He interlaced his fingers and stretched out his arms, exhaling. “Sure. Of course.” A little smile tugged the corner of his mouth, but his eyes didn’t sparkle.
Wait.
Could Gerhard be gay?
I mentally replayed our time together. There was flirting and the aforementioned banter, but my friend Quinn and I had the same thing in spades, and he was most definitely gay. Quinn didn’t make my thighs clench together. Unless I was trying not to pee from laughing.
Color me officially confused.
Meticulously dressed. Fancy shoes.
Tingles on my skin when he touched me or stared at me with his stormy sea eyes.
I looked down at his long fingers. Well-groomed nails. Metrosexual?
Would it be rude to ask if he was gay? Nothing compliments and says ‘I want to have sex with you’ like asking about sexual preference.
If I didn’t want to have sex with him, I would ask.
Why would Anita, patron saint of superior genes, want me to meet her gay brother?
One word: Ghana.
He’d been there and would be a good resource.
Of course.
This wasn’t a romantic set-up.
Suddenly, the beer, sun, and cheese caught up to me. I closed my eyes. After a few breaths, I opened my lids and sighed.
Gerhard stared at me funny.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Exhausted. I think jet lag snuck up on me. Or there was alcohol in our beer.”
He chuckled and offered to give me a lift to my hotel for a much needed nap.
Once in my room, I found my moleskine notebook and made a list of things I knew about Gerhard.
Turned out, I didn’t know very much at all.
Confused and frustrated, I fell onto the bed fully dressed and gave into beer and dairy sleepiness.
Gerhard Hendriks was a Dutch enigma, much like the Flying Dutchman.
I HAD A nap, a shower, and a new outlook on Gerhard.
We had now.
I was leaving; he was leaving. I wouldn’t spend the next thirty-six hours stewing. I didn’t stew. I wasn’t a stewer. Not over men.
Forty-eight hours of going with the flow. I would be Selah Elmore, flow-goer.
I admitted when I first woke up, groggy from another Gerhard, Norse God pirate dream, I thought about emailing Anita and asking about his preference for teammates when playing hide the salami, but while showering I decided it would be weird and desperate, and anti-flow-going.
Instead, I would put on my lady pants and enjoy the company of a handsome man without wondering what it would be like to get in his pants.
It would be a first in a long time for me.
I loved getting inside men’s pants.
Sighing, I dressed in a pair of black trousers and a flowy tunic decorated with a peacock pattern. Mature, classic, and flowy—very me.
My plan crumbled when Gerhard showed up wearing jeans and a navy polo shirt. If possible, he looked better in jeans than he did in his suits. Gone were the polished banker shoes, replaced by gray Vans. A classic tank watch decorated his wrist instead of the cufflinks I wanted to undo with my teeth.
I was in trouble.
When he warmly greeted me with the double cheek kiss, his five o’clock shadow scraped deliciously across my jaw.
Big trouble.
My cheeks heated and I resisted the urge to try for the triple kiss, planning to miss his cheek. Of course, before I could pucker up, he pulled away, complimenting me on my shirt.
Regaining my composure, I thanked him and asked, “Where are we going?”
“To eat a multitude of foods you won’t be able to find in Ghana.”
“I approve of your mission.”
He smiled at me before licking the corner of his mouth. “What mission would that be?” He raised his eyebrows.
“The feed Selah all forbidden foods mission.”
“Ah, right. Well, next stop on the food mission, the traditional Rijsttafel.”
“Sounds very Dutch.”
“It means ‘rice table’ and it’s Indonesian. How do you feel about spicy?”
“Love a little spice,” I flirted.
“Good,” he replied, giving away nothing.
Dinner equaled a table full of small dishes, most of which were spicy, saucy, and delicious. Pickles, various sauces, veggies, and mysterious condiments filled the bowls crowding any remaining table space not occupied by our wine glasses. It was a feast.
A feast of confusion.
Yep. Still no clue.
