Chapter 25 - Cairo (Part 2)

Sunday 9th June - Lauren's Birthday

The following morning Lauren woke to an empty bed; it was still warm so she knew that Bo had not long left. She scanned the room, seeing no sign of her she got up from the bed wrapping the sheet around her naked body as she walked towards the bathroom. Lauren had never been a needy person, however this morning she missed Bo already and wanted just to simply see her. Opening the bathroom, she found it empty, and part of her heart sunk. Lauren turned suddenly when she heard the sound of a key turn. Frozen to the spot she hoped it was Bo and not the hotel cleaner. Her heart literally jumped back into action when she saw Bo popping her head around the door and walking in with a tray in her hands.

"Morning birthday girl." Bo proclaimed excitedly. "Breakfast in bed to start. All your favourites and not a bowl of porridge in sight."

Lauren giggled and hurried back to the bed where she sat back against the headboard with her legs stretched out in front of her. Bo sat beside her and placed the tray on Lauren's lap.

"So we have a grilled grapefruit, coffee from Starbucks." Bo pointed to the large paper cup. "I know how much my baby loves her caramel macchiato. And, we have poached eggs on an onion bagel."

Lauren studied her breakfast, it was all her favourites and Bo had not only remembered, she had specially got these for her. "Did you cook this?"

Bo laughed, "No baby. Jeffery did, I simply walked to Starbucks."

"Are you not eating?" Lauren asked.

"Yeah, mine is on its way. I wanted to bring yours up." Just then the door knocked and Bo answered it. Jeffery had her tray in his hands and she took it. After thanking him she walked back to the bed to join Lauren. On her tray was the same as what Lauren had.

They ate together, sitting side by side in comfortable silence. When they finished, Bo moved the trays to the side table and reached inside her carry bag and presented Lauren with two perfectly wrapped gifts.

"Here you go. I hope you like them." Bo spoke nervously as she handed the gifts to a rather excited Lauren.

"I love them." Lauren replied.

"You've not opened them yet." Bo said, smiling at the adorableness of Lauren at that moment.

"But I already love them, because you got me them, and I love you." Lauren grinned. "What one first?"

"I don't know." Bo replied. "Do you normally open presents in order?"

"Yeah," Lauren grinned, answering Bo's question.

"You're so quirky. Ok, then in that case, open the bigger one first." Bo sat closer to Lauren and kissed her shoulder.

Lauren tilted her head to the side and kissed Bo back on her lips. "This is a perfect birthday." Lauren opened the gold wrapped present and inside was a white digital photo frame. She had seen them before and always thought they were a nice idea. She opened the box and stuck to the glass screen was a post-it note that said PLAY ME. Lauren smiled and turned to face Bo raising an eyebrow at her, "And what do we have here?"

"You have to press play baby." Bo replied and shifted so that she could see over Lauren's shoulder as she pressed play. The first photo appeared and it was Bo and Lauren on the beach in Sharks Bay, Lauren in her pale blue vest and shorts. It was taken on their first date. "I was so nervous that day." Bo said breaking the silence. "I knew then that I loved you, and I really wanted you to like me back. This is the day you showed me your Irish dancing." They both laughed at the memory.

"I loved you from the moment you fell in the pool." Lauren smiled, turning to face Bo, suddenly serious. "So you needed to catch up a bit baby. I was already yours when that photo was taken." Lauren took Bo's arms that were wrapped around her and tightened the hold.

The next picture was them standing outside Cleo's. It was taken on one of their many nights out. Behind them was the moon and beach and they were smiling big grins. "Do you remember this?" Bo asked. "It was just after you had been on the bronco bull and beaten Kenzi's time by three seconds. You would've thought that you'd won a prize."

"I did win a prize, I won a personal battle. You see I was challenged by Kenzi on the night that we first got together, but I was a bit sore so declined her challenge, and she basically berated me. So, I had to show her I could do it, and to win was just amazing." Lauren looked genuinely happy both right at that moment and in the photo, Bo kissed her shoulder again.

