Silt

The pair dropped sails around mid-afternoon, letting their skiff glide quietly that last few hundred meters into port. It was a fine craft, barely disturbing the sands it passed over, leaving two thin lines in its wake that would be washed away by the desert winds faster than a rival might be able to track them.

Mori stepped off first as she always did, not waiting for the little ship to come to a full stop before her boots had already hit the dock. She was a stunning woman, even dirty as she was from the weeks of salvage. Strong and shapely, with a wild mass of long blonde hair hanging in thick curls from under the wide brimmed cap necessary to survive the unforgiving sun. Her skin was tanned a shade darker than the locks, showing just a touch of weathering at the corners of her pale grey eyes.

Her intention was not to stun those watching them pull in with her looks however. They had never been to this town before, and that always came with risks. She scanned over the dozen or so around the area, looking for threats that might pop up, one hand on her hip just above the revolver that would knock them again. Most everyone seemed uninterested in another wandering scavenger, she noted, and that was just how she liked it.

Her companion finished docking the boat quickly, tying off the ropes that would hold it in position and then moving to the wheel. He opened the metal casing at it's center, pulling out the four inch crystal that powered the skiff, causing it to fall hard to the sand in a cloud of dust. No other crystal in the world matched it in size and shape, so no other could cause it to rise up again. This far into the desert, it was the only way to keep a ship from being stolen.

He stepped up out of the ship onto the boards behind her, and what little interest there had been in her was quickly found nervously in him. Kith-ek was a spindly mess of rust-colored chiton and appendages, close to six and a half feet tall. The head of a mantis with massive eyes over face that seemed entirely made up of countless jaws and shifting plates. He walked upright like a human, and the arms that started at where a man's shoulders would be were thick and strong in a way that almost made sense to the eye. The second, smaller set of arms that came from his side were nothing but alien though, and all four of these limbs ended in sharp, three fingered claws, one of which offered the crystal to his human companion now.

Neither were surprised by the nervous reactions he caused. Thrikin were not common in human settlements. They usually kept to their own kind, and most encounters with them out of the deserts ended with a body count. All but the highest caliber bullets bounced off their carapace, while they would cut down entire groups of men with spears and axes. They could be stopped. A well placed hit to the eye, or between plates could do the trick, but with as fast as the desert insect people moved...

Good luck with that.

"Who's buying salvage?" Mori called out, now that they seemed to have everyone's attention, "We've been three weeks out at a fresh pirate wreck, and I'm looking to lighten the load."

A couple of dealers came forward, still cautiously skirting around her insectoid friend as they examined the haul. Pirate wreck was only half the story. It wasn't wrecked when they and the pirates came upon each other, but they weren't about to share that information and the buyers seldom wanted to know.

"These are good..." One of the men spoke from down in the ship now, looking through the assorted weapons, gems and other assorted baubles on display, "I'd pay a few hundred glass for them."

"Glass?" Mori snorted. She wasn't really offended by the low offer, but it was all part of the game, "That's forty ceramic worth at least, and you know it."

"Forty?" Came the reply, this time from one of the men still on the dock, "That's nonsense. I mean, perhaps if you threw in the bug, I might pay..."

Mori turned, putting a hand on her companion's chest just as he had started to move forward. She looked up at him, and for a moment it seemed uncertain that she could control his displeasure... But he relented, settling back once more.

"Kith-ek is not my servant. He is not my slave. He is not for sale." She said, folding her arms over her chest now, getting back to business, "Thirty five ceramic, and you pay our docking fee. That's a deal, and you know it. Take it or I'll take it down the road."

The two men draw back a ways to mumble quietly to each other, though soon both were nodding and in agreement, "Thirty five, then. We'll send our laborers out to pick it up shortly, and return with your payment."

With that, they left. Mori dropped back down into the ship, gathering up a bag of her things to take with them into town. Kith-ek watched her, his head turning sharply to put her in different facets of his vision to see her in different spectrums of light. His thoughts were fairly simple, as they were with all of his kind. Since joining her, he had found that not always to be the case. She was complicated, and it complicated him to know her.

"Again you defend my honor." His voice was deep, but harsh like the sound of gravel thrown through sheets of paper with pops and tears, "It is not necessary."

"After everything we've been through?" Mori started to hoist herself back up out of the boat, taking the hand he offered her to assist, "Anyone that has something to say to you, better say it to me first. That's not going to change."

"I did not ask you to stop." He looked down at her, expressionless as ever. Still, she could see something in him. Something odd, "I only mean to acknowledge. It is not necessary. You defend me just the same."

