White Ivory
by Lindsey Brooks
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Lindsey Brooks
Published by Strict Publishing International
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1
As the first dusty shovelful of African earth landed on the plank coffin, Douglas turned away from the grave and strode back towards the bungalow. He hated funerals. If he had not had the misfortune to have found the body, he would never have come to this one.
At first, he had thought the fellow had crashed head-on into the tree but there had been no damage to the front of the car. It had just slipped out of gear and coasted to a halt when the dead man’s foot slid off the throttle. Fever, the doctor had said, though Douglas had seen the gin bottle in the car’s foot-well when he had checked the body for signs of life. Maybe it was fever, but helped by too great a liking for drink unless he had mistaken his guess.
He leaned through the window of the Chevrolet parked in front of the bungalow and plucked a cigarette from the tin of Players on the passenger seat. The car’s interior was already like an oven. Douglas checked his wristwatch as he lit the cigarette. Quarter of an hour to get the poor bugger underground, that was all. It was just as well. The taint of corruption that had risen from the coffin still clung in his nostrils. Breathing smoke down his nose, he lowered his head so the brim of his hat shaded his eyes from the morning sun, and watched the two other people who had stood at the grave walking back from the parched, little cemetery beside the white-painted mission church.
Douglas had met the man twenty minutes earlier. Piet Van Gryf, he had called himself as they had shaken hands, but there had been no time for conversation before the burial began. He had met the woman the previous afternoon at the District Commissioner’s hearing into the death. That had been the same day he had found her husband’s body. Such things moved fast in Africa, driven by the need to get the corpse underground as quickly as possible. Despite the circumstances, Douglas could not help thinking at the time that she was a tidy little package, though she had not suited black. At least, not the black, woollen dress she had been wearing, more appropriate for a chilly day in England than for equatorial Africa. She was not wearing it for the funeral, as though any outward display of mourning was no longer necessary now she was out of the public eye. She was not shedding any tears either.
He watched her hips sway and the side-to-side movements of her breasts as she approached. Their fullness stretched taut her white cotton blouse, and the beige linen of her calf-length skirt hugged the neat curves of her figure, clinging tightly over the slight swell of her abdomen. The long strands of blonde hair that had escaped from under her sun-hat made him recall the golden mane she had revealed in the courtroom the day before. She clearly did not favour the short, bobbed hairstyles that were the current fashion.
Aye, Douglas told himself, a very tidy package and more his type than that skinny, small-titted bitch, Celia. What a dance she had led him, all coquettish smiles, and come-to-bed eyes filled with a promise she had never intended to keep. He lowered his eyes as the widow got close enough to see him watching her. That was women for you. They would dress up like the best Paris tarts and flaunt it in your face, but when the moment came, it usually turned out they were saving themselves for the rich husband their mamas had told them to be on the lookout for. And of course, he never quite fitted the bill. Not that he was looking for a wife. God forbid! He had neither time nor patience for pandering to the feminine need for courtship, romance and declarations of affection.
The widow paused at the steps leading to the bungalow’s veranda. “I’m afraid I haven’t prepared anything, Mr. Douglas, but will you join us for a drink?” Her voice was a rich contralto that sounded very pleasant to Douglas’s ear, and to most men’s, he supposed.
“I didn’t expect it, Mrs. Milton,” he replied. “This is hardly Kensington.” He eyed her neatly rounded bottom and shapely calves and ankles as he followed her up the steps. She was not wearing stockings and had low-heeled pumps on her feet - what his late mother, bless her, would have called ‘sensible shoes’. Douglas knew it was damned ungentlemanly to be lusting after a woman at her husband’s funeral, but if the war had taught him one thing, it was to live for the moment. He continued to appreciate the tempting wiggle of her backside as they entered the bungalow’s living room and she went to a table and began fussing over a drinks tray.
“Where’s your houseboy?” the other member of the funeral party asked, ignoring the hide sofa and armchair to sit at the table. Douglas joined him.
“I paid him off, Mr. Van Gryf, and the other servants. There’s only the caretaker left. He’s employed by the mission society.”
“Well you can’t stay here on your own,” Van Gryf said. “You’d best go to a hotel in Nairobi until I can get you a passage home.”
“I can take you back with me,” Douglas offered, not entirely unselfishly.
“I… I don’t know.” Mrs. Milton sat down facing them, leaving the top off the whisky bottle and the drinks unpoured. She took her hat off and ran slim fingers through her long, golden hair. She was hesitant, unhappy, but Douglas did not think grief was causing it, or her very obvious nervousness, which seemed to be bordering on real fear.
She met Van Gryf’s eye. “I don’t want to go to Nairobi. I thought maybe…. That is… I hoped perhaps… you would offer me a position.” Her gaze was bright and intense in the moment before she looked away with her cheeks blushing and a quiver on her lower lip. Douglas thought he saw surprise in the man’s expression, quickly concealed, and followed immediately by a suspicious narrowing of his eyes.
“Don’t you want to go home?” Van Gryf asked. “To England, I mean.”
Mrs. Milton shook her head, light scattering from her blonde hair. “There’s nothing for me there. I’d… I’d rather stay here.” She lowered her eyes. “W… with you.”
“I don’t think you at all understand what you’re asking for, Mrs. Milton.” Van Gryf poured whisky into three tumblers and placed one before each of them. As if on cue, they all drank. He offered a packet of Gold Flake around, lit one and leaned back in his chair. As he blew smoke from the side of his mouth his eyes went briefly to Douglas then fixed on the widow, who was turning her glass on the tabletop with trembling fingers.
Douglas sensed an undercurrent in the conversation, one which told him there was something out of the ordinary about the woman’s request for employment.
Mrs. Milton drew on her cigarette. Douglas saw Van Gryf’s gaze flicker to the full breasts straining the thin cotton of her blouse as she inhaled deeply. Her deep-blue eyes lifted. Her pupils were dilated and there were little beads of sweat above her upper lip.
