Worlds Apart

CHAPTER 1: BEST FRIENDS

	“Why are you crying?” Jamie asked, sidling up beside the strange girl as she sat alone on the swing set. She wasn't swinging, she was just dangling with her paw-like feet off the ground, gripping the chains with her clawed hands and looking sullen. The sounds of children laughing carried over from the other side of the playground, but she was not participating. The round, furry ears on the top of her head swiveled, and she looked up at him with her green, feline eyes. She rubbed her running nose with the back of her furry arm and sniffed noisily.
	“Who are you?” She asked.
	“I'm Jamie,” he replied, hanging from the metal A-frame of the swing set. He didn't know what to make of this girl, she was short and pudgy, with a layer of fine, sandy-colored hair that covered her body. She wore a blue sundress with yellow duck patterns on it, and her furry cheeks were matted with tears. She had a long, fluffy tail that trailed on the ground behind her as she swayed on her seat. She looked like a little lion, Jamie mused, he had seen them in his alphabet book.
	The girl sniffed loudly again, wiping her pink, cat-like nose.
	“Those other kids were making fun of me.”
	“How come?”
	“Because I have a tail,” she replied hesitantly, almost as if she were afraid that Jamie would follow suit if he noticed it. He leaned around to see it, and she returned her gaze to the ground.
	“That's pretty cool,” the boy replied, “I wish I had a tail.”
	“You do?” The girl seemed to perk up a little, her ears rising to their full height.
	“The best animals all have tails,” he reaffirmed, starting to count on his stubby fingers. “Tigers, dinosaurs, sharks, snakes...”
	“Snakes only have a tail,” she giggled, rubbing her eyes.
	“Yeah, but snakes are pretty cool.” He couldn't think of anything else to say, and hooked his thumbs through the suspenders of the denim overalls he was wearing as he bobbed on the spot. She seemed happier now though, watching him expectantly with her reflective pupils. Jamie didn't care that she looked different, he just wanted to cheer her up.
	“Want me to push you?” She nodded, and he walked behind her, careful to avoid stepping on her tail. He put his hands on her back, giving her a good shove, and she started to swing backwards and forwards. He kept it up, getting a good rhythm going, but not wanting to send her too high. The boys liked to go as high as they could, then jump off, but girls usually got scared.
	“What's your name?” he asked, noting that her ears had turned all the way around to track his voice.
	“Liz,” she replied, the mop of blonde hair on her head flowing behind her as she swung.
	“I'm six and a half,” Jamie stated proudly, “how old are you?”
	“I'm five.”
	“Is it your first day at school?”
	“Yeah.”
	“I was scared when I first came to school,” he said, giving her another shove to keep her going. “I didn't have any friends at first. I can be your friend, if you want.” Liz tuned her head to peer back at him.
	“You mean it? Nobody else wants to be my friend. The girls teased me and said I looked like a cat. They won't play with me.”
	“Well you do,” he started, then continued hurriedly as she began to pout. “But I like cats.”
	She smiled, and turned her head back towards her front, starting to swing her feet in time with his pushes. After a few minutes a gaggle of half a dozen boys walked over to see what hey were doing, Tyler at their head. Jamie didn't like Tyler, he was a mean kid, and he was big. He liked to shove people and start fights a recess. He was always hogging the swing set with his friends, trying to send eachother up and over the bar. Liz's expression fell as she saw them approach, her ears flattening against her head and her tail drooping.
	“I want a turn on the swing set, Jamie,” Tyler said. He stood in front of Liz's swing so that she had to slow herself and stop.
	“There are two, you can use the other one,” Jamie replied.
	“I said I want a turn,” Tyler reiterated, more sternly this time. Liz's lower lip began to tremble and she looked as if she might start to cry again. She turned back to Jamie, unsure of what to do.
	“Well you can't have a turn yet, we're not done with it.” Tyler circled around Liz and stood before Jamie, a head taller than him, squaring up for a fight. Jamie held his ground, growing angrier as Liz became more distressed.
	“I said scram,” Tyler spat, and shoved him. Jamie stumbled but didn't fall, staggering backwards a few paces. Liz slunk off the seat and covered her ears with her fluffy hands, eyes darting between the two boys as fat tears rolled down her pudgy cheeks. Now they had done it, he had just succeeded in cheering her up and now they had undone all of his work. Jamie's face reddened, his knuckles white as he balled his fists.
	“Back off, Tyler.”
	“Or what,” the taller boy sneered, “you gonna go crying to the teacher?”
	“No I'm gonna beat your ass.” Tyler seemed a little taken aback, then turned to his friends, laughing. They joined in, the chorus of jeering children frightened Liz as she looked on.
	“You trying to impress your new girlfriend, Jamie? Why don't you marry her if you like her so much?” Tyler turned his attention to Liz, and walked over to stand in front of her, cocking his head curiously. “What's wrong with her anyway? She got a disease or something?” He tugged one of her ears between his thumb and forefinger, and she wailed her displeasure.
	“Hey!” Jamie bellowed, “leave her alone.”
	Tyler released the girl's ear and marched back over to him, shoving him violently to the ground. Jamie fell on his rear, kicking up a cloud of dust.
	“Stay down unless you want to get beat,” Tyler snarled, and turned his back to Jamie, making a beeline towards Liz who was beside herself. “Go play somewhere else, freak.” She shut her eyes and shook her head, her chest heaving as she sobbed. Jamie saw red, lifting a nearby rock off the ground and leaping to his feet. He charged Tyler from behind before any of his friends could react, slamming the rock into the back of his head. He fell heavily to the floor, groaning as blood matted his dark hair. He rolled over and made to stand up, but Jamie caught his nose with a swift kick, knocking him back down. He gave him another good kick to the ribs with his scuffed sneakers, then Tyler scrambled free, stumbling away towards the school building. Now who was going crying to teacher? The other boys scattered, not wanting to get in trouble too, and Jamie dropped the bloodied rock at his feet.
	Liz shuffled up next to him, sniffing and drying her eyes on the collar of her duck pattern dress. She hid slightly behind him, taking his hand. Her fingers were thick and furry, there were only four of them, and she wrapped her flexible tail around his waist. She was clinging to him like a baby monkey.
	“I'm sorry he scared you,” Jamie said, “Tyler is a bully.”
	“I'm ok...”
	“Want to go back on the swings?”
	She nodded, smiling up at him.

	Jamie waited for Liz on the steps outside of the science building, she should be finishing her exobiology class right about now. He rested his hands on the straps of his backpack, feeling the heat of the sun on his face and listening to the wind rustle the leaves of the trees that were dotted around the campus. He heard a bell ring, and a short while later a torrent of students flooded out of the doors and down the steps, eager to put the school day behind them. He saw Liz emerge, her golden hair blowing in the light breeze. He remembered her as a kitten, when they had met that day at the swing set. She had been short and fat, covered in sandy fur from her head to the tip of her tail. As she had matured, she had grown out of her puppy fat, and the hair had receded from her face and torso revealing coffee-colored skin beneath. Only her lower arms, lower legs and her long tail were still coated in a layer of silky hair. Borealans were basically humanoid, a species evolved from a feline ancestor that had taken a fairly convergent evolutionary path, at least that's what she told him when her pink nose wasn't buried in one of her textbooks. Her father was an ambassador living on Earth, and he had brought his family with him in order to learn about the local culture, putting his daughter through the human school system as part of his commitment. Jamie had met her parents, they were massive and intimidating at eight feet, but their daughter's infatuation with Jamie had seen them warm up to him quickly and they now treated him as a member of their family.
	At sixteen years old Liz was still short by Borealan standards, her parents promised her a growth spurt when she reached the right age, but for now she was only about five feet six inches. Jamie had sprouted in his adolescence, dwarfing his friend at six feet one inch, and he never missed an opportunity to tease her about it. She would probably have the last laugh when she reached the size of her kin, but for now Jamie was a head taller than her.
	She waved to him with her clawed hand, pulling the strap of her book bag over the shoulder of her turtleneck sweater. Jamie didn't think of her as an alien, not really. He had known her for most of his life. Her dress sense, accent, mannerisms, they were all so distinctly human that if it wasn't for her appearance you wouldn't be able to tell that she wasn't an Earth native. A few people still gave her shit about her planet of origin, calling her names like 'E.T' or 'Garfield', but never within earshot of Jamie. He had made it abundantly clear that anyone who wanted to give Liz a hard time had to go through him first, he was on the track team and was one of the largest students at the school, he was not above knocking out a few teeth to keep xenophobes off her back.
	Most people knew about the races of the multi-species Coalition to which Earth belonged at this point, it was taught in schools and you couldn't watch a minute of television without seeing an alien, but to have one actually living on Earth among humans was a novelty to which not everyone had become accustomed.
	Liz trotted over to walk beside him, looking up at him with her reflective, green eyes.
	“Hi Jamie, you done with your classes?”
	“Yeah, I finished last period, but I thought I'd wait for you.”
	She seemed pleased as she took his hand and trotted at his side, keeping up with the taller boy easily with her long, loping strides. Her parents told him that Borealis had a higher gravity than Earth, although despite Jamie trying to get her into sports in order to leverage her natural strength, she was a total bookworm. The only physical activity she seemed to enjoy was Aikido, some far East martial art that she said was good exercise, but he suspected that she had taken up because of her problems with bullying in her youth. She took classes at a local gym every Wednesday and was getting pretty good from what she told him.
	 Like many second generation immigrants she seemed fascinated with her culture of origin, and it caused Jamie to wonder if it made her experience of life any harder to be so far removed from it. Her parents appeared to have brought much of their culture with them, however. Their house was filled with strange pieces of art and decorative tapestries, busts, sculptures, even odd pelts from unidentifiable alien wildlife.
	“You want to get some food?” Jamie asked, and she nodded. The girl could eat, despite her smaller stature she easily outpaced Jamie when it came to dining, often consuming three or four human portions whenever the mood took her. It was a source of minor embarrassment to her, but she never seemed to gain any weight. Must be her alien metabolism, Jamie had theorized. She had an odd palate too, she seemed to favor fat and salt over sugar, in fact he couldn't remember one instance where she had ordered something sweet like a dessert or a soda, at least not in his company. Wherever all those empty calories were going, they were going fast.
	They left the school campus and made their way towards the residential district where they both lived, there was a diner on the way where they liked to stop, it was usually fairly quiet and nobody bothered Liz. Traffic hurried past them on the adjacent road, rush hour clogging the lanes as people tried to get home after a long day of work. Shuttles and maglev buses crowded the skies overhead, weaving between the skyscrapers and the pedestrian walkways that networked the upper floors. Jamie and Liz preferred to walk rather than to ride the buses that transported much of the school's population to and from their homes, it was nice to take a break from the rat race of the city and just enjoy the lack of stimulation for a while. There were never many people crowding the streets, despite the slew of road and air traffic. They walked beneath rows of trees that lined the street, their colors now changing from green to rich shades of red and brown as the seasons turned, Liz kicked through the piles of shedded foliage gleefully with her paw-like feet. She never wore shoes, although she had adopted human clothing styles, whatever boots they might be able to make that would fit would probably only look strange and draw further attention to her.
	They arrived at the diner, its large glass window and flickering, pink neon sign a deliberate throwback to vintage styles. Jamie opened the door for Liz, she ducked under his arm and made her way to their preferred booth at the back. The staff knew them here, and that seemed to set Liz more at ease, she was always on edge whenever they went somewhere new where people might stare at her.
	A waitress walked over to take their orders, clad in a pink, knee-length uniform with a white apron tied around her waist. It was quiet today and they were the only couple in the diner. Well, he shouldn't use the word 'couple'. They had been best friends since childhood, inseparable but not romantically involved. He had often thought about it, but he didn't know if their species were even compatible. How would he broach the subject, what would their parents say? Jamie was pretty popular with girls, he was tall and athletic, but he had never had eyes for anyone besides Liz. He remained staunchly celibate, much to the dismay of his female classmates. Rumors circulated of course that he and Liz were an item, but he wasn't sure that anyone really believed them, it was just juvenile teasing. In his eyes Liz was still the little girl who had been crying in the playground, someone who needed his protection and his friendship, he couldn't bring himself to risk spoiling that for her.
	“Hi, I'd like the double cheeseburger and a side of wings, with a glass of water please,” Liz said, handing the laminated menu that had been waiting on the table up to the waitress. She wrote the order down on her notepad then turned to Jamie.
	“What'll it be?”
	“Just a root beer float for me, thanks.”
	The waitress nodded and recorder his order, walking back over to the counter, her red heels clicking on the tile floor. Jamie lurched as he felt Liz nudge him with her tail below the table.
	“You won't grow up big and strong if you don't eat,” she joked.
	“I think I'll manage,” he chuckled, turning his attention to the cars that jammed the road outside the long window.
	“Something the matter? You've been pretty distant today,” she said, concern creeping into her voice. Jamie snapped out of his daydream and tried to play it off, stretching his long arms above his head.
	“Just had a long day is all, practice ran later than usual.”
	“I see, I've had a long day too. We're covering Krell now, we've finished on Borealans and Betelgeusians. Miss Connor said I was a big help, she let me bring in some photos of me when I was a kitten to show the class how my people shed our fur as we age. I can't believe how fat I was back then, do you remember?”
	“Yeah, you were a cute kid. I remember when you hit puberty and you came crying to me because you thought you were going bald.” She feigned outrage and batted at him with her furry hand.
	“I was distraught! I was convinced I would end up looking like your dad!”
	“Luckily I have my mother's hair.”
	“I wish you wouldn't cut it,” Liz stated, eyeing his blonde fuzz. “When you let it grow out you almost look like one of us.” Jamie ran his fingers through it absent-mindedly as she watched him with her emerald eyes.
	“Well the coach won't let us have long hair, might get caught on something, but I'll take your fashion advice into account.” Liz dressed very much like a human, she preferred long sleeved tops like hoodies or sweaters so that she could conceal the fur on her forearms, and she wore loose fitting jogging pants that would let her digitigrade legs bend at the heel joint. She loved winter, the cold allowed her to wear gloves and a hat that further concealed her alien features and gave her a boost in confidence that Jamie found endearing. Her parents had garments that they had brought with them in preparation for her growing up, but she refused to be seen in them, finding that they made her stand out more than she already did. They were also oddly revealing which made her uncomfortable, so she had reported to Jamie, as he had never seen her wearing them.
	She was a meek girl, very much a product of her environment. From what Jamie had been told by her parents, and what he had learned in classes, the Borealans were a martial race. They were described as muscle-bound warriors, always depicted as the tip of the spear in Coalition military engagements.
	“Well, Mom and Dad have been hinting that we might be going back to Borealis some time soon, to visit maybe. They've been pretty tight lipped about it and they haven't given me anything concrete, but that's the impression I get lately. I've never been before, but I've read all about it, I'd be excited to see it for myself.”
	The waitress brought them their orders, and Liz leaned back to let the woman set a plate of food in front of her, licking her chops eagerly. She lifted her burger in her claws and took a large, wet bite, smacking her lips as she chewed. Jamie sucked a mouthful of his float through a straw, and she continued.
	“Do you think your parents would let you come with us,” she added, talking around a mouthful of cheese and meat. “I hear the environment is pretty hostile for humans there, but you can stay ground-side for like five or six months without having any medical problems. You wouldn't fare any worse than me, I grew up in Earth standard gravity so it will be an adjustment for me too. I have denser bones and reinforced joints though.”
	He considered for a moment, resting his chin on his hand as he stirred the icecream in his drink with the thick straw.
	“Probably not, I'd miss loads of practice.” He hoped that if she did end up visiting, it wouldn't be for too long. They had never been apart more than a week or two for the ten years they had known eachother. The idea of the small, meek girl exploring a planet full of monstrous warriors without him there to look out for her knotted his stomach. She had wanted to vacation there for a long time though, and he had to be supportive. “You'll have to send me vidlogs.”
	She nodded enthusiastically, taking another bite of her meal.
	“I don't know how developed the planet is, and I don't think they'd give us access to the superlight relay, if Borealis even has one. But if I can call you, I will.” She finished off her burger and licked the grease from her furry fingers with her rough tongue like a cat bathing itself, then started on the little basket of chicken wings. She could really pack it away when she got hungry. “Anyway, I'm not even sure that's what they're planning, but my birthday isn't far off. Wouldn't that be cool, if I got jump freighter tickets for my birthday?”
	Jamie nodded, he didn't think it was cool, but she was happy and he didn't want to burst her bubble by being negative. She wouldn't be gone too long, in any case, she had schoolwork too and she was at the top of her class in exobiology and exolinguistics. She was practically cheating with her intimate knowledge of their language, gleaned from sessions with her parents. She was shaping up to be a diplomat like her father.
	“I just hope they don't plan to marry me off to some damned ladder-climbing socialite,” she laughed, putting down her wing and poising to imitate her mother's voice. “Oh Lizka, you must start thinking about your social standing! How will you find a strong mate to give you a litter if you're at the bottom of the hierarchy?” She chuckled at her own joke, and turned her attention back to her food. “I swear, my parents act like our culture is beyond reproach, but sometimes they behave like...like some pack of wild dogs.” She noticed that Jamie was grimacing, and tapped his leg with her dexterous tail. “I'm only joking, Jamie. I've read about how Borealans court and that's just...not for me.”
	She finished off her food, then waited patiently for Jamie to drink his float, making idle small talk before they paid their bill and headed out.

