Blood & Milk (9 page)

Damu looked out over the valley, the goats, and the horizon, but what he saw I could only guess. “In Tanzania, it mean jail. For Maasai, it mean death.”

“Fuck.” I didn’t really mean to say that out loud. My mind was swimming. I knew this fact. I knew homosexuality was regarded as sin here, but all I read were harmless words on a screen from the other side of the world. To hear it spoken by a man, who could very well report my questions to the village elders, in a village that could very well kill me, was something else entirely. It wasn’t the fear of being killed that stopped me from back-pedalling, it was that I was unwilling to lie. I had been through too much, I had lost too much to deny the part of me that cost the most.

After a long silence, Damu asked, “Is it that way for you?”

I let out a steadying breath. Here it was. He was asking me if I was homosexual. “Yes.”

Damu stared at me. Was he curious? Was he disgusted? I couldn’t tell. A dozen emotions crossed his features, and my fear of admitting this truth was only exceeded by my fear in disappointing him. “Is that what your Jarrod was? Your husband, not your brother?”

My brother?
It never occurred to me that he would assume Jarrod was my brother. Jarrod wasn’t technically my husband either, but for the sake of Damu’s idea of what a marriage was, I guess we were. “Yes. Husband. He was not my brother.”

“You lay with him, like you lay with a woman?”

“I’ve never lain with a woman,” I answered, though I was pretty sure that wasn’t his point.

His eyes swam with emotions I couldn’t name. He put his hand to his chest, his voice cracked, “Like you lay with me?”

I swallowed back my tears. “Yes.”

“Is that what you think I do?”

I scrambled to answer. I couldn’t bear the thought of him pushing me away. I needed him: a fact I only realised in this second. “I don’t know what you do,” I told him. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter me to me if you lie with woman or man. I need you Damu. You calm me. I can’t be here if I don’t have you.”

He stared at me. His mouth opened like he had so much to say, but in the end, he shrugged. “I not ever lay with man,” he whispered. “Or woman.”

“Do you like lying with me?” I asked. He recoiled at my blunt and confronting question, so I softened it. “I like lying with you. You make me safe and warm. Do you feel safe and warm when I lie next to you?”

He still didn’t answer, and I doubted he ever would. I wanted to tell him it was okay, there was nothing wrong with him, there was nothing broken or evil inside him. He was not a great sin against his village or god, no matter what his customs and religion said. “In my country―” I started to say.

“This is
not
your country!” he said abruptly, fire and anger in his tone. It was the most emotion I’d seen from him, and as he shot to his feet and walked away, I was pretty sure his anger was not directed at me.

It was aimed within.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in silence. I wanted to say so much. I wanted to embrace him and hold him until the band around my lungs eased up a bit. But of course I couldn’t.

When nightfall forced us inside, Damu cooked a cabbage soup on the small fire in his kitchen. The colder weather permitted a fire in each house, and with it came hot meals, mostly soups of beans or cabbage. It was a welcome change after weeks of ugali for every evening meal, and it was delicious compared to drinking milk and blood.

“Thank you.” I quietly sipped soup from my bowl. “It’s very good.” Truthfully, it was literally boiled cabbage water, but it was still good.

He nodded, a gesture I barely saw in the darkness. He remained silent, which wasn’t too uncommon for Damu, but after our argument earlier, the silence was a heavy one.

I rinsed out our bowls and put them by the fire to dry. Inside was completely dark now, and I didn’t know how to move past this void of silence between us. I scooted over to my patch of dirt that had been my bed before I’d started sharing Damu’s. It was only a few seconds before he realised. “Alé?”

“Yes?”

I heard him swallow. “Why you… do you not…” His broken sentence ended in a sigh.

The complete darkness allowed me to speak my mind. “Do you want me to sleep next to you?”

I heard him swallow. “Yes. It is confuse to me. I should not want it. But I do.”

I shuffled over to him and we lay down together. I was, as always, the little spoon. The fire gave good warmth, but Damu flicked his shuka out and I snuggled back against him. I could feel my anxiety drift away as his arm settled over my waist. His breath at my ear was a soothing sound. He was my calm, my peace.

“You don’t need to be confused with me,” I murmured. “You are safe with me. No one needs to know. No one has to know what we do.” He was quiet and still, letting my whispered words hang loud in the darkness. “For what it’s worth, Damu. I’m glad you want this. Because I want it too.”

He never said anything, but he nuzzled his nose along the back of my head and he tightened his arm around me.

