Chapter 6: Turning Up the Heat

“Best sandwiches on the station, satisfaction guaranteed or your credits back! Get your sandwiches here, the only store that sells a fusion of Borealan and human cuisine!”

Miller could hear her from a mile away, she had a voice like a foghorn. His shift had just ended, and he had decided to take her up on her offer. He had woken up feeling the same way about Kofe as he had the night before, confirming that it wasn’t the result of alcohol, or some kind of insidious Polar mind control. While he wasn’t really sure what that meant, he knew that he wanted to see her again. Maybe spending some more time with her would help him figure things out.

She seemed to notice him before he announced himself, her ears swiveling on a pivot and her pink nose twitching. Could she smell him even through the crowd of people? She waved to him when he came into view, struggling out of her apron and sliding through the door to the right of her counter. She greeted him with an enthusiastic hug, trapping him in her massive arms and lifting him a couple of feet off the ground, Miller wheezing as she crushed him. She deposited him on the floor again, brushing off his yellow overalls apologetically. He usually hated it when she picked him up, but today it was almost welcome. There was something about the way that he sank into her body that he was starting to enjoy. She was wearing a striped t-shirt today that was battling to contain her bust, along with a pair of jean shorts that were being devoured by the paunch of her belly.

“Couldn’t stay away, eh?” she said with a smirk.

“Don’t you have to man your stall?” Miller asked, gesturing to her now empty shop.

“I’m self-employed,” she replied, “I can check out any time I like.”

She took him by the arm and began to march him away from her store, the crowds of shoppers and off-duty personnel in the tourist quarter parting before her like the Red Sea.

“Where are we going?” Miller asked.

“Somewhere I like to go to relax after a hard day’s work.”

“So you’re not going to tell me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough!”

He had no guess as to where she might be dragging him, and so he wracked his brain trying to remember everything that he knew about Polars. What did they like? Food and drink was a possibility, but they couldn’t go to a bar and get wasted in the way that humans did, because the aliens could barely tolerate alcohol. They had already visited two restaurants, and so it was unlikely that she would take him to another one. Movies maybe? No, there was no cinema on the Pinwheel, the inhabitants watched movies in their own quarters. There were no concert halls on the station, no live music, there wasn’t much of anything that required a large venue.

She led him through the tourist quarter, stopping at a building that was only a ten-minute walk from her store. The door was Borealan-sized, which was surprising to him. As an engineer, he was intimately familiar with the layout of the station and its facilities. Besides the barracks in the military quarter and the apartments in the residential quarter, there were very few buildings that were built specifically to accommodate the giant aliens.

There was no sign hanging above the door, and there were no obvious indications of what the building might contain, but the exterior had been modeled after a log cabin. The white hull material had been shaped into what looked like stacked logs, left unpainted, creating an odd contrast between the rustic facade and the space-age construction materials. There were no windows, only the large door, which Kofe pushed through as she tugged him along behind her. Despite the size of the door, her wide hips still caught on the frame, she was chubby even by Polar metrics.

The interior was similarly decorated, but with a little more color, making Miller feel like he had stepped into a hunting lodge. There were paintings of icy mountains and frozen pine forests on the walls, the theme of winter was omnipresent.

Kofe stopped at a counter to their right, greeting a human woman who was standing behind it. She was clad in plain, white clothes that reminded Miller of a nurse or maybe a masseuse.

“Welcome back, Miss Kofe,” she said as she smiled up at her. “You want the usual? Rooms five and three are available.”

“I’ve brought someone with me today,” the grinning Polar announced. She reached over and slipped her hands under Miller’s arms, lifting him off the floor and depositing him in front of the counter so that the woman could get a look at him. “This is my boyfriend!”

“Oh!” the woman exclaimed, Miller giving her a halfhearted wave as he tried to conceal his embarrassment. At this rate Kofe should just buy an oversized purse and carry him around in it like a chihuahua, considering the way that she liked to manhandle him.

“Well good for you Kofe,” the woman said, smiling as she tapped at a touch panel. “A room for two will be ... thirty credits between you for an hour. That sound okay?”

