by Lily Harlem
“This is the clinical room. The supplies you brought yesterday were all put in here from Salim’s Jeep.”
“Great.” Leo stepped in. It was a far cry from what he was used to but there was at least a sink, a wonky refrigerator and a window with metal bars on the outside.
“We do our best to keep it clean and secure.” Sister Afua brushed away a speck of dust from a white counter top.
“It seems perfectly functional,” Leo said, smiling. “May I?” He nodded at the overhead cupboards.
“Please, yes.”
He opened the door and saw the supplies he’d brought—bandages, dressings, sterile instruments, suture kits and a huge box of condoms but very little else. The next shelf contained the intravenous fluids he’d transported and boxes of administration sets. He’d have to be sparing with them. It was clear the supplies had been next to nothing before his provisions had arrived.
He shut the door. “And the drugs?”
“In here.” Sister Afua unlocked another cupboard.
Again Leo saw only what he’d brought. There was nothing extra other than a few boxes of antibiotics and some antiseptic wipes. “It’s good to see a full cupboard,” he said. “And we’ll keep ordering more. How many people are we serving here?”
“About two hundred, give or take.”
“And children?”
“About fifty-five.”
“Yes, that’s good. That’s what was allowed for with the vaccinations.”
“The mothers are very keen for their children to be vaccinated. It will be good to get that job done soon.”
“While the vaccinations are still healthy.”
“Yes, and…”
“What?” Leo looked quizzically at Sister Afua. A frown had appeared between her eyebrows. “Before what?” he asked.
“We get visits, at night sometimes, from… I suppose you would say pirates, who take food and medicine.”
“What?”
“Bad men.” She turned down her mouth and her eyes widened. “They are brave. They have a gun. They take what they want, like animals and grain.” She clasped her hands. “The leader is Namrin. He is evil and daring. He would kill us if we tried to stop him.”
Leo suppressed a shudder. Sure, he was in a dangerous place, he got that, but it wasn’t nice to know an armed pirate called Namrin rode into the village in the middle of the night to ransack the supplies.
“Is there nothing you can do to stop him?”
Sister Afua shook her head. “No. We had a warrior who tried to, many moons ago, but he was captured and taken away. Gone. No one has tried since. We give him and his men what they want and hope they leave us in peace.”
“This is terrible.” Leo wondered if Medics On Hand could provide them with security. He had been given a handgun—standard procedure, he’d been told—but he had no idea how to fire it other than the five minute explanation they’d given him when he’d signed for it.
“It is terrible, yes.” She nodded at the cupboards. “He came two weeks ago. Since then we’ve had no analgesia and a much-reduced storage of grain.”
“And how often does this Namrin visit?” Leo was struggling to keep the anger from his voice because being irate wouldn’t do any good.
Sister Afua relocked the cupboard. “We can never tell. Sometimes we go a long time without seeing him. Other times he’s here twice in one moon.”
Leo followed her out of the clinical room. Frustration boiled within him. It wasn’t fair that charity-donated medical supplies along with food for hungry people was just taken. Where was the justice in that? Robbing the poor and making them poorer. The world didn’t make sense.
“Here. This is your key for the clinical room.” Sister Afua handed him a small steel key. “Keep it with you at all times.”
“I will.”
“Now this way to our operating theater, though I am afraid it will not be to the standard you are used to.”
The next room they came to Leo deduced was at the far end of the small hospital.
Sister Afua moved aside so Leo could step in.
He tried not to appear shocked. The only thing that made him think it could ever be an operating room was that it had a vague antiseptic smell, but not much, barely there and probably not even noticeable to most people’s noses. There was a bed in the middle—not even an operating table, just a bed. No evidence of any kind of anesthetic machine, only a bottle of Entonox in the corner. A stainless steel trolley sat next to the bed, shiny and catching a ray of bright sunlight that came through the window. He spotted a foot-operated suction machine—something he hadn’t seen for years—and a small, locked cupboard with ‘Emergency Drugs’ written roughly on it in Biro.
