Tarzan was about five when he was lost in the Jungles of the Congo. He was found by a female gorilla whose baby had died and she adopted the strange looking creature as her own. Tarzan knew she was a gorilla, and that he was not, but there was nothing he could do about it.

And, his new mother was a good mother, all things considered. Her baby was weak and pale, but he had beautiful eyes and he snarled a lot, which Gorillas considered 'manly'. It took her years to learn that that snarl meant he was happy. He grew and soon he could hold his own in the trees with his ape brothers and sisters. He still wasn't as strong, but he was much much smarter. When he wanted something he almost always got it. And he had learned the ways of all the other animals in the jungle, a thing his mother appreciated more than once when he got the family out of trouble with some of those that were predators.

Jane was eighteen when the plane she was traveling in went down in the jungle. The tall trees that ripped the fuselage to shreds also cushioned it to some degree. Not that it helped any of the others on board. But Jane happened to be in the one place in the plane that did not get a tree branch shoved through it, and her harness was fastened. She did get a severe blow to the head that knocked her unconscious during the crash. She ended up about twenty feet off the ground, upside down, hanging from her seat belt.

She came to with a crushing headache and a sense of complete wrongness. She smelled the jungle first and remembered the pilot's warning that they were going to crash. Her eyes jerked open, but everything looked wrong. She jerked and found herself swinging in the air. She looked "up" and saw bushes, tree trunks... and a naked man. He was looking "down" at her. Then she realized she was hanging in a tree and that she was helpless. She couldn't see the man very well. She was close to blacking out again because all the blood in her body seemed to have settled in her head.

She managed a weak "Help me" before everything went back to black.

Tarzan knew about the great silver birds that flew over the jungle. He had hidden in the jungle once as he saw one land in a cleared field near a village. Humans the bird had eaten were vomited out, or cut their way out of the stomach of the bird somehow. He didn't understand all that, especially since the bird usually roared and took flight again after the humans escaped. The people who came out of the birds were always pale, like him. But every pale human he had ever seen was bad. They killed the animals and then didn't eat them. They killed members of his family. They killed everything. He tried to make sure he never had anything to do with them.

Unless they threatened his friends. Then they died.

He had found many interesting things on the bodies of the pale ones he'd killed. They had skins that could be taken off and put back on. He didn't think those were a very good idea, but all the pale ones used them. Some of them wore pieces of polished crystal on their faces. He found out those were good for using the sun to start a fire. But he only needed one. The only really good thing he had found was a metal claw that could be carried in the hand. His black brothers in the jungle had these things too and used them to cut up the game they hunted. The one he'd taken from a dead pale one stayed sharp almost forever and was very useful. There was even a little pouch made of hard skin to keep it in. He wore that around his neck. More than once his lack of good claws had gotten him into trouble, but now, with his long sharp claw he could fight back. It was also good for cutting off some of the longer fur that grew from his head. For some reason his head fur grew a lot longer than his mother's. But then she had fur everywhere, and he had it only in a few places.

But now one of the silver birds had tried to land in a tree and had fallen apart. There were two pale ones that had been inside the bird, but they were already dead.

He saw another one hanging from a tendon or something, up in the tree. That one had said a word that sounded familiar. His family didn't talk that way, but he remembered when he was very young that he had used that word. He vocalized it slowly "hellllpp".

Now he remembered! That was a word that meant you needed assistance. The pale one had called out for assistance. He started to leave. He hadn't found anything interesting in all the stuff that had fallen out of the bird.

But he was curious about the pale one. This one seemed to be hurt, and might not be so dangerous.

He climbed the tree.

As he got closer to the pale one he saw that it looked different from all the others he had seen. It's legs were bare for one thing. Then he realized that the removable skin it wore was hanging down. It wore something white where it's sex organs were. And this pale one had long hair on it's head, like he did. All the others had had short hair and usually wore some kind of molded leaf type thing on their heads. This one had the things on its feet that he had seen on the others. He thought they protected the feet, like an extra layer of skin.

It moaned and opened its eyes.

He was amazed. This pale one had eyes the same color as his! He had seen his eyes in his reflection in pools of water and they were green, like a plant. He had never seen any pale one with eyes like his. It made gurgling noises in its throat and its mouth opened. It made the noise again "Help me, please".

