Sentients in the Maze

by Chogan Swan

  “Good morning,” she said with a smile, touching his lips with her fingers. Tiana ran her fingers across his face, down his neck, working her way down, taking his hair into her system. “Today you’ll notice an increase in your strength. I’m changing your diet to help with the protein requirements for the muscle and support structure growth.” Tiana leaned back to reach his legs down to his feet.

  “I didn’t realize you were including more strength. Isn’t that an addition to our agreement?” Jonah scratched his head. “I also didn’t realize my head hair would return.”

  “I can take it baaaack,” she said, reaching for his head.

  No, no,” Jonah said, grinning and jerking his head back. “It’s good shade for my scalp. I’ve missed it.”

  Tiana pouted then continued. “Well, the hair is because I reset your bio-clock. This time though, you won't lose it later. The strength enhancement is because we are way past the temporary contract now, and I mean to keep you alive. You’ll need the strength for combat training.”

  “I’m not going to bulk up a lot am I? I don’t want to get too heavy to climb.”

  “You’ll be a bit heavier, but your strength-to-weight ratio will improve. Your hands will heal faster after a hard day of climbing, so you can climb every day if you want. But, I hope you’ll enjoy spending the time on more variety in your workouts.”

  “Right, like combat training.”

  “Among other things. After you eat, let’s do yoga and then we can work on some piano pieces for four hands. Debussy’s 6 Epigraphes Antiques would be a good place for us to start. It’ll be fun.”

  “Then why did my heart just stop when you said that? I’ve never attempted something that difficult.”

  “Little by little,” Tiana said, patting him on the arm. “Can you flip over so I can get your back?”

  Jonah jiggled his pelvis, arching an eyebrow, pointing out the connection still in place between them. Instead of disconnecting, Tiana grabbed his shoulders and rolled backwards, flipping him on top where she could reach his back and down to the upper part of his legs.

  “Men,” she muttered, “so quick to end the afterglow.”

  “Well, this is new,” Jonah said with a smile. “I’ve never been on the top with you. What do I do from here?”

  Tiana flexed the muscles surrounding his shaft, stroked his prostate with her tail and smiled as she felt him stiffening inside her. “You’re on top,” she said, “Dealer’s choice.”

  He shifted his hips slightly, pointing his sex at her pleasure node. “No restrictions?” he asked, caution coloring his voice.

  Tiana touched his cheek. “No, Jonah, no restrictions. We are safe enough here, and your arguments for reciprocity were persuasive. Let’s just try to stay conscious.”

  An hour later, Tiana wasn’t sure she hadn’t passed out for a few seconds a few times, but perhaps her capacity to experience pleasure was improving. She savored the sparking inside her as she subsumed his seed. A happy effect from Jonah's mystery changes had been an increase in his semen and sperm production, pushing it far above normal. Tiana closed her bagua to make sure it all stayed where it would do the most good.

  The satisfaction on Jonah’s face from giving her pleasure was the final piece of the puzzle for her. After all, both of them were sentients, people, menschen, nii.

  It was time to put away segregation. If humans could manage it, then she’d follow that example and not be diminished. Besides, barring violent death, this relationship should last a long time. It would be nice to have something to look forward to besides having a wonderful piano.

  With a twinge of reluctance, Tiana disengaged the connection, stepped off the bed and pulled Jonah to his feet. He was a bit limp at the moment. . . . Everywhere.

  “My people rarely form bonds for life, but exclusive relationships aren’t unusual,” she said. “I suppose we'll have to figure out what you and I will become together. I expect I’ll be working through the . . . baggage of my cultural conditioning, so I’ll need you to be patient with me. Right now though, coffee is outside the door.”

  Tiana raised her eyebrow. “I smell a breakfast tray too, and, unlike with me, no one might have to alter their paradigms if you step out to get it.” She swished her tail over his bottom by way of punctuation and jerked her head at the door. “C’mon! You can do it. You aren’t that tired. I don’t know about you, but good sex makes me thirsty.”

  “Good sex, eh?” Jonah said with a grin. “We’ll need to keep water bottles in here.”

