Beginning of Time

Chapter One: Earliest Time

I have no memory of a beginning. From the time I first had any sense of being alive, all of my efforts were taken up with trying to find enough berries, nuts, and leaves that wouldn't sicken me to make me able to move in the forest and shelter under low-lying branches when the threat of the elements or the Others arose. Even in satisfying my thirst I had to learn that the water trickling down from the rocks into the pool was good to drink but that the great body of water lapping up on the edges of the sand and stretching to the horizon would just make me more thirsty and would confuse my mind. But I had to be careful when going to the pool. There could be animals of prey there, and there also could be the Others. Some of the Others were animals of prey too.

In my early years finding the berries, nuts, and leaves that would not harm me was a solitary experience—and countless numbers of the Others who I knew were there in the forest with me were guessing what they ate as much as I was. Then, sometimes they no longer were there, or I saw them as rotting shells on the forest floor. They had taken risks with what they ate and had lost. I knew with each bite of something new that I was taking that risk too. But sometimes the growl in my belly gave me no other choice.

What all of the Others—and I as well—always looked for were those big nuts that nestled under the fanned leaves of the slender, swaying trees near the fringe of sand and forest and sometimes in families of trees deeper in the forest. One of those nuts could fill me for several changes of the light to dark and back to light again. At the center of each was sweet liquid more filling and satisfying than water from the pool. And between that and the brown, hairy outer shell was a white pulp that was the most delicious to taste of all. But this wasn't just my favorite. It was the favorite of all. And unless there were no Others around when one of these fell from the trees of the fanned leaves—or could be shaken down—this, this was when the Others came together. But they weren't coming together in touching or joining as I sometimes saw them do when they thought they were alone. They came together in hisses and fists bunched and claws extended. And they would fight for the prize of the large nut.

For untold time I only knew of the large, sweet nut liquid and pulp from watching the Others fight over it—sometimes being able to pull away a scrap of it when they weren't noticing as they hissed over the treasure. But in time I became large and strong enough myself to hope to have such a nut for myself—even if I had to fight for it.

This change in how I dared hope for having the large nut to myself was my first sense of anything. My first sense of the solitary nature of existence came when I fought for the nut and saw that this was different from my earlier aloneness. Before that, I always felt Others being around, but there were no connections. I almost—almost, but not quite—could remember a time when there had been another with me. An older one. One who touched me and pulled me back from danger and began my learning in what to eat and drink and what not to—and, just as important, when to step out and when to hide. One who crooned to me in the darkness and sat leaning over me when my eyes grew heavy and I slept. But I vaguely remember her being there—and then, one day, turning to reach out for her and finding her there no more.

Sometimes, as I aged, I noticed two of the Others being close to each other, joined and making guttural noises. But this was something I only noticed when I started to have feelings to be curious about the Others and what they did—and began to wonder why they were so unconnected, suspicious, and hissing at anyone coming near. But then how they sometimes joined, with one becoming inside the Other, and both making those strange, but interesting guttural noises. Like the hisses when they were warning someone away, but also not like that at all.

I wanted to make those guttural noises too.

As I grew I wanted to have connections with Others. I didn't want to have to discover by my own taking of chances what would satisfy my hungers and not sicken me. And when I did discover this, I wanted to share that with the Others. I wanted to touch and to share. What surprised me the most was that I wanted—that I wanted anything. I kept trying to remember, to remember an earliest time. And I could not do so. It was only when my body began to show its wants to me—and especially on the rare occasions that I saw Others joining—that I began to look beyond the gathering of food for my belly alone and started to see the world around me.

And to wonder why.

But until Graybeard came to me and took me for his own, I was like any of the Others. Alone and ever vigilant and just trying to find enough berries, nuts, and leaves and water that would not sicken me from one time of light through darkness and the next time of light.

