After traveling through the rainforest for almost a month, Nina and Davi arrive at the Naragaka village, just as Nina's new 'passenger' is starting to show.
Part 2 of a story commission for
geckoguy123456789 ! This part does have a little bit of pregnancy in it! There's a mild sex scene in the middle of it, but I'm not totally sure it's worth a mature rating.
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8 OCTOBER
It's been so long since I've had a chance to open my journal. We've been traveling so much, I haven't even thought to document any of it. I'll have to ask Davi to remind me of our conversations over the past month or two. Thankfully, this notebook has a calendar on the back cover, so counting the days shouldn't be too difficult as long as I pay attention. It surprised me to see that we've been traveling through the jungle for about a month, but looking back, it doesn't seem so far-fetched. Davi was the son of the village's tracker and guide and inherited the job once his father passed away. He claimed to know the forest like the back of his hand, and it seems he was right.
Weeks ago, Davi and I left Brasillia together on our way back to the hidden Naragaka village. I had thought to bring a bag with me, but Davi told me I wouldn't need it. He said it would be better if I hid or disposed of any modern objects from the outside world. The Naragaka weren't stupid, but they were wary of anything from outside, even the things Davi would bring back to them. He even told me to throw out my clothes before arriving at the village. As embarrassing as it was, he was right; I would stand out too much otherwise.
Davi also told me about how the Naragaka only go into their mating season every four years. He wasn't sure why, but believes that it has something to do with keeping their populations down so food wasn't scarce. It's strange, but it seems to account for my sometimes 'irregular' periods of heat. Fortunately for the both of us, this was one of those times.
I did not intend for this to be an erotic story, but the fact remains that babies are not made by holding hands. After just a few days of our long treks through the woods, I started to go into my yearly heat. Normally, it was easy enough to ignore, but in the empty folds of nature with no one else but the only male kinkajou I'd ever known, the result was inevitable. It didn't help that he had removed his modern clothing and felt more comfortable in his more revealing tribal clothes. Davi was very polite about our situation, despite his 'obvious discomfort,' and let me make the first move.
The third night, once my heat had reached its peak, I was through with being civil. I turned over to find him still very much awake. I was aroused beyond all thought and reason, so I acted purely on instinct. I pulled off my shirt as fast as I possibly could and completely discarded my bra. Davi's eyes glazed over as he began to remove what little he had on. By the time I was completely undressed, I pounced on him, rolling through the grass and the fallen leaves of the clearing we'd chosen to sleep in.
I didn't come to Brasillia a virgin. Davi was not my first partner. Nevertheless, he shagged me like no man ever had before. Completely open, outdoors, looking up at the sky through the trees, we made love so deeply and so wildly that it left my head spinning once he had finished. His body was as smooth as I'd imagined it, with hard-edged, natural muscle rippling beneath his fur when he moved. I curled my tail around his as he fucked me, not wanting to let him go. Three more times we had sex that night, both of us crying out in unrestrained ecstasy, our voices echoing through the trees to join the sound of untamed nature running its course. Completely spent, Davi finally collapsed on top of me and we slept naked and entwined together until late afternoon the next day.
Since that night, our days of travel became punctuated with rigorous, wild sex as the sun set and we made camp. I felt comfortable enough to pack away my modern clothing in one of Davi's backs and wear little else than the woven fabric he made for me. Some days, we'd stop for a lunch of gathered fruit and a relaxed, afternoon session of lovemaking before continuing on. Before then, I'd never slept with a man without a condom, so it was an exciting and dangerous feeling to be doing it so openly and unprotected. In fact, what felt the most bizarre was sleeping with him intentionally to get pregnant. We made love so much and so often during that time I wasn't surprised that my heat quickly abated and my period was late. Sneaking away one morning, before Davi awoke, I took my hidden pregnancy tests to make sure.
Two blue lines on each, clear and solid, with absolute certainty. I was pregnant.
“No turning back now,” I mumbled, tucking the tests into a far corner of my bag.
I didn't tell him right away as I wanted time to process the change. I expected to be happier, I suppose, but I was mostly just afraid. I was too used to medical technology. When I ever had a baby, I expected ultrasounds, doctor's visits, baby showers, and clean emergency rooms for the delivery. Out in the Amazon, I'd get none of that. I needed to rely on my senses, my body, to tell me about the pregnancy as it progressed. I reassured myself, knowing that other kinkajous gave birth without any need for that extra comfort.
A cheekier side of me wanted to wait until he would notice on his own, as well. I wanted Davi's happiness, his unwavering positivity, to affect me as well. The next week, I began vomiting in the early morning, uncomfortably sick on the delicious fruits he had worked so hard to gather. He only woke a couple times during this, but seemed desperately afraid each time. He would make suggestions to turn back, to carry me back miles through the jungle to a hospital. I waved it away, but he was so worried about me I almost wanted to tell him the truth. Thankfully, I never had to.
Only a couple days ago, the two of us had stopped to rest and bathe in the cold water of a stream. I was letting my hair soak in the current while Davi filled his water skins and drank freely. I stood up, wringing out my hair in my hands to let it dry and leaned back to let the water fall down my back. At the same time, Davi glanced up, gazing at my profile. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his attention travel down my body and stop at my stomach. He blinked, trying to figure out if he was imagining things. I wordlessly threw my hair over my shoulder and smirked, waiting for him to figure it out. In a few silent minutes, Davi jumped to his feet, dropping the water skins to the ground, his eyes wide.