	Liz's father opened the front door to their house as he saw the pair walking up their paved driveway. The dwelling had been specially constructed for the ambassador and his family by the UN, in order for him to live comfortably near enough to the embassy to be able to commute. It was a strange amalgam of human and alien architecture. The front that faced the street was of the same rectangular, prefab design as the other houses on the block, but it had a domed roof and was somewhat larger than average. It was only upon walking up to the porch that you realized the door was almost nine feet tall and twice as wide as a standard one. If one was to look at the structure from an angle that showed the back of the house leading into the garden, they would see arches made to mimic stone and a windowless face.
	“Greetings, James,” her father boomed in his strange accent, his baritone voice almost deep enough to make Jamie's teeth vibrate. He was so tall and broad-shouldered that he completely filled the doorway, and was wearing clothing in the style of his homeworld. He sported a long open-necked tunic made from blue, floaty fabric and shorts that ended at his knees, all embroidered with fine threads of gold and red wound into decorative patterns. He was the same color as his daughter, sandy blonde like a lion with caramel skin, and a mane of long hair to match. His wife was paler, with orange hair like a tiger, though she didn't seem to be home right now.
	Jamie didn't plan to stay, and so returned the greeting then waved goodbye to Liz, setting off back to his own house. It was fairly out of his way to walk Liz home every day, but he knew that she appreciated it, and he enjoyed her company.

CHAPTER 2: SEPARATION ANXIETY

	Jamie raced around the oval running track that ringed the school sports field, his sneakers kicking up dust as they pounded the ground. The weather was becoming cooler as winter approached, but he was dressed in his mesh shorts and vest regardless, if he got too cold he would just run faster.
	As he rounded the turn he saw a figure sitting alone on the bleachers, cradling a book bag. It took him a moment to recognize her due to her pink beanie hat, but it was Liz. Curious, he hadn't seen her around school today, not since he had walked her home the previous afternoon in fact.
	He turned towards her, panting as he climbed the steps and sat heavily beside her on the bench. He was pouring with sweat, and he wiped his brow on the back of his arm as he caught his breath.
	“Hey Liz, not seen you around today, what's up?” She didn't reply, her mittens were clutched around her bang and her face was partially buried in it, this wasn't like her at all. He put his hand on her shoulder and nudged her. “Hey, Liz, are you ok? Did something happen?”
	She turned her head to look up at him, her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks were stained with tears. She looked just like she had on the day he had met her, frightened and upset. She dropped her bag, letting the flap fly open, her beloved textbooks spilling free. Sheets of paper fluttered on the cold breeze as she lunged at him, wrapping her arms around him and pushing her face into his chest, his shirt muffling her miserable wail. He put one arm around her back, and the second around her head, holding her as she cried it out. She sobbed, her chest heaving as he cradled her, he waited a minute for her to tire herself before he asked her any questions.
	“What on Earth is wrong Liz? Has someone been giving you a hard time?”
	“N-no,” she replied, sniffing loudly, her staggered breath choking her voice. “Oh Jamie, we're going to Borealis...”
	“Isn't that what you wanted,” he asked, perplexed. “I thought you were excited to visit?”
	“We're not visiting,” she wailed, fat tears starting to pour down her round face again. “My parents are moving back and I have to go with them.”
	It was like a knife to Jamie's heart, his blood went cold as he held his distraught friend.
	“You're not...coming back?”
	“My Dad is done here, they don't have a reason to stay now that his employment period with the UN has ended, and they want to take me...home,” she spat the last word like an insult, and Jamie understood how she felt. Earth was home to her, not some alien planet she had never been to. “They say I'm too young to stay here on my own, and that I need to 'learn to be a proper Borealan', like there's something wrong with how I act right now.”
	Jamie felt tears welling in his own eyes and did his best to fight them back, it wouldn't make Liz feel any better if he started crying too. He patted her back through her heavy winter coat, trying to calm her down.
	“Don't they understand that you're happy here? You have friends, you're doing well in school, don't they care about any of that?” She shook her head, her long, sandy hair falling from beneath her hat.
	“They only care about their stupid culture, I don't care about packs and status, I just...I just want to stay here, with you.”
	“When do you have to leave?”
	“Three days,” Liz replied, her lower lip trembling. Damn, they had really sprung this on her suddenly, perhaps they had anticipated her reaction. Jamie wasn't the kind of person who judged foreign cultures without understanding them, but it seemed harsh by any standard of measurement.
	“Maybe I can talk some sense into them, try to change their minds, help them see things from a more human perspective?”
	“No,” she stated emphatically, placing a gloved hand on his chest. “My reaction made Dad angry enough, he won't listen to reason. I doubt he'd even want me seeing you at this point.”
	Jamie wracked his brain, there must be something that he could do to stop this, should they run away together? No, that was a ridiculous proposition, they didn't have enough money to live on and hiding the Borealan girl would be downright impossible.
	“It's all been planned and decided already,” she continued, “they didn't even ask my opinion.” She seemed as angry as she was upset now, her green eyes afire. Her expression softened as she leaned against Jamie again, and he held her tightly in his arms, the cool air starting to chill the layer of sweat that coated his skin.
	“We'll fix this, it'll be ok,” he whispered, as Liz rubbed her nose with her sleeve and clung to him as if he might somehow disappear. He didn't really believe those words, but he was trying to comfort himself as much as Liz.

	It was futile, he had tried to contact her parents over vidphone a dozen times, they had blocked his number and wouldn't take his calls. He had walked over to their house and hammered on the door, he knew they were home, but they wouldn't see him no matter how much of a racket he made. There was no word from Liz, had they confined her to her bedroom? Confiscated her cellphone? He returned home angry and frustrated. Would they not even let her make the most of the few days she had left?
	He had spent his whole life looking out for Liz, protecting her, whenever she was upset or angry or unsure she came to him for comfort. Now it was like there was a force field between them, a barrier holding them apart that he couldn't breach no matter how mad he got, he couldn't solve this problem with his fists.

	Another day passed with no sign of Liz, Jamie didn't go to any of his classes, he just loitered around the campus feeling miserable and impotent. If she was going to show up, it would be here. Eventually night fell, and he decided to make his way home, walking along the route he and Liz took together every day. He considered stopping at the diner and getting a float, but he didn't have the heart. The streets were empty of pedestrians and the road was almost clear, the rush hour traffic flow having long since diminished to a trickle of stray vehicles. He kicked through the now damp and rotting leaves, the eerie, yellow glow of the streetlamps now the only source of illumination as dusk crept over the city. As he rounded a corner he saw a figure standing in the pool of light cast by one of the dull lamps, leaning against a wall. It took him a moment to recognize her, the color of her pink hat bleached by the light.
	“Liz?”
	She covered the distance between them like a bolt of lightning, leaping into his arms with enough force to knock the wind out of him. After he got over the surprise, he returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around her.
	“I knew you'd come this way, Jamie.”
	“You weren't at school today, where have you been?” She looked up at him from beneath her hat, her emerald eyes reflecting what little light was available like those of a cat, making it seem as if they were glowing in the twilight.
	“My parents wouldn't let me leave the house, they're really angry about how I've been acting.” She smirked for a moment, then buried her face in his chest, he could feel her warm breath through his jacket as it contrasted with the cold air. “I guess I had a bit of a meltdown and trashed the place. They just...they don't understand and they refuse to see things from my perspective. They're so set in their ways. Anyway, I snuck out to come meet you on your way back from school.”
	“I'm glad I got to see you again, Liz.”
	“I'm not going back tonight, I can't get in any more trouble than I already am. Will you stay up with me until they figure out I'm missing?” Jamie nodded, straightening her beanie hat, and she beamed up at him. They released eachother, and she followed beside Jamie as he continued on his way, holding her mitten in his hand.
	“You hungry?”
	She nodded, and they turned in the direction of the diner.

	The pink, neon sign flickered as the interior lighting illuminated the street outside through its long, wall-length window. They were still open, and there was nobody inside as usual. Jamie held the door open for Liz, and they made their way over to their favorite booth.
	“You two are in late,” the waitress commented, recognizing the two friends. “Isn't it a school night?” She shrugged without waiting for an answer, realizing that she didn't care enough to make an issue of it. “What'll it be, the usual?”
	They nodded, and she left to get their orders. It was warm inside, but Liz was still hiding beneath her hat and coat, Jamie knew that meant she was feeling insecure or scared. He reached across the table and took her gloved hand.
	“Hey, it's gonna be ok Liz, we're gonna figure something out.”
	“No it isn't, and we aren't,” she mumbled, choking back her tears. “I had everything planned out, I was going to graduate, get my degree. I was going to become a diplomat like my father, I wanted to stay on Earth, and...” She trailed off, peering out of the window at the dark street, the light from the diner casting long, dark shadows on the trees outside. They were gnarled and leafless now, their bare branches reaching towards the sky like bony fingers, the warm colors of autumn now absent.
	“You can still do that,” Jamie said, trying to reassure her. “You can just continue your courses on Borealis, right? You could be back on Earth within a couple of years.” She withdrew her hand and lowered her face into the collar of her coat like some kind of sad turtle.
	“You don't understand how different things are there, I've been reading about it. It's nothing like Earth, the culture, the people...they're all savages. That's how my parents want me to act, what they expect of me, to become like them.”
	She was right, he didn't understand. He didn't know how to comfort her, how to make her feel better, this was a problem that was completely beyond him. She seemed to notice his conflict, and her expression softened as she took his hand again.
	“Sorry, I'm being selfish aren't I? This is just as hard for you as it is for me.”
	“I doubt that,” he chuckled dryly. “But yeah, I'm not having an easy time either.”
	“You've always been there for me, Jamie, ever since I was a little girl. One of the first things I remember is you defending me from bullies, you walking me home because I was scared of getting lost in the city on my own, that time you used up your whole allowance taking me to the aquarium when I begged my parents to let me have a human birthday party and you were the only one who came.” She laughed at the memory, then trailed off as the waitress brought them their food. Liz stayed quiet until the woman left them alone, then prodded at her favorite burger with her clawed finger. “This whole thing has kind of...spoiled my appetite.” She gazed out of the window again, looking up at the dark sky. Her mind seemed to be stuck on Borealis, Jamie felt like he had to distract her or she would spend her last night on Earth feeling miserable instead of making the best of it.
	He stood suddenly, dropping some bills on the table and tugged her by the hand.
	“Come on, let's go do something, we can't waste this night. Bring your burger with you.”
	She picked up her meal in a tissue and followed behind him as he left the diner. Liz ate as they walked, taking smaller bites of her burger than usual. That more than anything bothered Jamie, it was so unlike her. He thought about taking her down to the park, but as the night became darker the temperature dropped, and he could see the breath from his mouth misting and glittering in the air.
	“You want to go back to my house? My parents are working, they won't rat you out. We can just hang out, get some warm drinks, watch some vidcasts or something.”
	“I'd like that,” she said, clutching his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder. “My parents will probably look there first, but I don't think they'll come and find me until tomorrow. By then it won't matter. I just want to...spend this time with you.”

