CHAPTER 36

 

TAC’MOT

 

My aposematic coloration isn’t only for show; in most circumstances it simply serves as a warning, but agitate me enough, and unconsciously, my skin emits a toxic mucus secretion that, at close range or in an enclosed space, can become a harmful vapor.

Touching it causes paralysis.  I’ve been told inhaling a particularly powerful application can even cause death.

Everyone around me is constantly at risk, which is why my kind tend to be avoided as if we emit the plague.  However, in a safe environment, around trusted family and friendly units, my kind are incredibly easy going, tending to avoid situations that could upset us.  Thus, the likelihood of anyone coming to harm is greatly reduced.

Matehood though.  Matehood is another matter entirely.  A mate will be in contact with the skin not only during times of extreme excitement—the mate will be the constant cause of a nearly never-ending level of excitement.

Thus, exchanging essences is essential.

My tail stiffens when I replay feeding mine to her.  The uncertainty in her eyes but the willingness of her lips.

I can’t stifle the soft hoot.

Tara doesn’t even twitch.  What an incredible female.  We’re not even the same species—we can’t even speak to each other—but she has unalloyedly adapted.  As an early indicator, this looks good, our mating has a solid foundation of trust and will be flexible when life circumstances make the odd change necessary.

I can’t believe this has actually happened. I’m still shocked she knew what to do—sometimes, it seems as if everything in the world is alien to her.

Yet she recognized my mate-receptive reaction for what it was, mounted me, and chose to accept my seed in her mouth so that she is protected from my system’s toxic emission.

Her part of the ceremony didn’t go exactly like it was supposed to—although, she isn’t Wanbaroo.  It’s not necessary for her kind, therefore it’s not critical to the act of our mating.

Our mating.

I can’t believe she… we’re mated.

I don’t yet know how we’ll arrange our lives after this.  I will obviously follow her wherever she goes.  I’m nervous: I doubt her people will be overtly accepting of my… differences.  But we’ll cope.  I’ve learned to appreciate simulated sunlight after all of these years spent in space; I could simply remain indoors in her dwelling and avoid venturing out entirely.  I’m not sure what I can do to contribute to her livelihood if I restrict my exposure to that degree, but we will sort it all out.  Somehow.

More than our living circumstances though, I am surprised to find how melancholy I already feel at the thought of who I will leave behind here.  Brax and Lem have been my family.  It will be an… it will be a difficult adjustment to say my goodbyes to them.

Isn’t she worth it though?  Worth changing everything?

Her fingers trace my fading mottles.  “Ahhh, Tac,” she murmurs, her voice attractively throaty and sleep-roughened.  Then she pats my skin with a motion so gentle, so tender, that my mating receptor pattern flares to life around her hand’s touch.  She gasps in shock, then laughs in delight.

Absolutely.  Worth.  Everything.

She curls up on my chest and it is perfection: not only because her warmth and weight feel amazing, but because this position doesn’t strain our wedded tether.  Yes.  We are still joined!  This is wonderful: my people believe a night spent happily in bindings indicates a strong mating.

What is not wonderful is how she is gazing at me.  It’s alarming, because she looks wistful, as well as unbearably sad.

Last night, she struggled to fall asleep, only to fall into a fitful sort of slumber—one where she called out for them.

Again.

She calls for the same pair of guards.  Either she had the smallest service I’ve ever heard of, or these two were her favorites of them all.

Or… perhaps they were taken from her the most violently, and this is what haunts her.

Yet she is attempting to lock away her pain.  Underneath her as I am, I see her working to compartmentalize it.

She gently slides over me, and slowly begins to sway herself back and forth across my shaft, the side-to-side motion not quite the friction I crave; though it seems to be serving her well—I believe, I’m having difficulty focusing on anything but our point of contact.

I didn’t bother with the hassle of struggling back into pants last night, thus there is nothing separating me from the gloriousness of her body.

She performs a little grinding bounce on me.

METARK!

I can feel her nipples poking against my chest through my shirt.  My satisfaction at this might burst through my sternum.

Her hand lands on my shoulder before tentatively sliding up my neck.  As she glides her hand over my scalp, I know that to her, my short, plush hairs feel like the pillowsoft baby-down of a yanak’s belly.

To me, her touch feels like heaven.

She explores each of my ears, and surprises me when she scoots up higher up my torso so that she can better reach to explore all of my face—with her lips as well as her tongue.