“Nina...” he said, amazed. “Nina are you...has it happened?”
I ran a hand over my tiny, growing paunch sitting atop my middle and nodded.
Davi screamed, snatching me up from the ground and swinging me in his arms. He knocked the breath out of me at first, but soon I was laughing alongside him. Setting me to the ground he leapt into the branches of a nearby tree and scurried up the side. He curled his tail around a thick branch as he sat high in the air and bellowed out a throaty, exuberant cry into the open air. I watched from the ground, laying my other hand against my small bump. His attitude was infectious; I was suddenly feeling excited about his kinkajou baby growing in my womb, with the shades of love growing right alongside it.
The next day, after a celebratory night of very little sleeping, Davi climbed the highest tree he could find to confirm that we were only another day's journey from his village. The nervousness returned as I wondered how the tribe would react to me, but he assured me over and over again that the child I carried would be proof enough that I belonged.
As we grew closer to the village, we ran into other tribesmen making their own pilgrimage back to their home, many of them couples of a man and woman kinkajou like Davi and I. I also became acutely aware at noticing many of the women were newly pregnant like me. They were fit, but suspiciously rounded below their chests. I kept quiet through most of these encounters, mostly from not understanding much of the Naragaka language, but also from intimidation. These wild, native kinkajou women were nothing short of breathtaking. Their fur shone like polished copper in the sun, their hair flowing and unkempt, yet still perfect. I wondered why Davi wanted someone as small and awkward and timid as me while these Amazonian, motherly goddesses walked the earth among him. These women knew what they were, they knew how to be kinkajou and what it meant to be our species. I'm not sure if he quite understood, but Davi noticed my gloom and cheered me up by telling stories of his first encounters with outside civilization.
The night before we entered the village, the woods around us were filled with the distant sounds of other couples celebrating the Naragaka's mating season. It wasn't long before Davi and I decided to add our voices to the carnal song, each trying to drown out everyone else. It was a strangely beautiful night and a fitting end to a long journey.
We entered this village this morning, after a long talk with Davi about what to expect from his people. I knew to keep my belongings hidden, keeping my notebooks and pens in his bag, and to wear the more common clothing he had borrowed from the other villagers. When finally I was ready, I followed Davi closely behind to the sound of crackling fire and sight of bright, open sunlight.
I didn't know what I expected to see of the Naragaka village, but I was shocked nonetheless. It was at least triple the size of similar tribal villages, stretching out into the trees from the clearing it was centralized in. Dozens, possibly hundreds of kinkajou wandered between the simple wooden homes, both on the ground and in the trees. Much of the village's size was due to its verticality; I was beginning to really learn how little fear kinkajou had of heights; they'd built their homes with elaborate networks of spun rope and branches between the trees. I even saw kinkajou children climbing between them, calmly swinging over vast heights in the air.
Davi didn't notice as I stopped to gawk at the sight and continued to walk forward with out me. I jogged to catch up, noticing the subtle bounce to my belly that hadn't been there a month ago. I followed along, gazing wide-eyed at all the villagers. All my life, I have been completely alone and isolated in a crowd of strange and unfamiliar faces. It was like a dream to see so many of my own kind together in one place. Kinkajou men working and building new huts and shelter for the extra tribesmen. Kinkajou women making clothing, molding pots, and storing food away. Kinkajou children running and jumping and sliding and playing in the open spaces they could inhabit. And the most freeing sensation of all was that no matter how much I looked at them, they weren't looking at me. I was just like them. I was normal.
We stopped outside a larger, more centralized hut with a large, circular gathering area in front. Davi turned and laid his hands on my shoulder.
“Nina,” he said, quietly in Portuguese, “You'll need to wait here. I'll be right back, I promise.” He seemed gravely serious, so I nodded without argument. Squeezing my shoulder confidently and giving my stomach a little pat, he strode off into the hut and left me in the middle of the clearing on my own. I wrung my tail nervously in my hands, suddenly overwhelmed now that Davi had left. I sat down on a nearby log, serving as a bench to the fire pit. I wished I had my notebooks to write in, to jot down my first impressions of the village, but I had to do without and settle for taking mental pictures in my head.
Out of the corner of my eye, a small, dusty kinkajou child toddled up to me, one finger in his mouth and his tail flapping against the ground. I smiled, wondering how much like him my baby would look. I gave him a little wave, to which he responded with a dull blink.
“Hello,” I said quietly, in English. “You're a little thing, aren't you?”
The boy took one finger out of his mouth just to cram another one in from his opposite hand.
“I'm going to have a baby, you know,” I continued, talking to myself more than him. I rubbed a hand over my bump. Even this early, I can barely take my hands off of it. “Maybe it's a boy. He might look like you.” I smiled. The toddler seemed to understand as he smiled back around the fist in his mouth.
