by Sunniva Dee
I erase my presumptions. Leave my slate blank to absorb what’s to come.
Raka throws her feet over the edge of the hammock and hops to the ground. The warriors stride forward, picking up speed when she bolts into the jungle. It can’t be safe in there, in the black night, I think—she should stay with the hammock, but then again I understand. I’d have run too.
She screams when two of them catch her, and the tallest flings her over his shoulder. He speaks to her in hushed tones, rapidly, rapidly, and I wish I understood their language.
The other clamps his hand over the back of her thigh, and this way they walk her back where she came from, straight to the hammock that swings and waits.
I count eight men. “There’re so many...”
“Yeah.” For all the times Luka has finished my thoughts and understood my dilemmas, I feel that he doesn’t understand tonight. How could he?
“You’ve probably done this, haven’t you?” I ask, disgust rising in me again.
“Been one of many guys to sleep with one woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course, but never without consent.”
“And that’s not consent,” I say, pointing at the hammock. Her feet are kicking as they try to lay her down.
“Isn’t it?”
“How can you ask that?”
“Because I can’t tell yet,” he says, squinting.
The eight warriors crowd her now. She’s crying, a whimpering sound that comes from her stomach, and I want to run forward, break my way through the men and hug her, rock her, tell her everything will be all right.
The head warrior, taller and elder than the others, hovers over her and holds her face still against the mesh. He sounds demanding. He pushes her down a little, but I can’t say that it’s violent either. Raka squirms. Keens some more. But then something surreal happens.
Six of the men stand back. Not far, only a few feet. They fan out a little so there is room between them, and then they lift their arms, spread their legs, and it’s as if they’re...
“Are they posing?” I ask.
“Sure looks like it. Hmm.”
Raka peeks out between her fingers. One of the men juts his hip a little, and in the torch light, I see her gaze draw downward. She hides again, sobs wracking through her.
The warriors close in again. One rocks the hammock, a nudge more than aggression. The head warrior speaks to her again, and when she doesn’t reply, he hoists her up by the arms until she’s sitting. Raka cries. He swings her head so she has to face the men waiting.
Suddenly, it happens, and I realize what this rite was about. “She’s supposed to choose a man for the night, isn’t she?” I’m so baffled. I can’t wait to speak with Yarunami about this tomorrow.
“Or a couple,” Luka responds.
The head warrior hikes her out of the hammock and pushes her toward one of the men. The chosen man lifts her by the waist, and Raka folds her legs around his middle. He steadies her against the tree that supports the head of the hammock, and then he begins to kiss her.
The others don’t leave. They watch quietly as the man becomes her lover. Touching her first, then entering her against the tree. She cries out. I can’t help walking closer, because I need to know if she feels invaded. Does she hate this? She must be dying for this horror to be over so she can be left to her grief. Right?
Raka’s head falls back while he moves slowly with her. Another man pulls a dead leaf out of her hair and pushes it back from her face before he steps back.
“She’s crying,” I say to Luka, because there are tears streaming down her face.
“She lost her husband. Of course she is.”
“But that, right there, is not consensual?” I can’t tell. Oh god, I’m supposed to be open to it all and believe in everything I see, but I can’t accept what my eyes are telling me.
“Look at her. That’s an orgasm.” Luka’s arms are folded. I want to say yeah, right, and what do you know? But he does know, probably better than I do, the varieties of female orgasms.
“Was it a game? She ran because it’s part of their ritual?”
Luka doesn’t answer. Just stands there with me, watching until she’s lowered to the ground and another man picks her up and deposits her in the hammock. The head warrior is there again. I recognize the intent stare that seems to accompany their questions. She nods. Raka nods, and she... points at another man!
“Yep. She just selected him. That was pretty clear,” Luka says.
“Whoa,” is all I’ve got. This changes everything, doesn’t it?
The other warriors retreat, a small humming in the back of their throats as they do. The one remaining is not the head warrior. He’s a young man, what seems like the youngest of them all, and he climbs into the hammock with her. Raka makes room for him. I watch his hands trace her arms, form around her breasts and squeeze. He trails lower too, and it becomes clear that he plans to make love to her in the hammock even though she just did this with another man.
The group of warriors start their walk back to the village. Luka shoots me a questioning glance, holding one of the battery-driven lamps we brought here. “Do you want to stay? See some more action.” He smiles a little.
“I need to know what happens after he gets his fill,” I say. “I want to see if this is for the men or for her. You know what I mean? So far, all written research has either left the question open or closed it with the act being abuse.”
“Okay, so we stay.”
I could have told him to leave without me, but I really don’t want to be out here alone. He closes the distance between us and stands behind me. We’re fifteen feet from the love in the hammock, and inches from each other. I lean my head back against his chest and feel him sigh. It’s a light sigh. A contented one, I think. Tonight is a strange night.
Luka’s arms come around me and lock over my stomach. “Do you see how she curves toward him? She just turned so he can feel her better.”
