Drowning

by Jassy Mackenzie

  Telling myself that this impression was simply the product of a fevered imagination, I left the room and walked briskly through the lodge and outside, to where Nicholas was already waiting in the Land Cruiser, with the passenger door—on the left-hand side in South Africa—open for me.

  “We’re going down to my neighbors on this side of the river,” Nicholas explained. “They called an hour ago to say they’re running short of diesel for their generators. Which, for them, is critical because they own a game butchery and have five freezers full of meat right now.”

  I loved the deepness of his voice. The way he spoke—his accent. Those clipped British words with the hint of a South African flavor. I could have listened to him speak all day.

  What surprised me, though, was his choice of subject matter. I’d expected him to be as unsettled as I was. But here he was, at ease in my company once again, conversing in a relaxed way about matters of interest.

  “We’ll definitely see some animals on the way,” he said, as the mowed lawn transitioned to scrubby bushveld. “The zebra like to hang out on the borders of the forest at this time of the year.

  “How many zebra do you have?”

  “In this secure area, ten. Oh, make that eleven. There was a foal born last week. In fact, if we’re lucky, we might… Yes. Look there. On the right. There’s the herd, and there’s the foal. A colt, Joshua thinks.”

  I peered in the direction he was pointing, narrowing my eyes against the bright sunshine, and suddenly the criss-crossed shade of the bushes translated itself into a dazzle of vivid stripes. The herd was walking quietly through the shadows, tails flicking, while the tiny new arrival capered, with surprising grace, at the heels of his mother.

  “Oh, they’re beautiful!”

  I saw Nicholas smiling at my obvious delight.

  “What are those animals beyond the zebra herd?” I peered through the scrubby bush.

  “You’ve got sharp eyes. Those are two of our wildebeest, the animal that is the gnu. They’ve got nothing much going for them in terms of looks, as you can see. They’re big and ugly and brown and hammer-headed.” His voice was laced with humor.

  “They’re cute!” I protested.

  “If you think so, then the term ‘cute’ coming from you is a terrible insult. I’ll have to watch where you use it.” He grinned at me. The expression was infectious and I found myself grinning back at him. Damn it all… I shouldn’t be laughing with him now. I should be coldly ordering him not to flirt with me. How had he managed to disarm my defenses so completely?

  Heading downhill, the vehicle jounced over a series of steep bumps in the road. Glancing up, I saw that the intense heat had already formed a series of cumulus clouds which bulked on the horizon, grey and threatening.

  “We’ve got an hour, maybe two, before it rains again,” he said. “Let’s deliver this diesel. I’ll show you the bridge on the way back.”

  When we arrived at the neighboring farm, I was introduced to the owners—Thandiwe, an elegantly dressed black woman, and her blonde-haired, German husband, Berndt.

  “Thank you so much,” Thandiwe said, as Berndt and Nicholas hefted the containers from the back of the truck and carried them into the garage. “We were planning to go into town as soon as the storm had passed. Bad luck about the bridge.”

  “Look on the bright side. At least you weren’t stuck in town when it collapsed.”

  Nicholas’s words were interrupted by a loud wailing. A chubby boy with enormous brown eyes and a halo of frizzy dark brown hair came running into the garage, blood spurting from a gash on his chin. He was followed closely by an anxious-faced girl a few years older.

  “Mom!” she cried. “David fell and hurt himself in the garden.”

  Picking the boy up with concern in her eyes, Thandiwe turned—not to Berndt, but to Nicholas.

  “Doctor,” she said anxiously, “thank goodness you’re here. It’s all happening at once today. Would you mind taking a look?”

  Nicholas examined the bleeding cut carefully.

  “It should heal fine, but it’ll need a stitch or two.”

  “Do you have your kit with you?”

  “Always, Thandiwe.”

  I watched in surprise as he jogged back to the car, returning a minute later with a large plastic trunk. He pulled on gloves before removing the equipment he needed from the stock of supplies inside.