Suddenly, from behind, a harsh-eyed kinkajou woman appeared, stepping around me and taking the hand of the boy. She glanced back at me, her expression angry and suspicious. I swallowed, wondering if she'd heard me. Picking up the boy, she carried him to an open hut across the clearing. I watched her talk animatedly to another kinkajou woman, then point to me as both of them turned back to glare. I swallowed again, averting my gaze and turning my back to them on the log. I hoped they weren't still staring at me.
With another commotion of loud speech in a language I didn't know, an old, greying woman burst from the central hut, covered in a set of tattered robes with beads hanging from her hair, a thick walking stick in hand. She marched straight for me, with Davi following right behind.
“Stand up, stand up!” he called in Portuguese. I jumped to my feet as fast as I could, patting the dust off of my legs and stood as respectfully still as I could. The woman stopped just inches away, wordlessly eyeing me up and down with her mouth set in a gnarled frown. She huffed and slapped the ground with her tail, then began to circle me like a shark. I wanted to turn and watch her, but I thought better of it, keeping my hands to the side. A number of tall, fierce looking kinkajou men stepped out of the hut, each bearing an elaborate pattern of dyes on their fur and with a number of different adornments. Davi glanced nervously between them and the woman silently examining me, wringing his hands together.
I couldn't restrain a surprised yelp as the woman suddenly nipped the curve of my ass with her fingers, pinching me. I cleared my throat and composed myself again. She poked and prodded me all over, making me feel very exposed to have someone's hands other than Davi's on my bare fur. She finished her circle around me and sighed, glaring up into my eyes. Switching her walking stick to her other hand, she cupped her hand to my stomach, right against my ribs, and slid down until her hand ran along the unyielding bump of my protruding womb. She kneaded her fingers around my belly, making me flinch and giggle quietly as she prodded sensitive nerves. Dropping her walking stick, she felt around my stomach more thoroughly with both hands.
“Bina shalanka hondi ka!” She called out in a gravely, hard voice. “Gournana yali foor lip sha Davi!” She spoke far too quickly in Naragaka for me to work out what she said, but I caught the words 'she,' 'have' (as a possessive), and 'child.' It was enough for me to understand. With a clatter of her beads, she spun on her heel and marched back past the assembled tribesmen. Davi flashed me an unsure smile before following them back inside. My heart pounding, I noticed that I was far from alone. A small circle of Naragaka men and women had gathered around the outsides of the circle to watch the commotion. Once the old woman had left, they turned their eyes to me, glancing to one another when they didn't stare and talking amongst themselves. I tucked my tail between my legs and held it by the tip, a tactic I learned in school to stop the other children from pulling on it during lessons. I looked down over my curved middle at my paws and sat back down on the log. It seemed even here, I couldn't escape being the center of attention.
Minutes later, crunching footsteps approached me as I sulked. Before I could turn to see who it was, Davi had lifted me to my feet and engulfed me in his arms. I sighed, squeezing him back and letting the questioning looks bounce off him instead of me. I searched for his tail with mine and we wound them together.
“They're not happy, but you can stay,” he said into my ear. “At least until you've had the baby.”
“That's more than enough time,” I said, squeezing him harder. I waited for my heartbeat to settle, calmed by the gentle rhythm of his breathing. He pulled away, smiling as he thumbed aside my hair to look me in the eye.
“It was my dream for you to be my binawa,” Davi said, using the Naragaka word for 'woman.' He shook his head. “I never thought I would find you here with me, Nina.” He slid a hand down to spread his fingers over my bump. “Much less carrying my baby.”
“I wouldn't want anyone else's,” I spoke before I thought about the words coming out. As I said them, I realized they were true. I laid my hands against his, both of us feeling the life we made. The reality really dawned on me that moment. That it was Davi's child growing inside me. In that moment, I felt a flutter of happiness surge up from deep inside me. There was nothing to be afraid of.
I looked up to kiss him, which he returned happily. I wasn't sure if that was a custom understood by the watching Naragaka, but it didn't matter to me. He turned away to walk and I followed beside him, our tails still wrapped together.
“That was Daaga,” Davi explained as we walked. “She's our shaman and healer. She's older than almost everyone else here and has delivered more children than anyone else. She'll be your midwife, since this is your first pregnancy. With her around, you won't have any trouble.” He spoke quietly as we passed other tribesmen, not wanting to make it obvious we were speaking Portuguese. Nevertheless, they shot me strange looks as we passed, turning away in some cases once they saw me coming. Those that didn't would point and gossip to one another. I put my head down and watched my paws. Word seemed to spread fast.
Davi lived on the outskirts of the main village, next to another wide clearing and alongside five other small houses. His seemed older than the rest, with its clay cracked but sturdy. It was built surrounding a thick tree that grew from the center, serving as a natural support beam. The interior was dark, but the cloth over the doorway was pinned up to the side, which to the Naragaka indicated an 'open, welcome' home.
I followed him in, standing by the doorway with my hands clasped in front of me. I was always very polite as a guest in people's houses and this was no different, though there was an added pressure of following Naragaka traditions of courtesy. After a silent minute of waiting, I heard muffled bickering from inside. Feeling more awkward standing in the doorway, I pushed aside the cloth and went in.
