Transformation Story: Crossing Over

Zulu vocabulary and slang used in the story:

Golo - pussy

Malebe - pussy lips

Manzi - pussy juice

Umthondo - penis

Crossing Over

Esther Jenkins gazed from the window of the house.  It was a single-story stone and timber building with outhouses and a corral behind.  The front served as a general store and behind it lay the rooms in which the Jenkins family lived.  The store was one element in her father’s plan.  He had come here to northern Natal, on the very limit of the British Empire to raise cattle, run a place where settlers could buy supplies and provide an education for the native people of the region.  The foundations for the school had already been laid.  While, Reginald Jenkins was a godly man, this was not simply to be a mission; he envisaged a small town developing, one that he would name Victoriatown for his mother and the queen.

In her braver moments, Esther was content with the fact that she had come to southern Africa rather than taken an option such as remaining at home with relatives.  She reflected that by the age she was now, her mother had been married and soon would be giving birth to herself.  Her three brothers, still at school back in England, followed close behind.  She imagined out here in Natal, however, her future would be quite different.  She was still uncertain if she welcomed that, but she never had any thought of defying her father’s plans, especially as at present there were no firm goals in her own mind to replace his designs.

Esther was grateful for a room of her own especially with the view it afforded her over the countryside of the Natal and beyond.  The scenery in this country was certainly stunning.  From her she could see down to what here was termed a ‘drift’, a ford across the river which divided the British territory from Zululand.  The land on the other bank was no different to that on this side, but Esther knew that it was overlaid with invisible lines created by politicians in London.  Her father took a pragmatic view to such things.  He quite expected that one day the British would push into the Zulu lands or indeed the Boers expanding eastwards would do the job.  However, in the meantime, he saw benefit from dealing with whoever controlled whatever lay beyond the river.

It had been in only their second week there that two young Zulu men had crossed over and had even come up to the store.  Esther had not known how to react to them.  Dressed traditionally they looked very different from the Africans that she had seen in Durban and those who worked at the house.  The two men had been shoeless and almost naked bar from knee-length cowhide skirts and the cows’ tails at their knees and elbows.  Both had a distinctive ring around the top of their heads which seemed to be formed from coating their hair and forming it into this shape.  Both men carried shields and spears, but in a casual way, that to Esther seemed non-threatening.  She guessed it was no different in these lands from a white man going out with his rifle.

Esther had heard the stories in Durban about the fearsome Zulu warriors and she had to admit that if they had been aggressive she was sure that the two she had seen would have been terrifying.  However, she felt her father’s approach of trading with them and in time offering schooling was better than appearing simply to steal land.  Though a little reassured, at the back of mind, Esther did wonder at the countless hordes of Zulus who might live just a short way beyond the rocky rise that formed that boundary of her view.  Esther recognised that this morning she was a little apprehensive and wondered if such thoughts were the cause.  This was the first time that her father had been away from the homestead since they had arrived.  For security, her father had employed the tough old Boer, Mr. Roswach and other men from his family, either sons or nephews, Esther was not certain.  However, she often heard the crack of their rifles and imagined they could decimate any raiding party reaching within a thousand yards of her home.

Suddenly Esther’s gaze was caught by movement and bright colours.  At the foot of the outcrop where a cave mouth was visible, she realised she had seen something unnaturally red.  As she watched she realised it was the headdress perhaps even a hat worn by a native woman.  From her stance she looked to be aged.  As she moved around, Esther could make out the green shade of her dress and even the occasional glint in the sunlight of the beads she wore.  Esther kept on watching, and then as smoke began to rise she realised that the woman had been starting a fire, she presumed to prepare the Zulu equivalent of breakfast.  Esther was intrigued and feeling that she had to break through the invisible boundaries to reach out to someone in sight across the river, she went in hunt of her mother with an idea.

****

The cheeks of Esther and her mother Thora were glowing as they reached the top of the rise and they stopped to catch their breath.  A short way off one of the Messrs. Roswach, drew his horse to a halt, his rifle resting on his hip.  He looked apprehensive, scanning around him as if he anticipated the sudden appearance of a warband of Zulus.  He remained a distance from the outcrop, apparently anxious not to draw in too close where his horse would be less effective.  Esther was glad that the worst of the walk was over.  Though she and her mother had dressed in plain, robust bodices and skirts, clothes that in London would have seemed dowdy if not indeed workmanlike, these items now made her feel hot even though it was just mid-morning.  Esther was glad that they had worn their broad-brimmed hats and stout walking boots purchased in Durban.  She wondered at how the Zulus coped bare footed and barely clothed, though for a moment mischievously she did ponder what it would feel like to feel the sun and the warm breeze on her naked body.

