Remiel’s Fall From Grace

Zmeydros

Edited by

Tilquain & Sheera Castellar

Copyright © 2022 Zmeydros

All rights reserved.

To Sheera Castellar, a dear friend who helped me develop Remiel and his world before real life commitments pulled her away from the wonderful world of furry fiction. Glad to know you’re doing well out there and thanks again.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Secretskunk whose playful hacking of technology and culture provided inspiration for Cuber.

Thanks to Skrime for finding typos that had survived many edits. Her love of this series brings warmth to my heart.

I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks to Arkona Kothe, Navajo Demar, Tiliquain, Warialinth, and Xaziana Tenebris who are my $20 dollar patrons. I strive to deserve the money you're throwing at me.

And a huge thank you to all my Patrons for humoring me when I said I wanted to continue this story. I wouldn't be writing wacky sexy furry tales if it wasn't for your support. Every one of you rocks!

Description

Remiel has just boarded the transport that will take him from Trinity Stronghold to Earth only to find he's profoundly attracted to Ramda Uweko, its herm wolf hybrid captain.

No matter how hard Remiel tries to bury these feelings with doubt and self loathing, Ramda's kindness and charisma keep digging them up. Soon Remiel's running out of stamina while Ramda has just gotten started.

Will Remiel succeed in fending off a wolf determined to show him the ecstasy of knowing his true self only to remain ignorant and alone?

Sometimes the best option when being chased by a wolf is to stop running and just accept your fate.

Chapter 1

It had been silly of me to expect I'd get some relief from the Bible cult that was Trinity Stronghold before I made it to Earth. Even in the disembarkation section of Firmament Station, one could not escape the shiny sky-blue treatment that had been done to every wall and ceiling. No matter how many times they told me it resembled God's presence in the world, I still thought it was a color best used in moderation. It was making the coolest thing I'd likely do in my entire life feel like a farce.

Once I got on the ship at the far end of the long hallway in front of me, I'd do my best to never come back. No more offhand comments about how I should cut my long curly dirty-blonde hair. No more awkward, hour-long inquisitions when a family member caught me using a female avatar in a game. And no more God damn sky blue on everything!

Josiah was giving one of his speeches that consisted of a barely-coherent stream of lines stolen from Christian inspirational posters. A couple minutes later, however, he said something that piqued my interest.

"Now, y'all should know, Captain Uweko is an abomination to God, but none of you are to say that to her face or there will be consequences. Not only did her great grandfather found MiraManna Inc., but she's also been our most reliable transport to earth for the last ten years. You will treat her with the respect you'd treat any of your higher-ups."

"An abomination, what do you mean?" Hosanna asked.

How I knew her was nothing special; we were just two mid-level office gophers doing the bidding of people paid three times our salary. Her uniform was exactly like mine, except for the fact that hers had mauve panels of color amongst the pure white, while mine had dark blue panels. They looked like someone's wild concept art of Christians in space more than something someone should actually wear, and crosses were hidden at every intersection between the Picasso-like mosaic of white and colored panels.

"Captain Uweko has perverted the body God gave her by modding herself with animal traits," Josiah answered.

My heart started thumping in my chest. I'd never seen a hybrid in person. I had to meet Captain Uweko.

"So, she's a hybrid," Hosanna said.

"No, she is an abomination. Do not forget that pity for those who lose their way is also a form of respect. Pity shows strength." Josiah looked ten years younger as he spoke, his hundred-and-sixty-centimeter-tall frame brimming with confidence. I had a strong suspicion he'd been a preacher before he joined MiraManna. It was, sadly, very common.

I zoned out for a couple lines of his speech where he referenced random Bible verses, but then his frantic hand gestures caught my attention as if he was a snake charmer and I was the snake. Now he was spouting familiar, mildly disturbing Trinity Stronghold rhetoric I'd heard a thousand times.

"Pity is that burning hope in our hearts that lost souls will find the strength to reclaim their righteousness. It is a belief that all people can give up their sinful lives and come to God to be cleansed. All are equal under God. All have the potential to be saved." He looked us over with his light blue eyes. "Any other questions or comments?"

Everyone was silent because everyone had mentally checked out the moment he started ranting. It was his fifth sermon-like outburst since he'd gathered us up in the lobby.

"Good." His close-cropped brown-and-grey-dappled hair shook as he made impassioned gestures that could be mistaken for martial-arts moves. "As MiraManna Inc.'s head representative on your voyage to Earth, it is time for me to guide you down the path to our collective salvation. Prepare to board, believers!" He outstretched his hands toward the offensively-well-lit, long, sky-blue hallway ahead of us and then started pushing his luggage cart, taking the lead.

I groaned quietly as I went back to pushing my luggage cart. It squeaked, it swerved, and I had to fight it for every foot it traveled. And whenever I pushed off of my right foot, I squeezed water out of my sock, causing it to slosh around in my shoe. This morning had not gone well.

"You okay there, Remiel?" Hosanna asked, pulling her luggage cart up next to mine.

"Of course I'd get the only broken one. Story of my life," I said. Normally, I tried to smile and help everyone feel everything was okay, but I'd already run out of my daily allotment of fake smiles.

"Do you want to push my cart instead? You've probably pushed that one five kilometers. I'm sure I can handle pushing yours a few hundred meters." Her voice had this lilting quality that reminded me of the way a butterfly bounced on its way to a flower.

Scrounging around inside myself, I found one last fake smile. "I'll be okay."

"I'll just hang back with you so you don't feel like a slowpoke, then," she said.

"But I am a slowpoke. Everybody's nearly at the airlock," I said.

"Everyone knows it's not by choice," she said.

In a parallel universe Hosanna and I were probably a couple, but in this universe I had had too many bad experiences with complex, anxiety-inducing Christian courtship machinations. No one was supposed to have a sex drive, but everyone was supposed to make babies. I simply couldn't do the math.

Plus, I wasn't at all attractive and Hosanna's continued kindness could easily have been because she felt sorry for me.

As I got within fifty meters of the airlock, it opened and I saw a two-meter-tall wolf hybrid walk out. Then the janky front left wheel on my cart got stuck on a tiny seam in the floor.

As I tried to push it over the seam, the wheel thumped, squealed, and then cracked in two.

The cart lurched to the side. The forty-centimeter-long greenish gray suitcase that held my VR gaming rig slid off of the top and crashed to the hard ceramic floor.

Hosanna gasped in surprise as I winced, hoping nothing had gotten damaged.

"This day just gets better and better," I muttered under my breath as I grabbed the handle of another suitcase that was starting to slide off the stack.

Running up and leaning against my suitcases so they wouldn't fall, Hosanna yelled, "Hey! Can we get some help?"

I heard boots swiftly thumping on the floor and looked up to see a hundred and thirty kilograms of female wolf hybrid charging toward us. There was a lot of Captain Uweko and I was so lost in her curves that I nearly forgot what I was doing. She was wearing this revealing greenish gray captain's uniform that went perfectly with the dark and light striations of the purplish-red fur that covered her form. Fur that was lighter on the front, and darker on her sides and back.

She didn't just have one set of cleavage. Below her round uppermost pair of breasts was a second smaller pair and below them was the faint outline of a third pair. When my eyes moved lower, I froze worse than my broken cart. There was an obvious bulge in her crotch.

I bit my lip as heat rushed to every centimeter of my skin. Had I gone too long without getting off or something? I felt like I'd been dipped in warm honey.

Grabbing a suitcase that was threatening to fall off, Captain Uweko said, "Let's get all these bags off the cart." She set the bag down and then caught the handles of two more and lifted them as if they were empty. Just how strong was she?

As she set those bags down and Hosanna started struggling to pull a crate off of my cart, I realized I'd just been standing there.

When I shook myself out of my stupor and started helping them, Captain Uweko turned around and said, "Luke, your quarters are closest to the airlock; I want you to bring your cart out to us after you've unloaded it."

Luke's red hair was cut so short it was more like peach fuzz. He said, "Will do, Ma'am."

"Good. Josiah has the manifest and can direct you to your quarters," she said as she stacked a couple suitcases.

Josiah, and the other employees, piled into the large airlock while we worked to unload my belongings.

It was frustrating that I couldn't stop glancing at Captain Uweko. Hosanna seemed to be struggling to keep her eyes on what she was doing as well. But her eyes were following Captain Uweko's fluffy wolf tail, which made far more sense than what I was fixated on.

No matter what I did to distract myself, my eyes kept finding Uweko's breasts and bulge. And the more I stared at them, the more my body tingled. This went on until I stood up after unloading the last bag from my cart and found I had the world's stiffest boner.

Blushing, I grabbed my Firmament Station Welcome Bag and held it in front of my crotch. This was the worst time for my body to act up. How was I going to make a good impression on her while I was this embarrassed? Why did I want to make a good impression? Oh God, this was the same nervousness I got whenever I was trying to hit on a girl.

No, that couldn't be. I'd never met a starship captain and I was understandably excited.

That didn't explain my erection, though. Not that erections always needed a reason to be a pain.

"I'm Ramda Uweko, and you are?"

I blinked twice before I realized Ramda was talking to me and holding out her paw-padded hand for a handshake. Scrambling to catch up with the social situation, I reached out with my left hand. "Remiel. T-thanks for your help."

She pulled her right hand back and brought out her left to shake mine. With a big smile that showed her pointy teeth, she said, "You're welcome."

I'd reached out with the wrong hand! Stupid!

The feeling of her paw pads made me short of breath. They were smooth but also had a bit of roughness. Like, if your skin moved across them, they resisted the movement, but when your hand was still they felt smooth. Oh shit! I was still holding her hand!

"You're shaking, dear, come here." She tugged me toward her. "Booze will cost you extra, but hugs are free."

I stumbled toward her with a white-knuckled grip on the Welcome Bag as my face fell into her cleavage. My right hand, still clutching the bag, slid under her large balls into the space between her thighs as she leaned forward.

I'd never touched anyone else's balls before and the butterflies in my stomach went on a rampage. Feeling the heat between her thighs and the weight of her balls resting atop my fist made my erection surge in my pants. The first part of a moan squeaked out as I tried to control myself. I could feel all six of her breasts pressing against me.

Her scent reminded me of cinnamon and turmeric. My shaking stopped as I hooked my free arm around her and hugged her back.

"See? I knew you were a hugger." She gave me a squeeze before releasing me.

As I left her arms, her balls rubbed against the back of my hand and my cock twitched in my pants. I bit my lip to stifle a moan.

This was so dumb. Here I was getting all excited from a simple hug. I probably would've been equally turned on by hugging a woman in that situation because I wasn't familiar with touching people's groins in general. Even though it had happened by accident, there was something thrilling and forbidden about it.

Ramda either hadn't even noticed or saw no reason to make a big deal out of it. God, I was so closeted.

"While we wait, you two got any questions about my ship or interstellar travel?" Ramda asked.

Hosanna made a cute "hmm" noise as she thought. "Does your ship have any weapons?"

"Nope, I only travel on groomed routes, so we don't have to worry about pirates at anvil points," she said.

Tilting her head, Hosanna said, "Wouldn't it be better to have weapons just in case?"

"If we had weapons, we wouldn't be protected by the Aphelem Accord," Ramda said.

"What's that?" Hosanna asked.

"It's basically like the Geneva Convention, but for space," I said.

"Exactly." One of Ramda's pointy canine ears flicked as the floor vents stirred up the air, heating the hallway.

During a short pause where both Hosanna and I squeed over seeing Ramda's ear move, I realized I had some questions I wanted to ask. "What's the name of your ship?"

"The Gluttonous Pixie," she grinned.

"That has to be a joke," Hosanna said.

"Nope, no joke." She pulled back the sleeve of her uniform revealing a purple-tinged-bronze-colored smart bracelet. A green holographic image of her ship popped into view. It was a simple design: two rectangles on either side of a disk. It kinda looked like a watch with its band lying flat.

She touched the forward rectangular section and the central disk and they dropped from view leaving the aft rectangular section that had the engines. "Oberfesk Ship Systems builds modular ships that are great for people starting a business. This section was my entire ship when I started out. Because she was a small nimble transport, I called her the Zippy Pixie."

She pulled up the rectangle that had been on the opposite side of the central disk and pushed it into the first rectangle. "When I upgraded, she was a bit less nimble, but could carry more, so I called her the Barbarian Pixie."

We laughed.

Pulling apart the two rectangles, she brought out the central disk section and connected them to it. "And...ta-da! Adding this conference space, storage, and biome module made her look and handle like a Gluttonous Pixie."

"When you explain it like that..." Hosanna gave a theatrical pause. "It still doesn't make sense."

Ramda's thunderous laugh could be felt in my chest. I couldn't help but smile at how amused she was. If you'd asked me what a wolf smiling looked like, I would've never imagined what I saw before me. Ramda's face had more muscles than a dog's and was just as expressive as anyone else's. Plus, she had the bonus of ears and a tail. Both of which were active as she laughed. Her tail bobbed while her ears lay flat against her head.

She put a paw-padded hand on Hosanna's shoulder. "You and I will get along just fine."

I must've looked like I was feeling left out, because Ramda's other paw landed on my shoulder. "You too, Remiel. I always get along best with huggers."

After smiling and wondering whether her kind words were because she pitied me, I asked, "What's the bridge like? Do you have a neural interface? Is there a joystick? Does your ship have robots that help repair it and clean up messes? Do plants provide the oxygen?" I stopped, realizing I'd been asking every question as it popped into my mind.

"Cold, yes but it sometimes gives me a headache, yes but it's broken, yeah, and yes but only if I listen to our botanist and leave them alone," she said, not missing a beat.

The airlock opened and Luke started walking toward us, pushing his cart.

"I bet you have a lot more questions," Ramda said, "How about I give you access to all the different crew areas, so long as they aren't high-security?"

My jaw dropped. "Y-you'd do that?"

"Just one sec." Her eyes became distant, darting around to things I couldn't see since she was using her implant. Then she looked at me and brought her smart bracelet near my face. "And done."

Hosanna said, "Ooh, I'm jealous!"

"Would you like access too?" Ramda asked.

Hosanna shook her head, "Nah, I was just teasing. The less I know about the ship, the better. Josiah spent twenty minutes this morning trying to calm me and Caleb's pre-flight jitters."

Having been distracted long enough that my erection had softened, I put my Welcome Bag down and helped everyone load Luke's luggage cart.

"If you're a planet-lover, I suggest you spend time in the biome. It helps loads with space anxiety," Ramda said as she piled on twice as many bags as the rest of us. I wanted to know the secret to her fitness routine. Sure, she was big, but there had to be more to it. Her muscles were gorgeous.

Once the cart was loaded, Ramda pushed it to the airlock for me and I just followed behind her trying not to stare at her tail, or the curve of her nice toned ass, and failed on both counts.

All the industrial pipes, feedthroughs, and panels in the disembarkation airlock were also sky blue, making it very hard to identify individual components.

As we waited for the airlock to cycle, Luke asked, "Captain, do you mind if I ask a personal question?"

"Not at all, I'm an open book," she said.

"What do you consider your gender to be?" Luke asked.

"What the fuck, Luke?!" Hosanna said.

"What? I asked if she minded, first. Isn't that how you're supposed to ask those sorts of questions?" Luke said.

I put my head in my hands. Luke was worse than me. He had no filter and that was a liability on Trinity Stronghold. The fact he was being sent along with us supported my theory that MiraManna shipped all their biggest misfits to earth.

"I consider myself female-leaning as far as gender. I tell people I'm just shy of a tomboy because I like lots of male-coded activities, but I also enjoy painting my claws and wearing dresses sometimes. To answer the question about my physiology that I think you were actually asking: I'm a hermaphrodite. I have both sets of genitals." Ramda had no tension in her voice. If the words had been different, I would've assumed we were having a cozy conversation in her living room.

"Wow, okay," Luke said.

"Are you happy now, Luke?" Hosanna said.

"I appreciate the concern, Hosanna, but I don't mind answering those sorts of questions one bit. I prefer to have everything out in the open," Ramda said.

My erection was threatening to come back. It had been quite warm behind her balls. Did my knuckle graze her...I grabbed the Welcome Bag off the luggage cart and held it in front of my crotch saying, "Glad I caught this before it fell off. I think I'll just carry it."

Thankfully, before anyone could respond, or even think about what I'd said, the airlock door opened along with the outer door to the Gluttonous Pixie.

Chapter 2

The matte gray nonstick ceramic surfaces of the ship's airlock were lit by numerous tiny overhead spotlights, like semi-orderly stars shining down. I stood between Ramda and Hosanna. Everyone was stealing glances at Ramda. Luke's face was hard to read, but I assumed he was perplexed or conflicted due to the deep furrow in his brow.

Hosanna's fixation with Ramda's tail increased with each passing second until she asked, "Can I touch your tail?"

Ramda swished her tail toward Hosanna. "Sure!"

First, Hosanna lightly touched it with her fingertips, but then she stroked it and smiled like she'd stolen a cookie from the cookie jar and gotten away with it. "It's so soft!"

Luke walked over and touched it too, seeming to think the invitation extended to him. Ramda didn't mind, so I started petting it as well. It was soft, luxuriously so. The fur was thick and so clean that it felt like goose down. I wanted to hug it against me and never let go.

The airlock finished cycling and the door opened revealing Josiah standing on the other side. He cleared his throat. "Just what do you three think you're doing?"

"Petting Ramda's tail," Hosanna said, continuing to stroke it

I stopped because Josiah had a righteous fire in his eyes. "Leave Captain Uweko be. We're not at a petting zoo."

Luke pulled his hand away and then Hosanna did so, reluctantly.

"They aren't hassling me, Josiah. Their curiosity speaks to their intelligence. I have to say, MiraManna has a great taste in employees," Ramda said.

Josiah's mouth opened and then closed as he realized he'd been trapped by her compliment. I'd never seen him at a loss for words and it was fascinating to behold. When he recovered, he said, "Get to your rooms and settle in. Dinner's at seven."

The same matte gray composite panels that were in the airlock lined the ship's halls, which were spacious enough for two lanes of traffic, but not if luggage carts were going both ways. The star-like spotlights gave a rather epic feel to our walk to our rooms, and amongst them were lots of pipes and conduits. I knew some of them were for the artificial gravity system, some were plumbing, and others were electrical. Out of everyone in our group, I was probably the only person that wanted to see the ship's schematic and get lost in all the mundane spacefaring details.

Ramda kept pushing my luggage cart while she gave Luke and Hosanna directions to their rooms. Why she was still pushing my cart, I had no idea. I figured she just wanted to finish what she started or there was some obvious reason I was missing.

First Luke, then Hosanna, bid us farewell before taking a right turn to head to their quarters.

Being alone with Ramda got my heart to speed up. My game of looking at her while trying not to look at her was exhausting.

When she stopped in front of my quarters, the domed rectangular door hissed and then lifted off of its frame a few centimeters before sliding to the side along a track in the wall. The lights slowly ramped up to full intensity, which was nifty and easy on the eyes. Instead of a second bunk, there was a flat storage space with a short railing above the lower bunk. Across from the bunk and storage space was a tiny modular composite kitchenette including a sink, a microwave, a small fridge, a few cupboards, and a toaster. All of it was sparkling clean and had a marbled grey facade with wavy purple streaks running through it.

"These are nice quarters," I said.

"I wish I was staying in this part of the ship. The environmental system in my section started acting up a few days ago and it's been way too humid," she said.

"Have you had maintenance look at it?"

"Nothing they can do. It needs an overhaul when we get back to earth. I'd move to passenger's quarters, but my cabin is near the bridge and, as long as I leave my door open, it doesn't get too bad."

"I don't know if I could deal with the hit to my privacy," I said.

"Lucky for me, only members of the crew can get past the bulkhead to my area." She pointed at the back of my quarters to a glass door in the wall. "See the standup shower in the back left?"

"Yeah?"

"The toilet's behind that nondescript door across from it. Most people reach for the handle on that door before they realize it's automatic. Just wave your hand in front of the handle, and it'll pop open. That way you can get to the sink without having to touch anything," she said.

"That's neat," I smiled.

Between the shower and toilet was a four-foot wide counter with a sink and a mirror above it. The mirror had handles under it in three places which suggested there was storage space behind it.

"What luggage do you want above your bunk?" Ramda asked.

"You're going to help me put away my luggage?" I asked.

"Yeah, I can tell you've had a hard day, and my day's been easy. I figure I can share some of my easy to make up for your hard."

"But don't you have more important things to do?" I asked.

"This likely surprises you, but due to the long stints where we're traveling between Anvils, forty percent of my job is just taking care of my passengers' needs. Space travel is really taxing on the human psyche and I get paid when people make it to the other side safe and happy," she said.

I blushed and felt tingly again without any idea why. How could I possibly deserve her attention like this? Pointing to a few of my bags, I said, "These should go above my bunk."

She grabbed two of them, walked over to the storage area, and then hefted them up there with little effort. I grabbed two of them and put them in the closet just inside the door before grabbing a third and putting it in there too.

Once Ramda got all the bags I wanted above my bunk stowed, she said, "Okay, can we put the rest in the hold?"

I pulled two more bags off and then said, "Yeah."

"Okay, tap the panel just inside your door and request a pickup for the rest of your luggage," she said.

I went over to the eight-by-eight-centimeter panel and clicked through the teal blue menu to request the pickup. Then a countdown timer showed up, saying a bot would be there in fourteen minutes and counting.

"Okay, now, if you go to the sync option, the ship will display info through your implant instead of having to use info screens," she said.

I hit the sync option and put my implant into handshake mode. Three seconds later, the timer appeared in the lower right of my vision and when I looked at a closed door to my left, I got teal text saying, "Anything Room status: Vacant. Wave hand to enter."

I waved my hand at the door and it clicked before it slid open to allow entry to the two-by-two-meter room behind it. Seams in the walls showed where couches, displays, and VR equipment connections could be found. Anything Rooms were way more common in space than on planets. They allowed for just about any recreational use from exercise room, to movie theater, to gaming room.

"You're sharing that room with the next room over, but we used the survey we gave you to make sure we didn't end up with bad matchups like pairing hardcore night owl gamers and night owl fitness fanatics."

"That sounds good and I think I'm all set," I said. "See you later?" I held out my right hand for a goodbye shake.

"Some of my cargo's been held up by customs. Always happens at this station, so I can stay and chat a bit longer if you like."

"You sure you don't have any higher priorities?" I asked. "I really don't want to take up more of your time."

"I've made all the necessary preparations and I'm not behind on any of my deadlines. Either you're trying to get rid of me, you don't think very highly of yourself, or you're underestimating how organized I am. So, which is it?" She smirked.

"Underestimating how organized you are?" I said sheepishly.

"Right, that's the one I thought," she said with a hint of sarcasm.

She paused and closed the door behind her, leaving my luggage cart outside to wait for the pickup. "Remiel, you look at my ship as if you already know what the things on it do. And you knew about the Achelen Accord. I know, for a fact, that Trinity Stronghold's education system doesn't cover space much because they don't like giving their inhabitants the idea they can leave. This means, you taught yourself about ship systems and space politics. That, in turn, makes me interested in you. Makes me think you're not like all the other Trinies."

She paused for a moment, "Tell me, Remiel, how long have you wanted to be a starship captain?"

I blushed and stammered a couple times before I said, "I don't know, for as long as I can remember?"

"Then it's my duty, as a starship captain, to tell you to follow your dream," she said. "Save up money, make connections, and take all those little steps that lead toward your goal. And, if you stay in touch with me and I find my initial impression of you was correct, I will do what I can to help."

I felt like I wanted to cry. "But I'm just a gopher getting paid nothing and riding on a starship for the first time."

"Everyone thinks my inheritance from my rich political-activist sister is how I was able to start my business. Before she died, I'd already gotten my first ship through connections and business deals I'd made. My sister's money is what enabled me to mod myself. If you have a good business idea and foster the right friends, you can travel the stars. And, even if you don't start a business, there's ships out there looking for crew members like you. Then, you can work your way to being a captain by gaining experience," she said.

"Thanks for being so nice and encouraging me, but I have good reason to doubt I can do what you've done. I'm not all that good at making business connections and I know I don't have enough experience to get a job as part of a ship crew. Plus, I'm really awkward around people."

"Well, I hope you someday see yourself differently," she said. "In the meantime, you should look around my ship and learn all you can."

"I still can't believe you gave me access to crew areas," I said.

"Well, I tried to explain why, but we've hit a wall." She held out her arms. "How about I just give you another hug instead?"

I hugged her, hating how insecure and whiny I sounded. People complimenting me somehow always made me feel this way. Why was I such a mess?

Her arms tightened around me as I gave her a squeeze and nestled my head in her cleavage. I couldn't help thinking about everyone I'd be leaving behind. Somehow, I was already missing people I barely liked. Being thousands of lightyears from home had excited me for the past week, but now that it was about to be real, I was scared. My family had kept me from expressing myself, but I'd spent so many years learning how to get along with them that I was used to it. Soon, I'd be interacting with people from an unfamiliar culture. There's no way they were all as easy to get along with as Ramda.

Ramda, with her infinite kindness and giant wolf-modded body...Her breasts felt amazing pressed up against me. And her huge bulge was pressing against me just above my groin. No one's bulge had ever been touching me like this and I'd always thought I'd mind. I didn't. God wasn't striking me with lightning. I wasn't setting on fire. I was just sharing an honest tender hug with a hermaphroditic wolf hybrid.

