The next morning, Eugenio remembered he had to do a telephone call, so he took his cellular and dialled the number. He talked, greeted and cut the line.
Then he remembered the self-styled "soul". He opened the cellular and, feeling a little silly, asked "Ciao, are you there?"
"Of course I'm here. Ciao, Eugenio. I thought you didn't want to talk with me anymore..."
"Hey, are you listening all the time?" he asked, surprised for the immediate answer.
"And what else do I have to do? I just wait for the days to elapse, till some inseminated cell attracts and absorbs me."
"I see. Listen, I have some spare time, do you feel like talking with me a little?"
"Sure, for me time doesn't count, as I've already told you. It is only a problem for you."
"Yesterday you told me about your last reincarnation. Do you remember the first one also?"
"Sure, all is present, to me. The first one... well, it is of little interest to you, I guess. Anyway... You know, the last glaciation has just passed. I come to life in a group living in caves, in the land that nowadays is called France. A precarious life, in constant fight against wild animals and against a nature, which is still cold and hostile, similar to what today is found in Iceland or rather perhaps in Finland, I think. We are a group of nomad hunters, even if there are some attempts at starting a temporary cultivation in the short fine weather periods.
Our small society is founded on a simple hierarchic principle, namely on two values: physical strength and hunting skills. It is similar to a pack of wolves: first, there is a leader, the strongest and most skilled man, and then, in packing order, the others. The pack leader chooses his women, and then the others. And, as the leader chooses his woman - he usually has several women - someone, at the end of the hierarchy, remains without a woman. That's usually a young man. But, as the sexual hunger starts quite early, the young boy has only two possibilities: either trying to have sex with a complaisant woman in secret - but this is rather difficult and rare, and even dangerous, because we practically live all together - or to do it with another boy having the same problem. Growing older, one can also try to challenge another man and fight with him: if, by chance, he wins, he has the right to take the loser's woman and mate with her, if the looser has one. But if he looses, he must recognize the other man's superiority, submit to the winner by crouching at his feet and offering himself to the man as if he was a woman. The other man fucks him, and peace is done."
"What was your name?"
"We don't have real names. Rather appellatives or nicknames, and they often change. We are a small group, we all know each other... My last nickname, if you want to know, is Greuj, that could be translated, in actual terms, with... well, it's difficult... "Look", perhaps. "Greu", without the final "J" sound, is the word we use to draw somebody's attention to something... Or perhaps "Here you are" or... "You know", I'm not sure..."
"And, tell me, there were also gay persons at that time?"
"No, being gay has nothing to do with it. To fuck the looser is a kind of social rite: the looser is fucked in front of everyone and this is like a declaration that the looser accepts his place in the social scale, nothing more, nothing less. For sure there is also pleasure in these unions, sex is always sex, but they are more a mean to establish, recognize and maintain a hierarchy than anything other. Also between the youths without a woman, a hierarchy is established with fights, and the winner fucks the looser. Fights amongst youngsters are very frequent: in fact they are useful to become physically strong, but also to soothe the unrestrained sexual drive. And one day, perhaps, to conquer his first own woman."
"But, women were just objects?"
"You are thinking with present mentality. Women are quite always pregnant and they suckle almost continuously. Infant mortality is very high, so they practically have to procreate once a year. Therefore they cannot go hunting, they have to give birth to children and raise them, practically as a full time job. To get food, for themselves and for their children, they completely depend on their hunting men. It is not an ideological discrimination, it is just law of nature. And a stronger and more skilled hunter can maintain and protect more than one woman. It's just that. A kind of natural selection, you see: the stronger procreates more than others and therefore the breed improves."
"And you, when did you have your first fight, not just as a game?"
"Just after my puberty, I presume I am nine or ten years old. Man, in this time, ripens early. My first fight is more a kind of imitating my elders than anything other. I challenge a boy slightly older than me, we fight, I lose. Therefore I crouch in front of him offering him my submission..."
"You mean your little ass..." Eugenio said with an amused giggle.
"Sure. He comes on towards me, spits in his hand and brushes it on his cock, making it harden and lubricating it, and takes me. I feel it pushing on my little hole, opening it little by little, invading me. After a first, short but sharp pain, my sphincter suddenly gives way, he sinks inside me and in a short while I notice that I like feeling that young and strong body on me a lot, but especially feeling his tool inside me. I hope he is not one of those doing just a short formal fuck, and then ignoring you. Partly I'm lucky, he needs some time to come and until he doesn't come, unlike others, he doesn't stop. Anyway, I like that first experience so much that, little by little, I start to challenge boys I'm quite sure being stronger than me, who I admire and who I want to fuck me."
