From the Journals of Rachael M. Blist

Chapter 6 – Shannon

How long I was raped in this way I have no idea. The events of the next week or so were very fuzzy. At one point I remember a loud booming sound, and then a quick reduction in my arousal. In fact, I nearly fell to the floor as the tentacles and even the seat I was seemingly affixed to, simply disappeared. That is to say that they withdrew and I found myself in a featureless cave-like space. I knew I was still in the ship, but beyond that, my mind was still trying to deal with the sudden lack of pleasure. It couldn’t. My own hands reached down between my legs and continued the ongoing ecstasy at a level that was magnitudes less than my former lover. Whimpering, I can remember several more booms and then silence. There was a sharp prick in my arm, and then wonderful unconsciousness.

I awoke in what looked like a big white bed, with a Kzin-sized headache and a real need to pee. I tried to take in my room with fuzzy vision. It was white, like everything else, and appeared to have no doors. In fact, it looked curiously like I was still in the ship… only, somehow it was different; softer.

“You are safe, Rachael…” said a gentle, quiet female voice from all around me. I had jumped at the sound.

“Who are you, and where am I?”

“My name is Shannon. You are a guest aboard my vessel.”

I shook my head, trying desperately to clear away some of the confusion that had me nearly crying.

“Vessel?… What vessel?!”

“I am the vessel. You are aboard a living ship, Rachael… a Tandroth.”

“What the…” You have to understand that I had only heard rumors of the Tandroth ships. They were somewhat of an interstellar oddity in that they were literally living creatures that traveled the depths of space like great whales in the oceans back on Earth. To travel in one was not only unlikely, it was ridiculously expensive. It wasn’t the luxury that they offered. My “quarters” were almost as spartan as Halfe’s. It was their speed. No other ships could come close to the speeds at which the Tandroth moved, save possibly the occasional Gen’rat military scout ship, and they were nearly all engine. The crew even had to be placed in semi-suspension just so that the backlash from the hyperdrives didn’t turn their brains to mush. But this was not the case with the Tandroth. Somehow, they leisurely moved from system to system, carrying special rush cargo and emergency passengers that were willing to pay for getting there in a tenth the time of a normal transport… without the disturbing effects of hyperdrive.

My so-called client had been a Tandroth then. But why then was I aboard another living ship? Or was this the same one?

“I…”

“Have a great many questions,” it interrupted. “Yes, I know. Hold them for now. Take care of your needs, eat, and rest. When you are ready, I will answer as many as possible.”

I got off the bed and felt the stirring in my loins. Damn if I wasn’t a horny bitch. Not more than 24 hours earlier I had been thoroughly raped into near unconsciousness, and already I was thinking about how I was going to get off without offending my rescuer. What was wrong with me? Then I realized that my rape may have been more than a bit unsettling.

Mind you, I’m no cream-puff. My life recently had hardened me enough to make most problems back on good-ol’ Terra seem downright laughable. I had enjoyed sex with races of beings that would cause heart failure in most human females. Still, I had had some pretty serious pleasure forced upon me, for an unknown period of time. That kind of mental conditioning changes a person, and right then I felt pretty out of control.

If my new host (or rather hostess) was watching me, I couldn’t tell. I knew, at least partially that “it”, being the ship, must certainly be aware of my presence at all times. But that didn’t bother me, even while I peed and freshened up. There are always security eyes, or safety sensors in almost every public place these days, at least in galactic society. People are used to them. As a rule, if you want privacy, you have to go find some, which means traveling to some barren planet and holing up in a cave, For a while, I was a bit paranoid of the whole thing, being from Earth and all. We Earthlings think that privacy is a right, and get flustered when somebody looks out their window at us. Galactics (most anyway) know that privacy is a state of mind. If one simply doesn’t care about what another entity thinks of you, then it doesn’t matter if they’re watching. Then again, Galactics have manners.

