I laughed and said, “No, she is different… and we had fun, no question about that, but is that odd?”
She said, “Mark, girls are five-foot-four-inches tall. And Men are five-foot-eight by the way. Sashar is the smallest woman in the village. Girls are serious and they go about their business and they always hope that they will find a mate. Sashar sells fruit. She is all about fruit. Everything that she ever says is compared to fruit. She is a fruit weirdo. A tiny, bouncy fruit weirdo! I love her just like all of us love each other here in the House of Mark, but since you fall for the ‘odd girls’, you have chosen well with Sashar. Before it’s over, you will take Myndee or Manya or both. There is also Trinla and Foteen, but I think that Manya will be next. I think that now the time has started again, that Trinla and Foteen will be spoken for soon enough. It will be interesting to see what happens to Tranna while we’re gone. Shall we have breakfast?”
Alexia jumped out of the bed and ran to the hatch and bent down and yelled, “Hey, shrine maidens and odd girls of the house of Mark! Are you down there? Bring some breakfast and let’s eat on the roof! OK, but hurry! Our prince is in bed and he wants his breakfast! And so does his giant! We want breakfast and a bed full of boobies. Yes, I said boobies! I think that we will need at least ten in total, but if you find more, bring them as well. And hurry!”
The girl ran back to the bed and jumped on top of me and said, we need a table and chairs. Get up and help me! And hurry!”
She pulled me out of bed and handed me my end of the rope and pushed me toward the wall overlooking the garden.
I said, “No, you stay here and I’ll go down,” and I ran down the hatch.
I told the girls to bring spare chairs to the garden, not ones from the dining room, and to grab a smaller table and bring all of it to me in the garden.
I went to the garden and Alexia lowered the rope to me. One of the girls appeared with a chair and I took it from her and said to Alexia, “I am going to throw it to you. Catch it.”
Alexia looked dubious. It was about 30 feet straight up. I smiled and tossed the thing so that it rose to just the height of the wall and gently sailed over. The lower gravity meant that not only did the thing weigh less to me, but it accelerated and decelerated at one sixth the speed. When falling, an object dropped on Barsoom fell at just one sixth the speed that it would on Earth.
Alexia caught the first chair with surprise and I watched how it moved to gauge the motion and momentum better for the next.
I called up, “Move out of the way for a moment,” and I waved her to the left.
I took the next chair, felt the weight, and then lofted it into the air. It went over the wall, clearing it by about a foot and landed on the roof. Because it was only five feet off the roof as it went over the wall, the impact was about the same as having dropped it from ten inches. I was pleased with my performance and repeated it with the remaining four chairs. When it came to the table, I could have thrown that as well, but it might have been damaged if I did. I tied the rope to it and Alexia started to haul it up. I leapt straight up, caught hold of the top of the wall and hoisted myself over and stood beside Alexia and said, “Here, can I help you with that?”
She looked surprised, but said, “No, I can manage. Um, On second thought, get behind me, real close and make sure I am doing it right,” and she wiggled her butt suggestively. It was a nice offer.
The rest of the girls arrived through the hatch carrying fruit and water and some bread and a few things that I hadn’t seen before. We placed the chairs around the table, it was just about right for six people, and laid out the food.
Aside from Alexia suggesting that I get ‘behind her behind’, there wasn’t much talk about sex. Everyone seemed satisfied for the moment with the activities from the previous night as each one took a turn with me on the roof.
We ate and had a cheery time and eventually Belle said, “You know, after Mark was with Alexia, he had Sashar with him, and then, he had a time with me as well.”
Rani said, “Belle, before he was with you, he had me with him on the roof too.”
Aeyli said, “Girls, before Rani, he had me… twice.”
They all looked at me and I said, “What kind of man doesn’t satisfy all of his mates at least once or twice, all in the same night? If a man can’t do that, maybe he shouldn’t have so many mates!”
Belle said, “And if he can? What then?”
I said, “Then, he should do it. Several times every month. Once a week at least.”
Chapter 28
Preparing for the Wilderness
We ate our breakfast and I said, “Girls, Alexia has asked if we can take a trip into the wilderness together. I have told her that we will, but I want to hear from all of you. Sashar agreed, but she might not have been thinking straight at the time because she was, well, anyway, she may not have been thinking straight.”
Sashar said, “Oh, I was thinking straight, just not about that! Straight and hard and big and stiff and lovely!” and she laughed. “But yes, I’m game. With ‘Mark who kills great apes with a stick’ and ‘Alexia the giantess’, what danger can there be?” Then she noticed Aeyli and Alexia and quickly said, “Oh, my loves, forgive me, I didn’t think!” referring to the deaths of the girls’ parents that Alexia had told me about.
Aeyli said, “Sashar, don’t worry about that. It was long ago and I have traveled back and forth to the shrine hundreds of times by myself. Tell us what you’re thinking.”
I said, “Alexia has asked that just like in my story from last night, that we go away for a time together so that when we come back, the memories that people in the village have of her will have faded a bit, and they’ll get to know us fresh. All of our lives have changed in the past few days and we are still changing. If we go away, we’ll have more freedom to become who we are now, rather than who we have been all of this time.”
Aeyli said, “Hm, I see the wisdom in that. Rani, Belle, and I were shrine maidens and people thought about us in a particular way.”
Belle said, “As the odd girls who serve at the shrine.”
Aeyli continued, “Yes. If we all go away, when we come back, we will be the Princesses of the House of Mark. They’ll think of us differently than they did. The shrine maidens will go away and the girls of ‘-ah-Mark’ will return.”
Alexia said, “And I was the odd girl who was too tall and too quiet. But I’m not that girl anymore! Listen to me! I talk like a real girl. I don’t even remember yesterday.”
Belle grinned and said, “You’re still very tall.”
Alexia said, “You think so? Maybe. But Alexia the odd girl was so tall that she would never have a mate. Alexia-ah-Mark is so tall that when she walks beside Mark Jensen, she looks like an exotic warrior princess. Hey, if you think I am boasting, I don’t care. I was worth more than ten furs! Trust me, I know who I am and that I’m no better than others, but I also know that Mark thinks that I’m as beautiful as all of you, and frankly, we had all better get used to being a bit regal, if you know what I mean.”
Aeyli said, “That’s true. We will sit at the head of the council one day. Alexia, this is a good plan. ‘Alexia the odd girl’ won’t be on the council, but ‘Alexia-ah-Mark, the Ten Fur Princess’ will. I like it! Sashar, are you really ready to go into the wilderness for a while? You and Alexia have never been outside the gates; not since our parents were killed.”
Sashar said, “Inside or outside, what difference does it make. I’m no longer ‘Sashar the girl who sells fruit’, I am ‘Sashar-ah-Mark, the girl who is fruit!’. Where my prince goes, I go. There are no dangers or beasts or men or women or village or wilderness; as far as I see, there is only Mark and the four of you. We’ll go together and find happiness there. I’ll turn my stand over to some other girl until we come back.”