The Strangeness Within Pt. 05

She'd never been so close to anyone. Not even Javier. And she realized that was the problem. Nicola was a beautiful, sexy woman, and a lot more than a means to an end. Esther wanted to make love to her. And she'd never really done that with Javier. Had she?

"Nicola," she said nervously. "I think I want to have sex with you."

Nicola shook slightly, and Esther realized she was trying not to laugh.

"Uh, I guess we're on the same page, then?" Nicola said. She started to stroke Esther's back, and when Esther gasped softly she kept her fingers there, feeling for the strange sensitive patches. Nervousness and the fire of arousal warred within her. Esther finally grabbed Nicola's hand to stop her.

"I wanted to do this with Javier," she said. "I was too scared, and now I'm feeling guilty. I wanted him to be my first."

Nicola sat still. Finally she spoke, a little exasperation in her voice.

"Your first what, Esther? I got the sense you fooled around with him plenty. Are you thinking of yourself as a virgin? Because that doesn't seem right. Anyway, being a virgin is seriously overrated. You think maybe we could just make each other feel good and leave it at that? If you want, just remember that we're doing this for a reason. An assignment from Abuela. All I need to do is give you a titanic orgasm, and believe me, I take no pleasure in this."

Esther started to laugh nervously.

"OK," Nicola said. "Maybe I'll take a little pleasure in it. But I'm still scared you'll set me on fire with your mind. How about you just dream about Javier and his dick or whatever other parts of him you like best. You go to your happy place, and I'll imagine Mark is literally pounding the fuck out of me, and we'll see how it goes. OK?"

"OK," Esther agreed. "OK. Thank you so much, Nicola. I'm lucky you're so patient."

"That's the first time anyone's said that of me. Here, let's see if we can make it the last time too."

Nicola pulled her closer with a rough strength that alarmed and thrilled Esther. This time it was Nicola who kissed Esther, more roughly than Javier had ever done it. She pinned Esther's arms at her side and began to stroke Esther's back, scraping her fingernails across the sensitive patches. Esther wanted to cry out that it was too much, but all she could do was moan into Nicola's mouth. She tried to move her arms to encircle Nicola, but Nicola squeezed even tighter.

Just when she thought she couldn't take any more, Nicola kissed her gently on the lips and gripped the back of her head, staring into Esther's eyes.

"More?" Nicola asked, twisting her fingers in Esther's hair and pulling her head back.

"More," breathed Esther. Nicola smiled and touched her lips to Esther's chest freckles, this time with a maddening tenderness. Esther's body came alive all at once, the nerves in her back and her chest lighting up with darts of pleasure and negotiating their own dance within the rest of her. She'd sometimes wondered if this were a parallel alien nervous system, one that mostly lay dormant until times like this. But whatever it was, of course it was all Esther. Her strange nipples hardened and tingled, and her perfectly ordinary lips and ears and neck quivered with need for Nicola. This powerful, self-assured woman who could ravish her completely.

Esther finally broke free of Nicola's grip, though she could tell Nicola had let her do it. She scratched her fingernails on Nicola's back, and Nicola made happy purring noises. Nicola didn't have those spots on her back, but that wasn't the only thing Esther liked. She slipped a hand lower, her fingers trailing down to cup Nicola's muscled ass, and then squeezing underneath to probe her tightly puckered anus.

Nicola jerked and froze for a second.

"Ah, maybe not there for me, Esther," Nicola said nervously. "Is that something you like?"

"Oh," Esther said, feeling stupid. "Sorry. I guess it's kind of perverted —"

"What? No, Esther, don't ever apologize for what you what."

To prove her point, Nicola moved one of her hands lower down, letting her finger trail right across Esther's own asshole. Esther gasped and grabbed Nicola tighter. Her body was shaking more than she could ever remember, but she was still wound up too tight.

