Author: Sterling Title: Learning How Boys Are Different From Girls - At Thirty Summary: The Holy Innocence Church has created separate orders of profoundly innocent monks and nuns to praise God, isolating them on nearby tropical islands. New novices are delivered each year by boat. Then the deliveries stop. It is left to the innocents to figure out if they should change their ways in an effort to keep from going extinct. Keywords: MF group humor preg 1st NOTICE: This story contains explicit sex. First posted 4/10/2014. 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 You are welcome to copy this story if you include the entire text unchanged, including this notice. If you tell me where you have re-posted it, I can enjoy knowing it is appreciated and perhaps enjoy the feedback the story gets where you re-post it. Sterling And now, our feature presentation. Enjoy! ============================================================ Learning How Boys Are Different From Girls - At Thirty Chapter 1 Our Lady was an island, three miles long and half a mile wide. Lush vegetation grew everywhere, with a clear spring at the base of the central hill. Warm breezes blew year round. Nature provided fruit and fish. With just a bit of work it was easy to grow rice, sweet potatoes and vegetables. The real work of the residents was praising God. There was only one contact with the outside world. Every year on the vernal equinox, a rowboat appeared from over the horizon. At the oars was a single woman, dressed in white. With her was a 3-year-old girl. The girl was delivered to the sisters of Our Lady and consecrated to God. After a brief ceremony, the woman dressed in white rowed back over the horizon. She never spoke. The consecrated women and girls of Our Lady were because of this all one year apart in age. Eventually the older ones died. Occasionally a disease or an accident claimed the life of one of the younger ones. But the population of the island usually consisted of 70 or so females, aged 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... with spaces becoming more the rule than the exception above the age of 60. There was no medicine -- God would claim them in His own good time. The older sisters delighted in the play of the little novices. They were not too strict with them, but prepared them gradually to assume their solemn duties as full sisters when they turned 14 years old. Our Lady was the convent island of the Holy Innocence Church. Doctrine held that the way to a purer knowledge of Christ was knowing less of the ways of the secular world. They knew what the Church thought they ought to know to live the holiest life -- and no more. The sum of this knowledge was contained in the one Book of Innocence, mostly concerned with how God should be praised. They knew there existed a foundational book of Christian religions known as the Holy Bible, but they were only provided with a few excerpts of this book -- it had far more knowledge than was consistent with the holy life. One excerpt from that book was that the two original people were Adam and Eve. They had eaten from the tree of knowledge against the wishes of God and had fallen. To reclaim paradise, the women of Our Lady were to be told only what God wanted his chosen to know -- in the best judgment of the Holy Innocence Church. Eve was a woman, and Adam was a man. A man was another kind of human being, though they did not know in what way he differed. Children when created were destined to turn into either women or men, and the ones who turned into men were known as boys. This much they knew. In their spare time the novices and sisters occasionally shared fragmentary memories of the time before they came to the island. The Book of Innocence revealed that from the age of 18 months they had lived in a special Church facility. Some thought they remembered men, but the memories were very unclear. Some girls thought they had deep voices and never grew larger than a 10-year-old girl. Others thought they had scratchy faces and were very fat. Barely visible on the horizon was another island. They knew it was called Our Savior and it was much like their island but populated with men and boys. The Book of Innocence expressly forbade them from leaving their island. Our Lady was ruled by the Mother Superior, supported by the Council of Five Sisters. All the sisters and novices pledged obedience to the Mother Superior. In any dispute, her word was final. She designated her own successor and selected replacements for the members of the Council. However, sometimes age is not kind to the mind and judgment as any mortal ages, and the Council had the authority acting unanimously to remove the Mother from office and substitute another of the sisters -- who could not be one of the Council. The Book of Innocence told them that the Mother Superior had a personal library in her private office in her residence, an office that no one but she ever entered. These books were a symbol of forbidden knowledge. Their presence was a temptation, and one burden of the office of Mother Superior was to resist the temptation of looking at them. The original architects had designed the settlement of Our Lady to last. The buildings were all of imported stone set on deep foundations. There were storerooms with spare materials -- window glass, metal implements, rugged shoes, cloth, kitchen ware, and other small implements to support their simple life. The sisters prided themselves on how very slowly they drew on those supplies. The Book of Innocence promised that a larger boat with replacement supplies would arrive every 40 years. So far it had come just twice since the founding of the order. And so the years had passed. The older sisters gradually grew older, grew frail, and died. But each year a new girl arrived in the rowboat, and in this way the circle of life continued. --------------------------------------------------------- But now not all was well. One year the rowboat had not come. The sisters prayed for order to be restored, trusting in God. But it had not come the next year either. Now, as February turned to March, the rowboat had not come for ten years. If it did not come again, the youngest of them, Kira, would become a full sister and there would be no novices. The supply boat had been due to make its third appearance four years earlier, but it had not come either. There had been nine previous Mother Superiors, remembered by name in daily prayer. The current Mother Superior was firm that they must trust in God. If He intended them to die out, then that was His will. As others conversed in groups of two or three, some weren't sure this was the best course. Shouldn't they try to do something? They had no boats, and the Book of Innocence specifically decreed that they must not leave the island. But they knew rowboats existed and were possible. Perhaps they could fashion one from the materials they had at hand and make a voyage to Our Savior? They could find out if the boat to Our Savior had stopped coming too. They could share thoughts and ideas. Julie, the one and only resident of the island who was 28, was one of the most vocal of this group. She found herself in heated discussion, arguing for action, for exploration. The order of their world had been broken, and surely it was permissible -- perhaps even required -- for them to be flexible themselves? Some of the other sisters reminded her that she was not being as humble and obedient as she should be. On two occasions the Mother Superior had accosted her and assigned her to do penance. The first time she was put in seclusion for three days. This time she had been in seclusion for two weeks, and she had no idea when or if she would be released. She prayed constantly for God's will to be done, trying to suppress her natural human desire to be free and rejoin the others. But as the Book of Innocence demanded, she strove to be slightly better than human. If God's will was for her to remain in seclusion for the rest of her life, she would try to accept it gracefully. She awoke in the dark to the sound of footsteps outside on the path leading to her seclusion cell -- which was in a stone hut. She quickly rose and donned her habit. Then she realized it was not one set of footsteps, but several. She heard the sound of the door being unlocked, and then a voice. "May we come in?" "Of course," said Julie. The first to enter was Sister Beatrice, followed by the other four members of the Council! Surely this must be a very serious matter. Julie knelt and bowed her head. Hopefully she was not to be punished more harshly. There had been those screams from Sister Eleanor once after she had been in seclusion for a day. The rumor was that her offense had been touching Sister Anna in a way that she shouldn't. "May the will of God be done," she said softly, with total conviction. "You may rise, Sister Julie," said Beatrice. When she had risen the six of them stood in a circle in the small hut -- there was but one small chair. "Could you kindly tell us your thoughts on what Our Lady should do in light of the lacuna of the boats?" She bowed her head and said, "I trust the judgment of the Mother Superior in all things. If I have said intemperate things in the past, it has been my sin. I have been praying constantly for greater guidance from Our Father. I dare to hope that I am making progress." When she looked up, the others were smiling slightly. "That is very good, Julie. The Lord would be pleased. Yet -- suppose the Mother Superior asked you honestly for your own opinion, laying aside anything she has said in the past on the subject, laying aside what any of the rest of us have said. What are your thoughts then?" Julie was perplexed, fearing a trap. "Surely the Mother Superior would not turn for advice to one such as me, when there are so many more among you who are holier -- certainly including all of you of the Council!" Sister Theresa spoke. "It's not a trap, Julie. I can see why you'd think that. We can promise you solemnly that no word of what we say here will ever reach the ears of the Mother Superior." "But surely you wouldn't disobey the Mother Superior? You wouldn't keep a secret from her?" The others smiled thinly. "Think, Sister Julie," said Beatrice. "Think about the function of the Council. Think about our most important role in the order. Don't say anything, just think." Julie thought, but she drew a blank. Sister Rosa said, "Let's just say that when we report to the Mother Superior, it will not be to the person who before her elevation was known as Sister Catherine." Julie's eyes opened wide. "But the Mother Superior... She is not ill? Could this be God's will?" The others shifted uneasily and looked away momentarily. "The lacuna of the boats has changed things," said Beatrice. "It is with heavy hearts that we are nearly resolved to take this momentous step. So... what do you think we ought to do?" "Surely the new Mother Superior will know best? Or seek the counsel of those she trusts?" "Ummm," said Beatrice. "Your opinions may influence who we choose to be the next Mother Superior." Julie hesitated. Rosa said, "Sister Julie, there are different ways we can fail in God's eyes. There is failure of obedience and there is the sin of pride. Another is timidness, an unwillingness to think with an open mind and say what you think when asked. This is what we ask of you now. Do not be timid." Julie thought. If her opinions could guide who they selected for Mother Superior, that could be a very good thing. After a brief silent prayer, she began. "I think we ought to start building a boat -- it may take several tries -- and learn how to row it. I think a small delegation of volunteers should go over to Our Savior and take advantage of the knowledge of the monks to jointly chart the best course for Our Lady." Sister Theresa said, "Is it possible that the best course is to remain here in prayer on Our Lady until we all in due time go to meet Our Father in heaven?" Julie was overcome by feeling. "Yes," she said through gritted teeth. "If that is what the Lord wills, then that is what we ought to do." Suddenly embarrassed, she blushed and said, "Forgive me, I... I will try to control myself." Sister Beatrice smiled in kindly fashion. "What other ideas do you have?" "I think the Mother Superior ought to look through her library. It's a temptation, yes, but that applied to a world which has vanished. Sometimes when faced with a choice, the only option is the lesser of two sins. Along with the unholy knowledge, there might be some ordinary knowledge we don't have, some useful information..." She continued sharing her ideas for a few more minutes. Sister Beatrice raised her hand to stop her, then looked around at the other four from the Council. There were nods and smiles. Then she got down on her knees, took Julie's hand and kissed it. The others in turn all knelt and kissed her hand. Was this some sort of cruel joke? "I pledge to you my loyalty and obedience, O Reverend Mother," said Beatrice. "Me?" squeaked Julie. No one under the age of 50 had ever been Mother Superior. No one under age 38 had ever been on the Council. The others took the same pledge. "It is our best judgment of the will of the Lord," said Beatrice. "Are you sure? Why?" Sister Theresa said, "Uncertain times call for new thinking. For someone whose strong inclination is not to wait for our order to die out. Yet one who is also very holy." The others nodded. Julie reflected that some of the other sisters didn't seem to take their calling all that seriously. Julie sinned, but she felt genuine contrition and desperately wanted to be a better person and serve the Lord better. "But... But..." Beatrice continued. "And now, may the Lord give me strength for what lies ahead. Follow us, Sister Julie." --------------------------------------------------------- The six of them then proceeded directly to the Mother Superior's residence, Julie bringing up the rear, her mind spinning. When at last the sleepy Mother Superior opened the door, she looked out at the six of them on her porch. Julie stood behind the others, trying her best to be invisible. "O Reverend Mother," said Sister Beatrice. "After deep contemplation, we the members of the Council --" The Mother Superior drew back, eyebrows raised in astonishment. "No! No you don't! I am not senile! I have not strayed from the path!" "I understand that is your conviction, but --" "I forbid it! I will have you all put in seclusion! This is against the Way. It is against the will of our Lord. You are under the influence of the Devil." The others looked down. But Beatrice stood her ground. "I am sorry, Reverend Mother," she said at last. "I have served you to the best of my ability and obedience for six years. But in prayerful contemplation, the five of us feel it is God's will to take this unprecedented step." "And who is this other person behind you? Is this your choice? The pretender?" The others stood aside, and Julie could retain no pretense of invisibility. "Her! Who authorized her removal from seclusion? My orders were very clear." Beatrice sighed, then turned to Julie and gave her a warm smile. Then she fell to her knees and once again kissed her hand. The other four did so as well, and then all looked at the Mother Superior -- the former Mother Superior. They waited for her to do the same. But Sister Catherine stood with arms folded against her chest. Julie looked at her, fighting back tears. "What should we do, Reverend Mother?" asked Beatrice. "One of the sisters refuses to bow before the Mother Superior." "Um...." said Julie, when she realized she was being addressed. "Could I make a suggestion, Reverend Mother?" said Sister Theresa. "Certainly, sister -- um ... Certainly, my child?" "Perhaps a brief time in seclusion will help Sister Catherine to contemplate God's will." "Yes," said Julie with relief. "Yes, I think that would be wise. See that it is done." Sister Beatrice gently took the candle from the hands of the former Mother Superior and handed it to the new Mother Superior. As the others left to escort Sister Catherine to the cell Julie had occupied a few minutes before, Sister Rosa turned and said with a little smile, "Go on in -- it's your residence now." Julie watched them go, then crossed the threshold into the Mother Superior's receiving room. Whenever she had entered this room before, it had been with fear and trepidation. Rarely were the younger sisters invited in, and it was never for a friendly chat. The room had three sofas and the ornate carved chair reserved for the Mother Superior. Slowly advancing, she opened the door to the Mother Superior's private audience room. She had never seen it before. It was a smaller room with just one small couch, one chair, and a small table. There was a door beyond. It could lead only one place -- to the private chambers of the Mother Superior. They were now *her* private chambers. She stepped through into a small hallway. To her left was a bedroom, with the biggest bed Julie had ever seen. Two people could lie down side by side on that bed! To her right was the office, with a simple wooden desk, a chair -- and a set of bookshelves full of books. All the little novices dreamed of becoming Mother Superior some day. They played at being Mother and Sister, giving each other orders. Julie laughed and grinned, then did a little dance. She was immediately embarrassed and prayed for guidance from God. Returning to the bedroom, Julie looked at the rumpled sheets. No sister could ever leave her bed like that during the day. But then the Mother Superior hadn't dreamed that when she went to answer her door, she would never return. --------------------------------------------------------- When her breakfast was brought to her seclusion cell the next morning, Sister Catherine had relinquished her ring and cross pendant. Sister Beatrice introduced the new Mother Superior at a general meeting of the order later that morning in the settlement's central square. Many were clearly surprised. The sisters filed by, got down on their knees and kissed Julie's ring. Most were hard to read. A few were clearly suppressing hostility, but more seemed delighted, especially among the younger sisters. Kira, the last remaining novice, had perhaps the brightest smile. To try to adjust to her new role, Julie had private audiences with the Council members one by one. Sister Rosa related that Sister Catherine had also been quite unsure of herself when she first became Mother Superior, even though she was 64 at the time and had been the designated successor for three years. That made Julie feel better. She hadn't even considered changing anything relating to the daily life of the community. But Sister Beatrice had told her the most important thing was for her to establish her authority, and that must be done with all the old rituals intact. Having had no time to prepare, Julie sometimes had to accept coaching in just what she was supposed to say in the various prayer functions she performed during a day. It took her less time than she would have thought to adjust to all the deference the others showed her, and the realization embarrassed her and sent her into earnest prayer. A critical moment came 23 days after Julie's assumption of her office: the vernal equinox. They all knew that if the boat came, Julie's position would be radically undermined. She realized with deep shame that a large part of her desperately wanted the boat not to come. She wanted change! On the appointed day, all of the order prepared to assume their assigned posts if one of the lookouts spotted the boat. But the boat did not come. The next day she felt was the time to initiate her plan for boat construction. She made discreet inquiries through her Council and found some sisters who were eager and had some of the relevant skills, and then ordered them to work. They would take freely from the store room: lumber, rope, nails, and other items as needed. One sister thought that the gum of one of the island's plants could be used a sealant. The small crew would try to turn all of it into something that floated, and later into something that could be rowed. --------------------------------------------------------- What Julie did as soon as she was free from official duties on her first day was to explore the Mother Superior's desk. While all the sisters were familiar with the Book of Innocence, here was a book called the Mother's Book, consisting of instructions for the eyes of Mother Superiors only. It contained more on the history of the church and its teachings and the special role that Our Lady and Our Savior held. It also reiterated in somewhat more detail than the Book of Innocence how the rest of the library of 100 volumes was a temptation for the Mother Superior. Each book was wrapped in some thin plastic stuff that Julie had never seen before, but one could not read the book without breaking it, and evidently it could never be put back. It would be apparent to any new Mother Superior whether one of her predecessors had succumbed to temptation. She counted 100 sealed books. None had -- yet. In the days leading up to the equinox, Julie spent long hours at her desk in prayer and contemplation. As a young girl she had gradually absorbed the teachings of the sisters, gradually learned her role in life, learned the rules she must obey. Although God lay behind it all, to a young sister the visible manifestation of God was the Mother Superior. Their goal was always to do God's will, but in practice the woman with the ring and the cross pendant was the one interpreting that will. As a novice, her fear had not been God's displeasure, but the displeasure of the Mother Superior. She had also striven to discern God's will directly, as she was taught, but the messages were always murky. It had been one thing to tell the Council that she thought the new Reverend Mother ought to look at her library, but it was quite another when she was the person given that responsibility -- and when the plastic wrappings plainly revealed that for over 100 years her predecessors had all followed their orders. Any of them could have ripped open a book and blamed it on her predecessor. None had. There was one passage in the Mother's Book that she read over and over. "The Lord God created you, the Mother Superior, as a creature of free will. You must act as the Lord God guides you. You and you alone are burdened with the temptation of the books. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge in contravention of the will of God. The prohibition on reading from the books of knowledge comes from the best judgment of fallible mortals, the founders of the Holy Innocence Church." In thinking about the passage, she couldn't recall anywhere in the Book of Innocence where free will was emphasized, or where the founders of the Church were portrayed as fallible mortals. And then it struck her. The church had stopped sending a boat. That was a sign of its fallibility! Its vision had failed in some sense. The only thing that was supposed to end the plan of the church was the Second Coming -- which surely would not have bypassed their island! God was not telling her in prayer not to open the books, it was just the doctrine of a church which had been in shown in practice as well as theory to be fallible. On the morning after the vernal equinox, Julie said one more prayer, then with trembling hands tore the thin plastic stuff off of book #1. There was no thunder, no voice speaking from the heavens. She picked up book #2 and tore the plastic off of it too. One by one, she unsheathed every single book. When she was done there was a pile of crinkly plastic. She compressed it as best she could and stuck it in a drawer of the desk. All the drawers had been empty, as befitted a church devoted to innocence. Now one wasn't. First Julie read from the books at random but found that very confusing. Then she began a systematic survey of the books. She found a dictionary and encyclopedia and discovered which books were more basic and which more advanced. Still, she struggled to make sense of what she read. The earth was not the center of the universe. The moon revolved around the earth, but nothing else did. The sun was the center of something called the solar system, but it was part of a galaxy, of which the universe had billions. Many scientists believed there were other planets with other kinds of life -- possibly billions of them. The book noted that these discoveries had weakened belief in God, and Julie could see why. Instead of one little world looked over by one God, He had to make billions upon billions of stars and planets, or else -- heresy! -- maybe each world had its own God? All the sisters knew that the boat came from a bigger world. She realized that until then in her mind's eye the bigger world was maybe 50 miles long and 10 miles wide. When she saw world maps, she was astounded at how much land there was, how many cities, how many people. They were in a place called the South Pacific Ocean. A Church map showed Our Lady and Our Savior, but there were no other islands anywhere nearby. Her heart sank as she realized that a boat trip to anywhere else would be a very long one. She initially took heart from the fact that the boat that came to them was a small boat, and it must have gotten there somehow. Only later did she see pictures of giant ships and how they sometimes carried smaller boats inside them. That must be how it had been done. From her reading of history, she found that things had not always been as they were. Civilizations rose and fell. Religions came and went. Religions were incompatible with each other. At most one was correct. What made the Church think they were the right one? It was a terribly heretical thought. But the fact that the boats had stopped coming was not a good sign. If the Church had followed the example of so many of its predecessors, it may well have vanished for good and the boats would never come back. There were pictures of all kinds of people, and she realized that all of them on Our Lady were from Northern European stock and known as white people. There were lots and lots of pictures of men! Among the first few pictures she saw were some that gave her a funny little tingle in her stomach. Men were bigger than women when they were grown and they had deeper voices. They had faces that were scratchy or else hairy. They were not usually fat. Some pictures showed them naked above the waist, and it seemed they did not grow breasts. She had been scanning books for some time before she came across diagrams of what men looked like naked. What really set men apart, the most dramatic difference, was what was between their legs. This hardly ever showed -- men and women kept their crotches covered up in the wider world too, not just on on the island. But in those few pictures in the encyclopedia, it was very different. There was a tube called a penis and a sack with balls in it called testicles. Julie often had to take a break from her reading to pray, contemplate, and just plain think. So much was new to her. Sometimes she wondered if it was all true, it seemed so incredible. After tangential references here and there to something called pregnancy, she finally found a full description of where babies came from. They grew inside women's bodies! What a bizarre thought! One could see pictures of a woman getting fatter and fatter as the baby grew. Then when the baby was big enough it came out between her legs! This made her wrinkle her nose. Babies coming into the world from that dirty place? The other stuff that came out there was urine, feces, and menstrual blood. She noted briefly that innocence about some things might really help living a holy life. Half the time the baby was a boy and half the time it was girl. When the baby came out it was really tiny. Women's breasts produced stuff called milk that the babies drank. But apparently breasts only produced it right after a woman had a baby, which made sense. So that would be one solution to their problem of the order dying out -- get baby girls to come out of their bodies and wait until they turned three and could become novices. But of course no babies came out of the bodies of the sisters on Our Lady. It took her quite some time to puzzle out what made a baby start growing, since there were no pictures of it. First, it required a man. Some fluid called sperm came from the man's body and went into the woman's to start the process, and the baby looked partly like the mother and partly like the father. When she saw the cutaway diagram of a woman's body, she was fascinated. She had found as a young girl that there was an extra hole down there with no obvious purpose, but it was sinful to explore like that, so she'd only done it a couple times. As she approached puberty, the sisters explained that the opening was called a vagina and that blood would leak out of it every month. They explained how to contain the flow using the cloths that the order stocked for just that purpose. They reinforced the idea that it was sinful to touch oneself in that entire area except to keep clean. But now she was the Mother Superior. She made the rules. So with a vestigial wash of shame she pushed her finger up into the hole, and, encouraged by the diagram, kept pushing and pushing. The whole finger went in! There were references to insertion of the penis into the vagina, but she didn't get how it would work. Could you thread the little floppy tube into the vagina like you fed a rope into a hole? Apparently it wasn't really necessary. She also read about this thing called artificial insemination. They could collect sperm from men, then stick it in a woman later and it could start a baby growing. All you needed was to get the sperm in there somehow. Feeding a floppy tube of flesh into a vagina seemed both gross and far more complicated than necessary. Between her sessions with the books, she thought more broadly about their predicament. The boats were probably not going to return. They couldn't build a boat big enough to row to anywhere except Our Savior -- it would be no small task to manage even that. As she had planned all along, they could row to Our Savior to see if their boat had stopped coming too, and compare notes and share ideas. But there was a way to make more little girls themselves. Could they manage it? They didn't have any technology to speak of. But there was no obvious technology involved in collecting sperm from men and inserting it into women. As she kept looking, she realized that humans used to live without technology, and even back then they had needed to produce more little boys and girls, and apparently they had succeeded, since they didn't die off. God had created Adam and Eve in a way that was unclear, but since then all babies had been created using the same method. Suddenly it fell into place. Even if the men on Our Savior had no new knowledge, the key to survival of the order lay over there. They had the last missing piece: all men produced sperm. They'd get the men to give them some and they'd stick it in their vaginas. If one woman did that every year, she'd produce a tiny baby girl, and then when she was 3, she could take the place of the girls that didn't arrive any more. But wait... half the time the babies were boys. But... aha! They could make two babies a year and send the boys over to Our Savior so they wouldn't run out of men, and they could keep the girls so they didn't run out of women. But was that enough? All the women would still grow old and die so they couldn't have babies any more. The men would die so they couldn't produce sperm any more. But wait! The girls would eventually grow up and their uteruses would start working, so *they* could go over to the island and get some sperm. The little boys would grow up and make more sperm, and it would go on and on! She was dizzy for some time as she kept thinking of that plan from every angle. It was a workable plan for survival! Our Lady and Our Savior would keep going indefinitely, praising the Lord as the Church intended. Mother Superior Julie had violated her sacred trust and read the books. But in them she had found what they needed. Wasn't that worth it? --------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2 One by one, she had confided to her Council members that she had looked at a book. As she had hoped, there was no great shock -- she'd told them what she planned to do before they selected her. Then she revealed she'd looked at more than one. In fact she'd looked at all of them. She gave permission for the Council members to spread the word, and soon all the sisters knew that their Mother Superior had looked at the books. Julie avoided Sister Catherine as much as possible. Even though Julie now wore the cross and the ring, she could never forget the palpable sense of authority that came from the older woman's eyes. And their gaze always fed her doubts as to whether she was doing the right thing. Among the books, some had tidbits that would be helpful in building boats. The encyclopedia had entries for various parts of boats and kinds of boats. Sister Grace was the most adept woodworker. After appropriate formalities marking the gravity of the step, she invited Sister Grace into her private audience room and produced three books with their short passages related to boat building. Sister Grace studied them and took notes and sketches while Sister Julie looked on, never letting the books out of her presence. First they created a boxy tub that floated. Then they created an elongated box, then one with sloping sides and a gradually sloping front. At last they had a little boat that seemed seaworthy. They hadn't been able to make oarlocks, so they had to paddle instead of row. One sister paddled on the left side, the other on the right. They could paddle it around the island and could go away from shore for a considerable ways. It leaked, but by use of a large clam shell they could bail the boat out faster than the water came in. This was the responsibility for the third person in the boat. A cooking pot also would have worked, but the shell was good enough and the pots were precious. After much prayer and counsel, Julie was ready to order an expedition. Some of the sisters were strongly opposed, none more than Sister Catherine, but after they had stated their objections once they were obedient and said no more. The question arose of who should go with the expedition. Julie wanted to go. Others thought this was unwise -- suppose she were lost at sea? But she wasn't irreplaceable. The same drive that had made the Council choose her made her want to go, not sit back and let others report on what they had found. For her companions Julie chose Sister Frances and Sister Lisa. They were close to Julie in age, so they had been novices together and she felt she really knew them. They were also strong paddlers, and they believed in Julie's plan. But she didn't share any of her knowledge about how to make babies -- that would be for another trip, if at all. So with most of the sisters seeing them off -- Julie made attendance optional -- the three of them set out shortly after dawn one morning. Julie took a turn with a paddle now and then so Frances and Lisa could rest. Otherwise she bailed the boat as needed but mostly rested. They had been paddling for what seemed a very long time, and as noon approached the receding shape of Our Lady was still much larger than the growing shape of Our Savior. Julie ordered them to turn back. --------------------------------------------------------- There followed more days of paddling practice, and this time Julie participated seriously. Some of the older sisters muttered about the insult to the dignity of the office of Mother Superiority, but Julie ignored them. Along with building up their strength the three of them sought more efficient methods so each paddle stroke would move the boat farther. Grace watched from the shore and consulted the books in Julie's presence now and then and they thought it was a little better. In preparation for this second attempt, Julie made sure that they were traveling with a full moon, so they could still see their destination after dark. When they were ready, they set off once more, this time leaving before dawn. They paddled hard. When Julie took over a paddle they kept moving at a decent pace. By late afternoon they decided they were definitely closer to Our Savior than to Our Lady. On they went, aiming for the moonlit shape of the island. The moon was on its downward arc when they finally were within easy paddling distance. There were no obvious signs of habitation, but then it was the middle of the night. They rested to regain strength, and then paddled in to the nearest beach. They all noted how momentous it was to step onto another island. They bathed in the sea to get the worst of the sweat off, then rested and waited for the dawn. Julie had repeatedly wondered how they would be received. She briefly worried that they would be attacked. Surely if the men still followed the teachings of the Church this would not happen, but assuming the boat to Our Savior no longer came, who knew what changes that might bring to the island? Decent men could descend into savagery; this she knew from her forbidden books. If the men were merely hostile, they should at least be able to make an escape. Pulling the boat well up onto the beach, the three changed from their work habits into nicer ceremonial habits and began walking along the beach to their right. Before long they spied a man at some distance, and then another. They waved but weren't noticed at first. When one man did see them, he waved back, and only after peering carefully did he decide they were unfamiliar. At that, both men ran away at top speed. The three women kept walking. Soon they were met by a dozen men walking towards them, some holding long sticks, a few balancing rocks in their hands. They all had beards. At hailing distance, Julie called out, "Hello! I am the Mother Superior from Our Lady." "Hello! I am Brother James. Why are you here?" He spoke with a funny accent. The men who were carrying weapons considered briefly and dropped them, one by one. "Our boat stopped coming ten years ago. Do you have an annual boat? Does it still come?" "No," said James, but the others stopped him from saying more. "We should consult with the abbot." The men turned around and a couple ran ahead, while the others uneasily led the way and the women followed just as uneasily ten paces behind. As they left the beach and climbed the path to the settlement, Julie was surprised at how much it resembled their own. It made sense, though. If the Church had laid out the settlements over a hundred years before, at the same time, they would have little reason to choose a different plan for men as opposed to women. When they were in the central square, twenty men faced them. One of many with gray hair and beard had a cross on a chain and a ring, and announced himself as the abbot. He did not look at all friendly. "You say you are the Mother Superior. Where is your cross and ring?" "We thought we might perish on the journey, and felt those blessed objects should remain safe." That seemed to satisfy the abbot. "Come inside," he said, and entered the building that was analogous to the Mother Superior's residence. Only two of his fellows joined them, so it was three men and three women who sat in the receiving room. The abbot bowed his head. "May the Lord God guide us as we meet today." "Amen," said Julie and the others. "So, Mother Superior, do you have a set of rules to follow like I do?" "Yes, I do." "Do those rules allow you to cross to this island?" "No." "Do they, like mine, specifically forbid leaving your island?" "Yes." "Then, might I ask, why are you here, in direct violation of instructions from the Church?" "Our boat stopped coming. The one that has a new little girl each year. You get a similar visit?" "We did, until ten years ago." "Right. We realized that without any new girls arriving, we would die off. We thought it was worth being flexible and breaking the one rule to try to save the community." "And how would visiting us do that?" "I wasn't sure, but I thought we could exchange ideas." On a sudden whim, she said, "And hey, I thought maybe our little girls were being delivered here by mistake." The other four suppressed smiles, but the abbot remained stone-faced. "Or," she continued. "Perhaps the Church ran into difficulties and had time to give you instructions but hadn't had time to get the word to us." He nodded thoughtfully. "Could we discuss this privately?" Julie asked. "As Abbot to Mother Superior? With God as our constant companion and guide, of course." "That is acceptable," said the abbot. The two of them withdrew into the private audience room. --------------------------------------------------------- The abbot sat on his chair and Julie on the couch. "So," she said. "How have things been going here since the boat stopped coming? Has there been any impetus for change?" "Some have spoken of it, but through prayer I have remained steadfastly opposed." "So, if nothing else happens, you will age and die off." "Yes. I believe the Church is testing us. If not the Church, God Himself." "Um, do you have a library of books? Books you aren't supposed to read?" "Do you?" he asked cagily. "Yes. The Mother Superior's private collection. But I decided that this was an emergency so I have read some of mine." The abbot looked at her with wide eyes. "I feel certain that was an error. You're awfully young to be a Mother Superior, aren't you? Or do you on Our Lady no longer honor age, either?" "I was astonished to be chosen, I assure you. They said it was because they felt our changed circumstances required new ideas." "I feel certain you have made a series of errors here." Julie sighed. "Let me just get some basic information