The Ilia's Lovers - Chapter Twenty

Elaine slept alone. Later, when it was utterly dark, with only the light off the moon of Tarokan shining down on their island, she awoke to hear the sound of lovemaking crossing the distance, enticing her to cross the deck to Dahnus and Hadith.

She wanted to. But still, that wall of overwhelm felt like a weight pressing her onto her bed.

The next time she woke, the sun was rising and there was a knocking sound. Elaine opened her eyes to see Hadith standing on the decking outside her room.

“Dahnus is working this morning. I thought we could spend the morning together.”

“That sound like a really good idea,” Elaine replied, still lying in the comfort of her bedding. “Let me get a shower, and I’ll meet you in a few minutes?”

“I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Hadith wondered off, Elaine watching him as she stretched and yawned.

A few minutes later, showered and dressed in a new bikini and a wrap acting in lieu of a skirt, she crossed the deck into the kitchen. Coming up behind Hadith, she pressed herself to his broad back and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as best as she could. Hadith touched her hand, chuckling.

“Good morning,” she whispered as she squeezed.

“Good morning? We ask, if people had a good sleep?”

“Mostly. But the people in the next room were having very loud sex. It woke me up.”

Hadith laughed and Elaine grinned as she sat down at the preparation counter.

“I’m not sorry we woke you. I am sorry you didn’t join us. I don’t mean to pressure you. Just, your presence was missed.”

“Soon. I just have to get past this final barrier. Every time I hear you, I can feel it crumbling just a little more. You Amarans really are very open about sex.”

Hadith smiled.

“It’s in our nature. Once we were reserved about it. After adalan fought for our rights, when it became common to discuss consent, our society began to open up about it. I believe Amara is better off for being open and honest about these things.”

“There are parts of Earth that would agree with you and parts that would fight you to stop it. The part I came from was settled by Puritans who hated sex unless it was to make babies. They had a dramatic effect of how our country developed.”

“But you are open about sex. At least, not as embarrassed as some humans Dahnus and I have met.”

“My mom was very open about her life. Not sex. It’s not like I got an inappropriate sexual education. But, she openly loved her girlfriends. She wanted me to understand how much danger I was in as a girl and a woman and about bodily autonomy. She never made me hug relatives if I didn’t want to. I hated seeing my friends’ parents do that to them. My friends were told their private parts were private and there was an element of shame about it. But my mom told me my body was mine to do as I please and that meant no one should try and make me do things I don’t want to do, and I had the right to say no.”

Your mother would have fit in very well here,” Hadith said gently, smiling.

Elaine smiled and nodded.

“I think you’re right. I think she would have loved your people. I miss her,” Elaine admitted. “I miss fixing engines with her. I miss what it was like to stand by her side while she showed me an antique car’s engine. Helping her fix them. I miss turning on an engine that hasn’t run right, or at all, and hearing it purr for the first time. She’d give me this big grin. So happy. So satisfied with what she did.”

“Would you like a drink?” Hadith asked.

“Something warm,” Elaine said. “I miss my morning coffee, too.”

“I will have to see we get coffee then,” Hadith said, slipping from his seat and walking around the counter to prepare a drink.

“I hope you don’t mind a Caelin drink? The race who committed the violation. This drink, Palla tastes, according to Tara Hannigan, like hot raspberries.”

Elaine thought a moment. “Well, if Hannigan could tolerate it, I’m sure I can.”

Hadith smiled and nodded.

“Tell me something. Why did your mother move to the space station if she enjoyed fixing these vehicle engines so much.”

The vice of grief around Elaine’s heart, the one she had long grown accustomed to, tightened its grip a little.

“Well. There was good money in cars. But mom wanted me to have the very best education. It takes a lot to get a license to have a kid on Earth. I always wanted one. To be honest, I always wanted lots of kids. If I could, I’d keep having them until I couldn’t anymore. I know that sounds irresponsible, but—”“Why is that irresponsible?” Hadith asked. There was something about his expression. Longing. But it disappeared, consumed by confusion.

“Well, I guess it’s not out here. With loads of colony worlds and expansion. But on Earth where there are so many of us, and so few resources, one kid is pushing it.”

“I can’t imagine, Elaine. I’m sorry.”

Elaine shook her head and smiled.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” She assured him.

