Alien Terrain (7 page)

“Well,” said Jane. Her lips were numb, her nipples stiff. “I
am a little curious about that giant cock.”

The shaft in question rose to full attention. She saw it
outlined in the heavy cotton, curving upward,
inches
from her stomach.

“My giant cock is yours to have.” He pulled back the elastic
waistband. “Take it.”

Take
. The offer
triggered something wild in her. A crazy hunger she had no idea existed. She’d
pushed herself to give a hundred times, but
take
—that
would be something new. Jane closed her hand around his rod. Lifted it into the
morning light and stared. It was so beautiful.
A thick length
with a purplish hue.
It made her mouth wet and her pussy too. Raj bent
and kissed her lightly on the lips.

“Do you want to fuck?”

“Do you?”

His eyes flickered with some surprise. “You can’t doubt
that.”

“Okay.” Jane nodded into all the lust his dark expression
lavished on her. “I’m curious. But I don’t really know what things I like.”

“Then come,” he said, “and we’ll find out together.”

This time she let him strip her naked. The lowered shades
kept the bedroom shadowy and private, and Jane let go of all her inhibitions
while he removed her pants, her shirt, her bra, and her panties.

The benefits of nudity were instantly apparent. His skin
against her breasts set her on fire. She slid one arm over his shoulder, explored
the muscles in his back. Her heart was fluttering so fast she’d swear the air
she breathed was laced with some synthetic stimulation.

They lay down together, touching, stroking. He rose onto one
elbow. The moist tip of his cock trailed along her thigh, and Jane twisted
toward him, ready to be truly fucked, to feel a cock thrust deep into her wet
and swollen pussy.

She spread her legs. Raj got between them. He dipped his
head and started nibbling and licking like he’d done the night before. She
moaned at the sensation of his tongue and teeth on both her tits. It was
mind-numbing how he took his time, making one and then the other nipple hard
and wet.

When his body lowered, Jane went tense and tried to find her
voice. He kissed down to her stomach. She jerked her hips up, hoping that would
tilt him in the opposite direction. He paused only a second before moving lower
still.

“No.” Jane sat up, scooting backward on the bed, her palm
raised in the halt position. “Not that.” She swung her leg around him, pulled
herself toward the door. He caught her by the foot, and that surprised her so
much that she paused and stared at him. His warm palm cupped her heel. He
wasn’t angry. Not annoyed. He was just touching her to keep her there.

It worked.

Jane drew a breath and tried to make out his expression. His
head was bowed, but what she saw of him looked startled and a little sick.

“It’s not your fault.” She wriggled her toes on his hand.
“I’m a bad lay.”

His head rose and he frowned severely, like she’d told a
tasteless joke. “What happened? Did your husband hurt you?”

“Oh God.”
It was all over. Still,
she absolutely did not want to talk to him about her husband. She didn’t want
to be talking at all, but most especially not about Rick. Still, she had to
tell him something. Resigned, Jane leaned against the headboard and grabbed a
pillow, which she used to cover up her nakedness as best she could. She looked
at Raj’s hand still clasped around her foot. What in the world had made her
think she was suddenly going to be good at sex?
One orgasm?
She really had to stop being a fool.
No
more men. Finish this. Get dressed. Move on.

“Rick didn’t hurt me,” she began. “The worst he did was
creep
me out. That’s not a very nice thing for a wife to say
about her husband, by the way, but there you go. Our sex life wasn’t any good.
And please don’t ask me if I tried to talk to him—I did. The problem was Rick
wasn’t into talking about sex, and when he did, he disagreed with me about the
state of his performance. He thought he knew exactly what to do in bed. My
failure to appreciate his expertise, therefore, was something wrong with me. So
I should change. Not him.
Of course.”
Jane stopped.
She was doing voices, faces, gestures, but it wasn’t helping. This just wasn’t
a good story. “So anyway,” she said on a sigh, “I decided the right thing to do
was live with it. Honor my commitments. If that meant choosing marriage over
sex, so be it. He didn’t hurt me ever. And it wasn’t all that bad.”

“Except for oral sex.”

“Yeah.”
Jane nodded tightly. “Oral
sex was awful.
Razor burn and crazy, slurping ick.
After which I got a lecture about how much ninety-two percent of women would
just love it if their husband did the same for them. We fought about it every
time. The thought of it still makes me ill.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Jane hugged the pillow tighter and stared at the
door. “Lots of people don’t have sex at all. It’s really not that big a deal.”

