Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘Catch me, Badger!’ she called and, trusting in his strength, flung herself over the edge. As she dropped he caught her, but her weight and momentum brought him to his knees. He knelt over her, hugging her protectively to his chest as they laughed.

‘I love you, you crazy girl!’

‘Never let me go again!’ she said, as their lips came together.

‘Never!’ he promised, speaking into her sweet mouth.

Much later when they drew apart to breathe, they saw that Manyoro and Loikot had followed Eva back down the path, and were squatting on the ledge just above them, watching their performance with grins of delight.

‘Go and make nuisances of yourselves somewhere else!’ Leon ordered them. ‘You’re not welcome here. Take my horse and go down the mountain until you meet Ishmael. Tell him to make camp at the foot. Wait for us. We’ll sleep there tonight.’

‘ Ndio , Bwana,’ Manyoro answered.

‘And stop giggling like that.’

‘ Ndio , Bwana!’

Manyoro’s voice was muffled with mirth as he scrambled down, but Loikot remained on the ledge above him. Suddenly he squeaked at Manyoro, in a falsetto imitation of Eva’s voice, ‘Cashy mia, Bazzer!’ and threw himself from the ledge as Eva had done. He crashed into Manyoro with such force that he bowled him over. The two rolled down the slope locked in each other’s embrace, howling and hooting with laughter. ‘Cashy mia!’ they screamed. ‘Cashy mia, Bazzer.’

Neither Leon nor Eva could contain themselves and burst out laughing again. Eventually Leon found his voice: ‘Go, you idiots!’ he ordered them. ‘Get out of my sight. I don’t want to see either of you again for a long, long time!’

They staggered down the mountain, still racked with paroxysms of laughter, hugging themselves and each other with glee.

‘Cashy mia, Bazzer!’ Manyoro howled.

‘Luff you, clazy gel!’ Loikot slapped his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Luff you!’ he repeated, and jumped three feet into the air.

‘That was, without doubt, the funniest incident ever to be recorded in the history of Masailand. You and I will go down in tribal mythology,’ Leon told Eva, as the two men disappeared down the path. He picked her up in his arms and she locked hers around his neck. He carried her to a flat ledge beside the pool and sat with her in his lap. ‘You don’t know how I’ve longed to hold you like this,’ he whispered.

‘All my life,’ she replied. ‘That’s how long I’ve waited for this to happen.’

He stroked her face, tracing the arches of her eyebrows with his fingertips, then burrowed his fingers into the tresses of her hair, filling his hands with the thick, glossy locks, gloating on every facet of her beauty, like a miser fondling his hoard of gold coins. She seemed so fragile and delicate that he was afraid he might hurt her, startle or alarm her. Her loveliness awed him. She was nothing like the other women he had known. She made him feel inadequate, unworthy.

She understood his dilemma. His timidity reawakened in her feelings of tenderness such as she had not experienced for a very long time. But she wanted him desperately and could not wait. She knew she must take the lead.

He felt her unbuttoning his shirt and one of her hands slipped through the opening and began to caress the muscles of his chest. He shivered with delight. ‘You’re so hard, so strong,’ she murmured.

‘And you’re so soft and tender,’ he countered.

She leaned back a little way so that she could look into his eyes. ‘I’m not breakable, my Badger. I’m flesh and blood as you are. I want what you want.’ She took the lobe of his ear between her teeth and nibbled it softly. He felt goosebumps rise on the nape of his neck. When she thrust her tongue deep into his ear he shuddered deliciously.

‘I have sensitive places, just like you do.’ She took his hand and placed it on her breast. ‘If you touch me here and here, like this and that, you will see for yourself.’

He felt the hooks and eyes of her blouse under his fingers and slipped open the top one. He did it diffidently, expecting a rebuke, but she drew back her shoulders so that her breasts swelled out to meet his exploring fingers.

‘There’s a clever boy! You found one of my places without any help from me.’

Her words, and the tone in which she uttered them, roused in him a feverish impatience. He threw aside all restraint and caution, plucked open her blouse and reached inside. Her breasts were hot and silky, and he felt the tips harden and pucker. Her breathing was coming faster as she whispered, ‘They are yours, my darling. All I have is yours.’

She drew back just enough and moved so that her breasts brushed lightly against his face. She shrugged off her blouse and silken slip, and was naked to the waist. Again she let her breasts swing against his face, and he took one of her nipples into his mouth. She gasped and lay back in the circle of his arms, then took a double handful of the hair at the back of his head and used it to direct his mouth to the other.

‘Forgive me, my darling, but I cannot wait any longer,’ she cried, her tone almost desperate as she wriggled off his lap and knelt in front of him, her naked breasts heavy and full, just brushing his face as she tugged at his belt. When she had opened the buckle and unbuttoned his fly, he lifted himself just enough to enable her to push his breeches down to his knees. She hoisted her long skirt to her lower ribs – she wore nothing under it – and her waist was fluted, like the neck of a Grecian vase, curving into the swell of her hips. The skin of her belly was nacreous and unblemished. Her thighs were strong but shapely and between them nestled her womanly bush, dark and curling luxuriantly in its marvellous profusion. She raised one of her knees over him, mounting him as she would a horse, and as her thighs parted he glimpsed, through the dark curtain of hair, the gape of her sex. It was pouting and damp with the lubricious juices of her arousal. Then, with a single adroit thrust of her hips, she engulfed him to the hilt, and they cried out together as though in pain.

For both, it happened so swiftly and intensely that they were left unable to speak, barely able to move, clinging together like the survivors of some devastating earthquake or typhoon. It took them some time to drift back from the far frontiers of their minds and bodies to which they had been transported.

Eva spoke first: ‘I never imagined it could be like that.’ She laid her head on his chest to listen to his heart. He stroked her hair and she closed her eyes. They slept, and came awake to the barking of a troop of baboons high on the cliff face, their challenge reverberating through the gorge. She sat up slowly and pushed the hair back from her face. It was still wet with sweat and her cheeks were flushed. ‘How long were we asleep?’ She blinked.

‘Is it important?’ he asked.

‘It’s very important. I don’t want to waste a single moment of the time we have together in sleeping.’

‘We have the rest of our lives.’

‘I pray God that is so. But this world is so cruel.’ She looked forlorn and bereft. ‘Please don’t ever leave me.’

‘Never,’ he said fiercely, and when she smiled the violet lights glowed in her eyes.

‘You’re right, Badger. We’re going to be happy for ever. I refuse to be sad on this wonderful day. The world can never catch us.’ She sprang to her feet and pirouetted on the ledge. ‘This day will last for ever,’ she sang, and as she danced she shed her clothing, scattering it over the rock.

‘What are you doing, you shameless hussy?’ He laughed with delight as she danced for him, naked in the sunlight. Her body was very lovely, young and perfectly proportioned, her movements lithe and graceful.