Shangri-La
Premise: A detective from Earth ventures to a sleepy colony on Titan looking for answers in a close personal case… and stumbles into a world of intrigue, seduction, and unfathomable cosmic horror.
Read Part 1 here Read Part 2 here
Part 3: Peace and Love
Summary: Asher and Julia make up. Julia questions Asher. Asher reveals the truth and has a moment. Julia and Asher engage in some light romance.
Contains: hurt/comfort, PIV sex, c4t, penetration, tit sucking, nursing, nursing handjob, intox, alcohol, sub top, dom bottom, back clawing, blood, submissive butch, dominant femme, crying, romance, actually surprisingly wholesome considering my whole brand
Asher flits back and forth between the offices and the hotel room for a few more days. It forms her daily commute. Perhaps, she presumes, her travel is so regular that anyone who would have been suspicious simply views it as her workplace. Fitting, that.
Sifting through the papers reveals little. She doesn’t dare attempt reconstructing the shreddings. They’re cross-cut; it would be a nightmare. It would be so much easier to go back through the papers strewn about the desk and the floor, and this is what she does for a while. But somewhere around the third day, sorting through expenditure reports for years-old autonomous mining projects in Jupiter’s L4 Lagrange point, she sits, exasperated, and buries her head in her hands. It’s all it takes to stifle a despairing groan that dies in her throat.
She misses home. She misses the open blue sky, and Lake Vostok’s frigid waters, reflecting the glittering metropolitan skyline and the surrounding pines at its rocky shores. She misses Earth gravity, the certainty of weight. She misses the streets of Vostok City, taking the continental high speed maglev to visit the New Sydney seaside, and the beauty of air travel to other continents. The feeling that anywhere in the world was just a few hours away.
But she’s here. She’s here, stuck months away from home, sifting through the gross remnants of a spacer conglomerate’s branch office’s paperwork, going nowhere a billion klicks away. Burning her savings on an insane shot in the dark. All because she had to suffer the terrible indignity of her own inquisitive nature. Her inability to simply leave well enough alone.
It is on the way back from one such excursion that she encounters her again. The Martian. Julia. Catching her interrupted as she’s in one of the atriums.
Julia does not run this time. Presumably, she’s counting on the protection of being in public. She stops in her tracks and looks over Asher unflinchingly. Asher swallows. The awkwardness of the situation is palpable for her. Julia, so steely-eyed facing down the Antarctic cop that pulled a gun on her. There’s a distant memory for her people, Asher thinks, doing the same when they overthrew United Nations rule so long ago. That national-planetary cultural heritage built on a backs-against-the-wall defiance, spitting in the eyes of the homeworld and those people of it.
Asher approaches. Julia continues to stand still. Her slight height advantage over Asher makes the latter feel sheepish. It’s not the first time she’s had to apologize for wrongly drawing on someone, but it’s the first time she’s had to apologize to a Martian, and the humiliation in that is something she’s struggling to fight through. But some things are more important than planetary honor. Not that a Martian would know.
“Hey,” Asher says.
“Hi,” Julia nods curtly.
“I, uh,” Asher begins. It’s so difficult to meet the Martian’s cold amber gaze. Why is eye contact so much harder when you’re looking up at someone, anyway? “I’m sorry. About earlier.”
“Yeah,” Julia puts a hand on her hip. “I’m sure.”
“I’m serious,” Asher leans in, eyes scanning the crowded room. “Could we talk, uh, in more detail? About what happened?”
“Be my guest,” Julia folds her arms and smirks. She knows full well she has enormous leverage over Asher and has every intent of pressing it. This is not a good place for a detective to be. “Go right ahead.”
Asher grimaces. “In. Private.” Then, the magic word comes out tortured, “Please.”
Julia holds firm, says nothing. She’s staring down at Asher, the homeworld detective who is too quick on the draw and too slow to stop herself from doing so. Under the observation of the tall redhead, Asher feels like a sad little bug in a jar.
The tension in the air finally pulls taut and Julia’s mouth makes a single tsk. “Okay,” she smiles, “Come to Club Kraken with me. We’ll talk there.”
Asher’s eyebrows jump. “Club Kraken,” she echoes.
“You said somewhere private. There’s anonymity in a crowd,” she pauses, grins with her sharp teeth and continues, “as we both know so well. Look, my shift ended an hour ago. I’m going there anyway. Come on.” The Martian starts walking off without looking at Asher.
