All sentient life is connected. The appendages may be different, we may eat different things, and live in different solar systems, but at the end of the day, we’re all one big family.
It’s time to explore the branches of the universal family tree, and today, we present:
The Women of Rhadswiis
– Issue 2 – Riswin’s New Objective
The women of Rhasdwiis are notorious philanderers. They have husbands that they marry and parade around on their arms for social events and to espouse the great Rhasdwiis virtue of family, but most married women have at least one paramour that their husbands accept as an extra hand for domestic affairs.
Rhasdwiis women have a bad reputation around the universe for their promiscuity and they are known for their scorecard competition; a game some play to see who can bed the most species of the universe. There is rumor of a scorecard competition for mothering children with different species, which the Rhasdwiis are capable with many of the sentient civilizations of the universe, and some species that would not be considered sapient. It is a wonder of their DNA that their eggs are compatible with many other species and can be impregnated and carried to term if the other species is interested; a Rhasdwiis woman is incapable of carrying an egg to term. A Rhasdwiis man is capable of impregnating many species of the universe, though most would never dream of intimate relations outside of their species.
Riswin was not the boastful type, and she had not had intimate relations with many men by the time she arrived in Faswad. She was not a virgin, but she was more sensitive than her mother and many of her sisters who viewed sex as a game. She enjoyed sex, she was just afraid of being forced to provide for children which would only limit her professional ambitions. She wanted to be the best on Wiis and the best in the universe, and she wanted to visit distant planets and maybe start a new life somewhere else. All of that was difficult if she got a guy pregnant by accident and had to take care of him. And they were guaranteed to have at least two, a single birth was extremely rare.
Sex was fun, but it wasn’t worth the opportunities she had opened up for herself.
But then she laid eyes on Osmium, the Earthling man, and even though she did not realign the entire trajectory of her life, the reality of the man’s existence altered that trajectory to include a co-pilot. She couldn’t explain it, but the Earthling became an obsession for her. His face and body did not conform to the standard of beauty of an attractive Rhasdwiis male; they are expected to be strong, but lean with muscles accentuating the birthing pockets on their stomachs to demonstrate an ability to carry many offspring to term at once. The Rhasdwiis have a similar look to Earthlings, they are bi-pedal with a short coating of hair, but the men have firm breasts like the pectoral muscles of a bodybuilder and perky nipples that they use for nursing. The Earthling Osmium, always wore a shirt to cover his chest, which was not the custom for Rhasdwiis men who proudly displayed their breasts and stomach pockets to attract females. And Osmium was not fat, but he had a big barrel chest like a Rhasdwiis woman, and square shoulders that made him even more solid. He had an attractive face, it was symmetrical and square at the jaw like the most attractive men of Wiis, but he had a seriousness in his eyes that made him less pretty than the average Rhasdwiis man. He was as tall as the average woman, just over six feet, and he had light skin that was almost white. The Rhasdwiis are generally shades of red from a bright pink to deep brown. Osmium was as white as the salt mines, Riswin thought when she watched him on news transmissions, and she wanted to feel the texture of his skin. She wanted to touch his stringy hair that looked as though he was growing a bushel of brown thread on his head. The Rhasdwiis have much fewer hair follicles on the tops of their heads and their strands of hair are thick like tree branches.
When she wasn’t obsessing over Osmium, Riswin went to work in the Technologies Sector of the Defense Ministry. She was fast-tracked past the entry level positions of Recruit and Senior Recruit, and she became an apprentice of a high ranking engineer who specialized in communication technology. Riswin hoped to eventually move into ballistic technology, but her work as a junker in the mountains and apprentice to her mother was excellent preparation for the work she did in communication technologies. She spent most of her days repairing the comsystems of exploratory ships and in the daily-use hovercrafts of Defense Ministry high command. She mastered the technologies in the first six months of her apprenticeship, and she became eligible to serve on an exploratory ship communication command soon after, which is unheard of for a new recruit to the Defense Ministry with just six months under her belt.
