by Meg Ripley
She felt Geming run his hand down her back and then his fingers came between her thighs again, exploring her further until she rocked back into his hand to force his finger inside her. A moan bubbled from her lips and she arched her back further.
Geming withdrew his finger and entered her, burying himself deeply within her with one hard thrust. River gasped and felt Geming start to withdraw. She reached behind her and grasped his thigh.
"No," she said breathlessly, "Don't stop."
"Take her by her hips," Jordan instructed and her eyes snapped to his face.
He looked back at her with a devilish smile and she felt his hand come to the back of her head and guide her down to take him in her mouth just as Geming grasped her hips and started to thrust.
The boys moved her in their own rhythms, Jordan moving slightly faster than Geming, and she gave herself willing to both of them, reveling in the feeling of them both filling her and the sound of their deep moans rolling over her.
River lifted one hand between her thighs, stroking herself to match Geming's pace. Within seconds, the added sensation sent the pressure building inside her spiraling out of control and her body contracted around Geming, gripping him harder, and then dissolving into a cascade of tremors that made her pull her mouth away from Jordan and scream out.
Jordan immediately grabbed her head and pushed back into her mouth, thrusting upward against her tongue until she heard him growl and felt him swell in her mouth just before hot, thick streams began to slide down her throat.
She swallowed luxuriously and could feel Geming pick up his pace, pounding into her harder and faster until finally he let out a deep, gasping cry and she felt him pulse wildly inside her. He collapsed forward onto her back and she fell forward onto Jordan, briefly creating a stack of all three of them before they tipped to one side so that she could cuddle up close to Jordan's side and draw Geming up to curve around her from behind.
****
"Come back with us," River whispered, reaching back to take Geming's arm and wrap it around her waist.
"I can't," he replied, kissing the back of her neck, "If I go through that portal, I become what I hate. The second I step into that cube, I would become a weapon."
"You said that the knowledge isn't of any use on Earth. Maybe that means you wouldn't still be a weapon once you stepped out of the Wall."
"What other option do you have?" Jordan asked, "From what you've said, there are some people who are probably eager to make you not exist anymore. You can't stay here."
"We would have to go tonight. Everyone is watching the meteors. It is the one tradition that we all know."
The words felt meaningful and intense, and they hung heavily in the air as the three paused, soaking in the last moments of shared warmth before getting up and getting dressed again.
River held Jordan's hand behind her and Geming's in front of her as they walked down the metal stairs in the warehouse. She grabbed her backpack from where she left it on the floor and they walked out into a dark night brightened only by the flashes of color across the sky.
They had been walking for a few minutes when River heard a metallic scraping sound beside her. She turned just in time to see one of the small round vehicles coming toward them between two buildings, long metal arms sprouting from its sides. They started to run, but the robotic creature moved quickly, slithering around Geming and tackling him to the ground.
"Geming!" River shrieked.
"Go on!" Geming shouted, thrashing against the metal arm that held him tightly and was slowly dragging him across the rubber ground.
"No!"
"Go! Once the Patrol catches you, it's over. There's nothing I can do."
"Did they teach you that?" Jordan asked, running forward and grabbing Geming by the shirt, trying to pull him back.
"Yes."
River dropped her backpack to the ground and rummaged through it for a moment, then ran headlong toward the Patrol robot. As she approached, she realized that it was even smaller than she had imagined and she could see the vulnerable places where the arms emerged from the round body. They had all been holding onto Geming, but one now released him and started slithering toward Jordan.
"They may have taught you that," River said, opening the bottle in her hand, "But I know differently."
She shoved the mouth of the bottle into the open joint between the body and the arm and squeezed the sides, spraying soda into the robot. It immediately started to spark and jolt. Geming cried out as the arms tightened on him, but a moment later, they let go and he was able to scramble to his feet.
The three of them started running as fast as they could back to the building. Jordan lifted his cell phone to the walls to activate them with the light and they weaved their way through the corridors until they were finally back in the room with the cube.
Only when the wall closed behind them did they look at each other. Jordan laughed and shook his head.
"Soda?" he asked.
River shrugged.
"I guess it's even bad for terrifying technology."
They approached the side of the cube and River turned to Geming.
"What will happen if you go through the portal?"
"I will know and feel everything from the entire history of my kind. It will turn me into a weapon capable of destroying the universe."
"Do you know that for sure?"
"I know that is the weapon my kind has used since its beginning. It has given us the ability to win every conflict we have ever entered."
"And what will happen if you stay?"
"The Patrol will capture me and I will be brought up in front of the government and likely condemned."
"Are those your only options?" Jordan asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You said that the teachers here tell the people what they are to learn and they spend their lives innovating and advancing in that area."
"Yes."
"But you've learned beyond what they chose for you. It didn't make you a weapon, it made you stronger. Don't you think there could be a balance? Think of the meteors tonight. You said they are one tradition that everyone on this planet knows about."
