It Takes A Village Ch. 1
It Takes A Village
©2024 by Gamin Paramour
Hi there.
This is a brand-new story, the idea for which hatched almost fully-formed one night in the twilight before sleep. I hope you enjoy the setting, which is a real departure for me.
Note that the man/boy stuff doesn't really get going until the end of this chapter, and before that there is some "incidental" man/teen girl stuff. Don't freak out and don't bail out. That stuff is only there to establish the fictional world and none of the main characters are involved. Don't assume this story doesn't belong in Gay/Adult-Youth just because some very peripheral characters get up to hetero hijinks. This story is about men and boys. It will get there and it will stay there.
Please, kind people. Donate to Nifty. They need us and our filthy lucre.
Comments are incredibly welcome, and I intend to answer everyone.
Chapter 1
My eyes are still closed.
It feels like forever they've been closed. I sense my surroundings and everything's different; quiet for one thing, with no jungle noises and no wind. I also sense a presence nearby — human rather than animal for the first time in God knows how long. When they speak the voice touches a memory, vaguely familiar like something from my distant past.
"Hey Cap, y'all in there?"
The voice is a deep, gently jovial drawl. My thoughts begin to coalesce and I know I'm on my back on something soft but not cushy like the bunk in my cabin. I feel the firm ground underneath.
"It's me, Jack," the voice says.
"Jack?" I repeat in confusion, forcing my eyes half-open to a blurry, dim world. I try to sit up but pain streaks up my leg and I cry out.
"Don't," Jack softly says, pushing me back down. "You've got a nasty wound there that'll take a while to heal."
Shards of memory rush back, of anquish, terror and hopelessness, and then from much further back the memory of Jack.
"Nasty ain't the half of it," I mumble, my mouth and brain both full of cotton. "It hurts like hell."
"Hold on, Cap," Jack says. "We'll get you somethin'."
He says four words then to someone else in the room but I have no clue what he says or to whom.
"Jack, did you just say, 'Kahlua winch toe duck?'"
He chuckles, like one would at a child who misunderstands something simple.
"No Cap," he says. "I just asked your Angel of Mercy here, Kalea, to bring you something for the pain."
I open my eyes again and except for a weird fuzzy aura around everything I can pretty much see. A handsome middle-aged woman dressed in a simple sackcloth tunic comes over showing me a kind smile. She puts a strong hand behind my neck and lifts my head, offering me a sip of thick brown liquid from a rough pottery bowl.
"Go ahead Cap," Jack urges. "It's OK."
After a one-second hesitation I slurp up something bitter and strong like the worst bourbon in the history of Kentucky. I cough and sputter but a warm feeling of relief immediately blooms outward from my stomach. She offers another sip and I take it gratefully. I barely feel my aching leg anymore.
"Wow," I gasp. "That's powerful shit."
"Enjoy it now, Cap. Once you're recovered you won't get no more unless you get injured again."
I see that Jack is also wearing a simple, rough tunic identical to Kalea's and figure I must have really been whacked not to notice that until now. I look around and I am on the floor of a thatched hut, lying on a bed of large green fronds that vaguely resemble the Royal palms back home. That's when I notice that underneath a coarse woven blanket I'm bare-ass naked.
"Your cryo-hibernation garment was nothin' but tatters," he explains, "and infested with body lice. Not surprising after a year and a half in the jungle in nothin' but polyester long-johns. The ladies cleaned you up."
"Was it really a year and a half?" I ask in wonder. "I lost track after just a couple of months. But you're sure a sight for sore eyes, Jack. I never thought I'd see you again, that's for sure."
"Back at ya, Cap."
I make eye contact and solemnly ask, "Where the hell are we, Jack?"
He smiles in wry amusement.
"I have no idea."
This is not the answer I hoped for from the ship's navigator. I don't mean to disparage him because Jack is hands-down the best navigator I've ever flown with and also a truly good guy. I make it a policy not to get too chummy with my crew because it tends to erode the chain of command, but Jack and I were always friendly, if not actual friends. I like to think it's about mutual respect.
"OK then, how did we get here?"
"To the planet or to the village?"
"Let's start with the village."
"What's the last thing you remember?" he asks.
"I was chasing something through the jungle," I say, still quite hazy. "Little furry thing, looks kind of like a rabbit. They actually taste pretty good roasted. I managed to get a spear into him but he didn't drop right away. I hadn't eaten in a couple of days so I didn't want to give it up. Almost caught the little fucker too but I stepped into a hole and went down hard."
"Broke your ankle, actually," Jack puts in, "and gashed your leg pretty bad."
"Yeah, I hoped the ankle wasn't broken but I knew it was. I couldn't walk and sure as hell couldn't chase dinner or even forage. I dragged myself to a little grotto that afforded some kind of shelter but after a couple of days with no food or water and the leg getting worse instead of better I figured I was done for."
"You shoulda been, by rights," Jack says. "The leg went septic but you got lucky, my friend. A hunting party from the village stumbled across you while stalkin' a mekluk — kind of a big-ass deer. It cost 'em a week's worth of meat to help you but that's just the sort of people they are."
