Author: Sterling
Title: Gulliver's Sexy Travels
Summary: A futuristic version of Gulliver's classic voyage,
describing societies with reproductive practices that are close
to human but also have some poignant difference. Four are
described in detail: The agony of getting pregnant, Desiring a
woman is sick, Wait until you're a man, Losing your virginity is
deadly.
Keywords: ScFi caution snuff MF mf Mf 1st, coer, non-con, reluc,
horror vign

NOTICE:  This story contains explicit sex.

First posted 6/14/2017.

I'm always eager for comments, whether good, bad or mixed.
Comments to sterling27@live.com.

I have written many other stories and they can all be found at
/files/Authors/Sterling/
For an index see
/files/Authors/Sterling/A%20%20SUBJECT%20INDE
X.txt

There is a more user-friendly web version of most of my stories
here:
/files/Authors/Sterling/www/

Sterling

============================================================
Gulliver's Sexy Travels

I have traveled the galaxy and experienced dozens of worlds with
intelligent life and civilization. I've been to freezing deserts,
baking deserts, water worlds, jungles with ferocious predators,
those whose inhabitants dwell in caves, and several Gardens of
Eden with entirely pleasant surroundings. I've been in orbit
around some worlds with very high mortality, but prudence
dictated I stay in orbit. In a couple, lifespan follows an
exponential decay curve, so there are a few who are thousands of
years old, more who are hundreds, and a great many children and
young adults.

I've seen many strange customs and many strange social
arrangements. I've seen societies of extreme inequality. In one
there is harmonious cannibalism where a higher caste routinely
kills and eats members of the lower caste -- who understand their
role in the society and accept it with equanimity.

But the stories I tell today are of societies with sexual
arrangements that to us will seem very strange.

Imagine a world where women have sex only once in their entire
lives, during a brief "heat" with a single man, and store the
sperm and use it for all their pregnancies.

Imagine a world where they have sex all the time, and women get
physically ill if they don't get it regularly -- and imagine the
opposite where it is men who must be constantly mating to stave
off aging and death.

Imagine a world where it is only at the end of life, around age
forty, that women have sex, and then they grow enormous during
pregnancy and must die as they deliver between three and ten
babies who are then raised by others.

Imagine a species that has evolved in tandem with a domestic
animal somewhat like a goat. The humanoid males mate with and
fertilize the female goats, while the male goats mate with and
fertilize the humanoid females. The humanoids subsist entirely on
goat milk, while the goats are protected by the humanoids from
fearsome predators. The humanoids view the goats with contempt,
and no one knows what the goats think.

But I will focus on just a few stories in greater depth, stories
with people who are very much like us in most respects, and the
few differences will hopefully intrigue you and resonate with
you, my reader.

The galaxy is very large, and the wonder and variety to be
observed among the intelligent species is stunning.

---------------------------------------------------------

1. The agony of getting pregnant

I asked how they made babies, and a married couple volunteered to
show me. They had two children but wanted another. Anyone could
tell when a woman was fertile by the smell, and I could too. I
asked how likely it was that this act would result in conception,
and they told me it was almost a sure thing, 90% or so.

The wife said that the man should tie her up, and no matter what
she said, not let her go until he had finished impregnating her.
The naked woman cooperated as he tied each of her wrists and
ankles to the four different posts at the corners of a bed.

The man's erection appeared and he entered the woman. She winced.
I could see her biting her lip and struggling not to cry out as
he thrust into her with enthusiasm. After a couple minutes he
groaned and held himself deep, looking just like one of our human
males when he ejaculated. As he did, the woman yelped. The man
withdrew, cock shrinking.

I thanked them, thinking it was pretty tame -- no worse than
house cats on earth, perhaps. But they smiled and said they were
just getting started. It would take about 12 hours in all. The
man busied himself with other activities and the woman lay on the
bed, watching a TV on the wall. After half an hour the man
returned with something like a milkshake that the woman drank.
And then his cock got hard and he entered her again. The woman
yelped again and cried while he thrust away, shrieking when he
ejaculated.

The man appeared each time with a beverage. At the fifth time,
the woman refused it and said she couldn't stand the pain and he
really ought to untie her. Two children was plenty. But the man
didn't. He mounted, and as she cried and writhed he thrust into
her harder than before. When he came she gave a full-throated
scream. She ask that he turn off the TV, and with this request he
readily complied.