I’m ranting, I know, but this was one of the things that really struck me about a month after I was sucked up from Earth. At first I never even noticed it because it was so wonderful, and there were so many things that were different about galactic society that it almost slipped past me. Then when I finally figured it out, I spent almost three hours talking excitedly to Jaled about it. You see, a galactic wouldn’t think twice about holding a door open for you, or giving you room as you passed, or cleaning up after themselves. Even the base languages are set up to allow for one party to completely finish a thought before the other comments. Simple curtesy. Sure, there are exceptions and variations based on species and culture, but all in all, galactics make Earth humans look like complete assholes. Consider, when was the last time you took a leisurely drive in your car and didn’t get even a little pissed off at some moron who cuts you off or follows too closely. Or how about public restrooms… Ever notice how nobody talks to anyone else? It’s like taboo. Most people would say THAT was privacy. The concept of, “looking out for number one,” almost can’t be translated into galactic. Mind you, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad galactics. On the contrary, the entity might be a psychotic axe-murder, but damned if they won’t be nice about it.

So I peed, feeling a little weird as I remembered that everything around me, including the toilet, was part of Shannon. I hoped that what ever substance comprised her structure, lacked the sense of taste and smell.

When I returned to my “cabin” there were a number of familiar foods that had me nearly drooling on the floor. I dug into a rather tasty helping of Jemoj’in pastry pie without so much as a “thank you.” The dishes were wonderful, and I made a pig of myself. (If you have never had Jemoj’in pastry, then you haven’t really experienced desert. Imagine a food so delicious that it makes you want to cry. Add to that the fact that it’s light enough so that you could eat the stuff all day long and not get full, and to top it off, it’s better for you than a plate of asparagus. Yum!)

I found a shower, and to my surprise, my clothes and weapons. After having them forcibly removed from my person, I never really expected to see them again. Dressing, I flopped back down on the big bed thing and sighed.

“Are you refreshed enough to continue,” asked Shannon. Her voice was quiet and friendly, but I still jumped.

“Uh, I guess so…”

“Very well,” she continued. “Let me take care of the basics first. Once again, you are safe. You are aboard a Tandroth vessel, and my name is Shannon. Currently, we are just outside of the Brotuk sector on a course for Marner’s Jump Point and then to Fullier’s World, which is where you were last stationed I believe.”

‘Stationed’ is a word that in galactic means the place that you last lived. “Yes, but how did you know?”

“It was part of the original information that I used to find you.”

“Huh?” I blurted, completely confused.

“Oh my, perhaps I really should fill you in from the beginning.” The voice around me took on a slightly more relaxed tone and shifted to my left. “About one standard week ago, you disappeared off of Fullier’s World, or at least that’s what a certain secretary at your guild said. When you failed to report back to her that you were alright, she placed a missing person’s report with the authorities. Things happened very fast from there. Less than four hours later, my services were chartered by an agent of the Special Corp and I was given instructions to hunt down another Tandroth vessel, a male. My orders were to find you and bring you back to Fullier’s World unharmed, and from the implications, at whatever cost. You seem to have friends in high places.”

I was stunned.

“I was able to track the other vessel by tuning in to his drive resonance. In terms you would understand, it was equivalent to following his scent.”

“Drive resonance is one thing I do understand, actually. I’m a drive technician… or rather I would be if the Hyperspace Guild wasn’t composed of complete meatheads.”

“I heard about that incident. You were the rave of the newsfeeds for nearly two full days.”

“Really?!… I mean, I was?” With seventy trillion entities out there, getting your name in the news was equivalent to winning the New York State Lottery. To be there for two whole days was like winning that lottery a dozen times in a row. Galactic news moves fast. It has to. They put out the equivalent of the library of congress each day, just to cover the major worlds. It makes home-town papers like the Times seem downright insignificant.

“You were. I was quite impressed actually. Did you really threaten to cut one of the GuildMaster’s heads off?”

“Oh shit… They published THAT?!!”

“They covered the whole conversation. It’s not every day that someone brings down a guild, especially one with as much clout as that.”

