“Learn to watch for it; her breasts are getting bigger.” I pointed out, in a subtle whisper.
“Your eyes are sharper than mine, but I ... ah yes...the early signs....her nipples are hardening... I should have seen that; I should have known better after all these years.” Mantwice admonished himself from the vine-bushes in which he crouched.
“We won't have time to school ourselves; all of us must be capable in an instant of recognizing when a woman is aroused; it is the only way we will have the head start needed to flee.” Pod reminded us, as if we needed to hear it.
“Hush,” I warned. “They track mainly by scent, but we must not underestimate their hearing. - Especially on the Hunt.” But Twig wanted to add to the conversation. The older, wiry, forty-summers-old runner tapped me on the shoulder and switched to Goddess-Hand, the sign-language known and practiced amongst all the Lowland tribes.
“ IS – VIP – TRIBE – CAN – ESCAPE – NOW – IF – WE – RUN – VIP – TRIBE - RELIES – ON – BOATS – FOR – MANHUNT – LESS – SKILLED – TRACKING IN JUNGLE.” the older man signed with frantic hand gestures. He had a valid point, but there was more at stake. There was an opportunity not only to evade one Manhunt, but to dispense with two enemies at once! I shook my head. I was in command here, all had agreed. None had run farther than I, none had been more cunning in escaping servitude more times than I. Crouching deeper behind the ferns I scrutinized what my small band was up against.
Despite Twig's claim, I knew that all things being equal, it was unwise to attempt to outrun a hunter without an advantage. Like many others, eons of rigorous competition ensured that only the fastest warriors with the longest, sleekest legs would survive to breed. It was the same with the Vips; their builds were slim and taut with health and strength, glistening with body oils, tattoos signifying past accomplishments, and ceremonial red paint for the Manhunt. Their feminine builds were lighter than my own, and with their longer legs long honed from eons of chasing down escapees just like me, I knew better than to pit myself against their foot speed directly. But perhaps...if we would bide our time.... we could get a commanding head-start.
It was apparent that the hunting party knew of us. Their glowering female faces scanned the nearby brush as they sniffed. All Lowland hunters could sniff out the faintest whiff of testosterone from a mile away. And each of them knew, each of them was driven by the feral, panting hunger for manhood that was their near-constant motivation. But their bodies, so honed to the Chase, could also work against them. It was one thing to run down a wild-man through the jungle, but in a group the hunter that could attract the man had the advantage.
So close as they were, they could not help their arousal. Perky breasts with diamond-hard nipples began to throb, and the warriors caressed their mammaries to ease the tension. Now that they could smell that men were so close, their flesh began reacting of its own accord – inflating and enhancing their sexual charms. So close...when men where hiding so near at hand what was needed was not the ability to chase them down, but rather to entice them. The warriors of the Manhunt moaned as the first great swelling of their breasts began. In this, the leader of the Manhunt also dominated. Their leader was taller than the others, her hair an elongated mass of decorative braids and rare feathers to signify her high rank. Since this party had been traveling together for weeks, their fertility cycles were synchronized with that of the dominant female. She arched her back as her tits swelled to the size of a Mombakka fruit, two-inches larger than a man's clenched fist. Her aureoles expanded until they were as large as an open mouth. The other warriors followed, grunting – panting – sweating as their bodies reacted with furious arousal at the undeniable proximity of so much man-meat.
Inch-by-fertile-inch the warriors feminine bounty continued to blossom, following that of their leader. And I knew that by now, when a woman's breasts engorged four more inches beyond Mombakka size, to match the diameter of the nests of the raptor-lizards – that women made mistakes. Soon, each bosom was a size that would overflow a man's outstretched hand, and each warrior's need for a man was enflamed past the fever point. One young hunter, probably no more than seventeen summers could no longer stand the tension and cast aside her loincloth, hunching over like a bitch in heat, her femalia blossomed wide amidst her own girlish moans as she saturated the air with the familiar molasses-scent of Vip tribe mating musks. Here there was real danger. I could tell from the scarcity of tattoos on this young warrior that she had not yet scored a capture. Among the Vip tribe, no warrior can mate with a man, regardless of whether he is the tribe's property or not, until she had captured a man of her own.
