©2003
Inside Atsuko's dream, Govinda found that it was a little difficult to keep his mind on his goal. He stood on an immense plain made of pink and red tiles, under a giant sun which hung at the zenith of a ruddy sky. Scattered all around him, there were hundreds of wrecked spaceships, or pieces of wrecks, each one sitting in a fractured circle of broken tile. And it wasn't old debris, either, for there were several bright embers trailing smoke as they fell from the high thin clouds to the ground. Govinda ran to his left to avoid one big chunk of burning metal as it came roaring down, then ran forward several meters to avoid another. In ghost form, he wasn't wearing a cybskin, which would've come in handy about now, but, he could run without getting tired, and that was maybe enough. The problem was, where would he find Atsuko?
He ran in a great circle, scanning the distant horizon as he did so, looking for some sign of life. He thought he could see a few scattered houses, here and there, but the distances between them were great and he didn't want to stay here forever, running about, searching each dwelling. So he closed his eyes and slowed down his thoughts, and relied on his intuitive sense to present him with one choice more likely than the rest. He mused: Atsuko was an architect, or at least had once been an architect for a long stretch of her early life...and she liked the kinds of designs they did on Edge worlds like Hollow Star and Yalla and Yedyevo...so, perhaps look for a house in that style...something off the ground...something amorphous...something using odd materials in unusual ways....
Govinda looked around once more and noted that there was in fact a Yedyevo-style floathouse about five kilometers away. All the other houses that close were more in the style of Kunyunese flowfoam architecture, definitely not Atsuko's thing. Plus, a lot of the houses had in any case been crushed by falling debris, and wouldn't have anyone alive in them. So, might as well start at the floathouse. There were a few others, much farther away, and he could check those next if the first one didn't pan out.
When he arrived at the bright green plastic-and-fur-covered floathouse, he didn't find Atsuko, but he did find evidence he was on the right track. Climbing up the cable that kept the house anchored to the ground, he poked his head up past the sphincter that served as a door, and discovered a huge spherical chamber enclosed by a rubbery red membrane, with a collection of exotic sex toys drifting about weightless in the middle space. One of the toys was a double-headed phallus made of cleverjelly, a gift Govinda had given Atsuko after their first encounter. He leapt up out of the sphincter and let the house's lifting field carry him toward the toy. Grabbing it, he kicked off the membrane wall and swam down the slope of the field, then pushed his way back out of the house. Walking down the cable, he looked for and found the next nearest house. Running toward it with the phallus flopping about in his hand, he felt slightly ridiculous. But, having to dodge the occasional piece of falling wreckage preoccupied him and kept him from feeling too self-conscious.
Finally, after he had taken a look inside two other houses, he arrived at a floating home that was the shape and color of an enormous drop of blood. Small patches of black quills formed a random pattern all over its surface, while big round windows formed a ring around its equator. The house was rocking a little in a nonexistant breeze, so Govinda guessed it might be occupied. Before he went up the tether, he glanced around to see if there was anything falling from the sky in the immediate area. But, for the moment, the sky looked clear. In fact, he noticed there wasn't any debris within about a kilometer of the house, which he took as another sign things were going his way.
At the top of the cable, he pushed his head and shoulders past the sphincter. Once inside, the first thing he saw was a round room with walls upholstered in faux albino sealskin. Light from the ring of windows filled the space with a pinkish glow, and washed out the shadows from any place where shadows might normally form. If there was a lifting field generator, it was turned off, and nothing floated around loose the way the sex toys had done in the first house. Govinda pulled his torso and legs up and out of the sphincter, and stood there a moment to steady himself against the gentle swaying motion of the house. Then, he heard a voice behind him. "God, Govinda, bring that cock of yours over here and fuck me good."
Turning around, he saw that Atsuko was spread out on a pile of pillows, her cunt wide-open and glistening with excitement, her nipples hard as stones, her spiky hair sticking up in every direction. Beside her lay a large man, a native of Yedyevo from the looks of his barbed orange cock and yellow-furred skin. The man had his hand on the swell of Atsuko's belly, his mouth on her neck, his foot against the inside of her calf. He was busy enough that he didn't pay Govinda any attention. Atsuko, though, looked at him hard through slitted eyelids, her gaze a magnet for his libido. As it had ever been.
Govinda sank to his knees, set the dildo down, then crawled on all fours toward the harbor of Atsuko's thighs. He lowered his face into the dripping cleft of her sex, and inhaled the sweet thick aroma of her arousal. He licked her up and down for a few long moments, then began kissing a trail up her body, going around the other man's hand, then over the top of each breast, then ending in the space beneath her collarbone. Finally, he raised himself off of Atsuko and looked down at her face. The tip of his revived erection was pressing ever-so-slightly upon the gate of her womb. He didn't want to slip all the way inside just yet, and so, when Atsuko shifted her ass to slide down on him, Govinda backed away, frustrating her, making her look up at him and grunt her disapproval. "Goddamn it, Govinda, fuck me."
Govinda said, "Atsuko, do you know where you are?"
"Who cares. Come on, just fucking fuck me, you bastard."
