My Yōd

in the Hierion Domain

With Yōd now able to efficiently transmit her thoughts to me, I must accept the fact that it is not really "me" that is acting as the receiver of her telepathic transmissions. Before she departed from Earth, Yōd left me a set of infites, which I greedily accepted into my brain. I suspect that was not the first time I received infites from Yōd, but it was the first time I knew what was going on. All of the Yōd infites residing inside me now act as a lens and filter for Yōd's transmissions from the Hierion Domain.

Another Layer
I've long believed that my memories have been edited on several occasions during my life. In particular, when I was given the chance to depart from Earth, I decided to remain on this world and some of my memories were erased. We Earthlings are not allowed to know everything about our mysterious origins. That past editing of my memories only becomes apparent to me when a shift occurs and some previously obscured part of my life suddenly returns to view. One of Yōd's recent transmissions shook loose some very old (40 years old) memories. Memories of when I first met Yōd.

image source

Mysterious M
During that one all-too-brief day in 1977 when we were together, she never told me her name. Sometimes she would begin to speak her name, then pause and fall silent. More recently I've come to recognize that sort of nanite-enforced speech block, but when I was 18 years old I knew nothing about nanites. Someone had looked at our future and discovered that it was not safe for her to tell me her name; doing so would cause a temporal paradox or otherwise upset the course of Earth's history. During the period of her short visit to Earth, I usually called her "M", but sometimes I tried to trick her into admitting that her name might have been Emilia or some such "real" name. Anyhow, "M" worked.

source

Now, more than 4 decades after that golden day spent with "M", during a dream last night, I could hear Yōd speaking to me. Her words were like a key to the lock that was blocking my access to my memories of having met her 40 years ago. When I awoke with the realization that the mysterious "M" had been a very young Yōd, I could not hide that realization from Zeta. Zeta has been telepathically monitoring my thoughts for the past 50 years, since even before I met Yōd. Zeta said, "Yes, I know that Yōd visited you a few years before you met Alpha."

source

I believe that Alpha, Zeta and Yōd are all sisters, clones of the original Gohrlay from the First Reality, but they have never told me the story of their family and their origins on far worlds. Still, I like to imagine that Zeta does not try to keep secrets from me, so I complained, "I can't believe that you kept this secret for so long."

source

Zeta giggled, "Think it through. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with you building a family with Alpha. And I had to start my training, so I got to watch Yōd's first mission on Earth. Everything worked out just fine, so don't pretend to be surprised that you were kept in the dark about Yōd's first visit to Earth. Besides, she was only here in spirit... she was actually stationed on Tar'tron at the time."

"Well, I trust you to tell me such things."

Yōd

"You never asked, so I never mentioned it. When Yōd was living here with us, I certainly did not want you thinking about the fact that you had ravished her when she was a little girl."

I shook my head. "No, I can't picture that."

"It happened."

"I can't picture Yōd as a little girl."

Zeta laughed, "Well, yea, I agree. Even when we were very young, Yōd was the devious and sophisticated clone."

I kissed the tip of Zeta's nose. "Yōd may have been born devious, but you were devious enough to keep this secret for 40 years."

on the Triversity campus

I was surprised by the new revelations about my past that were now accessible to my active recall, so I decided to write down a summary of that flood of new memories. My hope was, maybe writing down the story of Yōd's first visit to Earth would allow me to understand Yōd and her little quirks...

Mu Gohrlay - 1977
I had just arrived at the Triversity earlier in the day and moved into my dorm. Now I was on my way across campus, walking from the residential complex towards the center of the campus. I needed to go to the bookstore and I wanted to visit the main library. Hundreds of students and their families were swarming around the dorms, getting the students moved in during the weekend before classes would start. Most of the heavier moving was being done around at the back near the loading zones of the dorms. But not all.

move-in day

I saw a beefy jock carrying a small rented refrigerator for a girl. They reached the front of her dorm and he set the refrigerator on a dolly. She said thank you and he walked away, glancing back twice as the cute girl bent to the task of pushed the dolly in through the front door of her dorm.

Suddenly I felt dizzy and the world of my perceptions seemed to shift slightly. I've since learned to associate such cognitive slippage with the arrival of a swarm of infites as they move into my brain. I suppose that was what happened to me when it became imperative that I notice Yōd, although she did not use the name "Yōd" until later. I turned my head, walking swiftly to get to the bookstore before it closed. I was still searching for one of the required books that was assigned reading in my freshman English course.

