Margarethe listened to Major Raif, the handsome and overworked commander for the German contingent in the local area. Her mind wandered as she observed the room and its furnishing. Windows... blacked out. Painted with black paint? Can’t see in... or out. Wood floor... covered with sand. Wind is blowing hard outside. It whistles through the wall’s boards. She turned and ran her gloved fingers over the the small fence's top rail, much like the partitions in business offices. Separates the working area from the benches toward the front of the room. Four desks plus Captain Raif’s desk, I would assume.
        “... so we’re sorry for this inconvenience and I shall explain more in detail in private.” He glared at Luise. John didn’t perceive the Major’s anger, but Margarethe noted the way his body stiffened, his quick false smile and the blush across his face. She didn’t understand why the Major would be angry with little miss perfect assistant. “... and the madam needn’t be burdened with bland bureaucratic business.” She wondered if he blushed over his body.
        She didn’t know why she did it put she put her hand on her hip. Margarethe wouldn’t have minded if the Major had kissed her hand again. The thought bothered her. And quickly the thought that she was beginning to think like Celeste entered her mind. She stiffled a smile as she felt the energy from his body, noted her body temperature rose, and she enjoyed looking at his body through his perspiration stains
        She examined the tall, thin officer’s blond figure and face, guessed he was the type of man John had referred to as a career man, and wanted to run her hand slowly over his heavy beard. Her eyes narrowed as Luise hung on the Major’s every word while scrutinizing his small waist, tailored shorts, knee-high hose and dust covered boots. Margarethe did not doubt that Luise, in her mind, undressed the Major as he talked to the group. She had assumed her expression meant she pictured the handsome German in the buff, probably extended and proud, aroused and beckoning to her. Luise had tried to hide her expression from Margarethe, but for Margarethe, it hadn’t succeeded.
        Margarethe turned toward the front door and watched the slow movements of a young man wearing a soiled white linen suit, pith helmet and white shoes step into the doorway and chew on something. He folded his arms as a young German army clerk excused himself, pushed the gate open and hurried to the young man. She listened to the two men talk and recognized the stranger as an American. She frowned because of the heat, touched her forehead and turned to face Major Raif as Luise asked: “How do you keep your boots polished, Major?”
        Margarethe wondered if American men were exciting as lovers and occasionally glanced at the man in the doorway. Margarethe’s heart leaped with joy as she silently answered Luise’s question to the Major. While you’re here in Shendi, Miss Damish, Margarethe thought, I’m going to rub my boots up your ass just to keep them highly polished. She giggled aloud at her wicked thoughts, covered her mouth and glanced at John out of the corners of her eyes. She knew she smeared her lipstick. Not much rouge left anyway. Margarethe laughed so hard she began to cough. John moved closer to her and patted her back while an orderly, before the third coughing spell, rushed to her and stood facing her holding up a canteen of water. What efficiency, Margarethe thought.
        “It’s all we have here, madam, and it isn’t cold water, either,” he said and clicked his heels together.
        Margarethe arched an eyebrow, smiled and stared at the young soldier’s ankle- high boots. “Thank you. You’re a kind young man.” He blushed, clicked his heels again, and returned to work behind his desk. She stared at the other army clerks and guessed they were all in their early twenties. “They’re are all young men. No women working here,” she said to John softly. “What is this place? A train depot?”
        “Yes. Looks like they’ve converted it to a temporary army field office.”
        “Is this your field office, Major?”
        “No, Mr. Kuhn: our command post. Same idea, though.”
        “... so we’ll be bunking you down in tents tonight and then head for Khartoum in a few days--”
        “A few days?” Margarethe asked. She turned sideways as the American argued with the young soldier. She felt capricious and told John she would like to meet the young man in the dirty, dust covered, white suit. John nodded, acknowledging he heard her request and returned to his conversation with Major Raif.
        She heard the Major tell John he would explain the situation to her later: both she and John must take great pains to make sure the children didn’t stray from the compound area because of thieves and kidnappers.
        “What?” Margarethe shouted. She felt the veins stand out in her neck.
        “There is no problem, madam. Guards are on duty around the clock. But some of these Bedouins are, well, shall we say our cultures are vastly different.
        Eric stood next to his mother. “What did he say about murderers.”
        “Not murderers darling, just kidnappers and thieves.” Eric and Margarethe frowned.
        She wondered how Major Raif made a distinction between kidnappers who steal people, probably children and thieves, who steal only merchandise: valuables. It must be the heat. “And be quiet, Eric, darling. I’ll explain it all later.”
