All that she wants

Fourteen. I've been propositioned fourteen times since the gathering started. More than half by young women still in their teens.

I made the mistake of telling one of them that this clone wasn't fertile. She looked at me, with her hand cupping her chin and said Never mind, I'll get my Aunties to talk to your clan about straws.

Matariki laughed so hard when I asked her what that meant.

When I was seventeen, Aradian and I spent most of the gathering at it like rabbits. I thought I loved her, and that she loved me. I think there was disappointment she didn't end up pregnant.

Not long after that I went off to the Military. Now she has a six year old clan-child, a boy, fathered by someone else.

I've always known children were important, but I think I'd hoped they'd be created with love, not just the hope of a child with pilot's genes.

Maybe, if I be their stud, the Aunties won't try to marry me off?