With the great hunt coming next week, I had a lot of preparation and coordination to do. All five Andturian clans would be heading out together to cover a greater area. We rarely used technology, preferring to stick with our traditional tracking methods. However, this hunt was far too important. The situation of Clan Leader Surtas was becoming critical. They had been the first to be hit by the scarcity of game. And now, their Gatherers were finding less and less to harvest in their woods. We four other clans had spared what we could, but with our own reserves running low, another failed hunt and public market could force his hand into selling his lands.
This would be a fatal blow to our people as all the hunting grounds and lands surrounding the Inosh Mountains would be lost to us. I refused to entertain that possibility.
Using the map software had allowed me to get a better overview of the location and direction in which the herds were moving based on the latest sightings by our scouts. I hoped that planning things this way would bless us with better results.
As soon as I completed that task, and with an hour left before the evening meal, I decided to seize this opportunity—for the rare times I fiddled with a computer tablet—to consult the knowledge database to which the United Planets Organization had given us access. Since the arrival of the tourist resorts and the Bosengi refugees, the knowledge network had significantly expanded, not only with accessible information, but also with real-time features from tracking, online ordering, communicating, etc.
Over the past few years, Luped had made increasing use of it while mostly failing at convincing me to do the same. However, we had all witnessed how much it had benefited her. The practical things she had learned through it had significantly enhanced her building skills, taught her how to make clever furniture, additions, or modifications to existing ones, showed her ingenious dwelling designs, and above all how to maintain and improve our current dwellings. They had been built decades ago according to Vaengi specs. Over the years, that technology—from plumbing to heating, and everything else in between—had become dated and some of it even obsolete. Without Luped and her research, many of the comforts we had come to take for granted would have been lost.
Yes, we needed to learn more and not be left behind by all the other species, both on Xecania and off world.
But it wasn’t new technology that held my interest right now. I had started reading more about humans, kicking myself for not having found the time before Susan’s arrival. It would have made the first day so much less awkward. Although my mate and I communicated well, I believed she was keeping a number of things from me. I couldn’t say if it was out of embarrassment, because she didn’t think I would understand or want it, or because she wasn’t interested in it. I suspected the truth lay somewhere in-between the first two options. The way she looked at my lips whenever we kissed only reinforced that sentiment.
I performed a search for human coupling. The first results were extremely boring documents that focused more on the human anatomy and the physiological aspects of mating. I knew the mechanics. I just wanted to know better how to please my mate.
I modified the search to look for human coupling rituals. That was slightly better, although a lot of it focused on courting a female, and then a series of pretty useless things to ‘set the mood’ before mating. Apparently, you should feed your mate first—although most of the meals suggested appeared to be desserts or small, unfulfilling treats. The other recommendations included: playing meditation or sleep-inducing music, dimming the light in the room to make seeing difficult—only to semi-fix it with a bunch of candles, and littering the floor or sleeping nest with flower petals. Why did they need the mood set, anyway? You either wanted to couple or not. Even now, just thinking about my mate had my stem torturing me with need.
Then I searched for human coupling videos—it would take me days to recover from the trauma.
The variety ranged from highly educational to downright horrifying. It took me a while to differentiate which knowledge sites had the horrifying ones and which had the educational ones. Although even the latter had categories that disturbed me.
The first thing I learned was that humans used their tongues for far more than licking the grooves of a male’s abdominal muscles or the teats of a female. Why would that species ever think that licking inside the mouth of another made sense? And yet, every single video had extensive displays of it. The couples also licked and sucked each other’s genitals. How did that make sense? Human females even swallowed their mate’s seed—which prompted me to search if a human female could be impregnated that way. They could not. So, why did they do it?
The males and females it was done to sure seemed to enjoy it.
And that made me question my reluctance. After all, kissing had seemed gross to me at first, and now I enjoyed it. But did I really want to consider Susan and I licking each other’s tongues and genitals? Other things I flat out rejected, like putting my stem in my mate’s anus, being brutal with her like the males were with their partners in some of the videos, urinating on her, and other actions so disgusting I wished I could wipe them from my memory.
