They tell you in flight school that if your plane goes down, you should stick close to it. Between the distress call, the homing beacon, and the way it reflects the sun that can be easily spotted, it’s the safest place to be. That is, unless your cargo is five million dollars worth of heroin and your Cessna just took a nose-dive into the Sahara… in a country that executes traffickers.
I didn’t have time to waste. Once I got myself out of the plane and made sure I could walk, I threw what supplies I could fit in my satchel and got the hell away from there as fast as I could.
I’d managed to put a few miles between myself and the wreckage. I’d also managed to drink too much of the scant water I had. I knew if I kept heading north, I’d eventually hit the Mediterranean Sea. That was my best bet.
There were just a couple of problems with that plan.
My left arm was a mess, cut to shreds in the crash. I wrapped it in a spare shirt, but I was still losing blood at a rate that had me worried. Then there was the goddamned heat. It had to be over a hundred, and my Evian bottle had about two mouthfuls left in it.
If I kept walking during the day, the sun would roast me alive, and that water would be gone in a hurry. If I stopped for shelter, my arm might bleed out. Short of a miracle, I was fucked either way.
The only thing worse would be getting spotted by a rescue crew. I wasn’t going to spend months being the lone American in a foreign prison getting the shit kicked out of me every day until the authorities decided it was time to chop my head off.
I didn’t want to face the reality of it, but I also had a backup plan. In all my years flying heroin around, I’d never touched the stuff, but I grabbed a kilo before I left the plane. I convinced myself I might need it to kill the pain in my arm. But in the back of my mind, some part of me knew that if things got desperate, I’d rather go out in a morphine haze than die slowly from blood loss or dehydration.
I walked for a few hours, then sometime in the afternoon when the sun was at its peak, I had a choice to make. It was one of those moments where I knew I’d wind up dead if I made the wrong one. I could either keep pushing north and risk collapsing from the heat, or veer off to the east and head for a rocky outcrop to hide from the sun and hope my arm didn’t do me in before nightfall.
I took a swig from my bottle and headed east. The sweltering heat made the decision for me. I couldn’t take it any longer than I had to.
I ended up finding a recess in the rock face that I could tuck myself into. It wasn’t the most comfortable place, but it blocked the sun and gave me a chance to have another look at my arm.
The shirt I’d been using as a bandage had soaked through with blood that dried stiff. It couldn’t absorb any more. I took my socks off, ripped holes in the toes, and stretched them over my forearm. The elastic kept a good amount of pressure, and made me wish I’d thought of doing that earlier.
All I had to do was sleep long enough for the sun to go down, and hope that my last bit of water would get me far enough north where I could spot a village.
When I woke up, it wasn’t night. I also wasn’t in the alcove I fell asleep in. None of that made sense, but I didn’t care because no more than ten feet away from me there was a pool of fresh water. I tried to stand, realized I couldn’t, and crawled to the water.
I pressed my lips against the surface, filled my mouth, swallowed, and then filled it again. I dunked my whole head in, washing away dirt and sweat. I could finally blink again. My eyes had gotten so dry that closing them felt like scratching sandpaper against them.
I cupped my hands to take in some more water. That’s when I noticed my arm. The socks were gone, replaced by wrapped gauze like a nurse had done it. Someone had helped me. I sat up and looked around. There was nothing but rock, sand and dust in all directions, except where I was.
I was in the middle of a small oasis.
The ground here was darker, and the stone floor of the desert had a gash cut through it, filled with water from a natural spring. Small shrubs lined the edge of it. That was the first bit of green I’d seen since the plane went down.
“You’re awake.” It was a woman’s voice, spoken with a heavy accent. I turned around to see her standing there, draped in flowing linen, smiling warmly.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m your guide.”
“My guide?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do this?” I asked, pointing to my arm.
“I did.”
“What’s your name?”
“Akhira.”
“Thank you, Akhira.”
“My pleasure.”
There was a long moment of silence as I ran a million scenarios through my head. I didn’t think Akhira was with the authorities. She seemed too calm for that, and nothing about her robes struck me as a uniform. More like something a nomad might wear.
“You’re safe,” she said as if she was reading my mind.
“You said you’re my guide?”
“I did.”
“What kind of guide?”
“I brought you here,” she said, motioning with her hands at the oasis around us.
“You probably saved my life.”
I gave the bandages a squeeze. She’d done a great job. It wasn’t bleeding, and either the pain had stopped, or I’d gotten so used to it I couldn’t feel it anymore.
“Can you take me north?”
“I’ll take you to the great sea.”
“When can we leave?”
“That’s up to you,” she said, glancing up at the sun. “For now, we should cool off in the water.”
I looked at the pool, then back at her. I still wasn’t exactly sure who she was or how I’d gotten here, but I was in a better spot than I was before. I also couldn’t deny how inviting the water was.
“That’s a good idea,” I said.
I eased myself down the bank and into the spring. I let myself sink in and sat in a shallow place. I closed my eyes for a second. It was the first time since the crash that I wasn’t thinking about the heat or blood.
“You see?” she said.
I opened my eyes. She was already in the water, the wraps she’d been wearing were left in a heap where she had been standing just a moment ago. I tried not to stare, but she made it difficult. Akhira was beautiful and completely at ease being naked in front of a stranger. She had no fear in her at all.