Jane came to again, her head still aching. The naked man was right in front of her! He had climbed the tree. She was having a hard time breathing. "Help me, please" she gasped. The man's hand went to something hanging around his neck. He pulled out a knife! He reached toward her and began cutting at her dress.

What was he doing? Then she realized he was trying to find what was holding her to the seat. Her arms had been hanging down toward the ground and she brought them to her lap with an effort. She fumbled through the folds of her dress and found the seat belt. She traced it back toward the seat and slapped it several times to show the man.

He grunted and reached toward her hand. She felt the knife bite into the belt.

Then she was falling.

Tarzan heard the words and remembered their meaning. He almost decided to climb back down the tree and leave this pale one to die. But something about it was interesting. It seemed to sleep like a bat, hanging upside down. But when it woke up it wanted help. Something must be holding it up. He searched through the removable skin, cutting pieces away so he could see. It's hand came up and started patting a wide strip of thick skin. Aha! That's what was holding it to the chair. He began using his claw to cut the skin. Suddenly it snapped and the pale one fell.

Tarzan knew he could have jumped that far and it would have been fine, but the pale ones didn't seem to be very agile or healthy, so he decided not to let this one fall. Like his brother the cobra his hand struck at the foot of the pale one. Then he held to a nearby vine as its weight came on his arm. It weighed very little. He began to think it might be a pale one child. Then it made a sound like a youth in trouble.

Jane took in a breath to scream and felt herself jerk to a stop in mid air. Her scream came out of reflex. She tried to see what had her foot, but her dress was now hanging down over her face. She batted at it, trying to control the folds of cloth. Finally she got a glimpse of the naked man holding her foot. All that was holding him - and her - in the tree was his other hand on a vine. She swooned and lost consciousness again.

The pale one went limp in his grasp and Tarzan thought it was a very strange creature to fall asleep in these circumstances. He pulled it back up, slung it over his shoulder and climbed down.

He laid it out on the forest floor and began examining it. He decided to take it's removable skin off to see if it was hurt. His claw made short work of that.

That was when he discovered that this was a female pale one.

He'd never seen one of them before. It had teats like his mother, only they stuck out farther and were soft. His mother's nipples were black and tough, but the ones on this female were pink and soft.

In fact all of her was soft.

He looked where the sex organs should be, and found the white thing was another removable skin. It ripped easily. Yes, there was the female's sex organ.

He sat back, amazed at this pale one. It was soft and smelled good. He didn't think it would live very long in the jungle, though. It didn't look strong.

He went back to the area where the bird had died. He hunted everywhere for the long sticks that spat fire and thunder and killed everything they pointed at. But he didn't find any.

That was also very odd. He'd never seen a pale one without one of those dangerous sticks. He was getting more and more curious about this pale female he'd found. He decided to keep her alive for a while. Maybe she would do something interesting. He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and headed for his tree house.

Jane woke and at once realized her headache was much better. She felt pain almost everywhere on her body, but she wasn't hanging from the tree any more. She was lying on something soft and it smelled good.

Suddenly she remembered falling and sat bolt upright. Immediately her head emptied of blood, she swooned and she fell backwards, unable to break her fall.

She bounced on something soft.

She was dizzy, but could at least think. Obviously she hadn't been killed in the fall. First the plane crashed and then the fall. She was overflowing with luck today. She turned her head and saw she was lying on a thick bed of grass. She thought dried grass would be prickly and uncomfortable, but this was wonderful. She lay there aching.

Her hand came up to her chest.

She was NAKED! Again she sat bolt upright and she fought the dizziness as she surveyed her body. The only thing she had on was her stockings and shoes! What was going on?! She looked around. She was in a large nest made of grass, in a TREE! She felt under the grass and found a floor of branches, lashed together with vines. There was a roof of sorts, thatched, and only good enough to keep rain off. It wouldn't protect in the winter. She laughed at her thought. Here she was in equatorial Africa where the only thing one needed protection from was rain, and she was thinking of winter.

The naked man! She remembered him now. She looked around fearfully. Where was he? It had to be him who brought her here... who made this place. She remembered him holding her foot, keeping her from falling. He must be immensely strong.

She examined the "house" again, more closely. Nothing man made. Nothing that resembled a place a man would live in. It was utterly... animal. Cleverly done, but still... animal.

Suddenly she remembered a tale she'd heard. Something about a white ape. He was legendary. All the hunters and safari men feared him. Some thought him a man, but most thought he was some odd kind of ape with no hair. No one had ever gotten a close look at him. He swung through the trees like an ape, but he was believed to be able to talk to the animals in the jungle.

