Sheikh's Castaway (9 page)

“A falcon,” he said in satisfaction.

“Why is that good?”

“It means there are small animals.”

But however they strained, in whatever direction, there was no sign of land.

After a few minutes they followed the track along the
lightly treed slope, with the sound of running water getting closer and closer.

Suddenly there it was in front of them: a small, delicate waterfall like a bridal veil tumbling down to where it was captured in a sparkling stream a few feet below them in the black rock. From there the water ran in a series of streams and tiny falls down to the forest floor below.

A small black-and-white goat stood precariously on the rocks, drinking from the water swirling in the bowl-shaped cavity of a rock.

It had not noticed their approach. Bari and Noor stood watching, silenced by the little animal's vulnerability. It was so totally trusting, eyes closed, nose deep in the life-giving stream, the perfect embodiment of that state of grace which allows the Arabic language to assign “peace” and “submission” the same word.

Noor glanced at Bari and exchanged a rueful smile. By wordless agreement, the two humans sank silently to the ground and waited for the goat to finish its drink. The animal's complete trust was somehow compelling—beautiful and deeply touching.

“How easy it is to love creatures who trust,” Noor thought, and was a little surprised to find that she had whispered the words.

Bari's gaze rested on her thoughtfully, but he did not reply.

The goat lifted its head and gazed at them for a moment before turning to spring up the few feet to the path. Then, as they watched in silence, it wandered unafraid among the trees and began to forage.

Noor glanced down at the knife tucked into Bari's waistband, then up into his face. He laughed as if reading her thoughts.

“I'd have to be a lot hungrier,” he agreed.

Noor laughed with him, and for a moment it was the way it used to be between them, and she remembered with sharp nostalgia how she had imagined that they were well suited. That their sense of humour matched.

But all the time they had been laughing at different things. Bari had been laughing at her.

Her gaze returned to the delicious little waterfall. After a moment's pause they simultaneously began to strip off and, leaving their clothes, clambered down the rocks to stand under the lacy tumble of water.

It was cold enough to seem icy on their exercise-heated bodies, and Noor involuntarily gasped as the fat drops pelted her.

His ears heard, and his body remembered, that it was the same gasp she had given the first time he entered her. The flesh of her breasts tightened, too, in a way he remembered in that very different moment. Bari stood under a strong, steady fall of cool water, his back to her.

“What a relief to get the salt and sand off my skin!” Noor cried.

Nervousness pitched her voice high and thin, but she hoped Bari wouldn't notice. She had to struggle not to devour him with her eyes. They had made love only on that one long, never-to-be-forgotten afternoon, and one afternoon, she discovered, wasn't long enough to create an immunity to the sight of him naked.

His body was like an aftershave ad, water droplets passionately clinging to perfect proportions. It was hard to keep her eyes from drinking him in in the same way they had everything else this incredible morning—with gratitude for the beauty.

Bari barely glanced at her. “It's good luck that we have a source of fresh water.” His voice was as distant as his eyes.

After a minute Noor reached for the teddy that she had left on a rock, and began busily scrubbing it between her knuckles as she stood under the flow.

Bari put his head under, then emerged spluttering and shaking his head. Vital animal grace emanated from him so powerfully she felt it like a physical touch. Water streamed down his face and body, tracing every curvature of muscle and bone with loving attention, as though nature herself were memorizing his shape in order to produce so fine a work again elsewhere.

Noor's womb clenched with the primitive, unconscious understanding that her own body might serve as nature's workshop for such a project. What hit her then was a bolt of electricity that seemed to come not from the sky, but from the rocks under her feet, inescapably shooting up through her body to her scalp.

There was a moment of stillness all around them then, during which the lacy waterfall seemed to capture the sunlight and multiply it into a thousand diamonds tossed and tumbling over the rocks onto their heads.

In that moment, strong and strange, a man and a woman gazed at each other, and through each other into a world of possibility. The soft wind whispered to them that their two selves held the key to the great secret. The man put out his hand, and the woman's hand would have been unerringly drawn to its embrace, even had she been blind.

