Author: Sterling Title: The Water's Edge Summary: In a stone age setting, men are of the land, women of the sea. But when they meet for sex, their minds merge. When a boy or girl comes of age, there are no more secrets. One young man has a terrible secret, and survives after his successful quest to find a young woman with a secret just as terrible. Keywords: MF cons het ScFi tears ESP paranormal 1st slow caution NOTICE: This story contains explicit sex. First posted 11/12/2009, new header added 8/26/2010. 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/ 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! ================================================================== The Water's Edge The men and boys are creatures of the land. They run and climb, feeling the breeze and the sun. They see the wonders of the land, the flowers and plants, the view from the hills. Women and girls are creatures of the sea. They swim and dive. They see the wonders of the sea floor, the intricate reefs, the complex life and beauty there. Wet skin is uncomfortable for the males, and feeds primeval dread. Dry skin for the females prefigures the dust of death. ------------- Tara had had three periods, so she was now permitted to undergo the initiation rite to leave girlhood behind and assume her rightful place among the women. In her 19 years her body had finished growing, and she knew the intricacies of women's work, particularly the crucial task of finding shellfish. But now with sexual maturity she was ready to take the final step. First came the confessions. She had swum with her mother and separately with each of two elders, and been encouraged to share anything shameful she may have done in her life so far. They reminded her that it would soon be known in any event. As soon as she was old enough to know right from wrong, she had been told that as a woman she would have no secrets. She must be good and if she strayed she must report any transgressions without delay. So at age 11 she had reported eating five succulent Right Clams she had found during the famine instead of delivering them to the elders so they could be given to those most in need. She had been so hungry! When the famine was over and everyone returned to health, she had been forbidden to eat for three days. At age 15 she and her friends had dumped a bucket of water on two sleeping boys, and they had been punished by staying out of the water for twenty minutes, and she shuddered remembering that, experiencing roughly the discomfort the boys would have felt at her prank. But mostly she had been good. Now as she swam with her mother all she could think to confess was a more private sin. She had watched three young men laughing and joking as they sat on the shore eating seafood. In this mild tropical climate none of them needed clothes and would have been puzzled by the concept, so she had also seen the strange tube between their legs and found it moved her in a way it had not before. Seeing this her hand had drifted between her legs and started a gentle rubbing. It had felt good, and she had had trouble stopping once she started. Her mother had given a gentle smile and said this was no shame, but another indication she was ready for her initiation. She did know how reproduction worked, and had seen from afar couples engaging in the reproductive act, but had not approached them. When she was young she had had no desire at all to approach, and in the past year or two she had kept her distance as custom required despite a growing curiosity. Her mother noted that with her recent "sin" she had gotten a start on her next task. She was to rub herself until she had that warm feeling, and then work at inserting a finger into her vagina, then work gradually up to inserting four at once. Her first sex would be tumultuous enough that discomfort between her legs would be an unwelcome distraction. She had seen love boats, but as her time for using one approached, she studied them with special interest. They allowed a man and woman to have sex while he remained completely dry and she remained completely wet. The boats had the general size and shape of a long rowboat, the wood cut and painstakingly joined by men. At the back was a wooden platform where a man could comfortably sit while waiting for his mate. The rest of the bottom of the boat was made of several sheets of the skin shed by great brown seaweed at the start of the rainy season. The skins had been joined to form a transparent waterproof sheet like a thin clear plastic and fastened carefully to the sides of the boat inside at water level. It was waterproof but loosely attached. A man could easily take a fold in his hand and lift it a foot in the air or plunge it a foot beneath the water's surface. A man lying on it stayed dry. A woman could position herself under the fabric, working her body into position so she was supported by submerged boards that were part of the boat. With a man's weight on her she would not sink deep into the water, but she was still thoroughly and blessedly wet all over. She used a thick hollow reed to breathe while keeping her head wet. She could easily wriggle out between the boards and duck below, just as the man could lift himself up. Both came to the union freely, and both could leave at any time. Tara and her mother had agreed on Tomas as her First Time Lover. Her mother had had sex with him in a love boat and confirmed that he was physically and mentally suitable. She would be