The Adventures of Christain Roy, Hero

          "Hey Edwin why aren't you laughing?" Fritz the navigator asked the Radio Weapons Officer. He, because of bigoted upbringing is suspicious of Martians to begin with, and now Edwin seemed to have a problem with sex too. It further confirmed in his mind that Martians were defective, and Edwin is another example of degeneracy. Roy the helmsmen howled, Deerwood, communications girl supreme smirked while trying not to laugh.
         The four sailors currently floated at a fixed point in space in a small barge otherwise known as a Trans-ATES, short for trans-atmospheric armored transport electronic surveillance. Some would've considered it punishment, while others would've called it routine surveillance for pirates. They held a position outside of Bonnarkia some fifty-two light years from earth and it wasn't a hot bed of activity. However, it did provide an exotic stop over for not only merchant ships, but also pirates. Not just any pirates, the worst kind, those involved in the slave trade.
          Bonnarks were mammalian, humanoid and marsupials. The females mated for life, and hence the slave trade. Buy a Bonnark, and buy true love for life, or so the motto went. It just confirmed to more enlightened members of the sentient races that inhabited the universe that depravity is the rule, everything else isn't.
         At first private companies exploited them, and then the United Planetary Confederacy gave them protectorate status. Bonnarkia that's what the locals called home, but everyone else called it 15 CrB, is a hardship tour. A hardship if the UPC stationed you there at the listening post or the space station, not if you were visiting it.
         If you were visiting it, as the crew of the UPC London would, mother ship of the aforementioned Trans-ATES, in three standard days, it could be a real party. Most of Bonnarkia is a very dry rock and it's not even a planet, but a sub-moon of a moon, in orbit around a gas giant. Astronomers loved the place, geologists even more, and so did the licensed mining corporations that gave the indigenous population a higher standard of living.
          Uranium, something the Bonnarks had but didn't know what to do with it. However, they did learn to enjoy what the corporations brought, like sewers, running water from wells, and an easier life style that gave the Bonnark a chance to settle down and learn something other than fifty words for sand, and a dozen phrases for 'no water.'
         "Edwin," Deerwood told him after calming down. "The joke was funny."
         "I'm not saying it's not..." he blushed.
         "What do you get when you stick your hand in a Bonnark's pouch? Sticky fingers!" Fritz repeated, though more to make Edwin blush than for the sake of jocularity.
         "My mother's a Bonnark!" Edwin exploded. He looked as if he was ready to kill Fritz. "I mean would Deerwood think it was funny if we said the same thing about her!"
         "Anyone here that thinks they're going to stick their hand in my pouch is pulling back a bloody stump..." she replied without hesitation as she double-checked her transponders. She then realized what Edwin said. "You're mother's a Bonnark! How'd the hell did that happen! You don't look....You can't be part Bonnark!" she shrieked and turned around from the communications station and glared at Edwin. "You're mother's a Bonnark!"
         "Yeah! And so are my sisters!" Edwin shot back vehemently. "And if any of you flickers ever stick your hands in my sister's pouches I'll...I'll...." Edwin became flustered and angry to the extent he couldn't really talk.
         "Sorry there Ed," Fritz quietly murmured. "I didn't know..."
          Roy felt embarrassed for Ed.
         "How did that happen?" Deerwood gulped from the initial shock. "Bonnarks and people aren't genetically compatible."
         "I was adopted..." Edwin answered calming down.
         "And the aforementioned sisters?" Fritz asked curiously. Just when he was getting use to having a degenerate Martian for a RWO, now he has a degenerate Martian whose mother is a perverted Bonnark.
         "Artificial insemination," Edwin answered, somewhat proudly. "It was important for mom to have her own. She didn't treat me any differently from my sisters. She carried me in her pouch as she did them. I sort of remember that, sort of." He looked confused at that admission. As if he admitted to being a deviant, even though it was normal for mother Bonnark, being marsupials, to carry their children in the provided by nature pouch.
         A prickly hush enveloped the crew.
         "Well," Roy finally asked Edwin, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Visiting family?"
