THE KISS

I had a vacation job as a barman for Barry Levin in the small coastal town of Mossel Bay. Barry was the owner and manager of a restaurant called the Camelot, which was easily the most prestigious restaurant in a 500 km radius of the town. The restaurant was built in the Main Street on the site of an old hotel which had been owned by Barry’s father (the Grand Hotel). The hotel had burned down years before (the legend was that the fire was started by a visiting judge who smoked in bed and set his bedsheets alight) and on the grounds of the old hotel Barry had erected a smart new shopping complex and above that he created this elegant restaurant, which had an entrance at street level and a pretty, spiral staircase which wound round a little fountain and up into a lounge on the first floor. Guests were greeted by this fountain, which tinkled away musically under a spotlight and created a sense of expectation of a magical evening. The lounge was plush, softly lit, furnished with chairs and couches upholstered in brown and red velvet, made by Barry’s own joinery in another part of the town. In the corner opposite the lounge entrance and facing the landing stood an imposing and very effectively lit bar with all the accoutrements which one might expect of such an establishment. It was deliberately and unashamedly old fashioned and conjured up an atmosphere of wealth, privilege and tradition.

Adjacent to the lounge was the dining room, which consisted of a sprung dance floor and a bandstand, in the old style, surrounded by private booths in which 6-seater tables were dressed in the finest white linen and laden with real, heavy silverware, salvaged from the old hotel.

The town, which had dozed away lazily in its wonderful and well-known Mediterranean climate for many years, its sole virtue being that is was a lovely holiday destination, was now entering a second economic boom period. These were years when South Africa was feeling the pain of economic sanctions, especially the deprivation of oil- and petrol rationing, and there was a siege mentality in which only a wealthy and rare few ever got to see beyond the commercial walls which separated us from the outside world. For years there had been rumours that there were oilfields off the coast of South Africa, but they had never been located. But this was the dream that would not die because an oil find would instantly deliver us from the deprivations of sanctions, and the government was desperate. They would have paid anything for the promise of an oil find. And then it started to happen. Tiny pockets of oil and gas were located on the continental shelf. Of course, South Africa had no expertise for locating or identifying such things, so all the expertise and the machinery had to be imported. The place was crawling with British, French and American engineers. The work was supposed to be covered by the Official Secrets Act, the National Keypoints Act, the National Security Act and Gd knows what else, but the excitement was such that while the details might have been sparse, the fact of it could not be suppressed.

There were drilling rigs off the coast of Mossel Bay and several other such areas, and of course the crews got shore leave, they seemed to have very generous expense budgets and lots of cash which they were not shy to throw around, and the South Coast sometimes resembled the Wild West in the days of the gold rush. And of course, the Camelot Restaurant was a prime meeting-and party place for these larger-than-life characters. An American by the name of Eugene became a fixture at my bar counter. He was enormously fat, physically tall, and whether I was correct or not, I had the impression that he occupied two bar stools when he sat opposite me. He was a bit of a loner and in quiet moments we did a fair amount of talking. He could consume as much as 1kg of shark steak, 10 beers and a bottle of white wine in a single sitting.

The oil crews tended to come in large parties because they were flown ashore by support helicopters and unlike the local clientele, who were quite sedate, the oil crews were a rowdy crowd, glad to be off the rig for a few hours. But one night after a particularly exciting drilling strike, just about the whole crew were shipped in for a celebration. They took over the whole restaurant, like a conquering army. The crews were almost entirely male (in fact now that I think of it I don’t ever remember seeing a woman amongst them), but it’s not really a party without women. These guys didn’t go for the “local girls” and for the purpose of this party they flew in a plane load of pretty special “party girls” from Johannesburg. I had never seen the likes of this in my life. I had always imagined prostitutes to be sleazy, low-life types that you crossed the road to avoid, identifiable at a hundred metres. It had never occurred to me that they might look like this.

They arrived at just about the same time as the guys and it wasn’t long before everyone got paired off and disappeared into the dining room to eat, dance and party. All except Eugene, that is. A lady seemed to have attached herself to him but he wasn’t really paying much attention to her and he didn’t seem to be interested in joining the party in the dining room so I arranged for their meals to be brought to them at the bar and they ate there while chatting to me, whenever the noise from the dining room permitted conversation. So there we were, we three, me and Eugene and “Chantelle”. Eugene polished off his huge meal in short time and then retired to a large lounge chair “to watch TV” and almost promptly fell asleep. Chantelle was obviously embarrassed because to her this signified that she wasn’t doing her job with her client, so she got off her barstool and wandered through to the party, probably hoping that she could pick up someone there. I thought that would happen but it had nothing to do with me so I set about tidying up my bar. But to my surprise fifteen minutes later she came back sheepishly and took her place on a bar stool again and ordered brandy and coke – a good, old-fashioned South African standard. Clearly this wasn’t going well for her. We began a halting conversation: I didn’t know what to say to her, I had never, knowingly, spoken to a prostitute before and I didn’t want to ask her any questions because I was afraid of the potential answers.

