Part 2: The Betrayal

That first night had passed quietly enough. Eventually she'd gone to her tent, zipping it slowly, leaving him out in the open at his own request. For a time he'd wandered the banks of the Colorado, but eventually he'd settled down alongside the dying campfire. When he awoke at dawn the next morning, it was to find a thick wool blanket was covering him and a soft down jacket was beneath his head as a pillow.

It unnerved him and he shot to his feet, looking wildly around. A rustling from the tent, the sound of the zipper, and she emerged, fully clothed, her hands covered by gloves, her breath hanging in the chill morning air.

"Good morning!" she chirped, going behind the tent. "I hope you slept okay out here."

Hoped he slept okay? Why would she care how he did or did not sleep?

"I figured that blanket would keep you snug as a bug in a rug," she finished as she emerged with an armful of chopped wood and kindling. "I have to haul this with me from the road, but it's worth it when it gets this cold!" she smiled.

Snug as a bug in a—he shook his head. He wasn't even going to try to figure that one out. "Yes, it served its purpose. Thank you."

Scratching the back of his bald head, he watched as she laid the logs into the pit just so, arranged kindling over top of them and then went back to her tent. She returned quickly with two crumpled pieces of paper upon which words had been hand-written. She knelt and started shoving one of them under the kindling.

He had no idea where it had come from, but suddenly the words on that piece of paper were as important to him as oxygen itself. He moved so quickly that Catherine yelped in surprise. Snatching the papers from her hand, he backed away as he smoothed them open.

"No, don't!" she cried, but made no move to stop him.

His eyes widened as he began to read:

I have never seen one before who isn't aware of his own humanity. It's as if he's been lost in another world his whole life, and only just now begins to realize he is flesh and blood. He says his name is Radzi but doesn't want to hear the word, as though it's poison to him. But then when he looks at me, the wall he's so carefully constructed seems to crumble and for a moment that passes far too quickly, I can see into his soul.

What I have seen frightens me.

"Why," he breathed, looking up from the page. "Why did you write this?"

She shrugged. "I keep a journal. The reason I come on these solitary trips is to clear my head, to get away from the hustle and bustle of life. I work through things."

Work through things? What things?

He slid the first page behind the second and smoothed it out more. The words written in blue ink leapt from the page and straight into his chest like a hundred knives stabbing him all at once. He couldn't even breathe.

But even though it frightens me, I know he won't hurt me. Deep down he wants to be free of whatever demons have plagued him. I think maybe I was here at this very moment for a reason. But he's almost like a wild animal. So hungry it would risk its life to come close to a human for sustenance; so afraid of the human it approaches that it would rather starve than live.

I'd like to help him. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because he needs me.

Perhaps it's because I need him.

The papers fluttered to the sand at his feet. It took a few seconds for him to start breathing again, and a few more before he looked up to where she stood watching him. He wanted to demand answers from her. How could she possibly know what he was feeling? How could she decode him so quickly, so thoroughly? Why did he need her? Did he need her? Why did she need him? What did any of this mean?

That's what he'd always done, was demand things. Answers, money, secrets, blood, sweat, tears. All his life, he'd never asked for anything. Even when he'd summoned Ombakte for the first time, he hadn't asked her to help him; he'd demanded she help him.

"I don't understand."

She smiled. "Good, because neither do I. Now, I was going to head back this morning, so I didn't bring anything for breakfast."

"Back?"

"Yeah. Home. It's Sunday. I have to go to work tomorrow."

"Work?"

She laughed. "You keep repeating everything I say like a parrot."

He was about to say the word parrot but snapped his mouth shut, making her laugh all the harder. Only then did he realize why she was laughing, and he felt his mouth turn upwards in…a smile? Was that really a smile?

He bent over and picked the papers back up off the ground. Moving to the fire she'd laid out, he stuffed the papers in and was about to just snap the thumb and forefinger of his left hand to light it, when she was suddenly next to him with a book of matches.

"If you want to start learning to be human," she said softly, "then you need to start acting human."

"What makes you say I'm not human?" he asked, genuinely wanting to know.

Catherine got the two pieces of paper lit and slowly fanned the flames with her hands to allow the kindling to catch. "Every time I look into your eyes I can see you're not. At least, you don't think you are."

"You know nothing about me."

Satisfied with her work, she rose to her feet, dusting her hands over the growing fire. She turned to look at him. "I know you come from money. Those boots, those jeans, even that tee shirt you're wearing are top name labels. Nobody who's poor or middle class wears five hundred dollar jeans, Radzi."

He flinched when she said that word.

"You have an unusual accent, too, but your English is perfect. Almost too perfect. This leads me to believe you're highly educated."