“Please… sir!”
Van Gryf’s eyebrows rose a fraction at what was clearly a heartfelt plea. He studied her face in silence, smoking and sipping his drink until she would no longer meet his stare. Only when she looked away did the widow seem to recall Douglas’s presence. The redness in her cheeks deepened. What was so embarrassing about asking for a job, he wondered. Why that look of… was it guilt? Unless…. Bloody hell! Was she asking to become the man’s mistress? And her husband hardly cold in the ground.
“I’m curious, Mrs. Milton,” Van Gryf said at last. “What exactly is it you think you know about me? And where did you hear it?”
“I didn’t hear, I saw,” she replied. “When you invited us last New Year. It was very hot and David was… was drunk. I got up, just to cool off under your ceiling-fan, and saw you going out to the… the stables. I… I followed.”
“So, you’ve seen my mares?” If there was a flicker of relief on Van Gryf’s face, it was gone in an instant. A thin smile wrinkled the corners of his mouth at her nod. “But I don’t believe you can have understood what you think you saw. Otherwise you would not have asked me to give you - what was it? A position?”
“I understood perfectly… sir!”
The way she delayed her use of the respectful term for a second and the emphasis she placed upon it puzzled Douglas.
Van Gryf stubbed out his cigarette. “I doubt that. You haven’t realised, for instance, that there is no going back, no withdrawing from such a commitment. Have you thought that you will not be permitted to go where or when you please as you do now? That you will have no contact with friends or family ever again?”
“I have no friends, and there’s no one in England who matters.”
“I think you’ve chosen the wrong time, Mrs. Milton,” Van Gryf said soberly. “After recent events, you’re upset. You should -.”
“I’m not upset,” she interrupted. “You know how it was between David and I. He blamed me and he drank. I’m not upset. I’m relieved. Oh, Lord! What a terrible thing to say.”
“You see? This is no time for far-reaching decisions. Ones from which there can be no turning back.”
“I want it,” Mrs. Milton said flatly. “I’ve wanted it for a long time. Long before I ever saw your stable.”
Douglas saw that moisture had gathered in the woman’s eyes. Before the war, he had always been a hopeless case when a pretty female started blubbering. He watched her tears spill onto her cheeks and was unmoved.
A big African in bush-jacket and shorts appeared in the doorway.
“It is done, Bwana,” he told Van Gryf.
“Right, N’kruma, get the boys back to the compound. I’ll be along shortly.”
Van Gryf had had to bring the men who dug the grave. Not much of a send-off, Douglas thought, not even a service, but then the fellow had been the local preacher. He could hardly conduct his own funeral. And it was still more than most had ever got in the trenches.
The African disappeared, and a minute later Douglas heard a car drive away. Van Gryf finished his whisky, all his attention fixed on the anxious woman. She kept her eyes down, one hand clutching her glass, an inch of ash on the cigarette in the other. She was shivering like a gazelle in the split-second before flight. The ash fell to the table.
Van Gryf stood. “I’d better get going.” He shook hands with Douglas. “Nice meeting you, Englishman. A pity the circumstances were so unfortunate. Once again, Mrs. Milton, my condolences.”
The widow raised bright, blue eyes filled with a desperate entreaty.
Van Gryf studied her, his weathered features expressionless. He sighed. “Are your cases packed?”
She nodded.
“Fetch them.”
She went into another room and reappeared dragging a medium-sized cabin trunk. When Van Gryf made no move to help her, Douglas carried it outside. Mrs. Milton followed as far as the top of the veranda steps, looking even more fearful now that Van Gryf appeared to have agreed to her request. He opened the boot of his car and Douglas put the trunk inside.
“Are you wearing any knickers?” Van Gryf suddenly asked.
“Of course I am!” The widow looked stunned.
“Then take them off.”
Douglas watched in astonishment as Mrs. Milton promptly pulled her skirt up to the tops of her thighs and reached underneath. Looking up from the foot of the steps and only feet away, he was almost sure he saw the flash of a golden-crowned slit as she pulled her white, cotton pants down to her ankles and stepped out of them.
“Leave them,” Van Gryf told her as she bent to retrieve the knickers.
Cheeks aflame, she stood up.
Van Gryf gave a thin smile. “Come on then.”
The woman looked towards the white-painted, little church and its graveyard.
“Come!” Van Gryf barked.
With a long, indrawn breath that made her blouse gape between its buttons, Mrs. Milton walked decisively down the steps. Douglas turned to the Chevrolet, greatly disappointed he would never know the final outcome of the extraordinary events he had witnessed, or if his suspicions about the widow were correct.
“Bugger!” He stared at the black puddle spreading out from under the front of his car. Van Gryf joined him as he lifted one side of the Chevrolet’s hood and stared at the engine.
“Crankshaft oil seal,” Douglas said after a moment’s inspection.
“It’s the heat. Dries the damn things out ’til they crack. You’re not going anywhere in that, Englishman. You’d best come with me for now.”
“But I was going the other way.” Douglas pointed north.
“Have you pressing business in Nairobi?”
“Nothing that won’t wait, I suppose.” He decided to be completely honest. “In fact, I have no business in Nairobi.”
Van Gryf laughed. “Being my guest for a few days won’t delay it then. I got the impression you were more than a little curious about Caroline Milton.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where she sat in the back of his car. “And to tell you the truth, so am I. Come on, get in the Crossley.”
Fetching his haversack and cigarettes, Douglas settled on the scorching leather of the car’s front seat. “How far are we going?”
Van Gryf started the engine. “Oh, Mrs. Milton and I are close neighbours. Only fifteen miles.” He stared at her reflection in the rear-view mirror and raised his voice to be sure she would hear. “And she had better think very hard about what she’s doing for every one of them.”
