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Kiraling – Part 11 (Chapter 43-44)

Written by anonxyzus :: [Sunday, 06 May 2018 00:08] Last updated by :: [Sunday, 06 May 2018 13:26]

Chapter 43

Wednesday started out like Tuesday. I left the cabin for a run, this time accompanied by Gloria from the start. When I returned I did some exercises, sit-ups, pushups, a little bit of weight work with Gloria as my spotter. She only needed one hand to spot me. Seriously, I was bench-pressing 225 lbs. and when I was finished she lifted it off me with one hand. Then it was time for breakfast.

No meds today, and though she was eyeing the bag of chocolate chips, I talked her into banana pancakes instead. She liked them, but not as much as the chocolate chip variety.

After breakfast we went out back to resume hand to hand combat training. She said my aggressiveness and reflexes were much improved when I was off the meds. Johnson said he could have told her that if he’d been around yesterday.

Then it was back into the house for more classroom work on detecting and avoiding surveillance. My thought process is always a little fuzzy when I am on my meds. Not so, or at least less so, when I’m not taking them. And so, it was obvious to me that there was a reason behind this training, though I couldn’t get Gloria to be any less vague about it, even when I pushed.

After the “classroom” training I decided to mow the lawn and do some cleanup around the property. Gloria wanted to make brownies. So, I walked her through the process, asked her not to burn the cabin down and left her to get some yard work done. It wasn’t long before I could smell the brownies. Brownies. Not burnt or burning brownies. Just good old brownies.

By lunch time Gloria had made four large batches of brownies. She’d used up all the cocoa in the pantry. I made a sandwich and had a brownie. Then I got into an argument with Gloria about how I should be putting on weight. I lost the argument and ate another brownie.

After lunch I continued to work in the yard until Xara arrived.

“Do I smell brownies?”

“Oh, high Xara. I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

“Huh?”

“The brownies are in the kitchen. Go on in and help yourself.”

She came out about 10 minutes later, with a little chocolate smeared on her lips – I realized then that since that day in the cave this was the first time I’d ever seen her face less than perfect – and I made a little gesture with my fingers and she licked the chocolate off. Then she said, “Time for your next lesson Joe. Are you ready?”

“No.” Dixon said, “Hell no!” Johnson agreed.

“No Xara, I’m not.”

“Joe, mom wants this taken care of. You’ve got to trust me.”

“No trust pheromones! Kara and Sharon don’t have them”, said Gloria.

Rather than describe the argument that ensued, I’ll just tell you that I lost.

“Should I put on the racing suit and helmet?”

“No, we’re going to take it easy to begin with. Just a little stroll in the clouds.”

I was sure she was kidding me.

She picked me up and cradled me in her arms, like an adult would a child. I like to think of myself as a reasonably enlightened man. Equal pay for equal work. Women in the infantry. But being held like that in her arms, more or less against my will, was feeling just a little bit emasculating. (Are there degrees of emasculation or is it an all or nothing kind of thing? Never mind. I don’t want to know.)

She told me to put my arms around her neck, that I could hold on as tightly as I needed to, but to avoid putting my head in front of her face, because she needed to see. And then we started to go up. And up, and up and up.

“How high are we going Xara?”

“See that cumulus cloud up there? That’s where we’re going.”

I started to panic. I started to look down. Johnson said he was going to lose his lunch. I felt mine trying to come up.

“Don’t look down Joe! Look at me! Look! At! Me! Breath Joe. Breath.”

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. I looked at her and she gave me a beautiful smile as I started to inhale and exhale. And before I knew it we were in the cloud. It was like being in a very thick fog and the only way I knew which way was down was the pull of gravity.

“Look around Joe. Look up, look down, look all around.”

I did, and I started to relax.

“Is it easier for you, Joe, when you can’t see anything?”

“It is!”

“Good! Joe, I want this to work for you. I want this to work for us. I love flying! I feel so free when I soar through the heavens, and there is no one I can share that with Joe.”

Well, that was alarming. “You’ve never flown with Terrans Xara?”

“I have Joe. But for mom’s work, with Eric, or for rescues. Never with someone I could really share it with. I want to share it with you Joe. I want this to be something you and I can do together. I want you to feel the freedom I feel when I fly.

“You’ve shown me how beautiful the earth can be when we walk through the forests. I want you to see how beautiful it is from the sky.”

My mind was racing. There were implications here! Dixon and Johnson were telling me to think, think hard. She can fly with her mother or with Sharon. Isn’t she sharing it with them when they fly together? No, this is something deeper. This is relationship stuff. I’m not sure I really believed Sharon when she told me Xara had a crush on me, but I did understand that for Xara, flying with her was taking our relationship to a next level.

“Xara, aren’t there a lot of boys at school who would be thrilled to do this with you?”

“That’s sort of complicated. Most of the boys at school just want to get into my pants.”

“Most of them?”

