Desert Man

by Barbara Faith

  Dinner was over. The two men lingered at the table over coffee and cigarettes. Jasmine and Josie stood at one end of the room beneath a colorful tapestry.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jasmine indicated the men on horseback, white robes billowing out behind them, rifles raised, their mouths open in a shouted war cry.

  “Beautiful and different.” Josie brushed a loose strand of hair back over her ear. “What is it like in the desert?” she asked.

  “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever known, a kind of life that is hard too explain. My lord Rashid lives in a primitive kind of luxury. There are velvet hangings in his tent, but the floor is of sand. The days are hot and dry and you hate them, but the nights...” She sighed. “The desert nights are made for love. When the moon is full and a breeze drifts over the dunes and the air is sweet with the smell of the desert, you forget the heat of the day. And you think there is no place on earth as beautiful as this place.”

  “If you’re with the right man?”

  Jasmine laughed. “Of course,” she said. “And Rashid is the right man for me.” Her laughter faded and she looked over to where the two men were deep in discussion. “But I wonder sometimes if I am the right woman for him. I’m so afraid that one day he’ll leave me. When he does there will be nothing left for me. It will be finished.”

  “You love him so much?”

  “So much and more. I have lived with him in a palace and in a tent. I would go anywhere with him. I would do anything to be with him.” Her gaze met Josie’s. “That is the way it is when you love a man, my dear. He becomes your life, he is all that matters.”

  When you love a man. Had she ever felt for a man what Jasmine felt for Kumar’s father? What would it be like to love with that kind of intensity? That kind of passion?

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to love like that. She didn’t know if she was capable of giving all that she was, her heart and all of her passion to a man.

  She looked at Kumar, standing beside his father. He was so tall, so handsome in his white robe. And yes, so foreign compared to anyone else she had ever known. Drawn by an invisible bond, he turned and looked at her. For a moment it seemed there was no one else in the room. His eyes met hers as though he knew what she had been thinking, as though he could look into her very soul.

  I love him. The thought, like a current of electricity, emptied her of all other emotion. I love him.

  But how could she? Could love exist when people were so different? It hadn’t worked for Jenny and Aiden; it wouldn’t work for her and Kumar. And yet... And yet...

  Jasmine touched her arm. “You’ve suddenly gone pale,” she said. “What is it? Are you ill?”

  “No, I... I’m a little tired, that’s all. Will you excuse me? Please tell Kumar’s father and...and Kumar that I’m going to rest now.”

  “I will tell them.” Cool fingers encircled Josie’s wrist. “I do not know what has passed between you and Kumar,” she said softly. “But I will tell you that love is not something to be fearful of. It is to be embraced. To give yourself to the man you love is not to lose yourself, rather it is to find the very core of your being.” She smiled gently. “To love, Josie, is to know the reason why you exist, for love is everything.”

  Josie looked into the wide, dark eyes. “Is that the way you love Rashid?”

  “Yes, that is the way I love him.”

  “I don’t think I can love that way.”

  “I think you already do.” Jasmine released her. “Go now and rest,” she said. “I will tell the men you were tired. We will speak again tomorrow, if you like.”

  Josie stared at her a moment longer before she turned and left the room.

  Fatima waited for her outside her door. “I won’t need you tonight,” Josie said. “I’m tired. I want to be alone.”

  She went in and closed her door before the other woman could protest. Inside she slipped the blue caftan over her head and threw it on a chair.

  Once in the shower she closed her eyes and let the water wash over her. Kumar was leaving. He was going into the desert. All right. All right. It was time for her to go home, back to the States and after that to the promised job in Paris. Away from here, away from him.

  Jasmine was a hopeless romantic, a woman of a different culture who was content to follow a man wherever he led, even if that man was not her husband.

  But Josie wasn’t an Arabian woman, she was an American. Independent. Able to take care of herself. She didn’t need a man, and she was, by God, going to Paris. And damn it to hell, the tears were only because she’d gotten soap in her eyes.

  When at last she came out of the shower she took a jar of scented lotion from one of the bathroom shelves. She creamed her legs and her arms and put on one of the satin nightgowns Kumar had bought for her.

  Standing in front of the mirror she unpinned her hair and brushed it. Pretend time is almost over, she thought. Kumar was going away and she was going home.

  When she came out of the bathroom she went to stand before the French doors. Out there beyond the mountains lay the desert, dark, mysterious and frightening. Would Kumar be in danger there? Were the tribes he was supposed to unite dangerous? So dangerous his father hadn’t been able to control them. Was that why he was sending Kumar in his place?

  Someone knocked at the door and she turned back from the French doors, a little annoyed because she’d told Fatima that she was tired and wanted to be alone.

  When she opened the door it wasn’t Fatima who stood there, but Kumar.

  “You left without saying good-night,” he said.

  “I told Jasmine to tell you and your father that I was tired.”

  “Are you all right? You’re not ill?”

  “No, I...” Suddenly aware that she was wearing only the nightgown with nothing over it, Josie took a step back into the room. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I’m about to go to bed.”