here. You have no idea why the boat stopped coming?" The abbot shook his head. "You have no idea how to get off this island or get more help?" He shook his head again. "And you have no idea how to get any more little boys?" He shook his head once more. Julie thought. No new options presented themselves. She hadn't been planning this, but it had been a long, grueling journey. Why wait? "Do you have any idea how to *make* more little boys?" He furrowed his brow and looked at her. Evidently the men's Book of Innocence and the Abbot's Book said no more about how to make children than hers had. She rose and beckoned him to stand. She stood fairly close to him and offered her hand. After a brief hesitation, he took it, and she raised her other to sandwich his. He wasn't a pleasant person. But his voice was deep. He was taller than her and muscular. She could just ask him simply if he would give her some sperm, but she wasn't at all sure what he'd say, and she felt strangely ill at ease. She knew from the books what he had in his pants. Sperm came out of it. But she felt strangely emotional about the whole matter. "There is... I know from the books that there is a way to make more little boys... It's kind of surprising, and may seem sinful... But surely children are also blessed." The abbot was looking uncomfortable. "It requires that we not be modest." She released his hand, then quickly lifted her habit over her head so she stood before him in just her worn bra and ragged underpants. What the heck was she doing? She was having trouble keeping a prayerful attitude. Yet... Surely she had to be naked to get his sperm into the right place? He stared at her, eyes bugged out. His eyes played up and down between her breasts and her crotch. She pulled her underpants down to her knees -- she couldn't stay covered and get the sperm into her. "You're... You're an abomination!" She realized he had no idea what women looked like. "No, not at all! All women are like this. It's the biggest difference between us. To make a new boy, you... You need to remove your pants," she said. Slowly he did, eyes fixed on her crotch, whispering "abomination." Julie was astonished. What the heck was that? It must be his penis! But it looked nothing like the penises in the book. This one was stiff and huge and stuck straight out. The books had spoken about insertion. And... That kind of penis would need no threading like a rope into a hole. *That* kind of penis could press itself into a vagina! But it was so big... Yet somehow insertion was the only means of transfer she could think of right then. She sat on the edge of the couch, legs spread wide, and held her lips open. "And you... Your penis goes..." She was both excited and terrified, seeing the size of the thing that the books said was supposed to be inserted into her. But the abbot seemed to get the idea without being told. His eyes glued to her vaginal opening, he lowered himself onto her, aiming his huge, sinful organ at her dirty, sinful place. She felt the tip touch her opening, then in a flash of motion his hands were on her thighs, holding her legs apart, and she felt the huge thing press into her. At first it didn't go, then it did, and down between her legs there was a sharp pain -- but it never occurred to her to push him away. Then he pulled it halfway out, then pushed it in again, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether to be in or out. But seconds later he gasped and held still briefly, then his huge penis slid out of her as quickly as it had gone in. Julie tried to collect herself. "So, if you did that and released some fluid, then --" "Oh, I did," groaned the abbot. "How did you know to do that?" "Just happened," he said. Suddenly he seemed to take in his surroundings. So did Julie. She was sitting mostly naked on a couch, underpants around her ankles, her legs wide apart so her sinful part was not just visible but displayed and emphasized. The abbot's crotch was exposed, his large penis shrinking. "What did you do to me?" he asked. "Nothing! I... It's about making boys..." She pulled up her undergarment, leapt up and grabbed her habit, putting it on quickly. "You must be the devil. Tempting me to carnal sin! Go back to your island at once and never come back!" By now his trousers were on, and he looked like an abbot. Julie was confused. It certainly had felt sinful, powerful -- almost like she was possessed. The abbot flung the door open and ushered her out. The two men and two women waiting in the outer room rose and looked at them expectantly. Julie strode outside and the others followed. "See them to their boat!" commanded the abbot to a pair of men outside. As they headed down towards the beach, Julie's mind spun. The plan wouldn't work unless they could get some of the men to give them sperm. To a knot of young men standing nearby she called, "Watch out for us! We'll be back! At night! Secretly!" "Ummm," said one of the men. The abbot's instructions hadn't said to keep them from talking. Lisa and Frances looked at her, perplexed, as they hurried down the beach. With the men watching, they got back into their boat. Soon they were a hundred yards offshore, paddling for home. "Ummm, Julie -- Reverend Mother, permission to speak freely?" said Frances. "Of course," said Julie, waving her hand. "We're exhausted, right? We could really use some more water. I know they ordered us to leave, but, do we have to? He didn't say he'd kill us or anything, right?" Julie realized she was making complete sense. Her own judgment had been thrown off by the intense experience with the abbot. "You're right, of course. We should replenish our water and get some food." "Why did he want us to leave so fast?" "I'll explain later." Under Julie's direction, they paddled parallel to shore away from the men's settlement until they passed around a narrow spit of land. On the far side was a cove with a much smaller beach. They landed. Julie looked carefully at the foliage bordering the beach and was delighted to see a face looking out at her. For her plan she needed contact with men. She suspected the abbot would decree that the men should have nothing to do with them, and of course they would obey. It was vital she make some connections before he made an announcement. She took three hollow coconut shells that they had drained of water on the way over and casually walked towards where the head had been. "Anyone there?" she said. "We need some more water for the trip back." The head reappeared, and then a young man approached. His hair and beard were black, and he was much more appealing than the abbot. "You are -- a woman?" "Yes," she said, smiling. "From Our Lady." "What... What are you doing here?" "I can explain that later. But here's the situation. We're leaving soon, but we're going to come back again, over and over, and we need to meet with some of you men. We already met the abbot, and he maybe doesn't like that idea." That was an understatement. "So the main message, to spread to any of the men you think might be interested, is that they should be on the lookout for us to arrive at night. We want to talk." "OK," said the young man. "What's your name?" "Brother Luke." "Pleased to meet you. I am the M -- I am Sister Julie. Can I ask you some questions confidentially -- you promise not to tell anyone else?" "Sure." He smiled and looked over his shoulder. "If... If some of the men disobey his orders and he finds out, will he punish you very severely?" She didn't want that on her conscience. "Mostly the brothers get seclusion. One guy was lashed in public when I was a novice." "What did he do?" "I think he actually spat in the abbot's face." Julie smiled. Fraternizing secretly with women should rank considerably below that on the punishment scale. Her mind kept working over the possibilities. She was very aware of Luke's maleness. Like the abbot, his very presence was different from that of any woman. It threw her thinking slightly off kilter. What the women needed was sperm. They could paddle back, then make another trip over, but why not seize the day? "Say, if you can help us replenish our water, we'll leave. But if we came back after dark... Is there some place we could pull in secretly? To meet you?" "If you go that way for a while," he said, pointing to his right, "there's a cove just before the rock pile. I... I could be there." "Great! And if you can find one or two others that would be even better." "OK." "So, can you help us get water right now?" She held out the hollow coconuts. "Sure... the spring is some distance from here, but I should return within an hour." "Good." And with that he was off. --------------------------------------------------------- The three young women rested in the shade at the edge of the beach, awaiting his return. They replayed the morning's events. Julie decided she was too embarrassed to admit what had happened in the abbot's private sitting room, so she left out that part. After a brief pause, she said, "What did you two think of the men?" "Excuse me?" "You've never seen men before, right? Never even seen a picture. How did they strike you?" "They sure look different, with all that hair on their faces. But in a lots of ways they seemed like people, just like us," said Sister Frances. "Did they make you feel funny, somehow? Like beyond being a curiosity?" "Ummm, yes," said Sister Lisa. "But I don't quite know how." "Did they make you feel perhaps a little more excited? Your heart beating a little faster?" "Yes, Reverend Mother," said Frances. "I wondered if it was sinful. It didn't feel entirely consistent with a prayerful attitude." Julie smiled to herself and reviewed her plan. Three babies wouldn't be too much. And she knew that they weren't all guaranteed to have babies from one dose of sperm -- maybe one of them wouldn't. "Can I tell the two of you my secret plan for saving Our Lady? You really mustn't tell another soul." "Of course, Reverend Mother," said Frances. Lisa nodded. "Just call me Julie for now, OK? For this conversation? Just Julie, like old times?" "OK, Julie," said Frances. Lisa nodded again. Julie proceeded to explain how babies actually grew inside women's bodies, and that they could produce new little girls themselves, even if the boat never came. the two sisters listened, incredulous. However, she explained, it did require men. When it came time for describing the actual sperm transfer, Julie was now armed with the information she had been lacking a few hours earlier. "The penis becomes hard, much like a finger -- a big finger. That allows it to penetrate a woman's vagina. The man moves it in and out and after a few seconds the sperm comes out of the tip. When he removes his penis, the sperm stays behind." "So... One of the sisters will be chosen to be subjected to this?" "Since we haven't received any little girls in so long, I think we should try to make several babies. I will ask for volunteers from among those who are suitable." After a brief pause, Frances said, "So, after we've got the volunteers, three of them will have to make another trip over here before long." "Actually, I'm going to volunteer, and thought I'd see if I can get some sperm on this trip. Brother Luke told me of a place where we could meet tonight." She felt a tingling between her legs. "Would you like us to volunteer?" "I think that is entirely up to you. It is a big decision. Apparently pregnancy can be uncomfortable." "What makes someone a good candidate?" "Being between the ages of 18 and 30, a strong paddler, and committed to not letting Our Lady die out." Frances and Lisa both smiled. They were obviously both ideal candidates. They became aware of someone approaching. It was Luke, bearing not just the replenished coconuts but some bananas and dried fish. They thanked him. Julie asked if he thought he could get a total of three men to meet them that night. He said he thought so. They reloaded their boat and set off, paddling in the direction of Our Lady, but very slowly. "How do we get the men to do it?" said Frances. "I get the impression they tend to be willing." "Will he know what to do exactly?" "No, probably not. You've got to remember that these men have no idea what a woman looks like between her legs. They've never seen anyone without a penis down there." "That is so strange." "I think it's best if you lie on your back without any undergarments in the way and spread your legs. The man lies down on top of you." Lisa shuddered. "Reverend Mother, it... it sounds sinful." "I understand your concern. It seems to have that potential. Yet -- there is no other way to produce children. So if it is sinful, it is a necessary sin. If you don't want to Lisa, you don't have to. If your own conscience is not right with it, you mustn't. I noticed you shuddered." "I didn't shudder because it sounded terrible," said Lisa, smiling slightly. "Reverend Mother, perhaps you remember the sin I have confessed to you more than once -- the sin of my hand between my legs when not needed for cleaning?" "Yes, I remember." "And it's a temptation because it, um, feels good?" Julie smiled. "The Mother Superior has no idea what you're talking about. But Julie knows exactly what you're talking about." She felt a little shiver. "Do you think it feels good because... because that's where things happen to make a baby?" Julie hadn't put that together before, but it made perfect sense. "Probably, yes." They lingered on the shore until late afternoon, then began paddling towards Our Lady very slowly. --------------------------------------------------------- Luke's heart pounded with excitement. Nothing new ever happened on Our Savior -- until today! To finally meet a woman! Until today they had just existed in theory and held no interest. Another kind of person -- big deal. But these actual women -- very much like them in some ways, but different in others. She talked funny -- her "o" sounds were weird. Did all women talk like that? And her shape -- those bulges on her chest. She was just so... so interesting! And now she wanted him to meet her again that night. Of course he should ask his superior brother James before doing something so far outside of their daily routine, but he would probably say no. Better to do penance later if he was discovered. But he probably wouldn't be. He rushed to make prayers on time, and all through the hour-long service his mind was even farther from humble contemplation than usual. She wanted two more brothers, if he could get them. He wanted to please this sister Julie, though he wasn't sure why. But also, for something this new and exciting, he wanted to be able to have friends to talk about it with. Who could he get? Not somebody devout, or timid, or in with the older brothers, or looking to advance in the order. Somebody who could keep quiet -- that was the biggest thing. After prayers he caught up with his friend Jacob. The other young man said at once, "Did you see the women? When they came right up into the settlement? Three of them? It was so strange --" "I missed that, but --" Jacob kept right on, explaining the exciting morning's happenings. "Right, right, but I've got something even better! I was walking along the shore 'contemplating' and saw this boat with three women in it -- must have been the same ones! But one of them came and talked to me! So I helped her get more water and food before they go back to Our Lady." "Amazing!" "But that's not the only thing. They're going to hang around and want to meet me again tonight." "Jesus!" "And here's the thing. They want me to bring another couple men. Do you want to go?" "Um, sure!" "I didn't bring it up with brother James..." "Of course not!" "Who else could we get? Michael maybe?" After he said it he remembered that he liked Michael more than Jacob did. "No, not him. David! what about David?" David was lots of fun, it was true. "Yeah, but I don't think David could keep quiet. No one can know about this, ever. What about... George?" "George? I guess... He can be so clueless, though." "Yeah, but he's a good guy. And if you tell him to keep quiet, he'll keep quiet." "Yeah, true, he's good that way. What do you supposed they want to do?" "She said they want to talk. Probably to find out about our lives. I sure want to find out about theirs!" George agreed to be part of the plan. They all knew exactly how to arrange it. After evening prayers, after they were in their cells, after Brother James's bed check, then they could sneak out. He always checked at the same time, an hour or so after they were supposed to be asleep, and then he himself was a heavy sleeper. --------------------------------------------------------- After the sun's light had vanished, they turned the boat and paddled back towards the island, retracing their afternoon's symbolic progress much more quickly. They skirted the island to the left. Before long they spotted the pile of rocks and pulled in to shore on the near side of it. It was a secluded cove, with only ten feet or so of sand between the water's edge and the start of the thick vegetation. No one was there. They paddled out and explored beyond the pile of rocks, but there was no similar formation nearby. It had to be the right spot, so they pulled the boat up out of the water and settled down to wait. Finally they heard rustling among the plants, and then Brother Luke and two others emerged on the beach. "Thanks for coming," Julie said. "Umm, sure," said Luke. There was a brief but awkward silence. "I'm Julie. This is Lisa and this is Frances." "Oh, yeah," said Luke. "This is George, and this is Jacob." Jacob was a little taller and thin, with thick hair and beard, dark but the color hard to make out in the moonlight. George had a bit of extra fat on him, and thinner hair of some lighter shade. "So you're women!" said George. "What are those bulges on your chest?" "Um, they're called breasts," said Julie. "What are things like over on Our Lady?" "Um, it's laid out pretty much like here. We spend most of our days praying, some chores like growing potatoes and rice, and catching fish... Same for you, pretty much?" "Yeah," said Luke. "But say, is there a place near here that's level and hidden from view?" The men looked at each other. Luke said, "Not really. This is a pretty rocky part of the island." "But you're pretty sure no one else will see us here?" "Yeah." "Well, I guess the beach here will do." "What do you mean?" Julie swallowed. What she was asking was so strange... "What I'm going to ask of the three of you may seem really strange. It might even seem sinful. Are you terribly afraid of sinning?" The men looked back and forth and smiled. "Not us. I'm afraid we've all done plenty of sinning and plenty of penance." "Good. This is actually... I think it is actually the will of God, but it's different. Um, you all have penises between your legs, right?" George laughed. "What, you don't?" "Um, actually no, we don't. You've never seen women before, right? That's maybe the biggest difference. Until I told them today, Lisa and Frances had no idea that men have penises." "That makes no sense," said Jacob. "Well, it's true," said Julie. "What... What's there instead? Or don't you have to, um, urinate?" asked George. All three women gave big smiles. Julie said, "Yes, we do. And I'll show you what's there..." Suddenly she felt unsure and ashamed. How to explain... "Um, this is hard, because we sisters were all taught that part of our body is dirty and sinful, and we must never touch it except to clean it. And never let another woman touch it. And keep it covered as much as possible." "Yeah," said Luke. "They taught us the same about our penises. But it's one of those rules that's really hard not to break sometimes. Probably the most common sin we confess." The other men nodded. "Why?" "Well, you know... Or I guess you don't. It feels really good to touch it, and touch it some more, and more..." This sounded promising, somehow. Julie took a deep breath. "So the big favor we'd like to ask is if you could join your penises with our bodies in a certain way. So I have to show you where..." She reached under her habit to grab her underpants and pulled them down and off. Then she paused with her hands on her habit. It had felt strange to do this with the abbot. In a way it felt even stranger to do it with five other people watching. But they needed sperm! She squatted and hitched her habit up, then sat on the beach and spread her legs. "Oh, my God!" said George. "So, if you remove your pants, Luke, and kneel down here below my legs... You also have to get your penis hard. Can you do that?" "No, no problem," said Luke. As he stepped out of his pants and underpants, it was plain that he had already made it hard. "Now lie down closer..." But like the abbot, once he'd got this far he seemed to know what to do without being told. His penis nudged her, then the tip slid in. This time it didn't hurt. Luke kept pressing his penis into her, much farther than the abbot had, and then he began to go back and forth, making little gasping sounds. It wasn't long before Julie felt a trace of those same sort of good feelings down there that she'd gotten using her own hand when she was being sinful. During this procedure the other two men were making little exclamations of disbelief and surprise. Luke said, "Um, if I keep doing this... then something's going to happen... Did you know?" "You mean the sperm coming out? Yes, that's just what I want! I want you to leave the sperm inside me." "OK, shit..." he muttered. His thrusts in and out of her vagina became deeper and faster, then very deep and very fast. It felt... very sinful but very right. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, Nnnnnnnnnnnn!" The thrusts slowed, then stopped. But instead of pulling away, he grinned at her and then let his body down on hers so they were lying flat and he hugged her, his penis still lodged within her vagina, though she could feel it getting softer. That felt strange in a different way. The other four were silent, then George said, "What are you doing now?" That seemed to bring Luke back to reality, and he slid off. "Did you leave the sperm behind?" she asked. "Oh yeah," said Luke with a smile. "Thank you," Julie said. She felt kind of like getting dressed, but then the plan called for the other sisters to get undressed, and she wanted them to feel comfortable. "So.... What now?" asked Jacob. "Well, I'd like it if someone put some sperm into Lisa and Frances -- assuming they're still willing?" The two women nodded. "I'm sure willing!" said George, taking his pants off. "So, Lisa, do you want me to do that to you?" asked Jacob eagerly. "I... Yes, I do," said the sister, who copied what the Mother Superior had just done -- undergarment off, habit pushed up around her waste. Jacob copied Luke's actions to a point. The others couldn't see too clearly what was happening down where penis met vagina. A second after his penis disappeared into that area, Lisa started and said, "Ouch!" A second later Jacob said, "Ohhhhhh!", then pulled away a few seconds later, panting. Julie was fascinated to see the process from outside. It certainly looked sinful. Very sinful. George mounted Frances and the procedure was repeated. Instead of withdrawing right after insertion, his bottom twitched and rotated rapidly, while presumably down below, out of sight, his penis thrust in and out of Frances's vagina. But after 30 seconds he went silent and froze, then after a couple seconds slid off of her, gasping as he sat on the beach. There on the beach were three sisters in a row, sitting like mermaids with their habits pulled down over their lower parts. By each one sat a man, naked from the waist down, penis wilted to some extent. Julie said, "Did you all release your sperm?" George laughed. "Oh, yeah. We sure did." "How did you know Jacob did?" "You really never knew penises existed until today?" "No," said Frances. Lisa shook her head. Luke said, "Well, that's the sin. All men know it. Our penis gets hard, we rub it like this, and then the sperm comes out the end. It feels really good, and we're satisfied, and then we stop rubbing. When a guy relaxes like that, it means the sperm came out." Jacob said, "But this is like ten times better! Why?" Julie said, "Because out in the real world, men and women do this all the time." "Why?" "It's how they make babies." She wasn't sure why she just blurted it out. George laughed again. "Make babies? That's ridiculous. I don't see any babies!" Julie said, "Did you ever wonder where the boys came from that showed up every year?" George shrugged. "Not really, or not for a long time. One of God's miracles, I guess." Luke said, "So how does it make a baby?" "They say that once the sperm is inside us, a baby starts growing. It takes nine months, we get fatter and fatter, and then a baby comes out the same place it went in." "You've got lots of funny stories," said George. Luke said, "How many of you feel like that was the most unholy thing you ever did?" Six hands shot up. Frances said, "So maybe that's why they set us up on different islands? Men and women separate? Without even knowing what the other sex looks like between the legs or how babies are made?" George said, "Hey, one of you other women want my sperm? I've got more to give." His penis was very stiff once more. Julie wasn't sure how she felt. She kind of did and kind of didn't. But they were there for the sperm. More must be better than less. "OK," she said, and lay back. George mounted her at once, a dumb grin on his face, and pressed in and out. It didn't hurt, and it started feeling nice almost at once. Barely audible above the sound of George's grunting was Luke's voice, "You want to?", followed by an inaudible feminine reply. "I guess that leaves us!" said Jacob in a clear voice. George slid in and out, insistently, over and over again. Occasionally he'd mutter, "Oh, this is so great," "Man, it feels amazing", "Wow... wow". He shifted around, sometimes holding himself up off her and looking down, other times lying right on her. She didn't really understand what was going on. She wanted the sperm, and she didn't get why he didn't just do his job and let it out. On the other hand, it felt really good down there for her. The longer it went on, the more sinful she felt -- and the better the sensations. Then his pace picked up, his thrusts got faster and deeper, and seconds later he made a big, "Oooohhhhh!", then pulled out and sat beside her once more. She felt a brief flush of shame on wishing that he'd kept going. When Julie sat up, she saw the other couples had finished before them. --------------------------------------------------------- Jacob said, "I gotta take a leak," and walked ten feet away, facing away from them. The women turned to watch. To Julie's great surprise, he didn't squat down, but a long, thin arc of fluid went forth from his midsection, rising as high as his head and landing in the greenery ten feet away. "What the heck?" muttered Lisa. "Oh, right... whoa..." said George. "You've never seen a guy pee. How the heck do you pee, anyway? Without a penis?" "Well, I gotta go. You wanna watch?" "Yeah!" She walked close to where Jacob had been, the three men following and squatting to look when she squatted. "Whoa!" said George, laughing, when her stream came out. Julie began to feel a bit uncomfortable. It was vital that the women got sperm in their vaginas. But this felt more like sin without a higher purpose. "I gotta go too," said George. "Can I watch it come out of you?" asked Lisa. Lisa and Frances watched from up close and Julie from a distance as an arc of fluid leapt right out the end of George's soft penis and arced if anything a little higher than Jacob's had. Lisa noticed Julie sitting by herself, tapped Frances on the shoulder, and the two sisters immediately came back and sat down by their leader. The men gradually joined them. "Well," said Julie. "If you're willing, let's do the last combination. So we've each got some sperm from all three of you." "We're willing," said Luke after a pause, "but I'm not sure we're able." "Huh?" "Yeah, you wouldn't know, I guess. After we shoot it out, we can't get hard for a while. And when we've done it twice, it takes even longer." "What kind of muscle works like that?" asked Lisa. "It's not a muscle," said George. "Here, you want to feel?" Lisa looked quickly over at Julie, who just sat. "No, thanks," said Lisa quickly. Luke said, "So, are you each going to have two babies now? And a third if we manage to do it again?" "No," said Julie. "Still just one at a time." "How do you know all this, anyway?" said George. "I'm... I'm the Mother Superior... I had the responsibility for the books... And I chose to read them." "You! The Mother Superior!" "She is," said Lisa, and Frances nodded. "God told her to read them. So we don't all die out." George said, "Even if this story is true, you say it takes a year for the baby to be born, and then is it one year old?" "No, it's zero when it's born." "OK, so that's one plus three -- it will be four years before you women can deliver another little novice guy?" "Yeah," said Julie. "God willing." Suddenly she felt the weight of their situation on her shoulders. "Would you be willing to join me in prayer?" "Our father, which art in heaven..." The other five joined in. She went through another prayer, and another. Luke suggested one, and then Lisa, and then George. On his prayer their unison broke apart as they started reciting two different versions. The women's version repeated a line, and the men's didn't. At first both groups were sure the other version must be the mistake. They puzzled over why the elders would make the men's and women's prayer differ in just that way. At last Julie smiled and said, "I think it was a mistake." To the perplexed looks of the others, she said, "When they were setting up the presses for the books, they just made a mistake in ours. Repeated the line twice." The other five looked thoughtful. "They were just human," she said. "They made mistakes." The next prayer was a long one, and Julie noticed George's penis getting hard again. The others noticed too, and soon Luke's and Jacob's were stiffening rapidly. Finally the prayer ended. "Ready to give us the third dose?" said Julie. "You got it," said George. Each man mounted a woman, and drilled his cock into the only vagina he hadn't yet explored. Each woman felt a third penis slide into her. The three pairs fucked away in relative silence. "Oh, could you move up a little," whispered Lisa, so that Julie barely heard. "Just like that... A little harder..." There was gasping and grunting. Suddenly Lisa said, "Aaiiiiiiiiiii!" All three men stopped, and five pairs of eyes looked at Lisa. "You OK?" asked Luke. "Yes, oh yes. But keep going!" urged Lisa urgently, and Luke resumed fucking with a vengeance, while Lisa relaxed into a vague smile. As if responding to the same suggestion, the other two men started pumping away again. Seconds later they heard Luke groan. Jacob shifted position slightly, and Julie felt better down there than before. Then he shifted again and the little magical extra faded. She thought of asking him to go back to what he'd been doing before, but it felt sinful. He was doing her a favor, and whatever worked best for him to deliver his gift was what she wanted -- or ought to want. And within a couple minutes she felt his tension rising, felt him getting more excited. She even thought she could feel his penis getting bigger inside her. And then, just at the moment when she thought he would, he thrust really hard and relaxed. Shortly the three pairs were sitting on the beach once more. The moon was high in the sky. George yawned. Julie said, "We should try to get some sleep. We've got a long paddle ahead of us." Luke said, "I'll keep watch and let you know in case anyone comes." "No one's going to come," said Jacob, as the men rose and dressed. "Probably not, but just in case..." "Bye, sisters," said George. "Yeah, goodbye," said Jacob. The women replied and the two men walked off. "Luke," said Julie. "More women are going to come. Probably at night. It might be days or weeks. But will you guys be watching? Can we count on finding some men to give us sperm if we make the long trip?" "Yeah," said Luke. "I think we'll have no problem at all." "If the abbot finds out, he might stop you, though." "We'll manage it without the abbot ever finding out, I'm sure of that." Suddenly he grinned, then knelt and kissed her hand. "Reverend Mother." "Oh, get up!" said Julie crossly. Why was she so annoyed? Because what they had been doing very unlike anything a good Mother Superior would do. In ordinary times. Luke rose and grinned, then gave her a hug and held it. Novices hugged sometimes. Sisters sometimes hugged novices, and there was an occasional hug between sisters at moments of peak emotion. Did men and women hug? It felt awfully good. It was pretty close to the way their bodies were lying down and transferring sperm, but this wasn't as sinful as getting sperm. Maybe not sinful at all. She hugged him back, but broke away after several seconds. "Til next time," he said, and walked off to his lookout post, wherever that was. --------------------------------------------------------- Frances and Julie peed. All three dressed. Then they assembled beside the boat and lay down. "I wonder if there's a way to keep the sperm up in there," said Frances. "Some leaked out." "Yeah, me too," said Lisa. "Maybe you don't need much." "Permission to speak freely, Reverend Mother," said Frances. "Granted." "Holy shit," said Frances. "Mother of God," said Lisa. "Yeah, pretty amazing," said Julie. "I think I must have sinned... a lot," said Lisa. "Me too... more than ever before," said Frances. "Me too!" said Julie. "I sinned too. Oh boy, did I sin! Talk about temptations of the flesh!" "And those guys! They must have sinned a lot more. I mean, all we did was lie there, but they kept doing it, on and on and on," said Frances. "Unnh, unnh, unnnh..." Julie said, "Lisa, you didn't just lie there completely. What happened?" "Oh, oh yeah," said Lisa. "Something happened. Can I confess, Reverend Mother. I'm so sorry.." "No confession now, just tell your old pal Julie what happened." "It felt really good -- really, really good. Is that just me?" "No," said Julie, and Frances shook her head with a smile. "It felt just so great, and then he changed things, but I wanted it to feel good like it had before, so I asked, and then... Oh, My God! O, Reverend Mother, forgive me for taking the name of the Lord in vain." "To hell with that, just tell me what happened." "It just broke in waves -- fantastic waves. And then I felt relaxed and totally, totally happy." "I see." "So, was that a sin? I'm terribly sorry." "No, Lisa, I don't think it was a sin. You were doing your duty in trying to start a baby. It feels good no matter what. What's the sin in trying to feel a little bit better?" "Thank you, Rev ... Thank you, Julie. But if you knew just how good it felt then, I'm not sure you'd say that." "I'm kinda sore," said Frances. "Yeah, me too," said Lisa. "I didn't realize quite how sore until I had that feeling and it passed." "Yeah, I'm sore too," said Julie. "And I've got a confession to make. I actually got sperm from four different men today." "Huh?" "In the abbot's office there, I was trying to make him understand. One thing led to another --" "You're kidding!" "No, you've got to remember, I'd never been close to a man before like that... Anyway, he gave me his sperm too, real quick like Jacob the first time there, but then he looked like he really regretted it. He said I was the devil who had tempted him. I had no idea he'd react that way." "Well, it sure is a powerful experience." After a while the pauses in the conversation got longer. Finally Lisa turned on her side to face the boat, and Frances got up close behind her until they were touching. It wasn't really permitted to touch another lying down, but given what they'd been through... Julie in turn spooned up behind Frances. It was getting just cool enough that the extra warmth felt good. At first light they set off for the long paddle home. It was still a long trip, but they knew what to expect and they all noted that they felt energized as never before. They paddled all day and most of the night until they approached their home island. Lookouts spotted them from a distance and a cry went up. Dozens of sisters came down to the shore to greet them -- and no novices, Julie noted with a pang, because there were no novices. As they approached shore, Julie reminded her companions that she was now the Mother Superior again, and the others nodded, understanding at once what she meant. Julie said to the welcoming committee that she would speak to the entire order at an assembly to be held at dawn. In the assembly she simply reported that they had made a successful journey and had found the men's community much as they imagined it, with a structure that paralleled their own. They too used to receive one boat a year, theirs with a young boy instead of a girl, of course, and the Our Savior boat had ceased its appearances the same year the Our Lady boat did. They had no more idea what happened than the women did, and had no further ideas as to what to do. But she felt she had had a sign from God about a way forward for them, and she would reveal it in good time, when she was more certain. --------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3 Julie dove into her library with renewed passion. Now that she had experienced sex four times, all the references to love and romance that she had skimmed over made a great deal more sense. There was far more involved than a business transaction of transferring sperm from a man's body to a woman's. She as Mother Superior understood why sex was considered sinful, especially if approached with the wrong attitude. And as Mother Superior, she had certainly had the wrong attitude with Brother Luke. But she as Julie wasn't so sure. Julie wanted to lie down next to Luke again. She missed him every night. She wanted to feel that penis thrusting urgently up into her body. She let her hand wander down there and did what she now knew was called masturbation, connecting those sensations with the ones she had felt during sexual intercourse. She read that the good feeling men had when they released sperm was called an orgasm, and what Lisa had reported was also an orgasm, something women too could experience. Telling her inner Mother Superior to take a hike, Julie experimented with her fingers down below, fiddling different ways, inserting, thrusting, rubbing gently, and at last she had that good feeling with release that signified orgasm. The Mother Superior gasped that it really was very sinful. Julie told her to get lost. She now knew that a couple almost always had sex in private, which might explain why she had felt uncomfortable on the beach with the other four present. She learned about sexual jealousy, and felt a bit of it herself as she saw again in her mind Luke pounding away in the post-orgasmic Lisa. Her inner Mother Superior was intrigued to learn about the institution of marriage, and how sex was acceptable within marriage, but always considered sinful outside of it. But marriage made no sense when the two sexes lived on separate islands a strenuous day's paddle apart. More careful reading revealed that pregnancy only followed intercourse if done on a particular couple of days in each monthly cycle. One by one Lisa, Frances and then Julie got their monthly visits. Despite their multiple doses of sperm, none of them had gotten pregnant! This consideration led Julie to her first change in the women's daily routine. Going forward, all sisters under the age of 40 were to carefully record their monthly periods, and to do their best to recall recent ones in the past too. Julie confided to Frances and Lisa what she had learned about menstrual cycles and fertile periods, and gave Sister Frances the task of recording and organizing the reports from the other sisters. Julie also commissioned the construction of a second boat, urging Grace to put more effort into a faster craft. This further draw on the community's lumber supply left them with very little, and Julie winced. But wood wasn't vital to their survival, and visits to Our Savior were. It was time to plan the next visit to Our Savior. Lisa and Frances were due to have fertile periods before hers came next, but she felt she ought to be on the next expedition as leader, and therefore it should be during her fertile period. From the records gathered by Sister Frances, she looked over the list of girls and women who were expected to ovulate when she did. She needed strong women for paddling. She needed young women who were in their fertile years. She needed women who were supportive of her as a person and of her plan to do something. Ideally she'd also like those who could keep a secret, but she realized she couldn't keep her plan secret for long. Certainly if a sister got pregnant, she would have to explain a swelling belly. She also needed women who were willing to let a man invade their bodies in that particular way. The first candidate sister was 18-year-old Meghan. Julie asked what sort of sacrifice she would be willing to make for the continuity of their community. In particular, would she be willing to have a mild illness for nine months? Hearing her assent and feeling true enthusiasm behind it, she swore Meghan to secrecy and explained the facts of life, including the bit about the men inserting something like a large finger into their vaginas and releasing fluid. Meghan was surprised, of course, but didn't change her mind. Next was 34-year-old Sister Lucy. Lucy was a bit on the old side, but she was strong for purposes of paddling and a reliable supporter of Julie. She also agreed without hesitation. At once