Second Born

Touching the security scanner caused Diana to display the keypad. I punched the combination, the simplest of several ways to verify my identity and have her open the ship, and we went up the gangway. It retracted and the door sealed itself behind us. Now that we were private, Kinthia took my hand and pulled me close.

"This is rare for me; total privacy. No prying eyes, no wagging tongues, no chance that anyone can walk in on us. Shall we take advantage of it, oh my sweet?"

"Much as I would like to, my darling princess, work must come first. Come with me to my cabin. I am sure I can scrounge up something for you to wear so you won't destroy that dress which suits you so well."

In my cabin, I pulled a coverall from a drawer for myself. For my princess, I went to one of the two spare cabins and rummaged in the closet. I'd had females aboard from time to time in the past. Invariably they would buy clothing to wear on the trip and decide not to bring some of it back with them. This was where such things ended up. I chose a pair of footed winter tights from Nyasverige and a choli from Timurid. She was naked when I returned to my cabin, a lazy smile on her face.

"Must we hurry to begin the work, Edward? Or might we dally a while?"

I gathered her unresisting into my arms. We kissed, slowly and gently touching tongue tips. My hands roamed over her body and she moaned against my mouth, urging me on. I laid hold of her tight asscheeks, pulling her against me so she could feel my erection. She threw her head back.

"Mmmm. I like that. It's so hard, so ready for me. Please, darling, don't make me wait."

"Duty first, my precious jewel; pleasure later." I suckled a nipple and pinched the other sharply. She gasped and her body shook as she enjoyed a small climax. I kissed her sensuous mouth and was rewarded with a purr. Sitting her on the bunk, I said, "Put these on. It doesn't matter if they get dirty; I'll clean them later."

She needed a little help with the tights; stockings are worn only with boots on Medusa, and tights are unknown there. As I had anticipated, they fit her like a second skin. I promised myself that I'd take pictures of her in them. The choli fit, but was a little small. She could not button it all the way to the top. Her breasts filled it to bursting, with impressive cleavage. She examined herself in the mirror on the locker while I changed into my coveralls. Before I could pull them up, she was behind me, pressing herself against me, her hands on my chest pulling me into her.

"Dear Edward, I could wish you had a less strong sense of duty. I do want you so. But if you did not, you would not be you. I will just have to wait." She laid her head on my shoulder. I inhaled the scent of her.

"All good things to those who wait, my sweet. Let us get to work so the waiting will end." I finished dressing.

In the hold, per my instructions as we had walked to my cabin Diana had switched on the lights and used extensionals she could control to pull the transit boxes containing a light 75mm gun and its ammunition to the center of the hold opposite the cargo hatch. We unlatched and lifted off the lids. When the cases were open, I addressed Diana.

"Diana, please come in and introduce yourself. We're going to need your help."

Diana's avatar appeared. Today she was dressed in a tight fitting leather catsuit and matching boots. I'd troubled myself to learn that this outfit was known as an "emmapeeler" after a character Rigg had played in an Old Earth entertainment. I suspected she had chosen this appearance to complement Thia's tights. It wasn't the first time I had wondered if Diana was sentient or merely well programmed.

"Your Highness, I am Diana, the computer who runs the ship. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"And you also," said Kinthia, thereby proving it is difficult to faze a royal, no matter from what planet she hails. "Have you known Edward long?"

"Since I was activated in the Peregrine, ma'am. He's a good captain."

"Ladies, shall we to business? We have much to do and little enough time."

Under my direction, Diana lifted out the main part of the gun carriage and held it steady while Thia and I attached the wheels. Next came the recoil mechanism, a painstaking job. I was very glad of Thia's help. She filled the reservoirs with hydraulic oil while Diana and I swayed the barrel out of its case and eased it into position. I controlled the extensional manually for the final attachment while Thia screwed it into place. At this point I called a halt; we needed a break. Telling Diana to prepare dinner for two, including wine, I led my princess back to the captain's cabin.

I gave her first use of the coffin-sized shower, adjusting the temperature and spray pattern to suit her. After a bit, she came out in my bathrobe and I took my turn. When I emerged from the head in a dressing gown I sometimes wore in hyperspace when I was alone and didn't feel like putting on clothes, I found her lying naked on my bunk, the covers turned down. A scent compounded of tropical flowers and aroused Medusan female wafted its way to my nostrils.

