Anxious not to lose him, I squirm through the crowds, keeping his shorn head in my sights. A man with a monkey distracts me briefly and for a terrible moment I think I’ve lost him. Frantic, I whirl around, a vortex of faces blurring past me, colours racing. He’s gone, he’s gone. But seconds later, I have him again. I watch as he vanishes into an archway so narrow that at first I think he’s ghost-walked through a wall. Panicking, I hurry, elbowing people aside. Somebody curses me but I don’t care. I’m high with fear. I don’t know why I’m following him. I only know I can’t stop. Dark eyes flash around me, and my cunt’s pumping nearly as hard as my heart. I’m in the grip of something scary, my juices are hot, and I try to remember if I’ve eaten something funny. Maybe I stood too close to those desiccated hedgehogs. God knows what they were for. God knows what I’m doing.
In the alley, I pause to catch my breath. I’ve got the Boy in view again. The alley’s cool and whitewashed, not much wider than a person, and a few feet in, the racket of the souk goes dead. There’s no one around but us. Suddenly, it is so still. So silent. My own breath surrounds me, a whispering rush like a seashell to my ear. I walk on and yet I don’t think I move. I just pant. The sun doesn’t fall here, but the alley seems to shine with its own light, the white walls reflecting each other in a numinous glow, and I wonder if this is it. I wonder if I’m dying on an operating table, my soul sailing up to enter the kingdom of heaven, or to at least try tapping on its door. I want to look back to see where I’ve come from but my head’s far too heavy. I can’t turn.
There is nothing but this: me, my breath and the Boy. It’s as if I’ve slipped into a chink in the world.
Several yards ahead, half crouched, he creeps along with cautious grace. His slender torso is sweet and supple, the rack of his ribs visible beneath grimy, fudge-brown skin. The scent of him drifts in his wake, pheromonal and ripe. Civet, perhaps, or musk. How pliant his body must be, I think. How smooth his skin, how eager his hands, how tireless those beautiful, plum-coloured lips.
I follow, both of us keeping a steady pace, then the Boy stops, poised low. His arched spine protrudes in a knobbly ridge and the stubble of his hair prickles with light. I freeze, feeling I ought to, and realize I’m barely breathing. Then, slowly, the Boy swivels his head around to face me. And that’s when I nearly keel over. Because the eyes that look into mine belong to no man on earth. For several stunned seconds, I stare back. They are cat’s eyes: green as gooseberries with black, slit pupils.
Fear thumps me in the gut but I cannot scream. I cannot move either. I can’t do anything. I just gawp, rooted to the spot.
He smirks and turns away. I think I must be in one of my dreams. Soon, I tell myself, I’ll wake at the hotel and I’ll straddle Tom’s cock in a trance of remembering. I’ll rock back and forth, head swimming with a post-human dystopia, a stinking medieval market peopled with DNA freaks or inter-species offspring. Look around and they all seem perfectly normal till you spot their webbed feet, forked tongues, folded wings or dog-fang teeth. And I’ll climax and so will Tom. Then we’ll get up, have breakfast, take a bus to a town with tiled palaces, koi carp and orange trees, and we’ll buy something lovely in Spanish leather or cedar wood and everything will be all right.
The Boy creeps forward. I’m so scared and I’m so wet. But wet is winning. I follow, turning a corner then another until he ducks into a small archway in the wall. Moments later, I’m there too, head down and heart hammering as I descend three worn white steps.
In front of me, a cool cavernous chamber opens out. Hung with tapestries and oil lamps, its edges are banked with stacks of carpets, and in a far corner stands a cluster of earthenware jugs alongside sacks of grain. Sunbeams, soft and fuzzed with dust, slant down from high plasterwork arches, a tranquil light for prayer. It smells of straw and mice.
I catch a glimpse of the Boy as he flits from one stone pillar to another then stays there, hiding. Sitting cross-legged on a tall pile of carpets is a bald, muscular man with dark skin and heavy brows, his jawline shadowed with bristles. He’s bare-chested, whorls of black hair clouding his pecs and making a seam over his neatly rounded paunch. He looks like a cross between the Buddha and a thug. It’s not a look I’m familiar with but I do like it. He has a small, neat smile, and he’s observing me steadily, chin propped on his fist. I get the feeling he’s been expecting me.
“Hi,” I say, trying to sound brave.
I walk deeper into the chamber, across the flagstone floor, shoulders back. I know this man is going to fuck me and, frankly, I’m ready for it.
No one replies. The man keeps watching me, smiling. Though I’m still scared, I have an inkling of a new confidence. I’m starting to feel powerful and ageless, like some whore of the Old Testament. The Boy emerges from behind his pillar to lean against it, arms folded and smirking. His attitude’s changed. He has the jaded, haughty air of a rent boy, hard faced and sleazy. It’s attractive in a sick kind of way. His eyes are normal too. Well, relatively speaking. They are the most astonishing sea green – National Geographic eyes – but they are normal in that they are human. I must have been seeing things earlier, a trick of the light, nothing more.
They both watch me as I sashay forward. I feel deliciously easy. I’m a harlot, houri, concubine, slave. I could dance like Salome, seduce them with a strip show, except I don’t have seven veils, just sarong, vest and Birkenstocks.
Besides, my guess is, these guys really don’t need seducing.
“You chose well,” says the man, addressing the Boy.
Now hang on, I think. Didn’t I just walk here myself of my own free will? Then I correct myself. Who am I trying to kid? I’ve been picked up, haven’t I?
“My uncle.” The Boy grins and nods at the man.
Uncle tips up his chin in a curt greeting. “Show her to me,” he says to the Boy.
Barefoot, the Boy saunters forward. He parts my sarong, exposing my legs, and presses his hand between my thigh. All the weight of my body is suddenly in my cunt, resting in that skinny hand. My gusset is damp and he paddles his fingers there, grinning at me before latching onto my clit. He rubs through the fabric, judging my expression. I want to appear impassive but the smell and touch of him make me dizzy with longing. Truly, I can’t remember ever feeling so horny. I guess I don’t manage to pull off the cool, composed look because the Boy chuckles softly. In a whisper, he says, “Ah, you like that, don’t you? Hot little bitch.”
Well, you got me there, I think.
“She’s OK, Uncle,” announces the Boy. “Nice and wet.” He tucks the gusset aside then pushes two fingers up inside me. My knees nearly buckle. “Really wet,” he adds, stirring his two fingers around. In the silence, I hear my juices clicking.
“Excellent,” says Uncle in a thick, languid voice. “We have a willing woman.”
“A willing slut,” says the Boy, “who wants to get fucked.” He seems to be relishing the words, testing their strangeness like an adolescent keen to rid himself of innocence.
I’m relishing them too. I like being objectified. It takes the heat off having to be yourself.
The Boy, still working me with his fingers, slips his other hand up my top. He strokes me through my bra before pushing up the cups to squeeze and massage. My nipples are crinkled tight and he flicks and rocks them, bringing my nerve endings to seething life. Then, just as I start to feel I’m losing myself, falling open to ecstasy, the Boy pulls away and crosses the floor to Uncle.