Sari's Bargain

Two hours later I returned to the house to find Sari sitting in the sun room. She was again looking at some papers, but as I entered she put them down, stood up and came to me, and kissed me on the lips.

“Good morning David,” she said, looking at me as if to try and gauge my reaction.

I returned her kiss and said, “Got to get on with some work.” I left her.

I tried to settle down to some serious study but for a long time Sari kept bursting into my head. It was thus for the next two days.

It was clear that Sari’s remoteness towards me was a thing of the past. We both avoided any reference to what had passed between us on the boat, but we both acknowledged the other’s existence through normal if fairly superficial conversations. Sari even asked me if we could go to the Sunday afternoon concert, to which I agreed.

Chapter 12. The Bargain

Before that Sunday father was off up north for yet another trial. The morning he left I heard another of the rows between him and Sari and this time it really could be heard all over the house. I tried to get the gist of what it was about, but all I heard was my father bellowing, “It’s not my damned fault, woman.” When he left I heard more weeping coming from their bedroom.

After what had passed between us I decided that this time I could intervene. I knocked on the bedroom door but got no answer. I opened the door cautiously and looked in. Sari was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her nightdress, her head in her hands, weeping. I seemed to be always involved with her crying.

I went to her and put my arm round her shoulders. “What is it, Sari? What is it between you and father? I’ve heard you arguing and squabbling before, but nothing like this.”

She remained silent except for her sobs for a minute, then said in a muffled voice, “I don’t think you need to be told what’s wrong, David. It’s obvious isn’t it?”

It wasn’t obvious to me and I had to confess as much.

“What am I doing in this house, David? Why am I married to your father?”

“Well…I suppose…” I took a wild stab at an answer, “because you love him?”

She let out a long sigh.

I tried again; “Because he loves you?”

Suddenly she became animated, her tears laid aside. “Oh for God’s sake don’t be such a romantic, David. I’m here to produce a son for your father.”

“Yes, we’ve talked about that before.”

“And where is the son?”

“I er….”

“There isn’t one, is there?”

“No, but there’s more to…”

“That was the bargain, David. I got security in exchange for giving him a male child, and it hasn’t happened.”

I had assumed this arrangement all along but to hear her spell it out so blatantly I found shocking.

“How did you and father come to make this arrangement…I mean, I’ve no idea how or where you met…you were just dropped into my life unheralded.”

“You want to know how it began, David?”

“Yes.”

“All right; it was during the extension course I did at the university. The course was designed to train us in the better helping of refugees coming to this country. Your father came to give us a couple of lectures on the legal aspects; you know, our rights, gaining resident’s status, that sort of thing.”

After the first lecture I managed to pluck up the courage to approach him and ask him for clarification on a couple of points he had made. That’s how it started.

“He was very paternal and I think that was something I needed. Both my parents were killed during the civil war; I suppose I responded to his fatherly manner.”

He answered my questions and then went on to ask me how long I had been in this country and did I intend to stay. We chatted for so long that all the other students had left and it was well past lunchtime.” “To cut a long story short he offered to buy me lunch. I felt safe with him, so I accepted. He was the first man I had felt secure with since…what we spoke of happened.”

“He had second lecture to give later in the week, and after that I made up a question to ask him, just so I could be near him again. It wasn’t love or sex David; it was the feeling of safety he gave me. He seemed so strong, so reliable.”

“Then it was lunch with him again and at his suggestion dinner with him the next evening. To begin with I had no idea how well off he was, but it became obvious in the sort of places he took me to.”

“I wasn’t naïve David, I could see he was, as you people say, “smitten,” so I went along with it. Then after a while I was told about his “ingrate” of a son and how he wished he had a second son to succeed him in the legal firm.”

“I don’t need to spell it out in further detail, do I? It was a straight exchange of a son for security. A bloody whore, aren’t I? The trouble is I haven’t kept my side of the bargain.”

“But there’s still time for that, Sari.”

“You think so?”

“Well, why not?”

“That’s what I wondered, David. I wondered if what had happened to me, or the termination of my pregnancy had made it impossible for me to get pregnant ever again. I had all the tests and was told there was no reason why I could not get pregnant.”

