Sometimes, at night, Nanaki stirs, and I wake to feel an insistent hardness pressing against my back. He is gentlemanly; he never makes a move. When it grows too much to bear, he slinks quietly away into the darkness outside our den. If I listen close, I can hear him attending to himself with gentle, tender licks.

I feel strangely honored, that he finds me, a captive from another species, attractive.

As the days bleed into weeks I slowly start to change. I can feel myself start to fill out—my belly is still modest, almost unnoticeable, but it’s just starting to grow nonetheless…