Every half hour or so he appeared again and ignored the woman's
pleas to be released. He penetrated and thrust hard to the point
of violence. If he paused the woman relaxed visibly, but when he
went back to thrusting she convulsed in pain.

Eight hours on, the woman begged for mercy as the man disengaged.
I followed him out of the room and asked how it was for him. He
grinned sheepishly and said there was nothing quite so hot as a
screaming woman in heat. Other times, when the woman wasn't
fertile, they had sex, she had orgasms and it felt OK to him. But
this was magnificent. Didn't it bother her that she was so upset?
Yeah, kind of, he said, but there was no other way to make a
baby.

The man reappeared to screw his mate more frequently. By ten
hours he was doing her every ten minutes, penetrating her deep,
thrusting hard and fast and coming after about two minutes,
followed by eight minutes of catching his breath. Whether he was
resting or copulating , the woman kept pleading with him to stop
and let her go, but he didn't. Blood was oozing from her vagina
now.

After about eleven hours he entered her once more and told me
over his shoulder that this was the last time. The woman groaned
at the announcement and then he started humping away. This time
he didn't come after a few minutes but just kept humping and
thrusting and rutting as the woman kept moaning and crying and
occasionally screaming. And then at last, after his thrusts got
even faster and more insistent, he lunged deep and help still. I
got to see the contrast of his face relaxed in ecstasy as hers
was scrunched up in agony. They held that position for a full
minute before the man finally withdrew.

It was a stunning display of male power and female subjugation.

He didn't untie her right away, he explained, because sometimes
women got violent until they had more time to calm down. She fell
asleep and only woke up a little when he untied her.

And then -- she thanked him! They kissed.

I asked if their women ever got pregnant without being
restrained, and they said no woman had ever succeeded at that,
though a few had tried. Some men subdued the women with physical
force, but no threat was enough to make a woman keep cooperating
during the act.

I asked about pregnancy and they said women felt good when they
were pregnant. I explained the morning sickness our women
typically experience, and they thought that sounded weird and
awful. I explained the aches, pains, and weariness of late
pregnancy, and they said there was none of that. Everyone knew a
pregnant woman felt great.

Later they said a woman they knew was going to give birth, and
asked if I'd like to attend the labor and delivery. This was a
party, with friends and relatives invited. Every time there was a
contraction the woman moaned with orgasm and people cheered her
on. As the contractions got closer together the orgasms got
bigger. In the pushing phase the midwife reminded her a couple
times to push instead of just relaxing in afterglow, and the
woman with a sheepish smile did. She was working hard, heart
pounding during the contractions, but what she felt was ecstasy.
At the final push she cried out, and the women present sighed,
some remembering how absolutely fantastic it felt when they had
given birth, others looking forward to the day they could
experience it too.

When I thought about conception on the one hand and the birth
process on the other, I realized that the women experienced less
pain overall to have a baby than we humans did. It's just that
their pain was all at conception, while human women suffered
various forms of unease during pregnancy and then had plenty of
pain during childbirth.

When I described how things worked with humans they were
horrified and said they'd never choose that instead.

---------------------------------------------------------

2. Desiring a woman is sick

The scientists explained that in their species pathogens such as
viruses, bacteria and fungi have been a strongly driving force.
Sex among animals on earth was a response to this problem, and
here the response is even more dramatic. Females collect in their
uterus the semen from many men, and through a complicated process
involving their own immune system and the pathogens they are
exposed to, they create the genetic blueprints for future babies
based on their own DNA, then mixing and matching from the genetic
material contributed by dozens or hundreds of men. Having many
years to try out different combinations is a real benefit, so
their girls were wired to start collecting semen not long after
they turn 3. The process is complete by the time they undergo
most of the changes we associate with puberty around age 13 --
larger size, breasts, and wider hips, all geared to actual
pregnancy and childbirth. But their eggs are all "fertilized"
(speaking loosely) by puberty. Their genetic make-up is fixed and
so the women have no use for semen. So naturally the species has
evolved so that they have no interest in sex and men have no
interest in having sex with them.

All the long-lived land creatures on the planet use this method.
The rough equivalents to our rodents use the same method as we
earthlings do, so they are familiar with the concept but it
naturally is seen as primitive.

