Maryam Read online

  She was the last Kalquo­rian fe­male to have been born alive and healthy. And fer­tile. The child she car­ried was a boy, but it was pos­si­ble she might have a girl in the fu­ture. An­other healthy fe­male, a new ver­sion of her­self.

  Twenty years since she was born. What were the chances an­other girl, un­af­fected by the ge­netic dam­age from the virus, could ex­ist for the Kalquo­rian peo­ple?

  Off the point. Fo­cus. “Your be­hav­ior is un­ac­cept­able. Putting our child at risk is un­ac­cept­able.”

  “What risk? I took a trip that hun­dreds go on ev­ery day. I went shop­ping. I ate meals in restau­rants. I saw shows.”

  “Did you take your vi­ta­mins? Eat food that wasn’t garbage?” Pana brought in a plate boast­ing healthy por­tions of lean meat, leafy veg­eta­bles, and fruit. He set it on the ta­ble be­fore Briel and re­turned to the kitchen, tak­ing the other tray she’d picked at, his lip curled in dis­gust at the un­whole­some fare.

  She yelled af­ter him, “I ate what I wanted, and I en­joyed it. Maryam claims her crav­ings were far worse than mine, and she in­dulged. She says most women she knew did so too, with no ill ef­fects.”

  Pana re­turned with a cup of wa­ter that Kels sus­pected was vi­ta­min-in­fused. “Matara Maryam is an Earther. She can drop dozens of babes ef­fort­lessly.”

  “Why don’t you tell her that when you see her again? Be ready to duck when you do.”

  Kels re­turned to the most sig­nif­i­cant con­cern with dogged de­ter­mi­na­tion. “The point is, you’re a Kalquo­rian woman. Your preg­nancy is not only rare, but pre­cious to our peo­ple. You can’t be­have like an Earther or an Adraf or a Plasian.”

  “No, I’m to be set on a shelf to col­lect dust. Un­less you plan to put me un­der glass as well. Mother of All for­bid I get smudged by a nor­mal life.” Her eyes bright­ened with tears that clawed at Kels’s heart.

  “Don’t cry. No harm was done.” Too late, he tried to de-es­ca­late the sit­u­a­tion.

  “No harm? Re­ally? ‘Don’t go there, Briel, it’s too dan­ger­ous. Don’t eat that, Briel, it’s not healthy. Don’t en­joy your life or do any­thing but sit qui­etly, be­cause all that mat­ters is that you shove out a child for Kalquor.’ I might as well be in a prison, do­ing noth­ing but breed­ing ba­bies.”

  She jumped to her feet and stormed out of the room. The click of the lock to what Kels sup­posed was the sleep­ing quar­ters was loud in her wake.

  As Kels met his male clan­mates’ gazes he saw his frus­tra­tions and con­fu­sion re­flected back at him.

  And guilt. Don’t for­get the guilt.

  Chap­ter Two

  Maryam paused in her knit­ting to tuck an er­rant red curl be­hind her ear. She hummed un­der her breath, con­tented. She snug­gled in her fa­vorite quilt while work­ing to fin­ish the blan­ket for Briel’s bun­dle of joy. Her legs curled un­der her on the lounger that also served as her bed. A fra­grant cup of herbal tea bal­anced on the cor­ner of the ta­ble be­fore her, a lean­ing pile of fab­rics threat­en­ing to top­ple over on it.

  The sta­tion’s own­ers, the Solns, were tiny crea­tures. It was re­flected on Pelk Space Sta­tion, which served as a stop for plea­sure-cruise voy­agers, as well as a mul­ti­cul­tural cen­ter. Maryam’s quar­ters, lo­cated on the sta­tion’s res­i­den­tial level, were minis­cule and nowhere as lux­u­ri­ous as the tem­po­rary apart­ments on the guest lev­els, two floors up.

  Maryam’s apart­ment had felt claus­tro­pho­bic un­til she’d got­ten used to them. Now she re­garded her two rooms and bath as a cozy re­treat. It was made co­zier still by knit­ting and sewing projects in var­i­ous stages of com­ple­tion, piled on most sur­faces and the floor too.

  Briel had vis­ited only once. Af­ter watch­ing Maryam haul bibs, rompers, sleep­ers, and pil­lows off one of the two chairs so her vis­i­tor could sit, she’d de­clared they’d meet in her guest quar­ters from then on.

  As Maryam worked to fin­ish Briel’s present, she won­dered how her friend’s re­union with her clan was go­ing. The young Kalquo­rian of­ten op­er­ated at full-tilt en­ergy, her per­son­al­ity ex­citable and reck­less. For­tu­nately, her clan­mates ap­peared as if they could han­dle Briel’s live­li­ness. Maybe Maryam had judged them too swiftly con­cern­ing the age dis­par­ity. It was hard not to judge men as a rule, how­ever. Not when one was a woman com­ing from pa­tri­ar­chal Earth.

