It's Always Time

by Oblimo

  Dee stared at the ceiling. It was stained green. "Nanogasms," he repeated.

  "Yeah," said Galatea, "I just made that up. Isn't it cute? It's probably already on the Internet, though. Everything else is."

  "Technobabble takes the romance and mystery out of everything," Dee grumbled.

  Galatea flicked a finger and a ping pong ball sized dollop of tart green honey hit him squarely on the nose. "Honestly, Dee," Galatea sighed as he spluttered and sneezed and sniffled, "don't get jealous of your own sperm."

  Dee rolled his eyes to the ceiling, reached for a pillow floating nearby, and plopped it over his head. It splattered green Galatean cum all over him. "Lord all-mighty," he sighed.

  After a few minutes of post-coital silence, Dee felt a steady current of fluid flowing past him and into Galatea. He pushed the soggy pillow off his face. "You were right," he said, smiling. "That was pretty fast."

  "Told ya I was always thirsty after sex," Galatea said with a wink, her form slowly filling out and focusing. "As long as I keep refueling with the three Ds—especially yours—I'll be fine. I would like more collagen, though, to give the nanomek more to work with; to make me more versatile."

  Galatea watched Dee smile for a while. "Dee," she said, "what are you thinking?"

  "I'm trying to imagine you being 'more versatile'."

  Galatea started watching something else. "Well, whatever you're imagining, keeping doing it," she said, eyes wide. "Mine's getting hard again."

  "What?" Dee sat up in a lurch. The pillow slid off the top of his head and splashed to the floor. "Oh, Lord, no. Galatea, I'm sorry, but I haven't slept in almost seventy-two hours—being knocked unconscious from sex doesn't count. I don't know what's happening to me, but even if I don't need sleep, I sure as shit want some."

  He dropped back down to the floor, glaring at his slowly swelling cock. "Traitor," he accused.

  Galatea rose up like a pillar of green marble to stand astride his chest, the remaining fluid inrushing to feed her growth. A lot of her had burned up or evaporated overnight and she stood a little over five feet tall, but from Dee's vantage point on the floor, the view of her ribcage was spectacular.

  "Enjoying the scenery are you?" Galatea said, hands on her hips.

  "Yes," Dee confessed. Galatea crossed her arms in an impatient gesture and Dee added, "Wow, that's even better."

  "How observant," Galatea huffed. "Remember, Dee, when you told me that you were paying attention, despite my tricks?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, you couldn't've paying that much attention," Galatea said, leaning over to give Dee an even better view, "because you fell for my dumbest trick."

  "Which was?" Dee asked.

  The curved X over Galatea's left breast zippered shut. She bent impossibly backward and down until the her back pressed flat against her ass. Her hands finger-walked out between her legs. Her head followed, poking out between her thighs, her Cheshire Cat grin a mouth full of swords. Her legs flipped up and back and suddenly she lay prone on top of him, trapping his legs tight, hands wrapped around his dick, lips poised to strike. "I don't have a heart," she said, her wicked grin stretched wider than her face.

  She held her triumphant pose for a moment before her face fell. "What are you smiling about?" she said.

  "It's about time," Dee said. "You were starting to worry me."

  Galatea's face crinkled in confusion. "You were expecting this?"

  "Expecting?" laughed Dee. "God damn, woman, I thought you had me all figured out. I wanted this. I love this. We just need to come up with a safe-word or something and—"

  She goggled at him. "You mean I've been holding back all this time," she cried, the X unzipping, "when we could've been having some real fun?!"

  That shut him up. "You were holding back?" he squeaked.

  "Dee?" she hissed. The word echoed—Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee—as four hollow, coke-bottle duplicates peeled away from her, trailing filaments of slime, rolling into predatory crouches.

  "You have exactly fifteen seconds," the solid Galatea said, her hair writhing into questing tendrils, the filaments connecting her to her twins fattening into a thick gluey net as they moved to encircle him, "to come up with a safe-word, or get out that door. Either way…"

  "…You're fucked," all five Galateas chorused.

  "The safe word is 'Pygmalion'," he smirked, eating up three of his fifteen seconds. After another ten seconds he had the solid Gatalea flat on her back and melting with anticipation. "But I'm going for the door anyway!" he said, leaping and running, as the countdown hit zero.

