by Noah Harris
“Did you mean what you said? About the moon making us crazy?”
He sounds way too thoughtful. I lean up just enough to give him an owlish eye.
“Feeling crazy, boss?”
I’m trying not to come across too horny, but there’s something about the parting of his lips that tells me we’re sailing into very choppy waters. He looks down at my mouth for a long time before continuing.
“I’ve never…been with anybody,” he says, like he’s about to confess something serious, and I laugh.
I decided early on to believe that he and Darius only ever went as far as this, curling up with each other’s muscled bodies whenever they could, and that seemed to be enough for him. I can’t afford to imagine a future where it isn’t enough for me. But I must hear him out.
“Really, nobody?”
Philippa told me about his various girlfriends early on, before she realized I didn’t really want to hear about those things. He seems to be telling the truth.
“Not really. Dad always said you must choose, between being a man or an animal. I guess I just never felt tempted, really.”
It’s astonishing, almost offensive really, to think about it. A man this beautiful, this strong, this awake to pleasure and touch…that he would have stayed out of the arena seems tragic. But then, I’m inexperienced too, so it’s not like I can judge. I wonder what he’d think about that.
“Me neither. Not really.” What would be the point?
Alden scoffs, putting into half-formed words what I’ve just snorted into his armpit.
“I don’t believe that for a second. You drive those men wild. You have to have picked it up somewhere.”
My body goes stiff, ice creeps down my neck. Is he talking about my effect on men without knowing it? I try to be conscientious of my effect on the men around me. Growing up in the pack taught me that as a matter of survival. This is still news to me.
“What on Earth? Who are these men, Alden? Why wasn’t I informed?”
He laughs deeply at that, stroking me from hip to ribs with his thumb, back and forth, then under my shirt, tracing that same long road.
“I just mean…I don’t know. I guess I just thought of you as experienced.”
Having no idea what to say or do, I stay very still. Beneath my head his heart is thumping, faster and louder than ever. What’s going on here? What does he need to say?
“I guess I just…I wanted…like the flight simulator back home. If you can picture it, you can live through it. I like to see the land, before I go out wandering into it…or how it always takes less time to get somewhere you’ve been before.”
I hum an affirmative into his chest, so he knows I’m listening intently, even if I’m too paralyzed to look up at him.
“But I watched porn and it just seemed like nothing I would…I mean it got me off. But I had no interest in doing those things that way. With people.”
“A…simulation?”
“That’s a weird word, sorry. I just mean…part of why I never did anything with anybody is that I didn’t know how. So, I didn’t do anything, and then I still didn’t know how. Like a centipede that starts thinking about how many legs he has. Drinking would have helped, but I was too afraid of that, too. Afraid of losing control.”
“You’re in a cage,” I mumble against one hard nipple, buzzing it through his shirt, and he arches his head back, laughing with shuddered pleasure.
“That’s it, yeah. Like a wolf, in a cage, in another room. Tired and lonely and...”
A wolf? I tighten up again. This is the dream, no? The perfect scenario. Julian Forrester gets his man, up in orbit, on a fabulous journey to the moon.
It makes me hard as steel just imagining it, here and now in his arms. But it wouldn’t be fair. I can’t let him fall under this spell and just call it a win. I want it to be real. I’m not sure what I want to say, so I just start talking.
“I guess if I were going to help somebody with that, I know what I’d do.”
8
Brave
Alden
With Julian in my lap, both of us dozing, it seems like anything could happen. But I’m not light-headed this time. Everything is clear, sharp, singing like a wine glass and I want to hear it more than anything. I want to know what it would be like, to explore with someone like that. To not be afraid, to not be ashamed.
My greatest fear is to be caught wanting. Wanting anything, trying too hard for anything, and somebody seeing that. Or if I wanted a man, or a woman, and they didn’t want me back, I wouldn’t know who I was. I’d fall apart, I think.
I’m hard before he says a word. I want to hear it all. “Tell me?”
