For the Love of Bananas
by Aardon Beta, copyright Nov. 1999
Copying electronically or by any other means for redistribution or posting at other sites without permission of the author at authorsix@hotmail.com is prohibited. This story is a sequel to "To Our Mutual Benefit", one of a series of stories in the science fiction world of ChaosLaw found at http://www.chaoslaw.com
"They say the Gros Michel is the most common banana, and the most flavourful," observed Frederic as they began the four-hour trip from their mountain hide-a-way to Coles Creek.
"Yeah?" said Mikhail as he slipped closer to Frederic. "I know a much more common, and much more flavourful banana." He placed his hand on Frederic's crotch playfully.
"The Latin name is Musa sapientum, which means fruit of the wise men. It was called that because the Roman historian Pliny wrote that wise men in India lived on this fruit."
"They were wise," said Mikhail as he squeezed the warm mound in Frederic's jeans. "I could live on nothing else."
"I also read that the plantain is called Musa paradisiaca or heavenly fruit because there is a legend that it is was the plantain and not the apple that was the forbidden fruit that tempted Eve."
"Well it certainly is something that has always tempted me," smiled Mikhail as he felt Frederic's plantain beginning to swell.
"Banana plants grow fifteen to thirty feet tall and when you harvest the bananas you cut down the entire plant. New plants grow from the roots, which they called rhizomes. The rhizomes have eyes like a potato so you just cut it up into pieces and each piece with an eye grows into a new plant. Isn't that amazing?"
"Oh yeah," agreed Mikhail as he caressed Frederic's thigh. "Except to my knowledge, this banana only has one eye."
"You'd better stop that or we'll end up in the ditch."
"Then you'd better stop talking dirty to me," grinned Mikhail as he snuggled up to the twenty-three-year-old.
Frederic slipped his right arm about the younger boy. It was wonderful to be in love. Turning off highway 87 and onto 73 and heading toward Keene Valley, they left the main transportation artery through what used to be Adirondack Park and was still the most direct route between New York City and Canada, not that there was much travel between the two anymore.
Cutting across the northernmost end of the park from east to west was awesomely beautiful and at the same time totally devastating. It had been a surprisingly mild fall so that by mid November the temperatures during the day were as high as fifty and at night hovered around freezing. The forest was a blaze of crimsons, oranges and yellows, nature's celebration of the year's end before the first snow flurries. Wild geese flew overhead, migrating from Canada to warmer points south, their coarse honking even heard over the diesel engine.
The air was crisp and clean and the autumn sun hot as it shone through the truck windows.
They paused at Meacham Lake for the lunch that the ever methodical and practical Mikhail had packed. Carrot sticks and celery from their own indoor garden, garlic sausage and cheddar cheese traded with a Pennsylvania Dutch family, and crusty buns and apple cider from Frederic's friends in Port Jervis they could not want more. Afterwards, they strolled hand-in- hand through the forest, the dry leaves crunching under their feet. They paused to watch a flock of Canada geese land in the lake and begin to dive for their own lunch. It was a perfect day, a day for a picnic and a stroll, a day for making love in the woods.
Mikhail slipped his arm about his beloved and drew him close. Frederic looked down at him, the older youth's turquoise blue eyes full of love and caring. Their lips met in a sweet tender kiss. Mikhail returned the kiss and Frederic responded with another. The two young men simultaneously caressed each other as they exchanged brief, gentle kisses. Mikhail pulled Frederic's shirt out of his trousers as Frederic did the same, and slipping their hands under each other's clothing, they caressed each other's back as they kissed again and again. Mikhail finally began to unbutton Frederic's shirt, the five-foot-ten nineteen-year-old taking the lead in their foreplay as he usually did. He ran his fingers through Frederic's fine, blond chest hair, and massaged and caressed his breast. It was firm, the result of working out two hours every day. Frederick might have been the philosopher and the more academic of the two, but he was far from sedentary, and although his muscles were undefined, he was no weakling.
As he felt his nipples harden, Frederick unbuttoned Mikhail's shirt and eased it off over his shoulders. The nineteen-year-old had a thick patch of dark chest hair already, the colour of burnt almond like the hair on his head and much thicker than the curly blond youth had. Frederick entwined his fingers in it, delighting in the eroticism of two men caressing each other. Who would have thought six months ago that he'd fall in love with another man? Who would have thought that he'd find another man's touch arousing? He could not deny the young Russian immigrant's kisses and gentle caresses were causing a fluttering both in his heart, and in his jeans.
