I CAN EXPLAIN
Yesterday raises many questions as much as it presents many answers. These answers, in turn, raise more questions.
Slowly oozing down on the escalator at the park station in Joburg, the Gautrain Station side, I noticed a familiar figure cutting through the large crowds, headed my way, coming from the Wanderers taxi rank side. My memory quickly rushed back to the hectic varsity days, and, for a moment I could see her strolling along the varsity corridors on her trademark mini skirts, her confidence literally sweeping the floor with anyone who ever dared to look her way.
Some people's bodies, clearly, are destined to remain as they're forever. It'd been so many years, but Thulsie, as I affectionately called her, had, somehow, remained the same as she was from back at varsity. Well, maybe a little extra kilo on her hips, fuller cheeks and arms, but still retaining her classic, wonderful figure and immaculate torso.
"Thulsie my Thulsie", I said silently, totally ignorant of the warm smile that was forming across my face. As the poorly maintained Park Station escalator kept rolling down, as if intending to throw me straight onto Thulsie's path, my heart rate started taking over every little piece of my body. For once in a very long time, my brain could no longer have control over whatever body part always heated up whenever I was with Thulsie back in the day.
Either the gods had planned it all, or someone, somewhere, was playing the entire human race like a giant piano with billions of keys, and for that moment we were the focus keys of that person's music. Thulsie may have taken two or three more steps and her eyes fell on mine. I was approaching the end of the escalator when she started running towards me.
When she began her dash towards me, my inner spirits refused to stand by and just wait. They propelled me forward. I don't even remember when the two suitcases I was holding fell off. I was no longer at one with them. Nothing mattered anymore.
Screaming with excitement towards me, as she often did whenever she recognised me in huge crowds, despite telling her a million and one times to stop drawing such attention to me, I noticed that she hadn't changed her love for Converse sneakers. Back then I'd sometimes call her "original pantsula" during our light-hearted chats.
But I was not prepared for what was to happen next. And perhaps for a good reason, as this would open ample space for any form of spontaneity, re-awakening our past glorious, some may say inglorious, moments.
Thulsie was about five or six metres away when she appeared to be taking the final steps for a high jump. I swear I was not ready when she suddenly took off and jumped straight at me, both arms wide open for a hug.
But there's more. As her body was propelled towards me, I noticed that it was not just her arms that were wide open coming for a full hug.
I also noticed that Thulsie had not made many changes to her dress code since then. Yes, her skirt yesterday was not the "dangerously" short minis as back in the day, but the length was still never going to reach knee-length. She was in a colourful short floral skirt, in addition to her Converse sneakers and her navy-blue hugging top and white beanie hat. Yes, a beanie!
Surprising? Not to me.
See, I got to know Thulsie during orientation week back at varsity. She was among the sea of new students carrying those large brown envelopes that first-year students are well known to carry during orientation. I was intrigued by her. I mean, here was this petite girl on sneakers, with a red and black football jersey and red Basketball shorts, walking as if she owned the university.
On the other hand, I was a senior, a member of the student representative council. Tall and skinny. But, somehow, Thulsie was literally the only thing that drew my attention.
Petite (I called her short), brown-skinned, natural haired, plus a wardrobe I'd never imagine on a "normal" girl, somewhat "boyish", Thulsie was clearly destined to catch the centre of my eye, as have all the other girls with such looks have done for as long as I can remember.
Although Thulsie obviously preferred her comfortable "boyish" look, she could switch things up once in a while and throw in a skirt and some "girly" top. And when she did so, the mini skirt was always her best choice – except when she went for scholarship interviews. But, despite these switches, she never abandoned her Converse and sports sneakers. She was sworn to a free "pantsula life" when it came to footwear.
The other exception that year was at Freshers' Ball in November, when she put on a long, beautiful red dress and high heels. Oh, how awkwardly she walked on those heels!
All these memories stormed my mind very quickly as she flew onto me and hugged me tightly, arms around my neck and legs wrapped around my waist. Two full hugs from her at the same place, at the same time, from one woman! But not just any woman!
Thulsie's spontaneous jump onto me, along with her full trust that I'd drop my bags and catch her, was testament to the reality that she knew me very well. And, oh, she knew me very well!
She's one of the very few women who's ever been able to easily read my mood and, when it was down, even go on to deal with it in the simplest of ways. All of that without even words exchanged. Totally unlike the way therapists would do it. I'd be tense and confused, and she'd slowly stretch her hand, gently touch my neck, move on to my beard and rub her fingers through it, carefully studying every hair strand, going deeper to rub my chin... and more.