Their bodies sparkling with diamonds and gold, he led her to a soft sun-kissed place, and drew her down to lie with him.

A
shock of heat embraced her as she lay on him, her legs entangling with his as naturally as if they had met this way over a thousand lifetimes past. Her body, resting against his aroused flesh, melted with anticipation, and in answer his hand gripped the firm mound of her behind and held her ruthlessly as his hips rose of their own accord to lift against her.

His fingers slipped around her thighs and began to tease and stroke the delicate folds of the flower, and his eyes watched her face, devouring every sign of her desire for him.

She was so moist, inviting the long, strong fingers to slip inside that almost-virgin space and warn her body of the delights to come.

Meanwhile the fingers of his other hand cupped her head, weaving through the damp tangles of her hair and drawing her face down to his waiting mouth. The hun
gry kisses that he had been holding back for too long burned up to scorch his lips as his mouth took possession of hers.

“Bari,” she murmured, half protesting, but he smothered the sound with his kiss.

Noor felt the touch of those knowing, tender fingers ignite a hot sweetness that melted all through her, and her legs spread with pulsing hunger, falling wide to give him access to the deepest part of herself as honeyed urgency tightened her skin.

His fingers vibrated in her, his tongue following suit in the moist depths of her mouth, until she tore her lips from his with a cry, lifting away to arch her back into the pleasure building in her. His other hand moved down then, pressing her, moulding her lower body against his hardened flesh, until, with soft panting cries, she welcomed the flooding heat that coursed through her.

Her face to the smiling sky, she groaned out her gratitude, but the hypnotic motion of his hands paused only a moment, and then began anew.

“Again,” he commanded.

This time the explosion came more quickly, and then leaped to another buildup, and another, while Noor writhed with increasing openness, her cries of completion and excitement grew louder, the pleasure more intense…and her desire for more grew greedier.

Her throat was wide open, her head back, her body arched, her thighs clenching, her hunger deep and animal. She was just where he wanted her—in that land where she recognized only sensation. Heat was here, and rippling pleasure, and shivering joy, and delicious moistness—but she knew no more than that.

He watched with his hunger written on his face, a hunger he could not disguise. Her head was back, her
eyes squeezed shut, all her being focused on pleasure like nothing she had known existed.

Finally he could wait no longer. His control whipped from his grasp like a cable that breaks under too much weight, and his hands lifted her, opening her for him, and his body leaped in one fierce thrust. And with that sudden, hard urgency, there was what she had been seeking, what her hunger had waited for: the fierce pleasure-pain of his body ruthless in hers, and the soaring desire that swooped and wheeled with the motion of the falcon above.

He pulled her knees down beside his hips, fixed his strong hands around her waist, and taught her the motions of that primitive dance: down and up and down and up, over and over, wild and free, until the god answered, and pleasure rained down on them.

 

As soon as the last heaves of satisfaction had died in her, Noor started kicking herself inwardly. What kind of fool for punishment was she? Bari al Khalid had cynically taken her virginity when he didn't love her, had tricked her—what kind of stupid, masochistic weakness was it to let him get to her all over again? She lifted his arm from her and sat up.

“I suppose you think that proved something,” she said.

Only with my husband,
she had always promised herself. And since she wouldn't marry Bari now to save her life, she shouldn't have made love with him again. She turned and looked down at him.

His head was turned towards her, the black eyes half-lidded. He said nothing.

What really made her bitter was the little voice that said that since she was no longer a virgin it didn't really matter anymore, and the pleasure was worth it. That
was exactly the attitude that she had despised in her friends.
Who do I hurt? It's not a diminishing commodity. We only get one life.

She had thought she was safe from all that. But it seemed sex was like a drug. Once you got a taste of it—

Her anger suddenly shifted its target. How dared he make love to her, after what he had said about her? And why?

Noor got to her feet and tied the sarong over her breasts.