Mu Gohrlay

Then I saw Mu. It was a hot fall day and she was dressed lightly, except she wore what looked like fancy leather hiking boots. She was carrying a BIG box. Surprised to see a girl carrying such a large box unassisted, I said, "Let me help." I grabbed onto one end of the box. She took the lead and I followed along to her dormitory. Entering through a door at the end of the long, low building, we got the box inside her dorm and up the stairwell to her second floor room. I dropped my end of the box with a loud thud and she said, "Thank you." Strangely, she did not seem at all stressed by lugging that heavy load. I was sweating and my hands ached a bit from trying to grasp the box. I looked at her intently; everything about her was unusual, including her voice. She was very cute and I'm sure I stared, dazzled by her loveliness.

source

Almost effortlessly, she pushed the box into the corner of her room and I realized that it was some kind of base for a bed. She tossed a thick mattress on the base and started making up the bed with a complex collection of pillows, sheets, pillow cases and blankets. Her hands moved with super-human speed and she quickly had the bed made. She glanced at me and winked.

She had a wild glint in her eye and her sly wink seemed to knock me out of my daze. Awakening from my laser-like focus on "M", I suddenly became aware that there were other people in the universe. Hearing voices, I glanced over my shoulder. Behind me, assorted family members of other students were going up and down the hallway, carrying boxes, talking, and acting perfectly normal. I had no interest in the mundane world... I had fallen into a strange new reality... the M-verse.

Turning my attention back to the mysterious girl who had lured me into her room, I was greatly impressed by the efficiency of her movements as she neatened up the room. I was mesmerized, watching Mu at work and knowing she was watching me from the corners of her eyes as I watched her.

The clones of Gohrlay.

From the perspective of 2019, I'll call her Mu or My (an alternate name for the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet. I suppose there were at least 12 Gohrlay clones. At some point they must have decided that it would be easy on me if I was told their names were Alpha, Beta and so on. Later, when Mu was deeper into her mission on Tar'tron, she began to call herself Yōd. I suppose that name change was made because "Yōd" was the kind of name preferred by Azynov, but for me and my cultural background, "Mu" would have been the best "code name". Who knows what her real name was.

source

Mu finished arranging the furniture in the room, pushed shut the door and, now standing beside me, looked around the small dorm room. She waved her hand at the opposite wall and what looked like an astronomy poster spread across the wall. In the back of my mind I knew that I should have been puzzled by her magic tricks, but she'd apparently planted nanites inside me that were suppressing my normal capacity to feel surprise. I only had eyes for Mu.

Mu went to the window, closed the blinds and then sat on the bed. I could now see that the ceiling glowed faintly, like an artificial sky. Mu gazed at me and said, "I hope you don't feel that I'm coming on too strong... I don't want to scare you off, but I don't have time to be subtle." She spoke with a strange accent, sounding like she had grown up in some place like Lithuania and had learned to speak English in school.

Neither of us were very talkative. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards the door and muttered, "Are your parents..." I shut up. Something in her grin told me that her parents were not hovering nearby.

I watched Mu kick off her boots. I'd never seen anything like them. They were unusual, like the rest of her clothing. Now, in hindsight, I know that her clothing was made of nanites. She could command those nanites to take on any desired form. She had crafted clothing for herself that was just enough like standard Earthly clothing in 1977 so as not to attract too much attention, but in the privacy of her room, the patterns of the nanites were shifting, making her clothing seem to come alive.

I stammered, "I feel like I should introduce myself, but I have the strange feeling that I already know you."

She leaned back, her hands sinking into the soft surface of the bed, "Ya, well, about that... my sisters and I have been prowling around in your head for years. That was a rude way to introduce ourselves to you, but..." She shrugged, dismissing all qualms. Somehow I knew what she'd said was true. I'd never seen her before, but she was familiar to me.

Not knowing what to say, I foolishly said, "I have two brothers."

She nodded and told me, "I know. I know all about you."

source

As a science fiction fan, I had read many stories about telepathy. It did not seem impossible that a strange and magical girl such as this might be ably to read my mind. "So, you have telepathic ability? You can see what I'm thinking?"

