From: Boy-writer <bstory@anon.nymserver.com>
Subject: Story:  "Caveboy"  (full version)  (M/b)
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 00:00:00 GMT

Caveboy
-------

It is 10,000 B.C.E., somewhere in Europe.  The red cave tribe huddle about
their fires, trying to keep warm.  The temperature in the smoky cave is only
about 40 degrees F, but outside it is much colder; a cutting wind blows
through the valley off the polar icecap.

It has been many days since the last hunt, and the tribe's food, pieces of a
mammoth that had frozen to death, are nearly gone.  Some of the women are
boiling bones now, placing hot stones, snow and bones in leather pouches. 
Some members of the tribe are sick.  All are hungry, and their eyes glance
hopefully at the cave opening, hoping the storm will break so the men can
hunt again.

Ar-um cannot hunt yet; he is only eleven years old.  He would go if they
would let him, for he is very hungry, having subsisted these last few days
on whatever scraps he could beg from other fires, other families.  Now they
have no scraps to give him.  He lies under his fur blanket, crying softly,
wishing his father were still alive.

Mer-ti looks sorrowfully at her son, but there is nothing she can do.  When
her husband Ok-tar fell through the ice of the frozen lake and died, she was
herself in Ar-um's position.  Neither a boy nor a woman can live without a
man to hunt for them - participation in the hunt is what gives one a right
to a portion of the food.

Mer-ti is old, nearly thirty, no longer in her prime.  She is lucky that
Sil-ak would take her.  He is a mighty hunter, and she is his third and
least important wife.  Nevertheless, she will eat.  Sil-ak did not want
Ar-um, a boy who eats but cannot hunt, who is not of Sil-ak's loins.

The other members of the tribe are sorry for Ar-um and would give him food
if they had it to spare, but they do not.  He remains a member of the tribe
and can stay in the cave as long as he likes, and if it were summer he could
subsist by gathering roots and berries in the countryside.  Perhaps he could
even hunt small animals alone.  Maybe if he were successful at that they
would let him join the men's hunt.  But it is winter.

Ar-um looks around at the other fires, at the other children.  Druk is
sitting in his father's lap.  Ar-um will never sit with Ok-tar again.  Ar-um
will die.  The tribespeople will be sad and will say rites for him, but they
will let him die.  He is useless, and there is no food for him.  He cries
again, then sleeps, dreaming that his father is still alive and Ar-um is
riding on his shoulders.  They are eating antelope and playing in the lake.

He wakes up, cold, his fire having almost gone out.  Ar-um curses himself;
it shows once more how useless he is.  Fortunately no one sees it; they are
all asleep.  Quickly he feeds the fire, blowing on it to bring it back to
life.  He sits tending it, rubbing himself for warmth.  He knows he will
die.

Or perhaps not - a thought occurs to Ar-um that makes him shudder.  He tries
to drive it away, but it comes back.

He remembers the stories.  Great hunters and fighters like Sil-ak have as
many wives as they wish; other men have none.  Sometimes boys have become
wives for the other men.  The story is hard to remember because the genders
are wrong, and it sounds unnatural to the ear.  A boy who is a wife becomes
for the tribe's purposes a woman, referred to by the feminine pronoun.  He
sews clothing, tends the fire, and cooks food like a woman.  But he is less
than a woman, less even than a child - the least member of the tribe.  His
womb cannot bear fruit, cannot provide his warrior with a son.  He is
cursed, and may not look anyone in the eye, lest his curse be spread.  The
shaman will cut off his balls with a flint knife to signify his loss of
manhood.  The boy acquires a new name - a woman's name.

It is almost too much to think of, but Ar-um must think of it.  He thinks of
walking out into the snow, joining with the wolf-spirit, or perhaps the
bear-spirit.  But he wants to live.  He wants to eat.  He makes a decision.

With a sick feeling, Ar-um glances around at the sleeping men, the men who
do not have wives.  Some are old and will not be able to hunt much longer. 
They will die, and Ar-um will be alone again.  Some are young and will take
a girl for a wife when they get older.  They will not want Ar-um.  There are
only two men left.  Al-kar is in his early twenties, Ur-zak perhaps a bit
older.  They are strong men compared to Ar-um, or compared to
twentieth-century men, but they are weak compared to the other men of the
tribe.  Neither could win the combat to get a wife.  Al-kar limps from a
fall in a rocky canyon when he was a child, the bone never properly mended. 
Ur-zak does not limp, but he is weak and does not fight - his head hangs low
before the other men.  Ar-um is dismayed at them, but he must choose one.

