The Black Orchid

by Sawyer Caine

  “Alfred, I’m glad you’ve come. Nekai missed you desperately,” Nekana said to me, and I shifted my eyes back to her.

  “Frederick passed this winter. I promised him that I would return and try to find Nekai again. He asked me to…” I could not finish the thought. Nekana would understand.

  “Alfred, this Nekana’s mate, Felipo. He come from Caracas. She meet him at the school there,” Nekai told me, gesturing to the man beside Nekana.

  Felipo nodded to me and reached out to shake my hand. “Good to meet you, Alfred. Nekana has told me much about you.”

  Felipo could speak English with a distinct Spanish accent. His hair was cut short, and he was wearing a worn-looking shirt and cut-off pants. He was clearly more westernized than the others in the tribe, but Alandro and Josepe were dressed much as he was. I wanted to stay and talk to Nekana, learn the names of her children but Nekai would not have it. He told Nekana that we would leave her with the baby, and he stood up to go, pulling me after him like a dog on a leash.

  *

  Alandro and Josepe were standing in front of Nekai’s hut. They were planning to return to Tucupita and were waiting for me to go back with them. “Alfred, my father says it’s time for us to go home. Will you be going with us?” Alandro asked.

  I turned to Nekai and looked up at him but before I could ask him if he wanted me to stay, he reached out and grabbed my arm. “You stay with us, Alfred!” he said, gritting his teeth together and pulling me back toward him as if Josepe and Alandro were meaning to steal me away with them.

  “Nekai, I need to go back to the boat with them, my luggage, I need to get it…”

  “Jose!” Nekai yelled, and the boy appeared beside us. “You go with Alfred, help him,” he ordered, and then he spoke again in Warao, giving Jose a shove in my direction.

  Jose grumbled something under his breath but seemed agreeable to accompany me. I followed after Alandro and Josepe as we began the long trek back to the boat to get my luggage. As we went along, several young boys armed with bows and spears fell into company with us as guards. It took us nearly three hours to reach the hidden boat. Josepe and Alandro unloaded my steamer trunk and bags of luggage. The boys who had come with us were kind enough to carry it for me as I clearly could not. I did retrieve my cane and used it as we prepared to return to the village.

  “Goodbye, Alfred, I hope you will be safe and happy here,” Alandro said, smiling and shaking my hand. Josepe took my hand as well and nodded to me. I knew he was a happy man now, returning to Tucupita with my money in his pocket. He would be a wealthy man. I stood watching as their boat disappeared down river until they were out of sight. I knew then, how Nekai must have felt when he was a boy, and Frederick and I had floated away down that same river.

  I turned and followed the boys back along the narrow path as they carried my luggage. Jose walked beside me. “Why did you pretend you couldn’t speak English?” I asked him, but he looked at me, clearly confused and shook his head. “I heard your father speak to you in English!” I protested, but he still shook his head and would not answer me. I gave up and walked behind them in silence, steadying my injured leg with the cane, making it less sore to put weight on.

  By the time we returned, it was nearly evening. We had moved much slower, the boys encumbered with my heavy luggage. I was famished and exhausted, and my leg simply did not want to move any further. My body was tired and sore from the beating it had taken from Nekai and from sleeping on the floor. I had been careful to hide the bruise on my neck with a cleverly placed handkerchief, but the bruises on my body would have to stay hidden beneath my shirt. Perhaps tonight I could get away to the falls to bathe and change into something clean.

  Jose instructed the boys to put my things in his father’s hut, and I followed them inside. Nekai was sitting on a carved stool talking with several other men. They all turned to look at us as we entered. Jose leaned against Nekai, draping his arm affectionately around his father’s broad shoulders. Nekai smiled at him and gave the boy a quick hug. He turned back to the men with him and apparently asked them to leave him as they all stood at once, nodded to him respectfully then one by one, slipped out the door and away.