I was reaching for a dark purple berry, deep in the forest, when I felt a touch on my forearm. I reached over to brush the insect away but found that it was no insect. It was one of the Others—and not just anyone of the Others. It was the elder, the graybeard. The one I had learned to watch scavenge for food. The one that I instinctively knew understood what to eat and what not to eat, or he would not be so advanced in age. He was also one who I had seen join with Others—with others of the young ones who existed before I did. But ones no older than I now was. He had a watering tube longer and thicker than those I saw dangling between the legs of Others, and I had seen him penetrate the openings of Others and make those guttural sounds—and cause the Others being entered by what I came to call a penetrator to make those guttural sounds—that made me feel strange and pleasant also. And that made me want to make guttural sounds as well—and to be penetrated.

Graybeard was grimacing at me. I did not know what he wanted. I was in too much shock that he had touched me. I had no memory—other than a distant one—of any Other touching me in anything but a struggle over a large, sweet nut. Indeed, I had little memory of another coming this close to me except in a threatening stance to send me away.

I was failing to respond as he wanted, so Graybeard snapped the purple berry from the bush and tossed it away. I understood then. He was telling me that the berry would sicken me. I again was frozen with surprise. Except for that long-ago memory of one who cared for me, I had no experience of any Other teaching me anything about the berries, nuts, and leaves or showing any notice of what I did at all as long as I stayed my distance.

Graybeard wasn't staying his distance, though. Even after he had thrown the poisonous fruit away, he did not take his hand from my forearm. In fact, he was gripping my arm more tightly. And then he was gripping my other arm with his other hand. He was behind me, making those guttural noises I was so aroused by. And I was aroused now too—my body, my own tube, were responding as they had been doing for many changes of light to dark to light. Responding as they did as long as I gripped my tube with my hand and eventually felt the release of the white, sticky fluid from inside me.

I didn't know what was happening. All I knew was that Graybeard and I were having a connection, that my body was aroused, and that I was beginning to make guttural noises that matched his.

He pushed me down on all fours and covered my back with his body—as I'd seen him and Others do when they made those guttural noises. And then I felt the searing pain as he penetrated me, joining with me, entering me and connecting our bodies as I had never connected with another one before. I was being opened and filled with an ever-deepening taking.

And then, as the pain melted away into a new, strange, and wonderful feeling of two being one and of the guttural sounds having a purpose and reward, I spilled my seed on the ground as Graybeard planted his deep inside me. I had learned what this connection was all about.

And I didn't want it to stop.

Nor did it stop. After the time in the forest with the poisonous purple berry, I had Graybeard at my side, guiding me and touching me, protecting me and breeding me. I understood what mating was about—and why all that I had gone through in the dullness of time to reach this happening was worthwhile.

At the same time the inclusion of Graybeard in my life gave me a sense of protection and contentment, I realized that I became the object of hostility from some of the Others. Some of the Other young, not much older than I was, taunted me with hisses and made feints of attacks against me whenever I was not at Graybeard's side.

I understood why, though. These had been ones Graybeard had guided and touched and breeded earlier. I recognized some of them from memories of seeing Graybeard's couplings in the forest, which were more alive in my mind now that I knew the heights of pleasure Graybeard's big penetrator brought.

My pleasure also proved to be my undoing—at least for the near future.

It wasn't only the elements and each other that threatened the Others who lived around me. There also was a threat from across the sky-reaching rocks and from the broad waters flowing to the horizon. There were different Others near us, large, hulky, nasty Others who smelled of rotten flesh.

They came to us in wooden vessels across the waters, coming straight out of the golden disk in the sky so that we did not see them until they almost were upon us. I was on the sands between the forest and the water. Graybeard wasn't there. But one of the Others, the one who had laid with Graybeard before he selected me, was there, inching toward me. Being aware of where he was was what kept me from seeing the approaching vessels holding those Others I thought of as Sharpspears, because they carried with them long sticks, sharpened at the end. I'd seen them throw these sticks long distances and bring animals—and, once or twice, an Other—down with them.

