The questioner was a blonde, striking woman, perhaps thirty-five or -six. She was dressed in slacks, an opaque blouse and a light working jacket. The man of whom she asked her unanswerable question sighed and looked up from the papers he was trying to correct.
"We-the team-came to learn and to teach, Mal. You came because you're an excellent linguist and my wife, and you asked the Director that we not be separated for as long as we may be here. This is not too bad a place, this seaport in Kostanz, nor is the planet, Urmi. Good ambience.
"I know, the peoples - there may be more than one race - are strange, and some of the customs we've heard about are revolting. But...that's what scientists are for, Mal, to investigate. Particularly if the League of Worlds-the Hegemony-wants to know for certain whether to introduce Urmi to interstellar travel, in order to integrate the planet into the Hegemony."
Carl, dressed as was Mal, turned immediately back to his papers, having given this lecture almost too many times to his wife, once one of his better students. He wondered briefly why he had married her, then regretted the thought, for he knew. She was reputed to be "hot," as the students had it.
They'd not had a particularly exciting sex life, but he loved Mal and she said she loved him; she seemed to be happy and had always insisted that she accompany, "as I should," Carl on all field trips. He wondered, briefly (he was really rather involved in this proposition put forth by one of his colleagues), exactly why she insisted. She knew she'd be uncomfortable, perhaps sometimes in dangerous situations, yet she still made it clear that she would be "by his side" at all times. Could she be jealous of other women, to none of whom would he give the time of day while he was involved in his anthropological investigations - including Mal?
He decided that this time he had better show more interest in her.
Mal's reaction to the well-remembered lecture was to go to the wall, sit down and don her outdoor boots. Why she did so she did not know, there was nothing in Urmi's air, water, earth or food that could possibly affect the people from Sulpané and it was now the season which she and Carl called "Summer," although the natives had no word for it other than "the Warm" that she had discovered.
Despite her surface familiarity with the language, Mal did not, as she was constantly assured that Carl did, understand how the natives thought, how they worshipped, what they did for amusement.
She had learned the local language, Kosti quickly, as she did most languages, at least superficially. The other linguists were still arguing about its status - dialect or separate tongue. She had also been able to make casual acquaintances of a few of the natives, or Kossor, as they called themselves, in this city of Dozzu.
Mal knew little of Earth's history, save what she had gleaned from tapes, but she did know and appreciate that the native ships, although to her censorious eyes primitive, were closely related to ships of earth's distant past. That there were even steam-powered small boats, which Carl called "tugs," fascinated her. She had always wanted to travel on sea, as much as she detested traveling on land. One ship-captain, she thought his name was Marne, had in fact invited her to take a short voyage with him on his ship, or failing that, a trip around the harbor on one of the "steam-kettles,:" as she understood him to call them.
She wished she could persuade Carl to take a break from his studies and come with her. Perhaps a trip - voyage - on the sea would enliven their lives together.
"Mal," came Carl's unexpectedly tender voice. "Mal, can we...maybe...take a break...together?"
She turned and saw a look in his eyes that she didn't remember seeing much since they'd landed here.
"Why, Carl...yes, surely. Do you want to take a walk?"
"Yup. Just as far as our quarter, love."
When they got there, Carl was already out of his outer coat, and was helping her off with hers. He ran a finger along the back of her neck, making her shiver with anticipation. When his hands cradled her breasts she tingled all over. Turning in his suddenly enclosing arms to raise her face to his, her mouth opened slightly, and his closed over hers, his tongue softly caressing her lips. She flicked her tongue into his mouth, teasing, wanting. Her quim felt damp, her belly was twitching with desire, and she could feel the stiffening of his penis against her.
Mal moaned and felt oddly weak for a moment. Carl's strong arms supported her as they moved slowly into their bedroom, still kissing more and more fervently. Carl broke the kiss only to tenderly unbutton her blouse, moving his hands softly over her shoulders as he slid the cloth over them. His hands felt so good!
Mal reached down while he was doing this and stroked the bulge in his trousers.
"Oh, Carl, you're so big, so nice, so nice."
"That's you, Mallie, you..." His voice dwindled as he kissed her bare back, making her shiver again. "You're all goose-flesh, Mallie."
"You...hurry, Carl, I'm so...hot, I need you."
Her slacks were soon off, her shoes and socks left alone as Carl shucked his own clothing and cam to her. Their bodies pressed against each other and again Mal felt that rigid penis pressing into her belly. She wanted it inside.
Instead, Carl bent and kissed slowly along her neck, feeling her flesh crawl in passion as he slid his mouth to her upper breasts. Even that made her hump her hips forward and back. She could feel liquid sliding down her inner thighs and the wonderful, urgent burning sensation in her quim. She moaned as her hips jerked and twitched and Carl's tongue reached and engulfed one of her nipples. Her hand reached almost involuntarily for his penis, and she stroked the throbbing member softly and very, very lovingly. As her fingers slipped over the tip, she felt the oozing pre-cum, and that made her more excited, if that were possible. She raised her fingers to her mouth and tasted him.
"Oh, Ca-arl! Now, please, lover, now!"
His kisses and tongue licks had reached her belly, which she moved hard against his mouth, needing the pressure to keep from absolutely swooning.
His mouth and tongue swiftly descended to her thighs, then her labia. Mal spread her legs wide to give him access and her body some relief. His questing tongue opened her labia and penetrated her. She bent her knees slightly to take full advantage of his licks, but she could no longer stand it.
She pulled away from Carl and lay on the bed, her legs wide spread, waiting his assault. He obliged carefully, suddenly realising just how long it had been. His penis slid in easily, though, with the squirming Mal's juices lubricating his penis; his balls and upper thighs soon also covered.
"In, Carl, in hard, love, fuck me, fu-u-uck me!" Her voice was high, almost a scream as Carl slid in.
Mal climaxed then with a spasmodic, fierce grasping at every part of Carl's muscular back and thighs that her arms and legs could reach. She pulled and pulled, Carl holding himself as far within her throbbing quim as he could, hs penis firm against her cervix. Her vagina clasped and released his penis, milking him of every drop of semen he could inject into her, for he had come just as she orgasmed for the second time.
"Oh, lightning striking! Thunder rolling! Mal, wo...wonder...fu...ful. Oh, Mallie!"
"Oh, Carl. Oh Carl. Oh, Carl! Oh. Oh. Oh, you...lovely...man, you!"
Mal slowly recovered, although Carl was slightly more exhausted. He got his breath back after several minutes to find Mal smiling at him as she had not for many months.
"We'd better do this more often, lover."
"Yes, Mal. I am a boor and a hog not to have thought of your needs. We shall, we shall. Oh, I love you."
Mal was not mischievous, but she knew a chance when it passed by. Seizing the brass ring, she murmured,
"Well, it'll probably be better on a sea trip, won't it? We're due for a leave, it's been over a year."
