Caveboy -------
It is 10,000 B.C.E., somewhere in Europe. The red cave tribe huddle about their fires, trying to keep warm. The temperature in the smoky cave is only about 40 degrees F, but outside it is much colder; a cutting wind blows through the valley off the polar icecap.
It has been many days since the last hunt, and the tribe's food, pieces of a mammoth that had frozen to death, are nearly gone. Some of the women are boiling bones now, placing hot stones, snow and bones in leather pouches. Some members of the tribe are sick. All are hungry, and their eyes glance hopefully at the cave opening, hoping the storm will break so the men can hunt again.
Ar-um cannot hunt yet; he is only eleven years old. He would go if they would let him, for he is very hungry, having subsisted these last few days on whatever scraps he could beg from other fires, other families. Now they have no scraps to give him. He lies under his fur blanket, crying softly, wishing his father were still alive.
Mer-ti looks sorrowfully at her son, but there is nothing she can do. When her husband Ok-tar fell through the ice of the frozen lake and died, she was herself in Ar-um's position. Neither a boy nor a woman can live without a man to hunt for them - participation in the hunt is what gives one a right to a portion of the food.
Mer-ti is old, nearly thirty, no longer in her prime. She is lucky that Sil-ak would take her. He is a mighty hunter, and she is his third and least important wife. Nevertheless, she will eat. Sil-ak did not want Ar-um, a boy who eats but cannot hunt, who is not of Sil-ak's loins.
The other members of the tribe are sorry for Ar-um and would give him food if they had it to spare, but they do not. He remains a member of the tribe and can stay in the cave as long as he likes, and if it were summer he could subsist by gathering roots and berries in the countryside. Perhaps he could even hunt small animals alone. Maybe if he were successful at that they would let him join the men's hunt. But it is winter.
Ar-um looks around at the other fires, at the other children. Druk is sitting in his father's lap. Ar-um will never sit with Ok-tar again. Ar-um will die. The tribespeople will be sad and will say rites for him, but they will let him die. He is useless, and there is no food for him. He cries again, then sleeps, dreaming that his father is still alive and Ar-um is riding on his shoulders. They are eating antelope and playing in the lake.
He wakes up, cold, his fire having almost gone out. Ar-um curses himself; it shows once more how useless he is. Fortunately no one sees it; they are all asleep. Quickly he feeds the fire, blowing on it to bring it back to life. He sits tending it, rubbing himself for warmth. He knows he will die.
Or perhaps not - a thought occurs to Ar-um that makes him shudder. He tries to drive it away, but it comes back.
He remembers the stories. Great hunters and fighters like Sil-ak have as many wives as they wish; other men have none. Sometimes boys have become wives for the other men. The story is hard to remember because the genders are wrong, and it sounds unnatural to the ear. A boy who is a wife becomes for the tribe's purposes a woman, referred to by the feminine pronoun. He sews clothing, tends the fire, and cooks food like a woman. But he is less than a woman, less even than a child - the least member of the tribe. His womb cannot bear fruit, cannot provide his warrior with a son. He is cursed, and may not look anyone in the eye, lest his curse be spread. The shaman will cut off his balls with a flint knife to signify his loss of manhood. The boy acquires a new name - a woman's name.
It is almost too much to think of, but Ar-um must think of it. He thinks of walking out into the snow, joining with the wolf-spirit, or perhaps the bear-spirit. But he wants to live. He wants to eat. He makes a decision.
With a sick feeling, Ar-um glances around at the sleeping men, the men who do not have wives. Some are old and will not be able to hunt much longer. They will die, and Ar-um will be alone again. Some are young and will take a girl for a wife when they get older. They will not want Ar-um. There are only two men left. Al-kar is in his early twenties, Ur-zak perhaps a bit older. They are strong men compared to Ar-um, or compared to twentieth-century men, but they are weak compared to the other men of the tribe. Neither could win the combat to get a wife. Al-kar limps from a fall in a rocky canyon when he was a child, the bone never properly mended. Ur-zak does not limp, but he is weak and does not fight - his head hangs low before the other men. Ar-um is dismayed at them, but he must choose one.
