Time-Loop By Torrent "Am I dead?" SG asked. The corpulent figure on the alabaster throne frowned. "What is death?" he asked. Answering a question with a question wasn't very polite, SG thought. But she needed his help, so she decided to answer him. "Death is the absence of life," she said. "Nonsense," said the fat man. "Is this dead?" He took a ring from his finger and tossed it to her. It was made of silver, with an emerald the size of a robin's egg. "No," she said. "So, it's alive?" "No." "Ergo," said the fat man in a bored and superior tone of voice, "death cannot be merely an absence of life." SG fell silent for a while. "Let's start over," she said at last. "I confess I don't have a precise definition of death. But can you tell me whether I am dead?" "If you were a native-born earthling, we could dispense with all this," he said. "Even the most irreligious earthlings have some sense that finis is not quite finis. But you . . . ." He waved his hand as if trying to brush aside an insect, or an unpleasant thought. "Am I dead?" she asked again, more loudly and assertively than before. "No," he shouted, half-rising from his throne. "No, you are not dead, as much as I might wish you were. You are in a different dimension, and you have different attributes than you once had, but you are not DEAD." SG folded her arms across her chest and felt her bare shoulders. She seemed to be solid, not a mere ghost. "I know what you're thinking," the fat man said with an exasperated sigh. "You're thinking that you are still a physical, sentient being. Even a sexual one. But I must warn you that things are very different now." He paused, shifted his massive body and farted loudly. "That crude contraption, Koko, didn't kill you. I'm not sure anything can. But you have taken a new form. What once was matter is now mostly energy. You will discover that you can race far into the future, or into the past. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to move through space and time at will." "Are you my guide?" SG asked. "Good heavens, no," cried the fat man. Then he giggled. "'Good heavens' - now there's an interesting exclamation. Haven't used it in years." "Well, if you're not my guide, who are you?" "Oleander, the gatekeeper," he said. She wondered where the gate was, then noticed for the first time that there were two arched doorways in the curved wall behind the fat man's throne. "Which is the gate?" she asked. "Both are gates," he answered. "One will take you back to that stuffy body bag, in that dreary motel room, where you will await the ministrations of your boring cousin." "And the other?" she asked. "The other will take you someplace else." "Yes, but where?" "Someplace different from that motel," he snapped. "I can't be more specific. The choice is yours." It wasn't a very hard choice, she thought. Almost anything would be better than having to return to the helpless state she was in, dependent on Kal-El to figure out how to restore her to something resembling a normal life. "I'll take the gate into the unknown," she said. "Which one is it? "In such situations, I usually don't offer advice," said the fat man with a sly smile. "But for some reason you provoke in me a feeling of pity. The gate you want is the one on the right." "Thank you," she said, as she headed for the doorway. "But wait," he cried. "A gratuity is expected under such circumstances." "I'm sorry," said SG. "I haven't any money." "Oh, I have no use for money," he said. "It's your tender flesh I want." His jaws opened obscenely, until his mouth was as wide as SG was tall. At that moment, a sudden wind pulled her off her feet and carried her past him and through the arched doorway she had chosen. Her "goodbye" was lost in the rush of air. # # # SG found herself sitting in a classroom with a dozen other young women and three young men. Pacing up and down in front of the class was a thin, bespectacled man not much older than his students. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt, a sleeveless sweater and khaki pants, and SG thought she had never seen anyone quite so dorky. "It really is quite beautiful," he was saying. "I wish you could see it. I don't understand why artists - well, some artists - think that beauty is their exclusive domain. The world as revealed through physics, from subatomic particles to the cosmos, is more beautiful by far than anything ever created by painter or sculptor." "Or poet?" asked a dark-haired girl sitting next to SG. She smiled impishly. "Yes, more beautiful even than poetry," said the young professor. His face softened for a moment, and he added, "But it really isn't fair for you to bring up poetry, Kathy." Then a bell went off in a hallway, and the students started gathering their books and papers. "Read Chapter 3," said the professor, "and try your hand at the problems on the website. I know none of you are math