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Overwhelming Impetus Pages 61-120

Written by happiest_in_shadows :: [Thursday, 16 July 2015 21:06] Last updated by :: [Saturday, 18 July 2015 11:07]

April 30 2019 Evening

John didn’t know what to think as he listened to Sally in the kitchen. Having the most powerful woman in the world cooking him dinner would have been strange enough but this was so far beyond that. The power she wielded couldn’t be measured in terms of a single individual or nation. He wasn’t even certain if it could be measured in terms of worlds. Yet he could hear her happily humming away and it wasn’t even the first time she had cooked for him. “Are you sure you don’t want me in there?”

“I’m certain. You’ve had a busy day and should relax.” Sally was made to giggle whenever she heard John sputter in response.

“I had a busy day! You put out a forest fire this morning, gathered some moon rocks, took some pictures.”

“I know! I know! It was all very boring. Don’t remind me of it.” Sally made it a point to give a sigh that John could hear even as she focused on her cooking. “If it wasn’t for some business this morning and the kids this day would have been completely dull.”

Despite being told to stay out of the kitchen John couldn’t help but stand up and walk over to the doorway. Sally had to work more slowly while cooking to avoid destroying the food, utensils, counter and everything else but it was still a blur to his eyes. “Kids?”

“I kept about two kilograms of moon rock for some kids that’ve been asking for them.” A delighted giggle escaped Sally after a moment. “There is this one adorable little girl named Audrey. Some of the older boys have been telling her that the moon is made out of cheese. After I brought her one of the rocks she walked right over to them set it down on the table and told them to eat it.”

A sharp chuckle escaped John. While he didn’t know what Audrey Sally was speaking of it was quite a mental image. “That seems a little harsh.”

“She is a very no nonsense girl. Which um.”

“Means you have to mess with her some.”

“She’s so cute when she’s huffy!” As Sally cut through the carrots and leeks there was no rapid pounding as the blade hit the cutting board. Her movements were so precise that the blade never quite reached the cutting board but remained a few microns above the surface each time so that the only sound was the vegetables being rapidly sliced apart. This still produced a slight roar as she broke the sound barrier with the knife several times.

“When you say children though are you talking orphans?”

“Not this time. It’s one of the schools I’m helping to get built back up after helping the police to clean up the neighborhood. They received a donation from Sally Ahmera to help take care of some needs like free meals for every student, repairs and improving security. I’m really wanting to get them set up with some computers but I’m scared they’d just end up stolen.”

“It’s that bad?”

The sizzling of protein and vegetables filled the room as Sally dumped the slice vegetables and chicken onto the buttered pan she’d prepared while John was in the living room. “I’m thinking about getting them some computers that would be too cumbersome to be worth the trouble but could still help the kids out. The science department has been doing alright with what I bought them after all but that teacher is part bulldog. Ah! We’re talking about my day and you’re not setting down.”

John gave a slight chuckle and started to step into the kitchen thinking to set down. He was rather surprised whenever a powerful gust of wind struck him in the chest and sent him stumbling backwards. It wasn’t as if someone had hit him but rather a gentle but steady push. “Hey.”

“Out! I don’t want you in here to see what I’m putting in your food that way you can’t claim you don’t like it. Now how has your day gone?”

Rather than argue with her John walked into his living room and took hold of his recliner. It surprised him how much he was grinning as he pulled it over to the kitchen door and set down. He soon found himself chuckling whenever he noticed the look Sally was giving him as he set just outside the kitchen door. Soon he heard her laughing as well. “My boss ran me down thanks to you. She wanted to know how I met someone so wealthy.”

“She seemed quite skeptical whenever I first contacted her and then stunned whenever we finally began the paperwork. There were a few times I believed she would hang up thinking that I was pranking her. She asked for your name three times.”

“Yeah.” For a moment John considered telling Sally that he had called it off with Trisha but held his tongue. “Sally you said that I’m already yours and you’re just waiting for delivery. Does that mean I’m publically dating Sally Ahmera?”

“You will be if you’re not now and I’m certain a few days of eating my cooking will speed that process along nicely.”

“What about the gifts? Are they suppose to speed things along to?” John wasn’t certain what to think as he heard Sally laugh.

“No. Those are for me! I have so much furniture, cutlery and other decorations that I can’t really justify buying anymore. I have to save room for my finds, gifts and payments. Buying things for my friends gives me an excuse to shop. By the way how would you like to go shopping for some new electronics? We could order you a new computer but I believe it’d be nice to go look at some televisions and a new touch pad.”

John found himself taken aback by Sally’s statement. He had expected and would have accepted a yes. Now he found himself feeling a little guilty that he’d actually asked such a question. She didn’t seem to be upset over the question but he was still left feeling a little guilty. “Sorry about that. I guess I made it sound like you were trying to buy me.”

“If I could buy you then you wouldn’t be worth having.” Sally found herself grinning as she opted to leave out the part where she didn’t mind using gifts to smooth things along. If John wanted to think better of her she was quite happy to let him. “I went by to check on you a few times today. One time I noticed you seemed somewhat flustered after stepping out with some fat black haired woman in a bright green dress. What was happening then?”

“You didn’t stick around to listen?”

“I just wanted to see if you were doing alright. After that I had to be going.”

“Her son has a bit of a virus. I tried to explain to her what he needed was bed rest at this point but she was rather insistent that I do something. I ended up giving him a low grade antibiotic.”

As Sally listened to John she was rather surprised by how boring his story was. She knew that he could do better than that and had a pretty good idea why. “Come on John! That was terrible. Do I have to set a keyboard in front of you so that you’ll tell me an interesting story?”

A slight chuckle escaped John as he leaned back in his seat and took in a deep breath. “I’m more use to typing this out but okay I’ll give it a try. Okay so early in the morning I go to check on a patient and when I go into the room I find this fat harpie of a woman and her kid. For a moment I actually feared that she might try to eat him and wondered if I should put myself between the two of them.” John felt himself grinning as he heard Sally snickering in the kitchen. He’d often wondered if she meant it when she typed laughter on the keyboard. It was nice to know she did.

“It took me a moment to realize that was her chick though it became very clear whenever she insisted on speaking for him during the examination. I could barely hear him cheap while trying to palpate him and worried I’d have to have her crated. Despite the constant screeching I was able to determine he had a fairly common stomach virus.”

“Her screech attacks kept interrupting your detect disease spell.” Sally had always enjoyed joking around with John by putting things into game terms. What surprised her was how much more fun she was having doing it in person. Her smile had grown so much that it was hurting a little.

As frustrating as the situation had been earlier John found himself laughing at Sally’s interpretation of the events. “Yes and she kept resisting my calm spells. Well I finally managed to cast the spell and realized that the chick had been afflicted with a minor curse that would expire with bedrest. I tried to explain this to the harpie but she only became increasingly agitated. Fearing that the chick would be endangered by the mother’s actions I prescribed a weak poultice and bedrest which seemed to appease her.”

“You didn’t try remove curse?”

A mixture of a forced sigh and a laugh came from John as he struggled to retain his composure and the pretense of being a vexed healer. “I’m afraid curses are beyond my realm of influence. I only have cure diseases and poison. Alright your turn.”

“Be fair! How am I suppose to make taking pictures of rocks sound interesting.”

“I have faith in you.” John couldn’t help but laugh whenever he heard Sally give a frustrated snort. Curiosity prompted him to look over the back of his chair and observe her while she cooked. At least she didn’t respond by blowing him away this time.

“Okay. Give me a moment to get into the right mind set. Okay well I started today doing part of a quest chain I’ve been working on which involved me fetching some gold. Then I checked my phone and noticed that the NSI had a quest for me to go take some pictures and I remembered that the children of guiding hand wanted some real moon rocks to study. As it had been quite some time since I last worked on my guiding hand reputation I decided I’d do the NSI work and get the children their rocks.”

“What kind of bonuses do you get for grinding guiding hand reputation?”

Sally actually found herself snickering as she bit down on her lower lip and considered the question. “Well they don’t have any items that help in combat but they have a lot of good support abilities. I’m a big fan of the warm fuzzy elixir and then there is the invested in the future tokens. If you get enough tokens you actually get to live in a better world someday. At least that’s what I’m told but I haven’t found anything to tell me how many tokens I need.”

“Now those tokens sound nice. I might have to buy a few of them.”

“I wouldn’t suggest buying them if I were you. You’re probably better of getting them from quest like dealing with that harpie beast earlier. Anyway, I stopped by my player house on the moon and picked up my space mining bag and camera then went to mars. You would not believe how many quest popups I had to deal with. Each time I thought I was nearly done the blasted quest giver would contact me and ask for more. I was worried I’d run out of space in my bags before I got back to earth. I even opted out of some bonus missions to insure I’d have enough room for the moon rock key item.”

“You can’t make exploring mars more interesting than that?”

It was impossible for Sally to keep from laughing as she noted the tone in John’s voice. “No! They are no hostile or even neutral creatures up there. All I had was this annoying quest pop up from time to time telling me to go take a picture of a rock I’ve already taken four pictures of then to pick up the rock. I don’t care for how it smells either.”

“I thought you didn’t have negative associations with smell.”

“The hell I don’t! My negative associations aren’t the same as yours but I have them. Typically I find the smell of sickness and death unpleasant. It’s sort of okay. Right now the smell of this cooking chicken is very pleasant to me even though it’s protean being denatured. I know this is animal protein that I’m going to be feeding to a friend and enjoying myself so I get a positive response. The smell of a pig that was burned to death for amusement is anything but pleasant to me though.”

“What about the smell of burning humans?” John continued to look at Sally’s back as she remained silent for several moments. He could hear her foot tapping against the floor and he thought feel the vibrations but that could have just been in his head. “If you don’t want to answer that’s fine.”

“I’m worried I’ll frighten you but.” As she took in a deep breath Sally hoped that John would stop her from answering but after several seconds it became clear he wasn’t going to. “It depends on the people. If I hadn’t been a deputy whenever I found those poor animals there would have been some humans getting burned.”

“So your conscious and subconscious are that closely linked?”

A long relieved sigh escaped Sally as she leaned over for a moment upon taking note of John’s tone. “You have no idea how happy I am you asked that. I’m not really sure what is included in my conscious mind but my doctor told me that my short term and intermediate memory influence my positive and negative sensory associations far more than normal. Let’s say there is some perfume that I enjoy the smell of.”

“If you smelt it on an unpleasant person you would find the smell unpleasant as well. I understand what you’re saying. Is that for all things?”

“No. They’re some things that have been in my life for so long and built up so many positive long term memories they can’t be overridden. I actually have a whole report on this if you’d like to read it. The only thing you have to do is promise to keep it confidential and sign an agreement. The short of it is my doctor believes it’s a side affect of my senses being so heavily augmented. For example along with the food I can smell crap right now.”

John couldn’t help but recoil a bit at the implication of Sally’s words hit him yet a moment later he found himself laughing. “That must be horrible! I thought about that whenever I read up on your public information awhile back but to hear you actually confirm it. So you’re assaulted with such smells so often that your brain simply had to find a different method of dealing with it.”

A slight giggle escaped Sally after a moment. “That isn’t the worst of it. The faces of my parents was something else whenever I revealed to them I could smell arousal and well the aftermath of it as well. I knew they were holding back after they realized how good my hearing was so I thought it’d be nice of me to tell them that it’s okay for them to have sex in their room.”

“Okay! Enough on that story.”

“Yeah. I’ll save the rest in case I ever get to introduce you to them.”

Rather than continuing to watch Sally John let himself fall back into his seat. “Do you believe that day will come?”

This was a conversation Sally had before and she was grateful for it. It removed a good bit of the anxiety. “I trust you enough to let you know I am Sally Ahmera and believe me if that little tidbit got out it would cause a lot of trouble but I’ll need you to give me some time before I introduce you to my family. Please understand that while I care for you a great deal that kind of trust takes a while to form.”

“Well that’s not fair. You already know everything about my family.”

Rather than responding right away Sally turned down the stove and proceeded to walk back into the living room where John was setting. As he began to stand up she gently pushed him back into his seat and wrapped her arms around him. “I know that it’s unfair. I say I’m your friend and want to be your girlfriend but I don’t even trust you enough to reveal my family name to you or let you meet my parents. It’s not right of me and I know it.” Sally was about to continue when John pushed upward. Rather than holding him in the chair she allowed him to stand up and was further surprised by his arms wrapping around her to.

“Woe. Woe. Sorry that was my bad. I didn’t expect to hit that landmine. Wow I’m guessing that caused you to lose some friendships.” John took in a deep breath as he felt Sally’s hair brush against the side of his face when she nodded. “I understand. I don’t have people who would kill my family because they’re related to me. You have to take some extra caution.”

“Does that mean you forgive me for being unfair?” This wasn’t the first time Sally had asked a friend to forgive her for not being entirely fair. It was common enough with friends who actually wanted to get closer to her but she wasn’t ready to trust that much yet. John’s response to the situation was very rare though. It wasn’t just his words but the tone of his voice and his actions. None of them had went so far as to hug her like this.

“Only if you forgive me for neglecting to tell you something important to.”

Straightening up Sally didn’t bother wiping away or trying to hide the bit of moisture that had formed in her eyes. “Sure. You deserve your secrets to.”

“Well this one I figure I can tell you now. I spoke to Trisha after my shift today and well.” John felt himself grinning as he prepared to tell Sally that he and Trisha were no longer together. As he looked into her eyes though he couldn’t help but take another route. “How would you like to be my girlfriend.”

Sally couldn’t help but grin as she looked at John. Her heart was pounding in her chest as while she knew this time would come she wasn’t expecting it quite so soon. At the very least she expected to need to feed him for a while to make him loyal. For a moment she opened her mouth to speak but instead pushed her lips against his in their first oral kiss. As she kissed him she felt John’s arms tighten up around her and could hear his heart beating more quickly. It was only whenever she could hear him growing short on breath that she released him and allowed him to inhale deeply. “I’m the one that’s suppose to ask you that.”

Despite being a bit short on breath John was still able to chuckle as Sally relaxed her grip and allowed him to fall back into his seat. Upon settling back into the chair he was rather surprised by how light headed he was feeling all of a sudden. “So can I take that as a yes?”

“I’ll gladly accept delivery.”

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May 2 2019

At times Sally had to remind herself that there was more to a career then just buying or selling goods and services. She needed to get out at times and meet with people, make some contacts and rub some shoulders. Properly representing your brand could make or break your business. So today she’d decided to attend an assembly hosted by president Selvan. It helped that she’d found an absolutely darling outfit for her outing consisting of a black lacy bikini thong, a top that barely covered her nipples and a set of hills that covered her legs all the way up to the ankles. It was absolutely perfect given that Egrun women weren’t permitted to show anything above their ankles in most locations. She hadn’t been invited but that never stopped her before.

“Hi Silly Van I hope I didn’t miss anything!” Rather than landing next to Selvan Sally had chosen to land near the back of the spectators. She didn’t intend to stay there but proceeded to walk towards the front making a point to slam her foot into the ground with each step. With each step she felt the concrete shatter beneath her feet as she drove them several centimeters into the ground. Massive cracks were made to radiate out from each footstep and she could feel tiny bits of concrete striking her legs. Occasionally the tiny bits of stone found the far more delicate legs of the spectators bruising and even slashing into them while the shockwave each step produced insured none tried to come too close to her and some were tossed to the ground. Yet even as each foot step boomed with power she kept the movements of her legs smooth and graceful.

