Chapter 2: Never Too Late

Xipa could hear the generators before they had even arrived, their low hum filling the carbcrete corridors. The path had led them into the deepest bowels of the base, likely to the lowest level, where as little noise and vibration as possible would reach the surface. They passed a few confused residents on the way, Xipa hoping that her pink feathers didn’t give her intentions away too readily, but this part of the facility seemed to be deserted.

Fletcher led her into a more open room, this one lined with rows of green-painted generators, each one about the size of a truck trailer. She took a moment to examine them, momentarily distracted. These generators were similar to the portable one that had been used to keep the distress beacon active, albeit far larger and stationary. They ran on biofuel, which was produced by breaking down organic waste into ethanol that could fuel combustion.

“These must have been used as backup generators when the treatment plant was still running,” she mused, walking over to examine one of the machines more closely. She noticed the thick, insulated cables that trailed along the wall behind them, carrying electricity deeper into the facility. “They must be running the whole place off these things. The lights, the ventilation system, the water treatment.”

“They’re pretty loud,” Fletcher replied, raising his voice a little over the dull roar. It wasn’t an irritating sound, however – more of a droning background noise. “They put rubber pads on the floor to minimize the vibrations,” he added as he gestured to the legs that held up the generators.

“Clever,” Xipa mused. “I can barely feel it from here, which means that the Bugs would have a hard time detecting it from the surface.”

“Did you come down here to look at generators or to get off?” Fletcher joked, Xipa turning to give him a mock frown.

“You’re awfully confident,” she said, a flutter of excited yellow passing through her feathers. “Are you so certain that you can handle me?”

“I’ve been with women who could twist my head off, but I feel like I should still tread lightly with you,” he replied. “Never been with a Valbaran before, and I wasn’t planning on it before tonight.”

“I know that we have very different cultures,” Xipa began as she took a step towards him. “I’m sure that it would take even a Valbara’nay time to learn the intricacies of Earth’nay courtship, to learn how to express her desire in a way that respects your traditions and customs. I just want you to know that ... I don’t give a damn about any of that.”

She reached out her tail like a tentacle, wrapping it around one of his wrists, and began to lead him between two of the nearest generators.

“Alright,” he chuckled, stumbling along after her as he tried to match her bobbing gait. “I guess that goes both ways?”

“Unless you want to do a courtship dance for me,” she replied, turning to glance at him with a flutter of amusement. “Without feathers, that’s going to be a little hard.”

“Maybe I’ll have some installed,” he joked as the pair came to a stop by the far wall. The generators blocked the view from the entrance, giving them about as much privacy as they could expect outside of finding a locked storage closet somewhere.

“This should do,” Xipa said, releasing her hold on him.

“I guess we should have brought a sleeping bag or something,” Fletcher muttered as he glanced apprehensively at the cold, hard floor beneath their feet.

“What, you can rough it in the forest for days but you’re scared of a little carbcrete?” Xipa asked as she exposed her sharp teeth in a grin. “We’ll lie on our clothes. We won’t be wearing them, after all.”

“So ... how does this usually go?” Fletcher asked.

“I hadn’t really thought this far ahead,” Xipa replied with a nervous chuckle, her heart racing as she peered up at the towering alien. “I suppose you should get on your knees.”

“On my knees?” he asked, his scarred face turning as red as an angry feather display. “You weren’t kidding about the whole matriarchal society thing, were you?”

“I can’t reach you,” she explained, Fletcher seeming relieved by her admission. He did as she asked, lowering himself to his knees, his flat face coming down into Xipa’s range. The creatures really weren’t all that hard on the eyes up close. They had almost no snout to speak of, and their odd, hairless skin was as smooth as waxed scales. It was strange, and a little uncanny, but the fact that this was Fletcher washed her reservations away.

Her feathers flushing an enamored pink, she reached out with her hands, cupping his warm cheeks. Their skin really was smooth – and soft, too. Well, except for his collection of scars, but she had plenty of her own. There was something else, too, like short bristles beneath her fingers. Slowly, she closed her one eye, brushing her snout against his nose. Xipa exhaled the breath that she had been holding, nuzzling softly, the scales between her flared nostrils tingling as they brushed against his strange face.

