Читать книгу Married But Available - B. Nyamnjoh - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe next day Bobinga Iroko appeared abruptly, and insisted Lilly Loveless should come along with him to Sakersbeach, where he had an appointment to interview a heavyweight politician for The Talking Drum. He promised to show her the lovely beach if she came. “Lots of opportunity to sunbathe,” he added, which was enough to persuade her. To Lilly Loveless, the beach was the most romantic place in the world. She couldn’t wait to kick off her shoes and bury her feet in the warm sand of the beach that she had heard so much about. There was another reason though. He would miss his appointment if he sat down to tell Lilly Loveless of developments. Better to do so in the car, on the way to Sakersbeach, was his idea.
Lilly Loveless quickly assembled a towel, sun protection cream, her digital recorder and camera, her iPod, and other things she thought she would need in Sakersbeach.
“I haven’t seen or heard from Dr Wiseman Lovemore for days. Is he OK?” she inquired, getting into the passenger seat of Bobinga Iroko’s secondhand double-cabin Toyota Hilux pickup. She noticed he was wearing a similar flowery well-embroidered shirt to the one he wore when they met the first time at Mountain Valley, which she told him she liked. If her mom was here, she would have jumped to conclusions, for she was used to saying in response to her childhood question on what love was: ‘Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.’
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Bobinga Iroko, turning the ignition.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Lovemore is under detention…”
“What for?”
Bobinga Iroko told her the story. The night a week ago when Lovemore left abruptly following a phone call, was when he was picked up by the police. “The maid made the call under duress, forced to lie that Lovemore’s daughter, Pinklie, had suffered a critical malaria attack that needed urgent attention.” When Dr Wiseman Lovemore hurried home, two policemen greeted him with handcuffs. They took him to the police station where he was detained, charged with instigating rebellious students to vandalise the Reg’s car, and also for being one of the masterminds behind student unrest at UM. The police played back a recording of him making injurious statements against the VC and Reg in an argument he had with a colleague, Dr Nosewordy Boiboibambeh, about the strike.
“When I went to see him upon learning of the detention, his spirits were not too low. ‘Being incarcerated and in pain proves I’m useful,’ he told me. But he was very disappointed that Dr Nosewordy Boiboibambeh, a colleague of his at the university with whom he quarrelled recently had secretly recorded their exchange and handed the tape to the university administration for whom he was spying. The police are now hanging onto every critical word he uttered in the tape as evidence that Lovemore is guilty.”
Lilly Loveless remembered the passionate exchange between Dr Wiseman Lovemore and one of his colleagues. She was sure that was the Dr Nosewordy Boiboibambeh in question, for the man had left in fury and in a hurry. But how could a colleague, an intellectual and an academic do a thing like that? She was baffled.
“What could he have said that was so injurious?” she asked.
“The details are scant, but he is said to have gone beyond the limits of acceptable criticism. Dr Wiseman Lovemore is not one to be suffering from too much respect for his boss. So you can well imagine what he must have said.”
“We need to get him released. Have you tried finding out how to go about this?”
“The police don’t want to hear the word ‘bail’ mentioned in connection with Dr Wiseman Lovemore. They’ve been instructed to treat him as a dangerous element to be watched closely.”
“Do you think he is guilty? Did he instigate students to burn down the Reg’s car? What truth is there to the allegations?” Lilly Loveless was full of questions. She felt guilty that it was only now she was learning of Dr Wiseman Lovemore’s detention. Why didn’t Desire tell her? Then she remembered that Desire wasn’t around, that she had said something about taking advantage of the strike to rush to her home village upcountry to attend to some urgent matters.
“There’s something fishy about the arrest. I know that the VC and Reg are above Senate in their prerogative to bite and blow with impunity, but what I can’t understand is why his fellow critical colleagues at the university are being so silent. Am I to believe that we are living in the company of cowards who only pretend to stand up for things? One thing I can assure you though, The Talking Drum is leaving no stone unturned to get to the bottom of the matter, especially in the light of certain things we have uncovered…”
“What have you uncovered?” Lilly Loveless was curious, as always, whenever she was in the company of this indomitable Bobinga Iroko who seems a step ahead of everyone.
He recounted how the same night that Dr Wiseman Lovemore was arrested, at exactly midnight, the VC and the Reg, each dressed only in underpants, had driven to the University Junction, parked their cars and headed for the main gate of the university. With them were two men dressed to look like elephants, carrying two dark clay pots, two shovels and two machetes, and pulling along two dogs, two goats and two cocks. When they arrived at the main gate, the goats, the dogs and the cocks were slaughtered over the VC and the Reg who were lying across the gate as instructed by the elephant men. Some of the blood was collected in a clay pot, mixed with herbs contained in the other, and given to the VC and the Reg to drink and to say their wishes as they drank. “We want the cam-no-gos to leave us alone. We want them to leave our land,” they screamed in unison. The elephant men quoted a proverb which warns the calabash never to have anything to do with a stone, for any contact between the two is likely to hurt the calabash only.
The VC and the Reg each angrily voiced instances when they had suffered the fate of the calabash, and beat their chests triumphantly for instances when they had been the stone. A common bitter disappointment to both of them was the recent rejection of their applications for promotion to associate professorship, by the National Universities Promotions Council chaired by a cam-no-go who had the audacity to record in the minutes: “These two applicants do not qualify to be even the senior lecturers that they currently are. Neither has published a scientific paper in the past ten years, nor has taught a course. For twenty years, their intellects have proved most underequipped for any serious scientific exploit. To promote them therefore, would be a further disservice to an institution that is already choking from their ill-advised appointment to its helm.” For this reason the VC, a Clinical Psychologist with an Msc to show for it, had missed becoming associate professor, and had sworn to make mince meat of all cam-no-go who dared to cross her path. She had felt so embittered that she would have done something rash and desperate, had her sister not taken her to discover a women only club in nearby Sawang – run by a certain Helena Paradise, ‘the ultimate in women’s liberation’ – specialising in turning stress into pleasure, where she was told: ‘after this, you’ll never want a man again’. As for Simba Spineless the Reg, a PhD in Geography and Volcanology had threatened to erupt in war “against the ingrates that suck our native soil dry with greed like leeches.”
After incantation upon incantation, the elephant men then proceeded to dig a big grave in which the slaughtered goats, dogs and cocks were buried alongside an exercise book and a ball point pen.
According to Bobinga Iroko, the students who witnessed this ritual were at the offices of The Talking Drum first thing in the morning. They narrated what they had seen and heard, and were ready to sign the story themselves as proof of its authenticity.
