"Our last experience before dinner is not going to surprise you," Cerise explains with a wide grin. "A spa classic, the massage!"
I feel hot in this room. The floor is lined with a thicker carpeting than the corridors outside, and the yellowish walls have a papery texture with an embossed, cumulonimbus design. There's a long unit of cupboards up to waist height on the far wall, by which I mean waist height for a Human. They come up to the shoulders of the girls working here. A small, fan-looking machine on the surface of the cupboard is spitting a thin stream of scented vapour into the room. We left the music outside. And my gown is boiling me, or so it feels. I thought the gel was supposed to have come off us by this point. Why does every touch still feel so potent?
The twin pallets in the centre of the room look like earth-coloured, textured wood, which I doubt is actually the case. Some sort of clever mimicry, more likely. Each has a raised cushion attached to one end for massage recipients to rest their heads, hollowed out like a square-shaped donut so you can keep your head down without suffocating. Based on the positioning of the pillows, Audrey and I are going to be lying head-to-head.
"Before you start asking for your money back," Cerise continues, chuckling mischievously, "or telling me you can get a massage just fine on... Earth, right? We have a traditional Cardinal Worlds routine ready for you that I think you're really going to enjoy."
"Sounds lovely." Audrey's voice is a sighing whisper, and I'd be a fool to not hear the sadness in it. When I look to my wife, I see her gazing sleepily down at the floor, hands stuffed into the pockets of her robe. She looks up at my attention, and she smiles a brave, sad smile.
"I'm just tired," she tells me. "I could go for a nap after this."
"Or during, that's fine too," suggests Cerise. "Our technique is all about redistributing tension from the core of your body out to the extremities. Most of our customers doze off during, and there's no shame in that. The one thing we'd ask is that you don't talk to each other while we're working."
"Here I was thinking this was a couple's package," I remark with a smirk.
"Yes, yes, Mr Ethan. Very funny. I know it might sound counterintuitive to separate you when you came here together, but trust me. We do our best work like this. You can discuss the blow by blow after we're done, if you like."
I glance at Audrey again to gauge her reaction, but she's still staring down at the ground. Cerise is also watching my wife with a furrowed brow. She reaches out and lays a hand on her shoulder.
"Just relax," she says. "We're here for you."
Audrey nods her head, and content that she is coping, I turn about. Carmine is standing right beside me, close enough that I can feel the body heat radiating from her even through my robe. That endless, mercury gaze is still fixed upon me, and since it has been a few minutes since her blowjob in the shower, it renews my blood with lightning.
'
I'm here for you,
' her eyes say. But I can't tell whether the tone is doting compassion or targeted desire. '
I am here for
you.'
Audrey takes her place beside the table on the right, I take mine on the left. As Cerise steps up to the cupboards and selects some jars of oil from their shelves, Carmine walks to the opposite wall in the direct centre of the suite. A thick, red curtain is attached to a rail that goes all the way along the middle of the room. Slowly, with the sound of metal rings running across a beam, Carmine draws the curtain between me and my wife.
"Really?" I ask.
"I'm serious about you two not talking," Cerise explains with a chuckle. "You can still hear each other if you're really invested in sharing something, but this time is yours alone. We can't have you getting distracted while we're trying to get you relaxed, okay?"
I see a shining glimmer of humour in Cerise's silvery eyes, visible over Audrey's shoulder as she reaches up to remove her robe. Then, the red curtain comes between us.
Leaving me alone with Carmine. The Cardinali girl turns on her heel to face me, and there is no question what she intends to do with this time we have together. Her smile, the smile she only gives to me, cannot be misinterpreted. She reaches down to her wrist and presses something on her terminal, and music begins to play across the room. I hear Cerise chuckling on the far side of the curtain at her partner's choice of backing track. It's no soothing flute. It's a deep, droning synth, accompanied by the steady, primal beat of a set of drums. The blood pumping in my chest, down in my stiffening cock, obey the beat without question.
As the short Cardinali steps gracefully towards me, I take stock of how far I have fallen today. There is no question any longer that Carmine's behaviour is in violation of her professional ethos. The touch of her hand in the bath may have been an alien attempt at relaxation gone too far. Her lips on my cock in the shower may very, very possibly have been her strange attempt at making a customer happy. But when she reaches me and reaches her hands gently up onto my shoulders, gazing at me with those magnificent eyes, I can argue misunderstanding no longer.
