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Blue

By: Latin_Sun



It was another hot summer day. The August sun was shining high in a cloudless blue sky. They sat together at The Blue Note Café overlooking the ocean. She wore a light blue dress. Her blonde curly hair was hanging loosely down to her tanned shoulders. His mind was busy listening to her while planning his new conquest.

'We simply cannot live without sex. It's a basic need!' she argued.

'Don't be silly, of course we can. We cannot reproduce maybe, but we can survive.'

'Not without going crazy and forfeiting all other survival instincts,' she countered.

'Sex is a want, not a need.'

'It's definitely a need.'

'I could go on forever without sex and living a long and happy life.'

At that she narrowed her eyes. 'Sure,' she said ironically, 'you'd fall to temptation anytime. I haven't seen you without having sex with some random chick for more than two days in a row.'

'I could resist them if I wanted to,' he answered defensively.

'Just like you resisted the other women you cheated your girlfriends with?'

'I was just having fun - that's all.'

She gave a mocking laugh. 'Bullshit.'

'You know I'm right - I can prove it anytime.'

'How?'

'I don't know... I could decide to have no sex for one whole week, just because I choose to.' 

'One week?,' she asked with a smile, while looking at him incredulously. 'I can break you in less than a day.'

He chuckled. 'You're awfully sure of yourself.' He lustfully gazed at her blue eyes, her glossy lips, her neckline... and couldn't resist a fleeting look at her décolletage. 'I accept the challenge,' he said, as he narrowed his eyes at her. 'What do you want me to do?'

She kept silent for a while before answering. She enjoyed watching him get excited and relished the way he was looking at her. 'You'll come to my beach house and be my slave for twenty-four hours. You'll do everything as I say.'

His eyes suddenly widened, but he smiled, trying to keep his cool. 'So you'll tease the shit out of me, right? What if I resist you?'

'Then I'll humbly accept being wrong about you and mankind and... you'll get to do with me what you want, as long as you want.'

His lips put on a smirk. 'And if I loose?'

'Then I'll do with you whatever I want... as long as I want,' she said and licked her lips, while looking at him in the eye. Letting the sandal fall to the floor, she then gently rubbed her foot between his legs.

He tried to smile approvingly, though his breathing deepened as he noticed his penis slowly growing firm. 'I look forward to playing with you once you are done... So, deal.'

Her foot slipped back into her sandal. She looked at him knowingly and kept silent while slurping her Blue Curaçao cocktail drink.

At noon the next day, the temperatures seemed to have risen considerably, as he was sweating profusely while waiting for her in front of the same café. She arrived in her Beetle, recently painted in Egyptian blue, to pick him up. The beach-house was a few miles away from town. To reach it, she had to drive through the streets along the picturesque little houses that were huddled together, and finally through a little forest before closing on the beach. She kept silent while driving, which made him feel somewhat uncomfortable, as he was already nervous anticipating the next moments upon arrival at her place. 

'So I see you like the color blue... blue car with blue seats, blue bikini, blue sandals...' he said in an attempt to appear casual. 

'Yes,' she curtly replied. A little smile was drawn across her face. He admired the contrast between the blizzard blue bikini and her tanned skin of her thighs, the way her breasts were held tight by her top, even though the still bobbed a little along the way. Discreetly, he also took a glance at the light "cameltoe" on her bikini. His excitement and nervousness grew.

He also noticed a marine blue collar round her neck. 'Why are you wearing that? Are you a dog or something?' he asked jokingly. 

However, she didn't reply, leaving him feeling ill at ease.

'So... what are you planning, ey?'

'You'll see.'

As the car doors opened, the sound and smell of the sea waves crashing felt more intensive. The house walls were white washed, but displayed a cerulean blue rooftop and big cobalt wooden window frames and door. As she walked ahead of him to open the entrance door, he enjoyed watching her firm legs as they moved towards the entrance.

'So this is it,' she casually said, as she moved in, heading for the kitchen. She turned her head to look back at him. 'Want something to drink? You'll need it,' she said with a wink.

'Umm... sure,' he said, as he followed her through the door to the left of the entrance, leading to the kitchen. A brief glance revealed a celestial blue cupboard, from where she had taken two glasses to fill them with water out of a glass cyan water jug sitting on the blue kitchen table. As she got on her toes to reach for it, he glanced at her ass, which seemed to vibrate a little with every move. He grew more excited with anticipation. 

Sipping his water, he then took a curious glimpse around the house. Directly connecting to the entrance and the kitchen, he found the living room. A big round azure carpet covered almost the entirety of the floor in the room. Its wall connecting to the kitchen and facing the window was decorated with a big oil painting of two lovers kissing naked in the rain, all painted in different shades of blue. In a corner next to a window, his eye caught on a Yale blue round table, on which was standing a transparent, turquoise blue vase with blue lilacs. Next to the vase he found an old gramophone, painted in ultramarine blue. A stack of old records were also visible on a sapphire blue shelf on the wall next to the phthalo blue bedroom door, directly facing the entrance to the living room.

'To the bedroom please,' she gently commanded. Her face seemed a little flushed and her eyes were betraying a desire he hadn't seen before. Like a tide, he felt his arousal rise anew.

'Take off your clothes and put your hands behind your back,' she commanded, as she opened a catalina blue drawer and retrieved a pair of brandeis blue handcuffs. She sat on the bright cerulean bed with her legs crossed. 'Let's see what you got.'

He made a silly dance while stripping, but she seemed not to pay much attention to it. Instead, she had a very intense look on her face, as if studying him meticulously. He placed his hands on his hips and smiled proudly. 

'Nice, ey?'

Ignoring his comments, she continued playing her new authoritarian role. 'Now turn around and put your hands behind your back,' she ordered, while speaking more slowly this time.

He sighed, but complied. The cuffs made a snap as she secured them around his wrists.

'The handcuffs are real by the way. There's no way you can get out without me unlocking them for you.' His pulse quickened in response, but before he could say anything, his legs were fastened to a dark blue spreader bar. 'Very good...,' she mumbled. 

'Oh, forgot something...' she said, as she briskly walked out of the room. 

A few moments of silence past away. Then he suddenly heard a record playing, probably by the old cobalt blue gramophone he had noticed earlier. The music was soft. Seemed old. The tide of his arousal rose once more as he understood some words of the song...

'...'Cause I'm a mighty tight woman I'm a real tight woman, I'm a jack of all trades...' (1)

Soon after she came back, carrying a dark imperial blue spreader-bar in her left hand. With her thumb and index finger of the right hand, she was dangling a moonstone blue ball-gag. 

'This is because you talk too much,' she said with a cheeky smile while sticking the tip of her tongue between her teeth. He was about to protest when she interrupted him. 'Open up!' she ordered him and pushed the rubber ball into his mouth. 'That's a good boy...,' she said with low, but melodious voice as she fastened the straps of his gag behind his head.

She then got down on her knees, fastened the cuffs of the spreader-bar on his legs. 'There,' she said. 'Now try to walk a few steps forward.' She chuckled as she saw him walk like a penguin. 'Okay, stop right there, slave!' she commanded between giggles. 

Then she slowly paced in circles around him. With the nail of her index finger, she lightly traced down his back. He trembled lightly with rising excitement. 'Nice... I'm reeeeally going to enjoy this game...,' she said, with a twinkle of delight in her eyes. She moved closer to his back. Pursing her lips, she lightly kissed his neck, making his hair prickle. Her lips then moved to the side of his neck with another kiss. As she lightly nibbled his left earlobe, her hand was fondling his buttocks, spreading the cheeks and letting her index finger lightly dance on his rosebud.

'You like that?,' she said with a smile. 'Mhm...,' he answered. She noticed that his muffled voice had an edge as his trembling grew more noticeable. 'I thought so...' 

She walked around again to face him. 'I always wanted to tell you how beautiful you are, Charlie,' she said as she looked at him in the eye and gently stroke his hair with her right hand. Then she moved closer and gave him another kiss on his throat. As she kissed him a second time, she let her tongue lick his skin. Every kiss was then followed by a light sucking, which turned more intense and aggressive. She let a slight moan as she noticed that his cock was dripping pre-cum.

She then slowly went down on her knees, while taking her time to kiss and nibble his chest, then his nipples, his stomach. While paying close attention to light shivers of excitement in his body, she then played her tongue on his navel like a butterfly before moving down to his crotch. With delight, she watched his erect and penis dripping pre-cum.

'I guess you'd like me to suck on it, wouldn't you?', she asked, as she opened her mouth and let his wet glans rest on her tongue and lower lip while keeping her baby blue eyes gazing at him. He moaned with pleasure and breathed deepened as it grew more erratic. Suddenly, she retracted her head, letting his cock dangle and stood up.

'Too bad were running a bet,' she said, as she pushed him, making him fall on the mattress. She jumped on him and straddled his hips with her legs. She let out a deep sigh and took off her blue top, letting two firm breasts flop happily. She grabbed them and squeezed her nipples. 

'I must admit, I'm already horny,' she said, as she stood up and let her bikini slide down her legs. 

'Oh my God, I'm really wet,' she said and laughed in surprise as she touched her pussy. 

She knelt down to him and placed her pussy directly above his face, thus invading his nostrils with a musky smell. She scooped some ejaculate on her index finger and spread it on his lips. 'See? Nice n' wet,' she said with a big smile. 

Looking down into his eyes, she gently rubbed her clit, seeing his face flush. She grew more excited as rubbed her clit harder. She then inserted her middle and ring finger inside her vagina. Her fingering became more aggressive until she reached her orgasm with a loud cry. Drops of sweat were already trickling down her face and body.

'This feels so good... should do that more often...,' she said, as she lay down on her back, on top of her slave. 

She fondled his balls lying behind her head. 'Gotta do something about these...,' she said softly, then rolled over to the side of the bed and reached out for something underneath. A medium-thick rope covered in electric blue color silk appeared in her hand. Eagerly, she tied the rope around her slave's balls. 

She smiled with satisfaction a she watched their color darken. 'I like the color blue on your balls... kinda turns me on even more. So much that I wanna have some good fucking,' she said and gave them a long lick with her tongue.

She got up again and walked over to a majorelle blue dresser, from where she grabbed a dodger blue strap-on and some lube. She walked over the slave and fastened the straps around him. Its dildo was placed just above the base of his cock. The lube dripped down on her palm as she squeezed the celeste-colored bottle. With a gentle, up-and-down stroking motion, she lubricated the dildo. 

'Take a good look slave... I could be doing this to your cock right now,' she said with an evil smile on her face. Then she mounted him and inserted the dildo into her pussy. She rode the dildo slowly at first and then harder, pounding on her slave's body. She lowered her head to his throat and continued to kiss and suck it more violently. 

'Blue kisses,' she noted, giggling between sighs, as she continued pounding on him more and more aggressively, as her breathing grew heavier and her moaning louder.

Suddenly, she stopped as he began to whine while looking at her pleadingly. 'Is there something you wish to say, slave?' she asked while looking at him with puppy-dog eyes. 

He nodded hastily. 'Okay then,' she said as she unbuckled the straps holding his gag. 'Then speak.'

'Please, Sherry, I can't stand it any longer. Please fuck me. I'm going nuts here.'

'So you give up?' Sherry asked delighted.

'Yes-yes, I give up. Please fuck me.'

'We agreed on that I can do anything to you if you break.'

'Yes but--'

'Shut up!' she said, while giving a painful slap on his already purple-blue balls. He cried out in pain when she forced the ball-gag back into his mouth and fastened its straps once again. 

'I'm going to do whatever I want with you, just as we agreed,' she whispered into his ear. 'And what I want right now, is some real cock to please me.'

At that moment, a tanned and muscular man with a blue tanga suddenly appeared at the door to the bedroom. 'There you are,' he said. 

