From perigryn.removethis@earthlink.net Thu Nov 12 04:31:41 1998 Path: news.iconnect.net!chicago-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.enteract.com!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!panix!news.panix.com!qz!not-for-mail From: perigryn.removethis@earthlink.net (Rosemerry) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Subject: Fear & Desire Pt 1 (M/F, sci fi, virgin) Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Date: 12 Nov 1998 10:31:41 GMT Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Lines: 560 Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us> Message-ID: <17156eli$9811120531@qz.little-neck.ny.us> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix5.nfs100.access.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/17156.txt> X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Original-Message-Id: <v01540b01b26f70f2f7a7@[38.27.84.91]> Xref: news.iconnect.net alt.sex.stories.moderated:5042 alt.sex.stories:240053 Notes: this one got a little long, and I got more interested in the character and story than in the sex (okay, this actually happens to me a lot ;)). I think it's worth the wait! For the record, phobias don't really work like this. It's just not that easy to get rid of them. Also, I don't really consider this story sci fi. But "fantasy" is a tricky word in this context. ;) Those who are under legal age or likely to be offended, please don't read this. Copyrights remain with me. Archiving is okay, if no money is made, with no alterations including credit and statements. Feedback would be appreciated. -------------------------------------- FEAR & DESIRE Cassie had her last relatively good day in mid-October. She loved her job; it was modest but she did it well, and the feeling of competence and cameraderie she got there was rare and heady wine for her. She was the third daughter of a rich businessman, an embarassment and a blot on the family escutcheon, having been born with neither ambition nor brainlessness. Her childhood seemed to her now like one long horror of expensive gifts and cold shoulders. Had she been capable, she would have become a spoiled brat, and gladly too; but it was not in her. Drifting unanchored through college and various attempts to marry her off, which she remembered as a revolving series of identical young men parading past her with identically unimaginative bouquets of flowers and identically enormous wallets, she had eventually foundered up here. Now, all but ignored by her money-sending father and unsure whether or how to mourn the death of her mother, Cassie had done the first two real things in her life. First, to feed her biggest hunger, she had taken the modest job as a cashier in a failing herbal essence shop downtown. And second, to answer her biggest fear, she had moved as close to it as possible: to this cozy apartment in the well-bred section of town, on the thirty-second floor. As she came home from work on her last relatively good day, after a twenty-minute drive spent musing on the astonishment of having no less than four people who knew her name and called her part of their team, she took the elevator up. Surrounded by mirrors, she looked at herself without comprehension or desire, invariably alone, until the bell dinged politely and she stepped out on the top floor. The top floor was hushed, quiet, breathy with air conditioning and subdued with ferns, just like the other thirty-one floors. She walked down the hallway, too well accustomed after eight weeks to feel uncomfortable in the silence, and came to her own door. Entering, she shed her coat, purse, shoes, earrings in a path through the entryway... past the living room couches... by the divan against the back wall until she was standing, as ready as she'd ever be, before the sliding glass door to the miniature balcony/deck outside. "Okay, Cassie," she said, hoping the sound of her voice would give her courage. "You know you can do this." She opened the door. Just that was frightening. The wind outside was no more than a gentle breeze at surface level. Here, it whistled with cheerful malice, its sounds waiting for her once the smooth glass door was out of the way. Cassie flinched, then pretended she hadn't. "Let's go," she told herself. Herself didn't follow instructions. There was nothing visible past the balcony's tall railing but city; most of it deathly far away. Was there the slightest trembling of the railway, or was it her heart? At last she forced herself to reach out and touch the walls on either side of the opening. That much accomplished, she was able to move her foot--not to lift it off the spotless carpeting, but to move it--to the metal grooves in which the sliding door ran. It quivered there, as she strained to put more and more weight on it, not looking for the moment when it became a step. When it was a step, irrevocably, she made an awkward scooching motion of her other foot, drawing it closer to the door. Outside, altitude waited, like a terrible monster preparing to pounce. Its name was DOWN and it was more fearsome than anything the earth had yet conceived. Even her father didn't scare her more, or so she'd prefer to think. Death didn't hold a candle. "Come on," she said to herself. Her voice was hoarse. "One more step. You can do it." The decision confronted her: take one quick step and be outside on the concrete, or move more slowly? The first would get this horror over with more quickly, but could invite panic. The other option was a slow and murderous terror. Either way, Down was out there. Waiting. She put her foot on the concrete. Her fingers gripped the sides of the doorway hard enough to turn them white. She let the foot rest there; that much of her was outside. There was no room in her mind for considerations of how silly she must look, one foot out, the rest of her inside as if she were being held back by some intruder. There was only fighting to keep that foot there. Once that battle was done, she'd consider putting another foot out. One thing at a time. But her nerve broke. Cassie shuddered back from the opening, hardly aware she was moving until she fetched up against the arm of the couch. She huddled against it and breathed for a few moments, turning her face into the harsh-smelling material of the upholstery. Finally she reached out her foot, now perfectly willing to obey her, and slid the glass door shut, closing out the sound of the hungry breeze outside. "Good job," she said to herself. "Last time you didn't even get a toe out the door. You'll be ready to walk out and look down in-- oh, say a year." She laughed shakily and rose to prepare a plain supper for herself. The storm that came to town that evening was no more blustery than usual; in October, the weather in the city was fierce. Thunder and lightning and chance of hail, the slick newsman had said that afternoon. Rain and high winds. Of course the winds would be higher at the tops of the skyscrapers, but the weatherman had neglected to mention this as always. "It does shudder a little when the wind blows hard, Miss," her landlord had told her, leaning back in his chair and eyeing her without the slightest concern for whether she took the apartment or the next rich father's daughter did. "It's designed to do that. Protects against earthquakes." At the time, Cassie had signed the contract against her own advice, telling herself she was crazy but unable to argue with the apparently causeless intent that gripped her. And she had found that it was perfectly true; the highest winds did sway the tower a little, and not ponderously but with a quiver, as if the supports of the structure were hard rubber. She had been able to get used to the silence of the corridors and the way there was almost never anyone in the elevator but her; but in eight weeks she hadn't been able to accustom herslf to what the storm did to her surroundings. As a result, the first thundercrack, splitting deafeningly and then rumbling off with a petulent grumble, tossed her out of bed like a pinched cat. She sat shivering and blanketwrapped, stark naked, on the living room couch with all the lights on. Every now and then the tower would just tremble a little, or in the worst gusts outright wag, and Cassie would wait for everything to come crashing down. It was an endless suspension of not-quite-terror, worse in its way than the vertigo-inducing test she forced on herself daily, and it took her strength little by little. She considered getting up to make cocoa at least; turning on the television. But if the electricity should go out, the sudden no-sound of the television would frighten her worst. As for cocoa, she wasn't budging from her spot in the exact center of the apartment for anything. Cassie bowed her head as the skyscraper waved solemnly in the air like an accusing finger, and buried her face in the blankets. She ruminated a little frantically on the irony of it all; as a child, even as a baby she had loved the brilliant searing starkness of lightning striking over her Minnesota hills, and the cleansing drench of rain that always followed. Now she huddled terrified, here in this apalling height by her own choice. At the moment it seemed incomprensible again, as it had when she'd done it. Over her tenure here, she had come to realize why she had done it. The defining fear of her life was her acrophobia, and some part of her, finally having lost her mother's protection and gotten away, however nominally, from her father's tyranny, had decided to cast loose this fetter too. That part of her had raised a tiny cheer when she had signed the contract, and again when she had forced herself to open the glass door for the first time; had egged her on as she had first stood before that opening and then forced herself to take the first step. She supposed that little voice that cheered was the best part of her. Thunder cracked like the whip of the world, and she flinched inside her huddle of blankets. Then another sound followed, one she had never heard before; a crunching smashing explosion that twitched her out of the nest of blankets like a sword rising from an unexpected sheath. Darkness greeted her; the lights had gone out, sometime while she was hiding her face in the blankets. In that instant, though there was no observer, she was lovely; her body alert and poised, her blue eyes wide; the crackling golden mass of her hair thrown haphazardly over her shoulders. There was no one to see. She identified the problem at once; some kind of tree had blown through the window and pushed its branches rudely into the room. But wait; there were no trees at thirty-two stories up. The broken glass everywhere was the glass of the sliding door that led to the balcony, and wind and rain scattered in like shards. Cassie went slowly to see what it was, careful not to bump into any furniture. Her bare skin goosebumped as she came close to the