Space, the final frontier - or so they said. These days it doesn't feel nearly as exciting or dangerous as the adventure the recruiter had sold me on. A vast, pristine expanse of unexplored space, he had said, countless mysteries hidden out of sight and whizzing through the void at a million miles an hour and just waiting to be claimed. Well, turns out all the mystery left in the belt for a rockhopper was what the warning beacons around a certain slow-moving asteroid meant, or where the low-frequency radiation messing with the drone controls was coming from. In fact, almost all of the excitement on our voyage has occurred within the pressurised cabins of the freighter, not without. Two and a half years was the estimated mission time: about 4 months travel from Horizon Industry's - the company that employs me - subsidiary shipyards orbiting over Mars to our designated strip in the inner asteroid belt, and then about 6 months return travel directly back to the Lunar processing plants after we fill our cargo holds with the precious asteroidal resources. My role in all this is as the prestigious role of pilot, controlling the freight vessel in its voyage, and the various drones performing mundane but vital roles during our mission. In reality, it's hardly as involved as the TV shows make it seem, though I do get a six point something percent share of our haul's value, on top of my initial signing sum, so I guess I can't complain about my job being too easy. On the initial journey, we spent almost the entirety sleeping in transit pods while the vessel's computers coasted us towards our destination, our metabolisms slowed nearly to a halt through a series of drugs and cryotherapy to keep us fresh for the actual work and save on life-support resources. I was the only one woken up during that period, once a month to check that our trajectory was holding and that no serious damage had gotten past the Whipple shields. Of course, nothing had happened, only a single minor adjustment to track us further around an irregular comet. Perhaps I should expand a little on the 'we' I keep mentioning. The company I work for - Horizon Industry - has a very open employment policy, aiming to incorporate all races, and species, equally into its workforce. Every single company project has a representation of nearly every sapient life form we know of, and anti-discrimination seminars are mandatory upon signing with the company. Given that, I was perfectly comfortable working alongside any manner of alien, though I must admit I wasn't expecting many of the... challenges in living in extreme proximity to three of the reptilian Shadel. Specifically, three females. Sisters, actually, all from the same clutch. Ta'xla, the eldest by a day or two, and Ta'kel, the most temperate of the three, are the only ones on board that technically deserve the name 'rockhopper'. As we come to a new asteroid, they're the two that don their pressure suits and search for any fault lines or crevices invisible to the freighter's scanners, maintaining the semi-autonomous drones scooping samples from the asteroid's surface, and planting explosives to crack the smaller asteroids open. The third and youngest, Ta'tyr, stays aboard with me, watching the sensor arrays and archiving data on all our hauls for company records. Like I said, I was prepared for some of the oddities of alien behaviour, hell, I was even a little excited to lock myself into a tin can with three beautiful - in their own ways - alien women. Rumours of promiscuity being the norm were far from uncommon around the flight academy. But almost immediately after we had all woken up from the transit pods, things started to happen that I definitely hadn't been prepared for. One of the first things you learn in space is that personal space barely exists. The second thing - assuming you're sharing a can with three Shadel - is that whatever personal space you still have is fair game in their eyes. They're like heat magnets, sidling up to you wherever you are, pressing themselves against you, writhing, wriggling. It's unbearable, and the biggest problem is that they don't see a problem with it. You're just a hot water bottle with legs, and they don't even have the decency to take turns. Consequently, my daily routine is somewhat complicated when I can have up to three scaled creatures - who are at least, in Ta'tyr's case, a head taller than me, and at most, in Ta'xla's, nearly twice my weight - literally hanging from me throughout the day. Simpler actions, like studying, or watching programs beamed out from Terra, aren't much more difficult - and I'll freely admit here that I've grown quite comfortable with our arrangement in those moments. The sole lounge in the entertainment habitat is cushioned enough that Ta'xla's weight isn't unbearable when we have gravity, and big enough that I'm able to easily lie down if they coil around me properly. Surprisingly, Shadel scales are actually quite smooth, and incredibly soft along their underbellies, almost like liquid silk when they shift across me. Despite their distant natures - physical contact isn't as personal for them as it is for humans and most of the other sophonts, but with them there is a distinction between huddling for warmth and more intimate touching - they don't seem to mind being stroked, and I find it quite... soothing, letting my fingers follow along the unique ridges trailing down their spines while we watch TV. Like petting a dog, though I'm sure they won't be happy with the comparison. More involved tasks can become quite complex in comparison, though. Exercise, for example - a favourite for them, as the raised temperature of my already comparatively-burning-hot body acts like a steroid for their cold-blooded systems, creating some... unusual personality swings at times - is quite straining, despite it being one of the few times where they will agree to use me one at a time. What that does mean, however, is that while one is wrapped around me in what would be a quite compromising position were they a human, repeatedly bouncing around my body as I