For months, Gemma daydreamed about the hunting trip that she and her friend Karen were planning. Today, finally, the long awaited day was at hand. This year, they would not have to stalk patiently through the woods, hoping against hope to locate their quarry and get close enough - at least once - for a good look and a high-probability shot. This year, they would not have to sit quietly in a blind for hours and wait for one to blunder into their sites. This time, they were just not tagging along on someone else's Hunt.

Gemma had hired a guide herself. A pack of hounds would ferret out her quarry. Then she would run him down and take him hand-to-hand, face-to-face with nothing more than her courage and a knife. It all sounded very exciting and quite dangerous. The guide would be right there to second her with her crossbow and her quarry, of course, would have his size and strength and most likely no more than found weapons like sticks and stones. Jacks had found lost arrows, she had heard, and that was more of a concern.

Arrows were counted on entry and exit from the reserve. Hunters were reminded ceaselessly to retrieve all spent arrows and fined for any lost arrows. Not relying on numbers alone, grounds were searched meticulously after each Hunt and bounties paid for any arrows found. Still, all in all, it would be quite an adventure.

Only strict limitation of the male population had guaranteed the gains of the Revolution. The annual Hunt held the always-threatened recovery of male numbers in constant check. A male had to survive a three-day Hunt in three successive years in order to win his citizenship. The conditions of the Hunt were adjusted to maintain the adult male population at just less than 10% of the total.

>The Hunt controlled male numbers but left a problem with disposal of the remains. In a state of 7 million people, the annual harvest ran about 70,000 males or jacks as they came to be called. Seventy thousand carcasses rotting in the woods would have been a continuing feast for vermin and a threat to public health. Retrieving the bodies, already fouled by their agonal loss of stool and urine and rapidly putrefying from their intestinal contents would be distasteful and burdensome enough. Identification and return of bodies to their families for funerals would have been extraordinarily complicated and poorly received. Mass disposal of the remains en mass by burial or cremation, even after they had been collected centrally, would have still presented a substantial logistical problem even with Hunting dates staggered in different counties. Even incineration had fuel costs and posed a substantial environmental burden.

The problem elicited its own solution. A victory had been won and might now be celebrated. Civilized women, being creative beings, predictably sought the unusual and exclusive as outward symbols of their sophistication, wealth, and high social standing. Some argued the essence of human civilization itself was women's response to male strength and eagerness for violence. Women had held their own through millennia of oppression until sisterhood and technology had finally turned the tide.

Trophies were taken from the very start, but much was wasted at first. However, males like rabbits, raccoons, or coyotes, might be skinned. The creativity and imagination of the fashion industry, restrained by the harsh restrictions of the years of the Revolution and Reconstruction, rose to the challenge of a novel, but natural material and its possibilities. Women with adequate means treasured their expensive goods of genuine manskin, its scarcity adding to its allure which in turn added to its popularity and so on in the chain reaction of popular culture . Women of more modest means dreamed of the day when they might indulge themselves similarly and no longer need settle for synthetic imitations.

Some women even proved vulnerable to the outre urge to shock their more quotidian friends with their culinary daring. It began crudely enough in the hunting camps as a private ritual binding the hunters and their prey among those most deeply committed to the new order and never discussed with outsiders.

Inadvertently, the Hunt whetted a broader appetite for male skins and meat. Every other creature, wild or domestic, had its vigorous advocates. Many were all too embarrassed by the unpleasant particulars of the slaughter of trusting, peaceful domestic animals. The grace and beauty of wild creatures won them many friends and defenders. Males or jacks, as they came to be called, evoked little such sympathy. Some, certainly, refused to eat jacques, as beef is the flesh of cattle, or wear garments of manskin. Many more prized the novelty and the cachet. Some actually enjoyed the bitter irony after millennia of male terror and oppression and some just relished the taste.

