Not that Tem was anything like her latest date. This wasn’t a date. It wasn’t. She wouldn’t kiss him again. Or let him carry on touching her face. Or let him run that same hand down over her jaw, to her throat.
God, no. She wouldn’t let him do any of that.
“I’m really not anything special, where I come from.”
He had been looking at his own hand, as it slid over curves and skin so sensitive it felt on fire. Now, he glanced up, to meet her gaze. In his eyes there was nothing nervous—only surety.
“How can that possibly be true?”
How could she keep promises like “I won’t kiss him again”, when he said things like that?
She put her hand on his face. Just to make sure he was real. And after that, her lips pressed to his. Just to be absolutely certain. You couldn’t be too careful with these things. Maybe if she didn’t taste that sweet menthol taste and hear his soft sound of surprise, he would melt away into a dream she’d once had, about a future both lovely and terrible.
This time, there was more than the soft pressure of his mouth against hers. This time, the hand he had kept on her throat slipped downward, to her shoulder. Then downward again, when she didn’t protest.
She could feel his nerves. They shook through his hand, and into her body. He kept his eyes open, for God’s sake—she could see it up close and personal. But nerves didn’t put him off what he so clearly wanted.
A kind of confirmation, she thought. To see if she was real.
And who was she to say no, when it felt so very good? Insanely so. It made all those circles in her mind start up again, to think that he had never actually done this before. He had never run his hand down the soft slope of someone’s breast, and caressed.
Though it was a first for her, too—she couldn’t remember anything so chaste ever reducing her insides to little more than pudding and popping candy. Not even back when she was young enough to appreciate a closed-mouth kiss, and a tremulous caress.
Between her legs, sensation bloomed. The urge to do something more—anything at all—grew thick, and cloying. If she could just…and then he could…if if if.
The look he gave her when they finally parted made her want to drag him back. Quickly, before time ran out. His hand remained on her breast, and any second he was going to smooth it right over her nipple, and she wasn’t sure she could take that. He wouldn’t understand that she couldn’t take that. He didn’t understand anything.
She stood—so suddenly that he jerked back. His mouth formed a surprised oh, and his eyes…she glanced at the timer on her wrist. Only five more minutes. Just five more and she could get out of here, go home, masturbate until insane future sex thoughts went away. Never come back, or if she did, come back properly. Make lists and asks questions and venture out into the beyond.
Anything, beyond Tem.
“I shouldn’t have,” he said, as he slowly got to his feet.
Oh you should have. You should have. Do it again.
She pinched her lips together, to stop the thoughts leaking out.
“Don’t worry. It’s fine. It’s fine. I have to go.”
As though he really was a bad date! Just a bad date who had aroused her to the point of desperation. Her sex felt fat and swollen, silky smooth between her constantly moving legs. And she knew without even seeing it on his face, that her nipples were showing pretty vigorously through her shirt.
White shirt—that had been a mistake. What had Waites been thinking? Hadn’t he realised that there’d be hot future men who made a gal want to strip her trousers off and spread her legs immediately?
Not that she wanted to do anything like that. Unless coming to the future meant that a person immediately lost all memories of the filthy things he or she had done, on returning.
“Will you be back? Please, don’t tell Aley that I made you go. We both wanted to touch you—to touch you all over, but I told him we shouldn’t ask or do so. He’ll think—”
“Tem, stop. I—stop. You didn’t do anything wrong. I wanted to touch—never mind. I’m going now.”
The timer beeped, and all she was left with were Tem’s eyes, dark and pained.
* * * *
It had been the wrong thing. Any fool would know it. Tem shouldn’t have acted on his impulses, or tried to be animated, and now that he’d done both things, everything was a mess. She’d looked so disturbed! He needed to be calm and simple and straightforward, again.
Only now it didn’t seem like that wanted to happen. And so much so that it was noticeable, really noticeable to Aley, who was already fizzing with a bookload of ridiculous energy. If Aley was fizzing, and he noticed it in Tem, then what on earth did that say?
Something terrible, no doubt. That he looked like a maniac, most likely.
However, when he expressed this fear to Aley, Aley just looked like he wanted to shrug his shoulders a lot
“You don’t look like a maniac,” Aley said, but Aley wanted to do more things with her, more touching of her, and somehow all of that more made him not want to tell about the kiss. If he told Aley about the kiss, then Aley would definitely think the door was open.
Even though it definitely wasn’t, and she’d just been scared. That was how she’d felt right? Scared.
“But don’t you consider that she might find us…terrifying? Maybe we’re not like the men of her time.”
Aley passed him the cleaner, but he didn’t feel like using it. Usually shower time was fun and happy, and sometimes Aley rubbed him all over with that stuff Bod had found, but oh, not today. Today, Aley didn’t even seem to want to kiss at all.
“The men of her time had hair, like you. Loads of it. I’ve read about it.”