Maybe she just needed to get to her orgasm. She picked up the discarded shower sprayer and worked it in between the two of them. Nicola understood and made more space, using the opportunity to kiss lower on Nicola's chest. When she took a nipple between her lips, Esther almost squealed. She didn't know why this was so different from being with Javier. Nicola's lips shouldn't feel so much softer, her hands so much more practiced. But she missed his body so badly. His ass was far more muscled than Nicola's. He was so solid, and even his smell was more complicated. Though she was starting to smell Nicola strongly now: the sweat on her brow and her armpits. The subtle smells from around her erect nipples, and the bold mix of fluids beginning to lubricate Nicola's very functional vagina. The sharp tinge of her anus, where Nicola didn't want to be touched, mixing with the smells of Esther's own body. She closed her eyes and imagined Javier holding her in his lap, his erection proud as a flagpole between the two of them. She half-curled her fingers, remembering the feel of his warm flesh, and then she began to play the water of the shower against her own sensitive hole.

Esther was starting to hyperventilate, but she couldn't seem to control it. She smelled Nicola and Javier and even Mark. Her mind stretched easily to find him, alone in the cabin and staring at the ceiling. He was naked and he had an erection, but he was simply lying still.

Nicola's teeth brushed across her nipple and Esther sucked in her breath.

"Again," she said. Nicola's lips and teeth were doing something to her she'd never quite felt. Or maybe it was the combination, all of her sensitive areas being touched at once. Her thighs shook as Nicola circled her anus lazily again with her finger.

She adjusted the water slightly, and all of a sudden something clicked.

"Oh," she muttered. "Oh my goodness."

Nicola pressed her finger slightly against her anus, not enough to pop inside, but enough that her sphincter muscles began to throb in time with everything else. It was as though the entire world was thinning out, unfolding itself infinitely to lay itself bare. Terrific waves of pleasure carried her body as though it weighed nothing.

When her orgasm finally washed over her, she was ready. The glittering cosmos revealed itself in a shattering of space and time and abstract dimension. The strands of connection were everything, and the bundle that called itself Esther was experiencing pleasure unlike anything it had ever felt. Sensations were being translated and stored, memories that Esther could sort through later, when she didn't have an entire universe to understand.

Abuela was right: it was more than anyone could ever hope to comprehend. But humans did it every day, labeling and cataloging the infinities and groping their way despite the incredible limitations of their intellect and senses. Esther traced the powerful web of connections between herself and the vast, glowing structure she knew was Nicola, and then watched the flickering of possibilities from far beyond. She sensed the great web that was Abuela's map, observing her even now, but with its tendrils questing ever further. And with the comfort of that more familiar metaphor, she let a piece of herself fly free, seeking and probing, until it ran up against a foreign bundle with more awareness than ordinary.

Abuela's map convulsed slightly, and quickly Esther pulled back to herself. Just a tight bundle of infinite connections, so many of them shared with the bundle named Nicola. In her last moments of sight, she pulled gently on some of those strands of connection, too gently to do any harm, and perhaps too subtly to even be noticed.

"Oh," Esther cried again. Nicola gasped slightly, then held Esther tight until Esther's orgasm finally ended.

After a minute or so Esther lifted her head off of Nicola's shoulder.

"It worked," she said wonderingly. "I saw everything. Nicola, it was all so heartbreakingly beautiful. The universe. You. All of it."

Nicola hugged her and didn't respond for a while. "Did you do something to me?" she finally asked with a bit of nervousness.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," Esther said. "I wasn't thinking." She described as best she could what she had done.

"It's OK," Nicola said. "More than OK. I think you managed to arouse me using just your mind."

"Oh," Esther said. "Well, I considered setting you on fire ..."

Nicola laughed and pointedly took the shower nozzle from Esther's limp hand between them. Then she leaned her chest right against Esther, still laughing slightly. The other woman's breasts jiggled comfortably against her.

"It sounded like a good orgasm," Nicola said wistfully. "I couldn't sense any of the rest of it, though."

Esther felt some motion between them and realized Nicola had started to masturbate. She kissed Nicola, and Nicola moaned happily.

"Christ, I'm almost there," Nicola said. "You have — no idea how hot ..."

Esther stroked Nicola's face and then kissed her on the side of the neck. Encouraged by Nicola's moans, she trailed her lips further down, reaching the freckled area not so different from Esther. Nervously she slipped a hand underneath one of the perfect, heavy breasts. How strange it must be to actually feel that weight all the time. Nicola stroked Esther's back with her free hand, and Esther began to run her tongue along the freckles, kissing and brushing her lips the way Javier would do with her. The way Mark sometimes did for Nicola.

