THE VIOLENCE of the sun had left us and flickers of its last storm warmed us in that pause between dusk and darkness common in the tropics where I come from. A fly on the wall washed its hands, dipped its snout and sniffed again into the biscuit-coloured pond of the Professor's beer. "Oh, man, I have seen enough of those babes," with a glint in his eyes, he looked round to see if there were other people, "and they love it! Yes, you don't know how lucky you are, man. Your bitch is grand."
That evening the sun had rings of hate round it and our dusk folded the conversations in jargons of sex. I felt that I could touch the vein of my own thoughts. I will recall. The mind, that last glow of all too brutalised day lingered above the liquid sense of beer. I remember to have crushed my tongue on closed lips and blew hard through a chink between. I nodded. He added a necessary detail. "She is liberated. Different styles. You can fuck anyway you like." He laughed rasping flutters of a dying insect. "Not like Bongowomen whose only bedtime trick is the waist."
Memory slowed him down.
The open-air bar remained suspended by Zaiko Langalanga's feverish music. A gigantic backside stormed the air. Two bulls fought under a dancing skirt. The noise swelled and churned round and round. Our friend the teacher was gliding the dance floor patiently in the company of two women admiring intricate steps of his shoes. One woman was mine. Leisurely sinuations and plummeting curves and pleasurable backside. Her eyes a haunting expression. Her breasts struggled with the chorus of Zaiko. Dance in the delirium of enemies.
I swallowed. Your fragile globe is in my hands, and time is bending both of us.
"Our Bongowomen will first pretend that they don't it even when you are safely wrapped in the juice." Professor, encouraged, mimicked some protestations. "Ah, I don't want, ah, it hurts! At the same time she is manipulating you inside like a Landrover cylinder."
The three dancers returned. New as the sweat on them. The fat woman summoned herself towards me. "I will sit here, student." Anticipating my protest, the Professor ordered me to sit by the fat woman, facing him and the intricate dancer of shoes who was know as teacher.
Teacher loudly asked for a beer and argued. "This government is hopeless," roared he, stylish philistine. Fat, ebullient buffoon, his eyes red, his mouth blubbery. A lot of flummery comments. "I was talking to my brother in-law," he said in a soft whirr of a brat. A sister married to a cabinet Minister, thanks to that connection, he was a celebrity of sort in his own right. He shined, smooth, baby-buttocks softness. Now highlighted by gleams of shadow as light shot outside the circle of darkness we sat in. Lone bulb on the dance floor was no match for him.
Exegesis. Exegesis. Professors giving their own sons homework.
"He told me Kuwait wants to invest a lot of money here. The sheikhs wanted to buy the national parks and the Mountain but the government refused!" He wondered above the din of Zaiko. "Did you hear that-the government refused! No wonder we don't get anywhere, more beer student?"
"But what are the sheikhs going to do with the mountain?" I asked.
"You see, the mountain is known throughout the world, so that they can use the name to advertise their petrol, for example?"
"Mount Petrol?" said fat woman.
"Elegant, pure, unspoilt. Anyway, the Arabs wanted to invest but the government refused because of some national interests, ha!" he checked his beer on. "Student can you national interests? People want to help us and someone is talking about national interests. The Arabs want my brother-in-law to join them in business and leave this national-interests shit. Arabs have money, no doubt-o."
"They pay good too," his woman companion said. "I hope one day to meet my Arab prince."
My woman, her comrade, disagreed. "Yes but they also have disgusting tastes. They want disgusting things when it comes to it, you know?"
They shrieked. Teacher nudged his woman: "What if they offer to swallow you?"
"I will pay them!" They shrieked again.
"This man-e, trouble! He kept me busy all night," the fat woman laughed, pointing with her mouth to the teacher. She laughed with an amorous vein. Voice with a note of speculation. "At first I thought he was a soldier, the way he kept pumping."
Teacher, source of her orgasmic labours, remarked: "But not tight at all. It felt like playing football, alone, in the national stadium."
Professor elevated the discussion. "But women of her region are quite nice�"
"Especially in waistcraft." The teacher said. He was opening a beer with his teeth, handed the bottle to his tart and eructed confidently. "Your balls can be treated with the most tender care there is. Placed on a saucer and washed with oils and such. Then you strike like fire and she will take you and your balls all in, eh?"
The Professor was amused. "How did you know that?"
"She is from there," he said pointing to the my woman.
I gave that a thought. She. Alone with me. And I will move through bodies in the air. To the first slow kiss in the dimple of her neck. She will not move away. The pain of my nervousness will flare lighting up the room making shadows of the naked dancer. The alphabet of Zaiko so proud but was not mine. Zima taa. Close the curtain. Somebody might be watching.
The fat woman planted a claw on my hand. Up. I looked. Tiny round scar on forehead. Could I notice the vestige of her culture? Skin bleached. Blotched, blissfully ornamented.
"They know how to take care of you," teacher ejaculated and swigged his beer. "I am living, folks. I am living the good life."
"We have to be careful these days. The electricity is going to finish us off." Professor warned.
"The electricity?" My woman blew froth innocently.
Those lips and mine. I will take the A train, Duke. The right ending is an open door you can't see too far out of. It can mean exactly the opposite of what you are thinking.
"The Disease," he said. The teacher shone. "I see. This disease has so many names I have lost track myself!"
Professor clutched his jaw. "One must ask himself," he said, nostrils dilated, unwholesome mouth gathered giving countenance to the ribaldry he was about to unleash. This after all was a passage of empty phrases and the seriousness of the discussions was not so much in the truth or untruth of what was said but the mere fact that it was said. "Is it worth it? This is the question I ask myself every day," said he, two misted eyes strayed about two women. One was still mine. "Am I willing to sacrifice my life for three seconds of intense pleasure?"
"But you see a screw is the highest form of equality. The porter and the president are made equal by it." Teacher said. "Of course, sleep is another common pleasure shared by all but that is different."
The world laughed.
"We enjoy it but it is risky now. A few permanent partners should suffice."
Teacher was not quite sure. "I am afraid, Professor, you have forgotten that there are certain things that you cannot do to your wife."
"Tell us." Professor challenged with a mischievous wink.
"Yes. One would want to try different things. She on top or taken, pardon my language, from behind, you know. Such things, you know. You don't do that to your wife."
"Why not?" Fat lady asked, her amorous tone dented.
"It is not done!"
"But why is it not done, because it is perverse?" She pressed., she wore large black coral earrings, her hair, permed and fluffed up its foreign ugliness so woeful it was endearing.
"But my wife is mother to my children!"
My woman, the curves, coughed with pleasure. "You can get children with the mistress too."
"Marriage is sanctified not because it is practical for sexual relationship, but because it gives form and respect to the woman and her children," Professor said, his face saint-like, his seriousness infectious. "There are certain things you just don't do with your wife. In fact I am writing a paper about that."
"More beer." Teacher shouted to the barwoman dancing a minuet with Zaiko. "You are right. How can you ask your wife to bend over?" Teacher's voice thinned out into an embarrassed whisper.
"More beer, teacher?" The barwoman wanted to know.
13. May 1999