“Agreed. We will conduct this in a professional manner.”
The others began moving to leave, but then Loreloo spoke up.
“While we are all here, there is one more matter I wish to discuss briefly.”
“Which is?” Ceriniat asked.
“The issue of the makalang’s wives, and the equitable breakdown amongst them.”
Ceriniat and Varycibe shot each other a glance. But Missok spoke first.
“I will consent to no changes in the breakdown,” she said. “If anything, the dwenda deserve more representation than the rest of you because of our limited numbers.”
Ceriniat groaned.
“Once again you bring forth ancient matters as if they should control today’s events. Your schism fifteen kumala-talons ago is not our concern.” Then she turned back to the leader of the cunelo. “And the equitable breakdown should be amongst the children, something you have little to complain of, Loreloo.”
“Perhaps. I simply find it quite interesting that the makalang chose to bring, as his second, his first linyang wife, who is somehow still not with child. As if a message is being sent to the rest of us.”
Loreloo’s words sent a knife through my gut. All of them looked over my shoulder at Narilora.
I remained as still as I could. I didn’t dare look at her as well.
“I am trying very hard to keep a balance between the clans,” I said. “I would ask you not to concern yourselves with how that affects my individual wives. No message is being sent.”
None of them said anything. I stood.
“I think we are done here.”
◆◆◆
Narilora held herself together until we were alone in one of the first-floor meeting rooms. Then I took her in my arms, and she collapsed into sobs against my shoulder. The sobs went on for several long minutes.
Finally they stopped, though she remained pressed tightly against me.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“That . . . that was the most humiliating thing I have ever been through in my life. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
She tried to put my hand on her belly, but I stopped her.
“It was hours ago, baby. It’s too soon for anything.”
She sighed.
“Again?” she asked softly.
I hugged her. “Of course.”
It was quick and deliberate, with really only one purpose in mind. But she held me for a few minutes after I came inside her.
“Let’s go to bed,” I said.
We climbed the stairs, then got into bed with her and my other wives. They rolled against me in their sleep, and I tried to content myself with what I had.
I was just about to fall asleep when I remembered Yisaraq.
Chapter 4
I slipped out of bed as carefully as I could to avoid waking the girls. I found some pants and pulled them on.
The office was right across the hall. She wasn’t there. But there were signs she had been there, perhaps for quite a while. Some things on my desk had been moved; there were pillows arranged on a couch as if she’d been lying down.
Yisaraq had a room on the third floor overlooking the front gate. It was the largest, in accordance with her status as aJia’jara’s awasa-lina, and I hadn’t tried to move her out of it. When I emerged from the stairwell and came around the corner, I saw her coming out of her room with a large bag over her shoulder.
“I am leaving,” she said, not looking at me. “Nalasin could not be worse than this. I will be alone, but at least I will not have you tormenting me.”
Nalasin was the state of a wife who had mated but left or lost her tsulygoi. It amounted to a form of self-exile.
I tried to stop her.
“You’re don’t need to leave, Yisaraq. I claimed you, and I meant it.”
“Yet you put all your other wives with child and ignore me. Not just ignore me, but taunt me with what they have.”
“You know what the situation has been with the clans. I want you to stay. We need you. I don’t want you to go into nalasin. Ayarala was there, and I know what it’s like.”
She relaxed and stopped fighting to get around me.
“Then prove it. Mate with me, or let me go,” she said softly. “Please.”
“All right, then.”
I pulled her back into her room and shut the door, then took her bag and tossed it behind her on the floor. She was wearing a shimming wrap that complemented her silver hair. I pulled it from her body, leaving her naked.
She was breathing hard in anticipation. I could see in her eyes that she still wasn’t sure this was finally happening.
I picked her up and tossed her bodily onto her bed. She bounced once on the mattress, then fell back on her elbows, watching me as I let my pants fall to the floor, and my erection sprang forth.
I stepped forward, reaching for her hair. When I had caught it in my hand, I pulled her to me, entering her mouth. She let me. I knew she had never done this before, but apparently my wives had been talking, because she knew what to do. I stood there for a minute or two guiding her movements with my fist in her hair.
Then I withdrew, pushing her backwards. I lay down on the bed opposite her and pulled her above me. Her mouth fell back over me as I pulled her hips over my head. I kept one hand around her waist and the other in her hair.
She had been a mass of anger and frustration moments ago, but it had rapidly turned to arousal. I could sense that she wanted it like this, rough and hard. I’d sensed it almost from the moment I’d met her as ajia’Jara’s prisoner. She’d been listening outside the door when I’d taken Merindra, Lorelat, and the other clan girls in one epic encounter that day. Listening to the noises they made because I told she would make the same sounds when I took her.
I pummeled her with my tongue until I felt her release approaching. Even though I had just been with Narilora, I’d lost little of my energy. When I felt Yisaraq beginning to let go, her release flooded into me and I erupted into her mouth.
