The Misbegotten

Estefan propped up his head with the pillows at the top of one of the four, twin-sized beds. He was further back from the living area where the Aegis Synod had met minutes ago.

The Null-unit comprised four basic sections. There were no walls or partitions demarking where one ended and the other began. The one closest to the entryway, was the living area. It had a few chairs, a small sofa, a bolted down, low-slung table and not much else. The next area was a sleeping area. It consisted of four beds, some shelving. There was one closet-like structure where one could store clothing and the like. Beyond that was a kitchen and dining are. A washing space followed where one could shower or relieve themselves should the need arise. There were only opaque screens for privacy back there, so it was good he and Flavia weren’t squeamish about such things. They had shared much more intimate moments between them over the years.

“Who else could it be, but us, Effy,” murmured Flavia. She came to sit next to him the bed, reaching out to stroke the side of his hard face.

He grunted, lost in thought, staring at the wall on other side of the chamber.

“No one can do what we do,” she persisted, running her fingers over his bald head. She wiped at the thin layer of perspiration sticking to it.

His exertions earlier must’ve made him sweat for a few seconds. Heavies only perspire due to strong emotional release, since the environment did not touch them. Reactions such as this required an internal fuse.

“And you shouldn’t worry.” She went on, “I’m sure you’ll take every precaution to make sure none of us get hurt.”

“There will be everything from self-righteous Trû-Knights to insane Tech-Mechs out there looking for the Shadow Spark once word gets out, Flavy. I’m uncertain I will be able to protect you all at the same time,” he replied, sounding wounded.

She leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “You will find a way,” she whispered onto his skin. She scooted down so she could lie along the length of his body, facing him. Her tight fitting, bio-spandex suit could not hide the feminine qualities underneath its’ sheer material. Out of habit, she draped a leg over his lower extremities, her left arm came across his chest.

He placed a hand upon her arm, as gentle as he could. He did not want to bruise her out of carelessness. “I love you, Flavy. I love you all. How can you ask me to risk something so precious to me?”

She bent around his shoulder to bite him on the ear hard.

This made him squirm with delight.

It was one of the best things she liked about him being a Heavy. She could get very rough and, to him, it would seem like she was only tickling. “We love you too. You knew that each day one of us took you to bed. We will follow you anywhere, Effy.

“But, my dear, this is the right thing to do. Maybe it will make right the many wrongs we have done in these long, long lifetimes of ours.” Her voice lightened. Her face sparkled with hope.

He trembled with a fear unlike anything she’d ever felt within him. He was always so self-assured and in command. It puzzled her to see him so frightened, vulnerable. And yet, it made her want to care for him at the same time, make him feel better.

“I would go mad if I lost any of you. I couldn’t go through that again, Flavy. It took me almost a century to climb out of the self-made shithole of loathing and deprecation the last time. I was lost then, even with the lot of you around me to lend a hand, to give me support. I think for a few years I was evil. When I look back, I can’t deny it. I was that angry at the world, at everything.” His voice trailed off. Then, he turned to face her. “I haven’t dredged through those feelings for so long. I forgot how they felt. I’ve been so busy caring for my girls, making love to them. I’ve been raising children, building a safe place for us all. I haven’t had the time – or the care – to think about those times. I don’t want to either. They bring back too much.”

She brought the arm she’d draped about him upward to hold him at the base of his skull. She pushed him to her until their noses were almost touching. “Why don’t you let me care for you now? Let me make love to you, so you can lose yourself with me, for a short time at least. What do you think?”

“I don’t know if I’m in the mood right now,” he replied. He gazed up at the rough, metallic ceiling of the Null-unit.

“Since when are you not in the mood?” she teased. She ran her fingers along his neck to the top of his shoulders and then back again.

He grunted a chuckle.

She played with his ear.

The silence stretched.

Her hand stopped moving. “Are you serious? Are you going to ignore my offer?” inquired the raven beauty. Her eyebrows came together in the middle.

He glanced at her sideways. “You weren’t joking?”

“Do I ever joke about sex?”

“Well, no,” he stammered, shrugging though he was lying down. “You are never that direct either. I just thought you were trying to make light of the situation.”

“I want to make ‘love’, not ‘light’.”

He frowned uncertain.

“Sometimes, you’re a complete numb-nut,” she muttered. Then she closed the distance between them and gave him a warm, slow kiss on the lips. She closed her eyes, lost to the firm heat pulsating from his touch. She melted her body to his, wrapping her leg around him. She hooked him with her heel above the knee, so their pelvises came together.