Oddly, the image of a female willingly submitting to being bound by her mate, leaving her helpless to whatever he wished to do to her intrigued me more than I wanted to admit. Picturing Susan at my mercy that way had me throbbing with need. Yes, I would experiment with the humans’ strange mating ritual tonight.
Zoltar’s voice calling me for evening meal had me guiltily closing all the pages and wondering how to erase my search history. Few people used the computer tablet. Therefore, we only had a handful shared by everyone in the village. Many had already been a little too curious about mating with a human. I’d been deftly dodging their questions. I didn’t want my queries to send them down the trail I’d just followed. They might get the wrong idea about my mate.
Until I’d properly deleted it all, I would hang on to this tablet… especially since I wanted to read up more on this Kamasutra thing I’d discovered right before Zoltar came to fetch me.
I headed to the Great Hall where I found my mate and sister already seated at our table. It pleased me greatly how well they seemed to be getting along. My mother had gone from angry to reserved, but it was only a matter of time before she warmed up to my mate again. Mother was overly protective of me. She wrongly assumed I was fighting hard not to be demoted from my role as Clan Leader because I wanted the power. I was fighting because I didn’t want to see our people be exterminated, and because I couldn’t think of anyone else who could get this done.
Nothing would have pleased me more than to let someone else shoulder that burden.
Susan’s brown eyes locking with mine dispersed the dark clouds these thoughts had brought out. I loved the way they sparked when she was happy, and the affectionate smile she always bestowed upon me whenever she saw me. My mate didn’t love me, nor I her, but a timid friendship and tender bond was blossoming between us. I wanted to further fan that small flame.
As we settled to eat, I caught myself constantly stealing glances at my female. The way she licked her fork after taking a bite of meat completely derailed my brain. The videos I’d watched earlier kept replaying in my mind, all of them featuring Susan and me. My stem ached, and my abdominal muscles kept clenching painfully with need. I wanted to drag her out of the Great Hall and take her straight to our sleeping nest. To my shame, it wasn’t for me to do to her what the human males had done to their females, but to feel her mouth around my stem.
The strange looks my people started giving me and the way my mate squirmed on her seat soon made me realize I was making a spectacle of myself. I summoned every bit of my willpower to control my emotions, at least in appearance. After the evening meals, the clan usually remained in the Great Hall to enjoy some music, singing, or dance shows from our gifted members, or to listen to either ancient or newly invented tales by our soothsayer. To my relief, it was singing tonight. No one would blink if someone left during any show other than a storytelling evening.
The minute Susan finished her meal, I rose from my seat, caught her hand, and pulled her after me. Although surprised, she didn’t resist, her small hand closing around mine the way some of the images on the courting advice page had shown, with couples walking hand in hand. Many gazes followed us, some amused—having no doubt guessed what had me almost going feral—and others curious. My mate appeared both excited and worried, as if she suspected the reason for my behavior, but feared she might also have guessed wrong.
As soon as the door of our dwelling closed behind me, I picked up my mate and headed straight to the hygiene room. Her dress and footwear annoyed me, even though I understood their necessity. The urge to tear the fabric off her rode me hard, but I fought it. I didn’t want to scare her and had no idea how much she valued that specific piece of clothing.
My female didn’t resist when I hastily stripped her, and thankfully handled by herself the removal of that aggravating breast restraint she called a bra that always challenged me when trying to rid her of it. I had meant for us to be quickly in and out of the shower to explore those other human coupling rituals in our sleeping nest, but my impatience got the best of me. I crushed her lips in a slightly brutal kiss—not as much as in some of the videos, but not as overly carefully as I had done previously. Susan didn’t seem to mind and responded in kind.
I fisted her head fur at her nape. No, not head fur. The videos had called it hair. It was so strange how its texture and volume changed when wet. The males had directed and controlled the females using it. Some of them had done so too violently, but in other cases, the females had appeared to enjoy it. I tightened my hold, careful not to harm her, and Susan moaned softly—not in pain—while pressing herself more against me. Emboldened, I parted my lips still pressed against hers and poked my tongue at the seam of her mouth.