  Berndt held the child on his knee while Thandiwe and I watched from a safe distance. The child’s sobs abated as Nicholas spoke to him gently before injecting tiny amounts of what I supposed was a pain killer. Then, with precision and care, he closed the wound with three small stitches.

  “I didn’t know he was a doctor,” I said to Thandiwe.

  “Oh, he’s not actually a doctor. We just call him that. He’s a paramedic who’s done years of work overseas. Or so he tells us.” She smiled, looking at me with some curiosity. “He doesn’t tell us much, actually. Are you—er—how do you know him?”

  “He pulled me out of the river when my car washed away,” I said. “I’m staying until the bridge is rebuilt.”

  Thandiwe clapped her hands over her mouth.

  “No! You’re the woman who almost died? Berndt took his tractor down to the river to help Nicholas reach you. He said it was the most frightening experience—a race against time with the car being washed downstream in that raging water. He came back and said Nicholas had told him your heart had stopped and he didn’t know if you were going to make it.”

  “Well, so far, so good,” I told her. “I’m very grateful to Nicholas. He’s given me my life back.” I added quickly, in a firm voice, “All the same, I can’t wait to be home with my husband.”

  To my surprise, Thandiwe gave me a big hug. “I’m so glad you are okay.”

  With the stitching finished, Nicholas removed his gloves and packed his first aid kit away before washing his hands thoroughly in the farmhouse kitchen. Five minutes after that we were ready to go home. Before we left, Thandiwe thrust a large, heavy cooler bag into my hands.

  “Here you go,” she said, smiling. “As a thank-you.”

  “It’s packed with meat, I’m sure,” Nicholas said. “You didn’t need to, Thandiwe. But it will be very welcome.”

  When we got into the car again, he asked me, “Do you want to go and see where the bridge was? It’s just a little further down the road.”

  The early afternoon had become grey and cool, with threatening clouds bulking overhead.

  “As long as you don’t think we’ll get washed away again,” I said, looking nervously at the sky.

  “No chance of that. It’ll take a few hours of sustained downpour to cause another flood.”

  He started the car and we headed down the muddy sand road in the direction of the river.

  “I don’t remember much about the drive,” I said. “The rain was so heavy. All I know is that we were definitely going the wrong way.” I’d been scared, claustrophobic in that hammering downpour, and I’d had other things on my mind.

  I could hear the rushing noise of the river before I saw it. We rounded a bend and there it was: a deep, fast-moving, brown-grey stream with occasional crests of white. It must have been thirty yards across. Looking at it made me feel strange, and very small, and as if I shouldn’t have been alive now. How had either Bulewi or I survived being swept downstream in those torrential waters?

  I was acutely aware of Nicholas’s presence beside me and thought he might have been observing me as I stared at the water. I did not dare to look back. Instead, I decided to take a photo of the river to send to Vince as proof. I took out my phone and turned it on. Immediately it beeped, signaling I had a message, and my hands began to tremble. I didn’t have just one message. I had six of them from Vince.

  I didn’t want to listen to them. Couldn’t. Instead I navigated to the camera facility on the phone and took a few pictures. In the poor light and with such basic photographic equipment, they were not great, but at least the ro
ad leading to the river could be clearly seen, and the road leading away on its other side was distinguishable.

  Then I hurriedly switched off the phone, worried that Vince would call me yet again because I felt incapable of speaking to him now. I needed some time alone first, to process what had happened. To work out exactly why I’d allowed that forbidden kiss.

  I knew now that I must confront Nicholas on the drive back to the lodge and explain where I stood. Apologize, and tell him that despite all the evidence to the contrary, I really wasn’t interested in taking him up on his audacious offer.

  Lightning flickered in the clouds and I flinched as a huge clap of thunder split the air.

  “You okay?” Nicholas asked, his voice like a caress, and I knew he wasn’t only referring to the sudden noise.

  “I’m fine,” I replied. Aware that my voice had sounded sharp, I added, “Thank you.”

  “We’d better get back. Storm’s coming,” he said.

  He turned the car around and headed away from the surging waters.