“I don’t,” Asher stammers, “I’m not sure that—”
“You’re buying,” Julia calls over her shoulder. “It’s the least you can do.”
Goddammit. Asher follows. She follows because she has no other choice, because the Marsie knows she has no other choice. She is compelled by convention and circumstance alike to cooperate with what is not-so-subtly demanded of her. Asher catches up and the two of them walk together, the Earthen and the Martian, side by side. It’s politically surreal. She feels like she’s being led in a triumphal procession where she is the defeated and captured outsider. Julia doesn’t look down at her at all, just smiles pleasantly as they proceed. Asher knows she’ll have to keep her wits about her. She has been entered into a dangerous contest of wills.
They arrive and pass beneath the lit up sea monster sign, its eye a harsh glow down upon Asher as she enters. They descend the stairs into the club, Julia first and Asher behind her. Fuck. It’s slammed in here. An aquamarine glow pervades the space, which is sonically drowning under the heavy music and the conversations fighting to supersede it. The previous shift change means a lot of workers have come in by now, looking to blow off steam after a hard day’s work of doing refinery maintenance or shuttle loading or whatever the hell it is these freaks do at a place like this.
Asher and Julia get to the bar, so crowded the two of them cannot find a seat and instead have to lean over the counter to get the attention of a bartender. While they wait, Asher observes the place. Spacers and guest workers from the inner system are all here in some great swirling melting pot, engaging in a peaceful coexistence the likes of which diplomats of all planets could have only dreamed of, and that, as a cynical anarchist might suspect, the United Nations Intelligence Service has always feared. They are talking, drinking, singing, dancing. Together.
The bartender comes to them. Different man from last time. Probably a Venusian. There’s that passive sun-soaked air about him. “What will it be?”
Asher looks at Julia, who seems to be staring at her expecting she will order on their behalf. Okay. When in space, do as the spacers do. “Two vodka electrics, please.”
If Julia approves, she does not express it. As they engage in a second exercise of patience, Asher goes back to scanning the room. There’s a couple pairs off in the back, making out under the light. The passion on the far side of the room reaches out to Asher and makes her shudder. It brings to mind what she saw in the halls a few days ago. She blinks, shakes her head, clears her thoughts. Whatever. It was a bad day. Moving on.
“Are you gonna talk to me?” Julia leans in expectantly and somewhat impatiently, her voice sounding strained over the din. “You wanted to talk, right?”
Asher, lightly startled, turns and stammers, “Yeah. Yeah, sorry. We can talk.”
“Okay,” Julia says, laying out her hand in a mocking gesture inviting procession. “Go ahead.”
“I’m sorry for pulling my gun on you,” Asher has to yell at an uncomfortably loud volume. If anyone nearby notices her over the noise, they certainly don’t show it. She really, really does not want to be talking about this here, of all places. “That was a really fucked up thing to do, I shouldn’t have, and I understand that I freaked you out by doing it. I didn’t mean to, I was acting on instinct, but it doesn’t change the effect it had on you. I’m sorry.”
Julia carries the proud smile of a triumphator. She knows full well what she’s extracted here. A private fulfillment of a national honor. She is, however, also gracious in victory, because she follows with, “I accept your apology.”
“Thank you,” Asher exhales like she’s just come up for air after nearly drowning.
Their drinks arrive. Vodka electrics, again. Asher pays with a generous tip, takes hers up in her hand. It’s so cold it makes her fingers numb, the half-frozen condensate on the glass making it all the worse. She and Julia cheers and drink. When the drinks return to their sides, Asher notices that Julia has actually taken an earnest sip from hers this time.
Julia turns and looks out at the dance floor. At the swaying and bumping masses. “So you’re a cop,” she says.
“I prefer ‘detective’,” Asher responds and adjusts her posture ram-rod straight, “but, yes. I am.”
Julia looks back down at Asher and plays off a smirk. “Are you familiar with the early 21st century expression, ‘All Cops Are Bastards’?”
Asher blinks. “No. I’m not a historian. Did they really say that back then?”
Julia takes another sip of her drink and Asher mirrors her. She’s still sipping down the metallic citrusy taste when Julia says, “Yeah, they did, mostly in Anglosphere North America. And for good reason. Most people back then did not trust police.”
