Sex in Sci-Fi

Chapter 1

Seltire

Mierka and I had gone to Seltire for a rest – she from the research laboratory where she spent most of her time analysing vegetation from various parts of the galaxy, myself from the agency that spurred on the consumer boom that helped to pay for the exploration. Other than an occasional two or three days, neither of us had been able to get off at the same time as the other for a couple of years and both our work and our relationship were beginning to suffer as a result.

We had chosen Seltire because it was off the beaten track and yet reasonably priced, having its main resort complex set in the middle of an archipelago of islands that covered most of one hemisphere of the planet. Our plan was to leisurely cruise amongst them, roughing it some nights, returning to the resort for others, depending on just how ‘primitive’ we were feeling at the time. Mierka of course insisted on taking her mini-lab, micro-biochemistry is her interest as well as her job and even if she hadn’t brought any work home she’d be peering at the workings of something or other sometime during most week-ends.

The journey was uneventful, if a bit long but then that was a penalty we paid for choosing somewhere off the main inter-stellar trunk routes. When we woke after the hyper-jump we had a quick refresher and a light meal then went up into the view-dome to watch our approach to Seltire. I’ll never know how the early space crews stood the sheer boredom of long trips in space, before supra-light speeds I mean – but I guess their reaction to planet-fall after years in space would have been infinitely greater than mine is after only a few days. But then that’s hard to imagine too, as I never tire of the last few hours, gradually drawing closer to a majestically spinning ball, watching the various features become more distinct, being able to see the character of the particular planet slowly forming.

I imagine Seltire in some ways looks very similar to Old-earth looked back in the early days, before the space-age, before industry and mankind actually killed it. Lots of blue-green sea with masses of fluffy, white clouds dotted about, the light from the local sun reflecting back off the choppy water still several hundred miles below us. A beautiful little world.

That was another reason we had chosen it, being only three quarters the size of New-earth meant gravity was only about .7 of what we were used to and would, we hoped, make up for some of our general lack of fitness.

The shuttle down from the parking orbit was great fun, zipping down through the great canyons between the clouds and, as we got lower, finally being able to see some of the literally thousand of islands that made up this half of Seltire.

The resort itself was nice enough but after we had registered we went for a stroll around the complex and were both glad we had chosen to spend much of our time island-hopping instead of staying there the full time. Too many bright, bouncy people of the sort we both knew so well. Loud and forever organising parties. The sort that never seem to be able to simply enjoy their own company, needing wall-to-wall people around them at all times – just to confirm for each other that they are all having a simply wonderful time. Not our style.

We had planned to spend the first night there though, to give ourselves time to adjust, unpack, check the skimmer I had hired for us, get in supplies, make sure we were fresh for the following day – that sort of thing – and when I decided to take the skimmer out for a trial run around the bay, Mierka said she’d just do some last minute shopping. Funny how women, no matter how much stuff you take with you, always need to head straight for the local shops to buy something else!

The skimmer was great, light, fast – capable of doing more klicks per hour than I was confident of driving it at and very manoeuvrable, with plenty of room for the two of us and our gear and I thought. if things got a bit too rough we would, at a pinch, be able to sleep in it. Not that I expected us to have to do that, I had already checked that it was stocked with things we had ordered – a small living-dome, that I could set up in just a couple of minutes, a refresher unit, sleep-pads, a food-prep and several other gadgets, some of which I was neither sure as to just what they did nor how I was to make them do it. Anyway, everything seemed just fine and I headed the skimmer back to the resort.

When I went up to our room I found that Mierka was already back from her shopping trip and that if what she was trying on was a reasonable example of what she had bought, then the local shops would get my unqualified support.

The outfit obviously came in two pieces, the first was like a second skin, covering her from neck to wrist and ankle and as I walked in she just about to slip the second, a billowy shimmer of next to nothing, down over her head. Her arms were stretched high and the outline of her body was reflected in the full-length wall mirror opposite me. Mierka has a great body, tall and slender but with firmly rounded breasts and buttocks that in that particular position were shown off to perfection.

The body-suit’s colours were like tongues of fire, shading up from deep, flickering reds that licked their way up her legs and thighs, covering her stomach in shades of burnished orange that lightened as they swept on up over her breasts and shoulders. As the shimmering robe slipped down over her body she moved and turned towards me – the effect was simply stunning. It had a high, stand-up collar that framed her straight, black hair and the pale, honey colour of her face with its silvery sheen. The material fitted tightly beneath her breasts then fell in great filmy, sparkling folds around the rest of her, the flame colours of the body-suit flickering out through it.

I just stood there, mesmerised by the way the tongues of flame appeared to slowly wind their way up over her body. It was magical!

She smiled as she saw the look in my eyes and said.

‘It looks as though you like it.’

I mumbled something about it being the sexiest thing I had ever seen and her eyes twinkled as she said.

‘Well, what about this?’

She lifted her hands and held her breasts for a few moments – when she lowered them again I could see the shape of her palm and fingers and through it, her breasts, their slowly stiffening nipples and the dark halos surrounding them.

I licked my lips involuntarily as I stared, bewildered by what I was seeing. Mierka gave a low, throaty chuckle.

‘It’s a new material Slate. It responds to various sorts of touch – like that it becomes transparent, just for a few minutes. It does other things too but I thought you would especially enjoy this trick.’

She came slowly towards me and as she moved the tongues of fire began to writhe up over the curves of her body, appearing to flicker around her proudly thrusting breasts, as though inviting me, daring me to plunge my hands through the flames to reach them. When she stopped, just an arm’s length away, I could see from the fact that her nipples had become fully erect that she had become just as aroused as her display was making me.

Her arms came around me and before she pressed her lips against mine she whispered. ‘You’ll just have to remember to be a little careful about where you touch me when we are out in public lover.’

I reached around her, cupping the curves of her bottom and pulled her tightly up against myself, feeling her thigh pressing against the swiftly growing hardness of my cock, as our lips crushed together.

But though I would have gladly made love to her right there and then she held me off, pleading imminent starvation and saying that if we did, she would have to start getting herself ready all over again, which I had to agree was quite reasonable – particularly since my own stomach was making quite loud protests about its emptiness too.

So I had a quick refresher and got dressed while Mierka put away several other things she had apparently bought and packed the things she wanted to take with her the following day. As we moved around each other I couldn’t resist touching various parts of her but found that the outer robe served to inhibit the body-suit’s reaction to my touch and that I could only get the uncovered area around her breasts to respond. It seemed a sensible precaution, a wearer would otherwise have problems every time they moved outside their home.

The meal itself was wonderful, mainly seafood of course, from the surrounding waters, some of which looked a little strange but tasted absolutely delicious. Fruit and vegetables were also local and we took the chance to identify some of the things we might find once we were ‘out in the wild’ – as we referred to our planned trips. Unlike the rest of the guests in the restaurant we took very little of the local liquor even though it was truly excellent, we both wanted clear heads for the following day’s early start. All around us other people seemed to be in the middle of an on-going party and though of course we chatted to the people around us we refused several invitations to join in, being far more interested in the growing sense of togetherness we were feeling.

Several times during the meal Mierka teased me by placing her finger-tip on the fabric covering one or other of her nipples, which seemed to be fully erect each time they appeared and she grinned cheekily as she saw my eyes drawn automatically down as their familiar delights were exposed for a minute or two. We laughed as we tried to visualise the restaurant in a month or two, when the new material had become widely popular, imagining which parts of themselves various people might be exposing for their friends.

Later, when we returned to our room, Mierka disappeared into the sleep-pad area while I fixed us a night-cap, when she came out I saw that she had not only removed the gossamer-like outer robe but that she had also been busy with her hands. Both of her breasts were fully exposed for me and so was her exciting mound below and as she walked slowly towards me it was obvious from the expression on her face that she could see exactly what kind of an effect she hoped she was having on me. I had been so busy looking at her body that I hadn’t noticed the small parcel in her hand that she then held up as she said.

‘I bought you one of these outfits for you too – so get out of those things and try it on, I can’t wait to see how you look in it.’

I emptied what was left of my own drink in one quick gulp and then did as she had asked and got out of my clothes. The memory of how sexy she had looked earlier, when I had first walked into our room plus the occasional glimpses she had given me of herself during dinner had kept my cock tingling for most of the evening and so it had begun to respond almost instantly to the sight of her walking towards me and as I stepped out of my under-briefs I glanced down at my crotch and saw that it had already started to get both longer and fatter.

I opened the small parcel and inside it found a light, loosely folded piece of silvery blue material which unfolded into a one-piece garment similar in many ways to the one she had on but cut with a deep vee in the front and a small collar around the neck – other than that touch of tailoring it seemed totally shapeless and so light that I felt it might tear from just handling it.

As though reading my thought Mierka said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s stronger than it seems, try it on Slate.’

I cautiously slipped one foot down into what appeared to be a leg, then balanced myself awkwardly as I did the same with the other. Almost miraculously the material seemed to stretch and mould itself, obviously reacting to the warmth of my body and with growing confidence I eased it higher and, finding arm holes, soon had it all on. As I pulled it up around my waist I thought I felt a slight pressure around my crotch – and by the time I had finished getting it on I was sure of it, it felt just as though the fabric itself was intermittently squeezing me.

I looked down, then at Mierka, she grinned as she saw the puzzled look on my face.

‘No, you’re not imagining things lover. Nice isn’t it! It’s doing it all over of course, you’ll notice that in a minute – it’s just that it’s more obvious in the more sensitive areas. It’s always trying to adjust to your shape, as you move it adjusts – so, if you start to get just a little bit excited it adjusts a little, squeezing you a bit, which of course excites you a little bit more – and so on and so on.’ she explained.

‘That’s why your nipples were stiff all evening.’

‘You noticed.’

‘It was hard to miss.’ I answered with a grin.

‘But you couldn’t see the other places, where it was doing the same thing. Try to imagine how excited you’d be by now if it had been working you over all evening in the same way that it is now – and if you were feeling sexy even before you put it on.’ she added – and giggled as I answered.

‘I’d have made a mess in my pants.’

Then, as I thought about the implications of what she had said, I imagined the gentle massage her breasts and pussy must have been getting for the last couple of hours and the effect that must have had on her, how sexy she must have been feeling by then and I felt my cock being gently but insistently squeezed once again. The thought of Mierka’s state of arousal had triggered a tiny movement in my cock, which had in turn caused the fabric to respond – its pressure sparked another, fractionally larger pulse, prompting yet another adjusting squeeze.

I realised that at that rate it wouldn’t be long before I would be equipped to properly deal with Mierka’s need!

‘The outfit’s are sensational darling – but I see one, small problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Getting them off – so I can make love to you.’

‘That’s another trick of the material – I think you’ll like this one almost as much as its others. Come here and I’ll show you.’ She answered, turning her back to me. ‘Now, lightly run your fingers around the top edge, you’ll find a slight thickening right in the centre.’

I did as she told me, seeing the fabric starting to lose colour from the warmth of my fingers and found the little ridge she had mentioned.

‘Got it.’

‘Now, quite firmly run your finger straight down my spine.’

I did that – and saw the material simply part beneath my touch, falling away from her as my finger slid down. Her skin glowed in the soft light and I bent my head and kissed her naked shoulder, feeling her body shiver at the touch of my lips. I slid my finger lower, lower, on down over the curve of her bottom, then down into the crack between its firm cheeks, the material continuing to part and peel away from her. I knelt so that I could get my hand under her, between her slightly parted legs and at the same time, she bent forwards to make it even easier for me. As the fabric parted exposing her fleshy mound, I saw just how swollen her pussy was, then felt the hot wetness of it on my hand and, as my finger ran on up over the firm ridge of her clitoris, felt her whole body shuddering with her pent-up excitement.

She had been controlling herself for so long that she finally became impatient with both garments, quickly peeling hers off, then doing the same with mine, taking a quick, satisfied look down at how successfully it had done its work in arousing my cock then took my hand and hurried us both through into the sleep-pad area.

