Australians. She missed her family, too, but of course she’d never see them again. In her worst moments, she feared they were already dead. After what she’d done, there was no way she would have returned home, but that didn’t mean the vampires hunting her knew that. They might have tortured and killed her mother, father or siblings to try to find her. God rot her, she was too weary and sick to give the guilt any energy. It was just another thing she couldn’t control. Another person she couldn’t protect.
While they dug, she closed her eyes and went back to Farida, her words pressed against her heart beneath the robe.
As Farida’s feelings grew, so too did Lord Mason’s. In an environment where every action was under the scrutiny of others, subtle gestures took on the significance of passionate embraces . . .
JOURNAL ENTRY 17, PAGE 8
Farida bint Asim
Allah must forgive my weakness, for I am merely a woman, but when he rides, he entrances me. His strong, beautiful hands are gentle but firm on his horse’s mouth, his seat so comfortable, as if he and the animal are one creation. Sometimes I think the fact they are separate is as much a surprise to him as to us, when he comes in past dusk and finds he can dismount.
He always strips off his robes and shirt in the shadows in front of his tent to wash off. I watch him out the slit of my tent. The tattoo of a tiger high on the back of his shoulder surprised me when I first saw it. It is not only inked but scarred into his flesh in a fascinating way, the image raised as if the creature is seeking to leap free. I think of passing my fingers over that, down the line of his broad back, where light perspiration runs down the narrow channel of his spine and darkens his waistband.
I have sought a way to approach him, and I know I will surely be punished for thinking that Allah provided me the way. Last night, he was on a raiding party with my brother and father, and I was told Lord Mason saved my brother’s life from a sand trap. As the head-woman of the house, I knew I should make a gesture as my mother would have, out of gratitude for her son, for my brother.
So for that at least, I am not ashamed to say what I did. I did it before all that were within view of his tent, so I did not bring shame on myself or my father. But if they had known what stirred inside me as I did it, my father would have had me whipped until I bled.
I came and knelt before Lord Mason. He’d removed his boots and socks and was preparing to bathe his upper body as usual. I took the wet cloth from him and I bathed his feet. Oh, how I wanted so much to do the rest of him. I did not, of course. But I took great care over the arches and toes, the shape of his heel, the soles. And then, so his feet would not get recaked with sand, I dried his feet, my fingers stroking flesh and bone through the towel. I wanted to press my lips there, touch my forehead to the fine length of his calves.
His eyes were upon me the whole time, but as if he’d discerned my thoughts, I felt him grow ever more still, like a watchful desert tiger in truth. I had my face covered, but I dared the worst. I looked up and met his eyes.
Not as a wanton—Allah, no. I can’t explain why he brings these feelings out in me, but I needed him to see, to let him know how I felt . . . and he did.
Later that same night, when he was eating dates after dinner, he placed one in his mouth and then, when no one was watching but me, behind my screen, he took it out again and put it on the plate, unmarked by his teeth. I came and collected the plates, and when I was back behind the screen, I lifted that date, placed it in my mouth. Thinking of the heat of his tongue, the press of his lips, I let our eyes meet again . . .
. . . Something amazing has happened tonight. Several hours before dawn, I awoke in my tent, restless, thinking thoughts of him.
Somehow I became certain he was near, though I could not see him. I rose from my bed, and allowed my night garment to pool at my ankles. Stepping up to the back slit of the tent where no one could see, I let the moonlight come in and touch my flesh the way I wished for him to do.