Chapter Thirty-Four of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

Please note: This is a weekly post

Warning: Adult material

Jess had fallen back onto the cave floor, drained of strength. Her hot tight body had sucked every last drop from him, left him dead. And yet as he opened his eyes and saw her, with her flesh sealed to his – at cheek, at breast, at hip, at thigh, and even their calves – with her beatific smile gazing at him, there came a surge of resurrection.

He didn’t question why he hadn’t achieved death. It was obvious he’d been too gentle, a half-hearted tamp and a nudge did not reach the lode. But if she was willing, if she was encouraging, he’d try again, and this time he’d copy the miners on Kreegirn and burrow his awl deep into her.

She accepted when he moved again to cover her. She spread, she arched, she offered. And he, harder than before, his awl grown to a shaft, nudged, found entrance and rammed deep into her.

He was in the cave, yet he was not. He was in space, the Animosphere, surrounded by spirits that brushed and caressed and ruffled his skin, every part of him alive, urging him on to a mighty blissful crescendo in which he would die. She screamed. He bit her, teeth clamped into her shoulder, fingers digging into the flesh of her glutes, pulling her closer, closer, while driving in harder. He burrowed into her deep, to split her, to wrap her around him, to merge, to tether, to meld, cling and cohere. He rammed, banged and battered. He bashed, pummelled and pounded, transported beyond her body, beyond the cavern, beyond the tetraspheres, into the Animosphere.

His body became a solitary shaft, a pestle, a reamer that drove him on and on, thrilled through with incandescent sensations to achieve the exquisite explosive annihilation of death.

Death was sweet. It stole his senses and left him deflated and numb.

That state didn’t last.

He opened an eye, saw Cela-Byi, her arms and legs wrapped around his sweat-glistened body, saw her blood smeared thighs. He sat up, alarmed. “I’ve hurt you.”

She laughed, pressing up on her elbow to rise above him. Her laughter soothed his body and wiped his aches. “First time always bleeds.” He didn’t know what that meant. He pulled her close again, arms around her, holding tight, and kissed her. Kissed her wonderfully ripe-fruit lips, kissed her petal-soft cheeks, her sweat-dampened neck, her shoulders, the left and the right. He would have kissed more but she told him no.

“But you’ve taken me through death to this… this spirit-sphere. But I shouldn’t have taken you with me. Unfair of me to make you die too.” And he held her so very tight, his body now swelling to enfold her.

“We’re not dead.” She inhaled a deep draught of air. And expelled it in a powerful gasp. “Alive, like the spirits inhabit us now.” Again, she laughed.

“But…” This didn’t tally with what he’d been told. Though he had to agree, despite his exhaustion, he felt newly alive.

“You take me to your hill-place now?”

At her words, remembrance crowded, and elation deserted. He wasn’t dead. He was still the zem, responsible for Clutch Six. And Clutch Six was now host to two Itamakku females. Those of his clutch out at Hive Seven were already transitioning. But the fears and turmoil he’d experienced at these few facts no longer held him beneath a darkening cloud. To mate with an Itamakku female – a woman, the word in the Itamakkuese tongue – didn’t bring lasting death. Once again, the Techs had lied.

“To our hill-place, our base. Already, two of your women from Toki-dow are there. But you know, we are not gods. You do know this now?” He felt the need to press this into her. He didn’t want the Itamakku falling to their knees and gifting them with dead things.

“Not gods.” She nodded and smiled and again wrapped herself around him. “But star-men, you are, from Adamzal.”

He couldn’t deny that.

*

A surge of relief lifted Jess as he watched the precipitous rockface with its cave, the forest, then Hive Seven’s farmland, fall away beneath him. He looked at Cela-Byi seated beside him, all wide-eyed and grinning. Whether there were other Itamakku women at the basecamp or not mattered not. He couldn’t have left her alone in that cave in the forest, unprotected. Later, he would return to that cave and the drawings. This time, without Cela-Byi twittering her interpretation at him, maybe he’d be able to grasp their meaning. But that wasn’t for now. Now, he had entered a female, and maybe he’d died, but he’d also resurrected. And if this was to happen to others of his clutch, he needed to understand that.

Was it, as he suspected, that the Techs had spread a story to cover their dealings? That it was the Techs that delivered the death blow? Or did the Monza male only die if he entered a female Monza? These Itamakku might waft their Monza-triggering pheromones, but were they otherwise like the Monza females? He’d say no.

A third option hit him. What if his survival was entirely due to being in that cave? Then his clutch was still at risk. And how would he know until one of them also mated? He supposed it wouldn’t be long before that happened. Once triggered, those Itamakku women weren’t easily resisted. And there were two at the base now.

What surprised him more than anything was that mating just once wasn’t enough. Though he was resisting it as hard as he would a poison pit, he wanted to land the flier, spread Cela-Byi, and dive back in. Did her pheromones call him back? Or the memory of how it had been? Or was it related to the swell of affection, there since their first encounter? It wasn’t the affection he had for Kookka, nor that he’d had for his sister. He’d never felt a desire to mate with either of those. To hold her, hold her close, to be with her every moment of every day. And now he was bringing her back to the base because he feared for her life. He grinned his happiness, chest swelling yet more, that she sat beside him and soon would reside with him.

