I CHALLENGE any person in my position not to freak out.
I wake up in a dark, empty room, abandoned. I’m naked. A shirtless stranger—a clone—hugs me tightly. And I don’t remember a fucking thing.
I sit up abruptly, a scream caught in my throat. “Who am I?” I repeat, my voice rough, raspy, but high in pitch with fear.
I don’t remember. I really don’t remember who I am.
“Do not worry. I think it’s normal,” the clone says, sitting up too. I don’t like clones, but he seems gentle.
How the hell do I know I don’t like clones if I can’t remember who I am?
“That is, it’s logical,” he continues. “You’ve been in suspended animation an awful long time. Your memories will come back soon. I think.”
I brush my hair out of my face and swallow. “Suspended animation…?”
The clone glances at me with deep, dark eyes. “Yes.”
The memory of an unpleasant event makes its way into me. I shudder. “They slammed me into that sarcophagus.” My voice trembles. “I screamed for them not to. Soldier clones, like you.”
He startles. “I assure you it wasn’t me. You’ve been inside your sarcophagus for… well, for a long time.”
“How long?”
He looks away but answers my question. “Ninety-four broad cycles, or terrestrial years.”
“Ninety-four?” My head spins. I pass my hands over my face. “I was locked in that coffin for ninety-four years?”
A hesitant smile. He blinks, as if incredulous to see me, talk to me. “Yes. But I’m here. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I’m your guardian angel.”
Guardian angel. This damn room is dark, but the clone seems terribly young.
Another flashback. Me pushed down in the coffin, my father yelling, my mother crying, me screaming they couldn’t do this to me. No, not to me, what the hell.
But they did.
I feel sick. I have to throw up.
Okay. I close my eyes and drive away the memory. I’m fine this way. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember a fucking thing.
I whisper, “I’m so cold.”
Immediately, the clone closes his arms around me. And I like this, even if I fear the clones. The tiny room is lit only by what looks like a trillion stars shining from a window in the ceiling. I scrutinize him. I wasn’t wrong. His eyes are gentle.
I say, “You aren’t like all the other clones.”
He frowns a little and says nothing. Something is wrong with him. He’s really tall and his shoulders are pleasantly broad, like his hands, but he’s pale and thin and malnourished. And he’s young.
I tilt my head to study him. “Soldier clones, they are without feelings. Their aggressiveness is increased with Y-chromosomes in excess. But you seem gentle.”
I swear I don’t know how I can remember all of this. But I’m refusing to remember just what I don’t want to remember. My identity, and the reason I’m here, are just below the surface, and for the moment I want to keep them so.
He frowns. “Why do you say I am a soldier clone?”
“You have a mark,” I say, touching the genetically imprinted mark on his right bicep. “S for soldier.”
His puzzlement is staggering.
“There are many types of clones. Servants, laborers, mutants able to work in nuclear power plants—they are terrible—and also soldiers. But you don’t look at all like a soldier, apart from your mark. No, don’t leave me. I’m still cold.”
His arms, fallen sideways as he gapes in amazement, rise to hold me tight. I cuddle against his chest. I close my eyes. And I see my father’s face bending over me, inside the sarcophagus lid, mouthing the words, “At least the suspended animation will cleanse you from all the shit in your blood.”
I press my face against the clone’s neck and caress his bare chest. His skin is smooth and hairless under my palm.
It works. The bad memory frays and dissolves.
But the clone trembles slightly. I’m scaring him, maybe. “What’s your name?” I ask gently. “And how old are you?”
“Phaedrus—Phae—and I should be more or less nineteen broad cycles.”
“I don’t remember my name,” I say firmly. It’s a lie. Maybe I could remember my name and my age, but I don’t want to.
He smiles. “Don’t worry. You’ll remember. I always called you Prince.”
I raise my face from his neck and look at him. He’s handsome, genetically perfected. His features are regular, though a bit too sharp. Straight nose and strong chin like the ancient Greek statues that provided the classical beauty canons. I touch his smooth cheek. In clones, facial and body hair have been genetically eliminated. Perhaps this is why he continues to touch my hair without realizing it. I follow the path of his upper lip with my fingertip. His lips are a bit chapped. Then I meet his eyes. Clones’ eyes are icy and cold as a glass bottle. His are deep, warm and frightened. He’s scared. I’m scaring him.
