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Post-NELs
This is a sequel, of sorts, to the story NELS, which was a collaboration between Kelanie and Tom Wagner. I managed to get my two cents' worth in at the end, dragging the story (kicking and screaming) into my future history (which you are probably all sick of hearing about, right? Right.) He knew that she lived down here somewhere. He remembered his mild surprise when she informed him, without a trace of embarrassment, that she lived in an industrial waste bin. Now, two days after he had seen her in his apartment, he was searching for her, in the alleyways of the Noh Zone that surrounded the Protein factory like a web of veins around an ailing, aged heart. He was in his father's two-seater AV, looking as out-of-place as possible amongst the unregistered, the tramps, lowlives, chemical mutants and general freaks that couldn't be integrated into modern society. They stared at the vehicle as it floated past, envious looks plain on their faces. He had found a group of bins that had been pushed together; he got out of the AV, and knocked on the lid of the end-most bin. It made a dull clunking sound, as if it had been filled with cement. He was about to pry the lid off when he noticed the biohazard sign on the side; he drew back in alarm, filled with an overwhelming desire to wipe his hand to clean it. He had heard rumours about the sorts of things that were thrown out of Protein factories. On the other side of the complex was an alleyway almost buried in fragments of building materials; plastic girders, sheets of fibrock and cement, sprays of white powder which had solidified, fixing two large grey metal shapes against a wall; industrial waste bins. His heart hammering suddenly, he got out of the AV and approached them. He was about to knock on the front of the nearer bin when the lid creaked open and Kelanie stuck her head out. She sneered when she saw him. "Well well well. What brings you to the fun side of town? Isn't there anything worth watching on television?" He looked stricken. "Please, don't be like that. You were quite welcome to stay. I ... just wanted to see you again." She rested her forearms on the edge of the bin, staring at him. After a pause, during which he desperately thought of a better way to describe what he felt, she smiled slowly and said: "I'd invite you in, but the place is a mess ... tell you what: give me half an hour to get cleaned up, and I'll meet you outside the `Suteriik', over in the ExPort zone. Okay?" He smiled, relieved that she appeared to hold no grudges against him. She closed the lid of the waste bin and, as he walked back to his car, he thought that he could hear her laughing.
Twenty minutes later, he was parked on the roof of an abandoned building across the street from the Suteriik Kitchen, a unique establishment which managed to tastefully combine the functions of brothel and restaurant. He peered over the edge of the building, looking down on the street. No-one was there except the two troll-like guards posted on either side of the front door of the Suteriik. He secured his father's AV and made his way to the ground, through four levels of squatters. He got the impression that the trash who lived here were a better class of trash than the ones in the Noh zone; they had made attempts at improvements to the living quarters, such as barricades over the empty lift shafts. The ground floor even had electrical power, from a stolen NoSanNoOs TCI generator. When he got to the street, he saw Kelanie chatting, in sign language, with the guards. She turned when she heard his footsteps, and flew into his arms, hugging him and nuzzling his neck. He felt a spark of the feeling that he'd felt that evening in his apartment, smouldering in the pit of his stomach. "Come on in. I want you to meet some friends of mine." He pushed away from her, successfully concealing the surprise he felt. "In there?" He'd heard some unusual things about the Suteriik Kitchen. "In there. Come on!" She took his hand and led him inside. They went down the short stairwell that led to the main lounge, pools of light separated by mysterious darkness, in which anything could be lurking. Kelanie led him over to a bar that ran the entire length of the room, her fingers flicking in sign language at the barman, a machine that was patterned after some alien insect; it spoke with the harsh tones of a NoSanNoOs translator. "What would the gentleman like to drink?" He glanced at Kelanie, who ordered two shots of something with a twenty-syllable name that looked and tasted like the syrup found in the bottom of a can of tinned peaches. 