The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (33 page)

"I would've thought horny meant prickly or angry," Diem mulled.  "But, hating or horny, you still must come with me.  I have business to discuss at the House and part of the business concerns you.  I want my House to see you, so they know who you are and that you are with...that you are one of us."

"It doesn't sound like a good time.  I'll just stick around here."

"It's not safe."

"I was fine before, with your little dragon henchmen."

Diem ran his eyes over her body. 

"That was before," he said as a swift knock on the door cut short what was likely to steamroll into another argument.  Maeve went to the bed and yanked the blanket from it, wrapping it around herself. 

"Who is it?" she whispered to Diem.

"It can only be two people, since Forge hasn't warned me," he said, but when he went to the door, he didn't open it right away.  Instead, he rapped his knuckles against it twice.  After a moment, there was one rap, a pause, and then three more.  Satisfied, Diem swung open the door.

Maeve peered out, over Diem's shoulder.  The young woman on the threshold had huge, blue eyes and a spill of long brown hair that she had tied back with a strip of fabric.  She held up a bundle in front of her.

"Breathe sent me," she said.  Her voice had the same deep inflection as Diem's, warm as a drizzle of caramel.

"You came through the forest alone?  Where's Eon?" Diem barked, but the woman walked into the shack, undaunted.  She stopped the moment she caught sight of Maeve, but a man with dark, curly hair popped into the door frame behind her.   

"I'm right here," the man said.  "Look what I found."

He strolled in with Maeve's boots in hand and froze, just as the young woman did, as he caught sight of Maeve.  Maeve clutched the blanket closer to her, painfully aware of her naked shoulders and everything else naked and encased by the fabric. 

"Breathe wasn't fooling," the young woman said.  She stepped forward, juggling the bundle to one arm and extending the other.  "I am Karma, Diem's sister."

Maeve grinned, humiliated, as she tried to clutch the blanket and shake hands at the same time.  What a way to meet his family.

"I'm Eon," the man said.  He swiped his nose with a nervous finger, his gaze dodging away from her.  Maeve was confused by it, until she caught sight of Diem.  His brooding expression explained Eon's skittish glance.

"Breathe told me to deliver these clothes," Karma held out the bundle.  Maeve blinked at it, unsure of what she needed with another blanket.  Karma understood immediately and unfolded the blanket, removing the skirt and blouse within.  She held it up for Maeve's inspection.  It could have been a Moo Moo and Maeve would've felt just as moved to tears.  She'd never been so excited to see clothing in her life.

"I can hold up the blanket, so you can change," Karma offered.  She shook out the blanket she'd brought and held it high. 

"Now wait a moment," Diem said.  "Let's tend to the things we need to, Eon."

"You mean, whatever's not in here."

"That's right," Diem said, ushering his friend to the door.  Maeve heard their boots treading out the door and the latch as it closed behind them.  Karma giggled as Maeve stepped behind the blanket curtain and cautiously lowered her own blanket.

"Not to be ungrateful," Maeve said, shaking out the skirt before she pulled it on, "but did Breathe send any underwear?"

"No, I'm sorry...is it your time?"

"Time?  Oh, no," Maeve said, pulling the blouse over her head  "Why?"

"That's the only occasion we wear underthings." Karma explained and Maeve could almost hear the girl blush.  "Unless you're Linked, or with child, or me.  I have to wear them all the time."

"Have to?"

"Wearing them lets the men know that you are unavailable for mating," Karma said softly, an edge of embarrassment in her tone.  Maeve glanced up at the girl's fingernails, pressed white against the suspended blanket edges.  She stepped out from behind the blanket curtain.

"Letting the men know," Maeve drawled.  "How about letting them know by telling them to back off?  How about saying no?"

"It is an honor, as a woman, to bring generation to your House.  Women welcome the honor."

"There's no honor in rape,"  Maeve said.

Karma's brows knit in confusion.  "Rape?"

