The Great Escape Chapter 4, Part 5 of 6

The Great Escape
Chapter 4, Part 5 of 6

"My elbow."

"All right. Let me see to it."

She sat him on the bed and undressed his bandage. The skin on his elbow had begun to dry out. Taking her mortar and pestle to the tall bamboo cabinet by the entrance, she crushed a handful of soft leaves with nut oil and eucalyptus. Ezra watched her work, admiring her perfectly carved legs and her pert breasts outlined by the simple shirt. The setting sun glinted off her long hair. He was enchanted and felt the strongest stirrings yet of desire for her.

She brought over the lotion and applied it to his arm with a gentle caressing motion. It quickly soothed the itch in Ezra's arm while inflaming another itch elsewhere. She stopped using the lotion.

"That's so much better, thanks," he said to fill the silence.

She nodded and knelt to replace the bandage. As she leaned over to tie the sling around his neck, her small, firm breasts pressed against his chest, and he could feel her hot breath on his cheek. As she finished and pulled away, their eyes met, his hungry dark-blue eyes looking deeply into her calm, light-blue eyes. She lowered her gaze, blushing pink on her face and neck. Ezra could stand no more tension: he pulled her back into himself and kissed her.

Annela didn't know what to do. Her mind was filled with contrary thoughts. She had never kissed a man before. Was she doing it right? Would it put him off if she was not a good kisser?

Was he kissing her out of sympathy because of what she told him that morning? Was it the nurse effect, as Mirselene described in her soppy novel, so he might reject her when he was healed and no longer needed her care? Or did he care for her?

In her confused state, she neither pulled away nor kissed him back, keeping her arms at her sides. Ezra read her hesitation as a refusal.

"I'm sorry, Annela, but you're so beautiful," his words were gentle and sincere. "I couldn't help myself. Please forgive me?"

This confused Annela just as much. She blushed again and scolded herself for blushing. It was good that he had kissed her. It was what she was supposed to make happen. Even more, it was what she wanted! She liked the warmth of his lips on hers and the pressure of his arm around her waist. She wanted that feeling again.

"Of course, I forgive you, Ezra. Please, will you kiss me again? I wasn't ready."

Ezra took this explanation in the same philosophical spirit as he had taken her apparent rejection and kissed her again. Now she kissed him back, putting her arms around his neck.

She was a good kisser, eager and responsive, opening her mouth to brush the tip of her tongue against his. At first, she hadn't liked his beard, which was long enough to tickle her.

Then she decided she did like it because it made his face so different from a woman's. She put a hand on his cheek to caress the stubble. That first kiss seemed to open a floodgate.

Now, Annela wanted to kiss him all the time.

After trying out various positions and seeking ways to be comfortable on the bed or in the chair without putting weight on Ezra's damaged arm, they found the best way to kiss was if she sat sideways on his lap on the chair and he put his good arm around her waist. They kissed like that until it was time for the feast.

Annela left Ezra to eat with Erin and Casti. She thought it was important not to keep him to herself too much, and so he talked to many of the Woodlanders, especially Sharne, who brought Pepi to say goodnight, and Urulla, who was fascinated by the growth of his beard and wondered if it hurt him.

That night, Annela climbed over Ezra to lie against his good side on the bed. They slept together innocently. As she cuddled him, Ezra hoped his erection would go down enough to allow him to sleep. At least he was on his back.

His sexual interest in Annela was prominent again the following day when she kissed him awake. It was already light, and she had been up for half an hour. As she leaned over him, a shaft of sunlight made a halo of her strawberry-blonde hair, dappling her pink cheek. He pulled her onto him for a long, passionate kiss. After this, he was anxious to get her alone in absolute privacy, but they were called to breakfast, and he did not have her to himself again until they went for another walk that morning.

As they left the camp, passing through the meadow where Bessie the cow grazed opposite small allotments of growing turnips and potatoes, four of the curious eyes that watched them belonged to Casti and Parvinder, two of the matrons who had done the cooking, still sitting by the stove.

"Can I guess what you're thinking?" Casti asked her companion.

"I expect so," Parvinder replied.

"You're thinking that Mirselene ought to make an announcement soon about those two, or there will be dreadful jealousy in the camp."

"It's obvious what Mirselene's plan is, so why not ease jealousy by telling us? But that wasn't what I was thinking."

"No? Then you're worried about Dipti?"

"I am. We both know Mirselene wants at least a dozen naturally-born children, but I'm not sure she has considered everything. We don't have any experience giving birth here: the Cloners have the medical textbook and lots more knowledge of childbirth. My Dipti is thirty-three now.

Why take more risk than we need? I'd even be worried for your Urulla."

