loving, accepting, burning with need of her. She melted at the thought, body and soul, and as his lips gently encircled her flesh, she whispered his name, as she had so long ago.
Salah.
Her voice held the surprise of awakening passion, as if he heard it down the years and she were still a virgin, and he closed his eyes as the power of it struck him a blow straight to the heart.
As they had then, his hands became urgent, his tenderness struggling with the need that moved in them both. He pushed the T-shirt over her head and off, and his eyes devoured the beauty of her perfect breasts, her skin’s creamy smoothness caressed by the flickering blaze that stroked her even as his hands did. Then he was jealous, primitively jealous of the fire’s adoration of her, and moved over her, so that she lay in his shadow, as he urged off the shorts that had no right to touch her legs…
But starlight, too, adored her, glowing on her white forehead, her dampened lips. He bent to take possession there, too, his mouth hungry and urgent.
The hunger of years rose to her lips, and she opened her mouth tenderly, willingly, hungrily, and as innocent now as then, for in the desert time disappeared. Her hands wrapped him, fingers clenching on his shoulder, his head, clasping the rich black curls in the newness of that passion she had learned only with him. Each move of his mouth and tongue and lips was answered by hers, and his blood pounded through him and he struggled against the urgent need to take her, consume her, be one with her, now.
He shrugged out of his clothes, and then stretched out beside her, naked and gleaming in firelight. Her hands stroked the length of his chest and flank, and in the darkness and flickering shadow the honing of maturity and even his battle scar somehow were lost, so that his body was as fresh and perfect as at seventeen.
His fingers caressed her cheek, her temple, stroked the silky hair back from her brow as he gazed into eyes that reflected the night sky and all eternity. Stars glinted in her gaze as she smiled fearlessly, trustingly into his face, in a way no woman had done again. It touched him to the depths of his soul, and he gathered her wildly up in his arms, clumsy, inexperienced, like the boy he had been, and crushed her to him, drowned her mouth with his own, drank in the sweetness of her like wine.
His hands were strong, holding her as if he could never let her go, as they pressed her back, her shoulder, her head, desperate to bring her closer and closer, till she was part of him. She melted with yearning, with fulfilment, with need, crying her joy to the night air, to the desert that saw all, knew all.
His mouth drank and drank of the nectar of their kiss. Her body was pressed so tightly against him they were one flesh, and the hands that wrapped and caressed her sent sensation like honey through her, and in her response he felt the honey return and pour into his own flesh.
Still it was not enough for either; the last, the final union was still to come, and she began to plead with him as she had so long ago, soft murmurings in his ear that resonated in his heart, please, Salah, please, please, as she pressed closer and closer, as her body moulded to his and his to her.
He drew away a little then, unable to wait longer, for what they needed was to sink into each other, and remember who they had been.
He drew away, and his flesh fitted to hers with the hungry knowing of the key for the lock, and pushed inside, and they cried out together in surprise and completion, one voice that drenched their nerve ends with sweetness. And then they were locked together, gazing into each other’s star-filled eyes, unmoving with the surprise of passion.
He stroked her face, her hair, she touched his full lips with a questing fingertip, and that moment of wonder and surprise was the same as it had been ten long years ago, that moment of feeling the pulse of an ancient rhythm burn up inside them, the summons of that urgent, age-old necessity that is the heartbeat of life. It began to move in them, through them, and they were helpless on the current of its urgency, the pulsing, pushing beat that took them closer and closer to the place where time is destroyed in eternity.
The fire watched greedily, coating their limbs with light and shadow, as they moved and embedded deeper and deeper into each other’s being, towards the one.
They cried out as they approached it, cried their helpless pleasure, their consuming need, to all who would hear: earth and water and fire and air, and sky and time and nothingness and all, and then they were there, and all need, all urgency, exploded in a blaze of honeyed light that swept out from the tiny space where souls and bodies met, to enrich all creation. And, bathed in its glow, blinded by its brightness, for that place cannot be seen by mortal eyes, for one moment of perfection they cried out their gratitude, and then, slowly, because they must, sank back together into the abode of separation.
The firelight died, and still they lay entangled, unwilling to let the world enter between them again. But soon the desert chill invaded both body and soul.
‘Now we know,’ said Salah, and there was something in his tone that chilled her even further, because it told her nothing had changed.
‘Do we?’
‘It was real,’ he said. ‘It was there. We destroyed it, but it was real.’
‘Is it better to know?’ she asked bitterly, feeling somehow that it was tonight, not ten years ago, that she had created the real heartbreak for herself.
She stiffened to ward off pain, but Salah didn’t answer. He sat up as night insects, drawn by the scent of honey, approached, and threw a few more dried fronds onto the dying blaze before disappearing down towards the pool, now shrouded in darkness.
Desi dug in her pack, got out her night gear and pulled it on, then sat there as smoke and flame curled up on the air, trying to see her way into the future.
He came out of the darkness like a pagan god, naked and strong, his body glistening with wet. As he pulled a towel out of his own pack and rubbed himself dry, she watched with detached admiration, as if at a work of art, until he had put on his night clothes and sat down again.
‘Are you going to marry Sami?’
Salah shrugged and lifted a stick to stir the fire. ‘It is not agreed yet. But why not? I must marry someone.’
‘How can you talk about it so calmly? You know what love is. You remember how it feels. How can you contemplate marrying someone you don’t love?’
In the firelight her eyes were dark, watching him. He turned his attention to the fire.
‘The best love comes after marriage,’ he said. ‘You create a life together, and love each other within that life. It is easy to love the mother of your children.’
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
‘I told you once, Desi!’ he growled. ‘I will never love again in the way that I loved you. It is impossible. I do not wish it. It is better to marry in the old way—find your wife first, and then learn to love her. The other way is heartbreak.’
Who had he first heard it from? His uncle? His grandfather? He couldn’t remember now, but that it was wisdom his own life had proven. It was best to marry calmly. Strong feelings could always turn into their opposite.
They sat in silence for a few moments. ‘Is it because of your parents? Are they pressing you to marry?’
‘I told you, my parents have been pressing me to marry for ten years. They have given up asking me. But
