Free Pornucopia by Piers Anthony Page B

having at a female eagle. At first glance this seemed a mismatch—but Prior soon saw that the pony had no real leverage, so that his member could penetrate only as far as the bird desired. There seemed to be plenty of desire amid the feathers, however.
    And a trio: man, woman, griffin. The griffin was in the center, spreading its huge wings, beak open as if to caw exuberantly. It appeared to be hermaphroditic, for its leonine penis was entering the woman who clasped it in front, while the man drove at its womb from behind. Its long tiger tail curled around the man's buttocks, holding them steady.
    It occurred to Prior that he had not seen a single portrayal of a really unnatural activity along this trail. Always a normal male conjugated with a normal female in the normal manner. No homosexual efforts, no perversions. Of course the species were shuffled—but the acts depicted by the statues were so obviously right and pleasurable that he could hardly fault them on a technicality like that. Sex between consenting adults was perfectly legitimate. Wasn't it?
    Then he spied a representation of a man with his baby. The man's penis was flaccid; but even more remarkable, he had a well-developed bosom, and the baby was nursing.
    Prior stood and stared at that for some time, his groin twinging nervously. Was this a sculptural joke? He had never heard of a man with full-blown breasts, except for the chosen castrates who claimed to have converted to women. Yet every man did have nipples, and before puberty the chests of boys and girls were pretty much alike, and in some cases boy-babies dribbled milk from those nipples. So the potential was there—and if man was not intended by nature to have it, why was he born with nipples? Only body chemistry in adolescence made the difference. Why
not
men with breasts and women with beards?
    Could it, in fact, have been this way in the past? Less differentiation between the sexes? Perhaps at one time every adult human being had had beard and breasts, and penis and vagina. Maybe only in historic times, when prudery could be developed, perfected and spread like a vile disease, had the woman's member been reduced to the clitoris and the man's hole portioned between anus and urethra. Once man had fought his way to supremacy on Earth, he had no longer needed to have every part interchangeable, and so true sexuality had developed. A modern woman could be considered at least in part a castrated male; a modern man might be a debreasted female.
    Prior shook his head, embarrassed by the turn his speculations had taken. Next thing, he would be wondering whether there had originally been any differentiation between man and sheep and horse and bird and griffin. The statues implied that there had not been; that all could revel together sexually; that evolution had altered only the forms, not the sexuality.
    Well, maybe so—but what kind of offspring would spring from the merged loins of man and griffin? The heraldic beast was already a cross between an eagle and a lion! Even the man-sheep combination was complex enough; would that be a mashep? Sheepan? Meep? Shan?
    He paused. Maybe a succubus, or—
    Satyr.
    Satyr! Of course! Forepart of a man, hindpart of a goat. Bipedal, but with horns. No doubt it all made sense, once the big picture was viewed and grasped.
    There was a good deal to learn from such statues. Maybe someday he would return for the whole course of instruction.

Chapter Thirteen
    At last he arrived at the outpost of the Egglayers. At this point Prior was ready for anything. But his buildup was only for a letdown.
    It was a small conservative cabin. The road looped around it and stopped. There was nowhere else to go.
    He marched up and knocked on the door. After a moment a middle-aged saggy-gutted balding man yanked it open. "This is the place," the inhabitant said abruptly, his whiskers quivering like those of some cartoon character. "I don't recognize you, though. Mighty small gut on you. You