Korjh's Bride

by Clarissa Lake

  Feeling hot and uncomfortable, she decided to go ahead and take a shower. She put on fresh clothes and combed her hair then went looking for Korjh again. He was still not back, so she went into the bedroom and turned on her drawing screen to sketch out a new idea she had for an outfit.

  Two hours later, Korjh had still not returned, and Zara didn’t quite know what to make of it. It was time for third meal, and she didn’t know where he was nor how to contact him when he didn’t answer his comm. Was he angry and punishing her?

  Zara didn’t know what to think. She decided to read a book and wait to see if Korjh returned before she ordered dinner from the processor. When he still hadn’t returned an hour later, she was too hungry to wait so she ordered a sandwich and some fruit.

  When he didn’t appear by the time Zara could see stars through the skylight in the main sitting area, she decided he was staying away on purpose. She said she wanted alone time, so he was giving it to her. But it was night, and she didn’t want to be alone any more.

  Finally, she went to bed alone, but sleep didn’t come for a long time.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After Korjh punched the wall, he decided he would go into his private exercise room through the back of his weapon’s closet and hit his punching bag for a while. He thought everything was perfect with Zara and now she wanted to be alone. Was she changing her mind about sharing his life?

  Zara was everything he ever wanted in a partner and lover. Just thinking about sex with her made him hard but he just kept punching the dummy. Korjh didn’t understand why she was pushing him away when they were so good together. He had done everything he knew to make her happy, but she wasn’t. He could only think that she was going to end their marriage.

  But he couldn’t let her go. She was his.

  If she wanted to be alone for a while, he would leave her alone. When he finished punching his dummy, he checked on the drone to see where Zara had gone. She was about a mile out and had stopped to drink the water he gave her.

  When she was almost home, he used the secret exit from his exercise room and left the house, going out to the hangar to his aircar. Once he confirmed that Zara had gone into the house, he took the aircar and left the premises. Korjh had no real plan. Zara wanted to be alone, so he was leaving her alone.

  What did he do that was so wrong? He had waited so long for a mate, and now that he had her he wanted to be with her all the time. Why did she not appreciate his attentiveness?

  He just kept flying all night trying to decide how to handle Zara’s discontent. Twenty years as a warrior hadn’t given him relationship experience, and he never had any long-term romantic relationships to learn from. He had no friends who could advise him. He only had Zara.

  The prospect of giving her space worried him. What if she used that space to find someone else? The very thought filled him with rage and anguish. Was that why she was unhappy now? Was being married to a cyborg not what she wanted?

  All while flying aimlessly over the desert he went back over the events since Zara’s arrival trying to see what he could have done differently.

  Korjh hadn’t detected any deception in what she said. But what had changed? She had seemed happier these last few weeks now they were regularly fucking. He certainly was.

  Korjh arrived home about an hour after sunrise the following morning. He found Zara sitting at the little dining nook in the kitchen sipping coffee. She looked up at him warily.

  “Korjh,” she murmured uncertainly. “I was worried.”

  “You wanted time alone, so I left you alone,” he said evenly.

  “Well, I just wanted to take a walk by my self---not spend the night alone wondering if you had been hurt or killed or were just not coming back,” she blurted. “You just wanted to punish me because I wanted an hour to myself.”

  He couldn’t deny it. He had at least six hours a night to spend alone while she slept. Now she wanted him to spend even more time alone.

  “Before I came here, I had a job and friends and time for things I like to do,” she said. “Now that I’m gone Ellie doesn’t even email me, and I haven’t seen or talked to another woman since I got here. I miss those things.”

  “You knew things would be different here, that we would be isolated out here with no close neighbors. I told you this,” he said.

  “I didn’t know I would feel so homesick and like I have nothing useful to do. That my friend wouldn’t keep in touch with me.”

  “So, I am not enough for you,” Korjh said, frowning.

  “This isn’t about you. I changed my whole life to come here and be your wife,” she said. “I didn’t realize I would feel this way. Face it, there isn’t that much to do here. You have machines doing everything. Just about all we do is eat, sleep, and have sex.”

  “And that makes you unhappy?”

  “No---yes. It’s like we are on a permanent vacation. I need something useful to do.”

  “Sex with me makes you unhappy?”

  “No, you’re not listening,” she protested.

  “That’s what you said,” he reminded.

  “That’s not the way I meant it.”

  “Then, what did you mean?”

  “That there is more to life than bodily functions. I need mental stimulation and a sense of accomplishment,” she said. “Like when you built this house and this farm. I need to make something of value, myself!”

  “I’m not stopping you from doing that. You have your drawing screen, and you brought your sewing things,” he said.

  “But it’s hard to be creative when you are hovering over me every minute,” she said. “I feel like I should hurry and finish and give you attention.”

  “I don’t understand,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “I know you don’t,” she said and got up from the table and went to him. “Things here are so different from Earth. If we lived there, you and I would have jobs, we wouldn’t have all this time with just each other.”

  “You are not happy here,” he said and frowned.