Carl grinned back. "O K, love. I'll ask the Director. Today!"
He smiled as his strength returned. He could think of little better than a leave with Mal, in their present mood.
Regrettably, the Director refused instant leave, as a crisis in Kostanz "politics" made it necessary for the team to stay sequestered in Dozzu. One lesser member of the support group disappeared during this period, adding to their worries.
The political crisis, or the war with neighboring Alatno, either ceased to worry the locals, or ended, Mal could not be sure which. Mal's real opportunity came soon thereafter with Carl's breakdown when the expedition had been sixteen months on Urmi. Despite his promise, Carl had been working far too hard on extremely difficult interpretation of what some of the Urmi nations called "law." First of all, the Urmi (or Kosti) word "nations" was not akin to what the term meant on Sulpané, the local polities were essentially alliances of city-states. Each polity had its own definition of "law," even as a city-state, and the alliance (not even that translated well) had its own laws, which were not imposed on those city-states that did not want them. What a person could do in Eskalar he could not get away with in Gosyodi, yet alliance law said he should be able to, for instance. Most of the laws were religious in origin, these days honored widely in their breach, but some customs had the force of law - sometimes, in certain places, at certain times!
As a consequence, Carl fainted in the middle of a presentation to the entire team, and the medical staff examined and tested him, then prescribed absolute rest "at a distance from the team's work."
Mal seized upon the opportunity like a lioness clamping her teeth on a gazelle's neck.
"Carl, we need the trip I've been asking you to make for the past three months. Let's take a sea-voyage. I know a captain who'll take Earth-people - I understand from the 'eye' team that Marne and his crew are far from xenophobic, like some on this place."
She had long stopped calling Urmi a "planet." She, like some Sulpani, had been shocked to find that all Urmi did not welcome the investigative team, and had adjusted her attitude correspondingly.
To her great surprise, Carl agreed, although somewhat listlessly. His "spell" while presenting had truly shaken him. His personality had changed from the take-charge to the dependent, and Mal managed to play on that to what she considered her great benefit. Despite his apparent listlessness, she had managed to reawaken his interest in her and their matings since his "illness" had been much more pleasurable, save for the one earlier, which had been fantastic.
"Sűkipa" Marne welcomed them aboard effusively. Mal had paid him with tiny bars of silver, an extremely precious metal on the planet, perhaps overpaying him, although she had not at first realised this. Nevertheless, Mal did not feel that she had been cheated, she having of course made the arrangements.
Their ship was what Carl called a "bastard rig," but what the captain called a "provenka." Carl answered Mal's questions about the safety of their vessel with the first signs of interest in anything other than herself she had seen since his breakdown.
He had been an avid sailor in his more youthful years on Earth and knew his boats and small ships well.
"This ship looks sound, but, of course, Mal, I know nothing of the sailors and the skipper..."
"Eh? Carl, the word in Kosti is almost the same, then! Hm-m. Could Kosti - this island's dialect anyway - have an Earth origin?"
"How could it? Oh. 'Sűkipa'...skipper! Well, I'll be damned! Why haven't your team seen that? I wonder..."
Mal was just happy that she had Carl interested in something once again.
---
The Falkone, for which there was no etymology known to the couple, nor to Captain Marne when Mal asked, was a small ship with a lateen foresail - "like a dhow" Carl said. Each of the three masts held a different rig, the middle one square rigged like an old fashioned clipper, thought Mal, who had seen pictures of two thousand year old ships once used to transport everything. They were beautiful in Mal's estimation, more beautiful than their successors, the hulking, smelly, dirty steam vessels, which in turn had eventually been succeeded by nuclear powered vessels as well as by air and space craft. Now, here on what had been a detested planet, she fell in love with a sailing vessel once again.
They had reached the Neik'ir on their cruise, which Mal now knew meant Neik Strait. Carl was apprehensive as to their course, for this was reputed to be a hunting ground for pirates, the Kasmati, their name in Kosti. Both captain and crew appeared slightly nervous, a lookout constantly watching through a televa (telescope). Mal asked,
"What causes you this anger?" She knew that was the wrong word, but she was not as yet anywhere as fluent in Kosti as was Carl, who had gained considerable ability in the local dialect. Mal had pointed up the mast, where the poor lookout was clinging.
"Oh, duën, Urmi from Mata have many ships, laucat here." Mal was a little surprised by his using other terms for what she thought were called Kasmati.
Marne spoke a poor but intelligible Galactic, to Mal's great surprise. Where he had learned that she did not enquire, for there had been rumors that several of the transcribers of the expedition had managed to acquire Kostanzi "admirers." In a way, Mal had once envied those girls, for she and Carl had until the episode before his breakdown not been together sexually very often, save that memorable time, since their arrival on Urmi. Just the way that Marne looked at her stirred something within her that had been suppressed for too long.
"You think these pirati...," that's what she had heard them called by the crew - another analogue of a Galactic word, "...would take us?" Mal did not understand why they were speaking Galactic instead of Kosti.
"They will they catch sight, yess."
"Of the ship?"
"Yess, and...you and man, duëno!"
"Oh? Why would we have any attraction?"
"What word? You good looks, duën, and you man handsome, too. You worth much. Good slaves for Mata, you. Better than Kostai."
"Hm-m. I'll tell Carl, then."
"I think he know."
Mal left it at that, but it gave her a great deal to think about as the large black-hulled brig - Carl named it, pointing at the guns "run out" along the sides - swiftly approached. the provenka. The crew of the provenka remained oddly unafraid, while she and Carl were worried about this meeting.
"That ship, sűkipa, what moro?" called Mal.
"Kasmat. See cloth at masthead?"
Carl, with his arm around Mal, looked hard to see the cryptic symbol in a white oblong on a green flag flying at the mizzen of the rapidly closing ship. As part of his investigations, he had acquired a working knowledge of the internal sea (Kronyarr), the types of ships which sailed it, as well as the flags of the various entities. Those ensigns were displayed seldom save on ships at sea. (Probably because it was too early in Kostanz maritime history for such subterfuges, no instance of false colors had been recorded.) A shudder ran down his body, and Mal felt it.
"What will they do to us, Carl?"
"I've heard . . . no, we have a diff...no, we don't, but they cannot do that to us . . .I think."
"What, Carl? What is it that has you so...afraid...when these sailors aren't?" "They...the people of Aurmat...I can't pronounce their real name...Er'mati?...are reputed...to enslave other people with drugs."
"Oh, God! Then...there is little escape?"
"There be none, duën!" came Marne's voice. "You will see, I am shorten sail, now, so we do not be arrest or sinked." Mal turned to look at Marne, but her attention was drawn to that same flag at the Falkone's masthead! Marne was a Kasmat, too?
The two ships, the brig looming over the smaller provenka, drew alongside. Perhaps a dozen Aurmi jumped down into the provenka, three with ropes to bind the two ships together. The provenka's crew, the sails lowered, stood near the low forecastle. Carl now noticed that the sailors seemed to know each other, for they were patting each other on the back and laughing.
