Blood & Milk (10 page)

And as fulfilling as that was, as heart-warming and rewarding as it was, it was Damu’s smile that made it perfect for me. He grinned and laughed as he helped the smaller children run and kick the ball. He cheered with them when they made a good kick, and even after the evening put a stop to play, Damu didn’t stop smiling.

“You enjoyed soccer,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was written all over his face.

“Much.” We’d gone into our hut and were having our soup for dinner. It was dark inside but I could still see his face.

“It is great fun.”

“We can do soccer every day.”

“I hope so.”

“Amali give me gift for you.”

“She did?”

He reached behind him and handed me a neatly folded square of material. “Is it a shuka? For me?”

“Yes. Amali give.”

I lifted it to my face and inhaled. It smelled new and felt scratchy like a picnic blanket. “It’s perfect,” I said. It was more than just getting a shuka, a blanket even, it was a sign of acceptance and even gratitude for my efforts to school the children. It was a gift from people who had very little to give. “I am very grateful.”

“I know this. Amali know this.”

I wrapped the shuka around my shoulders. “We will be twice as warm at night.”

He chuckled. “Sleep now?”

When we lay down, as always, I had my back to his chest. But before he could flick his shuka out over us, I rolled over and faced him instead. I wasn’t even sure why. I just needed to feel human contact. I needed to feel alive.

It was the first time I’d faced him while lying down from the beginning. Sure, I’d woken up in this position, but there was something intimate about starting out like this. I could barely make out the whites of his eyes, though he remained very still. I gently put my hand on his cheek. “Is this okay?”

His breath hitched. “Yes.”

“Tell me if you don’t want this.”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “I want this touch. Very much,” he whispered.

I pulled our shukas over us, then ran my thumb across his jaw and kissed him. His lips were full and plump, soft and open. I offered him my tongue, with light and caressing strokes, making him whine with need. He let me kiss him this way, my mouth on his, my hand to his face, until we both needed to come up for air. I slung my leg over his thigh and pulled his hips into mine, feeling every inch of his arousal. He shuddered with pleasure. “Alé,” he murmured against my lips.

I slid my hand between us and trailed my hand down past his navel. “Can I touch you?”

His reply was a whispered, gruff, “Yes.”

I reached down further and brushed my hand against his erection. He gasped, so this time I slid my palm along his length and slowly, gently, wrapped my fingers around him. He shut his eyes tight and moaned, so to keep him quiet, I covered his mouth with my lips and kissed him.

When I teased his tongue with mine, his cock jerked in my hand. Like the rest of him, his cock was long and thin, and I squeezed him, imagining how incredible he’d feel inside me when he arched into me and let out a strangled cry as he came between us.

It was so powerful and such a turn on, it only took a quick few pulls on my own cock to bring me over the edge.

I thought he’d pull away as the cold realisation of what we’d just done settled over us. But he didn’t. He put his hand to my face, his long, gentle fingers tracing the outline of my cheek, my eyebrow, my jaw, and finally my lips. He pulled me closer, wrapping his arm around my waist, and he pressed his lips to mine.

It was a soft kiss, a sleepy kiss, and the emotion behind it took me by surprise. Despite the mess now sticking between us, cooling on our bellies, Damu kissed me again, then tucked me into his neck and sighed. His breathing evened out, his hold on me tightened even as he slept.

I wondered what dreams would haunt me that night as I fell asleep in the arms of Damu, a man that was, with every Tanzanian sunrise, healing something inside me. I waited for the bony fingers of my nightmares to curl themselves around me, but they didn’t.

I slept like a baby and woke with the sun.

* * * *

The next two weeks played out the same. Damu and I herded the goats, letting them graze further out each day as winter took its toll on the landscape. Then I’d spend time with the kids in the classroom―we were learning shapes, colours, and words in English and their Maa equivalent―and every lesson ended in a game of soccer. Each night ended in Damu’s arms, his appetite for exploring his newfound sex life was increasing every night. We didn’t always end up in some post orgasmic slumber, but we did, every night without fail, fall asleep in each other’s arms.

“I forget that this is all new to you,” I said, kissing up his chest. As it turned out, he liked having his nipples tweaked, so I rolled the sensitive nub between my lips just to make him squirm.

It was true though. He’d completely tamped down any sexual urges for his entire life, because to be homosexual in his world meant certain death. So now, with my arrival, he was free to explore every whim he could imagine. We’d yet to have intercourse―we had no condoms or lube―but we’d done just about everything else. When I’d given him his first blowjob, I thought I’d killed him. He lay there, catatonic, his eyes like white saucers in the dark, until a slow smile spread across his face, and then he began to laugh.

Needless to say, it was his new favourite thing.

He rolled me over, manoeuvring me on his thin mattress and skimmed down my stomach and kissed the skin above the waistband of my shorts. He’d never reciprocated before…

“I do for you,” he murmured. “What you do for me.”

I certainly wasn’t going to argue. He freed my erection and started off slowly. He was new to physical intimacy, though he certainly wasn’t shy. He was keen to try as much as he could, and he was definitely a quick learner. He did everything to me that I’d done to him. He licked and tasted, enjoying the act and not just the reward.

By no means perfect, but still so,
so
good.

It was hard to be quiet. I used to be so vocal in bed, but being here, where anyone might hear us, warranted absolute silence. When I couldn’t hold back my orgasm any longer, I tried to warn him, but he kept his mouth on me and sucked harder…

He gagged, and I couldn’t help it, but I laughed. Eventually he fell onto the mattress beside me, and with my mind still swirling in a post-orgasmic haze, I chuckled.

