Once upon a time, Raphael had been the greatest seducer in all the land of Pearthen. His sexual prowess was renowned, and his skills in the bedroom highly sought by the voracious and timid alike.

Raphael loved women. He loved their skin and smell, tasting their curves and breasts, listening to their lilting voices. He enjoyed wooing them almost as much as he enjoyed making love to them. He'd had the pleasure of many courtships--far more than he cared to admit, especially in light of the fact that it was because of a woman that he'd been permanently banished to Earth. He had no hope of regaining entry into Pearthen, and since he'd become one of the fallen, he'd been unable to settle down into the comfort of his old ways.

Even before he had been banished, Raphael had always preferred to make love, not war, as the Earth saying went. There was certainly no incentive for him to hunt down his enemies after he had been expelled from Pearthen, when doing so would not regain the favor he had lost or free him from his banishment, and yet he had been forced into fight and/or flight too many times to count.

Raphael was tired. He was miserable, and he was lonelier than he had ever believed possible.

He had endured the misery of having no company but his own for quite some time before it dawned upon him that, just as he had no reason to fight his enemies, he also had no reason or incentive to abide by the laws of Pearthen which forbade him to interact with humans.

He lived on Earth now--forever. He was an Earth person, if not a human. There was no reason at all why he should not settle among them and look about for a companion and produce a child.

All he needed to do was to find the right woman, but to do so he realized he must first learn to blend in with the native population. As little as he cared what the laws of his former land were, he had learned a lesson from his banishment. He could not flaunt his conduct. If the humans realized that he walked among them it might create a disturbance that the Elumi would notice and then banishment would not be his punishment. He would be beheaded instead.

After observing the mating habits of humans for quite a while, he finally decided that he had mastered the technique and decided that it was time to test his knowledge. Since the majority of the mating appeared to take place in specific buildings in the city that he'd chosen to live in, he shifted into his purely human form and procured himself clothing that he thought would be suitable for the ritual.

When he was satisfied that he was dressed properly to pass, and enticingly enough to attract the female of the species, he made his way to the gathering place he had chosen and hit his first road block. The man at the door demanded ID and ten bucks. As far as he knew, bucks were deer, a species of cattle known to roam the forests of Earth. And not only was he not certain how he would catch these animals, but he also wasn't sure how he was to get them to the man.

Deciding, finally, that perhaps he hadn't observed closely enough, he moved aside and waited for a human man to go through. He was distracted by the fact that there were far more females going in than there were men. And not only did the guard at the door not ask for ID, he also didn't ask for ten bucks. Thoroughly confused by now, and far more interested in following the women in than waiting to see more, Raphael was just wondering if perhaps he should draw the man off into the alley and challenge him to a fight, when a male human arrived. The male human was asked to produce an ID and ten bucks, just as he had been, which at least relieved him of the suspicion that he'd been singled out.

Curiously enough, the man pulled out a small container and handed the guard a thin rectangle and a green piece of paper. The guard looked the stiff rectangle over, looked at the man, and handed it back. He put the piece of green paper in a drawer, hit the back of the man's hand with something, and the man went inside.

Raphael retreated a short distance to think that over. Obviously, what he needed was one of those square things, because that had the ID and the ten bucks in it. He decided he would have to relieve one of the human males of one of those objects.

Retreating to the corner of the building, he propped one shoulder against it and settled to wait. He'd been waiting for a few minutes when a likely looking prey appeared. Sizing him up, Raphael decided this one would be easier to take than most, not that he was particularly worried about it. He knew he was a good bit stronger than the strongest of human males, but he thought that it wouldn't work the best in the world if he found it necessary to struggle with the man. It might draw unwanted attention.

This one was a full head shorter than him and as thin as a willow switch. Rafael was fairly certain there'd be no problem at all. As the man walked by him, he grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him into the alley.

"I have need of your ... thing," Raphael said, slamming his victim into the wall.

The male's mouth worked, but no sound emerged. His eyes looked like they would pop from his head.

"I need your thing," Raphael said more emphatically.

"Oh fuck," the man finally said.

Raphael frowned. He knew that word. That word definitely lay in the range of his vocabulary, but there was no way in hell that he was going to fuck a male to get what he needed. "No fuck. Just give it to me."

"What do you want?" the man whined.

"It's sort of ... square. And it has ID and ten bucks."

The guy looked almost relieved. "God damned foreigners can't even speak English and they're robbing people.... "He dragged something from his pocket and held it out.

Raphael released him and took it. "Thank you," he said politely. "You can go now."

He waited until he'd seen the man run away. When he was certain the man was gone, he went back up to the guard at the door.

The guard looked him over. "I told you you had to have an ID and ten bucks. What's the matter? You deaf?"

Forcing a feral smile, Raphael handed him the object he had procured. The guard looked at him strangely. After a moment, he opened it up. Sure enough, it contained one of the square things. He took that out, looked it over, and then looked at Raphael.

"This says your name is Chris Smith. You're twenty one years old, blonde haired, blue eyed, and you weigh one hundred and twenty five pounds ... and you're female."

Raphael frowned. The man had spoken much faster than he could grasp the strange words. He could see, though, that the man was waiting for some sort of response. "Yes."

The man stared at him for several moments and finally took a piece of paper out of the wallet and handed it back to him. "Next time, try rolling a man. Just a suggestion."

Raphael was still thinking that over as he made his way into the building. It worried him to think he might have difficulty telling the male human from the female. He had been certain that the human he had captured had been a man. He'd never had that problem before, and he began to wonder if he really did want a female human if it was so difficult to tell them apart from the males.

He was distracted from his disturbing thoughts by the deafening rumble of thunder inside the building. It was also far darker inside than it was outside. Flickering lights added to the confusion. He stopped when he reached the main room, still debating with himself as he surveyed the sea of humans as to whether to proceed or to retreat until he had had time to study the humans a little more closely. There was hardly even room to move. He realized, however, as he glanced towards one particular spot in the room, that this was definitely the place.

There, men and women bumped and gyrated in some strangely erotic mating dance. Lust immediately surged through his blood, seeming almost to pound in time to the beat he could hear in the noise. He would find the woman here.

Threading his way between tables and chairs and people of all shapes, sizes, and colors, he stopped when he reached the mating floor, surveying the possibilities. Almost at once, his gaze was drawn to one particular female and a sensation like he'd been punched in the belly struck him. Her coloring and build reminded him painfully of the women he had known in his own world, but the similarity ended there. She was tall for a human female but she was not as tall as an Elumi women, and she was not muscular as the warrior women of Pearthen were. She looked as if she would be soft to the touch. Her hips curved outward, her waist deeply inward. When she turned, he saw the soft globes of her breasts bounced gently and swayed mesmerizingly with her movement. The way she moved set blood to pounding in his temples and his groin. He knew the moment his gaze met hers that fate had smiled upon him. This was the woman he wanted. This was the woman who would bear his child.