"I'm grateful," I say, and he nods.
Jack is sitting cross-legged on the ground next to me and his junk is hanging right out. He sees me notice and adjusts his tunic.
"Sorry," he says. "No underpants here. Pretty much just these things," and he indicates the tunic. "Gets a little breezy at times but you get used to it."
The cloth flap that covers the door of the hut pushes aside and a young girl steps in carrying a woven basket. She is a very cute little blue-eyed blond, fourteen years old I'd guess, and she is completely naked. My eyes go wide at the sight of her small, new breasts and little patch of golden-brown pubic hair. I shoot an astonished look at Jack, who seems to have barely noticed.
"You get used to that, too," he says. "Clothes aren't a big priority here. It's sub-tropical so you don't really need 'em for warmth, and anyway these folks are pretty matter-of-fact about the body — and its biological functions. They don't crap in the town square or anything — that's all off behind bushes and such — but you see lots of naked people and even full-on sex happening right out in the open."
I'd prefer to think I'm above such things but I can't stop my thoughts from turning carnal. After all it's been a really long time since I had any, back on Earth before the mission launched. That's gotta be several years by now, though I can only guess how long we were in cryo-sleep before whatever mishap took out the ship. Jack sees it in my eyes and he smiles indulgently.
"Don't get too excited there, Cap," he says. "There's still a whole lot to tell you about this place. I'm not the best one to explain it though."
The naked girl sets down the basket, which contains a loaf of coarse brown bread and some local fruits I sure wish I'd found in the jungle, plus an earthenware cup that I presume Kalea will fill with water. The girl flashes me a pretty smile and turns to go but Jack stops her with a few words in the strange local language. The girl nods and hurries off.
"What's up?" I ask him, having trouble forming the words. I'm feeling woozy again, like I did right after I drank that concoction.
"I sent her to fetch Wally," he says.
"Wally?" I mumble.
"From the ship."
"Yeah, the ship," I slur. "What ship?"
"Our ship, Cap," Jack says but he sounds far away. "The Endeavor."
The name sounds familiar, like something I ought to know but can't put my finger on.
"Cap? You fadin' on me Cap? Shit, I think he's out again."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It's great to feel sun on my face. A couple of the local lads have carried me on a litter out to what Jack calls the town square but it's not really organized enough to be called that. It's just a common, a village green around which the huts are scattered.
This is a fairly primitive agrarian village, a thousand years or so evolved from a nomadic hunter-gatherer group. I see grain fields on two sides of the village with a gently-flowing creek winding between them. There's a jumble of fruit trees on the edge of the village with the wide jungle behind. The grain was cultivated judging by the straightness of the rows but the orchard appears wild.
Fruit trees and fresh water sounds to me like a fine place to put a village.
It's like a diorama at a natural history museum come to life: Man Discovers Agriculture. Workers till the fields with simple wood-and-stone tools while women and children harvest fruit in the orchard. A weaver sits at a primitive loom making the burlap-like cloth they use for everything: clothing, blankets, door flaps and basket covers to name a few I've seen.
There is a large stacked-stone wood-fired oven where a naked woman is baking bread with two teenage helpers who are also nude. Across the way a couple of guys are butchering a large animal, maybe one of the mekluks that happened past my jungle hidey-hole and led to my rescue. It looks like they're using sharpened stones to hack it apart so I guess they haven't figured out blacksmithing yet. The butchers are naked too except for thick rawhide aprons to keep the blood and sharp tools away from their man-stuff. I guess they haven't figured out leather tanning yet either.
Every child I see is naked, both boys and girls, as are at least half of the adults including the guys who carried me out here.
"Hey, good mornin'!" comes Jack's voice from behind and I twist around to greet his smiling face. "You look like you're feelin' better."
"Good morning, Jack. Yeah, still can't put any weight on the leg but I'm glad to get out of the hut."
"You gave us a scare, Cap," he says, "I ain't gonna lie, especially since we just got you back after thinkin' you were dead. But Kalea never gave up on you, not for a minute. Helluva woman, that one."
I nod in acknowledgment.
"Everybody's been incredibly kind," I say. "Lucky thing I wasn't found by cannibals or something, eh?"
"I don't think there are any of those here," Jack says. "These people never heard of such a thing."
"Physically they appear to be very similar to humans," I quietly observe. "How does that happen?"
"It's not unprecedented," Jack says. "Fossilized remains on Proxima Centauri b appear to be identical to Earth humans. Either this is a very common form or we all originally came from the same place."
"Ancient astronauts, huh?" I tease him. "So, is now a good time for you tell me what the hell happened to my ship?"
I recognize the shift of my voice into command tone and I make a point of softening my expression, gesturing Jack to a spot beside me. I guess my rank doesn't mean much anymore with nothing left to command.
"Yeah, sure Cap," he says, sitting cross-legged. "Hold on a second though."
Jack says something to one of my litter-bearers, who have been sitting patiently by waiting to carry me back to the hut. I have no idea what Jack says but the first word is "Wally." One of the young men hurries off.
