Buck's Phototales

Sabre walked up the lane and stuck her head in through the cellar hatchway that stood open at the rear of the house. She descended the stone steps before peering into the gloom that is my basement.

"Hallo, Buck!" I heard her call. "Are you down there?"

"I most certainly am! Izzat you, Sabre? C'mon down!"

"It's dark and gloomy down here, Buck!" Sabre voiced her opinion of my basement as she blinked her eyes after coming in out of the bright sunlight.

"It's also the coolest place in the house right about now, Sabre! I'm trying to beat the heat!"

"But just look at all these cobwebs!"

"Are you by any chance casting aspersions on my housekeeping, young woman?"

"Let's go upstairs where it is more pleasant, Buck?"

"Okay, Sabre! You head up and I'll be along in a minute!"

"Well alright, Buck! What are you going to do?"

"I came downstairs to see if there were a bottle of Bass Ale in the 'fridge, Sabre!"

"And now you will see if there are two, Buck?"

"At the very least, my friend!"

My guest grinned happily and ascended the stairs to the first floor of the house.

I closed the hatch door, pulled a half dozen bottles from the depths of the old Westinghouse refrigerator, turned off the cellar light and climbed the cellar stairs soon after. I was going to haul the trash outside to take it to the recycle center but I'd rather sit around sipping suds with Sabre any day of the week. The rubbish had been accumulating for over a month as it was ... it could wait another week.

Bass Ale is as pleasant and innocuous tasting a malt beverage as anyone could reasonably ask for. The alchoholic content does not lend any obvious taste nor does the flavor interfere with anything you may wish to eat along with it. It goes equally well with fish, poultry, meat, pasta or a bowl of popcorn if that is what your appetite craves at the moment. Bass Ale is an all-around congenial drink.

But let there be no mistake about it, there is an alchohol content and after consuming three or four bottles, it does tend to deplete whatever residual inhibitions a person may maintain.

Sabre, bless her soul, has few inhibitions to interfere with doing that which pleases her to begin with, and so it was not over long ere the two of us had adjourned to my den where, I assured her, we would be more comfortable as I had installed an air conditioner in an inconspicuous window.

Sabre would have preferred to shower first but it has been our experience that at my age it is perhaps best to strike while the iron is hot so to speak ... And in that way neither of us runs the risk of missed opportunities.

I was busily self-involved in kneading my partner's breasts as Sabre wound down in her afterglow - or whatever it is that women seem to particularly enjoy after the fact - when her chest swelled up at me prodigiously and I saw the smile on her face between her cleavage.

"Are you preparing to offer me in sacrifice, Buck?"

"Sacrifice?! Hell no! I wouldn't give you up to anyone nor any thing! What ever gave you an idea like that, Sabre?"

"Oh ... I do not know, Buck! Is not it a practice that all men indulge themselves in?"

"None that are civilized, Sabre!"

"Oh now, Buck! Do not the men of every social order consider themselves to be civilized?"

"Well, now that you put it that way ... I suppose they do! What brought the subject to mind? Do the Amazon Clans make a practice of human sacrifice?"

"The Goddess requests that women sacrifice themselves in various ways, Buck. A warrior may give her life to save the life of her Queen, or the life of a child, or the life of another warrior if they are dear friends ... But to lay down upon an altar to have her chest or womb opened? No the Amazons did not make sacrifices in that manner. That is a particularly male characteristic, which is why I asked you.

"A male characteristic?" I asked feeling the defensiveness rise into my voice. "What makes you say that, Sabre?"

"I would suppose that it is a mere extension of logic, Buck."

"A logical extension, Sabre?"

"Certainly. Human sacrifice was and very likely is practiced in the world today, would you agree?" Sabre asked rhetorically. "And since the Amazon Clans were a matriarchial society composed almost but not exclusively of women who did not practice sacrifice in this manner, then we can only conclude that it was or is a predominantly male practice."

"Predominantly male ... then you do tend to agree than females have been involved and participated in these ceremonies?"

"Oh, the women were involved Buck! That is for certain! They usually participated as you say, by playing the role of the victim!"

"I stepped right into it that time, didn't I, Sabre?"

"Yes! But of course I know what you mean, Buck! Women may participate as a Priestess certainly, but I contend that they are following the lead of the men who established the precendent."

"Well, I imagine you could be right," I conceeded, "But what do you suppose prompted the practice in the first place?"

"Two all too human motives, Buck! Fear and Subjugation!"

Sabre was warming to her discourse therefore I sat and listened.

"Sacrifice is always offered in propitiation to some higher entity or being! On such hypocritical stuff are most religions founded!"

"An offering! Pah! A sacrifice is made to instill fear ... to issue a warning! Beware! Lest you too come to a similar fate!"

