by Martin, M.
“That was a testy one,” Duarte whispers.
“Do they ever actually hit your vehicle?” I ask.
“Not only will they hit your truck, they will trample you and everyone inside it without hesitation.” Duarte continues, “It’s a new bull for the group, and he’s just proving to the ladies that he won’t take any shit.”
We linger on the elephants for a good while, trailing them as they round the path leading to the river with its own share of toothed demons, but also the elephants’ source of replenishment. The younger elephants emerge from the shadows of their mothers and cautiously test the water before indulging in a sunrise drink. Stillness lingers everywhere as if life isn’t quite ready to take a breath from the daunting night and all its deadly dangers.
“Should we try to find that rhino?” Duarte asks while restarting the motor and pulling away. The elephants barely even notice our departure. My eyes linger on the moms and their doting stare under those long eyelashes and gentle gaze that never seem to leave their children. It makes me think of my child, long removed from my own watch as I sit in this otherworldly place doing that which I now regret having done.
We drive endlessly without seeing much more than another grouping of impala that shudder with an ominous noise negated by their delicate appearance each time we pass. Duarte seems frustrated and stops the vehicle in the middle of the road. Nogo jumps from his seat and looks at the tracks in the dirt that pace down the road.
“It’s the brothers; I can count four different paws.” He continues up the road, “And I also see the older paw prints from a young cub that’s probably with our lioness.”
Nogo looks farther down the road as Duarte turns shaking his head.
“That’s not a good sign for your cub,” Duarte says in a soothing tone, diminished from his matter-of-fact ways of the previous evening.
“But unfortunately, we need to get you back to camp to meet everyone for breakfast. We’ve already been late two days in a row, and I don’t want Tamaryn to get angry with Nogo.”
Nogo looks up from the road and returns to the truck, leaving his scattering of tracks in lieu of Americans who hardly need another meal, and me, who will sit through it counting the minutes until this entire experience is behind me.
As we round the bend, the lodge comes into sight. Once more, the familiar welcoming procession lines the circle outside the lodge and the black faces chime with a smile even at this early hour. As we approach, I realize a new group must have arrived at the lodge. I see a genteel older couple standing at the stairs next to a tall and elegantly familiar man with jet-black hair and a smart blazer with its lapel pulled high under a chunky knit scarf that blows behind him with the wind.
As the truck stops, I forgo the pleasantries and towels and make my way to the man, who with a single shift in weight from his right to left leg, drains all the hurt and loss I have felt in the last day. It is replaced with complete and utter exultation upon seeing those familiar arctic blue eyes that pierce through my hurt and anger among his fogged breath and making his pink lips even rosier against his fair skin.
“David? David, is that you?” I yell out, as if disbelieving what my mind attempts to process in front of me.
“Catherine, my dear, get over here.”
My eyes and heart cannot believe that it is he and this is not some sort of dream. He pulls my hand and I grab his sleeve with my other. I remove his soft calfskin glove, touch that familiar flesh of his inner palm, and hold it against my own. His smell returns as I touch his warm hand to my lips. He looks at me, and I realize I have collapsed into a sea of tears despite my smiling face and concentrated expression, trying not to interrupt their conversation at hand.
“Catherine, are you all right? You’re flush. My dear, are you crying?” David pulls me in front of him and wraps his arms around me.
“No, I’m just so happy to see you. I’m so terribly happy to see you.”
“Babe, I’m so sorry. It ended up that my ticket was booked on the wrong day, and it was impossible to change,” he says as his brow furls. “Unless I was willing to sit ten hours in coach. I hope you don’t mind, I just wasn’t in the mood to do that after the week I had.”
“We rode almost twenty hours in coach from Atlanta, so you’re not going to get very much sympathy from us, mister,” the motherly woman says as she grabs her husband by the arm in a torque of seasoned affection.
“But I have to tell you, it’s so little that we see each other that I was tempted to just rough it.”
His hands grip me tighter, and his body envelops me in a warm cocoon that makes all my pain and fear slip away, as well as any thought of ever being able to walk away from this man.
I would trade decades off my life for one moment with David; his scent makes everything else in my world seem secondary. I thought I would never know what it is to touch him again, to feel his hand on me, and know the stare of his eyes into mine. There is no turning back in this moment. Paralyzed in love, I cannot imagine for a second not having him in my life.
“So what’s the plan, exactly?” David ejects me from my thoughts. “Is it breakfast time or the time we go on the road to look at animals?”
“Actually, I believe they are just coming from the drive, so you can freshen up and then meet everyone back in the lodge,” says the older woman again, lending her guidance even though she’s barely just arrived.
“I really would like to change shirts and get sorted, do you mind?” David asks as if there was anything else I wish to do in this moment, be near him flesh to flesh.
“So, we are going to the room and will be down in a few minutes,” I insert, pulling him away before even finishing the sentence.
A guide joins us on the short walk to our room despite it being safely daylight out. The accompaniment simply prolongs my agony of us being so far apart, not conjoined to chase away the inner fears that filled my night and had me believe all was over between us.
The guide remains on the walkway as we make our way to the door, me first and then pulling David in behind me.