"I am that, but not in the traditional manner."

She half-smiled, looking once more into his eyes as she continued. "There is something very dark inside you. That's what I see in your eyes. Something I know I should be frightened of."

"Yes," he replied with a slight nod of his head. She was as intuitive as she was beautiful. Even with her silky hair tied behind her head and covered with a hat she took his breath away. "I must walk," he said gruffly, and turned toward the river bank.

And that was how they spent the day. It was hard at first to wrap his head around her words, around how he was supposed to respond, but he had learned…somewhat. He made her laugh throughout the morning and by the time mid-afternoon had rolled around he had found that sensation again; that feeling of peace.

"You know, we haven't eaten a thing all day. How about we head to the nearest roach coach for a bite?"

"Roach coach…what is this?"

She laughed and laughed. What was so funny about a coach that held roaches? The confusion on his face made her laugh even harder and he felt the corners of his mouth turn up again. She was doubled over, holding her sides and suddenly whined "Owwwwwww!" as she kept on laughing.

He took it as a sign she was in pain and every fiber of his being wanted to help. He grasped her forearms and stood her straight up. His body was against hers and to steady herself, she placed the open palms of her hands on his chest.

"What has happened?" he asked. "Are you injured?"

She panted and laughed and then took a deep breath and giggled and then finally looked up into his face. What she saw there made her laugh and her smile disappear. Her mouth hung open just slightly.

"I'm not hurt, Radzi."

"But you said…" his voice trailed off. He became aware. Fully aware. Every nerve ending seemed to light up. He felt her heaving breaths moving her chest, her body, into his and then ever so slightly away. He felt his own lips part, his own breathing become ragged. "You said…ow," he finally finished.

"It's just that laughing so hard made my sides hurt."

"Sides? Here?" he asked, his large hands moving from her back to either side of her stomach.

She nodded, their eyes still locked on each other.

"Why does laughter make them hurt?"

"It…stretches the muscles," she replied. "Don't you ever start aching from laughter?"

"I do not laugh."

"What? Ever?"

"No."

"You are a strange one," she breathed. Her hands moved up to his shoulders; she had to stand on tiptoe to reach them. Slowly she traced her right index finger up his neck and along his jaw. "I'm sorry," she whispered, but made no move to stop.

For his part, words once again would not come. Her touch electrified him. Excited him. His body would soon betray him, he knew, but he was frozen to the spot…frozen in this embrace. He closed his eyes when her finger found his lips, and reopened them as she traced up his cheek.

He wanted her. His body made that crystal clear to him. She stood as tall as her small frame would allow, reaching her hand behind his neck.

"You are playing with fire," he managed to get out as he allowed her to lower his head.

"Maybe I want to get burned."

He moved the last few inches and found her lips, expecting nothing more than he had experienced with any number of slaves or captured women over the years. But he had been mistaken. She really was playing with fire. And so too, he knew, was he.

He lifted her easily, crushing her to his body as her tongue slid along his lips. This wasn't right. But it was. Opening his mouth, he devoured her, demanding as he always did that she surrender. But he felt her back away, her hands pushing her head apart from his.

Belah felt wild. He felt alive.

"No."

How many times had he heard someone say that to him in his life? More than he could ever count, but it had never stopped him. It wasn't about what they wanted; it was about what he was going to take from them.

"Radzi, no."

He flinched again, his automatic response to hearing that name. He set her down, confused, his blood racing, heart pounding, jeans growing even tighter across his groin.

"No?" he asked, as though the word were from a language he'd never heard before.

She shook her head as he lowered her to the ground. "You can't just take. You have to give as well."

Give. The most he'd ever given someone was when he told people they could try to convince him that he shouldn't kill them. But he always killed them anyway. Or, at least, given out punishment. It was all part and parcel of having slaves.

"You look confused. Come." She took his hand and led him back to the tiny camp. She unzipped her tent with one hand as the colors of an Arizona sunset began filling the sky.

She was right. He was confused. Give. What was it she expected him to give? She had initiated the contact, why did she then say no? He really and truly did not understand at all.

"Come inside with me. It will be getting cold soon, and our fire died while we were out walking."

He recalled something she had said that morning, about having to leave to go to work, and wondered why she was still here. He had to get on his hands and knees to fit his six-foot-one frame into the confines of the tent, and she followed him in, turning to zip the entrance shut behind them.

Then she sat atop her sleeping bag and motioned for him to do the same. "When I say you have to give as well," she began, "it's because…well, it just feels like all you want to do is take me."

He didn't see the problem with this, but kept his mouth shut.

"Radzi," she said so softly he barely heard it. "I want you. I don't know why, I just do."

