Chapter 9: Chemistry

The lights in the room had been dimmed, and Nazka was sitting on the edge of the bed, her long legs crossed as she watched Eriksen with her reflective eyes. They shone like those of a cat, like two gold coins embedded in her dark face, even the dull glow from the solitary table lamp enough to give her skin a reflective sheen. Light and shadow danced across her body, their waltz accentuating the feminine curves of her figure and highlighting her bulging muscles with all of the care and artistry of a painter’s brush.

After a few more moments of him standing in the doorway, Nazka patted the bed beside her with a furred hand, inviting Eriksen to sit. He walked over to her stiffly, planting himself on the sheets next to her, not sure what was going to happen next.

“So ... what do we do now?” Eriksen asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall opposite them.

“I don’t know, we’re going to do it like humans, right? So you tell me, what would two humans do in this situation?”

“I’ve never really had to think about it before now. Usually when I get ... friendly with someone, we’ve had a few drinks, and we’re raring to go by the time we get to the bedroom.”

“Do you only court drunk?” Nazka asked.

“No, at least, that’s not what you’re supposed to do. It’s hard for people like me to find a long-term partner. People who live and work in space are always moving around, pilots and spaceship crews have to make the best of it whenever they dock at a port or get some shore leave. Most encounters are brief, two people getting together because they’re both available rather than because of any real romantic connection.”

“So how is it supposed to work?”

“You’re supposed to meet someone somewhere, it should be organic and spontaneous, maybe through a friend or because you share a common interest. You hang out for a while, get to know one another, build a relationship. Then one of you, usually the male, confesses how they feel and takes it to the next level. You go on some dates, try to show each other a good time, and then when the moment is right you sleep together.”

“All that trouble just to reproduce?” Nazka scoffed.

“Not even, that’s just to get someone into bed. If you want to reproduce, then you’re supposed to date for months or even years. Then you get married, move in together, start a family...”

“How have you spread across the Galaxy with such a slow and inefficient method of reproduction? Don’t humans number in the billions?”

“What society tells us we’re supposed to do and what we actually do are usually two different things. Humans have a habit of saying one thing and doing another.”

“I’ve noticed,” she added, “most of the time I’m not sure if you even know what you want.”

“Take me for instance. I never even knew my father, my mother had unprotected sex with a UNN pilot when she was working as a waitress on an orbital station. She was young and impressionable, he was making the most of his shore leave while their carrier resupplied, then just like that she was landed with a kid and he was never to be seen again. I don’t hate him for it, he probably had no way to know about me, but it’s a good example of how we propagate as fast as we do.”

“Is that why you became a pilot? To honor your father?”

Eriksen laughed at that, and she cocked her head at him curiously.

“I wouldn’t say that, but he probably has something to do with it. Like father like son as they say. I guess you and I are alike in that sense, we both appreciate the freedom that comes with space travel. The void calls to us, and we answer.”

“Sounds lonely to me,” Nazka replied. “You spend months completely alone, and your encounters with other humans are brief and unfulfilling. You talk about the things that you want but you never make any effort to achieve them, you just keep moving.”

Eriksen scowled at her, not appreciating her commentary. She was pretty much on the money, but he wasn’t about to admit that.

“What are you, my shrink? You’re a pirate, you have no right to lecture me. Most of your sexual partners had to be beaten into submission beforehand.”

“You’ve seen the way we do things firsthand,” she said, her tone salacious. She dragged one of her pointed claws up his thigh, light enough that it merely tickled, and he shivered in response. She smirked, seeing that he was starting to blush, and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Isn’t there something to be said for it? Being taken by someone, completely overwhelmed, the raw violence and passion of it?”

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and looked away from her pointedly, both to express his disapproval and to hide his reddening face. She was right of course, some part of him had relished what she had done to him, a self-destructive lust that still longed for the sting of her teeth on his neck. No human ever came on that strong. In a way it was addictive, and he worried that he might try to seek out that thrill once she was gone, as if a seed had been planted in his subconscious. Would he find himself pulling the tails of UNN auxiliaries in an attempt to get his fix? He thought not, but he had been criticized for having too high an opinion of himself in the past.

