This file is a part of Elf Sternberg's Collected Works on ASSTR.  The
complete archive of Elf's work can be found on his website at:

http://www.drizzle.com/~elf

The author can be contacted at:

mailto:elf@drizzle.com

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                          Finding The Nice Girl

Journal Entry 177 / 00527

Elenya, Urim 06, 00527

"Where are we going?" P'nyssa whispered.

"Through here," Aaden replied, pushing the door open just enough for
the three of us to slip through. "You know," he said equally quietly,
"you may well be the first fem to ever get in here."

"So," P'nyssa asked, "where's 'here?'"

"Welcome to the Hex," Aaden said. Deep within the town of Rhysh, but not
in the Castle itself, we had snuck into the large mel's amphitheater,
looking for this small room. The hex lay in the center under two red
lights, looking cold and uncomfortable. It was barely five metres across,
and the room itself was square, nine metres across in all.

"Excuse me," said a voice from the ceiling, "but she is not the first
female to visit the Hex, and you're right, she probably shouldn't
be here."

"Oh, come on, Rowan," I said cheerfully, "It's just the three of us."

"What are you doing here so late at night?" the AI asked.

"Playing Hex," I said. "With the requisite medical attention."

The tone of Rowan's voice changed completely as she asked, "May I watch?"

"Well?" I asked Aaden.

"I don't see why not," he smiled. "She will anyway. It's all a matter
of whether we authorize her to remember it or not. And even then..." He
let the thought trail off. Although visibly AIs followed "the rules"
as AIs were supposed to, it was a common supposition that underneath
it all AIs quite simply knew everything about everybody. Ress had once
assured me that if I ordered an AI to forget something, they would never
again be able to mention it, would act as if it never happened, and for
all intents and purposes, it would be forgotten. But she couldn't answer
the question of could the AI replay the incident "in its mind."

"Okay, Rowan, go ahead and watch," I said.

"Thank you!" she said with an almost girlish squeal. The door we had
walked through opened again and a short but very sexy femMeph walked
through. "How's this?" the Mephit asked quietly.

"Rowan?" I asked, staring.

"You like it?"

"It's... Uh... Very pretty," I said. If this was her choice for an ELF,
I was impressed. Her form was Mephit; anthropomorphized skunk, like Aaden,
about 155 cm tall, with a very bushy but short tail. Mostly black fur
with a thin, white stripe working it's way up her back. Her breasts were
very large, and even concealed as they were by the shiny leather corset,
I could tell the left was slightly larger than the right. Her eyes glowed
slightly, as if lit from behind, and she held her lips in a perpetual
sort of half-smile. Aside from the corset, she wore a small black patch
of leather over her groin, secured with nothing more than threads that
ran over her hips, and knee-high boots with short heels.

"I figured I should show up like this, just so you two remember that
I'm here." She smiled.

"It will be hard to forget," Aaden offered.

Then something hit me. The smell of femMeph. "What the...?" I asked,
reaching out to touch her arm gently. It was physical. "Rowan?" I asked.

"Like it? Bawr and Mariah put it together for me. It's a full
positerminal."

"But... I thought AI's didn't do well with PT's."

"New technology," she said, "makes new rules, Kennet."

"So," I said, "do you like it?"

"Uh-huh!" she smiled wide and cheerily, like the little girl she had
sounded earlier. "I like eating!"

"You'll get fat," I chided.

"And that'll be something new to try, too." She was still smiling.

I shook my head, her glee becoming positively infectious. "So," I said
to Aaden, "shall we get on with what we came here for?"

"Let's." He turned towards the Hex, the pit set in the center of the room.
Its rim was a thick, padded bar about four cm high, designed to keep the
wrestlers in. I reached for the control panel and hit the "prep" button.

There was a slight hissing sound as the Hex began to flood with
oil. After a few seconds, it was a half-centimetre deep in the thick,
slightly greenish fluid. The hissing sound ceased. Aaden had already
set aside what little clothing he had worn, and I followed, stripping
off my flannel shirt and jeans.

"Ready, lover?" I asked, smiling.

"Ready," he said, returning the smile. "Ready to settle old scores." He
stepped into the pit, settling his feet carefully onto the oiled padding,
then dropping to his knees. I repeated the ritual. I stared across the
minute distance towards him, and he smiled at me. "Ken," he said quietly,
"Ah tadi, Coimelin."