The elephant men reassured the VC and the Reg that what they had buried “will numb every student and member of staff who thinks evil of you.” Before leaving the scene, the elephant men promised to intensify their magical powers to ensure that “our daughter and our son, and all those who mean them well, are protected by our native soil from all cam-no-gos.”
“What are cam-no-gos?” Lilly Loveless asked.
“These are a skin rash that itches like mad,” Bobinga Iroko laughed. “You scratch and scratch and scratch, but the itches go nowhere.”
“So the VC and Reg have been attacked by this skin rash?” Lilly Loveless was baffled.
“Yes, and it disturbs them like hell,” he continued to laugh.
“Really?” Now Lilly Loveless knew that Bobinga Iroko was in his joking mode.
“Yes, and embarrassing too. At parties and official functions the cam-no-gos do not allow the VC and Reg to do their jobs. They attack, and the VC and Reg would scratch and scratch to no avail. They can’t even take their fingers from their skins to take a drink or something to eat. It is terrible, because the cam-no-gos make them feel like going naked, and grating themselves against a rough surface till they find satisfaction.”
Lilly Loveless finally understood the metaphor. “So people have borrowed from this skin rash to refer to others they don’t like?” she asked.
“That’s right. Cam-no-gos are people whom the sons and daughters of the native soil consider a pain in the arse.”
“You mean ethnic-others?”
“Yes, ethnic-, regional-, and whatever others… Anyone not perceived to belong really.”
“Isn’t that rather parochial and dangerous?”
“That is the way those who run this country have fought to ensure that we remain forever divided. They’re out to mar, not to make.”
“It’s like racing where angels fear to tread.”
“Exactly, this is whywe say, Mimboland na Mimboland.”
Bobinga Iroko told Lilly Loveless that the story was front page news in The Talking Drum. Unfortunately, there were no photos to clinch the case.
“It would have been great,” he said, “to capture the VC and Reg lying naked across the main entrance of the university, dripping with ritual blood!”
This guy loves sensation, Lilly Loveless thought.
“If they feel so strongly about their land, can they be that wrong? There must be something to the fact that the VC and Reg would go to these lengths,” she challenged.
Bobinga Iroko smiled, superiorly, and said: “You don’t know the extent to which some would go just to hate. It is always in someone’s interest to promote enemies, real or imagined.”
Lilly Loveless didn’t know what to say in response, and she couldn’t understand why the VC and Reg should hate the very staff and students that made the university and their jobs as administrators possible. “Mimboland na Mimboland”, was all she found in her to say, which in turn gave her a satisfying feeling of penetrating her community of study.
Nodding, Bobinga Iroko added: “Hopefully, we will be luckier next time. We’ve decided to arm key students with digital cameras and camcorders, just in case. We mean business. These people have got to be exposed as the phoneys that they are, for the world to see…”
“I think you’re doing a great job at The Talking Drum,” Lilly Loveless complimented. “What’s your editorial policy, by the way?”
“What a question! Don’t you read our motto on the top right hand corner of the front page of the paper?”
“I do, but declared intentions are known to vary from practice like night and day.”
“We are as solid as the African bobinga and iroko and as constant as your northern star. Why do you think I am called Bobinga Iroko?”
“You tell me.”
“It means crushing resilience, steadfastness and commitment to the truth even in the face of crippling adversities. I’m proud to be associated with The Talking Drum, the finest in African journalism.”
“So what do you really stand for?”
“Simple: Everything that is clear is bent, everything that is bent is clear.”
“What?”
“We have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. We are tireless seekers after truth.”
“I see,” said Lilly Loveless, contemplatively. “So in many ways you are like us, social scientists?”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know we journalists love socialising. How would we come by stories otherwise?”
“Absolutely,” replied Lilly Loveless. “In the social sciences, we set out to expose the facts, the bare facts, the naked truth… We take everything with a grain of salt and make sure it rings true with other things we’ve heard or know…”
“What is so social about that? Why don’t you just call yourselves journalists of the sciences?”
Lilly Loveless chuckled. She almost told Bobinga Iroko that would not be respectful, as most social scientists loathe being compared to journalists, even when what they do is less than poor journalism. She was fortunate she didn’t, for Bobinga Iroko had a history of telling off university professors, most of whom he was convinced were nitwits, some of whom accused him of being sponsored to go after them. Few believed that his sole motivation was a professional commitment to exposing the facts, the bare facts, and quite simply, the naked truth. He didn’t either.
“As journalists we do more than mirror the society,” added Bobinga Iroko, proudly. “We seek to eliminate the ugly and enhance the beautiful.”
Reading the sceptical look on the face of Lilly Loveless, he hastily added: “At least we at The Talking Drum do.”
Suddenly Lilly Loveless remembered not having seen or heard of Dr Mukala-Satannie in the last few days. She asked: “Dr Mukala-Satannie, is he keeping well?”
“He’s fine, but he’s gone into hiding. He feels more and more like a lion in a cage. It was rumoured that the VC wanted him arrested.”
“What for?”
“Contempt of a public institution and its legitimate authorities.”
“Why not sue him in court if they feel he has done something wrong?”
“It is easier to arrest than to judge.” Bobinga Iroko was tongue in cheek.
“But they can’t harm him, can they?” She suddenly remembered that being a Muzunguland citizen and married to a wife employed directly and posted to Mimboland by the government of Muzunguland, Dr Mukala Satannie had immunities.
“No, they can’t harm him. His wife’s diplomatic status spills over to him generously. I told him this, but his cowardice denies him the courage to take chances.” Bobinga Iroko laughed and shook his head before adding, “We’re sick and tired of clowns playing God in our lives, and are determined to change this land of Mimbo, willy-nilly.”
Frightening place, Mimboland, Lilly Loveless told herself. She felt sorry for Dr Mukala-Satannie, and even more so for Dr Wiseman Lovemore.
“Don’t forget to take me along, next time you go to visit my friend,” she told Bobinga Iroko.
“I plan to go there tomorrow at midday with the deputy president of the trade union of university lecturers, Chief Dr Mantrouble Anyway.”
“Count me in,” said Lilly Loveless, thinking: What a name!
