From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.furry,alt.sex.homosexuality
Subject: Journal Entry 222 / 0019 [ The Courage Of My Convictions ]
Date: 25 Jan 1996 13:18:43 GMT
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Lines: 527
Message-ID: <4e7vvj$gq6@news1.halcyon.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: coho.halcyon.com
Erwer, Narquel 11, 0019
I can stare at weather charts all day and examine the
underlying, artificial principles surrounding the seasonal
cycles Pendor goes through on a 292-day period. I can review
charts of the amount of insulation being effected by the ebb and
flow of weather vanes and the compressed fluids that carry the
heat from the surface to the outer limits of space. I can look
at a thermometer.
But none of that really carries the weight of capitulation
to the elements that making my first cup of hot cocoa for the
winter does. It means I'm giving in, recognizing that I need to
find an alternative way of pumping more heat into my body. It
means that the logic that "I can survive this" doesn't help
because it doesn't comfort.
I thought about the weather, and about giving in, as I sat
in my newly built home, just outside Rocchodain. It's a nice
house, even if the bedroom door has the annoying habit of not
locking properly, so that if the windows are open the wind will
continuously open it and then slam it shut. I haven't got any
furniture, but then I rarely use furniture; a floor does just as
good for me.
Right now the floor is strewn about with notes on the
construction of Shardik Castle, now in its seventh week. The
gravitics structures are coming along well, and we'll probably
have it floating loose a few weeks later. M'Ress told me just
today that the AI will be ready for installation on schedule. I
asked her to program the name 'David' into it.
I was fumbling with a pencil, looking to make a few changes
in the placement of the public address speakers on the roof,
when someone knocked on my door. "Come in," I said, a little
annoyed with the interruption but trying to be my usual,
accessible self.
A young Uncia male walked in, one I did not recognize.
"Hello?" I said.
He bowed and said, "Good evening, Father. May I sit?"
"Provided you call me 'Ken,' or 'Kennet,' at the very least.
And what is your name?"
"Jhan," he answered. "I... I've come to ask you a
question."
"What kind of question?"
"Well... It's hard to say." He swallowed, his ears lying
flat against his head. "Father-- Ken, is it possible that you
can make a mistake?"
"Well," I said, "I tried not to. I did everything in my
power to go over everybody's genecode as often as possible, to
make sure that there were no programming errors. I had Halloran
check everything every day. Why? Do you think there's
something wrong with you?"
He nodded.
"What?" I asked.
"Father... I'm sorry. Ken, I don't know how to say this,
but I do not want to... mate... with females of my kind."
"Do you want to mate with any other species' females?" I
asked.
"No." He shook his head.
"Would you, if you could, mate with males of your own
species?"
"Father?"
"Would you?" I asked, a little more confidently than before.
He nodded. There was a streak of shame across his face; his
ears lay back, and his nose darkened. I reached out to touch
his face. "Would you, if you could, mate with males of other
species?"
He nodded again. "Jhan, there's a word for what you are.
'Erolie.'"
He smiled a wan and unsuccessful smile. "Wants for the same
sex?" he asked. I nodded. "I guess that does describe me. Can
it be fixed?"
"I'm not sure anything's broken."
"Father... I am. I'm miserable. Everyone around me is
asking when I'm going to start siring children, and I don't want
to."
"Do you want children?"
"Not right now. But that's not the point. I should be able
to mate with femUncia, I just can't. I don't feel interest at
all."
"But the males, they excite you."
He nodded again, that blush washing across his face again.
"Halloran," I said, addressing the local AI, "give me a
breakdown of Uncia by sex and estimated orientation."
"Without violating the privacy code, there are 8,323 Uncia,
of which 497 are too young to do any estimates about. Of the
remaining, I estimate that of 3960 females, 281 show completely
erolie behavior, and of the 3866 males, 390 show erolie
behavior."
"There are 389 Uncia like you, Jhan."
"Where?" he asked. "Father, there can't be anybody like
me."
"Ah, but there can. The problem is that they're hiding.
Because they, like you, think that they're the only ones."
"Father," he said, then stopped. That "Father" was getting
on my nerves. Oh, well, I'll live. "I need to know..."
