Tara

By the time Tara made it back to her apartment— their apartment— she'd lost track of what she was doing. So many thoughts came and went she doubted she could have kept track of them even if she had utilized her co-processor. She'd been hurt before, but not like this. Nobody had ever done this to her.

Was it Chelzee's fault though? Or was it Tara's. The Bregan had never told her she loved Tara. Then again, Tara hadn't said it either. She just kind of assumed. They'd been living together for more than two semesters now, that was over half a year! They'd laughed, cried, shared moments both high and low, even had spats... but this, this was different. There was no going back from this.

Or was there? Could Tara turn a blind eye to it? How many times had Chelzee gone out on her own and done something similar? She went out all the time. Tara gasped and felt fresh tears run down her face. No, she couldn't do that. She couldn't tear her heart out wondering every time Chelzee was out with someone else.

Then again, even if she wasn't, she would be someday. It was the Bregan way. To live and gain experience, wealth, and status in the universe before being called back to Brega to perpetuate their way of life. Tara had read and heard about it before, but it never really sank in until now. She'd been too focused on her studies. Too focused on making something of herself.

Tara stared at their beds they'd pushed together to make into a single bed and sighed. Everything had changed now. She couldn't sleep with her anymore. Well... no, not even actual sleeping. She swallowed down a sob and grabbed the blankets. She pulled them off and then the sheets that joined the cheap permagel mattresses together.

Tara took a moment when she was down to the matching frames and mattresses. She sucked on her lip and then nodded. She had to do this. Everything had changed. Their relationship was poisoned. Corrupted. Mutated. And now she was dividing the bed because of it. Like a cell that had become cancerous.

The difference was the division was part of her recovery process. Sure, it would be tough on her, but she knew she could get through. New growth, personal growth, would occur. She'd learn from this, evolve and mutate, to put in biological terms.

Tara smiled through the pain. "I'm such a dork," she said, acknowledging that only she could find humor in such misery. "How is it I can make sense of this and learn from it but I can't do that with any of my paper ideas?"

Evolution and mutation had nothing do with biotech interfaces though. Unless she could evolve cells to more readily accept inorganic interfaces, that is... but that would be tricky and take a lot of time. Generations of cells growing, dying, and being replaced.

"Unless I speed it up," Tara mused as she moved to her desk and sat down. "Somehow I'd have to deal with telomere shortening though to prevent cancer... or do I want that? A controlled cancer? Is that even a thing? It would need constant monitoring..."

Tara swiped her research to the side and started up a new project plan. She started pulling papers and began reading and taking notes. Her alarm chirped before she was done, startling her out of her thoughts and fantasies of evolutionary biological enhancements.

"What? Oh my... I worked through the night?"

She stretched and stood up. Her body was stiff and sore, stretched or not, and her brain was starting to realize it had been awake for an entire twenty hour day. Her eyes fell on the split beds and pile of blankets on the floor between them. Chelzee hadn't come home last night. The club could still be open, but she doubted it. More likely she'd gone somewhere else... with someone else. The Zendarian woman?

Tara sucked her lip and shook her head. She had to get going. Part of her PhD was assisting the professor of an intro to exobiology class. She was still wearing the awful dress from last night too! How she'd managed to sit in it for hours without realizing it were beyond her.

Tara peeled the dress off and grimaced at the lines left in her skin from where it pinched and squeezed her. She hurried into the bathroom to get ready and realized she'd forgotten clothes. Before she'd been embarrassed, but it wasn't a big deal if Chelzee saw her. For some crazy reason Chelzee liked what she saw. Tara didn't. It made sense now, Chelzee clearly had bad taste in women. That bad taste probably included Tara too... why else would she insist she liked how she looked and... and the other stuff she liked about her.

Tara took a deep breath to push through the sadness and peeked out the door to make sure the room was still empty. She rushed to grab clothes and was soon comfortable in her loose fitting pants and shirt.

She checked the cooler to make sure but there was nothing remotely interesting for her to eat. "All right, grab and go it is," she said to herself. A quick stop for a self-heating breakfast bar and a coffee was in her future.

* * * *

Tara didn't see Chelzee for another day and when did she rushed out to the lab before she had to talk to her. She found herself spending a lot of time at the lab, immersing herself in her new theory. It was working too. She was speeding up the cell division and inducing artificial mutations. Nothing useful yet, but that didn't matter. She was proving that it could be done safely... as long as it was constantly monitored and unexpected or unwanted mutations were disposed of.

