Stripped Down (25 page)

Stumbling around her, I slid suavely into the seat across from her and wondered what to say to get off on the right
foot, so to speak. I needn't have bothered. She took a long look at me with those big golden eyes. I'm not bad looking by Knossan standards, but if you don't like them short, plump, and fuzzy, that's not saying much.

Her gills fluttered slightly. “What does that one want?” I could see the slits of her nostrils flaring just a little. Could she smell me? Knossans are known for the smells that we give off when we're interested in being more than casual pals, kinda like freshly turned soil on one of the Proxima farm worlds. How the hell would she interpret it? I didn't know what, if anything, it would mean to her.

Nerves and want increased my scent till it surrounded me like a cloud. Through it all, I mumbled, “You.”

She ordered a drink, something I'd never heard of before. Maybe this Altaran was different. Then, “Will that one do anything that this one desires? Anything at all?” I looked into those golden eyes and whispered my yes. Much as I wanted to find out what she could possibly want, I was scared shitless to find out for certain. But I said yes anyway. Points for my side.

“Unfasten that one's upper garment.” Here? My eyes darted around the crowded bar. Sure, it was dark, but not that dark. Very slowly, I unfastened the top of my uniform. “Keep going,” she commanded from the other side of the table, seeming farther away every minute. I did.

“Open it all the way. Let this one see that one.” I spread the edges of my uniform open, exposing my breasts. They're not quite the erogenous zone that Earth women have, but they do the trick. I sat there feeling multiple eyes on our booth, until the manager hissed in mild annoyance as she passed and pressed the button that lowered the semiprivate shield. It
blocked the view a little, but we would have had to cloud it to completely seal it off. She didn't move toward the mist button and neither did I.

“Let this one see what that one does for self-pleasuring.” Dammit, I wanted to touch her not me! My frustration must have showed on my face because she stuck her delicate forked tongue out and licked her drink slowly and sensuously while she looked at me. That made me decide to put on a hell of a show. I'd make her want closer contact with me if it was the last thing I did.

I ran my six-fingered hands over my nipples, then pinched them, rolling each of them in turn until my breathing sounded heavy even to me. I glanced away from her at the bar's other patrons, still visible through the shield. Several watched, eyes moving eagerly over my body. I cupped my breasts and held them out toward her and the other watchers. My scent filled the sealed cube and she began to look vaguely interested. I could get used to this.

Still rolling one of my nipples between my fingers, I slid one hand down to my pants. “Remove them.” I shuddered. I didn't like being this vulnerable in public, especially not to someone I didn't know shit about. But all those watching eyes made me hot and scared, all mixed together, and after choking off the voice inside that asked if I'd lost all memorysense, I dropped my uniform and stood, my cute and fuzzy body exposed to the world.

“Sit,” she ordered. I did. I just loved taking orders. “Spread that one's lower limbs.” I stretched my legs out to their widest, almost keeling over from my own smell. “Continue.” I slid my fingers, one at a time, into myself. I was nice and slick, what with checking out a whole new side of myself.
Not to mention letting the rest of the bar do the same.

I slipped two, three, then five fingers inside and started moving them in and out. The walls of my 'gina got slicker and started clenching around my fingers. I watched her under my half-closed lids while she sat there and watched me. Those gills were sure moving. Over her shoulder, I caught the eyes of the Deneban female I'd been checking out earlier and held them. She watched like I was an after-dinner sweet and she just couldn't get enough.

It's hard to get a good angle when you're trying to stick your own fist inside yourself, but I was giving it my best shot. The Altaran just kept watching. Damned if I could tell if I was having any effect on her, but I was having fun at least. I got wetter and wetter, making space inside me for all of my six fingers. All that attention was like shooting starshine and I was flying higher than the dome on the port. I looked into those golden eyes and pumped harder. I couldn't tell how many fingers I had inside me any more. Hell, maybe I was growing more.

