Cries of Penance (19 page)

He chuckles and I wonder how he can laugh. “Consider the next few days practice for being a mommy.”

I bend over my knees, suddenly light-headed and nauseated. Oh God. “Can we do this?”

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He pul s me back to a sitting position and wraps his arm around me. “Relax.

I’ve had the kids for a long weekend before. I have a little experience with my nephews and niece.”

“Nieces,” I correct.

“What?”

“You have two nieces.”

Beside me, he nods then kisses me. “You’re right.”

Thomas reenters the room, clearing his throat to let us know he has. We both look toward him and he looks down, sheepishly. I’ve never seen Thomas look so vulnerable. “Both Olympia and Nikkos are awake as wel . I believe a story from Uncle Gar wil go a long way toward helping them sleep.”

Master stands and crosses the room, saying, “I can do that,” but he stops in front of Thomas and pul s him into his arms. He says something to him, speaking so softly I can’t hear what he’s saying, but Thomas nods and then they embrace, kissing, a long kiss that has the feel of desperation, and I realize Master is saying goodbye.

This is real y happening .

I grab my chest as pain shoots through my sternum.

I’m going to have a heart at ack and die.

I watch Master leave the room, and it seems like it is in slow motion. Thomas starts to walk toward me, but then everything speeds up and he is rushing toward me. I col apse against him.

“Breathe, Sophia!”

I try, I real y do, but it hurts too much.

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“Don’t die, Ari! Please don’t die.”

He pul s me into his arms and holds me tighter than he has ever held me. “I’m not going to die, Sophia. Have some faith in me.”

“I do have faith in you.” I hold onto him for dear life. Please don’t go. Please don’t go! “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you unbearably, my love.” He slides his hands around to cup my protruding stomach and his unborn sons kick against his palms. “I wil come home to you. To them.”

Neither of us mentions Lattie, that he wil be returning with a wife, or how that wil affect the ménage, and as he bends to kiss my baby bel y I pray none of that wil matter—and none of it wil —as long as he comes home.

After he leaves, I stand with my forehead pressed to the door, crying silently. I can’t risk having his children hear me, I don’t want to upset them, and so I scream silently. I feel Garrett’s body heat without knowing he’d come back into the room. He molds behind me, shoulder to knee, wrapping his arms around me.

He doesn’t speak. He just holds me.

Later, in the bedroom he finds documents left by Thomas laying on the nightstand. He doesn’t ask “What’s this?” because it is very clear just what it is, a Certificate of Marriage, declaring Sophia Jane Marie Alexander and Demetres Aristotle Velouchiotis as wed. He used his real name? His birth name. It is dated for three days earlier and witnessed by Abigail Wainwright-Ful er. The official stamp declares it was filed as a part of public record yesterday.

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Our gazes clash over the paper. He knows I attended no wedding; I certainly didn’t get formal y married. I sigh heavily as he looks over the other documents, bank account information, stocks, bonds, deeds, a Last Wil and Testament.

I insist, “He’s coming back.”

He nods. “I don’t doubt he’s coming back. Was this a power play to make certain that I know you are more his than mine?”

“That’s absolutely ridiculous!”

“Is it?”

“He’s returning with Lattie,” I insist, gesturing helplessly with my hands. “This is some damn formality in case the worst happens, but the worst isn’t going to happen. They have a family together.”

He lifts his eyebrow and I know what he’s thinking, exactly what he’s thinking.

Thomas and I also have a family together. Wil he try to fit two wives and six children in one home, al owing Garrett to visit as Uncle Gar? Wil he set up two households, one for each wife? Wil he, Lattie, and their children live separate from Garrett, I, and our children? I rub my forehead, realizing my head is pounding.

Folding the papers, he lays everything back on the nightstand. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room with the children. I don’t want them to wake up alone and be frightened.”

“Do you want me to come too?”

I’m both disappointed and relieved when he shakes his head.