"It is. It happens every year."
"Do you think that losing that tradition would be good for your kind?"
Geming stared at River, sadness in his eyes.
"No."
"The past does not have to be sacrificed for the future."
"What would happen if this cube wasn't here anymore? Could people still be weaponized?"
Geming looked at the cube and then back at Jordan. He picked up the silver bar he had used early and pressed it through the glass to gather more of the silver drifting down through the cube. Gathering it in his hand, he spread it across one wall. The moving image that appeared was of the cube from what looked like a very long time before. He scrutinized it, and then turned to them.
"The cube contains the information in the right concentration that any of my kind who step into it are changed. If the cube wasn't there and the portal was opened, the knowledge would flow freely. No one could be burdened with everything, or with nothing."
He touched River's face.
"Do you have to go back?" he asked.
She reached for Jordan and pulled him closer, then cupped her hand around Geming's face.
"I'm not going anywhere without you," she kissed Geming, then Jordan, "Either of you."
Jordan crossed the room and pried another of the silver bars out of the wall. He walked back to the cube and touched the tip to the wall. It slipped through just as Geming’s had. Jordan turned it to the side and tapped the wall with the side of the bar, creating a low sound as the metal hit the solid glass.
"Let's start a revolution."
Both men pulled back their bars and swung them with tremendous force into the cube, shattering it. River drew both boys close and watched as the tiny silver flakes drifted toward the walls, splashing across them and surrounding them with images.<
br />
Everything had changed in a single second, and she knew she never wanted it to go back.
THE END
Claimed By The Sacred Alien
Hava has always felt like there was something missing in her life. As she loses herself in her studies of American history, she feels drawn to something that seems just out of her reach.
This need brings to her New York, where she fulfills her life dream of exploring the Statue of Liberty, only to discover a hidden portal that takes her to a world where time and existence are elastic, and the future of the planet rests on protecting the past from the plans of the future.
Once there, she meets Makhahr, an alien who is as gorgeous as he is powerful, and realizes that he fulfills every need she has ever felt.
Together, will they be able to protect yesterday to ensure their love has a tomorrow?
Life.
"You actually have to climb up the stairs in order for you to get to the top, Jake," Hava called down the staircase.
Her voice traveled down the double helix of the stairwell and found Jake, who was leaned with his back against the wall and his eyes closed as he seemed to struggle to catch his breath.
"There are a lot more stairs than I thought there were going to be," he managed through his labored breaths.
"You do realize that the statue is more than 300 feet tall, right?"
Jake glared up at her.
"That is not helpful."
Hava grinned and skipped her way back down the stairs toward Jake. She reached out and grabbed his hand, tugging him gently.
"I promise that you are not going to die walking up that Statue of Liberty," she said as she guided him up the next few steps, "That almost never happens."
"Almost never?" Jake said in a tone that was nearly a shriek, stopping in his tracks and tugging her back toward him to force Hava to stop and turn back to him.
"I was kidding. With your ridiculous fear of heights, what possessed you to come with me on a tour of a 300-foot statue that requires walking up a tiny little spiral staircase?"
"Because you are my best friend and I want to be supportive and encouraging in your academic and professional ventures."
"Did you read that directly out of a manual or have you been formulating it for just the right situation when something like this would show up?"
"A little of both maybe," Jake said.
He sighed and started following her as she made her way back up the stairs, looking defeated as he took each step carefully and slowly. Hava felt the excitement building inside her as they continued to climb, each step bringing them further up into the iconic landmark she had been dreaming of seeing her entire life.
"Thank goodness," Josh said, straightening up from where he was leaning on the handrail as they approached, "I thought you had fallen and tumbled back down to the bottom. I hate when that happens."
Jake turned promptly and started back down the stairs, gripping the handrail like it was giving him life as he made his way away from her.
"He was kidding," Hava called after him, "Tell him you were kidding," she said, turning back to Josh.
"I was kidding," Josh called obediently.
Jake stopped, but didn't turn around to look at them. He still gripped the handrail, but his shoulders seemed to have relaxed a little since he had started his retreat.
"I swear if I hear one more thing about falling or tripping or explosions or any other general death-related things, I am going to just stop where I am and camp out for the rest of my life. I will live on pretzels, coffee, and the lost hopes and dreams that drift up from the city streets. You two will have to figure out how to integrate me into the tour."
"Oh, no. That is not my job," Hava said, grabbing Jake by the back of the shirt and pulling him back up the stairs toward her, "I am not the tour guide extraordinaire around here. I'm just the history buff."
"Nerd," Josh said.
"Buff," Hava retorted, "Besides, I don't have enough drama in me to be the tour guide."
Josh grinned at her and started up the rest of the spiral staircase toward the statue's crown. Even though when he first arrived in New York to act and had to take a position as a tour guide in order to survive when the roles weren't as plentiful as he would like them to be he complained, Hava could see that her cousin was thriving in his new position. Their tiny hometown had never been right for him, and they had spent many nights huddled up in their makeshift fort in the living room of their grandmother's home talking about his dreams of running away to New York so that he could be on Broadway.
