Page 18 of Caveman Alien’s Horn (Caveman Aliens #26)

18

- Sprisk -

“It look like pleasure for you ,” Cora sniffs. “Playing with poor Big who just wanted to murder and eat. For me, very work trying to see you fight.”

I put my loincloth back on, struggling to get it to cover my half-erect cock. “I tried to make it fun to look at. Next time I’ll keep my clothes on.”

She strokes her knuckles along my bulge. “No, better off. Is more fun. You did wear the Big out?”

“I tired it out, but then I wanted to make sure it left for good. I had to give it a little stab with my horn.” I tap the tip, where there’s a drop of dinosaur blood. “It was just a little tap on his tail. It won’t kill him.”

She strokes along my chest, raising the usual rainbow. “Thank you. You not kill Big, and I notice he also not kill you. Very good Sprisk and also nice Big.”

“I am a good Sprisk,” I modestly agree, still excited about the easy victory over the unusual Big. I’ve never done anything like it before, but with Cora around, I want to be at my best. The danger of toying with the Big was just about right to make the victory something to be proud of. “No Sprisk is better Sprisk than Sprisk. Now I have to become a clean Sprisk.” I drag Cora with me down into the creek and clean my horn in the water.

“I like Sprisk, if clean or not,” she says, taking the opportunity to clean her feet. “Also I notice thing.”

“What?”

“The roots.” She points to the thin layer of mushroom roots above us. “I see where we took roots before. Now thin roots is back. Is because grows one thin root from one side, and one from other. Very stiff roots. They meet in middle. Then are one root again and can grow thick.”

I shake my horn in the air to get the water off, then retract it into my head. “So that’s how it works. It means we have an infinite source of roots and strings and so on.”

“Infinite,” Cora repeats. “What means?”

“Something so big that it goes on forever,” I explain as I grab her waist and lift her with me as I climb out of the creek channel. “In every direction.”

“ Okay. Oh, look. The sun are setting.”

“The sun is setting,” I gently repeat, the way we do with the young boys when they’re just learning to speak correctly. “That means it must be time for our evening meal.”

“Mhm. Sprisk.” Cora’s fingers tap playfully on my stomach, creating many little rainbow-colored spots that fade immediately.

“Yes?”

“I had work. Watching you fight and play. Now I must get pleasure. Is the rule.”

My cock hardens immediately. “That is the rule, yes. Come along.” I lift her off her feet, because I enjoy having her in my arms, and carry her into the tree and up the nets to our favorite place.

She sheds all her garments and drops them casually to the net below us. “I want try new thing.”

I whisk my loincloth off, and my cock strains skywards, ready for anything Cora may suggest. “I like new things.”

The net sways and bobs as she turns around, gets up on her knees, lies her chest down, and pushes her bare behind up in front of me, displaying all of her most interesting parts in a quite incredible way. “Can do something with this?”

The sight makes my cock nearly explode by itself, twitching wildly. It’s almost enough to get a poor Foundling to believe in the Ancestors and their endless mercy and goodness.

“Let us try,” I croak.

- - -

W hen we finally get around to cooking and eating the evening meal, the blue glow from the mushrooms all around the edge of the clearing is noticeably stronger.

“Is almost too much,” Cora says as she chews on grilled meat. “Very bright now. Maybe must attract Bigs?”

“Or repel them,” I counter. “That Big today was the only one I’ve ever seen here. They really don’t like coming here. But we’ll stay vigilant.”

“Vigilant,” Cora repeats. “What means?”

“Being awake, being watchful.”

“Oh. Important to be vigilant in the jungle.”

I gently cuff her shoulder in agreement, impressed that she learns so fast. “Exactly. And we are still in the jungle, although this clearing sometimes feels like it’s part of something else.”

“Feels strange,” Cora says. “The mushrooms.”

I glance over to the middle of the clearing, where the center mushroom is getting very eye-catching with its blue-white sheen. “It does.” I keep looking, because there’s something moving in the light from that sheen. “Stay still.” I get up and feel my skin change to a dark, fire-flickering shade all by itself. My horn extends on instinct.

I watch as the moving shape comes closer. When it’s still fifty paces away, it lifts one hand in greeting. It’s a hand with only one finger.