Now knowing that Mierka’s body-suit must have kept her in a state of semi-arousal for most of the evening I didn’t waste too much time on preliminaries – I buried my face between the soft warmth of her thighs and kissed and licked her pussy to a quick climax then, even while her body was still shuddering from that, I flipped her over and pulled her up on to her knees.

I didn’t know whether it was the result of the massaging by the body-suit, the smell and feel of her body, Seltire’s lower gravity or just a combination of all of those but I seemed to have a bigger erection than usual and almost before Mierka knew what I was doing I had slid it deep up inside her still weakly spasming cunt.

Starting with long, slow strokes that increased in speed and energy as our bodies responded to their growing need and urgency, I fucked her – finally exploding hard and deep inside her as she screamed from the force of it and she was gripped by a second climax.

Later we slept, deeply – our bodies recuperating from the journey itself, the anticipation of the real start of our adventure the following day and from the draining effect of the sexual stimulation and release we had experienced.

*

Chapter 2

Sex and Sun

So, refreshed, renewed and ready to face anything together, early the following morning we set off. Mierka settling herself comfortably in the seat by my side as I took the skimmer out of the harbour area and off down a narrow channel between the first two islands.

The skimmer rode the slightly choppy water smoothly and we revelled in the sensation of clean, salt-filled air blowing over us and the warmth of the sun rising slowly higher in the sky at our backs.

‘Isn’t this marvellous lover!’ she said, giving me a happy smile. ‘I feel so alive! A wonderful day – after a wonderful night.’ she added. ‘You were marvellous you know – I haven’t had such a powerful orgasm for ages, you were so big.’

‘Hang on to that memory darling. Remember that we decided not to bring those outfits with us – and they may have been more responsible than I was. Thanks to your clever shopping that is.’

‘Oh I’m sure fresh air and solitude will be just as effective lover.’ she said as she reached across to squeeze my thigh.

Rather than plot a course and simply turn the skimmer over to auto I was operating it on manual controls but without the map-screen I admit I would have soon been hopelessly lost. The islands we had seen from the air were far harder to identify from sea level of course and as the vegetation of each seemed almost identical it would have been impossible to tell just which particular one we were passing if we hadn’t had the screen’s constant reference to guide us.

We knew that most of the islands had received no more than an electronic survey, there were just too many of them for each to have received a human inspection and though the planetary team had certified there were no significant dangers, knowing that any island we stopped at was quite likely to never have been visited before made it even more exhilarating.

And that’s exactly what we did for the next few days, island-hopping as the whim and fancy took us, sometimes going ashore so Mierka could take samples, sometimes to explore a little, sometimes just for the feel of solid ground beneath our feet, sometimes to see if there were any of the wild fruits and vegetables we had taken a liking to, sometimes to make love.

Although we didn’t spend our entire time fucking of course – I was surprised at our increased level of frequency, we were like a newly married couple, compared with the number of times we would make love at home that is. I attributed my own increased level of need and performance to a combination of the surroundings – the fresh air and solitude – and presumed Mierka was being similarly affected too. She was certainly far more sexually demanding than I remembered her being for many years – and I wasn’t complaining about that!

Naturally Mierka’s mini-lab was working virtually non-stop as she took samples of just about everything in sight and reach. In fact, by the third or fourth day she seemed to have become more and more interested in the results she was getting, spending much more time processing and tabulating the test figures over and over again. I said nothing for a couple of days – but by the end of that first week, when she had become even more absorbed in her work, I finally asked her what she was finding.

‘It’s still to early to be sure Slate. I just wished I had a full lab nearby – the mini-lab’s great but doesn’t have the fine tuning necessary for marginal variances and that’s what I think I’m getting.’

‘Explain please – in words of one syllable.’

She grinned back at me, it had originally taken a long time but during the time we had been together she had learned to translate most of her scientific jargon into a form that I could understand.

‘O.K. All of the islands we have stopped at so far are similar, in composition and vegetation I mean. Right?’

‘Right!’

‘Wrong!’

‘Wrong?’

‘Yes – they’re not. Or at least I think the mini-lab is finding that they’re not. As I said, the variations are tiny, just below the margin the mini-lab can identify – I think. If we… Yes of course – damn, how stupid of me! Slate, can we skim non-stop for a day tomorrow? Would you mind if we did that?’

I understood what she was saying. If there had been constant but very minute variances from one island to the next – if we jumped a lot in one go – she might be able to get a positive answer from the mini-lab.

‘Of course, how far do you think you need to go darling?’

‘Let me look at the map-screen a minute, I’ll just see which way has the largest number of islands. I’m sure it’s just numbers that count, not distance.’

In a matter of minutes we had plotted a course that gave us the maximum number in the smallest run, a few more to feed the plot into the auto system – I wasn’t risking my limited navigation skills on a course as complex as that – and, with that done I saw her visibly relax.

‘Thank you darling, you’re very considerate of me. It must be such a bore for you sometimes.’

‘Not when I know what you’re doing and feel I’m a little involved in it. It’s when you’re locked away inside yourself that I get a bit, well jealous I suppose. This is fun, I can understand what you are doing, it’s like detective work – and maybe I can help in some way.’

She gave me a big hug and kissed me. ‘Of course you help. Now, let’s eat, get an early night and be away as soon as the sun comes up. We’ll have to think of something we can do to pass the time tomorrow, it’s going to be boring I’m afraid, just sitting watching lots of water and islands go past. Any ideas?’

‘Several – and they all revolve around us being naked most of the day, so I’ll fix the skimmer’s roof, to protect us from the sun, while you start dinner. O.K.?’

She laughed happily. ‘More than O.K.!’

The following day passed in a pleasant haze of sun, water and more than a fair amount of sex – so by the time we felt the skimmer turning and slowing late in the afternoon both of us were weak and quite tired – pleasantly so of course – and certainly neither of us was complaining! But once on shore even Mierka couldn’t be bothered to rush off for samples, as I had expected, I set up the dome and fetched some essentials from the skimmer while she started getting a meal organised in the food-prep.

As I trekked back and forth between where I had moored the skimmer and the dome I looked around to see if I could actually see any of the variations Mierka was hoping to find. I didn’t of course – but the island did give the impression of being another that hadn’t been visited before. We had seen several like that, more frequently as we travelled further from the resort centre. No matter how careful people are they almost always leave some sign of their passing, even if there is no rubbish there will be other signs, logs or stones moved to clear a dome-site, branches broken, soil turned over, tracks made. I had become quite good at spotting such tell-tale signs but here there were none, not close to the water anyway.

I did see signs of life though, as we had on most of the islands, again there had been more as we got further from the resort, birds, lizard-like creatures and quite a lot of scurrying noises amongst the vegetation. As well as seeing a number of tracks and various birds flying overhead I also spotted several types of fruiting trees, one of which had become our particular favourite, so naturally I picked a couple of pieces that seemed ripe, thinking they would make a nice finish to whatever Mierka was making us for dinner.

By the time we had got everything ready the sun was just about to sink below the horizon and Mierka and I stood and watched, with our arms about each other’s waist, as its red-gold brilliance set fire to the water. Once the sun had gone it quickly began to get quite dark and the dome lit up behind us, its soft glow and the gentle hum of the equipment blending with the sound of the water lapping below us and the slowly increasing star-light above. We stood there for a while, enjoying the early evening then, almost reluctantly turned and went in for our meal.

As we ate we talked and I tried to get Mierka to explain just what it was that she was hoping to find in her test results the following day.

‘I wish I knew love. I just think it’s odd that there is even a chance of there being the variations that I think I might find. You would expect that with the islands so close together there would be little opportunity for much variation at all. Some islands might suit certain plants and creatures more than others, for whatever reason – but when you find the same species on many islands but that, at the micro-level, each one is slightly different – that’s crazy!

‘Any ideas?’

‘Not really. I need to do more work first. But what it could mean is that what appears to be a member of the same species could have quite different aspects to it from one place to another.’

‘Explain please.’

‘Well – let’s take something simple.’ She looked around for inspiration and caught sight of the fruit I had picked on the way back from the skimmer. ‘Ah, just the thing, our favourite fruit. Now, we know quite a lot about this, let’s forget micro-botany for a minute, we know it’s sweet but has a hint of acid that gives it that lovely fresh taste. Now suppose we find that a similar piece of fruit, picked on this island…’

‘Those pieces are from this island lover.’

‘From this island!’

‘Yes, I picked them as I came back from the skimmer. They look identical to what we’ve been eating all the time.’

‘And they may be – but suppose they’re not. Suppose, just for argument’s sake, that here they are more acid and less sweet. Another few dozen islands away they might be totally acidic, not a trace of sugar at all. That’s the sort of thing I mean. But, as I said, that’s just a small, obvious variation, the effect could be much more dramatic – even if it were less obvious.’

‘If it’s true, any ideas as to how it could have come about?’

‘Well it seems to me – and I’m no geologist remember – that the islands have to have been virtually separate, self-sustaining ecosystems for a very, very long time now, the life forms on them have had time to branch, become sub-species in their own right. But I’m only guessing of course.’

Just then we heard a sound, at first we both thought it was wind and as it steadily became louder I saw that Mierka began to look a little apprehensive.

‘Do you think there’s a storm coming? Is the dome strong enough Slate?’

I assured her it was – but as the sound continued to increase in volume I began to wonder about it myself.

‘I’ll stick my head out and see what I can.’

‘Be careful darling.’ she said as I released the door panel and poked my head out. At first I couldn’t see a thing but as my eyes got used to the darkness I found I could see straight down the channel that the skimmer had followed earlier. Dead calm, not even a ripple disturbed the surface of the water. Then I realised that the sound was actually above us and, looking up found that I could see what was causing the noise, or at least their silhouettes. Birds! Hundreds and hundreds of birds, flying straight over the top of us, it was the noise of their wings that had startled us.

‘Come and see Mierka. It’s quite safe, come and see!’

Nervously she joined me and as she followed the line of my arm, pointing skyward, saw the birds.

‘Wow! They must be fruit bats – or something like them, night feeders anyway. Where on earth are they all going? We haven’t seen a concentration of fruit trees anywhere, at least not one big enough for all of those.’

Her nervousness vanished in a flash and before I could stop her she was out of the dome and running down the beach so she could get a better line on their direction of flight.

Of course after that our trip took on a second objective, to track where the night-flyers’, as we dubbed them, were heading for – after Mierka had taken all the samples she needed for her mini-lab trials of course. So, while she took a series of those from amongst the nearby vegetation, I spent some time poring over the map-screen, looking for and plotting the larger islands on the course the night-flyers had been taking and then explored a little further afield, making a point of also collecting a few samples for the mini-lab to work on.

We caught up with each other around mid-day and took shelter from the increasing heat of the sun beneath the trees at the edge of the beach. To protect herself from scratches and bites while hunting through the undergrowth Mierka had been wearing her protective coverall which she slipped off while I cut up some of our favourite fruit for refreshment. Even though her under things were practical rather than provocative I still found myself enjoying the sight of her semi-nakedness and felt the familiar faint stirrings of arousal as she moved around sorting and preparing the samples we had collected between us. When she had finished and we sat down and started munching on the fruit I could tell that she was simply bursting to say something.

‘How are the early results looking lover?’ I asked as casually as I could, smiling to myself as I saw how restrained she tried to keep herself as she answered.

‘They’re looking good actually. Of course it’s far too early to say anything definite. I need to do much more work to be sure. But, just between you and I, I’m a bit excited about the whole thing.’

I grinned openly as I put my arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug.

‘I’ll do my best to keep it a secret, I’ll try not to let anyone else know darling.’ I whispered, chuckling as I peered furtively around us and then spoke in a low whisper. ‘Trust me. What do you think you’ve found?’

She realised how silly her caution had sounded and smiled back at me as she cuddled closer.

‘I know you think I’m too cautious – but it is early yet, the mini-lab’s still chewing over some data. But it does look as though I was right – there seems to be a big jump in the variations I thought I was getting.’