And he feels that he must do it tonight, while the rest of the tribe are asleep, or he will not be able to bear the shame. But do what? How does a boy become a wife? The stories do not say. Ar-um has seen many men mounting their wives when he was younger, before he learned that it was impolite to look into another man's fire without permission. Many times he has seen Sil-ak's mighty cock pounding into the pussies of his two wives, the great hunter's head thrown back in ecstasy, his woman moaning beneath him, her hands travelling spasmodically over her husband's shoulders, sides and back. Ar-um knows that as a wife he must take his husband's cock into him, but he does not know where, since he has no pussy. He looks at himself as if to make sure, but no magic has given him one. He pokes his finger into his perineum, trying to see if a vagina will appear, but it does not. Then, with a shameful blush, he realizes. He will do with his husband what Kal-per sometimes does with his wife. Ar-um will take it in his behind.
Gulping, Ar-um walks over to Al-kar's fire. He has chosen Al-kar because he is younger and stronger, though he limps. The man sleeps on his back, his bearded face fierce even in sleep, his powerful arms outspread. His strong, hairy chest moves up and down softly; it reminds Ar-um of Ok-tar. A fur blanket covers Al-kar below the tits; he lies on another. Dried mammoth meat lies behind the man in a leather pouch, next to the cave wall.
Ar-um does not know what to do. He fears waking the man, but he must. Al-kar will think he is begging for food and beat him, then tell him to go back to his own fire. Ar-um will need to make his intentions clear. He has seen girls lift their furs before a man, to entice him, to make him take them as a wife. Ar-um must do the same.
The boy reaches out and grabs Al-kar's powerful bicep and shakes him. Al-kar shifts in his sleep but does not wake. Tentatively, Ar-um reaches out again and shakes him harder. In a flash, Al-kar is awake and angry; his hand clutches his spear. Ar-um shakes with fear but does not run. His eyes focusing, Al-kar drops the spear, but his face is angry as ever; he glances at his mammoth meat.
Ar-um does not want to speak and risk awakening the tribe. He shakes his head. Al-kar glares at him and raises his hand to strike. Ar-um cowers before him, then on his hands and knees, turns around and lifts the fur covering his bottom. He lets the fur fall back and looks at Al-kar. The man glares at him, uncomprehending; Ar-um fears that he has misunderstood the advance as an insult. Ar-um turns back around and lifts his fur to his armpits, then wiggles his behind a little. Leaving the fur up this time, shivering with cold and fright, he looks back. Al-kar seems less angry, but he still does not understand and is growing impatient. Desperately, Ar-um wiggles his bottom more exaggeratedly. It still does not work. Al-kar is growing angry again.
Fearing the cuff that may come at any moment, Ar-um walks over to the ledge where Al-kar lies, his head hung in submission. Al-kar watches in amazement. When he is close enough, Ar-um reaches out toward the fur that covers Al-kar, finding the bulge made by the man's genitals. Brazenly, he reaches out and squeezes the man's limp cock through the fur, then quickly, before Al-kar can strike him, Ar-um gets down on his hands and knees and exposes his behind once more, wiggling it meaningfully.
When he looks back, Al-kar is looking at him. Their eyes meet for a long while, then Ar-um looks down. He realizes his seduction has failed. He covers his behind and stands up, walking away with his head hanging. Ar-um knows now that he is completely useless, not even good enough to be the wife to a cripple. He will walk out into the snow and join with the wolf-spirit.
As he walks off, however, a rough hand grabs his skinny arm and spins him around. It is Al-kar, and his face is fierce. Ar-um thinks he will be killed for waking this hunter and insulting him. He is afraid, then realizes that he will still join with the wolf-spirit when his body is cast out of the cave. His arm hurts in the man's rough grasp, but his toes tingle with the thought of accompanying the mighty wolf on his hunt.