“Almost there.”  Thora said, smiling.

Esther had a basket with a jar of fruit and some tea as gifts for their ‘neighbour’ and a blanket to sit on.  Her mother clung to her pocket Bible, not that she was overly religious but she had been uncertain what she might do to pass the time and to engage the woman.  It was apparent now that the Zulu woman had seen them.  She was standing in front of her fire gesturing for the two English women to approach.  In a few minutes they were with her, sitting in the shadow of the rock and with hints of cool air coming from the cave.  Esther wondered why this woman was here.  There appeared to be no Zulu settlement around.  Seeing her age, possibly in her fifties, maybe even older, Esther surmised this was a ‘wise woman’ and that she was here as a kind of hermit.  As she spread out the blanket close to the fire and precariously lowered herself on to it, Esther wondered if this woman might be more a warden or even a spy, to keep an eye on the frontier.  That would explain why she was so welcoming to the two white women.  However, Esther quickly dismissed that surmise as uncharitable.

Thora pulled out the jar and the tea and offered them across to the old woman.  She took them with smiles and with some trial and error got the fruit jar open and taking out a preserved pear ate it with small bites, smiling and indicating she found it tasty.  In return she passed over strips of dried meat that Esther and her mother took and bit into.  They were chewy but tasty.  As she ate, Esther looked over the old woman.  Her skin was as dark as that of the Africans at the homestead, it had a shininess that was distinctive of them and to Esther reminded her of ebony.  The woman had a lean frame with slender arms, but her breasts were large and seemingly kept up by the dress she wore.  Strings of bright beads decorated her chest.  Her headdress, however, was the most striking feature, like red bowl of reeds which Esther would now see was actually threaded into her hair.  Crouched on her haunches, the woman busied herself with a pot which sat close to the fire into which she would drop heated stones.  She had a selection of herbs to which she now added the tea she pulled from the packet.

“Thora.  I am Thora.”  She said pointing at herself.

The Zulu woman looked up and nodded and then turned to Esther.

“Esther.”

The woman nodded again and then said something in her own language, that sounded like a flood of syllables.  Esther wondered if it was a greeting.  She halted, clearly aware that the two visitors were not comprehending.

“Nolwazi.  Nolwazi.”

Esther tried to take in the name, to alter it to fit sounds she knew.  The closest she came in her mind was something like ‘Knoll-was-he’.  It sounded a curious name, but she imagined hers would have sounded as peculiar to this Zulu.

Thora gave a big yawn and as Esther looked at her, she seemed to be rather pale, despite the impact of the sunshine.  The Zulu woman appeared to notice and began to mime the universal signs for tiredness and sleep.  She stood and reaching gestured to Thora to follow.  It was apparent that the woman was suggesting Esther’s mother went into the cool of the cave.

“That seems a good idea.”  Thora agreed and let her daughter help her to her feet.

In moments they were in the cave, which whilst narrow at the entrance opened up quickly beyond.  Near the entrance mats on dried grass lay on the floor and the Zulu gestured for Thora to lie on one.  She did and Esther took another so that she could watch over her.  She marvelled at how different this was to a drawing room in London, but then delighted in the fact that she was experiencing things that her friends back home would never do.  Thora smiled at her daughter.  Esther reached over to moved her hat and fold it to form some kind of pillow.  The Zulu woman appeared behind her, clearly having gone quickly to the fire.  She held two beakers in her hands and nodded to Esther to help her mother to sit up.  Then she pressed the beaker to Thora’s lips.  As she drank colour seemed to return quickly to the English woman’s cheeks and soon she had taken the beaker and drunk to the bottom.  As she was offered the other beaker, Esther took it and nodded her thanks.  The concoction was warm but refreshing, with a blend of flavours only one of which she recognised as the tea they had brought.  Finishing the drink she sat back on her mat.

Now the Zulu woman began to hum and to sing something very softly.  Thora slumped back on the mat and closed her eyes.  From feeling refreshed Esther now was weary herself and put it down to the heat and the walk.  The singing of the Zulu woman was soothing and she let herself slump on to the mat watching as the African walked up and down her mother, moving her hands a short way over her body as if warding certain spirits away from her or perhaps, Esther reflected dimly, bringing them into her.  With her thoughts clouded, sleep came for Esther.

