Remiel's Fall From Grace - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

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Remiel’s religious upbringing on a puritanical space colony has left him wholly unprepared for Captain Ramda Uweko’s stunning herm wolf hybrid beauty. On his journey to earth, Remiel struggles with his extreme attraction to her and all the things he thought he knew about himself. Enticed by Remiel’s shy lust, Ramda gives chase. And things only get hotter and heavier from there.

Remiel's Fall From Grace - Chapter 3
by  Zmeydros
(edited by Tiliquain and Sheera Castellar)

Showering while under the spell of a powerful afterglow was like floating amongst warm clouds. The heat of the steam from the water was permeating deep into me, relaxing me in a way I couldn't really describe. Words weren't easy to grasp, not even the concept of what I had cleaned and what I had yet to clean. Had I masturbated myself into a trance?

Time passed without measure and I would've probably been in that shower forever if I hadn't heard Ramda's ship-wide announcement resonating in the shower stall. "Our first jump has been delayed until mid-morning tomorrow. A convoy from Lezveioan space is arriving behind schedule and we don't have clearance until they're through."

People called the Lezveioans space sharks because they looked a hell of a lot like sharks. Trinity Stronghold's net never ever referred to their gender, but the rumor was that they were a race of hermaphrodites. Trinies used whatever pronoun they felt fit an individual Lezveioan. The Lezveioans, not having any gender pronouns in their language of commerce, didn't seem to care. Getting info on them was tough since our government didn't want us to get too excited about alien races, especially ones that didn't behave nicely within our gender norms. 

I had no idea what all the rumors and hubbub was about because every image I'd seen of them seemed to be obviously male or female. But on Trinity Stronghold, rumors often pointed at fact manipulation of some sort. The problem was that there was another rumor about them that I didn't want to be true: that they were quick to anger and slow to forgive and had a society much stricter than ours.

Deciding I needed to get myself out of the shower before I scrubbed my skin right off, I rinsed off and then touched the wall panel to shut off the flow. It wasn't a small shower, but it was definitely made for one person and had a misting head that maximized the contact of the water droplets getting one as wet as possible with the smallest amount of water. It was a bit odd breathing in this mist and my nose was running a bit as I got out and turned on the body drier.

A couple spins later, all I needed to do was towel off my hair. As I was putting on a clean Miramana uniform, Josiah came out with his own shipwide announcement:

"The travel delay has given us an opportunity that we must seize with both hands. Tonight we'll have a Bible study before and after dinner! Come to the Biome ASAP so we can enjoy God's creations while sharing God's wisdom."

I balled up a fist. Josiah knew that company Bible studies were mandatory and he was just eating our free time like a lion that had broken into a steak buffet. And he'd said ASAP, which meant I had to get over there the moment I was dressed. With a smirk, I dressed like a drunken tortoise, seeing how far I could stretch out each motion. After a good ten minutes of trying not to laugh at myself, I had my uniform on and headed out the door.

The epic feeling from the spot-lighting of the dark grey composite in the hallways wasn't going to get old. I was on a spaceship for the first time in my life. Every step I took felt momentous.

Crossing the hallway intersection ahead of me was a half-meter-wide cube with an asymmetric arrangement of sensor clusters and multi-jointed spider-like limbs. I started following the cube-shaped robot until it opened a grate near the floor with hexagonal slots cut into it.  Then it stuck an arm that had something like a feather duster on the end underneath and gently wiped around.

When I knelt down next to it to get a closer look, the robot made a crabby bweep sound, so I backed away a bit. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when Daniel knelt down right next to it to annoy it on purpose. I'd been so preoccupied with the robot that I hadn't seen him come around the corner. 

He was laughing as the robot complained repeatedly about his invasion of its personal space.

I said, "You probably shouldn't do that. Ramda said--"

"You think I care what she says? What's this robot gonna do? Feather dust me?" Daniel's thin face sneered under a tuft of his long reddish-brown bangs.

"She's the captain of this ship," I said, my heart starting to race. "And Josiah said we should respect her."

"He also called her an abomination, so…" he trailed off letting me complete the rest of his meaning.

