In my story "Summer of '76 in the Nurses Home," I mentioned at the end that I went off to nurse in hot spots and war zones.

So here I was, sitting in the shade of summer vines in the Beka'a Valley with a young woman, Safiya, telling me;

"Il y a beaucoup des veuves de guerre dans notre villages; je suis seul, moi-meme." That is; "There are many war widows in our village, I am on my own myself."

I was working in a hospital in the village of Chtoura, after a difficult, challenging year in the main hospital in West Beirut (I had better not name it, but anyone with a passing knowledge of the region will know where I mean.)

Dr Cretien El Mais had offered me and Ene-Liis, my companion and colleague, jobs in his hospital in the beautiful Beka'a Valley. I as Head Nurse (chef de service des infermiere) and Ene-Liis chef de sages-femme; head of Midwifery.

Ene-Liis was from Tallin in Soviet-era Estonia who had escaped by means of a nurse and midwife education exchange scheme to, of all places; a hospital in the Yorkshire Dales. 

So, relieved to escape the war ravaged city, we accepted his offer. I was glad too to escape the supposed scandal of me being suspected of being an IRA spy or PLO liaison person by the British & American spooks (more on that another time!)

So, one of my colleagues in Hôpital El Mais, Maurice, had prevailed upon me to visit the family farm and vineyard in the foothills of the mountains.

Safiya, with whom I sat under the vines, was his cousin. And while she told me of the war widows, she began to stroke my thigh. This was, of course, unexpected and very alarming. The family were obviously well off by local standards, growing many hectares of grapes for the two great wineries, Chateau Musar and Caves Ksara, but the chastity of women was a matter of life and literally, death. Surely. 

Safiya was looking amused at my discomfiture, not least because she glanced at my erection beginning to be obvious in my trousers.

"Ne voulez alarme pas!" she laughed. But I was. (I'll stop using French now; I've forgotten so much!)

Safiya is, if you can imagine, a blue eyed, black haired beauty with a figure like a Sofia Loren who has toiled in the fields. Strong, tanned, muscled and intensely womanly. In fact, she bore more than a passing resemblance to the great Italian beauty, I realised.

"Maurice knows I like you. He understands that I have not had a man since my husband was killed."

"But Safiya, I shouldn't be alone with you! Nor should you be stroking my groin like that! I, you, we, could be killed by your family for this!"

"Non, non, amant, here in the Shouf mountains we are not Arabic, we are the descendents of Iskander of Macedon's generals and the Phoenicians and later the Romans. Since the mists of those times, it is us, the women, who hold sway here! Always we choose our husbands. And lovers!"

Safiya's almond shaped blue eyes were fringed by dark sweeping lashes; they now held my gaze in thrall. 

"Your pale skin is so beautiful, Alan. I have never seen skin so fair. Or hair so red; it is like flames in the sun."

I think it was her who kissed me first, it didn't matter. In moments we were entwined, mouth and body.

Safiya was loosening her clothing and pulling at mine.

"But here?" I gasped.

"No one will come! I must have votre bitte!" I was taken aback at her frank use of the slang for 'cock.' No subdued and chaste woman was she!

What was a randy Irishman to do? Safiya emerged from her long black skirt and colourful embroidered top with surprising ease. She had skin of pale gold and with a thick patch of dark pubic hair as well as tufted airpits. She smelled of fresh soap and fresher feminine sweat. I wrapped my arms around her as our mouths reconnected, frantically entwining tongues. Clearly, French kissing had long been assimilated along with the language among these people.

I caressed Safiya's magnificent breasts. They were full and heavy and when I enclosed her large stiff nipple in my mouth she writhed, moaned and pressed my head into her chest. Then she reached down and felt my stiff cock, through the light linen material of my trousers. I stood up in the sun-dappled shade of burgeoning spring vine leaves with Safiya kneeling, licking her lips expectantly before me.

As my cock sprang free, curving upright towards my belly button, I heard a very gratifying "Sacre Dieu!" and she enclosed my engorged cockhead in her lovely mouth.

"Sacre fuckin' Dieu!" I rejoined as she bobbed her head up and down. Above the rustle of a gentle breeze through the young vine leaves above us I heard our breathing becoming deeper and faster with the glorious slurp of saliva- slick lips on hard cock. The sunlight dappled our bodies, mine so pale and slim and muscled, hers so honey hued and voluptuous.

Safiya lay back and parted her shapely thighs showing her black patch of silky pubic hair and thick pouting cunny lips, slick with the wetness of arousal and the anticipation of attention. So I paused only to drop my trousers and shrug of my shirt and knelt between her legs and brought my mouth down onto her pussy, plunging my tongue through her plump cunt lips and seeking the bud of delight.

Parting her lips with my fingers, I saw her bud was already showing beneath its little hood. My lips enclosed it as she had enclosed my cock head with her lips moments before. Tongue to the fore, urgent and insistent in rapid motion, I could feel her responding, bucking her hips and moaning, rather delightfully I thought, with a fleeting momentary reflection on the immutability of the sounds of lust and arousal across cultures and languages. Safiya pressed my head into her groin, keeping my mouth and tongue right on point as her writhing and bucking movements grew in a crescendo towards her climax.

It started the moment I inserted two fingers into her cunt and was gorgeously convulsive and abandoned. I was deeply impressed at how she had gripped handfuls of my curly red hair to make sure I was exactly where she wanted me. And how much I loved that it was my inserting my fingers deep into her that triggered her climax.

Safiya had only a moment of subsiding breathlessness before she moved to roll over to kneel on all fours. 'What a glorious arse!' I thought. And quickly moved to take up station behind her. Her cunt juice and my saliva had run down to soak her puckered arsehole.

"Not for making babies, Alan, in my arse!" (Ne pas pour fait les bebes, Alan, dans ma cu!)

Taken aback for a second, I thought; 'makes sense.' I inserted my thumb into the inviting hole. Briefly, the sphincter relaxed to admit me and gripped. I wriggled my thumb in and out to Safiya's evident and vocal delight. I just knew I'd only last a few thrusts I was so aroused and on the verge of cumming.

So (My god, forty years later and I'm like a ramrod writing this!) sensing my thumb had done enough to prepare her anus, I forced my upstanding cock towards the horizontal, paused briefly with my cock head touching the entrance which twitched and relaxed invitingly, and plunged in. Half a length, half a length inward, all in!

There was only the slightest edge of pain to Safiya's cries of lust. I withdrew almost my full length, well-nigh bewitched by the sight of my cock shaft sliding in and out. A few more thrusts and I climaxed feeling the repeated pulses of spunk emptying inside her rectum. "

Slowly I subsided and with a little clench of her anal muscle, Safiya expelled me and a gurgling stream of cum.

A moment later we were sitting propped up against the wooden stakes supporting the vines above us.

"We must do this again Alan. And I must introduce Ene-Liis to my sister."

"Ene-Liis?" I spluttered.

"Oui, your little blonde Russian lesbian friend! Surely you must know nothing is secret in the mountain villages!" She laughed.

For such was the truth. Companions and colleagues we were, and its true we had relieved each other's needs a couple of times, but  Ene-Liis was a devotee of Sappho and craved the lustful attention of a female lover. How Maurice had guessed or discovered, I had no idea!

I spent a year in Chtoura and the mountain villages above the valley. Ene-Liis found a warm welcome with Safiya's sister, then with a pair of Armenian sisters.

How we escaped by night over the mountains back to Beirut when war broke out again is another story!