The Color of Air

"The reason they still host humans on their planet is that they think you have beautiful 'voices', even if you sing without words. They cherish you like exquisite songbirds, especially for the flavors you emit when you're aroused."

I let her words sink in. "So I made millions setting up sex tours and missed a trade deal worth trillions?"

"Don't get me wrong, there are many humans and Blues alike who are delighted with the arrangement."

"It's just ... Damn. I'm going to have to go back there and try to learn their language."

"Perhaps that would be easier with the right partner?"

"Do you already speak their language?" She nodded. "That would certainly help. Wait a minute, was this all a setup? Did you know who I was?"

"No idea. I can simply taste opportunity when I'm fortunate enough to find it in bed with me."

To emphasize her point, her internal tongues caressed me gently, causing me to swell delightfully within her silken warmth. I wanted to last longer this time, so I asked her to tell me a tale of her own as we slowly moved against each other.

"My world is far from here, and as far as I know I'm the only one to have left the cradle. I was a junior xenologist with the Whit Development Company, on a survey of terra-compatible worlds aboard the Rapier Whit. The report from the automated probe sounded too good to be true: a pleasant climate over most of the globe, lush vegetation, little or no animal life. Settlers could get right down to planting and building with no tedious teraforming. The first three weeks of the survey turned up nothing to contradict this ..."

---

I had been walking for about three hours from the base camp, taking samples and recording my progress. "Survey quadrant eleven, Ensign Tam Martin recording. The area is mostly open forest, if your idea of open forest is twenty meter tall ferns. There don't seem to be any flowers in this ecosystem, most likely because nothing has evolved to fill the honeybee niche." I clicked off; it was quiet and shady under the trees, and the entire world seemed at peace.

The trees came to an abrupt end at the edge of a lake, confirming my position from the satellite map. We had not yet deployed any positioning satellites, so we had to fall back on maps, compass and woodcraft for these initial surveys.

I ate my lunch on the long-fronded moss that served for grass. We had encountered this moss in other locations on our survey, and it had given us a shock the first time we ran into it. The fronds are quite motile, and begin moving back and forth underneath you when you sit or lie on it. After the surprise wears off, it's very sensuous, and we were already investigating the feasibility of growing it off planet to sell to collectors.

The day was hot and the sun was strong. After I finished my lunch, I stripped off my clothes and waded out into the lake. That was strictly against regulations, but we had seen nothing threatening on this world, and I was hours away from the nearest person. I gasped a little as the cool water lapped over my crotch as I went deeper. It felt so good to let the water rise up my belly and caress the bottoms of my breasts. I splashed water on my nipples and watched them pucker as the droplets cascaded off in the sun.

After splashing around for a while and washing the trail dust and sweat off, I returned to the bank and lay on the moss to dry out. The moss was even more sensuous against my bare skin and I started to stroke myself gently in time with its motions. I was just getting serious when something took hold of my foot.

A glistening transparent carpet stretched up from the lake, thinning until it became a tendril that curled around my ankle. It was as clear as glass, and could mainly be seen by the refractions around its edges. I tried to scoot away from it, but only succeeded in plunging my other foot deeply into it.

I made myself hold still. Struggle might get me in deeper; I had a better chance of getting away if I planned my moves carefully. My equipment was several meters away. No help from there. No one within five kilometers of here, so calling for help would do no good.

I could feel it exploring my foot as if it was trying to figure out what it had caught. It didn't feel like it was trying to digest me. In fact ... it felt like it was giving me a foot massage. Strong ripples applied pressure from heel to sole, almost if it knew how tired my feet were from hiking. It began to suck experimentally at my toes, and I realized I was starting to get turned on by this alien slime. Calling it a slime was an injustice, though. It was warm to the touch, and feel smooth and soft, neither slimy or sticky.

I planted my hands behind my head, lifted my back up and pushed up into a full backwards arch. Giving thanks for my yoga practice, I walked my hands toward my feet until I could pull myself up to a standing position. It really is much easer when someone is holding your feet down for you.