“What is a guardian angel, Phae?”
“My sole purpose is to watch over you during your sleep,” he says, as if reciting from a manual.
“Do you have to watch over me even when I’m awake?”
He looks puzzled for a moment. “I’m not sure.” His arms start to fall again. I need his arms to forget myself inside.
“Please, hold me, I’m still cold. Why are you trembling? Don’t you like hugging me?”
Maybe it goes against his duties, kind of. Clones are trained hard for specific tasks, and often they screw up if forced to do something different.
He shakes his head. “No. I think instead it’s because I like it too much.”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
He swallows, and I watch as his Adam’s apple goes up and down. “I spent hours—years—staring at you behind that glass. I can’t believe you’re here in my arms.”
“How long were you watching me, Phae?”
His eyes widen in confusion. “How long…?”
“How long have you been my guardian angel?”
Surely no more than a few years. He’s just a boy.
He blinks. “I’ve just said it. I’m nineteen.”
“I know,” I begin, with patience. “I understood you’re nineteen. I asked when you started your task.”
He shrugs. “The day I was born.”
My amazement must be ridiculous, because he shakes his head and smiles. When he does it—when he smiles—his eyes seem to light up like stars and all of his face, attractive but too pale, shines. “All I know is that you left ninety-four broad cycles ago from Earth. Blasius—my predecessor—watched over you for the first seventy-five years. Then I was born.”
“Were you born here? In this… crappy place?”
“Crappy?” He enjoys the word and chuckles, as if he has never heard a word like that. “Yes. I was born in this crappy place.”
“How many clones are there on this ship?”
He touches my hair again. Now that he realizes he hasn’t done anything wrong—and I have ceased to rub on him—he’s stopped shaking. “I am the only one, since Blasius is gone.”
By now I was expecting something like that. “No one else?”
“No, no one else.”
Of course my father has spared no expense for my one-way trip. My cheeks burn in shame and rage. A crappy abandoned spaceship and only a single clone to watch over me. So much trouble to get rid of me, selling my ass to some big shot who has yet to be born in some colony deep in the asshole of the universe.
“One lifetime wasn’t enough,” the clone—Phae—continues. “And so Blasius was provided with my frozen embryo in a tub. At least that’s what he told me. He died ten years ago.”
“Since then you’ve been completely alone?”
He nods with a frown. “Why is this bothering you, Prince? Is it wrong?”
I put my hand on his cheek. He startles a little when my palm meets his skin. “Yes, it’s wrong. But it isn’t your fault.”
Now I know what happened to him. He’s a clone, but not trained. No one taught him to be a soldier, to be aggressive and to hate, and that’s why his eyes are so kind. It’s not true what they say, that feelings are genetically eliminated from clones. This is probably part of all the bullshit that rich people pretend to believe—the conditions of the Amazon rainforest aren’t so bad, the climate situation is not as dramatic as it seems, clones are inferior beings and genetic engineers make them born without feelings.
I am outraged, and I feel ashamed for the human race.
Not that I was any different once. Perhaps my father was right, after all. The suspended animation has freed me of all the shit in my blood, but there was a lot of shit even in my brain.
I say, “It must have been hard for you.”
His eyes fill abruptly, like those of a child. “I know that Blasius was just a clone, like me, but I don’t care. I consider him my father.”
“And you were just a kid of nine, ten, when you remained in this place all alone. My god. Do you hate me for this?”
He winces. “Hate you? I can’t hate you. It would be like….” He struggles, trying to express a concept with a too limited vocabulary. At the end he sighs and looks up into space through the glass in the ceiling.
“To hate you would be like hating the stars. You are a mystery too great for me to be able to hate you.”
Suddenly my heart aches.
EVEN THOUGH his skin is warm and his cheeks are slightly flushed, Prince continues to say he’s cold, so I keep holding him. Now that he’s awake, I’m not sure I have the right to communicate with him. I try to remember if Blasius said anything about it, but I don’t think Blasius even considered such an absurd idea. We have always taken for granted that Prince would never even suspect our existence.
