Afloat in the Dark

The early afternoon sky was grey and darkening, promising snow.

The doors on the old Tohoku Shinkansen line closed, still smoothly. It would be just 5 hours to Aomori on the Northern tip of Japan’s main island, Honshu. Not as fast as the hyper-loop, but this one offered windows and time to think.

The station receded, as the train snaked out of the station.

Marina made herself comfortable in an impeccably clean seat. First class, a basic courtesy of her employer. Mr. Kawashita had been annoyed with her choice of transport–“Nostalgia doesn’t become you,” he’d said–but given the weight of her assignment, he had caved without too much grumbling.

Marina looked at the bento box that sat steaming next to a canned highball, which trembled ever so slightly: her lunch ritual when traveling by train through Japan. This was always one of her favorite moments, enjoying a meal to go and watching the countryside flash past, but today the usual rush failed to materialize. Even on Fridays the train remained mostly empty, and Marina felt somewhat empty inside herself.

It was not an unfamiliar feeling. The past few days she had felt it return over and again, centering around her encounter with her friend Coco’s new baby boy. Marina, usually such a people person, had felt a strange distance to the tiny creature, paired with an acute sense of…what, exactly?

It was not envy–at least not of childbirth. She remembered poor Coco’s bloated face. Yet seeing the new mother’s joy behind the pain and exhaustion, Marina wondered if she was missing out on her chance at… what, exactly?

Being 32 meant the odds were getting slimmer and slimmer to find a serious boyfriend, by Japanese standards at least. As a foreigner, she’d been spared some of the ageism.

First, a serious boyfriend. But then she’d have to find a different job…

Marina had quite some money saved up in her bank account–an outrageous amount, really, compared to her friends. But what she did wasn’t really about the money.

She popped open the can of fizzy alcohol, sipping as the last of Tokyo’s suburbs shot past to make way for long stretches of frozen farmlands.

Snow was beginning to fall, even though it was only October. Marina looked for an update on the weather in Aomori, before sending a brief, blanket apology to her clients for being offline these coming days. Some would be disappointed… others ensnared more deeply.

Marina blinked three distinct times to turn off her electronics and rubbed her eyes. Resisting the urgent pull of thinking that would lead her away from silence, she focused on her breath.

In and out.

In and out of that silence.

After a few dozen of breaths, she was interrupted by her rumbling stomach and grinned.

With a final sigh of relief, she opened the bento box and began to wolf down her hot food.

That was good. Burping lightly, she took a pen and notepad from her bag, before letting her thoughts flow ahead, towards Kaito.

“Siren,” she wrote in dark ink.

Marina had never met a siren before. She could usually manage some studied sexual interest in her clients, but this time would be unique in that she had no idea what to expect–for better or worse.

What would Kaito feel like?

Startled, Marina looked up at a polite cough from next to her across the aisle, where an elderly man smiled tiredly at her. So engrossed had she been in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed him.

“Good afternoon. The snows are beautiful, huh?” Marina offered, feeling a tinge of pride at her flawless pitch accent, the result of many years of private tutoring. Back in her prideful twenties, she’d reasoned that if she was to be a commodity, she would be among the finest and priciest. Flawless Japanese was a bare minimum.

The elderly man seemed unimpressed and nodded down at her notebook, hesitantly saying: “I couldn’t help but notice… sirens?” He was evidently embarrassed to point out her private writing, but his curiosity must have won out.

“I’m meeting one in Aomori.” Marina smiled. She wondered why she was talking so openly about the topic with him. Perhaps it was his grandfatherly air. He was wearing a functional but slightly oversize suit jacket over a woolen sweater fraying at the edges. His eyes sparkled.

“Ah, that must be… Kaito?”

Changing the subject before the man could continue, Marina asked: “Where are you heading?”

“Morioka!” The man looked down at his folded hands with a dreamy grin on his face. “I’m heading for a wondrous meeting as well: my daughter just had her second child.”

Babies… it seemed as if everyone was having them again. Marina tried to listen politely as the old man told her the girl’s name, her weight–healthy–and how she’d be going to the same school as her great-grandfather.

“My own parents moved to Tokyo after the crash to find a better future. Now my son has returned to rediscover his roots and even has the money to spare to invite me over–first class!” The grandfather grinned a toothy grin and lifted his beer in salute: “To a great journey!”

Marina raised her own highball and took a sip, before returning to her notepad as the man took out a book and a cozier silence returned to the compartment.

Marina’s mother had also moved to Tokyo for a better future, taking Marina with her. The future had certainly been lucrative for her mother, if somewhat short.

Watching the snow fall outside, she returned to her thoughts about sirens.

What did she know about them?

Their arrival had defined Marina’s youth. She remembered first hearing the news from her drunk father, but she laughed him off. The next day, however, her mathematics teacher repeated the same story during class, and they discussed it all morning. Marina couldn’t believe her ears, but only a month later, she’d be writing an essay about the sirens, as her small town was waking up to a new reality: they were not the only ones in the solar system.

They never had been. That was the conclusion of a Swedish scientist, whose nasal voice reached screens great and small all around the world. A probe to Saturn’s icy moon of Enceladus put him and a team of befuddled European scientists at the center of the global news for over six months. Marina remembered discussing every shred of gossip with her friends at school, from what sirens looked like to the correct way of pronouncing the Swedish scientist’s name.

For a brief moment, the nations of the world acted in unprecedented unity as they prepared for a range of possible conflict scenarios. Quickly, however, it became clear that there was no need.

Dwelling in the depths of Enceladus’ dark oceans, sirens were not only extremely intelligent but blissfully pacifist: they had no known material culture on Enceladus, yet the ones who arrived on earth delighted in the complex play of human forms and systems, many mastering several human languages in a fortnight. In her essay, Marina reported that one of them had been found reading Anton Chekhov after just five days.

Siren-human relations had blossomed, as their neighbors proved highly adaptable to an array of earth’s cultures and climates. Those that were brought to earth, through their childlike brilliance, led humanity into an artistic and cultural renaissance that left little untouched. Buildings, city grids, and musical compositions–even the world’s digital infrastructure was playfully analyzed, tinkered with, and reproduced in greater elegance. It was as though they possessed some a priori intuition about earth’s material world.

All this caused furious speculation that sirens had transcended, if not leapfrogged the physical realm altogether. One famous American singer put out the theory that sirens had taken a step down the evolutionary ladder just to interact with humans… a view that gained traction after its ardent repudiation by the leaders of the world’s major religious. Only when the pope appeared side by side with a siren in a brilliant PR stunt, did the discussion somewhat die out.

Marina finished her highball, renewing her efforts to focus.

It was tough to take the situation seriously. Twenty years after first contact, it still seemed incredible to Marina. Life within the solar system? Simple biological compounds, one-celled organisms–maybe. Instead, those scientists drilling the ice on Enceladus had opened up a wondrously complex civilization, so very far ahead of humankind… Reportedly, a siren was a wonder to behold.

Marina didn’t even know if you could speak of a single siren. The academic literature was murky. Theories ran from a hive mind to a modular organism, in which each cell contained the consciousness of the whole. Marina found both possibilities equally incomprehensible–but she had to be prepared for all eventualities.

Had she been hired to pleasure a hive mind?

Marina saw the man look up from his book with a thoughtful glance and realized she’d been tapping her pen against the paper in frustration.

“Do you think they find earth too hot?” she asked. “The sirens, I mean?”

The grandfather scratched his head “I’ve heard that several sirens have recently returned to the arctic zone, or what’s left of it. Perhaps they’re getting homesick?”

Marina took note of the possibility and closed her notebook. She wasn’t getting anywhere. “I wish I could go see their world. Those light blue stripes look so beautiful… They always made me think of a white tiger.”

“Me, I prefer earth.” The man gazed out at the snowstorm now raging outside, and intoned:

“From heaven fall icy petals;

In the sky not a spot of blue remains.

A dusting of jade covers the ground

And buries the blue mountains.

The sun rises over the mountain peak.

The chill pierces my bones.

Silence prevails.”

For a moment there was but the soft buzz of the train and the winter storm whispering against the glass of the shinkansen. Then the grandfather grinned and broke the silence: “Musō Soseki wrote this in the 14th century. Forgive my melancholy, but they don’t write poetry like they used to.”