We flirted and talked. His eyes twinkled, and my cheeks hurt from smiling.
And still no idea.
It didn’t matter. I had one of the best nights in memory. I laughed, he laughed. I snorted, he laughed harder. I spit spicy sambal into my napkin, and he almost spit out his water. The restaurant had cleared out when we finally paid the bill.
Stumbling outside, still laughing, I rubbed my belly and called uncle. “No more. No more food. No more laughing. I can’t take any more.”
Gerhardt wiped a stray tear from his face and nodded silently, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “Okay. I admit defeat.”
I pulled a tissue from my purse and waved it, which only made him laugh again.
We were punch drunk on each other, walking crookedly down the sidewalk, gaining odd looks from fellow pedestrians.
After a handful of minutes of silence, broken only by the occasional residual giggle or snort, I realized we were walking in the direction of my hotel.
Perhaps I was about to solve the mystery of Gerhard and what got him hard.
THE SAYING ABOUT assuming and asses rang true again.
Good news¸ turned out Gerhard was straight.
Bad news, I found out at the airport.
After our walk to my hotel, I failed in my mission. I, Selah Elmore, writer of erotica, expert in naked humans, chickened out.
I decided I didn’t want to know.
We had a connection and not enough time.
I’d had years of no connections. Online dating, speed dating, mixers, bar pick-ups, grad students, divorced, widowed, perpetually single for obvious reasons … I had a long list of no connections. Sex? Easy. Having the ability to put up with someone enough to have a relationship? That was the part I could never seem to figure out. Or want. Friends in marriages and long-term relationships always talked about the work which went into keeping love alive. Blech.
I had enough work.
I had enough distractions.
I didn’t have enough of whatever I had with Gerhard.
He walked me to my hotel steps, double-Dutch-kissed me goodnight, and confirmed dinner for the next night. He didn’t push or ask to come up. Neither did I.
Younger Selah yelled at me for cock-blocking us. What was the point of traveling the world if it wouldn’t include international relations? What happened to adding Holland to the United Nations of Peen?
Gerhard happened.
Damn him and his perfect suits.
I sat in the departure lounge and thought about him. Every tall blond man earned a double-take from me, followed by disappointment each time.
For our last dinner, we ate all of the cheese in Holland. Fried, baked, aged, fresh—the many faces of cheese. It was gluttonous and perfect.
He told me how unexpected I was. I took it as a compliment.
He said he enjoyed our time together. I agreed.
He asked if I would keep in touch. I promised.
I still chickened out.
Young Selah gave me death stares as only a former goth girl could.
He offered to bring me to the airport. I accepted. His sleek, black BMW cut through the traffic while I sat in the passenger seat and lost my nerve.
Finally, outside departures, he leaned down to give me the double-kiss.
And missed.
His aim was off.
His aim missed the corner he would have hit had he overshot the cheek.
/> Gerhard Hendriks kissed me. Full on the mouth.
He kissed me softly, lips closed, with faint pressure, but enough I felt it down to my toes. One hand reverently cupped my cheek while the other clasped mine.
Softly, barely more than a breath, he whispered against my ear, “I hope our paths cross again soon.”
He walked backward to his car, his eyes still on me. I stood at the curb, mouth open, nodding.
Gerhard wasn’t gay.
I was an idiot.
Now I had six hours on my flight to Accra to stew about missed connections.
A six hour flight and six months in Africa to moon over the Dutchman.
I picked up the in-flight magazine and found the map of Africa. Kenya wasn’t impossibly far away from Ghana. Using my fingers, I discovered the distance was the same as Portland to New Orleans. Not impossible.
Sighing, I closed the magazine and opened up my laptop. If I couldn’t pursue the real Gerhard, I could use him for inspiration for a new novel.
“AKWAABA” SHOUTED THE colorful mural on the arrival building when I stepped off the plane’s stairs on the tarmac at Kotoka Airport in Ghana’s capital.