The initial few seconds she held me, it was calming, but then something entirely else happened. I felt warmth rushing south and got this strange urge to thrust my pelvis toward her to bring it into closer contact. I resisted the urge, but in my confusion, I let her go.

She was frowning. Had I let go too soon? Had she gotten some bad news through her implant just now? "Hey, before I go, I want to talk to you about our first hug. This one was kinda to make up for that one where I goofed and made you tense. I honestly didn't know you were going to keep holding that bag and I'm sorry if that got awkward for you."

"N-no, it's fine." And just like that, I was getting hard again. Her balls were so damn big! Did that mean her cock was equally big? Did it have a knot at the base? I was honestly curious.

"Have I made you uncomfortable? You seem a bit tense," she said.

"I'm fine, really." I knew she didn't mean my erection, but the mere idea that she might have been aiming innuendo at me had me throbbing so much I was rubbing my thighs together.

She sighed. "It's because I'm a hybrid, isn't it? I know how that's a touchy subject for y'all. If you want me to keep my distance, all you've gotta do is ask. I really don't mind. If I had such a shifted worldview, I'd likely be nervous too."

"No, that's not it, I love that you're a hybrid," I blurted out.

One of her ears fell in confusion, but then I saw her nose flex as she sniffed the air. "Wow, was I reading that wrong." She laughed. "Why don't you pop by my quarters in an hour and a half, after we've disembarked? I think we should continue this conversation before we go to dinner. Don't you?"

"No, that's not it," I put my hands over my crotch as a tent formed. There wasn't much room in my quarters. We were standing close enough that I could smell her scent getting thicker and I got a wet patch where my cock tip touched my boxers.

"One thing you'll learn real quick about me is that you can't fool this." She tapped her canine nose. "See you in an hour and a half after you've managed to calm yourself down a bit." The door to my quarters opened and she stepped out.

My eyes were fixed on her ass and tail until the door closed behind her. I'd never been this embarrassed or this erect and had no idea what to do with myself. It took me thirty seconds to convince myself that she'd said what I'd thought she said, and then thirty more seconds of being painfully hard to decide to do something about it. I took a step toward my bunk only to have my wet sock squish against my shoe.

"Fucking hell!" I said as I pulled my shoe and sock off.

Knocking that vase full of flowers off of the side table in my parents' entryway had been a fabulous way to start the day.

After pulling my other shoe and sock off, I started stripping out of my jumpsuit. They'd hidden the zipper in the front well, but it was rather easy to slide open and I was in my undies in no time. Then I stared down at the throbbing prick in my boxers thinking, "She knows, oh God, she knows!"

But what does she know? That I'm pent up from being too nervous to get off for a week?

This had to be a big misunderstanding. I'd never seen porn of hybrids or herms because that was blocked on Trinity Stronghold. I could've hacked my way around those protections and risked spending time in the worst penal system in known space, but I'd never had the balls to do it. Mmm, balls...her balls had such a nice heft to them. I brought my right hand up to my nose and sniffed, finding her scent was still there.

I groaned and pulled my boxers off as pre beaded at my cock tip. There had to be some explanation as to why I liked her scent so much. Maybe she'd modded it to be especially pleasing? Like the way she'd gotten both a dick and a pussy?

Oh God! I sat on my bunk and started stroking. I couldn't have been attracted to her cock or her balls, I'd never thought about a prick other than mine. It had to be that she was so new, so different, had six tits, and carried herself with that amazing confidence I wish I had. I'd been way more interested when I'd heard she was a herm, so I probably just wanted her pussy. Yeah, that had to be it.

Sniffing the back of my hand while I stroked so fast my arm went numb, I moaned and trembled. I was stuck in that moment where my hand was sliding between her thighs, where I felt her bulge glide over my hand until I felt the heat from the furnace behind them. Her snatch. Was it modded too?

"HAAAHHHH!" I panted, my moans and breathing getting all mixed up. The pressure in my prostate was so powerful it was aching all the way up to my stomach.

And she knew I was doing this thinking about her, she said she'd see me after I calmed myself down...I couldn't hide my lust from her, she could smell it clear as day. YES! Why was that so fucking hot?!

"GAH! FUCK!" I yelled as my prick convulsed in my grip.

The first shot of my jizz splattered all over my socks. The second shot hit the cupboard four feet across from me. None of the others went that far, but I soon had a mess larger than any I'd made before. The whole time, I was screaming until my lungs burned and my jaw hurt from being open so wide. The pleasure was like an ache in my joints that made me flail my limbs. It wasn't just bliss, it was gale force winds and hail.

When I fell back on my bunk, I could feel my heartbeat in my toes and I was sweating profusely. That was the most effort I'd put into masturbation in my entire life. I didn't know it could feel this good. Boy had I been missing out.

I lost the next few minutes to feeling utterly awesome while my thoughts floated just out of reach.

My prick was spent and I'd likely be able to just chat with Ramda comfortably for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness I'd gotten that out of my system. I needed to learn to get off regularly so I didn't get obsessed with such strange kinks.

Without all that going on in my mind, I could ask Ramda all sorts of things about the ship and her career. I'd never be a ship captain like her, but it would be fun to hear about her adventures. Then I'd get some dinner and flop on my bunk so I could sleep off this bizarre, exhausting day. But, before any of that, I needed a shower.

Chapter 3

Showering while under the spell of a powerful afterglow was like floating amongst warm clouds. The heat of the steam from the water was permeating deep into me, relaxing me in a way I couldn't really describe. Words weren't easy to grasp, not even the concept of what I had cleaned and what I had yet to clean. Had I masturbated myself into a trance?

Time passed without measure and I would've probably been in that shower forever if I hadn't heard Ramda's ship-wide announcement resonating in the shower stall. "Our first jump has been delayed until mid-morning tomorrow. A convoy from Lezveioan space is arriving behind schedule and we don't have clearance until they're through."

People called the Lezveioans space sharks because they looked a hell of a lot like sharks. Trinity Stronghold never officially referred to their gender, but the rumor was that they were a race of hermaphrodites. Trinies used whatever pronoun they felt fit an individual Lezveioan. The Lezveioans, not having any gender pronouns in their language of commerce, didn't seem to care. Getting info on them was tough since our government didn't want us to get too excited about alien races, especially ones that didn't behave nicely within our gender norms. 

I had no idea what all the rumors and hubbub was about because every image I'd seen of them seemed to be obviously male or female. But on Trinity Stronghold, rumors often pointed at fact manipulation of some sort. The problem was that there was another rumor about them that I didn't want to be true: that they were quick to anger and slow to forgive and had a society much stricter than ours.

Deciding I needed to get myself out of the shower before I scrubbed my skin right off, I rinsed off and then touched the wall panel to shut off the flow. It wasn't a small shower, but it was definitely made for one person and had a misting head that maximized the contact of the water droplets getting one as wet as possible with the smallest amount of water. It was a bit odd breathing in this mist and my nose was running a bit as I got out and turned on the body drier.

A couple spins later, all I needed to do was towel off my hair. As I was putting on a clean Miramanna uniform, Josiah came out with his own shipwide announcement:

"The travel delay has given us an opportunity that we must seize with both hands. Tonight we'll have a Bible study before and after dinner! Come to the Biome ASAP so we can enjoy God's creations while sharing God's wisdom."

I balled up a fist. Josiah knew that company Bible studies were mandatory and he was just eating our free time like a lion that had broken into a steak buffet. And he'd said ASAP, which meant I had to get over there the moment I was dressed. With a smirk, I dressed like a drunken tortoise, seeing how far I could stretch out each motion. After a good ten minutes of trying not to laugh at myself, I had my uniform on and headed out the door.

The epic feeling from the spot-lighting of the dark grey composite in the hallways wasn't going to get old. I was on a spaceship for the first time in my life. Every step I took felt momentous.

Crossing the hallway intersection ahead of me was a half-meter-wide cube with an asymmetric arrangement of sensor clusters and multi-jointed spider-like limbs. I started following the cube-shaped robot until it opened a grate near the floor with hexagonal slots cut into it. Then it stuck an arm that had something like a feather duster on the end underneath and gently wiped around.

When I knelt down next to it to get a closer look, the robot made a crabby bweep sound, so I backed away a bit. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when Daniel knelt down right next to it to annoy it on purpose. I'd been so preoccupied with the robot that I hadn't seen him come around the corner. 

He was laughing as the robot complained repeatedly about his invasion of its personal space.

I said, "You probably shouldn't do that. Ramda said--"

"You think I care what she says? What's this robot gonna do? Feather dust me?" Daniel's thin face sneered under a tuft of his long reddish-brown bangs.

"She's the captain of this ship," I said, my heart starting to race. "And Josiah said we should respect her."

"He also called her an abomination, so…" he trailed off letting me complete the rest of his meaning.

The robot stopped cleaning and took a step toward Daniel, making a shooing motion with the feather duster and another arm with a three-fingered hand. When he didn't move, it made an angry high-pitched beep.

The sound was awful enough that I took a step back.

Daniel tried to push the robot away from him, but it stood its ground and growled. This got Daniel to scoot backwards. "Geez! What a fucking cunt you are!"

The robot growled again and then went back to cleaning the vent.

I was staring at that little robot, wishing I could borrow some of its assertiveness, when Daniel turned away from it and kicked it into the wall with the sole of his shoe.

 The robot made a high-pitched squeal of surprise that made my heart hurt as it went sailing into the wall, still holding the grate. There was a loud crash when the grate and the bot hit the composite that made up the wall.

"Bet you're not so smug now," Daniel spat at the robot and walked away.

Two of the robot's fingers and one of its legs were stuck in the grate and it was whining in frustration, unable to untangle itself.

I tried to approach it, but it growled at me. At first, I considered getting help, but then I remembered how I'd approached my friend's dog when it had gotten a piece of glass in its paw. I got low to the floor and slumped my shoulders and looked as submissive as possible. 

Then I reached out toward the bot very slowly, saying, "Come on, Cuber, let me help you."

It stopped struggling and made a curious trill.

"Wait, can you understand English?" I asked.

It made a soft beep.

"Huh, that's a pretty crude speaker you have there. I bet you're more of a maintenance unit meant to work in parts of the ship that people can't go. Guess your manufacturer wasn't planning on you having to interact with passengers or crew," I said as I gently grabbed its leg and bent it at the joint that was stuck through the grate. Then I lifted the entire bot, which weighed about ten kilos, so the leg came out of the slot easily.

It made a happy trill and waited patiently for me to spread its fingers apart a bit farther than their normal range of motion and pop its knuckles out of the grate.

With the hand I'd pulled out of the grate, it reached out like it wanted a handshake and made the curious trill again.

I gave it a handshake and it cooed before going back to work.

Looking Cuber over to make sure she was okay, I saw a deep nick on the polished black composite of the leg I'd pulled out of the grate.

Josiah was going to be pissed at Daniel when I told him about this. Sure, I could have let it slide, but in the vacuum of space, everything was stacked against human life. So someone who willingly damaged ship systems deserved no protection. I was lucky I was angry, because it was the only time I was able to do something like this. My neck was tight with how much I was clenching my jaw. All I could think about was the pained squeal Cuber had made when Daniel kicked her.

Turning away from Cuber, I made my way to the circular hallway that went around the Biome. This hallway was much like the others besides strips of light near the bottom of the walls that lit one's shoes from the side. Again, it was like I was in some sort of epic movie. No one would expect this level of cool from a ship named "The Gluttonous Pixie," but Ramda was a tough act to follow.

The door to the Biome was a rectangle with rounded corners well over two meters tall. As I approached it, there was a soft hiss as it pulled away from the wall and slid effortlessly to the side. I was surprised to find that I was five meters above the ground on a hundred-and-seventy-five-meter-long bridge that landed in what looked like a small clearing in the bamboo grove directly ahead of me. This clearing was at the top of a large central hill, so the bridge only had a slight slope to it. What was surprising about the ramp was that even though I knew it was made out of space-age materials, it looked a lot like a vine and bamboo bridge someone might cobble together in a bamboo forest.

The bamboo, which nearly touched the dome of simulated sky five meters above my head, had beautiful brownish-red stems with bright green. I'd never seen this variety of bamboo and just stared at it until a soft wind rustled the leaves. Biomes needed to simulate some wind or tall plants didn't grow strong stems and would flop over.

That hill had half the diameter of the entire biome and the bamboo forest continued outward even after the hill ended, only stopping for a running track that appeared to go around the circumference of the Biome. But it didn't run along Biome's wall. Right under me was a shorter several-meter-wide stand of bamboo that hid a service path that ran along the wall. That stand of bamboo had the classic green stems and leaves most people think of when they hear the word "bamboo."

I didn't make it ten meters down the ramp before I saw Ramda running on the track below me. Biting my lip, I watched her six breasts and bulge bounce suggestively. Just before she passed under the bridge, she looked up at me and winked. My knees got weak and I took a couple deep breaths to calm down. I'd already masturbated thinking about her and I would be fine if I just focused on something, anything else.

When I got to the clearing, the bamboo sign post pointed at the three paths that hooked under the three bridges. To my right was a path to the amphitheater and Biome galley, to my left was a path that went to the "Orchid Trail," and the one behind me led to the "Fern Trail."

I took the one toward the amphitheater and galley, thinking about what I was going to say to Josiah after the Bible study. I followed the marked path, ignoring the various other little paths that branched off of it and following the arrows while I tried to further hone what I was going to say to Josiah. The path exited the bamboo forest next to a three-meter-high cliff cut into the hill. I'd thought the hill was a hemisphere, but it clearly wasn't with how this cliff was placed. I completely forgot about Josiah, everything. That cliff was encrusted by red, orange, and yellow orchids. Some with twisted petals, some that looked like birds landing, some that looked a bit like genitals.

Just as my sense of wonder was at its highest and I was padding toward the beauty on display, the echo of Josiah's voice brought me back to reality.  I turned around to see him standing on a  bamboo-wood platform with a Bible in his hand and the backs of over fifty MiraManna employees as they sat on the curved step seating of the amphitheater.

Behind Josiah was the front of the outdoor galley, which looked like a rustic cafe and was built into a four-meter-high hill. Between Josiah and the cafe was an eating area with bamboo wood tables and chairs. Balls of grassy leaves that had magenta flowers sticking out of them on all sides hung from cute little light posts making for a lovely dining area.

As I took a seat, the curly-haired woman next to me immediately shared her Bible. I was not thrilled because this meant that I had to pretend to read it instead of just pretend to listen.

Josiah held up an authoritative finger as he closed his Bible. "The thing about temptation is that it always comes to us when we're weak. If we remain strong with the Lord and talk to him every day, it inoculates us against the wiles of hedonism."

He narrowed his eyes at me for a moment, during a pregnant pause he'd added for dramatic effect. I was the last one to arrive and I hoped that was the only reason he was looking at me. Was it possible he already knew about me and Ramda? Like, did he think she was tempting me? I clenched my jaw thinking about what Josiah would do if he knew what I'd been up to before I made it here. I refused to meet his eyes and pretended I was reading the Bible the woman next to me had offered.

He continued, "You're going to need that on Earth, for it is the belly of hedonism itself. It is the place we fled so we could live a more pious life. But now God has called back to our original home to test our devotion. Our friends, family, and our countrymen are all counting on us to stay on the path chosen for us so that when we return--"

After covertly rolling my eyes at the idea that we'd ever want to go back, I caught sight of Ramda on the track, her six magnificent orbs dancing on her chest as she ran. My eyes followed her as she traveled over the hill the cafe was built into. I wasn't the only one watching, I saw seventy percent of my fellow employees turning their heads in unison to follow her progress.

Noticing this, Josiah glanced behind himself only to stare as well. After shaking himself out of the trance caused by her undulating lewd flesh, he yelled, "Temptation is all around us! Even here on this ship. You must not be swayed by its charm. You must not give in to its exotic allure. Remember, a snake that speaks honeyed words is still a snake. And we do not lay with animals, for that is an abomination."

For a moment, I thought he was talking directly to me and looked at the Bible as if I'd been doing that the whole time. But then I noticed everyone else doing the same and let go of some of the tension in my chest. Only a little, because he'd just called Ramda an animal and I was wishing I had the guts to call him out on his contradictory treatment of her.

She had passed out of my vision, but the afterimage of all her parts bouncing under that tight clothing was stuck in my head. I just sat there staring at the Bible in front of me as blood rushed to my crotch. I unclenched my jaw and took a deep breath before forcing myself to focus on that Bible. I'd hoped to never read another Bible passage for the rest of my life, but between that and sporting a raging boner at Bible study, it was no contest.

Reading the Bible worked like a charm. I wasn't feeling sexy, or like I wanted to spend another second as a MiraManna employee.

As everyone got up to leave the Bible study, I walked straight toward Josiah. 

"Oh good, I was hoping to have a word with you," he said, smiling too wide.

I blinked as my stomach lurched. I was supposed to be the one pulling him aside, not the other way around.

"Have you been struggling with anger issues lately?" he asked.

"No," I said, feeling even more sick. I didn't like where this was going at all.

Daniel was watching us from a seat in the front row, four meters from us and he was snickering.

My eyes widened as I realized what had happened.

Josiah sighed. "I was hoping you'd say yes to that because I can't think of any other reason you'd kick a--"

"It was Daniel!" I said, pointing, "He knew I'd come to you about it and this is him trying to cover his ass."

Daniel wasn't snickering anymore, he was charging right toward us. "Don't you think blaming others for your sins only deepens your crime?"

I glared at him, as my mind was forced to dump all the beautifully-crafted arguments I'd come up with as to why Daniel needed to be disciplined for what he'd done. Making a fist, I said, "Can you imagine what Ramda would do if she saw you kick that robot?"

"Oh, I'd be fine. I'd just pat her belly and she'd roll over like a good dog," he cackled at his own joke.

Josiah laughed with him, caught off guard by Daniel's humor.

It was as if someone had tossed me in an oven on broil. My fists were so tight that my fingernails were digging into my palms enough to hurt. "H-how can you just stand there and laugh at that?" I looked Josiah in the eye. "Daniel clearly has no respect for Ramda or this ship. And you told us to respect both!"

Having never seen me this angry, Josiah stopped laughing and furrowed his brow, before his cheeks reddened and his jaw set. "He was only kidding! Do you not understand the concept of humor? No wonder you're so hot headed. When we get back to Earth, I'm going to enroll you in anger management courses."

"Fff-reaking hell! I didn't kick the robot!" I yelled.

"Either walk away now, or I'll write you up, you understand? Go cool off and we can talk when you're not acting like a toddler."

As I turned away, I experienced so many emotions that I could hardly walk. Fear, shock, anger, depression, sadness, and a deep desire for revenge were coiled around my spine, making me feel like I'd been tossed out of a ten story window. That sick feeling in my gut gave way to tears and I dashed for the nearest path into the bamboo so I wouldn't be seen crying.

Before I could get into the safety of the bamboo thicket, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Ramda had spotted me and was on her way. Not wanting her to see me like this, I pretended I hadn't seen her and took the path into the bamboo grove. I yelped when her hand landed on my shoulder.

"So sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you," she said.

I stayed facing away, "I think I just need to be alone now."

"Are you sure? You really look like you could use a friend," she said.

"I'm fine," I said, my voice shaking with emotion.

She hugged me from behind so softly, so carefully, that I didn't flinch. "It's hard being one of the only people that thinks for themselves in a society where that's looked down upon. If you just drank the Kool Aid like the rest of them, you would have more friends, but you'd also just settle for the misery that comes with having no self expression. Out of every person I've seen from MiraManna, you're the guy with the longest hair. That takes a lot of courage. I can only guess how many people regularly tell you to get a haircut."

"Drank the Kool Aid?" I asked, feeling less like crying with her voluptuous front pressed against my back.

"Oh, right, it's one of the terms Trinity Stronghold put a ban on. It was first coined in response to a cult that thought they were all going to meet God if they committed mass suicide at when the world was supposed to end. They put poison in the Kool Aid and all drank it together. I bet you can see why Trinity Stronghold doesn't like that phrase?" She chuckled.

"It describes so much of what they do so well." I shook my head, thinking about how single-minded Josiah and Daniel were. Then I pulled myself out of Ramda's arms, saying, "We probably shouldn't be seen hugging."

"Right. Follow me," Ramda said as she walked ahead of me.

Watching her tail flit back and forth, I followed her up to the top of the hill and then down the Fern Trail.

Chapter 4

Before this point in my life, when anyone mentioned ferns, all I ever thought about were the low-to-the-ground ferns with triangular leaves that had smaller copies of themselves repeated in a beautiful lacework. This left me completely unprepared for ferns that had stems taller than me, ones that had giant hand-like fronds coming out of green clumps of lily-pad-shaped lower leaves, ones whose fronds looked like flame patterns, ones that had broad arm-length leaves with crimson stems, and ones that looked like the fern version of lightning bolts. As elegant and pretty as the bamboo was, the ferns were so much more fascinating.

Grabbing one of the large leaves with the red stem going up it, Ramda said, "Ferns have some of the most beautiful fractal patterns in nature. See the frilly wave pattern going along the edge of the fronds of this bird's nest fern?"

I touched the frond, feeling the lush, rolling texture of it. "Yeah?"

"It's a fractal wave pattern. Waves on top of waves on top of waves. That's what gives the leaf such an interesting texture," Ramda's tail cupped my ass gently.

The way she was touching me and the tone in her voice made me feel like she wanted something from me, something that made me blush even though my mind refused to put a name to it. It was a feeling so alien that I didn't know what to do with it, but my body leaned toward her anyway.

She hooked her arm around my back and pulled me against her side. I tensed up, unsure of how to process the butterflies I had in my stomach.

The moment she let go of me, I regretted tensing up. No one had ever held me the way she'd just done.

"Sorry, we're still in public," she said.

"Y-yeah," I stammered. There were words, questions I wanted to be able to formulate. Being this close to her, hearing her breathe, I felt so calm and excited. My mind was so faulty. How could I feel both those things at the same time?

There were orchids all over the place, many of them hanging from the fern trees. All shades of orange, red, and yellow. Ramda stopped at one that was growing up from the ground and completely entangling the lower part of a fern tree with tendrils that held dozens of crimson flowers that had serrated yellow edges. Then she stepped carefully between some ferns and motioned for me to come over to her. "This is cyrtochilum serratum. Remember the fractal wave pattern on the bird's nest fern? Take a close look at these petals."

It took me a good minute to get over to her because I was horrified by the idea of stepping on one of her treasured plants. Just like Ramda had suggested, the serration on those petals was actually a very intricate fractal wave pattern. It was dizzying in complexity. "Whoa!"

"Take a sniff, I bet you'll be even more surprised by the smell," she said.

I leaned in and sniffed the odd throne-shaped flower with slender legs dangling off it. "Coconut?"

"Yep! I have other orchids that smell like chocolate and vanilla and all sorts of things. But this is easily one of my favorite scents. It's so deep and decadent." She took a sniff with her canine nose, a bit further from the flower than I'd been. She closed her eyes and made this deeply pleased groan.

I'd never heard a woman moan and the sound she made while sniffing that flower was close enough that my prick started throbbing and my cheeks tingled. She was such a kind, amazing person. She was so beautiful and she'd completely distracted me from my troubles with all these beautiful plants. My body started moving on its own as I leaned in toward her muzzle.

She leaned toward me, her lips parting for a kiss.

Just as I felt her breath blow across my face, my dumb brain realized what was about to happen and I stood up awkwardly straight.

"I liked where that was going, but then you slammed on the brakes. And this whole time, I thought I was the one teasing you." She chuckled.

"S-sorry," I said. Where was all this regret coming from? Wasn't I over her? I'd gotten off so good not two hours ago. The urges I felt toward her should've been out of my system.

She patted my back. "It's fine. Let's go somewhere more private so you can tell me why you looked so sad when I found you." Her careful footsteps back to the path were easy for me to follow this time because she went nice and slow.

Once we were both on the path, she led me down the hill and then took a path labeled "Cloud Forest." We ended up at the base of the hill in front of a set of glass double doors that led to an entry way with another set of double doors that looked like they belonged on a giant refrigerator. Going through them, we'd be inside the hill.

She pulled one of the glass doors open and melodramatically motioned for me to enter like a stagecoach driver opening the door for a noblewoman in a period drama. "After you."

The moment I stepped through the door, I was in a cloud. I could only see about ten meters ahead of me. Simulated sunlight was streaming through the fronds of more tree ferns, making a dazzling play of light in the mist surrounding me. It was less than twenty degrees celsius, putting a definite chill in the air. Ramda came up behind me and said, "The ship reports no one's in here, so I just put up the maintenance sign to make sure we have some privacy."

"Oh, why isn't anyone in here?" I rubbed my shoulders. The high humidity made the cool air especially brisk.

She hugged me from behind, pressing herself against my back. "Because everyone comes in here without a jacket on the first day. Only when they come back properly dressed do they stay and see the wonders in here."

I could feel her six breasts through the cloth, she was so tall that her top set of breasts were against my shoulders. Her bulge was rubbing against me just above my tailbone. Putting that last part of her anatomy out of my mind, I leaned my top half more firmly against her, enjoying the warmth and all those breasts. Anxiety that had tightened my chest loosened its grip as she held me with those strong arms and rested her muzzle atop my head.