“You have not. You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
Aley turned around inside the small space, grinning his easy grin. Looking as casual as anything, and smelling good, too. For once, Tem just wanted to lay his head on Aley’s massive chest, and have him pet him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
“I’m just trying to make you keep the hair on your face. It looks nice, my friend. I’m sure she liked it, and you. And she doesn’t seem the type to be scared, so you shouldn’t worry—I heard that women of her time were warriors, and poked men with sticks, and—”
“Will you stop saying things you’ve heard? I know that you hear them from Gery, and he thought women never actually existed and that we used to reproduce by laying eggs.”
Aley shrugged one shoulder.
“Who knows?”
“We know. We know, now. We’ve seen her, she’s real. And I don’t think she lays eggs.”
“Did she tell you that? What else did she tell you? I know there are things you’re not telling me, Tem. Be fair! You promised you’d share if she came when I wasn’t here!”
He was getting fairly close to whining, now. Usually, whining made Tem want to give in and be kind and bring him crackers and give him kisses. But somehow it just irritated, under circumstances like these. Couldn’t he see that some things needed to be kept to oneself?
“She didn’t tell me anything, all right?”
He climbed out of the shower, half-clean. Of course, both of them knew he was avoiding the question and that dashing away meant he actually didn’t want to share. But that was the thing, about Aley—he never held it against a person, if said person wanted to keep things to himself.
Chapter Three
She thought about his mouth, mostly. How soft it had been, how tentative, the way it had tasted when she licked her own lips, afterwards. There had been Steven, in her dating past—Steven, with his chin dimple and his wavy blond hair and maddening tongue right on her clit. And Alan, who knew how to mould her body just right, to make her scream.
But she couldn’t remember fantasising about any of them, while her hand played between her legs. She thought of Tem, however—Tem and his single chaste kiss, while her fingers slid easy circles around and around her aching clit.
&nbs
p; Waites had wanted to know everything, of course. But all she could recall telling him was a single blurt about soil eating and Skynet, before running out of there so fast her boots caught fire.
She’d pay for it, tomorrow. Maybe even with a denial of time travel privileges. Though perhaps that was for the best, all things considered. Needing to masturbate three times over a kiss and a breast touch couldn’t be healthy.
The whole thing felt as though it was veering into obsession territory, and that wasn’t good. He was an Aquarius. She was a Libra. He worked in urine processing. She was a writer. They came from two different worlds.
Like 2010 and 3033.
She smothered her face in her hands. Sheets still tangled around her sweaty legs. Sex still wet and ready for more. She passed a hand over one tight nipple, and it became his hand. Only in her head, he just kept going. Down over her belly, to the slick slit her own fingers found, so easily.
She couldn’t imagine how this had all come to sex, but it seemed her body didn’t want to stop, now. How would he have reacted, if she had touched him in return? A real touch, over his firm chest? Was he used to that sort of thing or would it be different, because she was a woman?
She imagined Aley doing the same thing—kissing his plump mouth, caressing his tight nipples and the taut expense of his stomach, maybe…
This was not going in the right direction.
She flung herself out of bed, and headed for the shower. Set it to freezing and waiting for the thoughts and imaginings to dissolve. She could be professional, again. All it took was searing cold and a measly breakfast of crumbly toast and weak tea.
Anybody would be fit for anything, after that. Apart from Waites’s questions. Nobody was ever fit for those things.
“Do you know how much I pay you? Do you? Are you listening to me?”
She got the distinct impression he wasn’t pleased with her delivery of observational data, the day before. Though in truth, she didn’t think he wanted to hear “the subjects from the future proved highly arousing in a way that suggests I’m wrong inside”.
“Get in the machine. And you had better come back with something more than the name of the robot overlords. I want details, Kate. What fuels them? What’s their average size, in metres? That sort of thing. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.”
No, she thought. Too much to ask would be if you wanted actual details of a future that will cease to exist, if I tell you just the right thing.
She shivered, from head to foot—just like that, an entire society gone and replaced with God knows what. Maybe something worse!
Like real robot overlords.
“What are you shivering for? It’s not cold, Kate, stop being a baby. Lie still.”
She did, and felt the straps tighten.
“Now. I’m sending you for eight hours, this time—don’t complain.”
It seemed cruel, somehow, to keep the smile that threatened pinned down. But she did it, anyway.
* * * *
It was just Tem, again, looking even more harassed than he had the last time. He hadn’t brushed his hair. The stubble on his face had grown coarse, and grainy. It wasn’t pleasing that all of these things made him seem even more attractive.
“You’re here,” he said.
Then there was the breathless note to his voice, as though her arrival thrilled him to his core. She couldn’t overlook that, on the attractiveness scale.
“Sit down, Tem.”
He did so automatically, though his body continued to jump and jive.
“Listen, what happened before…” she began, while the words bad date bad date ran on a permanent loop in her head. “I don’t think it should have happened. I mean, I’m not a scientist, but—”
His eyes narrowed—though not in any suspicious sort of way, she felt. More like he was processing, considering, waiting for her to explain further—and when she didn’t, he stepped in.
“You’re not a scientist?”
She wondered if there was any possible way to reword what she had said, after the fact.