The inside of Davi's hut was shaded similarly to a thick forest ceiling, with dark pools of shade and darkness with small pinpricks of light scattered throughout. A flap was open in the immediate middle of the room, casting a square of light onto the floor. In front of the tree was a sitting area on the ground, surrounding a small pit filled with seeds, fruit skins, and other waste to recycle later. It was on bare soil, but packed flat enough from that it was smooth as wood. On the other side of the tree was a slightly raised platform of wooden boards on logs, making what I presumed to be the sleeping area. It was separated from the sitting room by more draped cloth and skins, behind which Davi continued a fast argument with a female figure, who's own voice was just below a shout.
Not sure what to do, I found an open spot on the floor and sat, curling my tail around my legs. While crossing my legs, I felt my bump pressing into my thighs in a way that I hadn't expected. I chuckled to myself; it was obviously a premonition of more growth to come. I jumped as the female voice shouted a single word, that Davi later told me was Naragaka for 'stop' or 'enough.' Suddenly, a kinkajou woman wearing nothing but a cloth wrap around her waist threw back the separating veil and glared daggers through me. She hopped down from the raised sleeping area and dropped to her knees under the open sunlight of the flap.
Davi came out timidly, but the woman snapped her fingers authoritatively, pointed to the door, and barked a single word. He nodded, despite her back being turned, and left, letting down the cloth over the doorway as he went. The woman settled back in and peered thoughtfully into my eyes, her opal irises appearing bright and alien compared to her dark fur. She was muscular and wiry, without an ounce of body fat hiding her. Her abs rippled beneath her fur as he breathed, her bare chest rising and falling calmly. She was older than Davi and I, perhaps by even ten years or so. Truthfully, she intimidated me more than the village leaders from before.
“You are Nina,” she said in a deep, smokey-voiced Portuguese. Her accent was thick and she spoke with perhaps less fluency than Davi, but her inflection was impossible to misunderstand. I blinked, not expecting the shift in language, and simply nodded. She countered with a curt nod of her own. Her tail tapped against the side of the tree behind her. “I am Chitani, Davi's older sister. He has told me of you.” She paused, as if letting the words sink in. “The women told me Davi had returned with an outsider. They didn't know who you were, but I assumed as much.” She squared up her shoulders, watching me intently, her eyes traveling around my body and, of course, resting on the small paunch of my stomach. “They gave many reasons why, but I do not give heed to rumors.”
Using her powerful arms, Chitani shifted closer to me, still gazing into my eyes. I swallowed, feeling a tingling anxiety creeping up my tail.
“Tell me truthfully,” she demanded, her voice soft. “Do you carry my brother's child?”
“I...I do.”
“Are you Davi's slave?”
“What?” I blurted out. “No, no of course not.”
“Did he rape you?” Chitani asked, her expression unwavering. “Did he take you by force?”
“I don't...No!”
“You are here willingly?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love my brother?”
“Yes!” I said in English. For the second time, I had exposed my true feelings to even myself.
Chitani fell silent, leaning closer to stare into my eyes. It was becoming uncomfortable, but I dared not look away. Then, abruptly, her cold expression changed in an instant to a broad, toothy, wide smile that seemed to cover her entire face, a smile I was so familiar with from her brother's face. She wrapped me in her muscular arms and pulled me into a bone-crushing embrace that almost knocked the wind out of me.
“Then you are welcome in our home, binsha!” She shouted, laughing heartily enough that I felt it in my own chest. Chitani pulled away, but gripped me by the shoulders as she looked me over. “Binsha! My sister!” She leaned forward and kissed all over my face, leaving me dazed.
“I'm...sister?” I repeated, a shaky smile of my own growing on my face. She laughed again, large enough to shake the entire jungle, and patted my belly with her rough hand.
“From the day Davi put my niece in your belly, you have become family! I welcome you, Nina!”
“It...It could be a nephew...” I suggested, still too floored to think clearly.
“Let us hope not,” Chitani laughed. “I have had enough of boys after raising Davi. I would like to see more girls in our family!”
Our family.
Niece and Nephew.
Sister.
Hearing these words shook me like leaves in a storm. I never imagined having more than my own mother by my side, and after she passed, I gave up notions of family and sisterhood to protect myself. But hearing them from Chitani, from one of my own kind so far removed from the world I understood, made me being to openly weep from happiness. I pulled my new sister into a hug as powerful as her own. If I would never belong to the Naragaka like Davi and Chitani did, then at least I would have them and my soon-to-be child by my side.
We spent the rest of the day and late into the night talking happily amongst our new family. My spirits lifted, I told Chitani everything about how I met her brother, about how handsome and exotic he seemed. She asked questions of where I came from, what London was like, what I studied in school and wanted to learn from the Naragaka, and even some questions about our baby's conception that I was too embarrassed to answer.
It must be past midnight by now. It's hard to tell just from watching the night sky. I'm too acquainted with the city, so this darkness is intimidating to me. Chitani and Davi are both asleep while I'm sitting near the dying fire and finishing this journal entry in its orange light. I'll write as much as I can in my field journal before I become too tired to stay awake, then I will crawl back and curl up to Davi and sleep, with a hand on my bump and dreaming of the day my new family of three will soon become four.