CHAPTER 3: A FLEETING MOMENT

	They arrived at Jamie's house, and he unlocked the door with a click, taking off his coat and hanging it on a stand in the hall. He helped Liz out of hers, and she stowed her mittens and hat in the pockets. The automatic heating had kicked in, and so it was already pretty toasty inside, but he decided to light the log fire in the living room anyway. Liz stood behind him, her arms wrapped around her torso as he knelt in front of the iron grate, she was clad in her baby blue turtleneck sweater.
	“It's not a real wood fire,” he explained, making small-talk as he used a long lighter to ignite the gas flame. “It's just a replica, it uses gas, but it looks nice and it's warm. You want a drink?” Liz nodded. “Your usual?”
	“Yeah.” Jamie went to the kitchen as Liz made herself comfortable on a fluffy couch adjacent to the fireplace, setting a kettle to boil water and finding a teabag for himself. When the water had boiled he prepared two mugs, dropping a bullion cube into Liz's drink. It would dissolve and make a kind of meat-flavored broth that was pretty much the only hot beverage she liked, as coffee and cocoa were too sweet for her.
	He returned and handed her the drink, sitting beside her and sinking into the couch. The fire was crackling now, casting dancing shadows in the room, the automatic lighting having already dimmed to a dull glow in order to save energy. The curtains were drawn, as both of his parents were working their night shift. They were a little less well-off than Liz's parents were, their decorations were more modest and the carpets were on the floors, not the walls. Liz's father would not have even been able to stand erect in this house, if he could even fit through the front door.
	“Want to me to put the TV on?” Jamie asked, but Liz shook her head. She shuffled closer to him on the couch, leaning on his shoulder and raising her steaming beverage to her mouth to take a sip.
	“You remembered that I like the beef one,” she commented, blowing the steam from her mug. They sat for a while in silence, watching the flames crackle behind the iron grill over plastic, replica logs. Jamie was content to just drink and enjoying her company.
	“Jamie, I've never said...I thought I'd have a lot more time,” she muttered. She seemed agitated, nervous. She set her mug down on the coffee table and sat awkwardly beside him. Her tail flicked back and forth, tucked next to her thigh like a furry snake. “You're pretty much the only boy who has ever been nice to me, the only guy who looks at me like I'm a person and not some oddity. Do you...” She seemed to shake her head almost imperceptibly, pulling away from him a little and leaning down to pick up her drink again. “What am I saying? We're so different...”
	“If there's something you want to tell me...” Jamie trailed off, the implication was 'this might be your last chance' but he didn't want to further sour the mood by bringing attention to that fact.
	“Hell, I might never see you again after tonight,” she chuckled bitterly, “what do I have to lose?” She took another draw from her steaming cup, staring at the fire as she talked, its orange flames licking at the hearth. “Do you think...you could ever love someone like me? I know I look different from a human girl, I don't even know if a Borealan and a human could even...” Jamie watched her, dumbstruck, was this a confession? “Maybe I'm crazy and you don't even feel attraction the same way I do, maybe I'm like an animal to you and you couldn't stand the thought of being with me, but I like you Jamie. I've liked you for a long time. If I don't tell you this now, and I never see you again, I'd regret it for the rest of my life.”
	Jamie didn't know how to respond, his heart had started to race and he couldn't think straight, it was as if a fog had rolled in over his brain and clouded his mind. Her expression became pained, she still hadn't looked in his direction yet, as if her eyes were glued to the fireplace.
	“I understand if you don't feel the same way, I just wanted to tell you, is all. I wanted you to know how I felt about you. I don't know anything about love and relationships, I don't know how the human experience of sexuality and romance might differ from my own.” She laughed dryly again, in a tone that almost seemed self-deprecating. “Listen to me ramble, I guess at the end of the day you either feel the same way, or you don't. I just wish...if I had known, I would have told you sooner. Maybe that would have been easier, maybe it would have been hard-”
	Jamie cupped her cheek in his hand, turning her to face him, and leaned down to press his lips against hers. Her clawed fingers rested on his forearm as they embraced, her eyes closing slowly as the kiss went on. It must have been clumsy, Jamie didn't have any more experience than she did, but his body just reacted in a way that he knew felt right. Her rough tongue glanced his own, she tasted metallic, with a hint of the broth on her saliva. He felt her claws prick through his jacket as she leaned into him, pulling closer. It was such a strange sensation, warm and wet, impossibly soft. Sparks buzzed in his brain as if someone had set off a sparkler in his skull.
	Their lips parted and Liz drew back, peering up at him, the dancing flames reflected in her green eyes. She was breathing heavily now, her grip on his arm almost painful.
	“You dumbass,” he said, “I've been in love with you since I was old enough to know what the word meant.”	She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in the nape of his neck, he felt a wetness on his skin, tears of happiness this time.
	“I worried about it for so long,” she said, her voice muffled by his clothes. “All this time...and neither of us ever took the first step. What the hell do we do now?”
	“Make the best of it while we can,” Jamie replied. Liz bit her lip, seeming conflicted, her tail flicked back and forth on the couch.
	“There's no time left to hesitate, and I'm tired of wondering, worrying about what people think of me. I want to do what feels right.” Liz placed her clawed hand on Jamie's chest and pushed him down to lie prone on the furry couch, clambering atop him and straddling his lap. She looked down at him with a confidence that Jamie had never seen her display before. “I don't know how this is gonna work,” she whispered, “but let's find out.” She pulled her sweater over her head, her blonde hair cascading down her shoulders as she tugged the garment free, discarding it on the carpet. She did the same with her undershirt, exposing her flat, lightly muscled belly and her pert breasts contained within a white bra. Jamie hadn't ever seen her nude, and she had stopped visiting swimming pools with him when she had begun to develop into a young woman and had become more self-conscious about her changing appearance. She really had lost all of the fur on her torso, leaving smooth, caramel colored skin indistinguishable from that of a human. She reached her arms behind her back and fumbled with the clasp on her bra, eventually succeeding in unhooking it, letting it fall away to expose her shapely breasts. Liz had really filled out, it was hard to tell at a glance because she wore so many heavy coats and sweaters that obscured her figure. While her boobs were modestly sized, they hung attractively from her chest, firm and perky.
	“You can touch...I want you to touch me,” Liz said, her voice breathy and low. Jamie reached up a trembling hand and sunk his fingers into her soft flesh. He felt his growing erection press against the crotch of her sweatpants as the breast deformed in his grip, spilling between his digits, almost as delicate as warm butter. Liz's cheeks reddened and she rolled her hips, pressing her groin down on the now conspicuous bulge in his jeans.
	“Feels good,” Liz muttered, her eyelids fluttering, and he took her other breast in his free hand. They were perfect handfuls, and he cupped them gently, weighing them in his palms and kneading. He felt firm tissue beneath the supple fat, and Liz loosed a short, sharp gasp as he delved deeper.
	“Do you think we need to use protection?” Liz mumbled, placing her furred palms on the back of his hands and pressing them down on her chest. “I don't think a human and a Borealan can...oh, what does it matter?” She leaned down and pressed her pink lips against his again, a furry hand cradling his cheek. She pushed her rough tongue into his mouth; aggressive more than exploratory this time, and it just kept coming. He couldn't believe how long it was, it was slightly rough and slippery, and it uncoiled from her like a snake to fill his mouth. Even if they had both been experienced, their anatomical differences would have made it awkward, an unfamiliar chill passed down Jamie's spine as he wrestled her oversized organ with his own. Their tongues entwined, Liz mouthing softly, tasting his inner cheeks and the roof of his mouth. She broke away with a smack, breathing heavily, the hot air tickling his neck.
	“Am I going too fast? I know girls aren't supposed to take the lead, at least they don't in movies and books,” Liz asked, suddenly unsure of herself. Jamie ran a hand up her spine, sampling her glass-smooth, warm skin with his fingertips and pulled her closer to him.
	“I don't care what girls are supposed to do, I don't want other girls, I want you.” Liz smirked, her cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red as she hovered over him, her pink nose an inch from his face.
	“Well, if that's the way you feel...” She snuck a hand between her legs and squeezed his bulge through his pants, Jamie twitched, exhaling sharply. She pushed her face into the nape of his neck, nuzzling, rubbing her feline nose on his skin. “There's just something about you that smells...right.”
	Liz was usually so meek, Jamie had never seen this side of her before, and he was starting to like it. He had wanted her for as long as he had understood what that meant, but he had never expected to have her, especially not like this. She wasn't a frightened little girl anymore, she was a woman.
	Jamie unzipped his jacket, struggling out of it as he lay on the couch, then pulled off his t-shirt, exposing his torso. He had always been tall for his age, and he had shot up during adolescence, leaving him a head above most of his friends. He loved sports and spent the bulk of his free time at the track practicing for school competitions, giving him broad shoulders and a muscle tone that drew the attention of the girls in his classes, and their ire when he rejected them. If he couldn't have Liz then he didn't want anyone, and he had feared that if he were to start dating she might have gotten the impression that he didn't like her, following suit. What an idiot he had been, it was obvious to everyone around them that they were smitten with eachother, the whispers and rumors were all true. Only Jamie and Liz had been too blind to make the connection, too afraid to speak their minds, well no more.
	Liz eyed him covetously as she sat atop him, drinking in the contours of his svelte body, admiring his youthful musculature. She brought her face to his chest and kissed his collarbone, moving down to his hip, mouthing and licking as if she were intending to eat him. It tickled, but he kept still, the warmth and wetness of her mouth felt good on his skin. She reached his belt and struggled to undo the clasp with her thick fingers, Jamie's excitement mounting as she succeeded in pulling it loose, and unfastened his zipper. She hooked her curved claws into his jeans and pulled them down along with his shorts, he winced as his erection caught on the elastic waistband of his underwear, then it bounced free to stand before Liz's now burning face. He was a big guy, appropriately endowed, and he could almost hear Liz's heart pounding in her chest as she looked it over. She reached out and pressed the spongy pad of her index finger against the tip, feeling it pulse and watching Jamie wince in response.
	“W-What do I do? I'm supposed to put it in my mouth, right?”
	“Uh...yeah, be gentle,” Jamie replied, seeing stars as he imagined what that tongue might feel like winding its way around his member. Liz gripped the shaft in her silken palm, wrapping her fingers around it, careful to keep her sharp claws out of the way. She felt the heat of it, the contours of the veins, how it throbbed in her grip like a second heart. She wanted this...thing, it was so big and unsightly, but she ached for it. She could feel a warmth spreading through her loins, an agitation that made her want to roll her hips and rub her thighs together. She felt oddly...aggressive. It was unlike her, but she felt that if she wanted Jamie, she had to take him. It was as if some primal impulse was welling up inside her.
	She tightened her grip, stroking Jamie's erection up and down as he balled his fists and an unbecoming whine escaped his lips. Her furry hand was so silky, so warm, she was squeezing a little hard but it was a pleasant pressure that sent jolts of electricity rolling up his spine as she massaged him. She looked up at him, her green eyes flashing in the low light.
	“Is that right? Does it feel good?” He nodded, his breath coming in ragged bursts and his mind muddling. He didn't know what else to do, so he just lay there and watched her as she stroked. She grinned and returned her attention to his member, leaning closer and pressing her lips against his glans to plant a soft kiss. She must have taken his twitching as an invitation to continue, wrapping her lips around the tip and dragging her tongue across it. Its texture was course, but not painfully so, and it was slick with her saliva. It was so warm and soft, he could feel the smooth inner lining of her cheeks as she took him into her mouth. She curled her slippery tongue around his tender glans, sneaking it beneath his foreskin and painting the sensitive surface, the stimulation was intense enough to make Jamie cover his face with his hands.
	“Damn, Liz that feels...don't stop.” She looked up at him, holding the tip of his member in her mouth, and Jamie's heart skipped as she made eye contact. She started to stroke again as she sucked softly, careful not to catch his skin with her sharp teeth. Her smooth breasts were resting on his thighs, and he could feel their pliant flesh, the now erect nipples pressing against him. He sunk his fingers into her long, blonde hair, combing the straight strands. She had always been so close to him, yet just out of reach. Now he could touch her, taste her, feel her in all the ways he had longed to.
	He felt a pressure welling inside him that he couldn't stem, his heartbeat quickened and his muscles tensed, his hips rising off the couch. His back arched involuntarily, and Liz seemed surprised, her eyes widening as he pushed against her.
	“Argh, Liz I'm gonna...”
	He shuddered as he felt his orgasm ripple through his body, clenching his teeth, a pulse of white light forcing his eyes closed. Liz did her best to hang on as he jerked, placing her free hand on his hip and pushing him down into the couch so he couldn't gag her. His abdominal muscles burned as they wrung him out, forcing his emission into Liz's warm mouth. He felt her tongue glance the tip, sending fresh bolts of harsh pleasure flowing through his body as sweet afterglow drowned him in bliss. He felt Liz swallow, and opened his eyes look down at her apologetically, his face beet red.
	“S-Sorry, I didn't-”
	“Hush,” she replied, pulling back and wiping her mouth. “It felt good, right?”
	“That was...that felt more than good, Liz.”
	“It tasted bad,” she chuckled, then cut him off before he could apologize again. “But I liked it, because it came from you.”
	She let him catch his breath, turning her head to watch the fire dance in the hearth, biting her lower lip again. Jamie reached up and gripped her hips in his hands, running them up her body, feeling the subtle muscles that hid beneath her curves and the texture of her dusky skin. He made his way up to her breasts again and she rolled her head back, seeming to enjoy the sensation as he groped them. She slipped off him suddenly, standing beside the couch and tugging her sweatpants down. She stepped out of them, almost tripping, steadying herself against the armrest as she struggling to kick the clothing clear of her clawed feet. The sandy fur that covered her lower legs ended just below the knee, her thighs were naked and polished, springy muscles visible beneath the surface. She hesitated for a moment, as if she was unsure, then leaned over to pull her cotton panties down around her ankles. She stood before Jamie as he sat upright on the couch, her curvy figure silhouetted against the fireplace, fluffy tail waving back and forth behind her.
	She returned to sit adjacent to him on the couch, lying on her back with her head propped up against the armrest, her thighs tightly shut as if she were embarrassed.
	“Jamie, I want you to...” He got the picture, and rose to kneel in front of her. He placed his hands on her knees and parted them gently, Liz covered her face with her fluffy hands and whined as he exposed her, peeking down at him between her fingers.
	Her mound was smooth besides a tuft of silky, golden fur, like pubic hair but finer. He rested his hands on her inner thighs as she splayed her legs for him, her skin was almost fever hot now, the muscles in her legs twitching beneath his fingers. He was already at full mast again, unable to control himself as Liz lay before him, offering herself to him.
	He kissed her hip, his lips lingering on her skin as she wriggled and yelped. She smelled odd down there, musky, but inviting in a way that tickled the back of his brain. He began to salivate, feeling a fluttering in his belly as he contemplated returning the favor. He splayed her puffy labia with his fingers, exposing the delicate, pink flesh within. It was moist and glistening, and she closed her thighs around his head as he probed experimentally, it looked essentially like a human one was supposed to.
	“D-Don't stare at it,” she mumbled from behind her furry hands. He leaned closer and licked her tentatively, grazing her vulva with his tongue. She rolled her hips and bucked in response, and Jamie felt a trembling hand find purchase in his hair. She gripped it a little painfully, but he didn't mind, and continued his exploration. He found a hard nub of flesh buried beneath a hood of pink skin, that must be her clitoris he thought to himself, and licked it. Liz jerked as if she had been electrocuted, tugging at his hair.
	“Damn it, go slowly!”
	“I'm sorry,” Jamie said, raising his head to look up at her over her mound. “Did it hurt?”
	“N-No...it felt good,” she said sheepishly, her breasts shifting as her chest rose and fell rapidly. “But go slowly.” Jamie didn't really know what to do with her, her organ was a maze of folds and creases, leaking clear fluid that made his fingers slippery. She tasted of salt and metal, a slightly sour flavor that might have been unpleasant if he wasn't so damned turned on.
	He licked and mouthed, spreading her lips with his fingers and trying to gauge where she wanted him to focus his attention. He found an opening towards the bottom, and pushed a finger gently inside. He felt slick, hot muscles close around his digit, squeezing as if she was trying to push him back out. She loosed a breathy whine that made his erection pulse, feeling her tug at his hair. She was so sensitive, he must be the first person to ever touch her like this. He pushed it deeper, feeling around as her fleshy, quivering walls enclosed him, playing his tongue over her mound and inner thighs as he went. She had draped an arm over her face, covering her eyes as she gasped and squirmed, her hips jumping every time he kissed her or wriggled his finger inside her. He started to push his finger deep, then draw it out again, finding a rhythm that made her roll her hips against his hand reflexively. Her breathing became less regular, coming in ragged, short bursts as she arched her back in time with his thrusts.
	He licked her clitoris again, making sure he wet it with saliva, and started to circle it slowly with his tongue. She yelped and jumped, contracting around his finger with a strength that almost hurt. Her juices were flowing now, leaking from her in a steady stream of viscous, slimy liquid that seeped around Jamie's finger. She was giving off such a carnal scent, did all women do this or just Borealans? Her musk was exciting him, he could feel the heat emanating from her loins on his face, he tasted the salty sweat that glazed her toffee colored skin in a glistening layer.
	“Is it good? Should I keep going?”
	She peeked down at him from beneath her furry arm, peering between her plump breasts as they bounced in time with her gasping breaths and her restless shifting.
	“I...I like it...don't stop...”
	He returned his tongue to her clitoris, drawing it out gently from beneath its protective hood with his lips, then felt her wrap her muscular thighs around his head. Her tail coiled around one of his arms and both of her hands flew down to bury themselves in his straw-blonde curls. She growled like a little lion, and Jamie got the impression he should push her further.
	He fucked her with his finger, moving it more quickly as her velvet insides clung to it with a surprising suction, dragging his tongue across her firm protrusion as her legs shuddered and squeezed his head. He had never realized just how strong she was before now, he was almost worried that she would pop his head like a cantaloupe. She doubled over and dug her claws into his back, but he endured, feeling the hot panting of her breath on the back of his neck. Her whole body was shivering as she clung to him.
	“Fuck Jamie, don't stop, I'm gonna come,” she whined, her demanding voice trailing off into a pained whisper. Hearing her say his name like that, feeling so wanted, it drove him crazy. He plunged deeper and faster into her sopping tunnel, increasing his pace. She grunted, raking her claws up his back as her orgasm tore through her body, her vagina gripping him like a fist. She clung to him as she rode out the climax, her claws stung his back but he didn't care. She shuddered and convulsed around him as he licked softly, drawing out every last jolt of her climax, the cramps of pleasure that wracked her body slowly winding down.
	She released her hold on him and lay back on the couch, gasping as she caught her breath and recovered. Jamie shuffled up beside her, his erection pressing into her thigh, and draped an arm across her belly. She pressed close to him, turning towards him and resting her face in the nape of his neck. She was so much shorter than him, her head barely reached his chin. He played his finger over her hips and belly as she bathed in her afterglow, feeling the warmth of her slick skin.
	“Sorry, did I scratch your back?” Liz mumbled, pressing her puffy lips against his shoulder and kissing apologetically.
	“A little, but I don't mind.” She wrapped a furry arm around his waist and drew herself closer, as if she were trying to bury herself in his arms. Her tail coiled around his leg, and he could feel her breath on his skin.
	“Tell me that you love me, Jamie,” she mumbled, as if she were afraid some invisible bystander might overhear them. “I want to hear it again...” He whispered it into her furry ear, and she shivered with glee, rubbing her face against his chest like a cat. At least for a while, nothing else mattered, it was as if they were alone in the world and nothing outside of this room existed. Jamie's fears and anxieties melted away as she lay in his arms, her soft breasts pressing against his skin, her gentle breathing and her pumping heart calming him.
	They lay together for a while wrapped in eachother's arms, and just when Jamie was starting to worry that Liz had fallen asleep, he felt her fluffy fingers grip his still throbbing shaft.
	“Let's...go all the way,” she whispered, biting softly at his throat with her pointed teeth. She seemed aggressive again, demanding. “I want to do it in a bed though.” Jamie nodded affirmatively and rose to his feet, taking her by the hand and pulling her up off the couch. She followed behind him on shaky legs as he led her out of the living room and up a staircase to the second floor, pushing open the door to his bedroom. It was a small room, with only a single bed, a dresser for his clothes, and a desk with a computer terminal. The walls were covered in posters for school sports teams and there was a shelf with a few trophies he had won at competitive events. It made him feel a little self-conscious now as he stood beside Liz with his erection protruding in front of him, both of them stark naked. She took the lead, tugging him forward and pushing him down to sit on the bed.
	She looked oddly hungry now, the misted eyes of a vulnerable girl were replaced with a covetous, expectant gaze that traced the contours of his body and zeroed on his member as it pulsed in his lap.
	“Lie back,” she said, pressing her hand against his chest and pushing him into a prone position. “I don't know why but I feel like...I just want to be on top.” Jamie didn't mind, and did as she asked, his excitement mounting as Liz crawled on top of him, a string of clear fluid hanging between her thighs. “God, I've wanted this for so long,” she murmured, positioning herself over his twitching erection, a bead of precum wetting the tip. “Maybe it's because I'm a Borealan, I don't really understand it, but I just want...I need to make you mine. Does that make sense?”
	“D-Do whatever you need to do,” Jamie stammered, placing a hand on the curve of her hip as she hovered over him. She gripped his shaft in her silky palm, angling the glans towards her opening, rubbing the sensitive head along her vulva to coat it in her juices. Her eyelids fluttered, and she bit her lower lip as Jamie squirmed beneath her.
	“Don't push into me,” she said, her face burning. “Let me set the pace.” Jamie lay still, worried that he might hurt her, his member looked so large in comparison to her smaller frame. He had heard that it was sometimes painful for girls to lose their virginity, but Liz didn't seem to be holding back, perhaps Borealan anatomy was a little different to that of a human.
	He gasped as she lowered herself gingerly down onto his erection, and he felt it bend slightly as she struggled to get the head past her tight opening. Would it even fit? His thought was answered as his glans slipped inside her, the walls of her vagina enclosing him like a mouth, its soft lining had the same texture as her inner cheeks had as it strived to suck him deeper. Almost in one smooth motion Liz lowered herself down onto him, her mound slapping against the base of his shaft, taking his member to the hilt. They cried out in unison, their bodies shuddering as they mated together, their organs interlocking as if they had been designed to fit. They froze up, each too afraid to move lest the stimulation overcome them, or their twitching, gasping partner. Jamie felt as if his cock was wrapped in hot, damp silk, she was clinging to him like a vice.
	“Oh God, Jamie, I can feel your heartbeat inside me,” Liz gasped, leaning over to rest her furry hands on his chest, her mane of golden hair falling about his face and tickling his skin. Her muscles undulated around him, massaging his member as they rippled and squirmed in response to his intrusion. She was so wet, her nectar leaked around his shaft and dampened his pubic hair, her insides felt almost hot enough to brand his skin. He flexed involuntarily, his shaft expanding in her tunnel and pushing her walls apart. She whined and shifted her hips, shivering on top of him.
	“Damn it, try not to...I'm still sensitive from the last time.” Jamie's body wasn't obeying his commands though, he had to fight to keep his hips from thrusting up into her, they couldn't just stay like this forever. To his relief Liz began to move, slowly and hesitantly, her slow thrusts were followed by low sighs and sharp yelps as his member shifted inside her. Her face was practically glowing red, beads of sweat dripping down her tanned skin as she shuffled and grimaced. Her pace slowly increased, perhaps it was getting easier for her, maybe she was becoming accustomed to the sensation of him lodged inside her.
	He reached his hands up and sunk his fingers into the fatty tissue of her boobs, feeling her engorged nipples press against his palms. He kneaded as she rode him, her eyes firmly closed as if she was trying to block out any superfluous sensory information so as not to overload her brain. Her claws pricked him again, but he didn't mind, in fact he was starting to enjoy it when she scratched him. It meant she was losing control of herself.
	Jamie felt Liz grip his wrists, pulling them away from her chest and pinning them to the bed. She wouldn't have been strong enough to hold them there, but he humored her, letting the smaller girl hold him down as she started to grind in earnest. She rolled her hips, driving his stiff member against her velvet flesh, seeming to delight in the sensation of it scouring her walls. Jamie was suddenly aware of how heavily he was breathing, his breath coming in low sighs as Liz moved, tingles of pleasure dancing through his body like sparks.
	“I didn't know...I could feel this...good,” Liz panted, baring her pointed teeth as she gyrated. She was so tight it was almost painful, her powerful pelvic floor muscles clung to him, every twitch and ripple of her insides translating into his penis. She leaned down and pressed her teeth against his neck, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to leave red marks where she mouthed and bit. She was gripping his wrists like he might try to escape, her thighs closed tightly around his hips, and his eyes rolled back into his head as she kissed his shoulder apologetically.
	“Jamie I...I don't know what's come over me. You're so cute and I want you so badly, I want to...to bite, to taste blood.” She ground her hips down particularly hard, driving him deep inside her to drag against her innermost reaches, her juices seeping down her inner thighs. She rolled her head back and sighed, long and drawn-out. “My body feels so...hot. I'm on fire Jamie,” she whined, pleading as if he alone had the power to relieve her.
	Were these her Borealan warrior instincts rising to the surface? She had grown up on Earth, spent all of her formative years in the company of humans, according to her parents she didn't even know what it meant to be a Borealan. Yet now his childhood friend was trying to pin him, biting at his throat like a beast and making love to him like she had some insatiable need that only he could satisfy. He didn't find it unpleasant, in fact he was kind of enjoying it. To feel so wanted, to have the girl he had dreamed about and pined for losing her composure as she straddled him, for Liz to want him so desperately that it drove her wild.
	She seemed to sense the pleasant shiver that rolled through his body, gazing down at him with her emerald eyes, now bleary and unfocused.
	“Liz...I'm yours. Do whatever makes you feel good,” Jamie mumbled, smiling up at her.
	He saw a fresh passion in her eyes, as if a green fire had been lit behind them, and she closed her fluffy hands around his face. She pressed her lips against his, her claws pricking his cheeks and her long, sinuous tongue pushing into his mouth.
	“Damn it Jamie,” she mumbled between kisses, trying in vain to talk around her organ as it roved inside his head. “I'll come back, I don't care what it takes. I'll come back and I'll find you, because you're mine, my human, my Jamie.” He yelped as he felt her drive her hips down on him, starting to thrust in circular motions that scraped his member against her depths, her rough tongue tickling the back of his throat. Jamie ran his hands up and down her back, hugging her against him as she writhed, feeling her silky skin beneath his fingertips as they glided on her sweat. His hand roamed down to her ass, taking a handful of the springy flesh and squeezing it between his fingers. Liz broke away from the kiss wetly, growling like an animal and sinking her teeth into his shoulder.
	It hurt, and he felt her break the skin, but he was too out of it to care. The dull pain melded with the searing heat of her gyrating body and the overwhelming pleasure that rolled over him in waves as she thrust down on him. Her tongue left her mouth to lap at the red ring she had left in his skin, sampling the small trickle of crimson blood. She sat up, shifting her wide hips slowly, as if using his member to scratch some itch deep inside her that she couldn't quite reach. She looked down at him, lids drooping as she ran her eyes down his torso. She dragged her curved claws gently from his collar to his navel, drawing red welts on his skin as she tested the firmness of his muscles, stroking his defined abs with the soft pads on her fingers. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, chewing it softly as she felt him wriggle beneath her in response to her probing.
	She increased her pace and began to bounce on top of him, one furry hand on his chest to stabilize herself, the other sinking into one of her breasts as they bounced in rhythm. Jamie reached up and batted her hand away, taking its place and gripping her boobs, squeezing and kneading the yielding globes as Liz exhaled a base groan in response. He couldn't get enough of them, they were just large enough to fill his hands, and her flesh was as pliant as cookie dough. He sat up straight, bringing one of her breasts to his mouth and sucking the pink nipple between his lips.
	“Fuck, Jamie,” Liz groaned. For a fleeting moment he worried that he might have hurt her, but the way her clawed fingers sunk into his hair and pulled him closer assuaged his concerns, and she pushed her chest out to encourage him. He could taste the sweat that coated her dark skin, making her lithe body glisten in the low light as if she had just climbed out of a pool, or had come in from the rain. He snorted like a bull as a powerful desire welled in him, he wanted to taste every inch of her body, know her inside and out the way only a lover could. She cradled his head as he mouthed and sucked, trapping her nipple between his teeth and licking it, tugging and teasing it as she bounced on his member.
	They found a rhythm, Jamie pushing up to meet her downward thrusts, slamming their young bodies together and creating a maddening friction. They clung to eachother, entwined in a long embrace as they drove one another closer and closer to the edge. She raked his broad back with her sharp claws, gripping him as if he might wish to escape, which at that moment was the last thing on his mind. Some of his friends had talked about sex before, describing how good it felt, but nothing could have prepared him for this. He felt as if his mind might break, Liz's burning loins contracted around him, the slippery muscles massaging the length of his member inside her as if its very purpose was to ensnare him. He was like a fly caught in a trap, drowning in her sweet fluids, her taste, her smell.
	She pushed her face into the nape of his neck as if trying to bury it, nuzzling against his skin.
	“I can't hang on,” she whined, and Jamie jerked as he felt her claws sink deeper into his back. “I can't stand this pressure inside me, I need...I have to...” She trailed off as she anchored herself to his neck with her teeth, tears welling at the corners of her eyes as emotion overcame her. He winced, but the pleasure of their intense coupling was so overwhelming, he couldn't bring himself to push her away.
	What had she said earlier? Was it ok to do this without a condom? Surely their species couldn't breed together? It wasn't as if they could take a time out right now, regardless. It would be ok.
	She was milking him now, the walls of her warm, slick tunnel running up and down his shaft like fingers clad in damp satin as she quivered and flexed. She was slamming down on him with such ferocity that his hips were starting to go numb, every time she drove his member up to scrape her tender insides it sent a pulse of tingling pleasure down his spine.
	He remembered how she had reacted when he had licked her clitoris, and wet his thumb with his tongue, reaching between her legs as she bounced on his lap. He found the firm protrusion and pressed his digit against it, feeling her shudder in his arms, and hearing the primal grunt that escaped her lips as they locked against his neck. She tightened around his member, driving a gasp from his mouth, and she started to grind even harder as she drove his throbbing organ as deep as it would go. He met resistance in her reaches, feeling his member jam against the limits of her tunnel, and she convulsed.
	“S-Sorry, did that hurt?” Jamie asked, slowing a little as she hung her head and panted warm breath on his chest.
	“No, don't slow down, keep hitting me like that. Right there.” She sounded almost angry, growling in his ear as he rubbed her mound with his thumb. He met her downward thrust again, and she took his member up to the hilt, slamming the head into her weak spot. “Oh f-” Liz's curse caught in her throat as Jamie gripped the curve of her hip with his free hand and brought her down harder, spearing her on his shaft, a rolling shudder passing up through her body. “God Jamie, right there, right there!”
	He couldn't keep this up, there was an urgent pressure in his loins, a building ecstasy that he would not be able to contain. The two fed into eachother, climbing towards an inevitable peak, every thrust of their hips and every stroke of their fingers pushing them higher.
	“Jamie,” Liz whined, he had expected her to cry out, but instead her orgasm was preceded by a soft mewl, almost like a kitten. She locked up, wrapping her arms and her flexible tail around him, clinging to him as a burst of unbearable pleasure tore through her loins. She seemed to hold her breath, squeezing her eyes shut as the climax overwhelmed her. She was shivering as if she had fallen into a frozen lake, yet her wet skin was feverish to the touch, her face and chest flushed crimson. The powerful undulations of her walls as they tensed and contracted drove Jamie over the edge, and he growled, gritting his teeth as his muscles cramped and forced his emission from his twitching body. Every throb of his cock drove a fresh whimper from Liz's pursed lips, and now it was his turn to dig his nails into her back, his brain going blank as he shot thick spurts of his ejaculate into her beckoning tunnel. The heavy ropes flooded the girl, filling her to capacity and leaking from her opening as her contractions pushed it out, along with her own dripping excitement.
	It just kept going, the muscle spasms were almost becoming painful, he wouldn't have believed that he could have released such a quantity. Liz's eyelids were fluttering, her pupils rolling back into her head as seemingly endless jolts of harsh pleasure short-circuited her nervous system. They continued to move together, unable to help themselves as their bodies tried to copulate, their minds completely lost in their haze of lust and afterglow.
	As if awakening from a dream, Liz finally focused her eyes on Jamie, peering up at him, her red face dripping with sweat. He pumped one final, thick glob of his emission into her, bucking reflexively to force it deeper. She shivered and groaned as an aftershock ripped through her, collapsing against him and draping her arms over his shoulders.
	She laughed suddenly, an exhausted, post-coital giggle that forced a grin across his face.
	“My parents would be so mad,” she chuckled, batting her lashes at Jamie as he ran his hand up and down her back, stroking her as she recovered. “I'm sorry I...bit you,” she said, kissing his neck near the red indents where her teeth had pierced his skin.
	“I kind of liked it,” Jamie replied sheepishly, and she smirked at him.
	“Your parents won't be back until tomorrow morning right? Can we...stay like this? I want to spend the night with you.” He nodded, and toppled over, pulling her with him so that they were lying prone together. He pulled out of her, and they both gazed down at the mess they had created with burning faces.
	“Oh, I can feel it inside me,” Liz sighed, rubbing her mound gently with a padded finger. She crooned as Jamie leaned in to kiss her, their tongues intertwining and drawing out a fresh flood of afterglow that warmed them, and Jamie reached down to pull his bed sheet over their naked bodies. They wriggled closer together, their shared warmth pooling beneath the blanket, and they explored eachother's bodies with roving hands and curious fingers.
	“Liz,” Jamie started, “tomorrow, when you have to-”
	She pressed a furry finger against his lips.
	“Shush, don't spoil it. Right now all that matters is...is me and you. Tomorrow won't come, it can't, I won't let it.” Tears welled in her eyes, and Jamie wiped them away, pressing closer to kiss her again. She clung to him desperately, this new kiss more frantic and wanting than the last. They stayed locked together for a while, lost in their embrace, until Liz broke away and nestled her face in Jamie's neck again.
	“Let me sleep like this,” she breathed. Her voice was low and soft, but Jamie could hear a waver in her tone, and it pained him. He wanted to comfort her, but she had asked him to pretend that this night would last forever, that somehow the sun would be prevented from rising through the sheer force of their will. “I'm glad I got to have you, Jamie.”
	After a few minutes of silence, she fell asleep in his arms, and before long Jamie had joined her.

