“I sat there, hearing no response to my words, and suddenly realized that she would know the part that I thought to myself as well. Just as I began to blush and to worry about her reaction, I felt a warm kiss brush lightly across my lips. I saw nothing, smelled nothing, tasted nothing at all; but that was definitely a kiss! And unlike any kiss I’d ever felt before. It was nothing like my sister kissing my cheek to comfort me. It wasn’t even like the woman who kissed my face for saving her child. This was my first kiss born of passion, and it lit a fire somewhere deep within me!
“The hide from the cave bear was huge. To give you an idea, a cave bear was two-thirds larger than the biggest grizzly bear of this era. I’ll guess they weighed between 1,500 and 2,000 lbs. Their head was enormous. More than twice that of that same grizzly. Each claw resembled the fangs of the great long-toothed cat that we feared so much.
“Fleshing and preparing hides for drying was something that I was well accustomed to. Because of my status within the tribe, I usually got the grunt work. I decided that I wanted the bear’s hide for my own, probably as badly as I had ever wanted anything in my entire life. Nobody in our tribe had one. Not even the chief. Surely it would elevate my status, just by possessing it. With considerable effort, I dragged the hide to a very large, smooth, rounded boulder and turned it fur side down. As I prepared for the process of scraping away the fat and bits of flesh, the goddess stopped me.”
‘Before you begin doing that Na, I would teach you a better way. Other humans, in other tribes, rub a deep layer of salt onto the wet inside surface at this point. Salt helps to draw out all liquids, and kills that which causes the hide to rot. I will teach you the best pieces of learning discovered by humans from all over the Earth, if you will but listen to me.’
‘I listen Gaia. But what is salt?’
‘Come,’ her voice said. ‘I will show you.’
“As she instructed, after starting the fire in the mouth of the cave with my hot coal, I lit a pitch covered torch for light and followed her voice deep within the cave, well past where the tiny stream of cold water ran down the wall and across the crack in the rock to where it pooled in the floor, before disappearing as it ran out the other side. When the ceiling began to lower, and the air began to feel very dry, her voice said, ‘This is salt.’
“The entire right side wall sparkled from the flicker of my torch. It was made completely of a pure white rock.”
‘Work loose two rocks of it the size of your head. Bring them back outside to where the bear hide is.’
“I did as instructed, and was surprised at how light the rocks were, compared to what I thought they would be. I sat one of the rocks in the middle of the bear hide, and began to crumble it by tapping it lightly around the edges with a hand-sized flint stone. The finer sized pieces were no bigger than grains of sand. At Gaia’s direction, I covered the entire hide evenly with all of the salt I’d brought, then I rubbed it in good with a small piece of rawhide on the heel of my hand.
“When I was finished, I was a sight to behold! I was literally covered in bear grease and gore. Gaia’s voice led me to a nearby stream that I had been unaware of.”
‘Make noise and talk as we walk,’ she told me. ‘I will compel every bear and long-toothed cat that I sense around us to forever avoid the sound and scent of humans, and to teach their offspring to as well.’
“When we reached the stream, I removed my clothes and tried to wash off the filth, with no luck. All I could do was smear the bear grease around on me further yet.”
‘Get a handful of sand from the bottom here, and a handful of silt from the still water next to the bank here. Mix them together, and wash yourself with it.’
“Amazingly, that worked really well. Before long, I was a clean, but nearly frozen boy. I picked up my clothes and hurried back to the cave, to the fire I knew would be there! After I warmed up some and dressed myself, I cooked some pieces of bear meat on thin green branches held just above the flames. I cooked a goodly sized pile of meat chunks, but as I settled down to eat them, I discovered that nearly half of them had disappeared.
“I sat near to the fire, enjoying the warmth of it while I ate, talking to Gaia. Her voice came from the opposite side of the fire from me, making me think that it came from the fire! She laughed loudly when that thought went through my mind.