majors, but they really aren't that difficult." He stuffed papers into a battered leather briefcase as the students filed out. When he looked up, he saw SG. "You're new, aren't you?" he asked. "I guess so," she said. He reached back into the briefcase and pulled out a sheet. "What's your name?" She wasn't sure how to answer. Finally, she decided that what had been good enough for Marston was good enough for whatever college she now found herself in. "Sallie. Sallie Gale." "Sallie Gale, huh?" he said. He looked down the class roll. "Uh, let's see - Fischbok, Flannigan, Grabowski. Well, it seems you're not on the list. Do you have your class schedule?" "Not with me," she said, which was technically truthful. "Okay," he said with a shrug. "Well, welcome aboard. You've missed two classes, but I think you can catch up. Just bring your schedule with you to class on Friday." Suddenly, he seemed to see her for the first time. He gave her the kind of look she was very familiar with, then he blushed and fiddled with his briefcase. "See you Friday," he said, then he hurried away. SG smiled at his awkwardness. There was something rather charming about him. In the hall, students were heading to their next classes. They weren't dressed the way they had been in 1956 or '73. Some of the boys wore T-shirts, baggy pants and baseball caps turned backwards, but others were dressed in jeans and shirts with collars. The girls mostly wore jeans, too, but there was less conformity than she remembered from her last two exposures to college life. She looked down at her own clothes. Short khaki skirt, white tennis shoes, a loose silk blouse with a big floral pattern. She wondered who chose them. The ring Oleander had given her hung on a silver chain between her breasts. "Hi." It was Kathy, the girl who had sat beside her in class. "What do you think of him?" "Who?" SG asked. "Dr. Kase, of course. I think there's something so-o-o-o sexy about him. And we're lucky. I mean how many students get to take a physics course from someone on the ten-most-promising-scientists-in-America list? And we aren't even science majors." She paused and looked at SG with sudden alarm. "You aren't majoring in math or physics, are you?" "No," said SG. "Oh, thank goodness. They said this was a physics-for-dummies course, just for humanities majors. You know, to promote cross-cultural understanding and all that." "Right," said SG, who had no idea what Kathy was talking about. The two young women walked slowly toward the big door that led out into the quadrangle. "What's your next class?" Kathy asked. "I don't have one," said SG. "Good. Let's go get a Coke." SG decided to stick with Sallie Gale as her name. It was innocuous and all-American. She added that she was a transfer student from Marston College, which was true, in a way. Kathy had never heard of Marston. "What dorm are you in?" she asked. SG thought quickly. "Well, I don't have a room yet. Admissions and housing didn't communicate. I mean, they cashed my check, but things are sort of screwed up." Kathy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's amazing. All these geniuses on the faculty, and they can't get a simple housing application straight. Well, you can spend at least tonight with me. My roommate barely checked in before she had to go back home. Her father had a heart attack. I guess it was when he opened the tuition bill." "You're very generous," SG said. And very pretty, she thought. # # # After dinner, they watched television in Kathy's dorm room. SG had seen color TV before, but never a picture so clear. And she was astounded by the kind of shows on the air: comedies about gay men living with young women, jokes about the size of breasts and penises, crime dramas with the kind of language she had been taught to shun. "They can say things like that?" she asked, when a street punk told a cop to "fuck off." Kathy looked at her in surprise. "Of course they can. You haven't been watching much television, have you?" "No. Or reading the newspaper much, either," said SG, hoping to preemptively explain any inappropriate references or questions that might pop up in conversation. But Kathy wasn't interested in conversation, or television. She had been sitting in a second-hand armchair, while SG was stretched out on the floor. Now Kathy joined her. They lay on their sides, face to face, their heads propped up on their hands. Kathy leaned forward and brushed her lips against SG's. "Do you like that?" she asked. SG answered by rolling Kathy onto her back and kissing her passionately. In seconds, they were tearing off their clothes. Kathy was an expert lover, with a gift for sensual teasing that SG found irresistible. When she licked SG's pussy, it was like a concert pianist playing a charming, childish ditty. After three orgasms, SG decided to return the favor. She slid her tongue down Kathy's belly