Unity and Destiny Pt. 08

Suddenly Nicola gasped and grunted, body rigid. "Fuck, fuck, fuck ..." she cursed, the swears fading away until she finally collapsed onto her knees. He ran his hands through her wet hair a few times, and after a minute she turned around, sighing and taking hold of his dick.

"I didn't want it to be so fast," she admitted, pulling on him with a firm, sure grip that sent tingles down to his toes. It wasn't that her hands were big. It was just that Esther's were so small.

"Do you want more?" Javier asked. "In a while, anyway?"

"Always so polite," said Nicola, smiling and licking the tip of his dick playfully. "You're like Mark, that way. Christ, Javier, of course I want more. Give me five minutes with this big dick. And try not to come. As though I'm one to talk."

She engulfed him with her mouth, humming softly, and suddenly Javier was in a different world, of vibration, sound, harmony. The water sluiced down between them and there was none of the desperate terror they'd both felt in Oregon. Just a little guilt, but that was easily ignored.

He lasted about two minutes before opening his mouth to moan, surprising both of them as he blasted his load a half-second later. Nicola's hum dispersed into a satisfied chuckle, and she gripped his ass tightly, pulling his still-stiff cock further into her mouth, swallowing with difficulty the last few bursts of cum.

Finally he pulled out of her mouth, kneeling heavily in front of her. She had a glob of semen on the corner of her mouth, and even as he pointed at it she got it with her tongue. Something about her expression, the whole situation, caused him to start giggling.

She joined him, hugging him tightly even as they both laughed. Javier wasn't even sure why it was funny. It was more like relief, maybe. And soon Nicola stopped laughing, simply sighing and stroking his back.

"You know, Javier, in Oregon I didn't just want to fuck you because you were there," she said. "But that was an easier story. The truth is you're hot and you're sweet and loving, and you're not Mark. I guess that makes this something novel to fuck up."

"I don't feel fucked up," Javier said. "And you're not Esther, but that's OK right now. God knows she keeps telling me to have sex with you."

"I guess it's our duty."

Javier looked at her, and saw the rawness of her pain.

"I'm not Mark," Javier said. "I could never love you the way he does. You know that's why you're both hurting so much, right?"

"Javier, I'm not an idiot," said Nicola, softening it by stroking his shoulder. "But there's a reason I came so fast, and it has everything to do with how fucking frustrated I am right now."

Javier nodded, and he kissed her. She seemed almost surprised, kissing him back gently, and he brushed his fingers up the back of her thigh. Again, further in, and he knew he'd found her freckles when she gripped him tightly. Up, so slowly, tracing the line from just above the knee, along the inside of her thigh, then around to the solid muscle of her ass. He did it again, letting his fingers tickle the edges of her bush, finding her ass crack—but no, she didn't like that the way Esther did. He quickly adjusted, catching the edge of the freckles on her ass. She spread her legs wider, and he brought the other hand between her legs, finding her pussy, just cupping it gently for the moment. His dick was rock hard again, trapped against her stomach, nearly touching her breast. She was pressing against his hand, and finally he relented and slipped a finger inside her.

She was slippery, wet from the tub but dripping with her own juices. And unbelievably tight. Tighter than he ever expected, or maybe she just had really strong muscles, the ones that could clamp down. For a while he just left his index finger there, feeling her slowly squeeze and release, her body melting against him, her mouth humming into his, something too soft for him to make out entirely.

You're going to press your beautiful cock inside me, Nicola hummed, her private voice speaking in his head.

Javier groaned involuntarily.

But first, I have something for you.

She shoved him back, not very gently, and while he regained his balance she sat back, settling her butt on the edge of the tub, where she could rest her back against the wall nearby. She closed her hands and held out her palm: Wait.

A strange tingling enveloped him, and it took a moment to realize it was just a side effect. Nicola was humming much more loudly, but in frequencies mostly beyond his hearing. And the water was dancing.

Ovals, squares, complex patterns, standing waves of all sorts. But she was just testing, because a moment later the droplets began to splash out of the tub, the vapor rising thickly around her, spiraling, to envelop her body in a fog.