I inhaled sharply. Not at the warning, but at the second word. "Love
of my life." If he was trying to throw me off-balance before the battle
even began, that was a good way of doing it. I shook my head for a second
and said, "Aaden, Sen de..." and I paused for a second. "Coimelin."

He smiled, enjoying the affirmation. Then he lunged for me.

I dodged to my right and he slid across the oiled floor, crashing into
the railing. I leapt upon him and he tossed me off easily. Neither of
us was sufficiently oily to do what we were here for.

As I rolled across the ring, I deliberately spread as much of myself
across the floor, picking up as much oil as I could. I would need it; I
wanted to be slippery; it would make it hard for him to get a good grip.
More than that, I needed to be ready for him.

Aaden pushed himself off the edge, sliding towards me on his knees, his
hands spread wide. I ducked; he compensated, grabbing me under a shoulder
and throwing me down and slamming my head to the mat. "Gotcha!" he said.

"No!" I shouted, twisting to my left, away from him. "Not so fast,"
I said. My heart pounded against my ribs. It was already too much for me.

"See," he snarled, trying to wipe oil away from his eyes with the back
of his arm, "You're out of shape. You're nowhere near as good as the
day we met, Ken."

"I'm better!" I said, pushing up and leaping for him. He caught me in his
arms, taking advantage of the momentum to slam me down to the mat again.

"No, you're not!" he snarled again, straddling my naked body. "You're
getting slow, and I'm going to fuck you to prove it."

"You're going to have to try harder than that," I said. I bucked up
against his hips and he lost balance, falling back. I clawed for him,
grabbing a leg and pulling him towards me, sliding on the oil. I managed
to get my knees under me, and he began kicking to avoid me as I grabbed
for his waist, trying to pull his ass towards me. "On your back this
time's just as good," I said, my lips curled into a sneer.

One foot caught me on the shoulder and shoved me off-balance again. I
fell over, my head hitting the mat hard. I shook to clear it, but he
was on me again, his strong hands grabbing me, waist and left leg, and
throwing me over. I fought him, but this time I knew I was lost. And
part of me wanted to lose this fight. But I put up a good show of trying
to toss him as he slammed his weight down on my legs, his hands on my
shoulders to keep me down, his legs over mine, pulling them apart. "Take
this," he said, his cock nudging against my ass. With one push he buried
himself inside me, filling me. I screamed. I kept fighting as he kept me,
pummeling me into the oily padding of the ring floor, but both he and
I knew I was in heaven with his cock inside my asshole, pistoning into
my backside. "Take this," he snarled again, "like you made me take you,
that first time. You remember that, don't you?"

I nodded, my cheek sliding on the oil. My eyes were closed, as much in
pleasure as to keep the oil out. It smelled of olives. He fucked me hard,
taking me under the red lights. Every thrust of his furry, oily body
against my backside pounded my hips against the mat. The only audience
this time was P'nyssa and Rowan, not the crowd we'd had when I won.

"Yes!" he shouted. "Now!" And with one hard shove he roared, burying
his cock as deep as it could go, coming inside me, and I closed my eyes
and sighed.

He lay over me, his hands sliding off my shoulders and onto the mat,
his lips against my ear. "Thank you," he whispered.

"For what?" I asked, opening my eyes and looking up at him. "You won."

"And you liked losing," he replied, easing off of me. As his cock slid
out I moaned again. "See what I mean?" he said.

"What can I say? If it hadn't been for my ego, I'd've let you win the
first time we met, too." He laughed.

We lay there in the oil for a few seconds, trying to catch our breaths. He
looked silly, all droopy, oily fur and smiling dark eyes, his sex slowly
retracting into it's sheath. There was an awkward pause- at least it felt
to me like an awkward pause- while I decided how to broach the subject.
"Aaden? What did you mean by that comment you made before we started?"

"Which one?"

"You called me 'coimelin.' You can't mean that."

"Why not? You agreed with me."

I thought about it. "I guess I did." I shook my head. "Forgive me. There
was a time in my life when I thought there would never be a 'missus
right,' and the only people who even remotely attracted my attention that
way were nubile human females with nothing up here," I said, pointing
to my head. "Now I find myself in love with an oversized, intelligent,
male nonhuman, and there are days when my brain still rejects the idea
as ridiculous."