The little off-Broadway theater that he had gotten his first role in wasn't exactly what he had had in mind, but Hava could see that Josh had absolutely made the right decision by breaking free and pursuing his dreams.
As these thoughts ran through her mind, Hava felt the smile on her face fade and a tightness form in her chest. She was still in that tiny hometown, wondering what she was supposed to be doing with her life.
Far removed from the dramatic and musical talents of her favorite cousin, Hava was more the quiet and studious type who more frequently lost herself in textbooks and old volumes about American history than went out and did the types of things that people her age did. Though she was passionate about her studies and knew that she wanted to pursue something that involved the history that she loved so much, but she didn't know what that was. So many people had suggested teaching, but Hava didn't feel like her heart was in being a teacher. She wanted to do something that would take her out of her comfort zone like Josh had done and put her in a position to make a truly lasting and significant impact in her own right rather than hoping that her teaching methods would touch someone who could go on to make a difference in the world.
Now as she climbed the final few stairs into the crown of the Statue of Liberty and looked out of the glass observation window at the city beyond, she felt like it had taken her so long to get out of the little bubble she had grown up in and into the city that she didn't think she could ever go back and be the same. It was like something was waiting for her just beyond the glass. She just had to figure out what it was and go after it.
****
"Is it possible to go up into the torch?" Jake asked.
Hava looked up and saw him inching his way around the edge of the crown, his back pressed to the side so that he was unable to see through the windows. He was moving and not crying, however, so she decided to interpret that as progress.
"It used to be," she told him, "but no one has been allowed up there since 1916."
"Hey," Josh said, looking at her from his position against one of the windows, "Who's the tour guide around here?"
Hava opened her palm and gestured for him to continue.
"Be my guest. After all, you are the one who snuck us in here after hours and are putting your very job and future ability to support yourself at risk."
"Thank you for the acknowledgement. Anyway, technically people do still go up there. There is a 40-foot ladder that leads up into the torch, but only the maintenance workers who keep the floodlights up there going are allowed to use it."
"Why did they stop letting people go up?" Jake asked, "Not enough interest from insane people who would actually climb up even further than we are to teeter precariously above the river in a fake flame the thickness of two pennies?"
"I'm impressed that you know how thick the copper used to build the statue is," Josh started, "but the original torch wasn't actually made entirely out of copper. It had glass panels. People used to be allowed to go up in there just like we walked up into the crown, but the Black Tom Explosion in 1916 stopped that."
Jake promptly dropped to the floor to sit cross-legged with his back against the wall.
"What are you doing?" Hava asked.
"Starting my campout. I warned you about anything involving explosions."
"This was actually a real thing, though," Josh said, "It is considered one of the biggest acts of sabotage against the United States outsid
e of Pearl Harbor. After the explosion, they closed off the torch and no tourists have been allowed to access it since. They replaced the original with the gold-plated copper one that is there now in 1984."
"Why did they replace the glass one with a gold-plated one?" Jake asked.
"Because…America."
"Fair enough. What happened to the original?"
"Did you see the huge torch in the lobby when we first came in?"
"Not really. I was too busy asking myself why in the hell I thought it would be a good idea to come climb a big giant woman in the middle of the night to notice any of the more subtle décor choices of the lobby."
"Well, that would be it. Do you want to see it?"
"Yes," Hava said.
"No," Jake said, his voice overlapping hers.
"I just dragged my sorry acrophobic ass up a thousand and eleven stairs to get up to this woman's crown and now you want me to turn around and go right back down?"
"Ooo, acrophobic," Hava said under her breath, "good Scrabble word."
"I know," Jake murmured back, "triple word score."
"It's only a little over 350 stairs, and at least you aren't tall," Josh said, "You could have had to walk the entire thing like this."
Josh ducked his head down and scrunched his shoulders over.
"I'm glad my genetic shortfalls came in handy for something."
"Come on," Hava said, taking Jake by the sleeve, "We were going to have to go back down at some point anyway, and I would think that you would be relieved to not be all the way up here anymore."
Jake let out a deep, dramatic sigh.
"I will be. I just don't want to go down the itty bitty staircase from hell again."
Hava stepped onto the first stair, taking care to keep her feet at the widest portion rather than the tapered side so that she didn't stumble. The steps were narrow and shallow, forcing them to walk in a straight line back down. She led the way, eager to get a closer look at the original torch. The Statue of Liberty had always been a special focus of her history studies. She knew its origin story, how it was built, and all about the various restoration and preservation projects undertaken over the years to keep it safe. Though it was only a small piece of history and something easily overlooked in its significance, the statue drew her in, like there was something more behind the anonymous woman's eyes as she gazed through blank stone out over the city that had changed so much in the hundreds of years since her construction.
