“I’ll hand D’vinda to Evik.” Zacal fixed me with a distrustful glare. “A fertile mate, Yiri. Don’t bring home a widowed grandmother from the docks. I expect offspring.”
“Fine.”
“Where are you going to find a mate?” Evik demanded, somewhere between excitement and anger. “If it were that easy, you’d already have one.”
“I’ll worry about where to find her,” I said. “You worry about your self-defense skills. Might want to train up before the ceremony.”
Back on my own cruiser, I settled in for the search. It was tempting to keep sucking down sellah, but I needed a clear head for this.
I don’t look down on anyone who finds their mate through Bion Marriage Match, but I never thought I would be that guy. What kind of crazy human woman would want to leave the comfort of her home world to be part of mine? Then again, I’m not a good guy, but the powerful Venasteans I work for have paid a lot of credits to make sure I look good on the surface. I’m not lacking power, money, or infamy, but my adulthood has been devoted to crime, violence, and brutality. Not the kind of stuff you can put on your BMM profile, and lying about the life I lead to a female I plan to claim as mine has never appealed to me. Growing up in a planetary system with rapidly declining female birth rates teaches a male not to get his hopes up, so I haven’t spent that much time thinking about finding a mate. But one thing I’ve always known is any female who chooses me has to chooseallof me. There’s no walking away from this life. I can keep a female safe, but only if she trusts me and can stand at my side with her head held high. Hard enough to find in person, but over the nexus? Not possible. I wouldn’t even try if Zacal hadn’t forced my hand.
So there I was, uploading a bullshit profile with an image of myself a good five circuits younger, with a few less scars and a lot less body art. I would have touched it up, removing the art and scars Ididhave back then, completely if I could. I’ve heard that not all human women like body art. But BMM doesn’t allow altered images. I’m surprised my old image was accepted, but after a face scan, I guess the system deemed it a close enough match.
Logging in for the first time is like being slapped in the face with a repressed Ibarutan wet dream. The pious little moon would be scandalized by the endless stream of females, many of them in little clothing. By Venastean standards, it was tame, and from what I’d gathered from the steady feed of data coming to us from Earth’s primitive nexus, it was conservative by theirstandards, too. Human women were bold, sexual creatures. The data showed that females slightly outnumbered the males on Earth, but the disparity was nothing like what we were experiencing in Bion 8KV. Daernir females had their pick of males, most of them taking their time to choose wisely. Human females seemed nearly as frantic in their search for mates as daernir males. Until now, I hadn’t wondered why. Were human males unable to satisfy their female partners? Whatever the reason, there were tens of thousands of human women vying for mates in our planetary system.
I did the required reading about Earth’s mating customs and passed the exam, and then answered a few questions about my preferences so an appropriate algorithm could be calibrated. How old would I like my mate to be in Venastean years? Anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. I wanted an adult, not some silly young thing. But still young enough that we could wait to have children. Zacal wanted me to produce heirs immediately, but if I had to take a mate in a hurry, I’d at least like to have her to myself for a while. I saw no reason to knock the woman up as soon as she landed in Covara. I made a mental note to re-dose my birth control through a black market health tech. Zacal wasn’t above snooping in my files if he thought I wasn’t doing my duty to the family.
