NOVEL NEXT Chapter 66: They’re lions. You’re a lion. I’m…not
By the time Dominic decided that it was probably safe to investigate what his co-passenger was up to, he was feeling a mix of relaxed and mournful.
Running through the reel of his favourite moments in the past had been enjoyable, but also reminded him of how much he had lost. Even if he managed to regain his human body, which seemed possible, he’d have to travel across half the world to return to where he’d called home. If he managed to do that – a big ‘if’ – there was no guarantee that any of the people featuring in his memories still lived, or would still be alive by the time he managed to reach them.
Apart from his father, there were the group of friends he’d gone to school with, including his best friend of almost twenty years.They’d all grown a bit apart after going to different universities, but they still met up for drinks whenever two or more of them were in town at the same time.
There was his aunt, his father’s sister and her husband who lived in Cambridge, his uncle a professor at the university, his aunt a teacher at a local secondary school. After his mother had left and barely bothered to stay in contact, she’d taken over some of the motherly role in his life.
He’d resented her a bit for that at the time, but missed it now. And then there were her daughters, his two cousins, both a bit older than him. Being both female, he’d never really developed a relationship with either of them – even at family gatherings, they’d had a habit of huddling together in a corner and giggling far too much.
And although he didn’t have much contact with his mum’s side of the family – and none with his sperm donor’s family, not that he even knew who they were – he did have an uncle who had a habit of swooping into the picture, showering him with gifts and cool experiences, and then disappearing just as thoroughly. Perhaps being flighty runs in the family, Dominic thought wryly, not for the first time.
As for grandparents, at least he didn’t have any who needed to adapt to such a different world. His mother’s parents had been dead before she met his father, and his dad’s parents had passed away three and four years previously: his grandpa had been unable to get used to a world without his grandma in it, and had followed her less than a year after her death. The doctors said he’d had a heart attack, but Dominic reckoned that he’d just lost the will to keep it beating: his gran and grandpa had had the kind of relationship he’d always wanted to.
Guess that’s out, he thought rather glumly. Even if Leo was able to have a fulfilling love life with a load of lionesses, Dominic couldn’t. But the likelihood of him being able to find the love of his life like his grandpa had seemed pretty slim, even if he did manage to get a human body back.
It was with such doleful thoughts that he returned to his body, the transition from being completely disconnected to reconnecting his senses both a bit disorientating and surprisingly easy. He was lying beneath a tree. Two moons were overhead, lighting up the savannah almost as much as the sun would have. A good few hours must have passed. Although night was generally the best time to hunt, the pride didn’t look interested in moving on right now.
There were two lionesses near Leo, with the rest of the pride lying together a good way off. Not out of sight, but under a different tree. Leo wasn’t in the middle of…mating, fortunately. Instead, he was lying down, his head on his paws, resting. Not sleeping, he noticed Dominic’s presence immediately.
‘You’re back. Not interested in seeing my mating prowess?’ he asked, a little smugly. If the level of satiation Dominic could feel permeating their body was anything to go by, he’d had more than just one round. Several more.
‘Not really,’ Dominic said shortly.
‘Concerned that if you were in control you wouldn’t do as well?’ Leo prodded at him teasingly. In that moment, he felt very much like the little brother Dominic had never had. However, with him still feeling raw about losing everyone he’d ever cared for and the future he’d always dreamed of having, the teasing felt far too sharp. Piqued, Dominic snapped back.
‘Since I never wanted to fuck an animal, I don’t really care.’ There was silence for a long moment. His own irritation subsiding, Dominic worried that he’d hurt Leo. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-
‘What’s wrong with my pride?’ Leo demanded huffily.
‘Nothing, as far as lionesses go,’ Dominic sighed. ‘But that’s the issue. They’re lions. You’re a lion. I’m…not.’
‘You’re in my body. Who else are you going to mate with?’
‘Not with lionesses,’ Dominic said firmly.
‘Why not?’
Leo demanded with a hint of a whine to his voice. He clearly didn’t understand at all. Dominic sighed as he tried to think of a way to explain it.‘Why not? Would you want to mate with a human woman?’ There was the sense of immediate rejection from Leo. ‘Then why are you questioning why I wouldn’t want to mate with a lioness?’
‘Because human females are weak and vulnerable. How can they protect cubs if they can’t even protect themselves? Your memories are rife with rules and laws needed to protect human females, implying that they can’t do it for themselves. When compared to the expert hunters and protective mothers that female lions are, human females come up very short. How can the weak softness of a human female be in any way comparable to the muscled steel of one of my females? And as for the strange ideas human females have about choosing not to have cubs or getting rid of cubs or abandoning cubs….’
