Jailmates

by Lesli Richardson

  I can already tell these are augmentations I’ll be keeping after my stint’s complete. Those are all handy languages to have under my belt. It also means if I put my time to good use and study to boost my knowledge of their idioms and business and trade terminology, I can take a test to prove my competency in them and work as a coalition translator. Maybe even work with Hells, when she starts practicing law. And I can add even more languages. The augmentations they’ve given me will support full literacy and fluency for up to ten more language, and functional conversational competency for five beyond that. I wouldn’t make as much as an ether-jump engineer or tech, but if I could work with Hells and help her out, doing something safe, on a planet…well, that would be even better.

  Normally, I guess a journey from Axind 5 to Pfahrn only takes four days, if you ether-jump. But H’looder had to meet up with another ship bringing him some equipment and supplies he needed, and they didn’t have an ether-jump drive. We had to travel to the vicinity of a jump portal to await their arrival.

  Tomorrow or the next day we’ll be arriving at Pfahrn and I’ll finally meet Mohrn. Won’t deny I’m nervous as fuck. In fact, when they finally send me back to my cabin late that night after I’ve had a second dinner, I’m feeling really anxious.

  H’looder told me I’m free to masturbate and actually encourages me to do so. Standing in the shower, I do, managing two fairly close together.

  Shower was a good choice, because I then use the handheld shower head to hose the wall off.

  It does relieve me mentally, too, because both times I thought about Mohrn and managed to get over without any trouble. I don’t want to disappoint her. I damn sure don’t want to hurt her feelings. I want nothing more than to get through this and hopefully make it as easy on her as possible.

  Anything positive beyond that, I’ll call it a win.

  Hopefully Mohrn will, too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When we dock at the space station H’looder works out of, which currently orbits Pfahrn, it’s late at night the next day ship time, which is the same as space station time. But where Mohrn lives on the planet it’s just coming up on dawn. The space station sends a skiff planetside to pick her up and bring her to orbit so we can meet, and so H’looder can check on things he had a team start with her once I signed the contract.

  I don’t ask what things those are, because I know I likely won’t understand most of it anyway. No doubt similar to some of the things I’ve undergone.

  I’ve given H’looder a list of augmentations I’ve picked. A starting list, anyway. There are several more I want but I’ll wait until after we’re through all this to get them. For now, I want improvements to my hearing and vision, including seeing in infrared, thermal, and darkvision. The hearing improvements will not only work on hearing in general, but allow me to selectively hear frequencies above and below the usual range of human hearing, allow me to isolate and amplify distinct sounds and voices, and give me an echolocation ability. All helpful when working on a ship.

  Just in case I end up working on one.

  By default I’ve received an improved healing ability and that’s definitely one I’ll keep. I’ve already received the thermo-tech, too, but a new and improved version that allows me to switch it on and off at will.

  I’m exhausted and really want to go to bed, except H’looder’s suggests I wait, meet Mohrn, and then she can stay with me in my cabin to nap, affording us a chance to bond.

  I’m fine with that. Despite my earlier anxiety, I’m looking forward to it. Being home really hammered into my skull how lonely I am.

  In the lab, I’m getting yet another infusion when they alert H’looder that the skiff has Mohrn on board and they’re heading up.

  My stomach tightens. I’m six-three and she’s nearly eight feet tall. For a human, I’m actually pretty tall, and I’m not exactly a weakling. But I’m tiny by Pfahrn standards.

  Will I be a disappointment to her?

  Them?

  Whatever.

  Now I’m really wishing I’d read through more of the information H’looder gave me about Pfahrn but I kind of can’t do that right now without him chewing me out for it. I’ll just have to fake it and keep a poker face once Mohrn and I are up close and personal.

  At least she’s not arriving while I’m naked and ass-up on the table, or with that damn suction thing stuck on my cock, or something equally embarrassing. I’m fully dressed and vertical and unencumbered by anything except the temporary IV port taped in place on my left pec. She’ll be getting one of her own soon enough.

  “How soon do you want us to, eh, sleep together?” I ask H’looder. “Can I at least eat a meal with her first and chat?”

  He chuckles. “At least not until tomorrow night ship time,” he says. “We still have things to complete for both of you before that happens. And you have to be legally married per Pfahrn laws first.”

  Then a thought hits me, striking me with horror. “You’re not actually going to stand there and watch us do it, are you?”

  “Video monitoring only,” he assures me. “Although we will be outside the cabin in case there are any issues and you need us.”

  That’s not great, but I guess I can’t really object to it considering everything else I’ve allowed myself to be subjected to. “So we won’t be doing it in the lab? We’ll be in the cabin?”

  He smiles. “Yes, in your very real bed, not on an examine table.” I think he’s finally starting to get the hang of interpreting my snark.

  “Thank god.” Another thought hits me. “What if she doesn’t want to stay with me?”

  “That will not be an issue, Simon. I assure you, you are overthinking this.”

  I asked if we would go meet the skiff when it arrives, but H’looder wants me to wait in his office. He wants to talk to Mohrn first and make sure everything’s still copacetic, instead of overwhelming them with me right out of the gate.