The next one was them both underwater at Ras Mohamed. They were sitting on the sea floor, crossed legged with masks on and snorkels poking out the side. Big grins on their faces. The one after showed them as they were getting back to shore, sun setting in the distance. Troy had taken it.

"The day I told you about Kyle." Bo shifted in her seated position, making a bit of space between them.

"The day you let me completely in." Lauren replied, wiggling herself back against Bo.

The slideshow continued. A few more of their dates, some pictures that Bo had taken of Lauren without her knowing and a few of when they hired the beach villa. They were perfect. They watched the slideshow laughing at some of the more ridiculous ones like the one where Bo dressed in Lauren's white coat and holding a reflex hammer. Others they silently held each other at the more romantic ones, a favourite was a simple black and white one that was taken by Troy of them on the stern of the boat. Bo had her eyes closed and head bowed forward and Lauren was stood in front kissing her forehead, her eyes also closed.

"I didn't know you took so many pictures of me Bo." Lauren teased, once the slideshow had finished.

"Well, baby, you are so adorably cute in that white coat of yours and I always look forward to your weekly walks; you have your entourage of hotel managers following you and you seem so authoritative with your clipboard and pencil. Every time I see you I squirm and have to take a photo." Bo replied.

"In that case baby, I will remember to take that coat and clipboard home more often." Lauren giggled into Bo's warm embrace.

Bo shuddered at the thought and smiled into Lauren's shoulder.

Snapping herself out of her now dirty thoughts, Bo spoke, "Oh shit, it also plays music. I have downloaded our playlist onto it." Bo pressed the device and the slideshow started up again. The first song was When You Lie Next to Me. They watched the pictures again, this time with the music, and in silence. Every photo a reminder of how perfect they were together, but also how short a time they had known each other, as the photos only lasted two songs. Bo swallowed that doubt down, yes it was going fast, but she didn't care, did she?

"So, now we have the next one." Bo handed her the smaller, wrapped present.

Lauren carefully unwrapped the gift to reveal two smaller Pandora boxes and she smiled. The first one was a camel and they both laughed. The second was a heart, with the words "I LOVE YOU". Lauren put them both onto her bracelet that Tamsin had bought her, a tear forming in her eye, "Bo, I'm so happy", she said kissing her, "I love you too."

They showered, changed into shorts and vest tops and went downstairs to the reception. After a brief chat with Jeffrey they were readily armed with maps of the city, a list of places to visit and two Segway's to get around on. After a few shaky starts on manoeuvring their Segway's they were on their way out to explore the city. Deciding on visiting the Musue de Cairo first, an impressive building in the centre of Cairo city. The gold leaf decoration invited you in, the queue was already forming at the entrance. Once inside the contrast was overwhelming, poorly kept tables showing ancient artefacts, dust aligned the exhibitions and floors, and cracks were in the walls. It was sad to see that the building was not kept in a better state of repair. Ignoring the building they were soon in Lauren guide mode, with Lauren leading every conversation as she brought to life what was around them with stories, facts and antidotes as they went from room to room, exhibition to exhibition. More people stood to hear her stories and Bo felt very proud of her genius girlfriend, people automatically assumed she was the official guide and some asked her questions. Suddenly the sound of sirens and blue lights were flashing from their room, which resulted in them being chased from floor to floor and eventually out the front door by security guards. Bo had decided it would be funny to place an antique mask against her face to make Lauren laugh not knowing it would set off the alarms. Full of apologies, Bo promised to make it up to Lauren. Lauren for her part, could not stop laughing, insisted that Bo need not apologise and it was the most fun she ever had in a museum.

In fits of giggles and back on their Segway's, they parked up next at the grand bazaar. A market place full of colour, spices, made-made cloths as well as many tacky tourist items. They wondered through the busy streets, in the busier parts they took each other's hand in secret, still aware of their surroundings and to be respectful in a Muslim country. They made small purchases for each other, Bo bought Lauren a green, silk scarf after she commented on how the colour suited her. Lauren bought Bo a small postcard of the stars' consolations of Orion, and wrote on the back of it simply "Always Here, Always Yours".

