by Perry Brass
"Not so stupid," one said.
"How was your first meeting?" Aawkwa asked. The first sexual coupling was called "the first meeting." It seemed a funny way to talk. Why not simply speak of sex?
Greeland's face darkened a bit. "All right," he said.
"You love Enkidu?" Aawkwa asked with a wry smile.
"Very much. He was promised to me for years, and I never understood why I had to wait. I waited and waited for a partner. I was lonely. I wanted to have a son with another man."
"Those things take time," Aawkwa said. "They have to be arranged with the priestesses of Ki. You know they decide who will be allowed to have a son. We only arrange the Promise. We felt that you and young Enkidu would make a fine pair—his natural tenderness would balance your impatience."
"I love him very much. He has been worth the wait."
"Good," Aawkwa said. "We must all learn to be sensitive to the balance of Ki. How delicately works this small planet. Each of us has a part here: the Off-Sexers as well as us. Their women bear our children, to the fury of their husbands, but it allows them some relief from warfare."
"Awful!" one of the elders groaned. "The Off-Sex men and their wars. Especially now, during the Two Moons. They go crazy!"
Greeland's face darkened. "Why are they like that? Can't they leave us alone? We want nothing to do with them."
"We have to have their women to bear our sons," Aawkwa said. "I guess it's simply jealousy. Look," he sat down and began to talk. "Perhaps I should explain it to Enkidu, then he will explain it to you."
I smiled.
"Do you think I am that stupid?" Greeland asked.
"No, but you are definitely impatient. Right, Enkidu?"
"He is a hunter," I said. "Not a farmer."
"Yes," Aawkwa agreed. "But still he is very impatient." Aawkwa cleared his throat and folded his arms. "Ki, this beautiful planet named for our Goddess, has a problem. There has never been enough good land here for all of us. So somewhere, back in the Goddess' time, She and Her admirers, it is said, divided us all up into three groups."
"And it was a smart idea," said Onoo, a fat elder, who was working on a fancy costume for the Goddess Dance. "It has worked beautifully. Such balance here!"
"Yes, but even the plan has problems," Aawkwa pointed out. "Take, for instance, the Off-Sex women and the priestesses. They never got along, even though the priestesses themselves originated as Off-Sex women. In the Off-Sex territories, the man is dominant. He always shows force. In public, you only hear him. The female says, 'Yes, sir. No, sir.' Her only role is to make life in their society easier."
"And his own life as well," Onoo said. "Do not forget that!"
"Certainly," Aawkwa said. "He cannot do anything without her. The Off-Sex man is so dependent; he lives in fear some one will discover he is weaker than she is. I think the men cannot do anything without their women. They cannot make a home, raise their children, wash their clothes, or educate their offspring."
"Am I supposed to feel sorry for them?" Greeland asked.
"No one feels sorry for them," Onoo said. "Maybe that's their problem."
"I'm not sure about that," Aawkwa said. "But, Greeland, you should understand by now what's going on. War is the only real sport for them. Carrying their big knives; wearing their ugly clothes. It allows the men an accepted channel for their limited brains. They can be quick, strong. Calm under pressure."
"But I am all those things," Greeland said. "Aren't I, Enkidu?"
I nodded my head. It was true. Greeland was all of those things.
"But you are not an Off-Sexer, Greeland, my brother. That's why you are my brother," Aawkwa said.
"We are all brothers," Onoo said. "Even the men I do not like. Sometimes we are too close, if you ask me."
"I am trying to be serious with these young people," Aawkwa said. "We are all brothers due to the third Egg. Tell me, Enkidu, what was it like today, I mean with the Egg?"
I felt bashful. What could I possibly say?
"He is shy," Greeland said. "That is why I love him."
"But you may talk here," Aawkwa said to me. "You must learn about us, now that you are a man among us."
"It—it," I said softly, "was very powerful."
"Yes," Aawkwa said. "It is powerful. The Off-Sexers have nothing like it, that is why they are jealous. They say terrible things about us and then try to take over our forests. There is awful conflict. Thank the Goddess that the priestesses can intervene."
"They think we're lower than they are," Greeland said. "Damn them!"
