by Nhys Glover
“Would you like to swim?” Sky asked, picking up on my thoughts. Or mayhap my expression gave me away.
“It is not the swimming as much as the play I am envying. I have forgotten what it is to play. Although you played with me when I was little. I loved when you hid surprises in the middle of those constructions. Every time you delighted me. And the fact that it was never easy to find them, but always possible, made it all the more pleasurable.”
He nodded with a smile on his face. “Being here with you now in the physical world makes that feel somehow like a dream. Like I slept for eons and dreamed you.”
“If it was a dream, we shared it. I do love you, you know. More now than ever before. You are everything to me,” I said passionately, taking his big hand in mine and squeezing it.
We had reached the half way point on the beach, and Sky turned to me, placing his other big hand over mine, sandwiching it so it disappeared completely.
“I love you too. And I will until the day I die.” He sounded so sad and resigned. Did he know something about the future of our quest that I did not?
“What is it? Do you know what will happen in the coming moon? Will we not be able to be together after all this is done?” My heart had sped up so fast it was painful. I was afraid.
I could tell he was trying to decide what he should or should not share. I pushed the point.
“Tell me. I will only worry myself sick if you do not.”
He nodded, strands of his silver grey hair ruffling slightly in the breeze. “It takes a great deal of energy to open the portal and keep it open long enough for the Devourer to be sucked in. It nearly killed me the last time. It is like what the hag did to you, sucking your essence dry. But in your case it was a slow process. For me it happened in a matter of turns. I do not know if I have enough of my essence left. I am sure I can open the portal, but how long I can keep it that way... that I do not know. Nor do I know if I will survive closing it.
“And that makes me sad. I talked about love for a turn or a moon or a sun being enough. Yet even though I have had fifteen wonderful suns with you, it does not feel enough. I am greedy. I want more. I want all I can get. The rest of the suns of your life. Of mine. I do not want this to end when it feels as if it has only just begun.” He sounded heartbroken.
I leaned up to kiss his cool cheek. His wings wrapped around us, hiding us from the world.
“It is not greedy to want to be happy for as long as you can. If it takes a lot of energy to keep the gate open then we will find a way to make sure the monster is fast about entering it. We will learn from the last time and do it better this time. I do not want to live in this world if you are not in it. Do you understand? If you do not survive, then neither will I. So you must live!”
He leaned down, and I stood on tiptoes so we could cover the great distance between us. The touch of our lips was a feather breath, and yet it sent currents of longing through me that had me gasping in shock.
I drew back, and when Sky frowned in concern, I smile my reassurance.
“I felt that to my toes. I want you Sky. Might we not... explore a little, as we did in your realm?” I asked breathily.
His chest expanded, and he grinned at me so brightly it felt like the sun had suddenly risen. “I would like to explore more with you.”
He threw our assorted fabrics down on the sand to make a bed of sorts and sat down, folding his wings in so they fitted close to his back.
It had always fascinated me how such massive structures could fold compactly in against his back, so they covered him from shoulder to butt and stuck out only a few finger-widths on either side of his body.
“When you lie on your back, do you worry you might break a wing? They seem so delicate and you are not light,” I asked, sitting down at his side and fingering the feathered edges of one wing that I could see peeking out from behind him.
“Not as fragile as you would think. They cannot afford to be when they carry my massive weight across the sky. I can lie quite well on my back with high pillows under my head. Otherwise I am more comfortable on my side as you found me today.”
“Yes, you were on your side with a wing covering you. I... I have never been so scared in my life. I thought you dead,” I repeated, the memory still painful.
He leaned across the small distance between us and claimed my mouth in a deep kiss. This was our first real kiss in the physical world and it was even more intoxicating than those we’d shared in his dream world.
“I am sorry you were frightened. Had I known, I would have given you forewarning.”
I nodded and kissed his warm lips again. Then my gaze dropped to the tenting in his breechcloth. His finger was straining against its confines. I did not wish it to be imprisoned any more than I wanted Sky to be imprisoned.
Tentatively, I reached across and placed my hand on him there. His sharp intake of breath had me pulling away again. He grabbed up my hand and returned it to where it had been.
“Touch me. I want you to touch me,” he growled out, his voice so low it sounded like thunder rumbling.
And I did, mapping his length and width with my fingers. I could not fit this finger in the hole in my fist. My fingers would not even meet if I wrapped my hand around its girth.
“It seems too big,” I said sadly.
Sky undid the ties at one side and peeled the leather away to reveal what was beneath. Gods, if I had thought it large behind its covering, it was even more so without. It lay just off centre and was more than two hand-widths long. At the top was a bulbous head, a shape I had never seen before. Were human males built like this? Did they all look like mushrooms with long stems?
I leaned in to stroke my hand along it. Again Sky jerked and drew in a tight, shaky breath. He was gritting his teeth. What had I done wrong? Then I remembered the last time when he had said this was pleasurable for him.
At the bottom of the long shaft I found two lumps dangling in loose skin and covered by silver hairs. I touched these odd things carefully.
