She looked down and saw his marriage belt shining gold around her waist. She felt a wild burst of adrenaline pulse through her chest.
Fogo stepped back, eyeing the full length of her. “Very sexy.”
Laki opened her mouth, but could not speak—she could only sputter.
“Bet that doesn’t happen often.”
“What, I get to try on some rich guy’s marriage belt?”
“No, you are rendered speechless.” Fogo grabbed the belt and pulled her to him. “So you want to get sent into the mother-unit with a bang?”
Laki stared into his face, then started laughing. “This is unbelievable.”
She flicked her hand over the time module, but no time appeared. Fogo grabbed her hand and kissed it.
“Let’s do this by starlight,” he murmured.
He waved his hand behind him, and his pod went dark. He rubbed his pelvis against hers softly. Whatever reservations Laki had been harboring dissolved instantly. Laki extinguished the light in her pod, and the glow of the Stretch illuminated their pods, bathing them in starlight.
For a few brief seconds there was no movement. Laki and Fogo just stood there drinking each other in. Then Laki grabbed the front of his cloth and pulled him close. She pressed her lips against his, urgently and impatiently, but he was full of unhurried languor. When she offered him her mouth, he savored it, sucking gently on her lips while she was anxiously pushing her tongue through his teeth. Laki abruptly pulled away.
“I…”
“I know, you’ve got a pod full of props and a few ideas about how this should go down.”
Surprise, then annoyance rippled over Laki’s face. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you,” he said. “You’re used to being in control.”
“You don’t know me,” Laki repeated.
He knitted his fingers through hers and kneeled, forcing her down to the floor with him. He pushed her shoulders back, nudging her to lie on her back.
“Let me run this one,” he whispered.
Laki opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind. Instead, she made a big show of spreading her arms over her head in surrender. Fogo ran his fingers over the closures of her vest, but it didn’t open. He rubbed his hands together to create more heat and tried again.
“If you really knew me,” she said running her hand along the front of his jumpsuit—the cloth parted and hung open, “you’d know that I wouldn’t allow my cloths to open for anyone but me.”
She brushed her hands over her vest and the cloth slid open. She lifted up slightly and waited. He maneuvered the vest off her arms. With a coy finger pressed to her lips, she slowly opened her knees to reveal buttons lining her legs from her inner thighs to her ankles.
“Nice boots.” He reached out to run his hands over the buttons, then paused.
“Would you?”
With one finger extended, Laki ran her hand along the closures of her boots. Buttons, from the crease of her pelvis to her knee, popped open. Fogo rolled the leather down, then pulled off the boots. His hands hovered over her shorts.
Laki smirked and parted the shorts, slipping them off without sitting up. Fogo reached toward her throat. She shook her head.
“The scarf stays.”
When she reached up to pull his cloth off, he gently moved her hands away.
“This is your moment.”
“My moment?”
“All yours.”
Laki raised up on her elbows. “Then why aren’t you inside me?”
Fogo threw his head back and laughed. “I’m an artist. You must allow me to work at my own pace.”
He leaned over and began to brush the sleeve of his pantsuit over her skin. He started slowly, rubbing the fabric softly over the sides of her torso. Then, as if gauging how much she could take, he added pressure making his caresses rougher. Some areas he rubbed repeatedly while others he barely touched. He punctuated every few touches with a stroking of her inner thighs. He rubbed his cloth down the entire length of each of her legs, then stroked her inner thigh. He brushed his cloth across her chest, across her belly, then stroked her inner thigh.
Each time he returned to her thighs, a swelling crescendoed between her legs and air escaped her in intense gusts. When Fogo’s orchestra of arousal caused Laki to lose all regularity of breathing, he finally disrobed. He shrugged his cloth off his shoulders and let it drop to the ground.
“Turn over.”
“Oh, so you’re still running things?” Laki asked as she turned over.
Fogo began kissing and biting down her spine, veering off course to explore the contours of her back. By the time he reached the fleshy spread beneath her hips, Laki had let go of her performance. She no longer cared who was in control, she simply wanted to feel as much as she could, as deeply as she could. She reached for Fogo and pulled him to her.
“I need it now.”
Fogo chuckled. “I think you should wait.”
“No.” Laki turned over and grasped his arms. “We can do it again later,” she whispered, “But I need it now.”
“I am a benevolent ruler,” Fogo said as he allowed Laki to guide him to enter her. Laki had expected the shuddering and the bliss, but as soon as she and Fogo’s bodies were connected there was something else— something dark and ancient that unfurled between them. She gasped, then narrowed her eyes to study his face. His expression of knowing arrogance had dissolved. Unmasked, he looked like a different person. The pleasure and surprise Laki saw reflected on his face seemed like the first true emotion he was allowing her to see.
An intense current of sensations began to thrum through Laki, pulling her outside of herself. Long-held lashes of pain unfurled and vibrated within her. Hurts began slipping out of her mouth along with a low moaning. As the mysterious connection between them built to a crackling climax, time and space began to blur. Laki felt as if her very being was disintegrating in air. When she was fully drowned in rapture, a chill rustled over her skin; she began to shiver. She opened her eyes and saw a swirl of sparkling colors and patterns. A cloth fell over her body and obliterated Fogo’s touch. She blinked and the rendezvous with Fogo dissolved.
The chaos of her party was just as she had left it, but she was not prepared for what she saw standing before her. She startled, then scrambled to her feet. At first she thought it was the mother-unit—her mother- unit—looking down on her. But when her mind cleared, she noticed the faces. She could see eyes, noses, lips. All the women in this unit had thinned their cloaks so that the part of the veil covering their faces had become transparent.
“M… M… M…?”
“Mahini,” the mother-unit sang together.
“How did you…?” Questions flew through Laki’s mind. How could a whole mother-unit fit into a pod? How did they get past the concierge? Why were they here?
“We never answer how,” sang Mahini.
“You looked cold,” sang one mother.
“Happy, but cold,” sang another mother.
Laki bent down, scooped up the cloth, and draped it over her shoulders.
“You are the girl who is going into a mother-unit tomorrow, are you not?”
Laki nodded.
“So why are you wearing a marriage belt.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
Laki pulled the cloth tighter around her body. She was having trouble accepting what she saw before her: a mother-unit with faces. She examined the expressions in their eyes, the set of their mouths.
“Can you leave the unit?” Laki burst out.