Many, who could not imagine themselves slaughtering and dressing a steer, chicken, or even a fish, purchase neat and tidy packages of cellophane-wrapped butcher meat without a pause, much less any twinge of revulsion. Similarly, many who found the messier details of the Hunt distasteful, still shared in its fruits with enthusiasm and looked forward to their packages of jacques, already conveniently butchered into home cuts, neatly trimmed, and wrapped in white butcher paper. Overnight, the problem changed from too many males to too few males.

Now, elegantly dressed gourmets at the most exclusive restaurants in our great cities, such as Frere Jacques and Les Guerillieres, and in great cities across the world, an avant garde elite impress their more conventional friends and discuss the proper selection of wine to accompany an appetizer or entree featuring exquisitely prepared flesh from male carcasses or jacques. A red Bordeaux is still preferred by those who know when a well-manicured hand gracefully impales a lean sliver of fillet of jacques on the prongs of a finely made sterling silver fork, then neatly maneuvers it between brilliantly colored lips, past gleaming white teeth, and into the moist embrace of a delicate tongue. At home, any cabernet will do at festive times with a beautifully presented saddle or haunch of jacques. On more routine evenings, a zinfandel goes well with jacques stew. On college campuses, apple ale is more in order after the rally, when a trussed jack is boiled until tender, seared quickly on a spit over an aromatic mesquite fire, and then drenched in whatever barbecue sauce comes to hand just before serving. At home, soda goes well with sliced homme and cheese on rye, hommeburgers, or sausages.

In the usual hunt, the first challenge is just to find the damned creatures in the dense cover of the woods of the hunting preserves. Jacks quickly become quite adept at hiding or quite simply, they die. Most often, a jack from hiding spots the moving hunter first and just sneaks away, unseen. If the hunter somehow spots her quarry before he sees her, she has yet to approach him closely enough - often within 25-50 meters - for a good look and a high-percentage shot. This gives the jack a second, even better opportunity to see the hunter and flee for safety. Over the course of a day, a hunter has about 1 chance in 4 remaining unseen until she has at least one 'good' shot and about 1 shot in 2 is successful.

Most often, however, the jack spots the stalking hunter before she can close and bursts from cover. Bringing down a moving target on a broken field with a bow and arrow takes more than a bit of luck and more than average skill. If it comes to a foot race, a jack, running for his very life, is faster than most hunters and not encumbered by any equipment. Should a hunter actually chase down her jack, the confrontation was unpredictable and dangerous. Many hunters worked in teams and the few solo hunters usually choose not to pursue a fleeing jack alone, unless he is already wounded.

Given the difficulties of stalking, many hunters work from blinds and simply wait for jacks to blunder into their fields of fire after being chased from their hiding places by other hunters. Others work in teams. Several partners act as beaters to drive the game into their teammates' sites methodically.

The use of hounds is strictly limited to the third and final day of the Hunt. Permits are few and costly but the kill ratio is fairly high. Handlers have to be paid for their hounds' training and year-around upkeep. The guides and hounds move from site to site during the staggered dates of the Hunting season. Experienced hounds can sniff out a jack with ease and readily flush him from hiding. Bringing him to bay with the help of the hounds after a merry chase is exhilarating. An exhausted jack fending off the hounds presents an easier target, but most Hounders disdain the bow. The traditional weapon is a heavy bladed Janie knife. Taking a jack one-on-one with only a knife while avoiding serious injury is a premier challenge of the sport. More than one jack has wrestled the knife free from a hunter and turned the knife back on a hunter with a vengeance. Most choose simply to forgo the expense and the danger altogether, but there are always some who are looking for an extreme adventure.

The Gemma and Karen had hounded once with others and developed a hankering to try it themselves, despite the expense and danger. Neither had ever taken a jack herself. The closest that they had come was when they had goner along on Mary and Briana's hunt and the hounds had chased a wretched jack clear up a tree. When they stopped laughing and finally ran out of clever taunts, Gemma, Karen and their hosts threw rocks at him until the poor creature came crashing to the ground. The bruises left much of his carcass unsalvageable.