“What’s in there?” Leo asked.
“Not much, I’m afraid. Adrenaline, atropine, some local…lignocaine, I think it is.”
A noise at the open window caught Leo’s attention, just below the broken pane hanging off its frame.
“Ah, good, it is being fixed,” Sister Afua said. “That window is not good open all of the time.”
“I agree. You wouldn’t want dust and dirt blowing in here.” For all it was poor and pitifully stocked, the room was clean and Leo could tell that the sister and her team did their very best to maintain some standards of hygiene. “So what exactly do you do in here...?” Leo paused as loud hammering from outside interrupted him.
“You mean what operations?”
“Yes.”
A manual saw started up, noisy and rhythmic.
“Very few, you’ll be pleased to hear. It’s an emergency room or used for childbirth. The other hospital patients do not like to listen to a woman screaming all night so if they are birthing with us, we move them in here so it is not too loud on the ward. Though most deliver at home, they prefer it that way.”
The noise level cranked up again.
“Come,” Sister Afua said. “Let’s go and see how Malik is getting on.”
Leo beat down a small fizz of excitement at the mention of the handsome nurse’s name.
“Why? What is he doing?” Leo asked.
Sister Afua didn’t answer.
They walked outside, into the heat of the morning, and Leo blinked in the dazzling African sunlight. When his eyes had adjusted, he could see what Sister Afua was talking about, but damn, he wished she’d better prepared him.
Malik was the person making all the noise as he fixed the broken window. He wore only jeans and was hunched over a makeshift bench, sawing a fresh piece of wood to size.
He didn’t appear to notice his audience and Leo made the most of seeing every sleek muscle in his back bunching and stretching as he scraped the saw backward and forward. His spine was a deep, shiny gutter and his shoulders wide. It was the rich color of his skin that stole Leo’s breath the most. It shone and appeared smooth and warm—more than warm, hot. That was why it glistened.
“Malik,” Sister Afua called.
He took no notice.
Leo shifted from one foot to the other and let his gaze travel over Malik’s behind and down his long legs.
“Malik,” Sister Afua called louder.
Malik stopped and turned. His attention settled immediately on Leo.
Leo’s stomach clenched and his heart rate shot up. There was something about the knowing look in Malik’s eyes that made him nervous. It was as if all his emotions and lusty thoughts were available for reading. He bobbed his head, formally. “Good morning.”
“Doctor,” Malik said, licking his lips.
Damn. Leo struggled not to stare at his lush mouth—at the droplets of sweat that sat above his top lip and the perfect curve of his cupid’s bow.
“I am glad you are finally fixing that window,” Sister Afua said.
“It is unusually quiet today and since we have another set of hands…” Malik gestured toward Leo. “I thought it a good time to get it done.”
“And I am very glad for it. How long will you be?”
“About
an hour.”
“Very good. Doctor Leo and I will do the rounds now. He can get to know the patients and then tomorrow we will vaccinate.”
“You’re leaving it until tomorrow?” Malik sounded surprised.
“Yes, that is my decision.”
Malik nodded slowly. “I suppose the elders can inform the village at tonight’s Shabra meal. Make sure everyone turns up.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Leo sensed there was something left unsaid between them. Malik perhaps thinking that the sooner the vaccines were inside the villagers the better. What if Namrin came tonight and stole them? Sister Afua wanting to wait just one more day, be organized and ensure high uptake of the medication could be a disaster.
Deciding not to take sides at this early stage of his position, he tried to steer the conversation in another direction. “What’s a Shabra meal?”
“We will all eat together, around a fire, and ask the gods for rain and food for the next month,” Sister Afua said.
“I see.”
“If everyone is together, with you, our guest,” Malik added, “the gods will be kind. They will see that we are good hosts, that we care for you and each other, that we are worthy of their gesture.” He turned to the saw and plank of wood. As he moved, his back glistened as though covered in diamonds. A trickle of sweat crept from his temple to his cheek.