* * * * *
As the big car rocked over the dirt road, Caroline crouched in a corner of the back seat. Elation, fear and embarrassment all surged within her, varying in proportion with the turmoil of thoughts racing through her mind. She cowered inwardly at the humiliation of Douglas witnessing her abject plea. When they had met the day before, he had seemed irked at having to become involved in her business. She had not expected him to attend the funeral. But she had known very well that it was her only chance. She was damned if she was going to give it up.
It was all she could do to keep from squirming her bare crotch on the seat as she remembered vividly what she had seen on that night at New Year.
He had accepted her. Oh, Lord, he had! It was really going to happen. The nerves of her stomach jumped suddenly and uncontrollably. Caroline stared at the back of Van Gryf’s head. She was not going to follow his advice. If she thought about what she was doing she would funk it and lose the only opportunity she would ever have. But was she certain? He had brought Douglas too. Would she have the added humiliation of a stranger being present? The thought made her heart beat faster and the prickle of excitement between her legs became a warm tingling, glow.
Sudden shame overcame her as she remembered what she had said about David. But it was true. She had felt relieved after all the years of brooding silences, resentment and alcohol. She had shed no tears for him. After what he had tried to do, she could not forgive him, even in death. David had never been the one for her. She would have tried in the beginning if he had, but she had always needed a stronger man, a bigger man. Bigger in every way.
“What was that about Kensington?” Van Gryf asked the Englishman and Caroline was grateful for the distraction.
“Oh, I just went to a funeral there once. A fellow-officer died from his wounds about a year after the war’s end. It was the gloomiest bloody affair I’ve ever attended. There were a whole lot of people I didn’t know standing around sipping weak tea and eating little sandwiches with no crusts, all saying what a fine, brave fellow Rathbone had been. Well, so he was, but they didn’t have a bloody clue about him or what he’d been through. That was the last straw. I hopped on the boat-train as quick as I could square-up my affairs.”
“And five years later, you’re in Nairobi with no job and your money about to run out.”
“How the bloody hell do you know that?” Douglas demanded.
“I made some enquiries when I heard about Milton’s accident. No offence, man, but when a stranger reports he has found someone I’m responsible for dead at the roadside, I look into his background.”
“Responsible?”
“The mission is on my estate. I was Milton’s landlord.”
“I take it you were satisfied with what you found out,” Douglas said acerbically.
“I don’t usually pry, but you’ll allow the circumstances were exceptional,” Van Gryf replied. “And yes, what I heard was mostly good.”
“Only mostly?” Douglas produced a tin of cigarettes and offered him one, his resentment apparently forgotten. He turned and held out the tin to Caroline. She shook her head. Her mouth felt dry enough as it was.
“One or two ladies don’t seem all that enamoured of you, though I gather that wasn’t always the case.”
Douglas laughed. “Ah, Celia and Daphne. They weren’t so critical when I was spending my money on them. A couple of prime bitches. Oh, excuse me, Mrs. Milton!”
“That’s all right,” Van Gryf answered for her. “You can say anything you like in Mrs. Milton’s presence. She won’t object.” His eyes met hers in the rear-view mirror. Caroline looked away and swallowed. A shiver ran up her spine. It really was going to happen. And soon.
Douglas gave her a puzzled glance over his shoulder. “You say the mission is on your land,” he said to Van Gryf. “I thought you said it’s fifteen miles from your place.”
“From my house,” Van Gryf agreed, “but I own everything in between.”
“Everything?”
“For about twenty square miles.”
“Hell’s bells, you’re landed gentry!”
Van Gryf laughed. “Not at all. There are plenty of bigger estates. I took a fancy to this area when I was up here during the war. When I finally got the wherewithal, I bought as much as I could. I’m told your father is the real gentry. Lord Bankheath?”
Caroline saw the Englishman stiffen.
“That’s so.”
“I took you for another idle-rich Englishman playing big-game hunter in ‘Darkest Africa’,” Van Gryf said, “but from what I hear, I was mistaken.”
“Well, I’m not rich. I’m a younger son. In Britain, the eldest always inherits everything.”
Caroline thought his laugh had a bitter edge.
“And I’m not English, I’m a Scot.”
“I stand corrected.” Van Gryf’s laughter rumbled above the engine noise and the airflow past the open windows. “What do you think of Africa then, Scotsman? It’s come a long way since the days of Mungo Park and Livingstone. Maybe you’re disappointed?”
“It’s still a big place,” Douglas replied, “and I like it. I like it a lot. There’s room to breathe and space enough to stretch your arms out without bashing them into somebody else. Out here, I mean, not in the cities. They’re full of shippers’ agents and colonial civil servants doing their bit to preserve the Empire, in between pink gins and cocktail parties.” He waved a hand out of the window. “Here it’s raw, real like nothing I’ve seen before. Maybe the way it was before we got civilised. I’ve knocked about a bit further north - Egypt, the Sudan, Abyssinia - but I’ve never seen a sunrise to equal what you get here, or heard a dawn silence so profound.” He stopped, looking embarrassed by his admission, but it struck a chord with Caroline. She had seen those sunrises and heard that silence, and felt them stir something inside her too. Van Gryf would understand. David never had.
“So, are you thinking of staying around?” Van Gryf asked.
“Not much choice for now. As you said, I’m a bit low on funds, but I expect something will turn up. It usually does.”
“Maybe it already has,” Van Gryf said, but Douglas’s attention had been caught by the sight of a half-dozen native girls waving from the roadside ahead.
Caroline’s belly shrank suddenly. The car left the bush behind and followed the road through cultivated fields. They were nearing their destination. Despite the heat, she shivered.
“They’re all women,” Douglas said in surprise.
“Of course. The men of the tribes wouldn’t lower themselves to do any work. They leave all that to the womenfolk whenever they can.”
The girls were naked but for their usual tribal dress - a little leather apron slung around their hips, only just covering the essentials at front and rear. Their brown skins gleamed with perspiration from their labours. Caroline eyed their bare breasts and naked limbs, and something clenched tightly, low in her belly. She saw Douglas’s head swivel as the car passed.
