A Swinging Odyssey Ch 14

14 The Uncontacted People

Author's Note: This chapter is one of three on this theme. All errors are strictly mine.

* * *

Aiko was taking a leisurely bath when Gerald walked in on her. He stared at his Oriental wife. He noticed that her pussy hair was starting to grow back. Aiko had stopped shaving herself.

Aiko realized what he had noticed. "I decided to let it grow back," she answered his unasked question.

"Why?"

"Because you might get used to naked pussy and get bored with it," she replied.

"I'll never get bored with your pussy," he swore.

"Nevertheless, I'm going to let it grow back. It is extra work to keep it bald, you know."

"Okay, hon," he said sounding a little disappointed. "It's your pussy."

Aiko laughed. "It's yours too." Then she changed the subject. "Hon, it's time for a vacation, just you and me," Aiko stated.

"You want to go on another cruise? Discover new lovers onboard?" Gerald asked facetiously.

"No Gerald, thinking of something totally different, unusual, something off the beaten path, at least in part."

"Where?" he asked. "Clearly you've got something in mind."

"Peru. I'd like to see Machu Picchu."

"I would hardly call that off the beaten path, at least not any more," Gerald remarked. "It's now a very popular tourist site."

"True," she replied but continued on. "Did you know its farthest source of the Amazon reviver is a glacier in the Peruvian Andes?"

"No, I didn't," he confessed.

"And did you know that, "although it's not the longest river in the world, that's the Nile in Africa, it has greatest volume and the largest watershed of any river in the world"

"That I know. I see you've been a busy beaver," Gerald commented.

"You thought only my beaver is busy?" she smirked.

"Well, go on," he said grinning.

"I think we should take a vacation to Peru to see his torical inca sites like Machu Picchu and combine it with an ecotour of the Peruvian Amazon."

"The Amazon?"

"Yes!" Aiko confirmed excitedly, "an ecotour of one the remotest places Earth. Wouldn't that be exciting?"

"I'm overjoyed?" her husband replied drily.

"Oh come on Gerald. We'll see nature in all its glory."

"Sure, jaguars, caimans, electric eels, anacondas... Oh, let's not forgot the smaller denizens of the Amazonian jungle like mosquitoes, piranhas and candirus."

"Candirus? What are they?" Aiko asked curiously.

"They are small relatives of the catfish with an eel-like shape. Most species are harmless but one small species has a bad reputation. If you pee in the water to pee, you risk getting one of them swimming up your pee hole."

"Ew, yuck! That's awful!" She squealed, then paused. "You're making up a story to scare me, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," he defended himself. "Candirus are real and what I described happened. The poor guy needed surgery to have the animal removed."

"Then we don't go in the water," Aiko decided, wondering if there were other bodily openings that might appeal to such a fish. "That way, we don't have to worry about candirus or any other icky animals that live in or near the water."

Gerald laughed. He almost, but didn't quite succeed in discouraging, Aiko.

"Maybe we'll meet some unknown indigenous people," she mused. "Only Brazil and Papua New-Guinea have more uncontacted peoples than Peru.

"I can just see it," Gerald starting to laugh," a head hunter approaches you and says 'give head.' You open your mouth thinking he means a blowjob but instead he lops off your pretty little Asian head, shrinks it, and then puts it up on the wall as a trophy," he said now laughing uproariously.

Aiko looked crossly at her husband. "Nobody does that any more, Gerald," she declared emphatically."

"How can you be so sure," he asked. "If we come across an uncontacted tribe," how can you be so sure they wouldn't be hostile."

"Because," she replied patiently, "if the tribe were hostile, the outside world would have learned about them by now from neighbouring contacted tribes."

"True," Gerald conceded, "but the creatures are still real enough." Gerald paused. "You're the family vacation planner, Aiko. Go ahead. Book the vacation."

* * *

At first their, vacation went as planned. They arrived in Lima and from there took a flight to Cuzco. After seeing several Inca sites including the Sacred Valley and the Machu Picchu, the couple took a flight to Iquitos, the main Peruvian city in the country's northeast.