and into her crotch. And suddenly, she saw - knew, experienced - the last time Kathy had made love. She felt the sensations Kathy had felt, heard the voice of the man who was on top of her, smelled his body. She sat up. "What happened?" Kathy asked. "What's the matter?" "I don't know," said SG, her face registering her confusion. "It was as though . . . . I can't explain it. I saw you with a boy. I felt it. I felt him on top of you . . . of me. His name was Eric and he had a tattoo of a horned toad on his left shoulder." "How the hell do you know about Eric?" Kathy demanded. "What kind of game is this?" "It's not a game. When I began licking your clitoris, I suddenly tapped into something. Your memory. Your experiences." Kathy was on her feet, furious. "Get out of here," she shouted. "Get out." SG dressed quickly. She felt devastated. But she hadn't meant any harm. "Is Eric fucking you, too?" Kathy asked coldly as SG prepared to leave. "I've never met Eric," SG said. "Please, do one thing for me. Think of a number while I'm kissing you. A big number, too big to guess." Kathy looked at her with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. "You pull this stunt and you want to kiss me?" "Please," said SG. They stood far enough that they had to lean forward to kiss. They didn't touch each other, except for their lips. Then SG pulled away and said softly, "Fifty-three thousand, two hundred and eleven." "Holy shit!" Kathy said. This must be one of the "different attributes" the gatekeeper had mentioned, SG thought. She now had a talent for reading other people's minds through sexual contact. So far, it had worked with oral-genital contact and mouth-to-mouth. She wondered if there were other possibilities. She and Kathy spent the night exploring. SG learned much about her attractive host. And Kathy learned that this strange and lovely blonde was a sexual superstar. # # # SG had decided, even before she and Kathy finally fell asleep, that what worked with Kathy was worth trying on Professor Kase. She didn't know why Fate had brought her to this college campus, but she was certain it involved learning about space and time. And the dorky professor was the one to teach her - not slowly and tediously in the classroom, but in an orgasmic flash. She didn't waste time. The next morning, she went to the administration building and found Dr. Kase's schedule. He would be free that afternoon from 2 o'clock on. At 2:15, she went to his office. She had bought a special T-shirt from the shop in the student union building, and she wore it under her silk blouse. She knocked at his door. "Come in," he called. He sounded irritated. She opened the door and faced an office with a very bad case of clutter. Books and notebooks were scattered everywhere. One wall consisted of a shiny white board covered with equations written with a black marker. Kase himself was sitting cross-legged in an old-fashioned swivel chair with a book and a calculator in his lap. He looked over his glasses at SG. He gave no sign that he recognized her. "Can I help you?" he asked, in a tone of voice that said, "Can you disappear quickly?" "I want to learn everything you know about the relationship between time and space," SG said. "I want to know about time travel." Kase sighed. "Time travel is impossible," he said. "Teaching you everything I know about time and space may be possible, but I really haven't the time." He smiled in spite of himself. No time to teach about time. "Okay," said SG, pulling off her blouse to reveal a T-shirt, several sizes too small, with a picture of Einstein and his iconic equation: E=mc2 . "Let's skip the teaching and get to what I'm really here for. I want to have sex with you. Here. Now." Kase put the book and calculator on his desk. "You must really be desperate for a good grade, because I'm not exactly the studly type," he said. "What's worse, I have ethics. I don't fuck students. I don't trade A's for sex." "I'm not asking for an A," said SG. "I'm not even enrolled in your class, as you discovered yesterday. In fact, I'm not a student at this college." "So what exactly do you want?" "I want to have sex with you, here in your office, right now." He looked at her a long time without speaking. She really was quite lovely. And she filled that T-shirt in a way that gave new meaning to Einstein's theory about the curvature of space. "I really can't . . . ." Before he could finish his sentence, SG had wriggled out of her skirt. She wore the skimpiest of bikini bottoms. He gulped. "You don't have to take the initiative," she said softly. She moved toward him, and he almost fell over backward in his chair. "Just relax," she said. He looked anything but relaxed. She knelt before him, looked into his eyes and began unbuttoning his shirt. "Really," he said, "this is highly . . . ." She kissed his chest, then ran her tongue down his belly