Chapter 5: Kissing Lessons

 Chapter 5: Kissing Lessons

John breathed him in before instinct drove him to seek Tom's taste with his tongue. The slight difference in their height allowed their mouths to meet with a tilt up from John and a tilt down from Tom. Kissing was an entirely new experience for them both. 

"Is this allowed?"

Tom nodded his answer even as he bit at John's lips, angled his head to the side and tried to get closer, taste more of him, feel more of him. 

"Humans kiss this way?"

"Lovers kiss this way."

John felt the words down into the very marrow of his bones. 

Their pact had kept them together throughout their lives as they grew up, changed, took on the roles of their bloodline rather than their choosing. If they had remained on Zon, this moment would never have happened. Zen took lovers for procreation, rarely for recreation. John could not name a pair of lovers who were same-gendered. 

His sex ached in the confines of his trousers; John wanted to get closer to Tom even though there was no space between them. Pressing their bodies closer together didn't satisfy the ache in his new body. Heat was racing through his body as his blood felt as if it were boiling under his skin. Why were human bodies so sensitive? How had they survived as a species if they could be undone by only a kiss?

Gripping Tom at the curve of his posterior, John used his heavier form to lift Tom from his feet. They'd never done anything of this sort before. He was acting purely on instinct. Tom had never taken a lover to the best of his knowledge. 

"No."

Tom spread his legs to welcome John between them and John pressed him into the opposite side of the berth. His mind was a confusion of want and need. As Tom wrapped his legs around John's waist, John felt his thick length line up against an answering hardness between Tom's legs. 

"No? You want me to stop?"

John wasn't sure he had it in himself to stop. His control over his form had never been called into question so thoroughly before. All he wanted to do was rock and rut against Tom until the ache in his groin was satisfied. 

"No," Tom murmured, breaking the kiss to nip at John's earlobe, "I have never taken a lover. Never joined a mating unit. Never let another touch me. Only you. Always you. I have always been yours. You could have had me at any time. All you needed to do was ask."

John felt the fragile grip he had on his control snap. He used his heavier body to hold Tom up as he forced a hand between their bodies. His trousers were too tight to do more than a cursory adjustment to his erect penis; Tom was larger as a human than he had been as an Ormali yet his hips were still narrow. John worked his hand down the front of them to grasp his friend -Lover?- and moaned at the heated flesh searing its shape into his memory forever.

"I only want this with you. I only want you to have this with me. Is that wrong?" 

"You're never wrong. You are always right. For me. Every part of you is always right for me."

John went on instinct alone. He squeezed and stroked his hand over Tom while Tom twisted against him, his lean legs tightening around John's waist as he writhed. If he had been thinking, John would have realized the heat he felt was from the rush of blood under their skin. As it was, John found himself bucking and tugging and panting as he tried to find a way to release the heat before they both burned alive.

"Help me? Help me. I don't know what to do."

"Just this. All you need to do is this."

Tom pressed his lips to John's again and John opened his mouth immediately to welcome his tongue to dance with his own. Had Tom ever danced? Records had been a quiet world made separate from the rest of the Zen. If Tom had not been placed in the creche with John, they would never have met. 

Security was never allowed inside the peace of Records.

Their world tilted on its axis as Tom shocked John by sucking at his tongue. He'd never known the organ could feel anything other than taste. Humans were gifted in their flesh if they were not so gifted in other ways. 

John gave a guttural moan. He lost all sense of time or place until energy seemed to strike him from the base of his spine, his legs went weak as his knees buckled and he slid to the flooring of the berth with Tom straddling him on the way down. John worried his hand was hurting Tom from how tight he gripped his shaft, but then he felt the orgasm shoot out of his friend. 

Seconds passed into minutes as they tried to disentangle themselves from one another while their breathing returned to normal. 

John had spent semen while in the company of other males involved in the same mating unit. He'd never done it while touching another male or while another male touched him. Zen wanted to breed young. Sex for pleasure was rare due to the low birth rate of their kind. Humans had no breeding problems. John couldn't help wondering if it was because they were so physical they sought out mating partners of either gender as often as they could.

"No. I think they're just more fertile than Zen."

The sensible answer was so in keeping with Tom's pragmatism John found himself chuckling. They were both laughing as the klaxon sounded a warning to all aboard.

"We're to begin descent. Stay here. I'll be quick."

John leaned back in the berth as Tom stood, adjusting his trousers before disappearing into the hallway. John tracked him with his ears and his mind, shaking his head ruefully as he realized Tom was gathering them fresh garments from the dispensary on their deck. 

"We can't very well disembark looking as we do, can we? Neither of us would outlive your blood brother's reaction alone."

Tom squeezed back into the berth with their new clothing clutched to his chest with one hand, reaching the other down to offer it to John who accepted the help back onto his feet gratefully. They dressed as quickly as they could in the small space. It was easier because they were accustomed to moving around each other in any form; John wondered if Tom realized they had always orbited around each other in the way of two planets who refused to recognize the sun of their galaxy.

"Earth. Tom for John?"

John nodded while allowing the security lashes to wrap around his body to hold him in his side of the berth. It felt much farther away from Tom though the distance hadn't changed.

"John for Tom."

The mission commander's voice disrupted both their thoughts as it echoed in their minds with the warning, "Guardian descends."