I was quiet again. As her words hit home, I’m sure my mouth must have dropped open. “What did you say?…”

“I said they covered the whole conversation… I just loved the part when you called the Magistrate a slimy, sexless, bag of sh…”

“No! The OTHER part…” I interrupted.

“Huh? Oh, you mean about bringing down the Hyperspace Guild?”

“I did THAT?!!”

“Well,” she said with a slight sarcastic tone to her voice, “the newsfeeds made it sound a lot more romantic than I’m sure it was, but yes, your actions and the publicity it caused was ultimately attributed to the exposure of their illegal actions. About two days after you disappeared off of Telios V, the Federation of Justice stepped in and shut them down. There’s a whole new system in place by now I should think. By the way, what did happen to you, if I may ask? It’s still sort of a mystery drama on the nets…”

I couldn’t believe it. I knew at the time that I was probably causing a scene, but never in a billion years would I have guessed that I had personally caused the collapse of a governing structure that was older than most of human history.

“I… I got a job,” I stammered.

“As a drive tech, right?”

“Yes…”

“I knew it! A lot of people thought that you were killed by a vindictive Pertrephod, but I knew the moment they mentioned your combat training that you wouldn’t be caught off guard so easily.”

I stood up and walked around the room, trying desperately to clear my head.

“Were you really trained by a Kzin?”

As if a valve had suddenly opened allowing my emotions to pour forth, I burst into tears and dropped to the ground. I think I cried for a good hour, during which time my host was helpfully quiet. When I was finished, I splashed cold water on my face and thought hard.

“Shannon?” I asked to the air.

“I’m here… Sorry.”

I decided that my living transport had the emotional maturity of a human female in her late teens. She was as sucked into the soaps as any youthful girl would be, and I really couldn’t fault her for wanting to know all the juicy details of a current popularity who happened into her charge.

“Forget it. Listen, I want to ask you a serious question.”

“Sure…”

“You said that the Special Corp hired you to find me and bring me back to Fullier’s World. Did they specifically say Fullier’s World, or just to bring me back?”

I had only heard rumors of the Special Corp, and I didn’t like the idea of a big inquiry… One that could end with me mysteriously disappearing again, only this time in a more permanent fashion.

“Well… Yes, now that you mention it, they did just say to bring you back. I assumed to Fullier’s World because that’s where you left from.”

I walked back to bed and sat on the edge while we continued our conversation. “So, they could have meant that they just wanted me returned to safety, yes?”

“Hmmm,” she considered. “Well, put literally, I suppose so… Why?”

“Because if you take me back to Fullier’s, I may end up in a lot more danger than if you hadn’t ever found me in the first place.”

“I think I’m going to like this,” said the voice around me with a growing sense of excitement. “You want me to take you some place other than Fullier’s World?”

“That’s right.”

“This is so great… Where?!”

I sighed. Where indeed. Certainly no place I had visited before. I had a sudden idea and searched hopefully in my back pocket.

“Shannon, can you make interstellar calls while in Hyperspace?”

“No,” she replied. “But I could drop out for a bit if you would like to. Who are you going to call?”

“A friend,” I answered, fingering the plastic business card in my hand.

I wasn’t at all sure what to expect when I called Vax, but he seemed about the only one I knew that would most certainly be safe. Anyone else I knew (save for the crew of the Clipper Skies, but they were unreachable) was a risk in that they had probably been contacted by the authorities and might be being watched. Make no mistake. The law I knew was a damn side more efficient than its Earth counterpart. Hell, they could track you by your bank records alone… Not that you couldn’t do that on Earth, it’s just that they had much better systems in place to do it. One NOE could follow all the transactions for an entire world. How hard would it be to follow one single entity?

Shannon convinced me that the call I was making wasn’t being logged.

“My race has its own system of communications that is outside of the normal channels. No one yet has been able to invade it.”

“If you say so. I really don’t want you to get into any trouble. You did save my life. I take it those booms I heard were your weaponry?” I relaxed on the bed, idly playing with Vax’s card. Thinking about him brought back memories, and with them my need.

Shannon laughed. “The moron actually tried to fight back.”

“You weren’t hurt were you?!”