to his belt line. It was an amazing experience for both of them. Kase had had sex only once before, with a prostitute, and it had been a quick, slam-bam-thank-you-ma'm affair, with no preliminaries. This was deliciously different. Meanwhile, the instant her lips touched his flesh, SG was overpowered by his memories and speculations. An entire undergraduate semester of hydrology flashed through her in a nanosecond. His recent paper on black holes and singularities was stored in her brain before her tongue reached his navel. "Let's get those pants off, big boy," she whispered huskily. He raised himself in the chair, fumbled with his belt and finally slid his pants halfway down his thighs. She finished the job, pulling down his underpants to reveal a penis of modest dimensions but filled with enthusiasm. She sucked slowly, sensually, guided by her extensive experience. He moaned and, unsure what to do with his hands, finally placed them on her head. Then he was thrusting upward, into her mouth, and making little sobbing sounds. "Oh, yes, yes, yes," he cried. "Oh, God, yes." He came, in an eruption of equations. SG was dizzy. Cum dripped from her lips, and numbers whirled through her mind. It was the most exciting sex she had ever had. Kase lay sprawled in his chair, his head hanging over the back. He looked like a dead man - a dead man with a goofy smile on his face. # # # Kase wasn't dead, but the experience was so overpowering that he spent the next three days in bed at his apartment, trying to make sense of it - to master it with reason. SG also needed time to sort out all that she had learned. Kase's sensual and emotional experiences, many going back to early childhood, had been transmitted to her, along with his scientific theorizing. She discovered that he had been an only child, that he had an imaginary playmate named Eustace, and that his puppy, Lex, had been killed by a delivery truck. She also learned that he had a secret crush on Kathy, that he had written poetry when he was an undergraduate, and that Kathy had discovered some of his poems in an obscure college literary magazine. What most interested SG, though, was Kase's complex relationship with Dr. Pilger Altezeiten, professor of ancient history and polymath extraordinaire. Dr. Altezeiten was perhaps the university's leading academic figure - certainly the only one with an international reputation as impressive as Kase's. The two men were very different. Kase was only 32. Altezeiten was over 70. Kase was a rigorous rationalist. Altezeiten had an equally keen mind but was at heart a romantic. They admired and liked each other but disagreed on a wide range of subjects, not the least of which was the possibility of time travel. As best SG could understand from what she had learned through her intellectual cock-sucking, Altezeiten was convinced not only that time travel was possible, but that it had already occurred. Beings from the distant past and equally distant future walked among us. Kase thought this was New Age rubbish. SG decided it was time to get it straight from Professor Altezeiten. # # # He was easy. Altezeiten was, in fact, a dirty old man. He was delighted when a very attractive young woman rang the doorbell of his condo and asked for a private meeting with him. He was even more delighted, and not the least bit embarrassed or resistant, when she began stripping in front of him - all the while chattering about how much she admired his work and how eager she was to learn from the master. In seconds, she was completely naked, except for her tennis shoes and her emerald pendant. With European courtliness, he suggested they retire from the entrance hall, where someone outside might see her through the beveled glass on either side of the front door. He led her to his "recreation room." This room was filled with exercise equipment and chrome and leather devices SG had never seen before. "You want to learn," he said. "I want to teach. But I am old-fashioned. I am not a democrat when it comes to learning. I must be the master. And that leaves, for you, the role of . . . ." "Slave?" SG suggested brightly. "Exactly," said Dr. Altezeiten. "You are a very intelligent student." In no time at all, SG was bent over a leather bench with her butt raised and exposed, her wrists tied to rings at the far end of the bench and her head firmly held by two padded arms of a vise. "As they say nowadays, no pain, no gain," said the professor. With that, he whacked her behind with a slender bamboo cane. It made a surprisingly loud noise, but SG found that the sting was not very painful. In fact, the tingle that followed was quite pleasurable. "Shall we continue?" he asked. "By all means," she said. But it was difficult to speak with her head in the vise, and while whipping might be a great turn-on for the good doctor, it didn't put her in direct physical contact with