Читать книгу Stiletto (English) - Karin Eloff - Страница 6

“Kiss me,” he murmurs and lifts my head with both hands from his lower body. He speaks English with an accent because he’s Spanish. He is a dancer who reminds me of a Bengal tiger. A handsome man with short-cropped, red-brown hair and deep, dark eyes. The details of his life are not important – only that his face shows the lines of someone who has lived life to the full and has taken the gravel road. Just like me.

His name is Abelardo.

It’s a strong, rhythmic, musical name. It means “noble strength”, he told me when I asked him about it.

“And I am Karin,” I introduced myself. It means pure and chaste.

It is dance and music that brought Abelardo and me together – a yearning for rediscovery and a search for self. We formed part of a group of people attending the annual Biodanza gathering: five days in Champagne Valley in the Drakensberg. Biodanza is described as follows:

Biodanza is a form of intervention intended to further health and well-being by encouraging self-expression and auto-regulation through music, dance and interaction. It originates from South America and was developed by Rolando Toro.

We danced in our shadows and our light – and finally I saw Abelardo and he me. He couldn’t keep his eyes off me.

“Would you like to come swimming with me?” he invited after the first session of the day.

Of course. He looked sexy and I felt hot from the dancing.

We ambled off, away from the rest, talking, laughing about nothing in particular.

It’s a privilege to be ourselves here, without alcohol, drugs – without any stimulation apart from what comes from within.

And here we are. Our wet bodies struggling to find warmth in the moonlight. Fortunately it’s high summer, and the difference between swimming-pool water and sweat is only a few minutes ...

Why am I telling you this story?

Because Abelardo is the first man to whom I truly gave my virginity freely.

Wait, allow me to explain. Here is the short version, for purposes of introduction: Fucking is easy. It’s a clattering racket and it means less than a cigarette butt when the gasping and sucking is over. I have done it to the point of boredom, with more men than there are days in the year. I learned to divorce my emotional self and my physical self. That night, for the first time, a man reached out to me without reserve. It was wonderful.

“Kiss me,” he said.

We made love. That was that. And when it was done it was done. It was a moment in time when two souls could connect.

The difference between making love and sex, I believe, is this: You can’t make love if you don’t love yourself, and you can’t love yourself if you are not yourself. How can you give yourself to someone if you can’t grasp the worth of what you are giving?

I don’t see my past as “deep and dark”. It’s still an important part of who I am now. Yes, I’ve made mistakes. Many. But I like myself. Here and now, the way I am. I learned that I don’t have to apologise for who I am. You have to be yourself to give meaning to your life. I believe that.

Abelardo and I floated on clouds of self-love and shared it with each other. His hands felt like those of someone who loves himself. I could kiss him like a woman who cares about herself, who doesn’t make excuses for her sexuality. My orgasms give birth to worlds within myself; it’s an integral part of my being, and I’m not going to apologise for it.

Virginity is about much more than mere flesh. I am thankful that I could lose my virginity all over again at the age of thirty-five. I even saw some proof: The next morning at sunrise, there was a bloodstain on the paving by the pool.

Virginity is my choice; it does not have to be a physical condition.

Yes, Abelardo: I gave you mine …

Perhaps I will bump into him somewhere again one day.

Who knows?