  He was fast, but they were much faster.

  The man in the black T-shirt listened to the noises above: a quick series of muffled thumps, followed by yelp, a heavy thud accompanying a shower of plaster dust, and then a slow, rhythmic squeak of something heavy being dragged back across a floor in a series of long, strong jerks. "Christ, now what?" he said, making his way across the floor, careful not to slip in the lumps of wet plaster, tiptoeing around the minefield of half-full bowls, pots, pans, and cups.

  Blinking and bleary, he yanked up the shade and threw open the window to greet the rosy fingers of dawn. "Does the bastard ever sleep?" he muttered, grabbing the broom propped up against the windowsill.

  He had broken off the head of the broom hours ago; damn thing was useless against wet plaster anyway. The grey sphere of a web camera about the size of a child's fist surmounted the broom handle, held fast with a complex weaving of silver duct-tape. The camera's black, cyclopean eye made the whole contraption look like a robotic eyestalk from an alien invasion saddled by a shoestring budget. He fed the USB extension computer cable into the back of the web camera and hoisted it out the window, alternating between glaring at the shaky images being sent to the computer screen and reconnoitering with his head out in the open air. It was getting harder and harder to find a good, clear spot in the second-story window directly above his. "There we go," he grunted, manhandling the eyestalk into position and lashing it to the window frame with strips of duct-tape torn from the roll with his teeth.

  He hustled back to his computer, knocking over a coffee mug on the floor in the process. "Fuck!" said the man in the black T-shirt, watching green water zigzag out of the mug. "No, no!" The citrine stuff dribbled up the wall like a candle melting in reverse. "Don't go back to him!" It ran to the middle of the ceiling and disappeared up the jagged crack of ruined plaster. "Don't go back to him you bitch!"

  But there was nothing he could do, as usual. He had even tried freezing the stuff, only to be awoken at one o'clock in the morning by the clatter of ice cubes smashing themselves against the front door of the apartment, trying to get out, trying to get back to him.

  The man in the black T-shirt's bedroom filled with clanks and splashes as the metal and ceramic containers on the floor began, once again, filling up with green raindrops leaking through the crumbling ceiling of his first-floor apartment. There was nothing he could do, except sit at the computer, adjust the web camera's settings to get a good live video feed, open a tube of hand lotion, unzip his fly, and bang away like mad on his dick. He had been reduced to an electronic peeping Tom, watching his upstairs neighbor get screwed six ways to Sunday in the middle of an all-goo-girl orgy.

  "I fucking hate you, Dee," said Bee.

  I wanted to see how it would feel

  To be that sleek

  And instead I find this hunger's

  Made me weak

  I believe right now if I could

  I would swallow you whole

  I would leave only bones and teeth

  We could see what was underneath

  And you would be free then

  —Susan Vega, Undertow

  Act 2

  Chapter One: Milk to Cream

  "You promised, Galatea."

  "I lied."

  "You don't lie."

  "Yes I do! I lie a lot! I lie all the time! I'm lying right now!"

  "I mean you don't make false promises. Y
ou lie about them, but you never break them. There's a difference."

  "All right, Dee, you win. You can go to that stupid store. But I still think you need to work on your priorities. Priority one: fuck me. Mm. Priority two: fuck me. Mm, God, you taste good. Priority three: fuck m—oh, fuck me, Dee, just fuck me!"

  "I have! I will! Wait a minute, I think I am—Ga-Galatea! No more ambush sex, you promised!"

  "We've had this conversation already! It ends with—mm—you fucking me so—ooh—so why stop now?"

  "You know, I think you've got a point …"

  "Mm—God, Dee! Yes. Fuck! More. God. More."

  Dee examined his profile in the bathroom mirror. It was hard to be sure through the grimy crust accumulated over three days worth of nonstop, sweaty sex with an amorphous, amorous, dangerous, nymphomaniac dessert foodstuff, but he had to ask. "Galatea," he called, "do I look any different to you?"

  "Say what now?" she called back from the bedroom.

  He traced a few fingers over the line of his jaw and pushed up his cheek. "Do I look any different to you?"

  "I've only known you for three days. Dee," she added, petulant, "come back to bed."

