Chapter 59: SM03-Psi, Day 9, Morning

Steve was relaxing after a pleasant breakfast with the ten women he called 'wife' when the room monitor told him he had a private message. Giving the woman on his lap a squeeze and a kiss, he left the room to take it, more than slightly curious. It was the first outside contact they'd had since waking here and seeing that awful video. He knew he'd be quizzed mercilessly once he was finished listening to whatever the message was about.

It took him fifteen minutes to stop shaking once he'd played the message, and called the guy that sent it to set up a physical meeting to discuss it. It wasn't that he was personally upset, because he'd half-suspected something of the sort and had dreaded the alternative explanations; he was upset because he now knew why Lori got sad from time to time, particularly when the women were speculating on what Steve's kids were going to be like. And Ruth's blushing revelation that she used to get teased for being a redhead with black pubic hair, but now sported a red bush to match her carrot top was suddenly all too easy to explain.

When he returned to the common area, he found exactly what he'd expected: twenty eyes full of curiosity, struggling to maintain their patience as he tried to decide where to start his explanation. He gestured Lori over, and had her sit in his lap as he began his tale. Just as he'd expected, she began to cry when he got to the part about the majority of the selected women having been pregnant at the time of rescue. And Ruth had been one of several women to pale when he explained what he meant by 'chimeras.'

Once Lori had calmed down somewhat, Steve explained that she could have a clone of her lost baby, if she wished, once she was no longer pregnant. She'd thanked him, assured him that she did want the baby of his that she now carried, and told him that she was sad only because she'd have to wait to have her dead husband's baby as well. She brightened considerably when he told her he'd consider any baby she gave birth to to be 'his', no matter where the sperm came from.

Steve had saved the biggest shock for last, and had to wait a bit after he explained that he'd suddenly acquired nineteen twin brothers before he could continue. Unlike his earlier revelations, this didn't personally affect his women, but the very concept made most of them shiver. Since he'd confirmed with the room monitor that all of them were singletons, he omitted mentioning that some women had been copied as well.

When he said he was going to meet with some of his 'brothers' after lunch, he got the reaction he'd expected; while nobody could give him a good reason not to go, they still didn't like the idea. But when he said he had to make some follow-up visits to a bunch of the other men in their 'group' whose copies elsewhere had had problems of one sort or another, he almost had a mutiny on his hands.

The better part of an hour later, he'd convinced everyone that he really needed to make the visits his 'brother' had requested. The idea that it was part of the responsibilities that came with the authority to affect the future course of human society was the clincher. None of his women was convinced that their 'multiple marriage' was a common solution to the problems they'd faced, and they wanted to be sure that 'society' would recognize them all as Steve's wives.

After all the arguing was over, Steve took Lori into his bedroom for a little more intense reassurance. Nobody objected, even though he'd given her a 'turn' just last night. He'd negotiated a 'selection system' with them the first day; he'd have sex with anyone that was fertile and wanted a shot at a baby, and he'd make sure everyone got at least one turn every ten days. Other than that, he was free to 'do it' with whoever he wanted to, so long as she was willing, even if it involved 'playing favorites.'

As a practical matter, unless he was particularly 'hungry' for a kinky practice that only a few of his women were interested in providing, he generally chose at random, using a program he'd given to the room monitor that randomly selected a woman, giving slightly better odds to those who'd gone the longest since being picked. He'd also made a practice of granting pretty much any request for attention, assuming he wasn't 'tapped out' at the time, regardless of the current fertility of the woman making the request.

Lori was one of the women who liked being tied up, so he soon had her helpless and panting around her penis gag. Four orgasms later, Steve climbed 'into the saddle, ' and began reminding Lori how much she'd enjoyed it when he knocked her up that first day. He soon finished in her, as she came for the sixth time that morning. The eagerness Steve showed in pleasing Lori seemed to reassure her far more than he would have guessed, but he wasn't going to argue with success.

Steve had the time and energy to 'reassure' one more of his wives before lunch. Despite more than a week of intensive togetherness, his women still managed to surprise him from time to time. When he asked Diane if she'd like to have a little private time, she agreed quickly, but asked him if Leila could join them. Steve readily agreed, and his first threesome was soon underway.

Apparently he'd managed to miss the fact that Diane and Leila were bisexual, and had formed their own marriage while remaining part of the larger group marriage. The three of them indulged in several hot scenes, including Steve taking Diane from behind while she ate out Lelia, and Diane going for a 'mustache ride' on Steve's face while Leila rode his cock. His favorite part had to be the double blowjob he got from the two of them, with the women taking turns sucking his cock, while the other woman licked his balls.

After lunch, Steve spent a good fifteen minutes hugging, kissing, and reassuring his wives before he headed off to the first of his meetings, with his 'brothers.'

SM03-Chi, Day 9

Steve wasn't surprised when he got the message from his "brother." Kelly had gotten the bright idea that first day of asking the room monitor to summarize all the questions the other humans were asking, and relay the questions and answers to her. By emphasizing the 'summarize' angle, she'd avoided the privacy constraints that had been put on the monitors. And including the 'information not available' responses had been a brilliant move, because when some people suddenly started getting answers to questions that had previously drawn a 'no comment', they'd been alerted to Steve's sudden change in status.

Once they knew that Steve could get whatever information he wanted, Kelly and Nicolle had gone on a treasure hunt, getting every bit of information they could on the alien's technical capabilities, and humanity's current living conditions. Noel had put her scriptwriting skills to good use, combining them with Darlene's public relations training to produce a set of scripts for Steve to use in recording briefing videos for the various levels of sophistication that Nicolle's training in anthropology and sociology had led her to expect.

They had a number of versions of the briefing tape, from a version with everything they knew for use with the technologically advanced and emotionally well-balanced, all the way down to the soft-pedaled version for people who probably couldn't handle the idea that there was more than one person running around with their memories. The women confidently expected to blow away his 'brother' with their presentations. Steve couldn't see how they'd avoid it, he could barely believe it and he'd seen it happening.

The women had told him the first day that he needed to be 'in charge.' When he'd objected that they were obviously his equals or superiors in intellect, they'd agreed, but said that under the circumstances, someone had to make the decisions, and he was both as qualified as anyone, and the only person who was a 'singleton'. If they tried to pick the 'smartest' person to lead, they'd get into bickering over the difference between a 181 and 182 IQ on two different test scales, or some similar nonsense. "Let the guy do it" had the advantage of being obviously arbitrary, and so outrageously so that there was no alternative.

Steve had publicly agreed with their reasoning, and privately held the opinion that people too far up the intelligence scale were prone to rationalizing the irrational. However much they intellectually accepted sexual equality, every one of the women in his life had been raised in the 'women do what men tell them' tradition, and under stress, they were reverting to their most primitive training. Since he had no intention of abusing his 'authority, ' and no illusions about how far that authority went in the face of opposition from the women as a whole, he'd accepted the position of figurehead and arbitrator, so far with excellent results.

Just as they'd orchestrated the household management question, the women had decided how to handle his sexual availability as well. Once a day, he pulled a name out of a hat (literally) and took the lucky winner off to his room for some free-form debauchery, the nature of which was a private matter between him and the woman involved. If a woman wasn't in the mood that day, or was on her period, she'd simply remove her name from the hat for that day. Every day was a fresh draw, and if the same woman won three days in a row, it was her good luck.