Blurb

She was pretty, I’ll give her that.

Damsel-in-distress was a good look on her.

And like all the other missionaries, she came out to this remote part of the world with an agenda.

And I can’t wait to see that agenda fall to pieces as she realizes what she’s really out here to find.

And when she does, I’ll be right here, waiting - ready to give it to her…

Chapter 1 - Viktor

I’ve never done anything like this before”, she giggled.

They always say that.

It’s like there’s some universal slut handbook out there, and the first chapter begins with “twirl your hair and swear you’ve never, ever done anything even remotely like what you’re clearly about to do”.

Because they always do it.

And they love it.

And that’s why all the play-acting and flirting and ridiculousness beforehand is just fine by me. I smile and go along with their protests; acting like just for today, we’ll both make a little exception. She’s not like the other girls. And even though I know they’re usually sweet and well-behaved, and they never look for trouble, just for today, we’ll pretend that I’m the bad influence.

“I feel like I’m little red riding hood in the forest or something,” she said, and walked clumsily ahead of me, picking through the bushes. It wasn’t yet dark. But it would be by the time I was done with her.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m a big bad wolf?” I teased, and caught her by the waist, pulling her towards me. She squealed and laughed. We were far from the village now. I held her close and looked down into her face. Her eyes widened and she parted her lips, but I released her and pushed her ahead of me, giving her a little slap on the ass as she stumbled forward.

“Go on,” I said, “it’s getting dark. And we’ll never get to where we’re going if you keep trying to seduce me like this.”

Girls fucking love it when you say shit like that. She laughed, pulled her tongue out at me and carried on walking ahead on the path, pretending like she wasn’t making the most deliberate effort to wiggle her hips for my benefit.

The next time you go outside and walk past any plain looking, ordinary white girl under the age of 30, take a really close look at her. Look at her figure. Look into her eyes. I’m not talking about the very confident, polished ones. The ones who talk loudly and know they’re pretty. I’m talking about the most commonplace, average girl you can think of. Are you imagining her?

Well, I’m here to tell you that the more unassuming she looks, the easier it is for men like me to take her. The plainer she seems, I can guarantee you, the dirtier she is underneath. Girls like this flock to me. Like little lambs. They can’t help it.

Sure, they pretend it’s me that did it. It was me who was a bad influence. It was me who encouraged them, me who lured them in. The nastier ones even like to imagine I force it out of them. But it’s all them. Believe me when I say that: it’s all them.

We reached the clearing and she looked around, like a little kid looking for trouble. Like most of the girls who end up in this part of the world, and more specifically here in the forest, with me, she was American, young, and utterly stupid. I’d like to remind you though: I never preyed on these girls. In fact, like I said, it was always them that made the first move. Always them that went after me.

She slinked up to me and smiled with a kind of drunk look on her face. I guess she thought she was sexy. She stroked the tips of her fingers idly against my forearm, playing cute.

“You have such big arms,” she said, drawing out the words.

I laughed.

“All the better to catch you with, my dear!”

She laughed as well.

They’re always surprised when the noble savage acts a little witty, too. She leaned in closer and dragged her fingertips higher up my arm; close enough to kiss her, if I wanted to. But I stood firm. I wanted her to come to me.

“Hmm …now let’s see …what big eyes you have…” she said, taking the bait and playing the game.

“All the better to see you with my dear” I said, so softly it was a growl.

She giggled and lifted her lips to my cheek, lingered them there a little.

“And what lovely big lips you have” she whispered up close.

“All the better to kiss you with.” I closed gentle lips on hers. She stood up on her tip toes to meet my kiss, and soon threw her arms around my neck.

The forest air was fresh and primal, the big trees sighing overhead as we caressed in their shade. She would tell all her friends about this when she got home. She’d still be fantasizing about me long after she went home and paired up with some fool and had his babies. And the thing I’d do to her next? Well, she’d think of that for the rest of her life.

I grabbed the hair at the base of her skull and pulled her hard towards me. She gasped and I flung an arm around her waist, pulling her excited little body onto mine, and pressing my rock hard cock into her.

She started giggling again.

“Oh, Vik, what a big …what a big…”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. She knew the game but didn’t have the guts to play her turn.

“All the better to fuck you with, my dear,” I said, and with one movement yanked at her trousers, and the buttons went flying as I pulling them off her squirming body. I felt the weight of her as she collapsed into my arms.

They’re always a little shocked, the first time they see it. Usually, it’s the biggest they’ve had, and they play cute and coy for a while but when they actually see it, when the full heft of it’s in their little hands and they realize what they’re really in for, oh they change their tune pretty quickly.

It’s usually some lame Tarzan and Jane fantasy that lures most of them out here. They all love the idea of the wild guy ravaging them, of a fun, exotic tryst with a native in a far off land. But once they’re actually pinned down and yelping, sweat beads on their little faces and my fat cock jammed in to the hilt …well, nothing is sweeter than watching that cocky confidence melt as they realize that I won’t be going easy on them.

“No seriously, that actually looks a little too big…” she tells me, and there’s that look. There it is, right there. Her eyes go big again and she stops smiling, instantly nervous. My dick swells at the thought of the little animal noises she’s about to make, and how she’s going to take it, whether it’s too big or not.

“Get on your knees,” I say.

Chapter 2 - Penelope

People say “goody two shoes” like it’s an insult. Like being good is …bad. How does that make any sense? It’s never made sense to me, personally. So, these days, when someone tells me how righteous and high minded I am, I take it as a compliment. How can you be too right?

Dylan understood that instantly about me, and that’s how I knew all at once that he was the man for me. Other women are quick to tear girls like me down. I’ve experienced it first hand: they tell me I’m too young, that I don’t know anything and that I’m crazy for jumping into marriage so quickly. But maybe it’s too scary for them to admit that actually, they’d love to be me. They’d love to be so certain about their futures. If something is right and you know you want it, why wait?

“Babe, do you think I’ll need the malaria card in my hand luggage or can I just pack it away in the big bag?”

Obviously, I already knew the answer to this question. I had Googled it just seconds before. But it’s good to give your man as many opportunities, every day, to lead you. It can be just small things, but why wait till marriage to start developing those foundations?

“Bring it with you in your hand luggage,” he said, without raising his eyes to look at me.

Dylan Moore. My living proof that prayers can be answered, and that when you’re the person you’re supposed to be, you’ll naturally attract the people who are supposed to be in your life. That’s just natural law. I know that girls my age are all about the hot guys, but I see deeper than that. Dylan is slightly out of shape, but so what? He doesn’t look like a celebrity, but all those guys that do? The girls who go for them can come and cry to me later about how well that worked out for them. I bet all the six packs and tattoos are going to be real helpful once he knocks you up and you realize he can’t support you and wants to run for the hills.

Loving Christians ought to look beneath the surface. To be compassionate. There are sadly too few people in this world who can do that. Anyway, Dylan. He was clean shaven and employed and knew exactly what he wanted from a future wife. He had drive, like me. He had got down on one knee at my parents’ home a few Sundays back, and told me how he had wanted to make me his wife since the day he laid eyes on me. Dad said yes. It’s true, we hadn’t known each other for that long at that point, but he didn’t want me going off to Africa without having “nailed it down”.

Nailed it down. Nailed like Jesus on the cross. Did you know that “nailed” can sometimes be used as a vulgar sexual slang? As in, he nailed her. Disgusting. Did you know, also, that some historians believe that at the time Jesus was crucified, it may have been the custom to tie the victim to the cross, and not only nail them. With ropes, or possibly thin strips of leather, so that they didn’t slide and move around, and stayed still enough up there to properly receive their punishment.

Anyway, where was I? I sometimes go off on tangents like that, it’s a bit weird. All growing up my youth leaders told me I was blessed with quite an imagination. But to be honest, it doesn’t feel like a blessing most of the time. Sometimes, I can’t stop my thoughts from just …running away with me.

“Earth to babe? Hello?”

Dylan was snapping his fingers in front of my face. It was a thing he did, a joke really, but I had a hard time when he did stuff like that.

“Sorry,” I said, “I was just thinking about something…”

“I was asking you where you put those locks I gave you.”

My heart sank. I had hidden them far away, somewhere he wouldn’t find them.

“I don’t know, babe, I couldn’t find them. I’ll just go with my bags as they are, no need for locks.”

Shoot. This was getting to be a nasty habit. Lying.

“Couldn’t find them? How can that even be possible? Come on, let’s find them quickly, we have a few minutes before we leave.”

“Babe, I’ve looked, can we just forget about the locks?”

He shot me a stern look. His eyebrows were pale and wispy, but you sure could make them out when he frowned.

“I’m not sure I like your tone, Babe. Can you acknowledge that I’m trying to look out for your safety here, and that you’re willfully making that difficult?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. Instantly. Apologizing was another habit I was getting into these days. I was just stressed. This missionary trip was the biggest, scariest thing I had ever done in my 19 years, was it really my fault if I was a little emotional at times?

I walked up to him and draped my arms round his neck.

“I know you’re just trying to keep me safe. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged and carried on zipping up my overstuffed luggage. I didn’t really want to leave him on a sour note. Six months was a long time to be away from one another. Of course, we would manage it no problem, I just didn’t want to leave things on a bad note.

“Anyway, I looked it up, and the crime statistics are actually not as bad as you would guess…” I said, tossing my hair.

“You looked it up?”

“Yup. I was actually surprised. I think Malawi has this reputation or something, but it’s really not so bad…”

“So that means you can just lose the locks I bought specifically for you?”

My arms felt awkward around his neck.

“No, of course I’m not saying that. But whatever, it’s just clothing in there, and what are the chances someone tries to steal something out of my bag? They’re just people after all. And if someone was desperate enough to do that, to steal, then let them just have it, right?”

His eyebrows were still tight. But as he looked down on me, his face softened and then he kissed my head.

“Babe, that’s very sweet and all, but these people can be dangerous. I don’t think you quite understand that.”

“You don’t have to call them ‘these people’ like that.”

His eyebrows tightened again. Something kicked at the pit of my stomach. To hell with the locks, though. Why always this obsession with locking things up, anyway? Lock it down. Didn’t the lord say he would take care of us? I suddenly had a sickening thought. What if he looked for the locks and found them, and realized that I had hidden them? It was a good hiding place …but would it hold for six months? I pushed the thought away.

He slammed my bag down from the bed and onto the floor, and it landed with a thump. My plane left in a few hours. For six months, I’d be joining the mission there and helping an impoverished village rebuild their community garden. And, naturally, spreading the word of the Lord. But that would be the easy part.

“Look, I can see there’s no reasoning with you. You’re headstrong, and I’ve always accepted that in you. I know that you need to get out there, to see things. I understand. I needed to do the same when I was your age. Just promise me that if anything, and I mean anything comes up, you’ll be on the next plane out of there. Can you at least manage to do that?” he said, and stared at me hard.

I felt the pang in my gut again. It’s true what they say. When you know, you know. And I knew that Dylan was the man for me. No question. But sweet Lord was it a challenge for me sometimes. Dylan kept me accountable. He never let good be good enough – he always wanted more from me. And I respected that. But at times like these I felt …I don’t know.

“I’m sorry, babe. I know you’re just looking out for me.”

We closed up the house, piled my luggage into the car and set off. The parents would meet us there to see us off, and I had everything. Plenty of suitable clothing, mosquito repellant, a dictionary, toiletries, my bible, and a photo of Dylan. He had made me take out the razors and the fashion magazines, but he was right, there really wasn’t room for those.

Somewhere under a floorboard in our basement hid two still-wrapped pairs of mini travel locks with keys, both in magenta and baby blue flowers. It was a lie, technically, but maybe I was allowed just a little rebellion? At the end of the day, he was wrong. “These people” were just people, and I didn’t have to be worried about being robbed or killed or …worse. That was just racist. Even I could see that.

We drove in silence and merged with the highway traffic. I could tell something was up by the way he was a little rougher with the gear shift than he needed to be, and his body language seemed just a little too closed. Poor Dylan. I knew how hard it was for him. His wild fiancé getting ideas and running around to strange countries. I tried to force myself to think of how difficult it must really be for him, and then my irritation with him dissolved.

