'Not for me. For the kid,' Sark said.
'You know what's best for him?' She raised a haughty eyebrow, liking the way the sound of her voice seemed to intimidate Sark. 'I think you're being a little high-handed.'
'What's the alternative?'
Dee gave up her power trip for the moment to consider that. She'd heard the fanaticism of Long Shadow's love, had seen it in his eyes, didn't want to be imprisoned by it.
She shrugged. 'All right.' Why not? One choice was as good as another at this point. They all led towards death in the end.
She'd felt that death briefly and was in no hurry to find it again. But it was there. Her mortality had crept up and embraced her. One day, she knew, she would experience the orgasm of Death. It would be the ultimate physical act. But until then she had to do something to pass the time.
'Shall I let him in now?' Sark asked.
'Who?' She was momentarily confused. Was James here already?
'Agent… Long Shadow,' Sark said, his hand on the door knob.
Dee frowned. She felt sleepy. Comfortably numb. She didn't want to deal with Long Shadow's passion just now.
'Maybe later,' she said. 'I'm tired now.'
Sark nodded. Gestured at the narrow bed in the corner. 'Have a sleep. I'll send him off to get cleaned up and eat something. The poor kid hasn't moved from the door since we brought you here.'
'Ever the Champion,' Dee said, sauntering to the bed Sark had indicated. She stretched out on the hard mattress and closed her eyes. The door shut softly behind Sark and she heard murmuring voices receding down the hallway.
Sleep, she thought, but it was hot, uncomfortable. Late afternoon sun slanted across her lower body and the cicada chorus outside was oppressive.
Dee was too sluggish to pull her shirt off so she fumbled with the buttons to open it, letting the faint breeze from the window slide over her skin. Instinctively, her hands slid with the breeze, touching her breasts, her stomach, the tops of her legs and her inner thighs. Then when she had awoken the flesh between her thighs, she touched herself there, finding it moist and receptive.
So sleepy, she thought as her fingers idly stroked her sex. The sensations that drew her towards climax warred with a lethargy that was closing in fast. She fought to stay awake, but her hand was slowing, her eyelids drooping. It was too much effort.
Somewhere between oblivion and ecstasy, she drifted off.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Pital hung precariously from the trunk of a banana tree, the machete in his hand forgotten as he stared at the woman on the bed.
He'd seen some interesting things since his family had come to live behind the little community house that was rented to visitors. But none as exciting as this white woman who lay on the narrow cot and stroked herself as boldly as a prostitute.
She was no prostitute, though. Pital was sure of that. She was someone important. He could tell that from the deference the men paid her. The old fat man who had just been in her room had submitted to her will — Pital could tell from the movement of their bodies and the look of their eyes. Whatever the discussion had been, the fat man had conceded.
And as for the Long-haired one. The way he'd left the house — stomping across the verandah and down the stairs in a fury — Pital felt sure he must be a cuckolded husband.
Was this attractive woman leaving a handsome and virile husband to bed with such a fat old man? It defied understanding. Until Pital remembered that the older man had many attendants. And he travelled in a helicopter. He obviously had much money.
Pital knew what people would do for money. Only the year before — his eighteenth year — he had sold himself to an Australian woman for money. It had happened in Port Moresby, where he'd gone to buy a gift for his girl-friend, only to discover his humble savings weren't enough for the American jeans she'd wanted — the jeans he'd imagined himself peeling off her to get at the pulsing love-fruit she was coyly denying him.
Dejected, Pital had been lurking through back streets where he'd heard there were women who would exchange his small amount of money for favours. But before he could find such a one, an expensive looking sports car had pulled up beside him, a white woman at the wheel. Pital had been overcome with embarrassment — to have been caught in such an area!
But he'd quickly recovered himself. She wouldn't have known where they were. He'd stepped closer to the car, thinking to direct her away from where she'd strayed. But when he'd looked down at her, he'd seen she was holding a fistful of notes. 'Till dawn,' she'd said, and leant across to open the passenger door. The front of her shirt had gaped, revealing two mounds of flesh that glowed like the moon.
Fool, Pital had stood on the street with his mouth hanging open while the woman waited. But while she'd waited, she'd looked at him — at his shoulders in their thin singlet, at his forearms, his hands. Then at the front of his baggy shorts.
She'd looked back up at him then and Pital had seen fear in her eyes. That had decided him.
It had not been a bad experience. The bungalow she'd taken him to had been comfortable beyond the standards of any he'd ever entered — the huge white-stone bathroom where he'd bathed, the soft four-poster bed where they lay.
She had been gentle, at first, admiring his body with a lot of words he hadn't understood. Then it had been his turn to admire hers. Her skin had been smooth and white, her body very beautiful without the harsh business clothes she'd worn.
He had wondered to himself why she would bother to buy what she could so obviously have for free. But as the touching became increasingly rough and painful he had understood.
She bruised, bit and scratched, demanding the same treated from him only harder, and he'd complied — managing to used up four of her foil-wrapped condoms in the process. Overall, he'd been satisfied with his performance. And certainly the money had been good. Enough to buy his girlfriend the jeans she'd coveted.
The following night he'd given them to her and been well rewarded for his trouble. After telling her his injuries had been sustained in a fight to protect her gift, he'd asked her to kiss each of his hurts, to 'ease his pain'. And she'd complied.
Encouraged by her enthusiasm, he'd boldly pointed to the part of him that had worked the hardest for her jeans and she'd even kissed that. Then, miraculously, at his request, she'd sucked it.
Pital's loins tingled now to think of that sucking and he wondered how he might coax her into sucking it again. He wanted that feeling, over and over. But it didn't come for free. Just as the white woman had paid him to satisfy her needs, Pital knew his girlfriend wanted something for what she did.
She wanted to be married. But if Pital's newly married cousin was right, that would be the end of the sucking. A depressing thought, and one Pital was keen not to linger on.
Besides, there were more interesting things to think about. Like the mystery of the woman on the bed.
While he watched, her stroking fingers slid through the pink folds of her love fruit, revealed by her brazenly parted legs. There was a rhythm there.
He frowned in concentration. Is that what women want? he thought, slow little circles? But just when he was sure she was about to shudder with release, her hand stopped moving. She'd fallen asleep.
Pital shook his head, realised his own limbs were numbing and so, reluctantly, he completed his task — severing the bunch of bananas for his mother who by this time was calling his brothers and sisters to the evening meal.
Pital barely touched his food, his mind full of the woman on the bed. Would someone come to her in that room? The fat man or the long-haired one? Pital knew it would be wrong, but he wanted to watch.
Excusing himself on the pretence of visiting his girlfriend — which he still might do — he slipped quietly back
