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The following piece of fiction contains strong sexual
content and is meant to be read only by adults. If you
are not at least 18 years old, or if you are offended by
this type of material, please do not read any further.
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"Night of the Camel"
by DG
Colonel Humberto Hurtado followed his Indian guide up
the steep mountain trail, gasping for breath in the thin air,
his eyes fixed on the rocky ground that rose inexorably in
front of him. After what seemed like an eternity the guide
stopped, and Hurtado, his face locked into a mask of effort
and pain, almost ran into him.
"We rest here," said the guide, his first words since
dawn.
Hurtado noticed that they were on a rare patch of level
ground, and then he realized with relief that they had
reached the top of the pass. Spread out in front of them
along the horizon was a wide golden band, shimmering and
hazy, like an apparition. The great Kahlarine desert.
The guide grunted and pointed, and Hurtado followed his
outstretched arm and saw a tiny walled settlement nestled in
the dry hills right at the edge of the sand. Fort Amatilla:
the furthest, most remote outpost of Her Majesty's far-flung
empire.
He reached into his backpack and dug out the last chunk
of stale bread, and after wolfing it down he treated himself
to a long draught from his canteen. Then he nodded to the
guide, and they set off on the long descent that would take
them into the hellish heat of the otherworldly landscape
below.
He reached the front gate of the fort a few hours
later, trudging alone along the desolate, sun-baked track.
His guide had left him once they had reached this road, if
you could call it a road; he had nodded to Hurtado with a
hint of sympathy around the edges of his impassive face, and
then turned and headed back up the mountain at a rapid pace.
A few seconds later Hurtado remembered that he should really
have given the a few reals, and he turned around and
reached into his pocket. But the was gone, as if he had
never existed. Hurtado shrugged philosophically; after all,
Indians had no use for the metal coins of a civilized empire.
He wasn't surprised when a in a major's
uniform marched stiff-legged out of the front gate and
saluted him. In this flat, treeless country he had been
visible on the road for a least an hour. He returned the
major's salute wearily, painfully conscious of his own
filthy, sweat-stained uniform and unshaven face.
"Welcome, Colonel. We have been expecting you. My
name is Major Ramon Dilantro. I hereby turn command of Her
Majesty's Fort over to you."
Hurtado nodded formally. "Thank you, Major Dilantro."
"Would you like to conduct your initial inspection now,
sir?"
Hurtado wanted nothing more than a meal, a bath, and a
comfortable bed. But custom dictated that he tour this
Godforsaken fort and meet its unfortunate inhabitants
immediately.
"Certainly." He followed the inside, noting
the stone walls with approval. The twenty-three
soldiers he was to command were lined up single file on the
dusty floor, and they pulled themselves to attention as he
came in. They were all painfully thin, and their uniforms
were threadbare and patched, but they were more or less
clean, and none of them seemed drunk. As he formally greeted
each one, he wondered what unfortunate circumstances, what
grievous misconduct, had caused them to be assigned to Fort
Amatilla. No doubt they were wondering the same thing about
him.
After meeting the men, he toured the inside of the
fort. The slept in wooden bunks along the walls, while
as commanding officer he had one corner for his living
quarters, walled off with hanging blankets. The inspection
didn't take long. Once he was satisfied that the cannon were
in good working order and that the interior of the fort was
reasonably well-kept, he wasn't inclined to ask many
questions.
"The all seem to be sober and well-behaved," he
remarked to Dilantro when they were finished. "Is discipline
not a problem in such a place?"
"No one wants to be here," admitted Dilantro. "But we
make the best of a bad situation, and morale is reasonably
good. Drunkenness is not an issue, of course - there is no
alcohol within three hundred miles of here."
"I see," replied Hurtado heavily. "The time must pass
very slowly. We both know there is precious little chance of
seeing any action, with the recent treaty...how do the
amuse themselves?"
"It's not easy, sir. During the day it is too hot to
do anything but talk. At night the play cards and dice,
and sometimes there is singing. But for true amusement, the
kind of amusement that all require from time to time, we
have only our one camel. Each has the use of the camel
for a night, in rotation." He gave Hurtado a nervous,
sidelong glance.