"Yes, though she is strong and younger than I was when I had her," Casti agreed, "yet I will worry about her. I can also predict Mirselene's answer. She will say that to contact the Cloners means to reveal the existence of Ezra and attract the interest, even the violence, of the other tribes. Or maybe the Cloners will help deliver our babies only if Ezra agrees to go to them.

Perhaps she is right to distrust the other tribes and seek to remain hidden in our forest."

"So what can we say to her?"

"The only idea I have had is to remind Mirselene that if we don't buy a clone this year or next from the Cloners, they will surely enquire about our prosperity and maybe raise suspicions among the other tribes, who could pay us an unexpected visit. It's unlikely, but if she agrees, Dipti is the obvious choice to go to the Cloner City."

"It's an idea, Casti, but I cannot see Mirselene agreeing. Do you think if we opposed Mirselene, we would get a majority?"

"No, I don't, and I have no intention of opposing her. We will have to solve the problem another way."

The discussion ended there, and the women went about their chores, dissatisfied that, though Ezra's appearance was a tremendous boon to the tribe, he brought problems with him, including no doubt some they were yet to discover.

The question of sex had come up as soon as Ezra arrived in the Woodlander camp. It could hardly be avoided in such a small, isolated community. Any visitor was a welcome change from routine. A visitor from ancestral Earth was an object of fascination. When the visitor was also a man in a society of primarily childless women whose dearest wish was a child, then it was a wonder he hadn't been pounced on and ravished by the whole tribe, young and old.

Annela pounced on Ezra late that morning but didn't ravish him—precisely the opposite.

They had often stopped on their walk to kiss, sometimes standing, sitting on a fallen tree, and, finally, when the warmth of the day had dried out the undergrowth, lying on an impromptu mattress of ferns. She pounced on him, knocking him flat when he sat on the ferns. Then she took up her favorite position, lying on his chest, her legs astride his waist, her hands stroking his scruffy beard.

Occasionally, she would kiss him, and sometimes, she put her hands under his shirt to feel the hairs on his chest, but mostly, they just chatted. For a while, she lay with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, enjoying the rise and fall of his breathing. She also liked feeling his stiff cock against her stomach and the groaning noise he made as she occasionally rubbed herself against it.

Kissing was all they did, however. Ezra urgently wanted to make love to Annela, and although she seemed to return his feelings, for some reason, she resisted anything more than kissing.

She liked it when he held her by the waist or put his hand on her cheek or in her hair, but if he touched her breast, thigh, or bottom, she would pull back or move his hand away.

It was like making out with a shy virgin who insisted he 'behave himself.' It reminded him of his adolescence, of an endless summer when aged sixteen, he and his first girlfriend would kiss for hours, and he would relieve his frustration by marathon sessions of masturbation when he got home if he hadn't already ejaculated in his pants.

It was similar now because it was hot, there was not much for him to do, and there was a pretty girl to make out with, but he wasn't an adolescent anymore, and he saw no reason at all to endure sexual frustration. His sexual frustration had peaked at that moment because, as they kissed, she was grinding her pelvis into his cock. It was too much for Ezra to bear, whose balls were aching and no doubt turning blue. He pulled her head up and said:

"Annela, please, will you take your weight off my cock?"

She laughed. "You call it your 'cock'? Like Adam?"

Adam was the Woodlander's rooster, a noisy disturbance in the camp, especially in the morning.

"Yes."

"All right." She moved down his body.

"I need to tell you something about male physiology."

"Go ahead," she said, putting her hands on his chest to rest her chin on them. She gazed into his eyes, happy expectation written on her face.

"It's to do with what you're doing to me."

"What's that?"

"Arousing me. Making me horny."

"Ooh! I like that word, 'horny'."

"Well, when a man gets horny, semen gets pumped into his balls."

"Semen!" she exclaimed, rolling off him to sit up and snap her fingers. "That's the word Parvinder couldn't remember."

"All right, then you know what it is."

"Yes, and I know what 'balls' are: they are testes." She had the enthusiasm of a star pupil.

"Well, semen builds up in the testes, and if a man keeps getting aroused for a day or more without a release, then they can become painful."

"I had no idea. Do they hurt now?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. What do you mean, 'a release'?"

"Sexual intercourse or masturbation."

"Masturbation?"

"Jerking off."

"Oh, wanking."

He smiled wryly at what old English slang had survived on Samothea.

"So I need to know, Darling, am I doomed to frustration, or will you have sex with me?"

"You want to have sex just because your balls hurt?" She pretended to be outraged, but the feline glint in her eyes betrayed her amusement.

"No; I want to have sex because, well, because I do - but it would also be a good thing for my aching balls."

"Well, hard luck! I'm not having sex with you until I get Mirselene's agreement."

Ezra was appalled and struggled to sit up himself.

"You won't sleep with me without Mirselene agreeing?"

"I don't need her permission!" she exclaimed. "I mean that Mirselene wants an agreement from you."