        “I’m hungry, mom, Toddy said and leaned against her arm.
        “We’re all are hungry, darling.” She ran her fingers through his long blond hair.
        “... so may I suggest showers all around. We’ll place blankets over the boards to make a secure the enclosure--”
        “You shower in the open?” Margarethe asked and giggled.
        “There are only men here. But, no, madam. There are a few boards surrounding the showers and hiding little but only because there are few women in our compound. A few Bedouins stroll around the encampment, but they’re not interested in German male bodies. They are interested in army discards, though.”
        Eric nudged Martin. “I told you we should have concentrated on nude sunbathing--”
        “Sh!” Martin replied. He wanted to ignore Eric.
        “What are discards?” Eric asked.
        “Things the men don’t want anymore, I guess.” Eric and Martin agreed.
        Margarethe turned just as Ceily, the rim of her hair matted to her face, approached the American who remained alone in the depot doorway. Why doesn’t he come in? She felt like joining him but decided not to as the Major was concluding his informational introduction. She couldn’t take her eyes off him: his hair, the tilt of his pith helmet, his full lips, blue eyes. Celeste would have though him attractive. You’re not Celeste. I know it. Margarethe enjoyed her private conversation.
        She rotated her pelvis slowly. She couldn’t stop herself and didn’t understand the reason she felt aggressive with the stranger. She imagined it was late at night, she and John were alone in the shower, water cascaded over their naked bodies and their bodies were pressed close. She wouldn’t let him go and couldn’t stop kissing him. She enjoyed the sparkling of his dark eyes as she held felt the back of his head, his hair wet filled with soap suds. She felt his hand caress her body, down lower, rubbing her hips and delicately slapping her buttocks with care and tenderness. She looked up into her eyes and they smiled at each other. He screamed silently as she suddenly realized she stared at the ceiling.
        She perspired heavily as she turned to the doorway. The young American had departed. “Major, sir. Major Raif. The fellow--the dirty white suit? Who is he?” she said, interrupting the conversation between the officer and her husband.
        “An American reporter, madam. A nosey one, too: a do-gooder. Thinks Germany has invasion intentions in Africa when all we want is to be friends--”
        Cut the crap, Margarethe wanted to say. Everyone knows, except the children, we’re here for another reason. Who knows what it is. I wish I knew. It isn’t friendship though. She cleared her throat.“Major. Dear Major. What is the reporter’s name? Please,” she said. She pursed her lips.
        He smiled but he did not mistake the upper class tone of his guest’s request. He heard it and understood her question was a demand not a simple, polite request. “It’s Daniel Johnson, Frau Kuhn.” He wanted to ask her interest but dared not query her. “Is more information required, madam?” He responded to Margarethe using his official, army tone.
        She smiled and turned. “I wish I had a fan,” she said under her breath. This weather is making be bitchy. She pinched her lips tight and knew she must abandon her fantasies of sexual delight. Her head pounded gently, and she knew a headache was on the way. She wasn’t certain whether her fantasy included the American man or not. Her heartbeat quickened thinking she and John and the American might well have dinner. To Margarethe, the young American appeared well built and slender. He had a face like John’s: one had to stare at it more than once. These erotic feelings have to be more than heat induced. Maybe’s it’s my age. Forty? Maybe not. She decided she was beginning to enjoy this African safari: hers and the children’s vacation, Luise’s opportunity for travel and wealth, and John’s... she didn’t know what John would get out of the trip. Everything about his activities remained secret. She knew one way she would try to get him to tell her. Margarethe, you’ve become a vixen, a cunning, plotting vixen. She liked to call herself a vixen and decided she would get to know the American.




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


        “Oh, John,” Margarethe said, moaned and sat up. “I’ll say this for these Muhammadans--”
        “And what would you say for them, my darling?” He knelt beside her, kissed her thigh hard and pulled her closer to him.
        “Their beds are comfortable even though they’re only blankets on the floor of this giant tent.” She looked up at the top. “Did you know these skins are mostly goat?” He wasn’t listening. “John? You’re trembling. Are you tired. You smell of the desert.”
        “How does the desert smell?” he asked as he forced his tongue into her mouth. “Please,” he said. “Don’t resist. I need to hold you. Caress you. Oh, God, Margarethe, I need you so much. To feel your softness. To be inside you. I need to be hard inside you.”
        She knew something he didn’t handle well happened wherever the Major, her husband and a few soldiers had gone. She sorted guesses in her mind as his fingers touched her body quickly and gently. She sat up and pulled away from him.
