Taking Flight (3 page)

What she saw was astonishing. The remaining Ys, which she’d assumed would have been long since dead, were stirring in their fluid. Not just stirring, but appearing as if they were about to make a serious attempt at swimming. Deborah wiped her forehead and a tiny droplet of perspiration dripped softly into the dish. As she watched in awe, the condemned little sperms’ flagella wriggled in unison, then stopped.

Doors were flung open in her mind and thoughts flooded through.
Why?
Why the sudden flurry of life under her microscope? She must be oozing post-orgasmic oxytocin, and her pulse quickened as she began to realize what might have happened. Without hesitating, she lifted the glass test tube from the rack, carefully wiped some of the remaining residue with a swab, and dipped it into the Petri dish.

Closing one eye, she leaned in once more to the microscope and gasped.

Chapter 3

“You mean to tell me,” Marcus said, gazing at his own fingers as they trailed languidly up Deborah’s shins where they were slung over his lap, “that female arousal is the key to saving the world?” He smiled up at her, obviously thinking she was joking.

“What I’m saying is the pheromones I must have produced after our phone call—” She blushed at the memory. “—stimulated the semen in some way.”

His look was of clear disbelief as he started to massage her calves. “But Debs, if that’s true, how the hell did the toxins kill off so many in the first place? If a good orgasm’s all it took... Surely there were more satisfied women out there?”

Deborah understood what he was getting at. And indeed, if it was true that sexual pheromones could prevent the toxins from damaging the male sperm then Marcus would have been the last to have been affected.

“I don’t know. It’s only a theory, maybe just an anomaly.”

“Have you told anyone yet?”

“No.” She had been about to call the lab manager over but something had told her not to. “No, I didn’t.”

“Good,” said Marcus, looking grim. “I don’t think you should.”

“Why not?”

“Just... I think maybe it’s better to be sure about these things before you broadcast it and get shot down.”

“Oh,” said Deborah as his intentions began to dawn on her. She caught his gaze, which confirmed what she was suspecting. “You mean we really ought to do some more research before we reveal our findings?”

Withdrawing her leg from his lap, she started to crawl toward him, seductively licking her lips, and reached out to his shirt buttons. For the briefest second something passed over his face that she couldn’t quite read. The look of lust returned quickly and a hand slid into her blouse, freeing her breast from her fine, lacy bra. At once, her nipple stiffened under his touch. With the other, he lifted her chin and gazed deep into her eyes.

“I love you,” he said with an intensity that, if she hadn’t known him so well, would have scared her.

“I know.” She brushed the feeling of uneasiness away and leaned in to those full lips. “I love you too.”

He met her kiss and rose powerfully, lifting her with one arm while pushing himself to a standing position with the other. Her eyes were closed and her mouth clamped to his, feasting on his juicy flesh as he carried her through to the bedroom. There was an urgency to his movements and he flung her onto the bed roughly, tearing off his shirt while staring at her determinedly. It turned her on beyond description to be wanted this badly. She braced herself for his weight as he almost threw himself on top of her, devouring and licking at her neck and collarbone, just at the dip that drove her wild. Her nails dug into his flesh and she helped tear his jeans off, hooking a toe in on the way down to kick them away.

He loomed above her, a huge figure of muscle and lust, and she melted beneath him, opening herself up for him. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she pressed his buttocks with her heels, beckoning him into her. He resisted and shifted his weight onto one elbow, tracing her face with his fingertips, brushing strands of hair from her lips. Following his caress with her mouth, she tried to catch his finger with her tongue, draw it into her, suckle on it, but he only let her have a tiny taste before dipping it into his own mouth, coating his long, thick digits with saliva. She quivered as he seductively slid them out, letting his lips smack shut as he snaked his fingers down to her panties.