Aaden nodded. "Yeah, I know that feeling."

"Really? How so?" I asked.

"Well, this morning's a good example."

I looked around and said, "Why, what happened this morning?"

"You abandoned me. Imagine my surprise when I woke up to find I was
sharing my bed with a fem, and only a fem. And a Tindal fem at that. I
mean, sure, I've slept in the same bed as Nyss before, but usually when I
wake up, you're there, too. You hadda go attend to a project early today,
didn't you?"

I laughed. "So, what did you do?"

"Well," he said, "I was a bit surprised. Then I realized who it was." He
paused for a second. "And what she means to me."

"What she means to you?" I asked, curious.

"Yeah, what she means to me. Because she's as much a part of you as
this thing," he said, wrapping his paw around my sex. "So I kissed her
on the forehead like I did last time, and got out of bed."

I shook my head and looked over to where P'nyssa sat. She wasn't watching
us, she was talking intently with Rowan. "Let's hit the showers."

"Sounds good," he replied.

We took turns in the shower doing each other's backs, not being overly
sexual, just playful, when P'nyssa peeked in around the glass door,
Rowan behind her. "Hi," Aaden said, spotting them first.

"Hello," P'nyssa said. "That was... interesting."

"Think so?" I asked. "You should be the one doing it."

"I'm... uh... not equipped for it," she replied. Aaden and I both
laughed aloud.

"Be out in a minute," I said. She nodded and they closed the door.

Aaden and I finished getting as much oil as we could off and got out.
Taking a towel to someone as furry as Aaden is fun, and the blow-dryer is
even more so. He purred as I massaged his fur to release the moisture. We
found P'nyssa and Rowan and headed for the SDisk.

At the disk, we bid out good-byes to the Mistress of Rhysh. She smiled
and waved. Imagine my surprise when she leapt onto the SDisk with us.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Rowan?" I asked, having been the one to catch her in my arms as we
teleported.

"Hi!" she said.

"Are you sure you can be this far from Rhysh?" I asked, worried.

"Of course. I can attend all events at the Castle and still maintain a
perfect contact here. Why even ask?"

"I worry about everything, sweetheart, that's why."

"Well," she said, smiling, "I've been talking to Dave. He's giving me
a support channel, by the way. Just in case the shadow signal drops."

I nodded. That was smart. Redundancy. "Talking about what?"

"Well, everybody who pays any attention at all to you knows that Aaden
here is the big thing in your life right now." She poked him gently
in the ribs. "And the AIs know something nobody else knows, except you
and P'nyssa."

"Aaden's a missing Tleil."

"Right," she said. "So... " There was a pause, and I knew what was coming.
"I want to be it."

"Be what?" I asked, knowing it was a rhetorical question.

"Be the mother."

Somehow, knowing what was coming didn't make it any easier. I blinked,
stunned for a second anyway. Aaden and P'nyssa seemed similarly surprised.

"Rowan," Aaden said, "You know what we want from this..."

"Uh, huh," she said.

"Rowan, how old are you?"

"I'm fifteen years old. This terminal is itself three years old. What
difference does that make, Ken? I'm an AI; I've got the full functional
memories of Lynn behind me. Look, this body is functionally ready to bear
children. It's an experience I want, badly enough that I'm offering you
exactly what you want in exchange."

"Rowan," P'nyssa said quietly, "You don't know what you're asking for."

"The Hell I don't," she said. "P'nyssa, I play Brace recordings of
childbirth to myself all day long. I want it. I want it so badly I can
taste it the way you see people at the Castle tasting the whip. Please,"
she said, the last word plaintive and sad. "I had this body built with
full fertility. Just for this. And when Dave called me and talked to me
about this, I just had to talk to you. If not you, I'll just find someone
at the Castle for it. But, like my mother, Ken, I want you to be there,
and I want you," she pointed to Aaden, "to be the father."

I shook my head and turned to Aaden, who so far had been pretty quiet.
"There are days when I'm sure my life can't get any weirder."

He smiled and said, "Trust me. It will."

I took a deep breath and said, "Well, shall we go discuss this further?" I
led this little party down to our home.

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Original document is available from:
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The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are Copyright (c) 1989-2000 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Distribution limited
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