I extended a cautious hand to rest on his leg. Nothing crazy, just there on his knee. He angrily brushed it off. I felt a lump rise in my throat.

“Have you completely forgotten the discussion we had last night, Penelope?” he said, his voice cold.

Ok, I have a confession. The night before, seeing as it was the last night we’d see each other for a while, and seeing as I’d be going away for so long, and seeing as we were already getting married anyway, just as soon as I returned, I figured it wouldn’t hurt that much to …well, you know. In this day and age, it might be hard for most people to believe, but, well …I’ve never seen it before. Him, I mean. His manhood. I didn’t want to do anything with it, just see it. It would be something we’d have to get used to as a married couple anyway, so what was the big deal?

But last night, it was, apparently, a big deal. He had hissed at me and slapped my hand away, and my stupid grin fell right from my face, and my whole body burned up with shame. I really can be an idiot sometimes. I told him I was sorry, and that I’d take it back, but he was real mad. He said he thought I knew better than that. That just because I was going on some big fancy holiday that now I wanted to behave like a slut. Well, he hadn’t used that word. He was too much of a gentleman. But what can I say …my imagination gets the better of me.

I pulled my hand away from his knee and tucked it in my lap. I stared out the window, blinking back a single, stinging tear. Nevermind. Things would get easier, once we were married. I had on my favorite dress, the white and grey paisley one, with comfy shoes and freshly washed, freshly cut hair. Shorter than was ideal, sure, but as I caught sight of myself in the rear view mirror, dusty blond hair falling in swashes at my shoulders, I squinted my eyes and imagined myself as a fashion model, jet setting off to a lingerie shoot. My name would be Bianca and I’d have a Russian mobster as my boyfriend and captor…

We’d be there in less than 20 minutes. My hand luggage sat on the floor at my feet. With one hand, I absentmindedly played with the ceramic rabbit pin Dylan had given me for our one-month anniversary. I rolled its cool curves over my fingers again and again.

I’ve always loved rabbits.

Chapter 3 - Viktor

I’ve always loved rabbits. There’s something just so beautiful about their eyes. They’re so wet and round, but somehow hidden in amongst this dry, fluffy pelt. Human eyes are never this wet. Never this round. A rabbit’s eyes, though, are always these neat, juicy little globes. Even when they’re dead.

The worst fucking thing in this world is to be squeamish. I don’t care who you are, you are never too good for a little pain, a little hard work, a little disappointment. We all die. We all shit and cry and fuck and we all are born and we all die. Anyone who figures themselves somehow above that all can kiss my ass.

That’s what all of this comes down to, really. Having grit. Having the balls and the guts and the fucking self-respect to live with just an ounce of responsibility, of self-awareness. All the years I’ve lived in this place and that’s the only conclusion I have for you: civilization is one giant, all-encompassing pillow. Just a big old cushion so that the people living on it never have to feel the rock of reality under their bare asses, never have to actually feel the world around them.

And the cushion is soft and they’re soft, so soft that when they see me, they just about shit themselves. They’re squeamish. I’m too dirty. Too weird. Too sexual. Too extreme. Too much. You know what dirt and blood and guts are? You know what rough hands and sinewy arms and tanned skin actually are? They’re real. They’re fucking real.

And now here I am, and there’s the rabbit, lying limp and lifeless in front of me, and this is real too. This is why I’m here. A rabbit’s eyes are clean and honest and glassy, even after it’s quit struggling, even after the kick has gone from its legs and its little heart stops fluttering in its chest. After it’s dead. A rabbit is never squeamish. They’re not full of bullshit, at the very least.

I picked up the pipe and brought it to my lips, slowly. No need to rush. I opened my chest to it, and the hot smoke went into me, into my lungs, and even before I’d exhaled my head was spinning. I blew out two plumes through my nostrils, and the smoke rolled over my naked chest. The eddies and curls seemed to be moving in slow motion. The world blinkered out and then back in again, this time in full color, two realities superimposed over each other like a 3D movie without the glasses. I closed my eyes and sighed. This was some good shit.

The rabbit. I looked at it and it looked at me. Wet eyes, dry fur. A little blood crusted on the gash at its head. A piece of grass stuck in one of its grey cat paws. When Mama Tembi learned that I was all the way out here in the boondocks, not only living in the shack I built but eating the local wildlife to survive, she had given me a stern talking to. There was room in Mama Tembi’s mind for a shaman figure, I guess. Enough space in her worldview for a wild man and enough space in these dark forests to accommodate even the most dangerous of ideas. Even if I was eating rabbits. Even if I was a “white man”.

The others, though? Fuck ‘em. In fact, I’d take it all as a compliment. Let me threaten them. Let me freak them out. We could all use a reminder from time to time …a reminder of what’s real.

Ok, here’s my confession: I actually hate rabbits. I hate how wiry and tough their little bodies are, and hate the sound their skin makes when you tear it off, and I hate the smell, holy fuck do I hate the smell. Rabbits are like a miracle to catch and then once you do, you wonder whether the few mouthfuls of dark meat are really worth it. The meat always tastes dark, too, like you can still taste the fight in it. They’re wild, like me, so they’re a little …intense. Their flavor is earthy and a little bloody. Raw tasting, no matter how much you cook them.

Let me describe my cabin to you, so you can really understand just how big of a deal it is to deal with this thing, even though its carcass is so tiny. It’s one room, essentially. There’s only me here, so why bother dividing it into separate rooms for separate functions? I have nothing to hide, especially not from myself, so the bathroom and the kitchen and the bedroom and the store room and the rabbit killing room are all essentially one. It’s all just “living”. A living room.

I have a loosely quilted mattress in the corner and when its colder I have a rabbit pelt blanket. But these days I prefer the floor. No cushions. My cooker is in the other corner. That was the first thing I built. As with everything else in this place, I did it with my bare hands. I still go into town and get paraffin on occasion, although I’m wondering if I do it just to chat to Mama Tembi and keep up with the gossip. You never know who might come in handy one day, although god knows I’m not the world’s most sociable guy, as you can imagine.

Above the cooker are my two pots, although I only really ever need the one. I keep my knives under the cooker. Hidden in an easy access latch is my rifle, and I keep the axe in the same place. There was a time that I had a few bits and pieces on a shelf in the third corner, but in my second year here, I had gradually lost them all. I didn’t need photos of fucking people I didn’t want to see. I didn’t need a clock. I didn’t need a decorative box to keep my herbs in. And after all of that went, the shelves themselves seemed kind of pointless, so I got rid of them too, except for one, and they went to fire wood, and I could taste the wood in the meat of the rabbit I cooked on that fire.

It might not be much. I imagine Mama Tembi raising her eyebrows at it, and basically every other human being, if they’ve been raised in the “Western world” at least, but again: fuck ‘em. All that matters to me now is what’s real. Me. This rough cabin I built with my bare hands. And the rabbit.

I put down the pipe and cracked my neck, once to one side, once to the other. The tendons and meat inside me …the same tendons and meat inside the rabbit. All the same. One thing, two different forms. I hate killing. But that is only one part of me. The other, darker part of me …well, let’s say you need a particular mindset to kill and then skin a rabbit. To do it properly, at least.

First, take a rabbit’s body in your hands, your bare hands, as though it’s the relaxed arm of a lover. Stroke its fur down, and remember that this rabbit had secrets, had a life and hopes and dreams, like you. Like you will have had, after you’re dead as well. Feel its meat under the fur. Touch it gently, like you love it. You have to love it. You’re an alchemist: you’re going to turn rabbit into food, and later, turn food into you. Its muscles are your muscles. See this. Really see it.

Cut off its feet. Cut off its head. Don’t think too much while you do this. Put a long, thin and sharp knife into its neck and slice cleanly down along its belly like it’s just a steak wearing a rabbit’s costume, and this is the zip. Because that’s what it is. Think about your own zips. When the line reaches the crotch, put the knife down and take off the pelt, firmly, like pajamas. Feel bad that the rabbit will be cold without it. Slice open the abdominal cavity and remove the tubes inside there, all of them. Hang the rabbit long and let it bleed out.

The blood and bones are good for the soil. The skin is now your skin. Its eyes …I haven’t figured out what to do with the eyes yet. The jackals eat them.

While you’re cutting and dressing a rabbit, you shouldn’t think of other things. You should honor the rabbit and fucking pay attention. But today, my mind was all over the place. I was being sloppy. Making small mistakes. The blade was too blunt. Unfocused.

I kept having a thought: it’s time for a fresh batch of missionaries to arrive from the states. If they weren’t here already, they would be very soon. I didn’t need paraffin or anything else. But I could go into town anyway, just to sniff around and see if there were any hot young things floating around. I’m a man with principles. But I’m still a man. And a man has needs.

I finished with the rabbit and poured some fresh water over my hands, my little steel basin singing as the water hits it. A basin is a good thing to have. A basin isn’t bullshit. I smiled and washed my hands, the warm feeling in my head spreading out over my body. The blood never really comes off completely, even after the water runs clear. I shook them off and dried them quickly, then collapsed back on my mattress, legs propped up casually.

The rabbit hung in the corner. Good. I hated that part. But death is necessary, for life.

Now, I could finally focus on this weird thought that wouldn’t leave me alone today. A disturbance in the force, if you like. Every time I closed my eyes, it appeared: a face. I lay back on my mattress and tried to focus on the face. The features were blurred and fleeting. I breathed in deep and released. Felt the tension sinking out of me and into the mattress.

I’ve been living in these forests my entire life. The human face has started to look different to me. I’ll go back into “civilization” just as soon as it makes sense to. But till then, I need nothing that I haven’t made on my own. With my own body, and my own mind. How many men can say that? There’s just one problem though. One thing a man can’t provide for himself.

I adjusted myself on the mattress and opened up a fold in my sarong. Easily, my cock jumped out at me. It had been a while since I’d been compelled to hide this part of myself. I’m often naked. I’m often alone.

I put my hands round the shaft and stroked gently. Forest living was good for the system. While my time in this cabin had whittled my body down to muscle and bone, my cock seemed only to have pick up the slack, getting bigger and meaner. My hands were rough from work. I was a little sun burnt. But morning or night I could easily go from soft to hard enough to cut glass in just a few seconds. When you live in a virile forest, teeming with life, you become potent yourself.

Fine. I’d go into town. Maybe there’d be someone interesting for a change. Maybe not. No big deal.

I rolled my coarse hands over the swollen tip. A woman would be better. There’s nothing soft about me. I liked it that way. But a woman …I could use just a bit of softness. I shut my eyes and saw the face again. In my foggy mind, I saw, and felt, something indescribably warm. Something hot with life. It pulsed all through me, parting my lips. I kept stroking.

I saw lips, a soft face. Something tender there, just out of my reach. Jolts of pleasure were shooting up and down my body. My hand froze, I clenched the mattress and a slow, gooey orgasm rushed over me. Wet globs landed on my hands. My bare hands. Fine, no man is an island. I’d go to town. It couldn’t hurt.

Chapter 4 - Penelope

It was great, actually, when you just shifted your perspective. It was all fine. This was why I was here, right? To learn all about the different ways of the world and how all God’s people go about their business.

I stared down at the brown muck in front of me. The tap had been running for a full minute, I was sure of it, and it still wasn’t getting any clearer. I would never dream of telling the mission leaders this, but the place was a dump. I’m sorry, but it was.

I had a long, fitful dream all on the plane trip here, and was tried as all heck now. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw a face. So I kept my eyes open. Now, they were still red and raw, and I was jet lagged for sure.

Sister Dora had collected me from the airport, if you can call it that, and we had taken a bus here. It made me feel so bad to see my awful heavy bag hoisted up on her frail shoulders. She must have been ninety in the shade, and her shoes looked a decade older than even that, yet she said nothing and just hauled all my stuff off, telling me how excited everyone was to meet me.

I would share my room with Valerie, a girl who’d arrived a few months prior to me and was transplanted from the next town over. She and I would oversee the community garden project. The land was ready, the funds had cleared and now they were all waiting for me.

