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She embraced his adoration of the object of his affection, losing herself in his reverie. His incredulity at the softness of a woman’s body. His childlike wonder at the sensation of smelling her tousled hair. His delight at her evident appreciation of his body. And then came the moment. Her subject pushed the woman gently back and entered her. The rush. He/she was actually inside her. He/she could feel her…from the inside. The woman had given her lover the ultimate sacrifice. She’d allowed him inside her body.

As the man started to make love she marvelled at the complex thought processes he was experiencing. The sheer bliss of the moment, the delight that his ministrations were being enjoyed and the sublime pleasure of the friction on his penis. When his climax eventually came she was already hooked. The power of the explosion shook her with its power and its focus. The male orgasm was so irrevocably different than anything she could have ever imagined. And, the moment it was over, a sense of exhaustion. The release seemingly draining the man. She immediately understood what she had found so hard to comprehend in the past. Once spent, the sexual urge dropped dramatically. Intimacy remained but the vibrancy and urgency faded, the need for recuperation foremost.

After that she altered her hitching dramatically. She plunged with abandon into both male and female subjects, and when she physically slept with non hitching partners the quality of her performance ensured that she was pursued relentlessly. A tiresome side effect. Though jaded, she continued her search. There was still more. A bigger high. She knew it and consequently her commitment to her addiction knew no bounds.

The nadir came on a business trip. As she nursed a drink in a hotel bar a tolerably handsome man had engaged her in conversation. She endured the exchange through amusement more than anything else. Despite her offhanded responses to his questions the man persisted. As he made his ill-disguised pitch an idea formed in her mind. A new slant that, incredibly, she’d never considered before. She practically force marched him to her hotel room.

As he was about to enter her she hitched and experienced him entering her. She watched herself savour the pleasure she was giving herself. He seemed to know her body better than she did. Every nuance of her eclectic needs were addressed. She watched herself in throes of ecstasy and lost herself in his delight at her abandonment. He was satisfying her, really satisfying her. Though she couldn’t feel it she could see her own reactions. Her bell was not just ringing, it was sounding relentlessly out of control. Her subject knew this and savoured every moment. She sank herself into his enjoyment. She was a passenger on her own train to paradise.

As the lovemaking intensified she let every fibre of her being connect with his enjoyment of her passion. This was intensity beyond belief. It was what she had been seeking. She basked in his pleasure at her responses and his own sensations. She marvelled at his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of the location of every button she had. As she came close to the moment she made a decision. Seconds before her climax she dropped back into her body to experience what she knew was to come. And then it came. The orgasm that had been building deep within her. The first waves made her dizzy. Wave upon ever increasing wave flowed inexorably from between her legs to the extremities of her body. The final tsunami ripped through her with an intensity that threatened sensory overload. As her body convulsed she was aware that even her fingertips tingled.

When it was over she lay in his arms totally overcome and satisfied. “That was incredible,” she confessed. Her partner gently caressed her hair. “It was,” he admitted. “Jesus, even your fingertips tingled.”

She pulled back from him in shock. He smiled at her. “What?” he said. “Did you think you were the only one who could do it?” 

- The End -

ALIENS

The exobiologist scratched her head as she tried yet again to asses her findings. Her report was way overdue and she was concerned, she had a reputation to maintain. She stared out of the window in frustration at the enigma that were the inhabitants of the planet below. The captain’s table awaited and he didn’t like to be kept waiting. After all, it was her job to study new races and report her expert findings, a role in which she normally excelled. Her input was vital; indeed no contact would be made with an alien species until it had been assessed that there was benefit to both sides. Too many mistakes had been made in the past and valuable resources wasted.

She studied her findings yet again. Firstly, they were extremely fragile as they were almost totally composed of liquid. It was frankly amazing that they held together at all. Incredibly, they also had to constantly absorb gas to survive. Their method of communication was extremely unusual. It comprised of vibrating various body parts to create an atmospheric based harmonic which could apparently be registered and interpreted by other members of the race. It had taken an inordinately large amount of computer time to decipher these harmonics and construct a model of what they used as a language.

It was the language model that had caused her the most difficulty. At first it was seemingly incomprehensible. It was only her enormous experience and the powerful mainframe on the ship which had enabled her to painstakingly put together a highly complex algorithm that had finally made interpretation possible. That was when her real problems began.

