New Atlantis Bundle, Books1-3 Page 7

  ‘This is not how Retrievals go. I’ve never felt so drawn to someone, so connected to them… I keep thinking that it’s because I made the Jump before this new body was properly run in. But I know that’s not it. It’s something about you. Something about how you smell and taste, the person you are. I haven’t felt like this for nearly three hundred years. It’s frightening, how I feel when I’m with you.

  ‘I’m used to an ordered life, a predictable life. I count on the fact I know myself very well. And yet, here I am, breaking all the rules – wanting to tear the clothes off your beautiful body, and bury myself in you. I’ve been in a constant state of arousal, since I met you, and it’s driving me crazy. I shouldn’t even be able to get aroused this soon. Everything’s out of control.’

  She tried to take in what he was saying. It was so much more than she had expected, so much more than she’d hoped for. That he wanted her as much, if not more, than she wanted him, seemed impossible. But that was what he was telling her, wasn’t it? That was what that electric look they’d shared had been telling her, wasn’t it?

  ‘You have no one back in your time-line?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘No one. I told you, all work makes me very dull. Women gave up on me centuries ago. I’ve been running on empty for so long, I can’t remember what it’s like to feel alive. Actually, no, that’s not true. I do remember, because you’re reminding me.’

  ‘Is it against the rules to take your Target to bed?’ she asked, feeling the inevitability of what was coming. Wanting it to come. Ready for it.

  ‘Yes, but so is yelling the truth at a Target on a dark street corner. So is taking them through a Portal, without prior approval, so they’ll finally believe me. I never break rules, Cara. And that’s all I’ve been doing since I met you.’

  ‘Then, will you break that one with me now? Come to bed, Jack. I’d really like it if you took me to bed.’

  He lowered his mouth to hers, and claimed it in a deep and heartfelt kiss. Then, he let her lead him into her bedroom and watched as she began to remove her clothes. When she stood naked before him, no longer nervous about her age or over-weight body, she came to him, and began to undo the buttons of his black shirt.

  Jac had never felt so aroused. Even back in the dim, dark past when he was in his Original and with Marcie, he’d never felt like this. The pressure of his arousal had kept him on edge all night and throughout the morning. There had been moments of reprieve, when she’d been upset, or when she’d rejected him. But, as soon as the bridges were mended between them again, he was even more desperate to claim her.

  How long had it been since he’d had sex? Twenty years, at least. And even then it had only been a one night stand with a woman he’d known for hundreds of years. They had both been drunk, she because her life partner had been killed in-situ, he because her partner was his friend, and he hated to lose friends. They’d comforted each other that night, and then avoided each other for the next few years. It hadn’t been right for either of them.

  Sex had never been right for him since Marcie. When she and their twins had died in the Last Great Plague, part of him had died, too. He never understood why he’d survived and she hadn’t. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t right.

  But he had picked himself up, and gone on with his life – his very long life. Not because he wanted to, but because he was needed. There were so few of them left to go on. So few…

  And now he’d found Cara, a woman from another time and place. A woman who was softness and strength, courage and vulnerability, and warmth and rationality. In a matter of days, he had lost all sense of himself as he was, and become something other, something new and reborn.

  Now, when time was running out for him, he’d found someone he wanted to be with forever. Now, when for the first time in nearly three hundred years, he wanted to live, he knew he was going to die.

  After the ninth body, he’d been told as he prepared for integration, there would be no more. Consciousness refused to integrate, after the ninth. So, instead of the eternity of loneliness he’d expected to endure, he now only had a few short decades left in which to be happy. Ironic. Truly ironic.

  But thoughts of his future were far from his mind now. In this moment, a beautiful woman was standing naked before him, undoing his shirt buttons. And he was going to move into unknown territory. He was scared. After so long, nothing should ever surprise him about himself. But everything surprised him now. How it felt to thrust his tongue into her warm, responsive mouth. How his body trembled with desire as he waited, letting her take the lead. The dizzy light-headedness that claimed him felt so unfamiliar, and yet he recognised it for what it was – need. A need that almost spun him off his axis.

  He wanted this. He wanted her. Maybe this was his reward for a lifetime of service. Maybe whatever Power guided them all, had given him this… his gold watch.

  Her hands had become unsteady as she fumbled with the top button of his tight jeans. It was amazingly easy to take over her job, and shed the last barriers between them. That morning, manipulating that button, had taken five minutes. Now, he did it with ease, as if he’d been in this body for ten years. So strange, this unpredictability.

  He looked down at her, amazed by his good fortune, stunned that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. That she accepted him, for who and what he was.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered, as he drew her naked body against his own. His heavy, sensitized arousal bucked, as her naked flesh covered it, pressed into it.

  While he kissed her face, and ran his fingers through her soft, fair hair, he breathed her scent into his body. She smelled of sunshine and spring time. She would be his sunshine and springtime, his second chance, no matter how short that springtime would be.

  ‘I will be very glad when I have my new body. I won’t feel so… out of my league…’ She spoke the words into his mouth, as she kissed him.

