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 A World of My Choosing

   An Out-of-this-World Story by Gil Gamesh

   Chapter Fifty-Two

   "It's a meeting of the leadership council first," I answered.  "Later,
we might do something else."

   Aiden frowned.  "David, I told you I wasn't sure I was ready to do
something else."

   "I know.  We're going to have a council meeting first.  For the purposes
of this meeting, you are a voting member.  After that, you can leave if you
want to."

   He nodded.

   "The first order of business is Toby's request for another sex play
party.  Anna wants to make a motion."

   I nodded to her.

   "I move we appoint a committee comprised of the four youngest kids, two
sets of twins, and let them plan the format this time.  The motion includes
a warning that we trust them to come up with a program which is readily
acceptable to all of us."

   "I second Anna's motion," Matt said.

   "Aimee, when is the next window of opportunity for all women to
participate?" I asked.

   "David, you must understand that I can never predict such an event with
absolute certainty.  I will make an estimate but it is little more than an
educated guess."

   "That's good enough, Aimee," I said.  "Anna has tried to teach this
befuddled male about the mysterious lunacity of women."

   I cringed just before she hit me.

   "I didn't say lunacy," I protested.  Jean-Nicole hit me from the other
direction but not too hard.  I yelped anyway.

   "There will be a window of opportunity eleven days from now," Aimee said
when she stopped giggling.  "It is a two-day window in which all females
may participate.  The next window after that is approximately thirty-three
days from now."

   "Any discussion?" I asked with a straight face.

   "You would let four thirteen or fourteen-year-old kids decide what to
do?" Aiden asked.

   "Aiden, to speak about the motion, you must hold your hand up and be
recognized before you speak," I said.

   He held his hand up, I nodded to him, and he repeated his question.

   "Yes, Aiden," I said.  "We must always trust them to be responsible.  If
anybody disapproves, they can participate or stay away.  Nobody is forced
to do anything here.  The kids will want everybody to participate.  They
will come up with something we all want to do."

   I looked around and didn't see any more hands up.

   "Any more discussion?"

   Silence.

   "All in favor, raise your hand," I said.

   Aiden shook his head but he raised his hand with six others.

   "Motion presented, discussed, and approved unanimously," I said.  "In
the absence of any other business, this meeting of the leadership council
is concluded."

   "Well, I like your way of running things," Aiden said, smiling.



   "Aimee, do you want to play too?" Matt asked.  "You didn't raise your
hand."

   "Don't tease me, Matt," she said.  "I am quite capable of finding a
partner and participating.  I prefer to watch, however.  I learn a great
deal about all of you by watching your sexual activities."

   Jean-Nicole slapped him gently behind the head and then giggled.

   Aimee asked a question.  "David, what is the meaning of the word
`lunacity'?  It does not appear in any dictionary in my library."

   "The moon, Luna, and women both have a lunar cycle, hence lunacity."

   My explanation seemed to satisfy everybody.  They either shook their
head or smiled.

   Jean-Nicole immediately crawled over some other legs, straddled mine,
and slid her hands up my thighs until they bumped into my testicles.  My
penis was swollen but soft and relaxed as it always is in the warmth of our
home.  She wrapped one soft hand around it, stroked it a few times, leaned
over, licked from scrotum to head, sucked on the head for a few seconds,
and then straightened up and sat there looking at it as it quickly grew to
a real stiffy.  I looked around and saw everybody else was also watching it
wake up.  I stretched my scrotum down to show off Monster's entire length.

   "Show off," Jean-Nicole muttered.  I stuck my tongue out at her.  She
giggled.  I stuck my tongue out again and wiggled it.  She smiled and
nodded.

   "You promise?" she whispered.  I nodded vigorously.

   "Aiden, I told you I was an operating-room nurse when you first
arrived," Anna said.  "Do you remember?"

   Aiden took his eyes off my tianga and looked at her.  "Yes."

   Anna crawled over to Iain, settled on his legs, gave his tianga a
half-dozen strokes, bent over, and gave it a quick licking tongue bath.  He
put his hands on her shoulders.  She shrugged them off, gave his dick a few
slurping sucks, and finally kissed it on the shiny head.  Then she
straightened up and continued with her story.  This time we all watched
Iain's tianga rouse its sleepy head.

   "Perhaps I had a natural ability for that sort of work," she said.  "The
surgeons all trusted me and wanted me on their team.  I even performed
surgery on occasion, with an exhausted surgeon directing me.  What I want
to tell you about, though, is what a couple of other nurses and I sometimes
did late at night."

   I looked at Aiden's face and saw him raise his eyebrows.  I knew what
she was going to tell him.  Jean-Nicole resumed sucking my dick and I
watched what she was doing.

