The Second Kiss

                                                    
           image: smooth.com.au
The last time I had seen her had been four years down the line; when I was still walking barefoot to Kesemulila Primary School. I could only remember her for having "bombasticated"(those who went to school in those years know what I'm talking about) a small success card to me. I had not been sure about it but I thought she felt something for me--men always do whenever a girl shows a good gesture to them. It was a small success card with a picture of a girl and a boy kissing in a very intimate embrace--I always wondered who in his right senses would expose boys and girls of twelve to fourteen to such pictures. I was glad my father was not around. They could have passed for pornographic material, which was not welcome in our house.

Though I would have liked a bigger one more, I think I loved that my small card because I had always secretly admired that young girl. I had on several occasions had wet dreams over her. But bigger ones were more appreciated than the type of card my crush had sent me. For one, the small ones only cost Ksh. 5 while bigger ones went for as much as 50 bob. However, the major reasons we loved those big ones were they could sing some melodies and also made one's simba look smart. My cousin John had excelled in this. He hung his on strings across the ceiling of his house. Combining them with old newspapers glued on walls and pieces of paper artistically cut to look like flowers of some sort was particularly trendy. I was never lucky enough to receive any singing card from anybody; I still don't know why. This made me appreciate my kasmall card even more.

Since we parted ways in primary school, she had tried to keep in touch but we sooner or later lost touch of each other. She had been sending letters with baby powder sprinkled in them to make them smell nice. She would carefully fold them before applying the powder. Towards the ends of the letters, she would always remember to dedicate some specially selected songs to me. They mostly had to be about love or at least have the word love in their titles. "My love belongs to you" and "If loving you is wrong" often made the cut. The wording of the titles was that important. I personally used to dedicate to her songs I had never even listened to; provided the title contained the word love.

So, on this day, I am seated with my grandmother under a mpera tree eating mapera and chinduli. She appears out of the blues. She's clad in a white pair of jeans with those fashionable holes on her thighs and at the knees-a very weird type of fashion if you ask me. "She likes Khukhwipristiokola so much," I mutter. She's also wearing a black T-shirt with inscriptions on her chest that read "Chew me if you are man enough"--I think this is really tempting. You cannot afford to say such to a real Bukusu man and get away with it. He must have to elaborate what "mundu khu mundu" really means. Forget what politicians have made you believe it means.

She pretends to have forgotten me since it's four years since she last saw me. So she greets my grandmother alone, "Kukhu Chendrix oriena?"  and she says "Mbela" to mean I am breathing. They talk about trivialities for ten minutes or so as I make my way to waylay her. As she approaches my waiting lounge, I am busy picking flowers from a nearby Sodom apple plant and throwing them on the ground. Those of you who lived in the era of no-sms can help me explain why one had to always do this. I offer to "push" her and she willingly obliges. She's with another girl who says she remembers me. She says I am the boy who had always been top of my class at Mulwiki Primary before I moved to Kesemulila.

The night is catching up very fast. We find a way to dismiss her companion. We are left to ourselves. I remember that the words on her chest had passed a message to me. I smile triumphantly. I realize that we are standing very far from each other and so I move closer and pull her to myself. With the gap closed, I can now do the chewing unimpeded. I hold her very tightly on me and I have my second ever kiss since I was born--the first one was when I was in form two and I almost bit someone's lips off. All the same, she's a better kisser than I am--I don't know why girls always have to know how to kiss before boys their age. This does not affect our kissing. It gets deeper and deeper. I touch her chest gently. Why is she wearing a bra in the first place? There is barely any need for it. I now bypass it and go for the real things. They are firm and so tempting. Any toucher will always want more. Thank God; I don't know that men can give kids a run for their money in taking advantage of their 'suckulence'. But I do my best: I touch and touch some more.

She's now speaking a language I don't understand. I don't even understand why she's "crying". It's a new discovery that pleasure can also cause mourning. I know I can't do more because I did not carry any safety precautions in my pocket. I inwardly laugh at the futility of using a polythene salt pack. While washing ourselves at the river--there were no showers back then--the man who used to scrub his body with a stone had told us a story where he had used a salt pack after realizing that he had no condom. He had made it look so simple. While at a simba dance in Kapkewa village, he had met this beautiful girl who had given him the combakiti every time she was required to choose a dance partner.He had sneaked with her out of the simba in the middle of a song by Ndombi Marhumbini and taken her to one of the groupings of maize stalks locally known as futi. It was in the safety of a cave he created in this futi for the job at hand that he had realized that the salt pack could also do. I don't know how true that was but it's not my story. It's only while at the river that even old men open up and talk like newly circumcised boys. At least young men are privileged to get one or two tricks from these old hunters' past escapades. 

Anyhow, I have done so much. I can even see that she's sweating even when the weather does not favour it. So, I let the opportunity slip through my fingers. I live to fight another day.

It's unfortunate that she won't be around. She will be travelling to Nairobi for the December Holiday. I am determined to go and look for her in Nairobi to finish the business.