He seemed to recover, letting his free arm roam along her back. It reached the bulge leading to the twin globes of her rear end. He applied pressure.

She immediately responded, rubbing her pelvic bone into the growing hardness between them.

He breathed into her. “You were serious.”

“Numb-nut,” was all she said.

It was their “tell”. It was something they used to see if the other wished to make love without having to voice the question. All it took was slight pressure just above the buttocks from one and the corresponding grinding of the hips by the other. Despite being step-brother and sister over three hundred and fifty years prior, their marriage had lasted for almost as long. It was familiar dance between their bodies. When one gave the “tell” and the other received it, their level of excitement increased. Their ardor skyrocketed. This time there was no exception.

Flavia seemed to explode from the surface of the bed. She came to straddle Estefan across his stomach, peering down at him in the dim light. She touched the fastening sensors along the left side of her garment. It opened at once. She stopped at her waist and then hit the sensor at her neck, pulling her arms free of the sleeves. Within seconds, she wore nothing from the waist up. Her firm, handful-sized breasts bounced in the dim light. Her chest flushed red, her pink areolas rippled with tension, her nipples standing at attention. She stood in a flash, kicking off her heels. She hit more sensors, until she was able to peel away the rest of the bio-spandex suit. She stood there, towering above him. The thin, natural trim of her public hairs hugged along the angle of her pubis. They stopped right at the hood of her clitoris. She was hairless below.

Estefan gazed up at her, his eyes hooded with need, long lost fear still trying to percolate to the fore. But, the sight of Flavia was too arresting. She was too captivating to enable him to think beyond the firm muscles in her legs. Though she, herself, had given him three daughters and a son, her belly was washboard flat.

She was standing on the balls of her feet, angling her sex toward him. Her fathomless orbs swam with desire. She wanted him to taste her. She wanted to lower herself upon him and feel the tiny, fervent flicks of his tongue.

He grinned and held up his hands to her.

She edged forward, so they cupped the back of her taut butt cheeks.

He pulled her to his mouth. He could tell what she wanted by the expression in her face.

Make love to me with your mouth…

Ever so slow, though she was dying with anticipation, she went flat footed. She bent at the knees, dropping her hips, arching her back until… she felt the broadness of his tongue. He licked from the top of her anus to the folds concealing her sensitive bud. She couldn’t hold back any longer. She fell upon him.

He kissed her, as intimate as any man could kiss a woman. His practiced flecks and swirls making her delirious with delight within seconds.

“Aaah, how I love you…,” she cried with a cracking voice.

She spread her knees further apart and grabbed him by the skin upon either side of his face. She yanked him upward and into her sex. Her labium’s spread at the same angle of her thighs. Her vibrant node completely exposed to his manipulations. She felt him breathe into her. She shuddered as his warm breath caressed her internal walls.

His hands roamed the length of her back, his nails gentling raking as they went.

She ground her hips into his visage, using slight pressure at the knees to give her the necessary leverage. Her toes she pointed until they almost hurt. The strain filling her body was building, becoming immense. She knew, before long, it would be more than she could handle. It would overwhelm her, crash through her, but not yet…

His hands drew downward, his fingers splaying as wide as he could make them. He filled them with as much of the fleshy mounds of her butt as he could. He used this most delicate push forward to open her further before his tongue. It was just the right sort of nudge and her quivering button came free from its sheath. He sucked it, placing warm lips around the super-charged nodule, sucking, sucking… sucking.

Above him, she arched her back, an inaudible, “Uuuunnnh!” escaping her. She threw her arms behind her. She placed her hands atop his knees, giving him more of herself. Her legs opened further as she began to churn her hips in tight, jerking circles in exact rhythm with his suckling of her. Faster, and then faster again, the need built, the tension grew. She could feel the brink was near. It felt as though her chest was on fire. Her nipples were so rigid with the lust filling her chest; they became sensitive to the air surrounding them. Still, she ground woman’s mound into his face.

“Oh, oh, oh, E-Eff, oh, oh, h-how I love you!” she groaned through clenched teeth.

He could feel the woman above him was close. He could feel the massing desire, the want for release in her thighs at either side if his head. Her entire body was as tight as a bowstring, pulled full and ready to fire. His body was responding in kind. He could feel the ache within his slacks, his member gorged and throbbing. His clutch of her rear end became intense. His fingers dug into her flesh, kneading, grabbing as hard as he dared. But, it was only for a while longer, because his instincts took over. He switched tactics and let go of her engorged clitoris.