I started to experimentally lift my feet to see if slow motions or quick ones were more effective at getting me unstuck. As I pulled, the carpet started to bunch itself up. It began to arch off the ground in a mirror of my own movement. It broke lose from the ground and pulled itself up to standing, and I found myself facing a transparent replica of myself.

I crouched to a defensive posture in case this was a hostile move, and the alien moved to mirror that position. When nothing further happened for several minutes, I slowly straightened up. The alien mimicked my stance. I raised a hand, palm outward, and it raised its hand and pressed it against mine. It was warm and supple, and felt very much like my hand.

I raised my other hand and gently touched its face, and it reciprocated. Was it an intelligence trying to communicate, or had it evolved somehow to mimic its surroundings? The test seemed to be whether it would only mimic, or begin to develop responses to patterns.

I stroked its face, then continued down the neck and shoulder onto the upper arm. The first time I did this, I felt only smooth warm skin, like the rubber extrusion of a human. The alien followed my motion down my own neck and arm. When I repeated the motion, I was startled to now feel bones under the skin and the definition of muscles that moved like mine.

I placed my other hand on its breast, and gave an involuntary gasp as I felt its warm touch on my own. I could feel the areola and nipple take on definition and become as erect as my own had become.

We explored each other's bodies for a time, with hers becoming more like mine as she mapped it. I wasn't sure when I switched from 'it' to 'her' in my mind, but it soon became impossible to do anything else as a rising warmth washed more scientific thinking from my mind. Impulsively, I stuck my hand in her crotch and quivered weak-kneed as she followed. She discovered my slit, and I felt a vulva and clitoris form under my exploring fingers. As I became wet and open, a finger discovered my vaginal passage and slipped within, and she formed one of her own.

I leaned forward and touched my lips to hers. It began as a mannequin kiss, grew into a first date kiss, and matured into a lover's kiss within the span of a minute. I flicked my tongue out and tasted orange blossom lips followed by cinnamon surprise as she figured out this new piece of anatomy. A bit of trial and exploration, and she had mastered both mouth and tongue. We kissed deeply, penetrating to some inner furnace, in a soft blaze of vanilla and honey.

So intoxicating was that kiss that I could hardly bring myself to break it. I imagine it must be like that to kiss yourself; only you know the sensation produced by every nibble, every caress, every flick. Even the most empathic lover can only pass through that zone of intensity and out the other side to circle back for another run. She plucked my strings on that resonant frequency that had me quaking to my very core.

Eventually the demands of my brain for oxygen brought me to the surface. Shuddering breaths brought me scents of moss and fern, fresh air off the lake breeze, and the ginger-chocolate spice of desire from my lover. She bent her head to my breast and took my nipple into her clever mouth. She had gone beyond mimicry! She was capable of learning independent action and taking initiative. Was she sentient or merely sensitive? At any rate, she had learned my pleasure zones and how to stimulate them. These questions and their answers beat themselves into froth on the wave of bliss that pulled me under.

Now something sinuous nuzzled up against my gateway, seeking entrance. It was warm, round-ended and slender. It gently opened me up and came inside to explore. She seemed to deduce that my passage was a receptacle for a complementary organ, and spent the next few minutes adjusting to fit the space. She didn't have an actual penis for a model, and what she developed had been sired by a nuclear powered vibrator and a long muscular tongue. Once inside, it grew in girth until I was stretched tighter than I ever had before, and it developed strategic nubs and ridges in every sensitive spot I knew about and several I didn't. It was wedged so tightly that it could hardly move in and out, but every tiny twitch was ten times better than any sex I had ever had.

She wrapped her arms around me and held me close, our breasts pressed tightly together. I could not see, but it felt as if small mouths formed to suckle my nipples, and I felt caressed from neck to toe. Tendrils explored my rear entrance, and intruded enough to counterpoint the other sensations, but she seemed to sense that I would not welcome a deep invasion.

A new and deeper kiss completed the circuit. A meltdown started deep in my pelvis, and I squeezed her flesh for all I was worth. It arced to my spine and raced to my brain. The resulting detonation seared every nerve to the tips of my fingers and toes. Starbursts blanked my vision and I tasted her jubilant cherry and hot cinnamon share of my orgasm.