  Plenty of older men from her home planet mar­ried younger fe­males. They of­ten tossed aside the wives who’d aged with them for the chance to wed a girl twenty or thirty years their ju­niors. Younger men weren’t in­no­cent of dis­card­ing their wives ei­ther, not when they found women who played more into their im­ages of what a mar­riage part­ner should be.

  Women couldn’t play such games on Earth. Not if they wanted to live.

  It was fas­ci­nat­ing to Maryam how Briel seemed to have as few choices. She was an en­dan­gered species af­ter all, a Kalquo­rian woman who could have chil­dren. She should have been able to have her pick of men. Yet her par­ents had cho­sen for her, de­ter­mined to find clan­mates with rank and power. No doubt they’d done so out of love for their daugh­ter, but too much shel­ter­ing had left Briel des­per­ate to stretch her wings. Now her men paid the price. With all those mus­cles, they’d not been able to keep Briel from fly­ing off to a for­eign space sta­tion.

  Ah yes, those mus­cles. As hard as Maryam had tried to not gawk, the men had been an eye­ful. Kels, built for power, his body a de­li­cious menu of strength and sinew. The smaller but no less im­pres­sive Der­gan, a taut spec­i­men of con­tained force. Lovely Pana, a vi­sion of grace­ful mas­culin­ity, solid but lithe. All wear­ing those form­suits, leav­ing very lit­tle to the imag­i­na­tion.

  “Good heav­ens, stop perv­ing on your friend’s hus­bands,” she re­buked her­self. “Not nice, Maryam. Not nice at all.”

  Not to men­tion how she was prov­ing Earth’s gov­ern­ment right about how sin­ful women were. On the heels of that thought, she scowled at the no­tion she was be­ing im­moral. Earth’s re­stric­tions on fe­males were bull­shit. Leav­ing her home planet and the ridicu­lous but se­vere pseudo-re­li­gious laws had been the best move she’d ever made.

  Thank heav­ens that Earther pa­trol ship had left the day be­fore. Even in Soln space, Earth au­thor­i­ties could haul her in for ques­tion­ing—at the very least. She’d been on the re­ceiv­ing end of glares from the pa­trol ves­sel’s crew merely for lunch­ing in pub­lic with Briel.

  “Screw Earth. Those jerks would have fallen all over them­selves if Briel had given them a sec­ond glance, and no one would have said a word about it.”

  Maryam sighed over the dou­ble stan­dard. Women on her home planet had it so much worse than the men. The longer she stayed away, the more cer­tain she was that she wouldn’t re­turn. There was noth­ing for her there ex­cept mem­o­ries of loss and dis­ap­point­ment, in­clud­ing an ex-hus­band who didn’t mind parad­ing the suc­cess of his sec­ond mar­riage to a woman who of­fered all Maryam couldn’t.

  Her ru­mi­na­tions were de­press­ing. Maryam chased them away, con­cen­trat­ing on her knit­ting. The click of the nee­dles soothed her. She be­gan hum­ming again.

  She wasn’t aware when her mind be­gan to stray to­ward Clan Kels once more. Sev­eral min­utes had passed when she re­al­ized she was ogling them in her head. Her panties were damp.

  Stop it. Friends don’t lust af­ter friends’ men. No more.

  Poor Briel. Lucky in so many re­spects, but she’d con­fessed she couldn’t ap­pre­ci­ate it. One mo­ment the Kalquo­rian com­plained about her clan, only to com­pli­ment them in the next breath. She’d been frank in her ad­mis­sion that she didn’t loved them, but she re­spected her clan­mates. Liked them, per­haps with a smidge of af­fec­tion.

  At least the in­ti­mate s
ide of the re­la­tion­ship worked. Briel had clas­si­fied it as “mag­nif­i­cent”. She claimed to cli­max sev­eral times with each en­counter.

  “Sev­eral times,” Maryam mar­veled, try­ing to imag­ine it. Her ex-hus­band hadn’t been bad in bed. At least not in the be­gin­ning, when they hadn’t been slaves to Maryam’s cy­cle in the hopes of a suc­cess­ful preg­nancy. He’d sat­is­fied Maryam more of­ten than not, but she’d never reached more than a sin­gle or­gasm per romp. She won­dered if Briel’s good for­tune had to do with Kalquo­rian phys­i­ol­ogy, rather than mas­ter­ful tech­nique.

  Cop­ing with three men must be ex­haust­ing. Maryam won­dered how Briel man­aged it. She’d not pos­sessed the brazen­ness to ask.

  “If I had three of them and they looked like that, I’d find a way. Though the two naughty parts per guy would be over­do­ing it.”

