This is the story of the holidays we spent in Africa, in a country whose name I will not mention to offend no one. But let me introduce myself first and foremost. My name is B., I am 45 years old and my wife, J. is 38 years old.
We wanted to discover the desert by going on a camel trek. We booked our trip by directly contacting a local agency, which organized a stay inside a caravan of nomads.
Once there, we were taken by 4x4 to the camp of the tribe where we were welcomed and assigned a tent for the night. The next day very early, to avoid the heat of mid-day, we set off. We walked sometimes on our camels, sometimes on foot. After a long break between noon and five o'clock, we continued to sink into the desert and in the evening, we settled our camp in the bed of a wadi.
If you do not know the desert, when I speak of a wadi, you probably imagine a river. A wadi in this region is always dry, except during heavy rains. As the bed is the lowest point of the plain, it is there that the water accumulates and forms a torrent. When it is dry, the bed remains visible because of the vegetation, rare but present all along. The wadi is useful to nomads because it is a pasture for animals and it is also the place where you can find wood for fire.
During this first day we met our guides, especially Mustapha, Abdou and Sami. Abdou even changed the name of my wife by deciding to call her Aisha. "Aisha, photo," he said, taking the camera and asking us to pose next to a camel or at the foot of a massive rock with a suggestive shape. It also happened that he said to me "B., You leave the gazelle alone!" when I teased my wife. Abdou is rather tall and wiry but muscular. Mustapha has the stature of a rugby pillar. As for Sami, he is between the two: average size, average weight. For my part, I look more like Sami with the musculature of an intellectual rather than a nomad. My wife is pretty plump, with beautiful shapes at the strategic spots.
I was not long in falling asleep the first night, quite tired from the heat and walking all day. The next morning, very early, I realized that my wife was no longer with me. I know that she likes to leave alone on the lookout for beautiful photos. I came out of the tent to meet her and at the same time do my business out of sight. The camp was still asleep. I tried to find her footprints in the sand to follow her tracks and search in a probable or at least possible direction. I walked away until I could not see the tents, still without seeing my wife. After about an hour, I was back but not knowing where J. was and I was getting worried.
Then I saw her slip into the tent. She had a weired look. Embarrassed. I told her that I had worried. She explained that she had got up before the sun rise, to take pictures and do her business too (paradoxically, it is never easy to isolate oneself in the desert). And then, while she was peeing, Abdou surprised her. She had to pull up her panties quickly, but the damage was done. He had certainly seen her squatting, her buttocks blowing in the air. She confessed that he had raped her.
I watched her incredulously. I should have been angry and at the same time protective but I was rather inert. It was probably because she did not correspond to the image, probably a cliche, of the raped woman. I asked her if he had hit her. She told me that he had come to her, he had raised his gandoura, he was naked underneath and he had shown his erection. He had then laid her on the sand and forced her. I asked J. why she did not scream. She told me that she could not, that she had more or less let it go. I did not dare to question her although I would have liked to have details. I was afraid she would tell me that she had not opposed the rape because she did not see it that way. Her attitude on returning under the tent was not that of someone terrified but as I said, she rather looked annoyed. Probably because of me.
But I still pointed out that what she had told me had at most lasted a few minutes, which did not explain that she had disappeared for more than an hour, even counting the time of the getaway. Her embarrassment increased. She did not seem to find how to justify herself. She hesitated to tell the truth. Or she was looking for a plausible lie. She finished explaining painstakingly that Abdou had brought her back to the camp and then invited her under his tent. I understood half word that she had not tried to escape him, that she had not called me to her aid and that she had followed him of her own free will.
After this confession, we both remained silent, each in his thoughts. She was probably worrying about the future while I was depressed by the past.
She went to take the water we used to clean up. She turned her back, removed her panties, washed her pussy and let her dress cover her legs. She could not isolate because there was no place in the tent to lock herself. I realized that she was cleaning the sperm that was in her. I pointed out that she had no more panties under her dress. Her cheeks instantly turned carmine and she confessed she could not. I thought she was hurt or had a physical impediment but in my misunderstanding, she felt compelled to give me an explanation. I was shocked to learn that it was Abdou who had demanded that she no longer wear underwear. I tried to bring her to reason, to tell her that she had no obligation to follow his orders but nothing helped. She remained naked underneath and even removed her bra.
Abdou came to join us. He held, hung on his forearm, a bright red gandoura. He asked me to go out. I looked at my wife and saw that she implored me to obey. I put my head down and I left the tent, leaving them alone both. It was the supreme humiliation.
I looked through the opening of the entrance and saw that my wife was naked. Abdou had ordered her to undress and she did. He handed her the gandoura and she put it on. I heard him say, "You'll keep this traditional dress and you'll stay naked underneath, like I am too, you'll stay at my disposal day and night, I'll take you whenever I want to. Concerning your husband, he will have to come out of the tent every time I come in, without my having anything to say to him." He went out and invited me in, saying that my wife wanted to talk to me.
She did not dare to look at me in the eyes. I did not say anything. Then she took courage and stammered that she had to stay in this outfit, which Abdou demanded. I pretended to oppose this decision, to plead for a common front, but I felt that my wife had changed sides. I did not understand why, but it seemed clear that the main obstacle to a refusal on our part was that J. was consenting.
The atmosphere remained heavy all day. The nomads apparently had settled for a few days and we had nothing to do but wait until we were called for lunch and then for dinner, taken on carpets unrolled directly on the sand, in the shadow of a huge rocky wall.
After lunch, we headed to the tent to take a nap. Despite the heat, I did not sleep. I was trying to find out if my wife was asleep. I listened to her breathing. I was quickly fixed. She rose without making a sound, thinking that I did not hear her. She left the tent. I knew she was going to join Abdou. I was left alone, imagining what was happening, what they were doing. I took a look at my watch to estimate the duration of her absence. She did not return until after three hours. She saw that I was not sleeping. She did not try to justify herself. She just seemed to be asking me to forgive her. Her eyes were saying "I could not resist, sorry."
After the evening meal, Abdou, Mustapha and Sami accompanied us to our tent. Abdou entered with my wife, leaving us outside. We heard them discuss. Abdou proposed that my wife take care of his friends. She refused. She told Abdou that she loved him, that she did not do this because of vice. But Abdou was inflexible. He said that his friends also wanted her and she had to submit to him. As the positions did not change on either side, Abdou called Mustapha and Sami.
I went in with them, determined to help my wife get out of this mess. But for a few minutes, the tension subsided because Abdou, Mustapha and Sami were talking to each other in another language that I did not understand. Then Sami came out. Mustapha, Abdou, my wife and I looked at each other without speaking or acting. Sami came back after a few minutes. He held ropes. He attached two at the foot of the central mast of the tent and a third at the bottom of a wooden stick at the external part of the tent. I saw him make sure they were tight enough so that they could not slide up.
Abdou moved our bed composed of a light mattress on the floor and a blanket. He asked my wife to kneel on the bed, facing the central pole. Sami winded one of the two strings of the mast around the back of her knees and with the one anchored to the outer post he circled her waist. J. was securely fixed, held at the front by the tie around her belly and at the back by the one around her legs. Abdou leaned on her neck to bend her bust until her cheek touched the mattress. She had the position of Muslim prayer. Sami wrapped the third string around her neck. She could not raise her head anymore.