initiated at dawn, and at dusk the night before Tara and Tomas had met at the water's edge and held hands for a minute. He had smiled at her, and she tried to smile back but felt shy and embarrassed. Now as dawn approached she swam to the love boat with her mother. Her mother would wait at a discreet distance in case Tara broke away overwhelmed and needed help. They embraced for the last time as mother and child, then Tara proceeded to the boat. She saw Tomas sitting on the platform at the rear just before she dove to assume her position. Tomas lowered himself onto her partway, and she thrilled to feel the warmth of his body through the thin membrane. He used his hands to slowly stroke her all over, touching shoulders, stomach, and thighs, but paying special attention to her breasts -- it felt so good! He then set his hand between her legs and by depressing the waterproof sheet slightly he massaged her much as she had done, but he somehow knew what to do to make it feel even better. She could feel the whole area throbbing, engorged, warm as never before. She was scared but she was ready. There was a small opening in the sheet that was sealed with the gum of the date tree. As he slid his engorged penis through it the gum kept the seal. Then he held the tip of his penis right at her opening and pressed in a little, back and forth just a little. She wanted it all the way in! Soon he obliged, surging into her several inches. Tendrils from inside her vagina gently sought and adhered to the tip of his penis, drawn like a magnet. Nerves touched nerves. Just as she was thrilling to the sensation of being filled with a penis, her mind went reeling. Along with all her own feelings and memories she had all of his. She felt his penis as her own, and wondered at the strange sensation of hardness and the pleasure in flesh that extended out from his body. She experienced his memory of lust watching her as she swam up to the boat and appeared beneath it, how he found her breasts and thighs so sexy, and especially her vulva. And she felt his overwhelming urge to slide his penis into her, the pure pleasure as the tip of his penis parted her vaginal tissues and slid in. Shifting mental focus slightly, she felt his pleasure and mild amusement as he now felt her amazement and excitement at sharing minds. But then she was lost in his memories, of running on land, sleeping in a hammock in a hut. She touched a memory of him pissing, feeling him point his penis, release, and how the urine didn't come out instantly as hers did. She could feel it flowing down the length of his penis before bursting forth as a proud arcing stream. She felt his puzzlement in his boyhood memory looking at the girls and women, bobbing in the water, swimming far out, such strange creatures. His darkest secrets were taunting a younger boy, putting a harmless but scary bug on his father as he slept, and something that Tara understood all too well: During a famine he had been out foraging and eaten some prime fruit instead of handing it in to be shared. The two of them were inwardly amused at their parallel sins. The amusement echoed back and forth between them, and then she caught his passing thought that many of the villagers had done that at one time or another when they were young. She caught his memory of his own first time in a love boat when he had been initiated, his nervousness lying his body on a woman under the sheet. Fresher in his mind was his experience initiating another girl just a few months before. His feeling of not just pleasure but pride at being chosen, of conquest and possession, and then a touch of shame at those feelings. Now she let herself feel thrilled at being possessed and they felt the echoes of that between them. She began picking up a weaker version of her mother's intimate thoughts as transferred to him during their recent sex. Then Tara felt his thought that she shouldn't go too deep into these memories, there would be plenty of time to discover more. She would get the direct memories of other men and boys when she mated with them and her vaginal tendrils affixed to their penises. She would also get weaker experience of the mental lives of women as experienced by her mates during previous sexual encounters. Then she became aware of him starting to move his penis in and out, slowly at first and then faster. She felt the amazing warmth and pleasure in her vagina, the rightness of his hard member inside her, and felt the echo of him feeling it too. From his mind she felt the pure pleasure of vaginal walls smoothly caressing him, the lust for more, for deeper penetration. His and her physical desires perfectly complemented one another. As her warmth and pleasure built she felt his echoes of it and his open, supportive desire for her to luxuriate in it. After a delicious, tantalizing buildup she felt her own immediate convulsions of ecstasy, and she felt his experience of her pleasure provide the final trigger for his pleasure breaking into ecstasy, which in turn washed back to her. He was thrusting in as fast and deep as he could go, and their ecstasies intertwined. And with it all the strange stirrings inside his body, a sort of tickling, and the convulsion as the semen shot down the length of his penis in one pulse, then two pulses, then a third. He stayed pressed in as she processed the sensations of afterglow, of penis starting to shrink, of his memory of confusion during his first time when his woman had pulled away from him -- but also his assurance to her now that it would be OK. So having shared with her exactly when he was going to do it, he withdrew, and the penis pulled away from the tendrils within her, and suddenly she was left with only her own feelings and sensations. She slipped out beneath the boat and swam to her beaming mother and they hugged, both women now. She truly understood now why she could have no secrets, and the peculiar intimacy of feeling Tomas's secrets, even the ones he would rather not have shared. She craved the pleasure of sex and the deep-down feeling of rightness, of its alignment with her nature as a woman. She and Tomas took their positions in the love boat and joined again every day at dawn for five days. She was fascinated by the melding of minds and gradually learned to handle it without any trace of panic. One aspect was the small embarrassing thoughts that womenfolk would never mention among themselves. She caught his thought that her nose was long and unattractive and felt shame that he found her wanting, and also a little anger that he had told her that. But of course he hadn't told her, it was just in his mind and he could not hide it from her. She felt reassurance from his memories of women's noticing features of his they found unattractive, such as his prominent brow. On the other hand she found that brow and every other feature of Tomas entirely perfect in every way. She also caught how he had found his First Time Lover to be flawless, and how that was due partly to the great pleasure she had initiated him to, and how it had lessened with time. He had flaws. He was not so good at climbing tall trees for fruit, and she felt his shame as he knew that, and how the other men also knew that and his status was lower as a result. She felt compassion for him. She on the other hand was an excellent diver and could go deeper and stay longer than many of the women. They felt in each other's childhood similar feelings of embarrassment at not knowing what the older kids did, of feeling inadequate, of being unsure of their place in the world, whether seeming friends were true friends. So the revelations went, seemingly without end. The world of melding minds lent itself to all warts being uncovered. It also led to the knowledge that positive feelings were genuine. There were no white lies. ------------- Men foraged far and wide for fruit and wild grains, and shared them with the women at the water's edge. The women shared the shellfish they gathered. The fruit and wild grains were the main source of calories, while the shellfish were the main source of protein and minerals. When fruit was scarce the women worked harder to find shellfish to compensate in part, and when the shellfish was in short supply the men climbed higher and ranged farther afield to find what they could. Each gender had a spoken language that was totally incomprehensible to the other. Aside from some primitive sign language, sex was the only way the two genders could communicate. Women could not get pregnant unless they wanted to, which solved the contraception problem. Infants were raised at the water's edge. They nursed in the water with their mothers, but slept a short distance up the beach snuggled against their fathers. Up there was air to breathe without complication. Babies were tolerant of both water and dryness, but the gender preference soon emerged. Loving mothers came out of the water for minutes at a time to let their boy babies nurse, and the boys weaned themselves earlier. Girl babies came ashore only to sleep, and loving fathers doused their sleeping daughters with water periodically. But before long the girls learned to sleep at sea, in what we would call a dead man's float, instinctively lifting their heads every five minutes or so for a deep breath. Once his daughter was out to sea a father's work was done, as was a mother's once the boy was weaned. Men and women both loved sex. Love boats were great but a scarce commodity, so much of the sex happened on land or in the water or halfway between. The man shared the woman's distaste at being exposed to the air, and the woman shared the man's discomfort with wetness. It was still well worth it to them, though the encounters tended to be briefer. The man felt the woman's itch and craving for his penis to thrust within her, and the satisfaction of having her vagina filled and the sheer pleasure of the sexual motion relayed to her clitoris. The woman felt in turn the man's fundamental hunger to penetrate, and the exquisite pleasure as the tip of his penis felt the warm wet friction while sliding between her vaginal walls. All of this pleasure and desire echoed back and forth between them, blending and multiplying. Simultaneous orgasms were the rule, not the exception. In such a world monogamy was the exception and promiscuity the rule. A monogamous man could learn only what his partner's senses perceived and would therefore miss the direct experiences of all the other women. The faithful woman would learn only of the meadows and hills one man had climbed, instead of the land traversed by all of the village's males. Women could use language to describe what they had seen, but the way to get a direct picture was to have sex in turn with the same man. The youth could describe the mysterious flower to the elder most accurately by way of a shared mate to echo the image. Sensations and memories bounced back and forth between men and women as sexual partners changed. Naturally