   "Aiden, at night, I would make the rounds with another nurse.  We
checked our patients' meds and wounds and then made them comfortable for
the night.  Some of them, we masturbated so they would sleep better."

   I glanced at Matt and saw him smiling.  I felt sure Caitlyn and
Jean-Nicole had heard about what the nurses did to help their patients
sleep.  "Good sleeping pill," he whispered.

   Caitlyn crawled over to Matt's legs, straddled them, held his
almost-hard tianga upright, slowly stroked it a few times, licked from his
balls to the head, sucked on the head a few seconds, and then sat upright
again.  This time, it was Matt's dick that woke up and looked around.  I
looked at Aiden's face.  He was smiling.

   Anna ignored what Jean-Nicole and Caitlyn had done.  "Some had catheters
but most didn't.  We'd pretend that giving their good parts a warm sponge
bath was just routine care.  If they got an erection, we'd close the door
and jack them off.  Do you know why we did it?"

   Aiden shook his head.

   "Aiden, some of them were just boys, not even twenty.  Maybe they'd lost
part of a leg or an arm from an IED and they were depressed wondering what
their life was going to be like.  We always complimented each one on the
size of his penis or how beautiful it was, just anything to help him
realize that he was still a man and his sex life wasn't over.  We did it
for them, Aiden, not for us."

   I glanced down at Aiden's dick.  It had been warm and swollen, flopped
across one thigh a little, when he sat down beside me.  Now it had crawled
around to point at his navel and had swelled into a partial erection.  He
had a damned nice one, about as big as Iain's.  I smiled.  He was going to
respond just as Anna had predicted, at least his tianga was.

   Then Jean-Nicole left me all alone and straddled Aiden's legs.  She sat
there for a moment looking at his face and then said "Well?" He smiled a
little and nodded his head just once.

   She bent over and her beautiful blonde hair fell like a curtain around
her head.  I looked at Aiden's face, saw his eyes close, and a slight smile
appear on his lips.  I knew he liked what she was doing.  What man doesn't
like to have his dick sucked by a beautiful woman?  He just worries too
much, I thought.  She straightened up for a moment to catch her breath and
I saw a wet shining head on a hard-on that any man would be proud to have.

   "Aiden, do you want to leave or stay?" Anna asked.

   He grinned.  With Jean-Nicole's hand wrapped around his tianga, he knew
it wanted to stay and he gave in to its persuasion.  "I'll stay," he said.

   With that, three gals, Anna, Caitlyn, and Jean-Nicole, turned their
attention to the other three guys, Matt, Iain, and Aiden, all ready to stay
and play.  I watched hands stroking up and down, tongues licking from balls
to crowns, and mouths sucking on dicks, even though none of the play
involved me.  I was about to complain that I was losing my hard-on when
Caitlyn left Matt and straddled my legs.  The three women looked at each
other, nodded, and began rotating.

   I lay there with my hands clasped on my stomach while three women
rotated around on four men, just playing, licking, sucking, stroking.  When
Jean-Nicole rotated back to me for the second time, I stuck out my tongue
and wiggled it again.  "Later tonight," I whispered.  She smiled and
lowered her head.  I couldn't see my tianga and tolos anymore; all I could
see was the top of her head.

   I knew the ladies would watch carefully for signs of any impending
eruption and were just going to tease us until four guys were ready to hide
their tiangas in some juicy bouchis.  Since I'd stopped letting my beast
loose with Anna, I wanted to let it free, perhaps with Jean-Nicole, maybe
with Caitlyn.  Then I thought of something I wanted to do first.

   "Gentlemen, the ladies have been kind enough to awaken four tiangas from
slumber tonight," I said.  "I think we should return their kindness; don't
you?"

   "What do you have in mind, David?" Aiden asked.

   "Well, first I think we should help them get in a comfortable position,
on their backs, one pillow under their heads and another under their hips.
Then we should gently raise their knees and spread their legs.  After that
I think the four of us should use our tongues instead of our tiangas and
see if we can warm them up a little."

   "Yeah, I like that idea," Matt said.  "Let me start with Jean-Nicole and
then do Caitlyn and then Anna.  As soon as I get through with Jean-Nicole,
one of you guys can pick up where I leave off."

   "That sounds good to me," Iain said.  "What do you think, Aiden?"

   "Count me in," he said "I want to be next after Matt."

   For the next fifteen or so minutes, that's what we did, four guys
rotating around and licking three pussys.  If the bouchi bunch could have
stopped giggling long enough, perhaps we could have given one or more of
them a good orgasm.  Maybe the guys had their tongues in the girls' bouchis
but their hands were groping and goosing and teasing in other good places
so I couldn't blame them for squirming and laughing.  After I finished with
Anna, and I was last, I thought we might do something else.