  Dee performed the unflattering half-twist everyone makes when failing to catch a glimpse of their own butt. "We broke the bed when you tried to tie me to the bed frame." He twisted the other way.

  He heard a sighing, slurping noise. "Oh, I've made you a bed," Galatea said, her voice so smoky it gave him goose-bumps. "Come here and let momma tuck you in nice and tight."

  "I'm serious," Dee said, "I mean, all my zits are gone, for instance. Even that big one that just seemed to move around on my ass for the past five years."

  "Will the wonders of nookie never cease. C'mon, let's have s'more before it gets a chance to grow back."

  Dee struck a few silent poses. He scratched his head, his hair a calcified mass overdosed on green hair gel.

  Galatea huffed in frustration. Dee heard a loud slosh and then the patter of dainty feet. "Alright, then, what do you think is different?"

  "I'm not sure. I think I look sort of 'streamlined,' maybe?" He shrugged wide, surprised to see the muscles in his mirror-imaged arms and shoulders bunching. He had been getting a Hell of a workout lately, he admitted to himself. "Maybe I lost weight? I mean, I haven't eaten anything but, well, you, for a while now."

  Galatea stood, stark naked, her back pressed against the bathroom doorframe. She slid down the frame like a pole dancer, bending at the knees, rolling her fingers through her hair, head swaying, hips rocking. "'Doesn't just taste good—it's good for you too!'" she baby-talk mocked. She pressed her palms to the floor between her legs and sat like a cat. "You look like you've always looked to me," she said, her voice tender. "I don't see any difference. Honestly." She gave him a sly upward glance. "But the view from here is mag-fucking-nificient."

  "All this attention is making me feel self-conscious, and I must be coming off as really self-absorbed. I'm sorry," Dee said, smiling. "I'm sure it's nothing."

  "Think of it this way," asked Galatea, standing tall. "Is your dick any bigger?"

  Dee panicked. He looked down. "No," he sighed, relaxing.

  Galatea whirled around and threw her hands in the air. "Then who cares?" she said, marching back into the bedroom.

  She grinned wide at the sound of Dee's laughter and leaned back in to wink at him in the mirror. "You coming? You really oughta give my new bed trick a shot. A money shot, I mean. Maybe a dozen."

  "Definitely," said Dee, "but please, later. If I go to bed now I'm sure I won't come up for air until midnight…"

  "At the very least, bright boy."

  "And I really want to get to SRU today, and it's already, what, eleven o'clock?" Dee plucked a purple bathing scrubber out from beneath the sink and tossed it into the tub. "After today I've only got one more day of bereavement leave and then I've got to go back to work on Monday."

  "You've got two other grandparents, two parents, and a sister yet to kill," Galatea said, "I'm going to keep you locked in here for a fucking month."

  Dee unwrapped a new bar of soap. "You know that won’t work."

  "I know," Galatea sighed, "but I'll think of something! What are you doing in there anyway?"

  Dee's hand froze above the shower tap. Had he really not been in the bathroom in three days? "Got to get clean," he grunted, twirling the tap. "Got to go back to SRU," he said, pulling the mildewed, plain plastic shower curtain across the tub to avoid the freezing first jet of water. "Got to figure out what the fuck is going on."

  Galatea pelted into the bathroom, her rubbery feet squeaking on the cheap linoleum floor as she came to a juddering halt. She started to bounce and clap her hands. With her elasticity and curves, it was like watching an Orion slave girl porn starlet jumping on a trampoline in slow motion. "Shower scene! Shower scene!" she sang after each bounce.

  Dee, a mere mortal, ogled the spectacle for a good long while before remembering what language he spoke. "Galatea," he said, "we can't. You're water soluble."

  "Nuh-uh," she scolded, reaching a hand into the showering spray. "I'm water absorbent."

  Her breasts fluxed and filled out two extra cup sizes. "How big you want 'em?" she asked, turning her back to the shower to give her burgeoning bust some room and sticking both hands under the water. "Just say 'when.' Oh, you're just going to stand there with your mouth open? Well then step back because it's going to get awful crowded in here. You might get tucked into my bed trick after all. And then momma's gunna tuck and tuck and, mm, tuck until she tuckers you out. And then she'll just keep on tucking. That's what happens to naughty boys when they say no to momma—"

  "Enough games," Dee demanded, hurling the bar of soap into the sink. It smashed into perfumed shards.

