“Melinda?” he asked aloud.
“Oh, sorry—I was trying to decide what to say,” she said apologetically. “Um—here goes.”
“Hi again!” she sent to him. “This is really weird but it’s cool too. Thank you for sharing the Kindred technology with me.”
Liosh smiled at her as she removed the Think-me.
“You’re welcome, Melinda. It’s the least I can do when you’re sharing Earth technology with me.” He nodded at her forgotten laptop.
Melinda made a face. “Oh, but after the uh, Think-me thing, the Internet looks like nothing! Oh well…” She sighed. “Where were we? Right—let’s get you an email address…”
She tapped at the keyboard in silence for a minute, giving Liosh time to think about the candid inner monologue he’d overheard. He wasn’t surprised she was shy about him seeing her naked—they had only just met, after all, and Melinda seemed like a very modest female. He was also determined to help her get a bath if she wanted one. He could keep his eyes closed and lower her into the tub if necessary.
As for her thinking that he smelled good, the explanation for that was simple. His fangs had sharpened for her, which meant he must also be exuding his Mating Scent.
When a Kindred warrior found the female his body wanted to bond with, it tailor-made a pheromone-based scent exactly formulated to lure her to him. It wasn’t done on purpose or with any intentional forethought—it just naturally happened when a Kindred found his perfect female—the one the Goddess had set aside only for him. He could no more turn it off than he could make his fangs become blunt again—it was just a fact of life.
And that’s what Melinda is for me, Liosh thought, running the golden wire of the Think-me between his hands as he watched her work. She’s the one the Goddess set aside for me—I know it.
But how could he convince the curvy little Earth girl that they were right for each other? And why was she so certain they were wrong?
Liosh didn’t know, but he intended to find out. He wished for a moment that he’d let her leave the Think-me on just a little longer…but that would have been dishonorable. No, he would just have to find out the hard way—through patience and persistence. But that was all right—he could wait.
Melinda was worth waiting for.
“So now you’re all set up to get email—you can check it on my laptop anytime you want,” Melli told the big Kindred. “Just be careful never to click on attachments—you could download a virus onto the computer. Oh, and you’d better not click any links either or you might end up on a porn site.”
Liosh frowned in apparent confusion.
“Porn?”
“Oh—short for pornography,” Melli explained, feeling her cheeks get hot. “You know—naked pictures and vids of people, uh, having sex?”
“Your people allow themselves to be recorded doing such intimate things with their mates?” Liosh looked surprised.
“Well, it’s not usually with their mates, I don’t think,” Melli confessed. “A lot of times it’s professional actors and actresses and sometimes it’s just people doing it for fun. You mean the Kindred don’t have any kind of porn?”
“The Blood Kindred certainly don’t.” Liosh shook his head. “Well, not visual pornography anyway,” he amended. “Though we do have what we call ‘scent books’.”
“Scent books?” Melli asked, confused. “What’s that?”
“Well…” He shifted on the couch uncomfortably. “It’s a collection of the scents of unmated females when they are aroused.”
“Really?” Melli was both embarrassed and fascinated by this idea. “I knew that the Kindred had really sensitive noses but I never dreamed they would rather smell a girl than see her.”
“Don’t get me wrong, my Lady—we like the sight of a beautiful woman as much as the next male,” Liosh said. “But it’s disrespectful to take pictures of a female undressed and then ogle them later—it objectifies women and strips away their dignity—it makes them into nothing but subjects of lust. A warrior and his female might occasionally take pictures themselves for their own private usage but you won’t find pictures of random nude females for sale in any Kindred culture.”
“Hmm, that’s a really interesting take on porn,” Melli admitted. She kind of wished more human men felt that way. Though some porn could be nice if it was kind and consensual and the people in it seemed to be really enjoying themselves and each other’s bodies, there was an awful lot of it that wasn’t nice where the women looked like they were being coerced or even hurt.
The thought made her shudder. But she still had some questions.
“Okay, so you don’t watch visual porn, but you do have these, uh, ‘scent books?’” she said, making sure she got it right. When Liosh nodded, she asked, “But how do you collect these scents?”
“Well…” he shifted uncomfortably again. “I believe the, uh, females who agree to contribute to such a book wear a sex-shield—a thin strip of fabric pressed tightly between…” He cleared his throat. “Between their legs for a certain period of time.”
“Oh, like panties?” Melli’s face felt hot but this was a fascinating subject and she wanted to learn more.
“Panties?” He frowned.
“Oh, um, little thin underwear that women wear here on Earth,” Melli told him, thinking how glad she was that she’d picked up the several pair she’d left strewn around the floor before he saw her dorm room. Just think—if smells were what turned Kindred on so much, it would have been like leaving a bunch of porno magazines lying around for him to find! Thank goodness all her panties were safely tucked away in the hamper.
Liosh’s eyes widened.
“You mean Earth females wear sex-shields all the time?”
“Well, I mean, not for the purpose of collecting sex smells,” Melli said hastily. “Although I have heard of some people selling stuff like that on the Internet. I, uh, suppose that some Earth guys like scents too—just not as much as Kindred, apparently. So these, uh, sex-shield
