How to Trick a Reluctant Woman Into an Alien’s Bed

I admit, the following excerpt is very strange. That’s because, from time to time, I tried to inject some humor into the Beta-Earth Chronicles. For example, I think characters pulling playful tricks on each other can be very funny.

Here’s one example of female guile from The Blood of Balnakin. To set things up, one storyline is the shaping of the Balnakin Kalma Salk into a full member of Tribe Renbourn. At first, absolutely no one wants this to happen. The mistrust between the Renbourns and all Balnakins is very deep. However, being a devout believer in the goddess Olos, Kalma accepts the divine prophecy that her physical bonding with Malcolm Renbourn will be part of the needed reconciliation between her country and the long hated Renbourns. (That story is told in The Blind Alien.)

This bonding will require Kalma to face one of her deepest fears, of committing what she has been taught is the sin of all sins, of a Balnakin brown lying with a light-skin. On top of that, she has no special attraction for Malcolm. She assumes the goddess will move something to spark passion and desire between them that will override the near terror in her heart.

For his part, Malcolm isn’t interested in what the goddess Olos wants and is deeply resentful of her pulling strings in his life. He likes his family the way it is and has no wish to shake things up. He finds Kalma abrasive and obnoxious and has good reasons for this. She is abrasive and obnoxious. He’ll accept the inevitable if he has to, but he won’t lift a finger to get things going.

So what to do? Three of the Renbourn wives concoct an imaginative conspiracy. Doret, Elsbeth, and Alnenia spend three days doing interesting things to Kalma’s food and drink. Beyond immersing Kalma in erotic poetry and chattering about their favorite physical pleasures, they’re essentially getting her secretly stoned to set up what they can do with the power of suggestion.

What does this accomplish? Here’s what happens in Kalma’s words:

the morn of the fourth day of this foolishness, I had had enough. I burst into Alnenia's office. I demanded, "Sister, what is all this strange curiosity with my food and drinks and eyes and unusual gifts?" "Why, what mean you?" Alnenia replied, innocently looking up at me from behind her desk. "Mean you Elsbeth's interest in making sure your meals are pleasing?"
"Play no more games with me!" I exclaimed, "There is more here than culinary foolishness! What goes on here?" Alnenia looked at me intent, staring into my eyes.
"Yes," she said, as if being a Helprim preparing a diagnosis. "You are getting rather impatient. Ah, feel you any unusual discomforts?" "I have an itch," I began, and then stopped. I turned and closed her door. I sat in her chair and stared back at her. "I am leaving not this chair," I announced, "until you give me explanation full!"
Alnenia turned her cran to one side and looked thoughtful. "It's the fourth day," she said to herself. "It is finally seeming to work." Her face told that she had come to a decision. "Yes, it is the time for truth." She sat back and smiled. "Know you anything about the Ming-ti plant?" "No, I know not," I told her cold. "What is the Ming-ti plant?"
She picked up a skol-stick and tapped it nervously on her desk. "It really should be Doret or Elsbeth to explain it. What I know, they told me. The Ming-ti plant is a heaf
that grows not natural on the Old Continent. It's one Doret ordered seeds for from Menzia. It's a powerful, ah, ah, well, when its leaves are dried and cooked into foods as spices or ground into powder and put into nectars, it, ah, ah," she smiled broad, "considerably enflames our natural drive to be speared. It creates a strong need, very strong, in women for a man-stalk bonding. In your case, the results should be very,
very interesting."
"Interesting!" I thundered. "You've poisoned me and call that interesting! What mean you?" Alnenia looked hurt and shook her head. "Poisoned? Oh no, there is nothing toxic in Ming-ti. The only possible trouble you could have is, well, if you were unable to act on the stimulus inside you. But," her smile returned, "your acting on it is the point. It is long past time for Malcolm to part your legs with full thrusts in between."
I stood and paced before her desk. Questions filled me, and the first was obvious. "Have you others taken this Ming-ti?" "No," Alnenia admitted. "We knew nothing of it until Doret spoke of it after our visit to the Mother-Icealt. None of us, ah, have ever needed the stimulus. We thought of experimenting with it, naturally. For Doret, she'd probably only need a very small amount. Then again, all Malcolm has to do is reach his hand up her tunic, play with her nipples, and irresistible shockwaves, well, you know. Or soon will."
She laughed. "Joline is about your body weight although not as strongly built or muscled." She laughed again. "But, then again, you'd only have to show Joline the plant, tell her of its purpose, and its effect would be complete on sight."
I stared at her. "So, how much of this Ming-ti is in my blood?" Her eyes lit up. "That's what is extraordinary! Very, very extraordinary! Again, Doret can better answer your questions. Normally, I understand, one meal only is sufficient. You've —." She paused and looked at me in wonder." You should, by now, be unable to do anything else but think of being speared. I'm tempted to alert Yil and tell him to clear all males out of —."
"You'll do no such thing!" I exclaimed with full power, pulling her door open. "I am sufficiently disciplined and self-controlled to fight this poison! I will go find Doret and find a cure for this mean trick!"
I stormed up the stairs and burst into Doret's sparsely furnished room. As usual, I found her sitting cross-legged on her mat, meditating, a skol-book by her side. "So, little sister," I demanded, "tell me of this Ming-ti and how to cleanse it from me!"
Doret opened her eyes and looked at me. She studied me. "Finally," she said, "I can believe not it took so long. Well, sit while you can. I'll explain." I sat on her mat while Doret stood and walked over to her desk. She returned with a stack of books, each with many markers poking from the tops. She sat by me, opened the first on the stack, and offered me the book. I looked at the skols and saw the words "Ming-ti." I read the description, history, and reputed uses of the plant and looked at a picture of the tall, leafy weed. "Oh ha," I said, "This says the famed belief that the Ming-ti leaves have powers of excitement have been proved not."
"So it says," Doret agreed, "as do most books written for readers without special knowledge." She handed me another open book, this one yellowed with age with old and faded print. This one had a drawing of the plant along with recipes for its use. "I'd share these others," Doret said, indicating the rest of her stack, "but I'd have to read them aloud to you. They are in the lost and secret languages known only to Icealts of the Old Dome."
She opened a box, and pulled out a set of strange skols and symbols. "From the Mother Icealt herself, I have details unknown outside of priestly circles. For what some say is unproven is merely a matter of knowing how to work the magic proper." She looked at me kind. "I'm wonder struck you can sit there with focused eyes. Have you any idea how much power flows in you? Can you feel your body sweat?"
"How do I rid myself of this?" I asked, looking at my hands and arms. Indeed, I was sweating. My itch was near throbbing.
Doret smiled and shook her cran. "There is one release, and one release only. I confess fear for Husband watching you sit there. The more you resist, the stronger your drive will be."
"Enough!" I cried, "I would see these plants!"
Doret nodded and stood. "Let’s go see Elsbeth's private garden." She picked up her EV-com and coded for Elsbeth. "Sister, May we meet in your rooms? Kalma would like to meet your Ming-ti works."
We walked down the hall and waited for Elsbeth by her door. She appeared smiling. "Oh yes," she beamed. "I see it." As she opened her door and led us to her porch-garden, I asked almost pleadingly, "Sister, gentlest of all, how could you do this to me?" She looked up at me with a hurt expression. "Kalma, Kalma, understand you not? We're only helping your body overcome the fears in your womb. We have taken your fear of touch and turned it upside down. Your fear must have been very strong," she said as we walked into her enclosed porch. "Your desire will be as your fear. Which might break Malcolm's bones."
She led us to one corner where a tray of plants sat in Sojoa-light. The tray looked as if it had once been full of plants. Now, only three bushes remained with many three-pronged leaves soaking in the light. Next to the tray was a three-part stand. Two poles stood upright, one pole stretched between them. From that pole, three plants hung downward, their leaves drying and falling to waiting plates below. "The richness of the Ming-ti juice," Doret said proud, "is enhanced when Sojoa dried, for obvious reasons. The more Sojoa light, the more we women need Sojoa milk." She pointed to a skull-bowl where dried leaves floated in a liquid. "Now there is the solution I can reveal not, the secret that science has uncovered not. It is what converts mere itching into a need of the womb. Kalma, your forehead is wet. I think not you should stand here and delay much longer."
For some pointless reason, I exclaimed, "I will defeat you and your trickery and pay you back in kind!" I stormed out of Elsbeth's rooms. I rushed to my quarters and thought to lock myself in my room. I knew this was foolishness. I went to my mirror and examined my face. Yes, my eyes were red, my skin damp, my body quivering. My breasts had hardened. I laid on my bed and groaned. I clenched my teeth. I dug nails into my palms. I slapped my belly.
I know not how long I writhed and saw images in my mind of Joline's verse and her toes reaching high to limbs of blue leaves and Malcolm's fingers awakening the music in his wives and green plants drying in Sojoa-light and suddenly my body moved without my mind and I nearly ran down the hallway to Husban's room. He was there, he was there, my soul cried, working peaceful at his V-Skiler. He heard me come in but recognized not who I was. "Yes," he said kind, knowing it must be a tribe member to enter his third-floor sanctuary.

Doret: Close to eve-plate time, I heard a soft knock at my door and I called permission for admittance. Kalma walked in looking agitated. I studied her but could read not the confusion on her face. She was biting her lips and unable to focus her yellow eyes. "Little one," she finally stuttered, "Your magic worked well. Very well. Extremely well. Amazingly well. Astoundingly well." She smiled with a faraway look.
She looked unsteady on her legs, like she'd topple any moment. Then her eyes cleared and she looked concerned. "Ah, Doret, you need to see Malcolm and try a different
kind of magic for him or help him to the Int-Clin or whatever should be done. Doret, I'm afraid, ah, I'm afraid I surprised him. He says his back will move not. He groans when he tries to move." As my jaw dropped, and I rose to help Malcolm, Kalma's dreamy look returned. "The rest of those plants," she breathed soft and firm, "are mine."

The Beta-Earth Chronicles (so far)

The Blind Alien (still on sale for 99 cents!)
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Alien-Be...

The Blood of Balnakin (Book 2)
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Balnakin...

When War Returns (book 3)
https://www.amazon.com/When-War-Retur...

A Throne for an Alien (book 4)
https://www.amazon.com/Throne-Alien-B...

Coming This Fall!

The Third Earth—The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book 5
http://bmfiction.com/science-fiction/...