I answered the remaining questions with impatience. What pastimes and personality traits did I hope to find in a mate? Fuck if I knew. She could do what she wanted with her time. I had the money to fund whatever hobbies she enjoyed. As for personality traits? She had to have courage, honor, and a willingness to break the law. I couldn’t put that last part into the system, though. Open-minded? Adventurous spirit? But that was probably a given with all of these females. They were born on a Class Two world, and they were willing to leave it for the unknown. Would I do the same to find a mate? Maybe, butonly if D'vinda was the alternative. There were a few questions about physical preferences, which seemed outrageous. In the Bion system, males take what they can get and like it. That’s not to say our females aren’t beautiful. They are. But there are no males here being picky about hair color or the size of a female’s breasts. I almost answeredno preferencewhen I thought of the file of human art on my nexus core. Pinup girls, they called them. Hand-drawn renderings of human women wearing short skirts, skimpy dresses, or less, twisted into teasing, taunting poses to tempt the viewer’s thoughts. I thought of the shapely calves, thick thighs, and rounded hips, the full breasts somehow defying gravity, and the artistically styled hair in swirls and waves. Were there actually human women who looked like that, or was it only some male fantasy? I thought it might be a fantasy of mine. I selected full figure as a preference, but left most of the other options empty, and when asked how much physical traits mattered in my preferences, I markedlow to moderate. I mean… it wouldn’t hurt for Zacal’s second in command to have an extraordinarily beautiful mate. Just having a mate was a status symbol; anything else was just a bonus.
With all the questions answered, it only took seconds for my nexus frame to fill with images and recs of potential mates, called “brides” by Bion Marriage Match. My translator told me it was a word for female mates, with husband being the male equivalent. The concept wasn’t foreign. Daernir had similar mating contracts to the human tradition of marriage. Skimming over some of the brides’ preferences and requirements, it seemed like the bar for a suitable husband must be quite a bit lower on Earth. I saw several profiles that stated any potential husband “must have a job!” I wanted to send a mass message and tell them there were no males without jobs on this network. The credits it cost just to sign up was high, but worth it. Andevery message we sent to a potential bride would cost more credits if she answered.
I swiped through pictures and recs until my eyes were tired. Either the algorithm wasn’t doing its job, or there were a lot more young women looking for off-world matches than women closer to my age. There were plenty of attractive females, and maybe that was the problem. It was overwhelming how many there were. All of them with enticing recs, telling me what good brides they would be and their many qualifications. Apparently, to Earth women, that meant cooking, child rearing, and housework, chores that were primarily left to males in Venastea and most other worlds in the Bion system. I would never admit this to Evik, but I was almost nervous to message any of these women. There were hundreds of thousands of males searching this database on Venastea alone. Every female with an active profile was probably receiving more messages than she could respond to. What could I say to stand out? Sure enough, the first profile I selected to send a message to disappeared before I could think of an opening line. A notification flashed across my frame with the joyful message that “This bride has found a match!” Well, good for some other bastard, I guessed. With a sigh, I kept swiping, the faces blending together until I thought I’d seen them all before, the same female with dark hair or light, blue eyes or green, pink skin or brown. There were so many of them, and yet none of them stood out to me. This one had a pretty face, but her smile had a cruel slant that I recognized well from my line of work. It was the kind of smile I gave my enemies. The next female had uploaded a rec to introduce herself, but I could only stand to listen to a few seconds of her nasally voice. Another had four dependent sons and clearly stated that she had no intention of having more children. I even saw one in ugly brown clothing with a profile dedicated solely to listing thereasons “alien beings” should stay on their own planet and leave humans alone.
A headache was starting in my temples, and I was fucking starving, but just before I stopped my search I saw her.
My wife.
A tight skirt wrapped her shapely hips and thighs, hugging all the way down to her knees. Her collared shirt opened just enough to show a peek of cleavage, and on her feet were shiny black shoes with small, raised heels and pointy toes that put her ankles and calves on mouthwatering display. But what stopped me, whatgrabbed meand wouldn’t let go, were her eyes. Rimmed with sweeping black lines, they glittered blue-green. They reminded me of the waters of my lagoon at sunrise, refracting light like scattered gemstones.
Most of the other females on BMM shared images and recs of their smiling and seductive faces.
This female—my wife—didn’t smile. She looked straight through the Nexus and right into my soul. Some instinct sat forward inside me and saidmine.My chest tightened as I opened her profile and sent her a message before I even read her name.