“So you’ve chosen to intrude where you’re not welcome again. The living example of why women can’t be trusted with such power!”

“We can’t! Wow you could have fooled me. Then perhaps you should come down here and do something about it or perhaps you’re too impotent.” Sally was made to giggle as the crowd continued to part for her. Selvan knew better than to actually insult her. That last time he’d done so she’d beaten him within an inch of his life and he’d nearly been removed from power while hospitalized. She would have lamented not killing them if she’d felt the leader of the coup was any better.

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“What are you watching?” Rather than waiting for an answer Remy couldn’t help but look over John’s shoulder to see what was on his phone. She wasn’t surprised to see Sally on the television again and even felt herself grinning whenever she realized where she was. “Can you understand a thing they’re saying?”

“They’re talking?” John was made to chuckle whenever Remy gave him a jab to the shoulder. “I’m not getting a word of it. Whatever she’s saying it seems to be really upsetting them.”

Remy was about to comment whenever the crowd was made to spread out and several men lined up in front of Selvan pointing assault rifles at Sally. It was too much for Remy to hide her surprise. “Good god do they really believe those things are going to hurt her?”

Before John could even comment the soldiers opened fire on Sally. He was quite surprised himself when his heart seemed to skip a beat as despite everything he knew of and even seen Sally do he was made to worry about her for an instant. That worry quickly faded as he noticed she seemed to be swaying to the bullets. “I guess so.”

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Letting the bullets bounce of her was boring and catching them with her hands was too easy. At times Sally liked to catch them in her mouth but she either had to swallow them or spit them out with this many bullets. At times she’d even swallowed them by accident. It was fine and fun but it didn’t let her show how many bullets there was at the end. What she really enjoyed doing whenever she had enough cleavage showing to get away with it was catch the bullets between her breasts.

Catching bullets between her breasts was naturally quite tricky. She had to press her breast together firmly enough to capture the bullets but not so tightly that they bounced off. At the same time she had to be cautious that her rapid movements didn’t end up ejecting the bullets from between them. Finally if she really wanted to put on a show she had to be careful not to crush the bullets into scrap between her tits. With so many gunman using automatic weapons it provided a marvelous distraction while she waited for them to empty their clips. That she had such a massive audience to watch her display only added to the fun and soon Sally found herself dealing with another complication as she giggled excitedly. It didn’t help that the spinning bullets tickled her breasts.

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“Can you believe that! I mean I knew she was super but! Can you believe that!”

John had known Remy was nervous when Sally had visited the hospital. As she yelled in his ear he was wondering if that was due to fear or her being a fan. Sally had waited until the gunman had empty their clips before taking hold of her nipples through her top and spreading her breasts apart allowing the bullets to fall free of her cleavage. He didn’t know if it was the casual display of power or what she said after it but it looked like the gunmen were ready to fall on their faces and start praying to her. Unfortunately he only had one thing to say at the moment. “Ear. Ear!”

Remy gave a slight yelp as she backed away from John having just realized what he meant. “Sorry about that.”

“Just be careful you don’t want to scare up the entire wing. What I don’t get is why they’re still broadcasting this. I figured they’d turn it off as soon as Sally showed up.”

“She probably did something to their cameras and other systems. It wouldn’t be a first.”

Both John and Remy were made to freeze upon hearing Kelly’s voice. As John looked to his boss he felt a little nervous. “Is my break over with?” He was rather surprised whenever Kelly was made to giggle.

“I figure the man who got our computer systems upgraded and a new CT scanner can have a twenty minute break. Now make some room.”

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May 2 2019 Midday 3 hours later

She typically liked to maintain better composure than this but Sally couldn’t help but giggle as she listened to John on the phone. After spending so long texting him to finally be able to speak with him still hadn’t lost its novelty. “Hi Boyfriend! How are things going?”

“They’re going pretty darn well here. My boss is on cloud nine since you bought the hospital some new equipment. Is it alright to speak on your end?”

“I’m the only one that can hear what you’re saying so feel free to speak. I’m going to have to watch my words though. I’m helping the police with another raid.” As she spoke Sally glanced over her shoulder at the various vehicles following her.

“Are you in Lexwell again?”

“No. I’m in Lund today.”

“I never heard of it.” John felt himself grinning whenever he heard Sally giggling. Of course he hadn’t heard of it. He didn’t even know the name of every city in his home country. She on the other hand spent her days traveling around the entire world and off of it at times. He was rather certain that in one day Sally saw more of the world then he had in his entire life time. “I suppose that was rather silly.”

“It was adorable! Now I’m glad you called. I was thinking about dinner and how would you like to go out for a nice pizza.”

John was kind of glad Sally couldn’t see the surprise on his face. She didn’t eat with him every evening but when she did she cooked. He had began to think that was the natural way for her. “You mean you’re not the one cooking it?”

“I would if you’d come over to my place. Oh! Err. Hmm. Now I don’t know what I want to do. I went to a party this morning and it got me thinking that I’d like to take you out and show you off a bit. I was going to get all dressed down so that no one would recognize me and use you to make other women jealous for a bit. But you have me wondering if it’d be more fun if we went to one of my homes. Did you just get called?”

“Yes. I’ll have to get back to you later but I have to ask something before I go. This has been killing me since I saw you at that party. Did you have your phone with you?”

“Of course! I wouldn’t risk missing an emergency call. It was in my bottom. I was actually hoping someone would give me a call for an excuse to take it out. Decide on where we’re eating.”

It surprised John when he felt himself blushing as he began to run down the hallway. He had expected as much but to hear Sally say it with that tone was something else. “I’ll be sure to think on it.”

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May 2 2019 Evening

Long curly black hair, green eyes, a golden tan, a different chin and several other modifications left Sally very confident she wouldn’t be recognized as herself as she walked into the hospital. That didn’t mean she didn’t make an impression. Anyone who recognized her as Sally Ahmera rather than just Sally was bound to pay attention and given her recent purchase for the hospital it was clear several recognized her. The designer dress and jewelry she wore helped to draw even more attention to her as she approached the front desk and smiled at Remy. “Pardon but could you help me?”

“Miss Ahmera! I didn’t know you were coming here in person. On behalf of everyone at the hospital just let me say thank you for your generous donation.” Rather than remain setting Remy made it a point to stand as she offered the woman her hand. While she didn’t want to appear a brown noser this was a woman who’d just made a significant contribution to the hospital. She didn’t want to risk spoiling a chance at further donations. She also didn’t want risk a future donation requiring that she be fired.

“Think nothing of it. Though perhaps you could tell me. What do you think it’d take to get your boss to loosen her hold on my boyfriend?” As she spoke Sally leaned closer to Remy as if trying to keep their conversation a secret though not truly carrying who listened. What she was careful to do was make sure to blink her eyes while altering her footing and breathing from time to time. The little shifts in her stance or slightly twitch that came so naturally to everyone else and told others they were alive but made it impossible for Sally to live as a normal human for long.

As Sally leaned close Remy couldn’t help but grin. “Well you’d have to speak to her if you wanted to know for sure but I think paying to give the support staff an extra week off would do the trick.” Remy was surprised by how much she found herself grinning whenever she heard Sally laugh.

“I’ll think about it. Where is Doctor Richarson anyway?”

“He’s seeing to one last patient before his shift is over.”

A sigh escaped Sally as she looked towards the clock. “How would you say the hospital is doing in terms of business?”

“Well we can’t get the best equipment but I believe we’re doing well. Why?”

“I was just thinking that perhaps I should just buy the hospital and save myself some trouble. Even if things didn’t work out for the investment a small loss wouldn’t be that bad. Still, John and I only started seeing one another recently and I suppose it’d be a bit early for me to start buying his place of employment even if I count in the time we were online together. It can get real awkward if you break up after the purchase. Suddenly every time they’re given an unpleasant job or passed over for a promotion it’s me being vengeful.” Sally was made to chuckle whenever Remy didn’t respond for several minutes appearing to be in stunned silence.

As John opened the door to the reception room he was grateful that Sally stood out so much even in her dressed down state. He still felt more than a little uncertain as he walked near her. It wasn’t just her appearance that was off but her body language as well. It was especially strange whenever he noted her shifting her stance to take some of the weight off her left leg. He felt more than a little relief as she walked towards him.

Normally Sally would have been upset if her boyfriend had trouble recognizing her. In this situation though she was quite pleased. It meant she was doing a good job of disguising herself. “Are you ready to go?”

“Sure Crap. What about my car?”

“Don’t worry I already arranged for it to be towed.”

For a moment John was made to recoil as he looked at Sally. “Back to my house?” Upon hearing Sally giggle John felt himself growing increasingly worried.

“To a storage yard until you can decide what you want done with it and get your belongings out. Your new car is waiting outside. How long did you expect me to let you drive around in something that dangerous?”

“It.” John went silent as Sally wrapped her arms around him.

“It’s just going to storage. It’s not being scrapped or anything like that. Just give your new car a try. Please? If you don’t like it we can look into getting you another one or having your old one modified.”

For a moment John had began to relax until he heard the modified part. “Modified how?”

“Do you really believe I’m going to let you drive around in something that only has a four star safety rating? Don’t worry. I know some wonderful mechanics who’ll keep it feeling just like its old self. Would you like me to arrange the work?”

“Ah. No.” John felt himself chuckling. When he’d thought Sally was going to scrap his car without permission he’d gotten rather alarmed. Knowing that it was his choice took the edge off.

A sigh of relief escaped Sally as she and John walked towards the exit. That he noticed only made her chuckle. “I’ve had this go badly before. The first time I went to get someone a safer, faster, more comfortable and more fuel efficient vehicle it did not go well. It wasn’t that they were particularly attached to their vehicle but I trashed it without permission.”

“How did you trash it exactly?” John didn’t resist as Sally pulled him closer so that she could whisper in his ear.

“Have you seen my learning to drive videos?”

“Oh lord! It was one of those vehicles?”

To this Sally gave her head a nod. “Yeah. If you want to see which one it was just watch navigating obstacles in a classic.” As she finished Sally released her hold on John so that he could straighten up again. “I learned my lesson pretty well after that. People rely on their vehicle to get them where they’re going and typically spend a lot of time in it. Even if they’re not particularly attached to that vehicle suddenly taking it away from them can have very negative results. Typically they’re fine with me putting it in storage but even that’s went poorly before.”

“I can see that.” As they stepped outside John took a moment to look around for where the car might be. Part of him expected Sally just to pick him up and fly away telling him that she’s his ride but surely she wouldn’t do that while in disguise. He soon found himself running behind Sally as she took his hand and began to run along.

“The parking was crap.”

For a moment John feared that Sally had forgotten to keep her speeds down to human level. Even olympic athlete level seemed a bit much as he ran along behind her. “It hap. Oh crap is that it!.” As they rounded a large truck John wasn’t certain what to think as Sally came to a stop behind a dark blue Strike. The supercar positively gleamed and looked equally well prepared to own a race track as a highway. While John didn’t know all the details he knew it had been designed for the wealthy idiot who wanted to insure he walked away from a high speed crash.

A delighted giggle escaped Sally as she noted the look on John’s face. “Do you like it?”

“Like it? I love it! Can I sell it and buy something else with a five star safety rating but cheaper price!”

Sally was made to jerk slightly as she felt a jolt of surprise, a little annoyance and a good bit of amusement. Even as she began to chuckle there was only one response she felt appropriate. “Ouch! That kind of hurt.” It didn’t take long before John had joined in on her laughter.

“I’m sorry that was mean of me. Kind of like asking someone for the receipt to a christmas gift they thought you’d love.” While he had apologized John knew it wasn’t the most sincere one he’d ever made mostly because he was still laughing. Fortunately Sally was laughing as well which helped remove most of the guilt.

“Will you at least hold onto it until I decide to get you something better?”

“Hold on. Lets see how she performs before we decide anything.” For a moment John went silent and simply took a moment to breath and examine the vehicle. “This is really mine now?”

“It is once you file some papers. Let’s go ahead and get your biometrics registered so the car will let you drive.”

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John could feel himself blushing furiously as he stormed into his home. Sally had picked him up a suit along with the car for him to wear on their outing but that wasn’t the reason for his embarrassment. That had more to do with the laughing woman coming up behind him. The woman that had been laughing for over five minutes at this point.

She truly didn’t mean to embarrass John like this.All she wanted to do was stop laughing and tell him that it was alright. Yet as much as Sally wanted to comfort John she couldn’t bring herself to stop laughing as she followed behind him. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about! It’s a new car using a type of motor that you’ve never used before. There is nothing wrong with making a few mistakes.” Despite her words Sally couldn’t help the laughter that came out with each one of them. If John could just calm down it would have been much easier to do so herself but at the moment it seemed they were feeding on each other’s emotions.

“I ran a stop light after stopping at it!”

“I know and you should have seen your face!” Normally Sally would have been horrified at seeing someone she cares for put in such danger. John had managed to drive right out into the middle of oncoming traffic whenever he’d tried to scoot a little closer to the light. He was still adjusting the Strike’s acceleration and stopping ability. Her being there had taken away the fear though. She’d simply pushed down on his leg and taken the wheel. With her awareness, reaction time and the cars performance it’d been easy to guide him through the potential crash.

If he had been in the car by himself John could have just been ashamed, horrified and concerned. He knew Sally had likely saved him from being in a wreck but having her there and listening to her laughter had left him mortified. “Damn. I wonder if I should call the police and ask about the traffic violation. I’m sure the camera on that light caught me.”

“I saw it take the pictures!” Sally was beginning to calm down now but she still giggled whenever she heard John hit the wall with his head. Fortunately it wasn’t hard enough to worry her.

“Isn’t this where you’re suppose to offer to make the ticket disappear?” John found himself beginning to grin whenever he looked to Sally and she was shaking her head no while still stifling her laughter. He was going to get fined and some points but he would be alright thanks to her.

“You’d get angry if I did that.This is the type of problem you’d prefer to handle on your own. Like when a loan rogue sneaks up on you while you’re at half magic.” Before continuing Sally moved to stand before John and pressed her lips against his for a moment. This time she stopped before she took all of his breath away and allowed him to continue standing on his own. “Which I love about you. Just don’t expect me to let you fight a bear.”

“You’ve had guys who wanted to fight a bear before?” Even as he spoke John had a pretty good idea Sally was speaking in metaphor. Who in their right mind would want to fight a bear?

“In an attempt to assert their manhood yes. Now are we still going out for dinner?”

“I imagine you had to pay a little to make these reservations from the way you were talking.” John was a bit surprised whenever Sally gave a slight snort. It was a good thing they were inside because it made him stumble backwards a bit. While it would be fine for the true Sally to do this for Ahmera it’d be out of place. “You don’t care in the least?”

“Well I care because I want to show you off a bit and enjoy a nice meal with you but otherwise no. The first two lose their meaning anyway if you’re not going to enjoy yourself. I can show you off later. Perhaps we’ll disguise you next time and you can go out with the real me. Now that can be a lot of fun.”

A dizziness came over John as he imagined going out in public with the real Sally. It was exciting, frightening, and desirable all at the same time. “Would you wear an outfit like the one I saw you wear to the party earlier?” John was worried he might regret his idea as Sally gave him a positively wicked grin and crossed her arms over her chest. She still had her disguise on but she’d stopped pretending to have muscles twitches she didn’t or fatigue.