"It is complicated. I do have some weak telepathic ability, but my sisters and I have been linking into your endosymbiont by making use of a type of technology-assisted telepathy."

"Endosymbiont?"

"Forget I mentioned that. Look, none of that stuff matters. I want to use our precious time on important..." She silently gazed up at me for a moment and then complained, "You are very tall." She was looking up at me, her head tilted back, the tanned skin of her graceful neck leading my eyes down towards her shirt, the colored pattern of which seemed to flow like a river around the islands of her cute breasts. She patted the bed, "Sit here with me."

I sat down beside her and she fell back, sprawling across the bed. "Sadly, I won't be allowed to distract you from your studies. I'm here on a mission that will not take very long to complete. I've been given just one day, then -POOF!- I'll be gone... we can't waste the precious time that we have been given." She batted her big eyes at me.

I noticed that the bed seemed cooler than the air in the room. Following her lead, I let myself fall across the bed, laying on my side, resting my head in my hand so that I could keep my eyes on Mu. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was in a state of utter fascination, hanging on her every word and every one of her cute little mannerisms. I wondered: "What mission?"

"I need to deliver a message... it is for your future self, so it will not make sense to you... not here and now. However, it will be important for you... eventually. To put your mind at ease...." She fell silent, knowing that nothing she could say would make sense to me.

original cover art by
Patrick Woodroffe

I laughed and asked, "You remind me of a silly time travel story that I read recently... by Heinlein."

"Well, my sister Zeta made sure that you read that story. At least you are now receptive to the idea of time travel. Advanced technologies such as that are going to become an important part of your work... explaining how time travel was used to craft human civilization."

I had for several years been writing my own science fiction stories, but I'd never imagined trying to write a time travel story. I was not comfortable dealing with imaginary technologies that seemed to contradict the laws of physics. Suspecting that she must be some nerdy Sci Fi fan, I asked her, "Who is your favorite science fiction author?"

"Unlike Zeta, I've never tried to read the literature of your world. Right now, I'm devoting my efforts to a special mission on Tar'tron. When I eventually get back here to Earth, decades in the future, you can introduce me to all your favorite Sci Fi books... that will be fun. However, I don't have time for that today... or tonight." She stretched out one of her pretty legs and tapped a toe against one of my shoes.

I kicked off my shoes, letting them drop to the floor. Thump. Thud. The simple touch of her toe had rattled me, awakening my emotions and triggering within me an irresistible tide of lust. I reached out and touched her magical glowing shirt. My hand passed right through the cloud-like fabric. I could feel her warm, silky soft skin underneath. I jerked my hand back, startled. She explained, "These clothing nanites are programmed in the style of Tar'tron. I get to play dress-up games on that world. I programmed these nanites to recognize you and not interfere with..." She fell silent.

Stupidly, I asked, "Interfere with what?"

With consternation in her voice she answered me with her own question, "Don't you find me attractive? I adjusted this body to match what I saw in your mind... your preferences for feminine beauty..."

Now I touched her shiny hair. It was so very soft; beyond anything I had ever imagined. "You are lovely, like a dream. I keep expecting to wake up from this dream."

"Good. I'm your fantasy girl, just for a day. You were carefully designed to appeal to Gohrlay, so I also find you attractive. During the past few months, while I trained for this mission, I could hardly wait for this day to arrive. Of course, my sisters had to give me all sorts of advice on how to seduce you."

source

Mu kept mentioning strange and mysterious people, places and things that I had never heard of. I asked, "Gohrlay?"

She ignored my curiosity. I would not hear the name "Gohrlay" again until several decades had passed. "The only problem is, you won't be allowed to remember any of this until you are an old man. That will be frustrating for me, because I will be allowed to remember what we do here in this..." Again she fell silent.

She licked her lips seductively. Both Mu and I were breathing heavily. I wanted to kiss her pretty lips, but the rational part of my brain was amazed by what she had said, just as my emotional brain was entranced by her beauty. I asked, "Do you see the future?" I wondered out-loud, "Right now, can you see us in the future, when we are old?"

She shook her head and her hair swirled as if it were alive. "I have not been allowed to View our future, but I've been told about..." Once more her speech was blocked by her nanites. I now realize that she was not being allowed to tell me any details about my future. She ran a finger down the smooth arc of her neck and it parted the material of her shirt, allowing part of her little left breast to peak out at me.