“Hardly,” she answered with a snort. “Rachael, a male Tandroth is about the size of a large Berilian Cruiser. That’s big as far as ships go. However, most females can’t even set to port at most worlds. We’re nearly three times as large…”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Wow!”

“So you see, even his best shot barely dirtied my outer hull. Don’t you fret a moment over it. Are you ready to place your call?”

“I think so. You’re sure this isn’t too much of an inconvenience?”

“You worry too much,” she said with a lilt in her voice. If she were human, I’m sure she would have been smiling. “I can drop in and out of Hyperspace at will.”

“Must be nice,” I said, not really having any idea what it would be like. I did know however, that it was a pretty big deal on normal starships. To drop out of Hyperspace in the middle of a run would mean at least a full recalibration and recalculation. At most, it could turn out that you couldn’t recalibrate and could become permanently lost.

I felt the strange squishy feeling that always accompanied a departure from Hyperspace and thought of sex again. Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and concentrated on what I wanted to say to Vax.

“Ok, all clear,” said Shannon. “What’s the number?”

I gave it to her and waited while she placed the call. It took a while to connect, and I noticed that the call was routed to several other systems before it finally went through. My blue lover appeared in the air, a little out of breath and wearing only a towel. His state of relative undress did nothing to help my need.

“Hello?” he said inquisitively. I had not yet activated on the visual on my side. Seeing he was alone, I had Shannon turn it on. “Rachael?”

“Hello, Vax.”

“Hello yourself!” At first, I thought he seemed surprised, even confused, now though, a smile as wide as his face spread out. “It’s good to see you! The nets almost had me believing that we had lost you…”

“Just misplaced,” I answered playfully. “I’m not inconveniencing you, am I?”

“Not on your life! Say, are you local?”

Time to fish or cut bait. “Well, that depends on you…”

He cocked his head to one side and plopped into a chair. “How’s that? Oh! The transfer! I’m dense… Sorry about that. It’s the company and all. They want to be able to get ahold of me no matter where I go. It’s like a leash. I’m on Dendreb Four, uh… here…” He tapped a panel on his end and an address came up on my side.

“Got it,” I said. Another message appeared in front of me as well. It was Shannon.

– THERE’S A PROBLEM. MAKE IT FAST. I’LL EXPLAIN LATER. MUST JUMP TO HYPERSPACE SOON. –

I nodded.

“Vax, I have to keep this call brief, but are you going to be there for a while?”

“No actually,” he said with a frown. “I have to leave tomorrow for Yan-Oko.”

I signaled to Shannon to mute. It would cause my image to freeze, but if I assumed a thoughtful pose, he might not notice.

“Muted,” she replied almost at once.

“How long would it take us to get to Yan Oko?”

“Same as Fullier’s World… Six days.”

I raised my eyebrows. Six days in Hyperspace was just about long enough to get anywhere in the galactic imperium. I wondered just how far away my former captor had gotten with me.

“Okay. Put me back on… Vax, love… How long’s your stay there?”

“Well,” he said scratching his head. “I have business for about four days, maybe five, why? You thinking of dropping by?”

“Actually, yes… That is if you don’t mind my company?”

“Mind?!” He gestured wide with his hands. “Hell, I may just cancel all my business and devote myself to you completely!”

“Oh, don’t do that… I mean, it sounds lovely, it’s just that I can’t get there for about six days or so. Would that still work?”

He thought about it. “Yeah, perfectly. I think I can even swing a little vacation time. Can you swim?” He was grinning in a way that made my nipples crinkle.

“Yes…” I said with playful caution.

“Great! Then it’s a date… Here’s the new address…” More text popped up in the air. “And I’ll let you go. This call must be costing you a fortune. Save the bill, I’ll have the company pick it up.”

I laughed. He was the most human non-human I had ever met. “I can’t wait to get ahold of you…”

“The feeling is mutual. See you soon then.”

“Yes. Bye Vax.”

