Page 29 of Exiles on Earth
Arture hesitates. “I’ll sit and take first watch.” The tension in his posture doesn’t ease. It adds to the crushing tightness within me, the faintest thread of hope I still have fraying.
I’m failing them.
As they settle, I look over them all, fierce protectiveness burning in my chest. My crew needs me to be a leader, to guide and shield them in this strange world. My shoulders ache with the weight of my inadequacy, the sharp edges of failure carving deeper into my scales. I can’t let my crew see this weakness—I have to be their strength, even if it breaks me.
I clear my throat. “As we bed down for the night, I want to answer any and all questions you have.”
Immediately Dom asks in a quieter voice, “What will the females require of us? How can we please them?”
“What can your extra training for the mating games tell us?” Gara adds.
I sit down on the hard surface, scales strobing between Gerverstock dark blue and the rich chestnuts brown of El-len’s long hair as I collect my thoughts. “The information covered how to pleasure females, not how to please them.”
Dom’s face twists. “Is there a difference?”
“Yes. We only learned how to make a female feel good physically, not emotionally.” I think for a moment. “It’s clear El-len wants her barn repaired. That’s something we can all contribute to.”
Dom nods, a little more settled, and Nevare and Arik relax with him.
Gara raises his hand. “Pleasuring females might also be required of us,” he points out, ever practical. “What can you tell us about that?”
Arture and Dom lean in, although Arik looks disinterested and Nevare’s eyes are closed, probably riding mental wave lengths several klicks away.
I cast my mind back. “The training took place in a small room with True Born sons, all of whom gave me disgusted looks. I had to pretend I couldn’t see their scorn or hear the mutters.”
But even now their words resonate in my head. ‘Is that a special sex clone? Surely not a Gerverstock, it’ll break any female who approaches.’ I flex my fists. I thought I’d die before I hurt a female, but one has already been lost because of me.
Gara scowls, saying bitterly, “Just because they’re all different. They only ever see their own faces in a mirror, not walking around the city ready to be put to work.”
We stare at the ground. We were raised in tank farms with our batch brothers: True Born sons grew up in special compounds with their mothers and their many mates.
Breaking the quiet, I continue. “Because I thought I’d earned every right to be there, I endured. I didn’t know it was ill-advised.”
“It’s not illegal,” Dom says evenly. “I’d never let you do it otherwise.”
I glance at Dom and on to Gara and Arture. They appreciate the unwritten rules, the undercurrents of society dangerous to clones.
All I’d wanted was to be accepted as a mate, to have a female to cherish and care for. The day I’d been accepted into the Games was the most joyous of my life. I’d dreamed it was only the start, that next I’d prove myself at the event and be chosen. It would have meant leaving a life of traveling the stars,but in return I’d be bonded and spend my life serving my mate.
My fists clench so hard my knuckles creak, red flashing in my fingers. I forcibly relax before I snap my own bones. My selfish dream cost my crew everything, and I’ll never forgive myself.
I have to keep them safe. Despite their strained condition from our arrest, forced transport and violent arrival, they’re keen to learn anything that could save their lives.
“There was a simulation couch with robots controlling headsets, as usual for training, but this set had a visual screen and a lower sheet with a flexible, responsive membrane resting on my lips and chin. First, we had to learn to pleasure our mates.”
Gara snorts. “And I suspect you threw yourself into it, swearing you’ll be the best at pleasuring females there ever was, Tuber and True Born alike.”
Despite the tightness in my chest, I smile. “You know me too well. Of course I told myself I’d never failed before…” My hubris chokes me now.
Dom leans in, purple eyes fixed on mine. Gara folds his arms, scowling, trying to pretend he’s not interested, and Arture’s preoccupation with the clouds is split listening to me as well.
I hold up my hands. “The vid screen showed an outline of a female, red marking areas of interest. These were the sides of her neck, her cheeks, and the swells on her chest to start, the focus of the first lesson.”
But now the memory morphs and instead of a blank outline, it’s El-len, coverings plastered to her body in the rain. Immediately I want to strip those off, for making her too cold. I’d lie beside her to warm her with my body, running my lips over her bare neck and cheeks to dry her pale skin. My cocks throb, hardening at the stray thought.
I shove the surge of desire back. “We had to map her curves with mouth and tongue, the membrane of the simulation recording the pressures and direction, giving feedback in theform of murmurs when I was correct and harsh shocks to my jaw when I got it wrong. I found a budding hardness crowning her mounds—nipple, the sim called it—and gently took it into my mouth, waiting for either a soothing noise or a zap. When I got the pressure and tension accurate, the sim rewarded me with a moan.”
My scales heat remembering how I threw myself into tasting every inch of the sim, tongue probing and lapping, thrilling at the sim moaning and writhing underneath me. I thought I was good, a fast learner, worthy of being chosen.