doorway. Dear god, it was some kind of bird! Enormous feathers, dirty gray in the slash of lightning, extended through the broken upper half of the sliding door. Cassie halted, staring in amazement. It was enormous, bigger than any bird she'd ever heard of. The feathers at the tip of the wing, the great leading edge, were as broad as her hand. It fluttered a little, and another flash showed her the redness of its blood sliding down the vanes of its feathers. She hadn't the least idea what to do for it, but getting it off the jagged points of glass seemed crucial, even if she tore it a little more. She would do that, and then call for help. She couldn't reach up high enough to free it without simply ripping it to shreds. Her dazed mind, stunned with cold and dark and vertigo, offered no solution. She wanted to walk around the problem, but the remains of the door were in her way. The mad thought occurred to her that if she could simply open the door she would be able to free the bird from the door so she could open it; but that wasn't helping at all. It seemed like twenty minutes had passed since the crash landing, though she knew better. How long till the bird must die of shock? She was on the verge of stamping her foot with frustration, perhaps going on to getting the hammer and smashing loose the rest of the door. But at that moment the bird made a sound: a low agonized moan of unbearable pain, held tightly in to avoid making the hurt worse. A very human sound. That changed everything. Electrified, she leaped backward a distance of two feet from a standing start and remembered that she was naked. There was a human being somehow tangled up with the bird; perhaps he had fallen somehow from the roof. She could not tell the sex of the individual, but it was clearly a person, and she was naked. She couldn't help this person in any way until she had clothes on; she simply wouldn't be able to think. She backpedaled a few more steps, shaking her head as if someone had insisted otherwise, and bumped up against the loveseat. Turning as if there were ghosts after her, she fled into her bedroom and frantically searched through the darkness for something to throw on. All she could find were socks or coats until she banged her head into the wall and saw brightly colored shooting stars for a moment. This cleared her head and she slowed down enough to remember which drawer held nightgowns, which occurred to her as the proper thinng to put on. It was night, after all. It now seemed that the bird or man or both must surely die; she had been horribly incompetent and dithering. Nearly wailing, she ran back out. This time without even considering it she grabbed a kitchen chair and dragged it through the thundering darkness to the broken glass door. Standing upon it, she was able to survey the situation better now that it was at shoulder level to her. She had utterly forgotten that she was higher than floor level; it slipped her mind as completely as her phone number as she stood there, rain drenching her by inches, and regarded the enormous bird wing that had intruded into her apartment. It was quite definitely a living wing, oversized but very birdlike, stuffed in through the hole in the upper half of the door. She looked outside and saw nothing but darkness and heaving gray feathers, and perhaps the pale flash of someone's limb, although that might have been her imagination. She could hear quite clearly, in the pauses in the thunder, the hoarse pained breathing of a human being. She whimpered and touched the feathers gingerly. The drenched pinions themselves were the chilly temperature of the rain; but when her fingers met blood it was startlingly, fiercely hot. Cassie forced herself to feel around the window carefully, tracing every inch of the damaged wing to see where it could best be lifted off the points of the glass and pushed back out onto the balcony. When her fingers closed weightlessly around the warm light tube of the leading edge, the whole wing jerked and then jerked to a stop, and there was a shrill screech of agony that she thought could well have come from some kind of bird. She hadn't hurt it herself; she had startled it with her touch into moving. She didn't know what to do; had she spoken it would no doubt have begun thrashing at once, like a taken pigeon. She would have to work fast before its fear of humans overcame its shock. She slid her fingers down the feathery wing, looking for the place where it bent and finding nothing. Everything that was wounded was the farther half of the wing, past the crucial joint. If she could get a bird doctor to come get it, it would probably survive. She found where it was trapped, the jagged edges of the glass driven into the sparse meat of its wing and then the wing pulled a little back to sink them in. She wouldn't be able to get away with just lifting; she would have to pull toward her first, lift then, and then guide it back out the window without snagging it again. She was weeping now; the thing was impossible. Had it remained utterly still, she might have done it. But shock or no shock, this operation was going to hurt, and the bird was going to thrash. Alone, she could not maneuver it this way. But she had no choice at all. She took firm hold of the wing, her hands outside the doorway and beaten by rain. Feathers pressed against her, trembling slightly. She held it for a moment, as if to ready it. "Okay," Cassie said desperately, more to quell her crying and quieten her breathing than anything else. "I'm going to pull this way and then lift up, and then slowly! we'll push this back out the window." She gulped. "Stay still," she sobbed, "please don't move." She closed her eyes for one second, a kind of momentary haven from the lightning and thunder and soaking rain, the bird's blood on her hand and the task ahead. Then she let it all come back and pulled the wing forward, toward her breasts. She felt it come loose from the glass at the same moment that the breathing down on the balcony caught and froze. The wing galvanized in her hand, almost humming with leashed power, but it did not thrash. She lifted up, ducking her head beneath the dripping feathers to see if it were totally free. Then came the tricky question of guiding the less than straight contraption of feathers and tendon back out the window. She had a moment of panic when she realized that its natural tendency should be to extend the hurt wing, to push back toward her in the wrong direction, but it was folding docilely and intricately; following her every move as if it knew the best thing for it and counted on her guidance. The breathing was coming faster below, nearly aspirated in a series of little shrieks. Hot blood curled over the ball of her thumb. It seemed to take hours. Finally the last of the enormous feathers were sliding past her face, moving of their own accord, as she was unable to hold onto them once the main body of the wing was out of the way. Now all she could see out there were gray feathers, brushing the remaining glass of the window. She climbed down hurriedly, bracing her hand momentarily on the back of the chair and getting blood and rain on it too, and opened the sliding glass door. It went out of the way with a horrible grinding crunching sound as glass slivers were crushed in the tracks, and then half the gray wing sagged into the room around her ankles. Cassie was in the act of turning to the phone when she suddenly whipped around and stared at the chair as if it were a snake. It looked innocently back at her, sitting by itself on the rapidly soaking carpet. I was standing on that, she realized dimly. The feathers slumping exhaustedly around her feet, shaking so violently they burred and buzzed against one another, recalled her to herself. She glanced at the balcony hurriedly, taking a startled step over the wingtip in that direction, suddenly sure that the creature was in its death throes and reminded that there was a human being involved somewhere. But now her vertigo was back full force; she couldn't make her feet move in that direction. The person under all that bird was sobbing, harshly, like an abandoned child. The sound, heard dimly through the rush of rain and the occasional petulant mutters of thunder, tore at her heart. Cassie forgot that she was going to call anyone. Locked in a struggle against her fears, she stood there trembling, soaked to the skin. The possibility that a gust of wind might snatch her right off the balcony if she went out there was real now, like a validation of her mind's panicky smokescreen images. And whatever creature or creatures were still alive out there, they might throw her right off into space. But she faced the intrusive rain and wind and took a step, her fists clenched at her sides. Another step brought her to the doorway, where her hands automatically rose to either side, bracing her as they had every day for eight weeks in her self tests. Now the exam had come, and she wasn't prepared; but it hardly mattered now, did it? The sting of glass cutting into the ball of her thumb made her pull her hands away. She inspected the cut briefly. There was a sigh and a motion from outside that made her look up. Then, as if it were no more difficult than climbing on a chair, she stepped between the trembling wing and the doorway, out onto the thirty- stories high balcony. The wind stroked her gleefully, promising, teasing. Her nightgown might as well have been tissue paper for all the warmth it brought; and she was not looking at a bird at all. The creature in front of her looked at first to be some enormous eagle without head or talons, thrown heedlessly across the naked body of a slender unconscious man. But the feathers were living, the pinions loose in his abandon, and the strong muscles that drove the wings were the muscles of his back. He sprawled on his belly, soaked, naked and bleeding, his head buried beneath the feathers of what were unmistakably his own wings. Her gaze seemed to stick where the broad shoulderblades of his back joined with lovely completeness to the arching beginnings of the wings. An angel, she thought, unable to put any other name to him. She didn't believe in God, much less His messengers, but one's disbelief falters at a time like this. She was seeing it, and the practical part of her told her that she'd better get him inside and warm before he died on her balcony, and figure out the God part later. This time she and her practical part agreed. And you can forget calling the police, it remarked sardonically as it dissolved back into the chaos she called a mind. She stepped over the outstretched wingtip with the soft blades of its feathers, as broad as her hand, and walked around the lifted, bent arch of the wing joint. Here, it took up so much room she had to scrape against the low wall that formed the perimeter of the tiny balcony. Her back pressed firmly against