“I said we’d do this your way,” she conceded, “so give me the ideal human experience.”

His expression softened at the prospect, the fruity scent of her shower gel rising to his nose as he turned to face her, the giant woman peering down at him expectantly as he cleared his throat.

“We go slow, okay? Let me set the pace. If you want romance, then it has to be a slow boil, savor all of the little moments and don’t make a dash for the finish line. It’s all about the journey, not the destination.”

“I didn’t say I wanted romance,” she chuckled, “but you clearly do. Go ahead, I won’t stop you, it’s cute.”

His face burned, and he waved for her to keep quiet, the unruly alien covering her mouth with her hand in mocking compliance as he went on.

“Be conscious of what your partner is doing, be considerate, communicate. I can’t know what you want unless you tell me, understand? Above all this is a mutual thing, that means two people working in tandem. The best way to achieve that is to do your best to make your partner happy and then assume that they will do the same for you. Think you can handle that?”

“I can give it a go.”

“It usually starts with a kiss.”

“How convenient for you,” she said as a toothy grin spread across her face, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

Suddenly he felt her silky fur on his cheek, Nazka cradling his face in her hand as he looked up at her in surprise, then she leaned down to press her puffy lips against his. She kissed him softly, waiting a moment before slipping her tongue into his mouth, gentle and considerate of his human limitations as the slippery organ glanced his own. Wet muscle intertwined, her copper taste filling his head, the alien teasing him with slow licks that tickled the roof of his mouth and drew shapes on his inner cheeks. Her deft strokes sapped his strength, his body going limp in her arms as she leaned him over, her other hand supporting his back as she drew out their embrace.

She broke off for a moment, letting him catch his breath, Eriksen gasping as her tongue slid back between her lips like a pink snake. His heart was thudding in his chest, and his legs had turned to jello, the way that she gazed down at him made him feel like he was going to melt into a puddle.

“How am I doing?”

Before he could stammer his answer, she drew him in again, her fingers delving into his hair as she resumed her embrace. She was a little more aggressive this time, piling more of her inhumanly long tongue into his mouth, coiling and writhing like a creature in its own right. Eriksen’s brain fizzed and popped, he felt as if someone had replaced his brain fluid with soda, bright points of light dancing before his eyes as she lowered him down onto the bed.

She loomed over him, smacking wetly, his spine arching off the sheets as she ran her claws down his back. He couldn’t think straight, she was invading his mind as much as his mouth. It was as though she was digging her claws into his very nervous system in order to wrest control of his senses from him. The tip of her tapered tongue tasted the back of his throat, his eyes watering, that rough organ exploring every inch of him with wanton abandon as his head lay in her massive palm as if it were a fluffy pillow.

He found himself sinking his right hand into her furry forearm, his left seeking out the smoothness of her face, caressing her warm cheek as the waves of tingling pleasure washed over him. That raw passion was there, that bestial vigor that made her so overpowering, yet she reigned it in enough to spare him her more violent impulses. He knew that she must be riding the edge of her self-control, that every cell in her body must have been screaming for her to sink her hooked claws into his flesh and force his submission, but that just made her gentleness all the more endearing.

She pulled back, her lips linked to his by a strand of saliva, and he opened his eyes to find himself lying on his back as she hovered over him. They were both breathing hard now, every subtle movement of her body begged for his gaze yet his eyes remained locked to hers. She peered back at him with her yellow orbs, feline pupils dilated into black circles, Eriksen unsure of whether it was because of the gloom or her excitement.

“I don’t want to fall for you,” he stammered, surprising himself with the sudden outburst and immediately regretting it. Why had he said that? The last thing he needed was Nazka knowing how much she had gotten under his skin, the kind of power that she might have over him. Showing weakness to her was like exposing his belly to a rabid dog. He expected cruel laughter or a crude remark, but none came.

“We’re terrible for each other,” Nazka chuckled bitterly, “but I’ve never wanted somebody so badly. Maybe because you fight me so hard, I don’t know...”

“What ... do we do?” Eriksen asked, his fingers leaving her face to comb through his still damp hair in a gesture of exasperation.