I gritted my teeth; The inexperience of Virgins on the hunt was balanced by the deeper aroma and intensity of their pheromones. Her blood would burn with a fanatical breeding instinct that would diminish only marginally after she captured her first man.
But we were prepared; eons of hard experience had taught Runners that deep inhalation of raw brimstone would interfere with the potency of a warrior's mating musk. We four each pressed our brimstone-packs to our faces and inhaled deeply, biting our tongues at the same time so that the pain would also cloud out the extra-intense pheromones of a virgin on the Manhunt.
“It is a trap.” spoke the voice of a newcomer, as my party hunched down in the bushes, struggling to resist the ecstasy from the scent of a virgin warrior's cunt. The stranger was as bare as the others, a dark-haired beauty clad only in thin sandals and the thinnest loincloth and festooned with sinuous tattoos and yellow body paint. Her back muscles rippled under the burden of her vast mams, easily as large as the fruit of the Niktakka canteen gourd. It was plain from her markings and a nutty aroma I detected from her mating musks that she was of the Hushpuppy clan. Her people had a far larger resting breast size than the Vips. She appraised the panting hunting party.
“The Cabaret clan has spent weeks drenching rags with the sweat of their two Breeders, and planting them above pit-traps to punish those that would dare Manhunt in their ancestral lands.” explained the Hushpuppy.
“They have been known to do such before...” said one of the stronger Vip warriors. But the leader frowned.
“Doubtful; The Cabarets lost many warriors in their last warpath against the Vixen tribe, who also claims their lands. I doubt that they would be bold enough to push past the Teton hills.” The leader was a shrewd one, that was for sure. But I noticed something odd from where I watched in concealment. Each warrior, including this stranger had a number of rank-tattoos, most prominent where the black whorling marks that trailed from their groins around their bellies and up near their right breasts. The marking somewhat resembled growing embryos, the Fecaari emblem; and all knew they marked the number of healthy daughters each warrior had birthed. This was a fertile group, with the exception of the virgin, most of them had at least ten Fecaari dancing from between their muscled thighs and up and over their breasts. One redhead had as many as sixteen of the emblems – more than the leader. She who commanded them had birthed a mere nine children from her tattoos, so why was – ahh...yes... the third Fecaari – it had been etched in rare gold ink. A son. Out of....at least a hundred such emblems between the entire hunting party – only one was a son. That was why she was leader – yes the tallest, but she had also been blessed by the Goddess.
“You doubt the truth of my words?” asked the Hushpuppy with raised eyebrow. Put me to the test, then.” The stranger arched her back, thrusting her ample bosoms forward, and pushed her flimsy loincloth out of the way. Warily, the tall war-leader of the Vips glared at the stranger, approaching slowly and circling the other woman. Then, with a nod she hunched down, puckered her lips and planted them upon the naked nipple of the newcomer and began to suckle from her gourd-sized breasts. Her middle finger she thrust unceremoniously into the supplicant's naked pussy, and thrust...thrusting as though searching for something. The Hushpuppy let out a sigh of longing, her head tilted up as the war-leader sucked from her bulging teats while drilling her bared sex. A few stray drops of milk escaped as the Vip disengaged from the hot, soft breast.
“Your milk tastes of fear, but not deceit so far...it is fading fear...being replaced by....the urge for revenge...” the Vip surmised as she licked her lips. “Perhaps you are fearful because you lie to me, and are good at concealing it?”
I had no idea what the Hushpuppy was doing here, or what her true plan was – hadn't counted on a third party interfering with the chase. But a Runner must improvise whenever the situation permits. I took a small rock and hurtled it against a far away giant fern down the hill a bit. Yes... all eyes turned and the Vip leader began positioning her team into ambush posture. I doubted such a simple ruse would have worked were they thinking about me, catching an evasive Runner. But now that they were concerned with a trap – that changed things.
“Why should you care stranger? What is your business here to warn us?”