  I remembered the gifts I’d stored in the steamer trunk and drug my exhausted self over to it, lifting the lid and rummaging through my luggage. I produced a tin box of candy sticks and grinned as I held it out to Nekai. His eyes widened in surprise when he realized what it was. He licked his lips involuntarily, then seized it from me, tore into it and handed one of the candy sticks to Jose after shoving one into his own mouth. I could not help but laugh out loud at his antics. I had brought a picture book of London and Jose took that, stretching out on his belly on a tiger skin rug near the fire. He was riveted on the pictures in the book and sucked at the stick of candy as he turned the pages in fascination.

  I sat beside Nekai as he devoured the sticks of candy, keeping half of them back for Jose. I had a picture book of images in black and white of Frederick and me and some of just me at Heathwood. I opened it and held it in my lap for him to see. He would pause and point to a picture from time to time as we leafed through it together, asking me in his almost broken English to tell him what it was a picture of. The three of us dug through the contents of my luggage as I laid out other presents I’d brought along. I had a few bottles of Chanel perfume for Nekana and a whole crate of candy sticks and records for the Victrola.

  I put my clothing aside and told Nekai that he should probably not eat any more of the candy or he would be sick. He grinned as if in remembrance of having been that way in the past, then closed the tin and put it back in the steamer trunk. I asked him if he still had the Victrola, and he nodded to a covered object back against the wall of the hut. He told me that it had stopped playing and I assured him that I would look at it and that I had brought more records.

  “Nekai, why will Jose not speak English to me?” I asked.

  “He only know a few words. He no want to learn,” Nekai answered, and I let the matter go. I had moved up in Jose’s esteem after the gifts of candy and picture books, and the boy seemed to like me well enough now.

  Evening fell and still the three of us stayed unto ourselves, them poking through my luggage and looking at the picture books and eating more of the candy while I laid back in one of the hammocks, relaxing and dozing a bit in the sweltering heat. At last Nekai told me that we must go and eat. The women of the village cooked for the shaman and his family each night, and they had prepared food for us. We went out to eat at the central village fire pit. I was ravenous and felt as if I could eat an entire wild boar. Nekana and her family had come out to eat as well, though she looked pale and worn.

  We ate in silence but only after Nekai had said some words in their language while they stood with their hands over their hearts. I remembered it was their custom to honor their Gods and their loved ones before they ate. I must have eaten more that evening than I had in months. Feeling like a sated pig, I stretched out with my feet toward the warmth of the fire as the young women of the village danced around us, singing and playing on their wooden instruments. Jose was fascinated by the girls, his black eyes wide, following their seductive movements.

  Nekai smoked a pipe and sipped from a cup that contained some of the wine I’d brought with me in the luggage. When I chanced to meet his eyes, he seemed to be content and happy. I wanted to sit closer to him, but I dared not. Nekana was watching me closely, and I assumed she knew what I was thinking. We would have to talk at some point, she and I, but not until she was feeling better from the childbirth.

  When the dancers stopped, the young men of the tribe stood up and cheered, clapping their hands and making catcalls after the girls. Even Jose seemed to be engaging in that surprising behavior. I looked at Nekai with a questioning expression, and he just gave me a crooked smile, raising his eyebrow as if to say “why not?”

  I grinned and shook my head. Boys will be boys, after all. Native or English, we are all the same.
Well, not all of us. At long last, the families drifted back to their huts. I stood, stretching out my sore muscles again and nodded to Nekai as I passed him to go into the hut.

  He reached out and took my elbow. “Where you go?” he asked.

  “I need to go down to the falls and wash the filth off myself. I want to put on fresh clothes,” I answered.

  “Wait until Jose sleeps, then I go with you,” Nekai encouraged me.

  We sat together as the fire burned down to embers and the village became still around us. Nekai and I crept back into the hut, and Jose was curled up in his hammock, snoring quietly. I gathered some fresh clothes and a small leather bag with soap and washcloths in it, then I followed Nekai as he led us down to the falls, carrying a torch to light the way.