“Let’s pretend this is gonna work,” she murmured, leaning closer to kiss his neck. He bucked, her merest touch dizzying him, her warm breath tickling his skin as she crawled her lips towards his ear. “Just for tonight, let’s pretend that we’re different people under different circumstances.”

She was right of course, they were terrible for each other. They mixed about as well as oil and water. All of the animosity and antagonism, Nazka being a fucking alien, all of the times that they had tried to kill one another. They had nothing in common besides the fact that they had nothing in common.

So why did he want her so badly? Where were these feelings coming from? It was like some cosmic contradiction designed to torment him.

His thoughts were popped like a bubble as Nazka roamed downwards, planting sucking kisses on his chest and belly, moving lower to pause with her hot breath blowing on the tip of his erection.

“I do my best to please you,” she muttered, “then you do the same for me?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s the idea.”

He lurched as he felt her long, sinuous tongue curl out of her mouth and slide down his shaft, wrapping it in wet muscle like a boa constrictor capturing its prey. Her saliva was warm and slippery, easing the passage of her monstrous organ as it enclosed him almost entirely, his member pulsing and throbbing in a tunnel of slippery flesh. She squeezed, surprising him with her tongue’s strength, then began to slide it up and down his length with all of the skill and dexterity of her fingers. The underside was smooth and soft, the upper covered in her feline barbs, but they were dull enough that once coated with her thick saliva the sensation was intensely pleasurable.

She dragged the textured surface across his skin, sending harsh jolts of pleasure rolling up his spine, her viscous drool sliding down his shaft in blobs to pool on his belly and wet his thighs. She trapped his glans between her lips, lashing it with her tongue, the stimulation enough to force a low moan from his mouth as he tried to stifle it with his hands.

He couldn’t believe that she was doing this to him ... no, for him. It was a subservient act from her perspective, submissive, and yet she was giving him the most intense head of his life. Perhaps she hoped that he would reciprocate, that he would reward her ardent service with equal or greater pleasures. Ever since the spacewalk, it felt as if she was taking everything that he told her to heart. He knew about space suits and nuclear reactors so he must know about this, her logic was easy to follow.

He reached his hands down and delved them into her silky hair, gripping her as if afraid that he might float away, her tongue roiling around the tender head of his cock as if she were trying to paint it with her saliva. If she was anything like the big cats of Earth, that barbed tongue must have been designed for cleaning her fur and even skinning her prey, but she was so gentle and careful that the rough texture merely added another layer to the already unbearable sensation. She was practiced, she knew just how much pressure to apply. He must not be so anatomically different from males of her own species. He felt ready to pop, she was about to force an orgasm from him, and they hadn’t been at it for more than a couple of minutes. He had to get her to slow down.

“Nazka,” he gasped, “go a little slower. I’m ... already close.”

She released the tip of his member from her smooth lips and uncoiled what must have been a foot of tongue so that she might speak, her yellow eyes peering up at him in the gloom.

“Did it hurt? I don’t know how sensitive humans are compared to my kind.”

“No, quite the opposite, I just don’t want it to be over too quickly. Like I said, we have to savor it, take things slow.”

She nodded and took his shaft in her downy hand, wrapping her fingers around it and beginning to stroke slowly. Eriksen lay back on the bed as another spark of pleasure dizzied him, her tentative movements keeping him on the edge. Silky fur that was matted with her warm saliva engulfed his manhood like a fluffy bath towel, it was a such a strange and alien sensation. She watched him closely with those golden eyes, measuring his reaction to ensure that she kept him on edge, leaning in to plant soft kisses on the sensitive underside of his glans. He felt like his nervous system had been hooked up to a generator, distracting jolts of tingling pleasure spreading through his body like pins and needles with every light touch, the slow pumping of her fist making his hips roll reflexively as his body sought our more stimulation. She rested her face in her palm and watched him, a smirk spreading across her face as he bucked rhythmically.

“You’re fucking my hand,” she whispered, “does it really feel that good?”

