The Warmth of His Touch

by Antonia Adams

  Nothing exists but our entwined limbs and the infernal desert heat.

  This is freedom.

  This is my escape.

  This is proof that I am more than the secretary typing out endless divorce proceedings, making infinite cups of coffee for men who have stopped loving their wives, passing countless tissues to women who have started hating their husbands.

  ‘What’s Niger?’ my best friend asked. ‘Are you sure you don’t mean Nigeria? And why do you want to go there anyway? Everyone is starving in Africa, aren’t they? It’s all thieves, murderers. And worse.’

  ‘Aren’t you a little late for a gap year? This is what you’re planning, isn’t it, however you want to dress it up,’ my boss said. ‘You are doing very well here, Chloe. You have the opportunity for a good career. I’m afraid I’ll not be able to hold the position open for you.’

  ‘Darling,’ my beautiful caring mother said squeezing my hand, ‘you know I’ll always support you whatever you want to do, but think of the danger. Going to an unknown country with an unknown man, and whatever you say chatting to a stranger through a computer does not mean that you know them, you’ll never convince me otherwise. Will you please think about it some more. For me, if nothing else. You probably don’t feel it, but you’re still very young. Be patient and I’m sure you’ll meet a lovely solicitor, or maybe a lawyer. Seeing that you don’t seem to mind older men, perhaps there might be a single judge waiting out there for you. Of course if he’s single you’d have to think there might be a reason that he hadn’t got married, a widower will be better. That comes with problems of its own, but nothing like trusting someone you don’t know from Adam.’

  With Silver5 it was easier, despite his early protests.

  Me (as Scarletgirl): I am coming with you on your next trip.

  Silver5: How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not happening. I don’t do commitment. You know that’s why I’ve never got married. I’ve always been honest with you, Scarlet. I just want sex between jobs. Read my profile again. If you’ve forgotten. NSA=No Strings Attached.

  Scarletgirl: I don’t have any strings attached. You can examine every part of my naked body yourself to check.

  Silver5: I will do that and a lot more. In England. Not Africa.

  Scarletgirl: I’ll be your whore, your bitch, your hooker, your courtesan, your slave. You’re hard for me without even meeting me. Think what it’d be like in real life. You can do all the things you want, spank my pussy, bind my tits, fuck my arse. And I’m certain there is more, you haven’t told me everything. And you don’t have to. You can do it all. In Africa. Not England.

  Across the years, across the world, women and men have traded their bodies, their love, for a lot less.

  And everything he said he wanted, everything he’s done since we met, has fulfilled my own desires.

  Each time my thighs part and I accept him into my body, the greatest aphrodisiac, power, surges through me. He wants me, he needs me. He twists my limbs around, he slaps my tits, spanks my pussy, forces his fingers between my buttocks, and all the time I’m alive with an incredible sense of control.

  In those moments it seems like that is the only reason I am here, the only reason I keep taking every heavy step, every panting breath. In this heat, life seems slower but in the desert, surrounded by millions upon millions of grains of sand; it is like being thrown into a middle of a metaphor.

  Silver5, Dave, is here in Niger, where the world seems too close to the sun, like any second we are going to spin into its fire and the whole human race will return to ash, to photograph the Gerewol festival.

  ‘It is what it is,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It’s been too overexposed now, everyone knows about it, going to have to get something really special to make it stand out.’

  I nod as if I sympathise, as if he cares about my opinion.

  All I know about the Gerewol festival I saw in a couple of YouTube clips and I read in the Wikipedia page on the Wodaabe tribe.

  I just wanted to be away from London, I didn’t mind where. But still …

  But still something stood out about women being allowed to be sexually promiscuous and take other married men to their bed.

  Would my boss lose all his business, would marriages in England be happier, if we had the same tolerance?

  I ask Silver5, Dave, that question. His reply is a disinterested shrug.

  I watch his hands finger his different lenses as if they are living, feeling things, and am both aroused and jealous.

