“I do.”
“I will give you all the sex you want. But there is a risk that you will fall in love with me, unless you can do it without emotional commitment. Then you will lose. As with the holddown.”
Shep laughed without humor. “I think I have already lost.”
“No. You are not in love with me, nor I with you. You are in lust, and when the sheep breed, I will be too.”
“Lust, but not love? There is a significant distinction, but I don’t think my heart has honored it. You are the most remarkable woman I have encountered, Elen, on any planet, and I wish I could be with you always.”
“You can make that distinction by satisfying your lust. Then that will no longer deceive your heart. I offer you that. But the risk is that by the time the distinction is clear, you will indeed love me. Then you will want to marry me.”
“And I can’t do that.” He smacked his fist into the mattress. “Damn!”
“You can do it.”
“And then leave you here, in effect a widow, when I exchange back to Earth? Leaving you with the lout? I would not do that to you, Elen.”
“You would not have to leave me.”
Shep gazed at her partly in bafflement, partly in hope. “You have something in mind?”
“I do. But this requires a commitment beyond what you may wish to make.”
“Spell it out.”
“Exchanges such as the one you made are rare. There needs to be special reason, and the participants need to be highly qualified.”
“Yes. I was the only student in my class selected this term, because I am training for planetary management.”
“Which means you are the smartest and best connected person in your class.”
“Yes. Also most committed. I worked hard to earn my place.” Shep smiled. “Then it seemed it was being thrown away watching sheep. How little I knew!”
“I am also the smartest and most committed person in my class,” she said. “I long to visit Earth and learn more of it first hand. But I am not well connected. No colony native is.”
“True. Almost by definition, colonists are secondary citizens. I have never heard of a colonist achieving an exchange as a primary figure. Only as a secondary one, like my present host.”
“There is an exception. The spouse of an Earth exchangee can qualify.”
“Well, yes, so that married couples can go together. If I were married, my wife might have been able to come here with me. We’d both be in foreign bodies, but our relationship would continue.”
“I believe there is an obscurity in that regulation. It does not say the spouse has to be a resident of Earth.”
Shep laughed. “Well, it doesn’t have to. How can it be otherwise?”
Elen merely gazed at him.
Then it dawned. “That’s why you want to marry me! Because I am of Earth. So you can exchange to Earth!”
“That is why,” she agreed.
“You have been playing up to me to make me amenable to such an arrangement.”
“Yes.”
“Not because you really liked me for myself.”
“True.”
“And now you are offering me endless sex, as an inducement.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You can have the sex without marrying me. Then you can leave me.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it will work out long-term only if you love me.”
Shep shook his head. “I don’t know whether you are being supremely generous, or supremely cynical.”
“Both. The sheep gave me my chance. What I make of it is up to me. But I do not want to take you by subterfuge. You must understand and accept it.”
His head was spinning. “I’m not ready to digest this right now. I will need time to ponder.”
“Of course.”
“But I do have one question. You want my love, but you do not love me. Is that fair?”
“If you come to love me, I will allow myself to allow you.”
“Allow yourself?”
She nodded. “I am under siege. You possess the qualities I want in a mate, and you are of Earth. My body and mind want to love you, and will do so if I yield. But to love you only to have you leave me would be heartbreak. I must avoid that, just as you had to avoid being taken by the vamps.”
The parallel moved him profoundly. She could love him! “You haven’t even met my real body on Earth!”
“Women are more practical than men about these things. I can accept your body as the host of the man I love.”
“Whereas you use your pretty body to besot my foolish male nature.”
“I would not put it that way, but yes.”
Shep sighed. “It is true. Men are fascinated by appearance. I am typical in that respect.”
“And I am typical in judging by your position and mind.”
“So our cards are now on the table. You want to marry me for my position. I want your body for sex. Probably most marriages are of that nature. But I think I am not ready to make any kind of decision at this moment. You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Shep, there is no need. Take my body now, without commitment, as long as you recognize the risk. There is no need to torment yourself.”
He considered, then reversed the call. “Do you want sex with me?”
“Yes.”
“Because I wouldn’t care to force it on you.” Then he did a double-take. “You said yes?”
“Yes. I get pleasure in it too. I hated holding off to win the holddown, and to shield you from the vamps, but did it because it was necessary. Now it is not.”
“You actually want to have sex with me, without commitment?”
“Yes, now that we understand one another.”
“You like sex for its own sake?”
“Yes, if I respect the man. My interest may not be as extreme as yours, but I certainly would enjoy doing it with you.”
He knew she was not one to deceive him in a matter like this. “Then I take you at your word. Let’s do it.”
She moved into him, and kissed him ardently. Her hand found his member and guided it into her. Then he was thrusting and spurting with abandon, and she seemed to be climaxing with him.
“Oh, Elen,” he said as he ebbed. “I have longed to do that since I first saw you.”
