Imperfect Partners(18)
“Maybe I’ll get my nipples and clit pierced, too.” Nebula never had, because body piercing was forbidden to any Earthling female marked for “neutering”. But then, using the hormone that made her feel like a woman again was forbidden, too. Delightfully, deliciously forbidden. By all the gods, she would do it. Maybe she’d even pierce her nostril. Her navel. Have a dozen jewels pierced into each ear. “I think I’ll buy a tongue ring to give to Conan. I must not let him avoid all the traditions of a mating, don’t you agree?”
* * * * *
“Tune-up is done. You good for another year or more, my friend,” Pak Song told Guy as he stood and put away the instruments he’d used to adjust Guy’s bionic eyes and ears. “Maybe I should have made your parts removable. That way you not have to visit me so often.”
“Fat lot of good it would do for me to be able to take my eyes out, because then I couldn’t see to adjust them.” Guy laughed at the cyborg maker’s teasing.
“True. Conan, you will be able to tell before cock needs replacing. Colors will fade, and it will slowly stop glowing. You come in six months from now and I check it out. Not sure Pak Lin was right when he said cock would be good for a year or more.” He shook his head then met Conan’s gaze. “Like I told you, we never made bionic cock before. By the time you need replacement, maybe I figure out how to make you some balls, too. A nd to make it all—” The cyborg maker laughed. “Not quite so colorful.” Conan glanced down toward his cock, now concealed by the robe he planned to discard as soon as they blasted off from Obsidion. “I like it the way it is. So does Nebula. A fter all, it isn’t as though the thing is so bright that it will show through my clothes.”
“No clothes are allowed on Luna Ten unless we have guests,” Shedir reminded Conan.
“We’ll see about that.” A ll Conan wanted now was to be on his way, to settle in and start building permanent shelters and service buildings on Luna Ten. A lready he had recruited a handful of workers, mostly displaced Earthlings like himself, to augment the small group of laborers that Guy and Shedir had said would be put under his command.
Of course he thought about Nebula, too. She’d felt so warm and soft this morning, cuddled up around his back, one arm resting on his lower abdomen—near the cock Pak Song couldn’t seem to forget about. “Don’t worry, I promise to take excellent care of your creations.”
“You do that. Take care of new mate, too. Excuse me, I must return to palace. Prince A rik would not allow me to examine him yesterday.
Doubt he will see me today, either, but I must not disobey his father’s order.” A s though anxious to use his skill with cybernetics on Obsidion’s newly returned crown prince, Pak Song prepared to leave for the Diamond Palace as Conan followed Guy and Shedir into Leander’s shop.
* * * * *
“You sure you don’t want a shave?” the barber asked when he handed Conan the mating gifts he had ordered.
“I’m sure. Unless there is some rule on Luna Ten…” He looked toward his friends.
Shedir shook his head. “Only the rules we imported from Earth, which thank the gods we are free to ignore if we want to. Maybe I should let my hair grow. Only thing is, I’d miss the incredible sensations when Doreen nibbles and licks my scalp. When she rolls her tongue ring over the sensitive spot here, it practically makes me come.” He reached up and ran his finger over a spot at the back of his bronze, oiled scalp.
“Just about anything can make you come, my friend. Conan, I follow most of the Federation rules about appearance, but it’s mostly out of habit. So do Brad and the rest of us on Luna Ten. Because we want to. If you want to let your hair grow, do it. Nobody will care.” Guy grinned from his spot in the barber chair where Leander was preparing to wax away the stubble from his skull.
Conan considered taking a seat in that other chair and giving in to tradition. He could shave his head as he had done daily since he was a child, until he had been too weak and broken to care about appearances. He could shave Nebula’s head as well, since doing so was part of the time-honored ritual of mating.
But he wouldn’t. He’d leave the mating braid attached to her head, loosening it once they found their bed, wrapping the silken strands around his fist. A nd he’d keep his own hair, too. A fter all, he was a eunuch and she a sterilized female. Traditions need not apply to them.
While they waited for Guy to finish with his grooming, Conan and Shedir talked. When Shedir described the very public mating ritual in the glade on Luna Ten, Conan wasn’t sure either he or Nebula would enjoy taking part in it. “What would you think if I chose to forgo the mating ritual altogether? I find the idea of saying the vows and taking Nebula in private appeals to me greatly.” Shedir smiled, but then his expression turned serious. “It surprises me that you would pass on staking your claim for everyone on Luna Ten to see.”