Woman from another planet

by Frank Belknap Long

She had torn open the front of her dress and there was a bleeding gash on the smooth flesh of her throat in an effort to relieve her torment.

Loring went to the bed and stood over her, feeling a tightness in his chest. His breathing was ragged, and his heart had begun a furious pounding.

He thought for an instant that she was dead. Then he saw that a faint flush suffused her cheeks and that her eyes were not expressionless. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring up at him. There was awareness in them, but it was not the awareness of recognition. It was as if she knew that a man was standing by the bed looking down at her, but did not know who that man was or why he had drawn near to her.

He reached out and put his hand on her bare shoulder. Her skin was warm, almost hot to his touch. She stirred slightly and a questioning look came into her eyes. Shaken as he was, that almost imperceptible moving of her body in response to his touch made him feel almost as he would have felt if he had deliberately caressed her and she had shivered with pleasure and shown him unmistakably that she was not displeased.

Nothing had been further from his mind, but now he found himself wondering what would happen if he touched her again, and this time more boldly.

He reached down and gently cupped one of her breasts, taking care to let his fingers encircle its smooth roundness without suggesting that he was engaged in anything more than a medical examination. He told himself that he felt that way about it—a purely clinical test.

Something terrible had happened to her. He had to find out just how terrible as quickly as possible. Any kind of response would tell him whether her reason had been shattered completely and could not be restored, or whether she was merely in a state of shock and could be aroused by guiding her firmly along pathways of passion, taking care to think of himself only as a concerned and solicitous physician.

That and nothing more. But he was not prepared for the violence of her response and the sudden, almost convulsive tightening of her arms about him. He had not expected her to come so instantly alive again, with lips so demanding that he found himself struggling to breathe, smothered by the insatiable frenzy of her kisses. Her mouth melted into his, her tongue became a darting shape of fire, fluttering, pulsating within the cavern of his mouth. She was a moth with fiery wings fluttering, a wild temptress.

Her hands moved up and down and across his back, and her mouth unlocked itself and fastened on his ear, nibbling first at the lobe and then whispering softly into the chambered recess words of love sweet beyond endurance, dripping with the honey of forbidden ecstasies, unimagined delights.

"No," he whispered, but found himself surrendering to her guidance and then, suddenly, he was guiding her, anticipating her every desire, responding to every writhing of her body, every straining of her lips with a passion now as great as her own and now surpassing it, for he was not a man who needed to be instructed in the refinements and subtleties of love.