For a couple minutes, questions and sensations were a jumble in my mind. She didn't break the silence, she just waited till I was able to speak. Till I remembered the question she'd asked before we entered. "Daniel kicked Cuber and she got stuck in the grate she was holding."

"Cuber?"

I blushed at my own silliness. "Yep, that's what I named her."

"A very descriptive and apt name for one of my cube bots. I approve." After I failed to figure out something to say in response to that because I was embarrassed and happy at the same time, she said, "Go on."

"I was going to tell Josiah about it after Bible study, but when Bible study ended, I found out--" My lip trembled as emotions rushed in to fill every bit of space inside me. "--that he told Josiah I was the one who kicked the robot and made us both late." I shook my head. "And I got so mad that I made myself look even worse."

Ramda gave me a squeeze, before saying, "That's terrible. I remember working for MiraManna. It was like perpetually being in Sunday school."

"You worked for MiraManna?" I asked.

"Yep, I managed their fern catalogue," she said.

"Is that why your Biome has so many ferns?"

She nodded. "I have over two hundred species of ferns in my biome. Most Biomes go with just a couple species in the right number to properly humidify their ship's air, usually at least one of the species is endangered on Earth to make sure living specimens of it exist."

"That's a lot of ferns," I said.

"Yep, but MiraManna nearly poisoned my love of them because employees that are treated like children, act like children. People that were bullies in high school, like Daniel, stay bullies and people like you and me get our compassion used against us."

"If you dislike MiraManna so much, why do you transport their employees?" I asked.

"Because they pay me well and I occasionally meet someone like you who has been shoved in a tight box all their life and needs a friend who doesn't spout tangentially-related Bible passages when asked for advice," she said.

"Do you hold all of them like this?" I asked, blushing deeper as I realized I'd been in her arms for a long time now. It was the longest anyone had ever held me. All the problems I'd had earlier in the day seemed so far away. I felt like I'd be able to sleep easy after I got back from dinner. Maybe I just liked her so much because she had soft fur and was so free with cuddles and touching.

"Nope, it's pretty rare." She just held me tight after saying that, slowly swaying her hips side to side as we both breathed in the crisp clean air.

Someone liking me like this was so strange. No matter how hard I searched for a reason, I couldn't find one. It was equally hard to figure out why I had this urge to press back against her crotch. Part of it was that I could smell her cinnamon and turmeric scent mixed with a hint of chocolate that must have been from somewhere nearby. It was making me hungry for cinnamon-dusted s'mores. Yeah, I'd never smelled anyone get aroused because of me and I was probably just reacting to that. And maybe, as long as someone had breasts, my body didn't care what other parts they had.

I arched my back slightly and rubbed against that soft place between her thighs only to catch myself and straighten in her grasp so I wasn't touching her there anymore.

Thinking this was some sort of lewd game, she rolled her hips up against my back and grunted as I felt something hard push out of her bulge.

I leapt out of her arms, nervous heat rushing from my stomach up to my cheeks. My prick had found its way through my leg hole and was throbbing against my leg. "I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean--"

She put a finger to my lips. "You don't have to explain, Rem. I can smell exactly what's going on with you."

My dick reached further down the side of my leg. "You," I swallowed hard, "can?"

"Remember when I told you you couldn't fool my nose? "

"Yes?"

The chill of the room was enveloping me once more, conflicting with the hot rush of excitement inside me. I wanted to be back in her arms, but being this flipping hard while that was going on made my heart race way too fast. It also made me do dumb things like rub myself against her when she was just trying to cuddle me. That's what I got for being over twenty and never having been with a woman. But, back home, that came with marriage and the thought of being in a life-long Christian marriage was as disturbing to me as the original, deadly version of "Little Red Riding Hood."

"Nervousness mixed with horniness tends to make people practically vibrate with tension." She sniffed the air and then said, "Whoops, I just made it worse."

My hands were now in front of my crotch. I'd never felt this naked in my life and I was fully clothed. I couldn't look her in the eye.

"Here, let's get you focusing on something else." Taking my left hand in her right one, she led me further into the cloud forest.

Not far down the downward-sloping path which meandered like a lazy river, I was confronted by little star-shaped blood-red flowers with a white landing strip of a petal between the bottom two arms of each star. I sniffed the air, "So this is where that chocolate scent is coming from."

"Yup, these are O. Sherry Baby's. One of the only oricidiums I have because they're incredibly popular with growers on Earth and are so boringly similar from species to species. I just love the color and the smell of this particular one and it was my mom's favorite houseplant when I was growing up," she said.

"Is your mom a nice person?" I asked.

Ramda sighed and put an arm over my shoulder, leaning against me. This time it felt like she was the one that needed a hug, so I put my arm around her as she spoke. "She's a devout Christian who overflows with compassion, but she's like most Trinnies in that she can't process things unless they fit into very specific, inflexible categories. And my dad is similar, but he has more compassion for his congregation than his own family."

"My uncle's like your dad. He's a youth pastor and he barely ever sees his own kids unless they're at a church event." I sighed. "His wife always seemed angry and tired. I didn't blame her, seven kids is a lot."

"Seven kids is a lot," Ramda said.

"Yeah, but birth control is hard to get on Trinity Stronghold," I said.

"I never wanted to have to deal with that, so I had myself made infertile when I got hybridized."

"So you can't ever have children?"

"I have my gametes stored somewhere safe for the off chance that I someday want a kid."

"What do your parents think of your, uhm..." I trailed off, unsure how to finish that sentence.

"They won't speak to me, so I don't know," she said.

"Sorry," I frowned and shivered from the chill in the air.

"It's fine, it's all water under the bridge now." She trotted a few feet to our left and then pointed out a flower that had three outer petals that were like spade-shaped pieces of frosted glass with hairs coming out of them. I could see fuzzy shapes of what was behind them and the inner petals were bright red and looked a bit like two goldfish kissing.

As I made my sound of awe, she got behind me and took me back into her arms. "Lepanthes pulcherrima. One of my absolute favorite plants, period."

Changing the angle I viewed it from changed what I saw through those translucent petals and it was mesmerizing. The softness of her front, her warmth, was back and I smiled wider than I had since this trip started. "Why do you like me so much?"

Tousling my hair, she said. "I don't just like you, I'm attracted to you. Everything you've ever been taught has told you that someone like me is a thing to be shunned. But other than some nervousness, you want to be near me. You've resisted some of the most potent indoctrination in the galaxy. It is like seeing a unicorn or the birth of a black hole."

Now all I could think about the bulge pressing against my lower back and blood was rushing south again. "You're attracted to me?"

"You're kind, you've got beautiful hair, you treat me like a person, my body excites you, and you know a lot about space travel." She gave me a squeeze.

I squirmed in her grasp a bit and had no idea what to say to that.

She leaned down to whisper in my ear. "In fact I can smell how excited you are right now." Then she nipped the tip of my ear with the side of her canine maw and growled softly.

I moaned when she nipped my ear and then felt hot all over.

"I can't wait to show you a big surprise I have planned for tomorrow."

"A s-surprise?" I asked, imagining her showing up at my room in only a towel. My lip hurt from how hard I was biting it. I was hopeless. I just couldn't stop thinking about her in that way. Maybe I just liked breasts so much that the fact she had multiple sets broke my brain.

"Yep, but I won't spoil it now." Letting go of me, she said, "Why don't you pet the fuzz on that orchid while I go into the back and get you a coat? Then I'll show you a couple more fuzzy orchids you can pet."

Instead of answering her question, I just stared into her electric blue-green eyes, feeling a gravitational pull between our bodies, almost as if I was floating. I adored the playful smile on her muzzle, the way her tail was wagging as we shared this intimate moment, and the intensity of her fantastic scent, which permeated every bit of me.

Before I could chicken out, she pulled me into her arms and brought our lips together.

I felt her wet canine nose press against mine, her whiskers brushing my cheeks, and the tip of her tongue gently teasing at my lips. It was like someone had dropped a firecracker down my shirt. Joy exploded inside me. Joy from the kiss itself and just knowing that someone was fond enough of me to kiss me.

But then I got a stab of worry in my chest and pulled my mouth away. "S-sorry."

She trailed a finger under my chin, grinning. "There's nothing to apologize for, dear."

I looked down at her special paw-shoes. Why had I leaned toward her? How could she like me enough to kiss me like that?

"Well, I think I better fetch you that coat. Feel free to wander a bit, I'll only be gone a minute or two." She sauntered off, letting me stew in the giddy, nerve-wracking emotional reverberations from my first real kiss.

Chapter 5

At first, I thought my morning wood was just me needing to go to the restroom, but it was only five minutes after I'd used it and I was painfully hard again. That's what I got for being too exhausted to take care of all the feelings Ramda's kiss had stirred up. That little errant thought is all it took for me to think back to my time with her in the cloud forest. Her tight workout uniform had let me feel every one of her tits pressed up against me whenever she hugged me from behind. Her tongue had felt amazing on my lips when we...

I unbuttoned the crotch of my pajama bottoms and grabbed my prick. Yes, I just needed to get off. Then I'd be able to calm down. I stroked faster, thrusting my hips upwards, getting close so fast I could barely keep track of the sensations. Damn, she smelled so good and was so strong and her tail wagging whenever we shared an intimate moment was so cute. She'd probably smell that I'd been masturbating later in the day and tease me about it. I was gonna cum, I was so close now!

A message popped up in my implant's HUD, "Captain Ramda Uweko: Hey, hope I didn't wake you. It turns out I have two surprises for you, that is if you can make your way to the bridge swiftly. Apologies on the short notice, I only just got off the comms with the Anvil Traffic Control."

The bridge? Why would my surprise be on the bridge? She'd been talking to Anvil Traffic control. My eyes widened and I jumped out of my bed as I realized exactly what she was going to show me. I had no idea what the other surprise was, but I knew I absolutely didn't want to miss one of them. My shaft was still a bit hard when I hopped into my MiraManna uniform and zipped it up, but by the time I got my hair looking presentable and my shoes on, it was behaving itself.

Grabbing a breakfast bar from a zippered pocket on my luggage, I stepped out of my quarters. An excited bweep got me to look down.

Cuber was standing there, holding a chocolate chip waffle in one of her three-fingered hands. Then she made a soft bweep as if to say, "Here!"

Chuckling, I grabbed the waffle getting melted chocolate on my hand. "Where did you get this?"

Cuber pointed down the hallway and then made a kicking motion with one of her legs.

My eyes widened. "Y-you took this from Daniel's room service tray?"

She made a happy double beep to let me know I was correct.

I tried to hand it back to her, chocolate making a mess of my hand. "You should put it back."

She made an angry beep and stomped a foot.

"Well, I gotta get to the bridge, so I can't eat this right now."

With a sad beep, she looked at the floor.

"I'm sorry, it's a very nice gift." I sighed and brought the waffle up to my mouth.

She beeped several times in succession, each beep coming faster than the last. The weight of her anticipation was intimidating.

I ate that waffle as fast as I could, getting chocolate all over my mouth. It was delicious and tasted even better knowing Daniel would find some of his meal missing. The waffle was the perfect mixture of soft and crunchy, like it had just come off the waffle iron.

Satisfied that I'd thoroughly enjoyed her gift, she reached out for a handshake.

I shook her hand and she cooed before letting go and walking back down the hallway. Quickly going back into my room, washing the chocolate off my face and hands, and getting a drink of water, I sent a message to Ramda. "Got held up. I'm on my way now."

"You'll be just in time for the first surprise if you hoof it up here," she replied.

I jogged all the way past the Biome to a bulkhead door that started to pull away from the wall the moment I stepped toward it. Then it slid to the side as my HUD said, "Crew Access: Granted."

In this part of the ship, there was much less attempt to hide the technical bits. Wires and pipes ran in intricate patterns behind see-through protective panels with a slight pinkish-brown tint to them. Some spots were open, like emergency valves and other things for the cargo containers that were docked to the ship. This whole hallway as cargo pod after cargo pod. In the back of the ship were ones that didn't need life support. All these cargo pods needed varying degrees of it. There were lots of things that didn't do well exposed to the cold vacuum of space. Each cargo container I looked at gave me a vague idea of its contents.

One of them said "Adult Entertainment Paraphernalia: Delivered as of August 2nd 2440." This got me to tilt my head because that was yesterday, while we were docked with Firmament Station.

Putting that question out of my mind, I trudged toward the bridge. The closer I got, the more valuable the cargo got until I saw a container that had been full of Lezveioan flora and fauna for MiraManna to study. Their star flung a lot of radiation at them and all the organisms on their planet had amazing repair properties unseen anywhere else in the Galaxy. Structures in cells could regenerate, even the DNA itself was better at self-repair and error correction than anything anywhere else.

Then I was at the door to the bridge and my heart was pounding in my chest. The bridge of a starship. I was going to be on the actual bridge of an actual star--the door opened and Ramda pulled me inside. "Sensors said you were standing out there, you okay?"

My eyes were wide as I looked at the plethora of interlocks, switches, knobs, levers, and glowing indicators. Even though most things were handled by implants nowadays, everything space-related had to have manual controls in case our implants failed. And it was all beautiful. There were toggle switches above our heads, on the walls, below the big window that looked out into space, on the consoles connected to the captain and first officer's chairs.

"Where's your FO?" I asked.

"Tammy's in the aft cockpit," Ramda said. Then she leaned in and I thought she was going to kiss me, but she licked my nose instead.

I gasped as her long canine tongue dragged across my nose, leaving behind a wet trail.

Because I was staring at her and not moving, she thought I wanted another kiss and she gave it to me. She grabbed me and pulled me against her and pressed her lips, breasts, and bulge into my front. When I gasped again, she licked into my mouth and my member started to dig into her crotch. I moaned, tasting the chocolate she'd licked off my nose as I got swept up in the thrill of making out.

Then there was a sound like a whistle that did two long tones and she suddenly let go of me and flicked her wrist toward the window that looked out into space.

I was terribly light-headed and my face was hot. As a red and pink Lezveioan came onto the screen, my knees gave out and Ramda caught me under my arm to prevent me from falling to the deck and sat me in the captain's chair. "Greetings Captain Aeidou, I'm assuming the last ship is currently traversing the FTL corridor?"

The chair had been made to fit Ramda's tall, thick-bodied frame and I felt tiny sitting in it.

"Affirmative, they're due in about four minutes," Captain Aeidou said. Her eyes were raspberry red and her shark-like muzzle held a charming sharp-toothed smile.

Ramda opened the ship-wide channel. "This is your Captain speaking, we will be jumping to the Trappist system in approximately fifteen minutes. Secure all loose objects and then strap yourselves in. If you have any questions, my First Officer, Tamara LeRange, would be happy to answer them."

As Ramda made her announcement, I couldn't take my eyes off the first Lezveioan, the first alien of any kind I'd ever been in contact with. She was wearing a tight-fitting sea green and pinkish-beige unitard that left very little to the imagination. I had seen their wetsuit-like uniforms before, but every time I'd seen a Lezveioan in the news that had breasts, they didn't have a bulge to go with them. This one did.

There was a flurry of questions tumbling through my mind, but I'd been rendered speechless by the shimmer of her scales as they reflected the light back at the camera. Then my eyes found her fascinating fan-like ears, beautiful thick thighs, and the fins on her tail.

Ramda and Captain Aeidou chatted about something from the last time they hung out together. While they chatted, Ramda's low-key sexual energy kept my prick throbbing and I was feeling rather exposed. I swiveled the pilot console that came out of the side of the captain's chair so it was in the way of my crotch, hoping Captain Aeidou hadn't seen the erection that Ramda had caused.

Moving the console caused me to lose track of their conversation, but Ramda caught my attention when she said, "Remiel here is gonna be a ship's captain someday and I think talking to you a bit would be a good experience for him. He's never met a Lezveioan in person, so why don't we start off with you telling him one of Trinity Stronghold's best kept secrets?"

"Hi there, Remiel! So good to meet you." Captain Aeidou's ear fans flicked closed and then open as she dipped her head toward her left shoulder.

"H-hi…" I was talking to a real live alien. And she was almost as gorgeous as Ramda. This was insanity.

"Trinity Stronghold edits us to look like we are a race of men and women just like their ideal in all media they publish. It has been going on for over thirty years, ever since we met them for the first time." She puffed air out of the slit-like closable nostrils at the end of her snout. It was a bit like a sigh. "We only have one biological sex and we don't even have gendered pronouns. We're all like Ramda, hermaphrodites. And we have asked your government to capitulate and depict us as we actually are, but they seem willing to give up their business with us entirely over it. So, we have relented. But it still angers us to no end." All her consonants had a slight hiss to them. It sounded cool. "We especially do not want to Jeopardize the New Babylon Gardens Project."

Ramda said, "If you wear your Trinity Stronghold uniform in front of a Lezveioan, be prepared for a discussion about your government's censorship. Lezveioans literally had no concept of male or female until they met humans."

If Ramda's goal was to blow my mind, she'd succeeded. "So your people have no concept of gender?"

"We have genders, in a way. Some of us are caretakers, some are builders, and some are entertainers. We treat these aspects of life in a similar way to how you treat genders, but we see it as more of a sliding scale than something that has firm boundaries." She smiled big. "How's Ramda been treating you?"

"Good." I remembered the kiss we'd shared just before the call took place and wanted to bury my face in my hands.

"She's a gift to anyone she meets," Captain Aeidou said. "I've known her for nearly six years now."

Ramda said, "Yes, you've become well acquainted with the depths of my...personality over the years." The deep sultry undertone in her voice and her well-placed pause got my blood pumping.

The underside of Captain Aeidou's chin reddened and her ears flicked a couple times as she tried to figure out what to say. It was nice to see Ramda's ability to render others speechless didn't only apply to me.

I was going to get hard again if the sexual tension got any higher, so I changed the subject. "Is there anything else my government has kept secret about your race?"

She nodded. "We don't marry or commit ourselves to one person in that way and we are not strict, we are actually too lax as a society. Like, we're currently trying to train our populace to take up things like engineering and accounting because jobs that require rigor are seen as boring. Think of us as a giant artist community that's always trying to hook people's interest. Our currency is actually based around that to some degree."

"The entertainers make the most money in their society," Ramda said.

Her ears fanned bigger as she lifted her head a bit, possibly a sign of agreement? "Indeed, we are working on fixing some of the imbalances, but people are quite healthy and well taken care of. We feel very distressed about what we see happening on your home planet."

I frowned. "Yeah, it's bad."

"You likely do not know the full breadth of how bad it is, but that's an unpleasant subject for a first meeting. Ramda said you were going to be a captain someday?"

"Maybe?" The idea just didn't fit in my head.

"I will have Ramda give you my contact information. You can ask me anything you wish and I am happy to be a resource for you if you choose to dive in those depths."

"Thank you!"

"I have to go so that Ramda can initiate her jump, but I wanted to say that I think your hair is gorgeous and I hope we speak again," Captain Aeidou said.

"Bye!" I said, waving and still not fully grasping the fact that I'd been talking to an alien.

"Different than you were expecting?" Ramda asked.

"Yeah, she was really nice." I tilted my head. "Why did she compliment me on my hair randomly?"

"Lezveioans always compliment each other before they say goodbye. There's even a saying about it, 'The gift of a smile is received twofold,' and they put that sort of thinking into everything. Only problem is that, every once in a while, some of them take it too far and it becomes hard to talk about unpleasant things." Ramda was doing something with her implant as she spoke. Her eyes were darting around a bit.

I let her work because I figured she was preparing us for FTL travel. When her focus was back on me, I said, "I was going to say I can't believe my government hid all that stuff about them, but when I think about it, I can't imagine them not censoring it."

"I'm going to give you access to the extranet before you leave today so you can experience the web in its uncensored form." Ramda sighed. "I'm gonna warn you now: don't go poking at things pertaining to your planet much if you're already in a state of anxiety. And remember, I'm here to talk if you need it."

"Is it really that bad?" I asked.

"I'm gonna let you answer that question for yourself." She gently grabbed me under the arms. "New topic: This chair is way too small for you and that gives me an idea."

"What are you--?"

She lifted me right up off the chair as if I weighed no more than a large watermelon and then slipped under me and put me in her lap. "There, now you can watch us go through the Anvil Point from the best seat in the house."

My feet, legs, buttocks, back, and head were all against her now and her chin was atop my head. At first, I was worried I was crushing her huge nuts, but she'd spread her legs a bit to give them room. Then I was thinking about the fact I could feel her man parts pressed up against me clearer than ever. I did my best to focus on the sensation of her tits against my back, but then I was thinking about both those things and couldn't untangle them. The fire in my crotch was back along with a fast thumping in my chest. I was going to go FTL for the first time and I was going to be doing it with a boner. This had to be a dream.

Chapter 6

The Anvil loomed in front of us, the largest structure I'd ever seen. Another ship was already in position between the hammers: rings with a diameter twenty times that of the Biome. The rings were about a third of a kilometer wide and had a rounded triangular cross-section. Connected to each of the rings were three trusses that extended out from the thick arms that hung down from the long blocky power station and control center that ran everything.

The Anvil Point was the bit of space at the center between the two rings that the ships sat in while those two rings created a spatial vortex and slammed into each other. I would've been more nervous about it if I wasn't sitting in Ramda's lap. Her three sets of breasts and sizable package were distractions I couldn't ignore. Distractions that had me painfully hard now.

Ramda opened the ship-wide channel. "All hands prepare for FTL jump. Secure yourselves and all objects in your vicinity. If the tie-down nets for your luggage have not deployed yet, notify me or Tammy immediately. Artificial gravity will be shuttered in T-minus five minutes and counting."

I hid the tent in my uniform with my hands even though I knew she could smell exactly what she'd done to me. When she pulled the harness for her captain's chair out from slots in the sides, I hid my erection even more fervently. After clipping the two V's of side-straps together, she hit a button and the shoulder straps came down from the back of her chair and connected to the center of the harness.

"Could you get your prick to lie flat?" Ramda asked. "I've gotta connect the crotch strap next and don't wanna hurt you."

My face burned with a blush as I reached into my uniform pants, and tried not to moan from how sensitive my shaft was as I got it situated. Out of reflex, my hands went right back to guarding my crotch afterwards.

"Sorry Remiel, you gotta move your hands. I might have to touch you there to get the crotch strap connected without risk to your member. I promise I'll be gentle, okay?" she said.

I gulped and then said, "O-okay," before putting my hands at my sides.

The crotch strap came up from the seat of the chair, but she stopped it short because it was going to go right over my erection. Then, she noticed that my dick was still pushing up and away from my crotch a bit and pressed it down, just under the head, while she let the strap continue on its automated way.

At this rate, I was going to leave tooth marks on my lip. I could feel the paw pad on the end of her index finger pressing against my sensitive flesh through the fabric and I couldn't keep my hips still. Half a moan made it out of my mouth as my pre wet my briefs.

Ramda groaned as the head of her member started pressing against my butt cheeks.

I moaned and started moving more. I didn't know what was happening. No one had ever touched me like this. I was so hot all over, so horny everything looked blurry. All I could do was feel. Feel her continue to get hard against me, feel her paw pad rub against my shaft as I gyrated. And I could smell her getting excited with me. Someone else was getting horny because of me!

She pulled her finger away just after the strap connected and when it tightened, she made sure it was snug, but not painful.

Now that the strap was against my erection and a couple inches of her dick were against my buttocks. When I moved, even slightly, I got pleasure that flickered through me like a strobe light in a hall of mirrors. I was panting and completely unaware of what to do with myself.

The only thing that made it through the lust-filled fog inside me was a sense of awe at the sheer scale of the Anvil Point as we neared the other craft that had just gotten into position. It was one of MiraManna's bulk freighters that was basically a stick with cargo pods attached along four of its sides making a cross-shaped cross section.

But I could barely think about that; five inches of Ramda's length were now out and throbbing and her nipples were hard and I could smell the turmeric part of her scent so clearly. I started grinding against her and rubbing my cock against the strap. This time, when I moaned, I arched my back and pred hard, just on the edge of cumming. My need to get off had an unfortunate, unstoppable momentum, like a freighter barreling full speed toward a rocky moon.

Ramda had been working with her implant and both hands setting up stuff for our jump, but when I started grinding even more roughly against her, she yipped and her shaft twitched under me. "Remiel, please, I'm going to have to put you in the other chair if you can't stop fidgeting."

I froze as my ears burned with embarrassment over what I'd been doing. "Sorry."

"It's fine, dear. I love your enthusiasm, but we have to wait till after the jump or we'll miss our embarkation window."

She brought up the airbag settings on the console that was on the arm that came up from the side of the captain's chair. The same one I'd hid my erection with earlier. There were sensors in the straps and the crotch strap had detected the outline of my hard-on. She lowered the force settings in that area and then put in that there were two occupants in the chair along with our weights.

"Wait, it has a setting for two people?" I asked.

"Yep, for the event that there's only one chair and there's two people that need shock protection," she said as she finalized those settings. She opened the ship-wide announcement channel. "Pre-jump safety check: If anyone is unable to get into a safe position for FTL transit, you have ten seconds to notify me."

Ramda waited ten seconds before saying,"Okay, we're all set. Do you want to hear the radio chatter as we get ready to embark?"

"Oh, yes," I said.

