Message-ID: <49105asstr$1094418601@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: <vdkblm-OBLITERATE-SPAM!@yahoo.com> X-Original-To: ckought69@hotmail.com Delivered-To: ckought69@hotmail.com From: Vivian Darkbloom <vdkblm-OBLITERATE-SPAM!@yahoo.com> X-Original-Message-ID: <1094285517.4462.9.camel@mountains> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 01:11:57 -0700 Subject: {ASSM} Jasmin (part IV) {Mg(Fg) scifi oral anal ws in-progress} Lines: 816 Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 17:10:01 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org> Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2004/49105> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: hoisingr, newsman To more fully enjoy this story in living, breathing HTML, please visit our website at: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/VivianDarkbloom/www/ If you have been following this series, please note that previous chapters have probably been updated. The most current version (as always) will be found on the website. ~~Vivian -------------------------------------------------------- Jasmin (part IV) by Vivian Darkbloom We were sufficiently within range of Syrene to resume the use of propulsion. The cloaking field was effective for preventing visual or radar detection of an inert hull, but the intense infra-red wavelengths of thruster propulsion were too much for the algorithm -- as currently designed -- to handle. But it would have to be a pretty cheeky Inquisition ship to risk the consequences, both physical and political, of trespassing the boundaries of the Syrene starsystem territory. Those who had, had swiftly discovered the determination with which the deceptively gentle Syrene authorities would seize their ships and cargo upon a the slightest hint of Inquisition activities, and there were inquisitioners still serving harsh sentences in Syrenian jails. The sentences were quite just, given the threats the inquisitioners had levied on local citizenry, and no amount of petitioning or threats by the Inquisition itself had been sufficient to release them. Not that Syrene culture was repressive -- quite the reverse. They simply had no tolerance for repression imposed by other entities, social, political, or religious. I figured I'd visit an old pal of mine from college days, my friend Xavier Garcia who (last I heard) lived here in a spacestation with his fianc�Rosa. I looked him up and, sure enough, he was listed right there in the central directory, so I gave him a buzz. He answered after three rings, and his face popped up on the screen, a few more grey hairs, a tad bit more dimpled with age than the last time I'd seen him, but looking well enough. He burst into a grin when he saw me. "Xithnous, what in the galaxy are you doing way the hell out here? It's good to see you!" "Us X- named people gotta stick together." "Well, I wasn't exactly expecting you. Now this is bizarre, I have a trigonometric fix on your location, but I can't get a visual lock on your ship." "Oh right. Here..." I waved away the holo-projected screens my PDA had splashed across the air, and brought up the control panel for the cloaking application that had been running in the background. I twirled my fingers in the air to shut it down. A look of astonishment crossed his face as he watched the ship appear on screen beside him. "OK dude. Two questions. First, how did you come up with a cloaking algorithm and when are you going to upload it over to here so I can use it. And Second,..." "Actually, that was two questions already." He looked suitably annoyed. "OK, wise-guy. See, this is why I never have conversations with a mathematician. You know I never learned how to count." "Dude, did you even graduate?" "Look," he protested. "All those rumors about someone hacking into the school computer to up my grades so I could graduate... all lies. Complete fabrication." "Hm. Which would sound plausible to anybody who didn't happen to be the person who hacked into the computer to change your grades for you." "Whoa. Dude, was that you? Boy, that was some rasta-weed we just got in here. Steenky kind buds with little red hairs, you know the real tight kind. And just a hint of pine in the aroma. Mm-mm-good. Speakin' of which, you gotta come by and have a few bongloads." I laughed. "I think I'll pass on the bongloads, but I'd be glad to come by and borrow your dock while I take a ferry to the surface." "Quicker to just take the elevator, but whatever. Mi casa es tuyo, amigo, you're welcome to borrow the space dock anytime. Which brings me to my second question..." "Third question." "Whatever, where in the galaxy did you get that ship?" "Oh, just kind of floating around in space," I said. "It's mine, actually," piped in Jasmin, who had appeared behind me. His eyes widened even wider still. "OK, and who are you?" "Jasmin McCloud," she said simply. Xavier