***
The drive to Sakersbeach was super. Lilly Loveless took in the beautiful scenery. The road was graced on both sides by hectares upon hectares of palms that reached into the hills beyond and that went all the way down to within a few kilometres from the Manawabay of the Atlantic Ocean. Bobinga Iroko told her the plantation belonged to the Mimboland Development Corporation, set up since the colonial days, and fed by a labour force harvested forcefully from the hinterlands, because of the erroneous belief by the Muzungulanders that the sons and daughters of the native soil were averse to hard physical labour and only engaged in it to satisfy basic needs. Because the Muzungulanders had hated to abandon what they’d spent so much energy and genius to bring about and to keep going, they had fought tooth and nail to ensure that independence changed nothing in reality. Thus, the management had stayed firmly in the hands of the Muzungulanders who had ensured that the labour force stayed firmly in the hands of the Mimbolanders. There was not a single year that the workers did not go on strike at least four times, and not a single strike yielded the desired results. Divide-and-rule was the order of the day at the plantation, where the handful of workers from the local ethnic group were often made to feed on the illusion that they mattered more than the majority ethnic others, and that it was in their interest to spy and report on “these troublesome cam-no-gos”.
“Why are they felling so many of the palms?” inquired Lilly Loveless.
“In order to renew the plantation,” Bobinga Iroko explained. “Every ten years or so, the older generation of palms have to be replaced by younger, better-researched and better-yielding palms. You have scientists working in laboratories all year long, experimenting on different new varieties in order to increase production…”
“What are those people doing with plastic containers around the felled palms?”
“Those are some of the plantation workers harvesting palm wine. It is a very popular wine known locally as Matutu. A glass of it is enough to knock you out. Ten times more powerful than Mimbo-Wanda, your favourite. Like to try some?”
“On our way back, perhaps.” Lilly Loveless didn’t want anything to stand in the way of her reunion with the beach.
They came to a check point, the third of the journey.
“Why are there so many checkpoints?” asked Lilly Loveless. This was a question she had wanted to ask since the drive from Sawang to Puttkamerstown. She remembered counting more than fifteen checkpoints that day of her arrival.
“In a land of Mimbo, security is paramount,” replied Bobinga Iroko, feigning seriousness.
“And why are the policemen and gendarmes at checkpoints always in pairs?”
“Because they are only minimally educated.”
“So the one who can read depends on the other who can write, and vice versa?”
“Absolutely,” said Bobinga Iroko. “But they are also in pairs, so the one can snatch your car documents, while the other negotiates how much bribe you should pay to get them back.”
“That’s very clever, won’t you say?”
“Very clever indeed!”
“How come they don’t ask you for a bribe?”
“I have a “Presse Laissez-Passer” sticker on the windscreen of the car,” explained Bobinga Iroko, pointing at the white sticker with the national colours stamped on it. “And they all know me, and loathe having me write negatively about them in The Talking Drum.”
Bobinga Iroko drove her straight to the beach. “Watch out for very uncultured locals who comb the beach desperately seeking cultural freaks”, he told Lilly Loveless, a dry smile on his face. “You sure will be struck by their handsome forms, but there’s much more to life than good looks,” he exploded in laughter.
“Don’t ,” said Lilly Loveless. “I can take care of myself.”
“The Botanic Gardens and other touristic sites will have to wait for later,” he told her.
He dropped her off, agreed on when to come back for her, and went for his appointment to interview the topmost politician of the region on burning issues.
***
Lilly Loveless wasn’t disappointed in the least with her reunion. The beach would always have a place in her heart, day or night, under the sun or in the rain, crowded or quiet. She’d been to quite a few natural beaches in her life, and none has quite measured up to the scintillating encounter she had with the sun, sand and sea today in Sakersbeach. It was simply the ultimate dream come true – a tropical paradise in every sense of sun, sand and sea. What places the experience in a class beyond first is the fact that the view and tranquillity are not disturbed by the relentless flow of tourists in a hurry. There she was, lying on her back, reading leisurely, unperturbed. Not even by local youths seeking to string themselves to imagined milk and honey by playing love with lust. When it comes to nature, Mimboland is turning out to be a perfect paradise – mystical, inviting, fulfilling and taming.
This exquisite encounter with Sakersbeach took her mind back to Sunsandland, one of the African touristic destinations most celebrated in her native Muzunguland. The beaches were great, but she was never allowed to explore and enjoy them by herself, in her own way. There were all these beach bumsters who, in their daily quest to turn sand into gold, would not let her. They insisted they would force feed her not only with their own accounts of the local history, but also, with their own idea of what it means to have a good time as a Muzungu tourist in Africa. Theirs was a very very thin sketch of the tourist and her desires. They came with drugs, sex, love, and ambitions of Muzunguland in mind. The heavy presence of soldiers on the beach did not deter them. Those forced out of the beach, resorted to hanging around markets, hotels, nightclubs and other locations where tourists could easily be spotted and to whom they sold themselves as easy minglers and bearers of unhurried ecstasy for all in need of unwinding.
Never before had Lilly Loveless been the subject of such prying and preying attention. Being young, she was particularly attractive. Young men came up to her in fairly large groups, but she also attracted older men who were mesmerised by her youth. The harassment she got at the beach during the day, did not diminish when she was sitting at the hotel bar having a drink, taking a dip in the pool to cool down, or when she was at the nightclub, or walking on the streets. The glossy brochures that had come with her ticket from the travel agent had done more than exaggerate when they claimed it was possible for a woman to be alone at the beach in Sunsandland, sharing an ocean of emotions, with or without being on the same wave length.
Then one day she told herself, what the heck. Why not play along with one of them, and see what they’re really up to. She had been wedded to an appearance of honesty all her life, and had to mask her occasional manipulation of men to shower her with gifts. Her mom, who took her appearance of honesty for real, would never believe her ears, if she were to tell her one day, that right there under her nose in Bruhlville, she sometimes strips and lap dances for men. Not on a grand scale like some of her friends who have given up their degrees to become sex workers permanently, but something all the same, which she does not do for the money, but for the curiosity and thrill of it, and because she believes in a woman’s right to appreciate her body and use it the way she likes. She has been at war against social stigma from the day she was made to feel incomplete as a child following the divorce of her parents. Lilly Loveless has often wondered, “If it is poverty that pushes girls into doing this in Mimboland and elsewhere in Africa, then what accounts for it in my case, because I am not poor?”
But the bumster she eventually warmed up to wasn’t up to it. The first day they were supposed to meet at the restaurant. But he came early – to her hotel and called up from the reception, then came up to the room. He sat on the bed as she finished preparing to go out. She went to a mirror to add mascara to her lashes. She ran her fingers through her hair and sprayed gel on it, adding texture. With concentration she spread her lips, making them smooth, and applied lipstick, first to the upper lip, from the centre, then the lower lip, from left to right. Then she rubbed upper and lower lips together to smooth the colour in. She clicked the cover on the lipstick, set it on the table, and looked at her bumster to show she was ready to go. She was surprised when he said, “But you didn’t put any perfume on,” as if she were still only half dressed. He detested the restaurant – not in his habits – and was only too happy to return to the hotel room later on in the evening, this time for undressing. That was done hurriedly. Before she knew it, he was on top of her, sweating like a waterfall. And, because he refused to wear a condom, coming all over, flooding the silver ring on her belly button. When she asked him why he didn’t use a condom, he retorted: “If you want to take a bath and you put on a raincoat, can you really claim you have taken a bath?” Lilly Loveless didn’t know what to make of it.
