“Sweet words from one with such strong-looking pods.” She bobs approvingly. “But that’s not enough. Have you wisdom?”
“If not, then I will build some, and surround you with it before the night is done.”
“Perhaps. We shall see.” Her antennae sweep forward to stroke mine, sending prickles down my underside. She tastes of mitefish, lower-depth mollusks, and the spicy breath of krill-rich currents.
“Ummm. You’ll do.” She surges forward, her mandibles fastening to mine. My legs snare her, forepods pulling free from the tower to fasten upon her voluptuous carapace. We swap secretions and I pull her against me.
She breaks the kiss for a moment, her forepods adhering to my carapace. “I’m Tenebrey, quad three, city Gumshir, astrologer of the southern currents.”
“And you’re exquisite, little mother-to-be.” Bringing my tail flukes up underneath us, I slide eagerly into her hot, secreting ovigonopod. With the first thrust, she gasps, bubbles bursting from her spiracles.
The sumptuous strokes of her antennae as they twine with mine; the delicious sensation of her cerci as she feels up my abdomen; ecstasy under the four moons.
Another thrust, our backs arch, legs twitch in time and it’s over. Her tail flukes sweep wide, tightening the muscles of her abdomen to force me out. My turn to gasp, and the bubbles from my spiracles wash around her ruddy carapace as she climbs atop me. Antennae twined, we upsee to watch the haes and shaes.
Thousands of haes surface-float upon backs, shining with pearl and polished with striderwax. Legs and antennae erect and stiff, out of the water into the warm night breeze.
The shaes, resplendent in their pod-stretched wings that steal azures and umbers from the moons, ride the air. The shaes dance! Forming circles, then spheres, squeezing out to squares that erupt into cubes of light and glory.
Voices peel over the flood plains as haes call out to the dancers. Finally, the shaes flatten into a great swirling sheet of iridescence to descend in eager grace.
Each shae has picked a hae. Their limbs lock to each other. Up into the night they surge; their songs become moans, and poetic words transform to grunts and squeals.
“Delicious,” Tenebrey murmurs softly against my antennae.
“It must be something,” I return, nestling against her.
“Oh, it is, it is.” She wriggles and I feel her pods climb up my sides until she’s perched on the very crest of my carapace. “Someday you’ll know.”
“Tell me what it’s like.”
“Shush. I see one I want.” Her antennae pull from mine, a loss, an eerie emptiness that makes the space between my eyes ache with longing.
Tenebrey extends her body up through the rippling surface. I upsee her carapace as her abdomen flexes overhead, lifting her ovigonopod from the water. How beautiful her cerci, pale feathers that stroke the moonlight.
“Enerous!” she cries. “Remember me?”
A hae-laden shae buzzes down to meet us, hovering just out of Tenebrey’s reach. “Tenebrey! Child of Migustra of the first quad. Yes, I remember.”
“Four years I’ve waited.” Tenebrey’s voice rises in pitch, a coy beacon. “O leader of the second quad, will you join us?”
“I think I might.” Enerous descends, wings flailing above the water and blurring my upsee with gurgling ripples.
“The he’s not much,” the hae clinging to Enerous says, voice a whine shriller than the wings holding haem aloft.
“The he’s a nice one,” Tenebrey says. “Rich with longing, and a good firm thrust that I greatly enjoyed.”
“Too delicate. The pods of a poet, I’ll wager.” The hae glares up at haes shae. “Fly towards the third moon. I know a good hard he over there—a builder, if you know what I mean.”
“I’ll pick my own he, if you don’t mind.” Enerous glares down at haer suitor. “You don’t have to mate with him, Trockit, but look at his mandibles. I’ll bet he can suck a strawdigger right out of its shell.”
“I’m a builder, too. From Carnak.” I upsee haem in the eye. “And I have more than pretty words to work with.”
“Have you seen the Carnak towers?” Tenebrey asks.
“Ooooh,” coos Enerous. “Thick and hard and bigger than most. He’ll do nicely. Thank you, Tenebrey, for introducing us.”
“I still don’t like him,” the hae mutters and tries to tug Enerous away by jerking on haer carapace.
Enerous rocks with the motion and pulls haer antennae from the hae. “Well, I could drop you somewhere.”
The threat is enough. The hae quivers up against haer, haes antennae flicking through the air attempting to trap haers. “Oh, all right.”
