Butterflies 20

No humans were captured, tagged or harmed in the recounting of this tale. All humans engaging in their odd bipedal mating rituals were of physical maturity for their species. I am told that is eighteen years, an astonishing seventy-two generations of butterflies.

***

West Texas, 1978

"There it is, right up ahead." Maria Luisa said to her sister Isabela.

"Are you sure."

"Exactly 34,546,432,821 flaps from Memorial Circle on campus."

"Oh aren't we big, 'on campus,' what are we now a Red Raider?"

"I did study Circadian Navigation at Texas Tech."

"No," Isabella said. "You studied Circadian Navigation using Genetic Memory in your pupae while it was attached to a tree by the outdoor track at Texas Tech University; after you got really fat."

"Fat, who are you calling fat. I seem to recall this annoying little green caterpillar that weighed nearly a gram."

"Yes, well look at us now, yellow and orange and black with fashionable white dots," said Maria Luisa.

The sisters landed side by side on two of the delicate twigs nestled among the branches in one of the trees behind a white clapboard garage.

Maria Luisa spoke. "This is definitely the place Elisabeth Farnese spoke of, Isabella."

"Great-great-grandmother?"

"Yes, I have all of her memories. This is where she observed the odd mating rituals of the humans down there in the swimming pool last year," said Maria Luisa.

"You remember the most inane dross. What we should be doing is finding a couple nice little branches near some flowers and waiting for Charles the Third and Philip the Fifth."

"They will find us here," said Maria Luisa.

"Is that her in the light blue?" Isabela asked about the girl playing with her two younger brothers in the pool.

"No... That one, she is not ready yet, we are looking for the one with four red triangles."

"Human markings are strange," said Isabela, "but sometimes beautiful."

"Look at the way she stares at us," said Maria Luisa, referring to the human female in blue.

"Wow," said Isabela."

"Yes, I can see it in her eyes, she wants to fly like we do."

"Is that them?" Isabela asked, referring to the male in brown entering the pool with a female with four red triangles.

"Well now... No... Not exactly, the male last year was different," said Maria Luisa, "but the female is the same."

"Different mates? Such perversites are born when you live beyond your second season."

"Eleanor, our grandmother, was not a pervert, nor will our larvae be," said Maria Luisa.

"Third season, better?"

"Much better."

"Do you think they will mate, the humans?" Asked Isabela.

"Possibly, I hear tell humans often have multiple sequential mates," said Maria Luisa.

"Ewww, to mate more than one time; human mating is gross."

"It's just different, not gross. Try to have an open mind," said Maria Luisa.

"But for us Monarchs," said Isabela, "our one time is literally everything to us."

"That it is," said Maria Luisa, "but we can watch the humans while we wait for our suitors to arrive. That patch of milkweed beside our tree is calling them right now."

"Where is the other male?" Asked Isabela. "The one from last year that you called Punch."

"I do not know, the one in brown is the male called George. The female in light blue is his sister Lisa. The female with black triangles is his sister Jamie. The female with four red triangles, the one that was the other males mate last year, they call her Wendy."

"How complicated," said Isabella.

"Humans don't just connect with one another to reproduce," said Maria Luisa. "They couple for many reasons. Even just for pleasure."

"But how do they survive as a species having only one offspring at a time and with not every joining leading to an offspring; mom had two-hundred-thirty-six of us?" Isabella asked.

"I don't think that is an issue, I think humans will be fine unless they decide to kill one other first. Our future is likely more tenuous than theirs." said Maria Luisa. "Maybe the one called Punch flew away, there was talk of him going to Austin last year."

"Humans cannot fly."

"No, they cannot fly unaided like we can. The one last year, Punch, his father owns something called a Stinson, a flying contraption. He took the girl in blue, Lisa, for a ride in it once."

"Humans actually flying, in contraptions they make, will wonders never cease."

A human contraption arrived, Isabela had not been paying attention to its approach, but she did not believe it had been flying. She thought it rolled. Two humans emerged from within it.