And he feels that he must do it tonight, while the rest of the tribe are
asleep, or he will not be able to bear the shame.  But do what?  How does a
boy become a wife?  The stories do not say.  Ar-um has seen many men
mounting their wives when he was younger, before he learned that it was
impolite to look into another man's fire without permission.  Many times he
has seen Sil-ak's mighty cock pounding into the pussies of his two wives,
the great hunter's head thrown back in ecstasy, his woman moaning beneath
him, her hands travelling spasmodically over her husband's shoulders, sides
and back.  Ar-um knows that as a wife he must take his husband's cock into
him, but he does not know where, since he has no pussy.  He looks at himself
as if to make sure, but no magic has given him one.  He pokes his finger
into his perineum, trying to see if a vagina will appear, but it does not. 
Then, with a shameful blush, he realizes.  He will do with his husband what
Kal-per sometimes does with his wife.  Ar-um will take it in his behind.

Gulping, Ar-um walks over to Al-kar's fire.  He has chosen Al-kar because he
is younger and stronger, though he limps.  The man sleeps on his back, his
bearded face fierce even in sleep, his powerful arms outspread.  His strong,
hairy chest moves up and down softly; it reminds Ar-um of Ok-tar.  A fur
blanket covers Al-kar below the tits; he lies on another.  Dried mammoth
meat lies behind the man in a leather pouch, next to the cave wall.

Ar-um does not know what to do.  He fears waking the man, but he must. 
Al-kar will think he is begging for food and beat him, then tell him to go
back to his own fire.  Ar-um will need to make his intentions clear.  He has
seen girls lift their furs before a man, to entice him, to make him take
them as a wife.  Ar-um must do the same.

The boy reaches out and grabs Al-kar's powerful bicep and shakes him. 
Al-kar shifts in his sleep but does not wake.  Tentatively, Ar-um reaches
out again and shakes him harder.  In a flash, Al-kar is awake and angry; his
hand clutches his spear.  Ar-um shakes with fear but does not run.  His eyes
focusing, Al-kar drops the spear, but his face is angry as ever; he glances
at his mammoth meat.

Ar-um does not want to speak and risk awakening the tribe.  He shakes his
head.  Al-kar glares at him and raises his hand to strike.  Ar-um cowers
before him, then on his hands and knees, turns around and lifts the fur
covering his bottom.  He lets the fur fall back and looks at Al-kar.  The
man glares at him, uncomprehending; Ar-um fears that he has misunderstood
the advance as an insult.  Ar-um turns back around and lifts his fur to his
armpits, then wiggles his behind a little.  Leaving the fur up this time,
shivering with cold and fright, he looks back.  Al-kar seems less angry, but
he still does not understand and is growing impatient.  Desperately, Ar-um
wiggles his bottom more exaggeratedly.  It still does not work.  Al-kar is
growing angry again.

Fearing the cuff that may come at any moment, Ar-um walks over to the ledge
where Al-kar lies, his head hung in submission.  Al-kar watches in
amazement.  When he is close enough, Ar-um reaches out toward the fur that
covers Al-kar, finding the bulge made by the man's genitals.  Brazenly, he
reaches out and squeezes the man's limp cock through the fur, then quickly,
before Al-kar can strike him, Ar-um gets down on his hands and knees and
exposes his behind once more, wiggling it meaningfully.

When he looks back, Al-kar is looking at him.  Their eyes meet for a long
while, then Ar-um looks down.  He realizes his seduction has failed.  He
covers his behind and stands up, walking away with his head hanging.  Ar-um
knows now that he is completely useless, not even good enough to be the wife
to a cripple.  He will walk out into the snow and join with the wolf-spirit.

As he walks off, however, a rough hand grabs his skinny arm and spins him
around.  It is Al-kar, and his face is fierce.  Ar-um thinks he will be
killed for waking this hunter and insulting him.  He is afraid, then
realizes that he will still join with the wolf-spirit when his body is cast
out of the cave.  His arm hurts in the man's rough grasp, but his toes
tingle with the thought of accompanying the mighty wolf on his hunt.