"He'll be better at explainin' some things," Jack says. "Wally turns out to be a pretty remarkable guy."
There were thirty crew aboard the Endeavor and while I didn't know them all as well as I know Jack I'm pretty sure none were named Wally. In a few seconds a tall, rangy young man strides over to us as naked as the villagers. His single most obvious feature is a long swinging cock that must get pretty impressive when it wants to. I jerk my eyes up to his face in mild embarrassment.
"Captain Andrews!" he exclaims with a broad smile. "You're looking great, sir."
"Put somethin' on, man," Jack admonishes, giving me an apologetic look. "Cap's not used to it yet."
"Nah, it's OK," I say. "There's hanging fruit all over the place, and not just in the orchard."
Wally laughs. "It's very freeing. You ought to try it."
"The kid's gone native," Jack says, "but that's why he's the best one to explain things to you."
A young boy hurries over to Wally's side, beaming a fond smile. The man cups his little cheek and it's clear they have a warm relationship. The boy is naked — which doesn't surprise me — maybe ten years old and completely undeveloped. I can't help noticing that he's circumcised.
My surprised look must be transparent. "Ritual circumcision," Wally says, "which I agree is really odd because this is not a theistic society."
"Forgive me, Wally," I say, "but who are you exactly?"
He smiles. "Specialist First Class Anton Wallinski," he says. "Avionics technician. I'm not surprised you don't recognize me sir, since you were always on the bridge and I was always below decks babysitting the equipment."
"Yes of course, Wallinski," I say, remembering the name from the crew manifest.
"Wally for short," he says with a smile, then turns it to the boy who grins back.
"Wally," the kid repeats in a sweet, high, deeply affectionate voice, and I have to admit it's a tender moment. Wally sits next to Jack, also cross-legged, and to my surprise pulls the naked boy down to sit on his lap. The kid seems quite happy about it.
"So," I say, getting down to business, "before you start in on the local society bring me up to speed on our situation. How many of the crew are here?"
"Just us, Cap," Jack says. "Me and Wally thought we were it until they brought you in last week."
"What do we know about what happened to the ship?"
"Not much," Wally says. "The solar collector on my escape pod was damaged in the crash but I was able to read some log files before the batteries died. It seems that 2,946 days into the cryo-sleep phase there was some external event that damaged the ship, like maybe a collision with a meteorite."
"Whatever it was musta knocked us off course," navigator Jack adds. "Too far for the auto-nav to correct, or else the auto-nav itself was damaged. Whatever, I've been studyin' the stars since we got here and none of the constellations fit any galaxy I know. This here is the very definition of uncharted space, not that it matters seein' as how we don't have a ship or a comm system or any of that good stuff. We're here for good Cap, plain and simple."
Wally starts in again, "The ship's main life support must have also been compromised because after another four months..."
"Travelin' the wrong direction at half the speed o' light," Jack interrupts.
"Yeah, after that," Wally resumes, slightly annoyed. "The cryo-pods triggered escape mode, which only happens if the main cabin is no longer viable. I only have data from my own pod but I assume all thirty did the same. The escape mechanism is so complicated the design spec predicts a ten-percent failure rate, so that's three crew members dead right there."
"Should we be talking about this in front of the kid?" I ask.
"He doesn't understand enough English to know what we're talking about," Wally says, smiling down at the boy who beams it right back. "I'm teaching him but it's slow going. Besides we don't know for sure that everybody else is dead. It's just overwhelmingly likely."
"We were damn lucky there was a Goldilocks planet within range of the pods' onboard fuel and life support," Jack says.
"The horizon is really far away," I offer, "so it must be a pretty big planet. The other pods could have landed anywhere."
"Yeah, but the odds are not good of making a soft landing in a temperate zone, not crashin' into a mountain or an ocean or a desert. In fact it's a friggin' miracle that any of us lived through it."
"None of that matters now, does it?" Wally says. "We have to figure out how to live out the rest of our lives and fit into this society."
"Jack says you're the best one to clue me in, Wally. Why's that?"
"My Mom was a diplomat and I lived all over the world as a kid. Had to adapt to a dozen different cultures. I'm kind of gifted in linguistics and I speak eight different Earth languages. I've had a year and a half now to learn theirs, and though I'm sure I sound like a toddler to them, I think I have a pretty good grasp of who they are and how they operate."
"OK then," I say. "Let's hear it."
"First of all, it's a matriarchal society," Wally says. "Apparently back in early tribal days the baddest-ass alpha male was the head honcho, as you might expect. Other bad-asses were constantly knocking off the chief and taking over until the next asshole came along and knocked him off. They spent more time fighting each other than feeding the tribe and damn near wiped themselves out.
"One day the women decided they'd had enough and fed all the alphas poison. After that the only men left were the ones smart enough to step aside and let the women run the show. For fifty generations now they've operated on a model of kindness and cooperation, raising boys in particular to believe that it's the right way. Men around here are as strong as anywhere else but they don't try to take over."
"Too bad that didn't happen on Earth, huh?" Jack says. "Maybe they wouldn't have had to send us all the hell to Daedalus k lookin' for a new planet to fuck up."
