The humans had finally quit rubbing their hands and mouths on each other and started really fucking. The male lay down for this, and the female mounted. This was normal enough—ah, the Flesh-halls of Jota!—but she mounted backwards, facing the male’s feet, and that was a surprise. Then again, she probably did it so the male couldn’t take a bite out of her breasts while she was working. The male’s eyes were closed but he kept reaching out for the place the breasts would be if the female were turned around and his mouth was opening and closing.

Kane glanced over at Raven. She was sitting at the table but had the chair turned so that she could see the television, too. Her drying cloth was lying draped over her lap. He found himself wondering idly what breasts tasted like, if maybe they were the best part of the human or what. He’d eaten human once or twice, when there’d been no other food, but it had disturbed him. Meat was meat, but he didn’t like food that could talk at you.

The female was riding her mate faster now and making a string of high, moaning sounds. Raven made sounds a little like that when he fucked her, but not often, and not with quite the same urgency. Finally, the male threw his head back with a grimace and the female raised off him so that his true-cum shot out against her thigh. The female turned around and they rubbed mouths some more. Then they started talking and Kane lost interest.

It occurred to him that although this was not the first time he’d seen Raven completely naked, he’d never really looked at her. When he’d had her in the shower, he’d been far more interested in what she was doing than in how she looked doing it, and it was usually dark when he had her in bed with him. He turned his head now so that he could study her. He was growing more accustomed to the roundness of her, the softness. It almost looked natural to see her curves all folding together as she sat there.

Completely exposed and in full light, he could see all her different colors. The brilliant white lengths of hair around her face that made her skin seem tan; the deep, gleaming violet of the rest of her hair that made her skin seem white. The pinkness of her lips, the little circles of black and blue set in all that white in her eyes. The little brown dots in the middle of her breasts. The gold glinting in the puckered dimple of her belly. If she spread her legs, he would see pink in the folds of her pussy. There were even little smudges of purplish-yellow here and there where he’d hit her.

Kane cocked his head as he noticed a dark mark high on Raven’s right arm. It didn’t look like any of the other bruises. Its outlines were blurred, but it maintained a strange symmetry nonetheless. It looked like a scar or a burned-in brand. Kevrian miners branded their slaves and left marks somewhat like that.

Kane sat up a little straighter and snapped his fingers.

Raven was on her feet at once. She came to the bed and started to kneel, already reaching for him.

He knocked her hand aside impatiently with his knee and took her arm, turning it so that he could get a better look at the mark. It was perfectly smooth and flush with her skin, which meant that it couldn’t be a brand. Brands either stood out or were cut in. He ran the very edge of one claw carefully over it, but although he raised a red line of irritation, none of it flaked off. “What is this?” he asked, puzzled.

“It’s called a tattoo. It’s like paint, only under the skin instead of on it.”

Sounds from the tee-vee distracted him. The male human was now outside in a field with two yellow-haired females. The females were both attempting to blow him at the same time, stopping often to mouth each other or to rub their breasts against the male’s cock.

Kane watched the females compete for the right to mount the male, again strongly reminded of the Flesh-halls of Jota, although the humans in the program were considerably less frenzied. They were almost playful as they pulled each other off the male, sucking at him and then tonguing each other. Finally, the smaller of the two females apparently won, but instead of mounting him, she turned and presented him with her hocks.

Kane let go of Raven’s arm and slid in closer to the monitor, frowning. The angle of the feed changed, coming in very close to show the pink folds of the female, and the male’s cock pushing into her even though he was still behind her. The image changed again to bring all three of them into view: the male fucking the female who was now licking and sucking at the other female’s pussy as she lay on the ground and rubbed her own breasts.

He looked curiously at Raven. “Have you ever done that?”

“No.” She watched the monitor with convincing indifference.

The humans were readjusting themselves. To Kane’s utter astonishment, the male lay on his back for one female to mount and allowed the second to position herself over his face. He could see the male’s tongue thrusting up at the female as the two rubbed mouths and ground their breasts together.

Kane looked sharply at Raven. “Do that,” he commanded.

“Which part?” she asked, studying the images on the screen.

“That…that thing those females are doing to each other.”

Raven reached up and squeezed her own breasts obediently, looking at him from the corner of her eyes. After a second or two, she rubbed her palms over them, first lightly, then harder. It made the circles in the center of them stand out, but that was the only difference Kane could see. Certainly, Raven wasn’t tossing her hair or keening like the humans on the monitor.

“Turn around,” he said. “Put your hands on the floor.”

She did, presenting her hocks, and yes, he could see the pink swell of her sex beneath her cloacae. Kane touched her with one finger, rubbing along her outer folds as he watched the humans on the tee-vee maneuver into yet another outlandish mode of fucking. It had to be some sort of instructional program. After all, Raven’d had to learn that thing she did with her mouth somewhere.

Kane slipped one finger inside her and felt her clench on him. She was tense, staring fixedly straight ahead, taking deep, slow, deliberate breaths. He regarded her, amused, thinking how fun it would be to give her just a little prick with the claw he’d sunk inside her, just to see her try not to jump. Instead, he pulled back and resumed stroking her. He just couldn’t get over how smooth she was without the hair.

On the monitor, the male had finally finished and a new scene began, but Kane turned the tee-vee off. With one hand, he continued to caress Raven’s newly-shaved pussy, and with the other, he traced the faded edges of the tattoo on her arm.

“What does it mean?” he asked at last.

“It’s supposed to be a coyote. That’s a kind of animal here on Earth that lives in the desert. Mangy, ugly, noisy animals. I think it’s stupid.”

She was leaning back into his hand a little. He wondered if she knew she was doing it.

“Why did you get it, then?” he asked, nudging her thighs a little further apart.

“I didn’t want to,” she explained.

Now she was trying to lean away from him. He caught her shoulder and pulled her firmly back, thrusting one finger up inside her as punishment and discovered she was wet. A quick glance at the dark face of the tee-vee showed him a mirror of her distress, all the mask-like resignation of her earlier compliance utterly gone. He could feel himself smiling.

“You’re not answering my question,” he said, making it a warning. He pumped his hand against her, holding her steady and straight-backed in place. He made it a point to thrust hard every time she squirmed. “Why did you get it, Raven?”

“There was a guy I was working for.” Her words were breaking up, her breath quickening. She looked completely miserable. “He made me get it.”

Kane thought about that as the slick walls of Raven’s pussy began to contract and spasm, coating his hand with oil. “Why?” he asked, pumping harder.