Cáel’ as the new Amazon Teen Idol
In 16 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected.
"I've missed you too," Aya bumped foreheads with me. I was 'a Son of the White Stallion' who 'ran with the herds of Epona'. I was so proud of her. She had woven together a Magyar myth with an Amazon naming convention. Epona, the Celtic Horse Goddess and Aya's matron divinity, was worshiped with the sacrifice of foals, Amazons offered up fillies (female baby horsies) whose spirits ran with the Goddess in the Spirit World.
When the pre-Christian Magyars went to war, they sacrificed a white stallion to entreat their deities to grant them victory. No one was about to slit my throat, or cut my heart out. I was made sacred, a spirit stud in Epona's vast herd of mares. How freakishly accurate.
"I love you for your brains, you know that, don't you?" I whispered to Aya.
"Yes. You are saving up your other love for Mommy," she kinda/sorta teased me. Out of the semi-circle of children, three stood out. More accurately, they were dwarfed by their companions. I took the group's indecision as an offer to advance.
"Hi," I addressed the smallest three members of the audience. "Are you the Fatal Squirts?"
"They are not allowed that name," Sophia interceded. "No Amazon child deserves an acknowledgement before their trial." I half-turned and nodded her way.
"(Cough, cough). "Excuse me, please." If she spoke Phoenician, I was boned for being obviously disrespectful of her authority and would have to take whatever punishment Sophia felt I deserved.
Otherwise, I was getting away with binding 'leads to death' to 'blood-death wound' in that ancient and highly extinct tongue: 'fatal, squirts' indeed. Her hand fell on my shoulder.
"I have heard you laugh at death," Sophia remarked. If I was on Zoosk, all you would have to do was type in 'Preference: Amazon Male Who Dares Talk Back', and there was my smiling mug, all alone, staring back at you.
"Before I confess to anything, do you consider that an asset, or liability," I grinned.
"I withhold judgment," was her reply.
"I don't mean to 'laugh at death'. It is because all the other choices suck and, perhaps I've been called stubborn, bull-headed and 'not having even a passing acquaintance with common sense' a time, or two," I shrugged with my lovely burden curled around my left arm.
"No names, our tradition and my command," Sophia laid down the law. Sigh. I put Aya down. She didn't cause me a hint of trouble because she knew my heart. I unbuckled and handed her my two guns (my Glock-22, and 38). I motioned one of the mini-Amazons forward. She shuffled up to Aya's side and received my two tomahawks.
Not only was no one leaving, the rest of the camp started coming down to see what was about to transpire. In my short stint at Havenstone, I had developed a reputation as an exciting fun-guy/irrepressible troublemaker.
"I feel your decision is founded on misinformation, or your rendering to be unjust," I told Sophia.
"Explain," Sophia requested.
I hadn't disarmed for my sake, or hers. I gave up my weapons to affirm my desire to talk. I placed myself at my sister's mercy, thus expressing my trust in her. Amazons are not savages, just violently inclined.
Later, Pamela would remind me that my behavior was precisely what Isharans were supposed to do, seek peace.
"Aya has taken a position as intern with Executive Services at Havenstone," I explained. "She held my position and served effectively for four days with good work reviews from the head of the department herself," I added.
"She has served in a caste, been assigned duties by members of that caste, performed errands and accomplished all that was asked of her. Doesn't that create an allowance for Aya, as she has been considered for a caste?" I was fishing for an excuse based on my instincts for these people.
"She has never been selected, chosen and been anointed to a caste, so her preliminary experience does not qualify," Sophia said after a few seconds of introspection. "Next?"
"She has charged forth into battle on my behest." The archery range.
"You were not an acknowledged member of the Host when that happened. Next?"
"She's tried to kill me," I tossed out there.
"What?" many exclaimed.
"No!" Aya gasped.
"When did this occur?" Sophia's eyes twinkled.
"At the archery range. She shot at me twice," I responded.
"She was practicing," was the counter. "Next?"
"Not next," I smiled. "I didn't have permission from anyone to step beyond the shooting line.
In doing so, I accepted all calls to combat. Both Leona and Aya shot at me. Aya shot twice and came close once. Leona only hit me after I gave myself up to protect three Amazon children."
Pause.
"Okay. Aya has served in combat, no matter how one-sided, " Sophia began.
"I was armed for part of the fight," I interrupted hurriedly. Aya's first arrow.
"Accepted. You were a viable combatant before that as witnessed by other Amazons in earlier encounters. She and another Amazon shot at you without any other claiming traditional ownership of you," Sophia nodded. The Leader had given me a 'bye' on my intern status.
"Aya may bear an honorific," Sophia loudly proclaimed her change in course. To Amazons, screwing up was a distant third to not owning up to what you did and not learning from your mistakes. Besides, I could tell Sophia was warming up to me, as a male and an Amazon.
"My war band?" Aya chirped.
"You do not have a war band, Aya Epona, but whatever name you use among yourselves is not a matter I will concern myself with," Sophia stated firmly. "Fifty days, Cáel." That was the end of it. Sophia turned and began walking uphill, conflict successfully resolved.
The Fatal Squirts had emerged with a semi-official status, I had emerged without a new series of wounds and I had wrangled forth a small down payment for all the love and loyalty Aya had showered on me.
"Best Daddy in the World!" Aya shouted. "Mamitu! Mamitu!" Destiny.
Amazons weren't huge believers in luck. They put their faith in training, planning, experience and diligence. For them, victory was a matter of destiny. Let the sloppy, treacherous Greeks invoke 'Nike', Victory, or 'Tyche', Luck for tossing them a positive outcome in battle. My side weren't thankful for the win they deserved.
They acknowledged Mamitu had, through foresight, prepared the Host for what had to be done. For Aya, it was destiny that had put me in her path; she and her sisters trained for the hostage scenario multiple times, so she was a logical choice for my training. She had been training with the bow when I was giving her the inner strength and confidence to hit the target.
Training, not mutual good fortune, put her at the range to make that shot. Whatever part luck played, that bolt that had saved my life and paved the way for Aya's rise to leadership had been a part of her training as well. Amazons didn't deny luck, nor did the put any trust in it.
"Hi, so who are the rest of you?" I addressed the Fatal Squirts while rearming.
"I am Mosa Oya," the tomahawk holder identified herself.
"I am, " the third member got out before we were propelled back into that 'never too distant' No-Man's Land. A girl, a stranger in her early teens, came up and shoved Aya hard.
"You are nothing special," the older girl growled at my buddy. My 'daughter' barely avoided sprawling in the dust.
The intensity was palatable. Aya had no chance of beating this girl. Not only did her opponent have every physical advantage, she had three buddies as well, correction: two buddies and a twin sister. Amazons built lifetime bonds around these foursomes. Aya and company backed down, despite her obvious shame. She had just won an honorific as a child, unheard of before this. It was Amazon tactical thinking, not fear, that ruled Aya's mind. I was so proud of her.
