Look for Adella

Seeing Althesire approach, Stewart intensified his visual scan of the room, hoping to locate his sister to resume her translation duties. He finally located her at a table, speaking with two women who were human in appearance, except for the prehensile tail each of them sported.

Catching Adella's eye, he motions for her to join him, and she immediately excuses herself from her companions and comes to his side. In his haste to locate her, it momentarily slipped his mind that she is topless and dressed only in a purple loincloth. Seeing her walk toward him, with her breasts jiggling with each step, makes it difficult to maintain his regal bearing. Once he realizes that he is gawking at her, he forces his eyes away and turns toward Althesire. He reaches Stewart at the same time as Adella.

"Your Majesty," he says, "I trust you enjoyed copulating with my mate. The sweet aroma of her passion juices clings to you!"

Stewart looks sharply at Adella, fearing the implications of Althesire's words. "Did he just say that Tonia is his mate?"

Adella nods. "He did, but that doesn't necessarily mean --"

Her words are cut off when Althesire takes Tonia by the hands and pulls her toward him for a passionate kiss. His hand clasps one of her breasts while he squeezes her ass with the other.

“Did the king bring you to orgasm with his manly love tool?” asks Althesire.

Tonia’s purr is loud, and her pleasure at being so lovingly touched is evident by the way she rubs her body against the foxlike man. “I surfed the waves of orgasmic climax twice at his skillful mastery of my body. His penis is long and of finest quality — worthy of ballads and stories!”

As flattered as Stewart is to hear his sexual prowess described in such glowing terms, he is alarmed at the realization that he just finished bopping his host’s mate. As the Althesire and Tonia focus their attention on another passionate kiss, Stewart turns with concern to Adella.

“Twice?” she asks, with arms crossed over her naked breasts, looking at him with an expression of disbelief. “I left you alone for how long?”

“Never mind that! What are we supposed to do? I had no idea they were married or that she was spoken for!”

“She didn’t say anything about it?”

Stewart tries to remember. “I don’t think so. I mean, who can tell, with the way they talk? It all sounds like cheap pornographic dialogue from the plays Duncan and I used to sneak off to see. She said something about a dwarf getting it on with a unicorn and busting a nut on a mermaid or some other damn thing. I don’t know! She basically just threw herself on me when I was just wearing a towel, and one thing quickly led to another.”

Adella looks perplexed. “Unicorn? Mermaid? I probably would have had to be there. Anyway, Althesire doesn’t seem overly concerned, and from what I can tell about these people, they don’t view sex the way we do. Well, they don’t view it the way I do, anyway. It’s actually a lot closer to the way you and Duncan view it. I suspect Althesire is actually flattered that you found his wife attractive enough to — well, you know.”

He looks at the pair, who seem to be on the verge of deciding to end their kiss or take it to the next level. In all his education about the king’s role in diplomacy, he must have missed the day they talked about what to do when the other party in negotiations started making out right in front of you.

Stewart suddenly remembers something and whispers to Adella, “By the way.... Can a — whatever species Tonia is — do you think she could ever successfully breed with a human?”

“Wow! You must really like her, if you are thinking about raising a family! Or are you thinking of starting your own little collection of tiger-women at the palace?”

Stewart glares at his sister, and she says, “Don’t worry. I actually read something about that in the book from our room. These animal/human hybrid women are only fertile one or two days a month; basically they have to be ‘in heat’ in order to conceive.”

“Well, that’s encouraging,” says Stewart, relaxing somewhat.

Althesire and Tonia break off their kiss, and have a whispered conversation between themselves.

Adella says to Stewart, “Besides, since sex is such an everyday aspect of their lives, the females always announce whether they are fertile in advance to any potential lover.”

“That is a relief,” says Stewart, gathering his thoughts and preparing to resume his talk with Althesire.

“Yes,” concludes Adella, “so unless she said anything to you about ‘lifting her tail for you,’ you can relax; otherwise the heir to the throne might have orange and black stripes!”

Adella laughs at her little joke and fails to notice how pale her brother has just turned.