The robot stopped cleaning and took a step toward Daniel, making a shooing motion with the feather duster and another arm with a three-fingered hand. When he didn't move, it made an angry high-pitched beep.

The sound was awful enough that I took a step back.

Daniel tried to push the robot away from him, but it stood its ground and growled. This got Daniel to scoot backwards. "Geez! What a fucking cunt you are!"

The robot growled again and then went back to cleaning the vent.

I was staring at that little robot, wishing I could borrow some of its assertiveness, when Daniel turned away from it and kicked it into the wall with the sole of his shoe.

The robot made a high-pitched squeal of surprise that made my heart hurt as it went sailing into the wall, still holding the grate. There was a loud crash when the grate and the bot hit the composite that made up the wall.

"Bet you're not so smug now," Daniel spat at the robot and walked away.

Two of the robot's fingers and one of its legs were stuck in the grate and it was whining in frustration, unable to untangle itself.

I tried to approach it, but it growled at me. At first, I considered getting help, but then I remembered how I'd approached my friend's dog when it had gotten a piece of glass in its paw. I got low to the floor and slumped my shoulders and looked as submissive as possible. 

Then I reached out toward the bot very slowly, saying, "Come on, Cuber, let me help you."

It stopped struggling and made a curious trill.

"Wait, can you understand English?" I asked.

It made a soft beep.

"Huh, that's a pretty crude speaker you have there. I bet you're more of a maintenance unit meant to work in parts of the ship that people can't go. Guess your manufacturer wasn't planning on you having to interact with passengers or crew," I said as I gently grabbed its leg and bent it at the joint that was stuck through the grate. Then I lifted the entire bot, which weighed about ten kilos, so the leg came out of the slot easily.

It made a happy trill and waited patiently for me to spread its fingers apart a bit farther than their normal range of motion and pop its knuckles out of the grate.

With the hand I'd pulled out of the grate, it reached out like it wanted a handshake and made the curious trill again.

I gave it a handshake and it cooed before going back to work.

Looking Cuber over to make sure she was okay, I saw a deep nick on the polished black composite of the leg I'd pulled out of the grate.

Josiah was going to be pissed at Daniel when I told him about this. Sure, I could have let it slide, but in the vacuum of space, everything was stacked against human life. So someone who willingly damaged ship systems deserved no protection. I was lucky I was angry, because it was the only time I was able to do something like this. My neck was tight with how much I was clenching my jaw. All I could think about was the pained squeal Cuber had made when Daniel kicked her.

Turning away from Cuber, I made my way to the circular hallway that went around the Biome. This hallway was much like the others besides strips of light near the bottom of the walls that lit one's shoes from the side. Again, it was like I was in some sort of epic movie. No one would expect this level of cool from a ship named “The Gluttonous Pixie,” but Ramda was a tough act to follow.

The door to the biome was a rectangle with rounded corners well over two meters tall. As I approached it, there was a soft hiss as it pulled away from the wall and slid effortlessly to the side. I was surprised to find that I was five meters above the ground on a hundred-and-seventy-five-meter-long bridge that landed in what looked like a small clearing in the bamboo grove directly ahead of me. This clearing was at the top of a large central hill, so the bridge only had a slight slope to it. What was surprising about the ramp was that even though I knew it was made out of space-age materials, it looked a lot like a vine and bamboo bridge someone might cobble together in a bamboo forest.

The bamboo, which nearly touched the dome of simulated sky five meters above my head, had beautiful brownish-red stems with bright green. I'd never seen this variety of bamboo and just stared at it until a soft wind rustled the leaves. Biomes needed to simulate some wind or tall plants didn't grow strong stems and would flop over.

That hill had half the diameter of the entire biome and the bamboo forest continued outward even after the hill ended, only stopping for a running track that appeared to go around the circumference of the Biome. But it didn't run along Biome's wall. Right under me was a shorter several-meter-wide stand of bamboo that hid a service path that ran along the wall. That stand of bamboo had the classic green stems and leaves most people think of when they hear the word "bamboo."

I didn't make it ten meters down the ramp before I saw Ramda running on the track below me. Biting my lip, I watched her six breasts and bulge bounce suggestively. Just before she passed under the bridge, she looked up at me and winked. My knees got weak and I took a couple deep breaths to calm down. I'd already masturbated thinking about her and I would be fine if I just focused on something, anything else.