“That’s great, thanks,” Kofe said as she handed the woman her credit card.

“You have room three for an hour,” the woman said as she passed the card back to Kofe over the counter. “Have a nice stay!”

“I’m sure we will,” Kofe replied as she engulfed Miller’s hand in her furry paw and tugged him down the hallway.

“What room? Where are we, Kofe?” Miller asked. A short distance down the corridor there were several doors to either side of them, eight or maybe ten in all. They were all large enough to accommodate a Borealan, about eight feet tall and half as wide. There was no indication as to what might be behind them, but he noted that it was getting noticeably hotter the deeper they went.

One of the doors slid open, and a Borealan of the Equatorial variety stepped out. It was a female, tall enough that her ears skirted the doorframe. Miller’s eyes were drawn to her impressive body, heavily muscled and naked save for a black sports bra and a pair of shorts to preserve her modesty. She had abdominal muscles that could have been used as a rumble strip, her thighs as round as tree trunks, her dark skin glistening with what looked like it could have been moisture or sweat. She had striking hair and fur, platinum blonde with faded stripes like a Siberian tiger. Unlike the Polars, the Equatorials only had fur on their forearms and lower legs, leaving the rest of their skin clear.

Some people found the aliens irresistibly attractive, but they always came across as overdeveloped to Miller, like gym rats or steroid abusers. Her muscles scarcely looked real, more like molded plastic than anything that could be living. He could understand where their admirers were coming from, but he preferred partners who wouldn’t tear his face off for looking at them funny.

The stranger swung a large towel over her shoulder, she appeared to be breathing heavily. Was this place some kind of private gym? Kofe pressed herself up against the wall to let the Equatorial pass, the alien glancing down at Miller as she walked by. It was an oddly predatory gaze that instilled a kind of primal unease in him, and he got the distinct impression that the regulars were not used to seeing humans here. Wherever here was...

“Here’s our room,” Kofe announced, stopping before an identical door marked with a large number three. She hit a touch panel that was embedded in the frame, and it slid open, Miller struggling to see past her girth as she led him inside. By the time the door had closed behind him, he realized that he was in a wooden room.

It was fairly small, perhaps the size of the living room in his apartment, the walls coated in wood paneling that reminded him of floorboards. To one side of the room were tiered benches, made from the same wood, comprised of two levels of seating like an extremely small bleacher. Against the adjacent wall was some kind of squat box. The exterior was made from matching wood, while the interior was metal and filled with what looked like smooth stones, almost like a treasure chest with no lid. There was a wooden bucket sat on the lower of the two benches along with a few rolled up towels, and there were a couple of lockers off in one corner of the room.

“What is this?” Miller asked, walking about the room as he examined it.

“You’ve never been to a sauna before?” Kofe asked.

“A sauna? Can’t say that I have. I think I went in a hot tub once back on terra firma, but I’ve never been to a spa or anything like that.”

“That’s surprising, I assumed that all humans used them. There were lots of them in Siberia, and the Russians seemed to like bathhouses. They called them Banya. The Polars in the colony learned how to build them too, as hot springs were a big part of our culture back on Borealis and there weren’t any in the region that we colonized. They’re so popular that I’m sure the majority of our dwellings have a Banya by now, they’re easily assembled from the same materials that we use in our construction. A traditional sauna is little more than a log cabin with a few special features.”

“I thought you guys hated heat?” Miller asked, “what’s the attraction of a sauna?”

“We may be built for cold weather, but that doesn’t mean that we have to enjoy it. A sauna or a hot spring can be a welcome reprieve from freezing temperatures. Back on Borealis, arctic temperatures could get as low as minus fifty degrees Celsius, and in the Siberian Taiga they can drop to minus thirty in the winter. I think you’ll agree that those conditions are a little different from what you’d find in my apartment.”

“Not that I don’t want to give the sauna a try,” Miller said, turning to face her. “But I didn’t bring any swimwear, and ... what are you doing?”

Kofe paused, halfway through the process of removing her tent-like t-shirt, her fluffy belly exposed as she prepared to pull the garment up and over her head.