Asher leans back against the wall and stares out at the spacers, and has to shout, “Since when have they ever? Cops is cops, y’know? Shit is as shit does.”
When Asher turns to look back, Julia’s face is twisted up, perplexed. “What do you mean by that?”
Asher takes another drink. It’s all starting to hit her. Fuck me, that’s strong. “Nothing,” she sighs loudly. “Forget it. I don’t wanna talk politics with you. Just make us both angry.”
The redhead nods in understanding and mercifully obliges, leveling off a sip somewhere around the halfway mark of her glass. “I think I’m done for now,” she says, moving over to set her drink on the bar counter. Within a minute the Venusian bartender sweeps it up and stows it away in some sink, sight unseen.
Asher skulls the rest of hers in one fell swoop and groans, “Yeah, me too.” It burns her throat, lights up her esophagus on the way down like a lamp descending into a mineshaft. Her glass, similarly to the Martian’s, is disappeared once set upon the bar. She does not feel like having another. She eyes the room nervously, hoping the Venusian femmes are nowhere nearby. The first time was bad enough.
When Asher returns to her spot on the wall, she realizes Julia’s been watching her the whole time. Her expression, like her planet, is unreadable. Sharp. Mysterious.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” Julia asks.
The question is so shocking to Asher that she blinks and then lets out an awkward laugh. “I’m sorry, what?”
The Martian is unfazed by this. “You were right. We need to talk somewhere more private. And my voice is getting tired. Come on.”
Asher is frozen for a moment as Julia turns and walks out, jumpsuit complimenting her figure nicely. Her Martian strut. Her Martian ass. Asher shakes her head, lets reality smack her across the side before picking up the pace and tipsily stumbling after her. Who knows where this is going? Will this help her with the case? She doesn’t know, but at least it’s something. God, at least it’s something.
They make their way out of the club unmolested by the feverishly dancing crowds, passing by the perfumed couplets and in one case a ménage à trois, the kissing and breast-cupping and ass-grabbing turning the atmosphere of the place far too lascivious for Asher’s comfort. Perhaps this is why Julia really asked her to leave. Before things got too weird here. Asher understands.
Upon surfacing, Julia pauses briefly to check that Asher is still following her, and they continue together. “Where are we going?” Asher asks tepidly.
“My quarters,” Julia says. She turns over to look at Asher’s taken aback expression, and shrugs, “It’s private.”
“You don’t bunk with other workers?” Asher asks. “I thought that’s how it worked in the outer planets.”
“For spacers, maybe,” scoffs Julia. “Mars negotiates on our behalf. They compensate the conglomerates for the extra board so it’s no trouble to hire us.” Then, she looks over with a proud smirk. “It’s nice being from a planet that looks out for its own.”
“Yeah,” Asher mumbles, thinking about her hotel rates, “whatever.”
“It’s not anything too fancy,” the Martian cautions, clearly sensing she touched a nerve, “It’s a cramped little studio hab, essentially. But it’s a place to sleep safe.”
They make their way back there, through a few winding halls, over in the quarters of the CRG workers. As they pass by the communal spacer habs, Asher can hear from one or two of them the sounds of loud lovemaking. She flinches at a particularly sharp moan that echoes in the halls. The memory from being lost in the dark hallway flashes into her head again, the sinister backlit face of the pale woman rushing forward into her mind’s eye.
Julia doesn’t comment on it, just keeps moving. Asher keeps up with her as best as she can. The full weight of the drink’s second half is slamming into her. Eventually they arrive outside a new hab section, its presence announced with its own bulkhead. “CRG’s Martian quarters,” Julia mutters. She turns to Asher. “You’re technically entering Martian territory, but I won’t ask you for your passport or anything.”
“Cool,” Asher says, “Thanks.” She’s surprised there isn’t some biometric scanner that would sense a lack of iron oxide particulates in her bloodstream, something to root out her non-Mars nature. There’s a sense she is stepping into the belly of the beast, in a way. She brushes it aside. She has to. There are more important matters than her own comfort.
Julia places her eye up to a retinal scanner, presses around on an interface, and the bulkhead opens. “Gave you guest status,” she smiles.
