As she slipped away from the bed, Mira felt her genital area burning due to the intense nocturnal contact. Instead of experiencing annoyance or embarrassment over pain she felt a certain pride in the evidence of a night of passion. Not knowing very well why she went back to bed and kissed the sleeper on the forehead. Mira noticed that she was experiencing a new emotion in her life, something that filled her inwardly with happiness, instead of the feeling of boredom that often left her previous lovemaking activities, like a sexual hangover.
Agnar finally awoke with an urge to urinate. In doing so he also found in his member a series of small sores and irritations products of the same origin. The finding unleashed in him a series of comparisons with his previous experiences. He had arrived in New York shortly before and from that moment until the evening with Shantaya, now his boss, and the boy had had a period of sexual abstinence so his memories traced back to the women of various ages with whom he had slept in Iceland. As a result of the comparison with the fiery blacks he had encountered on the last days, the pale women of his own race now looked as if they were despondent, incapable of make him experience the fire he had found in Shantaya and especially in Mira. Remembering the treatment that the last one had given him since the time she healed the wounds produced by their boss he sensed that Mira was falling in love with him. The sensation gave him a pleasure that was also new to him. Agnar heaved a sigh and returned to the gym to get dressed, immersed in a kind of healing anticlimax.
Chapter 23
Chief Obonyo had made a series of decisions based on caution. The bodies of the three foreigners had been burned and the remains buried in a deep ravine and covered with several meters of earth. The external signals of the site had been erased so that no detail would betray its location. The personal effects of the dead had been buried with them. There had been some doubt about the desirability of keeping the guns, but since they could be compromising elements due to their previous use Obonyo finally decided to bury them as well. The car that the men had left in a forest not far from the village was driven by Duma to a remote site and thrown down a ravine, after which it caught fire. There were no traces of the foreign hit men that could connect them with the village.
Shaaban's body, however, had been taken to the village cemetery and buried there with the corresponding ritual.
Once taken all these precautions Nkwame Obonyo met with his adopted daughter and her husband and interrogated them in depth about the possible connection between the raiders and the past of young people abroad.
" You are telling me is that four men have died here and two others in New York at the whim of a woman." In fact he was so astonished by the ravings of a perverse mind as by the fact that a woman had so much power to generate those events.
"What are you going to do, stay here or return to New York?" He asked, addressing Zahra.
"If you approve it we´d rather stay here for a while until we're convinced there's no more risk, but then we need to get back. My employees have reopened the flower store and are keeping it as best they can, but I need to return to make future decisions. We need the income it produces to survive.”
"Here you will have everything you need as long as I am in command."
"I appreciate your hospitality, but it would not be fair for us to be consuming the resources of the village, that has so many unfulfilled needs. Anyway we have already decided with Federico that we will return here, and in the future we will be traveling from one place to the other periodically. With what is produced by the store we will be able to afford the expenses.”
"Do not forget that I count on your son for the future government of our people. The child, particularly if he is a male, must learn all the traditions of his elders and on the other hand become known by his future subjects." Then Obonyo addressed Federico.
"Do you have something to say in all this?"
"I will accept any decisions Zahra makes.”
Obonyo spoke again to his daughter.
"Well, what do you have to say?"
“What do you mean?”
"Am I counting on you and your son to perpetuate the dynasty?"
“Count on us.”
Shantaya had left Mira's apartment after a strenuous day of passion with her two lovers. The woman was satiated of sex and her head was spinning empty, unable to coordinate her thoughts. She took a taxi to return to her apartment, and once there she lay down on the bed completely dressed taking off only her shoes. Her condition as a mother on the one hand inhibited her from developing certain activities, either out of work or pleasure, but on the other hand gave her some perspective on the course of her life. Suddenly the woman became aware that the method of pursuing certain goals at all costs, achieving some and failing in others, was not giving her the satisfaction it had once provided. With that idea in her head she fell finally asleep.
When Shantaya woke up the air conditioning had managed to relax her body and she felt her mind in peace, as she had not experienced in years. She took her cell phone and tried once more to communicate with Narcisse Decoudreaux over the satellite networks. Again the attempt proved unsuccessful and Shantaya this time opted for a realistic and controlled reaction. She left the cell phone on a table, shrugged and tried to explain the silence of the hit man reaching a conclusion that although she did not know was approaching reality. The woman shrugged and went to shower. When leaving her mind had made the decision that would govern it from then on. She took the cell phone again and dialed a number she had not called for a while.
“Hello.”
"Shantaya?"
“Yes.”
"What are you calling me for?"
“You know.”
Silence spread across the line as the interlocutor made decisions. Finally he said.
"Are you sure of what you want?"