looked off into space thoughtfully. "Name rings a bell," he said. "Isn't there some park somewhere by that name? Anyway, charmed and delighted to meet you. So when are you coming by to visit?" "Would right now be OK? We're trying to get to the surface to find a shuttle to replace the one that went missing from the bay of this ship." "Sounds like I need to hear this story in person. So drop on by, here are the orbital parameters." (he dropped them into the hypertext transfer channel, from which they popped up underneath the screen displaying his picture) "Whoo boy, a Sabre parked outside my place. Are the neighbors going to be jealous or what? Now is that a DX or one of the MX series?" "DX-42. Top of the line," I boasted. He gave a low whistle. "Well, we'll see you shortly." "And Xavier," "Yah?" "Please don't go around telling a bunch of people we're here. I'd like to keep it sort of low-profile." "You got it buddy. Mum's the world." The screen blinked off, and I sighed. Jasmin encircled my shoulders with her arms and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. "Interesting friend," she said. "Suppose he could say the same thing about me." I looked up at her, swiveling around so she was in front of me, and she sat on my lap facing me. "I suppose I could say the same about you," I replied. Today she wore what looked like a school uniform, all in white with a knee-length pleated dress, neatly creased all around. And white knee-socks with black-strap schoolgirl shoes.. "I'm glad you're my friend," she said. "Me too." "Glad that you're your own friend?" "No, I mean I'm glad you're my friend, you little brat. You knew what I meant." "So did you really break into the school's computer?" "Hey look. It was a long time ago, and all I changed was just one `D' he had gotten from a teacher just on account of personality conflict, and we all agreed he didn't deserve it. He would have graduated anyway. I never should have done it. It was the wrong thing to do, but it's too late to go back and change it." She blinked at me with waifish anime-wide eyes. "Not even for me?" "It just wouldn't be right, sweetie." She gave a lustful grunt and shifted on my lap. "I love it when you talk about doing the right thing, right and wrong, and stuff like that." "Ethics?" "Yeah. I love it when you talk ethics. It makes me all hot." Panting softly, she lifted her neatly-creased schoolgirl dress to reveal the spot of moisture in the center of her scrunched-up panties. Before I knew it, she had ripped open the front of my jeans and was slobbering all over my rising member. I gasped for air, glancing quickly at the comsystem console to be sure all outside communications were switched off. Then I gently and lovingly cupped her head in my palms as delicately and passionately her skillful tongue sent my mind spinning into whirls of ecstasy. We fucked on the carpeted floor, right there in the bridge. She didn't bother taking off any of her clothes, only her panties that flew across the room as she looped them over her black dress shoes and flung them. Her face was flush with passion as she spread her legs up high, ankles behind her ears, and I delicately kissed her crimson lips as I rammed myself hard into her slimy wet orifice, which was invisible beneath the crisply ironed impeccably pressed skirt. Again and again I dove into her, eliciting moan after moan of blissful excitation. Nearly dressed as we were, it was almost like we were just having a casual conversation. I could have been the classroom teacher, me and the schoolgirl just having a tiny chat, with a special little hidden interaction going on under the table, a delightful secret that only the two of us shared. Her orgasms grew and climaxed, tantalizing and coaxing until finally the anticipated release built up steam, and as I drew up for the ultimate thrust, she ferociously devoured my lips with smacks of loving passion, and nestled so cozily in the intimate caverns of her delicate young body, I found my sweet surrender to convulsions of careening, satisfying squirting of my slime into her slippery chambers. ____________________________________________________________ We decided it would be best to wash the dress, so we tossed it into the laundry unit, which correctly identified the nature of the substance(s) that had stained it, along with an illuminated menu of possible remedies. For a delightful hour or so, she pranced about the ship in nothing but her frilly little panties. Plus, of course, the knee-high white socks and black schoolgirl shoes. As we approached Syrene, the comsystem beeped with the an autoloaded document it had received, that contained the hundreds of pages of pertinent regulations for spacegoing vessels along with a five page summary. It required a signature, which I gave, and we proceeded on our course to space-station beta, where Xavier lived. Ah, bureaucracy. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty smooth border crossing. Some of these places they want to board your ship and search the whole thing with bio-scanners before you can even establish a sensible orbit, but Syrene was know for being cool and collected, and promoting an atmosphere of trust. So far it had served them well. The spacestation was enormous, one of a dozen or so orbiting the planet, home to about a hundred families and individuals who resided there for various reasons. Some worked in the shipping channels of the interplanetary or intergalactic space, so shaving off the extra part of the commute from the planet surface added a few hours to one's day. Others, like my friend Xavier, simply preferred life in a lower-gravity environment, plus all the excitement and culture the station drew to it. Indeed, there were some theatrical and musical shows that never toured outside the station circuit, often taking advantage if the lower gravity for special effects, and the space-station show had become a veritable institution and subculture of its own with groupies and regulars and professionals who devoted their lives to it. I wish I could describe the shape of the station better. I'll do the best I can: From the distance, it looked sort of like a glittering metal, gigantically large, spiked ball. Imagine the skyline of an ordinary planet-bound city, with skyscrapers and different designs of buildings and such, only that the structures all radiated out three-dimensionally from a central point. Then you begin to picture what we saw in the viewscreen as we approached. A key difference between a planet-bound skyscraper and a zero-gravity one, is that people are inclined to extend the latter in bizarre Escheresque directions, sending a branch at 90 degrees in an "L" shape, or a T shape, or an X shape (though the letters in the Sorlolian alphabet are shaped in ways which lend themselves particularly well to architecture, and are often applied for such a purpose). Given that the orientation can be shifted simply by altering the projected gravitational field, the ceiling of one space might be the wall of another, two adjacent rooms might be gravitated in the exact inverse, one upside-down of the other. In fact, there were some who specialized in deliberately replicating the bizarre spatial effects of M.C. Escher's engravings. As we got closer, we began to grasp the enormity and complexity of it, and details of the windows, and people inside the windows, and ships twittering about all around, flashing beacon lights, the occasional person in a space-suit wandering about. The spacestation never sleeps, as they say. We entered the coordinates Xavier had given us into the station's guidance system, and it proffered a convenient conveyance beam, asking us to please shut off all onboard propulsion (which we did) so that it could guide us safely and efficiently to our destination. On all sides, ships buzzed by, huge multi-storied windowed buildings loomed ahead of us only to vanish around behind, inside the windows we could see a boy watching television here, a lesbian couple preparing a salad there, a woman at a computer over there, glowing curtains closed on a lot of them to concealing the mundane or secret sexual activities going on behind. Eventually we turned down a deserted orangish-tan alleyway, with square bay door, and a glassene kitchen-window above it, with white curtains decorated with light-blue trim. The bay door had slowly flashing white lights all around it. It was was marked in large industrial black letters with a multidigit number (now forgotten), above which was a fancy colorful artistically handpainted sign, three-dimensional confetti letters done all up in garish colors reading "Xavier and Rosa's place." As we approached, the bay doors opened diagonally in front of us, and lights came on inside to reveal a typical space-garage, populated by a funky old two-seated cruiser, plus a ridiculous hodge-podge of the sort of junk that accumulates in such places, a worn out oil-splattered pump from here, a rust-covered spare thruster manifold set from there (just needs a little fixing up!) and huge piles of stuff filled with objects whose original purpose in life I could only begin to guess, and whose main usefulness at this point was to participate in a series of bizarre ever-shifting set of sculptures, consisting of odds and ends cherished by an eccentric junk collector. Xavier's grinning face flashed up on one of the smaller console screens. "That old honker of a ship won't fit in my tiny little bay, so we'll just anchor it there and I'll send out one of the pods. The pod's a bit small, so I hope you all don't mind getting a little cozy for a bit." He gave a kind of kinky laugh. The anchor cables snaked out from the walls, puzzled for a moment over the ancient protocols from several hundred years ago, until