They had lunch from a street seller, albeit Lauren insisting in telling Bo that her preferred hot dogs were in fact made with the gonads, eyeballs and intestines of dead animals. This putting Bo off for life, they opted instead for Sambuca, little pastry parcels filled with spinach, cheese and egg, and portable enough to eat while driving their Segway's back to the hotel. Last night they had spotted a raised decking area with sun-beds on the roof, and after deciding that they had seen enough of the city, headed back. They both wanted to just lay in the sun for an hour until they had to leave at three pm.

The rooftop was busy. Jeffrey and Timothy were sitting on seats under an umbrella. Scott and Hayden were lying on the sunbeds. Bo and Lauren had met them last night, so politely nodded in their direction. Two ladies in their thirties were beside them.

"There." Bo pointed to the other side of the decking to where two empty sunbeds were lying side-by-side. They walked hand in hand and placed their towels down upon them. They had their bikini's already on and undressed and applied sun-lotion on each other.

"Wow, even I think that's hot." Scott shouted over. "Hayden don't put cream on me like that." Hayden nudged him and they both laughed.

Both Bo and Lauren blushed, the truth was they adored each other's bodies and maybe they were being a bit too much.

"Ignore them girls, we understand. We were like that once. Let me guess, you're in your first quarter?" one of the Spanish ladies called over.

"Our what?" Lauren asked.

"Primeros tres meses, erm, first three-months?" She replied.

"Ohh, I see, then I suppose yes." Lauren said, lying down on her sun-bed.

"That's like three lesbian years. You will be living together next." The lady laughed back.

"Actually, we kind of already do." Bo shifted on her feet, turning she laid down in her front, facing the ladies.

"Wow, you are fast. Even for Lesbians. Let's introduce ourselves. I'm Carmen and this is my wife Petra." Carmen waved, Petra followed suit.

Both Lauren and Bo waved back over, "Hi, I'm Lauren. This is Bo."

"Hello Bo and Lauren, nice to meet you. You will be married by this time next week, the way you go." They laughed and laid back down on their sunbed.

Bo looked over her shoulder and smiled over to Lauren, who had a goofy grin on her face. Knowing Lauren, we will be, Bo thought. Bo was feeling suddenly like she was being sat on by an enormous elephant, she closed her eyes and push it to the back of her mind.

The next hour passed with conversations flowing nicely and drinks being served. They got to know each other better and was looking forward to spending time together. Scott and Hayden were sincerely nice, a bit naive but that was probably because they were still so young being only 20 years old. Carmen and Petra were older, in their mid-thirties, and had many a story to tell. Carmen worked in an art gallery in Barcelona, while Petra owed her own Bistro down Las Ramblas. Timothy interrupted their conversations to announce that they had only fifteen minutes to get ready, which evoked a panic with Hayden, who 'simply couldn't get ready that fast', making the rest of the group laugh.

Back at the room, Bo packed them up while Lauren sat and watched her slideshow for the third time that day. She had blue-toothed over some of her own pictures of Bo, mainly of her in the bar, some of the ones she had taken of their dates and all from the last few days. Lauren insisted that she had Bo's phone to do the same, and was proudly announcing that she had filled more songs. Lauren couldn't wait to show off the new pictures, so far she had filled three songs, When You Lie Next to Me, No Place That Far and Beautiful with You. Fifteen minutes later they met the others downstairs and got into their land-rover.

The journey to the outskirts of Cairo took one hour and they stopped only once at the checkpoint. They were informed that they were to be the last adventure jeep into the region, due to the impending election. Lauren could not hold her excitement when they drove into 'The Secret Valley', an outdoor adventure camp. They were situated amongst nature and a lake, lined up along the lake were individual wooden huts and in the centre, was a large camp fire and main hall. They were shown their hut, number 22, which was near the main hall looking over the lake. From the outside, the huts looked small, however they were deceiving bigger inside. They had a king-sized bed in the middle that had a sky light above, to the right was a small bathroom with a wet room shower. To the left they had a couple of beanbags and a coffee table. Behind the bed was a chest of drawers for their clothes. They were told they had only fifteen minutes to unpack, and regroup outside.