'Just in time, dear master,' she said with a big smile. 

'So this is what you wanted. Are you happy now, slave?'

'Veeeery happy, master,' she answered with a grin. 

'Excellent... Now, suck my cock like a nice girl,' he commanded. 

Over his head, the slave watched helplessly as she pulled her master's tanga down and began licking the head of his dick before plunging it deep into her throat. 

She let go with a gasp. A long drop of saliva and pre-cum still hung between her lips and his cock. 'Oh please fuck my pussy, master!' she begged her lover and, without a word, he prepared himself to take her from behind. Charlie's face was flushed red, his body covered in sweat.

She gave her slave Charlie a wet kiss on his cheek and brought her mouth close to his ear once again. 'Now I can punish you for cheating on all your girlfriends, you piece of shit. That will be my treat for winning the bet,' she whispered, her voice almost sounding like a purr. 

Her breathing became heavier, turning into an ever-louder moan, as her master's cock thrust inside of her again and again... Meanwhile, the old Blue's song continued to play: 

'...I hear ev'rybody saying That I'm tight in ev'rything that I do I've got all the men cryin'...'

*

(1) Lyrics from the song "I'm a Mighty Tight Woman" by Sippie Wallace (1929) 

Blue



The sky was clear and blue, not even a wisp of cirrus to be seen as the golden sun shone down on fields of crisp, white snow. Towering mountains reared all around, patches of trees on the lower slopes, snow and rock further up, a majestic scene of beauty almost entirely untouched by human hand.

Almost, but not quite. A group of five people stood on a broad ledge on a mountainside, the only sentient life for over a thousand miles around. Behind them stood the shuttlecraft James Cook, nestled calmly amidst the snowbanks. Around them, all was still, not even an alien bird wheeling in the sky.

Max Dorner, Lieutenant, j.g. in the Starfleet Sciences Division, breathed out into the chill air, his breath forming a cloud of white mist that rapidly dissipated. The air was fresh, and clean, as much so, if not more, than the skies of 24th century Earth, now that technology had conquered pollution. There was a slight alien tang to it, probably from the local plant life, such as it was at this time of year, a reminder that they were not on Earth at all, but a colony world many light years away. A colony world, moreover, where all the settlements were at the far end of the continent, close to the equator.

He was, like all the others, wearing Starfleet cold weather clothing, the sort that got issued when the planet wasn't frozen enough to require proper survival suits. Instead of those, internally heated, all-over suits and face masks, these consisted of a heavy parka trimmed with synthetic fur, thick trousers, gloves, and snow boots. The parka was in bright division colours with white trim, making people easier to spot against the snow - a useful feature if anyone became lost.

Like most of the others with him, Max's parka was, of course, a deep shade of azure blue. He had to admit, though, that the others did not seem quite so comfortable wearing these bulky uniforms as he did, and three of them obviously weren't too keen on the fresh, icy cold of the air on their faces.

The only other human in the little group was Matsu Genji, the medical officer, who stood to one side, formal and stiff, apparently having seen all he wanted of the scenery when he had stepped off the shuttlecraft. On many ships in Starfleet, an away team where the humans were outnumbered would have been unusual, although hardly unheard of. But, on the USS Endeavour, any other possibility would have been remarkable.

The Endeavour was one of the premier science research vessels in Starfleet, and it was crewed with some of the brightest scientific minds that that organisation had to offer. They came from many worlds across the Federation, since Earth and its colonies hardly had a monopoly on scientific acumen. As a result, on the Endeavour, humans were in a minority.

As the leader of this little expedition amply demonstrated. Max, Matsu, and Edrilli were all facing her as she stood in front of the shuttlecraft, briefing them on the task ahead. It wasn't as if they didn't already know all that she had to say, and Matsu seemed to be the only one really listening to the speech. Edrilli, for instance, the younger of the two xenobiologists, seemed chiefly to be worrying about the cold.

The young Bolian ensign was standing slightly hunched, her gloved hands tucked up under her armpits, the hood on her parka pushed forward so far that little more than her eyes were visible behind the ring of fur. She was, from what Max could see, trying not to fidget, eager to get the briefing over with.

Sh'ree, of course, was the exact opposite. Her parka was part undone, the blue of her uniform visible beneath it, the hood pushed back to let her pure white hair fall free. As so often, Max found his eyes drawn to her antennae, gently twitching, a code he had yet to interpret. He forced his attention back to what she was saying, trying to ignore the way that the colour of her clothing so complemented that of her skin.

"The Endeavour is scheduled to return in ten days," she said, "until then, we have the planet, or at least this half of it, to ourselves. The planet is beginning to enter a warm period, part of a long-term climate change which I am sure Lieutenant Dorner can explain in greater detail," she looked towards him, and he fancied he saw a brief smile flash across her blue lips, but it was gone in a second. "Our task is to evaluate the effects on the local wildlife, especially the avian forms, which automated instruments indicate have become unusually scarce of late."

"Ten days of bird-watching, in other words? On an ice-world. Great."

Sh'ree looked round in irritation at the final member of the away team. Lugmilla was leaning casually against the side of the shuttlecraft, her arms crossed over her short but stocky frame. The shuttlecraft's pilot, she was the only one not dressed in blue, the burgundy parka a marked contrast with everyone else's. She was also, technically, the most senior person here, even if Sh'ree was in charge of the scientific operation that was their only reason for visiting the planet.

"It's not an ice-world," pointed out Sh'ree, "there are jungles at the equator. Inhabited planets generally don't have just the one terrain type, you know. In fact, overall, this planet is about the same temperature as Tellar."

"And you still manage to send us to the edge of the tundra. Or the Captain does," she added, forestalling the obvious objection. "Same thing."

"There is a research base just over the ridge there," replied the Andorian, "we all saw it on the way down. It's automated, but it does have full facilities for visiting scientists. Replicators, heating, all of that."

"It has heating?" asked the Tellarite. "Then what are we standing out here for?"

-***-

The base did, indeed, have heating. It was a single-story prefab building that, nonetheless, managed to look almost like the sort of chalet you might find at a ski resort. Somebody, probably in the Starfleet engineering division, had evidently had some sense of aesthetics. Kitted out with modern, 24th century technology, it was remarkably comfortable, and all the generators and other support equipment were concealed somewhere in its structure, tidily hidden away.

Three bedrooms, a communal bathroom, and a maintenance and equipment store surrounded a central dining and meeting area. Most of one wall was taken up by a huge window of transparent aluminium, looking out from the top of the shallow cliff on which the base perched. Now out of his cold weather clothing, Max stood at that window admiring the view. It was, he had to admit, stunning, and, for all its alien nature, it reminded him in some ways of his home in Austria. 

"There's a lot out there. We're going to be busy." He turned to see Edrilli, standing next to the long couch set up immediately in front of the window.

"Yes... I imagine it will take a while. Still, we have long enough."

"Easy for you. The atmosphere isn't going anywhere," she indicated the weather station, just off to one side, the only structure outside the base's main building. There wasn't a lot Max could say to that. "Speaking of which," said the Bolian, leaning closer, and lowering her voice, "is it just me, or is the temperature just a little too warm in here?"

Max didn't think it was uncomfortable, but now that he thought about it, it was a few degrees above the standard shipboard temperature on the Endeavour. He glanced over at the maintenance room, where the thermostat was probably located. He had seen Lugmilla coming out of there a short while before... given her griping about the weather, it was easy to see what had happened.

"Probably," he said, "but are you going to argue about it? We'd never get done." 

Edrilli grinned in response; she knew the Tellarite well, and had likely come to the same conclusion.

"Food's up!" 

That was Matsu, carrying a tray across from the replicator area at the back of the room to the main table. The three of them gathered round, Lugmilla at one end of the table, facing the window, and Edrilli facing Max. Matsu fetched across a second tray of food, and sat down next to the Bolian woman.

"Come on, Sh'ree," he called out, "you don't want to let it get cold."

Max glanced up towards the door to the room that Sh'ree shared with the Bolian ensign, and froze for a second, slightly flustered. As the Andorian stepped out of the room, he could tell that she had noticed the extra warmth as well.

She had discarded her uniform top, wearing instead a tight sleeveless vest that hugged her curves. They were, as Max had noticed many times before, very shapely curves indeed, her body firm and athletic for a scientist, her breasts prominent without being over-sized. But it wasn't really much more than he'd seen before, he told himself as he tried to look disinterested, unless you counted the bare blue skin of her arms. 

Yet, somehow, Sh'ree in that vest was a sight that brought more warmth to him than it should have done.

She sat down at the one free place - which, of course, happened to be the one next to him - and pulled the meal towards herself.

"Are you sure this is good for us?" asked Edrilli after a while, "I didn't expect something quite so fattening from you, Dr. Genji. Not that it isn't delicious!"

"I dialled up the fat content on the replicator," replied the medical officer, "and, please, call me Matsu."

"Very well... Matsu," she said with a grin and a shy sideways look that made Max wonder if he wasn't the only one at the table feeling an inappropriate attraction to a member of a different species, "but is that good for us?"

"Absolutely," he said, taking another mouthful of the replicated stew, "in a cold climate, especially when we are going to be involved in some strenuous hiking, it is important to eat food with a high calorie content."

"Works for me," said Lugmilla, who was, perhaps, the one out of all them that was least likely to do any hiking. Although, thought Max, wondering how much of it was really just down to her race, she didn't look like somebody who normally kept to low calorie diets anyway. "Although what about those of us who don't think it's cold outside?" She nodded towards Sh'ree.

"Andorians..." began Matsu, before the away team's leader interrupted him.

"Andorians have a higher metabolic rate than most other humanoid races," she said, "so we burn calories quickly. Especially..." she paused, apparently changing her mind about what she had been going to say. Max wondered if it had been a dig at Lugmilla's ample frame. "Well, especially in extremes of temperature. Both hot and cold, in fact."

Matsu nodded, "Andorians have a remarkable tolerance for a wide range of temperatures. I really wouldn't recommend an Andorian sauna to humans; it might well kill you."

"So you do consider it cold outside?" asked Max, curious. "I'd have thought it was warmer than much of Andoria."

"It doesn't feel cold," she said, "cool, perhaps, but not cold."

"Funnily enough," added Matsu, "it's even further below Andorian body temperature than it is below ours. That high metabolic rate, again. The extra body heat staves off the cold."

Sh'ree reached across and put one of Max's hands on the bare skin of her arm. Her flesh was hot, burning like a fever, its warmth spreading through his fingertips despite that of the room, or of the food that was settling in his belly.

"See?" she said.

Max looked away, trying not to show how the touch of her soft, warm skin against his own had affected him. He didn't think they'd really touched before, and the sensation reminded him more than ever of how, for all her blue skin and white hair, she was a remarkably beautiful woman. Probably, though, she found his own pink skin unappealing, and he doubted that somebody with such a warrior heritage would find a slightly geeky alien meteorologist to her taste.

Nonetheless, she flashed him a quick grin as he took his hand away, her antennae flicking in his direction as she did so. 

"Your fingers are cold, " she told him, "better eat up."

-***-

The next day, Sh'ree, Matsu, and Edrilli headed off into the wilderness to begin their survey of the local wildlife. Max instead busied himself at the little weather station, collecting data as he waited for their return.

The station was automated, and seemed to have been running without a hitch since it had last been visited. It was a small structure, two and half metres high by one and a half across, filled almost entirely with sensing equipment and the computers necessary to run it and store the resulting data. It was all standard scientific equipment, the kind he had used dozens of times before, so operating it was simple enough, but the sheer volume of information took some time to sift through.

So engrossed was he in his work that he didn't hear Lugmilla trudging up from the shuttlecraft's landing site until she was almost up to him.