him. How would she learn what she needed to know? Her speculation was interrupted by a much more vigorous blow, this time from a 12-tail leather flogger. It hurt. The second and third blows hurt even more. She yelped and assumed that once he heard her protest, he would release her. But he seemed to have become too involved to stop. The blows continued, and so did her cries of pain. These he finally stopped by stuffing a ball-gag into her mouth and tightening the vise on her head. Her muffled protests excited him even more. "Yes," he said. "I'm sure it does hurt. But we haven't broken the skin, so I don't think any permanent harm has been done. Let's keep it up, shall we?" With that, he resumed flogging her. He grew stronger with each blow, as if the aging process was in reverse. At last, as tears streamed down SG's face, he dropped his pants, put on a condom and shoved his prick into her already well lubricated pussy. "I see you've been enjoying all this," he said cheerfully. "The vagina speaks truths that the mouth will not utter." He fucked her with the savagery of a man half his age. SG waited for the great revelation, but it didn't come - even though he did. He collapsed on top of her, gasping for breath. His dick slowly shrunk, but he was in no hurry to withdraw it. "Is that all?" SG wondered. She could have broken her bonds at any time but had refrained for fear of sabotaging her experiment. Now it seemed she had put up with pain and indignity for nothing. He released her slowly and methodically. The ball gag was the last restraint to be removed. She knelt on the floor - her behind was too sore for sitting - and rubbed her wrists. Altezeiten looked down at her with an expression of concern. "You seem sad, my dear," he said. "Did I disappoint you?" "No," she said. "Well, yes, in a way. But not sexually." "What other way could I have disappointed you but sexually?" he asked, mystified. SG looked down, embarrassed. Then she screwed up her courage and said, "I was hoping to learn your thinking about time travel." Altezeiten stroked his chin. "Time travel? I thought from your behavior, you were interested only in fucking. I mean, you came here and stripped and . . . ." "I know, but it's complicated," SG protested. "The only way I could learn your thoughts is through sex." "But that is absurd." "No. It isn't. I've already found in two other cases that I could learn about a person, about his or her experiences and thoughts, by having sex with them. I can't tell you their names, but I found out about the secret love affair of a young woman by having sex with her, and I found out a huge amount about space and time and physics from a teacher." "My young friend, Dr. Kase?" "No, I won't tell you their names," SG insisted. "Well, you don't have to. If the subject that interests you is time travel, then it must be young Justin Kase. No one else on campus is as well qualified, as a scientist, to discuss such matters. But I find all this incredible. Why should I believe you learned anything at all through your sexual encounters, assuming you actually had such encounters?" "Here's why," said SG, and she launched into a detailed description of a conversation Kase and Altezeiten had had two weeks earlier on whether there were "worm holes" in the cosmos and, if so, could they be used to travel instantaneously from one end of the universe to the other. "You were so excited about this that you spilled your glass of kir," said SG. "A waitress named Karen cleaned it up. You flirted with her." "Ah, you must have been sitting near us in the cafe," said the professor. "Okay. How about this? Last October, you and Dr. Kase took a sailboat out on the lake. No one else was there. And you got very excited about going back in time, to the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, and learning all their secrets of embalming and mummification. And Dr. Kase laughed and said you had a morbid streak. And you said . . . ." "Justin told you all this," Altezeiten said sharply. "No, he told me none of this. He gave me this knowledge unintentionally, when we had sex. I was hoping to learn from you, too. But nothing happened. That's why I look disappointed. I am disappointed." He began to believe her, in spite of himself. There was something about her. It was almost as though he had known her long ago. "For the sake of argument, let's assume all you've told me is true - that you somehow absorb knowledge through sex. Why, then, did this process fail with me?" "I don't know," said SG. "While you were flogging me, I figured there would be no transfer because we weren't in direct contact. But I was sure that, once you penetrated me - well, that there would be a flash of words and images and ideas. The way there was with . . . with the others." "Aha! I think I see the problem," cried the professor. "What is it?" "I was wearing a condom," he said