  I watched him moving in front of me, the light from the torch illuminating his dark skin and making the sweat gleam on his back. I reached out and ran my fingertips down it, loving how they slid so easily on that sheen of sweat. He looked back at me over his shoulder and smiled. It did not take us long to reach the falls.

  He laid the torch aside on top of a large rock and without another word, stripped off his loin cloth and waded out, ducking his dark head beneath the surface and disappearing into the bubbling water. I quickly undressed and followed after him, forgetting the bath for a moment. I found him at the far side of the pool, leaning back against the trunk of a tree that had fallen down into the water.

  He made no move to stop me when I stepped up to him, pressing my body against him and taking his face in my hands. I ran the tip of my tongue over his lips, loving the salt taste of his skin, the faint tang of the wine he had been drinking. He opened to me and put his arms around me, pulling us closer and lifting my feet off the sandy bottom of the pool. He was aroused, very aroused, and I could feel it against my stomach as we kissed, my own rising up to meet it.

  “You want to love with me tonight?” he asked, almost shyly.

  I was surprised that he would make the offer, but I wasn’t about to refuse. “Of course I do!” I nearly cried.

  Yes, I wanted him, had wanted him like that for years, dreamed of having him like that, imagined what it would be like to finally claim him as my own after all this time. I slid my hand down the front of his chest, my lips chasing after, nipping at skin over his collarbone, his hard nipples, down the faint tracing of hair in the center of his broad chest. I gripped his hips in my hands, beneath the water and pulled him away from the tree, then gently turned him away from me, pressing on the center of his back to lean him forward over it. When he realized what I wanted, he protested and pushed me away.

  “No, not here!” he said urgently, holding my hands tightly in his.

  “Nekai, if you don’t want to do it…”

  “Yes but not here. Cave, we do it there.

  “No, here, Nekai,” I responded firmly. “And we do it now, not later.”

  He looked down at me. I could see him biting his lip in the moonlight that filtered down through the jungle canopy. I used the moment of indecision to draw him toward the more turbulent water just beneath the falls. The spray of water was almost stinging as we swam together, limbs intertwining beneath the water. I was hot for him, wanting like I had never wanted. I forgot my aching muscles as the heat moved through me. I needed to have him this instant. I had to take him to seal the certainty of it, our love for each other before anything happened to take him from me.

  I grabbed both hands full of his thick hair and pulled his head back as I pressed my chest to his back and let him feel how hard I was. “God, want you!” I gasped breathlessly.

  “Please…” he begged. I slid my hand down over his stomach, feeling the tension in his body, feeling the tightness. He was a coiled spring, ready to release, and I had to find a way to calm him. I looked around almost frantically until I spied what I needed. I pulled away from him and swam for the shore. “Alfred!” he called after me, but I motioned for him to stay where he was, just beneath the falls, the tumbling water pouring over him.

  I pulled at the thin vines that hung over the boulders near the bank and managed to get a good length of one loose. I took it back with me to where he was waiting and moved behind him again. He could not see what I was doing, and he tried to fight against me when I pulled his wrists together behind his back. I was too quick for him, and I laced the strong vine around his wrists several times before he struggled in earnest.

  “You let me go, Alfred!” he cried.

  “Never,” I breathed against the back of his neck. “You are mine, Nekai. You have always been mine. I didn’t have the courage to take you before. They all told me it was wrong, but I knew I wanted you. You wanted me to do it, didn’t you? Tell me!” I demanded as I yanked down on his wrists, pulling his head back against my shoulder. “Tell me!” I hissed.

  “Yes, I wanted… didn’t know what I want but wanted!” he cried, surrendering his innermost desires to me in that confession. It was as if time had turned back, and he was the shy, timid but lustful boy in the cave, desiring but not quite knowing what to do.

  I pushed at the backs of his thighs and moved them apart as I stepped closer to him. “Don’t!” he protested and made to move away but he was off balance in the turbulent water, bound as he was. I held the loose end of the vine, and I could easily jerk him off balance further. He knew it.