"Going well?" she asked, in a manner that was rather friendlier than she had shown so far on the trip. Perhaps she just wanted someone to talk to.

"Yes. Nothing too odd about the weather patterns themselves, although it's interesting how they have been changing as the local star enters its more active phase. There's something anomalous in the composition, though. Some chemical in the air... I think it's probably organic. I could smell something odd when we landed, so it might be that. But, whatever it is, it's been rising in quantity over the last few months."

She nodded, "I think I know what you mean. Smelled like some kind of alien tree resin to me."

He shrugged, "I guess we'll know later, once we can all compare notes. For all we know, the trees always smell like this. Alien conifers."

Lugmilla looked out over the vista below them, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun in the crystal clear sky. Apparently seeing nothing worthwhile, she turned away again, wrapping her arms around her ample chest, breath misting around her pig-like snout. 

"Not too bad to look at, I guess," she conceded, "but I wish it was warmer."

Max wondered what part of Tellar she came from. Her skin was slightly darker than that of most of her race that he had seen, and her hair was jet black. If Tellarites were like humans, she probably came from warmer climes, although likely not from the tropics themselves. 

"Maybe we'll go to a desert world next," he said, "there's plenty of them out there. A lot of worlds seem to be rocks and sand, in my experience."

"Let's hope so," she agreed, "I could do with somewhere I didn't need to wear all this clobber." 

Max tried to scrub his mind of the image of Lugmilla in the same sleeveless, tight fitting vest that Sh'ree had been wearing in the base. It wasn't likely to be a pretty sight.

"Is it my imagination," he said, changing the subject, "or do you think that Edrilli quite likes our medical officer?"

Lugmilla looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You sound surprised. Is he ugly, or something? I can never tell with humans."

"No, no, I guess he's quite good-looking, really. To a human. But she's Bolian, that's my point."

"Oh, so that's what this is about!"

"What?"

"You and Sh'ree."

"There is no 'me and Sh'ree'."

"No, but you'd like there to be. There's no point denying it; it's more obvious with you than it is with our Bolian friend."

"Well... but..." Max stammered. Had he been that obvious? Damn... Lugmilla was the last person he had wanted to work that out. Apart from the object of his misplaced affections herself, of course.

"Oh, good grief man, grow up!" She stomped her foot on the snow to emphasise her point. Whatever it was.

"Huh?" was all he could think of to say in response.

"You're a human, she's an Andorian. Hence you bringing up Edrilli and Matsu. Look, for your information, it's pretty obvious that humans and Andorians are similar enough to find each other attractive, at least some of the time. If you can get over the fact that she's blue, do you really think she can't get over the fact that you're pink?"

"Personally, I don't think either of you are going to win any beauty contests back on Tellar," she went on, "but who cares? You humans have got it lucky on the Endeavour."

"I'm not sure many would agree with you." It was a constant problem; the Endeavour had less humans per head than almost any other starship of comparable size, which really cut down on the romantic possibilities.

"They're idiots, then," said Lugmilla firmly. Max could tell that she was building up to an argument. "Do you know how many Tellarites there are on the Endeavour?"

"Uh, let's see..." he began to mentally count.

"Besides myself, nine," she butted in, before he could finish. "Four of whom are women. Of the five men, two are elderly, two are in solid relationships, and the other one's an arsehole."

Max's mouth flapped open uselessly.

"For the last five years," she continued, remorselessly, "and, frankly, for most of the last twelve, my entire love life has consisted of the occasional night alone in my cabin with a warm mug of gerut-ja, an erotic novel, and my trusty vibrator."

"Have you ever heard the human expression 'too much information'?"

"The point, my skinny human friend," she said, jabbing a gloved finger towards him, "is that you don't have such limitations. There are more humans than that, not to mention Betazoids, Trill, and all the rest it's so hard to tell apart from you. And Andorians, apparently. Sh'ree rather likes you, take it from me. Don't miss out on the opportunity when it presents itself."

"Because," she finished, "at least you have an opportunity!"

-***-

"Checking with the previous records," said Max that night as they all gathered round the table for supper, "this organic, whatever it is, has been increasing in the atmosphere as the planet enters its warming phase."

"Biological response, then," said Edrilli, "something in the plants, probably. They're starting to become more fertile now that they can take advantage of the higher temperatures."

"Is it likely to be connected to what you've been studying."

"Probably. It's ecology; it's all interconnected. Not that that makes it obvious what the connection is, of course."

"How did your bird watching go?" asked Lugmilla.

"So far," replied Sh'ree, "all we've done is confirm the existing observations. There are far less bird-analogues around than there have been before. The trees may be getting more fertile, but the birds are disappearing."

"Migrating?"

"No... that's what the colonists down near the equator thought at first, but there's no sign of it on the satellite data. We should be able to spot the life signs, but we can't. Besides, they'd have to be heading north, and there isn't much north of here... the poles are just barren ice fields."

"So what, then?" asked Max.

"We think," said Edrilli, "that they might be hibernating."

"But it's getting warmer... isn't that the wrong away around?"

"Aestivating, then," said Sh'ree, "same idea. Some animals avoid the heat of the summer."

"Okay... but where? I mean, wouldn't the life signs still show up?"

"Not so well, perhaps, but yes, they should. That's the problem."

"We saw some nests," said Edrilli, "quite a few, in fact, but almost all of them were abandoned. And the ones that weren't were clearly being used by the few birds that are still about, so there's nothing hibernating in them."

"Which leaves only one direction they could have gone," agreed Sh'ree, "down."

"Down?"

"We saw some cave entrances," said Matsu, speaking for the first time, "maybe they're like bats."

Edrilli nodded. "Hibernacula. Um... aestivacula... whatever the word is."

Lugmilla broke in, "if the life signs are weaker when they're hibernating, it probably wouldn't take much to hide them completely. It's hard enough to detect life signs underground at the best of times."




Blue



"Exactly," said Sh'ree, "we've identified two caves we want to take a look at. Just an exploratory survey, to begin with, nothing too difficult."

"We didn't decide which one we'd look at first, though," pointed out Edrilli, "perhaps we should do that now?"

"I've been thinking about that. Why not check out both at the same time? It's just a preliminary look, after all."

"Can't do that," said Matsu, firmly, "there's only three of us. And we can't have anyone go down alone for safety reasons. Preliminary or not."

"True enough," admitted the Andorian, turning to the other human, "so, Max, you've got your basic readings, and I'm sure the meteorological equipment can run itself for a while. Do you fancy joining us tomorrow?"

-***-

The cave entrance was larger than he'd been expecting, almost ten metres in height and half that across, a great crack in the side of the cliff face, bushes growing across its base. Max shone his torch inside, but couldn't see anything of note.

Edrilli had looked delighted when Sh'ree had paired her with Matsu. Max wondered if he was right about her feelings towards the Japanese doctor... not that the latter showed any indication of noticing, let alone reciprocating. More importantly, of course, it left Max himself with Sh'ree. 

He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. This was business, and he found her rather distracting. Even if he had been willing to make himself obvious by visibly admiring her, it would hardly have been an appropriate time to do so. Still, he did like being with her, quite apart from what he knew was surely an inappropriate attraction.

"We've reached the cave," came Edrilli's voice over the comm, "heading inside now."

"Don't go too far," that was Lugmilla, back at the base, "I don't want to lose comms signal."

"It should be all right," replied Sh'ree, "so long as we don't go down any pot holes. But let us know if the signal starts to weaken significantly."

"Will do."

They stepped inside, the roof of the cave shutting out the sun, despite the blue sky visible through the entrance behind them. The ground crunched underfoot, and Max looked down to see what appeared to be dark gravelly sand. 

Seeing nothing worthwhile there, he headed further in, shining his torch upwards at the cavernous space above them, then forward into the gloom. The cave apparently went a long way.

"Organic, at least partly." He turned to see that Sh'ree had taken more interest in the gravel than he had, and was waving her tricorder over some of it. "Detritus, small traces of saprophytic fungus, and... look," she stirred some of it with a gloved hand, "small bones in among it. Partly digested, too."

"So what do we think?" asked Max. "Rats, wolves? Or the local equivalent."

"More like owls, I would have thought. I wouldn't worry about it."

"I'll remind you of that if we get attacked by a giant man-eating owl."

She smiled as she stood up, her examination over, "we'd probably have seen them. Although there are large carnivores on the planet, and I suppose it's possible they might sleep in caves. So you never know."

Sh'ree followed his gaze, as Max involuntarily glanced towards the phaser at his belt.

"That is set to stun, right?" she asked, "even if there's an arctic cave hyena in here, we can't harm the local wildlife."

"Arctic cave hyena?"

"You don't have them on Earth?"

"Not really. But more to the point, do they have them here?"

"Not that I know of. And is it?"

"Set to stun? Yes."

She grinned. "Good. Now let's go on."

The cave was cool and dank, although, without the wind, probably warmer than it had been outside. Max couldn't see much of interest, and certainly no bat-birds, hibernating or otherwise. Perhaps a geologist would have been more excited, but it had been a while since Max had studied any rock strata. Being a Starfleet officer, rather than a civilian scientist, there were plenty of things to be doing other than studying, and it wasn't directly part of his field.

After a while, he came across the entrance to a side tunnel, barely high enough to walk down without stooping. He shone his torch down it, and something glistened in the light.

"Might have something here," he called out, "I'm not sure what... could just be crystals."

Sh'ree walked over in his direction, from where she had been examining one of the cave walls. "Can you get a closer look?"

"It's down a side passage. Not sure how good the reception will be on the comms."

"Could you get close if I stay out here to act as a relay? If it's too far, don't... we can always come back later with the full team."

"I should be all right," he replied. He would wonder later if that had been bravado, showing off in front of the attractive alien woman with the warrior heritage. Or if it just hadn't looked that dangerous at the time.

Max stepped into the passage, torch out ahead of him. It still wasn't clear what was causing the reflection, and the roof of the passage was dipping ahead of him. Not wanting to look worried, he ducked his head and moved deeper in.

"It's all over the wall..." he said after a while, his voice echoing back towards where Sh'ree stood at the entrance to the passage, her own torchlight presumably showing little but his back. "Not crystals, though... perhaps some sort of coating. I'll try and take a sample."

"Be careful," called out the Andorian, "you're pretty far in, and I don't want..."

He took a step forward, not registering that floor was covered in the same substance.

With a loud cracking sound it collapsed beneath him, and with a surprised yell, Max plummeted into a concealed hole, flailing about to grab something but finding only empty air.

He hit the bottom with considerable force, all the wind knocked out of him. The torch rolled away uselessly, and he lay there half stunned, seeing only blackness above him. He heard a sound, a scrabbling noise, coming closer. But he was too dazed to react.

Light poured down onto his face. He could see the beam of a torch straight above him, shining through a ragged hole in whatever was above him. He could just about make out Sh'ree's worried face through the gap. He realised then that the sound had been her rushing down the passage after him.

"Max! Are you all right?" 

He pondered the question.

"Max!" There was a frightened edge to her voice that finally brought him to his senses.

"Yes... yes, I think I am..." he replied, "wait a minute..." He tried to stand, and found that he could. He hurt in a number of places, but that seemed to be about the extent of the damage. "Nothing broken, I don't think. Could have been a lot worse. What the hell just happened?"

The Andorian let out a sigh of relief, then looked cautiously around herself.

"The walls here are covered with some kind of resin-like substance. Looks like the bit of floor you stepped on was a solid sheet of the stuff, plugging this hole. Solid enough, but not sufficient to hold your weight apparently. Very difficult to see in this light." He appreciated her saying that; it made him feel less stupid. "Can you climb out?"

"I don't think so," he said. The hole looked too far above him, in a flattish roof that stretched some way to either side.

"Hang on, I'm coming down!"

"No, wait! We just need some..."

