The Left Hand Of Darkness

"I've made some mistake in shifgrethor. I'm sorry; I can't learn. I've never even really understood the meaning of the word."

"Shifgrethor? It comes from the old word foreshadow." We were both silent for a little, and then he looked at me with a direct, gentle gaze. His face in the reddish light was as soft, as vulnerable, as remote as the face of a woman who looks at you out of her thoughts and does not speak.

And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him: that he was a woman as well as a man. Any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with the fear; what I was left with was, at last, acceptance of him as he was. Until then I had rejected him, refused him his own reality. He had been quite right to say that he, the only person Gethen who trusted me, was the only Gethenian I distrusted. For he was the only one who had entirely accepted me as a human being: who had liked me personally and given me entire personal loyalty: and who therefore had demanded of me an equal degree of recognition, of acceptance. I had not been willing to give it. I had been afraid to give it. I had not wanted to give my trust, my friendship to a man who was a woman, a woman who was a man.

He explained, stiffly and simply, that he was in kemmer and had been trying to avoid me, insofar as one of us could the other. "I must not touch you," he said, his voice subdued with extreme constraint. He looked away.

"I understand. I agree completely." I said.

The blizzard continued to rage outside the tent. Gale wind howled outside; the snow was so thick I had not been able to see Estraven six feet away.

For it seemed to me, and I think to him, that it was from that sexual tension between us, admitted now and understood, but not assuaged, that the great and sudden assurance of friendship between us rose: a friendship so much needed by us both in our exile, and already so well proved in the days and nights of our bitter journey, that it might as well be called, now as later, love.

He looked at me. His usually firm, broad face showed telltale signs of weight loss. His brow was rimmed with sweat and I could see deep in his gaze, a feminine hunger fighting to be released. It was then I did notice with a start how the kemmer had already changed him.

He shoulders were narrower, and his face thinner. Already it was hard to tell whether the man in front of me was a man, or a boyish woman. He was both, I forced myself to think; he was both a man and a woman, every person on this planet was.

The wind howled outside and the walls of the tend rippled and snapped in the wind, but the noise was deafened in my ears as I fell deeper into Estraven's dark brown eyes. It wasn't right, I'd never been attracted to men. But I knew that he would not always be, that he would change. Was it really then, so bad, so taboo to feel the way I did?

"Ai..." Estraven said quietly. "Don't look at me like that." Estaven's eyes widened as I shifted closer.

I had been so lonely on this planet. It had been years since I'd lain with another person. My own inhibitions stopping me from growing close to this planet's people. There was a pounding tightness in my chest, a burning heat in my face that I could not assuage.

"Ai... Ai -- please -- stop, you're make it worse." Estraven said. His voice was high, barely a whisper as sweat began to bead on above his brow. "Ai, the kemmer."

"Oh Estraven." I pulled him into an embrace, his smell was intoxicatingly feminine. I planted a long kiss against his forehead. When I pulled away, he struggled to remain his composure. His face was a battling sea of emotions, and then suddenly it melted into an expression of overwhelming compassion.

"Ai" He said. "You shouldn't have." Then he kissed me.

***

Estraven shuddered as the kemmer took hold. His cheeks were flushed, and his clothes were drenched through with sweat. I was on top of him, planting sensual kiss after kiss against his neck. Our lust for one another barely constrained. Our low moans mixed as weeks of tension between us exploded all at once.

"I've never felt kemmer like this before. It's coming so fast, usually I have some control, but now. Not with you." Estraven said breathily. He kissed me on the mouth, slowly, his tongue playing against mine.

I helped him out of his shirt, marveling at his knotted muscles, his youthful male frame. His hairless rippling body was like that of a Greek god. He pulled down his pants and his largely swollen penis slapped against his stomach. I hesitated, but when I saw his eyes and the woman behind them, I once more melted; letting him pull off my own shirt, undoing my pants, wrapping his long, delicate fingers around my own pounding organ. I moaned as he took me into his mouth.

I watched as he edged me closer. His skin felt hot and swollen to the touch. His head continued to bob up on down between my legs. Estraven's shoulder length, curly black hair was soft as I ran my fingers through it and then down the curve of his back. The satisfaction of intimate touch of another human being was quickly driving me over the edge. "Estraven." I moaned urgently.

He stopped and looked up at me with his big dark brown eyes, his expression lost in his love for me -- his eyes lost in my own. His face seemed womanlier than it had a moment before. It was thinner, his cheekbones less pronounced. Estraven arched his back and grimaced, the sound of shifting bones crunched somewhere inside him. He let out a groan.

"Ai, it hurts." He said.

"Can I help you?" I said. "What can I do?" His discomfort was unsettling me. I had never seen the kemmer change one of his people so quickly.

The woman in Estraven seemed to take hold then, overpowering what remained of his masculinity. The evaporated; his expression turned sly; Estraven turned from me -- presenting his sculpted buttocks to my raging erection. "You can make it hurt more." He moaned huskily.

My vision tunneled with lust, I ran my hands over his muscular ass, his thighs thickened from the kemmer. I groped his balls, eliciting a moan. They were large, like a bull's -- straining against a ballooned sack. His anus was a flower of purple, also swollen from the kemmer. I guided my cock against him and pushed inside without hesitation this time. I went in slowly, we both moaned as I stretched him, his insides coating my penis in hot flesh. I began to buck my hips against him, reveling in the alien sensation of penetrating a man who was not a man. He let out moan after moan, touching himself as our rhythm reached a feverish crescendo. I came moments later, crying out as I filled his ass with spurt after spurt of my seed.

