Prom Date

"Glimmer, Jammie," Luis said.

"He will be serving as your parental ward for the next two weeks," the woman said, her voice prim.

"Whaaaaaaaaat!?" Jammie squeaked.

"Don't take that tone with me, Missy," Luis said, frowning. "I've raised two teenage girls and I know your tricks."

"We're not snakes or anything," Jammie said, scowling at him.

Luis smirked. "No, you're just spoiled rotten."

"I am not! I just want everything right now," Jammie said, playfully batting her eyes at him. Luis looked unmooved.

"Um, did they get the cancer checked out?" Glimmer asked, shyly.

"Yes," Luis said, his lips quirking slightly. "They snipped that in the bud. Thank you. Knowing it was there made it a lot easier for the doctors -- and catching these things early is how you survive them."

Jammie muttered under her breath. It might have been or you could not get them in the first place but Glimmer wouldn't be able to say for sure. Luis ignored her -- instead, he gestured to a large, chunky looking car.

"Oh, petrochemicals! Genius!" Jammie said.

"Enough of your sass, young lady," Luis said. "I can ground you, you know. Your parents have sent me the lockdown codes on your internal implants." He waggled his finger at them. "No wormholing, no perceptive augments, no infosphere access."

"Ugh!" Jammie flung herself face first down in the back seat of the car and flailed from side to side dramatically. As she flailed, Glimmer got into the front seat and looked confused as Luis grabbed a strange strap that stretched out of a side socket. She tried to access an infodump about it, but got nothing but her own brain being confused by her lack of knowledge. After a lifetime of learning things by thinking about the thing she wanted to know, it was baffling and disorientating. She opened her mouth and closed it as the device revealed its function -- and it was so breathtakingly utilitarian and primitive that it took on a nearly fantastical sheen.

It was a belt that buckled you into a seat to protect you from being tossed around by sudden G-forces.

"That's so clever!" Glimmer exclaimed. "Can we just use our inertial dampeners?"

"No," Luis said. "If you ride in my car, you nut up and buckle up."

"I don't even have nuts," Jammie said, her voice muffled by the fact she had her face jammed into the seat cushions. "You took my hard-light shapeshifting away just because of one little interplanetary incident! This is so unfair!"

The car engine kicked on with a roar and Glimmer looked out the window as they started to drive along the road lanes. Luis kept himself focused on the pavement that he was hurtling down -- with such a flimsy amount of protection that it made Glimmer break out in hives. After they reached a primary highway, though, Luis did speak up: "So, for the two weeks, you two will be picking up high ways, doing some clean up after a major flood -- it put a bunch of junk into the local creek." He shrugged. "Three hours of community service a day -- and your parents did request that we keep up your educations. Apparently you're both eighteen equivalents?"

"We're not eighteen equivalents," Jammie said -- she was tugging at her seat belt with some measure of distaste. "We're eighteen. Well, technically, I'm sixteen from external observation, but no one counts relativistic time dilation." She waved her hand dismissively.

Luis nodded. "In Terra Nova, teenagers need to spend a mandated six hours a day at high school -- a place to learn. Socialize. Maybe have a little fun."

"High school?" Glimmer asked. "Like, you take a bunch of teenagers and put them in a confined space and try to get them to learn?"

Luis nodded again. "Yeah."

"Ugh. Kill me now, wake me up once we're out of this." Jammie mimed putting a gun in her mouth.

"Your parent-clan said if you died, one of your backups has to come here in your stead," Luis said.

"Aww, seriously?" Jammie crossed her arms over her chest. "Dang. Guess I won't slit my wrists."

"Sorry, babe," Glimmer said, sympathetically.

###

Three hours -- hours -- of driving later left Glimmer feeling the difference between wormholing and car transport like a punch in the gut. The lack of infosphere connection was like a punch in the cunt. But looking at Luis' house left her feeling as if exactly none of it was worth it at all. It was a squat building made of wood and stone and glass, situated at the corner of a street with dozens of others buildings that looked distressingly similar. It was like some incredibly boring man had set up a place to live, then stamped the same thing down again and again and again. Each building had a small, pitifully monocultural garden out front -- seriously, they had at most two different kinds of plants -- and they seemed to need a dreadful amount of maintenance. Three of them had water spraying over them in immense sheets, shot out of specially concealed water cannons. One had an older man -- wearing nothing but a white tank top -- pushing a bladed contraption along the grass.