To Lilly Loveless, nothing is worse than bad sex and nothing better than good sex. When she alluded to it later, he claimed the hotel had probably intimidated him. “Next time we’ll go somewhere I’m comfortable with, and you’ll see the difference.”
The next time came much sooner, the next day. They met for a drink. And he said he wanted her. It was evening. She mounted his motorbike behind him. And he steered across town to a discreet “restaurant of some kind.” He negotiated the price, and he followed her up the stairs, his hand fondling her buttocks, and murmuring something about liquid sensations and dreams. She sensed his excitement. The room was sparse, a bed with sheets and a few condoms, a Bible on the bedside cupboard and a candle on a table. She thought of lighting the candle to add some atmosphere to the place. But there were no matches. He was obviously perturbed when she insisted. And irritated came back from the reception with matches. Finally, they undressed. He took her, as he had done before. She doesn’t remember much. The experience was sparse, kind of like the room. After washing himself up in the bathroom and wiping himself off her with a towel, he began pulling his trousers on. She looked surprisingly at him from the bed, where she was resting up a bit. He saw the question in her eyes and said, “I only paid for half an hour.”
The man left her perplexed. On his way home he came by a billboard advertisement for a mattress that said ‘New Dimensions of Sleeping’. As the artist he insisted he was, he always had colour on him. He took a permanent blue magic marker from his bag and drew near to the board, crossed out the word Sleeping and wrote Coming below it. On the mattress he drew two intertwined ecstatic feet. And he continued on his way, wondering if she’d notice it on her way out.
That was that with the man who came early, and left quickly.
For this reason, their encounter ended even more quickly than it had started.
Then Lilly Loveless had another experience. She was lying in a hammock one night when an unattractive man of about thirty came to talk to her, wanting to take her out. “You look as if you know what I need,” he introduced himself and suggested they go to a local bar nearby, where locally brewed gin was freely available at a suicidally giveaway price. “This is the place to mingle with the locals,” he added. She could see he was all fired up, a ‘come on baby set me on fire’ look steaming in his hellish eyes. She told him that she was worth more than a couple of gins, and he started talking real figures, but they were pittance so she told him to leave her alone. His friend came over next, a muscular, younger attractive man. And, as she soon found out, an excellent flirter and a delicious kisser. His manly lips were simply the best she had felt. He made magic with them. The excitement of kissing a man when every time is the first time was what swept Lilly Loveless off her feet.
There is something about Lilly Loveless and kissing. She simply loves kissing. To her kissing is not just a stop on the road to sex. It’s a whole experience in itself beckoning to be celebrated. She loves the intimacy, the closeness that comes with kissing. Sharing lips and sharing tongues thrill her beyond words. Whether it is short sharp pecks on the lips, slightly longer, open mouthed or tongue twister Muzungu kisses, she simply adores them. With the right person, her tongue is always ready for friendly fights, playing tongue battles, and tender licking. She is particularly scintillated when her bottom lip is sucked intermittently. When the back of her neck is kissed, she feels tingly all over.
Even when Lilly Loveless was not with him, she would be on the phone to him: “simply to let you know how much I enjoyed your kisses earlier today, after you finished zipping up my top. A tender one to the neck. A second… to my calf. And a third… to the air… Amazing … how the thought of the kisses is as real and strong as the kisses and kissing and being kissed itself… See you later Sweetie Pie…Ciao!”
Good kisser as he was, the bumster also expected Lilly Loveless to buy petrol for his motorbike or bendskin, beer and local gin, airtime for his cell phone, nightclub entrance fees, and the like, just because she found him handsome, had money written on her forehead, or appeared like a wallet on legs. Then the thought went through her mind: why am I kissing this man when I could be getting paid for it? He is attractive. We are on a palm fringed beach. Why not? Age is salient because my youthfulness gives me the freedom to pick and choose which men I want to kiss or do business with. Moreover, the fact that I am far from desperate means that I can do the manipulating, not vice versa. Here in Sunsandland, there are a lot of beach bumsters, many of whom hook up with old Muzungu ladies. It makes us laugh because all the contrasts are there: a white woman and a black man, a young man and an older woman, a rich woman and a poor man…
Lilly Loveless remembered not wanting to leave Sunsandland. A lot had happened following her meeting with her kisser bumster. Much hunger fed, many more desires awoken. She returned to Muzunguland despite herself, to feed on memories and dream her desires. It was a pity that the best wine of her short stay in Sunsandland should have been kept for so late in the day. But her thoughts and feelings were staying behind, even as she boarded the plane back to the monotony of her daily existence.
A few days after her return, she sent him an email that ended with the words: ‘The pain of leaving you is as acute now as it was when I boarded the plane. So many things have happened in the meantime, but you’ve never been out of my thoughts. How I long to hold you close and kiss you deep: missing you like this really hurts. There’s a continuous gnawing ache reminding me of you all the time. Something like hunger, but more persistent, weighing me down in a flood of reminiscences.’
This must have been the cue he needed. Lilly Loveless’ phone rang, and without bothering to find out who was at the other end of the line, the kisser said his lines obviously borrowed from a magazine or novel.
“My Dear Lilly Loveless,” he began. “Imagine me with you in Bruhlville. It is almost dinner time. You are standing in the kitchen preparing something to eat when you feel me behind you, sliding my firm African hands round your waist and softly kissing your neck... You know I want you.... As you feel my hands slide up your waist to your breasts, I gently tease your nipples, still kissing your neck and whispering in your ear that I can’t wait much longer, I need to take you, right here, right now...”
He ran out of airtime, but not before irreparable damage had been done.
It was Martin her boyfriend who received the call, his last.
Lilly Loveless remembered being philosophical about the way things ended: “Everyone who comes into or leaves our lives is a mirror for something inside us that we are not seeing”, was what she told her mom who would not stop complaining about the fact that things had ended with Martin.
