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I had to see it.

There was only one unmarried Zabrian male in this house that I could ask to help me with that…

“I’ve got it,” Cherry said with a suddenly fearsome determination. “We’ll draw it.”

“That could work,” I said, nodding and trying very hard to ignore a fresh little twist of disappointment. Disappointmentabout not getting to ask the warden to drop his drawers in the pursuit of my (purely academic!) curiosity.

And it wasn’t even just a question of academics! Future human brides to Zabrian males would need this knowledge! It was practically a righteous cause. Who was I to deny them that?!

Cherry already had her comms tablet in one hand, her other hand gliding over its touchscreen, leaving black lines in her fingers’ wake.

“Make it gold,” Darcy suggested. “More authentic.”

“Shh,” Cherry hissed. “I’m concentrating.”

“Are you?” Darcy asked doubtfully after a moment. “Because that doesn’t really look…”

“Shut up, Darcy! I’m not an artist, OK?!”

“Oh, no,” Darcy said soothingly to her friend. “You are very talented. It’s just, your talents apparently lie less in drawing Zabrian dicks and more in drawing-”

She glanced down at Cherry’s screen.

“-a lopsided sausage with a bit of droopy spaghetti tacked on the end.”

“Shit. You are totally right.”

“I’ll do one, too,” Darcy said, pulling out her own comms tablet and beginning to sketch something on her screen. “There. How’s that?”

“That’s actually pretty good,” Cherry said, sounding impressed. “Although, a little meatier, maybe?”

“You think?” Darcy asked, regarding her work with a critical eye. “I think it’s pretty accurate. Maybe Silar and Fallon have different levels of… meatiness. Is Silar a girthy guy?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Cherry said with a shrug, “but all I have to compare him to is human men. I don’t know how he’d compare to another Zabrian.”

Warden Tenn looks like he’d be girthy.

Not that it was any of my business. Because I had all the information I needed about the Zabrian genitals situation from these strange, messy, and slightly disturbing drawings.

Seriously. What the fuck was I looking at?

I was getting the sausage and spaghetti comment now. Cherry had drawn a big tube with a dangly string hanging off the end of it. Darcy’s linework was a little cleaner, but her picture was just as confusing as Cherry’s.

“Which way am I supposed to be looking at this?” I asked, tilting my head this way and that. “Is that string bit meant to be, like, at the tip?”

“Oh, fuck me, I forgot the ball sack,” Darcy said, smacking her hand against her forehead. “Hold on.”

As I watched, she drew a big, swollen lump beneath her Zabrian dick diagram.

“This is underneath,” she said, pointing at the round bit she’d just drawn. “This is the shaft. And this-” Her finger landed heavily, nearly accusingly, on the dangly bit. “-is the cock tail.”

I stared in bewilderment at Darcy’s screen.

“It’s like an itty bitty lasso!” Cherry chimed in, as if that was supposed to make any sense at all.

“You guys,” I said, stopping to close my eyes and rub my temples. “Please. I am begging you. Be so real with me right now.” I opened my eyes to find Darcy and Cherry staring innocently back at me. “Are you fucking with me?”

Cherry dissolved into laughter once more, which, in my humble opinion, was rather a point for theyes-they-are-fucking-with-youside of things. But Darcy, when she shook her head, shaped her expression into something sober, nearly grave.