"I am ready for you, Edward. I burn with my need of you. I want you inside me. I need you to plug this aching gap between my thighs with the hard male flesh between your legs. Take me. Fill me. Use me. Please, my darling. Please."

I shed my dressing gown and sank down on the bunk beside her. She gathered me into her arms, her lips seeking mine with an urgency bordering on desperation. This Thia was in no mood for foreplay. Spreading her golden legs wide, she grasped my cock and began to stroke it. I grabbed a handful of hair and tickled her outer lips with it as I had done in bed at the Palace; she gasped as her labia swelled and her orchid spread its petals. With no coyness whatever she pulled my rod to line up with the treasure between her legs, shuddering from the sensation as my cockhead brushed inner clitoral lips wetted by the nectar seeping from within. Taking over, I pushed with my hips and thrust between them, sinking my prick deep into her willing body.

"O-h-h-h-h!" she moaned as my pubic hair brushed against her inner lips. Her nipples responded to the novel sensation of the wiry growth in a human's groin contacting the supersensitive nerve endings guarding her vagina with a burst of pleasure, crinkling tight, presenting themselves to me. I used her hair as a brush on one while I suckled the other eagerly. She bucked under me, wanting me deep inside her, thrusting against me with an eagerness I'd seldom felt in a bed partner. I felt her spasm; she threw her head back and cried out joyously.

"Yes! Yes! Don't stop! Give me your rod! Hard and deep! Fill me up! Ohhhhh, yesss! It's coming! Use me! Don't stop! I want it! Give it to me! Give it all to me! Please! Please! More! More! Almost -- almost -- al-al-most -- Y-E-E-E-E-S-S!"

Kinthia convulsed, nearly bucking me off her even as her fingers dug into my back. I sought her lips and kissed her passionately. Driving my tongue deep into her mouth, I tried to fill it as deeply as my cock was filling her cunt. Her tongue whipped mine and she moaned happily deep in her throat. Her legs rose to wrap around my hips and she broke the kiss to whisper in my ear.

"Oh my darling, thank you. Thank you. I never knew I could be so stirred by any male, much less the touch of an alien. I feel as if I am melting inside. I never knew sex could be as wonderful as this. I enjoy the feel of you on me, your hands on my skin, the scent of you, and your wonderful member inside me. I don't want it to stop, my sultingas."

"No more do I want to stop, my princess. You are a wonderful, giving lover. Your scent intoxicates me. I feel as though I can lose myself in your eyes, your lips and your body. I want to simply keep on fucking you and fucking you. You are so beautiful I am afraid that if I do what I would like to do, I might harm you."

"Do whatever you like with me, my sweet bedmate. I am not made of spun glass; I am a female of flesh and blood. Hot blood, wanton blood, lusty blood that yearns to please you and be pleasured by you. Be as rough with me as you like. Use me for our pleasure. I want you to. I am yours to use, my Edward."

She sighed, enjoying the afterglow as I gently continued thrusting in and out of her. She kissed me, her lips already parted for a new phrase of dueling tongues. The tempo of our lovemaking increased as our hands roamed over each other's bodies, the sensations evoked by my fingers and her short nails encouraging our hunger for each other. She rolled us over so she was on top, riding me. I responded by grabbing her tresses with both hands and using them to stroke her body. She shook as this new sensation added to the scratching of her clit-lips by my nether hair and she spent against me. This time I did not allow her to fall into the afterglow, but instead pulled a nipple into my mouth and began to alternately suck and nibble it.

"A-A-A-A-H-H-H!"

Her pussy rippled as she came again, and then again as I used her hairs with their electric vibration to stimulate the nipple of the tit I wasn't suckling. Her head was thrown back as she struggled to pull in enough air to continue our bedplay. Swapping nipples, I kept on, determined to wring as many climaxes from her as I could before I finally could no longer hold back my own.

"Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Use my hole, miliqalb! You're so long! You're so deep inside me I can feel you at the base of my throat! Never this good! So long! So hard! So lasting! I burn for you, my honey sweet! Don't stop! Ohhh ... ohhh ... oh gods, YES!"