Deep in reverie Lilly Loveless imagined her kisser bumster lying by her side at this quiet lover’s paradise of Sakersbeach. With her eyes closed, she felt him do what he did best. He brought his thick, sensuous, passionate lips to ignite hers, and she was all on fire, burning with desire…
The fire of desire found satisfaction in fantasies. Lilly Loveless remembered thinking years ago, as she walked through a crowded shopping mall in her native Bruhlville: what would it be like to approach some relaxed looking tall, handsome, sexy young man her age and lay a kiss on him? Would he take advantage of a passionate kiss with a stranger? Would she earn herself a black eye? Would it be exciting, or disappointing? Both? What if she dazed him by flashing her tits to say: ‘Be a man - take me, use me, dump me’? She fantasized about breaking some of the other intriguing taboos, such as sex with an extra man or woman in the picture, the way only exhibitionists or the porn industry know best. Was that too weird, too counter-culture, too dark and wrong? Or was it a valid sexual exploration that she was ashamed of due only to society’s wagging finger?
***
Through with his interview, Bobinga Iroko came back and met Lilly Loveless, still sunbathing and reading A Nose for Money, which Britney had strongly recommended, and which she was discovering to be quite relevant to her theme. It was by the author of the paper Lilly Loveless had read, and a copy of which she had brought with intentions of giving to Dr Wiseman Lovemore, but had not got round to it before what happened. An idea crossed her mind. What if she were to write to the author something like: ‘Your work is of great interest to me. Writing is another passion of mine and I have all these ideas in my head which I hope to capture in a book sometime in this lifetime. I was wondering if you could take me under your wing and allow me to pick your brains. When I stumbled across your work, I knew I had found a gem and I would be deeply humbled and honoured to be mentored by you. Thank you very much for your consideration and look forward to hearing from you.’ How would he react? Would this inflate his ego? Or would he remain modest and reply? Why not try and see…?
Lilly Loveless resolved to find out his address and write when she was back in Bruhlville. But that would have to wait until she had read the book. Like with Dr Wiseman Lovemore’s paper which she was yet to read, she had an ambivalent feeling about reading the novel. Captivating though the blurb was, she feared going beyond the first few pages of the novel because she didn’t want the book to influence her thinking even before she had the opportunity to analyse things for herself. So, after the first few pages of the book, she closed it and promised herself not to open it again until she was safely back home and writing up.
Bobinga Iroko noticed the book and wanted to start a conversation on the contents, but was stopped by Lilly Loveless.
“I don’t want to know… I don’t want to know… I don’t want to know…” She told him, blocking her ears with both hands.
Bobinga Iroko moved on to another topic. He suggested they take a walk. Lilly Loveless agreed, but only after a dip.
Bobinga Iroko changed rapidly into his swimming trunks, and together they threw themselves at the gentle waves and enjoyed the sensitive fingers of the irresistible sea water massage them. To Lilly Loveless, this was almost as good as the soft hands of Martin that, aided by massage oils, used to make her smile infinitely with pleasure until things got sour between them. Bobinga Iroko and she loved every second of the encounter and didn’t notice the time pass until an hour and thirty minutes later. But there was also a burning desire to walk along the beach, which they succumbed to, and which offered them an opportunity to talk about all and nothing. It was simply magnificent. When they came across little turtles, Bobinga Iroko talked about turtles doing it, and went on to inform Lilly Loveless that you can tell a male turtle because his underside, unlike a female’s which is just flat, is concave, to facilitate shell mounting. What a man, Lilly Loveless thought, so refreshingly and wonderfully uninhibited. So nutty! She wondered just how uninhibited he would be, if she were to suggest that she would like to feel him next to her, his knees nestling into her side as she looked up into his laughing eyes…
When they returned to the car, it was already getting dark. Going to the Botanic Gardens would have to wait for another day, they decided, and went for roasted fish at one of the loveliest restaurant-bars along the port. As they waited for their fish while sipping their beer, they watched fishermen return to display their catch for market women, house wives and restaurant owners to pick and choose for cash. Lilly Loveless loved every second of it.
All of a sudden, there was unexpected drama: not by market women struggling for the choicest fish; not by the truck pushers fighting over who should carry what for whom. The drama came from a couple in the restaurant, sitting a few tables away from Bobinga Iroko and Lilly Loveless. It was a man and his wife, having dinner on her birthday, so it eventually unfolded. There was the alert of an SMS on the man’s cell phone from his girlfriend informing him that she, all oiled up and shiny, was wearing his favourite thong and wanted to see him right away for the time of his life. Curious, the wife wanted to know whom the SMS was from. The man lied to his wife that the text message was from his mother wishing his wife happy birthday. The wife asked to see the message, but the man was desperately trying to delete it in his shirt pocket. The wife finally snatched the phone from him and read the message out loud to the hearing of everyone in the restaurant. Then she says: “My husband does not want to look at me, he wants a thong but wouldn’t see mine.” She takes up her skirt to reveal the cute thong she is wearing which her husband doesn’t notice. Then she storms out, leaving her husband to clear up the mess of his actions.
“Come on. Everybody else does it and hides it, I do it and just don’t hide it, so what is the big deal with you hypocrites?” The man tried to brush off the stares on him with thoughts he hadn’t the courage to translate into words.
“Mimboland na Mimboland,” said Bobinga Iroko, when the husband, unable to bear the stares, abandoned his food as well, paid his bill and walked out to face his second surprise of the evening: his wife had vandalised his fancy new car beyond recognition.
“I know them well,” Bobinga Iroko added.
“You do?” Lilly Loveless was interested.
“They don’t like me, but they are used to my pieces and I know them very well. The man hates my guts as a journalist. He once accused me of publishing a critical paper about him, when I discovered that a timber exploration concession registered under his name was in effect being exploited by ruthless Muzunglanders without any respect for the tropics they claimed to adore, nor for the local communities that have preserved the forest for thousands of years through religious taboos and rituals.”
“He who harms the environment can’t be a friend of mine,” said Lilly Loveless.
“I’m sure the Muzungulander business interests he represents pay him enough to live on, and by our local standards, to pass for a very rich man with a reputation for talking women into taking off their clothes. He is known locally as ‘Lovebird Masa Moni’, ‘the youngest living old man’ and also as ‘l’homme des belles femmes’, because whatever comes in as money, he shows it off in ostentatious consumption with young, voluptuous, beautiful girls. He can’t see a juicy fruit without wanting to eat it. His wife, who dramatized here a while ago, is not the only wife he has. She is the third and youngest – ‘My Bubbly Brown Sugar’ he called her when he wooed her, and is still doing her studies at UM. She married him three years ago, at a wedding that was termed the wedding of the year here in Sakersbeach. There is nothing he didn’t do to impress her, and there is nothing she didn’t do to impress her friends. It is probably one of those friends now seeking to undo her in the war of the thongs…” Bobinga Iroko was speaking like a tape recording, full of insights.