“Yeah.”
“You did that to me the first time you gave in.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
My stomach warms with remembered agony and pleasure.
“We did the same thing, Geneva, at the Queen.”
“Only if he stays,” I whisper.
I look at my watch when the sighs quiet in the hammock and the movements still. The two of them have been alone for half an hour. It’s two in the morning, and she cuddles against him. His arms are protective around her in that precarious hammock. We wait another twenty minutes because I want to be sure. Then we leave.
Mentally, I’d prepared for a meltdown once we got back to the privacy of our hut, but as soon as Luka and I walk in the door, only relief floods me. I need to think this through. I want to go out there a few more nights, make sure I didn’t misinterpret what happened. It’s just, I’m starting to think that Raka was fighting her grief and not the men that came to her.
In the three weeks we’ve been here, Luka and I have been together a few times. The more time we spend together, the more he protects me and reads my mind, the more natural it feels to curl into his touch. It never depends on him. If it were up to Luka, we’d be on top of his sleeping bag, naked, with mine covering our entangled bodies. He’s a man, after all, an incredibly virile one at that, so I understand when he groans out his relief as I welcome him completely.
It’s become harder and harder to hold off. Oddly, the lack of showers, our scents growing stronger on us, makes him even more appealing to me. Then again, maybe it’s not our scents or our instincts growing stronger under this wild forest roof. Maybe it’s just that I need him more and more.
Now, my fingers feel like they should be crawling over him, touching and absorbing inch after inch of skin and damp muscle. I turn my back to him. All I’m wearing is my bikini bottom, a
nd it feels like too much.
With a glance over my shoulder, I see him close the door but leave the torch in a corner, steadied by his tipped-over backpack. Still standing, I lower my bikini bottom. I’m not thinking while I do it, but even to me it comes off as an invite.
Naked and wanting.
I hear his relieved exhale behind me. The sound closes in before it ends, and I hold my own breath. His arms fold me in, back to his front. His cock is already hard and jutting against my butt as if it’s fitted to it. I moan.
Luka’s hands move upward until they cup my breasts, narrow the cracks between his fingers until they roll over my nipples and make them ache with desire.
“There’s no one like you,” he whispers. “No one. I couldn’t believe he found you first. All these years...”
“Please, don’t.”
His hands keep caressing me. Hungry teeth sink into the fat muscle over my collarbone, bringing his mouth up my neck and nibbling on my ear. A chill rushes through me, making me shiver, before he moves back down again and sinks behind me. I shiver again. What will he do next? I want him to do it all.
He takes small bites of the back of my thighs, kneading them with sharp teeth. A moist tongue sucks off salt on its way up until he’s kissing my butt cheeks, first one, then the other. He spreads me there, giving a small nudge to my lower back so that I bend at the waist. It’s not hard to follow his orders when he desires me so.
My first moan sieves out while he licks my tightest little entrance. It puckers against his tongue, wanting and not wanting. He moves downward, finding my most delicate flesh in soft folds. He separates them with his fingers until he’s beneath me, spreading my legs so he can eat me from the floor.
That little nub he finds is so ready. It wants to explode between his lips on the first suckle. My legs tremble. I have nothing to hold on to. For a second, Raka against the tree flashes through my mind, the vision of her out of place, but I’m made of sensation and can’t control my thoughts.
Luka lets go and stands while I complain wordlessly. He turns my face up to him and kisses my lips, the wild-woman taste of me bitter on his mouth. He sets my body on fire.
“You want me inside of you, baby?” His endearment sounds too innocent for what he suggests, and it makes me desperate for him.
“I do—badly...”
“Badly?” His voice is the sexy purr of a king jaguar. I have become a part of the jungle when he lowers me to the ground on our haphazard lair, and I hook my legs around his waist. I whine when he breaks to put on a condom.
“Sshh,” he tells me, eyes simmering in the tropical night. “I’ve got you. I’ll sate your fire.”
That first breach, the crown of him intruding and finding a home in me. It’s like nothing else when hard muscle moves over me, penetrating, claiming me from the inside. My channel contracts around him, keeping him snug, god so moist, and he groans, tells me I’m beautiful, that he’d live in me forever.
“A thousand and one nights,” I breathe.
“A million and more.”
He holds me still when I bow upward, my body shaking in an orgasm that’s unyielding to the fear of the night, the heat, and the emotions of Tujy’s feast.
“I love you.” He jerks inside me, sending a spasm of post-orgasmic bliss through my body.
When he falls asleep, arm over my stomach in the early morning greys, it streams through me that he said those three words in passion.
I have my first meeting with Yarunami today. It’s early morning, and the village is alive outside our door, children running and calling to each other. Women shout orders to them. It sounds like any other day. As I precariously clean up with a wash cloth dipped in a basket of water, Luka hunches down next to me and strokes my cheek.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Oh no, I’m fine.”
“Okay. I’ll take a look at the chief’s son then. I don’t want his cough to get any worse.”