“Then…father…”

“Yes, but he won’t admit it. He keeps on about having sired you so there was no reason on his side why I should not get pregnant.”

“But…then…”

“David, your father is a sick man, don’t you know that? No perhaps you don’t because he won’t admit it to himself. I think I’m the only person who does know. He paid out for the best medical advice he could buy, and now won’t take the advice given.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“The most obvious is extremely high blood pressure. For a man of obvious intelligence, he can be incredibly stupid. He has been prescribed medication that he won’t take. He says it’s all nonsense.”

“He is also suffering from other organic problems about which he will do nothing. It’s as if he sees himself as immortal; or perhaps he sees it like one of those unwinnable court cases that he always wins.”

“Sari, are you telling me he can’t…can’t perform…he can’t…”

“Not quite. When we first married he managed, but progressively he’s got worse. He tries but…well…I don’t need to go on, do I?”

“No.”

“I wanted to give him his son, David, I really did, and not just because of our bargain. I really would like to have a baby for its own sake; can you understand that?”

“I understand.”

“George’s aggression towards me has been getting increasingly worse, heaping blame on me. You see, it wasn’t as if he really loved me right from the start. Oh, he found me sexually desirable enough, but what he really wanted was a womb to breed a child in.”

“And you, Sari, did you love him?”

“Not as a woman should love a man she was going to have a child with. I admired him, and as I said, I felt safe with him and in terms of material things he had everything to offer me, and most of all, I would become a citizen of this country, but love; no.”

I held her to me for a long time. I could find no words of praise or condemnation. Looking over my own sexual behaviour decided me that before condemning another, I should begin with myself.

Then Sari made one of her obscure remarks.

“I didn’t know how dearly I would come to want the one thing you can’t bargain for.”

I was about to question this, but before I could she performed one of her bolt from the blue antics, changing the subject.

“David, I’m a mess, I must get showered and changed. Thank you for listening to me, once again.” She tried to smile and I was dismissed.

Chapter 13. I Get a Warning.

I left her room knowing still more about Sari and more bemused than ever. I somehow felt I had a responsibility in the situation, but had no idea at that moment how I should exercise it, or even if I should exercise it at all.

As I left the bedroom I saw Lisa dusting a table in the passage. She looked at me quizzically for a moment. We had known each other since I was a child, and there had never been any of the master-servant nonsense between us.

“Mrs. Brook has been very friendly lately; she seems to have softened somehow.”

“Yes.”

“It’s as if something has happened to her so she can let you see the inside.”

“Yes.”

“Be careful there, David.”

“How do you mean?”

“She’s young and very attractive. Just be careful.”

I had felt a bit unjustifiably guilty at being seen coming out of Lisa’s bedroom, so I just said rather lamely, “I’ll be careful, Lisa,” and hurried on.

I continued to cogitate on what if anything I could do; but what could I do in any case? An ailing father with diminished potency wanting a son with a wife whom he could not get pregnant! I tried to dismiss the conundrum and went to take my own shower and change. “After breakfast,” I thought, “I’ll lose myself in some serious studying.”

I worked in my study until lunchtime. I usually ate lunch in the kitchen with Lisa and Josie and on arriving in the kitchen was amazed to see Sari sitting at the table eating.

“Thought I’d eat in here,” she said, “It’s cosier than that great dining room.”

None of us commented, but clearly Sari’s presence was yet another mark of her changing attitude. My father being away, Sari also joined us in the kitchen for the early evening meal.

After the evening meal and the clearing up Josie and Lisa were off home; Sari and I went to the sun room and helped ourselves to drinks. Through the long windows we could see the sun going down behind the trees, its branch filtered light making a moving pattern on the walls and floor. It was very peaceful.

We sat, each wrapped in our own thoughts for some time, and then Sari asked, “Shall we go to the concert this Sunday?”

Attendance at the concert had become such a regular feature in our lives that it almost went without saying we would go. I said rather lazily, “As usual.”

Perhaps my response had sounded too offhand and Sari asked, “Do you want to go with me, David. I mean, have you got tired of my company?”