I quickly walk over to him. “Bakitan. What are you doing here? At night?”

The boy looks up at me, nervous. “It took a long time to find you. I only knew the direction, not the distance.”

“But why would you want to come here in the first place?” I’m not too happy about this. The last thing I want is for anyone else to know about this clearing. It’s mine.

“The clan,” Bakitan says quickly. “They are angry.”

“Oh? About what?”

“About you. Being gone. And they know that the woman isn’t in her home.”

“Did you tell them?”

“No! I didn’t tell them. But they asked. They know we’re friends. I said I didn’t know.”

I stare blindly into the jungle. It was bound to happen, I suppose. They would find out that Cora was gone from her tree. Either the gray ghosts somehow told them, or that damn dragon found out, or the alien women went there to see her. Or it was something else entirely. It doesn’t matter. But I believe that Bakitan didn’t tell them. It’s not his way to lie. And he’s here now, in a well-meant attempt to warn me.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You must be hungry. Come.”

He walks with me over to the campfire.

“Greetings, Woman Cora,” the boy says respectfully.

“Greetings,” she repeats with a little smile. “Just Cora, please.”

“Yes, Cora.”

“My clan knows that you are not in your tree,” I tell her. “If they know, your friends know, too.”

“Is all right that they know,” Cora says. “It not matter where I live. They worried?”

“Are they?” I prompt when Bakitan doesn’t answer.

“I don’t know,” Bakitan says, nibbling on a slice of meat. “The women in the clan don’t talk to me much. But Brak says it’s strange that Sprisk and Cora are gone at the same time.”

“Do it matter?” Cora calmly asks. “We are together. And we are safe. Is all right if tell them, I think.”

“We can do what we want,” I agree, feeling much better about everything because Cora seems to feel at home here, just the way she should. “If we want to stay here, then that is our choice.”

“But not say where are we,” Cora adds. “Better if they not know.”

Bakitan grabs another piece of meat. “Brak says that the clan expects its members to not turn good friends into enemies.”

“Brak says many things,” I say mildly. “Did he take you aside and say it?”

“No. He said it at the campfire where everyone can hear.”

“But it was really meant only for you?”

Bakitan freezes with the slice of grilled meat halfway to his mouth as if that just occurred to him. “Oh. Maybe. I think so. Maybe. Yes.”

“It would be just like Brak to not single Bakitan out for that,” I explain to Cora. “By saying it to everyone in the clan, he knew the message would reach me, although he was sure that Bakitan would be the messenger. Bakitan and I have been together a lot.” I stare out at the edge of the clearing where he came in. Was that a small movement? “Bakitan, were you followed here?”

“No. I left while everyone was sleeping.” The reply comes so firmly that I’m sure it’s true. Any clansbrother knows to be extremely careful in the jungle.

“So my Foundling clan doesn’t like that one of its members has gone away with an alien woman,” I sum up. “And now they’re worried that the other alien women will be angry with the clan because of it. Those alien women are very important members of the Borok and Tretter tribes. The clan does not want to be seen as enemies.”

For a while the only sounds are the crackling from the fire and the chewing sounds from Bakitan.

“Bakitan,” Cora finally says. “You can say to other women that I are safe. And not in danger. I are fine. Not look for me.”

“Yes, Cora,” he replies.

“And when Brak asks you, you can tell the truth,” I add, unspeakably happy about Cora’s answer. “Except where we are. Make sure they don’t find out. We like being alone here.”

“I will return to the camp from the wrong direction,” the boy promises, relieved. “Not leaving a trail.”

I slap his back gently. “Good man. Have some fruit juice. What are they talking about in the clan, except for me?”

“Outcasts,” Bakitan says after gulping down most of the pot of juice. “There are new ones now. Noker says it’s because there are women here. In the tribes and clans. The outcasts don’t have a turf to watch, so they can go anywhere they want. He says all the outcasts in the jungle are probably on their way here. They all want women.”

I frown. “On their way here? ”

“On their way to the Borok and Tretter turf,” he clarifies. “And the clan’s camp. Where the women are. They say the rumors are spreading fast.”

“What turf is this?” Cora asks, pointing to the ground.