	Jamie awoke to blinding sunlight pouring in through his curtains, and rose to sit on his bed, shielding his eyes and blinking groggily. Ugh, he was caked in dry bodily fluids, his own, and Liz's...
	Where was Liz? He looked around the room and couldn't see her, she wasn't in the bed, had she gone to the bathroom? He stood up and pulled on a pair of jogging pants, he would wash later, right now he just wanted to say his goodbyes to Liz before she...no, he didn't even want to think about it.
	As he reached the door and turned the handle, he noticed a sheet of paper taped to the wood. A sick feeling welled in his stomach as he tore it down and recognized Liz's handwriting.

	'Dearest Jamie, last night was the most magical night of my life. I'm sorry I can't bring myself to say goodbye to you, I'm not strong enough, it hurts too much. I hope you can forgive me for running away. By the time you read this I will probably be on my way to the spaceport with my parents. I've loved you since I was a little girl, and I always will. I'm so sorry that you had to fall in love with me, and that I put you through all of this. I'm sorry I never told you how I felt sooner, we might have had more time together.
	I'll always love you, Jamie, and if there's a way to get back to you I will find it.
	Forever yours, Lizka.'

	The ink was blotched here and there, she must have been crying when she wrote it. Now he felt his own eyes moisten, his chest tightening as stinging tears rolled down his cheeks.
	“Idiot,” he muttered to himself as his fingers tightened around the paper. “You didn't even stay long enough for me to tell you what an idiot you are.”
	He would have held her and told her how stupid it was to apologize, that he had loved every moment he had spent with her, that he woke up every morning with a spring in his step because he knew that he would get to see Liz. He wouldn't trade those years away to lessen the pain he felt now, not a chance.
	Jamie sank to his knees and wept.

CHAPTER 4: WORLDS APART

	'It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.' That's what Jamie's father had told him, followed by a lecture about how he shouldn't mope, and how he needed to come out of his room because he was missing practice. Everyone treated their relationship like puppy love, a phase that Jamie would grow out of, as if the connection they had shared wasn't real. It made him bitter and angry, on top of being heartbroken by Liz's absence. He had rushed to her house as soon as he had cried it out and calmed himself down enough to wash and dress, and had found the building empty. She really had gone then, off to Borealis for an indeterminate period of time, maybe forever.
	Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and her absence did not grow any easier for Jamie. He didn't know where she had gone on the alien planet and had no way to contact her, he considered booking passage on a jump freighter, but the idea was both absurd and financially impossible. Even if he sold everything he owned, he wouldn't make a fraction of the money required. His family became frustrated with him over time, what little sympathy they had for what they saw as a childhood fling steadily ran out as his performance in school began to dip and he spent more and more time at the track, figuratively running from his problems. The burning of his lungs and muscles was his only reprieve from the wound that had opened in his chest. His friends didn't understand either, they couldn't see why 'being dumped' had effected him so badly, and their tolerance of his mood swings waned as well.
	He held out hope that Liz might find a way to contact him, she knew where he lived and his vidphone number had not changed. He was confident that if there was a way for her to reach out to him she would find it, but after a year of waiting the call still did had not come. What if Liz had forgotten about him? What if her parents had been right and Borealis had awakened her true nature, was she now enjoying the company of new friends, new lovers? Maybe Jamie was the only person who thought of their relationship as more than an immature infatuation, and Liz had moved on. Jamie didn't want to think badly of her, but he couldn't help but direct some of his anger in her direction, and he started to think that maybe he should forget his past and build a new future for himself.
	He began to court some of the girls in his class who had shown interest in him, but something about his new availability and his fall from popularity had soured many of them, those who did make an attempt found him distant and surly. Frivolous romances were no replacement for what he had shared with Liz, there was no possible substitute for having grown up together, for the tender moments they had shared. After a while he gave up, deciding to keep to himself from then on. He eventually graduated with a passing grade, getting a job stacking shelves at an outlet store in the city center, and raised enough money to move out of his parent's house at age nineteen.
	Two uneventful years passed by, Jamie lived out of his spartan apartment and didn't do much besides work and run, exercise was still the only thing that relieved his stress. He would jog for miles before and after work, securing his headphones and strapping on his mesh sportswear, his feet pounding the asphalt until he couldn't go on. He avoided taking the routes he had enjoyed with Liz, walking beneath the trees as they shed their colorful leaves in the autumn brought back too many memories, and he had not set foot in their favorite diner since that last night he had spent with her.
	The world still felt grey and colorless without her, food had lost its taste, he found that he just couldn't glean any enjoyment from hobbies and recreational activities that had so entertained him in his youth. His estranged family wrote it off as Jamie having matured, but the reality was that life had lost its luster the moment Liz had left him.