“Er ... what are you doing?” Fletcher asked curiously.

“I’m kissing you,” she explained, opening her eye to see him peering back at her. She drew back a little, her feathers fluttering in embarrassment. “Is that not what Earth’nay do?”

“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed,” Fletcher replied, the way that he smiled making her heart skip a beat.

“Shut up,” she grumbled, failing to suppress another amorous wave of pink. “I’m old enough to be your mother, and half of my face is melted off. I am not cute.”

“You forget that I have no fucking clue what a Valbaran is supposed to look like,” he laughed. “For all I know, you’re a supermodel.”

He reached out with one of his polymer hands, the rubberized grips on the ends of his fingers brushing the intact side of her face. It was a strange but not unwelcome sensation, his prosthetic digits moving in a way that made them feel like extensions of his body more than inanimate machines. She felt him stroke her scales, a pleasant shiver making her tail curl.

“How much of me can you feel?” she sighed. Just the touch of another person was enough to make her weak at the knees after such a long drought.

“I can feel the texture of your skin, your warmth,” he replied as she pushed her snout into his hand to encourage his stroking. “It’s a pretty close reproduction of what my organics would have felt. Are my fingers cold?”

“No,” Xipa mumbled, her eyelid fluttering. “You’re ... ambient. It feels fine.”

“I want to show you how humans kiss,” he insisted, drawing closer to her.

“I told you that I don’t give a damn about your customs,” she grumbled, but she didn’t pull away from him.

“Trust me, you’ll like it,” he insisted as he parted his pink lips. She felt compelled to do the same, matching his movements as her blood pounded in her ears, the two drawing closer together. They joined their partly-open mouths, Xipa holding there, feeling his warm breath as she waited for something to happen. She could feel his lips against hers – soft and squishy. She shuddered as something hot and wet brushed her tongue, quickly realizing that he was licking her. Was this how Earth’nay kissed? She did her best to follow suit, the tapered tip of her organ glancing Fletcher’s flat teeth, the oddly bawdy act making a strange warmth spread through her belly.

“You lick each other’s mouths?” she asked as they broke off, trying not to look as flustered as she was feeling. “That’s ... a strange way to show affection.”

“I dunno why we do it, we just do,” Fletcher replied with a shrug. “You don’t like it?”

“W-we can try again,” she mumbled, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. This time, she knew what was expected of her, extending her tongue as far as she could, mouthing softly as they embraced. The Earth’nay seemed able to poke his tongue out much further than she could, the flat, powerful muscle tickling the roof of her mouth. It felt ... good, tingly, a little like being teased with a feather. As alien as the act was, it was certainly intimate, Xipa allowing herself to lean into him.

They broke apart with a pop, the taste of his saliva lingering on her tongue. He tasted of herb and wine, along with something more metallic that she couldn’t put her finger on. Xipa realized how hard she was breathing, struggling to get herself back under control. Maybe she was rustier than she’d thought, or maybe it was just the novelty of the whole situation, but she felt like she was burning up.

“Need me to slow down?” Fletcher asked, eyeing her crown of feathers. “I dunno what pink means, but you’re very pink right now.”

“I’m not that old,” she replied, straightening her sheaths. “I’m probably just a little tipsy.”

“And a little stoned,” he added with a chuckle.

“Take your clothes off,” she snapped, trying to regain control of the situation before he melted her into a puddle on the floor.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied as he started to unzip his uniform. He wasn’t wearing his ceramic armor, leaving only his camouflaged pressure suit. It wasn’t unlike her own, albeit a little looser fitting. He opened it up from the collar to the belt, peeling the material open to expose his pale, pinkish skin. Just like his face, it was patterned with scars, a history of battle carved into his hide. She could see the musculature just beneath – he was lithe, more developed than what she would have expected from one of her own males. Her eyes found a pair of pink marks, and she realized that they were nipples.

“Earth’nay males have nipples?” she asked, a flutter of amused yellow passing through her headdress.