  “Yes, Nekai, yes, I will, and you will give it to me!” my voice sounded alien to my ears, but I knew I had only this one chance. If I were to anger him too much, he might very well kill me. I tipped him forward, forcing him to move through the falls into the dark, little grotto beneath it where the water swirled in circles against the smooth rocks behind. I pushed him over against those rocks, holding his wrists tightly and keeping him still.

  “You want to hurt me, yes? Like I hurt you?” he asked, turning his head to face me.

  “No, Nekai, not hurt you. Take you. Make you my own,” I answered.

  I let go of the vine and moved my hands over him, his shoulders, and his back, down to his waist. I leaned against him, resting my chest on his back and loving the way he could easily hold us up, his hands trapped between us, pressing hard on my stomach as I ground against him beneath the water. My knee moved between his thighs again, trying to get him to open up to me and let me have my way. I moved my hands over his hips, down over his muscular buttocks, spreading them apart as I trailed kisses down his spine.

  “Wait…” he gasped. I could sense his fear, that need to remain in control. I had to win him over.

  “Just this once, my Nekai, just this one time. Let me, and then I will never ask it of you again. I will give myself to you any time you desire me, but let me have you just this once,” I pleaded.

  His head sagged forward, slumping between his shoulders as he leaned heavily against the rocks. “Yes, I will, yes…” his voice trailed off, and I knew he was struggling but at least he was willing to try. His chest heaved with the forced breaths, the water level reaching up almost to his nipples.

  I pressed the tip of my finger very gently into him, gasping myself at the tightness, the heat I knew I had to have and very soon. He let out a hard breath and steadied himself, shifting his feet further apart and arching his back. I pushed again, the task made easier by the water, moving so slowly, easing him open, then adding a second finger just behind the first.

  “So tight, God, Nekai, so… Love you my baby… Love you so much!” I knew I was rambling as I lay draped over his back and sought for the place inside that would unman him. I found it without much difficulty; we men are all made the same. I stroked firmly. His head came back and he arched further, crying out with surprise.

  “What you do to me?”

  “Give you pleasure, that is what I do to you,” I answered. “Mine, always and forever mine, you are.”

  He rocked back against me, forcing my fingers over that spot again and again. “It will feel so much better when it is my cock within you,” I promised him. “Let me have you, Nekai.�
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  I removed my fingers and lined up, ready to take him, ready to consummate that long-lost love that I’d given up so many years ago. I pushed against him, lost in his tightness, lost in the heat as I slipped past the ring of muscle, whispering in his ear, coaxing him to remain relaxed and not to fight against me. When he cried out in pain, I stilled my motions and reached around him for his cock, taking it in hand beneath the churning water and stroking him firmly.

  “Open to me, let me have you,” I urged him as I stroked more firmly, taking his mind off the pain, off the invasion. I was used to such love. He was not, even if he knew how it was done.

  “Hurts!” he moaned.

  “Yes, my love, things in life that are worth the having always hurt sometimes,” I answered, moving so slowly, easing him open, easing him to relax for me, take all of me in. At long last I was sheathed fully within him, that tight heat grasping me like a glove, then I moved in earnest, one hand on his cock, the other on his shoulder, giving me leverage.

  After a bit, he moved with me as well, and I could hear his measured gasps for breath as I struck his prostate over and over with each thrust as they grew in strength and force. “Feel good, my Nekai?” I asked him.

  “Yes, feel good, please, let my hands go, please…”

  I took pity on him and unwound the vine, tossing it aside. He moved, placing his hands on the rock to hold his body up as he pushed back against me, wanton with it all. I knew I had reached him, found the place that made him my lover, gotten through to him, and now I could let go and just love. I fell to kissing him again as the water beat against my back and ran down over me. I pumped his cock in my fist in rhythm with my thrusts as I took him and loved him and claimed him. Mine, mine to love, to keep, to have forever, forever and forever…