Carl turned to Marne, raising his hands.
"Marne, you betrayed us!"
The captain shrugged. "No, . I betray no one. I am Aurmo."
Carl started to hit the captain but he was seized from behind by strong hands and subdued, his wrists chained together in front, while a bar ran between his back and his elbows. Mal and Carl were examined and hustled aboard the brig as several Aurmi remained aboard the provenka talking with Marne. Carl was taken forward as Mal was stood before a tall, black-avised man.
Mal found herself being appraised by the Aurmi captain, or at least she assumed that was who he was.
"Yeano, carro mella jame."
"What you say?" she stammered in Kosti, shocked out of her fluency.
"Oh," he said in bad Kosti, "you spik Masmas. Yes, you will eat now."
"My...man?" She knew that the concept of "husband and wife" was not quite understood in the islands. The word "mate" was closer.
"You and man one?" Mal wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, his and her Kosti was about on a level, but she thought that she and Carl, despite their earlier differences, were indeed one.
"Yes, the man and I are mates."
"No more worry. You come with me."
"Where do you take me?"
"No matter, you."
He grabbed her arm and dragged her below decks. From the corner of her eye she saw the Aurmi sailors jump back aboard the brig, and the provenka hoist sail. She could not see Carl.
Once in the captain's cabin, the man forced her into a rounded seat which seemed to have been made from half a barrel. The bands were of metal, she noticed. With swift movements he wrapped three turns of thin but very strong rope around her waist, crossed the rope twice between her breasts and around her back, lower chest and arms, immobilizing her despite her kicking legs.
"No fight, not matter you soon."
Mal's heart was beating very fast - she was more frightened than she had ever been before in her life. The Aurmato captain left her to struggle against the too tight bonds, to no avail. He returned with Carl stumbling along behind him, Carl's arms now bound at the elbow with a web or rope behind his back.
"You, sit!" the man told Carl, who collapsed onto the floor and struggled back up enough to sit dumbly with his knees raised, looking at the deck.
"You eat when bring." The captain left them, and Mal saw that Carl, although she had not seen the captain do anything, was fastened to the deck somehow.
"Are you all right, Carl?" he looked groggy.
"Yes, so far," he muttered in a far away voice.
The door opened and a man whom they both recognized brought in a platter of food. He was wearing a kilt or kirtle, and to Mal who did not remember him well, he looked shorter than she recalled.
"Ronald!" Carl exclaimed in Galactic. Ron had been the expedition's second cook, but had disappeared perhaps six months before.
"Yes, my name is Ron," he said in Kosti, as Mal still thought of it, despite its being called Masmas locally. His voice was pitched a little higher than Mal remembered. Ronald had been a very macho member of the expedition who had always claimed that with his training as a Marine he could take care of himself in any situation.
Mal suspected that he had sampled the attractions of the female population of Dozzu perhaps too freely. The expedition had considered him dead, but now Mal believed that he had probably incurred some Kosto's jealousy and been sold to these apparent slavers.
"Are you all right, Ronald?" she asked, watching bis face.
"I am...fine. Here, eat. I am to teach you Aurmo. You are not to speak Masmas."
"What happened to you, Ron?" Carl asked curiously, in "Masmas.".
"We speak Aurmo, not an infidel language. I work for a master, captain of this ship."
"You're a s lave?"
"Infidels all are - or breeders. Now, eat, you will need your strength, you Carl."
Further questions were met with silence. Ron removed the platter when they had eaten and drunk what he'd brought, and shut the door behind him as he left.
"I can't say I liked what Ron had to say, Carl. Carl?" Suddenly Mal was overcome by a strong desire to sleep.
"I'm sleepy, Carl, I'll try to snooze a bit." Carl was already asleep but Mal never noticed as she slumped in the half-barrel chair.
--- "Wake, wake!" A loud voice interrupted Mal's comfortable snooze - or she had thought it comfortable, so deeply had she been asleep - but the aches and pains which accompanied her return to consciousness belied that sweet dream.
"Wha'? What? Where...?" Mal was thoroughly confused, she had been dreaming, she now believed - about herself and Mal back on Sulpané, their home planet, when they were first in love. The reality was considerably grimmer.
A dim light came through the round window - porthole, she muzzily supposed Carl would call it - and there was no Carl, just Ron, now shaking her roughly.
"All right!" she snapped unthinkingly in Galactic.
Ron hit her a smack on the cheek. "You must speak Masmas until you learn Aurmo, understand?" "Ron!" she replied in shock. "You always said you liked me. Why're you hitting me?"
"The master told me to wake you. I did. Now, you're untied, get up."
When her aching joints and muscles at first refused to support her, Ron grabbed her by the waist from behind and lugged her unceremoniously backward through the doorway and up the ladder to the deck.
"Master, she is here," Mal thought he said in what Mal took to be Aurmo. It was oddly accented, but similar enough to Masmas that she could get the gist, she thought.
Mal knew she was good-looking and had a killer body, but she had never let that deter her from her work, or Carl. However, she knew that several times while dancing, accidentally brushing against a man, being in close quarters, just the two of them, she'd seen or felt the other men's response to her proximity, usually by the protrusion in the man's trousers. She had never pursued the thought, had not wanted to, but she knew that she aroused those feelings in any man over the age of puberty. Ron had responded in the way any man would, as he had held her very close to enable them to fit through the hatch at the head of the ladder.
She looked at his naked torso, still muscled as she remembered it. A slightly guilty look? And was that kirtle or kilt not ridged below his waist? A sign of male arousal? Mal was no prude, but she had a sudden frisson of repugnance at the thought that a man had handled her as though she were nothing more than a slab of meat - and the realisation came to her that she was little more than that to a slave-owner. Or another slave!
The captain and another "Aurmato" were standing looking at her. Her scientific mind wondered if that was a singular or plural.
"Sűkipa," she used the Masmas word, "is Aurmati one person or more?"
"Ron...what she say?" Mal had forgotten to speak in Masmas. Ron smacked her across the cheek, making it even more tender.
"She learning now, Aurmati is many, Aurmato is one. Aurmo is speech. Aurmat is nation." Ron used the English word in default of any Kosti or Aurmo word for the concept.
The Aurmato captain and his mate stood like statues while this was explained to Mal. She knew she would be slapped or hurt if she did not learn how to get along, very quickly. The captain spoke,
"Stand. No hurt, just keep you...safe," in his bad Masmas, and the mate raised a sharp knife. Mal had a moment of deadening fear. He slid the blunt edge of the knife along her neck, cut her collar at the back and ripped her blouse off, her bra following. Her breasts stood proud, her nipples expanded and tingling. Within moments he had slit her trousers down both legs and as they fell to the deck he ripped off her panties. He motioned at her shoes, and she quickly took them and her socks off. He withdrew long enough to sheath his knife and pick up something heavy from the deck, returning to affix a locking metal collar about an inch wide around her neck. From this depended a heavy chain, the links of unbroken three-quarter inch metal.