“Just more cynical manipulation,” she accused as she picked up the wet teddy and wrung it out with an angry twist.

“Why would I want to manipulate you?” His voice was expressive of nothing so much as boredom, and her outrage flared.

“Your grandfather's estates
are
still an issue, I suppose!” Noor responded sharply.

“Oh, that.”

She smiled, showing her teeth.

“My grandfather will have the good sense to realize that however good the tree, some fruit is always spoiled. When he learns of it he will not wish me to marry a woman who has acted the way you did.”

Noor flinched but stood her ground. “So it was just a freebie, then?” she mocked. “Just the typical male grab-it-while-you-can?”

“And what was it from the typical female point of view? Rape, I suppose?”

She was too angry to answer.

Under the white
shalwar
he had been wearing a snug thong, and it seemed that was all he meant to put on now. He slung his wet shirt and trousers over one shoulder.

“Very Tarzan,” Noor said, mock-admiringly. “I ad
vise you not to mistake me for Jane again, if you don't want a very uncomfortable surprise.”

“Who the hell is Tarzan?” Bari asked, as if it was the last thing he cared to know.

 

They breakfasted on fresh herbs, raw dates and baked turtle's eggs eaten off palm leaves. Not exactly a meal for the gods, but she was hungry enough to swallow every morsel. She could have eaten more, but Bari had insisted on taking only a few eggs out of the nest they found.

“But there are hundreds of eggs there!” Noor had protested.

“And there is a reason for that. We are not the turtle's only predators. And they are a rare species.”

She couldn't argue with that, but a couple of eggs didn't make much of a meal when there was no bread or salad or anything else to accompany them.

Licking her fingers, she looked around. “Well, what now?” she wondered aloud. “Think we'll see a boat soon?”

“The first necessity is to build a shelter.”

She looked at him, suspecting a trick. “What's wrong with the raft?”

“It's too small, and it gets too hot. Over the long term, psychologically, we need—”

“But we're bound to be rescued!”

“Possibly, but what if we are not? Do you expect the world to rush to save your life when you will do nothing to save yourself?”

“You're just trying to scare me. You want to punish me for running away and you think hard work will do the trick!”

It was close enough to the truth to wring a dry smile out of him. He crossed well-muscled arms over his naked chest and eyed her levelly.

“I think it won't hurt you to put some effort into your own continued existence,” he agreed.

“I've already had the hunter-gatherer lecture this morning, thanks. I think that's enough for one day. Build your own damn shelter!”

He regarded her in silence for a long uncomfortable moment. Noor put her chin up.

“This is not television, Noor. There is no camera, no crew. We don't get airlifted out if we get stomach cramp. This is real life.”

She lifted her eyebrows expressively. “So?”

“Cooperation is the first rule of survival.”

“Really! I'm sure there's a second rule.”

He wasn't rising to the bait. He said, as if she had asked in good faith, “The second is, elect one person as leader, and then obey his commands.”

“Let me guess. You've been elected.”

A little voice in her suggested how unwise it was to embark on such a futile battle.
No stupider than his insistence on building a shelter,
Noor dismissed it.

Bari smiled, showing strong white teeth in the smile that she used to think was handsome. Now it just made him look like a wild animal.

“Brawn gets fifty-one percent of the vote, I think we agreed.”

“Well, brawn can just go ahead and build one hundred percent of the shelter! Brains is going to do the logical thing and use the life raft when necessary.”

“Wrong again. We'll take the canopy to waterproof the roof of the shelter.”

“Oh, brilliant! Cut up our shelter in order to make a shelter!” she mocked admiringly. “Well, at least you're not claiming the monopoly on brains!”

“Can you possibly be imagining that your continued
mulishness is a sign of intelligence? You are acting like a fool! What do you know of conditions here? We may be completely out of the shipping lane on this island. It might be days, weeks, bef—”

“I don't believe for a minute it will be weeks, and I happen to think the raft is a good enough temporary shelter.”

