Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 14

Jenna and Hazel stood beside Megan and got her to raise her arms. They used large wet sponges to wash the clay from Megan's face and shoulders, around her firm breasts, in her armpits and down her ribs. Their cleaning was slow and almost sensuous.

Meanwhile, Preeda knelt behind Megan and asked her to spread her legs. Whether it was intended to be sensuous or not, Megan found herself responding to the intimate attention. She shut her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of soft sponges caressing her back, her tits, her sensitive buttocks and her thighs.

"You said women are soft but you're not soft!" Preeda said as she cleaned one of Megan's strong pert buttocks.

Her firm tits stood out proudly and the muscles of her stomach gave delicious shape to her thin waist, drawing a sexy line down her belly. Her athletic legs were beautifully shaped with hard muscle. She had well-rounded calves, elegant ankles and surprisingly dainty feet. She was a strong and lithe gymnast, beautiful and desirable, to both women and men.

"I am soft in a few places," Megan said, with a lusty smile.

"Not that we can feel," Hazel said with a giggle, her sponge gliding across Megan's taut stomach and lightly brushing the underside of her delectable tits.

Hazel and Jenna rinsed their sponges once more and wiped the last of the clay from Megan's curved back and ribs.

Now there was just Preeda, kneeling before her, the sponge gently working between her legs and up toward her pussy. Then she stopped. Preeda brushed the wet sponge softly down over Megan's luxuriant bush, not quite touching her most sensitive place. Megan was getting turned on despite herself.

Preeda wiped around her thighs again and Megan shifted position, spreading her legs a little further apart. Preeda shuffled an inch closer. Megan could feel the girl's hot breath on her belly, a soft small hand on her hip, the damp sponge poised tantalisingly before its target.

She held her breath as Preeda finally applied the sponge to her pussy.

And splash!

Hazel and Jenna had tipped their buckets over Megan's head, soaking both the girls.

Preeda shrieked and Megan shouted "What the f...!" but the other girls just laughed and ran away to refill their buckets.

This naturally led to a sponge fight, in which Megan and Preeda took on Jenna and Hazel. Megan's side won, of course, by dint of the Herder woman's accuracy and strong throwing-arm.

By the end, when the girls were thoroughly soaked from fighting and exhausted from laughing, they towelled each other down. This was just as intimate but not as sensuous. Then they walked, arms around each other's waists, back to the Junior dormitory and lay on their beds, giggling.

Soon it was time to get dressed to serve dinner to the councillors and their guests. It was a question what Megan should wear. She was closer in height and shape to Jenna: Hazel was taller and Preeda more petite. Jenna wore a blue polka-dot skirt and a white shirt. She had spares of different colours but Megan was more interested in the traditional sampot Preeda kept for special occasions. It was a long red and gold silk rectangle that wrapped a few times around the waist, then draped over the shoulder and tied off. With judicious folds, Preeda wrapped Megan up in the beautiful cloth, leaving tasty glimpses of cleavage and sexy calves.

Megan then indulged herself for ten minutes in front of one of the Cloner luxuries all the other tribes envied: the full-length mirror.

"It's beautiful, Preeda. Thank you."

"We're not finish with you yet," Hazel said. "Sit here."

Megan sat and the girls attended to her hair and makeup. Jenna braided Megan's hair into three large plaits and hung them over her bare right shoulder. Hazel and Preeda got their makeup kits and went to work on Megan's face, applying a purple eye-shadow, kohl black on her eye-lashes, a tiny smear of colour to highlight her strong cheekbones and a subtle pink on her lips.

She looked gorgeous and spent another ten minutes pouting in front of the looking-glass, until the other girls were dressed. They went down together to the kitchen to assist the cooks, who had brought pots of food from the Fair to heat them up.

5Dinner with the Councillors

In the council chamber, the discussion proceeded amicably. They agreed a formal rule that the women of the Cloner, Farmer and Miner tribes (who now live with the Farmers) were off-limits to Ezra, so that his offspring would have unrelated people to mate with. This meant that Gloria was off-limits as well, which Ezra clearly regretted. Gloria's own reaction was unreadable; but Mirselene and Madam Lawspeaker strongly approved the rule.

Ezra thought he understood Mirselene's motivation: leaving the outer tribes with a monopoly on normally-conceived children might balance the power of the Cloners. He didn't think there needed to be such a balancing power but he'd agreed to follow the three chiefs in their decisions. For the life of him, however, he couldn't fathom why Madam Lawspeaker was in favour of the rule. It was a puzzle he'd leave for later.

"May I ask a favour?" Ezra said. "One of my bedmates is Kalyndra Fernesdaughter Mariner. She's tried to conceive a clone and we have tried many times together in the ordinary way to get her pregnant but without success. ... If I can supply new nanotech material, will you try as often as Kalyndra wants to give her a child?"

"Of course we will," Madam Gloria said. "When there's no limit to nanotech, there's no reason to be stingy."

"Have you thought, Ezra, that it might be Kalyndra herself who has the problem, not you, nor the nanotech?" Madam Medic asked softly.

"It's a puzzle why it should be so," Calliope ventured. "How come Ferne conceived a clone when her identical daughter fails to conceive either by cloning or by normal sex?"

"But they're not identical," Madam Medic explained. "Ferne and Kalyndra have the same genes, so they look precisely similar, but if they grew up in different environments, then their physiology will be different. I don't suppose Kalyndra was malnourished as a child but she might suffer the lack of a particular vitamin essential to conception. ... In fact," Madam Medic carried on, musing to herself, "I wonder if that's what happens with the cosmic radiation ... ." She trailed off into silence.

That gave Ezra something more to think about and the table fell silent for a few minutes.

Their thoughts were interrupted by Hazel announcing dinner was ready. It was a welcome interruption. Everyone was hungry, Ezra especially. The Juniors were invited to prepare the table and bring in the food.

The books were removed, plates and cutlery brought in, glasses filled with water or fruit-juice as desired and, at last, hot food brought in on plates. It was only now that the fourth Junior was noticed.

Megan had been busy in the kitchen, plating up the dinners. Now she was carrying them in on trays; and, being well balanced and quick, she did a good job. Solange was the first to comment.

"Is that you, Megan Herder?" Solange demanded. "What are you doing?"

"Making myself useful," she replied, with a very bad, possibly ironic, curtsey.

"What do you think you look like, girl?"

"Beautiful and sexy, like all the Juniors, Madam. What do you say, Ezra?"

"Very fetching, Megan."

"Thank you, Sir," she said, dropping him a much finer curtsey than she'd given her chief.

"You call him Ezra?" Preeda asked, impressed by her boldness.

"Well, 'Ezra Goldrick of the Three Tribes' is such a mouthful."

"So you told us," Hazel muttered.

Megan giggled and most of the women smiled, though Madam Lawspeaker frowned - because of the giggling, not because she understood the joke.

"Megan!" Solange reprimanded. "Herders don't giggle!"

"Sorry, Madam," she said with another bad curtsey. "By the way," she whispered, close to Solange's ear, "what do you think 'fetching' means?"

"It's Earth-speak for he wants to fuck you," Solange whispered back.

"I thought so," Megan said happily.

When dinner was over, the table was cleared, a fresh pitcher of water brought and the books returned. The Juniors were sent away. Megan was disappointed but had to go with them. She took off her precious dress and handed it back to Preeda. She washed the make-up off her face in a subdued mood. She had seen how Ezra and Gloria looked at each other and her jealousy of Gloria was confirmed. Then she felt disappointed in herself for being jealous, though she knew exactly why she felt like this.

The Juniors had to stay awake for their final duties of the day: putting the councillors to bed. They sat on their beds chatting, distracting Megan from her thoughts.

***

Over dinner, as the chiefs and councillors continued their discussion, something interested Ezra.

"Gloria, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course, though I don't promise to answer."

"You said Madam Lawspeaker is your aunt but I believe the rule is that a woman has only one chance to make a clone."

"That's true, but some Cloner families have a different arrangement."

"A different arrangement?" He sounded suspicious.

"It began with my great-grandmother," Gloria explained, with an understanding smile. "She was one of the Founders, a woman in her twenties. Back then, before we knew we might run out of cloning serum, we wanted as many clones as possible, to sustain the population. By the time she'd had her second daughter, however, cloning had to be rationed; so great-granny established our family tradition."

"The older daughter would devote her life to politics and give up her chance for children. The younger daughter would take the older daughter's cloning rights and thus have two chances for children. Luckily, my grandmother and mother were both successful; and I have two wonderful nieces."

"From what I know of the women of Samothea," Ezra said, "how much they crave children, you and Madam Lawspeaker have made a great sacrifice - and taken a big risk."

"It is a risk but there are compensations. I had something that most women on Samothea have lacked for a half-century or more."

"Which is?"

"A sister."

Ezra paused. He considered himself lucky to have a sister himself.

"Madam Gloria, I hope I can find the right raw material to recharge the cloning kits, so that every woman on Samothea can have as many children as she wants."

She smiled in understanding.

"And failing that, I hope you'll consider the traditional method," he said.

Not everyone was pleased by that offer. Madam Lawspeaker began to puff herself up and prepared to speak.

"Yes, Aunt," said Gloria: "you have an objection?"

"We've just agreed that women of the Cloner tribe are off-limits to Ezra Goldrick!" she said.

"We have, assuming we can increase the supply of cloning nanotech, yes," Gloria agreed.

"Also assuming Ezra Goldrick can father boys," Madam Medic reminded them. "Otherwise, he's our only hope and every woman should be available to him."

"Though we will be neglecting the law," Madam Lawspeaker persisted, "and showing contempt for the wisdom of the Founders?"

"Explain yourself, Madam," Gloria demanded, beginning to be impatient with her fussy aunt.

"The Founders were strict on sexual morality and graced us with clear laws."

"What sexual morality is infringed were I to take Ezra as a bedmate? How would our laws be broken?"

"You'd be consorting with a known adulterer."

There was stunned silence.

"It is good, then, that we haven't consorted - yet," Gloria said in a lighter tone; but Ezra wasn't amused.

"I am not an adulterer!" he protested. "I've never even been married!"

"By our laws, you are married to Annela Freyasdaughter Woodlander," Madam Lawspeaker rejoined.

"How can I be? There was no ceremony. I gave her no ring. We made no vows."

"None of these was necessary. ... Was Annela married when you and she became bedmates?"

"Of course not."

"And you have just admitted you were unmarried. By our laws, therefore, you are married to Annela and any subsequent bedmate you take is an adulterous union."

"Madam," Ezra said turning to Mirselene. "You never told me this."

"It's an obsolete custom," she said. "I assumed the law was in abeyance without men and conventional marriage."

"That is not so, Mirselene," Madam Lawspeaker replied. "The law survives in our constitution. The sexual union of an unmarried woman and an unmarried man is equivalent to a marriage ceremony."

"But Ezra cannot marry all his bedmates!" Mirselene exclaimed. "Polygamy is also forbidden!"

"So it is. It's worse than adultery."

"Please explain?" Ezra said: "I'm sure adultery ceased to be a crime on Earth many centuries ago, at least in my country. How come it is a crime here?"

"The Founders made strong laws to prevent sexual infidelity and jealousy. It's a measure to preserve a peaceable and harmonious society. ... After the men died off, there was no need for the law, of course, but the law stands none the less."

"But what consequence does it have," Ezra asked, "except that it allows you to condemn me and my bedmates?"

"It means that Freya Annelasdaughter is legitimate and all your other children are bastards."

"Careful whom you insult, Dolores," Solange said, with a warning snarl in her voice.

Madam Lawspeaker looked pointedly at Solange's belly and said:

"Congratulations, Solange. I wish you a healthy delivery; but it changes nothing."

Solange was not mollified, though the Lawspeaker had sounded genuine and not sarcastic.

"So what if my other children are illegitimate," Ezra protested again. "What difference does it make? Won't they inherit from their mothers?"

"They will inherit from their mothers but only Annela and Freya will inherit from you."

"That's all right. I've nothing to leave anyone."

"Nothing of what you may gain in the future can go to any of your illegitimate offspring."

"Is that all: just laws of inheritance?"

"That is all the law cares about. The stigma of bastardy is conferred by the law but maintained only by society."

Madam Lawspeaker spoke calmly, without rancour, but her words stung Ezra.

"Then I suggest you change the damn law," he said, coldly, "because none of my children are going to have a stigma if I can help it."

"That's for the citizens of Samothea to decide, Mister Ezra Goldrick," Madam Lawspeaker said firmly, "and I think you will find the Cloners and Farmers have the majority."

"My dear aunt," Gloria said in a gentle voice, "no woman is forced to be Ezra Goldrick's bedmate and, clearly, the fear of adultery and illegitimacy does not weigh much on the consciences of those who so far have enjoyed his affections."

"Do you propose that we should just sanction law-breaking?"

"No. I mean to change the law."