"But remember, we are not lower," Aawkwa said. "We are not ape-men, driven to live in the forests, because we cannot survive in their territories, the open plains that they fight over all the time. Neither are we funny freaks."
I bowed my head in shame. I remembered what the stranger said about keeping me on a chain like a monkey. "I feel different," I said shyly, "after what happened today."
"Good!" Aawkwa said. "Be happy, you are different! The difference is in our third testicle. The Off-Sexers have only two, and it seems to be some sort of tragedy for them." Aawkwa closed his eyes. I knew he did not understand what I was referring to, but how could he? Then he opened them. "Did you see visions, Enkidu?"
"Yes," I said, and looked at Greeland who smiled proudly at me.
"It is the Egg of the Infinite Eye," Aawkwa said. "It not only generates life, but prolongs it."
"If its seed is exchanged between a promised pair," Onoo broke in with a smile.
"Thank you, Onoo," Aawkwa said. "Yes, the Promise is at the center of our life. That is why to break it is disastrous. Sometimes, I think the whole balance of this tiny planet is dependent upon the Promise."
"But it does not keep the Off-Sexers from attacking us," Greeland said.
"They are jealous," Aawkwa insisted. "They are more organized; the Goddess Herself knows they procreate easier. But they do not have the Egg."
"I still cannot understand why they hate us so much," Greeland said. "I will never understand this."
"Because you can do what they can not—live without women! Live without what they fear the most. That is why they curse us and try to break up our pairs." Aawkwa turned to me and quietly explained what would happen between me and Greeland.
From the third Egg, we produced offspring.
The situation was difficult, but also part of the balance of Ki, and so it was in the power of the Goddess and her priestesses. Powerful homozygotic sperm, extracted from the third testicles of two men who had been joined in a Promise and shared each other's seed for at least one full showing of all the Moons, was brought into the temple of Ki.
This was what every Same-Sex couple wanted, and Greeland had been so impatient for. It was why he could not wait another Moon before starting to share seed with me. The priestesses of Ki had to invite a pair to father a son. And it was the priestesses who chose an Off-Sex female to conceive triadically from the sperm. One sperm became the third Egg; the other produced most of the physical characteristics of the son. For this reason, our children rarely took on any of the qualities of the Off-Sexers. We remained darker and hairier.
The priestesses could be obstinate. They made some couples wait for years. Sometimes the planet became too crowded and wars did not clear off enough of the Off-Sex population to make room for us. There was also the problem of finding a suitable woman. The women were willing, but their men lived in fury over it. It was like sending their mates over to the other side; it was like losing them.
Once she conceived by our sperm, the woman was temporarily free of domination by her husband, her mother, and her mother-in-law. In short, her whole dominant culture. What a relief it must have been. But only for the term of her pregnancy and the next year. During her pregnancy, her chemistry became influenced by us—she came into a state of euphoric balance, disengaged from the Off-Sexers. She felt complete, without the terrible conflicts that marked their society.
I sat down on the dirt floor of
the old men's hut. I had never heard the whole story. "Then what happens?" I asked.
Aawkwa went on: "When her term is over, and she produces a Same-Sex son, the Agreement of the planet allows her to nurse and care for him for one cycle of the Moons. Because of the religious aspects of her pregnancy—she is bound to the Goddess as well during this time—her bonding with her son may be intense. But after this, her husband, usually simmering in jealousy, can legally kill the child. So the son must be taken back by a priestess to his two fathers, in spite of the great attachment his mother has formed for him."
"It must be terrible for the mother," I said. "What about her other children? Don't they form some attachment to the new son?"
"I have never thought about that, about the other children," Aawkwa said. "All of the time I have lived among us, even with my own sons, I have not thought about that. You are sensitive, Enkidu, and very wise to ask these questions."
"I do not think those people care," Onoo said. "I think the Off-Sexers are too callous even for their moronic children to care."
I told Onoo I didn't believe that.
"He does not realize how evil they are," Greeland said.
"I think Enkidu has a warm heart," Aawkwa said.
