Chapter 3: Final Night on Aphadus

“I think that should do it,” Javier remarked as he Velcro closed his uniform bag. “I went and notified my staff that I am being moved to the Jian Seng. They understood.”

“They will adapt,” Shira replied as she blew out her smoke from the bed.

He looked over to her. Much like him, she didn’t have too many belongings. Most of it was really just allocated to the essential hygiene items and her uniforms. With Shira, Javier knew her well enough. If she wasn’t in her uniform, she was naked. She barely had any form of civilian attire in the late hours after the main shift. It didn’t matter so much to her because she preferred to be in one place where she could be at the most peace.

He looked at his home that he was well acquainted with on Aphadus. The entire place was spacious, even for a Shal’rein to live in. Most of the items in the household belonged to the UHN itself. This helped the deployment of officers that were coming and going. Even Javier, as much as he hated the concept, always packed lightly and ensured that he never bought too much.

The constant daylight of the tidally-locked planet ensured that it was forever dawn. Instead, the window shudders helped provide the sense of darkness needed to simulate nighttime. While day and night cycles never really bothered Javier, he didn’t mind the nighttime establishment concept either. It was something that helped create a romantic setting.

The bed was more than adequate for Shira. It had been much later in the day, and she was busy reading her tilon. The two metal stick-like devices would be pulled out to reveal a tablet-like projection that allowed her to study and ready whatever she wanted. With her, he always knew her as the quiet-reader or one that was listening to music. Sometimes, it would be both. She seemed wholly composed and relaxed, with one hand on her device and the other holding a lit cigarette.

Javier stood with nothing more than his boxer underwear. He went and checked his bags one last time to see that nothing was missing. There was one place he purposely kept away from, however, and it was located in a cabinet. He decided that it was time to go ahead and commit to the idea. He pulled open the cabinet to pull out a small box.

“Shira...” Javier called out to her.

“Yes,” she replied as she continued to read from her bed.

He approached her as he admired her a little bit. Even with her attention devoted to her study, her naked form was something that he always enjoyed. Her great fin-like tail flowed over the side of the bed as her back was planted to the bed rest. Her fin-like ear was aimed slightly in his direction as her focus was directed to him and her reading.

“Happy Birthday,” Javier remarked with a smile as he held the box to her. The surprise gift was something that caused the alien woman to give a questioning look.

“I don’t understand,” Shira replied.

“Well ... it is a gift for you. I figured that your birthday was soon, so I wanted to make sure you got it.”

“Ah. I understand now. You, humans, have an ancient tradition of providing a gift to a person after the anniversary of one full rotational orbit of a planet of the day of their birth.”

“Pretty much.”

“It is often a flawed concept to it as few people live on Earth when compared to other worlds of your kind.”

“Well, sorta. I agree it is an old custom that suffers from the lack of change, but regardless,” Javier handed the box to her. She went and put out her cigarette into her ashtray and put her tilon down. She accepted it and looked at it.

“There is one other flaw in your gift-giving concept,” Shira added. “Unfortunately, you are off by thirty-one days. If we were following the same rules of my world as yours, the Shal’rein Yata Time Scale is about 1.58 Earth years for every Shal’rein year. My birthday would not be until that time when I hit the age of twenty-five Earth years.”

“Then ... it’s an early gift.”

“Hmmm, don’t feel discontented. I do appreciate what you did regardless. I will accept this gift with pride,” she said with an almost emotionless tone.

She used her hand to open the simple box. Her hand reached in to pull out a single large device. She carefully examined it with her one eye. It was disk-shaped and had a black digital display in the center with a couple of buttons on it.

“What is this?” Shira asked him.

“It is a stopwatch that belonged to my family ancestry,” Javier explained. “It was made sometime in 1985 ... I think. I went and spent some time having old tech engineers rebuild and fix it from scratch. It has a permanent battery placed into it, and it has been enlarged so it can fit your hand better. It has been given some major updates to it that allow it to be easily converted to Itrean times or Earth time scale. The buttons start or stop the times and can be set to count down as well.”

