Sentients in the Maze Read online

Sometimes when she was upset, it helped to dive into her work.

  A candle and wooden matches lay on the bureau dresser by the bed. She untangled herself and crawled over Jonah to light the candle, and soon the soft glow filled the room. Books stacked here too, ideas crouching in ambuscade on the shelves and fireplace mantel. A standing-height desk held a laptop computer. Pictures of Jonah and his children graced the walls. They looked happy, three boys, one girl, doing sports, theater, portraits… no pictures of a wife, probably not a widower then.

  Tiana turned to Jonah and pulled back the sheet to look at his body again.

  Without hair covering his skin, he looked like a sculpture. Edward had never agreed to depilation; she’d never had any of his body hair. Her finger filaments tingled, recalling the sparking sensation of receiving the proteins and keratins from Jonah—hundreds and hundreds in a storm of sparks feeding into her energy reserves. Tiana ran her hand over his chest. Jonah stirred, vocalizing in sleepy reaction to the caress.

  Tiana examined his feet and toes. For a man, he took good care of his nails, but…. With a few alterations, the splits and damage to his toenails disappeared. After that, she rubbed her filaments over his feet, removing dead skin. Not much nourishment, but the raw material would help; she removed it down to new skin and continued to his scalp. His hair was thin on top, so she stimulated his scalp to increase hair follicle generation. If he wanted it changed back, it would be an easy reversal, and she’d get the hair first. Tiana grinned. She did enjoy new hair; it was like dessert without health issues.

  After a moment of preparation, Tiana put together a pheromone stew—guaranteed to arouse—and licked Jonah’s lips with the concoction. For this procedure, she needed intimate contact and Jonah sexually aroused. Though he wouldn’t wake, he might have some interesting dreams. She continued releasing the pheromone cocktail under his nose, licking his lips while she reached down between his legs where he was already firm. His length and girth were larger than usual for humans. She circled it with her fingers and compared it to her hand; his shaft was twenty-one centimeters long and six centimeters in diameter. Evidently, he hadn’t peaked during her first examination.

  Tiana positioned herself over him and lowered onto him, but she hadn’t considered her new body having a narrower bagua than the previous one. It took ten minutes of work before she achieved the position needed, an interlocking embrace when her mons melded with the ridge of his pubic bone like yin and yang. Now she could pass her narrow shaft through his—then beyond. Her filaments spread out and connected to the target areas.

  At last.

  What she’d expected to be an easy task had turned long and difficult. She was glad she’d done it while Jonah slept. Nothing erodes a patient’s confidence faster than the doctor having difficulty with a procedure.

  She finished connecting to the nerve clusters along his lower spinal column.

  In her mouth, she built up the enzymes that would reverse the buildup of cholesterol in his circulatory system. She licked his neck, preparing his skin for a painless penetration then went into his vein with a precise, nip and sealed it with her lips. A trickle of blood entered her mouth. Just enough to monitor how much monomolecular cholesterol entered his bloodstream. Too much at once would cause trouble.

  She slid a finger into the seal at his neck and dipped her filaments into the jugular, seining for cholesterol and other opportunities to benefit them both. She also stripped out toxins for which she had no use. He couldn't discard them, but she could.

  Modern society was generating a lot of them.

  She kept rocking where their hips connected to keep his system moving at optimum velocity. Three hours later, she disconnected her filaments and mouth from his vein, healing it as she left, withdrawing her inner shaft from him at a gentle pace. Then she rode him, until he erupted, leaving a glow of warmth inside as she subsumed the fuel he’d given her.

