*****

How have I arrived here?

Not only at this insufferable social function--a type of event she explained as designed to help classmates bond. I explained how distasteful that sounds to a Vulcan, and she quite seriously considered the error and apologized between kisses and nips of my nose, as she climbed into my lap. I was not angered by her, but I did grind my hips upward to receive her apology.

Not only that. But also, how have I arrived here, in a world where she is fond of me? A world in which she chooses me? I am by far the most fortunate man in this place, or anywhere. Her bright eyes check with me as she speaks with a group of friends across the room. I have none. I stand alone, my hands behind my back in a counter-intuitively protective stance. I am accustomed to this feeling of awkwardness, of considering whether I should, or how possibly I might, converse with someone. At the moment I give up contemplating this question so I can simply watch her stand. I have held her so many times now, placed one hand on the small of her back, another on her buttocks, I have memorized her shape and can nearly see her body through her clothing.

A fellow cadet comes up behind me and slaps me on the back. I nearly turn in anger but control myself and quickly recall this is a friendly Human gesture. He introduces himself to me and hands me a beer, a drink which is abhorrent in taste but which is traditional for these kinds of Human events. Two of his friends join us as well, four of us together. Inwardly I consider how comic we must appear together, an unlikely scenario. I have no further need to wonder what subject we might discuss, because he mentions her immediately.

How have I arrived here in this moment, watching her intently from across a small room of half-inebriated socializing cadets? When her neck is so slender, only meters away.

I focus, speak. "Yes, she is remarkable."

He whistles and tells me far from remarkable, she is sweet, smart, hot, luscious, a gem of a girl. I believe my increasingly cold stare keeps him from venturing farther down a list of adjectives that might cause me to punch him and ruin her evening. He finally lands on "she's great," and asks how I became involved with her. I scan my memory for any possible thing I have done to deserve her. I answer him truthfully. "I do not know."

He and his companions nod their heads gravely and sip their drinks, and I sip mine to display appropriate "friendly" behavior.

Mercifully, it seems enough that I stand near them and consume beer. I am not expected to speak more. I do listen, and they speak mainly of women. In the back of my mind I am recalling a paper I read earlier today, reconsidering the hypothesis, another part of my mind listening to the men around me. Does every creature, of every species and throughout the universe, approximately three minutes into a conversation, turn to the topic of sex?

Another part of my mind--the foremost part--completely understands the fascination, because her head tilts and her hair falls down when she responds to something her friend has asked. I take this seemingly very long period, spent standing among men considered my peers, to watch her move. Her mouth makes contact with a glass of wine. She drinks sensually, and her eyes sneak a look in my direction. I feel a rush of adrenaline, and break eye contact with her as the cadet on my left jabs me in the side and grins.

I cannot wait another minute to leave this place. I stride across the floor, wish I could take her arm but keep myself from touching her, and whisper into her delicate ear. Even as I whisper harshly about leaving, I think of the many times I have caressed her ear with my tongue. I imagine its taste. Her girlfriends watch us hungrily, smiling at me as I look up to say goodbye. They seem like kind friends, she likes them, but I do not smile as we leave. Her friends, and the men I was standing with, watch us go.

They see my proper veneer, controlled emotions, direct countenance. They do not know my heart.

I want to protect her from the eyes upon us. I know she takes a terrible risk to be with me, the risk of incurring anger, or worse, sympathy. I know how it feels. I once asked her to allow me to leave her, so she might have a normal life. We sat on her bed. A dark, cold despair crept through me even as I formed the words, I was so committed to providing her the opportunity to be happy, so terrified she would say yes. My question elicited an outpouring of tears. She explained that I had misled her. She thought I was abandoning her. It rent me internally. I kissed her everywhere on her face, kisses in quick succession, and then brought her tearful face to my chest. Intertwined my fingers with hers. Where her head touched me felt brilliant and warm and after several choking breaths she nuzzled into me and we lay back and slept.

I have thought it again since. I should leave her so she can enjoy a normal life. But I know it will hurt her if I do. She and I are both caught in a deep crevasse. On one side we are odd and wrong and need to cease. On the other we will be miserable if we do.

Once outside, I push her up against a darkened wall and take her neck in my mouth. I grasp and pin her arms against the stone. Her breath quickens and I pull away to look at her. Her face is open to me.

I lean close to her ear and whisper, "I want you to go down on me."

She laughs a twinkling laugh, just enough to embarrass me deeply. "Where did you hear that?"

I regain something of myself, answer confidently. "I overheard some male cadets speaking about their girlfriends. This phrase came up."

She runs a finger along my cheekbone. "It's a, um, rather crude way to describe something...loving."

"Show me."

I command her nicely. I say please.

*****

He has asked me nicely.