“I, too.”
He had ejaculated, but his excitement was unabated. “Let’s do it again.”
“Can you?”
“Let’s find out. Maybe if you help me.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed him passionately. Her responsive vagina kneaded his member. Soon a second orgasm formed in the distance, expanded, and erupted in a slow and long culmination.
It finally faded, and they fell apart. “I never did that before,” he said. “I mean not so rapidly.”
“I think some of the pheromones remain, facilitating it.”
“That must be it. Oh, Elen--”
“Do not speak of commitment. Wait until you have properly considered. We are merely relaxing now.”
“Merely relaxing,” he agreed. “Stop me when you get tired of it.” He started kissing her, first her mouth, then her face, neck, and breasts. He paused.
“I am not tired,” she murmured. Then she started kissing him, starting innocently, proceeding to un-innocently. He loved it.
Soon they were connected again, for a third mutual orgasm. Then they drifted off to sleep, holding hands.
It was quite a night. By the time dawn arrived, they were both exhausted. So they slept on into the day.
Meanwhile his mind was going. Could he actually marry her, and qualify her for exchange as his spouse? Or would it turn out to be too complicated? For one thing, this would be the first interplanetary marriage, with the groom not even present physically, only in a native host. Earth authorities might not consider that to be valid. Whose law would govern: Earth’s or Colony Jones’s? What would
be the citizenship of the baby?
“You are troubled,” Elen said. “Do you wish to tell me?”
He told her.
“I think that if we do it, we shall need a lawyer,” she said. “This is further reason for caution.”
“My father has connections. He can get a lawyer. But it’s not just that. You will need a host on Earth. I’m not sure what woman will want to exchange into a pregnant native woman.”
“I must be pregnant. Otherwise the lout’s family and mine will block the marriage. My baby will represent proof of consummation.”
“Could we return and broach the matter, and go for the baby if that turns out to be necessary?”
“No. They will isolate us from each other to prevent any such contamination.”
“Contamination!”
She looked him in the eye. “Shep, they will oppose this union. There is prejudice on either side against the other, and against Earth. Only a fait accompli will prevent that interference.”
“So we have to be truly committed before we return.”
“Yes. To marry me will complicate your life.”
Yet his love was burgeoning. “Elen, I think I am ready to--”
She cut him off with a kiss, and followed immediately with sex, preventing him from saying it. She wanted no hasty decision. But he doubted that made a difference.
Two days later, after more sex than he had ever imagined, she was ready to talk. “The sheep are about to mate. They have settled on their partners.”
“That means a telepathic barrage of sexual urgency?” he asked.
“Yes. We will be having almost continuous sex. So now we must decide whether I should allow it to take. Do you wish to marry me?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation.
“That was a question, not a proposal.”
“And an answer, not an acceptance.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“And you wish me to have my baby, though it will not be of your genetic stock?”
“Yes.”
“I can not persuade you otherwise?”
“Never. I love you.”
She sighed. “I have tried.”
“One caveat,” he said.
She was startled. “This is conditional?”
“Yes.”
He could see her brace herself. “What is your condition?”
“That you allow yourself to love me.”
She melted. “I will.”
“Then let’s make it formal.” He took a deep breath. “Elen Elf of Colony Planet Jones, will you marry me?”
“Shep Shepherd of Earth, I will marry you.”
Then they kissed. They did not have sex at this time, knowing that more than enough would soon be coming. They merely embraced and slept, resting before the siege.
It came a few hours later. Deep, rutting, sexual urgency overwhelmed them both, as the telepathy of the conjoining rams and ewes intensified to the point of no denial. They yielded to it, letting it take them on waves of desire so intense that it became painful rather than pleasurable. To resist it would have been agony.
Indeed, when the first wave abated with temporary satiation, they got up and walked around the cabin, and saw Vulture and Python in sad state. They had had no partners, so had had to suffer through it.
Within an hour the second wave came, and they clutched each other on the bed, locked in seemingly endless orgasm. Its passing left them gasping.
“We have two weeks of this?” Shep asked.
“Two weeks,” she agreed wearily. “Unless--”
“Unless?”
“Unless I am already pregnant. When my body knows it, the sexual urgency will abate, because I have been bred.”
“And what of my body?”
She smiled. “It will continue. But do not be alarmed; I will continue to accommodate you.”
“Even when your desire has cooled?”
“Yes. I do not want you to suffer.”
“Thank you,” he said wryly.
And by the end of the day she knew. “It has taken. I have been bred.”
“You’re pregnant!”
“Yes. I am with child.” She smiled. “I hope you do not change your mind now.”
“Never,” he said, kissing her. But he feared the obstacles they would have to navigate.
Chapter 7:
Return
Two weeks passed, and the ewes were finally bred. The mating urge, satisfied, faded. It was time to return to their normal pasture.