Mikhail had unbuttoned the top and was unzipping his fly at the moment and Frederic slowly realized that his breathing had become deeper and faster. He watched as the dark-haired boy opened his jeans and then eased them down over his hips, and then Frederic did likewise to his lover. The simple act of revealing his white jockey briefs and seeing the swell of his cock and balls in the pocket caused Frederic's boxers to begin to tent out. They sat on a fallen log there in the woods and removed their runners and socks, their pants, and their underwear. By then they were both fully erect.
Laying down on his back on the forest floor and raising his legs, Frederic took long deep breaths as Mikhail knelt between his legs. As he felt Mikhail's hot, hard cockhead press against his anus he pushed out. As Mikhail pushed harder, so did Frederic. Slowly the dark-haired, bearded youth mounted him. It was a strange sensation as he felt his sphincter being stretched, as he felt the hot, hard cock penetrating him. He felt Mikhail slowly enter him until his thin, tender thighs were pressed against Frederic's backside. Frederic sighed loudly. It felt wonderful to have Mikhail inside him. For a man to allow another to enter him had to be the greatest commitment of his love.
The sun beat down on Mikhail's back and naked butt as he slowly began to work his hips to and fro. The teenage boy could not believe his fortune. He was madly in love with the most wonderful youth in the world. It was not the first time. He thought back and counted his loves. This was his sixth, but Frederic was different from the others. This was by far the deepest and strongest love he'd ever felt. This one was the best of them all. It was not just having his naked body there beneath him or the tingling pleasure that was making his peckerhead feel like it was effervescing, it was the similar sensation he was feeling in his chest.
Mikhail closed his eyes as he worked his cock in and out of Frederic's hot, tight asshole. As he felt it pulsating about his cock, he sighed with the pleasure beating between his legs, and with the knowledge that his beloved was both enjoying being fucked and trying to increase his own pleasure. He slowly opened his eyes and looked down into Frederic's. The love and the arousal he saw in those beautiful turquoise eyes heightened his own arousal.
He increased his tempo, working his wiry, hundred-and-forty-five pound body to and fro in that rhythmic motion of love. A minute later he quivered violently and groaned as he came. His cock throbbed out his semen and he gasped and grunted as he worked his gushing cock in and out in a final frenzy, slicking it in and out of his hot, creamy load which had filled Frederic's rectum.
Having a man climaxing up his rectum was an undescribable pleasure. Feeling Mikhail quivering between his outspread legs and hearing him gasping for breath as he reached his orgasm, triggered Frederic's own climax. He inhaled deeply as he felt his cum begin to rise up his shaft. As it spurted out, his cock jerked about wildly like a fireman's hose that had gotten out of the firefighter's grip, causing his cum to splatter his chest and stomach. Shot after shot erupted from his loose canon and splattered his body. Frederic continued to inhale and exhale deeply as the pressure finally began to subside and the last of his cum oozed out of the tip of his cock and down over the knob and along the underside of his shaft.
Mikhail smiled as balancing on one elbow he scooped up a splatter of cum with his forefinger and slipped it in his mouth. Savouring the warm, creamy globule, he flicked up another and fed it to Frederic. The older youth eagerly opened his mouth and slipped it over the proffered treat. As he sucked his cum off his lover's finger, his blue eyes twinkled.
It was wonderful making love with Mikhail, and it was especially wonderful to be doing it together in the woods and the fresh autumn air.
Those were the good parts of the trip. The bad parts were the constant reminders of the Yarilian invasion. Normally the Meacham Lake recreation centre would have been packed on a gorgeous November day like that day, but the Yarilians had decimated the earth's population from six billion to two million. Those who were left were struggling just to survive. There was not another vehicle in the recreation centre, and likely few if any in the entire Adirondack Park.
Another reminder, more brutal and intense, were the slashes of burnt forest, the result of the systematic bombing by the Yarilians in an attempt to destroy the forest, not just because it could harbour food, but because it was a thing of beauty. They could not bear to allow the humans to have anything that could bring them pleasure. At least that was the most commonly held theory as to why they had bombed largely uninhabited and nonindustrial areas like the Adirondack mountains. Others felt that there had been no such pre-thought but rather that the Yarilians had just bombed indiscriminately. In their shotgun approach, they had simply blasted everything in their sight.
When they had passed the burnt out Noonmark Diner where Frederic and his grandfather used to stop for their famous fresh pies, Mikhail thought Frederic might even begin to weep. Normally reserved and in many ways even cold, the twenty-three-year-old had to have a strong attachment to the place. Mikhail knew about attachments and memories and pain. The corner grocery store back in Queens would never again hold the memories it once had for him, and he could not pass it without feelings of such sadness that his eyes immediately began to tear. Of course he had always been romantic and passionate about things.
