‘Leon! Darling!’ This time the direction was more obvious. He turned to the left side of the pool and threw back his head. He saw a flash of movement high above and realized she was standing on a ledge that angled up the cliff face. But as he watched she started back down towards him, running with the speed and agility of a rock hyrax over the treacherous footing.
‘Eva!’ he yelled. ‘I’m coming, my darling!’ He dropped his horse’s reins and scrambled up the mountainside to meet her. Now he could see the two Masai on the path above her. Even at this distance he could read the astonishment on their faces as they watched this extraordinary display. He and Eva reached the beginning of the ledge at almost the same time, but he was below the lip and she was on top of it, six feet above his head.
‘Catch me, Badger!’ she called and, trusting in his strength, flung herself over the edge. As she dropped he caught her, but her weight and momentum brought him to his knees. He knelt over her, hugging her protectively to his chest as they laughed.
‘I love you, you crazy girl!’
‘Never let me go again!’ she said, as their lips came together.
‘Never!’ he promised, speaking into her sweet mouth.
Much later when they drew apart to breathe, they saw that Manyoro and Loikot had followed Eva back down the path, and were squatting on the ledge just above them, watching their performance with grins of delight.
‘Go and make nuisances of yourselves somewhere else!’ Leon ordered them. ‘You’re not welcome here. Take my horse and go down the mountain until you meet Ishmael. Tell him to make camp at the foot. Wait for us. We’ll sleep there tonight.’
‘
‘And stop giggling like that.’
‘
Manyoro’s voice was muffled with mirth as he scrambled down, but Loikot remained on the ledge above him. Suddenly he squeaked at Manyoro, in a falsetto imitation of Eva’s voice, ‘Cashy mia, Bazzer!’ and threw himself from the ledge as Eva had done. He crashed into Manyoro with such force that he bowled him over. The two rolled down the slope locked in each other’s embrace, howling and hooting with laughter. ‘Cashy mia!’ they screamed. ‘Cashy mia, Bazzer.’
Neither Leon nor Eva could contain themselves and burst out laughing again. Eventually Leon found his voice: ‘Go, you idiots!’ he ordered them. ‘Get out of my sight. I don’t want to see either of you again for a long, long time!’
They staggered down the mountain, still racked with paroxysms of laughter, hugging themselves and each other with glee.
‘Cashy mia, Bazzer!’ Manyoro howled.
‘Luff you, clazy gel!’ Loikot slapped his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Luff you!’ he repeated, and jumped three feet into the air.
‘That was, without doubt, the funniest incident ever to be recorded in the history of Masailand. You and I will go down in tribal mythology,’ Leon told Eva, as the two men disappeared down the path. He picked her up in his arms and she locked hers around his neck. He carried her to a flat ledge beside the pool and sat with her in his lap. ‘You don’t know how I’ve longed to hold you like this,’ he whispered.
‘All my life,’ she replied. ‘That’s how long I’ve waited for this to happen.’
He stroked her face, tracing the arches of her eyebrows with his fingertips, then burrowed his fingers into the tresses of her hair, filling his hands with the thick, glossy locks, gloating on every facet of her beauty, like a miser fondling his hoard of gold coins. She seemed so fragile and delicate that he was afraid he might hurt her, startle or alarm her. Her loveliness awed him. She was nothing like the other women he had known. She made him feel inadequate, unworthy.
She understood his dilemma. His timidity reawakened in her feelings of tenderness such as she had not experienced for a very long time. But she wanted him desperately and could not wait. She knew she must take the lead.
He felt her unbuttoning his shirt and one of her hands slipped through the opening and began to caress the muscles of his chest. He shivered with delight. ‘You’re so hard, so strong,’ she murmured.
‘And you’re so soft and tender,’ he countered.
She leaned back a little way so that she could look into his eyes. ‘I’m not breakable, my Badger. I’m flesh and blood as you are. I want what you want.’ She took the lobe of his ear between her teeth and nibbled it softly. He felt goosebumps rise on the nape of his neck. When she thrust her tongue deep into his ear he shuddered deliciously.
‘I have sensitive places, just like you do.’ She took his hand and placed it on her breast. ‘If you touch me here and here, like this and that, you will see for yourself.’
He felt the hooks and eyes of her blouse under his fingers and slipped open the top one. He did it diffidently, expecting a rebuke, but she drew back her shoulders so that her breasts swelled out to meet his exploring fingers.
‘There’s a clever boy! You found one of my places without any help from me.’