Luis opened the door to the side of the car and emerged, stretching. "All right," he said. "You two will get my girl's rooms. And remember!" He pointed his finger at the two of them. "I expect you to be good members of the house hold. Clean your dishes. Clean your rooms. Brush your teeth. And whatever you do, you will not pick on my son."

"Ugh! How many kids do you have? Like, five billion?" Jammie asked. "Don't you know, proper people have one."

"I've had three children," Luis said, pursing his lips. "I purchased their procreation charters off the market, just like anyone who wants to have that number."

Jammie made a pffty noise. Glimmer punched her shoulder.

"Dude," she said. "Even we have proc-markets."

"Yeah, but," Jammie said, rubbing her shoulder. "Fine. Sorry, Mr. Luis."

Luis nodded, then turned. He headed for the front door -- opening it and calling inside. "Devon! I'm home!"

A moment later, a four legged quadruped with a scorpion tail went running by, hissing like a tea-kettle on full bell. Its face was mostly covered by a pair of boxer shorts -- red polka dotted -- that it was holding proudly and running with. A moment later, a boy ran past, his body naked and gleaming and wrapped only in a crude moisture absorbing blanket that left a large expanse of pale white flesh exposed along his left thigh. He jiggled as he ran and Glimmer had to cover her mouth to not gasp. She had never, in her entire life, seen anyone with this amount of excess body fat that wasn't catering to a fetish. Most Concord citizens kept themselves down to 2% or less -- lean, mean, fucking machines. This guy looked like he would have been healthy at eighty six kilos but had let himself creep up -- inch by sugary inch -- to nearly a hundred.

"Braxi! Give that back!" he shouted.

The hissing quadraped ran around a corner of the house and the boy ran over him.

"So," Jammie asked. "That Devon? Quite the august figure for the son of a brave, bold warrior of the Terra Nova Self Defense Force."

Luis looked as if he had bitten down on a lemon.

Devon emerged -- red faced and dressed -- a few minutes later. Once dressed and not running by, he cut and even more comical figure for Glimmer. His baggy clothes did a fairly good job of concealing his belly, but they did nothing to hide the beginning of a second chin on his somewhat rectangular face. His eyes were doe-brown and his hair pale brown. He certainly had more of his mother's genetics mixed in there than his father (whoever she was) and he also lacked his father's work regime. Glimmer wasn't sure how hard it was to keep oneself fit and muscular without the advancements of a posthuman biology -- but she was pretty sure that Devon didn't put the same level of work in.

But the silliest part was the contraption he had on his face. Well, okay, at first, it made sense to Glimmer. Lots of people like the aesthetics -- or the kink - of wearing glasses. But then she had realized the corrective lenses were actually there to repair his vision.

That was just absurd.

"Devon," Luis said. "These are the girls I mentioned on the phone -- Glimmer Retrograde and Jam and Sandwich Collective."

"That's Jammie, if you're not a dork," Jammie said, holding out her hand.

Devon gaped at her for a few moments. Then he shook his head from side to side and took her hand, shaking it -- his hand shook, but he had a firm enough grip from what Glimmer could see. Glimmer held her hand out as well, and they shook.

"Sorry about, uh, earlier," he said. Then, grinning, he added: "Normally, I don't try to go sprinting around with a towel when I know that cute girls are in residence."

Glimmer giggled. Luis frowned fiercely at his son and Devon spread his hands slightly. "Sorry, sorry," he said. "Do you two want to check out the upstairs? It's my domain. Plus, you guys need to learn how to use our primitive technology, right?"

"Primitive is right," Jammie muttered.

"Lead the way, Devon," Glimmer said, gesturing. Devon turned and headed for the stairs and Glimmer followed him. They walked up the curving stairwell and to the second story -- here the corridor spread out into a kind of central meeting room that had a holographic table that looked like it was used to simulate a large number of games from football to thunderdome. There was a sofa that was tilted so that it faced a primitive holographic projection system for entertainment. There was also an adjoining bathroom that had a closeable door and a glass chamber that looked uncannily like a cleanporter.

Glimmer smiled.

Maybe they weren't complete savages.

"So, these are your rooms," Devon said, pointing with his fingers at two doors. "My sisters are off at college, and Mom cleaned them up before she moved out. My room is right here." He tapped a door with an exaggerated skull and crossbones on a hanging sign that was mounted on the side -- with the words below making their meaning clear: ONLY DEVON ALLOWED.

