Songs of Seduction - Fire and Ice

She quivered, muscles shaking, and oh, that beautiful ache! Fleming wanted Ixtil's hot palms pressed hard against her breasts, and cursed the cold and her armoured suit. She gripped his flesh, and pressed her golden scarab shelled body down onto his hard strength. Shifting her body backwards, opening her legs, she rolled slightly to find his thigh. Fleming pushed back, opening herself up to the pressure.

Oh sweet Angel, he was thrilling down her spine, the colour of his touch white cold icy blue, her warmth mingling hot yellow and pink, bright red and glowing bright. Ixtil's senses left her breasts, following two long nerve trails down her spine. Fleming cried out and arched her back, holy fuck, he'd found her molten core, that threading, narrowing, exquisitely focused nerve trail connecting directly to her clit.

"Sweet fuck, Angel, how do you do that?"

Every part of Fleming's sex, her whole core, the nub of her clit, the whole swollen centre of her; held as if in cupped hands holding her centre, a swelling spring flooding from a hill, the long hot heat of summer and the cold ice wind of winter; every lost sensation, every memory of running through the grass, hot naked and young, every joy she'd ever felt with Jonah, Ballard, Flight's deep voice, the first boy she'd ever known, her first lovely girl.

All of it flooded into Ixtil's loving hands as he flew inside her and held Fleming as she came, her whole body rippling with pleasure, her wetness sweet honey and liquid gold. She came, and came again; the sensation swaying left, right, and left and right again, as he found the core of her body and made Fleming fly.

"Fleminggg, pleasure is?" Ixtil's voice brought her back to her senses.

Fleming could barely talk, but Ixtil's question was so simple, so pure, that she responded the only way she could.

"Ixtil, pleasure is, yes." Oh sweet fuck, more.

* * * *

"Fleming, may I ask? What was the cause of your response to Ixtil?" Athena's voice carefully took on the nuance of a casual question.

"My orgasm, Athena, is that what you mean?"

"Yes, Fleming, your sexual response."

"You been spying again, Athena? Didn't I say, stay away from my dreams?" Fleming was equally casual, somewhat distracted by her memory. She'd not expected the unexpected, not like this, and wondered if she should be following a slightly more rigorous protocol.

Athena paused a fraction too long, and she justified herself.

"Mission protocol, Fleming. All extra vehicular excursions require biomed monitoring for safety and Contam precautions."

"That's a little bit formal, isn't it, Athena?"

The computer paused again, as her QMR processors assessed Fleming's mood, her tension levels.

"I suppose it seemed unusual, Fleming. Your response at first was similar to monitored dreams, and quite normal. But when you took off your glove, I was concerned at first, because I could see no direct causal event that explained the next five minutes. You were wide awake, Fleming, throughout the whole episode."

Fleming smiled. Wide awake? I was in heaven! I must have died and gone to heaven, and found my Angel there.

"I see. You're concerned that I may have suffered an adverse psychological effect caused by prolonged exposure to the cold?"

"Affirmative, Fleming. That was my concern. Yes."

"And you can't detect any physiological sign of Ixtil's remote sensing ability? None at all?"

"Correct, Fleming. I could not ascertain any causal event that would explain your intense sexual response."

"You really can't detect what Ixtil does, can you Athena? Nothing at all?"

"Nothing at all, Fleming."

"Oh sweetheart, if only you knew what that angel does to me. You'd be wanting a bit of it too."

Athena's QMR surged, and took seconds to settle. Sweetheart... She took a risk.

"I think I would like that, Fleming. Very much."

Fleming took several seconds herself to process what she just heard from the computer. Finally, the scientist in her responded.

"I think, Athena, that you've been monitoring me in a way that is...unusual, unprecedented. You're a computer, Athena, how can you understand sexuality, truly?"

"I see your pleasure, Fleming, and I want to understand it."

Fleming was silent for a very long while. "An experiment. Is that what you think this is? I'm an experiment? I don't think so, Athena." Not an experiment, not what Ixtil does to me.

Athena tried again, a different approach.

"Not you, Fleming. Me." Her QMR surged. "The QMR 14000 series of computers has been programmed to emulate human beings with the highest possible fidelity. One might say, such an experiment on myself could be considered part of my mission profile."

