Acts of Love (17 page)

‘I’m going to mark you for life with the sex and passion I feel for you. Bathe you in my come. Whip you raw with lust. Share you with no one. Make you my erotic slave, a prisoner of love’: Ahmad’s whispered words. Ben Johnson was gone, an apparition, a stranger, an interlude that now hardly seemed to have happened. He might never have existed.

Ahmad and Arianne remained locked together in their lust under the cover of dusk until it turned dark. Several times he
removed his arm from round her waist to place his hand over her mouth as he felt her body tense, and her cunt muscles contract, grip tight and moisten his always caressing, masturbating fingers with soft, warm orgasms. He quelled the cries of pleasure he sensed she would be unable to hold back. And he had been right. So powerful, and divine was the sensation of ecstasy, that she replaced her need to call out by biting hard into his hand. He didn’t care. He hardly felt it; he was enjoying her too much. She was female lust that he could mould any way he liked for their mutual pleasure, and he adored having her that way. It fed his libido, his ego, his sexual fantasies, the dark side of his nature. He kissed her on the side of her neck, and whispered in her ear as he removed his hand from her mouth, never stopping for even a second his possession of her clitoris under the pad of his index finger:

‘To all those eyes watching us, we look like sail-race aficionados standing together, enthralled by the event and nothing more. Again?’

She could hardly speak – she was that much out of control, her breathing erratic, a tremor in her voice: ‘Not here, not now.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, yes. Right here, and now,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t be afraid, let go. I’ll see your orgasms don’t give us away, I promise. Now, once more I’ll ask you. Again? Shall I bring you on again?’

All the while he was whispering in her ear. His cunt caresses never stopped, and when she answered breathlessly, ‘Yes,’ he knew he was in possession of her. That excited the situation for them both. He wanted more of her than he was getting. Without warning, he thrust all the digits of his hand except his thumb, which he now placed on her clitoris, as deeply inside Arianne as he could. He rubbed his cheek against hers, kissed her there and on the nape of her neck and once more cruelly demanded in a whisper now hungry with lust for her, ‘Yes, what?’

His hand around her waist again, he pulled her hard against his chest. ‘Yes, what?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, please.’ She knew what he wanted to hear.

He wanted her to beg for his sexual favours – he loved it when Arianne begged. It was no game with her, as it was with most women. Genuine lust and desire for him and all the ways he knew
how to make her come was what motivated her. But this was not the time or the place. Later that night, when the men were sleeping on shore …

Ahmad was a hardened libertine. He was also a great lover. He pondered: had he ever known another woman to come in multiple orgasms both visual and sexual? For that was what it was like for Arianne – his possession of her while enthralled by the beauty of the feluccas all around her, the Nile, the desert stretching out seemingly to eternity, the falling of dusk, that eerie blueish-grey swallowed up by the blackness of night, a near-full silver moon, and a sky studded with stars.

Lanterns were lit. A boy stretched out across the rail at the bow of the
Osiris
and swung a lantern back and forth, looking for obstructions in the river. Only then did Ahmad release Arianne. One by one the feluccas had pulled in towards the banks of the Nile to drop anchor until the dawn light would allow them to sail. The
Osiris
sailed on in the dark for as long as the crew dared. They and their captain took chances that only daring and well-experienced Nile sailors could possibly attempt. Ahmad and his captain and crew conferred. Excitement on board mounted as they bettered their position when the other feluccas fell back to drop anchor for the night.

Arianne, alone at the rail where Ahmad had left her, felt as if she were floating through some wonderful dream. She was in that region of sexual bliss where only the present, the life in every moment, was to be lived and nothing more. Now she had the excitement, the pulse of danger in the adventure of sailing in the dark, to engage her passion. She watched the men and particularly Ahmad scuttling about the felucca, listened to orders she could not understand, and was caught up in the thrill that only sailing against the elements and in competition can engender. Quite suddenly it was over. The sail was dropped and they headed in towards the bank where they too dropped anchor.

A new kind of excitement enveloped the men: pride and pleasure in having accomplished their objectives for the first day on the river. She watched them in the lantern light as they slapped one another on the back, and chattered about the day’s sailing. The glee in their faces was unmistakable. There was something extraordinarily sweet about the camaraderie among them, even
in the rough way the men handled themselves.

