River's secrets: Desire at edge of death's passing shadow

The sheet now hung between them, heavy and dripping, and Jared locked his gaze on Nyapol. She could see what was in those eyes and she knew what he wanted. When he brought his end to her, she did not step back. She just placed it in the basin and turned to pick up the next bed sheet. That is when he moved behind her and held his body close to hers. She kept her hands in the plastic basin of water, rinsing the pillow covers, her back bent to him wondering what he would do next.

 His boldness surprised her. His hands found her waist and he just rested them there as if asking for permission to proceed. She felt no urge to resist his advance. Then he asked that question again, the one he had asked months ago, “Rael, do you know you are beautiful?”

 And kissed the nape of her neck. She felt a jolt flash through her body. He did it again and this time she turned around and faced him, “What are you doing?” and he moved even closer and lightly kissed her chin and her ear lobes.

 “What are you doing?’ she asked again and he only tightened his grip around her waist  and she felt his firmness.

 He knew what he was doing, teasing her but how he knew, she couldn’t fathom. His look was intense. She turned away and faced the river and he took it as an invitation and now he had both arms around her waist, moving one ever slowly towards her breast. He was in no hurry, and he moved like a man who had all the time in the world.

 His lips returned to the nape of her neck and she felt his mouth trace the length of her spine through the thin fabric of her dress until somewhere just above her tailbone. Her body was responding even though her hands pretended to be still busy, scrubbing the pillow cases absent mindedly. She felt the sensation of the cold, dirty brown coloured river water and the heat of his breath occupying her body simultaneously.

 Rael, do you know you are beautiful? The way he said it. Not Nyapol. Rael. The name he had given her. The name that belonged to this version of herself that existed only in his presence, in the hour she kept for herself without calling it that.

 She closed her eyes. She could only hear the rumble of the river and it was soothing. When his fingers found the soft flesh of her hip, her breath hitched, making a small strangled sound that she did not recognise. The pretense of scrubbing the pillowcases fell away. She straightened, not by choice but because her spine had softened, and she allowed herself to lean back on the solid warmth of him. He was touching her body in places that she had forgotten were sensitive.

 Neglected

 She could not remember ever being touched like this, or the last time someone had paid this much attention to her body. Her husband, Ochola was the only man she had ever been with and all he was ever interested in was penetration. Jared wasn’t in a hurry, which she found baffling because they were not even well hidden.

 She scanned the opposite bank and spotted bright yellow weaver birds, flitting around tall reeds standing in the water. Hanging from those reeds were brown rounded nests. The weaver birds were flying back and forth to the nests with an urgency that Jared lacked.

 His gentle fingers began gliding up and down her body and his warm lips stirred her up. She pressed against him and he tightened the grip around her waist, his finger still tracing her parts through the dress fabric and his mouth never leaving the nape of her neck. And his voice, that polished voice. “Rael, do you know you are beautiful?”

 And she felt it in the same place his hands were, her body responding to every touch, urging him to explore. He had started bunching her dress, lifting it up so gently, that her thighs began to shiver.

 Her hands left the basin of water and for the first time she touched him reaching back, she found his hip and pulled, pressing herself behind against him. She could feel his heat.

 And then he stopped. She felt his rigidity before she understood it. He had frozen, his hands were no longer moving and his breath inaudible.

 She opened her eyes. There was something in the river, moving with the current, unhurried, on its own mission. It was a shape she understood before her mind registered what she was seeing.

 A corpse

 The face was hidden and partly submerged in water, the clothes a pale white shirt and dark trousers spread on the water like a parachute holding onto a weight. It was a corpse moving past them. Past the bed sheets on the rocks, past the plastic basin, and past the place where she had knelt every three weeks for two years with her hands in the water.

 It moved through the gentle stream and then tumbled into the rapids where the river took a bend and disappeared out of sight, downstream. The corpse was gone and the flow of the river once again filled the silence.

 Nyapol’s dress was still bunched at her hip. She did not pull it down immediately. Her body had not yet received the instruction.

 Jared had stepped back. She could feel the distance between them. She turned.

 He was looking at the water where the corpse had been. His face was the face of a man who had just been shown something he could not unsee. The weaver birds and their nest were still there and they now sounded like they were making a ruckus.

 She pulled her dress down. She picked up the basin, loaded the sheets and placed it on top of her head and began her walk to the compound. Neither of them spoke. Nor did they tell anyone what they had seen.

 Everything changed after that incident. He started avoiding her, keeping away on the days she cleaned his house. Then he just disappeared, like Ochola, back to Nairobi. The housekeeping continued, the pay was prompt but there was no more Rael.

 Strength and Sorrow has been nominated for the TBC Penmanship Awards 2026 in the Non-Fiction category.