They arrived at Coles Creek without incident. Leaving the truck in a bombed out warehouse near the dock, they sat down on what was left of the boardwalk and waited. Frederic took out the sheaf of papers he'd run off from his search of the web.
"Most types of banana plants require exposure to 100-150 ppm ethylene twenty-four to forty-eight hours at fifty-nine to sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit and ninety to ninety-five percent relative humidity to induce uniform ripening," read Frederic from one of the sheets. "Carbon dioxide concentration should be kept below one percent to avoid its effect on delaying ethylene action. Use of a forced-air system in ripening rooms assures more uniform cooling or warming of bananas and more uniform ethylene concentration throughout the ripening. Think you can modify the new agrarian bay to meet those specifications?"
"No problem," smiled Frederic. "Stop worrying."
"The fruit can be eaten raw with sugar and cream, or wine and orange juice, roasted, baked, boiled, fried, or as an ingredient in soups and stews," Frederic continued reading. "They can be dried and ground into flour, made into fritters, preserves and marmalades, used in salads, or added to milk shakes and bread. In East Africa an intoxicating drink is prepared from the fruit."
"Always knew it was a versatile little thing," observed Mikhail as he placed his hand in Frederic's lap.
"What do you mean little?" asked Frederic with a grin as Mikhail squeezed him.
He put aside his papers and the two youths embraced and kissed. Frederic had never felt about anyone like this before and Mikhail's kisses made his head spin. Mikhail, on the other hand, was quick to form emotional relationships and was light-headed with love even before their lips touched.
The arrival of the ship from Costa Rica interrupted their love making. The exchange was quick and uneventful, four electric cars for four dozen banana plants, two crates of rhizomes, and one crate of bananas. After loading the flatbed and covering their load with a tarp, they hid the truck in the warehouse again and strolled along the shore of the Saint Lawrence, hand in hand, each eating a banana. Mikhail watched as Frederic sank his teeth into the white fruit and bit off a piece. He imagined Frederic slipping his lips over the banana as a man would a cock and sucking on it as he worked his lips up and down the length.
"What are you grinning about?"
"I love you."
"And I love you," Frederic replied, squeezing his hand. Mikhail continued to smile. "That's it?" Frederic asked as he took another bite of his banana.
"Was thinking of you doing that to my banana."
"Biting it?" asked Frederic. "Didn't know that sort of thing turned you on."
"Not biting. Sucking."
"You don't suck bananas."
"I do," Mikhail said with an impish grin.
"Oh?" Frederic replied, his lips slowly curling.
Smiling did not come natural to him, and the feelings he was having for Mikhail was an entirely new world. He had been raised in a cold home, his father busy amassing his own fortune and his mother more concerned about the socialites that formed their in-crowd than she was about her son. As a result Frederic had grown up looking after his own interests because nobody else bothered looking after them. Spread sheets and financial deals, the thrill of negotiations and beating the market were his passions. Having never seen people forming attachments, he had never learned to form them himself.
They kissed and embraced and as they pressed their bodies against each other they ran their hands over each other's back muscles. As they continued, their kisses became longer and more forceful and again each slipped his hand under the other's shirt and began to caress the other's naked skin. As they pressed their bodies together, chest to chest, crotch to crotch, each could feel the other's growing arousal. It had taken them six months to realize their love for each other, but ever since having professed it, they could not get enough of each other.
Disrobing each other, they stood there on the shores of the Saint Lawrence and deep kissed and caressed until they were both erect. Once again Frederic lay on his back, and once again Mikhail knelt between his legs. They made love there on the sand of the narrow beach, neither noticing the ship from Costa Rica pass by on its way home.
An hour later on their way back to where they had hidden their truck they suddenly came across a gang of Disruptors, a pack of five rough looking men, all in their late twenties. Their hair was long and greasy and unkept, and they reeked of the sweet smell of pot. Lost in their thoughts about their lovemaking on the beach, they had not noticed the Disruptors until after they had been spotted themselves.
"What are you boys doing out here?" asked the largest, and the filthiest looking of the five, a man as tall as Frederic but at least fifty pounds heavier than the one-hundred-and-sixty pound youth.
"Strolling," replied Frederic.
"Nobody goes strolling in the middle of the day," he observed suspiciously.
"You waiting for something, like a ship maybe?" asked a tall, nervous skinny man beside him.
"A ship?" asked Frederic, being a quicker thinker on his feet than Mikhail. "What would make you say that?"
"Word is that ships are coming by here, making illegal trades."
"Trades in what?"
"Drugs, food, whatever people want."
