Thoroughly Modern Melanippe By pr_squared@hotmail.com Please share your thoughts about my story I am Melanippe, daughter of Lysidice of the Running Horse Clan. I hale from the Riding of Dioantiea. I'm certainly not the famous Queen Melanippe, daughter of the unfortunate Queen Oreithya. My childhood friends call me Black Mane. Doianteia, of course, is the alluvial plain bounded by the Amazonian Mountains to the south, the Black Sea to the north, the River Iris to the west and the River Thermadon to the east. The Riding of Lykasteia lies to the south, on the far side of the Amazonian Mountains. Dioanteia is a bountiful land, coursed by many streams, rich in herds and grain, fruit trees and vines. Believe it or not, I was twenty years old and still a nulli. I had not birthed a daughter (nulliparous) or slain a male (nullicidous). All my friends - except for the retards - had fulfilled their duty and become adults. They had had their childish braids lopped off and their scalps shaved, except for the really stylish topknots. My nulli's braid now reached down well past my ass and almost to my knees. My friends all say that I have a pert little ass, but I know it's huge and flabby - even grotesque. I know they're my friends and too kind to say anything negative - to me. My thick black hair took just forever to dry after I worked out in the gym and hours to braid. Once it got caught in the spokes of our horse cart. My friends' mothers had simply paid the damned fee and arranged for their daughters to officiate at a Temple sacrifice and earn their topknots. That's just what my friend Aissa's mother did. They are of the Rich-in- Cattle Clan. The party afterward was great but I only got to watch because I was still just a nulli. Aissa's old braid now pads her war helmet, which sits unused on the top shelf in her closet. I asked my mother and begged - really groveled. She turned me down cold. "We are not bird-brains like the Sun and Moon Clan," she said with scorn. "We are not crass materialists like the wealthy Rich-in-Cattle Clan. We are proud warriors of the Running Horse Clan!" The final straw broke when I was sitting on the commode answering nature's call. I stared down between my thighs and peered into the toilet bowl. My friends say that my thighs are buff but I know that they're fat and grotesque. Well, I emptied my bladder, looked down to wipe, and saw my damned braid floating in the yellow water! It was certainly past time to do something. ii First, I thought long and hard, which is usually a good place to start. Birthing a daughter seemed simply too messy and painful and more likely to be of a threat to my figure - such as it is - than killing a motherless male, so birthing a daughter was out. What if I went through all the trouble and birthed a male? Come to think of it, I also had to get my mother a present for my birthing day anyway, like any good Amazon daughter gets her mother a present on her birthing day. My mother, birthday present or no, would never pay for a sacrifice at the Temple, so I walked over to my friend Aissa's house for a talk. I sat on Aissa's porch and Aissa's boy knelt naked before me and washed my feet. Everyone knows that when you enter an Amazon home you have to remove your sandals and wash your feet. Wealthy households assign a boy or even two for the purpose. In poor households, the task falls to the youngest daughter. Even the poorest household keeps a footbath by the front door. Some of the most popular footbaths are made of Wilding skulls. The Wildings are over-sized savages who infest the Barren Waste, south of the Riding of Lykasteia. The "Barren Waste, where Death is ever near at Hand," say the guidebooks. The Amazon Ridings long have had an uneasy truce with the uncouth creatures. Their land is so bleak and desolate that no one else wants it, given the rich bounty of the Amazon lands. The boy, about my age, worked in earnest. His strong hands felt good on my tired feet and calves. The strong lines of his muscular back, his bare, tight ass, and his simple closeness were distracting. His warm breath tickled my thighs. I wondered if Aissa had jumped his bones. The women of the Rich-in-Cattle clan are said to have a weakness for sweaty, belly-to-belly sex. That is why there are so many of them. The prim and proper, cerebral women of the Sun and Moon clan have a predilection for foot massage. Perhaps that explains why they are so few. The women of my Running Horse clan are said to have a fondness for oral sex. We're as happy to give it as get it. That's why the Running Horse clan's boys tend to be drawn and pale and the women of the Running Horse clan are prized as girlfriends. I wondered if the boy could detect my arousal. Aissa, her scalp still itching from its recent shaving and her private parts still sore but pleasantly tingling from her introduction to adult life, came out to greet me. She tousled her boy's hair fondly. The god entered him immediately, if you know what I mean. Well, I could stop worrying whether she had jumped his bones and begin to wonder just how many times she had jumped his bones. I told Aissa my problem and she