As the last moments of Warner's sojourn in the punitive quadrant tick away I miss him before he is gone. Prior to the unannounced arrival of his pretty stalker friend Parker, a Command officer, Warner was silly and often flirted with me. Now we don’t get a moment alone and Warner lets her stay with him in his guest-dom.

The morning ends when the door of my dom slides open. Warner wears only a dark gray loxxet. It barely caches his intimates. “Parker took my clothes,” he explains, “when she went to the toilet. She'll come here looking for me. We have to go!”

I wear only my sleepover. Warner, nearly naked, is oblivious to gawkers as he peeks around corners to avoid Parker. He leads us to the transator.

“We can't go in there, Warner. It's forbidden.”

“It's forbidden to leave your quadrant without sanction,” he corrects me as the door slides open. “If you don't know the input code of your destination, you go directly to Command-Detention for questioning.”

The transator door shuts us in. An entire wall is comprised of illuminated buttons which Warner taps, some too high for him to reach, so I help. We begin moving. He doesn't speak until the transator stops. “Quad Nil,” he says as the door opens to a dimly lit corridor. “No-man's land.” I step out. Warner presses more buttons and explains that he is changing the quad's input code.

As we scout out the vacant quadrant Warner regales me with tales of famous explorers and heroes, both of planet Earth and the Earthicus fleet. “But our Commandant, Fierce Arden, is the greatest hero of all time.”

I scoff. “He’s no hero.” I cross my arms. “In Quad Pune we call him the 'Dread Fierce Arden' for imprisoning us because we’re descended from criminals.”

Warner crosses his arms and mimics how I said “Dread Fierce Arden”. He leaps atop a large round table, raises his arms and bellows “The Dread Fierce Arden” (the words echo through the empty courtyard) “is no hero at all!” He beckons me to join him.

I slip off my sleepover to stand nakedly beside him. “We are not afraid of you, Dread Fierce Arden!” I raise my arms. “We are the heroes of our lives!”

Warner wraps his arm around my back. “Yes we are.” He hops down from the table.

Exploring further we come upon a gymnasium. It has a trackladder course which we run beside each other, me in the nude, until Warner races on ahead, all the way around until he is again at my side. “I gotta get you in shape,” he teases. He jumps to the overhead ladder and does a spinning trick. My eyes dart from his firm torso to his joggling loxxet. His feet hook my armpits. “Grab hold,” he says. I put my hands to his furry legs and Warner lifts me off the ground. As he swings me I don't know whether he is playing or showing off, but being so close to the front of his loxxet, I don't care. I smell the piquant heat emanating from his intimates; my fingertips touch the base of his firm buttocks.

In the shower room Warner strips off his loxxet, flipping it away with a toe. For the first time I see his cogstem, thick and proportional to his small frame. If Warner and I are ever going to be intimate, surely it will be here, while we are both naked and alone in this uninhabited quadrant. We shower beneath the same spigot as he explains waterfallings on Earth and the concept of ‘mist’, trying unsuccessfully to blow a ‘mist’ at me, drawing closer with each attempt until only the water cascading over our bare skin separates us. He puts his hands behind his head and lifts his chin. I put my hands on his wonderfully taut biceps. I slide my hands down to his muscular chest. He does not protest. My hands continue down his water-slickened skin to his navel. My sight, however, is on the prize beneath: his strengthening cogstem. My fingers breach his pubic hair and I make contact with the root of his robust stem….

A heavy splash of water breaks my spell. Warner, now laughing, has spat a mouthful of water at me! He leaves me beneath the spigot, retrieves his loxxet and steps into it.

I stretch my sleepover on a bench. “Maybe we can talk for a while.” I leave room for him. “Then we’ll explore some more.”

Warner is pensive. “I know what you really want, Shane.” He straddles the bench. “I want it, too.” He stands. “But I’m afraid to be with anyone. Something happened and now—” (a twitch of an eye) “I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a High—” Warner stops himself. “His name was….”

Warner's face tenses, perhaps stifling another twitch. He darts from the locker room. I grab my sleepover and pursue him. When I find him, in the courtyard, I am winded. He stands facing the big round table. “'We are the heroes of our lives',” he says. “'Heroes don't run'." He turns to me. "I've never talked about it with anyone.”

“You don't have to now.”

“I'm telling you because you're so much like him. His name was Niko. He was a Command officer. One night he was on watch, while I was in my bed, and I was writhing beneath the sheet, close to su'nova. Niko shook his head at me: ‘You’ll make a mess’. So I pulled the sheet away. My cog was at full power. He wanted to see; I knew.”

Warner takes my hand. “His fingers were long, like yours.” I lift my index finger. Two of his smaller fingers stroke it.

“Niko folded his uniform and got in bed with me. I was so excited I pulled off his loxxit; his cogstem was already strong. At supernova my seedwyt went all over him.” Warner twitches. “We were using the ‘wyt… to do things—” He reminisces, unshared thoughts. “Niko and I were so enraptured we didn’t see.…” It’s becoming a struggle for Warner to continue.