I relaxed into him, my head on his arm. Sleep came for me, creeping in like a chemical mist, and I fell into the abyss.

* * * *

His strong hands hold my hips as he slides inside me from behind, impaling me with each thrust. God I love this, being filled and fucked, losing myself in desire. Being his desire. His lips kiss my nape, his teeth scrape my shoulder as his fingers dig into my skin. He drives up into me, giving me every inch, making me moan.

“Alé,” he whispers. His voice is thick with want and desperation.

“Mmm,” I moan, arching my back and giving him a better angle to thrust into.

“Alé,” he whispers, more urgent this time. He’s close and so am I.

“Alé. Wake, wake.” The hand that gripped my hip shook me. “Wake.”

I blinked, then blinked again. It was a dream. Just a dream. But it wasn’t really. I was breathless, my cock full and aching with need. My back was pressed against Damu, his erection wedged hot against the crack of my arse. Fuck. That would explain the dream…

I tried to move forward but his hand on my hip kept me right where I was.
Oh.
I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all. Then I noticed his breaths were short and sharp, his chest heaving. He gasped softly and whined on the exhale. Then my body reacted before my mind, and I ground my arse against his cock. His fingernails bit into my hip and his teeth scraped my shoulder as he shuddered, flexing rigid as he came. Spurts of come splashed between us, smearing on my back.

Damu shook and let out a strangled cry as his orgasm rolled through him. Then he went completely still, resting his forehead against my shoulder, and very slowly started to push me away.

I remembered then, that he said he’d never laid with a man or a woman before. In all likelihood, this was his first sexual encounter, and coupled with the guilt and shame his people believed went hand in hand with what we’d just done―two men together―I couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind.

I rolled over quickly and put my hand to his face. The morning light allowed me to see the outline of his features. His eyes were closed. He was clearly embarrassed and ashamed. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you.” I pressed my lips to his. His eyes shot open, surprised by my kiss. “We better get to the river early. I’ll need to wash my back and my shirt.”

I rolled off the mattress, grabbed the bucket, and made my way outside. I was barely a hundred metres from the manyatta by the time he caught up to me. He fell into stride beside me, and we walked to the river.

“What kind of birds are those?” I asked, pointing to some kind of crane flying overhead.

“
N-káítoliá
.” He smiled. “Live in lake of crater.”

He proceeded to explain the birdlife of the Serengeti, and we talked of other inconsequential things until we reached the river. We never mentioned what happened between us in bed, and he appeared grateful, or happy, at least that things were “normal” between us.

I sat on the river bank and stripped to my underwear. Leaving only my shoes on the rocks, I waded into the water and dunked myself. The water was colder now, fresh and invigorating. I broke the surface. “Phwar, that’s cold,” I said, shaking myself.

Damu laughed. He was stripped down to his loin cloth, his shuka a red heap on the river bank at his feet. Then, with a hesitant―reluctant?―sigh, he unwrapped the last of his clothes and he stepped into the water. He tried to cover his penis with his hand until he was covered by the river, and it stung that he felt he had to hide any part of himself.

Standing waist-deep in the river, I hand-washed my shirt and socks the best I could. Once white, they were now brown, the Tanzanian dirt well and truly permanently embedded into the fabric. I used my wet shirt to wipe over my body, especially my back where Damu had come on me.

When he realised what I was doing, he quickly looked away. “Hey,” I said. “Don’t be embarrassed. Damu.” I waited until he looked at me. “It’s okay.”

“Your dream,” he said, looking to the water. He stood, the water rippling low on his hips, his groin hidden underwater. “Dreams not be like that before.”

Oh, so my sex-dream got a little interactive. I laughed, which made him look at me. I slung my wet shirt and socks over my shoulder and started to scrub at my shorts. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. But I don’t regret it. In fact, I liked it.”

He sunk down in the water with a frustrated growl, right down until the water reached his nose. I could tell by his eyes he was smiling, and that, of course, made me smile. He rose slowly so he could speak. “You…
n-gusotó
to me.”

“
Ingoosoto
? What does that mean?”

He bought his fingers to his mouth, letting them linger on his lips.

“Kiss?” I asked. I puckered my lips and made a kissing sound. “Kiss?”

He nodded, ever so slightly.

“I did. N-gusotó you.” I scrubbed at my shorts and after a moment, I added, “And I would like to do that again. Would that be okay?”

He submerged half his face again to hide his smile, but then he sobered and stood up tall. “No here.”

I put my hand up and shook my head. “No. Not here. Never where someone might see.” I was glad he was talking about this. I didn’t want him to clam up and push me away. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted, but I knew what I
didn’t
want, and that was to lose Damu. “No one but you and me.”

