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Liam lay stomach down across a large pillow and moaned. His whole body ached; he was too damn old to have three orgasms in a row. Or maybe it had been two and a half. Liam had faded out somewhere toward the end. He was going to have to wash all their pillows. And himself. And possibly the walls.
Liam rolled onto his side and groaned.
Ondry was sitting on the edge of the nest reading. He looked up. “You fell asleep for a second time.”
“It’s called a nap. More sleep is required when I use my body in ways my body is not designed to be used.” When Liam tried to sit up, he collapsed with a pained gasp. Before Liam could catch his breath, Ondry was in the nest, huffing loudly and pale with distress.
“What is wrong?”
Liam tried to push him away. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You smell of pain.”
Liam shifted his leg to a better angle. Ondry paled more. “I’m fine. We got a little enthusiastic. Sometimes the human body gets sore after a heavy workout.”
“I injured you?” The horror in Ondry’s voice broke Liam’s heart.
“No. We were both exceptionally physical and the body sometimes has inflammation and a slight pain reaction that comes after the event.”
“The event where I damaged you,” Ondry said, a whistle of distress in his voice. “I will get a Grandmother.” Ondry tried to stand, and adrenaline and panic motivated Liam to grab the bottom of Ondry’s pants before he could leave.
“No! I don’t need anyone to look at me. Besides, the Grandmothers—even the most well-read—don’t understand the human body well enough to recognize normal inflammation.”
“Then I will get Mora.”
“NO!” Liam nearly had a heart attack as he considered Zach Mora poking around his ass to see if anything was damaged. As much as that would be a logical course of action from a Rownt point of view, Liam would murder Ondry in his sleep if he even thought about it. “This is an issue that should stay inside the nest!”
Ondry went on one knee and glurbled unhappily. “How can I do nothing when you hurt?”
Liam closed his eyes and counted to ten. As much as he loved Ondry’s protective streak, sometimes Ondry took it too far. Bringing Mora to the nest would be a hundred steps too far. But that meant Liam had to explain human perception before Ondry made an embarrassing choice. Mora had been mortified at the thought of a nictel, so if the man came in now, he would never look Liam in the eye again.
Which was fair. Liam would never look at Mora, either.
“Sometimes human muscles and tissue work too hard, and there are microscopic tears that the body has to heal, which causes swelling and slight pain.” The second Liam mentioned swelling, he knew he had made a monumental error.
Ondry turned the color of a Swedish man who’d been living on a station without the sun for five years. It was damn near the same washed-out color as the parchment used for storyscrolls. Of course swelling frightened Ondry, given Rownt anatomy.
Liam added, “Swelling is a normal part of human healing, and our bodies will accommodate it easily. When we train for physical tasks like competitions or going into the army, we will work the muscle to the point of soreness because the swelling will promote improvement.” Liam had no idea if that was true, but his drill instructor had said as much at least a hundred times. A lack of pain equals a lack of progress he would shout as he walked down the middle of the obstacle course.
“You desire swelling?” Ondry’s voice now carried a sharp edge of panic with the horror.
Liam was not explaining this well.
“We desire improvement and value physical performance, and sometimes that leads to swelling. It doesn’t bother us.”
“But you are pained.”
“Temporarily,” Liam said. “As I move around, the swelling will improve healing. As long as I don’t have a visible tear or blood, I am fine.”
“Where would I see blood?”
Liam pressed his forehead to the pillow. “There is none. I’m fine.”
“You continue to say that, but you smell of pain and worry.”
Liam tilted his head so he could peer at Ondry out of one eye. “The worry comes from a fear that you will tell someone about my swelling.”
Ondry’s eyes widened in confusion. “Do you fear showing weakness in front of the ship’s crew?”
“I fear having someone I don’t know well looking at my ass. Humans call our genitals ‘privates’ because we maintain strict privacy.”
“Do you consider the anus and anoderm part of your genitalia?”
Perhaps it was Ondry’s thick accent when he was speaking English, but Liam didn’t understand the word Ondry was trying to use. “What is the anoderm?”
Ondry tilted his head. “The skin inside the anus before the canal widens.”
Someone had been studying human anatomy books. It was a strangely romantic idea—Ondry trying to learn everything he could about how Liam’s body worked. “That skin is inflamed, but it is not damaged. Because we caused minor damage to the anoderm or rectum or both during non-procreative sexual activity, we were using them as genitals, so they are included in the human term ‘privates’.”
“I had thought genital came from the root word gene or to give birth or life. Would that not limit the use of the word to those organs that are part of human reproduction? A Rownt tail caused damage to your digestive system while seeking to stimulate pleasure. That is not reproduction.”
Ondry had managed to find a way to describe sex that was even more awkward than non-procreative sexual contact. Liam said, “Not all humans like to use the same definitions. I’m sure some humans would agree with you, but others would agree with me. And none of us would want someone poking our anoderm to check for swelling.”
“Then how can I tell if you require assistance?” Ondry demanded. The color was starting to return to his face, but now he wore a stubborn expression.