Suddenly terror fills me. Do I seem horrible to him? Probably yes. All that talk about soldier clones makes me suspect I disgust him. I don’t understand this thing about the soldiers, though perhaps it explains why earlier I was cursing Corp for not providing me a weapon to protect Prince. Many of the things Prince has just said are beyond my comprehension. But it doesn’t matter. I’m happy just to talk to him.
Anyway, Prince doesn’t behave as if I disgust him. Instead, he continues rubbing against me and touching me, and I’m not prepared for this. Damn, I wasn’t prepared for anything that’s going on. My length aches in my pants. What if Prince realizes this? I’ll die of shame.
He doesn’t disgust me, that’s for sure. He’s so fragile, vulnerable, that my chest hurts in concern with every breath. I can’t take my eyes off his delicate skin, and his lips seem so soft that something inside me melts just looking at them. I am reminded of one of the mysterious words Blasius used, petals, and I know Prince’s lips are petals, although I don’t know what petals are. The silk of his hair enchants me. He even has something silk-like on the line of his chin, thin light hairs, and I shock myself by fantasizing about stroking my lips against it.
And then his eyes, huge and dark green, with those pale strands sailing in them. Prince’s eyes are so hypnotic I could drown in them, and when he returns my gaze, my stomach turns upside down, and I feel like I’m drifting in zero gravity.
To me, he’s mysterious. I don’t understand his actions or his words any more than I understand the stars, or Outside, or the why and wherefore of it all. His very existence is a mystery to me. But his inaccessibility also fills me with melancholy. It’s sad I shouldn’t even exist for this amazing creature, when he means everything to me. I don’t have the right to want to grasp his mystery, yet it happens.
Yes, Corp, there must be something wrong with me.
His hand leaves my cheek—I die of relief and regret at the same time—and settles gently on my chest. “What happened, Phae? Why am I awake?”
I die again. He’ll get angry for sure.
“I’m sorry. Corp kept talking about this emergency protocol, but I didn’t know what it was.”
He tilts his head slightly to look at me from under all that hair, narrowing his eyes. “Corp?”
“He who created Ship. He asked me if I wanted to start the emergency protocol and I said yes. But I never imagined the emergency protocol was your awakening.”
He frowns and starts to open his mouth—his painfully beautiful mouth—but something behind my shoulder attracts his gaze. Prince’s eyes open wide in amazement and dread.
I know what he’s seeing.
A crescent of Alien Ship rises from the slice in the ceiling. It grows to fill the glass, flows, covering us, flows on and on, and finally begins to disappear on the other side.
“Phae?”
His tone is scared, trembling.
I can’t lie to him. I’m his servant, after all. “Alien Ship. They found us. I tried to ask for help from Earth, but Corp continued to say the channel wasn’t available, or something like that.”
Prince’s eyes grow huge. “Aliens?”
I nod. “Aliens.”
He pales. All the color disappears from his lips. “Please, tell me it’s a joke. No one has ever found evidence of alien life.”
“Well, then we have found evidence. Alien life exists, I assure you. They are on board.”
His face turns gray. He starts to tremble again, so I tighten my arms around him, massaging his back. I don’t know if this can calm him down. Certainly it upsets me. “Look, Prince, we have no reason to believe they want you, right?”
“Me?” He jolts in shock.
“I’m reassured, really. At first I thought they were looking for you, but if you don’t know aliens, it’s likely they don’t know you either. With their instruments they have probably perceived not us, but the energy source of your sarcophagus.” It must be so, because otherwise the aliens would be here, but I am careful not to say this. I caress his arm. “I saved you just in time, Prince. They found your sarcophagus empty. I think they entered only out of curiosity, but Ship has been completely cleared out. They won’t find anything. Maybe a little rations in the storerooms, and uniforms, but I don’t think uniforms can interest them. They won’t even be able to wear them….”
“Did you see them?” Prince almost shouts.
“Listen,” I say, rubbing his arms. “They’ll explore Ship and find it empty, and then they’ll leave. What we need to do is stay hidden here until that thing stops orbiting around us. Does this seem reasonable?”
“Pretty much,” he admits. He tilts his head again to look at me, narrowing his eyes. I find that attitude charming. “In any case, we can’t do anything else.”