"What's your name?" I inquired congenially of the newcomer. She flashed me a look of anger laced with teenage hormones, then turned and stormed away, actually, she only started to storm away. Her behavior had played right into my hands. I was an adult. She wasn't a full-fledged member of the Host, nor was she a child anymore. I had asked her a question and she had been disrespectful to me. Her bad. Still, I doubted anyone expected my leg sweep.
The bully hit the ground hard, no rolling with the blow for her. My foot smashing down on her diaphragm drove the fight right out of her. I wasn't done. The twin rushed in, my thunderbolt left sent her flying back from whence she came. Amazons despise child abuse as cruel and socially cancerous, yet no one else was rushing in to stop me.
Even her other two friends were obeying both basic Amazon battle philosophy and conduct. Two young teens versus me was stupid, and I wasn't alone. I had four Squirts plus two other women close by who saw nothing wrong with a cooperative pummeling. I lifted my foot a centimeter from the girl's chest.
"Let's try this again," I spoke softly. "I am Cáel Ishara. You have disparaged my house by putting your back to me after I, an adult, politely addressed you. In fifteen seconds your sin will pass beyond your ability to address and your actions will be viewed as your family's unwarranted insult. My sisters will seek vengeance against your sisters with the added advantage that your sisters won't know what's going on. Now, what's your name?"
See, I could have gone straight to Step Two, the House on House vengeance. Me kicking her ass was merciful because after five, or six members of her house were jumped, one at a time by three, or four, of mine, those ladies were going to be truly curious why their youngster had been so fucking rude in front of so many fucking Amazons to the HEAD of a fucking First House.
'Honorific' Aya still had no status except that of a child. Dumb Bunny was passed her 12th year test, so she was of her House, thus the insult. Despite my 'fantasy' assumption of the role of grunt, everyone knew that Cáel Cabbage-head was Cáel Ishara, Head of House Ishara. I was the only accepted male Amazon in existence, the only possessor of a 'five o'clock shadow' in camp, I was armed and I was so armed while walking among their children.
She could not have possibly mistaken me for another. Her eyes showed that truism too. Her wrathful 'how dare that male!' morphed into 'oh fuck, my older sisters are going to be tossed down stairwells, jacked up in parking garages and they were going to be caught totally flat-footed when it happens, and it is all my (the girl's) fault'.
In theory, St. Marie could deny my feud (we were at war), or warn the girl's house of my request, but why would she? The crime couldn't have been more obvious and the Amazons were way past making harmful shit up about me.
"Zarana, Zarana of House Inara," she gasped.
I switched foot placement, pivoted, reached down to arm-clasp my left with her left and ended with me pulling her effortlessly to a standing position.
"A pleasure to meet you Zarana Inara. I am Cáel Ishara, but you may call me Cáel if you wish," I gave her my award winning smile. "No one will ever doubt your courage in my presence," I added.
'Lead with the left jab, then catch them with the right hook'. As true in interpersonal relationships as in boxing. I had beaten her handily seconds ago and now I was applauding her bravery. Again, I wasn't a Head of House calling attention to her virtue, but I was.
"Your sister shares your warrior's heart."
"I, I, I don't know what came over me, " she started to give me a respectful head-nod. I hooked a finger under her chin to stop her.
"Are you going to reconsider your approach for dealing with a male Amazon, Zarana of Inara?" I bridged the awkward moment. Bing! I had turned a humiliation into a learning moment.
"Yes," she smiled at me. "Yes Cáel Ish, Cáel."
"I swear by the All-Mighty, if I find this one crawling into your sleeping bag, I'm going to be very disappointed in you," Delilah ambushed me. Wa-ha?
"Oh, come on!" I protested. "She's thirteen."
"Fourteen," the other twin, bleeding lip and all, puffed herself up.
"Not helping, " I looked at the twin.
"Vaski," she supplied. What?
"Vaski? Really? That was Grandmother's name, it is Magyar-Finnish," I wondered.
"We are almost related," she conjured the improbable out of the impossible.
"No you are not, young lady," Delilah serpentined her way to the front of the crowd. "You are not family now and you can't attempt to be for four more years."
"Who would you be?" Zarana challenged Delilah. Man, those two kids were spunky.
"An honored guest," Priya provided. "I hope another lesson in manners will not be necessary."
"I'll do my best," I volunteered. Priya had been addressing the twins; not me. Taking the hit was a bit of comedy to diffuse the moment.
"Some of you need to eat," a camp counselor stated. Another crisis down and the sky wasn't even dark yet.
"Cáel!" and here we went again. Thank you, Ishara, it was Europa, the strange one, meaning the one I understood the most.
(Night and Day)
This place kept getting more and more wonderful. There was one safe road that rolled out of the camp's front gate (there was no wall, the gate was ceremonial) and disappeared off toward the closest state road. Scheduled trips were made to the closest blip on the census data where they bought stuff (irrelevant) and were 'seen' by the locals (the important thing).
If anyone investigated, there was a legitimate summer camp 'out there'. The counselors weren't friendly, but they worked with 'troubled' kids, so keeping the small talk to a minimum was excusable. Sure, they only saw women, usually the same ones each trip during a given summer. The camp held nearly a thousand people, so the all-female thing was dismissed as a quirk.
That was the second layer of deception. We had already learned that the first layer was the idea of a camp for girls in the foster care system. The third layer was all the visible 'props'. This went beyond the typical craft centers, juvenile obstacle courses, and a dozen other distractions. (The only 'real' one was the stables. Amazons loved riding horses and being assigned to tend to their care was a high honor.)
Thirty meters inside the gate was a bridged gulch. After dark, the bridge supports were removed turning a clear shot into the center of camp into a waiting death trap. If there was any doubt, the gulch, so comforting and protective, was a blast zone as well, designation: The Barbecue Pit. I couldn't find it, but I was sure there was an altar somewhere to the matron goddess for this summer camp, the Goddess Paranoia.
The sleeping quarters for everyone? More props. Campers would go in, mill around for ten minutes, then curl up on their bed, the ones that warmed up to 98 degrees in the shape of human bodies. Then the campers went down the shafts beneath their bunks and dutifully shuffled along the one meter high underground tunnels to their mesa-based domiciles. Again, once in the cliff-side barracks, they had two chimneys, a tunnel back to the dorm building and a cleverly designed, nearly invisible front exit to choose from.
Pamela took it in stride, Delilah was a bit peeved by the 'excessive' security. Virginia, we'd already dragged her through her dorm tunnel to her cave to sleep it off. For me, the tunnel's dimensions made it a tight fit. Amazons can be pretty strong, but they don't have shoulders as wide as mine, nor are they normally over a meter/eight (six feet for us Yankees).
I would have complained, except I had a sneaking suspicion that Pamela had a trowel to give me so I could 'widen up' a twenty to forty meter stretch of tunnel the moment I opened my mouth. As the last portion of the instructional tour, we were directed to get our grub before it was gone because the sadistic chefs loved to watch the eight year old workhouse orphans fight over who got to lick the pot instead of starving.
Not really. The victuals were actually very good. I had hopes of more bonding time with my Epona ladies, yet no sooner had I cleaned my tin plate and dinnerware, I found someone else who craved my attention, Sophia. She was hot for my touch and by that I meant she wanted to punch and kick me around for a bit, all in the name of fun.