“Perhaps it’s just harder to find,” Marina offered diplomatically, thinking of a gifted friend who had aspired to be a poet but failed to get by. “Or maybe it’s just that there’s not much silence left to fill with poetry.”

“Maybe so…” the man sighed, then smiled. “You should ask Kaito if they have poetry on Enceladus. He should know, he’s the cultural ambassador to earth, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” was all Marina could say. Perhaps would be asked to recite a poem for Kaito. But while she’d certainly heard stranger requests over the course of her career, she doubted a poem was enough cause to summon an expensive courtesan all the way from Tokyo.

 

* * *

 

A pale moon hung high over the Aomori train station when the shinkansen arrived. Marina had dozed off for a while, after bidding the old grandfather farewell at Morioka. The freezing air was finding its way through her thick scarf, but she still felt groggy when a middle-aged woman in uniform stopped her at the station.

“Ms. Sidorov?”

Marina nodded, confused.

“I am Ms. Tanaka. I am to take you to your ryokan.”

“You must be mistaken …” Marina had booked a little house on the outskirts of town. She always came at least a day early, to appear rested and prepared before her clients.

“It’s Kaito’s wish that you be made as comfortable as possible during your stay in Aomori. We know you’re not set to meet until tomorrow night, but…” Noting her hesitation, she added rather curtly: “I can assure you that your stay at the ryokan will be all been paid for.”

Marina was accustomed to displays of wealth and power from upper class clients and knew how to play those to her hand, but invitations to an undisclosed location were usually a huge red flag. If something went wrong, Kaito would be protected by status of a wholly different kind… diplomatic immunity of the interplanetary kind.

Then again, sirens were peaceful. “Like some Buddhist bacterial culture,” as one of her clients had one once joked. Plus, ryokans were known for their excellent food.

“Alright, where are we going?”

“Half an hour south of Aomori, towards the Towada-Hachimanti National Park.” Although considerably shorter than her, Ms. Tanaka stubbornly insisted on picking up her luggage. “The snow ploughs have made us a freshly cleaned path, so we’ll have no trouble getting there.”

Ms. Takana walked over a shining Toyota Crown Comfort, kept in mint condition by someone who must have had a sentimental connection to the vehicle. What gasoline cars were left on Japan’s roads tended to be exorbitantly expensive old-timers, but this car was the opposite of a collector’s item: at one point in time, it had been Japan’s most popular taxi. Fortunately, the heating worked.

The road out of town was spent in relative quiet, and Marina grew mesmerized by the light of the reddish streetlamps flowing past, one after the other. After a while she closed her eyes to rest but found herself unable to.

What would Kaito, who could take on any shape he wanted, look like?

When Marina had first started working as an escort, plain old research had helped her cope with challenging clients. She would spend long nights trawling the web to understand the ins and outs of some wealthy banker or art dealer’s life. As she grew more experienced, she was given assignments to politicians, celebrities, and other public figures who had to navigate their desires within complex private lives. Research had always been her friend, but not this time.

Illustrious though he was, Kaito had largely come up blank–probably something to do with his status as ambassador. More frustrating was the general lack of information of his basic physiology. Sirens mostly took on a human shape, but what if Kaito decided not to?

Did sirens have erogenous zones?

Marina felt woefully ill-prepared for not even knowing this basic information.

She silently cursed her boss for not offering her more information. What words Mr. Kawashita had spent on Kaito served merely to highlight the gravity of the assignment. Quivering with veneration, he had repeated to her ad nauseum how “This client could make us or break us.” Each time he emphasized the point by adding: “Do you understand?”

Kawashita never bothered to hide his view of her as little more than a dimwitted foreigner.

Marina politely made clear that she understood.

“I don’t understand why Yuki failed me, she always…” Kawashita coughed. “I suppose a siren might be too much even for her. Kaito wants someone capable of complete surrender. Do you understand?”

The man’s bushy eyebrows raised up dramatically each time he asked her that question. At times, Marina would mimic the gesture when replying that she understood, something that could send the man into a rage that she found quite enjoyable.

“I’m confident that I can manage him,” Marina had said politely, eager for the opportunity to meet a siren. She made her case to Kawashita with measured confidence: dynamics varied with every client, of course, but she knew her kinks and possessed a broad repertoire of physical and psychological techniques to offer an attractive submissive persona. Mr. Kawashita was quick to interrupt her.

“You’re failing to understand. This is not about playing the submissive girl.” He took a moment to weigh his words. Beneath the man’s condescension Marina sensed his nervousness. She realized Kawashita might have altogether preferred to avoid this particular client: he liked steady, predictable returns. “Like I said, complete surrender in the widest possible sense of the word. That’s how Yuki described it… and she couldn’t give it to him.”

Mr. Kawashita proceeded to light up a cigarette, ostensibly to let his message sink in, but probably just to calm himself. Marina sensed the veiled threat in his words: if the second girl he sent to Aomori proved equally incapable, it would be his reputation as one of Tokyo’s preferred procurers on the line.

Complete surrender. A flawless union with the client’s desire. A blank but deeply responsive slate onto which Kaito’s passions could be written.

As smoke filled up Kawashita’s office, Marina began to understand why he had called upon her, much as he hated her guts. Marina was usually paired with those seeking foreign looks, but it was her knack for bonding with her clients that kept them coming back. Of course, creating an emotional and intellectual connection was indispensable at Marina’s pay grade, but she offered something deeper: if the connection was just right, Marina could commit herself to her client’s desires as if they’d sprung from deep within herself.

No greater intimacy was possible in her profession, and Marina was certain this was why she was being sent to seduce the siren. For all his flaws, Kawashita had an eye for which courtesan’s skills could help him turn a profit.

She would have left his office quite confident for her assignment, if not for Kawashita’s final words. He would have known they could only interrupt her workflow, but perhaps he could not help himself:

“Yuki found him… eerie.”

Marina tore her gaze off the thick snowflakes swirling outside to find Ms. Tanaka looking at her through the rearview mirror. The driver quickly turned her gaze back to the road, but Marina had recognized the look: here was a beautiful foreigner, dressed in luxury clothing, traveling alone to an expensive ryokan… there was little doubt as to what Marina did for a living.

She had sought to meet with Yuki for a firsthand account but had been unable to reach her.

“Is this car yours?” Marina asked abruptly, after catching the woman’s look again. She did not enjoy putting her driver on the spot, but she had little patience for nosiness. Feeling tired, she was beginning to second-guess her decision to head for the ryokan: what if Kaito insisted on seeing her this very evening?

“It was my father’s car.” It was clear that the driver was blushing, even in the low light offered by the sparse streetlamps on the country road. “Why do you do this… job?”

Marina was surprised by the woman’s frankness and decided to be forthright: “I enjoy connecting with strangers, to see how deeply I can touch them even in the span of a short encounter.”

“Well, I hope you can help him feel better,” was all the driver said to that.

Marina had no reply to that. Evidently, she was not the only one imagining what sex with a siren would look like. A frigid silence returned to the taxi.

Not until they had arrived at the ryokan did the woman look her in the eyes again. She bowed, after having carried her luggage to the lobby entrance. She made to walk off, but at the last moment whispered stiffly: “Please have the courtesy not to cry, like the last one.”

Leaving Marina flabbergasted, Ms. Tanaka stormed off into the night.

 

* * *

 

Marina’s feet crushed the virgin snow. Her breath produced little white clouds. Blowing into her gloves and rubbing her hands together, she made her way through the gate of the compound and into the gardens. The path to the ryokan’s bathhouse had been meticulously cleared of any signs of last night’s storm.

Already the air smelled slightly sulfurous with the scent of geothermal waters. She touched the invitation in her coat pocket. The card had been shoved under her door that morning; written in beautiful calligraphy, it had invited her to a rendezvous at the onsen at 11.

Ahead, the entrance to the bathhouse loomed into view, framed by snow-covered bamboo shoots. Marina still felt unprepared, but it could not be helped.

“Shouganai,” she whispered to herself.

The reception area felt warm and comfortable, as the glass doors shut behind her.

“Welcome.” A matronly staff member greeted her from behind the counter.

“Good morning.”

Marina took off her slippers and noticed there were no signs of other guests. It confirmed a suspicion that had crept up on her since that morning: had the siren rented out the entire ryokan?