My mate recoiled. Her closed eyes snapped open, and she pulled her head back to give me a stunned expression. I tensed waiting to see her reaction. Her eyes flicked between mine, searching, as if trying to assess if she had correctly interpreted what I had done. Had I been wrong about the videos? Some of them, I genuinely believed were perversions my mate wouldn’t agree to. But were all the videos perversions?
Time appeared to stand still for a moment while we stared at each other, the sound of the water cascading down on us almost deafening in the otherwise silent room. Then Susan gave me a timid smile and rose to her tiptoes to kiss me. I lowered my head to meet her halfway. This time, she parted her lips first, although she didn’t poke out her tongue. My heart leapt, and I carefully tickled the opening of her mouth with my tongue, evaluating her response before pushing further. When her arms tightened around me in an encouraging fashion, I decided to take the dive—quite literally.
My tongue slipped inside her mouth, only to be greeted by hers, in a gentle caress. Too many emotions and sensations coursed through me to properly process them. Like everything else about my female, her tongue was soft, not rough like our own. It was almost akin to licking a polished stone, but a warm and pliable one that tasted of berry cider. The odd shape of her tongue, wide at the base and narrower at the tip, made it all the stranger as mine circled around hers.
The interaction was awkward at first, but we quickly adjusted, our movements coordinating. I hadn’t quite known what my physiological response to kissing with our tongues would be. I’d mostly expected to be repulsed and disgusted. Instead, it fanned the flame of desire in the pit of my stomach and resonated in my stem.
When I broke the kiss, Susan licked her lips as if she wanted to capture the lingering taste of me and stared at me with sparkling eyes. She had enjoyed this, too. How much would she enjoy me licking her slit? What would she taste like down there? Her skin had been slightly salty when I had licked her teats—no, nipples they called it in the video. Her mouth had tasted sweet, although the berry cider she had drank during evening meal had played a significant part.
My curiosity now ignited wouldn’t give me peace until it was sated. Without stopping to kiss and caress her, we washed each other. Discovering that this also constituted appropriate four play greatly pleased me. After thoroughly rinsing the soap from between her thighs so that I would get my mate’s true taste, I turned off the water. Susan reached for the towels, but I caught her wrist and pushed her against the wall. Surprised, she gave me an inquisitive look.
Her gaze darkened, and she softly gasped when I pinned both of her wrists above her head with a single hand. The females had seemed to enjoy some level of restraint. The way Susan’s breathing and pulse picked up while I kept her thus immobilized and my hand roamed over her appeared to confirm that assessment. The unexpected sense of power it procured me was oddly enticing. I kissed her with my tongue again, my fingers finding their way to her slit and swollen nub. My mate moaned in my mouth, and I barely kept from extruding. I wanted so badly to lift her up against the wall or turn her around to thrust into her. But Susan was still too tight to take me without careful penetration. Soon enough, that would happen.
For now, I released her wrists with some reluctance and broke the kiss as my lips traced a path down her soft skin, past the hardening nipples of her breasts, over the quivering muscles of her flat stomach, and below her navel. The closer I got to my prize, the stronger the scent of her arousal titillated my nostrils, setting my blood on fire.
Susan’s breath hitched when she realized where I was headed. Her lubrication coated my fingers probing her slit when my mouth got closer. Slipping a hand behind her left knee, I lifted her leg over my shoulder. My mate began breathing in quick, shallow breaths, sounding on the verge of hyperventilating from anticipation. I could almost hear the pounding of her heart from where I kneeled in front of her. When I carefully licked at her slit, my tongue flicking over her little nub in the process, Susan emitted a strangled cry and fisted my quills.
That sound, the scent of her musk, and the tart taste of her essence on my taste buds had my stem extruding with a will of its own. Fighting the burning need to bury myself deep inside of my female, I tentatively licked at her again.
“Yes,” she whispered, in such a needy voice that my stem ached, and my seed boiled inside of me.
I went all out, accelerating the movement of my tongue on her, trying to emulate what the other males had done in the videos, while thrusting my fingers in and out of my mate. The moans of pleasure interlaced with words of encouragement spurred me on. Although the taste of her essence neither enticed nor repulsed me, her scent in my nose and her reactions to my tongue quickly made this my new addiction. My stem was so hard, it hurt. From the sounds Susan was making and the way her leg on my shoulder shook, she would soon climax. I needed her to fall apart in my mouth, before I could dry her, take her to our nest, and finally find my own release.