He seemed pleased by this. He nodded slowly, and I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Are you nodding”—I nodded my head—“because you understand? Or are you nodding because yes, it’s okay for me to kiss you again?”

He sunk back down in the water with a whining noise and rolled his eyes before going completely under. I was still laughing when he came back up for air. “I take it that’s a yes,” I said, getting out of the water. I clambered up the bank, and wearing nothing but my underwear, I twisted my shirt and shorts, then each sock, trying to get the water out of them before putting them back on again. “Come on, or we’ll be late to herd the goats,” I said. I held up his clothes. “The women will be here soon.”

He must have forgotten that we were earlier than them today, because he hurried to the river bank. His long, lean frame was a rich brown all over. His palms and the soles of his feet were a lighter pink colour. His dark cock hung long, even flaccid from the cool water. He wasn’t exactly difficult to look at.

He wrapped the loin cloth around his waist and tucked himself in and tied it off. I was a little disappointed. “You stare at me.”

“You’re very handsome.” I cleared my throat.

He laughed at me, pulled his shuka around himself, and all he could do was shake his head at me as we began the walk back to the manyatta. I was pretty sure no one had ever given him a compliment because every time I did, he was truly baffled.

As we passed the women on their way to the river, I greeted them with, “Enk-are a-
i
opijú,” I said, telling them the water is cold. They nodded and laughed as they kept on walking.

Damu smiled, pleased. “You learn Maa well.”

“Like you learn English well.”

He mulled that over. “You like to learn our ways.”

“I do.”

He was quiet a while, his eyes trained on the distance. Then he asked, “You long stay for?”

Oh. My stomach twisted and my heart squeezed. I didn’t like the idea of leaving him just yet. “I don’t know. How long am I welcome for?”

“Kasisi did not say.”

Shit. I hadn’t even considered there being a time limit. “If it were up to you, how long could I stay?”

He smiled shyly. “
Intarasi
.”

Always.

I had wondered if things would be different between myself and Damu once night fell, but they weren’t. Well, not in a bad way. After we’d eaten and were lying on his mattress, I used his arm as a pillow like always, and after he’d covered us in his shuka, he snaked his arm around my waist and pulled me close.

I could feel every part of him against me. His hardening cock fit snug against my arse. I didn’t push him, I didn’t coerce him. I wanted him to be the one to initiate anything between us. I understood he was completely inexperienced, but I didn’t want him to feel pressured.

“Damu,” I murmured into the darkness. He froze, so I knew he was awake. “If you have any questions or if you are curious about anything, you can ask me. Okay?”

His only response was to press his lips to my shoulder and give me a gentle squeeze. I relaxed in his arms and fell into a Damu-induced dreamless, peaceful sleep.

The next morning, I woke to his erection pressing against my arsecheek. His breathing told me was awake, though he remained still. “Morning,” I said croakily.

“Mmm,” he hummed. Then, with his hand on my hip, he pushed me forward a little, but enough to put some room between us.

Okay then. He clearly wasn’t ready for more, and that was perfectly fine. “We should get to the river,” I said, getting up. The sun was teasing the horizon, slivers of blues and pinks lined the sky. The air was brisk, and I knew my thin T-shirt wouldn’t cut the cold for much longer. I rubbed my arms and shivered.

“You need shuka,” Damu said, standing beside me. He stretched up and wrapped his shuka around his shoulder like a scarf.

“How do I go about getting myself a shuka?” I asked, as we started to walk to the gate in the acacia-thorn fence.

“I will ask Amali,” he said. “It get colder yet.”

“And she’ll just give me one?”

He nodded with a smile. “She like you.”

“I like her too.”

He seemed pleased by this, and he smiled as we walked. His peacefulness was back, that aura of calm and quiet confidence, and even walking beside him made me feel at ease.

If he had any uncertainty about what he wanted or who he was, he never let on. Every day and every night for the next two weeks was the same. We herded goats during the day, and I taught the kids in the afternoons. We learned our letters and numbers, words for lions and zebras, we drew pictures, and we sang songs. The mood over the manyatta was happy and serene, everyone did their part, each cog in the machine running with a fine precision.

Each night, Damu and I ate our dinner and lay down on his mattress. He held me tight, sometimes kissing my shoulder, sometimes threading our fingers, his shuka kept us warm, and he kept my dreams at bay. And every morning his arousal pressed hot and hard between us.