Marina had grown immune to displays of wealth and power early on in her career; today she welcomed them solely for the opportunity to learn about her client’s personality. Many sirens commanded considerable wealth on earth, but they were not usually so conspicuous in spending it. Like many of her clients these days–who were rich enough not to have to show it–sirens indulged their enjoyment in relative privacy…

“Come in, come in–you must be cold,” The old woman waved her in with a smile. “It’s a good day to enjoy the waters!”

“Am I the only one here?” She had to be sure.

“Yes… besides Kaito of course.”

This took Marina by surprise, as she had hoped to arrive early.

“Has he been here for long?”

The question took the woman off guard: “He’s… not left the pools for a fortnight.”

She stepped from behind the counter and walked up to her with a whisper: “He’s not been himself lately. Best be gentle with him.”

That was bizarre… but Marina had little time to reflect. The elderly receptionist began enthusiastically showing her in the direction of the dressing room. There, she set about explaining how to use the onsen, until Marina politely explained that she’d lived in Japan for fifteen years.

“Of course, of course–please make yourself at home.” The woman smiled contently and bowed. “If you need anything at all, I’ll be right here!”

Inside, Marina took her time getting undressed, folding her clothes, and trying to calm her mind. She reminded herself that sirens were known to be joyful and good-natured down to a fault.

Naked, Marina strode into the empty bathhouse.

She sat down by one of the shower stations to lightly wash her body in preparation of the onsen, careful to keep her carefully stylized, wavy black hair dry for the moment. As she did, she briefly gazed in the mirror.

“Hello there…”

A vigorous exercise routine had kept her looking lean and trim and she was particularly pleased with how her thin waist enhanced her breasts. She knew that what her clients loved above all were her pale blue eyes, though: men and women everywhere valued the exotic, and the Japanese were no different. At times, a client would stare into her eyes and become lyrical, describing clear Siberian skies, or frozen lakes, or once–a fishing fanatic–the reflection of the morning sun on the back of a river trout.

Placing back the showerhead, Marina got up to search for Kaito.

On the face of it, she was alone. She checked the sauna, which had been turned on to a full blaze. It was as empty as the steaming pools and the snowy terrace outside.

Where was he?

Perhaps he would show himself at a moment of his choosing. Some clients were like that. Mindful to appear relaxed and to be enjoying herself, Marina slipped out through the sliding door onto the snowy terrace. The natural hot spring steamed calmly in the brisk morning air.

Happy to be outside, Marina slipped into the scalding waters.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes.

Allowing herself to relax, she felt different parts of her body unwind, one after the other. At some point she found even her facial muscles relaxing, revealing what could not be the most attractive look of melancholy and tiredness. How slippery, these onsen…

She yelped.

Her eyes half open, Marina had noticed something right opposite her in the hot bath. She swiftly gripped the edge of the pool to lift herself out, then caught herself halfway out. Something shimmered inside the hot waters and took the shape of a translucent young man.

The professional in her remembered to regain her composure, and Marina elegantly sank back into the pool with a shiver.

“Kaito… I am pleased to meet you. My name is Marina Sidorov.”

“Forgive me for frightening you,” a subdued voice came from the apparition’s mouth.

It was impossible not to stare at the siren’s body. Although he appeared to have fully… materialized, his human shape retained that slight shimmer, like a highway in midsummer. The torso was still so nearly translucent that Marina could make out the individual tendons and ligaments of his lean muscles. He looked no older than 20.

A velvet black banded was wrapped over his eyes, Kaito’s sole piece of clothing

“Please forgive my curiosity.” Marina bowed her head slightly. “It’s just that I’ve never laid eyes upon one of your kind before.”

“Now that you have… do you wish you had not come?”

The bluntness of Kaito’s soft question left her momentarily speechless.

“It’s alright, look all you want,” the siren offered a vacant smile. “I would manifest a pair of eyes for you, but it wouldn’t work. We have your anatomy down to an art, but the human gaze remains elusive–and we may never get there. If I tried, the results might frighten you.”

“I’m not frightened by you,” Marina reassured him.

A raised eyebrow on the siren’s brittle young face. There was a melancholic tenderness in his manner that invited sympathy, as if he was carrying some heavy burden.

“It does feel a little… surreal to sit here with you,” she offered, having found that frankness could be disarming. “I’m not even sure how to address you; what are the customs for this kind of meeting on Enceladus?”

Was that a grin?

The siren licked his lips. “You know, my biggest problem would be: what eye color? Infinite varieties, and I’m sure that none would be as stunning as yours.”

Marina felt Kaito gaze at her naked body, even though he had no apparent eyes to see which.

“All of Japan bathed together in the old days, isn’t it? Before the Westerners came.”

“Konyoku were the norm,” she agreed. Here was a cultural ambassador indeed. “A separation of the genders came to be seen as something desirable. The Japanese adjusted quickly to the outside world…”

“Why do humans hide their bodies?”

“I suppose it’s culture,” Marina began, startled by the sudden change in conversation. “Humans have a long history of regulating sexual relations: nudity sends off sexual signals, and clothes help maintain these regulations. Then there’s cold and the scorching sun, of course…”

Kaito nodded thoughtfully.

“No clothes on Enceladus, right?” She laughed.

“No… no need to protect us from the elements. We are the elements.”

This gave Marina pause.

“Isn’t this a bit hot for you, compared to Enceladus?” She nodded at the waters.

“It’s agony,” Kaito said, unfazed. “It suits my present state of mind.”

Marina was at a loss for words–what kind of creature liked agony? She looked again at Kaito’s form, which seemed caught in some kind of violent tremble, as if containing a huge amount of energy that ached to get out, breaking apart this young body.

She remembered why she was here. To entertain.

“What can I do for you, Kaito?” Frankness had never failed her before.

“I’m in search of a… feeling.” Kaito turned to her, and she felt his gaze intensify. “Your world is beautiful beyond description, but my life has lost its luster recently. I have tried everything else; this is the last solution I can think of.”

The puzzle pieces clicked together in Marina’s mind. That old grandfather on the train had been right: Kaito was homesick, desperately so. She had dealt with many expats stationed in Tokyo and the signs were unmistakable.

She edged around to the other side of the pool to sit down next to him. Despite the blazing heat, Kaito’s leg felt cool to the touch.

“Do you experience pleasure the way humans do?”

“No, we do not.” Kaito said flatly. “But perhaps I could, in this form. It’s an experience I was hoping you could help me with.”

Kaito leaned in to press his cold lips upon hers.

Marina received him warmly. His body shook, as she guided his hands over her waist. For a while their tongues danced.

Then Marina took a slow, deep breath of hot air, giggling at her lightheadedness.

Kaito appeared to share her dizziness and gripped the edge of the pool to steady himself.

“Do you know why I called for you?”

Marina wiped the sweat off her brow. She leaned back languidly and nodded her chin, suggestively, at the stiff cock that almost penetrated the surface.

Kaito shook his head. “This physical form feels… awkward to me. I was hoping you could help me make sense of it by letting me see your own pleasure, as much as you can manage from an encounter such as this…”

Now Kawashita’s words about surrender made more sense: Kaito wanted for her to let herself go, to enjoy herself under his gaze.

“I think I understand, and I would be happy to give it to you.”

“Then let’s head to the sauna,” Kaito said, rising from the waters with an erect cock.

Marina followed him back inside the bathhouse and into the blazing sauna. A waft of steam escaped when she opened the door and quickly closed it behind her and Kaito. It was even hotter here than in the pool.

For a moment they just stood there, Kaito’s lean body shivering in the heat.

Marina felt a bead of sweat roll down between her breasts towards her belly button.

Kaito reached out, cold fingertips touching her bare neck. He leaned in to kiss her, far more deeply than before. His velvet blindfold brushed against her cheek.

Marina surrendered and closed her eyes. Embracing him, she felt her nipples press against his cold chest. Everywhere her hands touched, she found his quivering strong form, which seemed sculpted according to some classic ideal of the human male anatomy. Each part of him was perfectly designed to invite forgetfulness that this creature did not hail from earth… so perfect that it was eerie.

But Marina did not mind a little eeriness. She relaxed her body against Kaito’s and was beginning to selfishly seek pleasure, as he’d instructed.

Kaito hummed deeply, sliding his firm hands down from her waist to her hips, then cupping her ass to pull her more firmly against him.