****

As she opened her eyes, Esther felt disorientated.  She blinked and then looked again, realising that she was on her back and viewing the ceiling of the cave.  The light cast across it from the mouth suggested it was sometime shortly after dawn.  She tried to recall all that had happened the day before, but it was very distant, as if it had happened to another woman and the details were simply scenes she had witnessed not taken part in.  She wondered how her mother was and hoped that the rest had allowed her recover well enough to allow them to get back to their home.

Esther sat up and found she had been lying on a blanket resting on grass cut from the veldt.  She was pleasantly surprised that for such a rough bed she did not feel stiff, in fact she felt invigorated and her muscles seemed to pulse with a new strength.  Maybe there was something to be said for the remedies.  The small fire had burnt down to embers but with the dawn light penetrating the cave, Esther saw that now two Zulu women lay sleeping.  One she recognised as the elderly Nolwazi, now she found it easy to recall her name.  The other was a younger woman.  With the natives’ bodies being so rounded and full and their skin having that slick tautness it was difficult to tell their age, this woman could have been the same age as Esther’s mother.  Like Nolwazi, she wore a circular red hat woven into her hair.  Leaving her shoulders bare was a voluminous blue dress which did little to conceal the line of her large pendulous breasts and heaped on them were black beads.  Beneath was a long cowhide skirt.

Now Esther was a little apprehensive wondering where her mother might be.  It seemed unlikely that she would have gone without her daughter.  Maybe Nolwazi had moved her away from the mouth of the cave.  Not wanting to disturb the two Zulu women, Esther stood quietly and looked deeper inside.  Her attention was caught by white and tan clothing.  At first she thought she had seen her mother, but then recognised the items were simply folded.  Everything was there, two sets, including hats and boots.  As Esther recognised her own clothes, a jolt went through her.  Now in the weak light of the cave she studied her own body, the naked breasts with bright beads resting on them.  She felt down to the short grass skirt she wore, fringed with beads.  For a moment Esther wondered if she was dreaming, to be dressed so scandalously.  Then she recognised that she had been misleading herself and should have recognised from the moment she felt the blanket on her skin that her clothes had been removed.

Esther felt weak and steadied herself against the rock wall.  She had little idea of Zulu custom, but it appeared that at some stage Nolwazi and probably this other woman too, had undressed both her and Thora and attired them in clothes typical of Zulu women.  She trusted that her mother being older had been put into something closer to what the two sleeping wore.  Esther told herself it was not as bad as it could have been.  Whilst the clothes, if they could really be called that, which she now wore, would have shocked the population of London, here there was no-one to see her.  Her own clothes were in front of her and, aside from the newcomer there would not be any other witnesses.  She was grateful that others from the tribe, particularly men, had not arrived during the night.

Esther now hurried to her clothes.  She picked up her bodice wanting to cover her breasts.  However, she struggled to get her arms into it, her flesh was squeezed by the sleeves and it proved impossible to close it at the front.  Removing the grass skirt, she turned to the skirt she had worn the day before, but had barely lifted it beyond her knees before it became stuck.  She heaved it but it was apparent that it was not going to pass her buttocks let alone reach her hips.  Now she felt bewildered.  Had her clothes somehow shrunk in the night?  She took off the skirt and looked at it.  It certainly looked like what she had been wearing the day before, but now she imagined that she and her mother might not have been the first white visitors here and these clothes had been left by someone else.  Less charitably she wondered if they had been stolen.  Leaving the bodice ill-fitting around her, she put back on the grass skirt for fear of tripping over.

Esther looked at the other pile of clothes and they appeared to be suited to an older woman.  She could imagine these Zulu women had little idea of the sizes of such clothes and had put out these for Esther and Thora to wear not realising they were ill-suited.  Esther decided to walk back to the mouth of the cave and see if she could locate her mother.  As soon as she came into the brighter light, she was stunned by what she saw.  Her skin was no longer the colour it had been the day before, it was a dark brown shade all over.  She felt weak not believing it was real.  She gazed down at her large breasts in place of pert ones of before, the rosebuds of nipples now replaced by nut-like ones set in large, black areolae.  Her hips were broad and her arms and legs muscular.  As she reached for her head she realised her hair was short and pulled back tightly just as she had seen in the images of young Zulu women.  The walls of the cave seemed to spin and Esther felt queasy, her legs weakening.  She struggled to sit, but unconsciousness took her.