  ‘You will be no more beautiful then, than you are to me now. Each age has its gifts. I love the lines at the corner of your eyes that tell me you have smiled with your heart, many times. And the creases here,’ he ran down the sides of her mouth, ‘formed by laughter and that contagious grin of yours, that dimples your cheeks.’

  His hand slid down to follow the contours of her form. ‘I love this soft, curvaceous body that speaks to me of fertility and creation, of nurturing. All these things I will miss, when you become young again. But I will learn to appreciate that body too, because it will be yours.’ He noticed his speech patterns had changed. He’d reverted to the more correct phraseology of his own time. It was a sign of just how deeply he felt for her, in that moment.

  Jac lowered her gently onto the bed, and ran his hand down over her full curves, excited by what he touched, excited by the look in her eyes. Before he could stop himself, he slid his fingers into her wet core, and watched as her face transformed, became vulnerable and needy.

  How long had it been since he felt so fixated by a woman’s every move, her every expression? How long since her delight was his; her arousal, building and intensifying his own? Forever. It had been forever.

  And even though it was too soon, and he knew he should make it last, his aching length found its way to her entrance. Then he buried himself deep in her welcoming body, knowing he had finally come home.

  There was a dreamlike quality to what he did to her. Cara felt suspended out of time, in some other space, where there was nothing but sensation and emotion. There was nothing but Jac’s hard, muscular body pressing into hers, almost out of control with desire. His very urgency increased her own need. If she had ever felt this aroused, this ready, she couldn’t remember it. He thrust into her like it was where he belonged. Like he was part of her, and they had been separated for too long.

  But they were together again now. Moving as one, they rode the surging tide together, holding on as the wave reached its peak and broke, sending them both crashing into a place that was all light and exquisite sensation. And then,
for what felt like a long time, an infinity of time, he lay on top of her, inside her, using his arms to keep his full weight off her, yet not wanting to break their connection by moving away. Not wanting to separate their bodies. She could hear his laboured breath at her ear, knew hers was just as heavy.

  In a strange way, she felt like she was having to find her way back into her body. That somehow, she’d split off from it, in that intense orgasmic moment, and now she was having to come back to it from that place.

  She didn’t want to come back.

  ‘That was…’ he mumbled against her ear, setting off a new series of tingling sensations inside her. He couldn’t seem to find the words to finish the statement, and she knew exactly how he felt.

  ‘Yeah… that was.’ She smiled, as she spoke the words into his ear, knowing that her breath would set off the same sensations as his had done to her.

  Sure enough, she felt his body twitch inside her. Felt it harden and come back to life.

  ‘Jeezuz, this is not happening,’ he exclaimed, as he moved his arousal deeper inside her. She looked at his face, and couldn’t help laughing. He was so shocked by what his body was doing. So amazed and helpless.

  ‘There is something to be said for youth,’ she said, as she ran her tongue up his sweat-soaked neck, enjoying the salty taste of him.

  ‘Can you really handle going there again, so soon? I feel like I’ve climbed Mount Everest. I can’t imagine doing it again. But my body seems to have other ideas.’

  ‘Hmmm. And mine seems to want to go along for the ride. That was one hell of a view from up there.’

  He smiled into her mouth, as he kissed her, drawing her body in, so his could burrow deep, claiming all of her. The unknown territory was exciting, new and wonderful. Sharing it with her, being part of her, was incredible. Each slow thrust seemed to bring them closer. Each moan of pleasure that passed her lips, seemed to push them higher. How could this be possible? How could he want her so desperately, so completely? He surged in to the heat of her, felt the silky touch of her, along the whole length of him. He tried to fill his struggling lungs with the scent of her. Only her.

  It was happening again. They were riding some huge and powerful wave that threatened to destroy them both, again. But they rode it recklessly, wildly, driving on, beyond the point of control, until once more they disappeared together, over the edge and fell, as one, into the orgasmic abyss.

  Chapter Eight

  When he came back to himself this time, it was with panic. For a moment, he had literally blacked out. He’d lost consciousness. That was not supposed to happen. He withdrew from her, and dropped onto the bed beside her.

  Worries invaded his lethargy. What if the blackout was a sign that the integration was breaking down? What if his haste to make the most of this last thirty years had created a form of C & B? Maybe his Consciousness was rejecting the new body. It certainly was behaving oddly. His control of it seemed more haphazard than in other bodies.

  Please, no. Please, I need this last few decades. I’m not ready to die. Not now I’ve found her!

  Cara groaned, and shifted onto her side so she could look at him. The satisfied little smile playing on her lips had him instantly aroused again. God, she drove him crazy. Every shift in her expression, every look that passed over those bottomless blue eyes, was a fascination. He could look at her forever.

  ‘I think I’m feeling a little like you have, in the last few weeks,’ she said, with a note of amusement in her voice. ‘My body is not co-operating. I have to really concentrate to make it move. I feel like a lump of satiated jello.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ was all he could manage.

  ‘I’ve never had sex like this. I think I blacked out there, for a few seconds after… well you know.’

  Her words had his full attention. ‘Blackout? You had a blackout, too?’

  ‘Hmmm. I imagine it’s just lack of oxygen to my brain. I probably hyperventilated or something. Did you say, too?’