“I disagree.” He was recovering.
Taking it
pretty well.
That sick and startled look had left, and now he just
looked serious as hell. “Sex is the physical equivalent of thought,” Raj said.
“If you deprive a person of their thoughts, they go insane. No sex and they
lose sight of their true nature. It is a big deal not to be made love to in the
way that you deserve. As for your being bad at it, that’s utter nonsense. You
were made for pleasure.”

“Clearly not.”
Jane moved to get
up. His palm tightened around her heel. Amazing such a simple gesture could
have such a strong effect.

“Why not?” he said.

“I’m not a sexy person.” She shrugged, arms outstretched so
the pillow fell and she revealed herself. He looked completely unconvinced.

“You’re very sexy.” This time he tugged at her foot until
she looked at him. “In the temple where I lived for thirty years, I bowed
before your statue every day.”

“My statue?”
That was not at all
what she’d expected him to say.

“It might have been your statue. It looked exactly like you.
There are twelve statues all lovers bow to in the morning ritual, three of
which represent different manifestations of the feminine.” He settled himself
at the foot of the bed and evidently trusted her enough to let go of her foot.
“The first one is called Koyma, the star. She represents all women who are
drawn to the sky, excited by ideas and by their own accomplishments. Koyma
women are most often tall and straight with almost boyish frames. Sexually they
tend toward games of control.

“Next to Koyma is Ulitha, symbolized by intersecting curves.
The women she embodies are drawn to introspection and connection. Their form is
classically feminine. Hourglass, I think you say. In bed they’re warm but
passive, with a sleepy sensuality.

“And then there’s Jalima, the open hand.” His face took on a
look of great significance, staring into Jane like he was just about to pray.
“The open hand is giving. Her heart is generous, her body full and soft and
curved. In bed she loves all manner of excess.

“We honor all three manifests, of course. For most of us,
however, there’s a singular devotion. Mine has always been to Jalima, the open
hand.” He took her palm and kissed her just above the wrist.

Jane yanked her hand away. “Enough,” she said. “Let go of
me.” He grabbed her foot. Jane
grit
her teeth and
growled. “Let go.”

“Why?” He held her tighter, and she grabbed his wrist and
pried his fingers off her.

“Because you’re full of shit and I would like to be alone.”

“Alone?” He frowned. “You’re going nowhere. We’re having a
fight.”

“I’m not fighting. I just want to be alone.”

“Not true.” His face was set and he looked bigger than he
had seconds before. “You’re angry at what I just said. But I don’t understand.
I need you to explain what part of that gave you offense. Shutting me out now
is unacceptable. I don’t know where you learned to turn your back on people in
your anger, but you’d best unlearn it quick.”

“You want to know what’s bothering
me?
”
Jane snatched up the pillow and pressed it back against her, both eyes wide
with warning.

He nodded calmly into all the violence and threat.

“That stuff you said about my statue is just bullshit.
The open fucking hand.
The giver.
The hypervigilant respondent to need.
How dare you fucking
say that’s who I am?” She’d had the same description handed to her way too many
times and could not be more fed up with that stale persona. People always said
it with a big smile, like it was just the greatest thing to be. But it was
utter shit. And the bitch of it was
,
it wasn’t even
her. It had never been her. She wasn’t some selfless giver. She wasn’t even very
nice. She was only lost and trying to be halfway decent. Lost, trying, and
failing. God, she was still failing miserably. Trying to leave Rick as
painlessly as possible and humiliating him in front of all his friends instead.
Trying to save an alien and then just getting naked with him and not getting
laid. “I’m not an open hand,” she said.
“With all due respect
to your archetypes.
Except, do you know what?”
She made a gesture that said
wipe that
last sentence away
. “Fuck your archetypes. I don’t give a damn about your
bullshit dream of selfless feminine generosity. That isn’t me. That might be
what you see, but that’s not who I am.”

He looked intrigued. “Who are you, then?”

“Fuck off.”

This time he had his hand around her ankle like a shackle.
Jane kicked him hard. His fingers tightened. “Tell me and I’ll go.”

“I’m a despot,” Jane said. She wanted it to shock him. She
wanted it to be the truth. “In my heart, I’m just a filthy lord, swilling wine
and snapping my fingers for the dancing girls.”