Little girls feel sexual pleasure based primarily on how
genetically different the sperm is from what they have already
collected. They are therefore strongly attracted to men who look
different from them and who smell different. It is common for
groups composed of well-off uncles and nieces (there are no
identifiable "fathers") to take extended world tours to regions
where people look different. The local little girls are very
interested in the uncles, and the little niece tourists can be
deliriously happy collecting dozens of exotic semen samples a day
if they choose. (The girls only keep the genetic material, and
the semen flushes out within a day as a vaginal discharge.)

Though a member of a different species, I was apparently still
"human" enough to attract their interest and in fact was the
ultimate in exotic. During my visit I was besieged by small
girls.  I wondered if my genetic material might be so different
as to be harmful, but their scientists scoffed at the idea. Their
little girl uteruses would have no trouble sorting out any
genetic sequences that didn't belong.

Once I explained our mating habits, they understood
intellectually why I resisted the advances of the little girls,
but it was hard for them. Many a preschool girl was taken from my
presence in tears. The mothers offered the explanation that I had
just given my sperm to other girls so there was virtually none
left, but it mollified them only a little, as even a tiny amount
of very exotic genetic material is valuable.

I decided to participate in the culture as best I could, which is
of course part of our training. The bigger girls, presenting
their rear end to me for a doggy-style mating, were sufficiently
attractive that I could perform. The first one's vagina gave
superb pleasure beyond anything I have experienced on earth. The
reaction of the girl after I was done delivering my load was
extraordinary. She fell to her side, moaning, groaning and
twitching, with an ecstatic smile on her face. She then passed
out, but shortly regained consciousness and the pleasure lasted
days.

As the experiment was a success I was naturally interest in
participating further in the culture. Yet I confess that the
extraordinary vaginal welcome interested me inherently, and I
started doing a girl a day. Although I tried to be open-minded, I
could not manage an erection for the act with any girls younger
than nine or ten, despite my best efforts.

They were surprised to learn that we usually insisted on having
sex in private. There, little girls and men copulating in public
spaces was noticed less than two people kissing would be here.
But with an exotic man like me, there was much interest in
watching if we did it in public, and eventually dozens of people
were crowded around for each copulation I performed, and it was
often captured on video. Perhaps I have an exhibitionist streak.
The girl's mother, aunts and adult sisters were so delighted by
the prospect that my natural revulsion at what here would be
committing sexual abuse was greatly reduced. Younger sisters were
kept away, as they would be strongly envious and frustrated that
they weren't benefiting from my sexual attentions instead.

When I first explained that in my species men wanted sex with
adult women and had sex with them, the audience was
uncomfortable. When I cheerfully added that I found many of their
women attractive, that was apparently too much. One woman
abruptly left the room, another gagged and the men looked
horrified. They said some things are just too serious to joke
about. From then on, when the subject of our world's sexuality
was introduced it was preceded by a rough equivalent of a trigger
warning, and the horrible idea that I personally might in my mind
entertain thoughts towards the adult women on their planet was
not mentioned.

For as in our world, there are perverts. There are men who do
lust after grown women and a few who rape them. While no one
defends such rape, their scientists try to explain that the
attraction these strange men feel to adult women is inborn and
can't be changed, and that it's better if such men are accepted
so they can be given help to make sure they never do rape women.
But it is a very hard sell, and I read many opinions as to why
such attractions are evil and such men should be killed. The
purpose of sex is reproduction and no such matings can
contribute. Past puberty, vaginas serve only as an exit conduit
for babies. (In response to a privately posed question, one
open-minded, gentle scientist confirmed they are also dry and
unsuited to receive a penis in any comfort.) To them it is
obvious that once a woman grows hips and breasts her body has
moved to the phase of bearing and nursing children, and no sane
man could find her sexually attractive. Those few women who were
raped were in fact terribly traumatized by it.

There are also a very few young girls whose vaginas are still
small at the age of 4 and who do not welcome male attention. Such
girls are considered to have a shameful and serious condition,
though of course their mothers still do their best to love them.
I was fascinated to learn that their ovaries are always removed
at the start of puberty. Otherwise a few of them at least would
develop sexual interest in men. That is too horrifying for the
society to contemplate. A few wild-eyed radicals suggested that
if these girls developed into such women they could serve as a
safe sexual outlet for those few men who are attracted to adult
women. Such a view is considered only slightly less crazy than
the idea they should cook and eat their little children for
dinner.