"We look like we're carrying food or drugs?"
The five older men studied them. They all had a mild buzz from the marijuana they had smoked. Mikhail ran his right hand over the short, dark black stubble on his left cheek nervously.
"Looks like you're packing to me," one of the Disruptors said as he approached the nineteen-year-old youth.
"Packing?" he asked nervously.
"Yeah," the man said, leering at his crotch.
"Ahhh," said the tall, skinny one, a grin of realization slowly passing over his face. "That is what you boys were doing."
"All right," said Frederick. "We were. There's nothing like a little hot sex along the banks of a river on a lazy afternoon."
"I can certainly agree with that," leered the one who had approached Mikhail. "Bet your young ass is still good and tight even though you've just had it fucked."
Frederic and Mikhail tensed. That they had been out having sex had been a logical reason for the two of them to be there along the river alone, but it was too logical. They glanced at the five Disruptors, trying to act calm, trying not to show their fear. Having sex with each other had been the result of living together for six months, and was an expression of their mutual love. Engaging in sex with five strangers they had just met and none of whom were physically attractive was something totally different.
"Forget it, Rake. We got things to do. Sides, these two sweet boys don't look the type to go in for group gropes," said the man who appeared to be the leader.
"Since when did consent concern you?" Rake asked, his voice not challenging but clearly reflecting his annoyance with the other's comments.
"You know why we're here," the other said, his voice firm and measured.
"We're to be watching for that foreign ship."
"Don't take five to keep an eye on the river."
"No. Can be done by four. And the take can be split four ways also," the leader replied pointedly.
Rake got the message and said no more. The Disruptors continued on their mission and Frederic and Mikhail headed toward the flatbed, wondering if the ship the gang was looking for was the one heading out to sea, and if it was, just how much was known about the deal they had just made. Frederic had been very careful making the arrangements, as he always was, but no matter how careful or how well planned, there were always risks.
They took a circuitous route back to where they had hidden the flatbed, constantly checking to be sure that they were not being followed. The encounter with the Disruptors had unnerved Mikhail, and he was anxious to be on their way and back in the safety of their mountain hide-a-way.
The trip back home was even riskier than the trip to Coles Creek. A flatbed carrying four electric cars was suspicious enough, but being caught with a load of banana plants was a certain death sentence. Since the invasion, the Yarilians controlled the food supply or rather, the Disruptors did. Anyone else caught trading in food was killed, or wished that they had been by the time the Disruptors were through with them.
Exactly why the Yarilians had attacked Earth was a mystery, the bombing of the planet having taken place from outer space for the most part, and after two-and-a-half years, the invading force still having not left their ship, at least as far as anyone knew. Of a more direct and immediate concern were the Disruptors, huge collectives of humans who spent their days and nights either raising havoc among those who were doing their best to maintain some semblance of humanity and decency, or engaging in wild orgiastic parties.
Some said that the Disruptors were working for the Yarilians, but Mikhail could not see how that could be. Of what benefit could there be to work for an alien invader, and why would an alien enlist help from those they were invading? Mikhail subscribed to the other common belief the Disruptors, largely drug addicts and criminals, simply had a free reign now that there was no organized government or police force and were talking advantage of the situation.
Either way, one method by which the Disruptors exercised domination was by controlling the food supply, keeping most of it for themselves and doling it out to their favourites while withholding it from their enemies, which was anyone who tried to bring some order and control to their small part of the world. So, being caught with a truckload of bananas would not be good for their health to say the least.
Mikhail and Frederic made their way along the mountain road with agonizing slowness, crawling up the side of one steep-walled valley and descending down the next. They were tired and hungry, but they chose to continue, eager to be back in the safety of their technological hide- a-way. They passed the halfway point. Two more hours.
Then, as the highway curled around the bottom of Lake Placid, they came upon a drunken party of Disruptors at the junction of highways 86 and 73. They had spotted them too late to stop and hide, and even if they could still slip away unnoticed, to detour around them would take hours and would take them miles out of their way.
Although it was early evening, the group was already flying high. On the good side, that meant they would not be thinking too clearly, or in much of a mood to conduct business. On the bad side, they would be even more volatile than ever, so who knew what they might do. With the approach of the truck, half a dozen got up from the bonfire they were sitting around and staggered over to stand in the middle of the road. Frederic and Mikhail were tempted to step on the gas and plow into them, but instead they inhaled deeply as the truck ground to a halt.
"What you boys got under the tarp?" asked the tallest, and also the ugliest, of the six.
"Palm trees," said Frederic, and Mikhail sent a quick prayer of thanks that the older youth thought quickly on his feet. He would never have thought of that.
