Trahzi’s seduction

For the rest of the afternoon, Gerald tried to get into the festivities, but he found he just became more and more disgusted as time went one. When he found out that the traditional Ubonu dance had been replaced with a shrine maiden mud-wrestling competition, he decided he'd had enough. He took a few more snapshots until the camera broke, handed it off to a flustered Ms. Stubbs, who was buying up every good luck charm she could find, then made his way over to the hotel.

He didn't like the way he was feeling. He didn't like having to apologize for his religion. It made him feel like a phony. Despite what he said to Cha'Rolette, he felt silly for having so sanctimoniously preached to everyone about Soeckism in the past. While he had always claimed to be respectful of others' beliefs, secretly he always felt that his was the best. Now, he still believed, but it didn't feel like the best any more, and that realization made him feel old.

As Gerald stood in front of the door to his hotel room, he considered the possibility of just sleeping away the rest of the trip. It seemed like such a waste. He had dreamed about coming to Chanterelle ever since he was a neophyte, and now that he was here, all he wanted to do was hide underneath a nice soft pillow. He couldn't recall ever feeling so tired before.

As he stared at the door lock, Tomar came down the hallway, laden with bags full of purchased baubles.

"Hey Dyson. You gonna change for the fireworks display?" he asked as he set down the heavy bags.

"I probably should, it'll be an opportunity for all the monks to take the D'allai straight from the source. I'm just... not quite feeling up to it."

"Uh-huh," Tomar grunted, fishing through his wallet.

"I see you bought the fertility statue," Gerald observed.

Tomar froze, then scooted the bulging bag behind himself. "It's not for me... it's for my uncle. He asked me to pick one up while I was here."

"That was very kind of you."

Tomar took out his I.D. card and ran it through the reader. His door chimed sweetly and slid open.

As Tomar gathered up all his bags, Gerald had a thought. "Hey, Tomar, do you think you could do me a favor?"

Tomar paused. He had two bags in his left hand, three in his right, one over each shoulder, one hooked over each large elephant-like ear, and the strap from another held in his mouth. "What?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"Do you think you could run my card through the reader for me?"

Tomar rolled his orange eyes. "Open your own door Dyson," then he side-stepped into his room.

Gerald took out his card from his essentials kit and ran it through the reader. There was a spark and a whiff of smoke, and then the lights on it died out.

Gerald sighed, and began to sit down to sleep in the hallway, when the door to his room chimed and opened from within. It so surprised him so that for a moment he wasn't sure what to do. Then, remembering the thought of a soft pillow, he ventured inside.

It was one of those themed rooms, meant to look like an archaeological excavation of ancient Stolleckian catacombs. Faux bones lined the earth-like walls, the skeletons looking like some sort of cross between a mammoth and a kangaroo. The bathtub was made to look like a pool on the floor of a limestone cave, filled from above by trickles of clear clean water dripping off of stalactites that hung from the cave-like ceiling.

Cadbury ran inside and began splashing around happily in the tub.

The bed was fluffy and soft, even though it was made to look like a tarp thrown on top of crates of supplies. Digging tools formed the headrest and bed stand. And lying on the bed was Trahzi, covered only with a silken bed sheet.

"Whoa!" Gerald said, turning around. "I'm so sorry, I thought this was my room."

"It is."

Gerald's eyes darted around. "Ah... I see... that... might actually be worse. May I ask why you're here?"

"We are here to engage in physical intimacy with you."

"Yikes... definitely worse."

She stood up, holding the bed sheet over her voluptuous body. "What is wrong? Our two species are physically compatible, and all the literature we have studied indicates that coupling increases feelings of love between partners. In your language, it is even called 'creating love'."

"Making love," he corrected.

"...In short, this is the quickest way for us to learn more about love."

Gerald felt his palms get sweaty. "My lessons weren't going fast enough for you, eh?"

She stepped closer, her sultry black eyes hooded. "You know we do not like to wait."

She stood behind him, just inches from his back, only a thin layer of material separating them. He could feel the warmth from her skin on the back of his neck.