  Zara gripped his big hand in hers. “I want to be here with you. I’m just a little homesick and lonely for my friend.”

  “Do you want to go back to Earth?” he asked, staring down at her.

  “No,” she said after a moment. “I just need you to give me a little space.”

  “You are mine, I have to take care of you---make sure you have everything you need. Isn’t that what a husband is supposed to do.”

  “It is, but not every minute of every day. Don’t you have things you want to do by yourself?”

  “Not when I can be with you instead,” he replied. “If there are, I can do them when you are sleeping.”

  “You really don’t get it. You’re like a stalker watching every move I make.” She let go of his hand and walked a few steps away then turned back to face him. “You’re making me crazy!”

  “I will take you back to the Medical Clinic. They have gene therapy for that,” he said solemnly.

  She gave an inarticulate shout of frustration. “You’re the one who needs therapy! It is perfectly normal for a woman to want a little time to herself,” she knew her voice was raised, but she didn’t understand how he could be so obtuse. “You need to find something to do on your own while I am working on my designs---a couple hours a day…”

  So, now it was eight hours a day he would need to occupy himself. He sighed. If that is what she wished, he would do it. He could monitor her activities through his link with the dwelling’s AI.

  She wouldn’t know.

  Things were a little tense between them for the next few days as Korjh adjusted himself to the new routine. As he went about occupying himself while Zara worked on her designs, he realized she had been right about the lack of things to do. That made it hard for him to quell his resentment of the time she took from him.

  But his observations of her while he left her alone showed her doing exactly what she said she wanted. One day she brought the sewing machine out
and asked Korjh if there was a way to power it so that she could start sewing some of the clothes she had designed. With the specifications for the electrical input, it was simple for him to determine what he would need to make it work.

  He ordered the parts via the Modonne Worldnet, and they were delivered by drone the next day. Without paper to make patterns for cutting the fabric Zara made them from a bolt of a kind of netting material that was typically used to shape and stiffen structure in clothing designs.

  Korjh did notice that she seemed happier since he left her alone to work those couple hours a day. She spent all the rest of the time with him. They resumed their morning rides, and she fucked him almost any time he wanted.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A week later when they returned to the house after their morning ride, the home AI signaled that there was a message waiting on the interstellar com. By his expression, Zara assumed it was unexpected. First, they hung their riding hats by the door then Korjh invited her to come to the com room with him. He gave a command for the message to display.

  Gal-common characters scrolled across the screen then a hologram of a big, formidable looking man appeared. He was built a lot like Korjh, but with black bristly hair and dark brown eyes. He grinned as he spoke, and said Korjh’s name, but Zara couldn’t understand anything else he said. He was talking another language than Gal-common. After a three-minute monolog, the hologram signed off and disappeared.

  Korjh folded his arms across his chest and frowned. Somehow, he didn’t look like he was especially glad to hear from the person that had just displayed in front of him.

  “What was that about?” Zara asked.

  “A cyborg I served within the Defense Force. His name is Tydo Flann. We saved each other’s asses a few times,” Korjh explained. “He was born a cyborg. I wouldn’t really call him a friend exactly.”

  “Ah, I think I know what you mean, a co-worker you tolerate because you have to work with him,” Zara said. “Not someone you expected to hear from, I gather.”

  “Never heard from him since I have been on Modonne, even though he knew I was heading here after discharge,” he said. “Maybe because he was never coming to Modonne until now.”

  “Oh?”

  “He own’s a passenger freighter now, and he has modules to drop off in Sezrop. So, he wants to come out for a visit and see my farm. He’s going to be on an extended layover, about two weeks. He asked if I would let him stay here. He doesn’t know about you.”

  “And his presence would curtail our activities a bit,” she said, understanding.

  “Our bedroom is soundproof,” he said with his familiar sexy smirk. “He did save my ass more than once, the least I can do is offer him my hospitality.”

  “When is he coming?” she wondered

  “Sometime next month. After the party.”

  “Then we have time to play before he arrives,” Zara suggested. “How about now?”

  “As you wish, my mate,” he said with a wicked smirk. “I can message him back after you have your way with me.”

  “We can have our way with each other.” She took his hand and led him from the com room to their bedroom.

  “Really Korjh, we don’t have to go to Sezrop just to buy you a suit. You can just use the holo-viewer to display them on your image and pick that way,” Zara said as they were dressing to go to the city.

  “I know, but I want to make sure it feels as good as it looks,” he told her. “Plus, it gives us the opportunity to visit that café that we enjoyed the last time.”

  “Oh, well that sounds like fun, and it’s a nice day for it.”

  “Most days are nice here. Two months out of fourteen are hot, seven are warm, and five are moderate,” he reminded. “We don’t take the horses out during the hot months. They mostly stay in the barn where it’s cooler and go out for about an hour in the morning and just after sunset.”

  “I will miss our rides then,” she said.

  “I miss them too. I just send the drones because most of my crops go dormant in the hot months.” He paused to watch Zara slip on one of her summer weight dresses that she had brought with her. It was a figure-flattering full-length pastel pink which she wore with comfortable tan sandals.

