He pulled out but instead of hugging her to him, he rolled her gently over to face away from him and stroked her butt cheeks with his hands. She shivered, quaking, as his fingers dipped into her moist cleft then touched her anus. The exhilaration stunned her and she squealed. He dove into her dripping vulva and drenched her anus with her come. She didn’t know which was more thrilling
—
his brushing strokes across her sensitized clit or the electrifying touch on her butt hole. Then she knew
—
Oh, God! What pleasure! She inhaled sharply as his finger penetrated her anus then slid in and out. She seized in halting breaths then began to writhe as he wiggled his finger inside. She heard herself whimpering with painful ecstasy. Then he pushed a second finger through. She emitted a sharp cry. She wanted him to stop and continue at the same time. It was like a rocket going off inside her. She felt violated and released at the same time. What painful pleasure! Then she realized that she was screaming with an incredible climax.
He pulled out his fingers and she whimpered out the last of her release as he cupped her hot mound, pulsing again like the aftershock of an earthquake. But he knew she was done and, curling up behind her, he spooned her and drew the
kosh
over them, then folded his arms over her breasts. She covered his arms with hers and fell swiftly into a deep blissful sleep.
She awoke at dawn out of a sleepy embrace, with a gasp of pleasure, then realized through a still drowsy haze that Azaes’s finger was gently teasing her anus.
He’d crawled right under the covers and was quietly laughing at her reaction, clearly pleased that she was now awake. How long had he been playing with her while she slept? She didn’t care. She was glad she was awake to feel what he was doing now. Warm and tender hands caressed her back and arms. He traced the curve of her throat to where her breasts swelled, brushing her nipples, now standing erect, down to her belly and circling her navel.
She moaned in sleepy ecstasy as the sun crested the horizon, shafts of gold light streaming into the room.
Now working his way down her thighs, Azaes was awakening her whole body, inch by inch, stroking every part of her sensitized skin except between her legs. By its very exclusion, her crotch awoke with a pulsing excitement that drew out an involuntary whimper. She turned toward him with expectation, her vagina pooling with wetness and whimpered some more, this time voluntarily. He responded by placing his cock between her warm legs, snugly against her swollen mound and she moaned, rubbing it like a genie with her thighs until it throbbed. They kissed, a long, lingering lazy wet kiss as he rubbed his hard cock, slippery with both their pre-come, between her legs. He entered her slowly, first probing shallow then plunging deep in wide circles to her gasps.
He was so tender and patient with her, coaxing out incredible yearning, then filling her with thrusts that penetrated and surged through every aching part of her body and out every pore. Until she tingled—deconstructed—and became an amorphous being of light, whose wave particles resonated to his frequency. And she finally understood. They didn’t need the
vishna
to join with the universe. They were there already.
She understood it all. And it was good.
Epilogue
Genevieve and Azaes strolled down the newly planted orchard of young
fika
trees, hands warmly clasped and glancing at the ancient rainforest that had somehow miraculously evaded the wildfire. Her
vishna
tree remained, standing tall above the rest like a brilliant sentinel. She squeezed Azaes’s hand. “Diaprepes told me that the
vishna
was also planted in your homeland…Earth.” She bowed her head to the ground in thought. “That means that we could have had immortality, the elixir of health and all this long ago.” She looked up and her solemn gaze swept over Azaes’s place and the surrounding jungle. “But we threw it all away.”
“Yes,” he replied. “We did. Eos became a second chance for us.” He pondered quietly for a moment then turned to her. “Perhaps it’s yours too. We are just branches of the same tree, after all,” he ended with a faint smile.
She gazed at him askance and let a crooked smile curl her lips. “You still don’t believe me about the Epoptes, who took my form to kill Sanchez and Porter, do you?”
He smiled indulgently and fondled her buttocks. “No.”
“Or that I spoke with her and that we made love in the flesh, after she explained that it was she who loved me as the
vishna
.”
He looked a little uncomfortable but grinned nevertheless, then stopped to embrace her with great exuberance. “With your injuries?” he said almost scornfully. He kissed her breasts and slid his hands down her curved back to stroke her butt cheeks. “No,” he murmured between kisses. His index fingers traced the crease of her buttocks, and drew out a delighted squeak of surprise from her as fingers met at her anus.
He couldn’t keep his hands off her sexual parts, she thought, bending unconsciously with his hand and releasing a sighing moan as he pressed the rim of her butt-hole in slightly. Her body felt like a vessel that kept refilling, never tiring of his touch, always responsive, like an animal in heat. She’d become highly sensitized to everything about him. He only needed to look at her a certain way to trigger a burst of wetness that grew sticky between her legs. A glimpse of his firm buttocks, the gentle muscular dip of his pelvis, stirred her loins and inflamed her heart and face.
And Azaes didn’t care where, Genevieve reflected, as she glimpsed Anka and a female friend strolling not far away in the gardens, holding hands and gazing at them with some curiosity. Azaes had absolutely no reservations about being seen by anyone, whether friend, acquaintance or family member. Lovemaking in public seemed as natural to him now as standing naked under the Eosian sun.
Grabbing his roaming hands to help her resist, Genevieve panted, “Okay!” She persisted with a lopsided smile, “then explain how I know that you also joined with that very Epoptes through the same
vishna
.”
His face paled and he let go of her. He stared at her with the shock of great revelation and for several moments could not speak. Then he finally found the words, “Good Universe! It’s true.” He started blubbering excitedly, “She came to me several times, in your shape, with tidings of you, and we made magnificent love.” He gripped her arms. “Genevieve, what does it mean?”
“It means that the Eosians have been joining with the Epoptes for thousands of years already. Through the
vishna
tree, Azaes, The Epoptes
are
the
vishna
.”