   "Ladies, Aiden's our guest tonight," I said, looking at three beautiful
women in the position for some good fucking, especially with three wet and
shining bouchis.  "I think we should ask him if he's ready for a little
gift from one of you."

   All three of the ladies straightened up on elbows.  Six pairs of eyes
turned to Aiden and we waited.

   "I know what I'd like to do," he said.  "Anna, David, you really don't
mind?"

   Anna answered for both of us.  "Ok, Aiden, I'll jack you off if that's
what you really want."

   He smiled at her teasing reply.  "That's not what I want."

   Anna immediately assumed the position again, knees raised and parted,
arms up in welcome.  Aiden moved between her legs and leaned over her on
straight arms.  I wondered why Aiden chose her when he had two younger
beautiful women and she was now quite-evidently pregnant.

   He explained.  "Anna, I simply want you to hold me.  That's all.  Do you
understand?"

   "Yes, I understand," she said.  "I want a stiff tianga in my bouchi.  Do
you understand?"

   He smiled again, a broad, happy-looking smile, the biggest smile I'd
seen on his face.  I guessed at why he only wanted to be held.  Perhaps it
was because Anna was pregnant with our twins and he had loved his wife
while she was pregnant with their twins about fourteen years ago.  Perhaps
he was trying to recapture the memory of some of the happiest days of his
life.

   She reached both hands between their bodies and I watched Aiden's ass
while he did what most guys do, easing his dick in her pussy, pulling back,
easing it in a little deeper, pulling back, until his balls acted as a
doorstop to his dick.

   He settled down on her, gave her a quick smack on the lips and then put
his cheek next to hers.  She put her arms around his chest with one hand
behind his head and wrapped her long legs around his waist with ankles
locked and one heel at the top of his ass crack.

   I looked to the side and saw Jean-Nicole with Iain, just getting settled
under him, one arm around his chest, the other between their bodies, his
arms under her, hands around her shoulders.  She wrapped her other arm
around his chest and her legs around his waist.  I knew there was another
hard tianga in another juicy bouchi.  I couldn't see his face but I could
see hers.  Her eyes were closed and she looked like she was in heaven.

   I looked farther and saw Caitlyn with Matt.  She was in a mirror
position with Jean-Nicole, underneath Matt, arms around his chest, legs
around his waist, Matt's butt slowly moving up and down.  Her face looked
like she was suffering a good stretching.  His dick was a little bigger
than Iain's in girth and maybe she was having a hard time from having it
all stuffed in her pussy.

   "Did you like it when she held you like this?" Anna whispered to Aiden.

   "Yes," he whispered back.  "There was something special about being held
by her when she was carrying our twins.  I loved her, Anna.  Do you mind me
thinking about her while I'm with you?"

   "Of course not, Aiden," Anna said.  "You should always think of her. 
That tells me a lot about the marriage you two had."

   "It was so good, Anna," he whispered.  "We had a perfect life until they
killed her."

   "'Never forget her, Aiden," Anna said.  "Always hold her sacred in your
heart."

   "I can't turn loose of my love for her, Anna," he said.  "That's why I
don't know whether I can find love with another woman."

   "Aiden, our hearts are big enough to love more than one person," Anna
said.  "Maybe you'll find another woman and love her in a different way. 
Open your heart to that possibility."

   My tianga was the only one not in a bouchi but it was satisfied for the
moment with my hand stroking it.  Jean-Nicole looked at me and what I was
stroking, then pointed at herself first and then at me second.

   I shook my head no.  I was in no hurry.  I knew I was going to make love
with either her or Caitlyn as well as with my wife, just sweet slow gentle
love as we had so many times before.  I lay there content for the moment,
looking at Aiden on top of Anna, not moving, then at Jean-Nicole and
Caitlyn, under Iain and Matt, both guys just quietly easing up and down and
grinning.

   I heard Aiden sniff a couple of times and I wondered if he was like
James, so affected by his emotions that he was on the verge of crying.  No
one seemed to be in a hurry.  Iain and Matt were polishing the knobs on
their dicks in two juicy bouchis, my hand was making love to my dick, and
Aiden and Anna were quietly whispering to each other.  Finally, he seemed
to have been loved enough for the moment.  He rolled off, smiled at her,
smiled, at me, and flopped on his back.

   Jean-Nicole immediately left Iain with a stiff dick, wiggled her way
between me and Aiden, flopped on her back, and held up her arms to me.

   "OK, big boy, are you ready to let your beast loose?" she leered at me.
"I'm ready to let my tiger out of its cage."