	Jamie poured himself a bowl of cereal under the yellow glow of a naked bulb, sitting at his round kitchen table to eat. He had been out running and he couldn't be bothered to make anything more substantial, even a microwave ready meal felt like too much effort right now. He chewed the crunchy wheat product as rain spattered against his windows. Looked like he had just missed the downpour, he had noticed the overcast sky on his jog home from work, and had decided to take a shortcut instead of following his usual route in order to beat the storm.
	His apartment was modest, he hadn't really made any serious attempts to decorate it or unpack much of his old belongings since he had moved in, it had the amenities he needed and any free time was spent outside. The rent was affordable, at least by inner city standards, and he didn't have much in the way of disposable income at the end of the month. It was better than living at home though, he was entirely cognizant of how his attitude rubbed off on the people around him, better to just live alone.
	He should really shower, his t-shirt and shorts were soaked with sweat. He finished off his food, putting the rim of the bowl to his lips and drinking down the milk before getting up to discard it beside the cramped sink. It was pretty late in the afternoon, going to bed a little early wouldn't do him any harm either, might get rid of the grey bags that hung under his eyes too.
	Just as he turned towards his bathroom, he heard his doorbell ring.
	He paused, turning his head curiously, who could that be? He didn't know anyone who might call this late at night, or even at all. His parents lived on the other side of the city and he didn't think any of his coworkers knew him well enough to pay him a visit. He walked over to the door and unhooked the latch, opening it a crack. A rush of cold, damp air flooded past him as the storm blew through the opening, he could hear the trees rustling outside and the pitter patter of raindrops on the street.
	There was a figure standing there, taller than anyone he had ever seen. A tremor of fear passed through him as the dark silhouette placed a massive hand on the door and pushed it open, forcing him to take a few steps back. It turned sideways and ducked through the entrance, unable to rise to full height as its head brushed the low ceiling.
	As the dim bulb that hung above his table in the open plan space illuminated the visitor, he realized it was a Borealan. The unmistakable ears and tail twitched as rain dripped from its sandy fur. It was wearing clothes of a human design, but their dimensions were almost comically exaggerated to fit the stranger's massive frame. It wore a brown leather bomber jacket with a furry collar and cuffs, and a massive pair of cut-off jean shorts that ended at the knee. No shoes, just a pair of large, paw-like feet tipped with black claws that left wet footprints on his tiled floor. He craned his neck to look at its face, and recognized the coloration. It seemed to be female and had the same blonde hair and caramel skin that Liz and her father had sported, was this some relative or family member? One of her sisters maybe?
	“C-Can I help you?” Jamie stammered, somewhat overwhelmed by the presence of the creature in the small apartment. Its long, fluffy tail threatened to knock his coat rack over as it swayed back and forth.
	“Have I really changed that much, Jamie?”
	His heart froze, and he looked the Borealan in the eye. There was something familiar there in the facial features, and a green spark behind the eyes that he recognized.
	“Liz? Is that you?”
	“So you didn't forget about me,” she chuckled, reaching out a giant hand to ruffle his unkempt, blonde hair. Her voice was deeper and courser now, but unmistakably her own, the lack of an accent and the inflections were distinct. Her hand was as large as a damned dinner plate, she could have enclosed his whole head in her fist if she had been so inclined.
	“You've...grown...” He did his best to sound positive, but this was a shock to him. Three years with no contact, and then she shows up on his porch without announcing herself, expecting him to welcome her in? It didn't make sense.
	Liz's smile faltered a little, and she looked around the apartment, turning her head left and right to take it all in.
	“Hey...I realize this might be a little...weird. Sorry to just drop in on you like this, I had a bit of a time finding you. Seems like your parents got a new phone, and I had to go to your old place looking for you. They gave me your new address and...here I am. You mind if I sit down?”
	“Oh, of course,” Jamie replied, turning to scan the room for a chair that might be able to support her giant frame. He gestured to a tattered couch and she strode across the room, crouching to sit on it with an alarming creak of wood and springs. Her knees came up almost to her chin, she looked like an adult attempting to sit on a child-sized stool.
	“Can I get you something to drink,” Jamie asked, “bullion cubes, right? I think I have some beef.”
	“That would be nice, I've not had that for a long time...”
	He turned his back to her and filled a pot with water, setting it on the stove to boil. He watched it simmer, not wanting to look at her, pretending the pot needed his attention. He had always imagined her appearing one day out of the blue, declaring her love for him and throwing herself into his arms. Now that his fantasy was reality he just felt cold, sick. Why had she come back now? Why had she never contacted him? She seemed to sense that he was distant, and he heard the couch strain under her weight as she shuffled uncomfortably.
	“I realize it's been a while,” she said, with her oddly recognizable, yet unfamiliar voice.
	“Yeah, three years,” Jamie replied, watching the water bubble and steam as it started to boil.
	“I kind of imagined this going differently,” she chuckled, obviously trying to hide her discomfort. “I though you might be glad to see me, but I guess...it was never gonna play out that way.”
	“What are you doing here?” Jamie asked, his tone a little harsher than he had intended it to sound. She hesitated for a moment, choosing her words.
	“I...just wanted to see you again. I had a hell of a time on Borealis, and getting off-planet is a lot harder than just booking a flight at a spaceport, like you can on Earth. No ports, no space elevators, not much traffic going out. My only option was hitching a ride on a UNN jump freighter on its way to the Pinwheel, from there I caught a ship to Sol system.” She laughed again, more disbelief than humor this time. “Damn Jamie I came seventy five lightyears, cooped up in cabins barely large enough for humans, and you're not happy to see me? Did I make a mistake in coming back here?”
	“I...I'm sorry Liz, it's just a shock seeing you again after all this time. I thought you were long gone, I never expected to hear from you again. I assumed you'd moved on,” and I was finally starting to deal with it, he failed to add, pouring the hot water into two mugs. He added a teabag for himself, and dropped a bullion cube into Liz's drink, stirring it with a spoon until it formed a broth. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself, and walked across the apartment to hand Liz her cup. He hesitated for a moment, then sat down beside her, trying to stay on his own side as the slant of the cushions drew him towards her.
	She sipped the steaming mug, tiny in her massive fingers, and sighed.
	“Tastes just how I remember it.” She looked him over, gesturing with her free hand. “I see you're still running, that's one of the things I remember best about you, always doing laps around that track.” He took a draw of his tea, it was too hot, but he needed to occupy himself somehow. “You're mad I never called, aren't you?”
	“I never heard from you again, after you left. I had no way to find you, there's no Yellow Pages for Borealis.”
	“I would have contacted you if I could, Jamie. Give me the benefit of the doubt at least, won't you? I had a lot on my plate, I thought maybe you might have wanted to hear about it.”
	Jamie took another sip of his drink, silent as he sat beside the giant alien. She seemed exasperated, then turned her attention to his unimpressive abode.
	“Nice digs,” she mumbled, somewhat sarcastically. “You don't...have a girlfriend or anything? You live alone?”
	“Never had much interest in women,” Jamie replied.
	“I figured maybe...you know, all those girls at school used to follow you around like you were the last boy on Earth. You were pretty cute, tall for a human, you were on the school track and field team. You didn't become a ladies man in my absence then?”
	“No,” he muttered, failing to elaborate in the way she clearly wanted him to. He shuffled and sipped at his tea, staring straight ahead. Liz seemed to run out of patience, rising to her feet. The springs in the couch snapped back into position as her massive weight left them, almost sending Jamie toppling sideways.
	“I see I'm not welcome, I'm sorry for disturbing you, Jamie. I guess I thought...I didn't think you would react like this. If you don't want to hear me out, I understand. You know I didn't mean for things to pan out the way they did.”
	She walked across the room towards the door and pulled it open, the howling wind blowing rain into the apartment as she prepared to leave.
	“You're an idiot you know,” Jamie called after her. She stopped at the door, turning to look at him, confusion on her face.
	“What did you say?”
	“I said you're an idiot,” he reaffirmed, bowing his head and holding the mug of cooling tea in his hands, his blonde curls falling over his face.
	“Why am I an idiot?”
	“That note you left me, do you remember what you wrote? I wouldn't have traded the time I spent with you for anything. Even now, even through all of this, I wouldn't give up one day that I spent in your company if it would lessen the pain. You apologized to me, as if having known you was some kind of burden I had to bear, rather than the reason I got out of bed every morning.”
	Tears welled in her green eyes, and she strode back towards him, knocking the mug of tea out of his fingers to shatter on the floor with a swipe of her furry hand. She gripped his chin, brushing his hair out of his face to see his swollen, red eyes peering up at her.
	“I never stopped loving you, Liz,” Jamie choked.
	She thrust him back against the couch with enough force to knock the wind out of him, then crouched down, pressing her lips against his. He felt her tongue snake into his mouth, entwining with his own and flooding his senses with her familiar taste. They gripped eachother as the kiss dragged on, already making up for lost time, Jamie feeling the still wet skin of Liz's cheeks beneath his hands as he cradled her. She finally broke away, a soothing warmth washing over Jamie's body as she stooped over him, her furry hand resting on his shoulder.
	“From now on, we tell eachother everything, ok?” Liz whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her free hand. “No more hesitation, no more waiting, no more assumptions.” Jamie nodded, trying to regain his composure. “You look exhausted Jamie,” she said, seeing the bags under his eyes. “Maybe I should let you get some rest and come back later?” Jamie nodded his reply, and she took her hand off his shoulder, standing up and remembering the height of the ceiling just in time to avoid knocking her head.
	“Do you have somewhere to stay, Liz? I'd offer you a bed, but I don't think you'd fit.”
	“Yeah, I'm staying in a Borealan sized room at the space port. I came down here on the maglev.”
	“Ok, we could meet in town tomorrow, maybe?” Liz grinned, exposing her sharp teeth.
	“The old diner we used to go to, you remember where it is?”
	“Yeah,” Jamie replied, “I pass it every day.”
	“Nine AM, I'll see you there. Oh, unless you have to work?”
	“No, it's Saturday tomorrow, I'm free.”
	“Then it's a date.” Liz leaned down again and planted a kiss on his forehead, her lips were so large and full now, she had grown truly massive. The long blonde hair he remembered from their childhood fell about her shoulders in heaps, and her complexion seemed even darker than when she had been young, tanned perhaps by her home planet's harsh sunlight. He couldn't help but let his eyes wander to her chest as she leaned over, her breasts were now larger than his damned head, barely contained within the oversized bomber jacket that she wore. The lithe, petite girl he had known had certainly filled out. She looked strong too, almost like a body builder, another side effect of her time on Borealis?
	He could ask her all of the questions he wanted tomorrow, for now he was both physically and emotionally spent, he needed to wash off the day's sudor and get some sleep. Liz turned and made her way to the door, her long tail trailing behind her. She paused as she pulled the door open, the wind howling as the storm blew the trees outside.
	“I never stopped thinking about you, Jamie. Things can still go back to the way they were before.” Without waiting for a reply she stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind her with a click and shutting out the noise of the storm.
	He didn't really believe her, things could never go back to the way they were before she had left, but that didn't mean they couldn't create something new.

CHAPTER 5: HOMECOMING

	Jamie arrived at the diner to find Liz waiting for him, leaning against a tree outside. She was hard to miss, and despite the weather being cool he noticed that she was no longer sporting a concealing coat, no mittens or hat either. She used to be so self-conscious about her alien appearance, now she almost seemed to be putting it on display. Then again she was far too large to hide under any manner of clothing. She was sporting the same jacket and shorts that she had been wearing the previous day, and waved to him when she caught sight of him.
	“Hey Liz,” Jamie said sheepishly, raising his hand in greeting. Liz crouched and wrapped her arms around him, trapping him in a bear hug and lifting him off the ground with the effort one might expend picking up a child. He froze in surprise, feeling the bulge of her biceps and the sensation of her hot breath in his hair, then she lowered him to the ground gingerly.
	“Sorry Jamie, I sometimes forget how small humans are.”
	“I-It's fine,” he stammered, and gestured to the door of the diner, the familiar pink neon sign flickering above the entrance. Liz seemed to size it up, then turned sideways and ducked through it, luckily the ceiling inside the building was tall enough for her to stand without crouching. They made their way over to their favorite booth, but it didn't look as if Liz would fit.
	“Let's uh...get one of the tables,” she chuckled, luckily the diner was deserted as usual and they had their pick of seating. They selected a round, café style table surrounded by loose chairs, and Jamie took a seat. Liz scratched her chin for a moment, trying to figure out if the relatively child-sized chairs would support her bulk, then shrugged and pushed them aside to sit cross-legged on the floor. She was still at the appropriate height in relation to the table, and picked up one of the laminated menus in her massive fingers.
	“I wonder if they still do that burger I used to like? I'd wrestle a rainbow spider for some good old salt and grease right now.”
	“Rainbow...spider?” Jamie was confused, he had never heard the term before.
	“It's an animal on the homeworld that...you know what, that's probably a story for another time.” She traced the line of text with the tip of her claw, they looked like meat hooks now, and her eyes lit up as she found what she was looking for. Jamie hadn't had breakfast yet, and so he decided on the bacon and eggs. A waitress walked out from a swinging door that must lead to the kitchen, and made her way over to where they were seated, her eyes fixed firmly on a tablet computer she was holding. It wasn't the one who had so often served them when they were kids, this woman was younger.
	“Good morning, what can I get you toda-” She looked up and her eyes widened, visibly startled at the sight of Liz, almost jumping out of her uniform. “Oh! Hello! Um, can...your order, ahem,” she cleared her throat and appeared to steady herself, regaining her professional demeanor. “Welcome, are y'all ready to order?”
	“It's ok, I don't bite,” Liz laughed, “well, only people I don't like. I'll have six burgers please, with all the fixings.”
	“And I'll take the eggs and bacon,” Jamie added, handing the menus to the poor girl as she entered their orders into her tablet, then turned to scurry away.
	“I think I scared her,” Liz whispered with a wide grin. She turned her head to take in her surroundings, looking the diner over. “This place hasn't changed a bit, but it all looks smaller to me, like a dollhouse modeled after the diner I remember. Hard to believe I used to be able to sit in those booths.”
	“Yeah, what's the deal with that? You finally get that growth spurt your parents always promised you?”
	“Yeah, turns out Borealans start off small, about the size of human toddlers. We're born in litters of six or more, so it helps to be little. Once we hit puberty we start to shoot up, man my bones and joints used to ache enough to keep me up at night. I met my brothers and sisters too, they all stayed with family on Borealis.”
	“The difference is...really stark,” Jamie said. She wasn't just tall, she was broad shouldered, and her hips were even wider. She looked as if she could chain a wrecking ball to her belly and carry it around without breaking a sweat. “I remember you being a head shorter than me, you always seemed so soft spoken and timid. It's been, what, going on four years now? I almost can't believe you're the same person.”
	“It's really me, I'm your Liz, and you,” she leaned over to nudge his shoulder with her giant fist. “You're my Jamie.” He blushed, remembering the last time she had said those words to him, and she sat back looking satisfied. “I guess my time on Borealis changed me a little, it was rough at first. The culture there is nothing like I could have imagined, my parents didn't make any effort to prepare me for it, they just expected me to adjust because 'that's what a Borealan would do'. Day to day life is more like living in some military boot camp than anything resembling society on Earth. They have this really strict hierarchy, like a pyramid structure, where anyone who is ranked higher than you is basically your God and their word is law.”
	“That sounds harsh,” Jamie commented, feeling his blood run cold as he remembered the meek, unassuming girl who had cried on his shoulder when her classmates had teased her about her appearance.
	“Damn straight, but it gets worse. They resolve all of their conflicts with violence, and if you want to climb the ladder, you gotta fight for it. You piss off the wrong guy and he'll just lay into you, no questions asked, they don't care about the circumstances. If someone is ranked lower than you, and they think they have a shot at taking you down, they won't hesitate. Status is everything to a Borealan.”
	Jamie wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more, it sounded horrible, he couldn't stand the thought of Liz going from a suburban life on Earth to such a violent lifestyle. She seemed to notice his dour expression and her excitement waned a little, she lowered her hands and stopped her wild gesturing.
	“Hey, it's not all that. I'm here, and I'm healthy, right? The story has a happy ending, I promise.” Jamie nodded and let her continue, his face pale.
	“So the thing about Borealans is, we're fucking tough, right? I can give a guy an inch deep gash,” she brandished her black, shiny claws so that Jamie could see them, “and he'll walk away. He'll come back the next day with a scar. We can take a beating, and people pretty much never get seriously hurt during dominance bouts, the victor is usually decided well before the fight escalates to become life-threatening.”
	She paused as the waitress returned with their meals, and Jamie scooted his chair back a little, giving her room to place his plate of bacon and eggs on the table in front of him. She was balancing a whole tray of burgers in her other hand, it looked like an order meant for a whole booth full of diners, but she set it down before the giant Borealan. Liz licked her chops with her rough tongue, and picked up one of the sandwiches in her hand, the substantial burger looked tiny in relation to her. She took a bite out of it, chomping it in half in a single motion, and even then Jamie got the impression that she was pacing herself. She had always been a prodigious eater in her youth, but the amount of calories she must need to consume to maintain such a large body was mind blowing.
	“Where was I?” Liz continued, swallowing a mouthful. “Oh yeah, so I show up on Borealis and I'm just beside myself. I don't know which way is up, everyone is expecting me to know all the ins and outs of their culture, and I didn't have you around to stick up for me. My parents weren't much help, I just wanted to stay inside and hide, but they weren't having any of that. Nobody was mean to me exactly, not by their own standards, but the first month or so was...really hard on me.”
	Jamie forked some bacon into his mouth, he didn't feel so hungry now, his stomach was knotting as he listened to the tragic story. Liz seemed nonplussed, and finished off the remaining half of her first burger.
	“Damn these are as good as I remember them,” she commented. “So my parents got frustrated with me and started locking me out of the house during the day, basically telling me to go learn what I needed to learn, toughen up.”
	“Liz that's terrible,” Jamie whined, grimacing at the thought.
	“Hang on, this is where it gets good! So I'd been there for maybe a month, I'm walking down the main market street of Elysia, which is the biggest city on the planet and pretty much the unofficial capital. It's clogged with Borealans, all bigger than me mind you, and so I turned off the street and into an alleyway just to get away from the crowds. There are these guys there, maybe four or five Borealans with red hair, I didn't know it at the time but it was a pack. Borealans kind of self-organize into packs and each one has an Alpha who is the highest ranked among them. So anyway, these guys are blocking my way, just hanging out in this alley and chatting. Maybe they worked at a nearby stall or something, I don't know, but I tried to get past them. I tapped the biggest, baddest looking dude on the arm, just to get his attention. They probably hadn't seen me because I was so small.”
	Liz swiped her claws suddenly, imitating an attack, startling Jamie as he tried to eat his fried eggs.
	“Boom! I feel this searing pain in my belly, I look down and see a red patch spreading across my dress. Turns out unsolicited physical contact is a big no-no on Borealis, I might as well have just insulted his mother. So this guy, who was easily two or three times my weight, just scarred me without a second thought. So I start to cry because hell, I was still a little girl, but that just pisses them off more. Borealans loathe weakness. So this guy starts gearing up to have another go at me, while his pack backs off, and I realize that he doesn't care. He doesn't care that I'm little, that I'm a girl, that I'm upset. This is Borealis and nobody will ever care. I could have backed off and grovelled and he would have let me go, that's how an encounter like that is expected to play out, but I didn't know that at the time.”
	“Liz,” Jamie started, a tear in his eye, but she cut him off.
	“Then I get angry, I see red, and suddenly I understand what my parents had been trying to teach me. I could stay a scared little girl, or I could break bone. Before I know what's happening, I'm under this guy and flipping him over my shoulder, my hands around his wrist. I scream like a fucking Valkyrie and drop this guy hard on the stone slabs, right on his stupid face.”
	She laughed and picked up another burger as Jamie listened intently.
	“His pack don't know what to do, but this just became a dominance fight and they can't intervene, so they just kind of back up and get some distance. You remember I used to take Aikido classes right? At the time I just wanted to feel more confident, I thought that if I learned how to defend myself from bullies, you might not have to feel like you had to look after me all the time.”
	“Yeah I remember,” Jamie replied, she hadn't talked much about the classes, Jamie had always assumed it was just good exercise.
	“Turns out Borealis has no martial arts, at least nothing like what Earth has developed. There are a few styles they teach soldiers, but it's all to do with claws, they don't have any experience of throws or locks. The Alpha gets up, and if he wasn't angry before he is now, he turns to me and charges me at a run. The thing about Aikido is that it's all about subduing heavier, stronger opponents, ideally without actually hurting them. So if this guy thinks he can win with brute force, he's making a huge mistake.”
	“So what did you do?” Jamie asked, finishing off his breakfast and setting his cutlery down on the plate.
	“My training just kicked in, I converted all of his weight and momentum into a throw and just launched the guy. He landed like a ton of bricks, and before he could get up again I pounced on his back and got his arm in a hold. I was tiny compared to him but he couldn't get up, the more he struggled to try to free himself, the more the hold hurt him. I said to him in Borealan, 'submit or I break it', and he must have understood well enough because he lay still. I waited a couple of minutes, because I was scared he would try to attack me if I let him up, but a defeated Borealan won't have a second go. At least not immediately. I released him from the hold and he just kind of stumbled off, he seemed more scared of his pack than of me. I probably ruined his status.”
	She laughed and ate a burger whole, chewing happily.
	“I ran back home, thinking I'd been gutted, but the cuts were healed by the next day. Shredded my dress though, I liked that damned dress...” She seemed to drift off as she reminisced, then shook her head and grinned at Jamie. She rose a little so that he could see her belly over the table, then ran the zipper of her leather jacket down, parting the two halves and lifting her undershirt to show Jamie the memento of the fight. Three scars drew lines across her absurdly developed abdominal muscles, pink against her caramel skin, obviously long healed. He blushed, and she zipped up her jacket again, continuing with her story.
	 “From that day forward I wasn't scared anymore, I didn't go looking for fights, but I never met anyone I couldn't beat. They even gave me a nickname, you wouldn't be able to pronounce it but in the local dialect it meant 'never learns', because I didn't have the patchwork of scars most Borealans end up with by my age.”
	She shifted her weight, perhaps growing uncomfortable sitting on the hard floor, and popped another sandwich into her mouth. She seemed to be waiting for praise, as if Jamie should be impressed by her story, but it just upset him.
	“Jamie...” Liz crooned, her tone softening. “I've known you long enough to know what you're thinking. It's still me, I'm still the same girl you grew up with. I know it seems like a lot has changed, but it's all superficial.”
	“So, why were you never able to contact me?” Jamie asked, changing the subject. “I tried to contact you, but I didn't have a clue where on the planet you might be.”
	“Oh, well Borealis is pretty backward. A lot of areas seem almost pre-industrial, and there are no lines of communication off-planet. UNN jump freighters show up every so so often to pick up or drop off troops and supplies, and there's pretty much no civilian trade. To my knowledge there's only one FTL communications satellite, it's operated by the UNN and used for official business only. The only way to get word to you would be to come here myself, and...that's what I did! Had to raise the cash first, though. Turns out being an Alpha has lots of privileges, Borealans are oddly unconcerned with private property and personal wealth, if I wanted something I got it.”
	She sucked some of the grease from the burgers off her furry fingers, and then patted her bomber jacket.
	“Cool, right? Thought I'd need some human clothes if I was coming back to Earth, had it custom made and shipped out to me. Let's call it size XXXL,” she laughed, downing her last burger. “Anyway, enough about me, what have you been up to?”
	Jamie was a little taken aback, Liz had been so busy, she had evolved and changed in so many ways. At least by Borealan standards she had made something of herself. What had Jamie done in her absence? Alienated his family and friends, moved into a shitty apartment, landed a dead-end job at an outlet store? He couldn't even remember much of what had happened after she had left, it was all a blur, like he had been running on autopilot. He couldn't let her know how depressed he had become, he didn't want her pity, what if she no longer respected him?
	“Oh, you know...I've been doing good. Finished up at school, thought I'd move out and get some autonomy, strike out on my own.” She watched him with her familiar, green eyes. She seemed to be buying it, at least for now. “I got a low-stress job, plenty of time to focus on my running, I've been taking it pretty easy.”
	“When I spoke with your parents, it came across as if they hadn't seen you for a while.” Liz said. “They were only able to give me your last known address, like they didn't know where you might be. Is...everything ok between you guys? I always remembered your parents being pretty cool.”
	“Oh, yeah, I've just been so busy. I've not had time to see them for a while.” Liz cocked her head at him, looking suspicious, then her expression softened.
	“You don't have to lie to me, Jamie. I can smell the stress coming out of your pores. That apartment looked like a goddamned crack den. Also I'm pretty sure I broke your couch, but I'm not going to say sorry, because it's a shitty couch.”
	Jamie laughed, then trailed off, looking out of the long window at the street outside. The leaves of the trees were green and lush, a steady stream of vehicles passed by as people went about their business.
	“Well, you wanted me to tell you everything from now on, right?”
	“That's what I said, yeah.”
	“Liz, when you left...it broke me. For one brief moment I had everything I ever wanted, and just when I felt as if I couldn't be any happier, you were gone. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.”
	“I couldn't face you, that's why I left the note,” Liz said, her excitable demeanor darkening as she sifted through the old memories. “It would have killed me to say goodbye, so I ran from you, I always regretted that. But if I had stayed, your last memory of me would have been miserable, I wanted that night to live on forever. It was the closest thing to a perfect moment I've ever had,” she added, laughing more bitterly now.
	“See, this is what I do,” Jamie snapped. “You were excited and happy, and now I've soured the mood. I've driven everyone else out of my life.”
	“Well, it's time to stop being a pussy,” she chided, and nudged his arm across the table with her furry fist. “Why do you think I came back? Do you really think I care that you have a shitty job and a badly furnished apartment? I came back for you, I can't get what we had anywhere else, least of all on Borealis. I want to feel the way I did back then, I want to pick up where we left off. We've both changed, I see that now, but we can still make this work.”
	What was Jamie thinking? Was he really going to pass up this opportunity because he had his head stuck in the past? He had dreamed about Liz returning for years, and now here she was in the flesh, and he risked letting her slip through his fingers. He nodded, his eyes brightening.
	“Let's give it a try.”
	Liz beamed, a broad smile curling her full lips.
	“I'd hug you, but I think the waitress would call animal control,” she whispered behind her hand, and Jamie laughed.