"Since you are my guest, I will let you choose our weapons," Sophia decided.
"I choose hyperbole," I gracefully flowed from sitting with one leg down and the other bent to standing.
"Specify."
"Caber tossing with real Sequoia. I'll wait for the ladies of Girl Scout Troop 666 to go get some, they have to be authentic; no substitutes accepted," I explained.
"That's not hyperbole," Sophia snorted. "Hyperbole would be, 'I want to use the biggest spears ever used by Amazons, or Goddesses'."
"My hyperbole wasn't the caber tossing, it was us 'waiting' for a set of circumstances we both knew wouldn't happen," I countered. Sophia nodded.
"I find that fighting with over-sized phallic symbols, or tongues for that matter, gives you an unacceptable advantage," Sophia stated. She was being a great sport about this.
"I bow to your obvious wisdom," I gave a reverent nod. "Knives, or unarmed combat? And if I lose, I get to go javelina hunting tomorrow. I've been told they are capybaras with an attitude problem." A pause then snickers behind hands raised to their lips.
"Counter-proposal: I select unarmed combat. If you can last five minutes, you may bow hunt our 'rodent problem' tomorrow." More snickers.
"I prefer to entertain our guest," Caprica spoke up. "Unless he wishes to withdraw."
"Huh? What? Caprica, with the size and firmness of your breasts, I'm all for some serious hand-to-hand contact." A slight intake of breath then the laughter began. My sexism wasn't an issue. It was my spirited pugnaciousness they were applauding.
We walked sideways into the rough, uneven-surfaced fighting ring. Caprica held up her hand.
"How much damage to your scrotum causes permanent injury?"
"I'm not sure," I remained wary. "I've had hot wax poured over them, and then my tormentors ripped the congealed mass off, along with all my pubic hair, without undue effect."
"I've had a shod mare kick me in the crotch, thus learning why you never stand directly behind any equine, and then had a successful oral encounter thirty minutes later. It was exceedingly painful, but I pulled through. We can't really count the butterfly knife to the penis, no blood/no foul."
"How much did that 'wax episode' hurt? Did you cry out?" Rachel's sister inquired.
"Not loudly. See, unlike the rest of you, I'm a man and men don't cry. We leave all those hysterics to the feminine gender," I grinned. The campers weren't pissed in the least.
"They gagged you first?" Delilah snorted.
"And how," I confessed. "In my defense, I didn't start begging for mercy until I saw the flames."
"How many opponents did it take to tie you down?" Sophia asked mischievously.
"One. It was an epic encounter. She said 'strip down, lay on the bed, let me tie your wrists to the bed posts, then I'll give you a big surprise'. Normally, I love surprise and I must confess, seeing her roommate, the one I had been cheating with, come into the room in a black basque, black panties and a riding crop was surprising."
"She beat you like a disruptive slave?" Priya gasped.
"Yep. They also removed all my body hair below the neck, dyed my hair bright pink and did a few things I find erotically confusing to this day," I elaborated. "Then it was two days of continuous sex and a late Sunday night stopover at the campus infirmary."
I didn't even look at the faces of the Amazons I gave my weapons to. We were Amazons. If I needed them, they would hand them over. Along with my growing confidence in them was their growing willingness to ignore my gender. My shirt came off quickly. When Caprica began removing her boots, I hurriedly did the same.
My boot had barely hit the hand of the lady I had tossed it to when Caprica came for me. All the relevant factors were the same. Was she better than me? Yes. I rated her as about the same level as Madi, but not as good as Elsa. For 45 seconds, it was a fantastic bout for both of us, then I fucked up. I knelt down for a sweeping kick at her ankle. I telegraphed it.
Caprica went high; the bridge of her right foot connecting with a solid kick to my jaw line. With that, so many things began going off in my mind, my fight plan fell to pieces. I managed to keep rolling over after that blow to end up on my back. My arms spasmed. My legs shot up of their own accord, curling back to protect my abdomen despite my desperate desire to stand up.
My move caught Caprica by surprise as well. Our kneecaps collided painfully. She bounced off and staggered away. I forced myself to my feet like some 70 year old arthritis sufferer. A hundred neuro pathways conveyed contradictory orders. Any kind of cohesive defense was hopeless. Caprica's piston kick caught me in the left ribcage. The ground felt like concrete when I crashed down on it.
My 'me' mental patchwork had jumped into a body-wide skirmish with either patterns 'B', or 'C'. The result was muscles twitching a few millimeters one way then another. It wasn't a do this, or that. The message was to do two different things at the same time. Muscles aren't into task management, mediating, compromise and division of labor. They can't work that way.
There was no follow-up attack.
"Stay back," I heard Pamela shout. Later I was told that Caprica was getting ready to kneel by my side to assist me. I could have lashed out the moment I saw her and that would have been all kinds of bad. "Aya, " Pamela summoned the aid I needed.
"Cáel?" Aya called to me softly. Her voice wasn't a miracle cure, it was a reminder of what was truly important to me. Humans prioritize stimuli and Aya was close to the top of my list. My 'fight' impulses receded and the 'worried about Aya' instincts took control. My epileptic-like seizures ceased as I propped myself up on my elbows.
Caprica was still a problem. We hadn't concluded our fight.
"What happened to you?" the Camp Leader demanded to know.
"Ah, It is complicated," I struggled.
"One second you were fighting well, the next? Are you diseased?"
"See this?" I pointed to the tiny scab on my forehead. "Someone shot an electric charge into my brain. It confuses me at times."
"You could lash out at my campers," she deduced from the absence of information.
"That's rubbish, " Delilah rumbled.
"This is none of your concern," Caprica menaced right back.
"Caprica, you are worried, why? Because he lost his wits when he was attacked, twice, in the garage? Or was it the way he threatened Loraine when she jumped on him?" Rachel came to my defense. "Sophia and Aya were never in anymore danger than you were."
"He is crazy," Caprica insisted. A few people chuckled.
"Oh, I agree," Rachel nodded. "He is very, very, very crazy. No one who knows him for more than a day can truthfully deny that. He's mad, cracked, insane, and he laughs at death. He laughs at life. He mocks condescension and helps alleviate ignorance through comedy.
He never surrenders to despair, or hardship. Cáel does that and more because his mind has always been the child who took joy from playing in the mud and sought solace alone among the craggy peaks. Even if he was a woman born in a freehold, he would not be one of us. I take great comfort in his quirks and oddities.
Too often, I am playing mental catch up. That encourages me to think faster and outside our normal means of resolving a conflict," Rachel explained her viewpoint.
"I disagree that his merits outweigh the danger he represents," Caprica pronounced her judgment.
"Then we have a problem," Rachel began putting her weapons aside.
"If you insist," Caprica smiled like she was some cunning fox. Delilah and Mona joined with Rachel as did Loraine, several of her friends and the young twins and their two compatriots. Sophia edged around the circle to hold Aya and her Squirts back. They weren't old enough for this sort of thing. As I crab-walked toward Rachel who helped me stand, two dozen camp counselors rallied to Caprica's side.