"Of being forced to have sex
—to mate—when you don't want to."

"Oh!" Karma smiled.  "Most men are not that way.  Most want to enjoy the mating with a woman."

"But what about those that don't...are they still forced?"

"Diem has instituted grave pun
ishment for that," Karma said.  Maeve snorted, thinking of how he held her wrists down, how he commanded her body.  But the truth was, he didn't force her. 

"Well, good," Maeve said, feeling where the hem fell on her leg.  "Could you maybe get me some underwear anyway?"

"Although it's not your time?" The girl seemed perplexed.

"I'm sure
it'll be my time soon enough," Maeve said.  She had the birth control shot, so she wasn't worried about whether or not her time would come right now, but it would be something to consider in the future.  "You know, the best way to send up smoke signals to your period is by wearing white underwear." 

Karma mmm-hmm'ed vaguely.  "Is it true that you are from the archaic Earth, like Gra said?"

"Yeah," Maeve said.  "I don't feel archaic, though.  It feels like I just went to sleep and woke up...here."

"That's got to be confusing."

"It is." 

"What was it like, where you were?  You don't have to tell me, if you don't want."

"Oh, I don't care," Maeve said, but she realized there was no way to describe it all—technology and skyscrapers, cars and electricity, dishwashers, libraries, carpeting—to someone who'd never known it.  Maeve recognized that she'd never appreciated even the smallest things she'd had.  Convenience stores and credit cards and store tables heaped with panties.  "There was so much different, I don't know where to start."

Diem opened the door a crack and called in,  "It's time to go, Maeve.  Karma, you and Eon are staying here to keep an eye on the hoarde."

Maeve had a fuck off waiting on her tongue, but pulled it back.   She sighed, knowing that Diem, by default, won again.

"I hope you'll tell me about it all later," Karma said.  "Your life before, I mean."

"Sure," Maeve said, "but I've got to go meet the horndogs first."

"Horndogs?" Karma asked. 

"I'll fill you in when I get back," Maeve laughed as she walked out the door.

***

Phuck watched as Wind came to, contemplating a blow to her head that would give him more time to think on what he had to do.  And what he had to do was finish stroking his urine straw, since his initial thoughts of Wind's body had led him to think even more deeply upon Karma.  His thoughts had become so concentrated and lively that they tightened up his drained pain berries and hoisted his urine straw in the air.  Phuck shrieked with the erection, but as painful as it was, his body was intent upon responding to the naked tryst his imagination provided.  In desperation, Phuck anointed his hand from a jar of hampig grease.  The tender grip of his loving sensory extensions brought a surge of relief that made him groan.

Wind licked her lips and Phuck's second groan was one of trepidation, as the woman wobbled onto her hands and knees and crawled over the floor to where he sat in his chair.  She dropped her head into his lap as if her thought container was too heavy to support any longer, her lips enclosing upon his greasy staff and sliding to the base. 

Phuck closed his eyes with a moan, as Karma came into focus on the dark screen of his eyelids.  She was positioned on Phuck's lap, held up by nothing but air, before she began pumping up and down upon him.  A hand reached for his and he let it be guided, pretending it was Karma's soft touch, pressing his fingers to her damp sex.

Wind's moan shattered the illusion.  Phuck popped his eyes open, gazing down at the woman's head in his lap.

"Kindly stay quiet," he said.  "Hold your breath, if you must, but remain silent."

Wind hummed in agreement and Phuck rest his head back, until his neck bent so far that it was difficult to even swallow.  But Karma returned, dancing across his eyelids, moving her open sex on his palm as she simultaneously rode his urine straw like a desperate swol.  Phuck didn't try to make sense of it.

