Martin said, “Well, why don’t you humor me and try it anyway?”
The ebu gogo murmured to each other and decided it would be funny to try to mate the human women with male ebu gogo. So, they went to the pit where the women were, dropped the rope to the floor of the pit, forced the women to grab onto it by threatening them with their spears, and it took a dozen ebu gogo holding the rope as they one by one lifted the women to the surface.
Linda was the first one up and when she reached the top she demanded that Martin tell her what was going on. Martin just brushed his hand through her blond hair and said, “Shhh. Shhh. You are going to become my sister.” And when Amber and Christa arrived to the surface Martin brushed his hand through their red and brown hair as well and told them that they were going to become his sisters.
The ebu gogo surrounded the women, pointed the tips of their spears against the women’s naked bodies, and force-marched them out of the caverns.
The ebu gogo forced the women to march through the jungle until they came to a clearing. Then, they used their spears to force Christa to lie down on her back so that her perky little tear drop shaped breasts pointed straight up at the sky. They held her there, pinned to the ground at the points of many spears.
Then, a female ebu gogo approached Christa, pushing a male ebu gogo in front of her. The male ebu gogo chattered happily and jumped around completely oblivious of its surroundings, as male ebu gogo do. But Christa didn’t know how innocent and harmless the male ebu gogo were. Her only experience had been with the female ebu gogo, so she assumed that if the women were as vicious as they were, then the males must be even worse. So, she crossed her legs at the thighs so that nothing could be seen of her vagina but the dark brown pubic hairs that sprouted from her groin. She squirmed beneath the spear points of the female ebu gogo, trying to keep the male from entering her even though it wasn’t trying to. Martin said, “Shhh. Shhh. Calm down. Open your legs so you can become my sister.”
But Christa didn’t calm down. She continued to cross her legs as hard as she could as she kicked out at the male ebu gogo, who took the blows of her feet happily, oblivious that she was trying to hurt him, and that he was supposed to be trying to have sex with her.
Finally the female ebu gogo gave up, and one quickly thrust her spear through Christa’s heart as another ran a spear through the male ebu gogo. The male ebu gogo laughed as if it were being tickled and then died.
Then, they forced Amber to the ground. Linda shouted, “Don’t try to fight it. Just let them do to you what they are going to do, or they’ll kill you too. We can abort the fetus later if there is one. Just close your eyes and take it.”
Martin brushed a hand through Amber’s red hair and said, “Yes. Just let the ebu gogo do it. Then you will be my sister.”
Amber lay on the grass with her legs spread wide, revealing a fire-red bush that after over a month of captivity was as wild and overgrown as the jungle around them, as the ebu gogo held her there at the points of their spears.
A female ebu gogo pushed a male ebu gogo forwards towards Amber’s red bush. The male ebu gogo jumped around and chattered happily as male ebu gogo do. Then, when it saw Amber lying on the grass, it jumped on top of her and started playing bongo drums on her large, firm breasts. Amber lay there completely still with her eyes shut tightly, expecting the ebu gogo to enter her and rape her.
When the ebu gogo did not enter her, but instead just sat on her stomach and continued to slap her gravity-defying breasts with its open palms as it played drums on them, she opened her eyes, looked at the innocent smiling face on the creature that sat on her stomach, and said, “What the hell?”
A female ebu gogo drove her spear through the ebu gogo on top of Amber and through Amber’s heart and she died with the laughing male ebu gogo pinned to her.
Then the ebu gogo poked Linda with their spears and forced her to lie own on the grass. Her heart beat rapidly. She didn’t know what to do. If she fought the male ebu gogo, she would die, and apparently if she didn’t fight the male ebu gogo she would die anyway.
Linda happened to glance at her side and saw a gun lying in the grass. She couldn’t believe it. It was her gun. The ebu gogo must have left it there, fearing it, or more likely, not even knowing what it was. If she could reach over and grab it, she could fire it, and then maybe the noise would scare the ebu gogo just as it had before.
The female ebu gogo were pushing a male ebu gogo towards the blond bush of her vagina. She quickly grabbed the gun, and pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a bang and the ebu gogo all fell to the ground on their backs, waved their arms and kicked their legs into the air and screamed, “Eeeeeee, Eeeeeee, Eeeeeee.”