"What agreement?"

"About your role in the tribe."

"What role? Why do I need a role in the tribe?"

"I will explain, but first, I want to ask you something: ... Which of us would you take as bedmate?"

"You, of course."

"Besides me."

"Well, I don't know. I don't know any of them as well as you."

"What about Sharne? She's strong and kind. I know you like her."

"I like her very much. I even admit I fancy her, but she's not you."

For some reason, this did not seem to be the answer Annela wanted.

"How about Dipti?"

"She's sweet and pretty, but didn't you tell me that she and Urulla are bedmates?"

"They are, but Urulla wouldn't object. Nor would Dipti mind if you and Urulla were bedmates."

Ezra's face showed his confusion.

"By the way, what about Urulla?" she asked.

"A lovely girl, but neither Dipti nor Urulla are my choices."

"And Dagma? You may not think she's the prettiest of us, but she is brilliant and unfailingly generous. She would make a lovely bedmate."

Ezra's first answer snagged in his mind as his mental gears changed.

"Dagma is kind? This is a woman who has neither spoken to me nor smiled. She only ever scowls!"

"She's shy, Ezra. You'll never know as gentle and submissive a woman as she."

"You're talking about Dagma? Mirselene's daughter? Your formidable chief's clone! Don't you have regular heredity here on Samothea?"

"Of course we do! Mirselene is gentle and kind as well. It's just her position in our tribe that makes her seem abrupt and controlling."

Ezra let that absurdity pass.

"Annela, you have left someone out. Erin is a very handsome woman. I prefer her to everyone except you."

"Oh, Ezra!" She exclaimed with enthusiasm, holding his arm. "Erin is the best of us all. If anyone deserves the only man on Samothea as bedmate, it is she. ... But, unfortunately, it would mean you couldn't have Carlin when she comes of age."

This stumped Ezra.

"Darling, will you please tell me what this is all about? Why do you want me to choose another woman as a bedmate when I want only you?"

Annela paused for a few seconds.

"Unfortunately, it seems Mirselene was wrong about male nature."

"In what way?"

"She thought a man would take as many bedmates as possible, but you insist you don't want more than one."

"Is this what all this is about?" Light dawned on Ezra. "You weren't asking me if I preferred
Sharne or Dipti instead of you, but you as well?"

She nodded. He paused a minute to reflect.

"Well, to be completely honest, Mirselene is quite right. Most men would take as many bedmates as they could. On Earth, men distinguish between love and sex much more readily than women. Many men say they love their wives but think sex with other women is all right if it's not for love."

"And you?"

"I have always been a one-woman man. I have never cheated in a relationship. But I haven't had many relationships, and I'm like most men outside of a committed relationship."

"Meaning?"

"We have a saying on Earth: a woman needs a reason to have sex, but a man just needs the opportunity. I don't pass up the opportunity when it's not cheating."

"I understand. So if Mirselene were to ask you to join our tribe on the condition you take all the fertile Woodlanders as bedmates, would you consider it?"

"As a man, I would, but as your lover, I think it would feel odd."

Smiling to herself, she stored the word 'lover' at the back of her mind.

"Even if it was what I wanted?" she asked.

"Yes, that's the thing that would feel odd. Most Earthwomen would demand to be exclusive."

"But, surely, if you had something wonderful, you would want to share it with your friends, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't! If you were the only woman in a world of men and I had the good luck to be your bedmate, I would never want you to take other bedmates. The jealousy would destroy me! I would never share anything so precious with another man."

He paused and then continued, "Men are different from women in this. Some cultures on Earth practice polygamy, but it is almost always multiple wives, rarely multiple husbands."

"So, consider us your wives, and take us all!"

Ezra could not tell if this was a test or a serious suggestion. She sounded sincere, and he was sorely tempted despite his genuine belief in exclusive relationships.

"Is this Mirselene's agreement: all or nothing?"

"Yes."

"I will consider it. ... Meanwhile, why have you been fending me off? Why not seduce me into accepting Mirselene's agreement?"

"But I thought I was seducing you!" Annela exclaimed.

Ezra laughed. Not the wry chuckles she had heard him make so often in the last few days, but a real laugh, a sound of pure joy and release.

"Darling, that may be how you seduce a woman, with teases and a slow build-up, always keeping the pot simmering, but men are much simpler. Give us what we want, and we will be putty in your hands."

"Well, you can't have what you want."

"No?"

"Not until I get Mirselene's agreement."

"You're serious? You and I can be bedmates only if I agree to be bedmates with all the other Woodlanders?"

"All the fertile ones, yes."

"You want this?"

"I do."

He thought again for a minute. After all, it should be an easy decision. It was every man's fantasy. Also, in Ezra's defense, it was essentially Annela's fault that, at that moment, he was thinking with his cock.



To be continued