NOTE: This and all preceding and subsequent chapters are copyright 1993 by Milford Ray Slabaugh. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to post this story to other BBS'es, provided it bears this language. Permission to post to Star*Chat denied. PLANET OF DESIRE Chapter 26 "Your Greatest Desire, Your Greatest Fear" Ivan couldn't believe his eyes. He recognized this room. It was his father's study, but the proportions were huge. It was as if...had he become a child again? Ivan quickly glanced down at himself, half expecting to see himself small and thin once more. No, he was still a man. He still had his massive chest, his thick mat of chest fur, his cock was long and surrounded by pubic hair. He was still an adult. Ivan looked at the room again. Extraordinary. The mist had pulled out the images he had had as a child, when the world was four times larger than it was to an adult. Ivan almost expected to hear his father call him, using the diminutive of his name Ivan never allowed anyone else to use, that glad shout when his father came home and.... "Sasha!" came his father's voice. Ivan whirled, not caring about anything but seeing his father alive and vibrant once again. "P-pa!" He answered. (His memory was screaming at him. No, your father died three years ago. He was so pale and thin when you left him to join the Scouts. He's dead; you have the message still in your locker back at Base.) His father stood there, over fifteen feet tall. Ivan barely came up to mid-thigh. Dressed in his business suit as always, the massive arms from weightlifting that Ivan had imitated when his own body grew enough to let him put muscle on it, the smile so open and loving. Ivan lifted his arms and his father scooped him up as easily as always, whirling him through the air in the old, old greeting. Ivan had missed it so much; it felt so good to feel his father's embrace once again. His father laughed and kissed him, the huge lips smearing him all over one cheek. His father sat them both down in the huge armchair, and Ivan dangled his legs between his father's thighs, his whole body wrapped up in the huge arms, safe, warm and loved once again. Trudya, his old, faithful husky, perched on the armchair and lapped at Ivan's face, and Ivan hugged the huge head, tears streaming down his face. He loved that old dog. (No, Trudya died when you were eight. Remember the fire that burned this entire house? Trudya was ill, and trapped inside. You tried to save him, but your father wouldn't let you get near the flames.) Trudya lay at P-pa's feet, and P-pa said, "Sasha, where are your clothes today?" Ivan looked down and only then noticed he was naked. "I don't remember, P-pa." He admitted. (But you do remember. They are lying outside this cavern. This is not your old family home. This is a cave, and this is a dream.) "I see you are growing up very fast, my little Sasha." Ivan looked to see P-pa staring at his crotch; Ivan looked and realized he had a huge erection. Ivan jerked, embarassed, his hands tried to cover himself, but his P-pa pulled his hands away. "No, Sasha, it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is very natural. Never be ashamed of how your body behaves, Sasha." "Yes, P-pa." Ivan hugged his father and kissed his father's cheek again and again. He could never get enough of this. Ivan didn't know how long he sat there, perched in his father's lap, but after a time, his father said gently, "Sasha, it is your bedtime." Ivan played the old game, he snuggled up against his father's chest and pretended to be asleep. P-pa wouldn't try to wake him; he would carry Ivan to his bed, undress him and place him beneath the covers, tuck him in carefully, kiss his cheek and sneak out. It was Ivan's favorite time with his father. His father cuddled him to his chest and carried Ivan, Ivan kept his eyes tightly closed and pretended to lightly snore. Ivan felt his body being laid on the bed (but on top of the covers, this wasn't the right way). And P-pa's hand wrapped around his cock. (No! P-pa would never do that to him! Never!) P-pa's hand manipulated his cock, his adult-but-tiny cock in the huge hand, Ivan was being stroked by his own father. "No, P-pa, don't." He protested. He was so sleepy, but this was not right." "Now, Sasha, P-pa knows best." P-pa's voice said. Ivan looked up to see a strange fire in P-pa's eyes. He tried to push P-pa's hands away, but P-pa was so much stronger than him, it was hopeless. He started to crawl away, but P-pa grabbed him and held him in place. "No, P-pa, don't!" Ivan begged. "Please don't." P-pa ignored his pleas. Ivan struggled, but the fire in his vitals couldn't be ignored. He was being stroked by his own father's hands, and his body, his traitor body, was letting him be molested like this. Ivan groaned with the helpless terror, and it somehow became, in some twisted, horrible way, passion, and Ivan groaned, his cock erupted with his orgasm, splattering him and his father's flailing hand. Afterwards, Ivan sobbed in humiliation. What had happened? What was going on here? Why was P-pa doing this to him? (But this isn't P-pa. P-pa is dead. He died years ago. Remember how you cried, and cried even during your next assignment on Eldreth, a planet laid waste and occupied by the Slan, and the death and destruction you saw there? Not for the thousands of human dead, but for your father.) "Now, Sasha, your mother is visiting her family for the next few weeks. During this time, I shall sleep here with you. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Sasha?" How else could he answer? "Yes, P-pa. I'd like that." (This is NOT P-pa. I know, but I must wait until he's asleep and try to get away.) Ivan lay in P-pa's huge embrace until the large man's breathing was still and regular. Then he quietly slipped to his feet and sneaked out the door. P-pa did not wake up, and Ivan left him behind. Outside the front door of his house, the red mist waited once again. Ivan was almost glad to see it. There was nothing this planet could throw at him that would be worse than what had just happened. No demon worse than his fondest memory turned into a molestation. He felt dirty, degraded. Not just his body, but down deep inside. "It's all a dream." he told himself fiercely. "Dreams don't mean anything. Nothing at all. We'll get out of this place and forget about the mystery of this planet. Just find the way out." "It's over here." Andrew said. Ivan turned. "No." he said. "Yes, Ivan, it's this way." Andrew said, smiling. "The right-hand one of these three passages. Just come along with me." Andrew took his hand, and his body seemed to shine with a light of its own. "No, Andrew, you're dead." Ivan said. "I saw your grave, and said good-bye. You're not really here. You're just a dream." "Now, Ivan, don't ask questions." Andrew said. He seemed genuinely concerned. "Questions are dangerous. I'm here now, and that's all that matters." "No, you're dead. Another casualty of the war." Ivan said. And they were surrounded by burning buildings, the scream of aircraft, the hissing of distant laserbeams. Dead and dying victims lay all around him, and Ivan could find sympathy for all of them, human and Slan, lying there, dying, disregarded by their own kind. "Come on, Ivan." Andrew said. "Forget the war. We're out of the war, now, all of us. You and I are going to the Temple of Children, and we'll each have a son and we'll build a farm and raise children. You promised me that, Ivan." "No, I promised Andrew, but he's dead." Ivan said. "You're not Andrew." Andrew's body seemed to glow brighter, but now it was his chest that was glowing with an inner light. It was bright enough to hurt Ivan's eyes. "Don't ask questions." Andrew begged. "I can't stand it when you ask questions." "You're dead, Andrew." Ivan said. "Please go away." The light in Andrew's chest concentrated in a line across his body, and burst through, and Andrew fell into two parts once again, and the Andrew's blood again splattered Ivan's body. Ivan fell to his knees and cried. A few sobs, wrung from him instead of falling easily, and then they were replaced by anger. "Damn this planet and all its mysteries!" He shouted. "I'm going to learn your secrets if I have to stay here forever and wander these caverns until I find the right way!" And he was back once again in the red mist. But which of the three passageways was the right one? Andrew had indicated the right-hand one. Ivan blinked, looked again. There was only one passageway. He had no choice. He went through the passageway. Past a strange machine that churned out the red mist that flowed around him. And he was past the mist, out of it. Ivan sat groggily down on the metal hallway and shook his head, trying to clear it. Then he looked down the hallway. One way, the Cavern of Dreams. The other, what? He couldn't tell from here. "Ivan?" David called to him. "David?" Ivan answered, stood up David staggered out of the mist, and Ivan caught him, lowered him to the metal floor and sat beside him. "So you made it through." David said. "Did you see Gorman and Jablonski?" David shook his head. "They were in front of me. They must have gotten turned around." "We'll look for them on the way back." Ivan said. "Rest a moment, then we'll see what this planet is hiding here." "The way back." David said. "I don't think I want to face that. Not again." "I know what you mean." Ivan said. "It was pretty bad, wasn't it?" "Not all of it. Just half of it. That's the hell of it. This place gives you your favorite dream, but it also twists it around and makes it a personal hell." David said. "Want to talk about it?" Ivan offered. "No!" David shouted. "No. Let's get moving." They walked down the hallway. There was only one opening at the end of it, and it led to a single room. END OF CHAPTER 26 TO BE CONTINUED/CONCLUDED