‘Fantastic! So your theory is right, that’s wonderful darling!’ I responded excitedly, squeezing her even harder.

‘Hold on, hold on! I don’t know it’s right yet, it just looks as though it might be. And I don’t have a theory at all, just some odd observations. Don’t get too carried away Slate.’

‘And don’t you be so conservative darling. You’ll crack it, I know you will. When you publish the results you’ll be even more famous, you’ll see I’m right. Now.’ I said as I turned her face towards me. ‘I’d better make the most of you before your fame gets too widespread and you have far more desirable men than me knocking on your door.’

Her lips were still covered with the acid-sweetness of the juice from the fruit we had eaten and I sucked that off as my tongue slipped between them to snake around inside her mouth, while my hand slipped down between her legs and closed gently over her sex. She responded even more quickly and more hungrily than I had expected and once started, I was surprised to find that my own need was far more powerful than I had realised – in only a matter of seconds we were stripped and my cock was hard up inside her, then all to soon, flooding her with a quite enormous load of semen.

Afterwards, I held her tight, my cock still twitching inside the hot wetness of her pussy as we lay side by side, gasping for breath, recovering from the suddenness and sheer force of our climaxes.

‘I didn’t realise just how much I wanted you lover.’ I muttered. ‘That was simply incredible!’

‘For me too darling. I haven’t come as quickly or as strongly as that for years. I don’t know what got into me.’

‘Me – my cock I mean.’ I answered quickly and we grinned at each other like two kids who had discovered sex for the first time.

‘Now, where do we go from here – with your work I mean?’ I added quickly, my cock slipping from her as I eased myself into a more comfortable position.

She chuckled. ‘I thought for a moment you were offering me a second helping. But you mean work. Well, I have to feed the rest of these samples through the mini-lab, that’ll take an hour or two, then I’d like to run some more detailed comparisons, between these results and my earlier ones, see if I can get a definite plot of the changes. Then I need to think a bit. Then see if we can track the night-flyers of course. Is that O.K.?’

‘Of course. I’ve picked out what I think are some of the most likely islands, working on the basis they would have to be fairly large to sustain the number of trees I imagine there would have to be to feed the number of creatures we saw. Of course that could be wrong, they could have spread out over a wide area after we lost sight of them – but somehow I don’t think so. Anyway we have to start somewhere.

Why don’t you finish your work on the samples, we’ll stay here tonight, get a better fix on their flight-path and then head off first thing tomorrow.’

During the rest of the day I helped her as much as I could and packed away the things we wouldn’t need that night while she waited for the mini-lab to finish its data processing run. Having finished everything I could do I settled myself down and plugged into some music, smiling fondly at the look of intense concentration on Mierka’s face as she examined the progressive results of the analysis – and being surprised to find that just watching her was beginning to arouse my need for her again.

But then, as I was seriously considering interrupting her work, I saw the expression on her face change suddenly and knew that the mini-lab had finally finished – and that the results were dramatic.

‘What have you got darling?’ I said, getting up and going across to stand behind her.

She looked up, startled, she had obviously been so deep in thought she had forgotten I was there. ‘Oh – sorry Slate, I’ve been miles away. But look, here and here and this too!’

She pointed to what to me were meaningless jumbles of figures and symbols. ‘What do they mean?’ I asked.

‘I wish I knew. But there are definite shifts in structure, major shifts. For instance, look at the results of the tests on the fruit, the one we like so much I mean.

These are from the ones we brought with us from the resort.’ She said with a note of rising excitement in her voice. ‘These from the first we picked in the wild. And these, from the ones you picked yesterday.’

Even though I hadn’t the faintest idea what they actually meant, I could see the changes in the patterns of the figures. ‘See, there’s a radical shift in their chemical structure – yet to us they are virtually identical. It’s fantastic!’

I suddenly wondered about the effects the changes might have. ‘Are they safe?’ I asked.

‘Well we’re still here.’ she said, grinning up at me. Then, pointing at one group of figures, added. ‘But I’m confused by this component here, see how different it is across the sets of sample results. Although there’s a trace in the first, which becomes a little more pronounced in the second, here in the third set there’s a totally new component showing. It doesn’t make sense and I’ve no idea at all just what it means. Maybe we’ll turn green or something.’ she cracked. ‘I can’t wait to see if there are any similar trees on those larger islands, so I can check again.’

If Mierka wasn’t worried why should I be – but somewhere at the back of my mind there was a niggle – just a small one and at that stage I didn’t know if it was a worry or a thought, so I left it to work that out for itself.

Mierka spent a while studying the results, making sounds of suppressed excitement from time to time then pushed herself away from the unit. ‘It’s no good, I’ll just have to try and be patient, until I can put this stuff through the equipment at work I mean. The mini-lab doesn’t have the deductive capacity, it’s fine for analysis but I need help in making conclusions. We’ll just keep feeding stuff into it, so its big brother has more to work on.’

We ate early, assuming, quite rightly as it turned out, that the flock would pass over us at about the same time as the previous night, so we were waiting for them and I was able to get an accurate fix on their track, check it against the islands I had short-listed that morning and narrowed my selection down to just three of them.

Having done everything we could until morning we took a stroll along the beach and I found that just the feel of her hand in mine was enough to bring back even more strongly the feelings I had experienced earlier. So, cutting short our walk I took her back to the dome and was more than pleased to find that she was not only willing but just as eager to make love as I was.

*

Chapter 3

The Orchard

On nothing but a hunch I plotted a course for the second of the three islands I’d elected, which at the speed the skimmer could do, wouldn’t take us too long to reach and, after waking early and packing the rest of our gear, we set off.

From what I could see, it was virtually identical with the island we had just left. I knew it was bigger, several times bigger but from what I could see of the little bay we pulled in to, there was nothing to separate it from the one we had left less than half an hour before. But, while I unpacked and set up everything we had only just taken down and put in the skimmer, Mierka was off, taking still more samples. An hour or so later, with a print-out from the map-screen and some basic essentials in light packs on our backs, we set off on an exploratory trip – at first skirting the dense growth that came almost down to the water’s edge, later heading up along the path a small river cut through it.

Neither of us was used to hiking long distances through unpaved country and we would have made better time if we had been fitter, as it was, it was well after mid-day before we came over a low rise – and saw it. A shallow bowl, that stretched for three or four klicks and was crammed full of trees, trees bearing fruit, fruit that looked exactly like the one that had become our favourite!

‘I don’t believe it, I just don’t believe it!’ Mierka gasped. ‘We haven’t seen anything even remotely like this on any of the islands. It’s simply incredible! Like a plantation. Like an orchard!’

We made our way down the rock strewn side of the bowl and as we reached the roughly grassed level area and began to walk amongst the fruit trees I noticed that beneath each one there were droppings and that as we made our way slowly through the trees, heading for the centre of the area, the droppings became more concentrated.

‘I’m sure this is where the night-flyers come. Just look at the mass of droppings under the trees.’

‘Yes, I’ve been thinking exactly the same thing. And see how fresh they are – and how much half-eaten fruit there is too, that’s obviously what attracts them. We must have arrived right at the height of the season – a week or two earlier, or later and we might never have noticed anything.’ She picked a particularly luscious piece of fruit and rolled around in her hand, looking at it thoughtfully.

‘I wonder why they come here – in the numbers that they do. There are trees everywhere, we’ve found them on every island we’ve stopped at and seen them on virtually every one we’ve passed. What would make them fly all that extra distance?’

‘Maybe they just like eating together, or perhaps they’re into group sex.’ I said with a grin.

‘Or perhaps some flavour or other aspect of it is stronger here, concentrated as a result of the number of trees growing in one place. I wonder…’

Before I could stop her she had taken a small bite out of the fruit and I held my breath as I watched as she held it in her mouth, concentrating hard as she savoured the flavour.

She swallowed, smiled and said. ‘Well, unless it’s a totally new form of poison, there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe a touch sweeter and I think that slightly acidic after-taste that we find so refreshing may be just a little stronger too. Still absolutely delicious. Go ahead, have some yourself darling, tell me what you think.’

I picked a piece for myself and with only a moment’s hesitation, took a similarly small bite from it. She had been right of course, there was a subtle difference in the taste, if possible, it was even nicer than what we had become almost addicted to.

While I was enjoying it Mierka was staring at the piece in her hand, a puzzled expression furrowing her brow, talking softly to herself.’

‘What’s so dramatically different about it that they’d expend the extra energy needed to come all this way? Is there some mineral in this island’s soil? Perhaps they are group feeders. There must be something – where to start?’

I interrupted her concentration. ‘Maybe the night-flyers are gourmets – they know where the very best pickings are and don’t bother with the second-best varieties on the other islands.’ I said jokingly.

She thought for a moment then grinned happily at me. ‘You know, that just may be the answer darling. Sometimes I don’t see things because it’s staring me in the face, it’s too simple – I get bogged down in looking for a scientific solution. Maybe the creatures just simply prefer the taste of this island’s fruit! Thank you for the idea.’

‘So what’s next? Do we move camp to here?’

‘Could we manage to do that, move all our gear I mean?’

‘Not if we had to lug it all the way darling but I think we’ll find that over on the far side, the trees stop just below a line of sand dunes, less than half a klick from the sea.’ I showed her the map and pointed across to where I meant. ‘We could bring everything round in the skimmer and camp on the dunes themselves, we could see virtually the entire area from there. There’s no fresh water, we’d have to rely on the skimmer for that but because a lot of the time we’ve been eating fruit instead of drinking from the supply on board we’ve used very little so far, so that wouldn’t cause a problem.’

Could we get to the skimmer and back before dark?’

I checked the time. ‘No problem, we’ll get back much quicker than we came because we know the way, we could be back and have the dome set up well before the sun sets.’

‘Let’s do it then, you really don’t mind do you darling? I mean you’re not just being sweet and kind and generous to me – while inside you’d much rather be off cruising around the islands?’

I grinned and hugged her. ‘Of course not. As I said, it’s like a detective story, I’m just as curious as you are – even though not for such scientific reasons.’ Adding with a grin. ‘Anyway, when we’ve got ourselves organised I intend to make a pig of myself on the fruit here!’

So that’s just what we did, hiked quickly back to the skimmer, again packed everything into it, zipped around the coast to a spot that I thought left us with the shortest walk, secured the skimmer to a convenient rock and then began to carry what essentials we’d need up through the dunes. I’d been pretty accurate with my interpretation of the map and we set up the dome beside a particularly tall dune, from the top of which we could see clear across the shallow bowl which the trees filled. Probably because of the proximity of the sea and the more sandy soil the trees closest to us were neither as numerous nor as big as those we had seen from the other side but we could see that those growing just a short way further from us were much healthier, just as laden with ripening fruit.

We were both sweating from the climb up through the loose sand and the sight of the fruit trees was enough to make my mouth water. ‘Stay here, I’ll go and get us some fruit darling. You must be as thirsty as I am, neither of us is used to quite so much physical work – I’m absolutely parched.’ I said and went down the firmer, shallower incline towards the trees.

At the edge I noticed that the bird droppings were less concentrated than we had seen on the other side but, as I moved deeper into the trees I saw that as they became healthier looking, it increased. In a matter of minutes I had picked as many fully ripened fruit as I could carry and headed back up to where Mierka was standing, handing one to her I chose another for myself and put the rest down inside the dome.

For the next minute or two neither said a word, we were both too busy simply enjoying the succulent, juicy mouthfuls.

‘How about a quick swim to freshen ourselves up a bit more?’ I suggested when I finished.

‘Mmm!’ Mierka mumbled, nodding, her mouth still half full with the last of her fruit.

I grabbed a couple of towels and made a sling out of one of them into which I put some more fruit, handing her another piece to eat on the way. ‘I told you I was going to make a pig of myself.’ I said as I took a mouthful, ‘They really are beautiful though, aren’t they.’ I added as juice started to run down my chin.

