This is a SciFi-light story. The SciFi elements are merely to build a society with different sexual morals and mating rituals. The story also contains elements of light bondage sex and public nudity/sex. All participants in sexual acts are over 18 and are enjoying it.
It was the First of May in the year 138 AS (After Settlement), and half the population of Beleriand had come to The Hunt. At noon, 21 women would be released into the hunting grounds. Soon after, the hunters would be let lose. Who catches a woman takes her as wife!
The day of The Hunt was also a market day, and a festive day. Everywhere stalls were being erected. In a special spectator area (closed for children), large screens would stream from the more than hundred motion-sensitive cameras hidden in the hunting grounds. The weather was great and everybody was excited. Here, two hunters were exchanging lewd jokes. There, an experienced woman was giving last minute strategic advice to two younger women. They listened attentively, after all there was a lot of prestige in passing through The Hunt unclaimed.
Beleriand was one of the seed-worlds. Almost fifty had been discovered, and eleven had been settled. Without the seed-worlds, it would have been almost impossible for humanity to settle among the stars, after all terraforming a planet takes at least a millennium. But somebody had done it for us. Who they were, we did not know, we called them The Ancients. They came to Earth almost four million years ago, before Lucy walked the African savanna. They took bacteria, plants and animals, and transplanted them to compatible planets across the Galaxy, letting terrestrial life slowly convert the planet into a place where humans could settle. Why they did it was unknown, but it was probably not for our benefit - after all, they could hardly have guessed that the primitive primates who were not exactly thriving on the savanna would eventually develop sentience and space-faring technology. But why they did it was a moot point, the Ancients were long gone.
The worlds they left behind were successfully settled one by one. Beleriand was the only such colony that almost failed. The minerals of each planet were subtly different, and the soil bacteria had mutated over four million years. In most cases that did not matter, but on Beleriand it was detrimental for human reproduction: it was difficult for women to get pregnant, and when it finally happened in nine cases out of ten the child was a girl.
The population growth on Beleriand was slower than the most pessimistic prognosis, and significantly below what was required for a viable colony. An obvious workaround was polygamy, and for the first forty years the most contended subject in Beleriand politics was for or against polygamy. It was never resolved, instead a third way emerged.
In the year 78 it was finally written into law: A marriage is a union of a man and a woman, or of two women. A marriage lasts at least two months and at most three. When a marriage expires, the same two persons cannot remarry until at least a year have passed and they have both been married to at least one other person.
In this way the few men would circulate among the many women, and the birthrate reached an acceptable level. But with all marriages being short-term, the decision to marry was taken lightly, and two ways to find a spouse appeared. Colloquially, they were known as the Romantic Way and the Fun Way.
The Romantic Way was similar to everywhere else: two people would fall in love (or at least be sufficiently attracted to each other), and would rush off to get married. The Fun Way was unique to Beleriand: a person, often young and attractive, would offer himself or herself as the price in a competition. Sometimes these competitions would be small informal affairs, held late at night in a bar. Sometimes it would be more formal. And the largest and most established of these competitions was The Hunt, held twice every year with slightly different rules.
Andrew was 19 years old, and this was his first time as a Hunter. He walked through the market place, and saw his family standing there: his mother, his fathers, and their spouses. He hugged his very pregnant mother and her young husband Ali, only a year older than himself. He hugged his fathers, and their wives. Both his fathers were the same age as his mother, but his seed-father had just married a much older woman, almost seventy. And his birth-father had been married for more than a month to a beautiful woman almost ten years younger than himself.
Andrew turned to his mother and Ali, "So are you two divorcing today?"
"Yes, at noon," his mother said. "It's a pity, but we only miss a week, and we both want to run in the Hunt."
"I don't think you stand a chance, mom," Andrew said.
"And why not," she grinned.
"Well, for one you are not just pregnant, you are almost ready to burst. When is the kid expected, in six weeks? I am sure you can still run, but can you run fast enough? On top of that, half the guys will chase you because they think that fucking a pregnant woman is hot. And everybody else will also prefer to chase you, for if they get you they will become birth-father or co-mother of your kid. You'll get all the attention!"