CHAPTER 3
CORA
Bion Marriage Match was insane.Andholy shit, I should have signed up the day it came out. I’d never made a dating profile on any of the apps before, so I had nothing to compare it to, but it felt super awkward to… you know… describe myself? My answers to the guiding questionnaire were all short and boring, and the three required photos I uploaded were pretty plain. A lot of women had gone all out with full makeup and professional-looking photos. I obviously couldn’t afford a photographer, so I snapped a few selfies, changing my outfit a few times so it would look like maybe I didn’t take them all today. I did put on a little makeup for one, because I didn’t want to look like a complete slouch compared to everyone else. I kept it simple, though, with modest cat-eye liner and sheer red lip stain. I wore a pencil skirt, a white blouse, and a pair of reasonable heels. I looked like I was headed to a job interview.
But, whatever. It was the best of my selfies, so I made it my main photo. I opted not to add a video. I had no idea what to say. I listed my hobbies as reading, dining out with friends, and watching movies. I had a hard time coming up with requirements for potential husbands. If this were a regular dating app, I would have said he had to have a job, evenif that was super hypocritical. But I couldn’t see myself even pretending to be interested in marrying a man with prospects as bad as mine. In the end, I went withmust be respectful,and called it a day. There was a section for special accommodations that asked if I required passage for any dependents. I laughed and selected,yes,and listed Mr. Darcy as a minor.
“Not going anywhere without you, handsome fella,” I said, nosing into his fur and pressing a kiss to his grumpy little forehead. Mr. Darcy glared.
A message popped up that warned me to be prepared for this selection to weed out some applicants, since the cost of additional passage was prohibitive for many.And?I wasn’t expecting to find anyone I’d leave the planet for anyway. If I did, I’d still have to take Mr. Darcy. That was non-negotiable. I finalized my profile and turned on a comfort show while I scrounged up some girl dinner. Crackers, cheese, and a small tangerine. That’s basically a charcuterie board, right? I had a few hard seltzers in the fridge too, and even if I had gone through a few too many Bloody Marys at lunch, this was a day for drinking. I settled in to watch two attractive police detectives butt heads for a while, and nibbled at my dinner like a mouse. A minute or two later, I got the first notification.
It was an unusual sound, like a melodic drop of water plopping into a bowl. I picked up my phone and saw that I’d received a message already.Wow.That was fast. And it wasn’t just a quick pickup line, either. It was a full-blown marriage proposal complete with images of the house I could expect to live in, and my would-be fiancé in many beautiful locations. Before I even finished reading the first message, two others popped up. Another proposal, and a message a little more in line with my expectations. That was the first one I responded to.
Caruth: You’re very beautiful. I would be honored to hear from you.
Me: Thanks. Um. Hi. :)
Another message popped up before he responded, this one just a picture of a terrified-looking daernir man holding a ring the size of a golf ball. And so it went. I got way too many messages to respond to them all, but I did try to read them all, at least. Most of them were immediate proposals, which I did not answer, but enough of them were respectful attempts to start a conversation that I took the bait and responded. I could see how someone could make a living at this. Every message I accepted paid a small amount into my account, and the ones I responded to gave me more. I felt a little guilty about it, since I knew I wasn’t looking for a husband. But some of the nicer messages honestly just sounded like these guys were kind of lonely. Even if I didn’t want to fly across space to have babies with them, maybe they’d be better for a little bit of conversation.
And, look,I had bills. Me and Mr. Darcy had to eat. I couldn’t feel bad about putting food on the table. And, it felt kind of nice to be appreciated for a change, you know? Appreciation that was expressed politely for the most part. I did get one inevitable dick pic about two hours in, but I wasn’t even mad. It was my first look at daernir anatomy and, um,wow. The guy was girthy, and near the base, there was a vertical ridge that ran up his abdomen a few inches. Oh, and the whole thing was dark magenta. I highlighted his message so I could come back to it if I wanted, and kept moving.
The conversation with Caruth fizzled out, but a few others were going okay. I still felt awkward responding to most of them, but one was standing out among the others.
Qhev K: Hey babe, I’m not looking for a bride, but I do wanna know how you do your eyes like that.