  “Until a couple of weeks ago, that was the first time they ever left Pfahrn,” he tells me. “They didn’t even leave their home estate and go into town very often. They are feeling very apprehensive and emotional right now.”

  Duh. Of course she is. I’m an idiot. This isn’t about me, and I need to remind myself of that. “Please tell her—them that I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

  “I will.” I notice H’looder doesn’t don a mech suit when he leaves, meaning he trusts Mohrn.

  I hope that means I can trust her, too.

  Fighting the urge to nervously pace, I pull out my com and work on more language assimilation exercises while I’m waiting. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to bring Mohrn there.

  Turns out I don’t have to wait very long. About twenty minutes later, I’m startled at the sound of H’looder’s office door sliding open. When I stand and turn, H’looder’s walking through, followed by Mohrn.

  I find myself looking…up. While the ceilings are tall enough to accommodate her, she does have to duck her head while crossing through the doorway.

  Holy…daaaaamn.

  Pfahrn have very human-looking faces. Their noses are a little wider, vaguely canine, with their mouths completing the slight hint of a snout. Mohrn is no exception. Except their skin is very tough. Not scaly, but like it’s callused. Especially along their back, invoking images of old Earth water reptiles. Their fronts are smoother, but you can still see the evolutionary throwback to their reptile-like ancestors.

  And they don’t have nipples. I remember reading their babies are hatched with teeth and able to chew and swallow adult food, although developmentally they’re extremely close to human babies in terms of needing care.

  I can’t help but stand there and stare. Mohrn is wearing a tunic vest over what resembles a kilt, but their chest underneath is bare.

  And they are…pink.

  I mean pink. In person, what passes for hair on them catches and shifts in the light between violet and electric blue in a beautiful way.

  T
heir eyes. I can finally see their eyes, and they’re a gorgeous shade of turquoise blue that makes my heart skip a beat.

  They don’t hold my gaze, however. It’s as if they’re scared to. They immediately look at the floor again while H’looder speaks.

  “Simon Quigley, I’d like to introduce you to Mohrn, family name A’djanhrn. Mohrn, this is Simon.”

  I don’t know if I’m supposed to offer to shake hands with her or what. Pfahrn have hands similar to humans, but a little wider and only three fingers instead of four with what is their equivalent of an opposable thumb. They also have claws at the end instead of nails, but hers are filed down neatly, even with the end of her fingers.

  “Call me Sy,” I tell her. “It’s very nice to finally meet you, Mohrn.” I reach out and offer my hand. I decide to skip humor, especially snark, until she gets to know me better. “I’m sorry for the circumstances you’re going through, but I truly appreciate the opportunity to help you. It’s been a great blessing for myself and my family.” At that word, blessing, her gaze meets mine as if she’s surprised. “And I am looking forward to getting to know you better,” I add.

  Her gaze almost immediately skitters down again, to the floor. I’m painfully reminded of a girl I knew in primary my second-to-last year before I graduated, who it turned out was being beaten at home.

  She acted like this—terrified of everyone and everything.

  A wave of protective fury washes through me. I want to keep Mohrn safe. I want to make her smile.

  She finally reaches out and touches my hand, as if unsure what to do. The inside of her fingers and hand feels smooth and warm. I gently squeeze and offer her a smile as I do.

  “A…blessing?” she softly asks. Her voice sounds deeper than I’d expected. “Do humans appreciate blessings as well?”

  “Some more than others,” H’looder offers. “Simon doesn’t practice any particular religion. Humans can have varying degrees of spirituality or spiritual views and not consider themselves ‘religious.’”

  I’m still holding her hand. “I consider my family my greatest blessing,” I tell Mohrn. “I wanted you to know that the contract has allowed me to send my mother and my little sister to secondary school to get their degrees. My father died when I was really young, and it’s been tough on Mom raising us. My sister’s going to become an attorney to help people. Mom wants to be a teacher. I don’t know if it helps you or not to know that, but you’ve created a great blessing for my family by allowing me to help you with this.”

  She blinks, and it almost looks like she’s going to start crying, from the way her eyes suddenly look brighter. “Yes,” she softly says. “That is very comforting to know. Thank you for imparting that to me.”

  I release her hand and H’looder motions for us to sit. I let Mohrn pick where she wishes to sit first before I take a different chair than the one I occupied before, a smaller, hard one, while Mohrn chooses the softer and more comfortable chair I was sitting in, which is larger, large enough to hold her.

  H’looder settles behind his desk and clasps both sets of hands together in front of him. “Simon, I was telling Mohrn on the walk here that I want to get a set of readings from them after we briefly chat about the immediate schedule.”

  “Okay.”

  H’looder begins to talk but I find myself looking at Mohrn. Her skin isn’t a solid pink. There are slightly darker, mottled brownish lines here and there that were they scaly I’d say it defined the shapes of each one. This close, I can see the thicker texture of her hair. A slightly sweet aroma seems to surround her, as well, very faint but making me breathe in deeply, trying to get more of it.

  My cock is twitching, too, which I’m hoping is a good sign. And I’m…well, I’m struggling not to squirm in my seat.

