Date: 6/3/2440 — Time: 5:15 PM CST
“Hi, I’m Julia,” she said, feeling a little awkward with the translator.
“Good. I speak enough English. You won’t need that much,” L’tani replied, glancing around. “Matthew said you were discreet. I’m counting on that. Let’s go up to my suite. I need to talk to you in private.”
Julia had been wondering what kind of luxury the man—so far full of surprises—would provide for alien hotties. But she hadn’t expected something larger than her childhood home, which turned out to be just his childhood bedroom. Her estimation of Matthew Marmaduke went way up.
“I need advice,” L’tani said. “You know about the party tonight?”
“Lord Matthew asked me to be his date,” she added, as if it were a military reassignment—and just as terrifying.
“That’s big,” Julia said, contemplating the situation. “What do you need advice on?”
“What to wear, first. He explicitly said no uniforms, so I must dress for the occasion,” L’tani said, pacing fast enough to wear through the floor.
“Do you have his assistant’s number—Angelina?” Julia asked, accepting the phone handed to her. “Good. Just a moment.” She tapped the contact. “Hello, Angelina? This is Julia Vallejo. L’tani and I need your expertise.”
“Try this one,” Julia said, examining the dresses in the closet—tags still on. Whoever had shopped for L’tani had done right by her. The clothes were trendy, but the brands were absent. They spoke of quality over flair.
“I need to know about human men,” L’tani finally admitted.
“Well, tell me this—how do they differ from V’ren men?”
“Again, I’m not sure.”
“So, no experience with men of either species? At all?” Julia asked—not unkindly, but clearly unsure how to handle the moment. She was a rich girl who could afford to fool around and face no consequences. Any evidence she’d been pregnant had vanished in anonymous doctors’ offices. It had happened—twice.
“How would you go about attracting a V’ren guy you were interested in bedding?”
“That is not the way we do things. From the time I was about ten, I had access to a list of men who were both biologically and socially acceptable. When they sent us out on this colony expedition, I had over two hundred potential mates—out of more than two hundred thousand men. I have only one living potential mate now. He is currently two. And until he is much closer to my age, biological compatibility is never a sure thing.”
“What do you mean by biologically compatible? Aren’t all V’ren the same species?”
“Yes, but why does that matter?”
“In humans, all a man needs is to be mildly aroused to blow his wad and get a girl pregnant—any fertile one, at least.”
“You truly mean a human male has erections and ejaculation with no chemical stimulation?”
“Human men get hard just… from existing. Sometimes while dreaming. You could show them a chair leg, and they’d get ideas. If I remember my sex-ed class from grade six, the average guy gets hard three or four times a night—alone and not even trying. Tell me how that differs from V’ren males?”
“For a V’ren male to achieve an erection and ejaculation, he must be stimulated by a woman’s pheromones. Except for the young,” she said, not mentioning how young she was in this regard. “The young have very little control over it,” she added—also not saying how both heady and terrifying it felt, knowing she had that power now. “As we age, we wear it like human women wear perfume. The more mature you are, the more control you have.”
“But not every V’ren male is receptive to every V’ren female,” Julia guessed. “What’s the ratio?”
“Overall, about one in six thousand. For people I could bond with without losing caste status? Maybe one in ten thousand.”
“Are you still constrained by your caste?”
“Yes and no. That is also my problem. If I hold to the caste system, I have no one—especially not the one man I want so badly. If I reject it, there are literally thousands more potential V’ren mates… and I don’t want any of them.”
“You spoke about pheromones and lists. But what about love?” Julia asked, thinking about the one disastrous relationship where she thought she’d been in love. She’d been sixteen. He’d been almost thirty. It ended with another off-the-books doctor visit—paid for, as always, because she was rich.
“We build love after we bond. Love comes from sacrifice, from raising children, from shared purpose—not from flowers and feelings.”
“Well, here it’s mostly flowers and feelings—and most of us still get it wrong,” Julia sighed, leaning back into the featherbed. She wondered, for a second, what it would feel like to dig her fingers into the soft down as Lord Gorgeous pinned her down. Then she sat up, brushing the thought aside.
“As I see it, even if you chase after and catch Lord Marmaduke, you still have a biological compatibility issue. He’s human. I don’t see where you win in the children department.”
“Humans and V’ren are biologically compatible. That is by design.”
“I heard a little about the Progenitors seeding both our worlds—but I don’t think you’ll convince many humans of that.”
“I am not going to try. Humans are the most maddening species when it comes to clinging to parochial knowledge. You knows what you knows is a phrase I have seen in your media far too many times,” L’tani sighed.
“Ouch. I hope that’s not the image we’re broadcasting into the galaxy,” Julia said—half defensive, half intrigued.
“Let’s just say we also have ‘Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat’… and memes. Lots and lots of memes. I think I want to get a cat,” L’tani added, suddenly wistful. “Not one of the barn beasts. Something large and fluffy.”
“You were saying something about compatibility—or was that just a graceful way of changing the subject?”
“From a genomic standpoint, we’re closer to humans than Neanderthals ever were to you. Not just cousins. More like mirror twins, separated before we could speak. I believe that is also intentional.”
“That changes the calculus a bit, I think. What makes you think Lord Marmaduke would be interested—and that he would be compatible with you?” Julia asked, playing devil’s advocate.
“My sister tried to attract him with her pheromones and failed miserably. I believe he’s reacting to mine.”
“I’ve seen the clippings of the two of them. Are you sure you want to interfere?”
“T’mari and I talked. We, as in the V’ren, don’t see it that way. We don’t bond until we are pregnant. We need a pheromone release to ensure ovulation. Whether or not a human man can get us pregnant without that is still unknown. T’mari, however, has bowed out in my favor—and wished me luck where she failed,” L’tani said, settling back into the chair.
“As I see it, there are still two big questions.”
“Do you want to have his baby—not someday, I mean right now. If he came up here this minute and asked me to leave so you two could fuck your brains out, would you be happy to come away with a confirmed pregnancy?”
“I believe the human phrase is… let’s get on it—any day of the week and twice on Sunday? I may have that backwards.”
“He’s over forty. He might not have that much energy—but I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind finding out,” Julia chuckled. “Final question: would he want to have a baby with you?”
“He has made it clear he wants an heir. He told my sister he needs one to keep this property in his bloodline.”
