Returning Home

by Mary Carmen

  We took a commuter spacecraft to the vacation area, and I rented a large wheeled van with an Octulian driver to use as our home at the springs. The driver stayed at hotels during the nights and while we soaked in the springs and partied at the many nightclubs in the vacation areas.

  I believed I would have no trouble with the wedding night. Surprisingly, Anna and I had not consummated our union prior to arriving at the springs, even though that was normal for young couples in those days. Unlike Maude, Anna wanted to wait.

  On that first night I thought I had never seen a more beautiful woman than my own wife. Anna wore a brilliant pink satin negligee that clung to her body, and her hair, for the first time in my memory, hung entirely loose. She came to me readily, something she had never done in her parents’ house.

  I held her in my arms, and she could certainly feel my desire for her. I kissed her lightly and ran my fingers through her hair.

  “Tony, I am a virgin,” she admitted. “I have read about lovemaking and I have seen movies where couples make love, but I have never experienced it for myself.”

  I had had no experience with a virgin, but I knew I wanted to make this first night as pleasurable as I could for both of us.

  “Just lie on your back and I will do everything tonight,” I said.

  “No, no, no,” she shouted. “I want to be an equal partner. Tonight and every night.”

  “Then,” I said, “just mimic my own actions. Talk to me and caress me.”

  I lay with Anna on the large bed in the van and I held her head in both my hands. She reached up for my head. I opened my mouth and kissed her lips lightly.

  Within a minute I was pushed onto my back, with Anna on top. The light kiss had turned into a passionate embrace, with her tongue darting into and out of my mouth. I lay back and enjoyed the taste of my new wife.

  My hands found her firm breasts through the pink satin. Within a few seconds her nipples were hard. She unbuttoned my pajamas and caressed my nipples, too, and I became even more excited.

  For that first coupling, I then quickly sat her on top of me and ejaculated very quickly. I felt ashamed, not happy with my performance. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I should have been able to sustain my erection longer.”

  “It’s our first time,” Anna admitted. “Can we try again later?”

  We made love for most of the night, and I was able to feel better about being a virile lover.

  I removed her pink satin gown to look at her. She had just turned twenty-one, and I knew I had never seen a more beautiful woman. She was just a few inches shorter than I and very thin, without being emaciated. I had never been able to see her prior to that night without the layers of clothing we wore on Octula, and I was stunned. She looked as if she could model for a Paris couturier. Her breasts were high and her legs were thin. Her stomach was almost concave, allowing her hipbones to protrude. Her buttocks were very small and rode high, just under her waist. I was unable to keep my hands from roaming over her body.

  “How lovely you are, Anna,” I sighed. “How lovely my wife is.”

  “And I am pleased with my husband, too,” she told me, smiling. “You are so very well toned and your testicles are so large they caress me while you are inside.”

  We spent that week trying all the lovemaking positions I knew. Anna especially liked cunnilingus, and, after that first night, I never entered her without making sure she had had at least a few contractions during foreplay. She tried to perform oral sex, but it was several weeks before she became expert.

  With Maude the sex was good. With Anna the sex was fabulous, and I was addicted to it by the time the honeymoon was over. I went through the motions of looking at the famous Crystal Hot Springs and sitting in the public baths, with the hot, bubbly water running over my chest, but I could only think about that night’s lovemaking and about my beautiful wife’s breasts and buttocks.

  God has given us this wonderful facility to experience joy for a good reason. God wants to feel the excitement and the final release.

  How does it feel to be a bigamist in love? God asked me to live this life so It could experience my feelings of passion and shame.

  Franklin Arrives

  The wonderful honeymoon week was over too soon, and we returned to New Philadelphia. Our new house, the one that was our wedding present from Louella and Len, was not complete, so we stayed in my small house near my work. Miss Gasnes continued to do the housekeeping and the cooking, and Anna and I worked during the days and made love during the evenings.

  After the third month, Anna was pregnant.

  “The doctor says I need to stay off my feet,” she told me. “The infant mortality rate for babies born to Earthling parents on Octula is very high, almost fifty percent.”

  I was stunned. “This was an American doctor?”

  “Yes, there are four doctors here from America, and this is the obstetrician my mother and I have seen. She is not young, but she is very well reviewed,” Anna told me. “Her rating is 9.8, much higher than any doctor I would be allowed to see on Earth. Usually a doctor with that rating is assigned to care only for patients who are very ill.”

  “Why is she here? Surely she could name her own price in America,” I insisted.

  “Price, yes. Policies for patient care, no. Just another American who can’t follow orders,” Anna explained.

  “What is her policy for the care of my most precious patient?” I asked.