   I was ready.  I looked at Anna, smiling at me, squirmed between
Jean-Nicole's legs, looked at her beautiful gray eyes, and held myself up
on stiff arms for her to invite me in.  She held my monster between her
soft hands and showed it where to go.  I gradually eased it in until most
of it was in her, watching her face smiling up at me.  I glanced at Anna
and she smiled with dimples and nodded.

   Iain moved around my butt and crawled up between Anna's legs.

   "Would you do me like you did Aiden?" he asked.

   Jean-Nicole and I watched until he was belly to belly with her and his
face was hidden behind her cheek.  I glanced to the other side and saw
Caitlyn watching what Anna and Iain were doing while Matt was still slowly
easing up and down on her.  I glanced at Aiden's face.  He was smiling and
shaking his head like he couldn't believe what he was seeing and doing.

   I wanted Jean-Nicole, wanted so damned much to let my beast loose, but
then one last thought came to me, that I should let Aiden first do what I
wanted to do.  Perhaps I could do it second.  It wouldn't be the first time
I'd had sloppy-seconds.  Perhaps I could have sloppy seconds on Jean-Nicole
or Caitlyn.  Maybe I could have sloppy thirds with the other one of them
but I knew who I should make love with for my first time tonight.

   I saw Matt and Caitlyn, her with her ankles around his neck and her arms
around his chest, him with his hands curled around he shoulders to hold her
in place for the fucking he intended to give her.  I watched until he
kissed her with an open mouth, until she opened to him, and until he
started moving his hips.  Matt groaned and, I couldn't help it, I groaned
back.

   Damn, it was hard but I pulled out and moved back out of the way.

   "Jean-Nicole, please take care of Aiden first.  He's our guest."

   She smiled, nodded, and held out her arms to him.  I watched as she
wrapped him up with her long arms and legs and he started moving his hips
up and down.  She reached her hand up behind his head, pulled it down, and
opened her mouth to him.  I watched until he had a good rhythm going and
then I looked at my wife.

   I crawled over to Anna and Iain, slapped him on the ass, and used my
thumb to tell him he was out.  He shook his head but he rolled off her.  I
crawled around behind my wife, spooned up to her, and nestled my hard
tianga in the warm spot between her thighs.  She raised one leg, used her
hand to guide the head to where I wanted it to go, and I slid my dick in
about half way.

   "Iain, my wife likes to have someone suck on her breasts while she's
being loved," I said." Would you do us the honor?"

   <><><>

   Over the course of the next month, I learned three important things from
Aiden.  The first was that he was the maintenance man for all groups from
Iain's old world.  The second was about how different sexual attitudes are
in Aiden's world from ours.  The third was that the universe or universes
were much more incomprehensible and unbelievable than either Iain or Renée
had understood from their meager knowledge.

   <><><>

   Maintenance man?  That was how Aiden described his work.  He was the
individual who could maintain the transporters in North Georgia, in
Ireland, and in Switzerland.  His duties frequently took him to these three
groups to maintain or repair or fine tune each transporter.  He was also
the man who was called upon to do the same for any simpler equipment from
their universe which the groups used.  Finally, he was able to easily
understand and help with any of my old Earth's equipment which a group
used. In short, if it was mechanical, Aiden was the man.

   He has shown us how to use some of the tools in the secret room and Matt
and I are already using one of them, a laser saw.  It is a hand-held
relatively-light battery-powered device with a curved arm from which a
laser beam is ejected and, about a half meter away, caught in the end of
the curved arm.  The user must hold the saw in two places and, if one hand
is removed, the beam immediately stops.  Perhaps it's dangerous to use but
no more so than a chain saw.  It cuts through trees like a hot knife
through butter.

   We've cut down a few close-by pine trees, tall and straight, cut the
trunks up into half-meter sections, and then transported the sections down
the mountain to the big terrace.  Matt and I are using froes and mallets to
split off shingles.  We're both muscular enough to do it easily but James
and Toby and Aiden are also making shingles occasionally.  We want enough
to shingle a roof of the log-cabin we're planning to build down near this
side of the isthmus.  We've already made a big stack of shingles in a sunny
spot on the terrace to dry.

   Down the mountain, near the isthmus, we've chosen the site for the
satellite dwelling and have marked trees in the vicinity.  We're going to
use hardwood trees for the first two tiers of logs and then use pines for
the rest.  We'll build four walls first with no doors or windows and then
cut out at least a door before finishing with the roof.  After that, we'll
have to find something to caulk between the logs.  That seems to be the way
our ancestors did.

   <><><>

   The second thing I learned was more about the sexual culture of Aiden's
old world.  Iain had said that there was no pervasive religious belief and
Aiden reinforced that.  He also told me more about their sexual attitudes.