“They aren’t bad looking,” he said.
“The younger ones are the best workers,” Van Gryf told him. “Would you like to fuck one of them?”
Douglas’s head turned sharply. “To what?” He gave Caroline a startled look.
The car crested a rise, and in fear, excitement and anticipation, she saw the white buildings surrounded by a high wall that made up Van Gryf’s compound. Fear gained the upper hand. Was she really sure? Plagued by second thoughts, she heard Van Gryf repeat his question. Again, Douglas looked back at Caroline.
“Never mind her,” Van Gryf said. “Would you fuck them?”
“I… I suppose so.”
Van Gryf laughed and his eyes once more met Caroline’s in the car’s mirror. Her courage deserted her. She looked away. The crude, raw-sounding word filled her mind as they drove into the compound and stopped in front of the big house. Douglas got out and stood staring at the solid, impressive, white building.
“Maybe you will, Englishman,” Van Gryf said, so only Caroline could hear. “Or maybe I’ll come up with something better.”
Heat rushed to Caroline’s cheeks. She kept her head down, avoiding his blue eyes, a shade lighter and so much harder than her own. With the ceasing of the car’s motion her resolve almost deserted her. She had found the nerve to ask him, she told herself, to show him she knew his secret and had not revealed it, to show him that she meant what she had said. She had done the hardest part. Hadn’t she?
Chapter 2
“Two tall gins, Abu,” Van Gryf told the African in white shirt and shorts who had appeared on the veranda the moment the car pulled up. He opened the Crossley’s rear door. “Out.” As the widow obeyed, Van Gryf took her trunk from the boot and left it standing on the beaten earth of the compound. When Douglas moved to pick it up, Van Gryf laid a hand on his arm. “No, she can do it herself. Come inside.”
With an apologetic glance at Mrs. Milton, Douglas followed him up the white stone steps to the veranda and into the house. Its walls were thick, he noticed, which helped explain how cool it was within. A large ceiling-fan hissed overhead, wafting a welcome breeze down onto his face when he removed his hat. Van Gryf sank down on a long, deep sofa and gestured to several comfortable-looking armchairs.
“Take the weight off, and don’t concern yourself about her.”
The Scotsman had been watching Mrs. Milton pause in hauling her baggage up the steps and wipe a forearm across her sweating brow. It went against his upbringing to let a female struggle with something he could have done easily if Van Gryf did not seem so set against it. Only the fact he was going to have to be a guest in the man’s house until he could repair the Chevrolet made him resist the urge to help. That, and his curiosity about what was going on between the two of them.
He sat down and accepted the cigarette Van Gryf offered as their drinks arrived. To his surprise, there was ice in the gin. The glass was coated with a film of condensation. Douglas swallowed appreciatively, enjoying the bitterness of the quinine in the tonic that followed the snap of the alcohol in his throat. He lit his cigarette, very mindful that Mrs. Milton was not wearing any knickers as she dragged her cabin-trunk into the room. She hesitated, looking very wary as her gaze met Van Gryf’s.
“It’s the same room as when you were here last,” he said. “Stay there until I send for you. And take a bath.”
After six months in Nairobi, Douglas had become used to the church-picnic manners with which the colonials treated white women, even more exaggerated in their politeness than those he remembered from back home. It was a surprise to hear the terse instructions and sharp tone Van Gryf used with Mrs. Milton. It was an even bigger surprise that she was prepared to tolerate them.
Van Gryf watched her expectantly as she began battling her trunk towards a passage at a back corner of the room. “Move!”
The woman gave a start and tugged harder, dragging one of the rugs on the floor along with her baggage. Van Gryf got up and placed a foot on the end of the rug, slowing her progress. She looked up into his face. She really was a beauty, Douglas thought, and all the more appealing for the ‘frightened doe’ expression on her face, but if she was so scared, why the hell had she asked to come there in the first place?
“Go along, Mrs. Milton,” Van Gryf said quietly. “Do as you’re told.”
The words sounded even more intimidating to Douglas than the stern tone the man had used earlier. Suddenly bubbling with curiosity, he waited impatiently for the widow to disappear into the depths of the house.
“Would I be indelicate if I asked what the hell is going on?” he asked.
“More like premature,” Van Gryf replied. “Don’t worry, Englishman, the situation will become clear in time. For now, I’ll only say that it is my intention to do everything I can to persuade Caroline Milton she has made a very bad decision, and to make her change her mind.”
Disappointed, Douglas could only accept he would have to wait. He leaned back under the draught from the ceiling-fan. “You have electricity.”
“Diesel generators,” Van Gryf said. “Proper plumbing too. After four years roughing it, I decided I wanted all the latest conveniences when I built this place.”
“You fought here in Africa?” Douglas enquired with genuine interest.
Van Gryf nodded. “South West Africa at first, ’til we took Windhoek. Then I went up to Cameroon and eventually Tanganyika, but we never did manage to pin that bastard Vorbeck down. When I got the chance to join Allenby in Palestine, I took it.”
“Fighting the Turks, eh? I was there myself a couple of years after the peace. Did a stint in the Palestine Police.”
“The war wasn’t enough for you?”
“More than enough at the time. Afterwards, it was difficult to settle at home, or anywhere else, come to that.”
“Western Front?” Van Gryf’s eyes narrowed as he asked the question.
“Aye.” Douglas took a swallow from his glass and sighed. “That’s bloody good.”
“You had it rough then?”
The Scotsman shrugged. “I suppose so. Hellish at times. But it had its moments. I admit I enjoyed some of it.” His confession surprised him. It was something he always kept to himself and had always expected that he would, but there was something about the man he sat drinking with that suggested he might understand.
“So did I,” Van Gryf said. “I know there was a lot of misery, but there’s no greater challenge in a man’s life. Kill or be killed. Life or death, with only a hairsbreadth between them. I found it exhilarating.”
