It's Always Time Act 03 Ch. 04

"So?" Ursula had jogged over her hall closet and squat on the floor, slipping on a pair of running shoes.

"So he knew this might happen. Dee's still in dumb, straight-guy hero mode."

Ursula ran over to Yves and poked him in the solar plexus. "Stop being a drama queen and tell me what the fuck is going on!"

"Dee's giving Galatea whatever it takes for her to come back," Yves said, pushing her away and massaging his chest. Ursula's frown turned thunderous. Her outstretched finger hovered over Yves' sternum. Yves raised his hands in surrender.

"He's subliming," he said.

* * *

Galatea rode Dee's cock, thrust a fist against the ceiling and bore down hard, hips jerking in wide, drawn out ellipses. She mashed her other hand into her mouth but pleas of bottomless need burbled through on every upswing. The slime on the ceiling bowed in around her, bloated with burning motes of green-tinged, silvered light, an aura of a million fireflies, the alchemical glow in their bellies gone critical. Beneath, her green twin stroked and cuddled against Dee's back, hugging flesh crammed into every conceivable crevice to sample the all the flavors of Dee's skin, tugging stronger than a waterlogged blanket bog. Dee's back broke through her surface tension into the quagmire of inner gel. The twin sighed and sobbed in relief, as if some terrible burden had at last been lifted, and push down on Dee's abdomen with both hands. Molten honey inched up his ribs and shoulders.

The green girls fucked and sucked him closer to his seventh orgasm. They dragged him through a cycle of carnal sensation: a touching-tasting-pulling-pushing, sighing-slurping-slipping-screaming, up to a clinging-clenching-tonguing-cresting—cumming-cumming-cumming—and then down to an afterglow of kisses and caresses. The girls' fervor rose anew. Dee lay splayed between them, too dizzy to notice the urgency build in their murmured, wicked words. Soon they were touching-tasting-pulling-pushing and driving through the cycle again, and again, and again, each phase a little longer and stronger than before. Dee lost count of the number of times he gave the green girls what they wanted. Dee lost the ability to count, to care, to think. He only wanted to feel Galatea live again, and she came to life all around him.

* * *

Yves wrestled two-handed with the bathroom doorknob. His fingers squeezed the thick oven mitts over the metal knob. Heat prickled through the mitts' spun lace fabric insulation. Thank God Ursula keeps her kitchen high-tech, Yves thought. The doorknob twisted to the right. Damn thing is hotter than a branding iron. Yves braced with his feet and pushed at the door. "Pygmalion!" he shouted. A sliver of green-and-gold light dazzled him. The heat seeping through the oven mitts started to sting. Yves pushed harder. "Pygmalion!" The light blazed around the doorframe. "Pygmalion, you fucking idiot!"

The door thumped shut and Yves sprawled on the floor, arms shielding his head. His face felt raw, pins-and-needles numb. He was flash-burned: an instant sunburn slapped across his skin. Must only be first degree, because I can still see. Yves rolled onto his back, knocking over the pots and pans dotting the floor of Bee's bedroom. He pulled the mitts off his hands by jamming them into his armpits. Sweat dripped into his eyes. "Ursula, it's not working."

Ursula's reply came from the living room down the hallway, somewhere out of sight. "It's got to. It's the only thing I can think of."

Yves pushed himself up onto one shoulder. Shadow and light danced in the bathroom doorframe. "God damn it, Urusla, it's like a scene from Poltergeist. Get your psychic midget ass in here!"

"I can't. The beeswax will melt."

Yves kicked a coffee cup. "Just leave it."

"I can't! I put it in my ears already. Look, you told me to do it, Sherlock...What's that noise?"

* * *

"Pygmalion!"

The shouting voice penetrated Dee's delirium. Dee blinked, bleary eyed, and tried to focus. He saw no signs of the bathroom he remembered. The sugar walls of gel surrounding him had grown thick and brilliant with snowflake fire. He was trapped with the two green twins in a luciferous cave, a glowing green grotto.

The shout came again from somewhere outside: "Pygmalion!"

Dee glanced up through a deep valley of green cleavage. Galatea's brow crinkled in confusion at the sound of someone yelling, rattling and thumping beyond the walls of the verdant world-womb she had made for her and Dee, for just her and Dee, for always and forever.

"Pygmalion," cried the distant voice. "Pygmalion, you fucking idiot!"

