Chapter 3

Another nude woman was sprawled on the grass, as if asleep. She was blonde, white-skinned and obviously clean, so not of this location. He guessed that she was a new arrival like him.

He swiftly used his hands to sweep Numa clean of the water drops on her body, and did the same for himself, then he took her hand and pointed out the new woman.

“Look! A new arrival. She looks to be like me, so she will need to be handled carefully. Go to the cave, my love, and tell the girls to be quiet while I deal with this. I have no idea what will happen.”

Numa saw this was a Chief’s role, and obeyed her husband, hurrying up the grass slope to the cave.

John trod carefully towards the unconscious new woman, his crossbow held tight in his hand, not that he expected to use it on her, but better prepared than not, was his credo. She had a small bag attached to one wrist, but no indication of a weapon.

Getting to the woman, who was lying with her legs open, displaying her sex, he stretched his foot and tapped the sole of her closest foot.

She retracted that foot in annoyance, then opened her eyes to see what had happened. Seeing a naked man in front of her, she gave a small scream and cowered in fear, drawing her legs up to her torso.

“Don’t hit me!” she cried.

“Why would I hit you?” he questioned. “What would be the point of that?”

“Well, I am defenceless. I don’t know what happened, but I assumed you had drugged me and were now wakening me. It seemed threatening, to me.”

“Interesting. I see you speak my language.”

“Of course I do. Why should I not?” she looked around her, and was amazed at where she was.

“Where am I? And who are you?”

“My name is John. That is all I know about me. What about you? Do you know your name?”

“Sheila. Sheila ... Sheila...” She stopped, shocked. “I don’t know my surname. Why is that?”

“I can’t tell you, but if you are anything like me, you have no memory of your former life. Where do you live, where were you educated, are you single or married, and so on? Do you remember any of it?”

Sh thought, and was astonished at having a blank memory.

“I don’t know any of these! I know nothing. What is wrong with me?” and she suddenly became acutely aware of her lack of clothes, declaring that awareness. “I am naked, fuck it!”

She reacted as if this was news to her, despite the fact that a slight breeze had been passing over her skin since she awoke. “I am naked!” she repeated.

John nodded. “Yes, just like I was when I arrived from wherever I came from. My conclusion is that I am not from some place called America or Africa, from my reactions earlier. Are you from America? Your accent has a hint of that – now how do I know that?”

She responded,”No, not America, whatever that is, but someplace further north. I can’t recall the name. Damn!”

“Oh, well, welcome to this new place. It is all countryside, as much as I have seen of it, and there are a few human tribes, and the season is what I would call summer; to the natives it is the warm season.”

“Natives? There are natives around? Are they friendly, or am I going to be raped?”

John laughed at her fright. “You did say ‘fuck it’ a while back, but I assumed that was merely a touch on invective, rather than an invitation. The natives are human, as far as I can tell, so some are nice and some are nasty. What else would you expect? Which are you: nice or nasty?”

“Nice, I would say. Why the fuck would you think I was nasty?”

“Perhaps by your violent language? You use ‘fuck’ quite a lot, and I think I heard a ‘damn’ in there somewhere, Sheila.”

“I suppose it is the company I keep.”

“What company is that, Sheila?”

“It is ... damn, I don’t know; it is just a feeling I have, of being around people that swear a lot.”

“Well, now that we have established who and what you are, welcome to my tribe, Sheila.”

“Your tribe? What tribe is that?”

“I have elected to name it John’s tribe, after me. My wives like the title. I am the Chief of the tribe, not surprisingly.”

“Your wives? How long have you been here, John; years?”

“Just over a day, local time. I have not yet clarified the length of a day here.”

“You have been here a day and you have wives? Did you bring them with you?” Then she stopped. “Stupid thought. At home you would only have one wife.” Then she thought again. “How do I know that, and nothing much else? This is weird!”

John understood her confusion, and explained, “Soon after I arrived, I encountered an attack on a campsite. It was a man and his two teenage daughters, and he was bushwhacked by two ruffians. I killed them after they had killed the old man; I couldn’t stop them doing that, unfortunately. The two daughters became my wives as a result; it has something to do with tradition here, in a male dominated society.

The ladies sent me to find any other captives, and I found three girls being guarded by another man. I killed him as well, and set the girls free. It appears that they now also belong to me, so they have become my concubines.

We are setting up our own tribal site, and sorting out a few things like teaching them about washing and good sex. It has been enlightening.”

“Good sex? What do you mean, good sex?”