At some level of my mind, I was curious about the nature of her mission and who had sent her to visit me and there were a hundred questions I could have asked her, but as a young man on a delightfully cool and soft bed with a pretty girl at the end of a long hot day, I was mostly conscious of the pounding of my heart in my chest and the sound of blood rushing through my ear where it rested against my hand. She was more interested in the blood rushing to another part of my body and she reached out and placed a hand on my jeans. I leaned over and touched my lips to her neck and slowly worked my way up to her lips.

Later, after the flames of our mutual lust were partially abated, we got dressed and walked into town and ate dinner at a little pizza dive. She told me about all about her mission on Tar'tron and the strange people who lived on that world. "I'm the only actual human there, so sometimes I get lonely. My sisters took pity on me and recruited me for this mission, knowing that I'd get to relieve my sexual tensions." She reached out and took hold of my hand. Once more I marveled at the strange smoothness of her skin.

Realizing that she was telling me about a distant exoplanet, I asked where Tar'tron was. She told me, "In the Galactic Core. That's the best part of the galaxy for setting up training bases for Interventionist agents."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I played along. "Who set up the base on Tar'tron?"

Mu shook her head. Hopelessly distracted by her beauty, I watched her sparkling hair shift around, as if blowing in a wind. "I don't know if it was the pek or the bumpha."

"Pek? Bumpha?"

"They are aliens, from a distant galaxy."

I chuckled. "I knew aliens had to be involved in this."

"You don't need to believe me. It will take years of additional effort to prepare you to understand how aliens have shaped Earth's history."

She seemed serious, but I could not take her talk about aliens seriously. "So I don't need to worry about an alien invasion of Earth?"

"No. The era of invasions ended two billion years ago. We are now at the end game. Decades from now, in the future time when you are allowed to access your memories of me and this day, all the aliens will have been withdrawn from Earth."

I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. After we kissed, I said, "Don't speak that word."

She guessed, "Alien?"

"Withdraw. I wish I was still inside you. I think we are a perfect fit."

"Yes, I can't stop thinking about the feel of you inside me." She put her hand in my lap. "Let's go back to your place and play some more."

"My bed is not as nice as yours. How is it cooled?"

"Just a little trick with nanites. It is late now, I'm sure your room has cooled off. Anyhow, I don't mind sweating for a good cause."

We went back to my dorm room and played together until dawn, enjoying each-others body. Finally we collapsed into sleep. About mid-day it was heating up again, the fall sun beating down on another Indian Summer day and we went out for lunch. Then we went for a bike ride up in the hills.

We found a nice hilltop with a fine view and sat together on a mossy boulder. Off in the distance we could see the Triversity glistening like a jewel. Mu leaned her sexy body against me and told me, "I'm almost out of time."

It was heart-breaking to think that she would soon be gone. I asked, "But we will meet again, in the future?"

"Yes, 40 years from now."

"I'll wait for you."

"No you wont. Your memories of me will be erased. You will marry my sister, raise a family... when I return, when we are old... well, I'll be with another man. And you will be happy with your partner... you won't be interested in me. Today is our one and only day to..." She kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, "...make love."

I held her tight in my arms. "But someday I will regain my memories of this day?"

"Yes, when it is safe for you to do so."

"Safe?"

"I warned you that none of this can make sense to you now." She put her lips close to mine and we kissed. Again our bodies took control and we both surrendered to the sweetness of sharing our bodies.

Mu was on top of me, rocking gently, delighting in the afterglow of an orgasm. She seemed to have both super-human strength and stamina. I now understand that she was using an artificial body, without any of the limitations of a real human body. After she caught her breath she told me, "This is a trial run, a test drive of this body." She held her arms out to the side as if trying to fully display herself to me. "I tried to shape this body into a form that would please you. Now that you've ravished me, repeatedly... this is your chance to tell me what I got wrong in the design of this body. My sister will make any needed adjustments."

"You are perfect!"

She did not believe me. "Speak up now. Remember, you will have to live with my sister for decades."

I looked carefully at her glorious body... there were no flaws. "Well, I hate to mention it..."

"What? Tell me!" She was watching my eyes. "You don't like my breasts?"

"You breasts are wonderful. It is the nipples."