“Well…no.”
It sounded weak, even to her ears. What on earth was she doing scientifically examining his mouth with hers, if she wasn’t qualified?
“What are you, then? What do women do, in your time?”
“We do the same things as men. Supposedly. And I’m sort of…a journalist.”
He nodded, as though the word meant sense to him. Though she couldn’t tell if it had satisfied him on all “is Kate qualified to be here, doing stuff to me” fronts.
“I’ve done that sort of work before,” he said, finally.
“I thought you said you worked as a—you know, a—”
“We never only do one job. We go where we’re needed, and work on many things. In particular, the scientific and artistic achievements and endeavours of the human race are all important, and all contributions are welcomed.”
She didn’t voice the first thing that popped into her head, in response to those words. It would probably only sound trite and ridiculous, and likely it wasn’t even true anyway. His world was not a utopia. There were no women, for goodness’ sake!
“How did you get like this?”
It sounded bullish, coming out of her mouth. But she couldn’t seem to stop it.
“Like what?”
“All these men, all so peaceful! Is everyone like you? Is everyone this calm?”
“I don’t feel calm,” he said, then seemed to consider for a moment. The frown was back, between his thick brows. “But we try to be peaceful because we have to be. We couldn’t survive another war—we just don’t have the resources to waste. And we—I don’t know. Were men not peaceful, in your time?”
“Many were. Many are. I don’t know! They’re just not like you and Aley. Nobody is—women aren’t, either.” She sighed, and sat, in the little armchair. “Maybe you’ve evolved. Maybe it’s the lack of sex.”
She cursed herself, for bringing it up again. And for the sudden flash of interest that crossed his face, once she had done so.
“Does sex usually make you feel not-calm like this?”
“Probably. Yes. Yeah—I feel distinctly not-calm.”
“When we feel that way, we usually use the Device.”
“You realise it probably drugs you into a soporific state of obedience, right?” she blurted, before crazy ideas such as “creating terrible rifts in their society” could stop her. But he only grinned, as though that was the silliest idea he’d ever heard.
“It’s a stress reliever. Nothing more. Here—I can show you, if you like.”
She got the distinct impression he was trying to move things away from all the illegal flesh to flesh contact, but such an idea seemed irrelevant, when the words virtual reality came into play. That was what he’d said, wasn’t it? A kind of virtual reality?
She stood in time to see him remove what looked like a sieve with tentacles from a drawer. Waites would have wet himself, at such an example of a future torture device.
“Uh…I don’t think so, Tem. Thanks, though.”
“Really—it’s perfectly safe. Female physiology isn’t all that different from male. Is it?”
“Well…no.”
“I’d like to give you pleasure,” he said, which was really lovely of him. It was. Even if the only thing she could think after he’d said it was:
Pleasure away—with those big, masculine hands and that gorgeous looking dick between your legs and that mouth, that lush mouth—
The Illegal Touching Bureau was going to kill her.
“Oh. Well. Um.”
“Just sit in the chair, and I’ll attach it.”
So that’s what the single chair was for. Future masturbation.
“That’s it. Now lean back. Relax. I promise it won’t hurt you.”
She was sure Waites had said the same thing, right before he strapped her in to machine mark one and watched it electrocute her.
The metal felt cool against
her temples. Things went over her eyes—things that closed them.
“I don’t like this, Tem!”
“It’s perfectly harmless. It won’t hurt you at all,” he said, while thoughts of mind control devices and drug-induced obedience danced through her head. Maybe the tentacles would fry her brain. Maybe the machine would search for the right nerve impulses and get mad when it couldn’t find them. Maybe it would give her clit a twenty-four hour erection. Maybe—
He was right, about the dreaming while awake.
She opened her eyes—though her real eyes didn’t actually open—to find a meadow. Or at least, what these people thought a meadow might look like. Clearly they were fresh out of grass, here, because the stuff underfoot appeared to be purple.
And the trees! Weird, gnarled, pumpkin-y looking things.
Though she accepted that both things were perhaps not meant to be either grass, or trees, at all. Maybe this was just meant to be weird dream stuff. Maybe trees and grass had mutated. Who knew?
But none of that weirdness even came close, to the girl she could see, sat beneath the dull orange-y sun.
She felt immediately compelled to go to this woman, even though two things struck her, at once—the girl was clearly naked, and she was not exactly a girl. Even from a distance that much was obvious, and Tem and Aley’s words rang thunderous in her ears.
They have big eyes, and big lips, and oh my all the better to eat you with, my dear.
She approached the sprawled and naked non-woman, with reluctance.
“Oh, hello,” the non-woman said. She shaded her insane alien eyes from the dull sun. They hadn’t got a damned thing right about her, but they managed the old ‘walking along, only to find a nude sunbathing woman’ cliché?
She would have laughed, if it were not for the sad thing before her. Everything seemed square on her, as though her body had been created out of Lego bricks. She barely crested Kate’s navel, and as for whatever they had decided should be between her legs…
Past Pleasures Page 4