But he never acted on it. Sometimes he groaned, sometimes he gripped my hips and shuddered, but he never asked for more. His self-control was extraordinary.

Then one morning when winter was settling in, I woke up as warm as toast in Damu’s arms. Though this time, we were on our sides and I was facing him with my face buried in his neck. He had both his arms wrapped around me, our bodies pressed tight together, from our heads to our thighs.

I could feel everything.

His erection pressed against mine, his breathing was sharp and short. He was definitely awake, and he was definitely not pushing me away. I moved my face a little, letting my lips lightly trail up his neck. He gasped in my ear; the sound sent shivers straight to my cock.

I looked into his eyes then, searching for a hint of doubt or fear. There was none. “Damu,” I whispered. “Can I kiss you?”

He answered by pressing his lips to mine, hard and urgent, unpractised. I put my hand to his cheek and slowly pulled back, only to kiss him again, softer this time. My lips opened his, and I gently deepened the kiss, tasting his bottom lip with my tongue.

He gasped again when our tongues touched, and I answered by covering his mouth with mine. I pushed him back, never breaking our kiss, and rolled on top of him. He was still for a second and I wondered if I’d gone too far, but then he held me tight and rocked his hips into me, kissing me wildly, passionately. We rutted against each other, and he gripped my hips with desperate fingers, making a strangled sound as he came.

It was enough to push me over the edge, and I followed suit. I came hard, shooting come into my shorts and shirt, and I collapsed on top of him. My orgasm haze dissipated, leaving behind the cold realisation that I had just had a sexual encounter with a man who was not my boyfriend.

I rolled off Damu and sat up, scrubbing my hands over my face and through my hair. “We should get to the river,” I said.

Damu was sitting up behind me now. I glanced back to see him nod, and for the first time in the four months I’d been there, we walked to the river in silence. An uncomfortable, heavy, heart-aching silence.

I cleaned myself up and washed my face. I’d shave later or maybe tomorrow. I guessed it didn’t matter too much. Damu did the same, then filled his bucket, and before I could walk away, he grabbed my arm. “Did I do wrong?”

“What?”

“Did I do wrong?” he asked again. He looked stricken: worried, sad, and lost.

“No, no,” I said quickly, putting my hand on his arm. “You did nothing wrong. Everything you did was perfect.”

“But you not happy?”

I wanted to tell him I was happy, but I couldn’t stomach the lie. “I feel like I’ve betrayed Ja―” I couldn’t even bring myself to say his name. “Him. By being with you, I’ve broken his trust. I’ve betrayed him, what we had.”

Confusion crossed his face. “Your Jarrod, the one you speak of in dreams, he knows you’re here?”

“He told me to come here,” I answered, without really thinking. “In my dreams, it was him that told me to come here.”

“You see him only in dreams?”

Looking at the ground between us, I nodded.

His voice was barely a whisper. “You wish to see him again?”

My eyes filled with tears. “I wish I could hear his voice or feel his touch, just one more time.”

“I not understand. You want to be with him but you are here?”

“He told me to come here. In my dreams, it was him that told me come here.”

He put his hand to his forehead then scrubbed his face, clearly confused. “I not understand. Why he tell you to come here?”

“I think…” I swallowed back more tears. “I think he told me to come here to find you. He led me to you.”

His eyes narrowed at me, flickering with emotions and uncertainty. “What?”

Before I could reply, the sound of the woman talking and laughing interrupted us as they approached.

We smiled as we passed the women, though the silence crept along with us like a shadow, an all-too-real presence I couldn’t seem to shake. There were things too difficult to talk about, too painful to revisit, but as we walked, I saw Damu was frowning. His normally always-present smile and peacefulness was gone.

I came here to this country, bearing a weight I could barely carry. I hadn’t exactly healed or lessened my burden any; I’d simply given it to someone else to carry.

The realisation that I’d hurt Damu stopped me in the middle of the track. In the Serengeti grass, my feet simply refused to move. He turned back to look at me. “Alé? What is it?”

The words, which I’d struggled to find, came out in a rush. “I’m sorry. I am so busy drowning in my own misery that I didn’t realise I’d hurt you too. This is all so new to you. This.” I motioned between us. “My being here has jeopardised everything for you, put you at risk of being ostracised by your own people. You have sacrificed all you have for me. Your religious beliefs, your everything. Not to mention how confusing it must be for you―this is your first time… God, Damu, I am so sorry.”

He looked at me for a long moment, and eventually his lip curled upwards into a slow smile. “You came here like Kasisi said. You broken. You searching for something to fix you.”