        “What happened? Where did you go?”
        “Not now. Just tell me you love me! Kiss me!”
        Margarethe ran her hands down his body as it began to shake uncontrollably. She pulled him close to her. “We can’t now. The children are all over the place, and I’ve been sharing this tent with Ceily. She’ll come in here any minute--”
        She looked at John and slowly wiped the tears from his face. “What happened out there? Does the Major know? I hold him responsible for this.”
        John sat up and knelt. He wiped his face. “I’ll tell you about it. I needed you out there. I don’t want to go through even a similar experience again. I’ve got to go take a shower. A long one. I feel so dirty. Maybe a long dip in the pool: to cool off.”
        “I don’t like this, John. I’ve never seen you act this disturbed or angry.” Margarethe looked into his eyes.
        “I’ll be all right,” he said somberly. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. I needed to hold you and kiss you again in order to regain my sanity and pride.”
        And moreover, John thought. I need to tell you some secrets, darling. Maybe confess to you. I don’t know what happened to my sense of balance. I don’t understand what happened. Maybe it’s the damned heat.
        “Margarethe, I’ve got to get cleaned up. Take a shower. Get three days of desert dirt off me.”
        “I’ve got to get a little desert off me, too,” she said as he bent down and left the tent. She listened to the silence of the desert and felt lonely again.



CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The German Africa Corps Base Camp west of Shendi,in Africa

Daniel hurried past the guard, acknowledged him with a smile, saluted and headed for his tent. He hopped up two front wood steps, noticed that both bunks were empty and stopped in the center of the room at the writing table. A scrap of folded tan paper lay on the table. He turned up the kerosene lamp and picked up the wire, looking at both sides of an attached note. He read it: “I’m in Khartoum awaiting your arrival. The whole situation sounds interesting. This will be my last trip to Africa for a while. Peter Boite.”
Good old Pete. He’s there when you need him. He read the note, written in passable English, and his heart beat quickly. He recognized Major Raif’s voice, outside and behind him.
“I’ve been assigned to this forsaken post for a few months of duty. What event or situation is so hot, the one your friend talks about?”
Daniel turned and glanced at the officer.
“I didn’t intend to read your mail, Daniel, but this post is the only wire service in town. One becomes desperate for news from the world. Desperate for many things,” he said in a lower voice and ran his fingers around the inside of his pant’s waist.
He looked up at Daniel. “Say, how about some strip poker with a few females before you leave town? And, by the way, when are you leaving?” Daniel laughed, blushed, turned and directly faced the major. The German’s bluntness interested him. He wore a towel around his middle, shower clogs, and continued drying his short blond hair, rubbing his scalp briskly. Daniel noted that the major’s blond hair had grown longer than when they first met.
Daniel meandered to the edge of the tent’s wood floor, stepped down a step and shook hands with the Major. The towel around his middle fell to the ground. The soldier casually squatted, grabbed it briskly, stood again, and wrapped it around his waist. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Daniel asked. He was aware of the major’s need. He chuckled.
“How about it? Play some poker? We can buy a few of those female slaves cheap from that slave trader, er, what is that slave trader’s name?”
“Carlos?” Daniel said and folded his the brown paper message. He shoved it into his trouser pocket and appreciated his feeling as he adjusted his safari shorts.
“Yes. Carlos La Fashtah. That’s the fellow. We could teach them how to lose at poker and then impress them with our manly abilities. They lose and we romp. You’re blond enough to be German. These Bedouins love blond men that something to show.” His voice picked up momentum. “Of course, we might have to let Carlos be master of ceremonies, but the condition I’m in, he looked down, a jungle cat couldn’t scratch this thing, I could perform on the steps of the Reichstag over and over even with Herr Hitler watching--”
Daniel laughed aloud and tossed his head backward. “You’re feeling raunchy too, huh. Alex?” Daniel was aware of his own condition and now, from his actions, the major was ready to ignite. Daniel chuckled nervously and bid Alex to enter the tent. “Come on in Major Raif, sir,” he said and winked. “But you know, Alex, talking about how we feel only makes it worse. There has to be more than just talk.”
Daniel enjoyed his heightened feelings. He turned up the kerosene lamp’s flame and they sat on the center table. “What’s this?” Daniel asked noticing the tall green, thin-necked bottle.
“Some Arab wine. Guaranteed to turn your hair white. Their wine is really powerful. Besides numbing the brain and the inhibitions, it makes every body muscle taught like steel. I think they mix it with dead goats--”
“Is this what they call Kashti?”