a person would more often choose a partner with interesting experiences to share. So men sought out the most beautiful trees and flowers and the most magnificent vistas from the hills. Sharp memories of fields of wildflowers would earn them a greater variety of vaginas to surge inside. Women swam great distances to look at the most colorful reefs and fish. A giant school of red fish swimming as one organism could earn them ecstasy from the intrusions of many different penises. At times the desire for interesting memories conflicted with the more mundane task of gathering food. There was one other important fact of life. After puberty both men and women needed sex. If they went months at a time without it they started feeling listless, nauseous, and depressed, and eventually they died. Since men and women loved sex so much it was rarely an issue. But when it was, it was serious. ------------ Frank was 22. Like all boys, he had masturbated as puberty stirred his loins. Three months ago, puberty had nudged him a step further along his path. Gobs of sticky fluid came out when he had an orgasm. It was time for him to be initiated into the society of men. Three times Frank had put off his confessional walk with his father Jake. Finally he was ready. They walked in silence for miles. In misery he admitted that several years before he and his buddy Carl had walked far along the coast to the west, and while there had done something wrong. They had lured a young girl to the edge of the water with a luscious piece of fruit and had grabbed her and pulled her out. She struggled a little as they tried to look between her legs because they were mightily curious as to what girls had down there, then they let her go. Frank was relieved to have it off his conscience, but he knew that confession was not the end of matter. It was a serious offense, and Jake was furious with him. All boys learned from an early age that they must never, ever try to make a female do anything she didn't want to do. The same applied to everyone, of course, but a special emphasis was needed for the opposite sex because it wasn't always apparent to a boy what a girl wouldn't like. It was more serious because Frank had waited until his confession to reveal it. Carl had died a year before falling from a tree, so he could not be punished. After this revelation Jake walked up to his chest in the water for a rendezvous with Anna, one of the women elders. He was the supplicating party so this union would be almost entirely underwater. Nonetheless his penis was hard for the mating to come. He slid it into the vagina centered in the luscious rear end of Anna, one of the women elders, to discuss an appropriate punishment while fulfilling their longing for sexual union. After some negotiation they reached an agreement and sealed it by a strong mutual orgasm. The plan made Jake shudder. Frank waded alone into the disgusting water where Anna was waiting. She grabbed him by the penis and pulled him out farther until he could not touch bottom, paddling his arms madly to keep his head above the water. From below him she then pulled down on his penis, and inexorably Frank felt the water closing over his head despite his thrashing. He tried to hold his breath but in his panic ended up spluttering and choking. When he was breathing again he was merely disgusted by the water that felt like worms crawling in and out of his skin. But twice more Anna pulled him below the waves. The last time he started swallowing water and after some unforgettable terror he lost consciousness. Anna swam him to shore where Jake dragged him out. But after a few days of nightmares he had recovered, and was ready for his initiation. Myra was his First Time Mate. She knew of his transgression and was chosen in part because she had a greater level of comfort with this kind of sin than many of the women. She assumed her position beneath the love boat. Frank fondled her a bit awkwardly through the flexible sheet, and she in turn fondled him. He slid his penis through the tight hole in the sheet and felt it seal tightly around him. Myra's vaginal opening was waiting, engorged, pulsing, and hungry. He positioned himself and slid in. The warmth of her tissues felt great as he parted them. Then he was staggered by the confusion of double thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Within a few seconds it suddenly stopped. Myra had pulled away. He heard her shouting and weeping as she swam off. Sorting out his confused memories of the brief experience, he saw what he reluctantly concluded must be something he got from her thoughts: a vivid picture of what had actually happened with the girl he and Carl had captured, a picture he did not want to remember. A picture he had hoped would stay hidden or at least vague and murky. He and his friend Carl were on a long hike along the shore and got to arguing about whether girls had a vagina from birth or whether it only appeared at puberty. He had joked that they ought to find out for themselves. Why not catch a girl and see? Carl thought he was being more serious than he was, and told him he couldn't catch a girl if his life depended on it. Frank thought he would see if maybe he could. It would do little harm to grab her hand briefly as she lay in the water, then let her go. With fifteen minutes' exploration he had found some excellent fruit and carried it with him as they strolled along the shore. They found a girl perhaps six years of age