Wings Like Flowers Read online

  “Sexy Confessions to Venus”

  WINGS LIKE FLOWERS

  BY

  C.A. MATTHEWS

  www.VenusPress.com

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  WINGS LIKE FLOWERS

  Copyright © 2006 by C.A. Matthews

  Cover Art © 2006 by Wendon Smoot

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without permission, except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  For information, you can find us on the web at

  www.VenusPress.com

  Dedication:

  To Sharon, for keeping both my coffee and my inspiration, hot and fresh.

  ~ * ~

  Selenica was a hothouse world. The initial surveys from high orbit had confirmed what our eyes told intuitively; fully one fifth of the entire planet was rain forest. From one shallow ocean to another, the new planet burst with life. Laid out before us in blues and greens, and delineated on my computer screens in columns of figures. The bridge crew all watched the first glimpse of this new world with fascination.

  “What do you make of it, Officer Shara?” Captain Errod called back over his shoulder to me. As business assessor for the survey ship, the Carolina Swan, the Captain would take my advice on whether to mount a landing survey party.

  Captain Errod carried himself on the balls of his toes as though always ready for an attack. I think he would have preferred to captain a military vessel but had never had the opportunity. The military was small and offered fewer chances then the commercial companies did. After centuries exploring the stars, we were still, as far as we knew, alone in the universe. The only of God’s children to tread freely through the Milky Way as if it had been made for us. The military fought pirates, smugglers, claim jumpers, and would be tyrants; it had no need of a large fleet of starships. I think the Captain would have renamed the Carolina Swan ‘the Starmageddon’ if he could have, he was that sort of character.

  I brushed my hand down the front of my business suit as I moved over to his chair. His eyes were still on the wide-view screen. I was dressed severely, as specified by the company codes of practice. A dark grey jacket over a plain, white collarless shirt buttoned up to the throat, pencil thin skirt to match the jacket and flat-soled black shoes. Such clothes have been the standard dress of the corporate drone since before humanity spread beyond the reach of our own star. My dark, usually unruly hair was held back in a single ponytail. The company discouraged fraternization with the crews of explorer ships, but still it irked me that after a half-hearted and briefly repulsed attempt to seduce me when I first joined the crew, Captain Errod now took almost no notice of me.

  “The planet has only a low mineral content. A lot of what there is, will be locked up in the vegetation, and very difficult to obtain. There is the possibility of new sources of drugs from the plant life, although it is unlikely that we will find any chemicals that cannot be synthesized more cheaply. There is however, an excellent chance that there will be varieties of timber that will be of interest to the furniture and decorative production arms of the company.”

  “What is your overall assessment?” He turned his unemotional grey eyes to me.

  “Land a small search party, and take samples. The company is unlikely to pay a large bonus for such a common world type, but if it can be easily rendered commercially viable, I could recommend a percentage bonus based on projected future incomes for the next ten years or so. Better than finding an ice ball, but too low in metals to be worth more.”

  Errod scowled briefly. If they had made a good find, many of the crew could retire young. On a captains' percentage from a rich find, he could buy his own ship. Captain Errod ordered the shuttles prepared for a landing.

  ***

  Cleve was the ships biologist. He was six feet tall, and slim. With little to do during the journey time between systems, I had often watched him work out in the ship's gymnasium. His strong thighs driving him on the treadmill until sweat shone on his skin, or the muscles clenching in his buttocks and tightening across his back as he lifted weights. The company was generally interested in balls of rock veined with heavy metals that were inimical to life, and so Selenica was a joy to him. To most of the crew, one world was much the same as any other. They faced the individual challenges or problems of each new landing either stoically or with colorful dockside epithets, depending on their characters, but Cleve capered, around, bright-blue eyes filled with wonder at this vibrant jungle.

  To me, Selenica was a hell. Except where we had hacked and burned a clearing around the shuttlecraft, the rainforest was thick and oppressive. The short days and short nights as the world spun around the hot yellow star, threw my internal biological clock out of whack, always leaving me feeling irritable. The hot sunrise drew a thick mist from the forest floor as though the whole world breathed to the same rhythm, inhaling and exhaling together. And the bugs! Everywhere small life chattered, crawled, and flew, on six legs, on many legs, or on fine wings. Step out of one of the prefabricated shelters, and sweat would spring from my skin, centipedes would run over my shoes, and flying insects that defied description, tangled themselves in my hair. Insect repellent did almost nothing to deter them, swatting them only left my clothes covered in a disgusting slime.

  In the forest, above the endless chirruping of the insect life, I could hear crewmen and women taking samples, driving bores into the soft ground or sawing down trees for examples of their heartwood to take back home to be assessed. Oh, home. How good that word sounded right now.

  I stumbled through the interminable clouds of bugs to Cleve's makeshift laboratory. In relief, I closed the doors behind me. Whether to escape the humidity or the dreadful creatures, I would be glad to leave this world.

  Cleve came around one of the white plastic workbenches and grinned happily at me. His whole face lit up when he was enjoying himself, and his smile was always sincere. It came from his soul and shone out through his deep blue eyes. I brushed a few tenacious bugs from my sweat-sodden jacket. Cleve looked cool and relaxed dressed just in a casual tee-shirt. Though he was sweating too, it only made the white fabric mold to him more, outlining the muscles over his ribs and hinting at his nipples through the cloth. He helped me pick the last few insects from my clothes.

  “Have you noticed something about this world?” he enthused.

  “It's too hot?” I asked

  “You shouldn't wear these clothes. Wear something more suited to the environment.”

  “Company…”

  “...policy, I know,” he laughed, finished my sentence.

