Flesh: Sacrifice Ch. 02

Uturunku did his best to explain the curse, and to explain how Summer fit into their particular world view.

Some years ago, long before the Ambrosia Pharmaceuticals group had been sent from New York, the Huaca had been governed by a warrior king in Yapamantataq. Though the Huaca lived in little villages stretched across the Valle de los Reyes, Hatun Puka was chief among chiefs. But one day, he grew sick and passed away, and his first-born son ascended to throne. This, however, displeased Sipusiki. For, you see, Uru Kuchi was not, in fact, Hatun Puka's son. Betrayed by his wife Apasanka, Hatun Puka had been poisoned by his closest advisor, Chimpilaku, who was Uru Kuchi's real father. Having staged a coup to overthrow chief-among-chiefs, Apasanka, Chimpilaku, and Uru Kuchi had damned the Huaca in the eyes of the fertility goddess.

Sipusiki cursed the Huaca people throughout the valley, and they were unable to have children. Aya Pampa, Uca Pacha, Wasi Wasi -- the story was the same from village to village to village, and the elders soon began to worry about whether the Huaca would survive. Huaca medicine men performed the t'ojsiy time and time again, on animals and Huaca women alike, sacrificing them to Sipusiki. But Sipusiki was not pleased, and so long as Uru Kuchi sat on the thrown in Yapamantataq, the Huaca were doomed.

Uturunku's eyes lit up as he got the next part.

And then, in the small, outlying village of Hanan Pacha, Sipusiki blessed Chaqiska. An outsider, a doctor, a woman named "Monroe," Sipusiki decided that the Huaca could only be saved by the gracious sacrifice of a non-Huaca, as the Huaca women themselves were cursed. Walking alongside her in spirit, and possessing a part of her, Sipusiki became Chaqiska, Chaqiska became Sipusiki. The t'ojsiy was performed, and Chaqiska's "liberation" became the liberation of Hanan Pacha as a whole.

One by one, Chaqiska visited village after village, and marched on Yapamantataq with the High Priestess of Sipusiki, overthrowing Uru Kuchi and ensuring the blessing of Sipusiki once more. Chaqiska's sacrifice having pleased the fertility goddess once, she continued to return to Hanan Pacha, to Yapamantataq, to Wasi Wasi, to Aya Pampa each and every year, ensuring the birth of a new generation of Huaca people.

Dani scratched her head. She had a difficult time envisioning Summer Monroe staging a coup of her own here in the Oriente, but it was clear that her presence had played strongly into the beliefs and magicks of the Huaca people. Unfortunately, it seemed that they'd almost become too dependent on the outsider, almost as if they were unable to "please Sipusiki" or have children on their own without her presence. Or, barring that, without the presence of some other non-Huaca girl, which was why Dani was here in the first place.

The fire flickered against the walls of the cave, and Dani realized that she'd completely lost track of time. From the hours in Benitez's Land Rover to the hours in the swamps to the hours in the cave here in Aya Pampa, imbibing shot after shot of chicha, Dani was baffled when she glanced through the beaded curtains to find that the sun had already gone down.

"Phancha!" Uturunku announced happily, apparently noticing the same thing. "Phancha! Phancha!"

"The Blossom Festival," Taksa Kuchu translated. "It's time to celebrate."

The little village had been transformed by the time that Dani emerged, weak-kneed and more than a bit tipsy, from the chief's cave. Torches were everywhere, and all of Aya Pampa was bathed in the soft orange glow of their light. Streamers made of flower petals hung overhead, and the entire ravine echoed with laughter, cheering, and rhythmic drumbeats. There was singing somewhere up the little stream, a silly song from what Dani could tell, but a song of absolute joy. Faces were painted, hair was done up, and the Huaca seemed to be dressed in the "Sunday best," clean clothes and loincloths all around.

Uturunku wrapped his arms around an approaching girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen at the oldest. She smiled broadly as he gave her instructions, glancing in Dani's direction all the while. She, like Dani and Taksa Kuchu, was wearing nothing more than an animal-skin loincloth. But, unlike the drab brown that the two visitors sported, she was wearing a brick-red loincloth, speckled with alternating white stripes and white dots. Dani had a difficult time believing that such a design could have come from an animal naturally, but Taksa Kuchu later explained Bolivian tapirs did have such coloration when they were young.

"Tutakuru," Taksa Kuchu introduced the girl. "Uturunku's niece. She's here to prepare us for the ceremony."