“So, you want lots of children?” again that longing was back.

Elaine nodded.

“It’s so stupid on Earth, but I… I long for it.’ She shrugged.

“But like I said, it’s hard to get permission just for one kid and almost impossible for two. My best bet was to be someone important. Not, like, Earth level, but important that making me happy became a little priority. Traders, people like Rhona Desares, their families can get permission because they’re traders. I thought about that. But I love engines. I wanted to be an engineer, so I thought about joining ISAF. But the competition is high. But if you go to the right schools, there are funnel schools that lead you into the military. Sentinel Stations schools are all funnel schools. But Concord station has one as well and my mom was always in demand. She got offers from stations all the time. She accepted Concord so I could go to a funnel school.”

Elaine wasn’t even aware she had begun to cry until Hadith rounded the counter and took her in his arms.

“She was only supposed to be there long enough for me to graduate high school and go to an academy funded college engineering course. She was gonna go home to San Francisco. We never sold the house, just rented it out. But a month before my graduation, she was gone.”

“Oh, Elaine. I’m so sorry.”

Hadith stood over her, stroking her hair while she got herself back under control. Finally, she let out a deep breath.

“Whew! I don’t know where that came from,” she tried to joke.

Hadith stepped away a little and looked down at her.

“What you have been through has brought up old pain and made it feel new. That is understandable. You should be kinder to yourself. There is no one here to judge you. Just Dahnus and I to support you.”

A rush of emotion overcame Elaine. She threw her arms around Hadith and buried her face in his chest. By slow degrees, she wrested back control, then looked up at him.

“I don’t even know how to say how much I appreciate you and Dahnus. Everything you’ve done for me since I arrived. Protection, Harumi, clothes and the Sunset Balcony. Everything you are.”

“Not to diminish what you have come to mean to Dahnus and I, Elaine. We would do, and often do the same for any person who has suffered the horrors you have. Dahnus did the same for me too. He considers it the barest minimum. Now come, let us take the palla to the pier. Our morning meal has arrived.”

Elaine turned to the pier to see the food sitting on the table under the shimmer of the forcefield.

“I never see the staff. Stuff just appears. The beds just get made. Towels. Tidying. Where is everyone?”

Hadith chuckled.

“Our staff are simply the best.”

Hadith handed Elaine her palla. She took a sip and had to agree with Tara Hannigan about the flavour, though it had a citrusy flavour to it as well. Helping Elaine down from the seat, he placed a hand on her back and together they walked over to have breakfast.

*****

Dahnus joined them for lunch and they spent the rest of the day together. The Varosai festival was still visible during the day, but muted, pale against the ambient light of the Amaran star which they called Osa.

As day turned to twilights, while they ate their evening meal, and then inched towards night, Elaine watched as the colours became deeper. More saturated.

“It’s like your eyes,’ Elaine said, watching the colours transition from the red to the blue spectrum.

“Our eyes?’ Dahnus asked, a knowing look on his face.

“Like, during the day, it’s like your… like Dunaar and caya eyes. Muted and pale. But then at night it transitions to adalan eyes.”

Both Hadith and Dahnus smiled.

“Thousands of years ago, before our races merged, we believed that the Varosai festival was a sign both our races were beloved of our god. It’s said, the night Tarokan first made love to Denisteer and Athia, the Varosai display began, several months early, as a sign from our god that he wanted our races to merge.”

“Revisionist history at best,” Hadith said.

“But a romantic revision,” Dahnus said, slipping his fingers in Hadith’s hand.

Hadith gave Dahnus a lop-sided grin.

“Obviously done to justify everything that came after.”

“And it never could, my love. But I like to believe that the night Tarokan, Denisteer and Athia made love, that Denisteer was a willing participant.”

Elaine hoped so too.

Hours later, the three of them went to their separate bedrooms. Elaine got in bed and when Dahnus and Hadith went to the pier for their tradition, she pretended to be asleep.

After they were gone, she imagined them walking out to the pier, where the staff would have set up the lounging bed. She thought about them getting naked.

“Tomorrow night. I will take Hadith out to the pier and make love to him under the stars during the height of that night’s Varosai light display”

Elaine could practically feel Dahnus’s breath on her cheek as she spoke to her.