Greeland hung his head in embarrassment. Aawkwa looked directly at him. I wondered what Greeland would say. I didn't want him to reveal anything of what happened in the forest. I was ashamed. Ashamed of being caught in sex. Ashamed of the killing. Ashamed of what Greeland had done to the body of the stranger.
Greeland raised his eyes, and Aawkwa's met his. "Tell me, Greeland, did anything unusual happen in the forest, while you were with Enkidu?"
My heart beat in terror. I didn't want Greeland to talk about the stranger, or the private moments we had. I hoped he would only talk about the young buck we brought in to share. Greeland had an envied reputation as a hunter. Numbers of young ones had wanted to be promised to him. But the old men gave me to him. The deer would please them; the thought of a feast made me smile. Then I realized they might talk about all of these things and my blood burned in my ears with embarrassment. Some things had to be kept only between Greeland and me. I knew it.
"One of the Off-Sexers found us," Greeland said. His head hung down again. (Oh, no, I thought. He'll have to tell them.)
Suddenly all the elders in the hut, about ten of them, moaned at once. "No...."
Aawkwa told them to be quiet. "I was afraid of that, Greeland. The Goddess Herself! Why did you have to take Enkidu now? We asked you to wait for one more Moon. You know that during the Second Moon, the Off-Sex men go crazy. They have to mate. If they do not, they are known to invade our forest and kill. Did he catch you," Aawkwa cleared his throat. "In the middle?"
Greeland wouldn't answer. The silence was horrible. I could hear the old men wheeze and breathe, the oil lamps sputter.
"Tell us," Aawkwa said softly.
"Yes, he did," Greeland acknowledged. "And I had no choice, but to kill him. Luckily, Enkidu was able to pass me my knife, since I wasn't wearing anything at all."
"The choice, I think," Aawkwa whispered, "was not to go into the forest today. Was the man wearing his war knife?"
Greeland did not answer. I waited; my hands shook. "I don't remember," Greeland said, biting his bottom lip.
"You don't remember? Greeland!"
Greeland looked at me, and then back at Aawkwa. "No! He wasn't, but he had his bare hands around my balls, and he was kicking me while I was on the ground. Aawkwa, have some pity!"
"It is not for me to pity, Greeland. And I love you, like my brother and another son, but you did have a choice and it was not to use a knife at his throat!"
"I do not take prisoners," Greeland growled. "What could I do? Bring him here, so he could laugh at us?"
"You could have scared him off," Aawkwa said.
"Sure, and done a little dance for him, too!"
Suddenly, some of the old men, who were hard of hearing, laughed. Aawkwa silenced them. "You need not do a dance. You are nothing small to look at, Greeland. I know how good you are with a knife and your hands. I love you but your arrogance, this arrogance of a hunter, has brought you trouble."
"He attacked me!" Greeland shouted, so furiously the words choked in his throat. "He would have killed Enkidu and me."
The old men—probably to break the tension—laughed again. It was like the only words they heard were that Greeland had been caught naked. "Not a stitch?" one skinny old man giggled. "Bet you had a boner up that kid's ass!"
"This isn't funny," Onoo said. "The Goddess Dance is in a short time, and we have gone through a lot of preparation. Suppose this spoils everything—what peace will we have on the planet?"
"Yes, really, brothers!" Aawkwa demanded. "This is no time to laugh. Where is he, the man you killed?"
Silence again. I felt my heart collapse. I wanted to say: "He was beautiful. The most beautiful creature I ever saw. I can't believe he would have killed me. I remember the way he looked at me that moment before Greeland killed him. I know I have been promised to Greeland, but he . . . was a strange miracle to me."
Miraculously, I didn't say a word.
We went back to Greeland's hut, and Greeland quickly skinned the small buck. I prepared a fire, and we roasted the meat, and then ate it in drab, unexpected silence with six of our friends. A short while later, the elders returned and we got up to lead them back to the body. The night was warm, misty and black. Swarms of dark, irritating flies and mosquitoes spun around the torches each of us carried. The torches kept vicious animals away, though no animal I'd ever seen had been as vicious as the handsome Off-Sexer.