triumphantly. Then he quickly added, "Not that I mistrusted you, but in this day and age - well, you understand." "I do," said SG. She was quiet for a moment, then she said, "All I ask is the chance to give you a blow-job, an unprotected blow-job." He had never before had a young woman ask permission to suck his dick. He had never even imagined such a situation, and he prided himself on having a very active imagination when it came to things sexual. "How can I refuse?" he said. "This time, let's go to the bedroom." She followed him upstairs through rooms filled with dark, antique furniture. The bed, however, was simple and modern: a futon covered with pale blue silk sheets. At the four corners were short, stout wooden posts bolted to the floor. Manacles were attached to each post. "I will lie on my back," he said. "I want you to attach these restraints, then do whatever you want. Within reason, of course. I am not a young man." "I will be careful," said SG. He removed his clothes, folded them and placed them neatly on top of a bureau, next to a small bronze statue. It was an Egyptian figure, of a man with a dog's head. He held a scepter in one hand and a book in his other, clutched to his chest. "I am naked unto mine enemies - and my friends," Altezeiten said with a smile. For a man his age, he was in good shape, thought SG. He lay on the futon, and SG secured him. Then she knelt between his legs. His penis was flaccid, so this would require some work. She leaned forward and rubbed his belly and thighs. Then she began to sing, in a voice she didn't recognize as her own and in a language she had never heard. It was a throaty, sensuous voice, and though she recognized not a single word, she knew it was a song about sexual passion. This incantation had a powerful effect on Altezeiten's prick, which began to rise, like a cobra rises to the notes of its master's flute. Altezeiten began to squirm on the futon. It was as though he was in agony - or in the throes of ecstasy. SG ceased singing and took his prick in her mouth. Words and phrases in strange languages flooded her brain. Images appeared, too, murals and sculpture and great temples and palaces. "Time travel," she thought. "I want to learn about time travel. Back, I want to go back, to the Middle . . . ." She stopped in mid-thought. Ages? Was it the Middle Ages that Kase and Altezeiten had talked about? And suddenly she felt herself whirling through darkness, drawn by a force more powerful than gravity, flying to a destination far, far away. Altezeiten gave a cry of surprise and disappointment. "You're gone! You're gone! You've abandoned me." He tried to sit up, but was held back by his restraints. "The lady vanishes," he said to himself. "And I must stay behind, waiting until Betsy comes to clean on Monday morning. Won't she be surprised?" He laughed a deep, hearty laugh, and his eyes glistened with tears. [To be continued.]
II SG was cold. She wore nothing but a long brown woolen robe and sandals made of wood and rope. There were patches of snow on the ground, and she could see her breath when she exhaled. She sat on a flat stone at the top of a small rise, next to a stone and thatch hut. In the shallow valley below, a band of adults and children were struggling through the snow and mud. One of them looked up and saw her. The figure pointed to her, and soon two dozen faces had been turned toward her. She could hear their excited talk even from this distance. They climbed toward her, and one child, barefoot and wearing a frock of coarse cloth, broke into the lead. She came within a few feet of SG, then halted, suddenly shy. "Are you afraid of me?" SG asked. "I will not hurt you." The child was thin, so terribly thin. The others had caught up. They stood behind the child, gazing at SG in wonder. Their faces were gaunt. It appeared that all the adults were women. "Who are you?" asked one of them. "I've come to lead you out of this land of famine," SG said. The words came unbidden - and unexpected. SG rose. She was much taller than any of them, and they seemed awestruck by her size. "Where are your men?" SG asked. "Taken to fight for the Duke," answered a red-faced woman who was missing most of her teeth. "Or dead," said another. SG knelt beside the little girl who stood nearest her. The child bowed her head timidly. The gesture was like a stab wound to SG's heart. If she could save anyone, she would save this little girl. She felt a strange sensation in her breasts. It was as though they were growing. "Can you make it over the mountains?" SG asked. "Not without food," said the red-faced woman. "We haven't eaten in two days." SG pulled the long robe over her head, revealing her beautiful naked body. "I will feed you," she said. She knelt again and offered her breast to the little girl. The child without hesitation began sucking, and SG felt the milk surging from it. "I