         "My Aunt Barballoopsie..." Edwin replied with a smile. "Her best friend has a daughter that's in season and Aunty Barballoopsie is playing match maker..."
         "In season?" Deerwood chirped as both eyebrows rose up.
         "In season..." Edwin replied and looked over his equipment. "Like animals go into heat but not like human females."
         "Uh," Fritz interjected. He didn't ask the question out of good-natured curiosity, but more of a biting dig for what he thought would be off color gossip. "Anything against human females?"
         "Not yet," Edwin shrugged.
         "So Deerwood would stand a chance?" Roy guffawed.
         "You chuckleheads! It's about him standing a chance and that under very specific circumstances," Deerwood angrily choked. "Only if, one, we were stranded on an asteroid with no hope of rescue, secondly, there was a ten year waiting period, thirdly I was so drunk I couldn't see and lastly, Edwin or whoever the lucky guy would be, would have to be the last man standing after the knife fight."
         "The knife fights among us or with you?" Roy laughed at Deerwood. "So what do you like to drink...my mistress sexy wench of the faster than light communications bandwidth?"
         "Anything with strychnine in it," she shook her head. She quickly changed the subject, "So what's with Aunty Barballoopsie?"
         "Bonnark custom," Edwin shrugged. "As for the rest of you go to the Golden Plume and check out the cheap hussies that work there...They're like human girls other than Deerwood..." He said that partly because every time he saw her with her light brown hair tied back in a ponytail, he thought of his mother. The other part was Deerwood scared him. "They'll let anyone stick a hand in their pouch."
         "What about the Bonnark males?" Deerwood asked.
         "They don't have pouches..." Edwin answered and thought better of being too graphic. It would make him too much as Fritz and that would insult his mother. "Perhaps you should read up on their biology."

***

         "Swope! You're not going to that filthy place are you?" her mother yelled as her daughter adjusted her bangle studded brazier. She, Swope, stood in her bedroom niche dolling herself up for another evening at the Golden Plume. Her corner of the pre-fabricated dome home she littered with books on human culture and related subjects.
         "It's my job!" Swope replied. She double-checked the fastener in back, she might work as a waitress in a sleazy tail wagging dive but she wasn't about to show off her pouch like the other waitresses did. She then attached her imitations gold bells to her plumage. She looked herself over in the mirror, tried to smile like the human female on the cover of Good Housekeeping and bounced into the kitchen. She asked her mother if she looked fashionable.
         "You look like a despicable tail waiver!" her mother barked. "You're lucky your father works mid-nights at the ore processing station. He'd see you dressed like that and have a heart attack."
         "Well it's where the human males are!" she happily shrieked and as she said it, the bells on her tail began to jingle as it uncontrollably wagged.
         "Why can't you just stay with your own kind? With tail wagging like that, you'd be able to land a husband in no time! I did!" her mother retorted as Swope rummaged through the refrigerator.
         "I want more than a uranium mine employee!" she hissed. "I want to see the stars, visit places like earth or Mars! And I can land a good human husband just as well as I can with the shiftless bums around here...They don't want anything better than a union job on an ore crushing line! You have any minced beetle larva? I have a craving."
         "Okay little girl who's dressed like a cheap tail wagging grab bag," her mother snorted. "What about children? You can wag that tail all you want but no baby."
         "Please!" she smiled as she found a cold jar of beetle larva. "I can adopt and there's artificial insemination...I read all about it in the periodicals from the community library."
         "And I read all about it in the newspapers..." her mother hissed. "Mixed marriages aren't what they're cracked up to be. You know humans mate out of season?"
         "That's why I want one!" she chortled and her eyes widened as her tail flipped back and forth even faster. "Besides mother..." she went on snottily. "Human females don't have seasons as we do. They're always in season...For about thirty-five years..."
         "By Devine Inspiration!" her mother cried holding her hands up toward the ceiling. "I know you meant well when you gave me her! But couldn't you have given her to somebody else?"
         "You know in the human language of English my name Swope is proper past tense of swipe? As in I swoped it before they could arrest me for Grand Theft?" she chuckled, tail still wagging, bells still ringing.