swimming offshore with no one else around. At the water's edge he had waved to her and shown her the fruit. She had trustingly swum up to accept the treat. As she took it he grabbed her wrist; she was a little perplexed but not alarmed. He had won his bet! As he turned to Carl in triumph, Carl said that wasn't what it meant to catch a girl. Carl had promptly grabbed the girl's other hand, pulled her up out of the water and put his other arm around her waist. The girl started jabbering at them and tried to break free, and as Carl continued to hold her she became more frantic. Carl told him he should find out whether she had a vagina or not. Frank was uneasy but didn't want to lose face in front of his friend. He bent down in front of her and started putting his hands on her labia, preparing to explore gently. But the girl in her panic kicked out with surprising force and sent him flying, and after stumbling he landed hard on his back. Carl started laughing and as he did let the girl go. She promptly bolted for the water, but Frank in his anger and humiliation lunged and caught her leg, so she in turn fell hard. He dragged her up the rocky beach by her foot. He told Carl to help him out, but now Carl was the one who was uneasy, and tentatively said it was time to let her go. Now Frank called him a chicken. So Carl helped hold the struggling girl down. Frank then forced her legs apart and pinned each with a knee to see what was in the mysterious spot where her legs joined. Spreading her labia he really couldn't tell what he was seeing, and he was a little scared of actually sticking his fingers in there. So he broke off a stick from a piece of driftwood he found within reach and started poking. He couldn't tell much, so he poked harder and it started bleeding. He poked somewhere a little different and the stick started going up inside her a little. The girl was screaming. He pressed harder and a couple inches of the stick went up inside her, and then she started bleeding from there too. Suddenly he realized that he would have to confess this some day and he panicked. He stopped and let go of her, and Carl was only too happy to let go too. The girl raced to the water, dove in, and swam away frantically. Carl and Frank were both frightened, and covered the miles quickly as they headed back to their own village, staying shy of people as they went. Watching Frank's love boat from a distance, Jake saw that Myra had pulled away quickly and heard her distress, but when he asked Frank what had happened his questions went unanswered. Frank's eyes were glazed over and he looked utterly defeated. The elder Nancy appeared by the shore a few hours later, and Jake once again immersed himself thoroughly as he joined her for their communication. She presented her rear to him and wriggled it seductively to firm up his erection. It would have been more seductive if it wasn't a foot under the water, but such was his situation. As his penis slid in her vaginal tendrils attached to it and their minds met. It took less than a minute to convey all that needed conveying, which was good because his erection was rapidly failing. Myra had been shaken by her brief union with Frank, but when she recovered she had told Nancy what she had found in Frank's past. It was only a verbal description, but that was enough. If the girl's kinsmen had caught him he would have been tortured and killed. Nancy had indicated that death might be an appropriate penalty now as well, but the women's council was debating the matter. She didn't need to tell him that no woman in the village would ever have sex with Frank, which was in itself a slow death sentence. When Frank saw Jake wading out of the water he knew he was in trouble. He stood with head bowed. For the first time in his life, Jake slugged his son and Frank sprawled on the beach. Jake then kicked him in the stomach, the boy whimpering and trying to apologize. The edge off his rage, Jake beheld his quivering son and considered his options. From Frank to Myra to Nancy to Jake had come the word, treated almost incidentally, that Frank deeply regretted his action. If he hadn't, a death sentence would have been a foregone conclusion and Jake would mourn but understand that such a monstrosity could not be allowed to live. Even with profound remorse the crime was grave. He could disown his son and leave him to his fate. That was what the village law called for. Jake would still bear a measure of Frank's disgrace for the rest of his life. Frank might be executed or he might just be tortured and allowed to live until he died of sexual starvation. However, Jake loved his son, and in any event he did not relish the disgraced status he would hold in this village. There was really only one way Frank could live, and it was a slim chance. He needed to find a woman who was in the same position, a serious crime which left her without men willing to mate with her. Jake decided that he and Frank would leave the village that very night, telling no one. Neither could ever return. ---------- As they walked they had plenty of time to talk. Jake specifically told Frank not to tell him any more details of his crime, since whatever Jake knew would be shared with any of his future mates. Jake recalled that around the time of the incident Frank had suddenly become more serious and better behaved, a model boy. He also recalled that Frank had asked questions about girls and women. Did they really think and feel just like men? They