I don’t think I’ll ever fall as hard and as fast for anyone, the way I fell for you.
I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone the way I love you.
“Nothing.” I took his face in my hands and kissed him.
“You think I don’t feel it?” he whispered, under the curtain of my hair. “Every beat of my heart is taking you away from me. I want to stop here forever. This tent, this kiss, this moment.” His fingers sunk into my hair as he pulled me to his lips.
I was drinking in the sweetness of his kiss when my stomach growled.
“I think your stomach wants in on the action.” Jack slid down and put his ear to my belly. “Are you talking dirty to me?” He proceeded to have a makeshift conversation. “What? No shit.” He came up and gave me a grim look. “Good news or bad?”
“How bad is it?” I played along.
“Death threats. If I don’t feed you, I’m done for.”
“And the good?” I laughed.
“You get a bite to eat, and then we get to pick up right where we left off.”
“And what about you?”
“Oh, I plan to eat my fill, sweetness.” He bit the slope between my neck and shoulder and held it between his teeth before soothing it with his tongue.
I fidgeted with a bag of milk chocolate squares while he rummaged through his backpack.
“This can or this one?” He held out identical tins.
“Both.” I popped a piece of chocolate into my mouth and grabbed another one. Apparently, sex made me hungry.
“Do you hear that?” asked Jack, sitting up straighter.
There was a faint, metallic clanging coming from outside.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Sounds like . . . cowbells.”
We got dressed and pushed the tent flaps aside. The rain had stopped, but a thick mist rose out of the damp, heated ground.
“Why would anyone bring cows to this godforsaken place?” Jack stepped outside.
I crawled out after him and squinted into the dense, colorless haze.
“They may not see us,” said Jack, picking up the two cans he’d just emptied for our lunch. “We need to keep them from trampling over our tent.” He hurried ahead, striking the cans together as an alert.
The cowbells got closer but seemed to still as the other party heard us. We stopped and peered through the humid vapor. Groves of monumental rock rose on either side of us. The mist gave everything a fey-like quality, like we were standing at the threshold of an otherworldly place, still and suspended, except for the muted clink of the odd cowbell.
A figure appeared through the fog, shrouded in veils of phantom gray. He planted his spear in the soft, sodden soil and stood before us like a velvet-black shadow. A checkered sheet hung around his shoulders and loops of silver jangled from his earlobes.
“Olonana.” Jack stepped forward as the chief came into focus.
“Kasserian ingera.” He lifted his spear in greeting.How are the children?
Jack was about to reply when the ribbons of mist around Olonana shifted. Moon white faces appeared soundlessly, one by one, around the chief’s dark figure. I watched breathlessly, as they materialized, like silent notes summoned by a conjurer’s symphony. One, two, three, four . . . they kept stepping out of the mist, until they were all standing, like a line of vapor-cloaked wraiths on either side of Olonana.
Thirteen albino kids, flanked by a pair of red-garbed Maasai warriors.
My hair stood on end. Against the backdrop of distant, blurry mountains, the group stood before us with an air of expectation. Behind them, cows sniffed the wet, barren ground, searching for whispers of grass.