"Isabela, there is the male human from last year. He has changed his markings; now he is white atop blue."

"Do you think he has a new mate? There is a female with him," asked Isabela.

"I think so, look at the way he holds the female with the yellow markings."

"To change one's markings at all, let alone several times in a day is just bizarre."

"Yes, it must be a form of camouflage," Maria Luisa said.

The two females in blue and black and the two adolescent males who were wet from the water went inside of the human dwelling. Shortly, they emerged dry and with different and more extensive markings. The eight humans spoke in their annoyingly loud dialect, and then all but the two that we hoped would mate in front of us left in their strange conveyance. It rolled way.

Isabela decided her sister had been mistaken, the human contraptions did not fly.

"Look, Isabela, the humans are removing their markings."

The female threw her top two red triangles on the wood deck and the male moved to her and placed his proboscis, what those humans called a 'mouth,' upon the places that had just recently been underneath those triangles.

"Is he feeding?" Asked Isabela.

"Perhaps, that part of the female secretes a rich milkweed juice, but the humans usually reserve it for their larvae."

"She clearly likes it, look how she throws her head back and holds him close to her."

"She uses her forelegs," said Maria Luisa, "to guide his proboscis."

The male removed the female's two lower red triangles and with a light toss they joined the two already on the wood deck. Then he lifted her up onto a seated position on the deck.

"What is he doing?' Asked Isabela, as the male placed one of the female's legs on his shoulder.

"She is tasting him"...

"They must not have much sense of taste with only two legs," said Isabela.

"That is why she is placing her other leg on him, to better taste him."

"He is placing his proboscous on the black triangle that had been beneath the red one," Isabela said.

"Yes, he is drinking her nectar."

"I think he likes it."

"Who can resist nectar? Said Maria Luisa.

"Now he is tasting it," Isabela said as George slipped a finger inside of Wendy.

"Oh, to taste and drink at the same time, sweet."

"She thinks so, look at her," said Isabela.

"What is wrong with her eyes?"

"They are glazing over."

"She is shaking."

"Its OK, she stopped."

"I thought she was a spider for a second," said Maria Luisa.

"Lord Why?"

"I thought she was trying to snap his head off when she clinched."

"Yes, that tremor was intense," said Isabela.

"It's normal for humans."

"Well aren't we the expert."

The human female rolled away from the pool on the wood deck and the male climbed out of the water to join her, discarding his own brown rectangular markings in the process. They joined proboscises.

"Is he transferring her nectar back to her?"

"That is what it looks like."

The male ran his forelegs all over the nearly unmarked female tasting her. Eventually using his human male part to push his nuptial gift into her body beneath her single black triangle marking. It all looked very disjointed and uncoordinated requiring multiple pushes to finally deliver the males gift, while both humans thrashed about.

Except... It wasn't... Delivered...

Lacking a proper abdominal clasping mechanism to hold her in place the male lost hold. The female eventually moved away from him. The male was dedicated though. He moved to her and soon he was placing his nutrient rich human nuptial gift within her proboscis.

"She is not storing her spermatophore! The one named George, he is in trouble here," said Isabela.

"Why do you say that."

"I may be only 43 days old, but I can see the obvious," said Isabela. "The one who took off her red triangles, to show her hidden markings... Where is her bursa? She will let the male transfer his nutrients to her but she will not let him fertilize her eggs."

"I do not think he really wants to fertilize her eggs, Isabela."

"So, she is not the one for him?" Asked Isabela. "Why?"

"Look at their body language. They each want what they give each other right now, but not more."

"Oh."

"I know," said Maria Luisa.

"But she is not all bad," said Isabela, "look how they join proboscises and she shares his food gift back with him."

"I think they need practice," said Maria Luisa.

"Why?"

"Look," said Maria Luisa pointing, the humans had apparently agreed with Maria Luisa, and they were practicing their ritual again.

***

Thanks to Oggbashan and his 'Lesbian Spiders' story I now know that we are never truly alone.

***

Lisa Ann