The Color of Air

She had a Cheshire smile.

It was meant for me and no one else in the crowded room. It made the bar lights dim as they considered the futility of their existence. It was a smile that kept secrets.

She sat down beside me at a miraculously open stool. The working girls at the end of the bar wilted visibly; several looked like they were considering a career change. The bartender started over, but she looked dismissively away; he ceased to exist though his body continued for a time to do bartenderly things.

"Nice entrance. Was it holography? A glamour? Pheromones?" I knocked back my 80 proof antidote and hoped the zombie behind the bar could still recognize an empty glass.

"Anything wrong with old fashioned style and grace?" Her voice was low and rich, with harmonics that made the auditory nerves swoon with pleasure. My suspicion went up another notch. A telepath?

"I never knew those to be in fashion in this port," I replied. "Buy you a drink?"

"Thank you Captain Drake, but I don't drink anything they serve here. But please go ahead." She raised a finger and a fresh glass appeared in front of me. That speed was going to put a blip in the bar's service stats for weeks.

I took a sip, along with a moment to study her. She wore a simple dress that fell from one shoulder, which accented but in no way concealed her graceful body. She moved within its veil like a glimpsed shadow, and I could tell that wisp was all she wore. She had flawless cinnamon skin, pale wheaten eyes and hair, and sensuous deep chocolate lips and nipples. She almost seemed like a photographic negative.

"So you know my name. If you're looking for passage, all the berths are full." They weren't, but the ones that were had paid handsomely for their privacy.

"I was more interested in your past voyages than your future ones," she said. My finger tightened on the needle gun in my pocket. Inquisitive folks are seldom good news in my line of work.

"Care to elaborate on that interest?"

"They say you are very ... experienced. They say you have charmed your way into many different arms. And tentacles. And pseudopods. They say you are the only man to have slept with a medusa and live."

I shuddered a bit at that. It was only because I had done everything but sleep while with her that I had avoided participating in her post-coital snack. The sex had been fantastic but the nightmares had lasted for years.

"And you want what? Some stories to sell to erotica readers? Some tales to keep you and your friends warm in the cold between the stars?"

"Oh, no. We're kindred spirits, you and I. I thought we might amuse ourselves matching stories of some of our exploits."

I barked a laugh. "Forgive me, but you seem too much of a hothouse flower to be making statements like that."

She leaned close and murmured in my ear, "Did you know that the Eularian guard caste have six-foot long prehensile penises? They're strong enough to rip a door from its hinges, but they pride themselves on developing the utmost delicacy of touch with them. They are wired to keep their women in continuous orgasm until the woman becomes pregnant or dies of exhaustion. Of course, being a different species, a human woman would never become pregnant ..."

She knew how to get my interest, all right. "And I presume you learned this first hand and lived to tell about it?"

"I joined a diplomatic mission to Eularia, and made a liaison with a lieutenant of the palace guard. He had worn me out most pleasantly, and had dropped off to sleep himself. His penis was wrapped around my leg to keep me from running off and the tip was buried inside, still caressing me into a frenzy. I could hardly think, but knew I had to get away then or never. I eased him out and gently unwound him from my leg. He started to stir, so I quickly looped his penis around his ankles and tied it in a knot. He roared and tried to catch me, but fell just short as I leaped naked from the window into a diplomatic flitter and escaped to the embassy ship. The Eularian War started the next day."

Had anyone heard? A few patrons were openly staring at her; the rest were wishing they had nerve to stare. She had breathed the tale into my ear; it glowed like she had just made love to it.

"Perhaps we do have some interests in common. Shall we move somewhere a little more private?"

We made our way to the lift. As the doors closed, I asked, "Somehow you know my name. How about your name?"

"In your language, it would be translated as Color of Air."

"How does it sound in your language?"

She pressed herself up against me, and lightly touched her lips to my lips. Her tongue gently caressed mine; flavors of purple mint danced across my palette, with a tenor of red pepper and a downbeat of lilac at the end. She drew back and smiled her secret smile. "That's how we 'say' it in my language."

"Well that's rather novel. Not very good for long-distance communication, is it?"

