Chapter 10: The Possession

WE WANDERED AROUND a while. I couldn’t tell you exactly where. We sailed the sea, but kept ending up back at the mouth of one river or another. The seaports were often near the mouth of a river because it provided fresh water while still having access to the rich fishing grounds of the salt water.

When I say, ‘seaport,’ understand that I am referring to towns of as many as a thousand people in some instances. When we came to such a place, I often brought the girls out to explore and find interesting trinkets that we traded for. We got to experience a lot of different kinds of food in this way, as well. And we continued to trade for interesting grain, plants, and animals to expand the living and growing area of the infinity room. Nimia periodically found and tantalized another young woman for the harem and there may have been a dozen living in the infinity room when I decided people were more plentiful along the rivers than along the seashore, so I headed upstream along one of them.

Having been on the sea for some time, I stowed my boat in the infinity room, which had the immediate effect of expanding our lake into a fair-sized body of water. It seemed to be a trait of the infinity room to adapt to what I put in it. It was as if the boat remembered the sea and brought that memory with it into the room. Lots of things worked that way. An animal used to grazing on a particular kind of grass would wander a while and then find a patch of that kind of grass. And the bag never seemed to get heavier!

As I was saying, I stowed the boat and decided to walk across the land for a while. It was fertile and the hills were dotted with sheep. It reminded me of Bathra. I stopped to chat with various farmers and shepherds and do some trading in the villages. It was rare that I’d find and manage to trade for a scroll. Nimia spent as much time reading the scrolls I collected as she spent with the other girls. It seemed no language written there was beyond her ability to learn. Perhaps that was another trait of the infinity room. I knew the girls we had collected spoke different languages, but they all seemed to communicate just fine. The other girls would sometimes join me to walk for a while, but Nimia seldom emerged from the infinity room where I visited her nightly.

I could see a flock of sheep and goats on the hill in the distance and in a well-grazed area, I came upon a well. There was a bucket and a rope, so I could tell the well was deep. I started to lower the bucket when I heard a voice.

“Help! Help me out of here!” she weakly cried. I hurriedly let the bucket down, not knowing what kind of creature from the depths I might find.

“Can you catch hold of the rope?” I asked.

“Yes. Oh, thank you!”

She didn’t weigh all that much. Even if I hadn’t had the muscles I did, she was easy to pull up. I think Nimia could have done it. When she was finally at the top of the well, a very wet and soggy and naked girl threw herself into my arms.

“My savior! My hero! Thank you for pulling me out of that awful well. Uh ... Don’t drink the water from here. I’ve been pissing and shitting in it for two days,” she said.

“That’s a fair warning. Are you a naiad? A spirit of the well?”

“No! I am a girl! I was out here tending my father’s goat herd when I was suddenly caught from behind and thrown into the well. I screamed and shouted, but all I heard was the goats being driven off. I’ve been waiting to either be rescued or to die.”

“I see. Um ... You don’t have clothes on.” The slippery girl in my arms was almost like a cat, trying to mold herself to every contour of my body as she dried herself and warmed against me.

“They were weighing me down in the water,” she said. “I suppose you will ravish and despoil me. Know I am a virgin. My father might give you a reward for returning me intact. If you return me used, he will probably want to charge you for the privilege,” she said.

She’d found a protrusion beneath my robe and was attempting to mold herself to that as well, so it was hard to tell which option she was hoping for. She continued to crawl on me and press her naked bits against me. It would have been a simple thing to cast my robe aside and part her legs with my cock. I somehow thought that would make me less of a man in Nimia’s eyes.

I withheld.

“In what direction are your father’s tents?” I asked.

“He makes our home at an oasis a day’s walk north of here.”

“I think I have a dress in my satchel,” I said. “Left over from the last naked water nymph I helped.” She caught her breath as I thrust my hand into the satchel and Nimia handed me a dress. I put it on the slender girl and it nearly fell off again. Nimia had far more bountiful breasts than this slip of a woman. But these breasts were capped with lovely rosy nipples that sat atop puffy cones on her chest. I did not at all mind the way the dress slipped off her shoulders periodically, as we walked toward her father’s house.

Learning her story was not difficult. If I was quiet, she was talking.

