“Maggie, would you do me a favor?”

The speaker was Faye who had become a friend in the United Nations compound at Lokichogio, Kenya. We were sitting in the open-sided bar sipping beers.

“Certainly. What’s the favor?” I answered.

“I have to go back to England for a month. Family problems. Would you look after Mark while I’m gone?”

I mulled that question over for a moment before answering. “What do you mean by ‘look after?’”

Her voice became conspiratorial. “I’m afraid he’ll forget about me while I’m gone and there are other women around and he’s a very attractive man and--”

“You want me to fuck him?” I was astonished.

“Yeah, if that is ... uh ... useful. I’m kind of in love with him. I know he’s not going to marry me. I’m a guttersnipe and he’s an aristocrat and will soon be Lord something-or-other, but I don’t want to lose him.”

I was a bit insulted that Faye didn’t regard me as a threat to her relationship with Mark, a tall, elegant Englishman who worked for the UN. Faye and I were lowly workers with non-governmental organizations – NGOs for short – who attempted to deliver food and other essentials to the people in war-torn southern Sudan. (This was 2001. Southern Sudan has since gained its independence and become a country.)

The insult faded as I thought about it. I was 39, married with children, I had been living in Loki for three months, and I planned to return to the U.S. and my family and accounting business in a few weeks. Faye and Mark were both about thirty years old and single. Besides that, Faye was a willowy, beautiful English girl and my assets on the physical side were modest. My much-hated nickname in high school had been “buttons” which referred to the size of my tits. Dinky tits and all, I flattered myself that I had done pretty well in the romance department, at least extra-maritally in the six years that I had been a discreet, but wayward, wife.

“I don’t know what I should say,” I responded to Faye. I was a little surprised at how worried she was. Faye had the reputation of being a Loki slut, having had sex with a number of residents of Loki and, reputedly, several tall, slender, intensely black Sudanese leaders. She had obviously fallen hard for Mark.

“You can do it. Mark likes you. You fucked him in my tent.”

“Once. We were drunk and we swapped partners.”

“Moreover, Brian is gone. Traveling with his girl friend. He might not even return.” Brian was my lover in Loki. I was robbing the cradle. He was twenty-five years old and English. He was doing research in Sudan to get a doctorate in anthropology. His girl friend had come to Loki to persuade him to return to England with her and to get married. The two of them had embarked on a tour of African game parks and Brian’s return was uncertain. On the one hand, the girl friend was a good match for him. On the other, he liked living at Loki – and fucking me. I felt a bit like the mother of a wayward but charming child.

Speaking of tents, everybody in Loki lived in a tent. They were about 10 feet by 10 feet. Each had a cot, dresser, chair, and wooden floor and door. A light bulb hung from the ceiling and the closet was a rope stretched front to back along the center pole. Flaps on the sides opened up to let fresh air in. The bathrooms were small concrete buildings down the pathway than ran between the tents.

“It was fun, wasn’t it, that night we swapped,” Faye smiled. “But I worried that Mark might like you more than me.”

I laughed. “I worried that Brian might like you more than me. I had more reason to worry.” We clinked our glasses and each took a drink of beer. It was hot in the bar. The thatched roof kept us out of the sun, but the heat was intense. It was always hot in Loki. Faye and I were both wearing locally made clothing: flowery skirts and mesh blouses that barely reached our mid-riffs. Faye was famous for always wearing mini-skirts; mine was more modest. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I wore a local creation, two triangles of thin cloth over my breasts, held on by a narrow elastic strap around my back and strings over each shoulder tied around my neck.

“If you would just do this for me, Maggie, I would be eternally grateful.”

“How would I go about it? I can’t just go up to Mark and say, ‘Faye asked me to fuck you while she’s gone.’”

“I have a plan. Mark needs to fly into Sudan to visit some UN projects. I was planning to go with him, but now I can’t. You could go. I told him I would ask you to take my place.”