Al-kar does not kill the boy, though.  He pulls him forward, back to the
man's fire.  Al-kar lifts Ar-um's fur over his head, and the boy stands
naked, shivering in the cold, his head bowed in submission.  Al-kar softly
orders him to turn around, and Ar-um does so.  The man shoves the tip of a
large dry finger into his behind, and Ar-um grunts in pain.  The finger is
shoved in further, and Ar-um grunts again, clenching his teeth.  His teeth
begin to chatter in the cold.

The finger is withdrawn.  Ar-um looks back.  Al-kar has lifted his fur
blanket!  It has worked after all!  Ar-um leaps forward, trying to snuggle
up with Al-kar.  The man holds him back and sternly points at his feet. 
Ar-um is to get down by Al-kar's feet, not his head.  Obediently, his head
bowed, Ar-um gets under the fur with Al-kar's crippled leg.  The fur is
closed over his head.

Now it is completely dark.  Ar-um can see nothing, but he feels the welcome
heat of the man's body and breathes in the full intensity of his scent.  The
boy knows the scent of every man and woman of the tribe (children like
himself being indistinguishable as to scent), but never has he experienced
such a strong smell as this, having never lain under a man's blanket with
him.  It is overpowering, making Ar-um dizzy as he rests his head against
Al-kar's hip.

But Al-kar will not let Ar-um rest.  He grabs the boy's head under the
blanket and pushes it down onto his crotch.  Roughly Ar-um's face is pressed
into Al-kar's now-erect cock, the pubic hair getting in the boy's nose and
nearly making him sneeze.  Ar-um does not know what to do.  Impatient,
Al-kar lifts his head and shoves it back down again, and again.  Ar-um still
does not understand what is required of him, but he opens his mouth to
breathe.  Al-kar moves the boy's head up and down on his cock, Ar-um's lips
moistening it.  Angry again, Al-kar whispers, ordering the boy to lick.  Now
that Ar-um knows what to do, he licks eagerly, his taste buds quickly
growing numb with the intense saltiness of the man's skin.  Al-kar sighs,
evidently pleased, and Ar-um works up some more spit, licking the man's cock
intently, cautiously lifting it from where it lies in its nest of hair to get
it completely wet.

Al-kar stops the boy, lifting his head away.  Roughly, he pulls Ar-um
forward under the blanket, and Ar-um climbs up onto the man's chest, out
into the cold air again, the man's scent still powerful but less intense. 
He snuggles against Al-kar's chest contentedly, pretending that this is
Ok-tar, somehow still alive.

It is not Ok-tar, however; it is Al-kar.  The man reaches down and pulls the
boy's legs apart, then shoves his finger back into Ar-um's anus.  Ar-um
grunts again as the finger penetrates, then bites his arm to stop the cries
as it moves roughly in and out.  He knows that the finger is not the end. 
Al-kar is going to put his cock in there, where the finger is.  Ar-um has
offered his hole to the man, and he can't back out now.  Silently frantic,
the boy realizes that this has been a mistake.  There is no way that that
mighty penis will fit into him.  He will die and join with the wolf-spirit
after all.  The stories he has heard have all been lies - or perhaps they
mean that he will die and become a wolf-bitch, in the inscrutable speech of
shamans.  Tears of fear come to his eyes as Ar-um confronts his imminent
doom.

The finger is removed, and Ar-um gasps in momentary relief.  He feels at
first a dampness at his rear, then a warm pressure.  Desperately, Ar-um
realizes that it is the head of Al-kar's mighty cock, almost as long as the
boy's forearm.  Ar-um closes his eyes tight and bites his arm in
anticipation.  His whole body is tense - he does not know that he should
relax to minimize the pain.

The head of Al-kar's cock presses in, against the futile resistance of
Ar-um's sphincter, and the boy's vision goes white.  An involuntary,
high-pitched moan escapes his lips around the arm-gag, from which blood now
flows slowly into his mouth.  Ar-um cannot imagine another pain this
terrible and thinks he will die.