Mu shook her head and said in dismay, "Men! Okay, tell me your nipple fetish."

"I'm sorry I mentioned it. Forget it. You are perfect."

She pinched her nipples. "Tell me how these could be improved."

"I just like them small and firm."

"What, like boy nipples? I must warn you, your wife is going to have to nurse three children... that's no job for little boy nipples."

"Why did you ask for my critique if you don't really want to change anything?"

"My sister, Alpha, told me to be sure to ask you. She's the one who is going to have to live with you for decades. But remember, you are going to have to share her breasts with the babies." She shook her head in wonder. "I had no idea that you were breast obsessed."

"I'm not breast obsessed. See, this is why you should study the literature of Earth."

"So I can read about the breast fantasies of Earth's men? No thank you."

In the Buld Reality.
Original cover art by Lawrence Stevens.

"I won't try to explain to you the evolutionary basis of why men are interested in the adipose deposits of women, but you should know... or make sure that your sister knows, that I was traumatized. I have an irrational fear of nipples."

Mu shook her head and glared at me. "I don't know what you are talking about. Just a few minutes ago you were sucking at my breast like a starving child."

"Your nipples are delightful and fun to play with. The problem arose about five years ago when I read one of the first science fiction novels that I ever found in a book store."

"Ug. Science fiction about nipples?"

"In a sense. The story was set on a future Earth. One of the characters in that story had large breasts and the author took pains to describe her big 'sucker tips'... that brought an unhappy image to my mind."

Mu laughed. "So you have nightmares about women with giant man-eating sucker-tips?"

"Forget I said anything." I pushed her over onto her back and tried to change the subject. Now I was gazing down upon Mu and wondering if I might be able to grab one more orgasm before our time together was up. I asked, "What is the message that you have for my future self?"

For a minute Mu wrapped her legs around me and I felt a powerful rippling of her internal muscles. I had a kind of internal mental sensation that there were other people there with us, sharing the joy of our love making. Time seemed to dilate and the sun slipped across the blue sky. She sighed contentedly and gazed up at me, smiling. I reached my climax and collapsed against her sweaty body. Now she responded to my question, "We are done. There is nothing more that I need to tell you. When you remember our day together you will understand. You will know that the course of your life was foreseen, planned, constructed by aliens-"

When I should have been saying my sweet goodbyes to her, the rational part of my mind awoke and I protested, "Now wait." I lifted my face out of the cradle of her silky hair and asked, "If I know that my memories can be altered, how will I trust my memories of this day?"

Mu pushed at me with her inhumanly strong arms and rolled us over. She got to her feet and pulled at her nanite clothing. She shook her head and said, "Scientists!" Then she was gone, as was her bike. I now know that she was teleported away, but that day her sudden disappearance just seemed like more of the magic of the mysterious "M". Feeling a sad, dark emptiness, I got dressed and rode my bike back to the campus. By the time I was back to my dorm, I had forgotten all about Mu. My thoughts had returned to normal. First thing Monday morning, I began my first college course.

_____________________

Zeta was looking over my shoulder at what I'd written down about Mu, the incarnation of Yōd who briefly visited Earth 40 years ago. Zeta did not need to read it, she had been in my mind while I was writing. She put her arms around my neck and told me, "Ya, that's pretty much the way I remember it. I had to watch everything you two love birds did that day, while you both tried to fit a dozen orgasms into 24 hours."

I asked Zeta, "Well, was that two or three that you had last night?"

"I'm still making up for my debt of lost orgasms that accumulated during my pregnancy."

The Mind Clone Network

Zeta was an expert at creating reasons for grabbing one more orgasm. I pushed away the keyboard and got up from my chair. We held each-other close and then started kissing. Zeta pushed me over to the couch and sat on my lap, straddling me and she hungrily took me inside her. I was still getting used to having her slim, non-pregnant body to play with once again after her year-long pregnancy. Then, suddenly, as I had first experienced 40 years before, I had the sensation of being larger than myself, as if my mind was being shared by others. Suddenly I realized that Yōd, Zeta and I were linked in a type of telepathic feedback loop. Inside the AR Simulator, Yōd was making love to Azynov and she was aware that Zeta was simultaneously experiencing an orgasm. After a few minutes Zeta sighed, rested her body against mine and said, "That was wild. I could feel Azynov inside Yōd... I could feel Yōd in your thoughts."