Dani blanched. "No, no, no," she stammered, backing away and waving her hands. Looking to Taksa Kuchu, she yelped, "No! No! I'm only here to observe. That's what Summer said."

Taksa Kuchu nearly keeled over laughing, and after she explained Dani's concerns to Tutakuru and Uturunku, they did the same. "It is fine," Taksa Kuchu explained. "You are not being prepared for the t'ojsiy. That's much more extensive than this. Tutakuru just wants to do our hair, and maybe apply some make-up."

Dani was unnerved, but breathed a quick sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was some sort of misunderstanding in which she got penetrated and violated in Summer's stead. That may have been Summer's intention in bringing her here to the Oriente, but it was nothing that Dani had any interest in. But, despite reassurances from Taksa Kuchu and a shaking of the head from Tutakuru, the brunette was still on edge -- she scanned the crowds for any sign of Summer or Benitez, looking for a more familiar Western face.

Not seeing either, Dani dutifully bid Uturunku adieu, and followed Tutakuru and Taksa Kuchu through the labyrinth of Huaca and Huaca houses that made up Aya Pampa. She was stared at, sure enough, but not because she was topless. If anything, the arrival of Phancha that evening had spurred many of the more modern-dressed Huaca to resume their traditional garb, and there were even more women topless than when Dani and her party had first entered the village. But she was different and out-of-the-ordinary, with Mediterranean features, big brown eyes, and paler skin -- though admittedly not as pale as Summer. But she was an outsider, like Summer Monroe. And if Summer were blessed by Sipusiki, would Dani be the same?

Among the Huaca people, Dani doubted more than a handful of them might ever have even seen a white-skinned person. They probably had run-ins with the local Benianos, Quechua and mestizos alike. And there were probably a few people of Spanish descent who made their way out into the yungas. But if even Taksa Kuchu, who seemed worldly by comparison, had never gone further than Rurrenabaque, Dani doubted that Uturunku or Qaray Puka or Tutakura had ventured much further.

Dani's novelty was driven home as she ducked inside one of the small, wooden huts, following closely behind Tutakura. As she entered, she was stared at, giggled over, and pawed by a collection of teenage girls who looked about the same age as Tutakura herself. The chief's niece did her best to introduce those present, but Dani quickly forgot most of their names -- an almost indistinguishable collection of t's and q's and u's.

"Dani sutiymi," Dani introduced herself, much to the delight of the chattering teenagers.

"Ma-na," Taksa Kuchu giggled, and gestured at the butterfly tattoo on Dani's back. "Sutiyas 'Qapila'!"

"Qapila!" the girls shouted in unison, one of them being so bold as to touch the colorful little design on Dani's back. Dani herself shrugged -- if Summer was okay being "Chaqiska," it wouldn't hurt for Dani to play the part of "Qapila."

Dani and Taksa Kuchu, it seemed, had stumbled into some sort of bath house, and the assembled girls were preening themselves as if readying for the prom. Dani supposed it was the closest equivalent in Huaca society. The Kwirku had gone all out for the Harvest festival, and maybe Phancha, representing the Spring and blossoming and fertility and planting, was held in the same esteem among the Huaca. Every single girl was topless, and some of them wore nothing at all. Like Summer and Taksa Kuchu, they were pierced here, there, and everywhere, silver protruding from navels and nipples and more intimate places. And, like the guides who'd hiked into Aya Pampa with them from the road, the girls also were adorned with intricate, Inca-inspired scars and brands, none terribly intrusive upon their natural beauty, but present nonetheless.

Tutakura beckoned one of the other girls, and the two immediately went to work on the American girl in their midst. Dani hadn't showered since that morning -- before the car ride, before the hike through the swamps, before the afternoon in the smoke-filled cave -- and soon found herself being scrubbed clean by Tutakura's companion. The girl was rough, positioning Dani in ways that allowed her to better clean the girl's back and underarms. And Dani, still being a bit more drunk than she'd intended to be, had no choice but to do as she was instructed. She offered the occasional expletive as her bath maid scrubbed a bit too hard, or pushed her too roughly to her knees, but otherwise rolled with the punches.

Dani was on her hands and knees when she heard a squeal from Tutakura, and she knew she was in trouble. She glanced back at her hips, finding that Tutakura had hooked her thumb under the waistband of Dani's black thong, and was screaming in delight at her friends, all of whom seemed to be laughing at Dani's expense. Dani glanced to Taksa Kuchu for help.