There was no sunlight shining behind her. No rainbow, no moment of great drama. But it was beautiful, and she'd done it for him, because she needed to practice, and because Mark wasn't ready to truly look at her this way. But Javier was.

"You're beautiful," he said. He'd moved forward, entranced, and suddenly all he could see was her perfect, ordinary pussy, her breasts waiting for his lips, her thighs opened for him. He splashed forward on his knees, got an arm around her back. She was still humming, but she opened her eyes. And he pressed his dick against her entrance.

"Oh, God," she said, shuddering, pushing back against him, and then he was sliding inside, her pussy gripping him harder than any he could remember. Or was she really just so small inside? She'd suggested that once, to Esther. And now he hit something before getting quite all the way inside.

"Fucking hell," she gasped. "You're so huge, Javier. Feels good. You're not going to hurt me that way."

Dubiously, Javier pulled out a little, and this time she pushed against him, grunting in satisfaction when he bumped her again. Her cervix? He'd never truly known if she really was like an ordinary woman. She couldn't have kids, that was all he really knew. He didn't think most women liked being bumped like this, but she obviously did.

Just like Esther. The thought interrupted, just as Nicola grabbed him and yanked him harder against her, until he was finally pretty much all the way in.

"God, you're perfect," she moaned. "So fucking big. Filling me up."

But he wasn't that big. Average. It was distracting to have her talk this way, and less flattering than he expected. Nicola sighed, and he kissed her ordinary, pretty nipple. Even that had a strange, familiar and unfamiliar taste. Not so much like Esther.

"You don't like me talking this way, do you?" Nicola said.

He let her nipple pop out of his mouth. It was hard to concentrate, with her still rocking on his dick.

"Feels amazing," he said. "It's just, you know, I'm not really that big."

Nicola squinted at him, stroking his jaw. "I don't care. Feels that way. You're perfect, anyway."

She grunted, her pussy squeezing him hard enough to make him gasp.

"You really like it when I bottom out like that?" he asked.

Nicola nodded. "Everything inside is so sensitive," she said. "Like Esther."

As soon as she said it, she looked embarrassed. And then she nodded comprehension.

"I'm rubbing it in," she said. "You're worried you'll never be able to do exactly this with Esther."

He was, of course. It was Esther's old worry, the one he told her didn't matter, that they had plenty of other things to do. Except he really, really liked this feeling. And Esther knew it. For all he knew, she was listening to this even now. He shook his head. She respected his privacy as much as she could, and he trusted her.

"Of course I'm worried," he said. He couldn't believe they were having this conversation even as they fucked. It was somehow normal with Nicola.

"So do it with me," said Nicola. "I'm not going anywhere. And there are things she can do with me or Mark that she can't do with you. Maybe we're all stuck together in a complicated way. And maybe Esther will keep changing, and one day we'll laugh about all this. Javier, I'll shut up, but for God's sake, just let me fuck you right now."

And suddenly he was falling on his back, his ass splashing in lukewarm water and crashing painfully on the porcelain tub bottom. Their legs were tangled and his arms—Nicola had him pinned down. He struggled, as he knew she wanted, and she had no troubled keeping him down, though he managed to whack her accidentally with a knee.

She laughed, and suddenly she was on top of him, stretching her warm tunnel around his shaft, riding him even as he bucked and tried to throw her. A mechanical bull. And her disconnected dirty mumblings did make him feel like kind of like a stud, no matter what he'd said before.

She couldn't fuck Mark this way, not without him holding back. And he'd never made love to anyone so strong as Nicola, not even when they'd been in Oregon. She'd gotten stronger, and she was in control. The only thing Javier could do was try to hold off his orgasm until she got her own satisfaction.

It was a near thing. But when she finally closed her eyes and sang out her orgasm, he let the sound fill him, carrying his seed into her with wave after wave. He couldn't even rest there, because she was still riding him, still letting out the anguish and joy in her voice even as her own orgasm subsided. Finally she collapsed onto him, leaving a breast in a very appealing spot.

After a minute of work with his tongue, she shuddered and pulled her breast away.

"Phew, that's a little much for right now," she said, propping up and looking at him seriously. "What a ride, though. You think Esther eavesdropped on all that?"

