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Our hero attempts to pass the first test of manhood. Will he and his friends survive? The first chapter of three.

 

Counting Coup.
 
You didn't amount to spit if you didn't count coup by 25. At least that's what everyone thinks. Believe me friends, you care what your fellow townsfolk think when you can't get a date because the girls think you're chicken shit.
 
That being said, I'm a big believer in staking the odds in my favor. That's why I waited until twenty-five to try to count coup. Did I loose some prestige? You betchya. But did I increase my chance of survival? Damn straight.
 
I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me back up. My name's Eric. I come from a town that was, like the rest of the world, deprived of most of it's technology. I don't exactly know what happened during the "change" but all that really matters is this; I live in the land of giant women. The world belongs to these beautiful but deadly creatures.
 
Ask me about how there are plenty of giantesses out there, why they never seem to age or if they even reproduce and I couldn't give you the slightest guess. Why they still have all the old technology is another mystery. Best talk to a holy man about that sort of thing. There are plenty of theories on how the change came about depending upon what religion you ascribe to. Some say it was God, testing mankind. Others place the blame squarely upon the devil. It makes for a great argument topic if you have nothing better to do then take up a contrary position to that of your neighbor and want to chew the fat a bit.
 
The real fact that you need to know about  is this: the giant women eat guys like me. They even farm raise guys like me who WANT to be eaten. If that's not brainwashing, I don't know what is.
 
But I still haven't told you about counting coup. Hang on friends. I'm getting there. Counting coupe is, essentially, a test of manhood. What you do when you hit about eighteen in my village is sneak into the rooms of one of the giantesses that inhabit an apartment nearby. To count coupe, you sneak in while they are in the room and touch a predestinated location. (There is a different location in each room.) If the giantess is asleep, you can touch her in her sleep and you get an even higher honor.
 
If a man doesn't do this by twenty- five, he is no one. He's not exactly shunned in town but he is treated as a coward, someone to look down upon. Sort of like how people might treat a soldier who ran away in battle, leaving his friends. Try getting a job with that prestigous against you. More importantly, try getting laid.
 
Granted, a lot of guys never made it out of that house alive. Still, if it weren't dangerous then everyone would do it.
 
I had waited until I was twenty-five to go. Yeah some of the boys were talking smack, especially the ones who counted coup already but I had watched guys go into that apartment building growing up and had noticed a common trend. The trend was this: the younger you went in, the less of a chance you would come back out. I don't know why that was but it was true.
 
I still had a chance to redeem myself at twenty-five though. I planned upon making three trips to the apartment building and visiting all three stories. If you do this, you a called a triple coup. There is no higher honor than that. I just wish I didn't have to listen to Bobby complain about not wanting to come.
 
"Maybe another night would be better. The moon is close to full. I hear that giantesses are less hungry on a new moon," he griped.
"Shut up. You have more sense than to believe that old superstition!" I said sternly. We had been planning the coup with a few other guys for weeks. I wasn't in to mood for him to start backing out now. "Besides, remember Jerry Smith? He got eaten during a new moon just a few month's ago."

 

 Jerry had been a friend of mine before he had been eaten by the blonde giantess. I had heard about from a friend who had been the only one to make it out alive that night.


Bobby grumbled but there was nothing he could do. We were getting on black clothing to blend in with the shadows and covering our feet in cloth so as not to leave footprints in the mud that was nearby the house.
 
I met the other two coupers to be at the outskirts of the yard next to the apartment complex. "Ready boys?" I asked. One kid was twenty-one and the other eighteen, just barely old enough to be allowed to go.
"They're ready," said Jebadiah. "You're all ready." Jebadiah was the man who would accompany us tonight. You didn't count coup without a witness who had done it before and could observe that you really did reach the designated area. No witness, no coup.
 
We scampered over to the apartment complex, single file and sticking to the shadows. Jebadiah brought us into a tunnel that led up to the giantess's room. We peaked around the corner and saw her. She was reading at a desk. The desk lamp was the only light in the room. Despite its brightness, it cast long shadows here and there which would be good for hiding.
 

You would think I would look at the giant girl at the desk. After all, one wrong move and I would spend the night in her stomach. But  I had seen her before and it was the lamp that took most of my attention at first. 


I gazed at the lamp. It was the first time I had seen a lamp that emitted a soft white light instead of the red light from oil lamps like we use in the village.  Her lamp didn't even use a flame at all. It was some of the old technology that had been lost to us.

 

 Bobby hissed excitedly in my ear and explained that it was something called electricity, which used stored energy and magnets to create the light. He gazed in wonder and started to walk out into the room, but I elbowed him and he came to his senses, ducking back into cover.
 
 The giantess had deep red hair that reached her shoulders, bright green eyes and full luscious lips that, had she been my size, I would have loved to kiss. She also had a ring piercing around the center of her bottom lip. I generally don't like that sort of thing. It seemed to make the giantess more exotic and more beautiful somehow. It surprised me how attracted I was to her, given that she had eaten a few of my friends in the past.
 
I shook my head. The town men had warned me about their looks. Guys had fallen in love with the women that lived in this houses. After counting coupe, some guys would return to the giantess other nights, just to see them again. There were even a few cases where guys would walk out towards the giantesses and give themselves over.