  Galatea tried to cross her arms but settled on drumming her fingers atop her glutted tits, lips compressed into a grouchy moue. "You take all the fun out of having a sex slave." She pried her fingers between her breasts and peered down. "Can you see my bellybutton? I can't." Pushed corset-tight by water pressure, her cleavage only gave about an inch before springing shut over her nose. "I can't even see my feet," she said, voice nasal and plugged.

  Dee grinned, exasperated and world-weary. "A minute more under the shower and no one would be able to see your feet. Honey, I love your games, but I—Hey, what's wrong, honey?"

  Her gaze glistened. "You never called me that before."

  "What, you mean 'honey?' You don't like it?"

  "I…love it."

  He stepped close and took her hand. The top points of her hair tickled under his chin. "But it's such a little thing."

  "Not to me."

  The tips of his fingers kissed the curve of her hip. "I have an inner vocabulary when I think of you. Do you want to hear it?"

  "I…I'm not sure," she whispered.

  "Nectar, jade," he said, stealing quick kisses from her trembling mouth, "Ocean, emerald, wine." Galatea's tears ran free. "Darkling, thunder," Dee said, kissing, "fire, river, rain."

  "But more than anything," he said, and cradled her face in his hands. "Honey," he said, and kissed her deep. "Honey," he said again and she threw her arms around him and crushed her lips to his, sobbing into his mouth. "Honey," he whispered, and held her tight until the shaking stopped.

  "You know," she sniffled, "this would be so much more romantic if…"

  "You're breasts weren't shoved up my armpits," Dee said.

  She nodded, adding, "And if you didn't smell like ass."

  Dee snagged a shard of soap from the sink. "I think the stupid shower is finally warming up." He watched steam rise.

  Galatea leaned close, sniffing. "Hey," she said, "that smells damn good. Wuzzat?"

  "Homemade castile soap, olive oil and cream tallow and stuff. Don't look at me like that, the Goth girl who makes the absinthe in her bathtub made it for me…Now don't you start looking at me like that, either. Ursula isn't interested in guys like me. Little Miss U isn't interested in guys,
period."

  "Hmf," Galatea grumped, hugging herself to Dee's chest. A moment later she perked up. "Let's get you cleaned up." She maneuvered Dee over to the toilet, checked the lid was closed, and pushed him down. "You sit here."

  "Okay," said Dee, curious.

  She skipped over to the tub and turned off the tap. "What's—" Dee started, but was struck dumb by the gleaming emerald smile Galatea threw over her shoulder.

  "You just sit right there," she said.

  She stood straight, and inhaled deeply, her furled fingers tracing a circle around her tummy. A strong fluxion in her fluidic gel pulled water down from her chest into her abdomen. An inner waterfall transformed her from a pornographic titty queen to a beatific gravid maiden in a matter of moments. She ran her hands over her taut, round belly. She hummed in thought.

  "It does not make you look fat," Dee marveled.

  She bedazzled him with that starry smile again. She swayed close, plucked the shard of soap, now warm and molded, from Dee's hand. "Thank you," she chirped, and popped it in her mouth.

  "What's—" Dee tried again, but Galatea shushed him, and a soap bubble burst against his chin.

  Galatea rummaged through the sink, feasting on select slabs and crumbles of soap. She collected the few slivers that remained into a little pile and vigorously poked them down the drain. "Pfft. Ursula. Hmf."

  "Now," she said, whirling back to face him, hands clasped to chest, her smile beguiling. "Gimme fever."

  Dee moved in to kiss her, but she said, "That would taste pretty soapy right now."

  Dee met her gaze for a moment. He pushed her chin up and scraped his parted mouth down the entire length of her graceful neck and across to her shoulder blade in one, slow, warm, breathy exhalation. He sat back, coming away with a swath of runny green icing from his nose to his chin. "You mean something like that?"

  "Yeah," she gulped, eyes closed, chewing hard on her lip. "Something—ah—something like that, yeah." She stepped back, her ample belly blooming into turquoise like milk swirling into green tea. The curious color spread until her entire substance turned an opaque, pale jade. "Now," she panted, "come close to me." Dee did as he was bid. "Yes. Good. Stand right there. Give me your hands."