Shira was quiet at first as she analyzed the remodeled stopwatch. She pressed one of the buttons as the red LED lights appeared on the center rectangular display. She then pressed another button as she played with the different options. Javier was truly wondering about his gift to her. Was she impressed? Was she annoyed by it? For a good minute, she was learning how to operate with it. Finally, a small smile appeared on her face momentarily before it quickly faded.

“I like it,” Shira finally told him.

“You do?” Javier asked her.

“Yes. A very fitting gift indeed. You spent resources on something that would benefit both of us.”

“Actually, I really meant it to be given to you.”

“That isn’t what I mean. The ability to track time can be crucial in a battlefield. More so than you will ever believe. This was not just an act of kindness, but one in which you honored me by doing.”

Javier smiled as he could see that Shira was happy with the gift. It seemed to keep her in a reasonable tone that pleased himself. He was thankful that his hard work had paid off. He hadn’t been keeping track of what she was doing, but he swore that he saw her set a time on it before she clicked another button to shut it off.

“I love you, Shira,” Javier told her.

“As my love goes to you,” Shira replied in her emotionless state. Even when keeping a tone such as this, there was still a sense of happiness that he felt for her.

He got on the bed as he began to really admire her body. He knew that once they get on a ship, it would all change. Having to depend on artificial gravity and small showers were going to be on the menu.

“Not ready to be in zero gravity again,” Javier remarked.

“I am used to it ... I admit, it would be great to see it again. Being on the ground of this planet is a slow death for me.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to lose you. I admit that I was upset to be moved again, but it was smart of you to ask me to come along with you. Even the UHN doesn’t always do that.”

“While I don’t see the logic of that, it is a tradition for the Itreans. We live together, die together, fight together, mate together, everything is shared in responsibility. I would not feel the same being separated from you to be sent to the Jian Seng.”

Javier went and placed his hand on Shira’s. Her emotional control was always there. Even now, the tiny inflections in her voice were all that he had to go off of. He only knew so much about her childhood. He sometimes forgot that she was blind in one eye because of the constant hair that was in the way. To defect from one’s clan was never easy and one that he knew she had to make great strides towards. The actions that she made months ago only further convinced him that he should be by her side.

That part of him was starting to slip away from her as she shifted her back a little bit. Her large breasts shifted some. Being a little bit shorter than the average Shal’rein, Shira made up for it by having larger-sized breasts and being slightly on the stout side. She wasn’t fat but was well-built muscle instead.

Shira was a dazzling display of the Shal’rein beauty in her nakedness, at least from Javier’s perspective. Even if the Itreans had long originated from ancient Earth, the Itreans were still looked upon as aliens. Even for both races, it was still a minor shock that everyone came from the same planet. Regardless, the sheer size and power of these women were incredible for some. While the Yutilians and Aksren were shorter than the humans, the Shal’rein towered over them. Naturally, the end result was that the women were bigger with everything. Their chests were, ratio-wise, much bigger than the typical human woman. Even with Shira’s breasts alone, it measured way past the DD or E range. At the tip of each breast was a dark gray areola that was almost the size of a quarter dollar.

Like many of the Shal’rein, she had a natural gray skin tone, although there were other Shal’rein that had brown or even enriched purple tones. Unlike the Yutilians and the Aksren, there was no soft front side, but simply a completely smooth, warm rubbery like feel to them. Some would have naturally black hair dyed purple or had no hair at all depending on the region or planet.

Shira went and placed Javier’s hand on her right breast. The melon-sized tissue felt warm and malleable as his fingers began to massage them. She gave a look of friendly composure to him. Javier could feel an erection start to form in his boxers. For him, this was normal for every night. For the Itreans, sex was commonplace, even more so than humans ever did. They didn’t consider it perversion but more of relief. He was all too aware that the Itrean species can be pretty violent. Sex was a way to try to control inner rages, release stress, and affirm mateship between two individuals. It was one of the many reasons why the Itreans remained together even in times of war.

“I know you have much stress that needs to be taken care of,” Shira told him.

“It will be our last night on this world,” he told her.

“You humans and breasts ... such a curious sight every time.”

“You always say that,” he commented as he placed both his hands on each breast. She went and grabbed her tilon and stopwatch and put it on the side cabinet of the bed. She instead closed her eye and took a deep breath.