"Only Devon, huh?" Jammie asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Hot girls are always an exception," Glimmer said, nodding. "Right, Devon?"

"Uh-" Devon started.

But Glimmer was already pushing open the door. She blinked and sniffed at the air -- stale sweat, unwashed clothes, spunk.

Yeah.

It was a teenage boy's room.

But other than those general details, she saw some things that made her happy. For one thing, he had a rather large and powerful looking computer, with an archaic but serviceable control scheme. The computer, more, was already running. It looked like it was in the midst of a psychohistorical simulation. She could see familiar indicators of the analytical that had shaped one out of every ten civilizations in the cosmos -- people talked up psychohistorical analysis, but the stuff tended to collapse under the weight of even solitary exceptional individuals. But she still liked studying it -- it was a good way to grasp the movement and changes of large polities and peoples over time.

It was kind of like gardening! Watching something grow and change. Just instead of plants, it was planetary civilizations!

"So, you do psychhistory?" she asked, stepping over and sitting down in the chair. Devon walked over and -- with a jerky shove -- pushed her forward. Glimmer found her rump hitting the floor as he glared at her.

"My room," he said, furiously. "Get out. Now!"

"I thought-" Glimmer started.

"The sign wasn't a freaking joke! Do you know how rude it is to just barge in here!?" he asked -- and Glimmer saw that his anger was mixed with embarrassment and a bit of fear. "God!"

He ushered her and Jammie out of the room -- then shut the door in their faces. Glimmer blushed, opening her mouth. She wanted to say something -- but she couldn't think of any words to say. She closed her mouth, then looked at Jammie. Jammie rolled her eyes, then furrowed her brow. She looked irritated, then grabbed Glimmer's wrist and tugged her over to the doorway into one of their rooms. There, she whispered.

"Firstly, I miss being able to lase messages to you directly. Secondly..." she paused. "They say girls are emotional, right?"

"Right," Glimmer said, quietly.

###

Glimmer lay in her bed and looked at the ceiling -- trying to get to sleep. She had no infosphere to lull her to bed with the music of a thousand eras, mixed to her preferred mood. She had no way to reformat the ceiling into night stars or into a beautiful soothing hypnotic pattern. Instead, she was just laying in a bed that, while comfortable, was as primitive as a stone tablet -- and trying to not think about the food she had eaten. It was kind of heavy and sat in her stomach like a stone.

The door to her room opened.

"Psst," Jammie whispered.

"Hm?" Glimmer sat up -- the blankets pooling in her lap. Some moonlight from one of Terra Nova's two moons shone through the window, painting her skin in silver. Jammie moved into the room, closing the door behind her. She sat down on the bed and looked into Glimmer's eyes, her own eyes narrowing slightly.

"Can't sleep?"

"No," Glimmer said.

"Me neither," Jammie said, sighing. "Want to fuck?"

Glimmer bit her lip, then nodded. She laid back as Jammie wriggled, then squirmed, then crawled under the blankets with her. Her fingers caressed along Glimmer's belly and her lips found Glimmer's neck -- kissing to her throat, teasing her. Glimmer's nipples puffed up and ached with desire. While her technology had been dampened down, the biological advantages that had been coded into her body hadn't been yanked or changed. And so, Glimmer felt the delicious tingle of sex-drugs pouring through her system. Her nerves felt as if they were on fire -- she could almost see caress of Jammie's fingers along her skin like silvery fire.

"Oohh," she breathed.

"God that is a nice rush," Jammie said, then reached up. She cupped Glimmer's cheek, tilting her head back and to the side. Their lips met and Jammie's tongue slid into Glimmer's mouth -- then elongated to slide down her throat. The pleasure-receptors that had been slipped there turned on and Glimmer's back arched, her thighs spreading under the blankets. She felt a damp spot appearing underneath her rump as her juices dripped down her thighs. Jammie reached down and slipped her fingers along Glimmer's folds -- teasing her cunt with two fingertips, then spread, then pushed Glimmer's sex lips together.

Glimmer squirmed and whined under her breath.

"What was that?" Jammie purred.

"N-Nuffing," Glimmer said, turning her head. Jammie's pheremones tingled in her nose and she felt the subtle orchestra of her preferred modes rolling around. An organ here, a hormone gland there, they all tingled to life and accentuated her shame-sense, her repression. Normally, Glimmer wouldn't think twice about the most brazen sex act. But with her body reacting and tingling and wanting this -- her sense of propriety and ancient sexual mores surged to full form.