"Pick up, take with," the captain said. She bent and retrieved the fragments of her clothing, picked up the chain and waited.
Ron showed her by shoving and pulling where she was to go. At the hatch leading below to the fore part of the vessel, she could not see very well, and almost fell down the steep ladder. The weight of the chain on her neck was beginning to hurt as the sharp edge of the collar dug into her neck and collar bones.
She noticed again that Ron seemed clumsy on the steps, but he came down quickly enough, stepping slightly sideways. His kilt bulged at the back as he descended, she saw, but she did not assimilate that into her mind - until very much later, when it did her little good.
Ron grabbed the far end of the chain and locked it to a staple in the wall - "bulkhead," thought Mal, but what was it called in Aurmo?
"What's this in Aurmo, Ron?" she asked in Masmas, pointing to the bulkhead.
"Veern, but you don't need to know it," and he slapped her for the third time. "You need to know this..." shaking the chain, "...vakka, and this..." tapping her collar "...van. And this..." touching her between her breasts "...šrainda"
"Veern, vakka, van," she repeated, pointing where he had named the objects. She would not point at herself, to name herself "slave!" Speaking very slowly, trying to use the Aurmo accents she had heard, she said, "I am chained to the wall by my collar."
Rob looked amazed. "Not bad. Now, on word 'van,' drop voice tone at end. Van. You hear?"
She tried that and he seemed satisfied.
"I come back, you eat then." He spoke in Aurmo and she understood him! He was using the simplest Aurmo. Slave talk!
Still, trying to use simple Masmas, with what she hoped was an Aurmo accent, she asked, "Where is Carl?"
Ron said something that sounded like "behind," which she took to mean, "aft," if that was the right word. She noticed again that Ron's kilt showed two alternating protrusions in the rear as he ran up the ladder - again, sideways.
Her next meal, near dark as far as she could tell, was heavily laced with some drug, for Mal slipped slowly into a state of unthinking calm, lying against the bulkhead completely uninterested in anything. She neither saw nor comprehended the passage of time and the comings and goings of shadowy figures. Since succeeding meals were also laced, perhaps not as heavily, she was able to rouse herself to eat, take care of her bodily needs and crawl onto the deck when ordered, to be hosed down by crew members.
After a time which she afterwards could not recall, she vaguely realised that the ship was still, only a gentle rocking sensation impinging on her deadened mind, instead of the rise and fall to which she had become accustomed. Her mind made nothing of the cessation of the rocking sensation, save that after a time her thoughts became more coherent as she was led on deck by her neck-chain.
Mal was directed down a narrow gangplank onto a wide pier, stone-paved, which hurt her feet, but she paid no attention to that, only looking vaguely around her at the buildings, wondering what they were. Her mind could as yet understand very little, nor had she any idea of her whereabouts. She could recall nothing, not even her name, or what she was.
Mal was soon led into a smelly, enclosed conveyance, and shoved onto a bed of some kind of dried plant, where she lay, rocking slightly with the conveyance's turns, halts and sudden movements.
She was taken from the conveyance, told to stand still while the collar was removed, and then shoved into an open space surrounded by high walls. Someone told her to sit or stand as she pleased, and in a while she began to recover somewhat from the effect of the drugs. When what wits she had remaining allowed her to focus her eyes, she saw that there were a number of "people like me" in the courtyard. One in particular came over to her and asked in what sounded like Kosti - to her surprise and alarm,
"Are you all right?"
Mal cowered, expecting a blow, but the other placed an arm around her and raised her to a shaky stance. The "other" - Mal could not put a name to how they were alike - proceeded to walk Mal around and around the courtyard until she more fully regained her senses and could walk by herself.
The woman, as Mal could now see she was, murmured, "There. Now, do you feel better?"
This time the woman spoke Aurmo, and Mal replied in the same halting tongue,
"Aye, little. What this? Where we?"
"I don't know. None of us knows where we are or what for, or what this is,, except that we're prisoners of the Aurmati. I've been here tve setda."
Mal gathered that meant "two weeks," as she recognised the word "setda" from Kosti. "Tve" might mean "two," or "three," and Mal was pleased to discover that the analytical part of her mind had returned to her. She had understood most of what the woman was telling her. She asked her, "Count ten in Aurmo?"
"Yun, dva, tvé, katra, kvige, sei, sekt, okt, nova, dent."
"That is not too different from Kosti, is it?"
"What is Khosti?" The very manner of pronunciation was guttural, a growly sound compared to what Mal had heard of the Kosti dialect.
"It is another language, it cannot be spoken in this place."
"Uhm, I know the punishments. Where are you from?"
"Sulpané, to start. Now, Kostanz."
"Sool pah nay? Kostanz, I know."
"Different place, it's a long way." Mal hated being reduced to practically pidgin, although Carl would have loved this exchange.
"All right. We'll have food at dark..." a word Mal had to wriggle around until she understood the meaning, "...then some women sleep, others make love."
"Make love. Men are in here?" She had a hazy notion that if there were men here, Carl might be close.
"No, here there are no men. Maybe a cut, sometimes."
Mal was puzzled as well as horrified. She had not been acquainted with many lesbians on Earth, and the expedition included none that she knew of - but she wouldn't, would she? She was neither the administrator nor was Carl a leading light in the hierarchy, so they remained dedicated to their work and relatively uninformed about others' alliances.
Her expression must have showed as much, for the friendly woman looked her up and down, grinned and withdrew. Mal was left wondering what the difference was between "man" and "male," in Aurmo.
After the reasonably good supper, Mal noticed that the other women, after they all took turns relieving themselves in the distant row of "latrines," went almost at once to the pallets on which they slept, where some held hands with others, kissed, rubbed each other with oils, rubbed their bodies against each other and eventually began doing what Mal had only known of men and women doing. She was so sleepy herself that she watched fascinated and repelled at the same time for but a few moments and then fell onto her pallet to sleep like one drugged - which she and the other sleepers certainly were, just like the sexually active women.
She was awakened by her "friend" of the previous day.
"Get up, there's food. Someone's looking for you, Kosto." Mal understood that her planetary provenance had become her name for now. She was learning more and more Aurmo as she continued to hear it.
Mal thought at once that Carl had somehow made his way to her, but it was not Carl. The man who confronted her looked as short as Ron had, and his kilt was dented in back in the same way as he squatted to her.
"I will wait for you to eat, then you come with me."
Mal could think of nothing to say but, "Yes." That seemed to be all she wanted to say, to her slight amazement.
"Why do I want to say yes?" she asked her acquaintance.
"Oh, that's a male, that's why."
That told Mal nothing. She just knew that she and Carl had been betrayed, but subsequently she had been so bullied, drugged and dragged about that her mind, when she was conscious of her surroundings, was constantly assailed by new facts, few of which she could as yet assimilate.