   One night after supper, Aiden and I went out to the highest level of the
terraces to talk.  During the course of our conversation, I told him that
Anna and I had slept with his twins and with the other twins, all at the
same time.  He shrugged it off immediately.  Then I told him that they had
not slept with us for sex; they had slept with us for love.  The four of
them had come to us shortly after supper one night and asked if they could
sleep with me and Anna and they told me why.  I didn't even ask Anna.  I
told them they would be most welcome.

   That's how we ended up, all six of us in bed, together, naked as the day
we were born.  At first I was at one end of the bed with Pyotr and Brian
and Anna was with Petra and Brianne.  We talked, we swapped bed partners,
and then we slept together.

   At first, the boys were cuddled up to me, flat on my back, their heads
on my shoulders, arms around me, my arms around their shoulders, my hand
stroking their hair.  The girls were in a mirror position with Anna.  Our
long legs were tangled up in the middle of the bed.

   We talked about their lives, about what was happening to their young
bodies, about how unsure they were about sex, about what they were supposed
to do.  All four were book knowledgeable about sex but short of experience
and they were playing together, Pyotr with Brianne and Petra with Brian. 
Anna and I tried to give them guidance to consider their partner's needs as
well as their own and to be slow and gentle for a while before letting the
beast loose.

   Pyotr confessed that he and Brian had on one occasion played at oral
sex, with the girls watching.  Then they watched Petra and Brianne with
their heads between each other's thighs.  They weren't worried about the
rightness or wrongness of what they did.  They were just having fun,
exploring sex and the bodies of both sexes.

   Later, we swapped and I cuddled the girls while Anna held the boys. 
Still later, Pyotr swapped with Brian so that I held him and Petra while
Anna held Brian and Brianne.  I was sleepy but I tried to be patient and to
help in answering their thousand questions.  All of this happened without a
single hard-on rearing its head.

   That happened later during the night.  We were sleeping with me in the
middle with Petra's little body in front of me, me spooned up to her, with
Pyotr behind me, cuddled up to my rear, one hand over my chest.  I was
awakened with Pyotr's prodigious pecker prodding me in my posterior.  He
wasn't moving so I wasn't worried about being fucked.  I assumed it was
just another nocturnal erection, normal in all males, or a piss-hard but
not a horny reaction.

   I untangled and tried to crawl out of bed without disturbing anybody.  I
had to piss, not urgently, but enough to make a trip to the toilet
worthwhile.  I was standing at the urinal when Pyotr assumed the position
next to me.  Then Brian staggered in and took the other side.  When the
three of us returned to our bedchamber, the females were gone.  We sat on
the side of the bed until they returned and them we all cuddled up in two
piles again.

   Aiden smiled while I was telling his all this.  He wasn't shocked.  He
and his wife had also slept with their kids on occasion, not for sex but,
for love.  He hadn't done it since his arrival but he would do it if Anna
and I would take the other set of twins.  I agreed.  Then he asked if I had
ever had oral sex with another man while Anna watched.  I admitted that I
had.  I told him that I had also watched her have oral sex with another
woman.  He said that women must be like that because he had done the same
thing and then watched his wife with another woman.

   Maybe we're from different universes but in some ways we're not so
different.

   <><><>

   The third thing was still incomprehensible.  Aiden reluctantly tried to
explain the cosmology of the universe, as far as he understood it, but even
that little knowledge was impossible to comprehend.  His scientists did
believe that there were alternative universes existing in the same
time/space but perhaps a better understanding of their theory was that
there were multiple versions of the same universe existing at the same time
in the same space.

   As far as I could understand, they believed that my previous world,
Earth, as we called it, existed in multiple versions as Iain's old world
also called Earth - translated from their language - and as the world in
which we now existed - which we were already calling Earth.

   They had no idea how many versions of Earth existed or why there were
differences among the versions of the universe.  They posited that all
universes were like clocks once set to the same time but which had somehow
slowed or accelerated individually with the passage of time.  I understood
that our scientists believed that our universe came into existence billions
of years ago with a Big Bang, at which point, time and space were also
created.  I can't pretend to understand that either but I accept it.

   They also believed that, on each Earth, evolutionary forces brought life
into existence and then made that life develop in a myriad of ways.  On
some earths, mankind had blossomed into being; on some, it had not.  Aiden
and I had come into existence on two different Earths where mankind existed
and had both been transported to one where mankind had not evolved.