it, she edged around the wing, aware this time of the drop below, and consciously putting her fear at arm's length. Life or death, she chanted to herself breathlessly; this is life or death. Now she could reach his human body. When she laid her hands on his soaked shoulder, the entire assemblage of feathers and tendons shuddered and lifted, the damaged wing shying lower than the other, and the rain was suddenly cut off by the enormous fan of feathers above her as she jerked back. Her startled squeal mingled with a hoarse cry of anguish from the man, and he got his elbows underneath his arms and tried to lift his head. He failed at first, but Cassie swallowed her fear and her growing sense of triumph together and reached out her hands again. She cradled his head, feeling him try to help lift it, and as his long hair flopped damply back, she met the wide colorless stare of his eyes with a clear sense of never having been alive and free before this moment. She nearly laughed out loud. This bizarre sense of triumph stayed with her while she rested his head on her shoulder and got her arms underneath his to haul him. She knew at once that it would be impossible for her to get the wings through the doors. He wasn't heavy; in fact she lifted up and came to the balls of her feet with most of him dangling limply from her grasp. He was no easy lift, but certainly nowhere near as heavy as a grown man should be. "Help me," she choked, the rain falling on her face once more. "Come on... help me!" The arms that had been dangling down Cassie's back rose and wrapped themselves weakly around her shoulders. She felt him rest his weight more or less on his feet. But the most amazing thing was the wings... they folded and collapsed themselves in an economic motion until they stood only two feet up above his shoulders and ended just at his ankles. They formed a kind of shield behind him, the right one unable to fold completely and hanging loose at his side. Cassie couldn't see what she was doing, but at least he would fit through the doorway now. Somehow, the angel helping weakly and herself struggling mightily, they got the elbows of the wings through the doorway and ducked him in afterward. She draped him over the couch and went to draw the curtain to restrict the lightning and rain still desultorily intruding. Then, groping toward the angel in the darkness, Cassie fumbled her hand along the couch until it encountered feathers, which twitched startledly. His hoarse breathing was very loud in the comparative silence, and Cassie felt a kind of urgent sympathy. "I'm here," she said. "I'm going to help you. You're going to be okay." There was no answer, but she had heard the listening pause in his breathing and knew he had heard her. Of course, being an angel, he could speak English fine, she reasoned. He was either too hurt or too frightened to concentrate on communication right now. She turned her wide eyes momentarily to the curtains. Out there was the balcony; her greatest fear no longer. Tomorrow, when she had slept, she would walk out there, and look down over the edge, and wonder what there had ever been to fear. But not now. "My name's Cassie," she said softly, in tones she would have used to comfort a frightened child. "Cassie. Let's get you into bed. You're safe here, and when you can fly again I'll let you go." She remembered the trapped eyes of a barn owl she had seen at the zoo, the first time she had seen a raptor up close, and thought the angel's greatest horror must be the loss of his freedom to fly. When the zoo man had walked around the crowd of excited children with the bird, she had looked into its hating, waiting eyes and burst into tears; her father had bundled her off home and shook his head over her fears, saying again and again that the bird couldn't touch her. He had never understood. She glanced again at the sliding glass door's remains. The angel raised his head shakily to look at her, and for a moment she flinched, afraid his eyes would be the flat feral eyes of the barn owl. But his eyes were utterly human, colorless as water, lost and confused in this strange place. His lips seemed to form words, but his throat made no sound; as clear as a mirror she read him: where is the wind? Cassie's heart bled, and she swallowed her shyness before the beauty of his face and shoulders and helped him up again. "Come on," she said, "we'll get you in bed and warm and dry and then we'll see if you can eat anything I have." She realized how much she was thinking of him in bird terms. The enormous wings just changed everything. He draped his shivering arm around her shoulders and let her support him into the bedroom. She propped him against the wall, stripped the comforter and thin blanket off the bed, and turned just in time to catch him before he fell down again. For a moment her face was buried in feathers, which were already nearly dry and furnace-hot. Then he half-fell, half-walked the two steps to the bed and fell down on his chest. Reflexively the wings unfolded and rose, forming a wide, feathered canopy over him. From beneath it, he looked at her with his colorless eyes. She thought there was more awareness in them now, that he was coming out of his shock. Cassie made a placating, stay-there motion with her hands and turned into the bathroom. She left one towel for herself and brought the other three out for him. She draped one across his midsection and began drying him everywhere else with the other. The third she put underneath his head, since his hair was the wettest part of him. "There you are," she said when he was reasonably dry. She left the wings alone, hovering in the air above her. Then she went into the bathroom and half-closed the door. Drying herself and putting on a warm robe of blue velveteen seemed like the heaven she had never believed in. Then she felt more ready to confront the angel. He had thrown off the towel she had laid over him; his Greek- statue fineness was revealed. Cassie looked aside and found herself looking at his eyes. He seemed alert now, but very weary. The left wing was folded; the right half-folded and its wounded forepart stretched over the bed. Cassie held up the first aid kit from the bathroom and waited until his eyes registered it and then moved back to hers. There was no expression on his face; if his eyes had been closed she would have instinctively known him to be asleep. "This is to help you," she said. She felt foolish, not knowing how much he was understanding. Either she was talking to herself, or he would laugh at her. "I need you to hold still while I bandage the wing. I'm going to spray antiseptic on it, and then bandage it between the feathers. Then tape it so it'll stay." Cassie looked to him for some sign of comprehension, but there was nothing. The colorless eyes were fixed steadily on hers, as if her face were far more interesting than anything she might be saying. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Rosemerry perigryn@earthlink.net Each star now knows your name I've wished upon them all Each answer is the same: "Not 'til the heavens fall." http://home.earthlink.net/~perigryn/ -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | <http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/>----<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/faq.html> From perigryn.removethis@earthlink.net Thu Nov 12 04:31:50 1998 Path: news.iconnect.net!chicago-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!cyclone.i1.net!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!digex!netnews.com!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!panix!news.panix.com!qz!not-for-mail From: perigryn.removethis@earthlink.net (Rosemerry) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Subject: Fear & Desire Pt 2 (M/F, sci fi, virgin) Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Date: 12 Nov 1998 10:31:50 GMT Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Lines: 648 Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us> Message-ID: <17157eli$9811120531@qz.little-neck.ny.us> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix5.nfs100.access.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/17157.txt> X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Original-Message-Id: <v01540b02b26f719e1feb@[38.27.84.91]> Xref: news.iconnect.net alt.sex.stories.moderated:5043 alt.sex.stories:240054 The lights came back on suddenly, the night light in the bathroom being the only one she had turned on while sleeping. There was the hum of the air conditioning picking up and the digital clock on the bedhead began flashing insistently midnight. Cassie blinked to adjust her eyes and then turned on the overhead dimmer very softly so as not to frighten her guest. Colors stole back into the room, the dim burgundy of the bedspread, the darker reds of pillows and towels. The angel looked at the globe of white light shimmering overhead and then lowered his eyes again to hers. "Okay?" she said, smiling. "Light will help me do a good job... great." She opened the box and went to examine the wing. When she took hold of it again, the great gray pinions shivered. The angel caught his breath. "I know," she said soothingly. "I know." She examined the torn flesh. "No glass," she said to herself. "And I don't think you broke any bones, though God knows what kind of little bones you do have in your wings." Then she bit her lip and looked up, afraid the angel had caught the blasphemy. He had managed to roll over halfway, his manhood flopping down on the sheet, and support himself with his elbow. He gazed at her as if there were nothing whatever unusual about his nakedness. Her cheeks hot, she took out the antiseptic spray and coated the wounds. The angel hissed a little between his teeth but the wing in her hand never moved. He kept it still all through her ministrations, and when she was done he sat up. His other wing trailing over the edge of the bed down to the floor, he examined the bandages carefully. Apparently approving, he twitched the wing to his back, where it still didn't fold all the way, and held out a hand to her, fastening the intensity of his gaze on hers again. "Well, I... well it was nothing," she said, looking at the hand in confusion. It was long and thin, a piano player's hand, fine as porcelain. He was built like an Arabian horse, all compact lightness, tendons and muscles crafted toward the singleminded purpose of flight. She looked up, at the androgynous planes of his ivory face. The hair falling in lank wet trails down his shoulders was gray as ash, though his face was younger than hers and his unlined skin was pale. He gave the hand an impatient little twitch, and Cassie took it with hers. It was warm, hot; she worried about a fever. While she was thinking this, she let herself be drawn to sit down beside him. "I should take your temperature," she said weakly. The angel looked