 

 Most found out awfully quickly that the only thing the giantesses loved about them was their taste.
 
Friends, I should let you know that the red haired giantess was the least dangerous of the three. This is why you go to her first if you want to be a triple coup. The red head is beautiful, and don't get me wrong, she had eaten her fair share of boys from my town. However, she has occasionally caught guys and let them go. Lynol O'Grady once was caught by her. She held him, pet him and whispered sweet nothings in his ear that he couldn't understand, the giantess language being foreign to us. Then she had kissed him and let him go. Lynol had to sneak in the next night to count coup. He made it that night but he still talks about the kiss he got.
 
I tried to keep this reassuring story in mind as Jebadiah pointed out the post we had to touch. It was under her bed. We should be able to make it there with a minimum of fuss.
 
We started out, Jebadiah waiting behind and watching from his place near the door. We snuck through the darkness in the room where the the electric lamp failed to reach and slowly made our way to the bedpost where we each pressed our hands against it. We had counted coup! Now we just had to leave without being caught.
 
I led the way back. We had snuck past the red headed giantess and I was starting to breath a little easier. My pulse was going at about one hundred and seventy and I tried to slow down so I didn't hurry too much and make a mistake. I looked behind me and saw Bobby and the twenty-one year old guy. Where was the eighteen year old? I scanned and tried to breathe. The giantess hadn't moved except to turn the page of the book she was reading. I looked back the way we had come and saw...
 
Saw the studpid teen at the woman's feet and reaching out to touch her toenail! Holy shit! I shooed the other guys towards Jebadiah, who looked as worried as I did. I didn't dare yell out to the dumb kid but waved my arms, trying to get his attention.
 
He saw me waving and waved back, thinking I was cheering him on. What a moron. He snuck over to the giantesses foot reached over and touched her toenail on her little tow. My heart was in my throat. He had done it.
 
That was when the giantess shifted her position. Her foot moved and knocked poor misguided eighteen year old what's his name over. "Oh!" said the giantess.
 
I was running towards the kid when I realized that the giantess was looking under the table trying to figure out what she had just bumped with her feet.
 
I skirted to a stop maybe thirty feet from the kid who was helping himself up. The giantess's face hung over us like a gigantic portrait of beauty. She was obviously surprised at first discovery of our presence. But that surprise was immediately replaced with a wide grin that took my breath away. Had she looked at me for more than a second, I would have been frozen in place by her smile. It was beautiful. How could someone as pretty as she be deadly? But she turned her attention to the kid. He was just rising to his feet and staring back at the giantess, not bothering to run.
 
"Hurry!" I screamed. The giantess's eyes barely flickered towards me before returning to the kid. The whole time the kid was too shocked to move. She reached out and grabbed him and suddenly, he remembered to struggle.
 
I watched, transfixed, as my companion was lifted high into the air. The giantess smelled him and smiled again with delight.
 
"No, no. No please!" said the kid. "You don't always eat people! You're nice!" He was attempting to remind the woman that there were several people in town she had released. It was obvious that the giantess didn't understand what the kid was saying but she understood his tone well enough.
 
She opened her mouth wide and suddenly I knew that the eighteen year old kid better kiss himself goodbye. With a final, "Please!" he went screaming into her mouth. Her beautiful, full, pouty lips closed together, her lip ring disdending her upper lip slightly. I saw her swallow and realized that my comrad had been eaten alive and whole. Her eyes were upon me as she did this. I read the message in them.
"Look at what I have done to your friend. I can easily do the same to you."
 
I ran. Looking back I saw that the giant woman did not follow me although it was painfully clear that she could have easily caught me.
 
I ran back to the door and found everyone else had gone, no doubt thinking me and the kid a lost cause. I followed the same route out as I had in and made it back to the village in short order.
 
"I can't believe you want to try a second coup," said Bobby.
It was the two months after we had successfully returned from counting coup with the red haired giantess and I was getting anxious to try again. I realized I had loved the addrenelin rush I had gotten when I thought I was going to be eaten. I needed it again like an alcoholic always needs another beer. I knew people would sometimes begin to love the giantesses to the point where they would visit every day. Most of these were eventually caught and eaten. Some men even gave themselves willingly to the giantesses.
 
I didn't plan to do this. But I wanted my tripple glory and was determined to have it. Besides, I wanted to see the other two giantesses. I needed to. I told Bobby as much.
 
"Why? We counded coup already. We're men now."
It was true. People treated us differently now. It was like becoming part of the town a second time.
 
"You have more sense than this. Don't you remember that a giantesses belly will digest you more throughly than any other predator?"
"Yeah so?"
"So, it's through but it s-l-o-w. Rumer has it that you can live almost a half an hour in the belly of a giantess. Do you really want to be slowly digested in the darkness and feel you body dissolving?"
"No Bobby but who knows where that story comes from? It's not as if the guys who have been eaten have come back and told us about how long it took them to be digested. Besides, I need to go. You don't want to come. Don't come."
"Fine," I won't. And don't go blaming me when you're in the belly of a giantess."
 
I left that night with three other boys, one named Toby who had counted coup with the second giantess.

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