shared my opinion. My best answer was simply to slay a male. Her mother just paid the Temple fee. If the goddess did not favor the Rich- in-Cattle Clan, why did she make them so numerous and so wealthy? Her boy was really, really hot, and Aissa spent a very agreeable two nights week at the Temple helping out. She had eaten with him and bathed with him. She talked with him and walked with him. She had emptied out his chamber pot and smoked weed with him. She had assisted the priestesses at the frequent conception parties when hopeful girls visited with their seconds and tried to get a daughter off a handsome Temple-certified youth. As a nulli, she could play around but never participate in the main event. It made her so unbelievably horny. Aissa's mother had worried that Aissa was getting too sweet on him. She feared that she had paid all that money and Aissa would simply refuse to do the deed. She indicted Aissa for the ubiquitous female vice of sentimentality. She even accused Aissa of falling in love with the first one who found her pearl. In truth, I was the first one to find Aissa's clitoris - actually Aissa found it first and she showed me second. iii When the time finally came, Aissa had had all the doubts that any other girl in her position might have. After all, sentimentality is the ever- present female vulnerability. She had really come to like the bugger but she really wanted to lose her nulli's braid too. She had so looked forward so impatiently to jumping her boy's bones on his last night. Her feelings were in conflict and she honestly was uncertain whether she could do the deed - actually cut his throat - at the altar. However, on the night of the sacrifice, the priestesses gave the bugger so much of their best weed and he wasn't much good for much of anything -if you know what I mean. Well, the Temple was well stocked with all sorts of neat toys and the priestesses showed Aissa a trick or two that Aissa promised to teach me once I got my topknot. "There are more things you can do with a boy than are listed in our high school human sexuality textbook, Melanippe," Aissa said with an air of sophisticated mystery. I recalled my mother's half-remembered comments. Never let a Sun and Moon clan's boy kiss you on the lips, she warned. Never buy a boy from the Rich- in-Cattle clan unless you test his anal sphincter. When Aissa walked him down the aisle, he was so stoned and his tight little ass so abused that it took Aissa and the priestess on his other side to keep him from falling on his face. That would have been so embarrassing. Aissa admitted it only once, but her deep resentment that he hadn't been quite ready when she was, gave her the edge that she needed to wield the sacrificial knife so strongly. She stuck him deep and true and he bled out cleanly and died smoothly with a graceful shrug rather than with an unseemly struggle. The ceremony was simply awesome and so was her party afterwards. iv The males of Amissos were the closest at hand. Amissos is just west of the Dioantiean plain. However, the men of Amissos have a tendency to carry sharp pointy iron weapons and to encase their not completely unattractive male bodies in tough metal armor. The males of Amissos rarely venture very far from their walled city and tend to travel in large groups. Piracy was a second option. The ship captains are always recruiting. I know girls who went on raids and came home wealthy but still didn't register a confirmed kill. A bag of loot can always buy you a victim for the Temple. However, I really didn't want to blow an entire summer on an extended pirate raid in the Aegean either. I get unbelievably seasick. Sea air makes my hair curl and too much sun is bad for my complexion. "What about the Wildings of the Barren Waste? Aissa asked. Few Wildings are seen alive in Dioanteia. The Wildings raid across the border, on occasion, collecting refuse and grabbing abandoned male infants. The backward creatures refuse to wield metal weapons or cover their naked bodies. A lone Wilding presents little threat to an armed Amazon. Gangs of Wildings present more of a problem, but the inhospitable terrain make it difficult for bands to secure enough water and food to stay together long. The Wildings just melt away before the occasional punitive expedition; our warriors themselves severely hampered by the terrain and forced to carry their own water and food for both themselves and their mounts. Amazon warriors, singly or in pairs, have much better success in keeping the Wildings in check. The goal is population control, not extermination. Younglings or cubs are never intentionally taken, nor are adults caring for younglings. Each Riding is allotted a quota as to how many Wildings may be taken in a given year. Some poaching must occur. Our Amazon bazaars and swap-meets sell Wilding skulls as punch bowls, footbaths, or chamber pots - unlike the barbarian skulls, they're too large for drinking mugs. We use their skins for horse blankets and make flutes of their thighbones. My dog always loves to gnaw on his smoked Wilding ears. Some outspoken people don't approve of our treatment of the