  The wheels skidded on the steep uphill road, spinning in a section of deep, slippery mud. I caught my breath, picturing vividly what might happen if we were trapped here in the rain while the river rose again.

  Completely focused on the treacherous path ahead, Nicholas engaged four wheel drive and carefully eased the big vehicle sideways, then forward again. The tires bit into the soft going, suddenly finding the grip they needed as he coaxed it patiently through the sticky patch.

  “Nothing to worry about,” he reassured me as we drove onto firmer ground. “This vehicle can handle far worse terrain.”

  I wanted to tell him that it was as much the driver’s skill as the car’s capability that had taken us so smoothly through the danger. But my words were silenced as Nicholas placed his hand on my leg.

  It rested there, just above my knee, warm and firm, while the car jounced over a large bump in the road and my stomach jolted just as hard, though for different reasons. I could not suppress the flood of lust I felt at his caress. It was as if that light touch was sending a message—a subtle signal with sex as its underscore—to every cell in my body.

  Staring down, I noticed again the beautiful squareness of his tanned hand, with long, strong fingers that looked as if they might equally belong to an artist or an engineer.

  “You’re an interesting woman, Erin,” he observed. Now those fingers were lightly stroking over the thin beige fabric of the borrowed shorts I wore. The action was having the most unprecedented effect on my body. My skin was tingling at his touch, my jaw was dropping open, while my heart was hammering with excitement.

  “Trust me, I don’t often get no for an answer, but when I do, I respect it,” he continued. “But you’re sending me mixed messages. It would be wrong of me not to try to figure them out. To explore the limits of your permissiveness.”

  His voice caressed the last word. The stroking exploration of his fingers had reached the inside of my thigh. I was absolutely paralyzed. My carefully built defenses had crumbled at his touch. The overpowering sense of shame that filled me at what I was allowing him to do—the fact that I could not tell him to stop—did not in any way lessen the deep, hot lust that pooled in the pit of my belly.

  “Eland on your left,” he said gently, as his touch moved up and I felt his fingertips brush, briefly and deliciously, over the crotch of my shorts, the action sending a pulse of liquid pleasure through me. I caught my breath, my brain processing his words far too slowly, and turned my head to see that yes, there was some sort of large antelope standing a few feet from the road and observing the leisurely progress of the Land Cruiser.

  I gripped the sides of the leather seat as his fingers returned to their exploration, stroking over the place where the soft fabric covered the rounded lips of my sex, each small movement of his hand creating a flood of sensation that washed through me. My heartbeat was rapid, my nipples felt tight and aching, but the rest of my body was melting, languorous, utterly incapable of resistance.

  He stroked his hand gently upwards, massaging the softness of my pubic area, before moving it to the waistband of my shorts. Deftly, he undid the belt and eased the zipper down. Neither of us spoke. The only sound was the soft swishing and scrunching of the tires over the mud and the stones, and the rumble of thunder overhead. The air felt heavy and close, as if the clouds were pressing in to cover us, concealing our actions from the outside world.

  With every heart-pounding second that passed, I had the opportunity to consider what my consent meant—both now, and in the long term—but the frantic guilt that was drumming in my brain was smothered and silenced by the boiling desire that the moment offered.

  The waistband of my shorts gaped open now and his fingers slipped inside. His touch felt warm and sure. He caressed the skin of my lower belly and the pulse deep in my groin intensified to a painful throbbing.

  “Almost completely shaved,” he whispered, running his fingers over the narrow strip of hair above my cleft, and then over the hairless skin surrounding it. “You feel so silken smooth. So soft.” His hand pressed gently on my pubic bone, his fingers massaging the tender flesh.

  Crazy thoughts spun in my mind. I should pull myself out of the moment, make a witty comment about the thoughtfulness of him having provided a razor in my bathroom, I should tell him to stop. Each and every one of these thoughts was overridden, as his hand moved lower, by the compelling need of my body.

  Instead, I let out a moan as his finger parted my lips and slid between them; a moan that was echoed by Nicholas as he felt the wetness there.

  “God, Erin, you’re so ready.”

