“Your body,” she whispered. “Son!”
John looked over.
“Don’t say anything to him, Mother.”
“Don’t say anything to me? About what?” Liam tried to shake Luana off, but she had a surprisingly strong clawlike grip.
“So, Rixxar,” John resumed, ignoring Liam’s increasingly horrified expression. “Do we have the makings of a deal?”
“A fresh body to occupy? In return for what? What do you offer me if I relinquish my hold on your mate and child?”
John took a deep breath. “I will come back with you, once the ozone layer is rent again. But Mother stays here, as do Anna and the child. I will enter your service. My genius will be at your disposal.”
Luana screeched, “Nooooo!” but Anna grasped John’s wrist, eyes alight with greedy passion.
“You will? This is a wise decision, Valent. Of course, you understand that I will need to keep you close. Much as I admire you, I will never trust you.”
“I understand that. You will live with us here.”
It was at this point that Mimi sneaked through the basement door, keeping to the shadows where she might not be perceived. She found a space between two machines and crouched down, listening to the conversation.
“Then set the procedure in motion, Valent. I require first that you perform the Galactic Promise. Just a formality.”
Mimi watched, brows furrowed, as John and Anna embraced, then did something strange and inhuman with their hands, fusing them together as if the skin melted into one. They spoke some words—at least, Mimi presumed them to be the equivalent of words. To her ears, they sounded like television interference.
Over the top of the ceremony, Luana sobbed noisily while Liam struggled to both calm her down and escape from her clutches.
John stepped back. Mimi caught his sidelong glance at Liam and shivered.
“Mother,” John said, calm. “Let go of our friend. I have need of him. Come down and join us, Liam.”
Mimi held herself back, longing to leap out and ask what the hell was going on, but feeling that this might be an elementary mistake.
“Why?” Liam hesitated.
“You can help us, Liam. You can help the universe.”
Anna bestowed a beatific smile on him.
“Save the baby, Liam. You’re the one who can save me and the baby.”
Unable to resist even this alien Anna, he took faltering steps down from the makeshift bed towards John.
“How do you mean? What can I do? This thing about needing another body—”
His query was cut off as soon as he wandered within John’s range. In a flash he was caught and overpowered, held with his hands behind his back by John while Anna laid a palm on his heaving chest.
“Yes, this body,” she said. “It is healthy and young. And, like me, it is male. I think it will suit me well.”
“Anna,” Liam blurted, tears beginning to spill from his eyes. “What’s happened to you?”
“I am not well, Liam, but you can make me well again. Only you. But you must give me something first. Something so precious.”
“What do you want? Who are you?”
“You can give me your life.” She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to Liam’s.
Mimi saw that John had picked something up—no conventional weapon that she recognised, but his purpose was all too clear. He aimed the weapon at the side of Liam’s head, and she sprang forward, cannoning into them so that John staggered backwards and Liam was released from his grip.
“Fuck you, John, you aren’t doing this!”
“Oh, well done, Miranda. Now we’re all doomed.”
“No we aren’t, John, we aren’t!”
“Kindly explain,” Anna said, stiff with annoyance.
Liam, having sunk to the ground, was breathing deeply, head buried in his arms.
“You don’t have to kill anyone,” puffed Mimi. “I can’t believe you were going to kill Liam. You…I thought you were better than that.”
“I had to protect Anna and the baby,” said a sullen John. “It’s what I’m genetically programmed to do. You can’t blame me for it.”
“Yes, I can, and I do.”
“The fact remains that I need a host body,” Anna reminded. “Are you volunteering?”
Mimi took a deep breath. “Yes. I am.”
“Miranda, no!”
“You can enter me without killing me. There is a psychic link between John and me. It’s very much weaker than Anna’s—I don’t know why, perhaps strength of character has something to do with it. But it exists. So if you can leech off Anna, you can leech off me.”
“But not you!” moaned John. “I can’t sacrifice you. I have to protect you too. You’re my other brood partner.”
“Never mind that.” Anna winked salaciously. “Two brood partners, eh, Valent? You always were a player. I like her plan. She has more intellectual energy than the male. And I don’t need your facilitation either. I can simply…”
Anna stepped forward, puckering her lips.
Mimi’s instinct was to retreat and she sought John, who quickly wrapped his arms around her.
“I can’t let you do this,” he muttered into her hair.