  She lay down and cuddled up to him, nudging his head into a position that would stop the gentle snore he had started after the orgasm. It would be dawn in a few hours, and she could use a nap. She smiled, replete, and set herself to wake at first light. Her cares and fears seemed a little farther away now. She hadn’t lied; it hadn’t been sexual. After all, it was only a simple fluid exchange, certainly nothing procreative involved. She fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

  ~~~{Jonah}~~~

  Jonah was walking underwater. He knew it was a dream. He was glad because otherwise he would be drowning. It was warm and light filtered down through schools of shining fish. A school of tiny silver ones enveloped him, sending delicious tingling sparks down his back and legs before spinning around his hips and leaving tracks of pleasure. They moved to his chest and under his arms. He wished they’d spent more time lower down.

  At his wish, the fish moved lower. Jonah looked down to see that the fish were now fingers tracing their way down his body. The fingers belonged to a mermaid with dark red and chocolate stripes. She smiled at him then lowered her mouth to his sex, and a pulse of pleasure rolled over him.

  I hope I remember this when I wake up.

  The dream transported him from the seabed to a jungle. A dark-striped cat sat on his chest and meowed at him. The meowing seemed to have meaning. Something was tickling his ear. He reached up to bat it away, and the cat said, “Jonah, aren’t you ever going to wake up?”

  The striped cat turned into a striped girl, kneeling on top of him and resting her forearms on his chest.

  Did he know her? Was he still dreaming?

  She kissed him, sliding her tongue into his mouth.

  “Tiana?”

  “Good work, Jonah! Never start the morning by calling the girl in bed with you the wrong name.” She grinned, showing small slightly pointed teeth gleaming white in her chocolate and cherry striped face. “It’s eight AM; time to rise and shine.”

  “Coffee. I smell coffee.”

  “Yeah, I figured out how to use your coffee machine. It turned out pretty well, but I was looking online, and I want an espresso machine. I want to try making a green hornet.” She sat up and leaned over to reach the coffee mug on his dresser. As she moved, sunlight streamed in the window and scattered across her breasts and the muscles on her abdomen. She sipped from the cup, still sitting on his legs, as he propped up on an elbow.

  “Did you make enough for me?”

  She laughed, “This is yours. I just didn’t want you to spill it when I gave it to you. You know your desktop computer is hopelessly out of date, right?”

  Jonah hesitated. “Do you mean because it’s a desktop or because it’s an out-of-date desktop?”

  “Yes.” She nodded for punctuation. “Or should I say, ‘duh’?”

  “You’ve been watching TV?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Multi-tasking,” Tiana said smugly.

  “And learning new words, but I gotta warn you, watching TV may increase your vocabulary, but your IQ will suffer.”

  “No problem, baby, I got plenty to burn.”

  “See! Your grammar is going bad already.”

  “Come on, lazy, drink your coffee and drag your butt out of bed. Meet me in the kitchen. Breakfast is ready.” Tiana levered her body into a handstand and spun her legs and tail to pivot into a back walkover to the floor. She swept her tail across his ear, again, and padded out the door and down the back stairs.

  Jonah eased out of bed, managing not to spill his coffee, and stumbled into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror, to get ready to shave. His hairless face stared back at him with about ten years of wrinkles and sun damage erased. He rubbed his cheeks. “How are you going to explain this?” he muttered and headed downstairs, grabbing his bathrobe in case he had to go to the door.

  In the kitchen, morning light streamed in the window above the half shutters. Tiana, still dressed only in stripes and tail, was piling ham onto a plate already laden with eggs and grits. She whisked it to the kitchen table and sat. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?” he a
sked.

  “Why, honey,” Tiana drawled, slipping into a southern accent. “You just gave me breakfast! Don’t you remember? Oh, that’s right. You were asleep.” She smacked her lips and winked.

  “Oh!” Jonah blushed as he realized what she’d had for breakfast. “I thought you said it wouldn’t be sexual,” he protested weakly.

  “I understand how you might think that,” Tiana said. “but for me it was breakfast. If you enjoyed it, I have no problem with that. See? I made you grits. Eat up. You’ll need the energy. Oh! Biscuits are ready.” She jumped up and opened the oven door. Two perfect biscuits slid off the baking tin when she flicked them with her finger. She dropped them onto a serving plate, turned off the oven and slid back into her seat.

  Jonah, couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cooked breakfast for him and decided to take advantage of it. No telling when it would happen again. He stirred the eggs and grits together and took a bite. For a bare-nekked, alien hottie, she was a hell of a cook.

  He signaled his approval of the food as he chewed, kissing his fingertips and spreading them with a flourish.

  Tiana laughed.

  Jonah swallowed a bite and motioned to her. “So what’ve you been doing since you got up, beside surfing up and down the web, making breakfast, watching TV and giving me another full body wax—with extras?”

  “You forgot coffee.”

  He smiled. “And making coffee.”

  “Well, honestly, surfing the net took longer than you might suppose. That desktop loads so darn slow and I wanted to ask before I did anything to make it run faster, especially when what it really needs is recycling. I read your software programming books and your systems engineering texts and some of your class notes. The Systems Dynamics class and the continuous event modeling fascinated me—lots of potential in that tool. Oh, and you were right on problem three of your mid-term; your professor was wrong. Good job on the final exam too! Why didn’t you continue with the advanced course?”

  “I graduated and had to find work. I had a family to support, and they weren’t offering the course till the next fall. Now the kids are away at college and I work full-time to keep my job.”

  “Would you now if you could?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Hhm… Let’s talk about that later,” Tiana said. “Today, we need to buy food. We may also need to visit a chemist for minerals like calcium and potassium.”

  Jonah finished chewing his latest mouthful and raised a finger, “I see you haven’t covered all the changes in the world since the previous turn of the century yet. Mineral diet supplements are purchased from drugstores or vitamin shops nowadays.”

  “Vitamin? I haven’t come across that word. What does it mean?”

  “Well it’s nice to know I can still be helpful a few more hours,” Jonah said with a laugh. Vitamin supplements are, extracted or synthetic nutrients usually found in food. For example, an element in citrus fruits that prevents scurvy is found in ascorbic acid, an anti-oxidant designated ‘Vitamin C’. I guess that you never made it to this cabinet.” He got up and opened a corner cabinet, pulled out a double handful of pill bottles and set them down in front of Tiana. “Like these: our old friend vitamin C; B-complex with different B-type vitamins; alpha-lipoic acid; L-carnitine; lacto-bacillus cultures for digestive health; vitamin E; calcium; potassium; vitamin D. These are just the common names, not the actual compounds. I need to go by the Vitamin Shop anyhow; I’m out of a bunch of stuff. “

  Tiana, twisted the lid on the vitamin E bottle, looking puzzled when it didn’t unscrew.

  “Push it in as you turn,” advised Jonah. “Childproofing.”

  Tiana opened the lid successfully this time and sniffed the contents. “Yes,” she said, “That will be helpful, we’ll need another bottle of that one.”

  She worked her way through the collection, sampling each. When finished she nodded. “Yes, we should visit this Vitamin Shop first and inspect their inventory.”