She didn’t have any such inhibitions though and after a while we had struck up a light-hearted conversation about everything under the sun. I told her that I was a university graduate with a few degrees under my belt and that I was in fact busy with another one. It meant nothing to her. I think she saw me as a sort of overgrown child. She must have been about the same age as me (possibly much younger even) but she had the mannerisms, the talk, and generally the ways of a sophisticated woman about her. She had quite an acute sense of humour and laugh lines around her mouth. She had sparkling-bright brown eyes and a pretty face. If she had any cares in the world, she certainly didn’t show them.

At one point I was completely absorbed in some complicated explanation about god knows what when I realised that a slightly mocking smile was creeping across her features. She wasn’t actually listening to what I was saying: there was something else going on in her head. Now she had a secretive, moody look. Suddenly she cut into what I was saying. She had lowered he forehead and peered at me from under mocking, mysterious eyebrows. In a melodramatic voice she said, “Tell me, boy, have you ever been kissed?”

It was like driving on a dark highway and hitting a concrete block.

“I, uh, yes, of course, I’ve had girlfriends … “ Why was I justifying myself in this infantile way? I became angry with myself. What the hell … ?

She was in control. I was still trying to put words together when she cut in again. “Come here” she said, indicating with a finger that I should step out from behind the counter. That counter was my shield. Without it I was completely vulnerable, but I did as I was told. Her rich, red dress was covered in red sequins. Instinctively as I walked towards her I put out my hands and rested them on her hips. The contact was electric. The sequins felt like the hard shell of a tortoise, but under that I felt her taught body: her slim waste was as hard as steel. Wow, I thought, that’s … quite … something …

She put her hands on my shoulders. More electricity. Slowly – very slowly – she reeled me in. Clearly, I was going to be kissed. Just before our lips touched, I felt a light brush of her breath over my face. More electricity. Then our faces touched. It was just a peck. I was leaning in for more. This was no longer a voluntary thing – it was automatic – suddenly she used the fact that her hands were on my shoulders to push me away. “What? – what are you doing? – I …” then she was back. She slipped a hand round to just below my shoulder blades. For me, there’s always been a small erotic trigger in there somewhere. She couldn’t have known that if it was just me, so it must be quite common. Her lips were parted, but this wasn’t a full kiss either, I just felt the tip of her tongue and then she pulled away again. It was driving me mad. Then she was back again. Faint taste of brandy. Beautiful tongue. Every cell in my body was screaming at me.

Suddenly she exhaled into my mouth. She had broken the last barrier into my body. I inhaled and her breath went down into my lungs. Her air was inside me. I exhaled and my breath went into her. It was as if we had become a single creature. I had never experienced anything like that. Clearly, we were fast running out of oxygen but the sense of intoxication which that induces simply added to the sensation. Then she let go and stepped back and I stumbled forward as I lost my balance. I absolutely had to have her lips. I was mad for them, but she broke into a smile and took another step back. We didn’t speak. I was panting like a dog. She didn’t take her eyes off my face, but her left hand found her little red bag on the bar counter. A stunned silence ensued. She raised a hand in a sort of half-wave.

“Bye”, she said, still smiling.

“Bye”, I said, automatically.

I had a million questions and my body was seething.

I heard the clatter of her high heels down the spiral staircase, then out into the street, growing rapidly fainter, until the sound disappeared.

I went to one of the windows which looked out over the street below. It was gloomy, completely still, not a living soul or moving thing in sight, and pools of inadequate yellow light from the small-town streetlights gave the scene an old-fashioned American cowboy frontier-town atmosphere. She was as gone as if she had never existed.

Barry came in from the kitchen. He was closing up for the night. I went through the routine with him, trembling hands, sweaty forehead, off balance and all. The doors were locked and checked. the street was dead. Our footsteps echoed on the empty pavement. He asked if I wanted a lift home. I said I'd walk. I needed time to change gears...