         "Just go away," her mother hissed and covered her eyes with a hand as she rested on the kitchen sink that is still full of dishes.
         "See you in the morning!" Swope smiled and jingled out the front door.
         "By Devine Inspiration I hope so!" her mother yelled as the door slammed. She then mumbled under her breath, "I hope you find what you're looking for."

****

         "This is really disgusting," Deerwood smirked as she drained the beer.
         "What? The dor or booze?" Roy asked her rather blandly as he waited for the show to start. The three sat in a back corner of the Golden Plume trying to have an experience in strange. It probably was happening for Deerwood.
         "Shake that tail!" Fritz whistled. The other male Bonnark looked over at him, as if he had a masculinity issues.
         "Neither. It's that I'm actually sitting in a strip club with you two," she replied. "And it's a Bonnark strip club at that!"
         "Well I'm sure it's probably not much different than what you see when you shower," Fritz shrugged. "Besides maybe a walk on the wild side would do you good. You've been up tight lately..."
         Deerwood broke the beer bottle and unlike a dozen times before, it held together, and she aimed it at Fritz. "Listen here you stupid chuckleheaded moron! One more crack out of your pie hole and I'm changing you from a rooster to a hen! Cutty-cut cut! Plop plop! Off they go!" she made a hissing sound as she waived the glass weapon at him. "You know when I'm in season I get crabby and mean!"
         "I'd leave her alone if I were you," Roy suggested and signaled to the waitress for another round. He noted they were the only humans in the Golden Plume and wondered why Edwin recommended it. Roy always figured Ed was a mommy's boy, but now he figured he was a Bonnark's puppy. One of the things that the Bonnarks did to the English language is change the phrase, from 'A boy's best friend is his mother...' to, 'A boy's best friend is his Bonnark.' Edwin's mother, while not a common situation, did make headlines. The Bonnark were developing a reputation of being exceptionally maternal, to the level of nobility. He understood that better, now, watching the Bonnark males, they withdrew around the female of the species. In a manner, they flashed their 'feminine' side and tried to buddy up to her. They didn't fan feathers, they became her best friend sort of. Momma's boy.
         "What happened to the last one?" Deerwood asked as Swope bounced over.
         "She..." Swope looked at Deerwood and her tail sprang straight up, vertical, in a threatening manner. "Her tails prosthetic...Needed to change the batteries."
         Roy didn't understand that, but he knew it came as an insult.
         Fritz checked out Swope's posterior. It didn't take much imagination to see her as a human, and the tail made her fascinating. He wanted to reach out and stroke it but thought better of it. Deerwood somehow took the tail, when it stood straight up as it did, as a primeval affront to her self-image of feminine supremacy, though she couldn't figure out why.
         "He'll have a Do Your Mother!" Fritz laughed and pointed to Roy.
         Roy looked back confused.
         Swope looked at Roy with a degree of disgust and sadness. It made Roy feel guilty of something.
         "What's that?" Deerwood asked Swope.
         "Should've read the menu!" Fritz laughed as he held it up off the table.
         "It's an overpriced highly alcoholic slop," Swope shrugged. "If you drink it and die it's free. Part of the fascination is how it's delivered."
         "I'll take one..." Deerwood sputtered. "If I have to stay here I want to go blind."
         "And you tough guy?" she asked Fritz, smiling while taking a swipe at him.
         "What they're having..." Fritz laughed.
         Swope winced. This was going to hurt, one was uncomfortable, two was annoying, three, only if she was a loose grab bag. She closed her eyes and prayed she'd never have to do it again. The things she did to attract a husband.
         She left for three bottles of Do Your Mother. It did hurt, they were cold and if it weren't for fur on her face, she'd shame herself further by blushing. Roy took note of her tail as it hung down limp as she waddled toward the table with three green bottles of Do Your Mother stuck in her pouch. It looked painful.
         Several Bonnark males watched her waddle and they made a whistling sound.
         "Three Do Your Mothers," she forced a smile.
         "Cool," Fritz chirped and all sat there.
         "Uh you're supposed to take them out of the pouch...," she said looking shamefully at the floor.
