Now by Cecilia Tan
First published in the anthology “Viscera” (Venus or Vixen Press, 2000)
Copyright © 2000 by Cecilia Tan
Now I’m putting my hands onto Sander’s shoulders, slick hot with sweat, one knee sliding past his thigh as I climb onto the bench. Now I’m trying not to look into his eyes because I don’t know if we’ll end up together. I can feel the tip of his cock on my inner thigh as I wait for the bell to ring. Now is the moment I have waited for all day, when this shy newcomer would be naked under me. Now I shudder in anticipation.
Twenty minutes ago we were flying, engines running hot in the fog thick atmosphere, each of us plugged in tight to our machines, from hands to brains, fingertips flicking us through the sky, as fast as thought. I could feel the water smoke edges of clouds shredding against my arms/my wings. I knew I was not really touching the methane-heavy air, but the sensors work. I was plugged in and not separate from my machine. It was as if I dove through the sky, as if I skimmed the surface of the sea, even though I never left the Tank.
Two minutes from now I’ll be on Cirzon’s lap, his impressive cock lodged in me. I’ll be clinging to his neck, pressing my ear to his close-cropped hair, sweat running down our backs as I try to sink all the way down. I’ll wish he could reach up and fit his hands over my hips, pull me down snug onto him, but in this game, he cannot help. Two minutes from now, he will sit like all the other men, rigid on the bench, because those are the rules. The women circle until the bell rings, and then we climb on.
But now. Now I am poised above Sander. He came to the squad only two weeks ago, and some of the others do not know him or trust him, yet. But I have been watching him, wondering, seeing his eyes in my dreams and wanting to approach him. I can almost feel Nulia’s gaze on me, next to me on Bhujan’s lap, watching to see what I’ll do, now that he is between my legs. I do nothing but wait for the bell, my thighs trembling, resting my lips on the top of his dark head.
Two hours ago our ships were out on reconnaissance, skimming the surface dotted with wrecked buildings, looking for the enemy, and not finding him. Or her. The squad of thirteen divided, nine below, four above, but nothing to see but toppled trees and the broken teeth of the punched out skyline.
Two hours from now I’ll be in Cirzon’s quarters, my hands braced against the edges of the bunk, while his tongue roots around between my legs, like a slinth hungry for sweet fruit pulp. But I won’t be able to tell him of my hunger, of the reason I left decompression unsatisfied. He’ll think he knows why, and I’ll let him, as I let him eat me. Two hours from now, he’ll spell his name with his tongue between my lips, as he hooks two thumbs inside me, bony firm and preparing me to take all of him in.
Thirty seconds ago, we were circling the bench, the men sitting in two rows back to back, each of us wondering who would be matched with whom. With each synchronized step, I came to another man in my squad until the one empty place was before me. But then I came to Alden, and Nulia stood before the empty place. Seven of us, six of them. Who would be the odd woman out? We continued to circle, and as I came to Sander, my wish came true and the bell rang.
Three minutes from now I’ll still be clinging to Cirzon on the bench, my cunt too tight in this position to really take him in, frantically rubbing my clit on his smooth sweat slick stomach. Cirzon has almost no hair on his body and I will curse this fact, silently, as I struggle and fail to find any friction against him. I won’t want to come with him, I’ll be wishing that the random bell had rung in my favor and left me with Sander. But I will want to come, will want to bring both of us to climax, because then we will be out of the game and there will be no chance for me to be the odd woman out. I can hunt Sander at my leisure later, shy boy only frightened by my hunger. Three minutes from now I will be trying to come, rubbing my hard nipples over the sculpted smooth chest of Cirzon, and failing.
One hour ago, I heard Sander’s voice in my ear: “This one’s almost intact.” We wheeled in the sky, our ships realigning themselves to his location, and we came to a low group of buildings, a school maybe, next to a lake. But even the closest buzz provoked no sign of our quarry.
Now the bell rings and I sink onto Sander’s cock, barely catching the sound in my throat before it escapes. No cries or moans are allowed in the game of Bell Bell—Silence is the rule. I swallow my grateful sigh and let my thighs piston me up and down. Sander is slight and shivering beneath me, as badly in need of release as I am, and I am trying to get us there. We fit together well—surely he feels it too, I think. In my mind I already see us in my quarters, taking our time with each other, licking and talking and him between my legs for hours. I want him to want me. I am going as fast as I can, squeezing my cunt tight, hoping to take us both out of the game.
One minute from now, I’ll bite my lip in frustration, as the bell rings and I must move on.
Two hours and fifteen minutes from now I’ll be clawing Cirzon’s back while he does what he does best besides fly. He’ll be making me scream, and I’ll have forgotten that there are boundaries to my body, that it is not me that cuts through the clouds, that it is not me that grunts and shudders with the strain. Plugged in and not separate.
Ten minutes ago we emerged from the Tank, blinking visions of alien skies from our eyes. The game of Bell Bell began and I watched Nulia climb on Cirzon with delight.
Ten minutes from now the game will end with me in the empty space and Nulia and Sander the only two left not spent. I will stand at attention while she licks salt sweat from his face, while she rocks her hips and drags her clit over the thin ridge of dark fur that sprouts from his crotch and tendrils up to his belly button. I will watch her head fall back and the flush spread over her skin as she comes.