"The priests choose women in order to bring or keep them in a state of fearful subjugation, you see!"

"The message is Be obedient and sexually submissive! Else you too will have your chest and belly spilt open and the inner organs removed!"

"And you think this is what motivates the practice, Sabre?"

"Absolutely! I am positive and have neither doubt nor reservation in my opinion! Now then, Buck! Would you be good enough to continue in your ministrations?"

"So that you may imagine yourself to be sacrificed, Sabre?"

"Hardly! I'd rather think of the milk as it is expressed from my nipples!"

"I'll drink to that!" I responded with enthusiasm.

"I rather imagined that you would!" came her reply.

"Most enactments portray the Amazons as detesting their male counterparts, doesn't it seem so to you, Sabre?"

"Yes," my guest replied after some hesitation, "But is that not only a convention, Buck?"

"A conventional wisdom?"

"Yes, if wisdom is what you would call it! I don't really believe that the rank and file Amazon Warrior held any more hatred for men in general than do women in your own time and place, Buck! I know that I certainly do not ... And quite truthfully, I cannot think of another who does!"

"So why are the movie producers and novelists always so anxious to depict men and women as being adversaries, do you suppose?"

"It provides them with a ready-made excuse to get the Battle Scenes underway more quickly, perhaps?" Came Sabre's considered response.

"If the truth be know, Buck ... The Amazon Women were often almost entirely too anxious of male companionship!"

"Really?"

"Yes! Absolutely!"

"Living in isolation as they do, many times warriors will come forward and present themselves as being readily available!"

"Only to learn too late that many males will reward a warrior's hospitality by running a blade through her belly!"

"That's horribly cruel and unusual punishment, Sabre!"

"Cruel ... I suppose ... Yes! Though hardly unusual, Buck!"

"A man's sexual appetites may be satiated soone enough ... But never would it seem is his lust for trinkets of gold!"

Tell me! What is that female figure you have standing down there in the gloom of the lower reaches of this house?"

"Female fig ...? Oh! You mean the Figure Head, Sabre! She seems to enjoy the cool of the cellar more so than the heat of the attic!"

"She is a wood carving, is she not?"

"That one is, yes! She appeared to be cracking upstairs in the attic and so I lugged her to the basement where she isn't inclined to dry and split quite as much - I hope!"

"And what purpose did your wooden lady serve, Buck?"

"She hasn't served active duty in quite some time, Sabre! But when she did, she served as the figurehead where she was displayed prominently and proudly on the prow of one of the sailing ships that set out to ply the Seven Seas!"

"So I take it then that her purpose was merely to decorate the ship? To serve as ornamentation of some kind?"

"Well, yes essentially! But I've read that the sea-faring men were quite proud of their figureheads and they were regarded as being a Good Luck Charm that served to both Guide and Protect the ship as it went about its voyages ..."

"Men are ever a superstitious lot, are they not?" Sabre regarded me shreudly. "You need not stop the massage on my account," she added. "It is not over often that I am caressed so lovingly, you know? And besides ... I find your touch to be efficacious ... As though it were healing in some way ... So carry on, if you will?"

It should be needless to say that I was pleased to redouble my efforts ... And that they were to our mutual satisfaction!

"Did you realize, Buck, that it was in all probability an Amazon ... and a Queen at that ... who inaugurated the tradition of what came to be the ships's Figure-Head?"

"Well no ... To be honest Sabre ... The thought has never occurred to me! I have always imagined the Amazons to sally forth on solid ground rather than in boats of any kind!"

"Your estimation is quite correct, Buck! I enjoy splashing about in a quiet pool and even an invigorating swim now and then ... Other than that, I, for the most part would prefer to keep both of my feet planted upon solid ground!"

"And yet the legend of the figurehead, Sabre?" I reminded her.

"Here! Let me lie back if you will? Now! Press your hands into my belly! There! Now! Deep! Deep into my gut!"

This was no small task because Sabre was in possession of what had to be the hardest abdominal muscles of any woman alive ... Or of any to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge. I was amply rewarded by her response however as she arched and heaved in complete abandon.

"Ah! But that feels wonderful! It's only so very rarely that I dare to drop my guard entirely and lose myself in a stretch as I have done! Now ... If you will continue? Then so will I!"

"As I mentioned earlier, the Amazons were not always immediately on their guard whenever men chanced to come into their midst. This was an acquired reaction that came about following the initial encounters in which numerous warriors from different Clans learned the hard way that outsiders were not to be trusted - particularly if those outsiders were male!"

"At any rate, the Legend of the Amazon Figure Head dates to the earliest times and so the Queen who was to become the principal player in the Legend may perhaps be forgiven were she more unwary than she most certainly would have been had she lived during a later era."