  “I’ll only keep you a moment. May I come in?” Before she could object, Kumar came into the room and closed the door behind him. “Why did you leave so suddenly?” he asked. “Did Jasmine say something to upset you?”

  “No, of course not. I like her.”

  Kumar smiled. “Yes, so do I. She has brought much happiness to my father, and for that I’m grateful.” He took a step closer. “You’re very beautiful tonight, Josie.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Kumar,” she said. “I’m not dressed.”

  The satin gown clung to her slender form. It cupped the rise of her breasts and outlined the curve of her hips and her legs. She was a goddess, so deliciously feminine he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  She took a step backward. “You’re going into the desert,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll go back to America.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Come with me to the desert, Josie.”

  “Come with you?” She stared at him. “That...that’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible.” He smiled, then his face sobered. “I need you, Josie. I want you.”

  She held her hands up in front of her, her palms toward him as if to keep him away. But he took her hands and drew her toward him.

  He put his arms around her. Her skin was smooth and scented. With a strangled cry he splayed his hands through her hair and kissed her with hunger and with need.

  Slowly, slowly, her lips parted under his. Her mouth was cool and fresh and sweet. Oh, so sweet. He couldn’t get enough of her. He tasted her lips, suckled and licked them. He bit the corners of her mouth and took her lower lip between his teeth. Like a man dying of thirst he ran his tongue over it, suckling, sipping of her sweetness.

  He kissed her closed eyes. He breathed in the scent of her hair. His body hardened with passion and with need.

  “Please,” she whispered. But he didn’t listen.

  Her skin was silky soft, softer than the satin gown. He cupped her breasts and felt her warmth beneath his f
ingertips. He rubbed his thumbs across the turgid peaks and when she moaned he took the moan into his mouth. And thought he would go mad if he could not have her.

  She was helpless in his arms, overcome by his kisses, lost in the feel of the hands that caressed her through her satin gown. Her skin heated, she trembled and when she swayed toward him he brought her closer, so close that through his robe she could feel his tumescence pressing hard against her.

  “Make love with me,” he whispered against her lips. “I need you, Josie. I need you so.”

  “I...I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No.” She could scarcely breath. “I don’t know...I can’t think. When you touch me like this...when you kiss me like this, I can’t think.”

  “Then, don’t.” He cupped her face between his hands. “Only feel, Josie. Only feel.” He drank from her lips. “You want this as much as I do, my sweet laeela, my sweet girl. Let me make love to you. Let me carry you to bed and show you how much I hunger for you. How much I care.”

  He swept her up in his arms, and with his mouth against hers to smother her protests, he carried her to the bed.

  “No,” she said, and struggled to free herself. “Please, don’t.”

  He laid her down. He lay beside her. He took her mouth and kissed her with all of his pent-up longing, with all of his desire.

  He urged her closer, so that the whole delectable length of her was against him. The satin was smooth beneath his hands. Her breasts were soft. The tender peaks strained against her gown, waiting for his touch.

  With a cry he slipped the gown over her shoulders. Her body was even more beautiful than he had imagined. Her skin was like creamy ivory touched with the delicate shade of a rose. The tips of her breasts were small, poised, waiting.

  He flicked his tongue over one and she cried out. He took it between his teeth to taste and to tease and she writhed against him. And though she tried to get away, he held her there while he kissed her breast and pressed her close, closer.

  Aroused as she never had been before, her heart beat so hard she thought for a moment she was going to faint. This was heaven; this was hell. She never wanted it to stop; she knew she had to stop.

  With the last of her waning strength, Josie wrenched free.

  “No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I don’t want...” She couldn’t go on, couldn’t find the words to tell him that she couldn’t do this.

  He rolled away from her, onto his back, hands clenched to his sides, aching with the need to have her, tempted as he had never been tempted before to take her by force. He could. Could take her, make her. No. Damn it, no. He couldn’t do that. Not to her. Never to her, unless she wanted him the way he wanted her.

  They didn’t speak or touch. At last he turned toward her again, and raising himself on one elbow, looked down at her. Her hair was disheveled, her face was flushed. She was trembling, vulnerable.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know this is terrible. I know it’s unfair. But—”

  “But you don’t want me.” He rolled away from her and got up. “I’m sorry I forced myself on you. It won’t happen again. The day after tomorrow I’ll be gone and you’ll be rid of me.”

  He went to the door, but there he turned. “My father will make your travel arrangements as soon as things cool down here. Until then, of course, my home is yours.”

  He opened the door. “It could have been good between us,” he said.

  Then he was gone and Josie was alone.

  With a cry she buried her face in the pillow and cried as if her heart had been broken.

  As indeed it had.

  Chapter 12

  Josie slept very little that night. When she did, it was to dream of Kumar. He rode with the men in the tapestry...in a dream so real she could smell the sweat of the horses, hear the pounding of their hooves, and the terrible cry of the warriors as they rode headlong into battle, rifles raised above their heads, robes billowing out behind them. Kumar in front, leading them on into danger they could not see but that she knew was there.

  She tried to cry out to warn him, but her voice was like the mewling of a kitten, and she awoke sitting straight up in bed, her heart beating as hard as the horses’ hooves that had pounded over the desert sand.