“Please, this way, Doctor.” Sister Afua was already heading back inside.
Leo allowed himself one last lingering look at the half-naked Malik then followed her. As he stepped into the relative cool of the hospital, he paused and glanced around the half-full ward.
What the hell was he thinking? He’d been admiring a nurse as if he were some kind of horny schoolboy. It was ridiculous. He was here to heal, to cure the sick, not behave like a lust-addled, hormone-ridden gay on a sexathon holiday.
Leo felt embarrassed for himself. Even though it was only his own psyche, he was still ashamed that his thoughts had been on running his hands over acres of perfect, black skin, of tasting drips of sweat and exploring the shape of plump lips with his own. He was supposed to be concerned about the health of the village, getting patients back to their homes and being prepared to take more should the need arise.
Yet here he was lusting over a man who no doubt had a wife and five children tucked up in a hut somewhere. What was worse was that Leo was pretty damn sure that Malik had spotted the admiration in his eyes, or even more damning, lust in his expression. He was lucky he hadn’t got a punch on the nose.
Leo set down his shoulders and followed Sister Afua to the first bed.
He took the file she offered him, pasted on a smile—his most professional one—and shook hands with the young woman who was heavily pregnant.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked, just the way he always had in London.
Chapter Four
The Shabra meal turned out to be an enjoyable experience and the food much better than the cool broth Leo had eaten alone the night before. There had also been tribal dancing—wild and fun and flamboyant—and Leo’s head had spun with the enthusiasm of it.
But now everyone had taken their seats again and with his stomach reasonably full, Leo sat with Salim and Sister Afua around the large fire. The flames flickered and flashed over everyone’s faces, the dry logs cracked and spat and several children were holding hands and skipping in a circle nearby. Salim had clearly bathed and changed his clothes and the rancid smell of yesterday had thankfully left him.
Leo pulled a light woolen blanket, a kanga Sister Afua had called it, around his shoulders. Although the fire he faced was warm, the chill of the night stole in from the plains and seeped over him.
There was a hum of conversation. People relaxed, holding tired babies and toddlers, and discussing the land, the rain, the animals. Most of the chatter was in English but often it slipped into a language Leo didn’t understand.
Suddenly the noise died away. A hush descended. It was as if the volume button on a radio had been turned down. The piercing sound of a hyena in the distance startled Leo but no one else took any notice of it.
All eyes turned left, so Leo followed suit.
An elderly gentleman with long gray hair and a wizened face stood. It took him several long moments to unfold his back and adjust his stick on the earth. Leo recognized him as one of the elders that he’d been introduced to at the start of the meal.
“My people,” the old man said. “I have news.” He held up one hand. His knuckles were gnarled and arthritic and he had an assortment of bangles on his wrist.
Leo glanced past the elder. Sitting just beyond an overturned tree stump was Malik. All evening Leo had known his whereabouts, even though he’d done his best not to keep track. He just couldn’t help but know where Malik was. It was as if he were some kind of magnet that Leo couldn’t resist.
Right now he was talking with a woman. Leo guessed it was Malik’s wife. She was about his age and very beautiful. She wore a turban, like the one Sister Afua favored, and her dress was deep green. An abundance of necklaces adorned her throat and Leo could imagine Malik carefully crafting them, his big fingers fiddling with beads and strips of leather as he lovingly made gifts for the woman in his life.
The flickering shadows flittered over the woman and Malik. Leo snatched a breath. Malik, once again, was looking straight at him.
Damn, he’d be labeled a freak for always staring his way. He was sure they all thought he was a bit freaky anyway with his pale skin.
He tried to tear his attention away but couldn’t. Malik’s steady gaze held him captive. There was something so beautiful about the way the firelight caressed his skin, and it was also magical how he almost melted into the darkness behind him.