  ‘Mmm. Yeah. I was just laying here worrying that the amalgam was breaking down. But if you experienced the same loss of consciousness as I did, then it’s not just this body.’

  ‘It’s funny to talk about bodies as if they are something separate from self. I guess when you’ve only known one, it’s easier to identify with the body. When you can change your body like you change your clothes, it takes on a completely separate existence. It’ll take some getting used to.’

  ‘Yeah, it does. I can’t remember what it felt like to be my body. It feels like I’ve always felt like two separate beings, co-operating toward a common goal. Now I feel like I’m rooming with a stranger, and I’m not sure who he is, or what his agenda is. Very disconcerting.’

  ‘I bet. Especially after nearly three hundred years with the same roomy. But, if it counts for anything, I am really impressed with your body. It knows exactly where all my erogenous zones are, and sets every one off like the lights on a Christmas tree.’

  ‘See, that’s what’s weird for me. What my body did. It was all unconscious. I was past the point of rational thought. I had no thoughts. My body just took over and …’ He couldn’t think how best to describe what happened.

  ‘That’s the way it was for me. That’s normal in sex, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, but I shouldn’t have that level of unconscious control yet. I’m just two weeks into integration. Even with the technology we have at home, full integration doesn’t happen for three weeks, and then sexuality… well that’s months down the line. What happened with us… it shouldn’t have been able to happen. Not yet.’

  Cara stroked his shoulder thoughtfully, and he tried to ignore his body’s response to the touch. But the whisper soft caress was already driving him crazy, his brain drowning in erotic signals.

  ‘You told me these clones have no Consciousness of their own, right? They’re inanimate, until you transfer the soul into them. Have I got that right?’

  ‘Yeah. They can’t even breathe on their own. Their heart doesn’t start pumping independently until the integration is started. Once the body is out of the containment unit, its bio- support system, it begins to decompose, if it’s not mechanically stimulated, just like a dead body would. That’s why there’s urgency in making the transfer. It has to be made in less than three minutes, once it comes off mechanical life support.’

  ‘So what if this body is the exception to the rule? The next step in the evolutionary process of the clone. What if the spark of … life… for want of a better word, came into it spontaneously. And if you hadn’t integrated with it, it would have started to activate the body itself.’

  ‘It can’t happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just can’t. We can’t give complex life. It’s more that we borrow it, in its most simplistic form, and build on that. The level of complexity required to animate a human being is way beyond our capabilities. We tried. We’ve been experimenting for hundreds of years.’

  ‘Okay, so if the separate life hypothesis is out, what’s left? How do you gain this kind of unconscious control of a body, before it’s possible?’

  He loved the way her mind worked, teasing through possibilities, working on hypotheticals. She had a scientist’s brain and a nurturer’s heart.

  ‘What’s left is you. You are the catalyst. My will to be in this body this time, is directly related to you. For almost three hundred years I’ve just functioned. If we use the example of one of your fancy sports cars, hmm, let’s give it an automatic transmission. A sin, I know, but for analogy sake, go with me.

  ‘In the last three hundred years, I’ve just functioned, never getting out of third gear, using just enough of its power to get me from point A to point B. Suddenly, I want more from the machine, and it’s like I’ve put my foot down. And the car has sped through the gears, responding to the new instructions, as it probably always could have, if I’d had the will to do it.’

  Cara lay back on her pillow. Losing her from his view was
like losing part of himself. He shifted onto his side, so he could see her again, his flesh twitching at the sight of her naked body draped so languidly on the bed. Then he noticed the tears trickling down her cheeks, and his heart lurched painfully.

  ‘What’s wrong? Have I said something to hurt you?’

  She smiled through her tears. ‘Oh no. Anything but. Do you know what it makes me feel, to have you giving me such significance in your life? I … I feel humble, unworthy. I’m just a middle-aged, ordinary woman. I’m not supposed to be able to have that sort of impact on someone like you. There’s a little voice in my head that’s starting in on me right now, telling me I’ve slipped into psychosis…This is all a dream, a hallucination.’

  ‘Maybe it would have been easier for you to accept, if I still had my fifty year old body. Or if I looked 312 years old. Then you’d feel too good for me.’

  That made her laugh, and his heart expanded at his power to move her from one emotion to the next.

  ‘Yeah, a decrepit, toothless, doddering old three hundred year old. I can see where I’d be quite a catch, in that case.’

  He kissed her bare shoulder, fighting the urge to take her again. This was important territory. He couldn’t let them be side-tracked by his baser urges.

  ‘When I was thirty two years old, the Last Great Plague decimated the human race, and killed my wife, Marcie, and my two sons, Dom and Mic. I wanted to die with them, but I didn’t. And so I lived on. Survived, is probably a better word for it. Reluctantly participating in this thing called life, because some weird toss of the coin had fated me to keep going, when so many others had not.

  ‘There were so many times when I just wanted to die. Like you felt after Billy died. I went there many times. The only thing that kept me going was duty. When there are only a few hundred thousand humans left, every one of us is needed. Everyone has a part to play in the survival of the species.