Lina felt a twinge from down below as she watched this taking place before her eyes. She settled herself onto the bed, straddling An Ming’s thigh and holding her other leg high in the air. The cloud of pheromones in the tiny room was thick, as Lina began scooting closer and closer to An Ming’s bucking hips. She shuddered as they connected. Lina looked into Arabel’s eyes—eyes that were nearly rolled back into her skull, and reached her hand behind Arabel’s neck. The inside of her forearm unintentionally brushed Arabel’s scent gland, and Lina hear a whimper as Arabel shuddered.
Looking down, Lina could see An Ming’s face, sticky with Arabel’s moisture, her tongue dancing over Arabel’s glistening folds. Lina shuddered. Her sex was pressed up against An Ming’s, and An Ming was not in a gentle mood. She had her hands on Lina’s hips and was pulling fiercely, forcing them together. The friction was maddening. Lina pulled Arabel’s head closer, and buried her tongue in Arabel’s mouth. It was an exquisite battle of friction from above and below, that combined with the tree flower Lina was certain was part of the tea, caused Lina to shiver and scent almost constantly.
Seemingly satisfied now that Lina was keeping up her end of the bargain, An Ming moved her hands onto Arabel’s hips, pressing her harder against her mouth. It was a move that said, ‘don’t worry, you won’t break me,’ and Arabel soon took full advantage. Arabel’s body was flushed and quivering, her hips bucking in an odd rhythm. She began to wail, scenting mating pheromone enough that Lina almost choked.
This drove Lina harder, picking up the pace of her rubbing against An Ming, not caring about anything but mating her as hard as she could. Arabel was the first to go over, crying out with short, sharp shrieks as she bathed An Ming in an explosion of moisture. An Ming moaned and bucked, clawing at Arabel’s hips.
That, together with the sight of Arabel’s sticky juices flowing over An Ming’s chin, caused Lina to shudder and then go rigid for a moment. This happened at almost the exact same moment that An Ming cried out, in a scream of ecstasy, muffled by the fact that she directed it right into Arabel’s sex. Arabel shuddered again, and all three concluded their climax together.
The women collapsed into an exhausted heap of heaving bodies, arms and legs still intertwined. Nothing was said for a long while until Arabel piped up. “Promise me you’ll find a reason to come and visit,” Arabel said, grinning. “Inter-colony diplomacy or something like that.”
“I’m sure I can find a reason.” An Ming offered a sticky kiss to both Lina and Arabel, before getting up to wash her face.
“I love you, baby,” Lina said.
“And I love you, My Queen,” Arabel replied.
Epilogue
With several successful harvest seasons behind them, Lina and Arabel found themselves once again seated together in formal business with An Ming. This time it was as visiting dignitaries, as Arabel was invited to officiate the marriage of I and Yasmin on the Island of the Drones.
As the ceremony was concluded, and the first note of the pipes sounded, a small knot of bright-eyed children came running over asking to see the artwork adorning the priestess’s back that they had heard so much about. Arabel shed her robe and lay prone on the soft grass while they gather around. Lina pointed to the image of the Great Tree covering the small of Arabel’s back, and starting in Mother Africa, began to weave the story of their people.
Afterword: The World of Lina and Arabel
Congratulations! You made it to the conclusion of the story. That, or you’re peeking ahead to see how it ends. For shame! Either way, you’re invested enough in the story to see how it turns out. And maybe, just maybe, you’re curious to learn more about Lina and Arabel’s world—the islands, the cloud skimmers, the scenting…the abyss—where did it all come from?
A large part of the idea for the story came from a transphobic social media rant and a beautifully constructed rebuttal. Yeah, social media, the echo chamber of our generation. I’ve read that no one ever convinces anyone of anything with a social media post, that it only serves to harden one’s preexisting beliefs, but these two sure tried.
The transphobic rant was the usual. There are only two sexes, male and female, it’s what nature intended, etc. etc. The rebuttal was brilliant. Purported to be written by a biologist (but who really knows social media) it went to great lengths to point out ways that nature is definitely not a world as rigidly divided as the original poster would have you believe.
The parts that stuck with me were the examples given of bee colonies and shoals of fish.
Bees reproduce in a process called haplodiploidy. Say that three times fast! You may recall Lina with her smaller stature being mistaken for a haploid until her true status was revealed. (And if you’re one of those people skipping ahead to the end, I will not be revealing that here. Sorry.) Haploids have half the genetic material as diploids and are smaller in size.
Lina’s colony also has a queen, because that’s how bees operate. Only the queen lays eggs. There are a handful of haploid drones whose only purpose in life is to mate with the queen and fertilize the eggs, but they are in the minority. The rest of the colony is made up of non-egg laying females, like Lina and Arabel and all the other diploids.
Did you notice
