Bonobos of Humanity

A torrent was falling straight down in lazy sheets. It was the heart of rainy season, and Mother Nature showed truth in advertising. I would have just stopped right there on the trail to wait it out had it not been for the fact that it would have resulted in being stuck on an unmapped "road" -to use that term loosely- after sundown. Driving in the dark through the jungle was a good way to get stuck in the mud or, worse still, a flash flood.

Even the deep lug treads on the three ton Range Rover could not maintain traction on the densely packed clayey brown soil. The SUV fish-tailed loosely, and went into an accelerating slide in response to any application of the brakes. While I was managing to stay on the trail, the heavy truck moved disturbingly like a go-kart on a skating rink.

"Hold on, I'm going to have to accelerate to get up that rise. Any reading on the GPS yet?" I asked Yui Miyama, my colleague and a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Archeology. Yui was a second generation Japanese-American, and was a little bustier and taller than a typical Japanese girl. Otherwise, however, she displayed many of the typical features of the countrywomen from her ancestral home such as long straight silky black hair, a petite frame, and delicate facial features. She had just received her PhD a year ago, at the age of 26, from a leading west coast Archeology department. We were working together mapping cites that were once villages of a long lost civilization. It was a challenging task because the jungle can erase all traces of human influence in short order. After months of interviewing indigenous people about the topography and characteristics of land through which they traveled and reviewing satellite imagery for clues, we were about to get to the fun part - digging in the dirt.

"No. The unit seems to be working, but I'm not getting coordinates." Yui responded.

"After we clear this rise, I'll dig out the satellite phone and see if we can't contact someone to get information about when we can expect a break in this storm, and maybe we'll get a better signal on the other side." I said.

The truck was both powerful and heavy, and it was owing to those twin characteristics that it did, in fact, make it up the small hill. And that was our great misfortune.

As we crested the rise the earth seemed to fall away. In reality it was only that from the apex of the rise the land sloped away even more steeply than the side we had climbed. That, however, was not the true problem. Our problem was that there was only a short dog-leg on this side of the rise before the trail kinked over ninety degrees. I used a lot of horsepower to get up the hill, and as a result the truck was being carried by momentum swiftly down the dog-leg and toward a steep ravine. I had no control of the vehicle. Application of the brakes resulted in a slide. We then made a full revolution of spin as the Rover traveled inexorably toward what appeared to be a steep drop into the jungle.

"We've got to jump!" I yelled to Yui over the din of rain pelting the truck's metal roof. It seemed evident that the SUV was not going to come to a stop before the precipice.

Yui hesitated, and for good reason. There was no time, but plenty of questions to race through her mind - just as they were through mine. Questions like: Should I really take my seatbelt off and throw open the door? If my timing is not right, will I be half in and half out of the vehicle when it flips over? If I do get out in time, the truck is in a spin, will it crush me? I had no intention of abandoning the vehicle with Yui in it, and was afraid jumping might prove more likely to be fatal than the inevitable accident we were sliding toward. At some point I realized it was too late to do anything but hope for the best and resign myself to fate.

"Hold on." As I said it we slid sideways into a rut at the trail's outer edge and the large SUV tipped precariously toward the driver's side. I felt the first roll as I was jostled about and the seatbelt cut into my neck but held me from crashing into the roof. Somehow I could hear my pulse in my head over the din of the SUV's contents being tumbled around like the balls in a lottery wheel.

Sometime on the second roll I must have hit my head, because that was my last coherent recollection of being in, or even seeing, the Rover. I may have had brief instances of feeling things crawl over my skin or sting me, of hearing Yui's voice, and of vaguely wondering if this could really be what it was like to be dead. However, I cannot be certain these were not just the dreams of a coma victim.

The first thought that I know I actually had after going unconscious in the rolling vehicle was the distinct realization that there must be a heaven that I had been sent there. This came as a little bit of a shock as I had spent my life as a skeptic, if not an atheist then certainly an agnostic. Before I even opened my eyes to indistinct form and shadow, and then, rubbed the fluid and sleep out of them to see the underside of a thatched roof, I had two vividly real perceptions. One was the musty smell of the jungle. The other, and this was the origin of my new found belief in heaven, was the out of this world feeling of my member being orally serviced vigorously and skillfully as, simultaneously, my scrotum was licked gently and delicately.