He didn’t reply, his face burning, and she gave his member a firmer squeeze that made him groan and thrust as he rose off the sheets. She drank in every grimace and shiver like it was all just entertainment to her, perhaps enjoying wielding a power over him that was derived from pleasure rather than coercion. She peppered his length with wet kisses and gentle glances of her rough tongue, Eriksen never knowing where the next one would land. His toes curled, and his fingers dug into the bed sheets as she sustained his arousal at almost unbearable levels. She teased his thighs and belly, nibbling his hip with her pointed teeth and poking her tongue into his navel, the beleaguered human unable to suppress the telltale tremors that rolled through his body and betrayed his turmoil to her leering gaze.

After a few minutes, the torture became too much for him to bear and he begged for relief, his voice cracking as she explored his balls with her slimy tongue.

“Shit Nazka, I can’t ... you’re driving me crazy.”

She snickered, dragging her tongue from the base to the tip, pausing at the head to circle it with her slippery organ. She pressed it against her cheek, cool in comparison to her hot mouth, whispering lasciviously as she stared up at him with her reflective pupils.

“Come in my throat, then it’s my turn.”

Before he could protest her lurid invitation, she slammed her face down on him, swallowing his member to the base with an obscene slurp that made him blush. The smooth muscles of her gullet enclosed him, hot and slimy, not so different from the sensation of being buried inside her vagina were it not for the tongue that wriggled and twisted around him. He felt his consciousness ebb, darkness scratching at the corners of his vision, too much sensation for the pleasure center of his brain to process.

She jolted him back to his senses as she drew back, sliding her lips up his shaft as she kept them pursed and tight, climbing his length with her tongue to tease his sensitive flesh before pushing back down to repeat the process. She swallowed around his glans, her body rejecting the foreign object as it pushed deep into her esophagus, her spasming muscles milking him in waves and massaging the head as it pressed against the back of her throat. Her lips kissed the base of his cock, her tongue snaking out of her mouth to lick his balls, her lung capacity far exceeding that of any human as she held him there for what felt like minutes.

She gradually increased her pace, bobbing on his shaft as she gripped his hips with her fluffy hands to stop him from bucking, a salacious smile in her eyes whenever he dared to look down. Her saliva flowed freely around his organ, making their coupling wet and sticky. He felt as if his whole lower body was coated in the viscous liquid.

He was getting closer and closer, his body jerking impotently with every contraction of her muscles and every flurry of licks from her thick tongue, a pressure welling inside him of such intensity that almost made him afraid to let it loose. He took handfuls of the sheets as his back arched off the bed, kept in place only by Nazka’s firm grip on him, her large hands encircling his waist as her pointed claws pressed into the meat of his butt. Eriksen bit down on his fist, not wanting to let slip any embarrassing vocalizations that she might find amusing, but her eager stare seemed to pierce straight through him as if she could read his thoughts.

“Gum im my mouf,” she mumbled around his erection, her voice stifled by it as the vibrations and movements of her tongue added to the building tension. The lewd request was too much for him to refuse and he felt the floodgates open, the first of a series of powerful ejaculations tearing through him.

She stopped her movements, holding him still in her grip as his climax wracked his body, his erection jumping and throbbing as it shot a thick wad of come into the depths of her throat. He felt her swallow, her muscles wringing more of it from him, Nazka drinking from the source as he pumped another load of his milky emission into her waiting mouth. Again and again, he emptied into her. Each wave of harsh pleasure was more acute than the last, until he couldn’t believe that his burning muscles could still force more of it from him. It felt like someone was pulling a knotted rope out of his body, an endless series of maddening tremors that cut him to the core, a deeply satisfying ache overwhelming him in their wake.

When it was over, he collapsed onto the bed, breathing like he had run a marathon. Fresh sweat coated his skin as he lay with an arm across his face in a futile attempt to conceal his expression from Nazka’s prying eyes. She lapped at his member, eliciting a few stray aftershocks of pleasure, then let it drop from her mouth along with a concoction of her bubbly saliva and his pearly semen. He felt depressions in the mattress where she had planted her hands to either side of his head, and he opened his unfocused eyes to see her peering down at him from above, her pink tongue wetting her lips eagerly.