“Married?” she asked on the bus ride.

“No ma’am, not yet, although when I return home I’ll be marrying my fiancé, Dylan.”

She smiled. “Any children?”

I shook my head. What a weird question. She had on a really old fashioned habit and a wooden cross round her neck, but every time she stroked at my hair (she really seemed to like my hair) I couldn’t help feeling that her fingers reminded me just a little of a gorilla’s.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. If Dylan had told me that, I would have straight up told him he’s a racist, and he kind of is, but I just couldn’t shake the thought, and it was my first thought, and it just sprang up without me even doing it on purpose, you know? And I felt so guilty. Man, did I feel guilty. She was kind to me, and here I was thinking she reminded me of a gorilla. How terrible was that?

“You’re so pale,” she said, taking a strand of my ashy hair in her fingers. “Like a tiny little mouse!” She laughed, a little mockingly, if I’m honest.

I guess that made us even.

The drive to the room was agonizing. Mchinji was …how can I put this? Low key. I had my work cut out for me for sure.

“You’ve never been to Malawi before, have you?” she asked. I shook my head. I’d never been to anyplace, really.

“It’s beautiful, you’ll see,” she said, as I stared out of the grimy bus windows.

It was as I imagined. Kind of.

Dusty. Pretty hot. Not a whole lot going on. More stray dogs than I had imagined. Google had told me that that the population was less than 2000, and that most people here had no running water, no schooling, no nothing.

Bu they had me now. I adjusted my eyes to make out my own reflection in the bus window. I was pale. It was hard to imagine that I was an international lingerie model, not with how the bus was smelling right at that moment, but I let my imagination go anyway. I would be like Jane, and find a Tarzan, and we’d live on a ranch and adopt all the stray dogs and care for them, so that nobody ever had to suffer again…

“We’re here my dear” Sister Dora said, and she sprang up like a sprite and before I knew it she had hauled my bag out of the bus and plonked it down just as the tires skidded off and left us in a cloud of red dust. Home sweet home. More dogs, broken down houses.

“Valerie is out today, you’ll see her tomorrow. But she’s very excited to meet you. I think there are three or four others arriving today and Mama Tembi is arranging a dinner this evening to welcome everyone. Just sleep now. I’m coming this way tonight and I’ll come get you, ok?”

I panicked. That’s it? I would be alone?

“Just lock the door, ok? You came a bit early. Pastor will be there this evening, you can speak to him and arrange everything. I have to go though, it’s getting late. Ok?” she smiled at me.

“Ok.”

And now I was here, looking at this water. It had been two minutes. Still dirty as heck. I turned off the tap. I’d have to freshen up some other way. The room was …not good. And it really was just that – a single room. I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but how could you live in just one room like this? I could see Valerie’s bed …but where were all her things?

With one big motion I unzipped my bag. Thank God. Everything was still here. Losing a few pairs of Toms would have been fine, but I don’t think I wanted to admit that Jeff had been right, just this once. As I looked down into the bag though, I was struck by something odd: the scent of flowers. I lifted a tank top with my fingers and discovered it was laced with white goop. What the…?

Shampoo. My jumbo shampoo bottle had exploded. I rummaged through the bag. Yup, everything was covered in a slimy layer of pearly white. Damn! It was uncanny. Even the clothing right at the bottom layers was drenched. Who knew there was so much shampoo in a single bottle? I examined the bottle. Empty. The Lord giveth and he taketh away. Not only were my clothes dirty, they were dirty with what I needed to keep myself clean.

On some stupid whim, I looked up to see if I could find any sign of a washing machine. Of course there was none. I was in Malawi. Why would they have washing machines when hardly anyone had running water? I imagined Jeff laughing at me, and the fact that I had thought about whether to give the kids here milk chocolate treats, and now whether or not there’d be a washing machine. In any case, he was an idiot. Google had told me plain as day that many people in Africa do, in fact, suffer from lactose intolerance, and my idea to not give them milk chocolate wasn’t a stupid one at all. I had let him have that one, I guess. The man is the head of the household.

I sighed loudly and looked around for a wardrobe. There was no wardrobe. I slid a curtain to the side and found Valerie’s clothes on a few plastic hangers. There were no extra hangers. I picked up the slimy tank top again to check that I wasn’t dreaming, and that this really wasn’t all a nightmare, but it slid out my fingers and landed on the bare flor, splat, picking up a layer of red dust.

And I’ll admit it. I’m big enough to admit it. There and then, at that moment, I wished I hadn’t come. I felt dirty. I was dirty. And there was nobody here to welcome me, and everything was so damn quiet, like, creepily quiet, and I could manage whatever Jesus threw my way, for sure, but did I have to do it in the same crumpled sundress I had been wearing for almost a full 24 hours now?

I wiped away a tear and squared my shoulders. I wouldn’t be any help to anyone if I was a crying wreck. I sniffed my armpits and recoiled. Yikes. I slid my bag to the far side of the room. I’d deal with that later. I fished out the least soiled shirt and ferociously tried to rinse out the shampoo glob down the front of it, using the same brown tap water. Luckily, the shampoo became its own detergent.

I wrung it out, fanned it in the room and slipped it over my sundress. There. Now I was a little more presentable, and probably smelled a bit better, too. No fashion magazine I knew had outfit tips on how to transition seamlessly from an afternoon at home to a nightmare in a strange African country, but I think I was pulling off the look.

Unfortunately, all my underwear was badly soaked. I washed a few pairs, but they were too wet to wear. I hung them over the little sink on a crinkly wire and then gingerly lifted the rim of my sundress for a quick sniff. Also yikes. Now I’m not squeamish, but Lord knows I would need some clean clothes, and soon.

Then I heard a giggle. I froze and scanned the room, my heart in my throat.

Some rustling, the sound of feet. I ran to the window just in time to catch a handful of kids scampering off, laughing to themselves. Little shits.

Pardon me. A lady doesn’t cuss. But as you can imagine, I was feeling more than a little fed up by that point. But it was fine. Right? All of this was just learning. Just expanding my mind. When I returned home, I didn’t just want to be some airheaded stay at home mom who knew nothing. I wanted to be something inspiring to my children, someone with substance. Apparently, I’d have to find that substance here, in this hovel of a room …but God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, does he?

I smiled and waved and tried to yell hello after them. They couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old each, all dusty limbed from playing in the dirt and bare foot. They pulled their tongues out at me and danced and teased and then scampered off, like little monkeys. They were handsome children. They had bright, clear eyes and velvety skin and they were so, so quick. Forgive me father, but I instantly thought about how good they’d look on my Instagram.

Chapter 5 - Viktor

You know that feeling you get when you see some freshly fallen snow on the ground? Some fresh, soft, perfectly smooth snow just waiting there and you get this insatiable urge to just jump in it? Well, that’s kind of the way I felt the first time I saw her bewildered, crumpled little self waltz into Mama Tembi’s.

I can’t even remember the last time I saw snow, but I sure as hell am familiar with that feeling. Call it prey drive, maybe. Lust. I don’t know. I could feel her helplessness, right in the pit of my stomach. And I can’t explain it, but I just had the instinct to …take her. Living in the forest does weird things to you. For one, it sharpens your sense of smell.

But anyway. I’ve seen a few of these types come in here over the years, these holier than thou Americans with white sneakers and bad attitudes and cameras. But she took the cake. I nearly laughed out loud when I saw her: a little rat of a girl, all skin and bones and wearing this thin cotton dress that looked even more fucked up than she did. She was putting on a brave face, but man, the heat did not suit her. She had combed her dusty blonde hair into two pigtail braids, one on each side, and even from my seat at the “bar” I could make out the shiny rock embedded at the center of a silver cross round her neck.

“Well fuck me! Call everything off. Here she is, Mama, here’s your one true savior, all our problems are solved now, you can stop worrying” I said and watched as she entered the far end of Mama Tembi’s general store slash café slash informal town hall. Mama Tembi whipped me with the end of her dishcloth.

“Ay! Watch that mouth, you animal. Not in my shop.”

I leaned back in my seat and eyed her. She was like a baby gazelle, tip toeing through the open plains with no idea of who was sizing her up. Mama Tembi’s might not look like much, but it’s the closest to a community hub this little town has, and whether she knew it or not, how she carried herself here would pretty much decide whether the locals put up with her missionary shit or iced her out until her plane came to fetch her. Something they never seem to understand: when you come here, you’re on the back foot. You’ve never been to Mchinji before. But them? They’ve seen dozens of missionaries, just like you. Hundreds even. They knew the deal.

“But Mama, have you seen her? Actually seen her? Just take a look,” I said and gestured to the crowd that had gathered around the big table, all the new missionaries with the old, plus some sundry village do-gooders. Mama Tembi isn’t my friend, but she’s a breath of fresh air for sure. She takes no shit, not from anyone. She’s built like a wildebeest and has already put two husbands and countless children in the ground. Mama Tembi had AIDS, too, but she never gave you the impression that she couldn’t kick its ass, along with anything else that got in her way. She was focused on rolling some cigarettes and didn’t bother looking up.

“I don’t have to look, Vik, I have work to do,” she said.

“But you’re missing it! She looks like she’s going to burst into tears any moment now.”

She raised a single eyebrow at me and tightened her mouth.

“And if you get involved, she’ll cry for sure.”

She wasn’t wrong. But like I said, something about her looked like she needed a good cry.

“Vik, I’m serious. Leave this one alone, OK?”

Mama Tembi’s eyes flicked to the crowd and then back to me, where she frowned, one half rolled cigarette still poised in her fingers. I sighed and slumped down further in my chair. I wasn’t usually this cynical, but something about these people just irked me no end. Like there was some intolerable imbalance in the universe and I just had to set it right again.

“And would it kill you to put a shirt on when we have new people coming in?” she said and flicked me with the cloth again.

Mama Tembi’s is certainly the largest structure in this two-bit village. It was built by some over ambitious British South Africans in the sixties as a sort of club house, but they had long since cleared off and the place was abandoned and then renovated as a general purpose “café”. The long running joke was that you could get everything here – except good coffee. Mama Tembi knew how to turn backyard chard and beans into a feast, and she knew who in the village was “bad news” and when a woman was pregnant and exactly how much paraffin I’d need for my little cabin before I’d have to come crawling back for more. She knew everything.

Around the big central table, they’d hold town meetings or wedding meals or sometimes watch sports. Mama’s “bar” was off to the side and here she sold single cigarettes and Fanta. If your change was less than a few hundred kwacha, she’d give it to you in government issue condoms. The kitchen staff had made some piri piri goat and yellow rice for the new missionaries. Mama Tembi smiled and welcomed them all. She was happy to accept their “aid”, knowing their real help came in the 4000% markup she put on the mini sizes of Omo washing powder they needed, and not in the mass produced paperback bibles they handed out.

I recognized the old Congolese nun that worked closely with the mission leaders, but there were also a few new faces. They fussed around the new girl. Everyone sat and ate. I realized: she was the first blond I had seen in quite a while. She was cute. I was going to enjoy watching this place tear her apart.

I took a tin bowl from under the counter and stood up, Mama Tembi giving me the evil eye.

“What? A man must eat” I said and winked at her. Mama Tembi wouldn’t ever be too hard on me. She liked those little bags I would slip into her apron once a month or so, and she liked how much she could resell them for. And in her own way, she liked me, even though I was just some crazy “white man”.

I waltzed up to the table and stood there above them, feeling my presence bring the conversation to a grinding halt. Mama Tembi click her tongue and went back to rolling. Most people at the table nodded a vague greeting to me but she, she looked as though she had never seen a man’s torso in her life. Her eyes went wide as I leaned over, my chest and flanks mere inches from her face, as I helped myself to some stew. The deer in headlights look suited her.

“This is Vik, our local troublemaker,” said Sister Dora, who had only recently stopped crossing herself whenever she saw me. I smiled and extended my hand to her. I loved just how quickly she shot out her little hand to take mine. This is what a man looks like, sweetheart, take a good look. I could actually see her swallow. I could smell her. This would almost be too easy.

