*Author's note: I don't know how it happened, because I had planned on Kirk to leap into his best alien-loving action here, but these two chapters with McCoy insisted on getting written. He's using the words "bulbourethral glands" in bed, just to give you a warning*

Chapter 7 - Bedside Manners

Lily-Lee had been napping about an hour and was sitting in the bed, smelling the leather in her new boots, when she heard a knock on the door.

"Hello, uh, mind if I come in?" McCoy had been standing outside the door for some time, trying to make up his mind. He almost scrapped the whole idea. Was he doing this out of concern for her or for his own sake? But he knocked. He wouldn't be able to sleep until he found out.

"Sure, doc. Welcome in if you can stand the humidity. Have a seat and take off the outer shirt before it gets soaked. Why the visit?"

"Well, I thought I should check on you to see that you were alright, after that incident."

"Not my finest hour." Lily-Lee pouted, put her chin on her knees and intertwined her fingers with her long toes. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"No, no, I understand... my idea was to come here and talk about something completely different, just to get you in a better mood. Let's talk about your home planet a while. There are still many things we'd like to know. When we visited, we found your flock. How would you describe it?"

"Okay, we're an average sized flock of forty-eight. Twenty-four children and twenty-four women. We are all sisters, cousins, mothers and grandmothers. Plenty of babies and toddlers at the moment, a few older children. Two boys just grew up and left us a few days before you showed up. They were going off to establish a territory somewhere. I hope they'll do well. Knowing them as well I as do, they'll probably team up in the beginning because they do everything together."

"And later on?" McCoy sat himself down in the chair and hung his blue shirt over the armrest.

"They'll start competing and get a territory each. Then it's time to start making up new, plenty of new. Find new things to eat, new songs to sing, new words. And try to lure a flock of women away from a neighbour. Once we get bored, we start wandering about."

"So the males are stationary, and the females migrate in groups? How long do you stay in a territory?"

"A season or a whole year, as long as the food lasts. By then, the male is usually pretty worn out and happy to see us go. I've seen them lose half their body weight during our stay."

Yes! An opening! McCoy had patiently been listening to a lot of drabble about children and population dynamics, but here was a chance to get to what he wanted to know.

"So the males are... larger?"

"Larger than females? Yes. There is a distinct sexual dimorphism, just as in earth primates. The more polygamous the species is, the larger the dimorphism. In tooth size, but also in overall size. I'd say that our males on average weighs three times as much as females, when fit and rested."

"I see." That would make him the same size as a human. But humans are pretty... big... for a primate. Gorillas, for example, have a much smaller organ. But how am I going to work this into a natural part of the conversation?

"So, hrm, what are the mating rituals like?

"Oh, ha ha! The first round is really quick. The male doesn't want to lose a minute and usually does all the females in the first day. Later it gets more peaceful and a lot better."

"And what makes a good lover?"

"Good territory and plenty of new. Large testicles."

"Testicles, huh. And what about the rest?" Not perfectly natural, but it will do. I really need to know.

"Like a little teapot."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, you know the song, I read it in the ships records. *I'm a little teapot short and stout.*" Lily-Lee sang and laughed. McCoy blushed. Well, at least her mood is better.