True.
“When they are gone, we’ll try to contact Earth again,” I say. I thought to reassure him by mentioning Earth, but his eyes become distant and sad. Yet Blasius was convinced Earth is a nice place.
“Hold me, I’m cold.”
I do what he wants—I’m his servant—even if it hurts. I hug him. He rests his cheek on my bare shoulder. This kills me a little.
I don’t like what he said. Someone shut him in the sarcophagus against his will. I can’t imagine anything more terrible. I think if someone tried to hurt Prince, I’d fight him to the death or die in the attempt.
“Yes, this is perfect,” he moans against my shoulder.
I realize I started to stroke his hair. I blush, even though he doesn’t seem angry.
“You are terribly gentle, Phae.”
This makes me smile. “How else would I be to you?”
This time it’s him who laughs. “No one ever stroked my hair like this. No one ever had the kindness and respect you have toward me. Do you believe me?”
I don’t know. I can hardly believe it. And he said he didn’t remember anything. If he doesn’t remember, how can he say no one has ever treated him like this? Maybe he’s just confused. Surely, I am confused.
He rubs against me. For a sizzling moment, I perceive the sweetness of his lips on my bare shoulder. My heart kicks up.
“For sure, nobody has ever been kind to you. Right, Phae?”
His voice is unusually deep in saying it.
“Blasius was kind to me,” I state, my mouth dry and my heart hammering in my ears.
“Yes, of course. But I meant another sort of kindness.”
He raises his head from my shoulder and looks at me, but I really don’t know what he’s talking about. His eyes are pretty and sweet. He touches my cheek. “You’re trembling again. You mustn’t be afraid of me.”
I try to smile, but probably the expression on my face looks more like a grimace. “It’s not that I’m afraid of you. It’s just… just….”
I close my eyes for a moment. Not even in my wildest dreams did I find myself in a situation like this. Often I dreamed of Prince waking up, and also being kind to me—I blush in shame at the memory—but I never thought he could be so human. So incomprehensible, yes, but surprisingly friendly and gentle.
I take a deep breath. “It’s just that I don’t know if I can talk to you, or touch you. I don’t know if this is within my duty.”
His gaze softens. “It is,” he concludes.
I look at him suspiciously. “Sure?”
“Do you want to touch me, Phae?”
“Oh, yes!” I blurt out, before realizing perhaps the answer may seem irreverent. “I mean, I want you to be okay. But is that okay? The King who will marry you is okay with this?”
Prince stiffens in my arms. “Do you see him here, Phae? No, he’s not here. He’s not even born yet, whoever the asshole my father sold me to is. And is your duty to take care of me or of him, Phae?”
Oh, shit. I made him angry. I bite my lips. “I’m sorry. I’m just a clone, but I want to do the right thing for you. I’m your guardian angel. I have to take care only of you. And okay, yes, you scare me.”
Prince raises his eyebrows. “Do I disgust you?”
I can only shake my head. My eyes fill and a lump grows inside my throat. I’m going to die of shame confessing this to him, but how can I lie to my Prince?
“I have this strange desire about you,” I admit, looking down, trembling. “I don’t know what it is. I know only that when you touch me, something inside of me starts whimpering and screaming, and I’m scared, yes, deadly scared. I feel pain and this makes me regret the flat existence I had until yesterday, but at the same time I’m happy and my head swirls as if I were drifting in zero gravity, and I would never go back to when you were just asleep. Can’t… I can’t explain better than that. I’m sorry. I’m just a stupid clone.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, and I expect him to say I’m horrible, I’m an abomination and he’ll have his King imprison me. But this doesn’t happen.
He remains silent for a while. Then his hand gently raises my chin. “Open your eyes, Phae.”
I do it and hot tears roll down my cheeks. And—incredibly—Prince is not angry. His gaze is… sweet?
“Listen to me, Phae. This is okay. Every human being wants someone at his side. They made me believe clones were different, but apparently they lied to me. People need to be with other people, you know? The thing they have done to you—let you grow up here alone—it’s wrong and makes me sick. But what you feel is right. It’s not disgusting or shameful, and you’re not failing in your duties. Okay?”
Even though his words are kind, and I didn’t expect him to be so gentle, I think he doesn’t understand what I meant.
