She heard something. She turned to her left and paused, listening and looking. It was only guinea
fowl, spooked by their approach.
The man grunted peremptorily, and the woman resumed her motion. They passed on beyond the ash-
covered region, and the ground resumed its normal colors.
They were in luck: some distance farther along they found a patch of ripe gourds. The plant had been
withered by the mountain's breath, but the fruits remained firm. The man cried out, and others of their
band came to gather the food. The man picked up several, and the woman took two more, and the
child one. They carried these back to the band's camp.
The woman and the child began to tire, so the woman employed a familiar device: she made a grunt
of sexual suggestion. The man reacted as expected: he set down his burden, allowing her and the
child to do the same, and drew her into him for a bout of copulation. The other members of the tribe
paused, considering; then several others paired off, liking the notion. Sex was always a satisfactory
interlude.
The woman relaxed, letting the man support her. He held her upright, facing him, her feet off the
ground. He sniffed her genital region, excited by the odors there. Then he let her slide down to make
contact with his erect penis. Most creatures approached their females from the rear, but the upright
posture enabled these ones to be frontal if they wished, and often they did wish it, liking variety. The
woman was like a doll in his embrace, allowing him any liberty he chose to take. It had been several
hours since their last coupling, so he was quite amenable to her suggestion. He bounced her around,
squeezed her, and kissed her fur as his member drove deep into her. This might have seemed like
rough play, but she was tough and he was vigorous rather than violent.
By the time he was done, both the woman and the child were rested. They picked up their burdens
and resumed their trek. The other couples were also breaking up, satisfied. Sex had no significance
beyond the pleasure of the moment and the continuing association it signaled.
They came to the tree where the woman's sister labored, watched by other women of the band. They
reached her as the great brightness of the sun settled behind a distant hill, setting the clouds ablaze.
The sister was of similar size, with smooth light fur, but differed in two respects. Her breasts were
prominent, their nipples poking out through the fur of her chest. And she was sexually nonreceptive,
because she had already been fertilized. This was why the other woman was kept busier now: it was,
in part, her job to protect the security of the family by making sure their man had no reason to
respond to any outside woman. Had the family lived apart from others of their kind there would have
been little problem, but in a band with several receptive females fidelity could be strained. Two
women were enough, in this case, because their cycles of availability were complementary: while one
was pregnant, birthing and nursing, the other was receptive. By the time her sister got a baby started,
the original woman was ready again. In that manner the two kept the man to themselves, and
benefited from his superior ability to forage and to protect them from both outsiders and other men in
the tribe. They shared food, when necessary, with others, but not sex or child caring.
They were part of a band that traveled as a unit, but when children grew up the males went out to join
other bands and mate with their women. A man was entitled to as many women as he could succeed
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