“What are you grinning about?” he protested. “All humans have nipples.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to,” she chuckled. Her laughter quickly petered out as he slid his arms out of their sleeves, revealing the ugly, knitted scar tissue where his prosthetics connected to his body. His arms had been sheared off at the shoulders, and in their place was black polymer, some kind of gel-like cushion protecting the damaged tissue. Beneath its translucent surface, she could make out a forest of hair-like wires burrowing into the pink flesh. Was that how the machine connected to his nervous system – patching into his nerves like two data lines being soldered together?

Fletcher noticed that she was looking, but he didn’t seem bothered by her staring.

“You can take a closer look,” he said, Xipa taking a tentative step forward. “What they did was amputate the damaged limbs down to the shoulder, then they fused metal rods to my skeleton. The shoulder joint connects to those rods, and that soft gel is meant to protect the scar tissue.”

“What are the wires for?” she asked hesitantly.

“Those burrow into your flesh and seek out severed nerves to fuse with,” he explained. “Imagine a toothache, but you have a thousand teeth. Hurts like a bitch, but they only have to do it once. Well, twice if I have to replace the fucking things...”

“I never really thought about the logistics of it all,” Xipa said, her feathers turning from pink to a worried purple. “They’re so seamless – I always just thought of them as a part of you.”

“That’s the way it is for me, too,” he explained. “When they’re working properly, at least. Now, they feel kind of ... weak and fuzzy, like I slept on them funny.”

Xipa reached out and took his hand, lifting it to her mouth. She slipped one of his fingers between her lips, circling it with her tongue, licking the textured rubber.

“Do you feel that?” she asked, nibbling playfully on the end of his digit.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, going quiet as she teased him.

Xipa drew closer to him, running her hands across his broad chest, tracing the patchwork of old scars with her fingertips. It wasn’t just his limbs that had been damaged. It looked like he had been shot, burned, and stabbed a dozen times over. There was almost more scar tissue than man. Still, his skin was even smoother than the scales of a Valbara’nay where it was clear, surprisingly warm to the touch. Beneath it, she could feel firm muscle, wiry and taut. It was a little intimidating. Earth’nay were visibly taller than her kind, but she was only now appreciating that Fletcher’s torso was twice the size of hers, and he must weigh two or even three times what she did. Her feathers flashed a vibrant pink again as she considered whether they would even fit together. They must, or Earth’nay wouldn’t be so popular with lounge-goers back on Valbara.

She caught herself holding her breath as he began to unfasten his belt, then stood to kick off his boots, sliding down the lower half of his suit to give her a look at his legs for the first time. His organic limbs ended a little above the knee, transitioning into the same cushiony gel layer that she had seen on his shoulders, then to more black polymer. Like his hands, his feet were faithful reproductions of their organic counterparts rather than the skids that she had seen some Earth’nay favor.

All he was wearing now was a pair of black shorts, a conspicuous bulge tenting them. Xipa tried not to stare at it too conspicuously, but she couldn’t take her eye off it. He lay his clothes out on the floor like a blanket, then turned to her expectantly.

“This is gonna be pretty hard if only one of us is naked.”

His comment jolted her out of her stupor, and she nodded, reaching for the seal on the collar of her suit. She could already feel his covetous eyes on her body, her clothing leaving little to the imagination. Unlike the pressure suits worn by the Earth’nay, those favored by the Consensus were skin-tight, the lining filled with vein-like cables that allowed the suit’s monitoring systems to keep tabs on its wearer’s vitals. At no point before that moment had she felt exposed, but seeing the desire in his eyes made her realize just how closely the fabric clung to her scales. She wasn’t used to being desired like this...

She opened her collar, starting to undo the clasps on the front of the garment, exposing green scales that contrasted with the reds and browns of her camouflage. Those on her underbelly were a lighter beige, a smoother, finer mosaic. Beneath, she was wearing a dark tube top that supported her breasts, Fletcher’s gaze lingering on her tight cleavage as she roamed lower. She exposed her navel, the two rows of toned abs that lined her torso fading into the subtle paunch of her belly. Xipa had kept herself in fighting shape ever since she had returned from Kerguela, but age and admittedly her busy schedule had let her grow a little softer around the hips, butt, and tail than she might have liked. Her thighs especially were still sculpted and firm, the dimples that her muscles carved into her flesh visible even through the suit. Fletcher’s eyes lingered on her pinched waist, following the wide curve of her hips, the alien seeming pleased by her figure.