“You know what a thong is, don’t you?” Bobinga Iroko had a mischievous smile in his eyes.
“No, tell me what it is,” Lilly Loveless laughed and took out her pen. She was beginning to absorb Bobinga Iroko’s every word like the way blotting paper absorbs ink.
“It has more material than a G-String.”
“Really?”
“Anyone who has done window shopping or been at the market when a bale of second-hand underwear is being opened knows these things.”
“Did you see the ‘read my hips’ manner in which she walked out?”
“A woman who walks with such a seductive sway is unlikely to be ovulating.”
“You mean likely…”
“That’s what I used to mean until I read this piece in the New Scientist…”
“You do really ferret, don’t you?” Lilly Loveless was impressed.
Bobinga Iroko laughed out his modesty, and added: “Here in Mimboland, one either has an MBA or is an MBA.”
“What do you mean? Everyone is into business administration or something?”
Bobinga Iroko laughed before explaining. “An MBA here means Married but Available.”
Lilly Loveless exploded in laughter. “That’s very funny.”
“Yes, MBA is our business: we either are married but available, or have someone who is married but available.”
“Bobinga Iroko included?”
“No comment.” He laughed. “Do you know how to determine whether someone is having an affair or not?”
“Tell me.”
“You know someone is having an affair when they feel unusually happy and light within themselves, as if they’ve met with Angel Gabriel. For a woman, she starts walking as if she’s got springs on her heels, her underwear suddenly begins to look more and more like thongs and G-Strings, she starts watching every word she says as she fears betraying her little new secret, and if you watch closely, you begin to see funny marks on prominent aspects of her anatomy.”
“You need to be intimately close to notice that about her.”
“Of course, I meant the husband or a very close friend,” replied Bobinga Iroko. “Otherwise, what is there for a perfect stranger seeking to know who is having or not having an affair? Except an idle Muzungu researcher called Loveless.”
“Your wife plays around too?”
“Have I told you I am married?” replied Bobinga Iroko, evasively.
Lilly Loveless smiled insistently, not knowing why getting any personal information from this man was like pulling a tooth.
“OK, let’s suppose I have a wife,” he laughed. “I would say she doesn’t need to play around. I’ll string her G-spot every time. I know how to please her. She comes every time. How many men could do that for her? She’d get impatient with a new guy fooling around to figure her out.”
“Why hypothetical?”
“It is better that way. Then you can explore different scenarios. Reality is much too fixed, don’t you think? To fall in love is immediately to dread the loss of the object of desire, so better to be hypothetically married than actually married, I think, hypothetically speaking, of course.”
“I give up,” said Lilly Loveless. Smiling, she asked: “And men – how do you know they are having an affair?”
“With men, the signs are that suddenly, they start being conscious of their dressing, going on mission a lot, and calling their wives names they’ve never heard before, especially when dreaming or making love. These days, a sure way of sniffing an affair is by reading through your partner’s sent text messages. And if your partner is always erasing his or her messages, know you have a smoking gun. Treat as suspect a partner who lives in fear of text messages and whose inbox and sent folders are always empty.”
“Why exactly do people frown on cheating, especially by women? It can reluctantly be tolerated in men, but women, never. If women cheat despite the fact that cheating is not granted them at all, what could be the reasons?”
“In Mimboland, women cheat for various reasons, major amongst which is the need to live a life that is not theirs. The pressures on them to dress well, do their hair, buy this and that, be here or there in a class and in places above their means or attainments, push them into the open arms of affairs with men who are either pretending or honest about bringing them to consumer paradise.”
“Surely, that can’t be the only reason women cheat,” Lilly Loveless protested.
“You are not as good a listener as I thought,” Bobinga Iroko rebuked, playfully. “Consumerism is a major reason, but there are others. Some women cheat because their men have done it, leaving them unhappy, lonely or feeling neglected. They also cheat simply because they, in essence, are just like men, wanting great sex and variety beyond the monotony and ability of regular partners to provide, however creative these might be at self-reconfiguration.” Lilly Loveless wrote frantically in her notebook. She liked what Bobinga Iroko said. “And why, according to you, are women seldom open and bold about their affairs? Why don’t they boast of these in public in the same way as men do?”
“The answer is simple, I think,” replied Bobinga Iroko. “Vis-à-vis one’s partner, the lying, economy with the truth, clandestinity and hide-and-seek that come with having an affair is like the turn-on exhibitionists get from knowing that they are watched, and together with the sex, must make affairs really pleasurable and difficult to call off. Another reason might simply be that women are less animated by the trophy mentality that drives men, so they don’t display and parade their affairs the way a sportsman does his trophies.”
“You are a real expert, aren’t you?” said Lilly Loveless. Returning to the row, she asked of the man, “You say he is married to three wives?”
“Yes, and when friends ask him: ‘Masa, why you get plenty fine fine woman them so, you di comot outside go chase plenty more?’ he would say; ‘You no know say latrine for corner house de smell plenty?’ On other occasions he would say: ‘If you have a farm, does that mean you can’t have a garden as well?’ Super, isn’t it?”
“If you say so,” replied Lilly Loveless, beckoning to the waiter to bring her another drink. “I’ve also heard that plenty corner-corner lovers is not good,” she added, imitating his pidgin intonation.
“To be fair to the man, he worships women,” said Bobinga Iroko. “He is even rumoured to have slept with more than 1000 women and to have decided how he would like to die. ‘On a woman and surrounded by women, just as I have lived my life,’ he tells his friends. ‘And with my hand firmly on the well rounded youthful breast of the most beautiful of them,’ he adds with a sensuous chuckle, his eyes closed in imagined pleasure.”
“I wish him luck,” said Lilly Loveless.
Beer preceded the fish, which was taken with beer and followed by beer. Soon Bobinga Iroko was in no state to drive.
“Let’s go to the nightclub,” he suggested. “Let’s sweat away the beer on the dance floor to the tune of lovely Mimbo music.”
Lilly Loveless liked the idea.
They opted for Black & White, one of the most popular in Sakersbeach. Bobinga Iroko managed to drive up to a friend’s place on Church Street where they parked the car, and walked leisurely to the nightclub at the Bay Hotel. On their way they passed young and old women of all shapes and sizes, dressed in skimpy attire and headed in the same direction.
“These are night butterflies,” Bobinga Iroko whispered. “You’ll see the younger of them in the nightclub, but the older ones are heading for the bars, chicken parlours and other popular spots. All of them are fishers of men…”
Lilly Loveless listened without saying much in return until her curiosity was caught by a range of houses where several lit kerosene lamps were hanging on door posts.