The women were up before dawn, ate a light breakfast, gathered their equipment, and checked in. They met Carrie St. Nicholas, their guide, and set out with the first horn. Carrie was about their age and quite petite. Despite her diminutive size, her authority with her dogs was beyond question. The hounds, Dasher, Prancer, Donder, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, and Blixen were yapping joyously and more than eager to begin. The dawn hours were very pleasant still, but the day promised to be a scorcher.

The relentless August sun quickly overcame the comfortable morning cool. Striding through the long dry grass over broken ground following the hounds was quite arduous for Gemma and Karen despite their weeks of thorough conditioning. Carrie managed her well-trained hounds affectionately but effectively. She hoped that her clients had truly prepared themselves for the rigors that faced them. She had seen others who looked great in their hunting gear but tired too soon, or failed at the critical moment. Other entertainments were readily available for those not up to the challenge of the Hunt. She hoped that Gemma and Karen knew that they weren't in Kansas anymore.

The hounds quickly scattered. Comet quickly found one scent trail and then Donder and Prancer found others. On the first day of the Hunt about 1000 jacks had been released into the 200 square kilometer preserve. The grounds were rife with various scents from three days of traffic. At first, the dogs seemed confused but somehow they deliberated without words and came to a joint decision. They settled on one trail and took off yapping happily. Carrie, Gemma, and Karen, had to run to keep up. Running in the heat with their equipment was tiring. The first trail ended without a jack. Perhaps he had been already taken on the first or second day.

The hounds found a second trail and once more found no jack. Undismayed, the hounds picked up a third trail. The women followed with a tad less energy and enthusiasm than they had the first two times.

The jack had heard the hounds while they were yet a ways off. He had heard them get closer and closer. He had weighed abandoning his hiding place. With a long lead, he might look for water to mask his scent or a climb up a tree and move above the ground and lose the hounds. On the other hand, the hounds might not be on him at all. He might abandon his cover and blunder into the sites of another hunter. He decided to wait.

Dylan had survived his first Hunt and earned his ring. Waiting for the first horn and the start of his first Hunt, he had stood with the others in the enclosure and endured the hunters' taunts and teasing. In the course of the three days, he had spotted a stalking hunter more than a dozen times and each time crept away unseen. Once though, he had blundered into a second hunter and had had to run for his life. Twice, he had spotted a hunter only after she had seen him and simply ran for safety with little opportunity for concern about concealment. Luckily, he hadn't blundered into a second hunter either time. Once, however, he had heard sound of hounds coming nearer and nearer and fled in a panic, only to blunder into a pair of hunters hiding in a blind. He had only narrowly escaped, leaping to the side at the sound of an arrow as an unseen hunter released her bowstring. The second arrow just missed. The hounds hadn't been on his trail at all. At the final horn on the third day, he emerged from the woods with the other survivors.

More and more males straggled from the woods, physically and emotionally exhausted. A thousand males had been released into the preserve three days before. Fewer than one half survived. Something like 250 were taken the first day, 180 on the second, and 120 on the third, as the jacks became progressively less numerous and harder to find. The less crafty ones were taken first and those with more skill and experience proved more difficult quarry.

The scene was right out of Bosch. Dylan and the others saw the returning hunters and the carcasses of their erstwhile comrades. Hunters were everywhere, celebrating their successes or commiserating their failures. Gutted male carcasses were everywhere too, at the weighing station, lying in the back of 4x 4's, and tied over car roofs. One woman knelt and scrapped a newly taken skin, industriously removing the stubbornly adherent flesh and fat.

The Rangers sponsored an annual party for the hunters on the third and final day of the Hunt- both for those who had taken a jack and those who had not. One ranger passed out beer and soft drinks. Another stood beside a boiling 50 gallon drum and fished out joints of meat. She stripped the steaming flesh from the bones with her boning knife and cut it into fist size chunks with a practiced efficiency. The women then seared the meat pointed sticks over open fires and drenched it in tangy barbecue sauce.

This was his first Hunt and he was utterly paralyzed by the nightmare scene that unfolded before him. The males who had survived last year's Hunt had tried to describe it to him, but their paltry words had not conveyed the absolute horror. The simple ordinariness of it all was most frightening, the talking and laughing, and carrying on. In desperation, he looked for the bus that would take him back to Camp Stanton - and safety. Many fewer buses would be needed to take the males home than had been needed to bring the jacks to the preserve. He had been told to take the "light bulb" bus, but the busses were still nowhere to be seen.