The captain gently chided her on her lack of progress. “It’s most frustrating I must admit,” she said as she enjoyed her meal. “Not only is their method of communication bizarre, and believe me I’ve seen a few unusual races, but it’s formalised to a degree beyond imagination. They have an enormously complex protocol involved in social interaction. It’s not even true communication as we understand it, it’s more like giving hints to whomsoever you’re communicating with and letting them join the dots. They use a vast range of highly refined visual and vocal structures which are designed to disguise what they’re really saying. How they impart information to others of their race seems to be more important than the actual information itself. To communicate what you really mean seems to be impossible, indeed it appears to be culturally unacceptable. How they actually developed technology is a mystery. And don’t get me started on their mating rituals; I’m amazed they actually procreate at all. God knows why they even bother.”

The captain smiled. “I think I’ve heard enough, Doctor.” He touched a pad on the table. “Bridge, we’ll leave orbit immediately and continue on our way.”

The ship slowly manoeuvred a safe distance from the Earth and initiated the Star Drive.

- The End -

WARRIOR

At the priest’s instruction the congregation knelt and prayed. Somewhat stiffly the Major followed suit. Three rows behind him a woman nudged her husband sharply in the ribs and hissed, “There’s something I never thought I’d live to see.” Her long-suffering spouse regarded the object of her observations and blinked in amazement. The general had been in the military long enough to know of the uneasy relationships his charges had with the Almighty, but to see the major in this place was something that he could have never predicted. The priest also glanced uneasily over the rim of his half moon spectacles, noticing the Major for the first time and shivered. He regarded himself as a force for good. He knew that the soldier now bent at prayer had vanquished more evil than he ever would, but the man scared him.

The major was the most outstanding individual under the general’s command; indeed he was one of the most highly regarded and well-decorated servicemen in the entire armed forces. In this age of high tech weapons when it was fashionable to look less admiringly at that highly trained and able group of men known as ‘special forces’, the major was a legend. A consummate commander and a veteran of Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous ‘black ‘ops’ under contract to the CIA. His achievements and exploits were legendary amongst those with the security clearances to know his work. The major was an enigma and a solid gold asset. Possessed of a loving wife and two delightful daughters, he was famed as a family man beyond repute, but the enemies of the state saw a very different side. The general knew him to be a totally ruthless cold-blooded killer. The jungles of Central America and the backstreets of the Middle East were the theatres where he plied his deadly trade. Many a warlord or drug baron had quietly vanished after having been tagged for the major’s personal attention.

His reports made for chilling reading, as did his methods. You didn’t assign the major to a task, you unleashed him. Whether it be assassination or a full-blown military engagement, the man delivered. It was only his acerbic and blunt manner that had kept him from higher office. The general was aware that the major had the intellect to appreciate this. The general also knew that the major was doing what he did best…he was a soldier…plain and simple.

The major felt the general wife’s eyes on his back and his keen hearing heard her words perfectly. Not ten days ago that hearing had proved very useful in a Sudanese slum. There were three empty spaces at the mosque the following day as a result. Africa beckoned next. A particularly brutal dictator was living on borrowed time. From the moment the major had received his assignment the despot’s days had been numbered.

It was not of his mission that the soldier thought now. He’d come to this place as a last resort. He wasn’t a God fearing man. He feared nothing. He’d come as a result of a nagging pain in his chest. The men in white coats had told him that he had a year at most. He certainly wasn’t afraid of dying, but he was afraid for his family afterwards. He knew he could protect them against anything while alive, but he of all people knew what the world was like. He had been assured that this was one battle that he could not win, and the bleakness of leaving those he truly loved was intolerable. He’d begun to quietly make the arrangements necessary for the dark days ahead and had concluded that his love for his family demanded he try every option to keep them safe. And so he prayed for them. He prayed that for them after he was gone. He felt no awkwardness at being in this place; for him it was a matter of covering every base, no matter how extreme.

So massive was the heart attack that struck him he didn’t have time to even register the pain as he pitched forward in his pew.

He’d never learned to ride a horse and yet he was riding one now. The soldier thundered across a grassy veldt under an impossibly beautiful blue sky. The wind tore through his hair and made his eyes water as his powerful mount made short work of the undulating land. He was aware that he had never felt so alive. He breathed in deeply, the smell of the rich earth and the scent of flora around him filling his head.

