#yes my concept of time passing will always be longer hair facial hair scars and a smile :)

[ctommy-chileno]

Adult ctommy can be something so soul healing

[ayearofpike]

Christopher Pike’s Tales of Terror #2

Pocket Books, 1998 207 pages, 5 stories ISBN 0-671-55076-4 LOC: CPB Box no. 1462 vol. 11 OCLC: 40117246 Released December 1, 1998 (via B&N)

Five more short stories, but they’re all kinda longer this time. I knew it was too good to be true. One of these is 75 pages, and the others (with one exception, maybe two) smack of a big idea that he needed to get out but didn’t have the pages to do it justice. It seems like maybe he knows his contract is coming up and that he’s not going to be retained? See also the dedication page: the book is dedicated to the longtime YA editor at Simon & Schuster, because she “has always supported my writing.” I can’t find any evidence of turnover or retirement through a cursory Googling, but this seems very much like a veiled shot at changing leadership that sees new trends in YA and doesn’t feel that Christopher Pike will be a part of it.

The Burning Witch

Pike jumps back into short stories with the longest one in this book, and with a return to Marvin Summer’s side, who he says is “a thrill” to write as, considering Marvin has “ten times the talent” Pike does. Which ... I don’t know about that. Obviously we can’t see anything Marvin has written, and whatever he spurts out is going to be via Pike’s brain anyway, so I guess we just have to imagine it.

But anyway, there’s this old friend from high school who needs Marvin’s help to extricate herself from a cult. Because when you’re in trouble with a cult, of course you go to the horror writer, which now that I say it actually makes a little sense. They go to the ritual, because the old friend has a feeling that they already have her in their magical clutches and to no-show would be worse than sticking it out. Of course Marvin is immediately in over his head, feeling drugged and soporific, unable to stop the three witches in charge from treating his picture of his girlfriend in such a way that she drowns in the hot tub the next day.

By chance, Marvin is writing a novel about a young woman who channels through typing, and slowly comes to realize that a future self is giving her warnings through her present self about some changes attempting to be made to her past self. Yep, we’re back on that whole contiguous timeline thing again. But he came up with the idea after a fan letter suggested telling a past self something, and as the witches want him to bring the manuscript to the next session he’s now suspicious. He breaks into Old Friend’s apartment and learns she’s been using hypnosis to regress into past lives, and then he tracks down the hypnotist and tries a session himself, upon which he suddenly realizes that not only did he and Old Friend have a dalliance sometime in the past, but that sometime was 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. 

I didn’t mention that Old Friend was known for having terrible scars on her face from a childhood bout with antivaxxer parents smallpox. But when she reappeared in Marvin’s life, the scars were almost gone. She claimed it was plastic surgery a year ago, but everyone he talks to who she’s worked with in the last couple of months noticed a sudden change, right around the time Old Friend said she was sucked in to the cult. Marvin realizes that maybe she started it, solely in order to get back at him for what his past self did to her; i.e. outing her as a witch. But she hasn’t counted on his work on plots to come up with a devious one for himself. See, she was looking for a clue in his manuscript about a way to change the past, one that would make him the witch instead of her. Of course he beat her to the punch and gave a false clue, which swiftly and suddenly reverses her facial healing. And then he pulls out a Molotov cocktail and says they’re both done.

So she panics and runs out to the balcony, where he’s loosened the railing, and she falls off fifteen stories to her death because that’s what happens in a Pike story. But then the woman Marvin thought of as the head witch shows up and offers him a deal to serve the Dark Side or whatever. Marvin says OK and that his payment is to be Shelly alive again. Sure, the witch says, just go to sleep and in the morning she’ll be next to you and neither of you will remember any of this. Of course Marvin feels like he’s smart enough to get out of anything, and goes to take some notes for a “future story” about escaping a deal with the devil ... only he has writer’s block.

The Tomb of Time

This story works on an almost identical conceit as “The Burning Witch,” in that past and future timeline selves are showing up to help Shannon White change the course of the world through positive and negative vibrations. The difference is that they’re physically manifesting, rather than using fireside witch chants to pass information back and forth.