	They paid their bill and left the diner, setting off to walk the route they used to take after school. Liz was tall enough to run her claws through the leaves of the trees that lined the street now, loping along beside Jamie with long, slow strides so as not to outpace the smaller human. They spent some time in the town center, but Liz drew a lot of attention and found it hard to browse stores that she could barely fit inside. The looks didn't seem to bother her though, she had been so timid in her youth, and now put her Borealan-ness on display proudly. She swaggered through the throngs of shoppers, parting like the Red Sea to let her by, craning their necks to get a look at the massive alien. The average human knew 'of' Borealans, but unless they were serving in the UNN they were unlikely to ever meet one, and even then it was not a common occurrence. To see one wandering around the shopping district was a once in a lifetime event.
	Eventually they found themselves outside the old elementary school where they had first met, it was empty as it was a Saturday and all the children would be at home. Liz peered over the hedge that surrounded the playground, tall enough to see over it easily, and noticed that the same swing set was still there.
	“I can't believe I used to be small enough to sit on that,” she mused. “I remember how scared I was on my first day, nobody looked like me, none of the other kids wanted to play. Then you came along.” She ruffled his blonde hair with her giant hand, and grinned down at him. “You were like a guard dog, whenever someone upset me or made me cry, you'd come running.”
	“Doesn't look like you need protection anymore,” Jamie chuckled, she looked as if she could flip a damned car.
	“I dunno,” she said sarcastically, “you might want to keep another rock on hand in case Tyler gets wind that I'm back in town and comes back for round two.”

	By the time they were hungry again, most of the day had passed them by, the sun was hanging low in the sky and they stopped at the first convenient café to get something to eat. They chose one that had outside seating, adjacent to the river that wound its way through the city, so that Liz wouldn't have to cram into a human-sized building. She pushed the chairs aside again and sat on the wooden deck cross-legged, ducking to avoid knocking her head on the colorful parasol that rose from the middle of the round table. They ordered a meal from the alarmed waiter, and chatted as they ate, Liz's portions no less impressive than the half dozen burgers she had eaten at the diner.
	“So are you going to stay on Earth, or go back to live on Borealis,” Jamie asked, talking around a mouthful of french fries.
	“I didn't really think that far ahead,” she replied, scratching her chin with her black claws thoughtfully. “I figured I'd just show up and see how we got along before I made any serious plans. I don't think you'd fare well on Borealis though,” she chuckled, gesturing at him with a half-eaten sub sandwich. “The gravity alone means humans can't stay there unaided for more than a few months, and the heat! You get out of that shuttle on your first landing and it's like being hit in the face with a red hot shovel.”
	“And the gravity is why you're so...” Jamie eyed her up and down, and she smirked.
	“You been checking out my guns, Jamie? Didn't know you liked big girls.” Jamie's face flushed red and she laughed at him, spraying crumbs across the table.
	“N-No I mean, well, I don't mind it, you look good. But it's quite a transformation. Back in the day I was the one who was in shape, you were smaller than I was.”
	“Yeah I remember, half of the girls in the school wanted to date you, but you only had eyes for me. I can't say I didn't relish finally getting my claws into you. You've been keeping up the running though, I'm not disappointed. You're probably in better shape now than you were back then.”
	They were getting off-topic, but Jamie couldn't deny that he was curious about Liz's physiology. He had known her intimately, but as a young woman of average height for a human, now her stature and build were completely different. Could they even...would she want to...
	“Hey, Earth to Jamie,” she snapped her fingers at him and he stopped daydreaming.
	“Sorry, I was miles away.” Liz took another huge bite of her meatball sub and chewed for a moment before continuing.
	“So...what are we doing tonight? I've had fun today, and you're looking a lot less surly.”
	“What do you mean?” Jamie asked, he was under the impression that their date had almost concluded.
	“Well, you can go back to your apartment when the sun goes down, or...you can come back to my room at the space port.” She leaned forward over the table, letting her heavy bust rest on the polished surface through her jacket as she watched him redden. “It's been a long time Jamie, aren't you curious? Don't you want to see how much I've...changed?” Jamie swallowed hard, feeling his heart pound in his chest as he considered the possibility, damn it he couldn't think straight.
	“You've only been back a couple of days Liz, I mean, are you sure that you-”
	“Don't hold out on me, Jamie. I've been waiting three years for another go at you.” He spun his head around, making sure nobody was in earshot, his cheeks burning.
	“Damn Liz, keep your voice down, I don't know how they do things on Borealis but you can't go around saying things like that here.” She grinned and set her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hands, and watched Jamie squirm with a smug expression.
	“Humans are always so worried about what other people will think of them, but what does it matter? I want to fuck you, you want to fuck me or you wouldn't be so flustered, so let's fuck. Unless there's some reason we can't?”
	“No, I...this is just sudden. Of course I like you, and I want to, I'm just not used to you talking this way. You used to be so meek, it took you years to tell me how you felt about us.”
	“Yeah, and where did that get me? If Borealis taught me one thing, it's to be direct. State what you want plainly, and if they won't give it to you, then you take it.” She let her fist fall on the table to punctuate her point, making Jamie's plate jump and clatter. “I'm not gonna waste one more day, not one more hour.”
	She held out her furry palm in invitation, and after a moment of hesitation, Jamie took it. She closed her massive fingers gently around his hand and shot him a warm smile.
	“You're trembling, I'm not gonna crush you. You can be on top if you want, I remember you showing me the same courtesy once.”
	She stood and dropped a pocketful of paper currency onto the table, placing an ashtray over it to keep it from blowing away, maintaining her grip on Jamie's hand and pulling him out of his seat.
	“Don't worry, this is going to be fun.”