Part 2 of a story commission for
geckoguy123456789 ! This part does have a little bit of pregnancy in it! There's a mild sex scene in the middle of it, but I'm not totally sure it's worth a mature rating.LIKE FAVORITE AND SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE MINECRAFT LPs !!!!!
...I MEAN...
P-PREG STORIES
<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>
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8 OCTOBER
It's been so long since I've had a chance to open my journal. We've been traveling so much, I haven't even thought to document any of it. I'll have to ask Davi to remind me of our conversations over the past month or two. Thankfully, this notebook has a calendar on the back cover, so counting the days shouldn't be too difficult as long as I pay attention. It surprised me to see that we've been traveling through the jungle for about a month, but looking back, it doesn't seem so far-fetched. Davi was the son of the village's tracker and guide and inherited the job once his father passed away. He claimed to know the forest like the back of his hand, and it seems he was right.
Weeks ago, Davi and I left Brasillia together on our way back to the hidden Naragaka village. I had thought to bring a bag with me, but Davi told me I wouldn't need it. He said it would be better if I hid or disposed of any modern objects from the outside world. The Naragaka weren't stupid, but they were wary of anything from outside, even the things Davi would bring back to them. He even told me to throw out my clothes before arriving at the village. As embarrassing as it was, he was right; I would stand out too much otherwise.
Davi also told me about how the Naragaka only go into their mating season every four years. He wasn't sure why, but believes that it has something to do with keeping their populations down so food wasn't scarce. It's strange, but it seems to account for my sometimes 'irregular' periods of heat. Fortunately for the both of us, this was one of those times.
I did not intend for this to be an erotic story, but the fact remains that babies are not made by holding hands. After just a few days of our long treks through the woods, I started to go into my yearly heat. Normally, it was easy enough to ignore, but in the empty folds of nature with no one else but the only male kinkajou I'd ever known, the result was inevitable. It didn't help that he had removed his modern clothing and felt more comfortable in his more revealing tribal clothes. Davi was very polite about our situation, despite his 'obvious discomfort,' and let me make the first move.
The third night, once my heat had reached its peak, I was through with being civil. I turned over to find him still very much awake. I was aroused beyond all thought and reason, so I acted purely on instinct. I pulled off my shirt as fast as I possibly could and completely discarded my bra. Davi's eyes glazed over as he began to remove what little he had on. By the time I was completely undressed, I pounced on him, rolling through the grass and the fallen leaves of the clearing we'd chosen to sleep in.
I didn't come to Brasillia a virgin. Davi was not my first partner. Nevertheless, he shagged me like no man ever had before. Completely open, outdoors, looking up at the sky through the trees, we made love so deeply and so wildly that it left my head spinning once he had finished. His body was as smooth as I'd imagined it, with hard-edged, natural muscle rippling beneath his fur when he moved. I curled my tail around his as he fucked me, not wanting to let him go. Three more times we had sex that night, both of us crying out in unrestrained ecstasy, our voices echoing through the trees to join the sound of untamed nature running its course. Completely spent, Davi finally collapsed on top of me and we slept naked and entwined together until late afternoon the next day.
Since that night, our days of travel became punctuated with rigorous, wild sex as the sun set and we made camp. I felt comfortable enough to pack away my modern clothing in one of Davi's backs and wear little else than the woven fabric he made for me. Some days, we'd stop for a lunch of gathered fruit and a relaxed, afternoon session of lovemaking before continuing on. Before then, I'd never slept with a man without a condom, so it was an exciting and dangerous feeling to be doing it so openly and unprotected. In fact, what felt the most bizarre was sleeping with him intentionally to get pregnant. We made love so much and so often during that time I wasn't surprised that my heat quickly abated and my period was late. Sneaking away one morning, before Davi awoke, I took my hidden pregnancy tests to make sure.
Two blue lines on each, clear and solid, with absolute certainty. I was pregnant.
“No turning back now,” I mumbled, tucking the tests into a far corner of my bag.
I didn't tell him right away as I wanted time to process the change. I expected to be happier, I suppose, but I was mostly just afraid. I was too used to medical technology. When I ever had a baby, I expected ultrasounds, doctor's visits, baby showers, and clean emergency rooms for the delivery. Out in the Amazon, I'd get none of that. I needed to rely on my senses, my body, to tell me about the pregnancy as it progressed. I reassured myself, knowing that other kinkajous gave birth without any need for that extra comfort.
A cheekier side of me wanted to wait until he would notice on his own, as well. I wanted Davi's happiness, his unwavering positivity, to affect me as well. The next week, I began vomiting in the early morning, uncomfortably sick on the delicious fruits he had worked so hard to gather. He only woke a couple times during this, but seemed desperately afraid each time. He would make suggestions to turn back, to carry me back miles through the jungle to a hospital. I waved it away, but he was so worried about me I almost wanted to tell him the truth. Thankfully, I never had to.
Only a couple days ago, the two of us had stopped to rest and bathe in the cold water of a stream. I was letting my hair soak in the current while Davi filled his water skins and drank freely. I stood up, wringing out my hair in my hands to let it dry and leaned back to let the water fall down my back. At the same time, Davi glanced up, gazing at my profile. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his attention travel down my body and stop at my stomach. He blinked, trying to figure out if he was imagining things. I wordlessly threw my hair over my shoulder and smirked, waiting for him to figure it out. In a few silent minutes, Davi jumped to his feet, dropping the water skins to the ground, his eyes wide.