I signalled to Shannon and she ended the call. Almost immediately, there was a sudden lurch, and then the mental burp of a Hyperspace jump. I kept quiet until she spoke again. It’s not wise to interrupt someone making a hyperspacial calculation.

“Sorry about that,” she said with a sigh.

“What happened?”

“Oh, well it seems that you must be more important to the Special Corp than you thought. The second we fell out of Hyperspace, I noticed another ship do the same just a few clicks away. That kind of coincidence just doesn’t happen, so it had to be somebody tracking us.”

“Through Hyperspace?” I asked with surprise. “Is that possible?”

“It’s not easy, but if you know where they’re headed, it can be done provided that you can keep up.”

“And these guys were?” I was getting a knot of tension in my stomach.

“Well, at first I thought so, then I noticed that two other ships came out of the dark just at the edge of my scanning range, which is better than is generally known. I realized that the only way ships like the ones I was seeing, could follow me would be to set it up ahead of time and do a sort of relay. Each ship takes a turn watching me.”

I frowned. “But how could they set it up ahead time. Even you didn’t know where that male ship was until you caught up with it.”

“They must have been waiting for me just after Gelver Gate. It’s the only logical place they could do it.”

“Gelver Gate! Damn, no wonder it’ll take six days to get to Yan-Oko… Shannon, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Gelver Gate was a wormhole. It was one of three such anomalies in known space, and this one was a link back from Gen-Prime, an area of space that was nearly a year away at hyperspacial speeds. The only way to get to Gen-Prime, was through another wormhole named Keytone Gate. My captor must have made a beeline to Keytone, knowing that anyone who risked coming after me would have a three week hypertrip just to get to the other gate and get back home. Of course, Shannon could make that trip in just three days. Even still, Gelver gate was located at the far corner of the imperium, so it was about as far away as you could get from, well… anything.

“Hey, don’t think anything of it. When I received my orders from the Special Corp, they said they managed to track your abductor to Keytone, so I knew what I was signing up for. But that information was highly classified. Only a group with access to that knowledge would have been able to rally enough ships near the gate before I came back through. Either way, that group wanted to be sure that you came back to Fullier’s. We blew their cover when we pulled out of Hyperspace. They probably had their navigation systems set to track our course precisely, and it would have worked if we hadn’t stopped to place that call. As it was, we caught them off-guard.”

“So are they still tracking us?” I asked.

“Not likely. I noticed that they started to close on our position, and that’s when I alerted you to speak quickly…”

“Shit…”

“Then I popped back into Hyperspace and changed course. Unless their technology has changed dramatically, the Tandroth are the only ones capable of that little trick.”

Little was hardly the word. Changing course while still in Hyperspace should be impossible. I know, I had done the math. It was even one of the questions on the guild test. Apparently, the Tandroth had found a loophole in physics. I was impressed, and I told her so.

So I had six days to kill until we reached Yan-Oko. Shannon was well stocked as far as ships go, but I was her only passenger, so I became a captive audience as it were. Which turned out to be a rather wonderful experience for the both of us.

You see, Shannon was a great listener as well as a great talker. She let me ramble on and on about whatever happened to be on my mind, and seemed to soak up every word. If she was bored, she never let it show.

About a day into our trip, I mentioned my time with Vax. We had become “girlfriends,” and I trusted her with the more intimate details of our relationship. Like any teenager, she was completely caught-up in the romance and wanted to know what it was like to have sex. I stumbled…

“Shannon… are you saying that your race, um… I mean, oh shit.. Are you a virgin?”

Now it was her turn to stumble.

“Well… now that you mention it, yes. Tandroth don’t mate but once a lifetime, and I still have a long way to go before I’m fully mature.”

I was curious. The male Tandroth that had abducted me was obviously able to feel pleasure. The thought of all those dark tentacles looped around and inside my body made me shiver. It also aroused the hell out of me. Then I realized that it was virtually impossible for me to relieve myself without being in contact with Shannon. I pushed back my own libido once again, knowing that I was going to have to do something long before we reached Yan-Oko.

