2503.12 22/—Emancipation #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera CW: Sex

"So, let me get this right," May Ri said. She sat in a small supply dome cleared for the purpose, a light glaring overhead, a table, two chairs, a chamber pot, and a vid, currently blank but recording. She scrolled her book plate. "Dug… not Doug… not—"

"Douglas," the dirty haired, dumpy import snapped, ankle chained to the floor. Her age. She'd researched how police ran interviews in Randy's library, but between the textbooks and police procedural novels, the latter was the most helpful.

He had had a second child, a son, after a 14 year contraceptive hiatus, never having visited his daughter, only his wife. She did not like him. "You took Howy, H-O-W-Y—?"

"Yes. My son."

"—From the crèche to form your own, to homeschool him?"

"…"

"With these guys?" She listed 20 men, returned from Olympus Mons.

"And their sons." Seven, of 35 total kids.

"Over the objections of your wife?"

"My son. My wife. What don't you get about 'Obey,' woman?"

She let the book plate clatter. "So you beat her?"

He crossed his arms. She read, God-given right. After five minutes silence, he slyly asked, "Ever read The Book?"

"The one full of obscene stories, wild sex, war, genocide, bloody executions, vindictive men brutalizing women for their property?" She nodded, thumb down.

"No. Scripture."

"Yes, that one." Study thy enemy. During school prayer, right? "The riot you started killed a boy named James."

"Went to a better place, a-theist. The women aren't teaching the Decath blessings per charter—"

Seven hours later, she returned to a room reeking of a latrine, weirdly thunderstruck: "Where'd you get the idea for a boy-only crèche?"

"Reverend O'Neil gave a sermon..."

—2—

Yuki Īto touch-walked into Reverend O'Neil's office, mostly floating, elegantly, her cotton tabi (toe) socks letting her anchor to the desk easily. She wore an Earth-imported yukata. White, with fluttering orange, red, and gold autumn maple leaves tied with a black obi sash, the little-used garment felt soft and symbolic. Feminine, yet powerful. She had grey hair; his had thinned to white floss that showed scalp. The last Decath Minister in Mars space was fifteen years older than her. Gone was his red hair and ronin's lecherous smile from when fate had stranded them on Deimos, alone.

Without contraceptives. Before the "bone issue" that left them and six others only able to live in Deimos' microgravity.

"Secretary Īto—" The smell of a mocha in a ceramic liquigrip waft in as she docked it on the imported mahogany desk and he stared. The Decath were all about wealth. For them. Not Japan, which NADS, a Decath country, had helped East Imperial China "annex" when she was three.

"Reverend." Yuki sank to the chair, then sipped her hot barley tea. Cocoa was no longer extinct, and coffee was a staple that could be spin-thrown from Mars—thanks to May Ri.

He finished, "I told you never to visit me again."

"Oh?" She tapped her temple, then sipped.

He sighed, took up the cup two-handed Japanese-style as she'd taught. Sipped. He smiled faintly. "Okay, what?"

She sipped.

He sipped.

A meter wide window ran from floor to ceiling to floor across the dome, displaying Mars like a faux painting in all its ferric, ferrous, and ferrosoferric Lowellian glory. Monorail lines not canals crisscrossed the equator, invisible to the eye, of course. She spotted Isidis Planitia. "A beautiful prison," she said, adding, "Time!" reaching for his vid.

"For what?"

"Wait." Nisei. A townhall, a podium, a speaker…

"The Harlot Princess of Mars!" His breath hitched. Behind her, "Our indiscretion," Reina.

"…The Sorority Charter we voted for prohibits slavery contracts. You cannot give the right to another to force you to obey. You cannot be made property. Because of recent abuses, and a history of abuse against women, today we voted to abolish marriage." A crowd of nisei roared approval. "No man may own a woman, enjoin her, force sex, assert right to her property. Her children are hers to raise, never his. This vote annuls all Martian marriages. Sex ceases to be illegal, but consent remains mandatory. Be civil, Martians, and… have fun!"

"Not Decath marriages!"

"Contact your diocese." Yuki directed men to remove his comm devices from his beautiful prison.

—3—

Randy, 55 today, lay spread-eagled. May Ri knelt between, with a two-handed grip. He asked, sweating, then really sweating, "What do you mean I should think of bedding another woman—? Don't squeeze!"

"What I said. Think about it. If it helps. If it gives you… ideas." She squeezed.

"You're already more than I can handle, Princess!"

She grinned evilly, freeing her slave—temporarily. "Good answer!"

#RSMarsNeededWomen 22

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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