Unlike the American girl, the Huaca priestess had been left to tend to herself. More accustomed the ways of the Huaca, and probably well-versed in the ways of the Phancha, Taksa Kuchu was squatting on the dirt floor naked, her loincloth having been hung on the bathhouse wall for the time being. She had washed up, and was now carefully applying a thick red paste in simple designs on her forearms. "They like your panties," Taksa Kuchu translated.

"I can tell," Dani answered squeamishly. "But...wait! Wait!" Before she had an opportunity to fight Tutakura and her friend, her thong was being tugged down her thighs and out from under her loincloth. She tried to fight them, weakly, but she was no match for the Huaca girls in her inebriated state, and resigned herself to pleading with them to give her underwear back after it had been completely stripped from her.

Dani watched in horror as Tutakura slithered across the bathhouse and slipped the black thong on herself. The chief's niece, like Taksa Kuchu, had completely undressed, and as she put Dani's underwear on, she was wearing the black lace material and nothing more. Taksa Kuchu simply laughed along with the other girls at the sight of Tutakura in Dani's panties, and gave Dani a sheepish look, as if to say, "We tried to warn you."

Having had her fun, Tutakura shed the black thong, and guiltily offered it back to Dani. Dani took it back, but hesitated before putting it back on. Leaving aside the fact that it had just been on another woman, a stranger, Dani thought that she maybe she was being a bit ridiculous in wearing the thong in the first place. She was surrounded by a room full of naked and half-naked girls, none of whom were wearing any more than their own loincloths and body jewelry in preparation for tonight's ceremony. Perhaps the underwear was going to make her even more of a spectacle out in the village than she'd be without it, doing her best to just try to fit in. She grimaced, balled up the panties in her right hand, and refrained from putting them back on. At least for now.

Dani winched at Tutakura's friend reached for the knot on the side of her loincloth, but she didn't fight this time. Tutakura and the other girl continued to scrub, and though Dani insisted that she was more than capable of washing herself, her offers to help went ignored. She jumped a bit when Tutakura's hand found her pussy, but the teenaged girl was doing nothing more than rubbing a damp washcloth over it, and Dani bit her lip and looked the other way.

Gentle hands found the heart-shaped pendant that hung from Dani's belly-button, and Tutakura posed a question to Taksa Kuchu, gesturing at Dani's breasts. "She's offering to pierce your nipples," Taksa Kuchu translated slyly, knowing full well what Dani's reaction would be.

"Thanks. But no thank you."

Scrubbed clean, with the sweat washed from her back and her neck, and the swamp mud washed from her feet, Dani was set back, sitting up with her legs bent under her. The sapumpa fern necklace had been removed, and in its place were a series of new fronds, carefully woven into Dani's long, brown hair by Tutakura. A new girl, meanwhile, who'd apparently finished getting ready herself, joined the chief's niece in preparing the American girl, and squatted down in front of Dani was a small bowl of the foul-smelling red paste. As Dani sat still while Tutakura played with her hair, this new girl reached up and painted a single red line down the length of Dani's front, from between her breasts all the way down to the start of her pubic hair. There were two more, one on either side, starting from just under each breast and stopping at the brunette's pelvis. A similar pattern was painted on Dani's face -- a long, red line running down the center of face from her forehead to her chin, with another pair flanking it on either side, from just below her eyes to her jaw line.

The girl was not quite done yet, however. In contrast with just how non-sexual Dani's toplessness had been since arriving in Aya Pampa, the girl reached up and twisted each nipple. Dani gasped, both out of surprise and for the shiver the act had sent shooting up and down her spine. She was loathe to admit it, but she'd become a little turned on by all the attention she'd been receiving, with so many hands running up and down her body. By no means was she a lesbian, or even somewhat curious, but Dani's nipples had been standing straight out before being tweaked, and now there was no hope of them subsiding before she left the bath house. They were, however, now a deep, crimson red, coated in a darker shade of the paint that Dani's wore over the rest of her body. For her final act, the girl pushed Dani forward, and back onto her hands and knees, with Tutakura taking a break from the sapumpa ferns in Dani's hair. Covering her entire hand in an orange-yellow paint, the girl place an upside-down handprint on Dani's right buttock.

Nudity and panty-stealing and body-painting were not in Dani's original agreement to come with Summer. But Summer was nowhere near by. Benitez was off somewhere else in the village. And only Taksa Kuchu was with her, and Taksa Kuchu was Huaca herself, and apparently saw nothing strange in the way that Dani was being treated by her tribeswomen. Like she had so many times since arriving in San Eduardo the previous night, Dani relented and rolled with the punches.

