Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 19

"I don't have one, Madam," Erin answered carefully. "As you say, Carlin is of age. It's her choice."

This was the wisest answer she could give. Erin had once been the most smothering mother on the planet but she had seen her daughter grow in independence, going on adventures, learning to swim and to ride a horse. This would be her daughter's longest adventure but a relatively tame one compared to trekking in the White Mountains, salvaging Ezra's ship or climbing a volcano.

Living a year without her daughter would be hard; but Erin was a sort of mother to Freya now and a sort of aunt to Tamar. She knew she would cope and she smiled encouragement to her daughter to make up her own mind. Tamar sat next to Carlin, eyes bright, supporting her friend in whatever decision she made.

It became a general discussion. Most of the women had an opinion, which they gave in the usual passionate style of the Woodlanders; but the argument stopped when Carlin spoke up at last, her high thin voice louder than normal to cut through the hubbub.

"I would like to visit the Cloner City and be a Junior," she announced.

Mirselene took the decision well, hiding her disappointment, saying:

"We will all miss you, my girl. I know that, like Wildchild, you will be a significant gift to the Cloners; and, like Wildchild, you will come back here bolder and wiser, ready to flourish."

This was Mirselene at her best. She always fought as hard as she could for what she believed and showed no resentment in losing. Generous in defeat, she genuinely enjoyed seeing Wildchild exercise her power, even when she took opposite sides on a matter from her chief.

"Say your goodbyes tonight, Carlin," Mirselene continued. "Doubtless Wildchild will take you on her horse to the Cloner City tomorrow."

"I will, of course, Madam, unless Tamar wants to."

Tamar did and, next day, the girlfriends left at first light to ride to the Cloner City, which they reached in the late afternoon, taking it easy to spare the pony. Although this was the limit of the pony's range with two passengers, it was no hardship for her to bear such slight and skinny girls who, together, barely weighed little more than a full-sized woman.

Carlin and Tamar were admitted to the Council Hall by a polite Junior and introduced to Madam Gloria herself in the Council Chamber. Imposing in her flowing robes and serious mien, Gloria quickly recognised Carlin's inherent diffidence and put her at her ease with a friendly smile and a warm welcome to the Cloner City, adding:

"Tamar Eloisedaughter, you are welcome to stay the night, if you want."

"Yes, please, Madam," Tamar said.

"I will have the Juniors make up a bed for you in their dormitory. You can help your friend settle into her new life, though you should know, Carlin, that life as a Junior would be more fun than anything else."

This did a lot to reassure Carlin, who had gone quiet.

"I see you brought your bows," Gloria said.

"Yes, Madam," Tamar said brightly. "Wildchild told Carlin to bring hers and I brought mine to go hunting on the way home."

"I have an idea that this will become a tradition with you Woodlander girls," Gloria said. "I propose an archery contest tonight, so you can demonstrate your skills."

Tamar clapped with enthusiasm while the more demure Carlin quietly said, "Yes, Madam," to show her approval. So the girls were led away by a friendly Junior to the dormitory, to help Carlin start her new life for a year.

5Tamar chooses her name

Because the discussion of Carlin's new adventure occupied the tribe's attention on the first night of his return to the Woodlanders, Ezra was spared having to choose a bedmate. A day off after a month with the lusty Herders, where he was the focus of their nightly orgies, was a welcome relief. Ezra was sexually exhausted.

The next day, while Carlin and Tamar rode to the Cloner City, Ezra inspected the building-works, which consisted of two new storage huts and a smaller smoking room.

It was Wildchild and Hazel who initiated the project. They currently lived in the Honeymoon Lodge, whose privacy suited them because they were so sexually active; but it was a nuisance having to leave the feast before it was dark, while everyone else was still singing and dancing.

They therefore asked Mirselene if they could build a new hut. Mirselene agreed and added to the girls' ambition, keen to use them to their full potential. Because the storage huts were currently over-loaded with cooked pigeons, bags of feathers, corn, other comestibles and wooden tools. Mirselene suggested two new storage huts outside the ring of huts; then Hazel and Wildchild could take one of the old storage huts to live in.

The smoking room was Hazel's idea. It was her answer to the tooth-boredom the tribe was suffering once again from pigeon-meat. Smoked pigeon would be an interesting variation.

"I remember someone wrote in the book 'Memories of Earth,'" she said, "that there were smoked meats but I don't remember the details."

