"So, this is a human bed..."
Daium slowly walked up to the wooden bed post. She wanted to saunter. Oh, by the Tree, she wished she could saunter. Alicia could do it. Probably took no effort. Whenever she walked, there was a swing of her hips that made Daium, and all so inclined, stare helplessly in lust. Tammy, Hannah, they all had the gift.
But not Daium. Maybe it was a human thing.
Luckily, such deficiencies didn't seem to matter to her wife and husband. She could feel their eyes on her, as they stood in the doorway of their new bedroom. Could feel their desire as she ran a black hand up the carved post of their new bed. A large bed. Built for three...
Arms wrapped around her waist. Daium gasped. Without even looking, she recognized Justin's strong, brown hands undoing her belt. Another pair of hands, still strong but more delicate, undid the fasteners on her shoulders, letting her suspenders and bra fall free. The angle had been weird... she could picture Alicia, pressed against Justin, reaching over him to get to Daium. If there was symbolism in such an act, all three had moved beyond it having more than a historical meaning.
With a tug, Daium's skirt and panties fell to the floor, the weight of her suspenders and belt creating a nice 'thump' sound. Hands slid up her hips, through the black and grey fur, as she lifted her feet and kicked the unneeded clothing away. She thought the coming hands would head up towards her breasts. Her nipples were aching in anticipation, breasts already feeling the touch they knew was coming. The movement stopped at her waist, though, fingers gripping where her hips began to swell. What were they...?
The sound of clothing dropping came from behind her, followed by something touching her hairless bottom.
He was going to take her like this!
Alicia was suddenly before her, nude body sauntering towards the Orang. Her face radiated desire, scar practically glowing. As if in a dream, Daium found herself fully pressed against the furless human, mouth open to accept the invading wet tongue. Her own hands went to Alicia's breasts, squeezing the beautiful orbs. The girl's hands dropped to Daium's waist, covering Justin's. As the four human hands became one, Daium could feel her husband shift... and thrust.
She let out a groan, lost in the moans of her lovers. Justin was taking her hard, practically shoving her body against Alicia. The teen held her ground, keeping Daium from falling as the mating went on, and on. She wanted to get on all fours. She wanted Justin to ravage her, like the animals they all were. She wanted... she wanted...
She exploded at the feel of his seed inside her.
****
Alicia was content.
She lay in the center of the bed, blankets and sheets carefully made by Hannah now tossed onto the floor, which would probably be their usual home. Justin, tired from his just completed activities, sprawled on her right. She could feel the trail left by his wet and very tired cock beginning to cool on her leg and thigh. Daium lay on her left, face nuzzling her neck while a hand played with breasts still tender from the Orang's teeth.
All in all, a good breaking in of the new room.
It had taken an extra day on the planet, but the modifications to the store seemed to now be complete. Or, at least, this phase. The small second floor above the bank and bottle return counter had been expanded into eight bedrooms and a nursery, leaving the main grocery space itself untouched (if with much lower ceilings). As the need arose, they could made additions later.
In the years to come. The years... the decades...
Alicia let out a sigh. It was time to talk. One hand reached up to touch Daium's head, the other stretched out to Justin's shoulder. Both slowly moved into positions more convenient for conversation.
"Something on your mind, Alicia?" Justin yawned out the question. She nodded.
"We need to decide what to do."
"Now? Tomorrow? Next week?"
"In twenty years."
Both were silent. She looked between them, pushing herself up so she was sitting against the headboard. Daium and Justin did the same, taking her hands.
"We need a goal."
"Be happy. Be safe. Make babies." Daium recited it as if they were commandments. Hell, maybe they were now. Alicia, smiling, shook her head.
"That's what we're doing now. But, what we're also doing is just going to random planets, going someplace that has something we need to buy. After our hold is full... what do we do? Where do we go?"
Justin was thoughtful.
"Do you want to find Earth?"
"Well..." She saw tears start to weld up in Daium's eyes. Squeezing her hand, she leaned in for a quick kiss. "I don't want to go home, no. We should look, though. For Nona, Hannah, others who may want to go back. If nothing else, I want to tell my family I'm alive."
"I doubt we'll find it, but looking can't hurt," Justin agreed. "That wasn't what you were thinking of, though..."
"No."
Her lovers were silent, waiting. Alicia took a deep breath.
"I think... we should find a home."