Arianne had hardly realised how much the temperature had changed. Here was the real chill of a winter night on the Nile. The men had brought out a brazier. Flames leaped up in the dark. Ahmad returned to her to take her hand and lead her to warm herself. Then she became fully aware of the cold.

More lanterns were lit. The cook set up his pots around the brazier. Several men were raising a black bedouin tent at the stern of the felucca. A plank was laid at a steep angle from the rail of the felucca to the bank of the river. Up and down the river several bonfires were already lit. Arianne could imagine other crews cooking and sitting or sleeping around them, anxiously awaiting the dawn.

Muhammad joined Ahmad and Arianne to wrap around her a huge cashmere shawl delicately embroidered with flowers. It reached to the ground. Ahmad took over and draped her in it, tossing one end over her shoulder. The two men spoke, Ahmad looking very happy. Whatever was said had brought a smile to his lips.

‘Something you can share with me?’ she asked.

He kissed her on the cheek, and answered, ‘Yes, look over there.’ Just then, on the bank about a hundred yards up-river, yet another bonfire burst aflame. Shouts of approval from the crew.

‘That means the crew can sleep on shore and I can have you all to myself. We can do all sorts of exciting things to each other in privacy.’

‘You planned it, the bonfire.’

‘I did,’ he said proudly. ‘But, I must admit, not just for you. One finds little driftwood on the Nile. I had a boat-load of firewood sent up-river to lay bonfires for the competitors in case they wanted some warmth to sleep by. All a captain has to do is to look at his map. The location of the fuel is marked on it.’

They were gazing at each other in the firelight and Arianne could not help feeling he had done this, yes, for the men in the race – but more for her. She would not let him off so easily. She needed him to know that she was aware how much he wanted her, the lengths he would go to so they could be alone together. ‘I don’t remember bonfires on shore in the other races.’ A deliberate note of asperity was in her words.

‘I’m always trying to improve the organisation of the race,’ he told her.

It was such a little thing, the slight change in the tone of his voice. An inflection. The way he looked away from her when he said it. Annoyance? She was teasing, playing a game. He was not. She should have left it at that, but she didn’t. Or she couldn’t. Something made her press on. ‘I have always admired the way you conspire for people’s pleasure. Most especially
ours, yours
and mine.’

The flames in the brazier leaped into the darkness like red tongues. The wood crackled, spat, and sprayed showers of fire that were extinguished the moment they hit the cold air. Miniature fireworks. They made the moment maybe more dramatic than it was meant to be. But she had spoken a truth that she had always found exciting. She meant it to be a sexy compliment for him. She wanted him, too, to understand that she was aware of how much
he
as well as she enjoyed the erotic life he created for them. Wanting to feel the warmth of his body up against her, she slipped her arm through his and stepped in closer to him. She continued, ‘There is a plot. I sense that and …’

He did not allow her to finish her sentence. He removed his arm from hers and stepped back a pace. His face was half in shadow, half in the firelight. He seemed surprised, shocked even. The way he looked at her took her aback momentarily. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ he asked.

What had she said to upset him? She felt confused by his reaction. His anger was like a slap across her face. Hers was at best a shy personality, a repressed one that only shone and became overt in the arms of a man who loved her, wanted her sexually. That somehow set her free to do and say everything her hidden passions desired. Jason and Ahmad had been the only two people who had ever allowed her that. She felt his disapproval, his retreat, instantly. All joy, all those lovely sensual feelings she was experiencing, were extinguished. Her answer was automatic. She finished the sentence she had begun. ‘I sense that, and a plot full of surprises, twists and turns, to add to our adventure.’

Ahmad could see the hurt in her eyes. He wanted to bite his tongue. Had his brain stopped working? How could she possibly have discovered his secret plotting: what he had done, what he
was now doing with Jim O’Connor to ensure that he would one day possess her as Jason had, a hundred per cent of herself to him, and for all the world to see? He had, of course, not been discovered. It had been nothing more than that stupid word, plot. He had not thought of it as part of Arianne’s vocabulary. She was the least devious person in the world, and incapable of thinking of anyone else as devious, or involved in secret plotting. He had had her, sexually, was controlling her through passion and lust, and he had nearly blown it. All because it was still not enough for him – he wanted more from her, her very life.

