The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [183]
Broud felt deflated. Something was missing. There was no response in her at all. He missed the excitement of forcing her against her will. Her seething hatred and bitter frustration, which she had never quite succeeded in covering before, were gone. She wasn’t fighting him anymore. She acted as though he wasn’t even there, as though she didn’t feel a thing. She didn’t. Her mind was in another realm, she no more noticed his penetration than his rebukes or sharp blows. It was just one more thing she had to accept and she resigned herself to it. Her calm, self-possessed serenity had returned.
Broud’s enjoyment was in dominating her, not in the pleasure of the sexual experience. He found he wasn’t stimulated anymore; he had trouble maintaining an erection. After a few times of not reaching a climax at all, he backed off, and soon stopped altogether. It was too humiliating. She might as well be a stone, for all her response, he thought. She’s so ugly anyway, I’ve given her enough of my time. She doesn’t even appreciate the honor of the future leader’s interest.
Oga welcomed him back, relieved that he seemed to be over his unfathomable attraction for Ayla. She hadn’t been jealous; it wasn’t something to be jealous about. Broud was her mate, and he gave no indication he was ready to give her up. Any man could relieve his needs with any woman he wanted, there was nothing extraordinary about that. She just couldn’t understand why he paid so much attention to Ayla when, for some strange reason, she obviously didn’t enjoy it.
For all his rationalizing, Broud was galled at Ayla’s sudden indifference. He thought he had finally found a way to dominate her, to break down her wall of reserve once and for all, and he had discovered the pleasure it gave him. It made him all the more determined to find a way to get to her again.
19
Ayla’s pregnancy astounded the whole clan. It seemed impossible that a woman with as powerful a totem as hers could conceive life. Speculation was rampant about the spirit of which man’s totem had succeeded in overpowering the Cave Lion, and every man in the clan would have liked to claim the credit—and the boost to his prestige. Some felt it must have been a combination of several totemic essences, perhaps the entire male population, but most opinions fell into one of two camps, divided almost entirely along the lines of age.
Proximity to the woman was the determining factor, which was why most men believed the children of their mates were the result of their own totem’s spirit. A woman inevitably spent more time with the man whose hearth she shared; the opportunity for swallowing his totem’s spirit was greater. Even though a man’s totem might call upon the assistance of another man’s totem during the ensuing battle, or any spirit that happened to be nearby, the vital force of the first totem had primary claim. A helping spirit might be honored with the privilege of beginning a new life, but it was at the discretion of the totem that asked for help. The two men who had been closest to Ayla since she had become a woman were Mog-ur and Broud.
“I say it’s Mog-ur,” Zoug asserted. “He’s the only one with a totem stronger than the Cave Lion. And whose hearth does she share?”
“Ursus never allows a woman to swallow his essence,” Crug countered. “The Cave Bear chooses those he will protect, as he did Mog-ur. Do you think a Roe Deer defeated a Cave Lion?”
“With the Cave Bear’s help. Mog-ur has two totems. The Roe Deer wouldn’t have to go far for help. No one says the Cave Bear left his spirit, I’m only saying he helped,” Zoug contended hotly.
“Then why didn’t she get pregnant last winter? She lived at his hearth then. It was only after Broud developed his attraction for her, though don’t ask me what he ever saw in her. It was after he spent so much time near her that the new life started. A Woolly Rhinoceros is powerful, too. With help, it could have overcome the Cave Lion,” Crug argued.
“I think it was everyone’s totem,” Dorv