There’s a trepidation now, one that wasn’t there before. Asher had not considered the possibility that her going back to Julia’s residence could mean something personal, but suddenly the realization collides with her boozy mind like a railgun round, something massive sending her perception off course. She must act on her best behavior. She has to get somewhere with this. It can’t all be for nothing.
Julia and Asher step through and seal the bulkhead behind them. The hallway down extends to maybe a dozen or so residences. They walk past several more airtight doors before Julia comes to a stop in front of what must be hers. She slides it open. “Come on in,” she gestures politely.
Asher steps inside. It’s cozy. There’s a soft, neat bed, plenty of compact storage space, a minifridge, a thin closet, a small desk with a single chair, and enough floor space to stretch. Above the desk, a narrow polycarbonate window faces out into the dark. And above the window, the infamous black and red Martian standard, bolted in place.
“Nice place,” Asher nods.
“Yeah, for the most part.” Julia closes the door behind her and leans against it. She stares at Asher and her voice drops an octave. “Why are you here, detective?”
Asher blinks. “You invited me.”
“On Titan. Why are you here on Titan.” She does not state it like a question. Julia steps over to the window, bidding Asher to sit on the bed while she remains standing. Asher obliges. “A woman like you, someone from Earth, you don’t just come out here on vacation.”
Asher starts, “What I do here is hardly your—”
Julia smirks. “Sex tourist, I take it? Looking to try some ‘out of this world’ tang?”
“No! No,” Asher stammers, “Nothing like—”
“I’m not here to judge,” the Marsie shrugs.
“It’s personal,” Asher stands back up again. Her voice rattles defensively in her parched throat. “It’s personal.”
“So, sex tourism.”
“Would you please lay off the sex tourism angle?” Asher groans. The drunkenness and humiliation in tandem are enough to make even her brown-skinned cheeks turn flush. “No, it’s nothing like that. I… fuck.” She buries her head in her hands. Julia keeps mum. The silence begins to suffocate Asher, and she looks up beseechingly at Julia, eyes nearly watering. “Can I trust you?”
Julia blinks. It’s almost like she didn’t expect sincerity out of the Earthen woman. She soon composes herself and says, “Right now, I think we have to trust each other.” There’s a half smile, now. “At least we’ve got being inner-system in common. If nothing else, we can start with that.”
“It’s a start,” Asher assents. She sighs. “I’m gonna need some water.”
Julia nods wordlessly, fetching Asher a bottle from the minifridge. Asher thanks her breathlessly and opens it, drinking it down hectic before setting it back. “Good?” Julia asks. Asher nods.
“Okay,” Asher begins. She stumbles over her words a couple times before landing right. “I’m, I’m doing an investigation. I’m not here in any official capacity. I’m off duty, I put in a sabbatical with my precinct.”
Julia takes it in. Her red hair is illuminated so brilliantly by the ceiling light. When Asher stops, she follows with a question. “What are you investigating?”
“My baby sister. She disappeared.” Asher takes a massive sip of water, steeling herself for the next part. “Her name’s Denise. She was an astrobiologist with OSDco, fresh out of ANU, on her first trip offworld. They put her in this little junker hab to, fucking, look for underwater life on Tethys or something. I don’t know. I’m not a goddamn scientist.” Asher buries her head in her hands, balling her fists against her skull as if willing away some torrential headache. “She never came back. My baby sister never came back. Company just said she went missing, presumed dead, I—”
The dam breaks. The tears flow easily. All this time since she read the press release she’d never cried once, and now, here, in a Martian residence on the surface of Titan, in front of a practical stranger, the wheels have fully come off. She wipes her face with her hand and it does absolutely nothing to stop the collapse.
Asher looks up at Julia, stinging eyes and wet cheeks, stammering, “She’s all I had, you know? Our parents are gone. I don’t have anyone else outside of work. Just my little baby sister. I’m supposed to look out for her. Fuck, and I, I don’t trust the fucking company, no one does, the shit they get up to, I mean, you’ve heard it too, right?”
Julia just stares and nods quietly, and hands Asher a small pack of tissues from the desk. Asher obliges and thanks her again, drying her eyes, clearing her sinuses, and continues in a shaky voice, “I have to find out what’s happened to her. I have to. It’s the one thing I’m good at, I can use it here. I can. And if, if there’s any chance she’s still out there, anything at all, I…”
Julia listens as Asher trails off into a pitiful, halting shudder. Then, there is her arm outstretched, palm empty. “Here,” she says softly, “hold my hand.”