Fortunately, Al-kar knows the stories better than Ar-um.  Many days young
Al-kar laid at the shaman's fire, feverish, the frightful pain in his leg
only mildly dulled by the willow-root tea he was forced to drink.  The
shaman told him all the stories - and not only the popular ones, the stories
of triumph in battle over neighboring tribes or of great hunters and their
powerful prey.  Al-kar also heard the secret stories, the ones only told in
hushed voices in the dark, the stories of dread punishment from the animal
gods in the form of disease and death, the stories of little boys who had
once become the wives of men.

Al-kar waits, knowing that his new wife will grow to accomodate him soon
enough.  For now, he must wait as Ar-um's man-spirit fights to survive.  If
Al-kar goes too fast, the man-spirit will kill Ar-um in its rage.  Ar-um
must fight and kill his own spirit.  It is the greatest, and only, fight the
boy will ever wage.  Reverently, Al-kar strokes Ar-um's back as he shakes in
his battle.  Finally, the spirit retreats, and Ar-um collapses onto Al-kar's
chest.  Al-kar knows that the spirit will be back to fight again, that only
after many battles will it finally die.

Al-kar pushes forward again, and Ar-um tenses again, and Al-kar waits.  It
is Ar-um's battle to fight, but Al-kar finds himself fighting a different
one, as the boy's rectum alternately squeezes him in a strangling grip, then
releases him to only slighter looseness.  Forward the man pushes, continuing
to pause, delirium flowing from his cock to his toes and his scalp, fearful
that he will climax too soon and give Ar-um's man-spirit a victory.  Al-kar
feels the dampness of the boy's tears on his chest.

Finally, Al-kar's great cock is all the way inside Ar-um.  Ar-um breathes
rapidly, the mighty hunter inside him.  It was difficult because he is
cursed, but he belongs completely to Al-kar now.  Ar-um cries, knowing that
he will never become a man; Al-kar's cock in his rectum is making him a
woman, Al-kar's wife.

Realizing that Ar-um has won his first battle against his spirit, Al-kar
begins to move his cock inside the boy.  Now he can stake his claim on his
new wife.  Ar-um moans softly as the hunter's penis strokes his insides. 
Limp and useless, the boy's small penis and tiny balls have retreated into
him, ashamed to show themselves.  Al-kar's strokes are slow and soft.  His
hand moves over Ar-um's body, emphasizing his ownership of it.

Finally, Ar-um's man-spirit gives up completely - for now.  It seems to go
out of him all at once.  The boy seems to melt into Al-kar's body, totally
limp.  Al-kar feels the looseness and begins to move faster, deeper. 
Ar-um's wavering high-pitched whine seems to Al-kar to signal the boy's
acceptance of his new role.

But then Al-kar ceases to think of Ar-um at all as his fucking becomes
faster and more frantic.  Waves of delight wash over the man's body from
Ar-um's tight hole.

At last, Al-kar deposits his seed in his new wife, claiming her for his own. 
A final gasp from Ar-um shows that he feels this part of Al-kar moving into
him.  Content, Al-kar goes back to sleep, his softening cock still embedded
in Ar-um's soft bottom.  Ar-um cannot sleep and dare not move.  He rides
softly up and down on Al-kar's powerful chest as the man breathes, his cock
still in Ar-um's behind.

In the morning, the tribe sees Ar-um's unattended fire.  Looking for him,
their eyes glance about the room until they see his clothing-fur on the
floor of the cave next to Al-kar's fire.  A closer examination shows Ar-um
asleep on top of Al-kar, his head resting on the man's chest.  But Al-kar is
awake.  He casts his blanket aside, showing his cock still embedded in his
young catamite.  Al-kar grins.  Some look away; others continue to watch. 
Al-kar roughly grabs Ar-um's behind and begins to move him up and down on
the stiffening cock, giving a show for the tribe.  Eventually, all eyes are
back on him again.  Ar-um awakens, feeling the man moving inside him again. 
Al-kar tells him to sit up.  Ar-um groans as he sits on Al-kar's cock, then
Al-kar grips the boy by the hips, moving him up and down.  Ar-um makes more
noise this time; the man is rougher than before.  Finally, with all eyes
upon them, Al-kar bounces Ar-um on his hips, the man's powerful gluteus
muscles bouncing the boy on the Al-kar's cock.  At last, Al-kar pulls Ar-um
back down again and, lifting himself nearly off his fur mattress, deposits
another load of seed in the boy's behind.

