Title: Lorne's Team: Aliens Made Them do What?
Author:
mandykaysficRating: R
Word count: ~3,000
Characters: Lorne, Parrish, Coughlin, Reed
Note: Written for amtdi challenge anmesty 2010
Part of the
'Lorne’s Team' series but can be read as a stand alone
Everything I learned about this topic can be attributed to Mary Roach.
"I swear it's barbecued pork." Reed's nose twitched. "I'd know that smell anywhere."
Lorne's team were still a ten minute hike from the village, but the breeze was blowing toward them and after a few deep sniffs of his own, Lorne had to agree.
"Oh my god, we have to trade for some of that. We simply have to," said Coughlin, salivating as he breathed in the enticing aroma.
"Yeah." Parrish's soft agreement was no less heartfelt for all its unusual brevity.
The meet-and-greet went peaceably. The barbecued native pork tasted every bit as good as it smelt. Coughlin practically swooned when he realized the trade would include some live piglets, or gruntlings as they were called. Naturally, this was contingent upon the Lanteans guaranteeing suitable food and living conditions for the beasts.
"How many gruntlings are included? Will there be males and females? The agreement doesn't specify." Lorne repeated the terms back to Lorento, chief negotiator for the Brendazens to be sure he hadn't missed anything.
"That all depends on the litters. There are four of you. You will receive half of each of your female's produce. We take the first, you the second, we the third and so on. The actual number rests in the hands of the gods and yourselves. In one hundred and ten days, you will return and you will see whether the gods approve you as new guardians for the gruntlings."
"Do we choose our own female?" As far as he was concerned, Reed believed wholeheartedly it paid to be cynical; they'd had the worst of the deal foisted onto them often enough in the past. Barren pigs would mean no gruntlings and he wanted his pork.
"From those that are ready, indeed you may. It is after all your performance the gods take into consideration when blessing the female. I urge you to choose carefully. It seems they are much like our own women when it comes to begetting offspring. If you can fly your female all the way to the gods, they will bless her. Come, you may choose yours now and get to work. They are often more receptive at this time of day."
There was a moment's stunned silence and Lorne's team exchanged glances. Nowhere on the spreadsheets was there a column labeled 'mating with pigs', or any other animal for that matter. They reached a silent consensus on the spot. That little ritual sat firmly on the other side of the line for all of them. If they'd not misunderstood anything, there would be no barbecued pork in Atlantis' future unless another team with different sensibilities didn’t mind taking their place. Biologically, it seemed a senseless practice; humans and pigs could not produce offspring. Reed murmured something about minotaurs and centaurs, wondering whether they were actually the result of some form of ancient technology.
"Ah..." Lorne searched for the most tactful way to say the deal was off, at least the part with the gruntlings was.
"Come, come," urged Lorento. "Time, and females of all persuasions, waits for none." He ushered them toward a door they'd assumed led to a food preparation area.
The four went reluctantly, with Parrish, Reed and Coughlin pulling faces at Lorne, conveying their utmost faith he'd get them out of this before it was too late.
"I think I just developed a case of E.D." muttered Reed. "If you explain on my behalf," he begged Lorne, "being as I'm too embarrassed to explain myself."
"Oh, yes, me too," said Coughlin.
"And I've got a disease, a contagious one," said Parrish. "Or maybe just a rash in an awkward place," he amended as the others turned and stared at him. "Your religion forbids all forms of sexual activity at this time of the month, doesn't it, Major?" suggested Parrish in a loud whisper. "I'm just trying to be helpful," he added more quietly.
Lorne groaned.
"Is there a problem?" asked Lorento. "Here we are," he said, without waiting for a response. “Put these on.” He indicated neat piles of clothing, quickly pulling a pristine white jacket over his shirt and struggling into white pants not unlike surgical scrubs. “Oof, I must not eat so much, but my wife, she is a good cook, and my cousin, he always wants me to sample a new creation. Wash your hand here, please. The females prefer skin on skin. Gloves simply did not work so well - gruntling numbers were lower.”