"I..." I stopped, getting lost in my confusion. "Jhan, I
wish I knew how to help you, but I can't find these people
without their consent, and if they're hiding, they aren't
consenting to be found. At least, thank space, you came to me.
All I can tell you is that there *are* more like you. Hell, I
tend to think people who stick exclusively to one sex or the
other are kind of silly anyway."
"Sir?"
"I mean," I said, "Isn't it kind of silly to exclude half
the people you know from loveplay just because they're this or
that?"
"Then you would..."
I shrugged and said, "Not really. The problem lies in that
I am only attracted to females." Like M'Ress.
"Then you can't help me."
I shook my head. "Not really."
"Then I wasted our time," he said. "Excuse me." Without
much pause he walked out into the cold, clear night.
Halloran spoke next. "He's going to commit suicide. I
predict within the next 60 hours."
"Not tonight?" I asked, worried. If he did, he would be the
first.
"Doubtful. It is in his nature to consider a problem
completely before choosing a course of action."
I looked down at the papers scattered about the living room.
With a sigh I palmed the light switch and dimmed the room,
walking back to the bedroom. "I'm going to sleep, Hal."
"Do you have a course of action for Jhan?"
"Not yet."
- - -
I had a lousy night. Restless, sleepless, nightmares. I
was going to lose one of my children unless I took the
appropriate course of action.
I got up and jumped into the shower, looking at my
reflecting in the mirror opposite the showerhead. I stared at
it as the steam began to fill the bathroom. "Well, Shardik," I
said quietly to my reflection, "This is a big one. Do I have
the courage of my convictions, or do I let despair take Jhan?"
"Do you have an answer?" Halloran asked.
"Yes. Please ask Jhan to come to my home tonight, an hour
after shadowfall. Will he show up?"
"I predict it is unlikely that Jhan will not show up."
"In other words, you think he will."
"In other words, yes."
- - -
The knock came at the door. I opened the door slowly. Jhan
stood there, looking a little befuddled. "Come in."
"Thank you." He walked in slowly and looked around. I had
turned off all the lights; the large living room was entirely
lit with several dozen candles, all long-burning. I had
arranged cushions everywhere, and a small, low table for eating
while kneeling was in one corner.
"I wanted to try a little experiment," I said. "I hope you
don't mind."
He smiled wanly and said, "What kind of experiment?"
"We'll see," I said. "Come, sit down, over there," I said,
pointing to one end of the table. "Take what you like from the
table, and eat as much as you want. That kettle holds tea, and
that glass there hold sake', a traditional drink back on Terra.
It is slightly intoxicating."
He smiled and said, "How?"
"Well, take these," I said, holding up my pair of
chopsticks. "If you want, you can just stab most of these
things, or you could pick them up." I demonstrated. "Like
this."
He tried a few times. "Here," I said, "hold your hand like
this, with this stick here..." Eventually he got it good enough
that he could get most of the dim sum to his mouth.
I watched him as he ate. One never normally thinks of Uncia
as "pretty." They are, as a species, quite large, averaging 2.4
metres in height and massing about 160 Kilograms. They're
entirely furry, from their ears to the tips of their tails, with
a mottling of black rings and spots over their mostly grey
bodies.
Jhan was pretty. He wasn't as tall as the usual example of
his species, and his fur was white. Not grey, but white, with
his spots being entirely short stripes of black against the
background. He was also well groomed, and his teeth were clean
and straight.
"You're hungry," I observed as he downed yet another
plateful of food.
"Of course," he said. "I'm always hungry."
"Well, I'm stuffed," I said, taking a sip of sake' and
watching him eat. The alcohol suffused rapidly through my body,
making me feel warmer and, if I needed, more ready for what I
was about to put myself through. Did I really want to do this?
I rose and walked around the table, kneeling down behind
him. "Father..."
"Shh..." I whispered. "This is as much for me as it is for
you." I put my hands on his shoulders and slowly pressed down
with my thumbs, rubbing gently. He sighed. "I know where every
single muscle in your body is, Jhan. Just relax."
He tried, but his muscles tensed up against my touch.
"Ken," he said, finally getting my attention by addressing me
the way I had asked him to. "Please."
"Please what?" I asked.
"Please don't do this. You're going to make it harder."