‘Yeah, but lionesses can’t-’ Dominic cut himself off. This discussion was pointless: beauty was in the eye of the beholder. ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree. While I’ll admit that a lioness is magnificent to look at, that doesn’t make me want to…to mate with her. And you don’t have to want to mate with a human woman to accept that I do.’
‘But why?’ Leo pressed, still not understanding. ‘Maybe you were human before, but you are a lion now. How can you not be attracted to female lions? Does not your instinct cry out to mate with them, to have cubs with them.’ Dominic felt faintly ill at the thought, despite not being in control of his stomach at that moment.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘No, my instinct does not ‘cry out’. And even if it did…humans have grown past having sex just for the sake of instinct.’ Then he thought of the number of people who thought that a woman dressed in provocative clothes had no right to object to a man wanting to have sex with her and he changed his answer. ‘Well, most of the time, anyway. These days, humans usually have sex because it’s pleasurable, or because we want to have children. And the majority of men want to know that their partners want it and are having fun too. That’s the problem here.’
‘That the females are not having fun? She was the one asking for it. Multiple times, I might add,’ Leo responded, a hint of the earlier smugness breaking through again.
‘No, more about my partner wanting it. With me.’ Confusion filled Leo’s mind.
‘Again, I’ll point out that the two females were in heat. They very clearly wanted to mate, practically didn’t take no for an answer. If they are not in heat, they do not ask for mating, nor is there any point to it: they will not conceive cubs.’ Clearly, to Leo, this was all that was important. And Dominic understood it, kind of. But it wasn’t good enough for him.
‘Humans are different,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You’ve said it before: one male lion is as good as another to the lionesses of the pride: as long as he’s clearly healthy and strong, he might as well be the sperm donor for their cubs. But that’s not the way humans work.’
‘We have sex for fun, not just to have children,’ Dominic continued. ‘In fact, we probably have sex a lot more for fun than for children, and that’s why we have a number of means to prevent conception: children are a big commitment and not everyone wants that.’ His own mother included, it would seem. ‘At the same time, most of us don’t want to have a series of interchangeable partners, instead looking for someone we will spend a long time with. Sometimes a lifetime. So it’s important to us that the other person wants us specifically, not just any man.’
‘The problem that I have with mating with a lioness is less the physical aspect, though I’ll admit that that squicks me out a bit.’ Although he hadn’t seen the change in the area between his back legs, he suspected that there must be a significant one, based on what he’d heard about feline genitals. ‘It’s more about their inability to give consent. To my standards,’ he added as Leo seemed about to interject.
‘It’s bad enough that you, as a sapient creature who can choose to go against your instincts, are with a partner who is a slave to them. But at least you have always been a lion, and your objectives for the mating are no different from theirs. But me? I would want something very different from them, and have never really been a lion like them. It just…it feels wrong to me on so many levels.’
Leo had been listening to him in silence for a while. When he responded, he did so thoughtfully, as if taking care over his words.
‘I think what you said before of ‘agree to disagree’? Yes. That seems best. I do not understand your perspective. I think you humans have got yourself tied up in knots about something which is very simple. But as I did not want you to tell me how to approach other lions, I will not try to tell you how to approach other humans. Am I to take it that you wish me to take over mating duties with the females?’ His tone was a mixture of amused and eager.
‘Sure,’ Dominic replied, feeling a bit relieved. It certainly seemed the best compromise to him. While there were still some vague moral issues involving the sapient Leo and the non-sapient lionesses of their pride, it was a lot less of a thorny situation than Dominic himself in the same position.
‘Then if you do not want to be present when we mate, I suggest you pull back again now,’ Leo told him, eyeing one of the lionesses who had climbed to her feet and was approaching him, her tail curled into the air.
‘What, again?’ exclaimed Dominic. ‘Didn’t you just finish?’
‘Why do you think I wanted that ability ‘Boundless Fertility’?’ Leo asked him with amusement. ‘If we want to have a chance of conceiving cubs, we have to mate many, many times while the female is in heat. It will be done in a few days,’ he finished.
‘A few days?’ Dominic groaned. ‘OK, fine,’ he grumbled. ‘Tell me when you’re done, alright? And don’t level up without me!’ With Leo’s agreement, and the lion already moving over to the female who was lying down in front of him, Dominic quickly pulled back into his soulspace.