Sh'ree dropped down gracefully beside him. It obviously wasn't so hard if you were expecting the drop.

"...some rope," he finished lamely.

She looked him over, and pulled back the hood on his parka, running her hands over his scalp, looking into his face with concern. Max felt embarrassed under her gaze, but couldn't help but notice again how warm her hands were.

"Yes, you look all right," she said, stepping back. "No sign of any head injury or bleeding."

"But now we're both trapped down here."

He caught a flicker of shock on her face. She really hadn't thought of that? Her concern for him was touching, but not, perhaps, so helpful under the circumstances.

"We'll call the others," said Sh'ree, after a momentary pause, and tapped the comm badge. "Sh'ree to base." Static. "Sh'ree to base." Still static.

He didn't need to state the obvious: they were too far in.

"They'll find us," she told him, "they know where we are."

He forbore from commenting on that, either. Instead, he shone his torch around them. "Speaking of which, where are we?"

They were in a large cavern; that much was obvious. A stream ran through the middle, although he had not really noticed its gurgling before now. Max could see some bones on the floor, and couldn't help but notice that they were much larger than those near the entrance up above. Arctic cave hyenas, indeed.

Sh'ree instead shone her torch upwards, where the cavern roof stretched away from them. They were standing near the top of a slope, and the cavern became much higher further out. "Look!" she said in wonder.

Max looked. The roof of the cave was marked by occasional stalactites, but what was more noticeable were the vast clusters of gelatinous pods that obscured almost the entire ceiling. Sh'ree fumbled with her tricorder as the human kept his torch trained above them. There had to be thousands of the things here... maybe more, depending on how far the cavern went.

"Yes, that's it!" The Andorian's antennae were twitching excitedly, and there was a smile of triumph on her face. "We were right, they were hibernating. Those cocoons contain birds. Well, not literally birds, of course, so perhaps we should start calling them something else. But the local flying creatures anyway."

"That thing we fell through - it must be a plug of some kind." She pointed her tricorder down at the shards that had fallen onto the floor beside them. "Yes! It's made of a kind of solidified mucus. It must help preserve the atmosphere in here, or something like that. Perhaps they need a stable environment. They come in, cocoon themselves, and then the last ones seal of the entrance before they join them. I can tell that there are different species in here - not so different from bat colonies in that respect, really - so they won't all behave exactly the same. The few we saw outside yesterday must be more summer-resistant species, adapted to surviving a drier, warmer, climate than most of their fellows. This is fascinating!"

"All triggered by the climate cycle, as the planet's orbit changes around its star," added Max, "makes sense."

"Affecting the plants, too. Hence the change in the chemicals in the atmosphere you detected."

"Which could affect the birds, in turn. Pheromones, kind of."

"Mystery solved!" said Sh'ree with satisfaction.

"Although there's a lot of detail to be filled in."

"And," pointed out Max, "we still need to get out."

"Yes, that," conceded the Andorian woman. "Well, you know what else strikes me about this?"

"What?"

"There's another exit."

"There is? How do you know?"

"The bones on the floor. Some of them aren't that old, and they're large enough not have been left here by the birds. Or by anything that came in the way we just did. So there has to be another way in and out."

"Used by a large carnivore."

"Or scavenger."

"Maybe." He was doubtful.

"Of course, most scavengers will also eat fresh meat if they can."

"Great."

"Anyway, if there is another way out, I think we should find it. Coming?"

-***-

The obvious solution was to follow the stream. It had to go somewhere, and it seemed sensible to follow it downstream, in the hope that it exited somewhere further down the mountain slope, rather than following it up to what might turn out to be a narrow crack in the rock.

It turned out, however, that the stream eventually disappeared through an archway at the end of the cavern. There was no solid bank to walk on, and Max, at least, could not tell whether the rock ceiling above the stream dipped down below water level further on in.

"Dead end?" he asked.

"Maybe. Let me take a look."

Sh'ree stepped down into the water, which soon reached her knees, and lent forward into the tunnel that the stream vanished into, peering into the darkness. The cold-weather clothing was waterproof, but not intended for long term immersion. Max imagined that it must be freezing, and shivered himself at the thought.

Sh'ree turned back towards him, "turn your torch off," she said, flipping the switch on her own. Puzzled, he complied, and they were plunged into blackness.

"I can see light," the Andorian called out, "it's not very bright, but it's ahead somewhere. There has to be some kind of way out down here." She turned the torch back on. "Follow me in, and I'll see if we can find it."

Reluctantly, he did so. The seal between the boots and the bottom half of his parka was impressive, and nothing leaked in as he had half expected it to. Score one for Federation technology. The water was not as ice cold as he had feared, either - or else the clothing was an effective insulator even when wet.

The tunnel was, however, cramped, and he had to bow down his head, walking along almost bent double as Sh'ree led the way. His feet slipped a few times on the uneven bottom, strewn with small rounded stones worn smooth by the flow. The light from the torches danced along the walls and across the surface of the water, and he could hear nothing but gurgling and splashing.

"Here, up above!" called out Sh'ree. "There's light coming in through another of those mucus plugs. Can't be the way our creature gets in, if it's here at all at this time of year. But it might be a way for us to get out. I'll cut it open, and see what we've got beyond."

Orange light flooded the passage as the Andorian cut away at the substance with a phaser beam. With a series of splashes, their sound amplified in the narrow tunnel, chunks of the material fell into the water. Sh'ree's head disappeared into the opening she had created above her.

With a thrill, Max realised that he could see sunlight flooding around the woman in front of him. He flipped the torch off, and tucked it back in his belt. A few moments later, his eyes adjusted to the conditions, and he saw Sh'ree's legs vanishing upwards as she hauled herself into whatever space there was above.

"Yes, there's a tunnel here," she said, her voice muffled by the rock. "Wait a moment, then follow me in. I can see light at the end. It should be climbable."

"Be careful," he called out, but it sounded as if she was already moving upwards and away, and if she heard him, she made no reply.

Max moved forward until he stood below the gap. There was a tunnel of some kind above him, some water trickling down through it. Perhaps it was a sinkhole of some kind, but the details didn't matter. Reaching up to grip the sides, he hauled himself up into it, seeing Sh'ree's heavily insulated legs moving up ahead of him.

The climb was exhausting, leaving his arms and legs aching. He should have attended more of the fitness classes on the Endeavour, he reflected, as he stopped for a short breather. He could hear Sh'ree continuing to climb, her muscles apparently stronger than his. Then, with a shock, he realised that he could hear a similar sound from below... something climbing the pipe after him.

He looked down, below where his legs were braced against the irregular rocky sides, and saw it, almost filling the tunnel. It was too dark to make out much, just a row of sharp jagged teeth and the glint of four reddish eyes. It was more than enough to convince him that, whatever the creature was, it wasn't friendly.

Drawing his phaser as swiftly as he could he fired blindly down the tunnel. The thing responded with a bellowing roar, echoing in the narrow space. How had he missed it? How could he possibly miss something so close in such a confined place? He fired again.

He heard a yelp, saw the thing lose its grip on the sides, and drop - just as a great load of snow fell onto his head. Had the roar loosened it? Had he, somehow? Or Sh'ree? He couldn't tell, and it was all he could do not to be knocked down the tunnel after the creature.

The snow covered him, filling the pipe like a thick plug. It was packed against his face, against his arms, pinning him in place. Max couldn't move, couldn't do anything, couldn't even breathe. He tried desperately to calm his rising panic, as he feared for a brief moment that this might really be the end.

But it was only a moment, for shortly after, he felt motion in the snow, felt strong gloved hands grabbing his shoulders, hauling him upwards, still unable to see anything. Before he knew it, he was out in the sunlight, rolling into a fresh bank of snow, Sh'ree gripping him, rolling on top as the pair slid down a slope to skid to a halt in a drift.

"Think... think I got it..." he gasped. 

There was no sound of pursuit, but he was too disoriented to see what the Andorian had just pulled him out of. And her face was above his, just inches away, antennae twitching, eyes wide, flakes of snow melting on the soft blue of her cheeks. Even under the circumstances, he could not help but think how beautiful she was.

He had no idea who made the first move, but the next thing he knew, they were kissing, her blue lips pressed against his, her breath hot on his face. She pulled back for a moment, a strand of white hair drifting free from her hood, mouth panting, breath misty in the cold air. Then they kissed again, longer this time, gloved hands around each other's heavily insulated bodies, tongues entwining.

A beep from their comm badges finally put an end to that. Sh'ree rolled off him, regaining her composure, and sat up before pressing the badge. Max looked up, to see where they had fallen from. There was a hole there, in the snow, but no sign of anything coming out of it. He looked back to the Andorian, head spinning from what had just happened.

"Sh'ree to base," she was saying, "we're all right. No need to send out a search party. We had a bit of trouble, but we're both fit and well now."

"Glad to hear it," came Lugmilla's reply, "because Edrilli isn't."

-***-

The four of them were standing outside the shuttlecraft, Edrilli already inside. Lugmilla had flown it across, closer to them, and they'd been able to take a stretcher up to the others, and then carry it all the way back down again with the Bolian on it. It had been tiring, but it could have been a lot worse.

"It's nothing too serious," Matsu was saying, "just a broken leg; a clean break of the tibia, according to the medical tricorder. If I had access to the sickbay, it would easy enough to fix."

"But not with what we have in the shuttlecraft?" asked the Tellarite.

"I'm afraid not. I've done all I can with painkillers and a splint, but to knit the bone back together, I'm going to need more than we have here."

"That settles that, then. We're off to the colony. They'll have what you need, right?"

"Absolutely. How long it will take?"

"We should be there by nightfall. They're half a planet away, but," she tapped the hull, "she's fast."

"I agree," said Sh'ree, still officially in charge of the expedition, "I guess we'd better make a start now."

Lugmilla stepped towards the door, and then turned back again, a thought apparently striking her.

"Actually," said the Tellarite, "we really only need Matsu. If you and Max have scientific data to go over, you might as well do it here. The facilities at the base are better than I have on board, and we'll be back tomorrow anyway." She turned to Matsu, "We will, right?" He nodded. "There you go. You can have the base to yourselves until tomorrow afternoon."

Max glanced at Sh'ree. The feel of her lips against his still hadn't left him, but her expression was unreadable.

"That sounds a good idea. If you're okay with it, Max?"

"Uh, yes, sure. Of course."

"There we go then," said Lugmilla, climbing back into the shuttle. She turned one last time, winking briefly at Max. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."




Blue



-***-

Max stepped out of the bathroom, wearing a fresh vest and uniform trousers. He felt clean and refreshed, the few cuts and bruises already treated with the wonders of modern first aid equipment. He noticed that Sh'ree hadn't bothered to turn the temperature down, and was back to wearing the sleeveless top that she'd been wearing before, her uniform jacket, like his, draped over a chair nearby.

"While you were in the shower, Lugmilla contacted us to say that everything's okay," she told him, "they're at the hospital now, and should be back here a little after noon tomorrow."

"That's good to hear. Well, the shower's all yours now."

She smiled, and stepped past him into the room. As she did so, her bare arm brushed against his, her soft skin warm, making him catch his breath for a second. Then the door shut between them, and he was on his own again.

He wandered over to the table, where the tricorders were sitting, data displayed on the nearby PADDs. He was intending to get some work done, but soon found that his mind kept drifting away.

She had kissed him. Sh'ree, the gorgeous, shapely, and intelligent woman who had so often haunted his dreams had kissed him. Not just kissed him, either, but kissed him properly, responding to his passion in kind. Had Lugmilla been right, or had it all been the emotion of the moment, the sudden exhilaration of freedom?

His eyes glanced back towards the door to the bathroom. He could hear the water running from the shower, and inevitable images leapt to his mind. Steadying himself, and still not quite sure of what the Andorian woman really wanted, he instead looked out of the large window at the front of the base.