  “But there is no company in here, just you and I.” He started to unbutton my jacket, and passively I let him. I could smell the strong manly scent of him in the room, and felt another heat than that in the room, deep inside in my belly.

  “There is no mammalian life, or lizards.” He continued to talk, his voice soothing me as his strong hands slipped the heavy jacket off my shoulders and dropped it forgotten to the floor.

  I could feel the heat of the palms of his hands on my shoulders through the soft cotton of my blouse. The pleasant ache for his touch made my
nipples stand erect. This was the longest we had ever talked before and, while I had admired him in the gym, I hadn't considered taking him to my bed. It would have been a huge break in company discipline, but the heat sapped my will and strengthened my need for someone’s strong arms enfolding me.

  “For some reason, this world never developed any life forms higher than the insects. No arachnids, no birds. There is nothing here that even knows how to eat us. Nothing adapted to biting or drinking blood. It is an Eden, a Paradise, with no serpents.” The sibilant consonants of the last words were whispered against the soft skin of my throat. His gentle fingers had loosened the last buttons on my blouse, and he leaned forward kissing my naked flesh as he continued to speak, passionate about this world, and sharing that passion with me in the most primitive and elemental way. Naked to the waist, I groaned deep in my throat, an animal need and desire making me wet, deep natural drives forcing me to bury my hands in his hair.

  “There are beetles with shells like gems, and butterflies with wings like flowers.” The flow of his words was stemmed by his lips closing over one engorged nipple, his hot mouth only intensifying the fire in my belly. His strong hands gripped and kneaded my breasts, sensitive to my urging moans and hoarse directions. My own hands tugged and pulled at the waistband of his trousers, forcing the stubborn material down over his buttocks. His mouth left my breast as his erection sprang free of his clothes, and his lips met mine, both of us drowning in fiery, passionate kisses.

  I pulled him hard against me, with one hand gripped around his solid cock, like a bar of hot iron in my palm, my own trial by fire, and the fingernails on my other hand digging furrows into the hard muscles of his ass. His hands slid down my waist to my hips, pushing on my skirt and underwear, guiding them down my naked thighs until they fell into a dark pool at my feet.

  With his strong arms around my waist, he lowered us both to the floor, my hand never leaving the hard shaft of his manhood, our mouths never separating until there on the floor, my legs spread wantonly, I guided him deep into my centre. I arched my back as he entered me, breaking from the kisses in a deep moan of desire. His hands squeezed my breasts, his finger and thumb pinching my nipples as he thrust hugely between my widely spread thighs. His heat and his passion, for me and for life, filled me up and burned through me down to the tips of my fingers. I cried out and held him tightly to me, my legs wrapping around his calves, as he climbed to his peak, the rush of his climax carrying me away to my own gushing orgasm. The mixture of the wetness of my arousal and his juices ran down the cheeks of my buttocks, filling the room with the scent of sexual desire and fulfillment.

  We laid together in that humid room, hugging close on a bed made from our own discarded clothing, and knew the peace of not wanting to be anywhere else than right there, in that perfect moment.

  He looked at me calmly, his deep eyes serious.

  “I wish you could see the beauty of this world through my eyes, Shara. See Selenica as she is now, as I see her, before the loggers and the factory ships come and rape her.”

  I held him close and felt then the pain in him, such empathy for the doomed life of this world.

  ***

  The search party spent most of the next day looking for Cleve. I was with them when we finally did find him.

  Captain Errod, high above on the Carolina Swan, was concerned that a search for the missing biologist would tie him to this hothouse world, when he could be on his way to the next planet to be surveyed, one with perhaps a higher chance of a cash bonus.

  Cleve sat with his back against a tree, and at first, we didn't see him until stepping closer, we disturbed a cloud of butterflies that rose from him into the humid air. Discarded, by his hand, I noticed a small empty ampoule. That handsome, broad chest no longer rose and fell, and the passionate blue eyes had lost their depth. I looked at the butterflies that swarmed above us, driven from their rest in the dappled sunlight and shade. His words of yesterday came back to me. Wings like flowers. Unnoticed by the rest of the search party, I pressed the ampoule into the thick loam of the leaf litter.

  Back on the Carolina Swan, I gave a final report to Captain Errod.

  “We don't know what poisonous bug killed Cleve, and that makes the planet to risky to occupy without a lot of expensive research into the fauna. It is not a rich planet and so, if you agree, I'll mark it on our charts as not commercially viable.”

  Captain Errod didn't look particularly happy, but as I had said, it didn't have the potential to be a rich world.

  “I concur. But Shara…”

  “Yes, Captain?” My heart thudded. Did he suspect that Cleve had taken his own life hoping to save the life of this world? Did he suspect my complicity in the lie? When we buried Cleve in that glade where he had peacefully died, had someone found the discarded ampoule of poison?

  “Change the name on the chart. There is an old tradition for times like these. Call it Cleve's World.”

  “Cleve's World. Yes Captain.”

  Did Captain Errod know? I can't say, but I respect him more now. He is a deeper man than I first thought. Perhaps I will take a drink with him the next time we reach a civilized world, and to hell with company policy.

  About the Author

  C.A. Matthews began writing in April 2004. He started writing following a change in jobs last spring and, despite having a cat that likes to sit on his keyboard when he's typing, he is slowly getting the hang of this authoring lark. C.A. lives in a gray steel town in the north of England, with his cat, a rabbit and two guinea pigs, affectionately known as the Rock Band!

  Also available from C.A. Matthews and Venus Press…

  Time & Again

  Only Love and Evil Are Eternal (sequel to Time & Again)

  All Hallowes

 

 

  C.A. Matthews, Wings Like Flowers

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