“But it hurts. A very specific part of me.”
Now my face is hot and flushed, but Prince smiles. “Yes,” he says, chuckling. “I know what specific part you are talking about.”
HE’S CRYING for me.
This tall, handsome soldier is crying for my ass, literally. I could get fucked like nothing. God knows I need it. A big cock has always been the solution to all my problems. A pity the big cock was invariably attached to some big source of more problems.
Yes, I could jump on him and make him believe this is his duty and get what I want from him. The problem is, I don’t want to hurt him.
Another unpleasant image explodes in my head before I can stop it. A man who throws me on the bed and beats me and yells, “Shut up and give me your ass, you whore.”
Nobody has ever been so kind to me. Maybe I don’t deserve so much kindness, but that’s not the point.
I take his face in my hands, brushing away his tears with my thumbs. “Listen to me, Phae. Humans—and even clones, I suppose—do something to feel more connected to each other. It’s called making love. They do it using their cocks.”
Wonder explodes in his eyes.
I shrug. “Well, not only the cock. Anyway, it’s a wonderful thing.”
At least in theory. If your partner doesn’t beat you, and waits for your orgasm, it’s better, of course.
I shake my head. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just something you don’t know about yourself and your body, but it’s okay.”
He relaxes slightly. “Really?”
“Really.”
“And do humans make that thing—”
“Making love.”
“Do they make love often?”
Well. I did. I lay in some unknown bed when my father rescued me, full of synthetic drugs. Even though I struggle with all my soul not to remember, it’s just below the surface, ready to explode, and some memories of my descent into drugs resurface. Parties and drugs and casual sex—my life was just that. A shame for my father and for my family. “At least suspended animation will clean all that shit from your blood,” my father had said. Yes, and suspended animation had cleaned even my brain. I had been just a spoiled brat engaged in an attempt to destroy his pointless existence. A junkie. I feel shamed in Phae’s eyes; he’s so heroic to watch over me for life. He thinks I’m special, but he doesn’t know about all the crap I did.
“Better people make love only to whom they feel a special bond with,” I say.
He relaxes suddenly. He smiles, even. “Oh. Then everything is clear. It’s only the special bond I have with you that makes me feel this way, right?”
This time it’s my turn to want to cry. “Do you feel a special bond with me?” I ask in a low voice.
His smile widens. He takes my wrists and massages them in his big hands. “Well, after nineteen years or so passed watching over you, I have no problem admitting I have a special bond with you, Prince.”
“But it was just your duty, right?” I ask, looking straight in his eyes.
He thinks about it. “Yes, it was my duty. But….”
He squeezes my hands, choosing his words carefully. “Although I’m devoted to you, there’s a point where duty ends and my will begins, and I chose you anyway. You are my special person. Yes, maybe it’s an obvious choice, but I’m proud of it, and it’s perhaps the only thing that allowed me to go on so far.”
Suddenly my heart leaps in my chest and I feel a strange pain, a regret for how I could be if I hadn’t wasted my life. But who am I kidding? I can’t blame my father or my family for my being in this situation. It’s only my fault. I was a despicable person. I, worthless son of a politician in decline, did nothing but solve my silly problems by jumping from one bed to another and drowning my senseless life in drugs. This clone is giving me a great lesson in nobility and courage. And I don’t deserve his love.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asks, brushing my hair back.
I shake my head. “Phae, I can do something for you, as a reward for your loyalty and devotion. If you want, I can teach you about making love.”
He winces and looks scared as hell. “I don’t need a reward!”
“I know, I know.” I stroke his chin. Suddenly he’s all I need now and I want him to say yes. Desperately. “It’s something I want to give to you, Phae.”
He starts to tremble again. “I don’t know if I can….”
I try to imagine how it would be, knowing nothing about sex and finding out suddenly. I can’t. I always knew about sex, even as a child. My parents were into a sort of new age sexual freedom, like all rich people on Earth.
“Let’s do it this way. I start to teach you something, and you can tell me to stop at any moment. Okay?”
He doesn’t know what to say. And I’m afraid of a rejection, so I kiss him. It’s a simple, small kiss on his closed lips, but he jumps up as if I hit him. He stares at me with big, dark eyes. All the stars in the open space above our heads seem to shine in them.