She hastily ate her food, some kind of mashed meat with a green and a purple tinge to the vegetables, for the male was harrying her to hurry the entire time.
"All right. Come, now!"
He took her, not lightly, by the arm and rushed her into the street, then into a closed conveyance of some kind, with what looked vaguely to Mal like camels hitched to it.
"Wha..."
"Be quiet!" Mal shut up.
They traveled for quite some time, stopping at what seemed like an inn similar to what she had seen at Dozzu twice, having a meal served on a platter as she had experienced earlier, and then lurched on, over good to poor roads. The jolting and banging into the side of the koscha was extremely wearying.
The carriage - the koscha, the male called it, same word in Kosti...uh oh...Masmas - stopped and she was urged into a narrow doorway and into a small but comfortable - by Kostanzi standards - room. There was a real Kostanz bed, the inevitable pot, this one tightly covered, a chair and a bench, all covered with padding and blanket. Mal threw herself onto the bed with a sigh of weariness and slept for a considerable time.
After another meal and a long and luxurious immersion in hot water, with numerous brushes, soaps, unguents and all the pleasures of a really good bath, she was told by a handsome woman to dry herself and to come.
She was led to a large room where sat a man, a tall, handsome fellow, for whom Mal suddenly felt desire. It was not quite sexual, although her quim was wet and her nipples hardened as she looked at him. It was a desire to please.
"Ah, the new one," he said, languidly. "She looks like a good breeder. What do you think, Haubi?"
This was addressed to the woman who had led Mal here.
"I think so, master. She is well built, sturdy, good stance. That does not, of course, really matter Yes, master, I think she will breed well."
"You, slave, what is your name?"
"I am Mal..." She could not remember her last name!
"You were of Kostanz?" Maybe, Mal thought, that's where I'm from.
"Yes...master."
"Interesting. Well, if she carries successfully, Haubi, then we will know, eh?"
"Indeed, master."
"Give her some kushra so that she's amenable, and we shall see. Has she come in season?"
"No, master, She has had kushra, and a male's penetration before she got here, master."
"Ah? She is not then a virgin?"
"No, master. I think she may have had a mate."
"So. I will have a word to say to he from whom I bought her. Well, as she comes in season, breed her to...h--m. Uski? Miro? Pak? Who do you think, Haubi?"
"Perhaps Pak, master?"
"Very well.
"Mal, you will find that I am a good master. You will eat good food, bathe every week except when in season, then every day. Haubi will instruct you. Dismiss."
Mal watched Haubi from the corner of her eyes, and noticing that she began to back form the master's presence, followed suit. She found that she was resigned...accepted the fact that she was...a slave. Her mind was now set toward being the best slave she could be.
Haubi chatted with her as they walked back toward the bathing room.
"Master is very kind. He has never had a Kostanzo. You will be happy to breed when you are in season. Master wishes to see what happens. He bought you for a huge price. I am master's head slave, and he sometimes makes me very happy, but you will tell no one, ever, even another slave, that master does so. It is against the law - but master is a very powerful man, and has many hekti and many, many slaves. You will be happy.".
Mal was quite convinced that she would be. Her mind no longer yearned for Carl - she had forgotten him for practical purposes, for she had no idea where he was, had indeed almost forgotten who he was, and the many drugs she had been given dulled her mind to memories. Her past was very hazy, and she was forgetting the circumstances of her betrayal and enslavement. If her name had not been said daily, by herself or someone else, she would quickly have forgotten that, too.
Now she entered into what she could only know as the real life of a slave, and it was, for her, a pleasant one, while she learned more and more Aurmo. Her mind seemed able to assimilate a language and her duties rather quickly.
Her duties consisted of cleaning, mainly, although it was light dusting, some polishing, for Haubi told her, in the course of instruction, that she was a breeder, not a worker. What that meant Mal could not as yet know, for she felt no particular urge to sex, and she had forgotten any sex she had had with Carl. Then, one day she asked in her now fluent Aurmo....
"Haubi, I feel very odd this morning. What is the matter with me?"
Haubi felt her brow in an age old and universal gesture among humans. She also sniffed at Mal's crotch.
"You're coming in season, Mal. It will not be bad, it happens only three times a year, and the first time may be uncomfortable for a little while. You're excused from all duty, but await a summons to the breeding room."
Mal went back to her quarter, more comfortable now with a bed, a couch - since she had been designated a breeder, her few amenities had been increased - an alcove which contained a shaped pot with a cleverly closing lid to retain such odors as might arise, and several chairs. Another slave, a worker, emptied the pot and brought her certain things that Haubi ordered for her. Her interest in this breeding business increased as she realised that she was not only locked into her room but was served her next three meals therein, instead of going to the eating room with the other slaves.
After that third meal, late the next afternoon, Mal was taken to the bath, again laved and scented by other slaves - she suddenly realised that she had seen no males, no men, neither master nor slave, since she had "come in season." Until now that had not mattered particularly as she had felt no need for the opposite sex. She was taken into a large rom with a padded floor, and left alone.
By now, however, her need for something - she was unable to relieve herself by masturbating, for some reason she did not question - was becoming urgent. She just knew that she leaked fluid, which she felt thickening as she became more and more receptive to the idea of a male's "penetrating" her, as she now knew it was called here.
Then a male bounced into the room, his leaps reminding Mal for a second of some strange animal she had once seen...where? No matter, this one smelled male, the scent in her nostrils was rich, raw, yummy. Her mouth watered and puckered a bit as she thought of suckling
As "he" faced her, she realised that the penis on this being was protruding a good ten inches from a sheath which curved upward along his lower belly. Her mind flashed back to Ron, and that ridge along his belly. But she had not been ready, then. This one was startling but very, very pleasing, as it was thick, pinkish, the tip leaking. She could not help herself, she was on her knees holding the male's belly against her chest as she tried to get her lips around the head.
It tasted very salty, but good. Her increasing interest and licking was interrupted by the male, who yanked her mouth loose. She feared she had hurt him somehow, but instead he indicated that she was not to do that - he could not talk, apparently - with emphatic gestures. Instead he sank to his hands and feet, his legs bending backwards at the knee! That way, his back was almost parallel to the softly padded floor. He humped his hips at her, his long, thick penis bouncing against his belly, until she too got down on her hands and knees.
"Like this?" she asked, patting her ass cheeks, wondering if he could understand her.
"Urh, wa!" he said, emphatically, his smile making that sound comprehensible. Moreover, his sudden application of a long and equally emphatic tongue to her pulsing quim assured her that she had done the right thing - for her, certainly, and from his enthusiastic attack on her fluids and the occasional flick of that knowledgeable tongue on her clit, for him as well. The assault on her quim made her jerk her hips just as he had.