Two women approached him, one was of medium height and build and the other quite petite and finely featured. Both were brunettes and both wore shorts and t-shirts. The smaller one caught his eye and smiled as she wiped a smear of barbecue sauce from the corner of her mouth. The taller looked him over and saw a strongly built youth standing naked before her. There had been a time when a woman would have found his nudity intimidating, but that time was long gone. She obviously enjoyed what she saw and swung her arm around his waist, not at all deterred by three days of dirt and perspiration.. "Do you want to party?" she asked. Her hand slipped lower and brushed over his high and tight ass. "My name is Abby and my friend there is Jordan."

"Dylan," he said. "Dylan." He did not object.

Jordan looked around for an alternative and seeing no other attractive options, joined her friend. Her perfume filled his head. She touched his chest, obviously enjoying the male angularity of his male form and rubbed her thumbs over his vestigial nipples. "You're a big one," she said kindly. Standing on her tiptoes, she placed her hands firmly on his shoulders and stretched to kiss him fully on the mouth. She placed her hand softly on the inside of his thigh. Her mouth tasted of smoky barbecue sauce and roasted meat, but her perfume, the pressure of her breasts on his chest, the warmth and ardor of her mouth, the soft touch of the back of her hand on his male parts, and the wild joy of merely being alive were irresistible.

Dropping all pretenses, Jordan simply grabbed Dylan's sex, gently but firmly. It grew quickly to fill her small fist. She led him awkwardly to their blanket where her two friends were waiting, one white and one black. Jamie was the white girl, medium height with light brown hair and perhaps a little stocky. Sierra was the black girl, tall and willowy. Someone handed Dylan a beer and it was the best that he had ever drunk in his life. They kindly let him finish it and one more before they finally wrestled him playfully to the ground.

Dylan lay supine and Sierra lay on her side curled about, facing him. She cradled his head in her arms. Laughing, she teased his lips with her tongue and lips. She ran her fingers through his longish blond hair, picking at the leaves and twigs that he had inadvertently collected during his days in the woods. Dylan groaned in pleasure and inadvertently kicked over the remnants of the dinner that still shared the blanket. Their dog ran off in panic at the commotion. His barking set off memories of his near brush with dogs a few hours earlier that day.

He could hear dogs baring now.

Jordan and Abby explained the mysteries of the male sex to Jamie. Emboldened, Jamie touched his penis. The hardness beneath the velvety skin was exciting. She pinched his fat balls within their scrotal sac gently. Dylan became even harder at her touch, as if that were possible.

"Just don't let him come yet!" Jordan warned. Seeing the telltale signs, she squeezed his glans firmly between her thumb and index finger and averted the event.

Meanwhile, Sierra had stripped off her shorts and sat astride Dylan's chest. She tucked her leg under his head and presented him with her sex. Dylan knew what was expected. The aroma of her desire was compelling.

Jordan and Abby slipped a sturdy Priapus-PI, prostaglandin-impregnated, extra thick condom over his cock and Abby took him first. "Sierra, let Jamie have a turn," Jordan suggested. "Let him get her ready to ride."

Sierra, rarely selfish, this time totally ignored Jordan until she came, but then she got up and let Jamie have her place. Abby was soon making all sorts of noises, Sierra chuckled and shook her head.

Jamie was shy at first, but the feel of Dylan's tongue between her inner and outer labia and around her clitoris soon removed all concern for embarrassment. She came quickly and hard. Jordan urged her to take Abby's place. Jamie was loath to move and Abby was reluctant to stop, but they changed places at Jordan's urging.

Abby was soon groaning again. Her liquids were pouring out on Dylan's face and neck. Jamie slowly and carefully lowered herself on Dylan's stiff cock that Jordan held in position. She felt first pressure, then a burning as Dylan stretched her to bursting. It was all so new.

