"Gil?” Abdul sounded as if he saw an illusion.
"Yes, Abdul,” Gil assured and watched as the sheikh struggled to bring arms and hands out from beneath the blanket. “I'm here."
"I do love you, Gil,” Abdul said, taking Gil's hands in his and giving a powerful squeeze. “You do know that, don't you?"
"I know,” Gil said, feeling a lump growing bigger in his throat and trying to swallow it away. He knew his cue had been given ... saw the rightness of looking down on this man who loved him and telling him he loved him, too. “Abdul, I.... “He paused, and Abdul, still holding Gil's hands, put his right index finger to blistered lips in a sign for Gil to be silent.
"You've never lied to me, Gil,” Abdul said, dropping his hands and Gil's hands to the Arab's chest. “It would do neither of us any good for you to do so now. And even if—” and he smiled “—it was true that you loved me, think what needless heartache that would give me—my knowing I'd finally attained the one thing in life I wanted most, only to be forced into surrendering it so quickly thereafter."
"You're going to be fine,” Gil told him.
"I shall forgive you that one lie,” Abdul said and tried on a smile that wasn't too successful. “But you must remember that I have lived life fully, tested it to its limits. If I've played with fire once too often, think of those who never dare even getting near the flames. What dull, dull lives they must lead."
"Damn it, Abdul!” Obviously, Gil was at a complete loss as to what he should say or do.
"We did have something very precious together, Gil,” Abdul said. “If we shared not a love for each other, then we did share a love of things—of cold desert nights; hot blue, blue days; the flow of the eternal Nile; shifting gold sand meeting the silent palm sentinels standing watch on the edge of the wilderness. We shared a love of Egypt. And we have been friends. In the end, your friendship has been more precious to me, Gil, than you'll possibly ever know. For I die having had many, many lovers but very few true friends."
The sheikh raised Gil's fingers and kissed them.
"'I am come that the inquisition might be made of Rightfulness and the Balance be set upon its fulcrum within the bower of amaranth,’” the sheikh said. It was a quote from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and it was fitting. For Sheikh Abdul Jerada, Gil's friend, had just died.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHO WAS Dylan Carter?
"I'm sorry, Mr. Goldsands,” the English-accented voice had said at the distant other end of the connection. “Mr. Donas is at Dylan Carter's. Do you have the number?” Gil didn't have the number, and he didn't want the number. On top of everything else, he didn't need the sound of Dylan Carter calling a nude and wet and sex-satiated Peter from the shower. Nor did Gil leave a message. "Just tell Mr. Donas that Sheikh Abdul Jerada has been killed," wasn't something Peter should hear third-hand. Gil would call, later—from Cairo, or from the States. Not from London, because Gil wasn't going there for sure. Geraldine Fowler had run to London after Frederic Donas, and look what had happened to her.
There was no doubt, though, that Gil would soon be headed somewhere, and soon. The excavation had been brought to a swift close by government authorities, troops still arriving to cordon off the area. Gil thought it was rather like closing the barn door after the horses were gone, but he didn't say so; he was too busy trying to keep his world from completely falling apart now that the two special men in his life were both missing.
He tried to maintain some order to the hurried dig wrap-up that hadn't been planned for at least another two more weeks. Trying to do everything required, and doing it right, within so short a time frame, was virtually impossible. He had tried to convince the Egyptian colonel, suddenly in charge, to let Gil at least stay on for a few more days to do a proper job of it. The Egyptian military officer had only smiled condescendingly and said any such extension was really quite impossible, arrangements having already been made to put everyone concerned on the evening train for Cairo. The dig at Hierakonpolis was officially closed, sacrificed within the very same flames that had ignited an oil well and taken Sheikh Abdul Jerada.
The hectic last hours did occupy Gil with a diversion from just his thoughts of Abdul's death and of Peter's being in the arms of another man. But when everything was done that could be done, within the time allotted, and the weary shell-shocked archaeological group waited at the Idfu station for the train that would make a special stop to claim them, Gil's mind again returned to memories mainly of Abdul and Peter. “Gil, are you sure you're all right?” Reginald asked, obviously concerned.
"Not really,” Gil admitted with a weak smile, “but I'm a survivor. Ask me that same question a month from now, and I'll undoubtedly have a more optimistic response.” Reginald also wanted to know if Gil had reached Peter. “He was out,” Gil said, not mentioning out with whom.
"Professor Goldsands is over there,” Gil heard Tammy suddenly saying, and he turned to see not Peter (as he'd hopelessly hoped) but an unfamiliar Arab in a tan galabia headed in his direction.
"Professor Gil Goldsands?” the Arab questioned, not sure which of the two men—Gil or Reginald—he should be addressing. “My name is Banir Ranshar."
