Chapter 68

To think I had never permitted any of my other lovers to possess me in this manner.

I stopped wondering about it, as each passing night left me more and more in thrall to him. 31: Roddy Sayer

Tommy and I had once talked of the men in our lives who we’d cared for, and he’d told me he considered himself to be fortunate to know three good men. I didn’t know if that meant there had been other men who’d given him brief, fleeting moments of pleasure or comfort but who hadn’t touched his heart.

As for me, I’d been blessed to love two men in my life—Charlie Pearson and Tommy Smythe. Charlie owned a boat called the Nile Goddessand delivered goods up and down the Ruzizi River, stopping periodically at Udjidji, the village where my brother had his little church. Charlie had agreed to sail down the river after I’d pleaded with him to take me to Lake Tanganyika and help me destroy as many of the German steamships that patrolled the lake as we could.

“Why?” he’d asked.