Switched: Brides of the Kindred 17 (9 page)

“
Wow,” Frankie muttered, staring at the screen. “That is the
weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like someone filmed a bad acid
trip.”

Xirnah sniffed. “Actually that was a
very
important vid-piece by Jeir Meisner. But I wouldn’t
expect
you
to understand. The
subtleties of it fly right past the Kindred mind.”

Frankie frowned. There it was again—the use of the word
Kindred
in a derogatory way. What
did this woman have against the Kindred, anyway? Frankie herself
didn’t really dislike them. Even though she had no wish to be
married to one, she didn’t think they were horrible people—just a
little scary. But Xirnah seemed almost to hate them—which was weird
considering she was supposed to be Kerov’s ideal woman.

“
I’m sure it’s very interesting,” she said, trying to swallow
her urge to tell the other woman off. “Why don’t you explain it to
me?”

“
I
don’t really have time right now.” Xirnah glanced at her little
watch ring again impatiently. “I’ve already spent more time and
effort on this encounter than it warrants. If I could just find
some good erotic entertainment…Ah—here we are.”

Frankie looked at
the screen again and saw several men who appeared to be completely
covered in gold body paint. They looked kind of like those living
statues you see at the park or downtown sometimes except they were
completely nude.

Then a woman came into view but only the top half of her. She
was thin with large breasts and wide areolas which had been painted
red while her nipples had been painted black. The paint job made
her breasts look a little like targets to Frankie but she
supposed
some
people
might find it erotic. But there were three men and only one woman.
Was this going to be one of those gang-bang type scenes? She
certainly hoped not—aside from the fact that it was demeaning to
women, something like that really turned Frankie off. She didn’t
see how she could make Kerov’s body perform sexually if she was so
disgusted she couldn’t even get it hard in the first
place.

Then the shot panned
down to the bottom half of the woman…which was a giant spider
looking creature, complete with multiple hairy legs and a swollen
black abdomen with a long stinger dripping green venom on the
floor.

“
Eww!” Frankie exclaimed involuntarily as one of the gold
painted men came forward and began to lick the spider-woman’s
stinger. “What the
Hell?”

“
Oh, fine.” Xirnah sighed impatiently. “I’ll never understand
what you have against xeno-morph erotica but we’ll watch the kind
of thing
you
like for
a change.”

She waved again and
the scene changed to two people—just one man and one woman, Frankie
saw with relief—in bed together. Or it looked like a bed—but one
that was vaguely shaped like a cloud and floated in midair somehow.
They were lying close together, their bodies entwined, and then the
man began kissing his way down the woman’s body, taking time along
the way to lick and suck her breasts—which were thankfully not
painted like targets or anything else.

Frankie felt Kerov
stir uneasily inside and wondered what was going on with him. The
scene continued with the man sliding lower and leaving a trail of
hot, tender kisses along the panting woman’s abdomen. At last he
came to the juncture between her thighs and began kissing all
around the top of her pussy mound.

Frankie watched with interest. Was this really the kind of
thing that her host liked? Thinking back on it, she
had
heard that the Kindred liked going
down on their women but—

“
Tell her to change the program,”
Kerov said, interrupting her
thoughts.
“Truly,
this isn’t the kind of thing I, uh, am interested in.”

Frankie thought he
sounded embarrassed but there was no way she was going to ask
Xirnah to change the channel back to the weird golden painted men
with their spider-woman lover. This was the most normal thing she’d
seen on his version of TV so far and also… it was kind of hot. At
least Frankie thought it was and so did Kerov’s body—his equipment
was stiffening a bit between her legs, which was a strange
sensation but not exactly an unpleasant one.

From Xirnah’s
expression, however, it was clear the tender scene on the screen
was leaving her cold.

“
Ugh…so deviant,” she muttered, her lip curling with disgust
as the man wrapped his arms around his lover’s thighs, splitting
them wide so he could taste her pussy more fully.

“
Really?” Frankie looked at her. “You don’t like this? You
prefer the other thing with the men painted gold and getting
busy…er, having relations with the spider-lady?”

“
That, at least, has artistic value,” Xirnah said stiffly. “It
speaks to me
here.”
She
put a fist over her chest. “But this stuff…” she motioned at the
screen. “Everyone knows such acts aren’t allowed. I honestly don’t
understand why the State lets them be aired at all. Probably just
to cater to sexual deviants who cannot enjoy normal
erotica.”

“
But
this
is
what’s…” Frankie started to say “normal” but it was becoming clear
to her that normal was a very relative thing here, at least when it
came to entertainment. She cleared her throat. “This is certainly
different,” she said instead.

Xirnah glanced up at
Frankie, who was still standing there watching the screen. “Why
don’t you have a seat?” she demanded. “Let the sensu-chair work on
you so we can get this over with and I can leave.”

“
Um—okay, sure.” Frankie was prepared to be agreeable. As long
as she didn’t have to watch anymore spider-loving, she thought she
could get Kerov’s body to do what it was supposed to. And after
that, she was going straight to bed so she could hopefully wake up
in her own body. But she had to get through this first.

Walking over to the
blue sensu-chair, she positioned herself over the point just as
Xirnah had done and lowered herself down. The chair enfolded her at
once like a comforting, supportive bean bag. Mmm…it felt nice.
Frankie leaned back and watched as the man on the screen continued
to lick his partner’s pussy. She could feel the shaft between her
legs stirring even more and a strong sense of sexual need was
coming over her. Was she actually getting horny? Was she—?