  I brush my hand against the fine hairs of his arms.

  He pauses, staring at me, before he finally shakes his head. ‘I’m working.’

  The passion and wonder I experienced typing to him before we met surges through me; a sense of love and admiration for his world where work is playing with pieces of a camera. No office. No eternal paperwork. No lunch break with your colleagues, where veiled bitchiness masquerades as friendship.

  I look around at the vastness of the sand, seeming to shimmer in the heat. It all belongs to him and his camera. This dream that I can’t grasp is his life.

  ‘You haven’t taken any photos of me yet.’ I undo the buttons on my cotton top revealing my naked breasts.

  He glances at me and frowns.

  I swallow hard. There is no one about, but under his gaze I suddenly feel like a naughty little schoolgirl about to be banished to the tent for the rest of the trip.

  He bites down on his lip. ‘All of them. Take all of your clothes off.’

  His hands continues to fondle his camera as I remove my shorts and knickers and shoes, letting them all fall into the sand, then look around me, unable to meet his eyes. Dave has told me that Niger contains some of the most beautiful sand dunes in the Sahara, in the world. I have nothing to compare them with, but I am awed by them.

  Silver5, Dave, is able to navigate them. He says it’s a gift he learnt over many journeys with an old tribeswoman. They all look the same to me, but that somehow increases the smallness I feel standing naked, an interloper in their midst.

  Is it possible to feel so empowered and so insignificant at the same time for the same reason?

  Dave appears unaffected by the natural beauty that surrounds us. He points for me to stand in a different spot.

  ‘You know nothing about light, Scarlet.’

  ‘How comes I have to call you Dave but you can call me Scarlet? You know my name is Chloe.’

  He doesn’t bother to answer and I obediently walk to the spot he indicated.

  The sand burns my feet; I try not to show it.

  I pose like a supermodel, one foot in front of the other, hip thrust forward, pouting as if my beauty is a burden, staring into the distance as if my beauty disconnects me from the ordinary world.

  I pose like a glamour model, my hands on my tits, tossing my hair, parting my lips, a glint in my eye, teasing the whole world into wanting to fuck me.

  I pose like a porn star, my fingers pulling on my nipples, flicking my clit, delving into my velvet passage, as if I care about nothing but my own pleasure.

  Silver5, Dave, stares at me, there is an obvious bulge at his crotch, yet he does not take any photos.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask exasperated, my hands falling to my side.

  ‘On your back, legs spread.’

  I feel a momentary twinge of hurt that I haven’t done enough, or haven’t found the right thing, to make him want to capture me for all eternity with his lens. But it is overpowered and destroyed by the sexual energy that flows through me in response to his simple command.

  I drop onto the burning sand and part my thighs. He walks over to me and now I hear the click of his camera.

  I stay still and pretend I am not conscious of him. Pretend that I am not aware of every grain of the desert sticking to my back and legs, a thousand embers searing my skin.

  He stands above me, his monster of a camera is hanging around his neck on a thick strap, he supports it in one hand, the ot
her hand is unzipping his fly and pulling his hard cock out.

  ‘Squeeze your tits together,’ he says and I obey.

  I stare at the drops of precome glistening on the head of his cock, in the desert all water, all liquid, takes on a magical quality beneath the continual glare of the sun. Drops of sweat from his brow drop onto my stomach.

  He wanks in long motions from the tip of his cock to the base, his strokes get faster and I move a hand down to my own sex, rubbing my whole hand over my pussy.

  I think of being at home huddling under the duvet on cold, dark winter nights, caressing myself between my thighs and being amazed at the heat as the rest of my body shivered. Here the warm moistness of my cunt is nothing under the dominating rays of the sun.

  In London it would be the beginning of autumn, the slight hope of a summer that never appeared fading into a constant fine drizzle. Legs and chests that had been bared a couple of weeks earlier would now be safely protected under coats and trousers, the city would sink back into the greyness that it wears so naturally.