  Two cocks, stan­dard equip­ment for the Kalquo­rian male. Briel had in­sisted the anal stim­u­la­tion was as­tound­ing. “If it hurts and you don’t want it to, then he’s do­ing it wrong,” she’d chor­tled as Maryam had flushed a bril­liant scar­let.

  Scary…but worth a try. Maryam gig­gled at her out­ra­geous in­cli­na­tions. Yes, it was for­tu­nate no Earther cap­tain or se­cu­rity of­fi­cer was around to in­ter­ro­gate her. She’d be in trou­ble for sure.

  “They’re just jeal­ous they don’t have as much to of­fer.”

  Maryam snick­ered again, but on the heels of her po­ten­tially il­le­gal ru­mi­na­tions, she re­called how lit­tle she had to of­fer any man. That brought the hi­lar­ity to an abrupt halt.

  With­out con­scious ef­fort, she glanced at the sole shelf that didn’t have an on­go­ing project or five lit­ter­ing its sur­face. In­stead, a lone teddy bear, its golden fur fluffy and invit­ing a cud­dle, sat alone. Its brown glass eyes re­garded her somberly de­spite its hand-stitched smile.

  Sad­ness struck, over­whelm­ing as it some­times was. Af­ter eigh­teen years, that first bro­ken dream con­tin­ued to hurt. The many that came af­ter added to it, rather than ex­ist­ing on their own.

  Be­fore the pain could en­gulf her, Maryam forced her gaze away from the bear. She bent to her knit­ting, pre­tend­ing not to no­tice the tears fall­ing on the baby blan­ket.

  * * * *

  Kels sat alone on the lounger in the suite’s com­mon room, rub­bing his tem­ples to soothe the never-end­ing pound­ing headache. What was he to do about his Matara?

  Ap­par­ently, it was his ques­tion alone to wres­tle with. Der­gan had left shortly af­ter Briel locked her­self in the sleep­ing room. No doubt the Nobek was roam­ing the sta­tion in a tem­per, per­haps pick­ing a fight with some Tra­goom.

  For a change, Pana wasn’t fuss­ing over Briel. He’d gone out to buy food to last them un­til they headed home to Kalquor. For­tu­nately, a de­stroyer was in dock that would re­turn to the planet in a cou­ple of days, so the clan wouldn’t be forced to wait a week for the next com­mer­cial trans­port. Clan Kels could have eas­ily af­forded to lease a pri­vate ves­sel, but shut­tles were slower than com­mer­cial trans­ports, and time had been of the essence when it came to reach­ing Briel and re­turn­ing her to Kalquor.

  Kels had to find a way to keep Briel from dash­ing off again. What could he of­fer to ease the wan­der­lust that drove her? Not for the first time, he thought her par­ents had done them all a great dis­ser­vice by con­fin­ing her to their farm un­til she’d clanned.

  He could sym­pa­thize with his Matara’s wish to ex­pe­ri­ence the ad­ven­tures she’d been de­nied. If only Briel would calm down un­til the baby was born and at a rea­son­able age to travel. If she’d ac­cept the sit­u­a­tion and cul­ti­vate some pa­tience, they’d be a much hap­pier clan.

  De­spite his low spir­its, Kels re­mained con­vinced life would im­prove once the baby was born. Briel’s pri­or­i­ties would fall into place, and she’d set­tle down into moth­er­hood. Pana would stop smoth­er­ing her. Der­gan wouldn’t feel the need to stalk her ev­ery move. Kels could sleep through an en­tire night, free of wor­ries.

  They might even fall in love with their lifebringer. She might fall in love with them. The trick was how to keep ev­ery­one happy—and safe at home—un­til then.

  The hiss of the sleep­ing room’s door open­ing and the rus­tle of silky skirts woke Kels from his wor­ries. He lifted his head as Briel en­tered, her con­trite ex­pres­sion fa­mil­iar. She paused, and they stared across the space at each other.

  “Here we are again,” she said, her voice quiet.

  “Again.”

  His heart ached as he looked at her. Young. Beau­ti­ful. The small­est bump that in­di­cated his clan’s child grew within her, push­ing at her lace gown. Kels couldn’t help but ad­mire her, but it was sur­face ap­pre­ci­a­tion only. He felt af­fec­tion for Briel, but no more.

  He wished he could ap­pre­ci­ate her for the won­der­ful woman she was. Un­for­tu­nately, their rough edges kept rub­bing each other wrong. A yawn­ing gulf sep­a­rated them, and Kels couldn’t imag­ine how to bridge it.

  Briel’s lips twitched in a sym­pa­thetic smile, as if she knew all that ran through his head. She ap­proached him and knelt at his feet.