“What are those lamps for?” she asked.
“Those?” smiled Bobinga Iroko. “They are signposts by night butterflies, inviting men to come and sample their wares,” he explained. “‘Ma skin di itch for come,’ is what the lamps are saying to those who understand their language.”
“How ingenuous!” replied Lilly Loveless. “It reminds me of the red light district back in Bruhlville. Do they ever run out of fuel, those lamps?” she asked.
“As long as there’s no catch, the lamps stay fuelled,” said Bobinga Iroko. “They are like the bait of the fishermen. You don’t expect a catch if your hook is baitless, do you? And once you’ve caught something, you save the rest of your bait for next time. So when we are coming back from the nightclub, you’ll be able to determine who has been lucky for the night, from whose lamp has retired.”
“Fascinating,” said Lilly Loveless, remembering to make notes as soon as possible while the ideas were still fresh in her mind.
Black & White was already bustling with young men and women when they got there. Bobinga Iroko paid for two tickets and the muscular bouncers in dark sunglasses tore the tickets and let them through the narrow entrance.
The dance floor was active and the song couldn’t have been better timed. In the song, the singer, a man, wants to know what love is. The woman replies “there’s no such thing as love”. Shocked, the man asks what she means. “Love is what you tell the person you are with. Today it is me, tomorrow it is her. But when I watch your actions, I’m a fool to treasure your words.”
Very profound, Lilly Loveless noted, and asked Bobinga Iroko for the name of the artist. They spotted a place to sit at the far end, from where Lilly Loveless could watch the dancing, pick up tips about the dance steps before venturing onto the floor. Only too aware of the comment she got in Sunsandland when she instinctively attempted to respond to the wild frenzy of African drumming – ‘If you were dancing for survival, you’d die before the day breaks,’ her partner had mocked – Lilly Loveless was cautious not to rush into things.
Song followed song. Some, Lilly Loveless could follow, others she didn’t understand.
“What is the singer saying about breast milk?” Lilly Loveless asked Bobinga Iroko, her attention drawn to a tune that made people rush to the dance floor.
“He is one of our naughtiest musicians. He claims he can’t do without breast milk He likes sucking inspiration from women. Just can’t get enough of what’s inside them! Be careful if he puts his tongue to your tit! His lips will soon be around you and he’ll suck and suck and suck. If we were to caricature him, he would have the biggest jaws of anyone in Mimboland. Suckling is essential to his ability to survive, you see, and flourish as an artist. He’s an adult suckler, a forever suckler. For him, suckling must be better than sex!”
“I shan’t flash my tits at him.”
“You don’t need to flash to have him coming.”
“He sounds desperate. What is his name?”
“I shan’t tell you,” said Bobinga Iroko. “You need all the protection you can get,” he smiled.
“Bobinga Iroko, you are fun to be with,” said Lilly Loveless with playful sincerity.
It didn’t take them long. Soon they were up, dancing to a wide variety of music forms from the rich menu served by the versatile DJ.
Bobinga Iroko explained the music forms and the contents of the songs to Lilly Loveless as they danced. She insisted they dance next to the table where they sat and where she had her notebook ready, so she could note down from time to time what he told her about the music.
Lilly Loveless noticed right away that the music was different from what she had fallen for in Sunsandland. It was gentler and softer, and the drumming wasn’t the same intense, intoxicating frenzy. But the themes were just as rich.
Bobinga Iroko was a casual and relaxed dancer, quite unlike the vigorous, suggestive styles of the others on the floor, which he dismissed as nothing but perpendicular expressions of horizontal desires. He responded well to the rhythm, and did the occasional wriggle and what he termed “balle à terre”: wriggling until you touch the floor with your bum. But he didn’t overdo anything, unlike others who turned, twisted, wriggled, jumped and pulled themselves so vigorously and with such repetition that they took all the joy out of dancing, as far as he was concerned.
Lilly Loveless could fit in both ways, but as a beginner and new to the music, she preferred Bobinga Iroko’s soft and gentle self-assured style.
The music poured out. Lilly Loveless paid particular attention to songs on the theme of love, power and consumption, and couldn’t believe her ears when virtually every song had something to do with one or all of these aspects of her research. There was the song about a certain Masa Ngongari, who feels that he is smarter than most, and is chasing after someone’s wife whom he falsely claims is his cousin. The man tells him “locot”, for he doesn’t understand this type of cousin. In a similar song a man warns: “watch out, don’t touch my cat… If you touch my cat, don’t touch its tail.”
A woman cries out: “I have seven lovers, all desire me, what am I to do?” A fourth song claims: “Man is the belly and the under belly, and all is won”. A perplexed man screams: “Frankly I am baffled when you say you no longer know me: what’s your thong doing at my place?” A woman challenges: “It’s you who said you can… here I am, show me that you can…” Someone wonders: “Why are so many women fighting for him?” A man replies: “For his Stick of Authority. They are dying to feel within the commanding fullness of him.”
In another song, a lousy lover leaves a girl totally disappointed, and instead of owning up to his worthlessness in matters of life and death, tries to wriggle himself out of his inadequacies by complaining the girl’s perfume “smelt like grilled fish”. There was a lovely song with the phrase: “The husband of another is sweet … the wife of another is sweet…” The drunken voice of a woman calls out: “Darling, I love you… take me, I’m yours…” The woman continues: “What do you want me to say for you to touch me, to embrace me? ...showme red, make love to me…”
A sweet melodic voice is disarmingly modest in her request for: “Just a little love”, in a song – Ndolo – that filled Bobinga Iroko with reminiscences he declined to share, offering instead, to dance to it chest to chest with Lilly Loveless, his eyes firmly closed. This was followed by a succession of sweet, slow, glowing Zouk, freshly delivered from the Caribbean like early morning roses from the Botanic Gardens. Bobinga Iroko didn’t explain much; their enthusiastic embrace of the music did the talking.
Then there was the rawest, crudest, most uninhibited bunch of them all. One, whose songs were very popular, judging from how many times they were played, was luring in his provocativeness and irresistibly obscene. In one song he describes himself as “the defence lawyer for women”, but proceeds in the same song and others to invite men to “inject”, “pump”, “pierce”, “drill”, “fill up”, and, like the praying mantis, “kill this evening” and “finish off” the very same women he loves and protects.
In another a young woman is crying out “it hurts… it hurts very, very much…” but can’t resist inviting the man to be more venturesome in the way he explores and switches on her buttons. While embracing her invitation, the man playfully labels her “aratatata chop die”.