"I want you," he repeated, only this time actually meant the words to be more than an echo of hers.

She gave a small laugh. "For some reason it sounds like you're leaving off 'and I will have you.'"

He opened his mouth, and then shut it again. How well she knew him in only a day…how could that be? He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. He was at a loss for what his next step should be. Except maybe it should be away.

This was no good. It couldn't be. It shouldn't be.

"You're getting ready to bolt. Why, Radzi? Why are you so afraid of me?"

That hit him where it hurt. At first he felt indignant, followed by enraged, followed by frightened, lost, confused, alone and hurt in rapid succession. Nearly all were feelings he was unfamiliar with and the whirlwind left him breathless as he watched her in the waning light.

"Let's just lay down," she suggested. "I have to be up early. I still have to go to work in the morning."

He nodded, feeling the pressure she'd placed on him ease a little. She quickly unzipped the sleeping bag and removed her coat and boots. Then she looked up at where he was still seated at the bottom of the bag and smiled. "Usually I sleep naked."

His pulse throbbed at his throat. He looked from her eyes, to her mouth. Her mouth, to her chin. Down her neck to the brown tee shirt she wore. Down further to the curve that beckoned from her chest. Belah Gaat, a man who had killed more men than all serial killers in history combined, wanted to touch them so badly. He knew they would be soft and supple. His hands began to ache.

Catherine placed her fingers at the bottom of her shirt. "I'm not really modest," she said, blushing. Pulling it halfway up, so that only her abdomen was exposed, she reached across and took his hands, guiding them to her waist. "Steady me."

He felt the smooth skin of her body under his hands and became so dizzy he had to close his eyes. He heard the swish of her shirt being removed. When she told him to look, he did. That gnawing ache, the one he'd been feeling these last many weeks, the one that no meal could satisfy, returned with a vengeance to his body now.

"I will give myself to you," she offered, placing her hands over where his still encircled her waist, "if you will give yourself to me."

That was what had been the beginning of the end. It didn't matter if he just took what he wanted. It was when someone willingly gave to him and he equally willingly gave back. This split-second decision, one he would have known better than to make under completely different circumstances, was to seal his fate…and that of this innocent called Catherine.

"I will," he breathed, rocking up to his knees and moving until he was directly in front of her. His hands moved an inch up until he felt her belly beneath his thumbs.

Her hands cupped his face as their lips met, and the sweet breath of her whispered words disappeared into his mouth. "I will."

The urgency was there, like before, only somehow slower and not so consuming. Like an empty vessel he felt her fill him, pouring shining liquid into the empty hollow he'd become, bringing cracks of light into the darkest recesses of parts of him he was convinced were long-dead.

Her mouth, her tongue, the feel of her body as she leaned into him. He realized after several minutes that she was trying to push him back, and so he let himself fall to a sitting position, sticking his legs straight out in front of himself. In wonder, he watched as she grabbed the bottom of his tee shirt and pulled it up and over his head. He grasped the fabric and tossed it aside, watching her look at him.

Her breasts waited beneath the see-through lace of her bra. Oh, how he ached with need, with desire. Her hands darted out to feel the defined ridges of his abdomen, to move upward over his pectorals. He shivered, and it wasn't because he was cold.

He was learning to feel. Like a blind man or a babe fresh from its mother's womb. The sense of touch…he had never known what it was like to have someone adore you with touch, to worship you with touch. He had worshiped Tin-Tin's mother this way, but she had not reciprocated. The fact was she had never loved him; she had only been using him for her own greedy purposes.

This was, after all, ironic since that had always been his M.O.

But this woman, she was unlike any he had encountered. Everywhere her fingertips roamed turned into melted flesh. Everywhere her mouth touched his body became white-hot fire. He watched her consume him inch by inch and silently begged for her to take him all, to leave nothing behind.

"Tell me," she said, and he realized she was nose-to-nose with him. "Tell me what it is you are thinking right this very moment."

He was surprised by how easily he said it. "Take me. All of me." Was that him? Was he begging?

"You are giving yourself to me," she whispered, leaning down so their noses touched. "Yes." She kissed him softly, chastely, upon the lips. "Yes," she breathed, nuzzling her way down his neck. She reached behind her body and undid the clasps of her bra, letting the straps fall along her arms.

He reached up, hesitant, unsure. This was new territory. This was not a conquest or a possession. This was…different. She nodded and his hands found both straps over her biceps. Gently he pulled them down along her arms, freeing her to his eyes. The bra was gone and forgotten.

She shifted and laid herself on top of the sleeping bag. "Come, Radzi," she said softly, opening her arms to him.

This woman of the golden hair and whom he knew absolutely nothing about was inviting him to take her. No…not take her…to give to her. To give himself.