He sat in silence as the magnificent animal beneath him came to a halt and caught its breath. He unbuttoned his dress tunic and considered his position. A moment ago he’d been in church. Now he was riding a horse in the middle of nowhere. He couldn’t ride a horse. Before he had a chance to think any further he saw a figure walking towards him. It was a man, tall and proud. ‘No,’ he thought, ‘not proud, confident.’ As the stranger walked towards him his training took over. Physically the man was no threat; indeed few men were to the major. Dressed in jeans and t-shirt, he was apparently unarmed, another plus, though where he had come from was impossible to tell. One moment the major had been alone in this place, this beautiful place, and the next minute the man had been walking towards him.

The man called out to him, “So you made it then?”

The major shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts, but found to his surprise that they were crystal clear. He was alive, deliciously and wonderfully alive. He thought of his wife and daughters in an almost abstract way. His love for them was there, undiminished and vibrant, yet it seemed to be somehow ‘managed’. It was almost as if his brain had parked them in a file to allow him to think of other things. He knew that moments ago he had been in church and now he was here. He knew this to be an impossibility and yet this process also seemed to have been ‘parked’ somewhere in his psyche. It was as he considered these weighty matters that the man finally reached him and spoke. “Don’t try to work it out,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about it. Just enjoy the view.”

And what a view it was. In the distance, snow tipped mountains capped the horizon. The land was lush and the air was as fresh as he’d ever known. A dense forest covered the land to his left, and to his right a fast running stream made its way urgently to who knew where. The whole place seemed to pulsate as if alive. He actually ‘felt’ as if he was part of the vista before him. It was almost as if he was the land and the land was him. The feeling was so familiar. He searched for the words. “Harmony,” said the stranger. “That’s the word you’re looking for. It’s very easy to forget what it’s like; most people do.”

The major dismounted and regarded the stranger. Before he had a chance to speak the man held out his hand. “Hi,” he said. “Welcome to this place…I’m…well…we’ll come to that. Shall I call you Major?” The soldier shrugged. “Everyone else does.” They shook hands and regarded each other for a full five seconds before they both tried to speak at the same time. The man laughed. “After you,” he said.

As he was about to speak the major remembered his heart attack. He suddenly felt sick and disoriented. Immediately the man was there holding him. “Don’t worry, it’ll pass,” he said. As the man embraced him the major felt a wave of compassion pass though him from his touch. It reached every fibre of his being. It was stronger than anything he had ever known; it was beyond tenderness. It was as if every loving feeling that he had ever felt in his life was just the merest sample of what was to come. He felt himself dissolving into it…dissolving into a place where there was only that feeling. It was only with the greatest of efforts that he pulled himself back out of it and stood up abruptly.

The man smiled at him. “They said you were strong,” he laughed, “I’m glad.” Trying to gain some sort of equilibrium, the soldier took a deep breath. “I think I died but I don’t feel dead. In fact I feel more alive than I’ve ever felt. I miss my family and yet I seem to be dealing with it in a way that I can’t describe.”

“I know,” said the man, “Everything will be explained soon. Trust me.”

The next thing that the major knew, he and the man were on horseback side-by-side trotting gently toward the undulating horizon. The soldier asked the inevitable question. “So where is this place and why am I here?”

The man thought on this for a moment. “You are here because your help is requested. Here, of course, is Heaven.” The major stopped his horse. “Heaven? I don’t believe in Heaven!”  “I know,” the man replied, “But a very small part of you does and always has. You’ve always believed that if there was a Heaven it would look like this. That in itself is a form of belief…and …well…here it is…I think it’s rather nice.”

He started his horse moving again and the soldier followed suit. “If this is heaven then I…I,” His companion laughed. “You thought that if there was a heaven and a hell then it was a difficult call for someone to make because you’re a killer. Well, you’re right; it was a difficult judgement call. There are those who would call you a murderer and those that would call you a warrior. You killed for what you believed was right. You felt that you were good fighting against evil.”

“I was fighting evil,” snapped the soldier,

“Tell that to the children of a third world warlord whose throat you’ve cut,” replied the man. “Look,” he continued, “I’m not judging you, I know all the political arguments and I know you believed you were doing the right thing. Don’t worry about that for now.” He suddenly pulled up his horse and the Major did the same.