Everyone continues to watch as Al-kar easily lifts the seventy-five pound
boy off his cock and onto the ground.  A glistening reddish-brown mixture of
semen, mucus and blood flows out between Ar-um's legs.  Tottering,
distracted by pain and the eyes upon him, Ar-um, naked in the cold, squats
down and feeds Al-kar's fire.  Al-kar, also naked, proud of the sticky
covering on his softening cock, sits up and watches, exposing himself to the
rest of the tribe.  He becons Ar-um to sit in his lap.  The boy, his head
hung low in submission, does so, and Al-kar wraps his sleeping fur about
them.  Al-kar leans back and takes his bag of dried mammoth meat.  He holds
out a piece to Ar-um.  The boy eats from Al-kar's hand.  They have signified
their intent to marry.

Gul-uk, the old shaman, stands up slowly, leaning on his staff.  He is very
old, nearly fifty, his long beard tinged with flecks of gray.  If he were
not a shaman, he would long since have walked out to join with the
animal-spirits.  But he is a shaman and does not hunt, so his age does not
matter.  Sam-hil, his acolyte, follows the shaman over to Al-kar's fire. 
The fourteen-year-old is old enough to hunt, but like his master he does
not; instead, he will become the shaman when the old man dies, which will be
soon.  Sam-hil knows how Ar-um feels.  The acolyte has paid Gul-uk for his
wisdom, deep in the cave among the bones of the ancestors, in secret rites
that only shamans and their acolytes can witness.  Sam-hil has not been
castrated, however, and he may take a wife, as soon as he is able to fight
for her.  Gul-uk had one, but she died of a fever more than ten summers
past.

Gul-uk frowns; tradition has not been followed.  Normally, a girl's father
should accompany her when she offers herself to her prospective mate.  A man
should sit at the bridegroom's fire and witness her betrothal.  But Ar-um
has no father, and the shaman silently curses Sil-ak for his cold-hearted
abandonment of Mer-ti's child.  Still, perhaps the gods will understand, or
perhaps it is their will that Ar-um take the life of a woman.

The shaman takes Ar-um's hand and leads him out to stand beside Al-kar's
fire.  Roughly, he pushes the boy down by the neck.  Ar-um bends over, and
Gul-uk begins to chant as Sam-hil, the acolyte, cleans the boy with stinging
cold water.

With Ar-um thus cleansed, the shaman loudly demands of Al-kar if he means to
marry "this child."  Ar-um no longer has a name, his male name no longer
valid; later, at the castration ceremony, he will acquire a new, female one. 
Equally loudly, Al-kar strikes his chest with his fist and declares his
betrothal, glaring fiercely at the other men.  Gul-uk frowns again.  At this
point, he would ask the father if he agrees to his daughter's marriage, but
there is no father to ask.  Gul-uk simply presses on with the rest of the
ceremony.

The shaman leads the shivering, naked boy out into the center of the cave. 
Sam-hil begins beating a drum.  Gul-uk stands aside.  Now Ar-um must dance. 
Girls of the tribe are prepared for this part of their marriage ceremony,
but Ar-um has not been prepared.  Nevertheless, he has seen the ceremony
performed several times and knows what do do, though perhaps he is
graceless.

At first, Sam-hil's drumbeat is slow, and Ar-um dances in a tight circle,
stamping his feet in the soft dirt of the cave floor; the dance is little
more than an exaggerated walk.  The drumbeat quickens, and Ar-um dances
faster, his body heat helping to fend off the cold.  The boy spreads his
arms and moves his upper body in rhythm with the drum, spinning in place,
struggling against dizziness.

Sam-hil's drum quickens still more, and Gul-uk begins to chant.  The chant
would be obscene to us, the distant descendants of that tribe.  It tells of
a woman's desire for a man, and her desire for him.  The men raise their
spears, and Ar-um dances between them, his dance becoming more erotic.  Pain
spreads out from Ar-um's violated hole, a thin stream of blood, spread by
the dancing, slowly painting his legs red, but Ar-um is ecstatic.  The
spirits are in him.  Many a bride danced with more skill, but none with more
passion.