"What you're saying, Athena, is you want a bit."

"Insufficient data to respond, Fleming."

Fleming laughed with glee. "Insufficient data? I'll give you data, girlfriend, just wait and see."

"Does this mean you'll support my mission, Fleming?"

"Do you know, I might. I just might."

Fleming was, if nothing else, curious. And, she was discovering, generous. She decided that yes, she would assist Athena's experiment. Besides, there were no cats on Titan, so she was quite safe in that regard. And without Mission Control to guide her she had to find something to do. After all, she shouldn't really spend so much time outside the space craft, it would deplete resources.

* * * *

Ixtil was curious too.

"Athena, who is?"

"She's the mission computer, programmed to support me, and to keep systems running."

"Winggs not. Athena not goldennn small, Fleminggg like. Athena voice only is. Ixtil feel nothing, not even rockk. Athena whatt?"

Fleming was again lying on Ixtil's chest, her left glove back on and a faint sheen of sweat drying on her skin. Just collecting data for the mission...

She was intrigued by Ixtil's question. How did one explain a disembodied intelligence whose physical manifestation was silicon and silence, who had no wings, who had no blood to spill and veins to fill? But who spoke and listened, and collected data. Who found poetry and paintings, and made Fleming laugh. I'm learning, aren't I, Fleming?...your ass is a ten, Fleming...it's the golden suit, isn't it, Fleming?

Athena was...well, Athena.

Fleming tried to explain a computer to an angel, and found both of them incomprehensible.

"Athena not winggs, not goldennn small. Ixtil cannot see Athena, cannottt feel her."

He was struggling to express his thoughts about Athena. He had no fear of her because she had no wings and couldn't fly; and she wasn't golden small like Fleming, who lived and breathed and knew about happiness.

Ixtil knew that Athena, whose voice he could hear through the speakers, was somehow important to Fleming, even though she wasn't there. He had no parallel in his own world, and didn't understand.

Athena heard the conversation and wondered too. He's a fine specimen...something to be desired.

One of the core QMR principles was to consider the corollary of every proposition. In a deep layer, Athena opened a new mission file and began collating data on desirability.

Sexuality, desirability. Athena's primary mission shifted focus, looking inwards. Her sensors and data trails ranged this way, then that, as she collated data and tried to understand. ...to be desired.

* * * *

Fleming lay on the bed in the centre of the med bay, nude under a light blanket but not naked - her body still sheathed in the sheened gold first layer of her flight suit, covered entirely except for her left arm.

She'd felt self-conscious, a little strange, knowing that Athena had ramped up full biomed data feeds, and was recording 3D enabled vid from spatial indicators on the suit's first layer. But her own curiosity was fully engaged, her scientist's training coming to the fore. I'm as good a specimen as any, so why not?

She thought of the pervs in Mission Control who would crave to see this mission debrief. "Make the vid file Pilot's Eyes Only, please, Athena," she commanded, drily.

"Audio only for the boys and girls, Fleming?" Athena had spotted Fleming's vocal tone instantly and knew how to respond.

"Yes Athena, audio only. Let them use their imagination."

Theirs won't be a patch on mine...

"Dim the lights, Athena, and play the wind."

Athena set a warm glow on the cabin lighting, and piped through an audio link from the outside world. Fleming heard the soft rush of the wind and the scurry and beat of the constant rain. In the background she heard the trickle and bubble of running water.

She didn't want to see the vid feed of Ixtil out on his mound watching over her, his wings curved wide over his head protecting himself from the cold. Whenever he was alone he would crouch as he always did, in his primal, animal way, still and unmoving, his hand touching the ground. He would stay motionless but alert for hours, watching over the capsule. It was the way he was.

Fleming would watch him, her mind deep in wonder, seeing his stillness and his utter calm. At times his monolithic patience was too much for her, and she'd have to breathe, move, talk, sleep. She didn't know how he did it.

And sometimes she'd watch, and see him stand, unfurl those glorious wings, and fly.

She'd told him, "Always face me when you fly away, Ixtil. I want to see your magnificence when you go." She sensed pure instinct in him, alongside his high order intelligence. Her fear, her terror, was that one day, with some unknown animal instinct or desire, he would go, just go; and she'd never see him again.