She gasped, a low moan escaping her mouth as her head lolled to one side.

He had to shift his hands to the lower portions of her back to keep her from falling. So close! He found her pea of pleasure again. Without warning, he vibrated his tongue as fast he could with a side-to-side flicking. With the lightest touch, he grazed the surface of the drenched skin there.

“I’m, I’m, I’m -,” she kept saying over and over. She had no other words.

It took no more than four seconds.

She came – hard, relentless. She was like putty in his grasp. She bucked and shook, near violent.

He held her to him, elongating the sensations coursing within her as long as he could. All the while, he drank her, every single gushing drop that came from her. He took it all, savoring her taste, inflamed with her femininity. He swallowed her into himself, crazed of a sudden with feverish want of her. He had to have her. He had to plunge himself inside her, spill his seed as deep as he could within her sugary folds. He had to, he needed to.

He sat up, lowering her to the bed before him, between his legs. She was like a feather. He couldn’t feel any of her weight. His ardor had increased his strength. It was another “Heavy” thing. He would have to be careful or he would hurt her.

She lay on the bed, her head turned to one side, one hand lying upon her right breast. The other clutched the bed coverings within a fist. Her whole body thrummed now and again like guitar string. Her sprawled legs vibrated, her shoulders quavering. Though he had stopped loving her with his mouth, she was still cuming. She was still within the throes of her orgasm.

It was his turn now. He stood and he shed his clothing. Above her, his penis, thick with anticipation, bobbed. Its’ head dappled with pre-cum.

She could see he was ready for her, eager to part her and feel the clutching warmth within.

He watched her twang like a tuning fork one more time. He came between her burnished-colored thighs, pushing them wider, so she could accept his hips.

The motion opened her, and like a lotus flower. Her petals emerged flushed with blood, dripping with what he had elicited from her. He edged forward.

Her legs rose as his body aligned itself with hers, her feet coming from the bed, bent at the knees. She opened even further.

He felt his member enlarge at the sight of her, brush against the soft moistness of her womanhood.

Below him, her consciousness was just returning from the brink of heaven when she felt him position himself. She felt the layers of her vagina gape for him. His touch, it was only the tip. She had never been more willing, though she was certain she’d felt like this every time he was about to enter her. Only now, she didn’t care to remember, this time was all that mattered. This was all that was important. She let him open her legs further. Her eyes still closed. She imagined the scene. She pictured him as the fleshy embodiment of masculinity edged her apart and they became one.

With his hands at either side if her shoulders, he bent his head to look down. He saw himself poised before her tender opening through the sparse tangle of her pubic hair. He couldn’t wait any longer.

She was ready.

He was ready.

She shook once more.

The moment he saw the last wave of her orgasm hit her; he entered – slow and firm. He didn’t stop until he felt his testicles hit the face of her upturned buttocks.

They gasped together as the thickness of him became thicker. She bore down, gripped him tight down there. It almost as though she held him with her hand and not with the walls of her vagina.

He let the head kiss against the firm aperture of her cervix and then pulled out of her, maintaining the same speed.

“Oh god, Effy, you know you make me cum every time you do that,” she breathed into the air between them.

He continued to come from her until he was almost free of her. Then he plunged back in. “I know, I love to feel you cum on me,” he replied, his voice husky.

Her hands came up to hold him about the shoulders, her fingers trying to dig into him, but couldn’t. She applied her nails when he bumped the end of her vagina for a second time. A shockwave rolled through her form from head to toe, making her arch her back as he pulled out once more. She ground her butt into the bed. Her pubic bone rubbed along the top of his penis as the length of him came from her. The angle was delicious, acute. They each felt the other with such exquisite detail. Their heads seemed to tingle with it. Every ripple, every vein, and every bump - they felt it all.

He began to pump into her at a faster pace, her body rising and falling in counterpoint to each thrust.

Then, she crossed her ankles behind his back, so every movement forced their bodies to move in unison.

He drove into her faster, harder.

She met each forward and backward motion with an opposite tilt of her pelvis, crazed to feel the whole of his cock.

He dropped onto his elbows, spreading his legs as well, changing his approach. He flexed his feet so he could plunge all the way into her.

She responded at once, and titled further on her back. Her moist sweetness angled forty-five degrees from the surface of the bed. It was the perfect position, allowing him the deepest degree of penetration.

He preyed on her eagerness and brought his knees from the bed. He poised upon the balls of his feet, balanced upon them, his forearms and his manhood. He plowed into her and out of her with long, deep strokes, driving her into the bed with each slap of their bodies.