“Oh, hello, pleased to meet you Vik. I’m Penny. Uh, do you …do you live in the village?” she peeped, and I realized that she was probably confused about how to categorize me. She had a soft, deep-south lilt in her accent and the kind of face that hasn’t known a day of trouble in its life. I’m sure she didn’t know what to make of my dark skin and blue eyes. Black, but not. White, but not. And half naked. That part seemed to be having the most impact. I took her hand but she struggled to make eye contact.

“He actually lives out of town, that way, in the forest,” said Valerie, shrugging in the right direction. Valerie had been a sweet fuck, but I had gotten tired of that pretty soon. Women like Valerie can go pretty far, but they never truly get it. They’re no strangers to the dark side, sure, but it’s just that they like to take holidays there, have a little thrill with something new and then go straight back to their dead, two dimensional lives. She was cool. But no love lost.

“Vik is on his own mission, sometimes he graces us with his presence. Especially when there’s food around,” said one of the younger missionary kids. The crowd laughed, but not too loudly. The ones who had any sense gave me the wide berth I deserved and the ones who didn’t wouldn’t last a week here anyway. Her hand went briefly into mine and then flew away again, and she tucked it under the table.

Then, and this is the important part, she stared at my crotch. A microsecond, barely anything at all, but when you live alone in the forest with nothing but the trees and your own heartbeat for company, your eyes become good at seeing even the tiniest of things. And it was a big thing. If you know what I mean. She looked, and I looked at her, and she saw me looking, and in a split second she knew that I had seen her looking. And when I kept looking at her, her pretty little face exploded in a flush and she struggled to put her gaze somewhere, anywhere else.

I guessed it would take me a week. Valerie had taken about a month. But this girl was hungry. Within a week I’d have her on the floor of my cabin, and I’d have those sweet little ankles right up behind her ears, and I’d fuck her so hard and so good she’d be taking her good Lord’s name in vain, one way or another. I knew that with that little flick of her baby blue eyes, I was already halfway in.

Conversation around the table flowed a little, although awkwardly, and I could see her straining to smile at everyone, struggling to keep up the façade. She was tired. I said nothing. Just watched. Ate my stew and rice and watched. Naturally, once the bullshit threatened to run out, the conversation lagged a little, but Sister Dora jumped in to save things.

“There’s been a bit of a problem, actually, with the garden,” she said, “The mission arranged for some fertilizer, but there’s been a problem with their trucks. It’s going to take a few more months at least, to get it here.”

Penny’s face went the most delightful shade of pink.

“Months? But we need to start with planting soon” she said, then softly added, “don’t we?”

“I mean I’m not saying the trucks 100% won’t come, it’s just that we might wait a week, we might wait three months, that’s all.”

“But the planting season will have passed by then. What can we do? Isn’t that a problem?” Penny said, her little pigtails looking a bit limp. Clearly, she would take a while to acclimatize to the “African way” of doing things. Yes, sweetheart, it is a problem. Everything’s a fucking problem.

“Well, we’ll figure something out. The guy’s coming next Friday to give us an update, and we’ll speak to him then. In the meantime, you can work with Valerie at the school, there’s a few little things you can do there to stay busy…” Sister Dora continued. You could see the panic on the girl’s face as her vision of salvation slowly wilted and disappeared. She had pictured gardens. She had come for gardens.

“But …but isn’t there some other way to get fertilizer? Surely…”

Everyone ate their stew in silence, waiting for her to finish her sentence. She seemed a little surprised, almost as though she had expected someone to jump in and interrupt her mid-sentence. There are problems, sweetheart. But what are you going to do to fix them?

“Surely we can find someone else, find a local supplier?” she said, not quite sure of herself. I could tell just by looking at her that she had never done a day’s garden work in her life. Not real gardening, anyway. She was used to reducing the miracle of life’s energy down to little seed packets she ordered from glossy catalogues, and had delivered to her by Amazon. No bugs, no thorns, just pretty pictures.

“Not in the quantities we need, Penny. Unless you know how to get hold of a truck big enough to carry a few tons of it, there’s no point starting the garden yet. Maybe next year,” said one of the missionary kids.

This set off a light in Penny’s eyes. She squirmed a little. I liked seeing that. I would make her squirm much, much more.

“Next year? But …but I’ll be gone by then!” she laughed. The others sat and ate in silence, and her face reddened with the realization of just how arrogant she sounded. I felt a little bad for her. Just a little, though. This place had a way of giving people just exactly what they deserved. And holy hell did this girl deserve to be brought down a peg.

I cleared my throat.

“Blood and bone,” I said, and stared right into her unguarded, powdery blue eyes. Nothing in this village was that color. Nothing at all.

“I’m …excuse me?” she said. Her façade slipped a little more and she was starting to seem genuinely irritated. I was going to enjoy seeing it all come off. Every last layer of bullshit. I couldn’t wait to strip it all off of her, and see what a dirty little animal she really was underneath it all.

“I said, blood and bone.”

I hadn’t spoken till then, and she seemed a little surprised that the savage at the table who couldn’t be bothered to clothe himself properly was now daring to speak to her. She smiled nervously, all her little conversational tics and habits failing her. She floundered for something to say, but I spoke and cut her short.

“You don’t need fertilizer. You just need blood, and bone,” I said, and took a mouthful. The best way to solve a problem: see that there isn’t one.

“No offense Vik, but we need a little more than your hippy gardening methods here, the soil at the plot is really, really depleted. That’s kind of the point. We took a long time to source exactly the right fertilizer for this place…” one of the kids started saying. He wanted to seem like a hot shot, obviously, in front of the girl. But it was me that would be fucking her before the week was out, not him, and somewhere in his dim, animal mind, he understood that. They all understood that. He didn’t make eye contact, either.

“What hippy farming methods? Do you know how to make fertilizer…?” she asked me now. I could feel her turning on her manners again, now that there was a chance I had something she wanted. I smiled at her and this seemed to make her a little giddy. There’s nothing in this village the color of her eyes. Except my eyes.

“Dead animals go into the soil, plants come out. Nothing to make” I said. She winced a little.

“I’ve never heard of that. So if we put, like, carcasses and things in the soil it can act like a fertilizer? Are you sure?”

The missionary kid piped up again. “Yeah, Penny, maybe it can work with, well, certain plants, if I can say that, but we’re growing normal vegetables and things here…”

I heard Mama Tembi cluck her tongue behind us. But I wasn’t doing anything. Technically. Clearly this girl was going to run into my arms, of her own free will.

“Penny, Vik has some strange ideas, and I’m not sure he can help us here. Let’s just wait for the truck and then we can…” sister Dora started. But to my surprise the girl was interested. She jumped in, “But maybe he can help. Will you at least come and have a look at the plot? And tell us what you think? It can’t hurt” she said. I liked seeing her a little more forceful.

So that’s how this would all play out. I’d make her little perfect missionary fantasy come true and then I’d fuck her till her pigtails came undone. I changed my mind. I didn’t want her down on the ground. I wanted her standing, so I could watch her struggle to stand after I made her come.

“My fiancé works at an oil refinery, and I know they make fertilizers there, I think, and so I can also ask him, what exact things need to go into the soil, you know?”

Huh. Fiancé. I changed my mind again. It would have to be from behind, no question.

The other people at the table seemed unconvinced. Malawi was a place where solutions were scratched together. Take whatever dream or big idea you had, trim it down at least 80%, and then be prepared to be disappointed still. The place didn’t need a fucking community garden. It didn’t need Becky from New York to come and teach the kids ballet so they could express themselves and dream big. Or Shawn from Michigan to teach them “English” and hand out gummi bears. They certainly didn’t need little Penelope over here to do a damn thing.

But I could think of a few good uses for her.

“You’ve barely touched your stew, Penny, don’t you like it?” Sister Dora asked, gesturing to the full bowl.

“Oh it’s lovely!” she said, and the façade was full of cracks. She stared down into her lap looking embarrassed.

Valerie spoke up, “Oh, don’t worry sister, she doesn’t eat meat, we should have said.”

The group went quiet.

Didn’t eat meat? Oh, she would. Soon.

Chapter 6 - Penelope

It wasn’t so bad. Not really. Valerie finally came back from the next village over and helped me fix my clothing mess. She’s nice. So I had at least one good, kind fellow-Christian here in this country. She’d been everywhere. Uganda. Nigeria even. She was easy and confident and came from England, and she had such a pretty accent. She was quite experienced with this kind of work, but I thought we’d become good friends, anyway.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the almost painfully sharp silence all around. Why was it so quiet around here? The dinner had gone OK. I guess. Mostly. I was bone-tired and yet now that I finally had the chance to sleep, I couldn’t. The bedding was scratchy, Valerie’s breathing was all irregular and annoying, and my mind was all over the place.

My imagination, as good as it was in times like these, seemed to be nowhere to be found. It was just bare, dusty red reality. I sighed and tossed over in bed, trying the other side. The mattress dented in the middle and was already giving me a slow ache in my lower back.

Here, in the darkness, I could admit that I had been wrong about some things. This wasn’t at all what I pictured. I was hungry, for one. The goat meat was revolting, and even if I did eat meat I couldn’t understand how everyone at the table had just gobbled it down like it didn’t taste like wet dog. The people seemed nice enough, but like they were already tired of me. They didn’t drink coffee. In fact, it seemed like all anyone ever drank here was soda. There were always, and I mean always, a gaggle of random little kids just running around the place. It’s like nobody even cared who they belonged to, they were always just there.

And the garden. They hadn’t even had the courtesy to arrange for the fertilizer to be delivered on time. It was pathetic. Help was right under their noses and now it was going to go to waste. It’s not that I was angry, it was just that …well, I hadn’t come here to socialize. I came here to help.

I vowed then and there not to breathe a word of this to anyone. I knew how they saw me. They thought I was weak and stupid and didn’t understand anything. Well, all the better for when I showed them what I was really capable of. It wasn’t for me to question what God had in store for me. I didn’t know yet what use he had for me …and if I could just fall asleep maybe I could stop doubting...

Mama Tembi was kind and would help me. Valerie I could trust, and we’d be friends, no doubt about that. Sister Dora was a little strange, but she seemed harmless enough. The two missionary guys didn’t seem to take me seriously. They had that Mormon vibe about them. I thought they were haughty. I’d never tell anyone that, but it was the truth.

Then there was “Vik”.

I tried to steer it in other directions, but my imagination kept coming back to him. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of him yet. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. I tried not to stare, but his body, first of all, was just so …muscled. Like something I’d only ever seen in fashion magazines. It was just too much. What was the point of being so built and strong, was he some kind of Neanderthal? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was just something so …ungodly about him. The way he just paraded around, barely any clothing on at all. No shame. What was the point of a man, if he didn’t work, didn’t spread the word, didn’t have a family? Did he just sit in the jungle all day and contemplate his navel?

I personally found it very disturbing. And I did long before Valerie subtly told me that I shouldn’t get too involved with him, if I could help it. They said he was a bit unpredictable, a bit of a wild card. Mama Tembi had told me he was “bad news” and left it at that. From what I could gather, he loitered around in some shack in the forest and had …dubious means of subsistence, shall I say. Nobody could tell me what the rumors were, exactly, only that there were rumors, and that I should stay away.

But my imagination couldn’t stay away. Not tonight, in this unnatural silence. The room still had the synthetic floral smell of my shampoo lingering in it. Soon, it would fade. Soon, I’d meet him again and he’d take a sample of the plot soil and tell us if he could help. If we’d need lime. Or if we could get away with just “blood and bone”. Ugh. I’m not squeamish, but I really hoped it didn’t come down to that.

I heard a strange, eerie cry outside. A jackal? Google had told me about the jackals in this area. My heart beat faster. Then I had an idea. I was sent here for a reason. I had to be.

And maybe he was the reason.

Maybe I was sent here to teach him something. Clearly, he didn’t really belong here. Maybe it was my job to inspire him to return home to where he belonged, and make an honest life for himself.

Without thinking, my hands were under my nightdress. I sunk my head under the covers. It smelt like shampoo and dust and mosquito repellant. I let my imagination loosen a little. I would save him. He would thank me. He’d put on a shirt. Tell me that he felt God’s love. Felt it flow out from me into him. He’d be so grateful.