“All of them. And the teachers too. And the custodians. And that’s okay, there’s always plenty to choose from if I just want a quickie. Or there were before I hurt that boy and mom put her foot down. Mom was trained in how to have unprotected sex with Terrans, I thought …”

“Wait, unprotected sex?”

“Without gold.”

“Oh.”

“I thought, since I’m part Galen, and am stronger and faster than mom that I probably have more control than she does. I don’t. If he hadn’t been screaming so loudly I wouldn’t have even noticed. I could have crushed him to death. At a minimum my orgasm would have squished his penis.”

Dixon said that I’d better rethink that emasculation situation.

“And then there’s the whole ‘hiding in plain sight’ thing. We must keep the truth about ourselves a secret, and very few boys are disciplined enough, or smart enough to keep that secret. In Junior High I had a crush on a boy. I invited him to come home with me and was trying to impress him by showing him some simple stuff, levitating, crushing a rock, melting steel, and mom came home and caught us. She put the fear of Skietra into that poor boy. She grabbed him by his shirt and flew to the top of our cathedral ceiling and told him that if he ever told anyone about us she’d fly him to the top of Mt. Everest and leave him there. He was so frightened he started crying and wet himself. To this day if he sees me walking towards him he crosses the street.”

“Would your mom really do that?”

“I didn’t think so before that. But now I’m not sure. She’s really very serious about maintaining our secrets and she can be extremely scary and intimidating when she wants to. But she was real nice about that Jorgenson kid, she paid his hospital bills anonymously. She said his parents couldn’t afford very good insurance. She says it’s her job to protect Terrans, not bully them.”

“Sounds like she bullied that boy pretty good.”

“She felt really bad about it. She offered to drive him home, but he was so scared he just ran out of the house after she put him down. I think her demonstration was as much for my benefit as it was for his. You know, a, ‘this is what happens if you aren’t discrete’ kind of thing.

“But it’s different with you Joe. You’re Kiraling! You’ve kept our secret and mom thinks of you as part of the family. I want to share everything about myself with you, and flying is a big part of that.”

“I think I’d like that Xara.”

Her face lit up with a huge smile.

“But I’m not sure I can overcome my fear of flying.”

“Have you always been afraid of flying Joe?”

“No. Not until I was strapped to a stretcher in a helicopter that was shot down. Did you know about that?”

She gasped. “Mom said something along those lines, but I didn’t put it together. Oh my God Joe, no wonder you’re afraid of flying. You aren’t a (unpronounceable Velorian or Arion word for pussy) at all!”

“Well, thank you.”

“Mom says you have to learn to fly with us. I really want you to be able to do that and enjoy it. I’m sure we can overcome your anxiety. And when it’s just you and me I can help with my trust pheromones.

“Now prepare yourself. I’m going to go horizontal now and start flying around in circles, gain and lose altitude, and just introduce you to the forces.”

It wasn’t too bad. She stayed in the cloud, so I still couldn’t see anything. I could tell which way we were going by the direction of the acceleration. I was pulled left when she went right, right when she went left, down when she went up, and less down when she went down.

“Close your eyes and tuck your chin into me Joe. We’re going to come out of the cloud and head back down.”

I did as I was told and before I knew it we were vertical again and she put me down on the ground.

“Was that too bad Joe?”

“Was I screaming?”

“No. You didn’t even whimper.”

“Then I guess it wasn’t too bad.”

“Great! Put the helmet and suit on. We’re going up again!”

I thought I’d had enough for the day. Or the rest of my life, but since I knew how that argument was going to end I just kept my mouth shut and suited up.

Xara said, “We’re going to go faster. The suit and helmet will help you stay warm and comfortable. You’ll feel me adjusting my grip and hold on you as I anticipate the forces you’ll be subjected to. Nothing I do will be the slightest bit dangerous. Keep your visor down when we’re moving. Okay?”

Before I could answer she picked me up and we were off. I pulled my visor down and then wrapped my arms around her neck. I could tell by the force of the wind buffeting me that we were moving quite a bit faster than we had before. I could feel my body being pressed into her breasts as we accelerated. They didn’t have as much give as I would have thought.  My ears popped. And then they popped again, and then they popped again. The air I was breathing was getting colder. My eyes were clamped shut as tightly as I could. I think I may have been screaming, I’m not sure. And then we were going down, and decelerating. I went from being pushed against her breasts to being pushed against her arms. I thought I was going to fly out of them, but then she shifted from horizontal to vertical and set me down. I opened my eyes and looked around. We were standing in a snow field. And obviously very high up.

“Where are we Xara?”

“Glacier Peak. The summit. Can you breathe okay?”

“Yeah. We’re, what, 10,500 feet or so?”

“About that.”

The view was spectacular.

“Xara, this is amazing!”

“Do you like it Joe?”

“Like it! Xara, I love it! Can we explore a bit?”

“Sure. What do you want to do?”

And we walked around all over the summit. Or Xara did anyway. In the more dangerous spots she’d put an arm around me and keep me close to her. Couldn’t stay too long though. The suit kept me comfortable, but I was wearing sneakers, and the temperature was well below freezing. I told Xara my feet were getting cold. She used her heat vision to warm them up, then we left.

