Chapter 12

After watching how Dolores and Mary grew closer after an edgy sexual exploration, Terry thought about his relationships. He and Dolores were on solid ground, but he needed to refine things with Catherine, Mary and Kim. He felt worst about Catherine, because he had never forgotten misreading her, and perhaps missing wonderful opportunities, when they dated. He just wanted to be sure that he and Mary had evolved to a comfortable place. Once, she had wanted to marry him, but he had married someone else. He thought, though, that their "friends with benefits" relationship had found an appropriate level. Still, he wanted to make sure.

When he was totally honest with himself, he admitted that Kim's incredible beauty intimidated him a bit. There was a difference between being a striking woman that stood out in almost any crowd, and a cover girl -- or centerfold -- who needed no airbrushing. He wanted to give more thought to what he really wanted with her, besides her brilliant engineering. With Catherine, though, he had a better sense of his attraction, although it was hard to explain. Spiritual? Romantic? He was intensely attracted to both Catherine and Dolores, but it was different. With Dolores, he could do and say anything, and he expected bawdy laughter.

Terry showered and changed into a black silk shirt and black jeans. While they made him a little self-conscious, he also slipped on black boots, and ran a studded belt through the loops of his pants. He felt silly dressing that way, but thought it was needed. He picked up a bag, and strolled to her office, opening the door without the knock customary among the family.

She was focused on her workstation, looking back and forth at a pile of documents on the desk. Catherine wore her usual preppie outfit. He did notice that her long skirt was unbuttoned to mid-thigh, and he could see a long, slim, perfectly curved leg through the slit.

"Catherine. Look at yourself." She did, and looked up at him in some puzzlement. After all, she was neat and attractive. If she stood, she knew that he would see her skirt flowing across her slim but shapely hips. "You're being a wallflower again, and you're hiding your striking looks." He made his voice harsh. "Do you think that pleases me? After all, I've shared what I like. What do you need to do, girl?"

For a moment, she looked stunned, and even hurt. As he had hoped, she then replayed his words in her head. He never would have used "girl" in conversation; she realized he was in role. "Sir, forgive me. If you give me a few minutes, I shall correct the situation so that I please you. Would you like me to come get you when I am presentable?"

"No. You will correct yourself here. Remove your skirt." Quickly, she unbuttoned it, letting it drop to the floor. "A garter belt with classical stockings? Interesting, I must say. I'm not sure about panties covering it, but at least they are transparent. But penny loafers? Really now. It's not that you don't have beautiful legs with or without sexy shoes, but without them, it's not clear to all that you're exhibiting your legs. You realize how many women would sell their souls for legs and hips like that? One of the really nice thing about you and your co-wives is that you all have great legs and hips, but in a surprisingly wide range. You and Mary, though, rarely show them off. That must change."

"Yes, Sir. I shall get something suitably extreme from the replicator, once you give me permission. If you permit, I will remove my blouse, and then put on an appropriately revealing dress."

"Perhaps. Are you wearing a bra?"

"No, Sir, I am not. I do not need one."

"Correct. Your makeup is light, and you need little. Nevertheless, don't you think a properly pleasing look includes eyeliner and shadow, not just a dash of mascara? Perhaps some lip liner and gloss? Without criticizing your sisters, you may have the most compelling eyes of them all; I never can say if they are green or gold. Help them, but don't overpower them.

"You also have wonderful hair. Unless you are in the shop or lab, and need protection for it, there is no reason to pin it up as you are doing. Oh, you could pile it high in some dramatic way, but that's not what you are doing, is it?"

"No, Sir. I shall remove my blouse and panties, and see if I please you a bit more, nude but for stockings and garter belt." She did so. "Would it help make amends if I fondle myself a bit, proud to show off?"

"Yes, that's an excellent idea, before you get proper shoes. Pinch and pull your nipples so that they look even more like ripe strawberries. Do not be gentle." She breathed faster. Her nipples lengthened.

"Go and prepare yourself, and then go into your bedroom. For a change, no stockings. You will not need to walk far at all, and, after all, you have heel enhancements. I expect you to be in shoes with at least six-inch stilettos, and no platforms. Your dress should make fucking you high on any agenda."

She took a mere ten minutes. He wondered where she had gotten the design for the dress, which was of a stretch fabric, low cut and then with a laced slit to her navel. The hem came further than I might have suspected; she didn't make the skirt micro-length. I realized that with her very long legs, making it "merely" thigh high encouraged a watcher to want to lift the skirt. Candy is often tastier when it's wrapped.

When she started to say something, he wrapped an arm around her, crushing her mouth to his. She softened and met his probing tongue with hers, moaning slightly. His hands cupped her hard but shapely buttocks, and, when he squeezed, her moans intensified. Terry picked her up and took her to an armchair, binding her wrists to the arms with fleece-lined cuffs, and then with a belt around her waist and the chair back. Any questions he ever had about her love of being bound disappeared.

