It was that time of year again.
Every two to five years, actually. Once a year would have been preferable, but professional obligations kept Aestu tied down to her ship; thankfully unlike some species, her race had quite a bit more control over their mating cycle. In any event, she had now taken leave, donned her old mercenary's outfit - a simple deep teal jumpsuit - and was flying the shuttle back to her private abode on a small planet.
The world had an abundance of vegetation but no animal life whatsoever; located in a bit of space claimed by several galactic powers, but none had any inclination to visit the world or leverage their claim. Aestu had no claim to the planet at all, but being uninhabited, out-of-the-way, and peaceful - being in the eye of the storm, as it were - it made a good location for her little condo, well-concealed inside a rock formation. She had excavated it herself.
Aestu valued her privacy. A commodity she often lacked aboard the Capri. But now aboard a one-man shuttle, light-years from the ship, and yet a good thirty minutes from her destination, privacy was something she could take for granted.
She rose from the chair and stretched her toned ivory legs. Examined herself in the shuttle's coat-closet mirror - amongst so many other races she had to remind herself her appearance was not a personal idiom but characteristic of her nearly extinct species.
Long lavender hair, high cheekbones, smooth pale skin, pointed ears. Other species had found her - her species - most remarkable trait to be their opaque, reflective eyes, like those of the Terran mouse - they found them inscrutable. And of course her breasts - very impressive by the standards of most species - round, ripe and firm, longer than they were wide, just the right texture. Aestu was attractive even by the standards of her race. Long-lived, she would not see visible signs of aging for another century or two.
Travelling at sublight, the planet loomed larger and larger in the viewscreen. Still another ten minutes away. With her abode - and relief - so close, her desires were aroused. Through her tight dark teal unitard, she reached down and kneaded herself with her forefingers. Reclined back down in the pilot's chair and continued to knead and knead. Double-pleated folds in the custom unitard concealed flaps that let her run her hands through down under to the bare skin of her thighs and groin. She slid her hands in on either side and began to work herself with her fingers. Closed her dark eyes and thought of what awaited in her abode...fingered and touched and teased, it began to get wet and tight down there...
The control panel beeped. Time to make the landing.
Aestu sighed deeply and pulled her hands out from her unitard. Still a bit moist and sweaty from their work, she nonetheless worked the controls in a rote and disinterested manner, pulling the craft in through the pristine blue atmosphere, over the vast swaths of moss and fungus on massive formations of sandstone and limestone that were the world's alien topography. She landed on a naturally flat caldera - the way up to her loft was up a simple ladder along a rock wall a few meters away.
The air was dry, cool and still. A little thinner than what she had become used to on the Capri, but a little thicker than the air on her race's lost homeworld. The stillness and quiet of the planet was breathtaking, unearthly. As far as the eye could see, brilliant reddish sunlight on the moss and fungus growing on the greenish rocks.
Up the ladder, into the loft. She flicked on the power-up sequence - a simple metal switch next to the equally simple metal door recessed into the rockface, which opened with the turn of a lever. No fancy security features. Not even a lock. Why bother? If anyone found it was here, no precautions could keep them out, and reinforcing the unattended abode would only convince any who might find it (unlikely given its well-hidden location and powered-down state) that it was worth pillaging.
Inside...the entire abode was one big atrium. A layout characteristic of the style of her people. A central swimming pool, roof of transparent aluminum open to the brilliant reddish-orange sunlight, columns circling the central pool, ringed with ceramic pots host to a variety of strange, long-lived plants - the purplish-green mosses and lichens indigenous to the planet, as well as the curious bluish reeds - like a cross between cattail and bamboo - that were the only other surviving species of Aestu's lost homeworld. The floor tiles were smoothed stones of the same greenish limestone and sandstone that was the planet's terra firma. Behind the columns lay the few amenities of the abode - a computer, food dispenser, lathe, science lab, and racks of objects' d'art.
The alien's opaque eyes glistened with the light reflected from the pool. Humans, she knew, often found bathing an erotic experience, but not with the same fervor as her people. The sight of the warm, pure, clear water aroused a visceral erotic response. A throaty, grunting moan escaped her lips.
Aaahhhunnnhhnnn...
She grabbed at the recessed zipper of her unitard and pulled it down; in a second the garment lay at her delicate white feet, just a bit wide by humanoid standards, with four toes on each. Her naked body was beautiful by any humanoid standards - marbled, toned flesh, generous breasts, glistening white oblongs, firm to the touch and half again as long as they were wide, on a trim, toned torso. The only physical peculiarities unique to her species were a genital orifice a bit narrower, rounder, more muscled than most - like Terran lizards and avians, Aestu's race had never evolved separate reproductive and digestive tract, and had only a single orifice squarely between the legs - and a series of dark purple fleshy stripes beneath each of her ribs, like long bruises. She continued to groan and moan, sexual urge now beyond restraint, as she walked, now naked, up to the pool.
U