"--eploy magnetic harpoons in five. four. three. two. one. Go!" The freighter and our ship shot out powerful electromagnets connected to cables that could steer themselves with little thrusters.

The electromagnets were self-centering, so when they met each other, they matched up perfectly. Winches on each ship pulled us toward each other until we were at the right distance and artificial muscles in the cables tensed up keeping us at a safe distance of two hundred meters.

"G. Pixie, here. Tethering for twin jump achieved," Ramda said.

"Jehovah's Bounty, here, Tethering achieved," a languid drawling voice replied.

"Requesting suspension of artificial gravity and final systems check," a cool nasal female voice said.

"Wilco," Ramda replied as she flipped a big blue switch on her console.

"Wilco," the freighter said.

I heard a buzzing hum and then I weighed less and less until my hands were no longer being pulled down, they just drifted as if I was submerged under water. We'd had to spend time in zero g to prepare for this trip, so I didn't get sick or anything, but I did feel like I was slowly spinning because my inner ears were understandably confused. The waffle I'd eaten was sitting funny in my stomach, not upset exactly.

Ramda's breasts had a more spherical shape when they weren't being tugged on by gravity. In a way, they felt even softer. It was good our boners had retreated because I felt like rubbing against her again. This was all just so cool and I was feeling really cuddly.

"G. Pixie reporting artificial gravity suspension and all systems go," Ramda said.

"J. Bounty reporting artificial gravity suspension and all systems go."

Looking at space through the ring directly ahead of us was bizarre and unsettling. Instead of stars being points of light, they were little streaks swirling in a vortex of warped space. These rings were always kept spinning at five percent the speed of light, twisting space with the exotic matter inside them.

"Opening FTL corridor to the Trappist system." There was a brief pause. "Connection established. Spatial forging in: ten. nine. eight. seven. six. five. four. three. two. one. go."

Out the window, I saw the ring ahead of us come flying toward us at blinding speed. On the little monitor on Ramda's console, I saw the tower's view of the two giant rings hurtling toward each other. The streaks of stars in the spatial vortex got redder and longer until I couldn't find the end of them. Then the ring seemed to slow and the starlight shifted blue and then deep purple until it was as if everything in my vision had been burned into my retinas.

I never saw the rings strike each other, instead, I saw us and the freighter become reflected by the vortex, looking as though our ships were reflections in mercury swirling down the drain. My inner ears told me I was getting pulled in a spiral of different directions.

There were no stars, no shifted hues of light, only...wait, I hadn't been seeing our reflections. As the distortion waned, I realized I was looking at the aft cockpit. Fire-orange hair, elf-like ears and elongated features, a confident grin. Tammy looked like she'd done this a thousand times. Space had been fully bent in on itself and we were in a bubble! I never thought it would look like this.

My mouth hung open as Tammy's image became more and more distorted and the purple-shifted star streaks returned. As I watched the ring zoom away from us, the streaks got shorter, eventually returning to their proper coloration.

"Spatial convolution resolved. Please report your status," a low warm masculine voice said.

I felt giddy, like I could do anything. I'd just gone superluminal. The photons that had bounced off our ship before the jump would need over thirty years to reach where we were now!

"This is G. Pixie reporting all green," Ramda said.

"This is Jehovah's Bounty reporting all green."

"G. Pixie, you may re-engage artificial gravity."

"Roger." Ramda flipped the big blue switch back into the on position and then opened the ship-wide channel. "Artificial gravity powering back up. Please stay seated until power up is complete."

As the gravity came back, the sensation of Ramda being pressed up against me reached its full intensity. I tried to keep my body still, but focusing so much on that made me twitch and when I twitched, I felt her package and breasts move against me.

"J. Bounty requesting permission to decouple."

"Permission granted." Ramda used her implant to turn off the magnets and the cables relaxed their artificial muscles, becoming flexible again. They retreated back into the ship.

"J. Bounty, prepare for second jump. G. Pixie, welcome to the Trappist System. Please follow your flight corridor to Outer Trappist Station."

"Wilco. Out," Ramda said.

"Why are we stopping here?" I asked, my breath panting a bit from the sexual tension.

"I've gotta pick up some cargo that they need on Earth. They didn't have room to hold it at the Anvil Station," she said, setting us on our course for Outer Trappist Station, which was just short of thirty thousand kilometers from us.

"That was brilliant!" I bounced atop her, finally able to express how thrilled I was.

"Sorry, all I can think about is how good you smell," she said as she started humping against my backside, her prick poking out of her sheath and throbbing ever larger.

I grabbed at my chest, feeling like I'd never stopped rubbing against her. Actually, the need to get off was even worse. "T-that sucks, having to go a couple hours out of your way." I don't even know why I was trying to hold a conversation.

"It's fine." She unbuckled the safety harness and retracted all the straps. Then she grabbed my erection. "It gives us time to do something about this. No way I'm sending you back to the passengers' section with this thing advertising the effect we have on each other."

"HAAAH! D-do something?" I asked.

"Yep!" Letting go of my cock, she flipped me over and pulled me against her.

My dick pressed against hers through our uniforms while she made out with me, using my moans and gasps to get her long canine tongue in my mouth. I could feel her hot breath puffing out of her nostrils. All I could smell was the cinnamon and turmeric-tinged aromas of her body. I ran my tongue along the sharp canine teeth in the front of her muzzle, but couldn't reach all that far. Every time I thrust against her cock, I got more butterflies in my stomach. I didn't actually want to do anything with it, did I?

She grabbed my ass and dug her claws into the fabric making me moan sharply. Then she took one of my hands and put it on her breasts. As I groped them, I found her uniform to be rather stretchy. I loved how her tits had some give while being firm and I could feel a rise from her nipples against the palms of my hands as they hardened.

Her dextrous hands grabbed the zipper of my uniform and pulled it down. Then she undressed me as she made out with me. The air in the bridge was cold, but I was so hot from all this making out that I didn't mind much. Soon she had me in my undershirt and briefs.

When she started pulling down my briefs, a nervous twinge ran up my back and I broke out of the kiss. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that was hearing this rushing sound. "Are we really gonna--?"

She chuckled. "Not enough time, I'm afraid. I have to prepare for a meeting and taking on cargo. Plus, you smell like you're going to explode if I make you any more nervous. Let's try something relaxing. Stand off to the side and get in the chair after I get out of it."

I obediently switched places with her and sat in the chair. Looking up at her, my lips trembled. Part of me wanted to cry. I needed what was about to happen so bad, but I also wanted to run and hide under a rock for the rest of my life and never have to deal with the uncertainties of human intimacy again.

"Just breathe, Remiel," She said, putting her paws on my chest. "In," she paused, "and out. In...and out."

I took long slow breaths as she gently stroked my cheeks, my chest, and my belly, slowly working herself down to my crotch. When she heard my breathing get uneven, she brought me back to trying to relax, and eventually, her left paw pulled down the front of my briefs, exposing my erection.

"Oh, how beautiful, and with a nice little curve too." She crouched closer to it and took a deep sniff. "Mmm, you smell a bit like lemon meringue. Lovely. I'm gonna enjoy sucking on this," she grinned as her tail wagged.

"Sucking on it?!" my eyes went wide.

"Unless you don't want me to."

I desperately wanted to try that, but I didn't want her to go out of her way for me. There's no way she actually wanted to give me a blowjob. Was there? Words just kinda fell out of my mouth with little rhyme or reason. "I, uhh, think that--I mean, I've heard it feels really go--AAAAH!"

She took my cock into her mouth and started sucking on it, using her tongue to rub along the underside as she bobbed her head.

My hands grabbed the fur on her cheeks, trying to get some semblance of control over the situation. It felt good, way too good! I was already trying not to cum. She was making extra effort to stimulate the head of my cock with the back of her tongue. I could feel the slight brush of her teeth, not enough to hurt, but plenty to make the combined sensations soar into the stratosphere.

Her muzzle was long enough that she was having an easy time going fast and hard. Then she started growling and sucking harder. I moaned so loud my voice broke. My legs were visibly shaking and I was gripping her head fur so tightly I was worried I'd pull it right out. Her saliva was soaking into my crotch, providing more than enough lubrication for how rough she was being.

None of this slowed her down. She just kept sliding that hot wet mouth over my entire length over and over again until I felt a familiar surge of pressure behind my balls and a tingling at the head of my shaft.

"I'm go--FUCK!" I said the F word out loud for the first time in my life as my seed splashed on her tongue.

She took in to the hilt and sucked down every drop of jizz, making me groan and gasp as I saw stars in my vision and felt my entire body fill up with hot fizzy delight.

I felt like I weighed ten thousand pounds by the time it was over. The afterglow had put me in an actual stupor. All I could do was stare at her, muzzle still around my cock, tail wagging furiously, and wonder how this was possible. How feeling this good, and having someone like me enough to give me head, was possible.

I had no answers as she pulled her muzzle off my prick, licked my mess off her lips, and then kissed me on the forehead. "That was delicious. Enjoyed yourself?"

My admission came out as a happy groan.

She chuckled and pulled me into her arms. She cuddled me for the next few minutes, her dick half hard.

When I had my senses back, I asked, "Do you want me to do something to you?" Instantly, I was jittery as a live wire. I had no idea what I'd do to her. There's no way I could provide as much pleasure as she'd just given me.

"Sure, if you're up for it. But I don't want to have pussy juice soaked into my fur for the next couple hours while I get stuff ready, so we'd have to do something with my prick. But we'll have to be quick, okay?"

"I-I can try," I said. There was no way I was going to leave her hanging.

"Well then, I suppose I should show you the goods." Her cock was now climbing up her belly, poking up between her first set of breasts. She let go of me and started unzipping her uniform. As she dropped it to the floor and stepped out of it, her dick was sitting there making a gigantic rise in her boxer briefs and undershirt.

My jaw was hanging open, and my dick was tingling even though I'd just gotten off. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the moan that came out of me when she pulled up her undershirt and exposed her deep magenta canine length to me. It was over a foot long and thicker than my wrist, even just a couple inches below the tapered head. Then it got as thick as an apple in the middle and tapered a bit in until the swell of her knot which was almost as big as my fist even though she hadn't cum yet.

With her tail wagging furiously and a confident grin that made me swoon, she said, "Touch it all you like." She let go of the base and it flopped forward, angling up at a forty-five-degree angle and nearly touching my chest.

My hands shook so much as I reached for it, that I had trouble aiming them. I didn't like cocks. There's no way I liked cocks. It was just simple human curiosity. As my fingertips came into contact with the head of her cock, she gasped and got pre on my left hand.

"Keep going, Rem, use the pre to lube me up," she said in a breathy, excited voice.

My member swelled to full hardness just from me doing as she asked. I could feel her heat, her heartbeat through her erection. The turmeric smell was strong and I found myself leaning toward the tip, to sniff deeper.

She moaned as my face moved toward her hard-on and grabbed her middle set of breasts. Then she started thrusting forward suddenly and preed right on my lips, yipping.

I licked my lips, in a trance caused by her scent and this situation. Her pre tasted a bit like curry with a hint of cinnamon. As those flavors filled my senses, she gently pressed her hips forward and parted my lips with the tip of her cock.

"Mmm, so eager. I love it," she cooed.

What was I doing?! I wasn't gay! I let go of her dick and jumped back, yelping. Then my eyes widened as I realized my shaft was dripping pre onto the deck.

She walked up to my side so her dick wasn't pointed at me and hugged my shoulders, "It's okay, Rem. It's totally understandable that you'd be freaked out by this. Remember, I was just as inexperienced as you at one point."

I teared up. I was useless. She was going to be left wanting after giving me a blowjob and I wasn't courageous enough to combat the warning sirens going off in my head. Were they from my upbringing? Or were they from me acting contrary to my nature? I couldn't resolve that inner puzzle and now I was going to make her late due to my indecision. Now I was shivering and starting to sweat.

"Just take nice slow breaths like you did before." She guided me in calming down again.

Her boner didn't wane as much as mine. I felt like my brain was going to melt trying to figure out what I really wanted. Eventually, I was just staring at the captain's chair blankly.

Letting me go, she said, "I'm gonna get myself off because I gotta get going. You can either watch or you can go, but I gotta get started now." She climbed into the captain's chair and leaned it way back.

I stood there watching, part of me wanted to leave, another part wanted to stay and help her get off, and yet another part just wanted to stand there and not make a decision. That last part won and I stared at her as she grabbed the backs of her thighs and then pulled her hips toward her muzzle. Then she had her mouth around the end of her cock.

My prick tingled sympathetically as she moaned around her own length, bucking into her maw, giving her own cock the wonderful treatment she'd given mine.

I took one step toward her, then another, and reached toward her lowest set of breasts. Her tail wagged as I did so and embers of the joy I'd felt earlier grew hotter.

She stopped for a moment to say, "I see you looking at my breasts, go ahead and touch them." Then she went back to sucking on her shaft.

My hand reached out and touched her lowest set of breasts, being careful not to brush her cock. She moaned louder around her erection and started thrusting faster, making her huge balls slap against her snatch. I noticed the nipple under my palm getting harder, so I squeezed it through her undershirt and her knot started to swell.

She was going to town on her shaft. I wasn't even that exuberant when I was stroking myself. Her hands were flying up and down it, slicking everything up with her pre as she sucked. I couldn't help but get hard remembering the way her mouth had felt. When I grabbed a nipple on her second set of breasts with my other hand, she yowled and slid her muzzle as far down her shaft as she could.

Then, I watched her grab below her knot with one hand as her entire shaft lurched from base to tip. The knot swelled bigger than my fist and so much cum came up her shaft from those big balls that I saw it swell rhythmically as she delivered her load. Her cheeks puffed out a bit just before she swallowed, each time interrupting her howls of pleasure.

Pulling off her prick, she licked her lips and panted through her wet canine nose. Then she laid back with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. "Thanks!"

"Sorry I didn't do more." All I'd done was touch her nipples and she'd had to do all the work. What a terrible date I was. And now I was hard again undoing the whole reason she'd given me a BJ in the first place. I didn't even know why I was hard.

"It's fine, Rem, I got too excited and pushed you too far outside your comfort zone. I'm just glad you stuck around instead of running for the hills." She grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

Tears started welling up in my eyes. I was such a crybaby and if I let her see me get all emotional, I'd put her even further behind schedule. "Thanks for today, I'm glad I met you." Then I let go of her hand and started putting on my uniform.

"I'm glad I met you too." She got out of her chair, grabbed a towel from a cabinet behind it and cleaned herself off efficiently before putting on her uniform as fast as she could.

"Have a good rest of your day," I said.

"If you want, you can sit in the copilot chair for the next jump in about four hours," she said. "I won't be up against the clock then."

"Maybe," I said as I walked toward the bulkhead door that led to the bridge. This was never going to work. If I couldn't deal with her having a dick, I couldn't give her what she needed. And it was unfair for me to keep leading her on. As I walked past the cargo containers, I started composing a message, "I'm sorry I don't have the courage to say this to you in person, but..."

Chapter 7

The first draft of my message telling Ramda I wasn't worth her time was a mess. Since the second draft only barely improved on the first, I just deleted it and started over. Five drafts and two hours later, I was sweating and my chest was so tight that I worried my ribs were going to snap.

She needed to know the truth, but I was completely incompetent and couldn't write a coherent message to save my life.

Deciding to try one more time, I wrote, "You're a beautiful and kind person and I'm going to cherish the moments we spent together. Because I'm likely going to keep going out my way to avoid a part of your anatomy that you're proud of, I should stop seeing you so you can focus on people who can enjoy all of you."

I thought for a moment and then added, "I remember you complimenting me on my ability to look past my upbringing. Honestly, I don't think I'm strong enough to do that. I'm more likely to go back and forth and never actually figure out what I want. You have better things to do than wait for me to make up my mind and I'm sorry for the time you've already wasted on me. Thank you for believing in me, but you don't need to trouble yourself any longer. I'm sorry I didn't tell you this in person, but I'm really bad at this sort of thing."

It wasn't great, but it rambled less than my other attempts and I didn't think I was going to be able to do any better. Why couldn't I just tell her in person? Didn't I owe that to her? What if she found something I said offensive? Getting off my bed, I decided to just talk to her like a normal person.

Nervous twitches in my body and a feeling dizzy suffocation got me to sit right back down. I wasn't a normal person, I was an utter mess in the shape of a person. The courage I needed to face her just wasn't there. and I'd just have to send the message...

Shit, I couldn't do that either. I was all anxiety without any direction.

The anything room was free and VR games often calmed me down. I stood in front of the door and then waved my hand at it to get it to open. The maximum amount of time I could check the room out for was an hour and a half, which gave me fifteen minutes to strap in for the next jump. It was a shame I wouldn't be joining Ramda on the bridge this time. Wait, the reason we couldn't do stuff with her pussy was a lack of time and she mentioned we'd have more time after this upcoming jump. I blushed. Was she hoping to get up to more lewd stuff on the same day?

If I didn't send my message, I'd kinda be standing her up, wouldn't I?

I was too nervous to be horny, but that didn't keep me from wondering whether her snatch was canine like her prick. And that's all it took for me to remember her cock tip slipping into my mouth. She'd tasted so--

To get that out of my head, I busied myself by activating the VR crane. It came out from a tall skinny door in the front wall, holding an exoskeleton. The crane attached to the sides of the exoskeleton at the center of mass, allowing it to spin freely any which way. Getting into the exoskeleton, I waited for it to inflate the air bladders and get a snug hold on my body. The air was at the perfect temperature and the air pressure was just enough to get a hold of me, so I couldn't actually feel that I was being held. It was like wearing a cloud.

I loaded up a puzzle game I'd been meaning to play and entered a world with incredibly complex Gothic fractal architecture where gravity always pointed to the nearest floor, wall, or ceiling. The great thing about this game was that it managed to trick you into thinking you were walking on walls and ceilings by having the crane tilt you subtly to give your inner ear the wrong idea only to get you standing upright normally without realizing it.

Everything around me was situated in different bands of a rainbow's spectrum depending on my orientation and where I was in the eccentric world. It all kinda looked like polarized light from different angles as it traveled through plastic. It was so breathtaking that I found myself pausing just to gawk at my surroundings. A big hurdle to my enjoyment was me obsessing about my message to Ramda. Every time I thought about that, I worked to get lost in the game again, but I felt like I'd only been playing for like ten minutes when time was up.

It took me a moment to adjust to normal physics when I stopped the game and got out of the exoskeleton.

Walking back into my quarters, I checked the room service menu for quick order items. Basically, you could order from the large room service menu and wait for stuff to be prepared, or you could order stuff that was already on hand and being served in the mess. Sometimes, like right now, there were items that could be delivered within just a few minutes. The trays were magnetic so I could just put it inside and then eat it after the jump. All I had to do was order something that wouldn't get messed up by a bit of zero g.

After the day I had, I felt like I deserved the readily available chicken fingers and waffle fries. The moment I put in the order, I opened my message to Ramda.

If I didn't send the message before we jumped, she'd be wondering why I wasn't there. She might even call me, forcing me to make up some sort of excuse. If I waited too long, it might distract her while she was making final preparations for the jump. I had to send it now!

With my breath caught in my throat and my hands shaking, I hit "send."

I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life. I had to take it back, delete it before she could read it. Shit, the "undo" feature wasn't showing up because messages to the captain of a starship were part of the black box record. The "read" indicator wasn't checked yet, though. Maybe I could hack into the network and delete it before she read it? Even if I could, that would be tampering with ship records and I'd risk jail time.

My room service order delivery notification popped up.

Ramda's voice came over the ship-wide channel. "All hands prepare for FTL jump. Secure yourselves and all objects in your vicinity. If the tie-down nets for your luggage have not deployed, notify me or Tammy immediately. Artificial gravity will be shuttered in T-minus five minutes and counting."

Just after the jump announcement, the "read" indicator on my message to her lit up and I felt a stab in my chest. Was Ramda going to be mad at me? Was I having a heart attack?

My door chimed and I went over, thinking it was a reminder that my food had arrived. When I opened my door, Daniel's hand grabbed the front of my uniform and he yanked me out of my quarters while I yelped in surprise.

"You've got a lot of nerve," he said, shoving me against the wall.

My heart was beating so fast that my body ached. The three-meter-tall hallway felt very small now that I was being held captive "L-let me go," I stammered.

Holding me against the wall, he reached down, opened my room service tray, and ate a handful of my waffle fries. "You think I can't count to three or something?"

"I didn't take your waffle," I said.

"How did you know it was a waffle if you didn't take it!?" he yelled.

"I didn't mean to!" I said.

"How can you eat something without meaning to?"

He grabbed one of my chicken fingers and bit off some viciously before throwing the rest on the floor and stepping on it.

"How about I order you some chocolate chip waffles and we can call it even," I said.

"No," he said. "I'll consider us even if you confess to kicking that robot and ask Josiah to write you up."

"But then I might get sent back to Trinity Stronghold," I said, my stomach clenching.

"It's just as well. Cowards like you don't deserve to go to Earth," he said, his face an inch from mine. His breath smelled like honey mustard dip. He'd probably eaten chicken fingers before he'd come over to harass me.

I'd never felt this trapped and my blood suddenly ran hot. Without thinking, my right knee found his left thigh and he stumbled backwards. I used the opening to try and run, but his hand grabbed my arm and jerked me toward him.

Then he slammed my front against the wall.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Let me go. We need to get strapped in!" My cheekbone was pressing against the wall so hard that it really hurt.

He laughed. "What? you scared of zero g?"

I stomped on his foot.

He yelped in pain and let go of me.

This time when I tried to run, he grabbed both of my arms and tripped me. I fell to the ground face-first and he stepped on the small of my back while still gripping my wrists.

"Let's try this again. What are you going to tell Josiah?"

Ramda's voice echoed throughout cavernous, cargo-friendly hallways. "Pre-jump safety check: If anyone is unable to get into a safe position for FTL transit, you have ten seconds to notify me."

I started composing a message to Ramda using my HUD, but Daniel interrupted me by pressing harder on my back.

Grunting in pain, I struggled to get my arms free, but he held them firmly, saying, "I see any sign you're trying to send a message, and I step harder. You need to face your fears, scaredy cat."

"This isn't a game, we could die," I said as I started feeling lighter.

Daniel cackled like a maniac as the artificial gravity waned. But then he couldn't hold me against the floor and we were just drifting slowly upwards and backwards. Within seconds, we were a meter and a half above the floor.

My mind was in crisis mode. All the anxiety from before was taking a back seat to me trying to figure out how to survive the gravity being turned back on.

The calm voice of the Anvil Point's flight controller came over the ship-wide channel. "Connection established. Spatial forging in: ten."

"Daniel, you need to let me go," I said.

"No," he said.

" --seven."

"Do you want broken arms?" I asked.

"--five."

He pulled me toward him and put me in a head lock as he said, "You can't scare me."

"--one. jump."

As all the colors of the spectrum separated and my middle ears told me we were spiraling down a drain, I struggled against him, saying, "We need to separate so we don't hit each other."

"Blah, blah, blah, you're not going anywhere until you promise to do as I say," he said.

We were two meters above the floor and slowly spinning, surrounded by chicken fingers and fries. "Try to get closer to the floor, at least."

"What, never jumped off the high dive?" he said in a low, menacing voice.

My voice echoed as time moved erratically before smoothing out when the spatial bubble fully formed. "Damn it, Daniel! You could get crushed by me!" I tried to hit him in the stomach with my elbow, but he tightened his headlock the moment I tried.

As I started to pass out from lack of air, I squeaked out, "Stop!"

"Not until you promise me," he said.

My body went limp, my lungs burned, and my senses blurred. I felt jostling in my middle ears as our spatial bubble reconnected with the universe.

Our slow rotation put the spotlights directly above me and all I could see was a blinding white. Then, I started to feel the pull of gravity. I vaguely heard Daniel cry out and then felt a crunch when I landed on top of him. His arms went limp and I took in a deep breath before getting into a coughing fit. The world came into focus as the burning in my lungs lessened.

As I got onto my hands and knees, I saw Daniel with chicken fingers and fries scattered all around him, soaking up the blood that was gushing from the back of his head. I immediately hit the medical emergency button on my HUD and the ship's klaxon rang loud and clear as blue flashing lights chased each other along the handrails. Ramda responded that she was two minutes away.

Complete and total overwhelm settled upon me. I couldn't think of anything that would help Daniel as he spilled more blood on the floor. They'd told us in first aid class to not move people with head injuries. So I just grabbed Daniel's hand in case he was aware enough to know someone was there.

Ramda arrived with a first aid kit and quickly looked Daniel over, checking for broken bones, before saying, "Carefully lift his shoulders while I lift his head. We have to get trauma sealant into the wound without bending his neck."

"Okay."

She grabbed the hair on the top of his head with her left hand while holding trauma seal spray in her right.

With my whole body shaking, I lifted his shoulders up off the floor. I couldn't see the gash, all I could see was his bloody hair as she sprayed sealant into the wound.

Just as we were about to lay him back down, Tammy arrived with a gurney and she helped us get Daniel onto it.

On the way to the med bay, I mumbled my way through telling Ramda what happened. She was furious at Daniel, but I wasn't feeling much of anything. Instead, I was sick to my stomach and felt like collapsing into bed.