The in question was a shaggy, smelly beast
tethered to a post near the back of the fort. Hurtado was
deeply shocked by the obvious meaning in Major Dilantro's
words, and his first impulse was to reply angrily. He was a
decent man, proud to be an officer in Her Majesties army, and
to have such a thing spoken of openly...it was terrible.
But he was tired, bone-tired, and he was loath to make
a scene so soon after taking command. There was also a
little voice in the back of his head. A voice that said
"Humberto, perhaps you should not judge these until you
too have spent many months here...Are you not a of hot
blood, a of strong passion? Is that not how you came to
be here in the first place? Perhaps you will have a
different view about the camel in time."
He realized that Dilantro was looking at him anxiously,
waiting for some sort of reaction.
"It is, I hope, a female camel?"
"Why yes sir, it is. Her name is Mathilda. But the
men would be equally happy with a male camel, I imagine."
This was too much. It was enough to turn his stomach.
He nodded curtly to his second-in-command and went into his
private quarters.
Time did pass slowly at Fort Amatilla, and it passed
more slowly for its commander than for anyone. He had many
long, hot, dusty hours to reflect upon the woman he had left
in Sevilla and on the ruin of his once-promising career.
Indeed, he could hardly reflect upon the one without finding
his thoughts drawn to the other. It was the military
story: the of a superior officer. A few months of
bliss, and then his life had been turned upside down by a
traitorous manservant. He and his beloved Isabel had been
flogged in public, and then he had been assigned here, forced
to leave immediately. They never had a chance to say
goodbye, and probably never would.
This alone would be enough to make a melancholy, or
worse, but there was also the matter of the camel. Hurtado
would pretend not to notice when, every evening around dusk,
a would untether the unpleasant beast and lead her out
the front gate, accompanied by good-natured joking and
teasing by his friends. Many hours later, sometimes not
until nearly dawn, the would come back inside, dirty,
smelly, and exhausted, with a ridiculous smile on his face
and a friendly pat for the camel as he tethered her back to
the post. Yes, he pretended not to notice, but he did
notice, and although he didn't put a stop to it, it affected
his relationship with the men. He quickly became the kind of
distant, fault-finding commander that he himself had always
detested, and the learned to avoid him.
Months passed, many sleepless nights, and Hurtado
became increasingly miserable. The dislike of his
bothered him more than he cared to admit - he had always been
popular with his fellow officers and with the enlisted
under him, and the cold stares, the sudden halt in the flow
of conversation when he approached, was more than he could
bear. Added to this was the image of his lovely Isabel,
always hovering nearby, ready to invade his thoughts whenever
he let down his guard. Her warm, loving embrace, her sweet
lips. And yes, her firm, creamy-white bosom and her hot,
moist sex, always ready for him.
The only thing he could do to improve his rapport with
the was unthinkable. But he did think about it, late at
night when the fort was quiet and dark, the silence broken
only by the regular cries of "All's well" from the sentries.
It was unnatural, detestable. "And yet," the little voice in
his head would whisper, "is it natural that a should live
in such a place? Is it natural for a to be without the
company of women for months on end?"
One night the little voice wore him out. He simply ran
out of moral strength, like an hourglass running out of sand.
"Yes," he said out loud, softly. "Yes, I will do it." And
then he turned over and slept more soundly than he had in
months.
The next afternoon he called Major Dilantro into his
quarters. Thinking he was to be disciplined, the
shaved and presented himself in his best uniform.
"You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Yes. Please, have a seat."
Something in his commander's manner told Dilantro that
he wasn't to be reprimanded, and he sat down with a look of
relief.
After a short pause, Hurtado said "The don't like
me."
"Not at all, sir, they -"
"No, no, we will have none of that. They don't like
me, and they have good reason. I've been too hard on them.
This is a command that calls for understanding and leniency,
and I chose the opposite approach."
Dilantro didn't object to this. It was obviously true,
and Hurtado was clearly in no mood to be humored.
"The real problem, and we might as well bring it out
into the open, is with the camel." He still couldn't bring
himself to call her Mathilda. "The resent me for looking
down on them. They know I disapprove, on moral grounds."
"They respect your feelings, sir. And at the same time
they are glad that you do not put a stop to it."
"Yes, yes, but no enjoys being judged a sinner by
another."
"No, sir."
"I have thought about this long and hard, and I have
decided that this has gone on long enough. I would like you
to put me into the normal rotation, so I can take my turn."