“I’m sorry,” Asher mumbles out, obliging the gentle order. Julia’s hand is soft. Surprising, considering her occupation. Presumably, she applies moisturizer. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” Julia whispers, using her free hand and a tissue to daub away the tears from Asher’s eyes, then setting the tissue aside and stroking Asher’s hair out of her face momentarily. The contact remains intoxicating long after it ends. The Martian is gazing down at her with an unreadable expression. “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me. I’m really sorry about your sister.”
“Yeah,” nods Asher blankly. “Thanks.”
Julia’s hand begins to slip away out of her grasp. Suddenly, Asher realizes how much she craves it. The touch. The contact. She lets her fingers squeeze a bit tighter, as if to plead for Julia to stay.
And the redhead does. She tilts her head inquisitively. “You doing alright?”
“I, I think so,” Asher replies. She feels dizzy. Not like before, in the bar or the hallway, just in a deep, innate way. “I just… it’s been a really long time since someone’s touched me.” She blinks. “Fuck. That was weird. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said any of that. I’m so sorry. I think I need to go.”
She gets up off the bed, or tries to, before wobbling and needing to sit back down. She moves to try again, but she’s interrupted.
“It’s okay,” Julia takes a seat next to Asher on the bed. The head radiating off of her at this proximity is enough to get Asher’s vision fuzzy at the edges. This isn’t really happening, is it? Is the Martian actually into her? “How long has it been for you?” she asks.
Oh, she really does not want to answer Julia’s questions anymore. How long? Too long, that was always the answer, and it was getting worse all the time. The Venusians had touched her, sure, but that was less any touch in the human sense and more in the predatory desire for some objectified homeworld fetish. The side-by-side shoulder to shoulder contact underneath their clothes feels real. “I don’t really remember,” Asher croaks. It’s a statement that wouldn’t sound so pitiful if it wasn’t so horribly true.
“Hey,” Julia murmurs, “it’s okay, really. It’s been a while for me too.” Her hand creeps back under Asher’s, takes it, interlacing their fingers in a tender, inescapable embrace. “We can take it slow.”
“Fuck,” Asher gasps. She feels like she’s going to sob again with the want. Her cheeks feel hot. Her heart is pumping so hard that every pulse of her carotids is choking her. “You’re so pretty. God, you’re so pretty.”
“Thank you,” Julia smiles warmly, looking at Asher’s hand as she rubs it gently, “I think you’re really cute. You’re really brave for coming out here, I hope you know that.”
“I thought I could keep it together,” Asher mumbles as the warmth finally begins to seep from her hand into her chest. “I thought I could stay focused on the investigation. I need to.”
“You’re allowed to be human,” Julia speaks the words softly. Her faint Martian accent suffuses the consonants and Asher can’t help but find it endearing. “It’s the one thing we’ll always have in common. It’s a good thing. It’s worth keeping. It’s worth nourishing. Without it, you can’t go on.”
“Can I kiss you?” Asher blurts out without thinking. Her eyes go wide with horror at the nakedness of the request. She’s lost it. She’s finally lost it. Detectives don’t do things like this. They don’t spill their guts. They don’t break down just because a pretty woman holds their hand.
And something has to have gone horribly wrong in the universe, because Julia just nods and smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, come kiss me.”
Julia’s hands reach up, holding Asher by the face, just under the jaw. The heat transfers into her. Do Martians always run this hot? Asher decides to stop asking questions about Martians and just accept that this one wants her. They are not Martian and Earthen. They simply are two women who want to share each other, with each other. God. It’s an impossible thing. And it’s happening now.
They lean in together slowly, tentatively, a symmetrical magnetism, and they kiss. Asher’s heart skips a beat and for a split second she thinks she’s died.
Julia’s lips are so soft that Asher cannot help but moan into her mouth. Her hands come up unconsciously, one over the small of Julia’s back and one at the back of her head. A key turns, the insatiability has been unleashed within her, a dormant fire roaring to life once more. Julia’s hands caress Asher’s torso, running up the sides, tickling her slightly. They pull in tight, pecking, rock into each other, almost see-sawing back and forth with the initiative of their touches, their kissing. Clutching so tight, pulling so close; the heat transfers, compounds, and flows. Asher moans again, the kiss goes open-mouthed. Fuck. Fuck, this is everything she’s ever needed.
