Chapter 17

With a mother, Farzana and a half-dozen aunties in almost constant attendance, the twins were growing quite rapidly. Tessa had begun pressuring Sam to produce a crop of offspring – half-siblings to Rob and Marge and to each other. She didn’t miss opportunities to point out eligible women: several maidens, two widows and one whose husband had disappeared over a year ago. Sam was weakening. He wasn’t partial to being a ritual deflowerer, but the widows (Amy and Rita) and the grass-widow (Nancy) were far from repellent.

“I’ll check the menstrual cycles with the aunties,” Tessa said. “I think they’re all regular, so they’ll be most fertile around days 12 to 14.”

“So I get three days each?”

“You won’t need it. You’ll see.”

It turned out that Rita would be first. She was just under 30. Her husband had been a driver at the diamond mine when his bogger broke through a pocket. She was larger than Tessa, but not fat. Sam spoke with her several times and found her shy and withdrawn, but not unfriendly.

“Take her to the cave tomorrow,” Tessa told him. “The frieze will relax her.”

“Are you really OK?”

“I have seen it. You will, too.”

In the afternoon Sam drove past Yardungarl and parked at the beginning of the path. Rita followed him past the first cave to the second.

“This is beautiful!” she exclaimed on seeing the rear wall.

“It has been prepared.”

“I see bunjil!”

“And I see a peaceful dove [Geopelia placida]. You shall bear a lovely daughter.”

“Oh, yes!”

Sam kissed her and undressed her carefully. Her breasts were topped with large, dark areolae. He kissed each, Rita gasped; he took a nipple between his lips and it became erect. “Now, now!”

Sam undressed as Rita breathed her arousal. He teased her other breast and entered her. She put her legs around him and pulled him tightly. Sam spent and then held and kissed her. Rita was asleep. Sam thought about what he had done. It was a pleasure, but it was neither what he had experienced in Coober nor with the Maenads he’d encountered in Adelaide. He had a vision of a peaceful dove, flying with an undulating motion. He dozed.

“That was well-done,” a voice told him. “You will have her again when she wakes. Her daughter will be of value in the future. Tell her so. You have done you duty here. One of the others, the smaller, is a small hawk. You must take care that her talons do not catch you. The other is a bilby.” [Nankeen kestrels (Falco cenchroides) are adaptable and hunt in a number of different ways: of these, simply perching in an exposed position (such as on a dead tree or a telephone pole) and watching for prey is the most common, but it is their habit of hovering motionless over crop and grasslands that is most distinctive.]

Rita stirred as the moon rose and Sam took her again. She cried out at climax and then slept til dawn. They washed in a brook and then Sam drove back to Gabbaitch.