UNDER SIEGE (A Story Of Hope)

by Ciuri Di Badia

  * * * * * * *

  Despite how his relationships ended, Tommy had been lucky in clicking with girls. He always ensured that his moves were precise and straight to the point. The idea behind that was that, he did not want to leave anything to chance. He drove things to where he wanted them to be, and if those things failed to move, he aborted his project all together.

  In his adult life, Tommy had met many girls. Some were hard to get while others easier to get. Better still, some were just playing hard to get and later, they softened up. To the contrary, there were those who were playing easier to get and later they hardened up with the going. Many a times, Tommy had to change his game as per the toughness of a girl.

  In all cases, the rules that govern the game of dating remain the same. Some players get out of the game while others join in, others change the way they play the game as others change the way they understand the game, however, the rules that they all observe remains the same, everywhere, every time.

  Our forefathers and foremothers in the last century dated. They may have been operating in a different environment from the one we know of today, they may have had an inferior technology as compared to what we have today, but dating as they knew it has remained the same.

  It’s amazing how societies transform. For example, in the ancient times, there were neither phones nor internet. The primeval people sent mails instead of emails. They whistled instead of making calls. When they were going for a date, our fore-parents went on donkey’s backs, nowadays, we use cars and in the coming century, our future grand children will probably be flying on saucers or something.

  We are better equipped today than our forefathers from the last century were, our posterity will even be better equipped than we are today yet we all do the same things; the same things in a different way. Times may have changed, technologies may have developed, people may have evolved, but the rules and values that we all share have remained the same. Women have always wanted to be loved, respected and appreciated. Men have always had to put their acts right to secure dates and win the hearts of the women they desire. Those are the values that have been shared by us, our antiquity, and our posterity regardless of the age, race, creed or ethnicity.

  It is on the basis of people’s performance in dating that some of us are regarded as ‘good flirts’ while others as ‘lousy flirts’. What one does or doesn’t do determines which side of the flirting divide one is. ‘Good flirts’ do different things from lousy ones; they know how to go about their knack. Having mastered the art of flirting, they know what’s good to do and what's not. That’s what makes them what they are--good flirts. They just don’t approach their aim haphazardly, they use their tactics. Below, I’ll share with you more of what those ‘good flirts’ do, not because am a good flirt myself, but because I happen to know what they do.

  First, ‘good flirts’ complement their ‘flirtees’. Sometimes you may hear a person telling you ‘your jacket is cool. I love it’ or ‘you have a beautiful physique’. Those are complements that are intended to make you feel good about yourself and when you feel good about yourself, you like the person who made you feel as such.

  Complements should be honest and simple. It would be absurd to complement a person using a false statement only to have them frown with responses such as ‘are you sure?’ ‘You don’t mean that’. What I am saying is this; if the response you get after complementing a person is something short of a ‘thank you’, know that you’ve erred. Its time to walk away!

  The ‘good flirts’ also take time to listen to their flirting partners. They see or rather pretend to see their partner’s point of view. When people notice that you are interested in what they have to say, they get interested in what you have to say too. It works as the case of tit for tat. That way you’ll have an audience, ready to hear you seduce them.

  If you are interested in a person, you move and talk to them. If you wait for them to come to you, you’ll be in for a rude shock. Ask a question, talk of something that is happening around you. Anything can do, but not silence. When making the first impression, it would be advantageous to you if you show coolness, both in your voice and body language. At the end of it all you might be surprised that they felt the same way as you did, only that they were not able to beat their fear and come to talk to you as you did.

  ‘Good flirts’ also have something that encourage others to talk to them. It may be a dress, a hat, a magazine or anything else that is attractive. Having something like that will draw people to you. And when a person is drawn to you, he/she comes to talk to you. First, they would make a comment about the prop that they noticed and probably ask you if you can let them see it. Well, at that point, the bird has already landed in your nest; whatever you do with it, is all up to you!

  Lastly if you got to score with a person you got to be confident. Confident people are not afraid of taking risks. They go for the person they want without minding how they’ll respond to their advances. Confidence attracts attention and if you are confident people will be compelled to like you.

  ‘Good flirts’ not only understand the above but also, they put it in practice. They not only believe in the old adage that states that ‘practice makes perfect’ but also, they believe in the timeless rule that governs what they do; they believe in the rule that, before they kill the seducer, they should seduce the killer.

  A chap can go so far and do wild stuff just to get the girl he desires. Tommy was no different. He was doing his best to make Angie his own and at the same time, hoping for the best. However, he had so many insecurities as he did not know who his competitors were and worst still, he was not sure if they existed in the first place.