In Iquitos, they boarded a riverboat. A three-hour journey downstream took them to their first destination, a jungle lodge from where they would be able to tour a nearby nature reserve and where they spent the night.

Very early on the following day, the tourists were divided into four groups, one for each tourist boat. Gerald counted 24 tourists, eight each in the two larger boats and four each in the two smaller boats. Gerald and Aiko found themselves in one the smaller boats that included another English-speaking couple. Their guide spoke good English. The other three boats consisted of Spanish speakers.

For several hours, the four boats headed downstream in the general direction of the Brazilian border. When they reached a large tributary, two of the riverboats split away to sail upstream, while other two, including Aiko and Gerald's boat, continued sailing downstream. Their guide, Pedro, informed them they, along with the larger boat, intended to go up another tributary, about another hour away.

For several hours the two guides, one in Spanish and the other in English, pointed out the sights and sounds of the local jungle. The highlight of the afternoon was the sighting of a jaguar.

When it was time to return to the lodge, the unexpected happened. As the guide turned his boat around, he noticed a group of monkeys in the trees. He pointed at them just as an underwater log punctured a hole into his boat. The water rushed in. It was obvious the boat would sink. Remembering piranhas and candirus, Aiko almost panicked.

"The water is shallow here. We're very close to shore," he re-assured her. "There's no immediate danger."

The other boat approached cautiously, wary of the log that had punctured and sunk the smaller boat. An animated discussion took place between the two guides. Obviously, they were discussing what to do.

"Their boat is almost at its maximum capacity," Pedro informed his English-speakers clients. "There's room for only two more on Carlos' boat. It's too dangerous to carry five extra persons. There is an indigenous village nearby. I didn't point them out because they left signs that told me they don't want contact with the outside world. But now we have no choice but to contact them and hope they can and will help us."

Carefully and slowly, the overladen boat, its draft very low in the water, made its way downstream. It turned into a small tributary. After a few minutes, a group of huts came into view. Women, children and an old men were present but no other men. Except for some adornments, they were naked and not the least bit conscious about it. Blushing, several tourists averted their eyes.

Pedro spoke to the elder; he obviously knew the language. Gerald saw some of the tourists ask Carlos what was going on. He shrugged his shoulders. He didn't understand this particular indigenous language.

After several minutes, Pedro turned to the tourists. Speaking first in Spanish and then in English, he explained their predicament.

"I explained our situation to the village elder. He offered us a boat but none will be available until the men come back some time tomorrow. Apparently, the tribe has to move because local resources have been exhausted. The men are away building huts at a new location.

"Are you telling us we have to stay in this god-forsaken jungle for the night to wait for a stupid little boat?" the English-speaking man whined.

"No," Pedro answered patiently, "only three of us have to stay behind. I volunteer myself as one of those three because I speak the language."

Something seemed to occur to Pedro. He exchanged a few more words with the village elder.

"I asked him about their boats. We can't use them. They're too fragile for long-distance travel upstream on the main river. Whoever stays is stuck here for at least two nights, probably longer, until a proper riverboat can be sent."

In the meantime, a heated discussion took place among Carlos Spanish-speaking passengers.

"No volunteers among Carlos' passengers," Pedro informed his passengers. "They're city dwellers. They have no idea what it's like to rough it in the bush."

"Don't look at us," the wife of the other English-speaking couple said. "My husband has only enough medication to get himself back home."

'Plus he's a whiner,' Gerald thought.

"I volunteer," Gerald announced. "But surely there's another man who can volunteer too."

Pedro translated into Spanish. Still no man volunteered.

"I'm not leaving you behind," Aiko protested. "If you're staying, I'm staying."

From her tone of voice, Gerald knew he wouldn't be able to dissuade her from her decision. He sighed. "You wanted something off the beaten path, hon, but I don't think this is what you really had in mind."

"There's one other problem you have to consider," Pedro interrupted. "I said at least two nights, but that was based on the assumption we were staying with these people in this location. But these people are moving the day after tomorrow. It's too dangerous for just three of us stay here. For our own safety, we should go with these people to their new location. I've got GPS on my mobile device, and a solar-powered energy charger to keep it going. We will be found, but it may take two or three more nights for our rescuers to triangulate our position and then actually physically reach us."

