BYRON LOOKED down at the beautiful woman lying next to him on the bed. His fingers stroked the top of her head, careful to move around the two pointed ears. When he traced down her neck, he couldn't help rubbing along the stripes running down her back, and further to the small of her back. Naked, he admired her curvy ass with a feline tail flicking above it.

She looked up at him with almond-shaped green eyes and smiled. "That was amazing, Master. Since I was a little girl, I have looked forward to the Ritual of Bonding to form a union with my master who would lead me forever. It was so much more pleasurable than I ever hoped for."

He frowned. "I'm sorry, I'm not really familiar with the ritual of bonding. What is that?"

Her eyebrows knitted together. "What we just did, Master."

"I know, but I mean, what does it mean? What's it for?"

Her eyes brightened and she began gesturing with her hands. "The Ritual of Bonding is an ancient tradition among Nikora males and females. When the bonding is performed, it means we are linked to another, body and soul. A bonded Nikora will do all that his or her master wishes, including giving up life itself. We believe that being bonded is our path to the Great Temple, what you would call the afterlife. It is a great honor to be bonded to another, and we all strive to find one we can be so connected to. However, it's rare to find someone so worthy."

He felt a little chill at the way she described it. "It, uh, sounds like married."

She giggled. "No. We have the concept of marriage. This is different."

He exhaled with relief. It wasn't that he didn't want to be married someday, but didn't want to marry Chetaara without knowing more about her. He also worried it would make things complicated with Scarlett. He wasn't sure if Chetaara would be upset, knowing what had happened between him and his robot assistant. If she found out he had slept with Scarlett, would the cat-woman rip his throat out?

Wow, he thought, things had changed. Before, I couldn't get one girlfriend. Now I'm trying to juggle two.

Chetaara continued, "Bonding is far more intimate and powerful, and cannot be broken. There is no separating two who are bonded except death. The bonding also does not always have a romantic or sexual component after the ritual is performed."

"If it's that important, why would you bond with me so quickly? You don't even know me that well."

"I know what I need to know. You have saved me and my family. I cannot imagine not bonding with a man such as yourself."

"Uh, but the ritual does involve sex?"

She gave him a puzzled smile. "Of course. We Nikora are more enlightened than other races regarding sexual activity. For us, sex is a part of life like eating or drinking."

She traced one of her claws in circles on his chest. "Of course, sex can be more pleasurable with one we have feelings for. And I do have feelings for you, Master."

He smiled and kissed her. "I have feelings for you, too."

She's not real, he told himself.

Shut up and enjoy it, he told himself.

"Tell me about yourself, Master?"

He looked away, hesitant. Not only did he not want to spoil the fantasy in the game, but he wasn't sure she would understand it. Chetaara and other NPCs seemed to be unaware and ignorant they were in a game.

"Uh, there's not much to tell. On my world, I worked in a call center."

She frowned. "What is a call center?"

"It's a, uh, place where people communicate to a lot of other people. In my case, I worked tech support for a phone company."

Her frown deepened. "Phone company?"

He gave up. He wasn't sure this was going to work. "Never mind. Chetaara, I want to ask you something. Does the name Venus Online mean anything to you?"

"Venus Online? No, I am afraid it does not."

"If I told you this was all a game, that this world wasn't real, what would you say?"

Chetaara lowered her eyes. "I would say that would be a very strange thing to say and I don't wish to pursue it. Our faith teaches such questions are blasphemy to the Goddess."

He gave up. It seemed like Scarlett was right, and the non-player characters had some sort of system or block to keep them from knowing about their fictional world. "I'm sorry, I won't talk about it again. Tell me more about yourself."

"Well, on my world, I was a high priestess for the Goddess P'rrshala. I looked forward to bringing the goddess to the rest of the Galaxy." Her smile vanished, replaced by cold anger. "The blasphemous armies of Lady Necralia entered our very temple to drag us into their slave ships, even as we performed a blessing of peace for the universe. They killed my father when he tried to stop them. Now my goal will be to punish them for their godless ways."

"If that's what you want, that's what we'll do."

After they savored the afterglow for a few more minutes, Byron and Chetaara got dressed again. They kissed for a little longer before the two of them left the Captain's quarters and headed back to join the others. He led the way to the bridge, where they found Scarlett at the controls.

The bridge looked a lot like the one on Byron's Icarus but with more instruments, and someone had put up a poster of a naked alien woman with tentacles instead of breasts. The forward window showed the rainbow of chaos from hyperspace, and the distant song coming from everywhere.

The robot Scarlett gave him a big smile like she knew exactly what happened. "How'd the 'bonding' go?" She held up two hands to put air quotes around "bonding."

"Uh, good." Byron looked at the swirling hyperspace outside the window to avoid meeting her eyes.