Linda jumped to her feet and sprinted into the jungle.
Martin shouted in the ebu gogo language, “What are you doing? Get up! After her!”
Finally, Martin managed to calm a few ebu gogo and get them to their feet. He shouted at them, “Come on. We have to get the girl.”
The ebu gogo that were standing picked their spears up off the ground, threw their enormous breasts over their shoulders, and ran off into the jungle with Martin yelling the high pitched war cry of the ebu gogo, “Yeyeyeyeyeyeye!!!!!!”
Martin and the ebu gogo ran through the jungle, the ebu gogo swinging their arms in semicircles and lifting their knees high off the ground, their breasts flapping in the wind behind them, their spears held overhand above their heads, and quickly reached Linda.
Linda, hearing their approach because of their loud war cry, turned and fired her gun blindly at the ebu gogo, hitting one, who fell to the ground dead, as the others, startled by the noise, fell onto their backs and screamed, “Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee!”
Martin shouted, “What are you doing? Come on. Get up! Get up!”
Finally Martin managed to get the ebu gogo to their feet. He was going to lead them after Linda again, but he looked at the dead ebu gogo on the jungle floor, and realized that when they reached Linda she would shoot another, and the rest would fall to the ground again scared of the noise, allowing Linda to get away once again. So, he went back to the caves with the surviving ebu gogo.
Linda meanwhile continued to run through the jungle with her gun gripped in her trembling hand, naked except for her pith helmet and boots, and didn’t stop until she limped out of the jungle and stumbled into the Keo village. Although she was ordinarily well put together, and had been known to fret over an out of place eyelash, she was now covered in blood, mud, and sweat, which matted her hair down over her neck and face. She was still beautiful, but where she was ordinarily supremely confident, and was famous for the cocky twinkle in her eye and her confident smile, now her eyes were now glazed over, and her jaw twitched with PTSD.
Villagers poked their heads out of their huts and approached her cautiously, and as they did she collapsed. Chief Bononbun told some women to carry Linda’s limp form to a hut where they washed her wounds with a sponge that they dipped in salt water.
The women gave her a cloth and a string to tie it around her waist with, which was the only garment of clothing worn by the Keo, and took her to see Chief Bononbun.
Chief Bononbun took a piece of paper from a drawer of the desk where he handled the island’s administrative duties and said, “I hesitate to show you this, given what you must have just been through, but before Lewis left to search for the ebu gogo, he insisted that I give this to you immediately upon your return.”
Bononbun handed Linda the sheet of paper. She took it with shaking hands. On it was a handwritten note in what she knew was Lewis’s handwriting. The note read, “I got to Flores faster than you thought I would, Linda, and I will return to New York with an ebu gogo while you will probably return to the Keo village without ever even finding one. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.” The note was signed, “Your ex-husband, Lewis.”
Linda looked up from the paper. Although the ordeal of the last month had hardened her emotionally, she suddenly became very upset. Lewis was in danger.
Linda looked up pleadingly and said, “Chief Bononbun, please, your tribe has to help me. Lewis and whoever else he brought are in great danger. We need to rescue them. My God, he probably brought our daughter with him. Clare.”
Chief Bononbun said, “I am sorry, but the Keo people will not go into that part of the jungle. The ebu gogo would get their revenge on us, for what our ancestors did to them eight generations ago. We have what you might call an informal treaty. We don’t go to where they live, and they don’t go to where we live. That is the way it must remain.”
Linda shut her eyes tightly, dreading the decision she knew she had to make. She said, “Do you have my gun and my pith helmet?”
The chief took Linda’s gun and helmet from another one of the drawers in his desk and handed them to Linda.
Linda took the gun, put on her helmet, and said, “Goodbye Chief Bononbun. I hope to return to your village soon with Lewis, Clare, and whoever else they brought with them.”
Linda turned and calmly walked out of the hut holding her gun in her hand and wearing nothing but her helmet, boots, and a native loincloth, walked right up to the edge of the jungle and started back the way she had come.