“Thanks a lot, Faye,” I said sarcastically. We clinked glasses again, I finished my beer and waved at the waiter to bring me another one. Tusker beer was the only thing cold in Loki. Sweat was running down the side of my face. The sun was going down, but soon the temperature would drop down into the 80s.

“Will you do it?” Faye asked, apprehension in her voice.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll go with Mark on the trip and we’ll see what happens. I need to visit some of my projects.” I admit there was a revenge that fitted into my decision. Brian was off at game parks with his girl friend and I was the lonely lover in Loki hoping for his return. In the real world, outside our little world in the tent city with its population of maybe two hundred humanitarian aid workers, Mark was so elevated above me in class, money, and looks, that he wouldn’t have given me a glance. Nor would have Brian, for that matter. Here, in Loki, I was somebody in their world. It was a nice feeling for a Kansas housewife to be in that position. It flattered my ego. The next morning, Mark and I accompanied Faye to the airport where she departed Loki, bound for Nairobi, then for England. Mark asked me if I would be ready to leave tomorrow with him for Sudan. I said yes. He kissed me on my sweaty cheek as we departed for our respective offices.

I was in the my office later that day, completing our monthly report to the UN about how we were spending its money. The door opened and I turned my head and there was Brian. I was astonished.

He walked over to my desk, leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “You don’t seem happy to see me,” he said.

“I’m surprised. Is your girl friend with you?”

“She left for home yesterday. We broke up.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course. She wanted me to go back to England and lead the life of a country squire. I have different ideas.”

‘‘Welcome home.” I rose from my chair and we embraced. My mind was churning. How do I handle this?

“What have you done while I’ve been gone.”

“I cried a lot.” I laughed. “Just kidding, but I missed you.” His hand ran up and down my back and rested on my hips. He turned my face to his and kissed me on the lips and his hand sought my breasts.

“Not here,” I said.

“Can we take up again where we left off?”

“Yes. I suppose I should be angry. You go off with your girl friend for two weeks, although there is one complication.”

“What?”

“I’m going off to Sudan tomorrow for a week. With Mark. Faye had to go back to England.”

“You can’t get out of that?”

“Not really. I’ve radioed my people that I’m coming. And Mark is expecting me to go.”

“Mark? Faye is gone?” He raised my face to his and looked into my eyes.

“Faye wanted me to go on this trip with Mark.”

“I’m disappointed.”

“I’m sorry, but I had to go on with my life. I didn’t know you were coming back.”

“I told you I would.”

“I didn’t really believe you. Especially after I saw you with her. You looked the perfect couple.”

“We were, and I was bored. I wish you weren’t leaving.”

“I promised Faye.” I realized immediately I shouldn’t have said that.

“What did you promise Faye?”

I sought the words. “I told her I would take care of Mark while she was gone. She loves him. She’s afraid she’ll lose him to one of these pretty young girls here.

“Taking care of Mark. I think I know what that means.”

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t,” I answered.

“I was really looking forward to seeing you.”

“You can see me. Now. Later. Tonight. I’m yours. But I have to go with Mark tomorrow.”

He let loose of me and sat down on the edge of my desk. “Okay, I’m just disappointed. I’m jealous of Mark.

That made me a little angry. “Honestly, Brian, think of me. I have been here alone for two weeks while you’ve been wandering around the country and fucking your girl friend. I didn’t even know if I would ever see you again. I’m the one who has the right to be jealous. My best friend here asked me to take care of Mark and I’m going to do it. To the best of my ability.”

“All right, all right,” he said, rising from his perch on my desk and taking me in his arms. “I’m sorry. Can we resolve this in bed? My girl friend cut me off two days ago when I said I wasn’t going back to England with her. She wouldn’t even sleep in the same room with me. Can you get away from the office for an hour?”