'This will buffer your system against the shock," she said, gulping down a petite shot glass full of the stuff. He imitated her action, and then asked, his voice thick with the fluid: "What shock?" She merely smiled, took his hand and led him past unoccupied tables to the far end of the room. A door slid into the wall as they approached, revealing a long, softly-carpeted corridor with dozens of doors on either side, each with a small lamp mounted over the lintel; most of them were glowing a dim, almost ultraviolet purple-blue. They padded down the silent hall until they reached a door with a pale yellow light. She pressed her wrist meter against the door, and it opened. She led him inside. The room was small, windowless and dim; just enough light to see the bed, a gel-filled cell mattress set into a rectangular recession in the floor. As his eyes adjusted to the low light levels, he saw two somethings, each about the size of a cat, moving in an alcove near the head of the bed. He drew back instinctively, wrinkling his nose at the smell of disinfectant, sharp in the cool, scrubbed air. Kelanie pushed him forward and the door closed behind them. Sitting down on the bed, she held her hand out to one of the things in the alcove. It emerged - a four-legged insect, feathery antennae weaving slowly, compound eyes reflecting hundreds of tiny copies of the bioluminant strip light that glowed overhead. Its companion stayed back, hidden in the alcove. She took his hand, dragged him down to sit next to her on the bed, the cell mattress pulsing resiliently. He wanted to ask her what was going on, what the insects were for, a dozen other things; she halted them all by kissing him, slowly and tenderly, turning her head and pressing the tip of her tongue between his lips to briefly touch his. He felt the old, familiar passions begin to rise within him; he half-stood up without breaking the kiss, and shrugged out of his grey coveralls, kicking them into the corner of the room. As his fingers worked at the contacts that held the front of her clothing together, he thought that there was definitely something lacking when the act of disrobing was so simple, recalling times with his upper-class associates when slowly and sensually stripping your companion was half the fun. Naked, they joined together in another long kiss, his fingers brushing over her nipples, her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back onto the pebbled surface of the cell mattress, his head resting about a foot from the alcove. She climbed over him, hugging his hips with her knees, holding his arms up in the attitude of crucifixion, softly sucking on his collarbone, his head thrown back. She snapped her fingers twice, and music began; soft, wailing synthesised pan pipe tones overlaid on a slow, profoundly deep bass rhythm. She kissed him again, and just before she allowed him to break free and take a breath, she snapped her fingers once more; the insect in the alcove began to chirp softly in time with the beat. She released him and he inhaled deeply, sensing a strange scent in the air; she squeezed his growing erection and he gasped, taking in more of the sweet perfume. He felt a shiver run down his spine. She was kissing his throat, massaging the tight muscles along his jawline, sensually moving her body against his, and yet for the moment he just lay there, absorbed in the heavy cinnamon-musk odour that the insect was emitting with each chirp. He suddenly became aware that Kelanie had stopped kissing him and was sitting back, her behind resting on his stomach, regarding him with a sly smile. He wanted to smile back, but he simply lay there, entirely absorbed in the simple act of breathing. It's not as if I were paralysed, he thought, I just don't want to move. I could move if I wanted to ... and to prove it, he lifted his hands to caress her small breasts, his palms flat against her nipples. She took his wrists, slowing the motion, and as her eyes closed in bliss, he was surprised when she seemed to recede into the distance. She was still sitting astride him, but now the room seemed to be filled with fog. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, feeling her sway as he did so; suddenly, warmth rushed through him, as if he were a metal ingot in an induction furnace. He felt a need to stretch, yawn and shudder all at once; his hands still against her breasts, he arched his back, toes curling involuntarily. The warm feeling gave way to a measure of panic; he opened his eyes, found the presence of mind to whisper: "What's happening to me?" She reluctantly took his hands from her breasts, pushing them aside to lean down and kiss him again. "The insect is a Kaelen, controller-class. Its function is to provide communication for the rest of its hive, using pheromones. What it's doing at the moment is making a chemical that acts on the human male's nervous system in a certain way ..." The exact nature of that 'certain way' was becoming obvious, as the warmth spread down his stomach and settled between his legs. His mouth opened in a silent cry as his erection thrust up, aching in its rigidity. He arched his back again, almost spilling her from her position, and discovered (with a degree of embarrassment) an almost ungovernable impulse to thrust his pelvis forward, which he controlled with difficulty, his thigh muscles quivering. He began to shake with the effort, his hands rigidly clenched into fists, the feeling of desire so strong that it bypassed his conscious control. His eyesight blurring, he moaned: "Gods, that - that hurts - please ... stop it!" He managed to force the