Wildings. Every so often, they walk around shouting slogans and waving "Save the Males" placards. In general, they make a general nuisance of themselves. I think they're a bunch of dickie-whipped stag-hags. We really don't even exploit the Wildings very thoroughly, Aissa pointed out. Talking very much like a daughter of the Rich-in-Cattle clan, she explained that round-ups would be so much more efficient than hunting. Full-grown Wildings might be culled and juveniles released back into the Waste. However, it's not the protestors at all, it's the economics, she explained. The Wildings are simply too few to make their commercial exploitation commercially viable. Hunting and related tourism are important industries in several towns on the border. Actually, the most ardent hunters somehow make the greatest effort to help the Wildings through the barren Waste's frequent droughts - just to make sure that enough survive to be hunted. "Sounds good," I thought. I might want better accommodations than one might find in the Barren Waste, but perhaps I could secure a license, take my Wilding, and lose this damned braid. It just might be do-able. v Well, I got the license. I threw the Wilding skin shabraq over my gelding's back and saddled him. Then I stowed my double action cross bow on the saddle and checked my canteens once again. Water was scarce in the Barren Waste, "where Death is always near at Hand." Aissa, always my good friend, agreed to come along for the ride. I waved to my mother and reminded myself to remember her birthday present and we were off. The mountains to the north offer no easy route to Lykasteia. so we traveled first east to Themiskyra, then rode up the valley of the Thermadon. To keep our horses fresh, we rode an hour. Several days out from the City, the river coursed to the east, climbing to the upper vales, and we headed west into Lykasteia over some very treacherous and rocky ground. We walked the horses over the most difficult terrain. Finally, we climbed up one last ridge and then descended steeply into the valley of the River Lykis. Miles downstream the Lykis would open into Crescent Moon Lake and then merge with another stream and make up the Iris -the Rainbow River - which courses north into the Black Sea at Amissos. Several days later, we made our way into the overgrown village that had grown up around the Marshal's steading. I decided to invest in a guide because who wants to traipse around the Barren Waste for days and then come home all sweaty and sun-burned but empty-handed. Aissa and I met Barkida of the Sun and Moon Clan coming back from a successful hunt. We couldn't get over the size of the field-dressed Wilding draped over her saddlebow. Amazon warriors take the foreskins of the males they have slain as trophies. They tan them and make belts of the interlocking rings. Pantariste's belt was said to have reached twice around her waist. Barkida wore the Wilding's foreskins around her wrist like bracelets. "The Wildings are large," she explained, her leather-tough sunburned face cracking into a smile. "Bright Daughter of the Brilliant Dawn! They eat a high protein diet unlike the gas-blighted, stunted males of Amissos who subsist on gains and beans with only an occasional bit of meat or fish for flavor." Aissa was worried because Barkida belonged to the Sun and Moon Clan. The Sun and Moon Clan is the smallest of the three clans. Sun and Mooners are known for their lofty intellects. They are also thought impractical and indecisive. Despite her occasional personal lapses, my mother taught me to judge each woman for herself and not accept the conventional prejudices. People say that the Sun and Moon Clan is intelligent but indecisive and impractical. The Rich in Cattle Clan is wealthy but cowardly and materialistic. The Running Horse Clan is warlike but short-tempered and dull. That's what everybody says. If Barkida could help me take my Wilding and get rid of this damned braid, she was okay by me. vi Barkida checked my license and registered us with the rangers. She made us leave our horses at the last oasis before the Barren Waste. Boarding them was quite expensive but a horse needed at least a stone of water a day. In the Waste, no forage might be found and we'd need to pack a stone of grain per horse too. A horse shouldn't carry more than 15 stone - without a rider. With a rider, the limit is something like 9 stone. Packhorses needed food and water too. We left all the horses behind. A stone of water would last a warrior ten days. We expected to supplement our food supply by hunting - lizards, rabbits, and gazelles but Barkida insisted that we carry extra water in canteens. We hefted our heavy packs in the dark before dawn and set out while it was still cool. We stopped the first day in midmorning and made camp. Wildings rarely stayed this close to the border. On the third day, Barkida found a particularly secluded place for our camp. "Now the real hunting begins," she said with a wry smile. Two more days passed and we found nothing -not a trail or sign. The third day was different. We tracked him all day. Barkida saw clues where Aissa and I saw