“You think we brought the cold to them?” I ask.
“You never know. At least, the Lara’ have had visitors from the outside before and are acquainted with the virus. I think you can look at it the same way we do in the U.S.: it’s a virus, and we’ll catch it from other people.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“Breakfast first?”
“Levari said Yarunami wants to feed us.”
As I meet up with Levari outside, I notice the bonfire from yesterday. It’s reduced to embers and a single coil of smoke. It dawns on me that it’s situated right where they buried Tujy. Decomposition occurs quickly here where the ground itself must be like a compost bin on speed. For a second, I wonder if they bury everyone in the same spot. I shake off the thought because it’s more than I can take in.
Yarunami meets us at the low entrance to her hut. Her eyes are alive today, the worry from last night having receded a little. I greet her the way Levari taught me, forming a double palm hug around her hand. She surprises me by stepping closer and pulling Levari into the same sort of huddle-embrace I impulsively started last night.
I let out a giggle of surprise, and Levari joins me. Then the old woman laughs too, a low snicker that keeps me grinning.
“She likes you,” Levari says.
We settle in on a mat of palm leaves and watch Yarunami deftly form balls of grated fruit and manioc. She leaves them to dry while she pours hot water into miniature baskets for our morning drinks. At the bottom, I distinguish the ground guarana seeds that create a miracle concoction I know well by now. It completely outshines coffee in the energy department.
As I take my first sip, I consider how to start my interview. Yarunami and I have initiated a frail new friendship, and she knows that she’s special to me. But how can I ease into what I need to learn?
“I sort of want to tell her that I watched what happened to Raka last night,” I confess to Levari.
“I’ll let her know.”
“But wouldn’t she feel betrayed?”
“No, that’s not how we see it. Chief Pap wouldn’t have let you go if we did.”
“Okay.” I breathe out quietly and find Yarunami’s eyes. “I went to see what happened to Raka. It’s different to how we do things after someone’s husband dies where I live.”
Yarunami nods. “I know tribes who don’t have our customs too. The Huruza and the Faraki. I don’t know how their women survive the loss of their husbands.” She lifts scrawny shoulders in something that looks remarkably western. So many gestures are universal. “Ours is a good practice.”
Her words surprise me. “You went through it when your husband died.”
“Both of my husbands died. I’m the eldest living person in Lara’ Nation.” She lifts her chin, eyes glittering with pride.
Someone moves behind her, inside the hut. They’re not coming out to greet us. I send Levari a questioning look, and she mouths, Her children and grandchildren.
“After my first husband, a great warrior, died, the men of our people came to me in the forest. But when my second husband died, I was old and could no longer have children.”
“Were you alone in the jungle then?” I ask.
“No, not alone. My sons took turns, sleeping one night each in a hammock next to me, and then my grandsons. It is a good thing. This way, my grief wouldn’t bring our people more misfortune.
“After many moons, I was still sad”—she shows me her empty palms—“so they built me a new hut, here, at the edge of the village as soon as the hurt in my heart was bearable. I’ve lived here since, always with someone visiting. I have a good family.”
“She’s birthed ten daughters and three sons,” Levari says. “Seven of them are still alive. She’s very lucky.”
“That’s amazing.” I accept the fist-sized manioc ball Yarunami deposits in my hand with a bow of her head. I bow back and tak
e a bite. The sweet, soft consistency makes my mouth water. I chase the first mouthfuls with sips of guarana, and my stomach settles nicely around the food.
I want to ask the tough questions, the important ones that could be painful, but send Levari a tentative glance as I express my next one. “Raka didn’t seem to want the men to come to her last night.”
Levari nods, agreeing to my question and translating it.
Surprised, I watch as Yarunami spreads into a bright smile. “We never do! Why don’t the young ones learn from the elder ones, you can ask. I didn’t either. Widows only want our husbands. We want his hands on us, his lips, and his touch, and so our bodies want to hide from the comfort of others. But our men are wiser. We need to live in harmony with the king jaguar once he takes our husbands away. We grieve, and that is not the hard part. No, it is harder to allow the goodness from those who care about us to lead us back home again.”
I suck in a breath at the clearest declaration I’ve ever heard. How has no anthropologist asked the women of the Lara’ these questions before? I understand why they didn’t ask Yarunami back when she was drowning in sorrow. It would have been unethical to breach her grief at that point, but what about later? The male anthropologists must not have been interested enough to coax out the truth.
“But wouldn’t it be good to not have to... have sex with men you’ve never known that way before?” I ask, for my culture—not for me; Yarunami and I are much alike. Space and time, modern world and primitive world; our similarities must be biologically ingrained.
“Each day, I cried and starved myself. Each night, I was deep in darkness because that was all my day had held. Then they came, the men, at nightfall, always many at a time. They were there together, in case I resisted, because if I did, they would keep me still until I gave up.”
“They forced you.”
“They forced my mind to understand the difference between day and night.”
