by Mark Joseph Kiewlak
(12/03/08)
Space was vast, and could not be filled by empty hearts. There was no harm in sharing her shuttle, Odelphia thought, warm bodies in close proximity across a starry void. No harm in filling with joy just a few select moments of a day which otherwise occupied itself with unavoidable sorrows.
No harm in indulging freedom.
Her mouth found his cock within minutes of their departure. He tasted different from other men, from her husband certainly.
A fine tradition -- the dearly departed's loved ones forming with their shuttles a procession to lead the body home. Home in this case, as their rights and beliefs dictated, was the burning hot center of this system's red giant sun.
What did he taste like? More like adventure, more truth than she was used to digesting. The exchange of bodily fluids had long been their race's most triumphant means of communication, of understanding one another.
So what did the first hesitant drop of semen squeezed from the head of his cock tell Odelphia? That she was loved, and lusted after by him. She, his sister's best friend, constant companion of his childhood, birthing his first juvenile fantasies, her obsidian locks long past shoulders grown, tall and thin, stately, and ever present with her smile. She had been his, a thousand times without knowing.
BlackJackSon had a brother, though not by choice, oldest in their family, and worldly, who kidded Odelphia in their youth, and teased and flirted and taught Jack through visual osmosis the ways women lured.
BJson wished Odelphia had become his sister-in-law. The position was already filled.
Mirrormar loved and devoted and did all that. It was her mother's passing which they celebrated this day. Mirrormar was okay. But BJson would not want her tongue caressing his shaft in this way.
A nebula shone from parsecs away its blue sapphire brilliance upon their bodies in the cabin, all naked now, Odelphia with breasts and tangle below and BJson with hands and tongue to meet them. The shuttle flew itself. The other mourners might be sharing anecdotes, memories fond and time-christened sweet.
Jack and Odelphia shared so much more. Why were there those you could reach for, Jack wondered, and those who pulled away?
They were learning, with grunts and sweat-filled sighs, about the past they had from different perspectives shared. Shame wrote itself out of their gestures. Yes -- old friends, practically family. A big sister, with breasts to nuzzle, and passionate consolations to impart. This was how BJson regarded Odelphia. His real sister thought him a child forever, and he was, but only in the good ways, the happy free methods of being. Big sisters did that, Jack knew. Infantilized you. Odelphia never had.
He licked her between the legs and wondered why he never had before. They had laughed often over the years, at less solemn gatherings than this, laughed at the quirks and foibles common to all families. What mystical orbits, Jack wondered, brought such strangers to our sphere, whom we immediately regarded as closest to our hearts, and to whom we could then so freely surrender?
Jack had wanted her always, just to love, just to share. Age differences evaporated in hungry gulps, lapping the inside of her walls, and tasting her, and smiling, though she couldn't see, and squeezing her hand, and making love, just making love.
Odelphia was glad he was young, and so hard; glad he had offered to accompany her in the procession, when he saw that she had come alone. She put one finger inside herself and took it out and placed it upon her lips and tasted herself, what he tasted, and grew restless with longings that for years had been unsatisfied.
Current ran both ways, and she had known he had fantasized, had fantasized herself about this. Nights were endless in space. How many nights had she seen him in her mind, his cock in his hand, dreaming of her? How many nights had her back arched in response, when the only fingers inside her were her own?
The procession slowed as it neared the designated system, the designated sun. We followed the dying a certain portion of their journey, Jack thought, and then split off on our own, headed back toward life -- the kisses and intercourse that made us know who we were, beating inside.
The lead shuttle, ferrying Mirrormar and Jack's brother, circled to take its place beside the funeral ship. The barge with Mirrormar's mother, in sparkling burial cloth enshrouded, launched itself toward the sun.
Odelphia boosted herself upon the control console and, with her back pressed to the cold glass of the viewport, took BJson's cock inside her womb. She thought of her own children. She had attended these services out of respect for Jack's sister, her best friend. She did not know the deceased well. But what was there to know? What had this woman been? A mother, no one inconsequential.
Jack felt Odelphia's legs wrap around him. The tingling came, as it always did, the soft sharpness, a kind of dull hunger in his cock, whenever he placed it inside a woman. It was a feeling that reminded him that he was at all other times outside, alone. It was a feeling appropriate to death.
The barge went into the sun. BJson went into Odelphia. The barge was swallowed up, all aflame. Odelphia spread her legs wider and did her best to pull inside her all that he was.
Jack would live forever in this moment -- the moment they had abided their passion no longer. He could not love his family, too tender inside for that; each one of them, brother and sister included, kept their emotions at a distance, afraid of feeling too much, and so never feeling enough.
Odelphia was different. How or why did not matter. All that mattered was that Jack felt his heart beating between her breasts.
The shuttles began to depart, in separate directions for separate lives. The procession of death dissolved into life again.
Jack could come inside her, safe in that, but upon her face was more personal, eyes drinking his come, carrying his climax upon her every breath inhaled. He let fly the passion and the need in salty reservoirs upon her cheeks and lips.
Odelphia watched him come and came with him and rose and kissed him on the mouth, careful to avoid one of their race's greatest insults: to wipe her face.
Both tasted the come, shared, and were one.