Creator!  Who knew a tongue would feel enjoyable against my ears?

When she pulls back enough to look down at me again, much of her sadness is chased away when she laughs at what she must find in my expression. 

I raise up enough to meet her mouth with mine.

It would be a dishonest statement if I attempted to claim that I didn’t possess slightly proprietary feelings over her before.  Now, after our mutual claiming, there is nothing ‘slightly’ about it.

Tara is mine.

...For now. When she deems herself ready to bring guards back into her service, I’ll share her.

I had already been stroking her back, and I am well acquainted with her buttocks in that polite way that becomes unavoidable when you lift and carry another person.  But now she reaches behind herself, covering my hand with her own, and moves it to her rump where she… she makes me squeeze her nethercheek.  Then she backs our hands off, before bringing them sharply against the soft curve of her buttock, and I can feel the skin bounce under my palm with the impact.  My tail thrashes wildly.

Creator!

I let my head thunk back down, breaking our kiss.

Never, never handle Gryfala roughly.  That’s what Grake told me.  It’s true he isn’t Academy trained, and I’m even further from it than him—but my Gryfala either didn’t read the manual or she’s making up her own rules.

She laughs again before sitting up, which causes our wrists to abruptly follow the other.

I somehow muster the resolve to sit up also, and it is with great satisfaction that I reach for and begin to unwind a length of our wedded tether.  I bring the leather across my teeth to split it, and I do this three times.  Once accomplished, I plash the lengths as she watches me in fascination.  I part it in the middle and knot off the ends, and that done, I fasten the intricate remnant about her wrist, before I repeat the same for mine.  “Bound by the same cord,” I tell her.

The end of her nose begins to turn an odd shade, darkening.  So do the rims of her eyelids.  “Nohw eye haff sumteeng too reemembrrr yoo bye.”

I cup the side of her face and attempt to study her.  Instead of letting me do so, she rolls her neck so that she can quickly press her lips to my forearm.  The movement to get there might have been quick but she makes certain it is a lazy, inflammatory kiss.  She doesn’t want to end what we’re enjoying here either.

I grin.  “Well now, we have a bit of an issue.  Because I don’t know about your state, but I must use the facilities.  Um, ‘baahthrum.’”  I would have suffered a ruptured bladder before ever asking to stop our second session of wedded pleasure—but I really have to piss.  I make myself lift her body off of mine, to which she sighs sadly as I set her aside.  I sigh sadly too.  I’m no less reluctant to disrupt this perfect cocoon of bliss we’ve only just started here.

She’s more than content to let me carry her to the B.C.U., and though she’s only recently started looping her arms about my neck when I carry her around—now she takes me by surprise as she throws her arms around me, clinging to me even tighter than usual.

This evidence of an even stronger formation to our relationship is exciting to me, and I bounce us in place happily.  She doesn’t laugh though, and her smile is somber.

I don’t detect regret but perhaps she is simply missing what she had with her hobs.  That would be understandably difficult to work through.  After all, I don’t even know how long she had with them.  She would have layered on little affections, building attachments over a span of solars and solars.  I may not have known her long, but were I to lose Tara to violent tragedy right now, how long would it take me to ‘move on?’  To ever smile again.  To be wholly able, and without bittersweetness to take another, if such a thing were possible by biology and circumstances?

Never.  I’d never be able to.

Realizing this, I feel a new appreciation for her strength.  I know Tara feels deeply, and is kind.  Binding with me was not a decision she made lightly.  But it’s no wonder I’ve caught her staring off at nothing, mood palpably sad as often as I have.

A tug on my wrist’s wedded braid has me shaking free of my morose thoughts, especially when I see how she is trying to cheer me up by way of a soft smile.

Such a sweet female.

I set her down and pause awkwardly in the doorway, wondering if I should wait outside for her as is our usual routine, or—

Her face fills with a brilliant rouge coloration, and she shakes her head a little at me, so I step back.

“Noh, Tac!”  Her laugh seems to startle out of her.  “Gehht een heer,” and she tugs me inside.

She closes the door and turns to look up at me.  I snort down at her.  This female’s signals.

“Goh ohn,” she tells me, shooing me with one hand that, when I step in, lands against my chest.

Such a small, simple touch.  Yet, it makes my body heat.