   Perhaps that meant that at some time on some versions of earth, there
were exact copies, maybe better thought of as originals, of me and Aiden
and everyone who existed or had existed.  I remembered a term from
somewhere: doppelgangers, physical doubles of the same person.  I had
always assumed that I was unique in my universe and I could not wrap my
mind around the concept of another David going his merry way on another
version of Earth.
In her knowledge of Iain and Aiden's world, Aimee had a full and
meticulous explanation of the theory.  I tried to read her translation but
it was like trying to understand classical Greek.  I tried to comprehend it
but my mind was adamant in its explanation of what it saw and could not
fathom the theory.  It was a posited but perhaps incomplete explanation of
what scientists knew to be true even though it violated everyone's ordinary
mindset, just as Einstein's Theory of Relativity was incomprehensible to

the layman's mind.

   <><><>

   Even more unbelievable is what Iain is coaxing me to do.  In my other
life, I would never have dreamed of doing it and had no idea it was
possible.  It is singing opera.  He's working with me on "Recondita
Armonia," a romanza from Tosca by Puccini.  He says it's usually sung by
someone with a tenor voice but he wants to see if I can do it in my
baritone, just to determine my voice range.  Move over, Bocelli, he says.
Next I suppose he'll have me playing the violin and saying Move over,
Beethoven.

   He's also working with all of us with songs from one of his favorite
Broadway musicals.  West Side Story.  He's Tony and Caitlyn is Maria. 
Everybody is involved, even if it's just singing in the chorus.  He's
trying to get the Mouseketeers to do a couple of the dance routines, when
they can stop giggling long enough.

   He's also working with different ones in learning to read music and to
play one of the instruments we've received.  I think I'm beginning to hear
music and not just sour notes from the lounge chamber.  I want to learn to
play his tallum if I ever get a chance.

   And while we're on the subject of song and dance, we had two dance
nights.  The first one was indoors in the central hallway and everybody was
dressed in our nicest clothes.  We warmed up with two marches, the Stars
and Stripes Forever march and the Radetzky March.  We then tried two
waltzes, The Blue Danube and Plasir D'Amour.

   For the waltzes we had to dance with partners other than our usual. 
Since we had one extra male, Iain and I each sat out for one waltz.  I
watched Aiden with Renée and saw some beautiful dancing.

   After that Aimee turned the lights down low and we slow danced to songs
like Round Midnight, Falling in Love Again, and When I Fall in Love and
four other songs.  Again, we had to rotate around and dance with someone
different each time, while one guy sat out.

   The second dance night was outdoors, naked, around a huge fire in the
fire pit, first marching to Semper Fidelis, next dancing to Jog Din Oas,
and, after we rested up for a while, dancing to Jog Din Oas again.

   I'm not sure we should call it dancing when Aimee plays Jog Din Oas. 
Perhaps we should call it a cardio-vascular workout because we end each
session with bellowing lungs and racing hearts and exhausted bodies. 
Perhaps it's simply free-form dancing, with each of us doing whatever our
bodies want to do.  As the repetitions get louder and faster, our bodies
respond until our minds shut down and our bodies assume control until
finally, with the ending repetition, we're cavorting or prancing so fast
that we're just mindless bodies trying to follow the music.

   <><><>

   I'm not sure what to think of something that happened with the two sets
of twins.  For some reason, Aimee gave them a book called Art and Culture
for their tablets.  They looked at the pictures and ended up arguing about
one particular statue.  Aimee gave them an assignment and that's where I
became involved.

   One night after dinner, Petra and Pyotr and Brian and Brianne corralled
me to pose for them.  They posed me naked, with my right hand holding a
string over my right shoulder and the left hand beside my thigh and holding
a small stone, with my head looking to the side and my weight on one foot.
I had absolutely no idea what we were doing and why.

   Then they used their tablets to take pictures of me standing there,
front, sides, rear, looking up, and, standing on a table, looking down,
close-ups of head, hands, arms, legs, feet, back, and finally genitals and
butt.  Anna insisted on brushing my hair before the photo session.

   The four of them then went back to their table and began talking,
looking at two tablets at the same time.  I was curious, of course, but I
washed dishes anyway.  When we finished, I went to their table and saw what
they were doing.  They were looking at images of Michelangelo's David and
of me and comparing the two.

   As I walked up behind Brianne and Pyotr, I heard her say that she liked
our David better.  Pyotr asked her why and she answered that I was more
muscular and had a bigger tianga.

   "Well, what are we going to tell Aimee?" Brian asked.  "She wants us to
tell her what differences we see but we've also got to try to explain why
there are differences."

   "Our David's better looking too," Petra said.  "He's more like a real
man, not like some pretty boy statue.  His tolos are bigger too and they're
like a real man's."

   "Shut up, Petra," Pyotr said.  "We're supposed to compare and explain
the differences in everything, not just dicks and balls."