The man fixed him with a look that the major couldn’t fathom. Nervousness maybe? A hint of fear? “You’re afraid,” said the Major. It was a statement. “What are you afraid of?” 

His companion considered his reply carefully. “My name is Arbatel,” he said.” My function is to reveal why you are here. The reason you are here is over the next ridge. Please do not speak further until I tell you. I need to have all my awareness focused on our safety.” With that he nudged his mount who started to move slowly forwards. The major followed him.

As they reached the top of the ridge the sky ahead of them darkened and the lush vegetation began to thin out. As they continued the sun dimmed further and the ground became blackened, as if a forest fire had recently torched the land. Finally they stopped.

“This is the very edge of Heaven,” Arbatel whispered. “This is where good and evil meet. Not far from here, dark forces are mustering their armies. This is a place where the good must be very cautious. There are depraved spirits here whoring for souls.”

“Hell?” exclaimed the major.

Arbatel held his finger up to his lips. “Quiet. There is great danger here.” Suddenly the ground shook violently. The major’s horse reared up, throwing him to the ground. As he tried to get to his feet he saw the earth split open in front of him, the tear venting incredible heat. He held his hands up to his face to protect himself. As he did so he felt something hit him hard and fast. Winded, he fell back to the ground. In that moment his experience took over. He rolled over twice concentrating not on his assailant but on getting his breath back. By the time he’d rolled the second time he was virtually recovered. He saw a flash of metal and heard an unearthly shriek. Instinctively he came up, lethally fast. His fist, hard as a rock, connected with flesh. A moment later he was on his feet. His opponent was rolling in the dust, clutching his chest in pain. The major hesitated for only a moment as he registered what had attacked him. A second later he fell on the demon, using the full weight of his body to drive his elbow into its throat. Only when the twitching stopped did he ease the pressure.

A scream of fury behind him made him turn his head. In that moment Arbatel leapt between the major and the charging demon. A brilliant light surrounded the major’s companion. He thrust his arms wide and the t-shirted, denim clad guide was no more. In his place, with magnificent wings fully extended, stood an angel. “Be gone,” he shouted. Stopping dead in its tracks the monster cowered down, spitting venom at the apparition before him. Arbatel took a step forwards and the demon turned tail and ran.

The major looked down at his slain adversary. It was the most obscene thing he’d ever seen. Humanoid, yet squat and heavily muscled, the naked beast lay twisted on the scorched ground. The demon’s yellow eyes stared back at his killer seemingly watching him even in death. Arbatel’s voice startled him. “Don’t get eye contact. Even in death these creatures are dangerous.” He stepped in front of the soldier, blocking his view. The major could have sworn he was taller. Naked, save for a brilliant white loincloth, Arbatel stared intently at his companion and folded his wings behind him. Incredibly, the major laughed. “Yep, you’re a real angel all right. No doubt about that.”

Arbatel gave him a look that was unfathomable. “You’re just like I imagined an angel would look,” the major continued.

“I know,” the man said and started to walk back to his mount. The Major followed.

“The reason I’m in Heaven,’ the major said. “You said it was in this place. Was this what it was all about? I don’t understand.”

The Angel shook his head and turned around, “No Major. This was just a sample. You see there’s a war in Heaven.”

The soldier’s vision wavered slightly. He blinked to clear his sight. He was in a smoky bar, busy with people. He blinked again and shook his head. The smoky bar was still there. A jukebox blared out country and western music while red-necked men drank in the low light. Instantly on his guard, the Major assessed in a heartbeat that there was no one in the bar who could physically challenge him. Unsure what to do next, he noticed the barman making eye contact and waving him over. He pushed his way through a sea of denim and checked shirts until he reached the bar. The heavily tattooed barman deposited a beer in front of him. “On the house Major, good to see you buddy.”

Nonplussed, the soldier picked up the drink and nodded thanks. “You know me?”

“Of course. Everyone here knows you. Look around,” the barman urged. Looking slowly around the room the major acknowledged familiar nods from a number of the drinkers.

“There’s someone here who wants to see you,” the barman continued. He indicated a man in a sweaty white vest downing a shot of tequila in the corner. As he replaced his glass on the table, the man lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, then poured himself another shot from a bottle on the table. “He looks busy to me right now,” observed the soldier.