A hundred years ago, a squad commander invented Bell Bell, to provide a disciplined structure for the release of the sexual arousal that full body flying inevitably created. For what is a Kylar without discipline? We emerge from the Tank soaked in neuro-stimulants, our skins humming with tension and lust, just as her crew had. She knew, too, that tradition and tactics would always leave her an odd woman out. But that is the discipline of the squad, of the battle. When not on alert, her crew squandered precious sleep hours to penetrate each other more recreationally. Or for love.
Two hours from now I’ll be playing my own game of Bell Bell with Cirzon, as he fills me past aching and tires me out. I’ll be swallowing the name my mouth wants to cry, Silence is the rule. But that will be then. Now, Sander is in my arms, and now Sander is in my cunt, and now Sander is in my heart, and I don’t want to let go.
About Cecilia Tan
Cecilia Tan is an award-winning author of passionate fiction. She began writing erotic fiction in her diary as a youngster and has never looked back. She self-published her first work of BDSM erotic science fiction, Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords, in 1992 because at that odd time of conservatism in publishing, no publisher would combine sex and science fiction in the same work. Thus she launched not only her own erotica writing career but Circlet Press, publishers of erotic science fiction, as well.
In 2015, RT Book Reviews awarded Cecilia Tan Career Achievement in Erotic Romance and her novel Slow Surrender (Hachette/Forever, 2013) won the RT Reviewers Choice Award and the Maggie Award for Excellence from GRW in 2013. She has been publishing Daron’s Guitar Chronicles as a web serial since 2009 and her Secrets of a Rock Star series (Taking the Lead, Wild Licks) is published by Hachette/Forever. In 2017 Tor Books will begin publishing her paranormal series, The Vanished Chronicles. In her spare time, Cecilia teaches martial arts, studies Asian bodywork healing, and is the editor of the Baseball Research Journal and publications director for SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. She lives in the Boston area with her partner of 25 years, corwin, and their three cats.
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Books by Cecilia Tan
Slow Surrender
Imagine an upper class English girl kidnapped by pirates when she was eleven, and eventually returned to her family. If this sounds familiar, you’ve probably either read the classic book A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes, or seen the movie. Whatever you may imagine, Jean Roberta has taken the grown-up Emily far beyond your–or the younger Emily’s — wildest speculations. This is, indeed, a ”Bawdy Novella,” but there is more to it than that. Emily is a smart, spirited heroine, adventurous enough to see the bright side of the unspoken (and unfounded) assumption that she must be ”damaged goods.” When her romantic affair at a girls’ school is abruptly ended because of her lover’s cowardice, Emily tosses off the constraints of 19th century English society and returns to the sea on a more-or-less pirate ship, the Black Swan, manned by gay fugitives from the British Navy.
Taking the Lead
The women awaiting you in these pages might be fierce Amazons in ancient Greece, maidens and princesses of the medieval era, ingenues like Alice awaiting new and more sensual adventures beyond the rabbit hole, or outlaws and pirates. But each and every one is open to the delights and passions of flesh and fantasy. Most of the couplings are with other women—friends, confidantes, instructors, lovers—but the wealth of erotic encounters is not solely confined to the Sapphic. These are, after all, a selection of erotist Jean Roberta’s finer historical short tales. So do not fear a bit of prick for the open petals which may be parted by another woman’s hand. Embrace what we all have down below, what we choose to expose and explore.
The Siren and the Sword
Stories about lesbians, women who choose women as primary partners, lovers, playmates, and co-conspirators, tend to go where few men have gone before. Most of the real-life issues that lesbians must deal with, as women and as members of non-mainstream communities, appear in these stories in metaphorical form or as plausible scenarios in a future or alternate world. Lesbianism itself was routinely described by the conservatives of the past as ”impossible.” The formula of ”woman + woman” is thus logically connected with other phenomena formerly considered impossible: magic, witchcraft, folk cures, scientific discoveries, alternate methods of producing offspring, space travel, communication with beings who are not human or not living in human bodies, historical accounts that have been suppressed or denied. The Heiresses of Russ series seeks to offer readers the best lesbian-themed speculative fictions stories published the prior year (from introduction by editor Jean Roberta).
The Prince’s Boy: Volume 1
In a fantasy world where male/male lust fuels Night Magic, Prince Kenet lives a sheltered life. Isolated from the war that threatens the kingdom, he and his whipping boy Jorin are of age, but still sneak forbidden pleasures in their bed at night. When a dark mage tries to bespell Kenet into sexual submission, the prince and his boy are thrust into the world of intrigue, sex, and war.
Volume One of The Prince’s Boy collects chapters 1 through 56 of this wildly popular gay erotic web serial
by Cecilia Tan. Begun on July 29, 2009, chapters were posted weekly, following the adventures of Prince Kenet and his whipping boy, Jorin. Drawing on complex themes of dominance and submission, the need for secrecy in a world where homosexuality is not accepted, and the intertwining of sex with magic, Tan weaves a complex, sex-filled adventure that is part “Three Musketeers” and part “Claiming of Sleeping Beauty.”