Al-kar does not kill the boy, though. He pulls him forward, back to the man's fire. Al-kar lifts Ar-um's fur over his head, and the boy stands naked, shivering in the cold, his head bowed in submission. Al-kar softly orders him to turn around, and Ar-um does so. The man shoves the tip of a large dry finger into his behind, and Ar-um grunts in pain. The finger is shoved in further, and Ar-um grunts again, clenching his teeth. His teeth begin to chatter in the cold.
The finger is withdrawn. Ar-um looks back. Al-kar has lifted his fur blanket! It has worked after all! Ar-um leaps forward, trying to snuggle up with Al-kar. The man holds him back and sternly points at his feet. Ar-um is to get down by Al-kar's feet, not his head. Obediently, his head bowed, Ar-um gets under the fur with Al-kar's crippled leg. The fur is closed over his head.
Now it is completely dark. Ar-um can see nothing, but he feels the welcome heat of the man's body and breathes in the full intensity of his scent. The boy knows the scent of every man and woman of the tribe (children like himself being indistinguishable as to scent), but never has he experienced such a strong smell as this, having never lain under a man's blanket with him. It is overpowering, making Ar-um dizzy as he rests his head against Al-kar's hip.
But Al-kar will not let Ar-um rest. He grabs the boy's head under the blanket and pushes it down onto his crotch. Roughly Ar-um's face is pressed into Al-kar's now-erect cock, the pubic hair getting in the boy's nose and nearly making him sneeze. Ar-um does not know what to do. Impatient, Al-kar lifts his head and shoves it back down again, and again. Ar-um still does not understand what is required of him, but he opens his mouth to breathe. Al-kar moves the boy's head up and down on his cock, Ar-um's lips moistening it. Angry again, Al-kar whispers, ordering the boy to lick. Now that Ar-um knows what to do, he licks eagerly, his taste buds quickly growing numb with the intense saltiness of the man's skin. Al-kar sighs, evidently pleased, and Ar-um works up some more spit, licking the man's cock intently, cautiously lifting it from where it lies in its nest of hair to get it completely wet.
Al-kar stops the boy, lifting his head away. Roughly, he pulls Ar-um forward under the blanket, and Ar-um climbs up onto the man's chest, out into the cold air again, the man's scent still powerful but less intense. He snuggles against Al-kar's chest contentedly, pretending that this is Ok-tar, somehow still alive.
It is not Ok-tar, however; it is Al-kar. The man reaches down and pulls the boy's legs apart, then shoves his finger back into Ar-um's anus. Ar-um grunts again as the finger penetrates, then bites his arm to stop the cries as it moves roughly in and out. He knows that the finger is not the end. Al-kar is going to put his cock in there, where the finger is. Ar-um has offered his hole to the man, and he can't back out now. Silently frantic, the boy realizes that this has been a mistake. There is no way that that mighty penis will fit into him. He will die and join with the wolf-spirit after all. The stories he has heard have all been lies - or perhaps they mean that he will die and become a wolf-bitch, in the inscrutable speech of shamans. Tears of fear come to his eyes as Ar-um confronts his imminent doom.
The finger is removed, and Ar-um gasps in momentary relief. He feels at first a dampness at his rear, then a warm pressure. Desperately, Ar-um realizes that it is the head of Al-kar's mighty cock, almost as long as the boy's forearm. Ar-um closes his eyes tight and bites his arm in anticipation. His whole body is tense - he does not know that he should relax to minimize the pain.
The head of Al-kar's cock presses in, against the futile resistance of Ar-um's sphincter, and the boy's vision goes white. An involuntary, high-pitched moan escapes his lips around the arm-gag, from which blood now flows slowly into his mouth. Ar-um cannot imagine another pain this terrible and thinks he will die.
Fortunately, Al-kar knows the stories better than Ar-um. Many days young Al-kar laid at the shaman's fire, feverish, the frightful pain in his leg only mildly dulled by the willow-root tea he was forced to drink. The shaman told him all the stories - and not only the popular ones, the stories of triumph in battle over neighboring tribes or of great hunters and their powerful prey. Al-kar also heard the secret stories, the ones only told in hushed voices in the dark, the stories of dread punishment from the animal gods in the form of disease and death, the stories of little boys who had once become the wives of men.