"Oh Ai... that was wonderful." Said Estraven.

It wasn't his voice that I remembered, this one was light, playful, and very feminine, it sounded like it belonged to a youthful woman. His eyes were on me again, and I saw him for the first time as Estraven the woman, not the man. Her face was a sensual oval, her nose small and rounded. Deep brown eyes and light brown skin centered a sly smile. As I watched all traces of the man vanished from her visage. Her body twisted, pulling off my organ with a pop and eliciting a quick pause and subsequent moan.

The curves of her body had become more pronounced. As she lay on her back watching me; I noticed her chest had begun to swell, her nipples had grown larger- pushing away from her body. Muscles still wrapped her, but they had quickly begun to soften, becoming less pronounced. She began to stroke her engorged organ as she watched me. She bit her lip as she ran her finger under her foreskin, another hand played with her growing breasts.

"You hurt so good Ai. You filled me with your love." She said. "I want to do the same to you."

I hesitated, but immediately pushed it aside. This was my woman, we knew each other, I trusted her. I wanted her to take pleasure in my body. "Estraven..." I pulled myself on top of her, guiding her. Her face was flushed, excited. I groaned and let out a gasp as her thick length speared me. It was almost too much, but I pushed forwards knowing it was my love inside me. She bucked her hips uncontrollably.

She cried out as I grabbed her swelling breasts, sucked her aroused nipples. All the while her hips slammed against me, her balls slapping against my skin. She growled, clawed at my back, her body popping as it continued to transform. An itch she couldn't quite scratch but got closer and closer to each minute that passed.

I felt a sudden heat deep inside me, and Estraven's eyes rolled back into her head. She shuddered, trying to speak, but only a strangled moan escaped her lips. I felt her cock twitch, pulsing liquid life inside me.

She was gorgeous, the only thing left of the man she had been hours before lay between her legs, slick with the fluids she had pumped inside of me. As I watched, it grew softer. Her balls were taught against a sack that had pulled inwards. As shrank before my eyes, her curves filled out, almost imperceptibly.

Estraven lay there, basking in her orgasmic afterglow. Her organ continued to shrink, it was only a nub now, her balls had pulled in. She moaned; her knuckles white as she clutched the strewn sleeping bag. Her hips bucked, the last visages of her penis pulling up inside her. Both hands flew to her groin. She squeezed her flesh, pulling, pushing, moaning as the spot her genitals had been began to redden and swell. "Oh Ai!" She cried out my name. Her body trembling in the last throes of kemmer. I felt myself grow hard again as I watched her final transformation with wide eyes.

"Ai! Oh Ai! Oh! Fuck me Ai! I want you inside me! I need you now Ai. God fuck me please. Oooooooh." Estraven pushed a hand up against their swollen mons, desperately trying to find the entrance that had yet to arrive. Her face was flushed, feverish with lust. "I need to fuck, I need to fuck now. I need this, I need this, oh fuck I need you. You want to fuck me don't you, you dirty alien. You want to pump me full of cum and suck my tits. Oh Ai, you want to pound me with your huge cock. I want to feel you stretch me -- I want you to fuck me until you come, and don't stop." Her words were rapid, hungry. Eyes wild as she continued to touch herself.

I pressed against her, kissing her, dry humping her burgeoning vulva with my penis. She was slick with sweat, her skin baby smooth like she had just been birthed. The crevice between her legs grew deeper, slicker as I ran my cock between her mons. Her cries of pleasure reignited my own lust. It may have been minutes, or hours before the resistance against my cock suddenly gave way. I was sliding inside her, fiery heat pressing in on me from all sides. We both moaned a moan of mutual satisfaction as we finally coupled.

Estraven pushed me onto my back. Her breasts and slim curving frame began to ride me. She threw back her head and cried a cry of primal ecstasy. I could see her flesh wrapped around the hilt of my cock, taught as she slid up on and down. We both watched in turned on fascination at her new genitals. She shuddered, clenching her thighs, orgasmic bliss rolling over her face.

"Estraven, my love, I'm close." I said.

She started to ride me again. Her soft brown eyes locked to mine. Lips slightly parted as she bucked her hips in deep rhythmic motion. She moved to the tip of my penis was at the cusp of her sex, and then pushed down, letting my entire length split her to her core. "Cum for me my love." She gasped. "Give me what we both want. Make me yours." I gripped her buttocks; I could feel myself being driven over the edge. She was clenching each time she pulled upwards, squeezing my cock. I roared as I pulled her over, pushed my way inside her, slapping my balls against her slick sex. She responded with cries of encouragement and pleasure. "Harder my love, let me feel your need!"

I roared again, flexing my muscles, veins popping in my arms, straining against my abs; I began to cum. With one final tremendous thrust I emptied myself inside her. I could feel my semen spray with a tremendous force like I had never experienced before. Spurt after spurt filling her new womb. I wrapped myself around her, pulling her close. My penis still deep inside her. I didn't want to move, neither of us did. The warmth of our bodies surrounded us, we rolled over and into a dreamless sleep.