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back behind an ear. “I need you, Cal. I love you.”
    I feel one more heartbeat and then my body goes numb. I hear static in my head.
    “I’m leaving this shithole moon tonight.” His face moves closer, his lips graze mine. “Forever.” It’s not a kiss. It’s something else. “I want to take you with me.”
     

4
    The static becomes a roar.  Shock blends with uncertainty, a whirlpool of fear dragging me into a black depth. I am alone with my terror. By why? Why fear?
    “Cal?” His face is as white as I imagine mine is. “Will you come?”
    I push him away, and this time he moves with ease. I roll off the bed, covering myself with a wrap of the sheets. I’ve never hidden my nakedness before. “You don’t do that!” I’m screaming at him. “You don’t do that to an Ionian girl. You don’t play with our feelings that way, okay?”
    “I’m not,” he protests.
    “Fuck you!”
    “Cal, what the hell is the matter? I mean, I was nervous, sure, but I was certain you’d be at least happy.”
    “Cut it, Julius! Cut the shit.” I don’t know what I’m doing. These words are a reflex, like a bop on the knee. “I know what you off-worlders think of us down here. You don’t realize that we’re human. You think we’re just some kind of cogs, and we don’t feel, and you can just abuse us however you need. But that’s bullshit.”
    He looks wounded. He is wounded. In the back of my head a voice is telling me to shut up.
    “I saw your little act downstairs. The light brush, the soft touch. What the fuck was that? Hunh?”
    Julius moves to the edge of the bed and stands up. He towers over me. He is wordless, again. He bends down, pulling my mouth towards his and kisses me.
    I’m lost. I feel myself go limp and fall into his embrace. He pulls me on top of him as we crash into the bed.
    The kiss breaks. One of his arms is around my waist, the other is along my face, hand wrapped over my hair, thumb brushing back and forth over my forehead as he stares into my eyes. He kisses me between the brows. “I love you.”
    “I love you, too.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I tell myself that it’s just another outburst.  I tell myself it’s nothing—but it’s everything. I tell myself that it’s a nasty lie I’ll use to get off of Io—but really it’s the truth. It’s perhaps the truest thing I’ve ever said—or felt.
    I feel him growing firm beneath me, rising and parting my thighs. I moan as the force of his erection slips up between my legs and nestles along the dampness of my slit.
    I rock my hips, letting his cock spring up, and then rock back, letting the tip drag along my sensitive flesh. I push, the head slipping carefully into the folds of my hot sex.
    He groans beneath me. It’s a deep, animal groan and I feel it vibrate in his chest against my nipples. I nuzzle my face into his neck, grinning as the stubble scratches me there.
    I slide, slowly, onto his cock, feeling the way it pierces me, stretches me, fills me. I’m in love not just with Julius, but with the way this sex feels different from anything else before. I feel close all of a sudden.  I don’t feel like a wound sheath for a plunging sword, but rather that I am accepting him into me, that something is being made of this. I am a sheath, protecting and proper.  It’s a wonderful feeling, looking down from my perch on his hips to see him smiling.
    He bottoms out in me and I gasp as the pressure and fullness overwhelms me. Yes, I’ll ride his hips all the way to a beach on Earth. I’ll ride this love all the way there. That’s what I tell myself. These feelings, these sensations are absurd. But if they get me off this fucking moon, then so be it.
    Julius pulls me towards him, crushing me to his chest as he takes control. His hips slide up and down, working his beautiful cock in and out of my dripping lust. I clench around him, squeezing with the muscles inside of me. He cries out at the hot, wet