Jes­sica’s cos­tume was a white and gold ver­sion of Michaela’s. Her chest­nut hair, as straight as Michaela’s was curly, was caught back in a gold tiara. They were nearly the same height, but Jes­sica’s wil­low-thin frame was less rounded than the younger eigh­teen-year-old Michaela’s.

  Michaela stared at her, an ex­pres­sion of chal­lenge at odds with her cheru­bic face. In her head, Jes­sica heard her friend’s voice, the coach­ing she’d in­stilled with ev­ery prac­tice:

  “Half of the dance is in the at­ti­tude. In this story, we are wives of the sul­tan, sis­ters but still en­e­mies. We both know the sul­tan’s fa­vorite wife rules the harem. She re­ceives the most pre­cious jew­els and the finest silks. She re­ceives the plea­sure of the sul­tan’s bed. She is adored, set on high, wor­shipped al­most as if she is the sul­tan her­self. If a wife is not the fa­vorite, she is only a slave for breed­ing. A slave is noth­ing to the sul­tan be­yond the ori­fice be­tween her legs. She is a sack of meat, of no more im­por­tance than a grain of sand.”

  “Danc­ing is a tool to cap­ture the sul­tan’s no­tice,” Michaela con­tin­ued, her hips sway­ing to the softly play­ing mu­sic. “You use it to show him the grace and en­ergy of your body. You show him how pleas­ing it will be to bed you; in­deed you are fuck­ing him with­out the ben­e­fit of con­tact. Even though you do not touch him while you dance, you must make him feel how it will be when you are writhing be­neath him in plea­sure as he plunges his aching cock in­side you. This is the prize you and I bat­tle for, and there is no mercy be­tween us.”

  Jes­sica had only been amused be­fore by Michaela’s recita­tion. Both of them were vir­gins, never hav­ing known car­nal plea­sures. Their knowl­edge came chiefly from see­ing the open dis­plays of the un­in­hib­ited Plasians. It seemed laugh­able that ei­ther Earther could sim­u­late real sex. But now, look­ing into the black depths of the other dancer’s eyes, of the sen­sual fe­roc­ity of her stance, Jes­sica felt her own sex­ual in­stincts come to life … and a need to out­per­form her ri­val.

  Af­ter all, they were danc­ing to at­tract mates that would take them from em­bat­tled Pla­sius and put them out of Earth’s reach for good. As des­per­ate as the nearly ex­tinct Kalquo­ri­ans were for women who could bear their chil­dren, it was still im­por­tant to at­tract the best clan one could.

  Jes­sica felt her lips twist her elfin fea­tures into a cold smile of chal­lenge. The com­pe­ti­tion to be the fa­vorite was on.

  The tempo of the mu­sic al­tered, and the dancers turned away from each other to face op­po­site sides of the au­di­ence. Though she couldn’t see Michaela be­hind her, Jes­sica knew they per­formed the same steps in per­fect syn­chro­niza­tion. Michaela had been re­lent­less dur­ing prac­tice. Grate­ful now for all the ex­haust­ing hours that pro­vided her with the con­fi­dence to per­form, Jes­sica un­du­lated her way closer to the crowd.

  The in­ti­mate room had been dec­o­rated by the dancers to put Hol­ly­wood set de­sign­ers to shame. The heavy drapes were vel­vet-like, turn­ing the room into a fan­tasy in­te­rior of a desert sul­tan’s tent. Ori­en­tal-style rugs cov­ered the floor. The room was filled three rows deep with guests who re­clined on large jewel-toned cush­ions. Nearly naked Plasian girls, glit­ter­ing with gems, served the au­di­ence drinks and hors d’eourves.

  Jes­sica rec­og­nized many of the wil­lowy bronze-skinned Plasians. They were of the elite class, ad­vi­sors to Saucin Is­rala. Is­rala her­self sat front and cen­ter with four Earther males sur­round­ing her. The Plasian leader was al­ready nude, her per­fectly pro­por­tioned body be­tray­ing none of her ad­vanced years. None of her com­pan­ions was over the age of twenty. Is­rala’s de­light in young, vir­ginal men was leg­endary.

  A quar­ter of the au­di­ence con­sisted of Kalquo­rian men. Im­mense and mus­cu­lar, not one was un­der six-and-a-half feet tall. In spite of the size dif­fer­ence, their re­sem­blance to Earther men was un­canny. The­o­ries abounded that the res­i­dents of Earth and Kalquor must have a com­mon an­ces­try; the like­nesses were too nu­mer­ous to be co­in­ci­dence.

  Jes­sica hid her shock be­hind the invit­ing smile she’d per­fected in front of her mir­ror. How had so many Kalquo­ri­ans got­ten through the block­ade, she won­dered? There had to be at least a dozen, which meant four clans were in at­ten­dance.