Then the world stops and outside can be anywhere and everywhere at the same time. I tuck my hand under his shirt and feel his skin that’s warm from the soft lining. I snuggle my nose under his collar, collecting the concentrated scent of which I simply cannot get enough. He nudges my head with his, tipping me up as our lips meet and mine devours his lower lip and my tongue ventures to touch his top teeth and have just a little bit more of him. My tears amplify when he interrupts our kissing.
“My dear, look at you,” he says. “I hope you can forgive me for being a day late. I tried calling you, even at your work to leave you word that I wouldn’t make it in time. It’s virtually impossible to get a hold of people out here; even the reservation personnel were helpless.”
His words send a jolt through me as he backs away and moves closer to the window that still frames a panorama of mist blanketing the bush.
“Did you talk to my assistant?” I ask casually that disguises the urgency.
“I’m not sure who I talked to, actually. They asked if I was your husband and I said no.” He takes an excruciatingly long pause and turns to me. “But then I thought, maybe she means boyfriend? They passed my call from one nonresponsive, flippant person to the next, and then I sort of just gave up.”
The closer David comes to my real world, the more I sense the impending doom of this situation. I know there are but two choices in this: one is to stay and continue this hedonist fantasy until the truth prevails, or cut it off cold here and now. Having endured an entire night believing he was gone from my life, I am tempted to tell him the truth. I can’t imagine suffering the previous night twice, even if that means forfeiting all that could have been until the very end.
“I just want to talk to you and feel your touch,” I say, pulling him from the window and back to me.
“
Sometimes, I feel as if you’re only half interested in this, and other times, I feel as though it means everything in the world to you,” he says questioningly.
“I’m here now. Last night I lay here thinking you weren’t coming, that maybe you had met someone else.”
“Do you think I’m the kind of guy who would do that to you … that I would simply not show up?” he says with a truthful gaze.
“No, well, I don’t know. People are always unpredictable when they lose interest in someone; I didn’t know how you would behave. You don’t really know how people will act until it’s actually happening, and it’s ultimately much more awful than you could ever have imagined. The aftermath of relationships is always such an ugly place.”
“Well, let me assure you, there will be a proper discussion, regardless if you want it or not, when and if things aren’t working. And anyway, why would I toss it all in the bag, we are getting along quite nice, I think, or not?”
“No … yes, of course. I just want you to know that you mean a lot to me, and I don’t want that to go away.”
“I feel the exact same way, Catherine. Do you think I would travel all this way to be with someone I wasn’t keen on?”
“I hear you. It’s just, no matter what, you must promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll talk it through with me and not just vanish from my life.”
“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily, I can assure you of that, Catherine.”
I begin unbuttoning his shirt, craving him even closer to me. I can sense his sincerity growing with my vulnerability, which I camouflage in passion as I pull off his shirt and throw it to the ground. He kicks off his shoes as I unbutton his snug jeans from around his waist, tugging them with my hands while grabbing the inseam of his white boxers that slowly leaves him standing in front of me nude. He looks as though drawn by Michelangelo, his broad shoulders taper down his back to a narrow waist with its veins that tuck around the side of his prominent hipbones that I kiss once on each side.
As he stands in front of me, his dick is swollen and elongated under its fleshy covering like some sort of Italian god carved of marble. His perfection is irresistible. My lips make their way down his thighs and his muscular hamstrings where the furry black hair thickens toward his prominent kneecaps that protrude out above his muscular calves. I look up at his body, his dick now fully erect and tilting up toward his abdomen, pulling him forward enough to reveal an underside of coarse, rosy skin. The hair thickens as it intersects his perfect front and rear body, and he pulls me up with a single tug and our faces once again meet.
There is compassion to David that I haven’t seen before; perhaps he’s reacting to my sadness, as he slowly erases my fears. Then that incredible dance ensues; he pulls me through the doorway and onto the terrace where an outdoor shower sits concealed behind a small plunge pool. His upright body and protruding manhood makes no notice of perhaps those able to see in from beyond, and he takes me in tow thoroughly in awe of his immodesty. He turns on the water and tucks his head under the spout that erupts with piercing cold water.
The sun warms the flesh as splatters of coldness dot my naked body. My nipples awaken to full arousal, and I drop to my knees. David pulls me back up by my arms, into the air, and onto the railing, that surrounds the small stone shower. My legs straddle the side with wood prone to splintering as I perilously dangle from the edge and all insecurity falls far away. The cold water pours down my body, and I forget that I am anything but the most desired object in his world. David says nothing; he simply drops to his knees and between my legs, allowing the water to roll off my body and into his warm mouth that he spills back on and inside me. The sensation is almost surreal, sending me arching in ecstasy as I hear the trumpet of elephants in the close background.