down at her, frighteningly close, the chiseled line of his jaw and cheekbone angling up to the enormous clear eyes. His mouth opened, and he seemed to be saying all right... but there was no voice. His almost invisible eyebrows came together. "All right?" she said. "Try again." She reached a hand up to feel his forehead; it too was burning, almost startlingly hot. He wrapped his own slender hand around her wrist and pulled her hand down, resting it on the protruding line of his collarbone. Cassie gulped, her stomach tightening. She had so many questions, and they all seemed to be dissolving in some kind of hypnotism brought about by his sheer beauty and closeness. The angel did not appear to be thinking along those lines, however; to him touch and nakedness appeared to be perfectly ordinary. She wondered if he were puzzled by her robe, and for a moment dizziness overwhelmed her as she thought it would be polite to remove it. She shook her head. "Try again," she repeated. He looked at her, his pale lips opening, and again she could read the words there: try again, he was saying after her, try again. Almost, this time, in a whisper. She blinked, leaning forward as if the sheer pull of her will could bring words from him. "Again," she breathed, instinctively lowering her voice to approximate her request. "Just whisper... try again." The elbows of the wings standing over his shoulders flexed, and the wings rose, feathers brushing the wall on two sides. "Try again," he whispered, "speak to her, my rescuer." The wings gave a slow, delighted beat, and he grinned quite brilliantly. "There!" she said. "You did it." She was grinning too, less beautifully, she suspected. "Vocal," he breathed, "communicative." He reached out to stroke her cheek with his long, burning hand. "Lovely," he said, and this time there was a hint of his voice. She blushed and dropped her eyes; not a good move strategically, as her gaze landed upon his masculinity. Quickly she looked up again, and returned his gesture. The flat planes of his cheek felt like stone, like living marble; softness cloaking an endless immobility. "Lovelier," she said embarassedly. He smiled, showing white, even teeth behind his pale thin lips. Unexpectedly she relaxed a little; the sight of those even flat teeth gave her a reassurance she hadn't known she was seeking. No fangs. "Wings," she said, reaching also to touch the arch of feathers over his shoulder. This move gave her a waft of his dry, spicy scent. She was also close enough to hear his intake of breath and see the widening of his pupils, midnight swallowing the granite. For a moment, drawing her hand back away from the taut feathery muscle of his wing, she thought she had hurt him. But he did not seem to be in pain, and he smiled at her as she sat back. "Yes, wings," he said breathily, "pinions of the messenger, gifts for the child of heaven." "Child of Heaven?" His colorless eyes peered into hers as if he looked there for his answer. "Seraphim, messenger, angel," he replied in the softest tenor tones. His voice was like his face, spare, planed, carven in marble by a loving hand. "Angel," she said in wonder. Then he was shaking his head, little whips of ashy hair threshing his jawbones. "Seeker after winds," he said, "child of the sky; messenger." She groped after the hints of meaning she found in this apparent correction, but failed. "Well, whatever you are," she said, "you probably need to eat. Right?" He greeted this question with a nod. She thought, roughly half an hour later, that seeing him eat was the most surreal experience of her life. He sat at her kitchen table, taking his ease with his elbows planted on the tiled surface, naked as dawn, rarely taking his water-colored eyes from hers. He consumed a sandwich matter- of-factly, just as anyone else would have done, and got a milk moustache. Meanwhile she had to keep stepping over the trailing soft edges of his wings to get to the refrigerator and the sink. "Do you have a name?" she asked him, awkwardly, once she could find nothing further to potter with. She took the chair opposite him. Her apartment kitchen had an alcove big enough for a table and four chairs, and so that was what it had. No one had ever sat in any of the chairs; she usually carried her food to bed and vaccuumed the crumbs daily. He cocked his head, birdlike, drawing a giggle from her as a strip of lettuce vanished into his mouth. He swallowed and gave her a non-answer: "Not for me, no name, identifier of boundary, limitation." "Well, I suppose so," she said. Her eyes dropped to regard her fingers twisting anxiously over the beige tiles of the tabletop. "I guess a name limits you. If you're John, you're not George, are you?" He watched her think it through. She gathered quick glimpses of him through the honey fringe of her bangs. "If you're an angel," she said slowly, cautiously, "I suppose you could be George and John both if you liked. But sometimes limitations are important. I mean... if you're me, you're not anybody else. It's hard enough just to be me. For me, anyway." Cassie looked up in mute apology for the poor sense content, only to meet warm understanding. How could gray eyes be so warm? she wondered obliquely. "Cassie," he said. It was like a call to arms. She couldn't imagine anyone ever saying her name that way. It was as if it were her name for the first time. She couldn't think of anything to say, and so she handed him a napkin and showed him how to use it. The angel managed the trick well enough, and then sat in contentment on the chair, apparently thinking of nothing but his desire to look at her. Cassie, lost in the confusion of trying to relate to someone who hadn't the same social programming, fidgeted under his mercilessly tender gaze. Finally, seeing that he was done, she took his plate and glass to the sink. It would be rude to wash them with him right there... not that he would notice it was rude.. but she'd know. At this point in her troubled thoughts, she realized he'd half turned in the chair to watch her at the sink. If he'd only stop looking at me! she thought. She turned, her confusion turning momentarily to anger, but the look on his face stopped her. She'd fed him and warmed him and bandaged his hurt, actions of care and providence that she'd never performed for anyone before. The angel's new comfort and contentment were like miracles on his face, marvels of human compassion that were as new to him as to Cassie. "Beauty of your gifts," he said softly. "You're welcome." Cassie leaned against the counter, looking at him as he continued to gaze at her. He didn't let her merely look for long, reaching out and taking both her hands. The heat of his skin was a shock again. His face was too pale to be fever-flushed, and his eyes were bright; but she didn't know how he usually looked, to tell if he were ill. Anyone, she thought, after being storm-blown onto a thirty-second floor balcony, would be a little feverish. "Better get you back to bed," she said. He nodded meekly and rose to his feet, the rustling of his feathers against the floor a soft hushing sound. She marveled again, walking him back to her bedroom, at the rightness of the join between human back and bird's wing. It was like, yet unlike the pictures of angels she'd seen all her life. They had always seemed awkward, in the pictures. This being looked born for the sky. Seeker after winds, he had named himself. It shone in every line of him. He rested once again on his chest, and she drew the coverlet up over the curves of his back. He turned his head, soberly regarding the bandaged wing for a moment, and then swept both of them up and down once. The breeze of this motion dusted her hair off her forehead and sounded in her ears, but she didn't miss the wince of pain that crossed his face. "It's all right," she said. "You'll get better. You'll be able to fly again soon." "Yes," he answered in his light voice. "Seeking the wind before long." She nodded, caught and surprised by a sudden pang of nameless emotion. So many things she was unused to feeling had happened to her over the last few hours. Cassie wished only for sleep. Troubled again by the sense of rudeness, she didn't know whether to stay until he slept, for his reassurance, or if he needed privacy and she should retire to the couch. This problem he solved for her, reaching for her hand again. She gave it to him with a sense of helplessness, and sat down beside his broad shoulders. The undamaged wing shifted out of her way, and she saw the muscles in his back flex. The tiny feathers that shaded to skin where the wings began made her want to touch them. He let his head fall to the pillow, his hair dry now and flourishing outward richly from his narrow face. He rested her hand on his shoulder, looking as if he'd rather tuck it under her cheek but was, like her, afraid of offending. Cassie watched his eyes close, their brightness subsumed in sleep. Her thoughts tumbled over one another like water. Messenger, he'd called himself. What was the message? How could this possibly have happened, and why was it happening to her? At last her thoughts turned back to the way she'd walked out onto the balcony... even rested her back against that deadly barrier, nothing but indifferently mass-produced wooden balcony between her and the endless Down. The sense of triumph came back, and she smiled into the dimness of the room, her hand absently moving on the hot, smooth skin of the winged man's shoulder. She woke in the morning with an unclear sense of things alarmingly left undone. Memory came back to her in bits and pieces; first she remembered that she was on the couch because someone else was in her bed, then she recalled that she'd forgotten to set the alarm for work this morning. The part about the wings came back nearly last, and the pleasant sting of realizing that she'd gone out on the balcony last night was what brought her all the way awake. Eager to test this new fearlessness, she rolled off the couch, recognized her nakedness, and grabbed up the sheet before turning to the balcony. Her angel was already there, standing outside on the concrete. The glass door was shredded all around him, but he was as blithely naked as he had been last night, and turned to hear her footsteps stop and start. It wasn't the balcony that stopped her, but the flash and glitter of thousands of glass shards, a sea of them between her and the outside. The gray feathers tucked against himself, avoiding the wind that tugged playfully at their tips, he extended his hand to her. With a mental sigh, she turned back to her couch and grabbed a blanket. In the chilly breeze from the outside, she laid this over most of the glass and walked carefully. The threshold clung to her, but only for a moment. The next moment her hand was in his, the startling heat of his fingers distracting her as she took the one step, then the