The drumbeat quickens again, and Gul-uk sings of the consummation of love,
of the penis seeking its rightful place.  Ar-um tries at first thrusting his
hips forward, as a girl-bride would do, but it seems wrong.  Instead, he
wiggles his bottom at the men as he dances between their spears, almost
impaling himself on them, sweating from exertion in spite of the cold.

The ceremony calls for the shaman to sing of the children that will come of
the girl's union with a man, but that verse is inappropriate here.  Instead,
Gul-uk reaches back into his long memory, finding words for an amended
ceremony he was taught by his master but has never had to perform.  He sings
of a boy's weakness, of a man-spirit that cannot hunt, of the boy's desire
to become a woman and feel a strong penis inside him.  It is a sad song, but
frantic with desperate lust, the song of a boy who struggles to kill his
maleness so that he can enjoy the cock of a man.

Many pricks spring to life, and several hands reach out to touch Ar-um as he
dances.  Mer-ti looks hopefully at Sil-ak.  The tears in her eyes show her
shame for her son who can never be a man, her wish that at least they could
be wives together, that she could comfort him at the same fire.  But Sil-ak
only looks scornfully at her.  He does not touch Ar-um when the boy offers
himself.  Sil-ak will not accept Ar-um even as a wife.

The drumbeat slows, the spears are lowered, and Ar-um stands again in the
middle of the cave, exhausted.  Gul-uk steps forward again as Sam-hil stops
his drum.  "Who wishes to challenge for this bride?" he demands loudly.

Kolm stands, and Ar-um is surprised.  He had not expected that anyone would
challenge for him.  After all, he can bear no children.  As Ar-um walks back
to Al-kar's fire, he inspects the seventeen-year-old.  The teenager is squat
and strong, like most men of the tribe, but he has not reached his full
adult strength yet and does not have a wife.  Kolm's cock is erect, and he
displays it proudly.  It is six and a half inches, slightly smaller than
Al-kar.  Ar-um will have it in his bottom if Kolm wins the challenge. 
Unable to restrain himself, the boy quickly glances up into the teenager's
face, hurriedly looking down again.  Kolm was looking at him with cold lust.

Al-kar rises to meet the challenge, and the two naked men confront each
other in the middle of the cave.  As he tries to sit, Ar-um is twisted with
a horrible cramp.  He must quickly run back to the toilet-cave so that he
does not soil the living area.  As he looks back over his shoulder, he sees
his two champions joining in combat.  Painfully, struggling to contain a
cry, Ar-um squats on the cold ground and disgorges himself of the remainder
of Al-kar's nighttime gift, along with a horribly hard turd, several seconds
of burning diarrhea, and a significant glob of clotted blood.  Somewhat more
relaxed, he wipes himself gingerly with the leaves stored there for the
purpose, cleaning off his legs as well, at least as best he can.  Later, he
will have to walk out into the snow and scrub himself off.  As he as been
taught, Ar-um buries his emanations in a shallow hole.

As Ar-um comes back, he sees that Al-kar is on top of Kolm, driving the
teenager's face into the dirt.  Kolm will not at first admit defeat and
continues to struggle.  Al-kar reaches back and swats the boy's behind.  It
is a humiliation.  Kolm struggles again, but Al-kar pins him again and swats
his behind twice more.  Unable to bear more embarrassment, Kolm admits
defeat, and Al-kar rises.  Kolm gets up and walks away, his head hung low.

"Who else challenges?" the shaman shouts.  No one does.  Ar-um walks back up
to Al-kar's fire, and Al-kar walks back and places his arm around the
shoulders of his new, unchallenged bride.  The man is heated from his
wrestling, and Ar-um, now cold again, snuggles close to him.

Gul-uk and his acolyte lead the pair back out into the center of the cave. 
At this point, the father of the bride should solemnize the marriage, but
again Ar-um has no father.  Gul-uk frowns briefly, trying to remember the
proper ceremony, but it escapes him - he is old, and in his life he has
never married a boy to a man.  Sam-hil sees his master's difficulty and
whispers in his ear; the acolyte remembers the rare rite.  Gul-uk nods.

"Al-kar, having won the challenge, you marry this child.  What say you
before your bear-guardian?"

"I say that I marry this child of Ok-tar!"

"And what say you, new child with no guardian?" the shaman asks.  Ar-um does
not understand.  He thought the wolf was his guardian.