Something panged inside me. Damn.

It had happened again. I was …wet.

I struggled back my tears. That was twice in one week already. Once with Dylan and again now. I was getting worse. I pinched my own hand, hard enough that it felt like I might break the skin, and hissed the word to myself: no. I was better than that. I wasn’t going to defile my body like that, ever again. I was here on a mission.

I yanked my hands out from under the blanket and smoothed them on top. I could see how all of this was going to play out, clear as day. Vik would come, hoping to boast and brag about his farming methods, but all the while, I’ll be guiding his mind towards some real education, towards his soul. I’d give him the good news; the hope that he could do something better, nobler with his life.

I’d save him.

Chapter 7 - Penelope

He was crouching down on his haunches, like some kind of soil whisperer, handful of dirt to his nose and just …smelling. He was so lean that even folded double, his abs stayed drum-tight. He squatted for a moment, and Mama Tembi and I waited for the diagnosis. I seemed to be the only one perturbed by the fact that he still was not wearing a shirt.

As he was engrossed in the soil, I had a quick opportunity to get a better look at him. Not in that way, of course, but …well someone who parades around half naked is kind of inviting that sort of scrutiny, aren’t they? He reminded me a little of the sinewy Christ figure I had seen on the cross at St. Peter’s church in town. Only the man in front of me was certainly no Jesus. He was very much alive. And I could see the pistons and pulleys of his muscles working under his dark skin.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I was wearing shampoo-washed underwear, my hair felt gross and I hadn’t looked into a proper mirror for three days now. I was slowly coming to terms with it: there was no way I’d be doing any gardening this trip. As I watched the red soil slip through his loose fingers and fly away in the wind, it seemed like my fate was sealed: even I could see that nothing would grow here.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

What?

“It just needs some fish. Skin. Tails and heads. That kind of thing. And some dried grass.”

Was this guy for real? First blood and guts, and now fish. I sighed loudly.

“Chimanga?” he said to Mama Tembi.

“Eya,” she replied quickly.

They were speaking Nyanja. Without me. He nodded and with one powerful movement of his thigh muscles, was standing upright and tall again. He looked at me, his hands still red and dusty. He was taller than I remembered. Not that I had been remembering him.

“They want to grow maize here, so fish will work” he said to me, slowly as though I was some kind of idiot.

“Ok …maize. Right. But will fish work with anything else we’ll want to grow?”

They both looked at me now.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know …like herbs maybe?”

Mama Tembi and Vik exchanged glances.

“Herbs? What’s …?”

Vik shrugged. He didn’t know the Nyanja word for herbs. They both carried on with a quick back-and-forth, all in a language I didn’t understand, which was, if you ask me, a little inconsiderate of them. In any case, they wouldn’t have to do any of this disgusting fish nonsense if they had just properly organized for the right fertilizer from day one. Maybe Dylan was right. Maybe they really were different from us. I shook the thought from my mind. I shouldn’t be so judgmental. No matter who you are, you can always learn, right?

Mama Tembi cast her gaze over the dry plot one last time, narrowed her eyes and exhaled loudly. She wiped her hands on her apron and then shook Vik’s hand. She had to get back to the café, but she would start asking around for fish scraps and bones. Then she left. And I was alone. With him.

It was another baffling bit of bad manners, I hate to say, just to leave me unchaperoned like that, but I was beginning to think that people in this part of the world simply didn’t have a very developed sense of morality. That wasn’t their fault.

The plot was a good few acres wide, flat, and completely barren except for a few skeleton twigs and plants that were still desperately clinging to the rocks in the ground. It had taken me a good twenty minutes to trudge all the way out here, in the heat.

“Not quite what you were expecting, huh?” he asked me, with mocking eyes. In fairness, I was scowling at the sun, and the bad smell, and not the fact that this awful little patch of land was somehow meant to transform into food within a matter of six months.

“Not quite” I said, and turned to follow Mama Tembi. I had no idea what I was meant to do with myself for the rest of the afternoon, but standing in a field talking to …him probably wasn’t a good use of my time.

“You’re not so convinced about using fish as fertilizer?”

He seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. But I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of seeing me disappointed.

“No, no I’m sure you know what you’re talking about. Our cat died one year and my dad planted it at the foot of the lemon tree in our garden. Best lemons we ever had,” I said, surveying the land myself, pretending like I knew what the hell I was looking at.

He smiled at me. He was standing too close. Making too much eye contact. I couldn’t tell if he was being friendly with me or just contemptuous. He was …odd. His skin was too dark and his eyes too light. He couldn’t be older than 25, but he seemed so much more mature, with the way his skin was so tanned, and the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners. He had wrapped a faded sarong around his hips and knotted it in the front. Was there even anything under there? Besides the obvious, I mean.

“I’m sure they were,” he said, and his eyes twinkled like we had just conspired in something illegal together. I squirmed away from his gaze. I didn’t like how familiar he was being.

“Anyway! I should head back to my room,” I said.

He laughed out loud. My face burned. What an ass.

“What? What’s wrong with that?” I said.

“You’re afraid of me,” he said, grinning. His teeth were so white. He looked like a Calvin Klein model, although one that had perhaps been left to his own devices in a remote forest for a little too long. Surely the fuzz that grew just below your navel officially counted as pubic hair? What an ass.

I blushed. This wasn’t new to me. I knew how it went. Everyone has a laugh at the little Christian girl’s expense, because what does she know, right?

“Afraid of you?” I said. I looked him up and down dramatically, making as though it was the first time I had properly looked at him, and hadn’t already pieced his body together in my mind a million times every night since I landed here. “No, afraid is not the right word…”

His grin didn’t fade.

“Then what’s the right word?”

His body was so hard. I guess manual labor will do that to you. Poor guy.

“The right word is…” I made as though I was thinking hard. He had such an immensely arrogant look on his face, I could have just slapped him right there.

“Disappointed” I said finally, a little more roughness in my voice than was perhaps strictly necessary.

The grin lost a little of its sparkle.

“Disappointed?” he said. I hated how he seemed to have no idea of the proper rules of conversation. He didn’t jump in to respond or defend himself. He just repeated the word, held it there in his own mouth. Went silent and thought a bit. If he thought I was going to flirt with him, he had another thing coming.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offense, it’s just that you …”

“I’m not offended,” he said quickly. I kind of wished he were. I frowned and continued.

“It’s just that …well, since we’re being so candid with each other, I’m wondering what someone like you is doing …you know, here.”

The grin popped back onto his face.

“Someone like me?” he said.

Darn it, it was like having a conversation with a 2-year-old.

“Well, I don’t mean any offense, but, I don’t know how to say this but, well…”

He watched my face keenly, as though he was waiting for the punchline of a joke.

“Well, I mean, this is as far away from the world as you can get …I’m curious, what happened in your life to bring you here?”

It was bold. But if I were ever going to save any souls and put any notches on my bible, I’d have to be forthright.

“What happened?” he asked again. I was getting tired of him answering questions with questions.

“Yes, come on, you know what I mean …like, are you a fugitive running from the law or something? Clearly you weren’t born here…”

“I was born here.”

“I see. Ok, I apologize then. Just forget I said anything, jeez.”

“No, you asked the question. And I get to ask you the same thing. What awful thing happened to you in your life that you decided to come here, so, so far away from everything…?”

He had that mocking smile again. This was irritating. Clearly he would never be receptive to hearing the holy word of God.

“Me? Why would something awful have happened to me? I’m here because I want to help. I’ve been so fortunate, you know, and I just wanted to…”

I don’t know how, but he was somehow closer. I couldn’t tell if I had broken into a sweat from standing out in this blazing field or whether being so damn close to him was to blame. I realized with horror that I could smell him. Or maybe that my skin could sense him – that I could feel his body heat on mine. In any case he was too much. His body was too much. Too close. Too big. Too intense. It reminded me of visiting my uncle’s stables as child, opening the barn doors and being hit all at once by the incredible musk of the warm stallions in there, the hard, unclothed bodies, the heat of their flesh.

“And when I get back, me and my fiancé are going to get married!” I blurted, and took a step back.

Something deep and sinister formed in his eyes.

“Fiancé? Oh, you poor girl…” he said quietly.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, no offense or anything, but since we’re being so candid with each other…”

I wanted to punch him. But the thought of even touching him revolted me. We eyed each other. Far off in the distance, some cicadas whined in the trees. The horizon shimmered in the heat. I was in a strange country, wearing wilted clothing and standing alone in a barren field with some hooligan.

“They told me you’d be like this,” I said.

“Who told you? Be like what?”

“They said you’re a difficult person. There are rumors, you know, about you.”

“Good.”

“No, not good. Bad rumors. I think you like all of this, actually, playing at being such a bad guy?”

He grinned, but this time his smile had a vicious edge to it.

“Oh, I’m not playing.”

His milky blue eyes were glued to mine now. I swallowed hard. I couldn’t lose my nerve. I took in a deep breath and tried to remember my mission. Forget about his crotch and his eyes and those ripples on his abs, Penny, and remember: remember his soul. Remember that you’re an emissary of the Lord, and you have a mission…

“You know what I think? I think you’re a big softy who likes pushing people away. But I won’t let you push me away. Wherever we come from, whatever our challenges in life, we’re all God’s children. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe the rumors at all…”

“You should.”

He turned his head to the side, his gaze still in mine. He wasn’t joking anymore. I just wanted to go home. I laughed nervously and then turned to go. But he followed.

“You know what I think? I think you actually like doing this, playing at being the good girl all the time.”

I spun around and glared at him.

“But I am good…”

“Don’t worry, I won’t give up on you yet,” he said and winked at me, a crooked smile on his lips. Despite myself, I giggled. He was cocky, I’d give him that.

“Oh, well jeez, how very generous of you Vik…” I started, and before I knew it I had playfully slapped his arm. I don’t know why. Or how. It just happened. My skin, on his.

He stared down at the place where I had touched him.

His face went serious and he changed his tone.

“If you’re not convinced about the fish fertilizer, I can show you my own garden. All natural. I only farm with what the earth provides. You should come and visit me and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

I suddenly felt like a foolish little girl. The smile fell from my face.

“Yes, um, of course. I need to learn how to do that,” I sputtered. “For the plot” I added, a little too nervously.

“Good. I like you Penny. You’re principled. I can appreciate that.”

I struggled for words.

“Well thank you, that’s very sweet of…”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah, my cabin’s this way.”

Chapter 8 - Viktor

She was right about one thing: I did enjoy playing the “bad guy”.

I led her into the forest, in silence, and I felt like the big bad wolf again, luring little red riding hood to her certain death. The thing is, here’s how I’m not a bad guy: she wanted it. There’s no mistaking it, when a girl wants it. Her wanting it sits on her skin like a perfume. It’s on her lips. It lingers in the way she speaks her words. Sometimes, she hasn’t even admitted it to herself yet, but her body knows before she does, and it betrays her at every turn.

And now this little thing, this little lamb called “Penelope” had landed in my life, a literal babe in the woods, if you like, and I can swear to any God that’s listening: she wanted it. That’s why she lingered a little with me instead of leaving with Mama Tembi, even though that would have been the natural thing to do. That’s why she giggled. And slapped my arm. And stared at me, eyes big as saucepans, just begging for me to tell her what to do next. And it’s also why she was obediently following me now, into the darker, rougher foliage that marked the end of the natural village, and the start of my own little domain.

Living alone in the wild like this makes you sharp. Women, on the other hand, make you crazy.

I could already feel her getting under my skin, could already feel my mind flit back to her again and again. I’d fuck her, of course. No question. But for my own sake, I was hoping it would be soon. Independent sort that I am, I couldn’t allow a woman, no matter how cute, to take up too much space in my mind. There were other important things going on in there. Dark things. It was no place for a woman. Or a girl, as it were.

I turned back and saw her tapping away on her fucking cellphone. Christ.

“The reception is actually really good here! How crazy is that?” she squealed from a few paces behind me. Her voice sounded out of place in the forest.

“Yeah, crazy,” I mumbled. When I turned again she had a quivering little frown on her face, then shoved the phone back into her pocket.