I believe my beard was, and remains, either my greatest strength or weakness. Thulsie would make gentle circular movements with her hand through my beard, untangle a few knots and gently pluck out unnecessary strands.
And before I knew it, the healing process was complete, and clarity of thought swiftly returned. All the demons that had tied me down were gone. Thulsie power!
Of course, she’d use the same beard-touch approach to get whatever she wanted whenever she sensed that my critically acclaimed stubbornness had reared its ugly head.
That was Thulsie. Thulsie my Thulsie!
Oh, back to Joburg Park Station!
So, Thulsie had now fully locked me in, neck and waist, my head fully sunk into her soft chest, as she continued screaming with excitement, her head on the left side of my neck. Whether the world was watching all that, I didn't know and neither did I care.
Since only my big feet were still on the floor, the natural movement which instantaneously took over as soon as Thulsie's body hit mine and locked shut was some spinning which, it seemed, would never stop. Perhaps we made a thousand spins. No, a couple of hundreds of thousands of them. No, no, I remember very well now, it was a million and one spins. Oh, okay, the whole thing was uncountable, but the moment sure seemed like forever.
The palpable excitement was mutual through and through.
As I kept spinning round and round with her, and her holding more and more tightly on me, I started realising that contrary to when people hugged each other like that, my hands were not on her waist. Perhaps, since my brain had instantly recorded that Thulsie had put on a little more weight than the last time I saw her, my mind automatically thought that her body would naturally need support. Instead of my arms going round her waist and my hands locking behind her, my hands, without conscious direction from me, went under her. My hands were firmly on (or under) her butt giving her all the best support she needed.
As my brain happily recorded those "new" moments, as our spin continued unabated, my palms also recorded the warmth of her well-rounded butt-cheeks as my fingers firmly planted themselves into them. And this sent my mind on an ever-wider imagination, as I couldn’t feel any panty. I remembered that Thulsie would sometimes have this “wild” behaviour of walking around freely without panties. Perhaps she was wearing her floral lace thongs, I imagined, and obviously I wouldn’t have felt them with my hands.
It was as if my hands fully understood that that was a special lady worthy of all the protection in the world. Driven by the warmth and smoothness of her heavenly skin, my heart had no choice but to sharply increase its beats per minute. She, on the other hand, as if reading and fully understanding the developing mood in the room, held me tighter.
By then, my mind was no longer in Joburg, obviously. I couldn't see or feel anyone anymore, except sexy Thulsie.
But, as we spun unabatedly, something which had not registered in my mind soon hit me. As our circular cruise moved from left to right on its anti-clockwise trajectory, my eyes opened for the first time in probably a million years since we first clung to each other. As they opened, I could not help but realise that there was a jaw that had fallen so low that it would need an entire forklift to be lifted. That was my wife's jaw.
The whole thing started changing, but my hands somehow had not recorded that latest information. They kept holding on to Thulsie.
For some reason I’ll never understand, from the moment I saw Thulsie earlier, my mind completely deregistered the fact that I was travelling with my wife to Durban, and we were to buy bus tickets at the park station. Thulsie's image was so powerful that all that information immediately got wiped out.
As I caught my wife's widely shocked eyes and fallen jaw, the spinning continued and, on the other side, was my 9-year-old daughter holding Thulsie's handbag. Oh, horror of horrors! Thulsie had somehow thrown it on the floor when the heavens sent her flying onto me. Oh, did my eyes not meet my daughter's harshly judgmental eyes that moment! Ok, perhaps a warranted judgment.
I slowed down the spin. Now facing my wife for the second time since my eyes reopened, my hands, as if they'd fully read the developing situation, slowly yielded. I slowly brought down Thulsie. But as she slowly slipped down, I had not noticed that drastic changes had already occurred just below my belt, somewhere around my pair of jeans' zippers, and probably the entire Joburg had become aware of it. I only became aware of that reality when Thulsie's lowering body got a bit stuck on that bulging hurdle.
Because of that, I had to lift Thulsie again, push her body forward, and then let her feet touch the floor. Slowly.
But frustratingly, the drama refused to end there and let the world move on peacefully.
With my mind now thinking of a million tricks to explain this situation to my shocked wife, my hands somehow forgot to let go of Thulsie's bottom! The result? As her feet touched the floor, I had inadvertently lifted her skirt and my wife, who was by then standing behind Thulsie, let a loud scream out of her mouth.
What happened thereafter would have even the strongest and bravest of men shocked to their wits!
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Pic courtesy: www.mirror.co.uk
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