         "Come here mom," Fritz giggled and took one.
         Swope winced as the cold glass irritated her left teat.
         "Thank you dear," Deerwood said trying to be nice and gentle. She, Swope looked hurt somehow, and with her tail dragging on the floor, metaphorically, she looked exceptionally dejected. What made it even more disgraceful, was when the human female took her Do Your Mother, it felt good, in a bad way.
         "Excuse me, boarding house reach," Roy muttered and reached across the table. As soon as he pulled his bottle out of her pouch, her tail shot up, and began to wag like a flag in a hurricane, bells jingling up a storm.
         Several Bonnark males stood up and began applauding at the spectacle.
         The hairs stood up on the back of Swope's neck. That's why she hated Bonnark males, right there briefly. They took no pride in themselves. From what she understood about human males, is they were proud, they'd fight over their women even if they were cheap grab bags. With Bonnark, they took whatever they could get and were grateful for it. If they missed a season, all they did was go nosing about and scratching themselves where they shouldn't, waiting for the next cycle. No ambition, just oh well, let me go do something else.
         "Excuse me," Fritz chirped as he looked at the Bonnark males, and pointed toward Swope's tail. "What's that mean? I've never been around Bonnark before."
         They looked at each other. A short silence bridge the void and then one said, with the aid of a pocket translator, "Tail wagging...It means she likes him a lot."
         "We're on her side," another one said as he leaned over and spoke into the translator.
         The male next to him grabbed the pocket translator and typed in a sentence. The pocket device then spoke, "We never have a met human before...You come over here and we show you how to be a Bonnark. So you maybe get some tail?"
         "Later gentlemen," Fritz smiled. "And Bonnark," he looked at Swope. "The party's started..."
         Deerwood smiled as he left, and so did Swope, for the same reasons.
         "So you two a couple?" Swope asked to double check her position.
         "No we just work together," Deerwood answered and uncapped her bottle.
         Swope's tail took off like a propeller.
         "Wow!" Deerwood hissed breathing fire. "That's a drink! Tastes like Gummy Bears on steroids!"
         "I'll be back later!" Swope smiled and with her tail jingling skipped off.
         Roy didn't really get the floorshow. It involved a tail wagging conga line and a trapeze act. He also took note that some of the Bonnark wore fake tails. He assumed it was like a young girl stuffing her bra but wasn't sure. He thought about asking Deerwood but she sat there blasted out of her skull. She survived half the bottle of Do Your Mother before slipping off into the n-dimension.
         He wondered why she only drank with him. Probably had something to do with the fact he wouldn't abuse her when she got like that. Stoned out of her gourd. He also wondered about why and how she ended up in the Navy. Most military type of females was lesbians or had personalities so appalling that was the only way they could be around men.
          He made that association after a couple of years, especially after his training on Mars. He was walking toward the Class 6 after a long day at the airfield as he passed a barracks of Marine engineers. On the fourth floor two women, nude from the waist up hung out the window with a bottle of Jack cat calling. He refused the offer, he lied his way out of it, which only worked because he was in uniform, that he was on CQ duty and was snagging a burger from the Post Exchange. After that, it plugged into Roy's head that Navy girls equaled sluts.          
         He wondered about Deerwood.
         If she was a dyke, Navy life was for her, and she'd have her hand in a Bonnark. If she wasn't, and he didn't think she was, no heterosexual male ever did Deerwood and lived to tell about. He was sure of that since nobody said anything about her.
         "Dumb question," he asked her as she sat there drooling.
         "What? Look at the pretty colors..." she hazily slurred.
         "Why'd you join the Navy?"
         "Got drunk and got suckered ...Did you see the pretty Zebra in the corner...The one with antlers?" She smiled and wobbled a bit. She then waived happily to the Zebra and said he was 'so cute'. "I was out with the girls and Jodi was always wild...We thought it was...Hey there are mushrooms growing on the table...Turns out Jodi liked girls as much as you do...Never saw that coming but in retrospect...I got a six year hitch she got married to a bitch and then took the maternity out...Fucking bitch..." She looked at Roy. "You know...She did better with the chicks than you do...Stick with Bonnarks!" She then smiled, a silly smile and passed out face down at on the table.
