2503.12 22/31 —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.]

#BoostingIsSharing

2503.31 21/31 — Sorority #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

Seeing her daughter on stage—her arm splinted because an arrow had fractured her ulna, squatting like frog, smiling and chatting privately with Raquel and Rufus in the audience—made her stop at the door of the stuffed auditorium. Nisei in towns across Mars had reacted hearing of the ambush rescuing the women of Elysium. Cargoons got dispatched to neighboring Decath domes even before requests arrived. Some had been commandeered from timid dome managers by nisei pilots driven to end the suffering they'd witnessed, but had been powerless to remedy.

Decath and the word "divorce" didn't mix, but mix it did, had the last week. At Shiaparelliburgh, red blood mixed with red sand. It could not stand.

Reina stood beside her, nursing her son. Manette hugged a toddler, Reina's Felice, while May Ri's twins waved a worn pink pony toy to keep her quiet while May Ri's unplanned-for fifth little girl worried her favorite hand-me-down might yet break. The Onēsanue waved May Ri inside.

She'd pinged May Ri. Said, yes, May Ri should bring her work in progress. She was needed.

This audience...

It quieted and parted as she walked in, the tip-taping silvery spidery maker keeping pace with her. 300 humans taxed the ventilation, but nisei and sansei packed cheek to jowl never tired of physical closeness. Only the imports, the issei with a red triskelion Mars tattoo of a contract colonist on their forearm, stood apart. Refugees sat embraced by daughters and sons of different mothers, learning they were no longer alone, no longer unloved, if by sheer force. May Ri thought of the crèche system, and the culture of shared-mothering it fostered: Intelligence valued at a young age, no harassment about being yourself, the not ever being forced into gender roles, the knowing helping another was helping one's self...

Her sense of having a comparatively barren childhood percolated up from memory.

Blinking tears, she saw people of all shapes and colors, clothed in a rainbow of synth-silk. Thousands more filled vids lining the hall. May Ri checked her hair, pushed a lock in place, felt conscious of the maker clicking and ticking, dog-like in its obedience. Reina handed Joyous to Manette.

"What's it making?" the firstborn of Mars asked, the Big Sister of all native Martians.

"Attitude thrusters."

At 29, her bronze hair had darkened to red. Freckles emphasized smiling grey eyes, "Why?"

Spinnerets hissed; 79 manipulators formed metal cones. "We own the V7.0 starship IP, so if Elysium won't let us fly theirs, I thought I'd build one."

Addressing the crowd, Reina said, "Like we own the IP to build this thruster, we own the Mars we built with years of effort at the cost of our fathers' lives." She smiled. "Everyone, meet May Ri and her Five Daughters, the Princess of Mars. On our behalf, in her name, she bought the corpse of EM Mars, and with it, our slave contracts. We own ourselves, the remaining ships, our domes, even Deimosbase. We, nisei and sansei, mothers and fathers, own Mars. Our nisei vote outnumbers all male imports. We govern this world!"

A set of vids to the left flashed, the women onscreen replaced by the weathered, burnt-into-her-memory, shouting face of Manager Ezekiel Stan of Elysium, now in his 60s. A moderator swiftly muted him. The audience broke into angry conversation, glaring his direction.

"Princess? Do you cede your ownership of Mars?"

"I— Do I? What?" She hit the off button on the spider, blinking. Well. Actually. She'd signed the "paperwork" for the transaction she negotiated for all the 16 Psyche ore collected over the early years, refined martian metals thrown into orbit, and space machinery built in the half-year after the deal was struck.

Her name, Mars' fortune. As owner on paper, she outranked the directors!

She looked around her. She saw friends, peers, a world that accepted her—a woman. All else was meaningless in the face of that! She said, "I'll cede ownership, but to whom?"

Reina paused, nonplussed. Mari knew her mother overthought things, and tittered, then so did the twins. When Reina laughed, the entire room—no Mars—laughed with her. "I thought of a new charter, but not a name. How about The Nisei of Mars?"

"Um," May Ri said. The nisei nodded, but their second generation sansei kids caught the discrepancy.

"Right," Reina said, tapping her chin.

May Ri studied the native Martians. They shared a characteristic beyond squatting like frogs: Lacking interest in gender roles, most looked androgynous. Many men styled themselves like women. Birth rates, affected by gravity and iron intake, left men as barely 1/5th of the population.

May Ri's eyes widened. "How about The Sorority?" #RSMarsNeededWomen 21

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

#BoostingIsSharing