"No, it's not. My people live to touch. Perhaps it's why we never had any wars among ourselves."

Something caressed my ankle and started working its way up my leg. I went reflexively for my pistol, but her hand was there to hold mine; not restraint but reassurance. "Relax, Captain. I can promise you an interesting evening."

The lift door opened at the .7G level, my habitual compromise between comfortable sleeping and not having to chase stray items in the least breeze. My room was a half span spinward, giving me time to observe her as we walked. She was very good, but her eyes flicked to the door an instant before I turned to open it. She knew which one was mine; she had scouted me. Why?

Inside, she turned to me, eyes downcast seductively. She touched her right fingers to her right shoulder, the wisp fell away, leaving her naked before me. Naked? That implies a certain vulnerability, and she still wore a confidence that was magnificent enough for a court function.

I found myself with an armful of warm fragrant woman, teaching me new words in her language. I especially liked the one with tones of raspberry and cocoa that used black pepper for punctuation. I wondered what the translation was.

She pushed my jacket back over my shoulders, then stepped around behind me to ease it down my arms. She reached around from behind and began unbuttoning my shirt while nibbling artfully on my ear. Another pair of hands undid the clasp on my belt and eased the zipper down. Another slid within my shirt to explore the smooth muscles there, while another began to work its way under my waistband ...

Too many hands. She must have had an accomplice waiting inside. I whirled, going for the throats. My left hand closed on air, my right on ...

I held a many armed, three breasted goddess, who could have presided over an ancient fertility temple. She gently loosened my grip with two hands, placed one hand against my cheek, and continued to caress me with several others.

"This is the form I prefer, but it's just so hard to buy clothes for."

"It might have been safer to have given me some warning."

"I never felt unsafe." She opened a hand containing the clip from my needle gun, and another hand holding the empty gun.

This was my kind of woman. The kind that kept you wondering if you were going to get out alive. She efficiently plucked away the rest of my clothes and enfolded me in a many-armed embrace.

"At first I was thinking genetically-modified human, but now my money's on nonhuman," I said while trying to figure out how to return that embrace without getting tangled.

"'What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' That has always been a profound insight to me, since the scent of the rose is its true name."

"What's my true name, then?"

"It's more complicated with sentient beings. I taste desire, caution, confidence, and the lamb curry you had for lunch. I think we had better let that wear off, or I would name you 'Confident Garlic.'"

I chuckled. She was good with a one-liner. I was stroking her back, ostensibly in foreplay, but also noticing the multiple shoulder joints down her back, and deciding which one would be easiest to dislocate in a fight. Actually, it's all foreplay.

The space between us was full of breasts and limbs, and my not inconsiderable hardness. She pushed me back onto the bed and climbed on top. She sank down on top of my shaft and took me within. She felt soft and wonderful and strangely alien. I reached up and took a breast in each hand and ran fingertips over her hardening nipples. That left one breast unattended, so I pulled her down to take the third nipple in my lips. She moaned in basil-scented approval.

I concentrated on the sensations coming up from belowdecks. It felt less like a vagina and more like a mouth. Surely that was a tongue licking me from base to tip, no, multiple tongues, and an incredible sucking sensation. All the dials were in the red already and the containment field was overloading. Alarms were blaring as those tongues burned out nerve pathways all the way to the bridge. Control systems were offline; the core would breach at any instant.

The core blew. She accepted it, welcomed it, drank it in, drained it empty. Yin to yang, white hole to black, time stretched thin across the event horizon and collapsed into a private micro-verse. All screens went dark.

The smoke drifting through the blackness smelled of lavender contentment. That recalled me to the here and now and who. I opened my eyes to find her lying softly on top of me, regarding me with her pale eyes. I licked my lips and got my voice restarted. "Who set off the EMP in the cabin?"

She looked amused. "I'm sorry if I rushed too much. It has been too long for me, and I was ... hungry."

"Whew, I guess you were. I usually have more control. Did you make it?"

"Make it?"

"You know, come? Have an orgasm?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. I only get one orgasm, and I need more build-up. I'll get there, sometime before the dawn."