Julia eventually pulls back, and has to lightly press on Asher’s shoulders to keep her from following too far. She falls onto her elbows while Asher leans forward on her hands. They hold steady now and stare at each other. Asher searches Julia’s amber irises. Little golden flecks of color in them shine under the light. There’s almost a sense of surprise on Julia’s face, like she didn’t expect to want this so much, either. “Wow,” Julia whispers.
“Um,” Asher stammers, “Yeah.” The words fall dumbly off her tongue.
“Do you wanna keep going?” Julia asks softly.
“God, yes,” Asher moans. She crawls forward, they come back together, kissing again, Julia’s questing tongue invading Asher’s eager mouth. In the darkness behind her closed eyes, Asher can feel hands moving. Julia unzipping her own jumpsuit. The visual in her mind makes Asher swoon into the kiss further.
Asher moves to kiss Julia further down, planting kisses on her jaw and licking up her neck. It feels good to hold Julia while she does this, making her feel this way. Julia’s throat, so close to Asher’s mouth, vibrates with soft vocalizations of pleasure.
“My turn,” Julia murmurs, lifting Asher’s head away by a tight grip in her hair and moving in to lick Asher’s neck instead. It’s so good. Asher twitches like Julia is sending electricity into her body. Soon, they return to kissing, open mouthed, drooling and panting. They twist around each other, locking softly in place, transferring heat and saliva and the sounds of their moaning.
Julia pulls back again, momentarily, and a string of drool falls slowly from both their lips. Julia wipes her mouth, severs the connection. “Can I take off your shirt?” she asks.
Asher nods wordlessly, her eyes riveted to the redhead’s hypnotic cleavage, made opulent and impossible to ignore by the zipper moved low on the jumpsuit. She cooperates pliantly as her sleek black turtleneck is moved off her, breaking her sight temporarily, messing up her hair just a little, and when it goes clear, all that remains on her upper body is her utility bra. She can feel the heat radiating off her skin, into the room. Julia notices Asher’s stare and smiles. Asher’s eyes dart away, sheepishly.
“Hey,” Julia smiles, cupping her breasts and jiggling them ever so slightly, “you don’t need to be shy. It’s okay if you like tits.”
“I just,” Asher struggles to get the words out, her eyes back to being hopelessly locked to Julia’s chest, “I felt like I was so weird around you the first night here. I forgot myself.”
“I think you were a lot weirder when you pulled your gun on me,” Julia giggles, drawing the zipper down to her waist, sliding her arms out of the sleeves and exposing the upper half of her body entirely. She’s not wearing anything at all underneath. Asher’s eyes widen and her vision goes vignette. Oh my god. “But you apologized for that. So don’t worry about it, okay?”
“Fuck,” Asher whimpers. “Okay, yeah.” The humiliation is no concern to her now because she is beneath it. She is drowning in her yearning for this woman, for the touch. It is not enough. It could never be enough. The tidal wave of desire is consuming her, devouring her from the inside. A thirst that must be slaked. She stares at Julia’s heavy, pink-capped teardrop breasts and asks, “Can I touch?”
Julia looks Asher over and grins. There’s a newfound hunger in her stare, as though she has realized something about the detective’s nature. Asher shivers under it. Finally, the redhead speaks a single word. “Beg.”
“Oh, god,” Asher moans despairingly, “please, Julia, please. Fuck, I need you so bad. I’ve needed you since we boarded the shuttle and sat next to each other. It haunts me, it’s eating me. Please, I wanna touch, I need to feel your tits, they’re so perfect, I wanna suckle, please—”
Asher stops in her tracks. Her hands are already on Julia’s tits. They’ve been guided there, Julia’s hands are still atop hers, pressing them in against the softness. “Come closer,” Julia beckons with her voice. “Come to me.”
She takes a hand, pressing it behind Asher’s head and bringing her head to suck her tits. The nipple is in Asher’s mouth, she suckles, that primordial want suffusing her mind and driving her to wrap her arms around Julia’s waist to pull herself in further, to suffocate in the redhead’s perfect breasts. She has not felt this level of safety in years. She suckles, drawing the soft nipple up against the smooth palate of her mouth, running under it with her eager tongue. Julia’s moans are soft and tight — she is more in control of herself than Asher could ever hope to be.