“Nina...” he said, amazed. “Nina are you...has it happened?”
I ran a hand over my tiny, growing paunch sitting atop my middle and nodded.
Davi screamed, snatching me up from the ground and swinging me in his arms. He knocked the breath out of me at first, but soon I was laughing alongside him. Setting me to the ground he leapt into the branches of a nearby tree and scurried up the side. He curled his tail around a thick branch as he sat high in the air and bellowed out a throaty, exuberant cry into the open air. I watched from the ground, laying my other hand against my small bump. His attitude was infectious; I was suddenly feeling excited about his kinkajou baby growing in my womb, with the shades of love growing right alongside it.
The next day, after a celebratory night of very little sleeping, Davi climbed the highest tree he could find to confirm that we were only another day's journey from his village. The nervousness returned as I wondered how the tribe would react to me, but he assured me over and over again that the child I carried would be proof enough that I belonged.
As we grew closer to the village, we ran into other tribesmen making their own pilgrimage back to their home, many of them couples of a man and woman kinkajou like Davi and I. I also became acutely aware at noticing many of the women were newly pregnant like me. They were fit, but suspiciously rounded below their chests. I kept quiet through most of these encounters, mostly from not understanding much of the Naragaka language, but also from intimidation. These wild, native kinkajou women were nothing short of breathtaking. Their fur shone like polished copper in the sun, their hair flowing and unkempt, yet still perfect. I wondered why Davi wanted someone as small and awkward and timid as me while these Amazonian, motherly goddesses walked the earth among him. These women knew what they were, they knew how to be kinkajou and what it meant to be our species. I'm not sure if he quite understood, but Davi noticed my gloom and cheered me up by telling stories of his first encounters with outside civilization.
The night before we entered the village, the woods around us were filled with the distant sounds of other couples celebrating the Naragaka's mating season. It wasn't long before Davi and I decided to add our voices to the carnal song, each trying to drown out everyone else. It was a strangely beautiful night and a fitting end to a long journey.
We entered this village this morning, after a long talk with Davi about what to expect from his people. I knew to keep my belongings hidden, keeping my notebooks and pens in his bag, and to wear the more common clothing he had borrowed from the other villagers. When finally I was ready, I followed Davi closely behind to the sound of crackling fire and sight of bright, open sunlight.
I didn't know what I expected to see of the Naragaka village, but I was shocked nonetheless. It was at least triple the size of similar tribal villages, stretching out into the trees from the clearing it was centralized in. Dozens, possibly hundreds of kinkajou wandered between the simple wooden homes, both on the ground and in the trees. Much of the village's size was due to its verticality; I was beginning to really learn how little fear kinkajou had of heights; they'd built their homes with elaborate networks of spun rope and branches between the trees. I even saw kinkajou children climbing between them, calmly swinging over vast heights in the air.
Davi didn't notice as I stopped to gawk at the sight and continued to walk forward with out me. I jogged to catch up, noticing the subtle bounce to my belly that hadn't been there a month ago. I followed along, gazing wide-eyed at all the villagers. All my life, I have been completely alone and isolated in a crowd of strange and unfamiliar faces. It was like a dream to see so many of my own kind together in one place. Kinkajou men working and building new huts and shelter for the extra tribesmen. Kinkajou women making clothing, molding pots, and storing food away. Kinkajou children running and jumping and sliding and playing in the open spaces they could inhabit. And the most freeing sensation of all was that no matter how much I looked at them, they weren't looking at me. I was just like them. I was normal.
We stopped outside a larger, more centralized hut with a large, circular gathering area in front. Davi turned and laid his hands on my shoulder.
“Nina,” he said, quietly in Portuguese, “You'll need to wait here. I'll be right back, I promise.” He seemed gravely serious, so I nodded without argument. Squeezing my shoulder confidently and giving my stomach a little pat, he strode off into the hut and left me in the middle of the clearing on my own. I wrung my tail nervously in my hands, suddenly overwhelmed now that Davi had left. I sat down on a nearby log, serving as a bench to the fire pit. I wished I had my notebooks to write in, to jot down my first impressions of the village, but I had to do without and settle for taking mental pictures in my head.
Out of the corner of my eye, a small, dusty kinkajou child toddled up to me, one finger in his mouth and his tail flapping against the ground. I smiled, wondering how much like him my baby would look. I gave him a little wave, to which he responded with a dull blink.
“Hello,” I said quietly, in English. “You're a little thing, aren't you?”
The boy took one finger out of his mouth just to cram another one in from his opposite hand.
“I'm going to have a baby, you know,” I continued, talking to myself more than him. I rubbed a hand over my bump. Even this early, I can barely take my hands off of it. “Maybe it's a boy. He might look like you.” I smiled. The toddler seemed to understand as he smiled back around the fist in his mouth.
