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After they left, I looked across the table at Lizard. "That is one great lady."
"You noticed that too, huh? Here, open your mouth. Try one of these-"
"Mmf. Thmt's gmmd—" After several long moallents of delicious savoring, I finally said, "You were right. I just had my first oral orgasm."
Just a little forward of the gazebo, there were three steps leading down to a sheltered love seat, where we sat and sipped the last of our coffee and gazed out at the dark Amazon night. Lizard rested her head against mine, and we rested in the afterglow of an incredible evening. "I didn't know it was possible to have this much fun with your clothes on," she said.
"Why do you think they did all this?" I asked.
Lizard didn't reply immediately. She knew the answer, she just didn't want to speak it aloud. Instead, she said, "I think… I think they just wanted to share our happiness. There isn't a lot of happiness around anymore. What little there is has to be shared."
"Mm. But this-this was overkill."
"There's no such thing as overkill. Dead is dead." She snuggled closer.
"I wonder if it isn't something more than that…" I said. "I think maybe they're all afraid that this is the end of an era. And this was their way of marking it. Of celebrating their own greatness."
"I'm not complaining," Lizard whispered. "We don't deserve it."
"Actually, my sweet little chocolate dumpling, we do. You and I may represent the last best hope of the human species to preserve what once was great about this planet. We're the ones who might just make the difference in this war. I think they wanted to give us a very intense experience of what we're fighting for."
"Well, they succeeded." She sighed luxuriously. "But I wish you wouldn't make it sound so serious."
"It is serious-now that I've seen what you can do to a table of chocolate. Lady, you'd kill someone if they got between you and a hot fudge sundae."
Lizard sniffed. "That's not fair. I give first warnings."
I hugged her close. "I promised you chocolate. You promised me babies. I hope all our promises can be kept so easily." Lizard fell silent again. There were times when she did that, retreated to the privacy of her own thoughts. I knew there were things that she would probably never share with me; but it was all right. When she did'share, she shared herself completely.
"It's going to be a long day tomorrow," she said. "We have a lot of work to do."
"Most of it is going to be the waiting," I told her. "All the equipment is ready. Everybody knows what they're supposed to do. Mostly, you and I are going to stand around and watch while all these people we've so carefully trained do their jobs. You and I only have to go to work if something goes wrong." Even as I was saying it, I wished I hadn't. I didn't want to acknowledge the possibility.
But it was all right. Lizard just squeezed my arm reassuringly. She sat up straight and said, "We should probably take some sober-ups before we go to bed."
I glanced sideways at her. I'd already had one experience with Sober-Ups today. "If we do, we're probably going to have some very bizarre sex."
"Okay," she agreed. "I'll be the chorus girl, you be the German shepherd."
"No fair. You always get to be the chorus girl-"
Regardless of its other manifestations, it is clear that the neural parasites are primarily gastropede symbionts. The gastropede provides an ambient environment conducive to symbiont growth, and the symbiont network within the gastropede provides additional sensory inputs to the gastropede's primitive brain.
Some observers believe that without the additional sensory co
Unfortunately, there are so many other aspects of gastropede physiology that have not yet been satisfactorily resolved or understood that it would be ill-advised to endorse any thesis at this time.
The reader would do well to remember this disclaimer throughout the sections that follow.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 48
In the Henhouse
"The highest expression of creativity is the invention of a new sexual persuasion. "
-SOLOMON SHORT
I woke up feeling a lot better than I probably deserved to. In fact, I woke up feeling luxurious. Soft. Silky. Huh-?
Something with the sheets. I felt like I was wearing a- lifted the blanket and looked.
Yes, I was.
Now, wait a minute. How did this happen?
I was wearing Lizard's blue nightgown. The long one. The real soft silky one. It felt terrific. I had it on backward. The label was against my throat. I felt suddenly embarrassed, silly, and at the same time, incredibly aroused. I had to laugh. Was this what it felt like, being perverse? I could get used to this.
l sprawled out under the covers, lying on my back and remembering, chuckling, and smiling glassily at the ceiling. I stroked my erection through the soft cloth. I was thinking about my wife, my lover, the mother of my children
The nightgown had started out on Lizard. Honest. She knew I liked seeing her in sexy lingerie-and she liked wearing it. She said it made her feel pretty. I was begi
I had been in bed, unsuspecting, waiting for her, turning the pages of the briefing book, not really reading, not even looking at the pictures, when she came out of the bathroom. At first, I didn't even look up, I just turned and put the book on the night table, and palmed off the reading light. Then I realized that she wasn't moving. I looked up and saw that she was waiting for me to notice her.
She was standing in the bathroom door, her hair unpi
I sat up in bed to watch her. She moved to open the glass doors that led out to the balcony. The cool and dry night breezes smelled fragrantly green. The scent of the sweet jungle canopy rose up to meet us as we drifted silently through the sky. There was a faint glow in the air around us, the reflection of the ru
"I wish we could sail away forever," she said. "Just keep on going out beyond the edge of the world and into the endless sky. Forever-" She gazed out into the night, looking into her most private visions. At last, she turned to me again. She shook her hair back out of her eyes, a quick feminine motion of her head; she brushed her hair back with her hand. Her wrist was so delicate, her ma
"Y'know something?" she said abruptly.
"What?"
"You're cute." Her smile twinkled.
I didn't know what to say in response to that. There was a catch in back of my throat. So I just swallowed and gulped instead, and let the waves of embarrassment and happiness sweep over me. She came toward me like a delicious vision, like the goddess of wet dreams. Her eyes were shining. The look on her face was an exquisite mixture of i