  Ready to accept his most intimate sexual advances? Oh, this was bad. I was bad. As he stirred the tip of his finger lusciously inside the cleft of my moistened slit, I arched my hips towards him, turning to him, my eyes wide, my lips apart.

  “Yes,” Nicholas whispered. Rain splattered onto the windscreen, the storm closing in on us with violence, the flicking of the wipers unable to keep up with its assault. It drummed on the roof and poured over the leaves and grasses around us. The car had become a capsule in a deafening tunnel of grayness. How was he managing to keep it on the road as well as do this to me? Jesus, I had no idea, but right then, I’d have chosen pleasure over safety all the way.

  He slid a finger inside me, teasing, pulling it out when he heard my small cry of delight before slipping it in again, this time deeper. I was pressed back in my seat, my back arched, my hips pushed toward him, proving to him I was open, available, wanting. Silently begging for him.

  He slid two fingers inside me, pushing them deep, circling them in a slow, luscious motion so that they grazed over erogenous zones I hadn’t known existed, causing muscles inside me to spasm with desire.

  “Fuck,” Nicholas whispered. He yanked the wheel to the left so that we juddered off the road and splashed through puddles. He stamped on the brake, causing water to shoot from under the heavy tires, before cutting the engine. “Jesus, Erin. You’re so turned on, I can feel you clenching around me. Do you know how hot that is?”

  He twisted around, moving to face me, thrusting one of his legs over the passenger seat and across mine so he was sprawled over me. In the confined space of the car I could feel the body heat radiating from him. I was drowning in his eyes. The rain was hissing around us, cutting off all visibility outside. This was a hurricane… a monsoon.

  I gasped as Nicholas’s fingers angled inside me to caress again and again over a pulsatingly sensitive nerve center. His thumb was circling my clitoris in a slow spiral of delight. I tensed my stomach muscles, desperately trying to hold myself back from the pleasure, trying to stop the inevitable, but he was onto me.

  “I want to see you orgasm,” he whispered. “And you’re going to, Erin. You can try to resist it if you like. The longer you fight your body, the harder you’ll come in the end. Or else…” his thumb stroked me in a silken rhythm, in time with the soft pumping of his fingers. The thunder
ing of my own heartbeat had made me forget the storm outside. “Or else you could just let it happen.”

  My lips had fallen open. I gasped in shuddery breaths. Abruptly, the car’s temperature seemed to ratchet up to double what it had been. I thrust myself onto his fingers, feeling the pleasure inside me escalate to boiling point and then, with a cry, I gave myself up to my climax, staring helplessly into his eyes, bucking my hips hard against his hand as the peaks of pleasure shocked through me.

  He slowly withdrew his fingers, lifted them to his mouth and sucked them. Gently, his fingertips traced the outline of my face. Then he leaned forward and kissed me deeply and hard, with the same raw urgency I’d seen in his expression. I could taste myself on his lips. I wanted to keep kissing him… I wanted more from him, and could feel how badly he wanted me.

  But, far too late, I found myself able to break the kiss and whisper, “Enough.”

  Thunder crashed around us.

  Nicholas let out a deep breath. He nodded, then shifted back into the driver’s seat, started the car, and eased it back onto the slippery road.

  I zipped my shorts up again. We drove on in silence. As the pleasure of my orgasm ebbed, in its place came sharp, shameful regret. As the heavy vehicle splashed through the deep puddles outside the main gates of the lodge, I found my eyes blurring with tears. I sniffed, blinking them away, and Nicholas glanced at me.

  “You okay?” he asked softly.

  “I’m fine,” I muttered, but my voice was wobbly and he must have known my words were a lie. What did he care, in any case, I told myself. He’d made it clear upfront that he was only after one thing. Now he had another cheap thrill to add to the notches on his belt—and I had a burden of guilt which I could not deny or ignore.

  Chief in my mind: what the hell should I tell Vince?

  I didn’t know. I needed to think about this, and urgently. Needed to sort out my head. My husband would be trying to call me again, growing more anxious and angrier with every minute that passed as he found my phone was still turned off.