I wake, stretch, breathe. My nose is assaulted. The smell of comfort is there but soured by this new soil. The smell of Obedient First Eyes is there, the scent of belonging. She’s taken a Heat-dose. I can smell the pleasure to come. Soon the Sour-World will be forgotten. We are on Heat-leave. Trust my lovely Obedient First Eyes. When orders came down that mate-bonded are to take a Heat-dose in the first half-season^ on the new worlds, I knew Obedient First Eyes would make sure we had a dose dispensed before we were stolen from World. There will be so few dogs at Service for the next half-season as each mate-bonded pack or pair takes Heat-leave. Today is the first day dogs are permitted to take as Heat-leave. Obedient First Eyes, my speckled Sun, and I have 2 or maybe 3 days for ourselves. We can forget this world, these smells and live in pheromones. I can feel her hot, hard body against mine. Her smell is intoxicating, it fills my lungs. I can feel my body responding. She shifts, she is waking, soon we’ll be together. Her nose twitches, I see her ears and body change. She is ready.
I feel the cold air on the tip of my shaft^ as it emerges from within my skin. I have never felt more virile. Her stunning scent, the spots that are the cloudscape of my night-walks, her freshly notched ear, healing but still smelling of blood, they become my whole world. She nips at my face and growls. I can sense nothing but lust in her. Her smell is iridescent, it glimmers through my body. She stands and looks over her shoulder into my soul. I mount her and feel the comforting warmth of her scented body surround me, in the alien Sour-Soil. I feel like the first pups, protected and held by Soil until I am ready to venture outside.
We fuck, over and over. We fuck fast at first, then slower, trying different things. This is only our second Heat-leave, we will probably conceive easily. It is, however, our obligation to try different fertilization configurations. I release myself into the pheromones, the Heat, the movement, the biting. I come over and over as Obedient First Eyes demonstrates how hard she was listening in Heat lessons. I have little seed left, we change positions. We try mounting female-style and my tender, not-yet-shrunk swelling, rubs on her clit. It grows, dwarfing my receding penis. She pushes back harder and harder, knocking me from her back. I stay down and she mounts me, rubbing her clit into my hindquarters. She is thrusting furiously. She sense-shares with me down the pack-bond and we both collapse as we come. She does with her whole body, squeezing a trickle of my seed from her Heat. My brain orgasms, I feel her clit and Heat and trickle as though they were my own. We have never managed to bond-come before. Most dogs never get to experience it; on Heat, bond-communication is hard to maintain. I have never felt more in-Pack. She feels the same openly in the pack-bond.
We smell the Heat-provision deliveries coming down the corridor and decide it is time to recuperate. The Heat-suites on World are lavish, they have apparatus to improve conception and areas for resting and growing strength to continue. They have automatic delivery of Heat-provision which helps prevent undesired confusion of hormones. But here, in this hastily-dug ‘Heat-suite’ provision is delivered by a quarter-dog^ as though this was a provisioning-spot! The den is simple, it has a raised area to allow different kinds of purchase, a space for feeding, then a sleeping nook. We settle in the sleeping area and curl up together. If we must have an uninvited external presence in our Heat, then we will (for every-dog’s sake), at least, acknowledge them as little as possible.
I push my nose to Obedient First Eyes’s hindquarters. All I can smell is her, my eyes are closed, and I focus on the blood pumping in my ears rather than hear the delivery. I feel her gently inhaling my hindquarters and feel myself fall asleep.
( Loyal? ) Even in the pack-bond, her voice is deep and authoritative. I thank Soil for her mate-bonding with me.
( Yes, Obedient First Eyes, my Soil and World. ) I roll onto my back and scratch my ear with a hind paw.
( You really must eat. You need fruit if we are going to maximise our chances. ) She is over at the provisioning-spot. She is only eating the high iron provision; the fruits are for me. Fructose is vital to the production of seminal fluid. During Heat-leave, males only eat fruits to improve our volumes and strength of sperm. A female must eat flesh-provision to prepare her womb for pups. I pull myself up. As I approach her, my nose is flooded again with her gorgeous, fecund, almost juice-like, scent. I bury my nose into her hindquarters and inhale deeply. I am tremoring with arousal when she nips me firmly on the foreleg. ( Fruit first, my Soil and World. )
I eat the fruit. She eats her flesh. Our chemical^ flirting does not stop but my mind drifts. This is such a vital part of our duty, such a precious part of a mate-bond, we should be doing it in the familiar smells of home. Obedient First Eyes was promoted again when the split was announced. She was only notched yesterday. They saved all the notches for arrival. Promotion notches are often performed on the battlefield. Our fight is coming, and this is the ground on which we will fight. It seemed right to begin our lives on this world with a notching. Her new commander is a Rise, we are Sets. Will this Rise commander treat Obedient First Eyes with respect, or will she look down on her? I cannot tell how any-dog can smell my bond-mate and not tell that she is wiser, stronger, braver than us all. She will be a Pack Guider^ someday. I won’t, but I have no desire to be. I am a Soil parent, not a warrior. I raise pups, I serve in the creche.
My mind shifts to the new pups we are making. I focus my nose and realise that Obedient First Eyes is in a state of thought, no longer flirting with me. Her muzzle is muscled and beautiful, her stripe is slightly forked between her ears and when she is thinking the fork joins again to form an oval of light on the dark. She is staring through me, silent in sound, movement and smell – completely contained. I do not know many dogs who can be as unreadable as Obedient First Eyes Set. We are basically finished our respective Heat-provision. I push the remnants into a cache under the mating platform. Obedient First Eyes doesn’t move or speak in that time, but she does resume her chemical flirting. I approach her low, recognising her total dominion over me (both as a mate and as a dog). She smells me clearly and pounces.