  Even as she shim­mied closer to the first clus­ter of alien males, the sharp aroma of cin­na­mon tick­ling her nose, Jes­sica’s lower body soft­ened and warmed. Mois­ture crept from the lower re­gion of her body as sev­eral pairs of blue-pur­ple eyes raked over her fair-skinned flesh.

  The Kalquo­ri­ans were made of chis­eled mus­cle, their bulging anatomies ac­cen­tu­ated by black form­suits. Ev­ery Kalquo­rian Jes­sica had ever seen had black hair and dark skin sim­i­lar to Michaela’s Mid­dle East­ern col­or­ing. Ex­cept for pur­ple eyes with pupils slit­ted like cats, the Kalquo­ri­ans could have passed for Jes­sica’s own race—al­beit very tall, body­builder Earth­ers.

  Oh, and there was also the mat­ter of the fangs and two penises each man pos­sessed, she re­minded her­self. Jes­sica went hot all over at the thought.

  She came close to the first clan, three Kalquo­ri­ans grouped to­gether. Ev­ery clan con­sisted of three men; Dramok, Imdiko and Nobek. Dramoks were the clan lead­ers, born com­man­ders. Jes­sica picked out that man in this clan im­me­di­ately. His nar­row face was smil­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion, but un­der­ly­ing the ex­pres­sion was an at­ti­tude of cal­cu­lat­ing eval­u­a­tion.

  To his left was the Imdiko. That man’s gen­tle smile and warm eyes spoke vol­umes about the clan’s nur­turer. Kalquo­ri­ans were known for their war­rior men­tal­ity, but the Imdikos were most suited to pur­suits in medicine and care­giv­ing. This one’s stun­ningly hand­some and openly kind face made Jes­sica like him on sight.

  The third man, seated on the Dramok’s right, couldn’t have been more dif­fer­ent. The Nobek’s eyes watched her closely, siz­ing her up like prey. The clan’s pro­tec­tor had an aura of barely re­strained fe­roc­ity and he was a brute made of over­sized mus­cles. Jes­sica re­strained a shiver of mixed de­sire and dread. She’d looked in the eyes of such a feral Kalquo­rian once be­fore. The mem­ory of that threat­en­ing alien stand­ing over her had fed many sex­ual fan­tasies since.

  All the clan lacked was a Matara, the fe­male child­bearer. Dev­as­tated by a virus two cen­turies ear­lier that at­tacked the race’s X chro­mo­somes, Kalquo­rian women were now few and far be­tween. Most of the fe­males who man­aged to be born alive were bar­ren. Kalquor teetered on the edge of ex­tinc­tion, and Earth­ers were the only known com­pat­i­ble species. Earth’s re­li­gious dic­tates banned the mix­ing of the two races, which had spurred the des­per­ate Kalquo­ri­ans to se­duce and even abduct Earther women to breed with. Now the two plan­ets verged on war, with un­lucky Pla­sius caught in the mid­dle.

  Jes­sica’s stage anx­i­ety fled as the Kalquo­ri­ans en­thu­si­as­ti­cally ap­plauded her ap­proach. She smiled, sway­ing and un­du­lat­ing for this first clan, feel­ing a grow­ing ache in her groin as they looked her over. She was on dis­play for them. Her pur­pose was to en­tice and arouse. She was of­fer­ing her­self as a breed­ing part­ner. All the fear of a few mo­ments ago was gone. Now Jes­sica was only ex­cited.

  The men’s eyes dark­ened. The Nobek licked his lips and leaned back so she could see his arousal bulging the crotch of his form­suit. Jes­sica caught her breath at the size of him, and the clan laughed, their hu­mor teas­ing her. Even the fierce Nobek’s face soft­ened with a smile, show­ing his lack of mean-spirit­ed­ness.

  She grinned back at them and de­cided to give as good as she got. She traced her fin­ger­tips up her ribcage and around the out­side con­tours of her breasts, throw­ing her head back as if the de­light of her own touch was more than she could bear.

  Over the mu­sic, Jes­sica heard a cho­rus of ap­pre­cia­tive growls from the Kalquo­ri­ans. Her arms reached over her head, flow­ing like twin ser­pents and she leaned to­ward her suit­ors. Still danc­ing, she beck­oned them closer and the three men leaned to­ward her, smiles ex­pec­tant, eyes glit­ter­ing. She tilted her face ever closer, her lips parted as if en­treat­ing them for a kiss.

  When she felt the warmth of their min­gled breath on her face, Jes­sica sud­denly twisted away, spin­ning twice to­ward the cen­ter of the room, let­ting her hair lash across the three Kalquo­ri­ans’ faces like hun­dreds of soft whips. She faced them, let­ting their ap­pre­cia­tive howls and ap­plause wash over her. She tipped them a wink and danced her way over to the next clan.

