Chapter 73 Bundle2

He wanted to know the purpose of my visit. “I’ve come to wait for a friend.” He appraised me suspiciously, the same way he had examined my papers earlier. “I keep your passport,” he stated in bad English. “You come get it when friend here.” Used to all sorts of traffic, he was calculating what gains he could obtain for himself from my presence. It was he who found me a place to stay. In a rickety jeep driven at breakneck speed, he took me to an old woman who spoke only Dinka. The house comprised two rooms. I would occupy the one at the back, the old woman’s bedroom. I lay down, naked, on what was nothing more than a litter stinking of rags and the sour smell of old people. I was exhausted, like someone who has just accomplished the final stage of a race. Sleep! . . . Between my half closed eyelids, I caught sight of a hand pulling the curtain that was supposed to give some intimacy to my room. I saw the eyes of my landlady, full of curiosity, a black and greedy look whose only intelligence was that of an animal, the eyes of a rat. She came closer, attracted by my nudity, and her bony hand traced the whole surface of my skin. I was too shattered to push that hand away. The caress was soothing, in a way. The fingers lingered on the fleece of my pubis, appreciating its abundance and thickness, then they plunged inside me, digging into my depths, exploring both orifices. It was the hand of an expert who knew what it was to finger a woman, and pleasure rose in me until the combustion of orgasm. The old woman lifted her fingers to her nostrils, sniffing the traces of her exploration. She looked like she was inhaling a delicious perfume whose fragrance she had herself lost a long time ago. How long did I sleep? When I woke up night had fallen. The old woman and I shared a stew she had prepared. Then, through a series of signs, she explained that she was going out, that she would be back soon, and that I should wait for her. I stood on the doorstep. The sky was nothing but a huge, jet black cavity dotted with stars, an oppressive cover imprisoning each portion of that godforsaken place. I realized that if there was a place where I could find the man from Albuquerque, it was Port Sudan, and nowhere else. One only lands here to run aground or die a slow death. Here everything is wrecked: men and ships. The old woman came back, as she’d said she would. She had brought with her an adolescent boy whose eyes were lined with kohl – the eyes of a gazelle – a mouth with thick lips, and the skin of a girl. I said to the old woman, no, I was not interested. But she got upset, took me by force back to my room. She threw herself backward onto the bed, lifted her skirt, and, legs spread wide, opened the edges of her cunt and forced me to look. In place of the clitoris there was a long scar, the mark of excision. No need to speak Dinka to catch what the old woman told me: “You’re lucky, my girl, to possess that bit of flesh that provides woman with a pleasure even more intense than the one given by the bludgeons of men. It’s your pleasure, not that of the male, so enjoy it!” I let the ephebe with painted eyes put his head between my legs. His tongue came to get me, first pointed and wriggling like a lizard’s tail, then wide and flabby – the tongue of a licker savoring his favorite dish with wet lapping noises. Finally the thick-lipped mouth caught me, sucked me in. I felt my clitoris swelling, my whole body condensed into that single growth, there where the alpha and omega of my woman’s desire resided. I became dizzy. I grabbed the frizzy hair with both hands to make sure he wouldn’t escape, his mouth wouldn’t leave me before I fell back disheveled and shattered. The orgasm left me burning and unsatisfied. I wanted the penis of my lover, I made signs that he should penetrate me. That was when the old woman burst into laughter and lifted the young man’s gandoura, showing me that he had been emasculated.