His thumbs work my flesh, delicately tracing me fully from both ends before rising above me and thrusting inside with a force that almost sends me over the edge. There is a primal magnificence to his sheer strength; it’s almost like the instinctual rhapsody of two creatures consumed in a mating ritual. The cold water chills his skin. I kiss and then bite his neck with full force. He responds by grabbing my face and forcing his thumbs inside my mouth as far as he can reach, then he kisses me, and then thumbing me again as I struggle for breath. His rhythm intensifies to where I lose all control in climax, and I feel him explode inside me as he holds firmly with two hands on my back. He’s drained of all passion and emotion, falls limp, out of me, and onto the chaise next to the pool. His long torso glistens with water under the winter African sun. As he lies there, I pull myself under the shower and savor what remains of him still inside me. I feel as though the world could not be any more complete even if it’s only in this moment and only in this instant. He is a perfect sight, his eyes closed and legs rolled out to the side in vulnerable dominance.
There is a glamorous malaise to afternoons in Africa. David slept on the terrace through most of the day, and I worked on my own story of Londolozi. Time ticks slower and life is more about actual living in this wildly magical place that transports you to a bygone time as giraffes, elephants, and hippos head across along the horizon. In between, we would meet for a kiss in the doorway or outside on his chaise, and I would tuck myself next to him and bask in the winter sun that felt as hot as any summer day. He enjoys his silence, taking to whatever book or magazine he can find in the room and settling in for a good hour before making his way over to me with another kiss. By the time of the evening safari drive, I had pretty much convinced myself that I could live in Africa, or anywhere, as long as he is by my side.
David emerged from the bathroom bundled in his quilted plaid Moncler and I in a heavy sweater as we made our way together, hand in hand, out of the room and back to the main lodge.
“So, he finally showed up,” Duarte says to David as they exchange firm handshakes.
“I was polishing up on my lion tracking skills, that’s all,” David playfully replies as he climbs into the truck and onto the front-most seat behind the driver, closer than I would have preferred.
“That’s what they all say until they come face-to-face.”
“So, what will we be following tonight, gentlemen?” David says to Nogo. All three men, now fully in conversation, left me the doting woman to enjoy their back-and-forth dialogue. The talking elevates to new heights as they tell the story of the male lions. They talk about how the mother has tried to stay away from them after catching their scent. David encourages Duarte with more questions about the flora and fauna as well as tracking techniques used by the natives. Between pauses and dramatic tales, David turns to me with a kiss and holds my hand tight under the warm blanket as my mind and heart exhale in happiness.
The chatter comes to an abrupt halt as our truck rolls to a stop, and we can hear rustling in the bushes as well as the thumped heartbeats of our guide and tracker. David grips my hand as I slide closer to him for a better look.
The sun has fallen and the night settles between twilight and darkness; a deep chill has set into the bush. And there, in a close pack of four, the lions encircle the lioness. She is the color of sunlit wheat with a mane of cleverly soft hair and ferociousness that reveals itself through a series of trebling roars that rattle the nerves and make even the brave feel just a bit fearful. Their heightened purrs are aggressively amplified with one of the four males showing scrapes of a fight not won. The wounded mother limps under a tree, and up in it, a lone cub holds tight to a limb.
Life stands still in that moment, lost in the noise of an unbalanced fight where the innocent will lose, and life will continue and forget this story of the unfair. The men look on as if disconnected through television or distance, while literally five feet from us a lioness’s baby will die and maybe even she will too on this horrible night. The lions begin to circle her as one by one they lunge for the cub in the tree, and one by one, she takes them down. They have the eyes of blood-hungry warri
ors, hungry to expunge any genetic trace of their rival male and its offspring. The fact it’s an innocent cub makes no difference to them.
It’s a perilous fight of the truly ferocious, but one the lioness knows is about each minute she can prolong the inevitable. The lioness continues despite knowing it is a battle she will lose. I see myself in her determined eyes, knowing my own journey is about having as many moments with David that I can create, even though I can clearly see what the future holds for both of us.
We sit still for a good hour watching their endless attempts as the cub sits high above in the tree. Each one of us whispers the narrative of the struggle, while inside, I wish somehow we could just chase away the males or somehow intervene. Before I have the courage to utter such a suggestion, the stronger of the male lions attacks the neck of the lioness with full force. The three other males circle her and one climbs the tree toward the cub. The cub struggles on the limb, weighed down with the heavy lion on it, pushing him closer to the edge.
The mother lioness struggles under the mouthed grip of the largest male lion; the sound of a ravaged virgin as if heard from her soul. Then her cub falls to the side clinging for its life on the dangling branch before dropping to the ground in an innocent thump as the three male lions pounce on him. The ferocious vibrato of the warring lions reaches its peak above the shrieks of the ravaged cub in his final agony. Among the victorious feeding frenzy of the male lions, in the distance, the distraught lioness retreats before our eyes in a solitary pace into the wild without even a single look behind her in fear or grief; she returns into the bush to face life on her own once more.
CHAPTER 6
IBIZA
IT’S BEEN ALMOST of week of Berlin, and I couldn’t be happier to get away, even if just for a quick trip. First, from a business perspective, there’s nothing worse than dealing with Germans who seem to get lost in an endless cycle of meetings and pointless deliberation that’s surprisingly inefficient, at least on an executive level. What could have been accomplished in a matter of hours in the US or even in a day in London requires an unyielding cycle of conversations about an online art auction website that’s neither profitable nor very good.