Bliss River Read online

  Moreton looked around. Everyone was horrified, as he meant them to be. "And who may well have kidnapped Olivia's daughter," he added for good measure. "And you can well imagine what atrocities he might commit in the name of vengeance on her. What line will he draw between her permission and his animal needs? Ladies and gentle­men, I don't know where to pursue this monster other than to cut him off at his port of entry, and so I am proposing that Olivia and I set off for England as soon as possible."

  A murmur at that announcement, a little wave of palpa­ble fear. He could almost hear them thinking: But who will take over, who will run things, and plan things, and who will adjudicate and tell us what's right and what's wrong? And the children .. . what about the next ceremony of the peacock fan? What about.. . what about... what about?

  Who can do this? Who will do this? WHO can be Moreton?

  A faint smile played across his lips. Indeed, who could be him? Well, someone would have to. The new life he planned with Olivia was far more riveting an idea than staying in this semen-soaked cesspool any longer.

  He'd jank up a new cesspool at Aling, with pounds ster­ling floating in his spunk, and all the hot-tailed young tweenies he could handle to service his whip. God, he was hard just thinking about it.

  All of that, the brothel, and Olivia, too.

  He got himself under control.

  "Well, admittedly, we're doing this on the turn of a tuppence, but think of what's at stake. Lydia's killer goes loose. And with all he knows about the colony, someone might come knocking on our door any day now and make trouble for you all."

  He looked around the dining room. They were all prop­erly terrorized now, if they hadn't been before, when they were just talking about bringing in the authorities to arrest Charles Elliott. Now the authorities might come in and ar­rest them.

  It was the perfect pricking point.

  "I'm thinking Mr. Smythe has the proper degree of amorousness and amorality to take over my stewardship of the Bliss River colony—"

  Again, he looked around as everyone started nodding and concurring. Murmuring out loud, "Right on, Smythe, of course. Knows just how to run things and just what to do ... He'll be Moreton ... no difference—it'll be as if Moreton had never gone away ..."

  Moreton seized the moment. "We'll take a vote then. Unless anyone can think of someone else we can put in contention—"

  Another pause. No response. He felt it though, that sweet pulse that meant they would give him anything he wanted, as long as nothing changed and they could keep doing all the things he'd given them permission to do.

  "So, all in favor of Smythe—"

  "Hear, hear—" It was one big loud roar.

  "Mr. Smythe?"

  Smythe stood up, waved, called out: "I'm honored to be the next Moreton of the colony."

  Oh God, yes, Moreton thought, motioning for Smythe to join him on the dais where the Valley orchestra usually played. The next Moreton—he's crowned me king and im­mortalized me forever.. .

  The morning broke over Akka, the sun rising like a huge ball of fire over the village square. Dogs barked, a rooster crowed, and a murmur of voices rent the air. Slowly, the village came to life. The women straggled to the wellspring for water for the morning coffee, and the merchants and traders began to set out their wares.

  All of this Georgie watched with bleary-eyed fascination while Charles Elliott concocted a breakfast of coffee, rice, and dried fruit.

  "You will learn to cook," he said, handing her a cup of strongly scented coffee.

  "I have other talents," she mumbled, taking it in both hands like a child. It was searingly hot, and the warmth permeated her vitals and made her feel less fuzzy.

  "So you tell me, but the thing that matters most in the desert is to be adaptable and resourceful. You won't sur­vive five minutes otherwise."

  "And I'm certain you're counting on that."

  "No, khanum, you forget, in the desert we don't count—anything."

  She made a sound and took the bowl of rice he handed her. It tasted like little wooden pellets. She could barely swallow a mouthful. She took a hasty swig of coffee and almost choked.

  God, he was right, she needed sleep. She didn't know what she was doing right now. Didn't know what she was doing with a stranger bent on vengeance on the outskirts of the desert.

  "What do you think is going on in the Valley?" she asked.

  "Oh, I think Moreton made a nice scene, because he loves to dramatize things, and he sent riders hither and yon looking for us. If I had to guess, I'd say he's probably done with it and has given up the search."

  "So there's no more threat."

  "Unless he comes looking for you in England. But why would he do that?"

  "He wouldn't like to lose someone from the Valley, es­pecially someone like me, who wasn't fully—acclimated."

  "You had me fooled," Charles muttered. "You looked completely acclimated to me."

  And there it was again, the innuendo, the awareness. They could never talk about the Valley, then, without that shimmering knowledge between them: that she had ca­ressed his penis, that he had had a full glorious view of her naked body.

  And it didn't matter that she was shrouded like a corpse. He remembered. He remembered her hands, her nipples pressing against his back, his blowtorch of a re­sponse.

  Her breath caught. She lowered her head. He remembered. He would not give in, but he remembered.

  And as long as he remembered, and she could make him remember, the power was still in her hands.

  Chapter Nine

  Everything would come to a head in Sefra. He was just biding his time, Georgie thought, just waiting until they came to a large enough town where he would feel no qualms, no guilt about leaving her.

  She was certain he meant to leave her, even if he were going on to England. Having her with him slowed him down. And now that there truly was no threat from Moreton, he had no reason to take her.