“It is more than that,” she continued. “You humans have certainly taken a liking to us rather quickly. I have studied the UWAN Human/Itrean Dating Sites.”

“Yeah, you mean the mail-order Itrean wives sites?” He interrupted her.

“According to the studies I made, many of the Itrean women that are being taken as mates by the humans are those of the Gersin religion.”

“The Gersin?”

“They are the fifth largest religion in the Itrean clans. The women believe in genetically engineering themselves to having large breasts and naturally producing milk without the need to be pregnant. They are essentially a religion of wet nurses believing that child-rearing is the most sacred event in their lives. My grandmother was Gersin, but I don’t share the trait of natural milk production. Unless, of course, I was pregnant.”

“That explains the larger breasts then.”

“You have been looking at nude pictures of the Itreans?” she asked him as she opened up her eye to look at him.

“I admit ... I was looking at some of it before I met you.”

“There is logic to that. If the Itrean species is going to survive, they will need to procreate with the humans. Natural curiosity towards the body and flesh is expected. Perhaps it is good that I do have large breasts. More milk to feed our young.”

He continued to play with her breasts. The weighty muscle tissue danced in his fingers as his erection reached its full peak. Tenting from his underwear, he felt the desire to be united with her again. The nipple naturally got hard as it was being played with. Shira was always quiet in this form of foreplay, but she wasn’t stopping him either.

“I can’t hold back anymore,” Javier told her. His adrenaline was beginning to overpower his mind and body.

“You have had a stressful day,” she told him. “The next day will be stressful as well. It is best for you to go ahead and mate with me. You will sleep better, which will help you perform better for the next day.”

“Said with such proficiency...” he said with a smile to her. “I was thinking more ... aggressively.”

“You can be as violent towards me as you need to be. It is much harder for humans to physically harm a Shal’rein than for me to harm you.”

It was all that he needed to hear from her. He pulled his underwear off of himself as his erect member sprang from its linen prison. Javier wasn’t some athlete with his physique but had to still stay in good shape for being an officer. His somewhat buff frame was something that Shira was used to looking at.

She lowered her body so that she was lying down on her back. Her tail naturally moved and flexed to further lay off the side of the bed. With her taller frame, even the bed struggled to take her entire height. Her weight and body shifted. Her breasts naturally dropped a little bit to the sides as she kept her hair pressed to her eyepatch.

Javier was used to this. He climbed on top of her and could feel the warmth and smoothness of her body. One hand pressed to her breast as he pressed his weight down to her. As she had pretty much stated, she was pretty solid and resilient. He could push his weight from one hand onto her chest, and it wouldn’t do anything to her. Technically, he could hit her, and it really wouldn’t do much at all. Of course, he didn’t want to do that, but he felt frisky towards her. It was an invitation he couldn’t ignore.

Shira raised her arm at him as her large hand cradled his back. She continued to remain quiet as Javier reached up to kiss her. His lips went to her pointed snout as she adjusted hers to meet his. She had adapted to kissing long ago. The only thing slightly awkward with her situation was that the Shal’rein didn’t really have lips comparable to humans. It didn’t mean that they couldn’t kiss, however, as their lips met together. With Javier, he had to be careful in extending his tongue towards her mouth. Her row of razor-sharp shark teeth could easily rip anything apart.

Javier’s hard member pressed against the buff stomach of Shira. His hand went to her hair as he tugged on it slightly. He began to caress her fin-like ear, almost pulling on it. It caused Shira to even grown a little bit as she breathed out marginally harder. She closed her eye as he began to kiss her left cheek and face. Her other hand reached over and began to wrap around his member. She very gently began to pump him.

Javier could feel the beginning of the pleasure as it rode through him. The stroking sensation was just the beginning as he naturally began to thrust against her hand. As a form of tradition, he went and bit at her neck. His teeth barely did anything, but she did take another deep breath as if she was silently enjoying it.

“You must bite the shoulder...” Shira whispered into his ear. “That is our sweet spot...”