“You liked that!” Nazka announced, as if she hadn’t been expecting the reaction that she had gotten from him. “Did it feel good? Tell me!”

Did she think that he would carefully measure her performance and then only give as good as he got? It amused him, she didn’t understand the concept of giving for the simple pleasure of it, she still saw this as an exchange more than as something greater. Even if that had been the case, she had pretty much fried his circuits, it would have been hard to match her fervor.

“And you say I was built for pleasing Borealans,” he laughed weakly, “feels more like we were made for each other.”

She flopped down beside him, bouncing him into the air with her weight and disrupting his seething afterglow, one of her heavy arms draped across his chest as she waited impatiently for him to recover. She watched him, her glowing eyes tracking the rise and fall of his chest, and after a minute or two it started to bother him.

“What are you looking at?”

“I guess I’ve never been this close to an alien before, at least not in the sense that I can just lie here and examine you. We’re so alike, and yet not alike at all. It’s sort of uncanny.”

Sometimes Eriksen forgot that while these Borealans were alien to him, he was as much of an alien in their eyes. He must look as odd to her as she did to him.

“Well, what stands out?” Eriksen asked, turning on his side to face her. “What about humans is odd?”

“The weird pointed nose that you have, fleshy ears that stick out of the side of your head, legs with only one joint and foot-hands.”

“Foot hands,” he laughed, “is that what they look like? I guess it makes sense, we evolved from apes, and they essentially have a second pair of hands where their feet would be. They live in trees for the most part and use them for climbing. Millions of years ago our ancestors descended to the ground and started walking around, and those hand-like hindlimbs became feet.”

“They’re freakish. No offense, the rest of you isn’t half bad. How about me? What about me looks strange?”

“You look like someone gene-spliced a lion and a human,” he replied. “You have all the features of one of Earth’s big cats, and yet the whole package somehow evolved into a humanoid shape. You’re bipedal, you walk upright, you have hands with fingers, and your torso especially is almost identical to a human’s.”

“Maybe this is just the best nature can do,” she mused.

“Yeah, convergent evolution, different species often evolve similar adaptations to deal with the same problems. We both evolved from predatory species, hence the two forward-facing eyes, those are for tracking prey and judging distance. We’re both tool users, hence the upright posture and the manipulating hands. Come to think of it, every alien species that we’ve encountered so far has been the same. Bipedal, tool-using predators.”

“You’re barely a predator,” she said with a smirk, taking his hand in her oversized mitten and making a show of examining him. She used her claw to pull back his lip, exposing his teeth, and he batted her away. “No claws, dull teeth, not strong and not fast. How did you even survive your prehistory?”

“Cunning,” he replied with a sly grin, “we were always good at making tools. I guess we still are, not much has changed. Ten thousand years out of the stone age and we’re right back to fending off big cats.”

“You’re not doing a very good job of fending me off,” she said, pouncing on top of him and pinning him to the bed with her weight. She growled, the low rumbling shaking his bones, and then made as if to strike his jugular. She bit him gently, playful, laughing at his reaction as he shrank away reflexively. “Still got those primal instincts I see, that’s kind of a turn on...”

She nibbled his ear as she whispered to him, Eriksen sinking into the mattress as he squirmed impotently. It would have taken ten men to lift her.

“Might be fun to take you back to the homeworld and set you loose in the jungle. I’d hunt you down and when I caught you ... I’d eat my fill, so to speak.”

She was getting pushy again, it didn’t take much to set her off. He needed to reign her back in before this encounter ended up the way all of the others had.

“Remember, you said we’d do this my way,” he chided. “It’s your turn.”

Her face lit up at that, and she shuffled off him, taking up a seat with her back leaning against the padded wall and her long legs spread across the entire length of the bed. She was ready for him before he had even had a chance to sit upright, waiting eagerly as her round ears tracked him like furry little radar dishes.

“Pretend that I’m your human mate,” she said, “and that you must please me so that I’ll agree to bear your children.”

“That’s ... not quite how human courtship works, but what the heck.”