She came again, and then again, the second orgasm crowding in on the first. Thia went up and down on my cock like a monkey on a stick, her cylinder squeezing my piston as I matched her stroke for stroke. Dropping her hair, I squeezed her mammaries hard and pushed them together, managing to get both of those long, lustful nipples into my mouth. Latching onto them with my teeth, I ground them and tongue-lashed them while brutally driving up into the sopping box between her legs. There was nothing of subtle lovemaking techniques in our coupling now. I wanted my willing, golden wanton to cum and cum and cum for me. She screamed her pleasure for me to hear.

"Oh, Edward! What you are doing! Don't stop! I am yours, my darling! Use me! Take me! Don't stop! Use me! Use me! Please! I'm -- I'm -- I'm -- O-O-O-O-H-H-H!"

She shuddered like a grand mal seizure, body flopping spastically, totally out of her control, vaginal muscles randomly squeezing, rippling and hardening as her brain devoted itself to the ecstasy her body was feeling. I kept on driving my hard prick into her, almost there myself, until I could resist the importuning of her snatch no longer.

"A-A-A-A-H-H-H!"

The climax I had denied myself blasted off like a red tip fission rocket and exploded deep in my brain and her box. I felt it clear to my toes. My lover's eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted clean away. "You can't do much better by your partner than to give her a climax that takes her clean out of this world," I thought as she fell into my arms and the two of us, still conjoined, fell into dreamless sleep.

When I awakened, Thia was brushing me with the silken strands of her hair, eyes half-lidded, lost in the moment. I reached a hand to the back of her head to draw her to me and we kissed for a long, languorous time.

When we came up for air, she said, "Edward, did you truly mean what you said when you told me you would be proud to be seen with me any time, in any situation, under any conditions?"

"Yes, my princess, I meant it just that way."

"It wasn't just hooman gallantry, or love-talk to seduce a female into your bed?"

"No, my sweet, it was not. I do not know what it is I am feeling. I have feelings for you, feelings I have not had for any other woman. I know what lust and desire for a beauty I want to take to bed and fuck until we cannot see straight feels like. This is something else. What, I do not know."

"But I do," she whispered. "I know. Please stand up, my darling."

Untangling myself from the bedding, I gingerly got to my feet. The intensity of our lovemaking had taken something out of me. Kinthia also got to her feet, swaying; I caught her by the shoulders and steadied her. Her wonderful hazel eyes locked to my gray ones.

"In hooman novels, there are degrees of relationship between hooman males and females. There is friendship, and there is pairing off as..." Her voice trailed off and she frowned, groping for the words.

" 'Boyfriend and girlfriend?' " I supplied.

"Yes. Kaerasti and kaerasta are something more than 'going steady' in the novels, but not so far as 'affianced.' There is no exclusivity about the relationship. Should either of us choose to, we could bed others without offense to each other or the one with whom we sported. But it is implied that were we to do so, such sport would be casual only. It is a commitment but not a commitment such as your hooman 'being engaged,' much less mated.

"This is how I feel toward you. I hope you feel the same toward me.

"Do you accept me, my sweet stud?"

I looked deep into her eyes, trying to read what was there. My lady was trembling and there was something akin to fear in her eyes. I would have wagered a great deal that never before had Kinthia found the courage to offer her self, as opposed to the use of her body, to another.

She took both my hands. Holding them upright palm-to-palm with hers, she interlaced her fingers with mine and closed them. After a moment, I folded my fingers over hers.

"I name you my kaerasti, Edward Wellesley. He to whom I am first in his caresses. He whose company I prefer to that of other males. He who has first call upon my body should he wish it. I proclaim myself your kaerasta, by my own choice."

She sank to her knees in front of me. "Under other circumstances," she said conversationally, "we would exchange kaerastiin, pendants specific to each of us, to show other Medusans what we are to each other. Since we don't have any here, this will have to do."

Still holding my hands palm to palm with hers, she leaned forward and kissed the head of my penis. Her mouth opened and she sucked it slowly, licking the shaft and cleaning it of our commingled juices.

I pulled her to her feet and tightened my fingers on hers, holding her hands bent at the wrists, palm to palm. Trying to remember exactly what she had said, I replied, "I name you my kaerasta, Kinthia, Princess of Medusa. She to whom I am first in her caresses. She whose company I prefer to other females. She who has first claim upon me should she wish it. I proclaim myself your kaerasti, of my own choice."

