Page 16 of I Married A Lizardman

I do not like this, AT ALL.

“It’s going to be all right, I promise,” Susan insisted when I continued eyeing her with dismay.

Beyond the fact that she would be bleeding, something else troubled me quite a bit.

“Why has no male breached your ‘high man’ yet?” I asked, unable to hide the suspicion in my voice. “Youarea mature female of mating age, right?”

Susan gaped at me for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. “Yes, Olix. I assure you that I am a fully mature adult,” my mate said with a smile in her voice. “Legally, humans are deemed old enough to ‘choose’ to mate as of the age of sixteen. I will be twenty-five years in a couple of months.”

That only made my brows furrow deeper, which appeared to confuse her.

“That means, you were able to couple for the past nine years,” I said. “Why haven’t you?”

I hadn’t meant for my tone to come out as accusatory as it did, but too many questions were firing in my mind. Was my mate defective? Did the males of her colony not deem her worthy of their attention that none would have attempted to pursue her? Had her temperament driven potential partners away?

She recoiled, her eyes widening at my reaction. “You know, on my homeworld, males would rejoice to find out I was untouched.”

It was my turn to recoil.

“In case Kayog didn’t tell you, Meterion used to have a religious colony classification,” my mate explained while tucking a few locks of her head fur behind her right ear. “The same way we don’t show our bodies in public, my people didn’t allow others to touch them intimately unless they were married. Back then, there were severe consequences, especially for women since the hymen was the proof whether or not they had ‘sinned’ whereas men don’t bleed their first time.”

“You are punished for coupling even though you can legally do so?” I exclaimed, shocked.

Susan laughed. “Not anymore, no. Today, we can sleep with anyone we wish, even if we are not married. However, we avoid it, mostly because of the risk of pregnancy,” she explained. “Birth control is frowned upon by our people. But land is everything on Meterion. If you let the wrong man impregnate you, the land will move to his bloodline instead of the one you might have wanted.”

“But Kayog said you needed to leave Meterion because you didn’t have land,” I challenged.

She nodded. “As a third daughter, I don’t have land or any real hope of making a good marriage on my homeworld,” she said with a sigh. “Because of that, pregnancy wouldn’t really be a concern as far as land was concerned. Many men asked me to have sex with them, but I refused them all.”

“Why?” I asked, surprised.

“I didn’t deem any of them good enough to breach my hymen,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “It is considered a great honor to be the first man to lie with a woman. None of them deserved it from me,” she added, scrunching her face.

“And you deemmedeserving of it?” I asked, stunned.

“Of course! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have married you,” she replied matter-of-factly.

That gave me an oddly warm feeling in my chest. “You honor me, my mate,” I said, humbled.

She smiled timidly.

“Anything else, I should be aware of?” I asked, bracing for it.

“No… Well… not really,” she said, hesitantly.

What now?

I narrowed my eyes at her, and she squirmed on the cushion.

“Well, it’s just that since this will be my first time, I am pretty tight down there,” she said sheepishly, her face coloring again. It was ridiculous just how easily she reddened. “So, you will have to go slow and be careful depending on how big you are.”

The worried look she cast towards my groin would have been comical if not for her genuine concern.

“I don’t know what a human would consider big but, by my people’s standards, I am well-endowed,” I said, carefully. “You fear you won’t be able to take me?”

“Oh no! No, I’m pretty sure I will be able to… We stretch and adjust. It just might take longer and be a bit more uncomfortable until then,” she said, although I couldn’t say if she was trying to reassure me or herself. “But there’s no point borrowing trouble. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

I scratched the scales on my nape, feeling somewhat distraught. This was the most awkward mating night I could have ever imagined. Right now, I just wanted to gulp down a full jug of berry cider and go to sleep.

---