Suddenly, from behind, a harsh-eyed kinkajou woman appeared, stepping around me and taking the hand of the boy. She glanced back at me, her expression angry and suspicious. I swallowed, wondering if she'd heard me. Picking up the boy, she carried him to an open hut across the clearing. I watched her talk animatedly to another kinkajou woman, then point to me as both of them turned back to glare. I swallowed again, averting my gaze and turning my back to them on the log. I hoped they weren't still staring at me.
With another commotion of loud speech in a language I didn't know, an old, greying woman burst from the central hut, covered in a set of tattered robes with beads hanging from her hair, a thick walking stick in hand. She marched straight for me, with Davi following right behind.
“Stand up, stand up!” he called in Portuguese. I jumped to my feet as fast as I could, patting the dust off of my legs and stood as respectfully still as I could. The woman stopped just inches away, wordlessly eyeing me up and down with her mouth set in a gnarled frown. She huffed and slapped the ground with her tail, then began to circle me like a shark. I wanted to turn and watch her, but I thought better of it, keeping my hands to the side. A number of tall, fierce looking kinkajou men stepped out of the hut, each bearing an elaborate pattern of dyes on their fur and with a number of different adornments. Davi glanced nervously between them and the woman silently examining me, wringing his hands together.
I couldn't restrain a surprised yelp as the woman suddenly nipped the curve of my ass with her fingers, pinching me. I cleared my throat and composed myself again. She poked and prodded me all over, making me feel very exposed to have someone's hands other than Davi's on my bare fur. She finished her circle around me and sighed, glaring up into my eyes. Switching her walking stick to her other hand, she cupped her hand to my stomach, right against my ribs, and slid down until her hand ran along the unyielding bump of my protruding womb. She kneaded her fingers around my belly, making me flinch and giggle quietly as she prodded sensitive nerves. Dropping her walking stick, she felt around my stomach more thoroughly with both hands.
“Bina shalanka hondi ka!” She called out in a gravely, hard voice. “Gournana yali foor lip sha Davi!” She spoke far too quickly in Naragaka for me to work out what she said, but I caught the words 'she,' 'have' (as a possessive), and 'child.' It was enough for me to understand. With a clatter of her beads, she spun on her heel and marched back past the assembled tribesmen. Davi flashed me an unsure smile before following them back inside. My heart pounding, I noticed that I was far from alone. A small circle of Naragaka men and women had gathered around the outsides of the circle to watch the commotion. Once the old woman had left, they turned their eyes to me, glancing to one another when they didn't stare and talking amongst themselves. I tucked my tail between my legs and held it by the tip, a tactic I learned in school to stop the other children from pulling on it during lessons. I looked down over my curved middle at my paws and sat back down on the log. It seemed even here, I couldn't escape being the center of attention.
Minutes later, crunching footsteps approached me as I sulked. Before I could turn to see who it was, Davi had lifted me to my feet and engulfed me in his arms. I sighed, squeezing him back and letting the questioning looks bounce off him instead of me. I searched for his tail with mine and we wound them together.
“They're not happy, but you can stay,” he said into my ear. “At least until you've had the baby.”
“That's more than enough time,” I said, squeezing him harder. I waited for my heartbeat to settle, calmed by the gentle rhythm of his breathing. He pulled away, smiling as he thumbed aside my hair to look me in the eye.
“It was my dream for you to be my binawa,” Davi said, using the Naragaka word for 'woman.' He shook his head. “I never thought I would find you here with me, Nina.” He slid a hand down to spread his fingers over my bump. “Much less carrying my baby.”
“I wouldn't want anyone else's,” I spoke before I thought about the words coming out. As I said them, I realized they were true. I laid my hands against his, both of us feeling the life we made. The reality really dawned on me that moment. That it was Davi's child growing inside me. In that moment, I felt a flutter of happiness surge up from deep inside me. There was nothing to be afraid of.
I looked up to kiss him, which he returned happily. I wasn't sure if that was a custom understood by the watching Naragaka, but it didn't matter to me. He turned away to walk and I followed beside him, our tails still wrapped together.
“That was Daaga,” Davi explained as we walked. “She's our shaman and healer. She's older than almost everyone else here and has delivered more children than anyone else. She'll be your midwife, since this is your first pregnancy. With her around, you won't have any trouble.” He spoke quietly as we passed other tribesmen, not wanting to make it obvious we were speaking Portuguese. Nevertheless, they shot me strange looks as we passed, turning away in some cases once they saw me coming. Those that didn't would point and gossip to one another. I put my head down and watched my paws. Word seemed to spread fast.
Davi lived on the outskirts of the main village, next to another wide clearing and alongside five other small houses. His seemed older than the rest, with its clay cracked but sturdy. It was built surrounding a thick tree that grew from the center, serving as a natural support beam. The interior was dark, but the cloth over the doorway was pinned up to the side, which to the Naragaka indicated an 'open, welcome' home.
I followed him in, standing by the doorway with my hands clasped in front of me. I was always very polite as a guest in people's houses and this was no different, though there was an added pressure of following Naragaka traditions of courtesy. After a silent minute of waiting, I heard muffled bickering from inside. Feeling more awkward standing in the doorway, I pushed aside the cloth and went in.