"Home?" Daium looked puzzled.
"The ship is wonderful, Daium. I love it. But... I don't want to raise my children on a ship. Do we really want their entire lives to be inside these walls? To know nothing else, except for a couple weeks a year, when we visit a planet? Are the three of us going to grow old together inside this shell?"
Daium's eyes widened, then closed. Her head dropped, hand releasing Alicia as she hugged herself.
"Tanah is gone," she whispered. "This ship... is all that I have of Tanah. Don't mind living here..."
The mattress shifted. Alicia scooted closer to Daium, as Justin climbed over them to sit on the other side of their wife. The two humans hugged her.
"What if," Alicia asked her, softly, "we found an empty world we could live on? What if, Daium, we found a forested world where... where we could PLANT the tree on the bridge? Or, at least, some of its seeds?"
Her eyes shot open.
"The seeds! The seeds of the Tree!"
"Think about it," Justin told her, nodding to Alicia. "Our babies, on a new world, full of trees. Living, growing, mating, in a village in a forest."
"Where?" Daium looked between them, so obviously wanting to believe. "Where? There is life everywhere! Where would we find a planet not already taken?"
"We won't know until we look," Alicia said.
"It could take years," Justin added. "Decades. But..."
"But we look."
****
Hannah had a beautiful blush.
She didn't blush often. She wasn't, really, that type of woman, one of the reasons Anthony not just loved, but had always liked her. There was a strength and sauciness to her that appealed to him. That being said, when she DID blush, he enjoyed it. Such was the case now, as the two of them made their way down the store staircase.
"So," Anthony said, cheerfully, moving forward to open the door at the foot of the stairwell, "the upstairs seems to have been finished off nicely."
"Yes..." Her entire face was red.
"And," he went on, taking her arm as they walked past the bottle return counter, "the bedrooms seem to have been tested out already... although, maybe I can talk to Chuck about weighting the doors so they close by themselves."
"Yes... do that..."
A laugh finally escaped Anthony, drawing a glare from Hannah. He could only grin in return. Seeing the man wasn't going to break, wasn't going to see the seriousness of the matter, she broke down herself and laughed, shaking her head. He put an arm around her waist, hugging her against him.
"What do you think, does that qualify as wild monkey love?"
"God!" She put her face in her hands, stopping before the entrance, composure gone again.
"I say we don't tell them," he went on, eyes leaving her and glancing, out of habit, around the store. "Maybe we just give everyone a reminder, now that there are kids..."
There was something out the front window.
It was faint. The dome was bright just then, Te's yellow sun shining down into the ship. Raising his hand to try and fend off the glare, Anthony squinted. Something. A ghostly image, just beyond the window, on the new stone path through the as yet empty plant beds. A... man. An adult man... and a little girl...
They were gone.
He blinked.
They were still gone.
Anthony cast his gaze around the store. Nothing was out of place. No strange images that he could see. No ghostly people.
He knew he had seen it. After all they had been through, nothing, no matter how strange or stupid, could be greeted with complete disbelief. He might not KNOW what he saw, might easily misinterpret it, but the basic situation had to be accepted until they had reason to do otherwise. That was a core survival tactic.
However, it didn't help that he was the only one who saw it.
Hannah had finally gotten herself under control. Responding to her squeeze, he looked over, smiling. She raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Problem?"
"Nope," he laughed. "Just checking to see if Danny is hiding anywhere whacking off."
"Oh God!" She laughed, face returning to its red state. "Why did you have to tell me that's what the stuff on his underwear was?!? I don't know if I can keep doing laundry!"
Anthony began walking her towards the door.
"Come one, what do you want him to do. Tissues are too valuable to waste like that, for all we have a whole aisle of them..."
"Still...!"
He took one more look though the window. The day was bright. Ghosts were nowhere to be seen.
For now.
****
Danny trailed behind the others as they walked through the botanical garden.
It wasn't by choice. The walking behind, that is. The flowers themselves, he found interesting. However, once again, his body was betraying him. He was hard. More than hard. Rock hard, every step causing the tip of his penis to rub against his underwear. It was NOT going to go down. He knew that. He'd have this huge thing sticking out of him five hours from now, five days from now! And the world had to see it. How could they not! The eye of every alien, let alone his friends had to be on him and his problem!
