Darkest Love (16 page)

When he had mustered enough breath, Rain squatted at her side, taking her in his arms. “Princess. Sola! Are you okay?”

“More than okay, Rain.”

“You are amazing.”

They embraced under the canopy, hearts beating as if the bloody pumps wanted to reach each other through the lovers' skin. Rain could not believe it. He had sullied the princess, and loved every second of it.

Annie looked unsettled when Rain got back to the hut. She was leaning over a journal, trying to read but clearly distracted by some thought that kept pressing on her brain. Rain's eyes darted around as he walked in, stepping softly. He had hoped the place would be empty.

No such luck. Annie looked up and said five terrible words:

“I cannot believe what's happening.”

Images of angry tribespeople flashed through Rain's mind. What if Sola had told her warriors about their tryst? The men would be here as soon as they could get a decree from her lips. A shower of spears would arrive before the men did. Rain would probably get a spike through the back before he even managed to turn around.

His stomach dropped. A terrible truth dawned on him; his life was now in the hands of the princess.

“What is it, Annie?”

“You didn't see?” She stood, pushing the journal across the table and throwing her pencil after it. “Photographers on Sivu! The place is overrun. A boatload of them arrived from New Caledonia today. The tribesmen were hollering about it: these men with black boxes. They meant
cameras
! Thank God the Kaamo don't know what a photograph is. If they knew they were being documented, they'd probably throw some weapons.”

Rain nodded, relieved the news didn't involve him…and Sola. It was better than:
Get the hell out of here! Our sex life is over, and you can sleep next to the Kaamo settlement. Sola told her warriors about your blow job, by the way. So you probably won't sleep very soundly.

Rain's heart rate dropped. “So the Kaamo have a belief prohibiting images of people? Like the Australian aboriginals?”

“I really don't know. None of them have ever seen an image of themselves. So an opinion has not been formed.” Rain and Annie had both studied the indigenous Australians of New South Wales. Early Australians had been shocked when they first saw photographs of themselves, believing that the white photographers had stolen their souls.

“So what's the problem?” Rain asked.

“The sheer number. Photographers are all over the place. I overheard them gossiping about the princess. Breathtaking this and Jennifer Lopez that. They want to get a picture of her, Rain. They're
paparazzi
.”

Rain pursed his lips. Annie was right, this was big. Sivu was a special place for researchers because the Kaamo were so untouched by Western influence. That was why he and Annie had come.

If anything was going to ruin that, it was a bunch of twits trying to get a snap for TMZ or the Daily Mail. The purity of the Kaamo would be compromised. Sivu would be ruined, not just for himself and Annie, but for all the researchers who came after them.

Although…in the back of his mind Rain was aware of his hypocrisy.
I think you have compromised the Kaamo a little yourself, Rain
, he chided himself.

A white man's dick inside their princess...
That'll do it.

He would definitely not be including that in the ‘Sources of Error' section of his report. “How do you think the photographers heard about Sola? How did they find out how…” He gulped. “…good-looking she is?”

“I'll tell you what it was,” Annie said, ignoring Rain's praise for Sola for once. “It was Paulo, the linguist. That guide we had in the early days. Remember? He must have gone back to Sydney and spread the word that a photo opportunity awaits. He probably spun a story about Sola's virginity and how she looks like a goddess. So they all streamed in to get a shot.”

Rain nodded. “It's probably time to wrap up the fieldwork.”
A convenient twist…

“Oh no, not just yet. I'll get some great notes about native reactions to this event. Rain, it's a modern-day invasion. Just outrageous!”

Rain wanted to agree, but the cognitive dissonance would have made his brain explode.
Oh yeah, Annie,
he imagined himself saying.
Speaking of invasion, my dick invaded her earlier.
He rolled his eyes instead, then threw himself on the bamboo bed, wrapping a pillow over his head and trying to shut out the world.

* * * *

Annie's homage began excruciatingly. Rain sat through the first minute of toe-licking frozen with guilt.