The tonguing continued for some time, until Mal was so ready for the next stage that she was backing into the male's face and he was slowly getting her point. By now her flanks, her thighs and his face were covered with drying and still flowing juices, and her vagina was on fire with her want.
The male rose slightly and flopped onto her back, which placed the end of his penis against her dripping labia. She bowed her belly downward as he shoved forward, and she felt the long organ slide slowly in, bringing her to an immediate orgasm. One of his fingers slipped over her clit, and she gave a long moan of pleasure.
"Oh, oh! Do that, more, more!" she cried, first in Galactic, then Kosti and finally in desperately voiced Aurmo..
Her quim snugged on his penis, relaxed, tightened again and again as she spasmed. The male withdrew very slowly, then slid into her even more slowly, causing her to scream as she came again. He continued to fuck her slowly and thoroughly to her great enjoyment until as she climaxed for the fourth - or fifth, she couldn't remember - time, he began shoving into her really forcefully and Mal felt something huge slip between her slippery labia and into her very receptive quim. Her muscles clamped hard on the object.
"A-a-h, so-o good. Uh, uh, uh." It felt to her as though his penis had penetrated all the ay to her chest, and it felt wonderful, pulsing and tickling as she squeezed and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed.
She moved forward in reaction to his backward movement, another orgasm hit, and she realised that the male and she were locked together!
The intercourse got better, if possible, after that. Although they could only move in short jerks in and out, she squirmed inwardly as her vagina spasmed over and over. Mal felt itches scratched, urges satisfied, needs met, that she had never known she had in the first place and therefor had never expected to be satisfied. The sensation was breathtaking, she and the male were panting, trying to gain oxygen into their struggling lungs.
She knelt there, the male stuck to her by his penis, both pulsing, his member very slowly and tantalizingly becoming softer. The knots which had entered her were shrinking as she absolutely knew that he had put something within her belly. She could feel something in her tiny uterus and she supposed, although it had not happened before, that it was a female thing to know if one were pregnant. At that moment of revelation, the male's penis slipped from her and he rose.
Mal watched from her kneeling position, for she was unable to rise as yet. She was worn out. The male's penis was slowly retracting into the sheath as he turned away and hopped slowly and tiredly toward the door. Now she understood, perhaps, the reason for the hops. His balls were monstrous. Mal thought that if he tried to walk his hairy thighs would rub them raw, for they were so huge that they lay against his inner thighs and half of them curved up and forward around his shaft, from a normal scrotum's location, joining into the pens sheath without interval. They seemed to her, in her last glimpse of the male, firm despite their size.
Finally Mal was able to stagger to her feet, and she looked around to see which way she had entered the "breeding room." My, she thought, that is the right word!
"This way," came the voice of her master. Mal had not expected that, she was thinking that Haubi or one of the other slave women would help her. She was still leaking fluids and she had nothing with which to clean up.
"Come, Haubi will help. You were very good." Mal blushed at this praise.
Haubi appeared and placed an arm around her waist, guiding her to the bath once again. There she wallowed in the hot water, feeling her body rejuvenating itself. She could not keep from grinning, it was all she could do to keep from breaking into joyful laughter.
Haubi was smiling, as she helped Mal scrub her back.
"It takes us all like that the first time. The male's penis is big, and when the knot goes in..."
Mal couldn't help but laugh and smile."Yes, and when that knot came into me..."
She suddenly crossed her legs, for she felt as though she were about to climax again, just from the memory, but Haubi swiftly massaged her and gave her a pill to swallow. She was quickly calm and felt no further sexual urge.
"Now, you carry for dvadentiksdvadai. You will have to walk carefully for the first two days, then you can do as you like, but you will go out of season in a few days because the male's semen took - it doesn't always, the first time, and the female remains in season for another male..
"You might be one of the master's special slaves," she babbled on, and Mal wondered what that meant. At the moment she was enjoying the relaxing effect of the pill, and she became sleepy quite soon after rising refreshed from the bath. There was a question Mal wanted to ask about something Haubi had said...?
Haubi led her to her room, where once again she collapsed on her bed, sound asleep. Haubi laid a light covering over the nude body, sighed, raised the cover to look again at Mal's body as she rubbed her crotch, sighed again, then walked quietly out, closing the door.
Mal awoke knowing there was something important she had to ask Haubi. While she ate breakfast with the other female slaves, Haubi did not appear and Mal did not want to ask anything of these working females whom she hardly knew.
After breakfast Mal was heading back to her room to get a duster she'd forgotten when a male slave - now she understood that bent-legged gait - gave her the order to report at once to the master.
She entered his room timorously, afraid tht she might have incurred his wrath.
"Ah, Mal. Do you remember before you came here?”
"N...no, master."
"That is probably as well, then. I have found the slave who was discovered with you on the raft. I thought he might have been your mate."
"I...do not remember that, master."
"If a slave walked like me, would that look like anyone you remember?"
"No, master. I...I think not, master."
"Well, it is troublesome, but we will try taking you off kushra and see if your memory returns for a little while. I am curious as to your origins. Kostanz is very unlikely, although the pirat who was kourat said you came from a provenka, which is a ship every smuggler uses. The Kostanzi use bricki, as do we, and we leave them alone. He also said you spoke Masmas and another tongue which he did not understand.
"Mal slave, I can see you have questions. Ask Haubi about anything but your past - she would know nothing about that, anyway.. I will order that you be kept off kushra until your memory returns. You will be guarded, do not try to run!"
"No, master, I will not."
Mal had learned while she had been in his possession that the master, whose name was Aroutko Nossa, was head of a very powerful family, having recently succeeded his father upon the latter's death. Nossa controlled thousands of hekti and many hundreds of slaves and free Aurmati.
Nossa wondered now if the woman would really still be as subservient when she was free of kushra? The man certainly was not, and Nossa'd had to order him chained and in the cells, where the man continued to rant about someone named Mal - in Kosti! If he did not soon behave Nossa would most reluctantly order him castrated to calm him.
Nossa was fascinated by the demonstrable fact that the slave still retained his human shape and his testicles. That was unheard of, and the person who had sold him this slave had no explanation for the unlawful failure of someone to convert or emasculate a slave. Nossa suspected the seller knew more than he'd said, but he had decided not to exact further information by torture, as ws his right, as he might need further willing help from that direction.
Of course, a male slave who remained unconverted could, unlikely as it was, impersonate an Aurmato, and thus more easily escape. The conversion required by Aurmat law was specifically to prevent that. Emasculation and conversion was performed on nine-tenths of the male slaves, while those male slaves destined for breeding were converted and had their vocal cords cauterized and their minds thoroughly dulled with kushra to all but their duties as studs.
The alteration, or conversion, of those who were chosen to be males was quite thorough, so much so that the male's semen contained infinitesimal, but quick-growing embryos in soft-skinned eggs. The females were no more than carriers during the three weeks the eggs matured sufficiently for parturition and subsequent rapid insertion into incubators. A chemical in the soft shells caused the womb to spontaneously "abort" the eggs at the end of three weeks, but without more blood than from normal human menstruation. The growing eggs remained for their nine months' gestation in incubators, carefully monitored. Some of his slaves' only duty was to turn the eggs twice a day and make certain that the temperature in the incubators was correct.