The last time he'd given himself…no! He blocked that from his mind. No! He would not think of that. He would think only of this one before him. "Catherine," he said, his voice emerging as a deep rumbling bass.

Leaning down, he realized the ache was beginning to disappear. He kissed her. His body burned. He licked along her jaw, up her cheek to her ear. He moaned in harmony with her. His mouth moved down as his hands stroked her hair, the color and oddly the same scent as fresh, rich honey.

Such sweetness he had never known. The small sounds she made. The sighs, the mews, the gasps. And all in response to him. He didn't feel the same this time. He was somehow being gentle, but he wasn't sure how or why or what was guiding his ministrations. And then, as his mouth moved to her belly button, then to the waistband of her jeans, she arched into him and he knew.

He was following her lead. He was responding to her. He was doing what she wanted and needed and desired, rather than what he wanted and needed and desired. And yet somehow, even though he wasn't thinking at all about what he wanted, he was getting it.

The concept was novel. It was something he had not considered. That by giving someone else what they needed, you yourself would receive the same. How had he missed this? How in life had this concept, which seemed so very simple and yet still so very complex to him, been missed?

Her jeans were removed, as were his. There was almost nothing left separating them. Not only could he not get enough of her softness, but he couldn't stop wanting to experience her reactions. It was as though each time he kissed or licked or touched her, the reactions were tiny gifts. Gifts that kept piling higher and higher and higher until he could almost stand no more.

Mindful of the fact that he dwarfed her considerably, he laid atop her just enough that she would feel his body the length of hers, but not enough to crush her. She smiled, looking into his eyes, her body responding to his proximity. She rose up to kiss him, and then settled back. He lowered his lips to hers, kissed her thoroughly, and then pulled back.

It was choreographed. A dance was all he could liken it to. But much more beautiful and satisfying than the dances his slaves did. They were ridiculous, in all honesty. And in that moment, looking into eyes he wasn't even sure of the color in the near darkness, he vowed to release every slave as soon as he returned to his temple. All of them. To hell with them and their forced worship of him. He now understood how fake their 'love' for him was.

Because this woman he held was worshiping him. Only she actually felt it.

He caressed her, eagerly waiting for her signals that what he was doing was right. Her hands moved everywhere, he felt like such a giant against them, towering over her. He didn't want to overpower her, he wanted to…do…to…to what? What was this he wanted?

The lovers. He recalled the card from the tarot deck his mother had used during his early childhood. Lover. He wanted a lover. To…make love. He rose to his knees and saw her body shiver. Pulling her to a sitting position, he then reversed so he was seated and she was in his lap, her legs around his waist.

"I want to watch you. I want to see you." And he did. He knew how to bring a woman to ecstasy. His father's friends had made him learn how to do it for their amusement. And over time using his slaves as experimental toys, he had figured out every intimate and intricate detail of womanhood. But he hadn't ever cared whether they enjoyed it. He'd only cared that he was the one making them lose that control over themselves.

This time, he cared.

Cared. Did he? He did? He cared…what?

The shock of the thought numbed him at first, and then he felt a tingling sensation at the very tip of his head. As it swept down into his face, and then his neck, and began dissipating throughout his body, his eyes squeezed shut and then flew open. He looked at her eyes and knew instantly they were hazel. Nearly gold around the pupils and a dark green to the whites of them, they sparkled under her long lashes.

He looked at her mouth and knew she wanted to taste his. He obliged.

He smoothed her mussed hair down along her head, feeling its silkiness in between his fingers and once again was overcome with the scent of honey.

He wrapped his arms around her body, enveloping her, surrounding her, owning her but not as property. No, not this time. This time because she desired it. He felt humbled and empowered all at once as her arms wrapped around his back. He felt scared and overjoyed. He felt need and fulfillment. He felt as though his chest would burst.

Belah Gaat was lost. She pulled back, forcing him to let her go, and her hands moved down to his tight black boxer briefs. Before he knew it, she had taken him completely, crying out into the still night air. Again, he couldn't be sure if it had only been her voice, for it felt as though he, too, had made the sounds.

She moved. Wet. Hot. Mad. Fever. The tingling, the rush, the satiation. He'd had sex more times than any man alive, most likely. He'd been having sex for forty years now. But that's all it had been.

This? This was more.

She moved faster. He moaned into her mouth, kissing her, holding her, rocking her, feeling her. Just plain feeling.

And when their climax came, he knew for certain his voice had cried out just as loudly as hers.

He rested his forehead against hers, ragged, rasping breaths rendering him unable to speak.

"Radzi," she whispered, kissing him softly.

This time he didn't flinch.