“What are these?”
“You know how I said the field is ploughed for seed?” he asked instead.
I nodded.
“Those are the pouches that contain the seed.”
“How do you get to the seed?” I could find no hole anywhere near the sacks.
“It comes out of the hole in the top,” he explained, his voice tight.
I looked at the hole that was dribbling a clear liquid. I put my finger out to touch it, but I stopped at the last moment to look up at Sky for permission. His eyes were bright blue and seemed to burn with an inner light. He nodded and swallowed deeply.
I touched the sticky fluid and ran it between my fingers. Then I brought it to my lips and tasted it. Salty. How strange. Like sticky tears.
Sky groaned as he watched me.
“Was that wrong?” I asked.
“I... I do not know what other people would call wrong. To me it feels very, very right. It excites me to see you taste my seed.
I smiled and put my finger back on the tip, scooping up a little more to bring to my mouth. I coated my bottom lip with the liquid.
Sky was on me in the next moment, pushing me down and plastering his mouth over mine in a deep, drugging kiss that I felt to my toes. Gods, kissing this man—this halfling—was like nothing else. When his tongue touched mine in our open-mouthed kisses, I drew back a little. It seemed intensely intimate to touch a tongue to a tongue. Yet I craved it anyway.
Sky broke away and lay back in the sand for a few moments, dragging in deep breaths of air. He was shaking.
“Are you all right?” I asked in concern.
He nodded. The finger below his waist seemed to pulse and jerk.
“Too good. Mayhap we could try something else until I calm down?”
I shrugged. “What?”
“Can I see you? Now you have seen me, can I see you?”
I quickly drew my gown over my head, leaving only my chemise and drawers. After a quick
glance at Sky to see if he approved, I removed these too. I felt both shy and exited to be naked in front of him. My bones seemed to protrude too much. I had almost no breasts. There was a triangle of hair at the juncture of my thighs I was not sure should be there. I had worried about it ever since it grew in when I was thirteen suns old. But I had no one to talk to about it. Now Sky was seeing it, and I was unsure what he would think. Would I repulse him?
“You worry that you do not have enough breasts,” Sky said softly, no more than a breath of the wind or thunder in the distance. “But my mother’s people... those women had no breasts. My mother was repulsed by hers and could not wait for them to shrink away after she stopped feeding me. They never did disappear completely. She said they were ugly lumps. They shamed her. So I have only known females with far less than you have. Even mother was smaller than you. Does that help?”
“So you think breasts are ugly too?” I asked, my concern over being too small turning suddenly to a fear that I was too big.
“No. I never did. I saw human women who had breasts and they excited me. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought there were many things wrong with me.”
“So what do you think of mine?” I asked uncertainly
His big hand came out to cup one small mound. I moaned in pleasure.
“I think you are perfect. May I?” He leaned in, as if preparing to kiss my breast.
I nodded my approval.
He did not kiss me. Instead, his mouth closed hot and wet around my dark nipple. I moaned and arched into him. He suckled me like a babe and it was delicious.
Then his mouth started going lower, as mine had done in the dream realm. He stopped when he reached the triangle of hair.
“Sylphs do not have hair here either. Males or females. My hair there was considered... I was made to wear the breechcloth.”
“Do human women have hair there?” I asked uncertainly.
He nodded, running his fingers through the tight curls. Then his finger slid along the slit and I moaned without meaning to. I wanted to make him stop, I wanted to make him go on. It was torturous pleasure.
His forefinger slid all the way to the back and then returned. Sky then pressed between the slit and into the wet folds beneath. I had studied these at different times, finding them most curious. And disturbing. And the disturbing part was making itself known at that moment.
“Somewhere in here is the place where my finger goes. Can I look?”
I felt myself blush and I lay back, letting him do what he wanted. I felt him open the folds as I had done in my explorations. I knew there was a hole there. And sure enough, Sky found it. He let out a shaky breath as he circled the hole with a fingertip.
“This is very arousing. I do not understand why. But the sight of these plump, wet petals... and this hole. I am having trouble controlling my desire. Mayhap I should stop.”
Stopping was the last thing I wanted. A need so great I could barely stand it had started when his finger touched me there. If he stopped now...
“Go on... please.” I begged softly.
One finger slipped into the hole, pushing in as he had pushed his finger into my fist. I squirmed and shifted on the rug beneath me. I was hot. Burning up in a way I had only felt in my dreams. My real dreams, not my visits to Sky’s realm. Those dreams had stirred feelings in me that had shamed me when I awoke, wet and aching between my legs.
He looked up at me, checking to see if what he did offended. I nodded for him to go on. He pushed a little deeper. Then a little deeper still.
“It is very tight but slick, which makes it easy to slide my finger in. It is also hot...” he observed, his voice no more than a croak.
“How far does it go?” I asked.
That had been me giving him permission to delve deeper. And so he did. I flinched at one point, but then the pain was gone as fast as it had arisen.
“I tore the skin then. Did I hurt you?”
“A little. But the pain is gone now. How far?”