         Roy felt sorry for her.

***

         Fritz dragged Deerwood toward the back gate of the spaceport, with the moon coming up in the North and the gas giant Bonnarkia setting in the East it was time to leave. Deerwood was a tall healthy girl and the slightly shorter, lighter Fritz needed his new Bonnark friends to help drag her back. She was heavier than she looked and all of them too drunk to stand had a time with it.
         "Whoa! There we go," Fritz hiccupped. He had her standing on her two feet, albeit with the help of the Bonnark. "I'm going to check on the shuttle..."
         At the gate, two uniformed security guards, armed with sticks watched and laughed. Deerwood regained her senses and wondered for a second where she was. She looked over at the security guards, whom were giving the business to Fritz. The Bonnark didn't pay any attention to him. They paid attention to Deerwood.
         "Excuse us," one asked politely, the one that seemed sweeter than the rest. Not that Bonnark tripped her switch just that they were sweet as puppies or newborn kittens.
         "Yes?" she hiccupped and noted one of them sniffs around her waist and is fascinated with her long brown hair. He began to gently, with greatest of care, paw her ponytail.
         "Do you have a pouch?" he asked her and tried to smile.
         "What?" she chuckled. "How come you don't need...When did you speak English?"
         "We didn't want to be too uppity in front of your male...," he said.
         "We understand human males are very territorial...Like sand wasps around their females...Very insecure in their masculinity," the second one answered. "Since you are not his we feel proper in speaking directly to you."
         "Well," she blubbered and waived back and forth in the breeze. "What makes you think he's not mine?"
         "If he was he'd be carrying you in arms like real Bonnark," the second answered dreamily as he played with, and then smelled, her fingers. "Or, over shoulders, like real Bonnark conqueror of ancient times."
         "Human female on large size for Bonnark," the third said. "That's why we three come along. You tall babe with weight to her! Hubba-hubba!"
         "My god that's so..." she gasped as the world spun around her. "And it creeps me out somehow."
         They smiled patiently, pleadingly, with big brown eyes.
         "Oh here," she couldn't believe she lifted her shirt for a bunch of walking shag carpets.
         "No pouch," the more 'forward' of the trio said as they very gently began to sniff and rub her belly.
         "She's smooth," the first fascinatingly observed.
         "So different..." the third whimsically sang. "I like her."
         "Me too," the second agreed.
         "My God! They're just like overly affectionate German Sheppard!" she thought and then a disgusting and unnatural thought crossed her mind. "That's enough show and tell boys! No more..."
          "You maybe come back tomorrow?" the first one quietly asked, almost submissively. They all started to act like Edwin. They all started to look like Edwin. It made her wonder exactly why Edwin was the Radio Weapons Officer, since he didn't seem like the type to shoot something. She figured Edwin was making up for a personality deficiency by playing with guns.
         "We rock climb? I carry you up highest mountain..." the second overly affectionately rug requested. "You can gaze at stars and I play Bonnarkian folk music on harp just for you."
         "Human female like to swim in water?" asked the third starry eyed. "I play Water Ball with you. I cook good for you at beach party."
         "I learn pedicure from periodical...I can paint toe nails for you," the first one pleasantly suggested. "Have technique down and everything...Don't tickle...Unless you want me too."
         "I do you hair?" the second one announced almost pleading. He couldn't keep his paws off her ponytail. "Maybe shampoo and curly nice braid? I can read you supreme love poetry from Bonnarkian master poet Zubby as you perm."
         "My God! They're hitting on me!" Deerwood blabbered. "And I love it!"
         "Hey you! Shaggy!" Fritz bellowed. "Get off my woman!"
         "I ain't your woman!" she yelled back.
         The three Bonnark gave each other a questioning glance.
         "Defend woman, she's in season and can't protect self. We act like Bonnarkian warriors of legend. Agreed?" the first one announced to the others. He said it very calmly, flatly, his voice barely above a whisper and the others agreed. Very calmly, flatly, they then mumbled something in Bonnarkian among each other, voices barely above a whisper. It looked like they were making plans.