It was not an emotion he was prone to. Guilt was simply not Rain Mistern's style. He had always seen life as too much of a game, too much of a thigh-slapping cosmic joke or hearty rugby scrum, to be prone to feelings like that.

Partly it was because he himself did not hold grudges. As a boy, if a classmate flicked yoghurt at him during lunch he would simply break that boy's crayon during Art class. No fuss, no tears, no muss.

As a teenager when another guy stole his girlfriend, his recovery took the form of a two-step plan: 1) Casually spread the word about the girl's bee-sting breasts, and 2) find a lovelier ass and set of breasts and take them to prom. He made sure to lead his new girl—the prom date—up the stairs while his cuckolder watched from the drinks table. Nobody's eyes were on bee-sting's non-cleavage–that was for sure!

A sweet female bum in a cocktail dress: the perfect accessory.

For
him
.

And as a man, Rain had a similar attitude. Life was a series of conquests. Women, tenure, awards—they were like coins he picked up in the Super Mario Bros video game that was his life. One loss could be cancelled out by a string of wins. Extra points if your enemies saw you on your hot streak.

I am not really a jerk
, Rain had thought many times while Annie was scolding him. One of his exes had explained it thus: Rain had a roughhouser's soul. He saw himself and the people around him as a pack of butt-sniffing golden retrievers. There were neck bites, growls and snarls, and Rain was happy to take as much as he gave. He didn't dwell on injuries, and he didn't feel guilty about the injuries he himself caused.

And yet…

Right now, as he watched Annie licking his foot, he felt guilty. He couldn't help imagining that he had put his women in a hierarchy. Sola, with her virginity and exoticism, was elevated today, having sucked him off in the forest. And Annie? She was reduced to licking his feet. That was the fate of a woman—Annie—who cared for him and who wanted to open up to him.

It was also her punishment, partly self-inflicted, for a sexual past he did not approve of.

Wow…am I a jerk?

He watched Annie's tongue dart in and out of her mouth. His foot was really getting spoiled; not an inch of it had not been covered with luscious licks. He had memorized the texture of her tongue, slick and ever-so-slightly rough. The end of her tongue could curl up as dexterously as a pointer finger signaling come-hither. It was a smart pink organ indeed.

Annie's face! It was so giving, so worshipping. This was truly a homage. She had never looked so submissive, so totally his. Not even when she was going down on him proper.

Rain shifted uncomfortably, torn between his uneasy thoughts and the erection that sparked up whenever Annie moaned, or when her breasts jiggled. He also felt his dick climbing when she pulled a certain face. He thought of it as
her
face, and had teased her about it over several scrambled egg breakfasts. “You pull this face, when you're going down on me. Like you're concentrating
so hard.
You're a mother cat, licking your favorite kitten in your brood. All your nurturing instincts have been engaged.”

“So you're saying my brood is...your penis?”

Rain nodded, and his grin earned him a hand-slap and a playful flick of feta cheese over his shirt. “It's gorgeous. It's like nothing exists but your task.” He licked his lips. “And by
your task
I mean my cock.” He gestured down. “Very hot. It's nice to feel like my penis is the center of someone's universe.”

“A mother cat was an unfortunate metaphor.”

“A very intelligent cat,” Rain had reassured her, taking a sip of his coffee. “Cat-goddess. Egypt-style. Just waiting to be pampered.” He winked. “Once she finishes the job.”

It had been a long time since he and Annie had had a New York breakfast with clattering cutlery and easy banter. Sivu was a different world. Rain didn't know if it was the heat, the intellectual intensity of journalling, the contact with the Kaamo, or the lush landscape. But when they were here things became…
intense.

“Let's do the leash,” he said suddenly, unable to banish troubling thoughts: Sola on his dick, Annie on his foot–even lower. “We'll take a walk to the shore with it.”

“Rain,” she gasped. “There were photographers all over the island today. The boat has gone but… well, what if a new boat arrives? Or if they're camping out?”

“At this hour there will be no one around.” Rain needed to get some fresh air, to see a wide horizon.

