UPDATE - 1
In waning dusk, Ruksana stood staring at the horizon and the grey trees ascending towards aphetic clouds from the looming storm. A humid southerly wind caused her to shiver despite the warm temperatures. Kabir Duhan Singh, an African-Indian, was a new resident in the seasonal beach community, but secretly held a very different belief. It seemed as if a supreme force protected Kabir. His travels had guided him here. Isolated in the predominantly rental beach community, beneath a foreboding, dark, starless sky, Ruksana’s house sat. The wind whisked away falling pine needles and howled of an approaching storm. Kabir resolutely stood among the creaking trees with their branches twisted like elongated arthritic fingers. Inside the house Ruksana faced the fireplace. She didn’t need the heat but the light due to the sporadic electricity. She sat languorously balled up at the end of the sofa as rain began pelting the windows. Her husband was gone. As many times over the years, she was without him and alone. She decided to find some solice reading on her iPad. The lights flickered one last time and went dark as the storm brought down the power and phone lines. In this remote area, cell phone coverage was poor at best. Now there was no communications at all. She had supplies and decided to wait until the storm passed. She longed for her husband to snuggle with and keep her safe as she watched the flames dance in radiant yellow and orange brilliance that spilled tall, wavering shadows into the lonely room. A frantic pounding on the door startled Ruksana and interrupted her musings. The nearest neighbors miles away, she put down her iPad to cautiously investigate. “Who is it?”� Ruksana shouted from behind the door. The incessant pummeling on the door stopped. “I’m Kabir, your neighbor from up the road. I’m stuck out here and need help, please,”� a voice that sounded vaguely familiar replied. Ruksana did not recognize the name. A clatter from the lock turning brought a momentary smile to Kabir, but he quickly replaced it with a brooding frown when the door opened. Ruksana opened the door to an onslaught of wind and rain and a flood of humid night air that instantly displaced the comfort inside the house and caused the flames in the fireplace to shudder. In the gloom, she vaguely recognized the gigantic, imposing figure standing at her doorway, “Come in.”� She moved aside, guardedly allowing the dark figure to pass and hurriedly shutting the door behind him. “The power is out,”� she explained, leading him with the poise of a dancer from the shadowy hallway toward the bright fireplace. In light cast by the fire, Ruksana recognized the figure covered in rain that formed puddles beneath his boots. He was the Ethiopian immigrant, a refugee that she met somewhere the other day. He removed his hands from the pockets of his dark blue rain jacket and appreciatively dried them above the genial flames. “What in heaven’s name are you doing out on a night like this?”� Ruksana asked. In yoga pants that tightly followed the developed curves of Ruksana’s young athletic body, it took every ounce of Kabir’s willpower to stop his eyes from devouring her. “I saw the storm coming and thought I better get more gasoline for my generator and some bottled water. Before I got to town, the road had already washed out. I tried to get back home but my truck slid off the road and got stuck,”� Kabir explained. Ruksana thought about the inappropriateness of a strange dark black man staying the night while her husband was away. But in good conscience, she could not refuse Kabir lodging if the storm continued raging, and answered sympathetically, “Well you can’t go out with it storming like this. Let me take your jacket to dry.”� She went to help him remove the backpack he was wearing so he could take off the jacket, but he stopped her. “I’ve got it,”� Kabir said. “It’s pretty heavy.”� He placed the backpack on the hardwood floor leaning it against the end of the sofa. Ruksana hung his rain jacket over the back of a chair and left his boots by the fire to dry. With his jacket off, Ruksana noticed large muscles bulging beneath Kabir’s shirt. She wondered what type of strenuous physical labor he performed in Africa to make them so big. Kabir was somewhat handsome, but she was married white woman and not interested other men “” especially dark black men. His strong facial structure looked like it had been sculpted in marble with smooth dark brown skin; short kinky dark black hair on top of his head; wet, dark black eyes like obsidian. Ruksana took a sip of tea she had prepared earlier, now lukewarm, and saw Kabir watching her. “I’m sorry I can’t make you some with the power out. Let me get you a towel. Would you like something to drink? Water perhaps?” she asked jokingly. Kabir smirked. “Actually, I am a little thirsty.”� Ruksana minced her way nursing the fragile flame from a candle. When she left the room, Kabir leaned over to where his backpack sat next to the couch, silently retracted its zipper enough to slide his hand inside. Sheets of rain fell outside and the humid wind strained through crevices in the old, drafty structure as Ruksana groped in the dimly lit closet for a towel. It looked increasingly likely that this dark black man, a practical stranger, would have to stay the night. This prospect did not sit well with her. Kabir was zippering his backpack closed as Ruksana returned with a glass of water. “My cell phone doesn’t work, but as soon as it lets up, we’ll go outside and try to call someone to come help you.”� It was a tactful hint that she did not want him here any longer than necessary, and Kabir got it. “I don’t think anyone will come out in this weather anyway. I’m really sorry for this inconvenience. I didn’t know what else to do. Your house is the only place occupied for miles.”� Ruksana returned to the other end of the sofa and sipped from the half-full cup. It was now cold. The tea a slightly different, vaguely sweet inviting flavor, she thought, smacking her lips together and finishing the remaining. “Have you lived in the States long?” Ruksana asked, finding herself in a more talkative mood. “About four months.”� “Where are you from?”� Kabir paused a moment not wanting to reveal too much about himself and thinking about his answer. The less she knew about him the better. He lied and told her he was from Iraq. He decided to encourage the uncharacteristic garrulousness in her that the pheromone induced. “What about you?”� Unusual exhilaration and a girlish silliness she had buried years ago bubbled to her surface in an odd euphoria. She opened so much to him, providing her entire life history. The moments passed, the more she talked and her tale became more uniquely personal. Ruksana chattered, gazing at her pale reflection in the dark window. The glass pane clouded with moisture. It was stiflingly hot. Without her noticing Kabir inched closer. He comfortably reclined and put his arm around her shoulders; his touch strangely redolent of a first loves, and smiled into her face as he adjusted an extremely large bulge in his pants. Ruksana saw the curved outline of his immense manhood strain against the fabric, reach above his left hip, and practically pop out the waistband of his trousers. She realized something was changing with her. It was as if her inviting white skin had discovered its birth right. She couldn’t compose herself; she wouldn’t remain seated. She could not think straight anymore. She tried standing and almost fell before Kabir jumped up and caught her. “Whoa, you’re in no condition to walk,”� Kabir said, holding Ruksana against him. She was everything he sought in a woman “” a beautiful face, a perfect little body and white. Something about blonde white women in particular made Kabir extra horny. Tight in Kabir’s arms, she tried to recoil from the hardness of his penis that she felt through his pants pushing into her tummy. “Get hands off. Let go,”� she babbled. “Are you okay? What’s the matter?”� an out-of-place smile appeared on Kabir’s face. “You’re not feeling well.”� She stared at him with a vacant look. “You may have the flu or something.”� Kabir sat Ruksana on the sofa and with the candle she had used earlier, searched her house, finding her cell phone, its charger and a set of keys on the kitchen table. In another room, he found her computer and removed its power cord. He returned to the living room with Ruksana’s phone and keys in his pockets, the phone charger and computer power cord in his hand. Ruksana was gone and the front door left open as an invitation for the raging storm beyond. Kabir grabbed a flashlight from his backpack. The darkness seemed to swallow him as he faced the crashing torrents, the roar of the elements, left the house and went into the night to find her. He discovered Ruksana slumped over the hood of her locked car. Her keys, along with her cell phone, were safely in his pockets. Rain covered Ruksana. Wearing only her yoga outfit, she was drenched.