exercise, another two are only a couple metres away, contorting their own bodies through the machines' rigours. Even if they weren't remotely considered attractive - and they very definitely are, although in a distinctly inhuman fashion - two hours every day of such treatment would be enough to break most men, especially those trapped millions of kilometres from any real human interaction. Sure, maybe they don't have breasts like human women or several of the other alien species, and maybe they look closer to some dinosaur of prehistoric times than an unmodded Terran, but there is beauty in many things, and close proximity to three such women has given me a very different viewpoint than I had held back in the academy. The way their scales glint in the cabin's artificial light, for instance, is utterly remarkable. Three sisters, all carrying a dark green along their backs, like the foliage of a deep, Terran forest, a new ray of light showing a slightly different hue as their scales flex. The green pales as it reaches closer to their midriffs, lightening along their sides until it reaches the colour of young, fresh leaves, almost yellow. Streaks of true yellow and orange begin to line their undersides, patterns of ruddy stripes and spots marking their chests in unique collections. Each sister's pattern is different here: Ta'xla has a large ovoid of mixed orange in the middle of her chest, almost untouched by the surrounding stripes of yellows. Ta'kel's colours actually fade slightly, not nearly as vibrant as her sisters, though fitting her placid, temperate nature, and still quite attractive to the eye. Ta'tyr's stripes are thin comparatively to her sisters, unbroken lines of green streaking across her chest between the yellows, but the little stripes travel far further up her throat than the others, coloured scales even creeping up across her snout. Claws and spinal ridges, even their tails can become mesmerising in the right light. Evolutionary traits that lost much value in their species' road to sapience, but carried through the generations by sexual selection, much like the peacock's own magnificent tail. Supple and sinuous, like the rest of their bodies. The Shadel, I've learned, are incredibly flexible when they wish to be, unlike many other reptilian creatures, bodies packed with taut muscle and layers of smooth fat. They do carry at least one human-like sexual characteristic, however: being a bipedal egg-laying species, and one that does so in clutches of roughly half a dozen, leads to an extremely pronounced set of hips. Wide and heavy-set, thick muscles under a large portion of their body's fat storage, swaying and pendulous even in the zero gravity environment. All too human, but deeply exaggerated and utterly undeniable. Ah, Ta'xla and Ta'kel are ready for EVA, I guess I'll finish this here for now. I suppose it does help a little - writing it all out makes things seem a little more sane. I hope my mother never reads this journal... END PERSONAL ENTRY "H, Benjamin", #04/001 ----- The beeping of my clip-on communicator gives way to the helmet chatter of the two Shadel sisters' suits as they finish checking seals and pre-breathing exercises. I tuck the electronic journal entry away in my personal files within the freighter's memory banks, pushing the E-pad into the elastic webbing of my bunk. Not particularly roomy, the bunk, just a two-metre deep tube separated into quarters by thin sheets, with a heating and air-conditioning unit running down the centre. Or should have been, at least. Ostensibly, the bunks separately house the freighter's four crew members of any species with a little wiggle room, but one of the dividers had been broken down about two weeks into our waking voyage by Ta'xla. Previously, I had been able to manage with just one of the sisters sneaking into my compartment per night cycle, with not enough room for any more to fit. Ta'xla's impatient fit 'solved' that issue. At least I'm used to it now, about three months into the wake. Only seventeen more to go. Ta'tyr squirms slowly when I pull us out of the double-sized bunk, zero-g easing our passage. Her claws gently dig into my back, and her tail coils tighter around my leg in her sleep, anchoring herself against me as I navigate us through the weightless corridors to the control station. Even the last refuge of privacy is claimed by these Shadel girls: the smallest, Ta'tyr, has recently decided that the standard issue short-sleeve is meant to fit two, tucking herself into the shirt against my chest, her head poking out the neck hole and curling against my throat. At least she's fairly easy to carry this way with her legs hooked around my waist, like some kind of impromptu child-carrier. And... her scales do feel quite pleasant against my skin, supple and warmed by my own body heat. I propel myself into the control cabin and gently spin over the pilot seat's arm-rests, careful not to wake Ta'tyr with the motions. The girl was on the night shift last cycle, watching the collection bots perform their monotonous tasks packing regolith into transport bags, and immediately claiming her portion of warmth after finishing the lonely work. The seat's safety harness won't fit over the two of us sandwiched together, so I simply brace a leg against a lower control panel, flicking the main computer screen to the airlock camera feeds in the process. The two elder sisters fill up the display, one fiddling with the other's breathing rig as they wait for me to give the all-clear. A quick check-up on the sisters' vitals in one corner of the monitor and the most recent reports from the bots left running through the night cycle on the asteroid's surface is enough for now, with the freighter's on-board computer dealing with the more important operations. No irregularities. A light flickers green in the airlock, signalling the all-clear to the Shadela, and the hiss of whatever atmosphere still trapped inside being vented to the void quickly follows as they open the outer hatches. Today is the last that we'll be spending above this particular asteroid, and I'm sure the