“No. What you think about a shelter is nothing to do with this. You are resisting what I say because you feel cheated. You blame me for not being in love with you.”

“Wrong!” Noor carolled hotly. “Since we are no longer going to get married, I couldn't care less what you think of me.”

“But this is not the time for such resistance,” he went on, as if she hadn't spoken. “We must act to survive. You know this. Even if only psychologically, shelter is of crucial importance to us both. Now, I will give orders and I expect to be obeyed.”

“You seem to think you've got me at your mercy. Suppose I disappoint your expectations?”

“Then I will leave you here and go and establish my camp elsewhere. You will not be welcome there.”

She knew he wouldn't. He couldn't! But his black eyes held an expression she didn't trust. As if he
wanted
her to give him the excuse to abandon her.

“I must have been totally deluded to imagine you loved me!” she said bitterly, capitulating.

“But self-delusion is almost a way of life with you,” Bari replied softly.

 

The next few days were sheer, unrelieved hell. Bari was a slave driver. On a diet of baked turtles' eggs, raw dates, and some berries that hardly deserved the name, he expected her to hew trees, haul branches, salvage the
blackened remains of a tragic little village, and act as general dogsbody in his grandiose building scheme.

Her nails became unbelievably grimed and filthy, her legs and arms scratched and bruised and streaked with black that wouldn't wash off, the skin of her face so dry and sunburned she was sure it would never recover its tone, her nose peeling, her hair matted so she couldn't even get her fingers through it. And as for her palms and soles—how could blisters get blisters?

She looked like a total bag lady, and she knew it. The orange “moccasins” she had been forced to make for herself, cutting pieces from the leftover bits of the rubber-and-canvas canopy of the raft and painstakingly stitching them together with the fishing line, were ugly and uncomfortable. Also scant protection from snakes, the thought of which terrified her. On her head and over her fading and greying teddy, she wore a succession of soiled, stained scarves and sarongs that offered her insufficient protection from the sun, especially on a breezy day, got filthy the moment she put a fresh one on, and mostly got in her way when she was doing the menial, degrading work that Bari constantly assigned her as her share of their survival task. Her hips and abdomen and breasts were now tanned with the pattern of the lace on her teddy, which she scrubbed and put on again every day.

Bari, naturally, had a change of clothes. The emergency grab bag from the plane had contained not only a lighter, an all-purpose Leatherman tool, and a large spool of plastic tape, all of which were proving seriously useful, but also a pair of denim shorts.

That was all, just shorts. But there were days when Noor would have paid any price for the luxury of a zipper closing.

Worst was the lack of anything approaching civi
lized toilet facilities, even paper, and although Bari had promised to build something when the shelter was closer to complete, it seemed a long time coming.

It was the first time in her adult life that Noor had spent even twenty-four hours without liberal applications of soap, shampoo, deodorant and perfume, never mind toilet tissue.

The only relief she had from this life of horrors was a toothbrush and miniature tube of toothpaste, also from the grab bag. Since there was only one, they shared it, and the toothpaste was severely rationed, but the daily taste of civilization was all that stood between Noor and an irredeemably primitive existence. Some days she almost wept from sheer gratitude as she brushed her teeth.

They rested in the hottest part of the afternoon, because not even Bari could force anyone to work in such crippling heat. But even so, Noor didn't rest. Every day, no matter how exhausted she was, she made the trek up the mountain—and it seemed more and more like a real mountain with each trip—to take a freshwater shower in the magical little waterfall. It always soothed her to be in such a peaceful place. But it was impossible to get really clean, and by the time she had returned to the campsite she was pouring with sweat again.

In the catalogue of woes of this castaway existence, Noor found that the worst came at night. Not only was sleeping on the sand uncomfortable, not only was she often too cold to sleep, but when she did sleep she would be startled awake by the strange noises. After what had happened at the waterfall, they slept apart. Nights, she learned, were cool, and Noor had nothing to put on except the thin teddy and her homemade sarongs.