Space Relations Pt. 18

Cruz was sitting down on the edge of a bench, way down on the relaxation center's ground floor. He was bawling his eyes out as the flying chair zoomed out of the elevator. It only took a moment for its two occupants to hone in on him.

As soon as the chair was stable, Washington hopped off and quickly approached the ensign. "Cruz, what happened?"

This only made Cruz start crying even louder.

Washington turned to Gar and Lora, who had stopped a few yards away. "Where did you find him?

"Your man stepped into the elevator, but we don't know what level he was on." Gar reported. "He was hysterical and screaming. He frightened the operator so much that the operator brought him to this first level. The operator notified me and I came over here as fast as I could. When I got to him, he was saying over and over that he killed the woman who was missing earlier. Her name was Blue."

"I killed her..." Cruz croaked, his final words trailing off into tears.

Lora was near tears also, Washington noticed.

"I was afraid something like this might happen." Gar revealed. "I know that humans can be violent creatures at times. We have seen this firsthand in the past."

"Not violence..." Cruz sobbed. Again, the rest of his words were lost.

"I'm going to gather several of my people and we're going to begin a search for Blue." Gar said. "The operator was too frightened to recall which floor your Doctor Love was on when he entered the elevator, meaning that we will have to search the entire building. Mentor Braxton, for the meantime, everything I told you earlier must be set aside. If you choose to leave Our World at this time, then so be it."

"No, Gar." Braxton said. "We will help you find Blue. And as long as you don't treat us as prisoners, we will talk later about this planet's future."

"Thank you, Mentor Braxton. You truly are a worthy mentor." Gar stepped away, while Lora nervously stepped closer to the blubbering Cruz and the captain.

For a moment, Washington thought she might come over and hold him by the arm again, but no, she kept her distance. He turned back to the crying man. "Cruz, where is this woman?"

"It was a Savannah floor." He sniffled. "There was grass and shit all over. We'd gone into one of the bedrooms further back to make love, and now she's dead."

Washington didn't believe he heard correctly. "You said you were making love when you killed her?"

"Yes, I guess I got carried away, I don't know..."

Lora moved forward. "You were making love when she died?"

"Is there an echo in here?" Cruz snapped. "That's what I said! We were making love up there and we were going at it pretty good. Now she's dead, so I killed her!"

"Describe what you were doing to her." Lora demanded.

"What kind of freak planet is this?" Cruz looked at her in disbelief.

Braxton concurred. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Lora."

"This is very important. We must know exactly how this woman died."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Cruz grumbled. "Fine, fine, fucking fine." He sighed. "She was sitting in a reverse cowgirl, and riding me like a fucking bronco. I was in the process of turning her around, when she started convulsing. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she just fell over. She wasn't breathing, she had no pulse, and I tried to revive her in a couple of different ways. Nothing worked. That's when I ran into the elevator and started screaming for help. Are you happy to hear that?"

"Did you ejaculate?" Lora asked.

"You people really are sick." Cruz grimaced. "How can you ask me a question like that? The poor woman is dead thanks to me. All you can think of to ask me is if I came or not. There is no hope for this cruel planet!"

"Did you or did you not?" Lora persisted.

"Yes. Yes, I did. Does that somehow make everything better?"

"Yes it does, and you have no idea by how much." Lora answered. She pressed a jewel on her silver bracelet and held it up to her mouth. "Gar, this is Lora. You have to come back to the first level. The Love Doctor just said that Blue died during sex. He did not hurt her through violence, as we thought he did at first."

"I'm heading there directly." Gar's tinny voice replied.

"So that's how they communicate." Washington looked impressed.

"You mean you didn't know that?" Braxton asked. "Didn't you see all those people at the landing site? What did you think they were doing, talking to their hands?"

"I guess I must have missed that part." Washington mumbled.

"Doctor Love," Lora stepped right up to where Cruz was seated. "Blue is not dead, but we have to get to her right away. Can you remember what the room looked like, if I took you to the Savannah section?"

"She had no pulse." Cruz stated. "How can she not be dead if she had no pulse?"

Lora snatched him up by the wrist. "We're wasting time here. Come with me!"

Ensign Braxton motioned to the captain, he hopped on, and the flying chair sped toward the elevator door as well.