Abby had had enough for a while and Sierra took her turn again. After Sierra had finished, Jamie finally dismounted and left Dylan soothe her with his fat tongue. Jordan had kept her pressure on the base of his cock so that he could not ejaculate.

Jordan took him next and one might wonder how one so petite took such a fat cock so readily. Then Sierra took her turn while Abby rode his face again. Still, Dylan had not come.

"Look the buses are here for the boys." Jamie shouted and pointed. Sure enough, she was right. The speakers called for the boys to check in for their ride back to camp. Dylan groaned in disappointment and started to get up

Jordan heard him, and snorted. "Wait, honey. Don't worry, we've got time." Abby, Sierra, and Jamie began to clean- up the paper plates and cups and roll up the blanket. Jordan knelt beside Dylan and stripped off the condom. She cradled his balls in one small hand and stretched her other hand around his fat cock. "Jamie, watch me make him come!" she called.

Jamie stood and watched while Jordan manipulated him skillfully. His breathing became more rapid and his heartbeat increased. His pupils dilated, his hips twitched involuntarily, and he came copiously, thrashing about. Dylan had never come as hard and he was grateful. He felt faint and lying there felt so good. He hadn't had a good night sleep in two nights but he had to get back to the bus.

"Thanks for a good time!" Abby said.

"Yeah," replied Dylan.

"Me too," said Sierra as she policed the site.

"Me three," said Jamie. She thought that she might want to kiss him, but thought about it more and changed her mind.

When he stood up, Dylan saw the long lines gathering by the buses. More than 400 males had survived the hunt out of the original 1000.

Jordan saw the lines too and smiled. There was yet some time. She beckoned to Dylan. Dylan saw her and smiled.

Jordan was short, and even kneeling Dylan was too tall to pleasure her properly. His head was at the level of her breasts. He nuzzled them playfully and only increased Jordan's frustration. In the end, Dylan sat with his bare buttocks on the bare ground and his arms behind him for support. Jordan stood astride his shoulders and guided him firmly with her hand. Waves of pleasure rose from her pelvis. She threw her head back and closed her eyes. She rubbed her small breasts vigorously through her t-shirt. She came once and again. Her sex became very tender but her hunger was not yet satisfied. She shielded her sex with one hand and pushed Dylan's head further between her legs with the other.

Her desire was intoxicating and Dylan relished his new found power. His tongue brushed the sensitive bit of skin between her vulva and her rectum and she shuddered visibly. Dylan licked around her rectum, then licked and sucked the puckered bud itself. Then he probed it with his tongue.

Jordan rose on her tip-toes and groaned aloud. She looked down on Dylan and smiled. He was really good! Jordan placed the hand that had been on Dylan's head onto her sex, and spread her swollen labia with her fingers. "Dylan," she looked down, "Thanks!"

Dylan looked up, feeling more than a bit pleased with himself. Jordan, fully satisfied at last, looked down at his smiling face, relaxed, and released a stream of urine onto the boy beneath her.

"You'd better go and catch your bus!" Jordan's grin stretched from ear to ear.

Dylan remembered the moment vividly still. What had he done to deserve this? He looked at Jordan and she said nothing but pointed at the dwindling lines by the buses. He had ridden back to Camp Stanton, wet and cold. Most thought, he guessed that he had peed on himself in the terror of the Hunt.

Just then, Jamie appeared carrying four camouflage suits. Sierra and Abby carried between them a gutted jack slung from a pole. His unseeing eyes stared blankly into the distance. His tongue lolled from the side of his mouth. A stout stick held his chest open so that he might cool more quickly. His male parts were nowhere in evidence. Seeing Dylan looking at her jack, Jamie exclaimed proudly, "He's my first - and so are you!"

"Jordan, can you please get the bows?" Sierra asked.

Jordan pulled on her shorts and retrieved the bows while Dylan fled back to the buses. The damned dog barked and nipped playfully at his heels.