He scoots upwards, half-sitting, his head still on my chest.
“I would kiss the person, first. Let them really explore. See what they like and don’t like. Then the neck. The ears…”
“Like what?”
Julian chuckles deeper in his throat and leans up. His lips tickle along my exposed throat, humming warm and wet against my neck.
“Oh.” I say, learning something new and moaning softly already. Part of me, standing apart, thinks, Okay, so we’re doing this. I wonder how far he’ll go.
“Next, the ear...”
Blowing softly, then nipping at my earlobes, breathing hot onto my skin, then surprising me with a flick of his tongue. I find myself pressing back against his mouth, hungry for more. Almost begging for that strange, beautiful sensation. He laughs warmly into my neck again.
“And then I guess I would take our clothes off, so he could have a look, so we could look at each other and feel safe.”
I tense up a little bit at that, but finally I have to nod.
Julian Forrester is being very brave I realize. So, I can be brave too. I let it continue.
“I think it would be sensible to lay down then and let him have a look at my cock. Touch it, smell it. Not even sexually. Just exploring. You know your own, sure. But there’s a lot to see and learn down there. We don’t think of clean balls as smelling lovely, but they really do. And I think it would make a person feel more comfortable, confident, to just a have a little bit of time with a dick that wasn’t expecting anything.”
He runs his hands through my hair as I breathe, my heart racing. I know he can feel it through my chest, and I know it’s got to be turning him on.
“Let him get it hard, see how the skin moves over the shaft. And hold the balls in his hand. See how they’re different from his. And I would tell him...what feels good, what feels great. There you go. I’d say. Let him feel under there, past my dick and all the way back. Take a closer look. Taste, if he wanted…”
This time my body actually shakes a little and I know Julian must be feeling my rock-hard erection pushing up against his side.
He does. He moves, softly and slowly, just the slightest bit, to let me know.
“And then if he wanted, he could experiment with it in his mouth. The taste and the wetness of it. The way the head thickens and pulses, hot on his tongue. He wouldn’t have to suck me off, nothing like that. This isn’t about performance. It’s about learning. And then once he’d fully investigated, I imagine he’d be pretty hard himself. Not to brag.”
He laughs into my silently shaking chest. Grinning with his eyes closed.
“What then?” I find myself breathless, after a few seconds of stillness. My hand gripping Julian’s hip, running my fingers back and forth, just beneath the band of his briefs.
“Then I would stand you up. Against a wall, or by the bed. And take your dick into my mouth. Soft and wet and slow. Just sloppy-wet. And slow as molasses.”
“Yeah?”
It takes everything to keep from moving, thrusting up against the heat of him. I want to take his head in my hands and guide it down, where I’m straining against the harsh material of the jumpsuit. I can’t believe it’s really happening, I think, with a feeling of vertigo in my stomach, like taking a spacewalk. No ground, no sky, just endless…something. T
his tremendous wonder.
“Yeah. There’s definitely something about having someone on their knees, worshipping your cock. Looking up at you with such love. Devouring it. It makes you feel like a man. So powerful, and big. I’d want you to feel that way.”
“Like what?” I sputter, impatient for him to keep talking. Even a breath’s length feels like eternity.
“Like this huge, thick, hard dick is the only thing I want in the whole world. Like I can’t get enough of it. The taste of that thick beast. Like it almost feels too big for me, if I didn’t want it so badly.”
Whatever I say next, I know neither of us really understands it. But we don’t need to.
“Yeah. And that would be it. Round one. You stand there, looking down at your body. And me on my knees, looking up at you. Wetter and hotter, and faster and faster, until…”
“Yeah?” I sound almost like I’m choking now. Drowning. My tongue feels thick and my head is hazy with lust.
Julian sits up, suddenly. looking directly into my eyes. One hand on my thigh, just a hair’s width from my very visible, pulsing cock.
“Yep.”
