Chapter 1: First Meeting
March 22nd, 2020
As much as I enjoyed the charm of smaller towns and dusty villages along the West African coast, there was something comforting about a proper city. Marrakesh wasn’t the largest place I’d ever been, far from it, but it dwarfed the town I grew up in. A city with soul, pulsing with music, color, scent, and motion. It offered a kind of anonymity that rural stops couldn’t.
There was always something to see here. Markets that stayed alive well into the night, street food that dared your stomach to survive it, rooftop cafes glowing in the dusk. Decker, however, wasn’t interested in any of it tonight. He wanted rest.
“You go,” he said, already sprawled on his bed in the suites other room. “Have your fun.”
We traveled light, backpacks only. No luggage, no souvenirs. But in cities like this, when we stayed for more than a couple of nights, I allowed myself one indulgence: a clean, well-fitted outfit. Something that didn’t smell like sea salt and sweat.
The club that was recommended to me was nicer than I expected. Not just a hole-in-the-wall with cheap beer and loud bass, but a real place with polished floors, a massive dance floor lit like a kaleidoscope, beautiful waitresses gliding between tables, and a guest DJ from Spain spinning a mix of local rhythms and international house beats. I decided to splurge and bought out a VIP booth with bottle service. No real plan. I just wanted a night without thinking, without worrying.
I drifted between the dance floor and the booth. Sometimes I danced alone, sometimes with strangers. The women were friendly, fun, and gorgeous, but none of them caught my interest beyond a shared dance. After a few songs, we’d part ways. Occasionally, one would follow me back to the booth for a drink and some light conversation, but they never stayed long. I wasn’t offering anything more than good company.
I was just about to call it a night, body aching pleasantly, mind buzzing with drink and music, when I saw her again.
She’d been there all evening. Hard not to notice her. While most women clustered in groups, laughing and moving in circles of friends, she was alone. Not awkwardly so, but deliberately. She had a quiet presence of someone who didn’t need anyone to validate her.
I’d watched her from time to time out of curiosity. She turned away almost every person who approached. Men and women alike. Never rudely, but decisively. She didn’t dance, didn’t linger in conversation. She simply watched. Like I did.
She was beautiful, sure, but so were plenty of women in that club. What drew my eye wasn’t her looks. It was in her stillness. Her restraint. A kind of self-possession that seemed out of place in a place built for excess.
She stood maybe a couple of inches over five feet, with smooth bronze skin, and auburn hair streaked with blonde highlights that caught the light like copper. Her dress was backless black silk, clinging in all the right ways, with red accents that hinted at fire beneath elegance.
But what caught me wasn’t the dress or the hair. It was the moment she looked up and met my eyes.
And then she crossed the room, heading straight for my booth.
The hostess glanced at me as she approached, ready to intercept her, like she had others before. I nodded slightly. Permission granted.
There was something different about this one.
She slid into the booth like she belonged there, crossing one leg over the other, her movements effortless.
“I’m Mira,” she said, voice warm and low, extending a hand with a faint smile.
“Alex,” I replied, taking her fingers and brushing them with a light kiss, half out of charm, half to see how she’d react.
She didn’t flinch or blush. Just smiled a little wider.
The hostess filled two flutes with champagne and vanished again. Mira didn’t touch hers at first. She let her fingers rest on the stem, watching me. When she finally picked it up, I took that as my cue.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, Mira?” I asked, clinking my glass gently against hers.
“Curiosity,” she said with a laugh that was warmer than her cool exterior suggested.
“Do tell.”
“You’re an interesting one, Alex. I’ve been watching you tonight. You’re here alone. You bought this booth but haven’t really shared it. You dance, not like someone who is experienced at it, but well enough. You let women join you afterward, but you don’t lead them on. They drink, they talk, and then they leave.”
She took a sip before continuing.
“You’ve been nursing the same drink for hours. Haven’t touched the bottle, really. And when you looked at me, it wasn’t the way the others did. You weren’t sizing me up. You were… observing.”
I raised an eyebrow, impressed. “That’s more than passing curiosity.”
She looked down at her glass, swirling the champagne gently.
“I was supposed to meet someone here tonight,” she said, quieter now. “I don’t think they’re coming.”
“Your husband?” I asked. No ring, but I didn’t know the customs here.
“My fiancé,” she replied, her voice tinged with something softer. Sadder. “Well. Ex, now. I suppose.”
I hesitated, then said, “Want to talk about it?”
She studied me for a moment, as if weighing something. Then finished her drink in one swallow and signaled for a refill.
“Honestly, we’ve been drifting for months. He says he’s working all the time, but I’m not sure. Could be another woman. Could be nothing. Tonight… tonight is the anniversary of when he proposed. In this very club.”
I nodded, letting her have the space to go on.
“I told him if he wanted to salvage what we had, he’d meet me here. Same booth. Same date. Just… show up.” She looked into her glass, the light from the club catching in her eyes.
“Do you know what he asked me?”
I shook my head.
“What was so special about tonight?” she whispered. “I doubt he even remembers it’s been a year since he proposed or where he did. He’s not coming. If he were, he would have been here an hour ago.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, your ex is a complete idiot. And this is absolutely his loss.”
A faint smile tugged at her lips. “You’re sweet.”
“I was about to head out when you came over, but I’ll stay as long as you like.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said, setting her glass down. “But I have a better idea.”
Before I could ask what she meant, she straddled my lap and kissed me.