Basically, it’s the last day of school, and Shannon wants Senpai to notice her. She’s encouraged by the random appearances of women who claim to be this dude’s aunt and niece, who say he talks about her a lot and not to tell him because he’d be embarrassed. She’s discouraged by this blonde chick who smooches all over Senpai and writes a phone number and a time on his notebook. Weirdly, immediately after all three of these encounters, there’s an earthquake, and they grow stronger each time, so that after the last one school is finally canceled and Shannon goes home.

The blonde is there, though, and suddenly she realizes that she’s looking in a mirror except for the hair. Blonde Shannon explains that yes, of course I’m you; alien beings of a negative vibration got hold of some of your DNA and sent me to now, where I could affect the world in such a way to make it explode through enhanced negativity. The positive ones are trying to meddle, though, and they also have Shannon’s DNA and are showing up as different-age versions of herself so that she’ll go through with asking Senpai to notice her and create more love and affection in the world, which will reduce the tension that is currently threatening to literally tear it apart.

It’s too late, though: Blonde Shannon has given Senpai Now Shannon’s phone number and is going to shoot her and then answer the phone and be rude, which will cause the earth to blow up. (Now we see why I never called girls in high school ... too much responsibility.) Too bad for her, Good Future Shannon plugged the barrel of the gun before Blonde Shannon ever showed, so it explodes in her hands, and Now Shannon is able to answer the phone and apologize for weirdness and get a date for ice cream, thus saving the world. Yay!

Bamboo

This story is certainly not what we expect from Pike. It’s a lot closer to Sati than any of his other work, in that there’s a narrative about a group of friends trying to find the right path in life with some guidance from a teacher who leaves too soon. It’s more about mood than visceral grossness, and so I think it works. This is my “maybe” caveat for a story that was conceived as a short story — yes, he says he wrote it “in a few hours,” but there’s potentially room here to make this a novel.

We start with three friends that embody the good, the bad, and the neutral, much like the soul concept from The Lost Mind. They go to meet a new man who’s just moved into town, an Indian who had lost his whole family to circumstances of poverty, and who has a story for them about lost souls being trapped in shafts of bamboo and the possibility of saving them through cleansing fire. The kids are eight or so at the beginning of the story, and they stay friends with the old man through high school graduation, at which time he gives them gifts symbolic of hope and protection of their souls. And then he dies, because he’s old.

Two of the friends follow quickly: the bad soul in military action in the Middle East, the good soul (who had married the bad one and was pregnant with his child) of an overdose. She doesn’t die right away, though, and the neutral one (our narrator) understands that hey, her soul is trapped in the bamboo because of the severity of her action in trying to end her life. So he goes to the old man’s house, which by now is overgrown with giant stalks of bamboo, and starts a fire in the yard. And sure enough, by morning she’s gone.

Again, this story is really reliant on mood. It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot here, and I think Pike could have done a whole bunch with who these kids are and how they interact with each other and the rest of the town to make it into something bigger. But what came out is pretty and poetic and reasonably good.

The Thin Line

A disgruntled injured ex-basketball player shows up at his school with guns, intending to kill the coach and the whole team and maybe the cheerleaders, which include his ex-girlfriend. He gets cold feet at the last minute and turns the whole deal into a terrorist situation, for which he steals money and a plane and jumps with it and a parachute and his ex-now-on-again girlfriend. But then she feels upset about the one kid who got shot in the leg and the pilot who died jumping out of the plane, and kills herself by walking in front of a bus. So even if the injured kid won, he has now lost.

I really don’t have a lot to say about school shooting stories, and so I am not going to unpack this any more. However, it is important to note that Pike references the school shootings in Jonesboro, Arkansas and Springfield, Oregon, which seem to have stayed his hand in fleshing this out and making it into a full novel. (Columbine happened five months later, too.) It pisses me off that we had what seemed like a flash point in school shootings and that it felt like enough to mobilize us, but twenty years later we’re still having the same fucking conversation.