It was dark outside now, stars twinkling down through a moonless sky, a mantle of blackness cast out over the land. A dancing light caught his eye, sheets of green over the mountaintops. The aurora, the northern lights. He had never seen them so clearly as this, not on any planet he'd had the chance to visit.

Entranced, he dimmed the lights in the base, giving him a clearer view of the sky. For a while, even Sh'ree was forgotten, lost in the inky dark strewn with so many diamonds, and the strange ephemeral light in the sky. You almost forgot the beauty sometimes, when you were travelling through the depths of space nearly every day of your life. But take the time to rest, to take it all in, and it was truly breath-taking.

He didn't know how long he stood there, staring out over the planet's wild beauty, but after a while, he heard the bathroom door open. He hadn't even noticed the shower stop running. He continued looking out as Sh'ree stepped up beside him, then glanced her way... and his heart leapt in his chest.

Sh'ree had acquired a dressing gown from somewhere. It was probably replicated, he reflected, although he hadn't seen her doing it. It was white, made of some material that looked like silk, or as close as the replicator could get. It concealed more of her body than her other clothes had, yet its thinness and the fact that she was surely wearing little, if anything, beneath it, made him almost giddy.

She was looking out of the window, as he was, a slight smile on her face, antennae almost still, the white of her damp hair complementing the gown. She looked absolutely stunning.

"Wow," she said, softly, "that's quite a view." He blinked, then realised she was talking about the window. He nodded, and she moved over to the small padded bench set up before the window. "Sit beside me," she said, "the lights are so beautiful tonight, we may not get another chance."

He did so, and she slid up closer, her body warm through the fabric that separated them. She slid an arm around him, pulling her bare feet up onto the couch, and resting her head on his shoulder, all the while gazing out into the night sky. Hesitantly, he put his left arm around her too, and she didn't resist. 

Together, they looked out in silence, the green lights shimmering in the sky like a magical curtain, inexpressible in their wonder.

He couldn't say how long they remained like that, arms entwined, just watching, comfortable in each other's presence. But, eventually, the lights began to fade, and, while the stars were beautiful against the clear night sky, it was a sight that was more familiar from their time in Starfleet.

Max had fallen into a reverie, and was only brought out of it when Sh'ree suddenly disentangled herself and stood up. He couldn't help but notice that the dressing gown had loosened a little. It didn't show much more than it had before; just a flash of shoulder and a part of her collar bone, but just that was enough to flash images of more through his mind.

"Well, time for bed, don't you think?" asked the Andorian with a smile, and walked over to the door to the room she had shared with Edrilli. 

"Uh, yes, right," he replied, his mind returning from the pleasant place it had been wandering. "See you in the morning."

She turned back to him, and gave him a quizzical look, her antennae twitching visibly. Max was suddenly conscious that he must look disappointed, and tried - unsuccessfully, as it turned out - to put on a more neutral expression. Sh'ree grinned, a flash of white teeth against blue lips, and turned away into the darkened bedroom, leaving the door open.

A moment later, she called from inside, "I mentioned it was time for bed. I didn't say 'time for sleep'."

Transfixed, Max heard the sound of the dressing gown falling to the floor, and then a rustle of sheets. Unaccountably, he felt nervous, clenching and unclenching his hands. Steadying himself, he walked in a daze over to the open door to the bedroom, and peered inside.

Sh'ree was lying in the bed, sheets tucked up under her armpits, her shoulders, neck, and arms bare, and watching him expectantly.

"Well?" she said, pulling aside the sheet beside her, and patting the mattress. The bed, he noted, was hardly king-size, but it was large enough, wider than the ones junior officers got on the Endeavour. "Aren't you going to join me?"

A little voice in the back of Max's mind was still telling him that he couldn't be this lucky, even after what had already happened this day. He told the voice to shut the hell up, before rapidly pulling off his vest, undoing his belt, and stepping out of his trousers. Of course, he then embarrassed himself by doing an awkward dance to get his socks off, but if Sh'ree thought it amusing, she gave no sign. Max walked over to the uncovered side of the bed, his arousal now highly evident through the grey fabric of his uniform shorts.

Sh'ree rolled over on her side to face him, and waved a bare arm in the direction of the remaining item of clothing. "You won't be needing those," she informed him, "unless there's something I don't know about human anatomy."

He actually took it seriously for a second. What if there was something different? She was an alien, after all, and he'd never seen a naked Andorian, of either sex. But it was a ridiculous idea, of course, and she had only been joking. Max pulled down his shorts, his erect cock at last springing free. Sh'ree's eyes were fixed on it - had she just wondered what he had? If so, the answer had clearly been to her satisfaction.

He climbed into bed beside her, and a moment later, they were in each other's arms, kissing.

Despite what she'd just said to him, Sh'ree was still wearing her knickers... but nothing else. Max wrapped his arms around her, running them down her bare back, and through her soft white hair. She felt fever-hot beneath his touch, but pleasantly so, her skin smooth beneath his questing fingers. Warm hands traced the outline of his shoulders and down his spine to cup his buttocks and hold him close.

Their lips were crushed together, tongues probing each other's mouths as Sh'ree rolled on top, breasts against his chest as he caressed her neck. Eventually they broke apart, panting slightly for breath. The Andorian was grinning widely, hair falling down around her face as she held his head in her hands, stroking his cheek, then running a finger around the inside of his ear. 

Her antennae were pointing forward, down towards him, their tips brushing his forehead. One hand sliding down her back, he raised the other to her face, brushing aside a strand of hair, and tracing the base of one of the alien appendages.

"Are they sensitive?" he asked.

"Not in that way... but, yes, a bit."

"They're very pretty. But so is the rest of you."

He rolled her over then, onto her back, so that he was now on top of her. He was very conscious that his erection was pressed against her knickers, the heat of her body more than apparent through the thin fabric. But that was not what he was interested in. Not yet anyway.

Raising himself up slightly on his elbows, he leaned forward and kissed her on the nose. She sighed in response, lips brushing over his chin before he moved again, planting another kiss, this time at the base of her right antenna.

It twitched slightly in response; he didn't know whether that was an involuntary act, or a deliberate one on her part. The slender blue stalk was curved in his direction, a number of little ridges forming rings around it. He brushed his lips along the length, tasting her. Sh'ree lay very still beneath him, and he could feel the soft caress of her breath on his neck.

He reached the tip, and, as gently as he could, slid it between his lips. His tongue flicked over the protuberance, darting inside the smooth skin of the small cup that flared there. The antenna twitched again, more vigorously this time, and popped further inside his mouth. He ran his tongue around it, feeling the ridges, and then dipped inside the cup again.

"Oh," she said with a little gasp, twitching again inside his mouth, "you're good at that."

He released her then, only for her to pull him in for another deep kiss on the mouth, her arms hugging him tightly. She felt so incredibly good against his body, for all that he was already starting to sweat from the warmth pouring out of her, her hot breath against his face.

Soon, her hands were all over him, feeling every inch of his back and sides, giving his buttocks a squeeze, wandering over his belly and chest. He was glad that a life in Starfleet kept him at least reasonably trim; if he'd stayed a civilian meteorologist, his figure would have been even less muscular than it was.

"You feel chilly," she told him, her voice quiet, fingers stroking his back again, "as if you've come in from the cold."

"Is that bad?"

"No. Actually, it's kind of sexy." She took one of his hands, and placed it on her breast. "See?"

The Andorian's nipple felt completely human-like beneath his fingers. Human-like, and decidedly perky, rising up at what he presumed was his cold touch. He stroked her breast, feeling the smooth curve of it and, with his free hand, pulled the sheet down for a clearer view.

The light in the room was dim, but, even so, he could see that Sh'ree's aureoles were darker than the surrounding skin. He would later think of their shade as a deep, rich azure, contrasting clearly with the pure sky blue of her breasts. For now, in the gloom, he bent down and kissed her there, sucking lightly on the swollen nipple. The Andorian woman let out a slight gasp as he flicked his tongue over the nub, her back arching up from the bed, hot fingers stroking his shoulders.

Insistently, she pulled him up to her mouth, and they kissed again, Max's hands wandering over her flanks, down to slide across smooth blue thighs. She was hungry now, passionate, her body moving against his, one hand roaming down his belly to grab his cock, squeezing and pulling on it, so that it was now his turn now to gasp in delight.

She pushed him back a little, off of her just a small way, and let out a little cry of frustration as she reached below the sheets, pulling her knickers down over her thighs. Max helped her remove them, both their movements swift now with desperation and eagerness for more. A short while later, she had them loose and threw them to one side of the bed, wrapping her legs around his as she pulled him back in for another kiss.

Their breath came in pants as they grasped at each other, rolling around on the bed, sheets no longer covering their upper bodies. First she was on top, raining kisses over his neck and chest, antennae brushing against his skin, one hand fondling his balls. Then their positions reversed, Max nibbling her ear, trailing kisses across her shoulders, down to where he could once again suckle at those perfect blue breasts.

Sh'ree ran one hand through his hair, the other gripping his increasingly sweat-slicked shoulders. Gasping, he pulled himself up to lie over her again, gazing into her eyes, the pupils wide in the semi-darkness. Her thighs were either side of his hips, and he could see the longing in her face. She reached down to grip his cock again, sliding down its length and pressing it against her body.

"Max..." she gasped, voice full of hunger.

He called her name in response, and at last thrust himself between her legs. Sh'ree cried out, her body arching as she gripped his back. Her thighs gripped his, as her fingers dug into him. Overwhelmed by the feel of her body, nostrils filled with her slightly alien scent, he continued, the pair of them soon finding a mutual rhythm.

The heat that ensheathed his cock aside, the Andorian felt like any human woman. And yet, for Max, it was better this time than ever before. They seemed made for each other, and the affection that he felt for her, the culmination of this long pent up desire, filled his heart as well as his loins. She was energetic too, enthusiastic, her body responding to every thrust, her cries and moans echoing with pure delight.

One of her hands gripped his ass, pushing him deeper inside as she began to move faster. He responded in kind, the bed now creaking with their exertions, Sh'ree's legs wrapped round his own, her hard nipples pressing into his chest as her cries became louder. He was gasping himself, his body sweating more than hers as he sought to give this wonderful, passionate, Andorian woman all she could desire.

He could not last much longer, and it was evident that she could sense that, too. She stared into his eyes, her mouth a silent 'O', her own eyes wide. A moment later they both cried out as they climaxed together. Sh'ree's body jerked beneath him, throwing her head back, her antennae going rigid. As she did so, the walls of her vagina gripped his cock, squeezing it, milking it, with muscles that were surely stronger than those of a human woman.

Indeed, it seemed some time before she was able to release him, and Max reflected that here, at last, might be some difference between her species and his. But it was pleasant, a good feeling, keeping them bound together even after the act, and it felt better yet when her muscles at last began to relax, and he found himself free.

Max rolled over onto his back, sucking in gulps of air, recovering from the most passionate, the most wonderful, love-making of his life. The air of the room felt cold against his bare chest now, although the sheets still entangled both their lower bodies. Sh'ree cuddled up to him, stroking her fingers over his skin, breathing in the smell of him as they lay there together.

He slipped his arm around her shoulder, holding her close, just delighting in her presence. It felt so relaxing, so right, just being there with her, and he found his eyelids drooping as he began to doze off in the comforting warmth.

It must have been some time later, but before he had quite fallen asleep, he felt her hot hand sliding over his belly and down between his legs. Max's eyes opened, and he turned towards her, seeing that the Andorian was still wide awake.

"Later..." he murmured, not sure he still had the energy.

"Shh... we'll see," came her whispered response.

Despite himself, he found his cock stiffening as she gently stroked it beneath the sheets. Sh'ree leant across him and kissed him on the lips, her hand still at work.