****

Esther was aware of water being pushed to her lips and she sipped it, thankful.  She guessed she had had some kind of nightmare.  However, quickly she became conscious that she was not in her own bed, the feel of the rock beneath her and the smell of smoke told her she was in the cave.  Quickly she opened her eyes, wondering still whether the view of herself turned into a Zulu had not been a hallucination brought on by the heat or the herbs Nolwazi had given her.

“Enezezelo.”  It was Nolwazi crouched beside with the beaker of water.  “Enezezelo.”  The woman repeated softly.

For some reason the name felt familiar to Esther, not alien.  She guessed it was a Zulu word.  Esther hesitated for a few moments but then lifted her hand.  Her skin was still the dark brown of a Zulu woman, though her mind could not believe the truth of it.

“What have you done to me?  How have you done this?”  Esther demanded of Nolwazi, though she was incredulous still of such magic.

“I have brought you to us.”  Nolwazi responded calmly.

“So you do speak English.”  Esther responded irritably.

“No, now you are a Zulu, we speak isiZulu.”

“No, no, that is not possible.”

“It is possible.  I have many powers.  You are not the first I have brought into the Zulu nation.”

Esther shook her head unwilling to accept it, believing it was still simply her eyes that were being tricked.

“I am Es… Est- the – her…”  She tried to say, but the same was difficult to pronounce.

“No, that woman is gone, you are Enezezelo; you are a Zulu woman, an izintombi.”

“That is impossible, that I cannot accept.  You must change me back.”

“Why would I do that?  Why would I deny the amaZulu, the Zulu people, one fine woman?”

“You can do it?”

“I have never done it.”

Esther gave a heavy sigh, but her mind was scrambling through all the implications of what this meant.

“And my mother is not gone, that is her there.”

She indicated the woman still sleeping.

“Of course, she is your mother, Tholakele.”

“Tholakele.”  Esther repeated.

Nolwazi smiled as Esther pronounced it correctly.  Esther worried what impact on her mother waking up as a Zulu woman would have.

“Why have you done this to us?  We showed you nothing but kindness.”

“Yes, that was why I gave you this gift.  Too many of the white people are harsh or hostile.  You two instead came to me and I was grateful, I gave you this gift.”

“This gift?”

“Of course, to be part of the great Zulu nation is a wonderful gift.  Your husband will be a powerful warrior, your children will be an important part of the Zulu people.”

“My husband?  My children?”

“Of course, a fine beautiful woman like yourself will have suitors, though I have in mind some in particular.”

“I cannot think of that.”

It was true, though Esther had lived under the assumption that one day she would be married to a dashing man from Durban or Cape Town, it had been very much the appearance of marriage that she thought of.  Of course, her body had had yearnings and her dreams had featured desires but she had pushed them aside as a proper young lady must.  She knew things would be different now that was dressed so scantly.

“Your mother too, is still of child bearing age, especially with the revitalising and fertility herbs I particularly added to what she drunk; you had no need of those.  As a widow she will no doubt soon fine another husband, her beads signal her availability.”

“A widow?  My father, he still lives.”

Nolwazi laughed but not unkindly.  “Would he recognise his wife, his daughter; could he even understand them?  The father that created this Zulu woman,” Nolwazi gestured to Esther, “does not exist.  You are your mother’s daughter that is clear, but as for the father, he must have passed over.”

Esther felt exasperated, but knew that Nolwazi was showing clear logic.

“Imagine the Zulu half-brothers and sisters that your mother will produce.”

“Pickaninny children.”  Esther said dismissively.

However, into her mind came the image of Zulu babies, chubby and snuggling.  Then she shuddered as the image gave her a frisson.

“You are thinking of your own children, strong Zulu children, coming from your fertile loins, strengthening the Zulu people.”

Without thinking, Esther brought her arms together as if cradling a baby suckling at her full breasts.  A child feeding from these would grow big and strong, as a Zulu woman she could nourish them far better that she could have done with her austere white body.

“Yes.”  Esther found she could not lie.

Nolwazi patted her and smiled.  “You will soon be an umame – mother.”

Esther found a strange glow in her as if what she was being told was correct, perhaps even more that it was good, it was something which gave her pleasure.  She wondered if that was because she now wore a Zulu body, or whether she was having her views shifted by Nolwazi.  Whatever was doing it, she wanted more of the sensation though distantly she wondered what she would pay in return.