The Tears of Teresa

This one is the most on-brand Pike story we’ve seen in years, It’s also the shortest, just seventeen pages. It’s so solid and strong that I hate to sully it by trying to write a recap, because the storytelling is so reliant on the intercuts between past and present that we don’t realize are happening until the last couple of pages.

It starts with a middle-aged couple coming home from a date to find that there is an intruder in their house. He forces them at gunpoint to drive to a house in Las Vegas, and then announces his intent to cripple them, to take away their mobility just like Max. 

Who is Max? This is the past intercutting part. Max was a young man who worked for his father, a successful business owner, but didn’t have any wealth of his own. He’d recently gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and knew that it wasn’t possible to support a child, so he paid for her to have an abortion. She’s torn up about it, but when he offers to take her away for a weekend to help settle her mind, she agrees and asks to go to Vegas. So they get a nice hotel room, and when he steps out on the balcony he unexpectedly gets thrown over it, because Pike.

(That’s a tweet for the thread: “Submitted for your approval, The Kid Who Got Flung Off a Balcony.”)

Max wakes up in the emergency room in pain, and overhears his girlfriend talking with some other dude — no, shit, it’s his BEST FRIEND — about their plot to kill him and give birth to his child and go after his rich dad for money. There’s a baby crying nearby too, obviously in distress, and after Max gains enough consciousness to let the schemers know they’re caught, he dies. But the baby survives, and eighteen years later he is getting Max’s revenge.

Like, fuck yeah. I don’t know that this was worth pushing through fifty pages of a school shooting, but I’m glad I didn’t put the book down before I read this story. We’re back at the blend of the evils that people are capable of with a little bit of supernatural magic that made me love Pike and be excited for this project back at Spellbound in February. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

Two more Archway Paperbacks, and Pike will be done with a certain era of writing for teenagers. Surprising? Not so much, and it really does feel like he sees the writing on the wall with this collection. Still, we close on a very solid and satisfying note here. If Simon & Schuster wanted to reprint the Fucking With Teresa trilogy (Road to Nowhere, “Revenge,” and “The Tears of Teresa”) it could have been a strong mover. I bet Pike would have no problem with it, seeing as he apparently continues to hold a grudge and keeps naming these victims after her.

[fuukonomiko]

Submitted by Anon.... Except for the stockings

Okay. I did it. I wrote the smut. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I did it. I hope you like it and find it worth posting! However, I have never written a smut before. Or a fanfiction. I may have just sent you 3600 words of trash and I am very sorry (but it’s still your fault for encouraging me). If it is not trash, please consider it a gift as a thank-you for being cool! And writing great smut with hot primarchs in it!

This is really big I hope you can cut it I have no idea how tumblr works and I am going to go hide under a rock now.

*****

Dorn finds out what fun is. Possibly.

*****

‘Explain to me in greater detail, please, why we are doing this.’ Dorn’s voice carried a note of exasperation under his usual wooden tone as he glanced across the table at his brother.

'Strip-poker is a valuable exercise in reading your opponent’s facial expression to gauge their standing.’ replied Alpharius (or possibly Omegon?) coolly, as he dealt the next round of cards. 'It sharpens many of the necessary skills required to best diplomats and envoys to obtain the most advantageous result. Your pants, Rogal.’

'I still do not understand why we are disrobing. And why we are doing this in my quarters. And why Meli is here.’ Dorn placed his cards face down on the table and efficiently, if stiffly, stripped off his pants.

The biomancer, currently in the form of a primarch-sized woman wearing two thigh-high stockings and nothing else, grinned at him from the opposite side of the table. He studiously avoided looking at her breasts.

'The stakes are higher when playing with a mixed-sex group,’ interjected… the other twin. Whichever he was. 'It changes the tone of the exercise, makes it more exciting. If you understand that concept.’

'If you don’t have a lass it would be gay!’ thundered Russ from right next to Dorn, making him wince slightly.

