Chapter 3

The next morning I woke to someone shaking my shoulder. When I was fully conscious and stood up, he told me his name was Caltort and that he was Shaeta's father. He encouraged me to eat soon so he could get me ready for the ceremony.

Previously I'd naturally been more interested in watching the goings on of the women; I'd never paid any attention to the male's part in things. It made sense though, for my prospective father-in-law to take me under his wing.

He led me off away from the camp until we came to a creek and then we both had a cold bath, a very damned cold bath at that. As soon as we were done he gave me a walk through for the ceremony and since the ones I'd seen before were short, it didn't take long.

Basically, I was to stand quietly and look respectful while the Zakat and Matatu did the talking. I was to respond in the affirmative to any and all questions. Shaeta would do the same, we would be mated, and the feast would begin, followed about mid afternoon by the beginning of heavy drinking.

Next, Caltort explained the birds and the bees to me, or at least Margata's analog of such. He told me what went where and gave his estimate of how long it should stay there and what it should do while it was there. He advised me to always be careful and gentle while handling my mate, unless she made it plain that I was being too careful and too gentle. His last advice was that I should always stop when she asked me to stop.

All in all I thought it was a very good way to do things. He never asked me if I had any previous knowledge and he went forward as if I had none at all. The explanation of what went where was in a more clinical vein than I would have thought them capable of and the advice to be careful, gentle, and to stop when I heard stop was very sensible advice for any newlywed male. In fact, if it was heard and heeded on earth it would probably save thousands of lives and millions of marriages every year.

With the instructions over, after we were dressed again Caltort and I headed back to the campsite. Food was already being scattered around. They had been cooking since yesterday and no doubt some of it went on through the night. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for a new member to me until I realized it wasn't about me. It was about Shaeta. This was her Calak, and I was getting the benefit of her status.

About an hour later Shaeta made her entrance, I joined her and we walked over to Zakat and Matatu for the show to go on. It was almost over before it started, and then the party was on, and not a minute later Shaeta took me over for my first bite of food from her hand.

Formerly I hadn't paid much attention to this part of the ceremonies I'd watched from afar, but it made sense when we did it. Everyone was waiting for Shaeta and I to start eating first. She led me to a big place where most of the food was gathered, picked up two large shallow wooden bowls, and handed them to me.

My job was to hold the bowls and hers was to lead me around while she put a little bit of everything in them. Occasionally she would offer me a tidbit with her fingers, feeding me from her hand. I had no doubt that there was some symbolic meaning to all this but the specifics escaped me.

Soon enough both bowls were full and Shaeta led me to a place that had obviously been set aside for our use. There was some type of fur on the ground, we sat on it, she took her bowl from me, and then we ate. Occasionally she would feed me something from her bowl and I got the notion I was supposed to return the favor from mine, and I did. All in all it was rather pleasant.

Paying attention, I tried not to gobble my food and get ahead of her. When our bowls were probably three quarters empty Shaeta told me that she couldn't eat another bite. Then she asked me if I could finish hers as well as mine. Almost without my help, my mouth asked her if there were others in camp that didn't have enough to eat and that might like to have it.

Wondering where that had come from and what it meant exactly, I sure as hell didn't know why I'd said it. I mean, if I'd thought there was anyone in this group anywhere that was doing without food I'd have been glad to make sure they didn't do without it any longer if I could do anything about it.

Call me generous, or call me stupid, but I'd never felt there was any advantage to anyone going hungry. Still, it didn't seem like there was much chance for that to be happening in this Calak.

Be that as it may, after I said what I said, Shaeta's face took on a ten thousand watt smile and she actually squealed out in happiness. I could see most of the men that heard it look around toward her, but strangely none of the women did. In fact they seemed to be making a pointed effort not to look, though I could tell that a lot of them had new small smiles on their faces.

Glancing toward Zakat and Matatu just then, I saw that they must know something about what had just happened, or what I'd just done. They were both looking at me, not Shaeta, and the two of them had a kind of pleased but surprised look on their faces.

After we'd finished eating, Shaeta had me up and on a tour of introductions, to women. Her best friend, Katia, was first. Katia had black hair, blue eyes, and her titties were every bit as big as Shaeta's, in fact the two of them were pretty much the same size in all directions.

Shaeta's mother, Shata, was next and then I met Caloe. Caloe was Shata's sister and I had already met her mate, Shaton, the Zakat. Caloe also just happened to be Kaita's mother. These little revelations let me know that I had married into the upper class around here. That was comforting in a way but daunting too. No doubt I would be expected to become an upstanding citizen. I hoped I could bear up under the pressure.

After about an hour of walking around and meeting only women I started wondering about it. Almost like clockwork it came to me that men were a lot more persnickety about their names and who knew them. I would only get the name of a man from him. Happening to hear someone else speak another's name might let me know it, but it just wasn't the same as being told by the name's owner.

It was reassuring in a way, because Caltort had given me his name right off the bat. Of course everyone had heard my name when I told Shaton before we fought, but it was almost as if that really didn't count. I could tell that these customs were going to take some getting used to.

It shouldn't have been a big surprise for me since it went on to some extent for anyone that got married, even on earth. It was even more of a change when you married a person from a different country or lifestyle than the one you were accustomed to. It was just a fact of life.

Here I was on a completely different planet and marrying into a different culture in more ways than anyone from earth ever could have. At least I assumed this, since I'd never heard of anyone on earth marrying a woman from a different planet. Of course it was possible that someone had but then again, I wouldn't have known about it anyway.

Shit, I was rambling to myself. The bottom line was that I needed to pay close attention to my new mated life. I was in for even more changes now and it would behoove me to try keeping on top of them.

Women's names were different from men's though, or learning them was done via a different process. My mate was taking me around and introducing me to the other women, and also introducing them to me. More light shined for me as I realized that every woman and girl too, for that matter, was going to know my name right away while many, if not most, of the men weren't going to know it and I wasn't going to know theirs.