I heard the trilling of Others giving warning, though, and turned and saw that the lead vessel was nearly where the water met the sand. Three giant Sharpspears were leaning toward the sand, ready to jump out. I turned and ran, but the Other who resented my lying with Graybeard had moved closer to me and I saw the rock he was carrying too late.

When I opened my eyes, I felt the fullness inside me. I was pinned on my back on the sand, with a Sharpspear holding down each of my arms. A third Sharpspear was kneeling between my spread thighs. And he was inside me, moving inside me, his tube filling me and moving in and out, in and out. Other Sharpspears were standing around watching. And in time, they were all inside me too. I don't know how many before my eyes closed again in saving darkness of eye and mind.

* * * *

As I came out of the darkness, I slitted my eyes to get an idea where I was without revealing that I once more was awake. I knew I wasn't on the sand. I was curled on my side on something hard and curving under me, and I was being rocked. I had to fight hard the urge to turn my belly inside out. At first all I could see were bare legs of Others. Then as the stench coming off these Others assailed my senses, I realized that I was in a vessel of the Sharpspears, who were paddling us out into the waters, toward the glowing disk on the horizon. I'd never been out on the broad water before. I wanted to moan—and not just from the soreness of having taken so many penetrators, but also from the fear of being on the water. This was nothing like I had known before.

But I had never known anything good before other than Graybeard's attentions, so there wasn't much of a loss to feel.

What I felt was hungry, but I did not believe that there would be any berries, nuts, or leaves for me to eat out here on the water.

One of the Sharpspears nudged me with his foot and grunted, but I pretended not to be aware. I was saving myself, building up my strength. If ever they would come to sands again, I would try to escape them.

I felt the bottom of the vessel rub up against sand, and then the Sharpspears jumped out and started pulling the vessel up onto the sands. I lifted my head enough to get a sense of where we were. We were on a wide ribbon of sand much like the one I came from. At the end nearest to me a large pile of stones tumbled down to meet the sea and make a wall against whatever was beyond. The same barrier marked the far end of the sand area, but there, in the shadow of the rocks was a grouping of piled sticks and straw and moving about these were brown figures—not the Others that I knew—but more Sharpspears.

I bounded out of the vessel and ran for a dense forest area where the sand met the forest at the rock-marked end of the sands. I glanced around to see that the vessel I was in had been the first to reach the sands, but that more wooden vessels, with three Sharpspears each in them were moving across the waters to the sands.

I had caught the Sharpspears in my vessel by surprise, though, and I was well into the dense forest before they reached the forest edge of the sand.

I stumbled through the forest through one dark and well into another light before I felt safe enough to stop and search for something to stop my hunger and satisfy my thirst. I found a small stream and drank my fill. Then I started searching for berries and nuts. There were a few I recognized and a few I didn't. I was very hungry. After reaching greedily for and eating berries I didn't recognize, my belly heaved and I could not keep what I'd eaten down. I was miserable for the time it took for a storm of rain and wind to pass over me and I thought that I might never see another change from dark to light. But I slowly felt better.

After that, I was much more careful what I picked from the bushes and trees to eat. When I calmed down, I discovered that there was an abundance of berries and leaves that Graybeard had signaled to me I could eat.

When I felt strong again, I began to walk toward the lands reaching up for the sky, thinking that perhaps my land of Others—and Graybeard—were on the other side. Before I reached there, though, I came to a large clearing in the forest, where the plants were growing strangely. They were not scattered around but were set in rows and spaced apart from each other.

I walked into the field of plantings to look at them more closely, to determine if the yellowish nubs on them were something that I could eat. So taken was I with looking at the strange plants, though, that I was almost upon the tall, thin Others before I saw them. They stood there, most of them carrying woven baskets holding fruits and nuts, not looking threatening, holding their hands out toward me. These Others were pale of skin and had cloth draped around their waists. They did not seem to mean me harm, but I turned away from them—only to find that more of them were gathered behind me, in the direction from which I'd come.

