Nothing Fires Lust Lie Grief

[Revised intro context paras:

I've been writing privately about these characters for over 15 years but have only just started posting some of my stories to to Literotica.

This episode immediately precedes the two parts of "Flying solo with Coll" and "Joining the Underground". This is the point where experienced Underground officer Coll McDiarmid picks up two young skywheelers, Sweft Apollorida and Kestrem Forré, and takes them on the three year ride of their lives.]

"Just take the fucking detox, Kestrem!" Nemphir bellowed with frustration.

"Or what?" the dark and dangerously handsome young man asked from where he lay on the floor surrounded by empty bottles and other paraphernalia of intoxication.

His midnight-blue eyes were too wide and unfocused and there were cuts and bruises over his face and bare torso from the senseless fighting and raging of the past few weeks. His shoulder-length hair was lank and unwashed.

"What do you think you can do about it Nem? You're not Telor. Telor is dead."

Looking worn and overtired, Cato now hunkered down on the floor beside Kestrem. She put a hand on his shoulder.

"Please, Kes, stop this. Today is the memorial service. Telor would want you and Sweft to be there. I want you there too. We're a team."

"Not any more," Kestrem said angrily but sat up and took the pill from Cato's hand. As it kicked in and full lucidity returned, he began to sob inconsolably, curling into the fetal position on the floor.

"Oh fucking hell. How the hell are we going to get him fit to take anywhere?" Nemphir exclaimed, blinking away the tears which had leapt back into his own eyes.

Cato's amber-green cat-like eyes were also pricking in response to the raw sound of Kestrem's heartfelt grieving. She stood and covered her face with her hands.

"And where the fuck is Sweft?" Nem added.

On cue, Sweft Apollorida walked through the door. Like Kestrem, she looked as though she had done nothing but weep, drink and fight for several weeks.

The aura of pain and alienation she carried enhanced the sharpness of her beauty, the redness of her eyes particularly highlighting the blue steel of her irises. The only softness to Sweft at the moment was the swell of her breasts under a thin vest. She carried several more bottles of Wildfire, the drink of choice amongst the younger skywheelers for its mix of intoxicants, stimulants and mood enhancers,

Seeing and hearing her lover's distress, Sweft immediately dropped all the bottles and joined him on the floor, sharing kisses, whispers and tears as if the two older skywheelers were not watching them in confusion.

"Sweft?" Cato stepped forward again now. "Telor's memorial service is today at 1700."

In one of her characteristic but always disconcerting instant switches of mood and behaviour, Sweft stood and regarded Cato calmly. She was ice where Kestrem was fire, equally dangerous if mishandled.

"We will both be there. What do we need to do?"

"Detox, wash and dress in clean clothes now. Nem and I will wait for you."

* * *

Until they reached majority at 18, Telor Jerenko had been legal guardian to Sweft Apollorida and Kestrem Forré as well as the owner and manager of Vita, their skywheeling team on Luna Primus. Luna Primus was a libertarian paradise orbiting the staid, patrician planet of Terra Primus.

Activities that would result in harsh criminal penalties on Terra were party tricks on Luna Primus. Luna also hosted the most famous and dangerous skywheeling league in the Allied Federation of Established Homeworlds (formally the A.F.E.H, Allied Federation or FedWorlds in common speech).

Sweft and Kestrem were the young and volatile stars of the show, both for Vita and for the Luna and wider entertainment networks. Now 18 and 21, they had been prematurely orphaned yet again and, in the immediate aftermath, were entirely undone.

Media attention on them had intensified with the freak accident that killed Telor during a Vita celebratory skywheeling display after Sweft's victory at the Universal Championships. Kestrem's weeks of spectacular meltdown and public arrest after Telor's death had been broadcast across the universe.

Sweft had been of no less public interest, as a champion martial artist as well as winner of the Universal Skywheeling Cup that year. She was also of interest as a beautiful young woman frequently captured on visual recordings in states of undress and sexual congress with her equally beautiful boyfriend. However, her powerful grief at losing Telor had been more controlled and unlike Kestrem her criminal record still contained only juvenile cautions.

Cato and Nemphir, the two older surviving Vita members might have sobered the two young skywheelers up enough to get to the memorial service but Kestrem especially was still an obvious concern. Their continued physical closeness to the young couple wasn't only for comfort.