“it seems that the tradition here – everything is by tradition; there is no law, according to them. Anyway, the traditional way to have sex is animal-style: the female gets on all fours and is entered from behind. I am teaching my women the missionary position and foreplay. They had never heard of foreplay: it is all what the man wants, here.”

“I know about foreplay. I have tried it ... or at least I think I have?”

John suggested, “You might be a virgin, even with knowing foreplay. Are you a virgin, Sheila?”

“Why the hell are you asking that, you ... fucking ... MAN, you. It is none of your business!”

“Sheila, it is because I am a fucking man: a man fucking several women, some of whom were virgins. That fact about me and girls is useful to be aware of. If I end up making love to you, I need to know what I am facing.”

“Making love to me? Why should you think I will fucking let you?”

“Sheila, my dear, face facts. We are somewhere unknown, in completely virgin territory. Let me rephrase that to something less challenging: Terra Incognita, with not many humans around. Do you expect to have children eventually? Who with? Or are you a lesbian?”

She glowered at him. “I am not a fucking lezzie, but neither am I a pushover. You don’t just decide to fuck me. I have a say in the matter, you know!”

“I fully agree, but who is going to father your children? Will one of the natives suit you? They don’t wash, as a rule. Or will you want someone who talks your talk and understands your social expectations. Talking of which, what is in that bag that is attached to your wrist?

“Eh? Oh, that is my toilet travel bag ... I think. I’ll need to confirm that.”

As she opened the drawstring to peer in, it suddenly occurred to her that while nude she was chatting almost nonchalantly with a completely naked man; a man whose boner had by now subsided. She was not sure whether to be reassured or insulted.

John had a thought: “do we know each other in the past; the time before this?”

“I don’t think so. I would remember your impetuous style of introducing yourself!”

“Okay, it was just an idea. Random selection, it seems. What’s in the bag?”

She checked the contents, and detailed them in her mind: two cakes of soap, toothbrush (no toothpaste), several tampons, and a pink plastic comb. That was all.

She recounted this inventory to John, who grinned cheerfully.

“Can you donate one of the bars of soap to us for experimental purposes, Sheila.? I need it to demonstrate to the girls how to wash with soap. The other bar will have to do you until we can make our own soap.”

“I suppose so, if it will help keep the natives sweet, or at least sweet-smelling.”

“Sheila, think of this as a stone age society. They know nothing of what you and I seem to be used to, and it is up to us to teach them; but they can teach us a lot in turn, especially how to survive here. My chief wife is up by the cave, cooking our meal. I hope you like steak, from some animal I have never heard of – I just shot it with a bolt this morning.”

“Fortunately I am not a vegetarian or vegan, so I am okay with steak. How will it be cooked?

“Pretty basic, I assume, being over a wood fire without a grill; probably burnt in places, but beggars can’t be choosers. Food is food, here.”

“I have never cooked over an open fire. I don’t know what use I will be to you.”

“Oh, I can think of uses for you. Apart from sex instruction for the girls, you will know lots of things that are unknown here, and can teach them; but they know things they can teach you, to help you become a competent person in our tribe.”

He stretched out a hand to her, and she tipped her stuff back into the bag, and grasped his hand to stand up. She stood nearly as a tall as him, certainly taller than the local girls.

He commented, “I didn’t ask you how old you are. I can guess by your looks, but I had rather you told me: do you know?”

“Of course, I am...” she frowned. “I ... think ... I am eighteen. My memory didn’t want to tell me, but 18 came to mind. Does that seem right?”

John cheerfully inspected the new entrant, and agreed on that estimation. “I think you are indeed about 18, and educated; that much is clear to me. Numa says she is nineteen summers, and Noma is fifteen summers. The other three – two sisters and a cousin, are all teenagers, but I don’t recall them saying their exact ages. I would guess fourteen to sixteen.”

“So you have two teenage wives and three young teenage concubines? That must make you a happy man, with all that pussy to plough! You hardly need me in your harem.”

John frowned at this categorisation.

“Sheila, remember that these girls are the great unwashed, so nothing like as attractive as you. I have managed to wash my wives in the stream in the last while before you arrived, but that was without soap. You arrived with soap, like manna from the gods.”

“Buttering me up, are you? Does that mean you going to make me your chief wife?”

“Nope,”, he insisted. “Can’t do that, as I have already given that position to Numa. You don’t want me to be a man who goes back on his word to a woman, do you? No, you would be one of my women, the women I love and who will bear my children – assuming I am fertile. I have no idea if I had children in my former life. I know there WAS a former life, because of these partial memories, hints of a former existence. I have no idea why this should be so, but it happened to you also, so it is not a unique miracle or something. There has to be a force or individual of some kind to do this to us. That is as far as I can take it without adequate data.”