“I can’t let you kill Liam,” she replied. “How long will this last?”
“Until the ozone layer breaks. It could be years.”
She turned to whisper into John’s ear.
“You have time then. You have time to think of a way out of this.”
“That was my intention,” he whispered back. “I know I’ve made the Galactic Promise, but there is no way I’m going anywhere with him. I’ve bought time, that’s all.”
“Use it. You will set me free. I trust you.”
“You trust me?”
“I don’t know why. I must be mad. But I do.”
“Kiss me.”
Mimi put her arms around his neck, carefully and slowly, knowing that this might never happen again. She was determined to savour every scintilla of sensation, to draw him in via her fingertips, her skin, her mouth, her mind.
His swan neck, so elegant and long, was warm and firm beneath her touch. She put one hand on the back of his head, pushing fingers into the short, neat hair, feeling every tickle, every prickle on the way.
His hand burned at the small of her back and on her shoulder. His breath was hot, his lips were ready, his bristled cheek set her skin tingling and then they were connected in a kiss of enormous, fathomless depth.
This kiss had to communicate every hope, every wish, every ounce of the strength of the love between them. If it failed, they would not be able to repeat. If it failed, the plan would collapse and Rixxar One would win.
Its urgency sent floods of fire through Mimi’s belly and downward, waking up every longing nerve ending. She wanted John, she wanted sex, she wanted his love and his respect and his complicity and everything about him, even his strange alien ruthlessness. “Read my lips. Don’t let me down.”
“Read mine. Be strong. I love you.”
When they drew apart, there was a shimmer in John’s eyes Mimi had never seen before.
“I do believe you’re almost human,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” he said. “I don’t want to watch this.”
“I’m ready,” Anna announced, beaming all over her warped face.
“So am I.” Mimi schooled all the quiver from her voice and squared up to Anna. “Leave her.”
She shuddered as Anna’s tiny hand replaced John’s on her shoulder. The girl smelled like Anna—a light floral scent underlaid with creamy moisturiser—and she looked like Anna, but she was a million light-years from that girl’s gentleness. The tiny hand clawed at her, and the soft glossed lips puckered in a tight pout, then her friend’s face darted to hers, so fast she bobbed her head back, but it was too late.
The gloss smeared over Mimi’s face, the minty fresh tongue pushed aggressively through her lips. Then the feeling of kissing, the warmth
and the wetness, was replaced by a flash of freezing pain, numbing her mind and her body systematically until she retreated, oppressed and overtaken by a spirit of hard, brutal logic, all her natural reactions dulled almost to the point of disappearance.
Liam, watching, saw Anna step back. Her face was her own again, vulnerable and confused, those huge brown eyes blinking slowly.
“What happened?” she asked, but nobody answered her.
John and Mimi eyed each other like rival snakes preparing to strike. Luana, hanging on to Liam’s reluctant arm, was making a strange ululation at the back of her throat. It could be a sound of despair or triumph, but it struck Liam as the latter.
He tried to shake her off, eager to go to Anna and take her under his wing, but the older woman’s fingers were vicelike.
All he could do was call to her. “Anna!”
She shook her head, tearing her eyes from John and Mimi and peering over to him.
“Oh, Liam,” she said. “You’re here. What’s happening?”
“I wish I knew.” He held out his free arm, gathering her into it. “Are you okay? You feel okay, yeah?”
“I feel…a bit weird. But okay. What’s happened to Mimi?”
“It’s like one of those things on TV where someone’s possessed by an evil spirit. It was in you, and now it’s in Mimi. But I don’t know what it is…or anything.”
John’s attention turned from Mimi’s demented grin.
“Are you all right, Mother?”
“My boy. So clever. So good.”
“Hmm, well, that remains to be seen. I’ve brought Rixxar One into your house. Not so clever, really. Still, as long as he behaves himself…”
“I understand the etiquette of Draxxar hospitality,” Mimi said.
For a moment, neither Liam nor Anna knew who had spoken; the low, harsh tone was so unlike Mimi’s bright, confident cadence.
“You, Liam,” John said, “or whatever your name is. Take my mother upstairs.”
Anna tried to follow Liam and Luana to the basement door, but John stopped her with a light hand on her forearm.
The longed-for familiarity of his touch stopped her in her tracks. If she didn’t know it was too soon, she would have sworn that the baby fluttered inside her.