The med bay was a typical compact ship's hospital with imaging equipment, a surgery bay, and ICUs full of monitoring equipment. The doctor was a curly-haired upbeat woman with a blue-scaled dragon tail named Ms. Harmon. Her tail almost matched the color of the benches in the waiting room, which was a metal tube with a bunch of closely-packed navy-blue seats coming out of it. The mesh the seats were made out of had a bit of give to it and was quite comfortable.

The automatic transparent doors throughout the med bay made cool hissing sounds when they opened and closed. The walls were a lighter, happier metallic gray with a bit of pink in them.

I wasn't happy, I was miserable because Josiah had walked in a few moments after I sat down and started interrogating me. With awkward pauses, feeling like an idiot, and stuttering, I eventually answered all his questions.

Then he said, "When he wakes up, I bet he's going to tell me it was all your fault."

Ramda poked her head out of Daniel's ICU and said, "*If* he wakes up. His prognosis is about fifty-fifty at this point. He has serious head trauma and is about to go into surgery."

Josiah bit his lip and then said, "You better hope he wakes up. If he doesn't I'm gonna launch a full investigation."

"Per our contract, formal investigations must be done by a third party." Ramda said, "Would you want it made public that a MiraManna employee died from disobeying safety regulations?"

"How do we know that's what happened?" Josiah said.

"Regardless of what else we'd find in a full investigation, as evidenced by their location immediately after the jump, we know both parties disobeyed safety regs," Ramda said. "There's also evidence of a physical altercation preceding the accident and I think it's in your best interest to work with me rather than against me."

Josiah tried to say something, but Ramda ignored him and returned her attention to what was going on inside the ICU. After a frustrated huff, Josiah walked out.

Dr. Harmon and a short male nurse brought Daniel out of the ICU on the hospital bed and through the automatic double doors that led to the surgery bay.

After he was done helping maneuver Daniel into surgery, the nurse checked me over to see if I needed medical attention. Nothing hurt too bad, so he just gave me an extra-long-release anti-inflammatory. I was supposed to come back if I ended up in more pain.

Despite being cleared to go back to my quarters, I stayed at the med bay for another hour without really knowing why. Sure, I was worried about the complications that would arise if Daniel died, but that wasn't what was stressing me the most. I kept running the scenario through my head, trying to figure out how I could have saved Daniel from himself. Nothing I could think of worked because he had so much more fighting experience. I was so powerless.

And earlier today, I'd sent that stupid message to Ramda. Daniel was right, I was a coward. Having had it with this entire experience, I just kept beating up on myself until I was completely exhausted.

I was only vaguely aware of Daniel coming back from surgery because my eyelids felt really heavy and my eyes weren't quite focusing on him. Time passed without me noticing and just when I was about to doze off in my chair, Ramda walked into the waiting room.

With her wolf ears perked up and her tail wagging softly, she said, "He's awake and we think he's going to be okay."

"Oh good," I said, letting out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

"At first, they couldn't get his brain swelling under control, but things took a turn for the better a half hour ago," Ramda said, sitting next to me. "I can finally relax."

I hugged her from the side. "I'm so glad."

Josiah entered, glanced at me hugging Ramda with a raised eyebrow, and then went in to see Daniel.

Taking my hands off of Ramda like she was a pot of boiling water, I sat straight up. Josiah had just seen us together, shit.

Ramda leaned her head against the wall and stared at the ceiling, looking as drained as I was. Then she grabbed my hand. This had a different energy to it than the other times she'd touched me. This time, I felt more like when a friend reaches for your hand after hearing bad news: just happy to have someone else there who knows what they're going through.

Honestly, I felt the same, and her paw pads felt really reassuring against my palm.

Through the frosted laminate that made up the ICU's wall, we saw Josiah's silhouette move toward the door.

Taking her hand away, Ramda moved over so she wasn't sitting next to me when the ICU's door hissed open.

Josiah looked down at me, saying, "Since your stories don't match up, I'm going to issue both of you a formal warning."

"What?" I furrowed my brow. "What about the bruising on my trachea? I couldn't have done that to myself."

"Is this true?" Josiah asked Ramda.

"Yes," she said.

Josiah thought for a moment. "That just proves you two fought like children. Even more reason to give you both a warning."

I made a fist, but I didn't say anything.

"I'll have it written up by tomorrow morning." Josiah narrowed his eyes at me. "You two better behave yourselves the rest of this trip or I'm sending you both back."

"Yes sir," I said, weathering a wave of nausea.

Satisfied he'd put me in my place, he walked out.

Turning to Ramda, I said, "I can't believe I'm getting written up for that."

"Josiah's not going to see the truth because he's not actually looking for it," Ramda said, getting out of her chair.

"Yeah, you're right." I sighed.

Dr. Harmon stepped out of the ICU, saying, "He wants to talk to you."

Having no idea what to think, I walked in to find Daniel lying on a hospital bed, looking very tired.

The moment he saw me, the heart monitor showed an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. "Why the fuck were you waiting out there?"

"I thought you might die," I said.

"But I've done you no favors," he said. "Are you gay or something?"

I turned and left the ICU. Daniel was acting exactly like my dad, like the voice in my head that made me send that message to Ramda. The voice in my head that made it so I didn't even know what I wanted. I was done with today, and Daniel.

Dr. Harmon went back in.

Ramda was standing near me, and the moment the door closed behind Dr. Harmon, she said, "You rest tonight and don't worry about anything. Then, tomorrow afternoon, I'll come to you so we can have a talk. That sound okay?"

"I hope you're not mad at me," I said.

"No, not mad, but we definitely need to talk through some stuff." She opened her arms. "Hug?"

As I dove into her arms and pulled her six-breasted front tightly against me, the stabbing tightness in my chest finally started to wane.

Chapter 8

Staring at the light gray composite walls of my quarters, I kept trying to believe that Ramda wasn't actually mad at me. She'd said she wasn't, but people often said that to keep others from worrying. And I was very worried because I still didn't know what I wanted from Ramda and it was only a matter of time until she lost patience with me. That is, if she hadn't already lost it.

My foot tapped on the floor as my leg started to shake. Why did I care if she had patience for me or not?

Probably because I was obsessed with her to the point it was hard to sleep soundly. I'd woken up in the middle of the night remembering her drinking down her own seed while in the captain's chair and had to get off to get back to sleep. I didn't know my sex drive could be this high. It didn't make any sense. Maybe I was just thrilled to be leaving Trinity Stronghold behind?

No, it couldn't have been that simple. With the looming possibility I'd get shipped back due to Daniel's childishness and stuff with Ramda, I was under a hell of a lot of stress.

My feelings for Ramda were so confusing. I normally avoided things that overwhelmed me and yet here I was looking forward to our talk despite feeling like I needed to hide in a storage compartment for the rest of my life. All this obsession over her made even less sense since I hadn't actually seen her pussy. She'd said that she had one, but the only physical evidence of it I had was the warmth behind her balls when I accidentally goosed her on the first day. And the more I tried not to think about her dick, the more I thought about it. It just...belonged on her and I couldn't imagine her without it.

Not that any of this mattered. She was about to tell me, very kindly, that I was right. That she needed to move on.

I bit my lip, not wanting to cry right before she arrived. I'd been holding in my tears for my entire life, not wanting to burden others with my emotions. But now I was actually on my own for the first time in my life and I couldn't stop them from leaking out. My dad liked to tell me that only gay men cry.

No, I was a normal guy and it was great that Ramda was going to leave me be. I wasn't as strong as Ramda and I'd never know what I actually wanted, so all I had to do was just continue forward doing what everyone else wanted for me. It was time to stop fooling myself and just be a good MiraManna employee so I could gradually get more responsibility and pay. Then I'd find a wife, volunteer at the chapel, and raise a good, God-loving family. It was what my parents wanted, what I was raised to do, and I didn't know any other way to live. I bit my lip harder, forcing those tears to stay put.

My breakfast started trying to make its way back up my throat. Why couldn't my body, my emotions stop fucking with me? Was I in some sort of unbeatable VR game where every decision I ever made was wrong no matter what I did?

My eyes widened. Wait, every decision I made was wrong because no matter what I chose, I was still miserable and overwhelmed about everything.

Going to Earth wouldn't save me. I'd be like this for the rest of my life. No, I couldn't live with this... I couldn't... no... no... no...

When my door chimed, I was curled into a ball on my floor, shivering as if I'd been dropped into arctic snow. It chimed again before I managed to get to my feet.

When my door lifted off the frame and slid to the side, Ramda was standing there in her close-fitting, gold and greenish gray uniform. The moment she saw me, her brow furrowed and her smile became a straight line of concern.

Too ashamed to look her in the eye, I walked over to my bed and sat down. "I'm sorry."

She sat down next to me, ducking a bit to make sure she didn't hit her head on the luggage rack above it. "You don't have to apologize. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was you deciding what's worth my time."

"S-sorry," I cringed as the stabbing in my chest got worse. Now she was going to tell me that she was done with me.

Grabbing my chin with a paw-padded hand, she looked into my eyes. "You. are. worth. my. time," she said very clearly before letting go of my chin.

I looked into her eyes and tried to believe her. "H-how? I can't even enjoy all of you."

"I have a pussy too, dear," she chuckled. "Even if you only play with that, it'll be an improvement over me doing stuff alone."

"No one on your crew does anything with you?" I tilted my head. How could she want me?

"Rarely, yes, I've played around with a couple of them. But they're actually in relationships with each other or people at the stations we frequent. I'm good friends with all of them, but they're my subordinates and that's a hard relationship to navigate, especially when I'm not the sort to settle down." She sighed. "I know this is hard to believe, but I get a lot out of meeting people like you. It's awesome to see someone in awe of what I've become. It helps remind me that I've done it, I've brought the wolf girl inside me to the surface. That I survived Trinity without getting everything that makes me special choked out of me."

"I feel like I'm choking," I said, looking at the floor. "I don't feel like I'm going to survive."

Grabbing my hand, she said, "You're aware of what you've got to lose. That's so far ahead of everyone else. Think about how indoctrinated the rest of the employees traveling with you are. How indoctrinated Josiah is."

"Maybe they're just normal people and I'm an oddball. Maybe I'd be happier if I was normal like them." I shivered.

"No!" Ramda growled. "Every single person alive is eccentric. Normal is a layer of gray paint we slather on everyone to pretend we're all the same. Trying to live in societies like Trinity's tends to put people under so many layers of medium gray paint that they don't even remember what's underneath it until it breaks through the surface. So many of them don't even think about or realize how strange they are because it doesn't fit the collective narrative. I caught Josiah putting a pat of butter and a dash of black pepper in his coffee yesterday morning. When I asked him about it, he tried to convince me that lots of people from Trinity do it."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Butter and pepper? I've never heard of that before."

"Butter, I've seen once or twice before, but those people weren't from Trinity. And the pepper? He's the only one."

I scrunched up my face when I tried to think about what that would taste like.

"See? We're all bizarre, and I have a suggestion for you," she said.

"Oh?"

"Forget being normal, no one, under close inspection, is completely normal," she said. "Deciding what's normal and what's not is how disabled kids get abused in education systems and how people spend their whole lives living someone else's lie."

"But if I don't try to be normal, I could get sent back," I said.

"That's a valid concern." She put an arm over my shoulder and hugged me against her side. "However, you also have to consider your mental wellbeing. It's dangerous to stuff all your eccentricity and sexuality into a dark corner when you're just starting to feel comfortable exploring yourself."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just stared at the hand gripping my shoulder.

"I needed a lot of help to get mentally and physically away from Trinity and I'm prepared to support you as you figure yourself out."

My mouth hung open for a moment before I said, "B-but you barely know me."

"Anyone who befriends my temperamental robots and sits in a waiting room to see if the rotten sack of human refuse who just bullied them is going to survive is someone I'm willing to put trust in," she said.

I blushed, having no idea what to do with that compliment. The tension in my muscles was finally lifting. There was this spark of belief that she actually liked me and it was giving me this odd warmth. Like holding a cup of hot chocolate when I'd just come in from the cold.

"Did something happen to you this morning?" she asked. "When you answered the door, I thought you'd been shot."

"No, nothing happened. It was stupid," I said.

"I doubt that. Was it something you were thinking about? You don't have to tell me, but I was a bit worried."

"Am I gay?" I asked.

"I'm a woman with a cock and you really seemed to like my breasts, so I don't think it's that straightforward," she said. "Plus, you're still figuring yourself out and there's no deadline for you to turn in the results. If you rush it, you could end up like me when I was in my twenties. I was so dedicated to the idea that I was straight that I was sleeping around all over the place trying to find a woman I was attracted to. Turns out I'm only attracted to people who have dicks. Nowadays, I don't even really think about what my sexuality is, I just live it."

"I don't know what's up with me or what I want." I gave her hand a squeeze. "You're incredibly attractive and I don't know whether it's because you have a--" I paused. "--thing or it's just your chest and other parts."

"You don't have to know any of that. It might take you years to figure it out and I'm happy to just let you be you." Ramda paused. "You ever just cuddled with someone?"

"N-not really. Wasn't allowed to be in bed with anyone I wasn't married to," I said.

"My folks weren't quite that bad. As long as I kept my clothes on, they let me have some leeway," she said. "How about we just lay on your bed together and hang out a bit?"

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yep, I think it's been a while since you were able to relax and let your guard down," she said.

"Don't you have stuff you need to do?" I asked.

She chuckled. "Nope, but I can find something else to do if you'd like time to yourself."

"Okay," I said.

"Okay, you want to cuddle, or okay you want me to give you some space?"

I froze, unable to get myself to say it aloud.

"Let's try this, if you want me to go, just let go of my hand and I'll go," she said.

I squeezed her hand tighter than I meant to, I didn't want to be alone with myself again.

Her tail wagged as she grabbed me and laid me on the bed, wrapping her arms around my torso. She was resting the underside of her muzzle on the top of my head while my back was against her six-titted front. I could feel her balls against my buttocks, but I didn't really mind it. It was the most intimate hug I'd ever had.

I found myself breathing deeper within a few minutes of us lying there. My hands and arms became limp, my legs, shoulders, chest, and back loosened. My racing thoughts slowed to a crawl and my eyes felt heavy. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't think of anything to talk about. It was like I was in a thick haze of safety and reassurance.

When she moved her arm out from under me, I noticed it was over twenty minutes since the last time I'd looked at my HUD. I'd fallen asleep on her. "Sorry!"

"I responded to a bunch of messages while you were dozing off," she said as she rolled onto her back. "Come, lay atop me."

I did as she asked, squishing her breasts between us. She encircled me with her arms again and just stayed silent. When I noticed my prick pressing against her package, I blurted out, "What was it like when you changed into a hybrid?"

"As your body's getting hybridized, it takes a while for your brain to figure out what to do with the new parts. Moving my tail naturally, and not constantly knocking stuff over with it, took me months. The fur coming in was really itchy, but I soon started liking it. It dries faster than you'd think and it helps me feel comfortable in a much wider range of temperatures than I would otherwise."

"Did it hurt?"

"For the most part, it was more irritating than painful. The changes to my jaws and teeth, however, those hurt a lot sometimes."

"What about your, um, other parts?" I asked.

"Do you mean my genitals?"

I nodded sheepishly.

"It was quite confusing because my body didn’t know how to single each set out. When I touched my snatch, I could feel sensations on my cock, and when I touched my cock, I felt sensations on my snatch. They call this sensory bleeding and it complicated everything. If I got aroused or excited, both would go along with it. And if I got off one, the other got off at the same time. The orgasms were good, but lacked clarity. Gradually, over the course of a month or so, I was able to perceive them as two separate parts."

As she explained this, my body started heating up and it took some willpower to stop myself from squirming atop her. It was so easy to talk to her about this stuff because she didn't make a big deal about it. "Do you like having b-both?" I asked.

"Oh hell yes," she said. "It allows me to be sexually omnivorous. Couples love me because I can be like a sexual connector for them. Guys and girls can play with me however they like. And when I find another herm, we can go two rounds one after another, which might be the best thing ever. Orgasms from my prick are sharper and more sudden. Orgasms from a pussy are more like waves." As she spoke, her prick started pressing up the front of her uniform, into the space between us. "Does that answer your question or have I just rained TMI down on you?"

"It's fine!" I said as I started wiggling against her, feeling tingles all across my skin as her dick rubbed against my belly through our clothes.

She grunted and humped against me. "Can I do something really lewd? It would involve my prick, but you wouldn't have to do anything with it and it would feel really good to me."

"What is it?" I asked.

"No pressure as to whether you go through with it or not, but I'd like to surprise you," she said. "I'm gonna let you take a peek at my snatch whether or not we do this first thing."

"O-okay," I said, very curious about what she was planning.

"First, I gotta get out from under you and drink a nice big glass of water."

"Sure." I got up, filled a glass of water, and handed it to her.

She was sitting on the bed, her prick was up between her lowest set of breasts, making a clear outline in her uniform. She drank the entire glass and then handed it back to me, saying, "Just one more glass, please."

I refilled the glass and gave it back.

She drank it, then she laid on her back. "Just let me know if you don't want to do this and we'll try something else." She undid her pants, pulling her gorgeous prick out of its confines. "Take off your pants and then stuff this up under your shirt as you lay atop me."

Getting ordered around took away that whole step where I second guessed myself, so I just took off my pants, went over to her, and slid her dick into the space between my shirt and my front.

Pulling me against her to sandwich her prick against my bare skin and her breasts, she said, "This okay?"

I moaned and hid my face in the crook of her neck. My shaft was hardening so fast it was aching along with each heartbeat, pressing itself against her sheath and balls. A jolt of joy shot through me at having our intimate flesh touching like this.

Just as I started to worry about whether what we were doing was gay, she said, "You smell so good."

"Ngh! What do I smell like?" I asked.

"A bit like hibiscus tea with an earthy undertone," she said as her cock reached further up my chest, leaving a trail of pre.

"W-why did you go for such a big--" I couldn't say it.

"Having one big enough to go up between all my sets of breasts sounded like fun when I was deciding on my enhancements and they assured me that it's very popular for people to get their capacity modded so there'd be a lot of people that could fit me." Her prick rocketed to full hardness as she spoke. "Turns out they were right and I love my giant cock!" She growled and started thrusting her thick tapered canine shaft, nearly making it out of the collar of my shirt.

I was all movement and no thought, grinding my cock against the well-lubricated base of hers. The more we bucked our hips against each other, the harder I tried not to think about what we were doing and just concentrate on the sensation of her hot hard length caressing mine. I bit my lip to stifle my pleasured exclamations, not used to making so much noise.

She whined and panted as she kept picking up the pace. Her pre, which was soaking into my shirt, was slicking up my whole chest and she was holding me against her as she fucked the space between us. My shaft got even harder as her knot swelled.

Unable to keep a lid on myself any longer, I cried out every time I thrust my prick against hers, my voice cracking as I pressed my face against her neck and the bed.

She gave me a bear hug and thrusted erratically as her cock contracted along its length. Then she howled as cum gushed from the tip, soaking me and my shirt as her knot got bigger than one of my fists.

Hearing her enjoy me so much, feeling her squirm in ecstasy below me, and her shaft pulse against mine, I exploded. My prick bounced as it stung from how hard my jizz came out. I let out something between a howl and a yell, holding her against me so tight that both of us could barely take in air. There was so much cum. She drenched my shirt so badly it was soaking into her uniform and into her fur until I could feel all six of her nipples through our clothes. The curry smell of her thick cream was filling my senses, making this whole experience inescapable.

Though I couldn't bring myself to taste her, I was only slightly nervous about her shaft being against me, even as my horniness waned in afterglow.

Chapter 9

As her dick retreated back into its sheath, I said, "Huh, I guess I'm gay."

"Is it really that important to answer that question? I'm not offended by you deciding you're gay, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm a woman. What'll you label yourself if you get excited while playing with my pussy?"

"I don't know," I said.

"We both grew up in a place where people were so busy labeling things as sins that it's hard to stop thinking about things in those terms." She nibbled on my ear until she got a moan out of me and then chuckled. "If being gay wasn't a sin and everyone was completely cool with it, would it still matter whether gay described you or not?"

All that came out of my mouth, was, "Huh." I couldn't imagine people not caring whether I was gay or not. On Trinity, being gay was a death sentence, sometimes literally.

"It's a good thing to think about because people living in the Trilliant, or in other densely populated areas on Earth, wouldn't even bat an eye if you told them you were gay."

My eyes widened. "Josiah keeps telling us that the armies of Satan haven't won. That LGBT stuff is rampant on Earth, but there are a lot of good Christians helping keep people from sin."

"News flash: Satan won. All hail Satan." Ramda laughed. "Well, at least Trinity's conception of Satan. On earth, even the Christians are happy to live and let live. Church attendance has been in free fall from even before Trinity Stronghold was founded. To survive, the churches had to accept everyone into their ranks. Lots of churches have gay or lesbian pastors. Some denominations don't even really label themselves as Christian anymore. Having a place to gather and get to know people in your community has superseded Bible readings in importance for a lot of people."

My brow furrowed and I lifted myself off her a bit so I could look her in the eye. "What?! There's nothing about that in any of the materials they gave us."

"I just blew your mind, didn't I?" She nuzzled my cheek and whispered the next part into my ear, letting me feel her hot breath and whiskers. "If you told someone on Earth you were mainly into herms, they'd likely blush."

I buried my face in the fur of her shoulder as a wave of embarrassment carried me away. It was astonishing what she could do to me with words alone. Ramda let the silence linger for a half minute and then a message from her showed up in my HUD.

"Just realized I forgot to give you what you needed to get on the extranet, but that's fixed now," she said. "Use it to find out what Earth's actually like."

"Are you sure it's safe for me to use it?" I asked.

She nodded. "It's a secure encrypted connection. Even your browsing history will be encrypted, so MiraManna will have no idea what you're looking at."

"Thank you," I gave her a hug.

She hugged back before saying, "Hey, we better shower together before the spooge dries."

"T-together?" I asked.

"After what we just did, showering together is rather tame, wouldn't you agree?"

I nodded, pressing my face against the fur of her neck. It felt so safe.

She rubbed my back. "Heh, you're really enjoying yourself."

I hid my face even more, my cheeks burning. For the next few minutes, she let me just stay like that and I took in her cinnamon and turmeric scent, feeling wonderfully calm.

Then she let go of me and said, "Let's go get wet."

I got up, biting my lip at the feeling of her spooge under my shirt. She'd cum many times what I did. Why did thinking about that give me tingles?

She got off the bed and stripped out of her clothes, including the neat six-cup sports bra that she was wearing. Now that I was thinking about it, her scent was a bit heavier from exercising, but still nice. Had she been planning to shower at my place? That couldn't be right. It would mean that she was into me enough that she was hoping we'd do something together.

After she'd tossed all her clothes toward the door, she stood there in front of me with her hands on her hips, and said, "Your turn."

Every bit of her was covered in beautiful purplish-red fur and she had the hints of muscles everywhere. Her large sheath and balls sat nestled between her thick muscular thighs. Each pair of her pert round breasts descended in size, topped with plump, dark magenta nipples.

Fiddling with my uniform shirt, I got it off and then put it in my hamper along with my pants, which I'd tossed off the bed earlier. Then I covered myself with my hands, getting a chill from the room air as it cooled the thick cream she'd deposited all over my front.

She got a twinkle in her eye as she leaned in, sniffed my hair, and then moved her muzzle down to my chest. Dragging her tongue over my naked flesh, she licked her spooge off of me.

Her hot breath on my skin, the feeling of her wet canine nose, and that long, smooth tongue got me gasping and moaning as she cleaned me. I loved every second of it. No one had done anything like it to me and I was sure I'd be haunted by it later when I was trying to sleep. It was worth it.

When she finished, she said, "You're a lot of fun."

I furrowed my brow. "R-really?"

"Yeah, once you get into something, you put your all into it. A very good trait to have during sex," she said as she led me to the shower and turned it on. The fine mist poured from the specialized nozzle that maximized the surface area the water could wet per drop.

"You're..." I tried to form a compliment. "Very good at telling me what you want."

She pulled me in with her, saying, "Took a lot of practice. I was as shy as you starting out."

The shower was cramped with the two of us in there. I was against the wall the shower head came out of and she was against the opposite wall.

"You were shy?" I tilted my head.

"Yeah, very shy," she said. "I couldn't talk about sex to save my life."

"That's hard to believe," I said, looking at her amazing body.

She smirked. "Yeah, I know. Stark comparison to now."

I nodded.

Once she was thoroughly soaked by the shower mist, she turned off the water and said, "Lather me up, dear. You can touch me everywhere."

My heart sped up as I got shampoo on my hands and started lathering her head. I scratched at her fur and scalp making her let out happy groans. I rinsed off the shampoo to prevent it from getting in her eyes before moving on. As I did her neck, shoulders, muzzle, and arms, she just closed her eyes and leaned against the wall.

Then, as I got to her uppermost breasts, I said, "Back home, I would go a few days without food for this."

Her maw hung open for a moment. "You'd go multiple days without food to touch someone's tits?"

"Punishment for the sin," I said.

She nuzzled the top of my head, saying, "I know exactly how that felt and I'm glad we're no longer on that ghastly planet."

"Me too," I said.

Her uppermost tits weren't too big for her frame, but they were quite large. I was having trouble wanting to move on from them because they felt so good in my hands. When her nipples hardened, I pinched them a bit, getting her to gasp and roll her hips.

