Chapter 7: Sonia and Friends at the Lake

I’ve made this trip dozens of times. I know how long it takes, I know how it feels, I know the bumps and textures and turns of the route, and I know just what to do to keep this precious cargo bottled up inside me. It’s only a couple of tablespoons, but it’s thin and slippery, and gravity is pooling it just above the narrow, muscular section of my tunnel. What sperm was mixed in with the semen is slowly swimming the other direction, still energized in its futile quest to fertilize the egg that will never arrive. I concentrate on keeping the muscles tightly closed, not letting the roughness of the road open me up for even a second. I don’t want to lose it, yet.

There are those who would proclaim that Carl’s fascination with sloppy seconds, his desire to feel another man’s cum coating his cock as he forces it out, stroke by stroke, is a symptom of repressed homosexuality, or maybe some weak acknowledgment of submission, the acceptance of cuckoldry, the humiliation of being the afterthought. But Carl doesn’t see it that way, and neither do I. As Carl sees it, it’s an act of dominance, of taking something from another man and making it his own, displacing the competing seed and overwhelming it with his own. It’s an act of power, of triumph, but it’s not one that can be delayed.

I’ve spent some time musing on it, especially during these trips between two lovers. It’s about twenty minutes of thinking each time, and I’ve even done some research online. I’ve arrived at an explanation which satisfies me, and meshes perfectly with my own vision of my place in the cosmic order. It’s the most primal but fully human expression of our evolutionary development, a behavior that precisely matches our anatomy. It’s sperm competition, promiscuous mating, ambiguous fatherhood, and the foundation of tribal loyalty.

Our closest primate relatives, I reason, are chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. They each have some nearly-human traits, but each have very different reproductive styles. Gorillas live in harems, in which a single silverback protects and watches over a group of females and their young. The odds are high that he is the father of the great majority of the offspring. He doesn’t worry much about competition. Consequently, gorilla sex is nothing to write home about. The male gorilla has the smallest testicles of all the great apes, the penis is small, and sperm volume is low. Mating is perfunctory, and not done with much urgency. The noncompetitive environment makes for a benevolent and tolerant male, and the youngsters are safe, unless the silverback dies and the harem is invaded by a stranger, outsider male with no possible relationship to the offspring. Then there’s a real danger of infanticide.

Chimpanzees, on the other hand, have a no holds barred approach to sex. A receptive female might mate with dozens of males in a single day, as often as 50 times. Chimpanzees fight about a lot of things – territory, food, power – but not access to females. Everyone gets a shot. There’s no individual competition between males, but sperm competition is fierce. Chimpanzees have the largest testicles and the greatest sperm density of all the primates, and a penis twice as long as that of a gorilla. For all that anything goes behavior, though, it goes fast. Sex in chimpanzees only lasts about ten seconds, then it’s off to the next partner. Any individual male chimp is unlikely to be the father of any particular infant, and infanticide is an occasional result.

We humans do it very differently. Women don’t advertise their ovulation, yet we’re always receptive, so a man can never be certain whether sex will result in pregnancy or not. Human males produce copious amount of semen, but the sperm density is low, another reduction in the chances of conception. For a man to have good odds of impregnating a woman, he’s going to have to fuck her frequently. And if she’s been fucking another man? He needs to remove the other guy’s cum from her pussy and replace it with his own. The human penis is great for that kind of task. It’s big and fat, and fills up the vaginal space, squeezing out other fluids. The head of the glans makes a nice reverse scoop, catching any semen in the canal and drawing it out with the withdrawal stroke. And if the guy knows what he’s doing, he can take his time, thrusting repeatedly until the vaginal tunnel is thoroughly swiped before depositing his own load inside. Just the kind of motions that make a woman want to come back for more, that make a man a fantastic cocksman and lover, are those that also tend to most efficiently remove the sperm from potential rivals. It’s sperm competition, but a type unique to humans.