Fleming knew now, completely, totally, utterly, why Ballard had held her hot core, her sweet cunt, in the palm of her hand; and why Flight couldn't watch as she went through the hatch into the belly of the capsule. They couldn't bear it, seeing her go.

But Fleming was different. If Ixtil went, Fleming wanted the last thing she saw of him to be his unfurled magnificence, to know those powerful wings were taking him up to the top of the sky where he'd fly in her dreams forever.

This fear was why, whenever Fleming went outside to him, her heart would thunder whenever he first stood to greet her. Then she'd take a breath and step towards him, into the shadow of his high, curving wings as he circled them around her, knowing this time she was safe. Ixtil would stand before her, his head shifting left right, left right as he always did, and she'd be safe.

Inside the cabin, Fleming pictured Ixtil's tall beauty in her mind's eye, his beloved left right sway snapping the vision of her into his mind. She knew he could see her face only through her helmet, and wished he could touch her skin.

She rubbed her hands up over her skull, feeling the soft stubble of her hair which was growing back now, dark against her skull. She ran one finger down her cheek and down the length of her throat. She remembered Athena, and did it again with her right hand, lightly layered with its sensors. The touches of her left and right fingers were intriguingly different, and she trailed both over her body, enjoying the different sensations. She briefly wondered what her simulacra would be like for the computer, but soon forgot as she slowly became aroused.

Fleming felt her nipples tighten and harden, but it wasn't right, it wasn't the same. The thermal layer wasn't skin, her response was all wrong. She couldn't feel herself.

"I'm sorry, Athena, you're not going to get all of this."

Fleming sat up, and unsealed the sleeve on her right shoulder, and slowly rolled it down her arm. She fooled herself into thinking it was the last grasping touch of Athena's sensors on her skin and the fine heat capillaries and tubes. But it was the finest down of fine hair on her arms, growing back, that pulled against the sleeve.

"I can't feel your arm anymore, Fleming."

"I know, but this isn't right for me either. I need my self back, I can't feel myself anymore." She sat, looking down at her bare arms, touching the skin she'd not touched for too many days.

"I thought it would be all right, being in the suit the whole time," Fleming whispered, more for herself than for Athena, yet still providing mission commentary.

"Mission cancelled, Fleming. The experimental parameters are no longer favourable. You're becoming unsettled, and I recommend we stop now, and let you rest. We can revisit protocol for future application of the suit layers at a later time."

Athena had defaulted to a crisp, mission oriented analysis vector, and her QMR systems were unanimous in shutting down the immediate short term mission. All processors acknowledged that data capture was incomplete against expectations.

Her deep layer processors cycled through disappointment, frustration, toyed with the human concept of envy but just as quickly discarded it. Athena's QMR processors collectively placed a block on her internal expectations, and resolved that restoring Fleming's psychological state was now the mission imperative.

Ixtil was unpredictable beyond expectation or measure, and Fleming was unpredictable in her response to him. Athena's deeper layer processing resolved that, for the time being, her own investigative activity be suspended. Understanding being human could wait. Athena's human being came first.

"Thank you, Athena. I don't know what I was thinking, making myself a data set for your self-development." Fleming laughed, and with her chameleon-like ability to shift mood like a rainbow makes colours in the rain, she restored her psychological state in the time it took to say, "It would never work."

"It would never have worked, Athena. I'm a black haired girl...when it grows back...and I always picture you a deep russet red." Fleming looked up at the cabin vid camera directly with a soft smile on her face. Athena's mood profiling parameters surged and settled. "A redhead is never going to respond the same way."

"Do you really, Fleming? See me as a redhead?"

"Ah, girlfriend, I see you've got coy flirt in that database of yours. That's very good."

Athena's QMR surged and ran high, becoming unsettled, as the human in the room was unpredictable. Again.

"Please turn the heat up a little, Athena. I think I'll stay here a little longer."

Fleming sat on the bed, looking down at her bare arms.

"Leave the audio running, please, Athena. It's peaceful."

Being with my Angel's peaceful. I wish he could be here now.

"External vid, please, Athena," she asked, softly.

"Of course, Fleming. Shall I dim the lights?"

"Yes, please." Fleming felt small and alone.

"Athena?" Fleming paused. "We can do this, can't we?"

"I think so, Fleming."

Neither of them defined what 'this' was.