Meghan and Lucy began paddling practice to improve their strength and endurance. --------------------------------------------------------- Julie planned their clandestine arrival for the middle of the night. As they neared the sheltered beach on the near side of the pile of rocks, a figure emerged from the trees and waved, then walked into the water and began swimming out towards them. As he approached the boat, Julie recognized him as Brother Jacob. As he tread water near them, he asked if they had come for the same favor they had asked for before. Julie explained that they had, but noted that she had two different companions this time. Jacob explained that a fourth man had joined their group and the four of them felt another location would be more secure, and told her how to find it. It involved paddling further around the island. As they approached the new spot, Jacob, Luke and a third man were there to pull the boat into a small canal which led into the forest. Once the women had disembarked, they pulled it further under the vegetation until it was quite hidden from prying eyes. Luke then explained the situation. Shortly after their departure, the abbot had made it clear that any craft from Our Lady was to be turned away. If any sisters did land, the men were to notify him at once and escort them to the seclusion cells. He had designated Brother Peter as the leader of security, to patrol the shoreline periodically. This new man with them was none other than Brother Peter himself, but Luke assured them that he could be trusted completely. The men had set up watches so that one of them was always scanning the shoreline late at night for the arrival of a boat. Now they had arrived, George was serving as a lookout just in case there was some unexpected intrusion. Julie stood beside Brother Luke. She wanted to be alone with him as soon as possible. "Are we ready to proceed to the business at hand?" There were no objections. "I suggest we pair off and meet in private as couples. I will go with Brother Luke. Lucy, would you like to choose?" But Peter stepped forward and said, "I choose you," moving up beside Meghan. Lucy and Meghan looked at Julie. To them she was the Mother Superior, but between the brothers and sisters it wasn't clear who was in charge. Julie said, "Is that all right with you, Meghan?" "Certainly, Reverend Mother." "And you, Lucy? Are you content with Brother Jacob?" "Yes, I would be delighted." It turned out there were multiple secluded spots, so the three couples could all mate in private at the same time. "Let's reconvene here after the first sperm transfer is complete," said Julie. --------------------------------------------------------- Luke led Julie through the dark forest some 50 yards before they came to a small outdoor bower. "You planned all this out, I see -- with the canal for the boat and the multiple spots for couples to be alone," she said. "All so you could do us a favor in case we returned?" "It was quite a favor. A favor we were all very eager to give." He sat close beside Julie and lowered his head so their faces were inches apart. There was this thing called kissing, lips to lips. She decided to try it, touching her lips to his. He got the hang of it quickly and kissed her back. Soon she felt a fire of anticipation. He looked questioningly at her and she nodded. Seconds later she lay on her back, exposed for the taking, and his trousers were off. He eagerly approached her and slid his penis into her vagina. This time the entry was smooth. In and in he went until she felt his pubic bone against hers. "Oh, God," he said, pulling most of the way out. "Ooohhhh!" he said as he surged into her once more. He withdrew once more and then pressed in once more hard, fast and very deep and then remained motionless for a few seconds, holding his breath. Then he relaxed and gasped for breath, letting himself down on her. "You delivered it already?" she said, surprised. "Yeah," he said. Julie said nothing about sexual pleasure and female orgasm. She was there to try to get pregnant. Meanwhile he returned to this kissing he had just learned. They kissed as his somewhat soft organ lazily slid in and out. Julie felt warm and wonderful. These are romantic feelings, she said to herself, trying to remain objective. "So, what's with Brother Peter? The head of security?" "He is something of a rival of the abbot. They were both on the Council when the old abbot died, and Peter was bitterly disappointed that Brother John was the chosen successor instead of him. We also knew him to be not the most devout among us, more prone to sins of the flesh than most, and we thought he'd be a good choice for our group." "Makes sense." Brother Luke lay on Julie, his penis gliding back and forth slowly. It had grown quite stiff again. Her inner Mother Superior came to the fore. Here she was lying on her back, letting a man slide what must be a sinful organ in and out of her dirty place. The rules were clear about not touching themselves or each other down there except as needed. They didn't specifically say no men should touch them there, but then the book said nothing about men at all. Any reasonable person would know it was prohibited. "I'd really like to deliver more sperm in you, but..." "Go ahead, Luke, I'd like that." "What about sperm for the others? I only have so much." "That doesn't matter so much, anyway... I just want to feel you do it again... Please?" She realized her pretense of the business-like Mother Superior engaging in a tiny bit of sin to prevent something worse was wearing thin. "OK," he said, smiling at her. So he once more thrust in and out forcefully. Julie felt the good sensations grow. But she also knew they were not growing anywhere near enough or in the right directions for an orgasm. On a whim she whispered in his ear, "Be sinful in me. Be very, very sinful!" She nibbled his ear. Luke sighed and began pounding harder and deeper. To Julie it felt so good, so right. His penis was getting bigger. Her vagina was wet, hot, expectant. Any second now... three, two, one... "Ooooooohhhhhh!" he groaned as his penis kept ramming in and out, then slowed. He lay on her, recovering his breath. He looked at her tenderly and kissed some more. After several minutes Julie faintly heard, "I wonder what's keeping them." Luke hadn't heard, so she relayed the message to him. They dressed and rejoined the group. --------------------------------------------------------- Jacob was nowhere to be seen, but George was there. Presumably Jacob had taken his place as lookout. "So," said Luke. "We had all assumed you would want sperm from multiple men, like last time. Is that true?" Julie's request for a second shot evidently made him uncertain. Julie paused. She did not want to take it from anyone else. Just Luke. And she didn't want Luke to give it to anyone else either. Was this fair? "I... I personally am not going to take sperm from any other men. I'm... not feeling up for it. And I have further matters to discuss with Brother Luke. But... An additional sperming does increasing somewhat the chances of pregnancy. So if either of you is willing, I would encourage it." Peter looked at Julie with an expression that plainly said he had been very much hoping to insert his penis into her and deliver sperm. But he said nothing. Peter smiled at Lucy, and she followed him without complaint. The way George looked at Meghan, Julie knew he would be very disappointed if she declined him. But instead she smiled and followed him as he led the way into the forest. --------------------------------------------------------- That left Julie and Luke standing on the beach. "So..." he said. She turned to him and hugged him, and he eagerly returned the hug. "How old are you, Luke?" she asked. "Twenty-two. And you?" 'Twenty-nine." She thought. He was a cut above the others -- above George, Jacob -- certainly above Peter and way above the abbot. "Will you marry me?" "What?" he said. "'Marry'?" "It's complicated," she said. "Will you be on my side? Look out for me? Give me sperm when I want it? Give me sperm whenever you want to?" "Um, yeah," he said. "Yeah!" "That's kind of what marriage is. Except in the real world married couples sleep together at night, and when the babies are born they all live together and eat together as the babies grow up. We can't do that. But would you if we could?" "Yeah, I think so," he said. "You're also supposed to agree not to give sperm to anyone else. And I'm not supposed to take it from anybody else. But I couldn't ask that of you. What if some sister needs your sperm?" "Well, um..." he said. She suddenly felt very emotional. Her voice got higher and uneven. "Not a problem. I'm the God-damned Mother Superior. I can just say that any sister has sex with you on pain of death." "Are you feeling OK?" he asked. Oh, what a sweet, sweet human being. "Yeah, I'm feeling fine. But I'm tired of being in charge, making all the decisions, being responsible for everything. I feel like being the youngest novice for once. You know, the one who's just three? Can you treat me like the youngest novice for a minute?" "Sure, Julie," he said. And he held her and rocked her as they stood. It was wonderful. After a few minutes she straightened up again. "Thanks," she said, and kissed him. "Um, Julie," he said. "Were you serious about letting me give you more sperm?" "Yes!" she said, and she followed him eagerly down another path to a different small clearing. As they undressed, she said, "But this time, I might be touching myself with my fingers down there near where your penis is going in and out. Is that OK?" She could see him wanting to ask why and thinking better of it. "Certainly," he said. And as he pounded away, her fingers found what she knew was called her clitoris and gently rubbed it, just a little. Sometimes she just absorbed the feeling of his penis pounding into her, other times she spiced it up with just a little touch to her clitoris. Then she fluttered her fingers on it, also attending to the powerful penis banging in and out of her, attached to a powerful man. She got right on the edge -- she knew it would happen soon, if things were just right. This man's dirty, disgusting, sinful organ was pounding in and out of her dirty, disgusting hole. He was going to shoot some sticky, disgusting, sinful stuff up into her. They'd done it twice already, she had plenty of sperm already, but she adored it, she wanted it, she was sinning so badly, and now she wanted to feel fantastic in a totally animal way. "Are you about ready to give it?" she asked urgently. "Yeah, why?" asked his sweaty face. "Can you... wait until I say and then go really fast?" "Um, sure..." "I want to get like Lisa did," she explained. He grinned and kissed her nose but fucked her all the harder. She fluttered, rested, poked lightly, getting herself right on the edge, so close. "OK, now!" she whispered, removing her fingers. Luke sped up, pounded hard, doing his very male thing to her female, getting ready to give her sperm, to give her a baby... "Oooohhhhhhhhhhh!" she cried. "Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!" he moaned. Their organs twitched together, to slightly different rhythms. Ecstasy -- and more sperm, pumped from the mysterious depths of Luke's body into the mysterious depths of hers. At last they broke apart. --------------------------------------------------------- Julie's cramps were unwelcome, and she was despondent when she started bleeding. With all the passion that she and Luke had brought to their sex -- how could so much earnest reproductive effort go unrewarded! Lucy got her period too. But Meghan did not. That was one pregnancy, hopefully. But they needed more. Before the next boat to Our Savior, Julie wrote a letter, sealed it, and said it was to be delivered into the hands of Luke and no other. What was in it? Nothing important. It was a love letter. But she wanted so much for him to read it, and wanted him to reply. He did, very briefly, on a small scrap of paper, noting that he would try to be prepared with proper paper and envelope next time. The boat made the crossing, over and over. If three fertile women could not be found, they sent two, with a third woman who might possibly be fertile if her cycle was irregular. Lisa and 23-year-old Jennie came back from an expedition and both missed their periods. Julie was delighted. If they were to even begin replacing the boys and girls who had not arrived due to the lacuna, six or seven pregnancies would be just fine. But then she found herself troubled by doubts as she lay in bed at night. She read everything on pregnancy that she could find in her library. It had its hazards. It was a tricky process. In all cultures, experienced women helped young mothers give birth. They had no such women. Without any modern medicine or technology, the chances of one of the sisters dying in childbirth were significant. If the order on Our Lady were to survive, they would have to risk a few women dying. But at least once a couple of them had gone through it, the others would have better information in deciding whether to take the risk. If she ordered them to as Mother Superior, they would out of obedience -- but that didn't feel right, and from her reading she knew most people in the broader world wouldn't think it was right either. So with three apparent pregnancies, Julie planned out just two last expeditions. The next was timed for her fertile period, which coincided with Frances's. She asked Julie if she could refuse to take sperm from Peter, and Julie instantly agreed. It should be her choice anyway, and with the soundness of their methods validated by a few pregnancies, the tiny extra chance at fertilization wasn't important anyway. No other sister would be fertile at that time. Grace wasn't interested in getting pregnant, and at 44 it would have been unlikely anyway. But she was eager to make the journey -- to see how her boat held up on the long trip, and to see the other island -- to explore! Luke, George and Peter greeted them. Frances said she only wanted to take sperm from one man, and she chose George. They explained that Grace had just come to paddle. Peter made to protest, but the three women gave him a look to show their determination. So the two couples went off to their private spots, leaving Grace and Peter at the boat. Luke and Julie had just been kissing and talking for a couple minutes when they heard some heated conversation in the direction they had come from. They paused to listen, and a few seconds later, they heard a distinct, "Hey, no!" in Grace's voice. Julie scrambled up at once and raced back along the path, Luke following close behind. Grace's protests continued, and when the beach came into view, they saw Grace on her back, Peter on top of her, holding her down with one arm and awkwardly trying to yank his trousers down with the other. "Stop, this instant!" said Julie as loud as she dared -- they did need to avoid detection by the larger Our Savior community. "It's only fair... I just want to give her some sperm." "No, you can't!" She landed on her knees next to the pair and tried to pull Peter off. She had little experience with physical tussling and she realized that Peter was a lot stronger than she was. "She's not doing anything else... It just takes a second..." Luke landed next to Julie. "Uh, come on Peter!" he said. "Stop him!" urged Julie. She was aware of a naked Frances running into the clearing. Luke pulled on Peter's shoulders, but Peter shrugged him off. By now his trousers were down far enough. Luke landed on Peter's back, grabbed him around the middle and twisted him off. Grace struggled to her feet, smoothed down her habit and backed away. "Let go of me!" demanded Peter. "You must never touch a sister without permission," commanded Julie. "OK, OK," said Peter, and Luke released him. "I don't see the big deal," he said. "You're the ones who came over here begging to get sperm." "You never get to touch one of us without permission! Can you just tackle some other brother because you feel like it?" "Of course not, but... Those are the regular rules. You've broken all the rules. You know this is damned sinful, all of this." "Some rules are the same. You don't touch people without permission. Why don't you go relieve Jacob as lookout, or better yet just go back to your settlement." "No," said Peter, crossing his arms. Frances said, "I tried to come right away, but George was doing it to me, and he didn't want to stop." Just then George strolled onto the beach, smiling. "After he gave it to me, I got up and came quick as I could." "That's fine, thank you sister." Julie looked around. "Are you OK, Grace?" The boat builder nodded but didn't look entirely sure. "What happened?" asked George. Luke raised his hand quickly and George said no more. In the uneasy silence, Julie thought. She had to spend the night with Luke, she just had to. "I'm waiting for you to leave," she said, looking at Peter. All three women stared at him. He stared back. Luke stared too. George just stood there, smiling vaguely. "Oh, come on George, let's go!" Peter said at last. "Leave these creepy little sperm catchers alone." They headed up one of the paths. Just as they disappeared, they overheard George say, "Sperm catchers... That's pretty funny!" "So, George gave you what you wanted?" Julie said to Frances. "You caught his sperm?" "Yeah," said Frances with a small grin. "Can you wait here with Grace? Luke and I --" "Sure, go, go!" said Frances with a smile. --------------------------------------------------------- Julie lay on her back and Luke lay beside her. "What a jerk," she mused. "Yeah," said Luke. "But, I'm not sure I get it. I mean, you come here to get sperm, right? Isn't more better than less?" "Sometimes. But I read the books and I think it works this way out in the world too. Women want sperm, but they're kind of picky -- only when they feel like it and only with the right guy. The right guy is very important." "If you say so. But you like getting it, right? It feels good. I know you and Lisa both enjoy it a whole lot sometimes." "Yeah." "So?" "Let me ask you this. Why does Peter care? You say he can rub his penis and the sperm comes out and it feels good. Why is he so set about delivering it inside a sister?" "Oh, well... Oh, I can't quite explain it. But it's totally different. It's like we've GOT to do it. I mean, we don't have to, of course, but we want it more than anything. I'd fast for two days just to have a chance to give it to someone -- to you, I mean." "Interesting. So maybe we can't explain why we really, really DON'T want it sometimes." "OK," said Luke, and mused for a moment. "I guess if boys and girls grow up with both women and men around they learn these things better." "I think you're very right. And, now let's kiss. And can you suck on my nipples? They say in the books that that's fun too. If you don't mind..." "Not... at... all!" said Luke, grinning and feasting his eyes on her bare chest. "And I promise you, in just a couple minutes, I'm going to want it from you. Really bad..." Luke sucked. Julie thought it felt fantastic. Before long she was as good as her word, and he eagerly gave it to her. They lazed around after Julie had caught Luke's second bunch of sperm. "Can I tell you something? Just you, without telling the others?" "Sure." "I think three of the sisters are pregnant. But I don't want too many until we actually experience getting the baby out. It can be dangerous, apparently. So, I'm thinking one more expedition after this one, and then we won't come back for several months." "Oh," said Luke. "Oh! That's too bad. I won't get to see you then..." Julie was sad Luke was disappointed, but also a little happy that he would miss her. They slept and hugged, and from time to time grappled each other with passion. A protrusion from Luke's body grew hard and stiff, he plunged it deep into Julie and delivered some more sperm and then the protrusion grew soft again and withdrew. The sky was growing light, and Julie woke to the sound of Grace and Frances talking at the boat. Julie woke Luke and rolled him onto her and begged for his penis in her vagina for the sixth time. From his urgency at the moment of sperming, Julie might have thought he wanted turn his body inside out and shoot his entire self up inside of her. She was happy. --------------------------------------------------------- The abbot stewed. It was especially hard that morning to achieve an attitude of reverence and prayer. That blasted Mother Superior and her women! He vividly recalled every detail of his one private meeting with her, how she had enchanted him, brought out his most earthy and least divine nature, how she had exposed her freakish body without the penis and testicles that God meant men to have. Instead, that opening -- fleshy, moist, set within the surrounding hair. Beckoning him, like the gates of Hell. And his penis, harder than it