“Would you take my phone out for me if I asked?”

John felt two regions become flush with blood. The expression on Sally’s face left him no doubt she was serious. He was made to feel even more awkward as he noticed her nose twitch and remembered what she’d said about being able to smell arousal. “Would you just give me a minute to get this on and would you handle driving this time. “

“The first one is fine but I’d prefer if you handled the driving. I want you to get use to your new car for when I’m not here.”

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“Are you sure this place has pizza? I mean. I have money. I’m a doctor after all but this is.” As John spoke he leaned close to Sally while looking out over the restaurant. Soft light, pleasant music and scents filled the air along with quiet conversation. The seats were well cushioned and every things that could shine seemed to. He felt himself grin a little whenever he heard Sally laughing. “Did you strong arm them into making something beneath them?”

“Of course not.” Before continuing Sally leaned over a bit and spoke so only John could hear her. “That type of behavior is too close to my true self to be seen in public. Don’t worry if you don’t like the food you can order something else or we’ll go somewhere else.”

To this John gave a nod and took a moment to look around. Before he knew what was happening he felt Sally take hold of his arm and put it around her shoulders. She leaned in against him and much to his surprise one of her hands came to rest on his thigh. When he looked at her face she had a massive smile on it as she looked out over the room. As he followed her gaze he noticed several people giving her a strange look. “Is something going on?”

Sally made it a point to turn away from the people looking at them and focus on John as she spoke. “I want everyone to see who I’m here with. I told you. I want to show you off.”

He didn’t realize it but as he listened to Sally John tightened his hold on her a bit. His chest puffed out a bit and he leaned back in his seat just a bit more. “Thanks. I thought you might have just taken me out to find a way to mess with people.” It didn’t surprise John too much as he felt Sally giggling and noticed her covering her mouth to keep it down.

“We’ll do that the first time someone asks you about being a kept man or mentions me slumming. Right now just let me show some of the world my boyfriend.”

Show him off? The thought made John chuckle a little. He didn’t consider himself a bad catch but compared to Sally the comparison was ridiculous. Even dressed down as she was she was well above him in terms of attraction. When she showed her true self she was even beyond that. She commanded more wealth than he knew and more power than he could truly imagine. He worried about making his boss mad she regularly provoked world leaders and was believed by some to be a goddess.

It was slight but Sally could hear and see John’s heart rate slowing. She could smell the changes in his body chemistry as it entered a more depressed state. Her own heart was made to slow a bit as she had a good idea of what was going on inside John’s head. She made it a point to smile as she looked at his face. “Kiss me.” Her smile became far more natural as she heard John’s heart rate speed up again.

She had kissed him and he’d kissed back but John hadn’t been the one to start a kiss yet. He didn’t have time to worry about such things as his body seemed to act on his own. His lips were already pressing against Sally’s and those thoughts had been chased from his mind.

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May 7 2019

Pete couldn’t help his smile as he watched Sally flying around the ready satellite. At least the essential components were ready to be taken into space for their first true test run. If they performed as expected they could begin production of the remaining ones then work on the relay satellites. All of that would be easy compared to making this first working product. “Are you okay Miss Sally?”

After the scare she’d given Pete during her last visit and how in control she’d made herself out to be Sally couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. Currently the satellite was it in its transportation configuration so it was nice and folded up but it was still absolutely massive. It was well beyond what a shuttle could have carried in a single trip simply due to its size and she wasn’t even considering the weight. With all the gold and bits of technology she didn’t understand it sure looked impressive. After several more moments of silence she heard Pete’s heart rate speeding up as he began to worry and she gave a slight chuckle. “It sure looks impressive Pete but I have no idea what I’m actually looking at!”

They hadn’t been said superhumanly loud and they were very friendly but Sally’s words nearly knocked Pete over. Despite the scare she’d given him before he found himself laughing. “I’m sorry Miss Sally. I forget at times if you knew all of this you wouldn’t have needed to higher any of us. It’s just with everything else you do.”

Sally was giggling herself as she flew over to Pete and smiled at him. “You’ve done good work Pete. You have no idea how happy I am that we’ve made it this far without any of this getting out. So you’re telling me that this thing is ready to go into space?”

“The sled is being prepared as we speak. Then all that needs to be done is for you to get it into the right orbit and we’ll have it deploy. After that everything should be automated.”

“Wow. Just wow. I know this isn’t the end of the work but we’re in the home stretch right? The ground systems are good to go?” Sally knew the answer to most of these questions but she wanted someone else to confirm them. At this point she’d taken a dog barking in agreement as she felt her excitement bubbling over.

“That’s correct.” Pete was actually made to jump backwards as Sally gave an excited squeal.

“Yes!” By now Sally couldn’t convince herself to stay on the ground and she flew back into the air spinning in circles herself as she flew around the machine that was looking absolutely beautiful to her now giggling the entire time.

It was strange to see Sally acting like this but when he considered the years spent on the project, the funding and the materials she’d provided it was clear Sally was heavily invested in its outcome. He didn’t blame her for being excited. Changing the world for the better was one of the reasons he’d joined the project as well after all.

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May 10 2019 Evening

“What are you up to?” Currently John was being carried cradled in Sally’s arms while he had his right arm around her. He was in his flight suit so that she could fly more freely and yet he could still feel her chuckling.

“Now John. I’ve already said I’m not making comments about the satellite I put into space Tuesday.” Despite her words Sally could barely contain her excitement. She positively wanted to burst and tell John everything. She’d already told her family about the project but three people and a dog just weren’t enough. If he was to push the issue she doubted that she’d been able to keep quiet. If he even threatened to tickle her she’d probably give the entire secret.

“I’m not talking about the spy satellite you’re going to use to take over the world. Though when you do rule the world I have some changes to request. You’ve been grinning and giggling so much that you’ve been vibrating me the entire time you’ve been flying. What do you have planned?”

If John hadn’t had a helmet on Sally would have kissed him right then. As things where she’d have to wait as she didn’t much care for kissing his face plate. “Well first I hate to disappoint but I won’t be taking over the world this year. Second what kind of changes did you have in mind?”

“For one thing doctor’s need more authority to make patents take their medicine as prescribed.”

“I can see where that would be a good thing but that would be very hard to implement without infringing upon a lot of rights. Can’t you think in terms of encouraging proper use of medicine? Say for example if they take their medicine properly they get a refund or a deduction on their next prescription because they took the last one seriously?”

“Yes. You should work that into a law when you finally conquer us all.” John was made to chuckle himself whenever he heard Sally groan. “So what’s the big secret?”

“Well I told you that I have a home on the moon. I thought that we could spend the weekend there. I’m also finally ready to take you up on your offer to join me for some exercise.”

He had known that Sally had something planned from the way she was behaving. He hadn’t been prepared for this plan and his mouth quickly jumped ahead of his brain. “I don’t know which one of those sounds crazier! When did I say I’d exercise with you?”

“You said it several times online!”

“That was before I knew you did your exercising in space.”

“I know and believe me that has been quite a problem to solve. It’s not just a matter of keeping you safe but insuring that you can exercise as well which believe me isn’t easy without any gravity. Fortunately I was able to find a solution and I can’t wait to show it to you.” At this point Sally found herself positively giggling again. Unlike the satellite this was one secret she could easily keep from John. He would see what she worked out soon enough and she wanted to give him time to think on the subject.

“You’re serious. I can’t believe you’re serious! You’re really going to take me to the moon?” John had a grin on his face so large that it actually hurt at this point.

“I had a shuttle made a little while back that I use to take friends and family up there. I believe my sister is the only kid on the planet that’s sick of visiting the moon.”

“How did you manage that?”

“It wasn’t my doing. Well I did enable it. For a while she kept wanting to visit and play on it. I had to say no quite a bit because I didn’t want to risk the low gravity messing with her development but we still went enough for her to get sick of it.”

“Does that mean you have space suits for a child?”

“I do.”

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Sally blew John a kiss as she looked inside the shuttle. The tiny craft was a far cry from the one the NSI used. It’s tiny thrusters were only meant to return the aircraft to the earth in the event of an emergency while it relied on parachutes to set it down gently. The flight controls were exceptionally simple and mostly consisted of an emergency return to earth button. There was no cargo except for the passengers and no equipment for gathering data. Yet in terms of safety it far exceeded the shuttle so long as she didn’t drop it too soon. “Are you ready?”

John was a bit startled whenever he felt the entire shuttle vibrate for a moment. He imagined this was a side effect of Sally speaking loudly enough for him to hear her. “As ready as I’m going to get. Please no blackouts on this trip.”

Giving a slight wave Sally placed both feet on the top of the shuttle and spread her legs slightly making sure John could see up her skirt. Normally she would have worn pants for this and took on a more ladylike pose but with John being the only passenger this seemed more appropriate. Unlike the space programs shuttle the passenger shuttle was pulled. It also only required her to harness her legs and waist. It let her see where she was going and if someone she liked was along for the ride she could give them a little tease.

He’d been looking out the front when Sally spread her legs which naturally meant he’d gotten an eye full of the view. He didn’t know if it was the position, her clothing or that she was so close but John found his response to looking up Sally’s skirt even stronger than seeing her in a bikini on television. He imagined he’d be enjoying the view for a while as he felt himself pushed back into the seat and they were moving upwards. The acceleration reminded him of roller coasters during a dive except they were going straight up while the sight of her panties reminded him his girlfriend was an incorrigible tease. He was a bit surprised by how little her skirt responded to the wind and had to remind himself that Sally’s clothing only looked normal.

Sally had a huge grin on her face as she looked down at John and noticed him looking straight forward. She knew it was in part due to the g forces she was exposing him to but she was certain he liked the view to. The grin on his face told her that and she couldn’t help but giggle as she accelerated a little further. Turning her attention upwards she was grateful that the thicker frame and much smaller size of the passenger shuttle meant she didn’t have to worry about damaging it nearly as much. She could even get away with a few maneuvers if she wanted to.

Instinctively John gripped the seat as he felt everything beginning to spin. He wanted to close his eyes but he forced them to remain open as he looked upwards. He wasn’t certain how high up they were but he imagined it was high enough to give her time to catch him if things went wrong. He’d never known Sally to take a chance with his life after all and she’d been trying to make his life more secure. Thinking that she wanted him alive did a lot to help him relax especially as he noticed them slowing down and a shift in the way the shuttle moved. He had no experience flying himself but it seemed like something had changed.

As they moved outside of the earth’s atmosphere Sally made some changes in their velocity and took a seat upon half of the window. Looking over her shoulder she gave the glass a gentle tap and waved at John whenever he smiled out at her. She would have spoke with him but she knew he didn’t know sign language. She’d have to teach him eventually for future visits. For a moment Sally felt slightly annoyed as she looked back and noticed John looking out the window at the earth rather than at her. Fortunately it was his first time in space so she’d forgive him for taking his eyes off her this time. In the future she’d expect him to keep his eyes on what was important.

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John was grateful Sally had spun the shuttle around so that he could see her closing the hanger doors to her home. Her home on the moon. The thought made him dizzy again. He knew they were wealthy people in the world but Sally was at another level there as well. As he saw her walking around to the shuttle door he was a little surprised whenever he realized there was no handle for him to open it with.

Once the hangar doors were shut the room had been flooded with atmosphere. It still took roughly a minute for Sally to be comfortable opening the shuttle. As she opened the door though she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “Welcome to the first long term residence on the moon!”

As Sally moved to the side and let John out he was rather surprised. For some reason he’d imagined Sally having some kind of artificial gravity system. Instead he found the reduction in his weight throwing him off and hindering his movements. It seemed Sally wasn’t willing to wait for him to get his footing as she took hold of his hand and began to guide him out. “You do know you don’t have a handle in there.”

“Yes I do. I removed it after someone who shall not be named decided to open the door before the hangar doors were closed.”

“Ouch! Were they alright?”

“They lost some hearing for a while after I was finished shouting at them but they recovered.”

“You didn’t hit them?”

“No but I really wanted to.”

John was made to chuckle as he settled his feet on the ground. As he looked around the hangar he noticed a large cylinder on the other side of it. What surprised him about it was that he could see through it and there was various bits of furniture inside of it. “Is that?”

“You can look at that later. Come on.” As Sally spoke she more pulled John along than anything else.

With Sally leading the way it didn’t take them long to reach the door. As she opened it he was rather surprised by what he saw. Tasteful wood flooring and stone work greeted his eyes as well as classical western furniture. The room made him think of a luxury condominium one might find in the mountains. Yet while the room was nice the biggest eye catcher was the massive window. One question came to mind immediately. “What kind of glass is that?”

“It’s diamond not glass.” Sally was made to giggle as pure shock appeared on John’s face. “I find all sorts of crazy things while planet hopping. Now here is an annoying story. Three years ago I went gold hunting and managed to find a lot of it. I wanted to bring it back to the earth thinking that it would be so wonderful if people could use gold as freely as they use copper. Well a few people learned about what I was doing and I started getting all these pleading messages not to bring the gold back how it’ll destroy this fortune or that fortune and throw of the entire world’s economy.”

“What did you do with the gold?”

Sally puffed out her cheeks for a moment before giving a long sigh. “I caved. I agreed I’d only bring so much gold back at a time except for personal projects that wouldn’t be for sell. At the current rate it’s going to take me over two hundred years to get it all into the economy and it is so hard not to just call them up tell them I changed my mind and bring the rest to earth.” For a moment Sally went silent and shook her head as she looked towards mars. “I found a place to hide it on mars. I was a centimeter away from leaving it on the moon for everyone to see and ask questions about but.”

“Did Tina ask you to hold off on the gold?”

“No. None of my friends asked me to hold off on the gold it was just some people I’d worked for if indirectly and some people I’ve never even done business with. I don’t know why I caved.”

“I do. You were scared they were right and you’d upset the world’s economy too much.” As John spoke he placed a hand on Sally’s shoulder. He was rather surprised whenever she took hold of his hand and removed it from her shoulder. He was even more surprised whenever she moved it down to her but and pressed it firmly against it. For a moment the two of them just grinned at one another.

“They are some people that really depend on gold mining for their livelihood and even nations. That won’t be happening next time though. The next time I’m ready to do something for the world I’m not pulling my punch.”

“Is that what the satellite is about?”

With John keeping his hand on her rear Sally proceeded to place an arm around him as well. “It’s going to be so wonderful whenever it’s finished but it’s going to throw so much into chaos. People are going to lose fortunes and their businesses. The economies of the world are going to have to restructure themselves.”

“If I promise not to tell anyone will you tell me what it is?”

Sally bit down on her lip for a moment as she looked at John. She’d already trusted him with a few big secrets. What was one more? The project was so close to being finished anyway. After a moment of silence a delighted squeal escaped her. “I want to tell you so bad! Just promise me. And I mean this. Promise me that you won’t tell anyone about this. Now before that I need to tell you. I have threatened peoples lives if they let this secret out and I have no doubt I would carry through with it.”

“Even now?” John actually felt himself growing a little worried as he watched Sally chewing on her lower lip. He didn’t know if he wanted to know a secret that could get him killed.

“No. It’s too late. People see the satellite and they know something is going on. There isn’t a lot of options as to what it’s doing either. Though my favorite is that I’m actually an alien and I’ve had them build that satellite to contact my people. I’m a lot faster than anything that satellite can do.”

“Okay then. I promise I won’t tell anyone what your deep space weapon of mass destruction does.”