This time, on the return trip, I’m pretty sure I didn’t scream. I may have even opened my eyes once or twice for a second or two.

When we got back to the cabin Gloria was waiting for us with a plate of brownies.

That evening we went shopping again because Gloria saw a recipe for chocolate fudge in one of my mom’s old cookbooks.


To: Joint Intelligence Committee for Extraterrestrial Threats  

From: General William Morrison

Subject: Status of negotiations with Kara Zor’El regarding Liaison Agreement

Since the failed attempt to bug and surveil the residence of Sgt. Joseph G. Ricci, Kara Zor’El has inserted additional demands regarding the Liaison Agreement. She is now insisting that she exercise some control over both sides of the arrangement.

  1. Sgt. Ricci will be detached to and subordinate to her.
  2. Any orders for Sgt. Ricci from the U.S. Government must be first approved by her.
  3. Sgt. Ricci will retain pay and privileges accorded to him by his rank.
  4. The Army will continue to provide Sgt. Ricci’s medical care.
  5. Sgt. Ricci will be our single point of contact with her and her organization.
  6. Sgt. Ricci will only communicate with a single point of contact on our side. The new demand is that she must approve that contact.
  7. New demand: Sgt. Ricci will be accorded the courtesy of going before a promotion board and will be evaluated for promotion on his merits. We countered with assigning Sgt. Ricci a 351L MOS with promotion to WO-1 and appropriate training. Ms. Zor’El accepted this.

CiC has agreed to this arrangement. He has also warned me that the members of this committee will be held personally responsible for any “junk that gets dropped into the Rose Garden.”

No date has been set for the formalizing of this agreement. When I asked Ms. Zor’El to commit to a date her reply was “after the prom.” No one I have discussed this matter with understands the reference to “the prom.”


Chapter 44

 

I am getting so sick of chocolate.

Thursday’s routine was no different than the day before. But I was starting to run out of things to do around the cabin, so I was happy to see Kara and Xara drop out of the sky at about 4 pm. And not surprised at all when they walked right past me to see what chocolate goodies Gloria had for them.

“See mom, she’s turning into a pretty good cook.”

“Yeah, if all you want is chocolate”, said Johnson.

“Two of you today ladies? To what do I owe this great honor?”

“It’s graduation day Joe. You’re going flying with mom.”

“Okay. Why?”

“I want to see for myself that you can handle it Joseph.”

“Handle it? If you mean can I keep my eyes closed, hang on for dear life and scream my head off, then yes, I suppose you could say that I can handle it.”

“You don’t scream that much”, said Xara.

“And he didn’t piss or shit himself even once”, said Gloria.

“Or puke”, added Xara.

“I’ll judge how well you do with it Joseph. And please, if you must puke, don’t do it into the wind.”

“You guys are so funny. Racing suit and helmet?”

“No. I’ll wrap you in my cape.”

“Mom’s old school Joe.”

And Kara took off her cape and started stretching it. I picked up an end of it and tried to stretch it, but it wouldn’t give at all. But Kara had no problem doing it. Then she walked up to me and put it around me like a big blanket, picked me up and had me pull it over my head and we started up.

“Keep your head wrapped up in the cape Joseph.”

 I did, then I wrapped my arms around her neck.

“No, keep your arms inside the cape.”

“But Xara let me hang on to her.”

“You’re not flying with Xara and you’re not wearing a racing suit. You need to keep your entire body inside the cape for warmth and to avoid wind-burn.”

“I’ll be with you Joe”, said Xara, “nothing to worry about.”

“I’ve haven’t dropped a Terran yet Xara. You don’t need to come with us.”

“I’m coming.” And that was that.

I pulled my arms inside the cape and Kara adjusted it so it was like I was in a cocoon. We lifted off and immediately started to accelerate. She was turning, going up, going down, slowing down, speeding up and I think we did a couple of loops. I nearly lost my lunch. And then we landed. Kara took the cape off me and gave it a snap and it went back to its regular shape.

“It would be nice if you could do this without screaming Joseph, but I think you’re ready.”

“I didn’t realize I was screaming. Ready for what?”

“Ready for any contingency that requires one of us to take you someplace by air.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“No.”

“No, you can’t be, or no, you won’t be?”

“Both. I want to see you fight now.”

“What?”

“Fight. I want to see what Gloria has taught you.”

So Gloria came off the back porch and we sparred a bit. When we finished Gloria said, “He is slower when he is taking his medications. Poor reflexes. But without the medications he should be able to defend himself against Terrans.”

“Gloria, its only been a few days. I could defend myself against ‘Terrans’ before.”

“Yes”, said Gloria, “but now you can defend yourself better.”

Kara and Xara brought a change of clothes and Kara took us out to dinner that evening. After dinner, back at the cabin, Kara gave Gloria plane tickets and told me I had an early morning flight out of SeaTac. The prom was being held Saturday.

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