Special thanks to kenjisato, a generous volunteer in Literotica.com's Volunteer Editors program, for editing this piece. All remaining errors and questionable stylistic choices are the sole responsibility of the author.
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Author's Reminder (for those of you who don't read tags): there will be no wank on offer herein, mildly depressing or otherwise. You are of course free to take that reminder as a challenge instead.
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I try not to take things for granted; it's harder than it sounds. It's no coincidence that the word 'rumination' made the leap from cows chewing, digesting, and regurgitating to humans thinking. What begins as soul searching coalesces into a mantra, which then degrades into pabulum-as-background-noise.
Stop and smell the roses. Practice mindfulness. Gotta be grateful.
From multitudinous beginnings, all our observations, insights, and wisdom arrive at a single end: the same old shit. The human brain being what it is -- a trillion figurative linked stomachs -- we're lucky if those waste products ever get expelled. As for what we manage to absorb, well... isn't that just another way of taking something for granted?
It rains fairly often in our little corner of the Alliance, but whenever the weather cooperates, pairs, trios, and larger groups head outside the Pig to watch the curtain come down on another beautiful day. In an age of commonplace miracles, it's a miracle that nature can still compete at all. It's like Jett said: we're half in and half out. The part of us that's half in stands in awe of the sunset. It's cosmic art; the purest tribute we can pay to its beauty is to become still and let it wash over us -- no asking that question that man's just gotta. The part of us that's half out has collected and collated many answers to that question, but never the version of it that spawns cults or starts wars -- never the version that seeks to mine truth from feeling.
The best our out half can do is tell us that it's okay to stand in awe. It's good for us, even. It reminds us that we're still only very small.
We are an infinitesimal speck of infinity observing itself, and every once in a while, our limitations, separation, and sheer insignificance manage to defeat vanity; every once in a while, the universe looks in the mirror, judges itself sexy, and isn't a huge dick about it. I'm not so sure that that's a good trade, but sometimes, I stand beneath that illuminated oil canvas of countless coincidences and feel the weight of all the costs falling away. Every philosophy of striving and struggle stops making sense. The impossibility of benevolent gods doesn't seem quite so impossible. We can simply be good. We can simply be. Why couldn't they? There's plenty of room -- infinite stars, infinite specks, infinite sunsets.
We come to each sunset as we are: still slightly stimmed, tipsy and tripping, drugged and drowsy, or even stubbornly sober. Jett added
"doused in mud"
and
"soaked in bleach"
to that list many moons ago, and she even convinced a few of us to try the former one rainy evening. I'm an indoor cat for the most part, but it was one of those unpleasant experiences that was nevertheless worth having. Does that count as struggle and striving? I don't think so. A wise man once defined a game as the voluntary overcoming of unnecessary obstacles. I wondered aloud on that rainy, muddy day if there was a word for voluntarily throwing oneself at -- or into -- an obstacle with no intention of overcoming it. Jett was right there with another lyric -- and by the same band, no less:
"it's fun to lose, and to pretend."
Jett being Jett, she even bleached her hair once. With a wide grin on her face, she confirmed that it was an awful and pointless exercise. She added a touch of green to her red so that we could feel the pale yellow damage rather than just see it. I've never touched straw before, but that's where my mind went: stale, spoiled straw. The Alliance is a healthy place; that hair felt tantalizingly wrong.
Speaking of red and the absence of green, I'm sure our tribe would look strange to anyone staring at us as we stare at the sky. There's no touching. It's one of those things you don't notice until it isn't there; those who sit or stand close to each other only highlight the distance that remains. I've never gotten used to it. Maybe that means I don't take it for granted. I hope that's true.
On this particular Tuesday evening, the end of sunset marks the beginning of a smoke break. Aisha and I stay outside. I wait for her serenity to slip away, but it never does. She jumps up and takes a seat on the bench's table. She's way too tall for the almost-flat boards ostensibly meant for butts. I loiter nearby, still on my own two feet.
"Bad news, Fen," she says. "Life is good."
"You bitch."
She laughs, and her breasts bounce. Her redliner clothing fights a losing battle, as it so often does against futa physiology. They can't have her wearing a muumuu, and that's the only thing that would hide her otherworldly peaks and valleys. Her shoulders are somehow both wide and soft. Her breasts are enormous and defy old-world biology, never mind gravity. Her stomach is a washboard. Her hips flare like the Sun. Her ass is an upside-down-heart-shaped wrecking ball made of pure sex. Her massive cock, contained by a Neutrex cage, ruins her otherwise perfect symmetry. It has its own special holster, and to call it a
concealed
weapon would be to abuse a technicality.
She wears lipstick to work. It's always a shade that clashes with both her chocolate skin and her eyes. Tonight, the lipstick is a sickly green and her irises are gold. Again, it can barely suppress her beauty or sexuality, but it's the thought that counts.
She sets her chin down into her butterfly-wing palms. Her elbows rest near her knees -- awkwardly distant because her breasts are just so big. Her eyes search mine for consent to deliver even more bad news, and find it. I add a shrug. It's a thing I do.
"Rishka and I are thinking about merging households," she says. "Such a cliché. Two baby sissy gurls, two breeder girls, two futas -- one big, happy family."
"So it's love, huh?"
Aisha shrugs back. "It's good. Everybody likes each other."
"Well, four of them are blissed out of their minds on futa stank."
She ignores the jab. "And we're open beyond those six, so long as the two of us have the final say." That's another cliché -- dominant futas -- but there's no need for either of us to belabor it.
"I'm sensing a teachable moment."
She rolls her eyes. "Well feel free to prove me wrong, you giant pussy. I don't get it. I don't get you."
"That makes two of us."
"Sure, okay, but... the system does. You know that. Why are you being so fucking stubborn?"