Javier thought about it. "Probably a little," he admitted, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, thank God," said Nicola, starting to laugh. "Esther, if you're listening to this, for God's sake let me fuck you again sometime. No offense at all to Javier. He's exactly what I needed."

"Maybe the two of them are fucking, out there somewhere. I hope so." Javier was surprised to realize he meant it.

Nicola laughed and nodded easily.

Not quite, said Esther's voice in his mind. But we enjoyed ourselves a lot. I love you, Javier. And tell Nicola—oh, never mind.

Javier opened his mouth to repeat this to Nicola, but Nicola was suddenly looking past him, her mouth open.

"She's never talked to me from so far," Nicola said finally. "She's getting so strong."

"Anything good?" Javier asked.

Nicola sighed. "'Sometime,' she told me. I guess I can live with that."

* * *

It was six weeks into the war. America and Great Britain's isolation from other world powers had only grown in the interim, but the greatest hostility came from Russia. There were even smuggled Russian military weapons showing up in the hands of the Zapatistas, and talk of a naval blockade.

Perhaps Russia's stance on the war was some attempt to gain diplomatic high ground as it became increasingly aggressive against Ukraine. Perhaps it was the new men moving into leadership roles, with their connections to the oligarchs, that new class who had profited so much after the fall of the Soviet Union. Javier, Esther, and the others had their own suspicions. But the news on the radio one morning still shocked everyone.

The British Prime minister's death from poison has been confirmed this morning. There is a nationwide manhunt for the killer, identified by anonymous sources as a diplomat attached to the Russian embassy, and a suspected Russian SVR agent ...

"The SVR," Grace said dully. "That's the new KGB, right?"

Raj nodded wordlessly.

"I knew something had happened," Esther said miserably. "I didn't want to find out."

"Remember how exhausted you get when you try to use otherspace to keep up with world events," said Javier. "We agreed it was better that you get your news all at once with the rest of us."

Esther nodded, gripping his hand. "It was the Mexican, I think. He's been reaching into Russia more and more frequently. Changing people's behavior, I think. It feels desperate."

"You promised you were going to monitor him less," Nicola said unhappily.

Esther frowned. "I did promise that, and I think I've been following through. But what he's doing is like a tremendous shout in otherspace. It's probably as controlled as he can manage, but surely I'm not the only one able to hear it. That's why it feels so desperate."

"And allied forces are still avoiding his lair, wherever it is?"

Javier glanced sharply at Selena. It was a sore point for the older woman that Esther refused to tell them exactly where the Mexican was, but Javier accepted it. Esther was protecting them all by doing so, and making her own particular stance clear: she wouldn't be used again by the military.

"Yes," Esther sighed. "I know some of you think it would save lives if we told Myra Jackson where he is, but I get the feeling it wouldn't even matter if we did. The Mexican must have allies at a very high level even within our government, and I think it's more than that. Despite all these blunt attacks, he continues to hide that place with tremendous skill and subtlety, much more than Amelia did for the farm we raided. In otherspace the connections from his deception extend far beyond the immediate area, and I think even beyond Mexico. Of course I imagine spy satellites can see it, but he may be capable of encouraging others to downplay the importance of that place, even from a great distance."

"All right," Javier said. "Time's up. No more talking about the war for today."

The others nodded acceptance. He'd insisted they limit themselves this way so they didn't get sucked into world events that Esther needed to stay out of. Selena had privately told him a couple days ago that she thought America would get tired of the war eventually and declare victory. Then the Mexican would stop behaving so desperately. Everything would slide back into the usual shitty state of affairs, rather than whatever was happening now.

Javier didn't exactly mourn the loss of the British prime minister, who seemed a complete asshole on every dimension. He would never say that to Esther, of course, and even he knew that wasn't the right way to look at it. The person who replaced him would be from his party, and might well use the assassination as proof they needed even more repressive policies. More raids, political arrests. Worse, the whole business of implicating the Russians sounded more like something Yau would have done. Javier didn't trust it at all.