The next day, Shannon helped me pass the time with a bit more Tandroth magic. I mentioned some of the customs of Earth, and how I felt that clothing styles had all but disappeared by the time I had been taken on my little journey.

“The late eighteen-hundreds… Now THEY knew how to make a dress!” I said enthusiastically. “Not much showing in the way of skin, but that was the whole point. It let you imagine what was buried under all that fabric.”

To my surprise, Shannon seemed to enjoy the talk of clothing, even though it was completely alien to her. Then, she pulled a fast-one and the next thing I knew, something white and frilly was rising out of the floor. I watched in complete amazement as the garment took shape and gradually gained detail.

“How did you do that!?”

“I pulled the design from the galactic database on your culture. It seems that there’s a considerable amount from what you refer to as the eighteen hundreds. Did I get the patterns right? I had to guess at your size.”

I bent over and touched the cloth. It wasn’t a hologram.

“It’s made from a type of protomatter I create out of myself. It won’t hold up outside my hull, but inside, I can pretty much duplicate anything I want. How did I do?”

“It’s beautiful!” I all but squealed. “Can I try it on?”

“Of course. That’s what it’s for, silly.”

I stripped out of my clothing without a thought and then carefully put on the white creation. The fabric seemed a bit odd to the touch, but otherwise, it was a perfect replica. I swirled around with glee.

“How do I look?” I asked, staring down at the flowing gown around me.

“Like a Princess, fit for planetary control.”

I smiled at her description and arched my head around, trying to get a look at the back of the dress.

“What are you doing,” she asked with what seemed to me a bit of a giggle.

“I want to get a look at the back… I don’t think I tied it correctly.”

“Hold on a sec…”

I was about to ask for a mirror, when I noticed something else coming out of the floor. It was another dress, just like the one I was now wearing. But instead of being held up by a stand, as mine was, it appeared to be on a manikin of sorts. I caught my breath as the “manikin” gradually gained detail. It was me.

Now, you must try to understand that I had seen lifelike dummies before. But this was scary. For all intents and purposes, I might as well have been looking in a mirror. The eyes were wet, for crissake! I moved around the new figure, looking more at my duplicate than at the dress. I even passed my hand in front of the eyes.

“That’s amazing!” I blurted as I leaned right up close to the face. I was staring right into its eyes when it suddenly blinked.

“Shit!”

The manikin turned its head slightly toward me and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” It was my voice.

“Oh my god…” I stammered. “Shannon?…”

“Yes,” answered the manikin.

“Whoa… this is unreal. I mean, of course it is… I mean, damn!” The manikin was moving now, and I could even see it breathing. It was nearly a religious experience to watch myself move around the room. This was no hologram… There were none of the tiny artifacts that remind you that you are viewing a projection. This was real!

“If it offends you, I can deconstruct it…”

“NO!” I all but yelled. “Please don’t! It doesn’t bother me at all… It’s just, well… hard to get my brain around.” Actually, it was more than just interesting. I found myself powerfully aroused for some reason. My nipples ached under the dress.

‘Shannon,’ was watching me as I moved around her/me, a slight smile on her face.

“When you said that you could duplicate anything, I didn’t think you meant organic beings…”

“I have been watching you for the last few days, as well as looking up information on your culture from the galactic database. I also viewed the confiscated materials from your captor… Sorry. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I think I have enough to vaguely imitate you.”

“Vaguely?! Damn, if you were any closer, I don’t think I could stand it!”

“I normally don’t make protodroids resembling on-board passengers, but it has been quite helpful on many occasions to greet a guest with something that looks like a friend. In your case I wasn’t sure how you would react, so I held off. When you asked for a mirror…”

I reached out and touched ‘Shannon’s’ cheek. It was warm, and sure felt real. “Do you, uh… feel?”

“I do, yes. But I doubt it feels the same as it would to you. I can’t replicate your body THAT closely.”

I took time, and examined the dress. It really was beautiful. When Shannon turned around, I could tell right away that I had indeed tied it incorrectly.