Only, it wasn't really a problem. At least, not according to Anthony. The relief Danny had felt, when Anthony took him aside and told him what the hell was going on with his body, almost equaled the joy at being saved from slavery. This was something human. Something male. Something normal! His body, exposed to potential mates for the first time, and at the right age, was testing the plumbing.
He had been SO glad to hear that! Danny had told Anthony everything, every feeling he was having, without embarrassment. Anthony had just laughed, joked, telling him all he needed to know. About sex, the hows and whys. About love, lust, and attraction. About... human do's and don'ts. That had fascinated him. Humans paired up. One man and one woman, or a same gendered pair, sometimes. Things were a bit bent, now, due to the makeup of their group, but that was still the norm. Pairs often didn't last, especially when first together, but when paired a woman was off limits. Danny could LOOK at them, lust after them, even dream of them as he touched himself. But, he was not to even TRY to touch them. He suspected Anthony stressed this due to Hannah. The effect of the curvy woman on Danny was obvious, so her man was just protecting his own.
Anthony need not have worried. Hannah scared Danny. She was TOO sexy. Hell, he only had to think about her for a minute before he exploded into a gooey mess.
A few days ago, he learned not to do that while walking through the city.
The women walking before him, now, though... well, they were all pretty. Rinda was taken, so by the rules was off limits. Danny didn't think she was his type, anyway... not that he would turn down a kiss or anything! (Anthony had also explained this to him, that his mind would separate sex from even friendship). Tammy... now, she WAS free, and something about the curve of her neck and the way she spoke set his heart aflutter. He HAD thought of her! But... it was the woman next to her that his eyes kept going back to.
Nona.
Maybe it was because she was the closest to his age, even if only by a year. Maybe it was because she was the quietist of all the humans, often off a bit by herself. She was beautiful, too. Her dark eyes peered out from under long, dark hair. Her skin was more of a golden brown that Justin's, looking so smooth on her delicate limbs. He wanted... he just wanted...
****
Nona let out an irritated sigh as they moved through the beds of pink alien sunflowers. Tammy chuckled.
"Oh, just ignore it. He'll get over it eventually."
"It was annoying in middle school, it's annoying now."
"All boys are annoying."
There was a part of Nona that knew she shouldn't think that was funny, that she should be upset, offended, or something, at the reminder of Tammy's sexual preference. That part was out voted. Instead, she chuckled, echoing the older girl.
"I was just never comfortable with that kind of attention." As the path turned, her eyes shifted a bit, catching a glimpse of her stalker. He was staying about seven feet behind them, obviously embarrassed. About what, she wasn't sure, and she certainly wasn't going to examine him closely to see what he had to be embarrassed about! What kind of person would do that!? She did, though, look at his face again. That snout... it SHOULD freak her out. It was so... alien! But...
His eyes had begun to shift towards hers. Nona quickly looked away. There was no sense encouraging the boy, making him think she was at all interested in him. Hell no. Then she'd never get rid of him...
Rinda and Goldie, walking a few feet ahead, paused next to a bed of red flowers. Goldie sat her furry bottom on the path, small nose sniffing a particularly beautiful blossom. She looked up at the older women.
"Do we have this one yet?"
Rinda furrowed her brow, hand going to the pad holstered on her belt.
"I think so..." As the screen came on, Nona saw that day's purchases scroll by. Even buying all that, the dome garden was probably only going to be half full. The season here was just wrong to buy plants in bulk, it seemed, at least without being able to wait for delivery. Rinda's finger moved down the screen. "Um... yes. We have it already. Well, what we have has a bit of pink on the tips of the petals, but it's the same thing."
"This one smells different. Can we get it?"
Nona shook her head, looking around. She wasn't a flower person. She liked them, but the same way a person might like trees. It didn't matter what the tree was, so long as it gave shade, and such was her feelings regarding flowers. One variety, a hundred varieties...
Rinda's answer was interrupted by her phone going off. Returning the pad to its holster, her other hand had the phone quickly up to her face. The sickeningly sweet expression there made Nona want to gag.
"Hi, Chuck... Nothin." Rinda began to sway a bit, almost forgetting the others already. "Just buying flowers.Yeah... Oh!" Her eyes came up, still not seeing but at least focused on more important matters. "Yeah! Got it! Love you!"
Tammy cocked an eyebrow at the youngster as the phone vanished again.
"And?"