That afternoon he trained with Mark and Nicola, as he usually did. For exercise, Nicola much preferred sparring to running, and she was getting better. Javier supposed he was as well, though he felt pretty foolish trying to grapple with Mark. It still wasn't clear if Mark would ever regain his full speed and strength, but in some ways it hardly mattered, given his new martial arts expertise. Esther had asked him a few days ago if he could beat Diana now, and he'd nodded with only a little pause. If kicking Javier's ass repeatedly helped Mark practice, Javier could accept that. And he minded even less when Nicola beat him up, now that she could do that without dislocating his shoulder.

That night after dinner they all crowded in the living room around the wood stove, as usual. Talking, or just being together. Raj and Esther were conversing excitedly tonight, and he gathered they were finally putting the pieces together on the project they'd been working so long on. Raj was telling her he'd go back out to visit Anatoly soon, and maybe the three of them could get together sometime. It was something of a fantasy, for better times.

Javier and Esther made love that night, and when they were finally through, they heard some faint sounds from across the hall.

"They're doing OK," Esther said, kissing him. "Stop worrying about them."

"I wasn't," Javier said, running his finger around her nipple until she gasped lightly. "I was thinking how much Nicola misses sex with you."

Esther didn't respond directly to that, but she took Javier's cock in her mouth, and after a while it was obvious they weren't done with sex at all. It was late when they finally slept, but Javier wasn't about to complain.

* * *

"It's like the height of the cold war," Raj said angrily. "America and Russia poking at each other, posturing, seeing who blinks first. Or letting themselves be manipulated into doing it. Flying bombers over each other's ships, and testing the edge of each other's airspace? We're behaving like children, except we have weapons that can destroy us all. Haven't we learned anything from India and Pakistan? Though now it's looking as though even India and Pakistan haven't learned."

He walked right out the door, slamming it behind him.

It was a rare loss of temper for Raj. That morning they'd read news that Russia was blaming American agents for an unnamed malady affecting a number of Russia's top political staff. Russia hadn't exactly denied the allegations about the poisoning of the prime minister, but they'd claimed the suspect in the assassinations was a rogue who hadn't been connected to the Kremlin for years. And now America, Britain, and Russia were all on highest alert.

"I think the Mexican is responsible for the sickness Russia is complaining about," said Esther, looking out towards Raj with concern. "I'm starting to think his main way of attacking people at great distance is to rip away memories, the way he did with Mr. Tanaka. Done carefully, I suppose it could provoke a behavior you wanted. But the side effects would probably look like dementia."

"That's just great," Nicola said. "So maybe he's not Franklin, but he could do a hell of a lot of damage that way."

Javier declared politics hour over, and Esther went out to find Raj, who was sitting on the bench.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I should never have lost my temper."

"You're upset," said Esther. "And you have every right to be."

"I'm terrified. I think it's time I visited Anatoly. He's used to my occasional political rants, and after all, he lived through the worst of the Cold War, from an even more miserable perspective. More importantly, I want to see what he makes of our research. I wish I could keep my focus entirely on that. I promise I'll be back, of course."

"We'll miss you," said Esther. "Take care."

* * *

Javier tried to keep his eyes on Selena's ass. Not a very polite thing to do, but he was exhausted from the run, and he'd take motivation wherever he could find it. It was starting to rain, which bothered Mark as little as always. For her part, Selena had admitted she actually liked being out in the bad weather. Probably attuned her to nature or some hippie bullshit like that. The thought was almost enough to make him smile despite the mud clinging to his shoes.

It was just as Selena hopped gracefully over a log that he felt the prearranged emergency signal from Esther: Come back, as fast as possible. Danger.

Selena and Mark had already turned, running back towards him. He could never keep up with them.

"I can find my way back," he wheezed. "Go, quickly."

Mark kept pace with him briefly.

"Javier, I sense no physical danger to her," he said. "She's in the house with Kat and Grace, and Nicola will join them shortly."

He nodded thanks, and silently cursed his limitations while Mark raced quickly ahead to catch Selena.

No physical danger. Could it be an attack from the Mexican? If so, it was that much more important that the other two arrive quickly, so Esther could best shield them.

When Javier staggered inside some minutes later, all the others were there, gathered in the kitchen and living room. Everyone looked safe enough, but the radio was on, some kind of recorded message playing. Javier's stomach dropped, remembering the night of Black Christmas.