He crawled over to her and took up position between her thighs, running his fingertips over their polished surface and feeling her shiver with anticipation, her loins splayed and already leaking their invitation. He realized that he wanted her to enjoy this, he wanted to show her that intimacy was more rewarding than coercion. He would do more to satisfy her of his own volition if it was his desire to do so, rather than if she held a gun to his head. Love was a better motivator than fear.

He started just above the fur of her left leg, pressing his lips against her thigh, feeling the muscles that lurked beneath her smooth skin flex in response. She smelled of the shower gel, fruity and pleasant, with that underlying feminine musk that brought back sordid memories of their prior encounters. He roamed higher, kissing and planting gentle bites as he went, Nazka’s lurid gaze tracking him as he neared her hip. He skirted the patch of silky, blonde pubic hair that was more like fur than the wiry hairs common among humans, keeping her guessing as to where his next kiss or lick would land as he roamed higher.

He felt her heavy hand on his head, her clawed fingers sinking into his hair as she eased him higher, his lips finding the firmness of her abdominal muscles. Whether it was more for her benefit or his, he wasn’t quite sure, but he didn’t resist her as she drew him closer to press his red cheek against them. Her skin was still a little damp from the shower, making it slick to the touch, and he felt her flex as he dragged his tongue across her dark skin. She looked down at him between her heavy breasts, her eyelids drooping as she watched him trace the contours and channels that her muscles cut into her skin, pausing to mouthe and kiss.

Her muscles were like granite, as if someone had slipped six round, smooth stones beneath her skin. They twitched and tensed as he passed over them, Nazka surprisingly ticklish despite her massive size and brutish demeanor, so immaculately formed that they cut deep valleys into her torso that Eriksen followed with his fingers and tongue. He didn’t dare to leave her wanting for too long, she was liable to simply pounce him and abandon their little interspecies experiment, and so as he roved across her belly, he slipped a hand between her parted thighs.

A shiver rolled up through her enormous body as his fingers found her sodden, swollen flesh, splaying her labia and probing for her opening. Strands of her preparatory juices slid down his hand, she was so wet that it was falling from her in heavy ropes that dropped to the mattress when they broke, and he was greeted by her moist tunnel closing around his digit like a trap. Her walls undulated, tight around his finger, trying to drag it deeper with their rolling contractions. She was hot enough to burn him, feverish, so awash with her slippery fluids that his entry was almost frictionless in spite of the toned muscles that enclosed him.

Despite her obvious and visible strength, there was an alluring softness to her, all the more apparent to him as he wrapped his free arm around her waist and sank his hand into the yielding meat of her haunches. Her flesh was as pliant as fresh dough, he had to dig with his fingers to feel the harder tissue beneath, her fat clinging to her feminine figure as if it had been placed there by the skilled hand of a sculptor. Her skin was like satin, it begged to be touched. He felt the dimples in her lower back and the indent of her spine as he stroked her, her breathing growing ragged.

Nazka seemed to enjoy his attentions, her back arching in response, her claws pricking his scalp as her hand rested on his head. He felt her insides clench and ripple around his finger as he kept up his licking, playing his tongue across her abs, tasting the salt on her body and feeling her squirm. He moved his digit inside her, pressing it against her damp flesh and curling it in an attempt to identify weak spots, the giant alien rolling her hips almost imperceptibly as her body reacted to his intrusion. She was so huge, so powerful, but not beyond his ability to woo. He didn’t exactly know how sexual encounters usually played out between Borealans, but he had reason enough to doubt that she was accustomed to such care and intimacy. Despite the prolific history that she had hinted at, she was trembling as if she had never been touched before.

Eriksen moved lower, slipping his tongue into her navel as he passed it, her grip on his hair becoming tighter as he neared her loins. He could feel the heat coming off her on his lips, she was on fire down there, hot and ready hardly did it justice. He could sense the tension in her body, the way that the muscles in her legs and belly tensed as he planted a sucking kiss on her inner thigh, the way that her breath came in sharp bursts as he blew warm air on her pink vulva. She was about ready to pop and drawing out his teasing any longer wouldn’t accomplish much more than frustrating her, so he planted a hand on her thigh and leaned lower to place a tentative kiss on the rosy flesh that contrasted against her ebony skin.