“Show me my bride in this room,” I command the AI.
The mirror becomes a screen. I watch her disrobe and slide into the shower. As she washes the sand from her luscious curves, she touches herself. I stroke harder, faster, as I watch her grip her breasts and press the water wand between her thighs. My face and body are superimposed over the scene of her fucking herself.
She leans her head back as she comes, and my come shoots hot and sticky from the head of my cock. It erupts like a volcano into my hand and onto the counter.
I look down at the mess I’ve made and swear. The scene of my bride fades, and all I see is myself. My dick is slowly going flaccid. My face is flushed. There is come on my hand and the counter. Shame pricks at me. I swore I would not spy on her again. What would she think of me if she knew?
I wash my hands and use the bathroom cleaning tool to remove the mess from the counter. I cannot allow myself this indiscretion again. I grab my glass, leave my bride’s rooms, and return to my own.
My housekeeper informs me that my meal is done, and I ask him to bring it to me in my room. I eat alone at the small table in my study and watch the waves crash against the shore under the faint light of Phobos, one of Mars’s two moons.
I think about what it must be like for my bride, having lost everything she’s known and then matched with a stranger so soon after. We Martians are larger, more powerful, and more intelligent than our ancestors, but we have not lost our empathy.
However, these strong emotions are unknown to me. I have never experienced anything so intense. Perhaps it is because I have never been with a woman, never been in love. I don’t know if I even know what love means and if these unsettling desires are part of that.
What I do know is that I have a duty to Mars and to the human race to make this match a success. From everything I’ve learned about ancient Earth women of Doris’s era, I know they are very sensitive to sexual advances or suggestions of submission. Before I met her, these ideas were simply theory.
Shame rises in me again as I attempt to eat my meal. I am at once ravenous and without appetite. Why can I not control my impulses to spy on my bride at her most private moments? How would I feel if she did the same to me? When I ask myself this question, my cock throbs, and I know that I would love for her to watch me stroke myself.
I sigh, getting up to pour myself another drink. Perhaps when things are clearer, I will invite her to view my indiscretions. Although I have no idea what it means to be in a relationship with a woman, I want my relationship with Doris to be free of secrets.
I know I must tell her. Show her. Not only for my sexual gratification, which, no matter how much my cock protests, is secondary to revealing the truth. She must know what I have done.
16
Bethany hands me a glass of chilled white wine, and I sit with the other women in the living room of our bridal wing. They all look at me with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Madeline’s eyes are red and puffy, as if she’s been crying. Sophia rubs her back to comfort her. And I know she must be missing her sister and worried that she might already be dead.
The truth is, everyone we have ever known and loved has been gone for a thousand years. It is inconceivable. But we must come to accept it, even though I don’t know how I can myself. There must be something wrong with my brain. Whatever I was injected with on the ship was activated when I was matched with Jaxxo. Now it’s like I’m some primal beast in heat. I’ve thought little of the people I left behind on Earth.
“What did he do to you?” Bobby asks me.
“What do you mean ‘what did he do to me’?”
“Did he try to mate with you?”
“No,” I snap. I don’t know whether I’m angrier at her suggestion that he was anything but a gentleman or the fact that he was a complete and total gentleman.
“What happened?” Bethany asks.
“If you must know, he took me for lunch at a very nice restaurant overlooking the skyline of the city. The food was delicious. The conversation was congenial. Then we went back to his house, which is more like an estate, if I’m being honest. It’s on the beach and totally beautiful. We watched a movie together. It’s funny. That movie was just coming out in theaters when we left. Now it’s basically an archaeological relic here.”
Sophia starts to cry softly into her hands. And now Madeline is comforting her.
“They aren’t taking it very well,” Bobby informs me, as if that fact isn’t obvious.
“We are all missing home,” Bethany says. “But we’ve discussed this at length. There’s nothing we can do. Madeline, I’m grieving Abigail too. I wish it were different. We’ve all lost people who we left behind on Earth.”
“There has to be a way,” Madeline says.
Up until now, Madeline has been so strong. One of the strongest among us. But I guess that the reality of our predicament is finally sinking in, and she realizes that she will never see her sister again. I already miss my mom and my grandma.
And the thought of never seeing them again catches in my throat, and I gulp it down. I know that if I think about it too much, I’ll start crying too. I’m going to have to process these emotions eventually, but right now, I just can’t let myself.
With my new budding relationship with Jaxxo, the confusion and pain of losing my family, my planet, and everything I’ve ever known, would create a confusing mass of turmoil that I don’t know if I could ever climb out of.
Every time I’m near Jaxxo, my body responds so powerfully that it overpowers every other thought and emotion. But now that he is gone, I am left with the reality of the world I left behind and the sorrow of all my friends who have also lost so much.
“I’m sorry, Doris,” Sophia says. “Tell us more about your date.”
I suddenly feel so shallow. I know that there is something strange going on with me. The sexual arousal I feel in Jaxxo’s presence slowly subsides after he’s gone. And what I’m left with is the actual experience we have shared, which so far has only been a few encounters. As pleasant as his company may be, it doesn’t explain my overwhelming attraction to him.
Despite his obvious good looks and masculine presence, I have no real reason to be so head over heels for him. My response is extremely unnatural and out of character. I don’t know whether I should be angry or simply curious. But as I observe my friends and their responses to our predicament, it becomes clearer with each passing moment that my reaction is out of alignment with reality.
“After the movie, he brought me home. But he did ask me to come and live with him at his mansion.”
“Are you going to do it?” Bethany asks, her eyes glazing over with moisture. I reach out and grab her hand, giving her a sympathetic look.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I say with a laugh. “But he says we can visit each other any time.”
“Oh, he’ll allow you to leave. How generous of him,” Bobby says.
“If you must know, Bobby, the Martians are much more concerned about contagious diseases than they are about keeping us in line,” I say pointedly.
“I took their stupid test. I didn’t want to be stuck in quarantine anymore. The girls over there are worse than these two,” she says, motioning to Madeline and Sophia.