The Cloners had not yet delivered the copy of 'Memories of Earth' to the Woodlanders, however, and none of those women who had read the book when they stayed in the Cloner City to conceive their daughters could remember how the meats were smoked.

Wildchild came to the rescue. She shut her eyes and concentrated. After a few minutes, she intoned the description of how meat and fish were hung in a small hut and smoked over a slow fire.

This was another of Wildchild's special talents. So far, only Tamar, Hazel and Madam Gloria knew about her perfect memory. Mirselene was impressed. It also answered a question about Wildchild that had bothered her ever since she had known the girl: How come such a clever young woman, brilliant in so many ways, read so little? Tamar was a confirmed bookworm and Hazel brought her own books with her.

The answer was that Wildchild never needed to read a book twice, nor even tarry over reading. She could flip the pages quickly and absorb everything.

The principle of the smoking room that Wildchild described seemed simple enough. Almost the whole tribe got involved and, after the usual arguments and misunderstandings (which the women seemed to enjoy almost as much as getting it right the first time), they built a tall thin hut over a shallow pit into which a fire could be laid.

Preparation for the rest of the building-work was completed even before Ezra returned, but the actual construction was deliberately delayed so that his carpentry skills and muscles could be employed.

Constructing two new storage huts began well and gave real pleasure to the builders, especially Ezra, who enjoyed any kind of hard productive work. He took off his shirt and built up a sweat. Sharne, Dagma, Hazel and Wildchild also built up sweats as they lifted heavy logs into place, planed their rough sides or hammered in pegs to secure the planks and joists.

It was very satisfied builders who went for a wash after the first day's work and sat down for a well-earned feast and a happily anticipated argument about sex.

Wildchild started the argument, as was becoming a pattern, though no one could blame her.

"Madam," she began, addressing chief Mirselene. "Hazel and I want to have sex with Ezra this month."

This was a fair request on Wildchild's part, who was now twenty and fully entitled to demand her bedmate rights as a Woodlander. For Hazel. who was twenty-one, it was not so simple. She hadn't officially joined the Woodlanders and was still technically a Farmer, so the rule that Ezra could take bedmates only from the three Outer Tribes should exclude her from being a bedmate.

Mirselene was a stickler for propriety, and Ezra was worried about whom his children would mate with in the future. No one else cared much about following the rules. But Mirselene also had to consider Ezra's other bedmates, who wanted to enjoy time with him. She made these points in a gentle tone, as a legal opinion, not a chiefly order.

Wildchild seemed to have prepared her answers, however.

"Hazel and I want sex with Ezra just for fun, not for children," she explained; "so the rule about Ezra not having children with women from the Home Tribes needn't apply."

It was a fine piece of casuistry, which Mirselene acknowledged with a warm but dubious smile.

"How can you avoid pregnancy?" she asked.

"Our periods," Wildchild explained. "Hazel and I are synchronised but, because we live away from the camp, we're out of rhythm with the rest of the tribe. We're a week behind everyone else."

"I see," Mirselene said.

Now Ezra saw the deep mutual respect that had grown between Mirselene and Wildchild, noting that Mirselene was happy to indulge her young protégé. More than this, he saw how much they enjoyed their growing political contest, regardless who won.

"Very well," Mirselene said, after reflecting a minute. "I propose that Ezra spends a week with Sharne and Dagma, then a fortnight with you two, and the final week with Dipti and Urulla ... but with two provisos."

Wildchild and Hazel looked up with bright alert eyes.

"Firstly: that if Hazel gets pregnant, then she must join one of the Outer Tribes, to comply with the law."

"I will, Madam," Hazel spoke up. "I will become a Woodlander!"

"Very good. Secondly: I know what lusty young women you are, so I don't want you exhausting Ezra while he has so much building work to do."

"No, Madam," Wildchild answered with an ambitious smile and a wink to Hazel. "We'll do all the work."

"And be careful toward the end of your fortnight," Parvinder, the Tribe's nurse, advised.

"I assume that the arrangements are satisfactory to you, Ezra?" Mirselene asked.

"Madam," he graciously answered. "I've learned through experience always to trust your orders."

"Rubbish, man! However, I can see why you'd want to obey this particular order."

She looked at Hazel and Wildchild, sitting together: slim, handsome, healthy, strong and irresistibly sexy in their posh frocks from the Cloner City.

