Fire and Smoke

"How did you sleep?" he asked.

"Wonderfully. And waking up in your arms was even better. Did you get some sleep too?"

"Not much. But with you to hold I didn't mind being awake."

We kissed then, long and engrossing, and as we did my hands delved under his great folded leathery wings to comb through the fur of his back. Something was unfolding inside me: kissing wasn't enough any more. Our legs, intertwining, rubbed up and down each other sensuously. It seemed that tiny bed contained the whole universe, and it was a universe of passion, and of lust I could hold back no longer. I slid a hand around over his tail and grasped what I'd first touched two nights before, now feeling even harder through the cloth. And this time there was no objection; he just kissed me even more intensely.

After we'd finished kissing, we lay in silence for a few minutes, me gently stroking his cock with my fingers.

"Are you sure you're ready?" he asked me softly.

"Fuck yes. Are you?"

By way of an answer he laid a hand on the knot of my sarong. I nodded, and he began working it loose, while I turned my attention to the complexly wound cloth that served him as a sarong whilst allowing for the inconvenience of a tail. Our efforts were somewhat distracted as we'd started kissing again, more furiously and less patiently than before.

There was a loud thump at the door. I hadn't even noticed we'd stopped moving.

"You two, up now!" yelled Kako from outside. "There's lots to do, and we're running late! Boss wants you up and ready for work in five minutes!"

We looked at each other forlornly, hands frozen mid-task.

"Tonight?"

"Tonight."

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

Matchwater was the second-largest city on the south coast; its streets teemed with a mind-boggling mix of kakari, tiny trieffi, scaled cauroid people, huge dark shadow-eaters, statue-like sapoliths and fragile-looking plentilalii, whilst bickering brek'bûr shared the sky with a small fleet of proud grey hyeloki, distant cousins of the kakari.

Naturally, a big city had to have big fireworks on its festival night. Probably, the job was more than we should have been handling in a single day. We had to work fast and efficiently, setting up head-high metal gantries pre-armed with batteries of fireworks, leaving us plenty of room underneath for the more technical job of wiring up the electronic fuses, triple checking every connection; a single mistake could be disastrous.

Even Siri was getting his hands dirty for once, rigging up a set of gantries on his own. I'd been worried that he'd be holding a grudge against me for dumping him two days before, but he treated me with nothing but his usual cool courtesy. It was Beni he took his frustration out on. If there was any job that was tedious, or unpleasant, or unrewarding, Beni was being assigned to do it. Siri never set us to work together, keeping Kako and I on one side of the site, and Beni on the other. Through the whole day we never got a chance to exchange more than glances, but even that was enough to keep my spirits high.

Somehow, eventually, we got everything set up on time, and there was nothing more to do but safety and sequencing checks. We were all exhausted, our orange fireproofs splattered brown with mud, but Siri had a barely detectable smile in his eyes. I recognised it as anticipation of something to come. Either he was about to find a reason to invite Kako back to his cabin, or he had some sinister design cooking: either way, I didn't particularly want to know.

"Beni," he said sharply, "Gantry nine. I can see it wobbling in the wind, go shore up the supports."

Gantry nine? That was in the cluster Siri had erected. He was getting Beni to fix his own dodgy handiwork now! Even worse, the ground underneath was a quagmire. I watched Beni duck under the set of gantries, a metal roof laden with rockets pointing at the sky, a lacework of wires hanging underneath, and set to work on the centremost support. Siri was punching a program into the control unit; Kako was away testing connections in the opposite direction.

Something was wrong with Siri's gantries. Very wrong. Something worse than a wobbly leg. Something so fundamentally wrong I couldn't see it...

Suddenly I was running towards Beni, shouting his name, waving my arms desperately. "Beni! Out! Out! Get out!"

He stopped what he was doing to look at me in confusion as I dived in next to him. "Look!" I shouted, and pointed up. At the array of rockets positioned just above our heads. Every one of them pointing downwards.

There was a faint click as the local priming circuit activated. We had seconds.

I grabbed his hand, meaning to run, but he pulled me to him. He seemed absolutely calm, his great black eyes staring into mine, as to my astonishment he unfurled his wings, magnificent black leather sheets big enough to block out half the world. And as he wrapped them around me, blanketing me, he pulled me closer and kissed me softly. And then the air exploded.