“That was a kiss,” I say, putting my arms around his neck. “Do you want to try it again?”
A groan escapes his mouth as he hugs me, his eyes shut. I don’t think he’s fully conscious. He covers my lips with small, tender kisses, and I smile under them. He’s one who learns immediately and willingly.
I fall on the cot, dragging him down with me. He barely notices, committed to covering my mouth and chin with pecks, making me giggle. My prick is getting hard for him, and his boner presses on my bare thigh through the thin fabric of his pants. I think this lesson will be very special for both of us.
All at once, the alien ship rises above us again, orbiting around this big wreck lost in space. My smile dies. The large shape darkens the starlight, obscuring us, like an omen. Phae doesn’t even notice it, completely absorbed by his new discovery.
I hope Phae is right in saying they’ll go away, because we can’t do anything but stay hidden, wait and see. I close my eyes, enjoying his naïve kisses for a little while, before teaching him some French.
I BECOME my mouth.
Prince’s lips are really as soft as they seemed. Savoring him has completely cleared my thoughts, even though deep down, very deep down, I’m incredulous Prince is really allowing me to do this. Sooner or later he’ll recover his sanity and will ask me to stop.
Prince holds my head firmly and opens his mouth.
Oh, Corp.
His tongue on mine. A warm, humid pleasure that wraps me. My head spins, my body melts down. The painful pressure of his thigh on my aching length becomes too much, and I moan in his mouth at the sudden, unexpected release.
I spurt in my pants.
What a shame.
I shut my eyes and brace myself, waiting for his disgusted rejection, but instead he giggles and rubs his bare thigh against the wet spot on my pants. “Holy crap! You were really revved up!”
Sometimes I think he doesn’t talk like a prince.
He chuckles at my flushed face and kisses me again, his tongue searching for mine impudently. My length perks up anew, despite the recent unsatisfactory release.
He allows me to do it again. I’m stunned. This kind of kiss is very intimate. I can explore the inside of his mouth, breathe his breath, suck his lips, taste his flavor. This simple act creates a strong bond between us, and I am movingly grateful toward Prince. Our tongues follow one another until I feel like drowning in him. Then he breaks away, catching his breath, leaving me confused and happy.
Prince brushes his hair away with an impatient gesture and inspects me. His face is sweaty, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes deep and warm and challenging. “You can use your mouth on my body, wherever you prefer.”
I swallow hard. “Wherever?”
A little, naughty smile. “Yes. Wherever.”
I prop on my elbow and consider the proposal.
He lies on the cot next to me, naked. He turns on his back and opens his arms, and even his legs a little, for me to watch him. His white skin glows in the dim starlight, and my breath fails.
I know him; he’s the same as ever, yet so different, so alive. His skin is so smooth, so vibrant and promising that my palms tingle with the desire to touch him. I can’t believe I am finally allowed to do it. I’ve wanted this for so long that now I feel like crying.
I don’t know where to start. My gaze lingers upon his body and slides down for a moment. His length—Prince called that part “cock”—is hard, wet on the tip, but I blush and look away. I don’t feel like dealing with the parts of his body invisible through the sarcophagus glass. Yet.
Instead, I want to express my devotion to one of the places I always longed for. The hollow between his collarbones. I lean and let my lips approach the sweet depression.
I always observed Prince in awe, but Corp, I never smelled him. I didn’t suspect he emanated such an intoxicating scent. As my mouth comes in contact with his skin, I close my eyes. Just beneath my lips, his heartbeat races.
At the touch, Prince holds his breath, and his skin covers in little bumps. Incredible. It happens to him too. He shivers exactly like me.
Without breaking the contact, I shift down to the middle of his chest, where I find a few drops of salty sweat to lick away. Prince’s indefinable scent makes me think of forgotten things of Earth, the way Blasius’s eyes became melancholy and distant when he thought of the lost planet. Prince smells of mysterious, lost treasures unexpectedly at your fingertips. I dare to climb toward his nipple, and I open my eyes to look up at him for approval.
Prince twists his mouth in a naughty, encouraging smile.