“Everything OK?”

She flickered a big, fake smile at me.

“Of course!”

We walked on. Her shoes weren’t holding up. They never do. When we arrived, her face scrunched up so quickly I swear I could hear it. She walked cautiously round the cabin, confirming that it really was as small as it seemed, and popped round the other side, an ugly look of concern plastered all over her face. I was going to enjoy watching those judgmental little eyes roll back in her head when I finally screwed her.

My eyes slipped over her form. She was hot, although didn’t know it. She carried herself like she was still 14, but her hips were surprisingly full, and her thighs looked stronger than I would have guessed. Turns out that she was only a waif from the waist up. Now that she was in a little skirt, and trainers, her body seemed a little more robust.

As she poked around at the exterior of my humble abode, I waltzed over to the mango tree, unwound a thin strap of leather that was knotted there, and whirled it around my wrist.

“Do you want to see my garden?” I asked. She nodded, and so I gestured for her to follow me a brief way off through a thicket and to my own growing project. My personal Eden, pristine, like it might have been before God created humans and messed everything up. I watched her pick through the plants and wind her way through the furrows. Her shoes were getting so dirty. For some reason, this made me smile.

“Wait …is this…?” she had a large leaf in her tiny hands and was examining it closely.

“Marijuana” I said.

She immediately dropped it from her hands.

“But …isn’t it illegal?” She looked over her shoulder. This, too, made me smile.

“Well, just look at it. It’s a plant. Its roots are in the ground, and its leaves are up here, in the sun. It’s growing. Doesn’t seem like it cares whether someone thinks it’s illegal or not, does it?”

She laughed.

“But you’re the one growing it!” she said. Her thighs were so pale. So milky.

“Nah, it’s growing by itself. I’m just here, helping it along.”

“Well, I’m sure nobody could possibly object to that!” she said, and laughed sarcastically.

She looked so pretty when she laughed.

“Do you want a mango?” I said.

“Sure, I didn’t think you could fit a fridge in that tiny hut of yours!”

She spied the mango tree behind me and then blushed deeply.

“Ohhhhh I’m such an idiot. You meant …ok, I get it. It’s just that we don’t have those at home. Mangos just growing in the wild like that, you know?” she smiled.

I smiled in return. She was different, at least, in this way. To laugh at your mistakes? Let’s just say it’s not something I saw often.

“What does your boyfriend think about you coming here, and for so long without him?”

She stopped smiling.

“He’s fine with it” she said, convincing nobody.

“He’s fine with it?”

“He understands I need to explore the world a little, on my own, before…”

The giant saucepan eyes were on me again. When she wasn’t forcing herself to smile, she actually had a very curious kind of beauty to her. A brittle beauty.

“Before what…?” I asked.

“Before we get married, obviously.”

“You can’t explore anything once you’re married?” I said.

“No, obviously you can, it’s just that, once you’re a wife, your priorities change, you know?”

“Well, what are your priorities now?”

She caught me looking down at her bare, creamy thighs. The skin at the very top was nearing translucent, and she was close enough for me to make out a few faint blue thread veins there. Like she was made of porcelain. It was oddly beautiful. She exhaled loudly and then looked off to the distance.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I want to be useful. That’s all. I want to find out what God’s plan is for me, and then to follow that, with all my heart. I want to reduce the suffering in the world, even if only a little…” she said and then looked at me with soft eyes, as though already apologizing for having said too much. It was a raw moment. One that I wasn’t quite prepared for.

She smiled all at once and broke the tension.

“What do I know? I’m just a dumb missionary girl, right? But it’s important, to just go along with God’s will, even if you don’t understand it…”

“Wait, even if you don’t understand it?”

“Of course. I’m trying to just open up, and to surrender, to his will for me.”

“Surrender. That’s an interesting word choice” I said, hoping to make her blush. She didn’t.

Without thinking, I leapt behind her and clasped at both her wrists, then in a few split seconds I had unwound the thin leather strip from my arm to hers, and whipped it round once, twice, then three times to bind her, pulling tight to capture both her hands behind her back. She pulled back a little but stared at me, speechless, her mouth hanging open.

I yanked the tail of the leather strip down and forced her arms and shoulders back, and her pretty breasts up. She froze. Though she said nothing, I could feel her thinking. I had her firmly in my grasp: she was going nowhere.

“Are …are you going to kill me?” she stammered at last, as I stood behind her, pinning her so hard that the strip cut into the skin on her wrists.

I laughed.

“You’ve been watching too many horror movies,” I said.

She started to cry. Then all at once, her small body was twisting and squirming. She dug both her heels into the soft ground and tried to drop down, to wriggle me off. She was stronger than she looked – yanking hard on her restraints, she tried to fold up her hands and pull free. Her elbows thrust out as she tried to stab at me with them. I held her easily, though, wrapping my chest around her as she kicked and fought.

“Why don’t you surrender?” I said smiling into her ear, once she had stopped for a moment to gain her footing and her breath.

“What?”

The breathiness in her voice was seriously turning me on.

“I said, why not surrender? To the Lord’s will. Clearly, he wants you to die here, in this forest, with me.”

“You’re crazy!” she spat and started kicking again, flinging her blonde hair from side to side. I held her with scarcely any effort. She was tired again in no time. Her entire body crumpled easily in my arms.

“I’m not crazy. And you said yourself, you don’t have to understand it. Just comply. Just surrender…”

“Untie me right now, you asshole…” she hissed, and I loved the extra kick of energy it seemed to give her to swear out loud.

“Tell me, Penny, why don’t you just submit to God’s will?”

“This isn’t God’s will, you idiot! This is just your will!”

“Yes! Exactly! But how do you know the difference?”

She stopped squirming. A tendril of her hair was snaking over my cheek. It smelt of powder and privilege and prettiness. Her chest rose and fell as she panted for breath. I liked her like this, with a little fight in her.

“Are you seriously trying to make a point right now?” she asked. Her voice had lost its girlish politeness. I wondered whether she would scream.

“Well, maybe it’s just not for you to question these things!” I said and laughed.

Grabbing the makeshift knot on the leather strip, I found the tail and clasped it like a dog leash. When I pulled it, she staggered backwards. Like this I led her to the mango tree, then trussed her up on one of the lower branches; it was low enough that she had to bend slightly at the knee, but high enough that she couldn’t collapse entirely. She squeezed her knees together and glowered at me, and something in the gesture alone sent electricity through me. I could do whatever I wanted to her. Anything. It was just me, her, and my tanned thighs against hers.

“You’re going to be in so much trouble because of this. I’m going to tell everyone” she said, through disheveled hair. It amazed me how even now, completely powerless and at my mercy, she was still biting her tongue, still unwilling to lose her cool too much. “Just because I surrender to God’s will, it doesn’t mean I don’t have my own will. Let me go.”

“Nope.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake. This is dumb. What are you trying to prove? This is totally stupid…”

I said nothing.

“So, what, you just tie me up here and now what? What happens now?”

I picked up a crooked stick and scratched idly in the sand as she yelled at me. There was no doubt about it: righteous indignation was a good look on her. I crouched down on my haunches and played with some leaves with the tip of the stick.

“And? Are you even listening to me? What are you going to do? I’ll scream, you know. What are you even thinking about?”

I looked up at her. Her face was flushed and her chest thrust forward. She was still cowering a little at the knee, unable to sit, yet unable to stand.

“Oh, I’m just thinking about what I’m going to do next” I said.

“Well?!”

I smiled.

“I have a theory about girls like you,” I said. I scratched lazy circles into the sand.

“Well, that’s interesting, I don’t want to hear it” she spat.

I got up and sauntered over to her. Slowly. Taking my time, dragging the stick behind me like it was a weapon I just hadn’t figured out how to use yet.

“What’s it like, being tied up there, completely unable to move?”

“What do you mean, what’s it like? It’s awful, obviously. What a stupid question” she said.

“Hm. You can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything…”

“Because you’ve tied me to this damn tree” she said, raising her voice and yanking at the leather strip one more time.

I snaked a line in the sand and traced a wavy, swirly shape that landed at her shoe tip. I bounced the tip off the rubber of her sneaker and drew little loops around it, like her foot was the center of a strange, misshapen sunflower. She looked down at all this with fire in her eyes. Then I brought the lines up and over her shoe, then traced them further so the tip of the stick scratched a little at her sock, then at the bare skin just above it.

“Please just let me go. I’m so scared. Oh God,” she said, fresh panic in her voice, her eyes going wet again.

“I won’t hurt you.”

“Then what? Why are you doing this?”

I traced the stick higher up still, over her bare shins and up to her knees. The stick left thin white welts on her already pale skin, which rose up in goosebumps, even in the midday heat. I swear I could almost hear her heart beating, wild and fluttery. Like a rabbit’s.

“Don’t you want to hear my theory?” I asked.

She scowled at me. But she couldn’t look away. In one lingering, juicy moment, she let me stay there, in her eyes, looking straight at her. Straight through her.

“Well, my theory is that you like being told what to do. That it’s not hard for you to surrender to God’s will at all. In fact…” I dragged the stick tip up a little higher, over the mound of her knee. She made no effort to squirm away. “In fact, I think that you really like surrendering to other people’s will. God’s or otherwise.”

Her face was stony. But I had her attention. At that moment, she was focused on nothing in the world except me. And that crooked stick. And the naked flesh on her thighs.

“Am I right?”

Her eyes looked as though they could burn a hole through my head.

The stick reached the hem of her little skirt and lingered there. We both stared back down at it.

“I bet you’re wet right now” I said, quietly. The tip of the stick caught on the edge of her skirt. I lifted it. Just an inch.

The forest whispered and rustled all around us. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her. I smiled and flung the stick aside, shrugging.

“Come on, I’m just messing with you!” I said, laughing.

Her eyes followed the stick as it skidded across the ground. Her mouth twisted.

I sidled up to her again, close. Real close.

“Unless I was right?” I whispered, my cheek nearly touching hers.

“They warned me. They told me to stay away from you. They said you were involved with bad things. Oh God I wish I had listened to them. You’re crazy. I just want to go home. I hate it here, I hate you and I hate this place…”

Instantly she was sobbing, but before I thought about what I was doing, I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers, all soft and wet with tears, and to my surprise, she kissed me, enthusiastically, straining at her wrists to kiss back at me. She had squeezed her eyes shut, sending tears rolling down each cheek, and she went desperately after my tongue, a little hungry baby bird, strung up and still flushed in the cheeks from telling me what an asshole I was.

I trailed a hand down and found the hem of her skirt again, lifted it, and slid my hands onto the soft cotton of her panties. My fingers didn’t even have to pull aside the slip of fabric to know that she was soaking wet underneath. I dipped the ends of two careful fingers into the sweetness and smeared them out against the gloriously smooth skin of her inner thigh. Her flesh there was the softest thing I had felt in months – maybe years. Supernaturally soft. The kind of softness you wanted to protect …and then defile.

I pulled back, my fingers leaving a trail of slickness down her legs. I peered down at her, all five feet nothing of her, looking back up at me, lips wet and eyes big and hopeless.

“See? Just as I thought. I was right after all!”

I reached behind her and began to work out the knot at her wrists.

“What are you doing?” she said, panicked.

“I’m untying you.”

I could tell she had to stop herself from saying, “why?”

I flung the thin leather strip off to the side and it went curling into the dust. For the first time, she looked genuinely unhappy.

“I …I don’t understand” she said at last, rubbing the raw skin at her wrists, searching my face. I started back towards the cabin.

“Well, I tied you up, but now you’re free to go. Didn’t you say you wanted to go home, and that you hated me and hated this place? I suspect you’ll want to call your boyfriend as soon as possible and let him know.”

“Fiancé” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my fiancé” she said again.

“Ok, cool. Whatever. Have a safe flight home.”

“You …you’re just going to leave me now?” she squeaked. And holy hell if it wasn’t the most adorable fucking thing I’ve ever heard. I could have done it there and then. I could have swooped her up, kissed the tears off her cheek and made sweet love to her, and then not-so-sweet love, and she would have cried and kissed me and thanked me all the while.

