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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 08:00:02 -0500
From: "Elf M. Sternberg" <elf@pendorwright.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Journal Entry 267 / 01029  Uncia Night (0)
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Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:10:06 -0400
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Uncia Night
Erwer, Ring 23, 1029
I looked around Kashkah's voluminous family home. Cold rain was falling
hard on the darkened crystalline dome overhead, filling the space
between earth and glass with a gentle sussuring sound that was not as
loud as it should have been. It was one of those things about Pendor
that I had grown accustomed to-- noises were almost never too loud,
voices reached my ears from far too far away and with far too much
privacy. Much of the tribulations of life were simply missing.

I had also learned the hard way that this wasn't always true. My arm was
currently in a sling, the result of a fall down a hillside. I had
slipped while I chased after some small prey animal that the Uncia had
told me was edible, and the resulting fall had resulted in a broken hand
and wrist. I didn't heal as fast as the Pendorians. The doctor who had
treated me had been surprised by the length of time for the cast
indicated by his diagnostic machines.

I sighed and looked down at my PADD, looking through my current
collection of lessons, the history of Pendor 0300-0700, a quiet period
in which not much had happened. Pendor went through no great crises; no
other species were discovered in that time; no medical breakthroughs
occurred to destabilize Pendor. The birth rate declined a bit, two new
species were "released" by the Alpha team. Most of the really difficult
subjects seemed to have happened back on Terra, where immortality became
an option for the wealthy and the tension between Terra and Pendor
mounted as a battle between haves and have-nots.

One month left to go. I was having trouble concentrating on the PADD,
which was not unusual. As winter mounted over Kashkah's family valley, I
found myself less interested in studying and more interested in just
waiting, waiting for the day when I would get to be just one among many,
a Ritan once more, a person with the possibility of a family and a life.
Even if I couldn't have children of my own, as the Pendorians had
pointed out, I could still help raise kids.

Kashkah was trying her best not to interfere in my life even as the days
ticked down to the thing they called Decant. I had started calling it
what everyone else called it, and I felt no contradiction in that. I had
seen the tubes on Alpha, seen the forms within, and felt... something.
Some connection. They were like me. Like me in a way Kashkah wasn't.

And I suppose that's why I felt so terrible about the whole thing. I
liked Kashkah and I didn't want to upset or lose her, and so I tried my
best to reassure both myself and her that I wasn't about to disappear on
Decant and she'd never hear from me again.

I tossed the PADD aside and walked back toward the bed we had shared for
almost a year now. A year... great God, I couldn't believe that I had
been with this fem for almost a year. It felt like no time at all, and
it felt like it had been almost forever. I lay down on the bed and
curled up.

"Sandahl?"

I raised a guss and confirmed that it was Kashkah looking for me.
"Guinness said you might be feeling unwell. Do you want some company?"

"I'm not sure." I raised my head to look at her, then lowered it back to
the bed, turning over to look up at the ceiling. "Kashkah, what is going
to happen on the first?"

"Decant," she said. "You'll get to be one with your people again."

"Does that bother you?" I asked.

She lay down beside me, her body curled up against mine, her warmth
seeping into my fur. "That depends on why you think it should," she
said. "Pendorians don't expect to stick together forever. Ken and his
partners are weird. Good examples, but examples of a kind of mindset
that few other people have. Maybe that'll change in the future, but
right now the idea of lifelong monogamy is... weird." She looked up at
me. "Why?"

"So you won't be upset if I just... disappear?"

"You won't," she said. "I don't believe you will. You might for a few
days, and I'll understand that. But you haven't done anything to upset
me and I haven't done anything to upset you, so I don't see any reason
why you should disappear out of my life forever." She grinned. "C'mon,
Sandahl. What happened to you back at HOMOS? That was fun!"

I grinned. "I liked the demonstration you did with the swords. Very
impressive."

She kissed my cheek. "I thought so too. Almost nicked myself with one of
them, too. It scratched across the leather on my arm-- one centimeter
lower and I would been in hospital."

"You didn't tell me that!" I said.

"No harm done, and you didn't need to know. You were just another person
in the audience." Her voice was low even as the lights overhead slowly
darkened, telling us that the communal night period was coming on. "I
know what's bothering you. Sandahl, do you love me?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I want to say yes, and I don't want to say
yes. I want to say it because, well, because I'm a romantic who thinks I
should only sleep with someone I love. And I want to say no because,
well, because I don't want to be tied to you."

"Then don't be tied to me." She kissed my shoulder. "I'm not sure I love
you. I like you. You're an interesting person. I love the tales you tell
of your world."

"You said you never wanted that to happen to you."

"That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the story or the skill of the
storyteller!" she objected. "Sandahl, you lived through a terrible time
in your people's history, and you came to us with that story. I'm proud
of the way you handled yourself. Given the circumstances, you came from
a very... moral... group of people, and you handled yourself in a way
that we could all admire if we found ourselves there. There's nothing to
regret in that."

I looked away, wishing I could agree with her. I realized that I
probably did love her, after all, and that that wouldn't be enough to
keep me around when the first Ritans started to come off the assembly
line. Hah. Even the Alphas called it that.

I wanted to roll into Kashkah's arms and accept the tenderness she
always seemed to have for me. The big, bad, predator who had always been
so good to me. I did.

She wrapped her arms around me, her bed automatically providing the
extra space for her arm underneath me, and held me close. "It's okay,"
she said. "Really."

"I don't... I don't want to seem ungrateful."