“Here,” I said pulling on the strings at the back of the gown. “Let me just retie this, then you can do me.” As I loosed the dress, its own weight started to pull it down over her shoulders. I was sure that she would hold the thing up, but it was a thought that wouldn’t occur to someone who had never worn clothing. It slipped right down her body, into a heap around her ankles. Suddenly, I found myself staring at my own nude self.

It was the same body that I had seen a thousand times before, only now, being able to stare at my back, it looked somehow like a completely different person. That was, until she turned around.

“Whoops,” she said, staring at the pile of white at her feet. “I guess I should have helped…”

“It’s my own fault. I should have let you know…”

“What’s wrong?” She asked, seeing me staring at her.

“Oh, it’s nothing… I mean, it’s just that… well…”

“If you’re not comfortable, I can change my appearance.”

“No, that’s not it,” I replied and took a small step forward.

“What then? The coloring? I can change the hair if you… mmmph!”

I had moved up to her, and without warning, leaned in and planted a wing-dinger of a kiss directly to her mouth. At first, she didn’t react at all. Not her fault, she had no idea what I was doing. A kiss, to her, was as alien as clothing, and since she couldn’t really feel my tongue down her throat, she hardly even raised an eyebrow. But I, on the other hand, was feeling quite aroused. Maybe I’m weird, but kissing yourself has to be one of the most sensually erotic experiences around. I was moaning into her mouth almost immediately. Unknown to me at the time, Shannon WAS feeling what I felt. It was that old human empathy thing. Shannon wasn’t sure what to do with her new sensations, so she applied them to her human ‘model,’ and started mimicking me. The result was that she started moaning and kissing me back.

I was so turned-on, that I instinctively brought my arms up and wrapped them around her waist, drawing her closer. Shannon, acted in kind and reached around behind my back to the laces of my dress. It a few moments, we were both wearing a pile of white pseudo-cloth around our ankles, and not a stitch more.

I think Shannon could have gone on indefinitely, but I needed to breath once in a while. I broke our kiss panting, and dizzy with arousal.

“That was marvelous!” Understated the being in my arms.

“It was?… Oh! Of course it was! You can feel everything I feel!”

“I hope you don’t mind?”

“Are you kidding?! That was one of the best kisses I have ever had… In fact, if it were any better, I think I would have given you a lot more than you bargained for…” I noticed that Shannon’s nipples looked just like mine. They were crinkled and hard.

“I don’t think I understand,” she said with a confused smile.

“Uh… Hmmm… Well, you mentioned that you had read the material from the male Tandroth…”

“Yes,” she answered tentatively.

“Well, among those materials, did you come across anything about arousing a human female?”

She was silent for several seconds, and since her face was incapable of reflecting anything but what she wanted it too, I couldn’t get a read on her emotions. Finally, after a very uncomfortable time she said, “As a matter of fact, they did. In great detail, I’m afraid.”

I untangled our arms and led her over to the bed, where we both hopped up and sat facing each other, cross-legged.

“It’s like this, Shannon,” I started. “This protodroid, as you call it, is the closest thing to a real human mate that I have seen in a very long time. Oh sure, I’ve had humanoid lovers, take Vax for example. But Vax is blue! Even though he was nearly human in every other respect, at least visually, the fact that he was blue made him very alien to me. Don’t get me wrong, Vax was a blast in bed… hell, he was great! But no matter how hard I try, that color person just doesn’t exist on my planet of origin.

“Then there’s you, or rather you looking through the eyes of your protodroid. You not only look human in every respect, but you choose to look like the one human model that I have to base my definition of ‘human’ in the first place. Me.”

“But doesn’t your species require a male-female pair to reproduce,” she asked blandly.

“Yes,” I continued, “But not for mutually pleasurable sex…”

“Oh… OH!” This time, her face did reflect the emotion of realization. Either she was a quick learner, or my own emotions were rubbing off on her. I had no way to tell. She obviously understood the implication I had just presented.

I took her hand in mine. “You see, I’m not so sure that I’m over what was done to me on the other ship. I mean, you can’t simply come off a week’s worth of mind-numbing sex cold turkey!”