"Fifty generations without violence you say? How come no other tribe ever conquered them?"
"There aren't any other tribes," Wally says. "They've never seen anybody else. In fact they don't even have a word for 'stranger.' As far as these people know they're the only ones."
"They didn't know what the fuck to make of us," Jack chuckles.
"They still don't understand where we came from," Wally says, "but as long as we don't present a threat they're happy to help us."
The young girl who brings me fruit every day walks by, smiling and waving to me. She is naked again and I can't help but admire her small, cute butt as she passes.
"I guess it's about to start," Jack says and he, Wally and the boy turn to face where the girl is heading.
"What's about to start?"
"The thing we brought you out here to see. Just watch, Cap," Jack says. "We'll explain as it goes."
The girl slowly walks toward a group of four adult women — two of them naked as I'm coming to expect. They've made a cushion on the ground of the same palm-like fronds that make up my sick bed. The girl kisses each of the four women in turn then the youngest of the four takes the girl's hand and leads her to the cushion.
With a smile she settles down onto her back. A small crowd is gathering and the oldest woman beckons someone forward.
Out of the crowd steps a stocky, muscular young man, naked as a jay and sporting a thick cock at full mast. I gasp and shoot a look to Jack but he is intently watching the performers. I then look at the boy on Wally's lap and see that he is also intently watching and sporting a stiff little boner of his own. There's no question he knows what is happening just as well as I do.
"Duri's a virgin," Wally quietly explains. "She recently proved her fertility by having six months of stable menstrual periods and now it's time for her to begin her first pregnancy."
The man kisses the four women then drops to all fours over Dori's supine form, giving her a brief kiss as well. She grins and says something to the man who chuckles as he raises up on his knees. The youngest of the four women moves in close with a pottery bowl containing a white paste, which she slathers onto the man's penis until it gleams in the sunlight.
"That's..." Wally begins but I cut him off.
"Yeah, I get the concept of lube."
Duri raises her legs and hooks her ankles over the man's shoulders. Without ceremony he positions himself and slowly enters her. She grimaces in discomfort but doesn't cry out as he steadily pushes in. When he reaches the bottom the four women and all the bystanders grin and murmur appreciatively.
"Holy shit," I mutter and meet eyes with Jack, who is smiling.
We all watch as the young man builds up speed until he is deeply and powerfully fucking Duri. From twenty feet away I can see the determination in his eyes and the intensity in hers. He pumps steadily into her like a metronome ticking off 4/4 time. On and on it goes, the villagers smiling and making comments as they watch.
Duri's little face contorts as an orgasm overtakes her and she cries out in ecstasy. Seconds later the man buries himself fully and grunts his own release.
He stays inside for fifteen seconds before he backs away from Duri, his cock hanging now and dripping cum. They grin at each other and the girl giggles. They say a few words in parting, looking like friends saying "See ya later" after a casual chat about the weather.
As the man stands and steps away another man emerges from the crowd, also naked and stroking his glistening, lubed and ready cock. He kisses the women then quickly takes the first man's place, sliding firmly into Duri. She grunts loud enough for me to hear it as the man quickly swings into a fast rhythm. In under a minute he moans and cums, but this time Duri doesn't get anywhere near hers.
And then another guy takes over. This one is a teenager not much older than Duri, with a smooth body and only a small bush of pubic hair. He has a little trouble getting into her but he finally does and lasts only twenty or thirty pumps before he cries out loud with his joy.
"OK, Wally," I say as a fourth guy moves between Duri's open legs. "I'm gonna need some of that explanation right about now."
"Well, Cap," he begins, using Jack's nickname for me for the first time, "remember I said the women are in charge around here? One way they maintain that is to keep men from feeling like they own anybody. There's no such thing as 'my woman' or 'my kid' in this society. There are no marriages and no nuclear families. All babies are conceived in a communal setting like this and once they're born they're raised by the whole village."
"But why does the girl have to pull a train in front of everybody?"
"Did you ever read about the death penalty they used to have on Earth?" Wally asks, "back when they thought it was OK to just fucking murder people they didn't like? One of the ways they did it was something called a firing squad, where six guys with guns all shot at the poor bastard at once. Except one of the guns had a blank cartridge instead of a live round, so no one could ever be 100% sure who actually killed the guy and who didn't. Well, this is a similar concept. The girl takes loads from six or eight or ten different guys so no one can ever be 100% sure who's the father."
The boy in Wally's lap is masturbating his small cock as he watches Duri take load number five, not concerned a whit that everybody can see him.
"What if Duri doesn't get pregnant?"
"Then she's back here in three months with her legs in the air," Wally says, "and a whole new set of guys take a try. Girls are duty-bound to start crankin' out babies from the minute they're able to, for the survival of the village. Boys too. As soon as they start wet cums they can be part of the train."
"You guys ever get in on that?" I ask, my own cock chubbing under my tunic.
"Nope," Jack replies, "and we never will. They may not have a word for 'stranger' but they never forget that we're outsiders."