"You don't. That's what I'm trying to tell you, Sandahl. Even if you
disappeared tomorrow, you couldn't possibly seem ungrateful. You have
been a good friend and a good lover. I was scared furless by what I was
getting into when I first started being your lover. It was a
responsibility I didn't want at all. But I knew what I was getting into.
I never expected it to last past Decant."

"We don't have much in common, do we?"

"No," she agreed. "But you don't have much in common with Pendorians of
any species. You had to make contact with Pendorians somehow, and I
could be that contact as well as anyone, I suppose. I'm just glad I
didn't leave you in Shardik's clutches. I'm sure he would have done as
good a job as anyone could, but he's an institution, and Alpha is an
institution. I don't think you're ready to be institutionalized. I just
wanted you to see the real us." She kissed my muzzle. It felt very
tender. "I'm sad too. I don't want to lose you. But I have to accept
that very soon you'll move on to other things. I'll just have to know
that ours was a relationship well-loved."

I sighed and kissed her back. She giggled. "What?" I asked.

"I've heard it said that end-of-relationship sex is always the best.
Want to find out?"

"I would love to," I said, my hormones speaking for me. I kissed her
cheek again, feeling the ruffle of her whiskers against my fur as my
guss bent upward and hovered over her, giving me a feel for the entire
length of her body, so differently shaped from my own. I still wondered
what it was about her that I liked so much. Aside from the friendliness
in her voice and the tightness between her legs, we had absolutely
nothing at all in common.

But like her I did, and my heart raced as her hands found their way down
my torso. I always wondered about that little gesture from her. It was
clearly something intended for those of her own species. It didn't do a
thing for me, but I understood what she meant by it and appreciated it.
She kissed my cheeks and my throat, taking command as she always did.
She liked to be the one in charge. I didn't object. I felt her body ease
up against mine, her warmth and strength up against me. I was getting
hard already. I wanted her. I could feel the lust radiating off of her
with my guss.

She changed her position and took my cock into her mouth. "Too fast," I
gasped. She ignored me, and the incredibly powerful sensations seized up
within me, making me claw at her bed as gobbled the length of it down
into her muzzle. "Oh, fuck, Kashkah," I groaned. "Please..."

She sucked me down hard, leaving me to twist myself about on the bed,
not sure if I wanted to escape what she was doing to me or demand more
of it. All I knew was that it was good, it was too much, and if she kept
that up I was going to come for too soon for my own happiness. I let her
keep going anyway, enjoying every lick.

But then she pulled away, leaving me there, my cock chilling in the cool
air, a little driplet of saliva cascading down her chin, to look at me.
I growled, and she growled right back. I pounced on her. We'd done this
before. She liked teasing me. I liked it when she did because it meant
she didn't think of me as fragile. We went falling across the bed until
she was face-down, her ass in the air. I positioned myself there between
her legs and found my way into her cunt. Even as the head of my cock
slid up her hot channel she clamped down with the muscles in her belly
and held on. "Urgh!" I remembered saying. She pushed back, forcing my
too-hard erection up into her tight passageway, pushing and grunting
until the two of us were attached, completely, docked together like
animals. I took two deep breaths and then began to withdraw, a silent
snarl written on my lips as I tried to tamp down the overpowered
pleasure coming from between my legs. She arched her back, pushing me
up, and I got up on all fours and began fucking her for all I was worth.

It was her turn to claw at the bedsheets, to gnaw at the mattress, as I
fucked her sweet, friendly body. She was so strong, her body thrashing
as she came. I lost control somewhere in there, my hips thrusting with a
mind of their own, my cock burrowing deeper and deeper into her willing
body. I couldn't hold back. I couldn't go on. With a satisfied roar I
let loose inside her, coming so hard that for a moment all I saw was a
bright, white, furred light, as if my lover were glowing.

It took me longer than usual to recover. I felt dizzy, which was weird,
and tired, which was annoying. I don't usually get dizzy. "Maybe you're
right," I said as I collapsed next to her.

She turned and grinned. "About what?"

"About breaking up sex being better than normal." I kissed her. "But
let's not break up."

"Let's not get too hurt if we do," she replied. "I'm not looking forward
to Yestar and Decant, Sandahl. You are. You should. If you come back and
visit from time to time, that would be wonderful. But the whole reason
that you're with me will be blown away when there are Ritans in the
world." She touched my cheek gently again. "I will miss you. I do--" She
looked away. "I do love you. But that's not the only thing life is
about."

"I understand. I think I do. I guess it just bothers me to know that you
accept it so easily."

"It's not easy. It's realistic. It's not the right thing, it's the
necessary thing. Sometimes they aren't the same thing. Your people will
need you. You will need them. For me to hold on to you is selfish."

I sighed and cuddled up against her. "Kashkah?" I whispered.

"Don't say it just because we fucked," she said.

"I'm not. I don't think I am. I love you. And... thanks. For being
right."

Her arms tightened around my shoulders. "I'm a cop. It's my job to
protect people. Sometimes even from themselves. Or myself." Her muzzle
brushed against mine. "I love you too, Sandahl."

----------------------
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik 
and Related Tales.

The entire archive of stories can be found at:
http://www.pendorwright.com/journals

Copyright 2003 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.
Distributed under the Creative Commons License BY-ND-NC/1.0
Some Rights Reserved. 

Elf's latest stories are available in paperback!  Buy 
the genderbending novel _Sterlings_, available
now from http://stores.lulu.com/elfsternberg

--

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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