Awful puns crossed my mind. I ignored all of them. "Jhan,
look at me." He turned slowly and stared. "I'm not going to
lose you just because I can't do something as simple as kiss
you. I'm not going to let one-eighth of my children live in
despair because I can't lead them. And I'm damned if I'm going
to let Terra's programming stand between me and what's right."
I reached out touched his chest, scratched slowly, feeling his
nipples under my fingers through the fur.
"But, what can we do?"
"Jhan, do you really think entalie'-- I guess that's the
word, the opposite of erolie'-- only do one thing? There are a
lot of things we can do together." I put my hand to his chest
and slowly pushed him down to the cushions. "I mean, how do you
think we should start?"
"I don't know," he admitted honestly.
"Well," I said, "Let's start with this." I felt through his
fur for one of his six nipples, finding one on his right side
and lowering my head to it, taking it in my teeth and playing
with it. His whole body went rigid, a deep growl emanating from
his throat. "Did that work?"
"It... felt good," he admitted.
"Then do the same for me."
"Father?"
"Ken," I said, chastising him gently.
"Ken..." he said. "May I?"
"I've got nipples, Jhan, just like you do, and I just said
you could."
He pushed me to my side and rolled me onto my back, his
rough tongue playing over my nipples. "Careful," I said.
"Something wrong?" he asked hurriedly.
"You're heavy... A lot heavier than I am." And his center
of mass is lower, his wide hips built up from a species designed
for rear-leg power. "I just don't want you to crush the breath
out of me."
"I won't," he promised.
I scratched against his fur lightly, pleasurably. He purred
and growled, and oddly enough I found myself enjoying it. Maybe
it was because I had gotten used to sleeping with Chelsea, who
has a deep growl; it's almost impossible to tell the sexes of
Uncia apart by the sound of their voice.
Then I felt something hard pressing against my leg; his
cock. I thought about it for a few seconds, then pressed my
hand against his shoulder, pushing him down onto the cushions.
"Don't move," I said.
He nodded. Gods, but his body was huge; I worried for a
moment that his penis might follow, but it was actually a little
smaller than mine. "Let's see how far my oral fixation goes."
I leaned over and kissed the pink tip of it slowly; it had no
definitive head, as a human's does, but was a single shaft of
wet pink running down to a long, fur-covered sheath. I kissed
it again, opening my mouth and tasting it. It tasted like...
well, it's hard to say what it tasted like. There was a
complicated, almost plastic, smell to him, but the taste was
more wrapped up in texture and motion than in any actual sense
of taste.
I tried to concentrate on not biting him. There was a
wonderfully deep and satisfied purr coming from him, and I tried
a few experimental strokes. The purring was interrupted by a
groan, and I felt a stab of my own pride as I worked on his
cock.
What really amazed me was that I was enjoying myself; I had
gone all the way from doing this for him to doing this for me.
I loved the feeling of his cock in my mouth, pressing against
the back of my throat, threatening to choke me. Even as the
underside of my jaw began to ache and hurt from the exertion, I
knew I had him. He was going to come in my mouth if it was the
last thing we ever did. And I knew it was going to happen.
"Ken..." He whispered.
"I'm not stopping," I said, pausing for a moment before
diving head-first onto his cock again. He began to thrust his
hips gently, and I worried he might try and force it down my
throat; I didn't want to gag on it. I knew that, with practice,
I would lose my reflex, but I didn't want to take the time
tonight. I wanted him to come.
With a roar, he did! A stream of thin, salty semen erupted
into my mouth, choking me. I swallowed some of it, stroking the
last of his orgasm out of him before unceremoniously grabbing a
towel and wiping the rest of it out of my mouth. Actually, it
didn't taste that bad.
I looked up at him, and he lay back and smiled at me, one
massive paw coming to rest against my back. "Thank you," he
said.
"You're not tired already, are you?" I said.
"Why?"
"Well, I just did all that work for you, kiddo. Better
return the favor."
"You want me to..."
"You've got about as much experience at it as I do, Jhan.
Go ahead."
I lay down and he nuzzled my balls with his nose, slowly
licking them. The sensation made me squirm slightly. And then
he opened his muzzle and took my cock into his mouth.
"Careful," I whispered, images of his huge teeth against my
cock running through my brain. But his mouth was hot and
surprisingly soft; I lay back and just let the sensations roll
through my body. It was wonderful, even if he was not nearly as
experienced as M'Ress (and I was any better for him?). I closed
my eyes and let my orgasm build, but as I got close he stopped!