I slid down that perfect body until I was kneeling before her as she had knelt before me. I bent my head to her cooze and licked at the apex of her divine triangle. Her labia majora remained shut. I had to let go of her right hand and use a handful of hair to tickle her outer lips before they would open. She blushed, possibly from embarrassment, but I ignored it. Her inner clit-lips and the area around them glistened with our exchanged fluids. Leaning in, I cleaned her pussy as she had laved my cock, paying special attention to the clitorises. She shook and purred with a climax; most gratifying. When I was done, I got to my feet again and kissed her lightly. She wrapped herself around me and kissed me long and deeply.

"Oh my darling Edward, I am proud to be your kaerasta! I will be yours until you must leave Medusa, and I will be proud to be seen with you anywhere. I care not what anyone thinks, not even Mother and Father. I am so happy!"

"You make me happy as well, Thia," I murmured into the hair over her ear, drinking in the scent of her, my hands full of gently squirming female. "I am proud to be your kaerasta. But we should eat before we resume work."

"Not 'before we return to bed,' damislik? " she teased.

"Work first, then bed, my darling hoyden." She smiled and caressed my cheek. Throwing on my dressing gown, I repaired to the other cabin to find something appropriate for Thia to wear to dinner.

As I went through the locker, I said, "Diana, come in, please."

My computer's avatar winked on. "Define the Medusan word 'kaerasta' for me."

"It is not so much a word as a term, Captain. Kaerasta literally translates as 'prospect.' Compared to the use of the word on Novalbion, there is an added overtone that makes it more than that. The term describes a relationship somewhere between a boyfriend and a suitor, with the inference that the pair who so describe themselves share a bed at least occasionally. Medusan culture uses the kaerasta/kaerasti relationship as a stage of courtship in which the pair is 'tasting' each other, to see how they fit as a couple."

"And the next step?" I asked, discarding a lurid pink wrap-dress that would have clashed horribly with Thia's skin.

"The next step is to become cinimaeth. As with kaerasta, there is no exact analogy in our home culture. Cinimaeth literally translates as 'life-sharer.' It is a much more committed relationship, with Medusans so involved much more of a couple. Intercourse outside the cinimaeths' bed is still permitted with the partner's permission but is looked at askance by the larger culture; something done by those who likely cannot completely commit on that level. Such bedsport often marks the end of the relationship."

"I see." A royal blue chalmys was set on the bed for further consideration. "And beyond that?"

"The next level is that of trolovade. It is their betrothal. Monogamy is implied, though the couple may or may not live together. Moving to that level is not the couple's choice alone. Although the pair may consider themselves engaged, to be recognized by Medusan society trolovade requires permission of the parents, public announcement of the fact, and an exchange of bracelets of a particular construction." Diana smiled and her eyes sparkled. "The slang term for those bracelets translates as 'shackles.' It seems Medusans have a sense of humor about interpersonal relations."

I picked out a confection of layers of black Amaterasu spider-silk that covered without concealing. "And Medusan marriage?"

"There are two sorts, sir. Kamasuli is similar to the hand-fasting practiced on the Scandinavian-descended planets. It is a conditional marriage for a period of three Medusan years, celebrated and proclaimed by the parents, with the male parent of the bride usually presiding over the ceremony. It can be dissolved at any point before the three years have passed, for any reason, with no stigma attaching to the kamasuli; and it can be renewed, similar to the contract marriages of the Otaheite. The term is gender-neutral. However, if a child is born to the kamasuli the marriage becomes permanent.

"There is also maensolto. That is the big church wedding with a priest and wedding celebrations that can go on for days. It is the marriage that is binding and requires a trip to the priests and the lawyers to be dissolved. As a rule, the upper classes and nobility go from kamasuli to maensolto after two years. The lower classes usually practice kamasuli only."

"Thank you, Diana. We will be in to dine shortly. That will be all." She winked out. I brought the Amaterasu dress to Thia, and told her I would be back to dress in a little while. Her eyes lit at the sight of the cast-off spider-silk gown, which made me wonder if it was much more daring than anything she might ever have worn before.

I put speculation concerning my kaerasta's personal life out of my mind as I reentered the hold. All that remained was installation of the splinter shield, not a demanding chore. Diana and I accomplished it quickly, leaving me free to do what I had thought to do while rummaging through the feminine discards in the closet.