'Would “gay” strip poker be less effective than what we are currently doing?’ Dorn edged away from Russ slightly. Russ had lost some time ago, and was naked. Hairy, but naked.

'Depends on wha’ you like!’ said Russ with an even bigger grin than Meli’s. 'I brought Meli along to make it more fun.’ he looked askance at his stoic brother, now clad only in a loincloth and a stony expression. 'Some fun. Ya know. Fun? You should try having some, sometime.’

'I know what fun is, thank you very much. I am just not sure how taking off your clothes in company qualifies.’

’Snrk,’ went Meli, who began to giggle. Russ began to howl with laughter. Alpharius and Omegon merely looked at each other, their expressions schooled to smoothness.

'Please go away, Leman.’ Dorn’s voice was muffled by his hands.

'Ach, fine. I’ll go and find some fun.’ Russ stood up and began to gather his clothes from the floor.

Alpharius and Omegon stood up suddenly. 'Actually,’ said… the one on the left, 'we have to go too. Important intelligence reports are due in soon and we will need to look over them as soon as possible.’ He looked from Meli to Dorn and smiled. 'Perhaps you two can finish together.’

From the corner, hunting for his shirt, Russ barked out another laugh.

The twins gathered up their neatly stacked gloves and belts and filed out, Russ following behind with most of his clothes in his fist.

Dorn looked up from his hands.

'Shall we?’ asked Meli, shifting slightly so that her arms pressed her breasts closer together.

'Must we?’ replied Dorn, his eyes fixed at some point a foot above her head.

'Not if you’ve lost interest,’ she replied back, still grinning at him. 'We could always try figuring out how to have fun whilst naked in company.’ Her grin turned into more of a leer.

'If you are suggesting some sort of further game involving clothing, I do not think I will find it any more useful than this one.’

'I mean maybe we could do something else together.’ She gave him a Look through her lashes. This may have had conveyed some sort of meaning if he hadn’t been staring resolutely into the air above her.

'Well, I have some notes on the newest power armour power-assist system that the artificers are working on, if you would like to look over them and pass along some notes about the bio-interface-’

'Rogal,’ she interrupted him, leaning far forward onto the table, cradling her chin in her hands with an expression of amusement crossed with exasperation on her face, 'What I am completely failing to suggest to you, because I forget that innuendo is not something you are familiar with, is that I would like to have sex with you.’ when his eyes snapped down to her face, she was blushing slightly.

His mind raced. This was completely unexpected, and if he had the right mindset to allow him to expect it, it would have been completely expected. Largely due to the vast number of hints she’d been dropping on him over the last couple of weeks that had rolled off him like lascannon fire off one of his fortifications.

’…Why?’ was the first, and only, thing he could think of to say.

Meli frowned, caught off guard. 'Because I find you very attractive and sex is enjoyable? I mean, if you aren’t interested that’s fine, but that’s how I feel.’

'I have never seen much point, really. Father made us sterile and there are far more productive uses of our time than copulating without producing offspring.’

'Would you like to give it a try?’

He remained silent. Not stonily silent, thoughtfully silent. Meli sighed and stood up, walking around the table and moving to stand next to him. 'May I try an experiment?’ she asked, holding out her hand to him.

He blinked and stiffly, questioningly, placed his hand in hers.

She bent over and kissed the back of his hand. Her lips were warm and soft and she grazed them over his knuckles, then turned his hand over to kiss each of his fingertips. His breath hitched slightly as she kissed his palm, her tongue flicking oh-so-lightly in a circle on his skin before moving up to press her lips against the inside of his wrist, her mouth hot and her tongue flicking more insistently against the pulse point there.

His eyes wandered over her face, her dark eyelashes only partly obscuring her deep brown eyes, concentrated on his skin. Long, dark, straight hair framed her features. Her rounded nose hovered millimetres from his wrist, her lips a dark pink. As his eyes drifted over the rest of her, he remembered that she was naked. Except for the stockings.

She lifted her head up and gazed at him lasciviously, her hands still on his hand and forearm. 'Are you interested in continuing?’ she asked softly.

