For as long as I had memory, I’d been here in the woods with these creatures. To look at my face you’d think I was one of them. Hair was thick and long on it, but the rest of my body had little hair. So I was given covering of animal skins, some with fur and some not.
While I knew I was not of their kind, I felt myself one of them.
I don’t know how I came to be here in this place with these beings. I have no memory of it. We, however, shared this in common: I didn’t speak and they didn’t speak. But having lived my life with only their kind, I on a simple level understood them and it seemed they me. We gestured, motioned and went ahead with whatever it was we intended communicating.
If the creatures spoke in some primitive language, I had no way of knowing. It did seem they’d gibber at one another, pound often each other’s massive shoulders. If they had a language, then, this gibbering was it.
It was when the need was great on me to mate, I could not keep it from my mind, that the hairy being Lome (my name for him) brought a young girl to me and gave her into my care. He was for as long as I could remember my father-figure. He cared well for me, providing shelter, covering and food.
For a passing of many moons, my companion girl cried constantly, or so it seemed, and ate little. She finally quieted herself, but still it was my constant concern that she would escape.
Still, when Baday’s time came to mate she’d bare her teeth and try to force me to comply. The girl had no choice but to witness these attacks. For it was many moons passing that I kept her at my side, with a tight hold of her wrist. She twisted around to avoid the scene before her. Often she’d find herself tripped up and in the oddest of positions, laughable if the situation hadn’t been so repugnant and dangerous to us both. ...
More to follow.
