard managed to hold back her laughter until after the door slid closed. Then she nearly spewed her coffee all over the blanket. "Oh, my dear-" she choked. "Are you going to have a reputation."
"Jealousy," I sniffed. "It"s just jealousy. Say, do you think I could get this in pink?"
"Hot Seat," April 3rd broadcast: (cont"d) ROBISON:... All right; Dr. Foreman. Let"s get back to this Core Group of yours.
The Chtorran infestation is the perfect cover for your operation. You have a secret plan, don"t you?
FOREMAN: If I told you, it wouldn"t be a secret, would it?
ROBISON: Aha!