By now they had trudged up to the cave, with the cooking fire in front of it. Numa stood up, pushing back her newly cleaned hair from her eyes as they arrived beside her. John did the introductions.

“Numa, this is Sheila. She is from another life similar to mine, but she has the same lack of memory and knowledge as me. We will welcome her into our tribe.

Sheila, this is Numa, my chief wife. Numa is our fount of wisdom about this place and its traditions. You will both be able to learn from each other,”

Numa looked Sheila over and commented, “A clean one for you to fuck, husband. Is she a concubine, or is she to be a wife?”

John looked at both Numa and Sheila before remarking, “No decision has been made about Sheila’s position here. It is up to her, what she wants to be and what she wants to do with her life.

I hope you, my valued chief wife, will help her to decide on her future.”

Numa smirked at this recognition of her status as the Chief’s first wife, and graciously told Sheila, “We must discuss many things, you and I. John deserves only the best, for he does his best for us. I need to establish if you are any good for John.

We shall see what you have to offer our tribe, for its improvement. We must also discover if you are any good at fucking, before you offer yourself to John. He will not chase after you, girl, as he has enough women to keep him happy, but you might want to become another one who loves him. John gives his women freedom to choose, unlike the other men of this world, this society as John calls it. In other tribes, a woman is property, like a useful spear.”

Sheila’s eyes opened wide at the thought of local men not giving their women any power to choose. She had to reconsider her attitude to John, if he was the only man likely to respect her as a woman. Her mind told her that in her previous life, she was respected as a woman, and she did not want to lose that status.

“I will not make any immediate decision, Numa, but I will pay heed to your excellent advice.”

They all settled down to the meal, and Sheila was introduced to the other girls. The steaks were cut up with the daggers, and the tip of a dagger used to lift each mouthful. John looked over to Sheila and mouthed ‘Forks!”

Sheila spoke up. “Numa, have you no forks in your society?”

“Forks? What are forks?”

“Like a flat bone stick that has three or four points at the end, for sticking into food. A dagger has just one point. A fork has several tines, so that makes it more effective with food.”

“I have seen such things somewhere. In a shaman’s hut, I think They looked peculiar, so I thought they were divination implements.”

John offered, “Might have been secret cutlery for a shaman. Everyone should be able to have those, Numa. If we made some, they might be good for trading.”

“Are they easy to make, husband?”

“Fairly simple, once you get the idea. The bone has to be cut and shaped, then the tines – the sharp points – have to be cut. It is like the teeth in a comb, but more difficult to make. You have combs, I hope?”

“Yes. Our combs are a lot of very thin sticks held between two strips of wood or bone. Your fork-thing ends with four sharp points – tines you called them?”

“Yes. You can design them to be easier to carve if the tines are wider apart. One has to be clever and hard-working to make these forks, so we should ask for good trades for them.”

Sheila asked Numa, “Can you tell me, Numa, how do you make the tunics you and the other girls are wearing? Is it all cloth, or is some of it skins cut to shape and stitched together?”

“Cloth for most clothes, the areas that get a lot of wear can be made of skins. Stitching is the basic idea for fitting pieces of cloth or skins together, but a bone needle is an important tool for us women for doing the stitching. Do you have one?”

Sheila pointedly looked down at her naked body and smiled. “Does it look like I am hiding a needle, Numa?”

Numa blushed. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. We’ll need to get you a needle. You are a bit big for any of the clothes we have, except an old tunic of my father’s, but it needs to be washed. It will smell of a man. Perhaps we ought to adapt it for John. He is still without clothes; he never mentions that fact.”

“Ah, yes. John sports his own advertising instead. He won’t want a hand-me-down, as he is the Chief. See if you can devise something new for him to wear. I will wash that tunic of your father’s and see if it needs to be altered to accommodate my breasts. You don’t run to bras here, I expect.”

“What are they, Sheila?”

“Supports for your breasts if they are quite big.”

“No. Never heard of such a thing.”

“Another concept that needs to be invented, I expect. John must be happy that you and Noma don’t need them.”

“Most women don’t live long enough to need such supports in old age, when their breasts sag. There are very few old women in the ... In our previous tribe, the Farfarers.”

“Some young women have big breasts too, Numa.”

Numa told her, “The ones with big breasts tend to be the ones with babies, and then babies need access too often to tie up your breasts. We don’t have babies yet, but we are working on it.” She smirked.

Sheila gave up on the advantages of the brassiere. She could see she was getting nowhere. However, if it could be turned into a fashionable accessory, there was potential for a business venture. She would discuss this with John later; she almost told herself, ‘in bed’, and shook herself out of that assumption.

She spent some more time getting to know the other members of the family – John’s tribe. She was intrigued to find that two of them had still not been taken by John yet, despite being called concubines. She wondered why. They were still young teens, and back home would not be regarded as eligible for sexual relations yet, but in this primitive society, as soon as a girl started having periods, she was a woman and so sex was in the offing as soon as she could get a man. It was regarded as normal. She wondered if it was also regarded as normal to die in childbirth as a teenager. From her reading – when? - early death in poor societies was common from that cause. If she could do something to ameliorate that situation, that would be an achievement of sorts.

John’s insistence on washing would go a long way in that direction. The man was extremely sensible, despite being willing to fuck every woman around him. Why was he here? For that matter why was SHE here? Surely not just to be another part of his harem? That would be pointless.

Neither of them had arrived with all guns blazing, ready to solve the world’s problems.

Damn and double damn! There was no earthly reason for them to be here, and even worse, she didn’t have her birth control pills with her, so in a short time a single fuck might put her in the family way. Did she want to have kids? If so, it would have to be with this man, for he was the only viable option available to her. She didn’t want to be a possession in another tribe, and fucked from behind every time the man fancied some pussy.

Viewing things dispassionately, the best choice was get him to fuck her a few times before her pills wore off, and that way she could judge whether she could envisage a long term future with him, as part of his already large harem of girls. She would issue an invitation as soon as she could find an opportunity.

As soon as she decided that, she had another disquieting thought: If all her clothes had vanished when she was ‘transported’ here, would the birth control chemicals in her system also have vanished, leaving her exposed to pregnancy immediately?

Damn, damn, and damn again! There was no way to know.

It put her back onto the position she was in when she arrived: totally exposed to a stone age rural environment, with only one man from her own environment for company.

Look on it, she told herself, like families where arranged marriages were the norm. A girl did not meet her husband until the wedding, and then there was no going back. The girls had told her that tribal society here was similar, in that your father decided who you would marry, and that was that. They had been offered a choice yesterday as to whether they became his concubines or not, and she was horrified to find that they had chosen to be his concubines. Subservient, and not independent, by their own choice!

Her mind boggled, but then they DID have a choice in that decision. At their former home, there would have been no choice at all. They were now choosing to be with a man they knew, and who had shown that his way was different. That would be a no-brainer to them, she saw.

No wonder they jumped at the chance, even if it was being the Chief’s concubines. It appeared that the Chief was in a powerful position in tribal society, so it was an upwardly mobile choice: very practical. No wonder Chiefs had more than one wife. It was more a social choice than a romantic one.

It was all relative, she realised. You faced up to life, and when you got a chance to choose, you went for the best option for you. Concubine to the chief was a higher status than wife of an ordinary tribesman, she surmised.

What were her own options, she wondered?

Now that she thought about it, John’s assumptions about her made a lot of sense. He had seen that right away, after just a day or so here; so he was quick-witted and practical, a useful set of traits for a husband. Could she get him to call her a wife? Tell him sex with her was only on tap, if she became a wife: would he accept that ultimatum?

She suspected not, for he had nothing to lose. She was in a buyer’s market with one buyer who already had a stock of the offered goods. Not a good starting point for negotiations. Could she instead entice him to make her a wife?

Then it occurred to her. There was little difference between a wife and a concubine here; only a matter of status in local society. She hardly needed that. She could stand up for herself, and she knew some karate moves, to protect herself in a fight.

What were karate moves, she wondered? It obviously meant something to her subconscious, but there was no active memory to judge from.

“John?” she asked him, not noticing he was talking to other females. He ignored her until he finished his discussion, then turned to her.

“You wanted to say something, Sheila? I was busy at the time.” She knew there was a rebuke there, but ignored the slight, as it had been justified.

“John, what are your plans for tonight?”

“I have three girls to make love to this evening, Sheila; perhaps four. Why do you ask?”

“Oh.” She switched tack. “I was wondering where I should sleep tonight? Are we all in the cave?”

“Yes. The cave is our home for now, until we can make plans for our future. We need to make some defensive weapons and prepare a stockade of some kind. I don’t know about large predators, but I haven’t seen any yet. Perhaps they have been killed off by the tribes in this general area, or perhaps they are seasonal and territorial. The girls don’t have knowledge that would be common among hunters, as hunting is a male preserve here. I have to play things by ear for now.”