It was an immensely pleasurable way to be welcomed back to the world of the living. I then, wearily and with great achiness, raised up onto my elbows to see what angels were performing this activity. Responding to my activity, the two native women withdrew their mouths, and began to shriek and jump up and down with delight. The one who had been licking my sack was probably about 20 years of age and her pert titties shook lightly high on her chest as she jumped, the woman who had had me inside her mouth was probably close to twice the age of the first, and her much more substantial bosom bounced up and down heavily as she jumped. They were both sun bronzed all over, as could be observed due to their state of undress at the moment. It seemed like there was a family resemblance, as though they were mother and daughter. They jumped about excitably for the better part of a minute.

"I'll be damned. It worked. Welcome back to the world Dr. Richards! I was afraid you weren't ever going to wake up." I looked over in response to the familiar voice and saw Yui getting up from a mat on the floor with a notebook in hand. To my astonishment, Yui was completely nude as well. Out of instinct, I turned away to grant her the privacy that I somehow felt proper.

In months of fieldwork together, I had never seen Yui naked. I had once stumbled groggily out of my tent to inadvertently see her topless because she had figured it was a safe time to change out of a sweaty and uncomfortable undergarment. On that occasion we had both acted as a lady and gentleman in the manner Western society dictates. That is, Yui covered herself by putting a hand over each breast, and turning around, and I averted my eyes and turned around as well. This time however, Yui made no move to cover herself but rather walked straight up to the bamboo table/bed I was on and leaned over to hug me tightly -her soft breasts pushing into my bare chest. It felt far too real to be the dream that all past experience suggested it was.

"You had me worried." Yui said as she released me and stood back to give me some space.

It was only then that I became particularly cognizant that I was not only naked, but also sporting a plump erection. My self-consciousness of my nudity was more about Yui than the native women who I expected were used to living in a society where nudism prevailed. Not even when others from the tribe began to file into the cylindrical pitched roof hut, probably in response to the women's shrieks, did I have any concern for modesty with them. Nonetheless, I looked for something to cover up with but, seeing nothing, I began to use both hands to awkwardly try to hide my engorged member.

"Ahhhhhhng" I looked up to see that about 12 native women who had gathered inside the hut had begun making a distressed wailing sound. Gone were the smiles and shrieks of delight, and they were replaced by melancholy faces and an anguished mewl.

I felt Yui pull my hand away from my crotch. "Don't do that. It hurts their feelings." Yui said.

I looked at her incredulously, but as I dropped the other hand there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief from the gathered crowd. Then the older of the woman who had been pleasuring me put one hand behind my back and the other on my chest and gently eased me back into the reclining position. The younger put her finger and thumb tips together and poked them at her open mouth in a pantomime of eating food, and then she pointed to me. She then moved off. It seemed apparent she was going to get me something to eat. Once the older woman had gotten some vegetative facsimile of a pillow under my head, and was confident that I was comfortable, she shooed away all the native women who had gathered in and around the hut so that I could rest. As she exited, she pulled the flap closed behind her leaving Yui and I alone.

"So about this dream I'm having, I am wondering if I'm in the hospital after the crash, or was the crash part of the dream and I'm still asleep in my tent." I asked in all seriousness thinking that despite the vivid feel of it, this was all too odd to be reality.

Yui chuckled slightly. "It would seem like a dream, wouldn't it? But this is all real. If you're up to it, we've got to talk. This place is the discovery of a lifetime. Do you need to rest?" Yui asked.

"No. Somehow I feel I've been resting plenty. How long was I out?" I asked.

"About four days. Did you notice anything interesting about the crowd that gathered?" Yui asked, eager to tell me about her discovery.