She looked at him for a moment longer, eyes narrowing a bit, "What is it with you lately? The last few weeks you've been just about sentimental. It's enough to make a girl feel downright appreciated."

"Such sentimentality is wasted upon me." He said, finally letting go of her hand. Just like that it was over. He was back to himself, every bit the logical, unfeeling insect that his people were known as.

"I will guard the vessel, and wait for the merchants to return." He turned, moving to gather up his spear, "You should start searching the vendors for supplies. We need much."

She paused, then started off toward town. He was acting differently, she was sure of it.

It worried her.

It was hours before they finally got a room. Turns out the town, just like half of the other towns they'd visited over the last few years, was called Oasis. Unlike most of those towns though, this one actually had water. A fresh spring coming right up out of the ground, with a damned near endless supply of one of the most precious treasures in the sands.

Normally they would have found a cheap room for the night somewhere. Neither of them were delicate, but something had caught Mori's eye as she explored the town. A bigger building than any she had seen in some time. An inn of fairly high quality, offering a service she hadn't been able to take part in for years.

A bath.

The tub itself was made of finely wrought metal perched upon four little legs designed to look like the feet of a sand cat. It wasn't big enough to stretch out in, but it was big enough, and now Mori was relaxing inside of it up to her neck in water. It was such a shameless display of opulence, and it felt absolutely incredible.

Kith-Ek sat on the floor several feet away, re-banding the leather on his spear. It was an oddly shaped weapon, with a heavy bone blade attached to gnarled staff. Most humans looked at his people's weapons and assumed they were just cobbled together from scrap, but she knew better now. Every twist and whorl in that stick served a purpose for someone with multiple arms of varying lengths. She'd seen him strike enough men down to understand the functionality of it, as well as his skill.

"You humans and your desire to waste so much water by immersing yourselves in it." He said, lifting his weapon up before his face, head twitching to the left and right to examine it, "I do not understand."

"The dust doesn't just fall off me like it does you." She said with a sigh, "And it feels... Amazing."

He chittered a little noise in his own language, then added, "It seems needlessly hedonistic."

She smiled at that. It wasn't the first time she'd heard him say that phrase to her. She had already finished washing up, and had already begun preparing for what came next. She had one arm resting on the rim of the tub, the other deep under the water as she traced a single finger up and down the crease of her sex, and it didn't matter to her one bit that her companion could see. He'd seen it before, and he expected it.

"Needlessly hedonistic..." She said with a little moan, letting her eyes close for the moment, "Just how I like it."

Eventually he put the spear down, turning his head to watch as the waves in the water started to grow stronger, her breasts rising and falling with the motion. He watched, and he waited. She would tell him when it was time.

After several minutes she sighed, finally rising up out of the tub to begin drying herself with the thick cloths that had been provided for her. Her body was fantastic for a human, even in this harsh environment. They had done well for themselves out in the sands together for all these years, and it afforded them the ability to eat well enough that she wasn't so thin as most folk. No hard edges, no ribs showing through, breasts large and shapely. Her hair stopped just short of the small of her back. She had washed it first, and nearly dry now it had started to curl itself back up into large ringlets that bounced as she moved over the bed to sit on the edge.

She gave him a look through her lashes, feet parted but with her knees together in a way that hid all but the thick patch of blonde between her thighs.

"You know what I want." She said quietly, smiling back at him, "Don't make me beg for it."

He stood with a grace that seemed impossible for someone made of plates and elbows. All he ever wore was a thick sash around his waist. It was a ceremonial garb of his people, a traditional garment rather than one of modesty. He moved to stand before her as he removed it, tossing it to the side. At first nothing... Then he produced it. It angled almost straight down out of the space between his thighs, long and white as the shaft came into view. Slowly it emerged, until inches became feet. At two feet he began to curl it upward toward her, the muscles almost prehensile as it acted of its own volition. At three feet the tip had reached eye level, narrow and slightly flared into points that each wiggled on their own. At four feet the weight of it started to drag it down again, the end of it tilting down towards her.

Thrikin didn't have sex for pleasure. At least not the way humans did. Her own personal foreplay in the tub had been for this, and now that she was wet and ready it was time to get what she needed. She lay back, letting her hands fall onto her hair above her head, and she smiled.

"Fuck me, you beautiful monster."

