by Sawyer Caine
“Damn it!” I cursed under my breath as I reached up and took it from around my neck. I ran my fingers over the braid, the little carving, then I put it safely in my overnight bag. When I got back to Heathwood, I would put it and everything they had given us into the safe where the idol had stayed. I wanted nothing in plain sight that would call back Nekai’s memory for me. If I had any hope whatsoever of healing and moving on from this, that was how it had to be.
I could hear Frederick moving about in the bathroom, and I wanted to make that night special for him. I popped the cork on the bottle of wine and poured us each a glass, then took the glasses over to the bed and set them down on the bedside table. I sat down and removed my boots and then stood again to rid myself of my breeches. I’d bathed that morning at Tucupita, and it would have to do for now. Frederick was coming into the room. I waited for him, naked beneath the thick, soft comforters of a real bed in a nice hotel. It seemed almost sinful to be so comfortable after the time spent in the jungle sleeping on the cots or on the floor of a hut. I tried to force those thoughts from my mind. I would not linger over them a moment more.
As my love opened the door to enter the room, he paused and raised his hand to his forehead, then coughed uncontrollably. I sat up and stared at him with concern.
“Frederick, love, are you all right?” I asked.
After a moment, he shook his head to clear it then smiled at me, his beautiful green eyes catching the light from the candles I’d lit earlier.
“Yes, Alfred, I just got overcome by all the steam. What’s this?” he asked, noticing the glasses of wine.
“I thought we might celebrate our return to civilized parts,” I answered, smiling up at him as he walked toward me.
When he came closer, I reached up and grabbed him by the sleeve of his robe, pulling him down into the bed with me and reaching over to hand him a glass of wine. He snuggled against me, discovering my state of undress as he did so.
“Why, Alfred, you seem to have lost your clothes. Did you leave them on the plane?” he teased.
“No, love, they are all over the floor,” I gestured.
He sat up against the headboard of the bed and sipped his wine thoughtfully. I recognized the look on his face as his more serious expression, and I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t want to talk just yet. I couldn’t take it. I needed some time to let the grief heal before I could face what Frederick would need to say, but perhaps it might be better to just get it all out now and have it done before we reached Heathwood. He would make that decision for us.
“Alfred, I have tried to tell myself that I didn’t care how you felt about Nekai and to a certain extent, that is true but… I know you never meant to hurt me by your infatuation with him. At first I thought it was just a sexual desire you were feeling for him, wanting his innocence, driven by his sensuality, but I know now, watching you say goodbye to him, that it was so much more than that. I was able to take it up to that last day. It broke my heart to see you so sad, and I almost told you to stay with him. You can’t tell me you aren’t grieving for him even now. I can see the sadness in your eyes, Alfred. I know you propose to put it all behind you and maybe you can, but you must realize that things have changed between us. I will always love you, and I know that you still love me, but that boyish innocence we had… it’s gone, and it will never be back.”
I sighed and slid my hand along his arm where it rested beside mine. “Do you wish to be free of me, Frederick?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“Never, my love, never think it. But I will tell you this. I allowed you to wallow in your pleasure with him, but I will never let another man touch you for so long as I live without one hell of a fight. Nekai was different. I don’t for the love of me know why he was, but he was. I couldn’t hurt him anymore than I could be angry with you, but I won’t again stand for such blatant disregard for our love and my heart. I love you, Alfred. If you pine for him, I understand it. But promise me that you will never ever touch another man as long as I live.”
“I swear it, love!” I cried and meant every word. He reached for my wine glass and set it, along with his, on the bedside table.
“If you love me, then love me, Alfred,” he whispered with rough urgency against my mouth as he kissed me hard and with meaning.
I allowed him to devour my mouth and gave way to the shaking tears that had been trying to get free. He kissed them away and hushed me with his soft caresses. “I’m here for you, my darling,” he said. “Make use of me as you would have done to him if I’d let you, if you’d been able to.”
I grabbed Frederick and rolled him beneath me, tearing at his robe and forcing his legs apart with mine. I was a man possessed, and I had to have him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t matter to me or that he counted for nothing. Never that! I simply had to have him, desired him too much. I thought that if I could take him hard and with the abandon I felt, perhaps we would be all right. If only… if only… I pushed those painful thoughts aside and reached for my overnight bag and the bottle of oil within it.
When my fingers brushed over the silky braid of Nekai’s hair, I bit down on my cry of despair and pushed it aside seeking the small vial of oil. Finding it at last, I opened it and poured a goodly amount into the palm of my hand. I coated my ever eager cock with it, then pressed two fingers into my love to ready him for the intrusion. His eyes went wide with the invasion, then his mouth opened, and his head drifted back against the pillows, his beautiful face flushing with the arousal he felt as my fingers discovered his pleasure. He bucked up against me, and I had to restrain him with my free hand lest he reach his pinnacle too quickly. I moved to lie over him and reached for his legs, wrapping them around my waist. He was quick to comply and pulled at me with them as I sank into that hot, tight depth that was my lover.