“Could you find me a good man, Nolwazi?”  Esther stopped herself uncertain where that had come from.  “A man to be my husband, to give me babies?”  The words came without bidding but they brought with them more of the pleasurable sensation.  “Strong, Zulu babies?”  Esther grunted with the sensation, this felt so right to be saying as if before she had been pushing against the tide and now that she was going with it, everything felt so much better.

“Of course.  There is a man I know who is ideal for you, Ayize, my son.  You will meet him, you will love him; he will become your husband very soon and will fill you with his seed, with babies.”

“Ayize.”  Esther repeated the name, wondering what Nolwazi’s son would look like, but she was sure he would be strong and well-built.

As these thoughts entered Esther’s mind she found herself excited by the thought, stirrings in her sex, in her breasts all over herself, thinking now blatantly of a man, a Zulu warrior, seeing her like this, attracted to her, kissing her, holding her, sliding his flesh deep within her.

“Yes, you are ready, you need a man, that is what one fine izintombi like you, Enezezelo definitely needs.”

From beyond the remains of the fire, the woman who had been Thora stirred muttering words for the first time in isiZulu.  Seeing this Enezezelo stood up, keen to see how her mother was.  As she did she stopped herself.  The name Enezezelo was now how she had thought of herself, but that was … wrong.  She tried to grasp another name, but it skidded away from her.  Her mother was waking and she now focused on that.

“Tholakele.”  Nolwazi said softly.  “Tholakele.” She repeated.

Enezezelo knelt by her mother wondering why the name had sounded so strange to her for a moment.  However, the woman she knew as Tholakele opened her eyes and sat up with a jolt.

****

Enezezelo knew she was dreaming.  It was a dream which she had had frequently since she had become engaged to Ayize.  She was stood on a hill overlooking a river.  She was not herself but in some other form, perhaps of a spirit or inhabiting a bird, she was never certain.  However, as she looked down the hill she saw a white woman approaching, moving forward and upwards at a steady pace.  As she walked she changed subtly, her clothes faded away and her naked body altered: the skin darkened and darkened, taking on a wonderful sheen; her hips and breasts became much fuller; her limbs muscled; her hair went from a pale brown to black and from being pinned up to being long and loose to being short to her head.

Enezezelo was sure that this woman was coming to join the Zulus and once had wondered if she would not find the work hard.  Then she reminded herself that it was no harder than being down in that building by the river, cleaning the house, preparing food, looking after cattle and all of that burdened down with clothes that must make it harder.  Coming to the Zulus must represent a release for her, a beautiful woman allowed to be seen as beautiful as she was.  Somehow she knew that this woman had female cousins who might come to the building by the river and she was certain they too could be drawn over to the Zulu side.  By the time the woman reached Enezezelo’s viewpoint, it was clear this was a fine Zulu woman dressed in a short skirt of grass and beads.  Enezezelo admired her prominent nipples in their dark areolae and would recall how much she had enjoyed walking around proudly with her breasts exposed.  With her engagement however, things had changed.  She now modestly covered herself and her hair had been bound into a headdress but her red beads showed how much she loved her prospective husband.

Now in the dream she turned and saw coming from the other way, herself with the large red headdress of a married woman and a baby in her arms.  Ayize in all of his regalia walked beside her.  She knew Nolwazi had had a vested interest in marrying off her youngest son, but she had not let Enezezelo down when she had asked for a man who could protect and make her feel safe.  Once he had offered the beads to express his interest in her, she had not delayed in agreeing.

Enezezelo awoke, feeling it was embarrassing to be sleeping on her wedding night.  Outside in the kraal the noise of the celebrations continued.  She had been apprehensive about coming here, but Nolwazi’s standing had meant any jealousies were well hidden.  In a nation in which men had multiple wives, it was in fact easy to assimilate a new woman than an additional man, especially one at an age to provide future warriors to the tribe.  At first Enezezelo had wondered if she had simply accepted Ayize because it fitted Nolwazi’s plan but she had quickly grown to appreciate him for his own merits, which she guessed, in part from him being well-tutored by his influential mother.  She had been genuinely delighted when he had paid the bride price of cattle to her step-father.