He breaks character a little bit when he sees the smile that bursts across my face. Like the sun coming out, Darius calls it. This rare joy. Like Christmas. I hope he can see that I care, too. See my tenderness, for this moment.
Something new in me wakes, and rears, and howls. Nothing matters except the beauty of Julian Forrester. The absolute peace and safety of having him right here, in my arms and lap, looking up at me with so much love and heat. I can be anything, with those eyes on me.
My cock is fierce, tensing and releasing of its own accord as I take Julian’s chin in my hand. Looking at him from every angle. His clever mouth, deep haunted eyes and his yearning for me, so strong I can smell it.
Finally, he leans up, with a growl. My growl is just as hungry. It’s an unfamiliar sound, but absolutely right. The sound of us losing control turns me on as much as his slow movement against my aching cock, and I pull his mouth to mine, hungrily.
And then, a discordant note interrupts our symphony. Something’s wrong. I let his mouth do the work of kissing for a moment while I try to figure it out, unwilling to let him go. Something inside me is doing something strange. It doesn’t feel dangerous, it feels wonderful actually, but it’s new. He’s doing something new to me.
The ache in my muscles from the workout doubles, triples, sweetness so bright and hot I feel like I should be able to see it. The straining of my jumpsuit, and not just against my cock now, but my arms, my thighs. Everything I’m wearing is too tight, too small. I want to devour him; his smell is so delicious. The lights leave tracers on the backs of my eyes, and still my body grows.
Behind his head, I raise one itching hand. But what I see when I break the kiss isn’t my hand, but something strange and alien. Thick hair, wolf’s hair? Bursting out in patches all along the back, nails lengthening into razor-sharp claws. Muscles rippling with hot, gorgeous pain as they bulge, larger and larger, until even my arm is unrecognizable.
“Get it off,” I pant, almost panicking, and Julian giggles for a moment before he senses my fear and pain and jumps off me altogether. “Get it off!”
The jumpsuit is ripping along its seams, across my back and hips, splitting at the arms and thighs as my muscles swell, but it’s not ripping fast enough. Hot threads like livewires cutting into my skin, threatening to bleed me, until Julian comes to the rescue, slicing me out of my bonds.
With razor-sharp claws of his own.
I jump off the couch, putting as much distance between Julian and myself as I can, to get a look at what he’s becoming. Waves of hot, searing pleasure pulse along my back and legs, like having an orgasm at the end of a marathon, I drop to my knees. He’s there still looking petrified, his mouth and nose stretching grotesquely forward, into a mockery of a dog’s muzzle. His jumpsuit strains, but does not break, as he closes his eyes and breathes, long and slow, relaxing until he looks human again. But he isn’t human. And somehow, he’s done it to me, too.
I try to scream, accuse, beg for help, beg for mercy, but it just sounds like an animal groaning and growling. I can’t get my head around my mouth, my tongue, my teeth. I’m scared that I won’t be able to talk again in this new form. I’ve mutated into something else, I think, and realize how mad I sound. Maybe Julian has the right idea, some last bastion of calm inside me thinks. Maybe just breathe.
Crouched on thick legs that suddenly feel like they could propel me all the way to the moon. My breaths come out in panting groans, like an animal about to charge. There’s a whine at the end that would embarrass me if I were still human, a doglike whimper that could mean anything. My dick is still on fire, hard as a rock, which makes it more difficult to concentrate. It’s so low and naked, I can feel the cold of the station floor against its underside, sending shivers up my spine.
Julian nods, his anxiety and care for me quite apparent, and in some corner of myself I’m amazed at him. I must look like a monster, like a space alien animal, and he looks at me with such sweetness. Maybe it’s pity, I think, and the idea turns my stomach. Never that, not from him. I hear the whimper again, coming from my throat.
“Alden. I need you to listen to me. okay? This is normal.”
I have to laugh at that, or whatever a monster does instead of scoff. I can smell him more than ever, a garden of earth and sweetness. It’s part of my agony that he’s so far away.