  He did not need to keep one single promise he had made in the heat of the escape. No honor among thieves—she understood that perfectly. Even she would have promised the moon to anyone who would have helped her get out of the Valley.

  But still, to England she would go, and she was deter­mined that he would keep his promise to get her there. And so, she had just the two-day journey to Sefra to con­vince him. And words wouldn't do it. There was only one possible way. She had to seduce him, but she had to over­come the fact that tactic had not worked in the Valley.

  But that was the Valley, she thought, trying to rational­ize it. Something about the Valley was intrinsically off-putting. The lack of privacy, the blatant and public trolling for lovers, the air of decadence and debauchery ...

  Surely everything was cleaner and purer in the desert.

  Even she?

  There wasn't much time. They packed everything up as the heat began to rise. He refilled the goatskins and loaded everything onto the mule, while she sat hunched up and unobtrusive in the shade of the palm trees.

  She was a sight to see, Charles thought. All that sensual energy bundled into a couple of sheets and some native pragmatism he did not expect she possessed. She would do fine in Sefra. She would find someplace to operate a house of all nations and take in piles of baksheesh from curious travelers and wealthy pashas who paid well for foreign whores.

  And eventually she would become a legend of the desert, the queen ruling over her conquests the only way she knew how.

  Goddammit. He couldn't contemplate her without thinking about sex. Even when she was bent double and clothed like a sack. It boded trouble. He sensed it in the air around her as he helped her onto the pony. She was ready for a fight, determined to get her way the only way she knew how.

  Well, he was immune. A woman's body was just an in­strument for release, and the function was ever the same.

  He hadn't ground his tool for months as he plotted this abortive course to Bliss River; two days more wouldn't make a difference.

  And afte
r that, they'd both find freedom.

  They rode out of Akka at the same plodding pace.

  "It will take a month to get to Sefra at this rate," Georgie grumbled.

  "It requires a certain faith, khanum. Like everything else in the desert."

  "Like promises?" she asked slyly.

  He pretended he hadn't heard that.

  Georgie ground her teeth in frustration. If she could have ridden naked out of town, she would have, just to prove the point that he was not as invulnerable to her as he thought.

  But that was for later. She was better covered head to foot in the stifling heat and brutal sun. The road to Sefra was not easy; they had to ride single file, so any conversa­tion was impossible. There were intermittent travelers on mule or horseback for whom they had to make way, and now and again, they came up behind a lumbering caravan and had to pull up slower still.

  They stopped to take water at midday; then on again down the dusty rutted road that wound through the bar­ren reddish plains toward Sefra.

  Toward sunset, they finally made camp and set up the tent by a copse of bushes off to the side of the road. Charles went to gather palm leaves for the fire, and Georgie fed the animals and pondered how she might make her case on this first night of the precious two to go.

  She eyed the tent. It wasn't all that large, which could be good or bad. He might choose to sleep outside on the ground as he had in Akka. But there, they'd been sur­rounded by the tents of other itinerant travelers and there was a sense of safety in numbers.

  Here, they were all alone. And there were flies. And a kind of smoky scent in the air, as if a hundred other camp-fires were burning concurrently.

  Charles put a match to the pile of djerids he'd collected and watched them flame up. "We will feast on rabbit tonight, khanum. The journey has made me ravenous."

  Georgie was hungry, too, and tired and a little scared. But she'd never admit that to him. She put a pot of water on to boil, got out the plate and the utensils that were part of his kit, and threw a handful of figs into the steaming water.

  Charles added the meat. When it was heated, he lifted it onto their one plate, cut some slices, speared one, and of­fered it to Georgie. And so they dined, one alternating with the other until all the meat was gone.

  And now what? Charles wondered. It wasn't dark yet. Neither of them seemed tired. And the queen was restive. She'd pushed back her hood and loosened the ties around her neck; her body seemed to hum.

  The last thing he wanted was to deal with the queen of tarts in that mood.

  He leaned back on one elbow as they watched streaks of mauve, pink, and dark blue color the desert sky. He loved that best about the desert. The rich color. The eternal sand. The sense of infinite space.

  But he had loved England more. "Tell me about the Valley," he said abruptly, and then caught himself. Damn and damn. Always the Valley. Always something to do with her carnal life.

  But not his. Not his. He could be made of stone, for all he felt about her. He was asking just to pass the time.

  "What is there to know that you did not see for your­self?"

  "You lived there all your life?"

  "All my life."

  "It's unimaginable."

  "Imagine it. We—I—grew up in a place where every­thing carnal was the way of life. Nothing was forbidden to adults. And you became an adult at age sixteen. There is a ceremony. A sacrifice of virginity for the greater good of the community. And then, you are penetrated, and you are free to go on your voyage of sexual dissipation. Everyone is available in the Valley. No one is excluded. Anyone who wants you can have you, and you can have anyone you want.

  "Of course, we'd been educated that sex is the currency of life in our community. And we'd been watching this all these years, aroused by what was going on around us: the way people feel each other publicly and the promenade where all strut and display their wares. We know all about the potency of sex," she slanted a look at him as she said this. His face was impassive, his expression obdurate as if even this coarse narrative could not touch him.

