That night, Mars dreamed.

He dreamed of an infinite white plane with ornate gates dotting the landscape. Each gate had the mural of a girl engraved on it. Somehow, he knew that he had a choice to make.

He walked through the maze of gates, running his fingertips along the ornate engravings. The leaves of a gate felt metallic and cold to the touch, which was amazing considering that it was all a dream. It depicted the back of a woman in full plate armour, her broadsword inserted into the ground in front of her. Facing her, so that only its gaping maw could be seen, was an eldritch monstrosity with row upon row of jagged teeth. The mural was extremely impactful, instilling in its viewer a feeling that he was under the woman’s protection.

It called to him in a strange way but when he reached his hand out for the gate, he felt a resistance from something within himself. He stepped back from it, confusion writ large on his face.

Moving on, he paused again before a gate made of wood. He could feel the exquisite grain of the wood as he ran a palm over it. A gnarled tree dominated the foreground of its engraved picture, one of its branches nearly touching the ground under the weight of the huge fruit it bore. The fruit seemed to be suspended merely a few inches above the ground and from its bottom tiny roots had begun to sprout, a few having already reached the ground. The pod itself was transparent, the sight of a woman curled into the foetal position clearly visible through its thin walls.

Mars paused and walked on to the next gate.

This one was made of light blue coral, shaped in the form of waves, at the bottom, and transitioning into polished white marble at the top. The image of a girl lazing on a rock, a harp on her lap, as the water kicked up a spray against her perch was engraved on the marble.

This one held his attention and refused to let go. Whatever it was that was within him began to stir and this time, he could sense clear approval from it.

The gates parted for him at a light touch, revealing a cosy cave with fluorescent crystals providing a uniform lighting. In one corner of the room was the harp he had seen in the painting while the girl lay in the nude, propped up on one arm, on the large bed in the centre of the room.

When he entered, the girl rose from the bed and walked towards him. Her motion somehow combined the rolling gait of a sailor fresh on the land and the grace of a noble. He found beauty in the contradiction. Glistening under the dim light, her dark blue hair bounced with every step where it ended at her shoulders. When she reached him, her hands reached for the buttons of his shirt and undid them one at a time.

For a long moment, his mind struggled with the fact that she wasn’t actually real. A glance into her unfathomably deep, cerulean eyes and he pushed logic to the back of his head. Stepping forward, he pressed himself against her, noticing that she had already divested him of his shirt. He savoured the sensation of her bare skin pressed against his. She was soft, warm and smooth. He could feel her nipples slowly harden against his chest as her voluminous breasts deformed against his toned pecs.

His left hand snaked under her arm and behind her back. Tangling his fingers into her silky hair, he cupped the back of her head with his left palm and mashed his mouth into hers while he explored the rest of her with his right. He felt her body heat up as he caressed her shoulder, then her side, getting momentarily surprised when he felt the scales there. Moving further down, his palm stopped on her flat stomach, fingers sinking into the soft flesh.

They disengaged and she sank down to her knees and started working on the buckle of his belt. Seeing her struggle with the complicated clasp, he helped her undo it and she finished pulling down his brief along with his trousers, releasing his engorged penis. Impatiently, she immediately engulfed it to its root.

He moaned as he felt the depths of her throat convulse on his glans as her nimble tongue worked on his shaft. She slowly, tantalisingly pulled her head back, letting his member slide out and then equally slowly put it back in. She repeated this, her strokes getting shorter as they became faster, until finally she was working at a furious pace on his glans while her webbed hands took care of his shaft. Reaching the limits of his endurance, he grasped her head with both hands and thrust forward, reaching his release deep within her throat.

He was quite embarrassed by her reproachful stare, as she coughed when he came to his senses and pulled out of her mouth. Deciding to apologise with his body, he pulled her up to her feet, turned her around and embraced her strongly, her back to his chest. His left hand went to work on her chest, kneading and teasing in rhythm with his right which attacked her clit. He nibbled on her fin like ear as her breathing grew rougher and her body hotter. She leaned further and further into him, her knees weak, supported almost completely by his muscular arms.

Resting his cheek against hers, feeling the gills opening and closing in time with her breath, he timed himself with an exhale and drove himself deep into her. She came, devoid of breath, all of her tightening at once, like a beached fish, flickering and curving, unified from jaw to tail.

He waited patiently for her to collapse softly into his arms and the convulsions of her interior to still before mercilessly pounding into her. He timed the soft, long backstrokes and the short, violent thrust in counterpoint to her inhalations and exhalations. He made it so that her breaths were short gasps punctuated by long leisurely exhales, reducing the flow of oxygen to her brain, slowing her thought and sending her deeper into an abyss of pleasure.

With a short grunt from him and a wordless scream from her, both of them came for the second time that session.

Somehow, they made it to the bed and tumbled onto it. They lay there, a tangle of limbs, breathing heavily while basking in the afterglow. After sometime, Mars raised himself on an elbow and looked at the girl. She lay there, hair dishevelled, skin flushed from intercourse, and her cerulean eyes bright with contentment and another indecipherable emotion. She stopped up his mouth as he made to speak, her eyes scanning his face. Then abruptly she smiled, blew him a kiss and vanished along with the bed, the room and a piece of his heart.

***

Mars woke with a start.

Looking around, he found himself in his bed, lying amidst a tangle of bodies and limbs. All three of his wives had reached the limit of Vita’s Divine power they could hold at the same time. It had been a wild night.

He sank back into the mattress and stared at the ceiling. He had a strong feeling that he was forgetting something. Something very important.

And for some reason, he wanted to eat some fish.