"It's for the best," Wally says. "Who knows how our DNA would mix with theirs? They have a system that has worked for centuries. If I was them I wouldn't monkey with it either."
"It seems so... impersonal," I say. "And public."
"Everything's public here," Wally says. "It's a commune. Children have no parents but a whole village full of loving aunts and uncles."
"But they do have one parent," I point out. "They may not know the father but the mother is obvious."
"Yeah they know, but it's not a possession kind of thing," Wally says. "They deliberately separate the newborn from the birth mother for the first year so they don't bond too strongly. They all breast-feed each other's babies but never their own, for the same reason."
"If nobody knows who Duri's father is it could be one of the guys who's fucking her."
"More likely her brother," Wally says, "but it doesn't matter. There are no family units here so no incest taboo."
"What about genetic abnormalities?"
"I've only been observing for a year and a half but I've never seen anything like that, and when I asked about it the elder women didn't know what I was talking about. Every single member of this tribe seems healthy and normal."
"Shit," I mutter, not as an expression of dismay but of wonder. Another young teen boy is banging away at Duri, this one very vocal. He takes a little longer than the other teen but not much. When he's finished he crawls up and nuzzles Duri and she pecks him with little kisses. He is apparently closer to her than the other sperm donors. I gasp in surprise a few seconds later when the boy climbs off of Duri and runs straight into the arms of the hunky, big-dicked guy who started the proceedings. The man lifts him up and they kiss much more passionately than either of them kissed Duri.
"That raises another point," Wally says, and when I turn to him I see that his long cock is now fully erect and the little boy is on his knees slurping that big cockhead. His cute smooth ass is directly in front of me and I can see straight into his tiny pink bumhole. Small hairless balls hang below and jiggle as he eagerly moves his mouth on Wally's stiff tube.
The gay aspect doesn't trouble me of course. Back home being gay is so unremarkable that it isn't even a topic of gossip — when it's among adults, that is. Pedophilia is no longer illegal unless there's abuse, but it's still considered weird. People look at it sideways, like a diaper fetish or something, so child-lovers invariably keep it private. It's the wide-open public display that surprises me now.
I shoot a look to Jack who gives me one of his wry smiles and a shrug.
"Things are pretty different here Cap," he says, "but it works. A thousand years of peace is hard to argue with."
I watch the boy as he pumps his mouth on the first four inches of Wally's eight, his hand firmly gripping the base of the shaft. I've never witnessed man-boy sex before and I find myself fascinated. Sure, as a pre-teen I gave and received my share of kid-stuff hand jobs and blow jobs, but that was only with other children and petered out completely over time.
Not that I angrily rejected boy-boy stuff. It wasn't that dramatic. I just met a girl I liked and started lusting after what was in her pants instead of my buddy Josh's. And though there were plenty of role-models of gay and lesbian couples all over school it was simply easier to fit into the prevailing straight mold.
Yes, Josh and I went a few final rounds together at the horny height of puberty but it was finished for good by high school. Again, not dramatic. We just went a different direction and it suited both of us just fine.
"You think this contributes to the non-violent society?" I ask Jack.
"Well, raisin' boys to be gentle and loving sounds like it might," he says. "It looks like Wally will be ready to tell you more about it in just a minute here."
Wally trembles and his stomach begins to clench. He's seconds away from shooting and clearly the kid plans to take it straight into his mouth. The boy pumps even more energetically, giggling with delight as he slurps and pulls, egging Wally toward his climax.
Wally pushes up, fucking the boy's little lips with one-inch thrusts as his face reddens and his mouth opens in a silent cry. With one final thrust Wally loudly groans and nearby heads snap around at the sound. The villagers grin and a few shout encouragement as Wally's cum overfills the boy's mouth and dribbles down his chin. The kid stays the course and swallows over and over, keeping up with Wally's contractions.
When Wally heaves a final sigh and slumps to his back on the grass the boy sits up on his haunches with a huge, satisfied grin.
"Wally," he says in the same loving tone as before. "You squirt many cums."
Wally returns the happy smile.
"You bet I did, kiddo," he says, and reaches out his arms. "Come to me, sweet Mura."
The kid lunges forward to lie atop Wally, hugging him tightly and deeply tongue-kissing him. That's when I know that these two are not just fooling around. They are lovers; a full-on committed couple. I look again to Jack and he nods in acknowledgment.
"It's just one more thing that we have to accept," he says. "If we wanna stay alive we need these people, so we have to do things their way."
Mura reaches out his little pink tongue and licks up some of Wally's cum that lingers on his lip. He gazes into the man's eyes and their connection is unmistakable.
"That looked like a lot more than just going along with the local custom," I say.
"It was more, Cap," Wally says, tenderly smoothing Mura's soft brown hair. "A lot more."
Duri's voice rises in another ecstatic cry and of course we all turn to look. She's on all fours now and a big, muscular man is giving it to her doggie-style. For a second I think it's the first guy coming back for another turn but now I spot that man and his teenage boyfriend making love on the grass about ten feet closer to us, on their sides with the man spooned up behind screwing him like crazy. The boy is jerking himself off at double the man's speed and looks absolutely enthralled. The teen's face scrunches into a grimace and a small amount of cum dribbles out and onto the ground. Right on cue the man buries himself to the hilt and grunts out his climax just as he did with Duri.