"You were a long way off," Aawkwa said. "I can't believe that he found you all the way over here. He must have been crazed. These Off-Sex men, when they're in heat—I tell you, it's best to stay away from them."
"I'm glad I killed him," Greeland said. "It was for the good of both of us. I would do it again."
"Don't be so rash," Aawkwa said as we turned the final bend. He was directly behind Greeland, and I was behind him. There were eight old men behind us, including Onoo, who was having a hard time keeping up, and then behind them three younger couples, friends of Greeland's, with whom we had shared the small deer. I wanted to run behind to them, and ask what would my new life be like. Did they love each other? Wasn't being promised forever to each other painful? These questions came to my mind.
Then on a slight hill, under the same huge tree, I saw him, propped up, sitting as Greeland had left him. His head stiff; the dark, smooth-barked trunk holding his neck up. He looked terrifying. Pale. Naked. Ice cold. His mouth, though, looked beautiful. It was smooth and small, not coarse and wide like Greeland's. My hands shook. The old men and the young couples moved closer. Their torches flowed into a half-circle. Then they stopped.
With his eyes focusing intently, Aawkwa approached the naked corpse. He put his hands on the beautiful jaw and examined the throat. His head nodded. I heard him say in a whisper, "Very clean cut. No pain."
Greeland's eyes lowered. Proud. Pleased. "Enkidu passed me my hunting knife. He saved both our lives. This man would have killed us—both—on our meeting day!"
The word echoed around our friends, our brothers. "Dead, on their meeting day! The shameful bastards! Greeland! Greeland!"
They went up to embrace him. He smiled and took them in his arms, while other torches stayed on the Off-Sexer's sad face. I went up to Aawkwa. I felt excluded from Greeland's triumph. In truth, I hated it. I looked closer at the dead Off-Sexer, and Aawkwa put one of his hands on my shoulders. "Death is terrible," he said to me. "Even the death of enemies."
"You will not dismember the body more?" I asked. "Take off his head?"
"No!" Aawkwa said. "Who would do such a vile thing?"
I looked over at Greeland, still basking in the praise of the others.
"I wonder who he is," Aawkwa said, and he began to examine the body more, looking at it as he touched the chest and smooth shoulders.
"Put your torch closer," he said to me. I did, and Aawkwa's old eyes enlarged as he got a full view of the dead man. His hands trembled, while he held the body's jaw, turning the stiff neck. I had never seen him so frightened. "Oh, no. . . ." he sobbed.
I asked him what was wrong.
"Brothers! Brothers!" he shouted. His voice cracked. "Quiet . . . please."
"Quiet!" Greeland shouted, his face lit with his smile. "Aawkwa will make a speech on my behalf! Tell them that this will mark a new beginning of our relationship with the Off-Sexers. It will be a sign that they can never again do this to us! Never again!"
Aawkwa released the jaw, and the body fell forward with a soft thud on its stomach, exposing the haunches. There was now an observable blue bruise on them.
At the sound of the body falling, the others drew back from Greeland in silence.
"You defiled the corpse," Aawkwa said.
"Nothing of the sort," Greeland said. "Just from sitting. It is bruised, that's all."
"You can't lie," Aawkwa said. "We can not lie. It is right there on your face. Why are you trying to lie, Greeland?"
"I cannot help my own nature!" Greeland screamed. "Yes, I defiled the body, as he tried to defile us! As he tried to make us ashamed and hate what we are! As he would have taken Enkidu for himself and made him a slave, or killed him! Yes! Yes! I would have taken his head and brought it back to show you all!"
"No," Aawkwa said. "We don't do such things."
"Yes!" Greeland screamed, his voice raw with anger. "We don't do them—look what they do to us! Must we always be the victims of the Off-Sexers? I would send this brute back to them defiled, shit pouring out of his ass-opening. Or let them come for him," Greeland stopped to catch his breath, "as he is."
"We can't do that," Aawkwa sighed. His dejected head slid down to his chest. "We will have to bring him back ourselves to the temple of Ki." He sobbed openly and went up to Greeland and embraced him as tightly as possible.
"What's wrong? What?" Greeland asked. "I was defending myself. Defending both of us. He had no right to come at us and try to kill us in the forest."