“I’m getting undressed of course. You don’t wear a swimsuit in the sauna, Jeff.”

“So ... you want me to take my clothes off?”

She gave him a toothy grin, then lifted her shirt. Her mammoth breasts strained against the striped fabric, pushing it to its limits. Miller would not have been surprised in the least to hear it tear and to see her white fur poke through the seams, but the garment endured against all odds. Kofe struggled with the weight of her bust, pulling the shirt up and over her breasts, revealing them to be bare beneath the thin layer of clothing. After a moment of resistance, they dropped with enough weight that he could almost feel the impact from across the room, the globes of fat and fur bouncing gently as they hung from her chest.

He had been aware of their size and shape beforehand, of course, any clothing that Kofe wore was revealing simply by virtue of how tight it was on her voluptuous figure. She could have bought the thickest and most padded sweater available, and she would have filled it out all the same, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Still, to see her completely exposed ... it was hard to do them justice. They were like a pair of space hoppers, he could have sat on one and used it as a beanbag chair.

Miller turned away from her, his face burning as he made a futile attempt to give her some privacy.

“You should probably ... wrap yourself in a towel or something,” he mumbled.

“Humans are such prudes,” she complained, her tone playful. “I don’t have anything that you’ve not seen before, I promise. Besides, we’re going out now, right? You can get a look at me if you want to, I don’t mind.”

He stared intently at the wall for a few moments and then he heard her sigh.

“Oh alright, if it’ll make you feel better I’ll put a towel on.”

He heard shuffling and what sounded like one of the lockers being opened, then creaking as she sat down on one of the benches. When he turned to face her again, she was completely nude save for a relatively small, grey towel that was draped over her lap. It was a little unnecessary he realized, as the overhang of her belly and her thick thighs would have obscured her privates from view on their own. Her breasts, however, were still exposed. Kofe smirked at him as his eyes were inexorably drawn to them like magnets. She was resting with her hands on the bench to support her, leaning back slightly, and he could have sworn that she was pressing her upper arms together in order to further accentuate them.

“Unless you can find me a bigger towel, I’m afraid I’ll have to go topless. I’m sure that your fragile sensibilities will survive.” She watched him expectantly for a moment, her expression sly. “Well go on, it’s your turn.”

“Aren’t there any changing rooms?”

“No,” she laughed, clearly delighting in how uncomfortable she was making him. “Clothes off, come on. We only have an hour you know.”

“Alright, alright. But don’t look, okay?”

Kofe made a show of covering her eyes with one hand, crossing her legs as her puffy tail waved back and forth. Miller turned away from her, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that she wasn’t peeking, then began to undress. He kicked off his shoes and slipped out of his yellow work overalls, stowing them in one of the lockers, then proceeded to take off his shirt and jeans. Now wearing only his underwear, he looked back at Kofe, his cheeks flushing as she saw that she was peering between her fingers conspicuously with a mischievous grin on her face.

“Hey, you told me you wouldn’t look!”

“I lied,” she replied, chewing on the end of one of her black claws as she looked him up and down covetously.

“Just throw me a towel, will you?”

Kofe tossed one of the rolled up bath towels at him, and he wrapped it around his waist like a skirt, sliding his underwear off beneath it and stowing them in the locker. Keeping the towel on, he shuffled over to where Kofe was sitting and planted himself beside her, keeping a distance of maybe a foot between them.

“So ... what happens now?”

Kofe lifted the wooden bucket from its place on the bench, taking the ladle that was resting inside it and leaning forward towards the stones. She used it to pour water over them, and the liquid hissed, turning to steam almost immediately upon contact. The smooth rocks were apparently very hot. She repeated the action a few times until the room was thick with humidity, the cloud of hot steam obscuring his vision and causing Kofe’s white fur to blend with the air.

The temperature in the room was rising rapidly, and Miller was already beginning to sweat. Kofe leaned back, large enough that she could rest her elbows on the second tier of benches, closing her eyes and exhaling as she enjoyed the sensation. Her fur was starting to puff up, making the already fat Polar look even larger than she was.