‘Mmm!’ she agreed as she immediately began to bite deeply into hers too.

We slipped and slid down the dunes to the beach, quickly stripped off and plunged straight into the water where we swam, splashed and generally behaved like a couple of kids, letting the sea wash away the sweat and dust of the day and refreshing and invigorating us both.

Afterwards, as we were towelling ourselves dry, I suddenly became momentarily dizzy and, when that passed after a couple of seconds I then felt a sort of warm, prickling sensation starting to run through my skin, as though very small charges of electricity were being passed through it. As I stood still I became conscious that the sensations seemed to be converging, each individual charge running into the next and the next, growing in strength as they did that and that the resulting streams seemed to all be heading for the one place – my crotch!

I looked down and saw that my cock was thickening and stiffening even as I looked at it – and I felt an urge, a need that was growing as quickly as it was, an urgent, overpowering need to have sex!

Looking across at Mierka I saw that she too was standing quite still, staring at me, or to be more precise, at my swiftly rising cock and that her eyes had an almost glassy look about them.

Then I felt my heart racing, pumping blood more powerfully through me, pumping it down to my cock – and when I looked down again I saw that it had already become massively swollen, rising almost vertically, the veins on the surface of the shaft grossly distended, the head tightly smooth and already a dark plum colour. Sex, I had to have sex!

Again I looked up at Mierka and, as though through a red haze, saw that her body was reacting just as powerfully as mine. Her breasts were swollen, their already jutting tips had become dark red, she had both hands down between her thighs, clutching at herself and, as she looked up at me I then saw a desperate hunger burning in her eyes.

I grabbed her, virtually threw her down on the sand, kneeled between her already widely splayed legs and immediately, without any hesitation simply thrust my seemingly white-hot cock into the quenching wetness of her cunt.

Her eyes stared up, their pupils dilated, staring right through me – and as I began to fiercely pound in and out of her I felt her fingers dig sharply into my back, wincing as her nails cut through my skin and she cried out at the top of her voice.

‘Fuck me! Fuck me! For pity sake fuck me – harder, harder, deeper, faster!’

I felt her body opening wide, to take in all of the monstrous thing I felt my cock had become – and though I was driving down into her with all my strength, even that didn’t seem to be enough for her – I saw her shove both hands beneath her arse and she used them to add still more force to her body as she thrust her hips even harder up to meet me.

As our bodies pounded together, with a force that seemed to knock the wind out of each other each time, I heard us grunting, sounds that got ever louder and, as our action got even faster, even more desperate, our separate sounds blending into one continuous noise.

Mierka lifted her legs, twined them around me and, gripping me tightly with her thighs, locked them behind me and used them to pull me down harder, still deeper into herself.

Then she came! Loudly, wantonly, frenziedly – but still urged me on, if anything even more desperately.

I felt it gathering, boiling, surging up through me – then it jetted, fountained out of my exploding cock, blasting deep into her body – yet the need didn’t seem to lessen, just grow even stronger!

My balls were a hard swollen mass, my cock was still rock-hard, felt just as massive and my body, demanding still more of her, drove it in and out of her pussy like a greasily flashing piston.

Sweat poured from us, muscles ached, breath rasped into near-starved lungs as whatever it was that had control of our bodies compelled us on and on. Mierka came again and then again until finally the orgasms seemed to blend together and she slipped into an almost trance-like state, her body quivering rhythmically beneath me as wave after wave of unsatisfying pleasure rolled through her.

My cocked pumped a second gout of semen into her and though I felt sure that with that it had emptied me, something still drove it on and it was only some time later, after a third, much weaker series of irregular spurts that I felt the power of the compulsion actually lessening.

I rolled off her, gasping for air, weak, near exhausted but, through the dazed fog that my mind had become, I knew that between my legs the raw thing my cock had become still twitched, wanted still more.

Stumbling to my feet I pulled Mierka up with me, grabbed her hand and began to pull her towards the sea.

‘Get in the water – maybe that will help!’ I croaked and as we floundered through the first line of waves I felt the coolness quenching the heat – but at the same time the salt, burning it.

‘What happened to us?’ she spluttered, flinching as the water splashed high up between her legs.

‘The fruit! The fruit we’ve eaten here – it’s the only thing it could be.’ I answered as I struggled to get my breath. ‘And I wouldn’t mind betting that’s why the night-flyers come here too. But for now, just swim, exhaust yourself, try to work whatever it is out of your system.’

I swam too, trying to drain what little strength I had left, hoping that would also sap the power of what had taken us over. Sure enough, after a while I realised that I was not only chilled to the bone but that the urgent need had all but gone. I swam across to where Mierka was then floating on her back, noticing that her hands were pressed between her thighs, her face tensed and tried to imagine the pain she must be feeling from the salt water inside her much abused pussy.

She opened her eyes as I slipped my arm tenderly around her and I saw that the desperate need they had contained earlier had gone. ‘Let’s get you back to the dome, get some soothing medication on you. Get some energy fluids into us.’ I said, steering her towards the shore where we hobbled rather than walked and I had to support her for the climb up the dunes. But, after we had liberally applied some creams to ourselves, guzzled a fair amount of additive filled water and rested our weary bodies, we talked over the incredible experience we had shared.

‘You’re right Slate – it must be the fruit. I’ve been thinking back over the time since we left the resort. We’ve both been far more sexually active than usual.’

I grinned. ‘You’d noticed that too had you? I don’t recall any complaints until now.’

‘I’m not exactly complaining even now darling. What happened down there was a bit frightening in the way it happened – but I’m not complaining about the activity itself. Are you?’ she responded with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

‘No way! Though I think a slightly smaller dose would have been better. Less wearing on the system – and perhaps a bit more conscious enjoyment of what was happening would have been nice.’

‘True. But, as I said, we’ve had sex far more often than usual – I’d thought that was just because we were away from the usual pressures, alone together, more relaxed, those things – but we have been eating the fruit regularly. Maybe that’s it.’

‘But why the difference darling. If you’re right – and I’m sure you are – why haven’t we reacted as we did, before this?’

‘The difference in the fruit, remember we agreed it tasted different, a little sweeter, a slightly more acidic after-taste. I bet that when I put some of the local fruit through the mini-lab we’ll find there’s a strong shift in that component group, remember the one I pointed out to you before?’

‘But before you start on that, the sun’s not far off setting now so let’s get something to eat, then settle down to see what happens when the night-flyers get here. And I don’t think either of us have any doubts about the fact that this is the place they come to, do we?’

She shook her head and together we prepared a meal and after eating, gathered together some equipment and moved out to find a suitable spot from which to watch what would happen below us when the creatures arrived, using branches from the nearer trees to disguise the place and hoping that nothing else gave away our presence.

*

Chapter 4

The Night-Flyers

After a while our eyes grew accustomed to the star-light and even without the night-scopes we found we could see reasonably well, in fact quite well enough to eventually spot the dark shape of the head of the flying column when it appeared over the rim of the bowl opposite where we sat. The first creatures headed straight for the centre of the trees – as usual in nature, the strongest, fastest flyers got the pick of the food supply – and it was quite some time before the trees on our side began to also fill with the night-flyers. Then it was only a few seconds before one of them settled into the tree closest to us.

The creature was quite large with relatively short but very wide wings that seemed to be smooth, almost leathery rather than feathered and we saw that it had a short but powerful looking bill. After landing, it perched quite still for a short while, then hopped in a rather ungainly fashion from one branch to another, as though exploring the tree, looking for the best perch or closest, ripened fruit. Other creatures landed in different parts of the tree and unlike the fruit-bats we had first compared them to, there was no squabbling, no noise – each seemed to pick one section of the tree and was quite content to explore just that area.

Having found whatever it was looking for, each creature then attacked the chosen fruit, stabbing deep into the ripened pieces, swallowing the resulting chunks in a single gulp then stabbing again and again until either the fruit was finished or, more usually the remaining section fell from the tree. The feeding didn’t actually take very long and I would imagine that each creature probably only got to eat less than a quarter of a full-sized fruit. Then, when it had had enough it perched quite still and by comparison with the previous flurry of activity it was almost as though each creature had suddenly become frozen in place.

Just then, from the centre of the bowl we heard a squawking sound – one, then two, then a group of creatures, the noise getting progressively louder and louder, waves of rising sound rippling outwards from the centre as more and more creatures joined in the cacophony until those in the tree in front of us began too. Soon after that we saw creatures flapping up from the trees in the middle and, just as the squawking had steadily radiated outwards, so did the dark rising shapes.

I gave Mierka a pair of night-scopes so we could both watch what happened next and as I peered upwards I focussed on one creature, it’s wings were flapping fast as it rose in a tight circle, it’s individual cry lost amongst the almost deafening sound of all the other creatures. I saw it circle close to another, which banked and fell away, then another, which didn’t and then watched as the pair circled closer and closer, their wings almost touching. Then, as though responding to some signal, they fell, just closed their wings and literally fell to the ground – landing heavily just in front of us.

There was no preamble, no courting dance, the male simply grabbed the female’s neck in his bill and then spent half a minute or so energetically fertilising her. When it was done both creatures squatted there, apparently dazed by what had happened to them, gave a couple of half-hearted squawks, clumsily took to the air and flapped back to wherever they had come from.

We sat there, looking at each other in stunned disbelief.

‘That’s what we must have looked like – a simple fucking-machine.’ I said.

‘Whatever it is, it’s certainly effective. The creatures obviously have a much lower reaction to whatever it is though. If you compare their weight and mass with ours and the amount they ate, we needed much less.’

‘And were affected much more dramatically darling.’ I reminded her. ‘The creatures just did it once – we were going hammer and tongs for a lot longer than that.’

‘We certainly were!’ she replied, squeezing my hand and even in the dim light I could again see that mischievous twinkle in her eyes. ‘How about another a nibble or two of fruit before we settle down for the night?’

‘I thought you’d want to get some samples ready for your mini-lab.’ I said in mock surprise, grinning from ear to ear as she answered.

‘Oh, I think that just for once, personal observation might be even more useful than scientific analysis, don’t you?’

Of course I agreed – and in spite of us both being a little bit sore, although the medication had certainly done wonders for us, we managed quite well to both advance the frontiers of science and at the same time increase the sum total of our personal experience of pleasure.

*

Chapter 5

Trial and Error

It was long after dawn when we finally woke and the sun was already high and hot outside the dome, in spite of the various exertions of the previous day I was surprised to find that I had no traces of fatigue, no aching muscles and even my cock was in remarkably good shape, considering the pummelling it had taken. Mierka said she felt just as good too and that like me, was showing no signs of over-use.

‘Maybe there’s something other than just an aphrodisiac, or whatever you want to call it, in the fruit. Maybe there’s a rejuvenator of some sort too.’

‘Hopefully we’ll find out more about the composition today, I plan on running a whole series of trials – on us as well as on the fruit and I’d like you to work out some way of catching one of those creatures tonight.’

‘Catch one? What on earth for?’

‘I want to run some tests on it as well, see just what’s going on inside them, compare those with whatever I find out about our reactions. That makes sense doesn’t it?’

‘Of course. O.K., I always had a secret ambition to be a wild animal trainer.’

‘But before you get started, how about something to eat?’

‘Yes, I’m famished – but no fruit, not today, nor tonight either I’m afraid. I want to give our bodies a chance to get back to normal, then we’ll run some stepped trials, you know, gradually take larger amounts, see how much of the fruit we need to get us, well stimulated. Will you help me?’

‘My pleasure m’am. Though I’m sure we could start right now, I feel perfectly normal, why wait?’ I asked with such a wicked leer that Mierka couldn’t help herself from laughing.

‘Just be patient – and control yourself. I’m going to have to too remember.’ She laughed again as I pulled a disappointed face and turned away to start getting some breakfast ready for us both. ‘By the way.’ she added. ‘I’ve no idea what the fruit’s called, we’ll have to come up with a name for it, I can’t keep recording it as just ‘the fruit’ can I.’

‘That’s easy – the name’s obvious.’