Galatea shrugged and sunk back down to touch-taste-pull-push…

Something in that shrug, something missing in the little careless smile she gave him and the dimming light of her eyes, jarred Dee out of his sensorial stupor. You had a plan, remember? To snap her out of it before it's too late? She loves it when you second-guess her. Well, it's now or never. Dee rolled his shoulder and pulled one arm free of the embrace of the twin beneath him. His head swam in the strain and effort to lift his hand toward the green girl riding him, pointer finger extended, and furrow a swooping X in the gel above her left breast, its staggered curves evoking a dancer in mid-leap.

The green twin beneath him fell silent and still. Dee had not noticed her constant, rumbling purr of pleasure until it stopped. He tilted his head back, translucent, pale tendrils of gel slithering off his neck and chin. The twin's gaze traced the path the ragged X had cut into the green girl's breast. She bent over and kissed Dee's forehead, her lips chaste and trembling.

"Thou canst die," she whispered in that sexy brogue, kissing him again. "I know to leave this world behind is death." She glanced around them. Firefly-filled columns bulged from the floor to merge with stalactites of shining slime drooping from the ceiling. "But when thou from this world wilt go…" She shook her head, her lime dreadlocks falling heavy in the sultry air. "The whole world vapours with thy breath." She cupped his cheek. "Say it."

Dee let the silence stretch. Galatea rode his cock and narrowed her eyes but her rhythm never skipped a beat. "No," he said.

Galatea's leer was feral and her pace quickened. The twin below him gasped, "Say it. Thou must say it."

Dee shrugged, wobbling as the twin's gel flesh rocked. He tried to imitate her accent. "I canst not." He failed miserably.

She stared, eyes wide. Around them, the world-womb began to collapse, a cave-in coming at them in slow motion. "Then I shall." The green twin leaned in, locking eyes with Galatea, breasts inadvertently rolling over Dee's head. "Pygmalion."

Galatea closed her eyes, squashing her sex over Dee's dick. "Ne."

The green twin sat up, her belly stretching long and pulling Dee's head free of the tit-trap. She slapped Galatea square in the mouth. The twin's voice rang, "Pygmalion!"

Galatea snarled and hunched over Dee's crotch, a school girl caught hiding something naughty. "Nunquam!" The green twin reared to slap again, but the Galatea flinched and fell against Dee's chest. Her eyes wide and imploring, she worked her mouth a while before any words came out. "You won't say it," Galatea said, although her accent was so mangled ("Hew want sigh ate") that at first Dee did not realize she was speaking English.

Dee smiled, nodding. "I won't."

Galatea cackled, rode his dick with newfound passion. The collapsing walls of the slime cave surged inward. The green twin below Dee melted away into the onrushing ooze. It swallowed up Dee's legs and much of his crotch, leaving a bubble of air only a few feet across, just enough room for Galatea to press her head against Dee's chest. The firefly glow flowed into her.

Galatea became nothing more than a protrusion from the surrounding, smothering gel: a inch or two of abdomen, a pair of breasts, shoulders, arms, a sneering face and writhing hair. The tendril tips of her dreadlocks toyed with Dee's nipples. "You want this," she said. ("Hew went tees.") "For me." ("Fear may.") "To be a part of me." ("Tao bay pert ovum eye.") "Always." ("All wise.")

"Yes," Dee said, curling his fingers around her playful hair.

Galatea shuddered, whispering, "Always." ("All wise.")

"I'll do this," Dee said (and she whispered, "All wise.") "I'll lock myself deep in side you…"

Galatea whispered, "All wise."

"I'll lock myself away…"

She whispered, "All wise."

"…And I'll keep cumming and cumming in you…"

She whispered, "All wise."

"…Until there's nothing left of me," Dee finished. Now. His other hand shot out. It has to be now. He scooped up Galatea's head until they were eye to eye. He cocked an eyebrow at her, his face full of false, doe-eyed innocence. "But only if you want me to, because I'm so sensitive and enlightened and stuff."

Galatea gawked. The fireflies inside her burst into blinding light. "You dumb ass!" she cried, yanked back and socked him in the nose.

Her voice rebounded in the bubble, pitch perfect and accent free. Galatea listened to her own echoes. A goofy smile dawned across her cherubic face, and she flew at Dee, delighted laughter peeling until her lips locked over his.

"Welcome back," Dee said when she let him up for air.

She pulled back, seeming to notice their predicament for the first time: she a mere torso slowly dissolving into a wall, he enwombed in some two hundred cubic feet of nuclear powered gelatin. "Oh, shit."