“Yeah. You’ve had it before, is that not so?”
“That is so. Definitely. But I don’t always remember afterward.” Kashti, he said to himself. “The first time I had it was when I went to Shendi from Khartoum and met the lovely Mrs. Kuhn.”
“Ah,” Alex hummed. “Yes the lovely Mrs. Kuhn. What a woman. Women such as she should not be allowed in this desert with men like us.”
“I would have loved to please her, just to put my arms around her waist and feel her softness, her breasts--” He coughed. “What a body! I get excited remembering what she looked like.” He stopped and looked directly at Daniel, “Terribly tragic about that family losing their youngest kid. I mean the way it happened.”
“Yes. But there are plans to return him to them. I think I’ve located him.”
“No kidding. Are you kidding? You have?” Alex put his hand under his towel.
“No. I’m not joking. I believe I know where he is. I just don’t know why he’s there.”
Alex frowned at Daniel’s remark, spread his legs, and pulled his towel up higher around his waist. “You make it sound mysterious. Is it mysterious?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Daniel said and rotated the bottle of Kashti slowly with his finger tips. The bottom made a soft scraping sound on the table top.
Alex spread his legs wider. “I’m even hot wearing only this towel. Is this your major assignment now? Finding the boy?”
“Yeah. Well, I made it my assignment.”
“Oh, of course. I understand,” Alex said and nodded his head knowingly. “For her--”
“I don’t know for certain, Alex. But anyway--”
“Well, good luck, Daniel. Toddy is a good-looking little fellow. I wouldn’t mind having a kid like him at all, if it didn’t mean I had to get married first and all that other stuff.”
“You talk like you’ll never marry.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t mind buying slaves and pushing yourself on them?”
“Hell, no, and neither do they. I become excited just thinking about the experiences.”
“Carlos is a guy who knows how to make coin, buys more gold and jewels for his chubby body, the women are set free, I get my back my senses along with a relaxed softness and satisfaction between my legs, I feel I’ve accomplished something manly... and tell me Daniel, are you in or out for a poker game tomorrow night? He looked down at Daniel. From the looks of things I would say you’d best be in.” He laughed and slapped Daniel’s shoulder.
“I’m in, I guess,” Daniel said and stood up. “I need practice.”
“It is not a good idea to go too long between exercises and lessons, sir,” Alex said, jokingly. “You have to practice for when you get back to civilization?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Daniel said and shook his head. My real target is Mrs. Kashah Al Kajar. And I haven’t met her yet. He decided against telling the Major details of his plan to free Todd. He didn’t want it to get around in the base camp or the neighboring Bedouin encampments..
“OK then. My quarters. I’ll have mattresses and covers brought in,” Alex said as he shuffled toward the front entrance. He turned. “By the way,” he said pulling the tent flaps together. “Do you remember Sergeant Kurt Meyer and Corporal Reinhold Shumer?”
“Yes. Are they here too? Now?”
“Yes. They are the only other men I’ve done slave trading parties with. They might be put out if I did it without them. We do it together.” He lowered his head and waited for Daniel’s approval.
“It won’t be too crowded?”
“No. Oh, I see what you mean. Mr. Johnson, sir,” Alex said, sounding stodgy. “My tent is about twice the size of your humble abode here and we have to get naked and nasty at times just to maintain balance against the sand. The damnable sand,” he said frowning and looking toward the sun moving lower in the sky. “I’ll never get over how everything looks so yellow in this desert, this wasteland. I’ve often wondered why the old Egyptians went naked. Now, I know. It cut down on the boredom from the sun and this sand.”
Alex’s manner of speaking aroused Daniel. He had enjoyed one of the major’s parties which was also his first introduction to the power of Kashti, better now as the forbidden wine. He didn’t know how he would sleep tonight, covered or uncovered. He knew he had to take a shower.
He walked to his tent’s entrance and smiled as Major Raif kicked sand as he walked toward his tent twirling his towel high in the air and humming to himself. He admired the German’s physique and knew he would hop into his tent. “That is true. His tent really is much larger than this one.”
Daniel turned and began to undress. “Gotta’ hit the showers and quick,” he said as his safari shorts and white undershorts dropped to the tent’s wood floor. “He thought about Margarethe and he rubbed his body touching himself carefully. He sighed, turned and picked up a towel and new bar of soap. He rushed out of his tent and ran toward the shower enclosure.

End of Chapters 16, 17, and 35,
from Letters From Celeste -- Book 2..
There are 54 Chapters in the Three Books of this Adventure Novel.