* * *

Beni was in hospital for two weeks. They filled him with so many painkillers that for the first two days he was barely aware of where he was or who was around him, and just lay quietly on his bed, swathed in bandages, a steady stream of drool dripping from between his pointed teeth. When they dropped the dose on the third day, and he came to himself, he was angry. Angry because he'd been put in a brek'bûr ward when he was, as he explained to no effect, quite clearly a kakari.

I'd escaped with only a few minor singes. As for Beni, his fireproof coat had saved his life, but even so, the fire had gotten through, and badly burnt his back. As for his wings, and his tail, which had been unprotected, they'd had to amputate what little remained of them. Beni thought this was great: two of the features which most distinctively marked him out as a brek'bûr were gone, and he'd never needed them anyway. I thought they'd looked rather fine on him, but decided not to tell him.

I visited every day, sometimes with Kako, sometimes alone, to tell him stories and hold his hand and listen to him complain at length about the conditions he was being kept in. And when it was time to leave I'd give him a parting kiss, soft and lingering, which never failed to get as astonished a silence from the brek'bûr patients as it had from any kakari crowd.

He was happy for any company other than the five sick brek'bûr which occupied the other beds in the cramped ward. Having no common language he couldn't talk to them, and every day he complained about their habits. They were naked. They talked too much, and too loudly, and sometimes sang discordantly. They kept trying to talk to him, and touching him. They licked their genitals and did their business where people could see, as though it were natural and not something to be ashamed of. He kept up his air of disdain until the end, but on the last day, when I came to take him home, he went round each of the beds and said what I took to be goodbye in pidgin brek'bûr, and touched foreheads affectionately. Perhaps he was starting on the long road to discover the half of his heritage he'd always taken such pains to reject.

* * *

"What did you do to your cabin? It looks different."

Ever since the incident, our fireworks operation had been suspended until an investigation had been completed. I'd parked in a quiet spot overlooking a little town a few miles down Matchwater Bay.

"I tidied it."

"That'd explain why it looks so unfamiliar."

Beni looked good. He was spry on his feet and his burns had mostly healed although were still apparently somewhat sore, a testament to the remarkably rapid healing powers of the brek'bûr. Even the fur on his back had grown back, albeit in a shining silver which didn't match with the brown on his front, giving him a unique look which was striking but not at all unappealing. The wings and tail were gone for good.

"And here's something else that's new." I reached under the little bed, and hinged something out, completely blocking the way between one side of the cabin and the other but doubling the width of the bed.

In the hospital Beni had worn a thin sheet for modesty. But every day when I came to him I saw him swell for me beneath it. And every day I'd had to fight the urge to slip in under that sheet and sate myself on him, right there in the hospital.

And so when it came that we found ourselves standing there, just him, and me, and our pent-up lusts, and a moderately large bed, we neither of us needed to speak, we just sank down together, embracing with our arms and lips.

Our hands went everywhere. His clawed digits flashed their tender touch from my neck to my hips to my face. I longed to grab him by the hair of his back and pull him to me, but knowing he was sore there I put it out of my mind, and instead ran my fingers through the thick wool of his chest, over his long hairy ears, round his furry rounded shoulders.

He broke from kissing long enough to say, "I guess it's time I let you see me without this thing," gesturing to his sarong, tied much simpler now it had no tail to allow for.

"Actually, I already saw everything when they took you into the hospital."

"You were raking your eyes over my privates while I was unconscious?"

"Hell yes. And now you're awake I'll rake my fingers over them too."

I let a hand slip under the waist of his sarong, pushing through dense fur, getting thicker and longer and softer until I found my fingers clenched around his long, straight shaft, pleasingly solid. He paused motionless, mouth slightly ajar, as though completely absorbed in my touch. I loved the feel, the warmth, the size of it in my hand. Sliding up to the base, I felt the tantalising bulge of his testes, carpeted in tickling hair; down to the tip, I felt my fingertips become slick with sticky liquid. Rubbing my thumb over the smooth rounded end of his cock I heard him whimper.

It was impossible to resist. I worked the shaft a few times with my hand, slowly, up and down, relishing the smooth motion, feeling his clawed grip tighten, seeing his tongue flicker in pleasure.

"Filo, I'm really highly charged. If you keep doing that, I'll come right now, in my sarong."

"Well. We can't have that." And with my free hand I ripped off the offending garment, without breaking the rhythm of my stimulation.

"Filo..."

"Shh. Come whenever you're ready. But kiss me."

I felt his pleasure from the twitching of his lips and tongue. I felt it quickly intensify, noticing his hips begin to thrust impatiently in rhythm with my hand. And I felt him reach a climax a moment before I felt his hot seed spurt across my chest, and again, and again.

We lay still for a few moments, gazing into each other's eyes, him panting softly, me spattered with his liquid love.

"Now you might last a little longer when we do it properly," I said, stroking his cheek, pretending it had all been planned and not just my hands being unable to hold themselves back.

"I'll need a little time to recover before I can do that again."

I silently cursed my impatient hands. I needed him inside me. How long did a brek'bûr take to recharge?

My chest was dripping with his come. Curiously I dipped a finger in the viscous fluid and licked it clean; it tasted sickly sweet and lingered on the tongue.

"Here," he said, "let me clean you up."

I lay flat on my back and he bent to lick my chest with his long, slick tongue, lapping up the liquid, tickling and making me giggle. As he rubbed me clean with a hairy forearm he grimaced. "I taste awful."

"Not to me you don't, I like it," and to prove it I kissed him, tasting the heavy sweetness still on his lips. "And I liked it when you were licking me."

"Maybe you could lick me so I know how it feels?"

"Bugger off, I'd get a mouth full of hair!"

Without warning he licked my face, wetly, making me laugh and swat him away. Them he was down at my belly, hands on my hips, running his tongue in slow lines across the sensitive flesh. I sighed contentedly, enjoying the sensation, squirming as he started to lick in rapid sensuous circles.

I never even noticed him removing my sarong, but there I was, and him moving his attentions gradually downwards over the smooth skin of my groin, until he was right where I wanted him most, his tongue dancing around my opening, thrilling me. I wanted more.

He gave me more. With a slow, deliberate motion I felt him push the pointed tip of his tongue between my lips, not far, and then draw it slowly upwards, bottom to top, lapping me, making me writhe. And then he lifted his head, flickering his tongue over his pointed white teeth, as though savouring the taste.

"You," he said, "taste wonderful."

And he was back in, his long, long tongue pushing in further, all the way, feeling warm and weird and wonderful. The hair around his mouth tickled my lips. His narrow tongue probed in and out, twisting and curling, as though trying to taste every little bit of me. I squeaked like a squashed mouse. And then he was sliding rhythmically and rapidly, smooth and satisfying, in and out, at first just a little, but then pulling completely out of me and thrusting all the way back in, over and over. It was glorious. As I gazed down at him with his hairy head between my legs, with his long ears and his big black eyes and his tongue darting in and out of me, I knew I wasn't going to last any longer than he had. When I came the sensation seemed to fill me, paralysing me, that one moment stretching out into an era of ecstasy.

* * *

It was the town's festival night and we sat together, naked, watching the fireworks through the window. Bright colours bloomed haphazardly across the sky, the muffled cracks and booms reaching us a few moments later.

"Amateurish," said Beni dismissively.

"Awful," I agreed, "they're practically just shooting everything up at random."

"Pretty, though."

"That's true."

We were quiet for a moment, before he asked, "whatever happened to Siri?"

"After he tried to kill you? He ran off. They tracked him down a few hours later, found him in the middle of the crowd, draped with garlands, singing a bawdy song and with a girl on each arm."

"What?"

"Major mental breakdown. It's what happens when you hold everything in, it just builds up until one day it explodes out. I don't think he'd been quite sane for a long time."

"Is he alright now?"

"Improving. He seems genuinely sorry about what he did. He'll never be allowed responsibility again; Kako's going to take over our group when we get back on our feet. It looks as though they're willing to give him psychiatric care instead of a jail sentence."

"Good. I hope he gets better."

I looked at him carefully. Most people would hold a grudge against somebody who'd recently tried to kill them. But then, Beni wasn't most people. Perhaps this was the moment to broach a sensitive subject? I nuzzled closer, draping an arm round his shoulders.

"Beni, you could learn a lesson from Siri."

"About how to bungle killing somebody with fireworks?"

"No, about holding things in."

"I don't hold things in."

"You're a very fine kakari, but you're also a brek'bûr. There are times when you need to let it out, and you don't."

He glared at me. "What times in particular?"

"Like when we were in bed together."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do."

He thought about it. "Maybe."

Outside, the fireworks reached an uncoordinated finale, illuminating the rooftops and treetops in flashes of strange colour, and then there was darkness, and the distant beating of drums.

"Do you want to go out there?" he asked.

"Later. There's something else I want first." I kissed him lightly on the lips, briefly but invitingly. "You."

He grinned and kissed me back. I dropped a hand quickly to his cock, catching it still limp, soft and flexible, almost hidden in the long brown hair between his legs. As I'd hoped, it quickly began to swell between my fingers, pulsing itself longer and firmer and warmer, as Beni planted hairy kisses on my chest and arms and neck and face. Within minutes I found my fingertips caressing a shaft as hefty and solid and ready as I could possibly desire.

Beni tried to carry me to the bed and throw me down onto it. This was no easy feat, I being a good deal heavier than him, but he persevered and managed it, mostly by virtue of it being only a couple of feet removed from where we were sitting. He gave me a few short moments to settle myself comfortably on the bedding, lying on my back, before he leapt on top of me, straddling me with one strong leg either side of my hips, his manhood poised stiffly over me, his dark eyes staring down at me lustfully.

The sight of him standing so intentfully over me made my heart thump and my loins quiver. Needing to have him closer I reached up to grab two handfuls of hair on his chest and pulled him down to me, kissing him hotly, passionately, him responding with even more fire.

As he shifted position slightly I felt his cock press enticingly against the inside of my thigh. I was sure he was going to enter me then, to get straight to what I longed for, and I spread my legs wider to invite him in. But I was wrong. He had more pleasure to inflict on me first.

Clawed fingers massaged the skin of my chest, never scratching but just kneading the flesh in gorgeous circles. And then his tongue, flickering across the tender surface of my neck. Feeling a need to give back, I stretched a finger to stroke the skin at the base of his cock, and then cupped his hairy testes in my hand, gently squeezing and caressing; I could see the pleasure it gave him written on his face, and I rejoiced in it.

We were forced to experiment, to discover how to please each other. When his roving tongue found a spot that sent a shiver of excitement down my spine, I yelped, and he knew to pay attention to that spot. When I saw his eyes bulge and his tongue flicker, I knew my fingers had done something he loved, and they did it some more. We gave each other everything we could, competing to see who could reduce the other to the highest state of quivering ecstasy, and we were both winning. I yearned for him inside me, and I could see him dripping to be in there.

I broke first. "Beni, please, I need you inside me, now."

He didn't even pause. He just shifted his posture, and then with a single deft thrust of his powerful hips speared deep into me. A scream of joy formed in my throat but never made it out. He filled me: completely, wonderfully, perfectly. I could feel the hairs of his groin tickling my parted lips, but I would not have been able to take any more of him had he had more to give. We held it like that for a few priceless moments, speechless, motionless, eyes locked, just relishing the sensation of our most intimate connection. And then he began, slowly at first, a slight oscillation of his hips that flashed through me like fire, then gradually gaining power and speed. Some part of my brain started counting the thrusts from ingrained habit; one, two, three; but I forced it to stop.

The pleasure consumed me, but still a small part of me noticed the look of strained concentration on Beni's face. Holding something back.

"Beni," I gasped, struggling to tear a small part of my awareness away from his grinding loins, "let it out."

He shook his head, grimacing with the effort of holding it in.

"Please." I gulped in air. "For me." Oh, the sensation of his thrusting shaft inside of me. "Just let it out."

He let it out. Maybe he couldn't have held it in any longer.

He threw back his head and screamed. A primal howl, distinctly un-kakari, echoing around the little cabin. The sex shriek of the brek'bûr. It undulated in rhythm with the pulsing of his loins, with the waves of fulfilment flooding through me. As we both neared a climax it grew louder and wilder, speeding up as he pushed into me faster and faster, and I cried out too, as loud as I could, my screams curdling with his.