“My forefinger is all the way and there may still be more.”
He withdrew and I could not help giving a little moan of disappointment.
“I want to try something, if it hurts tell me, and I will stop,” he said.
I felt two fingers at the entrance and they slowly pushed inside.
“The walls are expanding to allow me entrance. This is good news.”
He pushed deeper, and I couldn’t help but arch my pelvis to make the most of the sensation. I rocked on his fingers until he stopped moving deeper.
“The end?” I asked breathlessly.
“No. Just as far as my fingers reach. More good news.”
“Could... Could you try seeing if... well, your other finger might fit? If the walls stretch...”
He was silent for a long time and I thought I had gone too far. That my neediness had disgusted him. When he finally spoke again his voice sounded raw and stark, nothing like his usual smooth, low-timbred tones.
“I can try. But mayhap I should take relief first. I am too close.”
I leaned up curiously. “Relief? Close to what?”
“Spilling my seed. I need relief from the pressure that has been building since we started our exploration. Before that, if I am honest.”
“How?”
“I pump my root. Then the seed comes out.”
He made it sound like milking a beastling. I remembered seeing a woman do that once. The milk that spewed out of the udder into the bucket had been quite surprising. She had offered me some to drink, and it had been warm and creamy.
I turned on my side and studied his shaft which had changed colour and become even more swollen.
“Can I watch?”
He grunted out a laugh. “When have I ever stopped you from exploring? It will not take long. I cannot remember ever being this... aroused. The pressure is painful.”
Sky ran his fist up his length several times, as if pushing the seed up the shaft strenuously. When he arched off the sand, a stream of white liquid poured out of the tip. He moaned in agony, and I wanted desperately to stop him hurting himself. But I didn’t know how to. He seemed totally consumed by what was happening.
The flow stopped and he lay still, panting, eyes closed. The white liquid was all over his torso. I fingered it. Not like milk. Thicker and stickier, with a more astringent smell. I brought it to my lips and tasted it. Salty like the clear liquid I had tasted before.
I noticed the shaft had grown smaller and was no longer swollen and reddish-purple beneath its silvered skin. Yet it was still hard.
I stroked the length with my finger tip, and the shaft bucked a little.
“Still exploring, little one.” He sounded happy and relaxed for the first time since we started our exploration.
“You seem better now. I thought you were dying before. I didn’t know what to do.”
He gave a little laugh. “It does feel a little like dying. And the peace that follows is what I imagine death must be like. I hope so, anyway.”
Though I did not want to disturb his happiness, the tension inside me had only increased as I watched him find his relief. I needed... I just didn’t know what I needed.
“Can you try to fit it in now?” I asked, the emptiness I felt at the core of me almost too much to bear.
“Give me a moment. I will wash myself in the sea and be back. He rose lithely to his feet and ran into the sea. When he dived in just as he had in his dream river, I was immediately homesick for his world. We had spent such wonderful times playing there. Yes, we had played, just as Flame had been doing. But it was always daylight in his realm. There was no darkness like we were experiencing now. Was that because his physical self was hidden in darkness, so he made sure his own realm was always bright?
I noticed Flame and her husbands were still in the water, but it was too far to see more. All I could determine was that there were no more splashes or laughter.
When Sky returned he was wet, cold and laughi
ng. “I thought I might shrivel up out there, but thoughts of you made sure that did not happen. Are you ready?”
I nodded energetically and lay back. I was afraid this wouldn’t work, but I needed it to. I wanted him inside me, spilling his seed there with the same wildness he had exhibited moments ago. It seemed right. It seemed necessary. It felt like it was the only thing that was going to ease the ache I felt growing inside me.
Sky positioned himself between my legs, and I lifted up onto my elbows to watch him pull back the folds of my slit and placed the head of his big finger against my hole. He pushed in. It hurt. I must have grimaced in pain because he stopped.
“It isn’t wide enough. Let me try something else.” He replaced his cock with his real fingers again, pushing easily inside. He withdrew. The next time he pushed in three fingers, stretching me wider still. By then I was panting as if I had run a league. What he was doing was only making the pressure and the ache intensify. I wanted him to stop. Yet if he had, I was sure I would have died.
When he was satisfied, he removed his fingers and tried his bulbous head again. This time he managed to push in a little way. The head was just inside my entrance. I suddenly felt oddly full and so aroused that I moaned and my hips jerked a little of their own accord.
“More,” I croaked out. I looked down to watch as he fed more of his length inside me. His brow was beaded with sweat rather than seawater now, and the tension on his face worried me. Was he hating this? Was I making him do something he did not want to do?
But the more he pushed into me, the more internal pressure I felt. It was like I was a spring being coiled tighter and tighter. The fullness was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was like I had been empty my whole life and now I was being filled up a little at a time.
“It is longer than I expected,” Sky croaked out, not sounding like him at all. “I can almost fit all of me inside you. How is that possible? You are so tiny in comparison to me. And yet your body is expanding to accommodate me. Amazing.”
I was no longer concerned with the exploration. I just needed. Needed...