Nervously, but as loudly as he can, Ar-um declares, "I marry the hunter
Al-kar!"

"You wish to become a woman?" the shaman demands.  Ar-um is unprepared for
this; it is not part of the normal marriage ceremony.

"Yes," the boy says, his head hanging with shame.

"So be it!  May the ancestors and animal-spirits witness it!" the shaman
shouts.

"So be it!" the tribe shouts as one.  This part of the ceremony is the same.

At this point, Ar-um and Al-kar should return to their marriage-bed for a
solemnization of their own more private than any other ceremony.  Al-kar
starts to lead Ar-um off, but Gul-uk thrusts his staff into the dirt.  The
shaman pulls Ar-um away from his bridegroom.  Al-kar glares, furious. 
Sam-hil whispers in the man's ear:  "He must become a woman.  When he gets
his new name and guardian, he can be your wife."  Al-kar softens, unable to
argue with a shaman.  He watches Ar-um's retreating bottom with unrequited
lust as the boy is led to Gul-uk's fire.  Sam-hil remains behind, explaining
that Al-kar's spear will be needed for the ceremony.  The man obediently
hands it to the teenage acolyte.

Al-kar has not been invited to the ceremony, but he dons his clothing-fur
and watches from his own fire, disregarding the rule that no man should look
uninvited into the fire of another.  Al-kar, silently seething, thinks that
he certainly deserves to look on his bride, even if she is at the fire of a
shaman.  Ar-um belongs to him, after all.

Kolm walks over to Ar-um's unattended fire and blows it back to life.  The
teenager does not have a bride yet, but he hunts, and he will have a fire of
his own.  He looks about to see if any challenge his claim.  No one does. 
The cave is large, and there are plenty of fire-places to be had.  Kolm,
too, looks across at Gul-uk's fire.  The shaman is grinding dried leaves and
berries on a rock as Sam-hil brings the fire to roaring life.  Ar-um, still
naked, wraps himself in a bearskin.  Kolm thinks that he will have the boy,
regardless of his marriage to Al-kar.  It is an evil thought, and if acted
upon Al-kar could kill him for it, but Kolm thinks that Al-kar will not
always be stronger than him.

Mer-ti watches too, slyly in the woman's way.  She knows what will happen
and hopes that Ar-um will live.  She is sick with worry but can do nothing. 
It is the path that Ar-um has chosen.

When the leaves and berries are ground to powder, Gul-uk places them in a
boiling-skin that Sam-hil has prepared.  Into the fire also go a flint knife
and the tip of Al-kar's spear.  At length, the potion has boiled down, and
Gul-uk removes it with a bone ladle and places it to Ar-um's lips.  The boy
sips the hot liquid slowly.  The taste is strange, but stranger are the
visions that begin to come to him.  Sam-hil chants softly about how Ar-um's
wolf-guardian is leaving him.  The boy cries as he sees the guardian leave,
the cave somehow becoming a mountaintop in summer.  The wolf slinks away,
leaving Ar-um alone.  The sun looks down in disapproval.  Sam-hil chants to
Ar-um that he is a girl now, and the boy looks down to see that it is so. 
Ar-um has no strength at all.  The teenager says to go seek a new guardian. 
In his dream, Ar-um struggles to rise and walks down the mountainside.  He
is naked, but the sun warms him.  A rabbit comes out of the bushes and looks
at him, then hops away disinterestedly.  Not even a rabbit fears him now.

Suddenly, Ar-um feels an incredible pain.  It is Father Sun rebuking him for
having no guardian.  Ar-um appeals to the great yellow god, giver of all
life, but the god is merciless.  He burns Ar-um with his brilliant fingers,
taking his manhood.  Ar-um screams for mercy, begging not to be killed, but
the god only laughs and says he will not die.  The boy is sternly ordered to
seek a guardian.

The pain becomes a mere roar in Ar-um's ears as he struggles on, walking
into an unfamiliar forest.  The sun keeps whispering through the pines, "Do
you have a guardian?"  Ar-um sees several creatures, asking each to be his
guardian.  They turn away.  The salamander rolls his eyes and flops into a
muddy pool.  Finally, Ar-um sees a sparrow in a tree.  The sparrow is weak,
but Ar-um is weaker; he will soon die with no guardian.  Laughing, the
sparrow comes to rest on the boy's shoulder.  "It is so," the sparrow says. 
Father Sun repeats his incessant demand, and at last Ar-um whispers, "Yes,
the sparrow is with me."  The sun laughs with mighty contempt, touching
Ar-um again with his burning fingers.  The boy collapses on the forest floor
in agony, and the sun laughs.

