Nice Couples Do (22 page)

Her eyes were closed, yet she knew that the room was light. Without moving the rest of her body, she ran one finger over the surface on which she was lying. It was hard, like metal or stone, but it was faintly warm, like some kind of heated plastic.

Over the sound of the throbbing engines, she sorted out the sound of breathing. Someone else was in the room with her. She risked opening her eyes just a crack, since she had learned all she could with her eyes closed. She peeked out through her long lashes.

The ceiling glowed. It wasn’t lights behind a translucent substance; the ceiling glowed all on its own. The walls didn’t look metal. They looked like soft blue plastic, maybe similar to the substance of the couch on which she was lying.

She opened her eyes all the way and looked around. She was not lying on a couch but, rather, on a table. On a parallel table lay the unconscious figure of a man, in a full dress suit.

She reasoned that she should be terrified, but she wasn’t. It was as though she was enveloped in a blanket of calm.

“Where are we?” she said to the air. To her surprise, the air answered.

“You are here with us,” the disembodied voice said. She was reminded of her father’s voice when he calmed her after a nightmare.

“Where is that?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” the voice said gently.

“Who the hell are you?” the man on the other table said, his head turned toward her. She saw that he was strapped down to the table, and as she started to sit up, Bonnie realized that she, too, was restrained.

“Forgive the restraints,” the voice explained. “We were afraid you might injure yourselves.”

“My name is Bonnie,” she said to the man on the other table, “Bonnie Walker. Who are you?”

“Neil,” he said, glaring at her as if his being there was her fault. “Neil Harris.”

“Now that you know each other’s names,” the voice said, “there are things we should tell you.”

“Who we are is of no importance,” a different voice continued. “Suffice it to say that we are from a place very far away and we have been sent here on a scientific mission.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” Neil snapped. He glared at Bonnie.

“I assure you, Mr. Harris,” she said, “I have no more idea of what’s happening than you do.”

“Don’t be so upset, Mr. Harris,” a second disembodied voice said. “I assure you that this is no joke. The more relaxed and accepting you are, the better, for both of you.”

“We mean you no harm,” the first voice said. “After we learn what we need to know, you will be returned and it will be as though nothing happened.”

Bonnie’s mind was whirling. Five minutes ago, she had been in her living room, recovering from an all-night party. Now she was here, wherever that was. She studied her cell mate. From what she could tell, he was a man about her age.

“Since you are calm now, we can dispense with the restraints,” the voice said.

“How can you be so sure that we are calm?” Neil asked.

“Because we can feel what you are feeling.” The second voice sounded as if it was instructing a small child.

There was a beep and the restraints disappeared. They didn’t slide away or unfasten, they just disappeared. Both Bonnie and Neil sat up. While Bonnie remained sitting on the table, Neil got up and walked around the small room.

“No door,” he muttered. “No openings or seams of any kind.” He turned to Bonnie and sighed. “I’m sorry I seemed gruff before. I’m not used to coming home, collapsing on my sofa, and then resurfacing like this.” He gestured at the room.

His smile seemed genuine as he admitted, “It’s strange. I should be angry, or afraid. But instead I feel so calm, somehow.”

“That is because we caused your fear to fade,” the first voice said. “Fear serves no purpose. For what we have in mind, you need to be relaxed.”

“Oh?” Neil said. “And what exactly is that?”

“We have surveyed all your literature and tried to understand you. We find we are at a loss to understand your sexual practices.”

Bonnie chuckled. “Sometimes we don’t understand them, either.”

“It seems so complicated, unnecessarily so,” the first voice said. “We simply build new models when we need them, which is seldom, since we seldom cease to exist.”

“No sex?” Bonnie giggled. “How dull.” Her sex life was anything but dull.

“So what do you want from us?” Neil asked.

“We selected two of your species, one male and one female. We selected you based on the fact that both of you are very sexually active and you seem to be able to find partners without much difficulty.”

“My sexual partners are none of your business,” Bonnie snapped.

Neil laughed warmly. “Come, come, Miss Walker, this is no time for modesty. They seem to know us well.”

Bonnie turned away, excited but faintly embarrassed.

“We want to learn, and the only way we can learn,” the second voice continued, “is by being inside your mind while you make love.”

Neil raised his eyebrows. “You mean the same way you knew that we weren’t afraid?”

“You understand us very quickly, Mr. Harris.”

“This locale is hardly conducive to sexual activity,” Neil said. “Usually sex is done in private, without anyone watching”—Neil paused—“or feeling.”

“I know that you are no stranger to public displays. Surely you remember a certain Annabelle—”

“That’s enough,” Neil snapped.

Bonnie burst out laughing. “It seems we’ve been selected to be partners in a public display of our primitive sexual practices.”

“What if we refuse,” Neil said. “I, for one, don’t make love on command.”

“You can refuse to cooperate willingly, of course,” the voice said, “but, if you do, we have many alternatives. We can force you to do whatever we want, or we can arrange to make you feel irresistible sexual hunger.”

Neil and Bonnie thought about their predicament. Then they looked at each other and shrugged. He really is a very attractive man, Bonnie thought. She could feel a tingle of hunger grow deep in her belly. Bonnie didn’t know whether her arousal was genuine or being placed there by the voices. She found she didn’t care.

