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With Radmer on station, Leia was back in his room contemplating what she should be doing next. The bed was looking very tempting, but she did not think she was tired enough to fall asleep immediately. Instead, she spent some time memorizing what Radmer had just shown her then went over the room in detail with her screen, figuring out what everything did. Then, just for fun, she went for a prowl along some of the public areas of Hazard she had already been to: a capsule, a public facilities, the dining hall, a recreation area, and an exercise room. While she was there, she spent an hour getting some exercise, which she had been neglecting.
It would have been awfully nice if someone had shown her this stuff when she first came on board. On the other hand, there'd been a bit of a language problem at that point. Post-workout, she queried ship-mind for Esifwu and was startled to learn that Esifwu was in her room, awake and not in any kind of meeting. Leia decided to go see her oldest friend on Hazard and find out if Esifwu had a minute to talk. It hadn't been that long, but up until a few days ago, Esifwu was the only person on Hazard Leia ever saw other than at dinner. It had been strange to suddenly stop seeing her.
Esifwu was visibly surprised and literally tearfully grateful that Leia had stopped by. Her explanation was nearly incoherent, even for Esifwu, but Leia understood her to be absolutely heartbroken to have done such a poor job as Leia's first-contact then been so unpleasant when Leia pointed out a big gap in the plans for Andal.
Leia patted Esifwu awkwardly on the shoulders, uncertain how to provide comfort to someone who was so hands-to-herself and unable to discuss feelings. She couldn't quite bring herself to say it's okay, or, "There, there" or any of those meaningless and/or untrue things people say when trying to provide comfort. After a few minutes, she invited Esifwu to join her in the dining hall for an afternoon snack. Walking down the corridor, Esifwu collected herself quickly as Leia brought her up to date on what had happened to her in the last couple days. Leia wasn't prepared to provide details, but she did make sure Esifwu understood there was a relationship developing between her and Radmer. It was awkward, but again, Leia had no other girlfriend to gossip with. Esifwu was happy to hear she was getting along so well with more people.
Leia tried to ask tactfully why Esifwu had time on her hands when there was so much going on. That brought Esifwu back down again. With the arrival of the group that Leia was thinking of as her intergalactic counterparts, Esifwu's role as chief strategist had been almost completely usurped. Her job wasn't at risk, but she'd gotten thoroughly reamed for failing to call them in earlier. They seemed to think the pattern of failures that predated even the beginning the Andal problem warranted contacting them for advice.
As they were finishing up their snack, Esifwu got a call from Radmer. The negotiations on Upper Andal were nearing completion and they were finishing up details associated with the criteria under which Upper Andal would be returned to Andal control. Esifwu's presence was desired for these negotiations. She perked up at hearing that and left looking happier.
Shortly after the news reached Hazard that the political team on Upper Andal had been completely successful, Esifwu sent a message to Leia giving her the time of and directions to a dance. As she now realized was typical of Esifwu, it was completely unclear whether this was a command performance, an invitation, or a heads-up that that's where everyone else would be, should Leia be interested in finding someone. No way would Leia miss this, though. The last time she'd been dancing, she'd still been completely emotionally isolated, by the trauma of being kidnapped, the shock of being rescued and who were rescuers were, her inability to communicate meaningfully with anyone and her unwillingness to reach out to anyone physically. She was in a very different head space now, and was looking forward to a few drinks, more laughs, and trying out as many new dances and dance partners as she could fit into what would likely be an abbreviated evening, given the massive amount of work remaining. [ Description here of dancing and having lots of fun getting all hot and breathless. ]
"You said there are a lot of taboos associated with sex on Earth," started Amable. "I for one would really like to hear some details."
There was a general chorus of agreement, vigorously from Dulak, and more subdued from Esifwu, Radmer, Ysbo, Baylen, Wrinton, and some other people in the rec area who were gravitating towards them as the conversation started to sound more interesting.
Ordinarily, Leia didn't like being put on the spot, but she was feeling good right now. Several days of no nightmares and lots of sex and other affection from Radmer, an increased familiarity with how Hazard worked, a sense that she had some space to call her own, even if it was just a locker and a virtual notebook, all combined to give her enough confidence to answer difficult questions. It didn't hurt that she'd was going to have to write a lot more personal stuff in one of those forms for the crew intake process, and she might as well get used to talking about it now. Nor did it hurt that she'd had some alcohol with dinner, and more after while dancing.
"About sex or about the taboos."
"All of it. Come on. You can read about all our home planet wackiness. You can read about each of our individual preferences. Give it up," pressed Dulak. He leered at her, because that's the kind of thing Dulak did to push an uncomfortable situation over the edge into humorous and silly. When Leia still didn't answer, Dulak took over, saying, "What positions are people expected to use?"
Leia looked at him in shock. What the fuck. Was she supposed to produce that goddamn T-shirt with all the humping geckos?
"If you can't describe it, we can probably find someone willing to help you demonstrate," Dulak added for good measure.
Esifwu shoved Dulak hard enough that he had to catch himself or he would have fallen to the floor. She pulled out Leia's screen and, angling the screen so Leia could see what she was doing, brought up a projector in the corner of the room, then started showing diagrams of a man and woman having sex. The diagrams were numbered and had names in Target Language. Leia had not previously gotten to this level of the Rosetta Stone system.
That made it simple and clinical. She rattled off names easily for the first few, supplying categories (insertive on top, receptive on top), idiomatic names (missionary, reverse cowgirl, doggie-style, sixty-nine) and some commentary on attitudes (vanilla, slightly racy, illegal in some jurisdictions but people still do it). The room got really quiet as they got past the first several diagrams and Leia was still rattling off information completely calmly and in a lot of detail. After a few more, she didn't have idiomatic names for everything, but still had some commentary, but it was more along the lines of, occasionally depicted in written fiction aimed at a general women's market, strictly porn for men, and so on.