She thrashed and writhed beneath him, raking him with her nails, vicious swipes, though she didn’t so much as scratch him. She should’ve drawn blood. She bit him on the neck with all her might and held on. She wheezed through her clenched teeth, dainty rivulets of saliva running from the corners of her mouth. She held on for dear life – with her mouth, her legs, her nails.

He continued to pound her flesh, over and over, again and again.

She met him stroke for stroke, amazed as she felt him grow even larger within her. The confines of her vagina were began to stretch by the sheer immensity of him. She could feel the helmet of its’ head flicking over each ripple inside of her. It made her insane for him. She dug her heels into the small of his back. She was afraid to let go, afraid if she did so, she would scream so hard and shred her vocal cords.

Still, he continued to fuck her hard, on and on, pump after pump, until her breath was becoming ragged. Her chest began to burn with over exertion.

Still, he pushed and pushed into her.

She was full with him.

He was making love to very marrow of her bones.

Still, the minutes passed and his rhythmic humps passed in and out of her.

Only he mattered, she wanted only him.

Still, he continued, for how much longer she lost track. How many minutes or hours had it been?

He was so deep, the breadth of him was becoming too much.

And still, he hilted himself into her, time and time again.

She tried to hold on, but couldn’t.

He didn’t stop.

She catapulted far past the place of a mere orgasm. Exhaustion took her. Her legs fell from his back. No longer could she move with him. No longer could she bite him. She fell onto the bed, spread-eagled beneath him, convulsing in ecstasy, her energy sapped. All she could do was accept him, let him fill her and un-fill her. He was the engine behind the bliss drowning her mind.

He went on, taking all that was her and pounded it into oblivion.

Until, sweat poured from every corner of her body.

Until, she could not keep her eyes open.

Until… she heard…

“…I-I-I… I’m g-going t-t-to cummm,” he managed.

She felt each searing rope of his semen, far, far inside her. She was certain he splashed right into her womb, because he warmed the middle of her body from within.

Oh god, in the middle…

She continued to twitch and spasm in concert with each contracting pump of his penis for a long. It felt like an eternity. She felt tears fall from her eyes, her mouth go slack and somewhere thereafter; she succumbed to the abyss…

…Oh Estefan, that was so good, she remembered thinking…

…right before she let the darkness take her.

*****

A few hours later, Flavia’s eyes fluttered opened to the sound of light clanking about the kitchen area of the Null-unit. An odd, muffled buzz was coming from somewhere beneath the covers of the bed. More curious about the immediate noise, she lifted the blankets. From the dim lights surrounding her, she could see a Stym-sheath wrapped around her pelvis. It went from waist to mid-thigh. She was otherwise, naked.

“Sorry about that, Flavy. I got a little out of control earlier,” said Estefan near the Compu-cooker at the far end of the kitchenette.

Her movements must’ve alerted him she was awake.

“W-what happened?” she asked. Her voice was raw and raspy. Her hair stuck to her skull, her entire body sticky with a thick layer of old perspiration. She smelled of animalistic sex. It was a basic scent, drawn from the earliest memories of humankind.

He smirked, his expression one he’d give to a small child who’d just asked a naïve question. “I think you know what happened,” he replied, rolling his eyes.

Flavia blushed. “No, you dope. What happened down there?” she asked indicating she meant beneath the Stym-sheath. He had adjusted the varying bands of the flexible material so it appeared she was wearing a pair of skin tight shorts.

He glanced back at her as if deciding to be facetious or not. He decided against being cute. “Just some embarrassing bruises I left behind that I didn’t want you to see,” was his answer. His face was sheepish.

“I would’ve healed all the same, Estefan. Our Mutations always repair our bodies you know that,” she informed him. Her tone was kind though, appreciative of his efforts.

He chuckled, leaning against the narrow counter where there was a small depression marking a sink. He was nude except for an apron tied about his waist.

She let her eyes roam over his broad shoulders and thin hips, lingering on the ropey muscles he had developed over the years. He’s bigger than he was as teenager, was her errant thought. She noted it was the centuries of constant training and preparation that had honed his body. It was something stronger now, something more lethal and quick. It was a change not even his Mutation could turn back to its original state.

His dark eyes found hers and again he smiled with discomfort, almost regret. “I sort of lost myself with you, Flavia. I felt bad that you’d be in pain for the next day or so. I didn’t want you to have to wade through it. Knowing I was the cause and could’ve done something to prevent it seemed right,” he outlined, fiddling with his hands. His face betrayed mild sorrow.