other and laid her free hand on the balcony, feeling her heart trying to hammer its way out of her chest. It was a long way down, but she wasn't falling. Feathers tickled her cheek on the other side, and she looked around to realize he had extended his unharmed wing around her shoulders, cradling her in gray feathers and cutting off the worst of the wind's bite. She was holding his hand far too tightly, she sensed vaguely, as she rested more of her weight on the hand on the cold balcony rail. She leaned over, oh, only fractionally, and glimpsed the street, far below. Cassie understood something then, something terrible, a grim exchange for the freedom she'd been given. What she realized was that her fear, her implacable terror of Down, had been only the natural consequence of desire. Nothing drew her like that sweet and fatal swoop of gravity, of plummeting. She pulled back from the edge, without panic, only with regret and understanding. She pushed the feathers aside easily and walked back over the crunching blanket into her bedroom. He followed her, the nameless angel. Ducking his wings through the doorway, he stepped unconcernedly along the shimmering pathway of glass. Cassie curled up on her bed, wondering if she should call in to work today. Her co-workers would be expecting her. She didn't really think anyone would take time to call and find out if she were all right, but she could probably lose the job if she didn't come in. It seemed frighteningly less important than it would have yesterday. The winged man settled his light weight on the bed beside her. Feathers curling behind him, he reached for her hand again. She took it away automatically. "I'm sorry," she said at once and gave it back. "I just... I'm so overwhelmed by all this. But it's hardly your fault." She sighed. "It's clear I'm not going to work today, anyhow." The idea of leaving a broken-winged angel in her room and spending the day not telling anyone while she sold perfumes to strangers was inconceivable. The angel's lips were like dry silk on her knuckles. Cassie smiled slightly, thinking about work, hardly noticing the rustling of his wings as he curled himself around her. The heat of his skin against her sheet-wound body recalled her to herself, and just as she realized his interest in touching her was becoming more aggressive, it was too late because he had drawn her down to rest against his chest. "Wait," she said, "I don't..." The angel shook his ash-colored hair. "Fear nothing," he said. If his tone had been reassuring, Cassie wouldn't have believed him, being raised to automatically distrust men and their wiles. But his matter-of-factness sabotaged her programming. In so many ways he was different from everything she knew: the wings were the least of it. She settled her cheek against his shoulder and simply closed her eyes, without worry or anxiety. The sense of burdens lifted was amazing, a thing she hadn't known existed. How much she'd been carrying, all unawares. Still, when his hand slid warmly up her arm, his elbow cupping her back, she opened her eyes and stiffened up. It occurred to her to wish she could enjoy his caresses without worrying about what would happen next, but it was beyond her. She didn't know much about men, and whatever else he was, he was surely male. When would she need to stop him, before his desires became too much and he did something terrible to her? Or maybe it wouldn't be terrible. The things she didn't know crowded in her mind and crippled her. But the angel didn't try anything, as her stiffly made up mother probably would have put it. He merely held her, warming her from head to foot with his presence, the shifting canopy of his feathers speaking in whispers to one another overhead. Cassie's thoughts had been turned inexorably from her own difficulties to his presence, his nearness and his beauty. Embarassment kept her still for a long time; it was as if her self-consciousness extended to the room, the hush of balmy morning wind through the smashed window, the scent of uneasy sleep upon her breath, the carelessly heaped pillows that had fallen from the bed. But something else grew on her mind, something that made the stillness brittle. She wanted to touch him. If he would not take the decision from her hands, the wish to break her silence, her motionlessness, grew. The phone rang in the kitchen, and she leapt from the circle of his arm. The stalemate shattered, her heart pounding, she scurried away without looking. "Hello?" "You're home!" It was David, her boss. "Hey, blue eyes, are you okay?" "I'm sorry, David," she said, nerves making her stammer the words. "I don't feel very good. I was going to call you... really I was... I'm so sorry...." "Stop now," he said reassuringly. "I've already called Lisa in. Is it the flu?" "Oh no," she said. Her hand was knotted at her throat. Determined to make the crime of lying to David a minimal one, she said, "It's only a little stomach thing. I'll be all right. I'll come in tomorrow, no problem." "You're off tomorrow," he said. She could hear the smile in his voice. Generous David had raised two children her age. For a moment she wondered if he saw through her, but he sounded warm enough that it didn't matter either way. "You stay home, come in Friday, dear. Feel better." "Thanks, David." She still felt uncomfortable calling him by his first name, but he had insisted from the first. She stood in the silent kitchen for a minute after the call. Even now she couldn't properly exercise her hesitation without wondering what the angel was thinking in the bedroom. Her attempt to think it through went wildly astray, unable to get past the confusion in her head. Her mind had divided again, into the practical part and the meek and mild part her parents would have recognized. The practical part told her she had an opportunity here... she had read it in the angel's eyes, in his indrawn breath when she touched him. Only a fool would pass it up. The meek part was incoherent with fear, producing transparent arguments like static. He didn't desire her, he was here to take advantage of her, the wings were a clever special effect, she was dealing with a madman and an intruder. Practical said she had conquered the balcony. Now look: another fear had shown up. Meek had been wrong about the heights, which weren't out to get her. What were the chances it was right now? Meek quoted disease and violent crime statistics, took on the voices of her parents and lectured, ladled guilt about skipping work on top of that, and stirred well. "Shut up!" she whispered to herself fiercely. "Shut up and let me think!" You're cracking up, girl, Meek advised before dissolving. Practical only smiled. Then they were both gone. Cassie leaned her forehead against the cool tiles of the kitchen wall. That was when she heard the muted cry from the bedroom, and the sudden rattle of pained feathers. She dashed down the brief hall and turned into her bedroom doorway. Still seated on her bed, the angel had removed the dressing she'd put on his wing, the great swoop of its arch stretched out before him awkwardly so he could reach its elbow. "Oh, don't do that," she hastened in, climbing onto the bed on the other side of the gray wall of his wing. "You'll make it worse." She chided him, frowning at his unrepentant headshake. The wound had closed, as far as she could tell through the feathers. She'd washed it well; no blood crusted the contraption of light down and wire-tendons. The angel soberly bent the joint, wincing only slightly, and she saw it tremble. "Please," she said. "Just bind it up again. It'll be better sooner if you leave it alone!" "Where is the wind?" he asked, but resignedly. "As you say, graceful maiden." "Hah," she said, without thinking, as she wound the bandages most carefully, having to slip the length of the white fabric up between the same two pinions on every turn. He laughed, a silvery light chuckle that shivered his feathers, so that the sound seemed to run down them like water and vanish off the ends. She didn't hesitate at all, only followed these elusive ripples of laughter with her fingertips, thinking vaguely that she might catch them if she was quick enough. The feathers bent just slightly, elastically, under her touch. The angel's eyes ignited, the pale gray of them sparkling as his head lifted to look into her face over the quivering barrier of his wing. He closed it, lifting it over his head with the other, reaching out to her with both hands. She took them, her head a whirl of awareness, knowing that nothing now was between them but the cool material of the sheet. Her resolve certainly had no power to stop things now, if it ever had. Holding her fear and her desire like burning swords in both hands, she moved awkwardly on her knees closer to him, unable to look down at his body without dying of embarassment. The colors his eyes had picked up from the burgundy bedspread, the light rose walls, were gone, burned away before the assured fire shining there now. The angel's hands tightened on hers, balancing her as she wobbled toward him. "I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what she was apologizing for, not liking the changed sound of her voice. He shook his head, a trail of his hair falling over his eyes. Cassie nobly resisted the temptation to put it back. "Fear nothing," he said softly again. "Gift of beauty, earth's daughter, hands of the healer." "I'm sure you mean someone else," she said with a shaky laugh. "You know, I think it must be a problem with your English. Strictly phrases, and no... no sense at all." As she said this, he was enfolding her in his arms. She settled against the heat of his chest, feeling quite clearly how her body fit against his. She was aware of places she hardly ever thought about pressing against skin of his she hadn't dared dream of. Around her the gray softness of his wings closed, shutting out the rest of the world. Cradled in that feathery embrace, Cassie tried to calm her heart. "I'm afraid," she said, so softly she could barely hear herself, fighting her dry throat. "I'm a v-- I'm a virgin." She felt him nod, his chin pressing against her forehead, but the sense of his compassion and desire never faltered. His arms never lessened their tender crush, and she was growing used to leaning herself against him. Cassie thought that after today she couldn't use that word anymore, and a quiver of fear ran through her. It was the last, she decided immediately afterward. Meek and Mild might not realize it, but she'd made her decision. She wasn't going to push anything on him, but whatever he wanted of her, he could have. She trusted the angel. As if he felt her reach this conclusion through her skin, he waited no longer. The dusty velvet curtain of his wings parted as he straightened, rising to his knees against her. She felt the shifting firmness of his groin slipping into place at her hip. The angel's hands stroked down her back, taking the sheet with them, so that it tugged at her breasts, trying to slide away from between them. Cassie drew a deep breath and edged back, against the warm angle of his arm, and the sheet fell away. The angel settled his hands on her shoulders and looked gravely into her face. His eyes followed their natural course, down the slopes of her breasts and her abdomen, to the fluff of hair that curled between her legs like a sleeping animal. When his water- colored gaze met hers again it was alight. Cassie lifted her hand to his cheekbone, feeling there the unusual heat sinking into her bones. She had some idea from the movies that this was supposed to start with a kiss, and so she leaned forward and kissed him-- quailing at the last moment and pressing her lips to his cheek. This chaste motion nevertheless brought her nakedness and his into contact, and she twitched back, her breath quick and sharp. "Cassie," the angel said suddenly. The word came out harsh, not in tone but in timbre. It had cost him effort to say it. She looked at him helplessly. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just I'm so afraid." I'm ruining this, she thought. A flicker of annoyance went through her. If he'd only take her, without all this care... stop wondering if she were all right and take what he wanted. She'd find it much easier. Knowing it was a lunatic thought, she lowered her head lest he read it in her eyes. The rustle of his wings made her raise her glance. He was extending the hurt one again, without looking away from her, the faint shadows of pain crossing his marble face. It flicked smoothly back into position, with almost the same birdlike speed as the healthy wing. "Come," he said, letting his leg extend off the bed, then standing up. He kept her shoulders in his hands, drawing her after him. She followed him meekly, thinking that she owed him something after messing things up. If only her parents would shut up in her head, she could think. Propriety was a garotte, and with loving hands they had tied it around her neck. That thought collided with the one about fear and desire being like swords she held, swords of fire that burned her hands, yet saved her life. If she could use the one somehow to cut the other.... Cassie's thoughts were interrupted by the slice of glass into the ball of her foot as the angel led her toward the broken window. She hissed and stopped, his hand drifting off her shoulder, and balanced on the other foot to pull the sliver from her skin. A bead of blood followed, but it didn't look too serious. Picking her way more carefully, she stepped onto the blanket and followed the gray-winged angel onto her balcony. The wind tossed her hair about cheerfully, blonde streamers passing her eyes and tickling her nose. She was cheered simply by being out here, by letting the wind touch her and knowing it had no power to pick her up and fling her off. Her nipples hardened immediately in its relative chill, and she thought how silly it was to be out here naked. Why wasn't she screaming and running indoors for some clothing? The angel had gotten her used to nakedness, her mind answered. Besides, Practical quipped, surfacing momentarily, there's a naked man with huge gray wings standing next to you. Who's going to look at YOU? She laughed into the wind. The angel turned to her, his ashy hair blowing around his face just as hers did. His face was serenely amused, as if he'd heard Practical's joke. Cassie shook her head and leaned her elbows on the balcony. If the view down to the street made her slightly dizzy, it was a natural reaction. Fear and desire balanced evenly, tugging in different directions. She wasn't falling. The angel's hands slid over her shoulders again, and he pressed against her from behind, wrapping her in his arms. His wings extended toward her, cutting off much of the wind with their ship's-rigging creak and ripple. He leaned over her, resting his chin against her ear, holding her with the heat of his body. She closed her eyes, the wind and his touch blending together. His hands cupped her breasts suddenly, touching where nobody had ever touched. Her nipples, tight with cold, burned against his palms. She had made some sound, not knowing what it was. His touch drew away a little, his hands moving to her shoulders, his arms still wrapped warmly around hers. She leaned back against him, wanting only comfort. But he was going, pulling back from her, making her stand on his own and letting the cool wind back against her skin. She turned to look at him. The angel leapt catlike, balanced his feet for one instant on the rails of the balcony, and flung himself off into the air. Cassie shouted incoherently, grabbing after him, her heart instantly turning into a sickened pounding thing in her chest. Suicide! But the angel had changed utterly. No longer a grounded thing with incongruous feathers, he had become a bird that looked like a man. His wings had opened into a sweetly natural position, carrying him already far off into the wind, horizontal. He wasn't falling either. The white patch of bandage showed on his wing joint as he curved his flight, swooping upward, over her head. She heard his delighted silvery laughter from far away, brought to her by the wind. Then he was gone behind the building. Alone, Cassie suddenly felt her nakedness. She crossed her arms over her breasts, but couldn't bear to go back inside, not yet, and admit that her bird had flown. Surely he would come back...? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Rosemerry perigryn@earthlink.net Each star now knows your name I've wished upon them all Each answer is the same: "Not 'til the heavens fall." http://home.earthlink.net/~perigryn/ -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | <http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/>----<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/faq.html> From perigryn.removethis@earthlink.net Thu Nov 12 04:31:58 1998 Path: news.iconnect.net!chicago-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!cyclone.i1.net!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!digex!howland.erols.net!panix!news.panix.com!qz!not-for-mail From: perigryn.removethis@earthlink.net (Rosemerry) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Subject: Fear & Desire Pt 3 (M/F, sci fi, virgin) Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Date: 12 Nov 1998 10:31:58 GMT Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Lines: 511 Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us> Message-ID: <17158eli$9811120531@qz.little-neck.ny.us> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix5.nfs100.access.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/17158.txt> X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Original-Message-Id: <v01540b03b26f71d32c71@[38.27.84.91]> Xref: news.iconnect.net alt.sex.stories.moderated:5044 alt.sex.stories:240055 The rush of wings came from behind her. She'd barely turned when he was almost upon her. She gave a little shriek at the great gray thing bearing down, and backed up a step. He cupped the wings with a hollow boom of air and was immediately thumping to his feet on the concrete. The wings flickered back to their folded positions and the angel laughed again. "You're better!" Cassie said. "Or anyway, you can fly now." Her heart slowing a little, she thought about the first time she'd realized he was hurt, and how much she'd wanted his freedom. Now he had it. She couldn't ask him to stay, she told herself firmly. "I'm, I'm glad." Cursing her hesitation, she looked away. The sun was well and truly up, although her balcony faced the west. She was in the shadow of the building. It was probably nearly ten o'clock, if she'd awakened as late as she thought. The breakfast hour was passed, and she didn't miss it, but having the day off would mean she'd spend it at odds in her apartment, listening to the fretful voices of her parents in her head. Alone. "Come, merciful child of earth," said the warm, light tenor of the angel near her. He'd stepped close, his body shining in the pale shade. "Seek the wind." He held out his hand. Cassie took it, not wanting to let herself understand what he'd just said. The angel didn't give her time to think, which was a blessing. He took her hand, drawing her across his body, and caught her around the waist with his other arm. She felt his legs heave, his manhood slide against her--felt that clearly, in the chaos of terrified sensation--and her feet had lost the pavement. Cassie fairly screamed, flung her free arm around his neck. Suddenly he was everything that kept her from death, and she clung for dear life. The building was gone, everything was gone but the merciless drop below and the fragile hot construction of flesh and light bones that she held to. His whole body surged against her over and over with the flapping of his wings. Their sounds were all around her, slicing down the wind and slapping up, as loud as if he were a living sail. She felt his laugh against her breasts, a sound of pure joy. "Put me down, put me back!" she cried. The angel made no response, other than to swoop. Gravity shifted sickeningly, for a moment she was on top of him, then her arms clinched tighter as she slung underneath again. It became clear he wasn't planning to stop. She felt his chest heaving, felt his arms tremble as he clung to her waist, but he wasn't going to stop. She clung with arms and legs, waiting to be killed. "Look," he said, his voice loud over the wind, vibrating against her ear. He sounded labored. "Look, earth's daughter." She sniffled her terrified tears back and turned her head a little. One eye came free of his shoulder and neck, and she saw they were over a completely different part of the city. The buildings were unfamiliar to her. People walked briskly down the sidewalk, little more than moving dots at this height. "They don't look up," she said shakily. Her grip on his neck and hips never slackened. The angel's wings shook the air harder as he lifted them up, higher, moving over the city at a rapid pace. There was a park, a playground. Only a few children swung desultorily on its swings at the hour, but the ducks in the pond took notice of the great winged shape moving overhead and scattered, panicked. Their shadow slipped smoothly over the grass, small as an airplane's shadow far away. Cassie's fear didn't lessen. No matter how long he flew, she would remain terrified, she knew. It was wearing her out. But through it, or past it, she was learning to think for herself. She couldn't pay attention to her social programming in a situation as crazy as this, and the angel had never had any. The voices of her parents, and of Practical and her wimpy counterpart, were left behind, blown away from her by the wind that seared her skin with its chill. And as the