Chapter 7

“I don’t know! I was led by my visions to this part of the land. I asked people about things in my visions and was directed this way.”

“Asked them what, and why did you ask them?” Numa was insistent in her interrogation.

Cormoro stopped to frame his reply, then stated cautiously, “I asked them of news of a white-skinned man, a stranger from another world; a man with many wives. I asked because that was what my vision told me.”

Chief Numa stared at him intently for a while, unnerving him, then called out, “High Chief John? Come here please!”

There was a padding of feet as someone arrived behind the shaman. Numa declared, “John is the shaman of our tribe. His word is second only to mine.” she gestured for John to come round and stand beside her.

He did so and the shaman gasped.

“The vision is fulfilled! The white-skinned man!”

John gazed at the shaman, his unsmiling face telling nothing directly. After a long moment, he spoke.

“I am a man from another world, but not a spirit world. It is a world much like this one, but very different in many ways. A white-skinned man might also simply be an albino, a local man whose skin pigment is missing: such things happen in nature.

However, back to me. Your other words are of interest. I am not here by my own choice, unlike you. Please explain yourself, shaman.”

The wandering shaman slowly spoke to tell his story.

“Several years ago, I had a vision of the future. It made no sense to me, or to anyone else I told it to, but visions are often like that. I saw ships made of shiny stone, not wood, but they didn’t sink; I saw birds made of more shiny stone, but they still flew, though they never flapped their wings to remain in the air. I saw animals made of the same material, monsters that rushed along peculiar tracks on the ground; some were long like a caterpillar and and ran on a thin track, but others were short like a beetle but ran on wide flat tracks in both directions but without hitting each other.

I also saw stone huts than stretched up to the sky; and I saw people in odd clothing, in huge herds, always on the move. Everything I saw was on the move all the time, but without any apparent reason or destination.

None of it could possibly be real, but visions are often not real; they give you ideas, that is all.”

He went on, “Later, I saw a man of white skin, but naked, flying through the spirit worlds of my mind. His presence made even less sense, for he was not there and not here either; he was somewhere else, an in-between place. The impression my vision gave me was that he was a possibility of being somewhere, but was from one of these spirit worlds of flying and rushing objects and people.

My visions told me that the pale-skinned man would some day come to our land, but I had no idea when and where; several of his wives joined him from his world. Then the visions became confused with other men and women possibly coming to our world from his world, but the leader of this group had black skin, the opposite of the man with white skin. It was as if there were two similar men with dissimilar colouring, neither of them like us but neither harbouring enmity.

This all became terribly confusing to my mind, and my tribe cast me out as a confused man of crazy visions of what might be at some unidentified time and place. Since then, I have been wandering all over this land of ours, looking for any sign that would tell me what my visions meant.

Tribes around here say there is such a man to be found, a new leader with new ideas, but to be feared as he does not respect the old traditions. My mind tells me that your shaman as described may be the man from that other world, the world of rushing objects and people.”

He stared again at Chief Numa, asking her, “Chief: Is your shaman the man from my visions, as my befuddled senses claim?”

Numa informed him, “Our shaman holds the position of High Chief, being the Over Chief of two tribes. He is my husband and is the husband of many other wives. He speaks with people of power, and has demonstrated that he can wield power of his own when he has to, but prefers not to use the power of might. Instead he uses the guile of the jaguar to win battles. He is not a man of visions, but a practical man who uses knowledge to advance us all. Have any of your mental messages said anything bad about this vision man?”

Shaman Cormoro admitted, “None of my visions said that he was a bad man. He is a man of power in my visions, but always striving for good, as far as I can discern. Visions are just that: visions, and cannot always be related to the world as it is now or is about to be.”

John had been listening, but now asked, “Shaman Cormoro, what do you expect to happen once you have found your mystery man? Did you have any notion about what you should do if you found him?”

This rocked Cormoro back on his heels, for he had not thought beyond his pilgrimage in search of the man in his visions. He recovered to declare, “I need another vision, to lead me further on this question.”

John snorted, “Many other shamans invent visions that tell them what they want the vision to say. As a shaman, I know this fact, so please do not try that trick with us. I will listen to what the spirits tell you, if anything, consider what truth may lie in your claims, and give my own approval or otherwise. Is that clear, Cormoro?”

Cormoro hung his head as he answered, “I, too, know of what you speak about shamans, shaman John. I will not tell you an untruth, but only what my visions tell me, if they tell me anything at all. I have no control over what comes to me and when.”

“Ah, that I can understand. I occasionally have dreams, and I have no control over them or what happens in them. Your visions will be much the same.”

Cormoro stared at John in awe. “You have visions too!”

“Well, I have night-time dreams, but I cannot call them visions, for they are so disjointed. They mostly vanish from my memory when I wake in the morning; but waking up is usually caused by one of my wives looking for a bit of loving.” He smiled at the memories.

“You never know what these dreams tell you?” Cormoro asked anxiously.

“Very seldom, and the ones I remember are normally very pleasant and involving sex!”

The wandering shaman admitted, “I do not have a wife, or other woman, and my dreams or visions that I remember are more about wonderful things happening in the world.” He confessed, “I do have dreams about women at times, but I try to ignore them.”

John looked at him in astonishment. “No wife? No woman to take care of your manly needs?”

“No. I do not dare risk that. I am on the trail so much that it would be a great inconvenience to a woman to come along with me.”

“That shouldn’t stop you enjoying the comforts of a woman, Cormoro. Every tribe has at least one woman who is simply looking to have sex with a man, to satisfy her own needs. A travelling man would save her from wondering how her dalliance might affect her future within the tribe. If the man and woman liked each other enough to stay together, so much the better.”

Numa intervened to save the shaman from being upset.

“Cormoro, my husband is talking about women on their own, a few of whom make a career out of pleasing men. You surely know about them?”

Cormoro shyly admitted, “My father told me about such women, but advised steering clear of them. He said they would get me into trouble with other females who might otherwise want to become a mate.”

Numa advised him, “I think your father was only talking about the tribe you lived in. If you are on the move, it would not matter to anyone.” She had a sudden insight, and asked, “Does this mean you have never been with a woman?”

“You mean, for sex? No.”

“Holy Earth Mother! You poor man. I know of several widows, recent additions to our tribe, who would be delighted to show you what sex can be like, and they would not expect any reward for their help, though a sign of gratitude might be welcome.”

John saw Cormoro’s face light up then fade.

“I cannot ask such a thing of a widow. It would not be proper, and I would not want to offend a nice lady in mourning.”

“How about if she asked you, Cormoro? You would not want to refuse a lady who wanted to be nice to you, would you?”

“I think ... I think that would be a different situation, Chief.”

“Cormoro, You must stay the night to enable you to reflect on your future path. I will speak to several ladies and see if one would be interested in tutoring you in the arts of man and woman. We will expect you to join us at our next meal; I, as Chief, insist on that.”

Numa called to her younger sister Noma, and whispered together with her. Noma looked over at Cormoro, then back to Numa and nodded. Numa patted her on the shoulder, and Noma left. Numa had told her to speak with youngish widows without children, and get them to cast their eyes over at Cormoro during the meal, and view him as an untrained pupil in the arts of lovemaking who needed help. She thought the idea was fun.

Cormoro’s mouth watered at the food that was offered to him. He was so used to eating whatever he could find to eat on the trackways, or whatever he could scrounge from a tribe where he asked questions, that this was a wonderful repast. His intensive attention on his meat and vegetable stew meant that he did not notice several women looking him over with a predatory gaze. All of them were in their twenties and saw him as a target for affection, but he knew nothing of this.

His hunger drove him to finish his bowl and finally look up. It was John’s eye he caught, and John gestured at the empty bowl.

“A refill, Cormoro? There is plenty, and I often have two bowls, so join me.” he said, to let the man know there was no offense in appreciating good food. Cormoro nodded, “Yes, please. This is delicious.”

One of the good-looking ladies who had been eyeing him smiled with pleasure, and called over to him.

“I put the ingredients together, shaman, and several of us cooked the meal. We can talk about food later, if you have a mind to do so.”

Two other young widows looked glum when he accepted her offer, as they knew what she was up to. The dark-haired beauty, nearly his own height, came over to collect his gourd bowl and refilled it for him, then looked fondly as he dug into the stew with his spoon. She liked to see a man enjoying the food she had prepared, and she now had thoughts about making this pleasant young man want to keep her with him permanently, not just as a cook. She would have to teach him about how to make her happy in the furs; she wondered if what other women had said about the new face-to-face sex was true. She could try teaching him to do sex that way, and if they were both happy afterwards, she could tempt him further with her cooking skills. A man is happiest when he is being well fed, she reflected, and easiest to become a ‘keeper’ that way.

Later, when other folk were starting to think about sleeping, she offered to find him a good place to sleep. He remembered the good meal, and wondered what else she had in mind. She showed him her bed of furs, but was pleasantly surprised when she stripped and lay down, gesturing for him to lie beside her, she had good-sized breasts with pointy nipples. He had been told that rigid pointy nipples was a good sign before sex. There were other folk nearby, men and women, but this didn’t seem to concern her in any way.

She told him, “We can be warm if we lie like this. You will like it.”

He stammered, “Thank you for your kindness, my lady; both the food and the comfy bed.”

She corrected him, “Call me Dramata, shaman Cormoro. I would prefer to make your rest more enjoyable. For a man and woman to sleep well together, there are certain routines we should go through. May I teach you what these are?”

The ‘routines’ were of course the preliminaries of having sex. Being unaware of the necessary actions, he was persuaded to learn foreplay from her. She put aside the upsetting memory of her lost husband many months ago, and concentrated on preparing this man to learn how to be a good husband to someone, perhaps herself. If she taught him right, and he appreciated what came about in the furs, she would be on her way to getting him to marry her. She had liked the look of him when he was pointed out by Noma; now she had to find if he could fuck the way she wanted to be satisfied.

Come the morning, the sunshine crept over the tree line and into the cave. Cormoro jerked awake by a ray of sunshine to the realisation that there was a naked woman draped over his own naked body; but he liked the feeling it gave him. Not consciously realising that he was doing it, he kissed her face in several places, then decided that her lips seemed the best target. She came half awake, and kissed him back. He became aware of her prominent breasts and protruding nipples pushing against his chest, and finally noticed that his cock was swelling again. Again? He suddenly recalled her showing him how to do the sex act. They were obliged to perform it several times until he got the procedure to the point that she was sastified with his attempts and called out her satisfaction. He had never heard a woman next to him call out like that, but even sleeping beside a woman was a rarity since his childhood.

This prompted him to ask the sleepy woman, “Should we try it again, lovely lady, to see if I have it right this time?”

“My name is Dramata, dear Cormoro. Yes, I think we need to test you again; and if you stay with us longer, I think we need to get you used to various aspects of this man-woman process.”

“That would be nice, Dramata. I could be happy with doing this a lot. I didn’t realise what I was missing with my self-imposed abstinence.”

“Then let’s get started.” She got him to lie on his back, then opened her legs and used her hand to guide his already stiff member into her welcoming hole. She eased him inside, saying, “There are several ways to do this, my man. You have only learned the first, the one with me on top, controlling how it goes. Show me you have got that idea absorbed, and perhaps tonight we could get you to be on top of me, deciding the speed and directions?”

“Sounds like fun, Dramata,” he agreed, “but why me? don’t you have a regular man of your own to practice on or to teach?”

Her face darkened, but she replied, “I did have a good well-meaning husband, but he was killed by bad men, and I have no children. You liked my food, and you are good-looking, so I thought you might be nice in bed. We tried, and you are!”

Cormoro was amazed. “You think I am good-looking? Me?”

“You are. That is why I was surprised you were still unfamiliar with fucking. Didn’t you ever fancy a girl?”

“I did, when I was fifteen summers, but the girl I liked, liked a lot, was married off by her father to one of his friends; she got no say in the matter; then later she died in childbirth, so I lost her twice. I decided never to put myself in that position again, and avoided falling for any woman and possibly hurting myself. With all my travelling activity, I kept to my resolution until now, when you have knocked me off that high perch. I am really perfectly normal underneath that decision.”

She giggled, “There is no such thing as normal, Cormoro. Everyone is different; that is why it is a problem finding you a mate that will be good for you.”

“You are thinking of me as a possible mate for some woman? But I am a wandering shaman, thrown out of my home tribe because of my visions. I am nobody, not worth a glance, unlike you: you are beautiful, Dramata.”

“Chief Numa and High Chief John don’t think you are nobody; I can tell. A nobody, as you mean it, would not be allowed to stay here. I was once a real nobody, one of a group of rescued captives, but this tribe accepted me as a person worthy of decent treatment, and took me into their tribe like into a family. I was not pressured to become a concubine or a whore. I was seen as a wronged and newly widowed woman needing time to recover from my captivity. I was allowed to be free again. That was what convinced me to stay and work with and for the tribe.”

“Wow! That was a nice thing for them to do: treat you with respect.”

“They also see you as a person worthy of respect, Cormoro. They might even let you stay, if you did not need to continue wandering, and had something to contribute, as I do with my cooking skills.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, Dramata. I only saw myself spending my life looking for the white-skinned man in my vision, to solve that riddle. The thought of settling down somewhere never entered my head, not until now, if I have indeed found him. I do not know what to do with myself.”

“Noma told me you were a visionary. Do you often have visions?”

“No, not often, but I saw the same vision a number of times, so I knew it was real and not a fleeting dream. My visions eventually brought me here, but I have no idea what I am supposed to do next. I hoped to get a vision last night, but after your delightful attention, I slept straight through, except for one trip to your tribe’s latrine. You are so well organised here; the guard directed me when he saw I was seeking relief. When I came back, looking lost, he asked, “who are you with?” and I said “Dramata”, and he at once pointed me to you. I might have been lost otherwise!”

“You poor gentle man! I slept through your antics. You got me going several times last night, and I slept the sleep of the satisfied. You can count on me to be here for you tonight, Cormoro, if you would like us to go on with your learning?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes please, Dramata; I would love that! You have woken feelings in me that I did not know I had.”

The cave was slowly waking up, and the duty guard was changing. To his surprise, he saw that the new guard was one of the wives of High Chief John, a woman that he had seen kissing the High Chief yesterday. Why would the wife of the High Chief be doing guard duty? Had she done something wrong and this was a punishment? He shyly asked Dramata.

She was startled at the suggestion, and told him, “Not at all! Every trained warrior takes a turn of guard duty, except for Chief Numa and High Chief John. Why should you think it was a punishment?”

“In all the tribes I have visited, only a few warriors act as guards outside, all of them men, and they did not seem to enjoy the task, so I assumed it to be a punishment role.”

“Gosh, no. In this tribe, everyone has a part in looking after the tribe including defence, and many of the adults have done the warrior training, men and women both. This tribe is the most prepared for any fighting that is needed. Perhaps because of that, no-one tries to attack us now.”

“But you can’t all be warriors! Some people need to be cooks and makers of things, and child-minders and hunters and food gatherers, and so on.”

She looked at him in surprise, “Of course, but many are also trained as warriors, if they have enough ability. Most people here have two jobs, with the warrior task as a very occasional duty. Mostly it is training sessions to learn certain tactical operations, or to practice with a dagger or spear or bow, so that if they have to go out to fight, they know what they are doing, without detailed instructions needed.”

“But what about women expecting babies?”

Dramata laughed in delight. “Oh blessed Earth Mother! Have you never noticed that we women carry on with our normal work until we are near the time of birthing?”

He reddened. “Now that you tell me, yes, I have seen that, but it did not penetrate my skull, so I saw but did not notice. The same goes for warriors, Dramata?”

“Of course. Why shouldn’t it? Most of the time, warriors just have guard duty, and any action is calculated to avoid close conflict if possible. I haven’t been on a real fighting patrol, but I am told that the girls had no bother even if they were expecting. If they are in their last month, though, they don’t get asked to do any fighting.”

He gaped. “You are a warrior yourself?”

“Yes, I do that job at times.”

“That is amazing. Would a woman still be a warrior if she had children?”

“Probably. It depends on the woman’s situation. If she had friends or relatives to look after the children when she was on duty, then why not? A male warrior with children does not worry about his children when he goes on duty, so why should a female warrior?”

Cormoro was silent for a bit, then ventured, “Dramata, would you still be a warrior if you had children of your own?”

“Probably. Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering, if you were to have my children...”

“Eh?”

“I know it is sudden, but you have addled my brain and I can think of no-one but you ... Could I ever hope that some day you might be my wife?”

“Do you know that I am a widow? My husband was killed before we got around to having children.”

“I did not know, but you knew your way around a man’s body, so I assumed a previous relationship.”

“If you want me that much, Cormoro, I am willing to become your woman, but you must ask me again in public, to show that you and I wish this marriage to happen. Will you want me to come wandering with you all the time?”

“Umm ... actually, I believe I have found the man I sought from my visions, so if I was allowed to stay in this tribe with you, that would make me happy. I might at some time have a vision of what he will do in the future, so I should stay here to see if that happens, and let him know. I can learn some task I can do for the tribe, even perhaps be a warrior; I am used to travelling and living off the land. I might even be able to offer some guidance on such matters.”

“So you think you will become useful to this tribe?”

“I hope so. I learned a lot about other tribes and the layout of the land while I wandered, so my knowledge may be very useful to the High Chief if he wants to expand his area of influence.”

“Good. If you are right about being useful to the tribe, then I want you to meet my sister, Dramala. You will have to get to know her.”

“Meet your sister? That would be nice. It is best that I meet your relatives if you have some here, for they will become my relatives too. At the moment I don’t have any relatives since I was cast out of my tribe; my parents rejected me also at that time. I do not know if they are still alive.”

“I am not sure you understand my meaning, Cormoro. When my sister was still a young girl, she lost her sense of hearing, for some unknown reason. I had to look after her always, as she could not hear people talking to her or the sound of dangerous animals, or anything else that might hurt her. I was and am her protector.”

Cormoro jumped in, “That is terrible, Dramata! Not to be able to hear what is around you? What a disaster!”

“Hear me out, you darling man. No man was interested in her as a wife or even a concubine, as she was seen as not wife material, from her hearing loss among other matters. That was the situation until we found ourselves in this tribe. Over the weeks we have lived here, strange things kept happening, to her and to some others: ailments cleared up and Dramala started to hear sounds: not a lot, but loud sounds were getting through to her. I thought it was noise going through her body, as anyone can sometimes feel loud noises rather than hear them, but as time went on she was hearing more and more sounds, until she was trying to speak to me in response to things I was saying.

She was actually getting her hearing back, little by little, but now she had to learn to speak again; use words she had not spoken since early childhood, or had not even learned in her youth.

Now she is getting into the routine of talking again, but when you meet her, you might have to be patient with her. Her speech improves every day, but we have another problem. That is that as a deaf woman she was excluded from most social interaction, and so doesn’t know what is the right thing to say and do in what circumstances.”

“I get you. She is like she was as a growing child, needing to learn all these things, but having to make her own decisions in the meantime.”

“That is the situation. One of the aspects of life she did not learn was how to behave with adult people of the opposite sex. Can I bring her to meet you, and ask you to guide her in male-female interactions?”

