The Leaf

Prey

Raymond

Maybe she would understand him better through an example, so Raymond changed strategies.

Even when towering over Claire, helped by the useless stairs that only abled bodied humans could tackle, he felt cornered. Like by a predator, one so new in the jungle that they didn't understand there were other types of predators: those who waited for their prey to trap itself in their web.

In the center of a luxurious carpet that had never been touched by bare feet, silver polished nails broke history. And no one else but them would ever know.

"Let's say you go back in time. Let's say a thousand years," Raymond brought his eyes back up to Claire, watching her smile grow. "And you replace someone's wife. Let's say a peasant's."

"Peasant?!" Claire sounded insulted, but she kept smiling.

"I couldn't find someone who did nothing all day and was not royalty. So you'll have to settle with someone working the fields for eight hours a day."

She rolled her eyes as a reply, his arrow barely grazing her.

"So now you're in this man's bed," he got her attention back to him, immediately regretting it as she was still amused, her angular features softened by curiosity. "And you have all these years on him -- of knowledge, of experience. Everything the world has taught you."

Her smile got wider, so Raymond asked her, "How confident are you that you could blow that man's mind, in bed?"

Claire laughed, and it took her a few seconds to answer, "I would be very confident."

Raymond nodded, relieved she was starting to understand. His victory was short-lived, as Claire continued, "So confident, actually, that I'm gonna add to your story. You could send me a thousand years into the future..."

Raymond started to fear the web around them wasn't his.

"... and I replace someone's wife. What's an example of an average man's job, then? A janitor, you said?" Claire didn't wait for an answer, "So I go inside his pod... And I can tell you right now that that man will also have his mind blown."

It was important to her that she was good in bed, it was the best thing about her marriage, the one thing that kept her with her husband. Unaware that the way she'd presented the future -- married people in one pod, similar to how she lived, far from the truth -- told Raymond that maybe it was what she used to keep her husband with her.

Lost in his thoughts, Raymond had to be brought back to the Wesley living room.

"You're stalling again," Claire said, moving her eyes up the stairs.

She was right -- he was worried, Raymond finally admitted to himself. The success of his mission depended on him being focused, on her being minimally content, their interactions casual. And now...

Worse, she was stalling too, despite her outwardly relaxed approach. Because there was a clear-cut way she could get him into her marital bed: walking over those few steps and putting her hands and lips on him.

Still, she made no effort to move, watching him from a safe distance instead.

"Ten minutes," he said, and went up the stairs. What would be would be.

Claire

A hot shower helped Claire burn the skin that kept wanting to be touched. Tightened around her body because of how much it wanted to be special to someone. Not to be declared as the same sensation as when immersed in a videogame, touching some 3D hologram.

Claire conveniently avoided dwelling on how Raymond had already touched her, and how he didn't mention anything about the feeling rocking his world. She made sure she shined with cleanliness, amused by how uncomfortable he was when in a body. Raymond could overanalyze anything, but he still uncomfortably passed her in the bathroom door when she went in to take his place under the huge shower, Tony's preference. Claire would've liked a bathtub, maybe one like Nico had, but she never got final say on anything. A too modern, hi-tech shower was what she got.

"We don't spend so much time in our bodies, and we don't wash, we just grow another layer. Like shedding," he'd said, to fill the silence, as he watched her place towels on the marble counter.

"I don't know how you do it," he sat on the end of the bed. Exactly like she'd imagined Tony would, in her sex scenario. The robot was efficient, already in position, she smiled to herself. Or maybe because the TV was best viewed from there.

"I won't be long," she'd assured him.

Now in a pink nightgown, Claire was ready to learn what she had to do. Seeing the TV remote next to Raymond, him in the same position as she'd left him -- as if only a second had passed, despite her taking her time calming her nerves -- she had to be clear.

"There is no need to watch a porn video together. I'm going to guess... And you are going to correct me. People in 2019 learn from their mistakes," she winked. She then took out her most pornographic smile from a broom closet hidden deep inside her mind, which immediately worked, Raymond closing his mouth over his words. He pushed the remote away from him, it was taking up space where she knew her knee would have to be, after climbing him.

She walked to him, hurried by how the awkwardness made her keep her arms crossed over her chest, to cover more than what the thin lace could.

"So I get in your face," she did just that, and he took her hands as encouragement, spreading her defenses away by putting them on his shoulders. Tony didn't like shyness, so she probably did that herself. She got in bed over him, her knees keeping his legs prisoners, supporting her as she got her breasts into his face, waiting for him to start taking off her clothes.
 
"I think here is where you take over," she saw he wasn't moving, her legs relaxing to lower herself in his lap.

He was completely dressed, in a matching black t-shirt and sweatpants, so her underwear met fabric layers that were designed to absorb wetness. She could feel him through them, hard against her inner thigh, making her shift to make herself more comfortable.