“And so we thank our guest and thank the gods for bringing him here.”
Leo bumped back into the moment. The elder was talking about him. Everyone was staring at him.
“I, er yes. Thank you,” he said, dragging his gaze from Malik. “I’m thrilled to be here. And tomorrow we will be vaccinating, so if you could…” Shit. Leo didn’t know the details. He turned to Sister Afua. “Where do they have to go and what time?”
She frowned. “The hospital at nine o’clock. As our elder just said.”
Damn, he’d missed that. Too busy ogling a handsome man and his wife. “Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.”
He gave the crowd his concentration. “I’ll look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.” He held out his hands, smiled and hoped he didn’t seem quite the bumbling fool he felt.
The after-meal chatter came to an end and Leo spotted Malik wandering off with the woman he’d been sitting next to. A pang of longing tugged his heart and his groin. It had been so many months since he’d had a man in his bed—a hot man. A man who wanted to do filthy things to him and didn’t mind him doing dirty, delicious things in return.
“Goodnight,” Leo said to Salim and Sister Afua. “I’m going to turn in.”
“Yes, very wise.” Sister Afua nodded. “We have a busy day tomorrow. Lots of injections to administer.”
“It will be good to get it done. Prevention is much better than cure.”
Leo pulled the blanket a little tighter over his shoulders and headed toward the hospital. Around the side of the building it was quiet except for the cicadas, and the only light came from the full moon.
The air smelled of bonfires and reminded him of Guy Fawkes Night, but not quite. There was something else, something foreign, musky in the breeze. He guessed it was just his nose getting used to being on a new continent. All around him were acres of plains then the mountain rising into the distance.
As he walked toward his small room, a sudden noise and a flap skittered from the right and almost tripped him up.
“Ah, shit,” he said, dodging backward as a skinny chicken charged frantically past him. Another followed in hot pursuit. Obviously some kind of poultry war was going on.
His heart beat fast as he le
t himself into his room. He shut and locked the door then toed off his shoes. He lit a single candle on the bedside table and watched as a small lizard scooted out beneath the door.
He thought of Malik again, even though he tried not to. He wondered what he was doing right now. Did he have his head buried between his wife’s legs? Was he balls deep in her pussy, his buttocks tense and all the muscles in his back taut? Was her name spilling off those sultry lips of his as he kissed her full breasts?
Leo got up and went into his bathroom. He washed his hands and face then brushed his teeth.
Perhaps she was sucking Malik’s cock. Sliding her mouth over all the ridges on his shaft and playing with his balls at the same time. Leo couldn’t help but imagine the sounds a man as beautiful and powerful as Malik would make as he came. He’d roar, surely, like the lions out on the plains did. He’d love to see him let go, release the tight control that seemed to rule every move he made, every word he said.
Leo stripped then sat on the edge of the bed. His cock was hard and getting harder. A tingle attacked his bollocks and the strip of skin between them and his arsehole.
“Ah, fuck.” There was only one thing for it. If he didn’t relieve the pressure, he’d be in for an uncomfortable night—one full of lusty dreams that would no doubt end in him having to wank when he woke up anyway.
He shoved at his combats then dropped them on the end of the bed. He glanced at the window, checked the curtains were drawn tight then slipped out of his boxers.
The tip of his cock tapped just below his navel as he grabbed a wad of tissue from his travel bag. The ache, the need for more was dragging his abdominal muscles tight, as though a string was pulling from his balls to his arse and back round again.
He quickly settled the net around himself—he didn’t want insect distraction—and gripped his cock.
“Ah, yeah,” he muttered. He was rock-solid. Too many rampant thoughts had been blustering through his mind. His shaft was sensitive and greedy, his slit already held the first drip of moisture.
He flopped his knees open and dropped back on the pillow. He let out a sigh but it was a tense stutter as he massaged up to his glans and ringed his fingers around the tip.