the Sabre and the spacestation docking system reached a tentative accord, and we could hear the faint metallic echoes through the hull as the anchors attached and then pulled tight to secured the ship in place. I'll spare you the details of my conversation with Xavier. Rosa was smart. She greeted us, smiling, then promptly left to go off and do something worthwhile. Within a few minutes, Jasmin began fidgeting, yawning, and drumming her fingers, and she eagerly followed my suggestion to locate Rosa and see if she couldn't find something they could do together. Being men, Xavier and I of course did not discuss anything of genuine emotional import. The closest we got was a brief investigation of the relative merits of various female body parts, but that awkward topic soon passed and we got onto safe, manly matters, such as the current political situation with the Inquisition, and the status of various advances in the current technology. The conversation was regularly punctuated with the sound of him taking bong hits, and though I did not indulge, the musky second-hand smoke made my head swim a little. At regular intervals, a topic of discussion would trigger some memory of an event we had both witnessed or mischief we had both participated in, which would yield minutes lost in reminiscences and fond retelling of the old myths. He was curious about my cloaking algorithm, so I let him download it and we chattered about installing it in his cruiser, but of course didn't get around to actually doing it. We discussed the best way to find a shuttle craft with which to populate the bay of the Sabre, and he knew somebody that was selling one, but it needed a new infra-ray transformer. I talked half-heartedly of needing a new ship for myself, and he offered similarly useful information. I thought (but did not share with him) that perhaps it was time to seek a quiet, planet-bound lifestyle for awhile, to settle down and relinquish all the excitement of space-travel. We then spent a significant amount of time speculating about what would be the best transport route (within the spacestation) to get to the surface-to-orbit elevator, and arrived at a perfect solution. Unfortunately, it turned out to be completely fallacious when Rosa returned (with Jasmin) and, pulling out a nearby drawer, produced an actual map and schedule of the transport shuttles. After glancing at it for a few seconds, she underlined with her thumb the optimal route to our destination, the elevator that would land on the planet's surface adjacent to the H.G. Wells Spaceport. "Why are you heading way the hell out there?" demanded Xavier. "They only just built it, so there's nothin' there really. Other than rolling green hills and a bunch of farms and orchards." "Call it a hunch," I replied, trading glances with Jasmin. Rosa gazed lovingly at Jasmin, with wisdom and kindness. "I do wish you the best and most gracious speed in finding your mother and father." "Thanks," she whispered back, shyly. "It must be a terrible feeling to experience such a loss, but I know they loved you very much." Jasmin had a tear in the corner of her eye. Rosa took Jasmin into her arms as she wept silently. Now it was Xavier's turn to fidget, yawn, and drum his fingers. "If they loved me, then why didn't they come looking for me?" Jasmin demanded quietly. "I'm sure they did," said Rosa. "The thing about space is, there is a lot of it. It's impossible to search everywhere, dear. It simply can't be done." ____________________________________________________________ The descent in the space elevator is a spectacular experience. First there is the elevator itself, resembling in decor a giant version of the art-nouveau glass-windowed elevators in one of those fancy hotels with enormous interior courtyards. The obvious design would have been for an anchor point in geostationary orbit. Unfortunately, given a planet such as Syrene with approximately the same mass as the Earth, this would have called for about 35,000 kilometres of cabling. Fortunately, by strategically altering the gravitational spacetime characteristics by proper application of the G-field, and incorporating a series of mathematical manipulations of complexity beyond the scope of the current document, the engineers of today have achieved the ability to maintain stationary orbits at a much closer radius. On Syrene, the spacestation and the anchor-point of the elevators hangs out at about 330 km from the surface. Intimate awareness of the construction of the cables would be a bit disconcerting to the average tourist, given that the main weight-bearing portion is only a millimetre or so in diameter, consisting of specially fabricated microlinked steel particles manufactured using a relatively new technique. The cable is surrounded, however, in opaque black ultra-strengthened plastic, several centimetres thick. This is for a couple