had ever been. His sinful organ in its most sinful condition, drawn to the infinitely more sinful damp hole, the voice of the Devil urging him on, rewarding his advance with pleasure, making him push, in and out and in and out, torturing him with pleasure, drowning him with it as his body spasmed, spewing his sinful, dirty excretion up into the disgusting, sinful hole. But now he had just learned that Julie hadn't disappeared as he had commanded her to. She had returned, again and again. She had corrupted some of his best brothers. A series of sisters had come, and Peter, Jacob, George, and Luke had all been bewitched to do the same disgusting sinful act with them, over and over. To conspire against his wishes. These wild ideas about how new people grew inside of women's bellies were nonsense. He didn't know how people were created, but they did not grow in the bellies of women. They were not started through an act so unspeakably disgusting and sinful. God would never create such a world. Yet he wondered. If he tore the plastic from his own library, he could tell for sure... Never! Peter had confessed the whole thing to him. Apparently what had triggered his conscience was the realization that the sin had infected him. He was so craven that he had tried to force himself into one of the sisters who did not want to sin in that way. So the abbot had had the other three conspirators escorted into seclusion, while Peter showed him where the women arrived at night. Jacob was released every night and accompanied Peter to the beach, ready to trap the women when they came again. And a week later they arrived, exactly as Peter had said they would. Once the women had landed and their boat was hidden in the canal, some of his men had appeared and gruffly convinced them that they had no choice but to follow them up to the seclusion cells. Peter walked free, but the abbot now had three of his order and three women in the cells. Disobedient brothers he was used to. But women... their presence undermined the community's life of prayer. He overheard two of his younger monks whispering about the women. Had they seen them? One had talked to them through the walls in the middle of the night, and they had answered. They wanted help getting out -- well, that was no surprise. The two brothers were excited by all this. They even fantasized about setting them free so they could see what women looked like -- one had missed that initial visit in the central square, the other had been there but hadn't quite been able to believe his eyes. He desperately wanted another look. How could he do God's work of guiding a contemplative order with this distraction? How could he get rid of the women? There was no prescribed punishment for an outsider. If they were his own, he could in theory have them flogged -- in fact, he had decided that the three younger monks would have to take a few lashes. But exposing the bare flesh of these women to the eyes of his monks? Not a good idea. He certainly couldn't have them put to death! His Church categorically rejected capital punishment. His only real option was to get them to leave. But first he would make sure their memories of the visit were very unpleasant ones. When they delivered his message to the Mother Superior that they must never come again, she should understand that there were consequences both unfortunate and certain. His first idea for a punishment was an enforced fast of four days before sending them on their way. Peter had humbly pointed out that the physical exertion to paddle all the way to Our Lady was considerable, and embarking on the journey after a four-day fast might endanger their lives. So the abbot had extended the term to five days, to be followed by two days to eat their fill before he expelled them. After the women's boat disappeared over the horizon, he waited two full days. Then he extracted confessions and expression of regret from the three conspirators. Sensing lukewarm remorse, he had ordered them to take seven lashes each before he released them. They were assigned indefinitely to kitchen and latrine duty. Peter appeared genuinely contrite as the abbot explained that his own equal punishment had been suspended because of his help in exposing the plot. The abbot appointed another of his men as head of island security, but retained Peter as a consultant who knew about the ways of the women. With the women gone and mostly forgotten, the atmosphere in the order calmed down and returned to normal -- almost. But the three miscreants did not fully embrace their calling. When they knelt to kiss his ring, he sensed no true spirit of obedience. Others reported seeing them in hushed conversation with other brothers, a conversation that stopped with an aura of guilt when anyone approached. If the annual boat from the Church ever did return, he would feel compelled to give his opinion that the Mother Superior of Our Lady had lost her way and that her entire order would need a most thorough review. --------------------------------------------------------- Naturally, Our Lady was alarmed when the boat did not return on schedule. Lucy, Eleanor, and Emma were missing. They could recall no freak storm that might have swamped the boat. Conceivably its integrity had suddenly faltered, making it no longer seaworthy. Julie reassured a worried Grace as the sisters debated that possibility, reminding her she had never claimed expertise, and that if it was anyone's fault it was Julie's. Perhaps one of them had gotten ill and needed time to recover. Perhaps they had lost a paddle and then lost the spare as well, leaving them adrift. With this possibility in mind, Julie had the other boat prepared at once and a team of strong paddlers headed off most of the way to Our Savior. They sighted no boat, heard no cries for help, and saw no wreckage. They returned. But Julie resisted the obvious possibility of simply paddling over all the way and asking what had happened. The incident with Peter on their last visit stuck with her, and she had a hunch that it bore some relationship to this current situation. In planning this last trip, as a way of smoothing the waters, Lucy had agreed in advance to accept sperm from Peter. But could Peter somehow have put the other three men out of action and then set out to forcibly give sperm to the three women -- a crime called rape? It seemed unlikely he could do it himself, though he might have recruited others from the Our Savior community into a new group. To appear in plain view in daylight would blow their cover. To appear in the usual place at night would risk the other boat suffering the same fate as the first. If the women had been captured, Julie had no power to bring about their release. Julie's instincts told her to wait, though there was palpable tension in the community as the days passed. When nine days later the boat was sighted, the lookout screamed. This was not proper behavior for a sister of the order, but no one, not even Sister Catherine, thought to chastise her for it. Julie raced to the shore to meet them, and kept all others at some distance while she got a quick, whispered report from Lucy. She swore the three of them to silence. When they had rested and eaten a large meal, they gathered in Julie's receiving room where they went over every last detail of what had transpired. They had been told through whispered contacts with monks that Peter had discovered the plot, which all the women knew of course meant that he had betrayed them. Luke, Jacob and George were being held in seclusion. Julie thought once more -- reflecting that she was doing a lot more thinking and decision-making than she had ever dreamed necessary for one of her order. The plan had called for no more visits to Our Savior for some time anyway. Whenever they went over again -- and they must go over again -- Julie's intuition was that if caught the punishment would be less the longer they had been away. For the longer term, she supposed they could appear offshore and encourage some monk to swim out to the boat, climb in, and deliver his sperm to a waiting woman. She supposed if they wanted some semblance of privacy the woman could jump in and they could manage the transfer with the relevant organs underwater -- she wasn't sure that would work, but she couldn't see any obvious problem. If Luke was to be believed, some brothers might swim a good long ways and risk a stiff punishment on their return for the opportunity to deliver sperm. The main thing to do was wait for the bellies of Jennie, Meghan and Lisa to swell. Frances joined this group too when she missed her period. George had kept humping Frances as she listened to her sister Grace being attacked, but he had done his job. Meanwhile, she thought about how strong Peter was. She thought about the poor women being locked up without food. She thought about how Our Savior had the same materials they did to build a boat. If the abbot died or was removed by his Council, who knew what a new abbot might do? This got her thinking about weapons. The books had a great deal on them. There were boats so large that the men on them looked like ants. There were airplanes, bombs, rockets, tanks -- all were way out of their league. Even rifles, muskets and pistols were beyond them. All of these evidently worked on the idea that something shot out the end so fast that you couldn't step aside and it could go right through you. She could understand the ideas behind swords and spears more easily. It was hard to think what they had that could be made into a sword -- a plowshare, maybe? There were bows and arrows -- they would have to look into them. Slingshot -- that looked promising. Spears might work. A sharpened end could do damage even if they didn't have any metal points for it, and maybe they could make some of those. There were also references to "martial arts" -- ways to fight without any weapons at all. But it was hard to understand what they were getting at just from the pictures. She would have to put a few of the sisters on the problem of weapons and how to fight. Hopefully they'd never need them. Jennie started bleeding heavily between her legs and getting really bad cramps. Stuff came out that was way more than the heaviest period. Julie's reading told her this was known as a miscarriage. Jennie would be fine, but she wouldn't have a baby. She was also very distraught, and Julie read this was to be expected as well. --------------------------------------------------------- Word reached Julie that rumors were afoot. Some sisters had heard a fantastic story of how tiny people were growing inside the women who had visited Our Savior. Among the conservative sisters, most felt that this was a pathetic cover story for a disease that the visitors had contracted there -- or that had been visited upon them by an angry God for disobeying His commands. Julie was surprised that the secret had held as long as it had. She needed to do some explaining. She sent word to Sister Catherine that she would like to give a formal explanation of what had happened with the boats, and suggested she invite up to a half dozen other sisters who she thought might be appropriate for this audience. Julie then met with her council and this group. As expected, Sister Catherine had selected her fellow avidly conservative sisters who had disagreed with Julie's new plan of action. The group packed tightly into Julie's receiving room. "May God be with me in what I say to you today," she began. "When the Council elevated me to the position of Mother Superior, it put upon me a heavy burden. As you know, one of my first acts was to break the commandment of the library. The books had been wrapped in a special holy plastic, and I removed this plastic and have looked carefully through the library. May God forgive me. I did this in order to find a way for this community to survive. "Now, our order is founded upon the principle that knowledge is the ultimate source of sin. In reading the books, I have risked taking sin upon myself. Yet, using their teachings in combination with deep contemplation and prayer, I devised plans for our survival. However, I have only shared what was necessary with those who would help to carry out the plan. I found two kinds of useful teachings. "One pertained to the building of boats, and you have all seen the craft that resulted. My judgment is that this knowledge has no great spiritual significance. The boats allowed us to make excursions to Our Savior. As I reported, the lacuna of the boats had afflicted them as well, and they knew no more than we about why it had occurred or when it would stop. They had no useful information about a way to reach the Church or to arrange for our survival. "The second set of teachings may allow us to survive. This information is of spiritual significance. I am going to tell you today the barest essentials of the plan and how it is going to work, God willing. "There are tiny people growing inside the bellies of Meghan, Lisa, and Francis. There was a tiny person growing inside of Jennie's belly, but this tiny person died." Julie noticed several of the sisters scowling . "This may sound like an incredible story." "Or like the work of the Devil," muttered Sister Catherine. "I'd ask you to consider this: Where do you think new people come from? Where did our three-year-old novices come from?" "They were a gift from God when they were much smaller, and grew for three years until they were delivered to us," said one of the oldest sisters. "The creation of children is one of God's mysteries, and speculation on the matter is not productive in achieving a life of holiness." This was straight from the Book of Innocence. "Yes, that is true. How God creates people remains a fundamental mystery, but the teachings have revealed to me a little more than we knew before about the process. What God provides starts very small and grows inside the bellies of women. When it is the correct size, it comes out of the woman's belly and is known as a baby. This is how we were all created. Three years after emergence from a woman's belly, each of us was delivered here as a novice. Can you think of some other explanation that is so reasonable that, in contrast, the idea of babies growing inside of women's bellies is ridiculous?" She looked at each member of her audience, but no sister spoke. "The one other piece I will add is that each woman had to journey to Our Savior before a baby could grow in her belly. "The books have also told me that these tiny people come out at a predictable time. If the tiny person inside of Meghan does not die first, he or she will emerge from her belly somewhere between three and four months from now. Between now and then, Meghan will grow much fatter than she is. After the baby emerges from her belly, she will return to her normal size. Things will proceed in the same fashion with Lisa and Frances, though the babies will probably emerge from their bellies a little later. "I judge that to be the information that you all should know. There is much more detail. Much of it is known to every sister who made the journey to Our Savior. However, it is my wish that no one in the order learn more that she wants to know, so that she may as closely approximate the innocence that is our order's reason for being. If after prayer and contemplation, a sister feels that it is right that she learn more, I would share further information. "Are there any questions?" Sister Catherine said, "You referred to the tiny person as 'he or she'. Do you not know whether it will be a boy or a girl?" "That is correct. God has already determined which the baby will be, but it will only be revealed to us once the baby is born." "How will we know?" Julie hesitated. "That is among the extra information for sisters who wish to learn more." "Are any of the other sisters who journeyed to Our Savior going to have tiny babies grow in their bellies?" "No. That could only happen if they return to Our Savior again." There were no more questions. Julie felt she had done her best to support the innocence of the conservative sisters. In practice, the sperm transfer process was such a memorable experience that the sisters who had undergone it tended to talk about it. It was a small community, and overhearing private conversations was very common. Perhaps Sister Harriet retained her innocence, because she was quite deaf. It is doubtful that any of the others did. --------------------------------------------------------- Julie got a few volunteers to act as midwives. She went through the encyclopedia page by page looking for anything related to childbirth. After she'd identified some relevant sections, she invited her midwives in to her private audience room to read to them. She also let the midwives look at the few relevant pictures. Meghan got to 39 weeks. When she started having real labor contractions, Julie prayed more fervently than she had in a long time. She let her very poorly trained midwives handle most of it, but Julie stopped in from time to time. She left more than once, crying as soon as she was by herself. Meghan was young, Meghan was strong, and Meghan was no complainer. But now Meghan was crying, and yelling, and looking exhausted. The books said labor could go on for a day or more. Even if Meghan lived, no one would ever want to have a baby again! She went to find Grace and insulted the dignity of her office by sobbing in the older woman's arms for some minutes before regaining her composure. The midwives figured out when Meghan went from transition into the pushing phase. When they could actually see a rounded bump showing in her vagina, they called Julie in for the final delivery. The bump grew, it bulged, and then with a push everything happened at once. The big bump was a head, then came shoulders, body, cord, and lots of slimy fluid. Jennie looked terrified at what she had caught and apparently couldn't think what to do with it. It gave a thin, piercing cry. Others reminded her and she brought the baby to Meghan's chest. A glance between the baby's legs suggested it was a girl. Meghan was distracted as another push expelled another large blob that Julie knew was called the placenta. But then everything changed. The exhausted Meghan beamed at the puckered, wet, reddish thing. She put it by her breast and the little thing who was so stunningly helpless then exercised the one and only skill she needed just then. She found Meghan's nipple and sucked on it. Jennie managed to cut the cord. Bit by bit all the blood and fluid and extraneous stuff was wiped up and carted away, and what was left was a young woman, Meghan, and a tiny creature who was unmistakably a human being, a little girl. This was how new people came into the world. This was how nature replaced the people who all inevitably died. It was a miracle. The half-dozen most conservative sisters refused to visit the baby. It was not within their order's calling to have anything to do with it. When she was three, they would treat her like a novice. Until then, she was the responsibility of the youngsters who had turned the world upside down. But none doubted any longer that Julie had in fact discovered how to create new people. The regular world prepares girls slowly for womanhood. Little girls see babies, big girls see babies, and then when young women see babies, they're not something totally new. No one had prepared these women. Several of them developed a strong case of baby hunger. The ones who had been to Our Savior and knew firsthand how the process started asked with some urgency when they could go again. Some who had had no interest before now wanted to make the trip and receive sperm injections. Julie confirmed the rumor that for those over the age of 35, it was unlikely that their bodies could have a baby under any circumstances, and for those over 45, it was no longer possible. Lisa delivered a tiny baby boy, which was a mystery all its own. It was one thing to know that a man had to do some bizarre little act in a few seconds to make a woman pregnant. It was quite another to think that what could squirt out between the woman's legs would be a baby man. Wouldn't it make more sense if women did some bizarre little act with men and then the new men would grow inside the grown men? But it didn't seem to work that way. But despite the strange stuff it had between its legs, the tiny boy was just as charming and lovable as the tiny girl. Frances delivered another small boy, but he didn't look right from the start. He didn't suck at her breast, he cried only weakly, and to everyone's great sorrow, he died a day after he was born. All did their best to console Frances. Julie watched closely to see if this would dampen the enthusiasm for having babies. But it didn't -- not at all. Frances herself wanted to try again. Julie let the mothers gave names to the tiny people who had emerged from them. The girl was called Jean, and the boy was called