He swallowed, hard.

'Perhaps… this experiment can continue somewhat.’ he replied, his voice just the slightest bit huskier than usual.

She grinned, and used her grip on his hand to pull him to his feet. Roughly matched for height, they were standing face to face. She snaked an arm around his thick waist and pulled him to her, her grin disappearing as she pressed her lips to his.

Yes, her lips were definitely warm and soft, he thought distractedly, and she tasted like… ginger and cinnamon? Okay. What am I supposed to do here? She solved that problem for him by taking the hand of his that she still had a grip on and bringing it to her hip. Her tongue flicked over his upper lip, then his lower lip. Her now free hand was tracing the shape of the muscles on his back.

Hands. Okay. I should do something with my hands. And my tongue. He slid his hand in a vague circle around her waist and hip. His other hand he brought up to do the same on the other side. He parted his lips slightly, his tongue creeping out to meet hers. As she murmured in approval, he became acutely aware that her entire mostly-naked body was pressed against his mostly-naked body.

When she pulled back from the kiss, her eyes were dark and her face was flushed. She moved across and down, pressing her lips to the side of his neck, below his jaw. Methodically, she began to kiss across his skin, each press of her lips accompanied by a stiff little flick of her tongue. Her movements reminded him of troops searching an area for survivors, and he wondered what she was looking for. Kiss, flick. Kiss, flick. When she found what he would forever think of as “That Spot”,  just below his jaw line close to his ear, he shivered. He definitely didn’t squeak. She definitely grinned against his neck. For no reason.

She pulled back and returned her lips to his for a messy, insistent kiss. This time he was ready, and licked into her mouth. She made an approving noise and drew him closer, so he began experimenting, exploring her mouth with his tongue. She retaliated by grabbing a handful of his ass.

She fumbled for a moment with the tie on his loincloth, then pulled it free.

Oh, right. There was going to be sex. There was a sex part after this. I have no idea what I’m doing. Fuck. Leman, come back and- NO ACTUALLY I WILL FIGURE THIS OUT MYSELF. He felt his erection pressed firmly against her thigh. When did that happen? He wondered as she pulled back from their kiss again. She pressed a line of hot, insistent kisses down his jaw and then down his throat, over his collarbone, and ran her nose down through his almost-white-blond chest hair. A hot mouth found one of his nipples, licking around it and very gently nipping it before continuing downward, making him twitch. That felt… interesting. This experiment is interesting. Fingertips grazed over the other nipple, giving it a tiny pinch. Her mouth left a trail of wet kisses down his abdomen, through the fine column of hair. Her fingers ghosted over the smooth, occasionally-scarred skin over his obliques, admiring the dense muscle he was built of. When her hands reached his hips, she looked up at him.

'You arright up there?’ she asked, grinning up at his flushed face. 'You’re trembling a bit. We can slow down if you want?’

“No! No, no, I am fine, we should,’ he swallowed again, 'Continue this experiment. I think there is something to be learned from- ah!’

Tired of listening to him trying to justify losing his virginity as some kind of training exercise, she rolled her eyes and wrapped her hand firmly around his cock. Making sure to meet his eyes the whole way, she lowered her mouth down and licked him all the way from balls to tip. A strangled groan escaped his lips as warm heat encircled the end of his cock, then more than the end.  Her tongue lapped at the tip and her hand slid down his shaft as he cast about wildly for something to lean on.

He realised that the table they’d been playing poker at was behind him, four hands of cards left forgotten on its surface. He gripped the edge tightly and leant back, thankful that he’d built this furniture sturdy enough to be able to act as makeshift barricades should they be attacked.

Dorn was vaguely aware that his breathing had become ragged and that he was panting, but his mind was all but lost in the novelty of Meli’s hot, wet mouth working on his erection, her hand sliding back and forth, following her lips.

Oh fuck I’m going to finish soon, he thought. I should probably say something.