What was it they called him? Tazam? Tazman?

No it was Tarzan. That was it. Tarzan - Tarzan of the Apes, King of the Jungle. Could the naked man be this legendary Tarzan? He was no ape. She knew that. She remembered seeing him in the tree, not two feet from her. And right in front of her face had been his genitals.

Those were no ape genitals. His penis was thick and long and hung down below a set of testicles that were full looking. The penis of an ape was mostly inside unless there was actual mating going on. Or at least she thought so. She'd never actually looked at an ape's sex organs. No proper woman would. But she'd seen her father naked once, had seen his penis and balls. This Tarzan, if that's who she'd seen, was much bigger. She pitied the woman who had to put up with that monster rutting in her.

Suddenly she remembered she was naked. She groped frantically between her legs.

No pain.

What would it feel like if a man had been in her? She didn't know - had never experienced that. She thought she'd be able to tell, though, and she didn't feel any different than ever before. She sighed in relief.

But if he hadn't ravished her, why had he removed her clothing? And why not her shoes? Her head began to ache again. There were so many questions.

She felt the tree begin to sway and realized someone was climbing up to the nest. She looked first for a weapon, but there was nothing. Then the naked man's head cleared the edge of the nest and he looked at her. He bared his fangs. She gasped and one hand flew to cover her breasts. The other, already in her lap, tried to cover her mons.

Tarzan had made his rounds and went back to his home to see how the female human was. He had a feeling she'd still be there. He didn't think she could survive alone in the jungle. Most of the pale ones couldn't. They hired black ones to take them around and protect them. Usually all they had to be protected from was their own stupidity, but the animals all hated the pale ones. He knew she was awake before he even got to the tree. The limbs were moving slightly and there was no wind at this level in the forest canopy. That's why he'd built here. His scent didn't drift from this place. He didn't have many enemies in the jungle, but there were a few. He climbed up and looked at the... what was that word? He tried to remember.

Mama?

No that was a particular woman. WOMAN! That was it! She was a woman! He smiled at the woman and she jumped. She started touching herself. She made the sign that in ape language meant "Home" - the flat hand and arm placed across the chest. But her other hand made a sign he didn't know. He'd never seen an animal put one hand between the legs, knuckles out, cupped over the sex organ.

She made the sound of a young one in trouble again and he looked around to see what was bothering her. He saw nothing dangerous, heard no danger. Maybe this pale woman had something wrong inside her head. She was breathing like she had just run all the way from the waterfall to the blue cliffs, but he knew she hadn't left the nest. She was very puzzling.

He decided to try to communicate with her. He tried the word he'd most recently remembered. He pointed at her and said "Wu-man".

Jane was terrified. The naked man just stared at her. She screamed and he looked around, like he was looking for something. Then he looked back at her and spoke. "Wu-man".

She was astonished. He had said "Woman", plain as day. She looked more closely at him. His head was a wash of hair, long, flying every which way, his beard dense. He almost looked like a lion with a human face. But it WAS a human face. She could see his shoulders and they were definitely human too. Very broad, heavily muscled. Yes, he was immensely strong. Again he pointed and said "Woman".

For lack of anything else to do she nodded her head and said "Yes. Woman."

Tarzan watched as the woman made her eyes get big, wider, rounder. How did she do that? He knew of no animal who did that. What did that mean? He said his word again, and this time she moved her head in the ape language, saying "All is well" and she repeated his word.

He knew what the jungle people called him. His name had some mystical meaning to the black ones who gave it to him. He pointed to himself and said "Tarzan" Then he pointed to her and said "Woman".

Jane felt herself go weak when the naked man named himself Tarzan. It was true! He existed! But he was no ape. He was just a man! Well, not JUST a man. She'd never seen a man like him before. He thought her name was "Woman".

She pointed to him and said "You, Tarzan" then pointed to herself and said "Me Jane".

She realized that in pointing she had uncovered her breasts. Then she noticed he wasn't looking at them. He was looking at her face. She decided she didn't need to cover them. She took her other hand away from her crotch and watched, but he didn't stare at her there either. This was odd.

She saw movement in the tree behind Tarzan. It was a snake! It was a huge snake - a constrictor of some kind and it was lowering its head toward him.

She started to warn him when he exploded into action.

