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.I nuzzled her neck (theDevaki do not practice the barbaric art of kissing, thank God!), and we found an empty hut in whichto do our sex.We swived each other to exhaustion and slept and awoke and swived some more.I diedthe little death.I felt wild and pure and invulnerable.I swived her four times during the day thatfollowed, trying to escape boredom and fear of living.I swived her, and it was good.But it was notenough, and I sought out her younger sister, Pilaria, and I swived her as well, and she screamed andclawed my back, and it was very good, but it was not enough to soothe me.I was hungry so I atesome meat and found myself in Arwe's hut where I coaxed shy Tasarla into sex play.Later that day - Idid not care what day it was - I swived Mentina, who hummed a little melody as she massaged mychest and rocked back and forth astride me, back and forth, rubbing and humming.When Bardolearned of my private quest to find oblivion, he spread the rumor that I, too, was a great hunter ofwomen and very skilled with my spear, which was long and thick if not quite so long and thick as his.(But then, whose was?) I swived women whose names I have forgotten or never learned.They wereeach beautiful in their own way, even cross-eyed Mentina and Lilith, with her fishy smell and crookedteeth.I took great pleasure with them, but it was not enough, never enough to silence the noise insidemy head.Early in the third night of this revelry, during a rare moment of sleep, Kamalia and I were awakenedby the cries and bellows echoing from the hut next to us.I listened to a long, barbaric rondo of moansand giggles and belches, an obscene symphony of unrestrained squeals of delight."Ten!" a voicecalled out, and I recognized Bardo's basso profundo booming beneath a waterfall of high-pitched,girlish laughter.And later, "Eleven!" and later still, "Twelve and thirteen!" I heard low sighs, thevoices of different women."Fourteen!" Bardo cried, and I realized he was - stupidly - keeping a count of his copulations.When he reached the number "nineteen," towards dawn, I was afraid he wouldhave to lapse into civilized language because, as I have said, the Alaloi have no numbers forquantities greater than twenty.(It would be ridiculous, I thought, for him to call out hela, or "many,"after each woman he swived.) Kamalia and I shared a piece of seal meat as we waited for him tobreach his twentieth woman.But he never called out number twenty.Instead there was a long silence,broken when he shouted, "By God, what trick is this? What poison?" And then, "It won't go down!"He called out my name, and there was panic and desperation in his voice.I smiled at Kamalia, quicklydressed and went into Bardo's hut."Mallory," he gasped, "look at it, it won't go down!"He paced helplessly at the center of the hut, entirely naked.On one of the snow beds two womenhalf-covered with furs sat watching him.They held hands, giggling and pointing at his enormous,rigid membrum, which stood out beneath his round belly like the spout of a teapot."Bardo wosTuwalanka!" one of the women said as she held her hands spread in front of her, "Tuwalanka!" (It wastrue, Bardo did have the "spear" of a mammoth.So large was his membrum, in fact, that when he wasyounger, he used to fear that the blood needed to engorge it would be diverted from his brain, robbingit of oxygen and thus damaging that most precious of organs.)I told the women to dress, and I shooed them from the hut."What's wrong?" I asked."I don't know," he said.He grasped the shaft of his membrum, pulling it horizontal."I won't get soft.Ah, I don't know - it must be poison, this has never happened before.""You've merely overstimulated yourself.""No, no, Little Fellow.""Six or seven women in three days has drugged your body with adrenalin and sex." In truth, I, too,felt insatiable and prepotent - who would not with a succession of young women eager to rouse one'sspear?"Eleven women and I don't think that's it at all.I feel the hormones gushing inside.It's poison, byGod!"From a distance I examined his membrum.I noticed a curious thing.On the underside of the shaft,the small, round multicolored keloids scarring his "mammoth spear" did not seem to be arranged atrandom.The red dots twisted among the green and blue, forming a familiar pattern.I moved closerand half-squatted, peering at the ugly patch of skin just beneath the bulb.I remembered the verses andthe dead languages of the Timekeeper's book of poems, and the pattern became clear: The red dotsformed the ancient Japanese pictogram for the word "revenge." Mehtar, that cunning pointillist, hadtattooed Bardo's membrum with what he had obviously believed to be an undecipherable message.So,Mehtar had remembered Bardo, after all.The wily cutter had revenged himself for Bardo's pushinghim to the ice the day we had met Soli in the master pilot's bar.Most likely he had implanted timedhormones in Bardo's flesh, afflicting him with unending tumescence.It was a cruel thing he had done,a nasty joke.It was cruel and treacherous and distressing, but it was also, for some reason I could notquite understand, hilariously funny."What do you see?" he asked me."I don't know.""Don't lie to me, Little Fellow.""You'll be fine," I said."Mallory!""It's nothing, really," I reassured him, and I began to laugh."Tell me, by God!"I laughed for a while as his face reddened and his membrum grew even stiffer.I laughed until the tears ran from my eye; I laughed so hard I began to hiccup and cough."Oh, you're cruel," he said."You're a hard man."I calmed myself and explained what I thought Mehtar had done.He said, "I've heard of such things
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