SECRET OF THE TURTLE MEN, CHAPTER 4
THE SPAN OF TEN DAYS
by Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
When Pavel awoke the next morning, he was alone. He looked sleepily down at himself, and found himself splattered with sperm as he had expected, most of it light blue in color. Almost the same color as the leaves of trees in his valley's jungle; he wondered if the Ifriti were native to Desire or if this was merely coincidental coloring. His own white sperm, mostly dried, was white speckles here and there; he could see from its placement where the Ifriti cocks had coiled about his body.
What did he do now? The pink mist was gone from the cavern at the moment; he felt satiated and relaxed. If he was in fact all alone, his itinerary was to see about getting out of this place!
He arose and his body declared a more immediate plan of action. A call of nature, breakfast, and THEN escape, it decided.
The water in the small stream that flowed through the cavern handled the first problem; he let it carry his wastes away into the depths of the earth. He then went into the main cavern area for his clothing, and saw instead the large, shallow pool there. A short lounging time in the shallow pool in the main cavern let him soften and then rinse away the dried jism all over his body, and there was the last night's dinner scraps, quite substantial and still untouched from last night, which would make breakfast. He wondered where his captors were, as he picked up some fruit and carrying and eating it, went over to the edge of the cavern's mouth.
And looked down and down. No way out here! He wasn't going anywhere without rock-climbing equipment (which he didn't have the experience to use if he'd had it, so that would be a desperation gambit) or a ride down from an accommodating Ifriti. So, for now, he chose to wait.
He salvaged the edible remains of the dinner and threw the rest into the furnace pit after he saw that it was a long ways down and ended in a flow of molten rock. That puzzled him, such a hole should be venting sulphur, carbon monoxide or other noxious and dangerous fumes; all that actually came out was a very high heat. Again he was struck by the way the Ifriti either could adapt natural conditions or alter them to suit their purposes, this entire cavern was a little too usefully arranged to be accidental.
Done with this bit of housekeeping, he went back to the ledge and looked out and around. Below was a fair-sized valley given over entirely to cultivation. With their wings, the Ifriti had little need of wagon tracks, from the central river that was born somewhere beneath him to the hillsides to where nothing could be grown, plants bore lush fruit, and humans and Ifriti worked side-by-side to care for and nourish the plants. Pavel watched as one human finished and spoke to an Ifriti, who promptly grasped and carried him and his burden up to an opening on the cliff beside him. The single Ifriti struggled with the burden, but he was able to carry this load. Other men were engaged in the familiar ritual of Desire, pausing their work to relieve their bodies. From up here, Pavel could see nothing of this.
A set of flapping wings was heading his way. Isham, he could identify him now that he wasn't surrounded by his brothers who looked nearly like him. Isham alighted gracefully as a bird coming to perch and dropped into the squatting seat which seemed to be the alight position for an Ifriti.
"Well, little one, you are awake now?"
"Yes, thank you." Pavel said.
"I bear you news of your friends. Both of those we took were carried safely to the domains of the Angels and Djinni. Of the one who was left behind, we know nothing. The sukhusans were found abandoned. We assume he is hiding. I personally flew and called out for him, telling him you were safe and sound, and I offered to carry him up to join you. I heard nothing in return."
"Oh." Pavel said. Aram was alone in these mountains. Well, if Aram was to find him, it couldn't be here in this cliff-face. "Can I go down to the valley?"
"Of course." Isham said. "I came to get you for that very purpose. The mist blows steadily through the valley, as you have noticed?"
Pavel flushed, as he knew he did all too easily. "I noticed."
"It comes through vents in the earth. During the day, it is weaker and comes through the lowest vents only, but the mist rises and floods the caverns at night, as you noticed. During the day, you are quite safe and comfortable up here. Perhaps you would rather stay up here?"
"No, I want to see the valley." Pavel insisted.
Isham shrugged. "As you wish. If you will step into my arms that I may hold you in my embrace as I fly."
That was an intriguing choice of words! Pavel smiled and stepped into Isham's arms and they wrapped around him strongly and he was lifted bodily as Isham rose to his feet and stepped off the ledge.
They fell a short ways, Isham's wings beating strongly, and then their plummet became a controlled glide. Pavel looked down, found the prospect of being only a short distance above the ground more intimidating than the height of before, shuddered, and clutched Isham's body tightly.
"At ease, my little one." Isham chuckled. "I would not let harm come to you, who are my hope."
"What do you mean?" Pavel asked, but by then they were down, and Isham acted as if he hadn't heard Pavel's question.
"These are our servants, but they stay with us willingly. Tell me, are you willing to stay with us?" Isham asked.
"Uh, I haven't decided." Pavel temporized.
Isham shrugged. "We are not cruel to our servants. We need them, and they need us."