"Perhaps in the morning..." he managed.

"Just lie back," she said, moving further over him so that his cock - which seemed entirely more eager than his muscles - rested against the hot flesh of her abdomen. "Let me do the work."

She kissed him again, swinging a leg over his hips. Despite himself, he was fully erect now, and all trace of sleep had departed. Beneath the sheets, he could feel her stroking him, rubbing his erection against her belly, fingers sliding over the head as she moved her body sinuously. Max gasped, and wondered if he did have more strength left than he thought. A second bout certainly didn't feel beyond him now!

Sh'ree sat upright, pulling the sheet away so that it now rested only over his knees. For the first time, he saw the whole of her naked body - not that he had not already explored it thoroughly by touch alone. Her antennae twitched as she raised herself up on her knees, hand still gripping his cock, and then lowered herself atop of him.

They both groaned as he found himself pressed once more inside her. Slowly, Sh'ree's hips began moving, grinding against him, as her hands reached out to caress his chest, stroking his nipples. He could see her body silhouetted against the little light that came from a high window, the stars glittering in the blackness.

Her antennae were pointed towards him, something he now clearly interpreted as desire, her white hair falling loose about her face. She began to move with more speed, her body rocking against his, enfolding him in her warmth. Gasps escaped her mouth, and Max reached up to cup her swaying breasts as she leant forwards, pressing the dark blue nipples into his hands.

His exhaustion was gone, and he found his own body rising to meet hers with each undulation, pressing himself deeper inside her than ever before. Max looked down, at the curve of her hips, saw a flash of white hair against the blue, saw his pink cock sliding in and out between shapely thighs the colour of a pale winter sky. 

Her response to his groan of pure pleasure was to slow her movements, and he saw that she was determined to make this last as long as it could. She would get no arguments from him on that front.

She continued to move above him, her own energy seemingly limitless, her alien biology giving her stamina beyond his own. Every now and then she would increase her pace, pressing down on him more deeply, only to slow again a little later. He reached a hand up, and stroked her cheek, delighted in seeing her smile in response, her gaze full of affection.

At last, it seemed that it had been long enough, and, instead of slowing, she began to move still faster. She leaned forward, hair trailing downwards almost in a line with her antennae, blue breasts heaving as she pound against him with increasing vigour. She was gasping, crying out, the sound almost overwhelming the slap of flesh on flesh. They called out each other's names as he gripped her sides and her pace reached a crescendo, before they climaxed for the second time that night, human seed spilling into a wondrous alien body.

They kissed and caressed, and it seemed longer than before until she was able to release him, the relaxation of her muscles once again bringing that brief feeling of blissful relief just before he slipped free. She pulled the sheets up over them and nestled her face into the crook of his shoulder, content, it seemed, to sleep at last.

And sleep they did.

-***-

Max woke from what seemed one of the most pleasant dreams of his life.

It did not, however, take long before he realised that he had not dreamt at all. Sunlight was pouring in through the high window, and from the main room. And it fell on the sky blue shoulder and arm of the woman sleeping next to him, and on the shimmering snow-white of her hair.




Blue



Gently, hardly able to believe the reality, he brushed away a few loose strands of hair from Sh'ree's face and lay there, just watching her sleep. He felt like he didn't want to move from that spot ever again.

In the end, it was she who moved first, opening her eyes and smiling a morning welcome. They didn't speak, lying there for a moment in each other's arms, savouring the feeling of togetherness.

Eventually she spoke. "The others will be back in a couple of hours, if all's well," she said, "much as I'd like otherwise, it's time we were up and about."

He nodded reluctantly, as she swung herself out of the bed. It gave him the chance to watch her moving naked around the room, the unblemished colour of her skin more evident than ever in the bright sunlight.

"Come on," she said, finally finding her knickers and pulling them on, "you as well."

He nodded, knowing she was right, and followed her out of the bed.

"I think I need another shower," he said.

"Mmm."

"Last night... it wasn't...?" He couldn't bring himself to say 'one off', but she obviously sensed his meaning.

The beautiful Andorian walked over to him, and kissed him briefly on the lips.

"No, it wasn't."

He grinned with relief, and headed for the shower, humming a happy tune.

Outside, the sky was cloudless, a pure and limpid blue.



Blue



The mermaids were all off in the bay where the ships had dropped anchor for the night. Ugh, the mermaids! It was always them who got to the be center of attention, with sailors clamoring to spend just one night with one of the fishy bitches. Everyone was always so excited to see their shiny tails, but who wanted the girl with the bottom half of an octopus.

Nobody, Abby thought, slapping the water hard with one of her tentacles. She sighed and pushed off the cliffside towards the murky depths where she usually spent these lonely nights, but a scream and a splash nearby caught her attention before she'd gone too far out. There was a young human flailing in the water nearby, the rip current pulling her under.

Without thinking, Abby dove into action, propelling herself gracefully through the water towards the drowning woman. The human was kicking furiously to stay up, but the strength of the current and the disorienting effect of the lightless ocean were too much for her. Within seconds of hitting the water she had disappeared beneath the waves. Fortunately this was Abby's natural environment. There was nowhere more comfortable for her than the water, as evidenced by the speed with which she shot under after the unfortunate soul, wrestling her from the tide's grip and dragging her up to the night air.

Still, for all Abby's efforts, the young woman wasn't breathing. Trying desperately to remember what went wrong when humans tried to breathe water, Abby carried her to the beach, depositing her on a patch of dry sand. It's not the arms, she thought, running through the possible afflictions that this woman could be suffering. It's not the head, it's not the stomach... Oh, I remember! The lungs are in the chest!

With no time to spare she slid on top of the human and pressed both hands hard onto her chest. A fountain of seawater spilled out, starting a fit of coughs that rid her lungs of the remaining liquid. The human remained still, but she began to breath steadily, sending a wave of relief through Abby. 

Part of her knew that her work was done and it was time to slip back into the sea, but Abby had never been this close to a human. Eager to explore that which she had only observed at a careful distance, she brushed a lock of wet brown hair out of the way and cupped the woman's face with a tentacle, getting to know its texture and its warmth. On the whole, it wasn't much different from her own face. Other parts, though... Abby began to move her tentacle downwards, brushing away a soggy white garment, but the human took in a sharp breath, her eyes wide open.

For a moment their gazes locked, then the young woman spoke. "I was drowning, but- but you saved me, right? Thank you." Then her eyes began to drift lower towards the slippery mass that was seated atop her hips.

"Oh," she said simply. "You're beautiful."

Abby blushed, having never received such a compliment before. "Oh sorry! Let me just get off of you." She rolled her lower body to the side and quickly tried to turn the conversation elsewhere. "Hey! What were you doing out there anyway if you can't swim?!"

"I slipped," the young woman said, a little embarrassed herself. "I like to come out here to the cliffs to watch the stars and escape the... sex tourism by the bay." Abby giggled at this. "But there was a loose rock up there and I fell with it. I'm Melanie, by the way, but you can just call me Mel."

"Abby," Abby said.

"Er, no offense, but I'm surprised that you're not down there with the mermaids, looking like you do. I mean- uh- not that I think you're a whore or anything!"

"I tried," Abby said, looking away, "but none of the men wanted me and it wasn't long before the mermaids chased me off. I mostly just spend my nights out here now."

"Well it's a good thing you that you do!" Mel chimed in a little too enthusiastically. "Good for me, I mean. If you hadn't been there, I could've drowned."

Abby blushed again. "Oh, it was nothing..."

"Well, thanks again." Mel stood up to leave. "I hope we see each other again, maybe in less dire circumstances."

"Mhmm," Abby muttered to herself, biting her one of her tentacles lightly as she watched the human girl walk off into the moonlight.

__

"Abby!" Mel called out, standing atop the cliffs that had sent her plummeting into the arms- er, tentacles of the lovely cecaelia just the other night. Ever since that experience she had been drowning in dreams of copulating with the octopus woman. It had become such that she could not get into bed without imagining a set of tentacles crawling up the sides of her sheets, gently gliding down her body as one had on that incredible night. Thus she had resolved to return to the place of their first meeting and reunite with the object of her fantasies, purpose now firmly in hand.

"Abby! It's me, Mel!" Still, she'd been here for almost half an hour already and Abby had not yet shown herself. Mel was beginning to wonder whether this whole endeavor had been a silly pursuit when a pleasant voice called out from below.

"You weren't planning to jump off again, were you?" Abby called from the water.

"I told you I didn't jump! I fe-aaaaaaaaah!" Mel had stamped the ground, annoyed with Abby's fabricated claims and loosened another bit of the cliffside, sending herself tumbling downwards.

Only this time she didn't land in the tumultuous currents of the sea. Instead Abby twisted her lower half into a ball and propelled herself upwards with a great thrust, catching the clumsy human in her arms before landing with a splash in the water. "We have to stop meeting like this," she joked. Then sighing, "I'll take you back to the beach, but I think you should probably find another stargazing spot."

"Wait," Mel said, putting a hand on Abby's soft shoulder to stop her. "We don't have to go back just yet, if you don't want to..."

"But your dress is soaking now, don't you-"

"So it won't matter if it gets a little wetter!" Mel bit her lip and lowered her voice a bit. "Please?"

"OK," Abby smiled. "There's a shallow sandbar a little ways out, maybe you'd like to see the stars from there?"

"Oh yes!" Mel answered.

Abby was a faster swimmer than Mel could've imagined, even with a passenger. They made it to the sandbar, which must have been almost a mile out to sea, in what seemed like a few minutes. Or perhaps the time only seemed to fly because Mel had wrapped her arms around Abby's shoulders for the trip.

The water was only about a foot deep, so Mel was able to splash around without fear of drowning and the view of the torch-lit bay was unlike any she'd had before. "This is amazing!" she said, turning back to Abby, who was lying in the shallow water behind her, swishing her ocean blue tentacles about.

"Oh... wow." Mel's interest in the bay and the stars abruptly vanished as she looked over the cecaelia's body, surveying every inch from her playful tentacles to her deep red hair in the moonlight. "Umm, Abby..." she started, kicking at the water sheepishly. "I was sort of thinking- Well I just- I want you. Oh Abby, everyone here is so enraptured by the mermaids, but I don't care about them. I want to be yours!"

Abby's tentacles stopped and the silence of the ocean hung between them for a few moments. For so long she'd wanted to be wanted. She wanted someone to call her own, someone who the mermaids couldn't take from her and would envy her for having. And here it was, all of it delivered to her by a loose rock on a cliffside. Smiling, Abby raised a single tentacle and beckoned for Mel to come to her.

Mel walked on autopilot, unable to believe that her dreams had come true as Abby's tentacle waved her seductively on. She snapped out of her daze and yelped, however, when that same cool and slippery tentacle reached up and wrapped itself around her wrist.

"You have to come to me," Abby pointed out, a bit her sultry confidence lost. "I can't stand up in water this shallow..."

"Oh, right." Mel shook her head, embarrassed with her reaction.

Abby frowned. "If you're not comfortable with this-" She released her grip on Mel's wrist.

"I am." Mel cut in, now sure of her purpose once more. "I just- I haven't felt anything like that before." She offered her wrist back up. "But I want to feel it again."

Abby smiled, her confidence renewed, and pulled Mel down on top of her, wrapping her arms around the human girl's back and locking their lips. All the while her tentacles began to snake their way around Mel's body, finding their way under her dress, around her shoulders, and into her cleavage.

"Mmph. I wanna feel as much of you as I can... and I can feel a lot of you."

Mel melted as Abby's suckers began to plant little kisses all over her inner thighs, the tentacles slowly working their way up her legs. "H-have you done this b-before?" she asked, the amount of stimulation Abby was able to delivering knocking her off her figurative feet. "You seem - Hng! - experienced..."