He eased the fabric aside and worked along the entire length of her vulva like a bow, playing her like a perfectly tuned violin. She released her breath as slowly as she could as he toyed with her lips and bud, dipping down to her rear and pressing gently, before sliding back up and parting her. She loved the way he held her like this, just open long enough for her to tense a little, before plunging his fingers deep into her, wriggling them and forcing them in with the weight of his whole body. He cupped her mound while he thrust in and out and kissed her again, raw and lustful. He ate her up and she responded, straining her chin up to meet his feasting.

“I need to taste all of you,” he said, his voice thick with lust and want, and he deftly whipped off her sodden knickers and threw them aside.

Her pussy was convulsing under his expert touch and she was aware of her juices flowing out over his hands. She knew he loved it; he loved how hot and wet she got. He pulled his fingers free and moved his way down her torso, kissing and nibbling all the way to the rise of her mound where he paused, inhaling the scent of her private curls. Smiling to herself, she raked her fingers in his hair and wrapped her legs over his back, tipping her pelvis up, urging him downward. He obeyed at once and flattened his strong tongue against her pussy lips, opening them tenderly, feeling his way onto the tip of her bud then down underneath it, gently undulating the sensitive nub while Deborah tried her best not to wriggle away. Sometimes the pleasure was so intense that she could hardly bear it and her body would tense.

It was at that moment, he would tell her, that she should relax the most, breathe, and be rewarded with the sublime intensity that most people would never be able to handle. So she tried. She stilled her tightening muscles and tipped her hips rhythmically to meet his tonguing. His licking was gathering momentum and strength and he slipped his fingers back inside her, hooking them in at that special spot. She closed around them, she couldn’t help it, and he scissored his digits to open her up again. Pressure mounted in her clit and shot down into the very depths of her sex where his fingers worked. Her grip tightened in his hair and he groaned at her arousal. Just as she felt the peak and well of her orgasm, he pulled away abruptly and lurched back up to her face. She smiled at him, knowing they needed to own each other with their sexes now.

Grabbing her wrists, he stretched her body as he pulled her arms up over her head. He hovered above her, admiring her breasts through her disheveled clothing, and she admired him back, lifting her head to look down at his turgid cock between her thighs. She could see it glistening with that delightful pearl of fluid that signified his ferocious want, and she braced herself.

He paused for one more second, then took aim and sank his hard shaft all the way into her, stretching and sliding until she had to shift to accommodate his full length. Releasing her wrists, he shuffled his forearms under her legs and slid them up his biceps onto his chest, bending her double. Slowly, he pushed himself in even deeper.

Crying out in beautiful agony, she took all of him, savoring the feeling of being utterly impaled by her lover. He stayed there for a moment and gazed at her, urging her with the look she knew, telling her to relax. She breathed in deeply, then exhaled the tension in her vagina. He slid out slowly, making her feel like she was being pulled with him, just a little, then he gently sank back in. He did this a few more times then began to pulse in and out, a little more vigorously, staring into Deborah’s eyes all the while.

Her legs lost their tension and flopped against his shoulders and chest as he bounced in and out of her, lengthening his withdrawal with every thrust. Her pussy felt raw with being fucked so hard and deep, and her juices were flowing, turning her on, as he rammed against her g-spot until her climax began to build again. She reached down between the back of her thigh and his torso and felt her way from behind into the space where her bud strained from between her pussy lips. He must have felt what was going on and grabbed her probing fingers, squeezing them together and using them as a tool to rub her clit. It was so hot to have her own hand used like a sex toy in that way, and she gave over control of herself, watching him watch their hands on her pussy and his cock stretching and fucking her.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Just feel. Just become your orgasm.”

Her eyelids fluttered shut and she concentrated on breathing into every cell in her body. Light seemed to flood through her and each beam focused in on her rising sex. Deborah fell deeper into her vision as he plunged and thrust and fucked, and the lights began to dance as she opened her eyes to see his thick cock disappear into her one last time as he bucked and came inside her. Her pussy convulsed as he roughly rubbed her fingers onto her clit, and she exploded in raw, feral energy, mingling her fluid with his.

He flopped on top of her and she struggled to breathe with the weight of him on her chest. He shifted his body a little to allow her to take in air but held her fast with her fingers still jammed to her sex and him still inside her.