When I got to the clearing, the bamboo sign post pointed at the three paths that hooked under the three bridges. To my right was a path to the amphitheater and Biome galley, to my left was a path that went to the "Orchid Trail," and the one behind me led to the "Fern Trail."

I took the one toward the amphitheater and galley, thinking about what I was going to say to Josiah after the Bible study. I followed the marked path, ignoring the various other little paths that branched off of it and following the arrows while I tried to further hone what I was going to say to Josiah. The path exited the bamboo forest next to a three-meter-high cliff cut into the hill. I'd thought the hill was a hemisphere, but it clearly wasn't with how this cliff was placed. I completely forgot about Josiah, everything. That cliff was encrusted by red, orange, and yellow orchids. Some with twisted petals, some that looked like birds landing, some that looked a bit like genitals.

Just as my sense of wonder was at its highest and I was padding toward the beauty on display, the echo of Josiah's voice brought me back to reality.  I turned around to see him standing on a  bamboo-wood platform with a Bible in his hand and the backs of over fifty Miramanna employees as they sat on the curved step seating of the amphitheater.

Behind Josiah was the front of the outdoor galley, which looked like a rustic cafe and was built into a three-meter-high hill. Between Josiah and the cafe was an eating area with bamboo wood tables and chairs. Balls of grassy leaves  that had magenta flowers sticking out of them on all sides hung from cute little light posts making for a lovely dining area.

As I took a seat, the curly-haired woman next to me immediately shared her Bible. I was not thrilled because this meant that I had to pretend to read it instead of just pretend to listen.

Josiah held up an authoritative finger as he closed his Bible. "The thing about temptation is that it always comes to us when we're weak. If we remain strong with the Lord and talk to him every day, it inoculates us against the wiles of hedonism."

He narrowed his eyes at me for a moment, during a pregnant pause he'd added for dramatic effect. I was the last one to arrive and I hoped that was the only reason he was looking at me. Was it possible he already knew about me and Ramda? Like, did he think she was tempting me? I clenched my jaw thinking about what Josiah would do if he knew what I'd been up to before I made it here. I refused to meet his eyes and pretended I was reading the Bible the woman next to me had offered.

He continued, "You're going to need that on Earth, for it is the belly of hedonism itself. It is the place we fled so we could live a more pious life. But now God has called back to our original home to test our devotion. Our friends, family, and our countrymen are all counting on us to stay on the path chosen for us so that when we return--"

After covertly rolling my eyes at the idea that we'd ever want to go back, I caught sight of Ramda on the track, her six magnificent orbs dancing on her chest as she ran. My eyes followed her as she traveled over the hill the cafe was built into. I wasn't the only one watching, I saw seventy percent of my fellow employees turning their heads in unison to follow her progress.

Noticing this, Josiah glanced behind himself only to stare as well. After shaking himself out of the trance caused by her undulating lewd flesh, he yelled, "Temptation is all around us! Even here on this ship. You must not be swayed by its charm. You must not give in to its exotic allure. Remember, a snake that speaks honeyed words is still a snake. And we do not lay with animals, for that is an abomination."

For a moment, I thought he was talking directly to me and looked at the Bible as if I'd been doing that the whole time. But then I noticed everyone else doing the same and let go of some of the tension in my chest. Only a little, because he'd just called Ramda an animal and I was wishing I had the guts to call him out on his contradictory treatment of her.

She had passed out of my vision, but the afterimage of all her parts bouncing under that tight clothing was stuck in my head. I just sat there staring at the Bible in front of me as blood rushed to my crotch. I unclenched my jaw and took a deep breath before forcing myself to focus on that Bible. I'd hoped to never read another Bible passage for the rest of my life, but between that and sporting a raging boner at Bible study, it was no contest.

Reading the Bible worked like a charm. I wasn't feeling sexy, or like I wanted to spend another second as a Miramanna employee.

As everyone got up to leave the Bible study, I walked straight toward Josiah. 

"Oh good, I was hoping to have a word with you," he said, smiling too wide.

I blinked as my stomach lurched. I was supposed to be the one pulling him aside, not the other way around.