Marina gasped and felt Kaito’s dick press against her cunt. His deep humming captivated Marina, as did the brush of his nose past her cheeks, her lips, then along one of her eyebrows. She giggled at the unexpected tenderness.

Sensing her pleasure, the siren playfully continued to tickle her with his nose, then pushed her back against a bench, where Marina sat down and let the alien take control. One hand held her neck, while the other brushed her check again. Having sat down, she felt the worst of the sauna heat retreat a little.

All Marina could think of as her lips cupped his dickhead, was how cold Kaito’s cock felt. His hands gently pressed her head closer, and she closed her eyes. Blowjobs were a great teasing device, and she spent some time building up the pressure, before beginning in earnest.

Then, Kaito stopped her.

“You’re not enjoying this,” he stated flatly.

His comment caught her off guard. She kissed his translucent cock and coyly looked up along the shivering shaft.

“Is this not what you desire?”

Kaito suddenly staggered away, collapsing on a bench next to her and clasping his head.

“No, no, this is all wrong…” He looked at her, utterly deflated. “Why are you not enjoying this? I thought–is this not how humans do it?”

Marina carefully took his hand, massaging the shivering muscles. She reminded herself that Kaito was looking for her pleasure… had she not seemed eager enough?

“How do you think humans have sex?”

Kaito shook his head, frustrated. “I’ve studied petabytes of stored cultural knowledge. Is this not how the exchange begins in most cases?”

Marina realized what had happened and tried not to laugh: here was an alien ambassador with unfathomable talents and resources, who had used these to distill a perfect distillation of what could only be bland internet porn.

Marina chose her next question carefully. “Is it important to you that I enjoy myself deeply?”

“What’s the point otherwise?”

“Then would you like to try again? Perhaps I can guide you a little.”

Kaito nodded apathetically.

She raised his hand to her face and licked his strong fingers, before slowly guiding them down between her gleaming legs. She shivered with pleasure at the cold touch.

Kaito was visibly moved and proceeded, very slowly, to massage her clit.

Marina leaned back and closed her eyes, trying now to lose herself into a fantasy that this was an encounter she had chosen for herself; one that she could enjoy fully.

“Kiss me between my legs,” she said softly.

Enthralled, Kaito sunk to his knees.

Very gently, he planted a kiss on the inside of her thigh, close enough to her vagina that she shivered in anticipation. He kissed her again, closer up.

He seemed as caught up in the act as she was.

What was a vision in her mind, little more than a tentative desire, slowly began to take shape in the rhythm of Kaito’s kisses. Up, up, up along her legs and then the inside of her thighs.

In the midst of the blazing sauna, the touch of his lips refreshed her. His tongue, tentatively flicking out, was positively cold to the touch.

He grabbed her ankles, and slowly spread her legs apart a little further. Marina leaned back and was beginning to truly desire this strange creature. She reached out to grasp Kaito’s hair, as his hand slid further and further up her leg.

She felt his head, cool to the touch, lean in. His lips brushed hers, before kissing her thin line of pubic hair. Marina sighed deeply and arched her back. He was toying with her, moving so very, very slowly…

The tip of Kaito’s nose touched her clit and she heaved a sigh.

“Now kiss me down there!” she commanded.

The siren leant in, his lips and tongue feeling like a cool shower in the sauna’s inferno. Almost religiously, he began exploring her most sensitive places. He nibbled on her clit, ran the tip of his tongue up and down her labia, and before long she felt his tongue slide up inside of her.

Marina grinned as she realized that unexpectedly, she’d almost come right there and then. She moaned and pulled Kaito’s head closer between her legs. When was the last time someone had gone down on her like this…?

As his tongue toyed away with her, the siren cold hands took away the worst of the heat, gently massaging her abdomen to assist the stimulation of his tongue. Unburdened by the need to simulate some video, he seemed to know exactly what she wanted.

How did he know?

When the unbidden desire came for Kaito to squeeze her breasts, and the siren responded instantly. She shrieked with pleasure, as he grabbed her with just the right amount of pain.

Was he reading her mind–?

His secret out, perhaps, Kaito began to respond even more brazenly to the unspoken, unconscious needs that welled up inside her. He appeared to be as eager as her. Where her body called out, he responded infallibly, teasing, caressing, squeezing her shivering flesh to lead her to eyewatering levels of pleasure. She surrendered all hesitation to the honey-sweet, cold darkness of Kaito’s affections.

Marina curved and twisted on the sauna bench, moaning with abandon. She had already come twice, crying out with delight… a third time?

She breathed in the hot air, feeling heavier and heavier as her body shivered and snaked its way into its own oscillation, pressing over and again against the steady pressure of Kaito’s hands and his tongue.

God, yes.

Kaito was humming deeply, an animalistic rumble that only added to her excitement

Deeper and deeper she sank into the rhythm of his touch. Whether it was the contrast of hot and cold, or the deftness of his hands or–was she hyperventilating?

Through closed eyes, Marina became aware of a golden light that curved into fireworks, or flowers perhaps, geometric lines dancing in front of her closed eyes. The light grew in intensity, and she suppressed a sense of panic. She couldn’t stop now; she was so close…

“Make me come!” She cried, seeking to shake off her hallucinations.

Down below, she felt Kaito retreat his hands, fingers, nose and tongue–for a long, teasing moment–before softly circling his tongue around her clit to make her come at last, all of her build-up tension set loose in one great tidal wave.

Marina’s body convulsed and the golden visions dissolved to make way for a supreme calm.

She saw the winds carry some snow off the tree branches outside. A bird sang, and Marina had the distinct sense that she could understand its song. For a moment, she became intimately aware of the sacred autumn day outside. Everything vibrated with such intense… aliveness.

The sound of her own sobbing pulled her back, and Marina returned to a body that still spasmed with pleasure.

Sweaty hair stuck to Kaito’s forehead, which he’d rested gently against her leg to look up at her with a mixture of fascination and naked awe.

Marina gasped for air. “What was that?”

But Kaito remained silent, softly nudging the tip of his nose against her knee.

“Enough… enough,” she whispered hoarsely.

She could tell Kaito had relished making her feel good, but it was more than that. How deeply he must have sensed her pleasure to draw that kind of orgasm out of her…

“So, this is how you do it?” he smiled hesitantly. “It’s so natural, it almost as if you… feel your way into it. There seemed to be so much ritual involved in what I’ve seen.”

Marina nodded, deeply breathing in the dry sauna air. Yet as she felt her desire ebb away, something seemed to switch in Kaito and his mood rapidly darkened.

He got up and left the sauna without a word. Unfazed, Marina followed him all the way outside, where she watched him drop down in the snow and break down in tears.

Kaito’s looked haggard, his shoulders shaking as the silk bandana around his eyes moistened. Save for his faintly transparent skin, he looked like distinctly human in that moment.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Marina whispered as she hugged him and pressed her head against his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“It just–it worked for a moment…”

“What worked?”

For a while Kaito cried in silence. “I’m so sorry, it’s just… I feel so lost in this world, and I don’t know what to do with all these feelings that I’ve been having. I was hoping to find delight in the human experience, and you were certainly lovely… but it seems to be having the opposite effect to what I’d hoped for. I feel more confused than ever.”

Marina slowly massaged the palm of his hand, choosing her words carefully. “Humans are usually not in agony when having sex.”

“Agony is the only thing that helps keep this body together.”

Marina’s felt the snow crush and melt underneath her naked body. Both of their bodies were steaming but she could feel the cold beginning to creep up through her shins.

“You don’t have to look human for me, you know…”

This caused Kaito to shrink further away.

Marina stroked his hair. “I think… I think that as long as I stay with you, you won’t fall apart when we leave the heat. How about we get you to your room?”

Kaito nodded, and Marina helped him up. Seeking out Kaito’s clothes, she helped to dress him and walked him out of the bathhouse–catching the wide smile and two thumbs up sign from the old lady at the counter.

She followed Kaito’s mumbled directions and led him to her room. There, she prepared his futon, closed the curtains, and laid him to rest in his bed.

She lay down next to him, and for a while they simply stared up at the ceiling together. Marina was at a loss of what to think about the siren’s labile mood, but experience had taught her that a moment of silence was often all her clients needed.

At last, Kaito spoke.