He's never felt a mouth on his hard penis. I had forgotten his admission the first time we kissed. How he had experienced sex with a Vulcan woman, but how it had been mechanical and really limited to the basics. He gave me his tongue, inside me, in the lab what seems like so long ago. Soon after, we moved on to making love nearly constantly. It's been so fantastic just riding his gorgeous body, and I actually, astoundingly, have not even thought about oral sex. And he's been too shy to ask. Tonight sends him over some kind of edge. He takes me outside, forcefully gives me his mouth, asks me. Nicely. I pry myself away from him and tell him goodnight, breathing in his scent even as I pull away. I leave him in the dark bushes, not cruelly, but finally, for tonight.

I ask him to meet me in the library in 24 hours.

I return to the party, to my two friends and our drinks. They ask what that was about, why he's so demanding. I tell them he just wanted to go home, he handles social situations completely differently from us, approaches things like this party as we might an alien ritual. They ask me if that's all that is different. In every galaxy, on every rock that supports life, people want to know the sexual details.

I have hidden those details, kept them strictly private, but one of my girls tells me it must be alien, he seems too cold. "He is an alien," I remind her. It must be like kissing a stone statue. They have to know, "Why are you doing this? Fess up." I tell myself they're jealous, curious. But they are calling my love, my hot sweetest man, a cold cement wall--and laughing. I've had enough.

"He fucks like a volcano," I levelly tell them, proud that I've adopted some of his dry humor. Their faces go blank and mouths actually drop open.

For 24 hours, getting his cock into my mouth is all I can think about. I want to see him squirm and crumble with pleasure. He has class late, so I'll get to do it when he's in uniform--tremendously hot and doable. I will do him, and do him so dirty he may never recover.

He indicates he's gotten the idea that I will "engage him sexually" in this public place. He reminds me of the conversation we had about public expression of affection, and I remind him of how he went down on me in the lab. We have this exchange while standing apart, hands behind our backs. The juxtaposition of clean stance and dirty words is thrilling. I explain that I won't do anything he refuses, but I do remind him of his own excuse that "not one person uses this lab." And I tell him truthfully, "I have never seen a single being enter the old books stacks."

He is uncomfortable, but clearly dying for it. I can see a decision in his eyes, and they begin to smolder and make me very warm.

We go back into the abandoned stacks, and I don't pull the cable to turn on any lights. It's quite dark, the only illumination the emergency lighting, very dim but enough to see faintly. Because he's tall, it makes sense that I ask him to get up on one of the ancient rolling ladders to get a book for me. He questions me with an eyebrow, but I make a motion for him to scoot up there and get me what I want. I watch his slender hips and impossibly long legs. He climbs up a couple of steps and that's when I stop him. Command him to stop there. He's confused but intrigued.

I get under the ladder and find I've had him stop on the exact right step. The one where I can reach through the rungs and open his pants.

His pelvis is just at my height, his body goes completely still and terrified. He clears his throat and looks around but finds no one anywhere near us. I can tell I've utterly thrown him, but he has a seemingly endless well of lust and flat-out need, and he's made his decision and he doesn't stop me.

I gently pull him out of his pants and his erection is in my face, strong and lovely. He's trying to breathe normally but I can feel his body jerk as he no doubt realizes what I plan to do. I run my fingertips up from bottom to tip and he sighs and whines as quietly as possible, together in a single hungry, grateful sound. He is rock hard in no time. As I close my hand gently around him the whine rises in pitch but not volume. He's very quiet. I lean away to look at him and see he's thrown back his head, perhaps in compensation for being unable to cry out. He's reacting just the way I want, and my own desire gets too hot for me to wait any longer. I want him in my mouth. I want to do this for him and for me. I want to watch him feel this new thing, experience his first time, have it always be me.

First I use my tongue, sliding it along the same path my fingers took. He is so hard. He thrusts at me and is stopped by the ladder--a most perfect and simple restraint for loving teasing. I lean into him and take just the tip of him into my mouth as softly and wetly as I can. His velvet voice says "yes" and he pushes toward me again. I push back and take him farther in. Farther each time we move. And soon he is pressing with all his strength and struggling against the impeding wood. He can't get all the way in to my mouth. But each time I get him as far in as the ladder will allow, I add a single swirl of my tongue to reach his neglected skin.

Despite the wooden barrier, he fills up my mouth and I find my lips tingling magically.

I let one hand drift down under my skirt and push past my panties. I begin rubbing myself, fast right away since I'm sure this can't last much longer. I make burning circles on myself while my head and mouth move over him. He's struggling to make no sound, and somewhat failing, resulting in an incredibly gratifying nearly sub-vocal growl. His effort makes me shudder. I wonder yet another time at having his dreamt-of, coveted body this time actually in my mouth.

I look up to find his head rests on a rung of ladder, eyes tightly closed, seized by pleasure and agony. His arms are above him, his hands two rungs up. He is gripping with such force, it's a wonder the wood doesn't snap. The joy and shock and agony I see in him makes me come forcefully with the kind of orgasm that drowns and overflows my body and makes my clitoris throb under my fingers. As I come I hum into him and his body jerks toward me with a few final thrusts. He comes against my lips. I still feel a repeated rising and falling in my sex, for long moments after. I lick him one last time, and he collapses against the ladder with his arms splayed on either side and head slumped on one step.

It seems he can't open his eyes.

*****