“You drink that of me?” he asked. “It was… not expected taste.”

That only made me laugh more. “It’s not sweet, if that’s what you mean.”

“No. Not sweet.” He shook his head as I curled into his arms. I was still smiling as I rest my head on his chest, safe and protected. His heart beat in my ear and his voice rumbled through his chest. “But please I do it more?”

I barked out a laugh, trying to muffle the sound. “You can do that any time you like.”

He pressed his lips to my temple. “Thank you, Alé.”

I kissed his chest. “Thank you, Damu.” I closed my eyes, still smiling, and tumbled slowly into another perfectly dreamless sleep.

* * * *

Days rolled into weeks, and without the warriors―well, without Kijani and all the younger warriors―life was very peaceful. I wouldn’t say it was better for the village to have them permanently absent, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t better for Damu and me. We were a little freer, less scrutinised, without the watchful glare of Damu’s older brother.

One wintery afternoon, we were playing soccer with the children. They’d become good at it now, and the mothers and elders watched from afar, looking our way with smiles on their faces when one of us laughed or cheered.

But then Makumu, one of the elder guards, started to yell, quick-fired words I’d not heard before. The children stopped running and the women hurried to collect them, leading them back inside the safety of the thorn fence.

I turned to Damu. “What is it?”

“Someone is coming.”

Damu’s unease put a shiver through me. I scanned the horizon and finally saw what Makumu was looking at. There were two lone figures approaching. Still some distance away but most definitely heading this way. One of them was tall, one shorter, and from the way they walked, I’d guessed one was male, the other female.

“It is Kijani,” Makumu said and sighed with relief.

Just then, the taller of the two figures waved. Makumu waved back. “Kijani return,” Makumu called out, and a moment later, Kasisi came to stand beside us.

His return was clearly not expected and neither was the guest he brought with him.
I thought he was at an all-male warrior initiation? What on earth was the woman doing with him…?

I got a heavy hollow feeling in my belly at the thought of what might have happened to her. I had come to accept many cultural differences here, especially when it came to the social standing of women in this society. I had bitten my tongue so many times, but this I could not leave alone.

“Why is she with him? What has happened to her?” I asked.

I was standing with Damu, Kasisi, and Makumu, watching as Kijani and this woman approached us, but no one answered.

I looked to Damu. “Has she been harmed?”

Damu looked at me then, his brow furrowed. Maybe he didn’t like what I was implying, and that was fine with me. Because I didn’t like it either.

It was Kasisi who answered. “We wait to hear what Kijani says.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I rationalised that my anger was unfounded, and hearing what Kijani had to say first was a wise choice. If she had been harmed or sold or traded like a fucking goat,
then
I would speak my mind.

Which would probably find me at the pointy end of a spear…

I breathed in deep again and repeated the breathing techniques that my therapist had once taught me. I could only imagine what she would think if she saw me now…

When Kijani was closer, he yelled, “
A-ipót
, Amali.”

He was asking for Amali to come. Damu turned and ran through the gate and I heard him call for Amali and a few seconds later, Amali came through the gate with Damu right behind her.

By this time, Kijani and the woman had arrived. She had her head down and her red shuka pulled over her head like a blanket to keep warm against the cold winds on the plains. I could barely see her face, though I noted she was barefoot and without any beads, bracelets, necklaces or anklets.

In Maasai terms, that meant she had no worth.

Then Kijani said, “
K
i
talâ
.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but Amali went quickly to the woman and took her arm, leading her hurriedly into the kraal.

When the women were gone, Kijani nodded to his father, murmured something I didn’t quite catch, and without even so much as a look at me and Damu, he and Kasisi went inside the kraal.

Makumu went back to his guarding duties, while Damu and I just stood there.

“What just happened?” I asked. “What does
k
i
talâ
mean?”

“Refuge. That woman need refuge.”

I turned to look at the gateway into the kraal, to where the woman had gone. Standing there, holding the dusty soccer ball, I felt like a fraud. I had assumed the very worst of these people, people who had offered me a place to live and food to eat when they themselves had very little to offer.

I had assumed wrong of Kijani, and I felt horrible for that.

“Who does she need refuge from?”

Damu shrugged. “Her family.”

My shoulders fell. “Oh.”

Damu studied me for a long time, then suggested we go inside. The days were shorter, evening was closing in around us, and we’d need to start a fire if we wanted to have soup for dinner. He was unusually quiet while we cooked and ate, as though he was struggling to ask me something.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, draining my bowl.

“You,” he said quietly. He’d hardly had any of his soup, so I knew what he wanted to ask couldn’t have been good. “When I said woman need refuge from family, you be scared for her.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes. I wonder what horrible things she ran away from.”

Damu nodded slowly. “Why you not talk of family?”

The soup in my belly roiled. “My family…” I had to push the air out of my lungs to make my voice work. “I don’t have a family.”

“At all?”

I shook my head. “They didn’t like that I am gay, that I love men and not women.”

He looked alarmed. “You said your country is okay with such things.”

“My country is. Well, most people are. But not my parents or my sister.” I let out a shaky breath. The silence in the hut was deafening. “They wanted me to choose between them and who I really am.”

“You choose you.”

“I chose truth and honesty. And I chose love not hate.”

He slid his hand over mine and was quiet for the longest time. “You are brave. Much brave than me.”