He stared at her and his mouth moved, but nothing came out. Genevieve laughed. “You said I’d change everything. I guess I did.”
“You changed
me
,” he said, squeezing her hand. “That’s no small feat.” He laughed. Then his eyes grew serious. “Soon it will be time to change your world,” he said, gazing at her face. “I admit, I’m nervous.”
She thought him sweet to make such an admission. Then again, she was nervous, too. Zeta Corp, never mind the U.S. military and parts of its government, weren’t going to be happy with what she wasn’t bringing home and what she and Azaes had to say. It was entirely possible that they’d be arrested and incarcerated before they even had a chance to speak to the world government. It was a risk they were going to have to take.
“You should be nervous,” she agreed, grabbing his butt and squeezing it affectionately. “You’re going to have to learn to wear some clothes!”
Azaes laughed sharply. “And I have a wonderful surprise for you!” He seized her in his great arms and spun her around, laughing like a rogue with a secret.
“What?” she asked, when he set her down again. “You got a suit?”
“The Atlantis II. You’ll be pleased. It’s a secret.” His smile was now decidedly smug and she thought that he might not tell her. But she was wrong. He wasn’t much for keeping secrets. “I know how fond you were of your ship and how you missed your ship’s personality. So, I sent a crew back to
Zac I
and they were able to salvage part of his core neural net and installed it in
Atlantis II
. I am pleased to say that Atlantis and Zac are getting along very nicely.”
Genevieve realized that he expected her to shriek with some joy, but she threw her gaze down to swallow down the emotion rising in her throat and said nothing, too overwhelmed. Then she threw her arms around him in quiet appreciation. He folded his arms around her and they stood, embracing in warm silence for several moments before she finally let go.
When she did, she found him regarding her with deep eyes. “Sacred Universe,” he breathed, “you’re so beautiful, woman.”
“When I’m purple, that is,” she added with a coy smile, then teased, “And I’m going to go back to my old color on the way back to Earth.”
“Ah, but you’ll still smell good,” he teased back. “And you’ll be the only woman on board.” His eyes fluttered shut in rapture and he added in a hoarse voice, “And your fragrance is so incredibly arousing.” At least they were going to have an incredible trip to Earth, she thought with a growing smile.
Uttering a moan of pleasure, Azaes seized her lips with his and slid his hand between her legs. She inhaled sharply and felt her heart pulse in her crotch. She was already wet from his butt tease. His tongue played inside her mouth as his fingers dove deep and beat out a violent rhythm. She gasped and curved her body into his, seeking his swollen cock. He pulled her into the small orchard and she let him throw her on the mossy ground. It offered little in the way of protection from probing eyes but that wasn’t the intent: it made a soft bed for them. Azaes flung himself upon her and
entered her with frantic surges. They came quickly, together.
Not in a hurry to get up or withdraw, he lazily maneuvered them so they lay on their sides, facing each other on the mossy bed. The warm thickness of his penis inside her felt like home. She slowly inhaled a complex mixture of enticing aromas from Azaes’s own musky sweat to the tart-sweet smell of
fika
leaves and the alluring
vishna
perfume. As she listened to the twittering birds and the distant laughter of Anka and her friend, it dawned on her that Azaes had meant
love
. That was what he had alluded to when he’d hinted at what ran the universe
—
love.
“Each time is like the first,” Azaes murmured, stroking and kissing her hair.
“Only better,” she whispered with a grin. Sex was love’s most expressive language. They’d only fucked five times today, she thought smugly. Once when they’d first roused in the guest bed of Diaprepe’s newly grown house, once—no twice—in the new kitchen, where Azaes had sternly pushed Anka out to make breakfast and made a mess with food, mostly on Genevieve to great bouts of laughter, once in the bathroom, inside the bathing pool where they had to clean the mess he’d created, and then in the flower garden after she’d made the mistake of bending over to smell a flowering shrub. They were fucking their way to Azaes’s makeshift healing chamber and they might make it there by noon, Genevieve thought with wry amusement as she nestled her face in his neck, then bent to tease his nipples with her tongue and teeth. His nipples responded instantly by hardening erect.
He moaned and she felt him firm inside her in great waves. Her mouth gaped open as desire flamed through her in response to his movement. He seized her lips with his, thick and wet like the rest of him. His penis continued to swell in surging waves like a great ocean promising to take her to another dimension. And he wasn’t even thrusting yet! Ever thicker and deeper, he filled her until it was all Azaes inside her, throbbing to her beating heart.
It started as an aching tremor and grew into a violent thrashing as she felt her come rise inside and felt his body shiver with growing excitement. He began to thrust rapidly, body glistening and his wetness mingling with her own. They keened and groaned in unison as his semen burst out of him, eagerly filling every part of her and looking for her own dancing seeds to join with.
And join they would
—
she’d dreamed it.
Azaes then wrapped his great arms around her and pulled his leg over her thigh like a blanket. They dozed off in the moss under the morning sun.
Genevieve roused at nearby footfalls. But after some moments they hastened away and Genevieve fell back asleep, wrapped inside Azaes’s tangle of arms and legs.
It was noon when they wiped the cum and sweat off of themselves and scrambled to their feet, faces and bodies still deep with the flush of their lovemaking. Clasping her hand again and wearing a boy’s grin, Azaes led them out of the orchard to his healing chamber.
It was a pyramid build of a combination of
vosma
, a rapid-forming crystal, and
metalin
, the shape-shifting amoebic native plant used to grow their houses. They stepped inside. Diaprepes lay asleep, suspended within a greenish liquid, the same liquid Genevieve had found herself immersed in when she’d first arrived on Eos only two months before. Somehow it felt like years.
Shiva, who stood overlooking the tank, jumped with surprise then smiled at them. “Hello, lovers,” she said cheerfully.