That was then this was now - the third day of his second Hunt. He could still hear the dogs barking, he snorted. Their loud yapping recalled him from his reverie

No one even saw the jack until the hounds flushed him from hiding. The tall grass offered good cover, but could not mask his scent. With a longer lead he might have found a stream or bridge of trees to confuse the scent. Now he had no chance. He burst out of the long grass and led them on a desperate chase. He was a fine specimen, large and broad shouldered. His long, muscular legs devoured the distance tirelessly but the hounds pursued him with equal determination.

Gemma, Karen, and Carrie did their best to keep up. The women had trained for months for the rigors of the Hunt and regretted not a moment of it as they strained to keep up with their guide who crashed through the heavy grass whistling commands to her pack of exuberant but well-disciplined hounds. The sharp-edged rocks and biting thorns tore at their legs through their thin knee socks. The dusty dry air seared their lungs. Oxygen hunger was like a blow to the belly. Gemma and Karen each carried a ten inch Janie knife. Carrie seconded them with her crossbow. Given the size of the jack, the bolts looked somewhat puny.

The jack ran and with his distance-devouring stride, the women fell further and further behind at first. He showed no evidence of fatigue for the longest time and continued to increase his lead over the women. However determinedly he ran, he just could not lose the hounds and the women who followed behind them tenaciously with a determination not a whit less than his own.

He could outrun the women but not the dogs. They closed quickly and followed him by sight as well as scent. Had he a longer lead, he might look for a stream or bridge of trees to confuse them. They were too close for any of that and soon literally nipped at his heels.

Finally, the jack himself could simply run no further. He stopped in front of a broad tree to secure his back and turned to face the hounds. He hoped to catch his breath and go on before the hunters closed. The women were still out of sight but doubtlessly pursuing.

Somewhere, he had picked up a crooked stick as thick as his forearm arm and about three quarters of a meter long. He quickly knelt and grabbed a handful of pebbles. The dogs rushed at him and he pelted them with stones until he had none left. Then he knelt and looked for more. He lashed out at the yelping creatures with his makeshift club. The dogs danced away, only to dart back in again. He flailed about with his club and warded off the dogs but, as often as not, struck nothing but air. Every so often, he did hit something more solid. He did some damage eventually, and his makeshift club was soon marked with blood and fur. However, most often the blows were usually little more than glancing. The hounds whined piteously all out of proportion to their injuries.

Carrie heard them as she ran to catch up and laughed at their theatrical cries. To her pride, her hounds did not lose their courage for all their whining. They kept the jack at bay skillfully until the women finally closed. The dogs formed a semi-circle about ten meters in radius and open to the direction from which the hunters approached as quickly as they could over the difficult ground. They darted in and out with blinding speed in a seeming random order. The besieged jack struck at them over and over again but his responses became slower and his arm was visibly tiring

The jack looked up and saw his tormentors approaching at a trot. He shouted his defiance but the ceaseless attacks of the dogs to either side and before him quickly required his close attention once again. He was hot and he was thirsty. The club seemed to weigh twice what it had when he had picked it up. The dog's constant harassment did not allow him to recover the energy that he had expended on his grueling run in the hot sun.

Gemma's lungs were burning but somewhere she somewhere found a reserve of strength and kept up her pursuit. When she stopped running, flies and other noxious insects sought to take their blood feast while their cousins buzzed around her head drawn by the sweat that poured from her body and stained her khaki blouse under her armpits and her breasts and over her back. The sun's glare was harsh and blinding, tempting her to simply close her eyes and stop the pain. The hound's cacophony of yammering, growls, and screams, made even thought difficult. She was hot and thirsty too.

Dylan neither faltered nor lost his courage. He swept the dogs away with his crude weapon again and again. He grinned at the abject panic that masked their unwavering tenacity and grew somewhat more confident, although he had done little real damage. In the brief moment while they noisily reformed to harry him again, he looked up to face Gemma, clearly the intelligence directing his torment. He stood to his full height and shouted his inchoate defiance. He raised his makeshift club and threatened the smaller woman who stood before him with gestures unmistakable in any language. In the space of the blink of an eye, he charged the open side of the circle and quickly closed the distance between himself and Gemma at a sprint. Even the dogs, as quick as they were, had little time to react.