'Meli,’ he croaked, his hand finding its way to her hair. 'I am going to… finish soon.’ She murmured what he hoped was an acknowledgement, and began to move faster, taking him deeper into her mouth. Her other hand, previously braced on the table beside his, moved between his legs, delicately cupping and fondling his balls. His hips bucked, his panting becoming soft gasps, and with a burst of pleasure he climaxed, a tingling euphoria spreading through his entire body. With a little thrill he realised that she was swallowing his seed, lapping the residue off the head of his cock, her eyes gazing into his and a smug expression playing across her face.

As she stood up, he leaned heavily back on the table, not trusting his legs for the moment. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing his racing hearts to calm down. He cleared his throat.

 'That was… very informative. I think I might like to attempt this again, in the future.’

'In the future? I was just taking the edge off.’ She grinned at him. Then down at him. Before he had time to register that she’d sized herself even further up, she scooped him up and hefted him, bridal-style, into her arms with a grunt of exertion. 'Bedroom this way?’ she asked, jerking her head at a likely looking doorway.

'Yes, what, I, must you pick me up?’ he protested. Psykers were weird, and this particular one seemed to enjoy changing her size on a whim and, in some cases, picking up an entire armoured Astartes. She thought it was hilarious. They usually thought it was embarrassing. Except the Space Wolves, they thought a woman going around picking people up was funny, because they had absolutely no dignity. He thought this as he was naked, sweaty, and still coming down off his high. At least nobody is looking.

She carried him through the doorway and dumped him onto his bed, climbing onto the sheets next to him as she shrank herself back down to his size.

He shifted onto his side, studying her face, her body. Her lips were swollen and there was sweat beading on her hairline. She was breathing heavily too, and there was a definite sheen of wetness between her legs. She smiled over at him. 'You’re gorgeous.’

'You are…’ he had no idea what to say to a woman who could and would change her entire appearance whenever she decided to. You are pretty? Of course she was pretty, she made herself that way. 'Fun. Your personality is pleasing and you are… fun.’

She laughed. He hoped that meant his response was acceptable. She traced her fingers down the side of his neck and over his powerful shoulder. 'Touch me.’

Hesitantly, he brought his hand to her arm. Soft. Smooth. No scars, because scars wouldn’t stay unless she wanted them to. He ran his hand down her arm, then onto her hip. Back up the side of her body. When he reached the side of her chest, he hesitated. Ran his hand slowly back down to her hip again. Back up to her chest. Hesitated. Ran his hand back down -

She rolled her eyes and took his hand in hers. Brought it up to cup her breast. Squeezed her hand over his so that his fingers were pressed firmly into the flesh of her breast. He gave it a gentle, experimental squeeze. She was soft, pliable. He ran his thumb over her nipple and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath.  She levered herself up, leaning forward and bracing herself on her arms to allow him better access to his body.

Remembering how it felt when she touched his nipples, he carefully rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. She murmured in pleasure, and he took the other nipple into his mouth. She shuddered, and brought a hand up into his platinum blond hair. Tentatively, he swirled his tongue around it and pulled back with some suction, delighted to see that the subject of his attention was now a firm peak. He switched his attention to the other nipple, lapping and sucking at it as he felt himself getting hard again.

He ran his hand down her body, over the soft swell of her stomach, down over her pubic mound. Lifting his head from her chest, he fixed his ice-blue eyes on her face as he slid a finger between her legs.

She was hot and slick and very wet, and she arched towards him as his finger slid between her folds. Her eyes were dark with lust, but still sparkled with humour. 'Good luck.’ she told him, her voice low and husky.

Good luck? Good luck?! I am a Primarch and I will defeat this obstacle like I have every other! He gave her what he hoped was a stern look and began to probe carefully around. Anatomy. Womens’ anatomy. There should be a bundle of nerves somewhere here, and an entrance. She gasped as his finger brushed over something small and firm. He ran his finger back over it and made her buck. He replaced his finger with his thumb, and resumed probing around with his finger as his thumb drew small circles around that sweet spot. She was writhing and gasping under his ministrations, so he must be doing something right. He felt his finger sink deep into her.

'Right there.’ She whispered.

She was hot and wet and he definitely, definitely wanted to try wasting his time copulating without producing offspring.

Meli pushed him gently over onto his back and swung a stockinged leg over his hips, straddling him. Bringing a hand down, she guided his very-much-returned and throbbing erection up to her dripping sex, and impaled herself upon it.

He arched his back up to meet her with a shudder, understanding now what it was she meant by "taking the edge off”. She began to move, rolling her hips forward and down, up and back, setting a slow and steady rhythm. Brown eyes met icy blue as she rode him, resting her hands on his rock-solid abs as she did so.

He raised a hand to slide a thumb back between her legs, probing for - and finding - that sweet spot again, making her writhe even harder atop him. He grabbed her hips with the other hand, watching her breasts bounce, watching the delight on her face. She was moving more frantically, driving him deep into her with every bounce, grinding her hips down against his body and his hand. Suddenly, she was crying out his name, her body squeezing and clenching around him as she rode out her own climax. 'Fuck, Rogal.’ she panted, pleasure written across her face and shuddering body.

Her movements slowed, and she slid off him. Swinging her legs back over his hips, she pulled him over on top of her. 'Your turn.’ she spread her legs wide.

He studied her for a moment, and then leaned down over her, kissing her lips and then her neck, tasting her sweat and a little of his own seed. He guided himself back into her, and began to thrust roughly. 'Fuck, yes, just like that!’ she gasped into his ear, her fingernails raking down his back. Encouraged, he thrust harder and faster, pounding into her. His pace was hard and fast, and he surprised himself by growling possessively, nipping at her neck, claiming her mouth in a rough kiss. He felt his climax building, again, as she gave up trying to match his vigour and wrapped her legs around his waist, digging her nails into his back and kissing back with fervour, then returning to his neck, sucking and biting and moaning into his shoulder.

'Meli,’ he growled, and then finished with an inarticulate moan  as he released inside her, pressing his hips down against her, his body tensed like steel against hers.

For a few moments, they made no sound other than ragged panting, before he rolled off her and flopped onto his back beside her.

'Okay,’ it was Meli who spoke first. 'I will admit, you do, in fact, know what fun is.’

'I think,’ replied Dorn, as he staggered to his feet 'I shall get some water. And then we should repeat the exercise to ensure that we have extracted all possible information from this scenario.’

'What, all of it? That’s going to take more than one repetition, even if you are a Primarch. Get me some water too.’

*****

Much, much later, Meli quietly slipped out the door to Rogal Dorn’s quarters, her hair damp from his shower. She was back at human size, mostly because she didn’t have the energy to spare to maintain a larger body at this time. She had thrown back on her dress, which, like her stockings, was made entirely from spanfab - when you routinely shapeshifted from the size of a human to the size of a primarch, your clothes needed to be made out of something that would readily stretch to ten times its original size.

As she walked quietly down the corridor, a voice came from the shadows behind an ornamental pillar.

'Doing the walk of shame, Meli?’

She stopped, and grinned. 'No, Alpharius, my dear,’ she said, without looking around, 'I am doing the stride of pride. The got laid parade. And I owe you one.’ She turned around. 'Each.’

She raised two fists, and got two primarch-sized fistbumps. She strutted off down the hallway.

'Do you think we should tell her?’

'No, she’d be opposed. She has the oddest ideas about the value of a blackmail contingency plan.’

Alpharius and Omegon looked down at the pict-capture on their data slate. Rogal Dorn, his hair in the utmost disarray, his eyes glazed with lust and lips parted, captured at the moment of climax.

*****

Later that day, Leman Russ saw Meli in the halls of the Imperial Palace, on her way to attend to some more difficult healing on injured Astartes. He sniffed the air, and his face split into a predator’s grin. As she approached, he raised one enormous, hairy paw into the air, palm out. Without breaking her stride, she grew to primarch size and high fived him so hard his arm ached. She owed him one, too.