"I remember feeling that sort of networked, multi-person sensation 40 years ago when I was with Yōd." I could sense that Zeta was thinking back to that time. Seeing what was in Zeta's mind I said, "Irhit?"

source

Zeta nodded. "Irhit was helping me back then. My replicoid was with Irhit... I was watching you and Yōd making love, but Irhit and my replicoid were also having their own orgasms at the same time."

I felt my telepathic link to Yōd fade away as the tingly glow of her orgasm ended. I told Zeta, "I think I just experience a female orgasm, or a layer mix of yours with Yōd's... the three of us were linked together."

Zeta giggled. "Male and female orgasms are like chocolate and vanilla. Which flavor do you like best?"

"I'm not sure. I see in your mind that you like them mixed and jumbled together."

Zeta explained, "I have 50 years of experience being inside your mind. There is nothing sweeter that the taste of mixing your orgasms with mine."

Wondering if this was another gift that the Yōd infites inside me had unlocked, I tried to rationalize what I had just experience. "Well, I'm just catching up with you my love, but I'm afraid that for me..." I tried to think about what I had just experienced and explain it verbally... "In order for me to experience your orgasms, the three of us need to be telepathically linked. I was... just a minute ago I aware of Yōd experiencing the sensations of your orgasm on top of her own... or did I imagine that?" I looked into Zeta's eyes and asked, "Back in the past, 40 years ago, did you know that this day would arrive?'

Image source

"Trysta and Grean told me what they could see of the future, the parts that they could share with me. There were not many details that they could share, just the broad sweep of future events. And nothing about the Mind Clone Network... that was improvised after..." She fell silent.

I could see a swirl of thoughts in Zeta's mind, too deep and thick for me to sort through. "What?"

She tried to explain, "Of course, back in to '70s we could not foresee everything. Your clan messed things up."

"Clan?"

source

"The tryp'At Overseers. Trysta and Grean did not anticipate the tryp'At take-over of Observer Base."

"But Yōd did return to Earth."

Zeta nodded, "However, by then the nature of her mission here had been modified." The baby woke up just then and Zeta pulled herself away from me and hurried off to the other room.

I went back to my computer and began looking through my archives for information about Yōd and her training as an Interventionist agent.

Returning with our daughter, Zeta said, "Yōd was right about the nipples." She sat down and started nursing the baby. "With these small nipples, a baby can struggle to stay attached."

I commented, "You may not have noticed, but your nipples have gotten bigger." For a minute I watched the baby sucking. When the milk was flowing fast, she again dropped into sleep.

Zeta sighed. "I suppose you like my big mama breasts."

"I don't know. I'm worried that they will start to sag."

"Men! I'm almost seventy years old, I think I've earned the right to sag."

You still look like a spring chicken. I suppose you know how to use your cosmetic nanites to fight breast sag."

"Yes, I do. I can't risk loosing you, so I'll keep my breasts perky forever, just the way you like them."

"You are beautiful, my love. And you don't need to work so hard to make it look like you are thirty. Before you even came to Earth, I'd gotten used to Alpha being older, gray hair and all."

"Alpha had to keep up appearances, I don't. I like being young. Remember, I have to compete with your tryp'At genes. It is not fair."

"It is also not fair that you never told me about my affair with Yōd. Now I finally understand why Yōd would prance around here half naked."

"She enjoyed trying to get you to look at her body. She was not trying to seduce you... not in a conventional way. She wanted you to be intrigued, and eager to take onboard her nanites. And you were. And because you did, she now she can control your mind."

Remembering my doubts and suspicions from 40 years ago, I asked Zeta, "But she never gave me false memories?"

"Why would she do that? No, she simply gave you back your old memories of that day you two shared. That was enough."

"Are you jealous?" I was using our telepathic linkage to look into Zeta's mind, but what is most accessible to me are her verbal thoughts, not her deep emotions. "I can't tell."

"Only a little." Zeta shifted our daughter over to her other breast. "There is one thing that has long annoyed me."

source

I began thinking about my inability to not look at Yōd's body, a problem that had continued for years during the time when Yōd had lived with Zeta and I. Now with Yōd gone from Earth and trapped inside the AR Simulator, I was not expecting Zeta to be complaining about my wandering eyes. But maybe with me thinking about my golden day with Yōd... I said, "I'm glad there is only one thing that annoys you."