   "Well, there must be some reason why Michelangelo gave his David a
little kid's equipment," Brian said.  "He's got a man's body so is he a man
or a little boy?"

   I shook my head and went looking for Anna.

   <><><>

   Most of us spent two days doing gardening chores.  In the first month of
the year, we had planted three kinds of potatoes: Yukon gold, red, and
russet.  We also had sweet potatoes but they are a warm weather crop, were
planted in the fourth month, and would be ready in about the eighth month.

   Now, in the fifth month, the vines of the cold-weather potatoes had
almost died back and the potatoes were ready to be harvested.  Matt and I
both had teams, Iain, James, and Pyotr for me, Aiden, Toby, and Brian for
him.

   Matt and I used garden forks to break the soil and gently lift as many
of the potatoes as possible.  Our teams used their hands to gently scratch
through the soil to find the potatoes and carry them to the women at the
end of the rows.  The girls then gently brushed the dirt off and sorted
them into large unblemished, small unblemished, and blemished from the
tines of the fork.  My grandfather had taught me to lightly clean the
potatoes and never to wash them until they were needed.  When each kind of
potato had been dug, we used a backpack train of fifteen mules to carry
them the ten minutes or so up the mountain to home.

   The original crop of russet potatoes growing in the mulch pile just off
the terrace also matured at the same time.  I assigned the Mouseketeers to
harvesting that smaller crop whenever they wished.

   Matt and I next used garden forks to break the soil around the onions.
The Peruvian sweet, Vidalia sweet, and Italian red onions had all matured
at the same time as the potatoes.  The tops of the giant yellow onions were
still mostly green and I wanted to wait to harvest them.  With their hold
on the earth loosened, our teams then pulled the onions up by the withered
tops, a small bundle in each hand, and carried them to the ladies to do a
light cleaning and to tie them up in bundles.  Again, we used a backpack
train to carry then home.

   We've constructed bamboo racks to suspend the onions and small bins to
hold the potatoes.  An unused bedroom is now a storeroom.  The racks of
onions completely cover two walls.  The bins of potatoes, about two feet
high, cover about half the floor of the room,

   Anna griped at her light duties but I didn't listen.  Everybody
understood that she could not carry a full load of work in the fifth month
of her pregnancy.  After lunch, she and Jean-Nicole stayed home to prepare
our evening mean.  About mid-afternoon, she called via Aimee and requested
two sou-chefs, Petra and Brianne.

   After the potatoes and onions had been harvested, we picked some of our
new crop of vegetables: snow peas, radishes, lettuces, spinach, Chinese
cabbage, and even immature carrots.  I had no idea what sort of salad
Jean-Nicole would concoct but I knew it would be delicious.

   Last, we weeded and thinned and looked for worms on the vegetables we
had set out in the fourth month.  We had incorporated just the lightest of
bat fertilizer in the vegetable rows and everything seemed green and
healthy.

   Lucky wandered the woods close to our garden and occasionally checked to
see that James was OK.  The cloudless sky was a pale blue, the warm sun was
shining on us and our garden, a slight breeze was blowing up the mountain
as usual, and everybody seemed happy to be working together.  It was just
another couple of days in paradise.

   <><><>

   After a particularly-strong spring storm, I asked if anyone wanted to go
to the isthmus to see what we could get.  I wanted oysters so Jean-Nicole
could make us a few delicious oyster casseroles but I knew we frequently
found something unexpected, like turtles.  Everybody wanted to go.  Maybe
Aiden didn't yet know what an isthmus expedition was but Brian and Brianne
hanging on to his hands and begging him to go convinced him.

   As usual we set off before daylight, dressed in light clothing, with
spears and at least one other weapon.  Perhaps I had too many weapons but I
was the primary protector and I wanted to be sure I could do my job.  I had
the Boys strapped around my waist, the Brute and a quiver if arrows on my
back, a sword behind my left shoulder, and a spear in my right hand.  We
had the big pot making its rounds among different carriers and being used
in different imaginative ways.  Some of us also carried tablets and one of
the tablets was always on so Aimee could experience her first isthmus
visit.

   A little after daybreak, we had a pit stop, boys to the left, girls to
the right, and then ate breakfast on the way.  After that, the singing
started and didn't stop except for an occasional easy-walking part of the
path where we marched in a two-person wide formation.  Matt called cadence
for us and we marched once, tallest in front, and again, shortest leading
the way.

   We were only a little way out on the isthmus when we got our first
surprise.  The south side of the isthmus was littered with what I suppose
was seaweed.  It wasn't large kelp, the kind which grows off the West
Coast. It was smaller, a vivid green, and piled up in clusters.  I knew
some oriental cultures ate it dried, especially in sushi, but I had no idea
what we could do with it.

