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 We thrashed about like that for I don’t know how  long. Then we struck at the same moment, and her  hands dug into my rear to hold me tight. It was a longdrawn, ecstatic moment and we both rose from the  ground to prolong it. We exploded then, together, and  with a force that tossed the fur robe off us and set us  rolling in the snow.

 It was a moment before either of us even began to feel  the cold. When we did, we scurried back to our niche  and pulled the fur around us. The girl leaned away from  me for a moment and pointed at herself. “Farah," she  said.

 It seemed a hell of a time for introductions, but I went  along with it. “Steve,” I said, jerking a thumb at my  face.

 "Steve," she repeated and kissed me.

 “Farah.” I kissed her back.

 We fought off the cold for another half-hour. It was   even better than the first time. By the time it was over,  the storm was letting up. Farah wrapped the coat around  us both and guided me into the mountains.

 It was a steep trail, but we didn't have far to go. It  was only twenty minutes or so when we reached a small  village of thatched huts with furs draped over the rooftops and outside walls. Farah led me inside one of them.

 She rummaged around and came up with a pair of sandals, fur-lined pants, a shirt, a coat and a hat for me.  Then she lit a fire. I laid the Luger and my wallet— both  of which I'd somehow managed to hold onto throughout  my ordeal—near the fire to dry out. A while later, I  checked the contents of the wallet and found that while  the river had messed them up pretty badly, my  identification papers and passport were still legible. The  paper money I had could be dried out. And, perhaps  most important of all, the letter of introduction from BenKavir, Sheikh Taj-ed el Atassi's deceased harim-keeper,  was still readable.

 Farah prepared some kind of a meat stew—goat, I suspected—and I wolfed it down. I was mopping up my  plate with a crust of bread when I looked up and saw the  three Hazaras staring at me from the doorway. They  were big men, close to seven feet tall, each of them, and  well over 250 pounds of muscle apiece, I would have bet.

 “Hello," I said inanely, not knowing what else to say.

 They ignored me. One of them grunted something  harsh and guttural to Farah. He spoke the same Pushtu  dialect she did. Her answer to whatever he’d said evidently pleased neither him nor his two companions. The  three of them glowered at Farah, and then at me.

 They pulled off their fur robes and tossed them to  Farah. Then they turned back to stare at me some more.  After a moment, one of them reached for a scabbard at  his waist and withdrew a large, curved scythe. It wasn't a  scimitar, or any other kind of weapon, but a tool these  people use to cut the long grasses of the region during the  short springtime season. Nevertheless, it looked quite  large and sharp enough to lop off my head with no  trouble at all.

 Evidently that was his intention, for he started straight  for me. At the same moment, I started for where I'd left    the Luger. Before either of us reached our destinations,  Farah intervened. She stepped between us with a  steaming dish of the stew she'd made in each hand.  Woman-like, she waved one of the dishes under the Hazaras’ nose. He stopped cold, sniffed a moment, shot me  a look that said “Eat now; kill later!" and took the  plate from her hand.

 The other two followed his example and the three of  them squatted down across the hut from me to eat their  dinner. Farah shot me a nervous smile. I managed to  grin back, wondering what would happen once they'd  filled their bellies.

 What happened was they belched. Not any of your  squelched belches, either. These boys burped loud and  strong and clear, first in unison, and then taking off on  solos. I got the feeling there was some kind of competition going on, with each of them trying to outdo the  other in loudness, tonal quality and frequency.

 Finally, the symphony grepsed to a close. They turned  their attention back to me. They muttered among themselves for a moment and then one of them got to his feet,  heading for me with the scythe again. I pointed the  Luger at him and he stopped.

 I don't know how long we would have stayed frozen  in this impasse if Farah hadn't stepped in again. She  stood directly in front of him, positioning herself so that  the other two could see as well, and spread her robes  wide apart: Naked underneath it, she went into a dance  then, opening and closing the robe, rolling her hips and  belly, rotating her breasts, bumping her pelvis with a  technique that Elvis himself might have envied.

 The other two Hazaras were on their feet now,  standing beside the one with the scythe in his hand to  get a better look. Farah swayed to and fro before them,  faster and faster, reaching up with her hands to graze the  tops of their shaved heads, then reaching low for a more  intimate caress. She shed the coat altogether and  seemingly at a signal from her all three of them fell to  their knees in unison. Farah whirled like a dervish now,  naked and brazen, pushing her breasts at the lips of one  and then another of the three men, thrusting her  bristling womanhood in their very faces.

  What followed, as on that wild desert ride with Teska,  made me think once again of Lord George Herbert's A  Night in a Moorish Harem. I was a long way from the  Moorish coast, but the scene I watched was a ringer for  the one Herbert describes as having occurred in a Turkish seraglio at Erzurum between a Circassian houri and  three Muslim males. The only difference was that at one  point Farah tried to go the houri one better by ringing  me in on the proceedings.

 Yes, she managed—and seemingly with both ease and  pleasure-—to take on the three of them simultaneously.  And not exactly in the manner you might envisage. One  of the men lay flat on his back so that she might squat  and impale herself. The second knelt facing her,  straddling the first man, and presenting a target for her  greedy lips. The third man knelt low behind her, be-  tween the legs of the first man, and plunged home to the  very same spot where the first man was already lodged.  From this position, he was capable of long, deep,  piercing thrusts, although the man in possession of the  tunnel first obviously couldn't move at all. He didn't  seem to mind, and I gathered he was getting his main  thrill from the vigor with which the third man was  striking against him.

 Farah's hindquarters were thrust high in the air and  she paused a moment to look at me and point to them  with her hand. There was one orifice still unstoppered  and it was obvious that she wished me to correct this  condition. When I shook my head, she shrugged and  went back to the enjoyment of what she was doing. I  watched fascinated; now I knew why Farah had seemed  so large when I'd made love to her during the blizzard.  Obviously, a girl used to accommodating two men in the  same place at the same time would be stretched a little  wide for the pleasure of only one man. My ego was relieved.

 Still watching, my mind veered off to consider the  reading. I'd done on the sex customs of this region. In  the light of it, what I was seeing wasn't really so unusual. There was a tremendous shortage of women here  and it was common among the Hazaras for many men to  share one woman. So common, indeed, that the Afghans    embraced the Anangaranga (Code of Cupid) of Pandit  Kalyanamalla, the Indian sex pundit who had spelled  out the ways in which many men may enjoy a woman  simultaneously. Today, the Anangaranga has been all  but forgotten in India, where the Kama Sutra has replaced it as a sex guide for most of the population. But  in Afghanistan, with its woman shortage, the Anangaranga still rates tops on the best-seller list for sex manuals.