“God, so good to me, so good… I breathed against his neck as I hovered over him, keeping my wall up against the pain, against the misery and rolling in the molten desire that swept over me as I took him. He was letting me ride him hard and roughly as he’d never before wanted. I watched his face as he clung to me, desiring it, desiring me. So beautiful, so perfect, this saint of a man who lay beneath me; this angel sent to save my wretched and sinful soul. I am a devil, and he deserves better than me. I knew it, and yet he didn’t.
Over and over I thrust into him, and he moved upward to meet those thrusts, his eyes glazed over with lust, his mouth open and gasping, moaning his pleasure. “So beautiful… so beautiful… I am not worthy of you, my love…” I cried.
“Alfred,” he whispered. I felt him coming around me, milking my orgasm from me almost against my will as I’d wanted the pleasure to go on and on. Only with him, only with him did I know this intensity of love. I’d never gone that far with Nekai. I’d wanted to, but I’d not and only Frederick had that claim on me, on my heart.
He stroked my hair as we lay together. Tomorrow night we would sleep in my bed at Heathwood. I could begin anew where my life had left off. I could try and put together the pieces of my shattered existence and begin again. He was gone beyond my reach, that seductively innocent temptation. He was safe from me and I from him. I could not change his life, and he could not change mine. I snuggled closer to Frederick and kept repeating those words over and over until sleep stole over me, and I remembered nothing more save the pair of dark eyes that watched me from the lush jungle and the long, dark hair that I could still feel twining through my fingers as I drifted away into restless dreams.
Chapter Twenty
I sat in the rose garden watching the rising sun and sipping my tea. Frederick and I had been home for almost three months. It seemed surreal at times to be sitting there, the proper English gentleman, when I had so recently been in the wilds of the Amazon. I sighed and pushed those trepid thoughts away. It did no good to anyone to dwell on the past. I had nothing but the future before me, and I had beside me, the one true love of my life.
The first week I had been home had passed by so quickly. My young
er brother Fritz and his wife Imogene, along with their lovely daughter Annalise, had come to visit us. They had remained for several days, looking at the curious things we’d brought back with us and admiring the souvenirs of our journey while we told them the tale of it over and over. Of course, I kept back the parts of the trip that were more personal to me. I found that I could barely speak of Nekai at all without becoming emotional and, therefore, I chose to avoid that topic, allowing Frederick to take up the narrative when necessary.
I had begun to gradually drift away into myself, giving over the task of entertaining to Frederick. He was a natural at keeping guests happy. I, on the other hand, wanted silence and seclusion. Taking out the gifts that the natives had given us to show them to Fritz and his family had reopened the wounds that never really closed.
I was alone that morning, completely alone at Heathwood. Frederick’s father had come to London on business, and Frederick had gone by motorcar with Charles as his driver to meet his father for luncheon. I had declined the invitation to join him. It had been over a month since I’d sent a letter to Nekai via the Capuchin monastery at Tucupita. I had become nearly desperate to hear from Nekana. Even a small, curt note to tell me that they had received my correspondence would have sufficed. Days passed and nothing came for me.
That morning as I sat soaking up the sunshine and waiting on Frederick to return to me, I was consumed by a kind of melancholy. What if Nekai had already forgotten me? Suppose he had chosen to go on with his life as though I had never existed in it? I knew that he would be better for it if he did so, but I knew also that I would persist in sending correspondence until I got at least some response. The voice of Rosemarie calling my name got my attention, and I sat my cup of tea aside and cleared my throat.
“Here, young lady,” I called to her as she searched among the roses and flowering bushes of my mother’s garden for me.
“Ah, Lord Heathwood, you hide yourself away so well. I have something for you, good sir. A package it is,” she cried as she came forward and placed into my hands a small box wrapped in brown paper. The return address was the monastery at Tucupita.
I stood up so quickly that I nearly upset her. “Rosemarie, would you be so kind as to take my cup and saucer inside for me, please, and bring me some fresh tea would you dear?”
“Yes, my Lord, of course I will!” she called enthusiastically after my retreating form.
I needed the solitude of my room to open the package. I hoped and prayed that it wasn’t simply my own letter being returned to me. I’d sent a similar box to Nekana and Nekai. I’d placed a carefully sealed tin of candy sticks and a box of small metal toys that could be worked by the turning of a dial on their side into a little crate and sent those along with my letter. For Nekana, I’d included a bottle of Chanel perfume.
I tore into the package with abandon, tossing the wrapper aside and staring at the box as if it were a snake about to strike me. I took my pocket knife and slit the wax seal, opening the top of the box. Inside, the contents were hidden by a piece of soft leather that had been draped carefully over all. I lifted it and set it aside. On top was a folded piece of parchment paper. I took it up into my hands and opened it.
Alfred
Nekai was so pleased to get your package. I must regret to inform you, however, that he made himself very sick eating all of the candy sticks in one day. The boy really has no sense of restraint at all, as I’m sure you know very well. He has been having great fun playing with the toys you sent to him. They amaze the smaller children so much that they now view him in a kind of idolatrous manner. I’m sure that was your intent, wasn’t it?