"But why do you need servants?" Pavel asked.
Isham looked at him, and though he made no human gesture or mode of face that would betray it, suddenly Pavel knew he was nervous. "Would you like to see?"
"Yes." Pavel said.
"We must go this way. Hurry, for the mist will claim you soon, and you must be at your full potency for this to work." Isham hurried Pavel along, on foot, and Pavel wondered at this.
They came to a row of plants that reminded Pavel of enormous flowers, twin trumpet-shaped yellow florets were there, hanging over his head like canary-colored bells.
"Now, you stand here." Isham pushed Pavel bodily into position directly beneath one of the flowers, and then moved over himself. "I stand over here."
"I don't understand." Pavel said.
Isham began a song, as if a human throat were imitating a bird song, but doing it with an expertise that no human could have managed. The trumpet-shaped flowers danced around them. Pavel worried, the trumpet was large enough that, if it were to drop over him, like it threatened with its quivering, it would engulf him entirely.
"Isham, no!" came a shout from far above. But Isham continued and as Pavel looked about to see from where the call came, the flower's trumpet dropped over him. His head was buried deep in the flower's cup, the top must be near his waist.
It spewed the mist upon him and around him. Pavel was unsurprised to feel Isham's cock snake up and wrap around his penis, he would have been surprised if it hadn't. Everything on this planet cooperated in driving humans to ecstasy, this was merely one more instance.
Isham's cock wrapped twice around Pavel's cock and then dove and buried its head in Pavel's ass. Pavel was lost in the rapture of the mist, covered in yellow, that turned his whole world into a yellow room, snug and perfumed and pleasant. Like the tent that Aram had brought with them, that they had shared by night, the four of them in a chaos of human passion.
That perfume, it was so heady, it filled his nostrils and his very essence and surrounded him, strong and sweet, it made his vision swirl and he was surrounded by geometric shapes and colors that he knew were entirely in his own mind.
Isham's cock was pumping him with a frenetic haste, and his cockhead was plunging into Pavel with rapid-fire strokes.
"No, Isham, no!" Ashmid called again, but it was a call of despair. Pavel wondered why, dimly, as he watched the shapes that somehow were the visual component of his lust, as if pleasure had become sight, and smell.
Lost in a yellow world...Isham milked his cock and pumped his ass and Pavel groaned his pleasure and his need. "Oh, ohhh!"
The flower pulsed with perfumed pleasure and his senses swirled in response and the lights turned now into a whirling kaleidoscope of exquisite, complex designs, his entire body was turned into this flower's perfume, it felt as if his body were boneless and flapping limply about, and Isham's cock was a staccato-rhythm in his anus, and Isham keened a groan of lust and Pavel felt the cock-shaft wrapped around his own ripple in a frenzy. He groaned, shot his wad into the empty air in front of him as Isham's jizz jetted into him. Pavel felt it pumping around his cock-shaft, like rippling tadpoles, then bursting into him, dribbling back out again, and he wondered at this odd sex even as his world exploded in a light-show he had never experienced by himself, even as he felt the flower around him withdrawing and leaving him alone.
And still his world was distorted into odd colors moving about, and he realized that the heady perfume of the flower had a hallucinogenic effect to it, he was lost in its illusions, and he dared not move, but instead sat down limply where he was, seated cross-legged, but his upper body fell forward and onto his forearms, and there he lay for a time.
Arms picked him up, voices moving in dismay, and Pavel knew they were speaking to him, but they did not communicate to him, and he looked about, wondering if these lights, these forms, were somehow related to what he was really seeing. If so, there was no relationship to size and distance, he still dared not move of his own.
He was lifted up into a pair of arms, as if a child, and the wind touched his body, and he knew he was airborne, and probably being carried by Ashmid or Isham back to the cavern. He had missed an opportunity to escape, though escaping in this state of mind was impossible.
Some unknown time of movement later, the colors and shapes still converging upon him in waves, he felt himself laid down in soft furs, and guessed he was back in the Ifriti's bed. He rested as well as he could, wondering how much time it would take before the effects of this toxic flower wore off.
An unknown time later, a minute or hour or hours, he heard voices speaking.
"Isham, can you hear me?" It was Ashmid's voice.
"I hear you, brother." Isham said groggily.
"Why did you do it?"
"Because...because this one will not stay. I could see it in his eyes as well as you. He only waits for a chance to leave us. I did not want to risk him going before he could help me form my eggs."
"You broke the custom." Ashmid said. "I must consult with the Council."
"Don't let them smash my eggs." Isham said in fear.
"That is the usual punishment."
"No." Isham whimpered. "It was why I did it, please, my brother, you can tell them that the human agreed."
"Did the human know what was to happen?"
"He asked why we needed them to be our servants."
"So you decided to show them."