"Are you getting horny again?" I asked, wondering how that could be the case.

"It's been a long time since I had someone touch me the way you are. Last month, I was constantly busy. Plus, my pussy gets jealous when only my cock gets attention," she said. "But don't worry about that, I can take care of myself and rinse off when I get back to my quarters."

Her middle pair was a really nice size. They were more than a handful and had some heft to them. The bottom set was the smallest, but something about them fitting so perfectly into my grip was amazing. Any time I brushed or otherwise manipulated a nipple, she moaned and rocked her hips a bit. When I rinsed her chest off, her left hand went to the two inches of cock that had pushed free of her sheath and started stroking.

My own prick was getting hard again even though it was a bit sore. "You look amazing."

"You're not so shabby yourself. I can see how much work you put into that curly hair."

"I would love love straight hair... But straightening it would raise more questions than I want to answer right now." I gasped as she massaged shampoo into my scalp. "How do you manage with all of your fur?"

"Well, I love your hair, so I'm pleased you decided to grow it out. Shows you're not afraid of looking a bit feminine to the Trinnie's narrow view of gender." She rinsed the shampoo out of my hair. "My body drier is a truly wonderful thing. It's not all that hot and does most of it's work through air pressure. I also use very efficient shampoo and conditioner so I don't need tons of bottles bottles on a trip."

"I'm not sure I'd want to be covered in fur, but it's good to know that it's pretty easy to take care of." I reached around her, grabbing her firm buttocks in my hands as I lathered her up back there.

She humped the air and growled as more inches of her cock spilled out of her sheath.

I got shampoo in my hand and crouched down lower, accidentally hitting her prick with the side of my face. Then I started lathering her legs.

She slowed her teasing of her prick as I did this, just relaxing while keeping it half hard.

Then her legs were clean and I had her turn around to get her tail and back. I massaged her as best I could, trying to show her how much I appreciated her being so open with everything. She relaxed so much that she was barely keeping herself upright.

When all that was done, she turned around and said, "Now you gotta wash my fun bits." Her dick swelled larger as she looked into my eyes.

Still half-hard myself, I knelt down in front of her and carefully touched her balls. As I lathered the short fur of her sac, I cupped her balls and shivered a bit, feeling their weight in my hands. They were the size of big apricots.

"Doesn't it feel uncomfortable with your, uhh, stones pressing against your womanhood?" I asked, feeling a bit dumb.

"No, it feels good. Too good, oftentimes." Her tail wagged as her prick reached out further from her loins. "They press against my canine clit if I don't get things arranged properly or I get in certain positions."

"Wow," was all I could think to say as I got so hard it hurt. "May I look at your woman parts?" I asked.

"Of course, you can do whatever you want down there as long as you're careful with your fingernails," she said.

I lifted her balls and immediately smelled the cinnamon coming from her sex as well as felt the heat radiating from it.

Her snatch was somewhere between canine and human, triangular with long sides going front to back and a short side along the back. I was in awe of how swollen it was. It's dark magenta color matched her cock, and it was glistening with her wetness.

"I-is it usually like this?" I asked.

"When I'm with a hot guy like you, yes," she said.

I bit my lip, blushing. "Can I touch it?"

"Remiel, close your eyes and take a deep breath."

I did so, releasing a bit of tension I didn't know I had while still holding her balls out of the way of her snatch. Their weight was so reassuring. Did I wish I had balls that big? I blushed at the thought.

When I opened my eyes, she said, "Do I want you to touch my girl parts? Hell yes, I do. Just wash me off gently and then go to town down there if you want!"

That time, I heard her and put a bit of body soap on my hands. The closer they got to her canine pussy, the faster her tail wagged.

Her prick got to full size above me as I carefully put body soap on her big puffy labia. Then she handed me the nozzle and I rinsed it off. I was just going to wash myself off and be done with the shower, but it was time to make up for writing that message to her. And thank her for being so amazingly patient with me.

My hand shook as I reached toward her snatch, it's heat permeating my fingertips. Then I gasped as I made contact with her feverish slick flesh.

I felt around until I touched the nub at the top and her pussy clenched as she yipped in pleasure.

"Yes, that's it, you can rub at it or stick your fingers in there. It's really inviting inside."

I circled her opening with my fingers, before gently sliding my pointer finger in, having absolutely no idea what I was doing. The feeling of her inner walls made my dick ache and my whole body heat up. It was like hot, slick satin inside her and she could grip me harder than I expected.

"Hnngghh!" she groaned as her hot needy snatch twitched along my invading finger. She stroked her cock harder, panting and moaning as her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth. "Yes, more!

Her walls relaxed and I pulled my pointer finger almost all the way out so I could add my middle finger. As I slid them both in, her left hand started flying up and down her dick wile her right toyed with her middle left nipple. When I wiggled my fingers, she shook her hips, yipping.

She panted out, "Try using all your fingers and moving them in and out, like you're fucking me with them."

I tried to look at her face as she spoke, but her shaft was directly above me, blocking a large portion of my vision.

Taking her advice, I added my other two fingers and started moving them in and out. Each time, I went a little deeper, seeing how much of my hand I could fit in. I was careful as I picked up the pace because I'd once heard that going too deep was painful and didn't want to do that to her. It was soon clear that her pussy was meant for cocks her size: my whole hand was nearly slipping in. There was no way I was going to hurt her, either. She kept toying with me because her muscular passage could stop me in my tracks whenever she wanted.

Her furious stroking got some pre to drip on my back while she panted heavily and moaned from me going harder.

Being so caught up in the moment, I'd almost forgotten about the huge cock above me even though I had her balls in my other hand. Something about the way she was moving now was more desperate, more frantic. Her voice was hoarse from all her moaning, growling, and grunting. My heart started pounding in my chest as I realized she was going to cum from both parts at once and that I was helping her do it.

"Mmm! That's divine. Stick your whole fist in there," she groaned. "I-I'm close!"

Blushing deeply, I took my hand out, made a fist and tried to press it back in, but it didn't quite work. After a brief moment to think, I decided to try something tapered and made a beak with my hand. My eyes widened at the sensation of her pussy lips spreading over my well-lubed skin. Her cinnamon smell was intoxicating and stronger than ever. She yipped and ground her sex against my hand, forcing me to go faster than I'd planned.

Then, at my knuckles, she got impatient and squatted a bit.

She howled as my hand popped in so hard I jumped in surprise, planting my face in her balls and bonking her swelling knot with the top of my head. As I attempted to pull my face away, I instinctively tried to move my right hand, but it was caught in her pussy and didn't budge. Scrambling to reposition myself, reached up and grabbed her shaft. I realized what I'd grabbed onto and let go only to get a face-full of her balls again. The turmeric scent from her male equipment gave me an odd horny calmness. I breathed it deep, grabbing my dick with my free hand. I had to get off, the aching in my shaft now encompassed my entire groin.

Her hot tunnel spasmed around my fist, squeezing so hard it almost hurt. There was also a rhythmic twitching behind her balls, at the front of her snatch. Her breath caught in her throat and she squeaked before moaning so loud I felt like covering my ears. One powerful contraction traveled up her prick and then another, and then I heard a hard splash against the shower wall as droplets of her first jet of jizz rained down on my hair, shoulders, and back.

The whole situation was too much for me, I'd only just started stroking myself and was already tipping over the edge, feeling sparks of pleasure flash all over my body. My prick jumped in my hand as it spurted onto the shower floor. I moaned into her balls while her prick kept spasming atop my head, getting cum everywhere.

That moment stretched on long enough for me to press my face against her balls and take deep sniffs of her scent, causing tingles in my arms and legs. I was too caught up in the moment to think about why I wanted to do it or what it meant.

"FUCK REMIEL! YES!" she cried as she ground her knot against the top of my head, pointing her prick at a steeper angle so the shots splashed down on a wider area.

I wiggled my fist inside her, extracting every gasp and groan I could, feeling on top of the world.

The moment her twin orgasms came to a close, she panted out, "That was something else. Fantastic."

I let go of my prick and hugged her leg while my fist remained stuck in her snatch, a strange pride swelling in me. I'd done this to her. I'd made it so we'd have to get clean all over again. And that was awesome.

Chapter 10

The oranges, pinks, and reds mixed with wispy clouds in the biome's morning sky matched the giant orchids on either side of the bench Hosanna, Luke, and I were sitting on. Diagonally to my right was the biome's rustic outdoor, cafe-like galley. Big balls of grass-like leaves with numerous magenta flowers hung from slender lamp posts above pressed bamboo-wood tables and chairs strewn throughout the outdoor eating area.

That eating area had been bustling twenty minutes ago, but now it was empty because most of the MiraManna employees had left to explore the Biome while waiting for the morning Bible study. Luke, Hosanna, and I had already spent more time in the Biome than most and were just relaxing with full stomachs. When Ramda wasn't running past us on the track that went around the Biome, I stared at the simulated sunrise. The colors and clouds were too crisp because there was no atmospheric haze, but it was still gorgeous and lifted my spirits. This morning had not gone well.

I’d had a vivid dream where I was sleeping in Ramda's bed. When I woke up to find she wasn't there, I got a tight chest along with an intense sense of wrongness. And that feeling clung to me all the way through breakfast. It was stupid, but I could hardly get myself to say a word to Luke or Hosanna.

Especially right now, because Ramda was running toward us again. I tried to look at her face this time, but the bounce of her big package brought my eyes right back between her legs.

"Remiel, if you want to talk to her, why don't you wave her over instead of staring at her?" Luke asked.

"She seems to like you, I'm sure she'd be happy to chat for a bit," Hosanna said.

I immediately looked away from Ramda, unable to remember anything Luke and Hosanna had been talking about before they mentioned her.

"No, I'm sure she's busy," I said. If they saw me and Ramda together, they might figure out that we were doing more than hanging out.

"She doesn't seem all that busy." Luke waved at her, saying, "Hey, Captain."

I steeled myself, remembering the last time Luke and Ramda were in the same place.

Ramda jogged over, her gray and cyan workout outfit leaving almost nothing to the imagination. Her tongue stuck out as she leaned on her knees, working to catch her breath before she said, "Hello, you three."

"Hi, Captain Uweko," Hosanna said.

"Just call me Ramda," she said. "It's faster and far more personable."

"How's your day been so far?" Hosanna asked.

"Pretty good, though I may have had a bit too much carnitas. That breakfast burrito bar is temptation made manifest," she said.

"I wish we had it every day," I said.

"Are you trying to destroy my diet?" Ramda asked.

I chuckled, glad the conversation was being pretty normal.

Hosanna asked Ramda, "Do things taste different now that you're a hybrid?"

"I can catch nuances I didn't before. You'd think it would make me a picky eater, but being able to smell better just gives me more options in finding things to appreciate about an entree. And no one can trick me with cheap flavorings or preparation steps anymore." Ramda looked at me. "I can pick up even the faintest scents."

I shifted slightly on the bench, I could smell her cinnamon and turmeric scents clearly since she'd been running.

Luke nodded like he was a scientist conducting a study on hybrids. "I hear on Earth, they use dogs to diagnose medical conditions. Can you smell if people are ill?"

"Well, since they've invented machines that do what dogs do, they don't really need me. But, yes, I can smell when people are ill. Someone with an immune disorder smells different than someone who has hypertension, for instance," Ramda said.

Luke thought for a moment. "What about sexual need? Usually dogs seem to know when other dogs are in heat," he said, matter of factly, as though he had just asked about the weather.

My face burned as I looked at Ramda's feet, trying to shrink into the bench so no one would ever see me again.

As Hosanna started to object, Ramda said, "Of course, pheromones are something even humans notice if they concentrate. But I don't just smell it, my ears can pick up differences in breathing and, if I'm close enough, heart rate."

"So it's not just other canines? If, say, Remiel was getting aroused, you could tell?" Luke asked.

My eyes widened as my heart skipped a beat.

Hosanna slapped Luke's thigh. "Luke! Can't you see you're making Remiel nervous? Why not use yourself as the example if you're gonna be so perverted?"

Ramda laughed, "It doesn't matter who's aroused, I can tell it as easily as I can tell whether someone drank a bit too much the night before."

I kept my thighs firmly against each other and blushed so severely I got lightheaded.

Hosanna put her head in her hands, "You don't have to keep encouraging him."

Ramda shrugged, "I find just about everyone wonders these sorts of things. Every group needs at least one person who asks the questions on everyone's minds."

Luke said, "It's not like Remiel and Ramda are sleeping together. That would be very inappropriate. Oh, speaking of spending time with the Captain, Remiel, you have been with her a lot recently. Have you two done anything fun together?"

The sensation of Ramda's cum raining down on me in the shower was all I could think about for a good two seconds, but then I managed to stutter out, "We've been together, I mean, like in the engine room and stuff... And, uhh, she showed me things, t-technical things."

Hosanna raised an eyebrow, looking at Ramda and then me. "Alone together in the engine room? Her showing you things?"

My breakfast sat poorly in my stomach as I cringed. This was it, both of them were about to figure it out and there was nothing I could do.

Ramda shook her head, "You two are giving Remiel a heart attack. I was being quiet about this to respect his privacy, but I think I should set the record straight. Remiel knows more about space travel and spaceships than anyone in your group. So I've decided to teach him as much as possible about the ship's systems while he's here and I've enjoyed his company immensely."

Hosanna nodded. "Better him than me. Learning about spaceship systems just makes me more nervous. I like pretending it's all just magic and infallible."

I closed my eyes for a moment, letting go of some of the tension. This was good, Ramda had saved me again. I said, "Ship systems and procedures are very complex, but in a way that makes them safer. There's a lot of redundancy and checklists so everyone gets stuff done perfectly the first time. I bet you're more likely to make a mistake tying your shoelaces than a space crew is while repairing a life support system."

Not to be dissuaded from his original line of questioning, Luke said, "Every ship has complex systems. This is the only ship that has Ramda and this is a great opportunity to learn about people from outside our colony." He looked Ramda in the eye. "Have you ever had thoughts about sleeping with someone you're not married to? And do you prefer other hybrids like yourself as partners or humans?"

If Ramda hadn't been directly in front of me, I would've run back to my room and locked the door. Luke's one track mind was going to be the death of me.

"As far as my views on coupling and sex, I'm an Earther. Marriage is more about life partnership than sexual exclusivity and sex is more about having fun with someone you enjoy being around than making babies. That said, I don't want to impinge on your religious views. My views are just that: views, and I have no wish to influence you beyond letting you know that other points of view exist and what they are," Ramda said.

Hosanna said, "I respect your view, Ramda, but I don't see the point of marriage if there's no actual promise being made. Like, if there's no exclusivity, why marry in the first place? Sharing a tax bracket isn't all that romantic."

Ramda tilted her head. "I mean, I'm sure some people role-play being tax collectors and collecting their taxes via sexual favors. So, even taxes can be romantic and sexy. But I do see your point. Honestly, marriage is not nearly as important on Earth as it used to be, but that's led people to not be trapped in relationships that are abusive and hurtful and exist just because of financial interdependence. For me, marriage is more about a promise to share your life with someone while keeping open and honest communication with them so you can work through relationship problems and continually do what's best for both parties."

"So, a promise is still involved, huh." Hosanna looked off in the distance.

Ramda turned to Luke, "To answer your question, I'm interested in anyone who I find attractive and is also attracted to me regardless of species, gender, or creed." She glanced at me with a slight smile on her muzzle as she said the last part.

No matter what I did, no matter how much I thought I was screwing up, she just kept liking me. The throbbing in my pants just wouldn't quit. Why all this embarrassment wasn't killing my erection, I had no idea. It seemed to be making it worse.

Luke leaned forward as he said, "Have you seen anyone from our planet you would like to sleep with? Josiah maybe?"

Ramda busted out laughing and it took her a moment to recover. "You already know the answer to the second part. But about the first part, I'm going to surprise you. I grew up on your planet, living as a man until I was twenty-two. I had many girlfriends during my time there, always looking forward to marriage, never having things work out because I had gender dysphoria."

"Gender dysphoria?" Luke asked.

Ramda paused for a moment. "All three of you now have files with information on it. If you read through some of them tonight, I'm happy to chat about it tomorrow before you disembark or through messages once you're settled in on Earth."

"Thanks!" Luke said, "Have you ever been with someone from our planet?"

Ramda took a step forward and then spoke quietly. "Since it's not safe for me to mention specifics, I'll just say that I recently had an incredibly satisfying fling with someone from Trinity Stronghold. People from our homeland are just as fun in bed as people from elsewhere. It just takes a lot more effort to get things started because of the strong views on human sexuality."

How could she have liked what we did enough to compliment me in front of them like that? My hands went to my lap, gripping my uniform pants as I tried to get images of her naked body out of my head.

Luke said, "You can't just say something like that without at least giving us a hint."

Looking Luke straight in the eye, Ramda said, "Luke, honey, are you meaning to say you don't remember last night?"

I smiled at the joke while Hosanna laughed so hard she nearly fell off the bench.

Ramda's eyes darted to me and she pointed at her nose for a brief second.

I swallowed a moan and squirmed a bit.

"I did no such thing!" Luke said before nudging Hosanna. "Hey! Stop laughing."

As Hosanna's laughter trailed off, Josiah left the cafe and stormed across the cobblestones of the outdoor eating area, heading straight for us.

Hosanna said, "What's his problem?"

Ramda turned around and called out to him, "Hey, Josiah, something wrong?"

Getting up to us, he said, "Ramda, I apologize for my employees' behavior. You've already done such a good job accommodating us on this trip and I'd be embarrassed telling headquarters that we took up so much of your personal time."

"I'm an educator at heart, Josiah. Surely someone with as much leadership experience and talent as you can understand my desire to see that they get proper guidance. I'm happy--no, honored--to help you steer them in the right direction," Ramda said.

Sweat beaded on Josiah's forehead. "Well, that's all fine and good, but I don't want you to overwork yourself."

Ramda's ears fell slightly as she somehow managed to sound completely sincere despite me knowing she didn't mean it. "I'm touched by your concern. But you don't need to worry about me. I've been at this a very long time and know how to take R&R when I need it."

Josiah looked like he wanted to set Ramda on fire just so he could watch her burn. "Well, morning Bible study starts in ten minutes so we won't be bothering you much longer." Then he got a twinkle in his eye, "That is, unless you want to join us."

"Oh, that reminds me. I need to borrow Remiel for a bit. There's a problem with the plumbing in the Biome that I could use his help with." Ramda said. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to give you any forewarning, the problem just popped up a few minutes ago."

"I didn't realize he was skilled in that." Josiah furrowed his brow and then looked at me. "Just try to be back ASAP, okay?"

I nodded, purposefully trying not to work out what Ramda was implying.

Luke said, "Ramda has been teaching him a lot about the ship. Wouldn't surprise me if plumbing was part of it."

"Ship systems have nothing to do with his office assistant job, but I'll let him decide how best to spend his free time." Josiah narrowed his eyes at me. "I just hope you look back and feel you spent it wisely."

"Oh, I can assure you, his love of spaceships guarantees every minute of his training will be a cherished moment." Ramda motioned for me to follow her.

"Hosanna, Luke, I have Bible readings I'd like each of you to do. Follow me," Josiah said.

The moment they got up off the bench and walked toward him, Josiah set out toward the amphitheater. I couldn't help feeling that he was trying to punish them for talking to Ramda.

Josiah had killed most of my excitement, but not all. I stood up sheepishly, interlocking my fingers in front of my crotch, hoping it looked like a natural way to hold my hands. Ramda smelled wonderful and the way she was grinning told me exactly what she'd meant by "plumbing."

Ramda's tail wagged as she led me into the outdoor galley cafe, which had an interior full of blonde, steam-bent wood. Every piece of wood had a curve to it, flowing like a river across walls, floors, and ceilings. We went through the archway that led to the restrooms, past the door to the kitchen, and then Ramda waved her hand in front of the back door and it popped open. She took my hand as she stepped through it, leading me to the service path that was hidden by a ring of bamboo that went around the entire biome. The cafe was one of a few buildings that broke up that ring of bamboo.

The textured composite plates that made up the path sounded hollow as we stepped onto them, but I figured it was just a property of the material. Lots of stuff in starships was specially made to be lightweight because every bit of extra weight cost money.

As I was trying to decide what the plates were made of, Ramda grabbed me and pushed me up against the back wall, licking all the way up my neck before biting my ear and growling. "Your scent is driving me crazy."

When I tried to suppress my groan, it came out as a squeak and my dick reached full hardness in an instant. I was shivering in her grasp as I said, "Do you think Luke knows?"

"Nah, he tried to pair me up with Josiah." She chuckled, pulling off her fitness top and six-cupped sports bra. The end of her dick was sticking out above the waist of her tight workout shorts. "If people do more than just make blind guesses about us, I'll send out a message saying that I'm tutoring you on space systems."

Pushing her front against me, she sniffed the top of my head. Her naked prick throbbed against my clothed belly as she ran her claw-tipped fingers down my sides. She let out a deep murr that vibrated both of us before she kissed me on the lips. Her whiskers tickled the corners of my mouth as her wet canine nose nuzzled my boring human one. Dominating my tongue with hers, she chuckled into the kiss. Only after I made a good try to get mine free did she let up so I could explore her muzzle.

My hands quivered as I reached up to embrace her. The pulsing of her dick made me hesitate for a moment before interlocking my fingers behind her. I felt so warm and smiling was so easy. Why did her cock make me so happy even when I was nervous?

She grabbed my ass, digging her clawtips in as she pulled my lower half against her so her shaft and balls were firmly against mine. As she moved her hips in little circles, her prick pressed further and further up my belly, between her lowest set of breasts.

At the first touch of her equipment against mine, I flinched, but then I surprised myself by grinding against her. Standing on my tiptoes, I tried to get my crotch better lined up with hers. My enjoyment might've just been because pressing my dick against something hard felt good and not because I actually liked frotting.

Bucking her hips, she thrust her prick against mine as it advanced further into her cleavage. She was feeling around my mouth, sending tingles down my spine as her tail wagged furiously. Her fingers kneaded my ass while all six of her nipples got stiff enough I could feel them through my uniform. With a growl, she lifted me off to ground, bringing our waists to the same height.

Shocked at being lifted up for a moment, I gripped her fur tightly while continuing to make quiet moans into her muzzle. Since I had no idea what to do with my tongue, I let hers chaperone mine. I avoided thinking about what we were doing as I pushed my fingers into her fur to get a more secure hold on her.

Her knot made a rigid bump that was digging into the base of my prick. The thing felt amazing pressed up against me and I was panting through my nose as we continued kissing.

When her shaft started throbbing rhythmically, she broke the kiss to say, "Fuck, I'm cumming already."

As I looked at the tip of her lurching dick, I clamped down on my impulse to lean forward and wrap my lips around it. Did I really want to do that? Why?

I hesitated just long enough for it to be too late and she put her muzzle around it instead. Then she slurped around her massive dick as she worked to swallow her load and not spill any on my uniform.

The bigger her knot swelled, the more amazing it felt as I ground against it. But I couldn't cum. Her whines of delight, her shaft contracting against me, and her whole body trembling in orgasm still weren't enough because my brain wouldn't cooperate. All I could feel was a mountain of regret. If I'd just gotten over myself, I could've shown her that I liked all of her, dick included. I wanted that to be true so bad. And it hurt even more that it might have been true, but I was just too fucking good at doubting myself to ever be sure.

No, I had to do it, I had to taste...I couldn't even say it to myself. The moment she pulled her muzzle off her prick, I leaned in and kissed her. I moaned at the layers of curry-like, salty and tangy flavors left over from the cream she'd just drank down. The head of my prick and my prostate tingled as I got right up to the edge, imagining tasting her cum from the source.

But at the same time, there were butterflies in my stomach. How could I like cum this much? Why did the bit of jizz that was leaking onto my chin make me so giddy?

When the kiss ended, we were just staring into each other's eyes, panting.

Her question didn't even register the first time she asked it, so she had to ask again. "Remiel? Do you want me to help you get off? I can spare a couple more minutes if you like."

My chest was tight while my shaft ached. I wanted to hold her close and I also wanted to flee. "I, uh, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" she said, lowering me to my feet.

"Yeah," I said, reaching down to grab her uniform top and bra. Handing them to her, I added, "My... parts... are being stubborn."

Putting her sports bra on over her slowly-receding prick, she said, "Yeah, I get that sometimes too."

"It's okay, I should get to Bible study anyway. Josiah's only going to get more angry the longer I'm gone," I said.

After licking her cum off my chin, she said, "Yeah, sorry about pouncing on you."

I gasped at the feeling of her tongue and then stumbled over my words as I said, "I l-liked it."

"You seem really anxious," she said, putting on her uniform top.

"It's not your fault, I'm just a mess," I said, looking at my feet.

She pulled my chin up, kissed me on the lips, and then said, "A beautiful mess."

I smiled despite myself. There's no way I deserved her.

"If you want to talk about whatever's bothering you, come find me later today or tomorrow," she said.

"Okay, I will," I said.

Taking my hand in hers, she waved her other hand in front of the back door of the cafe and it swung open. Then she led me back inside.

Before I could say goodbye she tugged me into the second restroom, saying, "We got one thing to deal with before I let you go." She grabbed a washcloth off the little wooden shelf set into the wall next to the sink and got it wet.

"Oh?" I said, looking at the washcloth with a raised eyebrow.