"Two tourists have to stay behind no matter what. The others are unwilling or unable." Aiko said. "Someone has to be the third person."

Gerald sighed. "Okay, Pedro, Aiko stays. Clearly, we're going to miss our flight home," he added. Please ask Carlos to contact our embassy. Ask them to let our family and employers know so they don't panic."

Gerald pulled out his passport. In it was a slip of paper with the embassy's address and phone number.

Pedro handed over his cell phone. "Call them yourself now," he offered.

Gerald did. He spoke to an embassy official. It took a weight off the couple's shoulders to know their family and employers would be informed about their situation.

Pedro and Carlos exchanged words once again.

"He told me to call our office three times a day to let him know we're safe and to allow the triangulation of our location."

Carlos offered spare rations and bottles of water to the three. These were accepted gratefully and put in their backpacks. Carlos, his passengers and the two English-speakers pushed off heading back to the jungle lodge.

The village elder led them to an empty hut where they stayed until morning.

* * *

Aiko and Gerald managed to sleep well despite the primitiveness of their temporary abode. They woke shortly after sunrise. Women were doing their chores, children were playing, and the elder was relaxing.

Pedro was talking to the elder. When he noticed them, he smiled and waved. "The elder is expecting the men to come back around noon."

"How is it that you speak their language," Aiko asked.

"I am one of them," he explained. "I come from a village located closer to what you call 'civilization.' We still speak the language at home but lost many of the old ways." Pedro sighed wistfully. "I have a house, a TV, a cell phone and a motorcycle, and yet I'm not as happy as these people are." Pedro changed the subject. "These people deliberately keep their contact with the outside world to an absolute minimum. Their values are very different."

"Really?" Aiko prodded, "in what way."

"Their attitude toward sex for example," he said uncomfortably.

"Explain," she said.

"They believe all grown men and women in the village are, to use a civilized word, 'married' to each other," Pedro explained. "There is a strong taboo against incest. When a boy or a girl is ready for adulthood, they are sent to another clan in exchange for one of the other clan's own grown-up children. The new tribe members are initiated both into the clan and into adulthood at the same time."

Pedro noticed that Aiko and Gerald were genuinely interested.

"Because the men and women have a type of collective marriage, they treat all the resulting children as if they were their own. They believe each man's seed contributes raw material needed to create a baby. The biological father is known as his primary father. His seed is the last contribution, in a series of contributions, leading to the creation of a child. Because all the men are fathers to all the children, all the children see all the men as their fathers. So if the biological father were to die, his biological child would still be loved and cared for by the clan's surviving fathers."

"Don't these people get jealous," Gerald asked.

"No," Pedro replied. "Although each man or woman may prefer a particular partner, it is seen as grossly selfish to keep one partner all to yourself."

Pedro had expected some form of moral indignation. There was none. He was surprised.

A few minutes later, the village men returned. Gerald counted five men, one in each boat. Except for some adornments, all of them were naked. He could also tell Pedro was correct in surmising that their flimsy boats were not safe for use on a long trip up the main river. Gerald later found out two men were left behind to continue work on building huts for villagers.

A man with a small scar on the left side of his face spoke to the elder and Pedro. He acted as if he were the acknowledged leader of the men. Gerald nicknamed him Scar. When Scar glanced at Aiko and Gerald, the couple could tell he wasn't happy with their presence.

The conversation among the three continued for some time. Another man, who wore a multi-coloured feather in his hair and an old women joined them.

For more than an hour, Aiko and Gerald waited patiently as the five-way discussion took place. Meanwhile, Gerald told his wife the nicknames he had assigned to the two men. Rainbow was the name he gave the second man.

Finally there was a break in the discussion.

Pedro spoke to Aiko and Gerald. "Their leader is unhappy with having you here. They don't trust outsiders. Two or three attempts were made by outsiders to force them into accepting 'civilized' customs." Pedro said 'civilized" as if it were a pejorative term. "Your presence even now interferes with their normal life."

"We have no wish to interfere," Gerald defended himself. "And we have no intention of making them accept other people's beliefs and values. Please tell them we don't want them to do anything differently just because we're here."