We who land on other worlds know we may not survive. Local
diseases may kill us, or we may run afoul of local customs we do
not understand. In this case the problem was arranging to leave
after a year. I was just too valuable to them as a source of new
genetic material. When I figured out that they were making
excuses to delay my departure, I said I would refuse to have sex
with any more of their girls. Eventually we reached a compromise.
I would provide a month's worth of semen samples which they could
then divide into tiny doses and insert in hundreds of girls by
artificial insemination. Some could be kept frozen for future
use. That and a few seminal bribes to the nieces of key
bureaucrats (and daughters of those who were women) were enough
to get me back to my spaceship in orbit.

---------------------------------------------------------

3. Wait until you're a man

One of the first things I noticed was that there were no boys.
Baby girls, small girls, medium girls, and big girls, but no
boys. The society is quite casual about nudity, so it was hard to
miss the profusion of small people with slits between their legs
and the absence of people with the male organs. Were they all
being raised in some separate area that I had not seen?

No, there are no boys. In most societies, babies are born either
male or female and this defines their life, requiring certain
things of them and making others impossible. Here everyone starts
female, and if they live long enough, then they turn into a man.
The transition from woman to man is direct, with no "boy" stage.

Men rule in this world, there is no question about it. But women
can look forward to being men themselves one day.

As is common with most animals on earth, women enter a heat where
it is apparent to all that she is fertile. Men mate with her
during that period and never on other occasions. Yet earth animal
females in heat always seek out sex and often do their part to
help. Women in these worlds feel no such compulsion. Sex is
always mildly painful to them, and any time they are in heat they
must submit to intercourse many, many times. The men do not bond
with individual females or have harems or practice polygamy. 
That would not work, because in this species conception is very
difficult. The woman requires sperm from the right man, who is
rare. No one has any idea who the right man is, so the only
sensible option is for lots of men to try their luck.

Even so, women get pregnant only about 25% of the time from any
given heat. Pregnancy is both unpleasant and perilous. Around 10%
of the time a woman dies during childbirth, and the percentage is
as high on the third or fourth pregnancy as the first.

This same pattern is found in many of the world's animal species,
where females cooperate easily enough, though they may whine or
cry after each of dozens of copulations. Being thinking beings
with foresight, the women know that if it has any purpose at all,
this unpleasantness will lead to an unpleasant pregnancy and the
risk of death. There is some tendency for them to avoid it.

Women can live for hundreds of years if they are infertile, so
putting off pregnancies is tempting. They never reach menopause,
and men will continue mating with them, year after year. But most
women are fertile, naturally. At some point after giving birth
between 3 and 7 times, the woman starts transforming into a man.
Her vagina closes up and a penis emerges, though testicles remain
inside. She grows taller and gains weight in the form of muscle,
the typical man twice as heavy as the typical woman. At some
point she becomes a he. At this point he will not live more than
ten or twenty years. He develops a strong sex drive, seeking out
females in heat. Sex feels fantastic, from the moment of
insertion to the ecstasy of orgasm -- which may often be less
than a minute.

In this society, women do all the work. If they shirk, the men
will beat them into line. It is unpleasant and seems very unfair
to us as we recall earth societies where women were severely
repressed not long ago, but there is this one key difference. On
this planet they know that one day they will get their turn -- if
they survive. It is also clear that the men must insist that the
women submit to sex or the species would have gone extinct long
ago. The more compassionate ones may feel a bit guilty, but can
rightly say, "You'll get your turn". When we deny various
privileges to our children, this is our natural reply as well --
you'll understand when you're older.

Family bonds are primarily female. Males have no idea what
children they might have sired, so there is no father-daughter
bond. Males do of course have daughters that they bore when they
were women, and they retain bonds of affection. Yet there is no
incest taboo -- men enter, thrust and ejaculate in the daughters
they bore as enthusiastically as anyone else, undeterred by the
wincing and tears. Sure they love their daughters, but sex is
sex.

There are several little subspecies that have formed because of
fathers and daughters being the right match for each other. If
the pattern remains, genetic diversity disappears. They are often
visibly deformed or retarded as bad genes are unchecked by
healthy counterparts.

