The next day Div took him on a tour of their property. "Until we can prepare to return to the site where we found you--and you must not tell anyone about that place; it is a secret we wish to share with no one--you will be doing general farm work. Tomorrow, we'll get you up early to milk the cows. At breakfast we'll assign your duties for the day, such as feeding the livestock, cleaning the barn and chopping wood for fuel."

She put him right to work that afternoon, hoeing the garden. Because his muscles had atrophied a lot during his illness, at first the work was extremely hard for him. Each night he fell into bed aching and exhausted. His hands blistered, became raw and finally callused. After a few weeks, however, he gained strength and became used to the work. He began to enjoy the physical labor, sunshine and fresh air. As he gained body weight, he outgrew the clothing that Dav had given him in the hospital. Div, who was quite good at sewing and tailoring, made him a couple of new outfits, including underwear. He implored her not to put so many frills on the garments and to use darker colors.

During this time, his grasp of their language also improved enormously. He asked them many questions about their civilization and the history of the past three thousand years, but they could tell him little. They only knew about events that had occurred in their lifetimes and a few years before. Neither woman was interested in history, especially what, to them, was ancient history.

Div said, "Someday Dav and I will take you to the temple in Eastville. The priestesses of Medis are very scholarly and know a lot of ancient history. There you may be able to find out what you want to know." Eastville was the village where the hospital was located.

"Tell me, Div, who is in charge of ... everything?" It was difficult to frame his question properly as he knew no words in their language for "government" or "state" or "country."

"What do you mean, Joe? Everyone is charge of themselves, except people like you who owe money they cannot pay and must work off their debt."

"I mean who makes the..." Again he was stuck. There was no word for "laws." He gave up and swearing to himself that soon he would get her to take him to this temple place where he could get answers.

One task he found particularly odious. The toilet was above a septic tank, which had to be emptied and cleaned weekly. Its contents were placed into a larger container along with animal manure all of which was composted and disinfected using ultraviolet rays from the sun. The output was used for fertilizer. Eventually he got used to the stench and handling of human excrement. It made him realize that Div and Dav did not waste anything. Care of the environment had been so much a part of their early upbringing that it was an ingrained habit done without thought.

One thing really bothered Hermann a lot. Div and Dav were beautiful women, with attractive bodies, who showed little modesty. Often they would walk around in their underwear or sheer nightgowns with no thought how it would affect him. They often undressed in front of him.

One hot day, as he and Dav worked side by side, she took off her blouse and worked topless. He kept taking peeks at her, noticing how rivulets of sweat ran down her breasts to drip off of her prominent nipples. When she noticed, she chastised him. "What's wrong with you, Joe? Stop staring at my chest, and let's get these tomatoes picked."

He looked down at the ground, cursing himself for turning into a perverted voyeur. "Sorry."

On another occasion, Div called him from the bathroom. She was sitting naked in a tub of hot water. She handed him a bar of soap and a sponge. "Scrub my back, Joe."

She leaned forward. Hermann lathered up the sponge and rubbed it all over her back. Occasionally, the tips of his fingers would touch her flesh, which was smooth and soft. He had to turn sideways so that she could not see what was happening to the front of his jeans.

"Ah, that feels good," she said. "Scrub harder."

When he became too frustrated, he went into the woods to masturbate.

One morning in early autumn, as the leaves began to change colors, Hermann helped Div take an ill horse to the veterinarian. It was a five-mile walk during which they conversed about many things. Div asked Hermann about his world.

"It was much different back in those days. You seem to think of Eastville as a large place."

"Yes, it has the greatest population of any village in this section of the continent. Almost three thousand women live in Eastville."

"In my world that would be considered a tiny place, practically rural. Albany, where I lived, had a population in the hundreds of thousands. The largest city in this area was New York. It had a population of over ten million women." He had adopted the mode of using their word for women to mean people.

"Ten million? Surely you exaggerate. I don't believe that there are that many women in the whole world."

"Nonetheless, it was true. Where did they all go? Also, what happened to the animal women like me? In my world, over half the women were animal women."

"I do not know. Perhaps, someday Dav or I will take you to a priestess of Medis. Priestesses have much knowledge of ancient times. But tell me, where was this New York located?"

"If you follow the great river that runs through these parts south to where it joins the ocean, there are four large islands. The great city was on those islands."

"Ah. I know the place. I've been there. There are a great many ruins there. Some very tall buildings are left from ancient times. There has been a lot of controversy about whether to preserve them as historical monuments or tear them down for the material they contain. The priestesses want to preserve them; everyone else wants to tear them down. Much metal has been mined from those islands. But now they've been played out except for the couple of tall buildings I mentioned. There's little metal left."

"I'd like to see it. I wonder whether they melted down the Statue of Liberty."

"Tell me about the animal women. Did the women keep them as one would a pet?"

Hermann laughed. "In some cases. But mostly the relationship between an animal man and a woman was like that between you and Dav. They were partners in an institution we called marriage."

"Really. How interesting. And when they made love, the animal woman would put her penis inside the woman like animals do when they mate?"

"Yes, that's how it was done. And sometimes the woman would get impregnated and have a baby. Cloning of women was illegal at the time I lived."

Div stopped in her tracks, and her eyes went wide. "That's very strange. So one did not have to be rich to have a baby. No wonder there were so many women in the world in the olden days."

Hermann glanced at her slyly. "Would you like a demonstration of how we did this?"

Div chuckled nervously. "You mean you would stick that thing of yours in a woman and let me watch."

"I didn't exactly mean that. I wondered whether you would like me to demonstrate on you."

Div's mouth gaped in horror. "I don't think so. No. I don't wish to be rude or speak ill of you, but the idea repulses me."

After that bit of conversation, they continued on in silence. But Hermann caught Div staring at him contemplatively at times, especially in the area of his crotch.