“But this is about you too. Not just me. I was selfish to ever think this was just about me.”

He shook his head like I was missing the obvious. “You be here, fix me too.”

Oh.

He looked torn. “I not ever know why I be different. Why I not want women like men do.” Then his face fell and he whispered, “Why I dream of men.” He shrugged. “Then you come here and I see I am not the only one.”

“You’re not. Damu, you’re not alone. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with the way you feel, no matter what anyone else says. It took me a long time to learn that, to believe it.”

His lips made a twisted smile. “My body likes it.”

That made me laugh. “Mine does too.”

He grinned properly now. “I try to control it but cannot.”

“Don’t ignore it. If you are curious, if you have questions, you can ask me.”

“Even if you worry what your Jarrod will think?”

My chest ached like it always did when I thought of him, but I tried to smile for Damu. “Even then.”

* * * *

I was counting pebbles with the children, using the little rocks as pretend money to buy imaginary things like shirts and melons, when Kasisi called me to see him.

He was sitting outside in the shade of his hut. He quite often liked to watch the children play. Like most of the elders, he took pride and a great deal of joy from the happiness of children. He could see the open classroom from where he sat, and he would watch them often, and Kasisi would smile every time the children sang and clapped.

“Chief,” I said, my head bowed. “You wanted to see me.”

“You make happy,” he said, nodding toward the classroom.

“They make me happy,” I replied.

“Not only them,” he said. His eyes glanced away, and when I followed his line of sight, I saw he had looked at Damu.

Shit.
I worded my answer carefully. “Damu is a good man,” I said, diplomatically. “He has been very kind to me.”

“He smile.”

“He always smiles.”

“Hmm,” he said, as though he didn’t believe me. “You ask Joseph and Mbaya to market.”

Oh crap. “I did, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t ask if it was okay. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I just forgot. I didn’t know they were going. When I was herding the goats with Damu the other day, I saw Joseph and Mbaya leaving and I ran to catch them. I gave them money. I would never expect the village to pay for what I request.” I’d given them the equivalent of about twenty Australian dollars and a very quick list of what I wanted. “I’m sorry if this was wrong.”

He nodded slowly. “You like be here?”

I understood his broken English just fine. “Yes. I like being here. I am grateful. Thank you.” Then I wondered how he knew I’d given Joseph and Mbaya money. “Have they returned?”

Kasisi gave one hard nod. “You not buy for you?”

“No,” I answered. “I wanted some things for the children.”

“You not miss…” He searched for the right word and eventually settled on the Maa equivalent, “…
il-ásh
u
mpá
things?”

Did I miss my white man things? I smiled. “No. Being here without any white man things makes me feel free. No burden.”

He smiled at that, then turned his head and called for one of his wives to bring him something.

Amali came from inside Kasisi’s house, carrying a netted bag, and I could easily see what was inside it. I smiled at her as she handed it to me. “Thank you. Ashê, ashê.” Then I looked back at Kasisi and bowed my head. “Ashê. Thank you.” I pulled out the notepads of paper. Each page was yellowed with age and a little dusty, but I didn’t care. The kids would love them. But then I pulled out the soccer ball and grinned. I glanced back at the kids still in the classroom, then back to Kasisi. “May I show them? Can we play outside the kraal? You can watch over us?”

He gave a nod, and I quickly got to my feet and raced back to the classroom. “Look!” I cried, showing them the ball. “Who wants to play soccer?”

All the kids clapped and cheered, but they were also confused, clearly having no clue what a soccer ball was. I put the ball at my feet and gently tapped it so it rolled toward them, but then I stopped it with my other foot and tapped it in the other direction. “Come,” I called, waving my hand toward the gate in the fence. “Come.”

I called for Damu to come with us, and the children ran after me. The area on the outside of the fence near the gate was grassless, and the high foot traffic had rendered it clear of any debris. It was roughly square in shape, with about twenty metres each side, and mostly soft dirt. I marked some makeshift goalposts with sticks on two sides and divided us into two teams. Me with three kids, and Damu with three kids.

Trying to explain the basic rules of soccer wasn’t easy, given the language barrier. I was getting pretty good at Maa, and they were pretty good at English, but there was a lot lost in translation.

And it was the most I’d laughed in a long, long time.

We ran, mostly in circles, and the kids kicked the ball and chased each other, more a game of tag than soccer. They would stop to jump and sing, showing their Maasai joy the only way they knew how. The women watched from the fence, laughing at the happiness of their children, and even Kasisi and the other elders were smiling.