  Kels knew where this was go­ing—where it al­ways went. She meant it as an apol­ogy, and her heart was in it. They’d en­joy each other for the next few min­utes. They’d get along for a cou­ple of weeks. Maybe a month. Yet their ex­pec­ta­tions of each other would even­tu­ally leave their barely-there re­la­tion­ship com­ing up short yet again. It was in­evitable.

  His body re­sponded to the prom­ise of what would soon hap­pen any­way. Heat trick­led into his groin. As tire­some as the dance had be­come, his li­bido was al­ways ready to for­give.

  “You’re a good man. A won­der­ful Dramok. Don’t doubt I rec­og­nize it.” The open­ing lines in the fa­mil­iar scene.

  “Thank you.” He tried to add “my Matara”, but the words stuck in his throat. Kels rushed to cover the awk­ward­ness by adding, “I’ve been think­ing about what you said ear­lier. I just want what’s best.”

  “To keep me safe and the un­born healthy.” Briel sighed, re­gret fur­row­ing her brow. “The prob­lem is, I don’t want to be safe. Did you, when you were my age?”

  Kels man­aged a rue­ful chuckle. “You should be ex­plor­ing moons and space sta­tions and hav­ing fun with your friends. Not stuck at home with clan­mates far older than you.”

  She traced the crease in his pants, close to the grow­ing bulge at his crotch. “I’m sorry you think I feel that way about you. My par­ents chose well when it came to an es­tab­lished clan with rank and wealth. Though years sep­a­rate us, you’re in the prime of life. I have noth­ing to com­plain about.”

  His cocks were in agree­ment, swelling proudly to show just how in the “prime of life” they were. Yet phys­i­cal vigor had lit­tle to do with their prob­lems. Men with im­por­tant jobs and scant time to pur­sue fri­vol­ity had no busi­ness clan­ning a young woman ea­ger to ex­plore vis­tas she’d only read about.

  Yet he and his clan­mates had agreed. Briel had agreed too. All they could do at this point was their best, and hope it would be enough in the end.

  In­spi­ra­tion struck, and Kels said, “We’ll take an ex­tended va­ca­tion a few weeks af­ter the baby is born. We’ll bring along some­one to over­see the child’s care while we run around to your heart’s de­light.”

  Briel failed to brighten as much as he’d be­lieved she would. “What about your sched­ules? You’re im­por­tant in your fields.”

  “But not in­dis­pens­able. For you, the mother of our child, we’ll make it hap­pen.”

  She gave him a real smile, which never failed to charm him. Then she rubbed her cheek against his dis­tended crotch, gaz­ing up at him as mis­chief bloomed. “Thank you, my Dramok. Your gen­eros­ity in­spires me to
make amends. What does my hand­some, un­der­stand­ing clan­mate ask of his Matara?” She kissed his crotch, leav­ing a tan­ta­liz­ing blot of lip­stick shin­ing on the black fab­ric of his form­suit.

  Her of­fer to let him take the lead was a gift. Kalquo­rian women were as de­mand­ing—of­ten more so—than Dramoks when it came to sex. Briel didn’t grant con­trol eas­ily. She pre­ferred to seize what she wanted, which of­ten led to ex­cit­ing strug­gles for dom­i­nance.

  Kels cleared his throat, touched by the ges­ture. “Con­sid­er­ing the po­si­tion you’re in, you’ve al­ready guessed what I’d en­joy most right now.”

  Briel smirked. Her know­ing gaze filled him with need, and his twin cocks pressed ur­gently against the seam of his pants.

  Quickly, but with the ut­most grace, she tossed her gown off. He groaned to see her mag­nif­i­cence—long, mus­cled arms and legs, proud breasts, the sub­tle but gor­geous round­ness of her ab­domen, her bare pussy gleam­ing with wet­ness. Lick­ing her lips while watch­ing his face, Briel pulled apart the re­seal­able seam of his pants, al­low­ing his shafts to jolt up­right, ea­ger for at­ten­tion.

  Kels groaned again as she sucked the throb­bing lengths in turn. What­ever prob­lems they had in their re­la­tion­ship, sex had never been among them. Glad to be dis­tracted, he closed his eyes and let sen­sa­tion mask his wor­ries for a short while.

  The gor­geous pull of her lips, the de­li­cious lap­ping of her tongue—Briel had learned what en­thralled Kels. He dove into the plea­sure she gave, all con­cerns sub­merged in a tsunami of lust.

  Ex­pe­ri­ence had taught Kels how Briel looked when she doted on him in such a way. The black hair fram­ing her lovely face, plump lips en­cir­cling one, then the other sex, her head bob­bing over his groin. His eyes were closed, but he could call the vi­sion to mind. He could pic­ture it bet­ter than the real Briel, be­cause he could imag­ine her star­ing up at him with love. He could pre­tend he loved her too, in these sweet, mag­i­cal mo­ments.