“Of course.”
“And your daughter?
"It will not be an obstacle.”
"As you know it cannot be in my house.”
"It will then be in my place."
“When?”
"Friday after seven."
"See you then."
Boris cut off the call and felt his pulse trembling with emotion. He had longed to resume contact with Shantaya for some time but had never expected she would take the initiative. Her love life with Adhiambo worked perfectly and the young woman's pregnancy had also cemented the bond, but the Russian had long been aware that he had Shantaya under his skin and could not get freed from her. It had been so for more than twenty years, when he had possessed the young woman from Louisiana with a certain amount of violence. The woman had become an addiction he could not erase from his senses.
Shantaya cut off the communication and smiled. As she had anticipated she had the great Russian male in her fold and she would handle him in the way she usually handled men. This time Boris would be subject to her whims like Agnar and Mira and so many others before.
Chapter 24
The Kenya Airways aircraft serving an Air France route arrived at J.K. Kennedy Airport a half hour in advance. Zahra and Federico picked their luggage and took a taxi to the apartment that the woman had rented in Manhattan for years and whose rent Imani and Kafil had paid punctiliously. Both employees had been there the day before to clean and put some order. Zahra had already decided to give them a stake in the business and this decision was for them like touching the sky with their hands.
Zahra and her husband were traveling in the taxi holding their hands, paying no attention to the incessant talk of the Indian chauffeur or to the atrocious music emanating from the car radio. Both were relishing the return to New York after the precipitous escape of ten months before via Toronto. They had already discussed in the plane the probable risk that Shantaya would stick to her plans but they had decided to face it since they did not want to spend their lives fleeing. Zahra´s pregnancy was already in the eighth month and before leaving Nairobi a study had been made that proved that the trip in plane did not entail perils.
"I've talked to Adhiambo”.
Zahra had a slight start to anticipate what would come.
"And what did she say?"
“Well, the girl had a son a month ago who as you know is Boris Krupin´s son, with whom she still lives.”
“Anything else?
Imani spoke with some reserve.
"Yes ... as you know who has also given birth is Shantaya ... a girl whom she called Isadora. She's almost eight months old now.”
“Yes. We know that Federico has a daughter he has never met. "Zahra reflected bitterly.
"At least Shantaya assigns paternity to him."
"And how did you find out?"
"You know, there's a connection between Shantaya, Mira, Boris, Adhiambo and me.”
"Well, I'll have to tell Federico. I hate doing it but it's just fair.”
Federico silently heard the news from his wife. Zahra did it without reproach because they were consequences of the life that the young man had before meeting her and they both knew that at that time all actions were determined by Shantaya´s will.
"What are you going to do?" Asked Zahra.
"I have to think ... I wish I did nothing." The boy's expression was doubtful showing that he clearly preferred to ignore the problem.
"I understand that you do not want to see a woman who tried to kill us both and whose current intentions we do not know. But on the other hand it is about your daughter.”
"A daughter I did not look for."
"But she's still your daughter."
"And what do you think I should do?"
"I leave the decision to you.”
In fact, Federico would have preferred that the woman guided him in a decision so full of consequences. It could not be ruled out that Shantaya still wanted to kill them, especially having them at hand in New York. The end of the hit men she had sent to Kenya did not guarantee that her twisted mind had given up. Now the young man was not only responsible for Zahra and for himself but also his unborn child. That night Federico could not sleep.
Mira opened the office door and headed for Shantaya, who was immersed in a desk full of papers.
"You'll never guess who's calling," Said provocatively the secretary.
"Federico?"
Mira did not wait for the answer and jumped.
"How could you possibly know?"
"He and his wife came back to New York two days ago.”
"But how could you foresee that he would call you after all that has happened?" The woman was aware of her boss's attempts.
"He has two powerful reasons to call. One is to meet his daughter.”
“And the other?”
"The other one is me."
Mira took Shantaya´s words not as a sign of arrogance but of self-assertion and psychological knowledge of men. She knew she should not underestimate the animal magnetism her boss wielded over her victims. Mira knew it in the first place because among those victims were Agnar and her.
"Hello." Shantaya took the incoming call.
As the woman had anticipated, Federico went into an insubstantial network of incomplete short phrases, some of which were lost on the telephone line. Shantaya had set out the purpose of not helping him out of his verbal impasse, a product of the emotions he had encountered. At one point the woman interrupted him and told him.
"Do you want to meet Isadora, your daughter?"
After a moment's hesitation, the man answered.
“Yes.”
"Well, come at eight o'clock to my house. Have you ever been there?
“No.”