At that thought another came. He’d been away five days – was it really five? Was he still the zem? What had happened in his absence? Where was Canipse; was he still walking northward, still alive? How many of his clutch had been triggered by the presence of those two women? And why hadn’t he asked their names before he left? Then of the women, how were they managing with the language? He realised now how irresponsible he’d been to take the flier before all was sorted.

*

Clamour as noisy as any Canipse might stir greeted Jess’s return. Shouts, one above and against the other, such a cacophony Jess couldn’t distinguish the words. Questions, by their tone. And this even before he’d left the flier, Cela-Byi’s hand securely held in his. But then on seeing her, the Monzas’ quizzical looks replaced their questions.

He introduced her. “This is spirit-woman Cela-Byi of Toki-dow, Skein One breeding pool. I have brought her here for her protection. There are Itamakki in that dow who want her dead.”

“I see our base is becoming an Itamakku dow,” Armar called across the heads of those gathered. They parted to allow him through.

Cela-Byi slipped her hand out of Jess’s grasp. Jess glanced at her. She’d taken a stance square on to the newcomer, as he’d seen her do to the dow headman.

“I couldn’t leave her alone in that cave,” Jess said.

Armar’s left eyebrow rose. “In more ways than one? So, you finally succumbed, and you bring her back here, Zem Jess.”

Jess’s fingers curled, his jaw tightened. He hadn’t expected this from Armar. And he’d have preferred to speak with him in private. But with three fertile women now living amongst them, his clutch had to know. He wouldn’t have them tormented by the same fear that had tormented him. But he cast a look around. Where were the two women that Kookka and Joel had brought in? Armar nodded to a small hive set equidistance between the fly-port and the arrangement of the clutch-hives, a fence erected around it.

“You think it’s been easy keeping Monza minds on their duties when you invite those females to…” Armar’s face roared red. “And you don’t even stay to sort it but disappear off for days on end. For all I knew you could’ve been dead.”

Jess nodded to accept the rebuke. “Can we talk of this later?” It shouldn’t have been said in front of the clutch but too late now. Yet it had given him a lead into what he needed to say.

“Forgive my anger,” Armar said, quietly, discretely, between the two. “Kookka wasn’t the only one who feared for your life.”

Again, Jess nodded. “Later.” And turned to address the softly muttering clutch. If they’d had moveable directional ears, all would have been aligned with Jess and Armar’s conversation.

He again took Cela-Byi’s hand and moved to stand closer.

“I called you all together when we had the problem with the Sanki trespassers at the outlying farms. I told you that contact with these females would trigger your transition to maturity. And looking around I can see this is happening. I’m no longer alone in growing a beard.”

He allowed his clutch to chuckle at that before saying more. Though the humour failed to counter the squint of the many confused and fearful eyes.

“I told you then – in good faith – that to mate with these females would bring immediate death. But I’ve since discovered that applies only to the Monza females on Adamzal. In joining with an Itamakki…” he wrapped his arm around Cela-Byi’s waist. She glanced up at him and seemed to glow. His heart swelled, could they see? Beneath his crotch-cloth his shaft grew in anticipation. Would this desire never cease? “There comes a time in that joining when maybe we do die. Maybe. But then again we are alive. See here. Am I dead?”

“These are dangerous words.”

Jess looked to see who had spoken. Antel. He stood at the back, alongside Armar, the beginnings of a beard sprouting.

“You fear they’ll fight for the chance to satisfy their desire?” Jess understood that. He would kill any other who tried to bump and grind and shaft his Cela-Byi.

“We’ve marked their hive off-limits,” Antel said. “And that while they still feared they’d die.”

Jess turned to Cela-Byi, to explain the situation. “How can we protect them?”

Cela-Byi had yet to meet the two women, but from the same dow, she would know them. “Once bumped, no other man will go near them.”

“Amongst your Itamakku. But we’re not they.”

“No, but every woman has a knife and will kill whoever dares.”

“Once…bumped?” He rubbed his forehead above his eyes. How had things become so complicated?

Meanwhile, many of his clutch, even his own obs team, had turned granite eyes on Armar and Antel, these two who had kept them from the women. Armar’s hand hovered close to his stun-gun.

Another problem flared into mind. Jess had been thinking only of the women here on base. But there were many more women in the dows. This could cause such ructions.

“One more word with you,” he said to his clutch. “Then you’re to return to your duties. Until I say otherwise, only those with no sign of transition are to take out the fliers.”

“Does that apply to you too?” Armar asked.

“I have no desire for any other female but Cela-Byi.” That must be so, for he hadn’t thought any more of the Banmakka female at Hive Seven.

“That will please Kookka and Joel,” Antel said, sarcasm thick in his tone. “They’ve been helping the two Sankis to speak our language.”

“Is that where they are now?”

“They’re on flier-duty,” Armar said. “Tracking Canipse.”

“But Canipse must be several days’ fly-time away by now. So how can they—”

“I sent them out yesterday. They should be gone three days. And your spirit-woman, I don’t want her in our hive. You understand?”

Jess sucked back his breath, his words, his annoyance. He hadn’t intended to install Cela-Byi in his hive. That would have been wrong on every count. What he would have done with her if those other two hadn’t shown up, he didn’t know. But clearly, she must share that new hive with them. He took her there now.

Continues Monday

Thank you for reading. Your comments are most welcome

Hope you enjoyed