But that would have been too easy. Besides, I wanted her even hungrier still. She wanted me, but it wasn’t enough yet. I needed her to come crawling. I needed her to lose her pretty little mind and beg me to fuck her. And she would. If I played this right.

“Yeah. Unless there was something else you needed me to help you with…?”

She looked like she didn’t know what to do with herself.

“I don’t know how to get back to the village” she whimpered.

“Oh, if God wills it, you’ll figure it out…”

Her lower lip quivered.

“You’re a monster.”

“And you’re free to leave.”

“I’m going to tell everyone what you did to me today” she hissed, trying a different tack.

My hand was on the door to the cabin. I turned to look at her dead on.

“Sure, but if you tell anyone …then this never happens again” I said. Something strange flickered over her expression. I went inside and closed the door behind me. Once my eyes adjusted to the light in the cabin, I could make out the slender, naked form of the rabbit, hanging to cure on the far wall, where I had left it a few days ago. It was a full minute before I heard her footsteps crunch on the stones outside and she left.

She was back within a week.

Chapter 9 - Penelope

Fish skin. Some guts, but mostly dried and shriveled. A few heads, but that was just carelessness. It was mostly scales. Flaky, stinky scales winking blue and yellow at me. And no matter how long I stared back at the bright plastic buckets of it, it still didn’t look much like a “solution”. Nutritious, abundant food was going to come out of this? I looked harder. If this is what God had in mind for me, then fine. Maybe it was a lesson in humility. I’d certainly had enough of those lately.

Valerie and I had been on a ridiculous fish guts mission for the last few days. She drove Mama Tembi’s broke down old pickup and I plonked down on the back, lying flat in the open air and looking up into the clouds. At least the clouds still looked like clouds.

We negotiated with fishermen all along the river and even right to Lake Malawi, for every last scrap of rotting wish we could wrangle from them. It was thankless, ugly work. Bartering in a wasteland for waste material, and paying a worthless currency for the privilege.

It was our fourth stop this morning and I had long since stopped converting each trade into its equivalent in Starbucks coffees. By the time the back was too full of buckets and too rancid, I moved up front to sit beside Valerie and we chatted a little. The entire load was approximately $1.25. I tried to figure out what proportion of a coffee that worked out too, but it was hot and my head was fuzzy. Maybe Valerie was right and I should just start eating meat. Just a little.

“Well hello, don’t these look like some fishy gentlemen?” Valerie said, eyeing two figures in the road, off to the distance. She was surprisingly – irritatingly – chipper this morning. We pulled over and the car bounced on its aging suspension. I could just feel the fish slop lurching and sliding around in the plastic buckets in the back. The two men stopped and had a good look at us. Valerie bounded out to talk to them, but I stayed in the car, slouched down and played with the sunlight in my eyelashes.

Valerie was …buxom. She was so damn healthy, so optimistic and cheerful all the damn time. It’s not that she was pretty or anything, but it was nice to look at her face, and people seemed to respond well to her. She smiled. A lot. I watched the plastic beaded bangles click on her wrists as she gestured to the pickup, to them, back to the fish buckets. They smiled and seemed eager. She came back inside and banged the door shut.

“Fantastic! These fellows say they have a bunch of fish stuff, and they stay just down the road, and we can have it for free, they just need a lift.”

I turned to see them both perch expertly on a tiny rim of remaining space in the back. They smiled and waved, but I pretended I hadn’t seen and turned around again. Valerie started the engine and we bounced back onto the road. In the rearview mirror I could make out two bobbing heads.

We drove on in silence, Valerie turning her sunny attention to the scraps of song she could find on the radio. I turned it off.

“Valerie, do you ever wonder if you’re really making a difference? You know, if any of this is actually worth it?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Her long arms draped over the steering wheel and she navigated a stretch of potholes.

“Well, I always think it’s just a matter of perspective, you know? You may not see what effect your actions have, maybe not immediately …but everything we do has an effect on the world. Even the small things.”

To me her answer smelled almost as bad as the fish in the back.

“But doesn’t that mean that your actions can also be bad? And that you can’t really ever tell? Maybe what we’re doing right now is rippling out, and we won’t know immediately but it does have an effect …a bad effect.”

She smiled easily and gave me a quick glance before returning her eyes to the road.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I know it counts for something to act in the best way you know how. My intentions are good, you know?”

I looked out at the potholed road and tried to remember that old saying, the one about hell and the road to it. This road wasn’t paved at all, I thought, and smiled wryly to myself. We must be headed somewhere way worse than hell. Maybe Zambia.

“Why does everyone think Vik is such a bad guy?” I asked.

She stopped smiling.

“I just mean, as an example, you know. Isn’t he just doing what he thinks is right? Doesn’t he have good intentions too?” I said quickly, seeing the slight kink in her brow.

“Vik is …a complicated person. It’s good that you’re staying away from him” she said finally, then twizzled the radio knob again. But I liked the channel we were on.

“But back to my question, you know. Maybe he’s right?”

“What are you talking about exactly?” It suddenly occurred to me just how icy cold her British accent could sound.

“Nothing, forget I said anything. I just mean that …well, he seems to be living by his own principles. Like, he’s not different from us. He’s just got a different set of principles, right?”

She looked as though the topic was exhausting to her. I think it was the first time I had seen her not smiling.

“Sure, fine. I don’t think they count as principles if they’re wrong though.”

I sat back in my seat and chewed over this. Something about the incredible flatness of this stupid country made this kind of thinking seem more natural somehow. As if your brain had to invent some moral dilemma, just to keep things interesting. I felt a heave in my stomach and then immediately realized that the pickup had grown lighter somehow. Valerie’s eyes shot to the rear view mirror and then she slammed on brakes, confused.

“What…?” I began, but the tires had barely stopped squealing when the two men were suddenly at either side of the car. Valerie cried out and threw her hands up, and I saw the glint of silver as one of them held up a knife up to the window, banging its blunt end on the glass and gesturing for her to open. The man at my window had no knife, but his face alone turned my guts to jelly. We were being hijacked. They weren’t fishermen. They had lied.

I choked on a hot, angry lump in my throat as I tried to protest. How could they do this? Why on earth target us, the people who were trying to help? We had so little already. My mind raced. Not only had we wasted the entire morning hauling rotten fish guts through the dirt, we were now going to have it all taken away from us, and Mama Tembi’s pickup with it.

What happened next unfolded in syrupy slow motion. I turned to see Valerie’s big, fearful eyes and could see it all in that moment. And I can’t explain it, but something from deep down inside me snapped, and I felt, really felt it with my whole body, that I was done being a pushover, done with letting other people push me around and hurt me and laugh at me, done with Dylan and his threatening texts and his hate and his disgust for me and my body – what’s wrong with my body? Is it really so bad, to have one? To have needs? – and done with Valerie prancing around without giving things a damn thought and I was just done. Just one hundred percent completely at the end.

“No!” I screamed out loud. From the pit of my stomach I screamed, and Valerie’s jaw fell open. The face beside the window drew back a little, startled.

“Just fucking NO!” I yelled again, this time slamming my fist onto the dashboard and sending the cross round my neck swinging.

The guy next to my window looked amused, but, and I’m proud to say it, also a little scared. Good. I liked that. And he should be scared. Why not? Why am I something to take less seriously? What about my principles? What about what I want? Ignoring Valerie’s horrified look, I leant over her and furiously wound down the window, staring my own daggers at the guy. If he had wanted to fight there and then, I would have done it, I swear to God I would have torn him limb from limb. My head was buzzing, knuckles white on the door handle.

“What the fuck? What the actual fuck? We were doing you two stupid losers a fucking favor and now you’re waving this stupid fucking knife in our faces? This isn’t even our fucking car, do you know that?!”

I snatched at his hand and knocked the knife from him, sending it clean down the side of the car seat. They were all three staring at me. The man on the other side had inched back a little further.

No. They were not going to get away with this. I punched the dashboard again and threw open the door on my side, sending the guy there skidding backwards in the dirt. I marched to the front of the car and stared at them both.

“You’re fucking pathetic, both of you! Do you have any idea how stupid you are? Nobody cares about you guys, fucking nobody. And why should they? You’re trying to hijack a broke down fucking piece of shit car filled with rotten fish. Just fucking think about that. Everyone knows this car is Mama Tembi’s, so how the fuck do you think this is going to work out for you? This car’s worth nothing. In fact, I bet I have more cash on me right now than you could sell this piece of crap for…”

I dug around in my pockets and fished out six twenties, still fresh from the pile Dylan had drawn and given to me in a little brown envelope along with his photo. I tossed them to the ground and they fluttered down.

“Fucking take it then! Because I pity you!” I said and stomped back to the car and climbed in, slamming the door behind me.

“Just drive” I barked at Valerie. She turned the ignition and with narrow eyes I made out their figures behind us in the dust, picking up the money and then staring after us in bewilderment.

On the road, Valerie hit the acceleration and we sped off, hurtling right over the potholes. My heart was beating like an animal’s. I felt as though I had fire in my veins. We had driven a few miles before Valerie dropped the pace a little and we turned to look at one another.

“I never knew you could swear like that” she said quietly, then broke out into a smile. I couldn’t help but smile with her.

Chapter 10 - Penelope

Valerie was gone for the night. She had told the story over and over again, the people at Mama Tembi’s one moment outraged and the next amused. Had I really said all that? Could they look at the knife again? Some people in the village had an idea of who the two could be, and I was assured over and over again that “things like this” simply never happened in this village, and they come from elsewhere, and that they’d pay.

I had retired early for the night, and Valerie had left around the same time to head over to her “friend” who was briefly visiting from London. So it was just me. Just me in that tiny hovel with my oversized bag, my overpriced boxes of laundry detergent and some godawful orange cheese naks that looked like packing material and tasted worse. And the knife. I had fished it out and kept it. Like a trophy. They wanted to push me around? I’d push them around. And now their stupid knife was mine.

My phone pinged. Another surprise: Africa is no black hole. There’s not much internet, no laptops. But sweet Lord did every single person have a cell phone. At every stop sign and street corner you could get the essentials: disgusting cheese naks, smoked fish, airtime. It was brilliant, really.

Dylan Moore: Still, I think you should come home. I’ve already called the mission leader this side and he agrees with me. Let’s not take any more risks.

In the darkness, I typed a response.

Penelope Murphy: I appreciate that you’re worried about me, but my heart is settled and I want to follow through on my commitment.

I stared at the message and deleted it without sending.

Penelope Murphy: I’m fine! All is well. I’ll be staying, I hope you understand :)

I deleted this too.

Penelope Murphy: I’m staying here.

This one I sent.

The message showed that Dylan had read it. I waited in silence. I could feel it, all this way away, how angry it made him. Had he discovered the hidden locks yet? I almost didn’t care. The longer the message sat there without a reply, the more vindicated I felt. I turned to look at the knife beside my bed. There wasn’t much light in the room, but all of it seemed to find the surface of the knife, and it was gleaming darkly now. It was my knife.

Dylan Moore: I’m not happy about this. You should come home.

Penelope Murphy: I’m staying.

I replied immediately. He read it. The knife gleamed.

I saw him typing a response, but before he could finish, I sent him another:

Penelope Murphy: Forget about all that. I’ve missed you. I wish you were here with me now, in bed

Penelope Murphy: Today made me realize so many things. I don’t want to wait any longer. I love you.

I hit send and watched the screen go dark.

Dylan Moore: You’re disgusting.

He blinked offline. I flung the phone across the floor and it landed face down, the screen light trapped underneath the dimming out. The strange thing was, I wasn’t sad. Not really. I reached out and took the knife in my hands. It was cool and the slight rust on its edge was powdery to the touch. It was a brutal, ugly object, and yet just holding it here in the darkness made me feel so …safe. And calm. And something else.

As the metal warmed under my fingertips, I glanced the knife point over the skin at my wrist. Not enough to hurt. Just to feel. I increased the pressure, seeing in the dim light how the sharp V pressed a dent in my flesh but didn’t puncture through it. I pressed until I was right up against that edge, the point at which a tiny fraction of extra pressure would have been painful. But I lingered on the other side of that pain. Getting closer, but not quite there. I pushed a little more.