I 'gasmed hard, the best ever. Maybe it was the thrill, but it felt like something that wasn't my hand pulled out, too. Did she fuck me? How? Thinking about her tail made me shake, made me want more. I came back down, still looking into her eyes. What was she going to do now?

It surprised me as much as it did our watching audience. She popped her credit piece into the slot, clouded the windows and tossed me my uniform. “That one has entertained this one ably. This one does not wish to be unappreciative.” With that, she slapped some credit pieces on the table, unsealed the door and walked out. Just like that. Leaving me sitting in a sealed cube in a she bar clutching my uniform like it was the only familiar thing in the world. Shit.

There was a slight rap on the security shield while I was still sitting there like part of the bench. I buzzed the lock. Maybe it was her, coming back. I could always hope. The tall Deneban I'd been watching earlier slipped inside, resetting the mist shield behind her. “I thought you could use some company.”

I thought about my beautiful lizard walking out of the bar and out of my life and I looked at this tall, sturdy female, curves spilling out of her uniform. I looked at the pile of credits the Altaran had left. Grabbing my uniform, I pulled it on. I leaned over to the Deneban and kissed her, long and slow, on her full lips.

“Thank you. You're beautiful and any other night I'd love to be with you, but I gotta go after her. It's just this thing I have to do. Have a night on me.” I pushed the credits toward her and jumped out of the cube while the walls were still coming down.

I couldn't see her in the bar so I headed for the door. A big Ctepar stepped in my way like a living boulder. “Hey pretty pretty…” I shoved past with an effort. Tonight was not the night I would have picked to be popular with this crowd. I was running now, out the door and into the alley that passed for an Old Port street. It was the only spaceport I'd seen big enough for its own slums. What a place. She wasn't in sight so I headed for a fancy boy waiting at the street's end.

Flipping him a credit, I demanded, “Altaran. Which way did she go?”

“You too, honey? You're the second one tonight, including the Sekurcops. Last I saw she was headed that way.” He pointed down into a maze of alleys. I kept running. I didn't want to think about the Sekurcops, Qiang Shx's police force/ army. Must be big-time stuff if they were chasing her. But I
was going to get there first. I had to.

I shot down a couple more alleys. No sign of her. I collapsed against a wall. Planetary gravs always wipe me out. Of course, that was when she rounded the corner. It was fate, I just knew it. She stopped and looked at me, tail twitching from side to side, skin flaring bright with more colors than I'd seen her show before.

What little sense I had kicked in and I dropped into a defensive pose. It's something that we learn as cubs in the crèches back on Knossos till it becomes like breathing. I didn't want to be on the receiving end of those back claws in a less than affectionate mood.

“This one paid for that one's services. What more does that one want?”

Where to begin? “I didn't want payment. I wanted to be with you,” I said, with all the words tumbling out on top of each other. Then I scared myself by starting to cry. I hadn't cried since they beat it out of me in basic training. Shit. So much for handling disappointment like a big fuzzy.

She studied me for a long minute. “This one did not mean to cause distress, but wonders why that one is reacting with such emotion. Has this one violated etiquette?”

I ran my hand over my eyes. “No, not exactly. It's just that I've dreamed of having a lover from your people.” I paused, realizing that I sounded like she was interchangeable with a million other Altarans. For that matter, as far as my fantasy went, she was. Oops. Maybe not the best impression I could be making if I wanted this conversation to go anywhere.

“Why choose this one?” she asked, putting her proverbial claw on the very thing that I hoped would slip by. Shit. Well, at least I had stopped crying.

“You picked me, remember?” I mumbled, pulling the shreds of my pride together. Her gills fluttered in amusement. “Come with me to my room tonight,” I pleaded.

“There is only one way that these two can be together as that one desires. It will require a great transition.”

Her voice rang like a bell against the stone. I shivered, but I asked anyway. “Why?”

“This one feels the pleasure that comes with power, but only seeks to mate with others of the clan or those undergoing the transition.”

“And what if I was willing to undergo the transition?'