"Sorry," he said. "My jaw is tired." He rubbed at his
throat gently.
"Then finish me, please," I said. "With a hand if you
must."
"You mean, like this?" he asked, wrapping one paw around it
and stroking me gently.
"Yes," I said, laying back down.
He smiled and continued, his other paw reaching down to
caress my testicles. I groaned, my body tensing. It was my
turn to moan, to get close, to feel the pressure, to finally
come in his hands, shooting over my belly, moaning. He laughed.
"Like that?" he asked.
"I'm a mess," I replied. "Of course I liked it!"
He smiled and leaned over, licking up the semen he had
helped spill. He rose, and the expression on his face in
candlelight made me bite back a laugh; it was almost as if he
were judging a fine wine. "I could get used to it," he finally
announced. He grabbed the towel I had used and wiped me clean.
I pulled him down to me, kissing the underside of his muzzle
joyfully, enjoying the feeling of his fur against mine. "Do you
feel better?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Jhan?" He looked over at me. "Lick my cheeks."
"Sir?" he asked.
"Kiss me, dammit." He nodded and closed the distance, his
tongue licking my cheeks softly before he pressed his muzzle
against my mouth, our tongues wrestling gently. It felt
wonderful; there was a difference, a mental difference, from
kissing him to kissing Chelsea, or M'Ress for that matter.
"Better," I said. "Do you think you could do that
tomorrow?"
"I don't see why not."
"In Rocchodain?"
"Wait a minute--" he said.
"No, you wait, Jhan. I'm willing to bet that there are a
lot more than Hal's estimates walking around who would benefit
from the knowledge that the 'opposite' sex is not the only valid
sex partner. And the complete entalia need a role model. If
you're going to do it to me, I'm going to do it to you. Face up
to the courage of your convictions. Come with me to Rocchodain.
We'll go sit in Mickey's and make out. We'll go swimming
together in the spring just to the north, where everyone goes
when it gets this cold, and cuddle. We have to show them; I
have to be an example, and so do you."
He smiled sheepishly and said, "Yesterday you didn't want
to; now you want to in public."
"It's my job. And I liked it!" A thought ran through my
mind. He looked at me curiously, so I looked back at him and
said, "The only thing that bothers me is how much I liked it."
"Why?"
"Have I been lying to myself? Maybe I really am erolie, and
just didn't know it."
He shook his head and said, "Is there a word for someone
who's both?"
"Not that I know of. Hal?"
"The correct word, using Fawn Eldar's guidelines, is
Yolie'," the AI responded with perfunctory efficiency.
"There you have it. But that's not the point. Do I really
like women?"
"Do you?" he asked. "You have associated with them for many
years, Ken. There's no reason for you to suddenly change that
association."
"I guess I'll have to wait for morning."
"That would be the correct decision," he said. "I should be
going."
"What? Oh, no you don't. I want you to spend the night in
my bed.
"I may?" he asked, surprised.
"You may not do otherwise," I responded with mock formality.
He lunged for me, hugging me close. "That's what I wanted,"
he breathed. "Just to be with you, to wake up next to a mel and
feel him there."
"With a mel, or with Vatare'."
"With a mel," he repeated. "There is something special in
your acceptance, Father, but it is only because you are male
that I feel this joy."
"Then let's get some sleep."
- - -
The next morning I was awoken by M'Ress kissing my cheek
gently. I responded to her kiss with a familiarity borne of the
decade we had spent together, and when I reached up to fondle
her breasts my erection was as on schedule as ever. Yolie'. I
like that word. If there was a way to describe her reaction to
Jhan, it was simple amusement. And Jhan isn't so uninterested in
women that he refused to help me tickle her mercilessly.
--
"Journal Entry 222 / 0019 [ The Courage Of My Convictions ]"
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are copyright (C) 1989-1995 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Redistribution of
this work for profit is reserved to the author. Redistribution by
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Any redistribution must include this copyright notice intact.
--
Elf Sternberg rational romantic mystic cynical idealist
elf@halcyon.com Where evolution is outlawed, only outlaws evolve
Public key available http://www.halcyon.com/elf/index.html