“I’m the youngest daughter of twelve. My mother died of exhaustion after trying for a son so many times, while I was still nursing. I was raised by an older sister who lived with her husband in our little tent village. There was a war between tribes out here a year or two ago and all the eligible young men were killed. So, I’m my father’s last daughter and have no marriage prospects. He’s recently taken a war widow as his wife and hopes to breed a son on her. I don’t know why he won’t just let me inherit his fortune and his herds. I’ve always been able to handle the goats and camels and sheep better than any hired shepherd.”

“I’m sure he is worried about you,” I said.

“If he even notices that I’m missing. He’s always moaning about how he doesn’t have a son worthy of carrying on the name of Abdul ben Duggo. I was out with the sheep and goats, which are probably all missing now—stolen by the man who threw me in the well. It will probably lower my bride price. Maybe he’ll just give me to you.”

“Uh ... I haven’t said I wanted you.”

“Oh, I could feel your desire when you were holding me. I’m actually quite enthused about becoming yours. You’re a hero. You are stronger than any ten of the shepherds in the region. And you are hung like a camel. I can almost feel it parting my feminine folds ... tearing through my maidenhead ... thrusting into my secret places. Oh! Oh!” she sighed. She might have just talked herself into an orgasm. My sensitive nose detected an aroma of aroused woman beneath the stink of the stench well water.

“What is your name, by the way?” I asked.

“Josephet. Yes. Father was so set on my being a boy that he’d already chosen a boy’s name for me. He simply added the feminine ending,” she said, shaking her head. “I ask you, what is a girl to do when her father doesn’t really want her and there are no men to take her off his hands?”

We continued in this mode for the rest of the day and camped beneath the stars. I realized that approaching the camp in the dark would raise an alarm. I was going to slip into the infinity room, but that would raise all kinds of questions and I wasn’t ready to reveal myself to Josie yet. I just stretched out under the stars and Josie stretched herself out ... on top of me. The way she wiggled around in her sleep kept my attention all night long. In the morning there was a wet spot on both our robes.

Things dried as we walked toward the tents ahead of us. We were hailed as we approached and Josie called out to everyone that a great hero had come to see her father. I wasn’t that happy about the attention I was getting, and reflexively brushed at the hair on my head to be sure the horns weren’t appearing. Before we arrived at the main tent, Josie pointed to the animal pens.

“Those are my goats! Father must have recovered them.” I was suspecting something else. “Father!” she called at the flap of the tent. “A hero saved my life and I have brought him to be honored by you.”

There was some scrambling inside the tent and the flap was flung open. A man, looking like he’d just been awakened, peered out.

“J-J-J-Josephet!” he exclaimed. “I thought we’d lost you!”

I rather thought there was a hint of regret in his voice. Certainly, a bit of disappointment in what he saw. Then he looked at me.

I made it look like I was just standing up straight as I added an extra handspan to my height. I’m sure he could see my muscles bulging in my neck and my chest straining against my robe. Josie turned to me and swooned.

“Father, this is Bob. Bob saved me. I see you found my goats. Bob, my father Abdul ben Duggo.” The man shook his head as if to clear it.

“Goats. Yes. Came wandering in. Um ... Thought you were lost to bandits. Couldn’t understand why they’d take you and not the goats. Yes. That’s it. A real puzzle.”

“I am pleased to meet the father of this spectacular woman,” I said. “She is an honor to your strength and tenacity. I’m sure you must be very proud of her.”

“Proud. Yes. Um ... certainly. I suppose you’ve had her, wandering out in the desert as you’ve been. That will cost you. Um ... thirty drakma,” he said, finally nodding his head and rubbing his hands together.

“Father, I assure you I am as virginal as the day I was born,” Josie said. I thought that might be stretching it a little.

“Oh. Is that so? Ah ... Well ... Come in, come in. Please break bread with us. Camela! Bring bread and cheese and honey. We’ve a guest who wants to bargain for Josephet,” he called into the back of the tent. A woman pulling her robe together stuck her head out of a flap.

“Josephet? I thought you said...”

“Yes, we all thought she’d met her demise. But she is here and she’s brought a man.”

“Oh. Don’t let her go cheap,” Camela said.

I thought, What an appropriate name.

“Now, Bob ... May I call you Bob? Just call me Dug. Bob, you’ve already had an opportunity to get to know my youngest daughter, since you dragged her out of a well. Custom out here is that spending a night with a girl is tantamount to marriage. Now if you’d jumped the broom, as they say, and despoiled her in the wilderness, I’d be harsh with you. Father deserves to be compensated. But since you’re a gentleman and a hero, I tell you what I’ll do. Twenty drakmas and we’ll hold the wedding right now.”