"I'm afraid not, sweet thing," Abby said, excited with the affect that she was having on her partner. "I just found the warmest parts of your lower body did my best with those. I think I have quite a lot of experience with a top half like yours, on the other hand..." Two tentacles slipped the shoulders of Mel's dress down and wrapped themselves around her breasts, the suckers delivering erotic pecks all over them.

Mel was beyond words at this point, lost in the incredible sensations occurring simultaneously all over her body. Abby however, had never felt more in control. "This is what I do when I'm alone," she said, wrapping the flat end of a tentacle around Mel's erect nipples and sucking at them.

"Now if you're like me," she said, narrating her thought process to the helpless human, "then there should be..." A free tentacle worked its way up Mel's dress until it encountered something hot and soft. "Aha!" Abby pushed her tentacle further, penetrating Mel and releasing a scream of pleasure that traveled out into the silence of the ocean. One more tentacle slid up the dress and began to kiss Mel's clit, sending the girl into a convulsing, splashing orgasm until she collapsed back into Abby's loving tentacles.

When she finally regained the ability to speak, Mel had only one thing to say. "That was... intense."

"Shall we try that again?" Abby asked, keeping Mel afloat with four tentacles and relaxing on the remainder.

"Oh yes."



Blue



Blake loves pleasing a woman until she's moaning, shaking, and begging him to stop. And while toys and his own body do the job just fine, there's nothing like seeing a woman's orgasm from someone's tongue between her thighs. 

But he absolutely hates the taste. It doesn't matter if she's just gotten out of the shower or back from the gym, he still can't do it. 

He's tried every tip and trick the internet has to offer, but still nothing has helped. But then he remembered something; ANY unwanted behavior could be changed, it just takes the right conditioning. 

So he started researching behavior modification techniques and came across a professional dungeon called The Dragon's Lair. 

Like any rational person, he was apprehensive at first. But Mistress explained in great detail how their weekly sessions would go and what would be expected of him. If anyone could retrain his ridiculous brain, surely she can. How hard could it be? 

**** 

Blake's shoulders burned from the strain of having his arms bound behind his back. His knees protested against the unforgiving marble. But Mistress commanded he must keep still and keep the blindfold in place while she gifted her pet with an orgasm. The intoxicating sounds of Lolly's moans and groans and whimpers echoed off the walls. 

"Good girl, Lolly. Come for your Mistress, loud as you want," Mistress's voice came from the leather sofa the short distance from his right. 

God, what he wouldn't give to be able to see those two. There's nothing sexier than watching a woman get off... unless of course, she's getting off with the help of another woman. The moans and whimpers came faster. Her orgasm tore a scream from her mouth. 

Mistress's calculated steps clicked on the marble floor, stopping inches from him. Only the tops of her stiletto boots could be seen from under the blindfold. His back straightened, his pulse pounded in his ears. She smelled like leather with the sweetness of vanilla and... sex. 

"Why isn't your cock hard? Didn't you like hearing me eat Lolly's pussy?" she said, grazing a tough piece of leather along his jaw. 

"Sure. But I'm much more of a visual-" 

Her lips pressed against his, slipping her tongue in his mouth. His body flinched away, but her fingers clenched tight in his hair holding his mouth to hers. Her tongue swept across his slow and erotic, her teeth grazing his lips. The saltiness of another woman's pussy on her tongue mixed with the sweet mint in her mouth. He groaned, matching the increasing urgency of her tongue and lips. 

Why couldn't all pussy taste that good? 

"I told you to stay exactly how you were," she murmured against his lips. "Hard cock and all." 

The leather snapped against the side of his semi-hard cock. 

Stinging pins and needles shot up his body. He growled through clenched teeth. 

"You must do as instructed or you will be punished." The leather brushed over his tip then along his balls. "I can't help you if you don't follow my directions." 

His heart rate climbed through the roof. 

"Yes Mistress, but hard-ons don't last forev-" 

Smack! The leather snapped against the top of his thigh. His whole body flinched, anticipating the sting he didn't feel. Smaack! The leather smacked his other thigh. That one stung. Adrenaline surged through his body, swelling his cock rock hard. 

"It seems a little pain fixes that problem," she said, the smirk evident in her voice. 

"Yeah apparently." 

She stepped behind him. "Now tell me what you want." The tip of her moist tongue traced the contours of his ear, sending a wave of electricity through his body. 

"I want..." 

She pulled his earlobe between her teeth, her sharp nails grazing along his jaw. His pulse throbbed in his cock. He couldn't remember what she had asked of him. The silky skin of her inner thigh brushed his fingertips. If it weren't for the marble biting into his knees and the burn in his shoulders, he could stay between her bent legs with her mouth kissing and nibbling on him, forev- 

The crop snapped against his balls! 

"Ow fuck!" Pain twisted his stomach in knots. But, ironically swelled his cock until he feared his skin would tear. What the hell was wrong with him? 

"Color?" 

"Yel... no, green." 

"Good. Now I asked you a question," she said, those nails skimming down his back and over his hip. Her fingers wrapped tight around him and slowly pumped from root to tip, twisted around the ridge and slid back down. "Tell me what you want." 

Jesus. She knew exactly how to handle a man's cock. His breathing picked up. She squeezed harder reminding him he had to speak out loud. 

"You," he said quickly. "I want to be buried balls deep in you. Feel how hot and wet and tight you are, your skin against mine, watch your tits bounce as you ride my cock." 

"That's better. You have to talk and be honest during sex, this isn't your bedroom where you can just grunt your way to orgasm." Her fingers knotted in his hair, wrenching his head back "But sex isn't why you're here is it? No...you can fuck anyone you want. You have the looks and the right equipment to wet any woman's... appetite. So tell me why you need my services." 

Of course she knew that answer but this little routine was his required ritual. 

"I want to...eat..." 

A bolt of panic raced through his chest. It made him feel like a rockstar to make a woman come. The way they arched their backs, the moans and groans, the flush to their skin. And while toys and his own body did the job just fine, it's nothing compared to watching and hearing a woman come from a tongue buried in her cunt. But he absolutely hated the taste of pussy and hated admitting that even more. 

He cleared his throat. "I want to learn to love eating pussy." 

Her teeth nipped the side of his neck. "And so you shall. Come on my big, sexy plaything. You've been on this hard floor long enough. Lolly, lead him to the sofa please." 

Thank God. The human body was not meant to rest bone on marble for this long. 

Lolly's cool fingers traced the cut lines at his hips, toyed with the line of hair under his belly button. Her palms slowly slid up his abs, over the trimmed hairs on his chest, and across his shoulders before gently clamping onto his bicep. 

Obviously Mistress wasn't looking. 

He couldn't help the smirk. That kind of reaction from a woman made the fifteen hours a week in the gym and avoiding beer, sugar and red meat like the plague all worth it. After a few joint creaks and pops, his bare feet sunk into a plush area rug and his shins touched buttery soft leather. 

"Lay down, handsome." Mistress said, as Lolly's fingers unhooked the metal clip holding his leather cuffs together. "Trust me it's wide enough for all of us." 

His whole body tingled as he felt his way down to the sofa, hopping neither of them could see the tremble in his hands. The supple leather didn't even creak under his weight. 

"Do I get to keep my hands?" 

"As long you behave and don't touch me or Lolly." 

"And my eyes?" 

"Maybe. But not now," she said laying a silky bean bag over his already blindfolded eyes. "Relax this is a rice eye mask. Not being able to see can be a freeing experience." 

Mistress moved over him, putting one bent knee on either side of his head. 

He took a deep settling breath, pushing away the panic creeping back in. 

Lolly's cool fingers wrapped around his shaft. Now pitched in absolute blackness, his other senses were on hyper alert; the smell of leather and arousal more prominent, each brush of skin on the sofa became a shout, Mistress's thighs rubbing against the stubble on his cheeks sent sparks through each hair. 

"Mistress?" Lolly said, her voice feather soft but laced with eagerness. "May I taste him?" 

Please don't let her be into licking something weird like my toes or arm pits. 

"Easy Blake," Mistress said, in a soothing voice. "Control your body." 

"Yes Mistre..." 

The flat of Lolly's warm, wet tongue slowly slid from the base of his balls, up the entire length of his shaft, and over the head before dipping into the tiny hole. She sucked the tip of his cock between her lips...and moaned like he was the most delicious thing in the world. 

That swelled his ego. 

"God," he groaned. It took every ounce of his willpower to keep from thrusting deep into that warm, wet mouth. 

"She's very good with that tongue." Mistress's pussy lowered to his mouth, her fingers grazing through his hair. "Now, slide the tip of your's up and down my panties." Her grip tightened on his hair and her voice filled with lethal tone. "But don't you dare touch any of my skin with your tongue." 

"Um, all right." 

His lips touched her panties, kissing up and down, feeling his boundaries—which felt little bigger than a post-it. The tip of his tongue slid along the seam of her covered lips. She shifted those soft thighs further apart, pushing his tongue deeper into the silk covered heat. He ignored the knot twisting in his gut and the throbbing in his dick and gently licked her again. 

He could only taste the smoothness of the silk. That wasn't so bad, he could do this. 

"Good," she said, trailing her nails over his scalp. "That feels exquisite. Trace your tongue around my clit, through my panties." 

The second his tongue touched her covered clit again, Lolly's hot wet tongue swirled around the head of his cock, with excruciating leisure. He groaned deep into Mistress, trying to ignore the pressure in his balls, begging him to come that instant. 

Get a grip man! It's not like you've never had a blow job before. 

"The more you make me moan, the better Lolly will suck your cock." Mistress's fingers clamped onto his jaw. "But if you fucking come for her, I will flog you until your skin bleeds and then stuff your dick into a cage for a week. I own the rights to your orgasm. And I will tell you when to come. Understood?" 

"Yes. Mistress." 

The possessiveness in her voice flipped a switch inside him, her approval became absolutely vital. No way in hell would he come without her permission...or at least he'd everything in his power not to. 

"Good boy. Now, imagine you've been given an ice cream cone on the hottest day of the summer...in Florida." Her hips slowly moved against his mouth. "Use your tongue in my pussy like you would to keep that melting, pooling sweet goodness from getting all over the place." 

Her scenario formed behind his blinded eyes. His tongue swept a deep lick the entire length of her covered pussy. He nibbled and sucked at the flesh behind the silk. He focused on licking, tasting, and eating the imaginary dripping ice-cream instead of Lolly's soft mouth sucking and licking his cock. 

"God, Blake," Mistress said around a moan, her breath becoming a pant. "For a man who doesn't like to eat pussy you're doing a damn good job." 

Of course he knew how to get get a woman off, as long as they were in the shower when he couldn't taste anything. But really that's not fair? No one should have to take a shower just to get a little head. 

"Imagine my clit as a strawberry piece you're trying to get out of that melting ice-cream." 

Odd analogy but he followed her direction, all the same. She groaned and sighed—a sound of pure pleasure. His ego swelled further...ice-cream analogy it was then. 

The image engulfed his mind. Pitched in total blackness, her pussy became the dessert. It made it easy to lick, nibble, suck her exactly how she wanted. That, and the way Lolly's mouth inexplicably matched his own, guiding him. He licked deeper, she sucked deeper. She swirled her tongue around the head of his cock, he rolled his tongue against Mistress's covered clit. This was the most intense sensation; almost like giving himself a blowjob. 

The women's moans, whimpers and groans quickly chipped away at his self control. 

Mistress's fingers clenched tight in his hair, her hips grinding her pussy against his mouth. "My clit, suck..." 

He barely heard her command over the rushing in his ears. But he obeyed, sucking and lashing his tongue on her covered flesh. Her thighs shook against his cheeks, her moans growing louder and louder. Lolly's mouth and fingers played with him like she was a connoisseur of the male body. His hips instinctively flexed, sliding his cock in and out of her mouth. The woman fucking moaned and slipped his cock down her throat! 