sisters share my enthusiasm for the event. Not that this one is especially uninteresting - it's just as exciting as the last, and the one to come after, and surely the one after that - but departure means acceleration, and acceleration means proper gravity, if only temporarily. Meds take care of some of the biological issues inherent in shifting out of a zero-g environment, but I'll gladly take the sickness and internal strain if it means walking on my own two feet again and even feeling my organs back in their proper position. That's one of the things I had expected, but underappreciated in the academy - we went through rigorous void training and multiple stays in freefall, but that hadn't quite prepared me for the reality of it, in fact I had thought of it as a quite fun at the time, though only after I'd gotten over a terrible bout of space sickness. The next few hours require little of my skills, so I let my hands settle on Ta'tyr's exposed thighs - a tight pair of shorts the only thing protecting her decency - tracing the little bumps and grooves of her glossy scales while I watch the Shadela whirr down the mooring cables on electric motors. Their head cameras show them bounding across the asteroid's surface to set the last beacons and shepherd the collectors back towards the moors, colourless rock and distant pin-pricks of stars the only thing else to see on this side of the asteroid. A few cursory glances at the bots' reported cargo show mostly carbonaceous rock forms, some diffuse water content and traces of a few precious metals, same as the last wave of collectors. The bots equipped for deeper drilling show promising amounts of denser metallics, but we won't be sticking around long enough to bag the richer veins. Too large for us to properly crack open, so we'll just be tagging this one for the next Titan-class mining vessel that comes by and moving on to the next stake in our chain to repeat the process. However, two of the collectors had found their way into one of the deeper craters and returned with fragments of solid water ice. Probably only a few dozen kilos after processing by my tally, but definitely useful enough to refill our dwindling water supply, and freshen up our breathing mix for a while. I can already imagine how good a real shower with real gravity will feel once we get moving, and I relax further into the seat at the thought. And so it goes, long stretches of quiet boredom broken only by the creaking hull, or Ta'tyr chattering in her sleep. Every once in a while, one of the collectors zips up the mooring lines, requiring me to manually operate the exterior arms from the pilot seat's controls, guiding the robots into their docking bays and fixing the collection bags into their corresponding holds. Only Ta'tyr's body provides much respite from the mundanity, though there is little eroticism in the act of exploration, and I suppose there's little harm in closing my eyes for now. Breaths come slowly and evenly, warm air flowing against my neck and the scales along her ribs flex and shift together to match, like sand flowing rhythmically over my chest. The ridges and scales running down her spine don't move as much, though they are interesting in their own right: the larger ridges apparently matching a new vertebrae of her spine, while smaller growths seem irregular alongside them. Her scales form thicker and rougher here than anywhere else on her body, and the little crevices between the plates are always soothing to follow with my fingertips. My trailing touch eventually leads to the meeting of her butt and the thick base of her tail, and I can't deny that my pulse starts to speed a beat as my fingers drift lower. My relation with the three sisters is... I'll say complicated. For months on end I've been in near constant contact with at least one of them at any given time, with little regard for where our bodies meet, or my physical state at the time. Early on, as my perception of them shifted, frequent arousal was seemingly inevitable, and there was only so long I could go before needing to relieve my pent up tension. The first time I masturbated, Ta'tyr had been wrapped across my back, and I had moved excruciatingly slowly to keep from disturbing her sleep. Of course, that hadn't worked, and I soon felt her snout shift across my neck as she peeked over my shoulder to investigate the disturbance. And that was all she did. She watched. She didn't warn me to stop, she didn't recoil in disgust. Hell, she didn't even join in. She just... watched. So I kept going. Maybe she was interested in how the humans did it. Maybe I had an exhibitionist streak in me that I hadn't know about before. In the moment, it hadn't mattered, because I'd felt some indescribable thrill build up in me, a molten, volcanic heart desperate to erupt just for this reptilian woman's curiosity. Her body, which had merely been a cool, smooth thing against me, suddenly turned electric in that moment, feeling like my skin was alight wherever her scales touched it. I had never felt anything like it, and it turned me feverish, excited, hungry even, as I stroked myself into the suction of the collection cup. Through it all, she barely moved, peering down from my shoulders as I jerked and rubbed myself. I don't doubt that she felt the spasms that ran through my spine, the tremors of pleasure or the final, climactic shudders as I shot my built up load into the toy, splattering violently into the clear plastic vessel. But still, she just watched my show, only leaning forwards slightly to get a closer look at my spent pleasure floating in the toy. After that, I think we both started thinking differently of each other. I wouldn't dare put any of this in a journal, even though the recorded logs will doubtless show it, but I used most of my study time to research Shadel physiology soon after that event. And, since she refused to change her pattern of using me as a heater, I learned that she had a similar interest in humanity. It became a silent bond between us, an unspoken interest in the other that smoothed some of my irritation at their