Caliban. In the beginning she was, but during the past twelve years, she had bedded a dozen men. This was one of the almost inevitable results of prolonged youth.
I thought of Clio, of the time I was wasting in getting to her, and of my unfaithfulness. I was out of the cavern now, and so our normal relationship was, theoretically, in force.
But my desire to find out if my normal sexual responses were restored was too strong. I had to know that I was not permanently crippled.
I turned to her and kissed her lips. Then I kissed her eyes and her nose and the tips of her ears and stuck my tongue into her ear and kissed the side of her neck and so on down to her large, firm, greatnippled breasts, where I stayed for some time while I inserted a finger into her vagina and gently slid it back and forth until she lubricated fully and moaned and then had a number of shuddering orgasms. I then kissed her belly and tongued her clitoris and the insides of her labia.
After that, she sucked on my dong, running her tongue over its head. I hoped that the erection was now due to her, not to retention of urine. Certainly, I felt as if she were responsible.
Getting into her was not easy. I had to push, withdraw, push again, get up and apply some medical vaseline from our medicine box, and get down and push again. Slowly, the lips opened, and the head went halfway in, and then all the way in. The shaft followed easily after that. She kept her eyes closed and several times groaned and clenched her teeth. Truly, she seemed to have an organ the size of a small tenyear-
old girl’s. (I knew this from my internship while getting my M.D.)
I came several minutes after entry. Instead of withdrawing, I remained on top of her and left the semihard cock in her. She began to squeeze on it with her sphincter, which was powerful and, seemingly, tireless. It was like a weak but loving fist sending telegraphic messages. My peter swelled up again, and I began going back and forth with her legs over my shoulders and my hands around her hips and under her thighs so that the tips of my fingers caressed the edges of her labia. The second orgasm did not arrive until quite a few minutes later. I almost passed out from the intensity; I saw great red jungle flowers shooting up from green stalks, exploding in scarlet, and collapsing.
Tears came to her eyes. She had had a “flaming“ orgasm, as she put it.
I said I was happy, and I kissed her. She responded warmly. Actually, I was feeling guilty. It was not being unfaithful that caused this. I have never—deep down—seen much sense in this oath of fidelity when a man and his woman are separated for long periods of time, but I had kept my word because it was my word. And would have kept it for always if I had aged as other men do.
I was feeling guilty because I had spent time in my own pleasure instead of traveling as swiftly as possible for England, where Clio might be in danger.
31
The rains started that night. We were miserable. Despite this, we slept well under the rain-proof ponchos and blankets. Trish was as worn out as an old knife by the grinding of the 16 hours of battle to get through the cold wet tangle of the rain forest. She ate a few bites and dropped off, snuggling against me. And in the morning, after we had eaten and rolled up our supplies, we set off. There was no more loving beyond an abortive attempt by Trish one afternoon when we had rested a while and the sun had come out. It was a failure.
In three days, as I had projected, we were out of the mountains and at the mining company airstrip.
This was used to shuttle executives to the capital and back.
The executives and the pilot of the twin-engined Cessna knew me, but they refused to let me go on the next scheduled trip. I would have to wait. And one commented that I was open to arrest for being in
Uganda without a passport.
I took the plane anyway. After knocking the pilot out and yanking the three executives from the plane, with Trish’s capable help, I piloted the craft downwind, towards the north. A few bullet holes appeared in the fuselage behind us as we left the ground, and the radio bleated in Buganda and English, warning us we would be shot down by military planes.
I swung west. And 20 hours later, I was approaching the southern shore of England (Land’s End)
about ten feet above the sea. We were fully dressed and armed and I was flying another plane, a 2-motored turboprop craft. My connections and my good credit and name had secured the plane, gas, and supplies on the way. We were now entering England unnoticed (we hoped) and without passports.
Trish had demanded that we try to get into contact with Caliban while our plane was being refueled at an airport near Rabat, Morocco. I did not object. Caliban should know that she was with me. He would no longer have any reason to attack me or Clio. Or I should say Clio, since the Nine had decreed that one of us must kill the other. On thinking this over, I decided that the news that she was now alive would not reassure him. I had her, and he would not know what I planned to do with her. He thought I was mad, and he might think I meant to harm her.
I did if he killed Clio.
Or did I? I felt like it. Had felt like it, rather. But I now was very fond of her, respected her, and knew her as a human being. Moreover, I could not harbor the idea of revenge on Caliban through hurting her.
He was the one I wanted to kill.
No, I could not harm her. But I could make Caliban think I would if he did not lay off of Clio.
So I made every effort to contact Caliban. I sent radio messages to London and Paris and I sent other messages via several underground organizations I had worked with during the war and during a mission for the Nine.
They reported back that no one had managed to find him.
This did not upset Trish. She had full confidence that he would get the message. He might have it now but had not replied, because he was often strangely reticent. He acted instead of talking. In fact, he might even now be on his way to Castle Grandrith to help me against Noli.
I smiled but said nothing.
As we passed Land’s End on our right, she asked me a number of questions about our destination and its history. She had never been to the Lake District and knew little about it except that it was supposed to be England’s “pocket Switzerland” and Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey had lived there.
I told her that Cumberland County was in the extreme northwestern corner of England. The mountains (I would call them foothills) are remains of a massive dome-shaped earth movement which took place about 40 million years ago. The mountains were deeply cut by lake-filled valleys. The
Cumberland County was one of the most densely wooded regions of England even long after the Norman conquest. The oak, ash, and birch were the principal indigenous trees, and sycamore and larch were common.
The earliest evidence of man there could be dated to the New Stone Age, about 2500 B.C. There were a number of “druid” circles of stone in the Lake District. There was a circle, in fact, on the estate of
Grandrith. Looking west from the windows of Catstarn Hall, you could see the massive upright stone slabs on a hilltop beyond the castle. Looking north, you could see on top of a hill that huge and queerly shaped slab of granite which was called, for some reason, the High Chair. There was a local legend connected with it. The people of the village of Cloamby say that when the two ravens come back, the old man will sit. No one seems to know what this means.
My ancestors included the aboriginals, of course, the short dark people who might have been related to the Picts of Scotland, which is close by, and to the Firbolg of Ireland. The Celts invaded the island and exterminated or absorbed them. Later, Romans conquered much of Cumbria, but their investment, was mainly military. This area, until the 19th-century, was a back country somewhat aloof from the mainstream but not entirely. After the Romans left, the English Northumbrians held the country. The