Lorne’s team slowly donned the protective clothing over their own, wondering why they weren’t expected to get naked straight away, but thankful just the same.
“Lorento,” began Lorne.
“Yes, you shall see them now. I know you must be excited. I think there are quite a few to choose from at the moment. Come. Come through here.”
A dozen stalls lined one side of a large barn. Each held a female pig. The first, a large pink and brown sow, raised her snout at Lorento and issued a snuffling grunt in his direction.
“Strali!” he exclaimed excitedly. “You are here. I thought your time would come in two more days.” He scratched behind her ears. “You are a good girl. You will beat your record this time and give me an even dozen, won’t you?” He leaned across the rail and slapped her shoulders. “I would ask that you not choose Strali. She belongs to my family. I will do her myself since she is here. Why did nobody tell me she had arrived?” Lorento asked the person who had joined them while he fussed over Strali.
The newcomer, a young man clad in white scrubs as the others were, consulted the notebook he carried. “Your brother brought in Strali only a short while ago. He said he would notify you himself.”
Lorento laughed. “She is keen, this one. Every time she heats a day or two before she should. You are a good mother to so many, aren’t you my pet?” He gave her ears another fond scritch. “Introduce the Lanteans, Darnell. I will make sure Strali is really in the mood while you do so.”
Lorne watched as Lorento blew on Strali’s snout, and damned if Strali’s ears didn’t stand up straight. She batted her long eyelashes at him and grunted contentedly.
“This is Peri,” said Darnell, drawing everyone’s attention to the pig in pen next to Strali. He informed them her average litter was nine gruntlings and rattled off her pedigree. Melly was an attractive chocolate brown color and a niner like Peri. Frolish held the record, having once produced nineteen gruntlings, all of which had survived, but that had been some seasons ago - these days she usually had ten. Zora was almost pure white. Her average litter was only seven, but there was always at least one white gruntling among them, promised Darnell. White was special, gathered the Lanteans. “And lastly here’s Baybe. It’s her first season.”
“Our mom called us all Babe,” choked out Coughlin, staring wild-eyed at the pink pig.
“Oh, God, a virgin pig,” muttered Reed. Suddenly, something with tentacles didn’t seem so bad.
“I’m sorry we are unable to provide you with information as to her performance,” said Darnell anxiously. “While it is always an honor to be responsible for the first litter, you should not feel obliged to risk part of your trade on the unknown. We are planning on matching her with Kamell. He has fathered many, many gruntlings. Come, I will introduce you.”
Curiosity won out over whatever Lorne and his team may have been feeling at the thought of being introduced to the man who was capable of such a task. Their relief was almost immeasurable when they saw the huge black boar currently being kept in a small enclosure at the far end of the barn.
“He’s rather large, isn’t he,” said Parrish faintly. Kamell had testicles almost the size of soccer balls.
“The biggest,” confirmed Darnell proudly. “However, do not fear. Kamell won’t let strangers near him, so Sharni will collect his offering.”
“Collect his offering?” echoed Lorne slowly.
“Sharni has been collecting offerings for four cycles now. Come and be introduced, Sharni,” called Darnell, spotting someone in the ubiquitous white entering the barn through a side door.
Sharni held up her hands in the manner of the Brendazen formal greeting. “Welcome,” she said. “You would be here to trade for gruntlings.”
“Er, yes, but…,” said Lorne, wondering how to tell this striking red-haired woman who stood tall enough to look Parrish directly in the eye why they couldn’t participate in the ritual.
“It’s all right. I won’t keep you waiting long. Traders always seem to be in a hurry,” she said. “I never get a chance to show off my technique. I don’t suppose you’ve got time to watch?”
