“Well, you’ll be reunited shortly, I’m certain,” Em said encouragingly. She was busy rolling some of her white clay into sausages and she also intended to make a fried egg, some nice roasted tomatoes and mushrooms, and some baked beans, though those might be a bit time-consuming.
“We cannot be together again soon enough for me,” Lord Torrid said morosely. “I do not know why we are thus punished—forced to sit apart from one another in this way!”
“You don’t? They didn’t give any reason at all?” Em asked briskly, still concentrating on molding her breakfast.
“Well…the attendant did say something about our lovemaking putting other contestants off their appetite.” He snorted derisively. “As if anyone could witness the beauty of our lovemaking and not glory in our abandon!”
“Hmm. Imagine that,” Em murmured. She thought of the squirting purple breast juice and then resolutely put it out of her mind. She was determined that no part of her breakfast was going to turn up purple today.
“Yes, I cannot wait for these Trials to be over,” Lord Torrid continued. “We are so constrained here and no one applauds our performance!”
“Er…are you saying that on your home world people clap for you as you’re…making love?” Em asked, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Oh, assuredly! On my home planet, people recognize the beauty of our everlasting lust for each other,” Lord Torrid assured her. “We have won in the world lovemaking competition seventeen cycles running. No other couple can surpass our passion or our creativity—it’s one reason Tabuu and I were chosen to come here and compete for the Rigellen Mineral Rights in the first place.”
Em tried to imagine a world where lovemaking was treated as an Olympic sport and couldn’t quite manage it. She was certainly glad it wasn’t so on Earth.
“Why did you come to compete?” Lord Torrid asked politely, having apparently finished with his own complaining and bragging. “I believe you might have said something about it during the Trial of Truth, but Tabuu and I were engaged with each other. And lovemaking—when done properly—takes all of one’s mental energy,” he added.
“Oh, of course.” Em nodded politely. “Well, the fact is…”
She explained about the rips in the universes which had allowed the Monstrum Kindred to come protect the Earth as the Darklings invaded, and the way that several of the dangerous universe-spanning gashes were located directly around Earth.
“We really only need one thing—a mineral named Yillium which was plentiful in the Monstrum’s universe but appears to be exceedingly rare in ours,” she continued. “But without it, I’m afraid my home planet, Earth may be…doomed.”
The last word seemed to stick in her throat. With everything that had happened to her in the past twenty-four hours, she had nearly managed to forget that the fate of her entire world rested on her actions today. It was a sobering thought.
“Well, that is a harrowing tale indeed!” Lord Torrid remarked. “Would you like me to put your plate into the intention-realization machine?” he added courteously. “I believe I am closer to it and my arms are longer.” He held up all four arms in demonstration.
“Oh yes…er, thank you very much,” Em said, handing him the plate full of white clay shapes. After the bright flash the machine made while converting the clay to food, Lord Torrid took it out and handed it back, studying it with some interest as he did so.
“Would you mind telling me what it is you’re eating?” he asked. “I need something to distract my mind from the way my body is experiencing withdrawal from Tabuu’s lovely form.”
“Withdrawal?” Em asked. “Are the two of you, er, addicted to each other then?” she asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Torrid said. “It’s just that if we do not make love for an extended period of time, our love juices build up in a most uncomfortable manner. You may see for yourself how large my lovely Tabuu’s breasts have gotten and as for me, well, just look at how turgid my members are and the way all four of my testicles have swelled! Why, they’re practically the size of murtha fruits.”
Em didn’t know what “murtha fruits” were, nor did she have any desire to look at either of the hyper-sexual couple’s genetalia. She did, however, take a cursory glance at Torrid’s lap, in order not to be rude, and was greeted with a most startling sight. Both of his penises (peni? What was the correct term for multiple male members? Em was awfully glad she didn’t need to know as part of her own job) were sticking up from his crotch. They had a distinctive curvature which made them look like two pink bananas. As for his testicles, well, a murtha fruit must be about the size of a grapefruit, Em thought.
“You do appear to be in a bad way,” she acknowledged, and hoped fervently that he wasn’t prone to “exploding” as his wife was. Speaking of which, she hoped she was out of the line of fire of Lady Tabuu’s four massive mammaries, which really had grown quite swollen and huge.