THE FLAP OF A BUTTERFLY'S WING
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
I gulped hard as the field effect blossomed in front of me. If this were inside a metal ring, it would look a hell of a lot like that "Stargate" series of movies and shows, only the fluid stuff wasn't silver, it was an ugly, unfriendly reddish color. Like the flames of Hell, I thought and quickly squashed the thought. I took the backpack from Gerald, and said, as a joke, "Want to come with me, Gerry? We could get you away from your wife that way."
"Hey, don't tempt me." he said. "Any more of her and I'm going to turn gayer than you and your fruity friends." Gerald wasn't a bad sort, but he was sort of casually offensive in his talk, if you see what I mean. Once you learned it and overlooked it, he wasn't that hard to get along with.
"Are you ready, Mr. Tammer?" the voice came over the loudspeaker.
I nodded. "I am ready."
"Then proceed in ten seconds. We'll further stabilize the field in nine, eight, seven...."
I gulped hard again and started walking toward the red field-effect. As my body touched the field, it felt like I was being ripped into five hundred thousand separate particles. Which may have been exactly what was happening....
I came to some time later, sat up, looked about. I'd been wearing combat fatigues including body armor, a backpack holding supplies and....
I was stark raving naked. I felt my head and marveled I still had my hair! I was wondering if only living things would pass through the field. It'd certainly explain what had happened to Rosenfeld.
I got to my feet and looked out over what, if the instruments were correct, was the year 1000 B.C. Three thousand years in the past. And if the measurements were exact (no assurance of that at all, I was lucky I hadn't landed in the middle of the ocean!), I was standing in what was supposed to be ancient Greece. Well, if this was Greece, it was awful damned flat! Gentle mountains, scattered bushes. If I had to guess, this was more likely Israel, pardon me, Judea.
Well, speaking Greek would still work here to some extent, plenty of Greek-speaking Judeans in the cities next to the ocean. I just had to get to the ocean...now which direction was that? West, of course, but the sun was close to the zenith, I'd have to wait until it showed me some relative motion before I could follow it towards its setting. Of course, what I'd do, naked and helpless, then was a mystery. I only knew one thing...I had to be careful not to disturb the events of history in any way. There's the old story about the flapping of a butterfly's wings causing a hurricane in Brazil, well, the timeline itself was equally vulnerable. The current theory was that living a quiet life in the past wouldn't affect things, but I had to be careful about doing anything that would alter events significantly in the future.
I found some shade under a large tree or bush (it was one of those small, scraggly things where the difference leaves a lot to your definition of which is which) and settled down, stretched out, my bare ass wincing at the rocks I found the hard way and knocked aside, settled down, biding my time, watching the clouds...okay, I fell asleep.
I awoke a short time later (I was still in shade, though it had moved a good deal) by the unmistakable sounds of the bleating of sheep. Well, you expect sheep in Judea, after all. Even in Greece, if I happened to have made it there.
I got to my feet and looked about, heard the sound of laughter. A lone voice. I turned to look at a young man who was obviously the shepherd, standing not far away, and made a hasty effort to cover my genitals with my hands. I was unsuccessful.
He unleashed something in a language I didn't understand. I said, in my best ancient Greek, "I'm sorry, but I only speak Greek."
He spoke his own words haltingly, but clearly Greek. "I am Dudi." Dudi was maybe twenty and maybe not quite, for he had no beard and only a light dusting of white hairs on his face. Me, I had to shave every few days or I'd look like a Biblical character myself, my thick black hair and hairy body was the reason they'd chosen me for this mission, I looked Greek although I was actually English and Irish.
"Dudi." I said, carefully not conjuring up its unfortunate secondary meaning in English. "I am Josephus." I gave him my chosen Greek name if I'd landed in Greece.
"You were beset by robbers." He said to me. Actually, we did a lot of pointing and repeating and trying different words here, I'm shortening this to the conversation we would have had were it not for language difficulties.
"Yes, I was." Of course, if I were naked in the wilderness, I must have been robbed by bandits who stole everything I had. I said that last part to Dudi then went on, "Can your family help me out until I can get back to my own people?"
"I will take you to my father's tent." Dudi agreed. He gave me his outer garment to let me gird my nakedness and then I had to help him shepherd the sheep back to his family's tents.
Dudi's father was well-to-do by Arabian-type standards, the family and their retainers had some half-dozen tents of various sizes, and I was led to the largest one to speak with his father. Dudi had to translate. Beyond learning I was definitely in what would one day be Israel (it hadn't been born yet), I didn't have much luck. I had to deal with the father, agree to help Dudi with the flock for a season, in turn, he would give me supplies and assistance to get to the coast. What I'd do when I got there, I wasn't sure.
With Dudi as my only contact among his family, he and I were thrown a lot into each other's company, above and beyond the duties of the field. Sheep weren't that hard to manage, you just had to keep an eye on them that they didn't wander off from their brothers too far (and rescue them sometimes when they did), and when they'd eaten all the grass and bushes in one area, move them over to another area. Easy times, and lots of time to talk. I'd wondered about the boss' son having this job, but compared to the other things you could do, this was damned easy!