weren't just a sort of fish that lived in symbiosis with the men? Frank knew the answers, but hoped he had somehow misunderstood before. After many days of walking they heard a rumor of a girl several miles further to the east who refused to even start her initiation. They finally found the village. At age 20, a year past puberty, Zoe was getting sicker. Whatever her secret was, it looked like she was willing to die rather than share it. Jake told the men of the village that he had heard of Zoe, and that his son Frank might be a suitable mate. Anne, the girl's mother, walked high up on the beach and lay on her back on the sand to receive the penis of the male elder. Her tendrils completed the connection inside her body. Her vagina received the elder's semen as they consummated their sexual desire in the same act as communication. She agreed to receive Jake in turn to hear his proposal in more detail, so a few minutes later her vagina received additional squirts from the member of the stranger Jake. Although strangers were often viewed with suspicion, these two adults shared one great bond: they both had children they loved very much and whose lives were in danger. Anne was naturally disgusted by Frank's crime and reluctant to tell her daughter about it without some time to digest it and view it in perspective. She thought her daughter was just mentally unstable and imagining that her transgression was more serious than it was. But she had to admit she couldn't rule out that her daughter was guilty of a similar or worse crime. Anne found Zoe and explained the situation. The young man Frank who they could see on shore had captured a girl, held her captive out of the water and had abused her genitals, perhaps even damaged them permanently. Could she absorb that memory and share her own? Anne watched Zoe's reaction carefully, but it was hard to read. She looked repulsed, but not as much as Anne might have expected. She still refused to have sex. After coital consultation with Anne, Jake discussed the matter with Frank and they decided to wait. So Frank stood on the shore simply looking across the water at Zoe when she was at all close to land. She refused to have sex, but she didn't swim far out to sea to lose him. Partly it was her ambivalence -- she wanted to live! -- but partly she was having a bout of the no-sex sickness, nausea and lethargy. One day she swam toward the beach. They eyed each other for a long time, then she stood in the water briefly so he could see her body. She was attractive. Zoe saw his penis start lengthening. He fondled it to help it along. Zoe briefly knelt in the water and presented her rear end to Frank, but as he started into the water she lost her nerve and swam away. After a sleepless night of nausea, the next day she approached the shore again, and stopped almost completely in the water with just her rear end above the waves. Frank approached, haunted by memories of the near drowning he had suffered as part of his punishment, but he still had his erection. Zoe was shaking, but did not object when he grasped her rear end and slid his penis into her. At last he could be saved, if only she could accept his memory. His penis slid in and the tendrils completed the connection. Seconds later Frank pulled out of her, splashed up to the beach and vomited on the sand. Zoe wailed before swimming out to sea. Frank vaguely saw the background of a little sister Sammy following Zoe everywhere she went and clinging to her feet as a joke, and Zoe telling her over and over to get lost. They were at a reef twenty feet below the surface. All the women knew that the spines sticking out from the grand sea star contained a deadly poison. The rage in Zoe's mind lasted only a few seconds, but Frank could also see that she knew she had a choice. Her choice was to deliberately shove Sammy against the deadly spine. Zoe's memory was sharpest of the expression on Sammy's face as she died: agony from the poison, but more horrifying in a way the unbearable sorrow of love and trust betrayed. Zoe had been instantly horrified and gripped with remorse. In her panic she had found superhuman strength to swim in a great circle to approach the village from the other direction, and in this manner no one thought she could possibly have had any role in Sammy's death. It was obviously an unfortunate accident. Jake had been waiting at a discreet distance but now ran to his son. Frank knew he could say nothing of what he had experienced, and he said that after a night's rest they ought to move along farther east on their quest. But father with son and mother with daughter, the elder asked the younger for patience, asked for reconsideration, asked to compare the crime newly experienced in the other with the crime held within. The next day Zoe came up onto the beach. They stared at each other. Frank's erection was not rising too fast, so Zoe gently caressed him until he was hard. Sexual hunger won over the horror of the memory. Frank inserted himself into her once again. They stayed together for maybe ten seconds before Zoe pulled away. Both wept. Frank vomited again, as did Zoe once she was immersed again in her native water. They kept trying as the days passed. Sometimes Zoe was on the beach implicitly begging Frank to forgive her, to try again. Sometimes Frank was in the water, trying to get Zoe to accept him once again. Up on the beach, as Frank reluctantly agreed to try yet once more, Zoe relayed a new thought: "We're both