Chapter 7

It took Lori a moment or two to start after me and ask, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that you are going to be part of a harem. And while Sheba won't be part of a harem, she still thinks that she is the main female in my life. She has to get along with you because she is unable to bear me any offspring. You have to get along with the other ladies I choose so you may want to be thinking about what the selection criteria for at least two other ladies should be," I said as I reached the door to the barn.

"Two more ladies?" Lori asked, "If you are authorized three concubines doesn't that mean you should have four? I thought that was the way the Confederacy had set such things?"

"Until I've had some time to review what exactly the AI wants me to do, I won't want to choose more than one more woman. But if they intend to give me a permanent duty station that looks reasonable, then I'll choose more than just two or three more."

"Then if everything goes well between me and Sheba, you wouldn't mind meeting some of my friends?" Lori asked.

"I don't know what schedule the AI and the Confederacy will want to keep with regard to my volunteering. But I'd like to take at least a couple of days to get to know you better than just in passing as I do now," I told Lori as I entered the barn. I noted as my eyes adjusted to the interior lighting that the barn consisted of several large runs with a wide walkway across their fronts.

Most of the runs were empty but in the one nearest to the door I saw Sheba lying next to a water fountain and an untouched automatic feeder. Her eyes were mostly closed and if it hadn't been for the slight rise and fall I could detect in her chest I'd have thought that she was dead. "Sheba!" I said urgently to see if she was at all aware of her surroundings. From the way she looked when I came through the door, I was half-afraid that she'd have to be put down for mercy's sake. The change in Sheba's posture was instantaneous. She went from lying on her side looking more than a little hungry and depressed to being on her feet and leaning against the woven wire end of the enclosure nearest me in less time than it took me to speak her name.

Sheba was barking with joy so loudly that anything that Lori might have said in the next few minutes was lost in the ruckus that she was raising. I felt her press a key into my hand and realized that the gate to the run was locked. As I absently noticed Lori leaving I also realized that Sheba wouldn't calm down and eat or drink until she'd had at least a little attention from me.

I got the gate to Sheba's run open and after she had sniffed me all over and licked my face a little she dropped to the floor and began to shamelessly flag me. That was not really surprising as Sheba often choose to flag me if she was in a playful mood or if she was in or near her heat cycle. Flagging out of season is unusual for most bitches though during my life to this point I'd been able to coax most of the ones that had been my companions into accepting my advances in or out of season.

In this though Sheba was as different as she had been about heeling, fetching and making me take walks. After her second standing heat during which I'd comforted her in her confusion I'd approached her with a warm cloth and washed her vulva thoroughly. Not unusually Sheba had loved that bit of attention and would thereafter prod me to wash her shortly after she finished my exercise. Sheba was by no means the first bitch I'd approached for sex, so some of her reactions surprised me quite a bit as most bitches have to be gently coaxed for most of their lives to allow you to touch them out of season. In season of course, while they are young and randy, they are insatiable.

Sheba was not at all shy about approaching me for what amounted to foreplay and, while I'd never managed to achieve a satisfactory erection with her, we had both enjoyed long sessions where I'd engaged in puppy lingus. Sheba was content to spend a lot of time licking me as well and occasionally the limp noodle that I'd called a penis would get half hard from the caress of her tongue and she would roll on her back and let me have a ride.

Indeed if her actions then and now were any indication, Sheba had been more than willing to participate in sex whether or not she was in season. People who are familiar with dogs know that most of the time a bitch will only accept a sexual approach when she is in season. Thus for all of her mature life Sheba had been an odd dog. I never had to train her or coax her, one wash session with gentle and lingering attention to her clitoral ridge had been enough to convince her to be a hedonist utterly abandoned to sexual activity whenever she could get it from me.

I suppose that in all of this I sound somewhat like a parent with a child who is a prodigy, though in reality I never considered Sheba to be a child but more of a very brilliant dog. Her brilliance of course is none of my doing any more than a child's genius is the doing of the parent. That doesn't change the fact that in either case the party least responsible for the behavior is often the one to boast about it the most!

Bitches have been my boon companions for most of my life, providing comfort and pleasure both sexual and nonsexual as they accompanied me through their shorter lives. Having seen Sheba's behavior before she realized that I was still alive. I realized how close I'd come to leaving her to die of grief. That however was not at the forefront of my mind as I observed her sexual display, for it was then that I realized that something more than my heart and weight had been effectively set back at least twenty-five years. In short, when Sheba turned, presented and raised her tail as well as dipping her head, I experienced an erection of the sort that I hadn't had for at least 15 years and more like those I'd had on occasion as a teen. One that is immediate, urgent and painful.

If I had not had other things to take care of, including making sure that Sheba ate and drank so that she would regain any health that she had lost during my absence, I would have indulged in a quick fuck to take the edge off from my suddenly rampant libido. I restrained myself with some difficulty and said, "Sheba sit!" Sheba whined but she sat. Indeed the only other time I'd had any trouble getting her to sit was the day I'd had my heart attack. And in all good conscience I have to consider that at the time she was protecting me. "Where's your leash girl?" I asked more rhetorically than expecting her to know. I suppose I should have known better as she headed with a purpose toward the far side of the building and returned with her leash and collar that had been hanging on a low hook.

Sheba was back in a moment and when she stuck her nose in my crotch and got a whiff of my arousal she began once more to flag me with a vengeance. That action didn't help me resist her. Indeed I'd be lying if I said that convincing Sheba to stop her sexual play and to allow me to put the leash on her was anything less than a painful trial. Still, because Sheba could only do the equivalent of flashing me, I resisted her behavior and got her into the collar and on the leash. When I had that accomplished, I led her back to the run where she'd been staying to see if now that she knew that I was alive that she would eat and drink.

Sheba did eat and drink a little. She ate less than I thought she might from the way her ribs were starting to show from not eating while I was in the hospital. She seemed to think that by eating and drinking she would change my mind about mating with her. I had another agenda to pursue and so I led her out of the barn. I believe that was the first time that she ever failed to heel from the moment I slipped the collar onto her neck. However when she discovered that I wouldn't be seduced by her flirting to the point of her backing against my aching crotch she settled in to walk next to me, though perhaps with her head and tail not held so proudly as normal.