It was extremely hot, the moisture in the air preventing the sheen of sweat that was now coating his body from evaporating. If he pursed his lips and sucked, he could probably have taken a drink from the very air itself.

Keeping his eyes off Kofe was a struggle, there was just so ... much of her. The tight clothes that she usually wore had actually been containing much of her girth, which was now unrestrained. The cushion of her butt spread out where she sat, her thighs like a pair of oil barrels wrapped in foam as they ate the lip of the bench, the paunch of her belly resting on her lap like a melting candle on the edge of a shelf. Her breasts were like a pair of military rucksacks laden with gear, the kind that drill instructors used to exhaust grown men in the prime of their life on hikes. He was surprised to see that the malleable fat was keeping its shape, her boobs round and defined even as they sagged from her chest. When he thought about it, it made sense, as Earth-standard gravity was pretty low by her standards and her body would have to operate under much harsher conditions than this. They wobbled every time she moved, like a plate of jello, they looked so impossibly soft and plush...

Miller snapped out of his trance when Kofe caught him staring, smirking at his red face as he turned away to peer at the adjacent wall.

She leaned forward to pour more water over the hot stones, ensuring that her breasts dangled from her chest enticingly, spilling over her knees like melting wax. Was she doing all of this just to wear him down, to torture him?

She leaned back again, enjoying the mist that she had created. She was so confident, there was no trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness in her. It seemed that nudity was perfectly natural and socially acceptable to the Polars. Miller, on the other hand, was hunched over with his arms crossed over his chest in a futile attempt to cover himself.

“Relax,” Kofe chuckled, “this is supposed to be therapeutic. Besides, I want to get a good look at you. We’re dating, aren’t we?”

Reluctantly, Miller uncrossed his arms, trying to take her advice and loosen up a little. He did work pretty hard, his maintenance schedule was grueling. Maybe her motives were not so suspicious after all, she might genuinely be trying to help him unwind. Besides, if he was going to spend an hour with her in this hotbox, he might as well try to enjoy it.

He leaned back against the wood paneling of the bench behind him, letting the sweat flow. It was kind of cleansing in a way, the heat permeating his muscles. He could feel Kofe’s eyes playing across his naked body, his musculature accented by the warm lighting of the room as it reflected on his wet skin, giving him a distinct shine.

He wondered what she must think of him, what about him was so attractive to her. He was tiny in comparison to her, both in terms of stature and weight. Polar males were just as large as the females, he had seen one or two of them on the torus. They were eight or nine feet tall and heavily muscled despite their insulating blubber. They looked like powerlifters, with round bellies that were packed with functional muscle.

Miller looked nothing like that, his skin was clean and devoid of fur, his muscles defined but modest. His work required a certain amount of physical labor that kept him in decent shape, and he ate well enough that he didn’t have a whole lot of body fat. Besides some softness around the belly where he had indulged in a few too many beers, he was pretty happy with the way that he looked.

The question, however, was whether Kofe liked it. He glanced over at her, his heart quickening as he caught her blue, reflective eyes examining him. The tension was starting to become too much for him, he was getting tired of wondering. Maybe he should just ask her, wasn’t openness her whole thing?

“So...” Miller began, “are you ... okay with me?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he immediately regretted his question. It was a half-measure.

“You’re asking if I like you?”

“I guess so, yeah. I mean, we’re so different. What is it that you find ... attractive about me?”

“Well,” she said as she shot him a sordid grin, “for a start...” She shuffled closer to him across the bench until the meat of her thigh was pressing against his leg, her wet fur oddly pleasant on his skin. “You’re really short, and that’s adorable.”

“I am not adorable,” Miller complained, scowling up at her as she loomed over him and bit her lip in her pearly teeth.

“Are too. You can’t help being cute, you’re like a little hairless kitten. Whenever I see you, I just want to lift you off the ground and squeeze the life out of you.”

“Well, I’m glad to know that you have at least some self-control,” he grumbled.

He felt her gigantic arm wrap around his shoulders, her hand draped across his chest. It almost looked like that of a bear, but with longer, humanoid fingers. Her pink pads were spongy and soft, while the wet fur was downy and silky, like a loofah. She was careful with her meat hook claws, but they still made him a little nervous. They looked like they could have carved welts in his flesh an inch deep with the slightest twitch.