“I lost a good friend two weeks ago,” he rumbled in a voice that sounded strangely deeper than the one he’d used in the sauna.

He sniffed. “I felt her passing all the way over here. It seems like a miracle, but we were very close when we were young, and our bond must have been stronger than I’d thought.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s not bad.” Kaito smiled sadly. “She just… passed away. Sirens don’t really die from natural causes, so most of us choose when to leave behind this world.”

A suicide. Marina’s head raced with the implications.

“You weren’t there,” she concluded.

“I am happy for her,” he began. “She would not have decided to pass on without feeling that her life was complete, that she’d shared all that was hers to give.”

He was clenching his fists. “I just feel so… so damn lonely.”

“It’s normal to grieve,” Marina told him.

“I know it is,” Kaito sighed, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. “The strange thing is that I feel… different. Before coming here, I knew loneliness, fear, longing… but it’s as if this human body is distorting these feelings and pulling them all out of proportion.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you with all this.”

Marina cuddled up to him, offering him the comfort of her body and humming a soft lullaby as the siren wept. She was beginning to feel a deep pity for this creature, stranded so far from home. Perhaps he had found on earth more than he could handle…

“What was your friend like?” she eventually asked.

Kaito shook with a deep, rumbling laugh. “Ah, you should have seen her! She was a dancer and could shift her body into the most beautiful shapes. I remember how when we were young, all the other kids wanted to be just like her–me included.”

“Do you wish you’d been with her more, before she died?”

Kaito sat up and shook his head, wiping the tears off his face. “No, we both went our own ways and I’m still very grateful I could come to earth. It’s just that… it’s hard to explain but there’s a sense of connectedness on Enceladus that I’ve been missing recently. It makes this–all these feelings–so much harder to deal with.”

“Thanks, you’ve made this all much easier.” He squeezed her hand. “Without you, I might have refused to leave that bathhouse altogether, and the government would have come to get me out. Can’t have a siren having a breakdown.”

“As long as you’re trying to be human, you should be entitled to a breakdown.” Marina said resolutely. “Speaking of with, you’re not still feeling like you’re falling apart, do you?”

Kaito grinned: “Can you imagine the headlines? Courtesan slays peaceful alien…”

Marina punched his shoulder in mock indignation. “Please, I’d at least give you the courtesy of slaying you in style: a katana or some delicate poison, most like.”

She got up, tightening her bathrobe. “Seeing how you’ve regained your sense of humor; I presume I can safely leave you alone to get dressed for dinner?”

The siren nodded. “Just don’t expect me to swallow a single bite.”

 

* * *

 

Kaito was seated at the only set table in the ryokan’s Western-style dining hall.

At first glance, the siren appeared like any handsome young man, dressed impeccably in what she made out to be a minimalist suit with an edge to the design–something by Yohji Yamamoto? A slim watch shimmered on his wrist, reflecting the light of a lone candle.

Marina slowly walked up to his table, smiling warmly but taking her time to take in the siren. In a very different way than his watch, his vaguely translucent hands and face also seemed to catch the candlelight–which reflected along jagged fractals, like razor-thin shards of ice.

Kaito looked up at her through a charcoal grey blindfold, made to match his very fine suit.

A waiter pulled back her seat, and Marina sat down.

Kaito caught her staring at a freshly plucked kikyo flower sticking from his coat pocket, adding a bright blaze of blue to his outfit.

“The old lady from the onsen left a bundle of them at my door,” Kaito explained. “She must have gotten so used to seeing me in the waters that she forgot I’d leave one day. I suppose it’s her way of wishing me a speedy recovery–or perhaps saying farewell.”

Kaito cleared his throat and continued in a more formal tone. “Before we start our dinner, I wish to apologize for my behavior earlier. It was highly unbecoming of an ambassador to earth to attempt such a… burdensome experiment.”

“You weren’t being a burden to anyone, silly” Marina assured him, playfully kicking his leg. “I hope I wasn’t too forward. For someone representing all of the human race, I feel like I played it pretty fast and loose…”

Kaito chuckled. “Please, you were fantastic. I should be the one worrying about my performance. I wish I’d relied less on pornography, but there just seems to be such a taboo around sex. I didn’t know where else to look for ideas on how to do it.”

There was a childlike quality about Kaito that made Marina laughed. For the first time since she’d met him, something resembling happiness seemed to radiate off the siren.

“You were pretty fantastic yourself,” she whispered with a wink, just before the waiter arrived to ask her for her choice of drink. She ordered a glass of red Koshu. Kaito politely declined.

“I feel the money weighing between us,” he said, returning to a more serious tone. “Like pornography, money is somewhat alien to us, but I’m beginning to understand this was the wrong way to go about it–I cannot pay you to feel.”

“It’s a sensitive issue that demands discretion,” Marina offered. “Interplanetary sex could be scandalous–and dangerous to Earth-Enceladus relations. Hiring someone in secret may well have been your best option.”

“Still, I’d like to apologize for dragging you into this.” He tapped his pocket. “Tonight, I will wire a substantial sum to your personal account–enough never to have to work again.”

“I’m not doing it for the money,” Marina said flatly.

“You’re not doing this for the money? That means you must be one of the few humans who’s got enough not to overly suffer the lack of it…”

Marina blushed, feeling somewhat humbled by Kaito’s words. He was right, after all: she was probably the only one of Kawashita’s who could say with a straight face that she was not with clients for money or some other form of addiction.

“You’re right that I’ve reached the point where more money no longer generates happiness.”

“What makes those humans happy?” A subtle smile played over Kaito’s lips.

“You’re sharp!” Marina exclaimed, even as she found herself at a loss for an answer.

“I suppose it’s the small things. Holding hands with a lover or enjoying a walk in the forest and watching the sun set.” She found herself waiting for a reaction from the eyeless face of this creature from Enceladus. “Perhaps what you seek is like these things–impossible to buy with money?”

“Perhaps,” Kaito said, refusing to pursue her question. “But if you’re not working for the money, then why are you here? What is it about pleasing strangers that gives you joy?”

“My mother died a few years after moving us to Japan,” Marina began. “She left me with all she’d gained climbing the social ladder here–enough to last me a few years.”

“So, there were no particular money troubles,” Kaito surmised.

“No.” Marina hesitated. She rarely talked this openly about herself with clients, but Kaito was so perceptive that she was certain he’d sense any insincerity. “I realized early on that I loved touching things. Flowers and trees, the sand between my toes… even metals and software leave a distinct impression on me. I like that old Shinto notion that everything has its own spirit–this certainly has been my experience in life.”

“When did you first realize this?”

“When I watched my father kill a fish, back in Okhotsk” Marina said. She’d refused to eat fish after that, and went to bed hungry for a full week before her parents gave in. Each had attributed her stubbornness to the other.

“I loved touching–deeply touching–others. Physically but also intellectually and emotionally. To date, this job has offered me the opportunity to do just that. Only recently have I been thinking I might quite soon, but…” She exhaled deeply and grinned. “I suppose I couldn’t live without the thrill of it. You never know who you’ll meet. There’s danger in that, but also such a radical promise of connection.”

“I think you’d do well on Enceladus…” Kaito observed, looking entranced.

“Was that your experiment back in the sauna, to try and feel what I felt?”

“I was hoping to learn from you, to help place some of these feelings I’ve been having.”

Marina sensed that she’d hit an open nerve and felt a sudden endearment for the siren. She’d spent all her life getting used to her human body and its complex emotions… how much time had Kaito been given?

The waiter used the opportunity to insert himself and ask for their choice for dinner.

“You’re not eating?” Marina asked Kaito as she briefly scanned the menu options, adding in a sotto voce whisper: “You can rest assured, I’ve decided to go for the katana.”

“I don’t need nourishment the way humans do,” Kaito explained to the waiter with a soft smile. “Can you recommend anything for someone with a kind heart?”

“The tempura has won regional awards,” the young man was quick to point, and Marina followed his advice.

She took a thoughtful sip from her wine, which had a refreshing sour taste.

“Will you tell me?” Marina asked softly but insistent. “What did you seek through me, Kaito?”

“Sex is the only way left that I could think of to feel at home in this world–to feel human.” A pregnant silence descended, until Kaito finally spoke. “I selfishly thought that a true connection with a human might relieve some of these feelings I’ve been having. The experiment was probably doomed from the start.”