I sat up sharply; “Of course not, Sari. I love being with you.”

“Even though I’m always telling you woeful stories about my life and crying?”

“Perhaps because you tell me the stories and feel free to cry with me.”

Chapter 14. Talking of Love.

There was another Sari change of direction.

“I haven’t seen your girlfriend around lately.”

“No” I said giving a wry grin, “I’m sort of between girlfriends at the moment.”

“Oh. You don’t seem to keep girlfriends very long. Do you prefer it like that?”

“Yes, it saves getting bored with the same one all the time.”

“Do you ever fall in love with them?”

“Not really. I like them…well…most of them…but I wouldn’t want them around for the rest of my life, if that’s what you mean.”

“Don’t you ever think of settling down with one woman?”

I’d heard that one before, so I gave my standard answer. “I suppose I shall need to get myself a wife one day, you know, respectable doctor and all that. Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered. I suppose I was really wondering about myself; would I ever love or be loved.”

It was my turn to change the subject, so I said, “I know you work among refugees, but you’ve never told me exactly what you do.”

“I suppose you could call me a counsellor. Many of them when they get here are traumatised. They need to talk through their experiences, get them out in the open. That’s what I do. Also we try to explain the emigration laws to them and help to find them somewhere to live. It’s a frightening thing when you’ve perhaps lived all your life in one town or village, to suddenly find yourself in another country with no friends or relatives and you don’t speak the language, you don’t know the laws and customs.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Just think, David, perhaps you get sick and need a doctor. You can’t tell the doctor about your symptoms and can’t understand what the doctor tells you.”

Being well into my medical studies I could certainly appreciate that problem. “Don’t you have doctors who speak the language?”

“A few, but not enough, so some of us have to go with them to the doctor to interpret, but even that can be difficult and sometimes embarrassing for them.”

“Yes, I see that. You really do care, don’t you?”

Unintentionally I had pushed Sari on to the defensive and she rounded on me.

“Do you think your whore stepmother is incapable of caring?”

“For God’s sake, Sari, I didn’t mean that and I think you should know me well enough by now not to even think it. What I was going to say was that since you were speaking of love, your caring is a sort of love.”

She seemed to wilt a little and said, “Sorry David; you’re right, I should know by now.”

She gave me her quizzical look again. “You have cared for me, David.”

She had stepped back from that most dangerous of questions; ‘Do you love me’. The one asked that question may never after feel free to express their love; they will always feel some coercion to do so.

That sent my brain into turmoil. Did I love her? Certainly almost from the first time I had met her I had lusted for her; but then she had only been a desirable body. Once she began to open up to me I started to see beyond the outer beauty. I knew her now as a severely hurt and hurting person and now also as a caring person. As Adrienne had said, “She’s beautiful on the inside.”

I had known the pleasure of her company and conversation, shared experiences with her, and been privy to her deep self. Yes, I loved her, and should she disappear from my life I would grieve for her.

The question was should I openly admit to her my love. To confess to the beloved the love one feels, is to open the self them and all the potential hurts that such openness can give rise to.

Sari had been agonisingly open with me; I decided to follow her example.

“Yes, I love you Sari.”

Even if I had wanted to ask the question, “Do you love me?” I had no need to. The look in her brilliant green eyes said all that was necessary; never the less she spoke the words.

“I love you, David.”

There was no falling into each other’s arms, no passionate kiss; I did not grope for a breast. We sat wrapped in a strange peace. It was like coming in from battling a fierce storm to find a warm fire and dry clothes waiting. We had come home.

Sari spoke very quietly, so quietly that I had to bend towards her to catch the words.

“I knew the first time I met you.”

My mind flew back to that first meeting; the sudden flash of recognition, then the shutter coming down to mask her thoughts and feelings. I felt saddened that I had needed to wait until now to experience the same recognition of her.

“I understood then I was making a mistake,” she went on, “but the bargain had been made, and anyway, I had no means of knowing how you felt.”

I chose not to tell her that my first feelings were those of raw sexual desire.

We sat watching the sun disappear then the room darkened. We did not touch each other or speak. The questions that might have been asked; “What are we going to do?” “Where do we go from here?” “What form can our love take?” hung unasked between us.