"Have you been struggling with anger issues lately?" he asked.

"No," I said, feeling even more sick. I didn't like where this was going at all.

Daniel was watching us from a seat in the front row, four meters from us and he was snickering.

My eyes widened as I realized what had happened.

Josiah sighed. "I was hoping you'd say yes to that because I can't think of any other reason you'd kick a--"

"It was Daniel!" I said, pointing, "He knew I'd come to you about it and this is him trying to cover his ass."

Daniel wasn't snickering anymore, he was charging right toward us. "Don't you think blaming others for your sins only deepens your crime?"

I glared at him, as my mind was forced to dump all the beautifully-crafted arguments I'd come up with as to why Daniel needed to be disciplined for what he'd done. Making a fist, I said, "Can you imagine what Ramda would do if she saw you kick that robot?"

"Oh, I'd be fine. I'd just pat her belly and she'd roll over like a good dog," he cackled at his own joke.

Josiah laughed with him, caught off guard by Daniel's humor.

It was as if someone had tossed me in an oven on broil. My fists were so tight that my fingernails were digging into my palms enough to hurt. "H-how can you just stand there and laugh at that?" I looked Josiah in the eye. "Daniel clearly has no respect for Ramda or this ship. And you told us to respect both!"

Having never seen me this angry, Josiah stopped laughing and furrowed his brow, before his cheeks reddened and his jaw set. "He was only kidding! Do you not understand the concept of humor? No wonder you're so hot headed. When we get back to Earth, I'm going to enroll you in anger management courses."

"Fff-reaking hell! I didn't kick the robot!" I yelled.

"Either walk away now, or I'll write you up, you understand? Go cool off and we can talk when you're not acting like a toddler."

As I turned away, I experienced so many emotions that I could hardly walk. Fear, shock, anger, depression, sadness, and a deep desire for revenge were coiled around my spine, making me feel like I'd been tossed out of a ten story window. That sick feeling in my gut gave way to tears and I dashed for the nearest path into the bamboo so I wouldn't be seen crying.

Before I could get into the safety of the bamboo thicket, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Ramda had spotted me and was on her way. Not wanting her to see me like this, I pretended I hadn't seen her and took the path into the bamboo grove. I yelped when her hand landed on my shoulder.

"So sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you," she said.

I stayed facing away, "I think I just need to be alone now."

"Are you sure? You really look like you could use a friend," she said.

"I'm fine," I said, my voice shaking with emotion.

She hugged me from behind so softly, so carefully, that I didn't flinch. "It's hard being one of the only people that thinks for themselves in a society where that's looked down upon. If you just drank the Kool Aid like the rest of them, you would have more friends, but you'd also just settle for the misery that comes with having no self expression. Out of every person I've seen from Miramanna, you're the guy with the longest hair. That takes a lot of courage. I can only guess how many people regularly tell you to get a haircut."

"Drank the Kool Aid?" I asked, feeling less like crying with her voluptuous front pressed against my back.

"Oh, right, it's one of the terms Trinity Stronghold put a ban on. It was first coined in response to a cult that thought they were all going to meet God if they committed mass suicide at when the world was supposed to end. They put poison in the Kool Aid and all drank it together. I bet you can see why Trinity Stronghold doesn't like that phrase?" She chuckled.

"It describes so much of what they do so well." I shook my head, thinking about how single-minded Josiah and Daniel were. Then I pulled myself out of Ramda's arms, saying, "We probably shouldn't be seen hugging."

"Right. Follow me," Ramda said as she walked ahead of me.

Watching her tail flit back and forth, I followed her up to the top of the hill and then down the Fern Trail.

END OF CHAPTER 3 

I’d like to acknowledge my $20 patrons, Arkona Kothe, Navajo Demar, and Warialinth for helping make all this possible. Thank you! Thanks to all my other patrons as well. Every one of you rocks!

(Ebook) (All) (Ch. 1) (Ch. 2) (------) (Ch. 4) (Ch. 5) (Ch. 6) (Ch. 7) (Ch. 8) (Ch. 9) (Ch.10) (Ch.11) (Ch.12) (Ch.13) (Ramda Dakimakura)