Chetaara wrapped her arms around his shoulders and nuzzled the top of his head while her tail flipped around to encircle his left leg. "The Bonding was amazing. He is truly a powerful Master."

Scarlett reached out to rub the crotch of his pants. "Yeah, seems like he enjoyed it, too."

He knew his face burned hot. He was normally a very private person who didn't even talk about sex with his sister. "Okay, let's talk about where we're taking this shipload of women to."

Scarlett turned back to the controls. "Sure thing. It's a planet called Aegis in the Republic of Allied Worlds. We'll be there in a few hours. Aegis is pretty far, even by hyperspace, but it's in the Outer Rim so it's outside of Necralia territory. I'll set the ship on autopilot so we can go mingle."

She stood up and headed off the bridge, calling back, "First thing I wanna do is see if there's any booze on this ship."

While Scarlett began looking through lockers, Chetaara narrowed her eyes. "You are a machine. How can you get inebriated?"

Scarlett held up a finger. "Just because I'm metal doesn't mean I can't get lit, baby. I've got all the body parts I need to enjoy myself. Ain't that right, Captain?"

She wiggled her eyebrows at Byron who blushed again. She was so outgoing that it had gotten embarrassing. He was also worried about making Chetaara jealous after the whole Ritual of Bonding.

He glanced at Chetaara. "I, uh, I'm not sure what you're talking about."

Scarlett's mouth dropped open. "Seriously? I'm talking about when you fucked the shit out of me a few hours ago?"

He looked quickly at Chetaara to see if any pain or concern appeared on her face.

She looked back at him with a blank expression. "Do you really not remember that?"

"Well, uh, I mean, I remember it, but I just thought that, uh, you might--"

"Might what?"

"That you might, you know, mind. Get jealous or something."

She gave him a warm smile, tucked her arms around him and kissed his cheek. "Master, as I said, sex is normal to my people. We would no more deny someone we love sex than we would deny them food or water. Monogamy as your people see it is something unknown among the Nikora. Feel free to enjoy the bodies of others. And Scarlett does have a very nice body that I'm sure you would enjoy."

"And you could enjoy," Scarlett giggled.

Chetaara lowered her eyes even as she smiled wider. "You are beautiful, but I have little experience with females."

Scarlett did a slinky dance over to Chetaara and wrapped her arms around the feline woman's waist. "That's ok. I'll teach you all about it, baby."

Holy shit, he thought. This is really happening.

Like many guys, he enjoyed lesbians. He'd watched enough porn to know the mechanics of it, but seeing the two ladies giggling and looking into each other's eyes right in front of him made him flush with excitement and his cock throb.

Venus Online, he had decided, was the best game ever. Not only was he paired up with two gorgeous women but bisexual ones at that.

Scarlett giggled and moved past Chetaara to hunt through some more lockers. It didn't take long for her to hoot with joy and pull out two large bottles of a green liquid. "Ha, jackpot! Draava ale, straight from the monasteries! The good shit. I wish I could find whoever stowed this away and give them a blowjob to thank them."

Chetaara smiled. "That would be most polite. However, I was forced to kill the crew."

Scarlett froze. "Uh, say what? I need to hear how that shit went down."

"Well, as I told my Master, the Captain was the first to die. Captain Venn was a most noble man who hired this freighter out of his own pocket to transport us to freedom. He made the crew promise to deliver us safely and not to abuse us. However, the captain of this ship Dell Q'voni broke the deal. He took me from the others and tried to force me to submit to a Ritual of Bonding."

Scarlett pulled off the cap of one of the bottles. "Ouch. That was a mistake."

Chetaara's smile widened, showing more of her sharp teeth. "Indeed, it was. With the help of the gods, I was able to convince the captain to remove my chains and tore out his throat. From there, I searched his quarters and found one of his weapons, a Hirill M-82 plasma pulse rifle. Well armed, I made my way back to the hold where I found the entire crew trying to have their way with my Nikora sisters. A simple shot to the back of the head would have sufficed, but my rage demanded more. I ordered them all to the airlock where I shot them out into space."

Scarlett took a swig from her open bottle. "You are lethal as fuck, Chetaara. Remind me to stay on your good side."

Chetaara laughed and shook her head. "You have nothing to fear. The Goddess forbids us from harming another living thing except for survival or in self-defense."

"Well, I'm about to harm this fucking liquor and whatever else there is to eat and drink on this ship." She held up the bottles. "Come on, let's get those pussies out of that hold."

As she headed for the cargo hold, Chetaara followed behind her with a frown. "My people consider that term a racial slur."

Scarlett covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh, shit. I'm so fucking sorry. I didn't know."

Chetaara nodded but didn't say anything more.

Chetaara and Scarlett had such different personalities, one carefree and bold while the other seemed cautious and bound with traditions. Byron wondered if they would get along or end up fighting each other. That would make his journey with them difficult. It would also reduce his chances of seeing the two of them having sex.