Author’s Note

This story is around 300,000 words in length, which translates into almost 800 printed pages.

This is a work of erotic fantasy, so there’s quite a lot of sex. However, there isn’t sex happening in every chapter. There are many passages that include setup, character development, and all that boring stuff which makes the sex that much more meaningful when it finally happens. I know not everyone cares about backstory or getting to know the characters, so each chapter which does have sex in it also has a heart following its title: ♥

The sex is not intended to be pornographic or paraphilic. It’s just the kind of stuff that happens between people, though sometimes in somewhat unusual situations. This includes threesomes and groups, intimacy taking place among people under the age of eighteen (with no one over eighteen present), same-sex partners, and scenes involving brother-sister incest. If you live in the kind of world where you believe those sorts of things never happen, or should never happen, you’re both (1) welcome to stop reading now; and (2) not even remotely in touch with reality in any way at all.

In the story, I make mention of two different kinds of contraceptives: Enfem IUD’s, and MascuLine condoms. They’re flagship products manufactured by the nonexistent company, Nordolex.

The Enfem and MascuLine key protective feature is a cache of genetically-engineered bacteria whose job is to rove the vagina (or mouth or anus, as appropriate), and find and kill all STD organisms (HIV, HPV, syphilis, gonorrhea, etc.) and sperm cells. The Enfem has the bacteria embedded in its substrate and releases them into the vaginal environment from within the uterus, but this gives the IUD a shorter useful life than other brands’ versions. It needs to be replaced once a year, as the bacterial cache degrades and is reduced over time. In addition to its anti-STD payload, the Enfem includes a hormone-based contraceptive, and is singular on the market in that it completely stops menstruation for the duration of its useful life, without affecting the health of the woman.

The MascuLine, in addition to having caches of the same bacteria, is made entirely of genetically-modified skin and is grown in vats of nutrient solution, rather than manufactured. It has an outer skin-feel layer, an inner skin-gripping layer (to ensure it doesn’t slip off during use), and a middle layer that is essentially an organic filter. The condom is totally fluid permeable, but blocks anything larger than 15 nanometers in size, which is smaller than a virus. This means the fluid in semen (as well as vaginal fluid, saliva, and lube) passes right through, but sperm cells and anything else do not. It also acts as a barrier against getting infections from whomever has been penetrated.

Because the layers of the condom are only one cell-wall in thickness each, it’s almost totally undetectable once it’s on. You can’t feel it, and neither can your partner; and because it’s essentially skin, it tastes like skin. It’s as good as bareback, but safe as nitrile; it feels better than lambskin, and doesn’t require the death of even one sheep.

I wish these products existed. There’s not much reason that they don’t. Some of the key features are a few years off into the future, but they’re all feasible with adequate R&D. It’s just that no one has actually sat down and developed a strategy to combine various aspects of bioengineering with contraception and disease prevention.

We’d rather find new and hideous ways to kill each other, than new and delightful ways to make it safe for us to have sex with each other. Good fuckin’ thinking, huh?

— Harmony Brücke, fricfic at gmail.