"Contrary to what is most often depicted, the men did not launch an immediate assault as they landed upon the distant shores of the Amazon Nation. And, as a matter of fact, they launched no attack whatever during the time they were there and so the Amazons, who some consider to hardly be warriors at all, were thereby lulled into fellings of false security."

"The men, for their own part were friendly. They all appeared to be properly fascinated by the Amazon Legend which their captain admitted had been a subject that had intrigued men for all time."

"In short, they succeeded in ingratiating themselves to the women ... Even to such an extent that there great Queen Synthianna, was coaxed into joining the men when they set sail on their return voyage."

"The reason given seemed reasonable enough. She was to be presented as an honored guest at the court of the male king ... Thereby serving as living proof of the Legend of the Amazon Nation."

"Queen Synthianna was, according to every account of the legend, a truly magnificent speciman of womanhood ... and as such there could be little doubt left in the eyes and to the minds of all who met her that they had indeed not encountered a living Amazon Warrior ..."

"But again, as I said earlier, the Amazons of this era were neither pugnacious nor especially warlike by nature and the Queen Synthianna proved to be quite a favorite among every man among the crew aboard the vessel. And this fact would have been all well and good except for the fact that the ship had a rather long and difficult voyage ahead of it and it was inevitable that rivalries developed among those seeking the Queen's Favor."

"The men of the crew often came to blows ... although in truth the fights made little enough sense ... because as far as anyone knows ... Queen Synthianna was held in reserve for the Captain and perhaps one or two of the officers aboard the ship ... And so she had little or nothing to do with the common seamen ... But - men being the creatures that they are - emotions soon ran high - knives were pulled with the result that blood was shed."

"The Captain and his officers feared that they could very well have a mutiny on their hands! And so, and I suppose that it was with some reluctance on their part - the Captain and his officers decided between themselves that - in the interest of restoring a measure of harmony among the members of their crew - that their only passenger, the Amazon Queen Syntianna be disposed of ... The only question that remained of course was how?"

"There were likely those among the officers who opted to thrust a sword through the young woman ..."

"Or a knife driven deep - if that were in any way preferable? A ball to her bosom fired at close range by a flintlock pistol was likely the choice of another ..."

"And one of them probably went as far to suggest that the Amazon be forced to walk the plank!"

"I mean really, Buck! To be treated like a common ... What do you call them?"

"Pirates! Yes! To walk the plank to be drowned like a pirate!"

"As if any of this were Queen Synthianna's fault or any of her own choosing!"

"At any rate - the choice was taken out of their hands for Queen Synthianna proceeded to doing something that is so uncharacteristic of any Amazon Warrior - much less a Queen ..."

"That the simple fact that she even considered doing such a thing at all likely contributed to the perpetuation of the Legend that was to grow up around her!"

"There are those who would seek to either romanticize the Legend or to in some was disparage or belittle the action that Queen Synthianna took ..."

"But some say that while the ships's officers were debating their decision that a storm blew up suddenly."

"Those who place any stock in this version of the tale say that it was due to the terror that the storm provoked within her that caused the Amazon Queen Synthianna to become entangled in one of the ropes of the ship's rigging."

"But there are others, among whom I include myself, who believe that Queen Synthianna took her own life ... And here again you may have you choice of motives ..."

"Either she was driven to despair over the great discord she had promulgated among the crew ..."

"Or was it that perhaps the Queen had no great desire for a blade thrust through her navel nor a bullet fired into her breast ..."

"Or that, again as I prefer - she offered herself in propitiation to the Gods of the Sea - that they should turn away the tempest and so save the ship and it's crew!"

"For on that dark and tempestuous night, the Amazon Queen Synthianna took herself into the rigging of the ship ..."

"Where she and she alone proceeded to hang herself by the ropes ..."

"And so thus she dangled ..."

"And there she strangled ..."

"Slowly ..."

"Ever so ... slowly ..."

"And at length the storm abated ..."

"And it was then that the men of the crew found Queen Synthianna hanging ..."

"Just how long her splendid body was left there to sway in the light wind that stirred I do not know for the Legend does not say ..."

I tended to think that had the Amazon harbored any wish to make a sacrifice of herself that it would have been easier and quicker by far had she simply dived overboard ...

But then perhaps the Amazon Queen Synthianna was somewhat more of an exhibitionist than that ... And there is no gainsaying the fact that she did present a fine exhibit.

Besides ... This story was Sabre's and I thought it best to let her tell it ... Besides ... She was allowing me the privilege of manipulating a fine Amazon body on my own account!

"... But" Sabre said in conclusion, "The storm had left them without the loss of any other life among the ship's crew ... The Amazon had given herself to appease the God of the Sea! She had saved the ship affording protection to its crew during their moment of crisis! And thus did the Amazon Queen Synthianna give rise to the Legend of the Figure Head!"