devils, OK? But I want to live! Just do it!" She hated him and he hated her and they both hated themselves, but they were still going to help each other. She magnified the pleasure in his penis. He kept the memory of her crime at bay, felt her doing the same with his. In just a few seconds he came inside this she-devil. Ejaculated, deep and hard, the seed of Satan. The second spurt had barely shot into her before Sammy's terrified face appeared before him and he withdrew. But his body had ejaculated, and the mixed fluids helped her biochemistry almost immediately. Zoe didn't swim far away, and Frank didn't go far up the beach. An hour later they did it again. At dusk they coupled again at the water's edge on their sides, Zoe's body wet a bit more than it was dry, Frank's a bit more dry than it was wet, and neither pulled away. They stayed that way for a full two hours. Frank's penis shrank at times but the tendrils stayed connected. They teased the hatred apart and found it was anger, fear, disgust, and betrayal, but also they found sympathy and forgiveness starting to creep in. The mixing of their fluids worked to strengthen each body, to give a background of physical healing conducive to the difficult emotional mending to be done. Mind to mind, penis deep in vagina, they decided many things. Zoe's secret would forever remain between the two of them. They would never have sex with anyone else as long as they lived. They would remain in this village. They would never have children. As penance, they would volunteer for the most dangerous and unpleasant tasks. They made a long pilgrimage to the west over the course of several weeks. Zoe swam surprisingly fast, but even so Frank had to move in leisurely fashion so as not to outpace her. Frank moved stealthily and only at night in the vicinity of his home village. Further west Zoe made inquiries and found the girl that Frank had abused so horribly. Her name was Sally, and she was of course not mature yet, so her secrets and memories were still her own. Zoe and Frank were relieved to learn that Sally's body had healed and suffered no lasting physical harm. Zoe brought her to a remote beach where Frank was tied up in the water. His posture of abject apology was unmistakable. Sally did only one thing to Frank, as she had agreed with Zoe in advance. As Zoe held him she stuck a barbed spine up inside his rectum and screamed at him. Frank's face contorted in pain as he knelt in the water. But for the next hour Zoe comforted Sally, not Frank. Eventually Sally forgave him. His anus bled and itched for days. On their long journey back, they rendezvoused every day at the water's edge for a long leisurely bout of mating. "I'm the lucky one" came the thought from Frank, once again. Zoe knew exactly what he was talking about, of course. Sammy was not alive to vent her rage at Zoe and perhaps eventually forgive her. And then Frank had a new thought. "Why not just assume that Sammy forgives you?" Zoe cried and pulled away, but after a few hours Frank convinced her to mate again. Zoe seemed to be sobbing for days, then on and off for months. Frank felt every bit of her agony relayed through her tendrils to his penis and he did not flinch or withdraw. They felt it together. Gradually more forgiveness and peace mixed in, and eventually the guilt and remorse faded to a manageable size and shape. Back in her village they walked and swam among their own kind, but they were also apart. Neither could share in the sexually-transmitted gossip and pool of memories that kept the village alive. Unlike the rest of them, these two had secrets. The outline of Frank's crime was known, though Zoe's never came to light. Yet despite their isolation they were respected for all they did. Zoe dove deeper than anyone to scout for food sources and suffered for days as her lungs recovered from those deep dives. Frank traveled farther inland than anyone had before, crossing the desert to see if there was fruit beyond, returning exhausted after nearly perishing on the journey. Eventually Frank died falling from a cliff face where he was collecting a little fruit no one else would dare to reach, and Zoe died shortly thereafter harvesting prime seafood just a bit too close to the den of a poisonous fish. -------------- Village life continued all along the shores. Crimes like Zoe's and Frank's were few because there were no secrets among the adults. The men ran and climbed, while the women swam and dove. Each suffered briefly the discomfort of the wet or the dry in order to mate. They shared the most complex and refined thoughts and experiences by way of the animal organs of vaginal tendrils and penis. The union also provided physical pleasure, clitoris massaged and tugged just right by the strong, deep thrusts of the intrusive penis, gliding in the velvet sea of the vagina. The penises disgorged their semen over and over, always ready to father a child. And now and then a woman would let the sperm do their job and she would grow a baby. Maybe a girl, to replenish the ranks of the swimmers and divers, or a boy, to replace the walkers and runners. If there was one holy symbol, it was the love boat, the one place the two genders could meet and merge thoughts without having to suffer the insult of the substance that was vital to the skin of the other. ================================================================== I'm always eager for comments, whether good, bad or mixed. Comments to sterling27@live.com.