Until the first storm came along. By bad luck, the field where we were (all the land was unbroken by fences of any sort, by "field" I mean simply an area of land a bit more fertile than most) was pretty far from the current encampment (the family would live in one place until the lands about were eaten by the sheep, then move on to another place central to the next fallow lands, and it was time for them to move again), and we were camping out for two nights. We'd seen the clouds building and were lucky enough to have a small tent to get into (we usually slept out under the stars), but unlucky enough that we had to get the sheep into a small group before we could get inside it. I got soaking wet, and so did Dudi, but finally the sheep were all together in a neat oval and we could finally seek our own shelter. Dudi assured me that now they were together, the lightning and thunder would only make them stay closer rather than scatter.
"Will the sheep be all right?" I asked Dudi. He smiled and nodded genially. To my surprise, he began to pull off his clothing, for I'd learned that his family took a dim view of nudity under any circumstances up to and including washing your body (which you were supposed to do under a blanket with a damp sponge and a bowl of water!). "What are you doing?"
"I am wet." He told me. "I need to get dry, and so do you."
"But...we have no other clothes to wear."
"We will hang them before a fire after the rain stops." he told me. "Now, will you join me or not?"
Well, he'd seen me naked that time, and figured I was Greek with their more casual views about nudity and.... "Fine, I will." I agreed and began to undress.
I'd never seen more than Dudi's head, neck, hands and (on occasion) feet since I'd met him some five weeks before. I knew he was young, but now I was finding out, first-hand, that he was a very succulent bit of manflesh! He laid himself out on the bedding and made no effort to cover himself, in fact, he was pretty much displaying it!
I gulped and said, "I wouldn't like your father to become angry with me. He could send me away from your camp."
"My father is busy moving the family to a new location." Dudi told me. "Come, lie next to me and we'll warm each other's flesh."
I had expected to end up in Greece, where man-man love was simply one of the options. I had expected to have to wait until I got there to start indulging in it. But Dudi was my only friend here. I was apparently stuck here (they were supposed to keep track of me with a device in my backpack, so that wasn't going to happen), and feeling more lonely than you can imagine. And, let's face it, I was horny, living among people that felt masturbation was a horrible sin! If Dudi wanted to fudge on his laws with me, I was more than ready to help him do it!
"I could use some warning up." I agreed and laid my naked and still wet body next to his. I felt for his prick, and he grabbed mine, and I found that, hard, he was cut rather short, there was no foreskin to hinder my hand in any wise. He found my own uncut dong a bit puzzling, I think, but his hand got busy in no time and we were jerking each other. I dared to kiss him and he let me, and when I pushed my tongue into his mouth, he was surprised, but let me, and soon enough, he was sucking on my tongue and then pushing his into mine for me to suckle. I began to kiss at his neck, his youthful, smooth, supple neck, and he crooned, for I was teaching Dudi things he'd never even thought about doing. He probably had planned merely a jerking of each other, but now I was going to show him everything.
So I kissed my way down his throat and onto his chest, fondling his nipples with my tongue-tip, and he groaned and his cock was rock-hard by the time I worked my way past his breasts to his stomach and then down to his temple of manhood, he was throbbingly hard, and his pulsating pud was leaking precome like an overripe fig (I'd been in Judea a while, you have to remember).
"Ah, ah, Josephus, my dearest Greek lover." He sighed to me, and I blinked before I remembered that was me! "I have never felt this, nor imagined it in my wildest fantasies."
"I figured that." I grinned up at him. "Now brace yourself for more of the same."
"I am ready." he gasped and waited, shuddering.
My lips closed upon his dong and he gasped again in surprise! "You are doing this? Isn't it forbidden?"
"For your people maybe." I agreed, lifting off of him to say the words. "For my own people, though, it is the greatest of compliments."
I sank onto him again and he moaned and I sank onto his cock to the base, gripped it and rose up again. The lack of his foreskin wasn't as big an obstacle as I thought it would be, I added enough saliva to make it smooth and easy on him and soon I was bobbing back and forth with some vigor.
He groaned and moved around and I let him, and was gratified to find him taking my own pud into his mouth. He seemed to have realized what I was doing, for his mouth slewed spit onto my dong and then he began to slide his lips up and down in the same manner as me. Clever Dudi!
"Oh, oh, oh!" he gasped far too soon, and I found my mouth filling to the brim with a thick load of hot man-jizz and serene in the knowledge that not only was AIDS not yet around to harm us, neither had syphilis traveled here from the Americas!
I gulped down what felt like a cupful of Dudi's spunk, then laid back and let him ply his mouth on me unencumbered. Dudi did his best, but let's face it, it takes time to learn how to suck a man's cock, man or woman, and how to keep up a steady pace for more than a few minutes is not something even a very clever man can handle immediately.
Dudi gave up and said, "I am sorry, Josephus, I cannot give you what you gave me."
"That is all right."
"Shall I use my hand to complete you?"