Cormoro looked shocked for a brief instant, then let out a breath of relief as his thoughts stabilised.

“For a moment there, I thought you wanted me to teach her about sex with a man, when I have only just learned that from you! Then I realised it was how to behave as a woman around men.”

Her eyes widened as she took in this unintended meaning.

“That was what I was thinking when I suggested it to you; how to make her more acceptable round and about men and women. A deaf person is almost shunned by everyone else, because you can’t hold a proper conversation with a deaf person. So much of our interaction as a society is through speaking that someone who cannot participate is seen as a non-person, or at the very least not a whole person; thus defective in the eyes of others. Dramala has had this reaction by people all her life, so she has depended on me to guide her through the years. She is several summers younger than me, but grew into a tall and skinny woman.

Now everything has changed, and she has her hearing back, but not the social skills that everyone takes for granted. Simply hearing and understanding a funny story is a new experience for her. My late husband was one of the few men who seemed to accept her as a full person who had a problem, and he permitted me to care for her around our home. The only way that things were awkward was when he and I showed our love for each other. I had to persuade her to stay out of our sleeping area when we were having sex. She would not hear us, and so would be likely to wander in at an awkward moment, unless I got her to realise that certain areas were off-limits at certain times.”

Cormoro nodded his understanding, “That must have been a delicate balance between being there for her and keeping her away when you and your husband wanted to be intimate together.”

“It was. I was always afraid that she would see this as a rejection of sorts, and at one point I asked Rago – my husband – if she could be beside us when we made love. He rejected the idea, with a look on his face that I recognised. It saddened me, for he still saw her as defective and so unacceptable when it came down to close interactions. His reaction shocked me. I never want to see that happen again.”

“Well, if she can hear now, there should be no difficulty that way any more. You can tell her why she should not expect her to be with you all the time, and she will now hear and understand.”

“You must be willing to meet her and talk with her, Cormoro, before we discuss more about you and me and our marriage, and her position?”

His brows furrowed as he did not see the point she was making, but agreed to meet her. She patted his hand, and thanked him.

“Now, you need to have another talk with Chief Numa. When you do so, tell her about you and me getting together, and what you can bring to the tribe if you stay. Then we can formally agree to marriage, if Dramala is acceptable in our household.”

“I’ll do that, Dramata.”

He got himself up, dressed, and asked where he could wash his face and hands. He was directed to the stream outside, and went there, finding he was not alone. Several people were standing naked in the water, washing themselves using a lump of something that appeared to be slimy.

Curious, he asked a nearby man – he daren’t ask a naked woman – what the object was.

“Soap, of course; we make the stuff; I thought everyone knew!”

“Oh. What does it do? I am a newcomer.”

“You have heard of soapwort, the water weed?”

“Yes. Oh, you mean the lump is made of soapwort?”

“No, silly. This is real soap.” He offered it to Cormoro to feel and smell. “It is made to our secret recipe, and is far better for washing with than soapwort. Now it has a nice smell added to it, to make it very pleasant to use. We trade a lot of it to other tribes. Try it.”

He handed over the soap lump, then warned, “You had better get your clothes off first, unless you want to wash them as well. The women mostly wash the clothes as a bunch of laundry instead of one set; they are good at it.”

Cormoro blushed at his ignorance, stripped and used the lump to wash himself. The other man warned him in addition to keep a good grip of it, or it would escape down the stream and be lost, so Cormoro obeyed that instruction implicitly. “You don’t want to have to chase it down the stream!” the man laughed, amused at his vision.

Cormoro was surprised at how effective this ‘soap’ stuff was at cleaning him. He swallowed his pride and proceeded to wash his own clothes, then when that was done, realised he must either put on wet clothes or walk naked back to the cave, carrying the clothes. Nakedness never bothered him on the trails when he had to wash off the dirt, so he shrugged to himself and took on the stroll up to the cave.