Javier continued to do so as he felt more and more of an urge to bite into her flesh. Again, his bite strength was insignificant to even hurt her. If this was a normal human being, he probably would have left significant marks or even caused bleeding. He then released her neck as he began to move further and further away, kissing the lower portion and reaching her left shoulder blade.

Shira wasn’t saying anything but her actions were telling it all. She used her hand that was caressing his back and moved it towards his ass. Her large hand was able to grab his right butt cheek as she pulled him up towards her. Meanwhile, her other hand was still pumping against his rigid member. Precum was leaking from the tip as it was getting her hand slick.

Javier’s mouth reached to her shoulder as he opened his mouth wide. He bit down as hard as he could. It caused her to momentarily stop her pumping action as she went and naturally reflexed. She disengaged and wrapped both of her arms to his back, pressing him against her. His teeth sank as deep as they could go without penetrating the skin. She was breathing fast and hard, feeling the pleasure ride through her system. She said nothing else as her body was adjusting to the feeling.

He stopped as Shira went and did the same thing as well to him. This was the way that the Shal’rein kissed each other. Much like sharks, the feeling of biting near the fin during mating was something that survived the long harshness of evolution. With Shira, however, she was quite careful. She used her powerful jaws and brought them to Javier’s shoulder. She opened them up to reveal rows of serrated teeth. She then brought them down upon him, but she was cautious in doing it. Unlike the body physiology of the Shal’rein, human men could only withstand so much force. A strong enough bite would easily send Javier to the hospital. Instead, she was slow and methodical. The teeth dug into his skin as his arms wrapped around her hard. He could feel the pinching of his skin, but no hard pain to it.

Her tongue seemed to relish the taste of his flesh as the teeth clamped down on him. He could feel the warm wet, slick tongue lick the enclosed area before she released him. The powerful jaws opened up as he could feel a slight amount of blood trickled from his left shoulder. The minor cut was not deep and could seal up by the next day.

Javier straddled back a little bit as Shira’s legs were splayed wide open. Her vaginal slit was slightly larger than the typical human woman. It wasn’t challenging to mount her as the tip of his cock was pressed against the entrance. Without any difficulty, his penis drove directly into her and went all the way up to the hilt. His scrotum rested comfortably on her anus and the base of her tail.

“Ah...” Javier remarked. Even Shira gasped a little bit from the sudden pleasure that she felt. He rested comfortably on her stomach and chest as he looked up at her. Her breasts served as natural pillows for him to rest his head on as he began to thrust into her slowly.

“I miss having sex with you in the water,” Javier told her.

“I know you do. I miss it too.”

“The last time we did it was three weeks ago ... after we made that ten-kilometer hike to the Lakes of New Texoma.”

He kept slow pacing with his thrusts. By now, the sex had become routine but a regular part of the couple’s life. During this time, Javier had a couple of things that were on his mind besides just the intercourse itself. The pleasure felt nice, but there was one slight problem. The Shal’rein vagina was designed for the larger, more endowed Shal’rein males. For Shira, it was no real issue because Javier was her mate. If anything, this was life for Itrean women. With Zilik’s Disease that wiped out the male population, humanity or the ivons were all that the Shal’rein had. The real magic of their sex, however, was in the water.

“I know,” Shira told him. “I will admit. You do last longer on dry land than the water.”

“It ... isn’t fair,” Javier told her. He could feel her hand caress his neck and back. “It feels so much different in the water. I wanted to find that lake again this week ... the gift was going to be a part of it.”

“It is alright. This place lacks a bathtub large enough to hold my body in it for us to make adequate love in. It still feels nice, though.”

“I agree.”

He continued to do his slow thrusts. Javier remembered the first day that they had sex on Shira’s former ship. Being partially submerged in a pool, he learned all too quickly the advantages a semi-aquatic race had when it came to sex alone. The Shal’rein vagina had a series of tubes in it that could squeeze and manipulate the penis when submerged in water. Essentially, the women had complete control of the intercourse itself without having the partner physically thrusting into them. Being able to naturally contract the muscles could bring a man to orgasm very quickly but also allow both partners to gather their strength at the same time. However, the one catch was that there wasn’t much access to water except outside. There were no available public or private pools open on Aphadus that offered unique couples this form of privilege, either.