The Panther and the Gazelle 1

 

Chapter 1

 

(This is a continuation of “Metamorphosis”. The story of straight Mark Preston who had gone to work on a tea plantation in Kenya. Life changed upside-down first with David, the gardener, then with Brian and two street boys he rescued and who came to work at his bungalow.)

 

Life with David and with Ahmed and Amer fell into a kind of routine. David and I kept to ourselves and the two cousins joined us at the weekend for some fun now and again. It all suited me fine.

 

"Have you seen any of the jobbers today?" David asked one evening.

 

‘Jobbers’ was the name we gave to the many people who came seeking work at the compound. As the tea farms labour fluctuated seasonally, there was a continual hiring and firing for extra hands brought in for harvests and other tasks.

 

I told him no, I never took any notice of those milling about the main compound office.

 

"Why?” I asked after a while, my curiosity peaked.

 

"I saw one man, thought you might be interested in him"

 

"Me! Why should I be interested?

 

"He was different."

 

"How different? What do you mean"? I quizzed.

 

"You will see tomorrow, he will be working here," he said, almost nonchalantly.

 

"What!" I almost choked.

 

David smiled knowingly. “I said he could work here for a while."

 

"I can't do that, I already have you and the boys, I can’t take anyone else on when there is only me to be looked after."

 

He leaned forward in his chair.

 

"When was the last time you looked down the side of the building outside the boys rooms?"

 

I shrugged, not understanding what this had to do with anything.

 

"The boundary fence is down, it’s been pushed over by the line of bushes with the help of that high wind we had last week. It is going to be quite a big job to put it back."

 

"But I can't take anyone else" I countered again.

 

"Yes you can," said David startling me. "You know Fred and Martha, they have their house painted every two years, and this was last painted six years ago. Your garage doors are rotten and can’t be closed. Fred had his replaced last year. Alex had a pool put in two years back. The company pays for it all. This place has not had a shilling spent on it in years and there are lots that need doing, so I doubt they will refuse you some essential maintenance. Just take a look around."

 

He left me speechless. I sat in silence thinking of Fred's place, it did look spick and span. And my place, yes apart from the garden it was tatty to say the least.

 

"So, what do you plan having him doing?" I asked after realising he had been perfectly correct.

 

David smiled and took his time. "Cut back the line of bushes down the side of the house, pull out the old fence and have a carpenter make some new panels and erect it again."

 

"And you are going to take care of it all?" I ventured, worried a little in case he had me helping out somewhere in there.

 

"Of course, leave it all to me."

 

I knew I could, of course.

 

Before leaving for work in the morning, he took me to see the problem. Around sixty feet needed replacing and a hell of a lot of trees and bushes had to be cut back. Over the years they had completely overgrown and pushed down the boundary fence, something I had never noticed previously.

 

When I came home in the late afternoon I stood at the kitchen window watching David and Ahmed talking. David and the new man were sat at the garden table, Ahmed evidently having taken them some afternoon refreshments. They were having a joke and a good laugh.

 

Eventually David noticed me at the window and signalled to come out. I took my glass of Vodka and tonic and walked out across the lawn as Ahmed returned to the house.

 

"Boss, this is Francis," said David, using the term when around anyone from the company.

 

The man nodded "Pleased to meet you sir."

 

He didn’t get up, but stayed slouching in the chair, as was David. I noticed his English was very good, not what I was expecting from a labourer around these parts.

 

"Francis has started removing the old fence and cutting down the bushes. I told him he could dump it all across the road and we would burn it later" explained David, bringing me up to speed.

 

I looked again at Francis, not have previously taken him in except to acknowledge our meeting. My Vodka glass began to slip through my fingers and I caught it just before it dropped. A cough caught in my throat and my mouth suddenly went dry. Quickly I knocked back the remainder of the vodka and looked again.

 

He sat there staring back, a slight smirk to his lips and aware of the discomfort that had hit me.

 

I could tell he was quite tall even though sitting. And his shoulders, they were incredibly wide. His skin was a dark chocolate, almost black and shone in the low sun.

 

His face was quite different to everyone around here. Instead of the roundish type that was more or less typical, he had a decidedly square visage. A short sparse moustache and a close cropped thin beard completed an amazingly handsome looking man. The reminder of his face suggested he would shave regularly which again was quite at odds with the local people. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I was speechless.

 

David was talking away to Francis but I heard it only as something in the far distance. I just stared at him and his eyes never left mine leaving me feeling hypnotised.

 

He broke it by glancing at David and saying something briefly and then gazed back. In the meantime I had let my eyes run from head to toe and he still left me stunned. He had on a pair of shorts that seemed to be stretched by those wide hips, while down one leg perhaps I was imagining an extra lump.

 

As he turned towards me, his smirk changed to something more of a grin. He pushed back in his chair, stretching his hands above his head revealing all of his splendour. Finishing the stretch he leaned forward and answered something from David while one hand squeezed that imagined lump on the inside of his leg. When he sat back again, the cloth had indented around a long dick that must almost have been to the end of the shorts leg.

 

When my eyes finally met his, he was watching me, and this time I swear the smile was a knowing one.  Then he stretched once more, stood up and walked back up the side of the house with David.

 

I followed trance like, wondering what that display had all been about. While David was discussing the work, Francis kept his eye on me and more than once appeared to unconsciously squeeze his dick. While a casual movement, each time he would check to see if I was still watching.

 

Their conversation finished, David walked over and told me what they were doing and how the job would proceed. He asked if I would clear having the new fencing panels being made by the carpenter down at the crossroads.

 

Returning to the garden table we sat down. I felt really weird and confused after meeting Francis.

 

"What do you think?" David asked, pulling me back from the daydreams.

 

"About what?" I asked, not really with it.

 

"Francis. I told you he was different, so what do you think?"

 

"He's quite a good looking man. Okay, he has incredible good looks."

 

"That's what I thought when I saw him looking for work. Thought you would like him too."

 

"What are you up to?" I asked. This was not the usual David.

 

He put his hands up in defeat. "You know me, I don’t like black men. Only you. But he is so different. His looks, his body, I’ve never seen anyone like him before"

 

"Yes, where is he from, and he speaks as though he has had an education, so why is he up in this part of the world?"

 

"It’s the first thing I wanted to know too. His family is from Mozambique; they came north when the civil war was on. One grandparent is Portuguese. He has worked in hotels and restaurants along the coast but is running away from some money lenders."

 

"Is he a criminal?"

 

"No, but he co-signed a loan for his friend to buy a motorcycle and his friend had an accident, so now he is supposed to pay back the money, which he doesn’t have. Rather than meet up with the ‘persuasion gang’, he took off as far as he could till his friend gets better and sorts it all out."

 

"Hell, that’s a new one. And he ends up here on this hill in a tea plantation."  I shook my head at this strange world.

 

"He likes you too, couldn’t keep his eyes off you." David laughed.

 

"You saw that?"

 

"Couldn’t miss it, and the squeezing of that thing he has down his leg. That was for you but I didn’t miss that one either."

 

"So what are you going to do about it, seems to me you had all this worked out before you even mentioned the fence."

 

David roared with laughter. "No honestly. But I did know there was something about him but didn’t know quite what. After what I just saw at this table though, it looks like he might be up for some fun."

 

"How are you going to engineer that?"

 

"I won’t engineer it. But if it happens I think it will be Francis who makes it happen.

 

There was no doubt at all that Francis was amazingly good looking, but from the way he acted he nevertheless disturbed me in someway.