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(C) 2009  sswitcher@yahoo.com

On passing over the brow of yet another hill, Louis Wu and Teela Brown set their flycycles down at the top of the broad, pleasant meadow that sloped gently downwards before them. They had been travelling for many days, and were in a hitherto unfamiliar part of the ringworld[1]. The vast bulk of Fist-of-God mountain was still discernible way off to the antispinward. To the port side, the rim wall, relatively close here, appeared like a low band of grey cloud on the horizon.

Louis and Teela dismounted from their flycycles and started to walk jauntily hand-in-hand through the meadow, heading for a small copse of trees. As they neared the trees, a group of humanoid figures came out to meet them. This particular species were tall and pale-skinned, quite close to human in appearance. Like most of the species that Louis and Teela had encountered on ringworld, they were naked. As Louis admired the shapely and attractive females, Teela's gaze was drawn to the muscular arms and large, rough hands of the males. Perhaps this meant that they were tree-dwellers, she thought, although their height and size, and the fact they walked upright argued against that.

The apparent leader of the small group, a particularly handsome male, held up a hand in greeting. Teela did likewise, and gave her usual friendly smile.

"We have come from far away," said Teela. "and we are in need of rest and refreshment. We come in peace."

"What have you to offer?" asked her counterpart. As they had done in similar situations, Teela gave Louis a certain brief look and he replied with an almost-imperceptible nod.

"To prove our peaceful intent and friendship, we offer rishathra[2]," said Teela.

The humanoid gave an enigmatic smile. "Thank you. But we are not so quick to rish in these parts. We prefer instead a slightly different but equally agreeable custom. We call it ..." The universal translator produced an unintelligible sound in response to the novel word.

"Come, we will show you," he continued, taking Teela by the hand and leading her towards the wood. At the same time, one of the others from the group, a pretty red-haired female, approached Louis and took him in the same direction.

Louis and Teela were both surprised to find that far from being mere earth, the area beneath the trees consisted of a network of small paths and shady glades, well-provided with benches, picnic tables, and other comforts. Louis's new friend got him sat on a bench and then - somewhat to Louis's surprise - laid her naked self face-down over his lap. Simultaneously, Teela's companion sat on a bench opposite and effortlessly up-ended Teela onto his own lap. Teela gasped with shock as he flipped up her short denim skirt and deftly yanked her skimpy panties down to her knees.

Seeing Teela's companion give him a knowing nod, Louis did the obvious thing and gave the humanoid girl a few gentle slaps. When she did nothing to resist, he quickly picked up the pace and intensity. Soon he had her squirming around and giving little sighs of delight. Meanwhile, Teela was making squeals of considerable distress as her humanoid companion matched Louis spank for spank. Teela struggled, but found herself firmly pinned down and unable to escape as a plate-sized palm repeatedly walloped her unprotected rear.

After some time, the backsides of both females were fairly well reddened, and Teela's humanoid spanker paused. Teela by this time was gasping for breath, and had tears in her eyes, but had at the same time found the unaccustomed sensations not entirely unpleasant. The girl on Louis's lap was still squirming, in a decidedly lustful way.

"What did you say this custom was called, again?" asked Louis.

This time the universal translator did a better job of the new word. "Spankathra," it said.

"And we thank you for participating in this custom of ours," continued Teela's spanker. "Now I think we are ready in turn to accept your offer of rishathra."

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[1] Ringworld is a circular ribbon of immensely strong material, a million miles in width and two hundred million miles in diameter, that spins at 770 miles/second, and has a yellow dwarf star at its centre. Walls a thousand miles high along both rims hold in the atmosphere. The inner surface is a habitat with roughly three million times the area of the Earth. It is inhabited by an huge variety of hominid species that have evolved to fill every concievable niche in the ecosystem.

[2] Rishathra is sex between different hominid species, performed as a gesture of friendship, to cement bargains and treaties, or just for fun (there being no danger of pregnancy).