"What can I do for you, Mr. Ranshar?” Gil asked and hoped there had been a sudden change of official policy that would allow Gil to stay on, for a bit longer, in Hierakonpolis. Despite the opportunity all this presented for Gil to join Peter in London, Gil kept resisting that further paralleling of his life with that of Geraldine Fowler. Both Gil and his grandmother had come to Egypt on archaeological digs, had met and loved a Donas man. Geraldine had gone to London to learn of the betrayal, and Gil couldn't help fearing a similar—who in the hell was Dylan Carter?—conclusion.
"I have something that's yours,” the Arab said, putting his valise on a nearby pile of luggage and rolling small lock dials to the correct combination that gave him access to the contents. Gil took what the man offered and opened it, not because he didn't know what was inside, but because Mr. Ranshar would want Gil to verify the item. Gil closed the case as soon as he confirmed the Egyptian gold-vertebrae male neck chain was there on black velvet. Someday, possibly, Gil would be able to look at the piece of jewelry longer, maybe even wear it, but not today. Abdul had been right, though, in that Gil couldn't and wouldn't refuse it this time around. He took it and the paperwork required to get it through Egyptian and American customs, unlocked his own bag on the railway platform, there at the station at Idful, and secured the case inside. Mr. Ranshar, his signed receipt for delivery in hand, disappeared into the terminal. Reginald diplomatically drifted over to Tammy to give Gil some privacy.
The train was the new Wagons-lits Egypte, whose regular run from Aswân to Luxor to Cairo, and back again, normally saw it speeding right through intermediate stations like Idfu. So, little time was wasted in getting the group on board, once the train was stopped. Everyone was soon headed north toward Cairo—north toward Thebes. Reginald, assigned a compartment with Gil, spent most of his time next door with Tammy and Tom Banker; Gil sat alone and watched Egypt speed by outside.
When the train stopped at Luxor, Gil surprised everyone within hearing by asking Reginald to, please, hand Gil's bag out the train window to Gil who, then, proceeded out onto the station platform. “I still have a few things left to do in Egypt,” Gil said, explaining his sudden desertion. He was disembarking to say his official goodbye to Thebes-across-the-river, suddenly doubting he would ever be back, unlike Geraldine, who had returned from London to die there.
He took a cab to the Etap Hotel, tempted to go elsewhere but deciding it was best to face all of his past memories, good ones and bad, head-on. By facing them, he hoped to make them less disruptive, even in this place that so reminded him of Geraldine, of Frederic, of tragic love, of Abdul on the Osiris, of Peter now in London with Dylan Carter.
"Peter, Peter,” Gil chanted, telling himself the pleasure he had once derived from merely muttering Peter's name was no longer possible. However,
that was a lie. Gil still loved Peter and still wanted him. One part of him said not to tempt fate by following Peter to London, as Geraldine had followed Frederic. Rashid al-Hidda had foretold Abdul's death, hinting of forces turned loose in the universe that could control human destiny and might well exalt in the repeat of a long-ago tragedy. Another part of Gil told him to go to Peter in London and find happiness.
He closed the curtains in his hotel room and sealed himself from the view. He had faced enough today, and tomorrow would be soon enough to face Thebes-across-the-river. Except that it wasn't until two days later that he felt up to leaving his room in a heat far in excess of what he'd experienced the last time he had made this particular journey. He crossed the Nile on the ferry and took the road by the Colossi of Memnon, then proceeded on to the Valley of the Kings. He sent his driver to the rest pavilion while Gil walked within the oppressive heat that shrouded the tombs. He took the sixteen steps to Tutankhamen, looking down on the sarcophagus that contained the mummy. He waited (hoping to hear Peter call out like last time?). He grew damp and sticky with sweat, bathed in heat suddenly able to penetrate even thick stone. A tourist policeman appeared to indicate that any further lingering would be considered suspect. So, Gil left, since Peter wasn't there and obviously wasn't coming. Peter was in London with Dylan Carter.
The cabdriver thought Gil was crazy when Gil told him to make the turn into the funerary temple of Queen Hatshepsût, there being no rest house nearby in which either of them could retreat from the sun. Gil promised a large tip to the driver, for the temporary inconvenience, and that did the trick.
Gil had always derived a certain sense of strength from this impressive edifice carved into an escarpment of gold-colored stone, its ascending sequences of colonnaded courtyards pointing the way toward a rock-hewn inner sanctum—a sense of strength that had nothing whatsoever to do with the unavoidable association he was always now forced to make between its builder and Abdul's falcon of the same name. Here was a structure erected at the order of a queen who had triumphed in a male-dominated society, a woman who stood remembered while many of her male counterparts were long since forgotten. Anything was possible if a woman could rule in Egypt as its pharaoh. It was even possible that Gil could somehow survive the death of his friend and the desertion by his lover.