“When I go to the bathroom, if I have more than a drop or two of blood in the area...” Liam hesitated as he considered what sort of health care he would be willing to accept. In most towns, a number of Grandmothers would specialize in studying the body and its functions, and Liam assumed the same was true on the Calti. If nothing else, the eldest Grandmother probably studied anatomy texts as closely as Ondry. Unfortunately, going to her would mean Mora finding out about the injury sooner rather than later.
Ondry still waited, his eyes wide and his stubborn streak clear in the set of his mouth.
“If there is blood, we can talk to one of the younger Grandmothers, one who has looked at the anatomy texts the humans sent.” Before Liam finished, Ondry had shoved a blanket aside and was crouched over Liam, huffing loudly as he put his face right up against Liam’s ass. When Liam tried to roll to the side, Ondry rested his hand against the small of Liam’s back, pinning him in place.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t smell blood.”
“Then you don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine.” Liam then yelped as a warm tongue ran over his sore hole. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t taste blood. I don’t believe you have any significant tears.”
“I think you’ve repeated what I’ve said several times: I’m fine.”
Ondry sat up and considered Liam with a distressed expression. “You feel pain.”
“I’m human. Sometimes we hurt. Wait ten or twenty years when the arthritis sets in and I’ll limp every time it rains.”
Ondry lost every bit of color in his face. Unless Liam missed his guess, Ondry was going to spend the next year digesting every ounce of information he could find on arthritis. Before this was all over, Ondry was going to have a good line of miracle pharmaceuticals he could sell back on Earth. He’d start by curing arthritis and then find treatments for every age-related ailment that damaged the human body.
Liam sighed. That was an exaggeration, but Ondry would probably spend more time than he should trying to make it real. “Give me a hand getting up,” Liam said as he held out his arm.
Ondry lifted Liam and put him on his feet on the floor next to the nest. The first step Liam took toward the bathroom stung a little, but the pain had already faded.
“How can I avoid causing damage in the future?” Ondry hovered near Liam, his hands held out as though waiting to catch him.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I damaged you!” This time Ondry followed the words with a sharp and distressed hiss.
Liam turned to face off against his stubborn chilta. “The only harm you are causing me is the distress of knowing that my physiology has alarmed and upset you. This is normal. If we can easily trade for a soothing balm, that would feel nice, but this is not different than the sore muscles I felt after we hiked to the mountains.”
“I will hire a cart for you next time.”
Liam sighed. Sometimes Ondry had an annoying ability to miss the important part of anything Liam tried to communicate. “I like walking in the mountains, and sore muscles are normal. I like sex with you, and a sore ass is sometimes normal.”
Ondry was not regaining any of his color. Damn stubborn Rownt.
“Maybe we should limit the time of actual penetration,” he suggested. Clearly if he didn’t offer some concrete solution, Ondry was not going to recover from his guilt. “How long did you have your tail rubbing my skin?” Liam headed for the bathroom again.
“Rubbing or inside you?”
“Rubbing,” Liam said. “This was caused by friction when the skin was rubbed too much.” At least Liam assumed that was what had caused the damage.
“Two and three-quarter hours,” Ondry said.
Liam grabbed the edge of the bathroom door and turned to look at Ondry. “Three hours?”
“Two and three-quarter hours.” Ondry closed the distance between them. “Is that too long?”
“For active thrusting, yes. I would say one to two hours is the most I can handle. Did we have sex for three hours?”
“Two and—”
“Three quarters,” Liam finished for him. “Which is not significantly different than three hours. You have the powers of a sex god.” Liam headed into the bathroom.
“Humans have sex gods?”
“I think some of the old cultures did,” Liam said. “I don’t know if modern humans still worship them or if they’re mostly the domain of mythology now.”
“Rownt never had a sex god. The closest would be Pentin. She killed the snake that lived in the center of the earth and used his lair to lay eggs.”
“How does that make her a sex god?”
“She laid many eggs. She took the sperm of every male alive and gave each male a youngling with his own markings. The mythology says that by doing so, she gave the strength of a god to the entire generation and allowed Rownt to capture a small part of the gods within their own hearts. I do not have the power Pentin possessed.”
“No, but you have the power to leave me so happy and blissed-out that I am incapable of feeling anything else.”
“You feel so good you are unable to feel when I am damaging you.”
Liam shook the drops off once he’d finished peeing. “I am not damaged. I hurt. That’s a normal part of being human.”
“That is an unacceptable flaw.”
“Yeah, well Pentin didn’t visit Earth and give us all Rownt strength.”
“Pentin is a story with which to entertain children.”
“And humans sometimes hurt. We won’t do as much thrusting and rubbing, and that will prevent this from happening again. Now go get dressed.”
Ondry didn’t want to leave Liam’s side, but Liam shooed him away. He needed to soak in a hot shower, and he didn’t need an audience. Three hours. That was a new record. Sure, they’d had three hour sex in the past, but that was usually a combination of bondage and talking, and Ondry pressing his tail deep into Liam and then keeping him in the nest while they both read on their computers. Liam couldn’t quite believe that Ondry had thrust for three hours.
That would explain the sore ass and the way Liam was still floating on endorphins. Ondry might not believe in sex gods, but Liam was starting to. He was also starting to think that the eldest Grandmother might have a point about Ondry being a little on the overprotective side.