Neil was obviously having similar thoughts. His eyes studied her and his expression became openly sensual.

They felt or sensed the presence of the voices inside of their heads. “We wish to experience all the varieties we have read about in your publications. We will put different desires in your mind and remove all inhibitions.”

Neil’s eyes met Bonnie’s.

“Shall we start with kissing?” the voices said.

ISOLATION

As the icy rain dribbled down the back of her neck, Trisha wondered why she had picked this afternoon to end up so far away from home.

Earlier that day, she and her aunt had quarreled—she didn’t even remember what about—and she had stormed out of the house. She had walked for hours, getting farther and farther away from the farm. As the first cold drops fell from the leaden sky, she looked around and realized that she had no idea where she was.

“Damn,” she said aloud as the rain got heavier. Her long hair lay in a flat, wet sheet down her back. Her soaked shirt and light jacket did little to protect her from the frigid drops.

Her teeth started to chatter and her fingers felt like icicles as she jammed them into her pockets. She spotted a huge tree and ran toward it, hoping to find some shelter from the deluge. The bolt of lightning that split the sky eliminated the tree as shelter.

She shivered violently, and tears started to form in her eyes. Not thunder, please, she prayed. Then she realized that she had to get out of the rain. I won’t panic, she thought. There has to be somewhere I can go. There just has to be.

She looked across a small stream and, through the sheets of rain, she saw a tiny cabin nestled at the foot of a small hill. “Thank God,” she whispered.

She ran across the little wooden bridge that led to the cabin and pounded on the door.

“Oh, please let me in!” she cried. “Please.”

As she was almost ready to drop from exhaustion, she heard the bolt being pulled and then the door opened.

“Come in, come in. You’re soaked.” The man who opened the door was very tall, with sandy hair and large dark brown eyes.

“My name is Rick. I don’t often get visitors,” he said kindly. “I’m kind of a hermit out here, and I like it that way, but you’re more than welcome.”

Trisha walked in, introduced herself, and briefly explained how she happened to be there.

Rick looked at the puddle she was leaving on the floor. “You have to get out of those wet clothes.” He rummaged through a small trunk that held his possessions. Trisha looked around the one-room cabin: a bed, a chair, a fireplace, and the trunk.

Rick held a pair of slacks and a man’s shirt out to her. “These will have to do until we can dry your clothes.”

He handed her a towel and showed her to the tiny bathroom. “We’re not equipped for anyone but me, I’m afraid.”

Ten minutes later, Trisha emerged from the bathroom. The shirt was tremendous and she had rolled the sleeves up to her elbows. She held the pants up with one hand and held her wet clothes in the other.

Rick took her clothes from her and grinned. “You don’t look as much like a drowned rat, now,” he said. “Come sit over here.” He motioned to a spot on the rug in front of the fire and draped her clothes over the back of his only chair to dry.

Trisha settled on the soft rug and ran her fingers through her tangled long hair. “Do you have a comb?” she asked.

Rich pulled his comb out of his pocket with a flourish and handed it to her. “At your service,” he said.

After a few frustrating moments pulling at the knots, she sighed.

“Can I help?” he asked. “I don’t have a lot of experience combing a woman’s hair, but it doesn’t look too hard. And I’ll bet it is easier for me than for you.”

He meticulously started to work the knots out of her hair. As the fire dried it, it began to feel like a satin waterfall, long and straight and reaching almost to her waist.

There was a flash of lightning and a thunderous crash outside. Trisha jumped and a tiny sound escaped her lips.

“It’s all right. The lightning can’t hurt you.” Under his fingers, Rick could feel Trisha shake.

“I’ve been afraid of lightning and thunder all my life,” she whimpered. “I guess while I was trying to get dry, I shut out the storm. Now that I’m dry and comfortable, the lightning and thunder terrify me.”

Gently, Rick took her in his arms. “I won’t let anything hurt you. Just rest here with me and I’ll take care of everything.”

It felt so safe in his arms that Trisha cuddled deeper and looked up. She saw his lips descending on hers and she smiled. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to feel safe and protected in his arms.

The kiss was long and deep. When he pulled away, she knew that she didn’t want him to stop.

She reached up and wrapped her hand around the back of his neck. She pulled his mouth down to hers. They both knew what they were saying. They knew that they wouldn’t stop.

CONCLUSION

V
ariety is the spice of sexuality. Once you’ve found a game or a fantasy that you enjoy, don’t think that you can use it every night for months. It will become stale. Anything becomes tiresome when overused. There is nothing inherently wrong with missionary position; it’s just that it becomes routine.

Keep varying your sexual experiences. Try something new anytime it occurs to you. Reread the material in this book and mark a new story, one you’ve never played with before. Read more erotica, rent a videotape, try a new game.

A delicious warning. My partner has had a lot to do with this book. He’s not only the inspiration, he’s my primary editor. As you can imagine, we’ve read and reread this many times. Yesterday, he reread and edited this text and last night we tried something new, something again inspired by what he had read. There is no end to the variations. There are only the limits you place on yourself.

Have fun.

Dear Reader:

It would please me to know that you and your partner shared a wonderful experience that was in part due to my book. I’d love to hear from you, so please write to me care of Warner Books,

1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Or visit my web site at
www.JoanELloyd.com

or e-mail me at
[email protected]