  “I need to take to my bed for the next eight months. I need to be waited on, hand and foot. I should not leave the house except for the most pressing of reasons. I must have a constant room temperature of sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. I must eat the diet she prescribes and must take the supplements she has given me. I must sleep alone in a large bed. I must have no sexual intercourse and no vaginal contractions until the baby is born,” Anna said.

  I was saddened at those last requirements, but I was not going to show Anna. I brightly said, “Miss Gasnes will find a crew of her friends, and we will set up an around-the-clock maternity service!”

  Anna was not convinced.

  “I think I should go back to my mother’s house,” she told me. “She has spare rooms for the extra housekeepers, and she has a spare room for you, too.”

  So Anna returned to her parents’ house to await Franklin’s birth. Of course that house was able to sustain the temperature requirements the doctor had prescribed, whereas my little house had not kept me warm during the blizzard.

  The Murphy compound, where the new house was being built, was nearly two miles from my client’s offices. The client had found a small private room on the same floor as the male Octulian who was my most frequent contact, and I spent most of my work time there during Anna’s pregnancy. Walking two miles on Octula twice each day was usually easy and it was just enough exercise for me. When the sidewalks were not clear of snow, which was infrequent, I stayed with Anna and communicated with my client via a fairly primitive teleconferencing system.

  The doctor called at the house about once every two weeks, bringing several assistants and some equipment each time. She was usually content with Anna’s health.

  When the pregnancy reached the sixth month, the requirement to stay in bed was very strictly enforced. The doctor installed a monitoring system on Anna’s ankle, and she called Louella whenever the monitor showed Anna to be more than a few feet from her bed. Anna could go back and forth to the bathroom without setting off the monitor’s alarm, but any further distance would cause the doctor to call or, in a few cases, come to the house.

  We played bridge during those evenings. Len had decided poker would be too hard on Anna’s blood pressure, so we set up a large table just over the bed. Anna and I always played as partners against Len and Louella, winning nearly every evening. We talked about having the losing partnership take the winners to dinner, but there was no better place for dinner than Louella’s table.

  Finally the last weeks of the pregnancy arrived, and the doct
or moved Anna to the hospital. We all went to Anna’s bedside each evening, and I sometimes spent the day there, too.

  One evening the doctor told us she was going to take the baby the following day. A caesarian procedure had a somewhat lower fatality rate, and this was the norm for Earthling births on Octula. Indeed, today this is still the norm and the fifty-percent infant mortality rate still applies.

  Franklin was born the following day, April 27, 2080. Anna decided I should name the boys and she should name the girls, and the name I chose was given to him on his birth certificate. I remembered that Maude had not asked for my help in selecting the names for her three children.

  He was immediately rushed to the special unit for newborns, and he stayed there for six months, learning to breathe the air. Each week he looked healthier as we visited him, and after six weeks we were allowed to take him to our oxygen-controlled home for one night every week.

  Anna was back on her feet quickly, and I was so happy to be able to sleep once more in my little house with my beautiful wife.

  Do everything you can to sustain life. It will make you feel good. Remember, though, God identifies the start and end of each entity’s life, and you cannot change Its plan.

  Mourn for your departed loved ones. Your pain will not change God’s plan, but it will give you a better idea of the value of each life.

  Work Changes

  By the time Franklin came home to live with us, I had been on Octula for nearly three years. During this time I had worked with my client and with many of his colleagues on an organizational chart and the associated responsibilities for the officials who would serve in the Department of Commerce.

  This organizational chart fed into a large chart for the administrative part of the government. The administrative unit was headed by the elderly entity who had been elected, and he appointed a triumvirate of Octulians to oversee the various departments. Each unit, such as the Department of Commerce, reported to one of these Octulians for its management and to all three of the officials for its policies. So, my work was reviewed over and over by the managers and the administrators and was changed to make sure the policies and responsibilities did not overlap with those of other departments. In addition, my drafts were added to as new functions and responsibilities were identified.

  In those days the central government’s organization was relatively simple. Like the United States, the Octulians had lawmakers (the Assembly), judges (the Deciders), and enforcers (the Administrators). The Administrators were organized into four units: our Commerce group that tried to keep the economy going; the Police, who attempted to enforce the laws; the Farmers, who grew and manufactured all the food; and the Educators, who taught the children. The Octulians had no State Department because there was no other state to be recognized. All dealings with entities from other planets, such as Earth, were handled by the Commerce group as part of that group’s duty to regulate trade.

  The Police included a small army that put down the noisier of the insurrections. Mostly, though, Octulians were expected to get outraged on a regular basis, and the government was set up to hear them out.

  The Assembly was made up of entities from the Science Party and the Military Party. When I arrived on Octula, the Science Party had a majority of the seats in the Assembly and the Military Party was confined to grumbling.

