Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,91

some female,” I answered, also squatting on the raft. I had hurriedly withdrawn my pole, which they’d tried to wrench from my grasp with their gaping mouths, and was now holding on to it for dear life. “They can’t tell the gender of other species, so they just try to mate with them anyway.”

“But it’s usually only the male that displays courtship!”

“Yes, but on this planet both males and females display courtship. We know that attractants such as sex pheromones have hardly any effect between individuals of the same species, which means that they don’t mate much among themselves. They compensate for this with a strange innate releasing mechanism, whereby they chase other species as if hunting prey.”

“Won’t the species then become extinct?”

“No. Excessive inbreeding is more likely to cause extinction. Especially on this planet, where the animals have hardly any natural enemies.”

“Why don’t we try it out?” said Yohachi, using his pole to bash an alligator as it tried to crawl onto the raft. “It might feel good.”

“Idiot. If it’s a male, your anus will be ripped apart,” I said, then gasped in relief when I saw the opposite shore only thirty feet away. “Thank God! Eleventh-hour crocodiles!”

Slightly larger than the gurgling alligators, groups of eleventh-hour crocodiles were crawling into the lake from swamps near the shore.

Pushed up from below by the alligators’ snouts, our raft continued to tilt wildly. We clung onto our baggage to avoid being shaken off, and waited for the eleventh-hour crocodiles to arrive.

“But it’s out of the frying pan into the fire, isn’t it?” said Mogamigawa, shaking with fear.

“We’ll escape while they’re fighting,” I replied.

The eleventh-hour crocodile at the head of the group snapped at one of the gurgling alligators. The pair corkscrewed their bodies and leapt six feet into the air as they grappled with each other. A massive spray of water flew up, and at last, the mother of all battles started around our raft.

“Now!” I yelled.

We desperately worked our poles to escape from the carnage.

“That’s quite a battle,” said Mogamigawa, turning back to watch the action goggle-eyed. “Many of them will surely die.”

“No. What you’re seeing is a ‘ritual contest’, as they say in ethology. It’s the same as when males of earth species fight over the females. The difference on this planet is that they’re not fighting over females but over the spectators, creatures of other species that simply watch the action from the side. They’re waiting to yield their chastity to the victors.” I was punting along for all I was worth, but let out a cry when I saw the far bank approaching. “Oh no! What a fool I’ve been! There’s a pod of flatback hippos near here!”

Mogamigawa raised his voice in alarm. “Those unearthly creatures?! Good God, it’ll be no joke if we’re ravished by them! Which way should we go?”

“Let’s skirt the shore southwards. Hey, Yohachi – look out!”

Before I could finish, a number of flatback hippos surfaced around the raft, showing only their flat rectangular backs.

“Take that!” I shouted.

“Take that!” yelled Yohachi.

“And take your bestial desires with you!” added Mogamigawa.

We thrust our poles into the backs of the flatback hippos in a mad frenzy. Their soft backs were covered with fine crêpe-like wrinkles resembling the mesh of a reed mat. With each manly thrust, the ends of our poles would penetrate the skin and slide into the thick fat on their backs. But it didn’t appear to hurt the hippos at all, for they continued to close in on our raft undeterred, oblivious of their gaping wounds. A very small quantity of white fat oozed out of the round holes made in their backs by the poles. As I continued to thrust, I wondered if perhaps they actually enjoyed having this done to them…

The hippos’ backs now had so many holes in them that they began to resemble honeycombs, a truly sickening sight. I decided to stop thrusting the pole and started smashing them over the head with it instead. But merely being hit on the head wasn’t going to make these hippos desist. They continued to look up at us ruefully, their eyes bloodshot with carnal lust, some diving down below the raft while others waited for a chance to crawl up onto it.

“Aaargh!” Yohachi had plunged his pole into a hippo’s back with such force that he was unable to pull it out again. As he clung to the end of the pole, he was lifted off the raft and hoisted about three