To make the almost moronic males ready to copulate, it had proved necessary that a slight alteration of the female menstrual cycle take place, and this certain formulations of kushra also accomplished. Those female slaves chosen as carriers came in heat and emanated a distinctive scent which aroused themselves and the males three times a year, yet the females bled not at all during their former periods. Nossa silently thanked the kimisti of Aurmat who had discovered and perfected this system.
While Nossa pondered the ramifications of the Aurmato slave system, and the possible origins of Mal and the male captive, Mal was receiving approximately the same basic knowledge of the breeding cycle from Haubi. She thought very far back in her mind that she should be shocked, but found that she was not, accepting her lot calmly and remembering with joy the breeding. Her legs wanted to clamp as she thought of it, but Haubi saw and was about to give her another pill when she apparently had other thoughts and just asked Mal to be quiet and not make herself "ill."
As the next few days passed, Mal's heat began to ebb, and she was able to partake quietly of meals with the other females and join more and more in their chatter.
Nossa sent for her on the fourth day. When she entered his room, there was a man standing near him in chains, a man who stirred something within Mal so that she cried out, but could not understand why she had done so.
The man raised his chained hands at her and cried in Galactic, "Mal, what have they done to you?"
Mal answered in Aurmo, although she was perplexed that she could understand his speech. "That is my name...but...do you know me? Do I...know...you?"
"You're my wife, Mal, my wife. We are strangers here, working in Kostanz."
Nossa interrupted, asking Mal, "Do you understand what he is saying, slave Mal?"
"Yes, but...master, I do not know how I understand him." She was almost sobbing, she was so confused.
Carl looked hard at her and Nossa, and made a desperate plea, "Mal, tell the man what I say! Sir, my wife...the woman standing there is my wife and we are scientists from Sulpané, investigating the governments of Kostanz for the League of Worlds, to see if we could bring you among us!"
Mal did her best, but she could not interpret exactly what the strange man said, making several mistakes when she tried to interpret "league," "government" and "wife." The best she could do was ask permission to use Masmas for some words, and then tried to equate "league" with the Kosti word marzad which came the closest. She also used that for "government, " but added the word paruot for "ruler" to convey what she thought the stranger meant. Nossa listened attentively, asking her to try again for several words, until she and he thought they understood the man.
"Mal slave, this thing offers what no Aurmato would want. Why would we join this marzad paruot, and what is Sulpané?"
"I think the Sulpané he says means a place far off in the sky, somewhere we cannot see."
"Are you getting your memory back, then, Mal slave?"
"I do not know, but he begins to make some sense to me, master. Some of what he says seems as though I should know it."
"Yes, I think I will chain you, too, Mal slave, away from this slave. Do not be afraid, I will release you when I shortly decide what to do with him."
Mal knew that meant that she would go back on kushra but that did not matter, her mind was in such a whirl. The concept of "space," the faint visualisation of a "planet" that the man had put into her mind, began to open vistas of knowledge not as yet accompanied by understanding.
Suddenly she did not want to be back on the kushra regime. But by then the chains were on her wrists, far lighter but as strong as the first time she had been bound, and she was being led away by a grimly sympathetic Haubi. Mal knew that Haubi would not, could not, disobey the master.
The remainder of the day Mal spent in a distant room, comfortable save for the manacles, padded as they might be, and fed at the normal intervals by other slaves.
The following morning she was taken back to Nossa's presence.
"The other slave has escaped, Mal slave! But he did not get far. We have him here, and if you have any more memory, tell me now, quickly!"
Mal did not understand why she should be so hurried about her very dim recollections of another life, and knelt to plead with the master to allow her more time to remember.
"No! The other somehow sent some message, and we will quickly convert him before anything worse befalls. You have...Haubi,. Has she?"
"Yes, master, we gave her a double dose with her first meal."
"Very well, Haubi. You are dismissed."
Mal's heart sank, she had been so close to remembering! Now she would be happy, for she would know nothing else to be, but she had wanted those memories if only to know who she was and whence she came, for an instant.
"Mal, slave, when you have laid eggs, you will come to me. You will join Haubi as my personal slaves after that. Haubi will not be jealous, and you will be happy."
Mal was alone with her master at the moment, and Nossa stood, approaching her to lay his hands on her shoulders. Not before had an Aurmato laid hands on her, save to enclose her wrists in gyves.
"Mal, you will be returned to normal womanhood, so that you and I may have congress. You will like that, will you not?"
Mal realised that, yes, she would like that. It would not then matter whence she came, who she might have been, she would be human, not an animal. Her mind wondered briefly where that thought had come from, but dismissed it in her increasing lethargy as the kushra took effect. A double dose was powerful, and she might sleep for a day.
Mal dully witnessed the conversion of Carl by Nossa's command. Carl yelled at Mal until the kushra began to take effect, then his head lowered to his chest
"Slave," said Nossa, frowning, "you have committed blasphemy which must be corrected. You will be converted and emasculated. Feel good while you can.".
Carl had an enormous erection, and that remained as he was ordered to lie down and the kimisti slowly and painlessly removed his testicles. The flap of scrotum remaining was also excised, and an instrument wielded by a kimist made the skin smooth between his anus and his penis. That monster slowly deflated as the kushra took greater effect.
"Mal slave, the legs will be changed and the sheath and eggs entire are made in the vats. Do you wish to watch that?" he asked her. She replied negatively. "Now, how do you feel?"
"Master, I am ready to lay the eggs tomorrow, I think. You said after that I was to come to you."
"Yes, I will see that you are reconverted to womanhood. The maschi will rebuild your breasts to a better size for a woman. I like breasts, Mal slave."
Later, Mal was curious about something and asked Haubi.
"Haubi, I feel wonderful, not like I am on kushra at all. Why do I want to know things. Like...why does master call me 'Mal slave' and you just Haubi?"
"Mal, I will never be jealous of you, do you know that?"
"Yes, Haubi, the master said so."
"You must never tell anyone this, including the master."
"What if he asks me?"
"He will not."
"All right, I will never tell anyone."
Haubi leant close to Mal and whispered, barely audibly,
"I was Nossa's mate, and I transgressed against the law. I wanted women to have a better life here, even slaves. The krimin made me take kushra and made Nossa promise to keep me a slave as long as he or I live, instead of drowning me, because Nossa pled for me in the krimin. Never tell, Mal!"
Mal was surprised, deeply affected, and felt increasing affection for Haubi from that time forward.
Haubi the next day showed her how to squat close to the raised, padded surface and held her hand as she easily pushed the already much larger eggs from her womb onto the incubator, which automatically accepted them, checked them and established them within.