Officer Wattakunt opened her eyes. The pretty blonde felt so soft and fluffy, as if she were sleeping on a cloud. She took in the cotton candy shapes on the walls, painted in soft whites and very soft grays, and with vague patches of pale blue sky in spots. For a long moment, Mary thought she really was in the clouds. There were pillows everywhere, it seemed. She grabbed one, and then a second, and she hugged them both to her body and squeezed all the air out of them. As she released the pillows, she watched as they sucked the air back in and puffed back out to their former might. Before she could squeeze the life out of the pillows a second time, she realized she was naked.

"What happened to my costume?" Mary asked herself, trying to recall if she'd gotten naughty with someone, but she didn't think she had.

She'd wanted to, of course, after that booty shaking at the head of the conga line. And after the cartwheels she'd done before that, where she'd been showing off her tight pink panties.

Mary remembered all those oldies but goodies, staring at her nice, round boobies as she pretended to check their pulse. She recalled how they'd looked at her legs when she'd sat on their laps and wiggled around in her special way.

"I think my nipples are hard." She glanced at the tender swells of her breasts. "Because it's nippy in here, and my nipples are hard, so that means it's nipply." She giggled. "I bet Cruz is going to like that one." She snuck her hand between her legs, and fiddled with herself for a few seconds. "Oh, Cruz, I'm feeling a little nipply in here, and I need you to come and warm me up right now. Warm me up, up, up. Cruz!"

"Cruz!" Mary called out again. "This is a Priority One booty call! Cruz!"

"They've all gone." A voice she didn't recognize replied.

Mary sat up, seeing not one, but three Wrinkles staring at her from the arched doorway. "What are you guys doing there, other than watching me Jill off like little perverts?"

"We've brought you gifts." One man said, while the other two ran off to grab some. Not wanting to be left out, this last ogling man hurried to join the others.

In short order, all three old men returned with necklaces, bracelets, anklets, as well as rings and pendants. They bowed their heads and held the jewelry out in front of them, as if offering it to her as some form of tribute.

"Ooooh, you've got some shinies!" Mary marveled at the collection she was being shown. "Bring them closer."

The men looked at one another.

"Come on, I don't bite." Mary did her come-hither motion, slightly peeved when the three men didn't respond right away. "You old boys don't know what that is, do you? What does a woman on this planet do when she wants to attract a man?"

The three men looked to one another in confusion.

The elected spokesman for the group addressed her. "To attract a man, a woman will smile at a man. She pull her veil away from her head and show her face. This is a sign that a man may approach her."

Mary grabbed a nearby pillow and folded it over her head. "Well, pretend this pillow is a veil, and pretend I'm pulling it back." With that, she tossed the pillow at the three men, but she missed them by a few feet. "Now, let me see all those baubles and trinkets you have there. I really like shiny stuff!"

The three men reluctantly stepped closer.

"On my planet, when a man wants a woman, he kisses her feet." Mary lied, just to see if she could get away with it. She wiggled her toes. "Who wants to kiss my feet?"

The two pushed the one forward. He straightened up. "I will do this."

"Well, somebody better." Mary said. "And instead of saying 'I will do this.' I want you to say, challenge accepted! I want you to say this same phrase, every time I tell you do to something for me. Try it."

"Yes." The man nodded. "Challenge accepted. Is this good?"

"Eh, it was okay." Mary shrugged. "Now, give me your best gift, and then you can get started with my feet."

Mary was presented with a ring that had a big fat ruby on it. She tried it on, finding it just a tad too big for her fingers, so she gave it back. "Got anything else?"

One of the others gave the official spokesman a silver bracelet. He stretched his arms out to give it to her.

"Why are you guys so scared of me?" Mary asked, as she took the bracelet and studied it. It was nice, she thought, but not too fancy. When she tried it on, she also found it too loose. "Oh, it doesn't fit!"

"You can squeeze it and it will shape itself to your arm." The spokesman said.

"Show me."

The man did squeeze it, gently. Right away, Mary could feel the metal wrapping itself around her wrist.

"And how do you take it off?"

"Simple, you squeeze it again, from the bottom only." The man gave her a deep nod, but she still didn't understand what that fully meant. He added, "But this is a very special bracelet. It is a communicator. If you press the jewel on it, it will light up. You can speak to anyone else who wears a communicator."