“You look a little like an Equatorial I suppose,” she continued, “but with less fur. Your skin is smooth, shiny, pleasant to touch. Shall I tell you a secret?”

She leaned down to whisper in his ear, scooting towards him until he could feel the weight of one of her breasts pressing down on him as it engulfed his shoulder. She pulled him closer with her arm, Miller cocooned in yielding fat and damp fur.

“Lots of Borealans like humans, it’s kind of in fashion right now to date them. Equatorials like you because you’re easy to dominate, they have this whole complex where they want to tear you up for being sassy little teases, but they can’t because you’re too fragile. Drives them half crazy.”

Miller gulped as he remembered the muscular Equatorial that they had passed on the way in. He didn’t want to imagine what being at the mercy of one of those things would be like when it was driven mad by lust. He thanked his stars that Kofe’s people had a far more agreeable temperament.

“Humans have a lot of ... attractive qualities,” she added. Miller jumped as he felt her free hand sneak over to engulf his own, making him feel like he was wearing an oversized mitten. She opened her fingers, looking down at his hand as it rested in her fluffy palm, as if comparing their sizes. The span of his fingers was scarcely large enough to fill her palm.

“You don’t have claws. Polars are careful of course, but there are still some ... things ... that we can’t do safely. A human can touch someone wherever he wants, all over, nothing is off-limits. He can give his partner a massage without the fear of accidentally cutting them, he can comb their fur, there’s nowhere that he can’t put his fingers. You get the idea.”

She released him from her grasp, Miller’s brain boiling as hot as the steam in the air. She smirked at him, leaning forward to wet the stones again, the loud hiss of evaporating moisture jolting him back to reality.

“There’s also your tongues,” she said, “do you know how wild it is that humans don’t have barbs on their tongues? It’s like you were made for ... y’know.”

“Kissing?” Miller volunteered.

“Amongst other things...”

She leaned back on the benches again, relaxing and letting her slate-grey hair cascade over her shoulders. She really did seem to be enjoying the sauna, and the woman at the counter had known her by name, she must visit here often.

“That’s not the reason I like you though,” she said, flashing him a toothy smile. “You have more in common with us than you realize. I’ve never seen a human try to bullshit his way through a conversation as ardently as you have, you’ve got Polar smarts. If I didn’t know that it was impossible, I’d say that one of your parents had been unfaithful during a business trip to Siberia.”

The humor relieved some of the sexual tension, and he laughed a little louder than he had intended, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand reflexively before realizing how futile the gesture was. He was soaking in sweat by this point, even the towel that was wrapped around his lower body was heavy with moisture. It must have been forty degrees by now at least.

“Why don’t you come over here and give me a back rub?” Kofe asked.

“A back rub?”

“Yeah. I want to see if what they say about humans is true, put those clawless fingers to work. A sauna and a massage would compliment each other well, don’t you agree? Besides, I have a lot of ... weight to carry around, it makes my shoulders ache.”

“I ... guess so.”

She noticed that he was getting embarrassed again, loosing an exaggerated sigh.

“Come on Miller, you have to push through this prudishness of yours. We’re alone, we’re in a relationship, I’ve had my tongue down your throat. There’s nothing wrong with nudity. If this was a Banya back in the colony, you’d be insulting your hosts by refusing to strip off. Here, watch this.”

Before he could protest, Kofe lifted him from his seat and planted him on her lap. He felt the soft texture of her wet fur against his back, sinking into the cushion of her thighs as she let his weight rest on them. As if intending to prevent his escape, she wrapped him in her arms, pulling him tight against her torso. The round tire of her belly enveloped him, pressing against his lower back like a plump lumbar pillow. It was like sitting in the deepest and most luxurious armchair ever made, Miller sinking what felt like an inch or more into her body, her feathery fur tickling his bare skin wherever it touched him. Due to his smaller stature, the top of his head didn’t even reach her furry chin.