Karma crawled into his lap again, except that this time, her body was substantial beneath the tips of his sensory extensions.  She brought her open mating hole down on his urine straw, pumping upon him in the way that plugged the urine and eventually drew out his sensual milk. He reached for her and grasped her hair, but quickly released it, as the tactile sense of it did not mesh with the texture he imagined.  She brought her speech opening down upon his chin, her slippery pink taste sensor trolling upward, poking into the black hole of his face as she delved for his lips.  So eager, she was.  So eager.  His milk nearly blasted from him with the thought—

"Oh Phuck," Wind murmured.  The Plutian popped open his eyes.  He readjusted himself inside her sex hole. 

"Stay quiet, I beg you.  I am imagining Karma and you are ruining my enjoyment with your sound."

He returned to his previous position, eyes closed, head back...but Karma stopped her sucking and spreading.  In his imagination, his lover's beautiful face suddenly twisted and pulled until it glared with hatred at him.  He opened his eyes to see the exact expression he'd just witnessed in his mind, reflected on the less-becoming features of Wind's long and bestial face.

"Karma?  You're pretending I am Karma?  AGAIN?" she shouted. 

"No, not again," he stammered.  "Always.  I have always pretended that."

The sound that came out of her made him throw his hands over his hearing holes.  It rang in his skull and knocked at the white grinders within his food receptacle. 

"ME!" she shrieked.  "You need to love ME!  I am the one who will love you
—not Karma!  She will never love you, do you understand?  She is Diem's sister!  He won't allow it!"

"Allow?" Phuck tilted his head.  "I am Plutian.  I am not allowed by a Rha.  I am obeyed."

"He will not obey you!  Not when it comes to Karma," Wind said.  She stepped close, winding herself around Phuck, trying to seat herself in his lap even as he shifted to avoid it.  His urine straw lay flattened to his leg like a starved melellurm.  "She is not what you want, I know it.  But I am.  I will obey you."

"Of course you will obey me," Phuck said.  "I am Plutian and you are only human."

"Karma is as human as I am!"  Wind screeched.  Phuck tipped his head in thought. 

Yes, she was, wasn't she. 

Wasn't she.

Phuck blasted to his feet, knocking Wind to the floor.  She clung to his leg as he smashed the ends of his movement units into his shoes.

"Where are you going?" Wind asked. 

"To the Fly House," he said.

"Why?" she inquired after him, but Phuck strode out the door without another word.  He felt as if the bones in his human skin bag had grown feet taller.  He was Plutian, and he no longer knew what stood in his way of having Karma, just as he had always wanted.

***

Diem untied Maeve's hand from the guide rein, even though she'd been tucked safely between his legs during the ride.  He had her there partly because he knew she was frightened of Forge, but mostly because he wanted Maeve's body leaning against his, needing his stability.  She sat as straight as she could, holding herself away from him, as if she were unwilling to trust that he could keep her safe, from either the dragon or from himself. 

She was absolutely safe from the first.

From the second, he could make no guarantees.

Having her once was not enough.  He wanted to lie with her again, and the thought of it was centermost in his mind
—a dangerous thing under the circumstances. 

Breathe came out to meet them, the children and the House occupants remaining inside, although they watched Diem's great dragon land from the windows.  Forge was safe so long as Diem commanded her to be, but there was no need for anyone to know that, save Breathe, Karma and Eon.  Forge's presence automatically set boundaries and allowed for some measure of privacy.

"Blessings, Maeve," Breathe said.  Then, to Diem,  "All is well with Hold House, I see.  I have assembled the meeting place off the back porch.  We have word that the Plutians are nowhere near, but I don't think I need to tell you, Diem, to remain guarded in what you say.  And Maeve, beware of any cursing."

"She is aware," Diem said smugly, recalling her cherry-red rear end.  Maeve growled and stepped away from him.  "Forge will watch for the Plutians as well."

Diem whistled to his dragon, sending her into the sky.  Forge swooped down just over the tree tops, her keen eyes sifting through the spindlings.  The dragon's presence was a comfort to Diem, although her shadow cast an eerie tone as it drifted ominously over the yard.