of reasons. One is simply the visually reassuring effect to the rider. The other is that the tiny support cable, possessing such an unexpected strength given its near invisibility, would act like a razor-edged blade to any object coming close to it. Any ship that attempted to plough through it would be sheared in two, and for that reason the whole length of it was decorated with glittering lights and radio beacons to warn all who approached of the danger. Once you step in, it is like a cross between being in the quietly hushed, richly carpeted hotel room, and gazing out the window of a ski-resort gondola, only much higher up. My twinge of financial anxiety began to surface as we stood at the door, waiting to board the elevator. The gentleman in a blue conductor's uniform and glasses and a salt-and-pepper moustache was checking peoples' identification as they boarded. "Syrene ID card? Thank you. ID please? Thank you." We were in the front of the line. "Syrene ID?" "Um, we're travelers, not residents." "That will be three drotchklings. And the young miss? Are you under twelve?" "Yes," I answered for her. "No charge, then." She gave me a dirty look. "That's not quite being honest," she said. "If you go by my birthday, I'm 212." The conductor looked at her curiously. "And you don't look a day over 211." "I was in cryo-stasis," she explained. "Ah. Well in that case, you qualify for our senior discount, meaning that, there is no charge." I set down my luggage, and reached into my pocket to dig out the three drotchklings to pay him, then followed her to a seat by the window. "What was that all about?" I asked, as we wheeled our luggage on board and found a couple of adjacent cushioned velvet seats. "It isn't right to lie," she insisted. "Well it's not entirely a lie. It's more a question of meaning." "Right." "No, seriously. If you look at the intention, the spirit of the law, which is to provide assistance to those less able to afford the fare, then you're justified in accepting the waiver of fees which, you'll note, the conductor agreed with to." Her pelvis squirmed. She leaned over and whispered in my ear: "I love it when you talk ethics," then leaned back smiling. That gave me a tingle in the right place. "Besides, dear, I have to be careful with spending. I only have a thousand or so drotchklings in my bank account." Her smile faded. I don't think she had ever needed to worry about money. The elevator door closed, and we began our descent. ____________________________________________________________ Once I had the privilege of taking a flight in an refurbished antique 20th century aircraft, a Boeing 747 I believe it was. I have no idea how people could stand being cooped up in one of these primitive things for hours on end. Amazing what human beings can adapt to. For some odd reason, the descent to Syrene reminded me of that flight's landing, by way of stark contrast. First, compared with the terrible racket of the airplane flight, there was the silence of the elevator. The elevator had quietly sumptuous music playing, one of the glorious 22nd-century symphonie-electronique, I couldn't identify the composer. The perfect backdrop, at once mysterious, sublime, powerful, and humorous. Then, the view. Who could believe those ancient airliners only had tiny little windows to peek out of? Compared with being surrounded with clear glassene, which auto-adjusted its tinting to compensate for the harmful UV rays of the outer atmosphere. A full 360-degree view, just like being in the gondola of an even older hot-air balloon, only much higher up in the air. How can I describe the refreshing mist of the atmosphere as the late-morning sun refracted and reflected through clear, microscopic particles. The aura of life surrounding the planet, clinging to it, rising like subtle vapor. Then there is the simple drama of proximity, the simplicity of concealment and emergence, not from behind or through anything, but with the straightforward act of being closer or farther away. The spacestation that had seemed so huge receded above us until it was the size of a head, then a hand, then the tip of a finger, then a speck of grey barely visible. And meanwhile, the contours of the planet below us revealed the plenitude of its details as we drew closer. Embracing us, reaching out to us, offering us life as we returned from the emptiness of the void to the surroundedness of glittering enormous turquoise-aquamarine oceans looking like living, moving cake frosting, of mountains looking like gingerbread dusted with powdered sugar, of green forests frozen in boiling dances across rolling hills, dotted with shining mirror lakes of different shapes and sizes like writing in a foreign language. Scratchings in the dust became roads, dots became squares became the roofs of houses, grains of sand became boulders became mountains, and magically we arrived with a