"The gravity tested out OK. We're leaving as soon as we get back and unload."
"Aww..." Goldie pouted, putting her chin on the ground. "I like it here."
"Too bad!" Tammy replied, happily.
"You're mean..."
Nona half tuned them out. Leaving... again, going somewhere that wasn't Earth. Why... why couldn't... she just wanted to go home...
Something blue caught her eye.
Ignoring the others, Nona walked a bit farther down the path. She didn't know what she thought she saw. It was just a blue flower. Just another blue...
Nona's heart stopped.
She fell to her knees, not even feeling the rough stone now pressing into them. She was dreaming. It was either a dream, or a miracle. A miracle...
A shape knelt down next to her, its young, male voice cutting through her thoughts.
"What is it, Nona?"
She reached out a shaking hand. She was afraid. What if touching it broke the spell? What if it wasn't even really there? What if...
Brown fingers touched the green stem. Trembling, they moved up, to the silky smooth petals. Ever so slowly, she tipped the flower towards her, looking inside.
There were small, yellow, Arabic looking words on the red center.
"Oh, Jesus!"
Tammy's shocked curse cut through the fog in her mind. Nona looked up at the others, eyes wide.
"Is it on the others? Check the others!"
Tammy practically threw herself to the ground, grabbing a plant in each hand and turning its flower towards her. She then did two more. The others just focused on Nona, not understanding.
"Nona, tell me..." Danny's hand began to reach out, only to fall to the ground. She never noticed.
Tammy sat back on her heels.
"I don't believe it." She shook her head. "All of them. They all have the same letters." She looked at Nona. "What does it say?"
Nona stood. She looked up at the sky, blue and clear. Her face... her face was of one at peace with themselves, and the world.
"It says, 'God is Great'."
****
Danny half held on for dear life, half tried not to stare at Nona. He didn't know which was more fraught with danger. The delivery truck, one of five carrying flowers back to the ship, seemed incredibly unstable. Those wheels could NOT be round. They had been offered rides with the cargo, almost fawningly, given how much the group had spent there, and foolishly they had accepted.
Danny didn't expect to live to see tomorrow.
Another bump caught him shifting his grip. He slid down the seat, hip touching Nona. He quickly pulled himself away, face red.
"Sorry!"
She laughed, smiling.
"It's OK. I won't kill you for THAT one."
His brain froze. Literally froze. Danny saw that smile, and all coherent thought left. He looked away. She was talking. To him! Conversation! He had to keep this going. Had to keep talking to her. But, what?
"Why didn't you take the flower?"
He kept his eyes averted. Much easier to regain some calm while doing that. His question was met with silence, though. Had he... offended her? Should he look, to see if she was upset? Or...
"It would be wrong."
He did turn back to her. Her voice... he had never heard someone speak like that. She saw his expression, shrugging apologetically.
"I know, I know, it's probably just some random coincidence. Like Daium speaking Malay, or all our genetics being compatible. But, even so, even if it's just a normal flower... I'd be tempted to worship it. That would be wrong. We worship God. Not the Prophet, not angels, not idols, or flowers." She shook her head. "The flowers... I know they're there. I know they exist. That is enough."
The question rose to Danny's lips. He tried to fight it back. It was stupid. It would upset her. Best to be quiet. She was being so nice...
"What is God?"
She looked at him in shock. He had offended. Damn it, he had done it again! He had to apologize! His hands tightened into fists, as he tried to think of what to say...
"Do... do you want me to teach you about God?"
Their eyes met.
"Yes..."
****
"OK, everyone seated? Good!"
"Glad you waited for an answer!"
Anthony ignored Alicia's saucy reply. He was the Captain on the bridge after all. A hat. That's what he needed, a hat. Then they'd respect him.
"Stations, check in!"
"Engines, on line!
"Doors sealed! Dome gravity on!
"All droids secured."
"Kids in the commons and strapped in!"
"Good!" He looked to the front of the bridge. "Daium, do we know where we're going?"
"No!" The Orang laughed, looking over at Justin and Alicia. "But I know what we're looking for!"
"Good enough for retail!" Sitting down, he fastened his straps. Raising an arm, he shouted, "Engage!"
There was silence. Melinda unbuckled herself, walked around the bridge, and whacked Anthony on the head with her hand.
"Do that again, and we mutiny."
****
The End
Edited by SciFi Nut
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