He moved over the top of her, and for all of his arms and hands, none were needed to guide himself inside of her. The little flares at the tip of his penis tickled at her opening, as if trying to grab at it and hold on. It's what they were evolved to do inside of one of his kind's females, but as they slipped past her waiting lips to squirm ever so wildly inside of her, their only purpose was her pleasure.

He braced himself on his primary arms above her. There was no need for thrusting of hips. This was not how his kind even had sex, but he remained focused on how he knew she preferred it. He began by letting his member worm it's way deep into her body, the little tentacles furiously trying and failing to find any part of her to cling to as they stimulated her so fantastically. He then drew it back out almost completely, driving it back in again harder this time. He was nearly motionless otherwise, no thrusting of hips required as his long muscle of shaft did the work for them both.

"Tell me when you are ready."

She looked up at him through half closed eyes. The pieces of his jaw all moved different directions as he spoke. They'd been like this dozens of times before, and her only regret was that they could never kiss. She would have tried anyway, if not for the risk of his venom. The sight of that face that had once horrified now only hurried along the inevitable. Her orgasm was long overdue after weeks in the desert, but his was merely waiting for him to prompt it. Hers would be bliss. His was just a delivery system.

One of her hands came down to start working at her sex, pressing against where their bodies met to cause her swollen nub to rub more firmly against the alien shaft inside of her. Her breathing was heavy. She was close.

"Now!" She hissed through closed teeth as it took over her body, causing her to arch her back up toward him, "Do it now!"

He complied. He pulled back to make space, and she felt the release inside her, first slowly as it strained the opening of his penis, then plopping out and sliding further in. The second packet of his seed came more quickly, rushed through the length of the shaft fire out and hit the first, the both of them jiggling wildly at the contact. This was how his kind procreated. their females could store these packages of semen inside themselves for months until needed, but the sperm themselves were not active and swimming like a man's. Instead the females eggs would be released, seek out these blobs the male had left inside of her and attach to them, fertilizing themselves first, then feeding on the rest.

Soon he had her practically filled with a dozen of them. She loved the feeling of them squishing around inside her, and as she trembled her way through the height of her pleasure it was all she could do not to cry out.

Eventually she was left breathing heavy on the mattress, and he pulled himself out of her, moving back to stand once more. Two of the sperm packets plopped out of her as he did so. They were the size of a small rodent, teardrop shaped with a little twist of tail at the end that wiggled madly. Not for locomotion, like human sperm, but to try and gain purchase inside the appropriate female body and hold on until needed.

Mori was not an appropriate woman, either in compatibility to her insectoid lover, or in behavior.

She let her hand drop between her thighs, feeling around for a little wiggling tail and letting it twine around her fingers once it found something to hold on to. The hand came back up, and she held it above her face, regarding it with the affection one might have for the sweetest of dangling grapes. She nipped at it, lightly at first and almost playful... Then hard, puncturing the sac to let a thick dribble of cum start to drain out into her mouth in irregular globs.

He moved to pick up the second packet himself, waiting until she had suckled the last drop out of the now empty one before dangling this over her lips as well. She craned her neck up to snap at it with her teeth, but he quickly pulled it slightly away to stop her.

"Oh you tease!" She said, smiling at him, "I knew you liked this... Does it excite you, Kith-ek? Do you want me the way I need you?"

"It is not a sense of excitement." He lowered the packet again, this time letting her have at it to start the flow of white across her lips, "I am... Fascinated by the sensation. Our females are not designed for pleasure. They are not soft and moist... Not designed for repeated penetration... Their bodies do not make heat."

He paused, trying to find the words, "I am warm inside of you. It is pleasant."

"Hmm..." She smiled up at him, using a finger to wipe a little of his seed off her lips and suckle it back off again. It was as close to declaration of affection as she figured she was ever going to get out of him, and it was enough, "You know what I want... Finish it."

He moved again, not over the top of her this time. He just stood at the end of the low bed, towering over her as his penis started to snake its way back toward her once again. He was all out of semen to give, but that's not what she wanted this time. She had plenty inside her, all she wanted now was for him to do her one more time, and for one reason.

He slid inside her easily, the little sacs of his sperm pushed around the shaft to squirt and wobble every which way. He was slow at first, knowing she enjoyed this particular sensation. It was not what she wanted though. He knew what she wanted, and after one long pull back, he gave it to her. He slammed himself inside her hard, causing two of the packets to pop. She could feel it it happen. She could feel the cum inside them splatter out against her inner reaches. He pulled out again, this time pushing harder and snapping open another of the doomed little pods.