"They were all women as young as maybe twenty and old as probably 60. Of course, it's not odd for women to involve themselves with tasks like caring for the sick and other in-village jobs while the men are out engaged in hunting and warring. It is a pretty common mode of existence in primitive cultures. What is going on with the children though? Are they scared of exposing them to us?" I was happy to see that I could think coherently after the bump I had sustained to the head.

"That's just it. There are no children. This tribe is dying. There are no men, other than three that seem to be beyond octogenarian. The women do the hunting - I went out with them yesterday. They are definitely hunter-gatherers." Yui said with an involuntary grin that was not so much a reflection of her feelings toward the tragic fate of the tribe as for the learning opportunity this presented.

"Are you certain? Perhaps the men go out for extended periods on war campaigns?" I said, realizing that it would not account for a lack of anyone younger than two decades because they certainly wouldn't take children either for hunting or warring.

"I'm positive. They are a very open people, and I don't think anything is being hidden. If there were children or evidence of men on campaign, I would have seen some sign by now. I've been in about every house in the village. I'm fairly sure I've met everyone." Yui said, probably a little irritated that I was challenging her conclusions out of turn.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you had been able to investigate so thoroughly. Do you have any theories about why there are only women? Was there a Y-chromosome defect of some sort, or was it the result of war?" I had many questions that needed answering.

"After seeing some of their drawings and getting to know a little about how they live, I suspect the later. I believe a far more bellicose tribe beat them in war and, in a rare act of extreme vengeance, killed off any men they believed capable of fathering a child. Some enemy did this just to insure against any future enemy soldiers being birthed. What we see here is just the remainder of a much larger group. The enemy presumably took all the women they could find and enslaved them or made them wives or concubines for their warriors."

"Were you badly injured in the crash?" I asked.

"I was knocked out just like you, but I woke up in the truck. I was pinned and eventually passed back out or fell asleep. I woke in a hut near here. I'd been stripped of my clothes and my wounds cleaned. However, if my watch is right, I must have been out only through the overnight hours. When I woke up, I tried to find my clothes. I think they may have burned them. It took me about 15 minutes of that interminable wailing before I figured out they have a serious cultural norm against covering oneself. So you're welcome for spreading that knowledge." Yui said.

"That is an odd norm, unlike any I've ever heard of before - least of all not around here. It's common enough for aboriginal people to wear little or no clothing, and even to think it odd or humorous for someone from our culture to wear so much, but to get all doleful about it, that is a new one for me." I said.

"You don't know the half of it." Yui replied.

Before I got to that provocative comment, there was something from earlier that was on my mind. "When I first woke up you expressed some surprise that 'it worked', what were you talking about?" I asked.

"I didn't think oral sex would bring you out of a coma. They had been trying to do it to you for the past three days, but I kept running interference because, for all I knew, it might cause your heart to give out. It was odd enough that the first day they started rubbing you from head-to-toe with the oily extract of a local plant. I let them do that because I figured it couldn't hurt. They showed me crude drawings on something like birch bark, and one of them included two females doing something like they did to you. In the drawing there were ghosts or demonic souls rising skyward from the man's head, chest, and belly. Near as I can tell, they believe that if they suck your penis they will force out the demons that are haunting your mind and making you sick." Yui explained, showing her usual sound and thorough reasoning.

"OK, what was the meaning of that comment about me 'not knowing the half of it'?" I asked, but just then we were interrupted when the mother and daughter returned. The elder was carrying what looked like a slab of bark with banana leaf on it, and, on top of that, little piles of fruit, cooked vegetables, insects, flat bread, and a small portion of some kind of spiced meat. The younger woman was carrying some kind of clay pot and bowl.

We ate communally in silence sitting on the soft mat with the "platter" in the middle of the group for all to reach. It did not seem proper to carry out a conversation with Yui because our two dining companions would not understand a word we were saying. The two women smiled frequently, and were of assistance to me by demonstrating how to best eat some of the foods, and, in the case of the older woman who was sitting directly adjacent me, feeding me directly on occasion. It was not terribly hard to get the hang of it. Most of the messy foods were eaten with a piece of flat bread that was reminiscent of a tortilla. It was not unlike dining in an Ethiopian restaurant. The small portion of meat was the one thing that my hosts insisted that I, and I alone, eat.