Marina reflected. “I’m not sure anyone can relieve those feelings for you, but if connection is what you’re looking for, I’m not sure we’ve properly tried your experiment.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve satisfied me beautifully and I hope it gave you a sense of what humans might experience during sex… but pleasure goes both ways. It doesn’t work if you’re in agony.”

“It works for some humans.”

“That’s usually a fetish, and there’s always some measure of pleasure involved. When I look at you, I see a different pain that I can’t ignore.” She measured her words: “If you don’t let me in as well, it becomes very hard to get to the point where we can each let go of ourselves and the other, to experience something higher.”

“Perhaps.” Kaito threatened to fall back into somberness again.

“What if you weren’t trying to feel more human; what if you tried feeling more like yourself?” Marina brushed the inside of her foot against his leg. “If we try your experiment, I say we do it properly: why don’t you show me your true form tonight?”

Kaito shook his head. “Bad idea. There’s a reason we take this shape…”

“Have you ever shown your original form to anyone before?”

“No.”

“Try me.” Marina did not flinch. She knew she was out of her depth, improvising away, but she sensed that she was onto something. She had been with many clients she’d found physically less than attractive, but she knew beautiful moments could always arise, as long as there was a true connection–something Kaito desperately needed.

Kaito leaned back in his chair: “As a foreigner to Japan, as a courtesan, you must appreciate that sometimes people look at you in ways that prevent them from seeing you. My being a siren is bad enough by itself, but if I were to show my true form… I cannot ask that of you.”

“Then let me offer it to you freely,” she insisted.

Kaito remained stuck in a tense silence. The waiter cleverly made use of the lull in their conversation to delicately place the dishes in front of Marina, making off with minimal interference.

Only then did the siren finally nod.

“But only for your eyes,” he whispered. “I will send off the staff for the night.”

“No objection here.” Marina whispered. “Even humans enjoy privacy for these things.”

 

* * *

 

Marina’s feet were freezing inside her slippers as she walked down the ryokan’s empty hallways, heading for Kaito’s room.

Why was she doing this?

She had asked the question over and again as she did her makeup in preparation of her night with the siren.

Curiosity had been her conclusion. It was a good enough reason, she told herself. Even now, the shivers she felt were not due to the cold, but her anticipation of what she might find in Kaito’s room.

She’d had to take into consideration not just her own feelings though. Kaito had a charming sensitivity… if she felt truly abhorred by his appearance, could she muster the tact to reject him without hurting his feelings?

Then again, how bad could it be?

She reached Kaito’s door and paused. It was just a moment, long enough to draw a deep, silent breath, but not too long to appear hesitant.

Marina open the door to find the room darkened. She took off her slippers and dropped her bag and shoved the door close again to allow her eyes to become accustomed to the dark. A shiver ran down her spine.

What was she doing here?

“Marina… You came…”

The voice sounded like Kaito’s but had a hollow, absent feel to it. Something stirred on the futon in the center of the room and Kaito reached over a low table to light a candle, then another one, and finally a third. Then he turned to greet upon his visitor. He was wearing an elegant shirt and a blindfold, the lower half of his body–still very much human–covered by the blanket. Marina wondered suddenly if it was all for show: did sirens even need sleep?

“Are you sure you want this?”

“Of course I do,” Marina whispered. “May I join you?”

The fabric of her nightgown skidded past her goosebumps as it dropped to the floor. She stood naked before Kaito’s blind gaze and felt a breeze from an opened window. Step by step, she approached the bed.

Kaito lifted the blanket, and she crawled up to him. Her hands explored his torso, his arms, and finally his smooth face.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Kaito kissed her and bit her lips, and then pulled her in closer to wrap the full length of his arms around her slender body.

She shivered with cold.

“Close your eyes,” he told her.

She did, and he laid her down on her back. Slowly his fingers brushed down her throat, then cupped her breasts, one by one, and played with her nipples a little.

“What is your deepest fantasy, I wonder…” Kaito whispered. His hand explored the growing wetness between her legs. His other hand kept stroking her throat, cupping it as if to choke her but never actually clasping down. Everywhere the touch of Kaito’s hands deftly increased her anticipation.

Until she realized that he was touching her in three places at once. Then four, and then five.

“What–?”

One of Kaito’s hands covered her eyes before she could open them while the other… or others… cupped her breasts, teased her feet, squeezed her hips and began to softly massage her pubic area.

“You might be startled,” Kaito explained. “If you must look, go slow.”

Releasing his hold over her eyes, he cupped her throat below the chin and tilting her neck back over the pillow, guiding her gaze towards the wall. Something–many things–were casting curved shadows over the wall. Even in the low light of the candles, it was apparent that something above her was engaged in a beautifully intricate, rhythmic dance.

Marina looked up to find the room filled with long, twisting tentacles.

Swaying as if on an invisible breeze, the black limbs sprouted from the back of Kaito’s torso and hovered all around her, tracing the outlines of her body, hovering just a fraction over her skin, as if eager to massage her but not quite daring to.

One or two of them, however, began to touch her skin.

Marina felt paralyzed. She breathed deeply, quietly, to keep the panic at bay.

Suspended above her, Kaito’s human form remained. His lips reached down for a kiss, and she gave in on impulse, closing her eyes again for just a moment.

Then she broke the kiss and slowly, gently made to get up.

She saw Kaito collapse over the side of the futon, his tentacles quickly withdrawing in shame.

“It’s okay, you can leave,” came the subdued whisper.

Marina walked up to the entrance and reached past her slippers for the bag she’d brought with her on impulse. From inside, she took out a big notebook and a few pencils.

Turning back around, she opened the notebook and looked at Kaito long and hard. A monster suspended between two shapes… afraid to share his true form.

“What are you doing?” Kaito asked, reprehensive, suspended in half withdrawal.

“I would love to just… behold you for a while,” Marina mused.

“Okay,” he said, crouching down amid the dark and slender tentacles.

Marina approached one of them, making out beautifully patterned ribs and indents… Kaito’s true form. She sat down; her pencil rested in her hand, hesitant to touch the paper in the face of such a deeply unfamiliar sight.

As Marina observed, she felt she was seeing Kaito’s struggle before her eyes, frozen in time. Crouched in the tangle of tentacles, his human shape looked disproportionately distorted.

“Can you… let go?”

Kaito shook his head.

“Will you do it for me? I think you will look beautiful.”

Kaito remained silent for a while. Then, slowly, his human limbs began to turn transparent one by one, gleaming with geometric gold lines. As the candlelight penetrated his form, the sharp fractals shattered and sprouted more of the twisting tentacles.

At last, nothing but the alien itself was there.

At the center of the countless limbs rested the mass of his dark body, which flattened the futon. It reminded Marina somewhat of a giant elephant skull, wrapped tightly in luscious black skin. There were big lidless eyes, darker than the night.

Kaito took up most of the room, which was beginning to look quite small. Marina had to remind herself this was an ocean creature. The many tentacles–some as thick as her thigh, some much smaller–were struggling against the confines of the room.

I’m sorry, if you just let me …

The words were not so much spoken as that Marina felt them shake the building’s foundations.

Several of Kaito’s many limbs twisted around her to slide open the door. Kaito seemed to let out a sigh as some of the heavy mass of tentacles twisted out the door, and some more out the windows, giving Kaito some breathing space.

That’s better. You can… leave any time.

Was that rumble coming from his skull, or did it emanate from his entire being as a whole, down to the last little tentacle included? It reminded Marina of the modular theory of the sirens’ physicality…

“You are beautiful,” she whispered, dumbstruck. Wrapping herself in a blanket, she proceeded to look at him long and hard, before hesitantly putting pencil to paper.

As she drew him, she was discovering him.

Over time, the tentacles began to sway again more playfully, as Kaito seemed to relax in the knowledge that she wouldn’t run from the place screaming.

Occasionally, Marina would tip toe around the room to behold Kaito from a different angle, before sinking down against the wall again, producing sketch after sketch, until it seemed she might do so until daylight.

Eventually–was he getting bored?–Kaito began to strike a series of poses.

I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.

Marina laughed at the reference. “Coming from Enceladus, that movie must have struck you as some bizarre beach holiday.”

I confess to rooting for the iceberg.

At long last, she put her sketchbook by her side.

“Kaito, why were you so afraid to show yourself to me?”

A deep rumble came from the dark creature:

It’s not a matter of shame, but you must understand: we look precisely like the monsters from your most terrifying stories. The ones you can’t bear to watch for the horrors they contain. Would you have revealed yourself in my position?

“That’s not fair, you haven’t given us a chance to–”

Kaito’s thunderous voice broke her off, and the entire room seemed to tremble: Do you know your history? Do you know what humans do to those they fear? Your leaders could wipe out my entire species in the space of an afternoon, if they so chose.

Marina sensed a deep fear in Kaito’s voice–and she was altogether not sure it was unfounded.

She carefully moved her foot so that her toe touched one of the big tentacles resting by her feet. A deep shiver ran through her body, which made her reach out her hand to stroke it. The smooth, silky texture caught her by surprise.

Marina got up and made to sit down on an empty corner of the futon, still wrapped in her big blanket.

Reaching out to the massive, skull-like segment that appeared to be Kaito’s body, she was given pause by his almost childlike eyes, reminding her of the dark eternity between the stars.

“May I touch you?”

Yes.

Softly, Marina pressed the palm of her hand against the skull. The sensation made her laugh inadvertently. It was as though a gust of wind blew through her mind, whipping up the dead autumn leaves to leave behind an empty joy.

She felt alive.

Slowly, she extended her hand further up around Kaito’s frame until the whole side of her body leaned against him. She tilted her head to rest against his, as she might with a lover on a date to the movies.

He felt so vibrantly alive. It was the only way Marina might describe it. Neither warm nor cold, neither rough nor slick and smooth–his skin simply vibrated with energy.

Her other hand reached out for a big tentacle that twisted past the futon. Slowly, she rubbed her arm up and down, falling deeper and deeper into the sensation of his touch.

Are you sure you want to be committing this huge a cliché? A prostitute and a tentacle monster walk into a bar…

Marina giggled, then kissed his head.

May I touch you?

She nodded slowly, and one of the tentacles teasingly reached out around her ankle, spiraling up around her calve, her knee, her thigh. Marina breathed through it all, giving into the sensation.

At the very end, it reached up…

Marina dug her nails into the skin of Kaito’s great head as the tentacle’s tip stroked her labia. A distinct physical sensation had emerged now below the vibrating energy of his skin. The siren seemed to… harden.

Do you know why I chose you?

“I can feel you,” Marina sighed, gripping the bigger tentacle more tightly and closing her eyes to enjoy the sensation of his touch.

It is the other way around. Your feelings run deep, like an underground reservoir, hidden below the desert of the everyday. They are brilliant to me, and I’d like to experience them through you. I want to feel you feeling yourself. Will you allow me?

“Let’s feel each other,” she sighed.

She lay down before him, putting her body to rest on a bed of tentacles, as more hovered in from above, breathlessly, uncertain where to start giving her pleasure.

“Come,” Marina commanded, stretching out her arms.

Supple flesh grazed her fingers. The firm ends of these tentacles, now wet with desire, touched the palms of her hands. Slowly they pressed and turned. Flesh against flesh.

A hand massage, in pursuit of something beyond the physical.

Lust took over. Marina gripped two of the stiffening tentacles, as she welcomed the touch of a great many smaller ones running along the back of her hands and around her wrists–and further up underneath her armpits. Like supple ropes, these scouts trailed her body.

She tried to turn and felt resistance. The black tentacles held her in a close, warm embrace, leaving her only enough freedom to squirm and move around a bit.

With effort, she crawled over the floor, every movement bringing her pleasure through the various points of contact with the energetic tentacles. Even as Marina moved, they explored their hold over her, as if teasing themselves–delaying what must surely come…

Finally, their hold firmed and Marina was playfully pulled up onto her knees and swayed from side to side. There was a hungry undertone there, in her own body and Kaito’s. She was made to flex and stretch her arms. Thicker tentacles around her legs circled up to support her waist and back, then pulled her up until she found herself suspended in midair.

Several smaller tentacles nibbled at her feet, playful still, but eager.

They curled up around her ankles and slithered up past her calves and then her thighs… which was where their little heads paused.

Marina sighed with anticipation. The sound was echoed by a deep rumble that came from Kaito, whom she’d been turned around to face.

She stared deep into the siren’s eyes.

Do you want this?

One medium-sized tentacle–its touch soft as velvet–had circled twice around her throat, leaving the tip hovering before her face as if observing her. Others great and small were hanging all around her.

Marina opened her mouth in a silent scream, feeling the tentacle’s tip brush past her lips. But they weren’t going to give her what she wanted. Not until she invited them in.

Was she being crazy?

Fuck it. Marina smiled seductively and then, slowly, parted her lips to lick her lips. Torturously slow. Inviting. Giving up all resistance to the deep desire that filled the room.

“I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it,” she whispered. “Won’t you make a man out of me, Rose?”

A deep tremble resembling laughter came from the siren.

Wet with desire, Marina stuck out her tongue to lick the gleaming tentacle that hovered before her. Smoothly, the siren’s flesh rippled under the touch.

As she kissed and licked, Marina twisted with pleasure as she felt an approach down below. A smooth, small tentacle began circling her clit, as others followed up the inside of her thighs, around the creases of her but. Stroking, grabbing, teasing her more and more closely to her most intimate spots.

Two of them lay to rest gently outside the flows of her vulva, throbbing with energy, while two smaller ones slowly pulled her open.

How exposed she felt.

Unable to move, her last point of control was her voice. Drunk with anticipation, Marina moaned, pleaded, cursed this creature to make her his. To take her. Deeply. Until the tentacle she’d kissed earlier pressed herself up against her lips and fill up her mouth, craftily avoiding the region of her throat that would have sparked a gag reflex.

Now she could not even talk.

Still Kaito waited, utterly entranced by her experience. Was he hoping to make it last forever?

The gentle caress around and all about her vagina continued apace–by so many little tentacles, sneaking in and out, each wanting a taste. But the bigger tentacles waited. A few were building up to other parts of her body.

Two of them, mirror images of each other, circled up around the bottom of her bosom, entwining upwards over her abdomen and reaching between her bouncing breasts–then parting ways to spiral around them twice, three times, leaving the ends to tease her nipples.

How horny she was. When would this creature fuck her?

Suddenly she felt a vibration all over her body, everywhere the tentacles that held her in place, suspended, resonated.

Then a big one began to press up against her vagina.

It was gentle at first.

At times it even retreated, nudging her, like a stolen kiss at the movies… ostensibly sweet while whipping her up into an even greater frenzy.

Marina felt her own body beginning to resonate with the flesh around her. She was the center of a dark lotus of frenetic tentacles, who were now beginning their feast.

Gazing into Kaito’s eyes, still sucking on his one tentacle, she was being made to sit down, slowly, allowing her to give it the space it needed and which it filled up gratefully.

Pulled all along her shins, abdomen, and chest, she was gently lifted up.

And down again.

She squirmed, as the big tentacle began to move in and out of her.

The tentacle pressed into her greedily, expanding and nestling among her hidden folds, before retreating again for another round. Smaller ones writhed along the opening, kissing her vulva and noisily seeking a way in.

She moaned urgently, feverishly, for him to take her.

One smaller tentacle circled her anus, then pressed into her and expanded. Another one circled around it, massaging the opening, widening it further…

Marina shook with delight.

Her body was pressed upon from all sides now. In the background, Kaito responded to her desires sublimely, as if he’d utterly melted with her mind and her deepest desires.

He pulled back the tentacle from her mouth, and the small room filled up with her whimpering cries of pleasure.

Marina could not tell if he was coming in her the way a human might, but before long she found her body coated in a thick gleam that extended to the tips of the tentacles. Certainly, whenever one pulled out, sliding back down her thigh, as if satisfied, another eagerly took its place. They were ravenous for her body and ached to have a turn at her.

Marina craved them all.

She felt their heads expertly massage the insides of her cunt and ass. At times, she almost felt them touch, pressing against each other from inside her different cavities, tip seeking tip–growing larger for a moment, before retreating again.

Like the ocean Kaito rolled in and out of her, his dark body sweetly strangling her limbs, so sensitive to her touch yet ever unyielding. At one point she began yelling, begging him to go faster, to make her come, only to hear the sound turn into a gargle as the tentacle around her neck slid its way back inside. There, it stiffened, and she felt her mouth fill with some sweet syrup.