Lisa had warned me, “Be careful, David.” She with her female intuition could see the possible direction Sari and I would take, but what content we would give our love was yet to be determined.

Chapter 15. The Deeds of the Night

When the light had gone completely Sari rose and said, “I think I shall have an early night, darling.”

After saying goodnight to her I sat on for a while trying to come to terms with all that had passed between us. I was out in strange territory. The only other person I had ever truly loved had been my mother, but this time it was different. I had no emotional map to guide me.

I tried to analyse the feelings I had experienced with my girl friends, but they in no way matched what I was feeling for Sari. I sighed rose and went to take a shower.

Getting into bed, my mind still wrestling with the strange new relationship I had entered, I felt the return of sexual desire for Sari. It was not as it had been when all I had wanted was to take from her. I wanted to give as well as receive. I wanted…what? I wanted for the first time to make love and not simply have sex. If sex there should be, I wanted it to be an expression of the deep love I felt for Sari.

That night, unbidden, she came to me. I had been half asleep but on hearing her enter I switched on the bed light. She was clad in a diaphanous black nightdress that seemed to cling to her body to reveal every lovely outline of her curves.

She sat on my bed and said, “I want you to give your father what he wants.”

As usual she was ahead of me. “How do you mean, Sari?”

“He wants a son; I want you to give him one…or least a child, boy or girl.”

“But…”

“I also want us to have a physical expression of our love, David. I know you want that as much as I do; in fact you have wanted me physically almost from our first meeting.”

“And you?”

“I want for the first time in my life to copulate with a man I deeply love. I want his child in me. So please, fertilise me David.”

She removed her nightdress and stood looking at me for a moment. I saw naked those breasts I had longed to caress, her firmly cleft vagina as it curved away from her mons to disappear between the top of her thighs. I had to but part her legs and I could plant a kiss on the sweet place she was inviting me into.

She got into bed beside me, pushing away the bedclothes as she did so. I always slept naked, so she could see instantly that I was aroused, my penis standing up and already discharging pre-ejaculation fluid. I felt I had never wanted a woman as much as I now wanted Sari.

She bent over to kiss me her soft lips working to open mine and insert her tongue. My hand reached for the longed for breasts and they were warm and firm under my touch. I gently pressed them, letting my hand move up from their base, to touch and press her nipple.

As I did this she moved to put one leg over me so that I could feel the moist pressure of her vagina against my side. I broke from her kissing and took her nipple into my mouth, sucking it and softly nibbling. She pressed closer to me, squirming her vagina against me to leave a trail of her lubricant.

I sought and found her vagina with my fingers and I began a slow stroking of the outer lips, working my way gradually in to touch her inner lips and her opening.

She was murmuring softly, “I love you David, I love you so dearly. It’s been so long…I’ve needed you so much….”

I think I was responding with my own words of love but cannot now recall what they were.

As I touched her clitoris with my finger, circling it carefully she said, “No David, now” and spread her legs wide. I came between them and with her hand guiding my penis I entered her.

She gave a brief moan and abandoning English began to speak softly in her native tongue. I knew no word of her language, but as she now spoke it I needed no interpreter. Every soft syllable was expressive of a loving passion I had never experienced before.

I pressed into her until my full length was in her, then I paused, looking at her face. She looked up at me, her green eyes fixed on mine as if searching for something there. They seemed to look deep within me asking a question and seeking an answer.

Not sure of what she wanted from me, I spoke words from the heart; words that on occasions when I had coupled with other women would have sounded ridiculous and would probably have set them laughing at me.

“I want you above all women.”

She smiled, closed her eyes and began to move with me as I slid back and forth in her. She was all soft, moist warmth, and utterly open to me. I wanted to stay with her like this without end but my now long abstinence from sexual intercourse produced its own demand.

Sari had continued to speak her love softy in her own tongue, but now her voice began to intensify and with it she increased the rhythm of our coupling, her body beginning to shake. She clung to me, her legs winding round me, finger nails digging into my back. My hands went under her buttocks and thrusting deep into her there shot from me the first ejection of my semen into her.