Especially as they get older, men tend to abandon their families
and wander to distant cities, more and more intent on finding
females in heat and trying to plant their seed. They show few
signs of aging. By far the most common way to die is during the
exertion of copulation. When they do, they ejaculate an enormous
amount -- perhaps a pint -- their bodies apparently knowing it is
their last chance. The women usually save it, promising the dying
man to use the semen to try to conceive more offspring after
death. This semen stays potentially viable for months. Women who
go into heat will take a bit into their vaginas if there is any
such dead man's sperm around. It is one more chance to get
pregnant -- and unlike the typical act of sex, it does not hurt.
They also know that -- if they have decent luck -- they too will
one day be men and will die and will at the end hope they can
father yet one or two more daughters.

---------------------------------------------------------

4. Losing your virginity is deadly

Readers of tender sensibilities may want to stop here. The last
society I describe is like ours in many respects, but there is
one aspect that may shock and horrify you.

I noticed three types of adults in the society. Two types are
familiar to us. The men were muscular and notably masculine, the
women full of curves, with big hips and breasts, often pregnant.
They explained that pregnancy and childbirth weren't especially
traumatic. Both types were brimming with vitality.

The other, much more numerous type were skinny and pale, with no
obvious sex. They explained that both sexes were represented in
this type. The males had penises and the females vaginas, but the
vaginas closed up and the penises never became erect and were
good for nothing but peeing. I will call them "workers", on
analogy with worker bees and ants. Meeting a new worker, most
people didn't care whether it was a male or female -- it didn't
matter for any practical purpose. Given these basic differences
in morphology, it was no surprise that all of the reproduction
was done by the real men and women. Both sexes were held in high
esteem and the workers deferred to them.

I asked how it got decided who became dominant and reproductive
and who became workers. It wasn't hereditary, and it was not a
decision other people made for them. It was within their control
-- but at a risk and a cost.

The boys and girls all looked much as our children and teens
might look. But around the age of 16, they had a momentous choice
to make. If they didn't get around to making it, then they would
naturally turn into the pale, de-sexed workers.

The choice was to engage in sexual intercourse for the first
time, boy virgin with girl virgin, face to face. There was one
major catch -- one of the two always died during the act, and
occasionally both did. Once virgin penis was inserted into virgin
vagina, they locked together. It was physically impossible to
separate them until one or the other partner died. The boy
usually started thrusting, though they could turn over at any
time and the girl take a turn. And for the first half hour or so
both felt great, exquisite pleasure. There, as here, your first
time is in many ways the best.

But then one or the other partner started feeling bad, while the
other kept feeling good. Feeling bad was a sign that your
lifespan was now to be measured in minutes or at most hours.
Naturally the doomed partner would practice denial until it was
unmistakable. At that point the surviving partner naturally could
rejoice, though there was an unpleasant interlude to be endured.
If the girl was the survivor, she always turned over to be on top
and did the remaining work of copulation, cowgirl style.

Parents often watched the early part of the process, but if it
became apparent that it was their child who was doomed, they
would kiss the boy or girl a tearful goodbye and leave, for no
one expected them to watch what must follow.

Death for the doomed was not a simple matter. A doomed boy's
penis stayed hard and would for the brief remainder of his life.
As the surviving partner kept that penis pistoning in and out of
vagina, each thrust pained the doomed one and after a while was
the engine of their demise. The pain became serious, and soon
there was a paralysis of the large muscles. There was quivering
and twitching and discoloration of the skin. Some were stoic in
the early stages, while others moaned and cried. Then pain went
from serious to excruciating, and none could remain stoic any
longer. The soft tissues of the body started to liquefy, and then
they started leaking. A doomed boy's fluids leaked through his
penis into the girl's vagina and then flowed out of her. A doomed
girl leaked through her uterus into her vagina and then out. For
this grim inevitability, a large tub was always placed under the
bed before the act began, though it was unknown in advance
whether it would collect liquefied boy or liquefied girl.

The surviving partner could prolong the life of the doomed one
and ease the pain temporarily by holding still. It was the motion
of penis in and out of vagina that caused the other to
disintegrate. Occasionally a boy or girl would be so upset by the
other's agony that she or he would stop. But they could no longer
save the other. They could only kill themselves, for beyond a
certain point the designated survivor would suffer a sudden
paralysis and die, and the doomed partner would linger even
longer in pain. Finally there would be two corpses still locked
at the genitals.