Enerous giggles and floats gently down to us.
Hes have done shes; haes have done shaes. Now it’s time for shes and shaes while hes do haes.
For a moment, we’re all legs and pods in a chitin-flavored ball. Tenebrey climbs off me, rolling onto her back as Enerous flutters haer wings. The hae releases Enerous to clamber over Tenebrey to get to me. I’m taking all this weight on my pods and have to stiffen my leg joints while the tower quivers.
“I’m Trockit, third quad, city Brism, reed collector to the second scribe there.” Haes upsee eyes move over me.
“Poet’s guild. I should have known.” But I flex my pods mightily and after a moment, Trockit gives a little shiver of approval. Hae extends a flaccid abdomen that shines invitingly in the moonlight. “You want to suck on this?”
“I’d be delighted.” Opening both sets of mandibles, I take haem in. Haes secretions flow thinly at first, and I wonder if that’s what it means to be old. Fastening my mandibles firmly, I blow the air out my spiracles with a mighty blast that bubbles up around Enerous and Tenebrey, making them giggle.
“Well,” Trockit shivers, and locks haes pods to my carapace. “You’ve got the lung of a builder, I’ll say that much.”
I won’t talk with my mandibles full, and this is much too important anyway. Our soon-to-be children depend on it. Hae tastes of cuttleweed and strummerclam, good nutritious stuff. It bloats my abdomen, churning inside as my own stored food mixes with it.
“Oooh, here it comes.” Trockit gasps and shudders, carapace crackling, fissuring. Haes foreleg drops off. In the corner of my downsee eyes, Tenebrey snatches the floating limb and begins to snack.
One by one, Trockit’s remaining legs and pods come off. Haes carapace caves in on itself. “Enough, enough, now.”
My mandibles clamp shut. My head twists, and with a mighty jerk tears away the sagging sack of haes abdomen. Trockit squirms out of haes old body, white and pale as the third moon. Haes fresh pods spread thin, veined and stiffening.
“You were right, Enerous.” Hae twists to look at us, podwings spreading. “Dear Spindleye is a sweet, sweet he.” Antennae flick to tease mine. “And if you have wisdom, I’ll see you in four.” Trockit is now a new shae.
“In four!” I cry, proud of my mighty he-ness.
Trockit flutters haer stiffened podwings, testing them. A true gentle he is what I am; my forepods fasten on haer and lift haer up. Hindpods holding fast to my tower, my carapace arches and with a mighty thrust, I push Trockit above the shimmering waves.
Trockit’s wings begin to buzz, blurring my upsee with swirls of water. Haer wings carry haer up, speckling the moon as the other new shaes swirl into the night.
“Nicely done,” Enerous says, haer carapace in tatters that Tenebrey pulls off in stiff strips.
“I told you he was good,” Tenebrey says between mouthfuls. “Every bit as good as you are, my sweet.” Her head swivels toward me. “Come, help me now, my he.”
“With pleasure.” My pods fasten to them both. Already the current changes, pulling away from the flood plain. With delicate gusto, I sink my mandibles into Enerous’s wingpod, whipping my head back and forth. The wing comes loose. My abdomen engorges as I eat it.
“Ummm.” Tenebrey clings and chews off Enerous’s hind wingpod. “Absolutely delicious.” She looks up coyly at me, the receding moons mirrored in the facets of her upsee eyes. Together we fasten our mandibles onto Enerous’s remaining wingpods. Twisting our heads in perfect time, we pop them loose from Enerous’s body. My forepods, fastened to Enerous’s shell, pull, just as Tenebrey does, and Enerous’s carapace splits down the middle.
“Free at last.” Enerous, white as pearl in her new she-shell, drifts up away from us. Her tiny new legpods quiver, stroking frantically at the current that drags her from the tower. Enerous, a she now, splays her carapace to ride the waters, returning to the deep cities where the shes dwell. “Goodbye, my loves.”
“In four!” I call out as the dark water takes her. Tenebrey’s pods fasten to my carapace; the pull from the water almost drags us away too.
“The tide’s stronger this year. Get me down, Spindleye.”
“Yes, my love.” Struggling against the current, taking one last glimpse of the remaining fourth moon before it follows the others into the dawn, I begin crawling down my tower. Tenebrey clings to my back, heavy now with fertilized eggs.