Tarzan saw the woman name herself "Jane" and then her pupils narrowed quickly. That meant danger and she was looking up, behind him. Only one kind of danger came from above and that was Ra the serpent. His hand streaked to his claw and he moved toward the woman. To defeat Ra one had to keep away from his head. He leapt over the woman, using the flex in the tree limb to leap to another nearby tree. Then, swinging hand over hand he outflanked the snake and came at it from behind. He judged where it's middle was and jumped on it, straddling it. The claw came around, under the belly of the snake and he began to cut it open. He made a four foot incision before the snake began its thrashing. Tarzan hung on, still slashing, trying to cut the snake open. He felt fluid on his hand and knew he was winning. Now Ra tried to fall from the branch, but Tarzan wrapped his legs around the thick body and hung from the branch while he continued to slice and stab. Now he began cutting around the body. He couldn't break Ra's back - he'd almost been killed when he tried that, but Ra hated pain and enough of it could kill the snake. Again and again he struck and finally he was able to hack through the spine. The front half of the snake fell to the ground and thrashed in its death throes. The back half stayed with Tarzan.

He was pleased. Ra was good eating.

Jane was horrified at what she saw. Tarzan was fast as lightning. He moved like an ape, gracefully and with strength. He had a knife that looked suspiciously like a Bowie Knife from America, almost a hatchet it was so large. And he was vicious.

The Boa Constrictor never had a chance. From the time he first moved to the time half the snake fell to the ground, Tarzan had spent less than two minutes. And he wasn't even breathing hard. She watched as he came back to the nest with half of the snake. What in the world was he doing? He began to do what she could only believe was butchering the snake's carcass. Deftly he sliced into the thick muscle and cut off strips. He offered one to her.

She shuddered and shook her head.

Tarzan saw the woman make the ape sign for "Let's move on to better forage" when he handed her some of the succulent snake meat. She didn't take it, and in fact her pale skin took on a greenish tinge.

Was she like brother chameleon?

He didn't think so. He ate his portion of the snake and began to wrap the rest up. He'd have to cook it. He'd learned cooking from the black brothers in the villages. It made meat last longer. It was one of the few things he thought they did that was a good idea. But you needed to cook it soon or it would be fit only for brother lion, or the jackals. They'd eat anything. If Jane wanted to move to another forage area, that was fine. He had cooking to do.

Jane watched Tarzan wrap the rest of the snake meat in a large leaf and climb down. She scrambled over to the edge of the platform and peered down to see what he was going to do. He was huddled in a clearing, one of few she could see in the dense forest. There was a black spot with the ground cleared away on all sides. It was a fire pit! He had something sparkling in his hand. She realized it was a lens from a pair of glasses and he was using it to concentrate sunlight onto a pile of tinder. Soon smoke came from the tinder and he blew it to life. Then he calmly cooked the pieces of snake he'd wrapped up, putting them on the end of a sharpened stick. When they were done he went to the part of the snake that had fallen to the ground and cut it up too. These pieces he put on a wooden framework that bent into an upside down 'U' that made a sort of cover for the fire pit. He put green branches on the fire and began smoking the meat. Jane's stomach rumbled. She WAS hungry. And she had to pee. She explored the platform and found a clay pot with water in it, but nothing else. She sniffed the water. It smelled fine and she drank some. She looked around. She couldn't stay in this tree forever. Her stomach rumbled again.

She started climbing down.

Tarzan heard the tree rustle and knew Jane was moving around. He glanced over to see her climbing down. She wasn't very good at climbing. She didn't know where to put her feet and she took forever to get down. She didn't hang and drop either. She climbed ALL the way down. How odd. She walked over to him. He saw she had fur above her sex organ, like him. It was the same color as her head fur, pale yellow, almost the color of the grain plant some of the villagers raised when it was ready to cut and make into flour. It was lighter than brother lion's pelt, with more yellow in it. She went to the snake he had cooked in the fire and looked at it. She licked her lips. Maybe she was hungry after all. He offered her a piece and she took it. First she kissed it, then licked her lips. Then she ate like she was hungry.

Jane tasted the snake meat. It was good! It didn't taste like anything she'd ever eaten before. She tried to think of it as "just meat". She realized she was ravenous and stuffed the meat in her mouth. Tarzan handed her another piece and she ate that too. Her bladder cramped. She was going to have to pee soon. She looked around for somewhere to go. Maybe over there, behind those bushes. She went to see.