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