“In between the boredom,” Douglas said. “But you’re right. You’re on the edge in a fight, and if you can dodge the bloody shellfire and the machine guns, then it’s man to man. You against him. And you better do everything you can to make sure it’s him.”
“And then you get that rush,” Van Gryf said. “That feeling when you know you’ve bested him and you’re the one who’s going to live to fight another day. Hell, that’s almost as good as a fuck!”
“But not quite,” Douglas said, feeling the effects of several weeks of celibacy after his failures with the ladies of Nairobi. “I’ve always thought that if the Good Lord invented anything better than a good fuck, then he’s keeping it to himself.”
Van Gryf gave a chuckle. “I entirely agree, Englishman.”
“I’m Scottish. Remember?” Douglas said.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like it.”
Several years of school in England and two more at college had eroded the burr from Douglas’s speech. Now his ancestry only showed when he was very drunk.
“You don’t have much of the Afrikaner left in the way you talk,” he countered, guessing at Van Gryf’s origins.
“Too much exposure to you damned English,” Van Gryf said, laughing. “But it’s not the way a man talks that’s important. It’s what he says. As long as he means it.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Douglas agreed, finishing his gin.
“You want something to eat?” Van Gryf asked.
“I’d sooner have another drink.” Though it was past noon and a long time since breakfast, Douglas felt comfortable as he was. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed the companionable feeling the man had awakened in him.
“Forget about lunch, Abu,” Van Gryf told the patiently waiting houseboy. “We’ll have dinner at sundown. Settings for three. And pass the whisky.”
Abu produced the bottle, two tumblers and a soda siphon. Pouring three fingers into each glass and adding a dash of soda, Van Gryf handed one to Douglas, lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied sigh.
“You’re going to leave her alone in her room until sundown?” Douglas asked. There was no need to elaborate on who he meant. He guessed Mrs. Milton was as much in the Afrikaner’s mind as his own.
“Let her stew a while,” Van Gryf said with a grin. “I want her thinking long and hard. Thinking that she’s made her bed and that she has no choice now but to lie in it.”
* * * * *
Caroline was lying on her bed, the half-closed blinds on the windows casting thin bars of light and shade across her naked body. The bedroom had gained a ceiling-fan of its own since her last visit and she lay beneath it, listening to its gentle whirring and feeling the downdraughts of air caress her. The thick walls of Van Gryf’s home did a good job of keeping the sun’s afternoon heat at bay; so good that Caroline felt a chill run over her skin. Or perhaps fear was the cause.
The quivering in her belly had been there since she had awoken that morning but had doubled in intensity the moment she had wrestled her trunk into the room and closed the door behind her. A nerve-racking silence had followed, disturbed only by the fan’s swishing blades. Caroline had leaned her forehead against the door, eyes closed and breathing fast from more than just the effort of dragging the heavy trunk. Cringing inwardly in embarrassment, she had imagined Van Gryf telling the stranger everything. Had he been disgusted? Had he laughed? Had they both laughed - amused, derisive, mocking? How on Earth could she ever face either of them again with even a vestige of self-respect? But did self-respect have any part in what she desired, and did she want it anyway, if its loss meant all her fantasies would be fulfilled?
She had taken her time over the bath, enjoying the endless supply of hot water flowing from a real tap. The mission had never had such luxury. Caroline had soaked until her fingertips began to wrinkle, and the knot of her anxiety had even started to loosen a little in the steamy, relaxing water. It had tightened at once when she had begun soaping herself. The touch of her hands on her breasts had immediately created a rush of breathtaking excitement. Caroline had hardly dared let her fingers stray to their peaks and lather nipples that had stood out as hard as buttons, pulsing in time with the blood pounding through her veins.
It had been torture to resist the need to thrust her fingers deep when she had soaped her sex and heightened the tremors teasing her tender opening. She had washed it thoroughly but quickly, doing her best to ignore the swelling of her inner petals, and her clitoral bud suddenly springing erect from its concealing hood. The thought that if she remained so fiercely aroused, she would be a gibbering wreck by the time Van Gryf summoned her, had persuaded Caroline to position her pussy under the cold tap and give it a long douche. Even so, the sensual feel of the fluffy towel with which she had patted herself dry had been enough to set the sensations stirring again.
Deliberately, Caroline stretched out her arms and legs to lie spread-eagled beneath the fan, letting it finish drying her, but the wafts of air flowing over her stiff nipples and exposed sex were almost as stimulating as her own touch had been. She slid her fingers through her soft, golden pubic curls and laid her middle finger on the narrow slit bisecting the little crescents of her outer-labia. It parted easily at the gentle pressure.
Caroline leapt up from the bed, tearing her hand away. She had to show she could control herself. Van Gryf would expect it. Her belly clenched into a tight ball. Fear of rejection mingled with her fear of being accepted. The feelings did not differ at all; only what inspired them. She must go through with it, Caroline told herself. She had taken the biggest step by revealing her desires. Now she must show her willingness, her eagerness, prove she truly was sincere. That should not be so hard. Surely Van Gryf would understand, even if the Englishman thought she was a whore or mad, or both. Oh, Lord! What if he was there too when Van Gryf summoned her? As her gut lurched in fear, a ripple ran the length of her pussy.
Scrabbling through her trunk, she found her handbag and the cigarettes inside. Caroline lit one and drew deeply. She caught sight of her nude body in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe. Was she attractive, she wondered? Was she good enough for Van Gryf? The few boys her father had allowed her to meet had paid her compliments. David never had. He had rarely touched her even in the beginning, and never at all during the last two years.
Caroline thought she was pretty. Her skin was good, pale and clear in comparison to the light tan that, despite her precautions, was inevitable when face and neck and hands were exposed to the African sun. Maybe her breasts were a little large in relation to her hips, she mused, but they were not slack, and her waist was narrow, and the gentle, outward bow of her belly was taut. The more David had let himself go, the more Caroline had felt a need to look after herself, exercising regularly in the cool of the morning and evening. Her legs were quite long too, Caroline decided, and as shapely as any of the models’ in the women’s magazines she had bought on her quarterly shopping trips to Nairobi. She eyed the pout of her sex hungrily, its dark slit showing through the downy, blonde curls at the apex of her thighs. Abruptly, she turned from her reflection. Maybe if she put some clothes on she could stop the quivers of arousal that were tormenting her.
Caroline selected her best – long, sheer silk stockings with attached garter tapes, which she tied high on each thigh, cream silk brassiere and short, lace-edged pantalettes with a matching slip. She had not packed her evening dress. It was old and shabby. Instead, she chose a pale blue skirt that buttoned down the front, a white, short-sleeved, cotton blouse, and put on her only pair of high-heeled shoes, white because she had worn them for her wedding. The hard points of her nipples showed through the thin blouse but Caroline had to resign herself to that since they defied all her efforts to get them to subside.
She found her powder compact in her handbag and gave her face a dusting, added a touch of blue to her eyelids and applied a little rouge to her lips, all the time wishing she did not look so anxious. Like her buzzing excitement, Caroline’s fear was beyond her control. She sat on a corner of the bed and finished her cigarette, then smoked another, watching the shadows lengthening. The short, equatorial twilight had almost descended when she reached for a third and a tap at the door made her leap to her feet.
“Bwana says come,” Abu told her.
Weak at the knees, heart in her mouth, Caroline followed the African to the lounge. Both men stood as she entered, Douglas, she was sure, from common courtesy, Van Gryf merely to stride towards the arched passage that led to the dining room.
The Englishman gave her a ‘good evening’ and a smile that did not disguise his curiosity. Caroline could not find her voice. She settled for a stiff nod and found she was incapable of smiling back. Her facial muscles were as tense as the rest of her. Every nerve was strung as tight as a violin string. What had Van Gryf told him, she wondered as his eyes flickered over the outlines of her erect nipples. Not much perhaps, from his polite greeting and the way he took her elbow and escorted her into the dining room.
He stopped as abruptly as she did. Van Gryf was leaning back in his chair at the head of a big, rectangular table. At either side of him stood a young native-girl, entirely naked.
“I’m famished,” he said. “Let’s get started.”
Douglas sat at his right, his attention all for the brown-skinned African girls. Caroline hesitated only until she saw the impatient look Van Gryf was directing at her, and almost stumbled in her haste to sit at his left. No one held her chair for her. She shuffled it closer to the table, painfully self-conscious. She had seen plenty of naked native girls but never in the circumstances in which she now found herself, and she knew very well she was witnessing something no white woman would normally be allowed to see.
“What do you think of my staff, Douglas?” Van Gryf enquired casually as the girls began offering them dishes.
“Very nice indeed. A sight better than the waiters at my hotel,” the Englishman said enthusiastically.
“And you, Mrs. Milton?”
Caroline looked from her empty plate to his face. He knew what she wanted. Why could he not just get on with it? She still had not found her voice. Smiling coolly, Van Gryf poured white wine into her glass. She almost knocked it over as she reached for it. The wine was cool on her lips, sharp on her tongue, welcome in her dry mouth, and very uncomfortable in her fluttering stomach.
The Afrikaner offered beer to Douglas while the naked serving-girls added to the growing piles of food on the men’s plates. Big, brown-nippled breasts thrust towards Caroline’s right cheek as one of the girls offered her a dish. She shook her head, sighing with relief when the girl withdrew, only to find two more shiny brown breasts almost brushing her other cheek as the second girl did the same. Again she shook her head. After she had done it twice more, Van Gryf transferred part of the guinea fowl on his plate to hers.
“You’ve got to eat,” he told her. “You’ve had nothing all day. N’dele, give Mrs. Milton some salad to go with that.”
“Yes, Mastah.”
Dismayed, Caroline realised the African girls spoke English. They would understand every word that was said around the table. Very little was said, however. Both men addressed themselves solely to the business of eating. Even Douglas did not permit his obvious interest in the servants to distract him.
Keeping her head down, Caroline raised her eyes to watch the Africans, who had returned to stand beside the Afrikaner. They were both tall, though not so tall as she was. The one Van Gryf had called N’dele had slightly darker skin than the milky-coffee shade of the other, but their figures were very similar. Their full breasts jutted proudly as the girls stood straight with their hands behind their backs and their long legs slightly parted. Their waists tapered above shapely hips that were neither too narrow nor too wide, and their bellies showed a slight outward curvature that Caroline suspected a man would find very enticing. At least she hoped so. Her own was very nearly identical. She did not let herself dwell on the shocking sight of their bare sexes, which were smooth and completely hairless. By any standards, Caroline acknowledged, Van Gryf’s serving-girls were true beauties.
She lifted her head a little to examine their lovely faces and saw Van Gryf watching her, his expression unreadable. Caroline looked down and made a pretence of eating. She knew from previous experience that the guinea fowl was delicious, but the sliver she put in her mouth felt and tasted like cardboard. As she forced herself to chew, her attention turned to the men. They too looked similar in many ways - both were well over six feet, broad of shoulder and chest, with hard muscles that stretched the cotton of their bush-shirts tight, and big, long-fingered hands that made their knives and forks seem tiny. She had always thought Van Gryf an attractive man - ruggedly handsome was the way the stories in her magazines always described it. Perhaps though, Douglas was the more attractive, with his short, dark hair and classical profile and a certain intenseness in his dark, deep-set eyes.