She nods. "You got a point, kiddo, which is why I run in black this year. You two cannot chase me, and with the potential co-mothers off my back there are not that many that can. I just might make it."
"Still..."
They are interrupted by an announcement. "Attention all Prey, please report to the main hall to get ready. I repeat, all Prey to the main hall."
His mother left for the hall. Andrew chatted a bit with the rest of his family, and then walked away, to gather his thoughts and strength before the hunt started. He should probably be thinking about strategy, instead he finds himself thinking of the two women he has had as wives since he came of age, sixteen months ago.
Mary-Ann had been the first. It was the day after his eighteen birthday, he had done as so many other young men did their first week as adults: he had offered himself as a price in a competition. It had been a drinking competition in the local bar. Four women had participated, the one who could drink the most beer would claim him. One lost already after six beers because she could not finish her glass. One got so drunk she fell asleep. And one forfeited the game when she pissed herself (going to the bathroom would also have disqualified her). Mary-Ann, oldest of the lot and two years older than his mother, had claimed Andrew. Or at least tried to - Andrew had to support her as they walked to her place, and once they were there she had collapsed on her bed.
Andrew had carefully undressed her, and caressed her naked body. Then he had undressed himself. She had opened her eyes and smiled at him as he entered her. It did not take long before he gave her his virginity by coming inside her. They slept naked together, and next morning she took a hangover pill before riding him until they both came. Then they spend a long time licking each other, before they finally got out of bed. Mary-Ann had dressed in her best party dress, and they had walked through town to the city hall, with him still naked. There, she had claimed him as her husband. He had spend the rest of the day in her bed, fucking her in any way she wanted.
The next morning, as tradition demanded, she had declared him properly claimed. From that moment on she had treated him as an equal in spite of the age difference, and together they had explored his sexuality. Andrew had quickly learned that her reputation as a kinky nymphomaniac was entirely deserved.
The second wife he got the Romantic Way. Jolene was only two days younger than him, and they met at a friends birthday. They had met again two days later, and decided to marry the next day. They had fucked like rabbits for three months, and Andrew had cried when their marriage ended.
"All Hunters, please report to the main hall. I repeat, all Hunters to the main hall."
Andrew hurried to the hall, and a few minutes later it was full of prospective hunters. The Mayor welcomed them.
"Hunters of Beleriand, welcome. Are you ready to see your Prey?"
They all shouted yes, and a row of women entered. They were all dressed in the same kind of bikinis. The bottom was a common bikini bottom, with two triangles covering the front and back, held together in the sides by strings tied together by knots. The top was a sash, a single band of cloth passing behind her neck, crossing in front and covering the breasts, and then tied in a knot behind her back. The majority of the women were wearing green bikinis, but four were in black and three in red.
"You are 14 men and 18 women hunting today. And there are 21 women to be hunted, so you will not all be successful. Remember the meaning of the colors. The green prey can be hunted by you all. The black can only be hunted by men, and the red only by women.
"You claim your prey by removing her clothes. If you only remove her top, or only her bottom, and she then escapes, you have no claim on her! Enjoy the sight of her running away half-naked, and know that you have made one of the other hunters' job easier.
"When you catch your prey, and strip her, you will be high on adrenaline. But remember, the moment she is naked she is your wife. Treat her as such. Yes, you will fuck her where you catch her, but not in a way that she dislikes. Talk to your new wife, ask her what kind of sex she enjoys.
"That being said, many of the Prey have chosen to wear the purple armband."
Here the mayor stopped talking for a moment, while a bit more than half the women proudly raised their right arm, displaying a purple band on it.
"The purple armband means 'Yes', it is implied consent. It means that you don't have to ask her before you fuck her the way you like. Of course, you will still respect if she says 'No' or 'Stop'. Although a woman who chooses to wear the purple armband for the hunt is unlikely to say such words."
"Finally, four Prey have chosen to wear the white armband, the beeper. Only women who have participated in the hunt five times or more or who have gone unclaimed in at least one hunt, may choose to wear the white beeper to make the hunt harder for herself. She will have to constantly run, she can never hide, for every ten to fifteen minutes the beeper beeps loudly, alerting everyone within a few hundred meters."