  I think of the oranges and yellows and reds of the dying leaves. Here in this arid landscape where plants and animals have to struggle for every moment of life, where the sky and sand stretch out into eternity, everything is so much brighter, somehow more alive.

  So why do I yearn for home as Dave’s spunk shoots out over my stomach and breasts.

  I rub his come into my skin, it easily merging with the hot stickiness of my sweat. Licking my fingers clean. He gives me a nod and walks off as I slowly put my clothes back on. I do not attempt to brush the sand off. I want it to scratch at my skin, to scratch me inside and out. I want to be part of this world, to feel that somehow I belong.

  I’m relieved when we get close to Ingal. The barrenness of the desert becomes busy with people moving towards the festival. I think of the bustle of London, but instead of cars there are barefoot children leading donkeys and the sound of traffic is replaced by the lowing of cattle.

  I am genuinely shocked when I see a white face, freckled and tanned to a light hazelnut, amongst the elegant African features.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I ask nudging Dave.

  Dave swears under his breath. ‘I’m working. Don’t make me regret letting you come.’

  ‘Don’t you pretend for a moment that you could ever regret letting me come.’ I wink at him but he’s focused on a world that doesn’t include me.

  I hope I am not breaking any ancient tribal etiquette as I weave through the figures, who pay me little attention, and fall in beside the white woman.

  She smiles at me. ‘You’re a tourist? Come for the Cure Salée?’ She speaks with a French accent but her English is perfect.

  ‘I’m here for the Gerewol festival. My friend is a photographer.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says as if I’d just agreed with her, or confirmed what she already knew.

  ‘What about you? You’re a tourist too?’ Looking at her, my question seems ridiculous. Her skin is lighter, her hair a fine white-blonde and she’s shorter than the tribe around her, but the way she walks and holds herself makes her part of them in a way that I could never be.

  ‘This is my friend, Doulla; he is one of the leaders.’ With a small hand movement she introduces the man standing next to her.

  The tall slim man gives me a wide smile, revealing perfect white teeth, but there is something inconsolably sad about his face.

  ‘Hi, Doulla I’m Chloe.’ I give him a little wave as if we’re saying goodbye rather than meeting for the first time. I savour the feel of his name on my tongue, exotic and fresh. Then I blush with the realisation that I know nothing about his culture, no words of his language, no idea of the polite way to behave.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Chloe.’ His accent is thick and he speaks slowly.

  ‘You can speak English? Well, of course you can, you just did. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to appear so ignorant.’

  Doulla speaks to me in his steady English as I journey on in the midst of his tribe. I don’t understand it all, but it doesn’t matter. In the heat of the day his voice washes over me like a trickle of soothing water.

  The French woman only speaks occasionally to help him remember words and to expand excitedly on how they met in Paris.

  I want to ask him how he got to Paris, why he returned here to the hard life of a nomadic tribe surviving on the little the desert offers. But the questions do not matter so much as listening to the continual flow of his voice.

  It’s only when the tribe begin to settle for the night, making up an elaborate array of beds, which I yearn to be invited to lie down on, that I worry about finding Silver5, Dave. And then I am not as concerned as I should be. If I don’t find him I’ll lie down on the sand and let the insects feast on my blood and the sand mould around my body.

  But he is there on the edge of everything. He gives a small nod to indicate I go into the tent.

  I tell him about Doulla and the French woman, Christine, I think she said her name was.

  ‘She lives with him, walks with him everywhere. He was in France, for some reason, somehow, but he came back here to be with his people. Isn’t that amazing?’

  ‘It is.’ He puts a finger under my chin. ‘And all you could think about was what it would be like sucking on his big black cock.’

  ‘No, no. It wasn’t like that. It was peaceful and beautiful and wonderful, having a conversation with someone from such a different way of life.’