Caroline knew Van Gryf, both by reputation and from her own observations during their encounters over the years. He was tough, confident and capable, with his own code of right and wrong and his own way of dealing with trouble, and to hell with conventions, laws, and anything or anyone who got in his way. Caroline thought the Englishman might not be much different. In fact, either one of them was probably just what she was looking for. The knowledge made her stomach churn all the faster and her heart pound inside her ribcage. She washed the dry wad of meat down her throat with a big swallow of wine and laid her knife and fork on her plate.
“You don’t seem to have much appetite this evening,” Van Gryf said, “and the cat has definitely got your tongue. Perhaps you had better go through to the lounge.” A ghost of a smile played around his lips. “I’ll be along shortly.”
Caroline’s mind went suddenly blank. For long seconds, all she could do was stare into his face without seeing it.
“Go along,” he said quietly, without menace or threat. “You don’t have much longer to wait.”
The rush of heat to her cheeks was immediately followed by a different kind between her trembling thighs. Befuddled by a dozen conflicting emotions, Caroline rose on unsteady legs and tottered away to do as she was told.
* * * * *
Douglas watched the tight, rounded buttocks of the serving-girl who had closed the door as she returned to her place beside Van Gryf.
“Do I get that explanation now?” he asked. “She’s nearly bloody shitting herself.”
Van Gryf laughed. “Good, that’s how I want her. And no, it isn’t quite time to explain just yet.”
“Then you had better get on with whatever you intend doing before she faints.”
Van Gryf drained his beer tankard and set it down. “Before I do, I need you to make a promise. You’re going to see something very unusual, something I guarantee you’ve never seen before. I need to be sure you won’t interrupt or interfere, whatever happens. Afterwards, you’ll have your explanation, but for now, give me your word.” He grinned at Douglas’s doubtful look. “I know you’re intrigued, man. She’s an intriguing woman, and she may well surprise us both. I plan to test her mettle.”
He was more than intrigued, Douglas admitted to himself. He was completely bloody fascinated. “All right, you have my word.”
Van Gryf turned to the African girls. “Wait here until I call you.”
As Douglas entered the lounge behind the Afrikaner, his eyes were drawn at once to Mrs. Milton’s tidy, round rear, perched sideways on the very edge of an armchair. She jumped at the sound of their approach, then squared her shoulders and gave a determined little lift of her chin. The wonderful mane of her blonde hair flowed in waves down to her breast as she turned her head to keep Van Gryf in view.
He poured three whiskies, added ice and soda, and passed one to the Scotsman, who sat down opposite him watching Mrs. Milton with an enormous feeling of anticipation. The woman’s tension was palpable, filling the room like the crackle of electricity before a thunderstorm. Douglas waited impatiently for the mystery to unfold. He had not looked forward to anything quite so much in a long time.
Van Gryf slid a smaller measure of whisky towards Mrs. Milton, who sat leaning forwards, her hands clenched together in her lap. He lit one of his Gold Flakes and held it out to her. Not meeting his eye, she took it with shaking fingers and raised it to her mouth.
“Enjoy it,” he said. “It might be your last for a while. And that goes for the drink too.”
Her full red lips formed a silent ‘O’ as she stared at him with wide doe-eyes. “You mean… you mean I can stay?”
“No, Caroline, I don’t mean that at all. I’ve told you what I think. You have made a mistake, both in what you think you saw and in believing that what you imagined it to be is right for you. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Be more precise,” Van Gryf said tersely.
“Twenty-two and three months and… and a few days.”
The Afrikaner nodded, as if her reply had only confirmed his opinion. “How long have you been here, in Africa?”
“Four years.”
“You were very young when you arrived. And only just married.” His eyes narrowed at her nod. “And not very happily.”
Her mouth turned down at the corners. “No.”
“Tell me, do you like fucking?”
Chapter 3
Caught in the middle of drawing on his cigarette, Douglas almost choked. Such a question just could not be put in so direct a fashion to a respectable white woman. A protest rose to his lips, prevented from escaping by his coughing fit. By the time he could speak he had remembered his promise to keep silent.
Mrs. Milton was spared from replying by Abu’s arrival with coffee. Van Gryf had him put it on the table and dismissed him for the night. The woman, not much more than a girl it now seemed to Douglas, took the opportunity to gulp down her whisky.
“I’m waiting for you to answer me,” Van Gryf told her.
“Yes,” she said flatly, perhaps almost defiantly.
“When did you last get fucked?”
Again caught in the act, this time of pouring coffee, Douglas struggled with his disapproval of the question. He was even more incredulous when Mrs. Milton answered it.
“T… Two years. More than two years.”
Whatever the hell she wanted, Douglas thought, she must want it desperately to be willing to endure this.
“But you play with yourself, of course,” the Afrikaner said in the same conversational way he might have swapped small talk at a Nairobi cocktail party. “Between your legs, I mean, with your fingers in your pussy.”
The girl had gamely been holding her head up, doing her best to meet Van Gryf’s gaze as he asked his grossly inappropriate questions. As her cheeks flamed, she let it drop.
“No, look at me,” Van Gryf said. “And answer.”
Deep-blue eyes alight with indignation stared at him. “Yes! Yes, I play with myself. Are you satisfied?”
“Not by a long way, Caroline. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind?”
Her breasts rose and fell in time with her rapid breathing. Her chin lifted and she shook her head.
“When did you last play with your pussy?”
“Last Thursday,” Mrs. Milton answered at once.
Van Gryf regarded her sceptically. “Not today? While you were in the bath or alone in your room?”
“No.”
“But you were tempted, weren’t you?”
The mixture of guilt and embarrassment on the girl’s face answered the question. Douglas penis stirred as he imagined her naked in a bath of soapy water with her long, slim fingers sunk deep between her parted thighs.
Van Gryf was only satisfied when he had forced an admission from her. “So, you like playing with yourself and you did it last Thursday. What about before that?”
“The previous Saturday.”
“And before that?”
Mrs. Milton’s fiercely blushing face twisted. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to remember? What does it matter, anyway?”
“It matters a great deal if you want me to give your request serious consideration,” Van Gryf said. “Or would you rather leave for Nairobi in the morning?”