Zeta giggled, "I think we are perfect together. I want to spend every minute of the rest of my life with you. However, it does bother me that you pay so much attention to Yōd in your blog."

"I don't think Yōd gets any special coverage compared to anyone else."

"Look at the word-cloud. I know it is silly, but I'm your wife and yet Yōd's name is above mine."

word-cloud

I looked and confirmed that indeed Yōd was above Zeta. "I'm sure that you are discussed in more blog posts than Yōd. That word-cloud just reflects the labels that I add to each blog post."

"Exactly. You take me for granted and usually to not include my name as a label, even when I am more central to the content of a blog post."

"I'm sorry, my love. I suppose you are correct. You are so central to my existence that I do not feel the need to single you out in the way I do for the less important people in my life. Do you want me to make your name a label on each of the hundreds of blog posts about you?"

source

"No, don't be silly. I'm simply providing you with evidence that I am jealous of Yōd. However, I'm more jealous of Alpha and the decades that you spent loving her. And you know how I feel about that tramp... Ivory."

I laughed and said, "Yes, I do.... now those are memories I wish I could get back... all those years I spent with Ivory... a simulated Ivory... in the Hierion Domain."

Zeta shook her head, "My jealousy over that is not rational. It was your replicoid that lived with Ivory in the Hierion Domain... but I've accessed Irhit's memories of that experience. It was the happiest time of your life."

I put my arms around Zeta, sandwiching our daughter between us. "I've never been happier than I am now."

"You don't know that. You don't remember what it was like to live in that simulated world, inside the Hierion Domain. You know, humans were designed to abandon the universe of dirt and star dust and move into a virtual reality existence."

"I could have departed from Earth with Ivory, but I asked to stay here, on Earth, with you."

"But was it so that you could be with me, or so that you could continue your work?"

"You can see into my thoughts. You tell me. Can't it be both?"

"Yes, silly, I know that you love me. The problem is, you have a vast capacity for love. Well, I never expected you to love only me. My jealousy is a deep, non-rational beast."

"I'm sorry to say, I'm grateful for your jealousy. Without it, I don't think I'd have your sweet love. It must have been jealousy that kept you going during the decades that I lived with Alpha."

"Sometimes she let me use her body. Sometimes, in the months before Alpha departed from Earth, you were making love to me when you thought you were with your wife. That kept me going during those long months when I knew you would be mine... I found it hard to wait."

Thinking about my time with Mu/Yōd I said, "I now wonder if..." I fell silent. I was wondering if I might have impregnated Yōd.

source

Zeta was in my thoughts, so she knew what I was thinking. She laughed and told me, "Don't worry. Yōd was using an artificial body for that mission. Her bio-body was actually quite safe from your sperm, back on Tar'tron."

I realized that being an artificial life form explained Mu's ability to easily carry the big box that I had first seen her with. I had been starting to imagine that I had played a role in the apparent ease with which Mu had achieved her many orgasms that day, but maybe her hyper-sexuality was just a feature of her body design, some kind of an artificial human. Watching my thoughts, Zeta scolded me, "What is it with you men! Why does even having orgasms have to become a competition for numerical superiority?"

I shook my head, "You tell me. Really, I place most of the blame on the fact that women have magical powers."

"Yes, you thought that Yōd was some kind of magician."

"You are just as magical as Yōd. Now that I reflect on the two of you, I think you win... you are the most orgasm-centric woman I've ever known."

"I enjoy making love to you. You are the only man I've ever made love to. In order to facilitate my mission, I was designed to crave you. Now that I've had you to myself for a few years, I'm addicted to you. I must have you."

The magic of Zeta.
Photography by Gretchen Byers. "Noir"
Image Credits

"Well, I'm sorry you are jealous of Yōd. Maybe I can help you get over that. I'll add something special just for you in my next blog post."

"Don't bother, I have a better idea." Zeta looked at me mischievously. "Tell me, what was your count? How many orgasms did Yōd have that day that she spent with you?"

"I lost track. Let's say it was six."

"I counted at least ten. Compound that over 40 years and I'd say you owe me about 738 orgasms."

I love the way Zeta keeps the books. I said, "We better get started right now."

Next: "Mother Earth" by Isaac Asimov

Visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers.