Damn it, we’ve got to get out of this somehow,” Mil said, pacing the sealed white chamber. “And no, Ido not have any handy explosives tucked in my pocket.” To his right, a port twice the size of his head displayed the alien planet below. The wrong alien planet. His hyperspace navigation had turned out to be completely inadequate to their needs.Lenora lounged against the opposite bulkhead, staring up at what was, despite its bizarre design, clearly a monitor: bulbous orange pods followed their every move and vibrated with each word they spoke. She said, “You might as well sit down. There’s no hurry now.”He snarled. “If you recall, they’ve got our ship. The only thing we possess. The only way we have to stay ahead of our former employers.”“These aliens haven’t hurt us.”Yet, Mil thought.As if she’d heard his thought, Lenora made a face at him and said, “There is a way out. Demonstrate the human mating ritual, and they let us go.”Mil threw himself into the only available chai

The sky filled with angry black clouds. She circled the gray path, her feet hitting the asphalt in near unison to his. She heard his heavy breathing next to her, saw his firm legs flexing with each step. They ran at the same time nearly every day, but they never really spoke. A few mumbled greetings here and there, but no real conversa- tion. She always wanted to say something to him, even if it was just the tiniest bit of small talk. But she never had the courage to speak to her hot running partner. She told herself he was too young, too cute, too much for someone like her. The first time she had seen him was a coincidence, a scheduling conflict pushing her workout away from its usual time. After that first run, she permanently moved her running time to coincide with his. Someday, she thought. Someday she would say just the right thing and they would run off into the sunset together. When the sun actually came back out, of course. They ran in step for a few feet, but then he looke

Fuck…fuck. You b-bastard,” she said, her breath broken, the panted words sounding bitten off of something inside. “Mmm. Yes. That’s me.” Still hard, still buried in her, the trailing shudders of Nica’s orgasm milked my cock for its last drops. No matter what she said, she’d come hard enough to hurt both of us. “Yes. Fuck me is right.” “Oh, god, I never…” “I know,” I mocked, “you’ve never done that before. You could never do that. It shouldn’t feel good. ‘Good girls don’t.’ Sane, healthy women would never…” She squirmed under me, pinioned, our sweat slick between us. “But you’re not a good girl, are you? You could. And you did.” Her skin was so soft, so hot against mine. I POSSESSIVE TENSE 81 licked her neck up to her ear; the bite mark there would be hard to hide. She shuddered at the sting of saliva on broken skin, and I felt it all the way down, her insides fluttering around me in reaction. The noise she made was halfway between moan and sob. “What…what are you doing to me?”

You are in San Francisco on a business trip. You arrived today. We’re having dinner and I’m lookingat you from across the table like it’s the only thing in the way of my devouring you.I will not see you again until… We’re here to talk about until.Your stay will last four nights. Each night you will sleep naked and will not lock any additional locks on your door aside from the one that requires the room’s key card to open.I ask you if you want me to be me, or someone else, a stranger, perhaps with a hood on to help you forget that I am me. “I want you to rape me,” you tell me. You give me a copy of the key card. I won’t do it tonight. It’s too likely that with our arrangement fresh in your mindyou will sleep lightly, too likely that you’d easily awake if I enter in the middle of the night. I will not do it on the third night, because, should the second night go by without a visit from me, you will assume I’ll come on the third night, and for very good reason: if I did not show

Sex was in the air the day I encountered Nina. I felt it as soon as the sweet June morning kissed my neck, when I emerged through my front door with my cheerful necktie proud on my chest and the short curls of my hair still damp from the shower. The subway platform sizzled with the vitality of horny humans, frisky organisms who had bundled their hormones into workaday clothing but who nonetheless represented pure erogenous energy. The women’s thighs, bare below flirty summer dresses, sang desire to me, and their naked, friendly shoulders seemed to invite unseen lovers. And yet not all lovers were unseen that morning. On the train, I was presented with an excellent view of a couple standing halfway down the car from me, who wrapped themselves into an erotic embrace as I watched with art-history-trained eyes. Their faces were blocked from my line of sight, but the woman’s skirt, taut where her pelvis pressed against her guy, was beautifully framed for me by the surrounding passengers