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“In victory one does not understand the horror of war. It is only in the cold chil of defeat that it is brought home to you.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Gerard Chapter 15

Thomas

Three hours north of the capital city of Khartoum , Sudan It was a last minute decision to bring Nikos with me, and having him at my side as we look out over the semi-arid land sprinkled lightly with scrub and few trees, I am glad. Pepé and his men have already been here for two days, claiming Charles Francois’s abandoned base camp as their own. It is deserted except for a few nomadic families.

In the distance I recognize Lattie’s sister and brother-in-law, Isaam and Badriya. After a long moment Isaam recognizes me and rushes to my side. His wife fol ows, but stays behind him. She is heavily veiled in the bright, colorful cloth that is typical of the Rashaida nomadic tribes of northeastern Sudan.

Isaam speaks in rapid Arabic, “Soldiers took the children.”

“I know. I know,” I assure him, patting him on the back. It is obvious he has been beside himself with grief. I imagine Lattie left the children in his charge for the day it would take for her to travel to the city and back again. “They are safe in the United States with friends of mine. Have you heard anything about Lubna?” I defer to Latisha’s desert name, because although Isaam has heard me cal my wife Lattie before, Badrida has not.

Badrida’s eyes go wide and fil with tears as Isaam shakes his head. I suspect he expects the worst has already happened and if she is not already dead, she is 177

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praying for it to come swiftly. “We only heard the report that Charles is dead. His men left almost immediately.”

“Hektor said that other men came, that they were looking for something.”

Badrida averts her eyes and I know the next words out of Isaam’s mouth are going to be a lie. “Only the soldiers who came for the children. You said they are safe now.”

I leave the couple to walk with my brother. “Did he know what they were looking for?”

I realize dumbly that although al of my questions were asked in English, Isaam had responded in Arabic. “No. Whatever they want is stil a mystery.”

The sun is setting, a bril iant orange band cutting the violet sky in half and setting the normal y dul gray landscape ablaze with color. For just a moment there are bits of green and yel ow and purple, which seem to be nonexistent during the heat of the day.

Young boys lead the camels in closer to the camp for the night. The camels’

dung hangs heavily in the air and brought closer, the animals’ muskiness is overwhelming. I am glad the winds pick up as the sun sets, and I inhale a deep breath of fresh air carried from far away. After a few days time I would become accustomed to the smel , but I hope to not be here that long.

“How could you leave your children here?”

I turn to see what my brother is looking at. His gaze rests on a young mother, heavily draped, sitting near a smal fire, cooking, two smal daughters crowded against her. She rotates a large kettle with two smal er pots over the fire and stirs the smal er pot with a knife. In the background the sides of the tent flaps in the 178

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harsh wind. Both mother and children hold their scarves close to their faces, protection from the blowing sand, but also to prevent any accidental exposure of their features.

I don’t like the judgment I hear in his voice. “How is this different than how we were raised? They raise camels and goats. We raised horses and sheep.”

“We had a real roof over our heads.”

“Yes, tile, to protect us from the elements. It almost never rains here. Al they need is a tent to protect them from the sun and sand.”

“And their education? The women are kept completely il iterate and the men fare only slightly better.”

“Francois had a tutor brought here from France. Honestly, most of the time, they were in Dubai, they lived like princes and princesses. When they are here, with Lattie’s relatives, it is so they can have the best of both cultures. And, we agreed that at age eight they would be sent to boarding school, either in England or in France.”

He shakes his head. “I would have thought that our experience would have turned you off boarding schools. If I ever have a child I would shelter it from that world.”

I used to think the same thing. When did my point of view change?

“Boarding school teaches structure, self-reliance.”

He shrugs. “They’re your children.”

“What does that mean?”

“You deserted them to the Infidels. Tel me you haven’t sold their souls to the agency yet.”

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“You’re right. I deserve your judgment and someday I may face God’s judgment, but if I deserted my children here it was because I have no intention of my children carrying on the family tradition.” I don’t mention that Glorianna has already campaigned for my unborn twins or how I plan to keep her plans from materializing.

