"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.