I must thank you for the gift of fine perfume. I will be taking it with me to Caracas when I return to university in the fall. Don’t despair for correspondence, however. I have been teaching Nekai to speak and write English, and I think that by then, he will have a good enough grasp on it that he will be able to write you rudimentary letters. The monks at Tucupita have offered to translate your letters for him and to help him write back to you when I am away. I wanted to teach him to speak with you so that he could have a sense of privacy with the things he wished to say. I know that the two of you would benefit from such communication. There is only so much that one can say on matters of the heart when one is forced to speak those words through another person.
I hope this letter finds you and Frederick well and in good spirits. To answer your question, yes, Nekai did grieve for quite some time, but to his credit, he kept it mostly to himself. He is better now. You know the young, Alfred, their minds shift quickly from one thing to another. Father has begun to look among the young women for a suitable wife for him. I have given my advice on the subject. I think that my brother deserves only the best and I hope my father takes my advice to heart when he chooses. Beauty is only skin deep, and I would choose a girl that will honor him and be true to him, support him in his work and duties, love him in the darkness when the day is done, but the decision is not mine, it is our father’s.
I will close now and leave you with this, I will be able to write one more letter before I leave but remember, the monks will most likely be reading anything further that you send, so keep that in mind when you put pen to paper and say nothing that will scandalize Nekai or I will hunt you down and castrate you! He wishes me to tell you that he misses you and Frederick. He also wants me to brag that he won all the races at our tribe’s annual harvest celebration. He was quite proud of himself. I must admit, I was proud of him too. He is the most handsome and strongest of all the boys though I may be impartial in my judgment. He grows taller and bigger every day. If he doesn’t slow soon, father will needs must put a rock on his head! Be well and may God bless you and yours.
The letter was signed by Nekana, and beneath her flowing signature was a scratched impression of Nekai’s name. She was truly teaching him how to read and write English. I felt hope swell in my chest that perhaps someday he and I could communicate together without a third party. That would have been the best gift that anyone could ever have given me. I sat the letter aside and looked back into the box. Under the letter was a small white leather pouch decorated with lovely bead work. It was a snuff pouch. I smiled and tucked it away into the pocket of my shirt. Beneath it, wrapped in soft leather, was a gift for Frederick, a dried Sobralia orchid, this one a deep blue. I laid it aside for him. On the very bottom, wrapped in a layer of packing paper was something that I had not been expecting or prepared to see.
My hands shook violently when I was faced with the vision before me. It was a small black and white photograph that had been taken in front of the monastery. The picture was Nekai and Nekana standing together before the large double doors carved with scenes from the Bible. She had her arm around him and she smiled. He towered over her, his head tilted toward her, a small, almost sad smile playing on his handsome face. The picture was dated to nearly a month earlier. I crushed it to my chest and struggled to breathe. Was it not enough that I had, locked within the very vault that had held the cursed idol, a lock of his hair, braided to hold the bear he had carved for me? I now had his image before me to stare at. Him frozen in the perfection of his youth, the visage of a jungle prince in black and white, forever there for me to look at, for me to worship.
I allowed myself to study his image for quite some time, then I got up and put the picture in the vault with the necklace. I left the letter and the orchid on the table for Frederick to see, and I stepped out onto the balcony to smoke. I would send back to them a letter, of course, and more candy for Nekai. I would also send them a picture of Frederick and me. I would have Charles take one of us in front of Heathwood, perhaps posing on the great front steps that led up to the entryway. Yes, that would be a good one to send them. I wanted Nekai to see that I was happy. It might help him to move on, or mayhap it was more for me, I knew not.
That evening, when I was expecting Frederick home, Rosemarie informed me that I had a call. I asked her to put it to my study. Locking myself i
n, I lifted the receiver and said hello.
“Alfred, love, my father is staying at the Savoy hotel and he is asking that I remain here with him tonight since he hasn’t seen me for so long. My mother and sisters will be joining us tomorrow. I would dearly love to see them all, Alfred. Love, will it be alright with you if I stay in London for a few days with my family? You can come and join us of course if you like,” he offered.
“No, Frederick, you stay and enjoy them. You hardly ever see them. Take all the time you need. Just spare me a moment of your day at a convenient point to call and let me know how you are. How long will your family be in town? Would you like to bring them out to Heathwood?” I asked.
“Oh, for only a week, Alfred, and no, I don’t think that mother will want to leave the hotel. She rather enjoys the city life, I think. Will you be all right without me, love?”
“Yes, Frederick, I will be fine. Would you do something for me, love?” I asked.
“Oh, of course, what would you like me to do?”
“Fetch some film for Charles’s camera while you are there. I want him to take some shots of us in front of Heathwood. Nekana sent a letter with a fine picture of her and her brother in front of the monastery. I thought they would like to have a shot of us as well.”