“Anna. Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
“Your head? Down here?” He patted her stomach, which lurched with unwanted desire.
“Fine. I think.”
“Stay here with us for a while. I want to keep an eye on you.”
He turned to a monitor, hunching over it while Mimi and Anna watched over his shoulder.
“What’s that?” Anna asked, seeing tiny flashing lights retreating through a map of the galaxy.
“My brethren,” Mimi answered. “Returning to their world. But they will be back. As soon as the ozone layer tears again, I will send them the sign, and we will leave this place. That’s Valent and me, I mean. Not you.”
“Who’s Valent?”
But Mimi ignored the question, returning her avid gaze to the screen.
“I have a lot to tell you, Anna,” John began, reaching back to take her hand.
“Tell her nothing,” Mimi snapped.
“I can’t tell her nothing. She is the mother of my child. I think she needs to know. Especially if she is going to be bringing the child up without me. There are instructions I will need to give. A half-Draxxar child will not be like a human.”
“I suppose.” Mimi sniffed. “All right. But she must tell nobody else.”
“Anybody else wouldn’t believe her. And that Liam character has zero credibility already.”
“I feel I’ve made a mistake,” muttered Mimi. “I should have stayed in her. I don’t trust you.”
John laughed, a long and bitter laugh.
“Good to know that the lessons of history haven’t passed you by, Rixxar One. Now, let’s all go upstairs. The humans will need feeding.”
By the shores of the lake at Hampstead Heath, John and Anna walked hand in hand while Liam and Mimi watched jealously from a picnic rug further up the slope.
The sun was setting. It was just like that other night, thought Anna, all those weeks ago, when she and John had danced, cheek to cheek, barefoot in the reedy grass. But the summer was almost over now, and the reedy grass was dry and brown.
“Do you understand now, Anna?” he asked, looking up at the crimson skies, wrapping an arm around her side.
“It’s so incredible. Unbelievable. Crazy. But I think I do. But John…” Her voice broke and she swallowed back the tears savagely. “Why did you ever have to meet me? I wish you’d left me alone.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before? Apologised. For anything. You humans are rubbing off on me. I wonder if I can…?” He narrowed his eyes and looked over at Mimi.
“So she can’t hear your thoughts?”
“No. The link is much weaker. I can hear Rixxar, but he can’t hear me. Good, eh? Mimi knew what she was doing. Now if I can just work out a good way of exploiting my advantage… But I have time. A year at least. You won’t be left alone with the child, I promise you that.”
“Right. And you love Mimi?”
“I have some emotions…what you might call love. I am unfamiliar with the syndrome. I want her back. If that counts.”
“Of course it counts. Sounds like love.” Anna sighed heavily. “Liam loves me.”
“But it isn’t reciprocated?”
“He’s lovely but, well, y’know. After you…”
“I am undeserving. Forget me.”
She laughed, kicking at the dying reeds. “Oh, John. I’ll always love you. Always. What will become of us?”
He took her hand and kissed it, watching the sun go down behind the trees that fringed the shore.
“I wish I knew.”
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Erotic Amusements
The seaside resort town of Goldsands is a place of dreamers and transients who wash in and out like the tide. But its picture-postcard prettiness conceals some sinister realities. Coldhearted mogul Charles Cordwainer owns most of the local businesses, and more than a few of its residents.
Michelle, Cordwainer’s submissive: despite her loyalty, he plans to turn her over to another man. Flipp, the new girl in town: she has a dark past and a penchant for bondage. Rocky, Cordwainer’s right-hand man: a sexy biker with eyes for Flipp. Laura, Goldsands’s carnival queen: an über-bitch with her sights fixed on Rocky.
Secrets, betrayals, lovers all become intertwined—and when someone starts digging up the dirt on Cordwainer’s empire, nothing will ever be the same…
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About the Author
Justine Elyot is a U.K.-based writer of erotica and erotic romance. When her first book, On Demand, became the last ever title to be published by iconic British label Black Lace she had no idea it would end up at number one in the Amazon U.K. erotica chart, but it went some way to making up for the sadness of losing a publisher. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and she writes for a variety of publishers, always working to extend her range and skills. Nonwriting jobs have included gutting fish, waitressing, tax collection, tourist information, teaching and writing advertising copy but not, unfortunately, opera singing, which she does on a strictly amateur basis. She is always delighted to hear from readers.
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