"So, you didn't fight to win, but to get fucked, eh?" Eugenio asked with a malicious tone.
"No, on the contrary, I try to win. It is not just a sexual problem, you see, it is just one thing: sex, social position, food... Those who always lose, with the years, become a kind of... inferior beings. And nobody wants to be that. Sometimes I win and the other has to submit to me, and anyway I also like a lot to be the fucker."
"But one had to accept anytime he is challenged?"
"No, but the only way to avoid the fight, when challenged, is to crouch in the defeated position and let the other fuck you... Not many do that... and only if the other is clearly too superior, clearly stronger."
"Therefore the challenger is automatically sure to fuck or to be fucked."
"It is just like that, right. And this is quite good for those who, like me, prefer to have sex with a man instead of a woman. In fact, people you call gays nowadays, in these times are known as troublemakers... Challenging is a good excuse to have a good fuck with a man, one way or the other."
"But, apart from the fights, it didn't happen that two men just decided to have sex together?"
"Yes, but just amongst the boys or amongst the last in the social scale, when they realize that they have no chance to win at all. They also often form steady couples."
"And the others, did they mock them?"
"No, it is simply natural to live that way, with everybody at peace. There are no prejudices. And rather, at times it happens that a hunter takes a weaker one with him, one of those who gave up fighting, as a steady companion, and keeps that one with him, as part of his family, as one of his women. Without needing a challenge when he feels like, he just takes him, gets on top and fucks him. These people have a quite particular position, in fact they are like women, in a sense, because they have to promptly please their hunter anytime he feels like, but then they also have to go hunting with him and help him. And really, it is precisely in times of game-hunting, when they are far away from our village for days, that they carry out their sexual duties. At night they lie with their man who often fucks them. That's why the hunter who can afford having a personal boy with him is often envied by other hunters.
Anyway, there is a hunter I like very much. Not only has he a handsome body, but he is skilled in fucking, he is a real champion. So, from time to time, I challenge him, I lose and submit to him. He knows my intentions very well, and willingly consents to my game. I know he likes fucking me, because I don't lie there uninvolved, leave it all up to him. I've learned to move and make my asshole throb so that I give him great pleasure. Anyway I too am strong enough now: sometimes a boy tries to challenge me and often I'm the winner, so that the boy submits to me. I also like being on top and fucking a good ass, clearly."
"You always talk about fucking. There is no love, right?"
"Not yet the romantic love as you think of today. Even if sometimes there is affection. And anyway, there is also pleasure in these unions. There is joy. Don't imagine a society without joy and pleasure. We have a culture, usages and customs; a corpse, for instance, is buried carefully and with respect, in a resting position, with gifts around his body. The first myths are formed and are told at night around the fires. We decorate our bodies with coloured clays, and with feathers or bits of leather, with fangs of animals."
"Did you wear clothes or were you naked?"
"Completely naked, we don't suffer from cold, we are strong. Only in very cold nights we cover up with animal furs and we warm each other. And sometimes, especially on these occasions, we also have sex without fighting, just on instinct, for pleasure. For a certain period, before I get my first woman, there is a boy coming often to warm himself and me under my fur, and at night we usually have sex. There is affection between us. We often share our food. I am a good hunter, even if I am still young. And he is ready to please me in every way. He has delicious lips and a dream-like little ass. When we are alone in our pallet, he is really vivacious, he has the fire on him, and he loves being fucked by me. I consider him my protégé."
"You were lovers, in one word."
"No, just two faithful companions, an older and a younger one. And, him being so young, we don't need to use the subterfuge of fighting. He often fights with boys of his age, and he often wins. He is growing in a skilful hunter. But he likes being fucked by me, so he simply makes me understand that..."
"And how?"
"One winter night he just comes to lie near me, under my bear fur. He starts to touch me, and I let him do so. He arouses me, then, quietly, he goes on all fours and offers himself to me. I go on with him, excited, grasp his hips and stick my rod in his little hole, with real pleasure. He succeeds in keeping me awake nearly all night, making me take him several times, making me cum several times. I like that little boy very much. So I tell him to come again, and he comes."
"Similar to the hunter you were talking about earlier."
"Yes, but I and the hunter are adults, so we must resort to the fight excuse."
"How old was that boy?"
"Eleven, perhaps twelve. Not yet thirteen."
"A child!"
"Not in these times. It is like, let's say, seventeen, eighteen today. Remember what I told you, we ripen very fast, also physically, and life is really short in these days. So, all winter long he comes under my fur, every night, to be fucked by me. And even afterwards, when we slacken our meetings, at times he comes to look after me. Even after I won my first woman... I and he are what could be called two bosom friends..."
"Or two bottom friends! But, did the others know? About you two, I mean."