That gave him pause. His brow inched slightly higher. “Do
you have many dancing girls?”

“Zero dancing girls,” said Jane, the shabby pretense
crumbling around her. “If I really had a castle, I’d free the dancing girls,
the stable boys, the maids, and just do all the cleaning by myself.”

After she was angry, she was always sad. So here it was.
Cycle complete.
“I know that I’m a drudge. An open hand if
you prefer. But don’t assume I’m all brave and noble about it. Doing
good
isn’t my cherished calling, Raj. It’s just a way to get
through life without being a prick. It’s the best I can do. Not some
manifestation of the motherfucking feminine. Believe me, if there were any way,
I’d drop it all and just have fun.”

“Would you?” That seemed to interest him. “What’s fun? Tell
me what fun’s like in your mind.”

Jane cast her thoughts into the possibilities. She imagined
a crowd of happiness and laughter that included her. It was such a blurry
image, she could barely see it.

“Fun’s a long way off,” she said. Then she turned around and
looked at him, remembering her pancakes and their conversation. “You’re fun.
When you’re not trying to define me or go down on me without permission.”

He winced at that and leaned slightly away. She didn’t know
a dark man’s skin could pale. He even looked a little clammy, worse than he’d
looked strung up in Rick’s garage.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Let’s just forget it.”

He cupped her heel again. She wished she found it
irritating, but it felt extremely nice. Odd but comforting, and comforting was
good.

“You asked me if I was afraid of anything. In the shower, do
you remember?”

She signaled that she did.

“This is what I’ve always been afraid of.
Failure
as a lover.”

“Does it happen often?”
No
,
she guessed.

“It’s never happened once in thirty years.”

“Oh great,” said Jane. “Should I be flattered?”

“You should.” He sounded serious. “If I were you, I’d feel
exalted. You made a temple lover lose his focus, Jane. That’s quite a feat. The
one mistake of my career is yours.” He made it sound like treasure.

“You’re just not on your game because you’re sick. Because
you were just kidnapped, beaten, starved.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But I’ve been hungry, injured, and
in pain before. I’ve never made a fraction of the error I made now.”

“What error?” He was working hard to make it sound like
she’d completely blown his mind. She wasn’t ready to believe it. “Most girls
like a tongue between their legs. You played the odds and lost. That’s all.”

“Thirty years of training didn’t teach me to play odds, my
love. A temple lover doesn’t make assumptions. We observe. If necessary we
inquire. The point of our existence is to get things right.”

“So what the hell happened?”

The teasing question pained him; she could see it. It was a
lame attempt at banter, and Jane wished she could take it back. In fact she’d
been trying to blow him off now for a while. “
Unacceptable,”
he’d said.
“You’d
best unlearn it quick.”

“I was selfish,” Raj said.

“You weren’t selfish.”

“I was,” he said. “Let me explain.” He settled into his
explaining pose again, and she was happy because even when he pissed her off,
she liked the way he talked. “Backusians, like
myself
,
love sex.
All sex.
But we all have a secret favorite
in the range of acts that we perform. What I like”—he leaned a little forward
and a pounding started in her chest again—“what I like is to lick a woman’s
pussy until she’s come so many times she can’t stand up. After which I like to
fuck that pulsing mound until she comes again. That’s what I was thinking of
when I ignored your many signals. I wanted to use my mouth on you. To get my
head between your legs and build the kind of orgasm that would echo through
your pussy for so long the walls of your cunt would keep beating like a heart
around me. You’ve no idea how sweet it is to slide your cock into a woman and
just fuck until those trembling walls are tightening as she starts to come
again. I wanted to feel that with you. So much so that I went against a life of
firm belief and training and chose my preference over yours.”

He was dead serious.

“That sounds good,” Jane said. She meant it. Blood was
coursing through her body, numbing her with keen anticipation. “You know how to
make me like it, right?”

His face grew thoughtful. “I’m not certain, to be honest.”

“Why don’t you find out?” Jane lay back on the bed. She
waited with her eyes closed and a thread of hope and curiosity unraveling
inside her.

“Do it,” she said. He didn’t move. She dug her toes into his
thigh. “Make me come until my heart beats in my cunt. Then make me come again.
You said yourself we Jalimas need to be fucked to the extreme. Do what you
said.”