         "For Motherhood!" they yelled in unison and forced a clenched fist skyward.
         "That's Edwin," Deerwood observed. "They're getting hurt."
         They then screamed with a horrible screech, something that sounded too big to come out of them and charged Fritz.
         "Holy sheep shit!" Deerwood yelped, sobering up quickly. If she weren't there, she wouldn't have believed it. The three overly affectionate nerdy shag blankets, with tails, hammered their objective with a level violence that approached legendary. Like they said they would.
          Fritz and the security guards were overwhelmed in seconds.
          Once the two security guards figured out the Bonnark were more interested working Fritz over than they were in saving him, they called in reinforcements on their radios, and stayed out of it in fear of their lives. They crawled, bleeding, through the gate, locked it behind them and watched in terror.
          Eventually, the UPC Marines arrived. By this time, the Bonnark were in a very literal sense, foaming at the mouth, and it took three squads in riot gear and pepper spray to get them off Fritz. They didn't give anyone a hard time once Fritz stopped moving. They waived affectionately at Deerwood through the paddy wagon rear windows as it drove off into the distance.
         Then an ambulance came and took Fritz to the infirmary.
         She had to give Fritz his credits. He did do well against them, despite being drunk, and outnumbered three to one. He held them off until they broke his legs, dislocated both shoulders, knocked all his teeth out with a rock, and began kicking him in the ribs as he cried for his mother.
         She was impressed. She didn't think they had it in them.
         The quiet ones were truly dangerous.
         It gave her new insight into Edwin.
          "That's why he's the RWO," she muttered as she stumbled through the gate toward the shuttle. "He's not a momma's boy like I thought...That's why he has the gun because he's a real SOB...Son of a Bonnark!" she hiccupped and then collapsed
****
         Roy slowly opened his eyes and wondered where he was. He sat up and realized he passed out on a bright yellow and purple picnic table, under a bright orange pavilion along a lake. He didn't even know Bonnarkia had lakes. It struck him as a beautiful body of water with a manicured sandy beach, placid waters that snaked to the horizon through ancient rocky crags and cliffs. At his end of it, there is a perfect beige pier, and across on the other shores an estuary with pink birds in it that looked like Flamingos. Poly-winged butterflies tried to tickle his nose and he waived them off with a degree of annoyance.
         "This place has to be from a little girl's daydream," he hissed and fell back on the table. His head hurt. He couldn't remember what exactly happened at the Golden Plume. The round of Do Your Mother did him in...He wondered where Deerwood is. He felt sorry for any Bonnark male that put the moves on her. He felt sorry for anyone that put the moves on her. When he sat up again, his brain rolled around in his head, like a marble in a jar.
         "Hey there sailor!" Swope chirped happily, as she laid on a happy horn.
         He rolled over and looked through one eye in her general direction. She jumped out of a bright yellow golf cart and skipped around back to the trunk, her tail wagging and bells ringing. She made two trips as she toted purple and mauve oversized laundry baskets to the table.
         "Here drink this!" she chirped and poured what looked like apple juice into a plastic purple cup, with flowers on the side, and dropped in two Nuclear Alka-seltzers.
         "I rented the pavilion until four and I brought lunch and a swim suit for you..." she gabbed as she set up the picnic table and Roy, not having much choice in it, drank her hangover cure. "We'll go swimming and rock climbing and you can learn all about me!"
         Roy knew he was in trouble. As the hangover cure worked, he remembered her name, where they met, and everything went blank after that. He needed her to get back to what passed for civilization, and try to find Deerwood. Moreover, that meant he was going swimming, rock climbing and getting to know all about her first.
         "So let's go swimming before we eat!" she chirped, as her tail began to wag back and forth. "You'll get cramps and drown if you eat first..."
          She read that in a book. She didn't know if it was true or not, that humans drown if they eat before they swim. It didn't make much sense since they came from a water planet but lived on land. However, that's what the books said and she wanted to take good care of her man.
         She had plans.