He caught a glimpse of her reflection in the nightstand mirror. The bed sheet hung low behind her, revealing her toned shoulders and graceful back down to her impossibly slender waist. Her body was taught and athletic, yet it retained that irresistible feminine softness that just demanded to be touched.

Gerald grabbed his beaded necklace and prayed harder than he ever had before. "Boy you are just completely unabashed, standing there like that. Don't you have any feminine modesty?"

"No, we don't. Clothing provides no additional protection to us. We only wear our school uniform because we promised the director we would after our first day at the Academy. The reaction of the other students to our unclothed body was... unexpectedly acute."

Gerald swallowed hard. "You probably gave them all a heart attack."

"You say the strangest things."

"Yeah, I do that a lot."

She reached out and placed her hand on his back. Her natural scent was everywhere. Intoxicating, like a sweet flower. A much more elegant fragrance than he would have imagined. He felt like he was going to faint.

"We have reviewed all of the literature we could find about human love," she said, running her fingers along his back. Even through his robes, the sensation was electric. He felt goose bumps from head to toe.

"We know what kind of female you humans prefer. You prefer females that are forward, aggressive in seducing the man she has chosen to be hers."

Gerald stepped away from her touch. "Um, no, no, you've got it all wrong."

She tilted her head. "We do?"

"Yes, I don't know what kind of books you've been reading... well, I can probably guess but I don't want to know, so don't tell me. But whatever your source of information, you've got it all wrong. We humans like our women... ah, modest. Yes, very modest, demure, chaste. Someone who shows restraint and perfect self-control until after marriage."

"Chaste? Are you sure?" She lowered her head and thought deeply for a moment. "This does not coincide with our research at all. We expected you to be flattered and grateful for this opportunity, or at the very least eager. This is most perplexing."

"Oh yes, I am very sure. We like our women gentle... feminine... delicate."

She frowned. "You mean weak."

"No, not really. Femininity is very strong, just in a feminine way. It has less to do with strength of arms and more to do with strength of heart."

"Says the man who can't even pick up a rifle."

"Hey, you asked what it meant, don't ask me to defend it like I invented it or something."

She looked away, almost ashamed. "We do not like weak things. They disgust us."

"Yes, I realize that. Now, please don't be offended. This is not your fault, it is simply a cultural difference between us. I do not want you to interpret this as a rejection of you personally." Gerald was somewhat proud of himself for being able to rattle off something so P.C. in spite of how flustered he was.

Trahzi brought her hand up and rubbed her chin. "This is most troublesome. We shall have to adjust our strategy. We will return to our room and think more on this."

"Yes, you do that," he said, relieved.

"Plus, it is almost time to feed the puppy. She will be waking up soon." As Trahzi began to walk off, the bed sheet began slipping away from her.

"Ah, j-just take it with you," he shouted, grabbing the edges of the sheet just in time and wrapping them back around her. "We don't want you walking the halls like that."

"Ah yes, modesty, we almost forgot." She gathered up the bed sheet and walked out. Try as he might, Gerald could not take his eyes away from her long supple red legs poking out from beneath the silken material. The realization of what nearly just happened hit him like a truck, and his knees gave out. He collapsed to the floor as he watched Trahzi walk out into the hallway. There was a clatter and something ceramic crashing to the floor outside. The sound startled Cadbury, who released a fresh poof of feathers.

Unable to rise, Gerald crawled out to see what it was and found Tomar standing there gawking, his jaw open, his face in complete shock. He gave off a high- pitched squeak as he watched Trahzi trail the bedsheet out from Gerald's room and walk past him down the hallway. His fertility statue lay broken on the floor before him.

"Holy trogs," Tomar whispered. "This thing really works." He looked up, an idea fresh in his mind. "I've got to get another one of those!"

As Tomar ran off, Gerald rubbed his tired eyes and turned to look longingly at the soft bed. It seemed to call to him. He walked up to it and stretched out his arms, ready to belly flop into the best sleep of his life.

That is when the door chimed.