Eight o’clock in the evening and warm, humid heat enveloped me. Thankfully July was reportedly one of the cooler months. By cool, temperatures hovered in the eighties between periods of rain and dust. Mixing rain and dust equaled mud. I looked down at my silver sandals and mentally apologized, knowing they wouldn’t survive the next six months.
“Akwaaba,” the man inside the terminal welcomed me. While he reviewed my vaccinations card, I absentmindedly rubbed my left shoulder where I received seven, or maybe nine, shots for this trip. After verifying I had my Yellow Fever inoculation, he smiled and waved me through to baggage.
Outside customs, chaos ruled when the trickle of passengers met a wave of greeters, family, friends, drivers, children, hucksters and sundry others. I looked for a card with my name amongst the churning sea of people and luggage. After a moment of searching, I spotted a man with a broad face below a high forehead and hair graying at the temples, wearing a colorful shirt and holding a card proclaiming “Dr. Elmore”.
I pushed the heavy luggage cart, which held my life for the next six months, toward him through the crowd.
“I’m Dr. Elmore,” I explained when I reached him.
A huge smile greeted me. “Akwaaba! I’m Kofi, your driver.” His enthusiastic handshake matched the wattage of his smile.
“Coffee?” I puzzled out loud.
“Maa jo. I am Kofi, like the former UN Director Kofi Anan,” he proudly said the name of Ghana’s most recognized citizen.
Gerhard had taught me several phrases over dinner last night. Maa jo meant good evening.
“Maa jo,” I repeated.
After another smile and a brief discussion over who should push the cart, Kofi politely took over and led me into the thick heat of evening in Accra.
“Eti sen?” he asked how I was as he drove through thick traffic.
“Eh ya.” I hoped it meant I’m fine. I trusted Gerhard to have told me the correct response. For all I knew, I could be saying “monkey sex.”
In perfect English, Kofi complimented me. “You speak well.”
This made me laugh. “That’s about the extent of my language skills.”
“It’s more than many Obruni speak when they arrive. You’ll do fine in Ghana, Dr. Elmore.”
I beamed over his compliment. “Selah. Please, call me Selah,” I corrected him. I could tell I’d become friends with this kind man.
On the short drive to my hotel, modern banks, Western-looking hotels, and gated mansions alternated with cramped adobe and tin roofed buildings. We passed wide tree lined boulevards and dark, narrow dirt streets, which were essentially pathways. Trucks, buses, and passenger vans crammed with people, their roofs piled high with luggage and goods, crawled rather than sped toward the center. At times we merely inched forward through the crowded streets.
“What do you call those?” I gestured out the window, counting no fewer than eight people inside the van stopped next to us.
“Those are tro-tros, the most common way to travel for Ghanaians. Not so good for single Obruni women.” Kofi’s smile left his face.
I heeded his warning. He didn’t mean I was spoiled, but my place of privilege as a white Westerner couldn’t be ignored. I rolled down my window. Diesel fumes and dust carrying the acrid smell of smoke assaulted my nose, and I coughed.
“You will get used to it, Dr.—Selah. I promise. And when it gets to be too much in Accra, you will visit Cape Coast or Volta for fresh air.” He named two of Ghana’s most popular tourist destinations.
“I’m here to work, to study at the museum.” I needed to qualify my presence, another white face, in this place with a long history of colonial rule, a point of the Atlantic slave triangle.
“And you will do good work, Dr. Selah. I know.” His smiling eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “We are here.”
My gaze broke from his to look out the window. At the end of an unpaved road sat a low coffee-colored building surrounded by lush plants.
“Ama’s Hotel,” he answered my unspoken question.
KOFI HAD BEEN warm and kind, but he was nothing compared to Ama. Everything about her exuded warmth, comfort, love, and home. Upon greeting, she hugged me. Not one of those awkward, stiff hugs between strangers, but a side shoulder hug meant to express her joy at my arrival. Why she would be joyful at the arrival of a tired, slightly smelly—pouting over a man—grown American woman, I didn’t question.