  “Ha! I was thinking more like a supply tube hooked into the bed. I don’t think you understand; I haven’t had sex for a very long time and this new body likes it. A lot! I… will be in the shower,” she said as she turned and danced into the bathroom.

  “That sounds like a challenge,” Jonah said as he opened the door to the hall.

  Tiana knew what he would see. The breakfast tray, and coffee thermos on a cart by the door—right across from Amber, sitting in the hall chair with a steaming coffee cup in her hand. Tiana looked over her shoulder.

  Jonah paused then took the cart by its handle. “Good morning, Amber. Sorry about the full frontal,” he said, wheeling the cart backwards into the room.

  “Don’t get dressed on my account.”

  Tiana grinned at the laughter in Amber’s voice.

  Jonah closed the door, and Tiana ducked into the shower.

  Jonah stuck his head in the door. “Look at you, acting like you didn’t know that was coming,” he said. “Did you forget how thirsty you were pretending to be?”

  Tiana giggled. “Oh, I’m thirsty enough,” she said. “I just got tired of waiting for you and decided to drink straight from the shower.”

  Jonah sighed. “Okay, so what’s your policy on sharing the shower?”

  Tiana slid the shower door aside. She took Jonah’s hand and pulled him in with her. “Sharing is good,” she said as he gasped at the icy torrent. “What, still here?” she remarked as he reached for the soap.

  “You may not have noticed, but I’m pretty determined about some things,” he said.

  Tiana smiled.

  In fact, she had.

  Click here to return to Chapter 15

  Chapter 16 (Original) — Training

  When he finished the exercises, Jonah went to his locker and pulled out two kukri knives with 12-inch blade. He inspected them to be sure he'd been thorough about putting them away sharp, clean and oiled. The curved blades gleamed from the razor edge to the rugged, quarter-inch thick backbone. Jonah had filed, honed and polished them by hand from the rough and not-very-ready condition they’d been in when shipped from the blacksmith in India. Tiana said it insured he appreciated keeping them in good order. Jonah turned to see Tiana dropping a five-foot-tall wooden cross of five-inch oak logs notched and pegged at the intersection into a metal stand.

  “Begin,” Tiana said.

  Jonah walked to the cross and saluted it with crossed blades and a bow.

  Tiana sighed but, indulging him, said nothing.

  Jonah started with a series of slow-motion strikes, tapping the cross after each precise move low, high, out, in, under, over, not patterned, but random. The piercing and chopping capabilities of the kukri knife and an ancient nii weapons form Tiana adapted to his anatomy prescribed each move and transition.

  After about ten minutes, Tiana said, “Good, now half-speed and half-force.”

  Jonah picked up speed, adding power to the strikes. He let the weight of the blades and the speed and technique behind each movement drive the force of the strikes. He added withdrawing the blade from the wood to the things to remember.

  When he'd started this training, his left-hand strikes had been pathetic. The motions he’d learned with his right hand over his lifetime of hammering, chopping wood, swinging a racquet or a bat had never translated to his left hand. Tiana had made him ambidextrous, but he still needed to teach his left side everything without the years of experience of his righ
t side.

  Tiana had pointed out that at least his left side didn’t have his right hand’s bad habit of trying to treat the kukri like a hammer. It should even out, in time.

  He was working up a sweat.

  “Guard right, strike left,” Tiana said.

  Jonah continued the workout, now using his right-hand blade in guard position while his left hand worked through the attack strikes.

  While his left-hand strikes might not be pathetic anymore, Tiana maintained that it was charity calling them woefully inadequate. She conceded, on the other hand, that his right-hand technique well deserved that description. His left-hand workouts were twice as long as the right-hand drills.

  As Jonah chopped, Tiana did her own program. She moved through a free-form dance with a kettlebell in each hand while keeping track of his progress. The kettlebells each weighed 92 kilograms, and she went through a series of balance and lift movements filled with her own version of Turkish get-ups, handstands and swinging lifts. Tiana said the kettlebells would work until her special order came in, and then she’d let him use them.