---
Haubi chuckled as the two walked back to their quarter - they lived in the same set of rooms, now - and said quietly to Mal,
"Mal, how nice if giving birth to a human baby were as easy!"
"But would we feel the same toward the baby, Haubi?"
"Oh." Haubi looked as though she had not thought of that aspect of pregnancy.
Mal continued, "I think that the nine months is important to mother and child, for what are those eggs destined to be? I do not know, until this moment I have not thought of it, but I would like to, now."
"Why, .Mal, I do not know, either. I do not remember when I was...earlier...I mean...." She broke into tears.
Mal put an arm around her as they arrived at their quarter.
"Come, Haubi, come. Let me put you to bed and get one of the others to bring you something to drink while I massage your back."
"Oh, Mal, you're so kind. What does 'massage' mean?"
"Yaki save us! You have never had a back rub?"
"Don't blaspheme, Mal, the krimin will have you neutered if they ever heard you! No, I have never heard of a 'back rub.'"
"You'll see. Now, lie down on your front, dry your tears."
Haubi lay on her front, her head turned to the side, looking at Mal. Mal had not lost any beauty as a slave, in fact since she had been restored to womanhood at Nossa's orders, she had bloomed. Her new breasts were larger than those she had had before, her hips were slightly wider, and she carried herself better. She also realised as she began to apply warm oil to Haubi's back that her labia were wet, and that she felt an increasingly urgent need to do something with Haubi.
"Roll onto your back, Haubi, I'll rub your front, now."
As slaves, of course, they were both naked, and had been since Mal could remember. The kushra seemed to have had a different effect on her this time, making her more stable, happier and far more sensuous. This was the first time she had needed someone with whom to have sex, however, for Nossa had gone away on some business, had been gone for several days and was not expected to return for another setda.
Mal rubbed Haubi's neck, then her shoulders. As she poured a little more of the aromatic oil into her palm, she grinned at a flushed and expectant Haubi.
"Haubi, have you ever made love with a woman?"
"Mal, that's another reason I'm a slave. Yes, I have...because I said publicly that women should be as free to make love with each other as men did with women! That was another count of blasphemy."
"Well, I want to, but I'll have to learn how from you, for I have never done it."
"Oh. You poor dear! All right, that warm oil is making me feel...I want your body, Mal."
"And I want yours,...but...what do we do?"
"Do you know what makes you feel good?"
"Yes indeed," laughed Mal.
"Well, try that on me and we'll see how I like it."
Mal first bent and softly kissed Haubi on the lips. Haubi pressed her lips against Mal's, then slowly opened her mouth and slipped her tongue out far enough to lick Mal's lips. Mal felt her quim twitch. She instinctively licked at Haubi's tongue, and they licked and kissed for several minutes, Mal becoming more excited as she felt Haubi's body warming under her oily hands.
"What...," Haubi panted, "kind of...oil...is that, Mal?"
"Of the canera bush, Haubi dear."(The canera bush produced something very similar to olive oil, harmless and fragrant.)
"It has made...me feel...sleepy. But I don't want to go to sleep, Mal," she added hastily. Mal laughed and kissed her again on her opened lips, slipping her tongue briefly inside Haubi's mouth. Haubi's body arched toward her, but she withdrew and waited for Haubi to calm a little. She was learning how to tease.
Mal slid her oily hands along Haubi's shoulders and upper arms, down her sides, returning to fondle her breasts and nipples. She began playing with Haubi's breasts enough to make them firm, and then lay down beside her and kissed her nipples, drawing them out with her lips. Haubi moaned low, twisting a little on the bed.
"Yes, yes. You are doing it right...for me...please, keep on/"
Mal's hand slipped downward until she could feel Haubi's sex. She slid her finger back and forth on Haubi's increasingly slippery labia until Haubi groaned and opened her legs wide by bending her knees.
"That feels wonderful. Lick, kiss me."
Mal obeyed, now finding that she was drooling slightly, and her tongue licked her own lips as she prepared for a new experience. She could wait no longer, but slid her body down Haubi's until her mouth and lips were against Haubi's inner thigh. Haubi was squirming slightly, and Mal placed a tender kiss on her labia, but that made Haubi squirm more and moan pleadingly, so Mal placed her hand on Haubi's belly and rubbed gently as she applied her mouth to the fragrant opening. Her tongue snaked into Haubi, who cried out softly and began to pant.
"Oh...oh...Mal...Mal...mal...Mal...mal...oh...oh."
The endearment triggered something in Mal and she redoubled her efforts to please without increasing her speed or her pressure on Haubi's inner, tender flesh. Haubi was producing plenty of lubrication, and Mal slowly inserted a finger, working it softly past her lips so as not to scratch either of them. She tickled at Haubi's clit and made Haubi squirm more fervently, while oozing more and more of the tasty fluid which Mal was lapping with vigor yet tenderly. Mal could feel Haubi's vagina tightening around her tongue and finger. Haubi called, low,
"Come up, come to me, Mal," she pleaded, her hands reaching down to pull at Mal's arms.
Mal slid her body along her lover's, enjoying the feel of Haubi's feverish flesh against her own slightly cooler body, and the slippery feel of Haubi's vulva against her leg as she reached mouth-kissing range. Haubi grabbed Mal's face in both hands as she hungrily kissed and tongued her, licking her cheeks and her neck in quick, spastic movements. Mal wriggled in her turn, her vagina spasming as she climaxed, juices flowing copiously over Haubi's thigh, which Haubi had planted firmly while Mal was moving. Mal felt Haubi come at the same instant. The women writhed against each other, kissing, licking, pushing their pubes together and rubbing hard against each other as they expressed copious amounts of fluids.
"Ah," breathed Mal, her ardor temporarily cooling, her breath coming in quick gasps. She rolled off Haubi to allow her panting partner to breathe more freely, both gasping and swallowing as they tried to recover breath. It just felt so good to lie tightly against Haubi.
"Haubi, I love you.," she murmured in her ear.
"Ooh, that tickled! But I love you, Mal, I love you."
"What do we do...about...Nossa?"
"I've found that loving women does not cool my wish for his penis inside me, Mal. I don't think that you will have to worry, but if you should not satisfy the master, or yourself, the first time with him, I will give you something that will help...a great deal. But I think you will need nothing. Nossa knows how to make love...even if I am now his slave, not his mate, he treats me well in privacy."
"Would our master be upset if we were discovered...making love, Haubi?"
"If Nossa himself found us...I don't think so. If it were reported to him by someone he felt was not loyal to him, then...there could be trouble. It is against Aurm law!"
"Then let us never be found by anyone but Nossa, our master!"
"May that be so!"
Mal suddenly burst out laughing, so that Haubi looked at her as if she had gone mad.
"What, Mal. What?"
"Then maybe the master would join us!" The two women rolled on the bed in spasms of laughter, holding each other as they gurgled in their happiness.