The inside of Davi's hut was shaded similarly to a thick forest ceiling, with dark pools of shade and darkness with small pinpricks of light scattered throughout. A flap was open in the immediate middle of the room, casting a square of light onto the floor. In front of the tree was a sitting area on the ground, surrounding a small pit filled with seeds, fruit skins, and other waste to recycle later. It was on bare soil, but packed flat enough from that it was smooth as wood. On the other side of the tree was a slightly raised platform of wooden boards on logs, making what I presumed to be the sleeping area. It was separated from the sitting room by more draped cloth and skins, behind which Davi continued a fast argument with a female figure, who's own voice was just below a shout.
Not sure what to do, I found an open spot on the floor and sat, curling my tail around my legs. While crossing my legs, I felt my bump pressing into my thighs in a way that I hadn't expected. I chuckled to myself; it was obviously a premonition of more growth to come. I jumped as the female voice shouted a single word, that Davi later told me was Naragaka for 'stop' or 'enough.' Suddenly, a kinkajou woman wearing nothing but a cloth wrap around her waist threw back the separating veil and glared daggers through me. She hopped down from the raised sleeping area and dropped to her knees under the open sunlight of the flap.
Davi came out timidly, but the woman snapped her fingers authoritatively, pointed to the door, and barked a single word. He nodded, despite her back being turned, and left, letting down the cloth over the doorway as he went. The woman settled back in and peered thoughtfully into my eyes, her opal irises appearing bright and alien compared to her dark fur. She was muscular and wiry, without an ounce of body fat hiding her. Her abs rippled beneath her fur as he breathed, her bare chest rising and falling calmly. She was older than Davi and I, perhaps by even ten years or so. Truthfully, she intimidated me more than the village leaders from before.
“You are Nina,” she said in a deep, smokey-voiced Portuguese. Her accent was thick and she spoke with perhaps less fluency than Davi, but her inflection was impossible to misunderstand. I blinked, not expecting the shift in language, and simply nodded. She countered with a curt nod of her own. Her tail tapped against the side of the tree behind her. “I am Chitani, Davi's older sister. He has told me of you.” She paused, as if letting the words sink in. “The women told me Davi had returned with an outsider. They didn't know who you were, but I assumed as much.” She squared up her shoulders, watching me intently, her eyes traveling around my body and, of course, resting on the small paunch of my stomach. “They gave many reasons why, but I do not give heed to rumors.”
Using her powerful arms, Chitani shifted closer to me, still gazing into my eyes. I swallowed, feeling a tingling anxiety creeping up my tail.
“Tell me truthfully,” she demanded, her voice soft. “Do you carry my brother's child?”
“I...I do.”
“Are you Davi's slave?”
“What?” I blurted out. “No, no of course not.”
“Did he rape you?” Chitani asked, her expression unwavering. “Did he take you by force?”
“I don't...No!”
“You are here willingly?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love my brother?”
“Yes!” I said in English. For the second time, I had exposed my true feelings to even myself.
Chitani fell silent, leaning closer to stare into my eyes. It was becoming uncomfortable, but I dared not look away. Then, abruptly, her cold expression changed in an instant to a broad, toothy, wide smile that seemed to cover her entire face, a smile I was so familiar with from her brother's face. She wrapped me in her muscular arms and pulled me into a bone-crushing embrace that almost knocked the wind out of me.
“Then you are welcome in our home, binsha!” She shouted, laughing heartily enough that I felt it in my own chest. Chitani pulled away, but gripped me by the shoulders as she looked me over. “Binsha! My sister!” She leaned forward and kissed all over my face, leaving me dazed.
“I'm...sister?” I repeated, a shaky smile of my own growing on my face. She laughed again, large enough to shake the entire jungle, and patted my belly with her rough hand.
“From the day Davi put my niece in your belly, you have become family! I welcome you, Nina!”
“It...It could be a nephew...” I suggested, still too floored to think clearly.
“Let us hope not,” Chitani laughed. “I have had enough of boys after raising Davi. I would like to see more girls in our family!”
Our family.
Niece and Nephew.
Sister.
Hearing these words shook me like leaves in a storm. I never imagined having more than my own mother by my side, and after she passed, I gave up notions of family and sisterhood to protect myself. But hearing them from Chitani, from one of my own kind so far removed from the world I understood, made me being to openly weep from happiness. I pulled my new sister into a hug as powerful as her own. If I would never belong to the Naragaka like Davi and Chitani did, then at least I would have them and my soon-to-be child by my side.
We spent the rest of the day and late into the night talking happily amongst our new family. My spirits lifted, I told Chitani everything about how I met her brother, about how handsome and exotic he seemed. She asked questions of where I came from, what London was like, what I studied in school and wanted to learn from the Naragaka, and even some questions about our baby's conception that I was too embarrassed to answer.
It must be past midnight by now. It's hard to tell just from watching the night sky. I'm too acquainted with the city, so this darkness is intimidating to me. Chitani and Davi are both asleep while I'm sitting near the dying fire and finishing this journal entry in its orange light. I'll write as much as I can in my field journal before I become too tired to stay awake, then I will crawl back and curl up to Davi and sleep, with a hand on my bump and dreaming of the day my new family of three will soon become four.
Category Story / Pregnancy
Species Lemur
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 49.3 kB
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