“It is permanent. That one would be as this one is.”

Definitely an unlooked-for obstacle to my fantasy. “This one has stayed too long and must go. The Sekurcops seek this one because of the very thing that one seeks. It is forbidden to transform Guild operatives, but the change is this one's service to the clan. Unless those willing to be changed come to Hana-altair, the clan cannot grow.” It sounded almost like a ritual formula. My uncertainty about that kind of choice must've showed in my face because she didn't press the point.

“This one cannot risk being caught.” She started to move away. Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed her front claw, “I know a faster way.” I pulled her down the maze of alleyways and backstreets that made up the Old Port. She moved faster than me, but slowed down to keep pace with me anyway. I started to hope again. If she stayed with me, maybe I still had a chance. Maybe she didn't mean what she'd just said.

I took her down some back ways that Shango had told me about, and we hid behind recyc containers and whatever else we could find when anyone passed. I had some crazy idea
about smuggling her out as freight on the ship I worked on, and I whispered it to her 'cause I thought it sounded good. She just looked at me with those big golden eyes and said, “This one is grateful, but has made other plans.”

Damn. My bad luck again, I figured. But since we were there and she was right nearby anyway, I couldn't resist running a hand down her arm scales. I just had to find out what that skin felt like. It was kind of like handling wires in the freighter drive compartment, all dry and crackling feeling somehow, almost like you weren't really touching it. The tingling in my fingers made me pull away, but not before that little gesture of mine was interpreted as an invitation.

Suddenly, she pulled me down a more secluded alley, not that any of them were well populated this time of night. One claw pressed me faceup against the clay brick wall. “Decide. Does that one desire the transition?” she hissed in my ear.

“Why now?” I mumbled into the brick of the wall I was facing.

“Because it is this one's duty to the clan. This one will not fail her duty. There should be time to start that one's transition before this one must go.”

Great. I loved the idea of being a work-related hazard. Then I started to think. I braced my hands against the wall and thought about my friends, my job, my life. What did I have to lose? Old freight hands didn't have much of a future. I would get enough age pay to settle planetside somewhere cheap and that was it. Being turned into a lizard started to look like one big adventure. Hell, it even started to look like more than sex. Shango would understand that, I thought hopefully. The word was out of my mouth before I could think any more about it. “Yes.”

“The transition requires mating, much as that one desires. It will be painful.” I nodded, starting to feel all warm and wet like I had in the bar. It sounded like my kind of event. “Then that one must go to Hana-altair and meet with the elders. Tell the elders what has happened here. They will initiate that one.” I nodded again, closing my eyes for a long moment to say good-bye to what I knew.

With a single swipe of her claws, she ripped the uniform off my back. The cool air hit me at the same moment that her tail did. I howled and scraped my face on the wall. Quickly, I shuffled my feet back into place. I'd be ready on the next one, I thought. I wasn't. Ten swipes later and I was on all fours in front of her. Another slash of those claws and most of my leggings bit the dust. I groaned.

This was all I'd thought about for hours. Hell, years. I wanted to feel those claws on me, feel the thick electric thrust of that tail, give up everything to someone so alien I could barely understand the way she thought. I threw back my head and howled, not giving a damn about the Sekurcops.

One of those long hands with their sharp claws slapped over my mouth, closing it against my groans. The pain was making me float, high as a satellite and damn near ready to pass out. I hadn't had this much fun since basic training.

She ran one claw down my back and over my ass. I could feel a thin line of blood follow it. Then I felt the end of her tail between my legs and I spread as wide as I could. She shoved it inside me, so hard I could feel it bend. Then she clawed another stripe from my shoulders down to my ass. This time I was whimpering and begging. I wanted more of her, wanted to feel that tail and tongue inside me driving faster and faster.

I could feel her run her tongue down my back, over the
stripes of blood that she had drawn, lapping my blood from my short matted fur. Then she started licking her way down between my legs so I could feel the forks of her tongue stroking from one end of my slit to the other.