I want to hover my lips over hers, I want to tease out more smiles.  I want her mind on the todays and tomorrows and not her hurts and losses from her yesterdays.

But I really, really have to piss.  Teveking inconvenient.

I kiss her swiftly then wheel around, pivoting and leaping from her so abruptly that another laugh is startled out of her.

Success.

After I relieve myself and approach the sink, she steps back, content to continue swishing dental cleanse solution as she makes her way to take care of her own private needs.

And as I toss my clothes into the nanocleanser, I find that new delights await me today in all ways: she comes to stand in front of me, and shyly takes off my shirt along with her underblouse underneath of it.  I don’t even attempt not to stare as she brings her arms behind her, which pushes her mammaries together and up—Creator, what a view—then she unfastens her mammary harness.

I slowly suck in my breath, and when she muffles a whoop of laughter that devolves into breathless snickering—they! BOUNCE! —I know without looking down that I’m covered in mating receptor markings.  And just as mine are for her, I pretend that hers are displaying themselves for me.  I boldly approach her this time, watching in stymied fascination as her eyes widen and her breathing accelerates.

“Noh sehhx,” she says.  But her voice escapes weakly, and breathy, and strange words or no, I can hear perfectly well that there’s no conviction behind them.  Still, I pause, in case she is saying she is not interested at this time.

This seems to snap her out of whatever concern has been gripping her.

My cirri feel as if they rise right off of my head when she suddenly reaches down and takes hold of my swollen shaft.

Crite!  My hands are gripping her elbows and her smile is playful.

“Wahnt me to stohp?”

Why ask me questions I could bungle and answer in catastrophic ways that, to her, might sound like I want her to stop touching my cock?

I do not.  I do not want her to stop touching my cock.

I croak in relief when she doesn’t wait for me to respond; instead, she treats my member like it’s a handle, tugging me until I’m positioned…

Over the sink basin?

Not… precisely… what I had been envisioning...

I peer down at her in lust-fogged consternation.

She leaves me briefly to start our clothing in the nanocleanser and I’m no fool: I don’t move.  She is grinning, thoroughly pleased when she prances back to me and proceeds to give me a thorough... rinsing.  It’s quite considerate really—not unwelcome in the least; in fact, I feel very, very cared for—but I could have just as easily washed in the cleansing stall that I’ll be hopping into anyway.

Clearly, this isn't the point.  She wants to show that she cares for me and she has well and truly succeeded.  This female.  She’s taken my heart.

Thankfully, this is not the only thing she takes.

With a little rub against the head of my cock for good luck, she turns her attention to soaping up her hands with a slippery helping of foamy hand sanitizer lather.

Then she grabs my shaft.

I chirp in horror.  Is this safe?!

What of skin reactions?  What if—

She swipes her thumb over my tip and squeezes each and every glans of my cock.

I clack my teeth as I lock my knees so my hips don’t drive forward.

No boils, and don’t fall off—and I’ll live with it.

She proceeds to jerk my seed out of me until my eyes cross.  She carefully rinses me clean, pats me dry with a towel, and then she leans down and plants a kiss on my still twitching shaft.

I’m not recovered enough to go after her when she whirls around and trots gaily over to the nanocleanser to collect her outfit from the dryer basin.

Just as my lower mandible regains the ability to close, and I’ve settled on the best way to demonstrate a ‘Good Rotation!’ to her—she’s washed her hands, is rising up on her toes, and throwing her arms around me to hug my ribs—and then she leaves me.

I can only stare after her.

Is… is this what I can expect out of wedded life?  Did my sire and—

Ugh. Clack-clack-clack.  I shudder, halting the rest of this thought.  I don’t actually want specifics about my parents’ personal morning routine.  Definitely something one doesn’t wish for specific particulars on: questions regarding mating and mated bliss are best posed in a species-wide, abstract fashion.

I nod to myself and shudder again.

Is this what mated couples enjoy for the rest of their wedded lives?

I bounce on my heels, thinking of what I can do tonight to show her that I care.

I wish she’d stayed to enjoy the cleansing stall with me, but…

There is a primitive benefit: she smells like me.

She hasn’t washed, though we haven’t technically mated yet, she hasn’t washed off the smell of me after a night spent in my arms.

A previously unknown, primal part of me is suddenly well satisfied at this realization.  It’s so strong, and so sudden it begs the question.  How do hobs cope with having to share?