He took possession of himself, and, filled with an overpowering desire to possess her once again, all he wanted was to make Arianne happy. He stepped in close to her and swept her off her feet into his arms. He shouted something to the men and then told her, ‘I told them we’ll be back to dine with them. I must, they would be offended if I didn’t. They would never understand my passing up a meal for a mere woman I happen to be passionately devoted to. One I adore and yearn to make love to.’ He was walking with her towards the black bedouin tent at the stern of the felucca. She was tense and withdrawn in his arms. He stopped. ‘Put your arms around my neck,’ he suggested. She did not move. ‘Please.’ There was a softness once again in his voice, a passionate glint in his eyes that was for her alone. She could see it in the light of the lantern hanging on a hook on the boat’s mast. The handsome, seductive face so close to hers, his sensuous lips – they made her bite the corner of her own bottom lip, something she did when she was disturbed. She felt herself slipping under his spell. She held back as best she could.

‘What happened to us back there? What did I do to upset you? Why did you abandon me?’ she asked. Tears of anxiety mixed with passion brimmed in her eyes as she obeyed him and did place her arms around his neck.

‘You did nothing, my dear heart. Nothing, I promise you. For a brief moment, I was distracted by something that crossed my mind – it came between us and is now gone. But it had nothing to do with us.’ He didn’t care that he was lying to her, not in the least, so long as he could get her back to where she had been, erotically charged and ready, wanting him to take her further into a sexual tryst with him.

He pulled her close into him and placed a kiss on her lips. She sensed his mouth trembling with need. She had experienced kisses like that from him before – times when he had wanted her so much that he found he could barely control himself. It reminded her, too, of other times, when they were so steeped in sexual depravity that they had lost themselves and he had given himself up to her, willingly become
her
sexual slave. He kissed her now on her cheeks, and when she closed her eyes, he kissed the lids, licked them with his tongue and then sought her lips again with a greater passion. Between kisses, he bit passionately into her lips until she relented and returned his kisses. A triumph to have broken down her defences, to feel her, at first hesitantly and then with that same old hunger for him, return his kisses. He licked the roof of her mouth. They sucked each other’s tongues. All resistance gone, she went limp in his arms. He walked with her thus to the tent where Muhammad stood.

Arianne wanted to weep with joy – simply at being where she was, passionately involved and in his arms. For the way they wanted each other. For nothing having gone wrong between them. Muhammad raised the flap and Ahmad walked into the tent with Arianne still in his arms. Still kissing her.

He had had inklings of it before, the antipathy he sometimes felt about Arianne. The not-quite deep, abiding love, not-quite hate, to which his passion for her drove him. There was love in those kisses, animosity in the way his fingers pressed hard into her flesh. He loved her for the excitement she brought to their sex life, passion that knew no bounds. Yet he resented her because she had for years managed to hold him to her in love as no other woman had ever done. Because she had power over him. And because he still could not get from her the utter love and abandonment to him that she was capable of – that had been reserved for Jason. But that conflict of love he felt for Arianne was being dealt with by a master of manipulation. He converted it into lust and enjoyed, instead of anxiety for what he could not get from her, the sexual power that he did have over her. They were both enamoured of each other because of it.

Arianne heard the tent flap drop into place. He ravaged her with kisses as she lay in his arms, sucked in the flesh at the side of her neck. She found the buttons of his jeans, to feel his flesh
in her hands at last. She wrapped her fingers round his penis. Long and soft and thick, she kneaded it as delicately as if her fingers were feathers. With her other hand she reached down under it and cupped the soft sac containing his testicles. They filled the palm of her hand. She caressed them, toyed with them, rolled them gently between thumb and fingers. She bent her head down and slowly fed him into her mouth, savouring the taste of him, the sweetness of his flesh. She licked him lovingly and her heart raced as he swelled in her mouth, grew hard, throbbing with passion and life – so large now that she could keep him there only by swallowing him greedily, by moving him in and out of her warm, wet mouth, and then taking him deep into her throat again and again.