“Didn't see—”

“Parker's father, High Protector to—to the Dread Fierce Arden.” Another twitch. “He yanked Niko out of my bed. Naked. Flailing. Sobbing.” Warner sweeps a hand from chest to stem: “My seedwyt was still on him; was in my—” His bottom lip quivers. “I never saw Niko again.” Warner bites his lower lip. “I think” (Warner swallows a swelling in his throat) “he’s dead.” A single tear rolls and a stream follows. “He’s dead, Shane.” I pull Warner to myself. “He’s dead.” Warner heaves with bitter grief. “Niko. I’m so sorry, Niko.”

As his weeping abates Warner breaks our embrace. I take hold of his hand and caress his fingers.

“I don't want anything to happen to you, Shane.”

My hands move to his bare arms. “Warner… I really like you.”

“And I....”

Warner eases away. “You need to know” (he wipes his eyes) “that I… I’m—” He hops to a bench then jumps to the table. With mock pomp he proclaims, “I am the Dread Fierce Warner!” A mischievous grin emerges. “You must do what I say!”

“Whatever you command, I will obey.”

“Let me watch you,” he begins, faltering, “suck your fingers.” I do so seductively then offer a finger up to him. Warner kneels on the table to take it. I take one of his. We suck and playfully bite one another.

“Now, my Shane,” he says, standing, “let me see how strong you can make your cog.”

I stroke my cogstem and its vitality and strength surge. Warner stares and adjusts what is hidden beneath his loxxet. I must see him in his strength, so I change the game: I jump upon the bench and boom, “Do you not know—I am the Dread Fierce Shane! What is this weapon you hide in your loxxet? Strip naked, my Warner, so that I might see you and have my way with you!”

Warner furrows his brow.

“Now I say!”

Warner complies, leaving the loxxet at his feet. He stands naked atop the table. “My weapon,” he says, hands at his side. His cog rises with arresting jolts. Its thickness exquisitely compliments the muscles he is endowed with. I marvel at his raw perfection. With his hands Warner covers himself. I look up. He appears impish. “Are you still the Dread Fierce Shane?”

“I am! Show me how you handle your weapon.”

As Warner demonstrates his skills the right side of his face scrunches up, registering his pleasure.

A string of clear man-oil attaches to his palm and slickens his fleshy sword. His mouth falls open.

“Now stop!” As much as I want to see the ecstasy of su’nova in his face, I want to be the cause of it. I order his hands away. From the tip of his cogstem another string of man-oil descends.

We’re both too close to supernova. I have to be with him now. I leap to the tabletop. Instinctively he covers himself. I whisper, “You cannot hide yourself from me, my Warner. I claim you as my own.” I take his hands in mine, pull them to my backside. Our cogs meet. I release his hands; they remain upon my buttocks. I wrap my arms around him and we flick our strong stems together.

I ease away. “You will now let me kiss you.”

He nods, hesitantly.

I first kiss his nose; then gently, his lips. “Kiss me back, Warner.”

He is bewildered as to how. “I've never—” he says. I take the lead, letting him feel my tongue probe his. He learns quickly, passionately kissing me back as he presses his body harder to mine.

My lips feel his cooing. My hand fondles his smooth, sturdy cog and we both moan. My other hand navigates the contours and the crevice of his backside. My mouth latches onto his neck, letting him feel my teeth. When I begin sucking, he quivers.

I turn him around, press my strong cog to his ass and whisper “Trust me.” A halting nod of assent. I rub the length of my cogstem between his cheeks; my man-oil lubricates him. Excitement wells. Eager to enter him I crouch, but the position is not working.

Speaking as myself rather than Dread Shane I tell him to kneel. At once Warner is on his hands and knees. I get down behind him. My nose probes between his cheeks, intoxicating me. I accumulate spittle in my mouth. With Warner I gladly use my tongue, preparing the way. I poke in the bulbous head of my stem.

“Ahhh-oww, Shh-ahhh! Shane, Shane! you're too big for me!”

But I’m in. “I'm just right for you.”

I withdraw with a pop, enter again, Warner shrieks.

I know that when I fully plant my stem and he receives my seed I’ll want to see his face and not the back of his head. “On your back.”

Warner turns on the table and sits. He shakes his head, expressing doubt.

The Dread Fierce Shane will have none of that: “On your back!” I now believe I’m Fierce Shane. Warner must believe, too: He not only relents, he spreads his legs. As I move in, however, he retracts, bracing for my impact. I see the formation of a tear, fear in the face of bravado, exhilaration battling dread. “Don't be afraid, Warner.”

“I am not afraid,” he intones.

Again I enter him. His face now exclaims the pain that his mouth restrains. I withdraw, enter again, again and again, seeing my stem go further and further into him with each thrust. Warner, I know, is experiencing pleasure with pain… but the strength of his stem is gone.

I slow to a gentler pace while stroking him, wanting him to su’nova as I simultaneously plant my seedwyt. Warner's pelvis rocks in time with my strong cog. He now has the pleasure without the pain and pounds his hips, wanting all of me.