As if she’d heard my silent plea, Susan cried out. Her hands held my quills with such strength it stung in a surprisingly delightful way. Her inner walls constricting around my fingers reminded me how they felt, squeezing my stem from all sides in an exquisitely painful way when she climaxed under me.
I pulled my fingers out of her, lowered her leg, and rose to my feet. If not for the wall supporting her, I suspected my mate would have collapsed. The blissful expression on her face filled me with pride. I had failed her in the first day of our union, but I was learning. Picking up a towel, I began to dry her, my mouth claiming hers in the process. She opened for me again, not minding the taste of her own essence on my tongue.
In my impatience, I hastened through drying us—although mostly her—leaving Susan’s hair quite damp before carrying her back to our nest. When I laid her down on the main cushion and joined her, my mate didn’t lie down but forced me onto my back. Did she want to ride me like some of the females had done in the videos?
My brain froze when, after kissing me with her tongue, my female kissed her way down my body towards my groin. A grunt escaped me when her dainty hands closed around my stem. It was her first time touching me there. Our previous times, I’d always extruded right before penetrating her.
As she prepared to reciprocate, a heavy weight appeared to settle on my chest, constricting my lungs. I couldn’t seem to draw enough air in as she stroked me, her lips kissing, nipping, and licking the leathery skin around my pelvic area. My natural lubricant made the motion of her hand on me easier. Although I was too big for her fingers to fully close around me, the way she squeezed my stem while caressing me had a pool of lava bubbling in the pit of my stomach.
And then the wet heat of her tongue teased my tip. Another grunted moan escaped me, my abdominal muscles contracting painfully with need. Leaning on my elbows to look at my mate, I realized that, like me with her, she had also wondered what I would taste like. The way her eyes widened and that her lips stretched discreetly, Susan was pleasantly surprised. Relief flooded through me. I had feared she might be repulsed by the taste of my lubricant. What if it had been bitter or acrid? I would have felt both embarrassed and humiliated.
But all coherent thoughts fled my mind the minute my female’s mouth closed around my stem. The searing heat of her mouth exceeded that of her slit as she began to bob over me. I was too big and too long for her to take all of me into her mouth—which made me even hungrier to ride her. However, my girth also meant she had to open wide to accommodate me. Despite that, her blunt teeth scraped against the delicate scales of my stem. Combined to the exquisite heat and almost unbearable softness of her tongue rubbing against my length, I cried out with pleasure. My loins ached with the need to release my seed, as my female carefully bobbed over me.
I wanted her to take me in deeper, faster, and for her hand on me to actively work in counterpoint of her mouth on me. But she maintained a slow and steady pace that was pure torture. Unable to resist, I fisted Susan’s hair, holding her in place, and began thrusting my hips upward.
Big mistake.
My mate yanked her head back, my hand fisting her hair involuntarily pulling on them in the process. She cringed in pain, one hand flying to the back of her head, the other clutching her throat while she coughed, her eyes watering. The fog of arousal completely dissipated, I sat up in a panic.
“Susan! I’m sorry! Are you hurt?” I asked, rubbing her back, wondering if I should run to fetch the healer.
She let go of her hair and raised her palm in a way that I couldn’t decide if it meant to give her a moment or if she was attempting to appease me. Maybe it was both. Neither option reassured me as she coughed for a few more seconds, before swallowing painfully and breathing loudly. I’d never felt so helpless and angrier with myself.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I repeated, not knowing what to do.
Susan straightened, sat on her haunches, and gave me a shaky smile while wiping her tears with the back of her hands. I felt horrible. Once again, I had made a mess of things.
“It’s okay, Olix,” my mate said in a soothing voice before clearing her throat. “No harm done. But you can’t do that, or you will choke me. At least, you can’t do that for now,” she added sheepishly. As her cheeks were already red from nearly choking, I couldn’t tell if the color was also due to embarrassment. “Some women can handle it, but I’m not skilled or experienced like that. Well, I’m not experienced at all. This was my first time.”
