In the Beginning

And after he seemed satisfied with this part of the ritual, he rose, with the rock bowl in his hand, and went over to the side of the cave, where our drinking water trickled down the cave wall from a fissure overhead. There, he filled the bowl with water, and, smiling at me in passing, he took the bowl into the back chamber. He returned and repeated this ritual in other rock bowls with the other two pouches of dirt.

The third time he came back, he took up a big staff of wood, which briefly made me fear for my life once more. But, without looking at me, he held the head of the staff inside the consuming heat god, until the god flared up in anger. Then when the staff came out of the god's grasp, there were two gods, one on the rock ledge outside the entrance to the cave and the other lapping around the head of the staff.

The cave chamber now was alive with shimmering light. There were seams of sparkling color running through the walls of the cave and several places where water seeped down in small rivulets, and the glow from the angry god bounced around the wall and made it come alive.

I thought Big Sharpspear would come to me then, but, although he did bend down to me in passing, holding the angry god-tipped staff over his head, instead of reaching for me, he put his hand in the fruit basket and brought out the patches of moss that he had insisted we bring back.

Then he took the staff and disappeared into the back chamber and I again was in near darkness, with only the consuming heat god at the entrance to the cave reflecting light back to me. I lay down, sadly, wondering what magic Big Sharpspear was summoning forth, and worrying about myself—and, most strangely—worrying about Big Sharpspear as well.

I slowly went to sleep, as did the consuming heat god at the cave entrance.

Sometime in the night, Big Sharpspear did come to me and breed me. And he did so in a new excitement and exuberance I had not experienced from him before. Deep in the breeding, he pulled me up with him as he rose to his feet. I was connected to him at our pelvises, and I wrapped my legs around his thighs, under his big, firm buttocks, as he walked us out to the entrance of the cave, and he bred me deep and strongly as we both looked up at the twinkling dots of consuming heat gods in the night sky.

When he put me back down, he didn't come down to me to sleep, me in his embrace, as he had been doing at night before this strange ritual started. Rather he went back to the cave entrance and pulled several twigs, with blackened ends, out of the dying consuming heat god and carried them into the back chamber.

He did this for four days. And I was afraid that he had gone mad.

And the more I thought about it and the longer he did it the more sure I was that he had gone mad and that something terrible was happening back there in that forbidden chamber, something deadly. My worst fears were realized the night he came to me and I woke with the fingers of one of his hands before my face. They were dripping in a bloody-red fluid. I sat up and screamed, knowing my time had come.

Big Sharpspear looked surprised and then concerned. And then when he saw the blood red dripping on his fingers, he laughed and wiped his fingers off on the teeth monster hide. Then he stood and picked me up in his arms and carried me toward the back chamber.

I cried and whimpered, not wanting this to be my day, not wanting now to leave him. Not knowing how I had displeased him. Beside myself in wanting another chance to please him and stay as we were before these four chilling days.

When he carried me into the back chamber, my eyes opened in wonder and awe. The staff tipped with the angry consuming heat god was wedged into the rock wall and was sending light reflecting all over a chamber slightly smaller than the one at the cave entrance but with much thicker veins of the sparkling earth between the white-gray rock.

That's not what caught my attention, though. The inside walls of the cave were covered with wondrous, colored scenes of animals and men in motion. Literally all of the walls were alive with action, depicting the lives of the Meateater Sharpspears. The paint—in rich reds, and browns, and yellow and defined by tracings in black—on the wall beside the lighted staff, however, was still wet.

Big Sharpspear set me down on the rock floor of the cave, and I slowly approached this obviously still-unfolding scene. I knew now what all of the ritual was about. Big Sharpspear was creating a scene on the walls of this inner sanctum. And not just any scene. He was a master depicter. I could clearly see that he was painting our life together from the scene of his having taken me—saving me, I now knew—to our first breeding and the attack of the two Meateaters and his learning of what I could eat and our trip to the outside world for our food—and for the colors he was painting with. And I could see now, looking down at the lumps of moss with paint on them, for the brushes. The twigs with the blackened ends were there, obviously used for the outlining.

And, in the last frame, still being painted, appeared the gigantically big Meateater Sharpspear and the small man of the Gentle People—joined as one contentment on their faces. He had the smiles on the faces of both outlined with the charcoal but not yet colored in.

I saw that there was another fur-covered pallet in this room, and I turned and pressed on Big Sharpspear's chest until he realized that I wanted him to lie on the pallet on his back. He smiled as he laid down. I didn't have to prepare either his or my penetrators—I had realized days ago that we needed only be in close proximity to both be ready for the breeding. And then I mounted his man thing with my channel and rode him into paradise, my eyes feasting on the magnificence of his wall paintings and wondering what this new, strange, happy feeling of belonging and wanting meant. But knowing without a doubt that the feeling was one I wanted to keep and that it all centered on this big man I was filled with—my Big Sharpspear.