treatment of me, and opened my eyes to their most subtle forms of communication. Shadel are quite difficult to 'read' for most humans unlearned in their ways, largely for their lack of facial expressions. We can speak the same languages for the most part - English, in this case - with the exclusion of a few phonemes such as the B, M and P sounds, the ones requiring manipulable lips to create, something the reptilian species largely lacked. Truthfully, they share more in common with the non-verbal communication patterns of Terran lizards than with humans: posturing, tail movements, colour displays, the subtle flicks of their heads, even whether their tongue flicks out during the 'dance', and all that on top of the verbal components. As confusing to us as a curl of the lip is to them. Upwards indicates happiness, but without the corresponding eye movements becomes sinister and unsettling? What if the human tilts their head while doing so? Bared teeth with an upward mouth movement implies even greater joy, but in some cases bared teeth are used to display anger? What difference does it make whether their voice is high- or low-pitched when they speak? And eyebrows! They're like a second mouth, how could any creature follow every single tiny movement these humans make, they think to themselves, while we think much the same across from them. In truth, I still haven't the faintest clue what most of their expressions mean, and what seems basic to them is arcane and counter-intuitive to me. But Ta'tyr agreed to help me learn, and of course I agreed to return the favour. After weeks of practice - and it is easy to fit in language study amongst the other necessary activities - the base emotions became more distinct: happiness, sadness, anger... Lust. I do not know whether she spoke of our growing interactions with her sisters, but I doubt we hid ourselves particularly well, and we could only hold ourselves back for so long in the cramped freighter's cabins. We rarely had the privacy needed for true intimacy, but when we had it, we took every moment we could. We explored each other's bodies slowly at first, the things that seemed so normal to one yet hid so much mystery to the other. Lips and tongue, the creases of my face, ears, eyebrows, hair, to speak nothing of things below the collar. She seemed so fascinated with the things I took completely for granted, so intrigued and bemused. In turn, she had her surprise at my interests. I took my time slowly flexing her tail, learning how it bent and coiled, and inadvertently found the bundles of nerves at the tip and along the underside, obviously sensitive to my gentle probing. A close scrutiny of her hands and feet followed, much the same as my own but smoothly padded, and the way she manipulated things with the tips of her claws seemed so dainty and precise. By the time we had begun to decelerate towards our next stake, we were more than ready to make use of the gravity. Sex seems to be the natural conclusion of many things in space - non-confrontational diplomacy being the bedrock of long-term isolationists, and what more fitting an example of that than the coupling of two creatures wanting desperately for a new release of stress. Our situation was no different than many others, cultural differences - some obvious, some otherwise - causing a steady font of tension between me and the Shadel sisters that needed an outlet. That we all unconsciously waited for the next period of gravity was simply a matter of practicality, I think. Zero-g sex is messy and tedious to clean up, and the movements required are far easier when you're held together with your partner by universal forces. In the beginning, it was just me and Ta'tyr, alone in the compact kitchen space. We'd both learned the signs of arousal in the other by then, and as we brushed against each other, something primal, something animal took held. The courting rituals of the Shadel are actually quite interesting, the initial movements intended to establish each partner's intentions and desires. Human rituals are somewhat messier, though they get the message across well enough, I find. Neither were used extensively in that first coupling. Just raw lust and desire, the need to put one as close to another as physically possible, to find pleasure in the partner just as in the self. And though our cultures are indistinct and strange to the other, our bodies were still basically compatible. We were careless, truly. The ever-present threat of death from the void, the encroaching onset of space madness, our mission in the belt, our families, our histories, none of it meant a damn to us. All that mattered was the sensations flooding into us from each other. Scales flowing into skin, fingers and claws running down her spine, wrapping across my back, molten pleasure pushing down on us like a tidal wave. Everything felt new. Everything felt like the unexplored frontier we had travelled all this way to find. Unfortunately for us, time did nothing akin to standing still. It rushed and coursed and chomped at the bit, all too eager to leave us by the wayside as we clutched at each other for dear life. Our first time feeling truly joined, and it had passed in an instant. A blink of the eye and we were separated, just two aliens gasping for breath on the floor of a tiny kitchen, in the corner of a tiny cabin, one tiny hab aboard another tiny vessel drifting through space. Together we felt whole, but apart we only felt the loss ever more keenly than we had known before. Ta'tyr was but one sister of three, and her clutch-mates soon rose to join her, drawn by the thick scent of sex drifting through the closed airways. As with everything else, they were quick to stake their claim on the human's real estate, not to be outdone by their youngest sister and feeling the same stress and ache turn to new urges. Ta'xla, strong and proud, was surprised by the man, completely unaware of how they treated mates. Ta'kel lasted longer, slow and inquisitive like her younger sister, almost tender, though she too quickly found what she sought. He crawled across the floor