Many days Ar-um lies by the shaman's fire, drinking the hallucinogenic
tonic.  He feels neither heat nor cold, neither pain nor joy.  The
sparrow-spirit whispers to him, speaking of flight and giddy laughter. 
Ar-um runs behind the sparrow, his arms outstretched, jumping in momentary
flight.  The sun laughs at them both.

After a week, Ar-um recovers consciousness, a dull pain emanating from his
vanished scrotum.  Gul-uk's flint knife, heated to red heat, has removed his
eggs, and the tip of Al-kar's spear, also red-hot, has cauterized the wound. 
There was very little blood, but though Ar-um was in a trance the pain was
terrible.  A large, ugly scab has replaced the boy's testicles.  He is no
longer a man, but he will live.  Gul-uk ladles willow-root tea into his
young patient's mouth.  The pain recedes somewhat but remains present.

Al-kar sees that his bride has recovered and demands her back.  Gul-uk
assents, stating that Por-il (Ar-um's new name) will require rest for many
days yet.  Al-kar grunts angrily and picks up his wife.  He does not need
advice from a shaman on how to comfort her.

As the shaman said, it takes many days for Por-il to recover.  Al-kar tends
her patiently, assisted by other women of the tribe, notably Mer-ti.  It is
a husband's duty to see to a sick wife, but women and children do most of
the actual work.  Mer-ti teaches Por-il how to pee while squatting, in the
manner of a woman.  The women prevail on Al-kar not to demand his conjugal
rights of Por-il until she is fully recovered.  He satisfies himself by
rubbing his cock between her butt-cheeks, depositing his seed on her soft,
small back.  When she has improved somewhat, Por-il sucks Al-kar's pungent
dick, drinking his seed as he shoves a finger into her behind.  Sam-hil
brings willow-root tea for Por-il to drink.  She sleeps always on Al-kar's
chest.  He strokes her hair.

Meanwhile, the storm has broken, and the men of the tribe have brought down
several large elk.  The tribe is eating again, and all are happy.  A child
has died of fever.  She is placed out in the snow.  The wolves feed on her,
then the tribe retrieve the bones and place them with the ancestors.

Por-il recovers.  Inspired by her sparrow-spirit, she laughs at Al-kar,
wiggling her behind at him, then runs into an unfrequented part of the large
cave.  Her man catches her, as she desires.  He grabs her from behind and
pushes his cock into her little bottom.  It has been easier than Al-kar
thought; Ar-um's man-spirit had been weak and was killed easily.  Por-il
giggles with delight.  Surrounded by his strong arms, entrapped like a
little bird, she gasps lustfully, struggling playfully against his grasp. 
Al-kar fucks her quickly, as she likes.  Her gasping changes to a
high-pitched whine, wavering as the hunter's great penis shoves into her
rectum, her own little member shrunken into her body, barely able to be
seen.  Climaxing, she shudders, bird-like.

Kolm, unseen, watches from the shadows, as the light from the distant fires
dimly lights them both.  He knows he will be able to take Por-il, later,
when she is alone, perhaps in this very cavern.

Al-kar deposits one load in his wife, then, limping as usual, leads her back
toward the front of the cave, back to his bed for a more leisurely fuck. 
She follows him willingly, her walk already that of a woman.  Kolm strokes
his cock silently.  *He* will give Por-il what she needs in her behind.

Unaware, Al-kar disrobes his wife in front of several other admiring men. 
He does not think how they look at her when she brings them firewood or
tends their sick children.  As he pulls Por-il down on top of him in his
bed, as he lifts her onto his rampant cock, Al-kar does not see the jealous
eyes looking brazenly into his fire-light.  As Por-il obediently twists her
little bottom over him, bouncing in her delight, Al-kar does not notice the
men who watch from their own fires, stroking their cocks.

He simply groans with passion, filling his beautiful boy-wife with his seed. 
He does not think that, perhaps, he may have to defend her again - and not
merely from the likes of Kolm.