   We meandered and explored both sides of the isthmus until we were about
halfway across and found nothing else new.  Each time we harvested oysters,
I tried to remember the location so we could move to a new area.  We made
two teams - me with James and Aiden and Brian, Matt with Iain, Toby, and
Pyotr - stripped naked, and began.  The morning was already warm enough to
be comfortable but the water was still a little cold.  No matter, I pried
the oysters off rocks with a mattock and let them fall.  James and Aiden
and Brian didn't object even when they had to duck under water to retrieve
them and get them to the waiting females.

   The time was close to noon when we had our second surprise.  We had a
huge pile of oysters ready to be shucked and I was thinking of slurping a
few raw ones for lunch when it happened.  Anna and Jean-Nicole were our
guards this time, armed with paint-ball guns.  Anna yelled, "Pigs, David! A
momma pig and a bunch of little ones."

   The two oystering crews left the water and went to see.  A huge sow,
probably twice as big as me, and a large number of immature little porkers
were wandering along on the south side of the isthmus, heads down, eating
seaweed.  I guessed the piglets' weight as about thirty pounds, certainly
big enough for good eating.  I tried to count the little ones and finally
decided that there were at least ten.  I stood and watched for a minute,
trying to decide what to do.

   "Anna, Jean-Nicole, see if you can put mamma pig to sleep," I said.

   They took turns and quickly had the momma pig slumbering on her side.  A
mad melee of little porkers immediately squirmed and fought to find a teat
to suck on.  We all stood and watched for a moment and I decided what I
wanted.

   "Toby, James, see if you can find two young males in that mess," I said.
"Grab them by the legs and drag them back down the beach a ways.  Petra and
Pyotr, Brianne and Brian, you kill them and then cut their throats to let
them bleed out."

   As expected, Brianne protested.  "I don't want to kill them and I can't
cut their throats.  Why are you so mean?"

   She looked at Aiden, her father, her ultimate source of protection, for
help.  He dropped to one knee and took both her hands in his.

   "Bri, David's not being mean to you," he said.  "He wants you to learn
from this.  We're omnivores.  We eat meat and vegetables and most anything
else because evolution has programmed our bodies to be healthy with that
way of eating.  You kill the little pig with your spear and let Brian cut
its throat.  You can do it."

   Toby and James finally sorted out two males and were dragging them down
the beach.  The four Mouseketeer twins picked up their spears and were
about to follow.  I thought of one more thing I could do.  I pulled Big Boy
and Little Boy out of my scabbard.

   "Here, Brian, Pyotr," I said and held out the knives.  "Let Brianne and
Petra kill the piglets and then you two cut their throats."

   A little after lunch, we returned home carrying two field-dressed young
pigs on two bamboo poles, a big pot of shucked oysters on another pole, two
backpacks of unshucked oysters on two backs, two backpacks full of seaweed,
one backpack full of miscellaneous sea critters in shells for
bouillabaisse, and fifteen bellies full of a good lunch including baked and
raw oysters.  I know everybody ate baked oysters and I think most ate some
raw.  I'm not sure what we can do with seaweed but maybe Jean-Nicole can
find something to do with it.

   <><><>

   On two of their explorations, the eight Mouseketeers saw the goats which
Aimee said were on the mountain.  The second time, they were able to count
the number of goats, nine mature and three little ones.  I wanted some sort
of shelter close to home to begin to domesticate them, hopefully, for a
source of milk and cheese.  Aiden and Matt and I found a place on the
lowest terrace where we could excavate a shelter in the rock for them.

   Aiden knows how to get the excavation robots running again so I've
tasked him with that job.  He also says he can easily program them to
create a sheltered room for the goats in the rocks below our shelter.  He
says the robots can also be used to create post holes around the perimeter
of the terrace.  We've already cut enough large bamboo to make a fence and
it's drying where we cut it until we need it.  Matt is in charge of the
fence.  The goats can always find water from the many streams on the
mountain but they will need a water source when they are fenced in.  James
and Toby are charged with finding a path to run water somehow to the goat
pen.

   <><><>

   As the time for our sex play party neared, I realized that the time for
another arrival was also immanent.  I had no idea who might be sent but I
hoped it might be someone as a partner for Aiden.  If a woman arrived
before the party, I also had no idea how she would view the party.  Aiden
seemed accepting of our ways but not without some difficulty.  A woman
might have even more difficulty.

   I pondered the situation but I finally realized that there was little I
could do aside from accepting whatever happens.  Some things are simply
beyond my control.

   TO BE CONTINUED:



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