  The next three aliens were seated near Saucin Is­rala’s group. Be­fore giv­ing the clan her at­ten­tion, Jes­sica couldn’t re­sist see­ing what the ar­dent Plasian leader was up to.

  If Earth’s block­ade of Pla­sius both­ered Is­rala, she gave no sign of it tonight. She lay naked on a nest of young Earther men, laugh­ing and fondling ea­ger flesh as they watched the per­for­mance. Tonight the bronze Plasian had dyed the furry mane that crowned her head in gold and sil­ver, a com­ple­ment to the dancer’s cos­tumes. She grinned her de­light at Jes­sica as one of her es­corts stroked her hair­less sex with fum­bling fin­gers. The oth­ers ea­gerly licked and fon­dled her small, per­fectly formed breasts. Al­though her un­lined face and slen­der fig­ure would have made most twenty-some­things back on Earth mad with jeal­ousy, Is­rala was older than Jes­sica’s grand­par­ents. Jes­sica knew age didn’t hold any sway over the Plasian Saucin. The four young­sters re­ceiv­ing her at­ten­tions tonight would be ex­hausted within the hour and barely able to walk come morn­ing.

  Jes­sica’s amused glace slid away from Is­rala and her boyfriends to look at the next batch of Kalquo­rian suit­ors. When her eyes met the clans’ she fal­tered for a brief in­stant.

  The three men she looked at weren’t in the same high spir­its as the rest of the crowd. They smiled pleas­antly, and there was noth­ing in their de­meanor to sug­gest they weren’t en­joy­ing them­selves. Yet they held them­selves with a re­strained, al­most aloof air. Their eyes were sharp on Jes­sica. She sensed an aura of power sur­round­ing the Kalquo­ri­ans, sim­i­lar to Is­rala’s when the Saucin wasn’t cov­ered in young men.

  She looked them over as she danced for them. The man seated in the cen­ter of the clan didn’t have the blue-black hair of the other Kalquo­ri­ans she’d seen. The long waves flow­ing past his mus­cu­lar shoul­ders were steel-gray where the light re­flected. It wasn’t the gray of age; his hand­some square-jawed face was far too youth­ful for that. His sen­su­ous lips curved into the slight­est of smiles.

  He was the most mus­cu­lar of his clan, and his pur­ple-trimmed black form­suit showed his pow­er­fully built body to ad­van­tage. Only the heavy gray boots that came al­most to his knees in­ter­rupted the cling­ing fab­ric of the form­suit. It wasn’t hard for Jes­sica to imag­ine run­ning her hands over his wide chest down to the trim waist. He was built like the stat­ues of Greek gods she had seen in an il­licit art book back on Earth.

  The lean-mus­cled man sit­ting to the left of Steel-Hair was hand­some too, but in a dif­fer­ent way. His coarse black hair was caught back in a long braid, ac­cen­tu­at­ing an an­gu­lar face. His eyes, as pur­ple and cat­like as the rest of his species, slanted up­ward, giv­ing him a slightly Asian look. A mus­tache out­lined his up­per lip and he sported a goa­tee as well. It was a dan­ger­ous look, and Jes­sica’s stom­ach tum­bled at the thought of be­ing alone with him de­spite the easy de­meanor that be­trayed his Imdiko na­ture.

  He wore a loose-fit­ting blousy shirt that opened to re­veal a smooth, de­fined chest. His black trousers were cut to flat­ter his long legs. A phrase Jes­sica once heard popped into her head: a long, cool drink of wa­ter. She wasn’t sure what that phrase meant, but it seemed to fit the Kalquo­rian.

  The third mem­ber of the clan could only be de­scribed as ex­quis­ite. His long straight hair was a glossy sheet of black. He had high cheek­bones, a strong chin, and straight nose. He was too gor­geous to be real, Jes­sica thought. His ex­pres­sion was al­most warm, not nearly as aloof as his clan­mates. He wore the same pur­ple-trimmed form­suit as the steel-haired Kalquo­rian, but his body, while still bulging mus­cle, was the lean­est of all three.

  None of the men looked like a war­rior Nobek. Steel-Hair and Gor­geous Hunk both pos­sessed sharp, watch­ful eyes, but nei­ther looked like the preda­tor she as­so­ci­ated with the most bru­tal mem­bers of the Kalquo­rian race. They cer­tainly didn’t look like the mus­cle-bound brute in the first clan she’d danced for.

  Jes­sica danced for this clan too, quite well she thought, each move more provoca­tive than the last. While their stares re­mained riv­eted on her, not one man’s ex­pres­sion changed.

  The song was com­ing to an end and feel­ing a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed she hadn’t gar­nered a more en­thu­si­as­tic re­sponse from the clan, Jes­sica moved once more to­ward the cen­ter of the room to join Michaela in the last few steps. They fin­ished with a flour­ish, and ap­plause erupted around them.

  There were many ap­pre­cia­tive shouts from all the Kalquo­ri­ans ex­cept the one re­served clan. They sim­ply clapped. Jes­sica’s heart sank. Had she danced so badly?

  “Let us see more of the lovely Michaela,” Is­rala called, as had been pre-ar­ranged. Jes­sica curt­sied and swirled off to stand in the shad­ows.

  Michaela’s mu­sic for her solo be­gan, and Jes­sica watched with ap­pre­ci­a­tion and more than a lit­tle envy. Michaela had been taught to dance by her mother at a young age even though the Raqs Sharqi had been out­lawed on Earth for decades. So much of Michaela’s life had been lived in se­crecy; be­ing able to dance in pub­lic was free­dom she had never thought pos­si­ble.

  I hope I haven’t em­bar­rassed her Jes­sica thought, her gaze drift­ing to the un­re­spon­sive clan. Surely they would be im­pressed with Michaela’s mas­tery.

  A chill raced down Jes­sica’s spine. The steel-haired Kalquo­rian wasn’t watch­ing Michaela at all. His at­ten­tion was fo­cused on Jes­sica.

  * * * *

  Cla­jak saw Jes­sica start when her eyes met his. With ev­ery­one’s at­ten­tion riv­eted on the gy­rat­ing Michaela, he al­lowed a slow smile to spread across his face. The smile was meant for the lovely Jes­sica alone.

  De­spite the shad­ows she stood in, he saw her blush a del­i­cate pink. His smile grew.

  Be­side him, Be­vau emit­ted a soft growl in ap­pre­ci­a­tion of what­ever moves Michaela per­formed. Cla­jak felt, rather than saw, his im­pos­si­bly hand­some clan­mate turn to him. Be­vau chuck­led, and Cla­jak knew he’d been caught flirt­ing with Jes­sica.

  The pretty Earther flushed even darker. Her elfin face abruptly pinched in anger, and she broke eye con­tact. Her nose lifted im­pe­ri­ously in the air as she looked away. It was all Cla­jak could do to not laugh out loud. The girl was a slen­der lit­tle wisp of a thing, but she had spirit. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her.

  Be­vau’s deep voice rum­bled in Cla­jak’s ear. “I think we of­fended her by not show­ing how much we liked her danc­ing.” He glanced at Is­rala’s group. The Plasian leader and one of her young men cou­pled as they watched Michaela dance. The other young men ca­ressed Is­rala’s body as they too en­joyed the sight of the Earther gy­rat­ing her hips at amaz­ingly fast speeds.

  Be­vau’s voice sounded strained as he took in the vi­sion of the Earther male’s pe­nis slip­ping in and out of Is­rala’s tiny vagina. “We should be more like Is­rala. She doesn’t al­low her rank to get in the way of a good time.”

  Cla­jak shrugged. “We’ll ex­tend our apolo­gies to Jes­sica McIn­ness af­ter the show. I’m tired of my fa­thers lec­tur­ing me about re­straint. We’ll be­have to please them as we agreed.”

  Be­vau went back to watch­ing Michaela, who now writhed en­tic­ingly be­fore the first clan Jes­sica had danced for. Cla­jak held back a snicker as he watched his per­sonal as­sis­tant Ko­rkla along with clan­mates Raxs­tad and Govi. All three gustily cheered and ap­plauded the ex­otic Michaela, their greedy eyes riv­eted on ev­ery sen­su­ous move she made. The cin­na­mon scent of their arousal hung heavy in the air, and it was no won­der. Michaela seemed to be mak­ing love to an in­vis­i­ble part­ner, her hips grind­ing against nonex­is­tent hips, her head lolling with ec­static plea­sure. Watch­ing her made Cla­jak’s groin ache agree­ably.

  “That one is of royal lin­eage on her mother’s side,” Be­vau whis­pered.

  On the other side of Cla­jak, Egilka spoke up. “We’re not look­ing for a Matara.”

  Cla­jak ig­nored the warn­ing tone in his Imdiko’s voice. “Is­rala says the in­ter­sex Earther is trau­ma­tized by liv­ing its en­tire life in se­crecy. We are not suited for the se­duc­tion of Michael-Michaela Blake.”

  Be­vau’s eyes were full of pity as he looked at the Earther who, but for the broad­ness of her shoul­ders, looked en­tirely fe­male. “It dances like it has no in­hi­bi­tions. I still can’t be­lieve Earth would ex­e­cute that lovely crea­ture sim­ply for be­ing born male and fe­male.”

  Cla­jak felt his own anger on be­half of Michaela. “Their re­li­gious fa­nati­cism knows no bounds. They see evil in ev­ery­thing, and she … Is­rala said Michael-Michaela Blake prefers to be called a ‘she’ … has suf­fered greatly for it. I’ve given Ko­rkla, Govi, and Raxs­tad first rights to clan her.”