Wildchild's jet hair fell in tight ringlets to her shoulders, the longest it had ever been. Yellow reflections from the flickering camp-fire gave her a halo, whose saintly appearance belied her lusty smile and the sparkles dancing in her mischievous green eyes.

Hazel was even more beautiful. Now she lived in the forest, sheltered much of the time from the bright sun, her flaxen hair was half a shade darker and her skin half a shade lighter. There were cute freckles on her nose and her cornflower blue eyes were sexually inviting. The wide smile on her perfect face was also inviting.

Mirselene smiled back at the two young beauties and said:

"All right, everyone, the discussion is over. Get out the drums and let's have some dancing!"

That night and for the following week, Ezra slept with Sharne and Dagma, reconnecting after a two-month absence. It was a new thing among the Woodlanders for Ezra to share a hut with two women at a time, but as Mirselene herself suggested it, no one complained. It was a sensible measure to make best use of his limited time with the tribe.

Dagma wanted a second child but Sharne was content with Pepi and Clara, so the happy solution was for Ezra to start off fucking Sharne and, after she had come once or twice, finish off with Dagma.

Sharne was fit and strong, with muscular thighs and medium-sized tits, whose big rubbery nipples responded well to a good sucking. Ezra made her come with his tongue and then with his finger. When she was nearing her third orgasm, he lay back and she rode him until, breathing heavily, with clenching muscles and a satisfying cry, she came again and collapsed onto him, his stiff cock still in her pussy.

Smiling happily, Sharne climbed off him and gave Dagma her turn. As submissive and responsive as ever, few women were as loving and giving as Dagma. She surrendered completely to Ezra and always came hard, usually ejaculating, sometimes fainting.

Stout but with hard muscles under the cushioning flesh, Dagma liked it best when Ezra held her forcefully and gave her orders, but he never did what she most wanted him to do, which was to call her a 'whore' and a 'slut'. Every chivalrous fibre of his being rebelled against such unmanly language. The contrast between her need for his domination and his refusal to humiliate or abuse her gave their sex a special tension. It was a nervy highlight after the tender build-up with Sharne. Dagma shook and bucked as she succumbed to strong multiple orgasms before Ezra, who could hold off no longer, finally pumped his seed into her, grunting in fulfilment.

She lay under him, holding him tightly, loving the feel of his hairy chest squashing her big soft tits, his hands in her thick black hair, hot breath on her cheek, their skins glowing from the exertion and the climax.

******

Tamar stayed an extra day in the Cloner City, looking around and asking questions. She boldly knocked at every door in the Hall to ask its occupants what they were doing and, more importantly, why?

No one was too busy to spare a few moments to talk to their inquisitive guest.

Someone who greeted Tamar especially kindly was Solange, there for her Currency Committee meetings with Breda, chief of the Miner Tribe, and Madam Lawspeaker, whom Solange and Breda had invited to be the third member of the committee.

Tamar walked in on a meeting of the committee in one of the classrooms. Solange got up to greet her, inviting her in to meet the other committee members. She stood by Tamar, a little protectively, wondering how Breda might treat the girl who had been born a Miner, snatched and brought up by the Herders, and was now a Woodlander. The Miners were the smallest tribe, they lived (a little resentfully, Solange thought) as a sort of cadet branch of the Farmer Tribe. If Mirselene was jealous of the dignity of the Woodlander tribe, who were independent and beginning to thrive; how much more so was Breda justified to be jealous. The Miners could barely afford to buy clones to keep their tribe going.

Solange need not have feared for Tamar. Besides her admirable beauty, the girl had an open and intelligent personality, always ready to make friends and to understand people. Neither Breda nor Madam Lawspeaker objected to the interruption but were pleased to answer Tamar's questions, explaining how important their work was.

Next day, after a long and affectionate goodbye to Carlin, Tamar took her time on the ride home, exploring a part of the forest she hadn't yet visited.

With her bow at the ready, an arrow half-loaded, she steered the pony with her knees through golden glades, alert for pigeons and rarer quarry.

Taking the long way home gave Tamar time to think. She felt happy that Carlin was on a new learning adventure; but she was sure she would miss her girlfriend very much. The girls had fallen in love only a few short months ago but Tamar wouldn't become eighteen until next year, so it was not a sexual relationship yet.