"What? What was it?" I said after swallowing it, when I saw a knowing grin on Yui's face.

"It was a wolf's penis. In many countries in Asia this would be described as 'getting your yang up.'" Yui said, punctuating it with a laugh that the other two ladies joined in. Some humor is universal and knows not the bounds of language.

After the meal we rinsed our hands with water over the clay bowl. The person sitting next to you poured water for you and you returned the favor. As we continued to sit quietly in the circle, I was mesmerized by what I saw next. The young woman, who Yui had told me was named Keeba and who had throughout the meal been sitting right next to Yui, scooted closer and put her arm around behind Yui's back and, reaching around front, began to knead Yui's nipple. My surprise turned to astonishment when Yui returned the favor by hugging around Keeba and massaging one of her nipples.

Keeba's mother, named Cheeba according to Yui, was clearing the trays and water basins, and I had a moment to wonder how Yui had managed to take a lover so quickly. Moreover, I knew that she had a boyfriend on-and-off back home and never had any reason to suspect she was anything but heterosexual. While our relationship was strictly professional, after months in close proximity doing field work sometimes with only each other to speak to for weeks on end, even topics as personal as sexual orientation eventually came up.

This train of thought was disrupted when Cheeba came back, sat down right next to me as she had been during the meal, and, without warning, reached down and wrapped her hand around my organ. I had long since become flaccid - having become comfortable with, and desensitized to, the nudist environment and being respectful of the erotic sight of Yui and Keeba's mutual touch - but the warm feminine touch made my cock swell immediately. Unaware of how to cope with this unexpected occurrence, I looked over at Yui. Yui nodded hard in Cheeba's direction pursing her lips in a facial expression that I easily interpreted as "pay attention, you dolt."

I looked to Cheeba and saw that she was staring down at the ground gloomily. I was naively hoping that I wasn't misinterpret signals as I began to reach around behind Cheeba's back and then around to massage her nipple in the manner Yui and Keeba were doing to each other. Cheeba looked over to me, now smiling happily, and then leaned over to put her head on my shoulder. Part of me was enjoying this relaxed uncensored life, and part was worried that Cheeba was falling for me and was considering what the ramifications might be. While there was a great potential for physical attraction, our worlds were irreconcilably different. Cheeba was a pleasant looking woman. She had the lean almost athletic body of a woman who labors all day everyday, and, while she might not have been as flawless as her daughter, she was none-the-less attractive in a simple way. She was not stunning, but neither did she have any defective traits of note. She was, I estimated, probably a few years younger than I. Ultimately, however, it couldn't work out because we couldn't talk to each other and we lived worlds apart.

Just as I thought it had gotten as weird as it was going to get, I looked over to see that Keeba and Yui were leaning together kissing each on the other's neck had each reached a hand down between the other girl's legs to massage and finger the other's sex. Upon seeing this, I somehow managed to get more engorged than I already was, and this was facilitated by a more vigorous stroking motion from Cheeba. Cheeba then turned herself 90 degrees with her back against my side so that she could guide my hand down from her nipple to her own eager slit. All the while, she continued to awkwardly stroke me with her hand behind her back. At the risk of violating some unknown norm, I repositioned myself by turning toward her and easing her hand off me. I guided her to lay back with the back of her head against my chest as she sat between my legs. Nestled like this, I was better able to massage her wet sex with its own slippery juices while, at the same time, kneading one of her nipples with the other hand. As I worked her clit, Cheeba writhed in pleasure and pressed back into me. I was surprised to find that her hair had a clean subtle smell reminiscent of mint, but not exactly mint.

I hadn't seen any kissing on the mouth yet, and so I didn't know if I would be doing something out of the cultural norm when I took my hand from her nipple and put my hand across her cheek to turn her face toward mine. I then kissed her passionately on the lips gradually working toward an open mouth kiss in which my tongue intermingling with hers. She gave no indication that this was anything other than perfectly natural and comfortable for her.