"Oh, well you'll have to give me a minute to get the engines started again. I never let a lady go hungry if I can help it."

"There is no hurry. I am still savoring the appetizer. It was pungent and smokey, with a sweetness like hickory that lingers on the palette."

"That must be the garlic again."

"Indeed. Tell me a story. What's one of your more interesting encounters?"

"Well, I was in command of the first contact expedition to the Blues ..."

"That was you? I thought that was Captain Wellington."

"I changed my name later for, uh, business reasons. At any rate, if you know about the Blues, then you know they look like man-sized giraffes with arms, covered in soft blue skin. We never did learn their own name for themselves, so the name Blue just stuck ..."

---

I was still in the Navy then, and was assigned to captain the courier boat with the Ambassador, Deirdre Jones, to make first contact with the Blues. We wanted a small party, so we took only the Ambassador's aide and one Marine lieutenant.

It was a tough journey there. The Ambassador was a real knockout: tall, stacked, and blond. She made it clear the first night out that invitations to the Captain's cabin were not welcome. To make matters worse, her aide was almost as good looking, but she hit it off immediately with the Marine, and they spent the whole trip screwing in her cabin. By the time we reached the Blues' world, I had a case of blue balls and a badly injured self-esteem.

Their world was green, with broad temperate zones and no ice caps. Their civilization seemed to be high on the aesthetic scale and low on the technological. We must have been far from the first to drop in on them, however. In the center of their largest city was a cleared space with a stylized spaceship painted on it.

"What do you think it means, Ingrid?" Deirdre was chewing her lip while we studied the image from orbit. Damn political appointees.

She was asking her aide, but I put in, "It's a sign. It says Visitor Parking."

She glared at me, but her aide said, "I daresay the Captain is right."

"What if it's a trap?"

I sighed. "Look, if you set out a welcome sign and your visitors ignored it and landed somewhere inconvenient, you'd think they were either too dim or too rude to deal with. Do you want to have a successful trade mission or not?"

The Lieutenant chimed in, "There's no signs of weapons or fortifications around the visitor's parking, or anywhere on the planet for that matter."

Ingrid was in a tougher position. She had to give good advice and not look like she was siding against her boss. Either way could cost her her job when we got back. "If they mean us harm, they can do so anywhere on the planet. By taking their invitation we telegraph our good will, and perhaps put them off their guard."

Deirdre gave in, but chilled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen. There was frost on all the gauges by the time we made our landing.

We were met at the ship by a delegation of mute Blues. They wore nothing to indicate rank or function; in fact they wore nothing at all. They conducted us inside with gestures. We were greeted in a reception chamber by a trio of Blues who had an air of greater gravity, but no more clothes or adornment than our escort.

The foremost of these stepped forward. Our ice queen motioned us all to stay where we were and stepped forward to meet him. She launched into a trite speech about hopes for our future cooperation and mutual trade. The Blue showed no signs of hearing her, and instead leaned forward and ran its tongue up her body from thigh to breast.

They both reacted. The Blue backed away with an expression of disgust, and Deirdre jumped back with a loud "Ewwwwww!" Both retreated and closed ranks with their parties.

Deirdre was trying to brush away the stain on her dress tunic. I sidled closer and whispered, "Madam Ambassador, he apparently was trying to do you an honor. You may make it worse by wiping it off this way." Her only response was a glare.

Now several junior Blues came over to us and began to finger our clothes. They started to pluck at them and make faces by rolling their lips back and flaring their nostrils. Ingrid said, "I don't think they like our clothes."

I said, "I think it's more that they're offended that we would even wear them. Look at them over there. They're licking and grooming each other while they're discussing what savages we are. They probably get pheromonal signals that way. Instead, with you, they got a mouth full of fabric. No wonder they're upset. Madam Ambassador, take off your clothes."

"You pervert! You've been trying to get me into your cabin the whole trip. You're not going to embarrass me now in front of an entirely new sentient species!

"No, you're entirely capable of doing that on your own." I started peeling of my uniform. The Blues bobbed their heads encouragingly, and the three senior Blues lined up expectantly.

"Stop, I'll have you court-martialed!"