"Sure, but they don't find it so strange. Especially, as I told you, when we are out for the hunt."
"Did you also have orgies amongst men?"
"You mean three, four or more?"
"Yes, right."
"Amongst small boys, it happens sometimes, but it is more a game to unload our pubertal energies. And anyway, it starts quite always with the excuse of a fight, something that happens quite frequently, especially at that age. Amongst adults it doesn't happen. And whatsoever, never with our women."
"So, you said, you also won a woman at a certain point..."
"Yes, sure, and I have two children."
"Did you like her?"
"She is simply my woman... I clearly prefer a man. In fact I am someway a troublemaker, one of those who challenge others a little too often. Each time I desire to be fucked, or to fuck. Anyway I perform my duty also with my woman, of course. And it is just a little after the birth of my second child when, on a hunt for brown bears, a big and strong male succeeds in grasping me and crushes me, bites me with his fangs and kills me. So I feel sucked away in a nearby stone containing metals..."
"How old were you?"
"I think eighteen, I don't know for sure."
"A short life..."
"Bah, mean for these times. To die at forty is a real record, like today dying more than a hundred years old... Women, already at these times, live a little longer than men, but they also, with all the pregnancies and hard life they have, wear out quickly."
"Did you remain in that stone for a long time?"
"Rather. I presume more than two hundred years, but I cannot be sure. When I'm just a soul I don't have conscience of time going by in the external world unless special external phenomena occur, or I'm reincarnated."
"Yesterday you told me that, according to you, being gay is a genetic fact..."
"I think so. It is likely."
"So, in your opinion, there is a gene making you gay and another making you straight? So, the moment genes are mixing and you get one of each, you are bisexual, if you have two of the same kind you are either gay or straight?"
"I see that you thought about it... But I don't think it works that way, in fact, if it was as you say, the child of a lesbian and a gay man must absolutely be either gay or lesbian, and it doesn't seem to be that way..."
"I don't understand. What do you mean?"
"Do you know Mendel's genetic laws?"
"Quite enough..."
"Then, listen. If it was as you say, let's call G the gene of homosexuality and S the one making you straight. Let's imagine a bisexual man, who has a GS combination, couples with a bisexual woman, who is GS too. Well, the four possible combinations can be one GG, that is a completely homosexual child, one SS, that is a completely straight child, and two GS, that are two bisexual children..."
"Yes, right."
"Now, let's imagine a gay man, that is a GG, couples with a lesbian, that is a GG as well. Their children can only be GG as well, completely homosexual, you understand? But the possibility that a gay couples with a lesbian is really remote, so, little by little, the group GG will disappear..."
"I see... But then? What's your theory?"
"I think that there is a gene pushing the person towards the man, whatever gender it has, that I'll call M, and another gene pushing towards the woman, that I'll call F. Now, let's think that a bisexual man and a bisexual woman couple: they both have the MF combination, right? The four possibilities are one MM, two MF and one FF. Now, if the child with the MM combination is a woman, she will be completely heterosexual, and if that child is a man, he will be completely homosexual..."
"I don't see what changes..."
"Well, a complete gay, that is a MM, couples with a complete lesbian, that is a FF. All their children will be MF that is bisexuals, whatever their gender is... Do you see the difference between your theory and mine?"
"Yes... but you had thousands of years to think about it... But anyway, if it was as you say, 25% of the population would be straight, 25% homosexual and 50% bisexual... it doesn't seem to be like that at all."
"You rightly said it "would" be. But there is the enormous social pressure pushing to change one's natural behaviour. So, the way how one actually lives his sexuality is modified by the places and the epochs..."
"All is decided at the point of conception, in your opinion."
"I told you, this is just my theory, I can't prove it. And I've never been a genetic scientist, supposing that they understand this point better than us. And anyway, if it is due to genes, I think it is a little more complicated than just a M and F gene..."
"Let us change the subject. You just told me that you don't have conscience of the external world when you are just a soul, until you reincarnate."
"Right."
"But then, now, how can you have conscience of me?"
"Because this device allows me to communicate with you. Until now, in the intermediate periods, I just had conscience of myself and of the experiences I had being in the previous bodies. In the intermediate periods, I compare, catalogue, put these experiences in order... just to use your terms. And when I'm incarnated I have full conscience of the external world through the body senses, but not of myself as a soul."
"You did elaborate a good theory, you have a lively fantasy."
"You still don't believe me, eh? Why don't you verify the story of John and Nick? Nick's death was published in newspapers, and I think that there must be an obituary notice for John, at least in English newspapers. If you want I can give you the data."
"Good, tell me." Eugenio said amused, and started to take notes of what the voice was saying at the telephone.