  But the line of his body said otherwise. He was aroused by her words, and she knew it. There was something awful and seductive about the Valley way of life. Hadn't More-ton truly understood that? And that was why and how the Valley could come into being?

  She pulled at her makeshift covering, and it slid off her shoulders. The dress of course was a problem, but she could and would divest herself of that before too long.

  She went on deliberately and precisely, "And you under­stand that we salivate with envy. We start to want so badly. We cannot wait until we're old enough to be fon­dled and fucked—just like that."

  The words hung in the infinite air, resonating.

  Just like—how? He'd never ask. He didn't say a word. And meantime, he was not unaware that she was slowly sliding the covering from her body.

  After a while, she continued, "We are taught how to dress, how to approach someone, how to yield, how to pursue, how to incite desire in a man. And we learn all the wondrous ways of a man's penis ... all the delicious ways a woman can make him erupt. All the ways that we can use every part of our body to stimulate, to please, to bring him to heel. And that, too, is life in the Valley."

  The covering of sheets was now down to her waist. And she wasn't unaware of that or that her gauzy dress was soaked in sweat and clinging to her body, to her breasts— and neither, she knew, was he.

  "There are no loyalties or commitments except to the next pleasurable encounter. And the men all want it. Every night they want it. Every day if they can get it. And in that way, the women accumulate power. They can say no. But then, there's always someone who will say yes to a good hard fuck, and no man is ever refused.

  "And then, there are women in the Valley who just lie on their backs all day and get fucked by whoever decides to come by. And that, too, is life in the Valley.

  "Some of the men keep at it all day long, just to see how many hours they can stay erect and pumping. There are competitions. And prizes. Women offer themselves to the winner with the most stamina. Who wouldn't want to ride" the prize stallion?

  "I won't even mention the triads and the orgies, other aspects of life in the Valley that perhaps you were not made aware of.

  "But then, they introduce newcomers slowly." Georgie stood up, matching her motions to her words, and let the sheets fall to her feet. "They get you used to never-ending indiscriminate sex until you cannot go a day without fuck­ing . .."

  She kicked off her boots.

  "Or an hour..."

  She pulled down her dress and it slid to the ground inches from where he lay, leaving just a fragile shift between some modesty and total nudity.

  "And then," she added, "when you get bored with that—and that may take a year or two—they suggest some new forms of entertainment..."

  The shift came off in one sweeping motion, and she was naked, standing over him, provoking him with her silky legs, her coaxing tone.

  "Perhaps you should have kept your secret long enough so you could have explored all the prurient delights the Valley offers."

  She stepped over him, straddling him, deliberately splaying her legs so he could not avoid staring straight up at her naked cleft, with the firelight playing over the in­triguing hollows of her body.

  A man would have to be stone not to look.

  "Or perhaps your erotic tastes are more perversely re­fined than those in the Valley. You are rather a bull, as I have good cause to know ..."

  A man would have to be dead not to want to ...

  "Bloody God Almighty ..." He jacked himself out from between her legs. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  She froze, just for an instant, and then answered airily, "Getting comfortable. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  That bloody well was the question. Asking for trouble, it seemed, because she was ready to give it to him. And that hadn't been an innocent question about the Valley, even he was aware
of that. He was utterly furious with himself for playing her game.

  And because of that she was naked; her breasts full, with bulbous areolae and jutting nipples. His head was filled with images of faceless humping bodies, and there was nowhere to go to avoid her nakedness or the scent of sex in the air.

  "Sit down and cover yourself." It was the best he could do, and it wasn't nearly enough. The queen wasn't prone to listening to anything he had to say or to taking orders from him. That was a daylight thing only, and only under duress.

  "I'll sit, thank you," Georgie said sweetly, "but it's nice and cool without all those clothes and wraps."

  Thank God, they were off the road. And the djerids had burned into crackly embers. And the moon was high. And there were no other travelers around because someone would offer a pasha's ransom to buy her naked as she sat and make her his sex slave.

  She could be your sex slave... He pushed the thought violently out of his mind. She was too close for comfort. Too naked. Too willing.

  "You can't keep doing this."

  "Doing what? I was hot and took off my clothes. I cer­tainly wouldn't disrobe when we're on the road. That would be stupid. I understand that. Although—"

  Although he wanted her, he was hot, he was hard, he was ripe. She could feel it; she could almost taste it, that need, that pulse... that possessiveness. She knew it; she understood it more than he did.

  "—perhaps it might be an impetus to some other gentle­man to want to help me get to England ..."

  She let the words peter out. The air was explosive now, just the way she wanted it. He was determined not to give in to her nakedness and she was equally determined that he would.

  "I might try that the closer we get to Sefra . . . getting naked, I mean. I'm sure there will be some man who would—"

  "Who would what? Take you along for a cheap fuck? Go stand naked in the middle of that road tomorrow morning, khanum. They will grovel at your bare feet. They'll fuck you in the road; they'll be so grateful for a naked woman who's willing and Western—"