‘What?’

‘Passion-fruit!’

‘Of course – how stupid of me – it’s exactly right! Passion Fruit it is.’

And so for us at least, it has been ever since.

After we had eaten, Mierka started her tests, first taking both blood and samples of tissue from various parts of both of us, some of which were somewhat more painful than others! While she was waiting for the results that she would then compare with our standards, stored in the mini-lab, she asked me to go down into what we were now both referring to as the ‘orchard’ and get a variety of Passion Fruits, in different stages of ripeness, so she could see how the composition changed as they ripened.

Then she buried herself in her work and I was free to start thinking about a night-flyer trap. Knowing the pattern of the creatures’ behaviour made it easier and having worked out how to do it, I decided to actually catch two of them – one when they first arrived, before it had eaten, the other in those few seconds before the effect of the fruit took over. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to keep the thing alive once it was under the effect but at least I’d give Mierka the opportunity to test it, guessing that she would appreciate the opportunity of being able to do some comparative tests on the creatures as well as on ourselves.

The skimmer’s emergency equipment included two life-saving capsules which I was going to convert for use as temporary cages for the creatures – and though I removed as much of the sensitive equipment as I could, I hoped that in their panic they wouldn’t wreck too much of what I had to leave inside them, just in case they were needed later.

By the time I had finished preparing the capsules I found Mierka had finished checking all the samples she had taken from us earlier. We were both not only fighting fit, in fact there were signs that our metabolisms were in better shape than usual, though whether that was as a result of all the fresh air and exercise we had been getting or from some action of the fruit itself, we of course had no way of knowing. Although the tests she had started on the various fruits I had collected weren’t finished, the earlier ones, on the ripened fruit were – and, just as Mierka had predicted, the dramatic changes were in the number group she had predicted they would be.

‘So now you know where the shift is do you have a better chance of actually isolating what the components are?’ I asked as we peered down at the screen.

‘Maybe – but somehow I doubt it. That’s why I want to run those stepped trials on us. They will show me our body’s reaction to whatever it is and that will help me track it backwards. But don’t be surprised if all of this still doesn’t give me he answer, it’s quite likely we’ll have to wait until we get back home again.’

‘What do you mean darling?’

‘The mini-lab’s a terrific tool – but there are limitations to what it can do, it just doesn’t have the power and capacity of the big unit, I’m storing everything I have had it do and if the worst comes to the worst I can reproduce every step of each test later – and hopefully that will give us definitive answers. To be honest I’ve been expecting all along that I’d have to do that, I’ve really got much better answers than I ever thought I would.’

‘Still, it would be nice to know for sure, before we leave, wouldn’t it?’

‘Of course it would. Apart from anything else, if I miss a step or something that I later find I should have done, we will have missed the chance for ever. I mean we’re not likely to be able to just hop on a ship and come again are we?’ she said as she turned back to examine the results of the tests

‘Not at the prices they’re charging lover. It would take us a few years before we could do that – unless…’

I didn’t finish the sentence and Mierka was by then too engrossed in her work to notice the way my voice tailed off. Until then it had been kind of fun helping her and I had become genuinely curious about what gave the Passion Fruit its amazing powers – but it wasn’t something I had a personal involvement in, other than from benefiting sexually that is. But an idea had suddenly occurred to me and, once it had, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t thought of it before. Now, as well as doing everything I could to help Mierka get the very best results she could, I also had a project of my own.

During the afternoon I started on a series of tests.

The saga of the great night-flyer hunt will probably never become a galaxy-wide favourite but, in spite of finding the creatures far more aggressive than I had anticipated and far less amenable to being cooped in the capsules than I had hoped, we did finally manage to get some ‘before’ and ‘after’ samples from them before we released them again. Luckily we never did have to use the capsules ourselves!

By the time we had finished preparing the test samples and then cleaned ourselves up afterwards I don’t think either of us were too upset about Mierka’s sexual embargo, we just flopped out on our sleep-pads and fell asleep almost immediately.

Mierka spent most of the following day with her mini-lab tests, only interrupting her work when it was time to take another sample of blood or tissue from both of us and she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she took hardly any notice of what I was up to and I have to admit that I was so busy I completely forgot that Mierka’s original intention was for us to start on her series of trials on ourselves. But then, knowing her as well as I did and seeing how deeply involved she was in her work I knew better than to suggest we start then. Apart from getting better results I knew we would both enjoy the experience all the more if we waited until her work was finished, her mind clear of scientific thoughts.

That night, as we finally relaxed over a meal, she remembered.

‘Oh Slate – I’m sorry!’

‘What about lover?’

‘I – I mean we, we were going to start those trials on ourselves today. I’ve even forgotten to take final blood samples. Damn! I get so caught up in what I’m doing I seem to forget everything else.’

She was so cross with herself I couldn’t help smiling.

‘Hey! It doesn’t matter lover. I knew how preoccupied you were, I’ve been keeping myself busy, so we’ll be ready to start tomorrow – when we’ll both be more relaxed – and we can enjoy it!’

Her angry frown faded and was replaced by a look of relief and she reached across and squeezed my hand.

‘You really are a very understanding man – sometimes! I suppose the fact that neither of us would have got too much fun out of experimenting today had absolutely nothing to do with it, did it?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘Liar!’ she said, as we smiled fondly at each other. ‘So, what’s the programme for tonight – more celibacy?’

‘Actually I thought a heavy work-out might help to burn-off whatever residual effects the stuff might be having on us. Just so we can start with a clean slate, so to speak, tomorrow.’

Mierka’s laugh was rich and fruity and she squeezed my hand harder as she responded.

‘Sounds like a very scientific approach to me – good logic, right rationale, measurable results. In fact I can’t fault it.’

‘So, the programme. You take some more blood samples – if I have any left that is. We’ll check that the night-flyers behaviour pattern is no different tonight, after the slight disturbance I caused them last night, then after they’ve gone, we’ll have the place to ourselves. So whatever you fancy, wherever you fancy it – that’s just what you can have. No chemical aids, just you and me together, as we are.’

‘Mmm! Nice speech darling. Nice thoughts too. And I must say, I like the programme. Let’s get on with it!’

So, she took the blood samples and prepared them for the seemingly insatiable mini-lab. We cleaned up the remnants of our meal and took a refresher together – resisting the temptation that our nakedness obviously aroused in me and, from Mierka’s actions, in her too – slipped into ‘something comfortable’ and went outside to wait for the arrival of the night-flyers.

They came. They ate. They squawked, flew, fucked and left!

In short, from what we observed, my contretemps with two of their flock the previous night seemed to have had no affect on their general behaviour patterns.

We remained in our hide in the dunes for some time after the last night-flyer had left, sitting quietly, neither saying a word, thinking our own thoughts. Above us the stars wheeled silently along their ages-old paths, around us the trees slowly, imperceptibly continued producing whatever it was that stirred the night-flyers – and I’m sure that Mierka felt much the same way as I did. We were intruders, we had learned something that had been known only to those creatures that needed to know, we had no part to play in the drama that we had glimpsed, had no way of knowing the place of this brief scene in the full story of the planet to which we were merely transitory tourists.

I reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go darling.’ I whispered unnecessarily – and saw her just nod her response. We almost crept back up the slope, past the dome, over the crest of the dune and, as the sound of the breaking surf broke the spell, I felt her arm slip around my waist and together we ran down towards the beach below.

But, whether by accident or design we never quite made the beach, half way down one or other of us faltered, tripped and fell, pulling the other down after them – down on to the soft, yielding slope of the dune. A tangle of arms, legs and bodies quickly turned into a single-minded, loving pair.

True to what I had proposed earlier when I said – ‘I thought a heavy work-out might help to burn-off whatever residual effects the stuff might be having on us.’ – we did our very best to cleanse our systems of whatever traces of the fruit there might still have been circulating inside us. Afterwards we slowly made our way back to the dome and slept soundly until the following morning.

I woke first and without disturbing Mierka, slipped out of the dome to check on my own bit of research before she woke. Many of the fruit samples I had prepared the previous day had simply gone bad, turned unpleasant shades of brown or already started to rot but some that I had dried, using an accelerated form of sun-drying still seemed to be in fair condition. Of course without running them through the mini-lab I had no way of knowing whether or not the active component had been preserved too and, I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t let Mierka know what I was doing.

The quarantine laws are strict and thank heavens they are, even with their protection there have been enough weird bugs introduced to various planets, without them we’d all have been in real trouble before now. Mierka’s job made her even more sensitive to those laws, even a hint of suspicion that she had tried shipping material from one place to another without the necessary authority, extreme security precautions, and correct paper-work would mean the end of her career. So she mustn’t know that I was planning on doing exactly that – smuggling out several small pieces of our fruit – taking them home with us.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have faith in the information stored in the mini-lab or that the more powerful equipment in her laboratory might not be able to reproduce whatever chemical structure actually did the trick – but just in case, as a sort of insurance, in case everything else failed – I wanted us to have some of the original fruit for her to work on too. There was too much at stake to risk failure.

So, selecting the pieces that looked the most promising, I carefully wrapped and sealed them in an air-tight container and put it amongst the bundle of used clothing, then began to prepare breakfast for us both.

The smell of cooking woke Mierka.

‘Morning lover!’ I said softly as she turned over and peered at me through sleep-tousled hair. ‘Breakfast, a quick swim – and then I’m all yours!’ I added, grinning down at her as I saw a smile brighten her face at the thought of what the day’s activities were to involve for us both. Of course first she had to check the mini-lab’s processing and when she had looked through the various screens of data I was pleased to see her satisfied look.

‘Looking good darling?’ I asked.

But, in reply. ‘Looking very good lover.’ Was all I could get out of her. As she said over breakfast – her work had already taken up far too much of our holiday, today was our day and, having made sure all was well, she wasn’t even going to think about the mini-lab again. Simply enjoy sharing the effects of eating the fruit – and making a few notes as we did that of course.

So having eaten we went for a long walk on the beach and as the day grew warmer, finished off with a swim before returning to the dome and beginning Mierka’s series of stepped trials. She sent me down to the orchard for fresh fruit and while I was gone prepared a couple of screen-pads for us to make notes on, so we could record how we felt as the trials progressed. On my return she cut the fruit up into carefully weighed pieces and because of the difference in the mass of our bodies, made mine slightly larger than hers.

We sat down, checked the time and ate our first, small piece. We knew from both watching the night-flyers as well as from our own previous experience that the stuff took a bit of time to get into the system – but when, after half an hour nothing had happened, we ate a second – and waited again. It was another fifteen minutes before I felt the first tingling prickle, in my hands of all places – a bit like pins and needles. I noted my reaction and after about another five minutes Mierka said she could also feel it, the same reaction.

Again we waited, the progression was so subtle that from minute to minute it was impossible to notice a difference but after another ten minutes I became aware that the prickling sensation had reached my crotch – and five minutes later, Mierka said her pussy was beginning to respond too. But when, after another quarter of an hour nothing further had happened and I felt sure that the sensations were actually fading, we each ate a third piece of fruit.

Our response time was much shorter, within five minutes I felt my fingers prickling and, very soon after that, a feeling very similar to the one I had felt the first time, like small electric currents running through my skin – and as before they were heading straight for my crotch. I waited a while, making sure that I was actually feeling what I thought I was – that it wasn’t just my imagination, or my wishful thinking.

But there was no way I could put the erection I was then beginning to develop, down to wishful thinking!

I looked across at Mierka and saw that her pupils were already dilated and noticed that her breathing had already become shallower, faster.

‘Started?’ I asked. My voice obviously broke through whatever feelings she was experiencing, she nodded and quickly keyed something into her screen-pad, which reminded me to up-date my own too.

‘Yes.’ she answered when she’d finished. ‘It’s interesting. At the moment I have a feeling that’s similar to when we’ve been cuddling for a while, when you’ve been squeezing my breasts or my bottom. I’m aroused, getting ready for sex – but it’s a low level arousal, a nice sexy feeling, not urgent, not demanding. How are you feeling?’