She took it, fighting to hold on, but I could sense her surprise. She pulled back, wiping at her mouth.
“Your seed, tsulygoi?”
I ignored her confusion, getting up and standing beside the bed. She was still on her knees. I took her wrists in my left hand as I entered her from behind.
Yisaraq had mated, but it had been five talons or more since then. Yet she was so wet there was little resistance as I moved into her. She gasped aloud. I could feel her muscles relaxing, but she was still very tight.
I held onto her wrists as I began thrusting roughly into her, pounding her firm butt. I watched her arousal growing again, grinding myself against her over and over until she started to cry out. I pushed her face against the mattress to muffle it as she shook around me.
I withdrew, flipping her over, and picked her up in my arms. With a single movement, I impaled on me. Then I carried her outside onto the balcony, right up against the glass wall above the gate.
“What – what are you –”
“Show the world what you are, Yisaraq. Let them see.”
And below us, the girls around the gate who were still awake began to realize what was going on.
“I am your wife,” she gasped.
I held Yisaraq’s hips tightly as I continued pounding her slim body. She went completely limp, laying backwards with her arms behind her, breasts thrust up at the sky as the girls below began calling out to her.
Even though I was too far away to understand them, I realized they were cries of encouragement. They were cheering her on.
Yisaraq cried out her release into the night. The girls cried back. And then I emptied myself into her.
She pulled back from the wall, throwing her arms around me.
“You’re not leaving,” I said again.
“I will not leave you,” she responded, “my tsulygoi.” And for the first time, she truly seemed to mean that word.
◆◆◆
I wok
e up with one purpose in mind: resolving the issue of Narilora’s apparent infertility.
I sought out Ayarala, but she was also looking for me, though with a different purpose. Standing with her was Lorelat.
“Will, we’ve picked some girls from out front, though we haven’t told them what it's for,” Ayarala said. “If you feel you’re ready to see them, we can do it now.”
I glanced at Lorelat, who had her hands clasped behind her back, which perhaps not coincidentally also thrust her big boobs straight out at me. If I wasn’t mistaken, they had gotten bigger since I’d gotten her pregnant, even though it couldn’t have been much more than a sampar. I definitely remembered that night. Let’s just say, she had quite a body on her.
She beamed as her long ears twitched in excitement.
“Eladra asked me to help.”
“Okay. Let’s do it, then I need to talk to Ayarala.”
They led me toward the second-floor balcony over the gate. Outside, the crowd had swelled even larger than yesterday, which I had expected, but there was also a higher level of energy and excitement. Yesterday most of the girls had been standing around and talking; today they were pressing forward toward the gate, trying to see over each other’s shoulders.
Below, in the front courtyard, I could see the apparent reason: two sorai and two linyang girls standing together, looking both thrilled and confused. They hadn’t noticed me yet.
“Is that them?”
“Yes.”
“How did you do it?”
“We just went out front and walked around talking to them,” Lorelat said. “Then we came back in to talk about who we thought might work.”
I looked closer at the four girls. Ayarala and Lorelat had done a good job. All four were that in that sweet spot of cute, hot, and sexy that I liked the most – the same spot all five of my favorite wives fell into. I wasn’t a hundred-percent sure, but I thought at least a couple of them were among the girls I had noticed yesterday as possibilities.
“You did good.”
Ayarala pecked me on the cheek.
“Like I said, Will, I know what you like by now.”
She, out of all my wives, had long been the most invested in collecting as many new ones as possible.
“You’ve talked to them enough to feel they’ll fit in here? We don’t need any more drama.”
“No, they seem really nice,” Lorelat said. “I think they’ll be ecstatic just to be part of us. They won’t cause trouble.”
“Okay, bring them in. Let’s talk in the sitting room.”
I went upstairs and sat down. In a few minutes, Ayarala and Lorelat appeared with the four girls, who seemed about to burst. When they saw me, they stopped short and gasped.
“Sit down,” I said. “No need to be scared.”
Ayarala introduced them. The names came and went too fast for me to remember.
I explained what we were doing here. Their hands went over their mouths and their eyes bulged as they realized what was going on.
“So if you’d like to join my wives, we’d like to have you.”
“Yes!” one of the sorai blurted out. The other three all squealed and yelled that yes, yes, they too wanted to become wives.
“We can do the sparring and claiming later,” I said. Technically, I was supposed to defeat sorai and linyang in combat before they would consent to be claimed, but it was usually just a formality. “My wife Merindra will take care of it.”
“Is she the clan leader’s granddaughter?” one of the sorai asked.
“That’s her.”
“She’s so pretty.”
I nodded.
“Yes, she is. I’ll see you later today.” I motioned to Lorelat, and she led them off to get them moved in.
◆◆◆
Ayarala stayed behind.
“I think they will be fine, Will. I just worry what we have set in motion. When we brought them inside, the crowd got very agitated. If we make a habit of this . . .”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
She nodded
“What did you need to speak about?”