"It...he would have refused. Please, brother, do not tell the Council."
"I will speak with the human when he is better." Ashmid compromised. "If he agrees to this...this total falsehood, I shall let him tell it to the Council. I shall not be a party to it myself more than this."
"Thank you." Isham's voice groveled.
"Rest, my brother." Ashmid said kindly. "We are preparing your nest."
"Thank you."
Pavel slept them, and even his dreams were in multi-colored dementia.
He awoke again, and now could tell that it was dark. He would not have awakened even then, were it not for the singing.
He blearily rose to one arm and looked. In the very back of the cavern, there had been six niches. One of these now bore an enormous collection of interwoven sticks and branches. A huge bird's nest! In this nest, Isham sat, and his brothers were around him, watching him. Isham was gasping in pain, in agony, sweat pouring off his face. He seemed to weaken further and further.
It felt important for Pavel to get to his feet, and he tried, managed only to crawl nearer to the Ifriti. He was weak as a kitten and knew that it would be days before this drugged state wore off him.
Ashmid saw him, and came to him. "No, rest further, little human. You will be recovered by tomorrow's sunset. Your body must rest and throw off the poison of the flower."
"What...what is Isham doing?" Pavel groaned feebly.
"He is laying his eggs. Four so far. There are always six in a clutch." A blood-chilling moan from Isham, and a murmur from the assembled Ifriti. "Five now. One egg left, and then he dies."
Clutch? Pavel knew the word, it was the word for the eggs laid and hatched by a single bird family. "He is giving birth?"
"Not as you humans know it." Ashmid said. "He is merely laying the eggs. When he has finished laying the eggs, he will die, and the eggs must be tended by another. They will hatch in forty days' time. Then the young are taken to our Council, who will teach the hatchling children, and care for them through their childhood."
But if an Ifriti died laying his eggs.... "But you never even see your children?"
"Never." Ashmid said quietly. "As I never saw the man who gave me birth."
"How long do you live?"
"One year." Ashmid said. "Nine months of childhood, two months of adult life, then there comes the urge, the time to mate, to lay the eggs, and thus to die. This is our life cycle, broken as it is, upon this world." His yellow eyes glowed at Pavel, filled with his need and urgency.
"Why...how can you...I mean." Pavel knew he was possibly going to offend Ashmid, but he had to know. "How can you even have a...a culture, a language, when you only live a year?"
Ashmid looked at him. "We were not thus, on our own world." he said. "We lived for many years, raised our children in several clutches over several mating cycles, then grew old and died. Only here, on this world of only males, do we live such a short time, for we cannot survive our first mating cycle."
"Is it the planet that does this?"
"Yes, we cannot create the eggs by ourselves without the help of the Blessed Flowers, and the Flowers will not assist us without a human to contribute his nourishment to the plant. With them, we are able to spark the eggs into life. On my world, the males only create the eggs. The female then takes them into her own body, to fertilize and finish them and she lays the egg. But without females...."
"...there is none to take the egg." Pavel understood. And he thought humans labored under the penalty of living without females! A single year of life....
"Yes, if we are to have children at all, we must awaken the eggs within us alone, and then with a human's help at the Blessed Flowers, they are given the final spark of life. The flowers make the eggs grow in us at a rapid rate, far too fast for our bodies to withstand the stress and so it is always fatal."
"But...what about the rest of you?" Pavel asked, striving to understand. "Will you wait until his eggs hatch to have your own?"
"We cannot. The eggs quicken inside us as they do, our first and only clutch. We cannot postpone the mating much longer. Even now, the yearning to mate, to build the nest, is growing." Ashmid looked away from Pavel, spoke so softly Pavel could scarcely hear him. "Unless you stay and help us, we must petition the Angels for a Turtle Man. They will perhaps do this, but they will ask much of us in return, more perhaps than we have to offer in trade for the services of a human for the forty days' time."
Ashmid looked back at Pavel. "That is why we took you, why we need you. We need you to stay when we are gone, to warm and protect the eggs until they hatch."
"I don't know." Pavel said slowly.
"I will not beg. But if you cannot do this for us, we will have no other choice but to try to trade for a Turtle Man from the Angels."
Another groan from Isham, and Pavel looked, saw him slumped over the nest. His Ifriti brothers arose and took him.
"Isham is dead." Ashmid said. "Without a human to guard the clutch until it hatches, to warm them and care for them through the days ahead, he will have died for nothing. Will you stay?"
What a choice! Pavel looked at him. "My friends, who were with me on the sukhusans, can you get a message to them?"
"I can." Ashmid said.
"Then carry word to them where I am." Pavel said. "Tell them that I shall be free to join them at the end of the forty days."
Ashmid smiled. "I will carry such a message with gladness."
"Then I will stay." Pavel agreed.