I turned back to see that one of these figures was bending down and breaking off one of the yellowish nubs from a plant and offering it to me. I just stared. But after he had eaten that himself and then broken off another nub and held it toward me, I took that and ate. The taste was pleasant, and I could feel that it would please and fill my belly.

I came to think of these as the Gentle People, for, even though they were Others, they were more kind and gentle than the Sharpspears. They welcomed me with smiles and open arms. The Sharpspears hurt and used me. I was soon to adopt the Gentle People for my own and to think of myself as one of them—and they welcomed me as one of their own.

I went with these Gentle People down a beaten path leading away from the field and into another clearing, where more of the stick and grass piles were sitting in a circle around a central place of beaten earth.

As I watched in awe, a giant of a figure draped in a red and yellow cloth appeared as if by magic from one of the piles of grass. This was an elder who was to become the penetrator of me that Graybeard no longer was. He took me into the pile of grass, which I found was hollow inside and soon learned provided shelter from the elements and the cold when they came upon us. This experience was an amazing one for me, as I had always found shelter in the forest, in hollows and under branches, but I never was protected there as I was in these grass piles.

Hidden as we were in the hollow of the grass stack, the elder sat close beside me and moved the palms of his hands over me, watching me for signs of unwillingness that never came. When his hands moved between my thighs, he looked on me in amazement as I opened my legs for him, rested my heels on his shoulders, and laid back, willingly giving him entrance for what I knew he wanted from me. He moaned as I reached down for his penetrator and moved it inside me and began moving my hips on him. When I rose on top of him, pushing him with hands on his belly, moving him onto his back, and making love to his penetrator buried in darkness inside me as I moved up and down and back and forward and around and around, he gave me his seed and was mine from that moment on. All this I did because I wanted to be one with the Gentle People, and I knew that, because he had shown that he wanted me, I needed first to become one with the elder. Thanks to the teaching of the Graybeard, I knew how to make the elder mine.

Along I think he would have been satisfied for me to live in the hollow of his grass stack to receive him whenever he entered the hut—and me—the elder of the Gentle People was also surprised and happy to find that I had useful knowledge to share about the berries, nuts, and leaves of the forest just as the Gentle People had knowledge to give to me of the plants that they were growing and taking care of—and storing for the bad times.

The Gentle People were unlike those I had known before. They were connected and they shared knowledge and they knew of many comforts that my people did not. And they had sounds and gestures that helped them connect. They were unlike what I had learned of the Sharpspears too. The Gentle People conveyed to me that the Sharpspears smelled as they did and walked with the pointed sticks they had because they were meat eaters. They hunted the animals of the forest with their pointed sticks. The Gentle People, like me, only ate plants. And they lived with—and not against—the animals of the forest.

The Gentle People also liked to touch and connect—again unlike the Others I had grown with. The elder, in particular, liked to touch me. And I found that arousing—and my body told him that I found that arousing. With this knowledge of the effect of his touching on me, whenever he could—inside the hollow of his grass stack because he would not be right for him to show how smitten he was outside the hut—the elder took aside his red and yellow cloth and showed me that his body enjoyed the touching of me too. He wanted to touch me on the inside whenever we were alone, and I showed to him that I wanted that too.

I learned that there were other ways of achieving the pleasure of the penetrating taking than Graybeard had shown me. Men could do this facing each other, with their lips touching lips and other parts of the body too and with me, the receiver, raising and lowering myself on his penetrating, consuming shaft. I learned that the brown circles on my chest could become hard nubs and bring pleasure when sucked by another. And I learned that when the elder moved his lips over my own penetrator and down the shaft and then up and down again and he gave suck to my nob with his grasping lips, that I found new heights and breadths of pleasure—and one release moving to an even more intense release. It was not long before he was granting me deep moans of his own as I did the same for him.