And then something
grabbed her between her legs.

“
Ahh!” Frankie shot up out of the sensu-chair, trying
frantically to get away from whatever had groped her.

Xirnah gave her an
irritated look.

“
Whatever is wrong
now?”
she
demanded.

At
the same time Kerov said, “
What’s wrong with you? Why did you jump
up?”

“
It…it
grabbed
me!”
Frankie exclaimed, answering both of them at the same time. “The
chair, I mean.”

“
What?” Xirnah frowned. “What are you playing at, Kerov? Why
are you acting so strangely tonight?”

Frankie opened her
mouth to reply but Kerov was shouting inside her head.

“
Don’t say anything else about the sensu-chair! Just excuse
yourself go into the fresher so we can talk.”

Frankie didn’t know
what the fresher was or where it was located but thankfully, he
gave directions.

“
Down the hallway, second door on the right. And
hurry.”

“
Would you excuse me?” Frankie said to the now very irritated
Xirnah. “I, uh, need a minute…er, a meem to myself.”

“
Fine.” She sighed huffily. “But don’t take too long. I have
to get back to my domicile soon.”

“
Be right back,” Frankie promised and fled down the hallway.
She found the second door on the right and opened it, revealing
something that might be an alien toilet. At least, it had a bowl
with water at the bottom of it—even though the bowl appeared to be
built into a rocking chair. But Frankie was too preoccupied with
the other seating arrangements she’d left out in the living room to
worry too much about that.

“
All right,”
Kerov said, sounding like he was barely holding on to his
temper.
“What’s
wrong with you now? Why did you jump off the sensu-chair before it
could do its work?”

“
Do its
work?”
Frankie hissed, trying to keep her voice low. “Are you saying
it’s supposed to do that? Supposed to…to
grab
you between your legs? I mean, that damn chair
freaking
molested
me.”

He sighed deeply—or
made a mental noise that sounded like a sigh, anyway.

“
Of
course
it’s
supposed to do that. That is the whole point of the sensu-chair—to
get sexual partners ready to copulate.”

“
So we’re just supposed to sit there letting our respective
chairs feel us up until we’re ready to, uh, do the deed?” Frankie
still couldn’t quite believe it.

“
Yes. And if you don’t ‘do the deed’ as you put it,
soon
, I’m going to be in very deep
trouble.”

“
All right, all right,” she muttered. “I was just surprised,
that’s all. You should have warned me the chair was going to grab
me.”

To her surprise,
Kerov made a sound of assent.

“
Agreed,”
he
grudgingly admitted.
“It never occurred to me that you would not have such a thing
as a sensu-chair where you are from but it should have.”

“
Okay—well are there any other surprises I should know about
before I go back?”

“
Not unless you’re surprised by the act of intercourse,”
he said dryly.

“
No, I
have
had sex
before,” Frankie said, feeling irritated. “Just not on an alien
world and not while I was in the body of a man trying to make love
to a woman. A really skinny,
bitchy
woman.”

“
Xirnah
is
extremely
boney and her disposition is not always the best,”
Kerov said
stoically.
“But it
is not her fault she was assigned to me.”

“
All right, I’m sorry for talking bad about your girlfriend.”
Frankie sighed. “It’s just… I don’t understand her. I feel like I’m
messing this up for you but honestly, I’m doing my best. What am I
doing wrong?”

“
Stop trying to be so affectionate and effusive,”
Kerov advised.
“That only makes her
suspicious. She prefers for our encounters to go as quickly and
impersonally as possible.”

“
She does?” Frankie frowned. “And what do
you
want?”

“
What I want does not matter,”
he said shortly.
“My only function is to service her as she
prefers to be serviced.”

“
All right. So I should just go out there and be all
business.” Frankie squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Just
get it over with.” It seemed a strange way to go about having sex
but at this point, she just wanted all this to be over.

“
Exactly,”
Kerov said.
“Say as little as possible. Just do what needs to be
done.”

“
I
will.” She frowned. “I was only trying to make it nice for her, you
know. To treat her the way I would want to be treated.”

“
That is how you would prefer to be treated?”
Kerov sounded
interested.
“You
mean you want a male to talk to you before beginning carnal
activities?”

“
Of course—talk, touch, kiss… I don’t want a
wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type of encounter. I had enough of that
with Carlos.”

“
Who’s Carlos?”

“
My ex-husband.” Frankie shook her head. “He wasn’t exactly
the greatest lover in the world—although he certainly liked to
think so.”

“
So…he treated sexual relations with you in the same way
Xirnah and I do—that is, quick and perfunctory—but you didn’t like
it?”

“
Of course not! I want a man who can make it last,” Frankie
sighed with longing. “Someone who’ll care what I want—not just
about getting his rocks off.”

“
So…you’d be open to a prolonged encounter?”
Kerov sounded fascinated,
as though the very idea of a woman enjoying sex and wanting to make
it last was a novelty.
“One that lasted for longer than it takes to accomplish a
single insemination?”

“
Well, with the
right
guy I
would. I mean—”

Just then there was an angry banging on the bathroom—no,
the
fresher
—door.

“
Kerov!” Xirnah’s voice sounded strident and furious. “Are you
going to leave me out here, cooling my heels indefinitely? You have
already wasted almost an ahrn of my valuable time and your
sensu-chair is beginning to chafe me in a most delicate
area!”

“
Oh, of course—sorry!” Frankie exclaimed through the door.
Then she whispered to Kerov, “What should I do?”