  Although his worries were unfounded, they were justified on a broader perspective. There exists only one fact about worries. You either have worries about something or have that something that you otherwise ought to be worrying about. You can’t have both. At that point, Tommy had worries about Angie. He was worried that somebody may take her before he succeeded. If he managed to make Angie his own, then, his worries would subside. Only time and his efforts would seal his fate.

  My intellectual integrity calls for outmost honesty, no matter how cruel or touching it may seem. As a consequence, I know that my male readers will rack their nerves and deem me as traitor after reading the following few paragraphs but I can not help. I’ve got to state issues not as they are supposed to be or as they have been, but as they are now.

  So long as you are a lady, and you have a pair of cuddly orbs on your chest, rounded out by a beautiful face and some sexy thighs; you will often hear guys promising to splurge you with material things, of which, by the look of their being they cannot be able to dispense, let alone afford. Those are just ploys in their heart-massaging words. The promised goodies include; the whole world, taking jaunts to the moon and providing everything that you may need. Some of those fads are pledged by guys who essentially, don’t know where their next dollar will come from.

  Some men may affix that they are sincerely devoted to you. Conversely, they don’t mean what they say. I consider people who keeps on saying that ‘I love you’ as the ones who don’t love at all. It is like a camouflaging mechanism that hides something mischievous. It might be that they don’t love you or are cheating on you and want to dispel the guilt in their conscience.

  A person who loves from the heart shows by actions, not by their words. The words ‘I love you’ only come occasionally in elite moments. Those who keep repeating the three magic words are, in most cases, just expressing how they love themselves or their desires. They do so, so much that they use the expression ‘I love you’ to get what they want. Be it sex, favor money etc. and because women enjoy being told that they are loved, they give in and in so doing, give out what the guy wants so that he can love them even more.

  Most men use that principle, but not me, at least not when am telling my fans and my readers that I love them because, I honestly do. But when it comes to some bimbos in so
me club and it happens that am a bit hazy under the influence….I may blurt out the three charming words.....well, am not sure if I mean it at such times.

  We only have to accept some of these things as they are since we can’t change them. As somebody from somewhere that I can’t recall said, if you don’t like something, you change it, and if you can’t be able to change it; you accept it the way it is. It’s true but painful to some degree.

  Other men may insist on endowing diadems and bouquets of flowers that don’t have much momentous. When a man gives a flower to a woman, it does not mean that he adores her; it only epitomizes the existing ebullient companionship when they are together and the way it slips away on parting just as the flower droops with time.

  Many others bamboozles on their partners. Consequently, those partners also run round on their cheating partners. Both partners are aware of each others unfaithfulness and for some reason, they are ok with it. It may be that their cheatings cancels out or just one of their peculiar ideas of adventure. Whichever reasons they have, works for them. Perhaps that’s the reason why most pack-down-the-box, move-in-together unions live through while flouting the orthodox moral precepts of ideal marriages. Statistics indicate that relationships of that nature are on the rise. It’s as if many of us are either accepting cheating as a normal part of life or are just ignorant about its negative implications. I don’t know about you but am none of the above!

  On the brighter side, cheating has its own advantages. First, newer partners come with newer bed time styles and techniques, of which, some are contagious. As a consequence, one may adopt some of those and take them back to their legitimate spouses. That comes handy in spicing up their relationship. In short, what am saying is that, cheating can be a way of learning and bettering oneself and ones relationship. It is an opportunity to acquire new skills that one could not have otherwise acquired if they did not cheat.

  While digesting the above, I can’t help but narrate a short incident that takes my mind to many years ago when I was younger. One day I overheard my mum’s rich friend narrating to her how she found her husband sleeping with their poor house-keeper. My friends and I had nick-named the house keeper as S.S.B (S for sluggish. It was derived from her old walking style and S.B for her saggy boobs. I tell you; she had the saggiest boobs I’ve ever seen in my entire life).

  Just as any woman in my mum’s friend’s position would, she asked the age old questions like; how could he? Was he blind or what? Etc. My mum did not answer. She either didn’t know what to tell her or rather, didn’t want to hurt her friend. Whichever the case was, I did not get to know the answers too. I just perched onto my eavesdropping spot and as expected, shared into my mum’s friend’s pain as I wondered how a man could cheat on his beautiful, youthful wife with an old and ugly housekeeper. On my mind, those questions have remained unanswered till early today when I was thinking of the possible advantages of cheating amongst lovers and spouses.

  My quest for answers on the above case takes us to the next advantage of cheating. Cheating comes as a morale booster for men. You see, men have a propensity of getting ‘bored’ with grooving with the same woman over a period of time, especially when it comes to the sacred act. After doing it with the same woman for sometime, their system registers it as too regular. As a result, their desire to engage in the act starts to decrease.

  One of the ways of maintaining his desire is for him to change his partner and after sometime, his rejuvenated desire starts to decline as he gets used to his new girl. Again, it’s time to move to the next partner. See, a reduction in a man’s sexual desire calls for a new partner. That’s a fact that cannot be just naysaid.

  Every man knows that there is no sweeter s*x than s*x with a new woman. That’s why you see married men frequenting the hottest brothels in town just one month after their wedding. That’s why you find men hitting on their secretaries in the morning after they practically spent the entire night screwing their wives. It is out their desire to experience a new fuck that you find husbands seducing women who are much below their wives in beauty, appeal and caliber.

  There are yet other couples who go on and off like traffic signals. These are the kind of people who are not sure of what they want. They are love wanderlusts who discover too often that what they are looking for is just under their noses and yet they can’t accept that reality. They like pre-meditated spats that culminate in their transient split ups. However, they somehow make up thereafter before landing in disagreements once again.

  To avoid those kind of fights, you’ve got to spice up both your relationship and sex life by incorporating virtues that will grow you as a couple. Virtues such as trust, understanding, honesty and most importantly, dialogue. Dialogue plays the biggest role as it is the only medium through which a couple can effectively address issues that they are facing. Be honest, creative and humorous while engaging with each other. It is through communication that spouses get in good terms with one another.

  After you get in ‘good terms’ in your relationship, it is time to consider having a great time in between the sheets. That is trickier than just having a cordial relationship. First, you both have to be in good physical and psychological state. There is no way that a man can get his man to rise up and walk if he is stressed. No way! Never! In addition, it is upon him to prepare his woman before the act, both emotionally and physically. Have a shower together, kiss, caress and just have fun.

  For those who like taking coffee before going to sleep, it’s a bad news for you, at least when thinking in terms of the subject that I am addressing here. Caffeine will not only deprive you of a good sleep, but also, kill your desire to creep in between the sheets with your partner. Well, I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s a passion killer.

  * * * * * * *

  Tommy and Angie planned a date. At about 6 pm, Tommy was already seated in his preferred spot at Tally’s hotel. He was eagerly waiting for his company as he perused through some sports magazine. Being a warm Sunday evening, he ordered a cold soda to not only cool his body down, but also, sooth his anxious mind. It worked.

  Within no time, Angie appeared. On her were a blue jeans and a silky top. She quickly peeked around the room before walking to where Tommy was. As if by a reflex, Tommy stood up to welcome his chum with a bold clinch and a complement on how stunning she looked. He then held a chair for her as she took the weight off her feet. She lauded him for keeping time while they unruffled into a conversation.

  They were both easing down when the maître d'hôtel brought a sparkling wine and two glasses which Tommy had earlier ordered. Tommy then popped the bottle open and poured the bubbly into the two wine glasses.

  They continued talking as Tommy passed one of the glasses to Angie. He took his time by relishing the moment.

  “All my life, I have never met a person who could move my whole being till I met this special one whom in my heart, I’ve nicknamed ‘the heart-stealer’” Tommy said, in part.

  “Wow that’s sounds interesting. It seems that they mean a lot to you” Angie nattered softly.

  “Actually, nobody else has ever struck my heart the way this one has…she has actually socked it literary” Tommy savored the encounter

  Tommy took a breather before he continued.

  “In her, I have witnessed God’s most ingenious idea of a beautiful woman, a fountain of purity and an inspiration to my being.”

  “She must be one lucky woman I suppose” Angie supposed.

  “I have nurtured an innate love for that angelic woman to the point that the broadness of this universe is a fraction of the boundaries that I would use to define that love to its innermost extreme”

  “Wow, that’s so poetic of you. I have never heard a man talk in such a charming manner”

  “Can you guess who that woman is?” Tommy asked teasingly

  As a joke, Angie riposted “of course no! How can you expect me to know who is in your heart?”

  “That wonderful woman is
you my angel, you”

  They both went silent in a startling incredulity. Tommy then broke that hush by chiming in some lines that went like below.

  “Can you baptize me with glee by telling me that I have been right all along? It has not been easy for me to contain my inner feelings for all this time”

  “You know Tommy, you are so sweet sometimes, and you have that say-so I call ……..” Angie went scarlet

  As any romantic libretto goes, Tommy interrupted her by saying

  “Out of the esteem that I have for you, I decided that I would let my actions speak for me. As time went, I noticed that they were not speaking loud enough for you to hear me out and so, I resorted to telling you my self”