to his half, caressing down her limp form with burning fingers. She raised one claw up, palm upturned, and mirrored the motion, tracing up along his throat, following the heavy pulse until it met his jaw. It tapped against his chin, firmly, and again, harder. Artificial light fills my eyes again, jolting some of the sleep out of my system. An involuntary yawn works its way out of me, soon joined by another, though not from my mouth. Ta'tyr's snout bumps against my chin again as her maw stretches wide, baring rows of small, jagged teeth in a deep sigh, her thin, pointed tongue flicking out in a sign of contentment. Or maybe hunger. I'm not quite sure from this angle. Two sets of eyelids slide back to reveal the rich amber of Ta'tyr's eyes, vertical slits slowly adjusting to the light. "'enja'in," she coos, shuddering and stretching her limbs out, setting us on a drift out of the seat, before settling back around me. "Ta'tyr," I murmur back, smiling as she stumbles over my name. I snake a hand over the side of the seat, pulling us back down to it, and offering the tube end of a ration bladder to my reptilian passenger. She happily nibbles at the tip, sucking down a few mouthfuls of nutrient-thick slurry between smaller waking yawns. Her tongue flicks out again, fluttering against my nose, and she juts her head forward a few centimetres closer to mine, searching for another treat after finishing with breakfast. I've long since learned to enjoy granting these requests of hers, creeping a finger beneath her jaw to tilt her face up to mine. Lips faintly brush against the sensitive plaques around her nose, letting it tickle and dance over her nerves before pressing in and planting a proper kiss. A low rumble starts deep in her chest, vibrating steadily into my own - her thighs start to tighten and grind in turn, immense muscles squeezing my stomach like a python around its prey. Her head flicks up again, asking for another. In humans, kisses are certainly erotic in many contexts, a sign of care in almost every one. Lips themselves fill a similar criteria, delicate and sensitive, their uses are myriad and often intimate. To Ta'tyr, they're something else entirely. Something about the sensation of two velvety pillows, slicked with saliva and burning hot in comparison to her cool scales. To Shadel it becomes more than erotic; it's borderline orgasmic, like a religious experience with every caress. She captures my lower lip between hers - hard and indelicate compared to a human's - but she's careful to be gentle, careful not to let her teeth prick too hard, just hungry for the tenderness of the action. An idle alert flashes in the corner of the centre's main display, showing a half dozen collector bots built up on the mooring lines, waiting to be pulled into their housing bays. "You should try to get some more sleep, we'll be heading off in another hour or two." Brilliant amber eyes lock with mine, trying to blink away the last dregs of sleep from them. Arms and legs - and tail - start to untangle themselves from mine, and she tucks her head back under the neckline of my shirt, slowly trailing her nose down my chest, down to my belly button. Always so stubborn. Her tongue flicks out, tasting the heavy salt and tang of sweat on my skin, something wholly alien to Shadel but something I know Ta'tyr finds so irresistibly exotic. Slowly, she drifts down to the floor between licks, settling between my legs with her long snout nestled against my navel. Big amber eyes gaze up at me. Just like lips, and sweat, and hair, and seemingly everything about my human anatomy, I learned early on that body heat is like a drug to the Shadel - in a way that transcends the other exoticisms. In humans, there are correlations between temperature and thought processes, effecting slight changes in rationale and emotion as the brain warms and cools. In Shadel, a living, breathing, beating source of heat like me makes those changes seem utterly trivial, like comparing a static shock to being struck by lightning. A Shadel at their normal body temperature seems withdrawn to humans, calm and mindful, but a Shadel 'in heat', as it were, becomes erratic and impulsive, like a starving animal desperate for any morsel to sate them. Ta'tyr seems to handle these changes quite well, usually only bubbling up as an aching need for affection, which tends to form a self-repeating cycle as I'm the one filling that need. Ta'xla tends to get aggressive, but at least has the mind to cut herself off when she feels herself start to drift. Even now, I don't quite know how Ta'kel reacts - she's handsy like her younger sister, but she doesn't get as sex-hungry, as if she tries to hold on to as much of her restraint as she can. Another bot whirrs up the mooring line on the screen, accompanied by another flashed alert. I shift my hands from Ta'tyr's ridged head to the manual controls for the manipulator arms, but she impatiently nips at my belly, letting her pointed teeth show her desire and earning a yelp of shock. I'm used to her neediness, and she never bites hard enough to break the skin, but it still stings... "Just a few minutes, then we'll do whatever you want, okay?" She doesn't seem content with my fingers stroking along her ridges, instead pushing her nose down towards the line of my shorts' waistband and tugging at it with trembling claws. I can feel her tail twitching against my feet, her hips grinding against the inside of my legs. She's started getting like this recently, all hot and bothered, the smells and tastes and touches getting too much for her to handle sometimes. Her nose shoves into the top of my shorts, sucking in great draughts of pale musk, our combined bodily juices and dried sex still clinging to me and flooding her already drowsy system. She pauses there, just breathing it in with sharp, short gasps, before looking back up to me and slowly, teasingly working her tongue down into my shorts. Blind flicks send shivers up my spine as the thin tip snakes along my length, and I squirm and writhe, trying not to validate her with a moan. Well, at least she's not