  Jonah managed lifting one of them over his head after Tiana had boosted his muscle efficiency, but he’d never use them the way she did.

  Tiana was doing explosive swings then clamping down on the handle to arrest the weight’s ascent, the force lifted her into the air. When she came back to the floor, the weight was under control.

  Tiana’s shoulders were filling out with smooth muscle. Arms, torso and legs were gaining mass. Her muscle structure was very dense. If she’d been human, Jonah would have guessed she weighed about a hundred twenty pounds. But, in his experience lifting her while making love, she was at least twenty pounds heavier.

  “Pay attention, Jonah. Guard left, attack right.”

  Thinking about what they’d been doing when he'd been lifting her must have been affecting his focus. Jonah switched to guard left and focused on correcting the bad habits of his right hand. Pine chips were collecting around him.

  “By steps, bring speed up to full and strike force up to ninety percent.”

  As Jonah moved faster through the motions, his mind quit turning. He remained aware of his surroundings, but all thoughts stopped. There were only the steps, the dips, turns, the blows coming faster and faster, the chips flying from the crossed timbers. Jonah ducked backwards to dodge something Tiana had tossed at his head but never paused his exercise.

  His breath was relaxed, his body free. He revised his estimate of what ninety percent meant and pushed harder on the strikes.

  Another projectile—a tennis ball, spotted from the corner of his eye—came from where Tiana had moved her position. Jonah tilted his head to the side and let it pass as he continued his next series of strikes. Three strikes at deep-notched spots on the cross-timbers lopped five inches off the top and each end of the crosspieces.

  Two tennis balls came at him in quick succession. Jonah slapped one away with his left-hand blade as he dodged the other before continuing to work on the timbers. His chopping strikes created larger chips now, and in another minute, he removed the crossbar completely. The tennis balls were coming faster, but he still hadn’t let one hit him.

  “And stop,” Tiana said.

  Jonah stepped away from the post—dodging one last tennis ball that Tiana flicked at him—and turned to grin at her.

  Tiana looked at him, gaze unreadable, then flung four balls at the same instant. He dropped and rolled toward her, catching her in a bear hug. Of course, this was a poor tactic; she could crush him if she wanted to, but he kissed her and planted his sweaty chest on hers.

  “Hhm. Woodchip implants, very sexy,” Tiana said. “Is this the secret for your success with the ladies?”

  “It’s strange. I can sense when you’ll throw and where the ball is going. Do you suppose it’s because of that connection thing we shared? I wonder if it would work with someone else.”

  “Let me consider how to test that idea. Drink water and stretch. Then combat drills.”

  Jonah smiled and kissed her again before letting go. He snatched a towel from the wall hooks, wiped off the wood chips and then got a water bottle out of the cooler. When he turned, Tiana had already swept the chips off the floor and tossed the logs into the firewood box before going upstairs. Jonah rolled the bottle’s cold glass across his neck then poured water down his throat.

  He started the stretches Tiana had taught him. Many were like the yoga he’d been doing for years. He worked his way easily into a front split, switching sides after a minute then used an exercise ball to move past the full-split point on both sides. He’d worked on a full split for years and never gotten there no matter how he stretched until Tiana. Whatever she’d done to his joints and muscles had moved him way past what he’d have thought possible.

  When Tiana came back downstairs, Jonah was working on the straddle split.

  She stopped in front of him. “Another two inches and you’ll have the straddle split too. That will help your fighting mobility.”

  Jonah smiled. “Not to mention my climbing,” he said. Tiana always focused on the self-defense.

  “Let me assist you.” She bent to take the crotch of his shorts in her hands, ripped them seam-to-seam then pulled them over his head and tossed them into the corner.

  “Okaaay,” said Jonah, eyes widening.

  Tiana sat in front of him and worked her fingers along the stretching muscles, ligaments and tendons, massaging them and dipping her filaments into the tissue. Almost at once, the tension in his legs eased. Jonah dropped closer to the floor. Her legs slid forward until her toes were under his ankles. She kept her hands moving, stroking the inside of his legs. His skin tingled and his muscles quivered as her filaments triggered contraction and relaxation. Jonah forced himself to breathe deep so oxygen would go to his legs.