"Campers are forbidden to engage in sparring unless supervised. No permission has been given," she crushed the odds. It was within her rights to reminds us of regulations. Our only potential ally in this was Rachel's sister, whose name turned out be Genève, and she didn't dare go against Caprica on that. Instead, Genève joined Rachel, Mona, Delilah and I in a personal defiance.
Our five to Caprica's fifteen was looking awful bleak, unless I considered who WASN'T at my side. Pamela had remained quietly seated throughout this debacle.
"Pist," Pamela motioned to Rachel. Rachel side-stepped and took what Pamela offered. It was a small, wooden match.
Rachel was struggling to piece things together. Caprica's crowd began advancing.
"Give up, you've lost," Rachel snorted in obvious triumph. That didn't slow the enemy down in the least. Rachel brandished the single match. Shouldn't there been a box of them? They didn't slow down. Rachel wasn't worried.
"Thirty seconds after the first blow is landed, the fuel depot will explode," Rachel grinned. "Give up while you still can."
"What? You wouldn't dare? That is lunacy!" Caprica and her team stopped advancing and went to defensive stances. Then it dawned on Caprica. Where was the ninja? Where was that box of matches?
"The depot is well guarded," Caprica sounded less than absolutely confident.
"Cappy," Delilah mocked the leader, "she's a ninja. Breaking into guarded places is what they do."
"Call her off," Caprica snapped at Rachel.
"Of course," Rachel responded. "Quit the field and I'll ask her to come back."
"I am telling you to recall her right now," Caprica growled.
"Of course," Rachel grinned. Success. The fight was over. Rachel didn't do anything for a minute.
"I said, " Caprica remained pissed.
"Hey," Miyako wiggled up between Delilah and Mona. "Why are we all standing in the sparring area? I had to go to the latrine. What did I miss?" Rachel handed the match back to Pamela. Pamela pulled out the matchbox and put the point of contention back inside.
"You bluffed?" Caprica gasped at Rachel.
"Yes, though I prefer to think of it as creating an illusion based on my foe's ignorance of the forces in play and an active imagination," Rachel turned the screw.
"Miyako, did you give Pamela that box of matches?" Caprica glared at the ninja.
"Matches? Matches are 'Old School'. Ninja's use encapsulated chemical reagents to generate flames," Miyako enlightened us all. "They even work underwater." Caprica looked down and coughed. When she looked back up, she was shaking her head and grinning.
"I concede," she sighed. "Students," she called out.
"Let this be a lesson to you: don't assume you know all your opponents capabilities and if you are ever in my position do not issue orders, as it voids any outcome of a match." That had been Rachel's victory. I had rendered myself hors de combat, ending our match. Rachel's fight was a fresh encounter. Once we were all back in the sparring ring, we were equals. Superiors couldn't pull rank to avoid an outcome.
The moment Rachel tricked Caprica into reasserting her authority, the second martial bout was over, concluded, and concluded by Caprica herself. The question of my sanity was balanced by my 'side' winning. This was not 'might makes right'. This was 'Rachel is a clever bitch and in her opinion, I wasn't a threat'. This was 'listen to the smart Amazon'. Caprica chose to listen.
"He should always be under constant observation," Caprica compromised. My heart soared. No one on my side said a damn thing. They were administering another lesson.
"Cáel, you must constantly be in contact with a 'watcher'," Caprica corrected her command. I was an Amazon, not a child, or helpless burden.
"I guess this means I'm not going to get my own 'Boys Restroom'," I joked. There were more yawns than chuckles this time around. Time for all the campers, counselors and guests to get some shut-eye.
That meant forgoing the comfy-looking barracks and crawling through my rebirthing ceremony again so I could lie down in our real, no-frills dormitory. I was crashed down in a disturbed state of mind. Even with my 'Aya togetherness', I was still ramped up, uncomfortable inside my skin.
When it came to comfort levels, Miyako was my polar opposite. She was enamored with the place. By the time we went to bed, my little stealth-acrobat had already hinted to me, to Pamela and to Priya 'how wonderful it would be to be invited back, with a few baby ninjas in tow'. She was deadly serious too.
As she snuggled in with me, she sighed and gave happy murmurs as she recounted the shrubs, boulders and pines she had hidden behind just traipsing around 'town' unseen. Sex was not in the offing, since I was already on my back with my bear cub snoozing on my chest. As with the past five days, real sleep didn't come.
Getting both audio and video to shut down at the same time had proven impossible. I would 'think' things. A few of the 'playbacks', I wouldn't call them memories, showed me numerous activities I had once partaken of. Others, well, I could play piano, eight-string guitar, pan flute (Go, Zamfir!) and the bagpipes.
I didn't actually have any of those and had only touched a piano while taking two lessons that both ended up with us having sex on the floor. I'd also killed a man with said flute by ramming it into his throat. I had no idea where, or why he'd met that fate. The guy's blood kept pumping out one of the shafts for almost a minute,
Would the nightmares of a drug-induced sleep be that much worse than this waking tug of war with, Pamela called it an edimmu; an ancient spirit of the vengeful dead?
"Cáel, Daddy, Fehér mén (Magyar for White Stallion), what is wrong?" Aya propped herself up with her elbows on my pectorals, sleepy and sincere.
"What do you think is wrong?" I asked. I put faith in her instincts where I was concerned.
"Your heartbeat is strong and powerful when it should be slow and steady. Your breath is deep when it should be shallow." She paused as she correlated the facts, washed them in her limited experience and found the answer. "You're constantly ready for battle at a second's notice."
Amazons are exceptionally trained fighters. Outside of being trained to kill, they were also taught to take care of themselves. The Host's stratagem for marching would have made the Zulu Nation proud, run with a full kit over rough terrain for twelve hours and deploy for a fight at the end of that jaunt. 'Run' didn't mean run like a marathon.
It meant jogging and walking with short rest breaks to hydrate. That still equated with the average Amazon being expected to cover at least 80 kilometers a day, continuously for three, or four, days.
SD? That same arch-crushing pace each and every day until they got where they needed to go. They wouldn't move any faster. It was kind of useless for a tiny fraction of the Host to cover a significant distance ahead of the rest. What the Security Detail needed was the ability to swarm around the Host, on the march and at rest, scouting, counter-scouting, raiding and distracting their foe. And they did this while taking into account a horse-culture that reached back three thousand years, but also included modern three-dimensional warfare.
When it came to the arts of killing and seizing victory, the Host was always thoroughly up with the times. The tactics that led Alexander of Macedon to victory at Gaugamela had been exhibited by the Host during the battles before the Second Betrayal, four hundred years earlier. They had learned it from the Scythians of the Pontic steppe generations before.
Fix the center with part of your force (Amazons used their infantry) and roll over a chosen flank with your cavalry. Hannibal did it double-envelopment style a hundred years after Alexander, earning him martial immortality at Cannae. The hit and run the Mongols perfected was old hat for the Amazons way before Genghis Khan and his decedents created the largest land empire of all time.