‘Much the same. I’ve been feeling like that for a few minutes now. Talking about it sort of lessens it I think – or maybe it’s fading again. I’m not really sure – but it might be.’

‘Oh I hope not, this is nice – I’d like to keep feeling just this way for a long time.’

But in my own mind I was sure I was right, the feeling was diminishing, not growing and I keyed that into the screen-pad then, I waited, watching Mierka carefully. After another couple of minutes she made more notes too, then looked up and confirmed my suspicions.

‘You’re right. It’s going again. We’ll need at least one more piece each, that’s four.’

Again we sat quietly, each thinking their own thoughts, monitoring their own reactions. And again the response time was quicker, in less than two minutes I was back where I had been – my arousal growing, an erection developing – but this time it went on, getting stronger, not plateauxing, I felt my cock continuing to get stiffer, thickening, lengthening, the need inside me growing by the second.

I found myself looking at the various curves of Mierka’s body, my mind stripping her, seeing the actual full roundness of her breast, its rose-red tip swelling between my lips as I gently sucked on it. Hearing the little moans of pleasure she made as I did that, feeling her legs parting, exposing her sex, making herself available for my fingers and then my cock.

The prickling sensations were still growing stronger, lacing the surface of my body with their inter-locking paths, growing in strength as they merged and got closer to my crotch. My cock felt quite hot, throbbing as it continued growing, the pressure of my clothes beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. My balls swelling, just starting to ache. My mouth dry, my palms damp.

I got up and stripped and as I freed my cock it sprang out, quivering and, as blood continued pulsing into it, jerking higher, getting bigger, its head darker, glossier. My head was full of nothing but thoughts of sex, of Mierka’s body, sprawled out, offering herself up to me, crying out for me, needing me as much as I needed her, begging me to fuck her.

Looking down I saw her staring up at me, her unblinking eyes focussed on my cock, intently watching it’s jerky growth, her hands down between her thighs, clutched tightly against herself.

I went over to her, helped her up and then to strip, as we stood there, close together I felt the coolness of her fingers enclosing the hot length of me, then brushing my cock-head from side to side across the softness of her belly, sending jolts of pleasure racing back through me.

As the need inside us slowly grew we caressed, our hands running lightly over each other’s body, creating pleasure-sparks as hands and fingers wandered here and there, tracing patterns, outlining curves, probing crevices. Our moans of pleasure interspersed with sharp gasps and hisses of excitement as each found the other’s particularly sensitive spots.

All the time the pressure of the need grew stronger – sex, what had been an arousing thought, was becoming an urgent necessity – now my mind pictured my cock driving hard into her, moving faster as release came closer.

Then her voice broke through the pictures that were reeling through my head. ‘Come, lie down Slate!’ she said as she virtually pulled me through to the sleep-pad area. I stretched out, looking up at her, seeing how stiffly swollen her nipples had become and, as she stepped astride my legs, how moistly pink her pouting sex was.

By then my cock was so incredibly hard that she didn’t even need to hold it steady as she lowered herself, pressing firmly down, slowly impaling herself on it. The sensations were fantastic – although she was slick from her own arousal she was still tight and the size that my cock had swollen to made it feel even tighter still and I heard myself groan with sheer pleasure as her pussy-lips slid slowly down the entire, throbbing length of me until I felt her arse resting on my thighs.

Having used me to fill herself she rested there for a moment, then leaning slightly forwards and balancing herself by holding on to me, she began to move and I heard her moaning with her own pleasure as she began to rise and fall.

Looking up from the sight of my cock disappearing up into her I saw how flushed her face had become and, as she threw back her head, how the veins in her neck stood out like whip-cords. Unable to resist the impulse I reached up and began to caress her breasts, feeling the hardness of her nipples between my fingers and, as I rolled and squeezed them, heard her groan louder and felt her grind herself down even harder on to me in response.

Then gradually her actions became more urgent, the slow rise and fall giving way to harder, sharper movements and I sensed that her need was growing fast and as her body responded even more strongly, I heard her breathing turn to a series of explosive grunts.

Her climax came suddenly! One moment she was riding me, the next – the ride had become a bolting gallop and she let out a deafening shriek as she drove her body frenziedly up and down and I felt the convulsing folds of her pussy gripping me tight as she arched backwards, reaching behind herself and grabbing hold of my legs for support. Looking down again I saw my rock-hard shaft driving up into her, her pussy-lips were by then thickly swollen and had become a dark, glistening red colour and I could see the raw, swollen nub of her clit poking out from amongst the dark mass of hair that surrounded it.

While continuing to squeeze and fondle one breast I let go of the other and slid my hand down and, reaching forward between her thighs, lightly brushed the flat tip of one finger over the hard ridge of it – and as I did that she finally went high over the top!

She rammed herself down so hard that it felt as though she was stripping the skin from my cock. And with such ferocity that she almost immediately brought on my own climax. Every muscle in my body locked tight, arching my hips, thrusting my cock even higher, driving it deep into her cunt. Then, in a massive surge, the first load of semen erupted, scorching hard and deep into her – quickly followed by another, and another as my body heaved convulsively.

Yet massive though it was for both of us, for me at least the effect of the fruit had not been totally exhausted and as the power of Mierka’s climax lessened and she fell forwards and rested on her hands and knees, I slid out from under her and moved around to kneel behind her. then slipped my still fully engorged cock between her thighs and guided it back into her sopping pussy.

The second climax was longer in coming and nowhere near as powerful as the first, but just as exciting and in some ways far more satisfying, and afterwards, as we lay locked in each other’s arms, we shared and compared the feelings we had each experienced.

Both of us had felt the same slow, prickling arousal and both had found themselves visualising the sexuality of the other’s body. Mierka found that she was unable to think of anything but my cock, as it had been that first time, monstrously erect, glistening, pulsating – and that as that image remained fixed in her sight, so her body began to get more and more sexually aroused.

‘The component seems to work at two levels. On both the mind and the body.’ she said. ‘The mental thing reinforces what is happening physiologically. It’s an amazing combination!’

‘So are the results lover.’ I answered, squeezing her even more tightly.

She chuckled happily. ‘You’ll get no argument from me on that. How are you feeling now though?’

‘Fine. Funnily enough I don’t even feel tired. Quite the reverse actually. Pepped up.’

‘Me too. I’m beginning to think that there’s a secondary effect from the fruit, I don’t know whether it’s from the same component that stimulates the sex drive or whether it’s another one altogether. I must do some work on that too.’

‘Not now you won’t.’

‘Why darling?’

I grinned and answered. ‘Because right now I’m ordering up another couple of pieces and we’ll see what happens after that.’

She laughed and I saw that wicked twinkle in her eyes again. ‘Such dedication to science ought to be rewarded.’

It was! Within a few minutes we were both ready to go again – and we did, not with the same frenzy as we just had but with just as much pleasure and even more satisfaction. And after that bout we did in fact sleep a while, not so much from exhaustion, more for the sheer enjoyment of relaxing snugly together.

*

Chapter 6

The Joys of Research

When I woke and checked the time I saw that I had slept through until early evening, Mierka’s place beside me was empty and when I got up I found that she was working.

‘So, how are the results of the trials looking?’ I asked as she looked up and smiled at me.

‘Fine lover, fine. You slept well?’

‘Out like a light.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘Great, just great. And you?’

‘Likewise. And I don’t just feel well, I am well – much better than when we arrived here. The tests prove it, somehow the components do a clean-up job on us as well as making us sexy. It doesn’t just make us feel good, it actually does us good. It’s incredible!’

‘So we needn’t feel guilty about taking it?’

‘No, it’s therapeutic. Were you feeling guilty?’ she asked anxiously.

I grinned cheekily and answered. ‘No way. But I’m glad I haven’t got to, just in case I sometime might. How about the other aspects, dosage, stuff like that?’

‘I don’t have the complete answers because I can’t isolate the specific molecule or set of molecules that is the active one, we’ll have to wait until I can get the data fed into the equipment at work for that. But as to the fruit itself, yes – it looks as though there is a short-span, cumulative effect and the amount per kilo of body-weight appears to be virtually identical for male or female. Although I got the feeling at the time and that seems to be confirmed by our notes on the screen-pads, that my response was a bit slower than yours.’

‘But just as strong in the end?’

‘I’d say so. At least so far as any one person can tell, without being able to flip into someone else’s mind to compare reactions it’s hard to be definite.’

We found we were both unusually hungry and having prepared a meal for ourselves we continued to talk as we ate, about our deeper feelings to what the stuff in the fruit had done to us and about the work Mierka still had ahead of her when we got home. As we were finishing the meal, I asked her what she planned to do with the results when she had completed everything.

‘Publish them of course. It will be sensational, in spite of all the marvellous things we’ve been able to discover and develop nobody has ever been able to formulate a true aphrodisiac, yet here it is, in nature.’ she answered excitedly.

‘And bang goes the island, the night-flyers and who knows what else.’ I said seriously.

That stopped her, I could see her thinking through what I’d said and knew she understood exactly what would happen. Assuming the fruit on this island was unique in its strength, if not its property, as we thought – while the chemists were developing and getting the necessary approvals for a man-made duplication of the component, someone would quickly put up the cash to harvest the place, rape it for a quick profit.

‘So what do you suggest Slate. What’s the alternative, forget it? Someone else will come here, sooner or later. The information will get out.’

‘Probably later rather than sooner darling. As you saw at the resort, most tourists prefer to stick close to their creature comforts, a day or two out on the nearer islands is one thing, the numbers coming out as far as we have would be pretty small. And there are so many hundreds of islands that the chance of someone coming to this one is pretty remote. We certainly wouldn’t have if you hadn’t brought your mini-lab along with us, we would have had no reason, we’d have put our extra sexual activity to being just the result of being away from the pressures of life – as we did at first.

My idea is to go commercial – with a man-made substitute I mean.’ I added as I saw her about to disagree with me. ‘We get home and finish your tests without saying anything to anyone, isolate the component, make sure it’s duplicatable, test it ourselves, then go through the rigmarole of the bureaucratic approvals – after you’ve patented it. We need never mention this place at all, no one need ever know where or how you found it, put it down to inspiration, a stroke of genius, whatever you like – but that way we leave the island and the night-flyers in peace.’

‘I need to think about that Slate, you’re assuming a lot you know. We don’t know for sure that the answers will be so easy to find, even with the laboratory’s equipment, I’m not sure I could do too much work without anyone knowing just what I’m up to, or that I have the skills to develop a replicate myself.’

‘Take your time but just think about the alternative too – if we don’t do that you either have to say nothing at all and hope that someone doesn’t stumble on this place too soon, or see it vanish in less than a year – because that’s what will happen, isn’t it?’

She nodded miserably, knowing some men’s continuing capacity for getting a quick profit regardless of the consequences. ‘You’re right, I know you’re right. Just let me think about it all, give me a bit of time.’

‘Would you like to be alone for a bit?’

‘I think that mightn’t be a bad idea. Would you mind?’

‘Of course not, I’ll stretch my legs on the beach.’

As I left the dome I quite absentmindedly picked up a piece of fruit from the table and was about to bite into it when I realised what I was doing and shoved it in my pocket instead.

It was a wonderful night, the sky a deep black velvet, the stars burning through it in fierce pin-points of brilliance, but of course there were no constellations I could recognise. I slipped down the dune and on to the firmer sand beside the gently breaking sea and began to walk, letting my mind drift wherever it fancied, but as I walked I felt the piece of fruit in my pocket banging rhythmically against me.

‘What would my reaction be, without Mierka beside me?’ I found myself wondering. The other times, she had been there and my mind had been filled with pictures of her, would they re-play, or would something or someone else take her place? Perhaps I could find out if I took just a small bite, just enough to start the process going. After all – ‘It was in the interests of science.’ – I said to myself, as I pulled the fruit out and looked at it. ‘Just a small bite.’ I said aloud, then bit into it.

Either I misjudged the size of the bite I had taken or the short-span cumulative effect Mierka had mentioned had a longer time-span than I thought she meant.

As before, I first became aware of the pleasant tingling feelings running through my skin then the prickling sensations, which converged on my crotch, and my cock slowly responding by thickening and lengthening. During the minutes that took to happen I slipped out of my clothes and walked down to the edge of the sea, standing there, looking out across its darkly polished surface, letting the small wavelets break over my feet as the refreshing evening breeze blew lightly over my body.

I was staring up at the stars and while one part of my mind was trying to decide which of those I could see was actually the brightest, with another I could tell that the prickling sensations running up and down the shaft, around the head and over and through my balls was gradually growing in intensity. As it grew steadily stronger and stronger the importance of grading the stars diminished and then vanished – its place being taken by an increasingly powerful feeling of a need for sex.

The next few minutes were quite bewildering, it was as though my brain had spun into re-play mode, projecting a series of flickering images – perhaps for me to choose from. Some I recognised as being repeats of actual events, others as being brief excerpts from various fantasies I had created for myself at different times. And after those came scenes I knew I had neither experienced nor dreamed of, and those were the most powerfully erotic of all.

Naturally the love-making Mierka and I had shared came first, my mind combining two particular occasions into one experience – the way I had felt on our first night on Seltire, when I saw her in that skin-tight outfit – blending that with the first wildly uncontrolled session that had been powered by the effect of the fruit. Then recalling earlier times, some of which my conscious mind had quite forgotten, memories from our first years together, when either out of bravado or sheer urgency we had sometimes made love in strange or exciting situations.

Then, I found Mierka being replaced by other women, women I recognised, women I had been attracted to – some I had actually had sex with, others that I hadn’t, but wished I had. One particular woman featured in a number of scenes, a tall, pale blonde from Scania, that I had met quite soon after Mierka and I begun as a committed pair – who had made no attempt to disguise the fact that she wanted me, under almost any circumstances. She was so beautiful and so incredibly sexy I had been tempted almost beyond description, especially when, on one or two occasions she had nakedly flaunted herself in front of me, almost begging me to take her. In my imagination I was again tempted to do so and this time, began to – recklessly, fiercely – only to see her return a few scenes later for more.

It quickly became quite clear that I was being even more strongly aroused by the images that were based on my or my brain’s fantasies than I had been by the recall of actual events – and as the fantasies continued to become even more fantastic so the need inside me rose higher and higher.

I found myself fucking or being fucked by women of all races and colours, singly, in pairs, in groups – and in places and circumstances I couldn’t normally have even dreamed of. On the flight deck of the ship that had brought us to Seltire, fucking the female pilot’s gorgeous arse, as she brought the ship down through the planet’s outer atmosphere. Her screams of pleasure providing the sound effects for the clouds that streamed soundlessly past the ship. Floating in some warmly scented pool, my head between a pair of incredibly silky thighs, avidly licking one of the prettiest pussies I had ever seen – while, in the water beneath me, I was having my cock exquisitely sucked by another, unknown but very expert woman. Cavorting on a room-sized bed with what appeared to be an entire class from a girls’ high-school, somehow knowing that many of the girls were still virgins and that my objective was to fuck each one – and then identify those that had been.

And there were many, many more – each one more powerfully arousing than the one before.

Yet somehow I was able to break out of the seemingly never-ending loop of images, bring myself back to what seemed to be reality and, looking down at my cock I saw that it was by then not only fully erect, but massively engorged. But, as I stared at it I saw that in spite of that, it was in fact still jerking upwards, its continuing growth powered by the blood still being pumped into it – and that the skin covering the swollen head was already so drum-tight that it reflected the dim star-light above me.

Then, looking up at the sky, I saw that the stars appeared to be shifting their positions, starting to move, and even as I stared up in fascination and they gradually increased their speed, I realised that my inner, sexual need was growing even stronger still. After a while I was able to make sense of what seemed to be happening to the stars – as they swirled around, spiralling about each other, they began to form a whirlpool, a whirlpool that span faster and faster. Then a section of the whirling mass formed itself into a funnel – a funnel of stars – that slowly began to writhe down out of the sky, towards me.

I stood still, quite unable to move as they came lower, some stars whirling around my head, while others span down around my body – some slipping through me, increasing the force of the sparking charges that continued to run down through my skin towards my crotch. Then, as though drawn by the forces inside, the stars became packed more tightly together, forming a smaller funnel – then the funnel shifted forward, fitting itself over my cock and balls.

Even as I felt the heat of the open end burning as it pressed up against my belly I felt the tube beginning to oscillate, expanding and contracting rhythmically – squeezing the entire length of my cock. As the sparks of fire whirled over and around it I felt as though the heat and energy of the stars was combining with and increasing what was already churning the reservoir of semen that had been building-up in my achingly swollen balls.

The need for release became totally overwhelming and as I felt my body tensing, pushing my cock deeper into the flickering, pulsating funnel and I gripped the cheeks of my arse tightly with both hands as even stronger shock waves coursed up into my brain. Through the whirling, twinkling stars I could just make out the shape of the shaft, it was huge, its surface a mass of knotted veins that were stretched to more than full capacity by the volume of blood surging inside them as the stars continued pulsing up and down its length, powerfully massaging and pumping it.

As the force inside me continued to mount I felt my entire body arching backwards, my hips thrusting my cock powerfully forward, then my balls tightening, drawing themselves hard up underneath the base of it. And as they did that the stars fired still more charges through them, super-heating the seething mass within, until, like a pressure-vessel venting, they blasted their contents up through the white-hot length of my surging shaft.

I watched, mesmerised, as the thick, creamy jet exploded out of me, out through the narrowing funnel, out across the blackness of the sea, to be immediately followed by another and another and still a fourth – the pleasure-centres in my head over-loaded by the sheer ecstasy surging through them – my body concentrating every ounce of its strength behind those searing bursts and shuddering at the force of those that followed them.

The shock of the feel of the cold water brought me back to reality and I found I had fallen to my knees, I was gasping for breath, my entire body shaking, I was totally spent, utterly drained by the force of what I had experienced. As I had that first time, I plunged out into the sea and swam as hard and as fast as I could, in an attempt to burn off whatever residual effect there might be, then, only when I felt I was on the verge of exhaustion, I ran back to the dome to dry – and add my experience, or at least a somewhat censored version of it, to Mierka’s growing information bank.

She was fascinated by the fact that my brain had used not only my own memories and fantasies but had created others itself and that it had then used an external trigger to create a fantasy that was able to fulfil the needs of my body. She was also amazed at how strongly I had physically reacted to the experience – but I sensed a hint of more than scientific disappointment in her voice as she said.

‘We may find that the intensity of the experience was so strong that it has dramatically reduced your ability to respond again tonight.’

‘And then again we may find that it hasn’t.’ I responded, slipping my arm around her waist and pulling her into my arms. ‘We’ll just have to continue the trial, as we planned. Then we’ll find out who is capable of what, won’t we. But before we get around to that, have you decided what you think we ought to do?’

‘I agree with what you suggested. We’ll give it a try, I just hope I have enough of the right data for us to do a full reconstruction when we get home – that’s now my only real worry. I’ll take more samples from us tonight, although yours will now be skewed by the extra quantity of fruit you have had – and we can’t be sure just how much that was.’ she added accusingly. ‘Then tomorrow I’ll get more fresh fruit samples and load the results of my tests on them into the mini-lab too, just in case there’s something I’ve missed so far. That’s about all we can do – then hope I’ve been thorough enough.’

‘I’m sure you have darling. Have a bit of faith in yourself. Now, before we do anything else, I need something to eat, I’m simply famished.’

‘Yes, that’s a good idea, I could eat something too Slate.’ she answered, which, as we had only finished eating just before I went out for my walk, of course immediately aroused my curiosity. I put my own hunger down to the energy draining experience I’d had on the beach, why should Mierka be hungry again so quickly?

I looked up questioningly, then went over to where she was storing the samples we had cut and weighed earlier – I felt sure there were a couple missing and she was grinning sheepishly when I looked across at her again.

‘O.K. – O.K. I sneaked another go too.’

‘And you had the cheek to try to make me feel guilty, about spoiling the results of your trials – and risking reducing my ability to perform again?’ I added with a grin.

‘Well, at least I measured how much I had and recorded the effects properly. Not like you – just wolfing down some unknown amount of fruit just for a quick thrill.’

‘So, what happened to you – how was it, on your own I mean?’

‘Something similar to what happened to you, if you were telling me the truth that is. A series of pictures, first of you, then of other men – quite a variety of men – and in a variety of situations.’ she said, giving me a very meaningful look.

I had cut-out a number of my experiences when I told Mierka what had happened, toned down some of the things I had imagined, reduced the number of women I had done them with – obviously Mierka’s experience had been just as varied as my own.

‘And the finale, how did your brain deal with that lover?’ she flushed and for a moment or two I thought she wasn’t going to answer me – then, realising that we had both been at the mercy of our imaginations, she answered quietly.

‘A man – a man I couldn’t see – and another woman. Another woman’s hand frigged me while the man was fucking me – that’s what was happening when I came.’

‘That’s something we’ve never done, had you before – I mean before we met?’

‘No, never. It never really appealed to me, a threesome I mean, either sort of threesome. But the imagery was powerful all the same. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me, I made enough noise at the time.’

‘If it was about the same time as my own I wouldn’t have heard you if I’d been standing right beside you darling. So, food for two then – and you had better do some ‘before and after tests’, to see just how much energy and nutrition the stuff uses up.’

‘Yes, that’s a good idea, obviously it’s quite a lot.’

Mierka took more blood samples and we added the results of our separate, individual tests to the growing data bank, then sat down to have a snack together.

We ate in silence for a while, each engrossed in their own thoughts – but we hadn’t been eating long when, to my surprise, I became aware of a faint tingling sensation in my hands, which was soon followed by the familiar prickling sensation and then, as my cock began to respond, a growing awareness of Mierka’s presence. Of the way her hair fell and framed her face, of the shape of her mouth and lips as she slowly chewed what she was eating, of the way her breasts rose and fell as she breathed.

Then I saw that she was watching me closely, her eyes held a questioning look. ‘Tingling?’ She asked.

‘Prickling.’ I answered.

‘So you do respond faster. And there is a cumulative build-up.’ She got up quickly and fetched her sampling kit. ‘Quick, while I can still concentrate, I’ll need some more blood samples. This is amazing.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Sorry, just a small experiment. I didn’t want to say anything in case it affected your reaction. I’ve added a very small amount, as juice, to the sauce. Too small to work on its own – but I needed to test the idea about the strength of the residual build-up in our bodies. It looks as though I was right. The samples will confirm it I hope.’

As she took the samples I noticed that her hands weren’t as steady as they usually were. But at the same time, having her so close to me, the smell of her filling my nostrils, her fingers brushing over my skin – all combined to send a rush of arousal coursing through me and I needed all my willpower to stop myself wrapping my arms around her and pulling her to me.

She only needed a couple of minutes to take and prepare the samples for the mini-lab and when she had done that she stood and looked at me. ‘I’d like to try something, if you don’t mind that is.’

‘What love?’

‘The amount that’s left in us is probably quite small, we may not have such a frenzied reaction this time. I’d like us to see how long we can hold off – actually making love I mean, see how much control we actually have over ourselves.’

‘Could be interesting. What do you want us to do?’

‘I’m not really sure – any ideas?’

The ideas I had right at that moment were for us to head straight for the sleep-pads, strip and fuck. That wasn’t what she had in mind though, so I tried to think about alternatives instead – but my head was already so full of what my body wanted to do with hers that I really wasn’t getting very far. Mierka saved me from any further mental struggle by saying.

‘How’s this sound. We strip off and lie next to each other, just holding hands, just see how long we can manage to stay like that. Then do whatever we have to.’

‘At least you’re not proposing to tie me down or anything like that – that’s something. O.K., let’s give it a try. But I warn you, the way it’s building up, I may not be able to last too long.’