He clicked the leash on Annie's collar, smiling as she winked in his direction, startled by the tenderness that rose up in his chest.

“Safety word is ‘Princess',” he reminded her.

It was finally dawning on him that he had feelings for Annie. They were stuffed in his chest, nagging him, possibly contributing to the other, semi-cosmic feelings he was having. Everything Rain thought he knew was evaporating away.

Or maybe I'm just going nuts,
he thought as he followed her bare ass to the doorway. Annie crawled: through–
right palm, left palm, right palm, left palm.

.… Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle…

Right knee, left knee.

He watched her ass moving as she crawled. The cheeks took turns jutting out. First one would tense, then the other, reminding Rain of two hot twins taking turns leaning in to dominate a conversation.

Rain gulped. Her butt gave way to a little waist. Her breasts played peek-a-boo at the sides of her torso. Her blonde hair streamed down over her arms like shining beads in a bohemian door curtain.

Stay in character Mistern.
“Faster!” he barked, putting on his aggressive Dom voice. He knew she was expecting it.

This is for Annie, too, not just you. She wants to work through her issues.

Annie squeaked as her foot caught on a bump in the doorway. Rain raised his own foot and gave her a kick in the rear. Annie did not turn around. She stared ahead, neck low and straight, as she had been taught, and moved towards the lapping river.

The sunset sky was stunning–steaks of pink and coral covered the horizon like spilled pastel paint, swirling in dreamy patterns. Rain breathed in the fresh, salty air.

A lump of emotion rose in his throat as he looked at Annie's bum, legs, back and head. Her body was so womanly and fleshy against that grand sunset. How small she was and yet… how grand. It struck him that what she was doing was massive.

Here was a woman who was brave enough to explore the trauma of her early family life. Those nasty experiences: beatings and betrayals and kicks in the bum. She was going through it all again: the victimization by her parents and sisters.

She'd been pushed to the ground as a child, left alone.

Now she was a woman, crawling on the sand, bound by a leash. Rain watched her soft body. It was framed by a magnificent sunset indeed. His throat clogged so much he gasped new breaths of fresh air.

A heavenly horizon was the right backdrop for Annie. What she was doing was divine. She was brave beyond imagining: a heroine, a sex goddess.

A princess.

Rain caught himself again in the middle of his reverie. He had to remind himself it was his job to help her along in the healing process.

“Speed up or you'll get another kick,” he ordered over the sound of the water. Rain yanked the lead, watching her head jerk back, and noted the stirring in his penis.

He jerked back into Dom mode. His dick climbed to full height as he saw the power he had to control her. To get that head to do as he wished.

It was satisfying, almost poetic in its beauty. The way her neck rose up in an arc. It reminded him he and Annie were connected in a circle: his hand, the leash, the collar, her neck. At any moment he could close the circle by giving her ass a kick. Or he could yank the leash, bringing her head up, reducing the radius in an instant. If he yanked hard enough it would break her back, the part that twisted in response to the moves of her butt.

The emotions were too many. Rain squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and then let them bulge back out, not missing a step. It had always been clear to him that under even the most loving relationship was a streak of violence. Male sexuality was based on it.
Founded
on violence; soaked in it–he was sure. And as an anthropologist, he was convinced he had the evidence.

What had always confused him was the way you had to cover up. The way you were forced to suppress that, denying it any expression. And–if he was honest–the demands and emotions of women confused him further. It was more than he wanted to deal with.

Until he met Annie.

Something is changing.

The sex on the riverside was lazy and intimate. Annie ran her hands over his face, exploring its planes as if she was seeing it for the first time. Rain returned her searching stare and explored her in turn: with eyes, with hands, and with the thrust that found the deepest pockets inside her. Every time she was full her face would jerk. Then the tone of her expression changed, just for an instant. After that calm would return to her face, more pleased than before, just in time for his next pump.

Rain realized he was cleaning her out, purifying her, releasing all the toxins of her past. Zen pleasure shone from Annie's face. Her eyes had never looked as serene as they did there in the pink sky.