I laughed. “Poor boy! Alone for two days.” I ran my hand over his brow. “But now? It is so god-damned hot we might get heat exhaustion. There’s no water in the showers to wash the sweat off afterwards. The pump is broken. And I have to finish this report before I leave tomorrow. How about half an hour?”

“Half an hour, it is. I am so glad to be back.”

I was nervous traveling with Mark. We spent a week flying from dirt airstrip to dirt airstrip to villages and camps filled with refugees from the war, people who had lost everything except what they could carry on their backs and who survived only with the food that we, the UN and charitable organizations hired by the UN, delivered to them by old and decrepit military cargo airplanes piloted mostly by Russians who had been military pilots.

It was not a luxury vacation. We slept on rickety cots in thatched roof huts. Modern conveniences such as electricity, running water, and paved roads were non-existent except in several UN base camps which offered the same as Loki: tents, a cafeteria, electricity, water part of the day, and, in one camp, television brought in by satellite. I watched with horror the attack on the twin towers in New York City.

Yes, I fucked Mark during our trip. What Faye may have told him, I didn’t know, but he assumed that I was willing – and so I was, although sex on a narrow cot beneath mosquito nets and in the heat that seemed to radiate from the walls was uncomfortable. I had my period during our visit so for several days our sex was blow jobs. I sat on the cot, naked, while he stood in front of me and I sucked him off. On the nights when we fucked, it was quick and not conducive to much pre- or post-foreplay and romance. We had to worry about the cots collapsing under our weight. Besides that we were tired, dusty, and smelly. The loose and wayward life of a humanitarian aid worker in a place like Sudan has its discomforts. The possibilities for entertainment other than beer and sex were few – but I loved the work.

At the end of our trip, during our flight back to Loki, I worried about how I was going to deal with two men. Both of them liked to end their day with a tryst in bed – and not uncommonly with another one during the day. I wanted to satisfy Brian because I desperately wanted our relationship to continue for as long as possible. Maybe I was in love with Brian, or maybe it was just me enjoying the freedom from the strictures of marriage and family. I don’t know.

Mark was also much younger than me and a catch for any woman. He was rich, good-looking, intelligent, kind, and idealistic. There were half a dozen younger, better-looking women than me who lived in the Lokichogio tent camp. Mark could have any of them. My job was to keep him from having them.

Moreover, I had a demanding job in Lokichogio. The paperwork piled up while I was traveling in Sudan. I had been hired for the job because of my capability of dealing with the paperwork involved in moving sacks of wheat from Kenya to Sudan and getting it distributed to the people who need it. I’m efficient, but I’ve always thought of myself as a boring accountant. I was surprised and impressed with myself for my fortune in attracting men. In this instance, I had one too many men.

I had radioed ahead that Mark and I were returning to Loki and when we landed late in the afternoon Brian was there, standing on the tarmac surrounded by sacks of wheat and the UN’s rag-tag collection of cargo aircraft. I was relieved. Brian hadn’t forgotten about me during my week-long absence. I rushed to him and we embraced. I felt the hardness of his penis pressing against me. A good sign! Mark followed me and shook hands with Brian. They were friends, although not close friends. Mark was an important UN official; Brian was a student.

In the short car ride back to the Loki tent camp, I sat in front of the car with the driver and the two men sat in back. “Is there water?” I asked Brian. “I desperately need a shower.”

“Yes. The pump is fixed.”

“I think we should all have dinner together,” I said. “8:00 in the cafeteria?”

Both men agreed. They knew there was an issue we needed to resolve.

Brian followed me to my tent, carrying my bag. He followed me into the tent, set down the bag, and took me in his arms. “I want you. Now!”

“Oh, Brian, I smell like a goat.” One hand of his fumbled with the buttons on my blouse while the other worked its way up the inside of my thigh. “Don’t you want to wait until I’ve had a shower?”

“No, I want you now.” His hand had found my slit and was probing inside me.

“Okay, but it has to be quick. I have to take a shower and get cleaned up and we have to meet Mark for dinner.”