To fight against this possibility, relatives of the survivor
usually stayed and encouraged their boy or girl to keep going, to
keep the motion going -- the other had known the risk, this was
part of life, and only by continuing could they survive -- only
by continuing what was in one sense and to an outsider's eyes the
torture and murder of their partner.

The doomed partner lost the strength to vocalize, then began to
look thin, and then emaciated, as the muscles and inessential
organs liquefied and flowed out through penis or vagina, but the
essential organs were saved for last. The doomed one retained
consciousness to the last. Near the end, things proceeded fairly
quickly. Fluid gushed out the genital opening. The remainder of
the lungs liquefied, the heart stopped, and death occurred, and
still there was more fluid to be forced out by the copulatory
exertions of the survivor. Only then did the lock of the genitals
release, accompanied by a long, intense orgasm for the survivor.
He or she could finally separate, hours after the initial
penetration, from the shrunken husk that had shortly before been
a vibrant adolescent boy or girl.

The survivor would typically shower -- and girls use a douche to
remove the last traces of liquefied boy corpse. They could eat,
rest a brief while perhaps, and then celebrate. Both families
would gather in advance. They would shortly either be attending a
coming of age ceremony or a funeral, and had only an hour or
two's warning as to which. Naturally the two ceremonies were
entirely distinct.

The survivor was now a full man or woman, free to sleep around
with other survivors, enjoying the pleasure of mating while
knowing the other would also feel pleasure and both would survive
this and every succeeding act of sex. Eventually a young man and
woman would marry, and then start having babies. Their sons and
daughters would grow up. Just as we learn at some point about the
inevitability of death and how babies are made, they also learned
at some point the choice they would face -- one where death and
reproduction were intimately linked. Some children said they
would never have sex and risk the horror, choosing a long life as
a virtual eunuch. Others were determined they would have sex when
the time came. And yet often when the time came some members of
each group made the opposite choice. Those who took the gamble
typically convinced themselves that surely they would be the
survivor of the encounter.

A survivor of age 17 looked no different from a virgin of 17. If
by some chance a survivor had sex with a virgin, the two would
become locked and the virgin would inevitably die. So both
members of a pair had reason to represent their status truthfully
-- with the exception of an occasional sadistic survivor or a
suicidal virgin.

One rule was to never lose your virginity with someone you cared
about. Boys and girls who despised each other for some reason
were the best choice. Mutual insults and boasting and verbal
abuse recorded from such encounters are part of their literary
heritage.

All in all, about half of the boys and girls chose to become
workers -- or became workers by never quite getting around to the
fateful act before it was too late. Since half of them died, the
adult society was about 1/8 men, 1/8 women and 3/4 workers. As
with earth insect societies, the workers did all the work. The
survivors enjoyed life, and had lots of sex. There were plenty of
workers to help raise the kids.

The society had no end of people who claimed they could tell
which partner would survive a virginal bout of sex, but the
scientists believed it was all quackery. Which partner survived
was pure chance and nothing more.

A mother and father needed to produce about eight children to
keep the population in equilibrium -- a few more to account for
accident and disease. There were many possible family
configurations as a set of siblings passed through their teens.
In a few families all decided to have sex. By chance, in a few
families all of them died -- and in others they all survived. In
other families, none decided to have sex and the parents were
faced with the prospect of no descendants. But in most families
the choices were mixed. If most older siblings went over the line
and became workers, there was implicit pressure on the younger to
take the gamble. If there were many surviving older fertile
brothers or sisters, taking the safe way out was more appealing.
Parents wanted descendants, of course, and yet all parents would
feel relief at knowing their own beloved children would survive
into adulthood.

Young virgins never, ever attended first sexual encounters before
their own. The theory and goal was that they know only that they
might die a painful death, and if they survived it might be
distressing to watch their partner die. In practice, word of the
details got around.

All in all it was a very complicated and intriguing setup -- and
a horrifying one. You might expect natural selection to produce
boys and girls who would all take the risk, as the others never
left offspring. Or you might expect intelligent creatures to
avoid such a terrible risk. And yet some chose each path.

---------------------------------------------------------

Yes, dear reader, the galaxy is a large and strange place, and we
are just beginning to understand the diversity of life. You can
expect to hear more stories, even stranger than these, in the
years ahead.

============================================================

What did you think? I'm always eager for comments, whether
positive, negative or mixed. Comments to sterling27@live.com.