It made it naughtier, see.

And that made it hotter.

Jammie gently slapped her pussy, her thumb rubbing Glimmer's clit. Glimmer bit her lip to keep from moaning lewdly.

"I heard something," Jammie whispered.

"Nnnh!" Glimmer gasped, then turned her head back, trying to escape from Jammie's grip. But Jammie held her fast. Glimmer felt Jammie's smaller breasts, her hard nipples drawing small circles against her skin. Glimmer squirmed and panted and tossed her head from side to side as Jammie teased her -- pinching her nipples, then letting them go, before suddenly twisting them for a moment. Jarring pain, followed by the most pleasant ache in the universe. Soon, Glimmer was gasping out: "S-Sit on my face!"

Under the drugs and the pheromones, it felt like the most risque, naughty thing in the universe.

Jammie grinned in the moonlight, then pushed Glimmer on her back. She spread her thighs, then sat her sex down on Glimmer's face -- in the near perfect darkness that dominated between Jammie's thighs, Glimmer was plunged into a realm of taste and sound and feel -- her tongue sought, and found the most delicious nectar in the universe: The pussy of a posthuman girl. Take away the implants and the nanites and the hard-light holographic projection, and you still had a sex that had been tailored by the finest artists of humanity, given millennium to craft and test and refine.

There were bouquets and subtleties that a non-augmented tongue couldn't even taste, born on each droplet of clear juice that dripped from Jammie's sex. Then Jammie leaned forward -- spreading Glimmer's thighs -- and ducked her head against Glimmer. Her tongue darted in, extending and coiling and curving.

Glimmer was muffled by the sudden pressure of Jammie's sex as the other girl shoved her down. Then Glimmer lost herself in the pleasure and the taste of her friend -- as Jammie added a second finger. A third. Her tongue drew circles on Glimmer's clit. Glimmer, trying to match her, reached up and slapped Jammie's ass. Jammie moaned against her. The two girls -- their orgasms tailored to release another bust of pheremones -- climaxed so close to one another as if to make no difference. They locked tight, shuddering.

Glimmer's throat bobbed, bobbed.

Then she stopped drinking. She held the juice in her mouth as Jammie swung herself around. They kissed -- sharing fluids in a sloppy, glistening kiss that left their breasts glinting as they lay together under the moonlight. Breaking the kiss, Jammie gasped.

"N-Need to get up early tomorrow," Glimmer said, her voice husky.

Jammie nodded.

It was a simple breathing pattern that set both women back to normal. The drugs flushed from her system as Glimmer laid down. Her eyes closed. She smiled.

She got to sleep right away.

###

The next morning, Glimmer -- badly in need of a piss thanks to a bladder full of drugs that needed to be flushed completely out of her body -- hurriedly sprang out of her room and into the cleanport that she had seen in the communal bathroom. Closing the door (she did remember that there were nudity taboos on this planet) she looked at the devices that operated the cleanport. Normally, just stepping in would activate the teleport field that would wisk away wastes and grime. She'd just relieve herself and then step out with her hair trimmed down and her body cleaned.

Instead, she found herself facing dials and knobs and a strange metal tongue that stuck out overhead.

She frowned.

"Maybe it's a focusing aperture?" she asked -- reaching out and twisting a knob.

The cold water that slapped her in the face was so startling that she didn't even need to get to the toilet.

An hour and one breakfast later, Devon, Glimmer and Jammie were all walking down the sidewalk together in the bright morning sun. The sky was as blue and beautiful as the last time Glimmer had seen it, and Devon looked like he had calmed down a bit. "Sorry for going all aggro on you guys," he said, nodding.

"Nah, it's our fault," Glimmer said before Jammie could say something thoughtless and stupid. Devon grinned at her.

"Yeah, but I was trying to be the bigger man," he said.

"Morally bigger," Glimmer said, before Jammie could say something thoughtless and stupid. From the look on Devon's face, she hadn't succeeded. She blushed and stammered. "I mean, uh-"

"No, it's all right," he said. "You're from the Concord, where everyone is pretty."

"You're not ugly!" Glimmer said, quickly. She blushed even harder as Devon shot her a look. It was a look as old as the manhood and as weathered and timeless as Earth. She bit her lip slightly and stammered. "W-Well, you're not! I mean, you're distinctive!"