Eva ran her hands over Lexi’s body clinically.
“The creature doesn’t seem to be injured,” she announced. Deliberately, Eva tweaked a nipple, watching Lexi’s face. Lexi tried not to react, but she couldn’t control her body’s automatic response. The nipple puckered into a tight peak.
“She responds like a human. Let’s see if she’s built like one too.”
Eva snapped her fingers. Mara and Nadina moved to the foot of the table and grabbed her legs. They pushed back, bending her knees and spreading them apart. Eva moved to the foot of the table and peered between her legs.
Lexi wanted to die of shame. At least what had been done to her before was done through a blanket of gooey leaves. No one had ever stared openly at her naked body.
But it got worse. Eva spread her vulval folds for a closer examination. She pushed back the hood and inspected her clitoris, palpitating it until Lexi squirmed. Then she dipped a finger into Lexi’s vagina.
“She’s wet inside, ready to receive a stiff rod.” The old woman pulled out her finger. Lexi sighed. Thank the goddess it was over.
She couldn’t hold back a startled cry when Eva slipped two fingers into her vaginal canal, twisting and probing.
“She doesn’t have a maidenhead, so she’s obviously been penetrated before. But her passage is still tight. I doubt she’s ever given birth.”
The fingers roamed, found a spot that made Lexi’s breath quicken. She closed her eyes, imagining it was Ayron touching her.
The old lady withdrew her hand. To her embarrassment, Lexi craved more of that strange sensation. She’d brought herself to orgasm many times with her probe. But she’d never had a jolt of lust surge through her body the way it did when she imagined the crude savage who found her doing what Eva had done.
Mother Eva’s eyes bored into hers. Lexi shivered. Though she’d raised her mental shields, she had a feeling the old woman had somehow slipped through them and could read her thoughts. Eva could see Lexi had been sexually aroused by the examination. But there was no way she could have known it was the first time Lexi ever felt that way? Was this the way human bodies responded during coitus? No wonder Commander Norris had embraced her new life on Neodyma.
Lexi had a lover — a holographic one she’d learned to program. She took care of her biological needs during regularly scheduled gratification sessions, once every three weeks. The sessions were timed to maximize her physical satisfaction as efficiently as possible using a penis-shaped probe that simulated the act of intercourse with regular, rhythmic electrical impulses. Men used a different device. Scientists said it far surpassed the limited stimulation capability of a woman’s vaginal canal.
But her holographic lover never made her stomach flutter the way it had when Ayron draped her over his strong thighs or crushed her against his bare chest. This skin-to-skin contact was new and strangely compelling. The more it happened, the more Lexi longed for it to continue.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Eva did something unspeakably vile. She slid her hand down to Lexi’s anus, examining the area around it. Lexi thrashed wildly, forgetting her decision not to resist.
“Keep her still,” the old woman demanded. Then she poked a finger into Lexi’s bottom hole.
The invasion was so shocking, so forbidden. She kicked out, sending Mara crashing into the floor, and twisted away, huddling into a fetal position. Nadina tried to wrestle her onto her back.
Eva made a tsking sound. “Let her be. I found out all I need to know. She has never been taken there. She wouldn’t have reacted so violently if she were used to it.” Eva went to a small table in a corner of the room, poured water over her hands from a pitcher there, and rubbed them with a handful of dried herbs that gave out a pleasing fragrance.
Takenthere? What did Eva mean? Surely probing a female’s anal passage digitally could not be a common practice, no matter how backward these savages were. Lexi shuddered. Somehow she had to escape from them, find a way to get back to Earth.
Eva issued a string of orders so rapidly that even with her Tellex chip engaged, Lexi had trouble following them.
Lexi cringed against the stone wall in a corner of the main hall, wishing she’d never had the chip installed at all. At least she’d be unaware of what the next few hours had in store for her.
Flames danced in front of her eyes, flickering remnants of the enormous fire that burned all last night, heating the large flat stones lining the bottom of the pit. Wrapped in a plant that looked like seaweed, the narliphant meat had given off a mouth-watering aroma as it roasted over the hot stones all day. Only a few hunks remained, all that was left after everyone had eaten their fill.
Around the edges of the pit, the clay pots were nearly empty too. The vegetable stew simmering in a broth of narliphant bones and fragrant herbs had been a big hit with everyone, including Lexi. She’d thought her stomach wouldn’t hold down a bite of food, but Nadina urged her to try a little of the broth, and she’d ended up eating every last spoonful.
The children had been fed first and put to bed long ago, watched over by older siblings. Their mothers came back to take part in the adult portion of the evening’s entertainment.
Drums beat out a primal rhythm. Men and women danced and twirled. Voices rose in song. Kegs of a sweet-smelling beverage stood here and there, surrounded by rowdy people filling their cups.
Strong spirits had long been outlawed on Earth for the volatile effect they had on human behavior. Lexi could see why. Apparently drinking them lowered inhibitions. Many of the women had already shed their upper garments. Naked breasts of all sizes and shapes swayed and bounced to the pounding of the drums. She’d seen quite a few couples locked in embraces far more lustful than what she’d witnessed back home.
These people exhibited so many strange behaviors. Earlier in the evening, several women had bared their upper bodies and allowed infants to suckle at their breasts. Lexi recognized the primitive way of feeding one’s offspring. But after the children were gone, she’d seen more than one grown man take a woman’s breast in his mouth and suck it like a babe. Not only did the women allow it, they seemed to take pleasure in the act — throwing their heads back, moaning, grasping the men in a tight embrace.
Lexi could see everything from the shadowy corner where she’d been kept all evening, guarded by the ever-present Mara and Nadina. From what she’d gathered, the women were apprentices to Mother Eva, being groomed to one day take over the role of matriarch of the Tryb, as they called themselves.
Eva had an heir and a spare, just like the monarchs of old on Earth.
***