It’s almost a cliche that a man wants to spread his seed around, to fuck as many women as possible to increase the number of children he might sire. He also wants his women to be exclusive and faithful to him alone, to prevent their having children that are not his. A lot of social structures have been built up to encourage this disparity – harems, vows of monogamy that are more easily broken by the man, male ownership of female property, concubinage – but these are all artificial structures raised by cultures that have “advanced” beyond their original, hunter-gatherer, small-clan roots.

It’s also a common trope that a woman wants to attract a man to be protector, provider, and nurturing father for her children, and that when she finds this ideal mate she will never look elsewhere. This is also a learned expectation, not one firmly rooted in biology, and there are too many women who, even with the best of intentions, can’t uphold this ideal to think of it as more than an imposition.

No, our origins speak differently. There was a time before agriculture, before pastoralism, before property ownership, before clothing even, when social groups were small, outsiders were rare, and the welfare of children required the efforts of every man and woman in the group, no matter who was the parent. The wisest choice of action, and the one selected by biology, was for women to form close bonds with the men who were available, holding for them the realistic hope that at least some of the children would be theirs. With the hope of paternity and the promise of frequent sex, they would be willing to share their hunting successes, to act as mentors and protectors and teachers for the children (not only those that might be their own, but possibly those of their sisters as well), and to enhance the success of the community that they all depended on.

Women would be attracted to men who promised not only to be good providers and fathers, but who looked likely to be able to compete well in the sperm competition game. Thus the big, prominently displayed penises and large hanging scrotal sacks to attract partners and intimidate rivals, and our coy, ambiguous hiding of ovulation along with our constant receptivity, the ability to have more orgasms than any individual male could provide, but not the chimpanzee’s hopelessly remote chances of being a father, with the consequent low level of commitment to the children.

It’s a good system, I think, a triumph of evolution. But am I embracing it with my multiple male lovers, or undermining it by my blocking of conception? We still feel the same desires, whether we’re fertile or not, the bonds, the pleasures, and the passions exist regardless of the chances of pregnancy. Maybe some day I’ll bring children into the world. How I will do it, under what sort of paradigm, will be for me and my partners to decide at the time, for now I’m living with the purest, rawest, most primitive, and to me, most satisfying of human behaviors. That attunes my desires closely to Carl’s.

I’ve been deep in thought, and the car has been practically driving itself, so I’m actually surprised when I realize I’m pulling into Carl’s driveway. I’m equally surprised when I notice there’s another car already there. It’s a familiar car, a sharp little BMW 2-door sedan, but it’s unexpected. I raise my eyebrows, exit my own car, and head for Carl’s front door. It’s open, except for the screen, as usual. The windows are open, and the sounds of fans are running inside. Carl likes it hot. There’s music playing from the rear of the house, but it’s not Carl’s usual selection. I recognize “Make Me Feel,” by Janelle Monae. Very un-Carl-like. I slip off my clothes and lay them on the arm of a living room chair, and pad towards the back.

Past the kitchen, Carl’s house has a sunken den, which he has converted into a fully equipped gym. No commercial gym can give a better workout. It’s the source of the music, and it’s also the source of the familiar, pungent smell of sweat, and sex. Carl is in the middle of the squat rack, sitting on the bench, darkly tanned and naked as usual. His arms are slightly raised and positioned forward, not to lift a weight, but to wrap around the flawless black ass of the most beautiful woman I know. Her smooth mound is leaning forward, her lower lips against his lips and tongue, and he’s licking and sucking happily while he kneads her ass with his hands. They’re oblivious to my presence, and I’m awed by the sight. Sonia is dark black, with smooth, luminous skin, high cheekbones, perfect lips, slightly Asian eyes, and very short curly hair that covers her round skull like a well-tended carpet. She’s about my height, and a natural, muscular athlete, built like a cheerleader or a gymnast, which she was in college. I love Sonia, but I can’t watch for long. I have a cunt full of Taylor’s cum, and the view in front of me is threatening to flush it out amidst my own juices. Fortunately, I don’t have to. Sonia quickly goes from rapid panting to a full-voiced, moaning orgasm. It sounds as nice as it looks, and now I don’t have to feel guilty about interrupting.