It was her turn to be clever. “It wasn’t just you, my love. I pushed the limits just as much as you did.”

“Yeah, but you’re not the one with the rock hard body that can crush people,” he reposted on the heels of her words.

She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “I’ll take a little passion -.” She stopped at his raised eyebrows. “Ok. I will take a lot of passion and a shot of recklessness any day of the week…” She blinked a few times, gazing at him through her eyelashes. “…Especially with you.”

He giggled like a tween, made all the more funny, because he was so far removed from that characterization.

“But, thank you all the same, Effy,” she added, speaking from deep in her throat.

His smile was huge. “You want something to eat?” he asked, glancing at the digital display hovering before the Compu-cooker. “I know it’s in the middle of the night, but I thought some food was in order after…” He gestured with his hands. “You know… It might be just what the doctor ordered to help us sleep the rest of the night in comfort.”

“You don’t think I’m too damaged to have solid food?” she asked, demure, though her smile was anything but that.

He rolled his eyes. “It just bruising, Flavia, otherwise you took it pretty good.” His grin was flat, stretching the skin of his face.

She sat up, feeling a little of the soreness her lover was talking about, but it wasn’t all that bad. In the past, she’d had worse injuries.

“Can I make you some eggs, maybe?” he prompted. His fingers he had poised before the programing module of the cooking machine.

“Sure,” she replied at once. The thought of warm scrambled eggs was appealing to her, especially after their exertions a few hours ago. “Does that thing make Chorizo?” she added, somewhat expectant.

“Of course, it does. It’s inputted with Synod software,” answered Estefan.

Since most of them were of Hispanic heritage, all Synod menus included some of the traditional dishes they had grown up savoring. They weren’t as good as the ones his mother – or grandmother – had made, but they were edible.

“Real or synth?” She was wild with expectation now.

He chuckled at her enthusiasm. “Sorry, Babydoll, these Null-units only make synth. But I promise when we get back to Luna Prime I will spend whatever amount of money it takes to make sure you get some of the authentic stuff, okay?”

“Why such a saint, Estefan?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Your wonderful skills have numbed some of my memories of the past… for the time being,” he confessed at once. Then he turned back toward the Compu-cooker. “Still want some?”

“Yes.” She laid back down upon the covers. She listened to him punch in the proper code for their breakfast, her mind mulling over what he had said.

The past… their past. Somehow those words made her brain tingle.

He grabbed two plates from one of the small cabinets and utensils, so they could eat like civilized people.

“Maybe you should write it down, Estefan,” she concluded and spoke before knew why she had done so.

She could hear him pause. There was a sudden absence of sound.

“Write what down, Flavy?” he asked, tentative.

Her brow furled, and she wondered if she was about to hurtle them both off a cliff. “The past… our past,” she forged on. Her thought of a few moments before was the only thing she could articulate. She didn’t know how he would react.

“What would that accomplish?” he asked with only a trace of ire in his tone.

She felt herself shrug underneath the blankets. She stared up at the low slung, metallic ceiling, its’ surface rough and unfinished. She could see where its’ builders had scorched it with their molecular-bonding welding torches. They hadn’t bothered to buff them out of the compounds they merged, it wasn’t part of their work order. The fashioning of Null-units was out of necessity, not extravagance. They served a single purpose and a single purpose only – hide its occupants from all Human Celestes for as long as possible.

“There can be therapeutic aspects of seeing your thoughts on screen. To seeing your innermost feelings explained, quantified, is important. I’ve heard it has a blunting affect, so that issues seeming huge in our minds. They aren’t so daunting when we see them manifest before our eyes, in word form. They become less conceptual. They become mere words, things we can understand, because we have defined them, rationalized.” She looked away from the ceiling. Instead, she examined some of the bruises on her forearms, more evidence of their burning sexual encounter. “Maybe you should write a journal of our past. Maybe if you put to words what happened all those years ago, you’d be better equipped to handle your fears in the present.” She kept her voice monotone on purpose, clinical, devoid of enthusiasm. She wasn’t sure if he’d take it as condescension. An iota of that could make him angry I seconds and shut him away from her for weeks.

“I’m not a writer, Flavia. I’m…,” he stopped.

The silence went tight like a rubber-band pulled to its limit.

She didn’t interfere. She didn’t want to be the one to shatter the tension.

Then, “…well, I’m me.”

“You don’t have to be a writer, Effy. You just have to be able to put your thoughts to words. Anyone can do that,” she encouraged, though she dared not look at him.