  She slept again, to dream again... She was in a tent, lying on soft deep-piled pillows. Her body felt light, yielding, yearning...

  He stroked her with gentle hands and raised his body over hers. Moonlight turned his skin to gold. She stroked his naked shoulders... And awoke trembling, heated.

  With a moan she pressed her fingers to lips she had only imagined he had kissed, to breasts that tingled from his imagined touch. And wept because it had only been a dream.

  “When you love a man, he is a part of you,” Jasmine had said. “He is your life, your love.”

  With her face turned into the pillow, Josie tried to blot out of her mind the way Kumar had looked when he’d said, “You don’t want me.”

  Not want him? Dear God, her body cried out for him. Even as that sensible part of her brain whispered, “He’s too different. You musn’t love him. In the end, it would only hurt both of you.”

  But she could not blot out the image of him. Or the way she had felt when they had lain together, locked in each other’s arms.

  When morning came she got up and dressed and took her suitcase from the closet. Kumar had had her clothes brought from the house where she had lived for so short a time. Those were the only things she would take. The colorful caftans, the velvet slippers, the silky lingerie and the nighties she would leave behind.

  She stayed in her room all that day. Tomorrow Kumar would leave, and though she longed to see him she would not. They had said all there was to say.

  * * *

  He spent most of the day with his father. Together they went over what had happened in the capital while Rashid had been gone, and discussed which of the men in the cabinet Rashid could trust.

  The heads of the army and of the air force, as well as the captain of police were called in and together they went over plans and debated strategies on how best to repel an invasion from neighboring Azrou Jadida.

  When finally the other men left, Rashid brought Kumar up-to-date on the warring desert tribes.

  “Sheikh Ben Fatah is the one we have to worry about,” he said. “He has many friends in Azrou Jadida and it would be in his best interests to sell our oil to them. Amin Elmusa is on the fence. He likes doing business with the United States and Europe, but offers of more money from Azrou Jadida have tempted him. He must be persuaded to fight with us. So must Sheikh Abdur Khan. He’s a wily devil, so be careful of him.

  “You’ll be able to count on Jasmine’s father. Youssef Abedi is a good man. You will stay with him while you’re in the desert.”

  The discussion went on far into the afternoon. When at last Rashid pushed his chair back, he said, “I know that because you are a good Muslim you don’t drink, Kumar. But if you did happen to have a drop of scotch, purely for medicinal purposes you understand, it would be most appreciated.”

  “That’s the only reason I keep it, Father. Certainly I can see you’re in need of something after such a long day. As I am.”

  He took a bottle out of one of the carved chests, and when he had poured an ample amount of the whiskey into two glasses, he handed one to Rashid.

  “Salam alekom,” he said.

  “And upon you, peace,” Rashid responded.

  They touched their glasses. “Tell me about the American woman,” Rashid said.

  Kumar set his glass on the table in front of him. “What would you like to know?”

  “Are you sleeping with her?”

  Kumar’s mouth tightened. “No, I’m not.”

  “Why not?” Rashid swirled the whiskey around in his glass. “She’s a beautiful woman, Kumar. I’ve seen the way the two of you look at each other and I know the attraction between you is strong. Why do you hesitate?”

&n
bsp; “East doesn’t always meet West, Father. Josie doesn’t like Middle Eastern men.”

  “What?” Rashid looked startled. “What are you saying?”

  “She worked in Il Hamaan for a while and hated it. I gather from what she’s said that she was badly treated there. Also her best friend was married to a man from Jahan. The Jahanian brutalized her friend, and when they divorced he stole their son and took the child back to Jahan.”

  Kumar took a long swallow of his drink and in a voice filled with bitterness said, “She wants no part of me, Father. In her opinion all Middle Eastern men are alike.”

  Rashid’s face darkened with anger. “It’s up to you to show her otherwise. Tie her on a camel and take her into the desert with you. Make love to her six times a day and keep her there until she learns how to behave.”

  Kumar shook his head and with the barest suggestion of a smile said, “But don’t you see that if I did what you suggest I would be confirming everything she thinks about us?”

  “Maybe so,” Rashid growled. “But that’s exactly what your Bedouin grandfather would have done. He’d have taken her whether she wanted to go or not.” He tapped Kumar’s knee. “Remember, my son, you, too, are Bedouin.”

  “But I’m not my grandfather,” Kumar said quietly. “Neither are you, Father. I know how gentle and kind you were to my mother, so don’t tell me that you’d ever force yourself on a woman—because I know you would not.”

  “Maybe the American needs a little force to let her know what it is she really wants.” He turned his piercing gaze on his son. “You’re not in love with her, are you?”

  It was a moment before Kumar answered. “No,” he said, forcing a laugh. “I’m in lust. That’s all.”

  But was it? He had lusted after women before, but surely he had felt for none of them what he felt for Josie. He wanted her, yes. But was there more to it than that? What was there about her that stirred his blood as no woman ever had?

  It did no good to think of that now. It was over between them. Josie would go back to her own country and he would go into the desert with his people. They needed him. That’s what mattered now.

  When his father left, Kumar called for Saoud. “Tomorrow I leave for the desert,” he said.