Thri-Kreen Erotica

Zera woke me for second watch, treading softly in the deep grass so as not to wake the casters. She beckoned with her claw for me to follow, and we walked a few paces away from the fire and over to a hollow log, where she sat with a staccato bump.

"What is it?" I whispered softly, scratching my head, still slightly groggy.

"I've been thinking," she began, haltingly. Her mandibles were flexing and her antennae were twitching in a way I had come to associate with stress and confusion. "I've... I've been journeying with you mammals for several months now. And... and though we've been through many trying times together, and have shared many secrets, I... there's still things about your species that are a mystery to me."

The night was silent, and Zera slowly fingered the edge of her chatchka. I didn't quite now what to say, so I sat beside her silently. The night was dark and still, and the branches overhead shut out the stars. I could barely see the outlines of her mantis-like head in the distant firelight.

"In particular,", she continued after some time, "I... you and Gerreck and Mileeda are always making these... these jokes that I don't... I mean, I think they're jokes, but I'm not sure what their subject matter is."

She was looking away from me now, and a scratching noise in the blackness indicated to me that she was idly picking bark off our seat.

"Oh, hell, Keirin, I'll just say it. Where do human babies come from?" I unsuccessfully attempted to stifle a chortle. Zera's antennae wilted slightly, a gesture I had come to associate with humiliation and alienation.

"I'm sorry.", I said. I gently stroked one of her antennae back up with a single forefinger. "You just took me by surprise, that's all."

Zera sighed with a slight buzzing sound and leaned backwards against my shoulder. Her left lower arm rested on my knee.

I cleared my throat and attempted to gather my thoughts. Why hadn't Zera asked Gerreck about this? He was the one who knew everything about biology and animals. He was the one who was good with words.

"Well," I started, "Your species... you lay eggs, right?" Zera nodded, and I could feel her antennae brushing the side of my neck. "Well... well mammals like myself and Gerreck and Mileeda and... and the horses, they give birth to live offspring. Fully formed, right out of the womb.

Zeda turned slightly. "You lay live, wriggling babies right out of your body?"

"Well, no, I don't, I'm male. And I don't think there's wriggling involved, not right away. I dunno. There's always a lot of screaming involved, I know that. And you're supposed to boil water."

"What do you do with the boiling water?"

"I honestly don't know."

Zera scratched at her mandibles, clearly confused. "So... so if the baby is in the mother as its forming... how does the male get his seed... uh... involved? Do you just squirt it on the live baby, or what?"

"What? No! No, that's.... that's definitely not what we do, Zera. Gods. No. No, we definitely never do that."

Zera propped a digitigrade leg up on the stump, resting more weight against me. I shifted my hand on the log to stabilize myself, and felt something unpleasantly gritty. I moved it around and rested it over the mantis warrior's hard abdomen instead. I could feel the breeze of respiration coming from her sides through the slit in her tunic.

"The male's... seed..." I continued, "Goes directly into the female. It... ferments in there for nine months or so, and then the baby comes out, and it's half mom and half dad." I coughed. "I think that's how it works, anyway."

"How does the male put his seed in the female? And why would a woman who performed good oratory not produce a child?"

"Oratory? What... oh, you mean... Uh... Okay, do your people... well, you can go through the motions of reproductive behaviour without actually producing a working egg, right? Sex for pleasure?"

Zera craned her head around and looked at me with her large, globe-like eyes. An antenna gently teased the edge of my ear. I realized that she was smelling me.

"I think you're talking about sprayers.", she said after a while. "Yeah, yeah, we have sprayers. As a matter of fact, one of our sayings.... it doesn't translate well into Common... but you know it's time to pick up camp when the sprayer... spray starts growing flowers with yellow petals. It's... I guess it's one of our jokes."

I wrinkled my nose, trying to sort out what exactly the joke meant. I decided I didn't want to think about it.

"Well, these... these sprayers, do they spray alone, or do they have females that... that help them?"

"Oh, you can't spray alone. You need the proper stimulus to.... um..." she looked around nervously, as if scared her father was looking over her shoulder, here in this deserted forest a thousand miles from her home. Slowly, she moved her hands in the darkness where I couldn't see.

"There. There's no word for it in Common. The female has to use her... her this thing on the male's.... on his sprayers."

I strained my eyes in the gloom. "I can't see what you're pointing at."

Zera's hand grabbed mine. Her fingers were hard and cold. Slowly, she drew my palm down her rigid torso, past where her beltline was, and down between the bristly curves of her thighs. My fingertips brushed something that felt oddly like two chicken drumsticks pressed together.

"What... what do you do with... with this?"

"Well,", Zera said haltingly, "The male has his sprayers down in the same area, here. There's three of them... here, pull in your little finger." I obliged.

"The male would stand behind me... if there were eggs, I'd be facing them... and his sprayers go like this." She pulled my hand in, my three fingers splaying around the drumsticks. I heard a hiss from her sides as she inhaled sharply.

"And you see," she said, "The male... you push your sprayers back and forth like this until they're stimulated enough. And then you spray."

I said nothing, but kept moving my fingers back and forth. Zera reached back with her top arms and clasped her large hands around the back of my head. Her antennae were moving faster now, tracing the contours of my face and throat.

Not quite knowing what to do, I began wiggling my fingers as they continued their rubbing motion. Zera bent her head backward against my chest and emitted a series of clicks I couldn't interpret.