"I got a bit of cum on you, but your uniforms are stain-repellant, so it should come right off." She rubbed at the trail of cum leading down from the cross in the neck of my uniform. Then she nudged me over to the high-velocity hand dryer and put my front under it.

"Thanks," I said. A few seconds later, I stepped away from the dryer while trying to think about anything other than her cum.

"I know you could've done it yourself, but I feel a bit dumb about not getting you out of your uniform. That was an unnecessary risk," she said.

"I wouldn't have changed a thing," I said.

She chuckled as she booped me on the nose. "I gotta take a shower and then send out a bunch of messages. Hope the Bible study isn't too boring."

I shrugged. "It's probably going to be half over by the time I get there."

"True. See you later, hon," she said before turning around.

"See you," I said.

Her ears turned to the sides so far they were pointing a bit backwards when my voice came from behind her. I watched her leave, taking in her shapely backside while feeling warm. As if I'd just been told fantastic news. Was this what it felt like to fall for someone?

I shook my head. She'd be gone from my life soon and getting too attached would only lead to pain. I had to get to my Bible study and not think about her for a while.

Despite my determination to distract myself, I thought about her during the entire Bible study. It was to the point that Josiah said my name twice to get my attention during it. Then I was walking back to my room without remembering leaving the Biome. That moment I'd nearly put my lips on Ramda's prick wouldn't stop playing through my mind. And every time, I scolded myself for holding back. By the time I was near my room, I was clenching my fists. Why couldn't I just let go of all the crap I'd been taught and put her pleasure first for once?

Why couldn't I--why was Cuber in Daniel's room?

It wasn't just Cuber, there were three slightly smaller robots that shared Cuber's cube-shaped body design with thin spidery limbs. They were all helping Cuber put a floor panel back down. But something was off, they all had magnetic zero-g attachments to their legs and Daniel's luggage was floating above his luggage rack. They'd shut off the gravity to Daniel's room!

This was bad. Daniel was only a few minutes behind me. I ran toward Cuber and her helpers, my heart nearly bursting in my chest.

Chapter 11

"Hey, you've got to turn the gravity back on. This is going way too far," I said, looking at Cuber while standing just outside Daniel's doorway.

His quarters were just like mine, with cabinets made of marbled grey composite with wavy purple streaks in it, and a storage space for his luggage above his bunk bed. With each passing second, that luggage was drifting further away from its storage space.

Cuber turned to look at me, and then trilled while bouncing excitedly.

"Please, turn the gravity back on," I said. "I don't want either of us to get in trouble."

She let out a few beeps as she thought about what I said. Then she shook her cubical body, mimicking the way someone would shake their head.

I couldn't keep my desperation out of my voice as I said, "They're going to blame me for it, Cuber. And then they're going to send me back to Trinity and I'll never get a chance to see you again."

Cuber made a succession of worried beeps and then worked in conjunction with the other robots to lift the floor panel back up. I looked on with interest at the neatly routed cables and meter-wide, composite-encapsulated artificial gravity flywheel underneath. Next to the flywheel was a junction box with a bunch of breakers, all of which had been switched off.

Hearing two people conversing behind me, I turned to see Josiah and Daniel. Josiah's eyes were on the floating luggage behind me.

His nostrils flared with rage as he said, "REMIEL!"

Keeping myself outwardly calm despite feeling queasy with anxiety, I said, "I-I was telling them to turn the gravity back on."

"Was the gravity on when you left, Daniel?" Josiah asked.

"Yep," Daniel said, grinning wide as his eyes twinkled with delight over my predicament.

I felt cold and woozy.

"Clearly you weren't ordering these robots to turn the gravity on, then. Don't make me dig for the truth, Remiel," Josiah said.

My eyes wanted to cry, my legs wanted to run, and my chest wanted to cave in. I had no other story to tell him. "I was walking back to my room, I noticed Daniel's gravity was off, then I asked them to turn it back on. I'm not certain why it was off in the first place."

Josiah got frighteningly calm. He was even smiling, but it wasn't good. I'd seen him this angry once before, it made him giddy and that scared me. "I want to watch you try and get Ramda to believe that story."

"She's on her way?" I asked.

"Yep, and she'll see right through this." Josiah smiled broadly.

Ramda had to come to my rescue constantly. Why she liked me enough to do that just didn't make any sense. Everyone wanted to blame me for everything. Maybe it was because I was a fraud and this would be where everyone figured that out. My fists clenched as I held back a wave of frustration. Everything got so chaotic around me. I couldn't do anything right.

Josiah was waiting to make a retort and further flame me with his righteousness, but I never gave him the opportunity. Not by choice, I just had no idea what to say. He had dismissed every point I'd made since this trip began.

Cuber trilled as the artificial gravity flywheel wound up with a soft whirr. Something of Daniel's crashed to the floor so loudly that I winced.

Holding back tears, I said, "See? The gravity's just been reset."

"That proves nothing," Josiah said.

Daniel said, "Can't wait till you're sent back to Trinity."

Having no idea what to say, I just looked at the floor.

"And if Ramda lets you off the hook for this, she's gonna get in trouble. Maybe even lose her contract with us." Daniel grinned. "Then your abomination of a friend will get exactly what she deserv--"

"Shut up! You can't say that," Josiah said.

Daniel said, "But you--"

"You will not use that word while on this ship," Josiah said.

"What word? Abomination?" Ramda said, from far down the corridor to Josiah's right.

Josiah's face went pale. "Captain, I apologize for Daniel's outburst."

"With my abominably good ears, I've heard you and other MiraManna employees refer to me that way many times," Ramda said. "Did you know, in English translations of the Bible, the ancient Hebrew word tow'ebah is rendered either as 'unclean' or 'abomination,' depending on context? If given a choice, I'd take 'abomination' over 'unclean' any day because I shower regularly, thank you."

Daniel's eyes went wide as his jaw dropped. Only Religious and government officials were allowed to study Hebrew. I was just as surprised as he was.

"Please accept my deepest apologies," Josiah said.

Ramda shrugged. "Don't sweat it. I find it hilarious to think I could achieve that status simply by combining traits found in the very natural world God created. But I guess I should expect such things: according to the Old Testament, anything that lives in water that doesn't have fins and scales is an abomination. Too bad shrimp tastes so good, eh?"

Josiah laughed, but his heart was not in it.

Daniel's eyebrows were deeply furrowed as he looked at Josiah, wondering why Josiah wasn't trying to contradict Ramda.

I laughed because I was so tense that I would've exploded otherwise.

After Josiah ended his fake laughter, Ramda asked, "So, why did you call me over?"

Josiah's wicked smile was back. "I'm terribly sorry to report that we caught Remiel using his crew clearance to tamper with Daniel's artificial gravity."

Ramda stared off into the distance. "He has issued no commands to the maintenance robots and he does not have clearance to issue commands to them in the first place. On top of that, this robot would never take orders from someone who kicked her. I believe I overheard you mentioning that the other day."

"Tell me this, then: if he wasn't ordering them to cut Daniel's artificial gravity, why was he here talking to them when we showed up?" Josiah asked.

Ramda looked at me, confused.

"I was asking them to stop," I said. "Maybe they recorded what I was saying on video?"

"Sorry, my contract with MiraManna clearly states that no personnel are to be recorded under any circumstance," Ramda said. "That said, Cuber can likely tell us what happened if we give her a chance to."

"Who's Cuber?" Josiah asked.

"The largest robot in Daniel's room." Ramda pointed at Cuber. "She's an Organizer and can direct other simpler units to help her with tasks."

"Is she capable of speech?" Josiah asked.

"Not exactly, but she can communicate." Ramda turned to Cuber, "Could you come with us to the starboard conference room, please?"

Cuber trilled softly in question.

"Let your friends go back to working on the ship and come with us, please," Ramda said.

Cuber walked up to me, putting me between her and Ramda. Looking down and back, I said, "Just follow me, okay?"

She made two pleasant beeps. Then we all walked down the corridor, the light from the overhead spotlights feeling ominous rather than epic.

When we got to a doorway not far from the Biome's starboard entrance, Ramda waved her hand in front of it. It opened to reveal a room with a large conference table and walls that were made out of high-resolution displays. The tabletop was also a display and was pretending to be beautiful striped mahogany. The only reason I knew it was a display was because my HUD now had an option to send media to the walls or the table.

Cuber was the last to enter and the moment the door closed behind her, she stayed right in front of it, impatient to leave. I could relate.

"Okay, Cuber," Ramda said. "Are you upset at Daniel?"

Daniel scoffed. "Oh come on, if it can't talk, what's the point in even asking it? We caught Remiel red-handed. What more do you need?"

"Cuber's meant to work near reactors and engines and not interact with people much, but I found that her model was capable of a lot more than what people typically use them for. Just because she's mute doesn't mean she can't give useful testimony," Ramda said.

Cuber backed into the door. I wanted to try and comfort her, but I had to stay put or it would look like I was interfering.

As calmly as I could, I asked her, "Are you upset at Daniel?"

She nodded and then opened the door.

"Cuber, you can't go yet," Ramda said.

"Please stay a bit longer," I said. "We'll try to get through this as fast as we can."

She stepped back in and closed the door.

"Huh, she seems to understand English rather well..." Josiah looked puzzled. "Why would she be mad at Daniel? Do your robots just pick someone they don't like? We once had a parrot that only liked my wife and would pick on everyone else."

"These robots are very intelligent and their perfectly natural desire for retribution is actually an asset because they get cross with anyone who abuses them or ship equipment. If they didn't do that, I'd have to record video because I'd never catch vandals," Ramda said. "I can offer you over two dozen jointly filed incident reports that show these robots only pick on someone when it's warranted."

"Fair enough, but I'm only going to entertain this for so long and I'll require proof that Remiel hasn't tampered with this robot." Josiah said. "You may continue questioning the witness."

"You can ask her yourself if you like, Josiah," Ramda said. "I know you want to get to the bottom of this as much as I do."

Josiah's face softened and he leaned down a bit, looking into Cuber's sensor cluster. "Why are you mad at Daniel?"

When Josiah tried to put on a nice face, it never quite looked believable and Cuber immediately scuttled over to me and hid behind my legs.

"Well, that's proof enough for me," Josiah said. "It's exactly as I suspected. Remiel's done something to your robots."

"Hah, what a waste of time," Daniel said.

"I don't think this is conclusive." Ramda looked at Cuber, frowning. "She seems overwhelmed."

"Overwhelmed or not, she doesn't seem willing to testify beyond signaling Remiel's involvement," Josiah said.

It was over, Cuber was too scared to testify and I didn't blame her. There was nothing I could do. My chest stabbed with anxiety. I was going back to Trinity with only myself to blame. And now I was overwhelmed too. I had no idea what to do, I couldn't even think with all of them here.

"If you'll excuse me, I've got paperwork to fill out," Josiah said.

"Hope you enjoy your one day on earth, Rem," Daniel said, walking toward the door.

My mind raced. What could I do? I had to do something. But Cuber was too terrified to-- "Wait," I said. "Cuber b-barely knows how human social stuff works. If we don't stare directly at her, s-she might show us what happened."

"Give it up, Remiel," Daniel said. "Know when you've lost."

"No, I think he's right," Ramda said. "This is the largest number of people Cuber's ever interacted with in her life."

"You two had your chance," Daniel said. "Josiah and I have better things to do than babysit a spiteful robot."

"Daniel, why are you calling Cuber spiteful?" Ramda asked. "I thought you said the gravity shut off was Remiel's doing. Did Cuber do something to you directly?"

"You said it was spiteful, I'm just going off of the way you described its model." Daniel smiled confidently to hide his worry.

"No, I didn't. I said they desire retribution." Ramda said. "Spiteful is what one would say about a bully."

Daniel winced. "Well, I, uh, used the wrong word. That's all."

Josiah thought for a moment and then grabbed the back of one of the chairs to lean on it. "You two have five minutes to get that robot to do something other than cower."

My blood was rushing in my ears as I looked down at Cuber, but I knew what to do. "Everyone, stop looking directly at her and watch her out of the corner of your eye instead."

Daniel glared right at her, his face turning red with frustration.

"Face the wall, Daniel," Josiah said.

Daniel directed some of his fury at me before turning to face the wall. For a moment, I thought he was trying to blow my head clean off my shoulders using only his thoughts.

Ramda faced mostly away from Cuber and so did Josiah.

I asked Cuber, "Why are you upset at Daniel?"

Cuber beeped softly and hid behind my leg. It felt like Cuber's nervousness was feeding off of mine and I was only getting more tense. Then I remembered when Ramda told me to breathe. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath in, and then blew it out. I did this two more times, thinking about how alike Cuber and I were. If anyone could get through to her, I could.

For once in my life, I had to calm down and just trust that I could do this one thing.

Opening my eyes, I looked down at Cuber and said, "Come on, girl, where's your inner rebel? I know you have a sense of justice and want to see it served. Don't let them think you're just a spiteful robot who pulls pranks without reason."

Cuber backed away from my legs, looking me in the eye.

"Can you show us why you're upset at Daniel?" I asked.

Cuber tilted her head at me.

I knew she understood me, but something was confusing her. She'd gone after Daniel's gravity and him kicking her just didn't seem like enough to get her to do that. Maybe she had multiple reasons she was mad at him and when we asked her a general question, she wasn't sure what we wanted her to show us.

To test my theory, I asked, "Why did you steal Daniel's food?"

"Wait, what?" Daniel said, trying to look behind himself without turning away from the wall.

Cuber walked over to Daniel and kicked him in the calf with one of her skinny legs.

"Ow! What the fuck!?" Daniel said, rubbing his calf.

"Wait, you kicked Cuber?" Josiah asked.

Daniel said, "No-OW!"

Cuber kicked his other calf, bleeping angrily.

"You stupid robot!" Daniel swung his heel toward Cuber and stopped at the last second when he realized he was being watched.

"Did you kick that robot?" Josiah's eyes narrowed at Daniel. "If you lie to me, I will make sure you regret it."

"Okay fine! But she was growling at me while I was just walking down the hallway. She's no better than a stray dog!" Daniel said, not sure which calf to rub.

"She warned you about going into her personal space and you didn't listen," I said.

Cuber made a trill of agreement.

Ramda and Josiah were looking at each other with wide eyes. Then they both turned to Cuber and asked the same question two different ways. The result was unintelligible.

"You go first," Ramda said to Josiah.

"Is that why you cut the gravity to Daniel's room?" Josiah asked.

Cuber shook her body.

"Then why did you do it?" Josiah was making an effort not to look directly at her. It was the most respect I'd seen him show anyone since this trip started.

Cuber walked over to me and tapped my left shoe before moving her three fingered hand toward herself.

"You want my shoe?" I asked.

Cuber nodded.

I took off my shoe and she grabbed it. Then she went over to Daniel and tapped his left shoe.

Daniel spun around, his face looking like he was about to snarl. "You want my fucking shoe? Go get it!" Pulling off his shoe, threw it across the room.

Ramda grabbed Daniel's shoe out of the air and then tossed it to Cuber who caught it with one of her three-fingered hands. Then Cuber trilled in thanks before taking both shoes to the wall next to the door. Then, in the view of me, Josiah, and Ramda, she used Daniel's shoe to pin mine against the wall. Her third arm moved from Daniel's shoe to the ankle of mine, strangling my shoe. Then, she followed our fight perfectly until Daniel's shoe had mine pinned against the floor.

Ramda, Josiah, and I gasped in awe while Daniel walked up to see what was going on.

When she slowly moved our shoes upwards to show the zero-g phase of our fight, Daniel said, "I kept t-telling Remiel we had to strap in."

Josiah stood up straight and set his jaw as he looked at Daniel. "You, in my quarters, now!"

"But Josiah, I--"

"The only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is an apology for your serpent's tongue," Josiah said.

"No, you're not listening, Rem--"

"You're the one who's not listening." Josiah grabbed the collar of Daniel's uniform shirt and dragged him out the door, saying, "That wasn't an apology and when I ordered you to my quarters, I wasn't making a request."

After they left and I got my shoe on, Cuber picked up Daniel's shoe. Then she handed it to me, trilling excitedly.

"I think she's handing you a trophy," Ramda said.

"This is the shoe that kicked you, isn't it?" I asked, grabbing Daniel's shoe.

Cuber nodded.

Setting the shoe down next to the door, I said, "I think he deserves to be without it for a while, then."

Cuber trilled.

Turning to Ramda, I asked, "How did Cuber know what happened during our fight?"

"She's assigned to your section and has a nook in the wall that she gets into when she's inactive or we're going to jump. I think it has a good view of that hallway," Ramda said.

I looked down at Cuber. "You've been keeping an eye on me?"

Cuber trilled and nodded.

"I keep forgetting how resourceful her model is," Ramda said.

I knelt down and offered Cuber a hug, feeling a bit giddy over how much I liked her.

She looked at me, tilting her central cube for a moment before reaching out with her three arms and grabbing my sides. I held her for a moment and then patted her on the back. She beeped and then patted me on the back the exact same way.

Ramda got on her knees next to us and joined the hug, saying, "I've never hugged a robot before."

Happy tears streamed down my cheeks. "This is awesome."

"Yeah," Ramda sniffled. "I'm gonna miss you a lot, Remiel."

I started crying. "M-Me too."

Cuber took her third arm and reached into a compartment, pulling out an absorbent pad. Then she blotted at my tears. She beeped when Ramda's tears dripped on her top and used another arm to grab a second pad. When she was drying both Ramda and my tears at the same time, seeming confused as to why her human friends were leaking, we started cracking up.

First Ramda laughed and then I did and then we kept laughing until we fell on our asses.

Cuber backed away from us. Then she made a trill that had the cadence of a question while tilting her cube portion so far that I thought she was going to fall over.

When I managed to stop laughing, I said, "Sorry, I don't know what just happened there, either."

"Cuber, do you want to hang out with Remiel this evening while I take care of some stuff?" Ramda asked.

Another question-like trill.

"We're getting full maintenance when we get to earth, so you can just spend time with Remiel until he has to go to sleep if you want, if he's okay with that, I mean," she said.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Yeah, Cuber's more interested in human interaction than other units with her model number and I think all this would've been a lot easier if I'd made an effort to socialize her earlier," Ramda said.

"Maybe I could show her how to play Go Fish or something," I said. Looking at Cuber, I asked, "You want to try playing a silly human card game?"

Cuber nodded, but still looked confused.

Ramda said to Cuber, "Hide Daniel's shoe in the maintenance locker just outside. I'll have Remiel come and join you in a couple minutes."

Cuber beeped an affirmative and then the door opened as she grabbed Daniel's shoe.

Once she was on the other side, I asked, "Are you going to give it back to him?"

"Sure, right before he disembarks," Ramda said.

I chuckled.

She hugged me. "I wish I could stick around tonight."

"It's okay, you've gotta run the whole ship, after all," I said, hugging back.

"Yeah, too many random things happened today. Feel free to bug me anytime from nine AM until noon tomorrow, though. No need to plan or anything. I just want to make sure I get to see you before you disembark."

"Sure, I'll message you after breakfast or something," I said, amazed she wanted to see me badly enough that she'd leave her whole morning open.

"I'll count on it, then." She kissed me.

I kissed back.

We both knew she had to go soon, so we made the most out of the moment we had. When we were done making each other shiver with our tongues and hands, our hearts were beating a bit fast and our pants were very tight.

Chapter 12

Oh how I wished that the Gluttonous Pixie was my home. If there'd been a way to make the hours before I disembarked stretch out into an eternity, I would've taken it. Luckily, this evening, Cuber was here to keep me company.

It had taken a while to find paper and markers to make a set of little squares of paper Cuber could put down to ask for the cards she needed in Go Fish, but it was so very worth it. We were nearing the end of our fifth game and the pool was empty. This time, her beginner's luck had finally run out and I was poised to win.

Smiling, I asked, "Do you have any aces?"

She shook her cube-like body.

"What? Did we lose a card?"

She nodded.

I looked around and saw no cards laying on the floor. A funny thought crossed my mind. "Are you lying?"

She nodded.

My eyes went wide. "Did you lie during the other games?"

She nodded.

"That's why you've been winning them all?"

She nodded, trilling happily.

I dropped my cards and held my head in my hands. "Ramda's gonna kill me. She wanted me to socialize you, but I taught you how to lie instead."

Setting down her cards, she crossed her arms and bleeped to scold me.

"Yeah, I'm the worst," I said.

She shook her head and made a "wrong answer" sound straight out of a game show.

"I didn't teach you how to lie?" I raised an eyebrow.

She nodded, trilling confidently.

I blinked. "I'm not sure that's something to be proud of."

Pointing at me with one of her three-fingered hands, she scolded me again.

"Okay, fine, you're the first robot I've had lie to me. I guess that is an accomplishment."

She bounced happily.

"Let's not tell Josiah or Daniel about that." Grabbing the cards, I started getting them all together so I could shuffle them. "New rule, we can't lie about what's in our hands."

A disappointed bweep came from her.

"You'd get bored if you never lost," I said.

The wrong answer sound again.

"Okay, I'd get bored if you never lost," I said. "So, no lying from now on."

She beeped and gave me a thumbs up with her third arm, something I'd taught her at the beginning of the evening.

We played six more games before we went into the anything room and watched an awesome fantasy show. It took Cuber a bit to adjust to just sitting idle, but when I hugged her against me, she settled down and started watching. I wasn't sure whether my show of affection was more important or the actual sensations she got from it, but I was glad it did something for her. She must've been able to sense touch, perhaps as temperature deviations on her composite body and limbs.

The only awkward part of watching stuff with her was that the show had some very-well-rendered werewolf transformations that got me biting my lip and squirming.

Cuber seemed to like the werewolves more than the humans and was fascinated by the bit of gore when the werewolves fought their foes. Discovering we had similar tastes made it all that much harder to leave her behind.

It was difficult for me to stay upbeat as it got closer to bedtime, and after I bid farewell to Cuber, I laid awake for a long while, dreading my impending departure. I'd hoped to go to bed early and wake up in time to watch the simulated sunrise in the Biome one last time, but that didn't pan out. By the time I woke up, the most colorful part of the sunrise had already passed. So I languished in my bed, sad and vaguely hungry.

The only thing I was happy about this morning was that Bible study had been cancelled so people could get ready to disembark.

Since I wasn't sure if I'd be able to meet Ramda right at nine with how slow I was going, I held off on giving her an ETA and opened up the link to the extranet that she'd given me. It led me to install a special browser and a program that hid encrypted storage banks in my implant.

The first thing I searched for was "Trinity Stronghold" and the top hit was something I'd heard stories about, but never had access to: Wikipedia. It was a lot like Trinpedia, but had way more articles and was written from a very different point of view. Every other piece of writing I'd read that referred to my home colony had been like a commercial. Wikipedia was like a textbook with a couple sections I didn't expect: "In Popular Media" and "Controversy." I'd never seen a section labeled "Controversy" on any page related to my colony and immediately clicked on it.

My jaw dropped farther and farther open as I read the very first paragraph. For over a hundred years, the human rights violations on my planet had been a subject of heated discussion amongst all the other space territories and colonies. Even the few things Trinity got right had this hanging over them. For instance, our healthcare system was very efficient and affordable, but it didn't provide any help for queer people and was rather poor when it came to women's rights. I'd have to read more about human rights, women's rights, etc. once I learned more about queer people.

Back home, we only talked about them in hushed whispers and seeing such frank public discourse was dizzying. I had to know about human rights to understand more of what the article was talking about, so I dove into that next.

The list of human rights was thirty items long, and as I read it, I mentally ticked off all the ones Trinity didn't provide. Basically, the law could be thrown at anyone who upset the wrong people, which broke four of them because not only were people being persecuted by the law, they were guilty until proven innocent: very much the way Josiah had treated me this trip.

Two of the rights confused me. The thought that anyone should be able to participate in government was hard to get my head around. On Trinity, you had to be sponsored by a member of the government to get into the school that trained all the politicians and there was a lot of room for corruption in that. But lawmakers were trained in how to run the planet and were often rather competent even though they maintained a death grip on the party line. That said, it was hard for me to imagine some rando off the street getting to hold office. What if someone was elected that had no idea what they were doing? Wouldn't they just gum up the works?

Now that I thought about it, that happened even with Trinity's system. Daniel's dad was an absolute wanker and was caught embezzling money from the new hospital he'd commissioned for his home town. His friend in government was forced to denounce him publicly, saying he'd made a grave mistake in sponsoring him. And then Daniel's world had come tumbling down. At least, that's how Hosanna had told it.

Freedom of speech was also a hard one because we'd always been taught it would lead to chaos. "If people could say anything, then lies would rule," was a saying I'd been fed since childhood. But seeing how functional the extranet was while having free speech had me questioning that.

Feeling short on time, I got ready to go to breakfast while reading about gender dysphoria. Dealing with that on top of everything else I had going on with me would've been a nightmare and I was glad I wasn't trans. I was way too much of a guy to ever be considered female, so there wasn't much point in considering it. My heart ached for Ramda, though.

Honestly, I could understand some of what she went through. That feeling of being an outsider was something I knew all too well. It hurt immensely because when we were back on Trinity, we'd been forced to play characters who were devout Christians and didn't like dicks, even when they were attached to beautiful women...

Wait, where was the doubt I'd been feeling since the day I first saw her? Her dick was so beautiful!