“We could watch, Sir, couldn’t we,” broke in Reed eagerly. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“We can watch,” agreed Lorne, thankful for the delay, although he wondered exactly what it was they’d committed to observing. He thought he knew.
“Excellent!” Sharni let herself into the boar’s pen. She scratched between his ears and thumped his back a few times as she murmured nonsense words to Kamell. “Both the males and the females like this,” she instructed as she rubbed around the back of his ears again. “You should make sure you do this frequently. Then when their ears stand up, you know they are getting ready.” She moved efficiently around Kamell, rubbing and thumping with her hands and even kneeing him firmly.
It didn’t take long for Kamell’s ears to perk right up, and he grunted at Sharni. She reached back and pressed the red button on a panel none of Lorne’s team had noticed. There was a mechanical clanking as gears engaged, which smoothed out to a soft hum. The floor beneath Kamell began to move. As Kamell’s forequarters rose at an angle into the air, Sharni buckled him into a harness, then dipped one hand into a container of goo and positioned a large container at Kamell’s feet with another. The raised floor, now an angled bench, began sliding back and forward. As its pace sped up, it began to vibrate. Sharni grasped Kamell’s penis with her lubricated hand and stroked firmly.
“His penis is,” she twirled her free hand in the air, “curly, like his tail.” She glanced up and took in the mesmerized faces of the Lanteans. No different to any others, she thought. Did nobody else care enough to want the greatest number of gruntlings in the litter? She sighed mentally - maybe these would remember some of what she told them - and continued explaining, telling them how it long one had to work the penis until ejaculation. That with careful research, they’d found the fluid volume obtained was greater when they milked the boars themselves than if they used artificial means. By now, both hands were in action. “Even artificial collectors made to specification from individual females did not work so well. This way, we can successfully impregnate four females per single ejaculation, rather than the one if we let nature take its course. Naturally our scientists are working on ways to increase that number.”
“Colonel Sheppard should have detailed O’Reilly’s team for this one,” said Reed, relieved when he realized they’d be artificially inseminating the sows instead of what they’d all imagined. “Doctor Helfgott would have no worries with this.”
“I’ll see about getting them sent back when the time comes,” said Lorne, equally relieved they hadn’t been expected to milk the boars themselves. He tried to remember what he could of the television farming series his grandmother had made them watch. Birthing sometimes required long gloves and the insertion of arms past elbows, but he couldn’t think of any episode he’d seen where the vets had done the artificial inseminations. There would be tubes, he supposed, for the actual process.
“Oh, but don’t you want to know how many gruntlings we each get? I think I want to do Peri.” Reed paused when Coughlin choked. “Not do her, moron.”
“Darnell, Nevvah and Rheean will be finished with Duroc and Massl very soon. You’d best take our friends here to choose their females,” said Sharni, firmly working along the contours of Kamell’s organ, her hands never stopping. Kamell snorted and groaned, and damned if his noises didn’t sound very happy to his fascinated audience.
“Of course. If you’d come with me.” Darnell motioned for Lorne and the others to follow him back to where the females waited in their pens. He introduced them to the pair men who stood with Lorento as he fussed over Strali.
“Larsen will demonstrate once. If you forget, all you need to do is copy Lorento and Temen, who’ll be working alongside; Larsen will give you a hand if you get really stuck.”
“Strali will receive Kamell’s seed, won’t she,” worried Lorento.
“Of course. It is written. Do not worry,” said Darnell, and showed Lorento the entry in the file confirming the particular boar’s seed that would go to each sow.
“Watch please,” ordered Larsen, and he entered Melly’s pen. Taking a stance to one side at Melly’s back end, he placed his hands into her groin and lifted her an inch or so off the ground.
Parrish’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. None of the pigs were light-weights; Peri in particular was on the large side. Lorne was always on at him to work out more often, and after today, if he didn’t end up with a slipped disc, he was going to take him up on the offer to train more regularly.