“And when we do, please, feel free to watch, from afar, close, or join us. It is entirely up to you, Elaine. But know, Hadith and I want you, all the time. We wait only for your word.”

Elaine’s breath was heavy and shallow. She swept the covers back and got out of bed, heading to the pier. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would do when she got there, but at the very least, she needed to see them.

The pier was divided from the decking on which the individual rooms sat by a plant display of flowers, bushes and trees. Elaine hesitated when she got there and heard the sounds of Dahnus and Hadith. She stepped closer to the bushes and peered over them to the bed, her breath catching at the sight.

Hadith lay on his stomach, supine and relaxed, though, perhaps from the way his hands gripped the cover of the soft mattress beneath him, relaxed was the opposite word to what Hadith was feeling.

Tense, urgent. His muscles flexed and he groaned and moaned.

Dahnus was over him, resting his weight on his left side, his left knee and forearm on the mattress beside Hadith steadying him, his right foot tipping him forward in a slow movement, his thigh parallel to his body, his hand resting on Hadith’s shoulder. His body was carved, muscular, powerful. More powerful than Elaine would have thought despite the fact she’d seen his bared chest almost constantly, even seen him walking around the island in loose pants. But in this pose, it seemed to pick out each individual muscle, limned in light from Tarokan hanging over them.

He slowly withdrew, and Hadith bucked and arched his back beneath him, Dahnus pushing him down, his hand keeping him in place as Dahnus fucked him oh so slowly.

Elaine’s pussy clenched, as she imagined she was being fucked by Dahnus like that. With slow, iron-willed control.

Dahnus licked up the line of Hadith’s back and again Hadith tried to arch back into it, but Dahnus held him secure.

“Please, Dahnus.” The words burst out of Hadith like a desperate prayer.

But Dahnus kept his pace.

All the while, he whispered to Hadith. Elaine wondered; were they words of love? Dirty talk? instructions?

The way Dahnus looked at him, at Hadith, it was a love purer than anything Elaine had ever seen. Tender, accepting, infinitely patient.

Elaine could feel the slick between her legs. Her nipples tingled, she could feel the gentle breeze over bared skin like ghosts of future touches and kisses, like Athia itself was promising her a world of love and sensuality.

Still, she didn’t move from her spot.

For the first time in over two years, Elaine wanted what she was seeing, what she was hearing. She wanted to join them, make love with them.

But they were so beautiful in this moment. Sharing themselves and their bodies in a testament of love.

As much as Elaine wanted to join them, she wanted to experience this more.

Suddenly, the Amaran proclivity for voyeurism didn’t seem so strange. Though Elaine knew she would never feel comfortable with strangers watching her after everything Castus did. But Dahnus watching her and Hadith while they made love. Or Hadith watching her and Dahnus. That would just as beautiful as this was to her.

“Dahnus, I’m going to cum,” Hadith warned.

Dahnus reached around and continued fucking Hadith just as slowly. When Hadith’s body locked and he cried out and Dahnus’s hand reappeared on his back, Elaine realised Dahnus had prevented him from ejaculating, keeping him there, cock hard, needy, but now unable to cum again for a while.

They kissed. Dahnus with his hand wrapped around Hadith’s throat and still he continued on at the maddeningly slow page.

They must have fucked for over an hour, Hadith orgasming again, before finally Dahnus sped his pace.

Watching Dahnus cum, his eyes focused on his lover, his control locked in place, his own groan long and filthy, brought Elaine so close she knew the barest of touches would make her explode.

Finally, when he was done, Dahnus turned Hadith around and took him in his mouth. Hadith’s fingers carded into Dahnus’s hair, fisting when he came inside him, his whole upper body rising off the bed, his cries echoing around the island.

Hadith fell back, and both he and Elaine watched as Dahnus, on arms that shouldn’t be that sculpted on what was essentially an emperor, moved up the bed, covering his lover. The two of them kissed, long, deep, sensuous. Then, Dahnus moved to the side, Hadith turning into his arms and they held one another, Dahnus stroking Hadith’s hair and talking to him quietly so Elaine couldn’t hear.

Elaine stood there and watched their post-coital bonding. Watched them utterly happy and relaxed. Watched them fall asleep, and for some time after.

Finally, she slipped into bed and with a few touches came and immediately slipped into sleep herself.