words between clenched teeth haltingly; his body broke from his control and began thrusting in a slow, mechanical fashion, heedless of whether she was mounted on him or not. The chirping sound stopped, but the feeling still gripped him ... he was vaguely aware of his feet, flat against the cell mattress, pressing upwards; he could sense her weight resting over his thighs, and, distantly, he felt himself slip into her, felt her slick wetness close over his erection painfully, causing him to cry out. He heard a ventilation fan start up, felt a cool breeze on his face; yet, he felt like the crosspiece of a bow slowly being drawn for a nine-hundred-metre shot, the tension growing with each passing second. With a supreme effort, he unclenched his fists and put his hands out as far as her thighs before they automatically clamped again, gripping her fiercely, holding her down while his body thrust relentlessly onwards. Whatever chemical the Kaelen had emitted was no longer circulating in the room, and it was only a matter of time before his system assimilated the traces which still burned within him. His thrusts became less frequent, but more vigorous; with each successive push, at the peak of the motion, he felt as if he would snap in half. As the effects of the pheromone began to fade, sensation returned slowly; he suddenly became intensely aware of the feeling of his erection clamped in her; she was squeezing him rhythmically in an attempt to bring him to a climax, in the hope that the pheromone would release him after he came. He took a deep breath, and something hit him, soundlessly; it was as if someone had turned a battery of spotlights on them, her form visible as a hazy outline somewhere in front of him. He screamed as a bolt of pain shot down his spine, coming to rest just behind his penis, and for a moment, he forgot everything else - he was alone, his back arched, his feet and the back of his head pushed into the cell mattress. Amazingly, his erection seemed to be vibrating as fluid shot through him, careening off walls wherever the channel curved - he could feel his seminal vesicles deform as if they were hoses that had water forced through them at high speed. He remained at this peak for what seemed like at least a minute, although he wasn't sure how any living thing could take that sort of strain for even a few seconds. Abruptly, he found himself lying flat, spreadeagled on the bed, alone, breathing heavily. There was a torn-muscle ache somewhere below his hips; he was lying in a small pool of warm liquid. His hand quivering, he rubbed a finger along his hip, through the wetness, brought it up to his blurry field of view: semen, streaked with blood. The sight of it brought back some of his human feeling; he felt less like a machine that had been run over the limits of its design tolerance. The door opened, and Kelanie rushed in, followed by some xenoform dressed in medical white. The xeno had four wrist-sized tubes curving forwards at right angles in place of a head; these tubes waved slowly as the alien knelt down next to him. He felt thin, bony fingers prodding him; a tickling buzz as it probed him with ultrasonics. It spoke in bursts of modulated hissing, a translator mounted on its shoulder saying: "No permanent damage. No permanent damage." She pushed the xeno aside, kneeling over him, kissing him tenderly. He found the strength to push her away, and she sat back, eyes wide. Seeing the hurt of rejection plainly displayed, he grabbed her hand and reassured her; "It's okay ... really ... I just ... I don't want you to get me started again ... it hasn't worn off yet." She clasped his hand in both of hers and brushed his ear with her lips, whispering softly, "I didn't know ... it doesn't affect most people that strongly. You must have an acute sense of smell." He smiled, and kissed her. "It's not something I'll forget in a hurry."
The next day, he called the owner of the Suteriik from his apartment, a tiny, white-haired old lady, known as 'Granny'. "How can we serve?" she asked deferentially. "I visited your establishment yesterday, and had the opportunity to experience an unusual fragrance produced by a controller-class Kaelen." Granny looked worried. "I hope you realise that we can't be held responsible for -" He interrupted her with a wave of his hand and a reassuring smile. "Of course not ... I found the experience very interesting, if not something I'd care to repeat in the immediate future ... I'm merely making a few enquiries with regards to the Kaelen ... firstly, would I be correct in assuming that there are Kaelen which can produce pheromones that affect human females in the same manner as the ones I experienced?" "Yes; in fact, the same xenoform produces both varieties." He nodded. "Secondly; would it be possible for me to, ah, rent a Kaelen xenoform for two days? I'd also like a translator interface so that I can communicate my wishes to the Kaelen directly." Granny smiled slowly. "Anything is possible." He matched her smile, wondering exactly how sensitive Kelanie's sense of smell was. |
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