Al-kar waits, knowing that his new wife will grow to accomodate him soon enough. For now, he must wait as Ar-um's man-spirit fights to survive. If Al-kar goes too fast, the man-spirit will kill Ar-um in its rage. Ar-um must fight and kill his own spirit. It is the greatest, and only, fight the boy will ever wage. Reverently, Al-kar strokes Ar-um's back as he shakes in his battle. Finally, the spirit retreats, and Ar-um collapses onto Al-kar's chest. Al-kar knows that the spirit will be back to fight again, that only after many battles will it finally die.
Al-kar pushes forward again, and Ar-um tenses again, and Al-kar waits. It is Ar-um's battle to fight, but Al-kar finds himself fighting a different one, as the boy's rectum alternately squeezes him in a strangling grip, then releases him to only slighter looseness. Forward the man pushes, continuing to pause, delirium flowing from his cock to his toes and his scalp, fearful that he will climax too soon and give Ar-um's man-spirit a victory. Al-kar feels the dampness of the boy's tears on his chest.
Finally, Al-kar's great cock is all the way inside Ar-um. Ar-um breathes rapidly, the mighty hunter inside him. It was difficult because he is cursed, but he belongs completely to Al-kar now. Ar-um cries, knowing that he will never become a man; Al-kar's cock in his rectum is making him a woman, Al-kar's wife.
Realizing that Ar-um has won his first battle against his spirit, Al-kar begins to move his cock inside the boy. Now he can stake his claim on his new wife. Ar-um moans softly as the hunter's penis strokes his insides. Limp and useless, the boy's small penis and tiny balls have retreated into him, ashamed to show themselves. Al-kar's strokes are slow and soft. His hand moves over Ar-um's body, emphasizing his ownership of it.
Finally, Ar-um's man-spirit gives up completely - for now. It seems to go out of him all at once. The boy seems to melt into Al-kar's body, totally limp. Al-kar feels the looseness and begins to move faster, deeper. Ar-um's wavering high-pitched whine seems to Al-kar to signal the boy's acceptance of his new role.
But then Al-kar ceases to think of Ar-um at all as his fucking becomes faster and more frantic. Waves of delight wash over the man's body from Ar-um's tight hole.
At last, Al-kar deposits his seed in his new wife, claiming her for his own. A final gasp from Ar-um shows that he feels this part of Al-kar moving into him. Content, Al-kar goes back to sleep, his softening cock still embedded in Ar-um's soft bottom. Ar-um cannot sleep and dare not move. He rides softly up and down on Al-kar's powerful chest as the man breathes, his cock still in Ar-um's behind.
In the morning, the tribe sees Ar-um's unattended fire. Looking for him, their eyes glance about the room until they see his clothing-fur on the floor of the cave next to Al-kar's fire. A closer examination shows Ar-um asleep on top of Al-kar, his head resting on the man's chest. But Al-kar is awake. He casts his blanket aside, showing his cock still embedded in his young catamite. Al-kar grins. Some look away; others continue to watch. Al-kar roughly grabs Ar-um's behind and begins to move him up and down on the stiffening cock, giving a show for the tribe. Eventually, all eyes are back on him again. Ar-um awakens, feeling the man moving inside him again. Al-kar tells him to sit up. Ar-um groans as he sits on Al-kar's cock, then Al-kar grips the boy by the hips, moving him up and down. Ar-um makes more noise this time; the man is rougher than before. Finally, with all eyes upon them, Al-kar bounces Ar-um on his hips, the man's powerful gluteus muscles bouncing the boy on the Al-kar's cock. At last, Al-kar pulls Ar-um back down again and, lifting himself nearly off his fur mattress, deposits another load of seed in the boy's behind.
Everyone continues to watch as Al-kar easily lifts the seventy-five pound boy off his cock and onto the ground. A glistening reddish-brown mixture of semen, mucus and blood flows out between Ar-um's legs. Tottering, distracted by pain and the eyes upon him, Ar-um, naked in the cold, squats down and feeds Al-kar's fire. Al-kar, also naked, proud of the sticky covering on his softening cock, sits up and watches, exposing himself to the rest of the tribe. He becons Ar-um to sit in his lap. The boy, his head hung low in submission, does so, and Al-kar wraps his sleeping fur about them. Al-kar leans back and takes his bag of dried mammoth meat. He holds out a piece to Ar-um. The boy eats from Al-kar's hand. They have signified their intent to marry.
Gul-uk, the old shaman, stands up slowly, leaning on his staff. He is very old, nearly fifty, his long beard tinged with flecks of gray. If he were not a shaman, he would long since have walked out to join with the animal-spirits. But he is a shaman and does not hunt, so his age does not matter. Sam-hil, his acolyte, follows the shaman over to Al-kar's fire. The fourteen-year-old is old enough to hunt, but like his master he does not; instead, he will become the shaman when the old man dies, which will be soon. Sam-hil knows how Ar-um feels. The acolyte has paid Gul-uk for his wisdom, deep in the cave among the bones of the ancestors, in secret rites that only shamans and their acolytes can witness. Sam-hil has not been castrated, however, and he may take a wife, as soon as he is able to fight for her. Gul-uk had one, but she died of a fever more than ten summers past.
Gul-uk frowns; tradition has not been followed. Normally, a girl's father should accompany her when she offers herself to her prospective mate. A man should sit at the bridegroom's fire and witness her betrothal. But Ar-um has no father, and the shaman silently curses Sil-ak for his cold-hearted abandonment of Mer-ti's child. Still, perhaps the gods will understand, or perhaps it is their will that Ar-um take the life of a woman.
The shaman takes Ar-um's hand and leads him out to stand beside Al-kar's fire. Roughly, he pushes the boy down by the neck. Ar-um bends over, and Gul-uk begins to chant as Sam-hil, the acolyte, cleans the boy with stinging cold water.
With Ar-um thus cleansed, the shaman loudly demands of Al-kar if he means to marry "this child." Ar-um no longer has a name, his male name no longer valid; later, at the castration ceremony, he will acquire a new, female one. Equally loudly, Al-kar strikes his chest with his fist and declares his betrothal, glaring fiercely at the other men. Gul-uk frowns again. At this point, he would ask the father if he agrees to his daughter's marriage, but there is no father to ask. Gul-uk simply presses on with the rest of the ceremony.
The shaman leads the shivering, naked boy out into the center of the cave. Sam-hil begins beating a drum. Gul-uk stands aside. Now Ar-um must dance. Girls of the tribe are prepared for this part of their marriage ceremony, but Ar-um has not been prepared. Nevertheless, he has seen the ceremony performed several times and knows what do do, though perhaps he is graceless.
At first, Sam-hil's drumbeat is slow, and Ar-um dances in a tight circle, stamping his feet in the soft dirt of the cave floor; the dance is little more than an exaggerated walk. The drumbeat quickens, and Ar-um dances faster, his body heat helping to fend off the cold. The boy spreads his arms and moves his upper body in rhythm with the drum, spinning in place, struggling against dizziness.
Sam-hil's drum quickens still more, and Gul-uk begins to chant. The chant would be obscene to us, the distant descendants of that tribe. It tells of a woman's desire for a man, and her desire for him. The men raise their spears, and Ar-um dances between them, his dance becoming more erotic. Pain spreads out from Ar-um's violated hole, a thin stream of blood, spread by the dancing, slowly painting his legs red, but Ar-um is ecstatic. The spirits are in him. Many a bride danced with more skill, but none with more passion.
The drumbeat quickens again, and Gul-uk sings of the consummation of love, of the penis seeking its rightful place. Ar-um tries at first thrusting his hips forward, as a girl-bride would do, but it seems wrong. Instead, he wiggles his bottom at the men as he dances between their spears, almost impaling himself on them, sweating from exertion in spite of the cold.
The ceremony calls for the shaman to sing of the children that will come of the girl's union with a man, but that verse is inappropriate here. Instead, Gul-uk reaches back into his long memory, finding words for an amended ceremony he was taught by his master but has never had to perform. He sings of a boy's weakness, of a man-spirit that cannot hunt, of the boy's desire to become a woman and feel a strong penis inside him. It is a sad song, but frantic with desperate lust, the song of a boy who struggles to kill his maleness so that he can enjoy the cock of a man.
Many pricks spring to life, and several hands reach out to touch Ar-um as he dances. Mer-ti looks hopefully at Sil-ak. The tears in her eyes show her shame for her son who can never be a man, her wish that at least they could be wives together, that she could comfort him at the same fire. But Sil-ak only looks scornfully at her. He does not touch Ar-um when the boy offers himself. Sil-ak will not accept Ar-um even as a wife.
The drumbeat slows, the spears are lowered, and Ar-um stands again in the middle of the cave, exhausted. Gul-uk steps forward again as Sam-hil stops his drum. "Who wishes to challenge for this bride?" he demands loudly.
Kolm stands, and Ar-um is surprised. He had not expected that anyone would challenge for him. After all, he can bear no children. As Ar-um walks back to Al-kar's fire, he inspects the seventeen-year-old. The teenager is squat and strong, like most men of the tribe, but he has not reached his full adult strength yet and does not have a wife. Kolm's cock is erect, and he displays it proudly. It is six and a half inches, slightly smaller than Al-kar. Ar-um will have it in his bottom if Kolm wins the challenge. Unable to restrain himself, the boy quickly glances up into the teenager's face, hurriedly looking down again. Kolm was looking at him with cold lust.
Al-kar rises to meet the challenge, and the two naked men confront each other in the middle of the cave. As he tries to sit, Ar-um is twisted with a horrible cramp. He must quickly run back to the toilet-cave so that he does not soil the living area. As he looks back over his shoulder, he sees his two champions joining in combat. Painfully, struggling to contain a cry, Ar-um squats on the cold ground and disgorges himself of the remainder of Al-kar's nighttime gift, along with a horribly hard turd, several seconds of burning diarrhea, and a significant glob of clotted blood. Somewhat more relaxed, he wipes himself gingerly with the leaves stored there for the purpose, cleaning off his legs as well, at least as best he can. Later, he will have to walk out into the snow and scrub himself off. As he as been taught, Ar-um buries his emanations in a shallow hole.
As Ar-um comes back, he sees that Al-kar is on top of Kolm, driving the teenager's face into the dirt. Kolm will not at first admit defeat and continues to struggle. Al-kar reaches back and swats the boy's behind. It is a humiliation. Kolm struggles again, but Al-kar pins him again and swats his behind twice more. Unable to bear more embarrassment, Kolm admits defeat, and Al-kar rises. Kolm gets up and walks away, his head hung low.
"Who else challenges?" the shaman shouts. No one does. Ar-um walks back up to Al-kar's fire, and Al-kar walks back and places his arm around the shoulders of his new, unchallenged bride. The man is heated from his wrestling, and Ar-um, now cold again, snuggles close to him.
Gul-uk and his acolyte lead the pair back out into the center of the cave. At this point, the father of the bride should solemnize the marriage, but again Ar-um has no father. Gul-uk frowns briefly, trying to remember the proper ceremony, but it escapes him - he is old, and in his life he has never married a boy to a man. Sam-hil sees his master's difficulty and whispers in his ear; the acolyte remembers the rare rite. Gul-uk nods.
"Al-kar, having won the challenge, you marry this child. What say you before your bear-guardian?"
"I say that I marry this child of Ok-tar!"
"And what say you, new child with no guardian?" the shaman asks. Ar-um does not understand. He thought the wolf was his guardian.
Nervously, but as loudly as he can, Ar-um declares, "I marry the hunter Al-kar!"
"You wish to become a woman?" the shaman demands. Ar-um is unprepared for this; it is not part of the normal marriage ceremony.
"Yes," the boy says, his head hanging with shame.
"So be it! May the ancestors and animal-spirits witness it!" the shaman shouts.
"So be it!" the tribe shouts as one. This part of the ceremony is the same.
At this point, Ar-um and Al-kar should return to their marriage-bed for a solemnization of their own more private than any other ceremony. Al-kar starts to lead Ar-um off, but Gul-uk thrusts his staff into the dirt. The shaman pulls Ar-um away from his bridegroom. Al-kar glares, furious. Sam-hil whispers in the man's ear: "He must become a woman. When he gets his new name and guardian, he can be your wife." Al-kar softens, unable to argue with a shaman. He watches Ar-um's retreating bottom with unrequited lust as the boy is led to Gul-uk's fire. Sam-hil remains behind, explaining that Al-kar's spear will be needed for the ceremony. The man obediently hands it to the teenage acolyte.
Al-kar has not been invited to the ceremony, but he dons his clothing-fur and watches from his own fire, disregarding the rule that no man should look uninvited into the fire of another. Al-kar, silently seething, thinks that he certainly deserves to look on his bride, even if she is at the fire of a shaman. Ar-um belongs to him, after all.
Kolm walks over to Ar-um's unattended fire and blows it back to life. The teenager does not have a bride yet, but he hunts, and he will have a fire of his own. He looks about to see if any challenge his claim. No one does. The cave is large, and there are plenty of fire-places to be had. Kolm, too, looks across at Gul-uk's fire. The shaman is grinding dried leaves and berries on a rock as Sam-hil brings the fire to roaring life. Ar-um, still naked, wraps himself in a bearskin. Kolm thinks that he will have the boy, regardless of his marriage to Al-kar. It is an evil thought, and if acted upon Al-kar could kill him for it, but Kolm thinks that Al-kar will not always be stronger than him.
Mer-ti watches too, slyly in the woman's way. She knows what will happen and hopes that Ar-um will live. She is sick with worry but can do nothing. It is the path that Ar-um has chosen.
When the leaves and berries are ground to powder, Gul-uk places them in a boiling-skin that Sam-hil has prepared. Into the fire also go a flint knife and the tip of Al-kar's spear. At length, the potion has boiled down, and Gul-uk removes it with a bone ladle and places it to Ar-um's lips. The boy sips the hot liquid slowly. The taste is strange, but stranger are the visions that begin to come to him. Sam-hil chants softly about how Ar-um's wolf-guardian is leaving him. The boy cries as he sees the guardian leave, the cave somehow becoming a mountaintop in summer. The wolf slinks away, leaving Ar-um alone. The sun looks down in disapproval. Sam-hil chants to Ar-um that he is a girl now, and the boy looks down to see that it is so. Ar-um has no strength at all. The teenager says to go seek a new guardian. In his dream, Ar-um struggles to rise and walks down the mountainside. He is naked, but the sun warms him. A rabbit comes out of the bushes and looks at him, then hops away disinterestedly. Not even a rabbit fears him now.
Suddenly, Ar-um feels an incredible pain. It is Father Sun rebuking him for having no guardian. Ar-um appeals to the great yellow god, giver of all life, but the god is merciless. He burns Ar-um with his brilliant fingers, taking his manhood. Ar-um screams for mercy, begging not to be killed, but the god only laughs and says he will not die. The boy is sternly ordered to seek a guardian.
The pain becomes a mere roar in Ar-um's ears as he struggles on, walking into an unfamiliar forest. The sun keeps whispering through the pines, "Do you have a guardian?" Ar-um sees several creatures, asking each to be his guardian. They turn away. The salamander rolls his eyes and flops into a muddy pool. Finally, Ar-um sees a sparrow in a tree. The sparrow is weak, but Ar-um is weaker; he will soon die with no guardian. Laughing, the sparrow comes to rest on the boy's shoulder. "It is so," the sparrow says. Father Sun repeats his incessant demand, and at last Ar-um whispers, "Yes, the sparrow is with me." The sun laughs with mighty contempt, touching Ar-um again with his burning fingers. The boy collapses on the forest floor in agony, and the sun laughs.
Many days Ar-um lies by the shaman's fire, drinking the hallucinogenic tonic. He feels neither heat nor cold, neither pain nor joy. The sparrow-spirit whispers to him, speaking of flight and giddy laughter. Ar-um runs behind the sparrow, his arms outstretched, jumping in momentary flight. The sun laughs at them both.
After a week, Ar-um recovers consciousness, a dull pain emanating from his vanished scrotum. Gul-uk's flint knife, heated to red heat, has removed his eggs, and the tip of Al-kar's spear, also red-hot, has cauterized the wound. There was very little blood, but though Ar-um was in a trance the pain was terrible. A large, ugly scab has replaced the boy's testicles. He is no longer a man, but he will live. Gul-uk ladles willow-root tea into his young patient's mouth. The pain recedes somewhat but remains present.
Al-kar sees that his bride has recovered and demands her back. Gul-uk assents, stating that Por-il (Ar-um's new name) will require rest for many days yet. Al-kar grunts angrily and picks up his wife. He does not need advice from a shaman on how to comfort her.
As the shaman said, it takes many days for Por-il to recover. Al-kar tends her patiently, assisted by other women of the tribe, notably Mer-ti. It is a husband's duty to see to a sick wife, but women and children do most of the actual work. Mer-ti teaches Por-il how to pee while squatting, in the manner of a woman. The women prevail on Al-kar not to demand his conjugal rights of Por-il until she is fully recovered. He satisfies himself by rubbing his cock between her butt-cheeks, depositing his seed on her soft, small back. When she has improved somewhat, Por-il sucks Al-kar's pungent dick, drinking his seed as he shoves a finger into her behind. Sam-hil brings willow-root tea for Por-il to drink. She sleeps always on Al-kar's chest. He strokes her hair.
Meanwhile, the storm has broken, and the men of the tribe have brought down several large elk. The tribe is eating again, and all are happy. A child has died of fever. She is placed out in the snow. The wolves feed on her, then the tribe retrieve the bones and place them with the ancestors.
Por-il recovers. Inspired by her sparrow-spirit, she laughs at Al-kar, wiggling her behind at him, then runs into an unfrequented part of the large cave. Her man catches her, as she desires. He grabs her from behind and pushes his cock into her little bottom. It has been easier than Al-kar thought; Ar-um's man-spirit had been weak and was killed easily. Por-il giggles with delight. Surrounded by his strong arms, entrapped like a little bird, she gasps lustfully, struggling playfully against his grasp. Al-kar fucks her quickly, as she likes. Her gasping changes to a high-pitched whine, wavering as the hunter's great penis shoves into her rectum, her own little member shrunken into her body, barely able to be seen. Climaxing, she shudders, bird-like.
Kolm, unseen, watches from the shadows, as the light from the distant fires dimly lights them both. He knows he will be able to take Por-il, later, when she is alone, perhaps in this very cavern.
Al-kar deposits one load in his wife, then, limping as usual, leads her back toward the front of the cave, back to his bed for a more leisurely fuck. She follows him willingly, her walk already that of a woman. Kolm strokes his cock silently. He will give Por-il what she needs in her behind.
Unaware, Al-kar disrobes his wife in front of several other admiring men. He does not think how they look at her when she brings them firewood or tends their sick children. As he pulls Por-il down on top of him in his bed, as he lifts her onto his rampant cock, Al-kar does not see the jealous eyes looking brazenly into his fire-light. As Por-il obediently twists her little bottom over him, bouncing in her delight, Al-kar does not notice the men who watch from their own fires, stroking their cocks.
He simply groans with passion, filling his beautiful boy-wife with his seed. He does not think that, perhaps, he may have to defend her again - and not merely from the likes of Kolm.