Paul. --------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4 This time it was a flotilla that approached Our Savior -- that is, it was both boats. It contained no fertile women, at least not by design. Julie reflected that she herself might be getting fertile. The original boat had been improved to the point where bailing was not really required -- or not more often than every hour or so. In that boat were Julie and Grace. The second boat was slightly larger than the first, and it contained Lucy and Emma. All three of Julie's companions had felt at first hand the danger that men could pose, so they had been especially avid pupils in throwing rocks, hard, and hitting what they aimed at. Emma in particular was quite remarkable with the spear. These weapons lay in the bottoms of the boats. In broad daylight, they approached the dock at which the annual boat used to land. They were noticed. As they paddled closer to shore, a haphazard scurrying of men turned into two organized lines, with the abbot in the center. Julie was relieved to see no sign of rocks or spears among the men. The paddling stopped when the boats were 40 yards from the dock. "I ordered you never to return," said the abbot. "Why have you disobeyed me?" Julie had an inclination to question why the abbot thought he could give her orders, but thought better of it. It was his island, after all, not hers. "Could I confer with you privately, on the dock?" she called out. "What could we possibly have to talk about?" "Maybe nothing. Maybe something. But only in private." "Very well," he said with a weary sigh, motioning his men to retreat. Grace and Julie paddled towards the end of the dock. Julie stepped out onto the dock, stumbling, but she stayed on her feet. Grace pushed back a few feet, and Julie walked the ten yards to where the abbot stood. "I hope all goes well in your community, Reverend Father," she said quietly. "Or whatever your title is." He smiled thinly. "And I hope it goes well in yours as well, Reverend Mother." "We need men. Just a few men, but men. Our nighttime visits were unacceptable to you and you prohibited them. We respect that choice. The alternative is for a few men to come with us and live on Our Lady. Permanently." "Leave the island? Live with you? It is prohibited for a man to leave the island!" "Yes, but the Book doesn't cover everything. Things have changed." The abbot paused. "And just what makes you think any man would consent to go with you? No man will leave under duress!" "I'm not certain, but I can think of a few men who might be interested." He met her gaze, saw her significant look, and turned away. "There are certain men here, it is true, who are better suited to our calling than others. Some of the latter have been subjected to a corrupting influence." "Yes, that is unfortunate." "How many men would you like to lead into a life of corruption?" "Our boats can carry three with safety. By happy coincidence, that is also the number we want." "Three? Not four?" "Four would leave your island free of any who have felt the corrupting influence, it is true. Oh, and then there is you, of course... But that corruption should be easier to deal with, as the struggle is entirely within you." "There is no struggle within me," said the abbot, eying her coldly. "Of course not," she said. "You are a holy man and the corruption was only brief, if the tales I am told be true." He smiled slightly, and it almost had a trace of warmth. "Yet for one of the four who was corrupted, the corruption led to bodily assault. This we do not want on Our Lady." The abbot nodded. "What if the three do not wish to come with you?" "Two would do." "What if none want to come?" Julie thought. When baby Paul was 14 or so, he could perhaps make women pregnant. Jean would be the same age. Of the others, the youngest, Kira, would be... 29. But what if something happened to Paul? All their hopes would depend on the survival of one person. "If none want to come, we will return again and again, as long as necessary, until we find men -- volunteers, of course." The abbot sighed, suddenly looking old. "You are certainly persistent. I will see what can be arranged. Why don't your boats go to the usual spot, the one where we captured your boat before, tonight after dark." "Might it be simpler to just let them leave with us now?" "Tonight would be better. The men can consider their decision carefully after prayer. They can say farewells. And, well, I would rather not have to watch men who have been entrusted to my care leave the order in front of my eyes." Julie nodded. "I suppose if ten men all came racing into the water, eager to get aboard, that would be embarrassing as well." The abbot's face became steely. Julie realized her remark had been unwise. She continued quickly, "It would also be very difficult for us, as the boats wouldn't hold that many. You have made a generous offer. We will come to the usual spot, not long after dark." The abbot turned. Julie said, "And, most sincerely, Your Reverence, I know the lacuna of the boats was a heavy challenge to you as well. God answered your prayers differently than mine, but I deeply respect your decision. I wish you and Our Savior the very best. I will be praying for you." "And I for you," said the abbot. "Farewell." He stepped off the dock and walked with dignity to join his retinue. Julie returned to the end of the dock, while Grace tried to maneuver the boat back into position. But it was clearly going to be a lengthy and difficult process with one paddle. So the Mother Superior jumped into the water, causing a ripple of excitement on shore. She swam to the boat and Grace helped her up the side and she flopped in. When she stood, she saw George standing at the very edge of the sand. It looked like he might dash out and swim to the boats at any moment. Julie urgently put her hand up and shook her head. But she also surreptitiously gave him a thumbs up sign. --------------------------------------------------------- At the appointed hour the two boats approached the familiar cove. Julie smiled to recall the happy nights she had spent there. When they were still some distance out, three figures ran into the water and began swimming towards them, joined shortly by a fourth. The first three were, as expected, Luke, Jacob and George. As they approached, the fourth was closing fast, a strong swimmer. It was, to no one's great surprise, Peter. "Great news! The abbot gave me permission to go after all!" "Sorry," said Julie as he approached the side of the boat. "You're not invited." "The abbot said you had to let me come too or else the deal was off!" Julie said nothing. The women in the other boat helped George aboard, and then Jacob. Luke's hand was on the side of Julie's boat. "Well, there's always this," he said harshly, and with surprising force thrust himself out of the water until he was sitting on the gunwale. He then looked with some surprise at a stick pointing at his throat and presumably felt a sharp point of wood that rested against his flesh. On the other end of the long stick was Grace. Julie's heart skipped a beat. She thought she knew Grace, but... One sharp thrust with her powerful arms would do the job. Fortunately Grace's expression was calm, controlled. Peter moved his hand up, as if considering grasping the spear to push it to the side, but then coughed, choked, and slid back into the water. "She's a killer!" he called out as he tread water. The spear hadn't broken the skin; the added pressure had just been enough to convince him she meant business. "Tell the abbot what a sinful sister I am for not letting you join us," said Julie as she helped pull Luke into the boat. The women directed the men out of the way and got in position to paddle. The boats left Peter slowly swimming back to shore. Conversation picked up as they got underway. There was news to share from both communities. Julie interrupted them and ordered the two boats together again. She stood. "This is important. If you come to Our Lady, you accept me as your leader. You pledge obedience to me, is that understood? Just like you were to the abbot before, you are now to me. If not, now is the time to swim back to shore." Julie offered her fist to Grace, who kissed her ring. When she offered it to Luke, he kissed it as well. Reaching across between the two boats, Emma and Lucy kissed it. As Jacob kissed it, George asked, "What do we call you?" "Reverend Mother," she said. He hesitated only a second before he kissed her ring as well. --------------------------------------------------------- The boats broke apart and headed around the island and towards home. In Julie's boat, Grace was mostly silent and Julie and Luke did all the talking. "The biggest news," she said, "is that we have babies. Two of them." "Really?" said Luke. "That's... that's wonderful!" "Just wait, you'll adore them... And, we want more." "OK, sounds good!" said Luke. Julie looked at Luke, and he looked at her. She returned to paddling, but then looked at him again. She bit her lip. "Um, Sister Grace," she said. "This is really embarrassing..." "Oh," said the older woman after a moment. She smiled. "No problem. I'll just sit way up here in the bow and look out at the horizon." Julie saw Grace give the "everything's OK" sign to the other boat, and heard a titter of gossipy laughter as she thought about how to get horizontal. Luke's pants and underpants were off, his penis hard and ready. The planking on the bottom of the boat would be hard against Julie's back, and the water that would need bailing was starting to accumulate. "Wait, I've got an idea," she said, falling onto her hands and knees, rear towards Luke. "It works this way too," she said copying something she'd seen in one of the books with two dogs mating. For a moment Luke was confused, but then he saw how it would work. Julie looked straight ahead at Grace's back and beyond to the other boat and the horizon beyond. Behind her she felt hands on her rear end, fingers at her vaginal opening, and then the hard, hot organ she'd been dreaming about for months. She adjusted her hips slightly, and the massive thing surged deep and deeper, and then began the in and out -- fast,deep and strong -- the motion of the male who, whether he knows it or not, is urgently trying to father a child. "Should I, um, wait?" he said in a hoarse whisper. "No!" said Julie. "Give it to me, as soon as you can!" That was a mere five seconds later, as she felt his penis bump into the deep end of her vagina. It hurt, and she loved it. He banged again and again, and she loved the hurt each time. Maybe that would knock her open somehow so she'd be able to get pregnant. She could tell from his gasp and groan that he was doing his bit. The transfer complete, they separated and kissed tenderly for a few seconds. "OK, time to get paddling," she said, and Grace returned to the right side as Julie positioned herself to the left. Starboard and port, she remembered from a book. "I don't know," mused Grace with good humor. "You guys seem to like that a lot. I wonder if I'll try it some day after all." She added quickly, "With one of the others, of course, Reverend Mother!" --------------------------------------------------------- In deference to the conservative sisters, the rule was that the men must never come near the main settlement. Instead, Julie set them up in a small hut on the other side of the island that was used in support of fishing. It was cramped for the three of them, but during a rainstorm they could stay dry in there. They quickly made little sleeping spots in the forest, a short distance down paths in various directions -- spots that could accommodate one or two with ease, like those they had fashioned on Our Savior. Julie assigned a sister to pray with them at the requisite hours. The men went along with that easily enough. They protested when told to say the extra misprinted line in the women's version of the one prayer. But the Mother Superior ordered them to, and they did. They were also assigned work. A natural fit was fishing from their side of the island, and gathering from the forest nearby. The new mothers brought their babies over to meet the men. Everyone agreed that baby Jean looked a lot like George. Baby Paul looked a lot like his mother Lisa, but his resemblance to any of the men wasn't so clear. When impregnation required a long trip in one of the community's two boats, it was under Julie's complete control. At least she had veto power -- if you weren't on the boat, you couldn't get pregnant. Now all that was required was a mile's hike through the forest. She announced that no one should visit the men's camp without her permission. But knowing the power of sex, she had no illusions about vigorous enforcement. Even Sister Catherine, when she was Mother Superior, had not made the sisters account for their every minute. There was some unstructured time, and walking along the island paths in a prayerful attitude was part of their mission. How many babies should they make? Julie did some figuring. Sister Kira was now 15. The chances of a sister getting pregnant above the age of 35 were small enough. Sister Ida had died a few years back, but everyone else in that age range was living. That made 20 of them in the fertile cohort. Maybe a half dozen of them were conservative and committed to never seeing the men at all, let alone becoming pregnant. If the other 14 of them all bore a child, they would still not have made up for the 24 boys and girls who were absent because the boats had not arrived. Julie found herself approving all requests to visit the men's side of the island, and soon lifted the rule requiring permission. If a sister specifically asked if she could try to become pregnant, she approved that request too. Sister Frances could give her advice about the best time for her to request a sperm deposit from the men. Despite her luxuriously wide bed at the Mother Superior's residence, Julie spent most of her nights in a little bower in the woods with Luke. They talked for hours, and she began to value his counsel in her many weighty decisions. During the first days after their arrival on the island, he gave her his sperm at least twice every night. "Julie," said Luke as they lazed intertwined after a nearly simultaneous orgasm. "Mmmmm?" "Is it your will that George and Jacob be the only ones who give sperm to the other women? I will accept that of course." She looked at him with a small pang in her stomach. She had explained marriage to Luke earlier, including its promise of exclusivity. If the three men followed that pattern, of course, it would create two sisters beside herself of a different status -- wives and potentially mothers, probably several times over. That seemed unwise. "Would you like to?" she asked. "My body certainly likes the idea," he said. "And I think some of the women would appreciate it. Two of them have confided that they would like me specifically to father their children." Julie knew that once they had observed how much Jean resembled George, the women looked over the three men carefully and developed definite preferences. "I did pick the best one of you for myself," she said. He smiled. "How about this... What if you only do it doggy style. You look at her rear end only, you stick your penis into it and deliver the sperm, then you leave right away. No kissing or hugging or playing around." "OK," he said with a smile. "That will be just fine. Thank you, Reverend Mother." He kissed her hand. "And you should make sure not to enjoy it. At least not too much. Is that right -- you can't deliver sperm without feeling good?" "Uhhh, that's right. And we can't feel good without delivering sperm, either. Not in that way. But sometimes it feels better than others. And I delivered into a few of those other women on your visits to Our Savior, and it was nowhere as good as it is with you." "You're very kind." Julie held her breath when her period was late, and when she started feeling other subtle changes in her body, she dared to hope that she was pregnant. Signs remained good. A few of the other women also reported missing their periods, and over time there were several swelling bellies. Julie began to hear similar stories in confession. A woman had trouble concentrating on her prayers because she had pleasant and sinful memories of Jacob delivering his sperm into her. Another had a strong desire to go get another sperm delivery even though she knew her period was due very shortly and it could not serve the noble purpose of starting a baby. Julie absolved these women of their sins, but she felt uncomfortable. She had the same desires and she let herself indulge them. Could she somehow contend that she was married? Sex within marriage was acceptable and not a sin... It was a stretch. She of course continued to receive the confessions of the conservative sisters when they requested it, and if one reported that her hand had strayed between her legs, Julie looked grave and upheld the woman's own belief that it was a sin in need of pardon. --------------------------------------------------------- Luke lay on his back on the warm sand, totally naked. George lay to his left, Jacob to his right. Jacob said, "You know, it was nearly two years ago when we met Julie and the others for the first time on the beach." Luke said, "Yeah, sounds about right." "Who'd have thought we'd be here today? I mean, *this* is the life!" George said, "Oh, yeah. It sure beats praying all the time, and jerking off somewhere every couple weeks, or trying hard not to." Jacob said, "Do you think God's OK with this? It's not at all what we were taught. Here we are, naked on the beach." "We still pray a bunch," said Luke. He smiled and added, "And I trust the Mother Superior to know what is best." George sat up. "Yeah, well you get to cram your penis into the Mother Superior on a regular basis." Luke said, "We're all benefiting from the Mother's wisdom. God didn't mean for us to die out, and so we've got to make babies, so the three of us have the chore of pumping sperm into the sisters." Jacob said, "But you're still pumping the sperm in when she's already pregnant." Luke said, "She says that the act is still blessed even when it's not for making babies. Once a man accepts he's going to be dumping sperm up there or a woman accepts she's going to get it pumped into her, they might as well do it as much as you want." "Oh, yeah! That's the kind of Mother Superior I like! Not like the old abbot," said George. "Not that she puts it quite like that," added Luke. Jacob said, "Some of the sisters -- I don't know. Every time Nancy comes over here, she wants it from all three of us, right?" "You can tell she really likes to get it, that's for sure," said George. "Hey look, I'm getting hard just thinking about her. 