“This has never happened to you before?”
I shake my head immediately…then on reflection, I tilt it, never looking away. Has it? It doesn’t feel completely unfamiliar. Maybe it’s just from our dreams together. Maybe the moon’s been getting me ready, I think wildly, and shake my head again. Focus.
“You don’t have to remember now. You just have to calm down. We can run through the whole thing later. But right now, you’re close to panicking and that would be very bad. For you, for me, quite possibly for everybody on this station. Okay?”
I don’t know what he means by that, but it doesn’t exactly inspire less panic. I fall back upon my legs, leaning up against the bulkhead, in the hopes of slowing myself down if whatever he’s talking about does happen.
“Look at me and breathe. As softly as you can and as deeply as you can. And when you’re ready, you can come back over here and sit with me,” Julian says, patting the couch gently and taking his seat. “And we’ll breathe through it together. And then I can explain everything.”
I gulp air, much too quickly, and slow it down. When the panic is gone, what’s left is shame. I feel ugly, monstrous, terrifying. I’m embarrassed and naked on a space station in front of Julian Forrester, and he’s being heartbreakingly sweet about it.
“Alden! You’re beautiful. Okay? You’re perfect. This is just another way your body works. It’s not bad, or scary, or awful. It’s wonderful. It’s powerful. It’s what bonds us.”
Through the fear and shame of it, there is a warmth as bright as the sun and slow as a heartbeat, moving through me. Is this what love is?
My teeth are still too large for my mouth, so I speak thickly, but it sounds like English.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Julian rolls his eyes, joyfully, and pats the couch again.
“I know for a fact that I’m in love with you, and I have been since the first day of the program. But none of that matters right now. You trust me. Right?”
Absolutely. The speed and force of my nod this time feels almost violent. He nods back, holding my gaze, and shifts again. This time, I can see him in there, alongside the wolf. What was ugly before is just beautiful now. It’s still just him.
“It’s a lot to take in, and I know how delicate and scary this is. So, we’re going to take it slow. But if you trust me, we’re going to get through this just fine.”
I can feel tears in my eyes at his low, measured sweetness. His golden eyes going round again, the wolf sinking back below his skin like
a treasure chest. I’m not sure what to do, or say, but I know I need to respond. He needs to know that I’m okay, as long as he’s here.
“You do things to me. Forrester…”
“That’s the idea,” he laughs, and leans up again, his beautiful familiar face so close to mine, as I growl, and hope he’ll cure me. Like a princess kissing a frog, after this I’ll be a man again. Or wake up, or…
Whatever horny elaboration I was about to offer him, the things I’d like to do to him in turn, dies in my throat as we both go still. Footsteps, coming closer.
And then Pippa appears. Squinting into the dark lounge, where two half-naked half-monsters stare at each other in the light of the looming moon.
And she begins to scream.
“Pippa!” Julian’s human again, in the blink of an eye. I gather my shredded jumpsuit to my body, as if the problem is my nudity and not my monstrosity.
But it’s too late, anyhow. She’s off. Presumably to summon Hellstrom back here to kill us both. Or at least me.
“This isn’t a great way to end this trip,” Julian says, trying to calm me down as he pulls on a jumpsuit, tossing another one at me. And he’s right. Not with my erection just about subsiding, and one million questions on my lips.
He holds up a finger with a comforting smile and slinks off into the shadows of the corridor to see what Pippa’s done.
When I was just a few days old, I was brought into the Armstrong house for the first time. I don’t remember anything else. And it’s in the nature of our family that for the better part of my childhood I wasn’t really sure if I was adopted or not. We rarely talked about anything, and the list of undiscussed topics was so long nothing really stood out.
Father’s defense contracts, Mom’s rebellious years, the circumstances of my birth. Even the circumstances of my adoption itself, which I’ve found more questionable the older I’ve gotten. The Armstrongs would definitely buy a baby, I have no doubt about that. Armstrongs get what they want.