Shantaya gave him the address and hung up without further talk. Since she could not keep still from the excitement, she got up from the chair, swept off with her arm the papers on the desk and began to practice some dance steps inside the office. Alarmed by the sounds that she heard inside the office Mira opened the door and peered again.
"Shantaya, is everything all right?"
“Yes, Mira. Everything is fine.”
Epilogue
Without any comment she opened the door and let the man through. Shantaya stared his elusive eyes that tried to dodge the look away from her but finally they had to land on her face. Federico felt the blush covering his cheeks but at the same time a wave of warmth moved from his chest to his knees.
"You are magnificent!" He exclaimed in a tone that blended admiration with resignation.
"And you look older." Answered sarcastically the woman. "Come and meet your daughter."
Shantaya led him along a corridor of the apartment to one of the bedrooms that displayed a large poster with pink children's motifs on the white door. The woman opened it and they both entered a well lit room full of toys meant for children of very young age. Isadora slept in a large cradle.
Federico approached the baby cot with a certain emotion to contemplate his daughter. The girl slept peacefully and a fleeting smile appeared on her face, an undoubted sign of well-being. The skin was clear and the hair just curly.
“You've seen? She looks like she´s just your daughter." Shantaya whispered so as not to wake the baby." The same goes for my oldest son. He looks much more like Boris than to me.”
"Does that please or distress you?"
"I like it because they look like the men I chose. Come, let us not make noises so that she will continue sleeping. Let's talk in the living room.”
Federico told the story of his life since the surreptitious departure of New York with Zahra pursued by the same woman who was now in front of him.
“You tried to kill us twice.” Concluded the man in what was too light a reproach.
“Yes. I was then a furious and spiteful woman. Do not fear, your wife and you have nothing to fear from me now. " She changed the subject.
" What happened to Narcisse Decoudreau ... you know the man who ...?”
"He and his two thugs died in a tribal incident. Do you want me to tell you about that?”
"No, they were disposable parts." Was the hard answer. "Do you want something to drink?"
“No, I'm good.”
"Tell me about your wife. I know she's pregnant too.”
"Yes, we are expecting a child next month. A boy.”
Shantaya suppressed a gesture of dislike for the information. With a flick of his legs she uncovered her shapely legs.
"Do you want to come to my bedroom?"
The boy's silence was his way of assenting Shantaya took his hand and guided him, closing the door behind them.
The woman began her gentle swing over his face. They found again the sensations that had filled their days and both had missed so much. Shantaya had between her thighs the man she had chosen long before and whom she had never managed to replace. Federico was in a damp, warm retreat rediscovering her aromas and flavors.
When the woman reached the climax she lay down on the bed beside the young man, both panting and covered with sweat. Once their breaths were restored and the hypersensitive period of her erogenous zone was over Shantaya rode the erect member of the man who lay on his back and resumed her sexual dancing. When the woman felt the full penetration she lay on Federico's chest and sought his mouth with hers. Then she began to explore the man's neck and bite his shoulders with ferocity.
Shantaya felt that everything began again and that with just a flick of her fingers she had at his disposal the chosen man. In an unexpected way the prediction that Saraphina had made long ago had been fulfilled. Her fullness and happiness were paramount.
From the Author
Dear reader<
br />
I appreciate your interest in reading these few words in which I talk about my work. It is a good habit to try to understand what led an author to write a particular book, because the motivations vary from author to author and from book to book.
As a sign of respect for the reader, in all my books I make a thorough previous investigation of the facts the work refers to, particularly considering that many of them take place in places sometimes very far apart from each other and also in various historical periods; my books often travel indeed through dilated stretches in time and space.
These searches are based on my memory, in the large family library and the huge quarry of facts and data existing in the Internet. In the global network everyone can search but not all find the same ... fortunately, since these results in a huge variability and diversity.
The plot of course comes from the imagination and fantasy. This is critical for me and I confess that I would never write a book that I wouldn´t like to read; my interests as a writer and as a reader coincide to a large degree.
My works often take place in exotic locations and refer sometimes to surprising and even paradoxical facts, but never enter the realm of the fantastic and incredible. Moreover, the most bizarre events are often true.
About the Author
Louis Alexandre Forestier is the pen name an Argentine novelist uses for certain types of narrative, in general novellas of erotic nature and books belonging to the noir genre.
The author has lived in New York for years and now resides in Buenos Aires, his hometown. His style is clear and straightforward, and does not hesitate to tackle thorny issues.
Works by Louis Alexandre Forestier
In English
South of Capricorn
Hot Brooklyn Heights
Cristelle
Valentina-Psychological Romance
Nubia- Magickal Thriller
Passionate Interlude
Nubia- Warrior Princess
The Sorceress Page 10