Unlike the Earth’nay, her injuries were limited to her face. Though the luster of her scales had dulled over the rotations, she had no disfiguring scars, no amputations. Beneath the collar, she looked practically untouched, which wasn’t too much of an exaggeration considering her recent romantic history. When her suit reached her hourglass hips, she had to dance on the spot, wriggling to get it off.

“Stupid thing is too tight,” she grumbled, fighting against the clinging material. When she finally got it down past her meaty thighs, she exposed a pair of shorts not unlike her counterpart’s, tight enough that they looked painted onto her. Just like the suit itself, her choice of fashion had been purely practical, but it seemed to entice Fletcher nonetheless.

He knelt again, drawing closer, his flat face coming down towards her. Xipa parted her lips in anticipation of another embrace, but instead, he brought his mouth to the nape of her neck. She shivered as she felt him kiss her throat, moving down to her shoulder, his warm tongue glancing out to tease her scales. A flutter of mismatched colors passed through her feathers, Xipa losing control as he nibbled at her nape, Fletcher pausing in surprise.

“The hell was that?” he chuckled.

“What?” she mumbled, feigning ignorance.

“Your feathers just did like a rainbow thing...”

“It’s fine, keep going,” she muttered as she sank her fingers into his hair to pull him closer. Its texture was like thick fur, reminding her of the proto-feathers of a Valbara’nay from the northern regions, but silkier.

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t hurting you,” he replied before resuming his mouthing. Xipa had to lock her legs to prevent them from giving out. The last time she’d been with a male, she had been in command of the situation, in control. Why was it different now? Why did she feel like the muscles in her thighs were turning to mush every time his soft lips brushed her scales?

She felt his hand on her belly, rubber fingertips following the indent that her abs cut into her stomach, making her flex them involuntarily.

“Wondered if my prosthetics were on the fritz,” he murmured, pausing to glance down at her body. “Your scales are just smoother here, aren’t they? I can barely feel them.”

“It’s not like I’ve waxed them in rotations,” she replied, a flutter of embarrassed pink passing through her plumage.

“It feels almost like skin,” he added, ignoring her self-deprecating comment. Xipa lurched as his hand roamed lower, guided by the flare of her hip, his fingertips probing the fat of her rump through her clinging shorts. Encouraged, he filled his hand with one of her round cheeks, seeming to delight in its supple texture. “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding all this under your suit this whole time,” he chuckled. “Those things are distracting, you know. Could get a guy killed.”

“We don’t allow males to serve in the military,” she replied, her voice cracking as he gave her springy butt another generous squeeze. “It’s purely ... for practical ... reasons...”

“Yeah, well I think you’ve been smuggling as much contraband as I have,” he joked as he continued his journey lower. Her thighs were firmer, though still encased in a layer of soft flesh, her muscles tensing at his touch. Fletcher was low enough to plant a kiss on her torso now, and he couldn’t get much lower without lying down on his belly. “I want to take this off,” he said, eyeing her tube top.

“Hang on,” she mumbled, reaching her fingers beneath the elastic. She pulled it over her head, her breasts falling free the moment their support was removed, bouncing softly against her torso. Fletcher’s hands were on them before she’d even gotten the garment off, his touch making her feathers flare wider, the tube top getting stuck over her head. “Hang on!” she protested, willing her sheaths to close. When she freed herself, she saw Fletcher peering back at her expectantly.

“Sorry,” he said with a smirk, watching her toss the garment to the floor. She tried to bundle her exposed bust in her arms reflexively, covering herself up, but Fletcher gently eased her hands away. Like the rest of her underbelly, they were coated in fine, beige scales that made them glossy under the artificial light. Xipa wasn’t sure how endowed Earth’nay women were – certainly more than she was – but Fletcher didn’t seem at all disappointed.

“They look a little perkier in this low gravity,” she said nervously, the rapid rise and fall of her chest making them wobble subtly.

“You made fun of me for having nipples, but you’re a reptile,” Fletcher said as he reached out to cup one of her boobs. His hand was large enough to almost completely enclose it, Xipa shuddering as her erect nipple brushed the smooth polymer of his palm.