"Is... is this good?" I asked.

"Ngh. Yes. YES it's good."

"Been a while, I'm guessing." I said. "With your hard fingers, I'm thinking you can't do this yourself, right?"

Zera shook her head and grabbed my shoulder, pulling and pushing it to go faster.

"Keirin..." she was gasping now, her guttural hiss of a voice sounding ever more alien as her enthusiasm mounted. "Keirin, I... I... You're such a good warrior, Keirin, you're so gentle and so smart, and you're the strongest person I've ever known and... and if you had sprayers I'd... I'd want you to spray with me. I... I'm..."

"I know, Zera, I know. Me too."

My fingers were covered in a thick, jam-like substance that smelled strongly of old leather and sea salt. I redoubled my efforts and sped up again, and Zera made another sequence of passionate clicking noises.

With a sudden and unsettling crunch noise, Zera arched her shoulders backwards at an angle no human could duplicate. Reacting instictively, I pushed back against her, and her antennae wrapped around my neck. There was a gushing sensation around my fingers, and an abrupt shift in aroma from leather and salt to apple and cinnamon.

The spiracles under her arms were whistling, and she shuddered slightly in my arms.

"Was..." I whispered, "Was that it?"

"Yep!". Zera seemed suddenly chipper and energetic. "If you were a thri-keen, you'd have splattered all over that bush there."

"The bush? Really? It goes that far?"

"Well, it depends on the strength of the thrusts and your internal muscles. And, as I said, you're the strongest soldier I've ever known. So yeah, you could hit that bush from here. Especially after a session like that." She clacked her mandibles enthusiastically and said something in Thri-keen that I recognized as her victory cry from battle.

I turned and straddled the old log. Carefully, I withdrew my hand and sniffed it carefully before wiping it on my trousers.

Zera abruptly jumped out of my embrace and perched on the log like a hexapedal panther, ready to strike. The firelight gleamed on her compound eyes.

"I wanna do you now.", she said, jittery with sexual energy. "Show me how to do you!"

I eyed the rough surface of her jointed carapace warily. On the one hand, I could readily imagine a thousand terrible things happening to my manhood in this situation. On the other hand, I had never before encountered a partner with this sort of infectious enthusiasm. We were exploring strange and foreign landscapes together, and wasn't that what being an adventurer was all about?

It was my turn to be nervous and self conscious. I slowly undid my belt and pulled my trousers forward, exposing my quivering erection. Immediately, Zera's antennae began fluttering over the surface of the skin, as soft and rapid as a thousand butterflies. It was, it's safe to say, a sensation I had never experienced before.

"It... it goes in.", I explained haltingly, "And it has to be soft and wet, and preferably a snug fit."

Zera's antennae continued their delicate dance, and I could tell she was thinking. Without warning, she leaped on me, knocking me to my back, putting her whole weight on my chest.

Struggling, I managed to get my head up in time to see her jagged mandibles splitting apart, and her gaping maw descending on my crotch. I hyperventilated, panicking, wincing in preparation for my imminent emasculation.

But instead of a sharp pain, I felt a sudden rush of cool softness as my phallus passed harmlessly past her sideways jaws and down her frictionless throat. I gasped and lay my head back down.

Zera bobbed her head up and down rapidly, her diamond-tough mandibles bumping rhythmically against my inner thighs. I moaned inarticulately for a few seconds before remembering the importance of clear communication.

"Yes.", I enunciated, "Yes, yes absolutely yes please by all means continue yes."

Feathery sensory organs brushed all over the surface of my scrotum. I could hear the spiracles whistling again as Zera was breathing heavily with excitement. I reached up to one of the hands that was holding me down and clasped it tight.

Zera's throat was cool and slick, like making love to a waterfall. She increased her pace, faster now than any human. I gasped and grit my teeth, finding myself unable to warn her of the imminent burst in my frenzied mental state.

With a muffled shout, I shot my seed into her mouth, feeling the abrupt release and change in temperature. Zera quickly reared back off of my genitals and brought a hand to her mouth.

"I...", she stammered, semen glistening on her jaws, "I take it that was the-"

"Yeah. Yeah, that was it." There was a pause.

"Gods,", Zera said softly, "Don't ask me why, but you taste almost exactly like my mother's cactus stew!"

I laughed as I sat up. Zera was still excited, still quivering with pleasure and the anticipation of pleasure.

"So... so what do we do now?"

"Well," I said, matter-of-factly, "It's customary to cuddle for a bit after humans have sex."

"Cuddle?"

"Here." I slid down to the forest floor, put my back against the log, and pulled her down beside me. I wrapped my arms around her and stayed still. The forest was quiet once more.

"So... so this was good?"

"I'm going to say this was a bold and daring adventure." I traced a finger along her antenna gently. "A bold and daring adventure with a great deal of treasure at the end of it."

"So... can we do it again?"

"In a bit. I need to rest for a while."

".....How about now?"

==================================

Somewhere around a gaming table, there is an awkward silence. A nervous virgin pretends to study the Monster Manual intently. The DM fiddles with his screen.

"Dave.", he says, "You remember when I said you could bring your girlfriend to session, but only if she agreed to play a non-humanoid race?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know why I made that ruling, Dave?"

"Party balance?"

"Guess again."