She grinned. ‘Don’t worry lover, I’m starting to feel horny too.’

Just watching her strip was bad enough, she took her top off first and I saw that her nipples were already slightly swollen, a little darker than normal, then I watched them swaying seductively to and fro as she took off the rest of her things. She was watching me as keenly as I was her of course and when I stepped out of my trousers, freeing my cock and it sprang straight up, quivering as it continued to grow, she stared across at it and, lifting her hands to her breasts, lightly caressed and squeezed them.

‘Just hold hands, that’s what you said, so no cheating.’ I said.

‘What? Oh!’ she pulled her hands away from herself and, looking quite guilty, said. ‘I didn’t realise I was doing that! Seeing you in that condition is pretty arousing stuff Slate.’ she added, as she looked back down at my still rising cock.

‘Just remember that it’s the same for me, seeing you naked lover – and this was your idea, not mine.’

‘O.K. – O.K. Maybe we won’t last too long after all. Come on, lie down next to me.’ she said as she settled down on the sleep-pad.

I made myself comfortable, lying flat on my back, looking straight up at the roof of the dome and feeling the coolness of her slender fingers inter-twining with mine.

‘What’s happening inside your head Slate?’

‘Right this minute?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can see your breasts, soft, full curves, their tips swelling, getting stiff – and the look in your eyes as you stared at my cock, hungry for it. Now I’m letting my eyes drop lower, down over the sweet curve of your tummy, to the dark, curly hair below – and I’m seeing the moist pinkness of your sex, I can smell it, now I can taste you, feel you opening up for me.

Heavens I want you Mierka!!!’

My voice was hoarse and gruff, but as I started to roll over towards her, she gently but firmly restrained me.

‘Wait! Wait just a little longer love. Do you want to know what I’m seeing?’

I really wanted to plunge my cock into her, to cool the fire that was burning inside it with the moistness of her cunt – but I somehow managed to hold on to myself – and answer.

‘Yes, yes please.’

‘I’m seeing your cock – your big, proud, angry, beautiful cock. Tall, strong – so very strong. Its head is so swollen, it’s quite glossy. I want to taste it, to feel the smoothness of it inside my mouth – yet inside my sex too. I wish you had two of them, one for me to suck on while the other is fucking me.’

While she was speaking the sensations inside me were continuing to grow in intensity, her words and the pictures they produced inside my head only fuelled the power of it – the affect was the same as spraying neat spirit on an already blazing fire, explosive. Then, through the thickening haze of lust I heard her voice again.

‘I want to suck your cock Slate. Stay as still as you can, close your eyes, let me please you that way for now.’

I did as she asked and felt her move around, ease my legs apart, then felt the softness of her skin against my inner thighs as she kneeled between them. She slid one hand beneath my already swollen balls, the touch of her fingers as she lifted and held them sent a sudden shower of sparks of pleasure up through my body, bursting like fireworks inside my brain. Then the cool touch of her fingers as she wrapped them around the heat of the shaft, squeezing it, stroking up and down it. Finally the moist warmth of her lips and tongue on the head, her teeth lightly grazing its super-sensitive skin, her tongue swirling around it – then her mouth engulfing it.

It took all of my strength to stop my body’s natural reaction to simply thrust myself hard up into her throat, to lie as still as I could, let her do what she wanted with me.

And it felt as though she was determined to drive me crazy before she let me climax.

In my mind I could see her hands and her mouth, nothing else, just her hands and her mouth – as though they were disembodied.

Her hands, one holding my aching balls, fondling and rolling them – the other curled around the shaft, forcing the loose folds of skin downwards, making the way smooth for her closely following mouth.

Her full, glistening lips – her mouth forced wide open by the sheer size of me – slipping slowly down over the curve of my cock-head, closing fractionally tighter as they slipped into the deep groove behind it, then forcing themselves down the long, hard length of my shaft. Feeling her throat muscles relaxing as she took in more and more of the rigid length of me, until she had it all and my cock-head nudged against the back of it.

Having taken all of it she paused for a moment, then, as both hands continued their gentle, but insistent caressing, she began to move her head up an down. Most of the time she used a shorter, bobbing action, triggering much sharper responses by tightening her lips so they rubbed up and down over the sensitive rim of my cock-head. Interspersing that with several long, swooping pushes down to the base, pausing each time she reached bottom, letting my cock bathe in the velvet moistness of her mouth.

As the thrills of what she was doing to me combined with the effects of the fruit, I felt the pressure inside me swiftly rising. Her mouth and hands seemed to sense that growing need and began to move more quickly, more quickly and more strongly, as though urging me on. Then, just as I felt the first surge rising, her mouth began to suck me – but far more powerfully than I had ever, ever felt it do before, as though she was trying to suck the very life-force out of me.

And it did!

And, just as that first gout exploded up through me her fingers tightened their grip of my balls, and as my body pumped and jetted the thick stickiness high above me, I felt their rhythmic squeezing, as though they were trying to force every single drop out of them.

As release came I became aware of my surroundings again, heard the rasping gasps of my breath, felt the shuddering convulsions of my body as the final spasms lessened in strength – and opened my eyes – to see Mierka staring hard at my still jerking cock, from where she squatted, down between my feet!

But the confusion that span around in my head went unanswered for a while. Her eyes looked up into mine and in them I saw her own unsatisfied hunger and, without saying a word she slid my legs back together, straddled me and lowered herself down on to my still rampant cock.

That second climax was less intense – but in a way even more delightful because of that. My mind was clearer and I was able to appreciate her body and its growing response to what my cock was doing for it as she powered herself up and down it.

She came strongly and noisily, I watched as her body arched itself backwards, the muscles across her belly flexing as the force of it gripped her – and felt those inside her rhythmically gripping my cock as she rode it, as though she needed to feel it climax too. And it did, with nothing like the power of the earlier one of course but, from some deep inner reserves, my body found more to give her and I saw a tight smile of satisfaction appear on her face as she felt my cock erupting inside her.

*

Chapter 7

Results and Rewards

Later, after we had both recovered a little and we lay quietly in each other’s arms I asked her the question that had been nagging away inside me.

‘How did you do it?’

‘What lover?’

‘Get me off, I mean, from where you were?’

‘I didn’t – you did.’

‘Explain please.’

‘You did it yourself – your imagination, the same thing as happened to you on the beach.’

‘But – I felt you.’

‘Your brain felt me. Oh I kneeled between your legs, for a moment or two, so you would have felt that – but then I slid backwards and just watched. It was wonderful Slate, so powerful – very, very arousing. It’s a picture I’ll never forget, seeing it pumping all that semen out, so strongly – unbelievable! Then I couldn’t help myself, it had got me so sexy I just had to, well help myself I suppose.’ she said with a smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’ she added cheekily.

I was confused, the images had been so realistic, the effect so incredibly strong – yet, with only her original suggestion to trigger the scenario, my brain had supplied everything else.

‘But why, what made you want to do that?’

‘It was what you said about what happened to you on the beach. You said you hadn’t touched yourself. I believed you of course, yet I needed to convince myself it was possible – I needed to see it for myself.’

‘It’s even more amazing than we first though, isn’t it?’

‘Yes lover, yes it is. It not only creates a powerful sex-drive, it stimulates the brain in some way, to enable it to create an appropriate fantasy to heighten the climax, make it more real if you like. There are all sorts of implications for its use – not just as a physical aphrodisiac I mean. That’s research I’ll have to leave to others, I’m not qualified to do that. But it’ll keep people busy for quite some time, I’m sure of that.’

‘But just think Mierka. All the billions of lonely people in the galaxy, not just the space-crews, the terra-formers and the people on remote mining sites – the lonely people in the middle of the cities too. We won’t just be able to help couples have better sex – as I was first thinking – this stuff will be like a miracle for all those lonely people, providing them with the ‘company’ they can’t find, straight out of their own particular imagination. It will give each one of them exactly what they want. It could even help people with major socio-pathic problems, the weirdoes and perverts I mean – by providing an acceptable release for their needs too.’

The possibilities were rushing through my head in an endless flow. The commercial and medical markets expanding with each thought. The potential was limitless, the rewards, beyond my imagination.

And they have been!

It took a little longer than I had hoped but then once the bureaucrats get involved it always has done – and human nature doesn’t seem to change much over time. But in the end it was well worth the wait.

We finished our trials a few days later, packed-up all our gear and headed back for the resort, then home. Once back Mierka worked feverishly for several weeks, all in her spare time of course, we couldn’t afford to let anyone know what she was up to. In spite of her worries the laboratory’s equipment had very little trouble extending the data that she’d piled into the mini-lab and although the number-crunching took longer than she had expected, mainly because the chemical composition was just so damn complex, the night she finally got the results out was one neither of us is ever likely to forget.

The stuff was replicable! Not only replicable – but by relatively simple and inexpensive processes, it wasn’t going to cost a squillion credits to get under way.

We treated ourselves to a night out at the most expensive place in town and, as it had the reputation of being the place all the glams and trendies went, I persuaded Mierka to wear her Seltire outfit, the body-suit. She finally agreed, on condition that I wear the one she had bought for me too – and between us we caused a minor sensation, with people almost queuing up to touch, then watch as various parts of us appeared through the transparent section of the fabric. As its constant kneading kept me in a state of almost permanent arousal my crotch came in for a lot of attention from the women – and quite a few of the men too! We were both too keyed up from the results of Mierka’s work to care and revelled in the unusual situation of being the centre of attention for the night.

If I had been more fashion conscious I would have seen the potential market for the fabric and worked-up some kind of deal with Seltire’s supplier. But then if I had done that Mierka and I might never have followed the night-flyers and found the island…

After all that we didn’t need any additional stimulant when we got home and I think we spent most of the rest of it making love to each other.

Then came the months and years of real work. Raising enough credits to get the initial batch of purified material produced. Applying for patents and then testing approval. Trials of a hundred different sorts. Developing commercial manufacturing plans, marketing arrangements, lines of credit. And trying to do all that in as much secrecy as we could maintain.

I guess my selling skills had as much to do with our ultimate success as Mierka’s scientific work and I was able to convince the key people very early on that the rewards were going to be far greater for all of us if we were able to market the final product with a real ‘bang’, rather than have bits of what we were doing leak out over a period of time in a series of smaller ‘pops’. And amazingly that’s just what we were finally able to do.

We brought out a whole range of products, all based on the same stuff of course, just in various levels of strength. Mild for couples looking to enhance what they already had together. Stronger for the lonely and more elderly ones. Stronger still for the medical needs of the mentally and physically handicapped and a variety of strengths for further scientific trials.

It was one of the fastest marketing successes the galaxy had ever seen. I suppose that wasn’t really surprising, after all sex is the most basic of drives and just about everyone has an interest in improving what they’re getting, or finding a substitute for what they’re not getting.

‘Starsex’ is what we called the product line intended for normal use. Mierka actually came up with the name – my description of what happened to me on the beach still fascinates her.

These days we spend most of our time literally cruising the galaxy. Mierka’s never without her mini-lab of course and the equipment she has at the place we call home is about ten times the size and power of the stuff she had in the laboratory where she used to work – so she’s as happy as a kid in a toy shop. Me, I run the expanding business, we’re into all sorts of things now – but ‘Starsex’ is still the corner-stone and most financially rewarding division.

We bought Seltire some time ago, it cost a fair bit of course but we both agreed it was more than worth any price. Apart from being able to ensure nobody else got near the night-flyers and their orchard, there’s a sentimental aspect too, for both of us. We still recall those first days there, the strange and exciting events, the wonderfully powerful experiences we shared. And in both our cruiser and at home, above our sleep-pads, there are a few pieces of the dried fruit, set in crystal – the pieces I smuggled home with us, just in case the mini-lab had missed something.

Many’s the night, when we’ve had particularly satisfying sex, that one or the other of us will reach up and take it down – and together we smile at the memories it never fails to bring back for us.