“I have been held captive by the Cabaret's for many moons. It would give me great pleasure to help outsiders steal a man out from under their arrogant noses.” the dark-haired stranger explained with a sneer.
“Then join us in striking back against these bitches.” ordered the Vip leader.
The tension was so thick that it could have been cut with a flint from the lava rocks of Mount Titty-caca. Slowly, my men prepared ourselves to run at the first sign of violence. The minutes dragged on until the Vips grew impatient.
“How soon until - “ That was when the howling began. My own rock had helped to deceive the Vips and set them up for the attack – for it was from the entirely opposite direction. The Cabaret-clan emerged from a behind a low hill studded with spiky, cycad-bushes. They wore only strings of white pearl-like beads and they carried their long, metal blowguns from which darts were propelled with potent gusts of breath. As the aggressors howled, those in the back ranks of the war-party stuck their hollow, metal blow-guns in the soft jungle soil and began swaying their hips and humping the metal shafts as they howled out the traditional battle-cry of their ancestors. Their unclad bodies shone with rivulets of their own humidity-inspired sweat; but I could sense the twisting in my gut as my body absorbed the pungent yeasty-scented mating musk their clan was known for, and I knew that the fetid, moist heat of the jungle lowlands was not the only reason for their wetness.
Their faces were elegantly painted with the lipstick and dark eyeshadow of battle as they completed their blow-gun volley, and began to charge. Towering long legs pumping the jungle soil as the slender yet busty amazons hurtled themselves into the fray. Now was our chance. Without being told by me, my entire band rushed as one as fast as our legs would take us away from the struggling mass of some thirty naked warrior-women fighting for the right to rape me.
“*Huff*... both... tribes... chasing us... now occupied with each other...” I said after several minutes of frantic flight through vines, giant ferns, boulder-sized blossoms, and rotting logs while dragonflies with three feet long wingspans buzzed overhead.
“Your plan worked....for the moment...” panted Mantwice. A solidly-built, blond and clean-shaven youth still not accustomed to the hard life of a Runner. But he was determined not to go back to his old life as the Breeder-slave of the Three-Ex people. We could all empathize.
“But they will not relent.” Complained Pod. A burly, brown-haired breeder who knew many ways to resist the sexual lures of the Lowland tribes. “The PerfecTens named me for my penchant for siring multiple births; like peas in a pod. My fame as a Breeder was reknown throughout the Burlesque mountains. Not to mention Mantwice; once thought at puberty to be merely an average breeder, but who fathered twin-sons upon the chieftain of the Hushpuppies; a rare deed of virility that will not be soon forgotten. How much greater then, will the tribes chase after you...” Pod's dark eyes turned to me. “Ten-Inch, The Prime Breeder – After you impregnated every priestess at the Monastery of -”
“I know my deeds!” I angrily interrupted. “Get to your point, Pod.” But I already suspected. If the legions of pregnancies that I had sired was not incentive enough, I knew that my lean, dark-skinned, smooth-shaven and muscled visage was considered highly desireable in a male breeder among most Lowland tribes.
“I – only that...that there will be no rest, for any of us. That we must not grow complacent with any temporary victory.”
“Not until all four of us stand proud and free in the High Havens.” Mantwice said wistfully. “Where there is freedom; where a man can work and create with his own two hands...where a man may choose whom he breeds with.” That was crucial. The aching need that drove on each of us. A land of freedom and hope where a man need only breed with a woman of his own choosing! To no longer be shuffled around between the spread legs of strangers! To return to a woman I preferred! As it is I am forced to blast my seed beyond all endurance for any warrior with a wet cunt...but no more....
“Fools!” shouted the war-leader of the Cabaret Clan. “ Vips and Hushpuppy alike shall be our slaves!” This leader had an impressive line of twenty-one Fecaari tattoos, yet despite the prodigious number of offspring she had ground out between her throbbing loins, her body was as lean and taut as that of the freshest young warriors. Her breasts throbbed, already nearly of equal diameter as her entire face. Giving birth to more than twenty daughters seemed to have only made her more fit and fertile. In her sky-blue eyes, there burned a craving that likely would never be sated.