         "Turn around!" she told him as she searched through a yellow bag. It seemed stupid to Roy, there she was standing on a sandy beach, changing into a swimsuit. He had his back turned to her and he wondered exactly what the game was. He already seen most of her, even took a beer from her pouch and she didn't want to drop her skirt in front of him. Bonnark baffled him the same way human females did.
         He knew she checked him out when he put on the Bonnark male equivalent. He heard her tail swishing through the air. He didn't like the Bonnark version of swimming trunks. They didn't fit right, too loose in the crotch.
         "What's on your forearms?" Roy chirped as he got a look at Swope. She stood there smiling, wearing a yellow and purple polka-dotted apron with matching tubes from her wrist to her elbows.
         "Lollies!" she smiled, tail wagging. "You were too busy getting smashed and checking out my pouch to notice but I have dewclaws on my forearms and calves. They're for rock climbing and to stop me from being dragged around in the sand...This way I won't scratch you up when we engage in recreation with each other!"
         "Friendly little critter," Roy mumbled.
         "Like the swimsuit! It's modeled on a human pattern!" she smiled. Truth is, Bonnark didn't really swim well and when they did, swimsuits were redundant with their body hair.
         "Very nice," Roy replied and tried not to laugh. The way her tail swayed when he looked at her, it was funny somehow.
         "Last one in is it!" she yelled happily and ran toward the pier. When she leaped off the end, she looked like a dog jumping in a lake. It's how she postured her arms and legs, the tail didn't help any either. "Yoinks and away!"
         Roy shrugged and followed her. He watched her swim around, more like dog paddle in circles with her face buried in the water, ears and tail trailing out of the water line. Every so often, she'd stick her face up and breathe, and then back to submerged dog paddling.
         "Swope," he said to get her attention.
         "Yes?" she smiled, her tail wagging even faster. In her mind this was it, she bagged him.
         "Let me show you how to swim," he laughed.
         "Not what I wanted to hear," she thought and then agreed to it.
         After thirty minutes, she was really swimming. He then splashed her and she splashed him back. Through a subconscious course of actions she wound up with her lollies around his neck grinning. As for Roy, he forgot about Deerwood. He forgot Swope looked like a cross between a kangaroo and an anteater.
         "And what do you call this?" she asked him and rubbed his ears.
         "Hmmm," Roy hummed, as he loved having somebody to rub his ears, he thoughtlessly kissed her. "Learning all about you."
         Her tail spun around like a propeller.
         "Christian Roy you've been in space too long," his conscience spoke to him. "You're putting the moves on an aardvark!"
          "Shut up and go away...she's legal," he yelled silently to his conscience.
          "She's not a person!" his conscience retorted.
          "So? I'm not a Bonnark. Doesn't bother her!" he fought with himself. "Besides we're both in heat."
          His conscience went for a low blow. "YO! DUDE! She's somebody's daughter!"
          "She a marsupial...So her tits would be in her pouch right?" He then told his sense of right and wrong to shut up since it was getting in the way of a good time.
          "BINGO!" she thought. "He smells so wonderful! And his shoulders are so strong, like a Bonnark, I like male things...with strong shoulders. I wonder if I can get him to polish my dewclaws? Hey! He's touching my pouch! WOW! I got him now! Oh, damn! I'm going to have to introduce him to my father! Oh crap..." she talked herself into the next maneuver mostly to avoid thoughts of having to explain him to her family.
          It was a lethal maneuver for Roy, not for her.
          When she wrapped her thighs around his waist and began to breath heavy, the dewclaws on her calves speared him.
          Roy screamed.
          "A bit early for that don't you think?" she perplexedly stared at him.
          "Dewclaws in back!" he screamed even louder.
          "What?" she yelled confused. Her academic studies in seducing humans didn't mention anything about 'Dewclaws in back'. It mentioned several things she wanted to try but none of those things even came close to that descriptive phrase. She expected a marriage proposal and or heavy breathing then something the books referred to as a 'cheesy taco', and all that sounded to her wonderfully fun. "Dewclaws in back! What's that suppose to mean? You're supposed to say marry me and then make cheesy taco ..."
          She gasped and sucked in air as she realized what he meant.

         

End Part 1