“I want you to remember this moment. Remember this time of us being utterly as one.” That look had returned, and panic rose in Deborah’s chest.

“Silly talk,” she said dismissively, and feigned a giggle, but his intense stare never wavered and she had to look away.

He was right. They’d got away with it for too long. He was sure to be found soon and taken to the farms. She thought of the day they’d made the decision to hide him there, in their home. He’d quit his job, saying he was going back to look after his parents south of the border. That was before the farms were common knowledge. Deborah had heard rumors of their existence and they’d acted on them immediately, playing out an acrimonious split for the benefit of neighbors and colleagues, but he’d never left. He’d simply stayed indoors and hid.

Any fertile males had long since been removed from communities and taken to the manors, but it was only a matter of time before the increasingly powerful Archmatria government began to find ways of using the infertile men who remained for their own gains. Deborah had decided to keep her head down and find a cure as quickly as possible to stop what she believed were going to be bad times ahead.

“Why don’t we start an uprising?” Marcus had said, only half joking, before he’d gone into hiding. But they’d both known it would have been a futile waste of their remaining time together.

They’d decided the only way was to keep working on a cure. Or at least discovering a reason for the sudden proliferation of the toxins.

Deborah pried her way out from underneath Marcus and rolled onto her side. Their mingled fluids trickled from her onto the sheets and she reached down between her legs and gently cupped her hands over her sex, trying to keep it all inside. If she could keep it all in, maybe he would be able to stay forever. The excitement from the discovery at the lab ebbed away, leaving a soft melancholy in its wake.

Deborah was just drifting off in Marcus’s arms when harsh banging at the front door woke them into full alert. Panicking, Deborah frantically clutched at the objects on her bedside table, searching for the clock.

“Don’t bother.” Marcus reached over and laid a calming hand on hers. “It’s still dark. They’ve come for me.”

Chapter 4

Deborah scrabbled around the room, tears sticking her sleep-wild hair to her face, picking up whatever she could grab hold of. The banging on the front door was getting louder, and Marcus knocked her to the floor, clasping his hand over her mouth, just as the beam of light from a torch slid across the disheveled room. Their hearts thundered against each other’s as Marcus pressed her down with his full weight. Deborah could hear his frightened breath, lungful after panicked lungful blowing strands of her hair back and forth across her face.

“We need to go.” He barely formed the words but Deborah heard them. He eased off her slowly and carefully when the blue torchlight passed on. Keeping low, he pulled the things Deborah had collected and flung them to the side. “We don’t have time to take anything.”

Deborah was stricken. “But my research…” she whispered, her chest lurching with the finality of what they were about to become—exiles from their own home.

Marcus cupped her face in his hands and forced her to focus through her panic.

“This is it. This is the moment that will affect our lives forever. You have to choose. Come with me and we will be on the run—perhaps for the rest of our lives—or stay and find the cure. But I have to go. I have to go…” More banging punctuated his words.

Deborah squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears against the noise. Of course there was no question. Marcus was her life; she would go with him, but if only she could just grab a few papers. She glanced through to her table where piles of folders and notes documented over a decade of her investigations. Marcus followed her gaze.

“There’s no time, we have to go
now
.” He dropped her hand and retreated, leaving the decision to save her work up to her.

She watched, frozen, as he opened the cupboard door to the escape hatch they’d made months—even years—before. She couldn’t remember how long they’d lived this secret life together. An image suddenly flashed into her brain, sealing her actions. The thought of running outside, hand in hand with her lover, was like a bolt of lightning to her soul; he’d hardly stepped foot over the threshold for years. What the hell was she thinking?

Deborah ran to the cupboard just as the front door was smashed in and what sounded like dozens of feet clattered through. Slipping down into the tiny space under the floor, she caught the trapdoor and pulled it shut, tugging on the string that would start a chain reaction of falling boxes and clothing to cover all signs of the escape hatch. It had always worked in their trial runs, but there was no one up there to check it had been a success this time.