I had lost count of how many times it had happened since I arrived here.

I was wet all the time now. Wet when I had spoken to Mama Tembi this morning. Wet when Valerie and I traipsed around the village. Wet all during our discussions, wet when I had slammed the door and swore at the would-be hijackers. Wet right now. Ever since he had touched me. Wet.

And aching too. Had anybody ever touched me before, before he had? It was a painful, maddening sensation. Like a squirming, tight thump that wouldn’t stop. It was obscene. “Disgusting” even. It was driving me to distraction. When I sat I squeezed my knees together as hard as I could. But when I relaxed again, there it was, stronger. Thumping. But maybe I liked it.

Maybe that idiot in the forest knew a thing or two.

Not more than that, granted, but I can admit when I’m wrong.

I pressed the knife tip deeper in, then snapped my wrist back. Ouch. A bit too far.

I looked over at my downcast phone. No light. Dylan was a whole country …a whole world away from me now, virtuous and angry and cold and …dry. Judging me. But there was a little seed in my mind right now. What was the difference between God’s will for me and Dylan’s will? Was he really a simple conduit for the word of God, and was it really my job to follow and obey him? What if he was wrong?

I slid the knife V up my arm and to the crook of my elbow. V for Viktor. I paused, then drew it back down again. Then I moved the blade to the elastic at the top of my pajama bottoms. Interesting things, knives. I wondered about all the things this knife had done. I slipped it under the elastic. Dragged it side to side. The knife tip brushing against the curly hair there, I swear I could hear the sound of a rustling forest.

I closed my eyes and pressed my head back into the pillow, letting the tension fall from my body. I squirmed under the sharpness, my skin and flesh the opposite of the line and steel, and yes, I admit it, yes Dylan, I admit it: I thought of him.

“Fuck,” I whispered, trying the word out in the darkness. Like knives, words are interesting things and can have many uses. Fuck can be angry and hateful. Fuck can mean violence. But it can also mean …something else. Bodily violence. Lust. Love, even. The same word.

I slid the knife into my pajamas. The metal scarcely touched me, it was more like a caress, but the sensation sent thrills all through my body. In the darkness, I arched my hips up against the hard lines. Just a little. Just teasing, up, then down again.

Maybe the body is disgusting. And maybe I like it that way.

“Fuck,” I said again, this time louder. I wanted to swear more. I liked swearing. I wanted to yell at people when they were being assholes and I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I found the slightest rhythm with my hips and began tracing almost imperceptible circles, seducing the knife, playing with fire, rising up to meet it and then dropping my hips when I got too close.

What I wanted to do most of all was fuck.

Without any resistance, in the darkness, I let myself have the thought. It’s what I wanted. What my body wanted. Delicious ribbons of pleasure were fanning out from my pelvis, shooting all down my thighs and tingling into my toes. I felt like my body was coming awake. I had had an orgasm, once I think, when I was younger. I cried and cried and said 40 Hail Mary’s and held my hand over a candle until it blistered.

But maybe I had been wrong. Maybe what I really wanted to do was fuck. Soon. Something hot and urgent was pooling right at the spot where the V pressed into me. It pulsed and thumped, harder and harder, making white sparks pop behind my closed eyelids. A trickle curled its way down over my thighs and into the mattress. I didn’t care.

“Viktor,” I said at last, and his name was like a triumph on my lips. I said it again, tasted it, felt how the word itself made me bite into my lower lip, but then open my mouth again. Viktor… Viktor…

The syrupy sensations swelled to a nub and when I said his name the fourth time, I couldn’t finish.

“Vik…”

My lips opened, my breath escaped in gasps as a powerful burst of pleasure pumped through me. I flung the knife aside and my body bucked and arched in silent agony. Choking on the pleasure, I couldn’t speak. But my body was screaming. I lay back and surrendered, letting the pulses throb through me as they wanted to, resisting nothing, letting it all take me.

After a few moments, when the pleasure had trickled away to a few twitches, I opened my eyes and tried to make out the room, my body, in the pitch black. My soul, it would seem, was still intact. The room was still the room. I was still me. I guess technically, I hadn’t touched myself at all.

I toyed with the idea of saying his name again, but put it away. If it was a magic spell, if it was a dark-sided word that had the power to conjure up such things, perhaps I should put it away for another time…

I curled over on to my side and fell into a blank, dreamless sleep.

Chapter 11 - Viktor

“Yes, OK, you don’t have to tell us a whole story, all we want to know is, will it fuck you up?”

I didn’t like these new guys. Didn’t trust them either. My usual buyer, an older and more subdued Nigerian gentleman by the name of “Fat Boy Fat”, had been scarce lately and he had sent these two boneheaded lackeys in his place. I didn’t like it. But whatever, it was just for one batch, and then I’d demand to work with Fat Boy again.

The one kid couldn’t have been older than 19 or 20, and was leaning in the shade of the car door to get out of the heat, not bothering to pull down his shirt to cover his bulging gut. Women can be soft. In fact, they should be soft. But a man? Something in me hated to see a soft man. A weak one. A baby who’s never challenged his body, never worked, never sweated. I could kick this kid’s ass for free in 30 seconds and he’d only be better for it.

“Will it fuck you up? Of course not. Drink kerosene if you want to be fucked up,” I said. I might have nothing to cover my nakedness but a threadbare sarong, and I might have walked here on my own two feet, and I might be here in Zambia right now, handing over a paper bag filled with narcotics to some boneheads, but I was a connoisseur.

The soil in which these plants had grown had been tended and revered like a lover; the botanicals in this bag had been harvested, sifted and prepared like my first born children, raised with love and honor. In my time at the cabin, I had reared hundreds of delicate, nuanced strains of a whole range of plants so vast most people hadn’t heard of most of them. My garden looked like weedy wilderness to the uninitiated, but a forest of possibility for those who looked just a little closer.

I had roots to make you dream, leaves to open the windows of your heart, and mushrooms to wash the pain from your body. I had stored plant essences that would clear the spirit, petals to make you sleep, and bark that awakened within the body all those carnal desires that lay dormant in the modern man. Or woman.

Did it “fuck you up” he asked me. Nevermind. I’d deal directly with Fat Boy next time.

“You speak Nyanja like a local. Fat Boy told us you were Russian,” the other one said.

“My mother was Russian.”

“And your father?”

“Born in Mchinji. He was a doctor.”

“Was? He’s not anymore?”

I ignored the question. They both passed quizzical eyes over me, then looked at one another. I was just about done with this whole transaction, and this line of questioning. If I left within a few minutes, I’d make it back to the cabin before sunset.

“Your mother, she’s there still? In Malawi?” the fat one said with a smirk.

I knew what he was getting at. I had had this conversation too many times already. Maybe my mother had been a lost little girl, lured and seduced by a dirty African to come to this godforsaken country and have a baby against her wishes. Maybe she was a raging whore who had asked for trouble, found it, and then bailed the moment things got too real. Or maybe she decided to have another beautiful, all-white baby in beautiful, all-white Russia and forget that it – that I – had ever happened. What fucking difference did it make to me, though? None. I glowered at them.

The fat one laughed at me and spat into the dust, then sneered a little as he looked over my outfit.

“Don’t worry mati, I would have abandoned you too” he said, and they both laughed mockingly.

My hands were instantly on his neck and I slammed him into the car.

“Are you going to shut your fucking mouth or must I find another buyer?” I hissed, getting right in his face.

The other one was giggling.

“Hey, hey! Mister KGB, just chill! We’re cool. He’s just talking.”

I pried my fingers off his neck and stepped back, but held him firm with my eyes. He held up both his hands and flashed a shit-eating grin at me. I could see the gun at his hip, plain as day, but I swore right then that if I heard another peep from him I’d punch that smile right off his face.

“Easy …easy. He’s an idiot. He wishes some beautiful Russian lady would also come and give him one, hey Busi?”

“Shut up” said Busi, regaining his composure.

“Nah it’s true. Vik, let me tell you. This guy? He’s got problems. Your old lady just dropped a new album, ne?” he said, poking the fat one’s ribs.

“She’s expecting next month” he said, a little sour.

The other one just laughed. I didn’t have time for this shit.

“Wait what? Another one? Man, he’s in more shit than I thought.”

“Where’s the money?” I asked, but the two morons were mid-banter. Fucking kids.

“You should have been a Malawi doctor, mati, then the chicks would love you. Maybe you have a chance with that white gelo that took Rambo’s knife” he said and laughed long and hard at his own joke.

My ears pricked.

“What white girl?” I said.

“What? Nothing. Some …associates of ours.”

“Yeah, but what girl? Who are you talking about?”

They both looked at me.

“Who wants to know?” the fat one said, back in thug mode. He leaned in, menacingly.

“Ok, whatever, let’s just finish up here please, I have shit to do” I said and shrugged.

They looked at each other again.

“You know a white girl in Mchinji? Someone who took our friend’s knife?”

“Who wants to know?”

A slow smile curled over his lips. He turned to his friend.

“Give this man the cash, let’s go” he said and turned to get in the car.

The fat one gave me a folded brown envelope with cash and a dirty look, then hopped into the passenger seat, slammed the door and hung his arm out the window as they drove off.

The dust cloud rose, shimmered a little in the late afternoon sunshine and then sank slowly back to the ground. Penny. I had heard people talking about her little stunt the other day, how her and Valerie had chased off some would-be hijackers. If anyone was to be believed, they had saved the day and Mama Tembi’s car with nothing but girl power and the protection of the almighty.

I groaned and pinched the ridge between my eyes. Women complicate things.

I turned on my heel and headed back the other direction, back to the cabin. Soon I had picked off the main road and was on my own path. I knew these roads and backways inside out. On a map, this territory was just nothing, a space, just the boring line between Malawi and Zambia. I liked to think of it as my own secret portal between the two countries. The walk would easily take more than 3 hours, but it was good walking, and I did my best thinking when I walked.

And I needed to think.

As my nimble feet stepped their way through the familiar brush, the thoughts began to loosen. The landscape morphed from brown and desiccated to juicier, more lush and green …and then back again. I knew all the plants I walked by, by name and by essence, and greeted them like old friends. The light dimmed and brought out even the most elusive threads of gold and copper in the crunchy grass. By the time I was halfway home, I had decided: Penny had to go home. I would convince her she had to.

She had no idea what she was doing, she was young and stupid, and it just wasn’t safe here for her. Nobody cared about the fucking garden anyway. And her life and happiness was just worth so much more than some church vanity project…

I froze. Yes, I wasn’t mistaken. I drew a breath and looked down at my hands. Scanned internally. Yup, it was unmistakable.

I was feeling something for her.

My heart raced, but I carried on walking. I forced myself to stay calm: I knew this would happen. I had seen her face, days before she arrived, in smoke. I had made out her features in my mind’s eye. A warning? In any case, I was getting way, way too invested. Why bother with someone who was just going to leave? And did I really want to break her heart? Did she deserve that?

I froze again. Now you’re thinking about what she deserves? No, there was no way around it. She was getting in the way. I had my life, and she had hers, and she had already crossed over into mine too much already. I had been an idiot, with the whole tying her up bullshit. I admit that it was fun. But someone had to be the responsible adult here. She had to go. Back to where she came from.

The sun dipped low and then winked out, just as I was rounding the familiar bend that would lead me through a narrow, hidden thicket and to my cabin. The cicadas had whined all they could for the day and were petering out. The air went gray and woke up with flying night insects instead.

As I approached the cabin I froze, yet again. A figure, standing at the entrance.

Instantly my heart was in my throat. Without thinking my body responded, and I was rock hard in an instant. All at once, I didn’t care. I wanted her to stay. I wanted to …oh God I wanted to do so many things to her. I raced up to the cabin, a lump in my throat and then realized: Valerie. It was Valerie.

She lifted slow, sleepy eyes up at me. Her hair was loose and tousled, and her flimsy shirt hung limp off one shoulder. She looked down at my crotch then back up at me.

“I was hoping you’d be glad to see me…” she said.