10.
 As he grew up at court, Jory found that the dark, shadowy babas went out of their way to tame his fear. They were larger than the males and human-like females. They wore obscuring gowns over their round, bloated bodies. They moved cumbersomely like boats, on their swollen and aching feet. More than once, child Jory had nightmares in which babas with many arms chased him, like insects, though in reality each only had two very human-like pudgy arms with small hands. Their skin was dark, like a beetle's carapace, but soft as Jory's own. Their features were not as crisp and clear, or to Jory's eyes human-like, as the other Shurians'. Over the kjirs, he got used to them. They did him favors, though babas rarely spoke, and communicated in glances and signs; or had their female sisters communicate for them, which was more often.
As he grew up, Jory developed a bond with his mistress, Lady Ramy. She as tall as he, with fine milky skin. Her skin was so full of microscopic healthy young capillaries that in places, in a certain light, parts of her had a faint bluish tinge. Her hair was a full ball of tawny fuzz, always fluffed out.
Her tongue was deep blue, and twice as long as Jory's. As children, they had giggled and pulled each other's tongues. No matter how he tried, he could not stick his out as far as she could hers. Later they learned that sticking the tongue out was a raw sexual invitation among Shurians, and they never played that game again. Not until recently.
Ramy's face was well-shaped and as pretty as any human girl's, though by Shurian standards she was considered average. Shurians had a higher regard for a female whose face was slitty like an insect's.
Nobody, not even Ramy and Jory, ever suspected what would develop between the two. Like a kitten and a puppy, they romped and played innocently, laughing and wearing themselves out so they slept soundly after Story. For kjirs, until Jory began his own natural changes, the two slept together in the same bed in the women's quarters, under the watchful eyes of Ramy's father's old baba. Ramy's own baba slept in the mothers' quarters, though Ramy often went there to sleep with her. Then Jory slept alone. He wouldn't go near the babas' place, which was in a separate round tower of the castle, and had few windows. It had a coppery glow inside, and smelled somehow faintly of honey and ammonia.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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