* * *

Sweft saw Coll McDiarmid as soon as she walked into the hall for the service. He was standing at the front with another of Telor's old friends, talking to various local dignitaries but paying careful attention to the doors.

He met her eyes with recognition and intent behind his sad smile. Coll had been watching out for them she realised, also feeling a stab of unbidden sexual desire as he nodded to her briefly.

The big, roughly handsome man was as confident and physically self-assured as she remembered from earlier encounters, but with a more sober manner today. Sweft saw apparently genuine sadness in the magnetic blue-green eyes below Coll's sandy hair. His air of competence and capability drew Sweft as much as his body. Painfully, she realised that this pull towards a strong, older man was probably partly a reaction to Telor's death.

Unusually, she felt unsure of her own intentions, grief blurring the lines of her curiosity and desire. Guilt followed the mingling of grief and lust in her mind. Of course, in the past week she and Kestrem had tried to lose one in the other many times over, trying to fuck themselves into oblivion. Her desire for Coll was different because she knew Telor would not have approved.

* * *

Watching Coll's strong expressive mouth as he delivered a eulogy to a man of exceptional strength and moral fibre, Sweft recalled his passionate kiss six months earlier when he had first raised the prospect of Sweft and Kestrem joining the Underground.

"Telor put human beings first in everything he did. Through sport, through the Jerenko Foundation for Human Rights, and through the way he lived."

She saw a glistening in Coll's eyes as he spoke. His pain, his respect and his love for his dead friend were all real despite the ambiguities of the relationship.

Telor had quickly warned Coll off when he found him embracing Sweft and obtained promises from both Sweft and Kes to stay away from his old friend for a year. He had also given them a flavour of what Coll's offer could entail.

"Come into my office for a few minutes. You too, Kes. Close the door."

"What's wrong guys?" Kestrem asked with an arm around Sweft.

"Sweft, would you hand me the card that Coll McDiarmid just gave to you," Telor requested. "The one tucked into the left hand side of your top," he prompted when Sweft didn't move.

"Okay." Sweft handed it over. "Look Telor, I don't know the deal with you and Coll. I don't know what this is all about. Why don't you take it up with him"

"I will. But I thought that you deserved an explanation before I did that. You're not children any more."

Sweft and Kes looked at one another. Telor usually acted before he explained himself.

"Coll asked if you and Kestrem, probably some of the others, would like to join his organisation, didn't he?"

"Join what? Doing what?" asked Kestrem with interest.

"Tell him Sweft. What do you think Coll meant?"

One word. "Underground." Sweft said in a low voice. Telor nodded.

"You're perfect for them. Strong, accomplished, enough personal fame to open doors but no reputation to preserve." He counted points off on his fingers. "You're rich enough to be unbribable, young enough to put curiosity before judgment, and if you come with the others you're a ready-made unit already bound by strong personal loyalties."

Telor frowned then. "Your vulnerabilities are also attractive for this type of recruitment. No family to speak of, a history of abuse overcome which makes you damaged enough to do the job but not enough to botch it up." He had clearly spent a long time thinking about this but spoke without anger or bitterness.

"You should also know that you're probably perfect for Coll too. The man is sexually voracious. Believe me, neither of you could match him. That isn't a challenge, Kes."

"You and Coll were friends." Sweft realised and spoke out loud.

"Are you...one of them too?" Kestrem asked.

Telor shrugged. "No one ever really leaves," he said neutrally. "That's something else you should know right at the start." He turned the card over in his hands. "It's a very interesting way of life. You get to see the underside of the civilised universe from a privileged perspective. But it's dangerous too, what they'll ask of people like you. And there are moral uncertainties which can destroy you."

"What happened between you and Coll, Telor?" Sweft asked, not sure whether he would answer her. But he had clearly decided to be honest tonight.

"Someone I loved very much died. Two people went in on a mission and only Coll came out. " Again, his tone was neutral but what he said was more than he had told them about himself in all the years they'd known him.

"Was it his fault?" Sweft was hesitant to ask more but couldn't stop herself in time.