angel soared with her over the city she began to touch him. Her fingers first became aware of the line of his shoulders underneath his skin. His bones were so light, hard-edged beneath their thin, flexing cover of powerfully hot skin. She didn't release her left hand's hold on her right wrist, or let herself relax in his arms, but her hand slid down the backbone. At the same time she lifted her head a fraction, letting her mouth come in contact with his shoulder instead of her eyes. His skin was sweet, dusted lightly with a pungent sweat. Cassie smiled against his shoulder, feeling his body twitch against her in reaction. She took a firm grip on his neck with her left hand, entirely freeing her right. He was holding her, after all, and her knees were still clamped around his. She wouldn't fall. He wouldn't let her. So her hand slid down his back, resting lightly on the working muscles that drove the great wings. As her fingers slid into feathers, she heard his breathing shudder and the wingbeats faltered. Then they were plunging downward, the wings motionless in the air. She shrieked again and opened her eyes, turning her head, snatching back her hand to grip the other in a panicky clutch. The building came at them, nearly smashing them to bits, but he had somehow swept around it on a rush of wind. On the other side, his wings still extended and still, there was a lift. Gravity tugged at her as they rose, circling slowly around on one side of a worn, elderly building with round little windows. She watched the bricks descending slowly, until suddenly it was potted trees and artificial flowers,in among hothouse ivy and tended grass. Someone's roof garden was below them, then the angel's wings clapped twice and gave their hollow boom, he released her and they fell together onto the grass. She rolled twice, jumbled and bruised, and came to a halt, collecting herself. A quick look showed her an empty garden, with the roof door that led to it closed if not locked. Good; she wouldn't be hauled off to the police for being here, especially being here naked. She turned her head. The angel looked as if his last act had been to land her on this grassy space. He lay unnaturally on his back, his wings spread in two enormous gray arcs on the ground. Their feathers trembled slightly, and he was breathing hard, the only indication that he still lived. His mouth was slack and open, his head turned to the side, his hair everywhere. She crawled over to him, put both hands on his sweaty chest. "Are you all right?" she asked frantically. He nodded slightly, both alive and awake, to her great relief. Cassie looked around more carefully. There was a pool, now covered up for the season, and the potted trees were mostly palms, likely to survive the winter in this balmy part of the world. The flowers weren't real, the deck chairs were folded away and the grass was altogether too green. Someone was maintaining this area for its wealthy owner, who probably lived in the entire upper floor of the building, but it wasn't actually in use right now. "Angel," she said frankly, "you scared hell out of me." There wasn't a peep from her parents' mental voices, despite the forbidden word. They were probably still in the wind somewhere between here and her apartment. The angel was laughing at her, his eyes open now, taking on the green of the grass he lay in. He pushed at her to move back, and sat up, the wings flipping to a modified version of their folded position, over his head. It didn't look comfortable. Cassie did her best to turn off her brain. Then she settled back in the grass, flicked her hair out of her eyes, and reached up to draw him down over her. His wings creaked as they flipped back down to a resting place, and the heel of his hand landed on her hair, tugging her head aside. His kiss landed on the corner of her mouth. His lips were as heated as the rest of him, silky. She flushed deeply, but didn't let herself realize it. Fear had been sliced out of her by the knife of the wind, leaving only desire. His chest was slick and smooth under her fingers, the nubs of his nipples as hard as hers, in miniature. He kissed her more properly. She hadn't known to open her lips, it happened on its own, letting his tongue slip in. This made him soften against her, molding his body to hers, except for the one part that hardened, which she was hyperaware of, happening against her hip. Cassie found out about the wings by accident, too. Her hands wanted to touch and smooth his skin everywhere. Eventually they naturally gravitated to his back, and when she ruffled up the little feathers that led to his wings, he gasped, stiffening against her. She looked into his face, concerned, and at last understood the meaning of this reaction. Deliberately, she did it again, feeling the silky, dusty softness of the numberless tiny feathers under her fingers. The angel gave a sound halfway between a growl and a moan and put his head down beside her neck. His back arched, reminding her of a cat she had once petted. Cassie felt a sweeping rush of something, moving from her groin up through her body to spread hotly in her chest, a sweet sense of her own power to make him feel whatever it was that caused that sound. She kissed him this time, boldly touching her mouth to his. Somehow things were happening all over her body that she wasn't in control of. Her own back strained her up against him, pressed her breasts against his chest. Her right knee came up, her toes digging into the grass, while her left, the one he was half- resting on, was down, welcoming him. And she felt the place between her legs, the one she'd never been as aware of as she was right now, slickening itself with a feeling of heat and wanting she'd not felt since watching evil movies in high school. Her hands slid down the luxuriance of his wings, feathers springy and strong under her hands. The angel moaned softly, burying his face against her neck, his mouth working on her skin. She felt a shiver go through her, and strained his body closer against hers. He put his hand on her breast again, this time not cupping but stroking. His fingers pinched her nipple. It was extraordinary, as if her nipples were connected by wires of pleasure to her groin. It was Cassie's turn to moan. It had never occurred to her that her body would know what to do, without any instruction on her part. But her hands guided his head, her fingers buried themselves in the cool, silky strands of his hair, setting his face against her breast until her nipple was taken into his mouth. Cassie let her voice express her pleasure again, the wind taking it, scattering it over the empty garden. His body shifted, moving more over her. His hipbone ground a little painfully against hers, catching a bruised place from her unceremonious dumping onto this rooftop. She didn't care. Her attention was on the way his manhood seemed hard and seeking, yet springy, its root flexible so that it slid over her hip and nestled in her pubic hair without hurting him, although his body was pressed as closely against hers as could possibly be. Cassie wanted it, knew suddenly where it should go, her body seeming to hollow itself out in readiness. Her legs were even opening, her knee canting off at an angle. She raked her fingers down his back for the reward of his gasp, riffling her thumbs through the little feathers. He moved his mouth from one nipple to the other, bracing himself on his elbows, and suckled there. She let her head fall back to the grass, little sounds coaxed out of her with every motion of his tongue on the sensitive spot. His wings extended over her, their quivering feathertips pointing over her head. She stroked them with both hands. His hand swept hungrily down her body, sliding over her ribcage. Cassie caught her breath in astonishment, as her entire body seemed to leap for his touch. She never would have thought pleasure so universal, so that every inch of her skin surface longed for the heat and smoothness of his skin. His fingers slipped between her legs. Cassie rejected the impulse to close them, block him out. Instead she merely tensed in something between anticipation and nervousness. There was no pain. The lips there welcomed his touch, and she felt the astonishing heat, coming not from outside but from within, spreading over her lips and coating her upper thighs as his hand explored her. Pleasure followed his fingers. She was so deep there, she could have swallowed his whole hand, though it was too big around. She shuddered as his thumb grazed the sensitive spot under its hood, and suddenly wanted the finish of this thing with twice her urgency. "My angel," she whispered, not wanting to hear again that rough, deepened sound to her voice. Her whole body felt that way. She knew how it would sound when she spoke aloud. He slid his finger into her, simultaneously pulling on her nipple with his lips. Cassie tilted her hips, wanting to drive his finger more deeply in. Her breast slipped from his mouth, and she threw both arms around his neck. Wings rustled as she kissed him, marveling at the taste of her own skin on his lips and tongue. "Please," she said when he drew back, his gray eyes burning in his face. "Now, please." He nodded to her, his mobile lips curling in a smile. His knee slid between hers, bearing his weight as he hovered over her. Cassie knew without knowing what came next, and her body was tense and frightened as she made herself open her legs widely. It felt wanton, improper to do, but she did. She was resolved. The springiness of his masculinity, its heavy, blunt flop, made sense to her now as it slipped deliciously against her soaking lips. He leaned aside, one hand holding him up. The other caught her hand and drew it down. Cassie realized where he was going and bit her lip, but let him move her fingers to it. Hot, as the rest of him was hot, and smooth. It had grown astonishingly, she thought, from when she had first seen it. Its dimensions frightened her; was this meant to go inside her? She stroked, cautiously, feeling the way the skin seemed to move sleekly over the solid core underneath. Perhaps it was boned, like the rest of him, although she wasn't sure how that could be when its shape had changed so. Either way, suddenly she didn't know if she could go through with this. Her touch had made him quiver. He crouched over her, taking her hand from him. He lifted it up, kissed the knuckles once, and rested it firmly on his shoulder. Then while Cassie gripped him there with panicky strength, he did it. She gasped and closed her eyes tight while he entered her a little, waited a moment and pushed forward, waited, and again. It hurt more than a little, but she didn't stop him. When he began to move, sliding himself in and out of her, the pain diminished, fading away slowly until the experience wasn't unpleasant anymore. Cassie let herself relax after