"You can." I hesitated, then plowed on. This may be the only time we did it, after all. "Or I could teach you the other way men can make love."
"I would like that very much." Dudi agreed.
To my surprise, he already knew about anal sex, I guess from dirty pictures someone had drawn or tales from his older brothers. I knew that their rare visits to cities would usually involve the men of his family visiting the brothels or temples (I was still confused on that point and didn't dare ask questions), and he happily displayed his pert young buttocks for me to work on. I couldn't bring myself to lick it (toilet paper was unknown in his culture, you have to understand, you squatted and hoped nothing stuck to your ass hairs), but I lubed up my finger with my spit and dug it into him and soon, he was ready for me to try with my cock. He grimaced and grunted with pain as I pushed it into him, but every time I hesitated, he urged me to continue. His fingertips were gripping my back painfully, the nails digging into me when I said, "Okay, it's all the way inside you."
"Then make love to me." Dudi urged me. "Make love as you do in Greece."
"I'll do what I can." I promised. And I began to slowly push in and out of his butt.
Dudi clung to me and moaned alarmingly, only the heavy rain outside kept us from scaring the sheep with the noises we were making. I felt my climax slowly growing inside me as I hammered at his tender young ass, and when it began to blossom, I gasped out, "Oh, oh, Dudi, I am about to come!"
"What?" he asked for I had spoken in English in my passion.
I tried to form the words in Greek and/or Hebrew (our conversation was about 80/20 at this time, a few Hebrew words in Greek sentences), but my lust-sodden brain couldn't handle it. I could only speak the language of ecstasy, loud groans that would warn him of my orgasm.
"Ah-ah-ah, gah-ah-ah, uh-uh, GAH-AH-AH-AH, AH, AH, AH, AH-UHHHH!" I crowned my desire with my burst, ejaculating into Dudi's ass and as I did so, Dudi's eyes grew wide and he joined me with a second climax of his own.
We ended up panting and gasping heavily, serene in our tent in the heavy rain and musky from our exertions, we went from being exhausted lovers to sleeping lovers.
I began to think in terms of living the rest of my life with Dudi and his family. I had to work for his father for two years to earn his aid in traveling to Greece. I wondered if Dudi would go with me when the time came, a younger son's fortunes weren't that optimistic in such tribes, he would work the rest of his life for his older brothers, and then for his nephews, until he was too old wherein he would be a pensionary of sorts, living on the scraps of the elder's tables.
And then, a day some months later, when we were in his family's camp, I heard a noise that was awfully familiar. Went outside the tent I shared with Dudi (and several others, we could manage only occasional nocturnal joinings in the fields) and there in front of me was the red field-effect.
Dudi was beside me. "It is the hand of God!" He gasped out in and fell to his face in fear. Others about had done likewise.
"No, it isn't." I said, sighing. "It has come for me. Dudi, I wish I could explain, but I can't. Just remember that, whatever happens next, I was your friend." I didn't dare dawdle as I said this, but was walking toward the field. I had to be ready the moment it stabilized to walk through.
"Josephus, Josephus wait! I love you! I love you!" Dudi cried out.
"Farewell, Dudi! I love you, too!" I would have said more, but the field stabilized and I stepped through and was torn into five hundred thousand separate particles.
I awoke some time later, naked again, on the floor of the Institute. "Found you!" came Gerald's familiar voice. "You got lost on us for a while there!"
"I got lost! You dumped me in Israel instead of Greece buck-naked!" I griped. "I don't think you got the year right, either!"
"Any luck with Rosenfeld?" Gerald asked.
"No, I never had a chance to even look for him." I shook my head. "He must have been lost in the past like I was. Maybe he's on the bottom of the Mediterranean."
"Maybe." Gerald said. "Let's get some clothes on you."
"Afraid you can't keep your hands off me?" I teased him.
"God knows my husband is jealous enough." Gerald answered.
It took me a while to pick that up. "Your husband?"
"Yeah, what's wrong?"
"Gerald...what's your husband's name?"
"Joseph, you know his name. It's Duncan."
"Duncan." I reeled. I got the news in the debriefing, that flap of the butterfly's wings had done its damage. Somehow, in my absence, the world had gone from straight to gay as the norm. Gerald even made some bigoted jokes about the "breeders" with me and expected me to laugh at them. Same old Gerald...in a radically different world.
Being gay myself, it wasn't the worst thing to have happened, I guess, from a personal perspective. It's nice being the majority after a lifetime of minority status. But I still wonder....
I don't know what happened after Dudi and his family saw me vanish in a field of red like I did. To them it must have appeared like...a burning bush?
Dear God, I just realized two things! Rosenfeld's first name was Moses! And Dudi is a sort of nickname for David! Was my young shepherd one day destined to be King of the Jews? Had my predecessor started things with an attempt at laying down laws to a rather lawless tribe with his Ten Commandments? Too few facts to be sure. I can't know. I can never know.
Maybe not. After all, a butterfly's flap of its wings isn't anything historically significant. But apparently it can change the world.
THE END
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WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM