by Julian Bloom
The bad was that he had been afraid to share what he had learned with her and teach her what Africa had taught him. That saddened her. However, she couldn’t blame him entirely. She had made it difficult. He had tried to share Africa with her, but she had refused and he’d been unable to tell her about it; he needed to show her. She could sort of understand that too. As glib as he was in conversations that didn’t touch his inner feelings, he’d always been tongue-tied. When they married and he led her on sexual education, he’d never once said anything about it, he’d just done it, and she was very thankful he had. Now, posthumously, he had once again shown her new things.
When she looked at her life, she had to admit that it was very dull – comfortable, but dull. She hadn’t been dull when she was young; she’d just allowed herself to become dull. Jake had shown her that her life needn’t be dull. It would take courage, but what, after all, had she to lose. If her attempt to live differently in Africa was a failure, so what? She could go back to Denver wiser and better educated, but none the worse for it, surely.
Well, she thought, Tasheka my dear, put your money where your mouth is. There was no reason why she shouldn’t. She had seen enough on the TV to know that in a big city you could hire people to have dinner with you. And, if she asked the hotel desk people, they could tell her how to do it. But she wavered and dithered. She had never done anything of the sort before. Finally, screwing up her courage, she ran down to the desk to put her in touch with someone she could hire to have dinner with.
“You want an escort service, madam?” replied the man at the desk.
“Yes, please.” She knew what they were called, but had momentarily forgotten.
“Very good, Madam, I’ll have the one we recommend call you.”
“Thank you very much.”
There. It had been very simple. A dozen familiar words to start a new life with. She almost crowed. Fortunately it was only a few moments before the phone rang. Had it been any longer, her courage might have faded away. The woman on the phone asked her what she wanted. Answering that was easy. Then she asked more difficult questions. “You want a male escort for dinner only?”
“Yes, dinner only,” she said firmly.
“Very good Madam. Do you want a black, colored or white escort.?” Tasheka hesitated. She understood that in Africa “colored” meant mixed race; that wasn’t the problem. She was tempted to go to dinner with a white man, but then decided that was too big a step to take as her first one. “Black,” she said.
“What age range were you thinking of?”
Heavens! She had no idea! She stuttered, “mature” before she’d really decided, but once it had been said she thought it was the right answer. She didn’t want a toy boy. She was sure of that. [And where, she wondered had the phrase “toy boy” come from? She hadn’t known she knew it.]
“Very good, madam. And what time do you want him to arrive?”
Tasheka hadn’t thought about that either. Things were going too fast. “I don’t know,” she managed.
“In South Africa, the usual time for dinner would be between 7:00 and 8: 00. Shall we say, seven?”
“That’s fine.” The woman then took down her name and the name of the hotel, and then added, “For dinner only that will be five hundred Rand. He will ask for it in advance. If you change your mind and want additional services, there will be additional charge of R400.”
No, I’m sure I won’t want that.” After Tasheka put down the phone, she thought it had all been much easier than she had thought it would be. They must be used to ignorant people like me, and she could tell from my accent that I wasn’t South African.
She had time for a short nap – if she could sleep. But in fact, as soon as she lay back on the bed, she was asleep. It had been an exhausting day. When she woke up, there was time for a soaking bath. She dithered over what to wear, but in the end decided it didn’t much matter. It would be he who was on approval, not she, after all. By the time he arrived, she had almost changed her mind yet again. There was no reason why she couldn’t just give him the money and send him away.
Chapter 6 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REST OF HER LIFE
When the knock at the door came, and she opened it, her doubts fled. He was an entirely normal sort – nothing flashy or outré. What was she expecting, she wondered, pastel jeans and gold jewelry? He was of average height and weight. How reassuring he was! She supposed that the receptionist of an escort agency must have been trained to guess what the client wanted. If so, she’d been well trained. Suddenly she realized that she had been keeping him at the door for rather a long time and apologized as she invited him in.
“That’s entirely OK. I’m a total stranger, after all. But I hope before the evening’s over, we’ll be friends.
Tasheka looked him in the eyes and liked what she saw. She saw kindness and compassion. There were laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. Suddenly she saw what Jake had found and thought she might find it too. “I hope so too” she replied.
“That’s a good start. I’m Solomon.”
“I’m Tasheka.” They shook hands and then Solomon asked where she wanted to go for dinner. “I’m a stranger in Jo’Burg. You suggest something.”
His first suggestion was the restaurant she had been to with the four company men. “I’ve been there. Another suggestion? “
“What find of food do you like?”
“Seafood, maybe.”
“You know, Jo’Burg’s not a good seafood place. Everything’s frozen. How about Thai?”
Tasheka had never had Thai food, but her agenda for the night was new things. “That’s sounds great.”
“There’s a great Thai place just around the corner here. We could walk.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Could you lend me R500? I forgot to go to the ATM before I set out.”
And that was the beginning of a perfect evening out. Tasheka found Solomon a very congenial companion. Of course she knew that was what he was paid to be, but he was the first person since she left Denver that she could talk honestly to, and she found herself opening up to him about her situation and her new discoveries about Jake, and her decision to lash out herself in new directions.
When they got back to her hotel, he asked, “Would you like me to come in for an after dinner drink?”
Tasheka started to say, “No, thanks.” But then she thought, Why not? Why ever not? So she agreed that was exactly what she wanted, and as soon as they got to her room, she handed him 400 Rand before he asked for it. “Thanks in advance,” he said with a smile.
“You’re very welcome.”
They ordered drinks from Room Service, and sat on the sofa chatting amicably. For the first time Tasheka felt a bit uncomfortable. She’d never been in this situation before and didn’t know what the drill was. She’d got the idea somewhere that in commercial sexual encounters, kissing was taboo. But she wasn’t sure. But then she thought that he knew. That in part was what she was paying for. When the drinks came, he took a sip, and then gently took her glass from her hand, set it on the coffee table and leaned over and gave her a companionable kiss, removing her doubt on that particular point and asked her if she wanted a quick shower.
When Tasheka said she would, he asked if she would mind if he joined her. It was a completely new idea for Tasheka and she hesitated, but only for a moment. “Not at all! “
“Ok,” he said, “you go ahead and I’ll join you in a minute. Tasheka saw the tactfulness of that. Faced with stripping off with a stranger watching was uncomfortable, which she hadn’t expected. So she went into the bathroom, stripped and stepped into the shower and let the hot water stream over her. When he slipped in behind her and began what turned out to be a kind of full body massage with the hotel’s body wash, all uncomfortableness was gone. She simply enjoyed the feel of his hands sliding over her. Staying behind her, he pressed against her as he slathered the body wash over her shoulders and breasts, and she could feel that what he was doing was having th
e same effect on him as it was on her. As he moved downwards, her excitement mounted. This is delicious, she thought, and wished Jake had introduced her to it a long time ago. Her knees were growing weak and the flesh of her thighs fluttering when he turned her around and grasping her buttocks, lifted her onto his erection. My God! she thought. He’s strong enough to lift even me!
About the same height, they could both stand upright while he began a gentle movement, which she instantly joined, thrust meeting thrust until she began to moan and long for it to go on forever and to reach climax instantly. Several times he brought her close to the edge of the abyss, and then stopped all movement to keep her from falling over it. Each time the edge was higher and her hunger for release stronger, until at last he suddenly increased his pace and she went gliding through the ether, seemingly forever.
He turned off the water, and placing his lips over hers, he reached for a towel to dry themselves off. The feel of the silken furriness of the towel on the nerve endings of her skin was exquisite, and before she was finished drying herself, she felt her passion rising again. Feeling her breath quickening, he said, “Ready for bed?” And when she nodded, He led her to it and laid her gently down onto it. As he finished drying himself she looked at his body for the first time, and the sight of its muscular excellence increased her readiness to receive it in her, and she spread her legs as wide as she could. Seeing that no further delay was necessary, he accepted the invitation without delay and plunged into her with none of the delicacy he had shown in the shower. It was soon over, and leaving her sated and exhausted on the bed, he left her, dressed in the living room where his clothes were, and left, leaving his card on the desk. “Thanks very much!” murmured Tasheka, but she doubted he heard her, and felt a moment of abandonment before she was asleep.
Chapter 7 GAME ONE IN THE GAME PARK
The next morning, Hansie picked Tasheka up to take her to the airport for her flight to Sabi Game Reserve for her promised 4-day safari. After greeting her, he casually asked her how she had been since he had left her the afternoon before and was slightly startled at the warmth of her response. Tasheka too was slightly taken aback at the spontaneous enthusiasm of her reply, and had a sudden panic about what she would answer if he asked her what she’d been doing. Fortunately, though he indeed wanted to ask her what she had done, he felt that would be indiscreet and said only that he was glad that her visit to South Africa had been rewarding. She replied truthfully that it had been, but that she was looking forward even more to the game park. The rest of the conversation stopped until he dropped her at the domestic departures hall at ORT, where a representative from Sabi was waiting to escort her plane, was inconsequential.
She was getting quite used to being coddled by everybody, and briefly wondered if the international travel she had halfway planned for herself as part of her new life would be quite so pleasant when she was on her own. But at least, she was considering it, which she would never have done if she’d remained in Denver. Her new self-confidence suggested that she would rise to the occasion. The Sabi private plane was a small four-seater jet, which gave her initial apprehension, but she was surprised to find the plane felt safer than a large one. She was sure it wasn’t, but it felt like it. The flight was only about 50 minutes, and almost immediately she was on the ground in the low veldt.
*
Morné lay on his cot massaging his morning stiffie and wishing the hand doing the massaging wasn’t his own. Specifically he was wishing the hand belonged to S’du. But it didn’t and was never going to again. Fuck! Life was hardly worth living. S’du had cancer and she had gone back to her village to die. Morné couldn’t share his grief with anybody because he’d never told anybody about S’du. The apartheid miscegenation laws may have been repealed on paper but they hadn’t been repealed in people’s minds. His friends and family would be appalled if they knew that he’d been sleeping with a Zulu. It might be OK in Jo’Burg, but Morné was from Polokwane, where it was mostly white relationships only. Even his fellow game guides, a more liberated lot, would fail to understand that for him, S’du had been more than an easy lay. He loved her. He still loved her even though she had forbidden him to visit at her home, wanting neither the fuss it would cause her family – nor for him to see her wasting away and wracked with constant pain. It was a fucking pile of shit, that’s what it was.
And nothing to be done about it. The plane carrying his client from Jo’Burg would be on the ground any minute, and he had to meet it, scrubbed and grinning, and acting like the client was the best thing that had happened to him since Christmas. He groaned, levered himself off the cot and managed to be at the field just as the plane touched down.
When Tasheka stepped out of the plane, he was astounded. He’d been told that the client was a female, but nobody had mentioned that she was black. Black clients of any description were very rare at Sabi, one of the most expensive private parks in South Africa; unaccompanied black women never happened – at least in his experience. Well, it would be interesting, if nothing else.
Tasheka, when she saw Morné coming towards her with a smile, was both surprised and not at all happy. Her experience with Afrikaner men had not been encouraging, and the last thing she wanted was four days of subtle insults and denigrating assumptions. But perhaps he’d be another Hansie. She hoped so.
And she had to admit too, that as long as he didn’t speak, she would enjoy his presence from an aesthetic point of view. He was definitely eye candy, even to her. Short and stocky, he was nevertheless straight off the cover of “Men’s Health,” eye-catching muscles everywhere that showed, as she assumed other intimate places as well. His tight and skimpy safari uniform revealed thick arms, legs and neck bronzed by the sun – practically as dark as some of her “black” family in America. His hair, close cropped, was bleached almost white by the sun. To top it off, he exuded a healthy energy that raised her spirits. She smiled back.
As he showed her to her tent, the conversation was stilted – like a couple of porcupines getting acquainted. But by the time he’d escorted her to the dining lapa for a sumptuous breakfast, they’d relaxed, both of them tentatively discovering that they were sympathetic types despite their totally different backgrounds. As they ate, Tasheka could see a family of elephants playing at the waterhole just outside and was entranced. In the flesh, with the heat and African sounds and smells, they were quite different from the ones on the TV. Although she listened to him with real interest, Morné had ceased to be her central focus. On his part, he sensed that her reaction to the game was emotional and deep. She was not going to be the sort of client who ticked off sighted species on a list and then lost interest in them. They shared that, at least, and he figured it was going to be OK.
When they had finished eating, he asked her if she wanted to rest and wait for the day to cool before they went for a game drive, and to his pleasure, she was most emphatically negative about that idea. This was a lifetime experience, the first – well the second - event in the rest of her life – her new life – and she didn’t want to waste a moment of it. What she’d experienced so far had just been an appetizer. He mentioned that it was already getting hot and uncomfortable, and a lot of the game would be resting in the shade, she remained adamant and told him she’d say so when she’d had enough.
As it happened, the day’s clouds were already beginning to gather, so the heat wasn’t as punishing as it sometimes was, and they were lucky in the game. They had a good viewing of a pair of rhino with a calf, a pod of hippos resting on the bank of a pan with crocodiles in the water, and a family of giraffes. Everything was new to Tasheka, and Morné was delighted to discover when he began his informative guide’s patter, she was interested and even asked intelligent questions, so that he ended up explaining things which he didn’t bother to talk about with the average client.
For Tasheka, the bush was an instant “love at first sight” experience, and more slowly she began to appreciate Morné. Oddly, as a person, he reminde
d her of Jake. Not only that, sitting next to him in the heat, she was aware of his masculine scent, which stirred up thoughts she’d never expected to have in this situation, certainly not with a white man.
Morné found to his surprise that she reminded him of S’du. As hot and sweaty as he, she gave off a scent that was distinctly African, something he’d particularly enjoyed with S’du. That was welcome. She wasn’t S’du, and though guides often enlivened their nights with sexual dalliance with clients, he thought that in this case, it was very unlikely indeed, and any thoughts of it would only elicit the kind of memories he was sternly trying to banish.
On the evening drive, however, during the traditional pause for drinks as the sun went down, and in the empty moments of the night drive, when sightings, though particularly interesting, were scarce, they discovered their mutual recent bereavement, which created an instant bond of understanding. Morné almost at once considered that they might mutually help fill the black hole in their lives. It took Tasheka longer. For her, his race was an issue.
Chapter 8 DIFFERENT GAME, SAME PARK
After a couple of pre-dinner drinks, and a sumptuous meal, as required because the camp was not fenced, he led her to her tent, taking here hand to guide her – though she didn’t know it – a most unguidely thing to do. As a test, it was inconclusive. She neither squeezed his hand nor removed it, but he was encouraged. There were two more nights to go.
Though she’d given no sign, Tasheka had not been unaware of the feel of his hand on hers nor of its significance. She just had to ponder it. Fatigued, however, by a day replete with new things, she was asleep practically before her head hit the pillow. In the morning, however, she found that her doubts were gone. What Morné had been suggesting was definitely a part of the picture she had of her new life. What, after all, had she to lose? Nothing she could think of.