Dilantro smiled. "Very good, sir. You shall have her
tonight, of course, as is your right. The will be
delighted to hear it, believe me."
"Very well, then. Dismissed."
Word traveled fast in such cramped, intimate
surroundings, and when Hurtado lifted the blanket and stepped
out of his quarters at dusk the smiled their approval at
him, all coldness gone.
As he nervously approached the camel, Dilantro appeared
at his side and coughed discreetly. "Let me explain the
procedure to you, sir. As you know -"
"I think I can figure out the 'procedure', as you call
it, Major," he replied angrily. "Let us not speak of such
things so callously."
Dilantro looked surprised. "As you wish, sir."
Hurtado untethered the mangy and led her towards
the front gate, painfully aware that everyone's gaze was upon
him. Fortunately there was no joking, no calling out, or he
would certainly have lost his temper. Then he was outside in
the rapidly cooling night air, under a canopy of stars, and
his spirits lifted. He had been a fool to take such a moral
stand. It was not such a terrible thing, really. Was it not
a far worse thing to put yourself above your fellows, to make
yourself out to be a saint?
He followed Mathilda away from the fort, into the
dunes. She kept turning her head to look at him, wondering
what they were about, and Hurtado would say "No, no, a
little farther" each time.
Finally it was fully dark out, or as fully dark as
would get with a huge full moon hanging magically in the
still night sky. Hurtado stopped and looked back at the
fort, now just barely visible. "No sense getting lost," he
said. "This is far enough."
Mathilda seemed to understand him, and she awkwardly
lowered herself to the ground, bending first her front legs
and then the back, in the unusual way that camels have. Then
she looked at him expectantly.
Hurtado slowly unbuckled and lowered his breeches.
With a muttered prayer for his immortal soul, he kneeled
behind the camel. The smell was almost overpowering, a
tangy, musky stench that was a caricature of what a proper
woman should smell like. To his disgust, his prick had
sprung to life, bouncing firmly in front of him as he
shuffled forward. He poked at her ineffectually, unsure of
the exact location. Just when he despaired of bringing this
unspeakable act to completion, he tried a downward angle, and
he slid in easily, losing his balance and toppling forward
against Mathilda's warm haunches. She looked around at him,
her head swiveling comically on her long neck, and then
looked away.
He tried a few experimental thrusts. She was loose,
and rather dry. She was obviously no more attracted to him
than he was to her. He banged away half-heartedly, and then,
to his surprise, he felt her lubrication forming. With each
stroke she felt smoother and more slippery, and soon he was
picking up the pace and enjoying himself. The fragrant
camel juice continued to form, and soon it was flowing out of
her in a continuous stream, coating his prick, then his
balls, and then his legs. Before long he felt a surge of
pleasurable sensation in his loins, and his poor, aching
balls gave up their long-held seed.
He cleaned himself up as best he could and then he made
his way back to the fort, feeling almost cheerful. Now he
was one of them; he was even looking forward to some good-
natured teasing - after all, what was teasing but a sign of
affection? The months to come would certainly be more
pleasant, and pass more quickly, than the ones behind him.
He led Mathilda past the sentry and through the gate.
"Sir! You're back...what's wrong? Did you get lost?"
It was Dilantro, hurrying over with a look of concern.
"No, Major, everything went fine. Thank you."
"But...what happened?" Dilantro noticed the disheveled
appearance of his superior officer for the first time, the
strange stains on his breeches, and he wrinkled his nose at
the terrible smell.
"What happened? I go off into the dunes with the
camel, and you ask me what happened?" He was angry now,
raising his voice. Out of the corner of his eye he could see
some of the looking at him with horror.
Dilantro had a formal, faraway look on his face now.
"I'm sorry, sir. But it's a two-hour camel ride to the
brothel on the other side of the ridge, two hours each way,
and you have only been gone for an hour."
And then Colonel Humberto Hurtado understood that the
months to come were going to be very long ones indeed.
The End, "Night of the Camel"
© 1997 by DG. All rights reserved.
Notes:
1) Yeah, I know, it's an joke. But besides being very funny,
I always thought the joke had a certain pathos to it, even when
told in just a few sentences.
2) Please let me know what you thought of this - my email address
is dionysian1@hotmail.com
3) All my are available from my web page:
http://baird.pair.com/dg.htm
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