Chapter One

 

Sophie Campbell was a good girl, and had always been a good girl. Her clothes were always perfectly pressed, ironed, cleaned and folded. Her teeth were always perfectly brushed, carefully flossed, and hygienically washed with mouthwash. Her marks, at school, were all straight As.

Sophie did not swear, at all, for any reason, and quite disapproved of the habit in others. She did not gossip, nor speak ill of others, even if she disapproved of their behavior. She gave to charity, and volunteered her time to help those less advantageous than herself.

And Sophie always obeyed the rules, the regulations, the laws, and the policies, of wherever she happened to be, whether she regarded them as sensible or not. Sophie had never gotten a traffic ticket. On the road, car after car would come up behind her, move around her, and then move back into the slow lane where she would be driving the exact speed limit.

If other people chose to disobey the posted speed that was their business. Sophie would do no such thing. She was, after all, was a good girl.

It surprised no one when, after graduating from the University of Georgia with a major in Health Promotion, she volunteered to travel to Africa for a stint with the Peace Corps. She would, while giving all due respect to local cultures, help educate Africans on health behavior, on the conditions, both living and working, which would adversely influence their health and prevent disease and disability.

Sophie was a good girl, and felt that her privileged upbringing required she give something back to the world, and its poor. But it would wrong to say she wasn't at least somewhat nervous about the thought of living and working in Africa.

The pristine, beautiful campus of the University of Georgia was precisely the world in which Sophie thrived. There was order, beauty, and well-mannered behavior. The lovely, manicured grounds and smoothly paved walkways were a pleasure to walk on and through. She was quite certain Africa, by comparison would be - chaotic.

Just dressing for the trip was an exercise in anxiety! She was destined for the western African country of Namibia, where the average daily temperature would be expected to be quite high, higher than Georgia, and in particular, the more moderate climate of Athens, where she lived.

What was worse, she would be without the air conditioning which was the norm in Athens. This would, of necessity, require a certain alteration of her normal wardrobe.

Sophie, after all, was a good girl. Sophie was gifted with a body which was considered generously endowed and attractive (by western cultural standards, she reminded herself). The attention her body had often garnered was distressing and distracting, bringing, as it often did, the unseemly and even rudely displayed interest of men, both young and old.

Sophie was a firm believer in the equality of women, and wanted to be considered and appreciated for her behavior and intelligence, not her body. She had therefore, almost since adolescence, taken up a choice of wardrobe designed to minimize male interest.

Her clothing tended towards dark colors, despite the weather, was never tight or form fitting, and exposed very little flesh. Her blouses and dresses were buttoned up to the neck, her hems long, her shoes without heels.

Even her lingerie was governed by her interest in not attracting unseemly male interest in that her bras were designed to flatten her breasts, rather than emphasize them, to minimize their appearance. That task was not an easy one given the size of her bust, but it did work, to some effect.

Sophie was a firm believer in a health mind with a healthy body, and exercised rigorously. However, given the warm weather and the need to wear minimal clothing she did so in the basement of her rented townhouse, where she could jog and run to her hearts content on her treadmill, without male eyes ogling her in her shorts and reinforced sports bra.

She had some experience with men, much of it distasteful. They only seemed after one thing! And she had been raised to not give it to them! Of course, she had weakened over the years. She had allowed some few of them to touch her in places people might consider highly inappropriate, and she had learned, in order to please them and yet deny them her ultimate sacrifice, how to satisfy them with her hands, and then with her mouth.

She wasn't entirely certain why she had been determined to remain a virgin. Part of it was a prudent desire to not get pregnant or catch anything unpleasant. Part of it was that as a very private person, the idea of baring her body to men was a daunting one. Part of it was that she resented the often poor manners of the men who wanted sex from her. And part of it was a fear of gaining a 'reputation' as fast.

Of course, she had instead garnered a reputation as a prude, which she hadn't really wanted either. That was when she'd learned to compromise by satisfying her dates without the need to disrobe. It made her far too self-conscious when men ogled her, and she could only imagine what they'd do if she was entirely without clothes!

Her walled-in community did have a swimming pool, and she did make use of it on occasion, but not to lay around basking in the sun (which was not good for your skin anyway) but to swim laps. On those occasions she wore a modest one-piece suit.

She would pack that suit, of course, but what to wear in darkest Africa, where she could be out and about all day in hot, humid weather? Even if she were of a mind to wear shorts, it did not seem to her, through viewing the pictures, that women wore shorts in Africa, and she wanted to be culturally sensitive.

Long robes seemed to be the order of the day, which she found gratifying, though it did make her doubtful about their comfort in the hot temperatures. She was not, after all, African. She had fair skin, with green eyes and long, mahogany hair, and was not overly fond of hot weather. The women in the pictures had little or no hair, she thought ruefully, while hers hung halfway down her back.

But sacrifice in the name of helping the less fortunate only made her feel better about herself.

Since it would not do to appropriate the clothing of the locals (culturally insensitive) she went shopping and purchased a number of summer dresses. These dresses were, of necessity, light both in color and in weight, the fabric thin and not normally very tight. The size of her bust would have made them so, but her minimizer bras solved that problem handily.