The Amazons didn't invent any of those techniques. They were not master innovators. Their gift was to see something new and go 'we can do that and do it better', then making it so. The Host had no tanks, jet fighters or warships larger than multi-role frigates. If a serious modern army attacked the Host, they would disperse. They didn't possess a war industry. Slugging it out was anathema.
'You can rebuild a home. You cannot bring back the dead' was an Amazon axiom. Another was acknowledged to be of foreign origin: 'living enemies raise armies; dead ones fill graves'. The Host has light AFV's, helicopters of all stripes and transport aircraft as well as sea-craft capable of moving forces all over the globe.
Operating a multi-threat attack system and shooting a bow were all the same to them. Having trained and equipped themselves to a razor's edge didn't absolve them from trying to do it better next time. Amazons would die in battle; that was a given. Their task was to make every drop of Amazon blood spilt worth the cost.
I didn't use those words while I poured out my turbulent mental meanderings to Aya.
"Cáel, destiny cuts both ways," my little imp bathed me in her insightful purity. "If we listen, it prepares us for what we must do. Destiny also places us in situations where we know what should be done. We do not hide behind such concepts as Fate, Dadda.
We Amazons bow with respect to Destiny because she gives us the freedom of choice. We know what we must do but the voice, step and blow are ours to make. I would gladly be with you counting penguins in Terra del Fuego, no matter what Destiny wished for us. You are not a coward. Cáel, you save your fear for the lives of others. You get angry. You also forgive.
Best of all, you boldly show others your heart and dare them to do the same. I recall the first time I witnessed other Amazons dealing with Aunt Katrina. She shown with radiance of purpose and the confidence of the Firsts. The others held her in reverence, as if she wasn't one of them, but something more.
Before that, I had only seen her with my Mother. Those two would talk late into the night at my home. I heard Katrina worry and second-guess herself and I saw my Mother help her work through the hardest things that troubled my aunt. I asked Loraine about it. She told me Katrina had to act so self-assured and doubt-free so that the Amazons around her would grow braver and have the strength necessary to do the difficult tasks Katrina set before them.
You are the same way, but in a different direction," Aya teased me. "You show compassion and forgiveness to a people who need that lesson badly, Cáel." I gave her a big ole bear hug while she gave back muffled giggles. "On the road back home after the archery range that day, it came to me. No Amazon would have given themselves up to be butchered like you did."
"Mommy said it was because you were a crazy, outsider male. As the last of those words fell upon my ears, it occurred to me: 'why wouldn't we do what you did?' Why did that make you less of an Amazon to care more about us than we cared for ourselves? Wouldn't that make you better than us? I took my questions to Europa.
She told me to keep such thoughts to myself because you were already in so much trouble. Making the elders think you were infecting me with your 'weakness' wouldn't help either of us."
"What do you think now?" I sighed happily.
"I think if I'm going to grow up to be a member of the Host, I'm going to be an Amazon just like you."
"I don't know how I'm going to take the facial hair," I mumbled after a few seconds. "The chest hair, let's not go there." My guffaws and Aya's snickers echoed.
"That was a nice bonding moment for you two," Charlotte rumbled softly. She stood watch near the front exit to our cave.
"Now go to sleep, before I shoot the ceiling and drop some big rocks on your heads."
Aya figured out how to sleep with my altered biorhythms. Perhaps my 'fourth' cerebral pattern connected my peace of mind, warm memories and sense of safety to be an indicator to let me submerge into my closest facsimile to sleep since I passed out at the end of the Tadêfi/Sikia three-way.
The steady dim luminescence of the cavern was being equaled by the pre-sunrise haze ricocheting through the front cut-back entrance. I had really fallen into a light asleep. I was also now really looking at a geared-up 'Rachel's sister'. She was frozen in mid-reach for Aya and me, her eyes casting around my surroundings.
Oh, I had my Glock in my hand, pointed at her. Everyone had a weapon out and pointed at the Amazon except Charlotte, who seemed surprised by the crisis, and Aya, who was just rousing from her slumber.
"Good morning, Genève," Aya yawned. "Is it reveille already?"
"Yes," Genève (aka Rachel's younger sister) answered carefully.
"Can anyone tell me why I'm pointing my pistol at this woman, where the hell I am, and when this howling tornado is going to pass by?" Virginia groaned. That was the siren whisper of a cranium-cracking hangover.
My best guess was a cascading set of reflexes. Once one of our snoozing group's peripheral awareness picked up on Genève, the guns had come out, leading the rest to do the same.
"We rock," Pamela chortled. "Even the babe three-quarters toward some violent vomiting drew down and didn't engage."
On cue, Virginia gulped then held her breath. Her eyes started to bug out. Delilah tossed our tin bucket to Priya, who was closest to our suffering FBI gal. She steadied the bucket and helped pull back Virginia's hair as the dry heaves began. Poor Virginia had guzzled her booze before eating last night.
"Let's gopher breakfast," Delilah smirked. "Know what I mean?"
"Know what I mean?" Pamela winked.
"Nudge, nudge," I nudged a confused Miyako.
"Wink, wink," Delilah snorted.
"Follow me?" I giggled. Nothing like a Monty kick-start to make the morning worthwhile.
"Say no more," Pamela finished it off.
"The next one to speak above a whisper," Virginia rasped, "I'm going to put a bullet in." She punctuated that threat by waving her Glock about blindly while her face returned to the pail.
Pamela, Delilah (by silent consensus, she'd been sentenced to probationary renegade status) and I behaved, mainly because we liked to see the apprehension in those around us waiting for our abrupt lapse into irrational antics. The whole camp ate as one, which forced more than half of the 500 campers and 300 counselors to eat outside. That explained the dining hall's open setup.
Everyone was able to see everyone else. For Amazons, personal recognition was important. It had been a cornerstone of their society since the European Diaspora in the 8th century CE. No maps existed with the location of the freeholds, so Amazons would wander around the general area until a patrolling Amazon found them. It usually took less than one week.
The patrol would see at least one Amazon they recognized. With them would be younger, unknown Amazons. Five years down the road, it would be the younger ones recognizing each other, and on and on. It was not lost on me that I was made part of a social convention never before shared with a man, and it was done seamlessly.
It wasn't all love and kisses. I had my detractors, but so did Loraine. Europa had racked up even more, but she seemed to revel in the negative attention. Aya's situation was more confusing. She was in the pre-twelve crowd, yet had picked up four unofficial guardians. Zarana, Vaski and the rest of the quartet had thrown up a 'these tiny bitches are with us' vibe.
Being the smallest in their age group, they were protected by fourteen year olds. No pre-teen could match that. The counselors? They didn't care. Social bonding was the other half of the camp experience. You would make friends and enemies. It was natural. Promoting rivalries enhanced their competitive drives. This was not a 'now hug and make up' philosophy.
If you lost, the Amazon credo was 'try harder next time'. It also was 'eat fast because in fifteen minutes we are leaving, finished or not'. Virginia was shanghaied into working with Loraine's group. Her task was to do Q&A for the girls soon to be exposed to the larger world, while the troop went through their regular routine. Our Fed was going to be aching by the time this day turned to night.
