FTL…13 Faster Than Life.

Chapter 13

There was part of me that wanted to stay in bed.
Maybe, just maybe get as far as the chaise out there on the sand.

But Patrick had started to massage me with coconut oil all over and was straddling me giving me this wonderful massage and it had gotten better…

Very surprising but better when he slipped back and he sank into me from behind and dammit he made love and he kept massaging me.

Worse yet?

“Erin, how many times have you told me that said that one of the things that you hated about your old life was the fact you sat around and hadn’t actually tried to live life?”

Don’t you hate men when they actually get all logical and use that against you…Patrick’s far more insidious than that because it’s really unfair him asking me stuff like that when I’m bubbling inside right on the edge of orgasm.

That man…that man was using feminine wiles against me in a male way and it was working.

“Fine…unnghn….”

It was regular fine not girl fine.

Girl “Fine.” As you know is never fine.

This was just that I was okay with it now…I was okay with a lot of things once I was all relaxed and shimmering with afterglow.

The big thing? Puns not included?

Patrick wants to take me reef diving and to some of the places he’s been checking out here. He wants to take me underwater into his world. He’s a Triton that’s marine Special Forces but also he’s a Deltan a bio-gene-modified human species that was meant for aquatic life. He grew up most of his life like that as much in the water as out of it.

Me I want to build on those memories like I said.

I’m so glad that I went with him.

I’ve got a gill breather for my mouth and fin gloves and fin socks on and a bathing suit and I’m swimming and I’m following Patrick who for him is swimming sedately but never in all the wildest sims have I ever seen anything like this.

Once we got under the water we swam descending into the warm waters into another world. I mean everyone’s pretty much seen diving vids of some kind but the reefs here are huge and they’re only covered by some pretty shallow seas and with the light and the food here being just ideal they just are like nothing my mind was ready for.

There’s been people here for hundreds of years some the reefs had been carved and shaped and tended to be a massive undersea colonial park. Some parts you can swim through like caves or buildings some are like archways and pillars and there’s so many colors and fish that slip through the water in schools of multicoloured bright and sponges that are like these whole alien sort of fields.

Some times we’ll stop and have a break…he’ll feed me something still sort of living and use his knife to fillet or open it. I’m past the squeamishness and way too into the adventure and romance of it to be bothered by the freshness.

Sometimes we’ll kiss…he can breathe for me…and there was this one spot that had these cross currents hitting the coral walls and it would spin you around as long as you let it and he led me there and he held me as the water slow danced us in circles and we kissed.

I had to take surfacing breaks and recover from being so water logged and wrinkled so we’d stop at these cabana boats and have a few drinks and hang out and tan.

We spent the whole day doing all of that and I was tired when we got home to out bungalow but pleasantly surprised when I had found out that we had swam close to forty kilometres during the span of the day. Okay we had been gone for close to twelve hours but still. Considering the lack of shape that I had been in when I enlisted.

I’m pretty damned proud of myself and enough when my OBC flashes me an invite to a party I accept.

It’s a military party and casual off duty clothes and it’s being held by Companion services for the assembled fleet and Patrick and I go. I’m wearing my hair loose for a change and a tropical red print with yellow and white and pink flowers on it one shoulder halter top and a matching long skirt. I like it it’s local sort of a sari of sorts and we arrive and there’s a huge party going on with a massive buffet and native colonists pulling whole roasted pigs from the ground or spits and huge grills with shellfish, fish, birds all cooked in everyway that you could think of.

I’m starved from the swimming and make for the buffets first and I’m looking things over when I see her. The young alien staffer. She’s not in uniform but in this lycra like bathing suit that looks like shiny green kissed with a golden sheen fish skin…it’s amazing and it really sets off the pale, pale blue skin and the green hair. She’s actually braver hair wise than I am with her hair done in corn rolls beaded at the ends with beads made of compressed abalone shell.

She smiles as she see’s me. We both look around and move close together while perusing the tables. “Hello…”

“Hi, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Yes, I have heard this a lot from those in the knowings. I am to be saying I’m a gene-mod human.”

“Are you gene-moded though? To look more like us?”

“No. But we have been asking why it is that you look so much like us as well.”

“So this is what you were born like?”

“No, this is what I look like now. I am in my second cycle.”

“Second cycle?”

“Yes, we’re born without gender. For the first part of our lives we just live and learn and become who we are on the inside…develop our sense of self. Then we enter our second cycle where we choose our gender until we are ready to return to our first cycle and have the chance to choose again.”

“You switch genders?”

“Yes…is this a bad thing?”

“No just…very different to us. How can you know what gender you want to be?”

“We live, we watch those already in cycles before us are our peers and birthers it’s all who we identify with really.”

“Can I ask why did you choose female?”

“Oh why did you?”

“It’s who I am?”

She looks at me and she smiles. I smile back I hold my hands up. “Okay, okay fair enough. So you decided on what to try?”

“There is so much here that I have never seen before. We do not have so much of these things here.”

“So food is like where you’re from?”

“Ah…different, most of our water is under the surface and the rest is dense jungles and mountains. We have some herder food but we live mostly on farmed goods like….nuts…fruits… (She points at rice.) that and insects.”

“Bugs?”

“Yes…”

She points at a shrimp. “We have something like that but they fly with four wings and they have a long front tube that they use to suck nectar and even tiny insects.”

“It sounds interesting. I’m not used to all of this either where I come from food’s not like this. It’s very beef heavy, grains and that’s if you are wealthy most people live from packaged and processed foods.”

She nods. “That is most common in our cities. It’s fast and convenient and tastes like repurposed and reflavored excrement.”

She blushes. “Sorry I am not a fan of canned foodstuffs.”

“That’s okay, I’m Erin.”

“I am Elleryrion.”

“Oh…” I’m trying to wrap my head around that one.

“I was told to shorten it even for the mission…I am Elle.”

“Elle…I like that.”

“Yes, as do I we may adopt the use of shortened names after this.”

“Well Elle-lair-yin? (I was sounding it out.) I like that too.”

“Thank you but it’s Elle-lair-ree-in.” she sounds it out for me.

“Thanks I want to get things right with you know. How about we both get things we’ve never tried and then we cane both look like spazzes together.”

“Spazzes? What is spazzes?”

“Goofy?” she give me the blank stare.

“Uhm, foolish but in a friendly way…”

“Ah…I think I understand.”

We get a whole bunch of things to try on these big eating boards and sit and have a drink of some kind of fruit punch and we both try the small octopus that was grilled in some sauce.

“Really…”

“Chewy…she says her mouth going and cheeks bulging I took a bite out of mine but she ate the whole thing. But it was just funny that we were sort of thinking the same thing and we giggle over it. My bites and her whole thing really did amount to use finishing it at the same time and she takes a drink then says… “Oh…excellent.”

I look at mine, it was okay. “It’s not bad but excellent?”

“No…look…”

I grin.

Patrick’s headed our way full tray of food with him.

“He’s my S.O.”

“You’re…I am sorry that acronym was not in the military speech pattern data base.”

“Oh he’s my significant other.”

Elle looks like she’s thinking, sounding out the term in her head. I’ve never really known someone that English is her second language before. “Oh…what you’d say is boyfriend?”

“Yes, yes he is.”

“Erin?”

“Yes Elle.”

“Does he have an attractive friend?”

I cough on my drink. I wasn’t expecting that one.