that, shaken by the pain she'd felt. He kept moving, tenderly, over her, his back arching up like an animal's. His wings were outspread around her, their leading edges braced against the ground delicately. His breathing was coming more swiftly, his hair falling all around her face and dripping into his eyes. She set it back and he smiled at her, kissing her wrist while he moved, thrusting into her again and again. She felt a dreamy sense of that power again, the ability to make him feel pleasure. She reached around his chest, under the supporting arms, and ran her fingers over the strong base of his wings. He gave a soft sound and the motion of his hips speeded up, rocking against her. She found her own body moving with his. The friction was what delighted him, she realized, giving him the same pleasure she'd felt when he rubbed her. The brief pain had stunned the pleasure out of her, but she sensed that if he kept this up long enough, it would come back. He wouldn't, though. He was going too fast, driving himself into her on his own timetable. She simply held him, let him have his way with her, moved with him, stroking over and over again the feathers of his wings, the muscles of his back. Once her hand dared to slip down, feel the tensing and releasing that was moving him into her. Cassie listened with wonder to his voice, raised in passion near her ear. She was bringing this out of him, taking him to this height. It felt wonderful. The angel met her eyes, his shining and glittering with eagerness. She couldn't bear the unguarded look of his face, and kissed him so that she could close her eyes. His mouth was loose with pleasure, and he moaned right into her kiss, vibrating her lips with the sound. Sudden pleasure leapt up in her, warming her nerves, all of them. He threw his head back, his ash-colored hair flaring everywhere, and she heard the rattling rustle of his wings as they tensed and shuddered. Inside her, he seemed to do the same thing, twitching and jerking. His voice was the piercing wildness of an eagle's call. She felt him stop, trembling as he pressed himself as far into her as he could, his supporting hands digging their fingers into the turf.She made a short, gutteral sound, heated by another flash of dull, faraway pleasure. Mostly she was overjoyed by his ecstasy. This was what he'd wanted, and she'd been able, despite her inexperience, to give it to him. It was all she could have asked. Breathing again, he relaxed down onto her, crushing her for a moment before he slipped off. His wings folded themselves langorously, and he dropped his head onto her shoulder, panting. He slipped out of her, and she felt that most of her lower body was wet, and he was, too, dampening her outer thigh. Cassie felt unreal, felt the way a person does when a change has been made but not yet understood. To her horror she realized tears were sliding down her temples. Her hand was caught under his shoulders, and she couldn't wipe them away. For a while they lay there. His breathing slowed, but he didn't look up. Cassie's tears dried slowly, and she became aware of a dull ache where he had used her so thoroughly. She shifted, turning onto her side and moving into his arms, where he held her and she wept a little more, quietly. The angel caught her tears on the ball of his thumb and wiped them away, saying nothing. She was afraid to look at his face, but she clung to him warmly. Once she had done crying, his hands stroked her reassuringly, and his wing curled over her like a blanket of feathers, keeping out the chill. Cassie snuggled into him and thought of sleep, now that his desires had been satisfied and she could count on nothing but caresses of tenderness now. For a time, that was all he gave her. She even dozed a little bit, forgetting that she was in a strange place, on grass that didn't belong to her. But finally she became aware the the slow sweeps of his palm were gaining a little in firmness; sliding over her body with a more interested touch. He stroked her shoulder, her arm, slid his palm over her breast, nudging the nipple with the base of his fingers as his hand moved back up. His fingers trailed over her neck, tilting her head back so he could lay minute kisses under her chin. Cassie's body answered these caresses, writhing very slowly in his arms. Her breathing came a little faster. She realized suddenly that there was more pleasure to be had here, and all the danger had gone out of it. The angel's kisses moved over her neck, sending little ripples of sensation through her. His touch slipped down her spine, rubbing slow circles at its base. She tried to do as he did, touch him where she was touched, hoping to discover what he liked. He smiled and moved against her, humming softly against the place where her neck and shoulder came together. Cassie sighed, caressed by his mouth, his fingers, his wingtips. Warm and slow-moving, pleasure rippled through her like an underground river, flooding to every part of her. Her nipples were hard again, though she was anything but cold this time. The angel mouthed them as he had done before, this time biting down on them so gently there was no pain, only an exquisite sting of pleasure. Cassie whimpered. Her fingers forgot what they were doing and slipped into his hair, holding his head against her. He curled his tongue around her nipple. She arched against him, pressing herself against his heat. His moving hand slipped over her hip, dropping again to the sticky wetness between her legs. She opened them without hesitation this time, wincing slightly at the bruised feeling. His fingers entered her again, drawing their joined fluids out to burn her lips. His thumb pressed lightly on her clitoris. She gasped, her hips jerked against his hand, and she gave herself up to his touch. His fingers worked on her, pleasure multiplying there, concentrated like honey where his thumb was keeping up a firm pressure. He pressed her down against the grass with his chest, which she was grateful for, keeping her involuntary wriggling to a minimum. She clung to him, unable to believe what was happening to her. Had he felt this way? It was no wonder he hadn't been able to wait for her. The rest of her thought processes dissolved. Her fingers clawed at his shoulderblades, and she pressed her forehead against his collarbone, bracing it while his fingers drove against her, moving faster still. A breathless moment passed. Her body was taken by a whipcrack of pleasure that shuddered and contracted her inner muscles, quivered her thighs, broke a cry from her throat. She shook while it settled back out of her, her legs closing automatically against his hand. He held her, easing her down onto the grass again, tucking her against his warm side, gentling her with his hands. "Angel," she murmured into his shoulder. "Mmmm..." She half-woke some time later, mid-air. Her feet were dangling in the cold, and that was what woke her. Her arms were loosely around his neck, but he held her tightly against himself. She wasn't afraid, only burrowed her face against him away from the wind. She was asleep again before they reached her building. The landing was better this time, although he must have been exhausted. Cassie opened her eyes when he put her onto her bed, drew the blanket over her, and settled down on his chest beside her. The last thing she saw was his wing next to her face, when he drew the joint down and unwound the bandage from it. He dropped it over the side and settled down to sleep. Slept out, she awakened late that evening, alone. The screen door was still open to the sky, glass everywhere, and the bandage still lay on the floor bedside; but that was almost the only thing to tell her it had ever happened. The angel had flown. The last relatively good day was over. 12 MONTHS LATER Cassie stepped into the elevator on low-heeled shoes, her briefcase in her hand. She regarded the figure in the elevator mirror with some satisfaction. The business suit was smart, even after a long day; the managerial nametag was still ruler-straight on her breast. She reached up and pulled her hairpin out, letting the no-nonsense style down, so that her honey-colored hair fell about her shoulders. Winking a blue eye at herself, she stepped off onto her floor. The door opened without a key. "Welcome home," a female voice called from the bedroom. Cassie dropped purse, briefcase, coat, earrings in a path to the bedroom door, stepping over things scattered about the floor. "Diane," she said, smiling. "How is he?" "Big as life and twice as troublesome," the younger girl answered cheerfully. She stood up with the baby over her shoulder and handed him to his mother. Receiving his light weight, Cassie had to smile. She and her baby engaged in meaningless babble for a few minutes. The baby's wide gray eyes looked at her happily as he told her, in gibberish, everything that had happened while she was gone. "Still doesn't weigh enough, ma'am," Diane said reproachfully. "Look at him, he's growing plenty," she countered. "He's just got light bones. Haven't you, cutie? Let's go see the sky." "I'll just go on, ma'am," Diane said, pointing to the door. "I've got homework to do yet." "Thanks again, Diane... see you tomorrow." She and the baby went out on the balcony. She moved the sliding glass door aside, thinking as she always did of a time when she couldn't even open it without fear. Now the lessons childbirth and motherhood had taught her were written on her face in lines of confidence. Beside the door was the framed letter from her father, disowning her in tones of righteous indignance. The frame was gold. "What do you see, baby?" she asked absently, leaning against the railing. She kept her son on the opposite hip, in from the edge, automatically. It'd be worse later, when the two lumps of tissue along his back split and the feathers began to grow. Teething would have nothing on it. Cassie shaded her eyes. The sky was so blue today. The baby crowed at the wind, his bits of gold hair blowing across his round face. She looked up into the cloud-scattered sky, remembering a storm. The angel had come on the last relatively good day. There was a speck in the blue, growing rapidly. The baby, recognizing the signs he'd seen every day since his birth, crowed. The gray wings of his father, the child of heaven, the messenger, became visible as a faroff shape in the sky, coming closer, and Cassie smiled in anticipation. All the days since had been absolutely wonderful. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Rosemerry perigryn@earthlink.net Each star now knows your name I've wished upon them all Each answer is the same: "Not 'til the heavens fall." http://home.earthlink.net/~perigryn/ -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | <http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/>----<http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/faq.html>