Dear God, she has no gag reflex whatsoever. 

His fingers dug deep into the leather to keep from grabbing a fist full of her hair and holding her there. He focused on the imaginary ice-cream pussy above him and not the pressure in his balls begging for release. 

Mistress groaned and panted. "Eat me, harder. Make your Mistress come." 

Another switch flipped. Maybe it was the silk blocking most of her juices. Or maybe Lolly's talented mouth guiding and directing his own. Or the dream-like feeling from being in complete darkness, he didn't know. But he stopped fucking around; no more slow tentative licks and nibbles. Of their own accord, his hands smoothed over her thighs and grabbed her ass, burying his mouth harder into her silk covered cunt. Growls and groans he didn't even recognize as his own, sounded in his chest. 

Lolly's sinful mouth sucked his cock up and down. Her tongue doing some trick that would've normally made him—or any man—come within thirty embarrassing seconds. He had no idea how he managed to hold back this long. Mistress's thighs tightened. Her hips ground faster on his tongue, and a string of intangible curses spilled out of her mouth. 

His balls ached, sparks shot through his legs, his stomach and thigh muscles flexed. His fingers gripped Mistress's hips, pushing her back. "I'm about to-" She quickly moved off him. 

Smaack! His cheek and jaw lit up with stinging pins and needles. 

"Do. Not. Fucking come!" 

"You slapped me?" 

Mistress laughed, a wicked laugh. "I did. But are you still about to come... without my permission?" 

"Uh, well... No, not really." 

Whoa. No one had ever cooled him off like that, and kept him hard. Although, Lolly's ultra tight fingers were acting as a cock ring. 

"And your color?" 

"Blue..." 

The word spilled out of his mouth before he could stop it. Did he really want her to keep torturing him and refusing to let him come? Did he really want to let a woman—no two women—have this much control over him? 

Hell-fucking-yes! 

"Blue?" She snickered. "Did you hear that Lolly, our fuck toy wants more. Hmm, he does need to be punished for touching me... and nearly losing control of himself." She removed the rice blind fold and slipped off the silk tie. "Oh, I know exactly how to punish you, go sit in that chair. Lolly the chaise across from it." 

"Yes Mistress." He blinked letting his eyes adjust to the light and moved to the chair she indicated; sturdy back with low arm rests, wide seat and covered in the same chocolate brown leather as the sofa. 

Heavy burgundy drapes covered the wall of windows over looking the city, and a low fire burned in the gas hearth. The whole place looked like an expensive hotel suite, decorated in warm browns and tans with subtle touches of it's nefarious nature. A perfect mixture of pleasure and pain; like Mistress herself. 

"Since you couldn't remember the rules and touched me..." Mistress clipped each wrist cuff to a thick ring on each armrest. "You loose your hands." Her sharp nails dragged up his arm, over his shoulders and down to his other wrist, erupting goosebumps down his body before stepping behind the chaise. "But since you made me come, I'm giving back your sight." 

His mouth watered at the sight of those two. Together, they were a man's wet dream come to life; the sinner and the saint. Mistress looked wicked and sinful in her tight, black mini-dress, with her dark hair in big loose curls on her shoulders. But Lolly was absolutely angelic with delicate pearls draping and swooping across her shoulders and breasts, circling her hips and cascaded down one thigh. 

Fuck. She should've left the blindfold on. 

"She looks so pretty in these pearls." Mistress smoothed her hands down Lolly's arms. The strategically placed pearls shifted, giving him a peak at dusky nipples. "It would be a shame if anything happened to them...don't you think?" 

A caveman urge to rip those strands apart and brutally fuck the little blonde right there, spread through him. He growled and pulled against the cuffs. 

Mistress smiled and tugged on the delicate strand circling Lolly's hips. "Especially these. These little pearls are the only thing connecting the ones rubbing on her clit. And if they broke," she tugged harder making Lolly gasp, "oh what a terrible mess they would make. But we don't have to worry about that with you, do we? You'd never be barbaric and ruin one of my pretty, delicate playthings, even if you weren't cuffed...would you my pet?" 

That's exactly what he wanted to do. There's something primal and exhilarating in destroying such sweet and angelic innocence. 

Lolly's blue eyes widened, her outstretched legs pressed harder together. It seemed she liked that idea as much as he did. 

"Answer me Blake." 

"Oh, um yes Mistress." 

"Hmm, Lolly I think he needs reminding on how to speak, don't you?" 

Lolly snickered. "Yes Mistress, he's been very quiet." 

Oh hell, what's that little look for? 

Mistress slowly stalked back in front of him, picking up one of the dozens of red candles. 

He would never understand how women could walk in spiked heels like that, but damn if their ass and legs didn't look fantastic in them... especially thigh-high leather ones. 

She tipped the candle, spilling a drop on the top of his shoulder. 

He flinched. That felt far better than it should have. 

"Color?" 

"As green as your pretty eyes, Mistress." 

"Now he finds his words. Let's see how long that lasts." She smirked and dribbled more wax on his chest. 

That stung but no more than a woman's nails. His eyes dropped to the line of wax cooling on his chest, looked like a claw mark too. 

"Still green?" 

"Yeah..." 

Mistress dropped more wax right on his nipple. "It's yes Mistress, not yeah." 

Shit, that burned! 

He groaned and shifted in his seat, the metal rings of his cuffs and the chair clinking together. "Yes Mistress, still green." 

"Good." She bent forward, the deep V cut of her dress drawing his eyes directly to her cleavage. A devil's grin spread across her lips as her warm hand cupped and squeezed his balls. "There's nothing more arousing than a grown man tied to my chair getting off on pain...right Lolly?" 

His whole body tensed, his pulse hammered in his chest. Surely she wasn't going to pour molten wax on his dick? 

"Oh yes Mistress, men in pleasurable pain make the most delicious noises." 

"Lolly why don't you show him exactly how arousing it is." Her gaze snapped over shoulder to Lolly. "And don't you dare come for him." 

"As you wish Mistress." 

His eyes flicked to Lolly—who now had her bare feet on the seat, her bent knees parted and her fingers toying with the strand of pearls dipping between her thighs. Her breath caught, her eyes closing for a brief second. His head tilted trying to see how those beads slipped and glided over her pussy. If she would open her knees a little more... 

A puddle of wax splashed on the inside of his thigh. Searing pain radiated through his skin, little white stars blinked before his eyes. At the same time, Lolly moaned and pulled the pearls deep between her pussy lips. 

"I do love when a man whimpers but it tells me nothing." She moved the candle up his thigh, hovering. The molten wax quivered at the rim. 




Blue



His breaths hitched, his fingers dug into the leather arm rests, his eyes flicked from the flame to her tits to her intense eyes. 

Say something man before she pours that on- 

The liquid poured on the tender flesh between hip and groin. 

"Oh my God," he groaned. 

There see... men do not whimper. 

"Better but still not good enough." She traced a sharp nail along his rock hard shaft, toying with him. "See, I can't tell if you're squirming is because you want more, or you want me to stop." 

"Um..." He didn't know either. His cock flexed in her grasp, the need to fuck tightening his stomach. 

"Maybe you need a little more persuasion." 

Her fist slid up and down his cock with that maddening pressure and rhythm most women had no clue how to achieve. He watched Lolly's knees part further, her fingers and her pearls gliding through her pink pussy. Waves of pleasure coursing through him blurred the edges of reality. 

Piping hot, liquid wax poured onto his balls! 

"Fucking hell!" he growled through clenched teeth. His hips shifted away from the burn, but his cock jumped in her grasp. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, his pulse raced. He yanked on the cuffs, his fingers digging into the leather. 

"Breathe." Her voice dropped to a dark, seductive octave. "Embrace it. Let the pain works it magic and become pleasure. Don't come." 

"Oh my god..." His eyes closed, a deep groan echoed up to the ceiling. Those opposing sensations warred for control, adrenaline rushed through him. Finally the burn lessened leaving his whole body shaking and craving that intense combo. 

"Good boy, you took that well. Color?" 

"Blue..." 

He may have let previous lovers tie him up once in a while but this was exhilarating on a whole different level. Pain may have never on the menu, but it certainly would be now. 

She smiled and tipped the candle. 

"No...don't do it again!" he said, the wax pooling at the edge. His breaths quick and shallow, the muscles deep in his body contracting. A bead of precum dripped from his cock onto her thumb. 

"No? You do know what 'blue' means, right?" 

"Yes," he said, watching a bead of wax seconds from spilling over. "No! I mean yes I fucking loved it and want more but it's going to make me come. Don't do it yet." 

"Good, you do speak." She set the candle down on a nearby table before tugging on his hair. "But we're going to have to work on this coming too soon problem you have. It's a shame to waste a perfectly hard cock on some silly old wax." 

His brows furrowed, his eyes meeting her bright green ones. "What the hell? I haven't even came-" 

She yanked his head back against the top of the chair, her other hand inches from his upturned face. "Maybe not fully, but there's still precum on my hand. Clean up your mess." 

The bead of his liquid on her thumb, glittered in the candle light. The lust in her bright green eyes made her look positively predatory... and sexy as hell! 

"Mistress..." He tried to pull away, his stomach twisting in knots. 

It's seductive and taboo seeing a woman tasting herself but no where near as alluring when the roles were reversed. 

Her thumb slipped into his mouth. Before he could register any taste or texture, her tongue replaced it. There was nothing soft or gentle or tentative in the way she kissed him. Her tongue dueled with his, her lips soft but firm and commanding against his. He returned each parry of her tongue with equal pressure. Her scent of leather and vanilla filled his nose. Growls vibrated in his throat. Her fingers moved from his hair and traced along his jaw, cupping his face. She kissed him harder, her little moans driving him crazy. What he wouldn't give to be able to grab her ass and haul her onto his lap. 

Damn these cuffs! 

"I know self-tasting's against your limits," she said against his lips. "Thank you for letting me do that, it's one of my favorite kinks." The tip of her tongue flicked against his bottom lip, but she kept her lips barely out of reach. 

"It wasn't so bad." His body gravitated toward her. If he could just kiss her again... 

"You've been such a good boy, I bet you're dying for that orgasm." 

His eyes obediently followed her fingers down his body. Seeing the wax hardened on his skin sent a thrill up his spine. His cock flexed seeking her touch as she skimmed her fingers down his thigh and up her own, before dipping between. 

"Yes... But I won't until you tell me too." 

Her short dress covered her fingers just enough to let his imagination run wild. 

"Oh my god, I wish that was my cock." 

"Yeah?" Her slick fingers closed around him. "See, all you have to do is speak. And you'll be rewarded." 

"Oh fuck," he groaned, his eyes closing and his head falling back against the chair. "You feel so good." 

This woman was the devil, he was sure of it now. He was already wound tight as a spring and she was jacking him with excruciating leisure...with her own fucking juices! As incredible as it felt, he wasn't going to settle for a hand job. 

"Let me out of these things," he growled, pulling on the cuffs. "Let me pleasure you and Lolly. I'll be as gentle or as rough as you want." 

That wicked smile spread across her lips again. "I do love hearing a man beg. It makes it much more enjoyable." 

He swallowed hard. She wanted him to beg? For what, his orgasm? Hers? He had a feeling these few sessions he'd spent with her were only baby steps in her world. Red or blue; stop this torture and go home or, stay and have his eyes opened to things he didn't even know he desired? 

Blue... The answer blazed across his sex-dazed brain as if it were always the answer. 

"Please Mistress..." 

**** 

Dear Reader, 

Thank you so much for choosing my work out of so many others. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to leave feedback below and/or click a star rating. 

Without you... there is no me. 

-Bren