She turned to kiss him again, and this time she left viridian tears streaking his cheeks. The slowly encroaching wall had eaten away at her until only her head, shoulders, and upper curves of her breasts breached its surface. She looked like a busty supermodel posing in a hot tub suspended sideways in the air, the froth from the Jacuzzi jets capping her nipples. "I...I can't stop it." More green tears pattered down. "Dee. Oh, Dee...I'm not me."

Dee brushed a few tears from her eyes. "I've figured out that much. What went wrong?"

"I'm not sure." The wall slurped over her breasts. "I can't get all my nanomek to work together, or even talk to one another. Each one does what it wants, and each one wants you." The wall of goo crawled over her shoulders. "Stop them, Dee, before they do something terrible to you. Stop me." Galatea sank up to her neck and she panicked. "Can you stop me?"

"I can. But it's going to hurt." Galatea's eyes shone with fear and Dee added, "Not me, I mean. It's going to hurt you." He sat up, his hair sticking to the top of the shrinking air bubble, his butt all but gobbled up by the hungry goo. "A lot."

The wall of ooze slipped up over Galatea's chin. "Shut up and stop me," she said before her mouth vanished.

"I love you," Dee said. He coiled, a panther gathering energy for a final pounce. "Ready?"

Galatea's button nose slipped under the wall of ooze, but she still managed to roll her eyes heavenward.

Dee struck.

* * *

Yves stared at the juddering door. "I changed my mind." His face fell into shadow. "It is working, and get your ass out of here, Ursula. Now."

"Don't you start with the hero macho bullshit," Ursula said.

"No." Yves stood and backed away, every move slow and exact. "I'm coming too." A minty stain spread out from the doorframe and over the wall. Fissures grew where plaster dissolved or crumbled to the floor. "I am officially..." The paint on the door blistered and peeled. "...utterly and completely..." The stain ate away at the stucco ceiling and the cracked ceiling strut sagged down until its tip bumped against Bee's bed. "...out of my depth." The door snapped inward. "Run!"

Yves barreled through the bedroom door, his ears filled with the sound of splintering wood. Adrenalin surged and he centered himself just as quick. His perceptions entered that zone of distanced, startling clarity he had relished for years as an aikidoka but his geeky friends took for granted as "bullet time" ever since The Matrix debuted. He studied Ursula as she dashed past the hall toward the front door, long braids whipping out behind her. The floorboards beneath Yves feet started to shake as he reached the mouth of the hallway. He rounded the corner into the living room and the air behind him exploded forward, threatening to hurl him into the floor with the force of a giant hand striking him across the back. He rode the concussion instead, spinning away from the mouth of the hallway an instant before it spat a blast of steam, lethal as any dragon. Yves followed Ursula's trailing pigtails out the front door.

Ursula panted in the long hall. Yves held out his hand. She stared at it and then up at him through fogged-over glasses. Her face beaded with perspiration, her tight black pajamas stuck with sweat. Yves realized he must look the same. He could not have felt more drenched if he had walked through a hurricane. Behind them, soupy mist licked through the ruined doorway and the air grew heady and citrus perfumed. Around them, the world fell silent and still. Even the noise of morning rush hour on the nearby expressway vanished.

Ursula's whisper was urgent and awed. "Dee."

Yves reached for her again. "It's just Dee." The words rung hollow and false, even to him, and he withdrew his hand.

Ursula pulled his hand back and held it between her breasts. Yves felt her heart fluttering. "I want it to be Galatea, too," Ursula said, squeezing his hand as hard as she could.

At first, Yves thought someone had turned on a slow, thudding subwoofer, but Ursula whispered, "Dee's coming." She pushed their clasped hands into Yves abdomen. "You're trembling," she said.

"I'm terrified," Yves confessed. The footfalls drew nearer. "What if I'm wrong? What if it's not Dee or Galatea, but something else? There's something you don't know…"

She shushed him and they turned, standing side by side.

Dee strode stark naked across the threshold, each step scorching the floor. Plumes of steam rose from his bare skin. The curls of his hair were slicked and sleek around his face. His every movement was so strong and sure that Yves knew the thrill of standing in the middle of the tracks before an onrushing train.

The green girl clung to Dee's neck, her head buried in his chest. She trembled and turned away from Yves and Ursula, curling in modesty but presenting the hourglass curves of her back and flaring hips. Her skin shone with gem fire, polished and pure as a flawless emerald. Dee held her close. She murmured and shivered and pressed against him. The intimate desire expressed in her embrace was palpable and dizzying. Yves felt as if he somehow partook in it just by watching.