The day and night programme was being handed out when they arrived at the camp fire area. Timothy was asking for signatures for the nature walk, while Jeffrey was getting people signed up for the kayaking. Their group had joined another group and in total there was around thirty people at the camp, this day was the LGBT dedicated day and the people from the other group wore LGBT lanyards. They were quickly told that the lanyards were to be used for purchasing anything on site and that it would be automatically added to their hut. Lauren and Bo were handed their lanyards, and placed them over their head shrugging at each other.

"So what do you fancy?" Bo asked, studying the programme.

"You." Lauren replied, nudging her with her shoulder.

Bo looked up and smiled. "You have that, I meant what do you fancy doing while we're here? We have just a day, so need to try and fit in some adventure tonight and maybe the mud baths and massages in the morning?"

Bo looked around the camp, there were areas all around set up for all kinds of activities; a yoga corner, Thai boxing, crafts; none of which interested Bo. Then she spotted it. What she wanted to do, the adventure that they needed, grabbing Lauren's hand she ran toward the booth.

"Hello there, I want to hire one of those please," Bo said pointing to a Samari Jeep.

The young attendant looked up and stumbled his words, "I, I, I, I'm sorry miss they're for day only. We don't rent them out after four pm."

Bo placed her hand over his and looked into his eyes, "really?" she asked, "it's only just gone four pm now and we're only here today. Is your boss around?"

"No." the young boy barely whispered back.

"Then it's just between us and we will bring it back in an hour or two. No harm done." Bo continued to stroke his hand, "are the keys inside?"

The boy nodded.

"So can we take it?" Bo asked.

"yes, ok then." the boy was mesmerised and had a goofy look on his face.

"Great", Bo let go of his hand and they quickly jumped into the jeep before he changed his mind.

"Do you always get your own way baby?" Lauren asked, in between fits of giggles.

"I don't know what you mean." Bo laughed back.

"Where are we heading?" Lauren asked.

"Just a drive, we don't need to join the bus for the lake, we can get there first and grab the best canoe, leave when we want and have a bit of an explore." Bo sped off down the mountain, causing dust to flare up over the jeep.

Lauren coughed back the dust, "Ok Hamilton, calm down the driving, I'm eating half this mountain. And what is the best canoe, a canoe is a canoe." Lauren laughed.

"Breathe through your nose baby. And the best one is the one I want. I can't believe I'm going in a canoe, I have never done any outdoor sports." Bo admitted, keeping the drive at a fast speed.

"Ok baby, you sure you know where you're going? I can't see the lake anymore, and we were right on it." Lauren looked around to see only woodland.

"Yeah, I will head down until I find water." Bo smirked, happy with her plan. She was wondering the same thing.

Ten minutes later and after navigating down a walking trail in their jeep, they found the lake road and a building with boats to the side. "There, I have found the activities centre." Bo announced proudly.

Lauren looked at the old building and was not convinced.

"Really? I would have thought it would be painted, maybe the words 'Activity Centre' on it, and I don't know, some people around Bo!" Lauren stood up in the jeep.

"Well, this is even better Lo, just us. Come on, where's your sense of adventure." Bo hopped out of the jeep and ran toward the upturned boat.

Lauren sat back down, opened the door and followed Bo muttering the words, "My sense of adventure is in the same place as the life vests, not here."

Bo was pleased with herself as she sat in the middle of the lake, that she had managed to manoeuvre the boat by herself using the ores. Never been outdoorsy so felt a sense of pride in her achievements. The weather was still warm, however neither fancied a swim, instead choosing to use the romantic setting as a place to simply make out, getting carried away on a few occasions, adding 'outdoor, on a boat, on a lake sex' as part of their ever-growing repertoire.