She did have another problem, a personal problem, and that was her birth control pills. Although Sophie didn't need them for the traditional usage, her doctor had put her on them years earlier as a means to regularize her monthly 'visits', and they worked quite well at that. Going to darkest Africa for months might make it impossible to fill her prescription.

With that in mind she'd gone to her doctor and gotten an implant. It was a tiny stick, smaller than a matchstick, which was placed under her skin on her arm and would steadily release a hormone for up to two years, thus continuing to stabilize her period. It would also act as a birth control device, of course, but that, she thought, was hardly necessary.

The plane ride was exciting, though of course, she had been to Europe several times. There was even a delightful stopover in Paris where she could practice her rudimentary French.

Landing in Windhoek was less of a delight. It was quite hot, and the airport was quite small, and the line to pass through customs seemed interminable. She was gratified at how modern the city was, at first, until she and several other volunteers were packed into a Land Rover which sped south out of the city.

By the time they pulled into the small, walled compound where they would be staying the night she was tired, sweaty, and very short of temper after having been confined in the car, speeding over less than perfect roads for hours. But she did her best to seem cheerful, given the circumstances.

The compound was far from luxurious, and the residents were a mixture of Americans, and the Namibians who worked for and with them. She was given a tiny room with two cots, the other of which was occupied by someone not presently there.

She found herself seated at the end of a bench before a long, rough wooden table, with a slender young Namibian man on her left and a tall, older Namibian woman across the table.

"How are you finding our country, Miss Campbell?" the man asked solicitously.

"Oh, it's quite hot," she said ruefully.

"You will get used to that in a short time," the woman said. "I am Lashan," she added, reaching across the table.

"Call me Sophie!" Sophie said happily, taking her hand and shaking it.

"I am Sisco," the man said, inclining his head.

"Hi," she said, taking his hand.

She noted how rough his hand was with some surprise, but then realized that this was simply a man who had spent his whole life working with his hands. It was a moment of epiphany and guilt for Sophie, who suddenly realized she had simply rarely met such men, even in the United States, let alone shaken their hands. Was she a snob?

These thoughts were disturbed by the fact Sisco was not letting go of her hand very quickly, and she began to feel a sense of apprehension before he finally released her with a strange smile.

"Where are you from, Sophie?" Lashan asked.

"I'm from Georgia," she replied. "Athens. It's warm in Georgia, but not like this. Whew."

"Your accent seems odd," Lashan said.

"Oh, well, in Georgia we don't consider we have an accent, just that the northerners do," she said with a laugh.

"So different Americans have different accents? That is quite interesting," Lashan said.

"Oh yes, well, it's a big place, you know, so there are a lot of local accents, even some unique to certain cities, like Boston and New York."

Dinner was served, and Lashan helped to identify the myriad of different types of foods for her, most of which Sophie had never heard of, much less tasted. Sisco remained largely silent, though Sophie would have been appalled to learn this was due to his not desiring her attention so he could continue to gaze down the front of her dress.

Sophie was not in the habit of wearing dresses which did not come up to her neck. While the flowery, blue summer dress she had on was modest, by most standards, the round neckline was wide, and the dress was not overly tight. As she leaned forward to eat and talk with Lashan, however, the weight of her breasts tended to pull the thin material forward opening a sizable opening for the tall man's eyes to investigate.

The nature of her bra, as well, which, rather than being two distinct cups to shape her breasts, was more of a halter, allowed his eyes unimpeded access to the full, cream colored top of her breasts, and Sisco found himself entranced by the sight.

There were few white women in Africa, fewer still outside the major tourist areas, and even fewer as young and attractive as Sophie Campbell. The sight of her breasts produced a powerful erection in the African man, and he found himself breathless at the view as he strove to control himself and the girl chatted on blithely unaware.

Such full, rounded breasts on young, slender girls were rare in Namibia, where diets were uncertain and the science of shape forming lingerie something of a novelty. Sisco kept his erection all through dinner, during which his eyes spent considerable time inside Sophie's dress, then returned home to his wife, there to please her with his enthusiasm while his mind was filled with the full bodied American girl he had sat beside through dinner.

Sophie, happily unaware of his lewd interest, let Lashan show her around the small town. Though a main road was paved, the remainder was dirt, and the homes and buildings were simple, colorful and small, often roofed in tin. A few thousand people lived and worked there, and all stared as she walked by.

Sophie took numerous pictures, delighted in how quaint and simple the place was, and how much everyone smiled as they walked by. Her pleasure lasted through her return to the compound, up to her shower.

She had been much looking forward to the shower, despite the fact it would be, she was told, in lukewarm water. The water came from a tank on the roof, for there was no running water in town. Nonetheless, she felt sweaty enough to put up with any temperature, and lukewarm sounded just fine given how hot she'd been all day.

The shower room was tiny, made up of a concrete floor and walls but she didn't care. She luxuriated in the water as she stood beneath it, and only the desire to soap herself up caused her to step back. Once heavily soaped, she stepped back into the water with a groan of pleasure, letting it wash away the sweat, dirt and soap all together.

Her pleasure lasted up until she turned the water off and discovered that neither her towel nor her robe were still hanging on the hook behind the door. There was, in fact, nothing there at all.