Adataneses didn't love her husband until she realised he had saved her life. Life and politics had brought them together, and they'd lived as man and wife and they'd known what it was to lie together.

Then the flood came. At first, it seemed like just an unusually long spell of rain. Houses of people they knew were flooding, and there seemed no end to the downpour. Then Japeth, her husband, failed to come home for two nights. Fearing he'd drowned, she was astonished when, on the 12th day of rain, he led her to the Ark and it's animal crew. Only his family, he told her, were to be allowed to board. She asked why, but he did not know himself.

The ark floated on the 14th day...they'd boarded just in time! It sailed across the wide world and still the rain came down.

They spent their days, that blessed family, peering over the sides at the submerged villages and the rafts of the desperate but they knew not to intervene, for HE had ordained that they alone should be spared.

Gradually, the number of people they saw dwindled and then after the twentieth day there were none.

Wide expanses of nothing but sea, sea and more sea. Endless tedious hours of nothing but water.

There was plenty to do, of course. The animals needed help, the food for the people needed cooking. She was never exactly bored.

Now, her husband Japeth had two brothers, Shem and Ham, and they had wives of their own and their names were Neltema and Sedeqetelebab. There was never any doubt whose marriage was the most successful. Ham and Neltema went at it night after night. It was, as her husband drily put it, "As if they were trying to repopulate the earth"

On the fortieth day, the rain stopped but then the carcasses came to the surface, the carcasses of the dead people and animals and it was repulsive and Adataneses wept to see such suffering.

But the ship moved on, and then she felt the breeze on her face and she knew SHE was alive, alive to do all she could with every waking hour and she pulled her husband to bed that night. She rode him, feeling him inside her, flexing her pelvic muscles, feeling the warmth and the fluid building up inside her. She lay on her back and let him pump her, and she held him close, feeling his breath on her body, feeling his penis inside her, feeling his hands caress her skin. When he had come, she made him lie naked on his front and back so she could touch every inch of him, feeling the warmth of human life. She knew how thin the thread keeping her alive was. She was utterly certain in her gratitude.

They risked a swim on the thirtieth day. Boys on the left, girls on the right. Noah, patriarch and too old to be a threat, watched his daughters-in-law bobbing and laughing and splashing about among the branches of long dead trees that floated to the surface of the water and they didn't mind him watching for he had saved their lives. Let the old man enjoy some beauty. Adataneses, darker than the rest, particularly caught his eye as she looked up at him, a mixture of love and sadness in her eyes.

When they climbed the rope ladder up to the boat, they were all still naked. Adataneses never recalled exactly how it happened, but there was certainly wine and the brothers fell upon each other's wives and the wives were glad to make love to the other husbands. Adataneses took Shem first. Shem was enthusiastic, and confessed he had always admired her body. She judged his penis marginally smaller than her man's, but he made love well and she had come twice when he finished. An hour later, and she was in Ham's bed. Ham was shy and nervous and resisted her at first. Adataneses realised it was because he really did love his wife. She bade him tie a cloth around his eyes, so that he might pretend she was Neltema. Thus blind, Ham ate her pussy until she cried out, and then he mounted her, mounted her as if he were the magnificent Horse Chestnut stallion tied up in the hold and she the mare, and then it was as if he were equally endowed as that animal, and she screamed with joy. She cried out with her orgasm, and soon the other wives were crying out too and Noah, hearing, laughed as he could also hear the stallion hump the mare and the dog screw the bitch and the fox mate with the vixen down below.

At last, the dove appeared. It bore a branch and then the rainbow lit up the sky and they all stood on the deck and cheered. Life was already stirring in each of the wives bellies. Life would go on.

The dove arrived bearing a green branch. The ark set off in search of dry land. Standing at the side of the Ark, Adataneses felt her husband wrap his arms around her.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, staring beyond her at the sunset and the rainbow that streaked across the sky.

"I was thinking of going vegetarian." she said.

"Oh?" he said, surprised.

"Yeah. I'll never touch Ham again."