Larsen repeated the lift and drop four or five times. “This mimics the actions of the boar,” he explained. He took up a new position kneeling behind her. With his fist he demonstrated the correct rhythm to push at the bulging flesh beneath her tail. “Your fist is best, or maybe your knee if your hand is small. The boar would use his snout, but ours, they are not like that,” he said with a laugh. “Hey, Melly, you like this, don’t you girl,” he crooned. “You must talk to them too. Say nice things. They like it.” It seemed they did, as Melly’s ears perked up and her tail spiraled madly in the air.
“We don’t have to?” and Parrish produced a creditable imitation of a pig’s snort.
“Just talking is fine,” said Larsen. “We have a recording of each male’s courting noises and that is piped into each pen, but they like to hear our voices as well.”
Coughlin snorted, and then flushed when the others laughed. They quieted quickly enough when Larsen climbed onto Melly’s back and stretched out. He wrapped his legs around her barrel-like body and then reached down with his hands.
“Holy shit!” muttered Reed, trying to keep his voice down.
Larsen massaged Melly’s mammary glands. Just as he would a woman, he rubbed and molded with both hands. His long fingers squeezed her teats as he worked his way up and down, murmuring all the time what a grand girl she was and how she would give many, many gruntlings after he sent her to visit the gods. She squealed her appreciation, and Larsen raised his head. “She is ready now. The inseminator is inserted by an assistant, who will hand you the controls. You must work it in and out until she signals she has met the gods. That is the time to open the gauge to allow the seed to flow. At the same time, you mimic the boar,” and he bounced on her back. When Melly squealed again, he thumped her rump. “Poor Melly, never mind. Your turn with the gods will come soon enough. I think it best if I stay with Melly; she’s a little frustrated, so I ask you would select from the others.”
“Baybe. I choose Baybe, if that’s all right.” Parrish spoke up quickly. He quelled Reed with a glare before any jokes about deflowering pigs could be voiced.
“The honor is yours,” said Darnell.
“Go ahead,” said Lorne, leaving the next choices to his team.
“Greeta’s a tenner, you said. I guess I’ll choose her. More gruntlings - more barbecued pork,” explained Reed.
“Peri,” said Coughlin.
Lorne’s gaze wandered in Zora’s direction. At Darnell’s nod of encouragement, he selected her. He had a bare two minutes to ponder on what he was about to do, before Larsen had them in position and performing the lift-and-drop maneuver the requisite number of times.
“Everyone. Tomorrow morning. The gym. Extra weights. No excuses,” panted Lorne. The sows were heavy and he was thankful they only had to raise them such a small way off the ground.
“Wuss!” exclaimed Coughlin when he spotted Reed using his knee beneath Greeta’s tail. “Get in there with your fist.”
“Fuck you,” responded Reed cheerfully, continuing to use his knee.
“Please,” called Parrish. “You’re upsetting Baybe. She can hear everything you say, can’t you girl. A girl’s first time should be special.”
“You want some candles and flowers, then? Dim lights? Maybe scented oils?” teased Coughlin.
“Don’t pay any attention to him, Baybe,” said Parrish soothingly. He thumped her flanks and scratched around her ears before climbing onto her back. “There you go,” he murmured when she raised her snout and grunted into the air. “That feels good, doesn’t it?”
Lorne was really glad nobody had a camera, as the sight of the four of them humping their respective pigs’ backs would have been all over Atlantis’ intranet within hours.
On the way back to the Gate, Parrish flipped through the book Darnell had pressed into Lorne’s hands. Fortunately The Care and Feeding of Gruntlings was illustrated, and the linguists would have no trouble running it through the translation matrix. “Zoology’s gonna love their new duties. Can’t you see Dr Hillier’s face when he finds out he has to massage pig’s tits?”
“Who do you suppose will become the boar milker for Atlantis?” wondered Reed.
“Just be glad we didn’t have to do it naked,” said Coughlin, and to that they all agreed.
END