She'd made the mistake of dozing during off during one such experiment and when she snapped awake and looked at it a full blown tumor the size of her fingernail had already grown. At least it had been a pretty tumor, with red and purple striations. It reminded her of the outfit Chelzee had worn that night at the club. Suddenly it wasn't so pretty anymore.

Tara burned the experiment to sterilize her workstation and started fresh.

A week and a half later Tara returned home from class to change and head out to the lab when Chelzee stopped her. The Bregan was staring at her closet thoughtfully when Tara walked in.

"Hey Ba— Tara," Chelzee said. She closed her eyes a moment and then opened them. "How are you?"

"Hey," Tara grunted. "I've got to—"

"Get to the lab, I know," Chelzee said. She sighed. "Oh Tara, how did this get so bad? I'm so sorry... I mean that, you know?"

"You...you are?"

Chelzee turned to face her and nodded. "Yes, I am. I never explained myself very well. My situation, I guess. It's second nature to Bregans but you're not Bregan."

"You noticed," Tara said.

"I noticed so much about you. More now than I used to... I think that's because I barely ever see you so I want to remember everything when I do."

"Chelz, stop," Tara cautioned. "I can't do this."

"Do what? Tell you I miss you? Tell you that I'm sorry? Tell you that I wish it wasn't like this between us?"

Tara swallowed. "I... I'm to blame too. I know that. Just because I bury myself in my work doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you in the back of my mind."

"You are?"

"Constantly!"

Chelzee grinned. "I've been thinking too, obviously."

"Obviously," Tara agreed and shared a smile with her. A knife twisted in her heart but she ignored it and forced herself to listen.

"I... I'd be lying if I said I didn't know how serious you were. I lied to myself, but I won't lie to you. Not anymore."

Before she could think her response through she asked, "What do you mean?"

"I told myself what we had was just fun. That you didn't expect too much out of me. If you did, you'd have come out with me, and since you didn't, you were obviously okay with what I did."

"Um, no," Tara mumbled.

"I know. I knew then, too, but I stuck that voice in an airlock and spaced it," Chelzee admitted. "I wanted to live and to experience and I was terrified of missing out on something with the time I had. Let's be honest, I'm decent at marketing and sales, but there are a lot of people better at it than me. I'll get a job, but it won't be great and I'll be called back to Brega after a few years, probably."

"I don't—"

"Hang on," Chelzee said. "Let me talk, please?"

Tara sucked on her lip and nodded.

"I did miss out," Chelzee said. "I missed out on you, Tara. I wanted to spread myself so much that I missed out on spending time with you and really being with you, you know? You said you loved me and I love you too. Not as much though, and that's my fault, not yours. I should have given myself to you...it would have meant so much more to me than all the drinks and dances and...and... other stuff."

"Other women?"

Chelzee winced and nodded.

Tara sighed. "Oh Chelz..."

Chelzee slipped a step closer to Tara. "Tara... baby... I was stupid. I know you can't forget what I did. I know you can't trust me. But I hope you can at least forgive me? Not forgive what I did, but forgive me because I know how stupid I was now. My life has been crazy and I didn't realize how you kept me safe and centered until I lost you. I can't have you back, and I don't know what my future holds or how long I'll have... but knowing you— loving you— has taught me what I should be doing. You're making me a better person, Tara."

Tara was crying and she wasn't ashamed of it. She nodded and sniffed and then nodded again. "I can try to do that for you."

Chelzee took another step and wrapper her arms around her. Tara let her and hugged the shorter Bregan back. They were both crying and hugging and holding on as though an airlock might open and suck either one of them away if they let go.

"I can't—" Tara began when she could speak again.

Chelzee moved her head and silenced Tara with a kiss. She backed away, searching for a reaction. Tara felt a great wall she'd built inside of herself crumble and fall apart. Having Chelzee in her arms felt so good. So right. She leaned forward and captured the woman's thin lips under her own. She moaned and Chelzee moaned back. Tara opened her mouth and was greeted with Chelzee's agile tongue seeking out her own.

Tara squeezed the smaller woman and devoured her mouth with her own. They were panting and pawing at one another, desperately reaching and feeling and then not satisfied with what they found and searching for more. Clothes were pulled and tossed and they soon found themselves on the Chelzee's bed with Tara on top.