“If we get your woman out of this mess alive, promise me you won’t al ow her to bring the children back here. Raise them in the US, or Europe, or even Greece, but please, safeguard them from this life.”

“The people here have a different life, it is not a matter of being better or worse.”

“Promise me, Ari, or I wil leave now and never look back.”

The vehemence in his voice makes me believe him. “I want my children to know and respect their mother’s customs, but I wil be raising them. I won’t leave it up for debate. If Lattie wants to stay in this desert, pursuing her own agenda, she can, but she can’t protect my children here, and although I don’t see the horror you obviously see in my children having a simpler life, I do want them to have a modern life with al the conveniences and opportunities for education they would miss out on by being forced to return here.”

In my mind, I can hear their squeals of delight over their breakfast cereal.

I have missed school, Papa.

I wonder now if I lied to my brother. Did Charles have a tutor brought over from France? Have they been living in Bahai? Al I have is Lattie’s assurances.

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trusting her. Again. I don’t want to believe she was a woman who would lie to me at every chance to get her way.

Once…a long time ago…she seemed so sweet, so innocent.

When I brought her to the United States, I never considered keeping her for myself, I never dreamed she might fal in love with me, but faced with her jealousy, I reasoned she must. Obviously, we were both so much younger, her barely more than a child. Seventeen. She knew little English but she knew enough to demand, “Where you go?”

She asked every morning when I’d return to our home, our bed, and I was always too tired to make love to her. I was training Garrett then, teaching him everything I knew about being a Dominant. He was wearing me out physical y, and emotional y. I’d never been in love with a man and didn’t recognize what was happening between us as fal ing in love. I’d tel her, “Work.”

It wasn’t al truth, it wasn’t al lie.

One morning she pointed at bruises around my neck. “Not working. You tel me truth now.”

That night I took her with me to a BDSM club and she was left stunned. I worried about her silence during the drive home. I fil ed the void, talking non-stop, tel ing her about Garrett’s plans to create Lewd Larry’s. I explained, “It isn’t real torture. It’s fun, play.”

She’d looked at me incredulously.

“Can I show you?”

I’d pul ed her waist-length hair up, catching it in an elastic ponytail holder, shaping the frizzy mass into a loose bun. She was trembling, worried. I 181

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undressed her slowly, helping her step out of her shoes and then unzipping the back of the summer dress she was wearing. Naked, she stood proudly and magnificently before me. She lifted her chin and despite her youth I’d never seen such a strong woman.

I caressed her cheek, then kissed her gently.

“No!” She cried out. “I want you to do to me what the ones at that club did.”

I’d slapped her, hard enough that my hand was left stinging. I pushed her against a wal , lifting her up by her throat, cutting off her air. Her legs wrapped around my waist, instinctively trying to fight and save herself. I kept the pressure tight but gave her enough air to keep her from passing out. I’d wanted her to remember. I’d wanted her to enjoy the game we were playing. Mostly I’d wanted her to understand the need, the addiction of rough play. Then, I didn’t yet see it as a lifestyle.

I’d fil ed her, thrusting hard into her, with her trapped between me and the unyielding wal . I tightened my grip on her throat, not al owing her to breathe as I thrust hard into her and knew the moment her orgasm exploded through her.

I let her take in long gulps of air but held her stil against the wal . I thrust into her at a slower pace, building my own pleasure, not knowing if she would hate me from that moment on, or if she could start to understand.

Catching my face between her palms, she’d admitted, “I thought I was going to die.”

“I wouldn’t let you die.”

She’d kissed me, asking against my mouth, “Next time wil you lash me?”

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I’m stil chuckling at the memory when Nikos finds me sitting under the stars, far from camp. Silently, he sits beside me and gazes up at the splendor that is the desert night sky. So many stars, seeming so close, almost touchable, make me wish for simpler days. It bothers me that he sees only Infidels and not the lovely, gentle people my wife’s family represented. To the north, south, east, and west wars and skirmishes—either religion or power based—rage on and somehow the nomads avoid the worst of it.