“We allowed our captive to escape and to believe lies we fed her; that you might all fall into our trap! It is a steep price you shall pay for Manhunting on Cabaret lands!” Whatever harsh challenges issued by the defenders were lost to us in our flight. Such treacheries and vendettas were standard practice among the Lowland tribes. Yet as we ran, I chanced to glance over at Twig. The older man was simmering with resentment – not against me, but he every so often glared murderously at Pod. For the younger man had mentioned the accomplishments of everyone else in our band – but his. Not that there really were any.
Twig was a barely adequate Breeder, and the poorer tribes that often had to go for years in between owning a man were grateful to capture him and put him to service on his back – between the legs of the whole tribe. But he had bore a brand on his forehead, a shape like a whithered branch; the cursed sigil of impotence. The worse crime, the most dire fate to befall a man owned by a Lowlands jungle tribe. For what was a man beyond his penis? There was no other role tradition would allow beyond that of the Breeding-stud; there was nothing else for which a man might take pride.
And none should have been more prideful than me, I reflected as we leapt through the brush and tangled roots of the deep jungle. None in my band, no one I had heard of had managed the sheer magnitude of pregnancies I was responsible for. I was Ten-Inch – Prime Breeder. Just holding me gave any tribe tremendous political influence without the need to fight. It was whispered that I needed only brush my Sacred Rod against a woman and her womb would grow heavy with young. Only a slight exaggeration. But I came to resent my lot in life. I resented that my only value was in the performance of my penis. So what if I had impregnated this or that temple of priestesses? my hundreds of successful pregnancies seemed to grow increasingly meaningless with each new womb given life by my seed. I have a mind!
I can work!
I can think!
I can build!
But what tribe would permit such a thing of a mere male? They were all the same; whether Vips or Cabarets or Three-Ex; or the tribe that had raised me until puberty. All that mattered was my sperm. I felt that it should no longer matter. So what if Twig had been accused of impotence? So what if my seed grew heavy in hundreds of bellies throughout the lowlands? A man's mind should count – must count. I wanted a new culture of male equality; unheard of and sure to create tension. It was natural for Pod to want to dismiss a failed, semi-virile Breeder like Twig. But no more, there had to be a new path for us.
As we ran between the low-growing boughs of a giant fern onto a carpet of moss the scent struck me like a physical blow. Nut-scented with a hint of honeysuckle; it was an effect even more potent than the mating musks of most women. Shoving a brimstone rag in my face, I bit my lip for the pain. Each man in my party did the same gripping each other's arms while we tried to combat the allure. One man, alone was likely to succumb, but together – arms linked we provided a mutual restraint and encouragement.
“Hrrrnhhh.... it's breeding season for the Sperm-feeders....” Mantwice reminded us unnecessarily. As if we couldn't guess that! My insides seemed to melt with euphoria, and my great... proud penis stirred to life...no...no.. I had escaped...evaded...outwitted three different tribes with their best trackers on the Manhunt... Goddess damn me if I was going to be taken in by a mere Sperm-feeder! Struggling to put one foot before the other as though moving through the tar-pits of Cunnilingi I and my band somehow managed to leave the effective area of the allure scent of the jungle predator that no doubt sensed us. We all took a moment to breath a sigh of relief leaning against a great palm tree. But I was worried about Twig.
He hunched low to the ground, moaning and shaking from the aftereffects of a euphoric lure as a novice Runner would on his first escape from the fertility priestesses of Mount Semenos. He should be better than that, Twig was an old veteran of such journeys as this. But he seemed drained and defeated. I had little doubt that had we not been there to restrain him, he would have stumbled happily into the clutches of the predator – and would never see High Haven. Would they have a problem with him?
---
It was more than a mere pile of rocks; I could see rust peeking out through the wild creep of the vegetation that had enveloped the object for....centuries...longer? Difficult to tell beneath so much greenery, but it was shaped like a boat, but far larger than the rafts used by tribes like the Vips. It was curved upwards at the front end....but no, it could not have been any kind of boat, it was too large, and made of metal besides. How could a metal boat float? Ridiculous. But whatever it was they had found an opening, and it would provide them with shelter from the heat, from the monsoons, and hide the scent of their testosterone and sperm from the hungering denizens of the jungle.
Metal on the inside too; how expensive this must have been to construct! I had never seen anything remotely like this before.
“This must have been built by the Ancients....in the Golden Age of Man, long ago when Men could walk free and mate as they chose.” I realized aloud.
“No tribe today could afford so much metal.” Agreed Mantwice
“Or has the skill for such refined metal-working...” Pod noted, examining the intricate metal lattice on the floor beneath us. The strange metal guts of the building were also beyond the ability of any present tribes to forge. Pod had always been amazed with such contrivances, the desire to learn and build such things as this was one reason he – like me – could never be satisfied with the Breeding-slaves life.
We wandered aimlessly through the interior, there where many devices we could not imagine, things that no one had seen in this Age of Woman. We passed a panel with row upon row of strange raised warts made of metal or glass. My mind whirled attempting to comprehend how this place could be possible, and what the ancient Men might have done here. It was Twig who had the courage to press one of the strange, metal warts. There was an unearthly groan like no beast in the jungle ever made. A deep rumbling... as though the metal guts of this...this thing...this place began to beat again. Something was moving, churning...humming deep inside. And more buzzing...humming inside this room. It was like a thing alive! How could metal be alive? I knew that my jaw was hanging slack with amazement at these wonders of the ancients that I had never dreamed might exist.
“What...what does it...what can it mean?” wondered Mantwice, eyes darting fitfully.
“All the more reason that we must escape – and no longer live under the bondage of the Tribes.” I asserted. “There is a wide, wondrous world beyond the Mating Tents where we are all made to ejaculate our seed. Who knows what other rarities we might discover?”
A great eye situated above the panel of metal warts began to blaze with power. I backed away to the wall in fear – we all did. It was a weird, square eye like no jungle beast, but it did more than see... it revealed. Pictures, shapes began to appear in the glassy surface of the eye. And I saw a man within the eye. The images so clear – it was as if it was my eye, and I was seeing the secret wonders of the long-dead Age of Man.
“*BRRZZT*.... November twenty-third, two-thousand twenty one...*BRRZZZ*...clear now what happened, the data is unambiguous.” The speaker was an older, grizzled man wearing a deep green garment totally unlike the brimstone-caked wrappings that we wore. His garments were intricately cut, with golden stars on his shoulders and a bizarre square of brightly-colored patches on his chest. Why would the warriors of his tribe allow a man to dress in such finery? I wondered. But then, it was a different age, the Age of Men, the rules might have been different.
“**KRACKLE** it was possible to stop the planetoids before they struck Earth, I now know that the stories fed to us by the media are empty propaganda. *BRRRR* NASA warned us that we needed to launch the missiles early, to be sure that we would have enough time to respond flexibly if they're calculations were off. Still, the eggheads were confident that the impact could have been averted if the Odysseus mission had been approved on schedule.
“But no, I'll never forget the moment when I discovered....that the President had ordered a delay**KZAKK** went with the second proposal, less likely to succeed. And he knew....by God he knew.... He needed the impact, or the threat of it to galvanize the Alliance. He needed the public afraid of any change in leadership – saying that it would take many months of preparation to knock the planetoid away from Earth. He....he wanted the threat of it as an Election issue.” The green-suited man took out an ornate glass bottle of some strange, clear golden liquid and drank it down. “But NASA was ready...they were ready to support the Air-Force with what they needed to blast it out of the sky before August. But the media...on his side...believed whatever pack of lies he fed them. His new Agency for Global Welfare turned out to be nothing but a personal, presidential hit-squad. We didn't believe it, didn't guess. Anyone that might have known the truth and been willing to speak vanished without a trace.
“But now...after I found out, I wanted to shoot something...anything....myself....anyone. By the time they did finally launch the operation to deflect the thing, all they did was split it in two. One chunk, a piece about the size of India struck Antarctica. The other one crashed into the Moon, looks like its orbit will be forever altered.” He beat his fist against a desk. “Bastard.....if he'd launched before summer....all the eggheads said that it would have given them time for a backup plan in case the first strike didn't work. But...by the time we did....there was just no time to do anything but watch human civilization get washed away...continents...screwed up. I've heard scientists using words like 'Runaway Subduction' Seeing the devastation firsthand...enough to make you a believer in old Noah's Flood.
“And worse...now what few scientists we've got left are saying that when the South Pole was hit, it released something. They say there must have been something buried down there in the miles of glacial ice. Some kinda crazy virus that's been frozen down there for millions of years, something that hasn't been seen since the Age of the Dinosaurs. Heh, maybe that's what really wiped 'em out. All they know for sure is that the virus attacks the sex-chromosomes, but they can't agree what sort of effect it'll have.
“Don't know...don't know if there's any hope things'll ever be normal again – or close to it. And the Moon, seems to be wobbling in its orbit from the first impact; Astronomers are saying that it's going to do crazy things to the tides. And I wonder - “ But that was when a deafening roar began to drown out the words of the speaker in the Crystal Eye. Standing atop an old crate in the corner, Twig had found a window to watch what unfolded.
“Looks like we're high enough to avoid it.” He assured us. Checking a similar window, I looked for myself. From this hill on which the metal beast-boat rested we could see much of the Jungle Lowlands, and we could see a great reddish-brown haze on the horizon. But it came upon us fast – A frothing, roiling surge of watery devastation began to drown the deep gullies. The great reddish flood drenched the ground and vegetation moving faster than a Thunderbird could fly. As always, I could see rafts and inflatable crafts bobbing up and down on the surf. The warriors of every tribe were well versed in surviving and traversing the flooding.
Here was where the Vips had the advantage. They did not truly have ancestral lands of their own, following the flooding as it swept the continents, they were most adept at riding the waves. Birds, giant insects, and slithering amphibious beasts scampered up onto higher ground with practiced speed enabling them to avoid being swept away by the red wash.
“The Period comes early this month.” Twig remarked.
“A Bad Omen?” Wondered Mantwice. I had no answer.
In some patches of land, the water level drained swiftly, creating islands within the rushing flood of the monthly Period that drenched the continent. On these islands, I could see buds emerging almost instantly from the wet, red soil. The well-adapted larger plants retracting and re-emerging from sealed burrows to avoid being rinsed from the Earth, and take advantage of the sunlight as soon as it was available. Other, shorter-lived plant forms based their entire life-cycles around the Period, depending on the flooding to transport their seeds. Living and dying in the Month between each flood.
But then I remembered the strange words of the Crystal Eye, and turned away from the normal sight of the monthly Period and returned to the secret knowledge revealed. It was a different speaker now, a balding man in a white coat with a frightened gleam in his eyes.
“**BRRZZZTT** March Seventeenth, Two-thousand forty-five. *RRRRRT* ...afraid the consequences may be more severe than we imagined. We've seen the mutations from the Y-virus across the spectrum of life but.... we thought that the side-effects could be managed. But we can't deny the face of things to come.” The man in the white coat swallowed fearfully.
“Yes, as we've reported before, in all this time our colony has documented only a single new male birth since the presence of the virus was confirmed, and we've been so concerned with this issue that we haven't really paid attention to the changes in the children that have been born – the girls. I... I don't know quite how to describe what happened.
“Basically, she tried to rape me yesterday. Sarah is...she's just a fifteen year-old girl! And the daughter of a respected colleague! Yes, that's right; this teenage girl came into my office, her eyes....the look in them....savage...like some kind of crazed lioness. She came at me, tearing at my clothes... I.... I was able to get away, I just... I couldn't let it happen! She just...kept growling, mumbling about my seed...and how much she wanted it...inside her!” What was most striking was the surprise in the man's face at the prospect of being attacked by a virgin. I realized in a flash that in the Ancient Age of Man, it must not have been this way. But his surprise was surprising to me; any man knew how ferocious young virgins could be. Any man in our age, at least.
“They've been staring at some of us, but I dismissed it. I – I don't know how to tell her father about it, he'll think I've got designs on his little girl! He won't understand! But this morning, I saw Sarah again, she was just staring at my...staring at my groin...like she was hungry... hungry for...for a man! This new generation of girls they...they're not like anything we've seen before. They have almost no interest in preserving the history and technology of the past, no interest in the normal relationships of their parents. They have this...rage inside them. This deep aggression. And there are so many of them. It seems as though we stand at the cusp of a pivotal transformation in human - “ And there was a crash. Not where we were, but in the room revealed to us by the Crystal Eye.
“Wha – Sarah! Stacy! Where are your clothes? What are you doing!?” The balding man in the white coat looked frantic as he stared at something hidden from us. There were grunts, groans, and girlish moans from somewhere we could not see.
“His seed....is mine...” snarled the voice of a young girl. And they fell upon him like jackals upon a wounded buffalo. The girls were all young, no more than eighteen summers in age, certainly. And each was naked. They tore into the man, ripping and biting at his clothing as they tackled him, moaning with longing and predatory hunger.
“Girls! I'm.... I'm flattered but...you're not well! This isn't - “ A naked blond shoved her bare pussy in his face and began to gasp with pleasure. We could see that all of the nude young women were slick with arousal between their taut thighs. A red-head began pumping up and down on his cock, howling in bestial ecstasy.
“SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!” she howled. I shrugged dismissively.
“What a fool; he allowed virgins to know his location and his regular habits.” remarked Pod. “He should have known what must happen.”
“No...that's just it. Everything has changed since that Age.” I explained. “There must have been a time when Men where free. A time when women did not capture every man they could find and rape him for his seed. As hard as it is to contemplate.... Women did not always hunt men!” I felt foolish speaking such words, but it must have been true once.”
“What must it have been like, to live in an age of such freedom?” Mantwice wondered. I would know. I vowed that someday, I would know such liberty as my forefathers enjoyed.
---
We could coax no more magic images from the Crystal Eye above the panel of metal warts. Just a few more minutes of the teenage virgins ravishing the man in the white coat. But this image of the remote past was still revealing. I was shocked at how small the girls' breasts were, they were still a long way from the busty Manhunters that chased us.
And the feuding began as soon as the man in the coat had spent his load inside a slim young red-head. They demanded with slaps and harsh commands that his penis rise again to fertilize them once more. These virgins had not yet discovered the herbs of Muchococka, that force a man to remain hard - nor the sap of the Lewinski tree, that multiplied sperm production. But this was long eons ago, before the tribes were the tribes. When it became clear that the man was spent, the slender girls began slapping, snarling wrestling and biting over who would possess his next load of seed. Typical.
But the strange metal beast sheltered us for the duration of the Period, though we could make no more sense out of the contrivances on board. Still, this was not the High Havens, not the fabled land of male freedom. So after the normal two-day interval we departed from the same wound in the top of the metal skin. The hours after the reddish waters of the Period subsided were important times in the web of life in the Lowlands. Warm tidal pools nourished a variety of lungfish, the lizard-like amphibian predators who feed upon them, and generations of fast-growing plants sprouting with fanatic profusion in the humid air and intense sunlight.
"Wait, where's Twig" Asked Mantwice, blue eyes scanning the vine-covered skin of the ancient beast-boat.
Nowhere to be seen. I had seen him looking....furtive this morning as we first rose from out slumber. He had ducked off somewhere without speaking...but where.... there was nothing else we could use or make sense of on the metal-thing...what else could he...
And then I knew. I should have guessed it earlier.
---
He had found it, at long last. The control he craved...or the seeming of it. Forty years dominated by callous chieftains that passed him around like chattel to their favorite warriors as a favor for amusement. Forty years as nothing more than a support system for his penis. So tired....so weary of being passed around between the thighs of strangers.
Twig could no longer count the number of tribes that had owned him over the years. That was the way among the poorer, smaller tribes. The smaller a band of women, the less likelihood that there would be enough of them to give birth to a man of their own. The few males available were the subject of constant raids and kidnappings. The pleasure of the couplings could no longer compensate for the growing madness of eternal captivity. That was the true cause of his occasional impotence, the ever-growing dissatisfaction with his role as a plaything.
"This..this is all there is to a man's life..." Twig murmured as he backtracked through the jungle after abandoning the others. In truth, he did not believe in the High Havens. It seemed so unlikely. How could there be this fabled land of male liberty? If it was at all possibe for any man to travel to such a place why had it not been raided by the tribes long ago? The women of the Lowlands were supposed to fear the place, but why? How could such a land remain unmolested? There were so many women...so many...and their need for sperm was so great. This legend of the High Havens would not die, men had whispered of the promise for decades - but if there were any such fabled realm, the tribes would have gathered into a colossal army to break the defenses of such a place and glutted themselves on the sperm of every man they could capture. No....it couldn't be a literal place.
But the others believed, and so he pretended to. But now Twig had found a different sort of paradise - something attainable....
Twig was reclining upon silken cushions, endless silken cushions. Soft-bodied, voluptuous, green-skinned women kneeled before him, waiting on him hand and foot. There were not like the hard, tanned, muscular amazons that raped him for his sperm day and night. These were tender, caring women that deferred to him. They fed him, pampered him, and never thrust themselves upon his cock unless bidden. The green women limited themselves to kissing their way up and down his body and feeding him miraculously seedless cherries. He had worked out a simple, elegant signal.
He placed a hand on the naked pussy of one of his green women and tweaked her clit twice; that was the signal that he desired sex. None of them dared to rape him against his wishes. It was all under his command....his control....control...
---
"Here, it's just as I thought." I said as I studied the great, green plant. It had a sturdy, tree-like root and a tunnel system that allowed the giant plant to retract into a sealed burrow at the first sign of the Period. The leaves formed a massive oval-shaped pocket, large enough to completely entrap a human. I could see a large lump within the huge pocket, a quivering lump. It was Twig, and he thrashed in orgasm again, the plant absorbing his life-giving semen.
"For him it is enough. The hallucinogens secreted by the plant burn the minds of those it captures with its euphoric lure. It allows its captives to see, feel, whatever their fondest wish might be, while driving him to orgasm."
"But; how could a man with so much experience fall to a simple Sperm-Feeder?" Pod wondered.
"He meant to. The illusion of pleasure and delight from the mind-bending juices of the Venus Tree were all the solace Twig believed he could hope for in this life. He gave up on the reality, and chose to embrace illusion." The Venus Tree was already putting out golden seed-pods, making quick and immediate use of the life-giving sperm cells that all jungle life depended on. I remembered words spoken by the men in the Crystal Eye - words about something called a Virus...and how it could change life. All I knew for sure was that all that lived depended on the few creatures still able to produce sperm. That initial fertilization was necessary for this tree, and countless other creatures, and it wasted no time in growing its pods. But the Venus Tree would always produce extra pods, and animals could come and ingest the precious seed, allowing them to reproduce as well.
"Almost....there..." grunted Pod as he tried to pry open the toothed seam of the plant's feeding pocket with a large bone. Mantwice helped by gripping the rim and pulling. We all knew that a Venus Tree was too tough to cut directly with anything but the sharpest metals. I reached my hand inside the gooey pocket.
"TWIG! YOU HAVE TO COME BACK TO US! TAKE MY HAND! IT'S THE ONLY ESCAPE! YOU CAN'T WALLOW IN THIS ILLUSION! TAKE MY HAND!!" I called. Twig stirred naked in his prison of hallucinogenic slime. A green tube was pumping his penis, and he moaned at the intrusion of light and air - another tube in his mouth furnished him with air and nourishment. He groaned...
and turned away.
....turned back to the delusional warmth and comfort of the Venus Tree.
The trap snapped shut, snapping the bone Pod was prying with. It was over. We couldn't remove from the trap anyone who didn't want our help, he has to work for it from within the plant. But he preferred to dream a fantasy than face reality.
It was enough for Twig.
...enough for Twig....