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.


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