As a widow, it had not taken long for Tholakele to be snapped up by an important man in the tribe.  She had become Celokwakhe’s fourth wife, but the only one still capable of bearing children.  Enezezelo had moved with her mother into Celokwakhe’s household where fortunately his other wives treated her as if she was their niece.  It had not been long after the wedding that Tholakele had become pregnant and Enezezelo knew that she would soon have a half-brother or sister.  At times, Enezezelo imagined that she already had brothers, but found it difficult to place them and she put it down to something from her dreams of the white woman who for some reason was wrapped up in her future.  Certainly Enezezelo knew that whatever challenges she had in coming here they were nothing compared to what such a woman would have faced.  Not for the first time, she pitied that woman and those like her, so shackled by their lives and the uncomfortable clothes that bound them, unable to really appreciate the beauty of the lands they had intruded into.

Enezezelo heard movement outside the hut and she stood, checking that her dress showed her breasts and hips to their best.  For the wedding, her hair had been made into a cylinder rising from the head and she wondered whether it would cause difficulties when she leant back.  She shuddered as she thought of her new husband’s umthondo sliding through the malebe into her golo, she could feel herself already wet with manzi running from it.  In the low light of the hut, she could see that the head ring was now in place marking him out as a married man.  She let him come in a few more paces before going to kiss him.  As she pressed against him she could feel his umthondo bulging.  She had some idea of its size from occasions when he had been unable to disguise his pleasure in seeing her and it had lifted his skirt.  She knew that a bull would not be disappointed in one of this size.  Part of her wanted to feel it filling her golo, but she was also afraid.  Her virginity had been verified and she wondered what discomfort it would cause when he came like a bull to her.

Now Ayize pulled away Enezezelo’s dress and released her full round breasts.  Their nipples were throbbing with the thrill she felt, standing out black and hard from her breasts.  Ayize stooped to take one into his mouth and Enezezelo almost shrieked in delight at the sensation that ran through her.  Her turned to the other, leaving the first wet and sensitive as his fingers grasped it.  Now she began to understand the coded statements Nolwazi had made in the preceding days about Enezezelo not having to worry about her son being ignorant of the ‘dry milking’, though she wondered still about what ‘feasting from the two legged table’ meant.

As her other nipple was released, Enezezelo worried she would lose consciousness, that she would fall into a slumber or be shaken out of this to find it was only a dream.  She clung on to the sensations, willing herself to stay conscious, to remain in this existence, not slip carelessly into some other.  Ayize now undid her cowskin skirt and let it fall to the floor.  He turned to strip away his own and his umthondo appeared fully in its glory, long, thick and curved, it throbbed.  Enezezelo simpered as she knew it was her, her welcoming, full, rounded body that was causing that effect.  He rubbed the dark tip up and down her slippery malebe, engorging them further and opening her up to receive him.  However, for the moment, he held back.  Enezezelo was confident with the evidence of his arousal that she had done nothing wrong and was intrigued what would happen next.

With his strong arms, Ayize lifted her up and lowered her on to the skins on the floor.  However, rather than thrusting into her he slid down so his head nuzzled between her thighs and his tongue flicked against what Nolwazi had playfully called her ‘iklwa’ after the Zulu short stabbing spear, the one that she knew from her own play could bring such pleasure.  Now her husband’s long tongue strokes rasped against it, sending Enezezelo’s mind spiralling away.  Her body felt lifted and thrummed with energy.  She never wanted this to cease and she squirmed beneath the weight of Ayize at once both wanting it to continue and yet almost unable to tolerate it any more.  Now she knew her husband was feasting, and this was a table from which she would often want him to eat.

Enezezelo’s body and mind hovered as if on the edge of a fever, of a delirium.  She felt bereft as Ayize pulled back, but then she felt his umthondo return to her malebe.  Lubricated by her manzi, he thrust through deep into her golo and she shrieked as he penetrated hard.  Breaking her proof of her maidenhood he was deep inside her, filling her in a way that she would never have believed.  She felt as if she wanted to encompass him, to seal his flesh within her.  The pressing down of his body revived the excitement of her isigxobo and she pressed up against him as if convulsed.  As he slid back and forth, his chest above her face so that his umthondo curved deep and high within her, Enezezelo felt detached from the world and her body simply in a place of pleasure.  Then Ayize groaned and halted, slumping against her slick breasts.  He jerked repeatedly, spraying deep inside her.  Enezezelo knew what that meant and she trusted that she was now taking the first step to bearing a Zulu warrior.  She was a good Zulu woman, doing the best for her husband and her tribe.  While she welcomed the child, she knew she would insist on Ayize repeating what he had done tonight on many occasions.  Then all thoughts were swept aside as Enezezelo’s body was shot through with sensation, her eyes filled with white light and her senses blasted with pleasure.