Python, Vulture, and Shep were bedraggled, albeit it for different reasons. Elen was fine. They went to the boat.
But the sheep were not there. So Shep and Elen went looking for them. They were placidly grazing. The rams were not far off, watching them. They would move in if there were any sign of interest by a ewe. In fact every so often one would approach, only to be bleated off. The ewes had no further use for them. So why were they remaining here, instead of traveling? They were well fed and ready.
There was a rumble, then an explosion. Shep saw a column of smoke rise into the air. A small volcano was erupting, from the direction they had come.
Now the sheep walked toward the boat. They must have been waiting for that. Maybe it would have been dangerous, had they been near when it happened.
But when they assembled by the boat, Shep got another feeling. “We can’t go back the way we came here,” he said.
“I know it,” Elen agreed. “That route has been blocked. That’s bad, because it was the only route I really knew. Now we’ll have to travel cross-country.”
As if they had been on a clear highway coming in. Shep was not comfortable with this. But what alternative was there? “We’ll cross the water, then circle the lake until the sheep indicate the way to go.”
They boarded, all ten of them. Shep and Elen stripped, and took their places at the paddle pedals and the seat before it. He fitted himself into her, knowing how much he would need her shielding. Sexually sated or not, he would respond to the massive pheromone assault of the vamps.
“The song!” she said, remembering. “We’ll sing it again.”
“Yes! But let’s hold our places here, just in case.”
“Of course.” She clasped him tightly, outside and inside.
He started pedaling, and the craft moved out into the lake.
The vampires came. “Come join us, virile man!” Lova called. “We hunger for your penetration!” She hovered, spreading her arms and legs wide to display her breasts and open cleft. “We have so much to offer!”
“I am already committed,” he called back.
Then they swarmed in close. Shep barely got his mouth on Elen’s before a vamp could kiss him. Their hands and bodies touched him everywhere as they pressed their breasts against the back of his head and neck, and stroked his buttocks and scrotum. The pheromones formed a dense cloud. His member, well worn from the breeding cycle, surged into rigidity, filling Elen’s channel. It wanted to burst through her and reach a vamp so it could be endlessly potent.
He kept pedaling, and the boat kept moving.
The vamps started kissing him everywhere they could reach, especially his scrotum and anus. Each kiss excited another section of his flesh.
He pedaled.
The urgency continued to build. When he feared it would overwhelm him and make him wrench free of Elen’s closure, he lifted his head and started singing. “He who is noble. . .”
“Excrement!” Lova swore. “The beast remembered!”
Elen joined him. “. . . pure and simple hearted.”
The vamps definitely were not that. They retreated, hurling vile expletives. They were furious, but could not handle the stirring music, or the spirit it evoked.
They made it across and landed at the proper site. The sheep walked off the boat, followed by Vulture and Python. Only then did Shep and Elen disembark, still closely connected as he carried her. Once they were safely on land, beyond the reach of the
vamps, they were ready to separate.
“Unless you wish to complete it now,” Elen murmured.
The pheromones still surrounded them. “Actually I do, to make up for all the prior frustration. Do you mind?”
She squeezed him, just so, and he jetted powerfully into her. That established her dominance over the vampires, because now he was able to climax instead of remaining rigid while his blood was sucked.
There was a chorus of expletives from the vamps still hovering over the water. His climax was his parting shot, leaving them angrily frustrated.
The sheep had waited patiently while Shep and Elen finished their business. Then the sheep walked beside the lake, avoiding the way the party had come. About a quarter of the way around they struck out across a barren landscape. It might once have been a grass field, but now it was desiccated stubble.
Vulture flew up, circled, and returned to earth, troubled. Shep saw smoke ahead, and smelled burning. “Uh-oh. I think we have a grass fire. We don’t want to get caught in that.” Python seemed nervous too.
But the sheep were marching right toward it, unconcerned.
“Trust the sheep,” Elen said.
“Of course. But sometimes I wish they could speak our language, and tell us what’s coming.”
“They communicate well enough. They don’t need our kind of speech.”
The fire loomed closer, being blown directly toward them. Gusts of wind brought the smoke down to swirl around them, making them cough.
Python slithered rapidly ahead. Vulture followed, half flying. There was something.
Then they saw it: the opening of a cave. Shelter from the fire! Provided it didn’t harbor some predator waiting for prey to be driven into its lair. But of course the sheep would not blithely walk into that.
It turned out to be a series of caves, linked by tunnel-like apertures as if a river had once coursed through it. Now it was bone dry. The sheep formed a file and walked on into it, leaving the light of day behind.
“Trust the sheep,” Shep echoed. They followed closely after the last ewe, and Python and Vulture brought up the rear. The sounds of the sheep’s hooves told them where to go.
An hour later they emerged from the caves and found a completely different landscape. Green grass bordered a slow stream, and there were a few fruiting trees. It was a comparative paradise, a fine place to spend the night.