Nicola gasped and grabbed at Esther's butt. Then she shook, over and over, making little huffing noises that Esther was very familiar with from all the times she'd heard them in their cabin. Finally Nicola sighed and began to lean back against the tub. Esther leaned forward until she was half-lying on Nicola, and Nicola wrapped her arms around her.

"That was great," Nicola said. "Really great. I can't believe how much I liked that. I never thought a woman could do that for me."

"Me neither," said Esther. Somehow it bothered her a lot less than she would have expected. She already knew someone gay, anyway. Raj was one of the best people she knew.

The thought of Raj made her faintly nervous. Then she remembered: that other person she'd sensed. It wasn't anyone she knew, and yet she had felt Raj nearby, tangled with him.

"There's someone watching my friend Raj," she said slowly. "Someone with the changes. I don't think he was friendly, either. I should talk to Abuela."

"And I should go and fuck Mark. Jesus, I can't wait to feel his cock sliding into — oh, God. Sorry. I shouldn't talk that way. I'm just so horny. I hope your friend is all right."

Nicola laughed nervously.

"It's all right," said Esther. "My body is what it is. And what we did today — I could do that with Javier too. Like I said, it was wonderful. Thank you so much."

"Oh, don't mention it. And I think Mark will be pretty thankful too, once he sees what I have planned for him."

They got out awkwardly and dried off. When Nicola opened the door she gave Esther a wicked glance before dropping her towel and walking away stark naked. Esther sighed and wrapped her towel around herself carefully before heading to Abuela's cabin.

A few minutes later she was following Abuela's meditations all on her own, flying above Abuela's hazy map and desperately trying to match it to the faint glowing connections of her own mental constructs. It was exhausting, but it was a great improvement over any of their previous sessions. But she could already feel her mind closing in its usual frustrating way, and soon she was just Esther, sitting damp and a little chilly in front of Abuela.

A few minutes later, Abuela opened her eyes and smiled.

"Good," she said. "Very good. Esther, I was able to sense a small bit of how you perceive the world. It is remarkable. Your mind was truly made for this task."

"Abuela," she said. "Did you also sense that man near Raj? Is it someone you know?"

Abuela nodded. "Yes, in a way. I had hoped his last visit to California would have discouraged him. For several years now I have frustrated his efforts to do some snooping using his talents. I will endeavor to do so again. Do not worry about your friend, at least not because of this man. He is impatient and easily distracted."

"Does he work for someone? Could he be working with the people who were chasing me?"

"Quite possibly," Abuela said. "But he always appears alone, traveling here from somewhere too far east for me to reliably sense. You should not trouble yourself on this man's account. Unfortunately, as you well know, it does not take a person with the changes to wreak havoc on others' lives. But that has always been the case. I cannot protect everyone from everything."

By the time Esther had retrieved her clothes and returned to the cabin, she was exhausted. She wasn't terribly surprised to see Nicola and Mark sprawled naked together, though she was secretly disappointed they weren't still having sex. Nicola must have been very desperate, or else Mark. Or both of them. She tried not to smile too broadly when the two of them looked up at her.

She'd only managed what she had with Abuela because her mind and body were still so relaxed from what had happened in the bath. The sex she'd had with Nicola.

Esther tried to tell herself it was no big deal. Javier would be the one doing this for her, if it made sense for him to be he here. But for now, she was going to have to repeat what she'd done with Nicola, with some frequency.

She couldn't pretend she wasn't looking forward to that.

..........................*** Chapter 29 ***...........................

Hot air blasted Javier's face from the open window as he pushed the shitty car above sixty-five. No A/C, of course. It was still better than the bus, and a lot faster. More time for visiting Kat this weekend.

Moving this car to San Jose was staking out a point in his future life. From now on, he'd be looking for Esther from there, not his old home. Near Stanford, and San Jose State, and Kat. Not near Mamá.

He found a spot on the outskirts of the city, on a street with some cars that looked like they'd been there months without getting ticketed. Not the best neighborhood, but his car was hardly worth stealing. When he found a payphone, he gave Kat a call.

She was right to the point when she picked him up.

"Hey Javier. I found the hackers. They're in an industrial area outside of Modesto."

Finally. Javier's pulse quickened. "Do you know exactly where?"