“It’s not.” After a moment’s thought Sally had to stop herself from talking. It was true the satellite was going to destroy several economies and force them to adapt. She knew this could even result in some deaths. “Fine! Your description is accurate. People have been speculating on it already. It’s a solar energy collector. The one I put up earlier is the first of many and a relay system. Once it’s finished they’ll beam energy strait to earth totally changing the power industry.”

John could hear the excitement in Sally’s voice while he felt rather shocked himself. He’d read the theories of course and that was a rather popular one. To have her confirm it though added a lot more weight to the feeling. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because I couldn’t risk how people would respond. This project has been underway for over two years now. I’ve put enough money into it to fund a nuclear weapons program and that’s not including what I provided in terms of services, gold, diamond and other materials. What do you think people invested in other forms of energy production would have done if they’d known I was doing this?”

“I see. They’d began pulling out. Gas stations would start shutting down, coal mines would close, oil fields and well yeah. There is going to be a lot of lost money and jobs because of this.”

“I know but I couldn’t have that happening for two years before the system is even ready. However, I already let the few win and the world lose once. I’m not doing that this time.” As she spoke Sally had to take a moment to steady herself. A slight yelp escaped her as John gave her rear a smack. Before she could even think what to say she heard an ouch escape him and noticed him pull his hand away.

“You naughty girl. Throwing the world economy into chaos like that.” John gave a slight grunt as he worked his fingers waiting for the stinging in his hand to go down. “I think I put a little too much into that one.” Even as Sally stepped away and turned to face him John was grinning. He didn’t know why she took hold of his wrist but he wasn’t worried.

Lifting the hand John had smacked her with to her mouth Sally gave it a gentle kiss. “Careful. It’s no fun if you hurt yourself.” As she finished speaking Sally placed several more gentle kisses on his hand. When she looked up at John’s smiling face she returned the smile.

John could feel his heart beating in his chest he felt light headed and he knew he had a huge smile on his face. “You’re astounding you know that?”

“Yeah but hearing someone as wonderful as you say that is really nice. So any thoughts about my little project?”

“How long until it’s operational?”

“The first tower should go live in about thirty days. It’s already been built and is just waiting for its power source. After that anyone in Nimex with the right equipment will be able to tap into the energy.”

“Just Nimex?”

“Each transmission tower has a limited range. That’s what the relay satellites are going to be for. It also lets me regulate who can use the energy a bit. Any nation that wants to make use of the energy is going to have to to build a transmission tower and meet some conditions.”

“So you are planning to conquer the world!”

Sally couldn’t help but giggle at John’s light hearted tone. “No. I’m showing my support for the nations I feel are deserving. If a nation wants the same support then they must make themselves deserving as well.”

“Does the strike you gave me have the proper systems?”

“Yep! You’ll never have to buy fuel again unless you go to a nation without the system.”

Taking in a deep breath John leaned back for a moment and rubbed his forehead as he tried to let this all sink in. “You know I’d normally be overwhelmed by all of this but after having you show up on my doorstep and learning you’ve been my friend for over a year I believe I’m alright with all of this. I do want to say I believe you’re doing the right thing and I’m proud of you.” For a moment John didn’t know what to think as he felt Sally’s arms wrap around him. “What’s that for?”

At first Sally said nothing but placed her head against John’s chest and took in a deep breath. It felt like joy was flowing into her body as she took in his scent. “For being you and taking everything so well. You don’t even seem to realize how amazing you are. You just make me feel so happy.”

They hadn’t been together for long though they’d known one another for quite some time. He still wasn’t certain about how he felt about everything either but as Sally hugged him John did have one thing he wanted to say. “That’s because I love you. It makes everything else easy to accept. Even the parts where you scare half the life out of me.” As the words left him John felt a wave of force wash over his body that would have him stumbling backwards if Sally hadn’t been holding onto him. As he looked at her he noticed she’d began to blush and one thought dominated in his mind. Was that her heart beat?

That was so sweet! A huge smile pulled at the sides of Sally’s face even as she felt herself blushing and turned her head down for a moment. Yet while she faced downward her eyes looked up into John’s even while her smile tried to split her face in half. “Sorry. You made my heart flutter for a moment.” As she raised her face back up Sally wrapped her arms around John and pulled him closer so that her breasts pushed firmly against his chest. Bringing him closer Sally pressed her lips against his and very carefully began to draw the air out of his lunges.

There was no attempt to resist on John’s part. Her lips are so soft and her breasts. Even her skin it just feels amazing. Wrapping his arms around Sally John slipped them underneath her shirt so that he was actually touching her back. Sally’s clothes were made to look like normal clothes but they had to be far more durable or they would restrict her too much. This was something he was reminded of everytime he touched them and imagined how unpleasant they would be to wear. Her skin was an entirely different story though. It was soft, warm and extremely pleasing to the touch. I wonder how her breasts feel without that shirt covering them. This thought remained in John’s mind even as he grew light headed and Sally finally broke the kiss.

“I.” Taking in a deep breath Sally leaned her head forward and placed it on John’s shoulder before raising it up and looking into his eyes. “I love you to. Hm. What is that look for?”

“Ah! Nothing much.”

Looking over her shoulder Sally was made to giggle as she noticed where John’s hands were. “These clothes must spoil a lot of the fun for you. Do you want me to fix that.”

“Huh! You don’t.” John found himself silenced as Sally stepped back and took hold of the bottom of her shirt then in one smooth motion lifted it above her head. As John’s eyes went to her face he found her lips had parted into a very toothy smile as she revealed she wasn’t wearing a bra not that her breasts seemed to care. Her superhuman muscles didn’t seem to have any issue ignoring gravity especially the light gravity of the moon.

Once again Sally took hold of John’s hands but instead of moving them to her rear she pressed them against her chest. “Now isn’t that better than with that shirt on?”

Wow. Just wow. These feel so amazing. They’re so supple and warm but just the right amount of firmness. “Yeah. That’s much better.”

Oh! I just want him in my room so bad but I suppose I should give him the full story. I don’t want to risk him getting me too worked up after all. A slight chuckle escaped Sally as she took a step away from John and began walking towards the couch looking out into space. “John I need to tell you something before we go any further. With the way I’m feeling right now I’d be carrying you into my room already if there wasn’t a very real danger I’d end up killing you if things got too heavy.”

“Huh?” John didn’t try to hide his confusion as he followed Sally to the couch though his smile didn’t fade. Okay she wants to have sex with you but fears for your safety. I think we need some more information here. “I thought you could control your body.”

“I can! For the most part and with practice.” This feels so weird. Okay just tell him. “Okay. I have sex test dummies and that sounds exactly like they are. They’re anatomically correct dummies with various sensors that I use to practice having sex with to avoid killing people. The skill isn’t something I was born with and it’s not something that fits all. My original dummies actually were rather generously sized.” A slight giggle escaped Sally despite her best efforts as she noted the look on John’s face. “I practiced with them a great deal and destroyed a lot of them before I reached the point where I wouldn’t be killing my partner and it took even longer to insure a human would enjoy it.”

“I even reached a point where I believed it’d be okay for me to begin seeking more intimate relationships but I wanted to be certain. So I decided to try both a larger and smaller penis size. Suddenly I was all the way back to square one especially with the even larger size. Through experimentation I found out that it wasn’t just changes in the penis. Changes in the height and width of the dummy itself could mess everything up. Now even I don’t want to have sex constantly especially with a dummy so there was no way I could train myself to safely have sex with anyone.”

It felt like his brain had stopped working as he listened to Sally. Fortunately it didn’t take long for the gears to begin turning again as he processed the information. “You need a dummy based off me!”

“Well. Yes. I wasn’t actually planning to have this conversation today but yes. Before I would be willing to risk having sex with you I need you to let me take some measurements so I can have the proper analogues made. As right now you likely wouldn’t survive and I know you wouldn’t enjoy the experience.”

Okay so she needs to have a sex doll of me made. That’s something I never thought that I’d hear. I’m grinning. A slight chuckle escaped John before he gave a slight sigh and shook his head. “Wow! I never thought I’d hear a woman saying she needs to have a sex doll made in my likeness. So are we at that point?”

“Yes! I just said I’d be carrying you into my bedroom already if I wasn’t worried I’d break you. Besides.” Setting up Sally placed her arms behind her head and flexed her chest muscles causing her breasts to bounce and sway. “How often do you see these girls making private appearances.”

“That’s a very good point. But a little while ago you said you could control it for the most part. What is the most part?”

“Ah! Yeah. It’s not something you need to worry about.” Leaning back into her seat Sally once again placed her hands in her lap. “I’ve never been able to take anything above twenty four centimeters without destroying my partner.”

“Hey! How do you know that’s not something I have to worry about?” John couldn’t help but grin whenever Sally was made to giggle and looked straight at his pants.

“I’ve seen you erect enough to know you’re not that big mister.”

“Ah yeah. I forgot how you can see through clothes.” A slight chuckle escaped John as he forced himself to look towards Sally’s face after realizing how long he’d been looking at her exposed chest. “So how did you find this out?”

“My! Don’t you believe that question is a bit personal? I mean. How would you like it if I asked whenever you began masturbating and how you learned about it?”

A huge grin formed on John’s face as he looked straight into Sally’s eyes. “I suppose my first experience with such things was at a carnival. We were on a ride that kept spinning us and I wanted to go on it again and again because I liked the feeling of the wind blowing through my shorts. I can’t say I’m certain what age I was. I know that it was well before my teens though. I mentioned it to my father and the next day we had a little talk.”

I can’t believe he told me that so easily! He looks so cute blushing like that. “Oh come on! You could have made the story better than that.”

A sharp chuckle escaped John as he leaned back on the sofa, looked up towards the ceiling so that he was looking out into space and closed his eyes. “Okay give me a second.”

“Hold on!” Before continuing Sally waited for John to look towards her again and leaned forward bringing herself just a bit closer to him. “Save that story for later. I bet it’d be great for when we’re actually in bed.” Once again Sally went silent though this time she puckered her lips and gently blew on John. “Perhaps I can even mimic the feeling of that old ride. Okay you want to know how I figured they were certain sizes I have issue with. I suppose my first clue came about whenever I decided to masturbate using a railroad railing.”

“Are you serious! You used a rail to masturbate with?”

“Yes I am. I actually went through about twenty meters of rail when I was figuring this out. About four years ago I got it into my head it’d be enjoyable to try using something so strong to get myself off. So I took out a nice big section of the railing and began. Well it didn’t take me long to squirt the melted metal out and no it wasn’t because I came. I just squeezed too hard on it. So I took off a larger section and then a larger thinking that I could just keep shoving it into myself even as I destroyed the railing. It didn’t take me long to realize that wasn’t working though as I sure wasn’t any closer to getting myself off. It was after I decided to take things slowly and use smaller sections that I realized the smaller sections lasted much longer though not for very long.”

“How long are we talking about?”

A slight giggle escaped Sally as she considered her options on answering John’s questions. “Let’s wait until we’re being a little more intimate for the details. I’ll want to hear your story again to. Put simply I ended up using my fingers to finish myself off and that was one of the angriest orgasms I’d ever had. The strength of the material doesn’t matter much to me it seems. Rather it’s more about what my body is familiar with.”

“Lord that is just.” John couldn’t feel himself grinning as he imagined this. “Have you ever considered recording any of this? You recorded learning to drive after all and you have a lot of recordings of your demolition work.”

“Oh I record such things! It helps me figure out what I’m doing wrong. They’re just not for sell. Not that I could sell the railroad railing thing anyway at least not my first time. I was only fifteen years old whenever I got it into my head to try that.”

“Fifteen.” As the word left his mouth John could feel the gears turning in his head. It was a slow turn as if a massive wheel was moving but whenever it turned he felt everything click into place and his mouth moved almost as fast as his thoughts. “You’re nineteen!” A sharp chuckle from Sally moments later put John into a slight daze.

“Yes! How old did you think I was?”

“I don’t know!” While he set up completely John wasn’t quite standing up. That Sally continued to stand there with her chest exposed only seem to exacerbate the situation as he struggled to process this information. “I thought you were at least in your twenties whenever you started appearing to the public.”

Sally felt herself grinning as she gave a long drawn out no followed by a short chuckle. “Technically it was illegal for me to do a lot of the jobs I did early on and anyone who masterbated to me more than a year ago was actually masterbating to jailbat. Now in terms of living hours I’m more like twenty six or twenty seven after all I don’t sleep. I’m not sure where I’d be as far as life experience goes. Besides, how old do I look?”

As he went to respond John felt his voice catch in his throat for a moment. “Late teens to early twenties but I thought that was just another one of your powers. Longevity.”

“Oh I have no idea about that!” Looking down at her body while raising Sally raised her hands up in front of her face as if inspecting them. “I suppose I reached this point around when I turned fourteen. My body always developed really quickly. I haven’t really changed since then unless you count my exercise routine.”

John is looking a little uncertain. I should give him a little reminder of who I am and I know just how to do it. Sally’s hand impacted with her abdominal muscles sharply to send out a shockwave throughout the room that made several lighter items shake violently and even disturbing several of their positions. “Now these are recent.” Before continuing Sally placed her fingers on her upper most abdominal muscles. “I only had a four pack for a long time and these I just got a bit over a year ago. You might have seen the videos when I spent around three months refusing to wear anything that covered up my abdominals.”

“I remember that. I suppose not needing sleep gives you plenty of time to exercise but you’re really nineteen?” I’m nearly thirteen years older than her. I thought she just looked young and perhaps didn’t age not that she was actually as young as she looked.

“Yes I am. And don’t even think of turning me down because of my age.” As she spoke Sally put the same power into her voice that she used when threatening someone’s life. Her arms crossed over her bare chest and her body language left no doubt that she was deadly serious. “I don’t let relativistic physics tell me that I can’t exceed the speed of light, biology tell me that I need oxygen and I’m sure not going to let some human law tell me I’m too young to date someone..” Perhaps a little more power for show. Exhaling carefully Sally made John’s hair and clothing ruffle in the wind for a moment before flashing him a large smile and taking on a far more cheerful tone. “Okay?”

Is she serious? Shit I think she’s serious! Well she’s still the woman I thought she was even if she’s a bit younger than I thought. I probably shouldn’t play the life experience card given that she’s never had down time due to needing to sleep and has done more in her nineteen years than I have my thirty plus. “How about if I dumped you because I can’t stand your snoring while you sleep?” A smile seemed to explode upon Sally’s face and John felt it whenever she began to laugh. Much to his surprise it didn’t stop at her face as he watched Sally nearly double over as her teeth gritted and her body convulsed as she was clearly trying to hold in her laughter. Score!

It was only a matter of time before Sally couldn’t hold it in any longer and she found herself openly laughing. Reflexively she covered her mouth to help diminish the force but John had really tickled her. It made controlling her laughter harder than normal and she knew she was putting more power into it than she wanted to. It wasn’t enough to make her leave the room but she still was careful. “You had better have a recording of that snoring considering I don’t sleep!”

“So you had trouble with that before?” I guess she needs a moment. John felt himself smiling as Sally held up a finger for him to wait a moment. Apparently she was still working on getting her giggles out. He didn’t mind waiting. Seeing her breast shake with her laughter was quite a pleasant show and it gave him a little time to think on the situation. So she’s over a decade younger than me. The sight of Sally straightening up and regaining her composure brought a smile to John’s face. I guess she’s ready to talk some more.

