"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
My name is Avery Harper, MD, PhD, and I'm not afraid to die. In fact, I was in heaven. Since I was a young woman, I have studied exobiology, actually only possible biologies, for my entire twenty-year career, ever since I became a grad student. It was only possible biologies, as far as I knew, until yesterday, when I got a call from a friend at NASA, and a quick trip via T-38 to an Air Force base in Nevada. Why I was tapped, I still don't know. I heard some things I don't quite recall about some of the papers I wrote.
My friend, Doctor Bertrand Lane, was waiting for me in front of the hangar. After a few minutes to freshen up in the restroom, we were whisked by car to a large hangar near one end of the building complex that comprised the base. Inside the hangar, which was literally the size of a football stadium, was a luminescent hemisphere, like a large dome, mostly green, but with flecks of color that would wash over its surface.
Bertrand assured me that the hemisphere was a perfect semicircle. Inside it, he informed me, was a being that had traveled here from another star, and who now presumably wanted to communicate with us. So far, the hemisphere had allowed in some but not all machines with cables. The researchers had been hopeful the alien or aliens inside would be able to use these devices to communicate. Measuring devices were universally rejected. Machines that had been pulled back out came back wet by an inorganic nutrient solution that was much like seawater, but infused with oxygen. It was a fascinating liquid with valuable properties. It was keeping the researchers busy. So far there had been no other contact. Men in space suits had tried to enter the hemisphere, but they had been rejected, just gently pushed back out before they could see or sense very much of anything.
Still, I had to attempt the obvious, so I also suited up and attempted to enter the hemisphere. To everyone's surprise, especially my own, I was allowed in without incident.
The inside of the hemisphere was filled with the aforementioned nutrient liquid as we had hypothesized. The aforementioned three or four waterproof machines were sitting by themselves. In the middle of the hemisphere was a teardrop-shaped being, mostly orange, but with other colors that moved slowly across its surface. I say "being" because it was moving slightly and because it was apparently the only other thing in the hemisphere, so I assumed it must be the alien in question if there was one. Perhaps it was only a system that allowed for communication with the real aliens that were located elsewhere.
I approached the being and attempted to make physical contact. I touched its surface, and it shivered and shimmered, profoundly beautiful. I pushed at it slightly, and it yielded like a flexible bag of water, that consistency. I pushed it harder, and it gently placed me on my back, like an Aikido throw. It was not violence, I was just on my back, and it flowed over me some. I had the strong sense that the being was going to maintain physical control of our interaction, but not in a malevolent way, more as a practical matter, and who was I to judge its needs at this point?
The being let me up and I left the hemisphere, much to the relief of everyone assembled outside the hemisphere. There was a solid day and a half of debriefing followed by a solid week or so where I brought underwater cameras and other measuring devices into the hemisphere with me. The atmosphere in the hemisphere appeared to be healthy for humans to breathe even though it was liquid. I'd heard about this before, where mice were able to live in water that had been infused with oxygen once they had gotten over the feeling they were drowning.
I begged and begged, and finally they let me enter the hemisphere in a wetsuit, without the space suit and limited air supply. I did so knowing it would feel like drowning, but confident that our analysis of the fluid was correct, and wanting a chance to connect more directly with the being. It was frightening at first, and it took me a long-suffering minute before I could bear to start breathing in the water. The being came over, perhaps to comfort me. It touched my hand at first. Its touch was hot and electric, profoundly sexual, even though it was just touching my hand. I was still gasping and thrashing out bubbles. Water was spilling uncomfortably into my lungs. I hardly cared about the pain, though, all of the sudden. I was immediately diverted and aroused by the touch on my hand.
The being then covered my face with its hot, electric surface. The feeling was intensely sexual, like all the kisses I'd ever received on my lips, face, and neck all at once, and especially those kisses I'd received while I was making love and close to orgasm or actually orgasming, thousands of kisses. My hips jerked forward reflexively as I climaxed in my wetsuit without even being touched down there.
The being probably couldn't tell, though. It was just more jerking around from the quasi-drowning process as far as it was concerned, so the effect was privately mine to enjoy. I myself might have written it off as some kind of near-death response to the quasi-drowning if that was all that had happened. Even so, I can remember feeling vaguely embarrassed at that first orgasm from the being while I was fighting the overpowering urge that I was drowning at the same time.
I wasn't completely devoid of sexual experience. In my 42 years, I'd had a couple of boyfriends that had lasted a couple of years apiece, a smattering of shorter relationships, and several almost universally unsatisfying one night stands. When one is a researcher in an outré field of research as I am, one gets nowhere without constant work and dedication.
None of my boyfriends were ever comfortable with me putting my work ahead of them. I guess that was the sort I tended to pick. At any rate, relationships had always gone the same predictable way for me, and though I still got the itch sometimes and went back on the dating sites from time to time, I had pretty much given up on relationships and decided that sex wasn't all that important either.
I felt the being exploring my eyes, ears, nostrils, and my gasping mouth. Gasping for nonexistent air, I sucked the being partly into my mouth and orgasmed profoundly at its touch. It was as if my mouth had immediately become a sexual organ, my tongue a giant sensitive clitoris for the being to gently lick and suck on. I thrashed and expelled the rest of my air in a flurry of bubbles with a howl, which was just a loud moan underwater, and an uncontrollable seizure of ecstasy that went on and on. At this, the being gently let go of me, and it was over. I floated down and away slowly, still panting and thrashing in aftershocks of ecstasy, breathing pure nutrient fluid.
Soon after, I emerged from the hemisphere and fell to my knees hurking and vomiting nutrient fluid out of my lungs. After a much more painful readjustment to air, I sat there still, and the research staff thankfully left me alone. I was trying to get my story straight, because I was not going to tell any of these nice fellow scientists about the multiple orgasms I'd just had.
It didn't turn out to be hard. I even described the being's touch as pleasurable, and described how it helped me to adjust by helping me expel the rest of my air, though I pled ignorance as to how exactly the being had helped me with that, saying that I'd just expelled the air shortly after I inadvertently sucked a bit of the being into my mouth. The debrief was done by the end of the day.