“Late into the night, when my eyes began to grow heavy and my head began to nod, I unrolled my sleeping skins and placed them about five feet from the edge of the fire. I hadn’t added any wood to it lately, so it was becoming more of a bed of coals than a fire. It shouldn’t be popping and scattering sparks. Before climbing into the pile of skins, I went to the mouth of the cave and pissed over the overhang. I knew that this could be dangerous in normal circumstances, due to predators, but I felt secure with Gaia being with me talking to me. ‘I’m just getting into my skins to warm up,’ I told her, as I removed my clothing. ‘We can still talk.’
‘After every winter, for quite a while now, the numbers of your tribe have grown smaller,’ she told me. ‘I became resigned to the fact that before many more winters passed that it would die out. Because of you, I will do what it takes to change that. Your tribe’s problem is inadequate nutrition. That means not having enough good food to eat all year long. Your people starve during the winter. Starving women cannot make babies. It is as simple as that.
‘Long ago, the reindeer here had the same problem. They nearly all died. They like to eat the grasses and the leaves and sprouts of the willow trees near the marsh. When the snow came in the winter, and covered the marsh so deep that they could no longer get enough to eat, they began to starve. The does could not grow the fawns in their bellies. I fixed that, by compelling them to climb the mountain before winter, and then I taught them to eat mosses, mushrooms, bark, and stems along with the smaller amounts of grass to be found up there. Because they did not have to work so hard to find food during the winter, they didn’t need as much food as they would in the valley. They no longer starved.
‘After that problem was solved, I began to compel selective breeding, over time, to yield more muscle mass on their legs and shoulders, to make the yearly climb easier. Also a larger stronger heart, to improve the amount of blood they could have. I chose those that reproduced most successfully, and whose offspring survived the best until sexually mature themselves. Meanwhile, I removed the weaker and less desirable through various means…
‘There is no reason why the same thing would not work with your tribe, Na. They need better food during the winter, so they can become pregnant and grow the babies in their bellies during the winter, without starving or having to work so hard for it. The numbers of your tribe will be greater than those of your Neanderthal neighbors in no time.’
“My eyes would no longer stay open, though I listened to what she said. I found myself drifting towards sleep, and wriggled deeper into the skins with a shiver. Gaia became silent for a moment, and I opened my eyes to check the fire one last time before sleeping. I thought I was dreaming when I saw a female figure appear out of nowhere. She was naked, and more beautiful than any other. The light from the fire danced upon her perfectly white skin, making it shimmer with every color of the rainbow. She was very short and slender, but well toned. Much smaller than any woman I had ever seen. She had very small breasts compared to the women from my tribe. She had no hair on her head, nor on her body. Not even eye brows or lashes. Her eyes were much larger proportionally to her face, and were ice blue. Her lips were full and red, her teeth straight and white. I only saw her for a moment, because she slid quickly beneath the skins with me!
‘Wha--?’
‘Sshh… Enough talking for this night.’
“Her little body was much warmer than mine, and it felt good when she snuggled up to me, skin-to-skin. She pulled the hides over our heads, so that was the end of my looking at her, but the beginning of so much more. She kissed me again, like she had the last time, only fully, and with urgency. She caressed my face, and then
my neck with her powerful, soft, warm, little hands. Then she climbed atop me. I felt her bare back and bottom with my hands, and then I held her perfectly bald head as we kissed. Being inexperienced with women, I hesitated, pondering my next move. She must have sensed that, because with one fluid motion, she lowered herself over my manhood. I was lost in sensation. I had no thought of the passing of time. There was only pleasure, unlike anything I’d ever imagined.
“I became aware of her licking my face, and then the left side of my throat. It felt wonderful. And then… She bit me, and sucked. As I recognized what she was doing, and thought to protest, my entire body convulsed with orgasm. It was nothing like I had experienced before while pleasuring myself, as boys tend to do. This was a ‘lose all control of yourself’ toe curler! I barely remembered her licking my throat over and over again, right where she’d bitten me, as I lost consciousness.
“I awoke a short while later to feel her lying beside me, rubbing one hand lightly over my chest. As soon as I moved to speak to her, she was atop me again, with her lips clamped to mine. The whole process repeated itself, with no complaints from me, at least several more times during the night.