Back at the Main Event the new guy isn't slamming Duri but sliding slowly and steadily in and out, very much in control. His cock doesn't even look that big but I guess he knows exactly what to do with it judging by Duri's constant stream of moans and cries. She appears to be having one long, extended orgasm.
I look around and there are rutting couples everywhere, turned on by the spectacle. It takes me a moment to notice that the only heterosexual couple is Duri and the man of the moment. Everybody else is same-sex.
Next to the man-boy couple in the grass there are two young-adult women 69-ing. A few feet away from them are two little girls doing a damn fine imitation of their elders. A boy about twelve lies on the back of another much smaller boy who looks six or seven, energetically banging him in the ass. A grown man watches them with a leer while another man bobs on his cock.
I'm so far past astonished I can't say a word.
The man with Duri finishes without fanfare — no shouts or grunts — and he carefully pulls out. He helps Duri to her feet but she doesn't even speak to him. She merely smiles vacantly like one might expect of a teenage virgin who just had her brains fucked out by God knows how many guys in a row.
She stumbles into the arms of the youngest of the four women who seem to be officiating the ceremony, the one who led Duri to the ceremonial bed a half-hour ago. She wraps the girl tightly in her arms and deeply kisses her, their tongues engaging in a much-practiced way. Like with Wally and Mura, I'm sure they are a couple.
"Holy shit," I say in wonder. "So what, everybody just fucks everybody else in this place? When do they find time to work the fields and hunt mekluks?"
"It isn't always this crazy," Jack says. "Only when there's a fertility ceremony. It brings out the horny in everybody else."
Another of the four women leads a second naked young girl to the ceremonial bed. This one appears even younger than Duri, maybe twelve to my eye. She barely has tit-bumps and only wisps of black pubes to match the long, flowing black hair on her head. She nervously looks around but lets herself be led.
"What now?" I ask in amazement.
"Yaneek," Mura says with a smile. "Friend of me."
Wally takes up the explanation again.
"Yaneek also proved her fertility this spring," he says. "She's young and small but she's menstruating so it's time."
A young man steps out of the crowd, leading with his slim five-inch boner.
"At least he's not horse-hung like Duri's first," I observe. "That guy would have split Yaneek in half."
"The girls get to choose their first," Wally says. "Sometimes it's a friend and sometimes, like in Duri's case, it's someone who has a reputation for giving the girl a great ride and a great cum. The belief is the stronger the girl's orgasm the more likely she'll conceive."
The boy says two sentences in his language and Wally nods. "Mura says Yaneek chose this guy to be first because he has a small cock. She's been scared to death of this since the day she had her first period."
"Poor kid," I say. "It seems cruel to make her do this before she's ready."
"She wants to, Cap," Wally says. "She might be scared but she'd feel a lot worse if she let her people down. The entire population of this village is just over two hundred. It wouldn't take much of a famine to wipe 'em out. They built their whole culture around procreation."
"But why do they have to start them so young?" I lament. "And if their goal is to build up the population what's the deal with all the same-sex stuff? Wouldn't that mean fewer children instead of more?"
"They're keepin' the men out of it as much as possible," Jack says. "Remember this was all dreamed up by women."
"In reaction to men being total assholes about everything," Wally reminds.
"Maybe this is a better way," Jack concedes. "If men were competin' with each other for women it wouldn't be long before they'd compete for everything else too. That's just how men are. We compete for every goddamn thing: sex, power, wealth. Maybe those ancient women were smart to break out the poison and shut down all that macho bullshit."
"In this society," Wally explains, "the only time a cock gets into a pussy is in the fertility ceremony, and it's by invitation only. Some guys get invited over and over and some never do. Meanwhile they still have their needs."
"Just about every guy has a man or a boy to keep his bed warm," Jack says. "It's either that..." and he holds up his hand with the fingers spread, "...or Rosie Palm and her five sisters."
I teasingly ask, "Which one did you choose?"
He smiles back. "It was easy for me, Cap. I came out as gay when I was twelve."
I redden at my faux pas. "Oh shit, I'm sorry Jack. I didn't know. I didn't mean to..."
"Yeah, I know Cap," he sarcastically drawls. "Some o' your best friends are gay, right?"
"Yes!" I say a little too stridently. I recognize my defensiveness and make a point to tone myself down.
"Actually my best friend at the Space Academy was gay," I go on, forcing a casual tone. "My girlfriend and I used to double-date with him and his boyfriend."
"I'm just bustin' your balls, Cap," Jack chuckles. "I know you didn't mean nothin' by it."
He searches the green and finally points to a cluster of men and women intently watching Yaneek take her very first cock. "You see that group over there? The only guy wearing a tunic? That's my bed buddy, Tooku. Name's Tookurahmi or something but I call him Tooku."
"Nice," I say. "He's a good-looking man. Are you guys serious or what?"