  ~~~{Jonah}~~~

  Jonah looked around at his kitchen. Tiana stood next to a pile of bottles and bags checking their purchases. Her Victorian dress was gone, abandoned for harem pants and a flowing caftan from a shop at the community market. Toe socks with rubber grips and hiking sandals had replaced her buttoned shoes.

  Since returning from their whirlwind shopping trip, they’d been organizing their finds. Thrilled by the Vitamin Shop, Tiana estimated the amino acids would save her hours of work building collagen. The supplements cut the purchases of the whole food in half, but they’d still cleared the shelves of gelatin at Kroger and brought back two grocery carts of food. They’d processed Tiana’s recipes with Jonah’s blender and food, and now the bottled concoctions surrounded the workout mat in coolers or boxes on the floor.

  Tiana turned to Jonah, “Well, Cusinart might be a silly name, but I’m glad we didn’t do the processing by hand.” She stepped close to him and unbuttoned his shirt. “One more precaution,” she said. “After I start this procedure, I can’t break it off quickly without endangering your life. This stage might take twenty-four hours. We’d be vulnerable. Your doors and windows lock, but I want a gun to prevent anyone, a burglar for example, from interrupting.”

  “Are you sure it’s needed?”

  “Violent crimes within ten miles totaled 154 in the last twelve months. That’s not high compared to some cities, but I’ve needed a weapon in this situation in the past. I had one then, and we both survived.”