She carried me to peak after peak without time to visit the valleys between. I had no way to tell her to stop, that beings of flesh might not be able to withstand such elemental pleasure. It was intolerable, and I never wanted her to stop. My world went nova and swirled into midnight singularity.

The flitter found me that evening on the beach, still naked and limp. There was no sign of my lover, and I did not regain consciousness until we were offplanet and returning home.

---

We were still moving languorously against each other as Color of Air finished her story. We spent a little longer in gentle pleasure with no rush to climax. I was working on the problem of three breasts and two hands; it seemed that she had more hands than she strictly needed and I had too few.

After a few minutes I asked, "Did you ever go back to look for her?"

"No, they told me that the company had decided not to colonize that planet. They sealed all the records as company confidential, including the coordinates. I've never found the way back there."

"Surely someone in the company can be bribed to let that slip?"

"Believe me, I have tried, both with money and with ... other means. The Rapier Whit was lost on the next voyage, along with all on the crew who knew the coordinates. I had transferred to the Dry Whit, and even after serious coercion," she massaged my cock in meaningful punctuation, "the captain couldn't tell me anything. He had only heard a rumor of the Lost World."

I had heard that term once before in a long ago barroom tale, from a navigator who never came back from his next trip out. A number of anomalies were suddenly shaded with dangerous possibilities. I hadn't lived this long by doing my thinking principally below my belt. I had the spare needle gun out from beneath the pillow and at her throat in an instant.

"I know enough about that term to know the planet was lost for a reason, and I think I can guess the rest. I think you're the shape changer from that world. I think you ate the young researcher that you seduced and took her place, and I think you were planning on having your next meal tonight."

She kept her composure and her Cheshire smile. She even kept her rhythm on my cock. "You are definitely the person I've been looking for, Captain Drake. You're a risk taker and a survivor, and you know how to get information. You also crave adventure, especially sexual adventure. I have a proposition for you. You should know that I could take that gun away from you before you could fire, but I want you to make your decision without coercion."

"And what would that be?"

"Let me fill in your guess first. Yes, I absorbed -- I think that's more accurate than 'ate' -- young Ensign Martin. We joined souls, and she gave me sentience, knowledge, and love. I didn't do it intentionally, since I was essentially born that day on the beach. I have absorbed other beings since then, but always in love and surrender rather than an act of feeding. My consciousness is an amalgam of all of their past histories, and I can take any of their forms when I desire. The form I am wearing now is that of another lover from the Regulus sector about thirty years ago, who I spirited away from prison the only way that I knew how."

This was possibly one of the oddest positions I had been in. Not the sexual position, which was still fairly pedestrian, but discussing past lovers with a shape shifter while I held a gun to her head while she gently rode my still hard cock was out of the ordinary even for me. She had picked up the pace a bit, and I had to concentrate to keep thinking with my brains instead of my gonads.

"And what would your proposition be?"

"Perhaps a proposal would be a better term. I would like to propose a marriage to you."

That almost scared me more than the prospect of being eaten. "What do you mean, marriage?"

"While I've absorbed many souls, they all become one with me. I've become very lonely, being the only one of my kind. I wish to merge our bodies, but keep our consciousnesses separate. I want to share my life with someone who shares my passion for adventure, and pleasures of the body and the mind. I want someone to talk to, to swap stories with, and to make new tales to tell. I think you could be that person. Now, put that gun away and make love to me. I promise I will do nothing without your consent."

I thought about her proposal as she slowly bobbed her triple-breasted form above me. I knew I wasn't getting any younger; there were already twinges in my hinges that hadn't been there a few years before. In the deeps between the stars, I could more often feel the chill winds of the eventual endless night. I recalled a time when some of us had played a silly game about what three wishes we would ask from a genie if we ever found one. I gave a flippant answer, and had shown no one what I had really written down: first to live as long as I wished, second to be able to take any form that I chose, and third to have a beautiful partner to share the first two with. This might just be my genie.

I slipped my gun back under my pillow. "The night is young. Roll out the magic carpet and let's see where we can go."