"I can't believe how lucky I'm to just have you here, alone with me. No distractions, no phone calling you away, no patient that needs you, just mine, all mine, all day." Bo whispered into Lauren's ear as she continued to hold her tight against her chest. Lauren sitting in front of Bo, legs stretched out in front of her.

"Me too, no emergency taking you away, a rush delivery that needs only you to sign for, or Kenzi rushing in to share something or another, or your drunk clients insisting that you stay after work for a drink for the road. I swear that road gets wetter every night. Ahh, this is bliss, but you know it won't last. Alas, we're back tomorrow to normality." Lauren sighed, truth be told she wished she could stay longer.

"Well, birthday girl, I promise you that I will make sure that I spend more time with you." Bo squeezed tighter.

"We do spend every waking minute we're not at work or with our bessies together already Bo, it's just I do want more. I want to know that you are mine. Do I sound like a stalker?" Lauren asked.

"No, you sound like me. A woman in love, as the great Barbara would sing. A happy woman in love." Bo answered.

"Oh Bo, I really am. You have completed me these last few months. I'm so happy that I came to Egypt. Do you believe in fate Bo? As I thought I would meet someone here. I think I loved you before I met you." Lauren sang the last part.

"Ah, cute. I love Savage Garden too. And you know there's still time to meet someone Lauren." Bo, for the first time showed her vulnerability.

"Don't be daft Bo. It's you, it was always you, and it will always be you." Lauren said reassuring her.

"When we're like this Lauren I believe you, but what happens when we go back to the real world?" Bo asked.

"There's no real world, there's only us, there's only this for me." Lauren replied.

"Really?" Bo asked, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "Just that's what I want also. What I need also, just you."

"Do you mean that Bo?" Lauren turned around and knelled in front of Bo.

Bo sat up straight, Lauren had a serious look suddenly and a lump formed in her throat. In truth, she wanted to scream yes, but caution held her back. "What are you doing?"

Lauren took the small box from her bag and pushed it into Bo's hands.

"Is this what I think it is?" Bo asked.

"No, well yes, well no, not really. It's not a ring or a proposal if that's what you are thinking." Lauren blushed.

"Ok what is it?" Bo asked.

"Open it." Lauren replied.

Bo carefully unwrapped the perfect gift to reveal a black jewellery box with the name Carters of Ireland in gold leaf on the top. Bo opened and found the exact necklace that Lauren wore, with another silver pendant next to it.

"Read the pendant." Lauren said

Bo took it in her fingers and turned it over to read "You are my everything, now and always. Your Lauren x"

"This is beautiful Lauren." Bo took it out the box and placed it over her neck.

Lauren sat up and held the both pendants in her hand. "I want you to know that from this day onwards you are my family Bo. I know you hurt with not knowing what name to have, Rainer or Dennis. I want you to know that I want to give you mine. You are all I ever need, all I ever want is you, and I hope that one day you will give me the honour of being my wife. This is my promise of a proposal, and until it's official, wear this as a sign of my commitment to you. The commitment to us and the family we will one day create together. To the family we already have, Kenzi, Tamsin and the boys. And to know that you will never be without family again."

Bo hugged Lauren so tight that the boat started to rock, as tears fell from her eyes. Lauren planted soft kisses on Bo's wet face, she still had not said a word.

Bo was in turmoil, it was all happening so fast, yet it felt so natural. "I do, I want to be your family Lauren, I want to be your wife." Bo finally spoke.

Lauren sat back and held Bo close, she was happy with what she had just done, she had proposed to propose to Bo. She had made a promise to Bo that she would never be alone again, that she had a family when the time was right for them. She smiled, she was the happiest she had ever been, and it was all because of Bo. The smile faded as she saw one of the ores floating by the boat, just out of arms reach.

"Erm Bo, we have a problem." Lauren pointed to the ore floating away.

"Shit, fuck, shit!" Bo jumped up, grabbing the other ore to try and pull it back in.