biting. I clench my teeth and try to work the manipulator arms through the pleasure - the sooner I finish loading the bots, the sooner I can deal with Ta'tyr's growing needs, and my own. And I certainly can't deny my own need, not with Ta'tyr's prehensile, inhuman tongue wrapping firmly around my throbbing cock. She drags my shorts all the way down to my knees, revealing my length to the open air, and her claws quickly go to work, delicately teasing along the sides of my shaft, alternating up and down with squeezes of her tongue. Smooth and slightly textured, but not wet, her tongue has the most incredible feeling to it, eking out a new jolt of delite with every swirl and flick. My work goes quickly with Ta'tyr hunched between my legs, the normally slow process of separating the collector bots from their cargo and safely manoeuvring them into their corresponding dock passing in a blur - though I have to yank my hands away from the controls more than once as reflexive ecstasy shudders through me. Human anatomy is apparently not such a mystery anymore to the horny Shadel, as she is eager to demonstrate, dozens of hours of study material beamed out from Terra obviously teaching her more than enough to keep me constantly moaning under my breath. I don't even know how Horizon has so much interspecies porn on demand, but I guess I owe them one for the rapturous way Ta'tyr's tongue coils and glides over my painfully hard length. A deep, unrelenting tremor shakes through me, raw nerves sparking and firing wildly, trying desperately to translate the intoxicating sensations of Ta'tyr's tongue into usable information. She leans closer, but pulls her claws away, instead running them up my stomach, feeling the trembles of pleasure roiling through my muscles. Her beautiful amber eyes turn up to mine once more as she slowly draws her tongue back into her mouth, leaving only her cool breath washing over the head of my penis. So very close to the edge, even just the faint whisper of breath is maddening. Her tongue dances out of her maw to tease ever so softly against the slit of my cock head, slowly collecting the precum beading at the tip. Oh, I see now. Punishment, for getting her so worked up but not helping get her off, just as she's doing to me now. I can only try to hold myself back for so long under Ta'tyr's patient teasing, but she's careful not to go too fast, keeping me as close to the edge for as long as she can. It's almost unbearable, but the last of the robots still hanging in their place on the mooring lines start to dwindle, only one or two more left. The Shadela's head cams show them unlatching the moors from the asteroid's surface, using the cables' spooling mechanisms to drag themselves in to the freighter. Ta'tyr shifts between my knees, grinding herself aggressively against my leg, rubbing her puffy slit on me through her shorts. The front of her shorts are just shy of soaking wet, barely able to absorb any more of her dripping sex - the ache must be killing her, having to wait so long for me to finish my work. That she's not even touching herself, not even trying to slow the need that must be building up in her... The thought drives me crazy, pushing me even closer to the fringe; even more than her probing tongue swirling oh so slowly around my cockhead, more than her magnificent amber eyes staring up at me, her need apparent in them and obviously unbearable. God, I can't take it anymore, the bots can dock themselves for all I care. The Shadel's eyes spread wide when I grab her jaw, but she lets herself be pulled hard into my crotch. Her tongue immediately wraps around my burning cock, already understanding my intention as she squeezes tight and milks me with the precum-slicked appendage. She opens her mouth wider to accommodate my pulsing length, keeping her rows of razor sharp teeth away from my reflexive thrusting. Hard claws dig into my hips, anchoring her to me and stopping her from bobbing away with my every thrust, but I barely feel the pain amongst the incredible pleasure of Ta'tyr's mouth. Her thin tongue writhing around and around, tightening at the base of my shaft first then rhythmically undulating and uncoiling all the way up to the the tip. She's trying her hardest to make me cum, even trying to mimic a human's moan, vibrating her throat against the intruding member. But it's better than that, better than any human's attempts, so completely intoxicating. The flow of her tongue, dexterous and smooth, her breath coming in ragged pants, even the feeling of her tail thrashing against my feet, her body getting caught up in the excitement along with me. It's just too much! Hot spasms rack my lower body, feet arching, toes curling. The first boiling spurts of cum erupt out into Ta'tyr's mouth, showering the back of her teeth and tongue in a deluge of sticky spunk. Her maw closes as tight as she can without biting into my flesh, trying to funnel every last rope of my seed into her waiting throat - already rippling around the tip of my cock, hungrily swallowing it all. Tiny, involuntary thrusts push my length even deeper into her, painting the pale flesh of her throat a thick, creamy white. Even now, her tongue doesn't stop stroking, wringing out a new taste of seed. Lightning surges up my spine again and again, crackling through with every spurt of fresh semen, every squeeze of the Shadel's tongue, every gulp taking my ejaculate into her gullet. Finally, the last quaking shudders of my orgasm begin to die off, the final strings of cum teased out and slowly savoured by Ta'tyr's intrepid tongue. She pulls off of my cock with a sigh, gathering up any spilled juices and feeding them into her gullet. Amber eyes light up as they track a last floating globule, syrupy and wobbling in the air as it slowly drifts away from her sloppy maw above us. Like some predatory beast, she kicks off of the floor, swimming through the air in hunt of this last morsel. Her tail gyrates and swiftly flicks her about, bringing her closer, and with a glance over her shoulder to me, she snakes her tongue out into the air. With a curl of