“You know that we’re viviparous,” she muttered. “I’ve told you that before.”

“We humans don’t remember things so good,” he replied, giving her a tentative squeeze. Her tender flesh spilled between his prosthetic digits, engulfing his fingertips, the way that he probed her sensitive breast tissue making her snap her thighs together like the jaws of a trap. “Fuck ... as soft as cake batter,” he muttered.

“B-be careful,” Xipa hissed, a pulse of pleasure making her feathers go haywire again.

“Sorry, let me just set my arms to heavy petting mode,” he scoffed. “Don’t worry, I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to. Ruza tuned them down so much that I can barely uncork a wine bottle.”

Xipa shuddered as he brought another hand to her chest, teasing her, seeming to delight in the way that her fat sprang back when he relinquished his hold on her. He maneuvered one of them towards his mouth, his lips enclosing her engorged nipple, that wide tongue starting to circle it slowly.

She cursed in her own language, what must have sounded like an explosive series of chirps to Fletcher, then put a hand on his head to ease him away.

“Lemme take off my shorts before I soak them,” she muttered, bringing a trembling hand to her underwear. “Not gonna walk all the way back to our quarters with wet shorts...”

Her stomach lurched as Fletcher suddenly swept her feet out from under her, Xipa quickly realizing that he was cradling her in his arms. Even with his damaged prosthetics, her sixty-pound frame probably weighed less than his rucksack. Her head swam as he lay her down on his pressure suit, the fabric somewhat insulating her from the cold floor, her heart fluttering as he loomed over her. His rubberized fingers hooked into the waistband of her shorts, easing them down, Xipa clamping her thighs shut. With another wave of embarrassment, she saw that the black fabric remained connected to her by a strand of glistening fluid, which soon broke as Fletcher dragged the garment past her knees.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he remarked, watching her slide her tail between her legs to cover herself up. “Are you alright?”

“It’s ... it’s been a while, okay?” she mumbled in reply. What the hell was happening to her? She was used to being on top of a squirming, mewling male – that was how things were supposed to go. Now, she was on her back, in a very un-Ensi-like position.

Rather than go straight for her nethers, Fletcher planted his prosthetic hands to either side of her, bringing his face down to her chest. He drew one of her engorged nipples into his mouth, lashing it with his tongue, his lips sealing around it. Xipa lifted her spine off the floor, a shudder of pleasure rocking her. Like a reactor that hadn’t been spooled up in decades, it was as though all of her body’s systems were coming back online one by one, electricity coursing through long-dormant circuits. How had she let herself go so long without this? Had she really managed to convince herself that it was a choice rather than a product of her fear?

Fletcher’s lips crawled lower, moving across her stomach, his tongue tracing the contours of the muscles beneath her scales as he went. It was so warm, his saliva making the pink flesh slide against her hide, the tickling sensation leaving her loins aching for attention.

“You’re usually so spicy,” Fletcher chuckled, pausing level with her hips. “I’ve seen you argue with Vos like you’ve been married to him for thirty years. I wasn’t expecting you to be so ... tender after how strong you came on back in the lounge. It’s cute.”

“I’ll show you tender if you keep calling me cute,” she grumbled, Fletcher doubling over as his laughter joined the noise from the generators.

“There it is,” he chuckled. “Seriously, though, I’m not gonna respect you any less because you’re not an iron lady in the sheets. You were my squadmate and my friend before you were my lover.”

“I know that,” she muttered, averting her eye as her feathers rippled. “It’s your fault for making me feel so ... weird. This isn’t going the way I expected.”

“In a bad way?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“No,” she mumbled, fanning out one of the feather sheaths on her arm to hide her face from him. “I feel like my spine has turned to jelly, and there are ... bugs fluttering around in my belly. I’m not used to this, I’m used to riding some fifty-pound dancing boy into the ground.”

“Well, I ain’t no fifty-pound dancing boy,” he replied. “It’s like you said – you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not for me. When we walk out of here, we’re gonna be the same people who walked in, maybe just a little less coordinated.”

“One would think that you were trying to make me feel safe and comfortable,” she grumbled, daring to part her feathers so that she could peek at him through the gap. “We’ll see who’s shivering on the floor when I find my footing again.”