Their legs intertwined and Chelzee did her best to grind her thigh up into Tara's sex. Tara growled and sucked on the Bregan's tongue and reached down to grab the woman's other hip. Chelzee melted in her grip and whimpered deep in her throat. The tip of her tongue tickled Tara's while Tara's lips sucked up and down her length as though it were a slender penis.

Tara's other hand pinched and rolled Chelzee's thick nipple, coaxing it to greater and greater size. Finally Tara couldn't deny herself any longer and she sucked her way off of Chelzee's tongue and then kissed her way down to her chest. She bit her nipple, drawing a gasp from Chelzee, and then inhaled it and began to chew and lick it until the Bregan began to leak her sweet juices into Tara's mouth. Tara switched sides before Chelzee became too sensitized and repeated the process, stopping only when her lover was trembling in her hands with need.

Tara slid down her body, running her teeth across Chelzee's belly. The Bregan squirmed as she felt the sharper human teeth and whimpered. Tara didn't pause on her way between the Bregan's legs other than to grab them and push them wide. She captured her lover's bulb in her lips and sucked on it gently, pulling the sensitive nugget of flesh out and aiding the blood rushing to fill and expand it. She tickled it with her tongue, causing Chelzee to thrash on the bed and begin to whistle with each frantic breath through her narrow nostrils.

When Tara knew Chelzee could take no more she bit down, trapping the Bregan's version of a clitoris between her teeth and making sure she rolled the swollen bud between her teeth and let the points of her canine teeth poke into it. Chelzee howled and arched on the bed. Tara continue to tickle and chew, forcing the women higher and higher into the waves of pleasure that swept her consciousness up and away from Humphrey Station.

By the time she collapsed and Tara kissed her way back up the woman's body Chelzee was limp and gasping for breath. Tara curled up beside her and moved down to suckle her close nipple again. After an orgasm like that she was leaking the sweet fluid that Bregan women who weren't yet with child were renowned for. Not only was the sweet fluid desired as a sign of sexual prowess, but it was a known aphrodisiac to nearly every discovered mammalian species in the universe.

Chelzee came back to herself after a few minutes and reached down to her forgotten breast. She scooped up her nectar that had gathered at the tip and brought it to Tara's lips. "You earned this, baby," Chelzee cooed as she slipped her finger in Tara's mouth and delighted in the women licking and sucking her finger clean.

Tara growled and lifted her head, ready to push for more. Chelzee grinned and grabbed her, pulling her back on top of her and then urging her to climb up her body.

"Own me, Tara. Use me. Force me. Make me make you cum, baby," the Bregan hissed.

Tara growled and kissed her, hard. She broke the kiss and, with Chelzee's hands guiding her, lifted herself to her knees so she was straddling her and then walked on them up her body. Chelzee pulled her down to her face and inhaled deeply before extending her sinuous tongue and licking up the juices threatening to drip from Tara's folds.

Tara sucked in a breath and then put her hands out to the wall to hold herself steady. Chelzee's tongue worked it's magic on her, seeking out every hint of sensation and pleasure it could provide her as it slid in and out of her folds. She circled Tara's core and slid her tongue in, gathering her juices from the source and letting them run into her mouth.

Tara lowered one hand to Chelzee's head and slid her fingers into the woman's hair. She pulled her up mashing her face into her steamy sex and grinding the Bregan's nose against her clit. Chelzee whimpered and not only let her, but she forced her tongue deeper into the woman and opened her mouth as wide as she could so she could catch as much of Tara's spend as possible.

Tara rubbed herself off against her trapped lover, riding her cresting wave of pleasure higher and higher until her body trembled both with need and exhaustion. She peaked and broke all at once, her body releasing the pent up tension while the pleasure tore through her and left her reeling. Tara hovered above her for several seconds, her body quivering until she slumped back and fell onto Chelzee's belly and legs and then slid off.

Chelzee shifted and worked her way around while Tara lay in a contented stupor. The Bregan crawled up between the human's legs and sniffed greedily before she began to gently lick away at Tara's sex and clean her up.

Tara looked down at her and smiled. This was the Chelzee she'd fallen for. Well, not because she pleasured her so well, but the woman who cared about her. The woman that wanted to take care of her and make sure she was happy. Tara sighed and let her head drop back onto the bed.

Chelzee moaned and paused long enough to say, "You okay, baby? You came hard."