The patterned green skirt she wore highlighted the wide expanse of her hips and bottom. With her generous bust and curves, she was Venus in the flesh, adorned by gold bracelets and a rainbow of a scarf wrapped around her head. She asked me questions about everything while she led me from the main building down the open stairs and to a narrow dirt pathway. Somewhere beyond the single story row of rooms, waves crashed against the beach. Once inside, she pointed out the air conditioner—only to be used while I was in the room—the shower, and how to turn on the hot water heater next to it, and a bottle of water next to the sink for teeth brushing. She warned me twice to keep the door closed to avoid both mosquitoes and friendly lizards.
Mosquitoes I could handle. Lizards? Not so much, and certainly not in my room.
With a reminder the kitchen would be closing soon, Ama left me in my quiet, sparse but comfortable space, which would be home for the next two weeks until I moved into university housing or found an apartment. Blue bedspreads with a striped Kente pattern topped the wooden twin beds, and a wood carving of Africa hung on the wall. Otherwise, it appeared identical to any other mid-rate hotel anywhere in the world. Clean, but far from luxurious.
After washing my face, I changed into a maxi skirt. Ghanaian customs around fashion were modest, and I wanted to be respectful, without gratuitous cleavage or thigh exposure in any of my outfits.
The restaurant consisted of colorful cloth-covered tables and heavy wood chairs scattered around a curved veranda open to the air on three sides except the wall which housed the kitchen behind a narrow doorway. Two other white patrons sat at a table with empty plates and bottles of Star beer, but no one else was there besides Ama.
“Come. Sit. Eat,” Ama instructed, leading me to a table near the railing. “I only have a little jollof and some kelewele left. How about a Star beer? Fanta?”
I chuckled at the mention of Fanta, favorite soda of the tropics. I only drank it with any regularity when outside of the US.
“Star please and whatever you have will be fine.”
Turned out, jollof and kelewele were delicious. The spicy rice was the Ghanaian equivalent of Mexican rice, only spicier and richer. Kelewele tasted similar to spicy French fries made from plantains—sweet, peppery, and addictive. I’d done my research on Ghana prior to the trip, and anticipated spice and lots of peanut butter, but I hadn’t expected to love the food right away.
So
on my table matched the other guests’ with plates practically licked clean next to an empty glass and beer bottle.
After charging the meal to my room, I returned to my room to take a shower. Relatively clean, I sat on the bed with a towel around my torso. The hotel had Wi-Fi, slow and spotty, but it worked well enough to check my emails.
Nothing from Gerhard.
I hadn’t expecting anything. Of course not.
I looked at my phone, which remained turned off. I’d need to find a SIM card tomorrow to avoid roaming charges.
Ghana might be an emerging country but with Wi-Fi and a cell phone, I wouldn’t feel alone for my stay.
Lonely, maybe, but not alone.
THE NEXT MORNING not even the hum of my air conditioner drowned out the crowing rooster. I rolled over and checked my watch. I itched to check my cell phone, but I would have to wait until I exchanged money and bought a SIM card.
My hair stuck out in a wild mess from my late night shower, and I attempted to tame it with a scarf headband.
I needed coffee and breakfast. Hopefully both would be as tasty as my meal last night.
I sat at the same table from last night, thinking of it as mine already. A few people ate and chatted, but the empty tables outnumbered the occupied ones. The view from the railing surprised me, revealing the rolling ocean only yards beyond the last row of rooms. Palms and other tropical plants added green to the grounds around the brown colored buildings.
“Morning. Coffee?” A young woman stood next to my table, startling me from my observations. “There is a breakfast buffet.” She gestured over her shoulder to the row of universally popular chafing dishes.
“Good morning. Maa-che,” I said, practicing my greetings.
“Maa-che.” She smiled shyly, clearly pleased.
“Coffee, yes. Please.” I stood up with my plate to check out the breakfast offerings. A movement beneath the next table caught my eye and I yelped, dropping the plate.
Missionary Position Page 4