“Alright, just don’t punch me,” he chuckled as he reached up to push her feathers aside. He drew closer, parting his lips for another kiss, Xipa meeting it with an ardor that surprised even herself. They embraced, their movements slow and sensual, each stroke of his tongue making her neurons crackle and fizz. She was growing accustomed to this strange way of expressing affection – starting to like it, even. When she felt him try to break away, she caught his face in her hands, holding him there for a few moments longer.

As she released him, he began to crawl back down towards her hips, her heart racing as she followed him with her one good eye. He planted a lingering kiss on her belly, then moved lower, his lips finding the sensitive scales of her mound. Slowly, Xipa slid her tail out from between her legs, parting her thighs to expose herself to him. His eyes widened, and she felt a momentary pang of apprehension.

“Is something wrong?” she asked hesitantly.

“No, I’m just staring at a scaly alien pussy,” Fletcher muttered. “Usually I’d, y’know, build up to something like this. You kind of sprang this one on me.”

Seeing him so flustered gave her a swell of confidence, and she reached down between her legs. Her puffy lips were covered in the same smooth, fine scales as the rest of her underbelly and her inner thighs, flushed slightly pink with arousal. She didn’t realize just how excited she had become until she felt her digits slide on a slick layer of her juices, a solitary bead of clear fluid dripping from her loins as she spread herself open with her fingers. Between them were rosy, glistening folds of delicate flesh, her opening twitching as the motion provoked a twinge of pleasure.

“That’s ... a little more familiar,” Fletcher stammered, his face warming again. She glanced down at the bulge in his shorts, watching whatever was beneath them flex, throbbing like a second heart as it tented the fabric. Hopefully, he was fully everted, and he wasn’t hiding another few inches of hemi under there. It already looked ... too big.

She let slip an unbecoming chirp as he slid his hands beneath her rump, lifting her lower half off the floor. He repositioned her so that her thighs were pressing against his cheeks, the backs of her knees resting on his broad shoulders as he knelt down.

“W-what are you doing?” she demanded, practically bent double now with only her upper back still touching the pressure suit.

“I can’t get down that low without lying on the floor,” he complained. “It’s cold. Now, stop squirming.”

Xipa froze up as she felt his lips on her inner thigh, Fletcher leaving a sucking kiss on her sensitive scales, brushing his cheek against them as though enjoying their texture. He moved higher – or rather lower – a shiver passing through her as she felt his warm breath on her loins. Damn it all, she was starting to tremble again. Even guessing what was coming, the feeling of that wide, flat tongue raking between her labia made her utter a stifled moan. It was big enough to cover her vulva completely, his hot, mammalian flesh sliding against hers. He began to lap slowly, exploring her alien anatomy, the ceaseless motions of his questing organ making her close her thighs reflexively.

“Hey,” Fletcher grunted, reaching up to tap one of her legs. “My limbs might be removable, but my head isn’t.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Xipa replied hurriedly as she willed her muscles to relax.

“You’re a lot stronger than you look,” he chuckled. “No wonder you can jump around like a little kangaroo.”

“Kangaroo?” she repeated, confused by the strange word.

“Just shut up and let me eat you out,” he replied, returning his lips to hers. She sagged back onto the floor, her feathers flickering with random color patterns each time his tongue glanced her, its tip mapping her every fold. His mouth was large enough to encompass her loins entirely, her juices dripping from his chin like he was taking a bite out of some succulent fruit. Her tail draped around his neck, her thighs squeezing gently, pressing his face into their soft cushion. She couldn’t stop her clawed toes from curling, her hands taking fistfuls of the pressure suit that she was lying on. She felt him pause, looking up to see him peering back at her, his lips shining with her fluids.

“Where’s your ... uh, do you have a clitoris?”

“I don’t know that word,” she panted, struggling to focus.

“Er, fun button?” he said as he struggled to find a way to explain the concept to her. “Sweet spot? Little fleshy blob that feels good when you press on it?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a flush of pink passing through her feathers. “It’s inside, deeper.”

“Don’t hold your tongue if I’m not doing this right,” he added. “I don’t really know anything about Valbaran anatomy. For all I know, you could have gills hidden in there.”