CHAPTER 6: NO MORE HESITATION

	 The roar of starship engines echoed overhead as Liz led Jamie through the space port. Maglev vehicles hissed by above them, almost soundless on their magnetic drives, shuttles unloaded cargo and took off with passengers bound for orbit as the rumble of a freighter taking off shook the foundations. The port was more of a self-contained city than a simple terminal, great decorative spires made from polished metal supported the multi-layered building, larger than any football stadium. Passengers and travelers crossed the walkways above them and rode escalators between the floors of the tiered structure, on their way to or from the innumerable vessels that docked on the landing pads that surrounded it. Jamie craned his neck to look up past the web of bridges and pathways into the open sky, watching the booster engines of a starliner fading into the darkening haze.
	“Never been to the space port, Jamie?” Liz asked, smiling at his wonderment.
	“Once, as a child, but I've never had a reason to visit since.”
	“You're so muddy,” Liz laughed, a slang term the Marines used to describe civilians who had never been into space. “Maybe I should take you to Borealis one day, just for a visit. I could spend some time looking out for 'you' for a change.”
	She led him past crowds of people, and Jamie noticed she was drawing less attention here. If there was anywhere one would expect to find aliens on Earth, it would be a space port. He could even see a few of them going about their business, there was a reptilian Krell, standing with its leathery head above the humans as they gave it a wide berth. At least one other Borealan too, it was wearing a black UNN combat uniform, obviously Navy personnel.
	“I'm on the fifteenth floor, in the hotel area,” Liz said, and turned to a glass elevator, stepping inside it and mashing a button with her claw. It seemed to have been designed with aliens in mind, far larger than would be necessary for even a whole party of humans. Jamie watched the crowds on the ground floor shrink as the elevator carried them upwards, the tiered structure flashing past behind them, it was almost enough to give Jamie vertigo. They arrived at their floor and the doors slid open to let them exit, Liz taking Jamie by the hand and pulling him along beside her. This floor had less of an industrial look to it, it was carpeted like the foyer of a hotel with elaborate decorations hanging from the ceiling, and the wall that faced the sheer drop to their left. Jamie peered over the guard rail, feeling his stomach turn as he looked down at the ants milling about below them, but upon returning to Liz's side he felt as if he might be in the lobby of some resort. The only touch missing were bellhops to carry their luggage, not that he had any.
	They walked around the circumference of the open-air interior, eventually arriving at what must be the specific hotel Liz was staying in. There was a man in a red uniform idly reading a holographic display behind a glass window that seemed to be embedded in the wall, just to the right of the double door entrance, and he sprang to attention as he noticed Liz. She waved to him, and he hit a command on his console, the doors sliding open to reveal a lavishly decorated lobby complete with a crystal chandelier that hung from the high ceiling.
	Jamie was awestruck, to think that such an establishment could exist inside a space port terminal, judging by the height of the ceiling it must extend up through several more floors too. Liz had not been lying, money did not seem to be an issue for her now.
	“I'm staying in the 'large guest suite' on the upper level,” Liz said, winking at Jamie. They mounted the dual staircase that wrapped the foyer, carpeted in red and gold with ornately carved wooden banisters, and made their way up to the landing. When they reached the correct door, Liz drew a keycard from one of the pockets of her jacket and flashed it past a sensor. There was a click as the door unlocked and swung open, revealing an open-plan suite that was ostentatiously decorated, one wall was made entirely of glass and looked out onto the space port. It was well insulated, not a sound could be heard of the massive vessels that were taking off and landing outside. There was an en suite bathroom containing a bathtub that looked more like a small swimming pool, a large television on one wall, and a truly gigantic bed that took up most of the space in the main living area. Jamie had been expecting a Borealan-sized bed, but this was even larger than that, it was piled with blankets and pillows like a rat's nest and looked wide enough for half a dozen of the giant aliens to lounge comfortably. You could almost have landed a dropship on it.
	“Well, compared to this hotel suite I can see how my apartment looks...underwhelming,” Jamie commented, and Liz laughed at him. Night was falling now, the sun had set and the sky outside the window was turning an inky shade of deep blue. The room was lit with dull lamps that cast their yellow glow over the interior to create a calming, and he had to admit, romantic mood.
	Damn, they were really doing this, weren't they? He had known Liz his whole life, they had made love once before, but he almost felt as if this new Liz was a stranger. Her appearance, her newfound confidence, it was disconcerting. It was equally exciting though.
	 Liz sauntered over to the edge of the massive bed and sat heavily, the mattress sinking under her weight. She reached out with her hand and patted the space beside her.
	“Come on Jamie, I won't bite. Not unless you want me to...” He realized they hadn't even done anything yet, and his head was already spinning, his face flushing red as he walked over to sit beside her. Even with them both sat down his head barely reached her chest, and he jumped as he felt her enormous, furry tail coil around his waist with the dexterity of a third arm.
	“Liz, I'm kind of...out of practice.”
	“I don't think all the practice in the world would help you now,” she chuckled, eyeing him as if he were a juicy steak. “Just...relax, let me take the lead for now.” His heart leapt as he felt her place a heavy hand on his chest, easing him into a prone position on the bed. She leaned over him in one fluid motion, cupping his burning cheek with her fluffy palm and pressing her puffy lips against his. A jolt of electric pleasure fizzled down his spine as she pushed her tongue into his mouth, the flavor of her copper saliva prickling his tastebuds. With a start he remembered how long her tongue had been, his growing erection jumping under his clothes as her thick organ wormed its way into his head. The rope of slick muscle coiled and twisted, painting his inner cheeks, wrestling with his tongue as Liz overwhelmed him. He couldn't have conceived of such a deep and probing kiss, this one was far more passionate and sexual than when she had kissed him in his apartment. Her taste and her familiar, musky smell flooded his senses. He felt the tapered tip of her tongue graze his esophagus, making his eyes water as the lurid embrace dragged on, and he felt his hips rising from the bed involuntarily as his back arched.
	He couldn't even attempt to meet her kiss, her tongue was like a powerful snake, he could only lie back and let her do as she pleased. God this couldn't be described as a kiss, it was too obscene, too ravenous. He began to feel light headed as he started to run out of breath, stars dancing before his eyes as her organ roved in his mouth. It tickled as it glanced the back of his throat, her movements slow and teasing, he couldn't concentrate on anything other than the sensation of the organ that was invading his head.
	Finally she pulled away, her wet lips linked to his by a stray strand of saliva, and she slowly withdrew the length of her tongue back between them. Jamie panted, his erection now straining against the fabric of his underwear as Liz's fingers lingered on his cheek, her emerald eyes peering down at his red face with all the hunger and anticipation of a cat holding a struggling mouse by its tail.
	She was right, she was more than he could have handled, more than any human could hope to handle. But he wanted this, now more than ever he felt a pounding in his chest and a throbbing in his loins that threatened to drive him crazy if he didn't seek relief.
	“Now you're ready,” she whispered, leaning in to breathe hot air on his ear, making him squirm on the silken bed sheets. “Try to relax, this'll be fun...”
	She trapped his earlobe between her sharp teeth and tugged it gently, sending a pleasant shiver through Jamie's beleaguered body. He felt her hand leave his cheek, running down to glance his neck then pausing at the collar of his shirt. She unbuttoned it deftly using the tips of her black claws, it was comically small compared her. She moved down to his belly, then tore the shirt open, exposing his torso. She bit her lower lip as she scanned his musculature with covetous eyes, tracing the lines of his abdominal muscles with the fleshy pads of her fingers.
	She leaned in suddenly, dragging her tongue across his naked skin. Its rough, slippery surface was so warm. It felt like a hot, damp towel. Jamie squirmed as she reached his shoulder and drew back, the heavy bust that hung over him now rising and falling conspicuously as Liz breathed.
	“I had almost forgotten how good you taste, Jamie,” she murmured. She pressed her nose into the nape of his neck, breathing in his scent and nuzzling him with her massive head. “How good you smell...” He flinched as he felt teeth on his throat, the sharp points pricking into his skin, followed by the textured surface of her hot tongue. She mouthed and kissed with her lips, pinching his skin between them and sucking to leave red marks. It made Jamie dizzy, he felt so vulnerable with this massive creature biting at his jugular, yet at the same time it heightened his senses. His nerves were on fire, his brain fizzing and bubbling, and he yelped in surprise as he felt Liz rake her claws down his ribs.
	She was playing him like some kind of instrument, the teasing was becoming too much to bear as he lay beneath her, his body wracked by the pleasure of her gentle kisses and the sting of her teeth and claws.
	Just when he started to consider begging her to slow her relentless teasing, she stopped and sat back, watching him gasp and shudder with a knowing smirk. He felt her fingers on his pants, and winced as she pulled his clothing down, catching on his stiff erection before passing over it to leave it bouncing in the air.
	“Looks like I'm not the only one who has grown,” she said, grinning and curling her velvet fingers around his vascular shaft. She traced the veins, stroking him with her fur, it was incredibly fine and soft. She gripped his member more firmly, burying it in her downy palm and feeling it throb and flex like a caged beast. She began to jerk softly, squeezing gently as Jamie thrust into her hand reflexively. Her pace was painfully slow, never giving him quite as much as he needed.
	His bleary eyes wandered to her chest, her dusky cleavage just visible beneath the furry collar of her bomber jacket. Liz brought her free hand up to the zipper, tugging it down slowly, ensuring Jamie was watching as the weight of her breasts parted the garment. They fell free, bouncing beneath her shirt as they settled, she didn't seem to be wearing a bra of any kind. The damned things were the size of beach balls, her nipples visible through the thin fabric.
	She withdrew her hand, then leaned down to breathe warm air on the sensitive tip of his member, wetting her lips with her long tongue. Jamie covered his red face with his hands, his stomach fluttering and his member aching in anticipation, watching her through his fingers as she hovered over his groin.
	“Oh fuck, Liz, are you-”
	“You'll be paying me back soon enough, now try try keep still, I've not done this for a while.”
	She pressed her smooth lips against his tender glans, kissing the tip gently and sending a jolt of pleasure coursing through Jamie's body. He watched with a mixture of excitement and fascination as her long tongue wormed its way down his member, wrapping it in slippery flesh like some kind of tentacle. She bound his erection in the warm muscle, then sucked the tip of his member into her mouth, encasing it in the soft lining of her cheeks.
	Jamie dug his nails into his face, the heat and pressure searing his member, the sensation of her tongue as it undulated and squeezed driving an unbecoming sigh from his throat. Liz chuckled, the vibrations further stimulating him. She pressed him deeper, her tongue scraping the bottom of his member with its textured surface, scratching his sweet spot. The pleasure was almost too harsh and intense for him to handle, Liz had to place one of her large hands on his hip to stop him from bucking into her mouth.
	He felt her lips kiss the base of his shaft, his glans hitting the back of her throat as her tongue escaped below to tease his balls. The suction was so powerful, she was locked onto him like some kind of limpet, the muscles of her tight throat massaging his glans as she swallowed and undulated around him. The warm, slippery surface of her tongue curled around his balls, coating them in sticky saliva and squeezing them gently, as if trying to ease out his emission. Flashes of light arced in his brain, he felt like someone had microwaved his skull, his fingers sunk into her blonde hair as she sucked and licked.
	She drew back torturously slowly, crawling her lips up his shaft to pause at the tip, trapping it between them and circling it with her tongue. He throbbed in her mouth, his member beating like a second heart, leaking precum that she lapped at as if it were honey. Just as he thought he might be able to catch his breath, she bobbed her head again, forcing him into the reaches of her throat and making him grit his teeth.
	“Damn it Liz, you'll drive me crazy!”
	“That's the idea,” she murmured, her lips still wrapped around his member. She drew back again, then slammed down, her tongue sneaking loose to tickle his inner thigh. His grip in her hair tightened, but he was powerless to stop her, all he could do was hang on and try to keep his sanity. The smooth, slick muscles in her throat contracted and rippled around the head of his cock, as if she were trying to draw him deeper, sucking with a force that felt as if it would draw his climax out through sheer force alone.
	She started to bob her head on his member, lubricated by her viscous saliva that spilled free to matt his pubic hair on every downward thrust, forced out of her mouth as her tongue wriggled around him like some giant, pink worm. Her pace was steady, rising and falling rhythmically, and Jamie started to feel a pressure welling in his loins. His breathing grew heavier, coming in labored bursts as Liz watched his face with her green, reflective eyes. She cupped his balls in her silky palm, the delicate fur tickling the sensitive skin as she tormented him, she squeezed gently and smirked as he threw his arms over his burning face in a futile attempt to hide his expression from her.
	“Liz,” he panted, rolling his hips as she coiled her tongue around his shaft, holding his member in her warm mouth. “I'm...you're gonna...oh fuck.” He felt the vibrations of her chuckling, then felt her swallow his member as deep as it would go, massaging his balls with her hand. The friction pulled his foreskin back, exposing his sensitive glans to the pressure of her gullet, the muscles enclosing him like a vice and milking him with unbearable undulations.
	He grunted like an animal, feeling his orgasm tear through his body, flaring out from his loins and sending a wave of tingling pleasure up his spine. He arched his back, lifting his hips off the bed, Liz's free hand supporting the small of his back from beneath to hold him there. His toes curled almost painfully, and he bit his lip, trying not to loose the cry of pleasure that threatened to escape. Liz squeezed his balls in her hand and dragged her tongue up his shaft, drawing more of his emission out of him as he shot his load directly into her waiting throat. Her muscles rubbed against his head as she swallowed, practically drinking it as it came, thick ropes of it hitting the back of her mouth as Jamie spasmed. He saw stars dance before his eyes as she drained him, each wracking cramp of pleasure more intense than the last. It just kept going, he couldn't endure this. He threw his head back and writhed as Liz started to withdraw, her puffy lips pressing tightly against his shaft to ensure that nothing escaped, eventually coming to rest at the tip and teasing it with her tongue.
	She lowered him back down onto the bed as the sharp pangs of pleasure subsided, leaving a dizzying afterglow in their wake that filled Jamie with a warm, pleasant haze. She released his member with a pop, a string of who-knows-what linking the glistening tip to her chin. She wiped it away and grinned at him as he lay beneath her, beads of sweat coating his flushed skin.
	“Perk up Jamie, you owe me.”
	He sat up straight, his head still spinning, and watched Liz as she stood beside the bed and started to remove her clothes. She shrugged off her jacket, placing it on the back of a nearby chair with more respect than she had afforded his discarded pants that lay heaped on the carpet. The shirt she wore beneath barely fit her, it strained around her ample chest and her biceps, the thin fabric almost unable to contain the giant alien. She hooked her claws under the shirt and pulled it up over her head, exposing her twin rows of bulging abdominal muscles and letting her heavy breasts fall to hang free, bouncing gently as she leaned down to remove her jeans. She pulled down the cut-off shorts along with her panties, and stepped out of them, standing naked before Jamie and smirking as his eyes traced the contours of her body.
	The cruel environment of Borealis had chiseled her into a Greek goddess. Gone was the lithe, modest figure of the young woman he had known, replaced with sculpted muscles that protruded from beneath her dusky skin as if begging for the touch of his fingers. Her hips were wide and her thighs were like tree trunks, packed with muscles like steel cables, necessary to carry her weight in the exaggerated gravity of her native planet. She had twin rows of washboard abs running down her torso, the pink claw marks she had so proudly shown him cutting across them horizontally, and from her broad shoulders hung breasts larger than his head.
	Liz let him drink in her figure for a few more moments, then turned around to sit on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor, her back to Jamie. Even that was heavily developed, her spine and shoulders were lined with bunches of firm muscle. Jamie shuffled up behind her, unable to resist running his finger along the dimple that ran down her back, his hand coming to stroke the curve of her wide hip. The sheer mass of her body was incredible, she must weigh four or even five hundred pounds, Jamie was faced with a wall of hard muscle and smooth skin.
	He felt her fuzzy tail coiling around him, and looked down to see it wrapping around his waist like some kind of furry constrictor. Liz lifted him effortlessly, the appendage more of a limb than a tail, and placed him on the carpet before her. He rose to his knees, looking up past her open thighs and over her obscuring chest to see her gazing down with a lurid expression on her face. Her head seemed so far away from down here. Her furry, paw-like feet were tipped with black claws, and spaced wide apart to either side of him. The sandy fur ended below her knees, leaving her thick, meaty thighs as smooth as polished stone. He was hard again already, his member throbbing in the air as the musky scent of her womanhood enticed his senses.
	She snaked the tip of her tail behind his head and hooked him, drawing him closer to her until his face was nestled between her legs and he could feel the heat from her loins on his cheeks. She craned her neck, leaning forward slightly so that she could see over her own mammoth boobs, her breath ragged with anticipation as Jamie poised with his lips an inch away from her. She reached down and ran her fingers through his blonde hair, her pointed claws tickling his scalp, and a pleasant shiver rolled down his spine.
	“Don't be shy, you've done this before.”
	He ran his fingertips over the burnished skin of her inner thighs, feeling her firm muscles twitch beneath the cushioning fat as she squirmed, her weighty chest rising and falling as she breathed. On her prominent pubic mound was a tuft of sandy fur, soft and silky to the touch, he ran his fingers through it as he leaned in to press his lips against her sex. He splayed her labia with his fingers, running his tongue over the pink, slippery flesh within and tasted her metallic juices as they dripped to the bed sheets beneath her.
	“Fuck,” Liz muttered, loosing a long sigh and gripping Jamie's hair as he mouthed and kissed, holding him close to her as she rolled her massive hips. He dragged his tongue up and down her vulva, almost hot enough to burn him, and traced the folds of her organ as her firm thighs pressed around his cheeks. She was so wet, so slippery, it clung to his lips in thick strands and dripped down his chin in fat globs. Her pubic fur tickled his nose as he moved, his arms rising to wrap around her thighs for purchase, a futile effort due to their circumference. Her eyelids fluttered and she rolled her head back, her blonde hair flowing over her shoulders as he circled her opening with his tongue. He slipped a finger inside, probing deeper and feeling the pressure of her vagina closing around it like a vice. She was so much larger than him, but her pelvic floor muscles were so developed that she felt as tight as she had the first night they had made love.
	Jamie rose up for air, and after a moment of resistance, Liz's grip on his hair relaxed. He bit her hip softly, tasting the sweat that covered her dark skin in a glossy layer, and sunk his fingers into the meat of her thighs. Beneath the velvet skin a layer of yielding fat gave way to tissue like iron, the spring-loaded muscles that would allow the enormous creature to leap and run under the strain of gravity. Her bones must be as hard as concrete, or the muscles that were anchored to them would have snapped them like twigs. He snuk his hand down towards her butt, gripping a handful of the springy flesh and felt her flex in surprise.
	“Ah! Humans are always so curious,” she muttered, slapping him playfully on the back with her dexterous tail. He crawled upwards, trying to wrap his arms around her waist, and finding that he couldn't get his fingers to meet. She was so large, so warm, and he found himself level with her abs. They bulged and shifted, reacting to his touch as he traced the toned flesh with his fingers, following the lines and contours down to her navel. The beads of sudor that clung to her coffee-colored skin reflected the dull light from the lamps, the lustrous bumps of her dense muscles casting shadows that only served to further accentuate them.
	Jamie pressed his lips against her belly, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath them, and mouthed as Liz squirmed.
	“That tickles,” she muttered, almost a whisper as she bit her lip, watching him crawl his tongue up her abs. “You...really like my new look?” Her confidence seemed to falter briefly, and in that moment the meek girl Jamie had known shone through, fretting that Jamie might dislike her alien appearance just as she had all those years ago.
	“Damn it Liz,” Jamie muttered, glancing up at her between the mounds of her breasts. “I wouldn't be this hard if I wasn't head over heels for you.” Her cheeks flushed, her lips curling into a sly smile, and she placed a firm hand on his head again.
	“Stop making me embarrassed and get back to work,” she crooned, pushing him back down between her open legs. He continued eagerly, teasing her sensitive inner thighs with his lips and fingers, running his tongue up and down her vulva. Her juices were flowing, a sour nectar dripping from her splayed labia, coating her in a glaze of slippery liquid. He licked ardently, inserting a finger inside her again, her walls contracting around it in greeting and sucking as if trying to drag it deeper. She was feverishly warm, rolling her hips softly in rhythm with his licking and probing, trying to glean more stimulation.
	Jamie pushed another finger inside, slipping past her twitching opening easily due to the copious lubrication that leaked forth, her muscles gripping him with the strength of a clenched fist and crushing his digits together almost painfully. He roved upwards with his tongue, locating her clitoris beneath a fold of pink, moist skin and drawing it into his mouth. He felt her claws on his scalp, her massive body tensing up, and heard a sharp gasp escape her throat. He wriggled his fingers inside her, stroking her quivering insides as her muscles fought against him, the slick, delicate flesh undulating as it enclosed him. In tandem he trapped her clitoris between his lips, sucking it from beneath its protective hood and teasing it gently with his tongue. Damned thing was as large as his fingertip, swollen and tender, and Liz seemed to convulse as he played with it in his mouth.