Tamar wasn't smitten by sexual jealousy, even though Carlin would be sharing a dormitory with four other eighteen-year-old Juniors; but as she analysed her feelings, she realised that it was sex that was driving her. She was feeling the first itching discomfort of the sexual urge. It didn't help matters that she was sitting on a horse, the bunched-up blanket pressing on her crotch.

Tamar laughed to herself and resolved not to think about it for now.

It was a hot day, as usual. Although the trees provided shade, they also trapped the cooling breeze, so the short passage in the sun across the glade was sweltering. The skinny girl with the long limbs, long golden hair and a face of angelic beauty was dressed for hot weather, with a short leather skirt, short sleeveless jacket that left her midriff exposed and a leather strap protecting her left elbow from the kickback of the bowstring.

She basked in the heat but took pity on her horse. Tamar kicked her into a trot toward the shade.

As she approached a line of bushes, a cock-pheasant leaped out of the undergrowth, flapping its wings madly, trying to gain height but making more noise than progress. Tamar's reaction was instinctive. She pulled on the bow-string, aimed and shot in an instant. The pheasant fell out of the sky, transfixed through its breast.

"Stupid bird!" Tamar said as she leaped down to pick up the dead pheasant. "If you'd stayed hidden, I'd never have seen you!"

Meditating on the foolishness of pheasants, the skilled huntress maintained a good steady pace all the way home to the Forest Camp.

******

The huts were progressing well, so the builders took an afternoon off to put a roof on the smoking room. This was a task they had delayed until Ezra returned, wanting his advice. Together they made a roof with adjustable slats to allow the fire to breathe and control how much smoke it produced.

Sharne and Dagma recommended cherry, oak, apple or beech as the best woods to flavour the birds; so, on the afternoon that Tamar returned, an oak-fire smouldered in the pit and a few freshly-plucked pigeons hung to cook in its abundant smoke.

When she had settled back in the camp, Tamar was given the job of tending the fire under the smoking hut. Freya insisted on helping; so the two girls became responsible for keeping the smoky fire alight and tasting the pigeons to see when they were done.

The construction project took a lot of the tribe's time. Even so, after a hard day's work and a wash in the pool, there was usually an hour to spare before the feast. This was when Ezra kept his promise to read with Tamar.

They sat together, sharing a bench, with a book balanced on their laps. At the moment it was the Bible. Ezra helped Tamar with the obscure words. Tamar was a faster reader than him, however, and often had to wait while he caught up, when she would impatiently tap the page with a finger, or ask him where he'd got to, making him lose his place and take even longer to finish.

One time Tamar didn't tap because she discovered her name in a rather insalubrious setting in the book of Genesis. She read the passage twice to make sure she understood the story.

Biblical Tamar was very brave and honourable, which Samothean Tamar admired; but it wasn't an entirely proper kind of story, featuring prostitution, onanism and borderline incest. However open-minded the Woodlanders were about sex, Tamar could be a rather prim girl and she didn't approve of her name first appearing under those dubious circumstances.

Later in bed, reading under the covers by the light of Ezra's penknife, Tamar hopefully flicked through the rest of the Bible, stopping when she found another familiar name in the Book of Judges. Here, amid a war, there was an appealing human vignette. After a series of male leaders, Israel was finally led by a woman, Deborah, who successfully commanded the army against the Canaanites. But the war was won by another woman, Yael, who killed the Canaanite General by hammering a tent-peg through his temple as he slept.

That was the style! Here was an active woman who got things done! Tamar approved. She liked Yael very much and made her decision.

She went to find Ezra next morning and, saying nothing, simply handed him the Bible open at the relevant chapter. He read the story and looked knowingly at her, waiting for her announcement.

"I'd like to be called 'Yael' from now on," Yael said with conviction.

"Your mother will be pleased."

"I know. ... So where do we keep the tent-pegs? ... I'm joking! I'm joking! ... Hey!"

She leapt away, laughing hard, as his swift hand just missed making contact with her pert little bottom.

******

The tribe approved the first smoked pigeons brought to the feast by Yael and Freya so, next day, the smoking hut was filled up with fresh birds, some for eating, some for trading with the other tribes. Yael experimented with different woods and a smaller fire. She was getting a real feel for how the smoking hut worked and Freya got pleasure from helping her, carrying wood and tasting the birds.