"It's just sex," Jack says a bit wistfully. "Maybe if I learn a little more of this crazy language we can get to know more than each other's body parts."
Wally gives Jack a serious look. "I wish it for you, man," he says. "I feel so lucky to have Mura. It's insane! I fly four light-years into space and crash on an uncharted planet and that's where I meet the love of my life."
I'm struck by a sudden insight, one I've never thought of before because I've never personally known a boy-lover.
Mura will not be a boy forever. If puberty's a deal-breaker for Wally they both have a rough emotional hurdle coming up in just a few years. It isn't my place to comment so of course I stay silent, but it makes me think about my own emotional future in this place and that's when an even more alarming realization strikes.
"Wait a minute," I exclaim. "If a man can only be with a woman in the ceremonies and we three are banned from the ceremonies..."
"And now he's all caught up," Jack says, gently mocking. "The fact is Cap, you're never gonna be with a woman again in your whole life. That's just how it is. At some point you're gonna have to make the same kind of choice we made."
Wally laughs and adds, "My firm commitment to heterosexuality lasted about a month before Mura knocked my socks off." He lovingly smiles into the kid's huge brown eyes. "I hadn't been with a boy since I was eleven — but it all came back to me fast!"
Wally laughs again and the boy giggles, I suspect without really understanding.
"Me, I had a tough couple o' months at the beginning," Jack says. "I saw guys everywhere pairin' off but I didn't speak a word of their language and didn't know how to approach them. Then one day this major hottie walked right up and goosed me and I was off to the races! A different guy every night, sometimes two or three, until Tooku came along and we sort of gravitated to each other. We both go with other guys sometimes but mostly we're together."
"You can't worry about what anybody back home would think of you, Cap," Wally advises, "or me or Jack either. Now it's all about what makes you happy. If neither a man nor a boy makes you happy then you gotta go with Rosie Palm. Or go without. Those are your only choices."
"And don't even think about tryin' to sneak it with one of the girls," Jack warns. "None of 'em will go for it for one thing, bein' completely against their beliefs. And even if one of 'em did the old ladies still know how to whip up that poison."
I silently consider for a moment. I enjoy pussy; there's never been any question about that, but I've never been militantly against the idea of being with a guy. I'm kind of turned off by body hair though, and sweat and B.O. even worse. Josh and I were still mostly smooth and sweet when we drank each other's little drops of cum in the eighth grade. What if I just don't enjoy the man-on-man thing? Is it me and Rosie forever?
"There's one more piece of the puzzle we haven't mentioned yet," Jack says. "Not that it affects your decision. You asked why they start the girls poppin' out rug rats so young."
"Yeah," I say. "Why can't they let the kid have her childhood?"
"Well, they do," Wally says. "These people seem physically identical to us on the outside but there's one major difference. How old do you think Mura here is?"
I look him over, though I don't really need to because I pegged his age when I first saw him.
"Ten."
"He's 21."
"You're shitting me!"
"No bullshit, man," Jack says. "Duri over there is 33."
"But she just got her first period," I say, dumbfounded.
"Yep," Wally picks up again. "These people have a very different life cycle than we do."
"Might have somethin' to do with the orbital period of the planet, or the rotational period," Jack throws in. "Or the tides or some fuckin' thing. They've got binary suns and four moons for Christ's sake! Who can calculate the forces without a computer? Galileo I ain't."
"What's the average life span on Earth these days?" Wally asks me and I think for a second.
"One-twenty or so."
"About that, yeah. You spend approximately ten percent of that time as a child, another ten percent as an adolescent and eighty percent as an adult. Women have a good forty or fifty child-bearing years. But here the life span is only about forty years and they don't hit puberty until their early thirties. Duri had more than twice the childhood that an Earth girl would have. Mura has at least another ten years to go."
"Think about it, Cap," Jack says. "Every young mother on this planet knows that she won't live long enough to see her child to adulthood. Every kid grows up knowin' that their mother is gonna die young. Imagine the psychological stress if they were tightly bonded like parents and kids on Earth!"
"Holy fuck," I quietly exclaim. "That's why it couldn't be Duri's father in the ceremony. Her father's been dead for twenty years!"
"Have you seen any old people since you've been here?" Wally asks. "I mean really old-looking, like 100 on Earth?"
"No," I say, reflexively looking around as if I might spot one in the crowd.
"They dry up and go really fast at the end," Jack says, "in like two or three months. It's fucking brutal."
"I know I couldn't deal with watching that happen to my mother," Wally somberly says, shaking his head.
None of us says anything for a minute and I feel the need to change the subject.
"So if Mura here is 21 why doesn't he act like a young man? When I was 21 I'd been out of my parents' house and taking care of myself for three years already."
"Turns out their brains develop just as slowly as their bodies," Wally says. "Mura is 21 but he still thinks like a child. He needs the village to be his parents."
"Sounds like a good deal to me," Jack offers. "Thirty years of no responsibilities and all the sex you can handle? When I was a kid back in Amarillo I had to sneak around with my little buddies, and even after I came out I couldn't admit that I was actually doin' stuff with 'em. My old man would've killed me if he knew I'd been suckin' cock since I was eight."