  Also a good sign, I hope, but a very unusual one, to be honest. Not to get too TMI—although I suppose we’re way past that point—my ass is clenching, and I don’t exactly understand why.

  “…so while it is perfectly all right for the two of you to…eh, get better acquainted intimately,” H’looder continues, “I would ask that you do not have any actual sexual penetration yet. We need to have the ceremony performed first, per the contract.”

  “When will that happen, again?” I ask, my voice cracking at the end and forcing me to swallow.

  H’looder studies me. “Simon, are you all right?”

  I clear my throat. “Yeah, Doc. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m…” I swallow again and take a deep breath. Despite my best efforts to control it, my cock’s growing hard.

  Mohrn sits there, her hands in her lap and staring at the floor.

  I force myself to look at H’looder. “I think it’s safe to say my body is having a positive reaction right now, Doc.” As embarrassing as this is, I tell him.

  H’looder’s face lights up and he claps both pairs of hands together. “Excellent! I am going to encourage fluid bonding as much as possible between you two, because it will only speed things along. That means if you wish to engage in any sexual contact besides penetration for either of you before the ceremony, by all means, do that.”

  He stands. I hold back my question about his “for either of you” comment, because he rounds his desk and waves us into his lab.

  We follow. Two of the techs have been called in for this late-night duty. H’looder has Mohrn walk over to the table and I watch as she’s brought a blanket to cover her.

  I realize I’m holding my breath when Mohrn casually removes the tunic vest without hesitation, as if not bashful about her body. Then her kilt. She’s standing with her back to me, though. I uncomfortably realize that it suddenly feels really slick between my legs. Not like I’m sweating, but…

  I step behind the privacy screens, which are folded and stashed nearby, and look to find a clear, slippery fluid coating the insides of my thighs. And it’s obvious it didn’t come from my cock.

  What the hell?

  I wash my hands in the sink that’s right there and step out from behind the screens to say something to H’looder. Except then I catch sight of Mohrn again and the words sort of fade out of my mouth before I can speak. When Mohrn turns to sit on the table, I finally get my first look at her—their…eh, equipment. In the groin region, they have a sort of upside-down pouch, for lack of a better word.

  I’m standing on the other side of the lab, so I’m not really hearing what H’looder is saying to them. Then I watch as Mohrn reaches up inside their pouch—

  And produces a cock nearly as large as my own.

  Ummm…oh, fuck.

  Chapter Sixteen

  H’looder and I are now locked in his office.

  Alone.

  “So I guess I need to make a small confession to you, Doc,” I say, trying to sort out my really confused body’s reaction from my rebelling brain’s…well, rebellion.

  “Yes, Simon?”

  “You know how you told me to make sure I read through all the information?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t suppose it had details about Pfahrn physiology in it, did it?”

  He fluffs a little. “I don’t understand your humor. You know very well it did.”

  I wince and collapse into the chair Mohrn occupied. “Let’s say for the hell of it you needed to give me a quick and dirty overview of exactly how I’m going to be having sex with Mohrn.”

  “I’m confused, Simon.”

  “Um…actually, I didn’t finish all of the packet. Like the history of Pfahrn, for example.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  “I might not have read as much as you think I read, though.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “How much of it did you read?”

  “I guess not the part that explains the Pfahrn are hermaphrodites and have really big cocks. Or how we’ll be having sex together.”

  He chitters. “What?”

  “So how about giving me
a quick summation, huh? And I guess maybe that explains why I’m apparently now creaming myself like a girl?”

  The Veraci stares at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Is this human humor I’m not interpreting correctly?”

  “I wish. I’m dead serious, Doc. Does he fuck me?” Now I understand why H’looder was confident they could medicate me to comply if I refused to go through with things.

  Sonofabitch…

  He lets loose with a stream of Veraci that I can’t understand, ironically, because it’s not one of the languages I’ve learned yet. “You signed an unbreakable contract without reading all the information and terms first?”

  “That was a lot of money you flashed at me, Doc. And to be fair, you told me you were making my cock and balls bigger, so there was a natural assumption on my part. Not to mention, he’s fucking pink. Plus, I kept referring to him as a her. That should’ve been a clue.”

  His gaze narrows—Veraci side-eye—and he chitters again. “Mohrn is not a he. Mohrn is not a she. Mohrn is a them, or phem. And hermaphrodite isn’t the proper term for Pfahrn. They are a nonbinary intersexed race.”

  “Skip ahead to the main part, please.”

  “Yes, when Mohrn mates with you, and bites you, they will be penetrating you. There will also be times you penetrate them, but to sate the urges they will have, and to help eliminate excess venom, then you’re—”

  “Bottoming,” I said, feeling more than a little angry at myself and the untypical laziness on my part.

  “Yes. Some of the necessary hormonal exchanges between you will also happen when you are penetrating Mohrn. Except once they are incarcerated, during your visits with them, you must make sure Mohrn is able to penetrate you at least once in that time. Everything else is beneficial, but that is necessary.”

  “And that explains why you reconfigured things inside me.”

  “Well, partially, yes. It makes logistics easier on all parties, but it’s mostly to accommodate the egg.”