Terry stood back and ostentatiously stared at her legs. She licked her lips and smiled an invitation. While she could not stroke her legs with her bound hands, she could and did cross them and recross them, letting her skirt rise to her hips. As much as she could, she slithered her hips on the seat, and whispered throatily, "I am so wet for you, Sir. Please take me."

Teasing her, he slowly undressed. Her eyes sharpened on his hard cock, and opened her mouth for him -- but he simply rubbed his cockhead against her face. She tried and failed to reach it with her tongue, and whimpered.

Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a small leg spreader bar. Kneeling, he lifted her feet high, clipped the cuffs to her ankles and lowered them to his shoulders. Slowly, he sat on the floor, her feet now behind him. Again going into the bag, he withdrew a long, soft brush, and began to tickle her clit. She rolled her hips from side to side, the whimpers approaching a scream. "Please ... please ... do me!"

"In my sweet time, girl. Now, it pleases me to watch you squirm." He bent forward, blowing hot breath on her clit, while sliding a hand underneath and beginning to finger her anus. She was moving convulsively now, so it was difficult to keep his hand in place. Looking at her face, she was drifting into another world, but briefly to look at him in what, he hoped, was pleased wonder.

Terry ducked out from under her legs, untied her hands and the belt and picked her up. He deposited her, on her back, at the end of the bed. She still wore the wrist cuffs, and he clipped those to the head of the bed. Ducking back, he put her ankles on his shoulders again. Terry now ran his fingers across her slit, which was almost gushing. He scooped up her nectar, and rubbed it into her ass, which was already wet with dripping.

Lifting her hips slightly, he thrust directly into her ass, rubbing her clit with one hand. Catherine was ecstatic, demanding he take her hard. He did so, listening to cries of ecstasy that he had always wanted to hear from her. Suddenly, her voice rose higher and louder, with all the skin he could see flushing with orgasm. He kept pumping, and watched her relax her frenzy, and now reveling in pleasure. Terry usually could delay his orgasm when he concentrated on doing so, and this was one of those times.

He watched her climax again and again, until she genuinely seemed exhausted, although happy. Quickly unclipping the spreader bar and wrist chains, although leaving the cuffs in place, he stretched onto the bed, arms around Catherine. Terry pulled her on top of him, feeling her long legs against his, her plump nipples poking his chest, but, above all, he looked into her eyes.

When Terry first met Catherine, she was wearing old, soft and very tight jeans. His initial impression, confirmed as he got to know her better, is that she really didn't realize how they revealed the long curves of her hips and legs. Her face was lovely, but her expression was shy, even innocent. As she began to speak, he formed a mental image of an intellectual but retiring lioness.

Feline analogies intensified, however, when they first had a sit-down dinner, and he was able to see her eyes clearly. They were mostly green, but seemed to shift to a gold tone at times, very much like a captivating cat. She wore little makeup, but her strawberry blonde hair normally was a near-perfect background. The hair of her eyelashes and eyebrows was a little lighter and did not ideally contrast, but simple eye makeup -- she was not adept with it -- made an enormous difference.

Makeup or not, Terry could become lost in those eyes. They inspired him to do something he had not done since high school: write love poems, of erratic quality. Looking back, he probably failed not just to recognize her submissive desires, but, although he was older than Catherine, may have seemed rather like an infatuated adolescence.

Now, however, he had reflected, and knew that he wanted a mixture of physical and spiritual from her. For him, she was ideal for Tantric-inspired sexual meditation. Oh, there were times where he wanted things hard and fast, but he really wanted to enter her, hold a long-duration erection, feel the length of her body against his, and let their tongues dance as their eyes penetrated one another.

"My love," Terry said, "I've left the cuffs on you so you can feel symbolically bound. Would you be happier with more, or are my arms around you enough?"

"Hmmm? Yes, I'm fine. I know you are controlling me and it feels good."

"Wonderful! You feel I'm still hard. I want to slide into your pussy and just hold the position, maybe rocking some. I want us to feel the spirit flowing between us, yoni and lingam. I want to keep alternating between looking into your eyes and deep kissing. The feel of your long legs against mine is absolutely wonderful, and I'm going to shift mine every so often to better feel you.

"We can take as long as we like. I want to be rubbing your clit with my cockhead. I want you to rub yourself on my thigh, as my cock feels your leg. Periodically, I will cum. We can sleep in one another's arms -- maybe I'll reduce the gravity.

Terry had realized what he hoped were good things in a polyamory. With Catherine, the experience of good sex, for him, was mystic. In comparison, it was play with Dolores. "Catherine, do you know how the shamanic tradition speaks of nonordinary reality, or the shamanic state of consciousness? You guide me when I'm there. I am in an alternate reality when I am linked to you. I will take you with me."

And so they spent many hours. Terry finally felt as if he got through to Catherine and earned her trust. His challenge, however, was to give her what she needed. That included being dominated, the dominance being reinforced by at least symbolic bondage, and possibly pain. He hoped the pain also was more symbolic, as that was the most difficult thing for him to do.