“I could go to the District Commissioner instead,” the girl snapped back. Her temper vanished as she spoke. Her high colour faded, leaving her face pale and her expression one of mingled fear and regret. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” The Afrikaner gave her a thin smile. “If I’d thought you capable of it, you would already be on your way to Mombassa and the boat home, not removing your clothes in my living room.”
Her eyes went wide. “Removing…?”
“What did you expect, Caroline? That I wouldn’t want a thorough look at what you’re offering? Stand up and take your blouse off.”
You had to admire the girl’s determination, Douglas thought as she got to her feet. When she went after something she wanted, she went all the way. He still had no idea what the something was, but it was obvious it had a significant sexual aspect.
The young widow’s fingers shook as they fumbled with the first button on her blouse but moved more nimbly with each one she unfastened as she seemed to summon her resolve. Nevertheless, her cheeks were flaming red again as she slid the garment off and carefully began folding it.
“Drop it,” Van Gryf ordered.
Mrs. Milton’s pained look as she let it fall gave Douglas the impression of a young woman who had never had many clothes and always felt a need to take care of the few she possessed.
Her hands were poised over the buttons of her skirt even before the Afrikaner told her to remove it. Shifting to relieve the pressure on his hard cock, Douglas watched the girl loosen her skirt enough to slide it over her hips, step out of it when it fell, and push it aside with a foot. She darted a glance at him and he was too aroused to care about the way she flinched from the lust he knew was plain on his face. She turned her blushing features to Van Gryf.
“Carry on,” he ordered and she pulled her slip up and over her head, revealing the ivory perfection of her skin and her long shapely legs in their sheer, silk stockings. As the garment came free, she tossed her head and her corn-gold hair shimmered in the electric light.
Douglas almost groaned aloud. The urge to reach for her, to tear away the thin silk and lace of her underwear and throw her down on one of the rugs was nearly irresistible. To escape pressing a hand to his erection he drank his whisky. Mrs. Milton reached behind her, seeking the hooks of her brassiere. Inevitably, she hesitated, her eyes flickering between Douglas and Van Gryf. The tip of her tongue appeared and ran over her rouged lips as her blush reached her hairline.
“If you want me to even consider keeping you, Caroline, you really can’t afford to be so self-conscious,” Van Gryf said levelly.
Keeping, with its implication of ownership, seemed an odd choice of word, Douglas thought, but it banished his remaining doubts that the girl’s objective was to become the Afrikaner’s mistress. Van Gryf was being damned fussy about it, though. If she had offered herself to Douglas, regardless of what it suggested about her morals, he would have jumped at the chance. The aching urgency in his loins increased.
Mrs. Milton sucked in a long breath that lifted her confined breasts. Douglas recognised the same determined little up-tilt of her chin she had given earlier as she loosened the brassiere and slipped the straps from her shoulders. Despite an impatient snort from Van Gryf, she turned away to remove it and laid it on the arm of the chair behind her. She turned back with her breasts bared.
Douglas stared, spellbound. They were absolutely superb. Instantly, he imagined how they would feel beneath his hands – big, out-thrust, tapering mounds, their flesh firm yet yielding and tipped with red, strawberry nipples, each the size of a half-crown. There was something else about those nipples, too. They were fully erect.
The Scotsman switched his gaze to the girl’s face. It was still flushed, but was that purely with embarrassment? Her eyes had narrowed, lowering her long lashes, but he was close enough to see her dilated pupils, and her moist lips part as her breathing quickened. She was getting excited. He shot a glance at Van Gryf. He looked cool and relaxed, but the telltale bulge in his trousers showed he was no less stimulated by Mrs. Milton’s statuesque figure than was Douglas. The Afrikaner gave him his thin, amused smile, added a wink and turned his attention back to the nearly naked girl.
Her thumbs were in the waistband of her knickers and her bright gaze was fixed upon Van Gryf. Douglas saw her trembling, which was unsurprising considering she was about to reveal her most intimate place.
“Yes, those too,” Van Gryf said when she appeared to waver, “and the shoes and stockings. You’re going to show us everything, Caroline.”
Mrs. Milton winced but hesitated no longer. She slipped her knickers down and stepped out of them in one quick, smooth movement that revealed little before she half-turned away to fold them and lay them beside her brassiere. She faced the men again, bending immediately to remove her shoes. The Scotsman admired the ripple of muscles across her shoulders and the graceful curve of her back before surrendering to the enticement of her swaying breasts as she leaned down and undid her shoe buckles.
She stood finally, and the view was breathtaking. Her stockings were fastened high on her thighs, no more than two inches below the tantalising little creases in the skin on either side of her sex. Above its narrow, shadowed cleft, her mound was lightly fleeced with fine, curling hair scarcely darker than the rich, blonde locks that crowned her head. Chest tight, Douglas watched Caroline loosen her stockings, roll them down her long legs and take them and her shoes off at the same time. Her eyes again darted in his direction before centring on Van Gryf.
Her nervousness was more evident now that she was entirely nude, though her nipples still stood out stiffly on the tips of her marvellous breasts, suggesting her excitement had not abated. She stood straight-backed, hands held firmly against the outsides of her thighs, her noble chin raised in spite of her humiliation. Douglas decided that, whatever her morals, she was a brave little thing to put herself through all of this. She certainly did place a high value on whatever she was seeking.
The silence lengthened. The girl no longer watched Van Gryf but had fixed her gaze on some spot on the wall behind him. He sat wordless, looking at every naked inch of her, apparently indifferent to the twitching muscle above her right knee and the continual flexing of her fingers that betrayed her anxiety. Neither did Douglas spare Caroline any embarrassment by looking away, so aroused and fascinated was he by the sight of her beautiful body. A tidy package, he had called her. What an understatement that was! She was close to perfection in face and figure, one of the loveliest women he had ever seen.