The Way Young Lovers Do

We’re bombing down the highway, at least thirty kilometres over the speed limit. If you’re not going at least ten kilometres faster than the recommended 120 per hour, grannies, buses and lumbering delivery trucks will overtake you, and in the slow lane too.

It’s safer to go fast. If not, chances are you’ll get rear-ended and cause a five-car pile-up – a typical day on South African roads.
The sky is huge and the sun is shining, but up ahead dark clouds are gathering. As we drive, the sky breaks open with a thunderous boom. Torrential raindrops as big as mice pour out of the sky.
Ten minutes later it’s all over and the sun is shining again – just a typical summer storm.
“There’s cold beer in the back if you want one,” he says.
Drinking in the car? I may not be behind the wheel, but it’s still illegal. The grown-up, sensible, Irish part of me worries about getting stopped by the police and all the trouble that will entail; the teenage, reckless, South African side of me knows we could probably bribe the cops if necessary. For once, the mature side wins.
“Maybe later,” I say.
It feels a little like the old days. I remember all the nights we tore around the city in his messed up red pick-up, drinking beers or smoking joints. Talking of which, there are probably drugs in the car somewhere too.
“There’s hash in the cubby-hole if you prefer,” he says.
Of course there is – that’s just typical of him.
He turns around and smiles. He’s older, sadder and wiser than he used to be, but the smile lights up his face. He radiates the bright shining light of a genuinely good person, which is why I feel safe with him, despite the fact that he always was a bit of a lawless hedonist. But then, that’s one of the things I always liked about him; that, and the fact that he is beautiful.
The smile is somewhat disconcerting.
“Uh oh,” I think. “Not this again.”
I don’t want to find him attractive, but he is. I have always thought so, and it seems I always will. I can’t help it – it’s just typical of me.
When we get to his house my phone rings – it’s Maria. When she hears where I am, she laughs. I know her almost as well as I know myself, so her next question is no surprise.
“Are you going to have sex with him?”
“No,” I say quite sternly, perhaps because I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince her or myself. At the time I mean it; five minutes later I wonder to which of us I have been lying. “Let me show you where you’re sleeping,” he says and I feel a twinge of disappointment.
My desire for him is just a part of who I am, like a tattoo I can’t erase – immovable and permanent.
We sit on the couch, drinking and talking about the past.
“Do you remember the time you hid in the cupboard from my father?” I ask.
“I was in there, trying to be quiet, but he opened up the door and found me. I thought he was going to hit me,” he laughs.
“He was just trying to scare you. He didn’t approve of you.”
He had good reason, I think – parental intuition.
My father chased him off with a volley of swear words and threats, but he was not to be dissuaded. An hour later he came back and we snuck off to a party together.
“Do you remember all those nights we’d stay up kissing and messing around and not having sex?” he asks.
“Of course I do. How could I forget?”
“They were great,” he says, then pauses, “but even better when we did start having sex.”
“That’s true,” I laugh and we clink our bottles.
I can sense the sexual tension between us. We’re skirting around the subject, but that’s the way we always were, approaching sex from an oblique angle: too timid to wear desire openly, afraid of rejection, of misreading the signs, just like typical teenagers.
“Do you remember the first night we had sex?” I ask.
“I was so scared of hurting you,” he tells me, and I am surprised. I never knew that.
“But you were so much more experienced than me,” I say.
“Not really. I was just pretending I was. You know – typical guy.”
I laugh, because I hadn’t considered that, not at the time.
Then he says: “Do you remember the time we went on holiday and we rented that apartment by the sea?”
I nod.
“Do you remember that first evening? I took off your swimsuit and you stood there naked. That was such a big moment for me sexually.”
“You’d seen me naked before,” I say.
“Not like that,” he replies. I cast my mind back and I remember how I would wear one of his tee shirts to bed. Five minutes later, under the safety of the covers, it would come off.
I used to be shy and ashamed of my nakedness – a typical female – until he taught me to celebrate it.
Maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the memories or maybe it’s because we’re here and alone but I want to tell him the truth: I want to tell him how much I care for him, how beautiful he is, how much passion I have felt for him in all the time I have known him. So I do.
And maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the memories or maybe it’s because we’re here and alone, but I want to kiss him. So I do.
The past seeps into the present – it feels like a long time, but it also feels like yesterday.
Hours later, as the early morning sun creeps over the Magaliesberg mountains, we fall asleep in each other’s arms.
We were always friends, but we were always lovers too – that’s just typical of us.