“The water helps,” she said.
“It does,” I agreed. My eyes were anywhere but on her.
Akhira dipped her hands beneath the surface and brought them back up, letting the water run down her neck onto her breasts. I couldn’t help myself. She caught me looking and smiled.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You’re thinking too much,” she said. “Just let it go.”
“Let what go?”
She shook her head slightly, like the answer was obvious.
“You were looking at me,” she said. “Then you stopped.”
“I didn’t want you to think—”
“No. You’re fighting yourself,” she said. “Still afraid of what you want.”
She moved closer. It didn’t register at first. Not until the water rippled and lapped against my chest.
“Sit up,” she said, nodding toward the bank.
I was slow to react. Part of me was still out there, with heat coming off the sand in waves, my arm throbbing with pain, counting steps and trying not to think about how far I still had to go.
The rest of me was right here. With Akhira.
I put my hands on the edge and pushed myself up onto the bank, sitting with my feet still in the water.
She was right in front of me now.
“What do you want?”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me.”
I started to answer, then stopped.
Images flashed in my head. The cockpit. The altimeter spinning. Slamming into the sand. The empty water bottle. The alcove. The heroin. They all stacked, one on top of each other.
“I…” I shook my head. “I want to forget all of this. I want to be safe. I want you.”
I saw it register on her face before she moved. She brought her hand up to my cheek, let her fingers rest there for a second, then leaned in and kissed me.
My hands went to her waist and pulled her closer. I started to sit up, but she lowered me back down with her hand against my chest.
“No,” she said. “Relax.”
She moved down between my legs and worked my pants open. I raised my hips so she could pull them down, kicking them off once they cleared my feet. Her hand came back to my chest, holding me there, while the other wrapped around my cock and started stroking.
I drew in a breath as soon as she touched me, then let it out slowly. All the fear and tension I’d been carrying since the crash started to give way.
“That’s it,” she said, moving her head down and taking me into her mouth.
My hand went to her shoulder, then ran through her hair. My head fell back against the bank as the intense pleasure of her wet lips spread through me. The heat, the pain in my arm, the hours of walking, it all started to fade, like she was sucking it out of me.
I got so lost in what she was doing to me, I don’t even remember when she stopped and climbed on top. One moment, the swirl of her tongue was teasing my cock. The next, I was buried deep inside of her, with my hands cupping her tits as she grinded and rode me.
My head kept pushing back into the ground, it was getting harder to breathe full breaths, the pace of our fucking only allowed short and uneven ones. Her pussy felt like the only thing left in the world. Everything else was gone. No heat. No pain. Just her, and the way she made every nerve in my body light up.
“Don’t hold it back,” she said.
I couldn’t if I tried. When it hit, it wasn’t something I pushed into. It just took me. I couldn’t breathe. My body tensed, then all at once a feeling of pure bliss moved through me.
Akhira lowered herself, pressing her chest against mine.
“You’re ready,” she said.
The two of us laid there together, her body curled into mine, my hands still holding her close. The afterglow of our sex didn’t fade. I was happy in a way I hadn’t felt in years. She lifted her head slightly and looked at me, with the same calm expression she’d had when I first saw her.
“Can you stand?” she asked.
“Yeah. I feel good actually. Better than before.”
There was no weakness when I pushed myself up. No light-headedness. Even my legs felt fine, like I hadn’t just spent hours dragging myself across the sand.
Akhira stood with me and took my hand. “This way,” she said.
We moved along the edge of the water, then past it. The ground changed under my feet. The sand wasn’t as loose like it had been before, it gave way to stone slab. The air felt different too, less dry and more humid.
“How far is it?” I asked.
“Not far.”
We kept walking, and I realized I couldn’t hear the wind anymore, just the sound of gentle splashes from our steps. We were moving through puddles. There was even more water ahead. Not like the spring back at the oasis, but a great sea spreading out in front of us in a way that didn’t seem to match the space around us. It should’ve ended somewhere, but it didn’t. It just kept going.
Akhira pressed on in a way that made me feel like she knew exactly where she was. She still had my hand, guiding me forward, not pulling but reassuring me that we were where we were meant to be.
The expanse of the sea opened before us. I looked out across it, trying to see the far side of it. There wasn’t one.
“This is it?”
“Beautiful, isn’t it? ”
It was.
We stepped down toward the water together. Akhira waded in first, and I followed. We took a few steps side by side. When I was knee deep, I looked back to the shore.
There was nothing behind us. No desert. No oasis. No trail that led us here. Just open space.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“The alcove.”
“I didn’t make it out?”
“No,” she shook her head.
“The heroin?”
She gave a small nod. “You didn’t feel a thing.”
“That’s good,” I said, more to myself than her, and kept walking.
Each step felt easier than the one before it. The water was rising, but I didn’t think about turning back. I had no thoughts about where I’d been or what I was leaving behind. All of that was already gone.
Akhira stopped when the water got up to her waist. She turned to face me.
“This is as far as I can take you,” she said.
I brought my hand up to her arm and meant to say something profound. Instead, I kissed her forehead, stepped past her, and kept walking.
I didn’t feel the ground give way. Just a floating sensation as the water built up around me, and took me with it.