"Who knows, apart from maybe Coll? I could never look at him in the same way after that. It's as much as I can tell you. " Then his tones changed, warmed. "I want more for you two, so much more."

Four smartly but discreetly dressed men and a woman Sweft had never seen before stood at the back of the room throughout the service, glancing speculatively at Sweft and Kestrem but then leaving quickly at a nod from Coll once it was over. Underground. They were there to pay their respects to an old colleague but Coll was clearly in charge of whatever happened next with regards to Telor's wards.

At the reception after the memorial, Coll was quickly at Sweft's side. Surprisingly, he and Cato appeared to have some understanding and she fell back to the bar area with Nemphir at Coll's smile.

Embracing both Sweft and Kes as he offered his condolences, Coll then properly introduced himself to Kestrem.

"So you're Coll McDiarmid. Telor told us a lot about you," Kestrem drawled in response, turning his deep-blue insolent eyes onto the older man. His long dark hair was roughly pushed back from a face shadowed by stubble and sadness. The heavy black eyeliner he had applied did not fully mask several weeks worth of angry crying.

Watching Coll take in Kestrem's appearance, Sweft had the impression of interest and understanding. She felt the same when Coll looked briefly at her too.

"I am likely to be everything he warned you against. However, I suspect the three of us have much in common. Telor knew that too."

"None of us would want to live up to Telor's standards, however much we may have admired him," Sweft observed.

"Just so." Coll gestured for them to sit at a small table and ordered drinks.

"Sweft has told you about me too, perhaps?" he continued to question Kestrem.

"Only that you're a fantastic kisser and very well-endowed although she never got the chance to try out your equipment."

Sweft put down her drink loudly and looked hard at Kestrem, kicking him under the table. If she hadn't known that Cato forced a detox pill on him before the service, she would have thought him intoxicated.

Coll laughed briefly.

"I like honesty. But remember, Kestrem, it is completely unacceptable to embarrass or humiliate your lover. Unless they want it, of course... You spoke now without thinking of Sweft."

"You're giving me lessons in how to treat Sweft?!"

"Yes. I'm going to give you lessons and you're going to like it," Coll said calmly and firmly.

It was Kestrem's turn to laugh now.

"You're right. I would. I hate when I accidentally fuck things up for Sweft."

It was as if Coll and Kestrem understood one another completely within five minutes of meeting. Sweft knew that Coll's easy manner and way with words were probably professional skills but they were still attractive, perhaps to Kestrem as well. She felt drawn to Coll though unsure about what she wanted to happen next.

"Enough about fuck ups," Sweft broke in then.

Coll nodded, grasping that she did not want a conversation to focus on her right now. He quickly began to talk about sports, different kinds of racing, different kinds of martial arts on different planets.

It was a simple, inclusive conversation which served as backdrop for his non-verbal communication. While they small-talked and drank, Coll made the nature of his interest very obvious. Soon he was sitting between Sweft and Kes with an arm around each, the pressures of his hands and thighs, the look in his eyes, the way his lips touched their ears when he leaned in to talk to them, all conveying his intentions clearly.

"Two proposals for both of you, one personal and one professional," he said bluntly after draining his glass. "Let's get out of here and discuss them somewhere more private."

Coll put a hand lightly over Sweft's. "It will be a good night for all of us, Sweft. I will make sure of it."

Sweft made her decision and looked across at Kes. He took her other hand, leaned across to kiss her lips and then kissed Coll's too. Kes had probably decided he wanted Coll the first minute the older man contradicted him.

The three of them left together, drawing some attention and remark.

* * *

Coll led them to his quarters. He had personal rooms in the Luna Dome complex and Sweft had never known. She had a sense of a complex hidden past which included Telor but did not intend to ask about it tonight.

Outside the door to what was presumably a bedroom, Coll looked each of them in the eye.

"Nothing fires lust like grief, does it? Don't feel bad about that." The first part of his comment was more of a personal reflection but the second was addressed to Sweft and Kes.

"Are you grieving?" Kestrem questioned the older man as they went inside.

The room was large, plain and comfortable with a vast, inviting bed.

"Of course. Telor was my friend." Coll pulled Kestrem to him and kissed him hard. Then he released Kes and kissed Sweft more gently. "I'm going to miss him."