"It is done," Dee said.

The green girl sighed and kissed his neck.

["…If Galatea thinks you’re a god…"]

"I hate being right," Yves said.

* * *

Love is the temple.
Love the higher law.
You ask me to enter,
But then you make me crawl.
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt.

—U2, One

* * *

Interlude: Let Me Get Into You

The morning sun blazed high above the chapter house of Epsilon Zeta Sorority as a yellow SUV crept up the horseshoe driveway. The brunette driving the boxy car dragged up the emergency brake and plopped her head into the steering wheel. "We're here."

The blonde coed sprawled on the backseat did not budge. Her hair stuck out everywhere, a mess of tangles at strange angles. "What time is it?"

The brunette's eyes roved over the dashboard. "A little after eight." She scraped a pasty lip with her teeth and made a hissy-kissy noise.

The blonde dunked her head into the footwell. "We were out all night. I can't believe we spent all night with those frat guys—"

The redhead in the passenger seat spun around. "Shut up. This is all your fault."

"But my cell phone battery died," came a voice from the footwell full of blonde hair. "And all I did was ask if you guys thought that really cute guy had called yet."

"Don’t you dare start talking about him again," said the redhead, eyes narrowed.

"But he was sooo cute." The blonde peeked up at her friends in the front seat. "Remember how his hair kept falling into his eyes? Those little, whatdoyacall'em, ringlets? Ooh, and his eyes. Brown, but they like burned, you know? He looked at me and I felt so small."

The brunette clapped her hands over her ears and sang wordlessly, rocking her head against the steering wheel. Her redheaded friend just stared into space.

"And…" The blonde sat up, fists curled in her lap. "And, oh God, didn't you watch him walk? I thought runway models knew how to walk but this guy moved like he owned the whole world."

"I will not get horny again," chanted the brunette. It became her mantra. "I will not get horny again."

Sweat began trickling down the blonde's neck. "And when he spoke," she said, pressing a palm against her neck, "It was like he owned me."

"He only said one word," whispered the redhead. She glared at the floor. "One fucking word."

Squirming in the back seat, the blonde cleared her throat and tried to imitate Dee's voice. "…'What'?"

"Deeper," sighed the brunette, throwing herself back into the driver's seat.

The blonde cleared her throat and tried again in a lower register. "Wha—"

"Deeper," insisted the redhead. "Like, way deeper."

The blonde closed her eyes and scissored her legs. "'What'?"

The brunette murmured, "Deeper." Her hand inched under the waistband of her black denims. "No!" She bolted up. "Not again!"

"I can't help it," the blonde whined, falling over and hiding her face. "I'm a slut."

"We are not sluts," the redhead said, emphasizing each word by stabbing a finger at the blonde.

"We're skanks," added the brunette.

"That's right," nodded the redhead. "No, wait."

"We're skanks." The brunette looked down at her white tee shirt. "My nipples are hard."

The blonde pushed her rump up into the air. "My panties are wet. Again."

The two girls turned to their redheaded friend. She bowed her head. "I had to throw my panties away."

"Well." The brunette jingled the car keys. "We're not going back to the frat, are we?"

The redhead said, "No."

The blonde pulled her self up. She gave both her friends a coy, unsure look. "We're not going to, uh—"

"No!" The redhead held up both hands and gave her friends their marching orders. "We are going to do the walk of shame. Together. Then we're going back to our rooms..." The blonde perked up "…Separately." The blonde's face fell. "And we're going to whack off. Then we'll take a quick nap, finally get out of these sticky clothes and go to class. It'll be like last night never happened…We didn't tell those guys about tonight's party, did we?"

"Hell, no," the brunette said.

"Good. Walk of shame time." The redhead peered at the big brick house with Ε-Ζ emblazoned on its whitewashed porch. "No one's up yet, looks like. Good. Weird, but good." She popped open the passenger door. "Let's go."

The three girls skulked through the front door into the foyer. The blonde ran over to the whiteboard next to the phone on the far wall. She scanned the magic marker scribble on the board. "No messages." She punched buttons on the phone's integrated answering machine until it beeped. "Aw, he didn't call."

"Shh!" The redhead waved a frantic hand up and down.

"Oh, stuff it," hissed the blonde. "No one's around." She minced through the main hall, into the central stairwell and out of site. "I'm going to go scratch this itch. Later, guys."

"Me too," said the brunette. She tiptoed into the main hall before turning back. "You coming?" she asked the redhead.