A woman in yet another song, impatient with a man’s attempts at foreplay, screams: “No begin tune ma bobi like radio, slap me kanas for las.”
A man menaces: “Since I see a well packaged ndombolised derriere, if you joke, I’m going to inject you…”
The music made Lilly Loveless recall a paper she had read by an astute observer of men and women at play. The paper was about a society where people are easy prey to generalised promiscuity engendered by poverty and beleaguered desire. The author talked of “phallocracy or the dictatorship of the penis” being the order of the day, stretching from the helm of state through universities and schools down to the ghettoes and villages. In that society, the pride that came with having “an active penis” was enormous and to be dramatized daily, as men championed their pleasure through subduing women.
Most of the songs were interspaced by the names of people, whom Bobinga Iroko explained to Lilly Loveless were big men who had probably paid the artists some money to sing good things about them, so they could be even bigger men. Music to these men was a signpost on which to advertise their prominence, ambitions and desires.
In one song, a young man who has lived through the thick and thin of the ghetto, finds reason to celebrate the appointment of his brother into ‘very high office’. The appointment is an opportunity not to miss, given how much his brother has struggled and sacrificed to be appointed: His brother has been to see renowned pygmy witchdoctors to grease his way and fortify him, and has gone through most trying experiences such as crossing dangerous rivers and sleeping for days with his nose dipped in water. He even danced naked, feet in fire, with old chimpanzees, not to mention the barks of trees, herbs and concoctions which he has eaten and drunk. It had been rumoured several times before, but nothing came through. Today, rumour has been transformed into noble truth by a presidential decree broadcast on state radio and television.
The young man envisions his brother’s appointment changing his life in a big way – ‘my life is going to change’, ‘at last I am going to relax’ like a baobab of achievement and power, as ‘suffering has ended’. The days of trekking, sandwiches, and struggle in overloaded taxis are over. He anticipates riding in his own car, an air-conditioned Mercedes, going into the inner cities to fetch vulnerable girls – especially those who turned him down when he was nobody – who can’t resist anyone with a car.
He also looks forward to winning tenders, which he has no intention to honour, given the protection he is sure to receive from his brother in high office. He would move up to live with those in beautiful residential areas, keeping his old friends and relations at a distance. He would limit access to his cell phone, and employ a stern guard to keep visitors at bay with false accounts of his whereabouts. At last he would be able to travel abroad to see beautiful sights, indulge in delicacies such as smoked salmon, and shop in hard currency. It is going to be hectic, as he spoils himself by association with power, privilege and comfort.
On the dance floor, Lilly Loveless could almost read people’s fantasies in their faces, in their wriggles, and in the way they moved their bodies… In her notebook she noted: ‘This place is pregnant with desired meaning and the meaning of desire.’ Even Bobinga Iroko said as much, in his usual provocative, disdainful and investigative manner: “What rules this land of Mimbo is not the Longstays who keep re-inventing sterility. What rules it is the Mimbo in all and sundry or what you see on the dance floor: ambitions of the body and the body of ambition.”
Girls – young, younger and youngest bubbled with desire. They danced with men of all shapes and sizes like butterflies celebrating an early arrival of spring. There were older women as well, but the tensions of age and aging did not quite let them enjoy the music, at least so claimed Bobinga Iroko, who shared a story on this with Lilly Loveless.
“Nightclubs are not places for women like those,” he pointed at two amply bulky women more than half eaten up by age, giving the music their best on the dance floor in the company of an equally elderly man whose attention was completely consumed by the surrounding nimbleness of youth.
“I see nothing wrong with them,” Lilly Loveless countered. “They are enjoying themselves.”
“With a man who is enjoying himself without them,” Bobinga Iroko chuckled. “Look where his eyes are looking.”
“But that doesn’t mean that he is not enjoying their company.”
“You are just arguing for the sake of argument.”
“I’m serious…”
In a lighter mood, Bobinga Iroko asked: “What is the difference between a girl of 8 or 18 and a woman of 28, 38, 48, 58, 68 or 78?”
“I don’t know, you tell me,” Lilly Loveless said, casually, not knowing what he was up to next.
“One of our politicians recently said the difference was ‘bobi tanap’ and ‘bobi don fall’, comparing the first to the opposition and the latter to the ruling party.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“Firm upright inexperienced tits, as opposed to tits flattened or ironed by age, practice and motherhood.”
“Was he of the opposition or the government?”
“He was the opposition in government.”
“And you, what do you think the difference is between 8 and 78?”
“I read on the Internet that at the age of 8, you take her to bed and tell her a story.”
“At 18…?”
“You tell her a story and take her to bed.”
“28...?”
“You don’t need to tell her a story to take her to bed.”
“At 38…?”
“She tells you a story and takes you to bed.”
“48…?”
“She tells you a story to avoid going to bed.”
“What about at 58…?”
“You stay in bed to avoid her story.”
“At 68…?”
“If you take her to bed, that’ll be a story!”
“And at 78, both the bed and the woman are dead and buried?”
“Exactly! What story? What bed? Who the hell are you?”
Listening and dancing to Mimboland’s rich and fascinating music on social virtues (love, honesty, hard work, etc.), social ills (jealousy, corruption, prostitution, etc.) and power relations between men and woman and at various levels of society, Lilly Loveless reached an instant decision. She’d have to look into how these themes are captured in popular music, and would recruit a research assistant to collect and transcribe relevant popular songs for her.
She submitted herself to the music, and to the Mimbolander sense of spectacle. The large mirrors on the walls produced and reproduced images of her, Bobinga Iroko and others locked in ecstasy.
“Listening to Petit Pays,” said a young girl in her teens, probably, “makes me feel all charged up.”
Lilly Loveless could say the same, for the music was indeed luring and electrifying in its suggestiveness.
The pleasures were profound, beyond words.
The night was long and consumed by excitement.
There were mixed fillings of drinks, but no mixed feelings.
The enjoyment was total.
There was kissing… with Bobinga Iroko… much kissing.
“One needs to be kissingly close to notice that you are yet to have your wisdom tooth,” Lilly Loveless whispered.
“And one needs that experience to know just what an excellent kisser you are,” replied Bobinga Iroko, blissfully.
Well before the time the sun kissed Mount Mimbo good morning with its baby rays, the buyam-sellams, bus drivers, taxi men, bendskin riders, truck pushers, travellers and other early risers in Puttkamerstown could see Bobinga Iroko’s Toyota Hilux stagger into town as if it had refilled at the bar, not the filling station. They looked in wonderment at the excited car exciting everything along its way.