Initially, her heavy breasts pressed against his back, spreading and deforming like putty. But as she squeezed him tighter, they slid around his shoulders to engulf his upper body completely. It was like being wrapped in a wet fur coat, her cleavage so deep and encompassing that her squashy flesh could very nearly meet around his chest. They weighed so much that it was almost uncomfortable, the twin globes of fat resting only a little of their weight on his shoulders, but it was enough to make him feel like his spine was telescoping. How on Earth did she walk around with these things? They would have broken the back of an average woman.

Her warmth began to cook him, her coat so thick and deep that his hands sank up to the wrist in her sodden fur. The copious meat of her bust insulated him, trapping the heat and making him sweat even more, their contact slippery and wet. He sat there in silence for a few moments, sandwiched between her breasts, his arms trapped at his sides by what felt like the weight of two people.

“See?” Kofe whispered, Miller feeling her warm breath on his neck. “You’re not dying, are you? You didn’t explode when you touched me.”

His muscles were like coiled springs, his body so tense that he was like a stone statue in her lap, afraid to move lest he touch something that he shouldn’t.

“Relax,” she breathed, blowing strands of his hair as she chuckled. “You’re so tense. Maybe I should give you a back rub rather than the other way around.”

She seemed intent on keeping him trapped until he calmed down, and gradually his tension began to melt away. Her vast body was undeniably comfortable and relaxing, he felt like he was resting against a furry waterbed, his body sinking into her inhumanly soft flesh. He began to grow accustomed to the sensation of having her fur against his skin, the weight of her breasts pressing down on him, her flowery scent all around him. It was what she wanted, after all, this was all her idea. Hell, knowing Kofe, she had probably meticulously planned this moment days ago.

The Polar loosened her grip when she sensed that he was calming down, leaning back against the bench behind her. If she had been like an armchair, now she was a recliner, Miller lying on top of her and letting his head rest on the cushy pillow of her bust. They stayed that way for a few minutes, Miller enjoying the new seating arrangements and letting the heat of the sauna wash over him.

“Alright, time to get up,” Kofe commanded. She took him in her hands and deposited him on the bench beside her, leaning forward to pour another ladle-full of water onto the hot stones. A plume of steam rose into the air, Kofe taking in a deep breath contentedly.

When she leaned back again, she felt Miller’s hands on her shoulders, and she turned her head to get a look at him. He had climbed up onto the second row of benches, sitting with his legs crossed, as the span of her shoulders was actually too wide for her to sit between them.

“What made you change your mind?” Kofe asked, teasing him.

Miller began to knead, feigning reluctance as he pushed his thumbs into her flesh. Even her back and shoulders had a layer of insulating fat, his fingers sinking almost up to the knuckle. Her coat only added to its depth, puffed up due to the humidity, but no less soft. Beneath her blubber was hard muscle, but he really had to dig to find it. Just as her strength suggested, if he was to peel away all of her fat, she would probably have resembled the Equatorial that had passed by them in the hallway. It took a great deal of strength to move this kind of weight around with as much ease as she did.

He would never have admitted it to her, but she was an incredibly touchable creature. Her fur was as soft as silk, clearly very carefully maintained, while her fat layer made her irresistibly squishy. She was like a giant, ambulatory teddy bear.

Kofe sighed appreciatively, leaning back against the bench, her long hair falling across his lap. As he massaged her back, his eyes were drawn to her ears, level with his face now that he was sitting a tier above her. They looked like the ears that one might find on a bear or a lion, small and round, covered in fluffy hairs. They moved independently of one another, flicking and twitching occasionally.

He reached out a tentative hand and gripped one of them, rolling it between his fingers as he examined it. It was fairly thin beneath the puffy fur, like that of a domestic cat. Kofe loosed a rumbling sound, and he pulled back, fearing that it was an angry growl. Instead, he realized that she was purring. It was deep and resonating, just like a big cat. He returned his hand to her ear and stroked it experimentally, feeling her body shift beneath him as she enjoyed the sensation. He grew bolder, scratching behind her ears as one would with a pet, watching as her long tail waved back and forth on the bench like a furry anaconda.