Gemma saw him bear down on her with her death in his eyes. His sex rose erect before him. His muscled form filled her vision. He was oblivious to her seconds. She hoped that Carrie had him dead to rights in her sights, but bringing down a madly charging jack would be a difficult shot at best, Gemma knew, and what could Carrie do at all if they were grappling together on the ground. Gemma felt an overpowering need to run. Instinct and good sense made common cause and demanded that she just step aside and just let the damned bugger pass. Then Gemma remembered her training and why she had set out this day in the first place. She fought to contain the surging waves of panic and concentrated on maintaining her focus. She wanted to take her jack but it was all so much easier pretending in the gym.

Gemma unsheathed her knife although its heavy ten inch blade seemed puny now. She lifted her left arm into a blocking position and tightened her grasp of the knife. Her arm looked like a twig before the bulk of the jack. What if the beast wrtestled the knife away and turned it on her? What if she should fall and the drop the knife?

She considered the two strategies open to her. She could step aside and let him pass and then try to catch him from behind. She chose a second plan. She held her position resolutely until the last possible second and an instant longer. Every fiber of her being screamed for her to flee, but will triumphed over mere flesh and she mastered her fear for a while at least.

The jack measured his stride. Surely, the woman would step aside at the last moment and let him past. He raised his arm as a threat. Should she freeze with panic and somehow fail to move out of the way, he thought to smash her with his makeshift club as he ran right over her. The distance separating them decreased rapidly. Comet jumped up from nowhere. She nipped at his heel and distracted him for a crucial instant.

Gemma did not flee. Rather, she moved forward strongly into him. He simply could not stop. She had utterly destroyed his timing - just like in the textbook, just like she had practiced in the gym. He found that he had no room to swing his club. She took his broad chest squarely on her thin, left forearm and his great club passed harmlessly over her head. Collapsing to the ground under his greater bulk and momentum, his hot breath scorched her face. His skin was damp from perspiration. With no chance for bathing for three days, he just stank. Gemma somehow kept her wits and her knife. She thrust her heavy blade up under her raised arm as they fell to the ground and took him under the ribs. His own momentum drove the sturdy iron blade up through his diaphragm and pierced his heart.

He went limp on top of her, his weight making it difficult for her to breath. His club, now marked with dog fur and blood, fell from his feeble grasp. His musky odor was overwhelming. Gemma quickly gave her knife an extra thrust and a twist and then wiggled out from under him.

Before Carrie and Karen could reach her, she somehow flipped the massive male onto his back and knelt beside him. She grabbed his chin with her left hand and brought his fading eyes under her own triumphant gaze. He had no strength to resist. "You're mine!" she said. Ignoring the frothy blood that bubbled from his mouth, she held his nose with her right hand and covered his mouth with her own. His massive arms flailed ineffectually against her frailer form. He just could not escape her grip. With a gasp, he opened his mouth to breath and she covered his mouth with her own. He sought with all his fading strength to turn his head and breath again but she dug her teeth into his lips to hold her place, drawing yet more blood. Then she took him with her tongue. In another context, it may have been a kiss, but here she claimed his soul, just as she claimed his life.

He was totally hers. When Karen and Carrie reached her, laughing and cheering, Gemma looked up with red blood running down her face and staining her already sweat-stained khaki blouse. "I took his soul! Did you see me?" she exulted, only now aware of the fatigue that wracked her body. Her exhausted muscles trembled uncontrollably. In the morning, her adrenaline rush would fade leaving her weak and sore. Even then, though, she would know that when courage and resolve were needed, she had done what was required. Her nagging previous self doubts only added to the sweetness of her victory.

Her friends were at first concerned that the blood might have been hers, but it was not, not at all. Her beaming smile, though, revealed her triumph. Karen brushed the dirt and debris from the carcass while Carrie exchanged her crossbow for a camera.