"Eh, I was ready to get out anyway."

I pulled off the last of my clothes and stepped forward. One of the junior Blues gave me an experimental lick and nodded approval. They stepped aside to conduct me to the elders.

"Wait! I'm the Ambassador here. It's my job to make first -- ugh -- contact." She was tearing off her clothes at record speed. "Ingrid, Lieutenant, you too."

As the other two complied, Deirdre stepped forward to meet the Blue delegation. The three bowed their long necks to her, and then the leader repeated his long introductory lick. To her credit, Deirdre repressed her shudder, and bowed in return. The leader presented his neck to her and waited. I whispered, "Lick him back, you fool!" I don't think she heard me.

The leader conferred with his two companions with numerous little licks back and forth, then he returned to face Deirdre and commenced licking her thoroughly. The Blues don't have mammaries, so when he got to her breasts he explored them gingerly at first, but when he got to the nipples, he seemed delighted at the reaction he got from them. I could imagine them stiffening under his tongue, as he enthusiastically entered negotiations with them. I could see Deirdre beginning to flush all the way from her flaxen hair to the tops of her jiggling breasts.

Now I realized that one of the Blues had come to stand in front of me and was bowing. "Now wait a minute, I'm not a diplomat, I don't negotiate," I tried to say, but a long tongue brushed me from navel to collarbone. Like terrestrial giraffes, they had tongues about eighteen inches long, which were sensitive, somewhat textured, and seriously prehensile. I began to worry about having an improper involuntary reaction to the stimulation.

"Oh, Oh, Oh God!" I looked over to see the lead Blue run his tongue slowly over Deirdre's crotch. He seemed to like the taste, and went back for more. The last of her resistance dropped away, and she spread her stance to give him full access to her pink clit.

The other Blues seemed to get the signal that humans tasted really good down there and the air was suddenly full of slurps and gasps. I immediately lost the battle to prevent a public erection, and shifted to trying to prevent an interstellar incident by giving an unwanted facial. The Blues don't have external genitals, so my partner was exploring my cock and balls with interest.

I looked around the chamber. Deirdre's knees had given way and she lay on the floor with legs spread and her magnificent breasts heaving. The lead Blue was seeking the source of her scent and taste, and as I watched his tongue plunged deep into her pussy. She writhed on the floor screaming wordlessly, but I'm pretty sure she was saying "More! More! More!"

To the other side, Ingrid had two Blues fore and aft running their tongues through her crotch and was apparently already far gone in orgasm. The Lieutenant was gritting his teeth and trying to hang on but was starting to sweat. He grabbed Ingrid and yelled, "I don't want to come for some damn giraffe!" He hid it the only way that he could, burying it deep in Ingrid's pussy and they both screamed as the Blue's long tongues bathed them as they came.

I didn't have that option open to me, so I said a prayer to the local gods, "I hope they like to swallow," and shot my load on my Blue's tongue.

The Blue looked shocked, then bowed deeply to me. The whole room became quiet. Deirdre collapsed in a panting heap; they bowed to her as well. After we had collected ourselves, they escorted us to quarters and treated us to a royal banquet. We never did communicate, but they indicated as well as they could that humans were welcome to return, as long as they left those filthy clothes on their ships.

We returned home. I left the service and organized a tourism service to promote "cultural exchange" with the Blues. The Blues are happy to entertain human visitors as often as we like; they seem to get as much from it as we do. Ingrid and the Lieutenant got married and I lost track of them. Deirdre had a breakdown the next time a drunken diplomat propositioned her and emigrated permanently to the Blues world.

---

"And that's the story of the first contact."

I realized that Color of Air was shaking with laughter on top of me. She raised herself up on three or four arms and looked down at me, her hiccuping laugh still causing mesmerizing triple breast-quakes. "And you haven't figured out the joke after all these years?"

"What joke?"

"The Blues form chemical messenger compounds on their skin, which are absorbed by other Blues when they lick them. That's their speech. They're very mathematical but not very technical, and have been trying to interest humans in commercializing their design for a tenfold increase in warp core density. They're baffled how a 'mute' race like humans became a starfaring species.