"Yeah. The address is for a place that went out of business years ago. I'm sure they hacked into the phone line there."

He was tired of waiting. This was their chance.

"We should check it out," he said.

"What do you mean, check it out?" She glanced over at him with a skeptical grin.

"You know, drive by. Check out the building, maybe stake it out. See if we can figure anything out about them."

"You've been watching too many movies," Kat laughed. "We should let Raj know and see what he thinks."

Javier knew what Raj would say. But this was a concrete action they could take. Graduation and senior week were past, and he should be feeling like he was floating on air, heading for college and adult life in the fall. Instead he just felt empty and useless. He hadn't even found a summer job yet.

"No," he said. "I'm itching to do something useful. I'll go by myself if need be, and I'll be make sure no one sees me. I'll head down in my car, and I can let you and Raj know afterwards if I find anything. Of course, I wouldn't mind company."

Eventually Kat sighed and started to smile. "Fine. I guess I'm in the mood to do something stupid, too. You want to make it a date tomorrow night? I've got to get some work done this evening."

Javier settled into the comfortable routine they had when he visited. Some programming on her spare computer, some reading, a little TV at the end of the evening, and then onto the couch for bed.

Saturday evening, they drove out to retrieve Javier's car.

"So this is the famous shitty car," Kat said as they got in. "I guess that makes you José now. Suits you."

"Thanks, Kathleen," he said, earning a groan.

An hour and a half later they were slowly pulling through a really sketchy-looking area with some decaying industrial buildings and closed-up auto shops.

"There," Kat said. "That's the building. I'm sure of it."

Javier drove by slowly. It was a small industrial building, clearly abandoned, sandwiched between an abandoned storefront and a shop that looked to be headed that way. He drove to the end of the block and parked.

"Let's sneak down the alley in back," Javier said. "See if there are any signs of life."

"Like rats and criminals waiting to mug us?"

"You're such a pessimist," Javier said. "Anyway, what else is there to do without knocking on the door? We'll be quiet and walk right by. No problem."

Kat shook her head, but she followed him down the alley. It had to be one of the stupidest things he'd ever done, but he finally felt alive. And they had to get something out of this dumb trip.

When they got near the back of the building, Kat gripped his hand. There was a very faint light coming from under a back door.

Silently they crept along, keeping to the far side of the alley. There were a few dumpsters and even a rat, but otherwise the alley was clear and empty. Javier squinted at the line of light under the door, trying to see if there was any motion. And then suddenly he was on the ground, gasping for breath. His head rang, as though he'd struck it.

"Stop struggling," came a soft voice. A woman, to his shock. An iron grip took his wrist, and he winced as the assailant began dragging him across the uneven pavement. When he grabbed at the hand holding him, his arm was twisted painfully.

"Would you like me to break it? It could be fun for me. Less for you."

He stopped struggling and let the mysterious figure keep pulling him. It was definitely a woman, but she was freakishly strong.

He heard a whimper and his arm bumped another person, being dragged alongside him.

"José?" she grunted weakly.

He would have smiled if his head weren't ringing so hard. But then the door opened and he had to close his eyes for a minute as he was dragged into a bright space.

All of a sudden he was hoisted to his feet and slammed against a wall. He stared down at the person holding him.

She was much smaller than him. Brown-skinned, with dyed cornrows and an expression of furious glee. She was holding him up easily. No, lifting him. His feet dangled at the wall. It was crazy. She looked pretty fit, but no one that size should be so strong.

"Janelle! Jesus, stop that. What part of inconspicuous did you not understand?"

A middle-aged white guy had poked his head in from a neighboring room. Kat was half-propped up on her elbows, rubbing her head.

"I have selective memory when I'm bored," Janelle said, before letting go of him. He crumpled and leaned against the wall.

"Who the fuck are you?" he gasped, and Janelle smiled.

"Since you were the ones skulking around and trespassing, I think we get to ask you that."

"So you own this place, then?" Kat asked from the floor. Janelle scowled.

"They're obviously not professionals," the brown-haired guy said. "Who sent you?"

"We were just taking a shortcut," said Javier. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh," said Janelle. "OK, Miss Piggy, why don't you finish getting yourself off the floor and join your smartass friend."