There was nothing hesitant about her. Her lips were warm, insistent. I ran one hand up her smooth back, the other settling on her hip. Our tongues met, and the rest of the world slipped into the background. She wasn’t here to be comforted. She was here to feel alive. And I wasn’t about to stop her.
When she finally pulled back, her breath warm against my cheek, she held my gaze with eyes that seemed to study something deep inside me. Whatever she was searching for, she found it. Her expression softened.
“Take me to your hotel,” she said, slipping off my lap.
I stood with her and tossed a stack of Moroccan dirhams on the table. She nestled into my side as I wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her out of the club and into the warm Marrakesh night.
Thankfully, Decker and I had a suite with separate rooms.
The door had barely closed before she pulled my shirt over my head. Shoes and socks vanished. Her dress slid off beneath my fingers, revealing warm bronze skin and curves I was already trying to memorize.
We kissed as she undid my belt, hands gliding over each other with growing urgency. My hand found her breast, the other tracing the curve of her ass. She jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs around me as I carried her to the bed.
I laid her down gently, kissed between her breasts, down her stomach, pausing just above the patch of hair between her legs. She moaned as I kissed the inside of her thighs slowly, teasing her, building tension.
She grabbed my head and pulled me in to her. Her legs locked around my shoulders as I tasted her, her moans filling the room like music. I reached up, cupping her breast as I focused on her clit, tongue and lips in rhythm. Her body trembled as the orgasm overtook her, and she cried out, hips shuddering beneath me.
When she released me, I climbed up and kissed her. She was still panting, lips curled into a lazy smile.
“That,” she breathed, “was just what I needed.”
“I’m glad I could help,” I whispered.
We kissed again, slower this time, her fingers trailing down my body. When she reached between us and wrapped her hand around me, her eyes locked onto mine.
“I need you inside me.”
She guided me in, and her eyes fluttered shut.
“Oh God,” she groaned.
She clung to me, nails biting into my back as I thrust into her. Her cries grew louder, needier, her body tightening around me with every motion. At the peak, she buried her face in my shoulder and bit me.
The shock of pain mingled with pleasure, pushing me over the edge. I gasped her name as I came, every nerve on fire.
Sunlight filtered in through the windows, dragging me back to consciousness.
I reached across the bed, already knowing she’d be gone. And she was. No surprise. That’s how it always was. Connections made, then left behind. I never expected anyone to follow me on this endless road. Still, I’d hoped she might stay a little longer.
As I stretched and sat up, something caught my eye: a folded note on the desk.
Alex,
Thank you for last night. I will treasure the memory.
And thank you for helping me take my mind off things.
Hopefully, your journey brings you the happiness and contentment you deserve.
I didn’t think you’d mind. I saw your camera on the table and used it.
So you’ll have a memory too.
Who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other again in Marrakesh.
Love,
Mira
Beneath the note was a small instant photo from my camera. A kiss of red lipstick marked the bottom edge. Mira’s smile beamed in the shot, soft, radiant, and real. Her amber eyes sparkled like sunlight through honey.
I pulled out the small box where I kept the other photos from my travels. Inside were two bundles. I unwrapped the first bundle and flipped through it. People I’d met who had left a mark on me. Some I’d helped. People that had helped me. Some just… mattered. A woman holding her newborn baby on a roadside in Brazil in one photo. In another, a boy who had taught me a local dance in Ghana. A fisherman who shared stories of his lost wife.
Each photo had a name, and a place scribbled on the back. I smiled at many of them. A few brought a sting of tears. They were proof that I wasn’t just wandering. I was living, connecting, growing.
Then I opened the second bundle.
Not every woman I’d slept with made it into the stack. Some nights were drunken, forgettable. But others, like last night, felt like something more. Not love, not permanence. Just something I wanted to remember.
I flipped through the photos slowly, thinking back to each encounter. I remembered names, voices, how they laughed, how they moved. They were all different.
And then I froze.
A photo near the bottom that didn’t belong here.
It was Val.
Taken the summer after high school, two weeks before everything fell apart. She was smiling, caught mid-laugh. Radiant. Innocent. It was the only photo I had brought from before I left home. But how had it ended up in this pile?
I placed it on the desk with the others, frowning, my heart suddenly heavier.
I stared at the wall for a long time. The idea of going home started to take root. Maybe it was time. Time to apologize. Time to stop running and start facing what I left behind.
Then something strange caught my attention.
Sixteen photos of sixteen different women. All unique in appearance, different races, ages, builds, hair, skin. Yet every single one of them… had amber eyes.
Just like Val.
How had I not noticed that before? There had been more women, women with other colored eyes, but none of them had a picture in the pile.
I reached for the unopened bottle of vodka I’d bought the day before. Cracked the seal. Took a long, burning swig. Then another. And another.
The last thing I remember was shoving all the photos into the trash… and falling to the floor.
The next few days blurred into one another. Waking up sometime in the afternoon, finding more alcohol, and drinking until I blacked out. Rinse and repeat.
Until one morning, ice-cold water splashed across my face.
I sputtered, blinking up at the blurry shape of Decker standing over me.
“I’m not going to ask what happened, Alex,” he said, his voice level. “Tell me when you’re ready. Or don’t. Tomorrow we’re heading north. Check-out is at seven.”
It took nearly an hour in the shower before I felt remotely human again.
Eventually, I gathered the energy to clean my clothes and pack what little I had. The outfit I wore to the club went into the trash, along with the photos I’d tossed days earlier. I wasn’t sure whether I regretted that. Maybe it didn’t matter.
I hadn’t come to Marrakesh looking for answers, but somehow, I’d left with more questions than ever.