  In tiny increments, Tiana raised her toes, lifting his ankles off the floor. The added tension made him gasp as she alternated lifting him—by holding his ankles with her toes—and letting the traction of his weight bring him lower.

  Her breath stirred against his skin and his body responded as she moved him. Tiana looked up and grinned. She’d sensed his arousal, probably even before he had, what with the distraction of intense stretching. A long jet of air from between her lips stirred his growing erection as she leaned closer and took the tip of him between her lips. She curled her tongue, swirling around him then switched to flicking with it, finding all the sensitive spots along the trail as she took him deeper.

  Jonah gasped and swayed, but she caught him with ease, keeping him balanced between the balls of her feet and her long gracile toes. Still keeping him in her throat, she tilted her head forward, adding downward pressure to his stretch and pulling him deeper into the straddle.

  He was past full horizontal split, but it appeared he wasn’t finished. Tiana set her springheels on the floor, keeping the fork of his legs pinned to the floor with her mouth while raising his ankles to open him further.

  If somebody said, ‘make a wish’ I would have a heart attack.

  When the orgasm tore through his body, he wondered if he was having one, though he was almost sure a heart attack wouldn’t feel like he was already in heaven.

  Tiana slid her hands to his knees and lifted him. He was still in her mouth pumping into her throat as she stood. She continued moving his legs through range-of-motion circles for several minutes, keeping him straddled between her hands before letting him slide down her body. Feet back on the ground, he held onto her, fighting to get his breath back under control as she massaged his back and buttocks.

  “Don’t work the straddle stretches again until tomorrow night. You should keep the range-of-motion, but tell me if you don’t.”

  Jonah nodded and rocked back to stand on his own. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me out of weapons practice after wiping me out?”

  “I’ll give you five minutes to recover. That should take care of it.” Tiana patted him on the cheek and turned
, heading towards the stairs. She slipped on a bathrobe. “Do you want anything from the kitchen?” she asked, bouncing up the stairs.

  “Your smoothie number seven would be helpful. A large one.”

  “As long as you don’t drink it too fast this time.”

  “I promise.”

  Jonah walked around the room until his legs stopped shaking. In a minute, he was near normal. Tiana might push him, but she always left him functioning. Without her intervention, he wouldn’t have been able to walk after that much stretching. In fact, without her help he never would’ve done a stretch like that no matter how much time he worked at it. Tiana said adding sexual arousal to stretching improved results. Jonah didn’t object.

  He went to open the door for Tiana; her hands would be full. If she used her tail to open the door, she risked someone on security detail learning her secret. The only places not video monitored in the house were their bedroom suite, the dojo and the bathrooms. Jonah had insisted on the compromise of hardened steel bars and alarms for the windows instead. After finding the mole in their organization, the Sacketts were understandably paranoid.

  Jonah opened the door and moved aside for Tiana.

  She carried a package under one arm and his smoothie in the other. As she passed, she handed him the smoothie. “I’ve measured your threshold of hearing, Jonah, and I didn’t make a sound that would alert you I was approaching the door. How is it you opened the door just then?”

  Jonah paused with the smoothie part way to his lips. “I’m not sure. I saw you coming back; not with my eyes though. Should we try a test when I’m focused on it?”

  Tiana shook her head. “We can do that later. Right now, we need to work on keeping you alive. Weapons practice.”

  “Yes, dear,” Jonah said, rolling his eyes.

  “Cheeky,” drawled Tiana. She smiled with a look in her eyes that made Jonah understand the eye rolling would cost him.

  “Today, we will add a new dimension to your training,” she said, her feral grin at odds with her casual tone. “You’ve gotten somewhat comfortable sparring against me when I’m fighting as a human. But there are those in the galaxy with more than four limbs. Myself for instance,” she said whipping her tail from behind her and thumping him in the solar plexus. The strike was not quite hard enough to make him drop the smoothie.