	“Oh Jamie you little...” Her breathy whine trailed off into an animal snarl as he circled the firm nub of flesh with his tongue. “I'll get you back for this, I'm gonna fuck you until you can't walk...just as soon as...” She lolled her head back, and Jamie felt her steely thighs enclose his head, shivering as he worked. The threat was hardly a deterrent, and he began to curl his fingers so that they jammed against the upper wall of her sopping tunnel, probing for her weak spot. She realized what he was doing, her face flushing a deeper shade of red and one of her hands creeping towards a breast, kneading the fat globe between her huge fingers.
	“U-Up a little,” she mumbled, peering down at him with her green eyes, lids drooping. “A little more...” She bucked suddenly, spasming around his fingers and grinding against his face. “Ugh, fuck...there,” she grunted, her tone almost pleading. Jamie stroked the spot, flicking his tongue over her engorged protrusion, the fleshy walls of her vagina like damp satin beneath his fingertips.
	“Don't you dare stop,” she growled, her grip on his hair becoming tighter. Her legs were closed so firmly around his head, he felt as if she might crush it like a ripe melon. He pushed his fingers into her weak spot, sucking hard on her clitoris, and he felt her convulse as he drove her over the edge.
	She collapsed onto her back across the bed, covering her face with her hands as Jamie clung to her, her hips leaving the mattress as her back arched and her muscles cramped. He withdrew his fingers along with a torrent of her viscous juices, the clear fluid leaking down his chin to fall to his chest in thick ropes. He continued to nurse her clitoris with his tongue, easing out the wracking pulses of her orgasm as it tore through her, animal grunts of base pleasure escaping her pursed lips with every shudder. The waves crashed over her, her lustrous figure twitching and contorting as her torment dragged on, the shine of the sweat that coated her body catching the low light. Her muscles bulged beneath Jamie's hands as he clawed at her butt and thighs, trying to hold on to Liz as she came.
	Her spasms became less frequent, and her breath came in ragged gasps, the last stray jolts of pleasure rippling through her loins as she fell back to the bed and writhed slowly. She rubbed her mound with her fingers, and Jamie withdrew, his face beet red and dripping with her excitement. Her long, sinuous tail flicked back and forth as she recovered, and Jamie crawled up onto the bed to lie beside her. His erection pressed into her meaty thigh as he draped an arm over her muscular belly, the sheets were drenched with her sweat, and he ran his tongue across her damp skin.
	They lay together for a while, Jamie running his fingers over her glistening abs as she caught her breath, her massive body shuddering gently as the last errant pulses of pleasure tickled her.
	“I needed that,” she sighed, rolling onto her side to face Jamie, smirking as her heavy breasts enveloped his face. The squashy globes deformed around him, their warm, smooth surfaces covering him like pillows. She smelled so good, strong, but enticing. “Beats doing it myself.”
	“What do you mean?” Jamie asked, his voice somewhat muffled by the pliant tissue that molded around his head. Liz wiped her forehead with the back of her furry forearm, blushing a little as Jamie looked up at her from between her ample breasts.
	“Well, when I was on Borealis...how do I put this...” She bit her lower lip, chewing it with her pointed teeth as her cheeks reddened. “Turns out when my kind fight, we get aroused, to say the least. Your hormones are raging, you're full of adrenaline, your heart is pounding like a jackhammer and the taste of your opponent's blood is on your lips. It's so...” Liz trailed off, her eyelids drooping, obviously reminiscing about past bouts. “Whoever wins the fight usually mates with the loser, it ensures that only the strongest and most dominant genes are passed on to the next generation of Borealans. The desire is overpowering.”
	Jamie's heart skipped, and for a moment an image of Liz crouching over a fallen male to take advantage of them flashed in his mind. They had been apart for so long, would such an act be unfaithful, or simply a realistic response to not knowing when she might see her lover again? Liz must have noticed his expression, and she chuckled, running her claws through his hair apologetically.
	“Oh Jamie, you know I love you. That's just the thing, I never indulged. I could have, sometimes I wanted to, but my mind always came back to you and what you might think of me. I already had my own Jamie, I didn't want anyone else.” Jamie felt his cheeks burn as he put the pieces together.
	“So...you'd...”
	She closed her hand over the back of his head, pressing him deeper into her cleavage and letting the supple fat bury him. She leaned down, her lips an inch from his ear, breathing hot air on him as she whispered lasciviously.
	“Whenever I felt the urge I'd compose myself, go to a private place, and then rub myself raw until my come ran down my thighs.” Jamie's head span as she pinched the tip of his ear between her teeth, tugging softly. “All while thinking about you. Now I get to have you all to myself, and this time I'm going to keep you, don't ever let me get myself off again.” She said it sternly as if it was an accusation, then wormed her long tongue into his ear, making him shiver in her arms. “Say it,” she breathed, “say you'll always be there when I want you.”
	“I-I'll...ah!” Jamie flinched as she pinched his ear again, squeezing her cleavage around his face and pricking his scalp with her curved claws. “I'll always be there when...you want me.” She grinned, squeezing him tighter with her muscular arms and forcing the air out of him.
	“I want you again right now,” she said, releasing him and rolling off him to lie on her back. She propped herself up on her elbows, splaying her glossy thighs in invitation and watched him with a smirk as his eyes rolled over her figure. “Back when we were kids you used to be taller than me, I was always looking up at you, it seems like so long ago now.”
	Jamie remembered how small she had been, and flashed back to the lithe girl who had shuddered in his arms as they climaxed together, her teeth and claws too underdeveloped to do him any real harm. Now she was multiple times her previous weight, her claws were like meat hooks and she was taller than any human could ever have hoped to be.
	“You let me be on top,” she continued, “it was sweet, at the time I didn't realize how much I'd take to being in the lead.” She patted her thigh with a slap, then beckoned to Jamie with her clawed fingers. “Come on Jamie, don't make me wait.”
	He shuffled closer to her, positioning himself between her open legs, his erection bouncing in the air in time with his racing heart. He felt Liz's long, agile tail coil around his waist in order to pull him closer. She watched him with her green eyes, the flare of a booster engine propelling a freighter into orbit silhouetting her in an orange glow as it passed by the window, the room fading into semi-darkness again as it vanished overheard. Jamie shifted his weight, resting one hand on her firm belly for support as he took his member in his hand and rubbed it up and down her vulva, coating it in her lubricating juices. Her slippery lips teased his glans as he pressed it against her opening, and she looked down at him expectantly, biting one of her claws between her teeth in anticipation.
	God, how could a woman so large be this tight? He pushed his member into her vagina, the entrance gripping him like damp silk and fighting against him as if trying to repulse the invader, Liz gasped as she felt the tip of the stiff organ enter her. He pushed deeper, eased along by the viscous excitement that glazed his member and dripped from her loins in strands, feeling the pressure and heat of her fleshy walls as they dragged across his skin. Her muscles rippled and undulated, rolling along his shaft in unbearable waves as if drawing him in, her abs flexing and twitching as he slid inside her up to the hilt.
	She groaned, long and low, trapping him there with her sinewy tail and keeping him lodged in her moist depths, feeling the pulsing and twitching of his cock as she clenched around it. She doubled over and leaned closer to him, her stomach muscles bulging, their surface coated in fresh sweat. She gripped his hair in her massive hand and crudely slammed her lips against his, forcing her serpentine tongue into his mouth and roving, wanton and unashamed. His member jumped inside he as he met her kiss, feeling her rough organ explore his head, her thick saliva dripping from his chin. Her embrace was rough and greedy, it made his head spin, her thick organ bulging his cheeks. She finally pulled away with a wet smack, catching his lower lip in her teeth and tugging gently.
	“Don't be a gentleman, Jamie,” she crooned, meeting his unfocused gaze with her reflective eyes, like green mirrors in the gloom. “Fuck me like your life depends on making me happy, I want some bruises to show off tomorrow.”
	He withdrew slowly, and the pair gasped in unison, her loins sucking against him and scouring his sensitive skin with their textured, bumpy lining. He pushed deep inside her again, feeling her quiver in response, her steely thighs pressing around his hips. She was on fire, so warm, so wet that the indecent sounds of their coupling rose to his ears and made him blush. He started to move his hips a little faster, driving his member into her sopping tunnel, the delightful friction and pressure making him frown as he tried to endure the stimulation.
	“Harder,” Liz growled, and Jamie felt her tail tighten around his waist, pulling him deeper with more force than he could muster under his own power. He gasped as she slammed him against her mound, burying his throbbing cock to the base and wringing it with her twitching muscles. She dragged him all the way out, a mass of thick, clear fluid connecting their loins in rapidly drooping strands, then rammed him back inside her again. He was going numb, her pace was slow, but the force of their rutting was enough to knock the air from his lungs. He gripped her hips for purchase, feeling her muscles shifting beneath her dark skin as she moved, the sensation of her crushing tunnel raking his glans sent waves of harsh pleasure coursing through his body.
	“Not enough,” Liz grumbled, her claws sinking into the soft mattress like knives through warm butter, insulating fluff popping up from beneath the shredded fabric. “I want it deeper...”
	Jamie felt her iron thighs enclose him, trapping his hips, and he lurched as Liz spun him. She threw him down in a leg lock, rolling over on top of him and pinning him to the bed, one of her martial arts moves perhaps? She was incredibly heavy, her massive body pressed him down into the mattress, the weight of her lodging his member even deeper inside her. She loomed over him, her huge breasts hanging above his nose, and he had to raise his head to see her face, framed by a waterfall of blonde hair. He let loose a cry of pleasure and surprise as Liz ground against him, threatening to crush his hips as the bed springs creaked beneath them, forcing his cock into the reaches of her canal. He winced as his glans met resistance, and Liz seemed to shudder, as if someone had walked over her grave.
	“Ugh, there...that's what I need, right there,” she growled. Beads of sweat dripped from her shining skin to fall on him, her muscular body flexing and bulging as she tried to find a comfortable position on top of him, her hands resting either side of his head and her claws cutting through the silken sheets like paper. He looked up at her face, she was flushed red, wetting her lips with her pink tongue. The heat from her body was intense, she was so large that his whole world was now just the bed beneath him, and Liz's toned body trapping him against it.
	She started to move, rolling her heavy hips and driving his member against her undulating walls, twitching and contracting in response to his burning organ. She was so large and heavy, it was almost too much for him. He felt as if a low voltage current was running through his entire body, setting his nervous system aflame, sending jolts of tingling pleasure coursing through him to fizzle out in his fingertips and toes. Her copious emissions leaked from her hole as she bounced on top of him, the sticky juices running down his thighs. The mattress rebounded as best it could when she drew back, only to slam down again, letting her weight fall on him and taking him to the limit of her slick tunnel. Fucking so deep would have hurt a human woman, but Borealan anatomy must be a little different, on the contrary she seemed to revel in the sensation when the head of his cock slammed the bottom of her vagina. Her tongue lolled from her mouth, Liz seemingly lost in her fugue as Jamie tried to hang on below her, his hands slipping on her wet skin as he scrambled for purchase.
	“L-Liz, slow down a little, I can't,” she cut him off, dropping to her elbows to get closer to him, pressing her lips against his neck and pinching the skin with her sharp teeth. His complaint petered out into a breathy sigh, pleasure sparking down his spine.
	“You can take it,” she panted, her hot breath washing over him. “I fucking need this Jamie, it feels so good.” She wrapped her fluffy hands around his head, resting her weight on her elbows as she pounded him into the bed, leering at him with a dazed expression as he grimaced and bucked.
	Struggling would be pointless, and he didn't want to, he relaxed and let Liz take him. The bed frame creaked its protests as she moved, slamming down on Jamie almost hard enough to bruise him. It was as if she were maddened by some unreachable itch that compelled her to drive him ever deeper into the hot, slippery reaches of her body. The heavy mass off her breasts hung above him, swaying with her movements as she thrust her hips. He reached up a hand and let the weight of one of her boobs rest on his palm, the supple fat spilling around his digits like soft dough, how could she even carry breasts this heavy without destroying her back? He dug into the soft flesh with his fingertips, feeling firm tissue beneath, and Liz tightened her iron grip on his member. He pinched her pink nipple between his fingers, teasing it, and her claws pricked the skin of his face. Her furry palms were so soft on his cheeks, there was something about having her hold his head down on the bed like this that just made his heart skip.
	He gasped and arched his back as she came down on him particularly hard, a futile gesture as he doubted half a dozen men would have been able to lift her, and she brought her pink nose down to his neck. She sniffed him like an animal, breathing in his scent, then dragged her rough, wet tongue across his jugular.
	“Oh Jamie, you're sweating sex hormones, does it feel that good?” She wrapped her hand around his throat, choking out his reply before he could answer, and subjected him to another invasive kiss. God, when she kissed him like that his brain just shut down. She was so shameless, she knew exactly what she wanted, and she took it without a shred of hesitation. His eyelids fluttered as her long tongue roiled in his mouth, her taste flooding his senses, and he started to feel the familiar urgency of an orgasm welling in his loins.
	“Liz I-I'm gonna-”
	“Not yet, I need more,” Liz whispered, pressing her sharp teeth against his neck. She bit, harder than he had expected her to, breaking the skin. Jamie moaned, squirming as the blur of pain and pleasure addled his mind, his impending climax receding in the confusion. He shivered as she lapped at the red indentations she had left, not knowing what to feel as the ache of her bite and the tingling pleasure of her tunnel squeezing him mingled into a haze of sensation.
	Liz hovered above him with a gaze that could only be described as lecherous, slowing her pace a little and teasing with more gentle contractions of her powerful muscles, making sure he stayed hard. There was no danger, she realized, as Jamie looked up at her with burning cheeks and a dazed expression.
	“Ladies first,” she muttered, smirking. She slipped a thumb into his mouth, careful to avoid cutting him with the claw, and he bit it gently as she resumed her cruel dance. The downy fur felt strange on his tongue as he maneuvered it around her thick digit. Why did this feel so good? Why did having her push him a little farther than he would have wanted excite him the way it did?
	“You're mine,” Liz panted, her damp hair tickling his face as it fell about his head. “You said it yourself all those years ago, say it again Jamie. Say it.”
	“I'm...I'm yours, Liz,” he mumbled around her thumb. Her eyes lit up like green fire, the speed of her heavy thrusts increasing as she crooned with delight. She began to slam him into the bed again, cradling his head in her hands and pinning him as she bounced, Jamie worried the bed might give out underneath them, the frame creaking as she dropped her weight down on it. She was so heavy, how much did all that muscle weigh? Four hundred pounds at least, he estimated, wincing as she crushed his hips against the mattress. She was all over him, one hand resting on his clavicle and forcing him down as if he might try to wriggle free, her other hand holding his cheek as she probed his mouth with her thumb. He felt oddly relaxed, his body limp and pliant besides his stiff member as it lodged inside her, submitting to her whims as she toyed with him, knowing that she would never take it far enough to hurt him. At least not very much...
	His hips were starting to ache with the impact, and he ran his tongue around her thumb obediently as she moved on top of him, glaring down at him with a passion and ferocity that was almost frightening. She started to slow though, her face reddening, as if some indecent thought had entered her head. She shuddered suddenly, clenching around his pulsating shaft.
	“I'm close, I'm close...” Liz snarled, baring her sharp teeth and forcing him to the hilt again, shivering as his member scoured her sensitive walls. She seemed conflicted for a moment, her cheeks flushing red as she averted her eyes, bringing a clawed finger to lips as if she was considering something.
	“Jamie...will you do something for me? Y-You can't tell anyone though.” He was surprised by her change in demeanor, she seemed almost like a shy girl again.
	“Anything,” he replied bluntly, and he felt her loins quiver in response. She seemed almost giddy now, sitting up straight as she continued to roll her hips, keeping both of them on the edge. She secured him between her firmly muscled thighs, hooking her fingers behind his head, and in one smooth motion she rolled the two of them over so that she was lying on her back and Jamie was resting on top of her.
	“Bite me Jamie,” she murmured, “hard, on the shoulder.”
	Why did she seem so embarrassed? Maybe it was some kind of Borealan status thing. He felt her claws on his back as she doubled over so that he could reach her, her abdominal muscles bulging as they pulled her up. She was shivering with arousal and anticipation, panting warm breath on his skin as she whispered in his ear.
	“Flood me, like you're my Alpha. Grip me by the neck and fill me. I've never lost a fight, but tonight...I want to taste defeat.”
	Jamie could hardly refuse such an invitation, and started to move again, plunging his aching member into her, her walls undulating as if urging him on. It was like having a dozen tongues sliding against his cock, her tunnel was so fleshy and inviting. She hooked her legs around him, trapping him in her massive thighs and slamming him against her with more force, deeper and faster. They were both exhausted, their skin slippery with the sudor of their lovemaking, their bodies tingling with the wracking preludes of climax. Jamie felt a pressure in his loins, his emission rising as Liz slammed him into her sopping tunnel, strands of juice staining the silk bed sheets. He pressed his teeth against her shoulder, feeling her shudder and tasting the salt on her skin.
	“Harder,” Liz demanded, and Jamie bit her with more force, feeling her spine arch in response as her hips rolled and gyrated against him. She became unbearably tight, her pelvic muscles milking his cock, rippling down his shaft as if her burning body was trying to draw out his emission. Her claws left stinging trails on his back as she clung to him, her eyes firmly closed, and a desperate moan escaped her lips. Was this how her people mated? It was so raw and violent, so primal.
	“Oh fuck, Jamie,” Liz exclaimed, hugging him against her and loosing a sharp cry, half a wail of ecstasy and half a bestial snarl. She started to shudder, a powerful orgasm coursing through her body and cramping her muscles. She clung to him as if he were debris on a stormy ocean as she rode the waves, crashing over her with a dizzying intensity. Her tunnel released a flood of fluid, the slimy mess dripping to the bed in globs, and her insides wrung Jamie with an irresistible force.
	Her rhythmic contractions drove him over the edge too, and he felt his own climax rise from his loins, spilling his seed into Liz's beckoning hole. His muscles clenched, thick, hot spurts of his emission pouring into her. She shivered as she felt the ropes of come slide into her, coating her walls in her lover's essence as she bucked reflexively, Jamie still locked between her toned thighs. She held him there, her claws digging into his back, wrestling with him as he sunk his teeth into her shoulder.
	They rode out the spasms together, each feeding into the pleasure of the other as if their nerves had been soldered together by the heat and friction, the throbbing and twitching of one drawing a fresh aftershock of harsh pleasure from the other. It seemed to drag on for minutes, though only a scant few seconds could have passed, time losing all meaning as their beleaguered senses overrode their addled minds.
	Finally the quaking of their muscles ceased, and they fell to the bed together, tangled in a pile of sweaty limbs, panting as they caught their breath. Jamie lay on top of Liz, resting his head in her cushiony breasts, their surface slick and warm on his cheeks. His whole body ached, a wonderful, delicious burning that felt like it should have hurt but did not. Liz rubbed her clitoris gently with the fleshy pad of her fingertip, easing out the last few jolts of pleasure, the bite mark on her shoulder now red and prominent even against her dusky skin. He ran a finger over it experimentally.
	“S-Sorry, did that hurt?”
	“No more than I wanted it to,” she slurred, letting her head fall back to rest on the mattress as Jamie felt one last pulse ripple through her body. “Fuck Jamie, you're too much fun, I have to keep you.”
	“What do you mean,” he chuckled, running his hand over her taut belly, the bulging muscles twitching beneath his palm.
	“I'm staying, there's nothing on Borealis that I can't get here, and money isn't an issue. You wouldn't believe the assets I own in Elysia. Land, property, estates, you can really ass kick your way to wealth out there. I could sell off my property and live on the money for years. We could rent a place in the city, a real place, and you wouldn't have to live in that shitty apartment anymore. Hell I could even take up my Dad's old job at the embassy if I get bored, put that xenolinguistics training to use.”
	“Are you...asking me to move in with you?”
	“Yeah, I guess I am,” she chimed, ruffling his hair with her giant hand.
	“All I've wanted since we were kids, since I was old enough to understand what it meant, was to have a relationship with you. I wanted us to live together, I wanted to spend every waking moment with you, and I wanted...this of course.” He gestured to their nude bodies, coated in mingling sweat, their loins dripping an unspeakable mixture of their fluids. Liz grinned down at him.
	“Why do you say that as if it's some abstraction? You can have that, we can have that, just reach out and grab it. Think like a Borealan for once and stop hesitating, stop wondering if it's ok to want the things you want. You don't need any more justification than the fact that it makes you happy.”
	“But, will it make you happy?”
	“Hey,” she said, leaning down to place a gentle bite on his shoulder. “I came seventy five lightyears just to get a piece of you, I'm sure as hell not leaving until I get my fill.”
	A heat flared in Jamie's chest. Liz was right, he could have this if he wanted it, he could live the life he had always dreamed about. All he had to do was commit.
	“Yes,” he said, looking up at Liz as she beamed down at him, a wide smile spreading across her lips.
	“I'll make an Alpha out of you yet, Jamie.” She scratched his scalp with her pointed claws, then he jumped as he felt her fluffy tail stroke his member. “Hurry up and get hard again, let's see if we can make up for three years of lost time in one night.”

THE END

For a list of all my work, free art and Ebook downloads, please visit:
www.patreon.com/Snekguy