have another," she called out. "Send me another child." A mother pushed a little boy forward. "Go and suck," the mother whispered loudly. As hunger overcame his shyness, the little boy came forward and started on SG's other tit. SG was filled with compassion, and with milk. She fed all the children first. There were 14 of them. Then she fed the mothers and grandmothers - 11 in all. The women cried as they nursed. They said prayers of thanksgiving. God was delivering them from death by starvation. They would survive and start in a new land, beyond the mountains. This miracle-working saint would lead them. Saint SG was experiencing feelings entirely new to her. Never before had she lactated. It was a wonderfully sensual experience. And she was happy to be helping these poor people. If only she could help more. They needed so much. When everyone in the group had been fed, SG took a wooden staff that had been leaning against the hut and began marching toward the mountains. The group, now fortified, followed. # # # They walked until sundown. By some means she didn't understand, SG knew the route they must take - a route that would take them across a mountain pass that had been used for years by marauding armies but had rarely been attempted by peasant folk. But lactation had weakened her, and her pace was slower than she had wished. Not that any in the group could have managed a faster one. Near the end of the day, SG had to carry an old woman on her back. They reached a patch of level ground just as the sun disappeared behind the peaks to the southwest. SG gently laid the old woman on the ground, then patted her cheek and asked how she was doing. There was no response. The woman was dead, probably had been dead for over an hour. The woman's daughter and two grandchildren wept and prayed beside her. The ground was hard and cold. Burial underground was impossible. SG told the group to make a fire while she scouted for a cave in which to place the corpse. If all else failed, they could cover it with loose rock. "Be careful, madame," said the red-faced woman. "There are wild beasts in these mountains, and things worse than beasts - thieves and killers." "Have no fear," said SG. "I will return quickly." Using her staff for support, SG made her way up the steep mountainside. The light was fading, and she despaired of finding a burial place. But at last she spotted a rocky overhang that appeared to be the entrance of a cave. I will return here tomorrow morning, she thought, and the grey-haired one will have a proper funeral. The sound of falling water in the distance called her on. She climbed another few hundred feet and found herself looking down on a long slope to a wide valley below. In the moonlight, she could see a river running through the valley. It was good land, a land where her charges could make a new start. On her way back to her group, she heard the howling of wolves. She hoped her group had stuck together and built a fire. Numbers and flames would keep the beasts at bay. She didn't worry about her own safety. She should have. As she came around a large boulder, she found herself face to face with four gleaming grey-green eyes. The wolves had heard her coming and were crouched to spring. She swung her staff into fighting position. But at that instant something hit her back and knocked her face-forward to the ground. It was a third wolf, and when he attacked, the other two quickly joined in. SG found herself fighting for her life. Strong jaws locked on her left arm and her right leg. Another pair lunged for her throat. She smashed the wolf's head with her staff, then kicked away the one that had bitten her leg. But the wolf that had her left arm refused to relax its grip, even when she smacked it on the top of the head with her staff. The other two wolves regrouped and attacked again. Their bites were painful, and in her weakened condition she feared they would eventually prevail. She stumbled forward, carrying the weight of two wolves that had attached themselves to her arms. The third wolf leapt at her, and she was powerless to protect herself. But the beast did not sink its fangs into her throat, as she had expected. Instead, it gave a yelp, crashed into her and fell to the ground. The other two wolves released her and wheeled to face some danger she couldn't see. First one, then the other cried out and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Before she lost consciousness, SG found an explanation for their strange behavior. The feathered shaft of an arrow extended out from the neck of the wolf that had fallen nearest her. # # # SG awoke to find herself lying on a flat stone ledge protected by a rocky roof. It was the cave entrance she had seen the night before. Inside the cave, not far from her, two men were stamping out a fire. Outside, four more men were calling for those inside to join them. "And