- Xark’on -

“These are good pieces. No bone, and you’ve separated the best cuts. Yes, I like it.” And I do. I had no idea she was this good at hunting.

She gives me a shy little smile, and I can’t help leaning over and nuzzling her hair. It has the most wonderful scent, so clean and still natural. It’s her scent, and it makes me dizzy.

We chat about nothing special. I get her to tell me about her home planet, and I learn a lot about it. It doesn’t seem too appealing, but if it produced Caroline, it can’t be that bad.

Her claim that there are thousands of women is hard to believe though. Or thousands of thousands of thousands, as she puts it. My warrior brain can’t process those numbers, so I don’t even try. But I gather that there are many, maybe enough for more than one tribe.

She appears to have a lot to say about her planet, so I let her talk. I think she misses it. I suppose I would miss Xren too, if I were somehow taken by the Plood and placed somewhere else. But it probably depends on where I was put.

“And there’s something called ‘television’,” Caroline chirps. “Imagine if you can see moving images on a screen. Say, if your painting of Bune came to life and you could see the clouds change and the trees being blown by the wind. Or that picture of your tribesmen. Imagine if they were moving. In the picture. And you could hear their voices and their footsteps ...”

The meat sizzles on the slate. The sun has long since set, and the jungle sounds of night. A screech from an irox makes Caroline jump, and she scoots closer to me in a gesture that melts my heart. That irox was far away, but she’s coming to me for safety.

Can I provide that? No, of course nobody is ever completely safe in the jungle. Not even here. But I will do what I can. Until ...

I feel my jaw clench hard.

Until the trap is finished. Then it’s over, one way or the other. Then, the reward the Ancestors gave me has been used up, and I must do what has to be done.

Why did the Ancestors make Troga extend her trench so Caroline can’t get back to her cave? They must really want her to stay here. Either because they want me to enjoy her company until the time has come, or because they want her to be the bait after all.

They have a point. She’s the perfect bait. Troga will come out of her trench to get Caroline. That much is certain.

Will she do the same if I’m the helpless being hanging over the carefully disguised hole? I don’t know. She might. She certainly didn’t mind making a long and terrible meal of the tribesmen who fell into her trench these past seasons. Holy Ancestors, those screams in the night...

What if I only use Caroline to lure Troga out of the trench then offer myself somehow? No, that’s too complicated. It will end in the death of both of us. It has to be genuine, living bait. The trap itself can be the only deception. More than that and it gets too difficult and it won’t work. I feel that deep down.

It has to be one of us. And since I can’t bear the thought of anything at all happening to Caroline, it has to be me.

Under any other circumstance, I’d assume quite naturally that she was the bait that the Ancestors intended. She came here at the right time, she’s helped build the trap, she’s the kind of prey that Troga will undoubtedly want, and now she can’t leave. Everything fits. The signs all point to the same conclusion.

Except that doing anything that has the tiniest chance of harming her sends ice cold arrows to my stomach and makes me want to throw up.

If I use myself as bait and the trap works, I think I’ll still be allowed to join the Ancestors after death. If I use Caroline and it works, which I’m convinced it will, then I will be an honored and revered Ancestor for all eternity. And that’s after I enjoy a full life in the village, revered for as long as I live as the man who rid us of Troga, enjoying my share of the Treasure.

But if I use myself as bait and the trap fails, the only chance of ending the monster’s reign of terror was a failure, and I will never be an Ancestor. There will be no eternity for me. Just torment and dishonor. And the end of the tribe, not the glorious future that will result with the trap working.

I snap my head up. “What was that?”

Caroline is looking at me with her fine eyebrows adorably arched. “I said, ‘how much are you going to fry these things?’”

The meat on the slate is burned a deep brown.

“Ah.” I hurry to take them off the stone.

Caroline has a little smile on her lips. “A little distracted there, warrior? Aren’t my tales of the parliamentary system on Earth interesting enough for you? I did mention the British royal family, so it can’t have been that bad. Kate Middleton and the princes and the princess and everything.”

“It’s fascinating lore,” I lie. “And still confusing.” I’m on safe ground there. Everything she tells me about her planet confuses me to the point where I can’t follow any of it, and I turn to dark thoughts.

“Uh-huh. Okay, I think we’re about ready to eat. Oh, is that meat charred enough for you? I think you can burn it all black if you prefer.”

“This is fine,” I state and take a bite.

“I added some herbs while you weren’t looking. It should make your piece of coal a little saltier.”

“It’s very tasty.” And it is. I didn’t know this could taste so good, even if I fried it a little too hard.

“Glad you like it. Any chance for a little shot of booze?”

We drink some of the krunik that feels like fire in the mouth and which makes you feel warm and mellow right after.

We eat in silence, and I feel guilty about not paying attention to all the things that Caroline wanted to tell me. They clearly mean a lot to her. But my mind is full of so many things. And they’re all about her.

“How’s your hole, warrior?”

“It’s fine. I should build a roof over it so it doesn’t fill with water if it rains.”

“You don’t want to work in a wet hole?” She has the most wonderful glint in her eyes.

“Some holes are best when they’re wet,” I counter.

“I think you just like holes,” she giggles.

It’s true. My life has been full of holes lately. The trap, of course, a relentless toil for the good of the tribe. And, I thought when I began, myself. Caroline’s holes, although I wouldn’t have thought of them in those terms if she hadn’t used that word first. Her sweet, beautiful mouth with the full, expressive lips and the sweet voice. And that most wonderful one, her sex, which does the strangest things to me.

And the final hole, the one that I think every man here on Xren feels. That hole deep inside. The absence, the emptiness, the want of something important. Something that we vaguely think has something to do with the Ancestors. But I know now that it is not that. It is the lack of women, the absence of a female in our lives. Caroline has filled that hole for me, and before she did, I had no idea now large it was. Or how dark and empty. I suppose that’s in the nature of holes; they can’t be seen until they’re filled.

No, that’s nonsense. I can see Caroline’s holes just fine. As I can see all of her. And she lights up my days and my life. Even digging the hole turns to a labor of love because she’s right there. At any time, I can climb out of the hole, go over to her, and smell her hair. Or place my hand on her soft chest with the double protrusions. Or on her behind, so wide and round.

My life has never been this pleasant. I’ve never felt such joy, even as a child. It scares me, of course. There’s something uncontrollable about it. Something wild. It makes me think of disobeying the Ancestors about something very important.

No, not just that. It makes me determined to disobey.

My thoughts go to half-forgotten things that the shaman said about how it was with men and women in the old days. How they would live together. This is it. This life has to be just like that. And it feels so right that it takes my breath away and fills me with a burning need to paint it.

No, not now. Now I can just enjoy my reward, enjoy Caroline.

I douse the fire and clean up the cooking area then unceremoniously lift Caroline up in my arms.

“Hey! I’m still eating!”

“You can eat up here.”

“I guess.” She takes another bite of her meat and chews happily. “It’s actually pretty pleasant. Just straighten me up a little—yes, perfect. Mm. You’re good at lifting me, Xark’on. Are you good at fucking me too?”

She has an impish look on her face, and I can’t help kissing her mouth even as she eats. “Some say I am. But I can’t be sure. I don’t have much practice.”

“Oh, you have to practice. Tell you what. When I’m done eating and I have another little shot of booze, then you can fuck me any way you want. How about that?”

I didn’t think my manhood could get any harder, but her words make it throb as if ready to burst. “Very well,” I say with a dry mouth.

She takes her time finishing her meal, but finally she kisses my cheek. “Take me, my warrior.”

I place her on the hanging bed that she calls a hammock, and she takes her garment off in one swift move. I think I’m not the only one who’s excited here.

She’s face up, and that’s the way I want her. I lift her to adjust her position a little, and then I kneel in front of the hammock and spread her thighs to open the flower between them.

The scent of her arousal floats up to me and makes me dizzy, as does the sight of the mysterious slit. I know now which parts are the most sensitive for her and which parts to avoid until later.

I can’t wait, so I run my tongue up the whole slit from the bottom to the top.

“Oooooh,” Caroline moans, spreading her legs further. I take it as a good sign, and I continue doing all the things the shaman told us and which seemed to be appreciated by Caroline last time I did this.

Her flesh is soft and impossibly smooth, and it makes my manhood equally impossibly hard.

“Fuck me,” Caroline whimpers, but that’s not her decision. I will determine that. I keep licking and sucking on her, completely avoiding the hard little nub because I think it might push her over the edge too soon. I want to enjoy this, and I also want her to enjoy it to the fullest.

But the lure of her slick opening becomes too much for me. I stand up and place my cock at the most important hole in the world right now and then push into her with a liquid sound as the whole woman bucks under me.

“Oooohh yeh fuk mi,” Caroline moans as I bottom out in her, not too hard.

The feeling of her tightness around me is almost too much, but I clench my jaw and manage not to spray inside her at the first stroke. Again I’m struck with a strong, unreal feeling. Surely something like this can’t really be happening? It seems too good, too wonderful, too strange. Caroline is under me, her body is open to me, and I’m inside it.

The second cock that only comes into action all by itself is now hardening, and I know that soon Caroline will reach her mysterious climax that appears to go on much longer than mine.

She looks into my eyes, her body jerks and bucks, and she screams, a most wonderful sound that makes me lose control. And then I’m spraying inside her and she’s shivering and trembling and whimpering so loudly I’m sure it has to attract every irox in the sky. But I don’t care at all. They can come. I want them to witness this. This is the most wonderful bliss I’ve had. It’s entirely unreal. Just Caroline and I exist in the whole world, but it’s not accurate to think of us as separate just now. In these moments, it feels like we’re one and the same. Both our bodies and our minds.

A sudden flash goes through my mind: I never want to be without Caroline.

If the Ancestors demand that of me, then they can do their worst. I won’t obey.