"Yeah?" the leader of the pack said as he wobbled over to look under the canvas. "What for?"
"Just because we've been invaded doesn't mean we can't have some beauty," said Frederic. "These are for around the pool."
"Pool!" snorted the man. "The world is in chaos and he is decorating his pool for Chrissake! The fucking rich don't change do they?"
The men laughed. The leader looked at the plants again.
"Can you make anything from palms?" he asked his men. They shrugged. "What is in the crates?"
"Rhizomes," replied Frederic, and when the man raised his eyebrow, he explained, "roots."
"Can you make anything from palm roots?" he asked, looking around at the others.
"Yeah, I think you can boil them. Eat them like potatoes."
"Burn them."
"The rhizomes, or these two snooty boys?"
"The rhizomes," he replied, but then added with a smile, "but if they give you any trouble throw them in the fire besides."
Mikhail and Frederic watched helplessly as the men pulled the first of the crates off the truck. They dropped it on the ground beside the truck, smashing it open.
"It is roots," commented the leader, sounding surprised.
Frederic and Mikhail said nothing. The man bent down and picked one of the roots up.
"Shit, you wanna boil and eat that crap, go ahead" he commented, tossing the rhizome to Frederic.
The leader and his men headed back to the party. Mikhail and Frederic quickly loaded the broken crate back on the truck and continued on their way. Three hours later, safe back at the secret complex and their cargo unloaded in the new agrarian bay, the boys stripped down to their underwear and crawled into bed, each with a large soup bowl of bananas with sugar and cream.
"The pink fruited banana, Musa velutina, is a very fast growing, substantial plant that reaches nearly three metres and has metre or more long leaf blades," said Frederic, once again reading from the sheets of information he'd run off from his search of the web.
"Best kind of bananas are those that are pink and fast growing," observed Mikhail, reaching over and cupping Frederic's crotch.
"The erect spikes of the flower are very attractive and followed by velvety pink, stubby bananas which split when ripe to reveal pink flesh and masses of black, gritty seeds," Frederic continued to read.
"This erect spike is very attractive," observed Mikhail playfully as he palpitated the growing flesh inside Frederic's boxers. "And I much prefer its white, creamy seed."
"The Ice Cream or Blue Java has a bluish cast to the unripe fruit, which is seven to nine inches, quite aromatic, and said to melt in the mouth like ice cream."
"Seven to nine is a nice size," Mikhail observed as he pushed down Frederic's boxers. Taking his semierect cock in his hand, he slid down and nuzzled it with his nose. "Very aromatic. Let's see if it melts in the mouth." He slipped his lips over it, with the obvious result. "Nope," he said with a grin. "Just the opposite."
"Banana plants need a rich, humus soil and like it hot and humid," continued Frederic, looking up from the notes with a wide grin.
"Oh yeah, I love it hot and humid," sighed Mikhail.
"Generally speaking, a good banana should be plump, unblemished, firm and bright in appearance. Exact colour is not a quality factor."
"Yeah, that's true. But colour is a quality factor, and I love the colour of your banana," Mikhail observed, holding the now erect seven-and-three-quarter-inch organ by the base.
"Listen to this. The United Fruit Company published a pamphlet during World War I that provided consumers with a number of 'Points About Bananas.' The company recommended bananas as wholesome, cheap, nutritious, delicious, easily digested, always in season, available everywhere, no waste, convenient for the dinner pail, good food when cooked, good food when not cooked, the poor man's food, the children's delight, endorsed by physicians, put up and sealed by nature in a germ-proof package, and produced without drawing on the Nation's resources."
"Sold me," said Frederic as he began to stroke the stiff seven-and-a-half inch cock in his hand. "Wholesome, cheap, nutritious, certainly always in season, and convenient in the dinner pail."
"You ever think of anything else except sex?" Frederic asked with a grin as he put the papers aside.
"Sure."
"Such as?"
"Bananas," Mikhail said with an impish grin.
Frederic smiled. "You do have to admit, deciding to get some banana plants was not a bad idea."
"Not a bad idea at all," said Mikhail as he slid down and took Frederic's banana in his mouth.
Frederic twisted around and raising the elastic band of Mikhail's jockey briefs, he drew down the nineteen-year-old's underwear, revealing his dark black hairs and stiff, eight inch organ. He ran his tongue along the spongy knob and savoured the unique taste of cock. "Don't know what variety of banana has a purplish tinge," he observed, "but this one definitely is delicious, and a man's delight."
His mouth full of hard, throbbing banana, Mikhail could only mumble his agreement as he felt Frederic's hot, moist mouth envelop his own.