'Unnh, unnh, unnnh, Nancy, aaaahhhhh!'" "She does that orgasm thing with me sometimes," said Jacob. "I mean, I like to give them sperm, but I figure there's no hurry. Shoving in and out feels really good, so why not just keep at it for half an hour and then give it to them?" George said, "Not me so much. I like to jam it in deep and shoot. Of course if I've just done it a couple times recently it can take a little longer, but I don't hold back. If they're one of the fat ones I just do 'em from behind, 'doggy style'. Whatever that means." Luke said, "Dogs are animals that live out in the wider world. They've got four legs and no hands. That's how they do it. At least that's what Julie says." George said, "Whatever the heck an 'animal' is. And you, that's the only way you can do it unless it's with the Blessed Mother herself." "Yeah," said Luke with a sigh. That was the theory. In practice, with Emma he'd done more. She'd wanted to see what it looked like when the sperm came out, so he'd showed her, using his hand. Later she'd wanted to lick his penis, and that felt good. So when she was on her back all naked with her legs spread wide, he didn't tell her to get up on hands and knees. He dove right in, and it had felt great. His penis was getting hard just thinking about it. "You got a favorite vagina? They all feel a little different, right?" asked George. "Jennie's my favorite." Luke smiled. Jennie was extra special -- hotter, slicker, tighter. Jacob said, "Oh, yeah, she's something, isn't she? I can't last long with her. It's like her vagina says, 'Give me the sperm, right now! Or else!'" Luke laughed. "Yeah, and I sure am happy to oblige." Jacob said, "Eleanor wanted to just sleep beside me the other night after I'd done it to her, and I thought that was fine. Kind of warm and nice. But then Mary showed up looking for me. I woke Eleanor up and told her to get going because I had someone else to give sperm to. She got mad. But she did leave." Luke said, "Yeah, they can get funny that way. And Mary is hard to resist, that's for sure. You notice how the younger ones are the ones you really want to give it to?" George said, "Oh, yeah. But when Beatrice snuck on over -- well, I was happy to shove it into her too. I think I'd shove it into anyone. If they've got a vagina, I want to dump sperm into it." They sat up at the distant sound of footsteps on a path. "Oh, look, it's Meghan with the baby," said Jacob. All three rose, put their pants back on and walked back up towards their cabin. "Yeah, my daughter, they say. That part's weird. You dump the sperm out and the baby looks like you, even if it's a girl." Luke said, "Good morning, Sister Meghan. What can we do for you today?" "I brought Jean over to say hello. You want to go to your daddy, Jean?" George held the girl in his arms and smiled. "But, Luke, could I talk with you in private?" George said, "Oh, yeah, a talk, eh? I hope you have a deep conversation. You want to 'talk' with me later?" "No thanks," said Meghan. "Got to give everyone a turn, right?" As Luke led Meghan back into his sleeping spot, his penis got hard. She took off her worn and patched habit and lay down. "Um, you know I can only do it one way, right?" "Yeah, I know, but we can relax a little first, right?" "OK," he said and lay beside her, naked. She looked at his stiff organ. "Can I, um, play with it?" "Well, OK." He then watched her reverently caressing his penis and testicles with light touch while she looked at them from a foot away. "OK," she said with a sigh. "I'm ready for you to use it," and sat up. "I want to try something," he said. "Lie back down. Spread your legs." "I thought you weren't allowed --" "No, it's not that. But some of the sisters think this feels good." He covered her crotch with his hand, then began delicately brushing, rubbing, prodding. He hoped Meghan would keep coming to him in her attempts to start her next baby, so he was eager to make her like it. His fingers found smooth flesh, and he began gently probing and stroking. "Oh, oh wow!" said Meghan. He kept rubbing, pressing, fluttering, and she thrust her hips up at him. "Oh, oh, oh, mmmmm, Yes!" she said, shuddering. Luke slowed his hand motion. She lay there looking up at him, panting. The sound of a not entirely happy baby drifted to them. "Oh, gosh, and I haven't even got it yet!" she said. "Can you do it quick?" "I think so," said Luke. He beheld the rear end presented to him, opened her soppy pussy with his fingers and deftly place his penis tip right in her opening. He then grappled her hips and forced himself in, and after a few thrusts was in to the hilt. Jean's fussing became unmistakable. Time was of the essence. Luke shoved in and out at a furious clip, as Meghan whispered loudly, "Give me a big load of it. Make a little brother for her!" Delicious pleasure built and intensified as he rammed in and out. Jean started crying plaintively. Finally the sperm was on its way, and he plunged as deep as he could and held perfectly still. He felt great pleasure as his penis twitched, shooting the first glob of sperm into her. It twitched again, and another glob shot out. After four shots the twitching stopped. The load delivered, he let go of the rear end and let his cock slip out. "Thanks!" said Meghan distractedly as she rushed to get dressed and go to her baby. "No problem," said Luke happily as he lay back down. What an assignment -- filling vaginas with sperm, over and over again. He grinned. --------------------------------------------------------- Years passed. Some things changed. Before the lacuna of the boats, all of the novices had only one mother, the Mother Superior. She delegated their care to others but made all the final decisions. But they quickly discovered that real, biological mothers had a close attachment to their children. This started in infancy, when the two were joined by the bond of nursing, but it continued after the children were weaned. In theory Julie had the final say over the best time for a child to start eating fish, but in practice the mother had the strongest opinions on the subject. From her library, which she had by now read completely three times, Julie knew that this was also the way out in the world at large. Conflict arose with the conservative sisters about children. In the old days, the total population of little girls below the age of 10 was 7. Attended to carefully by older sisters, children's noise was limited. When there were a dozen children under the age of 4, the situation was quite different. Babies cried at all hours. Toddlers raged and had tantrums. Julie tried to segregate the mothers with children into certain buildings and allocate the ones farthest away to the conservative sisters who were bothered most, but it wasn't that large of a settlement. In the old days, one thing that arrived every year along with the new novice were bundles with new habits for each of the sisters and fresh underwear. The Book of Innocence said that clean clothes without blemish were an aid to the holy life. All of the clothing was of high quality and durable. But without replenishment for over a dozen years, habits became threadbare, and mending more and more difficult. Underwear ran short first. At first Julie got volunteers among the liberal faction to forgo underwear unless they were having periods, in which case it was needed to hold the menstrual cloths in place. But as the underwear continued to deteriorate, she was forced to impose the same restriction on the conservative sisters. They were distressed, but had to admit that they had no solutions to offer. The clothing supplies of the community had naturally included no diapers. Menstrual cloths were a substitute, but it was hard to fasten them in place, and babies soiled many very quickly in succession. The preferred solution was for mothers and babies to spend as much time as possible outside in certain areas and for the babies to simply run naked. Excretions were wiped away with water from a rain barrel. The conservative sisters were upset by nakedness, but had no solutions to offer. They were especially upset by little penises, which in their view had no place on Our Lady. Armed with what knowledge she could glean from her books, Julie had set women to experimenting with transforming the local plant fiber into cloth. They met with some success, though the garments were crude and in no way resembled the dignified cut of the Church habits. It got to the point where habits became costumes that the sisters put on for certain of the more important prayers. Lucy died in childbirth, to everyone's sorrow. But it did not stop women from wanting babies -- or more babies, since by then several of them had had two. Some of the sisters with boys asked earnestly if they would be required to send their boys over to Our Savior. Julie quickly reassured them on that point. The abbot had left relations between the two islands frosty. Julie also knew that she could never ask the women to give up their sons. An initial large crop of babies seemed appropriate to make up for the lacuna of the boats. Now, Julie revisited the question of how many babies was the right number for their island. She remembered her original vision for their survival, premised on keeping the same total population. Since they were keeping the boys, they should produce one baby a year. It was certainly part of the harmony of the original community that the number of sisters was more or less constant, and a small community with ample room was more conducive to quiet meditation and prayer. But the community was changing. Among the sisters under the age of 35, most were mothers who never wore habits. The real future of the community lay with the children, who mostly went around naked. Their mothers continued to say their prayers, but they were more rote incantations than part of a truly devout life. If a baby cried during prayer time, the baby came first and the prayer came second. What was the best size for this new community? Women and babies spent more and more time out of doors. Local material was harvested to make shelters with open sides and thatched roofs. Many of the sisters without children also found these buildings more comfortable, and there was no limit to how many could be constructed. They had barely tapped the food supplies available to them. There was a great deal of land available for cultivation, while fruit from the forest and fish were plentiful. The island could support a much larger population. The women wanted to have babies, and Julie saw no reason to restrict them. When the oldest children approached the age of three, another controversy arose with the conservatives. They were looking forward to reintroducing the customs of the novices and replenishing the ranks of the sisters with careful religious training. When Julie had audiences with the mothers, none of them had that in mind for their daughters, and Julie couldn't see requiring it of them. Besides, what would the boys do? Would they invent a novice program for them, or just let them run around in the sun while their sisters developed into humble servants of God? Julie pointed out that if she had not undertaken her voyages to Our Savior, the order would be dying out anyway. And then after much prayer and meditation, Julie made a momentous decision. Saying prayers became optional. It rapidly dropped off among the mothers. She was effectively saying that being a member of the Church of Innocence was not required. --------------------------------------------------------- When Paul and Jean had just turned six the vernal equinox came around once more. The vicinity of the dock was reserved for the conservative sisters to observe one of the most solemn rituals of the year. Julie of course continued to participate in all the major ceremonies in her role as Mother Superior. There was a sudden stir because a boat approached. But it was not one of the old Church boats. It was a craft assembled out of local materials, and contained three people instead of one woman in white. They were monks from Our Savior. The boat was redirected to a beach at some distance so the sisters could continue their vigil waiting for the boat that their church taught them to wait for, but Julie abandoned them to attend to the visitors. The word was that the old abbot had died and a new one taken his place. He had commissioned the construction of this boat and sent this delegation of three brothers. One purpose was to seek better relations and share any information they might have on their situation regarding the wider world, but the sisters had none to share. But their most central question was to inquire whether God had by any chance blessed any of them with young boys. If so, would the sisters be grateful if the brothers would take them off their hands so they could be raised properly as monks? This question had been decided long before, and Julie gave her answer. The men inquired after the health of brothers Luke, Jacob and George, and were told they were well but not available for an audience. They still kept mostly to their side of the island. It was a brief visit. The brothers seemed friendly, but Julie was cautious. She reinstated training with weapons. The boat from Our Savior reappeared a couple weeks later bearing the new abbot himself, and discussions of a different sort began. Many of the younger men on Our Savior were dissatisfied and rebellious. They remembered the brief appearances of the women as if they had been visits from a messiah. Before they left, Luke, George and Jacob had confided to some close friends just how wonderful it was to deliver sperm into women, and Peter's attempt to go with them and his subsequent bitter withdrawal also suggested that this was something momentous. They had been agitating for some time for building boats and trying to reestablish a relationship. Julie revealed the grievances of the older, conservative sisters, who felt their island was a most unsatisfactory place to carry on the sort of life they had consecrated themselves to. Thus arose the idea of a swap. Although living with men was a grave disruption of their order, it would be less disruptive to a life of prayer than living with young women who had for all practical purposes left the order and their pack of wild, undisciplined children. Julie reread the portions of her library dealing with different conceptions of marriage. If the number of men rose to match the number of women, it became feasible. It was an institution that lay behind all of the most stable societies. The very first marriage was between Luke and Julie. There began a series of cross-island exchanges using the three boats as ferries. Interested women went over to Our Savior for dating and courting. A few of the sisters indulged their carnal passions among the sudden cornucopia of men available to them, and some of the men who had been ambivalent about marriage became enthusiastic once they had experienced the act which lay at the heart of it. No man was to be allowed on Our Lady until his proposal of marriage had been accepted by one of the women. These men came over a few at a time, swore obedience to Julie and were integrated into the evolving society. A a certain point, the conservative women abandoned Our Lady together, as fast as the boats could ferry them. Once the separation was mostly complete, an occasional man and woman from the religious order on Our Savior married and joined the community on Our Lady. Once it became apparent that the woman was already pregnant. Jacob married Lisa. George never did marry. A few sisters remained on Our Lady but did not marry, including some of the older ones who liked the idea of living in a community with children. No one thought George suddenly became celibate, and no one inquired too closely about who was sleeping with whom. When unmarried Emma became pregnant, no one cared -- after all, the entire crop of older children had been conceived out of wedlock. --------------------------------------------------------- The Church had founded Our Lady and Our Savior on the principle that knowledge was a bad thing -- that knowledge of something as basic as the differences between the sexes and how babies were made was an obstacle to the holy life. Julie had eaten fruit from the tree of knowledge, and it had transformed a rigid religious community that was dying out into a vibrant village of married men, women, and children. Everyone accepted that there should be an Abbot for the one island and a Mother Superior for the other to be in charge of everything because they had never conceived of any other way of arranging a society. Julie had designated Frances as her successor as Mother Superior if anything happened to her. She had gradually shifted the composition of the Council to include a few mothers -- or other mothers, since Julie herself had two daughters. The one thing Julie had reserved to herself alone was the knowledge that came from reading and rereading a set of books. She had read about different forms of government. There were governments whose workings depended on fear, secret spies, and force, but they made no sense to her. One that amused her was a hereditary monarchy, according to which her elder daughter would some day become the new Mother Superior. She could feel the pull of it, though she never seriously considered it. One plan would have the Council be the fundamental body, choosing a Mother Superior from among their number but one they could remove at any time by a simple majority vote. The Council would select their own replacements. Then there was democracy, an interesting idea. Each person got a vote, and whoever got the most votes would be the new Mother Superior. They could vote for Council members too. It made a lot of sense. But Julie didn't trust herself to figure it all out on her own. So she shifted the composition of the Council slightly and made their primary responsibility reading the library, indexing it, and figuring out what it all meant. No longer would she be the one person who knew what was in the books. When they figured out what was best in terms of governance, Julie would study it carefully but thought it likely she would approve it. The boats still ventured back and forth between the two islands to exchange news. One day came a message from the abbot. They were getting to be fewer and could see the day coming when they could no longer maintain the fields and facilities on Our Savior on their own. A few couples and older children, chosen because they were comparatively quiet and reserved, were invited to move to Our Savior. They helped care for the sisters and brothers in their declining years. Over time more and more families moved to Our Savior. Julie convinced the abbot to cede his temporal authority to her, so a single policy could coordinate activities on the two islands. He retained his spiritual authority in the prayers and ceremonies of the Church. On each vernal equinox, a small band of elderly brothers and sisters waited at the dock on Our Savior for the boat. --------------------------------------------------------- Julie and Luke sat on the porch of the Residence enjoying the sounds of the community around them. Their two grandsons by their younger daughter played at their feet. There was a commotion as younger eyes and ears detected it first. An object appeared in the sky, somewhat like a bird but larger and making a steady noise. Some measure of education based on the contents of the books had by then reached most of the adults, so most knew that it was an airplane. It circled the island, flew over it, and the flew off to investigate Our Savior before disappearing back the way it had come. Everyone waited anxiously to see what else might happen. Five days later a boat approached the island, a much bigger boat than they had ever seen. From its side descended a boat closer in size to the ones the Church used to send, though this one was powered by a motor. Men in uniform disembarked and there were cautious greetings and introductions. An hour later Mayor Julie sat in her receiving room with her five council members and two officers of the United States Navy. They received the first news of the world that any of them had ever heard. Otherwise they had only what had been passed down to them by the older sisters and brothers and the contents of Julie's century-old books. There had arisen much trouble in the world, including political strife and famine. There had been a large earthquake in Seattle, the city that was the seat of the Holy Innocence Church. Contributions to the Church plummeted as all efforts went to addressing the need within their own city. The existence of Our Lady and Our Savior had been a closely guarded secret. The Church could no longer afford to send its own expedition that would preserve that secrecy. They debated informing the authorities of the stranded communities but decided against it. Hopefully the Church would rise to its former glory. If it never did, the monks and nuns would continue to praise God until they died out. Only within the past year had the existence of the religious colonies leaked out -- one of the key leaders had revealed the secret in his senility. The news made its way through the government, an expedition had been organized to investigate, and there they were. The islands were now the property of them -- the natives. The laws of the world decreed that any who wished to leave the islands were free to go. Otherwise, they could decide among themselves what aspects of the modern world they wished to import -- even which aspects of the modern world they wished to learn about. Shortly thereafter Julie and her council agreed to accept a pair of sociologists who took up residence with them for a year. They held interviews with all the residents, more with the older residents and most of all with Julie herself. The case of Our Lady and Our Savior was of immense interest to their profession, because they were a pair of sex-segregated communities who had been kept thoroughly ignorant of a great deal of common human knowledge. They carefully cataloged the contents of Julie's library and interviewed her for days on end about how new ideas had occurred to her, which books she had read at different times and how the reading had interacted with her thoughts and decisions. They listened utterly spellbound as she described the first fumbling and urgent sexual encounter between Abbot and Mother Superior and the expeditions that had followed in her quest to create babies. She had earned immortality in the annals of the field. The blockbuster dramatization of their story began with the midnight visit of the Council to Julie's seclusion cell. For some reason, two lines lived on in the lore of the world for centuries. The first was always delivered with a tone resonant with authority, and the second with a squeak. "I pledge to you my loyalty and obedience, O Reverend Mother." "Me?" ============================================================ What did you think? I'm always eager for comments, whether positive, negative or mixed. Comments to sterling27@live.com.