"We'll stop here for a beer," explained the Major, conveniently forgetting the late hour.
"Why not!" Doug and Penny echoed in unison.
In all-too-short a time, they were back on the road, continuing along the same uphill road that the bar was on. The four soldiers in the back, in lighter spirits after beer and the brief respite of the tarmac, broke into a popular native song.. until the road changed back into granite again, just a little ways east of the town the Major called Liberte.
Farther on, with the mountains ahead of them turning heavy gray with the coming of night, they turned down yet another dirt road, so narrow that it more closely resembled a path. Banana trees grew on both sides, their thick green foliage reaching across the road to brush along the top and sides of the Land-Rover like the muted sounds of a drummer's brushes. The road was bumpy, rockier even than the main road. It was filled with potholes, and as they bounced slowly along they came across a large truck turned over on its side. Penny's heart turned an anxious flip. Had it been the work of the Djambulu renegades? she wondered.
The Major, too, appeared concerned as he inched slowly past. Then, seeing only large cartons strewn about and no bodies, he let out an anxious sigh of relief. Apparently, it had skidded into an oversize pothole when the road was wet and had gone over on its side.
A short distance further on the road forked again and they made another gear-gnashing right turn onto a "road" that was yet narrower than the last. There were huts on either side with people standing in front of them. "Mgoro," the little Major mumbled, but in the mounting darkness it was difficult to verify his statement. Then there was a sign that read, MGORO TECHNICAL SCHOOL 1 KILOMETER, and ahead a large stone arch that looked as though it would collapse at any given sneeze.
Major M'Bonu, in an impressive show of courage, drove beneath the arch, and there inside stood a group of Africans, a dozen or so, and they fell back into a semi-circle as the Land Rover came to a halt and its occupants stepped out. They were all wearing slacks and crisp new white shirts, and highly polished black shoes. A portly middle-aged man wearing thin-framed gold spectacles that looked somehow out of place against the grotesquely welted tribal markings that covered his black face, stepped forward and introduced himself as Monsieur Paul M'Jabu, the Assistant Headmaster. "We've been expecting you for hours," he explained with almost-fawning politeness. "Monsieur La Pierre has only just this minute returned to his house!"
While one of the Africans trotted off to fetch the Headmaster, Major M'Bonu made the appropriate apologies for their tardiness. In contrast to the spiffily-attired Africans, whom they learned were fellow teachers at the school, Doug, in a khaki bush suit, and Penny in a flimsy cotton short and halter ensemble, felt a little uncomfortable and out of place.
In a few minutes they were joined by Headmaster La Pierre. He was a wiry old Frenchman, somewhere in his late-sixties, who'd stayed on after I'independance. He was short and thin, with a bushy white moustache that hid a liver-spotted upper lip. "How do you do," he said in English. Then, in French, "Welcome to Senegal."
In keeping with the international spirit of the greeting, Doug accepted the old man's extended right hand and gave it a vigorous shake. "We're happy to be here," he responded in respectable Mgoro.
"Tres bien!" the old man sparkled delightedly. "I'm sure you will get along very well here, if you don't talk too much politics!"
Another prophecy fulfilled, thought Penny.
The old man turned then, pointing toward a tidy row of concrete bungalows with corrugated iron roofs and real windows. "The second one from the right will be yours," he said.
"How nice!" Penny brightened with a pretty flash of dimples. Somehow she'd half-expected something out of Better Muds and Waddles, like those they'd passed on the road.
Then, as the wiry little Headmaster led them to the crowd that had gathered around a group of picnic tables in the center of the compound, they heard the plaintive far-off thumping of a native drum, as if to remind them that they were really in Africa.
CHAPTER THREE
The first two weeks were the hardest. But then, that was to be expected. It took the first three days just to learn their way around the compound and physically adjust to the differences in time and temperature. Hivernage-the rainy season-was officially over, but there were weepy days nonetheless; and those, too, demanded a certain degree of adjustment. And yet, despite the difficulties of geography, and of learning a new job, the major problem of adjustment, from Penny's point of view was simply getting used to the houseboy, Ojike's, omnipresent erections. And what erections they were! It had become apparent almost immediately that the Mgoro were a physically well-endowed lot the women with their enormous naked breasts, and large perpetually uncovered pubic bushes, the men with their big black hose-like cocks dangling half-way to their knees. But Ojike.. Ojike was something else!
He wasn't altogether that young thirty or thirty-five at least, Penny reckoned but he was hung like a circus pony, and it was a rare moment indeed when his foot-long appendage wasn't standing in rippling salute to Penny's presence. Sometimes it amused her, in a naughty voyeuristic sort of way; but mostly it shocked and embarrassed her. At one point she'd even pushed Doug into explaining to the native chief, King Henri M'Jira, that having a houseboy was against Peace Corps policy. But, the chief explained, it was against Mgoro policy not to supply the appropriate hospitable amenities to resident foreign VIP's. Case dismissed.
Still, Penny managed to find some respite from Ojike's constant "compliment" by burying herself in her work. While Doug busied himself with his carpentry classes, Penny taught homemaking and childcare and, in the evenings, classes in French and English grammar. There was time off, of course, but not much. And it was with a considerable amount of persistence that Doug had finally persuaded La Pierre to let him accompany a few of his students to a particularly fine stand of native mahogany a few miles from the village. It was there that he discovered a tiny mountain- waterfall that poured its spring-fed waters into a jewel-like jungle pool. He vowed, then and there, that he would bring Penny to see it at the first opportunity La Pierre or no La Pierre!
On the moonlit evening of the day that marked the anniversary of their second week in Africa and coincidentally their seventh month of marriage-he did just that..
***Walking hand in hand, Doug led Penny slowly along the forest path toward the waterfall. A light breeze cooled Penny's forehead and she could smell the sweet perfume of night flowers blooming in the moonlight. The sky was a deep dark expanse littered with winking stars except where masses of swiftly moving clouds obscured them. In spite of the spirit of adventure her excited young husband had infected her with, the stormy coolness of the night and the lingering effects of the Norths warnings heightened her senses and made her clasp Doug's strong callused hand more firmly for protection.
But then, there was still another reason for their little clandestine outing sex. Her and Doug's love life since arriving in Africa had been practically nonexistent. And that, along with the constant nudity of the Mgoro, had left the young American couple in a state of prodigious agitation the past few days. In fact, that very morning, Penny had been literally unable to keep her eyes off Ojike's thick black cock. And the wizened African, with intuitive delight, had played the situation to its fullest…deliberately flexing his inky penis at every opportunity letting it pulse and quiver like the heavily muscled arm of a pygmy with a balled fist on the end of it, as it jutted out from his kinky-haired loins at an outrageous forty-five-degree angle.
In fact, to be perfectly honest, the fires of passion were still smoldering inside her from the constant sight of the houseboy's swollen prick, and she could feel the warm moisture between her thighs where it flowed from her excited vaginal lips. Just walking and the rubbing together of them between her legs was re-igniting the embers of desire and sending sharp tingling waves of unwanted pleasure spreading out in all directions from her clitoris. Even the light shiftings of her cotton halter-top as she walked were sparking her already painfully hard nipples to greater heights of sensation.