Ayarala, like Kisarat, had attended what amounted to Taitalan college, training as a sort of nurse-paramedic, which was why she had been able to patch me up so efficiently when I’d gotten injured.
I explained my concerns about Narilora, and what we might do about it. She sighed.
“I wish I had easy answers, Will. But if I did, I would have helped her already. It breaks my heart to see her like this.”
“Women on Earth suffer from infertility as well, but there are medical procedures that can help. What I’m struggling with is why this such an issue for her so soon. I’ve been here only about six sampars. Earth women sometimes spend years . . . talons, trying to get pregnant.”
“That is very odd. Why?”
I tried to explain about human reproduction, and ovulation cycles, as best I could. As I spoke, her eyebrows rose, and her face filled with confusion.
“So, you are saying . . . Earth females are only fertile for a day or two, once every three sampars?”
“Something like that.”
She let out a long breath.
“That is bizarre. But it explains something for me, how your world is not overrun with children with so many extra males. No wonder!”
I thought about mentioning birth control but decided to let it pass. Not only would the concept seem utterly alien to a Taitalan, it would probably also sound like borderline insanity.
“How does it work for you?”
“When she is ready to mate, a female can make herself fertile. It does not always result in a child, obviously, but two or three matings should be enough.”
That made me think about something.
“That first night for us, in the tent, did you . . . ?”
She seemed surprised by the question.
“Of course. Why would I not? You asked to mate with me.”
I took a deep breath.
“Okay. I guess I just wasn’t thinking along those lines at the time.”
Her face creased in concern.
“Did you not want me to?”
I pulled her into a quick hug.
“It’s okay. It’s all good. For males on Earth, it’s just not something that’s necessarily on our minds during mating.”
“The more I learn about your world, the more bizarre it sounds. I think I would be very confused there.”
For me, though, things now made a lot more sense.
“So basically, Narilora keeps trying to make herself fertile, every time we mate, yet nothing is happening.”
“Yes. Exactly. It should have happened by now. How many times have you mated with her?”
“I . . . jeez. I’ve lost count.”
“So you see why she is so upset.”
“Yeah. But does this happen to other females? What do they do?”
“Will, I . . . you are trying to compare your mating habits, and how they work with females on Taitala, with the normal mating habits of Taitalan males. You are asking a question no one has asked before.”
I saw what she meant. As rarely as Taitalans mated, true infertility would be hard to separate from the normal odds of getting pregnant. Yisaraq had been with aJia’jara for ten talons and mated three times. Was she infertile, or just unlucky? There was no way to really know from those numbers alone.
“I am sorry, Will. Believe me when I say I would do anything for her, if I knew what to do.”
Chapter 5
If Taitalan medicine was no help, saying nothing about the makalang’s mating habits, I would need to look elsewhere. I intended to go back into Silas’s journals in search of answers, but I also realized there were other resources available.
I went looking for Kisarat, finding her in the fifth-floor garden with Yisaraq. She’d had a garden back at iXa’aliq’s house, and since we’d moved in here, she’d started growing many of the same things up here.
; Yisaraq gave me a shyer smile than I would have expected when I saw her, but she kept her distance.
I hugged Kisarat and took a moment to feel our child, the little talalong girl inside her. She laughed softly.
“How is my tsulygoi?”
“In need of your help.”
“Lead me, Will.”
“Look, you’re the foremost makalang scholar around here, and –”
She reared back a bit, startled.
“I assure you I am not.”
“You studied it in school.”
“For a couple of talons.”
“That’s something.”
“There are far more knowledgeable scholars than me.”
“Where?”
“At the university.”
“Can we go over there? Talk to one of your professors?”
“Well . . . yes, serious study of the makalang does take place there. But it is . . . or was, I suppose now, viewed far more as literature than history. Those who took it seriously, as I did, were not viewed well, though again I suppose we have been vindicated by your appearance.”
I took a deep breath.
“I just need to learn more about all that, whether it’s history or literature. Specifically, I need to know more about how the makalang is supposed to have fathered children. All about that, how it happened in the past.”
Something dawned in her eyes.
“This is about Narilora.”
I sighed.
“Yes.”
She pursed her lips for a second or two.
“I will help you. Come.”
◆◆◆
Let’s imagine that you are one of the foremost scholars of Bigfoot literature. You’ve spent your entire career reading and speaking and teaching and writing and having opinions about the place Bigfoot holds in the human imagination. You sometimes wonder and sometimes talk to your colleagues about what it would mean if Bigfoot did, in fact, exist, and if his existence was ever proven beyond any doubt.
Let’s further imagine that one day Bigfoot does indeed suddenly appear in the city where you live, to near universal astonishment. You want to go see him – I mean, you’ve been doing this for a long time, and you are – right? – the expert here – but the crowds and official attention make that next to impossible. You wonder what to do, and whether anyone cares about what you’ve spent the last thirty or forty years of your life doing. You spend some time questioning your life choices, and to some extent, your sanity.
The Black Sky Page 4