Delilah was given a choice, a post-twelve group, or hand to hand instruction. At the mention of the second option, she sprang up, grasp arms with the Amazon making the offer and gave her a shit-eating grin.
"You line them up and I'll knock them down," she chuckled.
Caprica wanted to give Pamela and Miyako the same choices as Delilah. Pamela 'suggested' that she'd like to 'go exploring', just she and Miyako. The implication was that no matter what Caprica said, those two were going to do what they were going to do, aka the Lone Phaser and Photonto. They were stripping away my bodyguards and no one raised a stink about it.
(The Hunt)
For me, Rachel, Mona and Priya, it was javelina hunting time. Let's see. I had no outdoor hunting skills, unless you counted being 'twelve "Sam Adams" sheets to the wind, hammered and stalking a moose with a blunt, household tool' as experience. My first lesson was recognizing what javelina hoof prints looked like. Javelina basics came next.
They roamed in packs/herds depending on what level of aggression they were feeling that day. Whichever Amazon said they were 'small', must have often confused rhinos with Shetland ponies too. Class number three was making sure I could shoot a bow. Unless personally in danger, or saving another Amazon's life, unsilenced weapons fire was not allowed.
No one was sure how effective a tomahawk would be, so bows it was. Well, I could shoot a bow. Could I hit a javelina on the run? Let's say I was glad I was taking some power bars, jerky and fruit for lunch, and just leave it at that. Class four was horsemanship. I had ridden a horse a time or two, most likely two.
If you can make love on a beach, you can screw around in hay, unless you, or your partner, are allergic. I was shown how to approach my mare properly, make myself familiar to her, gently groom her and finally how to affix the blanket, tack and Asian saddle properly. When I finished my first attempt, my instructor punched me playfully.
"And you said you didn't know horses," she grinned. Even my mare was shooting me a 'you rock, buddy'. Since a two hour time slot had taken thirty-two minutes, we got an early start. Rachel and Mona tried, and failed, to hide their worry for me. As part of the Freddy Kruger bonus plan, being an unnatural-born horseman saved me a truckload of thigh pain.
When we headed out, it was a pleasant 69 degrees. The resident climatologist predicted a high of 95F/35C and so little humidity that we were guaranteed desiccation if we stood still long enough. Dot Ishara must have put in a good word for me with Inara the Huntress. Javelinas were rare this far north (north of what, Priya wouldn't say), so we were fortunate to find an extended family unit of ten within three hours of searching.
It was definitely an unfortunate day to be a collared peccary (that's gringo for javelina). Our hunting party caught them crossing a broad shallow wash with little cover; the closest being a clump of disruptive Gamble Oaks (a big bush, not a tree). The previously established plan was to dismount quietly when we drew close, Mona would then hold the horses and the rest of our party would stalk them into the scrub.
Our targets couldn't stand still and hide every time they felt a predator was close by. They had to eat and gain as much water from the desert flora as they could. If they were spooked, the peccaries would freeze. Their ears would search about for any suspicious noises. If they heard nothing for a minute or two, the herd returned to rooting and eating.
When they stopped, we stopped, or so the instructions went. I saw the six adults and four javelina-ettes, considered the suggested speed of my prey, the distance they had to cross to make the impenetrable brush, and the speed my mare could achieve in that time, then leaned forward on my mount while squeezing my knees.
I did this for no reason I initially understood, but my mare, Peppermint, got the message loud and clear. She was of the traditional Amazon breed, similar to the Turkish Akhal-Teke, built for long travels over the steppe and semi-arid plateaus of Central Asia. My mount had raced across this landscape for seven years now, so she knew what shrubbery she could push through and which she had to dodge around.
Of greater importance at the moment, she also knew the orders I was transmitting by body language alone far better than I did. She didn't leap forward and give my designated dinner fare a warning. Instead she picked up her pace incrementally, fixing our destination and plotting her best course. The reins found themselves wrapped around my saddle horn with plenty of leeway.
My bow was in my hand with an arrow notched before I could consciously replace intention with action. My archery tool of convenience was a heavy draw weight, sixty pounds, composite, recurve bow. It was old, lovingly maintained and probably dated back to the 1950's. I am a pretty big guy. The Amazon who had this bow crafted had to be damn scary, or even scarier.
It was beautiful in its simplicity, absent of any ornamentation. I shifted my body to the left, tapped Peppermint and she picked up her pace. The javelinas squealed when they realized their danger. The race was on and they were much too far from any sanctuary. I loosed my first arrow, but missed. The mare picked up the pace, homing in on the large male peccary I had selected. I began to panic. What the hell was I doing?
I could barely take a horse past a canter, hit anything accurately with a bow beyond twenty meters, and never attempted the two together. Yet here I was role-playing the exploits of my Magyar ancestors. Peppermint began losing direction. My thoughts were chaos. A sane man would have slowed his mount and let the others catch up. Our original plan could still work.
We could surround the thicket and flush them out. 'There is always a current flowing through the chaos', filtered through my confusion 'if you know what to look for'. I am an idiot. I am a madman. I let go. It all worked. I didn't feel my mount beneath me, I felt her hoofs pushing through the thin layer of sand to the rock beneath. One, two, three, four legs in motion. I didn't breath, we breathed.
There was virtually no wind. The javelina was about to break to the right, racing for my off-side. I knew and so did my mare. The second arrow wasn't lethal, but it would be fatal. My third arrow went from quiver to hand flawlessly. Equally flawless was Peppermint pulling aside the collared peccary. We both sensed the animal's preparation to dodge left.
I was tracking that fraction of a centimeter ahead when I loosed my bolt. He was dead before his snout plowed into the dirt two meters from safety. Peppermint's abrupt halt nearly tossed me off. She wasn't charging into the oaks no matter how hungry I was for pseudo-pig meat. As I turned in my saddle, searching for the next javelina, I had a fourth arrow notched.
Priya was pumping her bow and whooping some sort of huntress's paean. Several meters back and to my left was a smaller, very dead peccary with an arrow's shaft barely visible behind one ear.
"How old were you when your people first taught you to ride?" she rode up and clapped me on the shoulder.
"When we were briefed on you, they made it sound as if the Magyar had been 'civilized'." If there was any doubt, 'civilized' was a bad thing in the Amazon dictionary.
"It was all Peppermint," I evaded. "I was just along for the ride." Peppermint shook her head, flies.
"I will endeavor to take her hunting more often," Priya laughed. "Let's butcher our kills. We will both be hailed in the camp tonight. White Stallion indeed." She was trotting off to get her 'guest of honor' for tonight's festivities. That left Rachel and Mona to approach me alone.
"What was that all about?" Rachel whispered to me.
"I let go," I met her gaze. "I let go and everything worked out."
"Are you scared?" Mona asked. 'Fear' wasn't a dirty word to them. Cowardice was what mattered, not the fear behind it. Quite frankly, they found my fearlessness rather unsettling, along with sensual. No words came for a minute.
"That pig isn't going to skin itself," Mona noted.