In the ensuing hours, I made screaming love to the many-armed goddess. I was pinned and tormented to the brink by a beautiful transparent snake. I sported with a lithe mermaid, who was more capable out of the water than I would have credited. I held the lovely Ensign Martin and warmed myself in her youthful enthusiasm. I was bound by the Eularian guard and his six foot penis, but I had to tell him he really wasn't my type. I wore myself out with the hermaphroditic centaur; the combination of that gorgeous mane and breasts that a vid star would die for were an unexpected turn on. Throughout the night, the adventurous, wry, and surprisingly tender spirit of Color of Air illuminated every form.

Toward the dawn, I held a transparent figure that had the form of Ensign Martin and a taste of purple mint, with a tenor of red pepper and a downbeat of lilac at the end, the form of Color of Air when she was first born. We had been doing little more than kissing for some time, but even that was remarkably fulfilling. She pulled herself on top of me and looked deep into my eyes. Her Cheshire smile was gone now; she looked very serious.

"I cannot hold back any longer. Tell me your decision. If it is yes, then it is time. If it is anything other than yes, I must go now. I will not take you unwilling."

I rolled dice in my head and watched them come up two sixes. Two full sets, matched; together, the highest score. I rolled again, two sixes; two full lives, added together. A third time, two sixes; I hoped I wasn't using her dice.

I studied her face, intent above me. "Which one is the real you?"

"I am all of them together. I tend to take the form of the one that fits best my current state of mind. Tam Martin was the most straightforward and guileless of them all. I came to you as Ylepsa, who was sophisticated and adventurous. You have not met them all yet, Captain, but I loved, and still love, them all deeply."

"If we're going to be married, you'll have to call me Samuel."

"Not Sam?"

"Never Sam, unless you want me to call you Air."

She laughed, "Does this mean ...?"

"Yes, I accept." I kissed her like I meant it. Somewhat to my surprise, I really did.

The kiss went on a long time, and when it broke I noticed a tinge of red warmth at her transparent edges. She trailed coriander kisses down my neck and across my chest. Each velvet touch breathed pure oxygen on the flame within. Sweet herbs and citrus joined the coriander as she swept lower across my belly.

She took my cock in her mouth and I tasted her spicy song and felt her capsaicin heat through its surface. She vanquished its soft languor and filled it with pulsing, eager life again. It swelled within her pliable fragrance, filling it and more. I could see it move within her transparency as she did things we have no words for.

I could feel her love song through my entire skin now. She played notes of scents and tastes on scales I had never heard before. I could hear smokey incense and see glowing basil in the air. She was no longer so human in outline, but was composed of graceful curves that glowed softly in a low chord of auburn and gold.

Amid this synesthesia I could feel her engulfing my cock and balls, flowing around my body, and caressing it in a thousand ways. I plunged into her welcoming passage with my whole being. She moved over me, inflaming all my senses. I was a single giant penis, moving down an all-consuming vagina. I breathed her desire through my skin, and pumped her love through my arteries.

Her husky voice came to me, though whether the words were spoken or written on the air I could no longer tell. "Ooh, this feels so good! I knew when I first tasted you that you would be the best. Bold ... complex ... dangerous ..."

We were reduced to pure form now; I was shaft she was sheath. I plunged into her, she slid over me. I was buried in her to my neck, thrusting with elemental abandon. She was panting in cabernet gasps, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

She tightened around me, pulling me deeper. I thrust for her hidden core, surrendering myself to my suddenly unstoppable orgasm. She quivered for one frozen moment and gasped out, "Oh ... My ... God!", then her own orgasm hit like the Tunguska asteroid. I poured clouds of saffron ecstasy into her fireball. She contracted crushingly and her heat closed entirely around me. I could no longer breathe as I thrashed in the throes of an orgasm that surpassed all others in my life combined. I was swept into an ocean of black and red, going under for the last time as I felt my bones beginning to crack.

---

I lay for a time savoring the flavors as skin and muscle melted away. Sinews and tendons crunched wryly, and bones were sweetly savory. Finally I tenderly and reverently unwrapped the final morsel from my lover Captain Samuel Drake.