Tara managed a laugh. "I did? What about you?"

"Oh yeah... you were amazing! You've never been like that before. I loved it!"

Tara sighed happily. "It was different. Fun. But I'm not like that normally."

Chelzee licked at her still weeping sex and said, "I bring it out in you, huh?"

"I think they call that angry sex," Tara said.

"Mmm, remind me to make you angry again then!"

Tara opened her mouth and then gasped as Chelzee's tongue traced her slick flesh back to her puckered ass. Chelzee continued to lick and taste her. "Chelz... stop."

"Aww, why? You can punish me some more if you want? You taste... Goddess, you're the closest thing to the divine I've ever had."

Tara blushed. "I don't..."

"It's part me and it's part Bregan," Chelzee said. "We have very sensitive senses of smell and you, baby, smell amazing."

"Stop!"

"I mean it. Not just your pussy, but just you in general. I've never found anyone like you."

"You're serious?"

Chelzee took another deep whiff of Tara's sex and then crawled up her body and laid down on her side so they were facing each other. "Full disclosure... I stole one of your shirts when you left me."

"You what?" Tara gasped.

Chelzee nodded. "I did... and the only way I could sleep by myself was with my face buried in it. I've ruined it though."

"You ruined one of my shirts?"

"Well, ruined it for me... It's hard to smell you anymore, I cried into it too much."

Tara opened her mouth and then saw the glistening of more tears in Chelzee's eyes. She clamped her mouth shut and pulled the woman tight against her. "Oh Chelz," she sighed while she held the struggling woman.

She felt the woman's tears on her flesh at first but soon they stilled. Chelzee remained snuggled against her and pressed close. Tara held her while her mind wandered through their history together and theirs ups and downs. She began to wonder if her ex had fallen asleep but her uneven breathing told her she was still awake.

"What's going on, Chelz?"

Chelzee sniffed and spoke, her voice muffled by Tara's chest. "This is it, isn't it? You're really leaving me."

Tara squeezed her eyes shut and made herself swallow the lump in her throat back down. "Chelz."

"No, I understand. I can't give you what you want. I want to. Goddess, Tara, I want to so badly!"

"So do it," Tara spoke before she realized what she'd said.

"I can't!" Chelzee sobbed.

"I shouldn't have said that," Tara admitted. "I'm sorry. It's... That was selfish and foolish of me."

"No, it's not. I'm just not... I'm Bregan. This is what we do. I'll have to go back. It's a biological imperative. If I fight it I'll go mad."

"I thought that was just a myth?"

Chelzee shook her head against Tara's chest. "It's real."

"Oh."

Chelzee sniffed again. "I wish it wasn't."

Tara sighed. "Me too."

They held each other for several more minutes. Tara tried to find a way around their problems but every solution had another problem. She ended up broken hearted and alone in the end every time, not to mention poor and jobless.

"You said this was angry sex," Chelzee said.

"Yeah, a little."

"It was honest sex. It was emotional. It was... I could feel you. The real you. How you felt. You were aggressive and powerful and, oh Goddess, baby, you were amazing. I loved you taking charge of me. That spoke to me so deeply I can't even come up with a way to explain it. I'm failing now... I guess the only word I can use is magic. It was magic and it fulfilled me in ways I didn't even know I needed to be fulfilled."

Tara kissed the top of her head. "I don't know what to say. Thank you?"

Chelzee laughed and kissed her chest. She sniffed and lifted her head a little so she could lick Tara's neck. "You're welcome, but I should be thanking you. I'll be judging everyone I ever meet against you, you know."

"Oh Chelz..."

"No, don't be sad. I'm sad, but it's okay. I screwed this up, this is on me."

"Chelz? Look at me."

Chelzee lifted her head and backed up a little so she could see Tara clearly.

Tara smiled and said, "I forgive you."

Chelzee stared at her as fresh tears gathered.

"I mean it," Tara said. "I do. I'll always love you and if you need me, just ask. I can't do this anymore, but that doesn't mean I'll ever forget you or stop thinking of you."

"You'll meet some sexy human girl and—"

"Stop it!" Tara snapped.

Chelzee reared back a little, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I don't know who I'm going to meet, but I'm not looking for anyone. I am going to remember you and I'm going to stay in touch with you. Even after you get called back and have to be a respectable mother and family member. I'll be the embarrassing secret you can't tell your family about."