In preparation for her meeting with the exploratory ship captain, Riswin occupied a similar vessel, reviewing the controls to be sure that she knew the function of everything on the panel. She had created a scenario in her head where the ship was out on a mission to the extremely distant planet Earth, and she was relaying messages back to Wiis using the Interstellar Panel communication lines that were simple enough when you mastered the switch and transfer system that required operators in each ship to continuously push their message through the system until it arrived at the proper local exchange of the intended receiver. The communication command of a ship had to be alert to ensure that messages were properly relayed as they traveled further away from the intended receiver.
Riswin was lost in the switch and transfer system, monitoring the queue of messages waiting at various exchanges depending on the content; proximity alerts to other ships nearby, status reports to the Defense Ministry that backed up to the Interstellar Panel via the representative from Wiis on the ship of the Panel, and many others. As she charted the progress of the messages to their destinations, a smell filled the room. It was faint at first, hard to discern even in the empty room that smelled of electronics; the smell of excited electrons like heat generated from a radiator. And then she smelled something that made her audibly sigh as she concentrated on her work; she was suddenly more relaxed. The smell was spicy, like the firataj root that grew in the mountains and that Riswin liked to eat with meat. Then came the unfamiliar smell of flesh and muscles mixed with the faint scent of sweat and a foreign fabric.
Riswin had stopped working and was inhaling steadily in and out, lost in the interesting smells that were intensifying. She suddenly wanted a break. She stood and was shocked to screaming to be face to face with Osmium who suddenly looked very sad.
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Osmium said in the language of the Rhasdwiis, which he spoke fluently, though it was clear that his tongue had not fully acclimated to the unfamiliar sounds. He had his hands up, hoping to calm Riswin. “I was granted permission to tour this ship before my departure tomorrow. The technology is truly impressive. And I saw you here, lost in your work. You looked like you were in a dance, your hands flying over those controls. I just got lost watching you, I guess.”
He smiled at her and Riswin returned it, though hers was strained. She hated that the Earthling man had seen her startled.
“You should announce yourself upon entering a room,” Riswin said with annoyance. “I’d be happy to show you the comsystems if you are done sneaking around,” Riswin offered. When the man nodded eagerly, she showed him the message monitors and the various switch stations that caught messages and sifted through for those pertinent to the area.
“I have been traveling as a representative for many years now,” Osmium explained with a look of wonder on his face. “I have seen things that do not exist on my planet, and everything is a wonder. The universe is a fascinating place.”
“You are the first Earthling to leave your planet?” Riswin asked, trying to sound detached like she was just making conversation. She did not want to broadcast her fascination with the man.
“The first to travel so far. Our planet was only recently allowed into the Interstellar Panel. Earthlings were believed to be relatively primitive compared to civilizations like yours, but we are not so far off developmentally. The organization that I work for on Earth serves as the official representative body of the planet and we made contact with interstellar civilizations long ago in our history. Our planet is just very far away from many of the most advanced civilizations in the universe. You all seem to have a shared history out here, and we Earthlings are excited to be part of it.”
Riswin wanted this explorer for her own. She wanted to be known as the woman who possessed him and dictated his movements. He was so fascinating and she wanted to see all of the places he had seen.
“Well,” Riswin said, “I should take a break. Would you like to eat with me? We can talk more. You can tell me why you smell the way you do.”
Osmium laughed. “It’s the human stench I guess. I hope it’s not offensive.”
“Not at all,” Riswin said and as she moved past him to lead him off the ship, she brushed her hand along his stomach. Osmium looked down at her hand and then smiled at her as they went to the dining hall of the Technology Sector where they sat close and got to know one another better. Osmium wore a disguise to avoid being noticed and by the time they were done, Riswin was sure that she could have sex with the Earthling if she wanted. And she really did want to.
They had a good time at Riswin’s apartment learning how Earthling male physiology can excite the physiology of Rhasdwiis females. They learned together late into the twilight cycle.
Riswin fell asleep happy with Osmium next to her. She thought about their tomorrow, and the days after that, and the thoughts became her dreams.
She was alone when she awoke, Osmium had left her apartment without a trace. She rushed to the flat screen in the main room and when she turned it on, Osmium was waving goodbye to the adoring masses as he boarded a ship.
“It was his last day,” Riswin said aloud to herself. She wondered if she would ever see him again. And if not him, then some other Earthling man. She had developed a taste and would be satisfied.
PRL Serials 