her tongue, she captures the sticky drop, sucking it in to join the rest of my load sloshing around in her belly. Our hips meet when she pushes off the ceiling back into me, her abundant backside bouncing heavily in my lap. "I'm sorry," I murmur into her neck. I can feel her trembling against me, shaking with unmet need. "Just a few more minutes, okay? Then we can do it as much as you want." She groans a little but nods her head, slumping against my chest as she quietly dips her claws into the front of her shorts. My lips brush over the silky scales of her throat, earning an adorably low chirp of pleasure. Shivers shoot through her despite the hot breath on her scales. Another kiss, another chirp, my hands shifting from cradling her thick hips down to the deep valley of her thighs. Only a couple bots still hang on the moors, and I can probably finish one-handed, saving the other to slide in next to Ta'tyr's claws to feel the wetness of her groin. She guides my fingers with her own, humping slowly against them, sliding them over her slit in a slow pattern. Little muscles in her neck tense and relax every time I kiss her, reacting to the warmth as much as the texture of my lips, I'm sure. The last bot and its cargo slides shakily into place, and the external docking hatches seal shut for the last time. Manipulator arms retract back into their own berths as I lean around Ta'tyr to set the cargo system offline. The main screen's video feed cuts to technical outputs, charts and levels depicting the freighter's propulsion system while it readies for acceleration. A low thrum carries through the cabin: the engine's initialising sequence slowly bringing itself to life. In just a few more minutes, we'll feel the first tugs of simulated gravity as the freighter blasts off towards the next asteroid on its mission. Ta'tyr's sisters are already safely sealed into the airlock, back in the freighter's atmosphere and extricating themselves from their bulky pressure suits. Ta'tyr chitters angrily when I pull my hand from her shorts, but quietens under the avalanche of kisses I layer across her cheek and jaw, relaxing a little more with every parting of my lips. She groans again, but doesn't fight me when I lift her out of my lap, pushing us both away from the pilot console and into the joining corridor. My hand never leaves her body as we kick through the freighter, always giving her a reassuring squeeze of the hips, or fiddling with the sensitive tip of her tail, much to her vocal enjoyment. Into the storage compartment for a few shots of Horizon's patented drug mix - to help the body with shifts in gravity, with a little pain-killer and anti-psychotic for good measure in case the change is too dramatic - and we're back into the corridor again, this time towards the showers. One of the few places on the freighter we can easily seal off with a handy capacity for draining away any excess fluids, and thus a favourite spot for the four of us. It's just a simple tube with a few fittings to pipe in and drain out water with a lid at one end, really, similar in size to our bunk tube. A small ledge jutting out from the wall at about waist height is just barely deep enough for someone to sit, and I guide Ta'tyr down to it, floating down to her with a wash bag in hand. Her shorts slide off easily, trailing more than a little moisture behind them, and are quickly joined by my own shorts and t-shirt as we strip off for each other. I don't bother turning the shower on yet - Ta'xla and Ta'kel won't be joining us for another minute or two, and the water will take about that long to heat up regardless. Standing completely naked in front of her feels utterly natural now, even with her eyes drinking in my body, and mine doing the same to hers. There's little judgement between us these days. Only longing, and lust. She curls a claw in a distinctly human imitation, beckoning me to her, and I'm more than happy to oblige her. Her claws sift through my hair, undoing the rough braid keeping it in place and letting it splay out in the zero-g. For a moment, all she does is brush her claws along my scalp, but she quickly remembers the ache between her legs, and begins gently pushing down on my shoulders. I'd be all too glad to return the favour, and I let her guide my lips to her belly, happily kissing and licking my way down her cool, sleek scales until my mouth meets with her engorged slit. Puffy and wet, she twitches when I flick my tongue against the soft flesh, moving into something akin to a moan as I dig deeper, pushing my tongue in to lap at her sex. Her eyes flutter shut, her mouth falls open to reveal her pointed fangs. She kicks her powerful legs up around my shoulders, locking behind my head to eagerly grinding my face against her crotch. Clawed feet scratch against my back, and her tail thrashes around until it finds my hand, writhing as I blindly rub my fingers into its sensitive underside. Breathing starts to get a little harder as her muscular, scaly thighs constrict around me, jamming my tongue further into her slit with a squirt of moisture. I can barely hear the engine's tremors from between Ta'tyr's thighs, her groans and chitters drowning out whatever sound might have carried into the shower, but the sensation of weightlessness falling away is unmistakable. We're in motion, beginning our journey away from this asteroid and towards the next. Gravity soon takes hold, gently settling me to the floor at first but quickly building until I can feel my own weight pressing down on me. I'm sure Ta'tyr can feel it too, but it feels like she's too enraptured in my lashing tongue and sucking lips to care. Clanking, like claws on metal flooring, rings into the shower tube, and only now does Ta'tyr release her legs, letting me gasp in fresh air laced with her heady scent - if I had I mirror, I think I might have seen my cheeks covered in imprints of her scales. Her sisters calmly climb down next to us, not a shred of clothing between us in the cramped tube. They stare as my tongue flicks along their sister's dripping pussy, watching with obvious interest, but