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"We’ll share the shelter of my single bed...."

"Is This Love" -- Bob Marley and the Wailers

To my joy, Star seemed almost like his old self. Back were his affectionate words and touches, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them. We didn’t speak of that experience, but I sometimes thought I saw speculation in his eyes and perhaps even (dare I say it?) respect. Vai noticed the difference in Star too, in her offhand way, and Zee asked me if I’d done something. I smiled and didn’t answer, but with her, I seldom had to.

It seemed to me that Suria shrank a little whenever she saw me, and I often wondered what effect my energy exchange might have had on her interactions with Star. I hoped I had transfused him with the strength to tell her to fuck off, but I supposed that might be asking too much.

* * *

It soon became evident that Vai was pregnant again. Star seemed pleased, and I wouldn’t have troubled him for the world, but I wondered. One day I wondered enough to confront Vai. I found her alone in the kitchen with blueprints and plans for an addition to the house spread over the table. "Another baby," I said pleasantly. "Congratulations."

She smiled in that secretive way women have when they’re pregnant and unconsciously rubbed one hand over her barely rounded belly. "Thanks. Suria says it’s only one baby this time, probably a boy."

"Is it Star’s?" I asked bluntly.

She half stood, her eyes narrowing in anger, and I thought for a moment she might strike me. Then she sat back down and took a deep breath. "Why would you say that to me?"

I sat across from her. "We’re both grown-ups, Vai. I know you’re more than friends with Kelly. And it’s not that I give a damn, it’s that Star will know if the baby isn’t his, and it will hurt him. He loves you. God knows why."

She stared at me for a moment, and I watched the anger drain out of her face, to be replaced with something I couldn’t define. Regret? "He’s all that matters to you, isn’t he? You’ve never loved me at all."

I was more than surprised. "You belong to Star, Vaira. I can’t imagine why that isn’t enough for you."

"You don’t understand," she said, looking away from me, out the window.

"You’re right," I said.

She sighed heavily, as though all the spirit in her body went out with the air. Then she sat up straight again. "Well, you can quit worrying. I asked Star to make me pregnant. I thought it might...." She shook her head. "And anyway, Keelyan and I always use protection."

I stood up. "I’m sorry if I upset you. I had to ask."

"I know." She didn’t move as I walked toward the door.

I left quickly, before I was overly tempted to reach into her mind. I might be able to read Vai’s motives by looking inside her head, but I knew that whatever tangles I might find there would not be something I could fix.

* * *

The twins were teenagers now, Roca a strapping young man almost as tall as me. Racho was, as always, of lighter build than his brother, but both were strong and handsome.

Their sisters, Lana and Mari, while not as closely related to one another, looked almost identical, two willowy young women with long platinum blonde ponytails. The best way to tell those two apart, other than Mari’s gray eyes, was to watch their expressions. Lana was the one with the challenging attitude, while Mari was the flirt. The boys at school followed them both, but, at twelve, neither girl was ready to give any male the time of day.

I think it was around age fourteen that Roca announced his first girlfriend. I picked the kids up from school on occasion, mostly for the fun of their company, but also to save them from the long bus ride home. That day the girls were staying late, rehearsing a play, and Vai planned to pick them up later. She hated the drive from town and always made it as fast as she could. Me, I enjoyed the kids’ company too much to rush.

"You guys hungry?" I asked, though I knew the answer. Any teenager is always ready to eat, but these young bodies were growing, inside and out, at a tremendous rate and needed calories accordingly. There were school lunches, of course, but I knew each packed candy bars and sandwiches as well and consumed them quickly between classes. Judging from my own youth, I figured they would need less food when their bodies matured. My own body behaved much like a super-efficient nuclear reactor, burning every possible calorie from the food I ate until there was no waste left.

I was also conscious that I drew energy from things other than food... sunshine, for instance. Maybe I could teach the kids how to do that someday; today pizza seemed a more attractive alternative.

"We’re starving!" Roca said. It was his turn to ride shotgun, and he grinned over at me, knowing I had as much fun feeding them as they did eating. Sometimes I drove them to the little cabin I’d bought in the town of Evergreen and cooked them something, but I’d save that for when I had all four of them with me.

Today, before we’d more than parked in front of the pizza joint, Roca put a hand on my arm. "Uh... Evan?" The "uncle" title had dropped away from their speech at about age ten, at least when we were alone.

"What, big guy?" I asked.

"There’s this girl... at school."

I nodded.

"We’ve been hanging out together, between classes and at lunch, you know?"