They both pressed against him hungrily as he caressed Sweft's soft breasts and Kestrem's swelling groin, alternating kisses between them until all three were gasping and breathless.

"Get undressed," he told them then.

* * *

Soon they were engaged in an orgy of urgent fucking, sucking and caressing in Coll's capacious bed. The three of them were well-matched together and in every combination.

The intensity of Sweft's orgasm after being taken by both Coll and Kes in quick and cooperative succession stunned her.

She and Kestrem had tried threesomes with several other men in the past. All had been unsatisfactory at best and more distracting than stimulating, like diluting a delicious and intoxicating drink. She was only ever relieved when Kestrem lost patience and ejected the extra from the room to turn his full and loving attention to her.

In contrast now, Coll and Kes understood each other, understood her needs and enjoyed working together to give her pleasure. They also thoroughly enjoyed each other's bodies and Sweft was fascinated to watch them excite and fuck one another. Both were exhibitionist enough to be further aroused by her voyeurism.

As the session went on, Sweft noticed that Coll appeared to be studying her and Kes and testing them in some way. When she saw him run his hand and tongue slowly down Kestrem's spine with his eyes open, she realised that he had done exactly the same thing to her earlier. When he whispered with apparent playfulness to her to push hard against him, she noted that he had done the same with Kes.

Soon she felt that every part of her body had been kissed, caressed, measured and inspected.

After what seemed to be the end of the first round they all lay catching their breath.

"So, is this a job interview or you planning to sell us at market?" Sweft asked Coll.

Coll laughed good-naturedly and slipped his hand back between Sweft's thighs.

"This is just hot sex, you beautiful, fuckable young woman. But you're right that I've been making a few professional observations as we went along. Open your legs a little more..."

She began to moan at his skilful fingering, the sound rousing Kes to kiss and stroke her breasts.

"I want to know how strong you are. I want to know what enhancements you already have. I want to know more about your personalities and how you respond....." Coll said as he moved his fingers, slipping two inside her and rubbing her clitoris with his thumb. He sped up slightly as Sweft's pleasure mounted and she began to come.

"Yes!" she cried out several times, her head tossing on the pillow and then laying still for a moment before Kestrem pulled her up onto her hands and knees, covering her back with kisses as he took her from behind. She was still tingling so much from her orgasm that the penetration was ecstatically pleasurable.

"You're so beautiful when you come," Kestrem whispered in her ear. Coll soon offered his cock to her lips, gently stroking her hair, and she sucked him back to full erection.

A moment later Coll came around the side of the bed and penetrated Kestrem again while Kes was moving inside Sweft. Sweft could feel the force of Coll's thrusts through the tensions in Kestrem's body. After only a few more strokes, Kes growled and shot his sperm into Sweft, hyper-aroused by the cock in his own body, moving easily with the lubrication of Coll's earlier orgasm inside him.

Sweft pulled herself out from beneath Kes to watch the two men now, turned on by the straining of their strong muscles as they coupled, and their deeper, gruffer groans of enjoyment. Coll was rougher in every way with Kestrem than with her, biting, gripping, thrusting violently, and Kes responded to it with uninhibited pleasure.

After that second round, they dozed for an hour. Sweft awoke to see Coll washing himself at the sanitation unit, watching them. Kestrem was lying next to her, stroking her hips and buttocks lazily.

"You both have relatively sophisticated enhancement circuitry but pretty limited access to enhanced strength, probably adrenaline based. No enhancements can be used on the Dome's skywheel run or in Sen competition. So, what is the circuitry for?" Coll asked.

Kes looked at Sweft and she considered the question carefully.

"You're right to be cautious but if you're going to join me, and I think you probably are, you will need to trust me. I will need to know this." Coll walked over to a chiller unit and began mixing a drink.

"You'd work it out quickly enough, I think." Sweft said. "It's fundamentally telepathic. We can link to each other."

"How accurately?"

"We can see with each other's eyes, feel each other's physical sensations, pick up the full range of emotions."

"There's other stuff too," added Kes. "But that's intuition and knowing each other as much as the enhancement. They reinforce each other."

"Unusual." Coll commented, clearly intrigued. "It doesn't usually work so well. Brains, experiences and perceptions are too different, too out of sync."