There came a high-pitched warble from the cooker. She could hear her one-time step-brother, moving things around as he served them.

Her lips made a flat line at his lack of response to what she’d said. She used her arms to prop herself into a sitting position. She glanced at him, watched as he untied the apron from around his waist and walked toward her stark naked. He had two steaming plates of food, his thumbs holding forks in place, so they wouldn’t fall onto the floor.

Unable to resist, she let her vision caress his manhood as it bounced against his thighs. Even flaccid, he was impressive. She felt heart flutter in her chest. Some of her disappointment fled before the sharp twinges sparking through her body. He’s so beautiful, was all she could think.

He came up to the edge of the bed, holding a plate out toward her. She was quick to take hers into her hands, realizing she was hungry of a sudden. She must’ve used up a lot of her energy making love to him. The twist in her gut was telling her so.

The sat together, knees touched as they ate in silence for quite some time. Flavia began to wonder if he had completely forgotten what they’d been talking about. He made her heart fill with joy - and not a small amount of relief - when he proved her wrong a few minutes later.

“Do you think it will help?”

How can you make yourself sound like such a boy when you are one of the oldest humans to have ever lived? It was one of the many reasons why she fallen in love with him. Forget the fact that, at one time, her father had married his mother. Ignore the fact they had grown up together as siblings.

As the years passed, the relevance of their former lives had dwindled into nothingness. Her early misgivings that fermented alongside her ever growing attraction to him had diminished as well. She – just like all the others – couldn’t resist him. Maybe it was the Arch-Andro in him. Maybe it wasn’t. None of it mattered, not in the least. Either way, she felt the longing in her heart for him. She had acquiesced. She took him to her bed. Within a year, she had married him, became his eighth wife and a full equal within the Aegis Synod.

She marveled as she sat there pondering his questions with visions of a bygone era. Their marriage extended more than two and a half centuries. She’d given him children who had grown into adulthood and beyond. And yet, he could sit there, across from her. He could still seem so much like the little boy she had stood opposite, before an altar, on the day their parents had married.

“It couldn’t hurt,” was all she said. Her mind though was alight with a thousand, thousand other thoughts.

“So, I wouldn’t be any worse off than I am now?” he said with a trickle of sarcasm in his tone.

She felt herself smile. “Yup.”

“I don’t think I could recall much detail from those twenty-first century memories,” he said. He had finished his meal.

Before she realized, she was saying: “That shouldn’t be a problem. Jacqueline’s team over at ExTech has finally ironed out all the kinks with the Direct Memory Delve Software. You know they’ve been working on for some time now. I think it was part of last month’s update package uploaded to our ‘Swarms.” She caught herself and stopped speaking, staring at him with wide eyes.

To her surprise, he seemed to consider what she’d said. “No more lobotomies?” he inquired. He was being facetious.

She grinned. “Nope.”

There hadn’t been anything like a lobotomy as a direct result of Memory Delve usage. At Most, there’d been headaches and a few cases of nausea, but not much else.

“Does it still work using various levels of detail. I mean, would I still have the ability to skim memory on moment. And then, I could dive down into full-emersion mode to experience the recollection firsthand?”

She was nodding. “I think they’ve added even more varied levels and a ‘pause’ function as well.”

“Wow, like TIVO when we were kids,” he compared.

She chuckled.

He huffed, chortled and stood, his plate empty, and offered to take hers. She shoveled the last of the synthetic Chorizo into her mouth and pushed the plate into the palm of his hand. When he turned to make his way back to the kitchen nook, she swiped at him as fast as she could. Her hand smacked his butt hard, a loud thwack! resounding throughout the small chamber.

He swung his upper body toward her, but kept walking, shaking his head back and forth at her brazen regard for his backside.

“Thank you for the midnight snack,” she called after him.

“You’re welcome,” he mouthed and placed the dishware into the washing pod.

She watched him for a time. “Come back to bed and hold me,” she commanded.

He spun on a heel and made his way back to the bed. “As my lady wishes,” he said. He climbed into bed with her, holding her in his arms.

As the minutes passed, their breathing slowed, deepened. “You think you might start a journal of our past?” she asked him, just above a whisper.

“I’m thinking about it,” was his sleepy retort.

“I hope you do, Estefan. I hope you do…”

Half a minute later, they were both fast asleep, lovers intertwined upon a bed. They traversed Angel Free Town in secret, hidden from the rest of the Sixteen Worlds and from all who would do them harm.

For the time being, they were safe.