"Yeah." I wondered if I knew what was coming. The boys had stopped reading minds, or if they hadn’t, had stopped being vocal about it, so I’d never carried out my threat to spy on them.

"Well, the thing is, she’s older than me, a couple of years, but we get along and everything."

I raised my eyebrows in an inquiring manner, not wanting to stop his confidence.

"But the thing is, you see, we, um... we want to have sex," he blurted.

I heard an indrawn breath from Racho in the back seat but didn’t know if it was shock at learning his brother had a serious girlfriend, or surprise that Roca had mentioned it to me.

"That’s quite a responsibility, Roca. Do you think you’re ready for that?"

Roca straightened his spine an inch or two. "She’s already had sex, with an older guy, and she says she likes it." Roca blushed, his dark skin lighting up rosy pink on cheeks and throat.

An older woman. Well. "Roca, I, of all people, can’t tell you that there’s anything wrong with having sex as long as you both want to. But... has your dad taught you about fertility?"

Racho piped up. "We learned about that in school."

I turned so I could look at both of them. "I’m sure you did, but there may be more to it than what you were told there. You know we’re different from other people, right?" I knew they did, but maybe a refresher course was in order.

Roca spoke. "I know what you mean. We have to be careful not to hurt regular people... like how I can’t punch Tommy Johnson when he calls me a white-haired ni..."

I quickly put up a hand. "Don’t say it. That’s an ugly word."

"Sorry. But he says it, and I can’t kick him in the balls, even when he says it about Mari and Lana too." Roca’s chest was now heaving with frustration and righteous indignation.

"No, you can’t. Ignorant people say stupid things out of their own fears and insecurities, and it’s not up to you..." I held his eyes. "Or me, to hurt them for it. We’re too strong for the bullies of the world, and lashing out in anger could cause more harm than you ever intended."

Racho leaned forward, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. "You could kill someone, Roca!" And Roca flinched.

I hadn’t intended to be that direct, but I supposed it was a good thing to have it out in the open. "Yes. And you could hurt someone if you lost control with any strong emotion, and that includes lust as well as anger. Do you know what I mean by lust?"

Both boys nodded.

"Good. Well, then its important for us not to lose control... ever. And even if we are careful not to hurt someone at an emotional time, we also have to make sure that we don’t make someone pregnant without meaning to."

"You mean use a condom," Roca said, obviously proud to know the word.

I thought about that for a second. It wasn’t only our muscles that were strong. I had doubts that an ordinary condom would contain active, fertile sperm from one of us. "Yes," I said, "that’s always a good idea. It just may not be enough."

So, over pepperoni and sausage pizza and milkshakes, I gave the boys their first lesson in fertility training - how to be sure that the fluids they released from their bodies were free of active, potentially impregnating sperm. There would never be a "safe" time of the month for a girl having sex with Roca or Racho. I had no idea how long our kind of sperm might remain potent inside a woman, but I imagined it was quite a while. Suria could have undoubtedly told me exactly how long, but I wasn’t about to ask her.

Why hadn’t Star thought to train the boys, as he and I had been trained as children? Perhaps he thought they were still too young?

A few weeks of instruction later, I was certain that the boys were in control of that aspect of their bodies, and was able to feel relaxed about giving Roca the go-ahead on his desires.

"Um... I have a girlfriend too," Racho shared, that same afternoon.

"Oh," I said. "Do the two of you plan to have sex?"

He looked surprised and shook his head. "Oh, no. Andrea is a girl and she’s my friend, but we’re not like that."

Roca caught my eye and inclined his head toward his oblivious brother, giving me a "you and I are men of the world" wink. I smiled. Maybe it would take Racho a year or two to catch up to his brother.

* * *

Racho began bringing Andrea Fisher, "call me Andy," home sometimes to study and do homework. She was a lovely girl - not an "older woman" but in Racho’s class at school. She was still at the gawky, growing-like-a-weed stage, boyish in jeans and T-shirts, but her dark auburn hair and creamy skin with only a sprinkling of freckles across her pretty nose forecast that she would one day be a beautiful woman.

Roca brought dates home too, but they wore dresses, or pants so skin-tight they left nothing to the imagination. Their looks brought that frown line back between Vaira’s eyes. It was a good thing she never learned that I’d been behind the boy’s sex education, or she might have barred me from the house altogether.

I was glad the boys were happy and had friends of the opposite sex, each in his own way. But as much as I liked Andrea, I wondered what she would think if she knew just how different Racho and his family were. All that any of Star’s kids would have to choose from were people from Earth. Would they ever be able to be honest about who they were and enjoy a real relationship?