“And I ruined it,” I said, hanging my head in shame.
“No! No, it’s okay!” Susan said, scooting closer to me. She caressed my quills and looked at me with surprising tenderness when I should be the one comforting her. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have someone do that to me, or for me to do it to my partner. You were amazing in the shower. I didn’t think Andturians did that,” she added with a nervous laugh. “I was a little scared doing it to you because you’re so big and you have this lubricant. But you taste really good, like cotton candy.”
“Cotton candy?” I asked, although my scales darkened with pleasure at her compliments despite my failures.
“It’s a sweet made with fluffy sugar,” she replied with a dismissive gesture before looking at me seriously. “I don’t want you feeling bad about intimate things happening between us. You are learning how to mate with a human, and I’m learning everything about sexuality, period. I will be clumsy sometimes, and we will both make mistakes. But this is our journey together. No shame, no guilt, just trust.”
I looked at her in awe, a wave of affection blossoming in my heart for the delicate female.
“You are a good and kind mate, Susan,” I said, caressing her cheek.
“I think you are a good and kind mate, too, Olix,” she replied in a gentle voice. “I like you a lot, and I want our marriage to be very successful and happy. I want us to always feel comfortable telling each other everything and anything, and to be able to make mistakes without fear of being judged or rejected. We are partners for better or for worse. I am your safe haven as you are mine.”
“We are,” I said with fervor, drawing her into my embrace. “Your species and culture confuse me, but I am glad you chose me. You are opening my eyes to things I never even would have contemplated… like this kissing with our tongues.”
She chuckled and then frowned, an inquisitive look descending on her features. “How did you learn about that?”
My scales darkened before I could control them. “I know so little about your kind and how to properly please you, I did some research and watched some videos,” I confessed.
Susan’s jaw dropped, and she gaped at me disbelievingly. “You watched porn for me?!”
I squirmed and nodded cautiously. “It was a word shown on many of those sites, yes,” I said. “Some of it was distressing.”
“No shit!” my mate replied, looking like she couldn’t decide whether to be shocked or laugh her head off. “There’s some really freaky shit out there that we will absolutely never, ever do!”
Relief flooded through me. “I am pleased to hear you say that. It was… distressing.”
She laughed. “I can only imagine. I wish I could have seen your face,” she added wistfully.
I glared at her, which only made her chuckle again. Then her face softened, and she caressed my cheek affectionately.
“Kidding aside, it really means a lot to me that you would take time from your busy schedule to research how to please me,” Susan said. “Maybe… maybe it’s best in the future if we watch those videos together? Then I can tell you what is definitely not okay, and what might be fun to do or try.”
The timid way in which she asked, like she was suggesting something forbidden made her all the more endearing.
“I would love that, my mate,” I said with sincerity. “Maybe I’ll have fewer mental scars then.”
She burst out laughing and kissed my cheek. Her gaze roamed over me and settled on my partially deflated stem. My blood immediately rushed to my groin.
“Should we give that another try?” Susan asked.
Although she had worded it like a question, I instinctively knew she was making a statement that she wanted to try again. The memory of the warmth of her mouth on me, of the blissful way her blunt teeth scraped my scales, and of her soft hand stroking me had me throbbing again. Yes, I wanted us to try that again… and yet…
“Not now, Susan,” I said in a gentle voice.
She slightly recoiled, looking both surprised and confused.
“Despite my earlier impatience, I enjoyed it very much,” I explained. “But right now, I want to lose myself inside of you. I’ve been thinking about it all day.”
Susan licked her lips nervously, her face taking on that expression I’d come to associate with lust, and that did wondrous things to me.
“Okay,” she whispered, lying on her back.
I settled between her legs, claiming her mouth with that tongue kissing, and caressing the nub of her slit to make sure she was still sufficiently lubricated to receive me. Then, the divine feeling of her tight walls closing around me had me hissing with pleasure in no time. For the next eternity, our bodies merged in that ancient dance where two became one and time ceased to exist.
She was my safe haven, my home… and I was hers.