"It is a peccary, not a pig. I've dissected a frog and a rat," I volunteered. "How hard can this be?" Rachel gave a depressive sigh. Mona laughed.
"How fresh were those kills?"
"The frog had been pickled in formaldehyde and the rat had been freeze-dried, so eating them wasn't really on my mind," I grinned. We dismounted. Rachel led our horses away to a safe distance. Horses aren't big fans of the smell of blood. Ours weren't going to run off, but being considerate of them was the proper thing to do.
"Wait!" Rachel cried out. Priya had been kneeling at her kill, she crouched and spun around. Mona did a quick head-snap to Rachel, then began scanning for threats. Rachel was finishing laying our bridles over some oak twigs as an indicator for the horses to stay put.
"This is your first kill," Rachel explained.
"Seriously?" Priya responded incredulously. Mona shook her head and chuckled.
"Do I get some kind of reward?" I asked the group.
"Yes," Rachel was smiling as she hurried my way.
"Is it an orgy?" I brightened up noticeably. 'Please, Dot Ishara. I haven't been irreverent for twenty-four hours now. Cut me some slack. I'm dying over here.'
"No," Rachel scolded me in the same way you scold a five year old who has attempted to mop the floor after spilling something. A negative layered in love and affection.
"Damn it!" I groused.
"Poor Cáel," Mona gave me some false sympathy. "How long has it been?" Priya rejoined us.
"How long has what been?" she inquired.
"Sex," I grumbled.
"I last had sex yesterday morning with Miyako in that miserable excuse for a bathroom on board our plane."
"Ah, our sister suffers," Mona smirked. "How can you still stand in your deprived state?"
"Is that an invitation to do it laying down?" I hoped beyond hope.
"No Cáel," Rachel patted my head. "Forty-nine more days." I fell on my back, thankful that the goggles and my eyelids dampened the light of the deadly Orb.
"Forty-nine more days?" I wept. "I'm not going to make it."
"Huh, I thought the forty-nine days was for us?" Priya grappled with the injustice.
"It is," Rachel snickered. "But, while he craves the sensual touch of our bodies, he's around guardians all day long and Aya crawls onto his chest and sleeps there all night. He's got five more days here with no hope of release."
"What about the outsider women?" Priya was warming up to my torment.
"Why do you think I asked Caprica to separate them from him and wear them out with camp duties," Rachel unveiled her Mistressful plan.
"Mother-fucker," I sat back up. "Rachel, I thought you liked me."
"I do," she regarded me warmly.
"I would like to enjoy you all to myself. As I said, I believe we have a First Kill Initiation Rite to perform."
I highly recommend participating in this rite of passage. I imagined the psychological effect on the minds of thirteen or fourteen year old girls was stunning. First, they had me strip naked. So far, so good.
We invoked a prayer to Inara in the Amazon tongue, thanking her for teaching our ancestors our hunting skills. Then Rachel, as the senior huntress, cut out the big pig's heart. But it gets better. I knelt with Mona standing on my left, Rachel before me and Priya to my right.
"Welcome Sister," Rachel said in Hittite; and smiled down at me. "Receive your first blessing of blood."
I didn't know what to do.
"Tilt your head up and open your mouth, wide," Mona said in a hushed voice. I trusted these women with my life. I also trusted them to freak me out whenever they could, which showed I was learning from my multitude of mistakes.
With both hands, Rachel extend forth the already dripping peccary heart over my upturned mouth and squeezed. Blood gushed forth. Half of it went down my throat. That left plenty of sanguinary aqua vitae to splash everything from my forehead, down my chest and onto my Johnson, hard as always. I absolutely needed serious psychiatric counseling.
Not vomiting from the taste of raw blood in my mouth, a minor victory. Not choking on said blood and spitting it back up because it was flowing straight down my throat, barely notable. Having Mona take my shirt and clean off my face so I could at least open my eyes, that had its upside. All the chicks around me looked terribly aroused.
"You stay," Rachel nodded my way. "The rest of us are going to search the shrubs for the rest of the javelina, no exceptions," she commanded, somewhat hoarse with sexual need. "Clean off your body with sand. Call us back once you are dressed."
"My shirt?" I asked as I held up the ensanguined shirt.
For some reason, I felt the desert camouflage pattern was ruined.
"He can go shirtless," Priya suggested quickly. Mona and Rachel nodded. 'Showered in pig's blood', I didn't recall seeing that on a Cosmo sex quiz. I shuddered to think whose sexual survey would, oh, right, it was on the Satan's Sluts' To-do List.
Man, she was one freaky weirdo, Library Science major; you know the type. Considering my vast sexual experience, labeling someone 'freaky' and a 'weirdo' was saying something. Drying off with sand, when I got to my cock it dawned on me I had three women nearby and I hadn't tricked one of them to do that for me. I was slipping.
The group was rather quiet after they came back and the butchering began. The meat went into our ponchos. That was why we brought them!! Duh. I had yet to see a single cloud with even the delusion it would become a raindrop one day. We had gathered the bundle when I made this 'cha-chick' noise, Peppermint shook her reins free and walked over to me.
I was still working on 'what did I just say to a horse?' as I took my canteen out and kept letting her lick water out of my palm. Then I gave her the three peaches I had brought along as part of my lunch. Priya was visibly impressed. Mona and Rachel's silent exchange was getting downright gloomy.
Ya know, when an avalanche begins and you have a snowboard, you should still seek some kind of shelter. Avalanches have buried thousands of morons who thought they could outrun one and were shown how painfully wrong they were. Having been trained to snowboard, I went to school in New Hampshire, if you recall, I knew better.
That being said, I would jump on my snowboard and still try to outrun Mother Nature, that cranky primordial witch. I am that kind of mentally deficient individual. I was shooting the chaotic rapids of the turbulence that replaced rational thought in my noggin. I swung into the saddle like a man taught to ride before I could run. More Priya happiness. More dour looks from the SD.
If my 'me' me resented kayaking blindfolded in this recollected grey-matter white-water, it failed to file a protest. We returned to the road about a mile from camp, vigilant, but in high spirits. My ballistic vest was starting to chafe as Rachel pulled close to me.
"Would you use the damn reins," she hissed. Oh, those things.
Peppermint and I had reached an understanding. A soft cough, or knee action, and she'd telepathically knew where and how fast I wanted her to go. In hindsight, I could truly appreciate the anxiety I was heaping on my gun buddies. I behaved after that. It didn't help. The second we made it to the stables, Priya began blabbing away.
The scope of her titanic exaggerations made me out to be, supernatural. The essence of her retelling had me smiting an entelodont (aka the very extinct Hell Pig) with a lightning bolt from the cloudless sky, pre-cooking the beast. I then caused rich, buttery Tasso to rain down like Manna from above. Did that make me the Cajun Santa Claus? I wanted to find a hole to hide in.
I could so nail every single (over 17 year old) babe in this place and come back for seconds. But No. Those sadistic monster were Muspelheim-bent on squashing my libido until I exploded. Death by sexual denial, I wondered how Virginia would put that in her report. Since I was covered in dried blood and sand, Caprica decided I had to take a shower.