So I close my lips around the little prominence, suddenly a hard dot. Prince moans and rubs his fingers on the back of my head. A row of sparks runs down my spine and my cock grows fully hard again.
I seem to understand one of the secrets of this making love—Prince’s reaction is at least half the pleasure. I shift to the other nipple and Prince squirms under me. The way he sighs, closing his eyes and sinking his nails into my neck, turns my body into something liquid, but my cock, hard as steel.
Maybe another of the secrets of lovemaking is that everything around us disappears. Only the two of us exist. This abandoned spaceship, the danger we are running from, aliens—everything fades into the background. I’m experiencing a dramatic change of perspective. Nothing matters except Prince and the way he reacts to my touch. This is true for the past as well as for the future. It doesn’t seem so bad having spent a lifetime alone on this abandoned spaceship, if this is the reward. I don’t even care about an uncertain future. The only thing that matters in my own universe is having him here and now.
“Down,” Prince whispers, his eyes shut. He’s relaxed, but his tone implies some urgency, as does the way his fingernails scratch the skin at the nape of my neck. I obey.
I go down, my lips sliding on his soft skin, until I reach his navel. I explore the little cave with my tongue. Yeah, salted and scented. I follow a trail of hairs—pale and almost invisible—from his navel to his groin. Then I stop. I know I have to kiss his cock, but I don’t know how to do it.
Prince opens his eyes to investigate my hesitation. “You okay?”
“I have never felt better than this. But….”
He rises on his elbow and stares at me. “You want me to do it to you?” he asks, a hint of a smile lingering in the dimples at the corners of his mouth.
Oh, shit. The thought of him kissing my cock makes me dizzy. “No, I can do it.”
He giggles at my scared face. “You just have to rely on your instincts. You aren’t doing bad.”
Okay. I gather my courage.
Prince’s cock is more graceful than mine, but surprisingly large for him, as he is so small and thin. I always wanted to know the texture of the golden curls surrounding it. I sink my fingers in them. Silk. I knew it.
“Oh, shit,” Prince says with a hint of discomfort.
I look up at his face. His cheeks are a little flushed.
“I’m sorry,” he explains. “I woke up from that forced nap hairy like a monkey.”
I don’t understand why he has to apologize. “Did I do something wrong?”
Prince shakes his head sharply. “There are no rules. You have to do what you like and don’t do what you find disgusting.”
“Disgusting?” I say after a pause. It isn’t a word that, in my opinion, applies to Prince.
Prince holds back a laugh. “Let’s make a pact, Phae. I know you are devoted to me, but if I ask you to do something you don’t like, you have to tell me.”
I wrap a curl of his hair around my finger. “I don’t feel disgusted.” I lean down to sniff his groin. “No. Definitely.”
He falls on the cot, giggling under his breath. As I take his length in my hand, his chuckles turn into a moan.
I’m amazed. Prince’s cock is exactly like mine, and yet it’s strange in my hand, hard but delicate and pulsing. I stroke it gently. Slowly, for fear of hurting him, I pull down the skin to discover the humid tip.
Prince’s breathing becomes broken. “Shit, Phae, do it!”
Of course I can’t disappoint him. I taste him. I lick away the salted liquid on the crown. I nibble all along his shaft. In a frenzy, I rub my face on his balls and on the inner part of his white thighs, then come back all the way up to the tip. As I take the silky head of his cock inside my mouth, Prince groans and arches his back. I open my eyes wide in amazement as he starts to burst in my mouth and on my face.
Honestly, I didn’t think it happened to him too. Prince reaches his pleasure exactly like me. His pale liquid spurts upon my lips and chin and inside my mouth. A salted invasion. I shift my gaze to Prince’s sweaty face, astonished. At the sight of his eyes shut, of his lips parted and hair glued to his flushed cheeks, a pang of desire slices through my belly and I have to reach down for my own cock.
I moan. Prince opens his eyes wide and shouts, “Don’t you dare, your dick is mine!”
Before I realize what’s happening, Prince rolls onto his side and abruptly pulls down the elastic band of my pants. My cock is so hard that it slaps on my belly with a damp sound.
“Oh, shit, thanks!” Prince moans, and then I witness without words, him, my Prince, swallowing my whole shaft into his throat, regardless of my previous release still smearing it.
The pleasure grabs me so abruptly I’m sure I’m going to die. I shout and writhe on the cot as I burst deep inside my Prince’s mouth. It’s so intense, so overwhelming it almost hurts. Everything around me becomes black and buzzing, and in my head constellations and galaxies explode.
I spiral down.
“SHIT. PHAE? Are you alive?”
Prince pats my face with his palm. “Oh my god. Have I killed you?”
His concern brings me back abruptly. I open my eyes.
“Fuck.” He sighs in relief. “I thought I killed you.” Prince takes my chin and turns my head to study my eyes. “I’m sorry, Phae.”
“Sorry…?” I manage.
“You okay?”
I nod. I’m fine, although a little confused. I am amazed to still be here, in this… how did Prince call it? Yes, in this crappy place. I thought I was drifting in Outside. “Yes,” I say, as a stupid grin lights up on my face. “Did you swallow all my… my….”
“Shit. I should have been gentle with you.” Prince strokes my cheek with his knuckles. “I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not so sorry.”
He bursts into a short, bubbly laugh. “Yes, I suppose.” He sighs and snuggles up to me on the small cot. “Can you do a little thing for me? Can you hug me?”
I rush to please him. I hold him tight in my arms as he nestles against me and slips a leg between my thighs. He locks his eyes with mine. He chuckles, and I chuckle back, still dazed.
“So how about your first time?” Prince asks sleepily.
I search for the right word. “Annihilating.”
He grins. “And we haven’t finished yet.”
At my worried expression, Prince bursts out in a deep laugh. I open my eyes wide, marveling. I didn’t think adults could laugh that way. “It was only foreplay,” Prince says, fits of laughter still shaking him.
“Yet I almost died,” I comment, and he bursts out again.
I’m stunned. His laugh is magical, contagious. I join him, sniggering under my breath. Then Alien Ship rises again, obscuring the stars, drawing a dark shadow on our bodies, and we fall silent.
Prince turns sad. He shuts his eyes and shivers, snuggling closer, and I sense he’s pushing away bad memories. I massage his back, placing my lips on the scented point where his hair begins.
“We still have time, Phae,” he says in a forcibly cheerful tone. “Apparently they haven’t finished snooping around yet.”
Yeah. I wish I could do something, maybe deal with the aliens and fight them back to defend Prince, but what the hell can I do against those monstrous things? A lump of anger and impotence closes my throat.
Prince rises up on his elbow. “Hey. One isn’t supposed to be sad during his first time.”
I force myself to smile.
Prince narrows his eyes and looks at me naughtily. “My mouth isn’t the only place you have to slip your cock into.”
Again, he bursts out laughing at my stunned, confused face. I’m bewildered. No. He’s joking. He can’t mean what I think.
“Yes, yes, you guessed right,” he says, wiping his eyes. “You have to put it in my ass.”
Slowly, my face catches on fire. “You are kidding me.”
He shakes his head rapidly, still giggling. “No. I swear.” Then he stops, suddenly serious. “How do you feel at the thought? Disgusted?”
Absurd. He’s kidding me. The thing he has just described is impossible.
I think about putting my cock in the place he mentioned. And, surprisingly, said cock fills and presses against Prince’s belly.
He squirms close up to me. “Wow. This is an answer!”
“You are making fun of me,” I say, confused. “You don’t make love this way on Earth.”
He chuckles. “Everyone makes love this way on Earth, believe me.”
“You did it?” I ask, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.
“You bet!” He grins. “I’m not so virgin as my future husband thinks. Not at all.”
I frown. I’m not sure I understand. “But it’s not… painful?”
“A little, but only the first few times, I suppose. During my first time, I was too drunk to—”
Prince closes his eyes, probably struggling to drive away the memory. “Okay.” He sighs. “Sorry, Phae. I’m going too fast. I know this. I know you need time, but….” He shrugs.
I know what he means. I need time to learn to make love properly, but we have no time.
I hug him and search for his gaze. “Teach me.”
He narrows his eyes, a smile lingering on his closed lips. “Sure?”
I nod. “Sure.”
The aliens could find us and kill us, or leave and destroy Ship at any moment.
What have I got to lose?