they don't touch us. At least, not yet. The shower's hatch is sealed back up, and rain starts to fall, warm and heavy with gravity. God, I think I'd almost forgotten how it good it feels to have water fall across my shoulders, to drip down my body. Not to just have water on me, like we have to deal with in zero-g, but to actually feel it run and wash over my skin like it does on Terra. Pushing myself to my feet is a little harder than I remember, perhaps because of the water, but Ta'tyr needs something more substantial than my tongue, and I have more than recovered from her earlier care. She immediately scoots to the edge of the ledge, tilting her groin up and impatiently displaying herself for me, kicking her legs out to drag me closer without a care for her sisters' watchful eyes. My hands obediently latch onto her thick hips, sinking into her pliant scales as I my rub my stiffening cock over her slit; hers wrap tight around my back while she leans the tip of her snout into my lips, tongue darting out only to be trapped between my lips. Our tongues meet in my mouth, gently probing against each other, before she pulls against me with all her might and finally thrusts me into her with a gasp. Her tongue sharply withdraws. Her head collapses over my shoulder, panting into my neck as her body trembles violently in my arms. Eventually her tremors slow down, and she loosens her legs once more. We start slowly, careful not to slip on the wet floor but gaining confidence and speed as we go. Hands grope at her butt, squeezing her curves with every slow pump, and hers lovingly stroke up and down my back. The inner walls of her slit grip at me with thick, sinuous muscles, drawing me in with every wiggle of Ta'tyr's hips. Compared to her cool outer scales, the inside of her slit is practically volcanic, hot and steamy and all too greedy for me to fill it to the brim. Among Shadel, sex is apparently up to the females to keep the males still and compliant, milking them of their seed and leaving when they're done. In a human, I think Ta'tyr - and her sisters - finds something far more interesting than that. A pair of agile hands that rove and stroke over her body, searching for sensitive buttons to press - a pair of soft lips that suck and kiss across her hide, gently nibbling when they can get away with it. More than that, in a human, she has a partner that desires and craves to please her as much as she could possibly handle. Every thrust of Ta'tyr's hips is met with another from mine, grinding and pumping against each other in a yearning dance. Every gasp and spasm of pleasure is enthusiastically mirrored, every desperate attempt to breathe in each other's scent, every attempt to heave ourselves ever closer together. With every new sensation flooding my body, I can only hope that Ta'tyr feels the same, and hold onto her scaly flanks with everything I've got. Our moans and chirps and groans fill the tiny shower, just as I feel myself filling Ta'tyr's quivering hole to capacity. Her sisters still watch silently under the cascade of water, no strangers to such sights - and often on the other side themselves. I draw myself out of Ta'tyr to catch my breath, panting and pushing her hips back against the wall. The air's thick and wet with our smell, oozing juices spilling out across the floor with every impact and dripping down our legs in thin rivulets when our sexes meet. The water washes away what it can, but even it can't wash away the smell. To the Shadela, with their delicate noses, it must be downright overpowering. The shower keeps streaming as I gasp for breath, but suddenly it stops raining over me - one of the sisters' flickering tongues quickly follows the absence, feathering the back of my neck with its tip, sampling my body like a snake. She presses herself - Ta'kel, it seems, a little shorter and more timid than her bigger sister - into my back despite Ta'tyr's limbs locked around me, or maybe even because of them. I didn't think that they would ever get jealous, but... Ta'kel's neck cranes over my free shoulder, curiously watching the joining between her sister and I. The larger Shadel lets more of her weight rest on me, sandwiching me between two wet, scaly bodies, both subtly fighting each other for possession of me but neither gaining any meaningful ground. I can't even tell who's claws are touching where, but one of them grips at my waist, pricking me with her claw-tips, and another tenderly strokes my chest. And to tell the truth, I don't particularly care which belongs to which. Ta'tyr's gyrations sucking me into her, Ta'kel's snout nuzzling into the crook of my neck, the endlessly roaming claws drifting across my skin, even someone's tail coiling down my leg... The familiar tension of on-coming ecstasy rises through me, a hot ball of need pushing aside every other thought and sensation. Just Ta'tyr drawing me against her, her roiling depths promising the most pleasurable of release. I hadn't even noticed Ta'tyr's own shaking orgasm, so enraptured was I by my own. Her pussy clamps and writhes around my thrusting member all at once, tight as a vice but still oh so soft and velvety. A deep groan rumbles in her chest, like the violent shakes of a rocket engine, shuddering and spasming as boiling heat spills out from me. Her warm inner folds turn nearly molten from the streams of seed flooding into her, finally being deposited in an appropriate hole. We fall trembling into each other, trying to push our highs ever higher together, riding the waves of pleasure as far as we can take them. Ta'kel watches it all patiently from over my shoulder, spying the obvious tremors and shakes of our orgasms, the thickening, creamy juices dripping from Ta'tyr's abused sex, even our fingers slowly uncurling from each other. She wraps her sleek arms across my chest, pulling me gently away from Ta'tyr's weak embrace and further into her own. "'y turn," she whispers against my cheek, tilting my face towards hers and tenderly rubbing her nose against mine. I sigh and plant a tired kiss on her snout. Only seventeen more months to go..