After reaching the end of the series, Leia looked down at her screen and saw that the options included two women, two men, more than two partners. She started picking the ones she knew and rattled through them as quickly as she could, feeling her face turn red and her skin burn all over. Then she flipped through the rest as quickly as she could, saying only that she was aware of them from media, typically sex manuals, but did not know anything about them other than that they were unusual enough that she was not aware of any idiomatic terms.
There weren't any depictions, at least in this section, of anything involving tools or toys, and nothing involving even striking with hands, scratching or biting. She commented that there was a wide range of practice, and general acceptability of practice, and outlined some variations by region, age, religious affiliation, and noted that the public stance on acceptability of practice and what people actually did was frequently at variance, and regaled the crowd with the story of the preacher found dead from auto-asphyxiation, in a scuba suit, with a dildo up his butt.
That lead naturally enough (at least it seemed to) to a discussion of Catholic rules about birth control, prophylactics and what priests, monks and nuns weren't allowed to do, but kept getting prosecuted for doing to children. She then summarized the recent legal changes in many jurisdictions from a set age of consent, with an exception for marriage to a minor with consent of parent or guardian to laws which took into consideration the relative age of the participants.
She took a deep breath and added, "That's a very superficial summary."
"You don't live long enough to get into that much more," blurted Esifwu.
Leia rolled her eyes. "Depends on how you spend your time."
Dulak laughed at that. "To hear you tell it, apparently all anyone ever does is have sex."
"No, there's a lot of violence, too." There was an initial laugh that ended weakly when her audience realized she wasn't joking.
"Do you want to go back to that?" asked Wrinton. She seemed genuinely curious, a little horrified, but still sympathetic and willing to believe that the desire and need to return home might be more important than any other consideration.
Leia thought about it. "If I could, and it wasn't a matter of go back and never leave again, yes, of course I'd go back. But if I had to choose between going back home, or staying out here, it would be almost impossible to decide. If I can visit home, no question what I'd want to do. Like anyone else here on Hazard, I'd want to visit once in a while, but how can you leave here once you've been allowed in?"
That did more than anything else to solidify her connection to this wildly diverse group of people she was starting to believe were really her friends, not just a bunch of compassionate strangers who'd saved her life and tried so hard to find her a place to fit into. It also led to a general toast, and a return to the dance floor for a slow dance.
Radmer took that opportunity to whisper in her ear, in hesitant English, "Sixty-nine?"
She replied, "I thought you'd never ask."
"You could have," he retorted.
"Why would I ask for anything that might interfere with whatever your plans were? They've been perfect in every way."
He growled his approval and eased them over to the door.
Back in his room, they slid the bed out, themselves out of their clothes, and onto the bed with the speed and ease of recent practice. Radmer slowed things down slightly by persisting in kissing Leia, but she wiggled away from him and shoved him back down on the bed. "I'd like to be on top," she said, straddling him reversed, then bending down to lick him. She traced along his thighs with her fingers and cupped his balls with one hand.
"I'm not prepared to argue with that," he replied breathlessly. After propping his head up slightly, he adjusted her hips and pulled her down onto his mouth. She paused for a moment while he licked along her labia, sucking them into his mouth, then licked over her clitoris. She could feel herself getting much, much wetter, and wondered how he was going to feel about her dripping on him. Then he got to her clitoris, and she could feel herself building towards a fast orgasm; she shook her head to refocus, and remembered what she was doing hear with an erect penis next to her cheek.
She hadn't gone down on a man still in complete possession of a foreskin, but there were a couple of obvious things to try. Backing off, she used her fingers to massage the head of his penis through the foreskin, watching to see how what it did as he stiffened into a full erection, and how it moved across the head. Experimentally, she licked into it, sliding her tongue under the foreskin to find the head of his penis, with was now damp with pre-cum. His hips were reflexively thrusting up. She adjusted, not wanting him to fuck her mouth.
Since the finger-massage and deep licking were getting a good response, she continued that, alternating with caresses on the skin of his legs and underneath to the soft skin of his butt. As his thrusting became more urgent, she stopped massaging the head, and grasped the shaft in her fist, controlling how deep he went into her mouth. Then she used her other hand to follow the line from the bottom of his shaft to his balls, and started drawing circles on his taint.
"Slow down," he ordered.
For Radmer, that was forceful. She reared up carefully and angled so she could look down at his face, which he pulled back from her pussy long enough to add, "You are way, way ahead of me. Slow down."
"You can come," she replied.
Apparently dissatisfied with her failure to comply, he toppled her off of him and dropped down between her legs, lying across them so dislodging him would be difficult. While she was a little disappointed he'd taken his toys away from her, she had no real complaints about what he was doing, so she propped herself up to watch him eat her out. He dipped his head back between her legs and returned his tongue to her clitoris. He circled; he stroked; he sucked it into his mouth. When she started gasping, he stopped experimenting and just did that again and again and again, while sliding first one finger into her and angling it up, then a second one. When she started coming, he came up to his knees fast, elevated her ass onto a pillow and slid into her. Shuddering with the effort, he did not pump into her as she came, but instead used his fingers to do what his tongue had been doing, while staring down at her face. When she started screaming, he started thrusting, the slap of his hips punctuating her ululating cry until he finally dropped onto her in complete relaxation.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2012.
Created: July 9, 2012 Updated: July 9, 2012