"We cannot change the law simply because you have taken a fancy to the Earthman."

"We can if we can get a two-thirds majority," Gloria replied smiling.

Madam Lawspeaker was not amused.

"You will not survive a moral challenge, Niece."

"Perhaps not, Aunt; but I know someone who would get a near-unanimous victory if he stood for Prefect of Samothea."

'Prefect' was a political position that had not existed since the days of the Founders, before the system of separate tribes properly took off. The suggestion was met with silence all around, though the stony look on Ezra's face was a clear signal to those who didn't already know him that he had no desire for social status.

"However, this is not something to argue about now," Gloria relented. "It seems that Ezra lacks political ambition and, besides, we are a conservative lot on Samothea, so my aunt may be right about what changes to the constitution will pass."

Then she added in an even more conciliatory tone:

"I have no wish for political controversy - and even less desire for family conflict - so I thank my aunt for her legal advice and wisdom. We have no urgency for a decision on our constitution until we know whether Ezra Goldrick can father boys. What do you say, Madam Medic?"

Madam Medic had thought about this.

"Ezra, how many of your bedmates are pregnant?" she asked.

"I believe there are at least a dozen, though not all of them have told me."

"A dozen is a big enough sample. I would say we should know within a year. If all his bedmates have girls, then it will be a good guess that Ezra cannot sire boys on Samothea."

"I suggest we revisit this question in a year's time," Gloria concluded.

The Lawspeaker was not completely mollified but she was wise enough to accept a small victory. Some others at the table were more mystified than angered by the exchange. Solange was one whose temper vanished as quickly as it arrived. However, Ezra brooded. He was happy to learn that Solange was pregnant but unhappy to have got into a fight with the Lawspeaker. He tried to find some common ground with her.

"Madam Lawspeaker," he said. "Were you in office when Eloise pleaded for Yael (that is, Tamar) to be returned to her?"

"I was," she said warily, not knowing in what direction his question ventured.

"She spoke highly of the Lawspeaker at the time, who took her side in the case and was over-ruled by the Cloner Chief."

This pleased the Lawspeaker.

"I was new to the role," she explained, "and the old chief was secure and powerful. The law was on the side of Eloise and therefore so was I; but it taught me the limitations of the Lawspeaker's power and the need for balanced political authority."

"Just so," he agreed. "You'll be pleased to know that Eloise and Yael are reunited, that Yael discovered her mother in the White Mountains."

"Yes, I know this. I visited Eloise as soon as I heard she was in the camp. We are old friends."

She spoke matter-of-factly, not unkindly, apparently warming to Ezra, as he clearly wanted to reconcile with her.

There was silence once more at the table, which Gloria broke after a while to say to the three chiefs:

"It's getting late, Ladies: you should go soon, to be back in your tents before the night rain. Thank you for your company and for bringing Ezra to visit us."

Mirselene stood up to reply for the chiefs, saying:

"It's been a day of amazing revelations, Gloria. I'm happy to admit I've misjudged the Cloners. This," she put her plump hand on the Medical Textbook, "... this means a lot to us. Thank you."

Madam Gloria stood and bowed. All the women rose and the chiefs prepared to leave.

"I expect you and Megan will leave early tomorrow morning, Ezra," Solange said.

"Yes, I want to be back with the salvage party as quickly as possible, to start to revive Yumi. I guess the process will take a day or two. Calliope, would you leave the Cloner fair to come and help Thalassa?"

"She cannot leave the Cloner Fair," Madam Lawspeaker answered on Calliope's behalf. "She has to face a hearing."

"What hearing?"

"An accusation of mutiny and usurpation has been made against acting-Chief Calliope by Chief Belena. It is to be heard during the council of all the chiefs."

Ezra swallowed his instant protest. He'd just learned not to question the Lawspeaker until he knew all the facts; yet he had to speak.

"I was party to the events that unseated Belena;" he said, "and so were Kalyndra, Devon, Cressi and Thalassa, none of whom are here. On Earth, we don't have trials without witnesses."

"Nor do we, Ezra Goldrick, but this is not a trail, it's a hearing to see if there's a case to be brought to trial. For this, we need only the testimonies of Belena and Calliope."

Ezra realised he'd again been guilty of judging the folk-ways of Samothea by his own Earth customs. He made a judicious apology.

"Please forgive me, Madam Lawspeaker? I do not mean to question your system of justice."

She smiled at him, mollified at last.