"I agree with what Gerald has just said," said Aiko. "They should act according to their own customs."

Pedro repeated what the couple had said to the four natives. This time they all looked at the couple. The elder said something in his language.

"They want your word that you will not object or interfere in any way."

"You have our word on it," Gerald promised.

Scar said something to other men and women. The two elders and three women herded eight children of various ages toward the other end of the village. The older children swam in a nearby pool while the younger children took a nap in a nearby hut. Aiko and Gerald subsequently learned that women who were having their periods were exempted from having sex.

The men, followed by the women, walked in the opposite direction. Not knowing what to do or to expect, Aiko and Gerald followed them.

A 10-minute walk took them to a clearing in the forest. Much to Aiko and Gerald's astonishment, they removed their adornments. They embraced, kissed and fondled each other. They ignored their unexpected guests. Clearly, they enjoyed sex out in the open, in broad daylight, and in each other's presence. Obviously, as in other cultures, the presence of children was taboo.

Gerald wondered how five men would satisfy eight women. He soon found out. Scar and one other man busied themselves with two women each. Rainbow and the two other men each focussed their attentions on one woman. One woman watched.

Gerald suspected, rightly as he later saw, that the men, who had gone without sex for several days, had more then enough energy for a second round. The women seemed just as eager for sex as their collective husbands.

"Remember how horny I was after I came more from that long business trip out to the west coast?" he reminded Aiko. "It's the same here. Absence makes the hard grow fonder."

"You mean 'heart'," Aiko corrected.

"That too," he replied.

Aiko rolled her eyes. 'Always playing with words,' she thought.

Gerald chuckled at his wife's exasperated expression. "The difference," he continued, is that these people have a type of group marriage, and a wider choice of partners. It is perfectly normal and acceptable for any man to make love to any women and vice versa."

Aiko nodded in agreement, but what she saw next surprised her even more. The woman who had been watching the others approached Pedro. They exchanged some words in their native language.

"She's asked me if I would like to have sex with her," Pedro told the foreign couple. "It is also their custom to provide sexual comfort to their guests. Once they agreed to let us stay, they effectively agreed to make themselves sexually available to us."

"And will you?" asked Aiko.

"Yes," he said and took off his clothes.

The native woman smiled. She took hold of his manhood. It began to swell in her hand. Apparently, Pedro's cock welcomed her attention.

"I thought you abandoned the old ways," Aiko said.

"I thought I did too," he replied. "Maybe I only thought I abandoned them. But what the hell. I'm a single guy, and the woman is more than willing. So why not?"

Pedro took her hand. He led her back to the clearing where the others were in the preliminary stages of the lovemaking. They got down on their knees facing each other. Soon they were in a passionate embrace.

Meanwhile, Aiko and Gerald sat down.

"I guess we'll watch the show," Aiko said.

"Sure," Gerald smirked.

Although they were able to see all the lovers at play, they focussed their attention on Pedro and his lover.

Although it was hard to tell their age, Aiko and Gerald guessed that she was probably around 30 years old. She had pendulous breasts that suggested she had breast-fed at least one child for a relatively long time. It was not uncommon in other tribal societies to breast feed children for several years.

Aiko recalled reading somewhere that breast-feeding seemed to reduce the chances of pregnancy, but she wasn't sure if that was a scientific fact.

Pedro's lover had the appearance of a typical indigenous Amazonian. Her face was round topped by jet-black which this woman kept braided. Her nose was large and relatively flat. She had good teeth. Her eyes were dark. In short, like the other native men and women in this part of the world, her physical features showed adaptations to the tropical climate.

Aiko and Gerald noticed she was full-figured. Women in this society were not vain about their bodies like the women back home. There was no hint from any of the men that they saw these women as less attractive because they had borne children. If anything, children were proof of fertility and fertility guaranteed the tribe's continuity.

Still on their knees, Pedro and his lover kissed, at first gently and then with increasing passion. Their embrace became tighter for a while and then they separated slightly again, he to grasp and knead a breast, and she to grab and stroke his stiff member. Their hands travelled up and down each other's body.