bring the bitch," said the tallest of their number, who had a bow and a quiver of arrows on his shoulder. It was clear in an instant that he was their leader. The two men inside grabbed SG and pulled her roughly to her feet. "Come on," growled one of them, "we're going to reunite you with your comrades." They had tied a rope around her neck, and they jerked it to indicate she had better move and move fast. She followed as best she could, trying to make a mental inventory of her body. The bite wounds hurt, but she didn't believe they were serious. She still had her robe on, which surprised her. In the past, her presence in the midst of six rough-looking men would have meant that she would be stripped in seconds. Even her emerald pendant still bounced between her milk-filled breasts. Only her sandals were gone, evidently a casualty of last night's battle or stolen by one of these men. The ground was painfully cold. Where were they taking her? she wondered. Then she remembered that one of the men had spoken of reuniting her with her group. So they knew about the women and children. What a pity. The leader of the band of thieves fell back to join her. "Why were you traveling alone last night?" he asked. "To find a place to bury one of our group. She was old, and she died on the road yesterday." The thief laughed. "Burial is impossible in these mountains. Bodies left in caves are quickly devoured, either by wolves or by cave bears. Or, if they're fresh enough, by men like us." "That's a cruel jest," said SG. "It is no jest. Peter, is it not true that our merry band have feasted on human flesh?" "Indeed we have, many times, Master Cock," said Peter, the plumpest of the thieves. "And all in all, I prefer it to the stringy livestock in these parts. I especially enjoy babies. They are quite delicious." So their leader's name, or at least nickname, was Cock. She wondered if he deserved it. "Cannibals! You should be ashamed," she said in disgust. "Actually, like most men we are many things," said Cock. "We are thieves by profession, rapists when our other wants are satisfied, and cannibals by necessity. Four of us were also once soldiers in the duke's army, a poorly paid profession and one with little honor in this life or the next." She walked on in silence, while the men traded jokes and insults. At last they came to a ridge and saw below the women and children SG had hoped they would not find. They were huddled together around the smoldering remains of a fire. Wood was scarce in the mountains, and they had been unable to refresh it. "Ah, little children," said Peter. "Tonight we eat well." They weren't joking, SG realized. Weakened though she was, it was up to her to protect those she had taken under her wing. "Leave them alone, please, Master Cock," she said. "They are a scrawny bunch, not worth butchering. And they have nothing of value to steal." The women and children heard her and looked up. They wanted to rush forward, but were afraid of the bandits, who were armed with clubs and knives. "Why should we let them go?" Cock asked. "Skinny or not, they have some meat on their bones. And several of them have shoes." He turned to his comrades. "Okay, men, we'll rape the women who are worth raping - starting with you, Madame - then we'll kill the lot of them." "Please, Master Cock, consider this offer," SG said with new urgency. "If you let them go, I will satisfy the sexual passions of each and every one of you many times over. Then I will feed you with milk from these generous breasts." SG ripped away her robe and revealed herself to their hungry eyes. "Milk be damned," cried Cock. "We are no sucklings. Those mammaries will be roasted over an open fire, and I shall have the first bite." He lunged at her, and she kneed him in the groin. "Continue your journey," SG yelled to the women and children, "as I must continue mine." The struggle lasted longer than the thieves had expected. SG put up a valiant fight. They clubbed her, yet she battled on. They piled on top of her, yet she managed to squirm free. During the fracas, the red-faced woman led her companions onward, across the mountain pass. They could do nothing to help their beautiful savior. All they could do is follow her instructions and save themselves. At last the thieves gained the upper hand. Two of them held SG, while the other four took turns punching and kicking her. "She promised sex," said Peter sadly. "Now she's too beat up to show us her talents." "True," said Cock. "But we will have her posthumously, and there is pleasure in that, too." He gestured, and the men holding her let her drop to her knees, dazed and semiconscious. Cock stepped behind her, grabbed her hair and plunged his dagger deep into her back. She gasped, her eyes rolled back, and she fell into fathomless blackness. [To be continued.]
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