Carmine takes my interface specs in hand, gently removing them. She folds them up and places them in the pocket of my robe. The last barrier between my face and hers has been vanquished, and I am vulnerable before her.
And unfortunately, I am too far gone to care. She has taken me twice now. Allowing a third time is far, far too easy. Carmine pushes herself up on her toes. I bend my body down towards her, and she presses her lips against mine. I put my arms around her as I lean into the kiss with one of my own.
Supposedly, the sensitising effect of the gel has been washed from our skin. Even so, I feel a rush of static on my fingertips as I run my hands along the soft cotton of Carmine's uniform tunic. And her lips are soft indeed, the pillowy touch of ripe fruit. Saccharine, too. Carmine tastes of the same alien sweetness that was left on my hand after being submerged in the gel bath. Has she used some on herself, I wonder, to heighten the effects of sex? I certainly would.
I haven't heard Carmine speak much since our meeting. Still, her gentle sigh against my mouth is now a familiar cadence. She runs her hands across my shoulders and around to the back of my neck, before sliding her fingers into the hem of my robe and gently pulling the clothing down to my elbows. I relinquish my embrace of her reluctantly so that the garment can fall to the floor with a
thwump
of fabric and leave me naked. Then, I touch her bare arms. I run my hands luxuriantly over the silk of her peach-coloured skin. I lap at her lips with my tongue, and she suppresses a little giggle as she receives me into her mouth. There's that taste again, sweeter than ever.
A voice comes to us through the red curtain. "Just like that, very nice," says Cerise. "Let me do all the hard work, okay?"
Audrey is getting an actual massage from this actual massage session. I wonder what it looks like. But when my eyes drift up and past Carmine's head to where the far side of the room is obscured, Carmine presses her hand onto the side of my face and pulls my attention back to her. With her other hand, she slides her fingers down my torso, briefly tangling them in my pubic hair, and grants my erection a long, loving stroke.
I shiver, hissing out my desire at her touch. Yes, it's just as electric as in the bath. I'm just as sensitive, just as vulnerable. Carmine teases my cock with a soft brush of her fingertips, and she meets my sigh with one of her own. The sounds mix and meld in our mouths until they are one.
"You're still too tense," comments Cerise beyond the barrier. "Close your eyes if you think that will help."
Being careful not to create too much noise, I turn with Carmine and press her back against the faux-wood of the pallet. My neck is starting to ache from how far I have to bend to reach her lips, and I can feel her legs wobbling with the effort of staying on her tiptoes for me. I release Carmine long enough for her to hop up onto the pallet and adjust her legs and skirt. Then I come upon her again. Carmine parts her legs and allows me into a full embrace of her body. My cock slides between her bare thighs, up the skirt of her tunic and into the intimacy of her warmest parts. Like this, we are roughly the same height. We kiss deeply, her hands on the sides of my head and my fingers gripping the heaviness of her hips under her clothing.
She smells excellent, I realise. A heady mix of organic body and fragrant oils. I open my eyes to take in the sight of Carmine once again, and I see her silver eyes creased with desire as they regard me in turn. When I lean back from her kiss, she follows me needily, her tongue dripping with my saliva. She licks at the corners of my mouth and plants herself deep inside me, anchoring her face against mine with her tongue. She sucks on my teeth, and she groans quietly and secretly down my throat.
Meanwhile, I am making up for missed experiences earlier this morning. Though the tantalising slit of her pussy is calling me, I want to try out every inch of the gorgeous alien who has so captivated me. I run my hands up her sides and savour the static of her tunic between my fingers. Then I slide over her breasts and squeeze greedily. At once, Carmine clamps her thighs around my hips and wraps her arms fully around my neck, holding herself against me. Her breaths in my throat become keening and grating as I massage her, feeling out the points of her nipples with my thumbs. The throbbing tip of my cock is tickled by the shivering hairs between her legs, and I can feel beads of moisture alighting on my skin, dripping from further within.
"How's that?" Cerise's voice is hushed behind the thick velvet of the curtain and the thrumming of the music.
Audrey doesn't respond with words. Her vocalisation is a familiar one, though, a shy gasp of pleasure. How I loved to bring that noise out of her in our long nights together at the start of our marriage. How I've missed that sound.