  And there was plenty to grumble about. The major point of disagreement between the two parties involved the conscription of intelligent entities into the scientific professions. The Science Party believed this was the only way to advance the civilization, and the Military Party believed it was unfair to everybody.

  Most of the arguments put forth by the Military Party quoted the “pursuit of happiness” clause from the American Declaration of Independence. The American governmental model was much admired, and not only because of the successful economic climate that model had put in place.

  The American colony did not, in 2080, take much interest in this disagreement. American children were not subject to the educational requirements set up for Octulian children. In fact, most American children were taken or sent to America for their education.

  But the disagreement was the subject of most of the news on Octula. The Military Party’s leaders made speeches, held rallies, and wrote letters to the editors of the newspapers. Angry words were exchanged in the Assembly, but no laws were ever changed.

  In 2080 the forty-four million Octulians lived in twenty-six districts. These districts were similar economically and culturally to countries on Earth but were organized under one central government. Each district sent representatives to the Assembly, their number in proportion to the district’s proportion of the total population. Most of the districts were represented by the Military Party, but, since these districts were the ones with the smallest populations, the Science Party had a significant majority of the seats in the Assembly.

  In late 2080 a highly regarded Assemblywoman created a proposal to amend the Octulian constitution to allow entities in the districts represented by the Military Party to be exempt from the rule about servitude in the sciences. This compromise was widely circulated for discussion, and the Military Party promoted it in its speeches and editorials.

  Finally the compromise was discussed in the Assembly, with much rhetoric from the Military Party assemblyentities. The members of the Science Party said very little. When the plan came up for a vote, it was defected, strictly along party lines.

  My client watched the debates carefully, but we believed the Commerce Department’s work would not change no matter which way the issue was resolved. The Educators were the ones who were relieved when the compromise was defeated because they were not funded to change their educational procedures.

  In 2081, just after the vote on the compromise, a new head of the administrative unit was elected, a younger male, Acsajan Mipdomp. Mr. Mipdomp was a very intelligent entity, but he had little administrative experience. His large family included entities from nearly every district on Octula, including those that were represented by the Military Party.

  However, a month before Mr. Mipdomp was scheduled to take office, eleven districts, those where the Military Party was strong, announced they were leaving the Octulian government. They immediately formed a separate government and would not allow their youngsters to be educated in the sciences.

  Octula in February 2081

  Our Commerce Department was in an uproar. The plans for the economy, including plans for imports from and exports to other planets, were in shambles because Mr. Mipdomp’s government no longer had control over many of the goods other planets wanted to buy. Without the goods to sell, the remaining districts could not pay for the imports, including those that had become essential for life on Octula.

  By the time of Mr. Mipdomp’s inauguration, the department’s administrators had asked me to take a leading role in revising the current year’s budget and the following year’s forecast.

  Together Anna and I listened to Mr. Mipdomp’s inaugural address on our translating radio, becoming more and more alarmed with each word we heard. Mr. Mipdomp insisted the eleven districts return to the central government, but he was unwilling to agree to any change to the conscription policy.

  Enormous changes take place when God needs to experience different feelings and situations. Your desire for the status quo is natural, but God does not want things to remain the same for long. Just hang on, and remember God has a firm plan for your life, a plan you really cannot know.

  Things Heat Up

  Right after the inauguration, Len went to a meeting with Mr. Mipdomp to discuss how Len could help with selling the goods of the remaining districts and buying some of the goods the seceded districts had furnished to everyone on Octula.

  “There were just three people in the meeting,” Len told all of us that evening. “Mipdomp, the head of the Commerce Department, and me. We started with a long list of what was needed, but I was unable to make any commitments until I talked to my sup
pliers. I may need to order from planets other than Earth.”

  “Daddy,” Anna asked, “are they going to be able to pay you? Are there plans for asking Americans to return home?”

  These were very good questions, I thought. I had no idea how much money the Octulains had in reserve.

  “Sweetheart, Mipdomp right there wrote out an order for one million dollars in platinum to be paid to me. I deposited this order in our bank right after the meeting,” Len told us as he held Franklin on his lap. “All this was an advance on my work to find other suppliers. As for returning home, that was not even hinted at. Instead, Mipdomp’s attitude was that I was part of the plan to keep things running here.”

  As for returning home, the Octulians believed we already were at home. Long, long ago, they believe, their star was so bright that life flourished on Octula. When the star started to dim and they found themselves getting colder and colder, they put several pairs of each species into ten spacecrafts and sent them to planets where they believed they would survive. Earth was one of these planets. The Octulains believe all animal life on Earth is descended from the beings on these spacecraft, including humans. When we look at each other, we are very similar. Tests comparing our DNA have shown we are nearly the same.