"Really?" She held her wrist up to look at it closer. "And I push the button again to turn it off?"

"Yes."

Mary turned the bracelet on and held it up to her mouth. "If anybody can hear this, fuck you!" Quickly, she turned it off and started giggling. "I drank too much wine last night. Can you tell?" She remembered her toes, and pointed to them as she began to wiggle them around. "Thanks for the bracelet. As your reward, you can suck my toes. All three of you."

"We thank you for this honor, woman of Earth." The lead guy nodded. "But we must speak to you about one urgent matter. Our world is in a crisis. Only you and the other humans can save us. If we do not do this, we will die."

"What can I do to help?"

"We must have sex with a human woman. If we do this, we will become strong and young again, as we once were."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" Mary nodded. "I like that line, too. That's the best pick-up line I've heard ever since I left Earth. But there are three of you and there is only one of me. I don't want all three of you on top of me at the same time. I'm a nice girl, but I'm not that nice."

"We understand this." The man said. "You may choose whichever one of us you desire."

He stepped back to stand in a rough line with the other two.

"Will the other two really die if I don't sleep with them?" Mary asked.

All three men gave her long nods.

"Well, I don't want that to happen." Mary pouted. "That would hurt my feelings. I'll tell you what. I want to save all three of you and here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to pick one of you, and then the next one, and then the next one. Are you ready?"

The three men nodded again.

"Okay, here goes;

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,

Catch a tiger by his pecker,

If he hollers let him go,

If he doesn't I'm a ho.

"You on the end, come over here." She said, before she paused a moment. "Do any of you know what a ho is?"

"We do not." The spokesman said.

"Well, a ho is a very nice girl." Mary told them. "Always remember that. Ooo, Cruz is going to be so jealous, because I'm saving the world and he isn't. Come here, tiger!"

Back on one of the Savannah levels, several Wrinkles were crowding around the form of one of their own. This was Blue, who lay on a bed that felt and sounded like soft, rustling grass. One of the observers, Gar, left the huddle and stepped toward the arch where the three members of the Space Relations anxiously waited.

"She is dead, isn't she?" Cruz asked.

"Come forward and take a new look at her." Gar motioned for him to approach.

Cruz hurried over, pressing into the small divide left by Gar's departure. Blue was still in some sort of coma, where she appeared lifeless and pallid, but her features had changed incredibly. She looked like a forty year-old woman now, instead of fifty. The edges of her eyes were now devoid of crow's feet. The harsh lines around her mouth had greatly softened. Blue was becoming younger.

Confused, the officer looked back at Gar. "What's happened to her? I certainly did not do all of that to her. Even I'm not that good!"

"Our bodies fall into a coma-like state, just before they begin to rejuvenate." Gar explained. "Blue will be in that state for another day or two, as her body adjusts to all the changes going on within her and without. She'll probably be very weak for a few days after that. Once all that is done, she'd going to be very healthy and very happy."

Gar turned to face Washington and Braxton. "This is the secret your Space Corps wanted to pry from us, some time ago. The secret so powerful that they were willing to get us to war with one another, if that's what it took for them to get their hands on it. We were even considering freely sharing our secret with them at first, because perhaps your scientists could improve on where we've gotten stuck. Then my people would not have to depend on obtaining new DNA infusions every time our bodies start to deteriorate.

"Then we realized that the representatives of your Space Corps wanted our secret only so they could sell it, instead of sharing it to benefit all of humanity. We refused to part with it after that. In the end, we even convinced Space Corps that we didn't have any secret at all, and that's how we've kept things for many years."

Gar sighed. "But now you know the basics of it. If a scientist captures a few of us and takes our DNA apart, they'll know how we modified our genes. This was done by activating some strands and deactivating others, and also by fusing certain strands. The real secret, however, is something they won't be able to reproduce in their labs. This is the sexual union between a man and a woman, and how it stimulates the rejuvenation process by returning our modified genes to their former state, albeit temporarily. I suppose that if I was a careful man, I would not allow any of you to leave this planet, forever."

"Gar, as mentor for Captain Washington," Braxton said. "I am recommending that my captain not report any of this to our administration. I would suggest to him that your secret deserves to remain your secret. Your secret should remains yours until such time as your people wish to divulge it themselves, and are convinced that it will be used for the common good of humanity."

Gar looked over at Washington.

"I would gladly accept my mentor's advice." Washington nodded.

"Well, that is good to hear." Gar smiled.

"Anybody there?" A shrilly voice spoke out on Gar's wrist bracelet. "Hellooo?"

"Hello?" Gar asked the device. "Who is this?"

"This is Mary." The voice replied, causing Cruz to bolt over next to Gar.

"Who?"

Washington glanced at Braxton; they'd totally forgotten about the pretty ensign.

"You probably know me better as the Nurse Of Love. Anyway, all these guys keep coming into my bedroom and telling me that they're going die if I don't sleep with them. So, you know, I'm doing them all a big favor, right? Well, they all keep falling asleep on me. I checked a couple of them and they're really humped out. Somebody should come up here and check on them. I'm just saying."

"How many men have you slept with?" Gar asked.

"Hold on, I've got to count them." She paused for a moment. "Seven. Eight if you count this other guy, but he's not completely out of it like the others. He's just sitting there dazed. Oh, and all their penises are like, glowing in the dark or something. Is that normal for you people?"

Cruz grabbed at Gar's wrist and shouted down into it, "Mary, you bitch! You've got eight and I've only got the one! We'll just see about that!"

Mary answered, "Ha ha! You know where I'm at, so bring it!"

She blew out a loud kiss and cut off the call.

Cruz flew out of the bedroom, only to fly back inside a moment later. "All right, who here wants to be throttled like a hooker at a sausage convention?"

Several Wrinkles glanced over at him expectantly.

"I meant only the women when I said that." Cruz started pointing. "You, you, and you, come with me if you want to live!" He nearly rushed away, but came to a screeching halt before Lora. "You'd better come along too, sweetheart. The captain's turned into a bit of a pansy as of late." He slapped Lora on the ass hard enough to make her jump. "Runaway train, coming through! Woo-hoo!"

Half the room emptied out after him.

"Well, I suppose things are turning out well, after all." Gar said. "I think."

"Did I hear correctly earlier?" Braxton asked. "That there is some sort of a volcano room somewhere in this building?"

"There is." Gar replied. "We have an actual miniature volcano in the center of that room and it really blows out lava. There are safety measures, of course."

"I have a feeling that you're going to be blowing out lava pretty soon." Braxton said. "I command you to take me to that level, Gar."

Gar looked stupefied, but only for a moment. Quickly, he hurried toward the elevators. "Follow me, human!"

She and her floating chair did just that.

Washington glanced at the several male Wrinkles still hovering about Blue. They all glanced at him nervously. Feeling suddenly awkward, the captain took a short breath and stepped out. He was feeling a little bummed out, yet again, since everybody in his crew was getting laid right and left, and his cute Barbie Doll was out orbiting the planet somewhere. He could hitch a ride back to the communications center, the captain supposed, and request that the ship to be brought down. Unfortunately, he knew it would take some time before his honey was in his arms gain.

Washington looked down at this right hand. "Well, in the meantime, I still have you. My old stand-by, Rosy Palm and her five sisters."

Smirking at his own wit, the captain circled through tufts of Savannah grass on his way to the catch the next elevator.

In front of him, the elevator doors opened. A gaggle of women in colorful dresses, veils and shawls poured out. He recognized the one in the lead as one of the women he'd frightened earlier, when he'd pulled out his long shank.

"There he is!" The old woman, not quite ugly, but not quite as pretty as the rest either, pointed right at him. "That's the three-legged man! Get him!"

War cries filled the chamber, as the small mob of women hurled themselves at him.

"Oh, snap!" Washington cried out, and the chase was on.

"I can't walk." The captain said, as he limped along and held himself upright by bracing an arm against the wall.

"You won't have to go that far." Barbie held him up from the opposite shoulder. She settled him onto a flying chair. "There you go, you big crybaby."

"Can you ever forgive me?" Washington made the most pitiful face he could manage, under the circumstances.

"For being gang-raped?" Barbie put her hands on her hips. "No, I'm not forgiving you for that. Especially not if you brought it upon yourself, by showing off to those women in the first place. If you weren't so beat up, we'd be having angry sex right now, followed by make-up sex, followed by missing-you sex."