“My heart is breathing!” he blurts. “I’m alive, Shane!” His cogstem is now at full power, his fruit gathered up for launch of his seedwyt. There will be no stopping him. I thrust with abandon. He stretches his fists over his head: “I am the Dread Fearless Arden!”

Warner groans, increasingly louder, the sounds of his rapture reverberating through the quad. He casts his eyes in all directions as if to discern where the sounds return from.

“Oh, oh, oh—it’s happening!” His head snaps back. “Oh! Shane! Oh! Ah! Ahhh! Parker! Ohhhhh!” I put a finger in his mouth, he sucks; supernova ejects his seedwyt to his nose, chin, chest, stomach. Warner uses my finger to wipe the seedwyt at his nose into his mouth. His tongue produces the catch and spreads it on his lips as he returns my finger to my own mouth. My supernova is triggered. Warner, wide-eyed, absorbs it all, meeting my thrusts.

I catch my breath, lick ‘wyt from Warner’s chest and chin. He stares blissfully into the distance behind me. When I lick his mouth he takes me in his arms and kisses me with his naughty tongue. As I lay upon him the seedwyt coating his stomach is glue joining us.

I ask, “Do you always call out Parker's name when you su'nova?”

“Not always,” he says. “Just when she's watching.” He gives me another kiss then scoots away.

From behind me: “Bravo!” The voice is Parker's. “Bravo, Justice!”

Warner hops from the table.

“You got what you always wanted.”

Warner grabs my sleepover from the floor and throws it over his head as Parker meets him beside the table.

Parker gives me a dismissive glance as I roll on my back and put on Warner's loxxet. She asks Warner, “Did you get your fill? Or is this going to be a regular practice for you?”

Warner presses and pats the sleepover beneath his ass. He must feel my seedwyt dribbling down his leg.

“What will your father think of you,” she says, handing him folded clothes, “when he finds out you've made yourself the garden of a Pune?”

The clothes are the uniform of a Command officer! Warner snatches them.

“I’ll never get my ‘fill’,” Warner tells her. “And I don't care what he – or you, or anyone else – thinks!” Warner speaks to her in words I do not know. I see in her face that she doesn't like what he is saying. She appears stricken as Warner goes to the transator.

I start after him. Parker grabs my arm. “No.” It's the first time she's ever directly spoken to me or touched me. My mind is abuzz, and Parker has answers, but I won’t ask her my questions.

When she escorts me to the transator new questions arise, but if I am being led to my doom, I will go in silence. Parker taps buttons and mutters, “I hate him.”

She takes me to my dom. In the sanctuary of my place on Earthicus VII, I speak: “Where is Warner?”

She says nothing.

“So,” I say, “he's a Command officer, too.”

“You have no inkling of the trouble you’ve caused.” She paces my dom. “I am in so much trouble!”

“You're in trouble?”

“With my father! I'm to be a suitable lifemate – or find a suitable mate – to bear the seed of our next Commandant; one to carry on the Arden name.” As I process these words she says, “You are unsuitable for that purpose, but Justice has chosen you.”

“Justice—”

“Justice Warner Arden! Are you such a dolt you don’t realize you've impacted the son of your Commandant? Or how furious he will be!”

Her jaw is clenched. “Justice designated me—“ (she is loath to continue) “to be your protector.”

She paces, calming herself. “As High Protector to Vice Commandant Arden, I obey his orders.” She goes to the door, which slides open. “Your belongings will be collected. Say farewell to your other Punes. Justice will soon call you to Quad Command.” She turns to leave.

“Parker.”

She stops.

“I did not dismiss you.”

Parker still has her back to me and says nothing.

In my Dread Shane voice I tell her, “You will never again refer to me as a Pune.”

Parker re-enters the room. The door slides shut.

We lock eyes. I will not back down.

“Forgive me if I—” she says with the creeping trace of a smile, “—if I sometimes remember who you were.”

I accept this as her acknowledgement of my new status. I nod.

She appears to scrutinize me and deliberate over whether to tell me her verdict. “Why you? Someone he just met. In Quad Pune. Over the years Justice and I… have come so close. He su'novas with my name on his lips, but he never lets me touch him. He never touches me.”

By these words Parker has made herself vulnerable. I recall what Warner told me in his moment of vulnerability and tell her, “He didn't want anything to happen....”

“But why not?”

I make myself vulnerable by answering: “He loves you too much.”

I can tell Parker doesn't understand what I’m saying, but she's glad I said it.

“I'll see to it that Justice finds his suitable garden,” I tell her, “to carry on his noble name. You're in no trouble, Parker.”

She snaps her arms together in the crisp salute of a Command officer. “My name is Marissa.”

“You may go,” I say with a nod, “Mars.”

“‘Mars’. The god of war,” she says. “I like that.” She leaves.

I am alone aboard Earthicus VII. I have no farewells as my last moments in Quad Pune tick away. I miss Warner. I wonder if he is mine.

___________________

Dedicated to Andy Lant

RIP November 16, 2015