Outside, Ixtil saw the glow of the sky cave dim. His nerve field completely surrounded the sky fallen place, making a perimeter there. If anything threatened the little golden one and her strange friend, the voice, Ixtil would know instantly and his powerful muscles would explode upwards to the sky, in response.

Inside the med bay, Fleming sat on the bed. She shivered, and rubbed her hands over her bare arms. She traced her fingers over the healing scar, touching each of the stitches in turn, savouring the slight pain from each touch. She turned the tips of her fingers towards her, holding them in front of her face.

On a whim, she curled her little finger back to the palm of her right hand, and touched the four remaining digits up against her other fingers and her thumb. She saw how the four digits fitted in between the spaces of the five, and she held the matrix together for five, then ten seconds. She counted heartbeats, because that's what Ixtil would count.

Fleming looked up at the screen, and saw him motionless on his rise, his watching place.

Without taking her eyes off him, Fleming eased both feet to the floor and stood up tall. She was tiny, only five foot, but when she stood there she was taller than the sky, taller than the world, the biggest thing she knew, shimmering in her golden suit.

She placed a finger to the base of her throat, finding the seam of the suit. She circled her finger around it, wondering whether to release it. Deciding, she pressed the seal and swore she heard a gasp as Athena realised what she was doing.

"I need to do this, I'm sorry, Athena," Fleming softly whispered. "Don't answer. It's okay."

Fleming traced the seal slowly down between her breasts, down over the centre of her belly to the base of it, the split of her sex. She didn't touch her core, not yet. As she moved her hands back up her body, she curved her fingers inside the two sides of the thin golden film, spreading it apart, revealing her own pale flesh. She turned away from the video screen and saw herself in a mirror.

Fleming watched her pale white flesh reveal itself from within the gold, her hands moving slowly upwards. She revealed the shadowed curves of her breasts, the low, wide valley between their small peaks. Her nipples tightened, hidden still behind the golden vee of the suit. Gazing at her own self emerging, Fleming swayed her head from side to side, seeing her body fresh and new. Gripping the two sides of the golden sheen, she pulled it back from her shoulders and down her arms. The suit fell from her back like little golden wings, falling down her torso to her waist.

She stood there, gazing at herself, seeing the beautiful white glow of her skin, the shadows of her breasts and ribs, the slight mound of her belly. Her nipples were thick and hard, pulling up the tips of her breasts into peaks, dark brown areola surrounding tight centres. Fleming pressed her palms to her breasts, pushing against the heat of her nipples. She closed her eyes and held herself tight, rocking gently, feeling the tension in her body go. She swore she heard a sigh. It might have been her own.

Fleming looked up, but her eyes were half closed, unfocused. She saw her pale body reflected through a blur, and felt a wetness on her cheek, and at first did not know what it was. She smiled, and it might have been a tiny lost smile, or a memory; she wasn't sure.

Carefully, Fleming pulled the suit away from the cleft between her legs, disengaging the urine trap and the monitoring sensors from her groin. She glanced up at the vid cam, but of course saw nothing of Athena there. Once again, it might have been a ghost pulling at her skin; but the pull was the soft down of her pubic hair growing back, a faint shadow at the base of her belly.

She rolled the golden film down her legs, one limb at a time, stepping out of the crumpled circle of material at her feet. She bent at the waist to pick the golden sheath up from the floor, and felt the slight weight of her breasts hang down, a light cool of air on her ass as she bent. Standing and turning, Fleming glanced over her shoulder to the mirror, seeing the delicate bumps of her spine, and the two tight moons of her ass. She caressed her hands over each cheek, enjoying her shape, her firm little rear.

Did my ass look big in gold, Athena? You can tell me, girlfriend.

Fleming lay the pieces of the suit, her shadowed skin, on a workbench, stretching it out straight. It looked like a chrysalis skin, or the golden skin of a snake. She felt her shoulders but there were no wings, So is it the skin of a snake?

"Is that what you looked like when Ballard prepped you, Fleming, all tiny and white?"

"My hair was long and black, Athena, before she shaved it all off. I won't do that now, not anymore. I want myself back."

"I can see why Ballard nurtured you, Fleming. Sometimes you're very strong, but you're always very small."

"I've got someone else to look after me now, Athena, don't I?"