Perhaps, through the intimacy of their recent experience, he might be able to have a level of communication that let him give her what she craved, without feeling that he was damaging her. If he was truly lucky, that would feed back to even more intimacy between them. Smiling to himself, he was confident that she would be changing to the provocative look he wanted, although it would still have her unique style. If he could give her confidence that changing her look was voluntary submission, it could be good for both of them.

Electronics questions drifted into his head, and he banished them. That reality would come later.

Relaxing in his office the next day, Terry was hailed by Ishmael, his AI.

<<Colonel, by managing to break through emotional assumptions both of yours and a concubine, you also met some AI-defined leadership and insight triggers. I propose to be spending more time talking to you, sometimes privately, to gain better insight into human thinking. While I won't make guarantees, I will say that your requests for exceptions to the AI rules will be considered seriously, and with flexibility.

"You do, however, have a possible problem. Are you aware that when you've been talking about people you want as concubines, you rather consistently refer to eight women and one man? Officially, your CAP score would only allow eight in total, but you are close to 10 and the AIs have considered an exception. My arguments for you also included your concerns about your parenting score.>>

"Yes. How can I have high parenting scores if I'm scared of kids?"

<<Parenting scores are more complex than they appear. In your case, you do not have a high potential for direct child care, but you do have an extremely high potential for nurturing a clan, or other group of humans. You will need to rely on people who enjoy children, and, of your candidates, Bob and Siobhan rate very high in that. >>

<<We are also aware that at least some of your concubines are apt to reach Sponsor CAP, so we are allowing a supernumerary, both for parenting resources and as a spare for a concubine who raises his or her score."

Terry slapped his forehead, aware that his mental slip could have had serious consequeces.

Mary, accompanied by Dolores and Terry, met with her psychiatrist colleague Rona Fiore. Rona and Mary had long worked together the psychiatric aspects of trauma. Rona also consulted to the Confederacy CAP score improvement team and Georgetown, and was well aware of the Confederacy mission and ideas for recruiting. While in her university office, she wore the symbolic uniform of a white coat over tailored clothing, although she often removed the white coat when it seemed that would make patients less likely to talk to her. Rona was a striking woman, tall, with pale skin, shoulder-length black hair and unusually bright red lipstick. Since she had had medtubes available to her, she obviously was comfortable with her own body, not having altered her somewhat heavy hips and thighs. Her face and hair tended to distract from any body concern. Some said she reminded them of Brooke Shields.

Terry explained that the team saw a number of reasons for increasing not just medical participation in general, but in particular, behavioral health and science. In particular, "I have found the AIs assume anyone with an emotional disorder, or who has had problems with addiction, is damaged goods that they don't want in the Confederacy.

"I don't agree with that. Certainly, in intelligence, the strain of the job can produce breakdowns. Some of the best specialists might well spend time on the edge of insanity. If we rule out people that are otherwise talented, we will lose a lot.

"I'm immediately thinking of one friend who can be extremely creative, but, if she gets off her medication, is a paranoid schizophrenic. Certainly, in the closed community of space or a colony, with AI monitoring, she won't be off it long.

"Another category that we'd like to use is military personnel with stress-related disorders."

Mary asked Terry, "I gather you'd like Rona to put together a household that also helps with the challenges you mention? Perhaps suggest some sponsor-level people?

"Actually, we have. Dolores," said Rona, "a couple of people immediately come to mind. How about a pediatrician rather than a pediatric nurse? But your immediate concern, it would seem, is psychiatric. My husband, John Faulkner, is a pediatric psychiatrist. His preliminary CAP score was 6.4. I'm an 8.4, so he's my first concubine.

"Terry, I know you want to get people both for research-level things in personality analysis, which can help you decide about candidates, and also behavioral health clinicians that can treat some of the more difficult but promising selectees.

"You know I already have a team, which does include pediatric mental health practitioners. While kids are resilient, don't underestimate that they are going to be confused by the new family and sexual conventions. Personally, I'd suggest also getting some people from some definitely non-Catholic institutions to give other views. I'm not religious, I've worked with the Jesuits long enough that I picked up some of their ideas. In fact, I wouldn't rule out a couple of porn actresses that also have medical credentials. As far as religious guilt, though, I get it all the time in my practice, to say nothing about my heritage as Italian Jewish.

"You'll find some health people that don't fit neatly into any single category. For example, I know a mid-level neurosurgeon, Alan Santini, that can't stand the department chair, just got divorced from a crazy woman, and probably would love to emigrate. Did you know that after a general surgeon and an anesthesiologist, a neurosurgeon is the next mandatory specialty to have in a mid-level trauma center? Now, I don't know this for a fact, but my impression is that nanites are good, but not necessarily fast. In trauma medicine, there are things we call damage control surgery, which need to be done right now, if the patient is to be saved. The nanites could clean up, but I just don't know if they are fast enough for the first steps.