Gemma straightened his twisted limbs. Almost affectionately, she used her fingers to comb in his longish blond hair and to remove the accumulated debris. His skin was tanned a golden brown by the sun, and his male parts were yet darker. She laid his genitals this way and that until she finally him arranged the way that she wanted. She tied off his penis with a string so that he would not lose his urine. Now, he was totally hers.

He was her first kill. The two women were amused but the ritual need be observed. Turning her back to preserve some vestige of modesty, Gemma shed her sweat stained clothes and stripped down to her skin, which glowed from her covering of perspiration. She stood naked in her socks and boots. The hair on her head and the triangle of hair between her thighs were matted alike with wetness. As naked as her jack and heedless of the blood that pooled around his wound, she sat astride his chest. She pried open his unresisting mouth, then scooted back, and captured his sex between her still trembling thighs. She laid forward and pressed her sweat-sticky breasts against his now quiet chest. She covered his mouth with hers and stretched forward to grasp his forearms which extended above his head. She took his mouth with her tongue and rocked herself against his flesh seeking to take a full quantify of her pleasure. Waves of pleasure, rising rhythmically from her groin, commanded her attention and made her totally oblivious to Carrie and Karen and their wicked grins. The coarse hairs of his chest abraded her nipples deliciously. His dying tongue fluttered weakly against hers and she groaned aloud, heedless of her friends. She came hard once, and then again. She came again and again, until she was through, breathless and quivering.

He'd be hanging in the cooler by dusk. Carrie spread a plastic drop cloth and dragged and rolled him into position with some difficulty due to his large size. Skilled and well practiced in her trade, Carrie gutted him and extracted his teeth for a necklace. The dogs feasted well on his heart, liver, and kidneys and certainly thought with canine logic, their day well spent. She wedged a stout stick into his chest to help him cool, actually the same stick that the jack had used to threaten Gemma. She dried the inside of the carcass with paper towels. The guide then opened his ball sack, her knife sticky with blood, and lifted out his heavy balls. She halved each in her palm, careful not to cut herself and then quartered them. Gemma and Karen shared the bloody morsels, offering the guide a share for she had after all made their success possible. They rinsed their bloody hands and wetted their mouths with water from their canteens while Carrie flayed him.

A debate raged whether a carcass should be skinned immediately or whether skinning should be delayed until a carcass had hung for a day or two until rigor mortis passed and it was ready for butchering. Some argued that the skin helped protect the underlying meat from the ever present dirt, leaves, and insects in the field. Others argued that the skin just held in body heat that always threatened to taint the meat and bore numerous sweat glands that might also contribute to an off flavor - with enough time. Carrie herself followed the practice of the abattoirs and skinned the carcass promptly in the field," hot," before the subcutaneous fat had even had an opportunity to solidify and harden..

Using her sharp, short bladed flaying knife, she cut circles around his wrists and ankles, then slit the skin on the inside of his legs from ankle to groin, first the left and then the right. Then she slit the skin on the inside of his arms, cutting over his collarbones to meet the incision that opened him from groin to neck. Using mostly the blunt edge of her knife, she peeled the skin back from her incisions, starting with the extremities and working toward the center. Soon the arms and leg skin hung limply like empty sleeves and she worked her way down his chest and up his thighs and abdomen.

Gemma and Karen marveled at her speed and economy of motion. With only a bit of help she flipped him over onto his belly and peeled the skin from his thick, muscular thighs, buttocks, back, and shoulders, only occasionally resorting to the sharp edge of her blade. Finally, the skin hung like a cape, attached only at the base of his neck. The golden brown color tanned skin, contrasted with now exposed blood-red muscle and yellow-white fat and bone beneath. Carrie could not resist the urge to smooth his blood matted blond hair using her fingers as a crude comb.

Carrie wrapped the carcass in the especially designed cloth that would help keep the carcass clean but not hold in the heat. Now it was time to go back for a long, hot shower and a good night's sleep. One tenderloin would grace the grill tonight. The rest of the carcass would hang in the cooler. The skin would be salted for tanning later. Tomorrow, Gemma was certain to wake up in the morning sore and achy but she would have no regrets. Next year, Karen would have her turn.