He turned toward the east, having walked up the two ramps to the temple's second level. He bid farewell to Egypt, to Thebes, to Tutankhamen, to Geraldine Fowler, to Frederic Donas, to childhood fantasies, and to the friendship and companionship of Sheikh Abdul Jerada. He was not, however, yet ready to say farewell to Peter Donas.
Queen Hatshepsût wouldn't have gotten very far if she hadn't met adversity head-on and fought tooth and nail to get all that she had wanted. But here was Gil, a man, actually on the verge of giving up Peter just because of fears that history would repeat itself. Gil was independent with no obligations tying him down; Geraldine had had a husband and two children. It had been impossible for Frederic and Geraldine to marry. However, it wasn't impossible for Peter and Gil—quite the contrary!
Abdul had warned about continually underestimating Peter's love. Business actually might have been fully responsible for keeping Peter in London. Dylan Carter might be a lawyer or someone else connected with the estate of Peter's late Uncle George. Gil was always jumping to conclusions. Not even Geraldine had done that, only giving up hope when she had thoroughly investigated her alternatives. What Gil had to do was decide whether he was merely out to savor being the victim of a romantic tragedy of his own making, or whether he really wanted to accept the possibility for a happily-ever-after ending. The choice was no choice at all.
"Goodbye Thebes; hello, London!” he said, taking one final look at the landscape spread out before him.
Suddenly, there was a cloud of dust on the roadway leading to the funerary temple. Someone else, as insane as Gil, was risking sunstroke to experience the grandeur of Deir al-Bahari sans scampering hordes of tourists. The car came to a stop, and Peter got out; he looked in Gil's direction and began the ramparts’ ascents that would soon have him standing with him.
He came ever closer, the muscles of his body moving sensuously beneath a shirt open at its collar to reveal a V of tanned chest; his trousers molded sexily to his lower body.
"Gil?” he said and took the two final steps necessary that put him in Gil's eagerly awaiting arms.
"I was coming to London,” Gil insisted, wanting Peter to know that decision had already been made even before Peter wondrously appeared on the scene. “Really, I was."
"Well, I obviously couldn't wait,” Peter said; his large fingers stroked Gil's silky hair. “I'd been forced to wait too long the way it was. Besides,” he added, stepping back just a bit to draw the small box from his trousers pocket, “I felt it would be fitting to give you this at Thebes, although I thought I'd missed you when you weren't at Tutankhamen's tomb when I got there. I just took the lucky chance, on my way back to the hotel in Luxor, that the cab parked here might be yours. Who else, I figured, would brave the midday Egyptian sun but Gil Goldsands?"
"The view is so wonderful from here,” Gil said, not looking at the landscape but at the small box Peter held out.
"Go on,” Peter said, “take it. It's yours.
Gil took it, tracing the elaborate initials engraved in gold on the top. “D ... C,” he said. “Dylan Carter?” he asked.
"You've heard of him, have you?” Peter asked, genuinely surprised. “He was for so long known only as Their Royal Majesties’ Jeweler that I forget he's building an international reputation these days."
"He's a jeweler, then, is he?"
Peter eyed Gil curiously; Peter's grin was bemused, his golden eyes sparkled equal amusement. “You didn't ever think he was anything other than a jeweler, now, did you?” Peter asked, mischievously.
Gil avoided the question by flipping open the small box-lid.
"Not exactly an Egyptian snake-vertebrae male neck piece,” Peter said, taking the revealed plain gold ring out of its box and slipping in on Gil's finger, “but I'll bet you can at least wear this more places without becoming the center of attention."
All of Egypt, past and present, suddenly seemed spread out at their feet. The two men's obliviousness to the desert heat left their sweaty cabdrivers marveling at the madness of two tourists risking sunstroke to kiss on the terrace of Queen Hatshepsut's Deir al-Bahari at midday. “I love you, Gil Goldsands,” Peter said, his lips so close at kiss-conclusion that they sensuously brushed Gil's mouth.
"I love you more, Peter Donas.” Gil boasted.
Far above, on updrafts caused by the same summer heat that baked rugged stone at desert-level, a lone falcon soared and luxuriated in freedom that neither Gil nor Peter would have taken in exchange for the wondrous chains of love, lust, and genuine affection, that bound them so securely, one to the other, at that very moment.
END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM MALTESE was born in the United States Pacific Northwest. He has a BA in Marketing/Advertising and spent an honorable tour of duty in the United States Army (achieving the rank of E-5).
The author, who started his career writing for men pulp magazines, has since written over 150 books, non-fiction and fiction, the latter including every genre.
His success in erotica and mainstream publishing, including translations of his work into over a dozen foreign languages, earns him his long-standing listing in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA.
www.williammaltese.com
www.myspace.com/williammaltese
FINIS
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