“Yes. It was extremely bad whenever I was under the age of eighteen and honestly it made me more than a little angry the first time someone wanted to leave me over it. I actually had to take him home right there to keep myself from doing something that I would regret. I believe the relationship did end on that day though especially whenever I told him to stop talking before I end up breaking my promise to take him home. I was going to drop him off at an airport and buy him a ticket as well as a room for the night.” A slight giggle escaped Sally as she brought her right thumb to her mouth and bit down on it for a moment. “He didn’t take it that way. I know laws were put in place for young people who don’t have all the experience they need to make certain choices. I’m not like those people the law were put into place for though physically or mentally.”

“Have you ever had any psych exams?”

Okay here we go. Well I told him my brain is wired funny before. Walking over to John Sally dropped herself down into the seat next to him causing her unrestrained breast to bounce energetically for a moment. “I have a lot of them especially whenever I was younger. My doctor was really interested in my developing mind and how things like not sleeping or ever feeling pain might make me different from others. My level of awareness to. For example they feared that I might not develop a notion of object permanence just because it was so hard to hide anything from me. I knew dad didn’t disappear from the world when he left the room because I could still see him in the house.”

“I’m not wired normally. If I was I might very well be driven insane by how slowly the world moves around me. The speed with which I can think and move also make certain testing methods useless for me as does my overall level of awareness. Then there is the constant flood of sensory information I’m getting. Still, as far as they can tell my brain was fully developed in my early teens. If my brain underwent neural pruning or not is another story. It’s not like there is anyway to look inside my head and see and besides with how differently my brain is wired than a humans it’s possible that nothing was pruned but rather repurposed. Not that any cell of my body has any shortage of energy.”

“I don’t want to seem off putting and it’s not that I don’t enjoy the view but are you certain we should be having this kind of conversation when you’re naked from the waist up?”

A slight giggle came from Sally as she looked into John’s eyes. “Would you prefer I be naked from the waist down as well?”

“Well while I’m certain I’d enjoy the view I prefer to have all my mental faculties when having these kinds of talks.”

“Oh come now! You’re a doctor. You shouldn’t have any trouble having a serious conversation with someone who is mostly naked.”

“The hospital really helps and I’m not exactly treating you for some illness or injury.”

A slight chuckle escaped Sally as she looked John over. Despite his concern for her age she noticed he was also rather excited. “Well first tell me what’s on your mind. If there is something you want to talk about that’s serious enough I’ll put my shirt back on. Otherwise we can continue the tour and you can continue enjoying the view. I need to show you where some of the other rooms are after all. Well actually before that there is something I want to talk about unless there is something on your mind.”

What do I want to talk about? Well I’d like to know about the development of her brain and how the testing went but that’s more curiosity than actual concern. I’m pretty certain she is sane or sane enough for me. I wonder if this has anything to do with those people she’s hurt for insulting her though. “Okay one question. I know that you’ve hurt people for insulting you and honestly they’re times I felt you went way too far.” John found himself going silent as he felt a torrent of wind rush by him and realized Sally had sighed. It didn’t seem like she was angry though and a moment later he felt her head come to rest on his shoulder.

“That sounded a little too much like my dad. We still have this talk at times whenever I do something that shows up on the news. Well if it’s big enough. I am capable of forgiveness and empathy. I can even move past anger. Okay I’m putting my shirt back on.” It surprised Sally whenever John took hold of her wrist and looked straight into her eyes.

“That’s alright but please continue.” There was a moment of silence and then John felt Sally’s lips meet with his own briefly. For a moment everything seemed to freeze and then the kiss broke and she settled back into her seat.

“How do I put this. I’ve tried to let it go. I mean. If they can provoke me into killing them or injuring them that means their words have power over me and thus they have some power over me. Just not the type of power they want and honestly I don’t like that. It does though. Their words reach me and hurtful words hurt. As time passes the pain actually tends to get worse so that I start feeling like I’m letting someone injure me and I have to retaliate.”

“But Sally I’ve insulted you before. I mean heck we constantly made fun of one another online and what about your family? Are you saying they’ve never said anything mean to you?”

“Of course they’ve hurt me! It’s just when you hurt me it’s come from a place of good intentions or at least good humor and I believe even love. The same goes for my family and friends. Even when they hurt me I know the pain is from a place of love and that. What’s the right word here? It still hurts and honestly it often hurts even more than normal but there is no lingering pain no sting that seems to drive me insane.”

“So you view it like a shot? It stings but you know it’s for your own good.”

A slight giggle escaped Sally before she spoke. “I have no idea what a shot is like though from how my sister use to scream they seem quite unpleasant. Not that she thinks anything of them anymore. So maybe? It’s not like that whenever I know that the person had no true regard for me or worse yet wanted to hurt me. When that happens the pain lingers and lingers until it becomes absolutely maddening and I have to act upon it. I just can’t bring myself to forgive someone for hurting me like that and the pain won’t stop until I’ve done something to return the pain. We don’t know if this is due to how my brain has been wired or if it’s simply me.”

So not only does she struggle to let things go but the longer she holds onto it the worse it becomes. This would mean asking her to resist such urges could be even more dangerous. She might reach a point that she can forgive them but then she might reach a point where she has to act upon the desire and her reaction would be even more extreme. “So you don’t like the idea of some insect being able to hurt you?”

“Insects can’t harm me. I can ignore insects with no problem. I’ve had pets you know and do you have any idea what it would take to keep a home truly insect free? These aren’t insects trying to hurt me they’re humans. If I could see them like insects I wouldn’t have any problem ignoring their words but I don’t believe I want to risk going down that path. If I remove someone’s humanity, even a criminal’s, how far am I from devaluing the life of everyone else?”

“Then why do you believe they shouldn’t be able to harm you?”

“Because I’m human and then some!” A slight giggle escaped Sally as she set up upon noticing a look of surprise on John’s face. “Why are you so surprised! John I’ve seen you brush aside angry words before and you’re not the only one. Here I am impervious even to the fire’s of a star, capable of surviving in a vacuum and yet my skin is so thin that the words of an angry little fool can still cut me so deeply that I can’t ignore it. Where is my armor?”

Okay. So what am I supposed to say about that? I wish I had taken some more psychology classes but I doubt she’d like to hear that. “You care about people and because of that you want to make the world a better place for everyone. At the same time because you care it means we’re able to hurt you.”

“Yes but a lot of people care about humanity as a whole and want to make the world a better place for humanity.” A slight giggle escaped Sally despite the situation. “But I actually want to make the universe a better place for humanity. We have to take this one step at a time.”

John found himself returning Sally’s half chuckle a moment later. “That’s true.” Okay so the problem doesn’t seem to be based in how Sally sees other humans. Then perhaps it’s based on how she sees herself. I really need to speak to someone who might know something about this. “Thanks Sally. I believe I know a bit more about you now. I’m not sure what I can say or do to help but I’m here for you to offer what help i can.”

“So no more thoughts about leaving me because of my age?”

“Yeah. You’re plenty adult.”

“Thanks.” Standing back up Sally turned to face John and leaned forward so that her breasts were right in his face. “And see? No shirt required.”

“Wait a minute! You said that you had something you wanted to talk me about.” John gave a slight yelp as he was driven back into his seat by Sally moving forward and placing her right knee on the couch while pressing her breasts firmly into his face.

“That’s right! Thanks for reminding me. I just wanted to say that while we can’t have sex that doesn’t mean we can’t do other fun things. That I can’t do fun things to you.” A low moan came from Sally as she felt John kiss her breasts and she backed up a bit so that he wouldn’t be speaking into her breasts.

“What about me doing things to you?”

“It’s possible but you’re going to have to be careful to follow the rules that I set. Until I’ve had time to practice having sex or anything similar to it with me is actually a lot more dangerous than you seem to realize. I’ve destroyed my practice dummies while simply trying to kiss them or blow on their chest. Heck I just wanted to lightly bite down on their chins a few times and ripped the majority of their face off a few times.”

“What all do you practice with those dummies!”

A slight giggle escaped Sally as she pressed her breasts back into John’s face. “It would be easier to answer what I haven’t practiced. If you’d like I can show you some of the data.”

“Are you serious?” John felt a mixture of excitement and even a little embarrassment as he watched Sally’s breast jiggling with her laughter.

“I said I’d be taking you into my bedroom already if I wasn’t worried about killing you! Of course I’m fine with you watching some videos of me masturbating. Just don’t expect it to be the prettiest show. They may be dummies but they’re still human analogs that are having their ribs crushed whenever I try to lick their chest or their limbs ripped off.”

“You wouldn’t think less of me if I found that easier to get an erection to than I should would you?”

You lunatic. Sally couldn’t help but giggle even as the thought flashed through her mind. Before speaking she proceeded to place her hand on John’s shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. “You’re awesome. If you’re serious about wanting to see those videos or the data I’ll show them to you later.”

To this John gave a nod. “Okay I’ve questioned your age and your sanity within the last hour and you’ve actually answered without becoming angry or hospitalizing me. What do I owe you?”

You can message my breasts while I get off. Should I really say that? What if he says yes? It he was behind me and I didn’t try to grab him or anything he should be safe. No! No. That’s a bad idea. Even a little mistake could kill him I need time to practice and teaching my body how to interact with his while I’m impassioned. He would be behind me though and surely I could keep myself from reaching behind myself, flying back or leaning back and no. For a moment Sally became still as she took a moment to steady her thoughts and get her desires in control. “Well I did say that you could play around with my body a bit. How about we try some visual fun?”

For a moment John said nothing feeling both confused and intrigued. “Could you elaborate?”

“Mutual masturbation with absolutely no touching and some other safety measures to insure I don’t harm you.” A delighted giggle came from Sally as she noted the look on John’s face. “Think of it as an in person cam show with two way communication.”

Wow! She wasn’t kidding whenever she said she was already ready to take me into her bedroom. I guess worrying about what she’d think of seeing me naked is pointless. She’s already talked about how she can see beneath my clothing. “Alright but I hope you don’t mind if we put it off for a bit.”

“Of course! We’ll need to set the mood and while this is fun to talk about I don’t believe we’re in the right atmosphere. Now how about I show you around some more?”

“That sounds good. Do you want your shirt?”

“No thanks. You can feel free to take yours off though.” Giving a slight giggle Sally quickly stood so she was facing John and took hold of his shirt with both hands. While it would have been simple to rip his shirt off with one hand she didn’t want to risk hurting him doing that. A sharp rip shot throughout the room as she opened his shirt up in an instant. The break showing more characteristics of a brittle failure than an elastic as she destroyed the threads before they could begin to stretch.

A sharp chuckle escaped John as he noted the sudden destruction of his shirt. Despite this he tried to take on a stern expression even as he found himself failing to contain his chuckles. “How could you? That was.”

For a moment Sally just stuck her tongue out at John as he was overcome by his laughter. “Don’t even try it. Now get those rags off and come along.”

John found himself chuckling a bit as he removed his shirt and lay it on the couch. Standing in front of Sally with the slight bulge to his belly, uneven tan and less than perfect skin he actually found himself blushing a bit. While beauty might be in the eye of the beholder even without her power and wealth she was clearly on a higher level. Damn. I knew she was out of my league but having my shirt off just makes it more obvious. Hey! Thought vanished from John’s mind for a moment as Sally interlocked her arm with his as she came to stand beside of him. “Well at least I’m taller than you.”

“Huh?”

A slight chuckle escaped John as Sally gave him a look of surprise. In response he gave his belly a quick smack. “Sorry. I’ve always knew you are an eleven but standing next to you without any clothes is really driving it home.” John was a little surprised when Sally gave a snort.

“Big deal! Part of my body jiggles to.” As she spoke Sally used her hand to push up on the underside of her breasts causing them to bounce energetically. “See?” A moment later John began to openly laugh. That’s better. No need to remind him that his clothing never really protected his modesty from my eyes. “I’m not recognized as a practicing doctor either or even a retired doctor.”

“You are an honorary doctor though. I wish that I could have gotten invited to your ceremony.”

“Okay I want to make one thing clear about that. I didn’t even bring up the subject. It was brought up to me after my seventh round of healing people.” Rather than just giving John a little tug Sally began to walk again. “Now come along mister bashful. If you keep blushing like that I’ll make you walk around naked when you’re around me until you’re comfortable with it.”

“Oh no! This is quite enough.”

He sounded serious just then. His body says he’s serious as well. Damn! That would have been fun. A slight giggle escaped Sally even as she met John’s gaze. “In your underwear then?”

“I don’t like feeling like a bum. Just going around your home and especially someone else’s home in your underwear just doesn’t feel right to me. The only time I’ve done it is whenever I was way behind on my laundry. Besides it’d be strange answering the door in only my underwear or having to rush and put some on.”

“You don’t have to worry about answering the door up here.”

“I know but you’re talking about a few decades of engrained habit here.”

“Well okay.” A slight giggle escaped Sally after a moment. “I was about to say that naked or clothed in body armor makes no difference to me. That’s not really true. The body armor would get in the way of skin on skin contact.” Before continuing Sally took a moment to rub her free hand over John’s chest taking a moment to play with some of his chest hairs. I bet those will tickle whenever I rub my tits against his chest. “I want you to be comfortable and if you’re more comfortable partly clothed that’s fine.”

“Okay. So what is this room?” For a few moments now Sally had kept them standing in front of a door while they talked. Likely she wanted to finish their current conversation before starting a new one.

“This is the washroom not to be mistaken for the lavatory.” Opening the door Sally revealed a massive room decorated in white marble. To the right of the door were three shower stands while to the left there were several small baths. The back of the room was occupied by a single massive heated pool with stairway leading down into it. The gentle sloping walls were decorating in various shades of blue while they lead up to a massive skylight that looked out into space. Just before the bath several loungers had been set up with a small table between each of them.

“Explain.”

“I told you I take my sister up here. She wanted to try swimming and bathing in reduced gravity. I figure we can give it a try later.” Closing the door Sally pointed to the door right next to the washroom. “That is one of the lavatories. Now come along.”

“I wish I could have some patients brought up here to use that. It would be great for their recovery.”

“Now that’s not going to be happening unless I’m really attached to that patient. Bringing people up here for brief visits for rehab would be a little too time consuming for me.” Opening another door this time Sally stepped inside allowing John to follow her. She was made to chuckle whenever he began to look around.

“Is that voyager!”

A delighted giggle escaped Sally as she gave her head a quick nod. “Yes! I ran it down a while back and brought it here. I know they were meant to carry their message to the stars but at the rate they were moving that just wasn’t going to happen and I couldn’t just abandon them. Now why don’t you look over there?”

Why is she speaking in the plural? Doing as Sally had said John immediately took notice of two rovers and recognized them a moment later. “You retrieved the mars rovers!”

“They shut them down!” Walking over to the two machines Sally didn’t even try to hide her smile as she turned to John. “They’re a few museums fussing at me trying to convince me to hand them over and of course there is the NSI itself.” Bending down Sally took a moment to give the wheels a gentle spin while lifting the explorer up slightly. “I worried that it would be hard to convince someone to let me bring them up here to fix them but my first pick actually jumped at the chance.”

“You didn’t fix them up?” That’s cute! John couldn’t help but chuckle as Sally shot him a surprised look.

“No! I wouldn’t know where to begin. You’re about as bad as people who talk about me building that satellite. I had a lot to do with organizing and funding the project then getting the satellite in the right orbit but I didn’t make it. I wish that I was that intelligent.”

Stepping into the room John took a moment to look around. Various satellites and probes filled the room each of which with their own display. There is a lot of free space in here I guess she isn’t done with her collection. It looks like she had it all fixed up as well and those look like the lunar rovers except they look new. Before speaking John found himself pointing at the machines. “Sally are those the lunar rovers?”

“Yes they’re the originals. I had them fixed as well so that my sister could drive them around.”

“Are you serious!”

“Yes I am. Those I may have to give back though.” Walking over to the nearest rover Sally took a moment to settle herself into the driver’s seat while grinning at John. “If the NSI can make it here with the equipment to retrieve the rover I agreed to return them. After all they’re still theirs.”

“What about the Mars rovers?”

“They can have those back whenever they can reach Mars with the proper retrieval equipment and no help from me.”

That seems fair I suppose. At least she’s making sure they’re not destroyed and even fixed them up. “Then voyager?”

A slight giggle came from Sally as she nodded her head. “Yes! They just have to prove to me they have the ability to retrieve them without any aid from me. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have to give up the lunars rovers eventually and perhaps the Mars rover but I’m pretty sure voyager is going to be staying with me. Well I’m actually pretty certain that I’m going to have to give up the Mars rovers unless they let me keep them.”

“I can see that. You’ve helped the space program a lot and it looks like you’ve been pushing new technologies quite a bit to. That satellite sounds like it’s going to be something else.” As he spoke John took a moment and set down next to Sally on the lunar rover. A moment later he turned to face her. “So later could I drive this thing for a bit.”

“Sure. I just hope that you don’t mind the space suit too much. According to my sister the novelty wears off fast whenever you are inside one of those. Plus she considers me a much better ride than any machine.”

“Can I ride that to?” I can’t believe I just said that.

Sally couldn’t help but chuckle and for a moment covered her mouth while glancing down at her chest. “Sure! We could even try it naked. Just not today.”

“I’ll look forward to it. Now are you telling me that you don’t have an indoor track to drive this thing around on? You have a pool, a museum and probably a lot more but you haven’t built a track yet? I would have thought as soon as your sister mentioned not liking the suit you would have began work on a lunar racetrack so she could have all the fun she wanted.”

A thoughtful hum escaped Sally before she spoke. “I never thought of it actually and my sister never mentioned it either. It could make for a fun side project but I don’t know if it would get used enough to justify it. I don’t see Sissy wanting to come up here and drive the rovers around that much now that she’s older and well my interest is pretty limited to.”

“You have a point.” Leaning forward a bit John took a moment to look around the room. “I can’t say that it’d be a weekend thing for me. So what do you normally do while others are asleep?”

“I’ve got a lot of hobbies. At times I just play some games like you and I do together. I work on my homes, read, watch television, explore space, the ocean and land at times. At times I find some group that I feel like antagonizing and give them a hard time. I guess you want to know about the things you don’t see in the news. I would say the most important thing I do during what’s technically my sleep hours is have a melt.”

“A melt?”

“Yes. One thing that’s always impressed me is the ability of a human to have a horrible day, go to sleep and wake up feeling better and ready to face the day even if the events of the previous day that had them so beat down aren’t resolved. I’ve seen anger and frustration vanish in a single night and at times wondered if I could better forgive people if I could sleep but I can’t. So I had to come up with my own way of coping with all the things people normally sleep off and I call that a melt because everything melts away.”

“The thing is for a proper melt I need the right environment. Normally this is my parents’ home but I have a few friends that can help me to. I need an environment or person that provides an abundance of positive memories. I then shut off all forms of communication except a few emergency lines and don’t even try to gain any new information beyond the immediate area. I try to shrink my awareness and focus on the positive feelings. Then like I said all those pent up feelings just melt away.”

Wow. I wonder what I should say to that. Reaching behind Sally John placed his arm around her. He felt his heart jump a little whenever he felt her weight shift and she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I hope that I can provide that environment for you.”

“Well this weekend isn’t entirely for you. We had some heavy stuff earlier but this is feeling pretty good right now. This place is very good for limiting what information reaches me as well.”

“I imagine it is. So have you already began work on a home on mars?” She has! John could barely believe it whenever he noticed Sally snickering for a moment.

“Just a design. I’m actually a little uncomfortable being that far away from earth for long periods of time. I can travel faster than the speed of light but communications can’t. My greatest fear when I’m out exploring space is that someone would hit the emergency button on their phone and I wouldn’t get it or by the time I got the message it would be too late. Until we have faster than light communications and all my friends are connected to them I’m not likely to be building a home on mars.”

“How do you do that anyway? I know that you’ve left the solar system before. How do you find your way back to earth?”

“My subconscious handles it and I’m not joking. Whenever I was first beginning to fly into the space and put some distance between myself and the earth I was so scared. I was absolutely terrified that I would end up lost out there and wouldn’t be able to find my way back to earth. Even Sol is moving through space right now after all but I’ve always been able to find my way back easily. I just have to fly in the direction that feels right and I’m home.”

“We need a word for beyond amazing because that’s what you are.” John heard a slight giggle and a moment later felt Sally’s arms wrapping around him as she pulled him into a hug. He didn’t hesitate to hug back.

“Don’t be silly. I’m Sally and you’re wonderful.” He smells and feels so nice. * *

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” This feels so strange. John couldn’t resist looking over at Sally who had settled in next to him a controller in hand much like himself. I guess I did something silly from the way she’s grinning at me.

“Well yes but I’m open to suggestions. What would you like to do?”

“This is good. It’s just not what I’m used to as well. Normally I would go out on the weekends.”

“No. For the past few months you’ve played and spoke with me on the weekends until you were taken from your home which was slowly exhausting you. I wasn’t there in person but I was there remember. Now if you like we can skip the games and move onto some videos I selected that I believe you’ll enjoy and we can do some cuddling. That or if you want to do something for me I have some books you could read to me.”

“Huh?”

Sally didn’t try to hide her laughter as she looked at John and noted the surprise on his face. “I have trouble enjoying books because of how quickly I read. They just don’t last long enough. You might think because I think so quickly I would be able to enjoy them still but no. The story tends to lose a lot of its emotional impact if I read it.”

“How did you find that out?”

“My mother and father read to me a lot whenever I was growing up so I noticed shortly after I learned to read. My favorite series just became so dull. I would read them and I just wouldn’t care. At least not until I started to talk about them with other people.”

“Is that why you’re always so eager to talk books with me?”

“Yep! I can’t enjoy them unless I have someone to talk to them about. It seems to trigger the emotional response in my brain and in remembering the stories with someone else I am able to enjoy them but even that isn’t as good as being read to. Which.” Sally actually felt herself blush a little as she looked to John. I can’t believe I’m going to say this. “Would you mind reading to me some? I have some books that I really don’t want to finish by reading them myself. I’ve been thinking about paying for an audio of someone reading them but I guess the little girl in me really likes the reader to be in the same room.”

That is just adorable! It’s a little strange but adorable. “I’d be happy to try but I’ve never read for an audience.”

“Thank you! I’ve only a few friends who I can ask to do this for me and at times my father. Most of them don’t really care for the type of literature I enjoy either so I hate to ask often. I’ve much higher hopes for you given we already share an interest in a lot of literature.” Damn! I should have asked for him to read to me first.

“No problem. How do you want the story read?”

Sally could feel her grin trying to grow as she looked at John. “What do you have in mind?”

“Slowly Melissa approached the door drawn to the sound of scratching on the other side. Cautiously she grasped the door knob and like a complete jackass she turned the knob instead of looking through the peephole to make it easier for the flesh rending terror to get inside.”

A sharp snicker escaped Sally a second after John had finished his little bit of storytelling. “Now how is she suppose to know there is a flesh rending terror on the other side of that door?”

“She doesn’t but she’s seen things moving outside the home and all her instincts are screaming that she shouldn’t be opening that door.”

“Well.” For a moment Sally bit down on her lower lip before snickering again. “I’m still not certain that’s fair. Haven’t you ever stepped outside because you heard something strange? For all she knows that’s a hungry dog or a kitty outside.”

“That or she could have just frightened a raccoon and got herself hurt. I’m not faulting that she checked what’s on the other side of the door. You have peepholes in a door for a reason. Besides she’d been catching glimpses of something big moving around outside all night and for a little more information she was in the woods. That could have been a bear checking around for food.”

“Good points. Okay but I will call you out if I don’t believe you’re treating the characters fairly. You shouldn’t expect someone to immediately jump to movie logic because something a little strange is going on outside.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before.”

“We have and while I’ll admit some characters can be a little ridiculous I’ve seen people do ridiculous things. Like shoot me as if it would do anything to better their situation.”

“Alright but just one question. What would you do if you encountered a werewolf? I’m talking about the immortal type here. I know i asked you that before but now that I know who you are I want your actual answer.”

A slight giggle escaped Sally after a moment of thought. “First I would carry it to the moon to see what happened. Well maybe no. We’re talking about the innocent victim that was turned into a beast of pure rage and hunger right?”

“Right.”

A sigh escaped Sally after a moment as she nodded her head. “I suppose taking it to the moon and risking their death isn’t the way to go. Taking them to the other side of the planet to turn them human would make killing them easy but wouldn’t really fix the problem. After all they’re not a bad person they have a sickness. Unless of course they are a bad person. I believe I’d first establish superiority and then see if I can calm them down. Hopefully I don’t actually know the person that’s been turned as that’d make this a lot harder.”

“Why? What do you have in mind?”

“Well if it tried to bite or roared at me I would immediately break its jaw and let it heal. If it tried to run I’d take off however many limbs I had to in order to prevent that and drag it back to its starting point by its tail. I would do my best to establish I’m beyond it.”

“Oh? And if it’s magic let it hurt you?”

A slight giggle escaped Sally after a moment. “I don’t care if it can somehow hurt me! If we’re talking about a movie werewolf it’s not going to be able to touch me with how slowly those things move. I could move in, deliver a few hundred thousand hits and then move back to my starting point before the light could reflect off my body and move to the werewolf’s eyes. Then there is the time between the light reaching the eye and actually reaches its brain.”

“You make a good point. It wouldn’t make much of a movie if the werewolf had ran down and killed off the entire cast before they could take their first step. So you’d beat on the werewolf until it acknowledged you as its superior?”

“That or until I realized that it’s not actually capable of such things. If I just had a murder machine that wouldn’t learn I’d find out if I can choke it out. Then when they turned human I’d take them shopping and buy them a nice high quality necklace collar that would just choke them out when they transformed and keep them down until they turned human again.”

“You’re mean! You know in most movies the human has some memory and feeling for what happened to them as a werewolf. With you every night would be a living hell.”

“Not all the feelings. Besides that only happens if it turns out I can’t tame and then train the werewolf. So are you ready to play yet?”

Once again John looked to the television. He had been worried that Sally would choose a game with competitive play and wondered how he could compete with her reaction time. Instead she’d chose one with cooperative. “What character do you believe I should take?”

“The necromancer is a very powerful character if you build him early on and can manage your resources properly. Just be careful not to lose all your undead especially halfway through a boss fight. Stay away from the phoenix maiden she’s mine. The knight has solid defense and good offense but is really equipment dependant and doesn’t hold up so well at higher levels.”

“I’m not sure I should be playing this game! You already know everything about it.”

“Ah! Come on. I’ve been wanting you to try this game for a while.”

“Do you have anything that we could play together that you haven’t already beaten? I’m going to have a hard enough time keeping up with you without you having a massive experience advantage over me. I suddenly now know how you never got caught in fire or interrupted unless there was a swarm of people on you. You have plenty of time to react and think about what ability you want to use.” Just look at that grin. I can’t blame her.

“You sure didn’t seem to mind whenever I kept you alive or finished off the boss.”

“True. I’m just glad I’m not playing against you.”

“Don’t worry about that either! Me and my sister have come up with a variety of rules over the years to handicap me so the game is more balanced. One of the simplest ways is just to rig a delay into my remote so that my character responds at a more human speed. Have you tried Alloyed?”

“I have not.”

“Good neither have I. Give me a moment to set up the systems and I’ll buy some copies.”

“Systems?”

“I have a connection to earth but it’s not the greatest and I do know Alloyed has co-op features but wasn’t meant to be played on the same system. Not that it’s uncommon. So I always keep a few spare systems up here.” Standing up and walking over to the television Sally slid the section containing the game system open wider and then grinned at John as she presented him with a variety of systems.

“Sally! You don’t need to buy an extra.” I can’t believe I just said that. I must have sounded like an idiot complaining to her about buying an additional video game or two. We’re in her personal home on the moon right now and she’s already bought me a car and I’m pretty sure it must be obvious I’m embarrassed by the way she’s laughing right now. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be! I’m happy you think of me like that. I really am. You shouldn’t worry about my spending habits though until. Well I’ll leave you to guess.”

“What about the satellite project?”

“That cost me. Even with me carrying things into orbit and providing the materials that took a good chunk out of my funds. The worse was actually preparing for the collateral damage. I couldn’t afford two such projects at the same time without drastically increasing my income. Okay it looks like like we have a little forty five minute wait until we can play.”

“Want me to read to you in the mean time?”

“Are you serious!” Forgetting herself for a moment Sally took to the air and quickly flew so that she was only centimeters away from John in moments. The disturbance her rapid movement caused ruffling his hair and unsettling a few of the lighter items in the room.

Wow! She wasn’t kidding when she said she enjoys being read to. “Sure. If you’d like it that much I’d be happy to. I’d even say I want to.” Wow again! John found himself pulled into Sally’s chest a moment later as she hugged him against herself. She hadn’t put her shirt back on yet and now as he felt the soft flesh of her mammaries pressing against his face he was grateful that she hadn’t. At the same time how serious Sally was about being read to became obvious.

Sally didn’t bother speaking her thoughts as they ran through her mind too quickly for John to understand them. Instead she hugged him and turned to her touch screen. We only have forty five minutes so I can’t pick anything too long if I want him to finish. Then again we don’t have to finish. “Okay one thing. When you read me a graphic novel I’m going to need for you to show me the picture and then read to me. Don’t worry about showing me a page a second time that’s all it takes.”

“So I’m reading you a comic?”

“I’d appreciate it. I have a backlog that I’ve been wanting to get into.”

A slight chuckle escaped John after a few moments. “That sounds good.”

There was no containing her excitement as Sally gave a delighted squeal and picked up the touchpad. “Great! Okay let’s start with Our Shadow Neighbors. It’s about a detective who lives in a world where monsters are real. Have you read any of it?”

“No. What’s it about?”

“Okay a little back story but I hope you’ll want to read it from the beginning later. It features a detective who ended up investigating a crime committed by a monster and got too close. Normally this would have gotten him killed but he managed to prove himself too troublesome to kill so one of the big monsters made a deal with him. She would support him, instead of drinking all his blood, and help him gain justice for crimes involving monsters and even offer some support for the mundane crimes but he has to keep their secret. He agrees but it isn’t really his idea of justice.”

“I imagine she doesn’t allow him to arrest them and put them on trial.”

“It depends on how cooperative the monster is. If hiding their nature and submitting to human justice is possible and something they’re willing to do that’s okay. That happened a lot in the beginning. If they refuse or that isn’t an option though he has to take on the role of judge, jury and often executioner.”

John accepted the touchpad a moment later. Before he could begin to read he found himself distracted as he felt something come to rest upon his leg and felt the couch shift slightly as a new weight came to rest upon it. I can’t believe she did that. A slight feeling of euphoria moved through his body as he looked towards his lap and found Sally had laid down so that she was using his lap as her pillow. “Okay. One thing before we begin. Can’t you still see the screen?”

“It’s not the same.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

*******************************************************************************************

Melissa an elegantly dressed woman with long black hair, ruby eyes, snow white skin and an athletic build that seemed it would suit a large feline currently set across from Jack. A brown haired detective with green eyes in disheveled clothing that still looked like he could run most people down if given enough reason to. The two of them were setting in an unmarked police car watching a few buildings. A tree beside the car hinted at a strong wind as its branches could clearly be seen bending.

“I was suppose to go hunting three nights ago but you keep taking me on these searches. If you don’t find me something to eat soon I’m going to go find my own food and with as hungry as I am now I can’t promise I’ll show my usual discretion.”

Damn it. I appreciate the extra muscle but why does Victoria always have to assign this psycho. “We’re here to investigate a crime not to get you a meal.” Jack gave Melissa an annoyed glance whenever she gave a soft yet clearly amused laugh.

“No. You’re here to investigate a crime. I’m here for a meal and because Victoria doesn’t want you to get yourself killed.”

John couldn’t help but go silent for a moment as he felt Sally shifting against him. Her head turned and he felt her gently nuzzle against his stomach for a moment. This brought an intense feeling of delight. As he looked back up he also noted how the download had finished some time ago. It looks like the game is ready but I believe I’d rather keep reading. At least until it becomes uncomfortable. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her looking this cute.

*******************************************************************************************

“Are you sure you don’t want some help?” Sally found it hard to keep from giggling as she watched John shuffling along. With the moon’s low gravity it meant he had very little weight, very little weight meant very little friction and very little friction meant little force to overcome inertia. This didn’t influence her in the least with her ability to fly and she’d been helping John along so it hadn’t troubled him. It was proving far more of a problem now that he was trying to walk on his own and it didn’t help that he was in a hurry. I shouldn’t laugh at him but this is just too cute.

“No thanks. I’m good.” I should have gotten up sooner. There is no way I’m going to ask her to help me to the bathroom but it’d be even worse if I crapped on myself. Okay just hold it and keep moving. At least I don’t have one of those suits on.” As John neared a table he couldn’t resist taking hold of it and using it to push himself along. The increase in his progress was slight but it was rapid enough to make him feel better especially if he came to the wall. How did I miss that? She has railing on the walls!

It was impossible for Sally to keep from giggling as she noticed John’s response to the railing. “Those are pretty helpful aren’t they?”

“Yes. Thank you. Back in a bit.” Please just don’t say anything more about this. If you could just let this drop I would appreciate it so much. As John opened the door to the lavatory he expected to hear Sally’s laughter through the walls. Instead everything had gone silent and he wasted no time settling himself in.

With John out of the room Sally retrieved the touchpad and switched it back to rest mode before turning towards the games. John’s vocal cords had began to fatigue after reading to her for so long which meant this was a good time for him to wrest them while they had fun doing something else. Opening up the menu she began work on the character creator while she waited for him to finish his business.

As he exited the washroom and returned to the entertainment room John’s attention immediately turned to Sally. That she had her back to him and was focused on the screen brought a sigh of relief from time. “Are we done reading?”

“For now. Your vocal cords need a rest after all and I know you don’t want to spend the entire weekend reading to me.”

“I don’t know. The story was pretty amusing.” John felt his heartbeat speed up as Sally glanced over her shoulder at him a moment. Please do not take me up on that offer.

“I appreciate that.” Yes! He doesn’t mind reading to me! No. It’s no problem but perhaps you could find someone to make audio files for you. No how about we watch the television version. He enjoyed the story to maybe he’ll even find some stories I don’t know about to read to me.

Without any pressing need weighing on him John found himself not using the railing but slowly making his way towards Sally. He didn’t know how long she’d been at it but she seemed to have already made progress with the character creator. “Hey Sally have you ever considered having the words removed from graphic novels that you want read to you? I could read from one that has the letters while you look at one that doesn’t. Now perhaps some numbers could be included to avoid confusion.”

“I have but I never had anyone that would read regularly enough to me to justify it. There have been times I thought about paying someone to read the stories and just listening to an audio file as well. Actually I’ve done that a few times but it never gave me the same feeling as whenever someone I consider a friend reads to me.”

“How about we make it a weekend thing then? Not all weekend but you know maybe an hour or so. Perhaps even longer at times.”

Yay! I can’t believe he said that. Okay. Keep it together. “I’d appreciate that if you’re serious.”

“Sure but I will exercise the right to tell you when I hate a story in hopes of finding one we can both enjoy.”

For a moment Sally was made to giggle as she turned around to face John completely. “You have a deal.”

So there is something I can do for her. Who would have thought it would be read to her? Perhaps they’re some other things I don’t know about yet. “Finally made it.” By now John had reached the sofa and settled himself down giving a slight sigh as he did so.

“You know you can ask me whenever you want help getting around. I’m always looking for a reason to rub up against my date.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Okay I hope you don’t mind if I take a little time to fiddle with the character creator as well. Have you taken a look at the classes or anything else?”

“They don’t really have classes. They have an ability, stat and upgrade list you can pick from. Be sure to look at the upgrades further down the list before you pick your stats because some of the upgrades require certain stats.”

“I thought you hadn’t played this before.”

“I haven’t but that doesn’t mean I don’t analyze the information when presented to me.”

“I’m going to need a little time.” John froze up for a moment as he felt a pair of lips press against his face and turned to smile at Sally.

“I know. I’m going to go ahead and start lunch and give you some time.”

“Huh? Wait hold on and I’ll help.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve seen how you cook. It’s best if you stay out of my kitchen while I’m doing it.”

For a moment John felt his mind freeze up as he looked at Sally. It was only after she stood up and began to walk away that he realized he’d just been insulted. “Hey! There is nothing wrong with my cooking.”

“I know that you believe that and it’s so cute and sweet of you to want to help me.” As John turned to face her Sally couldn’t help but chuckle and quickly held up her right hand for him to give her a moment. It was still several moments of giggling before she could find her voice again. “I know you’re a good cook but believe me I’m better especially when cooking in low gravity. You have to make use of some cooking techniques unless you want to eat nothing but well what the astronauts do and I don’t. Just get your character ready, take your time and by the time you’re finished I should be to.”

Okay so how eager should I be to take her up on that offer? “Are you sure you don’t want some help?”

“Yes I’m certain. Trust me I’m going to get plenty of alone time whenever you go to sleep. I would rather your waking hours with me be spent having fun with one another. If you want to help with the cooking then talk to me while I’m doing it. Besides it drives me crazy waiting for someone else to chop the vegetables. The last time someone helped me I had them fill up a few pots with water and preheat the oven then well. I’m not very fond of waiting for others to look through a spice rack.”

“I thought you said you have superhuman patience to compensate for your rate of thought.”

“I do! That doesn’t mean it’s infinite and the time some people need to find the right spices is simply staggering..”

“Alright you win. Hey Sally before I start working on this what do you like in a man?”

“I will only answer that if you’ll do the same for me.”

It was impossible for John to keep from chuckling as he looked back to the game. “Well that’s hardly fair. You’re already a perfect beauty after all.”

“Thanks! But I know some don’t have your appreciative eye. So we’re still going to do an exchange. You ask me something and then I get to ask you something.” As Sally began to gather her ingredients and cooking utensils she was grateful John hadn’t asked her about the tools she had in mind. As the building was pressurized and there was some gravity there was actually no real needs. Things would simply fall more slower than they did on earth.

“Okay let’s start with hair.”

“Are we keeping it to natural colors?”

“For now.”

“I don’t know if I have a preference for color but I do like a nice short professional cut.” Sally couldn’t help but glance in John’s direction as she heard him snickering. “You’re picking the exact opposite of what I like aren’t you? You’re going to pick some dirty rat’s nest of hair and put it on your character’s head.”

It was impossible for John to keep from snickering despite his best efforts. “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

“I will use your character as a human shield if he’d look better as a corpse. Okay honest thoughts what do you think of my musculature? I want to know if you’d prefer if I had a softer appearance or a little more.”

“Am I going to pay for answering this later?”

“If I don’t believe you then you will.”

A sigh escaped John for a moment. Okay don’t think too long on this or she’s going to know you’re making up a story. Just. I hope if she slaps me she holds back and doesn’t break anything but she’s the one asking for it. “I admire a variety of healthy builds however yours does have quite appeal to me because I know that you worked for it. Your body doesn’t just speak of good breeding or denying yourself certain things, which takes discipline as well, but also of a level of determination I don’t believe I have. I find your body beautiful not just visually but as a symbol. It would however be nice if your bustline was eight or so centimeters larger.”

“Eight centimeters! You like a good bit bigger don’t you?”

“Hey! Don’t get me wrong. Yours are magnificent. I’ve seen them for myself.” Before John could continue he was silence as he heard Sally burst into open laughter. Looking back to the screen he quickly chose a shorter haircut for his character. A great feeling of relief and accomplishment gripped him as he felt like he’d just run down a shooting gallery and reached not only safety but his goal.

“Okay your turn again.”

“Well then. The same to you. What build do you like?”

“I prefer a runner’s build or a swimmer’s which is pretty much the same. Something that tells me this is a person that takes care of himself and his heart. It tells me that this person is going to try to be with me as long as possible and won’t fatigue too quickly during sex or other activities. Raw strength has fairly little meaning to me but stamina is important.”

I bet that’s one of the reasons she’s so excited to have me start exercising with her. I wonder how long until she remembers the cylinder and decides it’s time to show it to me. Probably when she decides to stuff me inside of it.”Does that influence your decision to cook as well.”

“I’ve seen how you eat and spoken to you about it. While you’re sleeping I’m probably going to go back to the earth and toss everything in your fridge then fill it with proper food. I’d also like to get you some new dishes because you really should have better than what I saw last time. A new table would be nice to. Well I’m not going to ask about my hair. Okay what about my facial structure?”

“Superb!”

A slight chuckle escaped Sally despite her best efforts to contain it. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Your little rounded nose is absolutely adorable and I love the curve of your chin. Your mouth seems a little wide for your face but that’s just wonderful to me. It does help explain how you can eat so fast whenever you want to. Plus I like how your ears look a little pointed.”

“Pointed?” Reaching her right hand up Sally couldn’t resist moving her hair back and gently running her finger over her outear in search of this point John was talking about. Before she had even thought about what she was doing she found herself holding up a lid to get a better look. “They’re pointed?”

“Just a little bit plus I like how your canines are a bit more developed than normal. It really fits your powerful build like you were meant to be a predator.”

Rather than respond right away Sally took a moment to run her tongue over her teeth trying to feel what John was talking about. “Alright. Now you have me wanting to look myself over in a mirror. Not that there is anything I can change about how I look beyond makeup and even that gets stripped off easily.”

“Alright. Well you already said that you don’t like my build so you’re going to throw out all my food and make me exercise until I meet your standard of beauty.”

“Oh! I did no such thing! I just want you to be healthy so that if this does work out you can be with me a long time. Don’t you want to be healthy for me?”

“Sure. Make me the bad guy here.”

“You’re going to lose your question if you keep that up.”

A slight chuckle escaped John as he took a moment to look at the screen. Maybe I shouldn’t have given her so much information before. She’s barely giving me the bare bones of what she likes. I suppose she gave me some rather extensive changes to my body but. “What about height?”

“If you’re taller than me I can lean my head on your shoulder if you’re shorter than me I can pull your head into my cleavage whenever we hug. Do you really want to know something that I’m unhappy with when it comes to your body?”

“Well I’m not a model so there has to be something. I know what you said about my body has rather broad implication and it’s a big one but I’d like some specifics.” Oh. I don’t know if I’m going to like this one. As John turned to look at Sally he was a bit worried whenever she’d began to openly chuckle.

“Fine. Well I have some things I’d like to change but they can be fixed by lifestyle changes. For example that medical soap they have you using is rather rough on your hands. I’m going to get you something for proper skincare to help undo that damage and insure that when you’re massaging me your skin is nice and smooth. Now you don’t want anything exercise related so.” Biting down on her lip Sally turned to face John for a moment. Maybe his nose? But if it was less pointy I wouldn’t want to pinch it so badly and that could be fun. “I may be too fond of you to be objective about this but I believe I’d rework your jaw a bit if we’re trying to make you into my idea that and the shape of your eyes.”

*******************************************************************************************

Sally’s power was limited whenever it came to video games. Her character had the same base stats as his did and while they were differentiated by their skills they had the same number of skills. It was as if they were on the same playing field physically. It was amazing how little that seemed to matter as John watched Sally’s avatar run towards a group of gunmen while weaving between their gunshots without losing a sliver of health before reaching them and eviscerating them with her character’s built in blades. So far neither of them had died during a mission and they’d only taken a small amount of damage but the difference between their kill counts was massive. Well the game was meant to be beaten by humans. I shouldn’t be surprised if a superhuman reaction time and rate of thought gives her an advantage.

“Do you want me to put my shirt back on?”

“Huh?”

“You keep looking at my breasts. I don’t want to distract you while you’re playing. Just whenever you’re doing something that isn’t related to me.”

“No. I’m good. I just wish that I could contribute more. Any ideas?”

“I could switch to the remote I use for competitive play. It has a built in delay that simulates a human reaction time.”

“No! I don’t want to handicap you besides I also noticed you grinning. Just things that I could do to help out.”

“Well how about you spend some of your points and take the medical nanobots then upgrade them? You start getting various buffs at level three. I bet the speed increase would be useful to the both of us.”

“I should have read the ability description more carefully.”

“Oh! I’d also suggest looking into the variant tree and take some of the plague nanobots. My character is well suited to taking things apart one at a time but she doesn’t have much area of effect power or debuffs.”

“Madam! I am a doctor! I do not use medicine to kill.”

“Liar! You kill bacteria all the time with that medicine of yours. Poison I say!”

“Alright but do you believe you could let me have a few of the kills on this level?”

“Whoops! Sorry about that. Okay but be careful I don’t like seeing you get knocked out.” I guess I was being a bit of a hog. I’ll give him a chance and see how he holds up and he’s already got himself clipped. Yes someone is going to need those healing nanobots. As these thoughts ran through her head Sally focused on the screen but rather than grinning she found herself beginning to twitch. As John’s health reached half she couldn’t help herself. “I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to start being overprotective again. Would you be okay if I removed their weapons arm?”

John didn’t respond right away but quickly got his character behind cover before looking at Sally. “Why are they focusing so much fire on me now?”

“Because they don’t have my character in their face distracting them. Your character has better ranged abilities than mine I’m only dangerous whenever I get up close.” A slight giggle escaped Sally before she had her character return to cover and take out a ranged weapon. “You know what? Go ahead and lead the way I take back what I said. You wouldn’t be having nearly as much trouble if I had let you practice some instead of taking all the kills.”

I don’t know if I want that. “Would you mind if we did a bit of an exchange? Let me lead until I reach half health and then you protect me while I’m cowering behind a wall or something?”

“That sounds good. I just wish I had some of these characters potential abilities in real life. I’m telling you to get the nanomedicine but I’m the one that would really like to have that ability. That or the energy shield but really the medicine.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about being away from home as much. Do you ever think about that?”

“This is going to make me sound like a horrible person but yes. On some level I’m grateful for all the chances to heal people and practice that I have had. It means that by the time my parents or hopefully someone I care about needs healing their chances of survival are greatly increased. I. Well I suppose you wouldn’t call them friends but I have had close acquaintances die. Officers Biers and Crestwood were both police officers I spent some time working with and honestly I was kind of fond of them. Biers died before I could give him a phone and it wouldn’t have mattered if I gave Crestwood one.”

“I remember that. The news made a big deal of you showing up to the funerals. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you that quiet on television.”

A sigh escaped Sally despite her character being in the middle of removing the heads from several enemies. “They were both good police officers and deserved respect. Besides that wasn’t the proper environment for goofing of. Now I don’t see why so many were surprised by my behavior. Have you ever seen me mocking someone after their death?”

“I.” As John rolled Sally’s question around he grinned at her. Well I’ll be she hasn’t. “I can’t think of a single time! Why is that?”

“Naturally it’s because you haven’t spent enough time around me to catch me making such a mistake. Besides even if I kill someone with my own hands I’d be a real bitch if I prevented others from honoring the death even if I disagree with it.”

“Interrupting their political rallies dressed in a bikini isn’t being a bitch?”

Sally couldn’t help but give John a smug grin and raise her head slightly taking on all together snooty posture. “That’s me being the right kind of bitch instead of a real bitch.”

“They’re subcategories of bitch?”

“There is. Do you believe you could handle this next group of enemies? Our lunch needs some attention. I was also thinking that a little bit after lunch we’d stick you in a spacesuit and go out on the lunar surface for a bit. You could drive the rover around some.”

“I’ll do my best. Just put yourself behind some cover. I’m a bit surprised you mentioned going out on the rover it sounded like you were trying to kill my interest earlier.” John wasn’t surprised whenever he felt a rush of air and glanced to his side to find that Sally was already gone. She apparently hadn’t slowed down until she reached the kitchen. As he glanced over his shoulder he was actually rather surprised to find her working rather slowly especially for her.I guess she wants to make sure lunch comes out right. “So sense you’re cooking lunch does that mean I cook dinner?”

“No! John I’m very happy that you want to cook for me but I’ve already said I’d rather have your attention focused on me.”

A slight chuckle escaped John after a moment of consideration. “That’s the first time I’ve had anyone put cooking for me in terms of selfishness. You really make it sound like you’re doing it for yourself.”

“I cooked for my parents so they could spend more of their waking time with me. I also cleaned and tended a garden. When my little sister began school I helped her with her homework so we had more time to play. They appreciated it and I loved that they appreciated it but I mostly did those things for myself. When you don’t sleep or fatigue easily and think as rapidly as I do the waking hours and energy of those that bring joy becomes extremely valuable. Now.” Sally went silent as she placed the lid back on the pot and took a moment to herself. “I don’t really have words for it. I feel a goodness whenever I cook for someone I care about.”

“Not joy?”

As Sally moved through the room she made sure to position her body so that she sent a strong gust of wind rolling over John. Everytime she did this he would grin a little and she’d feel a little injection of joy. He liked these playful displays of power as much as she enjoyed providing them.

“No. That’s not the right word for it.”

I’m going to get to take a rover out on the moon. I’m on the moon but wow. Is this as excited as I should be? I feel like I should be more excited. A slight chuckle escaped John as Sally picked up her controller and once again joined him in the game. He hadn’t truly made much progress with him adopting a defensive stance and them having mostly cleared the room already.

“Is something funny about that?”

“No. Sorry. My mind wondered for a moment. I feel kind of silly setting her playing this with you whenever I should be pestering you to take me out on the surface and let me drive the rover. This I could do almost anytime. How many chances am I going to get to go out on the moon though?”

“It depends on the timing and how long the visits are. If I let you stay here too long the gravity would begin doing bad things to your bones. I suppose we could come once a week or once every two weeks until you’re tired of it. Really the suit is the primary hassle once you’re up here and crap. Another moment please I’m getting a second level emergency call.” As she spoke Sally retrieved her phone and quickly turned it on while lifting it to her ear. “Hi. What’s going wrong?”

What’s a second level emergency call? She hasn’t flown out the door yet so I assume it isn’t immediate but she picked it up quickly enough. I’ll just ask later. “Should I leave the room?” John’s answer came in the form of Sally’s hand being placed on his shoulder and pushing him down into his seat. It was unnecessary as a moment later she hung up.

Damn it! I can’t believe I’m going to have to do this to him after all the times I said I was better than this. Just fuck. Okay how do I put this. “John I’m having a great time and I hate to take away from our time together but a friend needs me. She went through an experience a few years back and still has episodes during which she needs support.”

“Then you should get going! You can tell me about it later. Should I get into the shuttle or just jump into an escape pod and send myself back to earth.”

“Neither! Especially not that last one unless it’s an emergency. It’s just. Would you mind if I brought her here for a while? It’s a chance for you to meet one of my friends and it might be good for her. She’s been trying to meet trustworthy new people and you’re a doctor as well as my guy.”

“Sure. Now go. Shoo shoo! Don’t forget your shirt.” Despite his words John was taken aback for a moment whenever Sally leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly against his.

“Thanks for understanding I’ll make it up to you later.”

This time John found himself unable to respond as Sally stood up and vanished with only the rushing of the wind and disappearance of her shirt telling him she’d taken a moment to move around the room. “So do I see if I can finish up this level for the two of us, check on lunch or just wait here? I wonder how long this is going to take.”

Nine minutes. It took her nine minutes. Looking at the clock John found it hard to believe. He had time enough to stir the stew, finish the mission and think about sneaking a bite of the stew and Sally was already back. At least that is what he hoped otherwise he’d be worrying what had sounded like a door opening. Feeling a bit uncertain of himself he adopted a professional stance while wishing that he had his scrubs on and looked towards the entrance he used. Sally entered a moment later followed by a raven haired woman with fair skin that carried herself like a princess. He only needed a moment to recognize her. “Hello Miss Amara.”

Before responding Tina couldn’t help but place a hand on Sally’s shoulder as if to insure her friend was actually there. Her heart calmed down and she took in a deep breath. “Hello. Are you the one that has been holding so much of Sally’s attention lately?”

“I’m not certain but I sure hope so.”

Rather than waiting for John and Tina to talk Sally spoke up. “He is. Tina this is John and John you already know but this is Tina.”

“I’m told that you’re a doctor I trust I can rely on your doctor patient confidentiality.”

“Certainly. I am a little loss as to what’s going on but I assure you nothing will leave this building.”

“Thank you. As you may know I was kidnapped a few years back and Sally saved me. I’m afraid that the experience lingers with me more than most realize. I’m fine most of the time but if people were to know then it could adversely affect my family and our businesses.” After a moment of silence a sigh escaped Tina as she leaned forward and placed her head against Sally’s back and took in a deep breath. She could just feel Sally’s hair brushing against her forehead and felt herself becoming increasingly at ease.

For a moment Sally said nothing but looked to John and then Tina. She could tell that John was uncomfortable and uncertain of what he should do. If they had been in a hospital she was certain he’d been better prepared but this wasn’t such an environment. “I gave Tina the bare bones whenever I brought her up here.”

“I wish I had known you were having an outing. I wouldn’t have.”

“Don’t worry about it and don’t ever hesitate to call me whenever you’re having a break down. I may not always be able to make it but it’s fine.”

“I agree. Actually I was thinking I might have Sally return me home and you ladies could spend some time together but she seemed rather insistent I stay and wouldn’t give me my car keys.”

“Your keys?” As Tina let the thought settle in she couldn’t help but giggle despite what she’d been feeling only minutes ago. Sally’s presence banished the fear from her mind and his words made her laugh. “Don’t feel bad she never lets me drive either but she’s never left me stranded.”

“That’s good to know. So do you want to set down or?” While he directed the question towards Tina John couldn’t help but look at Sally. Before they’d been planning on eating then going out onto the surface. He didn’t know if that plan would remain intact or not.

“John and I were just about to eat. How about you join us then we can go on a lunar walk? You’ll just have to take turns driving.”

“Oh! No thank you. I’ll gladly join you but I don’t have to drive. I wouldn’t mind remaining in. Well actually I would prefer to remain inside.”

Rather than respond to Tina Sally glanced towards John. “She’s one of my friends who I have taken up here so many times she’s tired of being placed in the suit. But.”

“I’m not certain if that’s such a good idea. You probably shouldn’t be alone right now even if you’re feeling well in the moment.” As John spoke he found himself looking at Tina’s eyes. They were swelled and her nose looked a little raw. She’d been crying recently and quite heavily apparently. His mind soon turned to when he’d seen her on television and while he wasn’t certain it seemed that her voice was off as well. How long had she waited until she’d called Sally for help?

“Thank you for your concern but there is no need to worry about me up here. I have no reason to fear an abduction whenever I’m so far from anyone else.”

“That would make sense if such fears were rational.”

“I.” A sigh escaped Tina as she shook her head. Her hand hadn’t left Sally’s body the entire time they’d been talking. It had moved from Sally’s shoulder down to her wrist and now Sally was holding her hand. She didn’t know how well she’d hold up or for how long if Sally released her. “I’ll make this up to the two of you later. As I have spoiled your plans to explore the lunar surface for now is there anything else you’d like to partake in?”

“Movies?”

Tina glanced at Sally for a moment then felt herself blush. “Actually if you’d let me make use of a touchpad I can entertain myself. I’d just like you to share Sally with me for a few hours so that I can get my head back together. They’re some deals I’m currently working on and project reviews that I need to finish. You’ve put things in great upheaval.”

“You knew it was coming.”

“I know and.” A sigh escaped Tina as she looked at Sally. “People know that I knew. My encouraging father to get out of the energy market over the last two years hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

“I thought you hadn’t revealed what the satellite does yet?” As he spoke John glanced over at Sally.

“I haven’t. That doesn’t stop people from guessing. I said it earlier they’re not a great many things that the satellite could be for.” As she spoke Sally began to lead Tina towards the sofa. Rather than leaving John to follow she chose to spin him around and intertwine her arm with his so that she was leading them both back to the sofa the entire time grinning. “I’ll let you use my touch pad. How are things going with those who bought from you?”

“Well they’re upset naturally. Two years hasn’t been long enough for them to extract and sell enough energy to make back their money and most assuredly not enough to make a profit. With speculation that your satellite is a of solar collector the value has dropped considerably and they know if their fears are proven true then they’re never going to recover their losses. At least not from what we sold them.”

A sigh escaped Sally as she nodded her head. “I can see why that would make them upset. So they’re accusing you of insider trading?”

“They’re trying but our lawyers are doing a wonderful job of handling that. It helps that we chose to get out of fossil fuels two years ago. You remember all that talk about wanting to look into and support greener energies. Anyway there have been some threats and well.” Taking in a deep breath to steady herself Tina leaned against Sally especially as she began to set down.

“That’s what caused this.”

“I knew a great many people would be upset. I ever hired extra security but it wasn’t enough to make me feel safe. Thank you for coming for me.”

“I’m glad that I could help.”

I can understand them being upset she sort of screwed them over and didn’t tell them why. I just can’t be certain if I would have done anything differently especially as she was helping Sally develop the technology. Would I hold onto a stock that I knew was going to be made worthless? Then again that was quite a gamble she took. What if the project hadn’t worked out? John felt himself blush as he realized he’d given a sigh and now both women were looking at him. “Sorry. I was just thinking a bit. So Tina you’re Sally’s partner in this?”

“Yes I am and so is most of my family. It was actually very hard to convince them to go along with it but Sally has done us right in the past.”

“I imagine so.” As John listened to Tina he felt an odd disconnect. Her tone was what he imagined a noble sounding like. The way she leaned against Sally and the words she chose were far different. They were even different than what he’d seen her speak on the news.

“I change my way of speaking depending on the company I’m with. It is very hard to convince someone to do as you will if they find your way of speaking off putting.”

“Was I that obvious?”

“It’s a common enough occurrence. Sally and I could never play our games if I didn’t know how to change my way of speaking.” I don’t know if I want to do this. Taking in a breath to steady herself Tina released Sally’s hand and pointed towards the touchpad on the table. “May I use that?” A slight yelp escaped Tina as she felt Sally shift and suddenly she’d been lifted from the couch and rearranged so that her head was resting upon Sally’s right leg. A moment later she was presented with the touch pad.

“You lay there. John I’m going to need you to go stir our lunch one or two more times but then it’ll be ready. Did you finish the mission already?”

“I did. I was going to explore the open world. You’re going to need to unpause yours and listen to the cutscene then make a decision.”

A sigh escaped Tina as she listened to Sally and John then made herself quite comfortable. For a moment she fidgeted about taking a moment to get a look at Sally’s abdominal muscles. She wanted to kiss them but resisted the desire. “Sally have you ever considered purchasing a video game company and having them make games that appeal to your taste?”

“I wanted to do that so badly when I was a kid!”

“Why haven’t you then?”

“Now how do you know I haven’t? I don’t tell you about all my business dealings.”

A slight giggle escaped Tina as she looked up at the underside of her friend’s breasts and her face. “Yes you do.”

“Well yes I do. I guess. Well it’s because I can’t do much to help such a project along other than provide money. With the satellite I could gather materials, carry things into orbit and in general help things along even if I didn’t understand exactly what was happening. When I help my father at work I can serve as a piece of machinery and you know. None of that would really help in making a game well except the money obviously.”

A slight chuckle escaped Tina as she raised up slightly and looked from Sally to John. “I’ve been encouraging her to branch out almost since the day we became friends. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with that. Just keep in mind she.” Tina went silent as Sally’s hand very gently covered her mouth. Rather than pull away from her friend’s hand though she pressed her face into it.

“He’ll figure out what I’m uncomfortable with soon enough.”

A sigh escaped Tina as Sally removed her hand. I wish she could have kept her hand there a little longer. “Once the economy settles down and if our efforts pay off I’m going to buy you a company. You could help her manage it!”

John couldn’t help but jerk slightly as he looked to Tina. “I’m a doctor! I don’t have time to be helping with something like that and I’m not going to abandon my patents.”

“Oh! Right. She’s the one that doesn’t need to sleep. I wish you could share that with the rest of us.”

“Believe me I do to. I wish I could share some of my power with you! If I could just give everyone I care about and trust a portion of my power so that I knew they were safe I would feel so much better. I could then spend more time exploring space and hunting for resources. Perhaps I could even take some of you along with me.”

Is she serious? John couldn’t help but look to Sally as he listened to her. “Do you believe you could do that?”

“I believe it’s relates to my ability to heal others. Whenever I heal someone I’m not actually fixing the problem. I don’t kill the bacteria, cancer or virus whenever I heal someone. I enhance their body and in doing so they’re able to handle it on their own. They’ve even detected some energy lingering after I’ve healed them.”

For a moment John’s mouth opened but then he shut it and laughed. “I almost asked you how that’s possible.”

“I sure wish I knew. Some seem to think I’m capable of rewriting reality like a god and it’s something inside of me. Others think that some aspect of the universe resulted in the laws of physics making a special exception for me. Both of these theories bring up a lot of questions and you’re making me sad by having me think of this.” As she finished speaking Sally couldn’t help but shoot John a somewhat annoyed look. She knew it wasn’t his fault but the subject tended to make her feel more depressed than anything else.

“You were right! He already found something outside of your comfort zone.”

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