“Cold…”

“Never mind,” I stopped her. “For me to have that level of pleasure removed abruptly, is… well… almost painful in itself.”

Shannon’s face turned to the equivalent of sadness. “I’m so sorry,” she said with real regret in her tone. “I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” I replied with a smile. “I didn’t tell you. Besides, like you said, you had to learn about me and my race before you could, er, mimic me.”

“You must be terribly frustrated.”

“Now that you mention it, I’m about as horny as an entire Valigan pod group in heat! I’ve been holding off because, well, I didn’t know how it would affect you.”

“Oh, I have greatly enjoyed being in contact with you,” she said with happy enthusiasm.

“And I you. But you must try to understand that a human orgasm is a very powerful thing. The sensations basically overload almost every part of your thinking. We sometimes lose track of time, see spots that aren’t there and even black-out on occasion. I didn’t want to surprise you with something like that while you were right in the middle of a Hyperspace jump…”

“Ah…”

“You get the picture. It just wouldn’t do to have us bounced into never-space in a random moment of ecstasy.”

“Is it really that wonderful?” She asked, innocently.

“It is not describable. Humans have been trying since they could communicate with each other, and even the best have only come up with syrupy nonsense. It’s one of the few things in life that just has to be experienced.”

“I wish I could,” she replied with what appeared to me to be genuine regret. “I am unfortunately unaffected by Synthex.”

I smiled. This was the cue I was waiting for.

“Perhaps you can.”

“How?”

“Well… I’m not sure how closely your protodroid resembles me, but if your tongue is like mine, then…”

Her eyes got wide.

“You want me to arouse you?”

“Actually,” I said shyly. “I’m already quite aroused. But getting to the point of an orgasm takes a bit more… I could do it by myself, but it’s much more enjoyable to have someone else push you over the edge.”

“I’m not sure I could do it properly, but I guess I would be willing to try.”

“Really?!” I said, gripping both her hands. “I was really hoping you’d say yes.”

“What do I do?” She asked, with a quirky grin.

That was how, five minutes later, I was on my back, nearly screaming in ecstasy as Shannon laid between my thighs and lapped (quite expertly I might add) my apex. She decided to drop out of hyperspace while we played around, just in case. Later she said to me that she was glad she did. Orgasm was everything I promised it would be.

As for having sex with myself, well, there’s no way to describe that either. That first time was probably the only time that it felt that way, because Shannon started to pick up her own traits soon after our first little orgy. After that, she started to seem like someone who just looked like me, rather than someone who WAS me. Still, I’m glad I did it, for it turned out to be the first in a series of very fulfilling and much needed sexual encounters for the next four days. We had to pop in and out of hyperspace a lot, but Shannon assured me that was no problem at all for her.

You see, I needed to find a way to help erase what the male Tandroth had done to me. I needed a way to gradually taper off from the memories of nearly coma-inducing levels of forced ecstasy, to normal (okay, maybe a little above normal) levels that I could deal with. And in this, Shannon was the perfect therapist. She too, could surround me, inside and out, with a thousand slippery tentacles… but in a non-aggressive way. I could tell her to stop, or go slower, or hold me more gently, and she would.

She also kept her protodroid version of herself with me at all times, so that I would have a friend to hold onto when the tentacles started to wrap around my hips. We changed the way the pleasure was administered as well. Instead of me being strapped down to a living seat and forcibly fucked senseless, we sat facing each other in a large tub-like pool of warm water. The tub itself was completely lined with shorter tendrils that massaged and caressed both our bodies, softly at first, gradually growing more bold with time. It was quite a different experience than the other Tandroth, because Shannon was gentle and loving rather than eager and aggressive. By the time the first few tentacles slowly eased into me, I was nearly laughing with the joy of release.

We would lay together in our pseudo-bed for hours, talking and kissing until I felt the bed change and our “covers” became a swirling mass of arousal in the form of thick, ready-to-please fingers. I would fall asleep in her arms, and wake to her loving touch between my thighs. It was heaven.