Taksa Kuchu collected the loincloth that she'd loaned Dani that morning, and Dani herself was offered another by one of the older girls in the bathhouse. Like the tapir-skin that Tutakura had been wearing when she was first introduced, the new loincloth was decidedly more ornate than the simple brown one Dani had been wearing. It was shorter, only long enough that it looked like it might stop at her knee, but had been made from a spotted jaguar. Given where the jaguar ranked in most South American cosmology, Dani decided that it would be an insult to turn the gift down, even if she was going to look like something out of Tarzan, or maybe Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Apparently, however, it wasn't a loan, or even a straight-up gift -- the girl looked expectantly at Dani's right hand, which held her own balled-up black lace thong. Dani again glanced to Taksa Kuchu for help, but again found none coming, and decided to relent. She had more underwear back at the Oveja Negra, and another pair in Benitez's backpack should she decided that the loincloth was simply too revealing. If anything, Dani wondered if she was shortchanging the Huaca girl by trading a pair of mass-produced Eve Intimates-brand panties for genuine jaguar fur.

Her sandals were the next upgrade. Dani had worn a pair of sporty, Teva-like sandals through the swamps. Summer, Taksa Kuchu, and their Huaca escort had all been barefoot, but Dani was not so sure-footed that she'd felt comfortable traipsing through the jungle without something on her feet. Along the way, they'd gotten caked in mud and dirt and sand, and by the time she'd taken them off to enter the bathhouse, they'd been almost unrecognizable. To her rescue came one of Tutakura's friends, who arrived late but carrying a pair of strappy, straw-colored Spanish espadrilles that looked as if they'd been purchased from a high-end shoe store somewhere in New York. Dani couldn't believe her eyes -- they were the sort of shoes that American girls dropped small fortunes on, and they were here, in a remote jungle village on the Western edges of the Amazon.

Apparently, Taksa Kuchu explained after hearing the story herself, the girl's husband had traded with one of the local Benianos, but the girl, unaccustomed to the high-heeled wedge, had been unable to wear them. Where the Beniano had procured the sandals was a source of mystery in and of itself, and Dani guessed that the story of their journey was no less interesting than her own. Unlike the loincloth, these were offered gratis, as a gift, as the Huaca girl had no interest in them, and Dani had nothing more on her person to trade.

When they were all done, Dani followed Taksa Kuchu and the wide-smiling Tutakura out of the bathhouse. Taksa Kuchu had donned the same, familiar loincloth she'd been wearing since they left the Land Rover, while Dani herself was in the newly acquiried jaguar skin - which, unfortunately, was a bit shorter than she'd expected, falling only a little more than half-way down her thighs on both the front and back. She was extremely aware of just how exposed her pussy was, out in the open for anyone who happened to glance her way as she walked. While she had longed to be in Benitez's reassuring company for the better part of the afternoon, she was second-guessing herself now -- she doubted she'd last long in his presence without asking for her spare pair of panties. She was naked, after all, nothing but two narrow animal-skin panels protecting her from complete and total exposure. She wore the espadrilles, as well, the straps climbing up her calves and holding themselves in place. She was a bit of a sight, she knew, walking around Aya Pampa in a pair of heels, but damn if she didn't look good. If she were going to be this naked in front of Benitez, she at least didn't want him to recoil at the sight of her. Her hair was pinned up, bringing the senior prom metaphor to a head, woven through with sapumpa fern as a practicality to keep mosquitoes away.

They found Benitez playing a shell game just upriver, the omnipresent walls of the ravine flickering in torch light on either side. He did a double take when he saw Dani, and Dani smiled to herself, knowing that all the primping and body-painting had had their desired effect. She felt a bit stupid, covering in paint, decked out in jaguar-skin, and wearing high-heeled sandals, especially given that Benitez himself was still wearing the same outfit he'd worn all day. Oh well, Dani thought to herself -- it wouldn't be the first time that there were different rules for men and women.

As Dani approached the shell game, however, and with all eyes on her, she felt a horrifying tug at her hip, and sensed the jaguar-skin loincloth begin to slide from her hips. She shrieked, much to the joy of the crowd, and managed to catch the loincloth before it completely slid off -- but not before she was sure she'd exposed her pussy to Benitez. Redfaced, she carefully retied the loincloth, and reassured herself that Benitez was both a doctor and a gentleman.