  Jonah nodded and went upstairs to his safe. No good reason not to give her the gun; she could’ve killed him any time last night if she wanted. He unlocked the safe, removed his gun and two full magazines and went back downstairs.

  “It’s nothing fancy,” he said. “but it’s not a revolver. Are you familiar with… machine pistols? I think that’s what they called them in 1896."

  Tiana nodded, “I’m familiar with the Borchardt C-93.”

  “Okay then, it’s the same idea. This is a Ruger P95 nine millimeter. Each magazine has fifteen hollow-point rounds.” He quickly showed her how to work the gun.

  “Can you break it down for me? I’d like to know how it’s put together?”

  “Sure,” Jonah said. “It’s simpler than the C-93.” He disassembled the gun on the floor since it was the only space remaining. Tiana inspected the parts then watched as Jonah reassembled the weapon. When he handed it to her, she broke it down and reassembled it. Then she inserted the magazine, chambered a round, checked the safety and put the gun between two cartons of liquid gelatin.

  “Now give me a kiss,” she ordered with a smile.

  “Take your medicine, Jonah,” Jonah said. “What’s this dose for?” He leaned in, looking into her eyes as their lips made contact.

  She winked at him and slid her tongue into his mouth. It went deep, the tip rubbing at the back of his throat before sliding out and running over his lips. “Isn’t it enough that I like you?” She said. “Do I need a reason to kiss you? Kissing isn’t sex either you know.”

  “You like me?”

  “Of course! You are a nice young man, but in this case, I also gave you the compound that finishes the colon cleansing cycle I started you on this morning. You should go to the bathroom…. relatively quickly,” she added with a raised eyebrow. Jonah went.

  After finishing, he came back to the kitchen, remarking, “You could make a fortune bottling that kiss and selling it to nursing homes.”

  Tiana had removed her new clothes and was chugging a bottle of liquid gelatin to wash down a handful of amino acid capsules. Jonah paused at the door. “I thought those were for me,” he remarked.

  “They are,” Tiana assured him with a smile. “But you don’t drink it. I need it in my body to build collagen to put in your body.”

  “Okay, and how does it get into my body?”

  “Well, Jonah, from your point of view, it will be like having sex, for a very long time.”

  “Very?”

  Tiana nodded s
olemnly, “Hours and hours. It’s important that your metabolism and heartbeat remain high; arousal will make that possible. The connections between us will be intimate. From my viewpoint it’s like working in clay, but inside your body where the sculpture remains unseen.”

  “With the acupuncture needles under your fingernails?”

  “Yes. Through your skin and every opening in your body. Do you want details, or would you rather just enjoy the surprises?”

  Jonah unbuckled his belt and took off his jeans, sensing the challenge behind the question. Strangely, though he was nervous as hell, he seemed to be rising to the occasion.

  Hours and hours?

  Chapter 4 (A little repair work)

  Tiana chuckled as Jonah finished undressing. “Here,” she said, handing him a water bottle filled with colloidal minerals. “Use this to wash down the tablets in that cup marked ‘bones number one’. Drink the whole thing, please, and you may take your ease for a few moments lying on your left side.”

  Jonah swallowed the pills and lay down, turning his head to look at her.

  Tiana knelt behind him and ran her hands over his back.

  Knotted muscles rode his neck and shoulders, so she kneaded them then penetrated the muscles with her filaments, releasing compounds to help them relax. She withdrew the filaments, checked his buttocks and legs then turned him onto his back then put her leg over him, cradling his erection against her bagua. Her fingers danced over his chest and shoulders looking for muscle knots, finding none, she leaned over to kiss him.

  He twined his tongue around hers as she slid it past his teeth deep into his mouth. She considered releasing more aphrodisiacs, but decided he needed no more encouragement. A kiss would probably be enough.

  “You like that? No medicine, just a kiss because I like you.”

  “I liked it very much,” admitted Jonah. “But I’m sure you already knew that.”

  “Let’s see how you like this.”

  From the electrodermal response from his skin, she knew he was ready to orgasm, so she dipped her head to his sex and took him in her mouth until liquid fire shot into her throat.