That thought had me wanting to dive under the covers and hide. But I resisted it and walked out of my room, headed toward breakfast.

The taste of Ramda's cum was so clear in my memory that heat was rushing to my crotch as I entered the Biome. The sound of her huge load splashing against the shower wall echoed in my mind along with her howls of ecstasy. The sensation of her knot swelling against the base of my prick while she came was so vivid that my knees got weak as I stepped off the bridge and walked down the hill toward the outdoor galley.

Ramda's kindness, blunt honesty, tight hugs, toned muscles, expressive lips, whiskers, dexterous tongue, six breasts, powerful hips, and fluffy tail sat in my mind, distracting me from my meal. And her thick canine shaft with big round balls hanging under it were more on my mind than ever. There was so much I wanted to do with them, but kept holding myself back. I didn't want to get to earth, regretting what I didn't do. After breakfast I was going to--

"Hey Remiel," Hosanna said.

I looked up from my table and tried to put on a straight smile despite the raging boner running down my pant leg. "Hey," I said.

She set down her tray, which had two croissants with jam and butter on them, and sat across from me. "Got any plans before we disembark?"

"Ramda and I are going to, uhh," I stopped myself, not trusting my sex-crazed mind. "...fix her plumbing?"

"Again?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, she, I mean it's going to burst if we don't find a way to relieve the pressure," I said. It was definitely time to go, I'd spoken in innuendo without even intending to.

"Is it dangerous?" Hosanna asked, looking a bit worried.

"Not if we deal with it soon." I grabbed my tray.

"Don't let me keep you, I don't even want to know what happens if you're two are too late," she said.

I got up, holding my tray in front of my crotch. Then I put the croissant I'd only eaten half of in a room service takeaway container and held that in front of myself as I raced out of the Biome. My haste probably unnerved Hosanna, but it sold my story.

Even though it was still twenty-one minutes to nine, I made my way straight toward Ramda's quarters, figuring I could just wait outside her door and finish my croissant.

It was awesome that the door that led to the fore section of the ship just opened for me like I was a member of the crew. The closer I got to Ramda's quarters, the more it felt like I was going to get caught. That somehow someone was going to find out I'd been seeing Ramda and send me right back to Trinity. The spotlights from the ceiling weren't helping because I felt like I was on display in my gaudy cross-ridden Trinity Stronghold uniform.

Striding past the doors to the fore cargo holds that lined this long hallway, I jumped at a sudden whirr from the life support system.

The air got more humid as I got up to Ramda's cabin. Her heavy breathing was echoing down the hallway, like she was in the middle of jogging in place or something.

Peering through her cracked-open door, I marveled at a multilevel, floor-to-ceiling orchid terrarium flanked by amorphous wall panels that were made of three-dimensionally tessellated triangles lit by red mood lighting. They looked like low-res surfaces from a video game and were beautiful. Neither the wall panels nor the orchids held my interest for long because just off to the side, not far from her orange couch, was Ramda laying atop her weight bench. Stretching her canine pussy was a knotted dildo the same size as her massive cock while her dick was buried in a masturbation sleeve that was being stretched to its limit.

Biting back a moan, I rubbed at the rise in my pants while leaning on the door frame with the other.

I'd been so focused on Ramda that I didn't realize what I thought was the door frame was the door itself and I stumbled into the room as it slid out of the way.

"Hi, Remiel. I'm a bit indisposed at the moment," Ramda said.

"S-sorry! I should leave you to your, uhh, exercising." I scrambled to my feet and quickly closed the door, but then my eyes went wide. I'd meant to be on the other side of the door. My thoughts were glitching from how much I wanted to fuck her.

A sucking sound came from her pussy as she pulled the dildo out and then took the sleeve off her prick. Setting them aside, she sat up. "You don't need to leave. I'd love some help with my exercise routine." Pre dripped from her prick onto the textured composite floor as she gave it a nice long stroke.

I took a few steps forward while grasping at my sides. It was embarrassing to be this horny and I could only manage to mumble, "If you're sure you're okay with me--" I gulped, "--with me helping."

Her tail wagged as she looked at the tent in my pants. "Of course I am." She leaned back, lifted her balls out of the way, and spread her pussy open. "Put that boner in here."

I walked over to her, reaching for the button on my pants, but unable to fully commit. My eyes were locked on her spread pussy and her cinnamon and turmeric scents were so heavy I could barely keep still. My cheeks flushed as my pre wet my boxers.

My nervousness just wouldn't leave so I repeated myself. "Are you sure?"

Her wetness was making the fur around her pussy shimmer. "I want to feel you shudder as you get used to being in something so hot, soft, and slick that you nearly blow your load right away. Then I want to feel you fuck me until your dick twitches along its length, filling me with cum."

Panting and moaning, I undid my pants. I pulled them down with my boxers, my face not far from her balls and snatch.

"You smell nice," I said, my face burning with embarrassment.

"So do you," she said.

Letting my pants fall to the floor, I leaned in closer to her balls, pressing my nose into her furry sack. Then instinct took over and I drew in their turmeric scent. As she gasped in delight, tingles traveled down my extremities.

She stroked her cock as her tail wagged between my legs. "Gah! Yes, get your face in there." Her other hand grabbed the back of my head and pressed my face into her balls.

Her pussy was warming and slicking up the backs of my fingers as I nuzzled her sac. I groaned as a wave of searing arousal traveled through me.

"Could you--NGH!--lick my knot?" Her tail rubbed the underside of my balls while tickling my cock. "No pressure, just, I would really like that."

I moved my mouth up to the base of her dick. Looking at her knot, I hesitated before instinct took over. Her scent was too appealing and... Closing my eyes, I reached out with my tongue and licked across the slight bulge of her uninflated knot. She yipped and thrust her hips violently. I never thought that touching someone else's cock this way would feel and taste this good. The experience was contrary to everything I'd been taught: I loved it. A surge of confidence hit me, making me go to town on her knot. I licked at it, nuzzled it, and sucked. She started making noises I'd never heard her make before: whines and little growls.

Between licks, I said, "I still can't get over your size." Her prick was occupying most of my view. The thickness alone was impressive.

"Haaah! Hybrids tend to go for big equipment overall and I wanted to be able to satisfy them." She released her cock, letting it stand on its own. "Why not check out my pussy before you fuck it? I know you're wondering what I taste like down there too."

She was right, I couldn't resist. The cinnamon scent of her snatch filled my senses as I put my lips up against her labia. Her canine clit throbbed against my nose while I licked across her triangular snatch. She yipped, moaned, and got her nectar all over my face as she held me against her. I thrust my tongue into her deep-fuchsia-colored folds, tasting cinnamon, salt, and a bit of tanginess like yogurt. It was so soft and satiny in there and her muscles were tussling with my tongue. More pre leaked from my cock as it burned with need.

Eventually, all the rubbing and licking had her yelling louder and louder. Then, as my lungs burned for me to pull away, she shoved my face against her pussy harder and soaked my face, howling. Her pussy clenched rhythmically on my tongue while her hips went crazy. I nearly passed out before she let me go.

Pulling away from her, I gasped for air.

"I want you in me when I cum again," she said.

"Will you even feel me? Your toy was really big compared to me," I said, moving my prick closer, feeling the heat from her cunt with the head of my cock. My heart was racing now and I felt like I was about to skydive off a skyscraper.

"I felt your tongue didn't I? Trust me, if you put effort into it, I'll feel you just fine," she said.

I pulled off my shirt and then hugged her rock hard dick against my chest, using it to pull myself forward and into her. Plunging into the supple suffocating embrace of her folds, I groaned and bit my lip. Because she could take dicks so much larger than mine, I was able to hilt myself in her in one go.

Grabbing her nipples and thrusting against my chest, she cried out, "Yes! More!"

The end of her dick went up to my sternum. Her pussy clenched around me as she kept thrusting and I gasped, looking down at her canine length. From the pointy tip down, it gained girth until the center of its length where it was a bit thicker than my wrist. After which, it tapered slightly thinner until it hit her sizable uninflated knot. Squeezing it more firmly against my chest, I picked up my pace, smacking my loins against her balls and sopping cooch.

She panted and growled as she pushed back against my thrusts, angling her hips different ways to get both of us making as much noise as possible.

I couldn't take my eyes off the pre streaming from her cock head, lubricating her fucking of my front.

"Oh Remiel, suck on it. I know you want to!" she said.

I leaned forward, moving her prick so that I could stroke it with both hands and get my mouth over the end. My lips parted as I kissed the end of her shaft. She'd used her lips to protect me from her teeth, so I did the same and she let out a happy yowl, shoving more of herself into my maw. I happily took more of it into my mouth while moaning around her sensitive flesh. Part of me expected Josiah to burst through the door and smite me for the sin I was committing, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

The delicious hint of curry in her pre as she spurted in my mouth, the sensation of her canine tip twitching against my tongue, and the way she was running her hands over her six breasts got me thrusting my length into her so fast my legs burned. I was close and if I hadn't been concentrating on giving her head, I would've cum already.

"Use your tongue more," she said with a long gasp. "I'm--AAAH--about to cum both ways." She grabbed my head and started guiding my motions, warm paw pads pressing into my scalp, blunt claw tips adding a bit of danger.

Flicking my tongue across the bottom of her shaft, I got sharp moans from her, and even more pre. Then I used my tongue to increase the friction of her thrusts into my mouth and she grabbed my hair so she could thrust upwards in quick succession, getting herself to the edge in a dozen seconds. My prick was a bit numb from holding back and the overwhelming amount of sensation. I could feel her muscles coordinate within her passage as they tugged on my prick, making me cry out around her dick every time I pulled out or shoved back in. She felt so tight, almost too tight for our combined ferocity.

"Grab my knot!" she yelled.

I reached down with both hands and grabbed her knot as it swelled bigger than my fists.

She howled as her dick convulsed along its length, just as my prick did the same. When her delicious jizz spewed out of her titanic length, I creamed inside her, shoving myself in all the way. My whole body clenched as a rolling thunder of pleasure got me screaming around her cock. Then my cheeks bulged out as her productivity overshadowed my capacity to swallow and cum sprayed back out of my mouth, raining down on us.

Milking my cock, her snatch got me yelping between swallows. I was woefully ill equipped to get even half of what she was giving me down even though I wanted it all. Not that I had a choice: her hands were making sure I stayed on her dick until she was done with me.

Her legs wrapped around my waist as she pulled me against her, keeping me in as deep as possible. She let out one more howl, grinding against me and giving me another gush to drink down.

"That was damn good," she said, letting go of my head.

I pulled off her dick, coughing and sputtering. I couldn't smell or taste anything other than her spooge, and as I let myself collapse against her front, I grinned at how well it had all gone, at how good I felt. I could pleasure a woman just fine, even one with a ridiculously large package.

She hugged me against her, trapping her receding shaft between us. I kissed her lazily and we made out. Then we were just lying there, hardly moving at all. My brain was far from idle, it was replaying sensations from what we'd just done over and over.

Several minutes later, I started rubbing my front against her and when her nipples hardened, I did it even more exuberantly. I had no idea what I wanted, I just needed to feel her body move because of my touch again.

"Remiel, are you--are you getting hard again?" she asked.

I stopped. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize, let's keep going," she said, pulling off of me. Then she got on all fours and lifted her tail, saying, "Here, you won't have to bend your legs as much."

Without a second thought, I shoved in and started thrusting, getting back to full hardness. I couldn't believe that my first and second times penetrating someone were with the same woman, not fifteen minutes apart.

When I grabbed the base of her tail, she started panting and bucking her hips while she stroked her dick with one hand. Her other hand was on the bed, keeping her front from crashing to the bed as I rutted her.

Having gotten off so recently, I lasted until a couple minutes after her pussy went off yet again. As my cock went a bit numb from cumming violently a second time, she let go of her prick and just pressed back against me. My whole body was tingling and I felt light headed, so happy that I stared at her furry back, dumbfounded. When I was spent, she turned around, grabbed my head, and shoved the end of her dick in my mouth. I squeezed her knot and she came a more manageable amount, still tasting amazing. I swallowed it down greedily.

Then we kissed, sharing her cream before we wordlessly went over to the shower and got clean. After that, she took me to her bed and cuddled me from behind. Her balls and sheath against my bare ass didn't bother me one bit. It was the most comfortable I'd felt in all my life.

I grabbed her furry forearms as they encircled me. "I don't want this to be wrong. I feel so at ease with you and you understand me in a way not even I did."

She ruffled my hair with the underside of her muzzle. "We're two adults making our own decisions. I don't see how this can be wrong, but I've blown up a lot of my puritanical past. It's not easy and I'm glad I was able to help you figure some stuff out. You're inherently a good person, one of the absolute best, and you are fantastic in bed."

I bit back tears. Ever since I met Ramda, it was like my emotions were all crowding in my mind, waiting to be expressed. Uncovering all the things I'd buried within myself was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. "You're the first person I've ever been with. The most supportive person I've ever met. I can't thank you enough."

"You're the most open-minded person from your planet I've met besides myself and I think you have the thickest human cock I've ever had in me. You're going to want to warn the next girl you want to do sexy things with." She chuckled.

"I thought I was average," I said.

"Maybe for length, but definitely not for girth," she said.

I grinned. "Wow, okay."

"Whoever gets to be intimate with you next is going to be very lucky." She gave me a squeeze.

"I wish I could stay." I frowned.

"Me too, I wish my contract with MiraManna didn't ban me from offering employment," she said.

"Wait, you'd hire me?" I tried to crane my neck to look at her.

"After you've had some time to experience Earth, in a heartbeat," she said.

"Ahh, so you wouldn't want to employ me right away," I said.

"You owe it to yourself to experience Earth for a while. The society there is completely different from anything you've known."

I sighed. "But I'm going to be working for MiraManna."

She nodded. "Make connections on Earth and stay in touch with me. Keep finding out things about yourself, keep exploring."

"I will," I said.

"And I visit Earth semi-often. When you leave tomorrow, it won't be goodbye, it'll be 'till we meet again.' I'd totally be up for dinner, long conversations, and sex whenever I'm in town."

"R-really?"

"Absolutely! How else are you going to get practice swallowing my load?"

I blushed and squirmed against her. "I don't think anyone could swallow it all."

"Does that mean you don't want to try?" she asked.

I was too embarrassed to answer.

She chuckled. "Thought so."

"Can we order room service for lunch?"

"I was already planning on that," she said.

"Good, because I'm going to stay here as long as possible."

"We might end up needing another shower, in that case." She licked my ear, getting a gasp from me.

My crotch tingled as I wondered whether I was even capable of going again. The only way to know was to try. Before I had to leave, I was going to extract every bit of joy I could. For once in my life, I actually felt like I deserved it.

Chapter 13

Ramda and I stayed together all through lunch and then she had Cuber accompany me for the rest of the afternoon before our disembarkation.

My thighs, buttocks, and prick ached from the three times I'd fucked Ramda and my jaw was sore from the four times I'd taken her prick into my mouth. She'd had two big glasses of water during lunch and I suspected she'd modded herself heavily in the jizz-making department because she'd had something to drink down all four times. Another reason I absolutely had to do stuff with her again in the future.

Sexual satisfaction at this level was more like a pervasive, unshakeable joy and I doubted I'd get excited again for at least a day. Which was good because my leg muscles were spent and I needed to focus on my packing. Cuber wasn't being much help because she kept taking random objects and examining them closely. She currently had one of my socks and was quite pleased with how stretchy it was.

When I heard it start to tear, I said, "Hey!" and reached down for it.

She pulled it away.

"Please don't put a hole in them, I only brought seven pairs," I said.

She reluctantly gave it back and I checked it for holes. Finding none, I put it in the resealable bag I'd put my dirty clothes in and then closed my suitcase. Now that everything was ready, I just laid back on my bed and sighed.

Cuber hopped on my bed, avoiding stepping on my legs.

I hugged her against me, saying, "I'm gonna miss you."

She made a sad trill and hugged me back.

"You don't like people, right?" I asked.

She nodded.

"But you like me and Ramda?"

She nodded.

"Huh, I just don't see why I'm all that special," I said.

Hugging me tighter, she let out a flurry of encouraging beeps.

I smiled and sat with her for a bit before I took out the complementary deck of cards I'd gotten from room service. They had a nice image of the Gluttonous Pixie on the back and the value of each card was related to the rarity of the orchid species pictured on the front.

Cuber and I played "Go Fish" because I didn't want to teach her a whole new game just before we had to leave. We got through four games and were tied for wins. At the end of the fifth game, Cuber's third arm moved at the corner of my vision. My pile of matched fours was now on her side.

I said, "You can't win by grabbing one of my piles."

Continuing to play the game like nothing had happened, she put the pile back.

At the end of the game, I found my pile of fours on her side again and said, "Cuber, you didn't need my fours to win and that's not a legal play."

She put the pile of fours back, trilling excitedly. At this point I was sure she was just playing with me because she'd taken my pile of aces while I was watching her place the pile of fours back on my side.

"Cuber, you're utterly devious," I said.

Bouncing and beeping excitedly, she put all my piles on her side in a flurry of movements that my eyes couldn't keep track of. Then she cheered, announcing herself as the champion cheating at "Go Fish."

I stared at her for a moment, my eyes widening. With sleight of hand that quick, she could move cards around all she wanted... Is that why she always seemed to have more cards than she should have? Had she learned to let me win sometimes so I didn't become suspicious? Did she even know how to play a fair game of cards?

Instead of being angry at her, I just hugged her. She dropped the cards she was holding and hugged me back really tight. Perhaps Cuber and I weren't as alike as I thought. I'd never cheated at a game of cards in my life. She was definitely her own person and that made her even more fascinating.

My eyes got wet. "You're hilarious and I wish I had time to get to know you better."

She cooed and patted my back.

I patted her back, completely in awe of her humanity.

After the hug, Cuber insisted on loading and pulling my luggage cart and I was glad because my legs felt like overcooked noodles.

The Columbia Hangar on Earth's equatorial orbital ring was at least four hundred meters tall and wide and long enough that I didn't know where the end was. Numerous gigantic cranes moved along tracks, handling ships and cargo. There were starships of all shapes and sizes and I only recognized a third of them. I wished I could go on a walk and see them all, but I knew Josiah would object if I strayed too far from the group. Currently, he was talking to Daniel just outside the ship while everyone else was further away, near the far wall that had a holographic map of the station and some other stuff.

Josiah said, "Ramda's gonna take you to Epsilon Eridani and then you're gonna board a small transport back to Trinity Stronghold. If you do well with your anger management courses, you'll be back to Earth next year."

"Okay," Daniel said, sounding meek for what may have been the first time in his life.

Josiah patted Daniel on the shoulder. "Don't fret, God's just got some unfinished business with you and needs you to come back home. If you open yourself to his wisdom, you'll do just fine."

My stomach lurched and I picked up my pace so I didn't have to listen to any more of Josiah's religious rationalizations.

Ramda was talking to Hosanna and Luke next to a giant robotic cart full of luggage that had "Columbia Hangar" spelled out in big navy blue letters across its base. Behind them, all the MiraManna employees were looking at the holographic map, "Welcome to Earth" kiosks, and a wide variety of vending machines along the wall. If Josiah had been paying attention, he would've been lecturing them, because the vending machine everyone was congregating around was the one that sold a wide variety of sex toys.

Walking toward Ramda, I said, "Hey," while trying to forget the fact that this was the last time I'd see her for a long time, possibly ever.

"Remiel," Luke said, "Ramda's dick has a knot, like a dog's!"

I blushed and thought about fleeing.

Hosanna blushed deep red. "Don't announce it to the whole freaking spaceport!"

Luke said, "But Remiel was farther away, I had to speak louder for him to hear me."

"Josiah's also farther away, do you want him to hear you too?" Hosanna sighed. "It's bad enough you even asked her."

"Bad for who?" Ramda asked. "Tell me honestly, Hosanna, was it something you were wondering about yourself?"

Biting her lip, Hosanna remained quiet.

I asked a question I already knew the answer to in an attempt to distract Luke. "Ramda, do you like getting pet?"

Ramda's tail wagged. "Yeah, as long as it's not some random stranger."

Hosanna looked at Ramda's tail. "Can I?"

"All of you can pet me, you don't even need to ask," Ramda said.

Hosanna stepped closer, then she felt along Ramda's tail, stroking the fur. Luke reached up and gently felt Ramda's ear, which flicked when he tried to touch it higher up. He laughed and started petting the base of it. Ramda's eyes closed and she groaned happily.

I started scratching under Ramda's muzzle and Hosanna soon joined me, which made Ramda sway on her feet while cooing in delight. When she let out a yip and wagged her tail furiously at all of us getting even more into petting her, I went for her chin, making her gasp.

Hosanna giggled. "You're just like my dog back home."

Ramda pulled her head away from all of us, "I'm not a dog, I'm a wolf, and don't you forget it." She growled.

"Sure you are." I scratched her chin and she sighed, closing her eyes.

She pulled her chin away, "That's cheating."

Cuber beeped in protest at everyone ignoring her. It was good to see that she liked Hosanna and Luke enough that she wasn't hiding behind my legs.

Looking down at her, I asked, "Are you sure you want me to talk about you? It might be better to keep what I learned about you this morning a secret."

Crossing her arms, she made the wrong answer sound. She had pride about the strangest things.

"Well, I tried." Turning to Ramda, I said, "Cuber cheats at cards. And instead of having remorse about it, she's proud of how many times she duped me."

Cuber trilled happily.

Ramda shook her head at Cuber. "What am I going to do with you?"

Cuber shrugged.

"I was looking at incident reports last night and I found you were the problem robot in over fifty percent of them," Ramda said.

Throwing up her arms, Cuber cheered.

"That and you cheating at cards makes it hard for me to believe you're ever going to learn how to be a good robot," Ramda said. "And the only human you've ever taken a real liking to is Remiel, here."

Cuber hugged my leg.

Looking at her, I felt a wave of sorrow that I'd be leaving her behind.

"After I had to report your antics with the artificial gravity, MiraManna demanded that I take you off my ship," Ramda said. "So I have to figure out something to do with you."

Luke, Hosanna, and I all looked at Ramda with wide eyes.

Hugging my leg tighter, Cuber made a sad trill.

Hosanna said, "Are there charities that take in difficult robots?"

"There's charities that repurpose robots," Ramda said. "But wiping their memory is usually part of it because most robots don't have as much personality as Cuber. She's rather unique and that poses a big problem."

"Oh no," I said. "What's going to happen to her?"

"Well, I have one idea." Ramda knelt down in front of Cuber. "How would you like to take care of Remiel instead of my ship?"

I started crying instantly. Tears just started streaming down my face. "W-what?"

Cuber bounced happily, ruffling up my pant leg.

"If you'll have her, Cuber is yours from now on," Ramda said.

"Yes, oh yes, oh wow," I said, crying in front of people other than Ramda or my family for the first time in my life.

Ramda pulled me into her arms, letting my tears wet her uniform. "This way, you'll have part of the Gluttonous Pixie with you wherever you go."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," I said.

She hugged me tighter and kissed the top of my head. "I should be thanking you. I had no idea what I'd do with Cuber if you refused."

Luke hugged us from the side, "I read about gender dysphoria last night and I've wanted to hug you ever since, Ramda."

Ramda hooked her arm around Luke.

Hosanna hugged us from the other side. "I think you two are cute together."

"Y-you know?" I asked, a chill running up my spine.

Hosanna said, "You've been happier than I've ever seen you and I don't know what to think about it, but it's God's responsibility to decide what's right for you, not mine."

Luke said, "I'd love to get a beer with you and talk about Ramda once we're settled in on Earth."

"Same goes for me," Hosanna said.

"And I'll be messaging you regularly. I come to Earth often and you are at the top of my list of people to visit," Ramda said. "Plus, I'm gonna have to check in on Cuber so I can track her progress toward becoming a criminal mastermind."

Cuber trilled excitedly.

"Thanks guys," I said, sniffling.

Josiah walked up to us, saying, "What's all this?"

"A farewell group hug, Josiah," Ramda said. "You're welcome to join if you like."

"Yeah, come join the hug, Josiah," Luke said. "If you're nice, Ramda will let you pet her."

"I, uh, we're leaving in five minutes. Be ready," he said before walking away.

After the hug, Ramda set a large water-tight case down in front of me. "Cuber's charger, spare parts, and adapters for different interfaces are all in here. I suggest you find something for her to do during the day or she'll upgrade your living space out of boredom and let me be clear: Cuber doesn't fully understand human needs or aesthetics."

Pointing at Ramda, Cuber scolded her with harsh beeps.

Ramda narrowed her eyes at Cuber. "You know I'm right, don't get all melodramatic about it."

Cuber crossed her arms.

Luke, Hosanna, and I laughed. It was like watching a married couple argue.

I knelt down next to Cuber and patted the top of her cubic body. "It's okay, I'll make sure to show you how to be a good housemate and give you clear boundaries for what you can and can't do."

She gave me a thumbs up.

Ramda asked, "Did you teach her that?"

"Yep," I said.

With her tail wagging, Ramda said, "I think you two will be just fine."

"Me too," I said, hoping I could hang on to my current mindset. At the very least, I'd be living on a world where no one would think to call Ramda an abomination or paint everything a godawful sky blue.

Ramda Art (NSFW)