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[Author's rating: R, adult-themed for sex.]

Heresy

Kn’nth; First Tribeworld of the Shaktars.  894 SD.

            “You must be joking….Lotion?”

            “Lie back, big guy.  This won’t hurt.”

            No, it most certainly hadn’t.

            “Return your attention to me, Hr’sy.”  It was not a request.

            “My lady?” I ask as I blink back the daydream and refocus on Jr’rw, my First Wife, and headmistress of my fairly recent household on Kn’nth, formed after my return from service.  I’d been a pleasing catch to many with my medals, my promised pension and retirement from SLA Industries; it hadn’t been difficult to find an appropriate match.  One from an honorable family; healthy, fertile, commanding.

            “Did you or did you not hear me?” she asked with a little impatience.

            “I did not,” I admitted, embarrassed.  “At least, not much past the estimation of our time remaining to complete the construction of the youth crib.”

            I was expected to be an adviser at our training bases, to prepare our new soldiers for their careers in the service of Mr. Slayer.  I would begin my travel shortly after the first time Jr’rw conceived and return shortly before the birth.  I’d be allowed to stay until she conceived again.

            During my farewell party on Mort, Jorge snickered at hearing about that part of my new life.  “Talk ‘bout a fuckin’ unfair deal.  Ya gets to stay home wit’ the wife fer as long as you can keep yer hands off her.”

            I thought it an odd interpretation.  Any First Wife is entitled to her husband’s attention whenever she sees him.  To my recollection, no Shaktar has purposefully avoided bedding his wife only to lounge around his estate for more time than Shahanti allows, in order to avoid his responsibilities.

            That would be dishonorable.

            Besides, I would not want to get on Jr’rw’s testy side.  Jorge and my other comrades from our squad had never met a female Shaktar; they had no idea the fury they would call down upon them in refusing a wife heavy in her fertility.  And all Shaktar youth are cared for and protected by our females anyway, until they are ready to become soldiers.  I have no doubt Jr’rw would not even know what to do with me staying home and being underfoot while she reared our young and ran the estate.

            “Share my bed tonight,” said my First Wife, her rough voice breaking just a little.  She shifted in her chair, perhaps a bit uncomfortable with the visible swelling that occurred when her body ripened.  “I may have a deadline for the crib before the week is out.”

            She tried to be cool and composed, an efficient headmistress worthy of her family name, but a body hungry to bear young is often impatient with one like me.  As part of my training squad on Kn’nth, I had learned to go slow, to enjoy the moment.  Now I would have to learn to speed up and it was dismaying to me.  It was my proof of living, and living well.

            Among Shaktars, a squad that trusted one another enough to bed each other would fight as one in a battle.  On Mort, it did not always work that way with the other races involved; sometimes just the opposite happened, and it was advisable that squadmates not lie together if they are to fight effectively.  This particular restriction worked well enough for most of my kind; alien lovers are not allowed, even if some are worthy of a friendship braid and everything else that promise entailed.

            As my wife and I moved closer to each other that night, I wondered if my braided squadmates—the ones that carried my trust in their hands and whom I had not seen in many years—were now a memory, a thing firmly of the past.

            Jr’rw’s skin, like mine, was scaly to the touch; dry, hardened, hot.

            I suddenly found myself remembering the way Katherine’s skin would grow moister, more pliable, though every bit as hot.  Katherine Burrana, SCL 5.9C, trained as our scout, sponsored by Karma and Boopa, a better healer I’d never seen outside the Ebon race.  Sometimes, during, she said my name, smooth and husky.  She called me Heresy.

                                                            *****