There was a plush white carpet on the floor and a crystal chandelier overhead but there was no platform with mirrors, Em saw. Also, the elaborately carved crystal chairs scattered around the carpet all held the strangest looking occupants she had ever seen.
“Let me introduce you to the other three couples who are vying for the Rigellen Mineral Rights,” Elfa said to them. She led them to the first two chairs and announced, “This is Om’bobla and his lovely wife, Channa. They are here from Orbulous Four to attend the Trials.”
“Pleased to meet you!” Om’bobla—the male of the couple—rose to greet them. He had a large, bulbous head that was completely bald and slick grayish skin that reminded Em of a dolphin or a porpoise. He was, at least, wearing trousers of a sort—tight-fitting, bright purple ones that only went down to his knees and had a monstrous bulge in the crotch.
A bulge which seemed to be writhing in all directions, Em saw, as her eyes flicked downward and then hastily away. What did he have down there—a nest of snakes? She hoped fervently she would never have to find out.
Om’bobla’s hand looked normal enough when he extended it to them, but when he spread his fingers, Em saw that they were actually tentacles, which spread wide and wiggled bonelessly in the air as he waited for one of them to shake.
She was extending her hand reluctantly—all the wiggling digits seemed to be coated with mucous-like slime—when his wife exclaimed,
“Om’bobla—if you so much as lay one single tentacle on another female, we are finished forever!”
“Awww, Channa, how can you talk like that when you know my heart—and my tentacles—belong only to you?” the tentacle-handed man burbled, turning to his wife. He sounded like he was talking underwater.
Em turned to look at her as well and saw that rather than sitting on a crystal chair, she was sitting in one. For the bottom half of her chair seemed to be a kind of tank filled with clear water. Through it, Em could plainly see that she had a long, fish tail with shimmering purple scales that started at her hips and extended down. There was a large, forked fin where her feet would have been and between her thighs was a purple, fleshy slit that almost seemed to be breathing—or at least, it was flexing in a rhythmic way below the surface of the water.
Is that her vagina or a set of gills? Em couldn’t help wondering, even as she tried not to look. It was difficult to tell but the woman sitting in the crystal tank appeared very like a mermaid to her. She was topless with pale white skin, which made the fact that her nipples were purple and the size of saucers even more startling.
“Er, very nice to meet you,” she said politely to the couple—who were still arguing, as Elfa led them on to the next set of chairs.
“This is Lady Tabuu and her lovely partner, Lord Torrid,’ Elfa said. “They are here from Sexualis Centris—the premier erotic hotspot in our quadrant of the Galaxy. As you can see, their people are definitely in harmony with the Rigellen idea that loving your partner can be done anywhere and at any time,” she added.
“Lovely to meet you,” Em said, smiling uncertainly at the new couple, who both had a soft, pearly tinge to their pale pink skin. Neither of them were wearing any clothing and Lady Tabuu had four breasts, all of which were clearly displayed—one set directly above the other.
It was rather difficult to see the second set of breasts, since her partner, Lord Torrid, was cupping them in his hands and squeezing rhythmically. However, as he had two sets of arms, this erotic activity didn’t keep him from holding out a free hand to Em and Rarev.
Nor were the two sets of arms and two sets of breasts the only places where the couple seemed to have double the number of human anatomy. Lord Torrid clearly had two cocks—one right above the other. But as Lady Tabuu also had two vaginal slits, this seemed to work for both of them, Em thought, as her eyes flickered downward and away.
“Good to meet you,” Lord Torrid said, taking first Rarev’s hand and then Em’s own in a firm, if somewhat clammy, grip. “Always good to know the competition.”
“You appear to be, er, ready to compete,” Rarev remarked blandly.
“Oh, don’t mind us,” Lord Torrid said cheerfully, nodding down at the way he was massaging his partner’s second set of breasts. “Just getting in a bit of light fondling—warming up for the first Trial, you know.”
“But…I thought the first one was called the Trial of Truth?” Em said, feeling a tremor of something like fear go through her. Did the hyper-sexual Torrid and Tabuu know something she and Rarev didn’t? Were they going to have to jump right into the deep end and start mauling each other the way the other couple was?