I glance over and notice that the two young women and the two little girls who were 69-ing next to each other have switched partners and now the two mixed-age couples are going at it just as avidly.
"So is everybody here cool with pedophilia?" I ask.
"There's no such concept," Wally says. "Unlike on Earth, these people don't pretend that children are asexual. Regardless of age you can just do what you want with the person you want to do it with."
"Except not boy-girl," I clarify.
"Right," Wally says. "They're taught early on that boy-girl is only for making babies, and only in the ceremony."
Since we're talking about a whole society of adults and children having sex I decide that it's OK to ask the question I stifled before.
"So Wally, what happens when Mura finally does reach puberty? Will you still be into him when he's a man?"
Wally squints in thought.
"That's a damn fine question, Cap. I like to think so because I really am in love with him, just as much as any woman I've ever been with. But I have to admit that when I look around it's the boys that turn me on, not the men. Maybe that's because they're smooth and soft like women, and smaller than me like most women, but who knows? Maybe I've got a little genuine pedo in me. I guess I'll find out when the time comes."
Jack puts a hand on his friend's bare shoulder. "You're a good guy, Wally. You wouldn't just abandon Mura, even if the sex stopped and you had to find a new partner."
Wally smiles and nods. "You're right. Things might be different then but I'd still love him."
The man and boy share a wonderfully tender look and it hits me squarely in the heart. Wally's no pervert and Mura's no victim. They're two people in love and that's a goddamn good thing in my book.
"Loki!" Mura cries and waves to a boy running towards us. The kid is nude — so what else is new? — and about Mura's age or a little older. He's very cute with long chestnut hair and damn if he doesn't have green eyes!
I've got a real thing for green eyes. The closest I ever came to falling in love was with Sara, a green-eyed blond in my first-year Physics class at University. I was seriously into her but not so much the other way around and she dumped me after a couple of months. She had the hots for one of the starting forwards on the basketball team who, rumor had it, was packing ten-plus inches.
The bigger problem was that she thought it was stupid and foolhardy of me to want to be a "rocket jockey" and join the Space Force. Given how that worked out maybe she was right.
Loki joins us with a big smile.
"Mura," he fondly says in a lovely alto voice, then nods to each of the men in turn, "Bolga Wally...Bolga Jack."
I file away the word bolga to mean "hello," though for all I know he told them to go fuck themselves.
Loki says something in his language that makes Mura giggle.
"Cap," Mura answers him and then turns to me. "Loki say who is pretty man."
I chuckle and meet Loki's beautiful green eyes. They are unflinching and hold me like magnets. Finally he notices my injury and his eyes narrow.
"Mig falla wahn soo?" Loki asks, or that's what it sounds like to me. I turn questioningly to Wally.
"He asked what happened to you," Wally replies. "He seems fairly upset about it, for a kid who doesn't even know you."
I smile my warmest at the boy, holding the wonderful eye contact.
"Tell him it only hurts when I breathe. Oh, are you fluent enough to make jokes?"
"We'll find out," Wally says, then directs some indigenous babble to Loki.
His green eyes open wide and sparkle, and his giggle is cute and genuine. It makes me grin.
I meet eyes with Loki again. The kid is projecting surprising affection and for some reason it really pleases me that this boy I've only just met seems to like me. I see in his eyes that he has also registered a connection and it pleases him too.
I find myself drinking him in and he is simply lovely. His chestnut hair moves with the breeze, halfway to his shoulders and framing an unblemished oval face. He has high cheekbones and a small nose with the tiniest dusting of light freckles. His luscious pink Cupid's-bow lips are slightly parted as he smiles, showing surprisingly straight front teeth for someone who's never heard of orthodontia.
I feel drawn to look over the rest of him. His slight shoulders are smooth and gently tapered, looking incredibly soft, with a hint of clavicle across his upper chest. Just below are dark pink nipples, large for a boy and sharply erect, and I find myself wondering if they are as responsive as Sara's were.
I guess it's those green eyes that keep bringing me back to Sara.
Loki's trim belly is unmuscled and again I am sure the skin there is very soft. He has a cute "outie" belly-button and a flat, hairless pubic triangle below that, leading my eyes inevitably to his boyish equipment.
He's pretty big down there for his age, which I estimate in Earth terms to be barely eleven. He might have circled this planet's twin suns 25 or so times but I'm going to go ahead and think of him as a tween. For some reason I want to, maybe because that's the age I had the most fun with boys.
It strikes me that I am looking at Loki the way I looked at my friends back then, as a possibility.
Suddenly I'm not sure how long I've been contemplating the kid's genitals and alarm rises. I jerk my eyes back up to his face to find him smiling, and when I look at the others I know that everybody has read me like a Danish porn novel.
Wally smiles in a very knowing way while Jack looks away and drawls, "Well I guess you've made your decision, Cap."
Thanks for reading Chapter 1 of It Takes A Village. Chapter 2 is coming soon.
If you like my stuff have a look at my story archive here on my Prolific Authors page.
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