nothing. Somehow or other, she tracked him over the dry ground. We followed skeptically. Her pace was rapid. Finally, he showed pink - that's what the hunters say. We saw his bare hide. Actually, Barkida tells me cattle and horses have hides, Wildings have skins. We saw his pink skin. Once, Barkida said, showing pink meant that a person pulled back her labia majora and exposed her labia minora. The meaning of words certainly changes. Actually he was a few shades tanner than pink. Anyway, we spotted him in the distance and began our pursuit. It wasn't long before he spotted us too and the chase was on. A lone Wilding would not fight three armed warriors, despite his size and strength. They go around all naked, with their male paraphernalia hanging out, relying on massive size and brute strength. They refuse to use metal weapons or even shields. Luckily, Barkida had a plan and she had done it all before. We followed her directions precisely. A Wilding can certainly outrun an Amazon, but the more he races, the more obvious his trail. Slow and steady always wins in the end - or almost. Working together, we kept him in sight and moving east toward the sheer face of the looming mountain. He ran and we followed behind more slowly but relentlessly. When he finally realized that we had herded him into a trap, it was too late for him. Intelligence was never a Wilding strength. Few Wildings have had the opportunity to survive their first mistake and learn. Desperate, he turned to face us. I kept moving forward slowly. He was mine. My crossbow was loaded and ready. Barkida and Aissa hung back. This was my hunt. vii He looked down at me and glared. He stood a foot taller than me and likely weighed as much as Aissa, Barkida, and me all together. I could smell him twenty paces away. The angularity of his heavy musculature that hung in plates on his gigantic frame contrasted with my smoother, rounder form. His exuberant hirsutism most betrayed his undeniable link with the bestial. His face was masked by a thick unkempt mask of hair - a beard. With his mounting rage, his man-root - his one eyed snake - rose from the coarse nest of his groin. My old granny told of a time when single male could intimidate a score of sane, healthy women just by threatening to expose his male parts. That time was safely in the past. "Let me go!" he bellowed as if I wouldn't have heard him if he had spoken more softly. He looked down at his rampant man-root and up at me - quizzically. I wasn't about to have purchased a license, ridden all the way to the Barren Waste and tracked him through the miserable desert for three day to up and let him go. "What is that thing?" I taunted. I looked straight at him, stared deliberately at his sex, waited a decent interval, and then answered myself mildly, "Looks to me like a penis. Only its smaller!" I laughed. I always laughed at that line. Fight like a man!" he challenged, but I could detect his sudden, unmistakable uncertainty. His legs were as thick as tree trunks. His abs and pecs were truly impressive, if you like that sort of thing. His raised fists were like anvils. Only his spirit was wavering. "What did the elephant say to the naked Wilding?" I asked, following up my moral advantage. He froze, waiting for the inevitable punch line. "How do you drink through that thing?" I quipped and broke his spirit totally. I did wonder how he walked with that thing hanging between his legs - or how he sat down. What if he sat on it -would it hurt? What if he crushed his ball sack between his muscular thighs? "Fight me like a man, bitch!" he raged, but now with wavering conviction. Calling on some last reservoir of courage, he strode towards me with real menace. "Silly, but I'm obviously not a man," I said as I calmly raised my crossbow. At least he hadn't said the ugly "c" word. I was nowhere nearly as frightened as I had feared. viii Well, I look great and feel confident in my typical prima garb - the outfit of a young Amazon who has reached adulthood by slaying a male or birthing a daughter. The leather bracelet on my left wrist has drawn many compliments. When my daughter bears a daughter, I will become a matron and when my granddaughter bears a daughter I will become an elder. That's a very long time away. I wear a short off-white wool tunic, cinched with a silver coin belt over my off-white wool trousers. The hem of my tunic and the outer seam of my trousers are embroidered with the torch emblem of the Torch-Held-High sisterhood of Running Horse Clan - thanks to my granny. From my belt hangs my birth gift - - the obsidian knife with which my mother had cut my umbilical cord, my weaning gift - the ivory comb with which I had combed my hair before my initiation, my puberty gift- the mirror that I had received when the goddess had been revealed to me at my confirmation, and my bow case. As a prima, my elegantly structured head is clean-shaven except for a short stylish topknot. My scalp is still pink from its recent shaving. My heavy braid is now the padding in my war helmet too. The Wilding's skull was too big for a drinking mug, but my mom really likes her new salad bowl.