Unrestrained (Unrestrained 3)

"I don’t really get the money system yet," he said and laughed. "Maybe we should have asked Jomo to be our agent. We probably overpaid for everything we bought today."

I shrugged. "Maybe, but we can afford it."

"Who knows? I may have paid a small fortune for those vegetables. We should probably shop at the mall until we get to know prices and the money a bit better."

There weren't a lot of Europeans in the city, so we were pretty visible, and a few small children stopped as they walked by us with their mothers. They stared at us, smiling, until the mothers pulled them along. "Mzungu," one small girl said as she stared at us.

I knew that it mean 'white person' in Swahili.

"We're curiosities," I said, waving at one small girl with big brown eyes.

"Definitely." Drake smiled and waved at her as well and then she was pulled away, back into the throng of people streaming through the market.

Jomo drove up a few moments later, glad to see us, and took us to another furniture shop so I could buy a table for my studio and some shelves for supplies. Finally, we stopped at a computer store at a local mall and Drake picked up something he needed for his class. Then Jomo took us back to our new home. He helped us with our bags and Drake gave him an extra large tip for being so helpful. He promised to be our personal taxi driver whenever we needed one, if he was available. It was nice to have someone we could trust to help us navigate the city.

After hauling in our bags and putting food away, we collapsed on the couch and I couldn't imagine cooking.

"I wish we were back in Manhattan," Drake said. "So we could order delivery from Marcellus or go to the bagel shop across the street from your apartment."

"There's that bag of potato chips," I said, yawning. "We could eat that. No cooking. No cleaning."

Drake pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. "What happened to our plans to cook real food?"

"Exhaustion happened. I think I could go to bed and stay there all night. Like John Lennon and Yoko Ono," I said, smiling up at Drake. "Only we wouldn't be protesting anything except sore muscles."

Drake laughed. "The pool guy was here. Luckily, Jan thought of everything. We could go have a swim, then eat the bag of chips and listen to some music. I doubt I'll be able to stay awake much longer than nine o'clock, the way I feel."

"Sounds like a plan."

Later, after our swim, with glasses of soda water and orange juice instead of wine, which Drake thought would make him too tired, we sat on the couch and listened to some of Drake's music on the new sound system he'd bought. He had to look over some notes for his lectures in the morning and so I took out my laptop and tried to work out a schedule for the next month, so that I would keep myself busy.

"Oh, I completely forgot," Drake said and then reached into his briefcase to pull out a brochure with an image of giraffes and elephants on the cover. "This is the one," he said, pointing to the third safari option in the brochure. "Claire gave it to me." He handed it to me and I checked the description. A safari for artists and photographers, it was on a weekend at the end of March.

"Our schedule for that week's ER call was posted and Michael and I will be on call but you could go with Claire. She's an amateur photographer and wants to go to get some good wildlife photos. Michael promised to arrange it so we can all go together to a regular safari, but Claire would love to go to this one, according to Michael. I know you wouldn't want to miss an artist safari."

I smiled at Drake, thankful that we had Michael and Claire to rely on. I was eager to go on safari, and Claire was pleasant enough to be with, despite her gossipy ways. Knowing her way around and how to get what she wanted, she'd be useful on safari.

After another hour passed, with Drake yawning widely, we decided to go to bed and did our usual preparations, undressing, washing up and brushing our teeth side by side. It was all very domestic.

We fell into bed, and Drake pulled me close so that I snuggled into his arms.

"Good night," I said to him as he lay behind me, one of his arms around my waist, his hand cupping one of my breasts.

"Good night my love," he said, barely able to stifle another yawn. "Sorry to be so unromantic, but I'm almost asleep with my eyes open."

"It's OK. So am I." I turned my head to face him and he kissed me, warmly, his mouth lingering on mine for a moment longer. Then I turned back and closed my eyes. I couldn’t help but remember what Claire had said – that she and Michael fell into bed late at night, too exhausted for anything but sleep.

As I listened to him breath so slow and steady behind me, I hoped his schedule loosened up a bit in the coming months so that we'd have more time to enjoy each other.

I missed the intensity of our scenes and wondered when we'd be able to go to another dungeon party. Hopefully, Sefton deVilliers wouldn't be there.

My first studio class was the following Wednesday and I was getting excited about it, looking forward to doing some life drawing again. On the Tuesday after we moved into our house, I pulled out my pencils and charcoals, a kit to carry my supplies and a small black leather portfolio to carry my sketchpads and artwork. I sat on the couch and sorted through my art case, touching everything, eager to get started. I felt like a real art student again and was so glad Claire suggested the Institute.

At about six, after I had a very light supper of poached eggs on toast and an orange, I had a nice warm bath and prepared myself, shaving everything in case Drake had enough energy and was in the mood. I put on a very skimpy sundress and waited, eager to see him after my day alone.

Drake called about seven o'clock to say he had a late surgery and

would probably not be home until after ten o'clock at the earliest. I felt a pang of regret for once more I'd spent the entire day alone, eating my breakfast, lunch and supper by myself. I sighed and plopped down on the couch, preparing to watch satellite television. Something on the National Geographic channel about the rainforests of Borneo. I tried not to get upset, but I was lonely for Drake. I wanted to at least talk to him. I hadn’t spoken to a single soul all day, except the television news reporter when I commented rather rudely on something he said.