"It feels so good..." Her eyes were closed now, arms and legs every which way as she let him drill her, "Don't stop... Please..."

For the next minute he continued to pump his shaft into her with force, trying to rupture the last of the elusive packets once all the others were gone. She was breathing heavy again, lost in the agony of this bliss. Still a bit too sensitive from her last climax, but as turned on by the discomfort of going again so soon as she was from the pleasure. She wanted this to end with her feeling raw. She wanted to feel truly and fully fucked, and no human man had ever obliged her the way he had.

She startled as he backed quickly away, opening her eyes to look at him. He was a few feet away now, regarding his massive cock. The end of it now blunted and slightly swollen, the flares at the tip gone. what was more worrisome is that she could still feel him inside her, and it was wriggling madly.

"What in the seven suns?" She reached down, finding a handle of sorts sticking out of her, and yanked it free to leave nearly a foot of writhing penis sitting on the mattress, "Kith-ek? Are you alright?"

"Do not be concerned." He said calmly, starting to retract what was left of himself back into his body now, "I did not think that would occur, but it is not a cause for worry."

"Part of your cock fell off!" She asked, a little more loudly than she meant to, "That's normal?"

"The aedea is meant to break off inside." He said, even as she was staring wide eyed at it now, "It acts as a plug inside the female until the seed is stored properly. It then is absorbed by her body."

"Does it hurt?" She asked with more than a little concern.

"The pain is insignificant." He moved to kneel before her now, "It grows our entire lives. Mine had gotten quite heavy without a Thrikin female to mate with. This will bring me some comfort."

She rose up to sit now, letting out a long sigh, "That's never happened before now. I think I'd remember something like that."

"You are soft inside. Not like a Thrikin." He said, putting a hand on one knee as if to reassure her, thought it was a gesture she'd never seen him do before, "It was unexpected."

She nodded slowly, still trying to process it all, "Well... I guess we're done having sex then. What a way to end."

"Why?" Came the reply, head tilted slightly sideways out of curiosity, "You have not reached the second apex you desire. It will still satisfy you."

She looked down to watch as one of his smaller hands pick it up, still twitching wildly as he moved to bring it closer toward her sex. The flared tip was now just expanding and contracting, having lost any sort of coherence without the man it was attached to. What was left of her reason and dignity were screaming inside her brain that this was too much. That this would be going to far. As she watched it though, vibrating in the throes of its death...

It looked like it might feel awful nice.

"Do it." She leaned back on her hands, opening herself back up to him willingly. As she did so a large glob of semen and a couple of the ruptured sac flowed out of her, "Finish me."

Again it entered her, and she gasped at the sensation. It was twitching hard and fast, like the buzzing of a hundred bottled wasps inside of her. He began to knife his dying cock in and out of her hard, using his primary hands to lift up her knees to give him better access. she started panting again, singnaling the ends was near. Another spray of cum shot out of her as the final packet broke and was pulled out of her body on the reverse stroke.

This was so wrong, she thought... Everything about it was so wrong.

But as the warmth rose up out of her sex, washing over her body... Followed soon after by a spasm of pleasure, her pussy pulsing hard around the severed penis of her insect lover...

It felt right.

It was dark by the time she stirred. He never slept in the beds with her. He never slept at all. None of his kind did, but she had never felt safer in her entire life than she had since they had become allies.

She slept. He watched over her.

He was squatting against the wall now about eight feet away, facing the door. She stared at him for a long while, wondering how she ended up feeling this way about someone like him. Thrikin... Emotionless. Logical. Inhuman in almost every sense of the word.

"I am not young." He said, having long since taken note of her gaze, "You know this."

They were both silent. She knew it, but she didn't want to think about it.

"Soon I will pass into my twenty ninth cycle." He said quietly, and she could hear something almost like sadness in his voice, "The next cycles will see my body fail. My joints will harden. I will die."

She struggled for something to say, but he went on.

"Before my time, I wish to return to my people. I wish to partake in the dying rites, as my ancestors have." He paused, his head turned slowly to face her, "Will you stand at my side? I want you there, when the end comes."

She nodded slowly, head still on the pillow and her eyes filling with mist. There was only one answer. Only one thing she could say...

"I love you, Kith'ek."

He turned his head away from her again, "Such sentimentality is wasted upon me."

"And yet..." One of his larger hands came up, resting across his chest, "You are warm... inside of me."

She smiled silently, closing her eyes tight and letting the tears fall.

"Sleep... Mori." He said, letting his head come up to return to his vigil, "I will watch."