“When I awoke in the morning, she was gone. Had I dreamed the whole thing? I immediately checked my throat with the fingers of my left hand. Nothing. No wound to be found. I wiggled all of my fingers and toes, shifted my shoulders and bent my knees. I felt great! Convinced it was nothing more than a dream, I flung off the skins and stood. The smell of sex invaded my senses immediately. It had been no dream!
“I went to the mouth of the cave to piss, and asked aloud if she was there. No answer. While replaying last night’s events in my head as best as I could, I busied myself fueling the fire with enough wood to keep it alive during the day. I placed a skewer of bear meat on the forked limb I’d propped up between rocks on the floor and positioned it to cook, while I went to my water skin for a drink. I asked aloud if she was back there. No answer. I returned to the fire and sat turning the meat and remembering last night with a smile on my face.
“After eating my fill, I went outside to check on the bear hide. Nothing had bothered it. The salt had absorbed liquids, darkened and turned crusty. I decided that I may as well begin work on the carcass of the great bear, so I got my flint blade and went to remove a limb. There was no possibility of my even rolling it over, because it weighed so much. I marveled again at how that tiny little body of Gaia’s was capable of such strength!”
‘You cannot compare the strength of a god to the strength of a human animal,’ I heard in my head. ‘Before you begin cutting this carcass apart, I have more to teach you. Light your torch again, and go to where I have shown you the salt. Take your blade with you.’
“I followed her directions without question.”
‘Scrape the salt from the wall with your blade evenly, beginning at the highest place, where the salt touches the stone. Make a pile of it where the stone floor meets the stone wall behind you. You will bring all of the limbs of the great bear and lay them on that pile of salt, arranged closely together, but not touching. Then you will scrape more salt from the wall; enough to cover them all in a thick layer. You will repeat that until all of the meat is covered completely with the salt.
‘With the meat buried in salt like that in this very dry cool place, that which causes it to rot will be unable to. It cannot enter the salt. Then, as your tribe requires meat, you simply dig a piece out, making sure that none of the rest is left exposed to the air. The outside of the meat will have a thin hard crust on it, like you saw on the hide, but inside it will be normal meat, like you are used to. Meat stored here like that will be good all winter. Now go, and do as I have told you.’
“After following the simple steps she had given me, to store the bulk of the meat from the bear’s carcass, I spent the rest of that day separating smaller bits of meat from the thick layers of fat from the carcass, piling the fat on the cold rock, and slicing the bits of meat into yet thinner pieces, which I rubbed thoroughly with salt. She instructed me to skewer the slices of meat onto long slender green willow branches that were collected from the side of a nearby stream, leaving space between each piece of meat and that next to it so air could travel between them. These were allowed to dry in the sun, as I worked on doing the rest.
“Later, I shook off as much of the salt crust as I could, and the skewers were arranged horizontally on, and spaced apart vertically by flat shale rocks around a very small fire in the cooking pit outside the mouth of the cave. They were placed farther back from the fire than for cooking, and I constantly turned them, so all sides dried evenly. Gaia explained that the idea was not to cook the meat, but to use the heat and the smoke to dry it. I understood that easily. After the meat was almost hard to the touch, she instructed me to let the fire almost go out, add some well wetted wood. Then to cover it over with one of my smaller skins, again, raised up by rocks. That smoked the meat thoroughly.”
‘Now you know how to smoke meat in small pieces that you can easily store or carry in your shoulder bag anywhere you go. You know how to store large pieces in the cave, in the salt, all winter. Tomorrow, I will show you how to use the brain of the bear, to tan its hide. That will make a much longer lasting hide, that is softer to the touch, and doesn’t smell rancid, (bad) like your rawhide skins.’
They smell bad? I never noticed any smell.
‘If you are to lie with me, and to enjoy my body, you must learn to be aware of your own cleanliness, so I enjoy it too. There are plenty of stinky Neanderthals available to me in this world,’ she said, in a more authoritative voice than usual.