Funny, I thought we were rationing water (it had to be toted up from the springs). Funny, I could have sworn one of those tunnels had showers in it. Funny, I recalled a joking conversation last night about me using the communal showers while behaving. Funny, I found myself in the flimsiest cloth contraption every designed by capricious three year olds, showering outdoors.
I had visions of M*A*S*H, the movie, except the shower curtain coming down was redundant. My 'screening' was made of cheese cloth that immediately began to disintegrate when it made contact with water, you know, like a shower. On the upside, they were helpful. By that I mean, Amazons were tripping over themselves to offer me things I hadn't even dreamed of asking for, or knew even existed.
Did you know there is a special stick you use for killing scorpions? It was completely different from the beetle spearing stick. I was supposed to eat the beetles. I ask that they point me to Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach, she was married to a Beetle). I could also eat the scorpions as long as I avoided the tip of the tail. Pamela had already cautioned me that some of their venom could be hallucinogenic.
I reminded her I didn't need 'bug juice' to make me delusional. Instead of the Scorpions, I asked if I could have a go at Halestorm, since their lead singer was a young, hot American lass named Lizzy Hale from a place called Red Lion (how cool is that?), not some aging male Teutonic metal-head from Hannover.
They assured me they had no idea what I was talking about. 'Trust, but verify'? Who in the fuck could I trust out here to verify anything? I was learning something new all the time, the symmetry of the Camp Amazons being helpful and the electron bomb in my head giving me helpful, unsolicited combat maneuvers wasn't lost on me.
For all my fellow, sex-hungry males, don't let you giving a bad first impression, or a girl thinking little of you, make you give up the hunt. Once she has low expectations, it is far easier to impress her. Don't run straight for the Stanley Cup. She's put you in a Pee-Wee House League so aim for the 'Juvenile' (that's the 18 to 20 year olds) Roster.
That way, if you slip up later, you have left yourself room for improvement. Do that and she is enchanted with what she might have started off considering an 'average' performance. Girls like it when you 'work for it' in the same ways guys get off on their lady dressing up so that they have the best looking babe when the two of you enter the club, or party.
Caprica had assessed me to be a 'Ginormous pain in her ass' before I ever set foot in the desert. Her attitude had infected her command. That meant, every little step I made toward their healthy enjoyment of me treading in their environs was magnified by their original notion that I was a lowdown, bossy, vile step-above a satyr. I had some good fortune too.
Sophia had been a big help, treating my gymnastics and comedy routine as amusing distractions instead of disrespectful behavior. The post-campfire song combat episode was a combination of Rachel and Pamela winning without throwing a blow. That helped me by the 'rule of four', Amazons and their careful choice of companions.
My worth was elevated by having clever cohorts in the same way the Fatal Squirts basked in Aya's company. To a horse-culture like the Amazons, my treating my mount as an equal in the hunt, seeing to her needs before my own and Peppermint's clear acceptance of my behavior was critically revealing.
The Amazons held to the truism that a good measure of a person's basic human empathy was exhibited by how they treated their domesticated animals. Peppermint had been chosen for me because of her gentle disposition. That didn't explain how she melded with me when we chased down that javelina, how she came when I gave a gentle summons, and how we travelled as one.
A rider's posture was as important as the horse's gait. When the two meshed, you could cover many more kilometers between rest stops. Contrary to some modern feminists' way of thinking, being compared to an animal wasn't demeaning to these ladies. The Host religion had always been only a few grades advanced beyond shamanism/totemism. Horses?
The initial Amazon flight had been over the Caucasus and onto the Pontic Steppe. There their chariots were outmatched by the local Cimmerian peoples. It was the Scythians that came to their aid. The Scythians were constantly warring with the Cimmerians and their noblewomen rode into battle beside their men.
The Scythian noblewomen 'adopted' the Amazons and the Amazons adopted the Scythian horse-born lifestyle. Internecine warfare wasn't what the miniature Host wanted. With the Scythians pushing west, the Cimmerians were displacing to the south to pillage the old Amazon homeland, eradicating their roots from history as well as destroying their erstwhile Hittite allies.
The Amazons, with their new steeds and battle tactics, vacated the new Scythian lands, migrated to the Western Pannonian Plain and ended up with the Second Betrayal. Important to my tale was the growth of an unsophisticated horse-spirit worship into the veneration of the Celtic Horse-Goddess Epona and making it a pivotal part of Amazon spiritualism.
Only in Africa did the bond waver. Asiatic horses sickened and died in the alien ecosystem, leaving those houses to revive the original Amazon 'Runner' style of combat. Lesson: horses and hunting, bravery, solidarity and sisterhood. They were finding excuses to set aside their old gender ideology, keep me in close proximity and not feeling on edge.
I still wasn't one of the girls. For some reason, I continuously found myself shirtless, vest-less too if they could make up an excuse. Whiskers were a new sensation they had to sample. Poor Miyako, Virginia and Delilah were inundated with requests to explain the how's, why's and wherefores of my sexual potency. Miyako took to 'hiding in plain sight' the pestering got so unremitting.
Virginia loudly proclaimed 'we had never had sex', only to become viewed as non-credible and selfish for her unwillingness to share. Delilah had already figured out she was in 'virgin' territory. Not 'virgin' as unsexed. No, 'virgin', as in "Harlequin what?", "You mean 'Fifty Shades of Grey' isn't about color-coding?"
Who was Lady Chatterley, was being a 'Lady' a power position and in what condition did she keep her lover? Delilah was a perverted nāgī in the Garden of Eden. Besides the plethora of porn imbedded in her memory, she also felt a feminine obligation to educate the erotically illiterate.
· Night two, how to make a man give acceptable cunnilingus and why they should never settle for less.
· Night three, fellatio with an advance course on what hoops to make your designated playmate jump through before rewarding him with some deep-throat action. Delilah was virtually the female 'me'; helpful and educational while being petty and selfish (except I was never petty.)
· Night four's agenda was training your male in proper breast play, identifying your pleasure points and ensuring he memorizes every last one of them.
· Night five, kissing? Man, was that ass-backward.
I didn't worry overmuch. Aya and her Squirt squad hung out with Pamela and me. We scaled a chimney path to the mesa top, the Squirts and my first time. Pamela and my Miyako Monkey had made the journey earlier in the day. We watched our mesa's shadow reach out across the broad valley until it cloaked the closest mesa to the west. We might not have been overlooking the Painted Desert, but this was our own private portion of paradise.
There was a bit of a traffic jam on the way down. The Amazons posted snipers along the top of the mesa at all times. Three watched over the camp while the other two took shelter in blinds that allowed them to watch the other approaches to our haven. Goddess Paranoia was alive and kicking.
Rachel proved true to her word. I was unable to wrangle a single moment of 'alone time' with Miyako, or Delilah. I was sure that Delilah would have jumped at the chance as this testosterone/estrogen cocktail was an incredible turn on for her. Pamela hinted that Miyako was biding her time.
To be continued.
By FinalStand, for Literotica