Julia’s hand travels smoothly down Asher’s torso, over her tits with a single, possessive grope, then down further. Distantly, an alarm bell surfaces in Asher’s mind and rises into a full blaring klaxon when she realizes what’s about to happen. She pulls back from Julia’s tits and blinks steadily. “Stop,” she husks out. Julia obliges, halting her movement.
“What’s up?” Julia tilts her head and asks, concern in her voice. She takes her hands and brushes the hair out of her eyes to get a better look at Asher.
“There’s something you should know about me,” Asher says. “I, uh, I don’t know how things are on Mars, but…”
She trails off. Julia does not fill the silence between them. She just sits there, waiting. Asher swallows and continues.
“I was incongruent. At birth, I was sexed, uh, male, and—”
“Asher,” Julia stops her gently, “you don’t need to worry about that with me. Yes, we have people like you on Mars. No, it’s not a big deal for us. I’m not interested in the circumstances of your birth, only who you are now. And right now, I think you’re lovely. You’re adorable. I want to touch you.”
“Okay,” Asher nods and sucks down air, “okay.”
“Is it okay with you if I touch you there?” Julia asks gently.
Asher’s heart flutters. It’s something she’s erotically neutral on but she’s so desperate for touch anywhere that she accepts it. “Yeah. Thank you for asking.”
“Of course,” Julia leans in, pecks Asher on the cheek, and her hand moves down to caress Asher’s cock. “I want to make sure you have a good time.”
Asher opens her legs for Julia’s touch. The hand is inquisitive, questing, but gentle and steady. It slips beneath Asher’s pants after a moment, wrapping around her cock and beginning to massage it to hardness. Asher’s eyes flutter. She has never been at someone’s mercy before, not like this. They adjust on the bed and go back to kissing, lips against lips. Asher’s movements still feel a tad clumsy from the drink, but that’s starting to fade from her system, the intoxication purely hormonal now. This is all she wants right now. She feels Julia’s hand guide her back to suckle, and she acquiesces.
Surrounded by the heat and the softness, Asher suckles from Julia’s soft breast, pawing at them with her hands and feeling her mind slip below into that warm and dark state of dreamlike sensation. They continue like that for some time, until Asher is coaxed to full hardness, awareness only coming to her when she is pulled back from the nipple, and she realizes how much of her universe centers on the feeling between her legs. She whimpers a small, mournful noise, and this makes Julia giggle to herself just a bit.
“Do you wanna fuck me?” Julia asks, breathy and eager. The question takes a second to register with Asher, at which point her stomach butterflies and she has to blink to readjust her vision.
“Fuck,” Asher echoes, her voice trembling.
“Yeah,” Julia coos, pets her hair. “You want it?”
“Mhm,” Asher mumbles, “yeah. Yeah.”
“Okay,” Julia says, slipping off the rest of her jumpsuit, revealing her long, marble-toned thighs and calves. Asher stares dumbfounded, barely fiddling with her pants to slip them off entirely, crawling up on the bed naked save her utility bra.
Julia reclines back on the bed, caressing her breast with one hand and slipping her panties off entirely. Immediately, Asher’s eyes are drawn to her cunt. It’s wet in the light, under Julia’s hypnotic circling fingers, topped with soft auburn bush.
They’re going to fuck now. It’s simply inevitable. “I’m on birth control,” Asher murmurs.
“Me too,” Julia replies with a grin. “I want you inside of me. Do you want it too?”
“Yes,” Asher softly whimpers, searching her deep gaze. “Please don’t make me beg again.”
Julia giggles. “Okay, fine,” she gives a playful sigh, “come here.”
Asher lines herself up. It’s been so long since she’s done this. Is she still doing it the right way? Julia’s so pretty, should she have gone down to eat her out first? She will later. She must. The flash in her mind of the spacers in the dark hallway momentarily commandeers her, and Asher blinks before returning to the present. No. She is here. She is about to fuck a beautiful woman. There is no reason to be afraid.
She enters Julia. It is silken soft, so hot and wet, gripping her like they are perfectly cast for each other. Fluttering, sucking her further in. The sensation is overwhelming, so intoxicating it drives Asher into her head, the sense-memory of pussy previous emerges from dormancy. So this is how it feels. She remembers now, because she is experiencing it. She is here, in the present and the place.
Julia’s eyes bore into Asher’s, and Asher watches Julia’s pupils dilate as she slides all the way in to make contact with her cervix. They are in profound contact with one another. Asher, eyes unfocused, leans her head down into the crook of Julia’s neck and begins to thrust, rocking her hips gently into the redhead’s receptive cunt. Julia moans out, her noises softer and longer than before. They are like this for some time, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, cockhead to cervix. Julia’s legs and arms begin folding around Asher to keep her in place, and her hands come to rest over Asher’s upper back, at the points not concealed by the bra.
“Harder,” Julia says, digging in her nails and beginning to scratch. Asher whimpers, rocks her hips in deep. She’s a masochist by nature, and the sensation of pain blending with the pleasure is so heady she’s going nonverbal. She opens her mouth and it takes her a long moment to recover her voice.
“Harder,” Asher echoes as a whisper. Julia obliges with her claws before pushing Asher up just a bit, just enough for the two of them to look at each other.
“Take this off first,” Julia puts her hands under Asher’s bra and Asher nods numbly. The stimulation is making it hard to do anything but exactly what she’s told. She takes off her bra with Julia’s help. Julia stares at Asher’s soft tits for a moment, before tweaking them with her nails and then pulling Asher back down on top of her. “Keep fucking me. Harder.”
Asher obliges. It’s impossible not to. She has to do what this woman says. She’s too beautiful to ignore her commands, too hot to avoid fucking her cunt. It is so very fortunate she gets to be here, with her. The low-gravity sex gives them options. Julia begins moving Asher’s hips and gets her up to speed before plunging her claws back into Asher’s back.
“Harder,” Asher moans. She wants this. She wants to be scraped up, to make love and feel pain in simultaneous measure. She increases the pace further, and Julia rewards her with a shredding motion down her back that stings her nerves so brightly that Asher has to blink away tears. Asher kisses up Julia’s neck, licking her again to work her over. She wants to please Julia. She wants it more than anything in this moment.
“Harder,” Julia grunts. The word is becoming all they know. Asher leans up, staring into Julia’s blown-out pupils. Thrusting into her more and more. Julia’s nails drag down Asher’s back once more and Asher’s eyes roll up, past her fluttering eyelids, while a guttural moan escapes her throat. The most beautiful words Asher’s ever heard emerge from Julia’s soft lips. “I’m gonna come,” the redheaded goddess moans, “don’t you fucking stop, keep going, Asher, I—”
The nails dig in so hard and painfully that Asher collapses on top of Julia’s soft chest, whimpering and thrusting while Julia’s cunt spasms and clenches around her cock. It’s so powerful, so intoxicatingly blissful, drowning Asher’s mind in the wetness and heat, and she is pushed over into orgasm too, her cock twitching and coming inside Julia, shooting blanks into her beautiful pussy.
They lay like that for a bit, aftershocks rocking the both of them until they settle into a dreamy afterglow. “I,” Asher starts, her voice still trembling from the stimulation, “Is there anything more I can do?”
Julia looks at her and laughs. “Are you serious?”
Asher nods, “Yeah?”
“God, no,” Julia exhales, “Any more and I’d pass out. I’m a one and done kind of woman, I think.”
“Okay,” Asher sighs, nestling her head on Julia’s upper chest, still inside her and going soft after it all, leaning up to kiss just under her jaw. “Thank you for this.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Julia’s smile is evident in her voice, “we both had a good time.”
“I know, but still,” Asher replies softly, “thank you.”
“Jesus,” Julia says, moving one of her hands away from Asher’s back and up somewhere unseen to Asher, into Julia’s vision. “Asher, I think I got carried away. Your back is bleeding.”
“So be it,” Asher says. “It was out of this world.”
There’s silence for a moment. Then, Julia begins to giggle, and Asher joins her in shared whimsy. They laugh together, bound up tight. They drink from the wayward water bottle, they kiss, they snuggle. Their breathing becomes synchronized. Asher stays inside Julia the whole time. The Earthen and the Martian drift to sleep together this way. The two of them intertwining, finding peace and love between their worlds on the surface of a strange moon, united in shared humanity a billion klicks from each home.
END OF PART 3