Bakitan and I look at each other.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Turf is something that the tribes care about a lot, but Foundlings usually don’t.”

“Too far from the Borok village to be Borok turf,” Bakitan says like a seasoned tribesman. “And the Tretter tribe is even further away.”

Cora and I smile at each other at the boy’s precocious ways.

“All right,” I state. “Then we know that. You’ll stay here until tomorrow, Bakitan. I don’t want you out in the jungle at night if there’s any way to avoid it.”

“It’s not so bad,” he says, sending a longing look to the stack of uncooked meat slices. “I only saw four Bigs on the way here. None chased me.”

“Even so,” I decide. “Sleep here by the fire. Cora and I will be nearby, but you won’t see us. Yell if someone comes. Cook as much meat as you want, just leave us some for our breakfast tomorrow.”

He snatches four slices and puts them on the flat cooking rock. “Thank you. What’s that?” He points to the loom.

“That’s a loom , something we’re making,” I tell him, not really sure myself. “It’s not finished.”

“I like those things with the light,” he says and nods to the circle of mushrooms.

“The mushrooms keep the Bigs away,” I tell him. “Mostly, anyway.”

“Mushrooms,” he repeats. “I’ve never seen them before.”

“Neither have I,” I admit. “But Cora has seen many on her planet, Earth.”

“Not just like this,” she corrects, hiding a yawn. “Smaller on Earth. These very big.”

We leave Bakitan to his dinner and go inside the tree. The door is on the other side from the campfire, so the boy can’t see exactly where we went. I want to keep some secrets from him.

Back in the net, with the oil lamps burning and slowly being extinguished, we do something that Cora calls ‘making love’ in her language. It’s like Mating, but slower and longer and better.

When she finally screams out her climax, and I spray inside her with a feeling of complete victory; I feel as if we’re one thing, one being, the same.

I’ve never been happier. She said she was safe and not in danger.

She belongs with me now. Here, in the old tree. In the safe mushroom clearing.

But , comes the unpleasant thought again, she doesn’t know what I did before .

“I will tell her,” I whisper in the darkness as the last oil lamp goes out. “Then she can decide.”

When I get up at sunrise the next morning, Bakitan has already left. He’s thoughtfully buried some carefully wrapped slices of meat in the hot ash of the fire, so that they will be cooked before our breakfast.

I check on them and decide to leave them to cook as I go into the jungle to set a trap. It’s fine to go hunting once every two days, but it takes time away from the building of the loom. Also, since I caught a gresk the other day, there are probably more. Cora really liked the meat from that one, and I want her to be as happy as I am.

I have some trouble finding a way to get out of the clearing and past the mushrooms. They’ve grown a great deal in the past few days, and some of them are now nearly as tall as me. But ducking my head under their caps, I’m able to slip out between two of them.

The jungle beyond is the way it’s always been, hot and humid and alive. Bakitan’s talk about outcasts does worry me a bit. The two I already had to deal with are probably not a threat anymore, but I think he’s right when he says that every outcast in the jungle will want to look for the women. And I have one of them.

I set four snares, made from the mushroom root strings. They should be more than strong enough to catch gresks and keep them alive until I can get them. I should check on them tonight, before sunset.

When I return to the clearing, Cora is sitting at the fire, drinking fruit juice and cooking some of the bulbous prast roots I’ve gathered. Seeing her there, calmly acting the way she would at her own home, makes me feel all warm inside. There she is, my woman.

I can see when she notices me. Her whole body relaxes, and a smile spreads on her unbelievably beautiful face.

I walk over, bend over, and kiss her. “The mushrooms are growing fast. I will build a frame that they can’t fill. A doorway into the clearing, a portal that’s hidden for everyone but us.

“Can you eat first?” Cora asks and holds out a small wooden skewer with a steaming prast on it.

I take the whole skewer and sit down. “Of course.”

She digs the pack of meat slices out of the embers and unwrap it. “This is good way to cook them.”

“Bakitan did that,” I tell her. “It’s how we sometimes cook meat in the camp.”

She looks up at me and plucks a strand of withered grass off my arm. “And now it’s how we sometimes cook meat here .”

I laugh for no particular reason. I’m just happier than I thought I could ever be. “It is indeed.”