“No way was I going to miss out on that! It had never occurred to me, (or any of my people, most likely) until that moment, that regular bathing should be a thing. Come to think of it, she did smell and taste much better than any of the people I had ever had contact with. Every conversation with Gaia was a learning experience for me. She didn’t make me feel bad about what I had been clueless of before. Rather, she made me feel eager to see what she would reveal to me next.
“I spent a great deal more time washing myself in the cold stream that afternoon than I had the day before. I even tore off a handful of purple flowers from a bush that she called lavender, and lightly dried my body with them. I used the stem of a plant that she called mint to chew, and to clean my teeth with. Anything that pleased her, was fine with me. I tried not to think about the sense of excitement I felt whenever I thought about her, or the sense of longing for her that I felt whenever she wasn’t with me in some form. I was sure that she would know these thoughts, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted her to. I had no concept of embarrassment at that time.
“That night as we lay together she didn’t bite me, but she spent a lot of time teaching me about kissing her all over. Also, there were several places on my hands and arms that I had cut or scraped badly with my blade, while learning to use it to process the bear meat as she’d taught me. She spent a lot of time rubbing and licking those wounds. It didn’t bother me that she did that, as it didn’t hurt. It actually felt good.
“In the morning, those scrapes and cuts were nowhere to be found! It was as if they had never existed. There were no scabs or scars. Just perfect, unblemished skin!”
“That is what I am doing right now for you Thia. When you wake, your face and throat wounds will be gone. You will not be able to find any evidence that they ever existed. I could erase the whole frightening incident from your mind later, if you wish. For now, I’ll leave them alone.”
CHAPTER 4: NICHOLAS
‘Today, I will show you another way to cook food, that a tribe in a far away place has invented, if you wish to learn,’ Gaia offered, drawing my attention away from myself.
‘I have never been far away,’ I answered. ‘This mountain and this valley are all I know. What do I need to bring?’
“She laughed. ‘Nothing! I will transport us there, as I transported us here to the cave, after the bear incident. Instantly. T
his time though, we will arrive in the camp of these people in another dimension, just to watch what they do. Like what I did when you fled to the camp of the Neanderthal and stayed to feast. I watched, but no one there could see me. We will be able to see and hear them, but they will not be able to see or hear us. We must be careful not to touch them though. It would frighten them terribly.’
“Gaia disappeared, then reappeared dressed in strange clothes that were not made from skins. She wore short pants the color of her skin, and a loose shirt to match. White. ‘It will be much warmer where we go than it is here,’ she warned. ‘You will not need much clothing. No one but I will see you.’
“Rising, I dressed myself only in my loincloth. She reached out and took my hand in hers. As fast as I could blink my eyes, we arrived to what is now called Africa, to a clearing in a jungle, where a large tribe of people that looked very much like me were busy with their daily life. They seemed to have no idea that we were there, just as she had said.
“As I looked about us in awe, I asked, ‘How did you do that?’ in a quiet whisper.
‘They can’t hear us,’ she told me, in a normal voice. ‘No need to whisper. I have been here before, so I remember where it is. All I need to do, to go anyplace I remember, is to think it. I will teach you how later.’
‘You will? Thank you! But, how did you find it the first time?’
‘You are a smart one! Long ago, I flew over the jungle here, slow enough to see things in detail. I remembered this place, as I thought it a perfect spot to bring humans to one day. Eventually, I did.’
‘You can fly?’
“She laughed at my excitement. ‘Of course!’
‘Will you teach me that too? What else can you do?’
‘We can talk about that another time. Right now, we are here to see cooking!’
‘Yes, Gaia,’ I agreed.
The young woman turned again in her sleep. Her now unblemished face was snuggled tightly against my chest, and her right arm had curled itself loosely around my body. I had a perfect view of the presently flawless spanse of creamy skin that was her throat, complete with the pulsing of her heart just beneath it inside of the jugular vein that I had fixed, as it returned the deoxygenated blood from her brain, back to itself. This was a little too much for me, so I carefully extracted myself from beneath her, and arranged her head upon a soft pillow, laid across the arm of the couch. I moved to the recliner, directly in front of her, where I could watch her closely and continue my story.
GENESIS (Tales of the Lesser Gods Book 1) Page 3