But Marina had no time to think of interplanetary protection.

Again, and again, she was made to tense up with pleasure as Kaito had his way with her.

The turn came right when exhaustion was about to finally claim her.

Draw your desire out of my flesh.

As he rumbled Kaito’s supple form became an obedient vehicle for her own pleasure. At that point she realized, to her astonishment, that she was her fucking herself. Instinctively she found herself adjusting, using her tentacles precisely the way she wanted to in order to give this human shape in her grasp its ultimate pleasure.

Except it wasn’t exactly her doing it either… something bigger?

Ecstasy made her let go of the question. It ran from the tips of her toes–assailed with kisses from all sides–to deep down her throat, from which she grunted sloppily. In that moment, she felt herself merge with Kaito and whatever lay beyond them both.

The silence was numbing.

Marina would run, early mornings, no later than 6, through her neighborhood in Tokyo. Snow, rain, or suppressive heat–she ran. This feeling that she felt now, it was familiar: it was the rush of pushing through all her obstacles, her tiredness, her soreness, digging so deep into herself that she unlocked something… an unparalleled rush of adrenaline. This was that feeling.

She wasn’t a big clubbing person, but her friends were. Every now and then, when the planets aligned and the music was just so, the mess in the club could hit her in a very tender spot. She’d find her whole body resonating with the happiness of that moment, that thrill of merging with a rhythm so much deeper than yourself. This was that feeling.

And beyond that rush there was a numbing silence. The texture of it made her gasp. She felt her jaw unhinge, her face soften, and her eyebrows raise in pure ecstasy. She moaned without making a sound.

Tears streamed down her face, and she drew in a deep, stuttering breath as she came back to earth. Eyes closed, she felt the tentacles gently lie her down on the futon, and tuck her in. Satisfied, Marina curled up against Kaito’s warm body.

All night his tentacles hugged her, keeping her safe.

 

* * *

 

Upon waking, Marina kept her eyes closed for a while. Not for fear of seeing Kaito again, but because she’d been privy to something deep; a sensation she feared would disappear with the daylight she could sense flowing into the room. That silence.

Marina, can I ask you something?

“Yes, Rose?” She opened her eyes and found the bedroom empty. The door and windows had been closed and the curtains neatly shut, leaving no trace of the gigantic siren from Enceladus.

“Where are you?” she asked.

I am–

She waited patiently, but the siren seemed to have gotten stuck after those two words. Marina closed her eyes again and could still feel his presence, no less than after she had woken up. It made her shiver with joy, although she could not tell why.

“What would you ask of me?”

I would walk up the mountain in your shoes and watch the sun rise.

There was a strange undertone in Kaito’s words, but it was too early for Marina to make out what it was exactly. For a while longer she lay curled up in bed, eyes closed, feeling his embrace, even though there was nothing to see or touch.

“Ok,” she finally whispered into the empty room.

 

* * *

 

“Why are you… nothing?”

They had left the ryokan for the woods. The staff had left by the door a bento box with breakfast as well as walking shoes, thick socks, a big winter jacket, a fuzzy hat, thick gloves, and a backpack filled with honeyed tea, lunch, and other supplies. Apparently, Kaito had arranged it all while she slept.

Sometimes it’s fun to take no shape at all… plus some people might be unpleasantly surprised to watch a yacht-sized squid monster climb a mountain.

“You’re more of a Titanic to me,” Marina joked.

Besides, this way I can sense you better.

Marina stopped as he felt her touch her.

She took a deep breath and filled her longs with the crisp morning air. With it came that sensation again: it was like a tickle of joy that made all words meaningless. They had spent most of their walk in silence, touching each other, until eventually she wondered:

“When will you take control?”

We are almost there.

Marina did not know what that meant but continued down the path he’d led her on until she began to hear a raucous sound. Before long, she found herself standing below a waterfall.

“A takigyo?”

The erotic is but one of many pathways to the divine.

Marina felt a soft nudge and took off her backpack. Hesitantly, she undressed, piece by piece, and stepped up to the edge of the small lake. Crouching, she wet her shoulders and whispered her name, as the ritual required. She then bowed and stepped into the waters.

Only to jump out again almost immediately.

“That’s cold!”

She felt Kaito rumble with laughter, goading her on.

Apprehensively she stepped back into the lake again, feeling an icy cold shoot up through her legs, almost paralyzing her.

“Why do want this?”

I wish to experience what humans are capable of. What we shared last night… I know you felt it too. There was something deeper there, Marina–something that went beyond both of us. It reminded me of home.

She took a step deeper. “And an icy waterfall will help us get there again?”

The water reached up to her knees now, numbing her body. She gasped and wiped an involuntary tear from her eye. “I–I don’t know if I can do this Kaito.”

Will you allow me?

She nodded and closed her eyes.

Once. Twice. Three times she breathed in and out deeply.

She continued, until at some point her breaths flowed over into one another and became cyclical; an intoxicating rhythm without pause that had her sink deeper and deeper into the comfort cold water. She was aware of her body stepping over the pebbles towards the waterfall but could not pinpoint the prime mover that made it happen. All that she was certain of was Kaito’s embrace.

Eyes still closed, Marina felt the iciness retreat far into the background of her awareness. Likewise, the sound of the falling water grew closer with each step even as it seemed to fade further and further away.

Her body turned, but Marina barely felt the shock of the water hitting her neck and shoulders. Right when it came, she had become lost in a different, dark world. One where she had no body. Off in the distance, brilliant stars pierced the eternal night.

Somewhere, Kaito sang a chant.

Marina felt lightheaded, aware that somewhere, in a different world altogether, she had stepped out from under the waterfall.

“Now our minds, bodies, and souls are purified,” she heard her voice whisper. The siren proceeded to take deep, slow breaths, taking full control over her body.

With each cycle, Marina sank deeper and deeper into the glorious emptiness.

What are you doing?

Kaito didn’t answer her question…

She was aware of her body moved out of the water, dressed, packed, and walked off uphill.

Then there was the faint smell of pine needles, before she found herself adrift in warm ocean water. It took her a moment to even realize the change in setting, so natural did the waters around her feel.

Where is this?

The answer came from afar, muttered in her own voice: “Home.”

Marina tried to move around in the water, realizing that she was not in fact floating but submerged. The darkness of the ocean was all around her.

“It’s okay, you’re safe…”

Her own voice began to guide her gently back to calm, and she desperately clung onto that faint sound echoing off into the vast emptiness.

Marina allowed herself to relax and noticed that the water wasn’t warm at all. It was colder than ice, and yet it felt so comfortable. Like a breeze, invisible currents caressed her face, and she tasted some salty substance on her lips… only they weren’t lips.

Marina realized they were tentacles, a whole forest of them spreading out around her, playing in the dark, each one as sensitive as… as her lips had been on earth.

The siren stirred on his mountain walk, reaching back for her joyfully.

Marina touched him back and laughed, a deep guttural rumble emanating from the core of her body. She realized it must be the black leather elephant head she had seen on the futon the previous night. For a moment, she reached inwards with her tentacles, exploring her body, her face…

What are we… doing?

“Being,” she eventually heard Kaito answer. Somewhere, impossibly far off, there was the sound of a bird in the forest. “I… love feeling human.”

I love feeling siren, she replied and flicked her tentacles joyfully.

Swimming around the icy ocean, exploring her sensitive new body with delight, Marina began to gain a deeper understanding of what pleasures the siren Kaito had experienced the night before… and how restricted he must have felt in that human shell of his.

Somewhere, Kaito had reached the end of his path up the mountain.

Already?

Marina the siren was looking at the now-familiar darkness through the eyes of the woman she’d been on earth: above her, the eternal night appeared pregnant with dark galaxies.

“Do you want to feel what I felt last night?”

How strange it was, having those words spoken to her in her own voice!

Yes.

Marina felt the dark ocean ripple against her skin. It was her human skin, even though the darkness remained. She was at the surface now, where the waters tickled her human ears, making her smile. Normally she didn’t like swimming, but this was different: she felt one with this ocean on Enceladus, those faraway galaxies… She had a deep sense that this was home, that she was everywhere and everything, and that she could not be safer and more deeply herself.