  ‘Lie to me if you want, but don’t lie to yourself. The attraction between us, the reason I was willing to break all my rules and bring you with me, is based on the fact that we’re two people who are entirely centred on sexual pleasure. People talk all sort of artistic guff about my work, but the real reason they like it is because it lets them glimpse how I see the world, which is the same way that you see it; sex. And it’s opposite, death.’ As he speaks his hands grope my breasts as if they have a will of their own.

  I stare into his old eyes that have seen so much. My own hands pull at his fly.

  It’s true. Whether I am typing four letter profanities to strangers in the safety of my home, or sweating under a foreign sun, it is all about sex to me.

  I find his thick cock and wank it, all the time staring into his eyes. With my other hand I pull my own shorts down. I take his hand and place it on my sex. He rubs his thumb over my clit and pushes a finger inside me. I gasp and step closer to him.

  ‘Do you wish I was your new African friend?’ He gives me a half smile.

  ‘No.’ I lick my lips. ‘While you’re fingering me, I’m imagining that he is out there fucking the French girl.’

  ‘Me too.’ He kisses my neck and then pulls me into him.

  His cock grinds into my pussy. I think of the lovers I’ve had who’ve fumbled around not knowing what to do, not caring what I want. I grind back into Dave, closing my eyes and seeing Doulla on top of the French woman, whispering to her all the secrets of the desert.

  Neither Dave nor I come. Or we come multiple times. Through the night we cling to each other, our limbs entwined. And for the first time I think I understand what I’m doing here so far from home.

  I watch the Gerewol standing by Dave’s side. The men have spent hours getting ready. Covering their faces in red make-up, their teeth are so white and their eyes are wide as they dance, rocking on their feet, and sing in voices that reach into my soul, before the women that will judge them. Dave says they take lots of stimulants so they can dance like this all day, he tells me that some tribes have to travel hundreds of miles to get the pigment for their make-up.

  There are a small handful of tourists, leaning against a jeep, snapping photos. There are more people just wandering around, sometimes looking over at the dance, but mostly talking and busy with the concerns of their own life.

  I wish the whole world would stop and look at how beautiful these men are. How paradoxically masculine they appear when by western standards they have feminised themselves.
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br />   I press into Dave’s and feel the sweat of his body through his clothes. I breathe in the desert air and I breathe in the scent of the man who has taken me to this old world where everything began, this land of sex and death.

  It is December. I shove the scribble list of things I need to buy for Christmas into my pocket. I wrap a scarf around my neck and cover half my face ready to hit Oxford Street. Before I leave, on a whim, I check my e-mail for a final time.

  I smile when I see something from Silver5. I open it and a photo of my naked body lying in the desert sand flashes up. I stare at my parted legs, my hands resting across my chest and stomach, and my face. I am looking away from the camera, staring into the distance as if I can see something no one else can.

  He has written three words.

  Peru in February?

  I shut the computer down, wrap the scarf round my face a little bit tighter and venture outside. A north wind hits me with all its cold wet power, but I don’t stop smiling.

  Burning Woman

  by L A Fields

  Owen will remember his time at Burning Man as a week of merrily twirling color. Taking ‘shrooms and watching people ribbon dance and spin umbrellas in his face, put on light shows, finger-paint their naked bodies like children, unsexually, unselfconsciously. Owen appreciates their pure souls for the first few days, but in the three years since he graduated from college, he’s missed more about school than the casual bald intimacy of people on drugs. He misses sex. He misses sex with creative people, girls who make clothes out of rags, girls who make art of their hair, girls who look really happy in their bodies, and who like him enough to share that joy with Owen.

  This trip was something he and his friends had always talked about doing. Everybody knew about Burning Man, and half the parties on campus seemed to imitate all they knew about it – trippy decorations, people running around in horns and fake fur, music made out of the noise from didgeridoos and Theremins and rain-makers. It was all amusing then, but after graduation it became much more important to keep that youthful whimsy in their lives. Phone calls back and forth between his buddies were sad laundry lists: my job sucks; my apartment sucks; no I don’t have any friends like you guys; and no I haven’t met any girls.