  She had even put on some makeup highlighting her eyes the way she learned was fashionable on Modonne.

  “You look beautiful,” Korjh said and came over to give her a hug and a kiss.

  Korjh wore his standard outfit, with a casual pair of slip-on shoes instead of his usual work boots. He always looked good to Zara. She lingered in his arms and raised on her toes to steal another kiss. He couldn’t help but indulge her.

  They had a pleasant jaunt to Sezrop in the aircar and visited a couple shops for Korjh to try on the suits Zara had helped him choose. She showed him several she liked on the net, and he picked three that he liked. Now it depended on how they felt as to which one he would choose.

  Zara was glad that none of the suits included ties. All of the ones Korjh favored consisted of trousers with pockets and a relaxed fit and a jacket worn over a sleeveless pullover shirt of a contrasting color. With Korjh’s fair hair coloring, Zara had chosen colors in blue shades that complemented the colors in her dress. The jacket had a small standup collar and fastened to the right of center, and the top of the garment overlapped to a point at the right shoulder and folded down into a triangle.

  The undershirt came in different styles from drape neck to frilly and plain with a straight neck in the front to display in the opening created by folding back the top of the jacket. Korjh picked a plain undershirt in a contrasting blue and tried on the whole suit. Zara thought he looked just stunning in the outfit, and he was happy with the feel of the material and the cut. Of course, that was the last of the three outfits they went to see.

  Zara didn’t know until later that he had planned it that way so they would finish in time to meet Naomi and her mate Besam at the café. Zara was stunned to see Naomi at the café with her mate seated at a table for four.

  Naomi jumped up from her chair and went to hug Zara as she and Korjh approached the table. “Zara, it’s so good to see you. You look great,” Naomi gushed. “Your cyborg looks way different than when I first saw him at the starport. When we got here, he looked kinda of scary.”

  “I can see where you might think that,” Zara said and chuckled as she backed up to get a look at her friend.

  “But he commed us to set up third meal together here,” Naomi said. “Surprise!”

  They exchanged introductions and sat down together at the table. Korjh had never met Besam before that day; he only knew he was a Narovian feline. He was sure, though he hadn’t said anything in his message that Naomi had likely told her mate Korjh was a cyborg. Besam was an officer of the Modonne Land Management Corporation which bought up much of the land when Modonne was first colonized and resold it to new settlers on the young colonial world.

  Though Korjh had never met Besam, he had bought his land from them when he settled on Modonne. That and the fact that Besam and Korjh were both Narovian gave them things in common to talk about over dinner while Zara and Naomi caught up. It quickly became clear that both women were happy with their mates. They all had a lovely time, lingering for nearly an hour after they had finished their meals.

  Besam had a boyhood friend who served in the Alliance Defense Force who had a similar history as Korjh. Besam’s friend was severely injured and turned into a cyborg like Korjh. He understood that becoming a cyborg hadn’t destroyed his humanity. As they parted company, Besam and Naomi assured them that they would come to the gathering Korjh had planned.

  Two hours later Korjh’s air car settled on its landing pad near the entrance to the underground home. He helped Zara out of the vehicle and walked with her to the ground level door with an arm around her.

  “I want you,” he murmured as they walked down the ramp.

  “Do you want to play?” she asked. “Can I be the mistress and you be the slave?”<
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  “As you wish, Mistress,” he said with a wicked smirk. “How may I pleasure you?”

  “Come with me, slave. I’ll show you.” She took his hand and led him from the com room to their bedroom.

  Korjh lay naked in the middle of the bed with Zara kneeling beside him. He watched Zara, who was also naked, as she bound his hands with the belt to her robe then hooked it to the headboard. She paused to admire his powerful arms with every muscle clearly defined. Now it was his turn to be tormented the way he had tormented her.

  She glanced down his body and saw his cock was hard and standing tall. She would get to that in a while. Korjh looked up at her expectantly, ready to take his ‘punishment.’

  Zara ran her hands up and down his arms slowly tracing his muscles on each with her fingertips. When she reached his shoulder, she moved to his head, stroking his platinum hair. I had grown out some from the severe military cut he had worn in the first video. It was thick and soft, and she liked running her fingers through it.

  She paused to look into his dark blue eyes the color of the early evening sky after the colors of sunset faded. Though dark with passion, there was a touch of humor as he met her gaze.

  Zara caressed his face with her eyes alone, with one hand on his bicep and one in the middle of his broad chest. His face she thought would be considered ruggedly handsome. His high cheekbones and square jaw were classic, with just a hint of a cleft in his chin. His nose, though not overly large was just a bit too broad to be elegant, but his full, masculine lips could be softly kissable or hard and demanding. She loved them both ways.

  And the things he could do to her with that mouth. Just the thought made her pussy clench.

  Zara couldn’t resist bending down to kiss his beautiful mouth and slip her tongue inside to tease his. The kiss lasted way longer than she intended, but his kisses were so addictive. All while they were kissing she stroked his face and hair. They were both breathing hard when she finally lifted her mouth from his.