swirl of chatter and smiles of awe and wonder. Gently the elevator set down, the doors slid open with a pneumatic `hiss,' and we whisked out of the compartment with the rush of the crowd, wheeling our suitcases down the aisle of the terminus (following the holo-signs that guided us) onboard the monorail car. Here, there was no dispensation for the under-12 (or over 65), but a flat 4-drotchkling fee for each of us. I noticed that residents seemed to be able to ride for free, simply by presenting their identification card for visual examination. The railway cars were clean and modern. Soon, we found ourselves staring out at the lush green landscape gliding effortlessly by, on the way to the H.G. Wells airport. I asked a lady sitting by us the story on riding for free, and she cheerfully explained how on Syrene, all citizens are guaranteed housing, sustenance, transportation and medical care, but can earn extra buying credits by taking on work -- but only in a field which they enjoy. There was a strict battery of psychological tests to ensure that people would only work at jobs that gave them satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment and self-worth. It sounded unrealistically utopian to me, but in the course of my skeptical questioning I started to understand how it had resoundingly succeeded for several centuries. "You should become a citizen," she said. "What is your profession, if I may ask?" "Oh, I'm a mathematician," I said. Jasmin surprised me by whispering under her breath: "He's truly amazing." The lady smiled. "You would have no trouble at all finding things to do. You'll find that around here, people who make a positive difference are generously rewarded." She stood up, as her stop was coming up. "You seem like nice people," she said. "I hope you think about it!" By the time we got to our stop, the H.G. Wells Spaceport, there was nobody else on board the train. When the door opened, I almost didn't want to get off. We were greeted by warm tropical air, and the rambunctious chatter of insects and amphibians invisible in the trees and foliage that surrounded us. Carting her luggage behind her, she plunged ahead of me, and vacantly on autopilot, I followed. The train departed in a mechanistic `whoosh,' without pausing to ask if this were really where we wanted to be, or did we wish to reconsider? No, the dutifully streamlined iron horse had schedules to keep, and better places to be. I looked around the platform. Not much variety, just trees and shrubs, with all sizes of leaves ranging from enormous to tiny needles, exotic flowers in several different colors and shades, pink, purple, yellow, and orange, and a combination of black and red that with a sort of marble stripe through it. There must have been a dozen birds (or some similar animal) within earshot, and the sound of each individual call was astoundingly rich and complex, to say nothing of the astonishing effect of hearing them all together in different parts of the space everywhere around us. The only sign of civilization was a dirt road that led away from the platform, so wordlessly, we followed it, each of us with suitcase wheels bumping along the rocks and pits in the dust. Making me wish I had sprung a few extra drotchklings for the model with smooth-ride G-field antigravity support. I began to wonder if we could just catch the next train back, to wonder if we had even correctly heard the words on the videotaped message her mother had left, that had flown by so swiftly. Had we even gone back and listened again to make sure of what she had said? I don't think we had, but I couldn't distinctly remember in this heat, as I loosened my outer shirt and finally took it off and tied the sleeves around my waist. After awhile on the dusty road, we came to an fork leading off into two directions, with a sign indicating the direction of each fork. The sign was handpainted, neatly, and (I noted with a small measure of relief) did not seem to contain spelling errors. The arrow to the right said "H.G.Wells Spaceport 15 km" and to the left: "Old New Oldtown 1 km." As we stopped to consider, I put in my vote by pointing to the left. "Maybe we can find some sort of vehicle to take us to the spaceport." She looked up with a glint of defiance. "Sweetheart, I'm not about to walk 15 kilometres in this heat. Don't be ridiculous." She shrugged, but gave in, and we proceeded down the twisting and winding road to the left. It got better a little ways up, with something actually resembling pavement, and therefore a smoother surface for the suitcase wheels to roll upon. In a little ways, we began to see signs of human incursion on the landscape, in the form of surprisingly modern-looking buildings neatly arranged on either side of the road, that seemed totally out of place in the middle of such unkempt wilderness. We walked up to the first one, which seemed to be a general store, and pushing through the pressure-sealed tinted glass door, found ourselves in a refreshingly air-cooled shop, populated by a lone attendant, a girl maybe 15 years old with neatly combed hair in a ponytail, dressed in athletic-style clothing, intently lost in a dramatic TV show playing on a moderately sized screen above her. We looked around a bit, and Jasmin wandered impulsively over to the display of candy bars and jellybeans, right in front of the cooler full of soda pop. I approached cleared my throat several times before attaining an audience, but finally the girl looked up and said "Yes, hello. May I help you?" "I was wondering, is there a motel nearby?" "Uh, yeah. There's only one around here, and it's up the street on the left." I could sense her attention being magnetized back to the magical screen of drama above her, when a grinning Jasmin plunked down a pile of assorted candies and chocolates onto the counter. "Please?" she begged me. "What are you trying to do, love? Break the bank?" She looked so disappointed. "Look, five drotchklings worth. That's it. We're about to get lunch, anyway. Which reminds me," I turned back to the girl behind the counter, who was staring at the screen again, "Is there a restaurant nearby?" "One in the hotel," she said, eyes still glued to the screen, "and another one around the corner. Chinese, I think. It keeps changing" Jasmin was performing triage on the assortment of sweets, and finally, with reluctance, pushed a much-abridged edition of the selection towards the girl to ring up. As she was flashing all the items in front of the scanner, I asked Jasmin, "Now, would your mom and dad really have let you buy all that?" She gave a comically absurd "No." Sighing, I handed over the drotchklings, which soon disappeared into the cash-register, as the candy deftly disappeared into a carrying bag, save a transparent, radioactively luminescent orange bar, which she quickly tore open and began sucking on. I did not want to even begin to imagine what it tasted like. With the other hand, Jasmin started to pick up the orphaned sweets to reshelve, but the other girl said laughingly "Oh never mind. I'll put them back." We left the refreshingly cool air to plunge back out into the searing heat, down a few doors to another spiffy modern building, marked "Old New Oldtown Hotel." It towered three floors above us, and as we stepped through the pressurized door we once again found ourselves inside an aircooled room. This time, the person behind the desk was an older woman, hair full-headed grey. She sat on a stool, straight-backed, and hands spread across a book she was reading that lay on the wood-grained desk in front of her. She looked up curiously as we entered. "Room for two?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "Syrene ID?" "Um, no. We're just passing through." "Mmm. You do have ID, though?" "Sure," I fumbled with my things." "I have a double room for 50 drotchklings a night," "Oh, we don't need two beds," said Jasmin, through the crackling wrapper of the sucker in her mouth. I looked at her with alarm. She looked back at me sheepishly, "Just trying to save money," she said. "How much is the single?" I asked. "35..." "He can sleep on the floor," Jasmin continued. "Beg pardon?" I said. "I can wheel in a roll-away for another 5 drotchklings," said the lady behind the desk. "No, it's OK. She likes to sleep on the floor." "Hey!" protested Jasmin. The lady took down a key and slid it across the counter as she completed the paperwork. "Just let me know if you need anything." She seemed to enjoy the relationship between Jasmin and me. As she accepted my money, she said "You should really consider becoming a citizen, you know. We need more free-thinking people around here." "Thanks. So, out of curiosity, is there anything to see in this town?" "Aside from the institute, there's a park beyond the plaza at the end of this street." "Thanks." ____________________________________________________________ The relief of setting down and opening the suitcases inside our newly found abode, opening the curtains for a scenic view, from the third floor. "What next?" she asked. I shrugged. "A stroll in the park?" ____________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------- For more stories, visit our site on asstr-mirror.org http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/VivianDarkbloom/www/ -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ------ send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com>| | FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderators: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |ASSM Archive at <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by <http://www.asstr-mirror.org> | |Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d; look for subject {ASSD}| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+